thecapitol | I Know Explosions Make Debris, and Catching it Kind of Suits You [Open]

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I Know Explosions Make Debris, and Catching it Kind of Suits You [Open]

Who| Linden and Stephen, Linden and OPEN
What| Linden and Stephen do another blindspot conversation about rebellion stuff. Also a catch-all for Linden
Where| Lots of places
When| Before (for Stephen) and after (for everyone else) the Binding!
Warnings/Notes| Bidding mentions/implications, profanity, descriptions of injuries and sad stuff.

[a]. [for Stephen]

Linden is a lot less recognizable than he usually is today. Despite the nice weather, he's bundled up in several sweaters, and doesn't appear to be perspiring. He's got a few books under his arm as he strolls down a busy Capitol street, getting a few glances and murmurs of "is that...?" from curious appreciators of reality television. He's not wearing anything around his neck and his scar gives him away to attentive fans of the Games, and who in this part of Panem isn't?

He's not planning to hang out on Main Street, though. Linden Lockhearst is going into the seedier parts of the Capitol, striding through streets he is seldom if ever seen and ignoring casual midday offers for scantily-clad companionship. Eventually, he makes his way to a dark, isolated and unbugged alley, turning past the rougher edges of an older building than is typical in the Capitol. It's clean enough, unremarkable and nondescript, and when he sees his District's Escort, he approaches. Since Cyrus began cleaning up Stephen's image, he's been wearing clothes that are more subdued than any he's likely ever worn in his entire life. Traces of glitter remain, but ultimately the aesthetic is reminiscent of Cyrus's, sharp, clean-cut and professional.

"It took me long enough to find this place," he says; even with the confidence that they won't be overheard, he keeps his voice low and the movement of his lips minimal.

[b]. [tribute center rooftop]

Linden is off Morphling, clean for weeks and counting. The world is sharper, brighter, and a lot more hateful than the one he remembers cultivating for himself after his Games; that being said, he's found other ways to stimulate and soothe himself when either of those effects are needed. One such method is hanging off the guard rails by the back of his knees, dangling his body over the edge of the tower and gazing down through the forcefield at the street many stories below as blood rushes and sings in his ears.

The Sun's setting soon. From Linden's current vantage point, it'll look like it's levitating and being absorbed into a strange, solid, silver skyline composed of jagged skyscraper teeth. He tries to focus on this instead of the depressing revelation that Panem and especially the Capitol are falling apart, and even if he has to do some pretty shitty things to contribute to a cause that has actually succeeded in lighting a fire under him, he's on thin ice. It would take so little to slip and fall, and the precision of a tightrope walker to succeed; it makes hanging off the edge of a building seem dull and unadventurous by comparison.

The building has a safety net, after all; the rebellion doesn't, and anyone willingly involving himself with it carries the welfare of everyone he cares about on that wire with him.

[c]. [upscale Capitol bar]

The Binding had shaken up a lot, and for good reason, many staff members or people who are otherwise closely affiliated with the Games have been extra careful not to arouse suspicion. In this classy, upscale establishment, Linden actually looks like he (or more likely, 6's stylists) have put some real effort into his appearance tonight. He looks like a caricature of himself, dressed in close-fitting black vinyl with silver accents. It covers every inch of him below the neck, but is skintight on his extremely thin frame. His hair looks artfully tousled rather than slept-in, and his dark makeup accentuates the hollowness in his eyes and cheeks rather than attempting to soften, conceal or apologize for it.

For as little as he really looks like himself, absolutely no one could mistake the strikingly larger-than-life Victor as he currently appears. Even his scar is exaggerated and accented with makeup, and it's not long before a tall Capitolite of indeterminate gender is slipping into the seat next to Linden, ordering a drink and wrapping the man's thin fingers around the frosted glass. They strike up a conversation, appearing to already know each other. From a distance, it appears that the Capitolite is getting close and cozy, and though Linden doesn't reciprocate, he isn't making an effort to distance himself from the situation, either. He sips at his drink as his companion's hand strays to the sharp blade of Linden's hip.

[d]. [d6 suites]

Linden comes in late assisted by two Avoxes, seeming to time it so he isn't seen by anyone. A long bath and approximately 12 hours of sleep later, he reluctantly emerges from his room, appearing... strange. He's had some help from stylists, clearly, but the swelling around his eye is still noticeable. Foundation light enough to match Linden's parchment-pale skin is hard to come by, so the result is a mismatched nightmare that clashes with the cool tones in his complexion and does very little to cover the mottled bruising. The same goes for his neck; what his higher-than-normal collar doesn't cover tells a disquieting story of someone breaking his rule about even touching his neck rather severely.

If he notices someone staring, either at the bruising or the ginger, painful way he moves, he'll offer a tight smile. The tone will vary depending on whether or not they're friendly, but the message is always more or less the same.

"You should see the other guy."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If it were someone else handling things differently, a disaster could well happen. For a Victor with PTSD, Linden does all right at handling himself 99% of the time, but that 1% can get violent and messy very swiftly. Fortunately, Bayard keeps his distance and Linden's able to regain some footing and stability, both physically and mentally, even if the effort visibly exhausts him.

Linden watches the boy's fingertips, noting how easy it is to predict the exact second they'll make contact with his sharp elbow. He'd do well in 10, the Mentor in him thinks, as he's certain he's learned how to behave this way around animals.

"Didn't I? I'm glad, hurting others is... I really try not to," he says, shaking his head, doing his best to collect his scattered thoughts. "Ah, sometimes, to re-center myself I come up here to think and for some reason I have an easier time when it feels a little dangerous. Chalk it up to my finest moments being in a Hunger Games Arena..."

"Seems a queer way to recenter yourself," Bayard says, although he thinks he understands a little, remembering how his father gets restless when he's back from traveling with the army. He glances around Linden, to the steep drop at the edge of the Tribute Center, and he feels that familiar chill of excitement and wariness at the height (at the marvel of it all). "I'm sorry I threw you off-balance again. I didn't mean anything by it."

He removes his touch, sure now that Linden's on the mend, at least for now.

"Did something happen to make you need to recenter yourself?" There's something gentle in Bayard's tone, something entirely free of condemnation and hardly even prying, with the casual tone of asking about the weather but the empathy of the best doctors. It's something that seems entirely beyond his age, an intangible quality that sets him apart from his peers.

Linden snorts lightly at the boy's assessment. "Queer is the least of my problems, so I'll take it," he says, following his gaze but failing to feel the same thrill of excitement. He knows, after all, that the only thing off that ledge is a forcefield ready and waiting to bounce any suicidal dissenters back to the rooftop. "And it's OK... I know. You might as well not have a malicious bone in your body, is what seems to be the general consensus."

He shakes his head, a kneejerk reaction of surprise rather than denial. "Well... a lot's been happening, lately," he says evasively. Most Tributes aren't nearly so interested or gentle. He'd do very well in 10. He recognizes it, but even knowing what it is and the response it's meant to elicit, he wants to comply. He tries to think of a way to put it in terms that a child can understand.

"I made a deal that's going to help my District a lot. That's part of a Mentor's job," he says, and it's not quite a half-lie. There's more truth to it than fiction.

"Have people got their tongues wagging about me?" Bayard looks sheepish again, cheeks rounding a bit and blotting out the bottom of his eyes. He's glad that people see the best in him, and he hopes that his father and Granny would be proud to hear of him making such a good impression, but it unnerves him a bit to be the topic of conversation. Especially on the scale of being a Tribute, which means that people he's never even met in his life will approach him on the street and ask for him to write his name on things, not because they know of his father but because they've seen him on the "telly-vision".

He wasn't expecting that to be Linden's response, because from overhearing his Escort it seems like getting a deal to help the District is one of the greater successes a Mentor can accomplish here. He thinks of the women he lives around, working themselves to bone to make sure that their husbands are fed and their garments mended before they ride back off to war, how proud they are to be war wives and to do their patriotic part too. He doesn't feel patriotism in the Capitol, not from the District citizens and not even from Capitolites.

"You sound like a man that's gotten the short end of a long deal." He steps to Linden's side so the two of them can lean against the rail - Bayard looks a little nervous as he glances over that edge again, but excited, like someone handling a live snake for the first time with no idea if it's poisonous or not.

The more chances Linden gets to experience Bayard's salt-of-the-earth, humble innocence, the more he feels like in another life, he could easily have been a part of this world. Maybe there's a boy like him in District 10 now, tending to his family's herd with gentle patience, wondering if he'll ever need to worry about being Reaped and brought to a city that's nothing like his roots.

"You're a Tribute. Gossip is par for the course," he sighs. "It's not your fault, people are just... fascinated with whoever gets Reaped, especially now that they come from so many different places outside of Panem. It's one of the down-sides of celebrity, but that being said, some Tribute genuinely enjoy the attention, and those tend to be the ones who acclimate the best to winning the Games."

The implication is that Linden wasn't such a soul. It's not difficult to see that the Capitol chokes and bleaches the life out of him more than the bleak desert backdrop of District 6 ever could have. He rubs at his temple as the sun continues to set past the gaudy skyscrapers surrounding their little elevated island.

"Maybe, in a manner of speaking, but you could argue that someone get the short end in every deal," Linden shrugs. "It's usually the person who needs what they're bartering for the most, and in light of recent events, my need is very great."

"I don't reckon there's much fascinating about me compared to everything they've got here. Although I suppose that's why it is I interest them. I couldn't imagine being of this world and they couldn't imagine being from mine." He chews his tongue a bit as he looks over the city, and for the first time he feels that the marvel at the lights and the tall buildings pales in comparison to the loneliness he feels without the persons who populated his sparse and rugged little home.

He feels that Linden doesn't want him prying too much, doesn't want Bayard to state out loud the damage that he sees on Linden's skin like a stain over his entire body. So he doesn't. He just watches and he knows.

"Not in an agreement between real gentlemen," Bayard says firmly, thinking of what his father said of Compson and Ikkemotubbe, the Chickasaw chieftain who sold his land for a horse and a promise, or of the lock that Ratliff so worried over when the jail was built - all bargains that were made with hell in mind more than fairness. "A real gentleman wouldn't take all he could get from someone else. Especially from someone with such need."

Linden gives a soft, lilting laugh that almost comes close to sounding like the boy he was before he went into the arena and came out a somber corpse with a reluctant pulse. "You're interesting to them the same way the Capitol is interesting to you; put simply, Bayard, it's unfamiliar to them and therefore fascinating. The fact that they can't imagine being from your world just means they're going to try harder."

Poor lonely child, far from home in a city that wants to dress him, adore him, and see him repeatedly executed.

"Gentlemen..." Linden tastes the word, mulling it over, also thinking of a Compson. "Those exist here, I think. In name, anyway. In deed, I don't know that I can say as much."

The way Linden says that feels like a stone heavy in Bayard's chest, and the boy can't know now that he's peeking past the veil of youth and into the unfortunate revelation of adulthood, where one understands how skilled people are at deluding themselves into believing they live up to ideals they treat only as a shell against criticism. Worse, he senses without knowing that that might be the future he's looking at not for just man, but for his entire part of the country, clinging viciously to a moral code they refuse to live up to.

"They ought to exist everywhere, but they don't." His face hardens some as he looks back out over all those buildings reaching up as if to puncture rain out of the clouds. "In deed. I don't reckon it's easy to be a gentleman in the Arena or after it, but- but I don't know what else I should want to be, and so I have to try."

It goes without saying that he wishes others were like that, that they would follow that code even at their own expense and in dealing with Linden.

So much of adulthood and civilization revolve around elaborate rote and performance. Linden's learned the rules, even if he doesn't quite fit into the roles. They seem too big on him, just like the dark, tailored clothing that can't keep up with his frequently changing dimensions. He slips a hand into the pocket after unbuttoning it, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes and raising one to his bloodless lips.

"The way things 'ought' to be is like... a story. Something ideal that isn't ever going to exist, because humans can't be ideal. They can be all right, and that's about all a person has any right to ask for."

Bayard folds his arms and leans on the rail, brow furrowed a bit as he looks out. In a decade those little creases in his face will take on a sort of permanence, but now they seem a sort of premonition of the man to come.

"No, we can't be ideal. But that ain't an excuse for not trying. If everyone were to just say that they couldn't be perfect so they shouldn't bother, this world'd be a right sight worse." He chews the corner of his tongue. "Even than they say it is now."

"Trying, of course, goes without saying..."

Linden reaches into his coat pocket for a carton of cigarettes and a lighter.

"That being said, though, it can be incredibly difficult just to try."

"That might be so."

Bayard doesn't seem bothered by the cigarettes at all - most of the grown men he knows prefer cigars or chewing tobacco, but cigarettes are common among the poorer laborers on the other plantations and among the slaves. He chews his lower lip, eyes widening as he realizes at this moment the sheer amount of man power that must go into all the lights that have been installed throughout the city. It makes him want to whistle, but he doesn't.

"It shouldn't be, but I guess we take the world as it lies, right? It'd be nice if it got easier to try, sometime."

It is so, Linden thinks, confident in his assertion that the world is a threatening and discouraging place.

"When you're one man, you can only do so much," Linden shrugs. "If it's you against an army, even a small one, you will die. Probably quickly. So... to an extent, you have to take it as it is, or doom yourself to dissatisfied paralysis. No, it's better to change what you can, and adapt to what you can't."

He takes a deep draw on his cigarette, reflecting on how ironic it is to be giving this advice when he's done neither of those things, preferring instead, until very recently, to escape through the severing embrace of Morphling.

Hell, he still prefers that, just chooses not to engage in it. Every day he wonders if he would truly regret going back, and struggles more to answer in a way that would make those he knows proud.

"I reckon you're right." Bayard sighs and rubs his hand through the new haircut his Stylist gave him, shorter and with some sort of serum in it that he thinks feels greasy and slick whenever he touches it with his fingers. He doesn't look near comfortable with the clothing they put on him, but he doesn't complain, only says that he thinks it's odd if asked directly for his opinion.

"I still think it'd be better to stand against an army than join 'em if what they stand for is wrong, though. Even if it means you die. Father says that just because not every retreat is shameful doesn't excuse a shameful retreat." Bayard says that with a strange combination of youthful naivete and absolute, concrete conviction that seems to stretch forward into the future, into the portrait of who he'll be as an adult. It's as if some things are fixed and never to be changed.

If there's any comfort in misery having company, Linden doesn't look very happy in his trappings, either.

"Do you?" Linden asks, sounding doubtful. He's spent his whole life wanting to behave that way, only knowing that what he said will come true and result in his death. "That's very noble. Maybe you're brave enough to actually act that way when it comes down to it, but... I can say from experience that when human beings are pitted against each other, survival is a very powerful drive, and sometimes it makes people less than human. If a man can fight and die, or run and live... more often than not, he will run and live."

Edited 2015-06-30 04:40 (UTC)

"I know. It's not that I don't know the way the world is, I just can't lower myself to what it would make of me. Especially not so far from home, when I might be all I have from Sartoris." Just the values and the name, and that makes him all the more fervent to be unbroken, to proudly bear the traditions and honor that he grew up with, that he can't possibly know yet that he will nurture and expand and define beyond the narrow-but-honest limits of his father and his forefathers.

"Will you hold me to it? Should I be a coward in the Arena, I'd want you to have at me for it. I'd want you to tan my hide, so to speak."

Linden is about to say something along the lines of admiring someone who always wants to be better and actively strives toward it, but Bayard's request startles him and forces him to stare the boy's way. It's not unusual to be beaten in the outlying Districts; it's a casual part of life and an expected form of discipline, but for Bayard to ask Linden is incredibly odd, and the man's reaction says as much.

"Oh, well... it's... good of you to want that, but it's not really my place to... 'tan your hide.' I'm not your Mentor," he explains gently, "and... also I don't want to have at you. I think you're plenty self-aware."

He raises his eyebrows.

"No, no, I don't mean actually give me a whipping, just..." That's the sort of thing that's left to Granny and Father; it's very rare and somewhat taboo for someone to give another white man's son a beating. "I wouldn't want you to let me off easy. If I make a promise to do something, or be something, I need to keep it and not slide by unaccountable."

He pats at his pocket. "I ain't showed you Sartoris, have I? I mean, my token, in the Arena."

Linden's noticeably relieved when Bayard clarifies that it wasn't a literal request. "Oh, good," he says with nervous laughter. "Some of you Offworlders come from such different places that I had to wonder, but... that really does make me glad, that you don't actually want a beating. Let's agree that won't happen. Promise, if you like, because I like to be accountable too."

He cants his head sideways. "No, I can't say you have showed me. Are you going to? You can't talk it up like that and then not let me see it."

"No, sir. Father and Granny are the only ones allowed to lay hands on me like that, or Louvinia at their orders, but they say I'm a decent enough boy I don't often merit it."

Bayard grins and pulls his token from his pocket. It's a small wooden box, simple but lovingly carved, with a tight metal latch on the front. Bayard holds it as if it were an egg, delicately and protectively, and hands it over to Linden with evident care.

Inside, there's dirt, unassuming and plain, dried and with a few pebbles and pieces of hay or dead leaf. And yet Bayard speaks about it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

"It's the earth from my home. It has- it has all the memories of the soil we tilled and the animals we raised and it likely had Father's footstep in it- I can even smell home in it. We even made sure we got the dirt from the patch where Ringo and I played war games, so I reckon it's got some of the glory of combat in it too."

"I can't imagine you would often merit it," Linden confesses, leaning toward the boy to better see the item he's drawing out of his pocket.

"May I...?" If Bayard allows it, he'll take the token in his spindly fingers and carefully examine it as its meaning and contents are explained to him.

"How did you get this? Did the Capitol secure it for you, did you bring it from your home...? This is the first token of its type I've seen, and I've seen a lot, over the years."

"I met get up to devilment sneakily. You don't ever know." Bayard grins even wider, handing over the box of earth. He beams with complete pride at it, not even in the presenting of the token but because of what it means, with the pride in his family and his homeland and the very territory that created him and the man he'll grow to be.

"I had it on me when they took me, I suppose. I always carry it, so I'll always know where I've come from. Ringo has one too, although he don't have earth in it so much as the badge we shot off a Yankee once, me and him. Your home ain't an object but it helps to have one to help you remember, right?"

That impishness gets an answering, if slightly reluctant, smile from Linden. He vacillates between feeling like Bayard could be a Districter and being struck by the innocence that comes through him, a luxury that's only truly afforded to Capitolites. He turns the box of soil, glancing up at the way the boy is smiling like is heart is full to the brim and overflowing.

Linden's heart has never brimmed that way. He doesn't know if he feels jealous, or simply empty, and tries to let the matter rest within his own uneasy heart.

"It does help," Linden says. "Do you want to see my Arena's token? I still carry it with me because despite the bad things, it does remind me of home." He reaches into his pocket, handing Bayard what looks at first glance like four painted beads looped together and connected with smaller, colorful beads and twine. Each has a given name on it, etched in lettering that is cramped and clumsy.

"Two... Shawford, and Karem, died in factory accidents. They were my friends; those are the ones I took with me. These other two I added after the Arena. This is my District-mate, Arta, and this is the person I killed to win, Scorpii."

Closer examination will reveal them to be painted knucklebones, if Bayard knows how to identify such things.

"In my District, some of us make these. The older you are, the longer yours tends to be."

Edited 2015-08-02 03:52 (UTC)

Bayard handles them with utmost respect, recognizing them not as fingerbones but at least as totems for the deceased. He keeps them between his palms as if they were a baby bird, then looks up at Linden, trying to find the common ground to tell Linden that Bayard understands the depth of their importance.

Bayard will never know deprivation like that, will always be part of the ruling class of that small patch of land that his father based a homestead on, and yet there are some hardships a Capitol child wouldn't understand that Bayard does.

"We still keep the baby clothes from my two sisters in the study. I don't think my father could bear to part with them, no matter how long they've been dead. I never met the older one, Louisa, because she died of fever even before I was born. My mother, either - her veil is in the wardrobe still, even though she died giving life to me."

He gently hands the beads back and takes his little box of soil. "I reckon it's the most important kind of token, since it has someone's spirit with it. Your memories of them, I mean."

For a farmboy, Bayard is being exquisitely careful with Linden's bones. A small smile cracks his face to see something so deeply personal respected to an extent that Linden couldn't really expect from an Offworlder. But he understands; that much is clear, even if their upbringings and their definitions of "plenty" are very different.

"I don't know about spirits, but they're reminders. Like the clothes," he says, tilting his head. "You spoke of the older one you didn't know, and your mother, but what about the younger one? How old did she get?"

His interest is as genuine as Bayard's respect; the objects mean little, but talk is the catalyst for the spirits of the dead to actually find a place to nestle and live again, if only briefly.

I Know Explosions Make Debris, and Catching it Kind of Suits You [Open]

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