The God of Wine Came Crashing Through [Closed]

[vissernone]

WHO| Eva, Gannicus and Nasir
WHAT| Eva drags people into her web
WHEN| Before the arrests and murder.
WHERE| A bar in the Capitol
WARNINGS| None yet.



For once, Eva is making progress. After decades of snooping, memorizing, selling herself out for scraps of information, she's found a crack she can sneak through. The lure of potential success is exhilarating, dizzying. It would make her heady and stupid if she hadn't been hiding her base impulses for so long.

She's smothered the urges to fight back, scream and cry for so long that she doesn't really know who she is anymore. She knows what she is, though, and that is a tool of revenge. A weapon, turned first against her own people but now honed towards mightier targets.

She's given up drinking since she started sleeping with Wallander. Not entirely - she doesn't have the fortitude for that - but she gets drunk at home now, and when she's out at bars still she has a single glass and nurses it against her lusher instincts. And that's what she's doing now, waiting at the bar she's seen Gannicus visit before, hoping he'll have Nasir in tow.

Comments

[calledmenasir]

Gannicus did have Nasir in tow. This wasn't the first time they'd been out together. It seemed like getting drunk and singing about cocks was the way to make up for trying to kill each other in the last arena.

His eyes swept over the crowd habitually before turning to Gannicus.

"We are not to shed clothes this time." Nasir still had a bruise from walking into the wall the time that had happened. He did not remember that night fondly.

[gladiayyygirl]

Gannicus lived for the arena, that much was obvious. It was only within the cage of the arena that he felt truly free. Outside of it was a long, tiresome waiting game where Gannicus's only real method of coping was to keep the guilt and the memory of choices he had made at bay through as many distractions as humanely possible. Sex was one distraction. Drink was another. More often than not, it was the latter that Gannicus indulged in the most.

Laughing lazily at Nasir's instruction Gannicus clapped a scarred, tanned hand on his shoulder.

"Stern words, from the man who bared cock so readily," He replied breezily, already eyeing up the familiar drunks at the bar as he bodily half-pushed, half-steered Nasir towards the bar.

He spotted his mentor - a familiar silhouette, steadier in her seat than most of the revellers in the bar - but didn't outwardly react. His gaze slid away without a flicker of a change in his expression, but when they arrived at the bar Gannicus has easily manoeuvred them both so that they took up a spot right at her elbow.

When he caught the attention of the barman he raised his voice loud enough for Eva to hear.

"Whiskey. For my brother and I--" He paused and nodded at Eva. "--And the good woman."

[vissernone]

She does a very convincing job of acting as if she didn't see Gannicus until he's practically right next to her, but the truth is that even if she weren't looking for him he'd have known she was there. So great is her paranoia, her constant vigilance, that no one would get within ten feet of her back without her assessing the threat and how to escape it in ten different ways.

"Was that an offer to buy me a drink?" She smiles with the sort of warmth that can only be imbued by a little bit of alcohol. Maybe her muscles just can't be lax enough for a real smile without being liquored up.

"I like it better when I can bond with Tributes over a shared interest." In this case, booze. She raises her glass, filled with caramel-colored liquid, to Gannicus and Nasir. "Nasir. We haven't met, but I have to congratulate you on your capabilities, at the least."

[calledmenasir]

Nasir knew Eva by sight, at least, as he did many of the tributes and mentors. He was not prone to seeking people out but he didn't avoid them either. As long as Gannicus didn't try to convince him to have a threesome with him and this woman, he was perfectly fine with sharing a drink with her.

He nodded. "Gratitude. I hope to prove yet more capable in the coming arena."

Nasir took his glass as it was handed to him but he didn't drink from it yet. The memory of last time was a touch too keen in his mind.

[gladiayyygirl]

The smooth weight of the glass now felt as familiar in Gannicus's hand as any cup of clay or metal. He raised it readily, taking an unnecessarily large mouthful considering how early the evening yet was. Perhaps it was the proximity of another hard drinker, or perhaps it was the warm and relaxed air of the bar and its customers - either way, Gannicus found himself all too happy to start as he meant to go on, and had made quite an inroad in to his glass even by the time Nasir and Eva had made their pleasantries.

"Eva is doctore of my District," He explained to Nasir hoarsely in between gulps of amber whiskey. A pause, and then he threw a long, challenging grin at Eva over Nasir's head. "Two others stand alongside her, but neither possess beauty and deadly skill to rival Diana herself..."

[vissernone]

"I didn't realize you were as skilled with flattery as you are with a sword." She isn't too terribly much taller than Nasir, so she straightens a bit to meet Gannicus' smile with one of her own.

She pulls her bar stool back so that the three of them can converse as a triangle, rather than as a line. As she does so, she rests her hand on Gannicus' knee.

"I hope that reflects a keen mind, Gannicus." She drinks. "I may be in need of service from the two of you. Nothing important, but a delicate matter."

[calledmenasir]

Nasir glanced at Gannicus at the words "delicate matter." He was no stranger to tasks being asked of him but he chose who to obey. If, however, Gannicus trusted her...

Or perhaps he wanted to bed her.

"I've experience in certain matters," he said slowly. "Yet delicacy may be beyond our abilities." At this he gave Gannicus a look. Discreet was not a word he would use to describe the man. "What use would you have of us?"