thecapitol | Temptation greets you like your naughty mate

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Temptation greets you like your naughty mate

Who| Gannicus & open to all
What| Gannicus is going to show everyone in the Capitol how a true Celt drinks. And then he's going to show everyone how a true Celt deals with the hangover.
Where| Every bar within stumbling distance, then back to the D9 suites, then the training room the next day.
When| Pretty much every day during and after the mini arena. Feel free to set a time in your tag-in!
Warnings/Notes| Terrible language, including the linked yt video in the first prompt!

i. Early Evenings - Central Commons bar

The Capitol has many, many interesting bars but Gannicus is yet to visit them all. It will take him years, he thinks, and isn't that the best way to spend your captivity? In the early evening he limits himself to the bar in the tribute centre, where he lines up glass after crystal-cut glass of pink and orange fizzes laced with what he is promised is the most fashionable alcohol in town. With their powers combined, Gannicus can easily forget the fact that he isn't meant to be here. There's a rebellion he's supposed to be a part of, thousands of years and millions of miles away. But he's powerless to return, and a haze of alcohol makes that easier to deal with.

He's missing a shirt, as usual, but seems to be in remarkably high spirits. He'll raise a glass in cheer of any and every fellow Tribute that passes by, and may even be tempted to teach them the traditional song of his people...

ii. Late evening - Capitol Bars

He's been out and about in the bars that are closest to the Tribute centre now that the bartenders recognise him now. With a wink and a smile they coax him in to trying ever more spectacularly potent cocktails - we have just the thing for you tonight, have you tried this one? And so on and so forth.

He gets through every drink every time, surprising no-one. He drinks, he sings, he laughs and tells stories about the great (and not so great) men he has killed in his times and the scars they gave him in repayment. Gannicus thinks he knows what these people want now: they want bloody and glory and entertainment and as long as they keep supplying him with wine he is quite happy to pretend that he was fine with that. It was a familiar tune. It was just how it worked.

iii. Early hours of the morning - Tribute Centre

On unstable legs Gannicus weaves his way through the Tribute tower in an attempt to find wherever the hell it was somebody had moved the District Nine apartments. He could swear blind that they weren't where they were when he left. Walking like Bambi on ice and with the rooms and corridors feeling like they are spinning faster at every wrong turn, Gannicus traces a hand along a wall as he walks if only to anchor himself somehow.

"Apologies," He mutters slowly as he accidentally shoulders in to yet another concerned Avox, before stumbling past and fumbling his way through another door in to a room that definitely isn't the one he's looking for.

iv. Midmorning - D9 Common Area

He finds his home suite eventually but apparently doesn't make it as far as his own room. The next morning Gannicus can be found sprawled across the couches, legs akimbo and still mysteriously missing his shirt. There's no snoring, no talking in his sleep; having solidly passed out, Gannicus has finally hit the 'dead' stage of 'dead drunk'.

v. Afternoon - Training Room

One of Gannicus's (few) redeeming features is at least he works just as hard as he plays. After a morning of sprawling in the District Nine suites he finally pulls himself in to enough of a semblance of a human being again to stumble down in to the training room. Once there, he works a tireless routine around the different sets of weaponry, pushing and testing himself on each to his utmost limits. He sweats hard and works harder, but it's nothing he isn't used to. Compared to training in the ludus - beneath a baking sun and with the lash at his back - this was nothing. This was child's play.

Not that it stops him from sipping from a pitcher (actually a flower vase, liberated from the District Nine rooms) of something that smelled suspiciously like red wine every half hour or so.

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So she hadn't exactly been warming to sleep lately, with the Capitol watching them like a hawk and Mindy taking care not to be lax. No, she was already linking her mind to the thing Carlos told her several days ago about finding a safe spot to talk. What they needed was to find where the Capitol could not spy, and Mindy had taken the last few night to establish them, scribbling notes here and there, keeping her mind sharp by organizing them at night.

This particular night though, she needed a little bit of a pick me up for this, so she'd actually snuck into the kitchen area for some wine. Of all the alcohol, she found herself way more comfortable with this whens he drank alone: it was sweet and subtle enough that she could sip and still be coherent, mostly.

Which could not be said for the noise down the hall, which made her pause in the pouring of her drink. She walked outside, curious, and found Gannicus, a man she knew in passing, who had obvious had his own fair share of wine and whatever else.

"Yo," she says. "HEY. You're about to hit the girl's room. Over here!"

The hey! hits him like a slap to the back of the head and with a mumbled 'hm?' Gannicus spins wildly on one heel to confront the source. It takes him a moment to focus on the shape beside him before he decides it's definitely his mentor.

The fact that he was apparently about to end up in the girl's room didn't seem to bother him very much. Gannicus would have said so, were he not immediately taken by another thought.

"Gods," He breathed in drunken amazement as he squinted at Mindy, with one hand still leaning on the girls' room door if only to keep him upright. "You are fucking short..."

"Yeah, puberty's a bitch," Mindy said, shaking her head. Shit, he was drunk. She was already walking over, trying to help him steady up. "What, did you figure it was time to defy gravity literally or something? You were already walking into the wrong place. Our lounge is further up."

She shook her head, looking at the bottle in her hand. Maybe having that around wasn't the best idea.

He slung a board arm around her slim shoulders, leaning more weight against her than he strictly should in an effort to keep himself supported.

"Many a worthy man have laid claim to title of doctore, but never have I known such as small in stature as you stand now," He drunkenly rambled as if Mindy hadn't said a single word. He pliantly followed her lead, trusting her to lead him to somewhere that might potentially have something he can drink.

"You know the word, do you not? 'Doctore'?"

It was lucky that Mindy had a tendency to train, not to mention carry heavy loads.

"If you mean doctor, no, that's not me," she said. "I'm not much of a mender. I tend to break things, rip them apart, dismember them, that kind of shit. Doctoring, not so much."

Unless Doctor meant mentor, in which case? She could talk a bit about that.

"Doctore, doctore," He corrected the mispronunciation, drunkenly emphasising it as much as possible between slurs. "A gladiator who has known victory and death, and fights in arena no more! A trainer of warriors, passing sacred knowledge of blood and the spilling of it..."

He turns a little, trying to suddenly hold Mindy at arms length as he solemnly informs her:

"I have seen your victory, Mindy Macready. You are fucking doctore of District Nine."

He leans forward again, still a picture of drunken sincerity.

"Small of stature, but of deadly purpose."

"Oh." Yeah, in a way that's her. Granted, she DID have to betray someone in that arena, but she also gave them a chance to kill her, something that anyone who was playing to win wouldn't have bothered with. Something she had continued to mention to Sandy, who had promptly ignored that.

Ah well. Past was past.

"What do people usually say in this situation. Oh yeah. 'My reputation preceded me.' Something like that. But yeah, right on all counts there. And right now my deadly purpose is to get you inside so you don't puke all over the floor and gte the Peacemaker's panties in a bunch."

Panties in a bunch was as good as Greek in Gannicus's ear, but he laughed loudly nonetheless. He slapped a broad, tanned hand on her shoulder good-naturedly and wobbled onwards in a vague direction of where he hoped they were meant to be going.

"I do not part with stomach so easily," He reassured her, words booming along the corridor despite the fact that most of the tower would be asleep at this hour. Gannicus eyed the bottle in her hand. "You seem to be of a mood for drink yourself, Mindy Macready..."

Whoa, he was a strong one. She could take it, but of course it sting a bit. She chuckled anyway, glad for the company. It took a little effort, but they were both going in the right direction.

"Good, you're an expert at this then," she said, looking around anxiously in case somebody was going to stick their head out and be pissed off. "Yeah, well. Let's say I'm burning the midnight oil, and I need to stay up a bit, minus the caffeine."

Only one of the reasons, actually.

"I am fucking expert," Gannicus agreed lazily with a smug smirk as he allowed himself to be lead on like a drunk, oversized lamb by the much smaller girl.

He makes a half-hearted attempt to liberate the bottle from her hand, asking as he did:

"What task is it, that seizes mind?"

Mindy was very quick with her hands: you couldn't mess with a butterfy knife and not be. She not only got the bottle out of his grasp, she did it with the air of someone who could juggle.

"Some work that I need to do," she said with a crafty grin. "If you relax your hands, we can share the bottle though. Don't usually get to drink with decent company."

The last time she HAD was with Carlos, after all.

In his drunken state it wasn't too hard to outwit Gannicus; had he drunk perhaps one less glass of wine then the story might be otherwise. But, three sheets to the wind and sailing at twenty knots further and further from sobriety, he let Mindy pull the bottle away.

"You would share?" Touched, he pressed a hand against his bare chest and slackened the arm around her shoulder so he could stand back to smile down at her reverently. "Mindy Macready, you stand benevolent fucking goddess."

Mindy shared the smile. In all honestly, she'd begun to understand why people who were the lowest drank by themselves. When she did it, she only felt very alone and exasperated. Here, at least, she could have some company and not reflect on things that weighed pretty heavy on her mind.

"I don't know anyone who'd be stupid enough to turn down a drink and talk with a gladiator," Mindy replied, and meant it. In her line of work it was rare to find someone who really knew what it was like to get down and dirty, and even rarer someone who wouldn't try to bemoan her lost childhood.

"We'll have a glass of water somewhere too. Hangovers are no joke, as I learned from experience. By all means, keep the compliments coming!"

A goddess, her! Maybe that crazy one with all the heads, or that one that hunted. That would be a pretty cool comparison.

It wasn't Gannicus' fault. Wyatt knew that. It wasn't Gannicus, wasn't Nasir, wasn't -- wasn't even really himself. It was just the luck of the draw. Fate. Life doing what it did.

But knowing that didn't stop him from stiffing when the gladiator stumbled into the bar. Didn't stop the tightening of his jaw, the fingers on his glass.

From wondering darkly if he was too drunk, or not drunk enough, to deal with this.

To Gannicus, the Speakeasy had no special significance. For him it was just another bar. Another bar that was happy to tolerate him as long as he didn't cause any trouble.

Unfortunately, Gannicus was only too fond of trouble.

There's something grossly inelegant about the way he makes his way up to the bar; there's nothing of the lithe, compact gladiator he should be. Just a battered, degenerate shadow of something that could be noble and glorious but stubbornly chose not to be, out of his own selfishness. But Gannicus doesn't care. He's passed that point of caring what he must look like. Or smell like.

"Wyatt Earp! Shooter of bullets!" He announces too loudly as he recognises the man at the bar and slaps a open palm on his shoulder. Gannicus leans a little, using the connection to hold himself upright as much as a friendly gesture. "What is it you drink, and allow me fucking honour of fetching another!"

To Wyatt's credit - as little difference as it meant - it didn't matter to him what Gannicus looked like, or smelled like, or even acted like. It was the man himself - what he was, those things Wyatt could never hope to be - that had Wyatt's shoulder knotting beneath the hand.

"I ain't sure that's a wise idea," he rumbled, looking sidelong at the man from the corner of his eye. "Between the two of us I ain't sure this place'll have enough to survive."

Wyatt's reservations make little difference to Gannicus - even if he noticed it, he was bloody-mindedly determined to be as drunk and as blindly happy as he could ever hope to be. No ill will was going to set him off his game - but Gannicus seemed oblivious, all the same.

Bulldozing over Wyatt's words, Gannicus ignored his protests and roared across the bar.

"You there! Four of what good Wyatt Earp drinks!"

Then, in a slurred aside to Wyatt, he added in a hoarse whisper:

"They do not expect coin in return, do they?"

That was really the worst insult of all. Even as he wanted to wipe the sloppy smile off Gannicus' face with a hard right hook, he couldn't stop the tickle of amusement in the back of his throat.

It just wasn't right that they were a fun pair, on top of everything else.

(But it made sense, didn't it? It was something else to add the list. All those reasons he could understand why Max felt the way he did.)

He shoved it away while a deep drag from his glass. Drowned it in the burning liquor.

"Ya live," he muttered, "an' they're on me."

"Neither man nor cup has seen fit to claim my life yet," Gannicus hazily grins at Wyatt's words. "And neither shall they this night!"

It was a lie - he had died in the arena just as everyone else had (save for Kevin, of course) but the Capitol's arenas didn't really count, as far as Gannicus was concerned. Not a real death, not a real victory. It was all a sham.

The bar tender presents Gannicus with four glasses, and Gannicus nudges two of them in Wyatt's direction. It was a clumsy move and the liquid slops over the rim to cover Gannicus's hands; he raises them to his mouth, sucking away the burning liquid with a wince.

"The fuck do they call this drink?"

Wyatt was mildly disappointed when Gannicus pushed two of the glasses his way, knowing well that it was unlikely the man had ever encountered whiskey and what first encounters were like.

(He couldn't deck the man himself, but there was no harm in watching the whiskey do it, was there?)

"Whiskey," he replied, drinking pointedly from his glass, watching the gladiator over the rim. "A little somethin' else from my time."

The liquid burned as harshly as any Cilician absinthe - Gannicus squinted and pulled a face as he swallowed his first ever mouthful of whiskey. Wheezing a hoarse chuckle of approval he slapped Wyatt appreciatively once again on the shoulder, as if the man had invented whiskey himself.

"Then I fucking favour your time!" Gannicus replied with a grin, uproariously delighted at the drink and deeply sincere all at the same time. "Bullets and whiskey! Your people stand well versed in death and drink."

"We had our moments," Wyatt allowed with a little bob of his head, whiskey lapping at the sides of his glass as he rocked from the friendly blow. "I 'spose if somethin' had to last, whiskey was a good one."

"If but it were our merits alone that outlasted our years," Gannicus lamented, and the drunken smile faded a touch. He paused and unsteadily examined the amber liquid, now noticeably quieter at the thought.

"There is much here I recognise from my own time." Death matches, blood sport, slavery, terrible fashion. "All of it a fucking curse."

Wyatt snorted, an airy sound from his nose.

"I used to live here," he told Gannicus wryly. "A couple thousand years ago, before it was all this."

He paused and took a deep drink, draining half his glass in one mouthful.

"I haven't the foggiest what we did to cock it up so bad."

Gannicus nodded sagely.

"Men and their cocks are often at blame," He agreed, completely missing what Wyatt's words truly meant. Another unnecessarily large mouthful of whiskey, then Gannicus hoarsely added:

"What name did you call this land, when it belonged to your people?"

Wyatt frowned in confusion at the response, but, after a taking a breathe... thought better of trying to explain and let it lie.

"The United States of America," he replied. "I lived in Kansas. It was part'a what District 10 is now."

His gaze went distant, glass hovering uncertainly before he seemed to recollect himself and took a mouthful.

"It's home, but it ain't."

Watching drunk people wasn't new for Don. Watching drunk people in the Capitol? Also not new.

Having a drunk man stumble into your room? Well...its surprising in that in that after two years only now had that happened. Only now.

"Eh..." Closing his journal, making sure it was safe, he stood up. "Hey there, you need some help?"

Edited 2014-07-31 13:05 (UTC)

Gannicus really hadn't adjusted to the fact there were non-humans in the Capitol. It wasn't something he really imagined he ever would adjust to. Of course, he knew there was at least one non-human in the District Nine suites themselves - but, for the most part, he had avoided having to mentally address the fact too closely. So far, at least.

"No," Was his quick, defensive reply. Then, after a pause and a slump of his shoulder, he admits:

"Fuck... yes. Yes, I fucking do." He throws up his hands, nearly losing his balance in the process. "In what direction do I go to find more wine in this fucking maze?"

It looked like it was the gladiator's lucky night then. Unless he was planning on passing it off as drunken delusion. Either way, no judgement would come from Don.

"Well..." He already looked quite drunk to begin with, but on the other hand, Don wasn't exactly going to try and argue with him unless he actually caused a problem. "There's some cooking sherry and wine in the kitchen. Otherwise you have to go to the bar in the main lobby."

"Wine!"

Gannicus held on tightly to the one word he definitely knew and pointed a finger at Donatello as if to say Bingo.

"You had me at wine." He spread his arms expansively wide; with that one word the monstrously inhuman form of the creature before him had been transformed in to a messenger sent by the gods themselves.

"Lead on!"

Oh, yeah, he was blitzed. But Don knew better than to provoke him and refuse. At best he'd fall asleep somewhere and that would be the end of it.

"This way, then." To the kitchen. "So...how much have you had to drink tonight? Just curious."

Gannicus waved an absent hand as he unsteadily followed the monstrous turtle-man. Perhaps in the morning he will find out that he has imagined this whole conversation, that turtle-men did not exist, and all the world would be right again. Until then:

"Do not ask," He shrugged easily. "They present me fucking tiny glasses, I do not know their number." He gestured with his hands - very small glasses, like a shot glass, before guessing haphazardly.

"Many. Let us say they numbered 'many'."

If only, Gannicus. If only.

"Shot glasses, huh." He walked into the kitchen, carefully taking out the wine from its place. "So...do you need a glass, or...?"

Shot glasses. The word had confused him at the time, having only just learned about guns and 'to be shot', but now he gestures wildly at the monstrous figure of a man before him.

"Yes! That fucking word - yes, that is what they called it. A shot, but not of iron..."

What a time to be alive. Gannicus shook his head and the world drunkenly spinned as it tried to keep up.

"I need no cup - merely find me a jug and my mouth shall do the rest."

"Its a type of drinking glass," Don replied, finally finding the bottle, before holding it out to him. "Here you go."

He would be nearby, to make sure he didn't throw up everywhere.

Eponine could drink too, and she quite often went out until the early hours, nursing brandies and glasses of wine. She wasn't one for cocktails much, and the bartenders had, for the most part, given up on the scraggly girl and let her sit in her corner. Even the Capitolites didn't bother with her, having learned ago that she had a horrid temper and a mouth that would make a sailor proud when she wanted.

But tonight was a little bit different. She was still clutching a glass of wine, and she had started out in the corner. But as Gannicus' songs grew louder and louder, Eponine really began to listen to them. She grinned. Though his songs were in English, they reminded her of the bawdy songs of the French music halls that she had so liked to sing.

Over the course of the evening, Eponine crept closer and closer to Gannicus, drinking up his vivid songs. When she was right behind him, she asked,

"Were you an actor, Sir, before they brought you here? Oh, I do like your songs. I have missed their like!"

Gannicus's songs may sound English thanks to the Capitol's devilry, but they had their roots bedded deep in the filthy soil of the collective whores and gladiators of Capua's impressively dark underbelly. From one song to the next, each was designed to be easily remembered and chanted even through the thickest alcoholic fog. It was why Gannicus recalled them so easily; they were designed for men of limited patience and optimum alcoholic capacity.

As Eponine spoke up he span around, drunkenly reeling on one heel, and quickly slung a familiar arm around her shoulder to pull her in closer. Not that he had even the slightest idea who she was; right now, every single man and woman in the room was Gannicus's best friend.

"She likes my songs!" He roared to the crowd in the bar. The crowd roared back, and Gannicus threw his head back with a laugh.

"A gladiator is no fucking actor," He shook his head, grinning lopsidedly at her. "But I stand no stranger to merciless whims of an audience!"

Eponine flinched against Gannicus as the crowd roared. She wasn't really used to an appreciative clap and it made her wary. Were they laughing at her?

"A gladiator, Sir? What's a gladiator? Do you sing to audiences often?" She had to shout to make herself heard over the roars of the crowd.

"A gladiator stands a fucking legend amongst men!" Gannicus crowed, pulling Eponine closer as he explained to her - and the crowd around them - exactly what it was a gladiator was in his eyes. The throng at the bar yelled and clapped, and even in his drunken state Gannicus soaked it all with a hazy grin.

"A slayer of beasts!"

Another round of applause.

"A conqueror of giants!" Gannicus grinned, then turned his head and whispered an aside in to Eponine's ear as the crowd carried on around them. "This fucking city would make every stranger brought against their will in to gladiator, but few deserve honoured title."

"You enjoy killing, Sir?" Perhaps this bravado was what she ought to have. Certainly, the crowd were loving Gannicus, and how nice would it be to hear them roar in sheer appreciation.

"Have you killed many men?" She takes a sip from the brandy she's still clutching nervously. She needs to be more drunk than what she is to be able to handle this. With that in mind, she knocks back the rest in one, and dumps the glass on the bar.

"Will you teach me to be a gladiator like you? I am fed up of dying, Sir."

"Does a dog love to bite? Does a sword enjoy the tearing of flesh?" Gannicus asked airily, both nonsensical and deeply black in his humour as he continued to grin drunkenly at the woman he held to his side. She knocks back her drink in one swift movement and Gannicus laughs approvingly - yes, that was the spirit. That was the only way.

"To be a gladiator you must not be sick of death," He dropped his voice and the smile slipped a little. "A gladiator is not fed up of dying."

He plucks a drink from a drunken crowdmember - a lady, overstyled and giddy - and presses it in to Eponine's hand to replace the brandy. The smile has definitely cracked now, replaced by something sober and mirthless.

"He welcomes it."

"I should welcome death if it meant I stayed that way. It is the waking up afterwards, still here, that I hate."

Eponine sips the drink thrust at her, and wrinkles her nose. It's a pink concoction of some sort, and fizzy and overly sweet. But it is also quite clearly alcoholic and so she gulps it down as quickly as she can.

"But surely you fight to win, Sir? You don't want to die, surely? " She tries to hand the empty glass back to the random lady, who just glares at Eponine. "I want people to like me, Sir."

"A gladiator has only victory and death of his enemy in mind," Gannicus agrees, now blank and mirthless with his arm around Eponine as the crowd continues its revelry around them. "He calls death his brother, and does not fear him. Death is all he deserves... "

With his free hand he lifts his cup to his lips and surveys Eponine over the rim.

"You believe people do not show you favour?"

"You mean if they like me, Sir?" She laughs bitterly. "No. No, not so many people show me favours. But I don't care. They're stupid. They like you though... or they seem to. They like your songs - I like your songs. I know songs like that, but people don't like it so much when I sing them."

Gannicus is definitely popular. He IS good looking though - perhaps that is why? Or perhaps it's his joyful attitude?

"Will you teach me, then? To fight? To like death? Though, do you truly believe that is all we deserve?"

"Death is all a gladiator deserves," Gannicus corrects her, pointing with the finger that holds his glass aloft. "Do not wish to call yourself amongst our number so swiftly!"

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Temptation greets you like your naughty mate

III

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II - The Speakeasy (After Max's post)

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woah sorry i lost this notif!

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III!

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II

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