thecapitol | When I ain't drinking, baby

WHO| Nasir and anyone who wants to deal with a drunk
WHAT Nasir has been hiding away since the Arena. Now he's decided he wants alcohol. Lots of it. There may be stumbling into walls. There will be shouting.
WHERE| Tribute Commons at the bar
WHEN| Now, after the Lonestar post, before the crowning
WARNINGS| Alcohol abuse, swearing, memories of torture

Nasir had a lot to process. He couldn't afford to do so in the arena but he dealt with the effects now. There was remorse, shame, concern-- emotions he no longer wanted to feel yet could not block out.

Agron and Faizan were gone, returned to their world. He was concerned for Agron but it was his brother that his thoughts kept turning to. He had returned to a life of slavery and Nasir could not save him from it. If he had stayed, there may have been a chance--

Nasir would never know now.

But when he closed his eyes it was not them he saw but the Peacekeepers coming at him and he could almost hear his own screams...

For the first time, Nasir wandered out of his district suite. But he did not go to the training center as he should have. Instead his feet carried him to the commons, and then the bar. And he ordered a drink and then another and another and another until the world was tilting and blurring.

His feelings, his guilt and rage had not been dulled but came to him more than ever. And when he was finally done, when he stood, he kicked his chair to the floor.

"The gods spit in fucking face and I am expected to swallow it as honeyed wine." He pressed his foot to the fallen chair and kicked it farther away.

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The crash of the chair and the subsequent noise as it skids across the floor made Signless turn, instinctively expecting attack. He'd been on his way down to the training center simply for a change of scenery (and what a depressing thought that was), but this seemed more important.

As he stepped closer he realized that he recognized this man: he was the one who'd tried to cut his throat with a pair of ice-skates in the arena. He looked like shit and if he kept making a racket there might be trouble. Not a lot of trouble, but any amount of trouble was too much in this place at this point.

"Is something wrong?"

It was a stupid question, the answer was obviously yes, but it was meant more as an invitation than an actual question.

It took Nasir a moment to focus on Signless, his eyes seeing a blur of grey and double horns. A demon come to life. He took a step back out of instinct and, in so doing, tripped. When he propped himself up his vision finally worked properly and he saw Signless as he was-- the person he'd tried to kill in the Arena.

"You care to know?" There was a tone of surprise in his voice. From what he knew, most people held grudges from the Arena-- a fact he had painfully discovered.

"I don't see why I wouldn't," he said, mirroring Nasir's surprise. "You look terrible. I'd like to help, if I can."

He took another few steps closer, keeping a watchful eye on Nasir in case he decided some of the other chairs also needed toppling. Much as it was in his nature to help those who clearly needed it, it was also in his nature to avoid getting things thrown at him.

Nasir found a certain amount of irony from the fact that a man who looked like some malformed creature from Hades had just told him he looked terrible. That probably said a lot.

He moved for one chair but only to steady himself against it.

"You judge me in need?" He finally pushed away so he could stand unsupported. "In the Area, you refused to fight me." There was no accusation. It was a statement of a fact, spoken as evenly as Nasir could manage in his drunken state.

"I did, yes. I don't fight. I choose not to."

He was well aware that it wasn't a usual response to the arena. Avoiding conflict and fighting when cornered certainly, but refusing to fight altogether in his experience tended to be met with skepticism at best and derision at worst (unless one was talking to a fellow pacifist).

"I would much rather help those that need it than fight those that are just trying to survive, and you seem like you need someone to talk to."

For the first time since returning from the Arena, Gannicus had trekked down to the District Two suites and found Nasir missing. Despite knowing that the smaller man could certainly look after himself, he couldn't deny the strange twang of worry and alarm; had the Peacekeepers hauled him away again? Was it another round of torture and branding, a never-ending punishment that lingered like an infected wound?

His search had only just begun when Gannicus abruptly found the man he was looking for; beginning at the Commons bar had been a good idea. It had definitely been the first place Nasir would go to find him, Gannicus reasoned rightly as he picked his way through the bar crowd towards him. Just in time to catch Nasir lashing out at the chair with a cry of rage.

"Peace," Gannicus warned him as he roughly caught hold of one bicep and jerked his head towards a nearby Peacekeeper. "Unless you desire guard to set upon ass."

The Peacekeeper was certainly eying Nasir, who made a note of the gun the man held.

He let Gannicus steady him, a reversal of their usual roles-- at least on those nights when Nasir didn't drink enough to start belting out "My Cock Rages On" with him.

"Do chairs now possess rights? Shall I be charged with crime for splintering of wood?" Still, Nasir tried to make his way to the chair and drag it back to the bar. He might have succeeded were he not so drunk that his body swayed as if he were in a boat at sea with a storm raging.

There were many things Felicity wished to say to Nasir. There were also many things that she knew better than to say to him. After what had happened in the Arena with Jet, she was a mess of conflicting emotions about how she ought to react to him. He was perhaps her dearest friend in the Capitol, after all. She didn't want to lash out at him, but on the other hand, she was beyond livid over Jet. She hadn't expected any real shows of sympathy in the Arena, but didn't Nasir understand that they were in the same district? Didn't he know how much Jet meant to her?

But instead of truly feeling angry at Nasir, Fee instead felt her heart aching for him. Mad as she was though, he was undeserving of this nightmare. He was a good man, and a dear friend, no matter how vile he'd behaved, and she could forgive him a desperate act.

She entered after him silently, watching as the chair skittered across the floor. Felicity was hardly the nurturing or comforting type, and she wasn't about to start with it now, but a friend was a friend, and Nasir was dearer than most.

"Despair doesn't suit you, Nasir." She leaned against the wall, back pressed flat to the surface.

Nasir didn't answer at first. He stared at the chair before shaking his head and letting his mind catch up to the moment. He finally looked at Felicity and tried to focus on her through the spinning of the world.

"I do not despair." Nasir always was a bad liar and in this case the evidence was directly against him. How he'd behaved since the arena could only point to a man lost to the world and himself.

He stepped away from the bar and walked to Felicity, stumbling, going off course-- "It is fucking rage that--" and then finally hitting the wall face first.

She cried out, startled by the suddenness of the impact, and before she could think twice about it, Felicity was crouched beside him, hands firmly on his shoulders. "Good God, man. Pull yourself together."

But the words were flat. It wasn't that she didn't mean them. Rather, she was having a bit of trouble conjuring much sympathy for a man who had clearly drank himself into that situation. Mournful or no, his clumsiness was his own doing this time.

"Really, Nasir. What's become of you?"

The problem with Nasir and drinking was that, no matter how much he imbibed over the course of his time with the rebels (and it had been a lot), his tolerance had never managed to build very much. And he was constantly forgetting that.

Nasir glanced around the room to look for Peacekeepers. But, drunk as he was, he still knew he couldn't tell Felicity what kept him locked in his room or what left him waking with shaking muscles and screams on his lips.

He raised a finger to his cheek and traced the brand there. As a slave, he'd been fortunate to escape a noticeable one. Not so now. It took up most of his cheek, an ugly reflection of the Capitol on his body. A reminder that he was owned and of all that he had suffered. Including torture.

"Anger over an Arena lost." The emotion was there but it was far from directed at his failure in the Arena. Well, a little directed. Largely at Black Tom. But his previous gesture was a clear sign that it was a lie for the Capitol.

He might be drunk but some lessons had been burned into his mind.

"Apologies."

When I ain't drinking, baby

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