thecapitol | Shame Can't Be the Home Where You Live [Open]

Entry tags:

Shame Can't Be the Home Where You Live [Open]

WHO| Jason and semi-open
WHAT| Caroline Compson dies and Jason exists in the aftermath.
WHEN| At least a week prior to reaping for the mini-Arena.
WHERE| Compson Manor
WARNINGS| Death, grief, emotional repression.

Jason stops coming to work on Monday, with no more warning than a text to Swann saying can't drive you today and a text to Peggy home from work. After that he lets his phone battery run down, and the few messages that get in before it dies pile up in his voicemail or inbox. He doesn't contact his coworkers, nor does he cancel the meetings with Sponsors he was supposed to be present for.

The servants are all fired. Jason tells them to vacate the premises but they don't, for two main reasons: the first being that they doubt, validly, that Jason would keep Benjamin and the horses fed and cared for, even for a few days, and the second being that Jason doesn't even seem to notice that they're there. He grabs a whole pack of caps for his vaporizer and takes up a sort of vigil on the couch in the moldy, once-beautiful living room, and smokes, at first with a kind of furious intensity and then out of a mechanical inertia, as if it's easier to just keep refilling the cap and staying where he is than to get up and perform any of the many tasks that have laid themselves out at his feet.

When night falls he doesn't even get up to turn on the light, just sitting there on the couch until sleep ambushes him and then retreats in the morning. Freedom is a ball and chain that keeps him stuck here. A few times he feels something like a fist twisting in his gut and he gets up, paces, runs his hands through his hair (which has gotten greasy and lank), and actually putting his body in motion helps to release that tension. His eyes sting and so he smokes more and tries to sleep again, passing between waking and resting with little acknowledgment for when he crosses each border.

Outside the gate stays closed, accessible only by fingerprint or intercomming to the house. The potholes and rotten belongings in the yard stay where they are, leaving patches of brown, muddy, dead grass underneath them if removed. The whole building sags a bit, as if it were sighing.

Jason's out of work for five days.

-/-

In the news, there's an obituary with ebullient recitations of the virtues no one who knew Caroline would ever say she had. It goes on to say that she's survived by her one son, Jason, as if Benjamin were shuffled out of reality when he was corralled up on the property, excised from the collective memory of the public.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Swann rides on waves of hoping for happiness, not memories of it, because even at her happiest, she wasn't all that happy. Dark clouds have always hung over her, ever since she was a little girl, and they've never parted to let the sun more than peek through. But she figures the sun must be out there, since other people are happy, and she can be too, if she tries hard enough, finds the right keys to unlock that barrier.

Jason parts the clouds, not all the way, but more than anyone or anything else has in a long time.

She sighs and thinks for a moment, not sure if he'll really want to hear what she thinks. "I think there's peace," she answers, just as soft. "There's nothing and it's peace. Like when you're in a pitch black room to go to sleep, except the sun is never going to come wake you and take it all away. I know we must have something that makes us human, souls. That's what gets the peace, the darkness. The soul in your diamond."

"It sounds nice." It's an elaboration, an expansion on what Jason suspects from death, that it's nothingness, that it's an end. He never developed his concept enough to make it feel like peace so much as just the antithesis to all of this stress and misery.

His fingertips stroke her waist gently, the fabric of her pajamas. He doesn't say anything for a while. He thinks about how some people imagine seeing their loved ones in the afterlife, and how that thought sickens him, and how much more pleasant it is to think of nothing at all.

And then to think of his mother, there, and to realize again that the only ally he ever had throughout his whole miserable childhood, the person who arranged his life to circle hers, is lost to that void.

"I wish I were dead, Swann. I've wished that for such a long time."

She cradles the back of his head in the silence, thinks about how much time she's spent pondering. She loves diamonds, has spent a lifetime being fascinated with their sparkle, starting before her memories even formed. Diamonds have been a part of her world since she was still in a bassinet, and one of her earliest memories is of her grandmother's diamond, kept out of reach. It's held in case in her father's house, set as the main jewel in a brooch, and she would often look at it.

She'd cried once to Eta, as a child after her grandfather's death, that she wanted to be a diamond too, that it wasn't fair.

Swann's spent most of her life since then hovering somewhere between wanting to be a diamond and wanting to hold it off, longing both for the peace and the happiness, never sure which is the better option.

"I know," she whispers, and there's tears in her voice because of the familiar twist in her heart over the same wish. "You wish for it once and it never quite goes away, even at the best of times. But something makes you keep going, same as me."

He raises his head to look at Swann (his own diamond, the new gravity around which he's trying to fall into orbit), to meet her eyes, the tears in hers and the sting in his when he looks at her honestly and without barriers. All of him is one great wound, bared to Swann, sensitive and infected and sick.

He remembers wondering, after Quentin died and people started to call his older brother a victim of sickness, of a diseased mind, 'something not quite right upstairs', why he assumed that everyone lived with the same unhappiness and anger. That's when he understood, at fifteen, to feel isolated.

"It's not that I keep going. It's that I don't know how to stop." He lowers his face again and rests it against her chest.

She looks back at him and sees a whole universe, one filled with stars familiar to her own and planets she can't understand. But mostly it's darkness and blackness and emptiness, same as hers, and she wants their voids to be one, combined and brightened by each other's sunlight, radiating dimly but there all the same.

"That's as much of a something as anything else." Her fingers trace along his hairline, his neck, and she closes her eyes. "You can stop your car by crashing into a tree or you can try to drift into a snowbank, but either way, the brakes still aren't working, right?"

She's tried both.

"No. They aren't working," he whispers, tightening his embrace around her to cling like a drowning man, understanding in some animal way now that it's their injuries and sadness that bind them as much as it's the fleeting moments of happiness they share. They understand each other in a way no one else ever will, maybe ever could. They strike a chord in harmony, and though it's minor at least it isn't dissonant.

He can feel her heartbeat echoing through his skull, and his blood seems to syncopate with it, in rhythm but not in match.

After a moment he releases her, and moving with all the speed of a beached whale he sits up. "I should go home now."

Swann holds him tighter too, unconsciously mimicking him, seeking to save herself as much as she wants to save him. They aren't mirror images, they're puzzle pieces, made to fit together to complete something, even if it's just a picture of nothingness. There's a strong possibility that it is, that they aren't supposed to build together but to be demolished together, and she doesn't mind, could never care as long as it's both of them together.

"Okay," she murmurs, sitting up too, looking at him. She's teary but not desperate, and it's not even for him so much as for both of them. How much they both need gravity. She reaches for his hand though. "Promise me you'll sleep in bed? And that you'll eat something in the morning?"

"Yeah. Sure. I'll text." He doesn't know that he'll come back, doesn't know that he feels any better now than when he first got here except for the physical relaxation. He feels empty again, only only devoid of value, not content, his body still heavy and full of that dark water.

It's a darkness they both know well.

He gives her hand a squeeze and lingers as his fingers leave hers.

She doesn't feel much better either, maybe only relieved at having seen him, that he looks slightly better than yesterday. "Okay," she says, nodding, and knows she'll sleep tonight because she feels emotionally exhausted. She's not sure if he's going to work tomorrow, if he can handle it, and she doesn't ask.

"Bye," she murmurs, when their hands finally separate, and hugs her knees to her chest as she watches him leave the room. Eta's gone to sleep, but his jacket and shoes are out, ready for him, along with a thermos of homemade soup, the note upon which reads, "RED LENTIL SOUP. WARM IN MICROWAVE. EAT AND SEEK COMFORT IN THE CYCLE OF LIFE."

It's an old District tradition, not that either Jason or Swann would know that, but Eta tries to help where she can.

"Thank you," Jason says, and it's to the only Avox he's ever said such a thing to. He looks at the note and laughs to himself, mirthlessly, quiet. He'll seek comfort in the fact that they'll all die eventually, that he and Swann will reach that peaceful blackness when their trials here are done.

He slips into the shoes and jacket and heads home, driving slowly, and when he gets back to the manor he tells Peggy he's going to sleep and curls up in his bed with the door closed and locked. He sends Swann a text.

got home. good night.

Swann turns out the light when Jason leaves, but can't sleep until she either hears something from him or just passes out. She holds her phone, face bathed in the light of the screen as she idly entertains herself with some inane game she downloaded just to play while waiting for Sponsors to arrive to their meetings.

She sighs and smiles a little, sends her answer and then lets her phone lie on the pillow next to her, a replacement for Jason's head. It only takes a few minutes for her to fall asleep, her arms stretched out in front of her like a ragdoll.

<3 good night

The next morning is where Jason has to decide whether or not he's actually taking the entire week off work, or coming back for a Friday. When he wakes up, for about ten minutes he honestly convinces himself that he's going to come in to work, and he showers and shaves and puts the product in his hair - and then partway through getting dressed he stops as suddenly as if someone's cut his gasline, and ten minutes later up in his mother's bedroom, sitting on the chair in the corner, watching the sun lance in on an unmade bed and smelling camphor so strong even he registers it.

No one made the bed when they carried his mother out. He should probably start cleaning up the room, and he looks and fumbles around, knowing his mother had more possessions than the rest of the household combined, glancing over baubles and medical supplies and magazines. A hologram frame next to her bed still shows pictures of the family in rotation, none of Caddy, most of Caroline herself in younger years. Her clock still reads the time. Her wardrobe would have fit a woman much larger than her and Jason realizes the only clothes that still were her size was nightrobes and pajamas.

i'll come over tonight, he texts Swann, but he doesn't eat breakfast this time and instead stays home again, rooting through the closet methodically and apathetically.

Swann wakes as normal, is completely dressed and ready to go before she realizes that she doesn't know whether she should be expecting Jason to pick her up, whether he's even out of bed. She waits until she can't any longer, calls a car and climbs in the backseat with her pets. Her hands are shaking with worry.

He texts her and she calms down just a little, enough to function and text him back, ok. please eat something. <3 you, then set her phone in her lap and look out the window until she's dropped off at work, where she spends another day sequestered in the Escort Suite. She only leaves when it's most necessary, when someone calls for her, but she looks so wound up that she's pretty much left alone.

He doesn't respond to that text message, but he does show up around dinner time at Swann's place. Hunger is finally starting to kick in, because despite Swann's instructions and the gift Eta gave him he hasn't had anything since the toast last night except camphor vapor.

It doesn't feel like he's making an escape from the atom bomb that dropped on his life a few days ago. He feels like he's running pellmell, not away from the unhappiness and the anger and sorrow but laterally to it, not towards recovery but perpendicular.

He buzzes in and Eta lets him up.

Both Swann and Eta seem surprised to see him this early in the evening, but pleased, and they're both lingering around the door when he comes in. Swann's only been home for about half an hour, so Eta's just put dinner in the oven, but already the smell is wafting through the air.

"Hi," Swann says, reaching for his arm when he walks in.

"Hi." Jason shuffles over to her and takes her arm, then kisses her on the cheek. He doesn't tell her he's frustrated that it's been five whole days and he isn't over this funk, or even admit to her that he's still in this funk. That it might not be a funk at all.

He almost just wants to tell her that today he didn't sleep eighteen hours, that he put away some of his mother's things for storage or the dump or something besides lying around her room, like a kid might present a good report card, but decides against it.

"How was your day?"

She strokes his face when he kisses her, and gently leads him toward the living room to curl up together on the sofa. "No bad," she murmurs, wrapping herself around him like a vine, running her fingers through his hair, over his neck. "Nothing special happening, everything's fine over there."

Swann lets that settle for a moment before gently continuing, "You seem a little better today."

"I didn't sleep all day, for one." He didn't eat either, but he doesn't tell her that. He curls up with her, pulling her against him so that she's resting her head on his shoulder. He still lies like a sack of cement, boneless and lifeless and with about as much warmth as a computer programmed for the bare minimum of physical affection.

"If you all don't miss me I may as well not come back at all."

"That's good."

She sighs and lets her weight lie against him, her arms locked around his waist, running her hand along his side. She's still not expecting much affection, feels better to simply lavish it on him instead.

"No one said that. I just said things are under control. Wednesday won't talk to anyone without you, you know, and really, no one else can keep Ruffnut in line. But it's okay, it's not so bad that you need to rush yourself. Like I said, nothing special is happening. Just the ordinary."

"Try talking to Wednesday about torture and plague. She likes those topics. And try putting sedatives in Ruffnut's cereal. That's what I do." He's joking, but not by much. As much as he isn't ready to go back to work, knows he isn't ready to a level even he can't deny, he still wants to be essential. With Caroline dead, Jason's job is in jeopardy, because his attitude problems and propensity for property damage were always excused by the Compson name and the existence of someone old enough to remember it.

He doesn't think Swann knows that, realizes what's at stake, and maybe he doesn't really know it either in any way that changes how he acts. He's been an Escort a long time. He's had a lot of meetings that stopped just short of disciplinary.

"How are the funeral arrangements?" He seems, suddenly, barely able to get that sentence out, like the question has up and died and staggered those last few syllables to completion not out of will but gravity.

It's never occurred to Swann that his job might be at risk; even with his attitude and the damage he causes, he's still a good, reliable Escort, and so she never thinks they'd let him go. After all, it's not like there's a line of replacements waiting in the wings. Or maybe it's just so ingrained in her mind to never worry about these things, because her father makes sure she doesn't have to.

He'd probably keep Jason employed if it made Swann happy.

"I have everything lined up, we're just waiting for you to decide on a date and guest list so invitations can go out. The lily fields at the botanical garden for the venue, and the catering is already ordered. Her diamond should be finished next week. Do you want her set in something, or loose like your father and Quentin?"

No matter how bad anything gets, at least it'll be a beautiful memorial. Swann's made sure of that.

"Thank you." Ball's in his court now, coming up with the will to dredge into his mother's history enough to figure out the list of who should come and who shouldn't, a list less to do with friendship or worth than politics and debt. All the right families will have to be invited, which takes a certain social savvy, and then those families will probably send a delegate or two out of respect not for Caroline but for Jason Compson the Second, dead before Jason was even born, or find polite covers for declining. Most of the mourners who do attend will use the reception as a place to try and set up their sons and daughters for the appropriate marriages, or a gossip hub, a fashion runway for dresses and suits and fascinators in shades of black.

"Might as well set her loose. It saves money."

He still has to call Maury. He got a plea for money from his uncle this morning, asking why the funds Maury'd been drawing from Caroline's account hadn't been processed, and Jason had taken five minutes to block Maury's line of credit on the Compson name entirely. Even Jason realizes that he's better equipped to reckon with Carolne's finances than most sons would be, since he's had her power of attorney for nearly twenty years. He knows where the debt is, when the creditors will come to collect, how much is left in every account.

And that's why he has to ask Swann a question he already knows the answer to, because she wouldn't decline him, won't even understand why to even let the words out of his mouth feel like clots of blood from deep up in his gut.

"Swann, I...I can't afford the bill to have her pressed. I tried to pay it on credit and my outstanding debt is too high for them to take it. It's goddamn highway robbery, putting their hands in a man's pocket when his mother's body isn't even in the stone yet, and you'd think those damn bank sharks would show a little lenience to someone who has a house to sell them, even one that's half-rotten, the land it's on is still valuable..." He rubs at his temple with one hand, letting himself ramble as if each subsequent word erases the confession of his empty-handedness.

Swann doesn't understand how it feels to need money, no, but she understands the pain of asking for help when you shouldn't have to, don't want it but need it. When she was twenty-two, just beginning to truly gain steam on television and spending every night drinking and high out of her mind, she once broke down, told her father that she felt crazy and needed help.

He told her she needed sleep and sent her to a spa for two weeks.

She didn't say anything else as her life spiraled down, never said a word even when doctors were swarming around her, pumping her stomach and cleaning her blood so that she could live, not sure if she'd make it without brain damage.

Swann lets Jason ramble for a bit, knows that just getting it out will make him feel slightly better because he likes to rant, and then she gently takes his hand from his head, just holding it as she looks up at him. "How much do you need?" she asks, because it's true that she would never say no, but he's also the first boyfriend who's seen asking for money as a shameful thing, rather than thinking of Swann as a backup piggy bank, an eventual jackpot reward if they could just spin the right combination of slots. She's a prize to most people not because of who she is, but because of who she will be someday.

But Jason doesn't think about her that way. She knows he doesn't, because he never really thinks about the future that hard.

He gives her the number. It's not something exorbitant for a funeral cost, but it's also not cheap, not something most people could dip into easily, but they aren't most people; they're Capitolites, citizens of a world that throws money at people like them for existing, for being born within city limits and with the parents in the right hospitals. The stakes for presentation are higher for them than for anyone else because the stakes for every other thing are so much lower.

He doesn't kiss her, although at that instant he does want to, with them so close together and him hungrier for comfort than he thought, because that would really make this a favor, a gift, charity, Swann swooping in to rescue him when this whole last few days has seemed a slew of rescues and the future looks like more pitholes to fall down in and need help from. He doesn't say 'thank you', either.

He gives her hand a squeeze and rests his head against her knuckles.

"That bitch stole everything when she ran off. Twenty years of savings. I thought I was playing it smart by keeping it out of the banks, with all the-" all the Rebel incidents- "all the scam artists out there, so I kept it in the house. I've worked since I was fifteen years old and they won't even loan me the money to lay my mother to rest."

He sighs and it seems to go down his chest and then just stop at his stomach like a creature submerging itself back in a lake. His life never spiraled like hers so much as sank, and the future is the depths. Swann exists in the present, because he feels like he's fighting every moment he has her to keep her.

Swann has her phone in hand, types in the right passwords to wire transfer three times that amount -- it's not automatic, it'll go through someone on the Honeymead financial team in the morning, but he'll have the money by nightfall tomorrow. She's already covered all the other costs of the funeral, the upfront stuff, and it doesn't bother her to pay for the rest of it. The bigger thought in her mind is that if he can't afford the funeral, he's not going to be able to afford everything else, even the minimum of care necessary for Benjy. He won't be able to afford to fix the house or demolish it, costing him probably a good quarter of the value either way.

He needs someone to care for him. He's spent so much time caring for her.

She squeezes his hand back, kisses the crown of his head, and clicks her phone locked, setting it off to the side. "It's not worth thinking about. We're going to take care of everything, your mother's going to have the funeral she deserves," she murmurs, letting their heads rest together. "What color pillows do your father and Quentin have? I'll order her case tomorrow, I was waiting to find out what you wanted to do."

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OUR POOR CAPITOL BABIES ;A;

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