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31_days2014-08-16 11:18 pm
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2014-08-16 11:18 pm
[Aug. 16] [THG] Clearing the Way
Title: Clearing the Way
Day/Theme: "You speak of signs and wonders"
Series: Hunger Games trilogy
Character/Pairing: Cashmere, Gloss, D1 OC victor
Rating: PG-13 (lots of creepy implications, but nothing bad really happens)
author's comment: Slightly AU from my own continuity of THG fic, ha ha. more notes on that on my lj if necessary.
In Two, they were probably already having some sort of ridiculously strutted meeting over it and adding rules of their own onto the superstructure of the thing. In Four, they were probably all bitching to Mags, a bunch of grown men who couldn't commit to a plan without grandma's approval. If a handful of outliers took this as their cue to speed up the process of slowly killing themselves, Cashmere wouldn't be surprised, nor could she say she'd entirely blame them. There were a lot of victors locked into the tribute spots in those districts and of those defaults, many (no-personality Honey, addled old Woof, those morphling'd up slobs) had little hope of anything but a messy death. If they offed themselves, what would Snow do to replace them? Cashmere had to admit, as long as there weren't repercussions that would penalize the other victors, she was sort of curious.
She turned to Gloss and took in his face. Upset. Still pale. She had a feeling the color had already come back to hers. She wouldn't necessarily say she got over things quicker than Gloss did, but she was faster at wiping those emotions from her face. "We'll go together," Cashmere met his gaze with all the considerable strength she could muster where important matters regarding her brother were concerned, "I promise."
"Well, what if someone else volunteers?" he seemed to spring back to life as he contemplated possible scenarios.
"Who would do that? I hardly think Tinsel's turning around from the Seventy-Third to go back in, and she and Roxy may be in the same boat as us, but who's to say they're in for the long run we've been forced into? And then, Allegra and Torge and all- the ones who lasted through that shit- they're not going to throw away their lives after all that. Maybe Allegra'd do it if they called Roxy, but you don't fight through the Academy, the Games, the whoring circuit, and then cancer just for the opportunity to die with Finnick Odair's trident in your gut."
"No," Gloss shook his head, "No, you don't. But I meant Jack."
Cashmere fell silent. There were two Jacks in One's Victor's Village, but there was no doubt which of them her brother meant. The first victor was the only one among them who was not a career. He was ancient, sure, but he still puttered on living on his own while Jack Johnson ("J.J.") had to have regular visits from a nurse.
The Capitol couldn't possibly really prefer to get, say, Jack and Shy and Kayta and Woof and Mags in there jabbing each others with their canes or maybe falling and breaking a hip, but Jack Umber was unpredictable and, despite the presumably audience-pleasing bent of the Quell theme, volunteering had not been ruled out.
It was no secret Jack had never cared for One's career program. He could seize this opportunity to weaken the pack. And then, how much did a ninety-one-year-old man with no family and few remaining friends have to look forward to? …What did he have to lose?
"I'll talk to him," Cashmere said. "On his own, he might speak up, but if he knows we want this, why would he interfere? He can't save both of us."
"I don't know. ...I guess I wouldn't. We don't really know him." Gloss wasn't getting his hopes up. "Ah, let's think. What do we know about him?"
"He…used to be on TV a lot. He doesn't have any family. …Gloss, I don't think I've even said 'hello' to him since Annie's Victory Tour."
"I hear he jokes around a lot. He sings. …Theo told me he and Mags are still in love, you know?"
"What? How does he know that?" Cashmere wondered.
"It's what he thinks anyway. Because they're always on the phone together even with how she can only talk so much."
"Why would you ask him something like that?"
"I didn't." Gloss sort of smiled as he considered it. "I don't know, it's not like I've been around him much either, but I guess you haven't noticed how once you get him started talking he'll just keep going and going? Man, that guy loves to talk. You ever want to know anything going on in Four, forget trying to pry it out of Finnick, go straight to the fountain."
"Well, I can think of very few times I've cared about anything going on in Four, but I will keep that in mind," Cashmere accepted the tip pleasantly enough, although she was more or less certain she would be going to her death without caring again about anything that went on in Four (the only thing about Four she had thoughts left about was who they would send into the Quarter Quell and who she would prefer they sent- she was still undecided whether it would be more satisfying to get her claws into poor, sweet Annie or to be the one to sever the men from Mags' apron-strings- either way she would score some easy pain on Finnick- Song wouldn't be entertaining, but she could be an executioner. …Aside from Finnick, the Four men were more or less interchangeable to her, differentiated mainly by age).
"I don't know. I just thought it might be helpful," her brother shrugged.
"Fine, if I must, I'll use blackmail."
"I wonder if they ever get a chance to hook up anymore," Gloss mused on, and Cashmere, already on her way out the door sent him a look over her shoulder. "Hey," he addressed her unspoken thoughts, "I'd much rather think about old people having sex with each other than with you or me or anyone like that."
"Yes, you make a good point, but," she sighed then shook her head, brushing it away. "I suppose it's healthier that we don't understand everything about each other."
"Good luck, Cash," his voice followed her out.
The yard was a little unkempt owing to the erratic care it received (sometimes the grandchildren of a friend came and worked on it; mostly Jack made vague attempts himself), but clover didn't need much tending to keep on springing up, or wild flowers, Cashmere supposed. She approached and rang the doorbell.
Then she waited. …Had he heard it? How well did he hear? Was he napping? It could reasonably take him a while to make it to the door from some of the further parts of the house.
He arrived with the puzzled expression of someone who barely ever received unexpected visitors. "Hello, Cashmere." His voice was steady for his age. "Is something wrong?"
"Sort of," she admitted, "It's not urgent though. Can we talk?"
"Of course," Jack gestured for her to come inside, "Time's something I have in spades."
Cashmere had never been in his house before. Actually, she hadn't been in most of the residences comprising the valley's Victors' Village. They weren't exactly a chummy bunch in One. If you spent half your life or so taught to live in a dog-eat-dog world you didn't exactly shake that off so easily. In that sense, she and Gloss were lucky to have one another.
It was a low-key sort of place, white and green and wood. Jack went over to the couch with tiny, careful steps and sat down in front of a coffee table adorned with a miniature ship in a glass bottle. Cashmere sat too, toward the other end, crossing her legs in a casual manner instead of the showy advertising she was usually expected to display in public. "It's about the Quarter Quell, Jack."
He started to resemble the old press images of himself as his teeth flashed forth. "You're worried they're going to call me," he suggested, holding his grin as he awaited her response.
Yeah, this was what he was supposed to be like. "Ha ha," Cashmere simply said, not interested in forcing a laugh, "That's cute, but no. It's kind of the opposite really. Gloss and I have decided. We want to go in, and it absolutely has to be both of us."
Jack stopped smiling. He was thinking it over. Cashmere wasn't sure how much he knew about them, but from his expression, she thought he understood at least the seriousness with which she made this statement. She and her brother had no interest in killing one another and only one person would be coming back. Let some Two have the bragging rights. Jack had to know enough to see what "together" meant.
"Hmm," he muttered, "I see. Well, while you're here, would you like to see my peppers? I mean, I'm not trying to compete with Will and his super hots one, but it was seeing him on TV that gave me the idea…"
He wasn't stupid. He wasn't senile. Cashmere was tentatively curious. "Sure," she rose and offered him a well-manicured hand of assistance in getting up. "I'd love to see them."
Jack took the lead. The peppers weren't on his back patio. He went on out through the yard, with its motley assortment of semi-tended plants. There was a lop-sided trellis heavy with blossoming laburnum and lots of scraggly poppies and daisies. The peppers, it turned out, were in pots, sitting on a battered wooden bench. It didn't seem like a pretty piece of furniture from Seven or One. Cashmere ran a finger over its unusual texture. "Did you make this?"
"I bought it from a place in Four. 'Made from ships' they say. Driftwood, really, I think." He poked aimlessly at the pepper plants. They had little white flowers.
The bench and boat from Four- though that might more or less correspond with his specific interest in Mags in particular, Cashmere wondered… "Did Will give you the peppers?"
"He sent me seeds."
And something from Eleven then. Cashmere had felt a tad sorry for Jack before, at least in theory, but he obviously had some tiny world of his own. "I don't know anything about gardening," she indulged him, "But they do look healthy."
He stopped toying with the pots and put his hands into his shirt pockets. "The arena, ah, if you want to go, I won't stop you. I mean, part of me thinks I should go back- that I deserve to go back. But even after all this time, another part of me still wants to live."
Cashmere guessed he was reasonably sure he was far enough from whatever bugs there might be to say what he wanted to here. The peppers were an excuse to bring others to this spot. "Thank you," she replied, "For understanding."
"I'm sorry," he said.
Cashmere shook her head. "Honestly, Jack, I doubt any of this could be considered your fault."
He exhaled a long breath, then looked her in the eye. "What if you had a chance to come out alive?"
"Not without-" she began to protest.
"No," Jack insisted, "Both of you, if things go right. …And- and if it doesn't work out, at least it'd be a chance. …Better than carrying on as is, right?"
Cashmere felt a shiver of excitement run down her spine- a sensation that took her back to the arena. Perhaps it was a survival instinct of sorts. Seeing when a chance had come and knowing to take it. …After all, what did she have to lose?
There was a spark in his green eyes- of inspiration, of defiance.
"Tell me more," Cashmere replied.
Day/Theme: "You speak of signs and wonders"
Series: Hunger Games trilogy
Character/Pairing: Cashmere, Gloss, D1 OC victor
Rating: PG-13 (lots of creepy implications, but nothing bad really happens)
author's comment: Slightly AU from my own continuity of THG fic, ha ha. more notes on that on my lj if necessary.
In Two, they were probably already having some sort of ridiculously strutted meeting over it and adding rules of their own onto the superstructure of the thing. In Four, they were probably all bitching to Mags, a bunch of grown men who couldn't commit to a plan without grandma's approval. If a handful of outliers took this as their cue to speed up the process of slowly killing themselves, Cashmere wouldn't be surprised, nor could she say she'd entirely blame them. There were a lot of victors locked into the tribute spots in those districts and of those defaults, many (no-personality Honey, addled old Woof, those morphling'd up slobs) had little hope of anything but a messy death. If they offed themselves, what would Snow do to replace them? Cashmere had to admit, as long as there weren't repercussions that would penalize the other victors, she was sort of curious.
She turned to Gloss and took in his face. Upset. Still pale. She had a feeling the color had already come back to hers. She wouldn't necessarily say she got over things quicker than Gloss did, but she was faster at wiping those emotions from her face. "We'll go together," Cashmere met his gaze with all the considerable strength she could muster where important matters regarding her brother were concerned, "I promise."
"Well, what if someone else volunteers?" he seemed to spring back to life as he contemplated possible scenarios.
"Who would do that? I hardly think Tinsel's turning around from the Seventy-Third to go back in, and she and Roxy may be in the same boat as us, but who's to say they're in for the long run we've been forced into? And then, Allegra and Torge and all- the ones who lasted through that shit- they're not going to throw away their lives after all that. Maybe Allegra'd do it if they called Roxy, but you don't fight through the Academy, the Games, the whoring circuit, and then cancer just for the opportunity to die with Finnick Odair's trident in your gut."
"No," Gloss shook his head, "No, you don't. But I meant Jack."
Cashmere fell silent. There were two Jacks in One's Victor's Village, but there was no doubt which of them her brother meant. The first victor was the only one among them who was not a career. He was ancient, sure, but he still puttered on living on his own while Jack Johnson ("J.J.") had to have regular visits from a nurse.
The Capitol couldn't possibly really prefer to get, say, Jack and Shy and Kayta and Woof and Mags in there jabbing each others with their canes or maybe falling and breaking a hip, but Jack Umber was unpredictable and, despite the presumably audience-pleasing bent of the Quell theme, volunteering had not been ruled out.
It was no secret Jack had never cared for One's career program. He could seize this opportunity to weaken the pack. And then, how much did a ninety-one-year-old man with no family and few remaining friends have to look forward to? …What did he have to lose?
"I'll talk to him," Cashmere said. "On his own, he might speak up, but if he knows we want this, why would he interfere? He can't save both of us."
"I don't know. ...I guess I wouldn't. We don't really know him." Gloss wasn't getting his hopes up. "Ah, let's think. What do we know about him?"
"He…used to be on TV a lot. He doesn't have any family. …Gloss, I don't think I've even said 'hello' to him since Annie's Victory Tour."
"I hear he jokes around a lot. He sings. …Theo told me he and Mags are still in love, you know?"
"What? How does he know that?" Cashmere wondered.
"It's what he thinks anyway. Because they're always on the phone together even with how she can only talk so much."
"Why would you ask him something like that?"
"I didn't." Gloss sort of smiled as he considered it. "I don't know, it's not like I've been around him much either, but I guess you haven't noticed how once you get him started talking he'll just keep going and going? Man, that guy loves to talk. You ever want to know anything going on in Four, forget trying to pry it out of Finnick, go straight to the fountain."
"Well, I can think of very few times I've cared about anything going on in Four, but I will keep that in mind," Cashmere accepted the tip pleasantly enough, although she was more or less certain she would be going to her death without caring again about anything that went on in Four (the only thing about Four she had thoughts left about was who they would send into the Quarter Quell and who she would prefer they sent- she was still undecided whether it would be more satisfying to get her claws into poor, sweet Annie or to be the one to sever the men from Mags' apron-strings- either way she would score some easy pain on Finnick- Song wouldn't be entertaining, but she could be an executioner. …Aside from Finnick, the Four men were more or less interchangeable to her, differentiated mainly by age).
"I don't know. I just thought it might be helpful," her brother shrugged.
"Fine, if I must, I'll use blackmail."
"I wonder if they ever get a chance to hook up anymore," Gloss mused on, and Cashmere, already on her way out the door sent him a look over her shoulder. "Hey," he addressed her unspoken thoughts, "I'd much rather think about old people having sex with each other than with you or me or anyone like that."
"Yes, you make a good point, but," she sighed then shook her head, brushing it away. "I suppose it's healthier that we don't understand everything about each other."
"Good luck, Cash," his voice followed her out.
The yard was a little unkempt owing to the erratic care it received (sometimes the grandchildren of a friend came and worked on it; mostly Jack made vague attempts himself), but clover didn't need much tending to keep on springing up, or wild flowers, Cashmere supposed. She approached and rang the doorbell.
Then she waited. …Had he heard it? How well did he hear? Was he napping? It could reasonably take him a while to make it to the door from some of the further parts of the house.
He arrived with the puzzled expression of someone who barely ever received unexpected visitors. "Hello, Cashmere." His voice was steady for his age. "Is something wrong?"
"Sort of," she admitted, "It's not urgent though. Can we talk?"
"Of course," Jack gestured for her to come inside, "Time's something I have in spades."
Cashmere had never been in his house before. Actually, she hadn't been in most of the residences comprising the valley's Victors' Village. They weren't exactly a chummy bunch in One. If you spent half your life or so taught to live in a dog-eat-dog world you didn't exactly shake that off so easily. In that sense, she and Gloss were lucky to have one another.
It was a low-key sort of place, white and green and wood. Jack went over to the couch with tiny, careful steps and sat down in front of a coffee table adorned with a miniature ship in a glass bottle. Cashmere sat too, toward the other end, crossing her legs in a casual manner instead of the showy advertising she was usually expected to display in public. "It's about the Quarter Quell, Jack."
He started to resemble the old press images of himself as his teeth flashed forth. "You're worried they're going to call me," he suggested, holding his grin as he awaited her response.
Yeah, this was what he was supposed to be like. "Ha ha," Cashmere simply said, not interested in forcing a laugh, "That's cute, but no. It's kind of the opposite really. Gloss and I have decided. We want to go in, and it absolutely has to be both of us."
Jack stopped smiling. He was thinking it over. Cashmere wasn't sure how much he knew about them, but from his expression, she thought he understood at least the seriousness with which she made this statement. She and her brother had no interest in killing one another and only one person would be coming back. Let some Two have the bragging rights. Jack had to know enough to see what "together" meant.
"Hmm," he muttered, "I see. Well, while you're here, would you like to see my peppers? I mean, I'm not trying to compete with Will and his super hots one, but it was seeing him on TV that gave me the idea…"
He wasn't stupid. He wasn't senile. Cashmere was tentatively curious. "Sure," she rose and offered him a well-manicured hand of assistance in getting up. "I'd love to see them."
Jack took the lead. The peppers weren't on his back patio. He went on out through the yard, with its motley assortment of semi-tended plants. There was a lop-sided trellis heavy with blossoming laburnum and lots of scraggly poppies and daisies. The peppers, it turned out, were in pots, sitting on a battered wooden bench. It didn't seem like a pretty piece of furniture from Seven or One. Cashmere ran a finger over its unusual texture. "Did you make this?"
"I bought it from a place in Four. 'Made from ships' they say. Driftwood, really, I think." He poked aimlessly at the pepper plants. They had little white flowers.
The bench and boat from Four- though that might more or less correspond with his specific interest in Mags in particular, Cashmere wondered… "Did Will give you the peppers?"
"He sent me seeds."
And something from Eleven then. Cashmere had felt a tad sorry for Jack before, at least in theory, but he obviously had some tiny world of his own. "I don't know anything about gardening," she indulged him, "But they do look healthy."
He stopped toying with the pots and put his hands into his shirt pockets. "The arena, ah, if you want to go, I won't stop you. I mean, part of me thinks I should go back- that I deserve to go back. But even after all this time, another part of me still wants to live."
Cashmere guessed he was reasonably sure he was far enough from whatever bugs there might be to say what he wanted to here. The peppers were an excuse to bring others to this spot. "Thank you," she replied, "For understanding."
"I'm sorry," he said.
Cashmere shook her head. "Honestly, Jack, I doubt any of this could be considered your fault."
He exhaled a long breath, then looked her in the eye. "What if you had a chance to come out alive?"
"Not without-" she began to protest.
"No," Jack insisted, "Both of you, if things go right. …And- and if it doesn't work out, at least it'd be a chance. …Better than carrying on as is, right?"
Cashmere felt a shiver of excitement run down her spine- a sensation that took her back to the arena. Perhaps it was a survival instinct of sorts. Seeing when a chance had come and knowing to take it. …After all, what did she have to lose?
There was a spark in his green eyes- of inspiration, of defiance.
"Tell me more," Cashmere replied.