thecapitol | When you own the world, you're always home.

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When you own the world, you're always home.

Who| Nick and OPEN
What| Fresh in from the zombie apocalypse.
Where| D7 suits, Commons bar, through the halls.
When| 11/01, ish.
Warnings| Sexual stuff in some of the threads.

It was over. Done. Done like dinner. After a goddamn marathon of bullshit, after continuous strife and disappointment, their asses were safe. That doesn't mean Nick isn't in a mild state of panic when he arrives. You spend a while attached at the hip with some mouthy assholes, you kind of notice the silence when they're gone. The fact that they'd come so far to be separated isn't as much of a relief as he'd thought it would be. He could use Rochelle to tell him to snap out of it right now, but instead he has weird looking guards devoid of emotional response regardless of his questions.

If they think he's bad, they should meet Ellis.

It becomes abundantly clear that this isn't some quarantine facility. This isn't the Thunderdome of the apocalypse, and somehow that makes it weirder. His chest is still tight with uncertainty and fear, but he hasn't really processed all of the information he's been spoon fed just yet.

D7 suites: It's hard to be angry when he's lead to the lavish suites and left the fuck alone. His grubby suit doesn't suit the fine decor, and that becomes abundantly clear as he catches his reflection in the reflective surface of a window. He visibly crinkles his nose, and he can't be looking anything but himself at this point.

"Rough.." He mutters, brushing off his front like it'll do him any good at this rate. Whatever. He's bone tired and the couch looks all too appealing, so he's sinking back onto it with his dirty shoes propped on the arm of it. He's already lounging around like he owns the place, but he couldn't care less about what anyone thinks. Hell, he hasn't seen anyone to be dismissive of yet. Not anyone who seems to care what he thinks, at least.

Lobby Bar: After lounging, Nick finds something to change into. He almost wants to keep his suit on for how little he wants to be caught dead in jeans and a button up, but the stink of months of fighting zombies is far more notable when you're removed from the situation.

He's had a shower, he's clean and he's ready to scope out what the Capitol has to offer. He's headed out to the streets when the bar catches the corner of his eye and well, one drink couldn't hurt, right? He makes his way to the bar and orders, and his desperation probably obvious from the way he slams the drink down. One drink becomes a couple and he's starting to become curious, he eyes people nearby and decides to approach them every so often.

"If you've been here longer than an hour, you could really put my mind at ease here." He says smoothly, trying to come off as someone in need of sympathy without compromising himself too much. "I'm having some technical difficulties here." He taps his head to demonstrate this. "Is it meant to come off like some weird fever dream? 'Cause I can't be sick. I use hand sanitizer religiously."

Through the halls: Now that he's had a few drinks, he figures he might leave wandering the Capitol for some other time. Instead, he'll work from the ground up. He pokes around the floors of the towers, but it's getting to be night and it's getting to be quiet. He's in his own head, mulling over how impossible all of this crap here, wondering where the other assholes got to and pretty much any sudden noise could have him lurching to the side. He reaches for a gun that isn't there before he forces himself to calm down, shoulders slumping a little when he does.

"I'm never gonna grow out of that." He groans mournfully, his heart still racing in his chest. He's going to be thinking about the Infected for a long, long time.

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No last name Nick is not expecting to be tracked down. The jolt it gives him is easily visible, as is the way his hand reaches for a weapon that isn't there. It's been far too long since someone he could give less of a shit about yelled at him. Hell, there was a time he'd probably fire for less. Things were different before he got here, now there's another new agenda to acquaint himself with. He can thank Dorian for the little chat, because it's the difference between being menacing and taking this situation in his stride.

The look he gives Jason briefly resembles a deer in the headlights, but it relaxes into something less impressed once he forces himself to calm down. He doesn't know who the hell this guy is, but he fits the description of pit bull pretty well. This is the con...sort..No. Escort, that's it. Thinking of the word is enough to make a smirk pull at his lips, but he thinks better of saying it.

"Around." He answers blandly. "Sightseeing." He adds, like that helps his case any here. "Am I meant to be somewhere?"

"You're meant to check in with me. Didn't the prep team tell you anything when they dropped you off here?" Jason looks, as much as livid, absolutely exasperated, as if he's been turning down corridors and running into locked doors all morning. The whole world is conspiring against him, pressing in like afternoon shadows along an alleyway.

To Jason's minimal credit, he doesn't reach over and outright grab Nick. He does get a little too into Nick's personal space when he comes to a stop, leaving a scuffmark on the carpet from his expensive, but beaten, shoes. He shoots a glance out the window, where the sun is rising.

"Great, I wanted to sit down with you for half of hour before we take you to get sized, but I guess that isn't happening. Why they don't just measure you people when you're unconscious before you get here is beyond me."

"They said good luck, was I meant to pass that one on?" He rubs idly at his neck, distracting himself with the action rather than taking a more venomous approach like he really wants to.

He keeps running what Dorian said through his mind, but the desire to clock the guy is still high. Especially when he gets up into his personal space like that. It's enough to make Nick crinkle his nose, visibly irritated with the imposition.

"Is it meant to be a courtesy thing? Because that doesn't fall into line with the whole kidnapping shebang." A frown pulls at his mouth, but he's talking before he can shut himself up. "Believe me, if it got you off my back I'd sign the forms."

"I'll have a word with them," Jason says, with a dark sort of glower that isn't dissimilar from coals burning in a fireplace. There's a sense, irrevocable, in the air that the prep team is going to be cut to metaphorical ribbons by the time Jason's through with them.

"I'm not the one who arranged your 'kidnapping'." Jason's hand emerges from his pocket just long enough to make an air quotation. Nick's own irritation only serves to amplify Jason's own. "I'm just the one who has to manage you now that you're here, and you're welcome for that, by the way. Now come on, I don't want this morning to be a total waste. We'll talk on the way there."

He grabs Nick's wrist to lead him down the hallway as one would a stubborn mule.

Nick could feel guilty about the fact that he just slotted some quality screaming time in for the team that got him in here, but he doesn't. There's no moral compass to nag him here and no reason to care about the assholes who are so damn eager to shove him around. He's resistant to his fucking core about this, but he's trying his best to play nice.

"I dunno what to tell you, Jason. I haven't exactly had the time to figure out the food chain here." There's an unwarranted, condescending air to his voice that goes along with the casual drop of his name. Any concept of being nice goes out the window when Jason grabs him like a goddamn Nun preparing to swat his wrist with a ruler.

He jerks his hand back fast, brows knitting together in annoyance. "Hands off." He grunts, trying to stick his hand in his pocket if he can. "I can follow just fine, Bo Peep."

"Get up to date on it. It's pretty intuitive." Tributes are near the bottom, a rung above Avoxes but below Mentors and a practical sheer cliff below native-born Citizens. That Jason has to explain this to people makes his veins constrict and his fingers twitch. He decides then and there that pride dictates he let Nick find this out for himself.

He looks for a moment as if he's very seriously considering reaching forward and grabbing Nick's wrist anyway, just to prove he can, but finally he jams his hands in his pockets and lets the moment pass. "Be sure you do. I'm not going to slow down because you didn't get your beauty sleep."

He starts heading down a hallway. "Alright, before we even get started - do you have a last name?"

In lieu of saying yes sir or anything equally condescending and sarcastic, Nick remains silent. His expression is apathetic, he doesn't bother explaining that he's been here a day and that food and water and a shower had been so much more important than boning up on local knowledge like a nerd. He's just glad he can keep his hand to himself, though he still can't believe this guy wanted to talk around holding hands like a couple of nancies.

A brow raises when he's asked that question. Of course he has a last name, who doesn't have a last name? The face that he doesn't know implies some form of inability to reach that information on Nick, and he'll hold onto that as long as he damn well can. "Nope." He answers curtly. "Just Nick." He lifts his shoulders in a shrug, what can you do, right? "Where're we going? --It isn't starting now, is it?" He sounds rightfully concerned, speeding up a little to catch up with Jason rather than letting him lead.

"No, not yet. I'm taking you to get properly sized. Stig's out but the assistants can read a tape measure, I hope." Jason doesn't sound quite like he believes that they can. The acid in his tone isn't reserved for just Nick and the Tributes; it's an entire, consuming worldview. He shoots a glare at Nick, either for catching up with him or not keeping up enough quickly enough, whichever.

He pulls a notepad out of his pants pocket and a pen from the one on his chest and starts making notes. As he does the toe of his shoe scuffs the floor and he stumbles, catching himself on the wall and glowering at the carpet as if it tripped him on purpose.

"Alright. What is it you do, Nick? Back home, before we brought you here, what were your hobbies. Give me a two-sentence rundown of who you are."

"Good." Nick retorts in a surprisingly agreeable tone. He may not appreciate the intrusiveness, but he appreciates the possibility of acquiring suits that aren't practically soaked in blood, guts, sweat and mud. It's a slow turn around, but when he mutes Jason out he can see himself appreciating a lot about being here.

As such, his demeanor brightens considerably, no less when Jason trips himself up. He doesn't do much to hide the smirk that crosses his lips, though to his credit he doesn't outright laugh at him. He wants to sweep quickly onto the question to avoid being reprimanded again, but he needs a moment to consider it. He doesn't necessarily want to bring to light the fact that he's shady and unsavoury, not when it could bring about suspicions and risk the Capitol turning on him and throwing him in jail. He hasn't seen anything that indicates they'd do as much, not when being cold blooded seems to be a theme for people here. They want intrigue, right? Entertainment? He needs to pick the most interesting parts of himself.

"I'm a survivor." He starts, moving his hand down to start twisting that ring they let him keep. "Got picked up from a world full of something we call The Infected. Before that? I got around. I'm a jack of all trades, I deal in risky business and I can get blood out of pretty much anything. I'm good with an axe, but I prefer a machine gun." He lets out a chuff of self amusement before he continues. "And I'm modest."

Jason, not inconspicuously, counts off Nick's sentences in his head and on his lips. Still, he's taking notes, and he glances up and looks very near pleased when the word 'axe' comes up.

"And I take it you can't count to two." Snideness spills out of Jason practically by compulsion, by the habit he adopted as a teenager whenever he would come home from school and the late shift he worked after that only to be confronted with his mother's petty dilemmas. Backtalk is the last resort of the helpless, or perhaps of the coward, too mired in a tradition of suffering to make an escape attempt.

"Axes are good, though. They told you this is the lumber District, right? I may be able to swing getting you an axe if I can play that angle. No promises, though." Last Arena they couldn't even get Sponsor gifts, which was a bit of a twist for the Escorts. In a way Jason's irate that he came back right after an Arena when he could have had very little work to do and exactly the same pay.

And at least it seems like Nick knows what matters, and isn't babbling on about how he's a god or what-the-fuck-ever. Jason opens a door in the hallway to the Stylist quarters with a card-pass on the back of his phone case. A few Avoxes are in there.

"Where are the assistants?" he demands of them, and one of them gestures to a whiteboard with 'Out to Breakfast' written on it. Jason says something incredibly foul under his breath and then grabs a tape measure off the table, all but shoving it at one of the mute servants. "You can take a measurement, right? Get this one some basics."

He leans against the table and rakes his hair before turning back to Nick.

"So survival. What kind of terrain? Urban, wilderness, temperate, cold?"

"If you didn't want a good answer, you shouldn't have asked." Nick retorts, tilting his chin up with pointed defiance. If Jason wants marketable information, he needs to learn to do his own editing. Nick can see his value, but that doesn't mean he intends on making it entirely easy for him.

"I figured that much out." If there's one thing they outlined clearly, it was the symbolism of each District and what they were representing. It didn't seem to matter much to Nick, but clearly it matters to Jason. "No plaid." He curls his lips back in a grimace. "No overalls, either. I wear suits and I chop shit, I'm no lumberjack." He doesn't know whether Jason intends to heed that advice, so maybe sweet talking his Stylist is his best bet. He looks equally disappointed by the sign, but he's used to being let down by life's passive aggressive turn arounds.

He gives the Avox a wary look, something about it reminds him a little too much of a slow turning zombie. Not outwardly infected, but dim and almost lifeless in a way he doesn't trust. He steps back when he's approached with a tape measure, giving the Avox a venomous look before he rolls his eyes and relents so it can do its job.

"I got a full spread. Malls, cities, carnivals, sewers and swamps.. Cold? Not so much." Once the Avox is done measuring his arms, he folds them over his chest. "Any of that gonna help me?"

Edited 2015-02-07 11:17 (UTC)

"You don't call the shots here. Stig puts you in plaid, you wear plaid. He may be about as smart as a post and looks at everyone like a cow looks at a new piece of fence, but he gives you orders, you follow them."

While the Avoxes buzz around, taking measurements and trying to undress Nick, Jason paces around the room as if he's caged in it, making occasional noises of distaste at how messy it is in here and how behind schedule Stig is. Everything about Stig's workplace - strewn with pieces of fabric, scissors on the table, ugly sketches pinned to the wall - seems a personal insult to Jason, as if it were positioned particularly to spill out of drawers and over table edges just to annoy him.

Clearly the District Seven staff isn't a unified, harmonious front.

"Sure. That'll help you. Don't expect we'll be doing a mall again anytime soon, but I'm betting there'll be a city or a swamp soon enough." He raises an eyebrow and looks back at Nick. "You ever killed someone before?"

"Are you telling me I've sunk so far down the ladder I'm taking pointers from a guy named Stig? Christ, that's rough." He half hisses that quietly, not wanting to invoke the wrath of whoever has the power to control his wardrobe. Speaking of control, the lack of it is grinding on him something fierce right now. He doesn't want to be touched by Avoxes, much less undressed by them. Instinctively, he flinches away from the hands coming at him and swats at any attempt to remove clothing from his person.

"Don't get fresh." He murmurs, seemingly devoid of any sympathy for them at this point in time. Anything he's heard about them so far just leads him to the assumption that they're stupid and make their own problems.

"Great. That's good. I hate surprises." He answers gruffly, still semi-distracted by the avoxes before the next question regains his attention entirely. He looks up at Jason, arching a brow at him before snorting in response. Eloquent. "You don't have anything to worry about, cupcake."

"It's short for something, not that I can be bothered to learn it. Knock it off, let them get you down to your underwear. There's nothing untoward that's going to happen in here, don't flatter yourself."

Jason snaps his finger and an Avox comes to his side. He gives the mute an order about putting in orders for certain colors and looks back to Nick.

He very nearly wants to outright threaten Nick if he starts backtalking like that, but he knows that soon as he starts doing that he'll have to actually bring in punishment, and there's only so much of that he can do before he starts looking like he can't control his Tributes any other way. So instead he leans against the scrap table and raises that eyebrow a little higher.

"Good. That's one less person I have to worry about bitching and moaning about morality before they go into a death match."

In Nick's mind, any name that can and will be shortened to Stig is not a name worth knowing. He considers pointing that much out, but he's struck more by the order more than anything.

"I don't need to flatter myself." He points out defensively, both affronted and oddly assured by how flippant Jason is about all of this. It's not that he really thinks he's getting checked out here, not even by the mutes. It's his pride, it's a desire to be unyielding about something that he isn't really interested in doing. He's heard enough to know that disobedience isn't tolerated around here, so it makes him wonder how much sway he has with things like this.

Then he considers, it starts with something small like this, but pushing it will probably escalate it further. He's drawing out the unpleasantness of it all, in the end. His resistance is making him look like he has something to hide, and it's that thought alone that prompts him to start flicking open buttons on his shirt with a face like he's thinking very hard about his subjective morality.

"I have more important things to worry about than some asshole I never met before. That's how it is." He shrugs off his shirt while he talks, letting an Avox take it off his hands when he does. The fact that he's well built is more than apparent, if not a little leaner from a lack of decent food. There are deep scars on his chest and arms as well as the occasional bruise, he hasn't yet been sat down for work on his many imperfections. His hands find his belt, and this is the hard part, flicking open his pants and dropping them in front of one asshole and a bunch of mute not-zombies? It's awkward.

"S'been a long time since gym class.." He mutters to himself, quirking a brow at an Avox as he steps out of his pants while pulling a face. "So you manage me, right? What exactly does that entail other than getting me to take my clothes off?"

"You got no idea how much I appreciate a Tribute with some sense about those matters."

For Jason's part, he glances at Nick's stripped form with all the lechery someone would show for a piece of furniture they're going to put in a room they don't use much. He makes notes on his pad, giving orders to one of the other Avoxes. "I might want to do something about those scars. Get me a price-quote on dermal renovation on his arms and chest. If it's too far off the budget I'll put Stig under orders to keep those parts covered or try to pass them off as battle scars."

Because that's obviously the stumbling block here: the budget. He doesn't even answer Nick's question until he's sent the Avox off, who shuffles out the door to go look up prices.

"I try to get our audience to decide that you, out of about a hundred of you, are worth shoveling money at. Then out in the Arena, I use that money to send you food, medicine, weapons, shelter." He taps his pen to his lower lip. "When you're out there cold, hungry and sick, you'll be glad you were nice to me."

The fact that Jason just glances at him with vaguely interested apathy is.. well. It's a little insulting, but it's better than being leered at and that's all that matters. The Avoxes, while equally disinterested, are still bugging him out.

"They are battle scars, champ." He corrects, rubbing a defensive hand over a scar. He's not sure he wants them gone like nothing ever happened, but he's also not sure he wants to remember every close scrape and scratch. When the Avoxes finish up, he gladly starts putting his clothes back on with no intention of just standing around in his underwear like it's extremely casual Friday.

"Sounds like you've got your hands full." He quips, but there's some sincerity to it. He's never been the most.. likable person, to put it one way. He feels like things might be a little different here. Once his pants are back up and he's dressed again, he'll brace his palms on the table behind him casually and smirk across as Jason. "Is this nice?" He asks curiously, unsure as to whether Jason wants him to keep this up or if he's asking for more manners.

"That's nice," Jason says, dismissing the correction with so little interest it's like he hasn't even heard it. He doesn't bat an eye when Nick starts getting dressed again. He's seen enough Tributes come and go that aside from appreciating that they aren't all malnourished teenagers anymore, there's nothing new to it, and he feels near automated.

But when Nick leans forward with that challenging smirk, he snaps to attention. That isn't to say there isn't a certain amount of exasperated haughtiness to it, but it's different than the tedium before it.

"Nicer than some of your compatriots, I'll give you that. Don't worry, I don't care about getting you all to polish my shoes with your tongues. All I'm asking for is a little damn cooperation." He wrinkles his brow a bit. "Give me that and I'll make it worth your while. This is a business, Nick Without-a-Surname. I'll treat it like one long as I'm getting paid for it."

"Yeah, real nice." Nick scoffs, incredulous at Jason's existence in this very moment. Taking this much disrespect is a very difficult concept for him to grasp, but Jason is like any cop with an inflated sense of self worth. Say the right things and do the right things in their presence and they're hardly even a problem.

Now that Nick has been appropriately shamed and exposed to Jason's nasty attitude, he can better appreciate where Dorian was coming from in his description. Jason is a hateful little man, there's no denying that, but what he brings to the table is interesting. Nick has very little choice in the matter, he's sure, but he knows better than to turn down help in a tough place.

"Sounds doable." He says, exercising that tiny bit of choice he has in this situation. "Get me a knife and I'll show some sorry assholes how far morals get them." The offer comes with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "Can't be that hard if everybody is getting their panties twisted over killing each other." What a bunch of boy scouts.

Jason raises his hands up at chest-height, palms up; his eyes roll upwards slightly, revealing too much white as he looks up to the ceiling and mouths, silently, "thank you" to the No One who's listening that he's finally got a Tribute with some damn common sense. And just as quickly the expression of relief is gone, as if washed out with the tide, replaced by that sour and tired and inwards expression Jason so typically wears. His hands go back to the counter that he leans against, wiggling the toes of one shoe back and forth slightly.

As if happiness is a performance for some unseen audience that expects it, rather than something Jason can honestly feel.

"A knife? I'm betting I can get you a knife. Alright, hold your wrist out, I need to make sure the number on your tracker chip matches everything on your file. Administrative." Whether Nick gives him his wrist or not, Jason pulls his arm forward and holds some setting on his phone over Nick's forearm, revealing a number in blacklight. "By the way, you try and run? Captain Glass supposedly has everyone's locations on his bluetooth headset. Don't try it or you won't like how you look the next day, promise."

He lets Nick's arm go. "Just ask anyone who's been here a while. They'll remember the face pizza half your competitors were wearing. Not that I think you're a troublemaker or anything, but I'm betting you can guess that I'm not the kind of Escort who posts bail for people."

He doesn't expect Nick's trouble, because he thinks Nick's smart. At least smarter than the average Tribute.

Edited 2015-03-06 02:06 (UTC)

There is something simultaneously satisfying and repulsive about Jason's reaction to Nick's heartless compliance, but Nick is starting to realise that's the way things work here. This is reality TV, at it's core, so they're going to hone in on his worst and his best moments and make something of it. He dearly hates being put on a leash, but after years and years of mob bosses and mob etiquette, it isn't like he doesn't know how to kiss ass once in a while.

He can stand to sate Jason's shitty temper if it gets him a knife, just like he can stand to be entertainment if it gets him through the last leg of his survival tour. Once he gets out, it's clear sailing. He has no friends here they can use against him and no friends here that can judge him for playing the game.

As if breaking himself into being compliant, Nick holds out his arm for Jason to do his weird whatever with. "Big budget prison system. Got it." His smile is mirthless, just barely twitching at the mention of a punishment he can only vaguely imagine. "I've done my share of running. Think I might hang around here while I can." He says, again, like he has a choice. He folds his arms over his chest and stares critically around the room before his head lolls back down and he looks at Jason. "We done here?"

Jason barely looks up at him. He shoves his glasses up on his nose and types something into his phone. For once, things seem to be running on schedule.

"For now. Report to the gym and start warming up. There should be some spare exercise clothes in your size in the locker rooms until I get your order processed." Nick might end up wearing perfectly-fitted gym shorts with a bunch of logos for protein supplements on his ass, but it's not like he gets much say in that anyway. "I'll be down with a trainer for you in a minute."

Their day has just begun, but he hopes that once he's given Nick a schedule and a routine the ensuing weeks can be more hands-off.

There's no attempt to hide his disdain for that order. Nick scoffs and rolls his eyes, but he doesn't hesitate to get moving out of the room. Maybe the trainer is more persuadable than Jason, maybe he can talk himself out of the worst of this.

Either way, Jason gets little more than a mutter of "Later." as Nick leaves the room to amble toward the gym as slow as one humanly can. He just has high hopes that he'll see less and less of Jason and more and more of the better things the Capitol has to offer outside of a goddamn gym.

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When you own the world, you're always home.

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