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

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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.

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"I know." His smile flickers again.

"I can start thinking about, you know. About moving forward." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself as much as her. That moving forward isn't terrifying but has an actual opportunity to it. He's never been good at seeing anything but a black hole in his future, and now that's blinked out and left - God, he doesn't even know. "Once I get rid of the house..."

He should offer to move in with her, but he doesn't.

It's easy for her to tell that he's still trying to take the first step and start really moving forward. She knows it must be hard, even on just a material level; she can't imagine selling Honeymead Manor, even if she never lives there again.

"Well, there's still work to be done on the house," she says slowly, rubbing his hand again, "so you have some time to look around and see what's out there. Like if you want to get a place closer to work or something." She's silent for a moment, then looks up at him. "You can always come live with me, too. It's not like I don't have room, and your wardrobe is already mostly at my place."

"God, I feel like if I don't get rid of it in the next week it's just going to cling to me forever. Like a tumor or something." And yet he can't bear to not sleep there. He rests at an impasse with his own family home.

He furrows his brow a bit and doesn't look at her, just the road. "I'll consider it. I'm not making any promises. You know I like my space sometimes."

"I know."

It's all she says in return, looking forward as well, at the road racing under the car. It's just an offer, and to her it makes sense, because he doesn't even really have enough money to be paying for a new place. But it's his decision, not hers.

"The assessors can come out and look at the property after the funeral, once the will is officially executed. They'll tell you the value on the estate, whether you should fix it up or sell it as-is, which will make more money. It's still your choice, though."

On some level, he knows that it would be best to just live with her, but it also turns his stomach for reasons that have nothing to do with their relationship and everything to do with the way the emptiness in his bank account seems to have nothing but shame to fill the blank space.

"I can't believe she left half of everything to Ben," Jason mutters, mood souring for a second. "I just want to burn it down, honestly."

She can never piece together how to make him understand that she doesn't care about his money at all, that it doesn't represent success or failure to her. After all, surely they would eventually want to live together, and Swann's place simply makes more sense -- she owns it free and clear, it's exactly the right size for the two of them and Eta, and it's a good building.

But maybe he just doesn't want to live with her. She doesn't like to think about that.

"Actually, I talked to one of Daddy's lawyers about that, just because I was wondering? I mean, what is Ben going to do with old furniture, right? Anyway, he says that Ben actually can't legally take possession of half the estate. As his custodian, you do have to put his money in trust, but with Ben going to a care facility, you really just need to provide proof that you're providing for his upkeep."

She glances at him from the side of her eye. "And since he'll have to move before you can sell, I've already had a year's worth of care reserved for him, mostly because I didn't want to lose the spot and paying was the easiest way to keep it open for him. Daddy's lawyer says that with a year's worth of proof, you're unlikely to ever be audited for withdrawing from his trust." There's a pregnant pause, and she examines at her nails, making a mental note that she needs a new manicure. "For his care, of course."

The Honeymead crest on her arm catches light for just a moment as her diamond bracelet slides over it.

His eyes narrow as he thinks of that, and the truth is he's impressed, didn't realize that Swann had the financial savvy to pull that off. The way she treats money is with a certain casual attitude that the Compsons even at their zenith in Jason's lifetime couldn't manage. He forgets, sometimes, that Swann ran her own television show, that she's the only Escort that gives him competition and might even best him for the most productive.

He should have thought of it himself. He knew all this, of course - he's been both Ben's and his mother's legal caretaker for long enough, and Miss Quentin's before she ran off and effectively terminated her conservatorship - but the facts are all spread in different parts of his head and there's just too much of a mess in there right now to connect anything.

He thinks grief should be something that only hurts you in your emotions, in your heart, perhaps. Instead it scrambled up his head and thoughts and has made him tired and pained and sick to his stomach for the last week. It's holistic, holistically terrible and overwhelming.

"God knows I've earned it, taking care of his slobbering self for the last twenty years." He raises his eyebrows. "There's no sign on the proof of care that it was your money that got him the year's reserve?"

She squeezes his hand a little and shakes her head. "Money's in escrow, of course they can't take possession of it until they actually start caring for him. It's all wire transfer from an account under Ben's name with you as cosignatory and executor."

Twisting a lock of her hair around one finger, she glances back at Marcel and Pascal, both of whom have dozed off while the humans are talking. "Once his half is determined, you can break it into multiple trusts for the interest rates. Really, as long as it's ensured that one account can bear enough to support him annually -- which creative accounting should be able to handle, combined with the right interest rate -- the other accounts are unlikely to be questioned. Or even discovered."

Then she beams at him as if she weren't proposing he steal money from his own brother. "And anyway, I plan to negotiate the monthly rate at the institution down, it shouldn't be hard. Which, if I get what I want, will push the initial year's payment closer to eighteen months' worth."

Swann does care for Ben, and absolutely intends to keep providing for him for the rest of his life, but she sees no real reason that he's entitled to half the estate when Jason's been the one bearing the weight for half his life.

Edited 2015-09-23 21:53 (UTC)

She may be the only person in his immediate circle with as keen an eye for hiding money, and he can't help but be a little turned on by it. When he turns to her, it's with a grin that lands in that strange intersection between proud and lecherous and impressed.

"I'm half a second away from signing my half of the estate to you too," he whispers, giving her hand a squeeze. It feels like such an affirmation for someone to agree that he deserves the lion's share of the piddly remains of the Compson estate (God knows there wasn't much to claim). It feels like a vindication for all that prescribed suffering and hardship.

"What about what she left to Maury? Is there any way I can keep that from him? The bastard billed me for expenses to travel to the funeral of his own sister."

Giggling at his smile, she leans her head back on the seat to look at him with a sort of adoration, like she can't imagine being happier than having pleased him so much. She puts her other hand on the other side of his, holding it between them like something precious. Her mouth twists a little bit.

"Depends on what she left. Probably not if it's tangible goods, you know, heirlooms or anything like that, but if she left him money, I might be able to think of something. And if I can't, I have people who know the laws better, they can always figure it out."

Honeymead employees tend to be more loyal than most, because they're well-compensated and taken care of, and also because the Honeymeads themselves, Ilar and Swann, they're just too hard to dislike. And the highest teams of accountants and lawyers, the ones that care for Ilar and Swann personally, well, there's very little they'll say no to. Working around estate laws is a piece of cake for them.

"It was mostly heirlooms, things that have been Bascomb property for generations-" for all Caroline's insistence that Jason was hardly a Compson, somehow the will didn't devise him the belongings, not that he wanted most of them anyway, "-which, for the record, Maury is asking me to pay shipping on. Whatever. He's in for a surprise when he tries to draw from that auxiliary account Mother had set up for him. I emptied that one a week ago."

He sighs, then looks at Swann with a fond smile, one that comes from being able to honestly discuss these greedy thoughts not only with judgment, but with collusion.

"If I'd have known she was going to keel over dead, honestly, I'd have used that power of attorney and redrafted the will. No one would have thought anything of it."

"Hm." Swann looks thoughtful. "Maybe... if you can find a buyer that you can be sure he'd never see... well, things get lost in transit all the time, right?" It's not as brilliant a plan as she might otherwise come up with, but it's something. "All you need is proof of shipping and you're cleared. Which you can get from any old mail clerk who needs a couple of assi." She tilts her head a little bit, one corner of her mouth turned up. "Maybe those lost antiques were insured, even. Use some of that to pad out Ben's account, it's really no difference to throw a little extra in."

She squeezes his hand again and her heart flutters, and it's warm in her chest. She loves him so much.

"Well, you can't plan for everything. But it's easy to take care of these little problems. Honestly, no one's really going to come poking after Maury's portion of the will, your mother was the only person left in Panem who gave a damn about him."

"You know, honestly, if I just held onto it Maury would probably never come around for it. I'd just get occasional letters imploring me to take a little pity on his, because I'm his darling nephew." Jason rolls his eyes and spits those words. "We'll figure out something."

By now it's a point of vengeance to do so.

"Everyone knows the Bascombs were always just a family with one hand out. Just because Mother got a wedding ring in her palm instead of a fistful of cash doesn't mean that that's not what that side of the family has for a legacy."

That makes it worse, maybe, that Jason can't stand on his own, that he's never been expected to because of the lineages he comes from, that collision of parasitic and crazy. That any failure wouldn't even be his to wallow in, but the product of his breeding.

"Well, is there anything you do want to keep? You know, for wherever you move to?" As much as she knows Jason wants to just be done with it all, he doesn't own any of his own furniture. It might be nice to have a bed or a desk, flatware and things like that. "Keep that, sell the rest, and don't leave a forwarding address. Don't tell him where Ben is either, in case he goes and tries something funny."

It's true. The Bascombs were always a rung lower on the social ladder than the Compsons, and by the time Jason's parents came around, the Compsons had already fallen a few rungs themselves. Swann really doesn't know anyone with nice things to say about the Bascombs, at least not without going back half-a-dozen generations.

She brings his hand up and kisses his knuckles, purring with sympathy. "You're not like any of them. You're like the original Jason, the one who made the Compsons into something. That's whose blood you have, not the drunk, insane blood, or the needy Bascomb blood. You're a real Compson."

"No, not especially." Jason's belongings as an adult have been pretty spartan, especially by Capitol standards. He has a bed, a dresser, some suitcases and shoes, a rack of ties and a shaving kit, not much else. "God, Maury would. Maury's probably try and take money out of Ben's hands, too. He has no scruples."

As if they haven't spent the last ten minutes talking about how to fleece Benjy's inheritance or anything like that.

Jason exhales deep from his nose, thinking that even the original Jason was a maniac, just managed to focus it into being a war hawk and politician. But it matters for Swann to believe in him. If he had to choose between the world believing in him or just Swann, he'd take her. "I'm the last one, you know. Well, I mean, there's Ben, but presuming I outlive him."

Just like she's the last Honeymead.

Well, Swann can see a difference between them and Maury, because in their plan, Ben is still provided for, taken care of. He's not robbed blind and left in the cold -- it's just redistributing money that would otherwise sit locked in an account for the rest of time. And Jason may not care about Ben, but she knows he cares just enough to want to protect him from someone as terrible as Maury swooping in.

Or at least he hates Maury enough to want to protect Ben. Whatever, same difference.

"Okay, so we get someone to appraise the good stuff, then toss out whatever's left over. So that's a bunch of solutions planned out." It always makes Swann feel better to have a course of action, steps she can follow. She's gotten a lot accomplished in this short time that way.

She looks thoughtful, if in a sad way, and kisses his fingers again. "I know. Do you think it matters? You know, that we're the last ones?" She knows it matters, at least on her end, that if they don't run away like they promised, she'll have to have children, because she can't sell the company. And she's not opposed to children but it scares her, because she knows she has something dark inside her and she would never want to curse a child with that weight. "Sometimes it feels like I'm disappointing Daddy, that I don't have any kids."

We are talking about a man who seriously considered leaving his brother by the side of the road in a box all week.

He nods, not as enthused about all the moving forward as she is but glad that she's at least settled into something. Her comfort buoys his up just a bit, and he's clinging to just about anything these days. "I'll want to rummage through everything before an appraisal man comes in. I know my grandfather had some materials I'll need to destroy or catalog with the government so they don't end up in a showroom somewhere."

Not that he actually plans on destroying them; there's a certain value, not even just practical but prideful, in having a bargaining chip for a shaky, hazy future.

"I want to believe it only matters if we let it," he says after a moment, because he knows that that's just a fantasy. It'll always matter who they are, all the names and deeds and heritages they carry on their shoulders, twined in their choked, polluted DNA, tucked into every wrinkle on the brain. "I'm never having children. I already raised one and you know how that turned out. Maybe that'll be what your father needs to decide he doesn't like me after all."

Hating Maury more than Ben still counts, it's already been said. Also, Ben is a huge guy, where was Jason even going to get a box that size without buying a new refrigerator?

"I'll schedule for next week, that should be enough time to get everything gathered up," she says, nodding, and it makes perfect sense to her, because every Capitol family with even a modicum of power in their family's history, even generations back, has things like that, things that even the servant class will cling to until absolutely forced to trade it for money or influence. Swann doesn't even know the extent of her family's documents and bits of evidence that have been hidden away in safes and secret cubbies around the family home.

She looks out the window with her brow knit, frowning, turning it all over in her head. "Don't you think there's a difference between raising someone else's child and raising your own?" she finally asks, and it's not that she's so determined to change his mind on actually having children so much as simply being willing say it's a possibility. Because her father will harangue her over it when he thinks the two of them are serious enough, will guilt her and put his weight into her until she relents and finds someone to marry and have at least one child with.

No one cares who you love as long as appearances are kept up. If she needs to live two lives, she can.

Who says he wouldn't use the refrigerator?

Jason feels his guts tighten when she's silent for that moment, when she doesn't agree with him instantly. He wants to jump in and talk over the silence, to erase her chance to disagree with a barrage of explanations, his tower of logic and reason.

"Do you think there is? My parents raised their own children and we all ended up disasters. I raised someone else's kids and she grew up into a worthless little bitch of a girl. What I say it doesn't matter. There's nothing worth bringing a kid into anyway."

But he knows, deep down, that she wouldn't stand up to her father for him any more than he would his mother.

It still necessitates spending money for a new refrigerator, which we all know Jason is way too cheap to do while he still has a functioning one.

"You didn't want to raise Quentin," Swann points out softly. "It wasn't like you were acting as a father to her. You took care of her, but you can't say it was the same as really raising her. I don't know. It just seems like something we're supposed to do, keep the bloodlines going. Not you and me specifically, all of us, I mean. Even the servants. Without our people having kids, Panem will just keep filling with more and more Districter blood, until eventually that's all that left."

She lets her forehead rest on the window, where the glass is cool and comfortable.

"I guess it's just complicated."

He could just eat dry ramen for the rest of his time at home. That's not a completely absurd possibility.

"It's simple enough to me." Where Swann's soft, Jason's voice gets hard, desperate, an exaggeration of surety to cover the cracks of uncertainty. "A few kids aren't going to outnumber all the Districters breeding like rabbits anyway. Besides, no child of mine would have a damn chance. There's too much bad blood in my family."

He chews on his tongue.

"Don't you think I'm right?" he asks.

"I'm not going to make you have kids or anything, Jason," she says instead of answering him directly. And she wouldn't, would never try to trick or trap him, though she'd also never get rid of a child if they happened to have an accident. Swann sighs and closes her eyes, tries not to feel overwhelmed by her conflicting emotions on this subject.

"It's not like it matters right now anyway."

"I'd be lucky if any kid of mine wasn't born with three heads or half a brain or something," he mutters, kneading his fingers into his scalp. "It doesn't matter now anyway. You're right. Marriage isn't even on the table."

There's a pause as he realizes that he's chewing long and hard on his own foot, smacking Swann's heart around carelessly.

"Right now, I mean."

In that pause, she blinks at him, feeling like he just socked her in the face, and she looks profoundly hurt. She doesn't cry, doesn't say anything at all, just glances at him with that pained expression and then turns back to the window, curling up tightly in her seat.

"Of course," she answers distantly, because she knows as well as he does that he doesn't mean it, that he doesn't want to marry her. Ever.

"Don't be like that. You know what I mean." Jason feels like the floor's sinking down beneath him, like he's suddenly taken a step off a stair and found no ground. "We haven't even been together a year, Swann."

He feels panic - not like hers, not fearful but listless, angry - rising in his throat.

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

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