metalogs | Closed | Tonight We're Gonna Party

Who: Balthier

portolan, David

helpdesk_hero, Bart

kid_flash_found, Otto

doctopoda, MCU Peter

tinglesense, Strange

rehandle, Loki

ikols, Billy

wordiness, Eddie

slidesrightoff, Aleks

morozova and any +1s I missed
What: A fancy dinner party at Balthier’s house
When: May 14
Where: Balthier’s House
Entry
Living Room
Kitchen
// generally beautifully restored historic late 1800s building in muted green and gold accents with antique furniture. pls compliment or insult him //
Content Warnings: none yet

[ The antique table has both leaves in it, extending from the dining room into the living room with twelve chairs around it. It's got a stately tablecloth and pale gold napkins. All the places are set with white china trimmed in gold, except one, which is green and gold and clearly for Loki, with a matching cup. There are name cards. There's a seating chart. The far wall of the dining room sports a buffet laden with stunning food in matching dishes, and the kitchen counter serves as a bar with a ridiculous amount of nice wine and alcohol.

The furniture in the living room has been rearranged to accommodate the table. The windows and doors are open to create a breeze and the back porch has additional seating. If people are looking for privacy, they can disappear to the basement, which is just a storage room, bathroom, and laundry unit, or upstairs where there is a loft study, a bathroom, and two bedrooms. One is locked. There are no bathrooms on the ground floor so excuses abound.

There’s also Romantic piano music playing on an honest-to-God gramophone. The whole house is restored original wood, antique furniture, old books, and nice art. Balthier is extremely pleased with his ship-like house and happy to finally show it off. He also asked Strange to enchant it to make it more or less metaproof for the evening.

TLDR:
-There will be a fine meal and plenty of alcohol
-Balthier will be giving Loki poison as condiments at some point (don’t @ him David and Billy) ((definitely @ him))
-There’s music if anyone wants to dance
-There are private places to slip into
-The house has been metaproofed to some extent by Stephen but Balthier will frown upon breaking his stuff
-Chaos pls

Feel free to thread jack! Mark things you don’t want threadjacked ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he says, his voice soft. He wonders if anyone will notice when he goes to change his shirt. Or question why he has another here. "I just... it seemed important to Josh, intensely so. I figured you two had spoken about it. And there's me, foot in mouth again. If you want to stay here, then you know I'll stand by that. But if you're staying just because I am, that might make me sad, Laurie. Because I would worry that my fear shaped your life in a way you didn't deserve."

The plan to go home had been jointly agreed upon, but it had shifted with their coming here and failed to re-settle. She doesn't actually care where she ends up, she just wants to live. She just wants to stop losing. The thought of David being as suddenly and completely gone as Jaime, Sasha, Heropa, the house in De Chima, the Hall of Justice...

Fear and deserving... She sucks in a slow breath and stands up straight again, taking a talk-step back, not quite detaching from him. He's got mascara on his shirt, too. Small victories, even if it means she probably looks like garbage now.

"You've obviously got something you need to talk about."

Her affect's flatter. She's finally fallen back on just tamping down her emotional reaction. If he's going to 'it's not you, it's me' at her, she might as well call him on it and get a better picture of what's more powerful than their abandoned solidarity.

Don't worry, he's got make-up here, he can hook her up with a clean up.

But she asks, and he takes a deep breath. It... was something he'd only brushed against tangentially with Josh, and not enough to truly explain things since he'd learned more.

"Did I tell you, after I came back remembering Krakoa, that I had my powers back back home?"

"I wondered about it, since you were on Krakoa and mentioned being on a team, but..." She shrugs, drawing her arms back to cross them. He'd stayed with mutantkind for a while after he'd been depowered, right? And he hadn't left super-circles at all, really, so far as she knows.

So, anyway... He's been re-powered, and she's willing to bet that it's definitely a wholesome, hopeful story.

"How'd you manage that?"

"I was killed," David answered. "We don't stay dead anymore. And I set myself on a dangerous path, knowing I might die. I don't remember it, but I know I worked to lay bread crumbs to solve my own murder."

And he'd only learned it days ago back home.

"If I go back, I won't be able to help myself. I'd follow my murderer's trial. I... I don't know how to process it except by not."

Leave it to David to CSI his own death, to leave homework for him to retroactively come back to. And she doesn't super like that the first things that spring into her mind are glib dismissals, but... There's reasons, right? She can unpack them later, if need be.

She doesn't have a great answer outside of that dumb, internal reaction, though. She'd slogged through the reality of her own (initial (or second?)) murder, but at least she never had to watch people decide whether and how much her murderer deserved consequences. She doesn't know what to say for it, expression concerned and arms still carefully drawn in.

"I'm sorry that happened," because, god, what else even is there to say. "I understand. I just... I don't know. I want to tell you that you're strong enough, and that this shit sucks, but it's survivable, but... Would it convince you?"

Probably not. He's already picked. It's bliss against misery, so what's the point in trying to shift things?

"Given I stood in front of the man, pretending to be a ghost of myself, trying to convince myself to kill him and suffer whatever consequences Krakoa would inflict on me for breaking one of the three laws..."

No, he shakes his head. He doesn't know if he can handle it. Not when he hadn't even had time to process his own truths before being thrown into the suffering of another.

"It's hard to fathom going back, when I can so barely handle what Kavinsky did to us. Maybe it'd survivable, but it's not... It's not something I know how to face. Especially since going back might mean losing all of this. All I've grown to be. All of you as you are."

She takes a deep breath that's exhaled as a very slight huff when she's tacked on at the end there. David just been encouraging her to ditch him, after all, so... Whatever. The rest is all legitimate concerns, so it's no use picking at or lingering on something insignificant.

"So we won't go back," she finally answers, firm but with a frustrating warble at the end of it. "I don't want to lose me, either. Or you."

And maybe the fear will wear with time, maybe something will shift, maybe the stars will fucking align, for once, and they'll get everything they need all at once. Probably not, though.

Probably not. That isn't how mutant lives go. But for now, he gives her a shy look.

"Listen, I could really do with another hug from one of my best friends right now. Think she could be talked into allowing it?"

"Yeah, maybe."

The answer's automatic, not something that she feels particularly authentic about. His glance is a cute one, though, and she's able to push up a smile as she steps forward again to slip her arms under his and around his back. She might cheat a little, too, just by the barest bit, to allow this to feel warmer for him than it does for her.

She still feels bad, something in her pitted out as she struggles to fill the space back in. She can't be lonely again, she can't have everything ripped away again, so home has to be worth giving up based on a whim, based on a fear. Right? Right. And she'll wake up better tomorrow, an increasingly tenuous prospect that she has no better choice than to follow through on. Common thread.

"I'm going to head home. I'm not party material any more."

"I'm sorry," he says, holding her for the moment before letting her go. "You know that, right? I'm sorry for being so weak."

He doesn't know how to make it better, but there's the simple truth of it. He's weak. And he's tired. And finding a way home seems more and more impossible with every day.

"Don't do that," Laurie says crisply, shaking her head a little as they part. She swallows, throat tight. He doesn't... He doesn't need to evoke any more pity from her. The thing's done already. He doesn't need to keep digging at her.

She grabs up her abandoned glass and passes it back to David, almost businesslike as she recomposes herself, "Tell Balthier that it was nice to meet him, and that I'm sorry to duck out. Just tell him I'm not feeling well. Whatever works.

"I'll see you later, okay?"

It's not like he sees it as digging. But he does take her words as a command.

"Of course. I'll see you later. Have a good night."

With that he took the glass and returned inside.

Closed | Tonight We're Gonna Party

no subject

no subject

CW: discussion of character death

no subject

CW: discussion of character death

CW: discussion of character death

CW: discussion of character death

CW: discussion of character death

CW: discussion of character death

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject