thecapitol | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| Roland and the Signless
What| a reunion
Where| the Detainment Center in the Capitol
When| backdated to a few days after Signless died in the District 1 battle
Warnings/Notes| none

He keeps thinking of Firo. Thinking of the boy without thinking of him, his mind landing on the thought and flitting away from it. He remembers the sight of the boy torn apart, remembers seeing him in the halls of this building not so long after. He hadn't thought any of the offworlders would be brought back from war, wasn't sure whether the fools running this Capitol cared about their value as symbols to the people enough to try and keep them living, not now that the elaborate, idiotic plays that were the arenas are done with. Apparently they're worth something to those fools. Some of them, anyway. Gods know what.

Roland feels himself balancing on the edge of something, and doesn't like to think on what it might be. He doesn't like to think on the detachment he feels when he wonders if he's waiting, when he wonders just how much the life of an enemy footsoldier might be worth.

He'd rather think, instead, on the tools in his hand. Tools, at least, because he can't quite call them anything else. Brittle, breakable, dull on every side and much shorter than they ought to be, they're miles away from what he needs and all he is allowed if he wants to fix his hand.

It'd happened in that battle. He doesn't know when. He should, but he doesn't. It's taken this long to convince the peacekeepers to give him even this much. He tries one, two, three times to fit this stupid dull thing into the very tiny notch on the end of a very tiny screw and it should be no trouble, not for him. He leans forward, starting very carefully to turn the damned tool, turn the screw...

His necklace slips out from his shirt, knocks into the tool, and nudges it out of the very tiny slot of the very tiny screw.

"Damn it!" his hand is, at least, working well enough that when he moves to sweep the rest of the little tools, and the few parts of these fingers he's managed to disassemble, off the table, they go. They make a dull, small, and utterly unsatisfying sound as they hit the floor, and he holds a palm up in the direction of the peacekeeper just now passing near the open wall of his cell.

"It's alright. I only made a mistake. I cry your pardon. Shouldn't have raised my voice." He keeps his tone and posture submissive. It's a great effort but he does it, which is all that matters, and the man, after a second, keeps walking. Once he's out of sight Roland swallows, bows his head, sets an elbow on one knee and sets the fingers of his good hand to tugging at his hair. He swallows again, takes stock of himself, and wonders, vaguely, if he is about to weep.

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Roland grunts. He doesn't particularly agree, not in circumstances like these where coming back to him means risking so much, but he also knows that the Signless isn't feeding him well-meaning bullshit to try and smooth over his feelings. The man means it. And there's the matter of that kiss; Roland thinks this particular man could say whatever he liked, any kind of absurd or patronizing statement that might occur to him, and Roland still would not push him away just now.

He takes a slow breath in through his nose, focuses on what's laid out in front of him. He picks out a gear and holds it up, his eyes flicking over every part of it.

"I ought to be holding up better than this," he says, matter of fact, as he does it. "I've walked alone before, and for far longer than this. Even in this place, I've lost friends to thirteen before. At least this time I know they're alive." One of those sides of that gear is bent. Roland sees this but does not think to do anything about it, and his hand falls lower as his attention moves away from it. "I think they are. I saw Alain. I fought him. But that was some time ago."

He won't ask, at least, not directly. Can't, maybe.

It's alright that he can't. Signless gently sifts through all those words and finds the question Roland can't voice, and finds himself incredibly relieved to be able to pass along good news. Even if he has to cloak it in negatives, he has nothing truly bad to say.

"He's alive and fighting, last I saw." He knows that means very little with how quickly things happen here but he's determined to give Roland the reassurance he craves and won't admit he wants.

Luckily he sees the same bend that Roland does, following the path of his gaze. It takes him a little longer and he wouldn't know the first thing about how to un-bend it, but he knows it's there now.

"Is that it, that piece?"

Roland nods, but his attention's not on the thing in his hand. He's staring at the wall in front of him, breathing deep, working through a great deal of relief - and still, because in war nothing is certain and because he remembers Susannah very well, a good deal of fear. His lips press hard together, and he takes one deep breath. Another. "I fought him, and he bade me join him. He told me he's got my gun now, one of my old guns. The ones you've never seen. I told him to use it himself, and his face then, oh."

Oh, Alain.

"My last words to him as a d- di, di- leader-father. Leader." Dinh isn't a word he can say. It's a lesson he refuses to learn, still, after all this time, even though it wears at him every time he forgets. His hand twitches, wanting to press his fingers to the bridge of his nose, but the gesture doesn't get far at all, it only reminds him of his hands, of the work he ought to be doing. He focuses on the gear between his fingers, seeing it.

"And they were the words of a coward. These men, these men of the Capitol, they have many tools to turn me so. But it was my choice, in the end. I remembered their words, and well, and I turned my blade on my old friend. And his on me. Bite this."

It's not a flood of words so much as a slow and steady rain which, now that Signless is here, seem to drop from Roland's mouth almost without consulting the rest of him. Maybe this is part of what being palemates means for Signless' people, hearing yourself be frank and honest even when you know there may be unfriendly ears, unable to care much about whether or not it's wise. Roland doesn't pause to wonder on it, simply moves on, his tone in that last blending right in with his tone in the rest of it.

"If your jaw's as strong as the rest of you," he goes on, holding the gear out toward the Signless' face, "you should be able to put this right better than I could."

He takes the gear, holding it in the palm of his hand but not yet making any move to do much more than that. His thoughts are on what Roland's just said -- on 'the words of a coward' specifically. Perhaps its his own ideals getting in the way or perhaps it's not having as thorough an understanding of the ideals of Roland's people as Roland himself, but that sticks in his ear, sounds wrong.

Then the rest of it catches up to him. Tools and words and oh. Of course. Of course that would be it, because that's what it always is. The Capitol's greatest tool is fear. Signless has always known this; that same fear is what's beaten him down, what took all the fight out of him and has reduced him to simply existing because refusing to give up living is as much fight as he has in him.

"What did they do to you?"

Roland's first reaction, thoughtless, is shame. How hard did Cort train them, all those gunslingers-that-were, mold them all hard and smooth 'till not one crack showed through? Because a weapon with a crack in it, Cort taught them well, made sure they all knew, a weapon with a crack in the wrong place is more like to take you to the clearing at the end of the path than anyone else.

But Firo, when the boy'd found him after the Capitol men had said their piece, Roland had felt this same shame, hadn't he? And he'd thought of Signless. Signless, who is no bondsman, no boy to crane his neck looking up to him and be shocked when Roland tumbles. He is a man, that's all, and the terms of their bond were spelled out not by his own people but by Signless'. Those terms mean that, though much is owed between them, though Roland has always had to stoop to look Signless in the eyes, neither of them looks up to the other.

He should not need to remind himself of this, but he does. The thought shakes him.

"You haven't been gone from me so long, have you? That I've forgotten how to open myself?" He's spoken to Firo on some matters, deep and painful ones. Not the same way he would have with Signless, but he has. So surely he isn't so far gone as that. Not so closed off yet. "Do you have time for a- A pile? No, what's the word. A feelings jam, in the manner of your people? Will you be able to stay so long?"

In all the time they've been together Roland has never asked him for a pile. Signless has held him and helped to soothe his hurts before but never in a way so overtly pale, so overtly troll. When Roland's needed him he's been content to give himself in a way more natural for a human -- it's worked well enough -- and so it does not escape him that this time something must be very different. Most of those times Roland hasn't asked at all. That he's doing so now worries Signless a lot more than anything else.

"I'll stay until they have to drag me away," he says, and perhaps it's a needless exaggeration but he means it all the same. He cares a lot more about this man than he cares about the Capitol and their rules, even if it's the Capitol that controls his life right now and the Capitol he ought to care about pleasing.

Roland nods, taking it not as exaggeration but simple fact. He looks down at his hand, wiggling his fingers and watching the space where the one now sitting broken down on the desk ought to be. He can feel it moving, though there's nothing there. It might've felt so, too, after he lost the fingers the first time, feeling something moving there, looking down and seeing nothing, but he can't quite recall. Can't, or shouldn't.

"Straighten that gear out, if you can," he decides, indicating the bent one that's been making the machine stick. "If you can't, leave it. I'll finish it later."

He walks to the bed - not a terribly long walk, a step or two, and tugs at the blankets a couple times before realizing that he doesn't need to. He's stalling. Roland takes a breath, turns around and sits on the bed, and holds his arm open, watching Signless and expecting that he'll step into it. "What they did to me..."

Roland watches his knees, feels shame on his face and tries to think on how to explain that part of it, that shame. Explaining that first and the rest later, that would be alright.

"What've I told you about gunslinging? What it means? What it meant to hold that office, in the long ago of my world? We've been close for quite a while, you and I." Here Roland's expression warms, less a smile than a suggestion of one, and brief, but the spirit behind it is real. It has been a long time, for Roland. Very long. Yet here they are, together. For a while. "So I don't quite recall. Not too much, I think."

He watches Roland toy uselessly with the bedsheets while he works at trying to bend that gear. His teeth don't get it quite straight but they do quite a bit of the work, enough that he can feel confident enough in a job mostly well-done to put it down on the desk. Later. Roland and his open arms are more important, and Signless settles in against him as close as he can get.

"Not too much, no."

Every few months they discover this, more they don't quite know about each other. It's never been important, sitting down and having the whole thing out. Surviving the present is difficult enough without reliving the past, and so the past has only come into play when it's been important -- like now.

"I've gathered it's important, to you and to everyone that you knew. Probably an understatement, if it was worth fighting a war over." He knows there was one; Roland's given him bits and pieces of it, particularly late at night when he awakes from nightmares where he's back on Jericho Hill.

"Tell me."

Roland takes a few seconds to arrange his thoughts in the order in which he wants them; it's been a while since he's explained. The last time had been... maybe when he'd first gotten to Panem, reeling, almost raving, he remembers trying to think around where and what and when, when, when, when well enough to explain The White and he remembers the girl asking him, doubtfully, if he was talking about something called the KKK.

This time will go better.

"There's a saying in someone's world. I'm not sure whose. Protect and Serve. That's it, almost, condensed. We protect peace, we serve The White. We protect what order we can and take what pieces of knowledge and light are left in the world and hold them up against the dark. There's a great deal more detail to it, or there was when gunslingers had a country, when there were more. You must be hard to do it, and quick, not just of hand but of mind."

The hand not around Signless taps at Roland's temple while the other presses down a little, feeling that warmth underneath it, taking a slow breath and looking at Signless. "It would have been politics, I think, back in Gilead. I might've said some of that to Firo, that part of it. There would've been fairly powerful people putting quite a bit of pressure on me to put down my guns. But it's only me here. I'm the last, the last once more, and my word goes."

He looks down at his hips, which haven't worn those old familiar holsters in what feels like a long, long time. They've worn something, the weapons of his enemies, so that he can serve the Capitol's purpose of corrupting this world, of dragging it down into the dark. He isn't the last, Alain is here. Alain is very far away, Alain is using the guns of Roland's father to fight for the light of this world.

"So a gunslinger I am, still," he goes on slowly, almost bleakly. "In spite of my deeds. And my weaknesses. I said a gunslinger must be hard, hard everywhere, but I've got a crack in me. You've seen it. And if a man knows the right set of words, has the right lever, he can pull that crack open."

Roland might go on but here, with this man, he allows himself to close his eyes against the shame and to turn away from it, if only for a moment, to duck his head against the softness of Signless' hair and devote some thought to sorting out the smells of it. Perhaps it smells of the Capitol's perfumes and creams, still. Probably it doesn't. He lets Signless have the words he's spoken, lets Signless do what he will with them. They aren't Roland's problem anymore, at least, not solely. For this man, with this man, Roland can allow himself that much.

Oh, yes. He's seen it. Mostly late at night or in moments like these when Roland is tired enough and subdued enough to look inward even a little. He isn't usually that sort of man -- Signless has learned that about him in the long time they've known each other -- but there are some times that even he can't avoid it. This is one of them.

Besides. You probably have a lot of time to think when most of your time is spent in a cell.

"And that's what they've done. Oh, Roland."

He knows, he thinks, exactly what Roland's feeling. He felt that same dissonance between a part of himself he considered so defining and the life Panem required him to live -- still feels it, though he's learned to ignore the niggling discomfort.

"That's low, using something that already hurts you to hurt you more." He says it very quiet, in case the room is bugged -- of course the room is bugged. It just... it's too true to let it go unsaid.

Now that gets Roland to look up. It has the sound of something important, something the Signless considers important, but Roland's frowning as if what he heard came out in some unfamiliar tongue, and he's trying to figure out how to translate. "They used what was there. If I'd hidden it better- if. The fact is, I didn't. If a man's in battle and he leaves cover too early, does he blame his enemy for putting a bullet in his side?"

It's more than he would have said, a while back. Outright calling the Capitol's men his enemies. He's spent so much time being careful. It hardly seems worth the effort.

"No, the fault is mine. A gunslinger must have none of that, as I said. No weaknesses. At least, none he can't control."

He lets out a long, slow breath, letting himself lean a little more into Signless, holding him a little tighter. "Oh, I'm glad you're here. Hm. Low or not it worked, anyway. Even when you were gone, I- stayed. I'll be staying, I think. Long as I can. To do that... I know who I'm fighting for. I know it very well."

Edited 2016-04-20 21:53 (UTC)

That sounds so very reasonable and Signless hates that it does. It's not fair that Roland should blame himself for threats made against him, not fair that he should see it as weakness that he feels at all. It's not fair what's been done to him by this war and it makes Signless's heart ache. If they could escape right now out into the wilderness and leave the whole damn thing behind he almost thinks he wouldn't care about letting the two sides destroy themselves so long as he and Roland were safe, but he knows they can't and, deep down, he knows he'd feel guilty. So here they are and here they'll stay.

"So long as you know that, then."

He worries, privately, that he is a weakness too, another crack the Capitol can exploit-- is that why they brought him back, to use as leverage? The thought makes his stomach drop. Yes. Of course that's it. Why else?

"While I'm here I'll patch your cracks as best I can." While I'm here. Like he may not be soon; he knows very well that's something they'll both have to prepare for. With the way he's been thrown back and forth between the opposing sides he doesn't trust the ground under his feet anymore.

"Patch them?" Roland shakes his head, turning and trying to pull the other man's body along with him, wanting to stretch out on his side and pull the Signless down and stretched out close beside. Stretching out on this bed is always easy, even for him; it is soft and clean and plenty long enough. Panem is a land which likes to treat its prisoners well.

"Who can do that? Can any man? No, only stay. Stay with me. I saw you die and thought you gone from me for ever, and now you're here. You're warm and alive and I can feel your arms around me. For tomorrow, survive. Survive and come back to me and, for tomorrow, that will be enough. For tonight, Signless, only lay here a while. Remind me what it feels like to set your heart in someone else's hands. That will patch the parts of me which truly need the work. For tonight, that will do me well enough."

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