Shopping for.. 'friends'

Zoe couldn't help it, her eyes glued to Nemo when he sat down and used a rather.. extraordinary name for her. "Buffy?" She asked, her eyes narrowing. She ordered the drink he asked for, and sighed slightly, her head shaking from side to side. "Alright.. Mr.. I mean.. Nemo.." She said, catching herself from calling him Mr. Omara. Her eyes lit onto him for a second, before she leaned back, and looked him over. Her eyes traveling along his facial features, as though she were trying to remember him, or even that she was trying to place him in her memories as the person who had gotten her pretty drunk that one night.

"Nemo.. I do like this job.. it is very.. calm.. I don't actually do much work at the prison.. every now and then I have to run over and check on things.. but I have an office at the Ministry anyway.. And it's a higher paying job, with better benefits.. it fits me rather well don't you think?" She asked and smiled at Nemo, sipping her drink before kicking her shoes off and relaxing in her chair. "I have on request for you tonight Nemo... if you are up to the task and wish to stay around.. it will be worth your while I assure you.." Zoe took a moment to let her words sink in before she asked. "Would you please get me drunk? I just.. need to get drunk, and I cannot do it by myself..."

"That's it - " And with an abrupt swing of his legs across the edge of his chair, Nemo leapt to his feet and strolled towards the door, his steps something similar to a tantrum being thrown. "Fck you and your money, Buffy," Nemo grumbled. He came to a halt before the threshold of their private room and ghosted his hands over his face as he inhaled a heavy breath. "Nemo..." he whispered, and his shoulders fell before Zoe, his back the only side of him that he had left within her field of vision. No one. Nemo, his subconscious defined as the sorrow which often accompanied the use of the name befell him.

He remained much too emotionally fickle from the depression from which he had only just recovered. He did not yet possess the capacity to allow such insults to roll freely from his shoulders. Not so long as his memories continued to weigh heavily on his mind. "Get drunk on your own. I'll be at the bar," Nemo stated with brutal clarity, before striding out of the room to join the Leaky Cauldron’s familiars before the bar.

Unbeknownst to Nemo, Zoe was not all that he had left behind, but his jacket as well.

Zoe's eyes went wide when he suddenly stood up for no real reason and got very upset. She hadn't thought she would have offended him.. It was the thing he did wasn't it? He helped her relax, and she enjoyed his company, and now he was upset and leaving. She turned her head and put her arm up on the back of the sofa, staring at his back, before he disappeared out the door, heading to the main bar.

Zoe slumped back against the sofa, looking confused, knowing she was alone, and letting her emotions to wash across her face for the briefest of moments. Confusion, hurt, she felt untrusted, she felt.. sad. Sad that Nemo had taken such offense to her request. She didn't like the emotion.. sadness.. it didn't sit right with her. She looked around the room and immediately spotted his jacket. Laying where he had left it, forgotten by him, but seen by her.

Zoe set her drink down carefully, and stood up, walking over to the article of clothing and slowly picked it up. She stood there for a long moment, running her fingers across the fibers. After a long moment of this simple movement, she didn't look back, she headed into the main room, the jacket in her hands. Her eyes scanned the bar until she found Nemo, and went over to him, gently laying it across the table in front of him. "I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot.. I didn't. I didn't mean it like that.." Zoe's face was one of confusion, a look she rarely gave anyone, let alone Nemo. "I did not mean to offend you by my request.. I simply thought.. we could share the evening together.."

The past crept through the cracks in Nemo's facade.The stalker, was Nemo's inward complaint as he claimed for himself a vacant stool and jumped from it with a swing of his arms atop the bar's surface. "A bottle of rum," Nemo instructed the bartender with a loose gesture of his right hand from his twisted position towards the man to whom he spoke, "Start a tab on the woman who just ordered us a private room."

"She got a name?"

"Mistress Gould," Nemo deadpanned, a statement which resulted in many a curious gaze cast in his direction from those who lined the bar. "Aha ha!" Nemo feigned genuine, feminine laughter as he rolled his head towards his newly obtained audience, "He's here with a dominatrix!" He added, his sarcastic facial expression one of exaggerated humor.

"One rum," The bartender announced, and as Nemo accepted from the man's extended arm his drink his previous expression fell as quickly as the snapping of one’s fingers. On the spot he straightened, crossing his boot-clad ankles where they hung laxly against the bar's base as he ignored those who had only just begun to pry their surprised stares from his face.

What phenomenon was this? This man with an appearance so similar to The Nemo who the Leaky's regulars knew well, who behaved in an entirely different manner? Could it be that the drunkard with whom they were familiar had been cloned? They speculated amongst one another.

The clone in question held his darkly-hued bottle aloft, prepared to take the evening's first drink when he was greeted by the apology of a familiar brunette. Zoe appeared entirely unaware of the reason for Nemo's hasty escape from their shared room, and Nemo sighed. "Do you know what that name means?" Nemo inquired in a tone which deceivingly suggested he were speaking of a subject which held little meaning to him.

Alas, it seemed Orthrus' second head had decided to come out to play.

Zoe watched him, confused for a long moment, her eyes trained on his face. "I'm sorry? What name?" She watched him, confused, before waving at the bartender and ordering another drink for herself, like the one Nemo had. He gave it to her quickly, and she watched him for a moment, her eyes trained on his body language, before she looked around the room, seeing stares being averted, uncomfortable shifts in body posture, her face would have gone red if it had been able to..

These people were afraid of her.

"Nemo.. could we please go back to the room? I don't.. feel comfortable out here." He said to him through hissed teeth. "whatever problem we had.. I'm sure we can discuss it back there..." She said, feeling much like a lover trying to persuade her partner that they should talk about their problems after a fight. She didn't like the feeling, but she didn't like upsetting Nemo either. She didn't plan on sleeping with the man, she just.. needed a release, and Nemo gave it to her through alcohol, it's what he did, and she needed that pretty badly that night, but he was making things difficult.

Nemo fixed Zoe with an incredulous stare. "Nevermind - my name is Mortimer. Did you know that? Mort-im-er," He replied, accentuating his alias' syllables for the sake of clarity. He swung his legs with unintentional force as a result of his newfound frustration, and against the bar his heels connected with a startling thud.

He took a hasty swig of rum in an attempt to ease the tension that brewed at his core. "Nuh uh. I don't want to," Nemo huffed under his breath in the nature of a stubborn adolescent. "Piss off."

Zoe looked at him startled when he started to act like a teenager telling his mother he didn't want to go help his sister at Dance practice. "I am sorry.. Mortimer.. I didn't.. recall that that was your real name.. I apologize for any offense taken to the name.." She said her eyes wide, watching him with an incredulous look on her face. "I'm still, not sure what I did to offend you though, besides calling you.. well that name.. which I do strongly apologize for.. now.. will you please go back with me? So we can discuss this like adults?"

Zoe felt like begging, she felt oddly weak, and female, and it annoyed her. The stinging behind her eyes suggested that she was near tears, and not much above begging, while her hard jaw suggested that she was about to drag him back to the room whether he liked it or not. "Please Mortimer? Will you PLEASE come back to the room with me? I'll do anything.." She said softly, her eyes fixed on his face.

"You know what?" Nemo leapt from the bar to stand before Zoe, his expression abruptly becoming one of an aggression and authority which was not commonly expressed by Nemo. Where had the casual stoner and alcoholic run off to? "I'm sick of people calling me 'Nemo'. It's bullshit!" He announced with a wide gesture of his hands at his sides.

For so long, Nemo had contemplated that speech without once uttering a word of it aloud. He had repressed said opinion for a lifetime, until it spilled forth presently. "You hear that?" Nemo asked those who observed his antics from behind the cover of their shot glasses and bear bottles. He swept his right hand outward to point at each of them as he spun slowly on the spot, "Call me 'Mortimer'. 'Mo'. 'Mort'. Anything but Nemo."

Nemo's chest stuttered as he heaved a sigh and turned towards Zoe once more. Visibly, he steadied. "I want another one of these!" He called over his shoulder as he raised his bottle of rum for the bartender to see. "I'll be in the Mistress' room."

Zoe watched him with surprise as he stated his wishes. It was slightly surprising to her, seeing as she barely knew him for one.. and for two, she hadn't really given it thought, and she normally did on a matter such as this, she just called him Nemo, because she heard from everyone that's what he was called. She hadn't even really thought that he might have another name.. Mortimer just sounded so.. stuffy for a guy like Nemo, and she didn't like it all that much, so she was determined to call him something nicer, like Mo, she liked that much better.

After he declared where he would be, she stood up, and wrapped her fingers around his arm, smiling at him. "Don't call me that." She hissed and steered him back to their shared room, where the fire was sitting, and the drinks were laid out already. Once inside she quickly shut the door behind her, and turned to look at Nemo. "I'm sorry Mo.. I didn't realize it hurt your feelings so much to be called that.. I do hope you will forgive me.." She said gently, moving across the room and pouring herself another drink, downing it pretty quickly. "Is there anything else.. you wish to get off your chest? Mo..?"

It was all Nemo could do not to dissolve in the fit of laughter that tempted his lungs in response to Zoe's insistence that he stop referring to her as a dominatrix as he walked alongside her. It was simply too ironic; the turn of events. But he held his own against his pending giggles, and opted for a jumbled expression of amusement and defiance.

With the faint snap! of the door being closed, Nemo leaned heavily against it and began to drain his drink. Only after he had successfully emptied the short supply did he break for air and make his way back towards the chair that he had previously deemed his. "Yeah! Yeah I..." Nemo began once more with determination, only to falter with the realization that he had nothing more to express, save trivial aggravations. "... need a haircut," He sighed as he carded a couple of his fingers in his now seven inch hair and giving it a firm tug.

"And a joint," he added as he acquired from a pocket in the jacket that lay across his knee the spliff that he had constructed the evening prior, and extended his arm to light it off of the fire. He nestled the drug between his lips and further reclined in his chair. And with a sigh, Nemo exhaled a cloud of muggy smoke.