Jason Compson IV (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whatisay) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-08-03 09:50 am
whatisay) wrote in thecapitol2015-08-03 09:50 am
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.
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.
no subject
"I'm letting oxygen into your house. That's what I'm doing."
He turns away from the window and drops the pack of plastic bottles he's been carrying down by where Jason's sitting. They're mealshakes, basically -- enough nutrients to live on, easy to consume. He brought you Capitol Soylent, Jason. But since it's the Capitol and, with few exceptions, they don't hate themselves, it's not disgusting.
"And doing my part to make sure you don't starve."
no subject
He leans forward and looks at the plastic bottles, lip curling in disgust not at the contents of the packages but at the symbol of them, of pity, of charity. Unbidden, memories of fucking sympathy casseroles and flowers after his father's funeral twenty years ago blossom up in his head.
"Why would I starve?" Jason doesn't even really realize how he isn't even surviving right now, has smothered basic instincts under a heavy layer of inarticulate, denied grief. "Do you just need someone to baby now that you don't have a bunch of squalling Tributes?"
no subject
"I want you to sit there for a moment and try to remember the last time you ate. You don't have to tell me. I'm just reminding you. Unless you've somehow evolved the ability to live on smoke and grudges -- and if anyone could, it'd be you -- I call that starving."
no subject
"Eight o'clock," Jason says quickly, snippily. It's technically accurate, but it's also been two days since that eight o'clock dinner.
"Why not just send an Avox or something? I mean, just because you have free time on your hands..." Jason waves a hand, then lets out another plume of smoke. "I saw your comments to the network. Didn't know you had it in you."
no subject
The lack of eye contact tells Stephen all he needs to know. Jason realizes it's been two days, even if Stephen doesn't know the specifics.
"Please, like you'd listen to an Avox," Stephen says dismissively. "I guess I could have done that and saved myself the time and headache, if this had been a meaningless gesture, meant to make me feel better, that I could then immediately forget about." He cracks one of the bottles open with a click and holds it by the neck out to Jason. "Here. Get half of this down, and then we can talk about my resignation all you want." Jason clearly wants to, and Stephen can take a bit of gloating at his own expense if it means Jason's stomach isn't working on empty air and stale smoke.
no subject
Real life is wreckage, shrapnel flung out from where the gravity holding it all together gave out.
He takes the shake and eyes it suspiciously. "If you're poisoning me, I'm not sure whether to hate you or thank you for sparing me from planning the funeral."
He takes a gulp that hurts on the way down his throat and winces. "You have to give me specifics, though."
no subject
But joking about murder and self-pity to someone dealing with a death in the family seems unnecessarily cruel to Stephen, so he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't respond to the first statement.
"What, you want to hear all the reasons I'm fucking done? Or did you just want a play-by-play of how I got roughed up?"
no subject
"But go on. Tell me all the reasons you're done. I mostly just want to hear you admit that all the goodwill and benefit of the doubt you gave them got thrown in your face, just like I told you it would."