communion :: [ calliope + mace // blitz ]

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Calliope1Container"]

[attr="class","Calliope1Title"]

safe to say that growth is an uncomfortable process
and pain is a necessary investment for progress

[attr="class","Calliope1Content"]

— the delicious feeling of her knuckles colliding with his cheekbone, the purity of her hatred forcing its way through his flesh and the splitting skin of her own hand, kissing bone to bone in morbid celebration of everything that brought them together. She remembers spitting at him, she thinks. Perhaps she has falsely embellished the memory with such petty flourishes, but either way there's still a glow of satisfaction that bursts in her chest when Calliope thinks back on the day she met Mace Emberstatt and sucker punched him in the fucking face.

There is an inexplicable fondness in the way she toys with the phone cording as it rings and rings, wrapping the black plastic coated wiring around her finger like a schoolgirl fussing with her hair. It's akin to madness when the sound of his voice on the other end of the line causes her to giggle. "Fuck you!" The mayor of District Six exclaims through a peel of laughter, sounding as if she's having the time of her life. She's not. She feels like complete and utter trash. That's why she's drunk.

She's a mean drunk — as the oft-smashed statue of former President Snow can attest to, once again laying in approximately thirty-nine and and a half pieces across the hallway floor just outside her office door. The justice building is dark and empty enough to make her angry, because how dare it. How dare it challenge her for the title of Darkest and Emptiest. Looking down on her now, the brutalist building holds its tongue, lest it risk testing her temper further; she looks awfully bright with her watery eyes glinting in the shadows and impressively full of cheap whiskey. No wonder she's at risk of being dethroned.

"I hope you were sleeping. I hope you were having the best dream of your life and that you heard the phone right before the really good part," she says pettily, gleefully, still trying to figure out if taking little moments away from him like this will ever add up to punishment enough for that one big wrong he did.

Only it wasn't one wrong. On her fingers she tries to count the corpses that the Victor of the Fifty-Ninth Games left laying in the snow, like so many statues that have been destroyed by the baseball bat kept hidden beneath a loose floorboard under the musty rug in front of this desk. Her fingers are blurry and she gets distracted waving them in front of her face, as if running tests on her own sobriety that she certainly does not pass. Mace didn't only kill Aesop, the same way she didn't only cause the death of Sara Hartfield. She smiles drunkenly, deliriously into the phone receiver. She smiles so wide it hurts and then she tries to force the corners wider still.

last supper d smoke

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[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

When the phone rings, Mace is indeed sound asleep. He rolls over, reluctantly tugging his arm from around Saffron. He lets the phone rest against his scruffy cheek. If there was an introduction, he missed it. The first things he hears is: "I hope you were having the best dream of your life and that you heard the phone right before the really good part."

"Mm-hmm," he agees conversationally. He pushes calloused fingers against his eyelids, willing himself to make sense of the moment. It is dark and quiet. The house sleeps. Everyone is safe. So why does he feel something cold stuck in his spine?

All at once he comes to presence, cradling the phone as he swivels out of bed.

Call-eye-oh-pee, he mouthes to Saffron, then picks up the phone's base set and drags it as far away from their bed as he can. He sits in an old rocking chair next to a moonlit window and slowly exhales.

"Well I sure as shit wasn't dreaming of you," the grumpiness getting the better of him. "Somethin' I can do for you, Mayor Bloom?"

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]

Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Calliope2Container"]

[attr="class","Calliope2Title"]

every kid need a hero
i'm tryna be uncle stan lee

[attr="class","Calliope2Content"]

It's not the first time Calliope has called Mace at this kind of ungodly hour just to petulantly tell him off and it probably won't be the last, but there has been something of an evolution over the years. For the longest time she harbored too much contempt and even the sound of his breathing on the other end of the line was overwhelming. Him breathing has always been his worst crime, after all. Much later on she would prank call him like a child, her voice still too hardened and deadpan for laughter. She was chilling, unforgiving silence and maybe he went along with things because he thought she might be waiting for the laughter that might come at his expense as much as he was always left waiting. Now?

"Well I sure as shit wasn't dreaming of you," he retorts without hesitation. For a long time he was careful with Calliope, her heart such an obvious bomb within her chest and her own fear of herself as obvious as the fear she wanted him to feel. Perhaps he was even penitent. She can't remember. She worked so hard not to acknowledge anything he said or did that might feel genuine. "Somethin' I can do for you, Mayor Bloom?" Somehow they've both surpassed all of that. She doesn't know how and she doesn't know when. She'd throw up her hands in shock if he knew either. Bouts of casual banter shouldn't be strange after all these years, and yet...

Mayor Bloom. She cackles. The title, the reality of it never stops being genuinely funny.

"Good. You dreaming of me would give me nightmares," she mutters half-distracted, cheek pinning the phone's receiver to her shoulder as she struggles with the plastic bottle of bottom shelf whiskey in one hand and an incredibly fancy cut glass decanter in the other. She succeeds in pouring about two thirds of the liquor into the ornate container while the rest ends up spilled onto the surface of her desk, as if rejected. The bottle knows it deserves better. Calliope enjoys its suffering over being demeaned like this because the money used to replace the decanter each time she smashes it — along with so much other justice building property — deserves better too. "Ohhhhhhh," she pokes her finger at the escaped liquor before popping the fingertip into her mouth, "I spilled." There's a dramatic sigh as she rests the side of her face against the desktop, staring at the wetness and idly swirling her finger around once more. "Do you think it's going to stain?" Wandering off topic, nonsensically, she asks: "What does one use to get whiskey stains out of mahogany?"

last supper d smoke

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[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

She laughs.

It is the strangest sound and he realizes that he knows it now, the shape and scope of Calliope Bloom's cackling. It is an intimdate sort of knowledge and he puts it out of his head almost the moment he comes to the realization that knows Calliope kind-of-sort-of-well.

"Good. You dreaming of me would give me nightmares."

He snorts softly, though he doesn't doubt it.

"What does one use to get whiskey stains out of mahogany?"

Mace sighs, cradling the phone's base in his lap, the actualy handle pressed to his ear half-forgotten. He blinks sleep out of his eyes. "Ain't they more or less the same color? Whiskey and mahogany? I ain't got any advice 'bout wood stains, Calliope, so if that's all?I kinda need my rest, on account of bein' old and all."

He's halfway through a yawn when he realizes what he's said. Like so many times before in his life, he wishes he had just done the smart thing and shut the hell up.

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]

Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Calliope3Container"]

[attr="class","Calliope3Title"]

r.i.p. all I see is concrete
burned rubber, glass scattered on the concrete

[attr="class","Calliope3Content"]

The truth she's so deftly avoiding is that she's calling because these days thinking about Mace fills her with more jealousy than contempt. That's not something she could admit to him, even if the phone lines weren't tapped and they certainly are. More than thinking about how mortifying that type of conversation would be, she further dwells on how the phone lines are tapped. "Ain't they more or less the same color," he says, "whiskey and mahogany?" He sighs and she can hear the exhaustion, both over the time and over her. "I ain't got any advice 'bout wood stains, Calliope, so if that's all?" It's not. It's not even the start of it, let alone the end. "I kinda need my rest, on account of bein' old and all."

She used to love knowing that some third party was listening in as she taunted him. "Uh-oh. He doesn't like my jokes," she laments to the spilled whiskey, "and now you're even beating me to the insults. Rude. And old! Yes, you're right and you should say it, grandpa. If only Aesop could brag like that!" The exclamation is half-hearted and toothless, the name-dropping feeling like a casual habit more than something intended to wound. It's practically lighthearted.

Many a conversation with Mace has been spent trying to get whoever is inevitably listening in to laugh, as if satisfaction might finally find her the moment some low ranking Capitol monitoring agent sniggered. Now she just thinks about all the things Mace could say that the person listening in wouldn't blink an eye at. He could describe in gory detail one savage murder after another and that information wouldn't even be considered worth making a note of in the report filed on this telephone call; she wonders what it's like to be able to confess so openly and freely. He gets to walk around with the whole world knowing he's a godawful killer and she realizes quite suddenly, in a way she never has before, how somehow that's a privilege. He's allowed to cry to people about it and yell and act out and... Calliope isn't.

"It's not fairrrrr," she finally slurs, but it's more of a childish whine than her usual breathless rage, that of a younger sibling complaining about not being allowed to do all the same things as her older brother. "You killed all those kids." She did. She killed so many kids... from all across the nation... and their parents... and their friends... and their neighbors... and more people still who were strangers to them just the same as they're strangers to her. The news footage of the chemical plant and the way the explosions rippled out in a wave of destruction flashes on the backs of her eyelids as she blinks against the spinning room. "You don't even have the decency to feign embarrassment anymore when I tell you off about it."

last supper d smoke

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[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

"Rude. And old! Yes, you're right and you should say it, grandpa. If only Aesop could brag like that!"

No chance in hell that Calliope was going to let that one slide. Mace is already knee deep in a sigh when she names the ghost that haunts them both. Aesop. There's no sting left in the name, just an ache, a cold, distant echo of a boy he knew one short winter. More pressingly than Aesop and his ring and the snow is Calliope's voice, light and almost teasing.

Whiskey.

Oh.

He's never been much of a drinker, but there is something profoundly lonely about being sober in the middle of the night while one's companion is drunk. "You don't even have the decency to feign embarrassment anymore when I tell you off about it."

"You want me to be embarassed?" He asks, his voice rising a little. Had he ever been actually embarassed about killing four people twenty-five years ago? Sad, yes. Angry, yes. And a myriad of other feelings he couldn't really name.

Maybe he was embarassed. But then, maybe not.

"I haven't a clue how to feel about Zynna, or Alliance, or Dysis, or your brother. You wanna tell me how to feel?" He'd meant it sarcastically, but it came out plainly. Honestly.

If only someone - even Calliope Bloom - could sort out those ancient feelings.

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]

Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Calliope4Container"]

[attr="class","Calliope4Title"]

eat, smoke, take your time
it's a long dinner

[attr="class","Calliope4Content"]

Factories and labs imploded in the wake of the chemical plant. Worse than the wreckage was the utter nothingness. Everyone in her District looked to her and she had to tell them: I have nothing for you. Everyone beyond her District looked to her, the same way they had during the antibiotic shortage years earlier, and once again but worse than before, she had to tell them: I have nothing for you. And all this time —

"You want me to be embarrassed?" Mace's voice rises from shaking off sleep or maybe because if he thought drunken nonsense was aggravating then rehashing their oldest battles is something more. "I haven't a clue how to feel about Zynna, or Alliance, or Dysis, or your brother. You wanna tell me how to feel?"

— all this time she has continued taking from all of them, from what little could be scavenged from the wreckage, to continue sending out supplies to District Thirteen in hopes of saving something bigger than lives. Stealing. Stealing penicillin from the mouths of dying children in her own community for the sake of others and wondering if there's a difference. Hundreds of deaths here. Dozens of deaths there. She doesn't like playing God, but she doesn't know what else to do. The numbers on various reports tell her that in the end fewer people died (probably) because of the ones she chose to kill, because of the way she ruthlessly wrote out equation after equation to decide that a shortage in one place would prevent epidemics in another and everything got so bad that at some point she adjusted to it. It became deliriously easy to hand out death sentences by denying supply requests to children's hospitals or bluntly telling certain cancer centers they weren't as high of a priority as others. There have been countless times the people on the other end of the telephone line told her but people will die and she simply replied I know.

She wonders if that's what the Arena felt like. "You make it all sound so small. You really only feel responsible for those four?" She wonders if by the time Mace gutted her brother if it was as easy as informing a children's hospital that it had suddenly become little more than hospice care. An intoxicated impulse suggests that she simply ask him. A loud silence in the background, like the expanse of a cave pretending it has no lungs of its own right before a calamitous echo reveals otherwise, suggests that she keep her mouth shut. "I don't know what you're supposed to feel," she admits to both of them, still uncertain if she actually called him or if she got the spins so badly that she's confused talking to herself with conversation. "If I knew that I'd have spent this wholeeeeee tiiiiiiime screaming it at you." A wry beat of laughter hits the edge of the receiver too suddenly, bounces off, and dies from the fall. "You know that."

last supper d smoke

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[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

If there's one feeling Calliope has forced him to identify over the years it is bewilderment. It is something beyond confusion or astonishment, something that wipes his mind blank. Now, again, in the dark, it washes away all the years between him and the Fifty-Ninth. "You make it all sound so small. You really only feel responsible for those four?"

Who else's death was he responsible for?

But as soon as he asks the question, the answer is obvious: Liliana and Moore, his brother and the District 10 Female in the 61st whose name he can never remember, dozens more between, and soberingly Oberon and Kahinta.

Mace carefully, skillfully, closes the door on that train of thought. He knows it will only lead to ruin.

"I don't know what you're supposed to feel. If I knew that I'd have spent this wholeeeeee tiiiiiiime screaming it at you. You know that."

He chuckles, even though his heart feels a little raw. "I actually do know that, ma'am. Can't say that I'm glad of it, but at least we both don't know."

We.

Somehow, a lump had formed in his throat. "Calliope, are you okay?"

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could, oh


running up that hill
-placebo-

[dars]

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","Calliope5Container"]

[attr="class","Calliope5Title"]

it's one queen and a few brothers
the last supper

[attr="class","Calliope5Content"]

Mace chuckles too and in the moment it feels like sharing. Her stomach turns and she tries to tell herself the idea of that is repulsive because she has always bashed the approach of her brother's murderer back with a proverbial ten foot stick. Nothing else. Sharing doesn't imply connection and it certainly doesn't imply common ground. Uh-uh.

For ages now this man has been the worst monster she could ever fathom, a force of apocalyptic destruction and ultimate ruination. Nothing could ever be more heinous than what he did. Mace Emberstatt is the evil to which Calliope has always held all other sins in order to gauge their wrongness. "I actually do know that, ma'am," he says and she startles before realizing that she didn't say her last few thoughts aloud. "Can't say that I'm glad of it, but at least we both don't know."

We.

Again, her stomach twists and this time she feels it in her heart. Clutching a hand to her chest, she tries to remember the various symptoms of dying. Even through the whiskey haze she's fairly certain this is one of them. "Calliope," he breaks a length of quiet that she'd have worried over too, if not for more imminent matters, "are you okay?"

Her pulse stutters, but otherwise carries on as usual and for a moment she's disappointed.

"I'm drunk!" She yells abruptly, attempting to cover her misstep with the most garishly obvious of answers. Forcing another snicker, she leans into the nonsense because the alternative would lead to her immediate arrest and that would be the last act of kindness in her young, criminal life. "Don't change the subject," she hypocritically chides him, "I was trying to confirm that you're not. And how dare you ma'am me, old man!"

last supper d smoke

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