thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| R and Joan Watson, R and Shion, R and Maximus, R and Bert.
What| R searches for help for his eating problem. He also searches for help on his groaning. Throw in the awkwardness of post-Arena.
When| Before the aliens plot.
Where| About the Capitol. R has a surprisingly wide shuffling range given enough time.
Warnings| None yet.

Cuthbert

He hangs around the Training Center even after Maximus takes off for whatever it is Victors do when they’re not killing people. He probably should go back to the District Four suites. Go home. Get sprayed in the face with his Escort’s perfume. Listen to her setting up interviews for magazines where she’ll do most – try all – of the talking and he’ll sit there staring.

R drags his feet. Normally he’d be pretending he has a social life like everyone else out there. Go hang out with Howard, try to work up the nerve to ask Julie on a date. Sit there while Wyatt carves those shapes out of wood. Now he can’t. He thought it’d be easier going back to how things used to be, pre-Julie.

He’s groaning in frustration without even realizing it, standing there swaying before the archery range.

“Uggggh….!”

Yeah, he’s sulking. So?

Joan Watson

R gets nervous after the first day going cold turkey. No matter how much his Escort scolds him, he keeps his teeth clamped behind the muzzle until she gives up with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest while the plate of substitute flesh goes cold. It’s definitely not body-heart warm anymore. She leaves it on the bed. Hours tick by and R starts to think a little bite wouldn’t hurt. It’s not like he’s killing anyone this time…

He’s lucid enough to realize he needs to call in the cavalry. Maybe he’s supposed to do this all on his own but he chickens out – he wants to talk to someone, someone who he didn’t kill directly or indirectly. R catches himself before he starts automatically heading for Julie. No Julie today. The subject of eating is off the table with her. Someone else. Someone neutral who he feels like he can groan a thing or two with. R staggers away from Julie’s door with his head hanging down, trying to rack his mind for candidates and not walk into a wall while he’s thinking.

Joan Watson. The woman he chased up a boulder and she still had it in her to ask why. Question lady. Something about addicts. Counseling. R guesses he could use some counseling, whatever that is. Make it a two-pronged attack on the hunger from both Maximus and Joan.

R’s relieved when he finds her, bumping into the door frame as he groans and forgets all about creepy staring.

“You…free? Need…your…help…”

Shion

Day Two of his new diet.

R needs a distraction. Something to keep his mind off the daydreams he has. Sometimes he catches himself staring hungrily at someone – an Avox or an Escort in the elevator – and he pictures them on the floor, his teeth sunk into the meat of their arm. Other times he doesn’t even realizing he’s seeing red. That’s when he realizes he needs something to distract him.

It’s when he realizes he’s groaning again that he’s had enough. He’s tired of groaning and moaning and everything in between. If he’s going to try to fix his whole chewing up all his friends problem, he might as well try to do something about the speech thing.

R plants himself in front of Shion’s bedroom door and waits. He’s still staring at it creepily, fixed on some imaginary dirt spot, when it opens.

Maximus

Three days later and R’s really struggling to remember things like punctuality and battle plans. He can’t breathe, so he can’t “breathe-in, breathe-out and find his inner peace”. He remembers Maximus, the flash of his blade. Blood splashing red in the desert air. Maximus equals food and relief and remembering what it means to be something other than a walking set of teeth.

R staggers into the Training Center, bumping his way into a door-frame here, knocking over a weapons stand there as he sniffs nosily around. It smells of cold hard steel, the same cleanser that was in the closet. Underneath that all is human Life wafting along. Hopefully it’s Maximus. R’s already leery about his self-control with the hunger clawing away inside, telling him it’s a really good idea to stick some fingers through his muzzle and bite them off. The good news is he hasn’t figured out how to unclasp his muzzle.

Maybe the Escort’s onto his plan. She at least had the foresight to keep it on nice and tight – Eponine proofed it, even.

R waits for Maximus, looking like a miserable corpse of a boy until someone makes the mistake of getting grabbing distance close. At least he’s not drooling yet. Even hungry, R still wants to show Maximus he’s not like that dried out husk following him around the desert.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Joan watches Julie as she goes all in and takes the reins. She's reminded of Liam, and the memory is bittersweet. He was her first personal engagement with addiction, the first time she saw it closeup in all of its ugliness and heartbreak. What they're working with here is not an addiction, of course, even though it shares some of the aspects and, Joan hopes, some of the methods for combating the compulsion. But that devotion is the same. That willingness to engage when plenty of other people would have written off, or worse.

Of course, in the end Liam had rejected her help, rejected recovery, and chosen the drugs.

Still. If it's possible for R to choose to stay "clean," Julie's engagement will help him through it. He's lucky to have her.

It's only when Julie slides in front of his field of vision that he realizes what he's doing, his groan dying in his throat. He doesn't even think twice about it: she says quit, he quits. His eyes lock onto her, feeling Joan as this presence at the side, watching, studying the two of them.

Whatever he's expected, it isn't Julie trying to sing. R starts in surprise, his gray eyes fixed on her face as she croons a few strains of Strangers In the Night. She's not a pro, but she's way better than any zombie could ever hope to be. Something stirs in R's memory then, batting aside the hunger trying to push back. Forest. A little girl - she couldn't have been more than ten, twelve - singing, unaware he's there with a new craving he can't put words to. Watching her from the safety of the branches, feeling...something. The memory fades away, leaving R staring at Julie with a strange look dawning on his face.

Weird. He can count the number of times memories have come back, and he's Dead - he sucks at counting.

"Stran....gers..." R repeats after Julie. "You...like to...sing...?"

His eyes slide over to Joan. She's letting Julie do her thing, sizing up its effects. Are they doing this counseling thing right? Does she believe a zombie can change? He's probably the first one that's come her way, but he can't be the worst guy with...problems she's run into. R almost finds that comforting, weirdly enough.

Edited 2013-10-16 23:35 (UTC)

Julie's pretty sure the fact that Joan doesn't laugh or try to cut her off is a sign either she's not as bad as she thinks or maybe this might work. Or she's wondering why she let Julie into the room.

It's easy for her to get into it. Music is just -- that. Everything. It's hope mixed with color and humanity. It's one of the things she clings the hardest to now that everything's gone. The fact that R had that vinyl collection... that was what really finally got her. The snowglobes and the vinyl.

She grins. The question makes her filter her fingers through now frizzled hair, pulling at the ends. "Well. Yeah. Who doesn't? That's the heart of it."

Julie pulls at the collar of his shirt, wiping the black drool away. Seems kind of fucked up to tie his hands down and then leave that there. After, she steps back, her gaze going to Joan too. "You think it might work?"

Joan smiles at their connection, at the look on R's face, and the tenderness with which Julie wipes the drool away. When the woman steps back, she turns that smile to her.

"I do. It clearly helped. I think we all saw that. I think we need to find out if that's something he can do for himself, or if he needs you with him." She turns to R. "What was that like for you."

R goes still as she leans in to clean up the drool he wishes would sizzle away on its own. To his surprise, she masks her disgust so well he could almost believe it wasn't there. She's close enough that he feels the urge to bite pulling at his mouth. R clamps down on it, his back teeth grinding, his whole body rigid even for a zombie. Julie finally steps back as he sags into his restraints.

"That...was...."

R struggles to think about Joan's question, really, really give it some serious thought (plus stop groaning while he's concentrating).

"Thought...fami..liar," R admits. "Felt...nice. Still...hungry..."

It didn't fully drive away the hunger, though, and as much as he hates to rain on the parade, he wants to be truthful, too. R wishes it could've gone away entirely but this isn't a perfect world. He is what he is.

Did they? Okay, well. She admits there might've been a reaction there. She's not tooting her own horn or anything yet.

And R reminds her why. This is just step one. Getting any sort of reaction -- and doctor-approved -- is a lot more than she ever expected. Mostly she expected R on a leash and snapping at both of them in a hungry rage.

Drool's not so bad in comparison.

"Familiar?" She watches him, the curiousity evident. She might like singing, but she doesn't exactly make it a habit. Especially for undead audiences. Maybe someone else? They still don't know how long R's been dead. Maybe he's caught some ex-lounge singers by surprise and eaten their vocal cords. "It's still a start." Since he didn't actually try to snap at her hand, she gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Safer than anything. "I can bust out some Costello next."

Costello. Joan smiles faintly at that.

"What we're doing here won't make the hunger go away, exactly. It will just make it easier to bear. Hopefully until it goes away on its own."

They're still not sure that will happen, though.

Familiar, yeah. It's some feeling he has, something unnamed that forms in the back of his skull, the same one that finally decided "Rr" sounded important.

But who's Costello?

"Keep...gggh...going. To...Arena?" R hopes that if they keep at it, if he can focus on keeping himself in the front seat and the hunger in the back, where it belongs, he'll be a lot less likely to infect people. Or chase them up boulders. Or indirectly get them killed. It's a lot to shoot for, for a zombie, but he's considered a high achiever for a Dead guy.

At the very least he'd like to avoid shuffling for either humans here. He wants Joan to remain calm and smart and so rock steady it feels somehow infectious. Julie should be everything that makes her her, from the slightly crooked smile to that little impossible something which had her show up today for Undead Counseling.

If they hadn't had those few days in the airport, she might've believed it was impossible to make him forget the hunger totally. And still just saying it is -- well. It's hard to believe.

Still. Hope and all.

Julie looks at Joan and shrugs herself. She's up for it. She wants to, actually, if she can keep R from making more of himself in this next Arena. She knows she won't be able to stop him, if she can even find him in the first place.

Speaking of. What if she meets Joan in the Arena? What if R does?

"I'll help as much as I can," she says resolutely. It's not like her life is excitement in the time between Arenas. After she got used to the Capitol, she just... she spends her life taking it in. Watching people living without spending every second thinking about how to survive. "If you can."