tushanshu_logs | [Midnight Hotel] Fourth-wall catch-all; 15-30 April

Entry tags:

[Midnight Hotel] Fourth-wall catch-all; 15-30 April

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: 15-30th April, ‘2016’.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: It’s the fourth-wall event and there’s a sudden influx of patrons! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the two weeks of the fourth-wall event, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. Regulars should feel free to continue using the non-fourth-wall Hotel post for pre-fourth-wall threads! See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

The Midnight Hotel is a magical place—which is fortunate, because Keeliai has magically doubled the number of patrons the Hotel is capable of holding. Where else is capable of catering to an extra fifty Foreigners? the kedan say. Where else would want to?

Unfortunately, for all the Hotel’s many qualities and all the proprietor’s many skills, he can’t conjure up enough rooms for fifty extra people on no notice.

The solution: giant slumber party.

For the next two weeks the ground-floor common-area and the dining-area beside the garage have been repurposed as sleeping areas. Blankets, sheets, pillows, bean-bags, sleeping-bags—Mr Anton Shudder has gone, quite literally, to town in order to cater to the new arrivals. No one is going to be uncomfortable, except by the prospect of sleeping so close to strangers—but there isn’t much to be done about that. The very few rooms still available have been reserved for those who well and truly require the privacy.

Catering is a little more difficult. Suffice to say Mr Shudder is outsourcing for a good part of the fortnight.

On the plus side, Mr Shudder is gracious enough to let those without a soul-gem stay for free. As long as, of course, they Follow The Rules, which are told to every newcomer nearly as soon as they’re welcomed through the door.

Although Anton does attend the festival, he can be regularly found throughout the Hotel for anyone who has questions or concerns. He will, most of the time, be dogged by a bouncy fellow with an indefatigable grin, and it won’t be uncommon to hear variations of the following conversation:

“Hey, Anton—”

“No.”

“You didn’t even—”

“No.”

“Excuse me, I was just going to say—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Anton, hey Anton, hey hey Anton?”

“No.”

And so it goes.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE PM ME IF YOUR CHARACTER WILL PERFORM A VIOLENT ACT. The Hotel is a neutral-zone and the proprietor is very strict as to acts of violence, and it will receive a response.

It will not be necessary for fourth-wall characters to officially check into the Hotel during the event.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From their earlier conversation, she knew that Larrikin had been a friend of Skulduggery and Anton's, but she never would have expected this kind of reaction from Anton. However, the more she watched their interactions, the more curious she became. Larrikin always seemed to be up to some sort of mischief, but it was without malice, closer to childlike curiosity. She was content to just observe how the man's presence affected Anton, that is, until Larrikin decided to test out how long it took for a book to catch fire in the kitchen oven.

"I don't know what it is like in your world," she said, pulling the quite warm book out of the oven, "But burning books is considered to be quite rude in my world."

It was nearing the end of the fortnight and for the last few days Larrikin's mischief had contained an edge of desperation. What he was desperate for was difficult to tell, but it made him more stubborn and argumentative than usual. This time around he let out a whine almost exactly like a wounded dog and reached out to snatch the book back.

"But Mr Handsome Man Krei stopped me from burning the other one! I need to see how long it takes for an oven to cook a book! Can't be any more efficient than a summoned flame!"

She held the book back out of his reach, "Are you insane?" she asked, sincerely concerned about the man's ability to function. It simply wasn't normal to try to cook a book, much less to try it twice.

She flipped the book around to read the title before continuing, "A summoned flame would be more efficient because it is direct. Putting it in the oven is just...weird."

Not to mention it would take much longer for the book to catch fire.

Larrikin waved his hands. "Are you kidding? It's awesome! There's a machine that makes fire jut by turning knobs! Anton has a machine that makes fire just by turning knobs! I need to see how it works on things that burn! Things that we don't need in order to make things burn anymore! Yoink!"

He aimed a sharp gust of air at the book to blow it out of her hands--at the book, not at her hands, totally doesn't break the rules HA--and then jumped up to snatch it back before she could. Even though he had two inches on her, which didn't always happen, Larrikin had too much energy to avoid it.

She flinched as the air knocked the book from her hands before she could reply. He was definitely insane to try a trick like that in the Hotel and her eyes flashed red with brief fury, but she closed her eyes and took a breath, ignoring anything the man might do until the anger was under control.

"That was stupid," she said slowly, "Do you have any sense of self-preservation?"

Valdis released the tension and opened her eyes to fix him with a glare. The man was clearly an idiot. An idiot that was probably going to burn the place down.

"Oh--" Larrikin blew a raspberry, laughing. "Didn't attack you, didn't break the rules! Besides, the most Anton would do is punch me, and I'm used to that." He didn't see the flash of red, didn't even consider he might be in danger from someone other than Anton. Who would break Anton's rules? Nobody, that's who.

He cradled the book in his arms, bouncing toward the oven. "Besides again," he called back, "I'm already dead, so what's it matter?"

It would have been easy to assume he honestly didn't care, with how cavalierly he tossed the words over his shoulder, but Valdis's keen senses probably wouldn't miss the surge of mixed emotions accompanying them. Panic tied them together.

She choked down the frustrated growl that rose in her throat. She did not have time for this silly little man-child and his silly little experiments. Valdis almost started after him, but the mixture of emotions coming from him made her pause and then her anger drained away entirely.

"What are you so worried about?" she murmured, trying to balance the flow of external and internal emotions. "What is it that you are afraid you will miss?"

"What?" Larrikin slammed the book in the oven and whirled around, pointing an accusing finger at her. "Worried about what? You can't do that mind-reading shtick on me, I know a real one! Knew a real one." For a moment his expression wavered between belligerence and vulnerability, and then firmed up. "Know. Know one."

As it happened, this was when Anton walked through the door, and Larrikin leapt at him, spun him around, gripped his arm. "Antoooon, she's being mean and pretendy mind-readering me!"

Anton looked down at Larrikin's pout with a furrowed brow. He'd come in chasing up the missing book and the broken wards on his office door, and fully expecting Larrikin to be here. "You stole another book."

"Going to punch me again, big boy?" Larrikin grinned and the grin had a very faint edge, one that was mocking and deprecating all at once. "Ooh, fun!"

"Rover." Anton sighed. "Why are you doing this?" He glanced at Valdis. "Has he only tried to burn the book?"

Valdis took a step back, away from the crazy man who had suddenly decided that she could read minds, which of course meant that she had apparently struck a nerve with her question. The man was a mess of emotions that she didn't want to deal with and it was only Anton's appearance that stopped her from retreating entirely. She stood in complete bewilderment, not entirely certain how to react.

"He..." there wasn't a need to tell Anton about how Larrikin had re-acquired the book, "Yes, he insists he needs to know if an oven is faster than a summoned flame."

It was a typical Larrikin experiment, one that was potentially explosive and dangerous and fun--and most certainly attention grabbing. It wasn't the first, either, though it wasn't like the ones from earlier in Larrikin's stay there. For the last few days, Larrikin's antics had been getting increasingly more caustic, as if he was working up to something.

"I do!" Larrikin protested. "I need to explore all the bells and whistles of modernity!" He tugged on Anton's sleeve and pouted mightily. "But if I can't, the least you can do is punch me again for stealing from your office."

"Rover," Anton said gently, "I know you're here. You don't need to keep trying to get my attention."

For a moment Larrikin stood frozen, his face shifting with emotions so fast that it scrunched up. "Well, I don't have one of them spiffy gems!" He pointed at Valdis's neck, sounding angry to cover the fact there were tears in his eyes. "Sooner or later, probably sooner, I'm going to up and vanish. I don't want to die again, Anton! I don't want to just go away and get forgotten for another century because you're emotionally repressed!"

He pulled away abruptly, rubbing his wet eyes and sniffing.

"Stay here," said Anton quietly. "Lady Valdis? Please make sure he doesn't leave."

Anton turned and left again, into the lobby, and Larrikin blew a raspberry after him before turning to try and escape through the dining areas.

The sadness and fear wafting from Larrikin was becoming increasingly difficult to hold down. She had seen children acting out for attention, and it certainly made sense in hindsight, but this was an awkward situation, one that very much did not involve her, except for the fact that now it did. The man was suffering, and he was dealing with it poorly, but fear did that to people.

She looked after Anton as he walked out into the lobby, shock at his request in her eyes. Larrikin's escape attempt did not go unnoticed and, despite her displeasure, she moved to cut him off, blocking his passage.

"Anton asked you to stay here," she told him, crossing her arms, "If you have any respect for him, please listen."

"Anton is a poopy-head," Larrikin said angrily, or as angrily as a man who was crying could say. He wiped his cheeks and glared at Valdis, but Larrikin didn't have a face predisposed toward glares; it only made him look young and difficult to take seriously. "Sure, he's got that dog on a leash, but that's no reason to go around just forgetting your best mates. He couldn't find a place for one sketch? One puppet? Something. Anything!"

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair because Larrikin knew that Anton did have something; he had Larrikin's ID pin, what they'd used before dogtags. That wasn't the point. It wasn't Anton Larrikin was blaming for anything; it was just the circumstance.

It wasn't fair, that Larrikin should have to die and then come back and see how much Anton had accomplished only to die again. What if he went the way he had before? What if he had to fade feeling the Red Hand all over again?

Larrikin's face bunched as he tried to stop the tears, but it didn't work.

"I may not understand human emotion very well," Valdis replied, her gaze softening, "But Anton is far too kind to simply forget about those he cares for, just because he doesn't openly show everyone what he is feeling, doesn't mean that he doesn't feel anything."

No one could hide their strong emotions from her, no matter how hard they tried, luckily, Larrikin was openly displaying his, so there was no need to curb her tongue in regards to them.

"Not everyone can wear their heart on their sleeve, Larrikin." She wanted to reach out to him, but comforting people was really not her strong suit.

Larrikin wrapped his arms around himself in lieu of a hug, and even though Valdis didn't reach out he leaned unconsciously toward her as though wanting the comfort but not knowing how to ask for it from a stranger, now that he genuinely needed it.

"I don't want to die again," he said in a very small voice. "I want to stay here with Anton and learn everything about the century I missed, and put candles in Skulduggery's eye-holes, and go home so I can see Dexter and Erskine and Ghastly and everyone all over again. Two and a half centuries we fought that bloody war, and it's like the whole world's forgotten."

Even the sorcerers. He'd talked to Anton and Skulduggery. He knew about Serpine. How Serpine had escaped justice for a whole century, after everything he'd done.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking at the floor so she didn't have to look at his tear-stained face. She didn't know how he had died and as death was not permanent for her, she had no way of truly sympathizing. Even her near death at the hands of her own powers could not compare, because she had survived. "I wish I had some way of telling you that it will be alright."

"I do," said Anton, returning with two books in his hands. "I know it isn't death that offends you, Rover. It's the sacrifice ignored."

"Oh, goody, do I get to burn those too?" Larrikin asked with a sniff, rubbing at his cheeks.

"No." Anton showed them the covers. One was a dictionary, a recent edition, while the other looked to be a much older cultural reference book. "You recall, I hope, serving in the training fields in Australia."

"Course," Larrikin muttered. "Best place to do it. Too far for Mevolent to attack, lots of landscape to throw magic around without mortals seeing. And it was different there, to anywhere else, what with the wildlife and the land and how everyone banded together."

Anton nodded. "Look." He opened the dictionary to its bookmarked page and handed it to Larrikin, and then opened the reference book and showed them a highlighted paragraph on that bookmarked page too.

larrikin
Australian/NZ
1. A mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good-hearted person
1.1 A person with apparent disregard for convention; a maverick

[...]

"The above instances exemplify Australia and New Zealand's youth as nations and defines them as set apart from the character of the rest of the world; soldiers and brothers on the battlefields of World War I in whom is imbued the qualities of endurance, courage, ingenuity, mateship and good humour, all characterised by the Australian word 'larrikinism'."

"Do you see?" Anton said quietly as Larrikin took the books and stared speechlessly down at them with wet eyes. "The dictionary is less than five years old from when I came from. You define a nation's character, spirit and history, Rover. You are what they want to be, over a century later. It's impossible for you to be forgotten, because your name exemplifies a legend which transcends magical and mortal cultures."

Sniffing, Larrikin hugged the books to his chest and murmured, "Poopy-head," and Anton only smiled. Then Larrikin added, "I still want a hug."

"Don't push it."

"Didn't say I want a hug from you, Mr Poopy-head Shudder."

So the man was some sort of hero, his name recorded for all of humanity as something to aspire to. It was truly interesting. Gods and Goddesses were not beings that humans aspired to be like. They were objects of worship, beings of immense power beyond human understanding, stories to explain why the world acted as it did. No one wanted to be Zeus, or Thor, or Ra. But Larrikin...he had people who wanted to be like him, or at least a person admired like he was. To be honest, she was somewhat jealous, no matter how much power she held, she would not command the same kind of respect that either Anton or Larrikin did. Her name would always be associated with death and chaos.

Larrikin's last comment brought her attention back to him. Her eyes widened. "You already got one, remember?" she replied taking a step back, "You do not get another."

"I gave a hug," Larrikin whined. "Why do I always have to be the one giving hugs and everyone thinks that counts? You didn't give one back! You were positively flaccid."

Anton sighed and turned, but there was a smile hidden around his mouth. "I'm leaving. Larrikin, the next time you steal from my office I'm exiling you from my bed."

"I'd rather if you tied me to your bed," Larrikin called after him, and then grinned at Valdis. It was a watery grin, a wavering one, but truer than the edge and fragile ones from the last few days, and with his wet eyes it made him look especially young. He didn't loosen his grip on the books. "He loves me."

As Anton left, Valdis glared at Larrikin, or at least tried to glare at him. He was so young and innocent and sad looking that she couldn't keep the glare on her face.

"Did you doubt that?" She asked, finally giving up and allowing her features to soften as he smiled at her. Love was an interesting thing, it never seemed to make sense.

"No," Larrikin admitted, rubbing his cheek against the tops of the books, not to wipe away the tears but more like a cat enjoying the sensation or marking territory. "Not since--"

Not since that time Larrikin thought Anton had left for good and had a panic attack, and then Anton came back and held him--held him!--until it ended.

Not since the first time Anton, face brittle and hands trembling, had told him to talk to drown out the gist.

Not since Anton had nursed him through pneumonia by telling stories about his own family, telling him his given name.

Not since every time Anton had saved Larrikin's life, humoured his puppet-shows and theatre acts, darned his socks and cobbled his shoes and braided his hair.

"No," Larrikin repeated, and sniffed, and released the books enough to wipe his eyes with one hand. "I just wish I could still be here for him. Not that I begrudge dying to save my wonderful darling husband, but it'd be nice if I could come back to possibly die for the rest of them too." That was the thing he'd regretted most, in the few seconds' worth of sane thought he'd had left before the Red Hand overwhelmed everything else. That he, like Hopeless, wouldn't be there to have their backs anymore. That he had to leave all of them behind, to save just one.

His words hit a sore spot and she flinched. It wasn't that he had died to save Anton, nor was it the fact that he wanted to protect his friends, but the wording went against everything she had recently learned about friends.

"Dying for a friend when there is no other option is a noble cause," she replied, "But don't you dare believe that Anton or your other friends would accept you coming back only to die for them again."

She sighed. Larrikin didn't have a soul gem, so she could only assume that his stay couldn't be permanent and it seemed that the man's distress partially stemmed from the idea that he might not be around to protect those he cared about.

"Larrikin," she said softly, "Unlike you, I have more than one life to give up in defense of my friends. I promise that I will protect Anton with as many of those lives as I need. So, please, stop worrying about what will happen after you leave and just enjoy the time you have with him."

Larrikin looked at her with vague surprise at the ferocity in her tone, still rubbing one eye with the heel of his palm. "But that's why we worked," he tried to explain. "Not actually die, but possibly die. We got sent on suicide missions and we always came back. We were the only ones who could do it, because we were willing to die for each other. That's why they called us the Dead Men. You can't have your own back. It's hard to see your own back from your front. So we forgot about our backs because we knew the rest of the Dead Men would have them, and then we never died, see?"

Until one of them did.

Until Mevolent managed to separate them enough to take down Hopeless, who'd had all of their backs because he'd been too powerful a mind-reader to miss most of everything. Then Serpine managed to get Dexter in a tight spot they didn't have a mind-reader to see in time and Larrikin had been forced to actually do the 'dying' thing for real. Not fun.

But it was still why they'd won.

He finally managed to get his eyes cleared and then they welled up again. Whether Valdis wanted it or not, he put down the books and moved in to hug her, and this wasn't like the other hug. It was firm and almost gentle, almost ginger, a hug that gave rather than demanded comfort as so many of Larrikin's hugs did. A hug that was full of gratitude.

"Thank you," he whispered.

The idea of Anton and others going on suicide missions was disturbing, but she didn't believe that Anton would go on any mission thinking that they wouldn't be successful. 'Suicide Mission' was merely a title granted by those who thought they might fail.

Having people you could always trust with your back was a nice feeling, even in the midst of fighting knowing that you could trust the people behind you, somehow made everything better.

"There's no need to thank me," she replied, gently hugging him back, "But you are welcome."

Larrikin pulled back grinned. "Got a hug from you," he stage whispered happily, and poked her nose. "Bop."

Then he stepped away with a spin and a kind of light-footed ease which spoke of man who was both acrobatic and used to having to step quickly away from any potential fists.

He had indeed succeeded in getting a hug from her, but the poke was completely unnecessary. She glared at him, biting back a harsh reply, but she could think of nothing else to say, so she simply turned around and walked out of the room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Midnight Hotel] Fourth-wall catch-all; 15-30 April

Both

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject