dualislogs | oh, we dance in misery

oh, we dance in misery

WHO: Open to all Dualizens!
WHAT: the Plague Memorial Masked Ball
WHERE: the Mayor's Mansion (central Dualis)
WHEN: the evening of November 16
WARNINGS: Visuals/discussion of disease and death in the setting. Anything else, please use appropriate warnings!

At 8 p.m. sharp, the lights inside and around the Mayor's Mansion turn up, and the doors are opened to the crowds that begin to trickle inside. All entrances are manned by Iterations, and all party-goers are scanned for both proper attire (formal and masked, mandatory) and weapons (absolutely forbidden) before being allowed entry.

Once inside, attendees are greeted to a spectacle of warmth and light and lavish decorations, all themed in white accented with gold and violet. Venture into the ballroom, and you'll see intricately carved ice sculptures in various representations of death, all laden with garlands of marigolds and violet chrysanthemums. At one end of the room, a rotating cast of musicians plays soft music in differing arrangements of strings and piano. Long tables at the other end of the ballroom are piled high with punch fountains and platters of delicious party foods, and a few bar stations serve beverages of the more adult variety to those of age.

Outside the main ballroom are seven smaller rooms, for more intimate conversations and quiet recovery from the main gala (or just skulking like a brooding weirdo, if that's your thing). Six of the rooms are decorated in monochrome blue, purple, green, orange, white, or violet, and the seventh room is pitch black with red accents.

Throughout the night, the mayor herself winds in and out of the crowds, shadowed by a pair of bodyguards. She is all smiles, greeting people with a friendly handshake and effusive words of thanks for attending the ball, but she never stays in one place long enough for a true conversation. This is a celebration of life and a remembrance of the dead, after all - not the time or place for talks of business or politics.

Enjoy yourselves tonight, everyone! And remember - death eventually comes for everyone.

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The lights and the crowd and the noise eventually start to wear on Nick, so she makes her way outside for a cigarette to soothe her jangled nerves, hanging toward the back of the small group gathered to watch Drifter at work. That mask is impressively thorough at obscuring his face, but she'd recognize him by the drawl of his voice if not the coin tricks outright.

Her own mask is less impressive, a simple black domino that pairs well with her tuxedo, but she's not here tonight with any designs on making trouble, so blending in seemed the better approach. She watches Drifter - and the onlookers' reactions to him - with rapt attention, waiting until a break in the action to offer enthusiastic applause and a half-teasing shout of "Encore!"

Both are pretty easy to identify him by (though he already knows one guy at this party that can do a fair share of his own).

"Thank ya, Sister. I'd be happy to put on a private show."

A lewd flirt as he hopes down from his perch, some woman in an extravagant dress and her best jewelry laughing in shock at the comment. But he crosses over to her and slings an arm around her and starts to lead her away.

"I saw some company heading this way." He warns. "Get your friends out."

Edited 2019-12-07 07:45 (UTC)

She’s not expecting this approach, but she knows enough about surviving in this city under heavy surveillance to recognize when to play along with a ruse. Nick leans into him a little, slips her arm around his back as he leads her along to really sell the image of flirtation he’s suggested.

“Company,” she repeats quietly, and frowns. No question what he’s really talking about here. “Right. Well, I was gettin’ tired of this scene anyway.” She digs her phone out of her pocket and begins tapping out a message to be sent to the group here tonight, an agreed-upon code: AFTERPARTY TIME NOW. MEET U THERE.

Message sent, Nick stashes her phone away again in her pocket and looks up at Drifter. “What about you? Gonna stick around?”

"Just long enough to see what the main event is. I'll find a smooth exit. And if I don't? I'll find a rough one."

And then he does the most ill advised gesture in all of man's poor choices. He shamelessly pats her butt like he's trying to honk it. Damning himself right there, but hey, free buttpat and he sold the grotesque flirting maneuver.

"Got somethin' real good for you later. It uh... might not look how you expect though."

Oh ... OK, they’re apparently gonna play it like this. Behind the mask, Nick’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t shove Drifter off. If they’re gonna play it like this, Nick’s gonna play.

She turns to face him and presses herself in as close as he’ll allow, gently slips her arms over his shoulders. Anyone watching who wasn’t sold on the ruse before should be now.

It’s a little awkward, maneuvering around Drifter’s mask, but Nick manages by tilting her head to murmur in his ear. “You’re lucky I like you - last guy who grabbed my ass walked away with a black eye and a broken wrist.” There’s a laugh behind her words; truth is, she’s enjoying this.

“Somethin’ real good for me, huh? I do like surprises. Is it part of that private show you mentioned?” She laughs outright this time, quiet and breathy. “Think I’m gonna skip the afterparty and just go straight home. Come over if you want. I’ll be up for a while.”

"I went in knowing the risks," he admits flat out. Because hell, if he was going to get thrown? He couldn't even complain.

"I do got somethin' to show you, though, so I'll definitely be hittin' your place up, Darlin'. Now get out of here before you start some real trouble with me." He puts his hands on her waist, and it's pretty ridiculous flirting with a man that looks like a plague doctor.

This close up she can probably tell that he's better built than his clothes would indicate. He's strong, muscular, the Ghosts always rezzing people at peak performance. Guardians don't really come in out of shape, either buy Ghost's making or their in pickiness when it comes ot locating a Chosen.

There's a smile in his voice behind the mask.

"Bring some booze."

“Real trouble with you sounds like a lot more fun than real trouble with the party-crashers.”

It’s extremely ridiculous to be flirting with a guy in a mask like the one Drifter’s wearing, but considering everything Nick’s been through in the past four years? Considering everything about this absurd city where they’ve landed, only to get tangled up in a fight for their lives? This is barely a bullet point on the list.

Truth is, Nick misses this - the verbal volley back and forth, the weight of a pair of hands holding her in place, the heat of proximity with another body, an anchoring reminder of her own form. Except for a single short kiss years ago in Hadriel, she hasn’t allowed herself any of this since she Became, and - yeah, she misses it, more than she’d care to admit. It’s a normal, human thing to crave a connection with someone who’s similar in some way, someone who can understand something about you that others can’t. He was right in what he warned her about the first time they spoke - she misses what’s normal from the life she had before. If this flirtation weren’t just for show, Nick thinks, if it were even a fraction of something real, she really wouldn’t mind at all.

She brushes that thought aside, forces her traitor brain to focus on what’s more important at the moment - survival. She needs to clear out, before some Iteration decides to take an ill-timed interest. Slowly, she steps backward to disentangle herself, mouth curled in answering amusement.

“I always keep booze around,” she says. “If you’re lucky, I might even break out the really good stuff for ya.”

Final words finished, Nick turns toward the road out of the mansion’s grounds and slips through the scattering of attendees milling about. She returns to the apartment above the bar without incident and waits, occupying her idle time with listening to a favorite record and watching out the window at what unfolds on the street below. Couples and small groups still dressed in finery filter into the bar for post-ball drinks and back out again with laughter and excited chattering.

By the time Drifter arrives, Nick’s shed the suit jacket, tie, mask, and shoes, all draped or dropped in various places around the front room of the apartment. Her shirt collar has been loosened by a couple of undone buttons, and she’s nearly finished smoking a cigarette in the open window.

“Hey, Trouble,” she shouts out the window with a grin when she sees him, “hang on a sec and I’ll buzz you in.” A moment later, she crushes out the lit end of her cigarette in an ashtray and hops down from her window perch to make her way toward the apartment door, then presses the button to allow access into the building and pulls the door open so Drifter can enter. She then disappears into the kitchen to retrieve a pair of glasses and a bottle of whiskey that belongs on a much higher shelf than what she normally keeps on hand.

Edited (what are words, can you eat them) 2019-12-11 03:01 (UTC)

She's a pretty woman, definitely. Drifter doesn't mind at all the position he's put himself in. His flirtations are real, though he's comfortably in the frame of mind that he's unwanted. That he's bad luck. That he's a wanderer that can't be tied. That this is the life he's chosen for himself and generally in a time where most people desperately claw at life for stability? There's not a chance someone would want to spend more time with him than necessary.

He enjoys what he feels under his flattened palms, even if he's also goal-minded. And she promises him good booze and the words taste like truth sweeet as honey.

Bartenders are well suited for immortality. She'll do fine when she gets there, as much as she dreads it. He can already tell.

Drifter stays for a while longer. He does some tricks with flowers, dances with someone, a few coin tricks. He sees what happens to Jason at least in the process, then departs. He collects his weapons from where he left them, changing back into his full armor, and he wears that when he goes to Nick's place.

That's the man that she opens the door to. A guy in a long coat and big shoulderpads and looking for all the universe like an actual space-rogue. Not just a guy trying to fit into a cyberpunk dystopia. He's leaning his elbow against the door, painfully casual, a cat that caught a canary.

"Turns out they weren't there for you and your friends. Glad I kept an eye out, though. They got one of the new guys, from my dormatory. Didn't know him none, but it sounds like he did somethin' real little to piss 'em off."

He comes in, working his hands in his gloves. "Is that the good stuff you say you had? Cause if so, be still my heart."

Nick understands that feeling of being unwanted all too well, though for her it’s tied to her pitiful sense of self-worth, an internalized scar left behind by her mother’s violent hatred of her since childhood. Being wanted or even tolerated has only ever been conditional, in Nick’s experience, an impermanent thing never designed to last longer than her usefulness.

She hadn’t lied earlier tonight in her her claim of liking him, not even exaggerated. She’s always been a misfit, an outlier, aggressively honest about her awful nature, how damaged she’s been by the factors of her life, why she worked so hard at being a stone-cold bitch and proud of it. And she’s always been drawn to others like her - other misfits and outcasts, other battered loners, scarred inside and out. She’s not just returning interest in him because he’s shown an interest in her - which may or may not be genuine, she doesn’t know yet but intends to find out tonight. Nick’s interested in him because he’s interesting, because she senses they’ve got more in common than an unnaturally long lifespan. Because he’s been battered but continues to survive in spite of it. Because she sees fire and strength and isolation in him, and all of that echoes in the chambers of her own heart. Maybe being drawn into his gravitational field will end up being a mistake in the end, but Nick has learned that despite the fractures in her heart, she doesn’t shatter easily, and while she may be hard to kill, she can still die. She may live for centuries or she could be killed tomorrow, but either way, life is too short to refuse to care, and choosing to ignore a connection with another person, monster or otherwise, is the worst mistake she could make.

“Sure is,” she answers warmly, and pours a generous measure of that high-quality spirit into each of the two glasses. The bottle is capped and left on the coffee table, and Nick meets Drifter with one glass held out for him to take. “Don’t let your heart stay too still for too long - I hear those things are pretty necessary for living.”

The half-teasing smile fades from her face a moment later; the ball tonight and its morbid theme had been an even sharper than usual reminder of just how much danger both of them face in this city. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for that earlier,” she says, meaning Drifter looking out for her and the rest of the Heart, warning them to leave. She glances down at her reflection in the surface of the drink in her hand, frowning lightly. “The dumbass we had posted on surveillance for that entrance fucked off to go make out with his boyfriend behind the bushes. Could’ve gotten us all executed, if they had been lookin’ for us.” She looks up at him again, entirely serious and sincere. “Thanks. I owe ya one.”

Edited (wtf spacing) 2019-12-11 20:12 (UTC)

She may consider herself a stone-cold bitch, and she's certainly harder than a lot of the self-righteous pretenders, so certain in their moral superiority that they're generally intolerable. To Drifter, she's just fine. Genuine to the core, but still as vulnerable as that giant china doll aesthetic looks. That's how he reads her, and yeah, he's not always right. But at least his judgement currently makes him more inclined to like her for what she is.

A monster. Just like him.

He picks up the glass offered to him and raises it with one of his patented wry grins. He's all teeth and steely eyes, and it's playful the way that a cat is playful before it decides to scale a leg.

"Trust, me, sister. My heart wouldn't stay stopped for more than a few seconds before I got torn apart at the atoms and put right back together in working order. Comin' back? Fresh start, every damn time."

Still wishes he knew where those damn scars on his cheeks came from.

"Well, you oughta always have more than one set on surveillance anyway. Me and my crew? We ran a bunch of heists. It's more important to keep an eye on the surroundings. You can train one or two to move real quick and clean a place out. But it don't matter if you don't got eyes on all your exits, you dig? But even if you'd had a stack of helpful look-outs, I still woulda come down."

He takes a drink from the cup. "Wouldn't want you to have to get dolled up in the more literal sense at the ball."

That's been Nick's survival technique since she was a child, left alone with an abusive mother who didn't have a single shred of love to spare - to act like she's made of fire and iron to conceal the scared, sad little girl at her core. Nonstop hostility and aggression do wonders for keeping people away and thus herself safe from the possible harm they can inflict. She's eased up on all of that in the past years, learned to stop keeping everyone at arm's length by any means necessary as a protocol of protection for herself. She's become more self-aware, more honest with herself about her true nature. His reading of her is correct.

She returns the lift of his glass with her own, takes a sip, tries to mirror his expression of playfulness but fails at keeping a line of sadness from pushing up from beneath. "Sounds pretty painful, gettin' torn apart at the atoms. Thought you said you didn't like pain."

Life is pain, and she's known that for almost as long as she can remember. But it bothers Nick, the fact that this man in front of her has been stuck experiencing the pain of life and death and life again over and over for countless years. It's too much to think and feel all at once, so she turns and slips barefoot over the hardwood floor to the now-silent record player on the shelf a few steps away. She sets her glass down and flips the record over, nudges the arm until the needle drops down and a steady, mournful song begins to softly play.

"I don't think any of us know the first thing about how to do a heist," she says, once she feels steady enough for words. "Actually, I don't think any of us know what we're doin' at all - we've got one guy who used to work with the Mafia, but I get the impression he didn't give a shit about anyone but himself surviving anything they ever did." And the group's overall lack of direction is becoming more and more apparent, and it scares Nick - her fate is tied to theirs, and while she's uneasy about the Heart's current tactics, she has no leadership to offer as an alternative.

But dolled up - that's hilarious. Nick can't help laughing as she retrieves her drink and returns to the space closer to Drifter.

"You keepin' an eye on me? That's awful kind of you." More likely there's a practical reason, related to his weapons and their traceability back to him by the Hand. Or maybe it's because she's useful, an avenue to the Heart's decision-makers. Still ... she wants to know for sure. That flirtatious act earlier was damn convincing, even to Nick. "I could've taken the night off - I don't fit in at things like that, never have. But I would've missed almost getting in real trouble with you if I didn't go." She grins behind her glass as she takes another sip of her drink. "So I guess all things considered, everything worked out OK in the end, yeah?"

"Yeah, it is... and honestly, I don't. But believe me, it's worse than the alternative. Can't stand the idea of somebody gettin' away with hurtin' me. Just walkin' all over me? Can't deal with it," he mutters bitterly.

He has had the misfortune of being the only survivor so many times while dealing with bad people that what she says? It makes sense. Regrettable, painful sense. "I wouldn't count on him." He sits down, fully expecting that someone with organized crime experience might say the same of him. "Not sayin' to ignore him all together, but chances are he might try to throw you under the bus. And I already like you." He sits beside her.

"I tried livin' normal for a real long time. Just took a few long spurts of it. Tried to be a hero, too. Not the sort to use my powers too often, but I tried to play protector. Be that noble wanderer. Turns out bein' noble doesn't always win fights that really needed won." A veil of exhaustion covers his expression, and he looks his age.

"Where I'm from, the end of the world is comin'. I dream it every night. Hear about it in my head every day, a bunch of unwelcome whispers." He finishes off the glass and offers it back to Nick.

"...I could try to stop it. That's part of what I'm after. I get that roadmap, I learn it well enough, and I could hop right back to the right point in time, kill one particular traitor bitch. Save worlds worth of lives. I don't expect you to trust me, but I want you to know that I've been preparin' for centuries to deal with somethin' a whole lot worse than the Head."

There's real contempt in his voice. But that veil? Lifts and the old Drifter returns.

"Anyway, you oughta take the night off and do somethin' that is your thing. Or try one of mine! You wanna practice stealin' stuff? Lets give it a try. I've been learnin' where all the criminals are in the city. Who better to rip off than people that oughta know better than callin' iterations anyway."

He elbows her. Come on Nick, live a little.

Nick carefully curls her legs up on the couch, turned sideways to face Drifter as he talks and dusts off more and more little parts of himself for her to see. She knows a good sob story when she hears one, but none of what he says sounds like bullshit to her ears - all she hears is pain and loneliness and a bone-deep tiredness, and it pulls at the empathetic part of her heart that’s only recently begun to beat again. Saving worlds is a hell of a responsibility, one Nick’s never quite faced herself, not on the same scale as what Drifter recounts for her. If she didn’t already believe him to have a core of incredible strength, this would certainly convince her.

She’s silent with rapt attention through all of his words, until he makes that suggestion to join him in criminal mischief, and she laughs openly, utterly amused with the idea. Also? She really wasn’t kidding about being ticklish.

“Why, Drifter - are you askin’ me out to go do crimes with you?” She laughs again, low but full of genuine mirth. “You really are trouble, with a capital T.”

She holds her gaze on him for a long moment, mulling over her options, deciding on an answer: “Yeah, all right. I’d love to. I mean, I’m already a terrorist, I may as well ... diversify my portfolio, as the yuppie shitheads like to say.” She grins, and busies herself with pouring him another drink while considering whether to spill the rest of what’s on her mind at the moment. By the time she turns back to hand the glass back to him, she’s decided to dust off a little more of herself to show him in return. That’s what normal people do, after all - take what’s offered and give of themselves in return.

“I know you said you don’t expect me to trust you, but ... I do. It’s not easy for me. But it’s somethin’ I’m tryin’ to do more of. And I think I can trust you because ... I like you, too. And believe me, I have been over the bad boy thing for a while now.”

Which is ironic, considering she’s just agreed to go steal with him. But what she means by that is that even if he is a criminal, even if he is a monster, she doesn’t think he’s a bad person.

It’s not easy for Nick to be straightforward about her feelings. Anger’s always been easy, but everything else? She’d rather keep it buried, thanks - or she did. That’s another thing she’s trying to do more of, and it takes practice, but every small step she takes builds her confidence a little more. Right now, though - she ducks her head and hides a nervous smile behind her glass as she takes a sip. Once that swallow of whiskey burns a trail down her insides, she lightly clears her throat and looks back up at Drifter, determined to see this line of inquiry through to the end.

“So, on that note, I got a question for ya. That stunt you pulled earlier with grabbing my ass - I gotta know, was that just for show? ‘Cause ... well, maybe this’ll sound weird, but ... I wouldn’t be mad if it wasn’t just for show.”

"Hell yeah? What's the use of us bein' freaks if we can't make the most of it, right? And I ain't even talkin' about powers."

Because being out of your mind? Nothin' to do with powers. And China Doll here has damage he can appreciate. Maybe it was her upbringing, but if she's gonna be wearin' that hard heart over her fragile self? Might as well tighten up that armor. He'd be happy to help her do that.

Though her next offer gets under his armor, so to speak, and his eyebrows raise and it's obvious for a beat she's taken him off guard with just interest. The issues that come with being a mechanic; grime, scent, wear? Don't seem to matter to her. It obviously takes a good solid four seconds before that ancient-ass brain of his can catch up to the fact that her returned playfulness might be some reciprocation.

The lady is hot, alright? A little bit Dead Orbit, that harsh black and white noir aesthetic that somehow looks noir and gothic at the same time, but he can absolutely dig that. It's not a negative in the slightest. But Drifter? He's scarred and battered. All of his brilliance coated in crudeness and dismissal.

Geez, hell, he can't help but feel really damn complimented.

"Hell, most people'd get mad even if I asked 'em to dance." In fact he's been thrown a few times and not even regretted it onc. "So, anything else I can do for you that wouldn't upset you none?" And there's that smile again, that damn cat ready to stalk a canary. Still holding a glass though.

She's surprised by his surprise, and for those seconds he's processing what she's said, Nick thinks maybe she's misread signals. Maybe all of that flirting with her at the ball was just for show. Anyone who's ever pursued her knew exactly what they were after and had confidence they'd get it before the night was over, and most of the time, they were right. It just doesn't occur to Nick that someone might flirt with her in seriousness but not expect her to reciprocate the attention or follow through with it. She knocks back the rest of her drink a little too fast and sets the glass on the table, head swimming a little.

"I don't know how to dance," she admits, settling back against the couch, "not really. Shimmy around on stage when I'm performing, sure, but not like you do at a ball like tonight. But ... I would've, if you'd asked me." She huffs out a quiet laugh. "Prob'ly would've stepped all over your toes, too."

She'd skipped her high school dances, never had a reason to learn for anything else. Maybe they'd done a different kind of dance, outside the mansion. Maybe they're doing a different kind of dance right now - Nick's still not sure if Drifter's serious or just fucking around with her, the way he smiles at her like a predator ready to pounce. But she needs to know where she stands with him. She trusts him, but not blindly - she isn't stupid. And if that means baring her throat as willing prey - well, she'll survive. Either way, she'll survive.

"I sure wouldn't be mad if you wanted to kiss me," she answers, gaze lifted to gauge his reaction. "Been a while since anyone did." Her heartbeat picks up speed, rattles against her bones so loud she's sure he'll be able to hear it. "Do you?"

"I heal instantly. Wouldn't have bothered me none," he jokes. "Besides, I can float."

And who wouldn't want to dance with someone who could lift your feet off the ground, right?

But the sentiment slips aside with the suggestion. That's a lot more than he thought he could get away with, even if she's not made any gestures towards putting him off. You know. Generally the safest conclusion to jump to is a no.

"Been a couple of lifetimes."

What was the right, sane way to do this? A slow lean in? A brush of lips? Ur pushes in the back of his head. It's been offered, so he takes. One hand abruptly at her shoulder, the other at the back of her head, glass completely abandoned as he drags her in for a hungry and aggressive kiss. Shared flavor of alcohol on their breath as he's immediately ravenous, clawing for affection like a starving man.

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oh, we dance in misery

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