We Pass from Death to Life Because We Love Each Other [Open]

[yoknapatawpha]

WHO| Bayard Sartoris and anyone!
WHAT| Bayard's developed a sort of narcoleptic sleep pattern.
WHERE| Anywhere.
WHEN| A few days before the Arena.
WARNINGS| None.

Bayard knows what a bed is. Somehow, he just doesn't always manage to make it back there.

Without someone making sure he's in bed at a regular time or eating something besides pure sugar, Bayard's developed some unhealthy tendencies, one of which is roaming the Capitol all evening after school, getting lost, and only sometimes making it back to the District Twelve Suite before he needs to rest. Sometimes he makes it back to the Tribute Tower, but since he isn't confident using the elevator yet he'll go up as many floors as he can before finding a corner or a flat, unoccupied part of the common room to nap on.

He's slept outdoors often enough in the past that laying his head on his folded arms suits him well for a soft place to stretch out. He sleeps on his side, soft little sighs eking out from between half-parted lips, fingertips twitching slightly with dreams. When he wakes he misses Ringo; when he lies down he misses Granny. When he actually goes to bed in his room in District Twelve (its mattress stuffed with candy and little knick-knacks, wonders of the modern day, that he's squirreled away - toys that light up, a fob for a car, advertising pamphlets mass-printed in colors Bayard thought only existed by chance and in nature) he sometimes cries from loneliness, and so, in a way, it's a relief to simply become exhausted from exploring and shut down right where he is.

Underfoot, curled on that couch you wanted to sit on, tucked inside a cabinet while you look for breakfast, you can find him at some point just about everywhere.

Comments

[allyorfoe]

The search is a familiar one, and she's gotten pretty good at it. She starts at the roof, and makes her way down--Stopping to check his actual bed, of course. She gets down to the lobby, and breathes a sigh of relief, when he's there, on a couch. It's better than when she has to go out looking around the Capitol for him. Moving carefully, so as to not startle him too much, she gathers him up in her arms, holding him to her chest with a gentleness that was rarely seen in that fierce elf warrior.

"Boy, I'm putting you on a leash." She murmured quietly, pressing her lips to his head. Maybe she ought to try more discipline? Make rules for him to follow? Would he even listen? The attachment that she had for him wasn't anything official after all. She did what she could--Made sure he ate real food, fetched him from wherever he'd stolen away that morning. But it wasn't a lot. Certainly, her father had never let her carry on like this.

She sighed, and headed for the elevator, pressing the buttons with her elbows, still cradling Bayard against her. Maybe she should talk to Cullen. Talk to the other people who'd taken the children under their wing. She pressed her forehead against his, leaning against the wall of the elevator as they rose up to the 12 District suites. "Maybe it's a good thing I ain't your momma, cause I'd have been doing a shit job of it." Like she really knew how to take care of a kid. Maybe in another life, but not this one. And not here.

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard hasn't been carried by a woman since he was much younger, as both Louvinia and Granny have old backs now that can't tolerate that sort of weight. When he wakes, not from sight or sound but from smell, he's momentarily disoriented from Tabris' scent and the way her body moves, strong but unlike a man's. He blinks and squirms a bit in her arms, opening his eyes to meet hers.

"That's a swear. You ought not say it," Bayard murmurs. "It's alright, I'm awake. I can walk."

It's a good thing she isn't his mama, Bayard thinks, because he much prefers Tabris alive and part of his life. She's like the opposite of an eclipse, a bright light passing over the void where Granny ought to be.

[allyorfoe]

"You're right, Bayard. I'm sorry." She murmurs automatically. "I'm sorry for waking you up." She doesn't let him down quite yet, gives him a few more moments to wake, until she sets him on his feet. Even when she does, she's careful to make sure she's supporting him, in case he's not awake enough to take his own weight. Spoiling him, she's sure her father would say, though with an affectionate smile on his face. It was in the blood, to fret over children, just as her father had done for Shianni and her.

"Bayard, you really need to sleep in your bed." She tries it out, sounding stern with him. "You're going to end up in trouble if you keep sleeping random places. Is there a problem with your bed? Is someone in your suite bugging you? I can take care of it, if that's the problem." If anyone even dared to bother with Bayard, they'd be a damned idiot. She didn't like having to nag him, but...This is what you were supposed to do, right? Get after kids about doing dumb stuff?

[yoknapatawpha]

"You needn't apologize. "

When he's on his feet he straightens up and rubs at his eyes, snuffles and licks the top of his mouth where sleep has lain a dry coat between his tongue and gums. He's not surprised when she's stern with him, not since the memory of her telling him to keep from running off is still so salient among his impressions of her, but he is abashed. He does right by her by meeting her eyes even though he wants to look at the elevator floor.

"Nome. I just tucker myself out wandering the city most nights. I can't quite keep myself away from it. It's so wondrous." He sucks his lower lip. "Maybe I should get myself a watch so I don't stay out too late."

[cigne]

Nearly all of the Escorts that don't live in the Tower get there at ungodly hours, but Swann arrives earlier than most, usually when it's still dark outside or, at latest, when the sun is just rising. She manages to be just as perky at 6AM as she is at noon, probably due to the large thermos of coffee she's carrying in one hand.

The Suite is still entirely dark when she heads in from the elevator, setting her work bag and purse down on the dining table, and she hums a little as she heads to grab a mug from the kitchen. She makes it four steps in before she backs up and peers around the corner.

At the child sleeping in one the over-stuffed chairs in the living room.

Swann pauses and peers around for a moment, then sighs and puts her coffee down on the counter. She gently heads to the chair and crouches at Bayard's (of course it's Bayard) side.

"Mr. Bayard," she sing-songs, reaching out and stroking his hair. "Oh, Mr. Bayard, wake up..."

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard's nose twitches when Swann brushes his hair, as she directs a dream inside his head like a conductor directs an orchestra. Somewhere just beneath his skull is a flurry of disconnected images, horses and forests and Nick's gun aimed at his head and running towards danger because it's how Sartorises do, even as his father has told him the virtues of retreating.

Then his eyes open. For a moment, before his eyes focus, an image divorced from what actually lies before him populates his vision: a pallet bed with Ringo, wooden walls, a rug sewn by slaves rolled up in the corner. And then he wakes fully, and blinks those doleful blue eyes at Swann, who emerges almost as if from his subconscious like some sugarspun idea of womanhood rather than from the setting in front of him.

"Miss Swann? Did I- oh, damn. I fell asleep on the wrong floor again, didn't I?"

[cigne]

"It's all right," she murmurs, smiling as she keeps stroking his hair. "You didn't disturb anyone. You should have found a bed, though, we have spares."

It nags at her, that he's apparently done this before, that his Escort isn't taking better care of him and apparently none of the other Tributes are, either, at least not enough to ensure that he's sleeping in beds. On the correct floor.

"It's still very early. What time did you come here, do you know? You can go back to sleep if you'd like."

[shenunigans]

Dave is no stranger to strange hours. Curfew was murder given his penchant for sleeping whenever he damn well pleases and wandering when he can't. School should offer something more of a schedule, but he can't bring himself to care enough about it and so he doesn't adjust his sleep for it. On particularly restless nights, he'll amble around the corridors as if to waste time before he inevitably ends up bothering one of his friends. Tonight is particularly special, because he has a present for Karkat that includes and is specifically limited to a paper bag that he intends to blow air into and pop for the hell of it.

Occasionally he'll see a person, generally awake, but it's pretty damn weird to see someone just passed out in the corners of the corridors. He crouches beside Bayard's limp figure, half inclined to poke him to check for consciousness. Truly, he's sympathetic to the kid, clearly this is one of the many all too real and all too sad symptoms of school. Also being here in general. He should just gently rustle him and escort him back to his district, but the bag suddenly feels heavy in his hand.

To be fair, he was raised only knowing how brothers treat each other. To be fair, his brother is an asshole. It's genetic.

Dave raises the bag, breathing air into it as quietly as he can before he holds it over Bayard's head. There's a short pause, a moment of silence for Jiminy Cricket before he claps his hand against the bag and makes it rupture with a loud POP.

[yoknapatawpha]

"Yankees!"

Bayard snaps awake and scrambles to his feet, not even aware that he's no longer in his bed in Jefferson, thinking only that his home has been invaded; that the Yankees, in all of their fury and righteousness, pumped up into flame-breathing monsters by the imagination only a child can manage, have breached the line and are coming to destroy his house and kill his Granny and the slaves, and him too; that terror has swept into the very air he was breathing as he slept.

He meets Dave's eyes with a command to run on his tongue, not seeing Dave for a moment but his imaginary danger, and then his brain wakes up a little, and he lowers his shoulders from where they hunched up in anticipation of running or fighting.

"Did you see what made that noise?"

[shenunigans]

Briefly, there's guilt in Dave's expression. It just now occurs to him that it's a fairly traumatic prank, all things considered. The feeling doesn't last long after that, though. It's like a kite that he's allowed to waft into the breeze, all the fucks he could possibly have tied neatly to the sad length of string it trails behind.

His hands are still up in front of him, the burst end of the bag clutched in his hand. He glances from it to Bayard and back again before he furrows his brows and sets his eyes firmly on the other boy.

"What noise?" And more importantly. "Did you just say Yankees?"

[tevintage]

Dorian kept ridiculous hours himself - escaping underfoot from his escort whenever possible, and coming home in the wee hours of the night, usually with a bottle of brandy - either already ingested, or about to be. This time, however, he had come home with a large assortment of what they had called 'doughnuts', which had turned out to be delicious. Drinking had somewhat lost its appeal, after that evening with Maxwell.

So he was chewing on a doughnut as he stepped into the common room. He was going to leave them out with a little note saying 'Thedas' on them, when he caught sight of the boy curled up sleeping on the couch, and smiled, somewhat wistfully.

He stepped over and sat down on the end of the couch, leaned back, and munched on the doughnut for a few seconds, before turning over to look at Bayard.

"You know," he said conversationally, "There are much better places to sleep, and ones where you're not quite so likely to be interrupted."

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard's in that realm of sleep where there is some conscious sense of movement, of things twitching and swirling in the blackness, but it's not so far into dreams as to become a story, not so deep as to be blocked off from noise. He blinks when he hears someone speaking, and the dark whorls of sleep slip back through his peripheral vision to the wrinkles of his brain from whence they came.

"Morning, Mister Dorian." Bayard sits up, rubbing at his eyes, brushing some sleepy drool away from his mouth with his sleeve. He is not an artful sleeper, prizing pragmatic comfort over grace. He blinks and looks over at the doughnut.

"Oh! Did you get those from down the street? May I have one? Have you tried the ones with the colorful sprinkles? The apple cider one is good too, you should have one of those when you have the chance."

Sleepiness cannot overcome the enthusiasm that one may feel upon seeing doughnuts.

[tevintage]

"Hello, Bayard." Dorian can't help but smile - a wide, true one, that makes his eyes crinkle at the edges. He's glad no one else is around, he would probably have to feign some sort of annoyance - he's sure that being fond of children probably isn't something people would expect of his persona - but with just the two of them, he can relax.

"I did, yes, and of course you may," Dorian said, offering the box. It was a full assortment. "I can hardly resist such a polite request. I would dare to say that you may even have two as long as you promise not to tell who gave them to you."

[needlebearer]

Arya's lonely too, although she doesn't like to admit it. She's too proud for one thing, and for another she knows she should be used to it by now - she's had to carry on alone for long enough back in her own world that it shouldn't hurt her here. It's partly because so many of the other Tributes have reunited with others from their worlds, and also because thinking about how the Capitol were deliberately removing her from her family and her world for their own version of her mythology still rankled too. With another Arena coming up, she feels particularly vulnerable and wishes that she could see a familiar face.

She's dragged her mattress from her bed frame into a corner, and arranged her blankets and pillows into a den. It's something she does often here, liking to make her space as enclosed as possible, feeling that she's shielding herself from everything life had to throw at her. She only intended to slip out for a moment, to gather as many burgers and cookies as she could from the kitchen to bring back to the den, but there'd been a movie playing on the TV in the common area full of bright colours and sword fights and daring escapes, and she gets caught up in it. When she finally trudges back to her room and slips into the den, there's someone already sleeping in it.

She watches Bayard for a moment, then pokes him in the ribs to wake him.

[yoknapatawpha]

"Huh?"

Bayard's not been asleep long - although he was already near passed-out on his feet when he found Arya's convenient little fort - but he's tired enough to be disoriented, and so he can't manage anything more artful than a grunt as Arya wakes him. He rubs at his eyes and the bedhead that's formed in such a short time, thanks to the pomade that his Stylists put in every day for God knows what reason.

"Oh, sorry, Arya. I didn't mean to intrude." And yet intrude he did.

[needlebearer]

"This is my den, you know." She sits herself down near him, legs crossed and her arms still full of food. "If you wanted to come in here, you should have said the password." Never mind that she hadn't been here to hear him say it, whatever it was - and that she hadn't decided on one just yet anyway.

[revocation]

Cullen keeps strange hours. His years of military discipline, combined with the insomnia and nightmares from lyrium use and the horrors of his past, means he's often up at odd hours of the night, and usually awake by the crack of dawn, ready to head down to the gym to warm up and train for the morning.

So when he spots Bayard asleep on the couch, it's a simple enough thing to lean down and start lifting the child up in his arms. He knows where the boy belongs - he'll try not to wake him before he gets there. He ought to check in on Adella, anyway.

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard wakes up in Cullen's arms, but his first thought isn't of Cullen; it's of his father carrying him, the way he does up the stairs sometimes, or when they came back from hunting bears in the woods and Bayard was too tired to properly ride the horse. He can almost hear the sound of Jupiter clopping alongside the man-smelling body that carries him.

"I can walk, Father," he murmurs, opening his eyes and then finding himself looking at a scar he recognizes but only from recent encounters. "Sorry. I can walk, Uncle Cullen."

[revocation]

'Father'. That's an - interesting appellation. He's far from offended, it's just - odd. In a good way, maybe, but Cullen tries not to think about it too much, because now really isn't the time or place to be considering such things.

"Hm, I'm sure you can, but you were asleep," he points out. "I was hoping not to disturb you." Growing boys need their rest, after all.

[wardenings]

It's the quiet scuffling noises that startle Alistair, causing him to turn over his shoulder and see the young lord, curled up under the couch in a bout of insomnia. Clearing his throat, Alistair makes his way towards one of the couches, crinkling his nose as he gets on his hands and knees. Bright blues meet matching glimmered eyes, the color shrouded by the shadow of the furniture.

"Long time no see, there." He laughs softly. "It's late. Shouldn't you be in the bed?"

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard, barely asleep in the minutes since Alistair heard him but enough to be disoriented, startles to wakefulness. He sits up, rubbing at his eyes and mouth, where the smallest among of drool has crested the corner.

"Mister Alistair." Bayard looks down at himself, reckoning that in his rumpled school clothes at whatever mad hour this is he must look like quite a sight. "I lost my way going back to bed. I hope I didn't upset you any."

[wardenings]

"I lose my way going back to bed quite a bit. Here, boy, clean yourself up a little bit." It's a random wad of clean tissues that Alistair had kept around for the slightest of reasons, but Bayard is more than welcome to them to help clean up the dried drool on his lips.

"Tabris is looking for you, but it seems I found you first, hm?" He smiles a little bit, ruffling the younger's hair. "Why are you awake-- or, perhaps asleep? -- at such an hour? Is something the matter?"

hahaha hi i finally made it SORRY

[beckstitch]

Beck wakes early, especially by Capitol standards. At 5am, she's up in her jogging gear, doing her morning stretches before she heads out to the kitchen to make some morning coffee. By five-thirty, she's setting out down the stairs, hood up over her curly hair, fresh-faced and starting to really wake up.

She isn't awake enough, though, to avoid nearly tripping over the young boy sleeping on one of the little landing. For a moment, startled, she just looks down at him. She recognises him as one of her charges, but not much more than that. In any case, it almost doesn't matter who he is. He looks young and vulnerable and offworlder-ish (it's odd how you can tell, even in their sleep), and he sure as hell can't keep sleeping on the stairs.

She doesn't wake him straight away. Instead, she turns and jogs back up the stairs, coming back with a glass of milk. Dropping to one knee beside him, she reaches out and shakes his shoulder gently, giving him a little smile. "Hey. Wake up, okay?"

no worries my dear!

[yoknapatawpha]

Bayard's dreaming, and it shows in the way his lower lip twitches slightly in his sleep, how his eyelashes flutter. When he's touched, it's as if wakefulness is a tank of water he's being dumped into. Unlike other Tributes, Bayard hasn't become vigilant and paranoid yet; he doesn't startle so much as, extremely groggily, look around in disorientation.

"Oh. Sorry, ma'am, I must have given up on counting stairs and just set down where I was standing." He wipes a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth. "Not all that decent of me, I'm afraid. I'm still getting the hang of the elly-vator."

He rubs his eyes and looks at the milk, then takes it. "Thank you, ma'am. Do you have a name?"

<3

[beckstitch]

"Beck. I'm Beck." She gives him a smile, withdrawing her hand. "I'm the new Stylist upstairs, for Twelve. You're one of mine, right?" She hopes she's not mistaken about that, because her overdeveloped maternal instinct is already kicking in, and that's going to be a problem if he's from another District. And to think, she'd thought one of the best things about the new Games was that they weren't killing kids any more. That had been naive.

"Here," she says after a moment's thought, and pulls a lightly-perfumed handkerchief out of her hoodie pocket, proffering it. "You've still got a little drool, just there. You're sure you're all right?" she adds as an afterthought, because healthy people don't usually fall asleep on the stairs. Even children.