(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

III. Card Tricks

[bindlestifflost]

George had met him briefly when he'd come with Malcolm, bringing both food and wine that weren't at all unwelcome, and he'd faced him across the table once or twice in the night long enough to know he's way out of his league in the gambling department. This is the first time he finds himself face to face with him alone since the party started, watching him flip the cards around in his hands like it's nothing at all.

"You're mighty slick with that," he says, nodding a chin point toward what he's doing. "Bet that took a lotta practice and a long time to get it lookin' so easy." It's not so different to him than watching people like Slim driving a team, or even old Crooks with his handling of the most persnickety of the mules. Anything that easy only comes after a lot of hard work.

"When'd you pick up cards?"

[conning]

Neal grins. "I started with sleight of hand when I was in grade school. It looked fun."

And it got him positive attention. "The more complicated tricks I started working on when I got good enough at the simple ones to be bored."

He gives a little flick of his wrist, making the card in hand spin in the air and seem to hover from one hand back to the other. Physics, not magic, but it still looks cool.

[bindlestifflost]

He nods. That sounds about right. A lot of folks start on stuff when they're kids if they get real good at it. "I'll be damned," he says, eyes following the card. "That's some a' them magic tricks there. I seen a few fellas can do that sort a' thing on a few different jobs. Always talkin' how they's gonna make it big."

He glances up to meet his gaze before looking back to the cards. "It was always talk with them fellas. Still fun to watch. You ever think about makin' an act? Or is it jes' a hobby?"

[conning]

"Just a hobby," Neal says comfortably, letting the card come to rest against his hand again before he mixes it back into the deck and taps them even on the nearest flat surface. "It helps with my former occupation, but it's not something I was ever inclined to make a living from."

[bindlestifflost]

"Oh yeah? What'd you do afore coming here?" So far he has met people from so many different backgrounds he doesn't believe anything would surprise him anymore.

[conning]

Neal almost does what he used to do so easily--make a joke about being a thief, a con man, a world-class criminal. But he isn't, is he? Not here. Not even before here, really, not for a long time.

It hits him all at once, how much he isn't Neal Caffrey, internationally wanted art thief any more.

He shouldn't look like he got hit in the gut from a question about former occupation. Neal falls into a sheepish grin, the transition from shock to apparent self-depreciation almost seamless. "I used to be a thief and forger."

[bindlestifflost]

George's brow furrows a little. He didn't think it was a gob smacking kind of question. Wouldn't be the first time he'd misjudged a situation in a conversation, and he doubts it'll be his last. Neal seems to recover quickly enough, and what he says might explain a little some of that reaction, or so he thinks.

"Huh. Landin' in this place turn you around or something else?" He's not good at subtle and never makes much effort at it. He's met all types. He won't pretend 'criminal' doesn't get his back up a little and give him reason to be more wary.

[conning]

He catches it, that little shift toward wariness, and where ten years ago it would have given him a perverse pride, now it just… makes him sad. Tired. There’s no defiant reveling in who he used to be, not any more.

“Something else,” Neal says quietly. “I went to work for the law for a while. Decided that there were other ways to live. Better ones.”

He shrugs off the seriousness, or tries to at least, by fanning his borrowed deck of cards across the counter, flipping the cards over with another stroke of his hand, and then gathering them all up again in a third sweep. “What about you?”

[bindlestifflost]

"I can respect that," he says. He doesn't...necessarily...trust it, although Malcolm apparently loves the guy, so that says something. Malcolm doesn't strike him as the type to tolerate people who hurt others deliberately.

"Migrant farm labor in NorCal." He's bracing himself for another weird, Such noble, necessary work, since it seems that's the broken record set to play. He hasn't yet cottoned to what that means or why so many people feel the need to say it. He suspects it's nothing good.

[conning]

Neal doesn't react like that. Or in any particular way, really. He takes in the information with a nod and an interested expression, the way he would most any unusual choice of work. "What drew you to it? Necessity or desire?"

[bindlestifflost]

Well, that response...or non-response...is better. There's a subtle but visible relaxing of the tension around his eyes and in his shoulders. "Took whatever work I could get. Not that things was all that much better afore '29, but after? Shit. Bread lines around the blocks and fellas what never touched a pitchfork in their life trying to muscle in."

He rolls a twitchy, one-shouldered shrug. "Came off a family farm. Wasn't nothing to it taking it on the road."

[conning]

'29. Holy shit. Neal knew that George wasn't 'modern' in their sense of the word, but 1929. It's one thing to know and another thing to know.

"This must be weird for you," he says, gesturing at their surroundings. He pauses. "...The 2000s part, not the--well, no, all of it."

It's all he can do to keep from peppering George with history-focused questions.

[bindlestifflost]

"That's a word for it. All of it, yep." He lets out a dry, somewhat mirthless chuckle.

"Ain't no magic where I'm from 'cept the stuff you sees on stage. No...Entities. Not that I ever heard of. Probably not saying much given I ain't the most educated guy around." In case that isn't obvious.

"Jes'...air smells bad, too much light, everything so damned expensive." He rolls another shrug. "Pick something. On the other side of it, this apartment's more space than I've ever had to myself in my life. Nick's a good guy. Seems like lotta the other folks here is, too. Guess everything has its tradeoffs."

[conning]

"No magic where I'm from either, that I know of." A crooked, sympathetic little smile at that. It's funny to think that once upon a time he would have delighted at the knowledge that somewhere out there, magic in the fantasy sense of the word was real.

He nods thoughtfully as George talks, trying to frame it in his mind, imagine what it's like to be transplanted from almost one hundred years ago. For a second, something wistful squeezes at him. "What did it smell like? The air?"

Neal has a New Yorker's pride in city-stink, but that doesn't mean he's not curious.

[bindlestifflost]

In the same boat there at least. It feels a little oddly like a sort of unearned solidarity. So many people he has met so far either come from lands with magic or such crazy advanced technology it might as well be magic. His own roommate Nick might as well be magic. His personality is the only thing that makes it easier to swallow. He nods, meets that smile with a faint, fleet one of his own. Blink and you miss it.

"Chaparral," the answer comes immediate. "And sage. Crushed grass and wet earth. Barley and wildflowers. Sometimes in winter you'd smell the snow from the mountains. Sharp and crisp rollin' off them peaks. Cows. Mules. Can't say they didn't raise a stink, but it was jes' an animal stink. Not choking." He can't help but to wonder how it would smell if he made it out there now, if there's anything left of what he knew at all or if it has all been built and paved over.

"Jes' different." He tries to play it off. No point in getting homesick for a place that wasn't a home. He's still drifting.

[conning]

There's something almost dreamy in the details that George chooses. It makes Neal feel wistful, like a good book or a beautiful painting.

"I’ve heard it said there are those on such close terms with night they can smell the very light," Neal says, his cadence one of recitation. "Not only does the moon, they say, give off a scent nothing like the sun’s, but old moon smells sweeter than slivered new."

[bindlestifflost]

He cocks his head, one eye squinting down. "I ain't never heard that. And I don't think none a' the fellas I ever knowed would admit to it even if it was true."

[conning]

Neal chokes a little on a sip of his wine, then clears his throat. "Sorry, it's--that was a bit from a poem by David Citino. What you said reminded me of it."

[bindlestifflost]

"Ah. I ain't much of a reader." It's a little... He's not sure how he feels being around so many educated people in one room. It hits different than socializing in the bunkhouse. He figures all he can do is try his best and be honest when he's in over his head. Not like it's not obvious, anyway.

[conning]

"Neither is my best friend. I drive him crazy." Neal grins. It's true, more or less--Peter doesn't read much unless it's a case file or related to one. "He's still one of the smartest people I know."

[bindlestifflost]

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Takes all kinds. I knowed plenty a' fellas always had their noses stuffed in the pulps. Cowboys this, cowboys that. Me, I jes' stuck to solitaire more often than not. Kept me outta trouble. And that was about as smart as I ever needed to be." On his own behalf, anyway.

"So what you make a' all this? 'Spected to save the world? You's clearly a betting man. Odds?" Maybe it's a morbid question. It's offered in a cheerful and offhanded way enough it doesn't seem like he's after a deep dive.

[conning]

Neal doesn't quite laugh at the last bit. But his expression takes on a shade of determination. Cheerful and offhand the question might be, but Neal isn't taking it totally lightly.

"There's always a way. Always. Nothing is set in stone. If that's what we're here to do, we'll figure out how to do it."

[bindlestifflost]

He considers himself a pretty decent judge of character. That look tells him plenty. He gives a subtle nod, satisfaction slipping into his expression. "If we don't, won't be from lack a' trying. I'm gonna go check on the ice. I think you and me's gonna get on jes' fine. Looking forward to workin' with you."

He pantomimes a hat tip and heads off into the kitchen to do as he'd said.