thecapitol | [open] Say where is my shame...

Entry tags:

[open] Say where is my shame...

Who| Augustus and Open with a closed prompt
What| Panem is falling apart but Sinclair isn't worried
Where| Various locations
When| Early January
Warnings/Notes| Capitolite privilege, callous disregard for human life,

I- The Capitol
What was a passing worry, a simple flight of fancy that the Capitol allowed to exist was wearing thin in Sinclair's eyes. Those in his sector, the finance centers of Panem were starting to panic and make rash decisions, making his work all the more annoying rather than enjoyable. The Rebellion captured District 12 and Seven but he wasn't quite surprised that happened. Like Three, those were hotbeds of dissent compared to the richer districts. It was simply a shame that they forget just how easily those smears can be wiped off the face of the planet.

Is Sinclair worried? Of course, it's his job to do so, but he's also keeping an eye on the events as they unfold. Snow is entertaining the rebels in their game but how easily can that be put to rest with another District 3 bombing? Even the murder of the Panem Nightly News anchors wasn't a big deal to him…
At least outwardly. In reality, Sinclair was starting to sleep with a gun under his pillow, and more so with the attempted capture of District 1…that hit too close to home for his taste.

He doesn't break routine as he goes out to his investments in the Capitol, offering a charming little smirk towards those he runs into.

II- The Detainment Center

And that charm is especially evident when Gus goes with Delta to the Detainment Center to examine the specimens in their enclosures. That's what offworlders have become: specimens, dehumanized examples of far off lands whose systems of governments were bound to fail. Kingdoms fall with beheadings, democracies built on peace collapse under the hypocrisy of what peace meant: sacrifice.

"You," he'd pick any soldier he saw, "What battles have you fought?"

Should he be satisfied with the answer, his smirk would gain wattage and suggestions for what supplies they need for battle.

III- Closed to Swann - Her apartment

But there are somethings that just can't be bought with money, like for example, the heart of a woman who loves someone else. Someone Sinclair knows is a scheming brat of a Capitolite who knows he's done wrong and just doesn't play the game by the rules that Gus set out. He can impound assets and reclaim properties that were scammed off him, but in the end, nothing would make Swann see the vile nature that comes with Jason Compson IV.

Even coming here makes the proud businessman feel second-tier to such a desperate waste of an Escort who could get slapped by a little girl if he were so stupid to pick a fight with. Sinclair was here to check up on his friend, he remembers the last time she was scared and lost in the events that transpired. True to his word, Augustus never mentioned Eta and her autonomy… but these conflicts were worrying him.

"Swannie? You in there, sugar?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eta lets Sinclair in, takes his coat and hangs it up, and Swann follows on her own, popping out of the kitchen with a smile on her face. The smile is accompanied by smudges of flour and cocoa powder, and wisps of her hair are floating around her face, loose from her bun. She unties a lacy white apron from her waist as she heads toward him, revealing that you can put a Capitol girl in the kitchen, but you can't take away her style while she's there, no matter how impractical it may be.

"Gus!" she calls, sing-song, hugging him whether he wants to be hugged or not, and then she has his hand in hers, is pulling him along behind her. "I just finished these little lava cakes, they have white chocolate and raspberry dark chocolate ganache in the middle, come have some!"

She figures he's just come because she doesn't see him much anymore, now that she doesn't need money for supplies and training regimens. She doesn't know that anything's wrong, at least not beyond the obvious war. Swann looks over her shoulder as she crosses into the big kitchen, filled with marble and stained glass, and beams.

The way Swann acts, it's as if the war was just something from another country, not Panem. She's still baking, wearing designer clothes to do house things, and still willing to reach out and hug him. In other words, Jason hasn't told her about the scam and...in a way, he doesn't want to break that illusion. Let her believe that he and Compson ended their business deals without the threats and power plays that came with it.

"My you've been busy as of late, anyone yer doing these for?" he then asks in a tone, "Is your daddy on a diet again?"

Ilar was probably keeping his daughter shielded from the mess at District 1, though it was still the Capitol's District after all that.

What Swann knows is a confusing muddle of information, much of it filtered through her father and Jason and Capitol media at large. She knows nothing of District One, and believes that Jason and Sinclair have mostly worked out their problems. On the other hand, she's sitting on direct knowledge of Jason's treason, still uneasy with it, and that means she's just ignoring it all, focusing on her recent weekend vacation and not thinking at all of the bad things.

Part of it is just boredom, though. She doesn't have much of a job anymore, and so she needs the baking and crafts to fill her time.

"Oh, Daddy's always on a diet," she says jokingly, waving her hand. "But for him, it's the holidays from Halloween to St. Patrick's Day, so he's still giving himself permission to indulge. Anyway, I made these just because I thought they sounded fun!"

On the big marble kitchen island, there's a two-tiered cake stand shaped like a crane balancing plates on its head and back, plates that hold palm-sized chocolate cakes. Each one has been carefully topped with whipped cream, sprinkled with chocolate flakes, and crowned with a single raspberry. Swann lets go of his hand and stretches up to a cabinet, pulling out a dessert plate (this month's dishes are hand-painted with birds on gold leaf branches, and the entire set will be discarded as soon as she finds another pattern she likes more) that she carefully moves a cake onto and then places at a seat.

"So what brings you over?" she asks, taking a fork from a drawer and setting it on the edge of the plate.

Sinclair's stylist both loves and hates Swann because of her gift giving ways, as she sends the man some truly beautiful arrangements to his office. This in turn makes her job of getting his clothes set out at the right size a pain in the ass.

"Can't a friend check up on you now that the Games are on their brief hiatus," he asked assured that this was indeed a temporary problem that the Capitol could do away with should it have the chance. Watching Honeymead, he wouldn't know about the mess with Jason went further than that...that it reached to treason. He could have his head mounted on a pike at this rate but she was involved.

"I hear ya went a vacation, I trust everythin' went smoothly?" She had no knowledge of the battles that waged there so Jason must've kept her safe.

Well, as far as Swann's concerned, as a Honeymead, her desire to bake and then send the products to Gus outranks any stylist's desire to keep him trim and properly tailored. Also, that woman should probably send Jason some flowers or something, because it would only be so much worse if Gus wasn't getting super cockblocked.

"Of course! I just would have made something better if I'd known you were coming!" Which undoubtedly just means an entire meal and then multiple courses of dessert, so it's really for the best that he didn't call first. "I'm glad you came, though. It's been kind of rough, going from being around people in the Tower all day to... you know, no one, really. Even most of my Tributes are gone."

Her brow knits and she looks sad for a moment, but then it's like a switch flicks and she's beaming again. "Oh, it was amazing! Look, look," she says, click-clacking her way across the marble floor and pulling her phone out. She climbs onto the stool next to his (and it is, actually, a climb for her) and starts flicking through pictures. There are pictures of her and Jason together, of just Swann in a lavender ski suit trimmed in fur, of Jason with snow on his face, a grainy picture of them in a hot tub.

But most of the pictures are of beautiful, untouched snow and majestic views from the cabin, the sky purple and dotted with a million stars. And apparently she saw a moose at some point, because there are about fifty blurry pictures of one from various angles, taken as Swann followed it from a healthy distance and also from behind trees.

As much as Sinclair wants to ask her about the tributes, how many are still in the Capitol's side, he indulged in her wish to share vacation pictures. Of course she looked radiant and Jason's there...but's it's the vistas and the moose that get the man to smile. Swann was a Capitolite but she was curious and that was a small blessing. She was willing to track down a beast.

Still doesn't explain Compson but even the universe doesn't have to abide to common sense. Gus simply pretends that nothing happened in District Seven, that the forests are all there and the Capitol's reach is still present.

"Aw don't be glum, Swannie, you'll be back an' chattin' people up in no time," he assured her, "And things will go back to how they were." Indoctrination since birth was definitely a key factor in his words, the other is survival.

It's better if he doesn't ask, since Swann really has no idea how many Tributes are actually Capitol-aligned. Even the ones fighting on their side, it's hard to tell their feelings about it. The off-worlders seem so willing to defect, for the most part, and the Rebellion is scooping them up right and left.

"I know," she sighs, idly swiping to a picture of Marcel in the snow, wearing a hooded parka that has slits for his ears to poke out of. He's also wearing snow boots. "It was just nice, I guess, how things were. I don't think they'll keep the off-worlders when they start the Games back up."

She clicks her phone off and props her elbow on the countertop, resting her cheek in her hand. "Eat," she whines, pushing his plate closer to him.

That whining is certainly compelling and SiNclair finally digs into the wonderfully crafted treat Swann has presented him. Marcel may be a yappy little thing but he made the Escort happy to dress and dote on, hopefully the other son of a bitch in her life does the same.

"Oh? That's a damn shame, I was getting used to their squabbles and their notions about the world," he sighed out, mostly disappointed that such marketable people wouldn't be staying in Panem. But the bottom dollar spoke loudest and it was too expensive to bring more people into the nation. "Wonder how they'll exit this world...the President probably has a contingency plan."

Well, he was willing to wear a Santa Claus suit just to make her happy. If that's not sacrifice in the name of love, what is? (He was also getting sexy Ms. Claus sex out of it, so it wasn't exactly selfless.)

"I suppose that they'll have to stay until it's discovered. I can't imagine they'd keep that a secret for so long, not when they could use it to entice the Rebel ones out of the war. Maybe the Gamemakers will keep the good ones around, the ones who are loyal." She taps her nails on the counter, thinking. "Like Albert Wesker, and Black Tom and Molotov. People who are more like us than like the other off-worlders, you know?"

Biting her lip a little, Swann balls her hands up and puts them in her lap, sending her skirt into a rustle as she pushes out the air. "Anyway, I'm really, really glad you came over, Gus. I have to talk to you."

Augustus was about to comment on who his personal favorites were to stay (he likes Black Tom and Molotov's style, no disagreeing there) but when Swann mentioned the need to talk, he was slightly apprehensive. He expected Jason to have decorum in defeat, if he wasn't admitting that he'd mess up. The last thing Gus needed was that waste of air dragging his good name down with him.

"What about, sweetheart? Is yer daddy an' Eta doin' fine?" Old girl wasn't getting any younger and the bond the Honeymead heir had with her Avox was illegal but healthy. He couldn't bear himself to break them apart. And of course Ilar was the pillar of the household, he had to be fine, right?

"Of course, of course, they're both all right. Same as always." She's eager to dispel the notion of them being in anything less than a perfect state, as if saying it was the exact same thing as making it happen. "No, it's not about them. It's... it's about Jason. He doesn't know I'm talking to you, okay? Like, he said I can't, that he doesn't want me to, but I don't care."

She blinks at her lap, bites her lip for a second and knits her brow. "Gus, it was me. Well, okay, not everything, but the trusts, Ben's money. I did it. Jason needs the money and I can afford to take care of Ben, so I figured it didn't matter. He was so bad when his mom died, Gus, he needed something to make him feel better. So I told him that he had taken care of his family his whole life, and he deserved more of the estate, as long as Ben is taken care of. I was never going to let anything bad happen to Ben. You can check my accounts, his facility is completely paid off for eighteen months, with a discretionary fund that covers anything else he can need. There's a secondary trust building interest for the next three years, after the eighteen months is up."

In rambling, she's reached for Augustus's hands without thinking about it, her own shaking and pale. "Jason doesn't let me help him, Gus. The only reason I was able to pay for the funeral was because he was so screwed up at the time. I just thought... it was a way I could help both of them. I relocated his servants, too, they all needed help."

And not that it had ever been a real secret, but both Swann and Jason had kept the extent of her assistance at that time quiet. Now it comes out, that Swann had not only paid for everything, but she had taken care of the entire Compson estate. Put Ben somewhere appropriate. Organized everything necessary for the property sale. Set up the unemployed servant family with a new job and home, paid them in the interim while Jason barely functioned.

Her eyes are huge and sparkling with tears on her waterline, her head cocked as she leans in toward Sinclair. "Please, Gus," she says, and she's choked up. "Tell me what you want me to do. Anything. Just... don't punish Jason for something I did."

To hear Swann admit to being the brains of the schemes was a slap to Sinclair's face and for a moment, he saw red. That the culprit, the person who was stealing money or put the idea in that fetid Compson brain had been Swann all along. The skeptic in Gus wanted to either call her out, that she was using her connections to let the man run free. But that would end in a tragedy, especially with how deeply it shook the Honeymead heir. She was trying to help a man who didn't want help and that was a damn shame.

And as much as he claimed to Jason that he didn't feel that much affection towards Swann, it's her word that prompted him to take out his phone and place a call.

"Nina, have the team call off the Compson investigation, tell the other banks I will pardon Jason's debts on my own dime."

Swann can probably hear Miss Carnegie's "WHAT?!" from where Sinclair was but the assistant doesn't argue. She had an inkling where her boss was and who was the brains behind that message. She's told her boss to let the former escort go, but the finality of his order...Nina had to have guessed that this had to be the one last gift Gus could give Swann. "Right away sir." "You're a gift."

When Sinclair hung up, he sighed out, "You don't have to do a thing except keep this on the hush-hush. You've been doin' tha' family a favor an' I can't punish you for that." Because he knew that her heart lies with Jason, for better or worse.

To be fair, everything except the manipulation of Ben's money, that was all Jason, had probably been started back before she graduated high school, let alone started dating him. So Gus doesn't have to feel bad about all of his anger, probably only about 35%.

She watches him make the phone call with weepy bambi eyes, cringes to hear Nina on the other end. She half expects his assistant to refuse, talk him out of it, but then he's hanging up, and before he can say a word, she's practically diving between the two stools, into his lap because she's not tall enough to hug him standing up.

She's crying, avoiding his white collar, resting her head on her arm instead, and in this moment, she realizes exactly what she's done by falling in love with Jason, what she's done to Gus and her father and herself. Probably even to Jason. Maybe the only truly good thing to come out of it all is her protection of Ben, what she was able to offer there. And it doesn't matter because she can't take it back, can't change this path any more than she could change the color of the sky.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, gently touching her forehead to his, makeup streaming under her eyes. "About everything. I wish things were different."

"You don't hafta apologize, Swann," Sinclair shook his head slightly, and for a moment, he could almost picture a happy life, being with one of the last good Capitolites left. Of course she helped Jason out with his bind, the Capitol looks out for each other and for Panem itself. That he could've pursued her further than just business acquaintances, that maybe he could've beat Compson...but it's all a cruel dream.

"You shouldn't apologize for doin' what's best for those you love. He makes ya happy, an' that's what counts to me an' Ilar." He can't imagine what the Honeymead patriach is going through with all this and working himself to an early grave.

She smiles sadly, sniffles and straightens his collar. "I do have to apologize. It's all my fault. None of us would be in any of this mess if it weren't for me. The money, you and Jason at each other's throats. Daddy and everyone freaking out about the company. You... just you. You don't deserve any of this."

Swiping at her eyes, Swann glances away, sniffles again. "I don't want to hurt you just to help Jason. I love you too, I love you and Daddy, and look what I did. And it's not just this, it's... I don't know, Gus. It feels like I'm doing the wrong thing except that I don't know what to do without him."

She laughs bitterly. "I'm so stupid."

Swann's right, he doesn't deserve this but Gus chooses to engage in this farce, to allow her to make her own mistakes, and just carry on. So long as Jason doesn't actively hurt her. If Ilar had his way, even the mere thought of harm falling on his princess could end the war.

"Love makes us stupid Swannie. But as much grief as tha' man gives ya, yer bouncin' around full of energy," he finally admitted his own feelings in just a few hidden words but it's not about him that's suffering. "You sit tight, darlin' an' he'll never know what happened here."

She can't do much more than curl smaller than she already has, like she's willing him to absorb her and just let her escape everything by hiding away inside him. Her face falls from its empty, withered smile, and her eyes well up again as she shakes her head, her gaze fixed on her hands, his shirt.

"He's going to do something," she says softly, her brow knitted. "I don't know what. He said he'd come up with something. And... Gus, there's more, there's worse, but I can't tell you." She chokes and looks up at him with eyes like a scared lamb, her voice barely there. "He did something worse and I'm just as guilty as him because he told me about it. I didn't want to hear it, he just said it, and I kept the secret. I don't want to get Avoxed."

Sinclair could've accepted all this, that Jason was merely an idiot with too much old money and not enough common sense. He could've walked away and let Swann handle this mess and let her be happy with that fixer upper of a man. Right up until she said those words. Now whatever resignation Augustus had for this relationship came blowing back as a fury barely held back in his body language. He couldn't be the knight in shining armor for Swann, then what could he be?

"This stays between us-" Nina would have his head but he wrote down a few lines in a nearby napkin, "This is my personal address, confidential." She probably knew the place already, "If y'all gotta run for a while, you keep in contact like in the old days. I'll make sure yer daddy don't worry too much."

It might as well be the last time he saw her.

She doesn't look happy. She doesn't know that she is happy, because loving Jason is just as much pain as it is pleasure, and yet she's hopelessly, impossibly addicted to him. The noise she makes is more of a sob than anything else, choked and desperate and miserable, and she takes the napkin from him with a sniffle and a nod. It's an address she knows, of course, one she's been to in order to drop off presents -- of course, Gus spends so much time at work that she mostly winds up in his office.

But now, she can only cling to him, napkin in one hand and her tears falling on his collar. She wants him to be her knight in shining armor, she wants it so badly, but even she knows that she'd still pick the dragon over him. Swann would give anything to change it, to wrap herself and everyone she loves in the safety of letting go of Jason, but there are some things assi just can't buy.

It's too late for her. It doesn't have to be too late for everyone else.

"I love you, Gus," she whispers, putting one shaking hand to his cheek, her eyes rimmed in harsh red when she looks up at him.

Augustus wants to believe Swann's sweet words, he wanted to believe that he could take her away. But he can't believe her and his heart would harden up once more. She doesn't love him, she loves Jason even as he brings her down into dangerous waters she probably wouldn't have if she had stayed away from his path. If he can't be the knight in her story, nor the dragon, he might as well be the castle she can run back to. In any other person, Sinclair would've been disgusted by the idea, the mere thought of being the back-up plan.

But for her sake, he made the exception, whispering back the truth, "I love you too Swannie." There are no pretenses of business or Capitol lineages, this is Augustus as raw and bare as he's ever been to another human being.

"I should..." he can't even muster the word leave, because he knows that the moment he leaves, the damage will be irreparable.

Even to hear it back, it's like being punched in the throat, makes her entire body ache in ways she doesn't even understand. She thought she knew the extent of emotional pain, she thought she'd experienced it all. She didn't know until now how much worse it could get.

He's not just Gus. He's everything in life that she could have, knows she should have, and yet the sick, prickly tentacles that she and Jason have lashed to each other are thick and strong and unwilling to be broken. She feels so stuck and gutted, empty inside and desperately wanting.

"Don't," she whimpers, and it's such a base reaction that she never could have stopped it. She trembles from head to toe, shaking her head without thinking about it, even though she knows it doesn't matter if he leaves now or in the morning or never. When Jason calls, she'll come running.

Her love for him is all-encompassing. But her love for Jason is even greater than that.

A part of him, the cold and calculating businessman, tells Sinclair to finally let Swann go, to exit her apartment and leave her to her own devices. But there's something deeply human about all of this. He's agonizing inside, trying to extend his inevitably limited time with her. But the moment he spotted her phone, cute and so very her, he knows the truth. Jason will come and the man with the sixth largest fortune in Panem will become part of the noise.

"I hafta go, Swannie," he doesn't hide the raw break in his voice, a fracture as real as a shattered bone. "But stay safe. You deserve a happy life. I'll keep your father an' Eta safe, don't worry about that."

The businessman is already dismissing this as a contract gone south, the mortal self is reeling through it all.

She doesn't have the businesswoman part of her to be shrewd, to numb the agony even a little bit. The businesswoman that Swann is spends her time fighting for herself, for other people -- she is no more detached than the broken little bird Swann that lives in the same body.

Nothing hurts her like hurting other people. Nothing demolishes her the way she is demolished when she feels the cracking of the strong pillars in her life, the people who hold the weight of the world and her own crushing darkness off of her head. The pain is searing, seems to take up all the space in her body, and she is at a loss.

After, when she's hurt, she usually runs right to Sinclair's arms. Where does she go from here?

She moves away, finally, feels cold and small standing in front of him, barely able to stay on her feet. But she doesn't fall, even when every fiber of her very being wants to, because she fears she will never get up again.

When Swann does break away from their embrace, it feels like the frigid northern districts in the dead of winter. Outsiders looking in just see two Capitolites about to just part ways in what would've been a temporary crack in the friendship. Sinclair doesn't know what Jason did to get him and and Swann in trouble to this point, to throw away their birthright and remain in the Capitol's walls.

But for the first time in decades, Augustus feels hollowed out. The last time he felt like this, was to identify his grandfather's drowned corpse, leaving the young boy to fend for himself. And for a second, he really was staring at a dead woman. Swann was a lady raised in privileges, she has never known the strains of heavy work, and if it were up to Ilar, it'd stay that way. If Gus had his way, Jason would have his head mounted on a pike. But it wasn't what the woman before him would want.

Sinclair gave Swann one last tilt of the head before he headed out. Nina and his staff would be given the rest of the day off, to prepare for any big announcements by the Capitol. He doesn't know when he'll see the Honeymead heiress again but he knows what needs to be done.

[ooc: wrap here?]

"Bye," she whispers, hardly more than a breath, and she doesn't watch him go, can't make herself. Her lungs burn and feel swollen, panic making her frame feel even tinier and less capable of holding emotions than it already was. She waits until she hears the quiet click of the door behind him, and then she collapses to the marble floor of the kitchen, sobs and howls into her arms, kicks Eta away when she appears to tend to the sorrow.

Cakes that will soon be thrown away whole go cold on the counter.

Emily's workload has eased off considerably since the rebels took Seven, and while she knows she should be relieved, she finds herself getting increasingly anxious, feeling like a caged animal instead of a privileged citizen of the Capitol; even though many more Capitolites are regarding her favourably rather than suspiciously now that she's been out to the battlefield on their behalf. She's cooped herself up in her apartment for a while now but today she decides to venture out, needing to get some of the pent up feelings out of her system.

She returns Sinclair's smile politely and reservedly when she passes him in the street. "Hello, Mr Sinclair. I hope you've been keeping well."

It's been a long while since Sinclair had heard of Emily, when she wasn't talking about her Tributes. Though he briefly wondered if Jason ever had the courage to admit that it was his fault Solutions pulled their funding for the incoming Arenas. In Gus' mind, the Hunger Games would continue as planned and no need to stop planning for them. From the comfort of his office and away from danger, he watched coverage of District 7 and how Emily did her best.

Too bad it ended up in Rebel hands. Oh well.

"As well as one can be with these times," he said in a genial but not quite sincere tone in his voice, "Business has been adapting to the events." Because like hell he's not taking advantage of this situation, he merely traded wood for weapons. "Are you going somewhere, Miss Finch?"

"Adapting certainly seems to be a good strategy," she replies a little wryly. It's exactly what she'd done herself, though adapting to the perks and drawbacks of being a Capitol citizen has proved a little difficult for her. At least the changes Sinclair had to make were only in regard to his business interests. "Nowhere in particular, I was just wandering a little." It's something she's found herself doing more and more these days, without the Arenas and her former Tributes to occupy her time.

Wandering souls can end up meeting the devil, nowhere was this more true than the Capitol. Sinclair couldn't help the twitch in his mouth as he heard Emily's response. She was a Districter, but one with experience in the machinations of the Capitol. For her to be walking about without purpose, it doesn't shine her in a favorable light. She's supposed to be singing the praises of Snow's mercy and kindness after all.

"If you're just walkin' fer walking' sake, then come, let me treat you to some lunch, shall we?" he invited in what seemed like a gesture of good faith but in reality, he wanted to fish for information. He wanted to know how badly Jason ruined his own life with his own pride.

"That's very kind of you, if I'm not encroaching on your time." Her brow raises in surprise, wondering what he might want, knowing that as a Districter-turned-Capitolite her true friends will always be few and far between. "Lead the way."

"Encroachin' my- Oh come now, don't think like that," Gus is putting on all the airs of affability, simply making sure that Emily remembered just which side kept her safe and made sure the population never crossed the lines, like Thirteen had. He wanted her alliance, her support and her happiness to boost morale and any future business he might have in her District.

"Our time is equally as valuable. You keep our spirits high and I make sure that the machines of war are well oiled and efficient," he admitted with the best sympathetic look he could. "You've been a service to us all. Now please take whichever item you'd like."

Edited 2016-04-03 03:25 (UTC)

Clara isn't sure where she stands when it comes to the Capitol. She isn't here willingly (she's never been here willingly), but she's done a propo for them and has done a few commercials here and there for various protective items catered towards women (including, but not limited to, a powder brush with a blade hidden inside, a pair of stilettos with literal stiletto heels, and a stroller that could generate a miniature force field and shoot poison darts at attacking rebels). She keeps her opinion on the Capitol and its politics to herself and in exchange she has a little bit more freedom and doesn't have to worry as much about the idea of David or Alex being dragged into any of this.

She's returning from a business meeting when she notices him along the streets in the financial district. She's never quite come around to the Capitol's fashion, but her black and white dress and heels are nicer than most things she'd be wearing at home. She smiles back tentatively with a small nod. "Mr. Sinclair, right?"

Clara Murphy would've been another victor in the sea of those who didn't enjoy the pleasures and privileges that come with the prize. He'd seen some of the debacles she's been involved in, especially with the Alex Murphy fiasco. But lately, it's becoming apparent that everyone in the Capitol is playing the political favors game, and who better to approach than one of the richest men in Panem?

In any other occasion, Sinclair would've brushed her off but having offworlder allies is always a must. "Ms. Murphy, I presume? My, you look exquisite today," he greeted with the affability that a well-bred Capitolite who has the upper ground. "Are you headed somewhere?"

It was brought up to her once or twice to approach Sinclair while the Arenas were still on. Having an asset like him in her back pocket to try to hit up for sponsorship for her girls would have been wise, but she had chosen time and time again to try to be choosy about what to put forward to the Amazons of District 10. Mainly so she could avoid any of them being caught up in a potentially sticky situation further on down the line.

That was then and things had changed drastically. These days she didn't need sponsorship as much as she needed the right connections, and Sinclair was exactly the type of man she wanted to be linked to in the public eye. The smile she gave in return was all charm and charisma, even it was purely for show. "You flatterer," she teased. "Nowhere in particular, I was thinking of maybe going to get a coffee before heading back to the training center." She knew that wasn't the right thing to call it these days, but she doesn't want to call it the detainment center in front of such a high esteemed Capitolite, and she couldn't bring herself to call it home, even after all this time.

Sinclair may be a Capitolite but he was well aware of the offworlders and their own machinations to survive. Commendable, yes, but in the end futile in the eyes of those who know better. Hell, even he's gone through the moments of doubt until he remembers that its the Capitol who has the killswitch to the visiting guests, or so he thinks.

"Ah well, this is fortunate then; I was hoping to recruit some of the personnel there to be...featured in some of my work. I do enjoy giving people second chances of course. How have you and Black Tom been? Must be a shame to lose Ms. Carter's assistance."

And he wasted no time in sticking that needle in Clara's eye.

Clara tried her best to look at ease with being questioned about Black Tom and Peggy, these were questions that she was somewhat used to after all. And these days she could at least be some what truthful about it. "Mr. Cassidy and I rarely speak these days." She pointedly said nothing about Peggy, or about how antagonistic her and Tom's relationship was (and always had been).

Instead there were far more important things at hand. "What kind of work were you thinking?" If there was one set of skills that Clara had picked up on in her time as a Mentor, it was how to sway people into entering the limelight and selling personalities.

"Ads, propaganda, potential test subjects for certain products, little jobs here and there," Sinclair shrugged off Clara's silence in what was one of the more tumultuous alliances in the Capitol.

"But you do speak, well, did to people of other districts, didn't ya?" he teased her, tried to put her on the spot for not just romance but also in who she lined herself with. Gus was a Capitolite in power and he would do his damnedest to keep it that way. If anything, he can put the word out for any suspicious activities. Never too careful, you know?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] Say where is my shame...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

throws you into a pit

I

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject