Howard Bassem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2013-05-29 08:37 pm
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thecapitol2013-05-29 08:37 pm
I'm Down Shouting Names at the Flickering Screen [Open]
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.
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.
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"Who said ya were doin' anything wrong?" he asked.
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He's grateful for the bit of space, but he doesn't show it. He feels like his entire body is a sore, open, tender, vulnerable. Pain brings them closer, but he doesn't know if he wants to get closer to Wyatt. He knows now that expecting to come doesn't make it any easier to bear.
"And it's not even that they die. It's that they leave."
He runs a hand over his bony wrist.
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Mustache twisting as he swallowed, he looked out over the back of the couch, his thumb rubbing against the fabric unconsciously as he studied the people coming and going.
"But that don't mean they never won't."
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Howard's voice is meek and quiet but still so bitter. He squeezes his wrist in his hand until the back of his hand goes pale and his fingers flush. His lower lip gets run under his teeth like an incautious animal under the wheels of as truck.
"I don't want to keep trying anymore. I don't want to do any of this any more. Not just the Games, just any of this. I don't want it, I don't..."
He doesn't want to keep reaching for people only to have them pull away, but he knows the alternative is the way it was in the FAYZ, alone without a single person who would even notice if he dropped dead. Without a single person who would care. But he doesn't want to look at Wyatt and say all that because what if it's what tips Wyatt over? Maybe all Wyatt needs to realize he should cut his losses is to see that everyone else runs from Howard's poisonous, grasping hands that cling too hard and hold to nothing.
Herd mentality. When the herd runs, you should probably get going too.
He doesn't know a way out.
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A hand lifted off the couch, but he didn't reach for Howard. Instead it slipped inside his overcoat, digging into a breast pocket.
"But I do." It took a moment, but he eventually freed the metal star from it's home against his chest, and it rested in his palm, battered, but shining.
Threaded through the pin, hanging by its short chain, was a lump of orange fur.
"So where do ya reckon that leaves us?"
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"You keep it. I'm not going anywhere." Despite it being a vow, it hangs heavy with the idea that Howard's never the one that runs but the one who makes one-sided promises.
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Of Neeskha and all the other tributes who'd died and never come back. Of the rules he'd so blatantly broken by striking Aunamee.
If they would take those who had seemingly done no wrong, what did that mean for him? He could not believe they would forgive and forget so easily.
"Howard, I can't say what's gunna happen tomorrow," he replied honestly, fingers curling over the star, wrapping around the bundle of skin-warmed metal and soft fur. "But, son, I want ya to know that should somethin' happen and I don't come back, it has nothin' to do with you and I am proud to call ya friend."
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After a long moment, locked inside his head, he talks again.
"Did I ever tell you why my parents left? We had...it was stupid. I slept through my alarm and by the time I got to the shower, my dad had used all the hot water. It was just some stupid thing. And I was really bitchy about it at breakfast and my mom said she wasn't going to put up with my attitude anymore and I said, whatever, I'll take the bus to school. And I never saw them again."
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Of how she'd done just that. And how it'd cost her her life.
"In my experience, folks don't usually mean the things they say in anger. Particularly when it comes to the people we love and care about." He looked up at the screen, it might have been off, but the reflection could have been a scene straight out of the arena. "And I reckon that iffen that was the reason they left, that they wish they could take it back."
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He gets up off the couch. It's a slow, raggedy motion. "I think I'm going to go to bed."
He pauses at Wyatt's shoulder, looking small, looking fragile, looking like he doesn't want to leave yet. And quietly he says, "thanks, man. I'm proud too."
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This was another one of those lines, he suspected, and it would take the boy some time to get used to the idea of him crossing it.
"Good night, Howard. I'll see ya soon."