I'm Down Shouting Names at the Flickering Screen [Open]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

WHO| Howard and anyone!
WHAT| Howard decides to get serious about the Games.
WHERE| Tribute Lounge
WHEN| Post-Arena
WARNINGS| Swearing.

There's been enough hiding. There's been enough moping. Howard knows that this feeling of motivation is fleeting, and that just means he has to cling to his productivity for as long as he can before it slips back into despair. Before he thinks about how he's going to die again. Before he wonders where Eponine is. Before he thinks about how she left him like his parents did. Before he cries.

So instead of feeling that, he's going to feel something else. He's going to feel entertained. And possibly, he'll learn something along the way; it's about time he forces himself to study. About time he moves past the squeamish feelings of seeing people he knows bleed and scream on the screen and actually starts taking notes on who to ally with and who to stab in the back, or, potentially, in the front.

He sits in a Tribute lounge with snacks, feet propped up on a glass coffee table, starving body covered in comfy clothes his stylists won't let him wear outside, a fluffy blue bathrobe and canvas cargo pants. His hand periodically moves from its path between bowl of snacks and his mouth to grab a cup of melted butter.

He doesn't care how tacky or unhealthy is it. He covers that bowl of popcorn in butter and plops down on the couch, munching away at it as he watches Wesker and Maximus attack each other.

Comments

[gruesome]

No, more a gentle complaint.

"All grues do. You have two like a bat, should I call you Batboy?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Sure. Batboy's super popular in my world. National Enquirer exposés and everything. Besides, he always looks so happy about everything."

[gruesome]

"... That's already a name?" Way to take the wind out of Some's sails, Howard. "Of an actual person?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I don't know if he's an actual person, but yep. That's already a name." He looks back at the screen - it's Eponine biting his face off again. He lunges for the remote and changes the channel.

[gruesome]

Some startles at the lunge, but there's not enough time for his eyes to adjust to the screen before the image is different.

"... What was that?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Nothing, nothing, it's just..."

Howard screws up his face and changes the channel back to the one it was at. He doesn't care about Eponine. Why should he care about what happens next, when Lindsey approaches from behind and clubs her brains out? Maybe it'll be good to remember how she hurt him, so he doesn't make the idiotic mistake of missing her. Of wondering if she's okay.

It's stubbornness that makes him force himself to show Some what it was he jumped away from.

"It's nothing."

[gruesome]

Some has to screw up his eyes - shutting six and the biggest pair just open - to make sense of the glowing screen, as always. And then it takes him another few moments to recognize Howard's ruined face, and Eponine - he gasps, hackles rising at the sick sound of the blow that happens next, and shuts the last two eyes.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I had to get rid of those clothes. Her brains wouldn't come out of them." Howard's voice is detached but high, like he's forcing it not to crack.

[gruesome]

"... You survived that?" Some had to swallow, still not opening his eyes.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

On the screen, a sobbing, screaming Howard tries to drag Eponine with him, calling her name.

On the couch, Howard doesn't blink. He just nods. "For four weeks."

[gruesome]

"I'm very sorry." It's all earnesty, his voice, no matter how alien it might be.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"It made for good TV. We both got another chance."

[gruesome]

The shiver of revulsion is entirely not aimed at Howard. "This is not how stories are meant to be made."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"But that's how it works here." Howard takes a deep breath and looks into his popcorn. He closes his eyes as the rims burn, as tears well up.

[gruesome]

It was hard for Some, in the moment, not to lean in to offer a touch of comfort. Even near-strangers as they were, and with their mild quarrel still in his fur. But he remembered the boy's flinches and stillnesses.

"There will be a way out," he said gently instead. "Maybe even ways home. Someone will find something."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard seems to pick up his resolve and looks back at the screen again. At the safety of people he doesn't know killing each other. Volanz getting attacked by a muttation.

"I don't have a home to go to. This is the best I got."

[gruesome]

"Truly?"

Sorry for the aghast expression, Howard.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Not that it's easy to read expressions on Some's face, but Howard gets the picture. He shrugs.

"Yeah. At least there's food here, and people only really want to kill you in the Arena. And there are people who notice if you go missing."

[gruesome]

Another with no family. Why were there so many solitary humans? Especially the young. How could they abandon each other so easily?

"Is that comforting?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"It's better than the opposite."

And it makes Howard wonder what's going through Some's head, but he doesn't quite ask. Instead he nibbles at more popcorn.

[gruesome]

"I'm sorry."

It's a moment before Some finds the words to say more. "Do you think you could find family here?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I don't know if I want to, honestly." He realizes maybe he's saying too much and physically retreats again, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

[gruesome]

"How can you not?" he blurts out, thinking of Rapunzel, of Conrad and Jim. He'd not looked for any of them.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard picks at a thread on his sleeve. "It'll make it worse when they die for good."

[gruesome]

"Oh." Some inhales, sighing as he looks away. "No, that is bad... But grief is not so- to be alone is worse. Grief is a knife, cutting away a little piece of yourself. Loneliness is a stone that crushes and never, ever lifts."