all_inclusive | Gathering: New Guest Reception

You haven't gotten bored with the Nexus Hotel yet, which is nice because apparently you're stuck here. Like a festering fly on a glue strip, but you haven't managed to rip your legs off in an attempt to get away...yet. You could handle the pain, though. Pain feels good.

Laughing to yourself, you skip up and down along the buffet table, occasionally leaning over to snatch up a grape and pop it in your mouth, or to -- gasp -- double-dip a chip.

You're a damned nuisance.

And a de-light.

Edited 2013-08-08 12:45 (UTC)

Nick frowns at the guy double-dipping before he takes in his whole...his everything. He's not exactly proud of the suspicious twist in his gut, but that doesn't mean he trusts it any less.

He thinks of rats, rats and crows and things in the corn.

So he shakes his head, pointing at the dip bowl, and the absurdity isn't lost on him.

"Mmmmm," you croon, licking the tips of your fingers messily. "Tasty."

Catching a young man's disapproving look, you quirk an eyebrow. "What?" you ask innocently, punctuating the question with a demure shrug.

Nick tells himself that maybe the guy's just odd. People go strange in their own way, don't they?

Sure. Like Harold goddamn Lauder. You bet, Nick.

You'll make people sick. He writes, after snapping open his notebook. Get your own bowl if you want to do that.

A mute, how quaint. You've been around a lot of different birds with lots of different feathers, but never a mute before. It's almost...warm and fuzzy and appealing. Someone who can't actually talk back. You like that.

"People are, ha ha, already sick," you inform the boy with a pointed look. "You the health inspector, sonny boy?"

Wiping your hands on the sides of your pants, you then turn around, offering yourself up for the apparent inspection.

It's hard for Nick to make out what the man is saying, underneath all the scarring and make-up. The make-up is the real catch. Most of reading lips is inference--'lavender soap' and 'there's hope' look the same, so you have to make judgment calls.

In this case: Nick can tell when someone's in on a joke he's not invited into. It's a tired feeling, and an old one.

He shakes his head at the joke-man's offer of inspection, resisting the urge to step back, and writes: Just stop.

When the boy doesn't seem too interested in your display, you abruptly stop. Mouth pulling down in a frown, you offer, "Guess not."

You rock back and forth on your heels for a moment, looking the boy over. He looks young, maybe younger than he actually is. Somehow, you suspect, he has quite the story to tell. You like story time.

"So, uh," you say, rubbing at the back of your neck, "what's your story, morning glory?"

There's a stubborn spike in Nick's spine that tells him not to tell this guy a thing, and Nick almost doesn't.

But is he really going to be an asshole just because this guy gives him the creeps? The worst things he's done are be hard to understand, dressing like a freak, and double-dipping a chip. And he did stop, even if it's only a break in the action.

I'm Nick. Don't have much of a story. Didn't survive the end of the world. It's hard for me to understand you. I'm deaf. He figures Mr. Clown won't need it spelled out for him why understanding is hard.

He knows he'll regret this, but he tears a blank sheet out of his notebook, pulls a spare pen from his jacket, and offers both to the stranger.

End of the world. The words are like music to your ears, the sweetest symphony Mozart or Rachmaninoff or Schubert had ever composed.

You almost greedily take the pen and paper from this Nick. Almost immediately, ink begins to spread about on paper as you sketch the Earth being blown up. Beneath it, you write, Am I close?

Nick nearly rubs his fingers on his jacket when Mr. Clown snatches at the writing utensils; he does flinch back, however slightly.

He shakes his head at the picture, visibly disturbed by the glee this man takes in it. (Explosions are a sore spot, like the bloody hollow of a knocked out tooth.)

People got sick and died. Almost everyone. He doesn't write down what happened to him, and he decides he's not going to. He could do without a cartoon drawn about it.

(no subject)

dogchasingcars - 2013-08-12 13:47 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

hearnospeakno - 2013-08-13 04:02 (UTC) - Expand

When he saw the face, Nick's first instinct was batshit crazy. Turned out to be his second, third and fourth ones, too. He also thought, briefly, about using his long-latent powers but something told him that if he looked into that abyss, he wouldn't like what looked back at him.

Instead, he walked up to the guy, gave him a quick look and asked, "do I want to know?"

"That depends," you counter, "on whether or not you're a curious man or can live without knowing...things."

You're not a mind-reader, but if this poor sap was looking for an education, well...

you're an excellent teacher. Of what, that's for you to know and him to find out.

"I'd think you'd have to be alive to live without knowing things, and technically speaking, I'm not."

Nick wondered about that sometimes. What it meant that he'd died not once, but twice? Unfortunately, anyone that could give him answers wasn't here and even if he was home, they weren't talking.

"Oh?"

Now that...that was interesting. Very interesting. After catching a grape in your mouth, you swivel fully toward the young man. You'd heard people talking about vampires (ha, ha, ha!) and other supernatural creatures skulking about. You wonder what the story is here.

"You look pretty lively to me," you continue. "But I'm sure I can arrange otherwise, if you like."

"You can try," Nick shrugged, "but chances are you won't be too happy about what you find if you succeed. I've died twice already, and all it's done is piss me off more."

Because something about this guy set his internal warnings off like a divining rod to an underwater aquifer, Nick felt his eyes go silver and the always dangerous tint of red at the edges of his vision. It'd been Hallowe'en since the last time he felt the demon's powers spike inside him. This time, he was starting to wonder if fighting it would be wise. Something about this guy was just not right.

Dying twice, what an adventure! What you wouldn't give to know what it's like to die, to meet your maker (Hel-loooo, Father Lu-ci-fer!), live to tell about it, and taunt the insipid masses with first-hand knowledge of their impending doom.

"Tell me all about it," you whisper. Needing to know, you step closer to the young man, probably closer than he would like but you've never cared much for that stupid societal personal space proclamation.

Nick didn't move out of the creepy thing's push into his personal space. It wasn't like he couldn't push him out of it again, or bind it if he tried anything. But something told him that if he took this guy to Azmodea, they'd welcome him with open arms as a brother.

"Wish I could," Nick said with a shrug. "Dying's kind of a personal thing, different for everyone. Not even mine were the same both times. I doubt it'd be the same for you anyway. I'm immortal, and cursed with it."

Being immortal. The idea fills you with utter glee. Why, if you could become immortal, the chaos and confusion you could spread would be limitless. This young man has knowledge, knowledge you're thirsting for, thirsting like a poor, lost nomad in the desert.

"How'd you do it?" you almost snarl. "Become im-mort-al."

(no subject)

malachai - 2013-08-09 20:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

dogchasingcars - 2013-08-12 13:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

malachai - 2013-08-12 14:25 (UTC) - Expand

MacKenzie makes a face when the man double dips and it's the stupidest pet peeve. "Well, I guess I won't be eating that, then," she says just loud enough for him to hear.

When she gets a look at him, there's just something off. This is the kind of man she would try to actively avoid back home, cross the street, turn away. Here, none of those options are really available.

Whirling around, the second half of a triple-dipped tortilla chip in your hand -- what can you say? That bean dip is addictive. -- you smile at the woman, looking her up and down.

"My, my," you murmur. "What have we here?"

Your eyes drift downward, then up again to eyes that likely sparkle in the pale moonlight. The devil would surely pause his dancing to get lost in that bewitching light.

"Nice shoes."

"Um, Louboutins?" she says, lifting one to show him. There are few ways to endear oneself to MacKenzie McHale that work quite as well as complimenting her shoes so she's not running away as she thought she might before.

"Thank you. Not that having designer shoes really matters in this place considering."

You circle around her, looking at the shoes in question. They are classy, and you always appreciate a higher class of, well, anything. People, criminals, crises...why should shoes be excluded from the list? That would be such an insane thing to do.

"Noth-ing wrong with looking your best," you return in a sing-song voice. "You never know who you mighttttt...run into."

"Very true. I'm MacKenzie, by the way," she says, thinking that introducing herself is probably for the best even if this man does make her a little uneasy. No sense in being rude, right?

"Did you just get here?"

At the introduction, you began to dig around in the inner breast pocket of your coat. No need to be im-po-lite, so a calling card is in order. That's proper, and you wouldn't want this woman to think you anything but. Ha, ha!

Pressing a playing card emblazoned with a joker upon it into her hand, you say, "You can call me The Joker."

Twitching a little, you put on quite the show of turning around and inspecting the room.

"Oh, no," you say when you face her again. "I've been here for a week or so, but it's just so de-lighful here that it feels like years."

MacKenzie isn't exactly certain she would call this place delightful but it isn't terrible. She thinks the Joker sounds like some sort of strange superhero but she doesn't comment.

"It's not terrible? It's still not Manhattan, though, which is my standard by which I compare all places in the world."