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

She knows, logically, that she's helping, at least at the basest level of actually getting tasks done, but she doesn't feel like she's doing any more than that, any more than a personal assistant would be doing. He doesn't let her in enough to feel like she's actually improving more than that.

Swann strokes his head and then leans hers against it, takes another few bites of her food before setting the bowl off to the side and just curling up with him, her arms around his waist too. "I just want you to feel better, just a little bit," she murmurs.

"I'd like that too." He's dimly frustrated, because he isn't trying to be this unhappy, he just doesn't know what to do. He's helpless and tired and confused and hopeless.

He sets his bowl aside too and sighs so deep it changes his posture. Maybe it's something he should talk about. Maybe it's something he can, for the moment, just with Swann, if only to make Swann feel like he's opening up. He takes a deep breath and expels it all at once in a rush of words. "I miss her. I didn't think I would. I miss her so much."

She's around him as soon as he slumps, her arms and her hands surrounding him, on his neck and in his hair, her cheek on his shoulder. "She was your mom, Jason," Swann says softly. "No matter what else there was between you two, there was love. Maybe not the healthiest, but who am I to judge? She loved you so much, in her way."

There's a brief pause, and she hooks her leg over his, just to be even more entangled together. "And she was part of your life, everyday. It's like missing a chunk of the routine, you know? Anything is like that, losing something you're so used to. You miss it."

If he wanted to be cruel - and to nearly anyone else he would be - he could say that Swann's the last person to judge about a healthy relationship with her mother, that damn right she has no foot to stand on. But even in this state he won't do that to Swann now.

"She was the only person in my whole family who ever gave a damn about me," he says quietly, wrapping himself around Swann, clutching at her. Words seem to hurt coming out of his throat, like they have to be forced out. There's one less person in the world who loves him, and the bastion of worth he worshiped at since childhood is fallen.

Yeah, that would actually lack the sting he's going for, because Swann is aware that she has a terrible relationship with her mother, if it can even be called a relationship. She's not stubbornly blind about it, the way he is.

Her hand runs slowly through his hair, keeping rhythm, her nails very lightly raking on his scalp. "I know," she whispers, nodding just a little. "But not your whole life. You still have people. Your mother would be glad for that." Or at least Swann hopes, hopes that she wouldn't want to abandon her son to an empty world.

Jason's taken pretending his relationship with his mother is fine and normal from a habit to an Olympic sport.

"I don't know that she would be. She wouldn't trust you, you know. She honestly thought there was no one that wouldn't try to hurt me, and God knows the rest of my family didn't do a damn thing to dissuade that." Maybe she didn't truly believe that; maybe it was just a convenient way to sever Jason's ties to anyone else, so he would be forced to rest all his weight on her.

He slides against Swann and buries his face against her shoulder, breathing her in as if he's trying to replace all the air in his lungs with her.

Edited 2015-08-14 23:17 (UTC)

Swann shrugs. The worse the problems Caroline had caused between the two of them, the less Swann cared what she thought. Besides, Caroline was crazy and also a Compson, and try as she might, Swann has some difficulties taking that seriously. Even with Jason, she can't bring herself to care about his name unless she's smearing it in the face of someone below him on the ladder.

"She didn't know me," Swann says simply, with a tone that implies that she just doesn't mind what his mother believed in her crazy head. "Because I won't try to hurt you. Ever." She's discounting barbs during fights, but everyone stoops to that, no one is completely innocent. "She still wouldn't want you to be alone."

Her fingers run through his hair again, and she rests her head on his.

He nods. His fingers clench and release at her clothing in a way that looks like a newborn child's more than anything else. And he doesn't believe her, not because of anything she's done or any threat she's made but because he's never had anyone on his side, had his mother hew them away when he was a child and forced them away himself when he was an adult.

It's all irrational, like the fuse that keeps him if not reasonable than practical has completely blown. He feels guilty for his closeness to Swann, for having spent the last few months (years, for having spent years) going behind his mother's back, for hating her and wishing she were dead and getting what he said he wanted.

"I feel alone still." He figures that each word is like driving a knife into Swann, but it's true. His eyes fill with tears and he tries to blink them back and wipe them away, frustrated and artless. "God. I miss her. Swann, I didn't think I'd miss her."

It hurt distantly, but not in an unexpected way, and so she can handle it. She doesn't mention that he's crying, just keeps holding to him, because that's the best thing she has to offer him.

"I know. It'll take time before you feel any better, before it starts to fade back some. All you can do is wait it out." She looks into the distance as she says it, because she can't think of anything else helpful, knows that anything else would be temporary distraction at best.

She combs out a little tangle in his hair with her finger, and nuzzles her cheek together. "And I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere."

She doesn't need to mention it. The tears keep coming, the wall down as he lets her in, as he fails to hide how much it hurts until he just stops trying, breath in sobs and gasps, tears running down over those cheekbones he inherited from his father, over the two day-old stubble and into her clothing, his clothing. He doesn't fight it anymore, doesn't choke it down with a towel or will or pride. He lets himself feel the grief entirely as it roars through him like a banshee.

"Alright. Alright." He grasps around for her hand and finds it, squeezes it hard enough to turn both their fingers red. "You'll stay here while I wait it out. You'll stay with me."

She wraps herself more fully around him, as much as she can, cocooning him like a blanket. His sobs wrack through her, shake her a bit, and she doesn't mind, only holds him tighter because it's all she has to offer him. She whispers to him, vague comforts, that it'll be okay, that she's here.

"Of course I will," she murmurs, and her hand shoots through with pins and needles as he squeezes it. "I'll stay with you forever if you want me to."

He lets her hand go and cries himself out. Soon enough there are no tears, only sound and jerking motions rolling from his throat and lungs. They hold each other tight enough that they may as well be wend together skin and skin. He feels like a puppet being animated by a force he doesn't know or understand, forced into this sorrow, body bending to an emotion too large and thick to fit inside him.

Then he's quiet for a while, letting her tend to the wounds (he is one gaping wound) with her words. He catches his breath.

"Yes. Yes," he murmurs. Yes, he wants her to stay with him forever. He needs her to. He resettles his head onto her chest. "I feel a little better."

It's not much. Maybe he's just exhausted. Maybe a crying fit like that is like vomiting up something bad, not enough to cure the body but enough to expel the immediate poison. Maybe now that he isn't full to the brim with it he can take in some of Swann's love.

Swann never lets go, just holds him as tightly as she can and never loosens her grip. She has little to give him or say that can fix the immediate pain, can only let him spill it out onto her through his tears and cries, like a child who's finally grown too tired and grumpy to hold himself together anymore.

In a selfish way, one that she tries to push from her mind, it makes her feel good. Needed. She's the only person in the whole world who can provide this for him. Who can be trusted.

"Shhh," she says, and nods, strokes his hair again. "I know, you'll feel better a little bit at a time." She sighs and leans her head against the back of the sofa. "I love you," she says softly, tenderly, her voice as gentle as a blanket.

She doesn't love him like Caroline loved him. He's not a possession or a life preserver meant to serve her. Jason is Swann's other half.

He goes loose, limp, completely without tension in his muscles anymore.

"I love you too," he says, for the second time this month because he can't even feel the fear necessary to hold him back from saying it. He just lets it flow out of him. He feels barely there anymore, just a conduit for moods stronger than him that come from on high and use his body like a marionette.

"I need to go home. I can't sleep here, I keep hearing her upstairs and I don't..." He doesn't want to miss it, to sleep in silence. Maybe he should be bothered and afraid of sounds he knows aren't real, but they're the closest he has to having her (and that life before she died) back.

It worries Swann, that he wants to torture himself by going back to the sounds -- it doesn't seem odd to her that his mind is playing those tricks, trying to adjust, but she doesn't want him to get addicted to that, something that isn't real and never will be. But she can't make herself say it out loud, bring it up at all.

"Okay," she whispers, and kisses the top of his head. "If you're sure."

Until he's ready to leave, she's ready to just lie here, holding him.

"I'm not sure of anything." But he's not willing to take advice, either. It's that stubborn Compson streak, winding its way back through his bloodline to time immemorial.

He lies there with her for a while, then finally gets up and gives her a kiss on the cheek. He's wearing the last hour on his face, in the redness and puffiness around his eyes, the glazed expression, the vulnerability he isn't bothering to try and hide for her. He looks into her eyes for a while like he's looking for something, but doesn't give any indication either that he's given up or that he's found it.

"I'll be back to work on Monday. I'll lose my mind if I'm not," he says, more certain than when he said it earlier today.

She holds his face until he pulls away, stops looking for whatever he's trying to find in her eyes, her hands soft on his face as she looks back. Her thumbs run gently over his cheeks, grazing some of the puffiness under his eyes.

"I'll make sure everything's ready for you." She smiles weakly, kisses his closed lips. "Is there anything else I can do for you? Anything you need?" There's no end to what she's willing to give to him.

"No. You've already come up with and finished more than I realized needed to be done."

He could keep asking. Probably the men she dated before would have. It would be so easy to suck her dry and leave her nothing but a shell when she is so eager to bare meat and pearlstone to him. But he won't, because by now even what he wants from her he'll earn.

He gets up and takes a last few bites of chicken and dumpling from the bowl.

"Let me know, okay?"

She sits up, watches him eat, and worries more. Worries that he's trying to be strong than he is, less fragile, more put together. That he'll fall apart again in the night, when he thinks he hears Caroline and there's nothing at the top of the stairs. About a million other things because that's how her mind works, seeks refuge in fretting and fear instead of hope.

Swann reaches for his hand.

"Alright. Sure. Do you want me to come look at any of the, um." He rubs the back of his head, trying to clear the clouds enough to come up with words. "Any of the cases or flowers or whatever for the arrangements. I mean, I trust your judgment. It doesn't matter. Forget it."

He sighs and sets the bowl down.

"Talk to me through the weekend, alright? I don't want to lose track of the days again."

"Only if you want to." Really, it's all been done, chosen and paid for, so he wouldn't even really be giving approval. But if it makes him feel better, then she's happy to show him her choices, let him feel like he's having a say in it all.

"Are you not going to come back then?"

"Do you want me to?"

He should come back tomorrow. Tomorrow and the day after. At the very least having one task to do during the day, when he can't even guarantee that he'll feed himself, will give him some sort of routine.

He grabs his coat and wipes his face again.

"I always want you to."

She follows him toward the door, hopes that he'll keep coming back. Maybe he'll start to feel better, spending more time away from the oppressive air of his house, from lingering memories and whispering voices swirling all around his head. Maybe she'll come up with something more to give, some kind of cream to slap on the wound.

"I'm not all that pleasant to be around right now," he says, giving her a kiss before he leaves.

He doesn't fall apart when he gets home. He goes to sleep, and then he gets up at some ungodly hour and goes to the dining room, which has no surveillance, and calls Lorraine. He talks to her for a while, or rather, they sit in silence on other ends of the phone while Jason takes eternities to string together sentences to explain what's happened, and she suggests he visit, and he tells her that he won't be anymore, that he has a girlfriend now. And so they keep talking, for a few hours, and then he hangs up and she goes back to sleep, and they don't know when or if they'll speak again.

On Saturday he shows up at Swann's in the morning, underslept but at least a bit more lively than he was. He grabs coffee from Eta and waits for Swann to wake up at the kitchen table. He even goes so far as to eat a fresh-baked pastry that Eta's prepared. When Swann emerges he looks up at her.

"Let's go somewhere. I don't care where."

"That doesn't matter." She touches his face when he kisses her and watches him go.

Swann spends the night restless, never getting more than an hour of light sleep in before waking back up. She sits up and stares into the darkness through some of it, wanders the apartment for others, finds herself sitting on the floor in the foyer with Marcel for a while. It's not until daybreak that she actually falls asleep, to the dim blue glow seeping under curtains as it gets lighter and lighter, lulling her until she snores into her pillow.

It's probably a good forty-five minutes before she blearily walks into the kitchen, grabbing coffee of her own and a croissant spread with butter. "Hi," she mutters, leaning to kiss his cheek, and sits next to him. "Any ideas you had in mind?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject