[Midnight Hotel] February catch-all

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of February, 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!

This month the Hotel’s wards are back up to snuff, thanks to the fog being blown off. Notably, the main doors open into all sectors once more – which is a relief to anyone who made a habit of using the Hotel for a shortcut. As always, the windows and garage doors still only open into Central.

There’s a sizeable flow of traffic in and out, mostly due to visitors from Hatal and their curiosity. Apparently it’s gotten around that the Hotel is magical and a common location for Foreigners and odd things, and as a result there’s a bit of a ‘tourist’ feel in the Hotel this month. Foreigners may find themselves being treated as novelties and asked to do magic, even if they aren't magical. The igheeri seem mostly interested in critiquing the architecture (for which they are too tall) and the sinayg can be found trying to listen to the magic in the walls (the exact sound of which is apparently a subject of hot debate), while the muin just seem to want to immerse themselves in the ‘culture’.

About mid-month Anton will toss out and ban a group of five Jagaiz fighters, to the surprise of no one who’s seen them for more than five minutes. They’re all the sort which are good enough at fighting to think they’re the best even though none of them are champions; low-grade braggers and bullies, essentially. Other, politer Jagaiz fighters who visit, if asked, will confirm that their lot isn’t particularly well-liked and their means of gaining sponsorship is a bit suspect.

None of the five suffer more than a few broken bones (and a concussion), and the loss of a few cheap items they forfeited by being forcibly shown the door.

Otherwise, for the observant, much of the furniture has been ‘labelled’ with small English or Chinese engravings in unobtrusive places – courtesy of River. Visitors from Hatal apparently find this ‘culture’ of naming possessions ‘delightful’. In other news, there’s a new kedan by the name of Dardul permanently residing at the Hotel. He’s a bit vacant with obvious memory issues, and is liable to forget people who talk to him; he’s regularly visited by Milyn and is under the care of another permanent resident, Malcil, who seems to prefer not to talk much with strangers himself.

In other other news, Anton can be seen wearing a colourful party hat all day on the 7th of the month, with bonus party tooter in his jacket pocket which he will absolutely use to greet Erskine every time they talk (while wearing a very bland expression).

[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

[hellboundheart]

John Constantine was a nasty piece of work, something he'd claim to anyone. He liked to hide under the guise of being a slovenly arse with a smart mouth. That small look of surprise was met with a mild smile on John's part as if he expected that.

That twitching on Erskine's part was noted as well. Wasn't unusual though as far as John had seen. Any mention of a war or battle or - well, any of the historical questions John had put to the natives on the turtle had been met with the same. But here was the heart of it that no one else had named as if afraid to.

"Mmm."

Noncommittal and bland, not pushing for what he wanted to know. It was a trap John had used for a long time, charm to pull a person in and then find out what he wanted. Of the war from Erskine's world, he knew absolutely nothing.

"Regular people don't ever know much about what's going on. Some that do learn it go insane from that knowledge. Seen it too many times."

Commiseration or a sly conman trying to reel in was up to Erskine to decide.

"Malicant. Mevolent. Sounds a lot alike if you ask me."

With that, he put out his cigarette and lit another while pulling out his hipflask. This required a drink.

"Connected or no?"

[edgeoftheknife]

"No."

Erskine shook his head, letting the folds out of the rag he was toying with by shaking it out a little, careful not to shake too hard lest the dust fly everywhere and make more work for him. He still focused on those motions, the rag and his hands, instead of looking right at Constantine. "It's a coincidence. Because they were both evil bastards--or at least I assume Malicant was. I didn't know him. Mevolent certainly was, but he's dead. It took us more than two hundred years but we beat him."

He turned back to the light fixture he'd been working on, still facing John enough to remain part of the conversation, but letting his hands move to clean to keep them occupied. "Let's hope Mevolent never makes it here. Believe me, no one wants that."

The line of his jaw tightened as he said that last part, and he swallowed hard. He'd spent enough time with Mevolent, both during the war and in his nightmares.

"You sound like a conspiracy theorist. If you really want to know the dark things going on in the city, I'd try Valdis. She knows a lot more than I do."

[hellboundheart]

"Ever hear of the idea of synchronicity? Interesting concept that."

John doubted the former Grand Mage had. Few people traveled that highway, but John believed that it often brought him to the right place at the right time even if he didn't understand the reason why. Just because he didn't know the reason now didn't mean that there wasn't one. The names were close enough for him. Right or wrong, he had to ask and look into both.

The fact that Erskine wasn't looking at him didn't help much. He stayed quiet and let the Grand Mage speak. Two hundred years. Two hundred fucking years. He didn't have that long. No one he knew that was human did. All the little signs of stress blazed in front of him.

"Valdis. I will. Do you not look at me because you're afraid of what I could do or out of habit? You magical war with this Mevolent fought with mind magic?"

That was John's style. Get a person on one top and switch to another like a sly dagger between the ribs.

[edgeoftheknife]

"I... don't think I have, no. Or at least not in the way it sounds like you mean it."

Mind magic.

Erskine did look at him then, partially out of sheer surprise, and couldn't manage to hide the flinch in time. It didn't escape him that most of the Foreigners probably knew he had... issues. The fire last year had been proof enough of that, even if they didn't notice his odd habits. Hiding. Forgetting things--even during his few network posts, sometimes. But rarely was he called out on it. A moment of panic gripped him before he took a deep breath and chose to answer the second question instead.

"We had a few mind mages in the war, but that wasn't the bulk of it, no. It was a real war, the way you see them in films. Trenches. Explosions. Carrying a fucking heavy pack for miles in the mud and the rain, and then not being able to sleep because the things wailing outside your camp are curdling your blood and turning your insides to water."

Erskine hadn't told anyone this much about the war since coming to Keeliai--or at least not this side of it. "Our unit was black-ops. The Dead Men, they called us. We were the idiots that signed up for the suicide missions, and we kept coming back alive."

[hellboundheart]

The subject of synchronicity was let go easily. He hadn't expected Erskine to understand. John often wasn't sure that he did himself.

A calm steady gaze met the former Grand Mage's reaction, face carefully blank of any emotion. That didn't mean he wasn't watching oh so carefully. He'd been through Newcastle, had seen what it had done to him and the other survivors. Ritchie came to mind first with his pills and data-mining to try and forget the horrors. When Erskine drew in that deep breath, John didn't have to guess why.

There was a moment there when John knew he'd uncovered something he could use later if needed, and he hated himself a little for it even as he listened. This was a territory later that he could press down on and maybe cause a break. For the first time in awhile, Constantine found himself hoping it would never come to that.

"Must have been pretty horrible. Humans killing humans never changes much over the years. But you made it through relatively intact. Why suicide missions?" he asked in a quiet even voice. Some people found it comforting when John lowered his tones, smoothed it out.

[edgeoftheknife]

"Someone had to do it," said Erskine with a slight shrug. His gaze lowered again, no longer meeting Constantine's directly, and after a moment he focused again on the light fixture on the wall. "We were young. The war was our life, we couldn't escape it. Someone had to take the crazy risks and we were all a little crazy." If there was a note of wistfulness there, Erskine didn't bother to hide it. For all that it had been a war, one of the most terrible times in all of their lives, any one of them would go back in a heartbeat to the way it was. All of them alive, together.

Finally, though he still tended to shy away from direct eye contact, even Erskine had to admit that the damned light fixture was as clean and shiny as it was going to get. He started folding the rag again, keeping his hands preoccupied, and leaned back against the wall so that he was facing John.

"What about you, Mr. Constantine? I've noticed you ask a lot of questions and don't say much about yourself. That's the way this usually works, you know. I offer something about myself, and you do the same, and we decide individually whether the other is too much of an arse to keep talking to." He smirked, just a little. "So what's your story?"

[hellboundheart]

"Young, dumb and brave. Best combination for those who would die for their beliefs or freedom."

While he might not seem it, John Constantine could be patient and wait out someone as he was doing with Erskine. He wanted those eyes to meet his own, to know what he might be able to see there. A man who avoided such was either scarred deeply with PTSD (as might be with Erskine's story) or lying about something.

That question brought his easygoing, buying the drinks on someone else's tab at last call smile back. The calm even voice that had been trying to become a potentially hypnotic state faded back to his usual tones.

"My story? Not much to it, mate. I'm the bigger bastard of us. I'm a nasty piece of work. Ask anyone."

He was also often the last man standing. But why ruin a good false image like that?

[edgeoftheknife]

"Or the lives of everyone on the planet, as the case may be. And we were the best."

A statement of fact, not a boast. There was a reason the Dead Men were legends back home--not the kind of legends shrouded by the mists of time, but actual, living and breathing war heroes. The kind that made people abandon their own causes rather than have to run up against them.

He'd made fleeting eye contact a few times before, never for very long, but every impression John should have been getting was one of sincerity. There was trauma there, yes, and what little he'd told Constantine was only scraping the surface, but there were no overt falsehoods. And yet at that last part Erskine finally did look up, an eyebrow arching as he looked right at John.

"Ask anyone? I'm asking you. And yet you haven't told me anything."

Erskine's expression, usually one of vague unease or anxiety, shifted then. It wasn't that he was forcing a new, false demeanor so much as forcing the current one back. The smirk he gave John was easy. Charming. The face--pretty as it was--of a long-time con-man. Erskine had been charming people, much in the same way that John did, for hundreds of years before Constantine was born. "You're the bigger bastard? I don't believe you. But it's cute that you think that."

[hellboundheart]

"Not going to debate that given what I've seen of you two."

The switch was mildly concerning. Anyone John had seen shift that fast had been fellow conmen, possessed people or those deciding to drop the game in order to get down to business. Which technically could also be the first. Technically. Or all three.

And a pretty face, pleasing as they were, often had bad things behind them. But damn if he wasn't a sucker for them.

"Just repeating what others tell me. I'm not that interesting, Mr Grand Mage of Ireland. Just me. Exorcist, demonologist and petty dabbler in the dark arts. You're far above me. But I have to wonder what a Grand Mage who was in this suicide squad with Soul-Shiver is doing as a houseboy for him. I've heard your excuse, and I don't know if it works for me, mate. Not all of it adds up for me, especially with Room 24."

John hated feeling around in the dark for a clue in something, when he couldn't draw a line from A to B. Coincidence was the enemy. He was here. Why? Why in this place with people who seemed high up on the power scale. Mentioning Room 24 was a last ditch to try and get a response from the other man.

[edgeoftheknife]

"'Not that interesting--'" echoed Erskine, "--says the man who knows angels and demons. If that's not interesting, I'd hate to see your definition of the word." Constantine was dodging the question again, of course, but Erskine couldn't bring himself to be surprised. He knew all about secrets. The fact that Constantine was unwilling to share even the slightest bit of information, no matter how inconsequential, was the part that intrigued him. What kind of a person was so guarded that they couldn't be bothered to hide the secrets with a few meaningless anecdotes or factoids, but felt the need to redirect every time?

"Room 24?" Erskine frowned, his eyebrows knitting together. "What does Room 24 have to do with anything?" Constantine was fishing for information, obviously, but Erskine couldn't follow the train of thought--and he wasn't entirely sure if it was because Constantine was being subtle or because his, Erskine's, head wasn't working right anymore. Either was equally likely.

"If you have a question, Mr Constantine, why don't you just ask it?"