Honesty, Could It Be the Trigger That Makes Us Answer All at Once? [Closed]

[whatisay]

WHO| Jason and Swann
WHAT| Jason meets Swann's dad, part two: shotgun edition.
WHEN| After the crowning
WHERE| Ilar Honeymead's place
WARNINGS| General Capitolite awfulness.

This time, there won't be cake-throwing. Jason's confident about that, at least. The rest is a different story; he and Swann have been bickering plenty lately, and it seems a coin-flip whether they'll be wildly in love throughout the day or snapping at each other, unable to contain their pettiness and annoyance. He hopes today's one of the former, because if it's the latter then dinner with Ilar is going to be a sham at best and a complete disaster at worst.

They've said some things in the last few weeks that cut deeper than they should have, never for any reason that they could trace back. Jason will forget why they were fighting with each other and only the slammed doors and cruel words that ended the fight. They're a mystery him, and the resolution always tends to be the worst prize ever.

But the good times are still some of the best days he's had in years, and that makes the bickering all the more terrifying. He doesn't want to lose resting his face in her hair while she sleeps three nights a week, or taking their Sunday and having Eta pack them food and going to a lookout point, or gossiping about their Tributes and co-workers over lunch every day. He feels wired to self-destruct, as if he can't help but snipe and snap at her, by some uncontrollable impulse that he has to repair by returning to her over and over with gifts and apologies that are becoming, with each passing week, more verbalized.

It's in this state of disequilibrium that he picks her up tonight, and unlike the last time they drove to Ilar's now Jason looks more visibly nervous, pressing his lips together and exhaling through his nose far more than necessary. He holds off on smoking because he doesn't want to get the smell on him before Ilar meets him, but he keeps clicking his teeth, up until they start to drive up into Ilar's palatial driveway.

Comments

[whatisay]

"Tell me you love me," Jason says, not because he's capable of saying it to her. He isn't there yet. He's said it once to her, in the heat of a fight, and he's cringed from her when she's said it before.

But now, as he flicks his tongue over her sensitive parts, he wants to hear it. Here, just the two of them and no one listening.

[cigne]

She whimpers and squirms again, her fingers tangling in his hair and her toes curling, and she nods, biting her lip again out of habit. "I do love you," she tells him, and she's still not very loud, though she does sound like she's at least trying to speak up. It's so hard, letting go of a lifetime of being quiet not only because being loud makes people upset, but because you never know who's listening when you're surrounded by microphones and cameras.

"I love you, I want to always be with you."

[whatisay]

He holds onto her thigh, pushing it aside so he has more space, can angle his head better to give her long, lateral strokes with his tongue, to suckle at each lip for its own moment. He's forceful, not hungry but determined to shove her over that edge and into the oblivion of bliss.

He pauses and takes a breath. "I don't see why you won't be," and then returns to pleasuring her.

[cigne]

Swann can only writhe and pant, her hips jerking, and she tugs on his hair without thinking, gasping. She drapes her leg over his shoulder, digs her foot into the ground before she can pull herself together enough to even think of anything to say.

"Forever," is all she comes up with, then squeaks and whines and presses herself toward him, so close, so in love.

[whatisay]

"Almost there," he says, not retracting his tongue, speaking those words in muffled sounds over his wider and more rhythmic lapping. He reaches up and holds her ankle as he works, over his own shoulder. He digs his fingers into her calf and feels the water seeping up his pant legs.

[cigne]

It's barely any time at all, not even a full minute after he finishes speaking, and she explodes with a cry, waves washing over her as if from the lake. Her breath catches in her lungs and she hovers at the peak for a second before she sucks in air sharply and stops quivering, goes limp. She's almost wheezing.

[whatisay]

Between her legs, feeling her shudder around him, Jason grins with a sort of wolfish abandon that would never reach his eyes in public. He feels accomplished, successful, victorious.

He wraps his arms around her waist and rests his head on her bare stomach.

[cigne]

Swann sighs and huffs for breath, putting one hand on the back of his neck as she slowly comes back into herself, her back aching a little against the ground. The water from the lake reaches her feet, gets them wet and makes the sand squish between her toes.

She strokes Jason's hair and neck absently, eye closed, stretching her other arm over her head.

[whatisay]

He stays there for a while, strumming the side of her neck with the backs of his knuckles.

"It's nice out here," he says after a while, after the silence around them reveals itself to be full of crickets and the lapping of the lake and the gurgles and pulses of their bodies. "You don't swim, right?"

[cigne]

She only lies in his arms, until she's drowsy with happiness and comfort.

"I can," she answers, frowning just a little as she thinks. "I mean, like, I know how, in a pool or something like that. The waterpark and everything. Why, do you want to go swimming? Right now?"

[whatisay]

"No, not really, I just want..."

He wants to block out all the world but the two of them, and the cold water will push away all concerns of the flesh. It will chill away the aches and pains of their bodies, the air wicking around their shoulders.

"Come in with me."

[cigne]

Swann hesitates, not out of lack of desire to join him, but because she's never swam in a natural body of water in her life -- the closest she ever got was about knee deep in the ocean out in Four, where she was knocked over by a wave and immediately retreated back onto the sand.

But her love for Jason outweighs her fears of what might be in the water, and she strokes his hair again. "Okay."

[whatisay]

"It's alright. We'll go to the car if it gets too cold. It's got a good enough heating system." He doesn't even get up all the way to head into the water, just wading on his knees and then only standing once he's up to his stomach, backing up again until it's to his waist on his feet.

"Just leave your clothes high enough on the shore that they won't get soaked."

[cigne]

She looks at the water with worry for just a moment, then retreats further up shore to leave her clothes on a rock, far from the waves. Looking at her skin compared to the dark around them, she becomes uncomfortably aware of how visible she is, how bright and moon pale she stands out against the night and the darkness, and it makes her go toward the lake tentatively, torn between wanting to hide and her trepidation of the water.

"Oh... oh my Snow," she says, jumping when her feet hit the frigid water, and she almost runs away as her entire body breaks out in goosebumps. She takes another step or two, but then she's frozen, so cold that she can barely move except to wrap her arms around herself.

[whatisay]

It's strange, how they feel so much more exposed in this blind spot, with no cameras and only wilderness as their witnesses, but Jason can feel it too. Without the surveillance around them he feels as if some layer of skin's been removed from his entire body, even beneath where the clothes would fit.

"Alright, you don't have to come in if you're going to freeze. We'll go back to the car a minute." Jason sits down in the water, letting his head go under.

The cold water very near obliterates everything, leaving only the post-orgasm easiness in place, that little core of warmth deep inside while the rest of him freezes. When he brings his head back up, though, he can feel himself shivering.

[cigne]

She shakes her head and her teeth chatter a little, every inch covered in goosebumps. But she still moves toward him now, having fought through the initial shock, and it's like trudging through quicksand, but she reaches him.

Swann stretches her arm out toward him, her hand spread and searching, and she's under the water nearly to her sternum, hair trailing behind her like silver threads of silk atop the dark, freezing water. "Jason," she says, and her voice is shaking. Her lips have already started turning blue, though she can feel an interesting contrast between the heat of her organs and the coldness of her skin.

[whatisay]

"Alright, alright, let's get out of the water," he says, with actual alarm in his voice. What's just very cold to him, an average-sized man with surprisingly decent circulation given his penchant for nicotine and vapor, is apparently freezing to her. He reaches for her, wraps his arms around her, and picks her up. It comes easily now. She feels weightless these days, as if his arms were made to carry her.

"I didn't realize you'd turn into a icicle."

[cigne]

She's shivering uncontrollably, and she wonders how she could possibly be so cold, how water could be so cold when there's so much of it. Of course, she's never really been in an unregulated temperature before, has only been in pools specifically designed to be pleasantly cool, tubs that can be set to the exact degree she wants. But now her blood is beginning to feel like ice, and she's glad for when he picks her up, because it's getting harder to keep moving.

"I didn't think it would be so cold," she chatters.

[whatisay]

He grabs their clothes from the bank as he carries her back, then yanks open the car door and settles her in there, her clothes atop her in an ersatz and inadequate figure of a blanket, before getting in his side and turning the car and the heat on. He dries himself with his shirt as the air heater fills the small space with warmth, and his toes seem to ache deep to the bone as blood rushes back to them.

"I hear it's even colder out in the Districts. That there are some where it snows all year round. It sounds barbaric."

[cigne]

Her clothes aren't a very useful covering, but she does have a sweater that she tugs with numb fingers until it's spread enough over her chest, until the heat makes the blue in her lips and extremities start to fade away again. She doesn't move, and she's still trembling with cold, but she definitely looks better with the vents blasting hot air onto her.

"Why does anyone live there, why don't we move them somewhere warmer?"

[whatisay]

He pulls his clothes on.

"There must be some crop or something out there they need. Who cares, anyway? They're Districters. All that ungroomed hair of theirs keeps them warm," he says, moving the center console back so he can pull her onto him. "Are you alright?"

[cigne]

She shivers and curls up in his lap, resting her head on his shoulder, her hair soaking his shirt, and nods. "I'm okay," she murmurs, yawning. "I just want to go home and get in bed."

/wrap

[whatisay]

"Alright." He brushes her hair aside, runs his palm over her sharp cheekbone. "We'll go home. God knows we've put enough effort into today."

He's earned Ilar's favor. It's probably better he not negligently kill his daughter and get that revoked. He gets the car moving, letting her rest against him, leaving a comfortable satisfaction to warm the muscles in his chest.