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)
thecapitol2013-11-29 12:57 am
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thecapitol2013-11-29 12:57 am
Entry tags:
I Have Been Known to Surrender to Anything That Stands [Open]
WHO| Howard and open
WHAT| Howard returns to Capitol life. He's not very good at it.
WHERE| A small cafe in the Capitol.
WHEN| End of Week 6
WARNINGS| Mentions of starvation and a stress disorder.
He has to win next time. He's never known this before, not like he does now. If he doesn't win this next time, he's sure he'll either die for good or lose himself completely. There is a point when forging the iron where blows stop forming it and start to distend it, and he's crossed over into the second half of the process.
He returns to Panem the same way he has every time. He returns to schedule, to letting his Escort point him politely in the right direction so she can get him out of her hair and focus on her more promising Tributes. For the most part, she's fond of him, but not about to invest too much energy. Even if he wins one of these days, he'll hardly make a useful Mentor - she predicts he's the type to self-medicate - and so she generally gives him a free reign these days. "Don't do anything gauche, dear." "Make sure your clothes are clean before you step out". "Curfew's at eight p.m., remember that. I want you sleeping in your bed tonight and not in some alleyway again, dear."
He hates that she calls him 'dear'. He hates that she reminds him of a mother - not his mother, but one nonetheless. But he doesn't have the will to hate her, so instead he just hates pieces of her personality as some proxy for the whole. To tell the truth, he doesn't even remember her name beyond 'the Escort'.
Back to scale, he thinks as he weighs himself in the morning, and he laughs at himself without humor or regard for anyone who might hear him. Seventy-two pounds again. Like always, after he dies. Seventy-two pounds and jaw sore from where they ripped his rotting teeth out and replaced them with shiny white straight ones between him dying and him waking back up in Panem. He's back to padded clothing to hide the way the bones jut from under his skin like fingers through latex. Once again he has to sit patiently before he goes anywhere 'people might see him' while his Escort pats makeup on his cheeks to hide their gauntness and pallor, and to distract from the dark circles under his eyes.
He makes sure all his allies are still alive, and he makes sure to set money aside for Wyatt, which comes in handy soon enough. And then he slips back into the life outside the Arena that he's arranged for himself as delicately as dominoes. Get food, get coffee, training center, lunch, training center, dinner, find a quiet spot in town and sleep for a few hours, wake up and read a survival guide or a first aid manual or watch Games footage on his device, sneak back into the Tribute Center before dawn and hope his Escort doesn't give him too much shit in the morning.
Being a creature of habit, he's soon found himself a favorite tiny cafe. Capitol citizens with their inquisitive stares and loud outfits that jab at his eyes and grating, hiccuping voices tend to ignore it, preferring more bombastic locales than a little hole in the wall. Tributes occasionally come in, and Mentors. No one stupid enough to poke and prod about how exciting the Games are and how did it feel to die, how did it feel to choke on your own blood? Isn't it so much nicer, now that you're back?
Well, isn't it?
From a cozy armchair, he can read his book on field-dressing different wild animals while watching the sun go down over the tips of Capitol skyscrapers. He parks his feet up under his butt and shakes the hood from his jacket off his head, not willing to let go of his large mug of hot, creamy coffee even long enough to leave it on the table next to him. He cradles it to his chest like a nursing infant. The warmth from it radiates even through the cotton padding over his concave gut and makes him feel, for a moment, like he's holding a small star inside his core.
He still startles as if he's about to leap out of his own flesh whenever the bell on the door announces visitors and catches him off-guard. Sometimes when someone walks in, he spills his drink on himself and dissolves into frustrated swearing right in front of them.
WHAT| Howard returns to Capitol life. He's not very good at it.
WHERE| A small cafe in the Capitol.
WHEN| End of Week 6
WARNINGS| Mentions of starvation and a stress disorder.
He has to win next time. He's never known this before, not like he does now. If he doesn't win this next time, he's sure he'll either die for good or lose himself completely. There is a point when forging the iron where blows stop forming it and start to distend it, and he's crossed over into the second half of the process.
He returns to Panem the same way he has every time. He returns to schedule, to letting his Escort point him politely in the right direction so she can get him out of her hair and focus on her more promising Tributes. For the most part, she's fond of him, but not about to invest too much energy. Even if he wins one of these days, he'll hardly make a useful Mentor - she predicts he's the type to self-medicate - and so she generally gives him a free reign these days. "Don't do anything gauche, dear." "Make sure your clothes are clean before you step out". "Curfew's at eight p.m., remember that. I want you sleeping in your bed tonight and not in some alleyway again, dear."
He hates that she calls him 'dear'. He hates that she reminds him of a mother - not his mother, but one nonetheless. But he doesn't have the will to hate her, so instead he just hates pieces of her personality as some proxy for the whole. To tell the truth, he doesn't even remember her name beyond 'the Escort'.
Back to scale, he thinks as he weighs himself in the morning, and he laughs at himself without humor or regard for anyone who might hear him. Seventy-two pounds again. Like always, after he dies. Seventy-two pounds and jaw sore from where they ripped his rotting teeth out and replaced them with shiny white straight ones between him dying and him waking back up in Panem. He's back to padded clothing to hide the way the bones jut from under his skin like fingers through latex. Once again he has to sit patiently before he goes anywhere 'people might see him' while his Escort pats makeup on his cheeks to hide their gauntness and pallor, and to distract from the dark circles under his eyes.
He makes sure all his allies are still alive, and he makes sure to set money aside for Wyatt, which comes in handy soon enough. And then he slips back into the life outside the Arena that he's arranged for himself as delicately as dominoes. Get food, get coffee, training center, lunch, training center, dinner, find a quiet spot in town and sleep for a few hours, wake up and read a survival guide or a first aid manual or watch Games footage on his device, sneak back into the Tribute Center before dawn and hope his Escort doesn't give him too much shit in the morning.
Being a creature of habit, he's soon found himself a favorite tiny cafe. Capitol citizens with their inquisitive stares and loud outfits that jab at his eyes and grating, hiccuping voices tend to ignore it, preferring more bombastic locales than a little hole in the wall. Tributes occasionally come in, and Mentors. No one stupid enough to poke and prod about how exciting the Games are and how did it feel to die, how did it feel to choke on your own blood? Isn't it so much nicer, now that you're back?
Well, isn't it?
From a cozy armchair, he can read his book on field-dressing different wild animals while watching the sun go down over the tips of Capitol skyscrapers. He parks his feet up under his butt and shakes the hood from his jacket off his head, not willing to let go of his large mug of hot, creamy coffee even long enough to leave it on the table next to him. He cradles it to his chest like a nursing infant. The warmth from it radiates even through the cotton padding over his concave gut and makes him feel, for a moment, like he's holding a small star inside his core.
He still startles as if he's about to leap out of his own flesh whenever the bell on the door announces visitors and catches him off-guard. Sometimes when someone walks in, he spills his drink on himself and dissolves into frustrated swearing right in front of them.
no subject
"So, if I'm understanding this right - and I totally might not be - these pills are supposed to make you alive again. Like. Living. Capital L," he says, mimicking Julie's emphasis. A little knit of concern imprints itself into his forehead. He watches for R's reaction for a second, wondering if this is the sort of thing that's too good to be true or too good to not think is some sort of cruel joke by one of R's few friends and a particularly fragrant woman in teal.
"I can remind you to take them three times a day," he adds in, hoping to somehow ingratiate himself back into R's schedule and make himself vital again. The impact of that unspoken word, vital, doesn't bypass him. It's ironic and yet completely fitting.
Who thought they'd be worried about life and death in the Capitol?
"You can wash it down with some of my coffee if you want. I think I'm immune to your zombie flu now."
no subject
The pill looks so small sitting in the crease of Howard's palm. It's pink, translucent. He likes the way it reflects the light into Howard's skin. He has a vague memory (Date/Location Unknown) of it being squishy, with a little give and that he'd used to like playing with it. You had to get your kicks when and where you could. It's the little things in life, after all. Now R stares at it, forgetting about things like lips and impossibly working vocal chords.
"Giving...me Cure?" R's groan sounds breathless even for him and it's this side of stunned. "Just...take?"
It sounds so easy. Take this and have a life of his own again that doesn't involve murdering over and over. No more blood on his hands. He could dream. Sleep instead of shutting down. The urge to snatch the pill - and Howard's arm along with it - rises up in the back of his throat, tightens the muscles along his jaw as if he's rearing himself up to bite through a deltoid. His eyes lift to meet Howard's.
"I'll...do that..." R reaches out to take the pill. Here is the part where his fingers should be trembling with anticipation. They don't. They're still grey, blackened at the tips from either old gore stained there or where his blood must've settled when he died. He brushes against Howard's warm skin. "Coffee...?"
He holds his other hand out, hoping he doesn't spill the coffee all over Howard's lap.
no subject
He tries to imagine R alive, that pale skin flushed with pink, those creepy irises settled into a living color in eyeballs that focus correctly when he looks at someone. It's difficult, and Howard gives up on the idea - if he thinks of R's chest pushing with breath, he forgets to fix the smell. If he imagines R grinning, it's not a living R but a corpse R with a dash of life sprinkled over it.
He can't use the pieces of R he knows and conjure up a decent prediction. You can make it move, you can make it talk, but you can't make it look alive. Part of Howard's excited to see what becomes of this. Part of him's scared.
Maybe R, with a fast mouth and a taste for cheese and filet mignon, with lush brown hair and sparkling green eyes, wouldn't have much time for a scrawny rat kid who collects stuff from dumpsters. Maybe he'd be too busy wooing girls like Julie - hell, maybe without needing to rely on Julie's endless patience for a shot at girlfriendhood, he'd think she was below his standards. How much of R is who R actually is and how much of it is an adaptation to a shitty situation?
For that matter, couldn't Howard wonder the same about himself?
"Right. Hold on, I don't want you spilling it all down your chin..." Howard reaches over and unstraps R's muzzle, the same way he did back in that closet, only this time with the aid of daylight. His fingers brush R's cheekbones as he pulls the muzzle away. He holds the coffee out.
"Careful, it's hot. You know not to get your hopes up, right?"
Probably too late.
no subject
Clearly he isn't prescribed a daily regimen of the latest lotions and scrubs.
"Too...late for...that," R grunts. He cranks out one of his rusty smiles over the edge of the coffee cup. Steam rises up. He holds it in his hands and registers it's probably hot, burning hot. His pain receptors and nerve endings don't scream for him to drop it or warn that he'll burn his tongue with what's probably another crappy life choice. When he awkwardly tilts the cup toward him, there's no taste, no sensation of painful numbness.
Just to be sure, R holds it in his mouth. It tastes of emptiness and ash. State. Worse than boring.
He hopes if he keeps taking this Cure, that'll change.
Once he swallows, he pops in the pill. It's actually less offensive. He chews on it before remembering he's supposed to swallow that too. Interesting...texture? The gel cap breaks into a liquid and, seeing as how he's not working up saliva today, he has to use more of the coffee to wash it down.
Once he's done, R reaches out, forgotten coffee cup sitting in his hand, and pats Howard on his bony shoulder. He's still so bony there's an instinctive part of R that thinks he could do better than gnaw through his deltoids. Too stringy the hunger says.
"Be...okay, Ho-ward."
no subject
"I'm always okay." A wan smile crosses his face, and he reaches over and pats R's shoulder back.
'Good' is a different story. He's pretty sure 'good' doesn't mean having your hands go numb at random throughout the day. He's pretty sure it doesn't mean seriously considering death as a tempting alternative to all the therapy he's going to need to someday live a few hours without feeling terror. 'Good' is a word that now belongs to another language, one he used to know but has long left his vernacular from disuse.
He picks the muzzle back up off the coffee table and puts it back on R's face, then takes the coffee from R's hand and drains the last of it. He's gotten over any fear of zombie lips he may have ever had. He doesn't even bother to check which part of the rim he's swigging from.
"Look, you got any trouble adjusting to the human stuff, let me know. I know all about being alive. I'm kind of an expert at it."
no subject
"Will...do. Hopefully...soon!" R finds it in himself to actually sound excited for a shambling, rotting dead boy. His smile looks less wan than Howard's despite the rigor-mortis: it hasn't occurred to him that Howard might have reasons for his own, reasons that feel as real and alive as his own urges to tear, that says I'm not totally okay with this.
R forces his smile into something that's less of a rusty grimace and more of a real smile, almost a grin. Will his teeth be anywhere s nice and too-white like Howard's? Will he soon have the urge to look at whatever he's eating, reach over and snag something from his plate without sneaking glances at the meat of his neck? How long will this take? Once again he's brimming with questions, his brain cells trying their best to keep up despite the decomposition.
And...he's still staring at Howard. Grunting, R bobs to his feet, pauses.
"We should...hang. Out. I'll...visit." R reviews that, gives his groans his personal stamp of approval, and turns to stagger off.