Jason Compson IV (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whatisay) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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
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.