It's About Holding and Being Held [Closed]

[whatisay]

WHO| Jason and Peggy Carter; Jason and Swann
WHAT| Jason is Peggy's support system, sad as that is; Swann gives Jason 'I'm sorry Leo called you crazy' cuddles
WHEN| After the Binding Plot and Jason's network post.
WHERE| D7 Suite; D8 Suite
WARNINGS| Shit might get deep in either thread. References to bidding, child abuse, alcoholism, suicide and mental illness may abound.

I. Peggy

Jason works late more often than most Escorts, not from any sort of work ethic so much as because he often prefers the workplace to home - since he's started regularly dating Swann and carpooling with her, the overnights have decreased some because he has a more pleasant third option. But sometimes he can still be found late at night, camped out in the District Seven Suite like an ill-tempered gargoyle, feet on the coffee table and suit jacket flung over the back of the couch. He's managed to secure a week of food for each of his Tributes come the next Arena, well before the theme is even announced, and that small victory has soothed his frazzled nerves.

It's about two in the morning, and given that he's imposed a strict schedule for all his Tributes that involves morning exercises and primping, it's dead quiet. Jason's decided it's not worth the hour's drive home just to get two hours of sleep and then come back, so he's drifting off on the couch, his notepad on his lap, his glasses fallen so far down his nose that he can't possibly looking through them, his head tilting back and then jerking forward again in a vain attempt to stave off sleep.

II. Swann

Jason expected pushback from his network post; he craved it, almost. He's not quite aware enough of his own behavior to realize that instigating fights is his way of shoring up his victimhood's fortress, of refilling his tank of martyrdom which gets him out of bed in the morning, but he did know he was looking to pick a fight. And he got a few of them - but also took some injury from one, from a comment which slipped past his defenses and lit up the inside of his head like dynamite. He finishes the conversation and shoves his communicator into his pants even before forgetting to turn it off (it will shut down automatically in thirty seconds).

He's so angry that for a moment he can't see, that even after his vision returns he feels uncoordinated, like his neurological impulses aren't moving muscles so much as setting off tiny explosions. After pacing around the Suite living room for a moment, he heads to the elevator, accidentally hits the button for the wrong floor before he manages to hit the right one, and resents that an elevator door can't slam. Instead he rests his forehead against the wall and waits to arrive at the District Eight floor.

He just hopes, for their sakes, that it's not Joel or Jack he runs into first, that he finds Swann almost immediately upon arriving.

Comments

[whatisay]

"I'm fine with anything. Whatever you want." Maybe someone who hadn't grown up in the Capitol would find serving a five course dinner to a woman who survives on half a salad a day to be wasteful, but Jason doesn't think anything of it.

He reaches over and takes her hand, winding his fingers around hers. Sometimes, when he's home now, he'll look at his hands and the shapes his knuckles make in his fingers and the negative space feels wrong, like her fingers should be filling the gaps, like his own hand is morphing and giving way to become familiar to her like a chair might once you break it in.

"I think the last time I saw him was at my father's funeral, actually. Does he still look the same?"

[cigne]

She reaches with her free hand to stroke his arm as he holds her hand, her fingers tight around his as she keeps smiling in his direction. Everything feels wrong when he isn't with her, when they aren't holding hands, when he isn't taking up space under her in her bed. She finds that when he isn't there, it's just a gap of time in her life, like she's just waiting for him to come back instead of living on her own.

"Pretty much. A bit bigger, a little less hair. Normal aging. Daddy doesn't go much in for surgeries, he always jokes and says that he doesn't want to be prettier than his wife and daughter. He even stopped doing botox. I think he's just gotten to the age where his accomplishments speak loud enough, you know? Like President Snow."

Men in the Capitol are lucky to have an age they can reach where they can let go and just be 'distinguished', Swann thinks. Eventually she'll have to turn to surgery to stay beautiful, too, just like her mother and everyone else.

[whatisay]

Jason makes a thoughtful sound, one without condemnation but just sort of idly considerate. "That's the one good thing about my mother being a homebody. She can't really justify draining our accounts for plastic surgery all the time. She whines about it, but a little Botox and injections are good enough for her."

Of course, if she really pushed it, Jason would fund whatever ridiculous procedure she wanted, because he can never really say no to his mother. He can fight her and snap at her and go behind her back, but actually denying her seems beyond his capacity, like she's installed a failsafe switch in him when he was young.

"You still have that Honeymead empire, that's true."

[cigne]

"It's not that much," she demurs, frowning a little, because it always feels odd to her when people specifically point out just how much her family controls. She supposes that she just doesn't like the idea of eventually having to take it all on, to be the most powerful person in Capitol media -- it feels like too much, like her footprint is too big for her. The Honeymeads have always had their hands in everything, and Swann's the last of them, expected to wear that crown, and it's just overwhelming for her.

She supposes she's never thought about Caroline and how she keeps up with herself, if she does at all. "Does she have the doctors come to her?"

[whatisay]

"Maybe you can sell it all away when it comes down to it, if you don't want it." Jason tries not to sound envious and fails. He can't shake the feeling that his family left him nothing but an ill-fitting name, one which is smaller than what they molded him into.

He changes the setting on his sunglasses to handle the glare of the sun as they turn a corner and face the light.

"Sometimes. Sometimes I drive her, when her appointments are on the weekend."

[cigne]

"Maybe." It's an odd weight, an albatross around her neck forever, because as little as she wants the Honeymead empire, she's sure she could never give it to anyone else, would feel like she's betraying her father and grandfather and great-grandfather, everything they worked for.

The feeling is familiar to her, something that's been there since she was old enough to hear speech after speech about Honeymead blood and their contributions to the Capitol and how important it was for her to carry on their name.

"I didn't know she left the house at all anymore." It's a casual comment, said innocently, because it really is a bit surprising to hear that Caroline goes outside. Swann wonders why she bothers at all, if her sons and servants are the only ones who ever see her.

[whatisay]

"She won't at all, soon enough." There's a sort of grim determination to that, because it's easier for Jason to have her stay home and he can eventually get that if he weans her off those weekend visits enough. At the very least being isolated and cooped up in the house will limit the amount of gossip she has access to. Because that's not a fucked up way to treat your mother.

At a stoplight, he leans over and kisses her mouth.

[cigne]

She doesn't think much of the way he says it, sort of interprets it as more of comment on Caroline's declining mental ability to keep going outside. It doesn't occur to her that Jason wants to keep her inside intentionally, possibly just because she can't fathom caring enough about what her mother does anyway.

When he kisses her, she makes a pleased noise and smiles, touching his cheek until he has to pull away and drive again. "Sunday is going to be really nice. I know it. My dad is going to love you."

/wrap here, I can set up a thing for dinner with Ilar?

[whatisay]

"I don't know. He might remember me making you cry back at my brother's funeral." But Jason's smiling, as if there's anything about that memory to be happy about. He brushes at a flyaway hair on Swann's head and kisses her cheek, then returns his attention to the road.

thumbs up!

[cigne]