(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

[conning]

Neal encounters Aziraphale during one of the attempts at mostly-forgotten magic tricks. He's coming off a win against Crowley, one that apparently Malcolm did Neal the favor of pointing out.

Neal, for his part, is fascinated by the appearance of someone who looks shockingly like Martin Whitly but also seems to get along with Malcolm.

He takes a sip of his terrible wine in its red solo cup as Aziraphale shuffles, clearing his throat and offering a tip about shuffling that I'm too lazy to look up right now but it's there, for sure.

Neal smiles. "You don't share your friend's interest in card games?"

[oldbookshop]

As tips about card shuffling go, it's definitely a real and very good one that everybody here would verifiably recognize as such. Aziraphale gives him a pleased little thank you for that, before anything else.

Manners are so important in this mutual nerd world.

"Not especially, no. I've dabbled here and there, but they don't tend to grab me. Not much of a 'poker face', apparently."

Sometimes a person only gets away with a few thousand years of lying to management because management is either gone or never considered that they'd lie at all.

[conning]

Neal hides a smile himself, not particularly well. He's not really trying.

"Malcolm is the same way. Lack of poker face, I mean. I saw the two of you chatting."

[oldbookshop]

"That would have been around the time you were trouncing Crowley, if I recall."

Love is stored in the being-pleased-to-watch-your-crush-lose-games.

"He's a lovely young man, your Malcolm. Very kindhearted."

[conning]

Neal grins. "I don't think Crowley would put it in those terms, quite, but I think so."

The phrase your Malcolm warms him all the way to his bones. Neal glances Crowley's way, curious and willing to risk the rudeness. "Is he your Crowley?"

[oldbookshop]

"That'll be his stubbornness at work." Pot and kettle but okay bud.

Aziraphale is starting to think he needs to reexamine the energy he's putting out there. Humans sort of keep catching him dead to rights. It doesn't come out to a very real existential danger here, to be quote-unquote found out, it's just Crowley might hear it outside of some carefully cultivated imaginary situation in which Aziraphale has full control of all the factors.

Even angels turn out relatable content.

He does a minor momentary British floundering.

"In the proprietary sense of a very long and enduring friendship, I suppose I could say that he is." He wrinkles his nose. "So long as he never hears that I have said he is, in any case."

[conning]

Neal grins down at his solo cup of cheap wine. "Uh huh."

He catches what you're throwing out there, Az, and it's not strictly long and enduring friendship vibes. Neal gives him a coy look and sips his drink. "What do you think he'd do if he did hear that?"

[oldbookshop]

The audacity. Okay, Aziraphale's not actually offended as much as still broadly friendly and also now slightly put out. On principle.

"I expect," he starts, very primly abandoning his cool (lame) card trick for starting a cool (lame) card house instead, "that he would be a bit of a nuisance about it, because that's how he prefers to operate."

Poking. Prodding. Asking questions. Water-testing via teasing. Normal mischief things.

"I find that loosing an arrow before you've aimed properly is more or less the same as placing it into someone else's quiver. Best not to mishandle them, really."

[conning]

That tone is adorable and reminds Neal in a sidelong way of Malcolm for some reason. Which only makes it more endearing.

"It's not a bad way to operate," Neal says, defending Crowley's honor and by extension his own. "It gets results."

[oldbookshop]

Anyone on a defending-Crowley's-honor train or adjacent vehicle is someone of acceptable taste. It's a less-populated transport than it ought to be. So that's nice. It's a nice energy.

Not that he expects Malcolm would be so over the moon about someone who didn't have a nice energy.

"I don't think I can argue with that. Are you results-oriented, then, Neal?" Aziraphale stops to squint. "Oh, that's not a very fun question at a party, is it. Take or leave it if you like."

[conning]

Neal laughs. "Yes and no. I don't think the ends can justify the means, if that's what you're asking."

[oldbookshop]

"Something along those lines, yes. I consider it a very important distinction."

He very carefully adds another set of cards to his little house in progress. It's not shaping up to much, honestly, but it's a fun way to stay occupied.

"People who think the ends always justify the means are dreadful company."