apocalypsehowcomm | Happy Birthday to Meeerrrrrreeeeeeeeee [Open Mingle]

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Happy Birthday to Meeerrrrrreeeeeeeeee [Open Mingle]

Who: The residents of ADI Apt B1 and YOU.
When: January 18th, from early evening onward.
Where: Apartment B1 at the ADI complex.
Summary: Tim Drake discovered Meredith Idlewild's birthday is today (by snooping in her stuff) and her boys decided to throw her a little surprise celebration since she, you know, looks after them and shit. Ofc neither of them knows how to do that, really, so Malcolm has recruited Neal Caffrey as Party Planner.
Warnings: To be added as necessary but none to start.

Thanks to Neal's intervention, the party Malcolm and Tim are throwing for Meredith is very nice, with tasteful decorations and good wine, alongside fancy finger foods and even fancier cocktails. Neal mans the 'bar' personally, mixing drinks for anyone who'd like to try one.

Malcolm and Tim will try to be social. It's for Meredith.

They did use Tim's connections, too. He recruited Jeff to slip invites onto people's desks if they work at ADI and take some over to Bonnie's. Meredith deserves maximum appreciation. The invites instructed everyone not to say anything to Meredith. When she comes home, it's meant to surprise her.

Early evening: SURPRISE!
When Meredith gets home, get ready to shout!

Mid-evening
Mix, mingle, eat and drink.

Late-evening
Your hosts will arrange a cab if you can't make it home; they already have a police lieutenant sleeping on their couch and tonight has been a lot of peopling for them. If they need to carry you down there... they're more capable of it than their slight frames would suggest.

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Jaeger gives Malcolm a nod of greeting, shrugging out of his long black wool coat and letting the other man take it. He has the air of someone calm and professional, blue-gray eyes taking in the details of his surroundings, and when he speaks his voice is very quiet, a low rasp of damaged vocal cords.

Then again, he doesn't seem the sort who needs to raise his voice often.

"Thank you. It's nice to meet you. Andrew Jaeger, I'm a friend. And...Investigations. I think I've seen you at orientation meetings, but we've never been introduced." A quick twitch of a smile, reserved but friendly enough.

Malcolm nods. “Yeah, I show up to meetings, but… their investigations aren’t really… my cup of tea. And I’ve been going through some stuff,” he admits. “How are you finding it?”

The smile gets a little steadier, though a bit mournful.

"We've had some difficult times, particularly in the past couple of months. But I'm used to a very intense, demanding line of work, so I've adapted as best I can."

He's not going to talk about Halloween, or the horrors of the bug-infested warehouse. This is a nice party and Malcolm is a nice man and Jaeger prefers to leave his work behind when he leaves the office. Not that it's always possible, but he tries.

"It's work that I'm used to, though, and there's something comforting about that, I suppose. Knowing that it's familiar and that I'm good at it."

“You investigate supernatural crimes?” Malcolm asks. “In your world?”

Jaeger gives a short nod. "I do. I spent a long time doing it professionally for a private organization, then later, freelance. A lot of protection work for both people and artifacts, investigation, handling and neutralizing dangerous situations and items. I had to be...very flexible, which serves me well here." If anyone is well-suited to the work they're doing at ADI, it's Jaeger, and he takes some comfort in that. Familiar ground, even though he's learning to do it without his own magical abilities.

"Dangerous items? Like the ones they send us to collect here?" Malcolm clarifies.

"A similar sort of thing, yes. It's not always cursed items, but I've seen enough of them that this is a familiar sort of work." The slightest twitch of smile at the corner of his mouth. He knows it's pretty damn strange that he's landed into such similar circumstances, but at least he knows how to be useful. "Security, transport, risk assessment, documentation...whatever approach the situation requires."

"Was the adjustment to this place easy for you, then? You haven't had any... problems adapting?" Malcolm asks.

It's a lot of questions, but they're good, thoughtful ones, and Jaeger finds he doesn't mind so much. "In some ways, it's helpful to be familiar with the work, and comfortable with the general, ah, corporate atmosphere. But I can't use magic here, which makes it difficult in other ways."

It's a little strange openly admitting he's a mage, but he's started to get used to that part, at least. It's so much more of an open topic here, even in spite of the strict limitations on actual use.

"I wouldn't call it 'easy', but I've...probably done better than most, here, getting used to things." He tilts his head in slight acknowledgement of the fact.

Malcolm's interest is clearly piqued by that remark.

"Magic? You use magic at home and you've refrained here?" He glances around and leans closer. "How do you... not use it? I have some friends who are struggling with not using their magic."

"I have." He gives a short nod. "It hasn't been easy, because it's like another sense to me. An extension of myself. But I understand the consequences of using magic here are very dire, so I've done my best to refrain."

He shifts his weight, and glances around as if uneasy to be talking about this openly. Which he is, a little bit. "Discipline, focus, and using other skills in place of my abilities has helped. Also, I think it's important to note that certain powers are warped here. They don't work the way they're intended to, and come with bizarre and dangerous side effects."

It's easier to choose another option when there's the distinct possibility that your first choice would bite you in the ass in an impressively horrible way.

"What if... what if their powers are warped but they're... kind of okay with that?" Malcolm asks.

Jaeger can't help but frown at that.

"That seems like it might be a bad sign, then." He rubs his palm over the leg of his jeans absently. "Well. Rather. It could be a bad sign. Some people can adapt with alterations to their abilities. That's fine, that's the sign of both confidence and control." Sometimes, abilities come with a price, and Jaeger himself as come to accept that.

"But in a place where corruption is a very real concern, I would say it bears watching." He considers Malcolm for a long second, then shakes his head. "I can only speak from my own experience so far. But I do know that ADI is watching very carefully, so any use of magic is likely to draw their attention if they find out about it."

"Oh... ADI is pretty... aware." He pauses. "They're in danger, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he looks at Jaeger. "If ADI asked you to kill one of the other people brought here from somewhere else because they'd become... beholden to those things... would you do it?"

Oh boy. Well isn't this a light-hearted conversation for a pleasant party evening?

Jaeger considers it anyway, long serious moments of silence before he responds.

"I wouldn't do it just because ADI asked me to," he says after a minute. "It would take more than that. I would need to be convinced that they are a true threat, that there is no return for them." He fixes Malcolm with his faded-denim gaze, heavy and serious. "If it came down to it, if it was necessary? Then yes, I would. But I wouldn't make the choice lightly."

This problem has been preying on Malcolm’s mind for months, ever since Nia Lehrer told him the standard way of dealing with the problem. Finding a magic user that understands the danger is too rare to pass up.

“Is there a way to get them back if they go that far?”

Jaeger understands the risk all too well: his own world has just enough in common with this one, and his line of work had been...well, full of unpleasant necessities in a similar vein.

Sometimes, people went too far and had to be stopped. Sometimes, the only way to stop them was to put them down.

"I don't know," he admits. "In my world, there isn't. Once a person has started using magic for dark purposes, it's addictive and corrupting. Someone who's started doing terrible things, will continue to do them until they're stopped. No negotiations, no redemption."

He sucks in a breath, and lets it out. "From what I've gathered here, with the Powers and their influence, it's a similar case. But I can't claim to be an expert, only my own experience."

Malcolm nods, considering that.

"Thank you," he says. "Sorry. To... keep you with something so serious at a party but... I think some of the people brought here are struggling with this and... I think it was pretty irresponsible of them to bring people here if they were the type of people who would have trouble following this directive." He pauses. "Unless they did it on purpose..." he muses.

Jaeger nods solemnly. "Security keeps out anyone that's not directly associated with ADI, at least, so that's at least some measure of scrutiny." Not a perfect one by any means, given how much ADI either misses, or pretends to miss. But it's something, in Jaeger's mind.

"And to be fair. Isolation is probably not conducive to good mental health and resisting those impulses. When we interact, we can keep an eye on each other, offer support, or simply awareness of what state we're in." He gives a thin smile. "Some accountability, for those who might otherwise have little."

Malcolm nods. "I want to talk to one of them about it. He's been very insistent that he can't give up his magic when it's so much of who he is. I think we're going to lose him if we can't convince him he has value beyond that."

Jaeger nods somberly. "It's difficult. Magic for some of us is innate to our nature, a part of us that's hard to disconnect from. For me, it's like an entire sense shut off."

He's lucky that he's been able to focus on his other skills, that he has other skills to fall back on. He's known magicians at home who were less balanced, and it seems like the same is true here.

"That's where training can be helpful, too. Finding other abilities to focus on, other ways to manage situations. It's not perfect, especially not here when the opposition has no such qualms, but...it's something, at least."

He exhales quietly. He wishes he had better answers, but all he can suggest is what he himself has been trying to do. With at least some success, but still not as much as he'd like.

Malcolm nods.

"Thank you. I'll let you know if... things continue not to go well." In case he can help with a more direct intervention.

Jaeger nods, blue-gray eyes serious.

"I'm happy to do what I can. I hope it isn't necessary, but unfortunately we have to be prepared for that eventuality."

That they will lose some. The Powers are pervasive, and too many of them are struggling with dark influences even without outside corruption.

"If you get the chance to look into what it would take to... pull them back... I'd appreciate that. As an option they're not offering us," Malcolm says.

"I'll do my best. I think we all have a vested interest in other solutions, if they're available."

Jaeger knows he'd prefer not to have to execute his co-workers if at all possible. Or meet a bullet himself, for that matter.

"And it seems that true Avatars have some very extreme capabilities. Having an idea of what to expect when facing one would be preferable regardless. Ren didn't go down easily, if they're all like that I think I would prefer to know."

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Happy Birthday to Meeerrrrrreeeeeeeeee [Open Mingle]

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