Nick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
streetsmarts) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-09-10 03:54 pm
streetsmarts) wrote in thecapitol2015-09-10 03:54 pm
Entry tags:
If being mean's a way of life. [open]
WHO | Nick and YOU
WHAT | Nick re-arrives after a long time of not being alive. Coherency is nobody's priority.
WHEN | THE PRESENT whenever the date is now.
WHERE | Various places, all will be elaborated.
WARNINGS/NOTES | None yet. None other than a general Nick Warning.
You hear the term deja vu thrown around a lot, but Nick doubts anyone understands the term as thoroughly as he does right now. Nick is the absolute only person who will ever know inconvenience quite like this. Why? Because why the fuck is he here? Again? In the Training Center, like he's just been brought here, but he knows he hasn't. He didn't go back home. He didn't come straight from home either. He doesn't know where he went or why he didn't wake up in his fruity, classy suite, but he's aware enough to know that something is off. He's had enough hangovers to be familiar with dredging himself out of hovels he's seen before and up-righting himself like he knows what he's doing.
His first priority is to check a calendar. He doesn't know the exact date he left, but he knows it doesn't match up with the date he's seeing now. The screens are playing scenes from an Arena he doesn't remember, fashion has developed rapidly around the trends it set and he's starting to realise his nap took him through more than a few idle hours. Great.
He figures he'll look like some fucking sad excuse for a ghost if he just rocks up to his suite like nothing happened. So that's what he does. He ambles in, slinks into the kitchen and tries to puzzle together why there's nothing to sate his mood with. No booze, no trashy food, it's like a a fad diet of eating fucking nothing has swept the suites. Maybe he can talk his way around it, but until then he chooses to press against the counter with a glass of water (Water. Really.) gripped in his hand. His dour look says just about all it needs to say. Fuck this.
It's the Lobby Bar he'll head to next, though a prick of guilt reminds him that he should be finding Rochelle and Ellis first. If they're alive, they'll wanna kill him. If they're dead, he'll wanna kill them. He owes it to them to let them know he's, probably, fine. He just doesn't think he can face that conversation, or the possibility that they aren't here, without at least one drink. Which is really fucking unfortunate, given the fact that apparently he can't just swagger up to the bar and order whatever he wants anymore.
"Money? Are you kidding me? C'mon, I haven't been gone that long. Surely you remember this face? Right? The face that almost one a whole damn Arena? Hell, if that Stark bastard did me a favour and died earlier I might be your goddamn Victor." He pauses, soaking in the Bartender's unsympathetic facial response before he sinks into a stool anyway. Pride won't let him walk away without a drink, but a glance around the bar has him wondering if he can weasel one away from someone else. He isn't thinking a long straw (though it's tempting) he's more likely to invite himself into the seat closest to you so he can act like he wasn't just throwing a tantrum over a glass of scotch. "Hey. How's life treating you?" Look, he's all love and no ulterior motives. Someone might buy him a drink just to leave them alone.
[Closed to Jason.]
Reuniting with his Escort had been about as difficult as Nick expected it to be. It's like walking over hot coals with this guy, but it just takes some precision and direction. Don't fuck around, get to the point, do things with purpose and it'll pay off for the both of you. Yup. He knows a lot about hot coals. He's become intimately familiar with them in his time here, even more so in the past hour. His absence hasn't lost him too many points, considering it was Jason's idea to take him to a Health Spa. The fact that he invited himself along soured the occasion a little, but Nick was finding his presence more tolerable. Maybe the extended break had something to do with that, or maybe he was more like Jason than he thought. He likes to assure himself it's the former, not the latter.
And yet..
"You know, Jase? You aren't so bad after all." He says, fully aware that it implies he had a substantially lower opinion of the other man until now. They probably shouldn't lie too much to one another, right? Jason was good at his job, but liking him as a person? That was coming with time. Being more melt than man is probably making him more amicable in any case. He couldn't look more relaxed, and god he needed this. The decadent scrubs and refinements, the massages that seemed to work the knots out of his internal organs and now the time to bask in his own unfortunate amount of sweat. It's hard to think about the fact that he's been as good as dead for months. Probably months. Ssshh.
Nick is all class with his legs spread wide apart, his towel just covering things Jason probably doesn't need a frontal of. His elbows are propped on the step behind him and his head is lolling backward like it's just a tremendous effort to lift it up properly. "I'm not even going to ask how this preps me for Arenas." He's sure Jason will tell him anyway, but he wants to make it clear that he doesn't care.
WHAT | Nick re-arrives after a long time of not being alive. Coherency is nobody's priority.
WHEN | THE PRESENT whenever the date is now.
WHERE | Various places, all will be elaborated.
WARNINGS/NOTES | None yet. None other than a general Nick Warning.
You hear the term deja vu thrown around a lot, but Nick doubts anyone understands the term as thoroughly as he does right now. Nick is the absolute only person who will ever know inconvenience quite like this. Why? Because why the fuck is he here? Again? In the Training Center, like he's just been brought here, but he knows he hasn't. He didn't go back home. He didn't come straight from home either. He doesn't know where he went or why he didn't wake up in his fruity, classy suite, but he's aware enough to know that something is off. He's had enough hangovers to be familiar with dredging himself out of hovels he's seen before and up-righting himself like he knows what he's doing.
His first priority is to check a calendar. He doesn't know the exact date he left, but he knows it doesn't match up with the date he's seeing now. The screens are playing scenes from an Arena he doesn't remember, fashion has developed rapidly around the trends it set and he's starting to realise his nap took him through more than a few idle hours. Great.
He figures he'll look like some fucking sad excuse for a ghost if he just rocks up to his suite like nothing happened. So that's what he does. He ambles in, slinks into the kitchen and tries to puzzle together why there's nothing to sate his mood with. No booze, no trashy food, it's like a a fad diet of eating fucking nothing has swept the suites. Maybe he can talk his way around it, but until then he chooses to press against the counter with a glass of water (Water. Really.) gripped in his hand. His dour look says just about all it needs to say. Fuck this.
It's the Lobby Bar he'll head to next, though a prick of guilt reminds him that he should be finding Rochelle and Ellis first. If they're alive, they'll wanna kill him. If they're dead, he'll wanna kill them. He owes it to them to let them know he's, probably, fine. He just doesn't think he can face that conversation, or the possibility that they aren't here, without at least one drink. Which is really fucking unfortunate, given the fact that apparently he can't just swagger up to the bar and order whatever he wants anymore.
"Money? Are you kidding me? C'mon, I haven't been gone that long. Surely you remember this face? Right? The face that almost one a whole damn Arena? Hell, if that Stark bastard did me a favour and died earlier I might be your goddamn Victor." He pauses, soaking in the Bartender's unsympathetic facial response before he sinks into a stool anyway. Pride won't let him walk away without a drink, but a glance around the bar has him wondering if he can weasel one away from someone else. He isn't thinking a long straw (though it's tempting) he's more likely to invite himself into the seat closest to you so he can act like he wasn't just throwing a tantrum over a glass of scotch. "Hey. How's life treating you?" Look, he's all love and no ulterior motives. Someone might buy him a drink just to leave them alone.
[Closed to Jason.]
Reuniting with his Escort had been about as difficult as Nick expected it to be. It's like walking over hot coals with this guy, but it just takes some precision and direction. Don't fuck around, get to the point, do things with purpose and it'll pay off for the both of you. Yup. He knows a lot about hot coals. He's become intimately familiar with them in his time here, even more so in the past hour. His absence hasn't lost him too many points, considering it was Jason's idea to take him to a Health Spa. The fact that he invited himself along soured the occasion a little, but Nick was finding his presence more tolerable. Maybe the extended break had something to do with that, or maybe he was more like Jason than he thought. He likes to assure himself it's the former, not the latter.
And yet..
"You know, Jase? You aren't so bad after all." He says, fully aware that it implies he had a substantially lower opinion of the other man until now. They probably shouldn't lie too much to one another, right? Jason was good at his job, but liking him as a person? That was coming with time. Being more melt than man is probably making him more amicable in any case. He couldn't look more relaxed, and god he needed this. The decadent scrubs and refinements, the massages that seemed to work the knots out of his internal organs and now the time to bask in his own unfortunate amount of sweat. It's hard to think about the fact that he's been as good as dead for months. Probably months. Ssshh.
Nick is all class with his legs spread wide apart, his towel just covering things Jason probably doesn't need a frontal of. His elbows are propped on the step behind him and his head is lolling backward like it's just a tremendous effort to lift it up properly. "I'm not even going to ask how this preps me for Arenas." He's sure Jason will tell him anyway, but he wants to make it clear that he doesn't care.
no subject
It's Nick, sitting there chatting someone up like it's no big deal. Like he hasn't been AWOL for months, like he hadn't just up an gone without so much as a goodbye. Just his usual booze hound self.
She clenches her fingers into fists, feeling her nails bite into her palms, and stands there in the mouth of the bar for a long moment, staring, trying to figure out exactly what she wants her reaction to be. In the end, she settles with a loud, pointed "Really?", loud enough to catch his attention but soft enough not to cause a scene.
no subject
Of course, it's not a surprise he should expect to almost feel her presence when he's back at one of their old haunts, he just doesn't expect he's actually on the money with his feelings. It's like the hairs on the back of his neck prickle before he even looks up to see her.
Suddenly, whoever he's trying to finagle a drink from seems unimportant. Suddenly, the dismissive attitude is nowhere to be found. It's some dumb kid's balloon and it just flew away because his stupid, grubby hand couldn't grasp the concept of. Well. Grasping? Yeah. So he blanks for a moment, and it's probably fucking obvious the way he falters long enough to give the strange schmuck in the situation a chance to abandon the table and leave him to his misery.
Nick could stand. He could pull himself out from under the table, fuck every rule in this dystopian hell hole and kiss her. But he doesn't. He stays where he damn well is, even slumping his shoulders back enough to add to the put upon look he's giving her.
"What?" And it's said with a whine that is probably incredibly familiar. She should probably expect no more or no less than that.
no subject
Suddenly, thoughts and feelings are too difficult to deal with, and Porrim lets out a mighty scoff, shaking her head before turning heel and disappearing out of the doorway with a long swish of perfect glossy hair. She's halfway to the bank of elevators in the lobby before she changes her mind, turns back around, and marches back into the bar, making a beeline for Nick's table and not giving a fuck who sees and what conclusions they draw.
"Really?" She repeats. "Months and months later, and all you have to say to me is 'what'?"
no subject
At first he objected, out of stubbornness and a distaste for leaving the comfortable realm of suffering-and-bitching-about-it. But once it was clear that he had to do something to unwind or people would start up the gossip mill about him again, he became Nick's plus-one for the day out that he booked and began to scheme. It took him about thirty minutes into deciding he was going to pick back up where he had left out plotting for Nick, and for the last week since then he's been gathering the information he can and preparing a pitch.
Just like giving a schpiel to a Sponsor, except, you know, the audience is sort of subhuman by Capitol standards.
"Uh huh." Jason doesn't take any insult from Nick's comment. He didn't become an Escort because he had any great interest in being liked by the cannon fodder. "That's because that's not what it's for. At least, not entirely. Part of it's just to incentivize the rest of the Tribs."
He lays on his stomach on one of the wooden benches in the sauna, covered somewhat more by his towel than Nick is. He's somewhat shy, and it becomes more obvious in settings like this. He doesn't have a perfect body by Capitol standards; no ab implants, no chiseled biceps, no chest hair cut into brand logos. Just a tattoo of a lock and key on his hip and a scar on his knee from when he was a child, and the slight impression of someone who lost a lot of weight at some point in their life and whose skin never quite caught up.
"I have a business proposition for you, and I didn't want any of your little competitors butting into it." He raises an eyebrow. "Since you're a practical person and they mostly aren't."
PREPARE YOUR RIBCAGE
"NIKITA!" and of course Ellis would use the very name Nick promised he'd drop-kick him if he ever used it again.
What followed is too fast to be stopped as Ellis slammed himself onto the recently resurrected gambler and gripped him tight.
"YOU'RE BACK YOU SACK O' SHIT!"