You Talk Far Too Much for Someone So Unkind [OPEN]

[whatisay]

WHO| Jason and OPEN, especially to D7 Tributes
WHAT| Jason's D7 District post!
WHERE| D7 Suite
WHEN| After the mini-Arena.
WARNINGS| Jason being awful.

The first thing Jason does when he gets back to District Seven from his week off on Monday (at about five a.m.) is wake Cassian, and thus the rest of the floor up, by screaming at the Stylist about how August 31st is, actually, a real date and that scheduling forty-seven meetings for it is, at best, unfathomably stupid and at worst an attempt at outright sabotage.

The second thing Jason does is slam out new schedules for every single Tribute and slap them onto the front of each door. To his credit, everything is set up so the Tributes can maximize their incomes and media exposure, and it seems that he's back to courting Sponsors with a vengeance. On the downside, there's very little room left for Tributes to relax or do anything of their own volition. Furthermore, there's not all that much time for Jason to do anything but aggressively catch up and work intensive overtime.

The yelling, throwing things and shoving Avoxes around has been dialed up to eleven, and seems aggravated all the further by any attempts to offer condolences or point out the small details that he seems more prone to miss than he used to.

Friday, after a full week of working his Tributes into the ground, chainsmoking and meeting with Sponsors in hallways and dance halls until he actually wears a hole into his dress shoes, he sets up with an anonymous-looking videographer in the District Seven Suite. The hologram window is set to a peaceful forest. Jason sits on the couch with, oddly enough, a capuchin monkey in a diaper leashed to his wrist and sitting on the backrest.

"Alright," he says to each Tribute as they enter at the scheduled time. "You're going to record your apology to District Seven for fucking up the last Arena and letting their children starve."

Comments

[drinkupmehearties]

He slides a flask from his back pocket, the steel engraved with his name on one side, uncapping it and using it to point at the monkey. "Pity that, then. The Capitol mustn't have an entirely too great opinion of you if they've resorted to sendin' you monkeys on leashes. Good luck, mate." He chugs from the flask, leisurely picking his way over to where Crackers had taken perch to try and retrieve him. The bird bobs back and forth on its feet as the pirate nears, folded wings held apart from his body.

Jack shrugs. "I'm allowed to wander where I like, aye?" He offers his arm to the parrot, but the bird shuffles away from him and bounces again, beak working. "But in all truth, I'm lookin' for Swann, she wasn't in the Suites." And then, with a curl to his lips, Jack adds, "Not that your surly, sulky presence isn't an absolute joy to be around."

[whatisay]

"I'd think it's you they don't have that high an opinion of. Not that I blame them. But no, this is a therapy monkey. I'm supposed to..." Jason makes a gesture with his hand, almost like shrugging. "Work out my feelings about caretaking or some nonsense like that."

It's clear from the way Jason's voice all but drips disdain that he thinks this is all a load of bunk and a waste of time and money, but is getting at least a little kick out of having something new and unusual to bitch about.

"Swann's not here- hey!"

Jacques, the monkey, bounds to the edge of his tether towards the open flask, yanking Jason's wrist and, more explosively, scaring Crackers into flying across the room.

[drinkupmehearties]

The first quip receives a half-lidded eye roll from Jack, but not much more beyond that. He's not freshly revived from death, not like the last time they'd met, and so the jabs that Jason makes needle him much less than they had before. Instead, he busies himself with clicking his tongue and trying to draw Crackers away from his perch without startling the bird further into the Suite.

His brow furrows, however, as Jason explains the reason for the monkey's presence. The expression on his face isn't mocking -- he's genuinely bewildered. "Really? With that? A monkey?" In his experience, Barbossa's lovely little Capuchin had been a wild, wriggling, screeching plague on the ship and his life.

"Blimey, how in the world is that supposed to help -- OI bugger!" He yelps as Jacques jumps at him, instinctively clutching the flask to his chest. The parrot, in the meanwhile, had disappeared from the couch in a violent flurry of flapping and squawking. He lands on a table across the room, scrabbling to get a good footing atop it, and echoes the pirate's cursing without missing a beat: "Bugger! Bugger!"

[whatisay]

Jason's opinion of Jacques isn't much higher than Jack's of Barbossa's pet, although, to be fair, current behavior aside, Jacques is generally pretty quiet and unassuming for a painfully understimulated and ignored intelligent creature. Maybe a little misbehavior has been incredibly overdue.

"Of course you'd teach that damn bird to curse!" Jason says, pulled to his feet and towards the kitchen by the monkey. His own fury manages to startle both animals more, and Jacques scampers across the counter, knocking over the coffeepot on his way as he swings around wildly on the edge of his tether. Coffee spills everywhere.

"For God's sake, can you help me catch this thing?" Even though Jacques is actually tied to Jason, that isn't helping him calm the monkey any, and in his panic Jacques is now baring his teeth as he wriggles around.

[drinkupmehearties]

Jack is forced to stumble out of Jason's way as the monkey whisks him over to the kitchen, nearly flinging the flask from his hand in surprise. All the commotion has whipped Crackers up even more, too, and the bird lets out a shrill whistle -- adding more noise to the chaos and excitement -- then shoots off the table and flaps hard to land on top of the fridge.

Loudly cursing again Jack goes after the bird, stopping short at the spilled coffee and wriggling monkey on the counter, grimacing back at Jacques.

"I'm not going to touch it!" Particularly once the monkey starts flashing those sharp teeth at him. He waves both his hands around in the air, a useless motion that probably doesn't help calm Jacques. "You catch the damn thing, you're tied to it!"

[whatisay]

Atop the fridge, Crackers knocks over some pot or kettle or something, which clatters to the floor with a cacophony.

"And that doesn't seem to be helping me any, does it?" Jason yells, before cursing as Jacques drags him painfully into a chair and counter. Jacques takes a flying leap to the edge of his tether to try and land on Jack's shoulders, past the overstimulating flailing hands and towards what looks like a nest to hide in (Jack's hair).

[drinkupmehearties]

Oh god oh god oh god, Jack is immediately backing up in a panic as Jacques surges towards him, holding out his hands. "Oi, get it away from me! Bad monkey! Bad!"

He's not watching where he's going, of course, and his quick backward steps cause him to accidentally catch his heel on the pot Crackers had knocked to the floor. Unable to get a solid footing, and already unbalanced as it is, Jack trips over it and falls.

[whatisay]

"Could you- Jesus-"

Jason tips the tether off his wrist, allowing Jacques to scamper down the hall, squealing and chattering all the way. In a fit of frustration, he grabs a glass off the counter and smashes it against the wall. Broken pieces clink against the floor.

"Look what you've done," he hisses at Jack.

[drinkupmehearties]

He's quick to scramble back to his feet, angry, cursing, hand placed heavy on the counter. The loud shatter of glass makes him involuntarily flinch, and the noise likewise causes Crackers to shriek and scramble to fly off the fridge, disappearing off into the common area in a busy flurry of bright feathers.

In the meanwhile, Jason fetches a narrow-eyed glare from Jack. "This ain't my fault, mate, he's your mangy little flea-bitten pest of a pet that you can't manage to control." Says the man whose bird just knocked around pots and flew off.

[whatisay]

"He's not a pet, he's a therapy animal-" Jason says, grabbing a fruit from the bowl and throwing it down the hall after the escaping primate. "There's a difference!"

He storms back to the living room, then screams at an Avox: "clean up that mess! Don't just stand there!" He follows the command with a smack upside the head.

[drinkupmehearties]

When Jason hits the Avox, a twinge of rage instinctively clamps the muscles of his hand into a fist. Normally, he'd turn right around and leave the floor after that -- while the Escort's treatment of those poor souls is despicable, it wasn't really worth the fight or the potential backlash that it'd garner. But Crackers is still flapping around somewhere in the Suite, and Jack would rather not have to venture back here later to retrieve the bird.

So instead, he pushes himself into place between Jason and the Avox and swishes his hands in the air with some obvious, huffy irritation. "Oi, pet or not, mate, I don't give a damn. But we can go about flingin' and breakin' things like bloody children throwing a tantrum, or we can stop being petty and go catch the damned thing." Even though it's said roughly through clenched teeth, it's an offer to help.

[whatisay]

"I'm not the one being petty," Jason spits, entirely lacking self-awareness in this moment and completely oblivious to Jack's disdain for him abusing the help. He smacks the bowl of fruit off the table so it spills, less out of rage and more like a cat doing it just to be a nuisance. Apples and oranges roll across the floor and under the couches and chairs.

"Alright, let's find the damn thing before he chews through some electrical cords and runs up the budget for property damage. Do you mind leashing your bird? It's the one that started all this."

Jason has some pretty selective memory.

[drinkupmehearties]

"O' course, surely not." If Jack could roll his eyes harder, he would. He settles for leveling a flat look at him, though, not flinching this time as Jason upturns a bowl and sends fruit tumbling everywhere. At least now his attention is turned away from the Avox, who's now silently and obediently picking up the mess the Escort had made.

"Lovely. Let's get started." He doesn't care to fight Jason about Crackers having started this trouble, because Jack has realized that arguing with him was like arguing with a brick wall. A brick wall that threw things. "I don't leash the thing, I don't want to lose a finger. But if you'd want to give it a try, be my guest."