thecapitol | [closed]

Entry tags:

[closed]

Who| Roland Deschain and the Signless
What| slightly tipsy advice and funtimes
Where| between Capitol nightlife and the Tribute Center
When| around the end of the arena
Warnings/Notes| a teensy bit of alcohol use (obviously), possible brief memories of disembowelment, brief mention of someone having set a Capitolite on fire a little bit - nothing out of the ordinary for the Games is anticipated

The air is cold out here, and quiet for an odd moment before he catches the sound of young voices raised in laughter some distance down the street. Still quiet compared to the cloying press of people in that room they've just escaped, the people and the cloying press of their desires. "I'd forgotten how it was," he says, reaching up to tug at the ruff of fur sitting around his neck. The pink stuff in that glass he's still holding sloshes around as he does it but, of course, does not spill. Hand-eye coordination, a handy skill for any occasion.

"Diplomacy, I mean. Making nice. Has it always been that way?" He turns to look down at Signless, pressing his other hand between Signless' shoulder blades and leaving it there. "Good thing you brought me as your bit on the side, and not Psiionic. Last time a Capitolite put their hands on that many parts of me, he set them on fire." He blinks down at that familiar face for a moment. Was Signless one of the people he was supposed to avoid mentioning that to? Surely not. No, it's fine.

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"I don't think so," Signless says, a bit of a laugh in his voice. It had been funny as much as it had been embarrassing, to have to be carried all the way up to district four by his lover. At least they hadn't tried to go all the way up to Twelve, and they probably won't tonight either.

"Just let me lean on you."

Roland grunts, leading them toward the elevators and knowing his step is less than steady, and that the scavengers who circle about this place with their picture machines will be able to tell that too, but that's done Signless' reputation good before, hasn't it? Odd place, this Capitol. He puts it out of his mind, and as they make it to the elevator doors he lets his hand slide down to press over Signless' side the same way he pressed his thumb against Signless' neck a moment ago. He watches Signless' face as he does it, eyebrows raised in a silent question, although he's more than sure he's gauged the mood right, here.

He has. Signless's face is markedly flushed as they step into the elevator and the doors close behind them, something the small group of cameramen following them are no doubt delighted to note. He's sure he'll see pictures of this sooner rather than later in some magazine or another but he doesn't care. This is nothing he's ashamed of.

"Getting right to the point, hm?"

"Point?" Alain is lost to Roland, perhaps forever, in ways he does not - or maybe does not want to - understand. He has pushed the boy far from him in nearly the worst way possible. But there's this. There's the slow, syrupy feeling of a little too much drink moving through him, there's the warm body against his, there's the memory of that familiar voice promising that Roland wouldn't handle things alone, that he will be there. There's his face in front of Roland, flushed and pleased, and it's a relief to slump over far enough to press his forehead to the top of Signless' head, to let his hand keep moving along Signless' side and to shift his head around and lay a lazy kiss at the place where the nearest horn grows out from Signless' skin. "Unless my memory's misled me very badly there's no point down there. Something a bit more flexible, hmm?"

That gets a rather unpretty giggle out of him. It's crass perhaps but it's not incorrect, and it's a subject that takes a good deal less thought than the ones they've been discussing thus-far. Not that he wants to ignore the real issues that still loom over them, but tonight started out as a distraction and it can damn well end as one when they're both too soaked in alcohol to do much else.

"Sure you're remembering right? It's been a while since you checked."

The giggle, pretty or not, sends a smile stretching its tired way across Roland's face.

"If you were a woman," he murmurs, pressing his face into the curling, comforting mass of Signless' hair, "I might think that a complaint."

The elevator stops. Roland hears it, but doesn't bother to step out. There's someone waiting there, he can hear them too, breathing and shifting their weight and wanting to come inside, and he acknowledges them not at all. This is the way of this place, isn't it? Maybe he's finally acclimatizing to the way people live here.

Nevermind that, he thinks, and slips the hand on Signless' side around to the small of his back, pressing his hand over the skin there and enjoying the warmth, taking a deep breath in and out against Signless' head. This, and only this, is what Roland needs to mind just now.

"How could I complain when it's not your fault," Signless points out. How could it be when Roland's been stuck in an arena for weeks? He's missed this closeness as much as Signless has, Signless knows that for a fact.

"I'm sure you'll be plenty thorough now that you've got the chance to be." Despite the clear flirtation in his words his tone is quiet, unhurried. He could stand like this for hours if it were an option, but the increasingly-annoyed sound of a tapping foot is making it clear that it isn't.

Roland lets the moment stretch. Why not? He gets few enough pleasures in this place, and he supposes it's well for him that this is the only Capitolite (or so he presumes, the shoes making that tapping sound heeled, and he's seldom known Capitolites to wear anything else) that they've run into. As he is, Roland knows, he's like to do exactly what he's doing now - piss them off a little, just because he can.

But he can't do that. Not much, and not for long. He stays curled around Signless, takes a moment to breathe in the scent of his hair and so reminds himself just why he can't afford to be anything less than polite.

"Pardon," he says, straightening up and heading toward his room. "It's been quite a night for both of us."

And with that he dismisses them utterly, bending to put his lips about as close to Signless' ear as he can without bending over completely. "All the same, if any part of you feels neglected, I'd have you tell me of it. Or, hmm. Perhaps a demonstration'd serve better."

Edited (just wanted to offer to keep the capitolite around if you want to play with them a bit) 2016-01-16 20:50 (UTC)

That voice right against his ear makes Signless grin, makes a warmth creep down his spine and settle in his stomach. For all that Roland is often rough around the edges, he's got seduction down pat (whether that's purposeful or not is entirely up to interpretation).

"I'll demonstrate all you like once we're in private. I want out of this ridiculous outfit anyway."

They leave the Capitolite standing there gawping after them. While Roland was whispering, Signless certainly wasn't. Let them know what kind of show they're missing. Let them gossip. It's nothing the Capitol doesn't already know about and beyond that he feels a little like bragging right now.

Roland chuckles, and the sound is not low or smooth or seductive. So much as a chuckle can be, it is perhaps the opposite of those things. It is genuine, though, and warm, as warm as the hand Roland settles against Signless' neck as he makes his way to his room, brushing his short, blunt fingernails against the skin there. If anyone else is here to see them, they don't approach. It's probably just as obvious now, Roland thinks, as it was a few seconds ago at the elevator that the two of them are busy, and after a few seconds he's there and holding the door open.

"That'll make it into their news for sure, now. Might even get us another one of those stories from Mr. Bachman."

"As if he isn't halfway through one already just on his own. I don't think he ever stops writing them."

It's funny because it's true. He's pretty sure he's never seen a magazine that publishes Bachman's work go a month without at least a chapter or two, and he does make it a habit to keep up with these things.

Of course, Mr. Bachman, his incredible writing speed and his questionable choice in subject matter are all things that aren't important right now. What's important is the linger tingle of those fingers on the back of his neck and the familiarity of this room and pulling Roland into it after him so they can be well and truly alone.

"And yet he never really gets it right."

"Oh? You've been keeping up with those tales of his?" Roland may have spent the whole walk back leaning against Signless but now he does it a moment more, feels the two of them pressing next to one another, close, then draws back to give himself room to free the Signless of whatever it is he's been shoved into tonight. The motions are easy, familiar, even if the specifics of this particular outfit aren't. Just the act of shedding the man's clothes for him is welcome, taking Roland far from the long, watchful nights in this latest arena. Roland does not rush it. He starts with trying to free Signless from the top down, and he takes his time.

"Hope I haven't ravaged you too often while I was away," he murmurs, his voice warming up and slowing as the well practiced motions of all this begin to sink into him. "How is it those stories like to put it? Ravaging your, ah..."

It's a simple-enough outfit in terms of layers, it's just that the layers are the sort that all hook into each other because nobody in the Capitol can design clothing that makes any logical sense. Taking it off for that reason is much like solving a puzzle, but Signless isn't in any more rush to be rid of his clothes than Roland is to rid him of them.

"My 'dewey rose'," he supplies. "That one's come back into style lately. 'Weeping flower' too. I think it's the tattoos."

He can't really blame them with how those tattoos have crept over his body lately. They climb up his neck and over his shoulders now so really, it's the obvious choice to make, even if it sounds downright silly and would even if he wasn't drunk.

Lucky, then, that Roland is a fair hand at puzzles. This kind, anyway. Roland leans in, peering over Signless' shoulder to pull a loop of string carefully off a near-invisible button, and snorts. "There'll be no weeping tonight, I think. Unless these clothes they've put you in are even more complex than they look. Possible. You work on mine, hmm, and we'll see if we can't meet in the middle of all this."

Meeting in the middle sounds like the most sensible course of action. Signless trails his hands and their painted nails down Roland's back and around to his front, where they brush over that bare spot of skin. Even manicured and slightly-blunted as they are they're far sharper than human nails. He doesn't expect that to bother Roland much -- he's clawed Roland's back to shreds before. Roland knows all about his nails.

Relaxed as he is now, the noise that leaves Roland's lips is audible, stifled and brief but there, hanging between them. His body is turned half away from Signless' now, has at some point leaned back from him, and he knows without looking that his hand has darted out to try a grab at Signless' wrist. He stills himself, knows that if he does not he will try to break that wrist, knows that he came close to that anyway just now and the shame of it sends his jaw clenching, sends his eyes looking toward the wall over somewhere in front of him.

The beat of his heart is loud in his ears, he realizes, and his breath is loud, too. He takes a step back, his gaze sliding along the wall as he does it and not once going near the man in front of him. He opens his mouth, but the first thing he says ought to be an apology, oughtn't it? Roland tries to decide, tries to steel himself for that. It takes a moment.

The words 'what's wrong' make their way to the tip of Signless's tongue before his alcohol-addled brain puts two and two together and he no longer needs to ask. He pulls his hand back and curls his fingers, hiding his claws against his palm.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I wasn't thinking."

Well. At least one of them's apologized.

Roland reaches out to try and grab Signless' wrist once more, but this time he wants to pull that hand closer. If Signless allows him to do it Roland's breath will be louder, a little, very deliberately even, and the muscles visible through this sorry excuse for a shirt will tense. "No, Signless, touch me where you like. It's I who ought to be apologizing. A gunslinger ought to know better than that. I know better."

"I shouldn't have done something that would make you think of that when the whole point of tonight was to distract us both," he insists, then gives his head a small shake. They had a mood cultivated and damn if he's not going to try and get it back, painful though this misstep has been.

Very slowly, deliberately, he spreads his palm over Roland's hip. He's careful not to touch his stomach because no matter what Roland says he doesn't really feel like inflicting more discomfort on him right now. It doesn't matter where he touches so long as he can touch.

"You deserve to enjoy this as much as I do."

"Are you coddling me, to talk of 'deserving'?" Roland watches that hand on his hip as he asks it, aware of the way his breath is still a little too quick in his chest, his muscles a little too tense. He doesn't sound terribly pleased by the idea, and this is because he isn't. He also sounds genuinely curious, and this is because he is. One of the two of them is interested in distraction, tonight, and one of them isn't. Not anymore, at least. Not when he is a gunslinger, and he knows better. "I'm not going to run from it."

This feels like it's veering sideways and away from that nice, hazy warm place it had been heading. Even drunk Signless can hear the note of displeasure in Roland's voice, can feel how tense he is.

"I'm not trying to coddle you, but you shouldn't have to think about dying while we're pailing, and I wouldn't enjoy it much either."

It's that last part which does the most convincing to Roland and he watches Signless' face a moment, thinking on it. The gears of his mind are moving a little more leisurely than they typically would just now but they do move, and finally Roland slips his hand down over the one resting on his hip, spreads his own thin, tanned fingers between Signless' square grey ones. "Aye. Aye, you're right. Now is hardly the time, and we've hardly the mind for it. And I've barely got all this nonsense off you."

He reaches forward, taking a solid, steadying breath as he feels for the button he'd abandoned. He realizes too late this might be the wrong hand to do it with; those first two fingers can feel, yes, but only in that he can feel when they've hit something. Fine details he needs to watch the things to navigate. Doing this without leaning far enough in to see it is almost like learning to use that hand again the first time, after- after what? What was it that'd taken his fingers that first time?

Roland shakes his head sharply, trying to steady himself and focus. It's been a long while since he last had too much to drink and perhaps it'll be another long while before he does it again, now, now there's so much in his own damned mind he needs to be on guard against.

"I'd have you out of this," he says, and it's less a reassurance than an announcement, stating to the world in general - and to himself - that this is how it is going to be, nevermind how aware he is of his damn stomach now, nevermind how his breath tries to catch when he leans forward, too aware of any part of Signless' clothes which might brush against it when he does so. All of that is senseless, purposeless, and doesn't bear noticing.

There's more to this than can be so easily glossed-over but Signless is tired and not at his best and he welcomes moving things along perhaps more than he would otherwise because of it. They can talk about it later, can have a nice long discussion of exactly why the thought of Roland not enjoying himself ruins any enjoyment Signless might have. It's so odd to him to think that that isn't as intuitive to Roland as it is to him, that he'd see no issue in forcing himself to do something he doesn't want instead of just letting Signless know to avoid touching his stomach. It's not as though that's all that difficult to do.

But he sets those thoughts aside for later. For now he focuses on Roland's hands and what they're doing, on helping them where they lose their grip on buttons and ties. Working together it doesn't take them much longer to bare his upper body, his neck and shoulders and arms and their delicate floral tattoos. A cactus flower extends from one shoulder and nearly brushes over the space where his heart is. He hadn't asked for it to be put there but that's where it ought to be all the same.

"There. That's the hardest part done."

Roland nods, looking closely over the body bared out in front of him. He is not, perhaps, standing so close to Signless as he was before, his posture is set more tight and close, but his look is familiar nonetheless, the look of a man stepping back into a warm and comforting place after a long trip away. Roland may have taken a step back once Signless' clothes came down but he does reach out, half-brushing the backs of his fingers in light trails from the place Signless' nipples aren't, around the edges of that cactus flower and down to the place his belly button isn't, either.

"Too many fully grown men tonight tried to ask me about these. Your differences. How different it must be, spending so many nights with someone so exotic. What they were trying to ask me about was your cock, I'm sure, but even these - after so many nights with only you against me I'm not sure a human body would do me quite the same, should I take one of those into my bed in your stead."

Edited 2016-02-29 02:57 (UTC)

The difference between this and their first fumbling night is incredibly stark. Then their relationship was one of friends who had only been friends a very short time to begin with; they'd had no idea what to do with each other. He remembers how he'd worried that the strangeness of his body -- how 'exotic' it was -- would put Roland off completely. He's glad that it didn't. He's also glad for Roland's particularly ability to say incredibly romantic things as though he's stating simple fact, because it's recaptured a lot of the warmth that left the room with that accidental touch to his stomach.

"I hope you told them so. Considering how much they like to write about my body they deserve to be a little jealous that only you get to really know what it's like."

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probably nsfw in discussion if not more from this point if anyone's reading this. HI THERE HOW U

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