thecapitol | Even Mayo Can't Fix Everything [Open]

Who | Kousuke Nitou and you!
What | Nitou's not the happiest soldier for the Capitol.
Where | Various locations in the Offworlder Detainment Center
When | After the D8 mission.
Warnings/Notes| Mayonnaise going where mayonnaise shouldn't go, discussion of brainwashing.

[A - Common Area]
The missions never really got easier. At least Nitou didn't think they ever got easier. Not that he remembered any of them. Not well. That never sat well with him. He'd spent a lot of time off sulking off by himself because of that, trying not to worry too much about what he'd done. But this time? This time had been different. He knew he'd run into Haruto, and then something had happened, and the vague and persistent headache he'd had off and on since getting to the Detainment Center had lessened somewhat.

Now, he's lying upside down on a couch, with his feet dangling off the back and his head where his feet should normally go. He is bored. So bored. Bored, bored, bored, and trying not to get back into the funk he'd been in for a few weeks.

He's also very, very subtly trying to flick small wads of paper at anyone who might be walking by. He's just that bored.

[B - Cafeteria]
As though to add insult to injury, the cafeteria just wasn't properly equipped to handle Nitou's unique dietary needs. Sure, they were more preferences than needs, but when a man's being puppeted around to fight against his will, he needs something to fall back on. Mayonnaise was all he had left.

So he's there in the cafeteria, surrounded by a pile of emptied mayonnaise packets, tearing open yet another one to squirt on his food. Most people might think milk would be the thing to put on their bowl of cereal, but Nitou clearly has other ideas. It's nothing to empty that little packet, toss it into his pile, and scowl at it. Still not quite enough...but wait! There's one on the table by someone else. Perfect.

"Hey! That mayo packet--you gonna eat that?" Because it looks like Nitou's about ready to snatch that up if he doesn't get a very quick "yes" answer.

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Unfortunately answering anything quickly is out of Harleen's range of abilities right now. She opens her mouth to speak but is too slow and flinches when he snags the Mayo packet from her. She nods gently accepting her now mayoless fate and turns her attention to her meal. A quiet shell of the woman she used to be. Despite her best efforts to stay out of peoples hair she just couldn't avoid it forever.

"All the condiments in the world won't fill the hole in your heart." She mumbles and then looks horrified that she'd said it out loud. "I-I'm sorry. I...ignore me. I'm stupid."

Nitou freezes there with his half-open packet of mayonnaise and passes it back over. He remembers her, remembers how she seemed more alive back when things were only kind of bad as opposed to really, really "why do I have so many holes in my memory now" bad. He tosses the mayo back over. "Nah, here. Here, you take it. I think you need it worse than I do."

She takes the packet but sets it down starring blankly at her food. The old her used to eat whatever was put in front of her, usually with commentary about it's quality one way or another but she simply couldn't muster up the appetite.

"Go ahead...I wasn't really using it." she mumbles apologetically using the tips of her fingers to slide the packet halfway to him before quickly retracting her hand as if he might bite her.

They said this was how she should be. This was how normal people were. This was sanity, this was humanity.

This was a living death that she couldn't escape. Memories of a life full of vivid color still tingled in the back of her head but trying to reach for them gave her such awful headaches.

"If you say so." The mayo gets squirted into the horrible mix that is cereal and the rest of the mayonnaise he's been able to acquire at this point in time. "But you gotta make sure you eat something. Even if all the life gets sucked out of it." He's glumly looking at the spoonful of mayo and cereal as he says that. The concoction lacks a certain joie de vivre, as far as he's concerned.

She nods obediently and to show him that she's listening she takes a forkful of mashed potatos and eats it slowly, delicately. Not too big a mouthful, not too fast. Steady as she goes. Chewing and swallowing.

"We don't really deserve the nice fancy food we used to have anymore though do we?" She muses out loud and instantly looks apologetic for it like she shouldn't be speaking up.

Nitou makes no effort at eating slowly and delicately. He's shoveling everything in. "Why not? We never asked for any of this, least they could do is treat us right."

He's been tazed too many times and has too many headaches and memory blackouts to really care what he says at this point, anyway. Even if it's a quieter grumble than what he might ordinarily be almost-yelling.

Just hearing his words builds on her anxiety. She looks around like she half expects the peacekeepers to be storming down the middle of the room at him for his words.

"B-because even if we never asked for it...they gave us so much when things weren't all terrible. The food a-and the clothes...and the parties and...I mean they never had to bring us back to life they should have..." She had to catch herself and corrected the word "Could have left us dead."

Sure, this is all giving him a headache, but it feels totally worth it. More than he's felt in a while. "We wouldn't even be in that situation if they'd left well enough alone," he points out. "If they didn't have this obsession with murder arenas and crap."

She visibly cringes when he says that so blatantly and looks around in fear as if men in white suits and helmets were going to storm in and pin him against the table for such blasphemy.

"B-be careful!!" She hissed looking positively terrified. "What if they hear you?"

Nitou glances over one shoulder. "But they haven't." That counts for something, has to count for something. "They can't hear everything."

"Of course they can!" She squeaked as her anxiety started to build. Her voice was so tense it was like the string from a bow being drawn back.

"They have microchips in our brains remember? They probably know more about our bodies then we do. If they can use science to bring us back to life putting microphones everywhere would be child's play for them...wouldn't it?"

Even if she was well aware there were blind spots in the capitol. Blind spots she herself had used.

"But who's doing the listening? Just people." He shrugs, resists the urge to start massaging a temple at the throbbing headache that was threatening to flare up. This is the most fighting back he's done in weeks, and it feels good. "People get bored. They miss stuff."

She ties to counter his argument but...he's got a point. Even the most advanced computer systems have to be built by someone right? So maybe it wasn't...

...could it really not be as foolproof as they made it seem? Because if this fools still here then maybe she could be a fool again too?

No! Nope that thought is too much and she gets a throbbing migraine which makes her grip the table and shudder eyes closed in a wince before she can speak again. Apparently thoughts like that fly right in the face of her reprogramming. Bad Harleen! Bad!

"To err is human." She's not agreeing with him yet but she's not arguing. That's progress.

"Yeah, exactly!" He grins. There is still a headache threatening to erupt, but fine, he'll lie down and deal with that later. Yep, later. Just keep telling himself that. Baby steps all around. "Definitely human. Very human."

Even Mayo Can't Fix Everything [Open]

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This is a good place for this little therapy session to end <3