thecapitol | So Tired the World Doesn't Spin Anymore [Closed]

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So Tired the World Doesn't Spin Anymore [Closed]

WHO| Jason and Swann
WHAT| Jason officially moves in with Swann and they share Christmas.
WHEN| Before D1 breakout
WHERE| The borders of the Capitol
WARNINGS| Just privileged Capitol brats.

The trip to District Seven had to be canceled after the recent attacks, as all travel outside the Capitol is on lockdown for anything other than military or business reasons. Two currently unemployed Escorts don't have a viable need to leave the borders of the city, but Jason has enough family connections in his back pocket (and Swann has even more) that he can at least get the tickets and reservations refunded and transferred to a nice chalet right outside the city. It's far enough to be away from the buzz of the Capitol, on the lake, across the water from District One, with the Capitol city itself like a glittering spiderweb covered in orange dew visible at night.

At some point, Jason's going to have to tell her that he sold his house. The Compson house. His mother's house. He doesn't really now what to think of it as anymore, especially now that the title's been transferred for a sum far greater than it's worth in the condition it's in, but paltry given the actual bones of the building.

He hasn't been well since the Tribute Center turned into a Detention Center. Without a job to keep him occupied, without a mother to harangue him, and without an account to scam money from, he doesn't have much to do besides drive around and sleep and cling to Swann with a level of clinginess that most girlfriends would find highly offputting. As of earlier this week he's nursing broken ribs from the 'incident' in the city, as well as a black eye and a cut across one cheekbone that required two stitches.

It's a minor injury, especially compared to what other people on that block ended up with. Especially compared to the dead.

They drive up in the evening, and the stars are coming out by the time they arrive at the chalet. He holds the door for the car for her, as usual, and the sole Avox that tends the place has lit the fireplace for their arrival and put out sparkling water.

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Swann similarly lacks things to do, although she at least has a handful of hobbies to occupy herself with -- she's already knitted a whole mess of scarves and socks and hats and mittens, made and given away more baked goods than she could ever possibly eat, built at least a years' worth of gift baskets that won't ever go to Tributes. It's a fact she seems to be willfully ignoring.

She's sure that everything will go back to normal. That the fighting will end and then the Games will come back and she'll have people to tend to again.

On the upside, she doesn't find Jason's clinginess off-putting at all, though that's perhaps to be expected. In fact, she revels in it, babying him and coddling him as much as he'll let her, particularly after he gets injured, which only makes her more obsessive and pampering. She spends time putting antibiotic cream on his cut and scrapes, probably long after it's necessary, but it makes her feel better. Useful.

On the drive up, Swann is fidgety with excitement, unable to stop smiling or looking at him or glancing at her pets in the backseat. Marcel and Pascal immediately go curl up in front of the fireplace once they're all inside, and Swann pulls Jason to the sofa, tugging him down with her.

The stress of the months seems to flake away, not entirely but in bits, lightening Jason's expression slightly. It's as if it's magnetically attached to the Capitol, pulling away from him as he leaves, stripping away some of that premature age that the permanent stamp of a scowl on his face has left.

By the time they get there, he's even smiling at Swann as they talk about nothing important, just fill the space with the sounds of their voices.

(Swann's present is mostly this trip, which ate up a decent chunk of the money Jason had in earnest money from the real estate sale, but there's a nice, dainty necklace hidden in the briefcase where Jason could be toting just enough for the weekend but has actually packed all the belongings he bothered to want to keep.)

He puts away their things, throws off his coat over the edge of an ottoman and lets her guide him, until the two of them are piled up on the couch. He pulls her onto him, until they're both basically flat and he's bearing the scant weight of her body on his hips and stomach.

"You know, we could stay here all week. It's not like we have jobs to get back to."

Swann literally has a steamer trunk filled with presents, mostly for Jason, the exact kinds of things he doesn't buy for himself: good clothes and shoes, new accessories, and all other sorts of odds and ends she's found during her many shopping trips. There are also some gifts for the animals in there, because what kind of Christmas would it be without things for them to open?

She tosses her coat atop his, cream shearling with bear ears on the hood, and lets him draw her onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kicking her shoes onto the carpet. "We could," she agrees, closing her eyes, and nuzzles into the crook of his neck. "We could just stay here until they call us back to work."

Jason makes the slightest noise of protest as the way she's nuzzling puts weight on his broken ribs, but soon the pressure's shifted and they're back in a comfortable limbo.

"Which may be never, at this rate. I wouldn't complain about them extending our furlough wages for a few years." It's a pittance of what they made before, but it's still something to squirrel away.

"I think we probably will have at least a full year of furlough," she says, gently running just her fingertips along his ribs. "Even when the battles are done, they'll have to recover a bit before they start the Games back up." Swann sighs heavily. "Maybe they'll just reassign us somewhere. Who knows."

Reaching up, she runs her fingers through his hair, letting her nails skim over his scalp. "Does it hurt a lot?" she asks softly.

"Only when I breathe." Jason grunts and repositions himself, taking a long but shallow inhale. There's nothing to be done about a rib injury like that except to wait for time to mend it, and though Jason's been refusing any painkillers he always tends to feel it significantly less when he's with Swann for the day.

"As long as they don't reassign us to the Districts as ambassadors or anything like that. Seven's alright when it's not hayfever season but I've been to Eight, and it all smells like poverty and chemical dyes. And that's not even starting on Twelve." Besides, that might separate the two of them, and that's an option off the table for both of them now, the two of them locked into desperate and codependent devotion. Jason always swore to himself that he'd never let a woman rule his life, unaware that that's always been his fate, imprinted into his very DNA.

Swann kisses his cheek and nods. "I'll make cocoa in a minute, maybe the warmth will help a little with the pain," she says, and she absolutely knows it will, because she plans to grind up a painkiller and put it in his mug. She's already drugged his coffee twice since the incident, just enough to make it tolerable and keep him quiet. She's pretty sure he's chalking it up to mind over matter.

"Eight's not so bad." She says it a bit defensively, and Jason should, of course, already know her affection for her District and its people, born more than a decade ago. "Four smells like low tide, that's way worse. Everyone knows that One is the only remotely decent District to live in, if you have to."

She means as a Capitolite, and there's not very much different between living in the Capitol and living in a District as a Capitolite. The biggest difference is just the climate and the view, because proper Capitolites who relocate to a District just recreate their huge mansions and have all their delicacies shipped in.

"Anyway, I don't think Snow'd do that. He's not going to help them, not after all of this."

"Alright." They could have an Avox do it for them, but Jason knows Swann likes to fuss over kitchen things, to bake and concoct and create little temporary treats as if they could give her the justification to keep existing that she so frequently believes she needs.

He smirks a bit at her defensiveness of Eight, as if it's a cute joke, but there's something hollow to it - something that realizes that any charmed affections a Capitolite holds for a District is just as easily honest treachery as fleeting fancy.

"No, but he may send people out there to try and keep the peace. Not like Peacekeepers, but people to report back and administrate. That's where our skills are going to lead to, at this rate." He lies back and lets the fire keep them warm.

Edited 2016-01-22 05:44 (UTC)

Everyone knows that Swann's fondness for District Eight is innocent, as she spent years sending back toys and chocolates, not weapons, or even anything particularly useful. She cares for them in the same way a child might care about starving kids they see on television, which is probably why no one thinks anything of it, because she might as well be offering up her uneaten dinner to send to them through the mail.

She kisses Jason's jaw before she gets up and pads away to the kitchen. She comes back about ten minutes later with mugs of cocoa, whipped cream and sprinkles peeking over the brims.

"Daddy won't let him," she says confidently, handing Jason his mug. She sits down and wraps up in the mink throw that's been put out for both decoration and comfort, and curls close to Jason. "We can always go work for HMH."

Jason works himself up into a sitting position with no small amount of grimacing, then takes the cup of cocoa. He holds it to his chest, letting that comforting heat ease the pang somewhat, then takes a sip. When he looks up, there's a smudge of whipped cream on his nose.

"You know," he says, nursing the drink some more, "I think it was one of the offworlders that told me I should consider talk radio. Do you think your father would be interested in putting another morning program on the air?"

She giggles and swipes the whipped cream off his nose with her thumb, which she sucks clean as she considers his question, rolling her eyes upward thoughtfully.

"Mm, maybe. I'm not sure what the schedule is like, but he could probably squeeze you in somewhere if he likes the idea. What would your show be about? Pitch it to me, I'll tell you what I think."

"Oh, I don't have ideas. I haven't thought that far ahead. I just would talk. Been long enough since the Capitol has had someone reasonable vying for Flickerman's slot, hasn't it?"

He reaches over and takes her hand in his, twining their fingers. "Maybe I could just have people write me stupid letters and I'd rebut them."

Laughing, she squeezes his hand, leans against his side and perches her chin on his shoulder. "We'll call it Dear Jason and have an accompanying live feed where people can watch you burn the letters about Districter rights being important."

Swann sighs and kisses his cheek, her eyelids lowering happily. "You're going to have to come up with a catchphrase."

Jason actually makes a snorting noise at 'Districter rights'. It's something that comes up once in a blue moon in political conversations in the Capitol, but it's as much a punchline as giving dogs the right to vote.

"A catchphrase," he murmurs, leaning back again, wincing once more. "Maybe you should join me in marketing it. Figure out the target demographic, come up with an advertising strategy. You're better at that than people give you credit for."

After all, District Eight has not been wanting for Sponsorship this last year.

He winces and she strokes his cheek with one finger, lessens her weight on him as if she's afraid she might hurt him. You know, because she's so heavy and not at all basically the size of a preteen.

"If I go back to the company, probably I'd like to do something like that. I don't think I'd want another show of my own." She smiles, although she knows the reality is that she'd get a few years doing that, at most. Then her father would push her into either C-level work, or leaving to have a family. It's just how their world works, and especially hers, where selling the company simply isn't an option.

Jason breathes deep through his nose, thinking, unwillingly and unbidden, of Helena and Julian on Panem Nightly, slaughtered to make a point. He imagines if all this nonsense had started happening years sooner, if the major talk shows had been SWANN or Stylistic or some similar series, if it would have been Swann with her brains blown out on a set.

"I don't think you should have another show either. I never would have thought that would have become dangerous business, but there are at least two people I know of who would attest otherwise if they still had pulses."

He takes another drink of cocoa. "Maybe there are better ideas than media. Something where we aren't in the limelight any."

It's hard to imagine a Compson and a Honeymead being anonymous.

"It's so sad," Swann says, and she doesn't even really equate herself to them, because she'd tried to kill herself, no longer has that true value of her own life to hold dear to herself. But Julian and Helena had been tragic losses.

She shrugs a little. "Maybe we don't have to do anything. We can just... you know, live. Do whatever we want all day." After all, she doesn't need a job, and she's pretty sure that, with Jason, she doesn't need anyone else, either. They can have picnics and go kiting and take the pets to the lake. Go and visit Ben, maybe.

It's a nice little world to imagine.

"It's something, alright." Julian and Helena's death has rattled the Capitol in a way that other attacks, even on the homefront, have not. These were personalities. These were people like them, formerly untouchable. Jason knows people who went to school with Julian. Helena's favorite restaurant has started a sale on cocktails in her name.

"That'd be nice." But Jason says it noncommittally, because he knows if he doesn't work that he'd have to live off just Swann's money and the pittance the Compson manor got him. He isn't ready for that yet. He doesn't know that he ever will be. "I sold the house, by the way."

She understands his lack of commitment, though she can't imagine how it matters what money they live on -- there's no situation in which they can be together forever and him still never be affected by her money. It seems like an inevitability, something that he just has to accept. She doesn't care, she has more than the two of them could ever go through in a lifetime.

"Oh, the papers finalized?" She's pleased, twists to look at him better, smiles. "Good! One less thing to do when we get back. Did you find a place, or... ?"

It'll take Jason a long time to unwind his self-esteem from being the breadwinner. It doesn't matter how much of it was illusory - the house he inherited from his father, the money he stole from his sister, so much of his supposed hoardings the result of anything but his own hard work - because he believes that it stands at the center of him, the iron spine around which the rest of him congeals.

Which is why he doesn't say much to her right now, just shrugging and saying "no, not yet."

And of course, Swann has no concept of how that even feels, both through the fact that no money she has ever personally earned -- and it's not an insubstantial amount -- will even be a drop in the bucket compared to what she was simply born into, and also because, as a Capitolite woman and heiress, she has never particularly been expected to provide, only to exist. So his rabid defense of being the "earner" never makes sense to her, at least beyond the idea that it is a Thing.

She can only snuggle against him and nod. "Well, you can stay with me until you find somewhere, I won't make you go live under a bridge, heating up cans of beans in the fire."

"I figured I could." That's why he didn't ask, and there's a mercy that she didn't make him. He eventually would have, but he might have whiled away money in a hotel until he put his spine together enough for it.

He pulls her closer. His ribs are starting to hurt a bit less.

"Are you sure Eta's spindly little arms can do twice the laundry, though?"

She kisses his cheek and nuzzles the side of his neck, smiling. "Eta can do anything," she says smugly, with the confidence of a child who hasn't realized that their parents are people with faults. "Besides, you barely even have clothes."

He's never let her buy him as much as she wants to, expand his wardrobe and bring it up to date.

"Are you bringing anything other than clothes?"

"I have enough suits to last me a week, if I don't forget to have them laundered on the weekend. You know that." And it's only because she gave him enough clothes that he wasn't down to just enough to get through the week without going to the cleaners twice.

He shakes his head. "A razor. To shave. Don't think you're gaining a windfall by taking me in."

"And I've told you that's hardly anything, people must think I'm the worst girlfriend." For allowing him to go around wearing the same suits week after week. Repeating an outfit isn't a crime, but that's assuming the repeat is at least a month later.

She grins and shifts to look up at him, teasing. "Well damn. Guess I'll never find me a rich man to save me from this cold, cold District life."

Jason quiets for a moment, considering that if he were doing this boyfriend thing correctly, Swann would be in new outfits every lunch break. She is, of course, but that's because she's a Honeymead. It has nothing to do with him, and thus Swann's wealth has shielded Jason in more ways than one.

And he's only gotten one ticket from the fashion police since he let Swann meddle with his wardrobe.

He kisses her forehead. "So long as they only think it and don't say anything out loud, I guess I won't have to ruin their lives any."

She makes a soft noise when he kisses her head, and reaches for his hand. "I don't care anyway. I just want you to be comfortable. Besides, I have to look at you, so I should probably get to decide what you wear when I do."

There's a beat or two of silence, then she glances up at him and speaks carefully. "Are you... putting things in storage? Some of your furniture is pretty nice." Mostly she just wants to know what he's doing with his family, his parents and Quentin, diamonds she doesn't particularly want in her home.

"You can dress me whenever you want. I'll only put up a fuss when it matters." Which means, honestly, that he only protests when it fits some personal and petty agenda of his, often fueled by stubbornness instead of logic.

He knows what she'd talking about, but he goes around it. "I'm not sure I won't just burn it all. You know, just dig a pit somewhere on the grounds and light it up."

"You put up a fuss whenever you feel like it," she murmurs, squeezing his fingers and lying her head back on his shoulder. Her spine stiffens a little, because as much as she doesn't want the other Compsons in her space, it still feels odd and wrong to dispose of them, in a world as oriented with family as theirs is. Besides that, she just paid to have Caroline pressed, and while the money's not an object, it's sort of irritating to take care of the affairs of such a terrible woman only to have the money thrown away on her. Jason the Third and Quentin had surely taken what was left of the Compson fortune to be pressed, and so it seems similarly offensive to get rid of them.

It's a no-win situation, and Swann thinks that maybe she'll have them put in Benjy's trust, to one day be dealt with by lawyers and nurses.

"That's probably going to hurt the sale. Don't do it on the property. You're not always good with fire anyway."

Jason doesn't even realize that she's thinking of his family in their permanent forms, because right now they're in the trunk of his car, along with some slightly older ancestors, up until far enough back that pressing wasn't popular. He's going to find something to do with them, although they might end up in the same sort of government custody that famous historical figures end up in when they have no kin to claim them.

He just knows he doesn't want to keep them, has entertained fantasies of chucking all of them into the river. But their next resting place is undetermined.

"You think I'd light myself up, don't you?" He tries to soothe her again, stroking her shoulder.

She presses her face against the side of his neck and sighs, letting herself relax as he touches her shoulder. It's just a lot to consider, now that she thinks about it. When she'd thought of him moving in before, it was more along the lines of him just spending the night and never leaving.

"You're a little... accident-prone," she says tactfully, one hand fisted in his shirt. "That's all."

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So Tired the World Doesn't Spin Anymore [Closed]

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