[Midnight Hotel] January catch-all

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of January, 2016 (2017 in-game).
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

As with last month, the Hotel’s wards are under stress owing to the fog. The effects are more pronounced in January; water temperature, in particular, fluctuates, and the staff will find it necessary to find a different way of disposing of the Hotel’s rubbish due to the incinerator being put out of commission. The doors still only exit onto Central.

Likewise, Anton is off his feet making sure the wards don’t fail altogether, but at least the work has made him too busy to dwell on the things that had been eating at him for the past few months. Even after the swell takes the turtle off the reef, most of Anton’s time will be spent repairing damage to the wards and making sure utilities are up to snuff as soon as possible.

Even still, the doors’ ability to access multiple sectors will remain offline for the remainder of the month, making it two months in a row that the Hotel’s access has been limited to Central.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.]

Comments

Erskine | All through January | OTA

[edgeoftheknife]

A) Why walk when you can fly?

Erskine spends almost all of his time in the Hotel, either performing his usual janitor's duties or skulking around between shifts and attempts at sleep. His excursions out of the Hotel are limited and predictable, and his routine rarely varies. The only difference, lately, is perhaps an increased reticence to be seen outside of his working hours.

That, and the flying.

Once a week, Skulduggery visits Erskine in the Hotel. To anyone who's seen them interact over the last half a year, it might be tempting to wonder when the first punch will be thrown--but that's not it. Skulduggery comes over to the Hotel, and the two of them spend an hour or two, depending on the day, practicing magic. Specifically, Skulduggery is teaching Erskine to fly.

Erskine is early for today's practice session. Part of the Hotel's second floor is visible from the first; there's an open balcony looking down from the second floor, above the front desk. Erskine's pulled a few of the chairs from the dining room into the lobby, cordoning off a small section of the room underneath the balcony where he expects them to be practicing. This way they can avoid the worst of the fog's effects and also avoid crashing into anyone while they're flying. Or falling, in Erskine's case.

Right now he's levitating about halfway between the first floor and the second. Pay no attention to the very pretty Irishman in the snappy suit hovering in midair. (Or do. It's up to you.)


B) Day by Day

Other than the flying sessions, feel free to try to catch Erskine in the Hotel during his work hours, during his brief appearances outside of work hours when he grabs a bite to eat in the kitchen, or during his one daily exodus outside of the Hotel to parts unknown in the city.

((Feel free to use this prompt for anything that may come up during the month, or as a Choose Your Own Adventure type thing. If you've got something you think would work, throw it at me!))

[dragonaught]

Flying was something of a long-term goal for Casey. Although it was infinitely harder without wings with which to take advantage of magically-manipulated air currents, they had been assured by some of the other dragonaughts that it was completely possible with practice and determination. Right now, they were fairly focused on more basic things.

Still, seeing someone else hovering in the air near the lobby was basically like a dream come true. Not anything very romantic, but a confirmation of a hope, and they were grinning without even realizing. They'd stopped, they'd stared, and they were definitely trying to run it over in their head how it was being done.

[edgeoftheknife]

Bystanders were a fact of life when one was trying to learn to fly indoors in a public area. Erskine had found that people stopped to stare much more frequently when Skulduggery was with him--because really, who could resist staring at a flying skeleton?--but even so, the concept of someone watching him wasn't a new one.

Still, it didn't take much for Erskine's magic to falter during the exercise, and not because of the fog that was dampening magic all over the city. Air magic wasn't meant for flying. In four hundred years, Skulduggery was the only sorcerer Erskine had ever known to accomplish the feat. It had required a radical shift in thinking for Erskine to even start approaching it himself, and after a few weeks of practice he was barely able to stay aloft for a minute at a time without falling back to the ground.

Such as now. Erskine caught movement in the corner of his eye, and when he turned to face the young man--woman?--he stopped concentrating on his magic. And fell down to the floor of the lobby with an unceremonious thump, his quick reflexes meaning that at least he landed on his feet, hard, rather than his rear end.

[dragonaught]

The man dropped, and Casey startled. He seemed okay, but it was obvious they had been a distraction to him. Not exactly good for their wish to observe, but perhaps it wasn't meant to be any sort of public show; trying to use magic outside of the Hotel and its wards was nigh on impossible right now.

"I'm sorry!" they said, more meek than it probably warranted. With their own magic being so unreliable, they were just a bit more on edge than usual. "I didn't mean to break your concentration..."

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine took a moment to catch his balance after the fall, his hands tossed out to his sides, then slowly straightened back up. He tossed a quick, slight smile in the stranger's direction and then turned his gaze downward, brushing the lines of his suit smooth with quick, practiced strokes.

"Not your fault," he said quietly, shaking his head a little. "It doesn't take much to get distracted, doing this. You wouldn't believe how stupidly hard this is."

A considering pause. One of his eyebrows arched, though he still wasn't actually making eye contact. His gaze was focused somewhere halfway between them, still mostly downward. "Unless you fly. Then I suppose you might believe it."

[dragonaught]

Casey watched politely, and let themself calm at seeing how unruffled the other man was despite the fall. It was a familiar sentiment, the difficulty of using a magic that wasn't meant for this, wasn't meant for them to use. It was an automatic thought, that a human using air magic wasn't supposed to be using it at all, and Casey didn't even question it for now.

"I've been wanting to try," they said, nodding. "I still can't quite control the airflow in general..."

[edgeoftheknife]

The reaction met with some amount of surprise from Erskine; his other eyebrow arched to meet the first, although only for a moment before he nodded knowingly. He still doggedly avoided making eye contact. "That's the trouble, isn't it? Gliding or jumping, no problem. Done it a thousand times. Levitating someone else? Piece of cake. But flying? I swear to God, if I hadn't seen Skulduggery do it with my own eyes...."

Without any more warning, Erskine held his hands down at his sides, palms outward, and jumped straight upward. At the top of the arc his magic kicked in, holding him aloft, and he slowly flew back up to his previous position in the air between the floors.

After a moment he looked back down. "You're an Elemental, then?"

[dragonaught]

Casey moved when Erskine shot back into the air. That was incredible. Even if the others had shown them some of their own practiced flight, it was somehow different seeing another human do the same thing, here in this strange place. They wanted to do it themself, so badly, but wondered at the amount of practice it would take.

"Um," they said eloquently. It wasn't quite the same thing, but Casey had an idea what the question entailed. They nodded up to Erskine, automatically looking to make eye contact through the odd positioning. "I'm... it's called a dragonaught where I'm from. I can use earth, my native element, and fire, and air. Only recently—I was only told recently I could use those last two."

[edgeoftheknife]

Dragonaught. Erskine was sure there was probably an explanation that went along with that--it was a much more specific term than "Elemental," or at least it sounded like it to him. He'd have to remember to ask... when he wasn't trying to keep from cracking his skull on the floor below him.

He hovered for a while longer, quiet, absorbing that information. It was easier to fly and do something else, like try to think about someone else's magic, when he did it slowly. Easier to concentrate on both.

Earth, fire and air.... "No water?" Not truly an analog of an Elemental, then.

[dragonaught]

The term was definitely more complicated than just someone who used elements, although for Casey's world it was what the slang had dumbed down into. Most people treated the term with irreverence no matter how rare the actual phenomena was.

For the question, Casey dipped their head momentarily. "No water. I tried for that," they said as if for explanation. "But being a dragonaught just means you can use your native element, fire, and then... maybe the two others. It depends."

mid-late Jan

[gistful]

It's early one morning, even before Anton's usual rising time, that he wakes up to the sound of music. That isn't unusual in itself, except that this isn't a record, and Erskine isn't in bed with him.

The sound seems more distant than it should, and it takes Anton a minute to realise it's coming from the bathroom. He'd think Erskine is talking to someone, except that the sound isn't a conversation. It's a hymn, without music.

A hymn in a voice that sounds familiar enough to make Anton's heart skip.

He slides out of bed and goes to the doorway, barely cracked open, to see what Erskine's doing inside.

[edgeoftheknife]

It isn't Erskine that's visible first in the crack of the doorway. It's Hopeless.

The figure is sitting, leaning back against the far wall of the bathroom with one leg outstretched and the other bent. His hair is longer than most modern men wear it, approaching chin length, but not quite long enough to be a detriment at war--and Hopeless is very obviously straight out of the war. There's a fine shadow of red stubble on his chin and cheeks, and the style of his clothing, a basic white undershirt and trousers, is straight out of the nineteenth century. It looks like something they would have worn to sleep in, during the war.

And he's singing. Softly, the hymn sounding more like a lullaby than a prayer. He doesn't look up as Anton comes to the door, doesn't acknowledge that anyone else is in the room or nearby, but there's another sound just barely audible under the sound of singing. It's the sound of weeping.

[gistful]

For a moment Anton freezes, and the familiarity in the song is instantly apparent. It's just been so very long since Anton heard Hopeless singing, which he did often; nearly as often as Larrikin, though often for different reasons. For some moments Anton is too spellbound to move; he just watches and listens, with an ache in his chest that has very little to do with the gist.

Then, finally, Anton remembers that Hopeless's hologram wouldn't be here without someone else causing it to be; and, finally, he hears the sound of crying.

Quietly Anton pushes open the door a little further, but he doesn't pause. He enters, and without a word kneels to wrap his arms around Erskine. Anton had told Erskine, once, that all he'd done had been in Hopeless's name and demeaned it; but he wondered, now, whether Erskine had acknowledged that fact at last.

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine had been huddled behind the door, just far enough away that Anton was able to squeeze through the doorway around him. He sat wordlessly staring at the hologram, the back of one hand pressed to his mouth, the weeping audible only because it was the only other sound in the quiet of the early morning.

When Anton kneels beside him he doesn't speak, just curls up quietly in his arms and leans his head against Anton's shoulder, still staring at the image on the far wall. A hundred years. It's been a hundred years since he's seen that face, heard that voice. Hopeless had died long before photographs were widespread, and they'd been too busy during the war to sit for one. To see him here now, as if he were alive, sitting in the room with them....

Finally he turns his head and buries his face against Anton's shoulder, holding his breath to try to stifle the tears.

[gistful]

Where did Erskine get an Echo Stone? Had Hopeless even imprinted on one before his death? Surely if he had, they would have known. If anyone could have found an artefact so rare in war, it would be Hopeless.

But Anton doesn't voice those thoughts. He runs his fingers through Erskine's hair. "Shhhhhh." It's the same sound Hopeless had used. Anton tapped the side of Erskine's head. "Don't fight it. There's no shame in grieving."

[edgeoftheknife]

The familiar sound only makes Erskine clam up more. It's a comforting sound, or in theory it should be, and he's sure Anton's used it before. It didn't hurt so bad before. Now, with the shade of Hopeless so close and his voice in their ears, it hurts like hell.

It's the tap that does it, funny enough. Anton's sat with him through enough panic attacks by now that Erskine recognizes the tap almost as well as the sound. It's what Anton uses to count his breaths out, to work him through the panic and get him back to some semblance of an even keel. This time it forces a breath out, and with that breath comes a sob, and then he's weeping into Anton's shirt as he's done too many times since his arrival so many months ago now.

The Echo Stone is clearly imperfect. Were it a functioning stone, Hopeless wouldn't just be singing, he'd be talking to them. He'd be fully sentient, an exact replica of their friend. Instead he continues singing for a moment longer, and then the image wavers, and then Hopeless is standing. He's wearing a different outfit, something more appropriate for a fight, and he's half turned and laughing at something or someone behind him. A conversation remembered but only brought back to life in part.

[gistful]

Almost the moment Erskine cringes, Anton realises the sound was a bad idea. He doesn't go there again. He strokes Erskine's hair, and instead of the ocean-wave shush he murmurs in old Irish, telling a story he can only remember distantly telling to his younger siblings, and because Larrikin had told it after that.

He cradles Erskine and watches the image of the Echo Stone waver, and it makes his heart ache in a manner unrelated to the gist. It's almost a taunt, for Hopeless to be so imprinted, and yet so marred. So incapable of seeing them.

"--counts as 'courtly'," Hopeless was saying.

"It was exceedingly courtly, thank you," Anton murmurs in the empty space of the response. Skulduggery's, it had been. And then it had been Ghastly, exasperated and amused. "It was a wig with curls and powder in it, Skulduggery. There was nothing courtly about it." And then Rover's light protest. "Oy, I like those wigs."

"No," said Hopeless, his lips compressing.

"You didn't even wait to hear was I was going to say," Anton said in a credible facsimile of his friend.

"I would not look good in one of those wigs, Rover."

[edgeoftheknife]

Those conversations. There had been a thousand of them over the years, so many silly moments between the eight of them to break up the grim business of war. To keep them all sane, or at least close enough to work with. Yet for all of those moments, each memorable in its own way and yet most of them fleeting, this one stands out. So much so that Anton can remember what each of them said, and as Hopeless delivers his last line Erskine mouths the words along with him, against Anton's shirt. It's enough to make some small part of him wonder, vaguely, if the Echo Stone hadn't been imprinted from his own memories, or Anton's or Skulduggery's, or maybe some combination of all of them. The collective memories of brothers missing their own.

But for all of that, as Erskine mouths the last of Hopeless's words there's the first trace of laughter mixing in with the tears. It had been such a ridiculous conversation, like so many of them. Skulduggery and Ghastly playing off of one another. Hopeless playing the straight man even as his mouth compressed into that little smile of his. Rover being... Rover. Erskine can almost picture them all. Where they'd been standing. What they'd been wearing. How Rover looked when he pouted. Ghosts, but ghosts more beloved than most of the living.

Finally Erskine's shoulders are shaking with nearly silent laughter.

[gistful]

That Erskine could still be capable of laughter was a very, very good thing, and it made Anton's shoulders relax a bit. There was even a hint of a smile on his face as he said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Rover not, in fact, manager to get all of us into one of those wigs at one time or another?"

He wasn't wrong. He knew he wasn't wrong.

A | Early Jan

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery gave some very serious thought to ending the weekly flying lessons after the stunt Erskine pulled with Solomon over Christmas. But that, he knew, would be petty, and only temporarily satisfying. Even with the oppressive fog in the air as a custom-tailored excuse, it was a slippery path which would inevitably end at another fight in the streets, and Skulduggery wasn't anxious to be chained back to Erskine for another month.

So they moved the next lesson into the Hotel, and Skulduggery arrives a few minutes past the agreed-upon time to find Erskine levitating in the air between the first and second floors.

"Hello," he says from the ground floor looking up, as though this is a perfectly normal thing to see. "Enjoying yourself?"

[edgeoftheknife]

Somehow Erskine manages not to drop out of the air like a stone when Skulduggery catches his attention. Maybe it's simply because he's expecting the dead man (has been for a while, though he's lost track of the time himself and isn't even aware that Skulduggery is a little late). Maybe it's the long years of familiarity.

If so, and if Erskine were thinking any clearer, he might have taken that as a good sign. That he can be a little surprised by Skulduggery without feeling the need to panic. That panic and that level of animosity aren't quite the kneejerk reaction they used to be.

"Better than last time," he says mildly. "I haven't fallen on my arse yet."

The hard floor of the lobby, it should be noted, is a good deterrent for falling.

Erskine even manages to turn in midair, moving himself back and down a little to get a better look at Skulduggery. The movement, without faltering or failing entirely, brings a slight smile to his face.

[skeletonenigma]

"That is an improvement," Skulduggery says with a nod. "You've been practicing."

It's not a question. Skulduggery hasn't been around Erskine long enough in between lessons to see for himself, but he knows how difficult even levitating can be. Levitating an object apart from you is hard enough, particularly in places where the air isn't still; levitating yourself takes a level of concentration usually broken by even the smallest of interruptions.

So the fact that Skulduggery can talk to Erskine without his losing height? Very promising.

"You can get from the second floor to the first," Skulduggery says. "Now let's see if you can get from the first to the second. Gaining height is a little different. You need to pay attention to it on top of everything else I've already told you, rather like driving a car or riding a bike. Come down here."

[edgeoftheknife]

He had indeed been practicing. Erskine was a bit of a perfectionist, truth be told; he didn't like doing anything he couldn't do well, with the possible exception of cleaning the Midnight Hotel... although scrubbing toilets wasn't exactly by choice, either. Besides, now that he was learning to fly it had become a point of pride. Not only was it a thing the Elementals back home couldn't do, short of Skulduggery, but it was Skulduggery teaching him to do it. He was going to figure this out, and he was going to do it well.

Unfortunately, something Skulduggery said caught his attention, and not in a good way. He'd been hovering a good five feet off the floor while they chatted. Now--right after Skulduggery told him to come down here, as a matter of fact--Erskine dropped like a stone. He didn't even have the wherewithal to catch himself on his feet, instead landing right square on his arse with a yelp and an immediate wince.

"Bloody--" He laid down on the floor of the Hotel, curled up on his side, and glared balefully up at the skeleton.

"Like driving a car, eh? Have I mentioned I can't drive?"

[skeletonenigma]

There was a brief, startled pause while Skulduggery stared down at Erskine on the floor. "You can't drive?" he asked, neatly answering the question without any intention to do so. "Why not?"

Skulduggery himself had learned as soon as it became clear cars weren't going to be just a passing phase. The Bentley's upkeep was expensive, yes, but still cheaper than the idea of hailing a cab whenever Skulduggery needed to get somewhere. Was that what Erskine did? Or did he own a bicycle?

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine groaned--he was still in pretty damned good shape, all things considered, but he wasn't as young as he once was and this was going to ache like hell come tomorrow. After a moment of not answering, just laying on the floor, he finally levered himself back up to his feet, his movements a bit stiff.

"Because every time I've tried I've crashed the bloody car," he replied, a little archly, as he brushed himself off. "After a certain number of cars it becomes prohibitively expensive to keep trying." If he didn't have to mention the fact that he couldn't stop himself from paying attention to everything in his peripheral vision, trying to react to everything and not just the road, he wasn't going to. The reasons for the handicap, such as it was, were fairly obvious and certainly not his fault, but not being able to drive in the modern world took a bit of spinning to not be seen as extremely weird. "Besides, I happen to like taxis."