thecapitol | See How I'm Faking My Side of It? [Closed]

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See How I'm Faking My Side of It? [Closed]

WHO| Temple and Atlas, Temple and Wesker and Karkat
WHAT| Temple gets an Avox tuned up and then gets arrested.
WHERE| Tribute Center, park
WHEN| A few days after the announcement of the Arena winner.
WARNINGS| Temple stupidity, Avox abuse.

Errant Avoxes are a common fear among Capitol parents, and Temple has justifiable reason to feel jumpy about her son’s health and safety. Thus, even though it’s technically twenty minutes before Atlas gets to work, she’s outside the Avox processing desk at the Tribute Center, nervously fidgeting and applying and reapplying her lipstick next to a silent, stoic mute whom she keeps throwing foul looks at. Her son plays on a tablet next to her, dressed to the nines for no good reason other than that he’ll be seen in public and thus needs a million-assi vest that he’ll smear caviar and dijon mustard on.

She doesn’t seem able to walk out of herself anymore. She used to be able to shut down, like a computer devoid of a plug, completely vacant and dead even though her heart beat and her chest breathed. Lately she’s tethered to her flesh, and it makes her anxious. The body is so vulnerable, so susceptible to abuse. Her head snaps up when she sees Atlas approach, and instantly she thinks of him as a Districter and her as belonging to some other category.

“Oh, Atlas! Thank goodness. My Avox has been acting funny.” She wrings her hands, the perfectly-manicured nails and jangling gem-studded bracelets. “Bailey asked for a cup of coffee and this thing just used the brew in the coffeepot instead of making him a new one. You’d think for a boy his size, it would know just to give him a shot of espresso instead. And-“

Temple gestures with fitful, frightened energy-

“when it set my clothes out for me this morning? Pink and lavender. As if those match! And last week it brought me thirty proof schnapps. Do I look like a woman who drinks anything less than seventy-proof? I'm just, I'm worried. What if it goes rogue and hurts Bailey?”

II. Wesker and Karkat

The order Wesker is given is relatively simple: apprehend Bilanxus ‘Bailey’ Stevens and Temple Drake and bring her to Peacekeeper Headquarters. There are notes about Bailey to keep him unharmed, but there’s nothing about Temple other than that her life should be preserved ‘if reasonable’, and there’s an appended request that Wesker bring young, new Peacekeeper protege Karkat Vantas along to ‘watch some action’. Behind the scenes someone had suggested writing in that if Wesker couldn’t find Temple at the house that was once hers, that now belonged solely to Gowan Stevens, he should look underneath a table at the nearest nightclub, but that didn’t make it into the official command. No one would have even uttered it in the workplace a few hours ago, but Temple’s marriage has been annulled without her knowledge, leaving her naked to the ravages of Capitol oppression.

She sits, unaware, on a park bench not far from her home, watching her little boy play in a mock pirate ship half-buried in a sand pit. She smokes one of those old tobacco cigarettes and wraps an arm around her own waist. Her shoes are the sort that hurt to walk in, impossibly high and tight around the ankles, and she’s wondering about how kosher it is to have an Avox carry her back to the car. Maybe she ought to start insisting on palanquins.

She takes a long pull from her flask and tries to combat her emptiness with the pungent fumes of vodka. She is a basin that will never fill.

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God. And he's not even on the clock yet.

You learn to wear your face a certain way around this kind of Capitolite, Atlas has found. He never needed a customer-service face back when he worked in the Districts. And heaven knows he doesn't need one around the Avoxes. But some of these people-- it's not enough to look attentive, or even polite. You have to look like you empathize, because while none of them could dredge up a real emotion on behalf of another human being if you paid them, they get real angry at people who won't do so for them. Particularly when they're people who can't even afford to keep private Avoxes.

These are the kinds of uncharitable thoughts Atlas does his best not to have, most days. He puts on the right face for her. Better she's coming at the beginning of the day and not the end, right?

"Why don't you step up here, and we'll see if we can't figure out what's going on," he says. He means up next to the desk. (There's a jar of lollipops on it, next to the jar of pens, because the administrative assistant's got a sense of humor.) He beckons the Avox to him as he speaks, and it steps up obediently. "Let me get this straight-- you're telling me it's disobeying direct orders?"

Typically, Wesker's work was just that. A series of means to an ends for all parties and little. But just occasionally, he took a real pleasure in it.

The order to bring in Temple Drake crossing his desk was one of those rare moments. To be offered a front row seat in watching her break, in watching her realize that her desperate Capitol veneer was falling before her very eyes... such were the things Wesker's precious memories were made of.

He even took the order to drag the child along in stride.

He did go around to the Stevens estate first, but wasn't entirely surprised when it turned out she wasn't present - was even pleased. What was a show without an audience? An Avox, aware of Temple's schedule, was easily ordered to give up her location.

"Come along," he drawled to Karkat as they headed into the park, Wesker moving like a man out on a stroll, enjoying the sun and green.

Karkat moves like a ghost - not poltergeist rough, but the quiet haunting of something left over. He hasn't been himself since the arena, not since in the arena with the things on his mind. Death, murder, the news of his appointment to Jr. Peacekeeper status - "reward" for reporting Linden after his disappearance - and more besides in the last week and news after.

The new job would have been enough. He still has bad memories left from his brief stint in jail back before the 14th arena.

But though quiet, he is compliant. He's learned enough by now to watch his tongue around the Capitol, learned how to act right and look right and play the part. Temple might be the one who learned to step out of herself, but Karkat's built himself a shell. Now it keeps everything a layer removed. Nothing looks real as he follows Wesker, more like a dream or a movie.

Still, it's strange to think it's Temple they're taking in. He remembers her and remembers her son, and the stupid little children's book he signed for him in the book shop. She was Capitol from head to toe, but never seemed dangerous.

"What's she being arrested for?" he manages to ask.

"The order has been given," Wesker purrs, his hands folding neatly behind his back, a tall, dark ghost, gliding along the path. "That's all matters."

A lesson, for Karkat, if he hoped to survive as of the Capitol's far reaching left hands.

"But if it soothes your conscience: fraud."

A laugh breaks out, the high happy laugh of a child, and Wesker paused, head tipping. A predatory movement to pinpoint the sound, and then he was off again, taking a fork in the path.

She takes one of the pens and fidgets with that too. After a moment, something seems to belatedly occur to her and she grabs a lollipop to thrust at her son, who glances up at her and responds simply "I don't like cherry, Mom. I want the grape one." And so she hands him that one instead.

Perhaps it's more important in front of other Districters to hide the Districter in her. Capitolites never forget what she is, but they make room for her in their little society, allowing her to pass through them like oil between cells in skin. Districters catch a whiff of her and turn on a dime from treating her like a Capitolite to treating her like a traitor. There's an unease to how she looks at Atlas with her dark wide-pupiled eyes.

Atlas could have been a Career, could have been one of the competitors who took her as a hostage for no ransom through her Arena. He's too old, nearly twice her age, but he could have been a coach, it could have been a sibling of his, a nephew or niece.

"No, no, it's not that drastic yet. It's disobeying implied orders, you know, the common sense ones. Glitching, you know? I wanted to prevent anything more serious from happening, since it's alone with my son so often while I'm busy Mentoring."

Temple pulls out her embroidery hoop and idly starts to stitch some blue into a piece she's nearly finished, a tree without leaves but with bluebirds instead. A small crinkle, a stamp like an eleven, forms between her brow as she picks at it, alternating between her cigarette and the needle and thread.

"Karkat!" Bailey screams, dropping down from the monkeybars and running to greet one of his favorite Tributes. At least this time he doesn't start off with troll profanity. He pointedly avoids getting close to Wesker, instead trying to tug at Karkat's sleeve.

Temple's head shoots up at the sound, always jumpy even to the sound of even her own child's glee, before she settles and looks at Wesker and Karkat. She tucks her embroidery away.

"Leave them alone, Bailey. They're officers of the law on duty."

It's a lesson he can learn. He wouldn't be here if he hadn't learned several already. Fraud, though? Karkat follows in silence after that bit of information, but it gives him enough to think about. It sounds strange to go arresting someone for something so mundane. Peacekeepers sit in his mind as a force against rebellion and bigger crimes. What did Temple even falsify? But Wesker offers no more, and he doesn't ask.

Eventually they find Temple - and her son with her. He tenses at the sound, watches mutely as the kid comes over, and can't even be glad at the improved choice of greeting this time.

"Bailey--Not now. Go back to your human mother." He tries for firm and assertive, but comes out tense and uncomfortable.

He'll leave the actual law part to Wesker. He's just here to learn.

They exist in a strange middle ground, the naturalized citizens of the Capitol. He's one himself - though on account of his work, he'll never get the privilege of being mistaken for a Capitolite. Temple Drake's a special case among special cases, though. Districters, particularly from the non-Career Districts, tend not to get Avoxes quite right. She does it better than most.

Atlas remembers her Games. He wishes he didn't, but then again, so do most people. Not a good spectacle. Not good press for District Two. (A squandered opportunity - always a disappointment, when a Games isn't just dull but shamefully bad. Not in keeping with their intention; not representative of their purpose.)

He doesn't have to look at Temple too long, though. He's focusing on the Avox in front of him for the moment, watching the movement of its eyes and the tiny motions of the muscles in its face, watching for the smallest sign of weakening conditioning. If they're there, they're weak even to his trained eyes.

Doesn't mean it couldn't benefit from a little conditioning. But Atlas conditions more cautiously than most in his position, finding that the less frequent the sessions of prolonged psychological torture, the longer the subjects stay sharp enough for complex tasks. ...And, well. Something deep down in him balks at catering to the whims of someone whom he associates most with an eight-year-old sense of disappointment.

"Have you considered," he asks, with a sincere attempt at customer-service tact, "Giving it more direct commands and seeing how it responds? Sometimes, you know, they take a little time to form a habit. You could try repeating commands over a couple days-- see if that sticks." He glances at her. "...Unless you've tried that already."

Wesker looked back over his shoulder, the stare from behind his sunglasses flat and black and unblinking. They'd come for the child too.

"Actually Ms. Drake, your son is right where he needs to be," Wesker said smoothly, shifting back to look upon Temple. "We are here for him, and for you."

No preamble, no gentility. Wesker was the cold, calculating hand of Death.

If only metaphorically in this particular case.

[OOC: Omg, sorry about the long delay! I can't track this thread so I had no idea! D:]

"You're here for..."

Temple's eyes go wide, and a decisive blanch comes to her face, peeking between the slight parts of her skin that aren't coated in foundation. She stands, pulling her scarf absently. Even Bailey seems distracted by the change in her demeanor over one of his favorite Tributes talking to him.

"Mom?"

"Have I been witness to something?" Temple tilts her head a bit to the side, honestly confused. "If this is about Gowan's ledgers and expenses, I have very little to do with that."

Karkat feels something sink. Her son, too? He looks to Wesker, but he doubts he'll be told something different after a proclamation like that. They're taking Temple either way, and they'll have to deal with Bailey somehow, if at least to keep him from interfering.

He swallows tightly, then turns back to Bailey, dropping to a knee to be closer to his level. (He may be short, but not that short.)

"Okay, come back here. It will be alright." He can't believe it, not when he's wondering if he won't have to take hold of him and keep him still, but he has to say something.

Temple cranes her neck and leans in to watch as Atlas works on the Avox, her ankles stuck together and her fingers laced to make her look like the epitome of an old-fashioned pin-up girl. She worries her lower lip.

"Can't I just get a new one?" The crumpled lower lip juts out into a pout. "I just- I don't think I can sleep well knowing I have an Avox that might go rogue on me. Just for my peace of mind, Atlas, I mean, Mr. Fairweather."

She folds her arms, batting her eyelashes, not disappointed so much as just upset about things lurking under the surface like fish. She can barely sleep as is with her baby dead, worrying herself sick over her remaining child. She isn't self-aware enough to realize that the Avox has just become the unfortunate target of a neuroses that lingers around her like an aura. That she plants like a wasp does eggs into the backs of whatever trivial concern arrives to distract her from the real ones.

It's a neurosis that she's currently splashing up onto Atlas.

"I shouldn't have to repeat commands. I mean, you just take their humanity out, not their brains, right? They should be able to remember what I say just one."

Wesker watched, just a moment, monitoring Karkat with the child - ensuring both would do as they were told, then he turned back to Temple, reaching smoothly into his coat for the warrant.

"I'm afraid it's about you; and what you did when your son was born," he held the form out, but moved no closer, forcing Temple to come to him. "It's all here."

Edited 2015-12-14 12:46 (UTC)

If the Avox understands that its future is being discussed in front of it, it makes no indication. Its face it blank; it stares out into the middle distance, hands loose at its sides, nothing in its eyes but the baseline fear conditioned into it. Connected to nothing. If Atlas saw more of it downstairs, he'd pick it out by its nose, which is long enough to be worth a nickname.

"They should," he replies. "But we don't teach them to read minds, Mrs. Stevens. I understand you're worried about your son, but--" He cuts his eyes over to the boy, sitting on the side, sucking on his lollipop, watching them with big eyes.

"Maybe," he goes on, and he's overstepping his bounds here, he can feel himself doing it, but he doesn't stop himself in time. Hasn't ever been particularly good at keeping his feelings under wraps. "You ought to get your husband to buy you a new one." He glances up at her, one hand resting on the Avox's neck in a clinical, unfeeling way, like holding a piece of a machine in place the better to look into its insides. "Have him get you one with a warranty. Tell him to hire a trainer. After all, if he's got the money--" And he laughs, like it was a joke, one poor District transplant to another.

"What did I do?" Temple even forces a laugh, a lowered lid as if she's shrugging something off even while her legs tremble like a fawn's. "I was under anaesthetic for the whole thing, even the clean-up afterwards to get rid of any scars."

"I don't remember it either," Bailey says, blithe and stupid, then grins when Karkat drops down to talk to him.

But Temple suspects - she knows Gowan's been angry at her, that their already disastrous marriage has deteriorated after their daughter died, that Gowan is willing to say Bailey was never his to start with. But surely that can't be grounds for arrest. She cringes as Wesker's hand goes to his jacket, expecting cuffs.

And laugh Temple does, although it's without intelligence behind it; she might no more be a dancing bear in a ring, responding to whip-cracks and snaps, and the dim panic behind her eyes would support that similarity. All the trappings of the Capitol, the high culture and the civilization of wealth, can never obscure the animal natures of some people, and in fact even makes it all the more evident for most. The Capitol creates an imperfect euphony even of its most fervent devotees, with dissonant notes as quiet drones in the background that may not be obvious to the naked ear but add a seasick, uneasy quality to the revelries.

It's a strange note to strike - familiarity between Districters, and yet Temple maintains a certain haughtiness, as if each chuff of air carries a reminder to Atlas: I am not like you.

"Can I do that through here? I have so much to do today, I couldn't possibly make any in-person appointments at any of the other facilities." She casts a glance to her Avox, standing mute and insentient as a tree beside her, and affects an exaggerated shudder. "I don't want to spend another day with this one. I have Gowan's account number and blessing to spend whatever I need if it's for Bailey."

Which she, more often than not, uses to spoil herself as well, and her invertebrate husband never puts a pause to it. It's an apology, perhaps, for all that she didn't receive in the Arena - or at least that's how Temple sees it. She fails to notice all the strings attached to that offering.

Karkat looks between Wesker and Temple. Whatever she did when Bailey is born is beyond him to imagine, and he cringes reflexively as she mentions scars. What would scar? Mammalian reproduction is bizarre; trolls don't even lay their own eggs.

Bailey's pointless quip draws him back, though, and he murmurs to him. "Trolls hatch," he explains, voice low to not distract Wesker from his work. It's the kid whose attention he wants to keep held. "Down in these caves on our planet. There's hundreds of them, all laid together by the Mother Grub. And when we hatch, we're not babies; we're grubs, too."

"Come, Ms. Drake, do you really wish to do all this here?" The other gloved hand joined the first, curling black fingers in an elegant half-wave as the folded paper hung between them. "I don't think you'll be able to spin this one quite as well as the last time."

Those big round eyes were perfect. A delicious mix of incredulity, denial, and realization. His voice was a silken purr; the low rumbling cat that had stolen the cream.

Temple had played the game, and lost. While Wesker still had so many moves left to make.

"I know. I read it in a book. You have lususes," Bailey says, turning bright attention back to Karkat, not old enough to be aware of the conversation happening above his head. The way he says that last word is full of lisping. "Like big pet animals that love you."

"I didn't spin anything," Temple hisses back, her voice low as if that were necessary to keep it from Bailey's ears. "You have to present me with a warrant, don't you? Unless Gowan divorced me and didn't bother to serve me papers."

She doesn't realize that she doesn't even have those flimsy entitlements anymore.

It's ridiculous and absurd, hearing these words out of Bailey's mouth as just in the background Temple and Wesker argue over the impending arrest. Karkat can only spare glances, but the dissonance does nothing to realign his sense of reality with what he's experiencing.

"Lusii," he corrects absently. He thinks of Sollux, of his stubborn lisp, of the virus he wrote that Karkat stupidly ran and thus cursed all their lusii to die. "Mine--Mine was a big crab. Taller than me. Taller than most people." He mimes a pincer claw at the kid, and wonders if he's seen either of the ones the Capitol has made: the small one gifted to the Signless like a pet, or the overgrown ones whose backsides had grown out into tails that were stocked into the Alternia of the last arena.

He catches himself on a laugh when the thought comes: did Bailey see him kill? Did Temple allow it? He swallows down the rest, can't risk now either to interrupt, but it's absurd. How is any of this his life?

"Ms.Drake," Wesker's fingers tightened on the folded paper - the warrant she was arguing for, yet refused to acknowledge. As enjoyable as this little excursion was, his patience stretched only so far. His voice remained smooth, but dropped, dangerously soft. "I am going to bring you, and your son, in to Peacekeeper Headquarters. We can do it civilly, or I can easily drag two children out of here."

He tipped his head, a flash of red flaring behind his sunglasses, a promise that he could - and that he would.

"Which shall it be?"

"I say lususes," Bailey sputters again, firm in his ignorance and even proud of it, as if just by willing it he could change the language to suit his whims. And why shouldn't he believe that? He's a Capitolite child, indulged since the cradle.

"If I go politely, will you still have to cuff me?" Temple asks, imagining those foul things closing along her wrists, remembering too well what it's like to be bound and helpless. It's her state, it seems, her curse to always be not inept but such a victim to the circumstances surrounding her. She feels herself hollow out and fill back up again with a heavy sense of propriety. This is how it's supposed to be.

How it always is, for Districters. Which she is, no matter how she's tried to hide it. She doesn't expect sympathy from Wesker but she could at least hope for reason.

"Behave yourself, and leniency can be afforded," Wesker allowed smoothly. "But give me a reason, and I will not hesitate."

Her and her child both, if necessary. Wesker didn't discriminate where it came to pain and humiliation.

"Now take your warrant, and come along."

"I'll be good," she says, more into her chest than up to Wesker. She takes her warrant and she can't read it, can't even show that she can't read it. The tremor in her fist rattles up the end of the paper.

"Bailey, come. We're going to see the Peacekeeper's Headquarters."

"I don't want to-"

"Bailey," she says, and he looks at her with offense that his mother, the weak-willed woman who's served him only slightly less than an Avox since the crib. His mouth crumples, and he immediately begins to scream at her, face crunched into something ghoulish.

"Mom, I don't want to, you bitch-"

"Put a hand over his mouth and take him with us," she orders her ever-present Avox, and she breathes the slightest sigh of relief when the Avox stifles her son's invective before he can order it otherwise. She watches her feet as Wesker leads her away.

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See How I'm Faking My Side of It? [Closed]

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don't worry my delay was longer

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