[Midnight Hotel] Fourth-wall catch-all; 15-30 April 2016

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: 15-30th April, 2016 (2017 in-game).
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!

Once more, it seems, the Dreaming has seen fit to lure in temporary residents. Luckily, the Hotel and its kedanese staff have done this before -- even accounting for the fact that it isn't exactly usual. If this goes on, they may start to predict the event!

It takes a day or so to sort things out, but once sorted the Hotel breaks out the same sleeping-bags as they had last time, and set aside as many areas of the common-room and even the lobby as sleeping areas. Any spare bed-rooms are also filled to the brim, though there aren't many of those these days.

The Hotel, like some of the other buildings around Keeliai, displays some occasional damage of the explosion-that-wasn't; in fact, seems to show it more obviously than most other places. Mostly it's cracks in frames or the smell of smoke in random areas, or some loose shingles; the worst that happens is the plumbing may be a bit unreliable until the wards can right themselves.

As before, Mr Shudder lets Foreigners without a soul-gem stay for free, as long as they follow the rules--which they are told upon entry. (Most notably, that's the 'no violence' rule.) Luckily, the new walk-in restaurant function means there's plenty to eat for everyone, and the cooking staff are on overtime this fortnight to make sure everyone is provided for.

Strangely, Mr Shudder himself is scarce for these two weeks. He does drop by in the evenings to make sure things are progressing well, but if anyone asks all he'll say is that some old friends have arrived and he and Erskine are helping them out elsewhere in the city. Anton will be around if anything untoward happens--but for the most part management is performed either by Anton's kedanese staff, or by Klaus von Reinherz.


[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.]

Comments

[edgeoftheknife]

God, Erskine had missed Ghastly.

He'd missed the others as well, of course--Hopeless was something else altogether and had been for a century--but it struck Erskine as the other man hugged him just how much he'd missed him. He'd missed that easy camaraderie they'd had in the Sanctuary. Missed being around someone so purely, simply good, no matter how much it hurt to do so, made Erskine loathe his own reflection by comparison. How funny, he thought, that the 'ugly' one could be such a good man inside and he, Erskine, could be so ugly.

One more of life's little bitter ironies, he supposed.

"All right," he said at last. He stood like that for another handful of heartbeats, his arms around Ghastly but still a bit in shock, before finally caving. His head bowed, his face tucked against Ghastly's shoulder and his eyes shut tight.

"I'm so sorry." The words were small and quiet and in no way reflected the force of the grief behind them.

[shopworn]

"I know." That had, Ghastly reflected, maybe been unworthy of him. There was a vast contrast between I am sorry, my friend and this, Erskine turning his face into Ghastly's shoulder like Ghastly could block out the world. Here, in this moment, Ghastly didn't doubt it at all, despite everything that had come first.

Sorry didn't make him less dead. But here, and now, in this little time they had, it salved something, maybe.

He sighed, and one hand came up to mess Erskine's hair. "I know," he repeated, gentler this time. "I don't understand, and I think you're an idiot, but--"

Erskine hadn't deserved what happened to him, either. This wasn't how things should be. But it was what they had.

"...I don't hate you."

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine had never sought, nor even hoped for, forgiveness. What he'd done was beyond forgiveness, no matter that Anton had seemed to think otherwise. No matter that Hopeless still had faith in him. He'd simply never considered that Dexter or Saracen or especially Ghastly would be able to look past what he'd done. No one who'd been there, who'd lived through that time, would be willing to forgive that.

To that end, anyone without context might not see the words 'I don't hate you' as anything to write home about. To Erskine even that little bit was more than he'd expected of Ghastly. He managed not to flinch again when he felt Ghastly move, and the hand messing his hair actually drew something like a smile even though it was lost against Ghastly's shoulder.

Was there anything he could possibly say that might help the situation, help clear up why he'd done what he'd done? Erskine didn't think so--I was tortured and I was in love with Hopeless and I lost the only thing keeping me anchored didn't seem incredibly appropriate in the face of the brother he'd murdered. He absolutely owed Ghastly any explanations he could give, but... maybe he'd wait until they were asked for, specifically.

Instead he breathed a little huff of a laugh against the fabric of Ghastly's suit jacket. "I'll take it," he said, his voice rusty. "And I suppose I deserve that 'idiot' bit." He snaked one hand up between them to grind the heel of his palm against his eyes, brushing away whatever wetness had managed to form there, before attempting to pull back and away from Ghastly. "Anton does seem to delight in reminding me of it."

[shopworn]

You were right, Ghastly thought, very loudly, as he was assuming Hopeless was still within mindshot of them. It was a resigned, but appreciative sort of thought. With that handled he turned his mind back to Erskine, and pretended he didn't see Erskine brushing the wetness from his eyes.

He almost didn't let Erskine go. It was easier than he'd thought it would be, hugging him, and some part of Ghastly didn't want to lose that. But he did let Erskine draw back after a moment, though he left his hands on Erskine's shoulders and studied, really simply looked at Erskine, trying to erase that death-cloaked memory of his face in favor of something better.

What a sight they must make.

"He'll have to remind you of it for me, too," Ghastly said finally, opting for something lighter. At least for the moment. It would take far longer than they had for things to truly be all right. But he didn't hate Erskine, and both of them had that solidly, and everything else would follow, wouldn't it? "Erskine, I--"

But he found he didn't know what to say. What could he say, here? Hopeless had said starting would be the difficult part, but he'd neglected to mention that the rest of it would also probably be incredibly awkward.

[edgeoftheknife]

What a sight indeed. Erskine still struggled to look Ghastly in the face, especially so close and feeling Ghastly's eyes on him, but he managed not to pull himself out of that grasp right away. He settled for focusing somewhere around the area of Ghastly's lapel, breathing slow and even and standing, resigned, under that gaze. Resigned but not as anxious as he'd been. Almost at peace--almost. Anton had forgiven him. Hopeless believed there was still a good man in him, somewhere. Ghastly didn't hate him.

Yes, he would take this. Even this little bit was so much more than he'd had.

"Don't worry," he said with something approaching a wry smile, picking up the slack when Ghastly faltered for something to say. "You'll have a few more days to say it, at least. Toss it randomly into conversations. 'Erskine, hand me that hammer would you, you idiot?'"

He looked up, finally, meeting Ghastly's gaze with a tentative smile. Was he allowed to smile? "Come on, before things get too soppy and you start confessing your repressed feelings for me. Let's get some tea or something."

[shopworn]

Better the smile, than the alternative. Ghastly tried something roughly equivalent, found he remembered what it felt like to smile at Erskine, even if only tentatively. "I'm sure I'll find some time to work it in," he said. "Maybe I can borrow Anton's tablet and record it, just in case."

He thought about the offer of tea for a moment. There was a reflexive urge to joke, dusty but apparently still in working order for all that it hurt a little when the joints screeched. (Ghastly had lost the metaphor a little, but the point stood.) "Ravel," he said finally, dry, "you're far too pretty for me. Try to contain your disappointment."

Possibly they should talk more seriously. Ghastly couldn't quite bring himself to raise the topic. Tea and awkward joking it was, then.

[edgeoftheknife]

It wasn't the most clever of comebacks, nor certainly the most original (seriously, like he'd never heard that one before), but the simple fact that Ghastly was willing to try to joke was the important part. The vast majority of the Dead Men used humor to hide their pain, which admittedly wasn't healthy, but when a Dead Man wasn't even capable of joking it was a bad, bad sign. Erskine's smile settled a little more comfortably on his face at that, and he shrugged lightly.

"That's alright, I--"

And then he paused, noticeably, because no iteration of any joke he could think of in this situation was safe in any way. Certainly nothing that sprang right to mind. The only possibly safe retort might be something about Hopeless taking pity on him, and Erskine wasn't sure he wanted to disturb that lovely little bright spot in his life just yet.

He shook his head, just slightly. The smile had faded but hadn't disappeared completely. "Come on, let's hit the kitchen. Anton's got some new teas in there, I think." Erskine moved one foot to take a step toward the kitchen, slowly, waiting to see if Ghastly was going to let him go.


((continued here))