(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

[worthallthis]

"No. You're fine." Winter tilts his head, considering, eyes narrowed. Then, because he's been told using his words is better than just hoping people will explain out of discomfort alone, he asks, "Why did you kiss him."

[conning]

Neal blinks.

Surely he misheard.

"Sorry, what?"

[worthallthis]

Was he unclear? Winter frowns a little, and tries again, this time with more words. "I don't understand what the appeal of kissing is. So I asked you why you did it."

[conning]

Oh.

Oh.

For a second Neal is at a loss for a reply. "Well. I like it, for one thing. It's physically pleasurable."

A pause. He looks Malcolm's way, smiling a little. "And it's... a means of showing affection. Care. Illustrating your closeness to someone you love."

[worthallthis]

"And you have to show that. With your face?" Winter asks skeptically. It's not that he disapproves, really, it's that he cannot for the life of him imagine how anyone can be that comfortable getting that close. They eat with their mouths. That doesn't seem like a logical part of the body to use to show affection. "Can you just. Hold his hand or. I hold Belova's wrist when I want her to know I love her."

Of course, Belova also shows affection with her face. To Meredith. Which also bothers him, but for additional reasons that are even harder to understand.

[conning]

"Well... no, you don't have to use your face?" Neal is almost as baffled as Winter. He's never had to think about this before. His education around physical affection happened more or less naturally, as an extension of his being attractive and eager to please. "We hold hands too. We sit together, or share gifts, or talk."

[worthallthis]

Someday Winter will remember more of his time in Brooklyn, practicing serial monogamy and making plenty of time with the ladies. He has not remembered it yet. "But you do it with your face," Winter prods. "When you could do it with other things. Why the face?"

Sorry, Neal. You're dealing with a guy who is touch-phobic and yet still trying to figure out human affection.

[conning]

Neal fumbles for an answer, wondering if he should be academic about it. Lord knows he's got the knowledge base in that area at least. Once he realized people expected certain things of a genetically gifted international thief, he did his best to educate himself on how it all, y'know, worked. His 'this is what you do' education was unintentional--his 'this is how you do it better' education very much wasn't.

"It's... a pleasure thing," Neal says, a little awkwardly. He brushes the side of his thumb lightly over his own lower lip. "A literal physical pleasure thing, related to the sensitivity of the skin there. Lips have more than a million different nerve endings, and the membrane protecting them is incredibly thin, which makes physical touch something like... I think a hundred times more sensitive."

[worthallthis]

Winter considers this seriously, frowning at Neal's mouth, but then he nods. It's an acceptable explanation. Also, he knows how much more it hurts to be hit on the mouth as opposed to, say, the shoulder, or even the nose. So it makes sense.

"Okay," he says. "Thank you for explaining." A pause, a slight grimace. "I still don't think I'd want to do it."

[conning]

Oh thank god. He picked the right tactic.

A pause, then Neal mentally shrugs. In for a penny. "Why not?"

[worthallthis]

"It's too close," Winter says after a moment of putting his words in order in his head. "Too much touching. Also, you eat with your mouth. And human mouths have lots of bacteria in them. It seems kind of gross." Someday. Someday he will appreciate physical affection again. Right now though? Nope. Definitely not. No.

[conning]

Neal bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Winter sounds like a little boy explaining an aversion to cooties, and it probably shouldn't be nearly as charming as it is. "You're not wrong about the bacteria. It's not the best practice when you're sick, or if you haven't brushed your teeth in a bit."

[worthallthis]

Look, kissing is kind of gross when you think about it. People who enjoy it either don't think about it, or like it enough to ignore the weird aspects of it. Winter just doesn't have the frame of mind to do either of those things right now.

Maybe someday.

"I don't like being that close to people, anyway," he shrugs, looking away. "I was just curious why you did. I've seen a lot of people do it. And asking random people on the street annoys them."

[conning]

It is, objectively, kind of gross. Cost-benefit analysis and all that.

Once again, Neal finds his heart squeezed with compassion at Winter's confession about asking strangers. "Well, if you want to know other things like that, you can ask me. I won't be annoyed."

A pause, and a ghost of awkwardness crosses his face. He's never said this next part to anyone. Never admitted it out loud to a soul. "I used to--"

He stops. Breathes out a laugh at himself and decides that he'll keep what he was about to say to himself for now. He'll allow himself to share something related, though. "When I didn't know much about kissing, about how to be with people physically--I should say, when I wasn't very good at it, I used to find books to read about it where no one else would see me."