dead_black_eyes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dead_black_eyes) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-08-03 09:41 pm
dead_black_eyes) wrote in thecapitol2015-08-03 09:41 pm
Entry tags:
Our Lives Between... [Open]
Who| Linden Lockhearst and OPEN
What| Encounters and conversations post parental death, Stephen-firing, and partly during his Victor Reel. These last few weeks, man.
Where| D6 suite, a bar, camera stalking in the streets
When| August 3rd, afternoon and into the night
Warnings/Notes| Creepy and potentially disturbing funeral rites, mentions of alcohol and drug use. ALSO the third prompt involves some rebellion-related activity, so PM me if you want to do something with that aside from just bumping into him and talking to him so we can figure out where to go with it!
a. D6 suite
Linden used to know how to spend his time in his District suite. Usually, it wasn't with any greater point or purpose in mind, just the general aim of getting as far away from the world as possible and leaving his tired, numb body behind in bed or on the floor, when even that was simply too much effort. Now, he feels and sees everything in sharp relief and focus. He hadn't felt any hesitation or regret at personally emptying and dumping every one of his stashes, watching his old escape methods slipping and trickling away where they can't do his new liver any harm. If he couldn't protect his mother, he can at least protect the second chance she gave him, whether or not he would have asked for it had he known where the organ was coming from in advance.
His first thought is to talk to Stephen, but Stephen is no longer there. Something turns sour in his stomach at the thought, and he tries to put it from his mind and focus on more productive things.
He could go out, check on the locations of the existing or changed blind spots again and begin the process of relying that information to District 13. Maybe he will once night's fallen proper and he can rely on at least a little cover. For now, though, he sits by the coffee table, and instead of poring over a bottle or pills, he's carefully shaping and pressing cream-colored clay into the rough shape of something that looks like a knuckle bone. He has four real ones strung together with twine beside him for reference, their yellowed, weathered color showing through the paint covering them, with names written in a cramped, spidery black hand.
Shawford, Karem, Arta, Scorpii.
He never learned his mother's name, but at least stand-ins for the real thing are not so uncommon in District 6. Factory accidents can be horrific and frequently mangle hands, sometimes entire bodies. Usually it's left to the oldest surviving member of a family to take this uncomfortable step, one who's too old to work anyway and doesn't need the use of their fingers, but Linden's the only one left in his who can, and he's sure that his mother deserves this much for her sacrifice. Before he can go further with crafting the fascimile, he reaches to open the coffee table's drawer, aware that he needs to make it at least appear to be an accident. He slips the smallest finger in the gap, taking a deep breath and exhaling as he presses the drawer shut with his knee until he hears a soft crunch.
He withdraws his trembling hand, breathing and gritting his teeth through the pain until the endorphins temporarily dull it. As the knuckle swells and turns vibrant, he continues to work on the details, more slowly and clumsily. It's another ache he can't run from, and another nagging reminder that his days of trying are at an end. If he can't live in a cage and he can't anesthetize himself until it no longer feels like a cage, there are only two options left: escape, or die trapped.
b. The Tower Bar, During his Victor's Reel
Many Victors avoid their recaps, revisitations and reels. Linden knows better not to, because to do so would make events like this even more painful to relive. The televisions in the bar are lit up with a wide-eyed face that's his, if younger and fresher, going through the recorded motions of what much of Panem would call his finest moments. Even if the narration states with regret that he is not one of the "shining star" Victors, not one of the "best", he has his fans, and everyone in the Capitol loves a trainwreck. What better place to export them from District 6, cradle of mechanical wonders and addiction alike?
The shabby creature at the bar is not larger-than-life as he watches the footage from the background; these are images he's seen hundreds of times, intentionally growing callous to them while nursing his obsession with Scorpii, and he's glad for it. This most recent set of reels, for every Victor, seems tailored to get reactions and punch holes hard and deep in the leftover human husks, and Linden can't afford many more hard punches. If there's anything at all he's relatively immune to, he's grateful. He holds up a hand when he's offered a drink for the third time, insisting that he'll stick with tea as the reel continues to blare throughout the bar.
He blows softly across the surface of the hot, herbal water, moving his swollen, bruised knuckle away from the heat and adjusting his grip to accommodate it. The reel makes him out to be weak, washed-up and likely not someone the odds will favor much longer. The Capitol sees a different Linden than his contacts in the Rebellion, and he's never been more glad of it.
c. In the City Streets After Dark
Linden doesn't look like himself with the hood of his dark jacket pulled close over his face, and he doesn't want to. He's on his usual rounds, and he hasn't been caught or questioned yet. There's a small signal disrupter he carries with him, painstakingly and secretly built over weeks in other blind spots, strapped to one of his ankles and hidden by a sturdy, soft-soled. If all goes well, the nearby cameras will wind up jammed and scrambled, and there will be a few new blind spots to report to the rebellion.
It's treason, plain and simple, and things will go badly for him if he's identified and his passage is associated with cameras going on the fritz. Things will go worse if he's questioned and searched, but he moves softly and quickly without looking overly suspicious. He moves with enough purpose that he seems to be going somewhere, and he's not loitering or lingering, but that might change depending on who (if anyone) hails him.
What| Encounters and conversations post parental death, Stephen-firing, and partly during his Victor Reel. These last few weeks, man.
Where| D6 suite, a bar, camera stalking in the streets
When| August 3rd, afternoon and into the night
Warnings/Notes| Creepy and potentially disturbing funeral rites, mentions of alcohol and drug use. ALSO the third prompt involves some rebellion-related activity, so PM me if you want to do something with that aside from just bumping into him and talking to him so we can figure out where to go with it!
a. D6 suite
Linden used to know how to spend his time in his District suite. Usually, it wasn't with any greater point or purpose in mind, just the general aim of getting as far away from the world as possible and leaving his tired, numb body behind in bed or on the floor, when even that was simply too much effort. Now, he feels and sees everything in sharp relief and focus. He hadn't felt any hesitation or regret at personally emptying and dumping every one of his stashes, watching his old escape methods slipping and trickling away where they can't do his new liver any harm. If he couldn't protect his mother, he can at least protect the second chance she gave him, whether or not he would have asked for it had he known where the organ was coming from in advance.
His first thought is to talk to Stephen, but Stephen is no longer there. Something turns sour in his stomach at the thought, and he tries to put it from his mind and focus on more productive things.
He could go out, check on the locations of the existing or changed blind spots again and begin the process of relying that information to District 13. Maybe he will once night's fallen proper and he can rely on at least a little cover. For now, though, he sits by the coffee table, and instead of poring over a bottle or pills, he's carefully shaping and pressing cream-colored clay into the rough shape of something that looks like a knuckle bone. He has four real ones strung together with twine beside him for reference, their yellowed, weathered color showing through the paint covering them, with names written in a cramped, spidery black hand.
Shawford, Karem, Arta, Scorpii.
He never learned his mother's name, but at least stand-ins for the real thing are not so uncommon in District 6. Factory accidents can be horrific and frequently mangle hands, sometimes entire bodies. Usually it's left to the oldest surviving member of a family to take this uncomfortable step, one who's too old to work anyway and doesn't need the use of their fingers, but Linden's the only one left in his who can, and he's sure that his mother deserves this much for her sacrifice. Before he can go further with crafting the fascimile, he reaches to open the coffee table's drawer, aware that he needs to make it at least appear to be an accident. He slips the smallest finger in the gap, taking a deep breath and exhaling as he presses the drawer shut with his knee until he hears a soft crunch.
He withdraws his trembling hand, breathing and gritting his teeth through the pain until the endorphins temporarily dull it. As the knuckle swells and turns vibrant, he continues to work on the details, more slowly and clumsily. It's another ache he can't run from, and another nagging reminder that his days of trying are at an end. If he can't live in a cage and he can't anesthetize himself until it no longer feels like a cage, there are only two options left: escape, or die trapped.
b. The Tower Bar, During his Victor's Reel
Many Victors avoid their recaps, revisitations and reels. Linden knows better not to, because to do so would make events like this even more painful to relive. The televisions in the bar are lit up with a wide-eyed face that's his, if younger and fresher, going through the recorded motions of what much of Panem would call his finest moments. Even if the narration states with regret that he is not one of the "shining star" Victors, not one of the "best", he has his fans, and everyone in the Capitol loves a trainwreck. What better place to export them from District 6, cradle of mechanical wonders and addiction alike?
The shabby creature at the bar is not larger-than-life as he watches the footage from the background; these are images he's seen hundreds of times, intentionally growing callous to them while nursing his obsession with Scorpii, and he's glad for it. This most recent set of reels, for every Victor, seems tailored to get reactions and punch holes hard and deep in the leftover human husks, and Linden can't afford many more hard punches. If there's anything at all he's relatively immune to, he's grateful. He holds up a hand when he's offered a drink for the third time, insisting that he'll stick with tea as the reel continues to blare throughout the bar.
He blows softly across the surface of the hot, herbal water, moving his swollen, bruised knuckle away from the heat and adjusting his grip to accommodate it. The reel makes him out to be weak, washed-up and likely not someone the odds will favor much longer. The Capitol sees a different Linden than his contacts in the Rebellion, and he's never been more glad of it.
c. In the City Streets After Dark
Linden doesn't look like himself with the hood of his dark jacket pulled close over his face, and he doesn't want to. He's on his usual rounds, and he hasn't been caught or questioned yet. There's a small signal disrupter he carries with him, painstakingly and secretly built over weeks in other blind spots, strapped to one of his ankles and hidden by a sturdy, soft-soled. If all goes well, the nearby cameras will wind up jammed and scrambled, and there will be a few new blind spots to report to the rebellion.
It's treason, plain and simple, and things will go badly for him if he's identified and his passage is associated with cameras going on the fritz. Things will go worse if he's questioned and searched, but he moves softly and quickly without looking overly suspicious. He moves with enough purpose that he seems to be going somewhere, and he's not loitering or lingering, but that might change depending on who (if anyone) hails him.
no subject
"It's not inane. Honestly, the company's... it's better than this would be alone," he admits, voice tight as he looks sown at his hand again. "And my past..." he sighs heavily, breathing through the pain. "I guess you're one of the people who would care, aren't you? Even if you never bothered to watch the Arena."
He takes a second to gather and organize his thoughts. "My life wasn't really exciting before I was Reaped. I was small enough even as a teenager to clean machines in the factories, so that was my job. Because I was an orphan, I lived as a servant in a wealthy household and they garnished my factory wages in return for putting a roof over my head. I was kind of lazy... I read a lot. I talked to the Peacekeepers and asked them about the Capitol, the other Districts, pretty much anything they would tell me about anywhere that wasn't the desert. Then I got Reaped and... well, what happened between then and now is my Arena, obviously, and a whole lot of thinking about Him. There was someone in my Arena who meant something to me; it wasn't love, but it was some kind of completion, and I haven't felt that way since. His name was Scorpii. I guess, going by your absurd terms, you might say he was... Kismesis?"
no subject
The story is interesting in the uncomfortable way of knowing it's a real person's past and issues. He listens well, holding off comment, until at the end he perks automatically as Linden describes Scorpii. Even if not for the quadrant, he'd be curious.
"Suck my bulge. Our terms are amazing, and your romance is crap." He rings it off like something obligatory, no honest ire beyond the facade. "But maybe. Kismesissitude is all about rivalry, about pushing each other to just try and be better, to one up each other. It's something you can't get from a... I would say matespritship, but let's say standard human relationship for you stunted apes." He rolls his eyes and moves on.
"What did you feel about him? How did he act with you?"
no subject
As for Scorpii... well, given Karkat's known areas of interest, Linden would be lying if he said he didn't at least have a feeling that he'd latch onto this subject.
"I'll pass, as far as 'sucking your bulge' goes," he says dryly. "And that actually sounds about right. We met and I can't say that we were in love; I don't actually think I've ever been, even..." he shakes his head, not wanting to bring up Nill. What's the point? "He taught me how to play chess. He was everything I'm not but... I kind of wish I was. Smooth. Charming. Confident. The kind of person who can just wrap others around their fingers and toy with them without their realizing it. Not that I want that, but... just having the ability is so awe-inspiring. It's a kind of weapon, I guess, and Victors always want weapons, so I don't exactly blame myself. But while I think I would have slept with him, and definitely dreamed about it in my Arena in perhaps the most embarrassing way possible for a human, it wasn't hard to kill him either. It was like a reflex. We killed each other and I just lasted longer by a couple of seconds."
He looks down at the bone in his hands, just a part of the chain of other important people who have died in his life.
"I don't know if I really believed what he said about trying to get out together. Part of me definitely knew it was bullshit, but you know... it made being in the Arena a little less terrible, to hold onto that beautiful lie. We said we could be friends; we said we could be more. It eased a lot of things for awhile."
no subject
The rest is interesting, and he settles willingly into listening, considering each bit as it passes his ears. It's not standard, but that's expected, and the environment affected it in ways clear even to a first-time listener.
"The killing part isn't normal, but I can hardly bitch about that with the arena at your backs." It would have been inevitable, one way or another. "If you were trolls, it probably would have been black. You would have won sponsors for it and everything."
He pauses, thinking more. "I could say more if I had seen how it went down, but even I'm aware it would be pretty fucking weird to just sit down and go through your almost-death just to see how hypothetically shippable you might have been with what's now dead and buried. If you hadn't had the arena to worry about, who knows what might have happened."
no subject
"Well... in all fairness, we weren't normal. Not by any standards in this world or yours, I'd wager," Linden sighs. "And don't worry... everyone's seen my almost-death, including me. Many times. I've watched it with others and I've watched it alone and it's literally in the triple digits. I have my Games memorized... I've been accused of being obsessed with them, and while I don't agree with that, I think it's the most alive I've ever felt. Even if it's dead and buried... the memory of that excitement and vitality isn't and I think I've been trying to feel something like it ever since."