checkingout | [open + closed] nothing to keep me from the storm

[open + closed] nothing to keep me from the storm

Who: Cashmere + you
What: After being gone for 5 days, Cashmere returns to the hotel with the fury of 1000 suns
Where: All over the hotel
When: June 8th
Warnings: likely violence and ugly crying

Cashmere wakes up in the boiler room on the afternoon of June 8th, having disappeared without warning five days earlier. Five days in hotel time, but less than two for her. The last thing she remembers is the sharp pain of Johanna's ax cutting into her chest, but that's gone now. She thinks back - before that? Katniss' arrow in Gloss' chest. It doesn't take long for the realization she's returned to the hotel to sink in, on her feet and eventually yanking the door open with a frustrated scream and one goal - to find Katniss.

It feels like something inside her has snapped and though she's exhausted and afraid of what it means to be back at hotel ( she's dead this time. really, truly, dead just like Johanna said. there isn't anything left for her in Panem and nothing for her at the hotel.) and is propelled by the rage that threatens to spill over and the need for revenge.

open

She starts with the lobby, yelling Katniss' name as though it might get her to appear. She stops to interrogate anyone she sees, and if they were expecting Cash to be happy to see them again they've pick the wrong day for a reunion. Those from Panem won't be surprised to see her verbally lash out at people - it's falling back on old habits. She's fresh from the Games and it feels like everyone is the enemy.

She does stop by her room to be sure nothing's missing, and will respond to any tablet communication.

closed - Haymitch

Despite being told otherwise by literally everyone she's come across, Cashmere's next stop after the public areas of the hotel is Katniss' (now former) room, pounding at the door. "Katniss! Katniss! Come out, Mockingjay. Don't be a coward." There's no answer, but she's already convinced herself the girl is hiding inside.

She catches Haymitch's approach from the corner of her eye, stopping her tantrum to move protectively in front of the door. "Don't come any closer," she warns. "Unless you're here to help me find your stupid Mockingjay."

closed - Hook

After her run in with Haymitch, Cashmere's finally given up on finding her nemesis but it hasn't done a single thing to make her feel better. If anything, it makes her feel worse - too much pent up anger and no outlet for it. She returns to the lobby in search of an answer (or maybe a fight. probably a fight). She's looking positively feral: wild eyed and charcoal-dirtied hands that hint that she'd even gone so far as to poke at the fireplace like it might be filled with secrets. Cashmere doesn't notice him until he's close enough to touch her, distracted by her current task of looking through all the drawers of the front desk.

closed - Trip

Exhaustion finally wins over, but not until after Cashmere has completely trashed her room. It'll cause quite the ruckus for her neighbor. When he comes by to see what the hell she's doing, he'll find that she's pulled the mattress from her bed's frame, the table and chair have been overturned, and her belongings are scattered everywhere. She tried unsuccessfully to smash the window with her suitcase, and it lays discarded on the floor.

All knocks on her door she ignored until she's finally tired herself out. Cashmere hadn't been expecting Trip (or anyone, really) and rolls her eyes when she finds him waiting in the hall. "Can I help you?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Things haven't been at their greatest around the hotel, but at least they've calmed down a bit. Or, they had, until Hurricane Cashmere hit with devastating force. Hook missed her, though being glad she's trapped here seems a little cruel... it's an understatement, though, that whatever she experienced at home has left her worse for the wear. He's used to this destruction, wild and unfocused, because he's done it before. He wonders what triggered it with her.

Hard to ask her, when she's running around snapping and destroying whatever she can get her hands on. A dangerous state of mind for the pirate to sneak up on her, but the only way to stop her is very likely to remove her from the situation. It's very much a pirate solution, to pick her up without even considering the fact she might smack him or worse for it. "If you kick me, darling, I'll kick you back." He probably means it. He expects her to protest, he just doesn't care; she's going to her room.

Cashmere doesn't get picked up often - perhaps a combination of her height and ability to be terrifying when she wants to be - so she's not expecting him to scoop her up and screams loudly in protest. Losing her mind has given everyone good reason to steer clear of her, and if anyone's noted her scream (which they probably have, given it's banshee-like qualities), no one running to her 'rescue.'

She kicks at him despite the warning and because she doubts he'd actually kick her back. He might be a pirate, but he's a pirate with a weird sense of morality. "Let go of me!" She kicks at him again for good measure. "Stop!"

Clearly, her work of attempting to dismantle the hotel is important work and he's interrupting it. Can't he see that she's trying to have mental breakdown here?

It's not that she isn't terrifying. She's all teeth and wild eyes and not so veiled hints at violence. It's just that when you've lived a lifetime of that it intimidates you less. He thinks Cashmere could do a number on him if she wanted to—he just thinks even in her dangerous, recoiling state, she doesn't actually want him dead.

It's hard to kick what he seems so intent on hauling bodily toward the stairs. "I will," and he will... Just maybe not as soon as she wants. One of the kicks is sound enough to earn a grunt. "This won't fix anything." He wishes it would. He's tried destruction and violence to mask his pain, it doesn't make it go away and it won't make her feel better.

Whether she's listening or not, they're going toward the stairs. If he thinks she can be trusted to walk herself, he'll let her down.

He's right - she doesn't want to do him any real harm. He just happens to be in her way at the moment. If she meant to actually hurt him she would have already. "Let me down!" she demands again. "I didn't do anything!" which is a bold-faced lie.

Lashing out at others and general property destruction is the only way she knows how to possibly handle all the grief and rage built up inside her. After a bad night in the Capitol she'd turn her anger on the other victors (who'd grown used to it anyway) and eventually her frustration would wash away. It's not working this time, though. She's miserable.

Carrying her up the stairs it is, then. It's not easy and it's very lucky he makes it without dropping her. Both of them falling down the stairs is also not going to help anything. Well, she might be forced to think about what troubles her if she can't move, instead of storming and fighting like she can keep those truths away if she fights hard enough. There's only so long she can go before she breaks and really breaks, and he knows well enough that is something she'd be better off not doing in the lobby.

He's stronger than he looks, considering how far he has to take her to get to her door. He's a bit winded from it but when he finally does set her down, it's only so he can point at the handle. "Open it." The fact is he doesn't know how to help her with that storm brewing inside her, either. He's never been good at sorting out his. But doesn't someone have to try? Emma had anchored him when he needed it but as far as he knows, Cashmere doesn't have an equivalent here. Even wild eyed and raw with pain, Cashmere is about all he has left as a friend in this place. So he's going to try.

Edited 2015-06-08 04:32 (UTC)

Getting her way is not much of a victory, but at least her feet are on the ground. Cashmere tosses her hair back over one shoulder, like this is any other day and being forcefully carried to her room didn't just happen. She looks from Hook, to the door, and back again. "Are you going to ground me? What if I don't? You can't make me open it." She snorts. "You don't think you can break it down, do you?"

Maybe she will unlock it, maybe she won't. Cashmere hasn't decided yet. Pushing his buttons and being petulant gives her a little satisfaction. She can fight the grief that threatens to strangle her, stuff it down inside and take a swipe at everyone else to convince them that she's not shattered. She'll give in to him, eventually. He just has to wear her down first.

Hook is a captain. He's used to his orders being taken. Granted he hasn't had men to order around for longer than he's been here, he's still not impressed by her petulance. It seems an elaborate act to prove to him she doesn't have to do what he asks, even though the fact she didn't break his nose and head for the stairwell might be an indication she isn't entirely opposed to it.

"I can pick it open," the pirate informs her, because pirate. Of course he can. He doubts that capacity is really going to help him, though. He softens, barely perceptible but there if one could squint. She's raw and reeling, even if physically she's all right, but he's still happy to see her. He was worried. "Open it, Cashmere. Please." He not her captain, an order might be the wrong tone. He's her friend, and friends don't make orders. It's an attempt to remind her he's on her side, despite the bodily removal from the lobby.

For the record, she doesn't have to do what he asks. Cashmere would like to think she does as she pleases, but that's never really been true. Fear is a powerful motivator. She's not afraid of Hook, so she has no problem with being a smart ass to him.

With a sigh, she fishes her key out of her pocket and makes a big show of placing the key into the lock, unlocking the door, and swinging it open with a push. "There. Door's open. Now what? Am I grounded? Do I have to take a nap?" She'll cooperate, but not without a heap of sarcasm.

Her room looks the same as before. She's already gone through it once just to take inventory of everything and found nothing had changed. Cashmere had expected to find her few possessions missing but it seems the hotel was only interested in displacing her and not her things.

Does she have to take a nap? He doubts she's got any rest in her, even if he suggested — and he's not going to. He carried her to her room, but he doesn't think there's any making her rest. Even if she were tired, her mind wouldn't let her. He helps himself to her room without permission, because clearly the lack of fear goes both ways.

"Where is that bloody wine?" Because that is clearly where they should start. How does one deal with emotional pain? Just drown it in alcohol, good enough right? At least instead of destroying the hotel, they'd be destroying their livers. Seemed like a great way to fix any problem. It had always worked really well for him. (It hadn't.)

"Hey!" she protests, following him into the room. She's pretty sure he didn't carry her off for wine, but she's not going to argue with the idea that they could both use a drink. Well, she could use a drink. She doesn't know about him, but after dealing with her he'd need one for sure.

"It's under the bed." She beats him to it, lifting the blankets to show that yes, there is wine stashed underneath. She points to the table. "Cups." Make yourself useful, pirate. "And that is the first sensible thing anyone has said to me since I've been back. Assuming we are drinking this, that is."

The problem with the pirate is that he could always use a drink. This place has forced him to sober up, but that doesn't kill the quiet crawl in his veins for a drink. It's something he lives with every day, sometimes the pull was stronger than others. This was one of those times.

He goes to get the cups without questioning it. If just getting hammered would fix this, then he'd be a hell of a lot happier. He doesn't think her unhappiness is just from her supposed death, it's deeper than that. He holds both cups out, bandage still present on his weaker hand. "What happened."

He knows it's something. He just doesn't know if she'll tell him.

She accepts the cup, taking a long swig before she answers him. A lot happened. She's not sure where to begin. Cashmere counts him as a friend, so she does want to tell him something even if it's just enough something to make Katniss look bad. Katniss deserves that though. There's a sting of betrayal - she'd stupidly started to warm up to the girl. She'd been right to begin with. Katniss is a stupid girl who would bring the whole country down by accident. After winning the first time around Cashmere did everything that was asked of her. She played by the rules. She didn't deserve to go back.

"I went back to the arena." Cashmere spits the words out, bitter. That's more or less the beginning. "Because of Katniss we all had to go back. It's where I was before. So I left here and I was there and it was so much worst than my first time in the arena." Blood rain. Jabberjays. Mutts. The Capitol's best for the victors they used to love.

"But we were doing all right." Cashmere shrugs, swallowing more of the wine. "and then Katniss shot him with an arrow." Which is leaving out a lot of details and admitting no guilt of her own - but as far as Cashmere's concerned, she's the victim.

Her voice is distance, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. She hasn't allowed herself the chance to cry and she doesn't want to do it now in front of him. "I couldn't - " couldn't get to him. She'd known immediately that she'd never make it to Gloss, not fast enough for it to matter. So she'd gone for Katniss instead. A little revenge before she upheld her promise to him and found a way to die. "And then Johanna put her ax in me." There's no wound but she can still feel the ache in her chest.

She's talked about the arena a little. He barely understands it but from the bits and pieces he's picked together from the many people he knows here from that world, it's some sort of barbaric fight to the death for the sake of public entertainment. Even a pirate can't quite fathom why the public would be entertained by such things. He knows enough about Cashmere now that he does not suspect that simply going back into the arena had set her on a tailspin, and in the end he's right.

Hook isn't sure there's a right or wrong in a situation where everyone is pitted against each other an a desperate bid to survive. Is the right thing really to die? If it is, then he'd have been just as wrong. What he can relate to, though, is the broken I couldn't— because that he knows, and that he understands, and he knows full well that hurts a hell of a lot more than the wound she took herself.

"When my brother died, it all happened so fast. Nothing I could do." He's not spoken of his brother in some time, and even with David he'd neglected finer details. "Even three hundred years later I still wonder why I wasn't strong enough to save him." He chugged back the wine, because Cashmere is his friend or as close to it as the pirate can get anymore, and inquires, "And that's it?"

It sounds a bit callous, but it's a bland way of inquiring if she really dies. The girl in the hotel told him as much, but he wants to hear it again anyway.

The wine is barely palpable, but she keeps swallowing it down in gulps like it's water. Cashmere has to look away as he talks. She's suddenly struck by the unreasonable and unlikely idea that she will spend three hundreds years without her own brother and it feels painfully lonely. She didn't know that he'd lost his brother - or that he'd had one at all. She doesn't know what to say to that. She can bare

"I died. And that's it." She assumes, anyway. She doesn't remember anything after the initial shock of the ax. She can imagine it though. She would have fallen and they would have fired a canon to make her dead. "I finished tenth. Do you think my parents are proud?" It was a bad showing, really. Two career victors and they hadn't even cracked the top eight. Cashmere wonders if it was worse for them to lose their children or to be the parents of losers.

Cashmere holds out her hand expectantly to take the wine. She needs another cup of it.

"Johanna told me she killed me the first day I got here." Actually dying is more upsetting than she thought it would be. It feels strange to be in the hotel - alive as far as she can tell - when she knows that she's supposed to be dead. Why doesn't Gloss get the same?

No, it's not likely that she'll need to suffer being without her brother for centuries. It's rather unbelievable that the pirate has. It's been so long now that he hardly remembers what having a brother was even like. He knows that Liam was a good man. Better than he was. That he was always there, that he'd always stove to be someone his brother could be proud of. And once his brother was gone, well... he's not sure he's the same man that Liam knew once.

He offers the wine, because as much as he needs it, no doubt she needs it more. Hook has nearly died on more than one occasion, enough that death had lost a bit of its terror. Up until he found himself with something to live for again. He can guess what sort of mindset she has now—her brother is gone, she's living on borrowed time until she goes back to the fate that will kill her. What is she supposed to do with that? He can't tell her. He can't pretend to be an optimist, that they'll sort this all out and she'll change her fate.

"It doesn't help." The destruction, the anger. Hell, the drinking didn't really help in the end, either, but it was at least self destructive instead of environmentally. The problem is he can't tell her what will. "It just makes it all worse in the end."

She takes the bottle, wandering the few steps to her bed to sit. It's the closest thing to rest she's had in days and she's reminded of exactly how exhausted she is, both physically and emotionally. Drunk won't help any of it but she doesn't know what else to do.

Destruction and anger are easier than sorrow. They always have been. She doesn't acknowledge his warning. How could any of this possibly get worse? She's lost the one person she's spent her entire life trying to protect.

"I wish I was dead." Living now feels like she's broken her promise to Gloss, like she's cheated somehow. She knows that he would always choose her, that given the choice between Cashmere living and dying he'd tell her to live. But they'd agreed that if they couldn't be victors together that neither one wanted it - the Capitol would be unbearably cruel to the single sibling left behind. So they promised in together, out together. She glances to Hook, and adds: "I'm not going to kill myself. I just wish I already was. Maybe I can ask Johanna to try again."

He's at least not going to hold the drinking against her. The alcoholic of centuries could understand the crutch better than anyone. He also knew now that it wouldn't help, either; maybe just soften it a little. In the moment, make things a bit less heavy. If she got drunk enough, anyway.

Hook sits down next to her, eyes somewhere a bit far away. Like if he didn't have to look at her suffering, it wouldn't bother him as much. Jury was out on if that even worked. Anger, destruction, rage, that wasn't going to help her. He'd never existed knowing he was dead but in a manner of speaking, he'd behaved as if he was dead for a very long time. He'd expected his revenge to result in his death. So all those centuries he'd spent harboring those rotten emotions, they'd all been a waste. It felt impossible to make up lost time now.

"You can't die here. Three or four have come back already." He shook his head, and refuses to give her false hope. That their captors might be able to reverse things, if they ever found them. "You may not want the chance you've been given but you have it. I suspect your brother would want you to make the most of it, instead of living like your heart had already joined him. Mourn him the way he deserves to be mourned." Hook didn't know her brother, but he hoped that Gloss would not want his sister to live in aching, angry misery until she eventually joined him—however long that would take.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open + closed] nothing to keep me from the storm

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject