thecapitol | Working for the church while your life falls apart

Who| Signless, Effie and Peeta
What| Murderparty Deluxe Extravaganza: the Fallout 2: Electric Boogaloo
Where| D12 Common Room
When| Not too long after Signless comes back to the Capitol; timing is a lil fuzzy for accommodation purposes
Warnings/Notes| References to death and suicide, most likely

Even with Karkat's support, the days after the Signless is revived blur together for him. The only thing that remains constant is the feeling of agitation that keeps him from sleeping but makes him feel utterly exhausted. He doesn't leave the suites, not wanting to deal with his fellow tributes, but most of his time is spent pacing around his respiteblock or the common room, flopping down occasionally onto flat surfaces, then getting back up when he can't take not moving. He hasn't been eating, either, except when Karkat makes him. Basically, he is a hot mess, and anyone who happens upon him where he's currently curled up on a common room couch can probably tell just by looking at him.

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"I don't know!" he snapped, and then sighed. "People like Karkat. Play up our relationship. Make it about how far I'd go for him, I don't know. Or make it a love story. I died while my matesprit watched, that's tragic enough to be a starting point. There has to be something salvageable in all this."

If there's not, then he really was just nothing but his philosophy, which meant he was less than nothing now, and where was he supposed to go from there?

That stopped her up for a moment.

What if Katniss had to do that for Peeta. She swallowed, her mouth still tight, before shaking her head. Like a restless little mouse, she stood, pacing in front of the couch, mind racing.

"Possibly. Possibly. But you still...we'll have to play it very carefully, you know."

"I know. I know that distilling this down into something you can market isn't easy. How much time do you think you're going to need me to spend in public, to smooth it over?"

He didn't much like the prospect of having to deal with the Capitol, but there was no way he could get away with hiding forever. Maybe he could barter her down to the least amount of time possible instead.

Her feathers clearly ruffled at the work market, the tone of his voice, but she took a deep breath, trying to sooth herself.

"Well. I think, with a few well placed appearance...maybe something done with Karkat..." She sighed, pressing on her temple, feeling a headache starting there. "There is just so much going on right now."

"I could do that," he said. "He keeps me calm. With him is probably the best place for me to be right now."

There was an implicit 'if you want to be sure I behave' that he was fairly certain he didn't have to spell out, less of a threat and far more just a fact. Having Karkat around was the only surefire way to ensure that all the volatile negative emotions roiling around in his brain never made it out of his mouth as potentially stupid words. Even his relationship with the Disciple was too subject to change to be quite as steady, even if it had a lot more history and ran much deeper.

"So if that's the way you want to go, it won't require any acting at all."

Edited 2013-12-11 01:32 (UTC)

"Good. Good. His escort is already working with me, so we'll very much play you two up as an injured, damage pair putting each other back together."

It seemed a good angle. They could really play up the whole pair thing. Maybe even link them together some how. She'd have to talk to Cinna about it. He was much better at the visual impact of it all.

She let out a huffy sigh, before looking over at him.

"Thank you."

Luckily linking them visually wouldn't be too hard, considering they were functionally clones of each other and the only difference was that Signless was a good deal older. Making that happen wouldn't add too much to her workload, hopefully.

At her thanks, he looked away with a properly awkward expression. "I feel... I'm just sorry for making things harder for you. I at least owe you help in fixing it, when none of it's your fault in the first place."

"Oh, things are...they are plenty stressful, you didn't really add that much." She said in a voice that was more then a touch conspiratorial. Now that the roughest part was over, she went to the bar, pouring a small class of a hot pink fluid into a tall crystal glass.

Coming over to sink into a chair, she leveled Signless with a steady look.

"Just be careful, all right?"

He offered her a weak smile.

"I'll try. That's as much as I can promise. I honestly don't care anymore about what happens to me. But I'll be careful for everyone else."

"Well, you can't just go in there and not care about yourself, you know. We're a team, all of us. We need to help each other out."

She gently tapped his knee with a manicured finger to make her point. Aggressively for Effie, really. But she wanted him to realize his worth in al of this.

"We need to take care of each other. And to take care of Twelve."

For a moment he pondered arguing that he wasn't worth that, really, but he decided against it. There wasn't much point.

"Of course. I'll do my very best to keep that in mind."

"Good!" She gave his leg another secure pat, feeling like the subject was more than settled now. "We'll get you right back in the good graces of the Capitol."

For what that's worth, a familiar, surly voice murmured in the back of her mind. She quickly hushed it.

It was almost kind of nice, knowing that in her own Effie Trinket way she really was just trying to help him. There was something very genuine about her that was so at odds with everything he'd come to expect from the Capitol. Thank goodness he'd been assigned to Twelve.

He patted her hand with his own, a little awkwardly. "Thank you."

((OOC-Good end?))

((I think so!))

Working for the church while your life falls apart

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