Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

[baedalites]

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Swap meet.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Sukkardi the 14th of Haneden
Notes:

• Swap Meet Spreadsheet: Pre-chosen swaps are green. Assigned are blue. There were a few characters that were selected more than once, so objects were assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. If you have any issues or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the mod team.
• For objects that might not be immediately apparent as belonging to their owners, there may be a picture or name attached, or players are welcome to have their characters ~just know~ it's for them. Drr drr drr, bb.
• Party post nights are a great time to come join the chatroom.
• The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.

Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap.

Comments

[martyrdomoption]

There's a moment of dawning realisation about who it is that is standing in front of him before he snaps out of it, although not before saying, "You-- I mean. Yeah, Mitchell. Here," and he hands the rota over, its familiarity slipping to the back of his mind while it tries to sort out what the Hell.

An Old One --well, technically Ivan was an Old One, sort of. But an older Old One. Here, in Baedal. The last time they were in touch with him, they were clearing up after his mess, demanding his presence, which had ultimately led to him-- and it wasn't just any Old One, it was Hal Yorke, the vampire who made him look like a child pulling legs off of insects in terms of slaughter and misdeeds. Oh, those misdeeds. And wait, hadn't he gone missing--?

An awkward moment of silence passes before Mitchell snaps back into focus, chin up and keeping a casual indifference. "So. Welcome to the neighbourhood." Because what else can you say, really?

[incaptivity]

Oh, right, yes, he did used to strike fear into the hearts of young vampires, didn't he? While Mitchell collects himself, he just sort of stands there with the rota, awkwardly. Done? Yes? "Thanks."

A beat. Then something clicks.

"Sorry, weren't you--? You know." Dead? Deader? Kicked the bucket? Ceased to be? An ex-vampire? "Before you came here."

With Ivan, he'd assumed there had been some kind of misunderstanding--rumors of his demise had been greatly exaggerated, etc.--but Mitchell? He hadn't connected the face with the name until now, but if this is Annie's Mitchell, from what little he'd gleaned about what happened from Annie and Tom, he sincerely doubted the other vampire had somehow survived. (Or if he had, that would have been quite the shit thing to do.)

[martyrdomoption]

Hal really did seem to be out of the loop, then. Good --that meant he didn't know anything about Wyndham or that the Old Ones had specifically requested him. It meant that he was probably unlikely punish him.

"Yeah, I did." Which takes him back to thinking about George, thinking about Annie, and he frowns a little as he looks at the rota, as it keeps tugging at his thoughts. "Baedal doesn't see that as a problem. It resurrects some of the people it brings here. After that, you're on your own."

[incaptivity]

Hal isn't even aware the other Old Ones had taken an interest. That happens when you spend fifty-five years isolated from the vampire community.

"How discomforting." Comparable to being turned, he thinks, but by a careless amateur rather than properly.

He could leave it at that. Yes, this is Annie's Mitchell, the one who died, the one she missed so much, who used to live in the room Tom has now, who used to sit on the couch where they sat and watched Antiques Roadshow not so very long ago, but there was never more than a passing acquaintance between the two of them, and Mitchell only knew him as the man he very determinedly isn't anymore. He doesn't owe Mitchell anything. He could say nothing, and Mitchell wouldn't even know there'd been anything to say.

But there is something between them now, isn't there? His gaze drops to the rota, the glitter pen and little pictures of nappies that he'd found horrific at first glance, now the last remaining evidence of Annie's tireless efforts to make their hodgepodge little household into something like a family. Something tightens in his chest and he forces it to unwind again.

"I only ask because I lived there." If there's a non-awkward way to say this, he isn't aware, so he's just going to say it and hope for the best. "In Barry, with Annie, afterward."

[martyrdomoption]

His eyes widen as Hal's words sink in. "You..." It would knock the wind out of Mitchell if he actually needed to breathe, and there is this small, wavering moment where he doesn't know what to say because there's to much to ask. Then in a rush--

"How is she?" And George, and the baby, but right now all he can think is Annie even though it doesn't feel as though he has a right to think about her, in that way, after everything he's done. But for now, his guilt is momentarily paralyzed by his unanswered question.

[incaptivity]

"She's—" That's a terrible place to pause and Hal knows it, but the question catches him more off-guard than it ought. Of course he would ask that. Always the calm and collected one in the midst of other people's grief, his own is far less neat; three weeks out, and it's still raw and jagged-edged and catching on the edges of his emotions unbidden. He seems to steel himself. "She seemed content, when last I saw her."

That's not untrue, but it's also not all, as is evident enough in the tense pause that follows that answer. But there's no avoiding this forever.

"I'm afraid Annie has moved on."

[martyrdomoption]

"--oh. Okay."

It doesn't matter, in the silence that follows, that she is --was-- a ghost, or had died many years ago, or that the entire time he knew her, she was dead. Something weighs in his chest like lead and he's doing his best to try and hide it. He even looks away for a moment, around the room, as though she could be there, because --why isn't she? There's him and Ivan, and now Nina and Hal. Why not George? Why not Annie?

Mitchell is so used to guilt consuming him, but the brutal truth is he doesn't deserve to see them again, to ask them to forgive him. And so he bites at his lower lip, doing his best to nod stoically. "She wasn't pulled through, though? By the men with sticks and rope? No one --she went by herself?"