multiversallogs | open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

Entry tags:

open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

Who: Everyone.
What: The Grand Re-Opening of the Gravity Falls Station.
Where: Babylon.
When: Veerdi to Sukkardi.
Notes: Party post!!! Go nuts y'all.
Warnings: Probable alcohol (and drug?) use. Flag stuff in subject titles if it needs a warning and I'll edit it up in here.

It's clear from the first moment anyone even gets on the Skyrail tonight that the Stratosphere Entertainment Group's pricey investment is going to pay off - every rail car is crowded with people decked out and excited for the event. To natives of Baedal, the idea of a holiday is days off work, maybe some camping - escape is alien, a little frightening, and completely thrilling. Even when the Gravity Falls station had hosted other venues, it was nothing so ambitious as to capture the imaginations of the city as a whole. And to immigrants to the city who no longer have the luxury of even simple trips out of town - well, it's priceless. A bittersweet but suddenly vital excursion.

Doors open just as the sun begins to set, the light reflecting off the water of the ocean illuminating the great floating platform as if the entire sky was on fire, before slipping into deep purple then black, the ceiling of their experience dotted with brilliant stars. Staff members wrangling the hazards of the first night are anxious but excited, kind and helpful even if they end up frazzled by the overwhelming turnout. There is security, all sporting neon purple shirts with lion logos, but even by their own admission, they're only there to breakup fights - and even they're smiling all night, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

With cocktail glass in hand (the Modernista) and wearing a dress she doesn't often have an occasion for, Benevenuta can be found standing just as close to the platform's edge as the wards will let her get, watching the distant lights of the city across the water and listening to the echo from the club behind her. She's mingled a little already - she has colleagues, acquaintances and friends in all sorts of places in this city - and she intends to do more, in a while, but just at the moment--

It's a beautiful view.

He was looking for someone else, originally. She was wearing red, as she seems to favour red, making sure to catch his attention through the crowds and promptly disappearing if he attempted to get any closer. Stupid games, is his thought, the objectives of which Gaius hasn't worked out by the time he is led -- or has led himself -- out into the gardens, that dizzying view visible as horizon.

Well, while he's here.

After a few relatively unselfconscious moments of standing around and considering the cigarettes in his pocket and then deciding against them, Gaius eventually materialises within Benevenuta's periphery. Navigating events like this as an unknown entity is unusual, to him, both good and bad, but it's inevitable that he would gravitate towards the more familiar of strangers.

"Dr. Bernàt," is polite greeting. He's dressed well, maybe a little boringly in comparison to everyone else, a suit sans tie and glasses on his face, clean cut and a little more settled than he'd been when they'd first met, nerves behind a veneer of practiced professionalism. It helps that he has a regular income. And a prescription.

She half-turns at his voice, friendly enough - outside the office (one of her several), she's as relaxed and comfortable here as she is alert and professional there, accustomed to compartmentalizing her life like she's playing a very successful game of Jenga. “Dr Baltar,” she says, when she realizes who it is, and turns properly to salute him with her glass in greeting. It's probably a safe bet that the necklace she's wearing wasn't bought on a non-profit salary.

(It doesn't concern her in the slightest to have her back to the platform's edge.)

“Mixing, mingling- networking?” It's half a tease, and half- well, not a bad idea. She does, when she's out.

Gaius makes a half-turn to look back at the rest of the building behind them, a sharp smile writing across sharp features. "Probably only by accident," he says, attention back to her. "No, no, I think I'd require some sort of cheat sheet to keep up with everyone important-- ooh, careful." A hand hovers out like he might steer her an inch or so away from the platform's edge, as if just noticing the suddenness of the drop, her blind nearness to it.

"Bit open out here, isn't it."

“It looks that way, no?” she says, laughing, letting him direct her a little away from the edge - an interesting set of compromises, moving as his hand does and in the right direction, untouched. And still unconcerned, actually, like her ostensible safety is some kind of amiably-made concession. There are wards, it's perfectly safe-- would she still be there, though, if there weren't. (Yes; if no one were watching.) “But the navigation here is not so difficult, once you find your footing.”

She means socially, more, but she's nimble either way.

Its perfect safety doesn't negate the sense of vertigo that comes with it, which some people might enjoy -- Gaius is hardwired to enjoy nothing that hedges into the negative end of the scale. He smiles small at her as she indulges him in that, and his hands disappear into his jacket pockets, casual.

"It's a bit like starting from the bottom again, though. I might just have to settle for getting by well enough than have to do it all again. But I heard the view was amazing."

A little risk is rewarding- but Benevenuta is inclined to be indulgent of other people, to a point. It plays into the persona that she wears like a comfortable coat, and in Baedal where there are so many more little loose threads in her identity to tug free and see what's underneath, well. She aims to have a little more to support what she's inviting them to look at than what she isn't.

“Worth price of admission? I enjoy to getting the jewelry out without also my hat in my hand, besides,” because while it's not as though she doesn't fairly regularly get to put on a nice dress and a pair of heels, she tends to be making appearances on the philanthropic circuit, gently reminding the more generous of Baedal's deeper pockets of some of the places their marks might go to best use.

"Well, it's lovely," Gaius says, without actually indicating the horizon itself, his neat eyebrows cinching slightly as he peers a look downwards, indicating instead the floor beneath their feet. "I'd be a liar if I said the, er, the general appeal of a gigantic inexplicably floating platform didn't garner some interest too, but I don't suppose there's much explanation beyond 'magic'."

It's something he's going to have to get used to.

"Not on-duty, then?"

With a brief smile for 'it's probably magic' - she should be accustomed to the inexplicable, due to being that herself, but then she's always grown up with the firm belief that she knows exactly what her purpose in the world is - she says, “Not tonight, no, although perhaps later I will multitask.”

She is nothing if not an opportunist, after all, and cheerfully unrepentant for as much.

“Do you find much else to interest you here, this evening?”

"Well--"

There's a moment when something snags his attention, freezes his stare passed her, an ungainly gap in conversation before he blinks and snaps his focus back to where it's meant to be. (These are tics that those who find themselves in quasi-regular conversations with him will just-- have to get used to.)

A slight adjustment to his glasses as if to recentre himself, remembering the question. "Just getting out, I think, you know. I haven't really done much... that isn't work or idling about since I got here. People're friendly enough."

(no subject)

asklepios - 2012-08-25 10:52 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

egodefence - 2012-08-25 11:20 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

asklepios - 2012-08-25 11:26 (UTC) - Expand

It is probably telling that while Irene's first thought upon catching sight of Benevenuta is deeply and purely appreciative, her second thought is we'll look good together. These things are important; being eye-catching is important. She enjoys the subtle and fairly deceitful contrast which their outfits imply; dark and light.

For a moment, she does wonder being so visibly linked will become a problem now that Vanessza Bernàt is a name which is getting tossed around more and more frequently in philanthropic circles. The not so philanthropic circles, Irene can manage- criminals are easy, old hat, her sort of people in the first place. Dealing in politics has always been more complicated than dealing in crime.

But being circumspect is tedious and it's a party. Irene draws close, the train of her dress untouched by dust, literally magically- it took her a while to get used to the possibilities which Baedal offers. She doesn't try to measure the pros and cons anymore, of course. It only ever kept her up at night.

"I could probably talk you down," she announces with every shade of seriousness and no sincerity, looking out at the sea and then at Benevenuta and it is a beautiful view, isn't it, "if it's necessary. I think I'm very persuasive."

Benevenuta is laughing, as she turns to meet Irene - there isn't a pause for recognition, not here, not when they are more than familiar with each other by now. With as much of each other as either of them are inclined to share with anyone, anyway; she chooses not to let herself worry about how much that is and is not, because she doesn't have to right now and because she enjoys it.

It is worth thinking about, the levels on which their names are becoming linked; lately, though, it's not the politicians most likely to get her into trouble.

“I was wondering what happens,” she says, tilting her head, confiding; there's a bright glint in her eyes that hints at some kind of recklessness she must so rarely give any part of herself to. “They say it is perfectly safe, it is there are wards, but I wonder...what happens, exactly.” If she jumps.

Irene laughs. "Perhaps you bounce. Perhaps you get thrown out for being a troublemaker. One thing I do know is that if the cocktails stay this cheap, this plentiful and this strong-" she has her own in her hand, a Death in the Afternoon, so her judgement on the strength of the drinks may be slightly skewed by the fact that she's already drinking absinthe "-someone will absolutely try and find out."

But that's watching, not doing, and she knows which she prefers. Her lips curve. "I could always push you," she says, with perfect innocence, maybe joking and maybe not.

Benevenuta, whose own cocktail includes the same liquor, is not going to disabuse her of that notion.

“Maybe after another drink,” she says, threading her arm through Irene's and leaning their shoulders together, conspiratorial. “You look magnificent, had I said?”

"You'd looked," Irene purrs, tipping her chin up and smiling, pleased and proud and affectionate. "It was an eloquent look." --and it doesn't matter whether that's true or not, Irene would say it anyway. "You look splendid, I must say. Nigh timeless."

It's not that she knows. It's not that she even suspects- it's merely that there is a mystery about Benevenuta- of course there is- and Irene feels like it's on the tip of her tongue, that if only she had the words for it it wouldn't come as any surprise. Vanessza, she thinks, is an optical illusion, and perhaps if she tilts her head just so- but as of yet Irene hasn't looked at the right angle, which is certainly not for lack of looking.

Benevenuta is all smoke and mirrors - always reflecting a different part of herself, now brunette and now blonde, now sharp and now soft, now bold and now retiring. They're all true, but by the same token she can set them all aside again, reinvent herself and be nearly-but-not-quite unrecognizable.

It makes life interesting. As do people like Irene in her life, and she laughs, choosing not to let herself react any other way to something that isn't, she's sure, quite as pointed as it might sound to a secretively guilty conscience. She doesn't have one of those! It's fine. “Not too- 'costumey', you think? I couldn't go past it.”

"Oh, everything's costumey, some people are just more honest about it than others," Irene says blithely, casting another swift look over Benevenuta and going for an unusual interpretation of honest. "I think it's wonderful. You've got the gravity for it; you're amassing quite the reputation as a woman to be taken seriously."

Two reputations, in fact. And speaking of, she's reminded again of the problems associated with Vanessza's growing prominence. Being taken seriously in some contexts can be distinctly inconvenient- it's why Irene plays the femme fatale and not the antagonist.

To her right, a man steps up to the edge, peering downward with eyebrows raised. "I have the strangest urge to lean against the wards and test them, is that ridiculous?" he asks, lifting his gaze toward her, a small smile on his lips. "Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt your admiring the view."

Benevenuta turns toward him with a warm laugh and a matching manner- “I was thinking the self-same thing. Only, not to test, precisely? I suppose I want to see what happens.” Would it be like walking out onto a barrier, supported by the air? Would it push her back? Should she take her shoes off and get a bit of a run-up?

It's very tempting.

He chuckles, the sound matching her warmth even if the expression on his face does not. He seems the sort of man who never really lets go, indulges in belly laughs, nothing like that.

"Ah. A serious scientific-minded inquiry versus my childish urge to fling myself at it to see if I bounce off. I see I've been beaten in the maturity department."

He offers a hand. "I'm Adam."

“Vanessza,” she supplies, shaking his hand - the doctor has a surgeon's hands, naturally, carefully manicured and well looked after. There are calluses that might not make quite as much sense for a doctor and philanthropist, but she won't be the first or the last person in this city he meets with more than one story to her name.

(Names.)

“I must confess it, I think I will be much more childish in my curiosity after not very many more cocktails,” she adds, rising up on the balls of her feet to lean somewhat more precariously forward, holding her glass away to behind her as she does, reflexively.

"Vanessza," he repeats, careful with the pronunciation. "It's a pleasure."

He follows her gaze, eyes darting to the glass held behind her. "I haven't had that many," he offers, apparently a confession in return, "and I was already considering a running start. It would be less than chivalrous of me not to offer to conduct the experiment in your stead. Or at the very least to hold your drink and your shoes, should you so wish."

Her gaze travels, speculatively, from the edge of the platform itself back to her newly-made acquaintance - and then she grins. The unfamiliar might interpret it, the way she usually leads them to, as betraying her youth. This isn't quite a 'Vanessza' thing to do, but she's had a couple of drinks, and it does pay to have a few flaws where people can see them.

They don't look too closely for the others, if they think they know. Adrenaline-junkie isn't even too inaccurate, as it goes, although by her own standards this is hardly anything at all. As she steps out of her heels (she rarely wears any pair she can't quickly rid herself of, admittedly not with this in mind, she says, “You'll have to catch me, if I go flying.”

She's an athletic little thing, though, and between her short dress and lengthy previous experience in range of motion in a tight bodice, once she's set her shoes and glass aside and withdrawn to what she judges an acceptable distance, she manages a respectably impressive bolt to launch herself off the edge and--

--there is a distinct bounce.

Adam watches her step back, mildly amused. He stays amused--and a bit impressed with her lack of worry about what anyone nearby might think--as she gets that running start and flings herself off the platform.

But it quickly gives way to alarm as she bounces off the invisible barrier. He has to think fast, already moving to intercept as he works out the angle of her return. He finds the right spot, but there's no graceful way to catch her, there will be no perfect cinematic pulling her out of the air and into his arms.

The best he can hope for is to break her fall and cushion her landing. He takes two steps back, arms open, and she crashes into him. He lets himself be toppled backwards, arms securely around her to keep her from skidding into the ground. He hits hard enough to knock the wind out of him for a moment.

"Well." He manages a breathless, if startled, smile. "Now we know, eh? Are you all right?"

The security staff are slightly more concerned than some of their fellow revelers, but for the moment they're only being observed and not interfered with; if Benevenuta looks like she's going to try it again, things might go differently, but just at the moment she's busy trying to catch her breath and laugh at the same time, with mixed results. She hadn't really been expecting to bounce, and- despite herself, she's sort of delighted.

“You are- very kind,” she says, clutching his arm around her with one hand and finding some purchase on the platform with her bare feet, trying not to do him too much additional inconvenience by the weight and placement of her body, now. “I did not expect so- forceful.”