Some, some, some I, some I murder. [open]

[streetsmarts]

Who| Nick and oooopen
What| When you try your best but you don't succeed.
Where| D7, lobby bar.
When| Post-Arena, pre-Crowning
Warnings/Notes| Nick being a douche. Nbd.

Hell hath no fury like Nick when he wakes up in the Training Room. To get that close and lose by inches, inches of knife in you, it's soul crushing. The frustration takes some working through, but his methods have never let him down. Booze. Sex. More booze. Denial. If there's one thing he's willing to do, it's to absorb absolutely all of the luxury of the Capitol while he can. He thinks he deserves that much, but he's also pretty sure other people have different ideas.

He's a frequent at the Lobby Bar lately. He's perpetually rolling in, ordering rounds and glowering at the replays when he can. He can at least boast quite the featured face in the highlight reel, but it's a pretty miserable runner-up prize in his opinion. He can be found ranting at the bartender and denizens of the bar as well as trying to make bets with them long into the night.

Sometime in the night, he drags his sorry ass up to the District 7 suites. He can't rightly remember which bedroom is his, and he's not willing to chance it. He finds himself on the same couch he'd planted on when he'd first arrived here, and it's good enough for him. He sleeps the whole night there, half-heartedly smothering his face with a pillow as he snores into the morning. If nobody wakes him up, he'll wake himself up with a snort of disdain at the sun and a clumsy stalk into the kitchen to make coffee.

He'll stand there, looking incredibly disheveled, with a hand on the counter and a cup of coffee in his hand like he's an efficiently early riser and not red in the eye and dead in the soul. "Morning sunshine." He'll croak at anyone who happens by him, still just drunk enough to think his cover is foolproof.

Comments

[shiftingurbulls]

"Mornin' sugar," Hellfire, meet Southern Damnation.

Seeing Nick get so painfully close to the finish line made for one hell of an upset. Ellis was unabashedly cheering him on, hoping that he could pull through like they did in New Orleans. That finale had him at the edge of his seat...until he saw the knife. So yeah, the moment the gambler was back, the mechanic didn't waste a second in getting up there for unfinished business.

At least Nick would have the comfort in knowing his yapping dog of a friend was still alive. For better or for worse. And as much as El wanted to be all around support for his friend, more so now with Rochelle here, there were still things El had to confront Nick about.

"Nice to see you're on th' up an' up."

[streetsmarts]

There aren't many people Nick is ever happy to see, but Ellis is just about at the top of the list. After hearing he hadn't made it from the last Arena he'd been in, Nick had been worried. Worried and a little guilty for not being there to help him when he died. It didn't sit right with him, but there's not a hell of a lot he can do about it now.

"Yeah, nothing says up and up like standing in a kitchen hungover to hell and damp because my Escort thinks he's an alarm clock." He pulls his mouth into a frown, raising his coffee upward to inhale some of that wake-up goodness before taking a long sip.

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine." He continues curtly, his reluctance to whine betraying the fact that he's not all that fine.

[shiftingurbulls]

"It's better than Coach's way, though I gotta admit, seein' him drag your ass outta bed is a good way to start a run," Ellis dismissed the comment about the escort with a slight grin. He'd come here to give Nick a hug and a punch to the dick for having wasted so many bullets. Would've come in handy at the end. Also killing two kids, because what the fuck. But right now, just seeing the man back on his feet and alive was enough.

"No you're not. You know better than to hide shit from me or anyone who has kept your ass alive for the better part o' th' year," El's bluntness came with a quick tap to the gambler's back. "What's on your mind, Nick? You're broody but you're never polite to me."

Had the mechanic known about the guilt, he'd be the first one to assure Nick he went quick. A lie since he bled out, alone in a cave, but it was a lie he was quick to make until his friend saw the Arena replays. "Don'tchu start gettin' crazy on me, an' I don't think the Capitol does opposite day."

[streetsmarts]

"It's not better than anything." It comes a little defensively, but it's because he's sore over missing Coach. He'd never had much respect for his profession, but after experiencing Jason as an Escort he's coming to respect people who can patiently coral idiots without throwing water in their faces.

He thinks he's done a good job, all in all. He knows Ellis won't approve, he knows a lot of people won't. It's hard not to have regrets when he got that down and dirty and didn't quite make it to the top, but he doesn't think changing his behavior is going to get him any closer. It's a game of chance, so it almost doesn't matter what he does for all the help it'll do.

"Hey, hey- hands off." He swats at Ellis for the tap, retreating into the corner to bristle like a pissed off cat. "I'm not crazy. There's just no point complaining about it when it ain't gonna change a damn thing- and you know it's pointless when even I'm not gonna bother." He makes a jab at himself, then takes a sip out of his coffee. "I didn't think I'd make it that far when you tapped out, I'll tell you that much."

[shiftingurbulls]

"Coach would love to take the piss outta your Escort though. I'd pay good money for it." Coach would not stand for this sort of thing, such disrespect.

"For wha' it's worth to ya, an' probably not tha' much, you did what you had to," Ellis spoke in the same words he used with Rick and Daryl when he was exploring the cave for medical supplies. They were slowly becoming his go-to phrase for when tough choices came along and tested the young man and his group. He'd take the sneers, the threats, the spilled alcohol, if it would get his friends safe. Ellis couldn't hold that much against Nick, more so when he saw just how deeply his death affected his friend.

"I went quick, so don'tchu worry your head, Suit," the mechanic did his best to lie, having practiced it over and over, "What matters is tha' now we know how this shithole works an' we can do something about it."

[streetsmarts]

"Coach'd like a lot of things here. They'd be fighting to keep his ass out of the kitchens, if he got his way." He says, not without an almost respectful tone rather than his usual cruel bullshit.

"I doubt everyone'll feel the same. Who would've thought people would take murder so personally? What a bunch of fucking babies." He rolls his eyes. The hardest anger to deal with is justifiable anger aimed directly at him, he swears.

"Yeah. Well. It could not be worse, but if you want to be an optimist, be my guest." Which is his way or agreeing but being too stubborn to say as much. "Next time is our time. I swear to god, I am not enduring this bullshit any longer."

[shiftingurbulls]

"I'd let him, give th' guards here a run for their money. Man has a speed tha' I ain't seen on people half his age, yours truly included," El added to the respectful snark at their last missing friend.

Nick does get to see Ellis raise his eyebrows up to his hairline and the hem of his hat. "You know, it's times like these I forget you used to be a criminal," he sniped as he offered Nick something he swiped off the D4 fridge: a stuffed donut. Anyone missing one of these, sorry, it was needed to bridge a friendship.

But no pastry in the world could compete with the bright smile El got at that, "Up on th' fuckin' world, takin' a nice cushy job with th' other Tributes," somehow he figured Nick wouldn't be the most social Mentor, "An' no more Green Flu. Ugh, makes a grown man shed a tear."

[whatisay]

"Jesus Christ."

Jason's opinion of Nick is lukewarm, tugged between a sort of grudging relief that he at least has a Tribute willing to play hardball and annoyance that Nick killed off one of his own Districtmates. That opinion quickly chills when he sees Nick on the couch, a trail of drool dried on his cheek, smelling like alcohol and looking like he just crawled out of a mold-ridden laundry machine to expire in the living room.

He's seen this little song and dance too many times, from Mentors he's worked with and from his own father, who eventually had to be rushed to the hospital from that same pose on the couch and finally died there, in a bed, pickled and pathetic while Jason inherited the power of attorney at seventeen. It's not that Jason's traumatized; it's just that it disgusts him. He's already in a foul mood this morning and Tribute shenanigans feel aimed to annoy him, as if they're being repellant disasters of human beings at him rather than just in his vicinity.

Jason goes to the refrigerator, pours a glass of icewater from the lemon-filled pitcher there, and then comes back and, from a safe distance behind the coffee table, flings it at Nick's face. His arms are folded by the time Nick opens his eyes.

"I hope you got it all out of your system, because I'm not letting you run wild on my watch another night."

[streetsmarts]

Nick's opinion of Jason has raised somewhat since he went into the Arena. With a guy like Jason, absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder. As do gifts with a guy like Nick. Food and supplies were pretty much like generous tips throughout a shitty shift and Nick would do a lot of things to keep that gravy train running.

Giving up drinking, though? That's a tough call.

Currently, Nick's mind is far from that. Nick's mind is all the way home, to a place where sleeping like this probably isn't a good idea. He's absolutely dead to the world, but there's some restless twitching when his mind registers movement in a vague sense. One minute he's telling himself to get the fuck up or he'll die, next thing he knows he's being hit in the face with cold water. There's no way to elegantly deal with that, obviously, Nick grunts and kicks his legs wildly, pulling himself up into a sitting position.

"Christ-" He spits out, chest heaving for a moment as reality hits him slowly. He turns quickly to glare at Jason, but his brow raises slowly. "I thought wild was what we were angling for." He says, wiping his arm across his forehead. "Nice to see you too, cupcake."

[whatisay]

"Nice for someone, I'm sure." Jason takes a seat across from Nick, splay-legged, the coffee table between them like a barrier. "If Stig gave you that impression, it's because he mispronounced some other word."

The cut on Jason's face is still healing, the stitches still standing out dark against his cheekbone. In accordance with Capitol trends, they're in a color and texture matching his tie, a deep, metallic brown in case anyone forgets that they're a District that produces mahogany and rosewood (along with plywood and sawdust).

"You want to tell me what you did wrong that last Arena? Besides die, obviously." He pulls out his cigarette, clicking the button on the side to light it - realizing with a huff of irritation that the vapor cap in it's depleted and finding a new one in his workbag to stuff in it - then he brings out his notepad, where Nick has an entire few pages dedicated to him in tidy shorthand, with sketches of outfits, calculations of assi, and an entire list titled, in all capitals and bolded, FUCK UPS.

In a moment, the smell of cinnamon and some kind of citrus in Jason's cigarette replace the stink of alcohol on Nick's clothes (which isn't that bad, but even a little seems to amplify itself in Jason's mind, like an itch one can't ignore once they've called attention to it).

[streetsmarts]

When Jason takes a seat, Nick doesn't bother to sit up much more than he already has. He doesn't need to stand on command for a lecture, so he might as well get comfortable for whatever tirade Jason has in store for him.

He peers up at him with vague interest, and most of that is faked to avoid further lambasting. He could be mad over what Jason says, and he is, but he doesn't give him the power of taking it personally. He already has enough over his head, he doesn't need to fuel that fire.

"I ran out of bullets because someone didn't send me more." His tone is bitter as he levels a flat look on Jason, eyes scanning his face before they zero in on what he assumes to be a bandage of some sort. "Woah, woah, woah. Hold the show there, Jase." He pulls himself up to sit more enthusiastically, amusement lighting his once dull expression. "Did someone hit you? On the face? Oh shit." And I missed it he thinks, but he doesn't say. "Who was it? Are they dead? Did you kill them? Did you kill them instead of sending me bullets?"

[whatisay]

"You realize that Sponsors are a hundred times harder to get towards the end of an Arena? It's not like I wasn't trying. I don't know why I expect Tributes to appreciate effort they don't get a direct benefit out of." Jason blinks, long and slow and incredulous, when Nick starts his babble of amused taunting, purposely retarding the speed of the conversation.

"A Mentor slashes my face with a piece of glass. A glass I broke out of frustration because I'd been working overtime trying to get you your damn bullets and Emily spent some of your nest egg on that liquor you drank."

It might have been that glass. Jason doesn't remember; the Avoxes have done tidy work making sure that the pieces of mugs and holes in the walls and overturned tables are all in their right place and repaired, and Jason didn't bother to keep track of all his own outbursts. The only mark the mutes didn't erase is the ring of bruising and sliced knuckles on Jason's right hand.

"Unfortunately, he's not dead, because there isn't any damn order to this country any more. He spent time in jail, that's it. I chose not to press charges."

[streetsmarts]

"I'm just saying, what do you think you did wrong, Jase? I know it's hard mooching money off fat cats, they aren't rich because they spend it on every asshole holding their hands out." He lifts his shoulders in a lazy shrug. "Not that I don't value everything that eventually went to waste because of a few bullets."

He clears his throat, mouth unpleasantly dry. His tongue tastes bad and he feels groggy, but he can't stand to pull away for coffee when he's in the middle of story time.

"Everybody knows the real criminals don't do time in jail, it's a rite of passage." There's a knowing tone to his voice, as well as a smug air that he isn't drawing too much attention to. "There's gotta be more to it than that. What'd he do it for? Sabotage?" He raises a brow, a small smile finding his lips. "Tell Emily she's a peach, by the way."

[cigne]

Swann is always timid when she enters other District Suites, feels as if she doesn't belong there, like she should only ever be on the eighth floor. When she comes looking for Jason, her heels click on the floor gently as she peers around the corner, walking hesitantly into the kitchen.

She's obviously a little startled to see anyone, particularly a Tribute -- they're all usually still asleep at this hour. She wouldn't be here herself if she weren't already shaken, if she didn't need reassurance from Jason over the loss of one of her own.

"O-oh," she says, taking a step backward and blinking when she's greeted so freshly. "Good morning. I'm... I'm Swann, from upstairs, I'm the Escort for Eight. Do you know where Jason is?"

[streetsmarts]

This early in the morning, Nick has already met with Jason. He's still a little damp from it, too, but not in any enjoyable way. Even if he's not sure many things are enjoyable with Jason, because he's not really privy with anything about the guy beyond what he says directly to him. As such, Swann is a perfect stranger.

Very perfect. Nice.

"Pleasure." He says in response to her introduction, a sly smile pulling at his lips. "Jase? Uhh.. He wandered off a while ago, something about. Something." He shrugs his shoulders. "He'll probably be back soon, get out while you still can."

[cigne]

She doesn't seem particularly surprised that Nick is a little on the wet side, as she sort of expects anything from Tributes nowadays. Her own are fairly tame, Jack's massive drinking problem aside, but nothing is very surprising from the rest of them. She halfway assumes that Nice just stumbled into a fountain somewhere and never changed clothes.

"Oh, well, um, if he'll be back soon, then I'll just wait, if you don't mind" She folds in her hands in front of her skirt (which, being black with pink florals, might be her way of mourning her fallen Tributes), and looks around anxiously before taking a few steps to the table and taking a seat. All of that platinum hair is swept up into a wispy beehive, but there are strands falling down where they shouldn't be, as if she were too distracted to really pay attention to herself in the mirror.

The silence is awkward for a moment, which makes Swann even more twitchy, and so she looks over at Nick. "You did very well in the Arena, by the way. Congratulations."

[streetsmarts]

As it is, Nick's primary interest is Porrim, but he's starting to notice that Capitol girls aren't so bad to look at. He's almost disappointed he wound up with Jason, because he has absolutely no desire to ogle him. Luckily, he's incredibly helpful at things like doing his job, so Nick can't complain too much. He raises his coffee to take a long sip, letting his eyes rake over her in a way that isn't particularly subtle. When he lowers the coffee, he's still smiling his smug smile.

"Well, I'd say it's a free country, but.." He pulls a face, hunching his shoulders together before finally shrugging. "I don't own the place, you can wait wherever you like, dollface." And the fact that she thinks he has the right to say any different is curious to him, but he files that fact away for later. Right now his ego is being flattered, so his smirk only grows.

"You think so? Aw shucks, I'm flattered." He winks a quick wink, moving to lean casually on the counter. "Almost makes losing worth it."

[cigne]

"Well, there can only be one winner," she says diplomatically, but her hands are wringing in her lap. He's so smarmy and yet she can't say anything because, well, she's the visitor to this Suite, and that means she needs to be polite.

Surely Jason will be back soon.

"Nobody wins their first Arena anyway. It's never happened, not since the first Arena of the Never-ending Quell, and that was only because everyone was a first time Tribute in that one."

[streetsmarts]

"Well that's brand new information." Initially it's sarcasm, but there's sincere surprise in his expression when she actually does drop a truth bomb on him.

"Yeah? Well I'm glad I didn't waste my time trying." He scoffs, he's visibly annoyed and all he can do is draw another long sip out of his coffee. "So tell me, does everyone know that little fun-fact or do they drop it on you after you've embarrassed yourself?" He probably doesn't mean to be so rude, probably, but he's an asshole. "I'm gonna blame Jason." He says finally, darkly and mostly into his cup.

[drinkupmehearties]

The Lobby Bar is essentially a second home to Jack on most nights, including this one. It lacks the same bawdy, chaotic atmosphere that the pirate is accustomed to back home, of course, but even so -- with the constant murmurs and shuffle of bodies around this bar -- sometimes it's better than the quiet peace of the Suite Common Room. He wasn't as used to that.

Once Jack had collected his glass of neat rum from the bartender, his gaze first passes over, then catches on Nick. It's hard not to immediately place him as the man who shot him down in the Arena -- even if the image hadn't been burnt in his memory as the life had drained from him then, the recaps that played seemingly and unendingly everywhere would be enough to clue him in.

He swaggers over to where the man sits, dropping himself into the seat next to Nick without bothering to ask if it's taken. It might take a second for the man to recognize him in turn, as Jack had his old tangle of dreadlocks -- adorned with all type and manner of trinkets -- in place of the shorter hair he'd had back in the Arena.

The pirate lifts a glass to the screen, indicating, as another short clip of Nick plays across the television. "You had quite the run there, mate. Shame it didn't turn out better for you, eh?" It's not said with any trace of bitterness or harshness towards Nick; unlike probably the rest of the Tributes that he'd so coldly gunned down, Jack held little to no ill-will towards him. He wasn't happy about it, sure, but he'd understood why Nick had done it. And that was good enough reason for him.

[streetsmarts]

This bar already holds some fond memories for Nick, primarily the memory of relief he felt when he could just drink in peace without infected swarming toward the smell of happiness. This is a miserable fucking place, but it might as well be paradise in comparison to the infested wasteland that Nick used to call home.

Compromises could be made to stick around, Nick was willing to make a bunch of dead strangers his compromise. It feels a little less miserable when they all come back, but it does mean he needs to deal with them being insufferable and uppity about it. Some people, really, they get pissy over the darnedest things. Nick understands it, of course, which makes it all the more annoying to deal with. Justifiable anger directed at him is something he really hates dealing with.

So he's suspicious when Jack invites himself closer, even more so when he doesn't sound as angry and bitter as most of the people around here. He raises a brow at him, looks him up and down and takes a sip of his drink before he answers. "There's the understatement of the century." He snorts. "You here to ride my ass over shooting you? Because you touched my stuff." He didn't mean for that to sound so weird.

[drinkupmehearties]

Were Jack another man, one who hadn't spent most of his life being selfish and deceitful and double-crossing people as much as the same people did it to him, he might've been among that group that held a grudge against the man. It was justifiable and even to be expected, after the gruesomely brutal spree that Nick had carried out -- and of course, once the Arena started again, the pirate would be sure to steer clear of him or keep a weather eye out for him.

But being so completely familiar and used to even his closest friends wanting -- and in one case, even accomplishing -- to kill him meant that it was easier for him to merely shrug it off.

"Aye, so I did. But I haven't." A short shrug and Jack takes a drink from his glass, then lifts it to briefly swish it. "Let's call it water under the bridge, aye? In such a situation as that, one had to do what it takes."

[streetsmarts]

The fact that he's a pirate hasn't escaped Nick, and the idea would be more ridiculous if it weren't so much part of the concept here. They can pull anyone from any time in, so why not pirates?

Nick scoffs, but the dour look is soon replaced by something of a smile and he lifts his drink in turn. "That's the best damn idea I heard all week. You know what? I'll drink to it?" And he does. He takes a sizable draw from his glass and sets it down.

"Names Nick, by the way. How about you, Long John Silver?" God, please don't let that be his actual name.

[drinkupmehearties]

"Fantastic." Any reason to drink is a perfectly good reason for him.

In return, Jack downs a comparable amount from his own drink. The straight alcohol burns nicely and familiar at the back of his throat, and afterwards the pirate sets the drink back onto the counter with a faint clatter.

He taps a couple fingers to his temple. "It's Captain Jack Sparrow." Nick will be able to tell that Jack takes great pride in the name and reputation behind it, even if no one so much as recognized it here. He lifts a hand, fingers slightly curled and index slightly straighter. "The Captain part of it, that's an important bit to remember." Roughly three months in, with no ship or even sea in sight, and Jack will still continue to insist on that.

He furrows his brow, then. "Long John Silver?"

[streetsmarts]

It isn't difficult to pick up on the pride there, but Nick fails to look terribly impressed by it. As far as he knows, all pirates are Captains because they all have their own ships or whatever. The Capitol advertising on Jack doesn't help much in his exaggerated perception of him, but he'll at least nod in what seems to be a respectful manner.

"I'll remember it, just don't expect me to say it." He clarifies, knitting his eyebrows together before letting his face fall into something more neutral. "Famous pirate, you hear about him all the time where I'm from." He answers curtly. "Kind of picked up on that vibe a while ago. The pirate thing." He says, like he assumes it was meant to be a secret.