all_inclusive | Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

The annual Nexus New Year's Eve gala began at 8 in the evening. Too grand to be contained by the lobby or dining hall, the gardens at the front of the hotel were employed, with long strings of white lights forming a twinkling canopy from the front doors all the way to the hedge maze. The weather was temperate and calm, and the night perfectly clear.

Drinks were served at various bars set up throughout the gardens and lobby, with champagne cocktails being the specialty of the night. Wheeling through the crowd was a bartender with golden cart providing warm drinks on the go: Tom and Jerrys, rum punch, negus, and Irish coffee.

Crisply-dressed wait staff wove through the collected guests with an abundance of hors d'oeuvres for all different tastes. The Bistro remained open with a limited selection of items for those who were wanting something more substantial.

Above the front doors was hung a large, gold-rimmed clock counting down the last hours, minutes, and seconds of the current year.

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Martha cocks an eyebrow at just how fast Olaf downs his drink, but hell, she's not going to be the one pouring him into his bed at the end of the night. His job. She sips her martini.

"Work, for the most part. I've been asked to do some consulting for an...interesting government agency." Interesting was certainly one way to put it, but when Jack Harkness was one of your references, things wouldn't ever be normal.

Olaf cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes, not even sure he could name one non-interesting government agency, which is partially because he just never cared to find out and more that he finds it a touch boring. "What sort of consulting? And how can governments be interesting?"

"Medical consulting," Martha says, slightly sheepish. "It's one of the few things I'm good enough at to be worth the consult--and the agency occasionally needs a doctor who both doesn't blink or pass out at weird shite and who asks the right questions instead of the wrong ones. I'm picking up some alien and transdimensional anatomy knowledge, so that's something."

She adds, after a moment of thought, "Governments can be interesting when they're the parts you don't hear about on the news."

"Usually, my family is half the things you don't hear on the news," Olaf says, thinking of the god shit they've managed to keep out of the public eye, and usually just because Anders has no qualms about using his Bragi voice on them. "But I wouldn't mind hearing a story or two."

"Well, my friends are the other half," Martha replies, and grins over the rim of her glass as she takes another sip. She doesn't fool herself that she'll keep up with him, but she could do better. "Mostly dealing with aliens and rifts in the space-time continuum, and having run around space and time myself, I make for a good help--I gather it's a job that doesn't let you have much of a home life, though, so I'm glad to just assist."

"I'm just glad I don't have to worry about aliens," Olaf says, though he has spent a lot of time (usually high on acid) wondering if they're in Auckland and he just hasn't really noticed. "You want the whole family and friends and home package, then?" he wonders, getting another drink for her just to be polite.

Martha hesitates, picking up the new drink rather than replying right away. "I want some of it," she says, looking down into the clear liquid, shimmering with the lights of the room. "I guess I want a job where I can take annual leave, go travel, and not feel like it's quite going to cause the end of the world."

"Well, speaking as someone who's done both, I can definitely recommend it." The trouble with Olaf is that he's done both at once, which leads to a heavy amount of resentment from the family (probably well-deserved, but he doesn't like to fixate on that). "You just need to get a job that doesn't care if you leave."

"Hey, I want them to at least miss me," Martha points out. She's worked the occasional temporary job where she wasn't missed, and it doesn't really make for good morale. "One where I can leave and come back, more like. So that's why I'm still just a plain old doctor, not a fancy xenobiologist or summat."

Olaf groans as he thinks of the number of phone calls he'd had to ignore before he'd managed to lose his phone in the ocean. "I don't even know what those words mean. I mean, I get doctor. I've got a friend who's a doctor," he says, even if he's not sure Michele is really a friend so much as an ally he occasionally stands near. "She fucks off sometimes, though I'm pretty sure I know how she gets away with it."

Martha considers whether or not it's worth explaining to Olaf what a xenobiologist does, decides it's probably all for the best to avoid it, and swirls the lemon peel in her drink instead. "How does she get away with it?" she asks, rather curious. She also wonders if this friend knows Olaf is a god.

Olaf smirks a little, shrugging his shoulders. "Generally, when you've got powers above and beyond most mortals, you can get away with it. Plus, she does go in most the time. She just tends to take more vacation than she needs to, but she's got her own powers of persuasion." And, he thinks, there'd been a weird agreement between her and Anders for a time in which she probably could've arranged anything.

"Ah, right, so she's a..." Another vague gesture from Martha, perhaps slightly clumsier. "Divine being as well?" she finishes, also somewhat clumsily. "Well, I'm definitely not that good. Good, but not that good."

"Divine, but of the goddess persuasion," he says, and if he were someone else, that might sound a little more derisive, but Olaf has always gotten along with them -- especially Stacey and Ingrid, and so Michele is a part of that. "She's not what you'd expect, thinking of a goddess, though," she warns.

If Martha's being honest, she really doesn't have any particular expectations for a goddess, per se--but now Olaf has piqued her interest, and she finds her eyebrows going up. "How do you mean?" she asks.

"So, you think they'll be all kind and gentle and soft and glowing," he says, which is how they get painted. "You know, Venus," Olaf says, striking his hands up in the air in a sort of mimic of how they get painted. "Only, the ones like Michele? Think more blood and victory and beheadings."

Martha tries to remember if she's met any goddesses, or rather, any beings calling themselves such. She doesn't think so. "So more like a Valkyrie then?" she asks, because Olaf's description sounds a lot like Wagner, or at least what she knows of Wagner.

"She'd be damn pleased to hear you call her that," Olaf says, grinning as he thinks of Michele. "Seriously, though, next time you pop into my version of Auckland, give me a shout and I'll bring you by to meet the goddesses. The family won't be happy, but..." he shrugs, as casual as he ever is. "They're never happy."

And it's not like bad things can transcend space and time to reach here, can they? He's sort of hoping and banking on that not being a thing.

Cocking an eyebrow, Martha signals the bartender for another round--they give her a wink, which would be unnerving in London, but here is a bit sweet. "Why aren't they? I mean, not like my family ever is."

They're better at not hating each other, now, thanks to...well...massive trauma. Sometimes Martha isn't sure about the tradeoff, though.

Edited (augh consistent tense) 2016-02-02 22:59 (UTC)

"Try having four brothers of roughly the same age, all with god spirits, in the same general area," Olaf says. "All the ego and the madness and the power? None of it bodes well," he says. "I try to stay out of it, seeing as they can handle themselves, but that's usually when people start dying or getting killed."

Martha's expression mirrors her feelings, which is to say 'vaguely horrified'. She nods, slowly. "I can see where that could be a problem," she admits, and swizzles the stir stick in her drink. "How...exactly do people in your town keep from noticing?"

London was big enough and still people ended up finding out.

"We're not that powerful," Olaf points out. Because for all of their antics and abilities, it's pretty easy to put it down to a variety of causes -- drugs being the main one. "I mean, and what some of them do is really just child's play. True, I can't stick around the same place too often, but that's no bummer for me."

"Okay," Martha said, completely confused as to what exactly divine powers did for one, now. "Why can't you stick around?" Admittedly, she was certain this could be due to drug charges, or at least to some extent.

"Responsibility isn't the greatest, but sticking around when you're immortal and they're not?" Olaf gives her an uncharacteristically sober sad smile. "I'm tired of funerals. I'm tired of watching my kids grow up and age and die. I can't do it, not anymore."

"So they aren't, then?" Martha said, a little taken aback. She reached out and put her hand on Olaf's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I hadn't thought it through. I gather from a friend who's pretty...er, long-lived, that that's damn rough."

Re: Martha Jones - OTA

trulyoracular - 2016-02-09 01:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Martha Jones - OTA

legendthatwas - 2016-02-11 22:17 (UTC) - Expand

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