and he will greet them in a smile that sticks like vaseline [open]

[marcato]

Who | Aunamee and OPEN
What | The Capitol has finally revived Aunamee after several years of nonexistence. He's feeling pretty happy about that.
Where | The Tribute lounge in the detention center.
When | Early January
Warnings | Nothing specific, although Aunamee's kind of a creeper. (Here are his permissions.)

This is perfect.

Aunamee feels the new energy in the Capitol. It's like a violin string being pulled too taut, mere moments away from snapping with a cacophonous twang. He doesn't even need to read minds to appreciate the tension. It practically begs its way into his nostrils, his lungs, his heartbeat.

Before his last death, Aunamee was a ruined man. He had nightmares. His hands would shake. He was simply too powerless, too trapped in this hellscape to control the demons lurking under his skin. But now? The unspoken fear in the Capitol is intoxicating. It's the opium to his agony.

Aunamee sits in what was once the Tribute lounge with a glass of wine pressed against his lips. He smiles at everyone who passes by. It's a friendly smile, yes, so very friendly.

Yet his deep gray eyes always linger a little too long.

Comments

[marcato]

He notices the smell first. Cigarettes, one of Aunamee's vices as well, mixed with that vague, unplaceable scent of men's cologne. He notices the posture second, those slumped shoulders, those dragging heels, the way his hands bury themselves in his pockets. This is a man who doesn't want to be here, Aunamee thinks. A man who seeks solace in gulps of nicotine and menthol. A man who isn't afraid to wear disdain on his lips.

This makes his unspoken proposition all the more surprising. Aunamee's smile falters, if just for a moment, while he tries to regain the ground beneath him.

He hates the unexpected. It makes his tongue taste like copper.

"You're not one for wasting time, are you?"

He reignites his smile, extending his hand across the table.

"Aunamee."

[whatisay]

There's something predatory about the way Jason perks up to see that falter in Aunamee's smile. His whole life has been an exercise in dragging people into the same mire he lives in; occasionally, foisting discomfort on them is the best he can do at this bizarre and semi-consoling task.

"I'm not, although it's not as if I have any better way to spend my time nowadays. I have a stipend to butter up promising-looking offworlders. Lucky you." Jason doesn't need to add that there's no way in hell he'd be associating with offwolders at all without a paycheck; the way his handshake is both aggressively firm and entirely too short to be respectful speaks that for him.

"Jason Compson." If Aunamee's done any research at all into the Capitol's history, he'll know that name - one like Rockefeller or Kennedy, a towering monument of a surname that casts everyone beneath it in shadow. The Compsons - Quentin MacLachlan, Jason (the second) - built the military backbone around which the rest of the country is hapless futile hanging flesh. Jason great-grandfather was not just a leader but an Olympian.

[marcato]

He recognizes that name. When he first arrived in Panem, Aunamee swallowed Capitol media in huge gulps, memorizing important names and sketching out historical events. Without telepathy on his side, it was all he could do to keep himself from floundering in a sea of unfamiliar faces.

"What an honor," he says, that recognition clicking into place, "to be called promising by such a distinguished individual."

He'll need to work for this one, Aunamee realizes. The too short handshake still lingers on his palm, buzzing like an afterimage.

"What did you have in mind?"

[whatisay]

"It's not that you have much in the way of competition."

Jason doesn't believe Aunamee's flattery. It's a joke, now, that he bears the same surname as his predecessors; it's squandered now, a once great monument spoiled and wasted, standing in memorial to things that were and no longer to what is. But Aunamee wouldn't know that. The most recent Compsons have been inhabitants of tabloids, not textbooks.

"There's a place down the way that's fast and decent enough." And not expensive, comparatively, which means Jason can pocket more of the stipend. He gets up, tucking his hands back into his pocket, and jerks his chin. If Aunamee wants to come, he should do so now or forever lose his chance.

[marcato]

He follows, although a part of him doesn't want to. He'll need to work for this one, Aunamee reminds himself as the man calls him forward with a flick of his chin like a parent guiding a petulant child. He'll need to work for this one, he reminds himself as he scowls at the back of Jason's neck, his fingers clenching and unclenching for the quickest moment.

[whatisay]

Jason walks fast. It's like, on some subconscious level, he hates where he is and assume that moving away from it is going to spare him whatever ennui has fermented and gone mildewy in his brain. He doesn't waste much time looking over his shoulder to make sure Aunamee's following him.

The restaurant is plain by Capitol standards, which means it's still palatial. Aunamee may remember it from old advertisements the first time he was around - the Heliogabalan, filled with exotic flowers that rain down from the ceiling in some blithe, clueless reference to an era Panem never understood. There are topiaries and flower sculptures pruned into the shapes of Tributes, usually, although in this time of war the celebrities du jour have changed to Peacekeepers and of course, President Snow, a marvel of orchids and carnations.

Jason immediately feels his nose start itching, and he wants to kick something. It just goes to figure that there's something in this joint that sets off his hayfever. He pulls a cigarette and blocks out the allergen as best he can as they're seated on an outside portico. The waiter knows better than to bring the wine menu in front of such a renowned teetotaler.

Jason blows a lazy smoke ring and then gives Aunamee the first words he's deigned to part with since they left the Detention Center.

"Entrees only. I'm not paying for appetizers."

[marcato]

"What a kind offer," he says, his tone resting carefully between friendliness and sarcasm. He tosses a warm smile to the waiter, a rather short man with a blue mustache despite his black hair.

(Aunamee assumes that the mismatch must be deliberate, but it still hurts his head. It feels like a single book out of alignment. A spot of ink on a white sweater.)

"I'll have the pork belly," he says pleasantly, shutting his menu with a precision most people would reserve for folding a particularly fancy napkin. He lets his gaze slide back to Jason, the smile still firmly on his lips.

"And what will you have, my new friend?"

The use of the word friend is deliberate. He wants to see the man bristle.