Gathering: Summer Party

[concierge]

Outside of the Nexus Hotel, waiters and hotel staff had begun to set up the umbrellas and the tables in the middle of the day. Soon, it became clear that something was happening in the shadow of the Nexus. White tablecloths were draped on the tables and drinks and food were brought out with the help of several waiters and servers, staffing tables with hot and cold foods beside bartending stations. Summery drinks in bright, neon colors are laid out one by one and soon, the afternoon light casts a radiant look on the scene.

Music plays faintly in the background and a note at the front desk invites all the Nexus guests to head outside and join in on the summer party, which promises to continue going as long as there are people to stay and continue keeping the warm atmosphere rolling.

On the lawn, social games had been set out -- lawn bowling, croquet, and tables were set up with chairs for anyone who didn't quite have the will or the spirit to get into such games. Soon, a small number of people had begun to mill around, but as with all parties, there's always room for more.

Comments

[votecrowley]

This was one of the weirdest damn places he had ever been, and Crowley had been to a lot of strange places, with strange people, and strange happenings. But like almost every place he ever found himself more than once, there was a steady supply of well-made alcohol, which made the steady supply of well-made idiots that were also always present more palatable for him.

Crowley preferred to not get involved in things, if only because that required effort he would much rather save for more important endeavours, ie, his own. Still, the inhabitants of the hotel that he didn't find stupid he would find entertaining, and since he was feeling completely done with the idiots on his own plane of existence, the Nexus was a nice break. And naturally the hotel suddenly decided to have a summery afternoon garden party as if this was a bloody Austen novel. Was Mr. Darcy about to ride up, act standoffish, then walk out of a pond a la the BBC? Oh, if only.

"This is foul," he decided, inspecting his drink, and supremely uncaring of the fact that the person he was addressing he had never met before in his life, or at least didn't care enough to remember. "I should just be back in Hell."

[sixsciencecredits]

Darcy had spent many hard, cold months in a very hard, cold place, and while she wasn't sure the typical 'summer party' was exactly her bag, she was happy to pop in anywhere that food and booze was just being handed out, and the party taking place outside of the Nexus was no exception. She was parked firmly under the shade of an awning or an umbrella or something like that and was working on keeping herself cool with a steady supply of alcohol. People watching was suiting her just fine, though when someone spoke to her left, she did turn her head to look the man over.

That he was older and dressed in an all black suit that had to be sweltering on top of drinking something brown and straight without ice were the things she noticed first. His accent second, his words third.

"Whelp, it's party booze," she offered. "Be thankful there's something other than two dollar vodka in Hawaiian punch to drink. Not that I wouldn't drink my share of that if there weren't." Darcy, who had been to her share of college parties, had also in turn drank her share bottom-shelf booze with shit like blue Kool Aid and Tang for a mixer, but that was just the burden of being young, broke, and fabulous, she had to figure. This guy looked like he could pony up for bottle service though, so sticking close was probably a good idea.

[votecrowley]

"You look like someone who would drink more than her fair share," Crowley replied, easily. Not, of course, that he was particularly interested in the words 'fair' or 'share' in the first place. That was a construct humans made to try to stop the fighting, yet inevitably started more wars than it prevented. Faith, in fact, was far less to blame than pure human greed.

Which naturally he really banked on in his line of work.

[sixsciencecredits]

"You're not wrong," Darcy said, her tone easy and dry as she took another long, cool drink and neatly crossed one leg over the other. She had no idea if he was making an attempt at insulting her, but she didn't care enough to bother with getting worked up thinking about it. What was the point?

"You look like someone's rich, weird uncle," she said, hoping at least the 'rich' part were true as his having nieces or nephews somewhere out there had absolutely no bearing on whether or not he could offer her some choice booze. "Nice suit."

[votecrowley]

Crowley opened his mouth to say something to that, then shut it again so that he could mull that remark over. It was always a little surprising when a human came out and had you pegged in a second. He guessed he'd gotten too used to hunters (who he was, lately, uncle-ing about like a creature who was supposed to eat its young but didn't feel like it anymore).

"I do believe you've summarized my entire existence," he mused. "On Earth, at the least. And I don't purchase bad suits, though the good ones tend to get messed up no matter all of my efforts. What's your name, hellion?"

[sixsciencecredits]

"It's what I'm here for, the summarizing of existences," Darcy said, though she smiled. "No use in buying shitty suits that I can see, but I dunno if I'd come to a party like this wearing something that slick. You're just asking for someone to spill bbq chicken on it or some shit."

She patted the seat next to hers, offering it to him silently, and said, "Darcy. Are you an alien? I only ask because you keep saying 'Earth' and I happen to know a few aliens. They also talk like they're about to come in and have a nice cuppa with the missus."

The last line, of course, was delivered in a shamelessly bad English accent, but she thought the point would've gotten across one way or another. Both Thor and Loki had smooth accents, as this fellow did, and she wondered if it was some sort of galactic conspiracy or if aliens just liked to sound aesthetically pleasing.

[votecrowley]

"Mostly I just get shot," Crowley said. "Or stabbed. That's where most of my suits meet their end. I can't say I've ever had chicken spilled on me. Is that odd? I feel like that's odd, now that you've said it."

The sad part was, he had been mistaken as an alien before, technically. But that had hardly been surprising when you put it up to the fact he had abducted a whole lot of people, and then tried to force them to read a rock. In the end, the deeper secrets and happenings of the universe were rather ridiculous in summary. "That was truly painful to hear," he said, speaking, of course, about her accent. "No, I'm that other class of stereotype that speaks in a British accent. I'm the Devil, darling. Not the fancy one called Morningstar, though, he's in a bit of a bind right now and has been for quite some time. Name's Crowley."

[sixsciencecredits]

Darcy was very carefully honing the art of not shouting "Holy shit" when she was blown away yet again by her circumstance, but some instances proved to be more difficult than others. Grace wasn't something she had been naturally gifted with, but then she also didn't want to be known as the annoying, too-excitable girl, so she was working on tamping back her more natural inclination toward exclamation. But again, it was difficult.

Therefore when she tamped her reaction back to a wide raising of her eyebrows at Crowley's delivery of his species, it was a monumental feat of will. She cleared her throat, then took a long drink as she turned that over. She'd never been an expressly religious person, so she had not given much thought to there being demons. Knowing that 'Gods' existed like Thor and Loki was easier for her to swallow in that, as explained through Science, Thor and his brother almost fit the technical definition for an alien as opposed to some sort of deity. She wasn't sure where or how the specifics worked, but neither Thor nor his brother had made her think for an instant that Satan was real, while this person spoke of him casually.

"A devil," she said, finally. "Huh." She wondered then if she should be exercising some sort of caution while speaking to him - devils were notoriously tricky, all the songs she could remember about them said so - but his approach had been casual enough for her to think he hadn't appeared with the sole intention of eating her soul for breakfast. "What kind of devil?" Then, after a beat, "Crowley. There's a song about you, I think."

[malachai]

"Oh come on," Nick said, approaching with a beer bottle in his hand, "it can't be that bad."

[votecrowley]

"No, it is," Crowley asserted, inspecting the drink for a moment more. "I'm trying to decide if I've sunk low enough to actually drink it." Life these days was really just one long sink, as far as he was concerned. To resist or or hurry it on? Who knew.

[malachai]

"I guess it's all down to perception," Nick said with a sip and a nod. "My mother was, without a doubt, one of the worst cooks ever and I say that with all the love in my heart for the woman. But she really was, the absolute worst. In the whole world. After eating her attempts at food, everything else is a chef's banquet."

[votecrowley]

"That just means she gifted you with a particularly sensitive palate," Crowley replied, dryly. "Now, how is my favourite half demon doing today? Favourite because you're the only one I've ever talked to."

[malachai]

Nick laughed as he gave the question some serious consideration before answering. "Honestly? I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. My girlfriend from the island I was stuck on before here turned up. Good things just don't happen to me, so the shit's going to hit the fan somewhere. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it's coming."

[votecrowley]

"Well, that's a healthy outlook, more or less," Crowley mused. "I do believe life ends up being one load of excrement after another lobbed at the fan, anyway. If your girlfriend a relatively normal creature, or does she have an interesting bloodline like you?"

[malachai]

Nick tried to imagine Mel's response to being called relatively normal and the grin spread in spite of himself. "Relatively normal and completely human."

Granted that hadn't been true for the last year before she arrived on the island, but that was Mel's story to tell, not his. And sure as hell not to the demon in front of him.

"How about you? Hell surviving without you?"

[nebaritralk]

"Yeah?" Chiana asks as she gets herself another glass of that bright blue stuff. She doesn't know what they call it, but it tastes a little like cold raslak and she'll take what she can get, here. "Hell where you're from?" She's never heard of it, but he looks like a human, so that's not exactly surprising.

[votecrowley]

Crowley gave her a look. Being a demon (who ran Hell, at that) he could tell she didn't have the sort of soul he could snag. Most people in the hotel didn't, to be fair; they were of no use to him unless they were made in his particular realm and he seemed to be alone in that. But that, plus her somewhat unorthodox appearance, made him inspect her curiously.

That, and she was talking about Hell like he'd been referring to Omaha (which was sort of close...). "Not originally," he said. "You have to die in order to get there, usually - and also have done some naughty things first. But it's home. What about you?"

[nebaritralk]

That sounded like the kind of place she was in no hurry to visit (because of the dying) - or, mostly, like a myth designed to keep people away. Maybe it was a metaphorical death he meant. Whatever the case, she sips her blue drink before answering, "Not anywhere I'd recommend visiting." If he had to ask, then he didn't know Nebari Prime, given how clearly Nebari she looked; probably another human. They seemed not to have gone very far beyond their own planet, these humans. "Not unless you enjoy living a very bored, obedient life, anyway."

[votecrowley]

The word Hell might have been particular to a certain few cultures, which was why he had, technically, described a sort of afterlife - one where you are punished for wrongdoings, naturally. Hell existed in more than one place, often with a different name, but it was still the same. That she didn't seem to pick up on that made him curious as to whether she had a faith structure, where she came from. Maybe her people had done without the wretched habit.

"Can't say that I do," he said. "Clearly, neither of our homes is worth visiting. So I suppose that explains our presence at this party."

[nebaritralk]

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm just making the most of this place until I can get back to where I came from," Chiana answered with a roll of her head for emphasis, body shifting where she was standing. She wasn't saying 'get back home', because she didn't really have a home, but being in the same world as Nerri again? Now that would be welcome. Make sure he wasn't dead, because she didn't know how to deal with that.

[votecrowley]

"Well, then you needn't worry. In my experience everyone manages to make their way back sooner or later." Then he paused, quirked his head to the side, and gave her a bit of a grin. "Unless, of course, the hotel wants to keep you around? I don't know about you, but it strikes me as a pretty personable building."

[nebaritralk]

"No offense, but it's a bit too full of humans for that," Chiana told him with an amused little grimace. She really meant no offense; she had nothing against them as individuals (not any of the ones she'd met so far, anyway), but that many of them in one place were more than enough to put anybody from the Uncharted Territories on their guard. Maybe they were distant cousins to the Sebaceans. Distant, poorer cousins. "But you might be on to something," she allows with a quick, sharp grin. "Maybe it wants a bit of blue blood around for a change." She figured theirs ran as red as Sebacean blood.

[beretta_70]

The chill of the glasses Sévérine held neatly in each hand set perfect counterpoint to the heat of the afternoon sun overhead, though the former rather than the latter held the greater portion of her attention. The scene painted across the Nexus' grounds was at once like and unlike many she had seen before, but where she was more familiar with assassin's names murmured over cocktails and tidbits taken from trays, of oil and water rights mixed with the ever-present promise of blood-shed, this looked...almost wholesome.

Almost was thrown out of the description upon catching sight of a game of croquet being played on the grass, the players laughing with an abandon she associated with children and few children at that.

"Am I to understand," she began, her words pitched low and almost intimate for all the fact of their surroundings as she came up beside Crowley, looking out at the scene from his same angle. "That your Hell is less abysmal than this?" Her smile was a touch conspiratorial as she offered one of the glasses up to him, the oak-colored liquid within it licking at the sides of the glass. It had taken little difficulty to track down a full bottle of the Glencraig 1975 vintage, rare as it promised to be, and the expense nothing to be sneered at, but as an investment, it was one she believed well worth the sticker price. "I've had the rest of the bottle sent to your room."

[votecrowley]

"My Hell is less abysmal than this drink," Crowley answered, before remembering the woman who had arrived, presenting him with a glass of something that was most certainly what he preferred to be drinking. Severine had been a strange and smoky creature, distinctly dark and beautiful. If she had been in his world, demons would have clambered all over each other to possess a suit like that; and he would have paid anything to get her soul.

But they weren't in his world, they were at some fancy otherworldly garden party, and she was handing him a glass of Glencraig, which automatically put her up in his top five list of favourite individuals, living and dead. Of course, a woman like her would be more than aware of how to play up to others, especially those of power. It wasn't that Crowley thought himself powerful; the fact that she was extending him thoughtfulness and courtesy told him that she thought he might be.

"Ah, Sévérine," he said, taking the glass from her, immediately putting down the swill he had been saddled with minutes ago. "You're certainly adding to the atmosphere. Thank you. To what do I owe the honour? Getting stir crazy in your room?"

[beretta_70]

The haze with which she had walked between the dust and the blood of the island and the sumptuousness of the hotel had done nothing to obscure the conversation she had had with him. No more than it had erased the details with which she built her image of those around her, those small luxuries and favored tastes she filed away automatically for later use. It had amazed her once how pliable or, if not that, then at least more amenable a body became with their favorite dish or drink at hand, eased into a state a touch less razor-edged for what might otherwise be so easily overlooked.

Her offering was not entirely unattached of motives, but she doubted he would be so naive as to believe anything in life (or apparently death) came free. It was not borne of fear, or of concern that he might otherwise strike out at her, for all that she could read the blood on his hands and the coarse note of violence and fury past in the rough and rasp turn of his voice. Instead it was almost friendly, but for the fact that the idea of the niceties of life being offered simply because one could was too foreign for the confines of her skull.

There was much that required her attention if she had any intention of walking back into the world she had come from. Much ugliness that would need to be attended to. Tempting though it was to remain within the hotel and step no further than the doors to other strange places, all that had been left undone behind her was an itch she could not quite shake.

"I thought I might like some company," she told him, the wealth of all that was left unsaid coloring the edges of her words. The marvel of the weight of the door and the locks that could be operated only by her. Of the suggestion that she might for the first have a degree of privacy within at least her room. No guards at her back with hands read for the holsters kept hidden beneath their jackets, or ready to pull back a hand to deliver a message where it would be hidden beneath her clothes from their marks. "Unless you would rather be alone in your observation, and I would take my leave?"