(Open Log) You gotta know when to hold 'em

[bindlestifflost]

Who: George Milton, Nick Valentine, and anybody who shows up
When: April 22, starting around 6 PM until
Where: Apartment A-3
Summary: A night for playing cards, drinking beer or b.y.o.b. if harder, snacks and unwinding. Feel free to thread jack and jump all around, at least in my threads. This is just for some relaxed down time and catching up or introductions in a smaller, casual space.
Warnings: None expected. If your characters get to discussing anything triggery or get up to anything spicy, please CW in your individual threads.



Over the past week or so, hand printed signs drawn in sharpie on plain paper have shown up taped to walls around the apartment complex and on any easily accessible bulletin boards at ADI. A couple of them were also delivered to the flophouse with the request they be displayed somewhere the residents might see them.

They read:
Cards and Beer
Friday April 22 6 PM
Apartment A 3
George and Nick's place
You want more than beer
or chips and popcorn
bring your own.
Extra decks appreciated.

The night of, the door to A 3 is propped open. In addition to the dining table, a couple of card tables and cheap folding chairs are set up for games. Two bowls on the coffee table contain chips and popcorn respectively. There's a cooler on the floor in the kitchen filled with ice and cheap beer.

George or Nick will greet people as they come in and tell them to make themselves at home.

((OOC: Feel free to top level with your own character and make whatever prompts you like. George is generally easy-going, but if he catches anyone stealing, getting too hot and heavy in a bedroom, or otherwise being a general jerk about the apartment or the other guests, he will try to throw the offender out. If you want that kind of thread or want to succeed at something nefarious, let me know so we can work it out.))

Comments

[abrightboy]

"Aziraphale! You made it. I was worried it wasn't really your scene."

Not that it's Malcolm's scene, but being part of A Guys' Night sort of event is fun, even if literally everyone was invited.

"Have you tried any of the games? Do you want a drink?"

[oldbookshop]

Stepping out to do something a little bit social is already paying off. No human is any more a duck for him to keep in a row than any other, of course, it's good to be getting out again in general, but there is relief in already knowing more than just the one person.

Sort of makes it easier. It's always a pleasure to run into Malcolm in any case.

"A drink sounds lovely, thank you." Could that be a life motto? Maybe. "And it's not much of my usual 'scene', if I'm honest. But it's nice to sit in on something new now and again. Helps keep things interesting."

[abrightboy]

"I also don't usually do this either," Malcolm admits. "What would you like? They have beer and Winter brought some cocoa... oh and my boyfriend brought wine," he offers.

[oldbookshop]

An effectively and probably unintentionally buried lede.

"Are you here together? That's wonderful." Aziraphale goes ahead and shuffles his drink priorities down one slot in favor of: being nosy. "Which one is he?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm can't help a smile at his shoes before he looks around and directs Aziraphale's attention to a man with dark hair, smiling as he pulls the pot towards himself.

"That's him. His name is Neal." He looks at Aziraphale. "He's good at poker."

[oldbookshop]

Malcolm is truly a hero for indulging this curiosity. The evergreen pairing of being nosy and being able to show off a boyfriend.

"Oh, the one who's been giving Crowley a run for his money. I like him already." He might have used the term keeping Crowley humble, but, well. He doesn't want Crowley humble so much as he thinks it's very funny to see people show him up a bit on occasion, anyway.

Aziraphale sounds a little bit delighted nonetheless. He leans in a bit, conspiratorial.

"He's a very handsome young man."

Good bone structure and beautiful eyes attracts good bone structure and beautiful eyes, he supposes. Good for them.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s smile brightens at the praise directed at Neal in all its forms.

“You know Crowley?”

[oldbookshop]

"I do."

It's honestly nice to have gotten to an emotional zone where he can just say these sorts of things out loud without worrying about... ramifications.

The ramifications are already waiting back in Tadfield. There's really no point to the obfuscation anymore. Interdimensional kidnapping by dark entities can have one bonus point for that.

"He's an old friend from home, actually. We turned up together."

[abrightboy]

“That’s great!” Malcolm enthuses. “Gil and I turned up here together, too,” he explains. “It’s so much easier to deal with when there’s someone here you know you can rely on,” he points out.

[oldbookshop]

"It's been immensely helpful. Having two odd ducks goes a ways towards feeling less odd."

And Crowley is Crowley. He always turns up. If Aziraphale had turned up first and Crowley somehow hadn't turned up yet, the only real explanation would be that something had gone terribly, irrevocably wrong from the other end of things.

"I'll admit I'm still not used to the potential for things to get so-- harrowing for us. From day to day. It's difficult to hedge for security, given the broader situation." Which doesn't strictly sit well on a fundamental level, for celestial beings created for guardianship and shepherding and all that, but. Well. No choice but to bear it. "Suppose everyone has that particular issue, though."

[abrightboy]

“Worrying about what this place will do to the people they love here? Yeah. But Crowley seems to have a great sense of humour about it all,” Malcolm notes.

[oldbookshop]

That's certainly true enough.

"Oh, the day Crowley runs out of smart remarks is the day the flow of the Nile reverses direction. I shudder to think."

[abrightboy]

“How long have you known each other?” Malcolm asks curiously.

[oldbookshop]

Ever the challenging question when one is pretending to be a human of normal lifespan. Not that Aziraphale supposes he could put a highly precise label on how long he's known Crowley regardless. Ballpark estimates, mostly.

Which at least lends some authenticity to the moment he takes to do a mental tally.

"Oh, ages now. More than half our lives." All those pre-linearity, pre-rebellion days where they didn't know each other, well, there's no extant math for all that. But more than half sounds fair. "Goodness. Funny how time flies."

[abrightboy]

"That must be amazing, having a friend for so long. I guess Gil is the closest thing I have, but he's more like... a mentor. A... parental figure. I always admire friendships that persist," Malcolm gushes.

[oldbookshop]

Malcolm is adorable. One of the best teamates Aziraphale has had since the late 1800s, easily. The fact that he hasn't been able to have a long persistent friendship with someone on equivalent social footing is a crime.

Aziraphale can be a little bit melodramatic putting it to terms in his own thoughts if he likes.

Gil was the one Malcolm mentioned who sounded like he at least had good sense. So that's good. A sustained mentor, at least.

"Tally it all up, and I'd imagine Crowley is the one who's had to do the bulk of the persisting in it." Imagine. Already believe with absolute certainty. Same thing. "But it is-- nice. Knowing that it's there."

[abrightboy]

“It must feel like there’s always a safe place to go,” Malcolm imagines. He glances over at Neal. “I think that must be what it feels like,” he adds, looking away, then back at Aziraphale with a small smile, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar but isn’t sorry.

[oldbookshop]

Another day, another moment of missing being able to sense love around him. It's probably the closest thing to proper homesickness that he feels regarding anything from his own world. Bookshop aside. Any versions of Earth and humanity can be-- turbulent, at the best of times. That little background hum was always comforting.

Aziraphale flashes Malcolm a smile that's equal parts commiseration and amusement, looking back over towards the poker game himself. People with open faces who are very happy in some form of love have been a slightly different balm in this reality. But a balm nonetheless.

"I've always fancied myself more designed to try to create safety," he offers, as though it isn't a bit of something baked into him from the moment of his creation, whole-cloth. Just guardian things. "Preserve it, at the very least."

For a given definition of safety. A more physically tangible one. He hopes it's worked more than it hasn't, over time. (If he wonders whether Crowley would consider him a safe place to go, after everything that's happened, that's between him and... well, not God at the moment, and he'd like to pretend that the Eye doesn't exist. Him and no one, ideally.)

"Now, a patient place to go, Crowley has always reliably provided me in spades."

He turns back to the counter and plucks a cup from the cup stack in the manner of any fancy weirdo trying very hard to pretend like drinking from plastic cups is something they've done a lot. Local angel just remembered wine being mentioned.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at Crowley and then looks at Aziraphale.

"He's patient?" Malcolm confirms, because it wouldn't have been his first idea of an adjective. He unscrews the nearest wine bottle and pours Aziraphale a cup.

[oldbookshop]

Aziraphale also looks to Crowley and back, mildly nonplussed.

"I wouldn't place him on a list of people who would reliably watch paint dry without getting up to mischief, but on the whole, yes. Certainly. Books and covers, you know."

Top of the charts for indulging or matching Aziraphale's could-be-generously-called-lagging social pace. All that rot. Does Aziraphale consider that he is only speaking from his individual experience? No. Friend wingmanning is more important.

"That said, he's precisely as contrary as he looks so mind how you go."

[abrightboy]

“Ah, yes. We had some excellent banter earlier. He’s very witty.”

Which seems like the sort of thing Aziraphale would like in a friend.

“I can see how he’d be fun to spend time with.”

[oldbookshop]

"Oh, that's lovely to hear." Crowley out and about in the human world making good impressions. Aziraphale is both proud of him and prepared to point and laugh at him about it later, as is the natural order.

He has a sip of his wine, in the very well-practiced fashion of someone with experience pretending not to have niche uppity taste in wine (for manners' sake).

"I've found that nearly anyone can grow on you, provided you give them enough of a runway to start on. Very socially enriching."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugs his concession to that.

"That's how I've made pretty much all my friends. You know. Gave them time to let me grow on them."

[oldbookshop]

This, as the kids say, does not compute.

"Malcolm, you're a delight to be around. If you've been told otherwise, kindly point me in their direction and I'll correct them post-haste."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gives him an almost shy smile.

"I think it's just... the killer baggage that can put people off. And. You know. Just. Being kind of... weird." Or so he's been informed for his entire life.