Still Coming Out of Your Mother Upside Down [Closed]

[whatisay]

WHO| JSwann Derulo
WHAT| Jason and Swann plot Joel's demise; Swann brings Jason home to daddy
WHEN| After IC inbox thread; later in the week.
WHERE| D8 Suite; Swann's place
WARNINGS| Typical Jason Compson awfulness. About forty tags after CakeGate, smut happens.

I.

He can feel his pulse in his neck. One as acquainted with rage as Jason comes to appreciate the different gradients of it, the difference between the blinding, maddened and desperate fury that drove him up here after the argument with Leo to the territorial concern that brings him up now. He takes the stairs instead of the elevator, since it's only one floor, and when he gets up to the eighth he tucks his phone into his workbag.

"Swann?" He takes a step into the Suite, finds her about as upset and fuming from the encounter with Joel as he figured. "Let's take a drive and figure out what to do."

It isn't the barked order he gave last time, just a steady, stern, reasonable voice.

II.

It's not that Jason's nervous about meeting Swann's father because he anticipates any great blow to his esteem; he's simply chainsmoking his way over to her place because he knows that anything less than a success will send her into another of her self-indulgent spirals of candy-bingeing and weeping. She never reminds him more of his mother than then, and it tends to kill any chemistry between them, make Jason spend more nights just going straight home after dropping her off, and that in turns fuels the decline. It's only when she decides to get peppy again that they return to normal, because God knows Jason is never the one to proactively try to improve things.

He's wearing the one suit he owns that didn't come from Swann and still looks respectable, a little outdated, but Swann told him over text message that Ilar wouldn't mind, that he would just be happy for company. He's had his car cleaned and detailed even though he knows Ilar won't see it, but it's a sort of psychological preen that turns his usual strident attitude into one more closely approaching confidence. He waits outside, smoking his camphor and leaning against the hood of the car.

waiting in lot. come on down, he texts.

Comments

[whatisay]

The two of them mull over and compound their hatred for Joel in the elevator, silently, fuming, Jason's thumb working over Swann's wrist. All he can think of is getting Swann away from this place, and then as they drive away maybe it'll all spontaneously combust behind them, as it should.

He opens the door for her, as always, to the car. In a way he's enjoying watching Swann angry, watching someone else finally respond to the offworlders' guff with the contempt it deserves. It feels like validation. It feels righteous.

He starts the car. "Tell me everything that led up to it. I'm filing a report against him if you don't."

[cigne]

In the passenger seat of his car, Swann curls up and seems to puff up like a disturbed small animal raising its fur to make itself seem bigger. Her hands clutch at her upper arms, elbows tight over her chest, and her feet are hidden in her skirt on the seat, shoes left on the floorboard.

"I was on the couch, and Joel came along, and he was fine for a few minutes. I think maybe he was even trying to be nice. But he was telling me I'm not allowed to be sad, and then as we were talking, I told him that I don't care about his personal life, as long as he keeps everything quiet and doesn't lose Sponsors. He's always whining about privacy, right? So then it was just more "wah wah, I was taken away from home, wah wah", bitching."

She pauses to take a breath, glaring out the window.

"And you know, I have to tell him practically every other day that I didn't bring him here and I can't send him back, and finally I pointed out that the Tributes aren't the only ones affected by all of this! That there are people building the Arenas and working on the footage and running everything connected to the Games. That my dad kills himself making all of this happen year-round now, while keeping it interesting and making sure that not every minute of every day is Games, Games, Games! And then Joel said that I'll appreciate it when I lose it all."

Swann wipes away the small tears that cropped up while she was talking about her father, and looks over at Jason.

"I mean, I know we don't have it so bad, compared to some of those worlds. I know I have it really good, compared to almost everyone. But that doesn't mean I don't have feelings, or that it's okay for Daddy to run himself into the ground, just because of who we are, right?"

[whatisay]

"Jesus," Jason says in a harsh whisper, closing his eyes for a moment even while driving so he can imagine shoving Joel down the stairs, against a wall, knuckles to his nose- he takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again and sees that his fists are a shade blotchy against the steering wheel.

"Well they don't have it so bad either, and that sure as hell doesn't stop all of them complaining about it. They're just about as pampered as Marcel and Pascal is, and yet here they are, talking about how badly they want to go home to a world full of zombies or dragons or robot overlords or whatever. It's like they're addicted to self-pity. It's disgusting."

He glances over at her, angry and proud and protective, and wraps an arm over her tiny shoulders, pulling her close to him over the center rest. "He can't take anything from you. I'll see him dead first. That's a promise."

[cigne]

"That's what I keep telling them, that if they think this is bad, they don't know what bad is. That that's why they should try in the Arena, because the Districters do have it hard, and they're counting on their Tributes to win. You know, they may not have liked it the old way, but at least they had a hand in their own chances, right?"

She presses her face into his shoulder, inhales the smell of his cigarette and cologne on his jacket.

"You know, he never treats Jolie like this. She has just as much of her mark on the Games as I do. Maybe more, she's been doing this for a million years. But no, he's like a puppy around her."

[whatisay]

"More than a few of the Districts are unhappy having people who don't care about them representing them. I'm going to make mine record apology videos if they lose the next Arena. I'm going to make up starving children in District Seven if I have to." Jason shakes his head, licking the front of his teeth. He feels his heart pound with that familiar, comforting anger.

"Of course. Because he's a pathetic man who only would threaten someone a quarter his size. Jolie's too tall for him to stand up to."

[cigne]

"I told him that I'd put him in cuffs if he died at the Cornucopia again, but mostly I was just mad. He talks down about the Districters too, and whatever people think of them, the people in Eight are hard-working and good, I've been out there! I've met them, they deserve better than that. But most of the Tributes are so selfish, they don't care at all."

She wraps her arms around his waist with a little huff, still pressed to his shoulder. "And Jolie does whatever they want, she treats them like babies she needs to protect. He whined to her about the wax and she came snapping at me, even though that photoshoot got him more interest than he's had since he got here."

[whatisay]

Jason snorts a bit at Swann's description of Districters as hardworking, but he doesn't fight her on it. She can have her beliefs about her represented District if it makes her job easier; it doesn't hurt him any. It's not as if Swann has to interact with many Districters in her day-to-day life, just Samuel and Temple Stevens if rumors of her return bear fruit.

"I knew Jolie couldn't be trusted. You know, once you've slept with them you've proven you've got no standards or critical thinking skills at all. Of course she'd side with a Tribute, she's got so much insecurity about her social class that she's bound to lash out at the only well-bred person in a room." He rubs her shoulder a bit.

[cigne]

Swann doesn't care if Jason snorts, because she's been in the factories and seen them at it, seen children barely old enough for school working on looms. Any other District, she doesn't care what people say, but Eight is special, Eight clothes the whole country and more. That every citizen in Panem has at least one thing to wear, didn't that mean they had to be hardworking?

That makes her feel slightly better, to hear him talk shit about Jolie, and she shifts so that she can rest her temple on his arm instead. "Be careful," she says, frowning again. "I know he whined to her about you getting coffee on him, she might try to report you for abuse. Maybe she did already and someone shot her down, I don't know. But she's got it out for you."

[whatisay]

"It was before Cyrus' regulations went through-" and Jason's tone of voice shows just how fond he is of those regulations- "so there's nothing they can do to me about it. The coffee was barely even hot. God, what did you do to be stuck with such a whiny Tribute?"

It's not as if Jason's happy for Jolie to move from acquaintance to something closer to an enemy, but it does sate his need to feel like the world's conspiring against him some. It validates him, in a way.

"Maybe you should come down to District Seven more so I can steer clear of Eight."

[cigne]

She makes a huffing noise. "Maybe I should just split myself in two. You know, this would all have been fixed if my petition to trade Joel to another District had just been processed. It'll never get done now."

It drives Swann crazy, to not have something she wants happen easily and without any effort on her own part. It's been pretty much her whole life, want something and magically receive it, and it's hard to cope with the sudden change of having to work for things that might not happen anyway.

[whatisay]

"Well, maybe a report will help you there. I'll write it up first thing. I don't want you around someone who threatens you any more than you want to be around him."

Jason knows more than Swann does about having to work for something, having been devoted to the Sisyphean task of keeping his family from total ruin since the day his father died when he wasn't even seventeen, but it still feels like a blade in his sense of justice that a Tribute can get away with maligning a well-bred Capitolite and face no repercussions at all.

"Come on. We'll figure this out." He rubs her shoulder again, keeps her pulled close. "If I have to rip down Reagan's door to get him transferred I'll manage it."

[cigne]

"All right," she says, nuzzling against him like a needy kitten might. She trusts him to resolve the problem so that she can wash her hands of it, stop fighting and feeling like she's not accomplishing anything.

And at the very least, Jason will yell at some people on her behalf, which she always finds some pleasure in.