Jason Compson IV (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thecapitol2016-01-31 12:13 am
whatisay) wrote in thecapitol2016-01-31 12:13 am
Entry tags:
A Man Whose Heart is Hollow [Closed]
WHO| Jason and Swann, Jason and Peggy, Jason and Bucky
WHAT| Jason and Swann defect
WHEN| January
WHERE| The Capitol and D13
WARNINGS| Jason fare.
I. Swann
Usually, ever since he started living with Swann, when he's done with the wooing of offworlders that has become his job, he's back at her place by five. Sometimes by four, or even three. Jason's spent more time loitering around his girlfriend's house, which he insists he'll pay rent on but hasn't put any money forward yet on, than he does anywhere else.
But tonight he's late, and a few hours before he's showed up at Swann's doorstep, he's sent her a simple text of pack everything valuable. It means something different to Capitolites. To them, value extends beyond simple monetary worth, something they can buy and use and dispose at a whim. 'Valuable' implies something else.
When he pulls into her parking lot at nine at night, having gathered everything he still had in a safety deposit box, he hopes she understood that.
2. Peggy
They traveled for days. Days of taut, tense silence, days of weeping and inconsolable rage, of kicking the tires of the car and jumping at the sound of birds of prey above because they were just similar enough to their illusions of hovercrafts. When they finally torched their car, it was less a symbol of defiance than it was a desperate attempt to shed this life that was clinging to them like crude oil on a sea creature's hide.
When they were found by the District Thirteen search teams they only had heard of from urban legend and rumor, they didn't even have enough time to feel relief. They were interrogated and had their belongings taken from them, and Swann had her animals temporarily confiscated, and they invoked every one of their family secrets to get themselves out. It's enough to believe they've left happiness and peace forever.
But not quite. There's one hope Jason clings on to, far past knowing it's actually hope, feeling more as if it's manifest destiny. Up until he saw the propo, he assumed Peggy was dead. She was out of his life, which was good enough to count as dead, as far as Jason was concerned. But seeing her was the last push he needed, the safe landing he thought he might have. He feels entitled to at least being able to confront her and scrabble at her ankles.
He sits in the holding cell and jerks his head up when she enters.
3. Bucky
Jason should be grateful that they've been granted the right to stay until their fates are decided. He would be, were he not suckled on the teat of entitlement, of the fearlessness that comes with absolute privilege. Instead Jason's just annoyed to be stuck in a cell waiting for someone to come interview him, to troubleshoot Peggy's opinions. Her vote of confidence.
He's been wearing the same clothes for four days, which the longest he's stayed in an outfit since his mother died. It smells more like him than the cigarettes he compulsively smokes, that he ran out of yesterday and that Coin wouldn't let him indulge in down here anyway. "Air's precious," the official word here is, and as soon as Jason heard it he started laughing.
Now he sits on a metal chair in a holding room when he sees someone enter, and he laughs all over again. "Well. Look at the last person I ever expected to see again."
WHAT| Jason and Swann defect
WHEN| January
WHERE| The Capitol and D13
WARNINGS| Jason fare.
I. Swann
Usually, ever since he started living with Swann, when he's done with the wooing of offworlders that has become his job, he's back at her place by five. Sometimes by four, or even three. Jason's spent more time loitering around his girlfriend's house, which he insists he'll pay rent on but hasn't put any money forward yet on, than he does anywhere else.
But tonight he's late, and a few hours before he's showed up at Swann's doorstep, he's sent her a simple text of pack everything valuable. It means something different to Capitolites. To them, value extends beyond simple monetary worth, something they can buy and use and dispose at a whim. 'Valuable' implies something else.
When he pulls into her parking lot at nine at night, having gathered everything he still had in a safety deposit box, he hopes she understood that.
2. Peggy
They traveled for days. Days of taut, tense silence, days of weeping and inconsolable rage, of kicking the tires of the car and jumping at the sound of birds of prey above because they were just similar enough to their illusions of hovercrafts. When they finally torched their car, it was less a symbol of defiance than it was a desperate attempt to shed this life that was clinging to them like crude oil on a sea creature's hide.
When they were found by the District Thirteen search teams they only had heard of from urban legend and rumor, they didn't even have enough time to feel relief. They were interrogated and had their belongings taken from them, and Swann had her animals temporarily confiscated, and they invoked every one of their family secrets to get themselves out. It's enough to believe they've left happiness and peace forever.
But not quite. There's one hope Jason clings on to, far past knowing it's actually hope, feeling more as if it's manifest destiny. Up until he saw the propo, he assumed Peggy was dead. She was out of his life, which was good enough to count as dead, as far as Jason was concerned. But seeing her was the last push he needed, the safe landing he thought he might have. He feels entitled to at least being able to confront her and scrabble at her ankles.
He sits in the holding cell and jerks his head up when she enters.
3. Bucky
Jason should be grateful that they've been granted the right to stay until their fates are decided. He would be, were he not suckled on the teat of entitlement, of the fearlessness that comes with absolute privilege. Instead Jason's just annoyed to be stuck in a cell waiting for someone to come interview him, to troubleshoot Peggy's opinions. Her vote of confidence.
He's been wearing the same clothes for four days, which the longest he's stayed in an outfit since his mother died. It smells more like him than the cigarettes he compulsively smokes, that he ran out of yesterday and that Coin wouldn't let him indulge in down here anyway. "Air's precious," the official word here is, and as soon as Jason heard it he started laughing.
Now he sits on a metal chair in a holding room when he sees someone enter, and he laughs all over again. "Well. Look at the last person I ever expected to see again."
no subject
By the time Jason walks in, there's luggage stacked at the door, both his and hers. Pascal and Marcel are cowering in their carriers, frightened by so much flurried movement and noise. Swann isn't anywhere to be seen, although she can be heard, shrieking and crying, from the back of the apartment.
She's in Eta's room, with Eta, trying to throw more clothes in bags, packing for her most valuable possession of all. Eta just keeps unpacking everything and not reacting to the tear-choked screaming that it brings, practically unintelligible.
"Eta, stop it!" Swann howls, yanking a duffel bag from Eta's hands. Swann's a mess, her hair everywhere, makeup smeared down her face -- clearly this has been going on for a while. "We have to pack, what are you doing! Why are you doing this, stop shaking your head!!"
no subject
Better it be that the Avox knows her place, even though Jason, too, feels a pang that they'll be leaving her. Eta's mothering, even peripherally, worked its way into the broken fissures his childhood left in him, and he knows he'll be taking Swann with a hole through her heart.
"Swann." He comes in and he grabs the duffel from her, tossing it to the side. It's like watching the world crumble, to watch an Avox actually refuse a direct order. It's enough to make Jason feel sick, but purpose muscles him through it. "We have to go get your father. Now."
Because, in this moment, that's actually what Jason thinks they could pull off.
"Eta," he barks. "Help us load up the car."
no subject
Her focus is singular and her heart is breaking, almost visibly, and she goes back to trying to gather up Eta's meager belongings, mostly uniforms. There are some disconcertingly personal items for an Avox though, pictures of Swann when she was a child, small pieces of jewelry, even a bottle of perfume.
"Daddy will be fine, I have to get Eta's stuff for her!"
no subject
Jason feels a fissure somehow in what he knows and what he sees. Avoxes don't have personal items, don't have personal anything. It's as ludicrous as thinking of a refrigerator or a vacuum cleaner having sentimental belongings. And yet here Swann is, gathering what are obviously goods brought together for the love of them, of her.
Avoxes aren't supposed to feel love.
He grabs Swann's wrists, keeping her from collecting the baggage. He should leave her here, let Swann continue to live her life. He's the one Sinclair's sniffing after, and he's sure Sinclair wouldn't throw Swann under the bus, that Sinclair would salivate at the idea of being the shoulder for Swann to cry on. For the moment, for this situation, Swann is safe. She isn't even involved.
But even he knows, truly and honestly and incontrovertibly, that the Capitol is going to fall. Sooner or later, it'll be Swann under rubble after the city's bombed, or propped up by Rebels before getting her brains blown out to prove a point, or something else. The end of their world isn't just a cloud on the horizon, but a toxic fog they're choking in the middle of.
For all his faults, Jason's always done his duty by the people important to him.
"Swann, she'll be fine. No one's looking for an Avox. No one's putting a bounty on her head. We need to go now. We need to go."
no subject
It's not a matter of Eta's safety in the Capitol. In fact, Swann knows that, after they leave, Eta will just return to Honeymead Manor if they leave her, that Ilar will simply take her back in and shelter her while he rains down his fury and fear through the media.
Jason will be killed if he ever steps back in the city. Swann already knows that, too.
"But I need her," she sobs, losing all her volume. "I can't... you were right, she's the only one who ever really loved me. My whole life, until you. We can't leave her."
She fades out, choking on her own breath, coughing. He might as well ask her to leave her lungs behind.
no subject
"You have me now," Jason says, offhand, quickly, as if he's not even committing his words to the idea of loving her, preoccupied as he is with the urgency of the situation.
"She's made her choice," he says. He doesn't wait for Swann to make hers, instead leading her towards where Eta is packing up Swann's animals and belongings (which outnumber Jason's by an exponential amount) into the car.
no subject
Eta's struggling with the largest pieces of luggage, the ones too big for an old woman, and she can only gently try to push Swann away when she gets grabbed, Swann clinging to her like a child, desperate and needy and miserable, confused to be disobeyed by Eta, of all people in the world. To think that Eta doesn't want to be with her.
It's only after they, together, get Swann into the car that Eta touches Jason's hand, her fingers a delicate graze as she walks a few paces away. From her jacket pocket, she takes out a silk box, dusty pink with little gold polka dots, tied shut with a mismatched blue ribbon to keep it from bulging open. Inside, there are needles and bottles of medicine to be injected, morphling and Swann's antacids, band-aids and sterile swabs. There's a note atop the box, written on Swann's stationery, clearly hastily scrawled out.
The top of the note is dosing instructions for Swann, for the severity of her situation and whether or not she's eaten. The bottom simply says
One full bottle morphling each
no subject
In a horrible way, it seems fitting that it might end like this.
"Thank you, Eta," Jason says for the second time in his life. He closes the box again and tucks it under his arm, then gets into the car. He closes the door and tints the windows, so he can see out the front and driver's side but Swann can't see through the passenger's side at the place they're leaving forever.
"Alright, to your father's next."
no subject
Everything goes dark and Jason speaks, cutting through her overwhelming sorrow and making her look over at him, gawking like he's a complete idiot. "What? We can't go to Daddy's, not if you want to leave. You tell him that we're running away and you'll never make it out of the Manor alive, Jason."
no subject
Somehow, Jason hasn't thought this through all the way. He has glimpses of cleverness, the awareness that Ilar Honeymead would be an even greater bargaining chip than his daughter, that said daughter could cry her way into getting almost anything from Ilar, but he's never planned ahead for more than a few days. He didn't connect the dots, only saw them as blazing points outside a constellation.
He starts driving anyway. Wherever they go, he can't stay in this neighborhood.
"He wouldn't if you asked him not to," he says feebly.
no subject
She looks out the window, though she still can't see anything, and makes a choked noise, spreading her hands wide because she does not know how to explain the severity of this any better. "Yeah, maybe he'd just have you thrown in prison for the rest of your life instead," she snaps, and she's nearly hysterical, still crying impossibly hard. "Why bother leaving, in that case?!"
no subject
But Jason's words don't match up with his actions, because in his head all he can think of now is that he'll be Avoxed. Imprisoned, maybe, killed, probably not, but Avoxing-
It's the fate worse than death, the scary story told to Capitolite children to get them to eat their vegetables and wake up in time for school, to never say anything bad about the Capitol or the President. Jason feels sick, feels his breath come tight, and doesn't take the highway exit that would go to Ilar's.
no subject
She yells it without meaning to, claps her hands over her mouth immediately afterward. She swipes hard at her eyes, smudges her makeup and looks at him with desperation. "He'll never come, Jason. Never. And he'll never let me go, he'll lock me in my bedroom forever. Please, don't you understand?"
Sniffling miserably, she reaches for his arm. "Please, Jason. We don't have to go. Gus dropped it, everything's okay, we can just... forget it all. We'll go away, we can... we can go live with Mother, or back in the mountains. Please."
no subject
That's when this really does turn from an escape to a sort of kidnapping.
"Alright. To the mountains. And if that isn't far enough I have places we can go. We'll be alright, Swann." They only ever needed each other, he wants to say. He doesn't, because it isn't true and his ego couldn't bear it.
no subject
He agrees to the mountains and she nods, her knuckles white where she's clutching the seatbelt too tightly. She licks her lips, parched with adrenaline, and breathes out hard. "Okay. The mountains."
no subject
They just need to get past the border. Unless he's already been flagged as a threat, it's unlikely anyone's been alerted that he's breaking the law yet. He grips the armrest between them suddenly.
"Do you have your papers? To leave the city?"
no subject
"Yes," she sniffles, nodding, and swipes at her eyes again, "in my purse." It sits at her feet, a uselessly cutesy thing made of wicker and shaped like a teapot. It looks like exactly the sort of stupid thing that a dumb Capitolite woman would carry around, but Swann's no idiot -- the teapot's spout holds a small, difficult to find compartment, put in by Eta to carry pills, though now it's been stuffed with heirloom jewels and rolled up bills.
/wrap
He has a hundred things he wants to say to her. He wants to reassure her they'll be alright, he wants to leave her here where she belongs, even wants to apologize - but all the words seem to be churned up in the acid along the back of his throat, the nervous nausea.
So he doesn't say anything else as they escape the city.
no subject
Of all the Capitolites in that godforsaken city.
But he was nothing if not loyal to his job and his cause and right now, this is what it called on him for. He tried to keep his mind blank as he went down to the holding room and had largely succeeded up until Jason went and opened his mouth; the man's usual failing. "I could say the same. Doesn't seem like you've changed all that much in eight years, Jason." Bucky had, he'd grown a couple more inches, filled out, his hair was longer and his expression harder, closer to what it had been in his arena but all the time like he'd lost the 'off' switch.
Jason was still wearing his usual garbage with his usual air of bullshit and arrogance and hadn't seemed to gotten any better with age. Bucky could already see the first few sentences of his report in his head and they weren't kind. But maybe that was simply his own stormy anger brewing despite his efforts to keep neutral.
no subject
He feels his own blood curdle into some sort of acid at seeing Barnes. Unlike with Peggy, there was never any love to lose between him and this Tribute. As soon as the bonus came in for Barnes' victory, Jason was out of there, having finally had enough of the demands of a job that was never suited for him, that asked for organization and social skills and charm where he never had a one of them. It was only because he quit as soon as he did that he didn't get roped up into Barnes' Rebel drama, that he got off with a slap on the wrist and two hours with cushy Capitolite interrogation, the kind they use on dynasty families that they're fairly sure don't even know which color the sky is without being told.
Bucky's not a child anymore, but Jason never really saw Tribute children like that anyway. Any children, really. The immutable innocence of youth never made an impression on him, never was taken into consideration, never absolved a single person of their errors. His age got him no special favors when he was young, and it didn't occur to him to ever lend it to others.
It's the one thing he had that originally made him a good Escort - he didn't get weepy or conflicted about all of it. Bucky was always an adult to him, and now he's just an even surlier one.
"I know full well I'm not going to be allowed to stay based on your glowing recommendation, so let's get it over with. What can I tell you to buy sanctuary for me, Swann and the things she's insisted on bringing with us?"
no subject
There's nothing to add to that answer, it was what it was and Bucky took the pause necessary to say as much with his silence before continuing. "I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I couldn't care less about you or your goddamn armcandy, I'm not here by choice. I'm here to evaluate your usefulness and I already know it first hand. This 'visit' is a formality."
He stalks the area around the table like a lionness stalking her pray, but does finally come to a stop as something crosses his mind. "No, you can answer me something, for as much good as it'll do you, why here? Why come here and not to District 1 or wherever it is you Capitolites run to when you're trying to keep cozy?"
no subject
"Isn't that obvious? I'm here to defect. The Capitol runs itself like it's trying to shake itself apart, and, not that I'm saying this place looks any better," Jason looks around him at that, at the bare walls and the small room, something that wouldn't exist even for the serving class in the Capitol, something spartan even by District standards, "but better the devil you don't know, right?"
There's a pause, and then he adds with a shrug and a sneer, "besides, I'm on the run."
no subject
Jason also looked like shit. Worse than he ever had in the capitol and Bucky knew how 'great' he looked when he didn't have a prep team to tie him together. There was an anger, not for himself, but for this cause he'd helped build. Compson was a threat, he just didn't know how big of one and that's what kept him antsy. But when he was anxious, his mind ran ten times faster than normal. In the split second after Jason had said he was on the run, Bucky had already made up his mind to try something and get some answers at the same time. Who cared how it looked to anyone else, maybe it just seemed like he'd snapped, but it didn't matter.
Bucky took one long stride to the table and slammed his hands down on the table, sharp eyes watching for any reaction made. But his tone took on a dangerous edge, something reserved for the threat Jason might be.
"This isn't a game, Compson. These people are in danger because of you. They're fighting for their lives, something you wouldn't understand. What makes you worth protecting when you couldn't give a single shit about them or their cause?"
no subject
He steadies himself with a long breath, pulling himself back together even when he can feel himself shuddering. And he stands up. It isn't bravery to stand up to the kid he sent to the slaughter and then bailed on nearly a decade ago. It's just arrogance and certainty.
"I'm worth protecting because I'm a Compson," he says, knowing that the weight of those words to him means nothing to Bucky without what he says next, "and that means I know secrets even Snow himself couldn't pry out of my family. Military secrets. You've got people fighting for their lives, and I know where the Capitol's planted traps you haven't even dreamed of."
no subject
But then Compson ruins it by being himself and reminding Bucky exactly why he hated this arrogant jackass: a wonderful example of Capitol-born shit. His anger snapped and crackled and burst in his head and maybe, were his own nerves not frayed by a million other things -Sam still missing, Hannah still missing, the Capitol winning, District 13's growing shadows, Peggy's pain, Steve's torture and death, that last one partly Jason's fault- he would have been able to keep the cool he prided himself on and built a name for himself with here. But he didn't. Couldn't. His anger struck out in the form of his fist across the table, lessening the blow from what it could have been if they'd been closer together, but not stopping it.
Bucky stood and paced away from the table, pushing the distance between them before he decided to simply hop the table and kill Jason himself. He ran a bruised and sore hand through his hair and gave a short and humorless laugh. "Your name might as well be a piece of paper thrown into the wind for how much fucking weight it's got here, Compson. Don't forget that." His hand slid to the back of his neck and then down as he gave a slightly defeated shrug. "But your information might still be good and it'll buy you your probation here." He wished it wasn't true, he wished he could simply toss the man out and say good riddance, but it wasn't his call and he knew it. He also knew he couldn't lie and say Compson had nothing if he actually did, they needed every scrap of information they could grab.
no subject
Bucky hits him just right to break his nose, and Jason falls back into the chair, cradling his face. Blood drains out over his hands, into his lap. For a moment he stares at it in dumb disorientation, Bucky's words delayed between his ears and his brain. Then his face settles again into that trademark spiteful expression and he looks up, teeth yellowed with blood.
He spits to the side and then talks. "That paper doesn't need weight. Just information." They already confiscated the briefcase with his grandfather's schematics, but paranoia runs in the family. Only a Compson could read the shorthand.
"So you should avoid hitting my face any more if you want me to cooperate. We've both got leverage here."
no subject
"You've got nothing Compson, but the hope someone takes pity on you and thinks maybe you're not worth the ink needed to order your execution. The more you try to feed this district your shit, the more I'll push for that ink. If I don't just go get a gun myself."
no subject
"You always were a selfish brat. You would condemn your soldiers over your old grudge, would you?" Jason grips at Bucky's wrist to try and leverage a slightly easier breath. "That's why you won the Hunger Games, after all. The selfless ones don't last very long."
no subject
"You, of all people, have no right to judge me." He didn't even feel like he cared if he was being listened to. This wasn't about what information Jason might have, it was about an anger shut away for so long, it took the smallest opening and broke free. "I wouldn't throw my soldiers to the wolves based on possible information from an unreliable source."
He paced away and waited, silent, until Jason seemed to have pulled himself reasonably together. Together enough to answer his question. "The only information of value you could give me would be what they do with captured offworlders. Where they keep them, what happens to them, where I might be able to find them or get them out, but my guess is that you don't know. It's not your concern, why would you bother to learn anything about another person?" He stopped his pacing and stood rigid, eyes adhered to Jason's face for anything he could get from it.
no subject
"Fine. Then shove me out, then, because I don't know that. I don't know why you think I would. My family's time in the military ended long before we started bringing that trash into this country." He glares back at Bucky, fearless not because he isn't afraid of Bucky but because he doesn't care what happens to him. He only remembers that Swann's on the line as an afterthought.
"I have schematics for the city and I can read my grandfather's shorthand. If that's not enough, like I say. Shove me out."
no subject
He couldn't shove him out and he didn't doubt some part of Jason knew it. That didn't mean he wouldn't threaten and make good on those threats if he ever could. But in the end, no matter what he thought of Jason, someone else thought he might be useful and that meant more. He hated it.
Bucky didn't wait to hear anything else Jason might have to say, it was childish and petulant but he wanted to feel as though he'd had the last word, so he swept out of the room before another could be said. Even if it was idiotic, he didn't let himself regret it.
no subject
She can't put aside the fact that they might be spies. She doesn't think Jason would sell her out, but he has no love for the rebellion, and she doubts Swann is any different, but she can hardly just leave him in there to rot after he risked life and limb to save her life. She can't ask District 13 to put the entire movement at risk for her, though... but maybe she can advocate a measured gamble if he can convince her that he won't stab them all in the back. She just needs to talk to him.
That will be one hell of a talk. She wishes that District 13 allowed alcohol, because she could really use a swig before going in. Instead, she'll just have to go in stone cold sober.
Peggy takes a deep breath and schools herself before going into the holding wing. She looks different than she did when she was in the Capitol. She doesn't wear her scarf anymore, her clothes are plain, and she is perfectly lacking in any makeup or styling. She's just... her.
And Jason looks different too. Messier. Roughened by the wilderness and by the District. She tries to force a smile, but doesn't quite manage it. "Hey."
Yeah, that's the best she can think of. She approaches his cell, but she doesn't come quite into arm's reach yet. "I didn't think I'd ever see you here."
no subject
He's shaken, shaken in a similar way to when his mother died, when his whole life seemed to come unmoored. He doesn't even feel as if he made the decision to come here, just was moved in the same begrudging, passive way as always by the circumstances that have sculpted his life. Finally fleeing the Capitol feels less like a desperate gambit than the sloughing of snakeskin - inevitable, grotesque and yet natural.
But he doesn't know what's happening, and the dark cloud that's long cloaked his future has given way to a terrifying reality that he's only just started to comprehend. And so he's rattled and scared.
In a strange way, it makes him want to rest his head in her lap and let her stroke his hair in that distracting, comforting way she did for him too many times in the past.
He gets up and immediately regrets it, because his wrist is cuffed to the chair and when he pulls it, it makes a horrible metallic screeching noise against the floor. He doesn't know why they bother. It's not like he has any ideas of there being somewhere to run off to.
"Of course, without the makeup I could be forgiven for not recognizing you."