thecapitol | [Closed]

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Who| Quintus and Emily
What| Quintus is sick and Emily insists on taking care of him
Where| Quintus' apartment
When| Backdated to the day of Quintus' broadcast
Warnings/Notes| None inherent

At 6pm Emily's waiting in the central commons of the Training Centre, a flask full of chicken soup under one arm. She's irritated at Quintus for insisting on continuing to work when he was clearly under the weather, and even more so for his paranoia over giving out his address. She imagined him leading her through all sorts of back alleys and taking the long way round so she'd have no idea how to get back there, and she's not sure she has the patience to continue humouring him. Her own paranoia has begun to set in too now, knowing that they'll surely be spotted leaving together. Gossip about her supposed love life was rampant enough without people thinking she was hooking up with a Peacekeeper, too.

She waves him over, looking him up and down, none too pleased. "You look just as bad as you sounded. You should be tucked up in bed, not sweating over your desk."

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"I'd rather he be alive," he mutters. "He was smart. Dedicated. Even with that reputation behind him he--he could've gotten somewhere in life."

"He'd be forced to relive what happeend in the Arena every day, see it paraded on television every year, had to forge bonds with other kids and send them off to their deaths. It's not some bright future, it's an extended death sentence."

"It's better than the alternative." He glances at her again. "Do you really think that nothing positive has happened in your life since your Arena?"

"My family aren't starving. I'm grateful to the Capitol for that every day." And she is too, there's a genuine note of gratitude in her voice. It's the reason she allows the Capitol to continue to exploit her, the reason betrayal is unthinkable to her.

"But you don't think anything good's happened to you."

She shrugs, coming up with nothing at all. "Has it?"

He just shakes his head. "That's a real shame."

Taking a breath, he mulls over his words, opening his mouth and closing it again before coming up with something acceptable. "You're a good person, Emily. You've got your heart in the right place, and you don't have to keep punishing yourself for the hell they put you through."

She wishes that she lived in a place where being a good person meant anything, instead of making it so you just got trampled all over. She's about to say as much when instead she rankles at the end of his observation, feeling bad as she does so as she knows he's just trying to help. "You say 'put me through' like it's past tense."

"Put, are putting, whatever," he retorts, frustrated that she took his remark that way, feeling out of his depth in his attempts to navigate her emotions. "There's a lot that you and I both can't control, and I only want you to feel better."

She's very tempted to tell him candidly right then and there just what she can't control, to describe how rich Capitolites have payed for the pleasure of tearing her apart again and again, how there's barely any of her left to put back together any more. Instead she just buries her face in her knees, knowing that she's never going to feel better.

"Your soup is getting cold," she says quietly, helplessly.

"That's okay."

It doesn't seem right to leave her be or to tug her to her feet after him--he might do the latter with a stranger creating a public disturbance, but this is wholly different. He regards her for a long minute, debates with himself, then tucks an arm about her again, turning his body to pull her into a tense embrace.

Emily tenses up, wholly unused to hugs except for those from her immediate family, and being suddenly embraced by a grown man with such close ties to the Capitol makes her instinctively panic. She places her hands on his chest, pushing him away from her, and it takes her a moment to realise that he's trying to comfort her rather than take advantage or do her further harm.

"I'm ... sorry."

Quintus draws back almost immediately as he feels her struggle, his face reddening. Climbing to his feet, he steps away to give her some space, leaning back against the sink and running a restless hand through his hair.

"Damn it, Emily, I--never mind."

She feels even worse now, if that's possible. A sinking feeling settles in her gut, and she bites on her lip as she looks over at Quintus, not quite sure what to say to him.

"I really am sorry," she says quietly, lowering her gaze a little, finding it easier to look at the tiles rather than him. "I'm just not used to men reaching for me like that unless they--" She breaks off, feeling her cheeks burn red with shame. "--You know what they make Victors do."

His expression turns incredulous, his brow furrowing and mouth agape.

"You of all--what a load of shit," he curses. "There should be a law against that."

Emily just shrugs, looking down at the light reflecting off the floor, hating herself. "There should be a law against a lot of things," she says quietly.

"In the districts we used to arrest people for rape. You're not an avox; I don't know how they could think it'd be remotely acceptable to--"

He shakes his head. "This is exactly the sort of thing that'll only create problems for us in the long run."

She knew what the Capitol would say to that. It couldn't possibly be rape, because the Capitol owned her and had consented on her behalf. She feels more than a little uncomfortable at the contrast to avoces, remembering a family friend among those tortured and avoxed by that nightmarish Peacekeeper and her stomach twisting at thoughts of her being repeatedly sexually assaulted when she'd done nothing more than act in her desperation to feed her family.

Her lips thin at his last observation, and for once she doesn't hold back on what she thinks to that. She's been emotionally put through the wringer this evening and just doesn't care right now. "Oh yes, it will cause so many problems for you, interfering with your sense of order and propriety. How terribly inconvenient."

Quintus glares at her. "I'm just saying it's a systemic issue. Do you really think I don't care about what happened to you? I think it's disgusting, Emily, that they'd try to cheapen you like--"

He cuts off with a huff, too uncomfortable with this line of conversation to go further.

She knows that, deep down. And she's not sure whether it was simply his wording that made her lash out or the resentment and shame she felt that a Peacekeeper felt such outrage on her behalf.

She stands, very quietly makes her way over to him and gingerly wraps her arms around him, pressing her face into his back.

He's not certain what he was expecting of her, exactly, but it wasn't that. He stiffens a bit at the contact, not having heard her approach, then relaxes, resting one of his hands atop her arm. It's a weird position to be in and he'd rather be facing her, but he stays put, not wanting make her anxious again.

She takes a deep breath and expels it very sharply, knowing she should let go of him but not quite bringing herself to, especially as he hasn't pulled away from her. Instead she just stands there, feeling empty inside, as though the Capitol has hollowed her out and scooped everything out. She'd prefer all the disgust and anger and hatred to this feeling.

He gives her a good minute or two before it becomes too awkward and he gently extricates himself from her grasp, turning around to look at her. He struggles to put together something to say, then gives up, settling for brushing some strands of hair back from her eyes, tucking them behind her ear.

She looks up at him for a moment, swallowing heavily as his fingers brush against her hair, then biting her lip and looking very pointedly away from him. She's not sure what she feels right now, and that scares her.

"I-- I'm sorry, Mr Falxvale. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I only came over to see to you with your cold."

"I've probably given that to you by now," he says with a tight laugh, regarding her for another, briefer space of time, before motioning for her to follow him outside of the bathroom. "Come here, I want to show you something."

He steps around his bed, crossing over to his nightstand. Above it, a few pictures hang from the wall--the old photo of himself and a group of peacekeepers that he had used in his Youth Program presentation, posing gleefully and goofily; a staid picture of a couple and two children against the backdrop of an ornate room; and a newer image of a government van parked on a Capitol street, with Quintus and three co-workers seated on the back bumper, computer equipment visible through the open hatch. Only one photograph sits on the nightstand itself: one of two teenagers in front of a stone-walled home. The boy on the left is clearly a younger, less weathered Quintus, waving and pulling an amusingly suspicious face for the camera, while the boy on the right is more gangly and brunette, grinning and pointing at himself in pride.

"That's Lurio," Quintus says, picking up the frame.

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