It's like paradise, spread out with a butter knife :: [OPEN]

[bonhomme7h.livejournal.com]

Who: EVERYONE
What: Réjean has decided that more people ought to celebrate and help raise a bit of dosh for one of his favourite bars. See: flyer.
Where: The Apache.
When: Misdi night and into the wee hours of the morning.
Warnings: Discussion of Pickman's manky feet.

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. Tonight, the bar is packed with people from all across the city, different cantons and cohorts, all out to celebrate surviving the fungal plague. Patrons are encouraged to buy tickets for a door prize with the proceeds going to repair the damage tunnelling ants made to the cellar.

Comments

[hehaseatenthepancake]

Hellboy only arrives once things have gotten fully underway, strolling in with remarkable casualness for a seven foot tall half-demon. He's dressed in his usual style, fully geared also as usual. The bandages, however, are new, around the torso and up into where the coat covers the left shoulder, but they're pretty light, especially compared to a couple of days ago. The chemical burn on his right cheek is almost gone, as are the couple visible on his legs between his shorts and boots.

On his way in, he shrugs and buys a raffle ticket, perhaps to make up for his only ordering some soda at the bar rather than anything alcoholic.

[cerebric.livejournal.com]

And Charles greets Hellboy with remarkable casualness for a five foot seven tall mutant who has never seen anyone quite like Hellboy before.

He walks straight up to the bar to stand alongside next to the stranger who has piqued his curiosity. "Hello," he greets with a polite smile. He points to the soda. "I do hope the beer here isn't so awful that it should be avoided."

[hehaseatenthepancake]

That's actually just fine, as far as Hellboy's concerned. He is, after all, used to being a bit of a celebrity, albeit one who's been out of circulation for a while. He's pleased enough to even offer a slight grin in reply, which actually takes a bit of effort with his severe features.

"Hi!" He looks down at the soda, then shrugs. "I wouldn't know. I Stopped Drinking shortly before my abduction." Yes, those capitals are audible, and mean just what one might expect. (Well, maybe not, since Charles is from the '60s, but still.) He carefully switches the glass over to his Right Hand to free up his left for shaking. "Hellboy."

[cerebric.livejournal.com]

"Hellboy," Charles says with a visible lift of both brows. The name doesn't shock him, but it does intrigue him. Unlike appearance, names are chosen, and usually not by the person who bears it. "That's quite the name, I'm afraid I only go by something as mundane as Charles Xavier."

He shakes the offered hand eagerly. "Have you been here long?" He leaves it open to interpretation as to whether he means the bar or the city.

[hehaseatenthepancake]

As he typically does when someone remarks on his name -- which has generally been often, since coming to Baedal; much more so than back home, where people have had over fifty years to get used to it -- Hellboy spares a moment to think of Professor Bruttenholm looking down on him, as shocked as any of the others who'd witnessed his appearance on Earth, not realizing that the name he was about to give would stick.

He's not really in the mood at the moment to get into explaining any of that, though, so instead he just gives a slight, slouchy shrug. "It's a long story. Nice to meet you, Charles." He blinks for a moment as he realizes, "It's been nearly four months, actually, and another city that also did the kidnap thing for about a month before that. Geez, the time flies."

[cerebric.livejournal.com]

Charles understands not wanting to delve into a particular subject and he makes no fuss about allowing the topic of names to pass.

"You've been in this kind of situation before?" He unconsciously turns his body to face Hellboy better rather than leaving himself open for conversation with another bar patron should they choose to approach. "I was unaware that this wort of thing was so common. Was your previous city much like this one?"

[hehaseatenthepancake]

He nods. "There're a handful of us who were in Bete Noire before here. There may be some folks from other places too, I don't really keep track. Bete Noire had people of all sorts like here, but the city itself was like a low-rent New York City with a supposedly imminent Apocalypse. No thank you." He's got more than enough of that back home.

[cerebric.livejournal.com]

"Well, at least you can count on an Apocalypse not happening every day. Low rent though, I can't imagine." Even through his humor Charles shouldn't talk, he's staying at the inn, but that doesn't make him any less spoiled.

[hehaseatenthepancake]

Hellboy scowls for a moment before reminding himself that Charles would have any way of knowing just why he doesn't find the Apocalypse to be a laughing matter. He shakes his head. "It was dirtier and more run down, with crappier lighting and more crime, is what I meant. Like no one was bothering to take much care of it." He shrugs. "I don't know what the actual rents were; I was still on the newbie discount rate at the hostel when Baedal grabbed me."

[warped-inside.livejournal.com]

Tosh has seen a lot of unusual things in her life, but that doesn't mean there are no unexpected sights left in the world. And one of them appears to be a...large, red, demon-man.

At least he looks friendlier than Abaddon?

She's too close now to avoid saying hello, otherwise it would like rude, and anyway. It is rather rude, making assumptions based off someone being huge a red.

"Um. Hullo? I...don't suppose you could catch the bartender's attention for me, could you?"

[hehaseatenthepancake]

Hellboy had noticed Tosh approaching his general vicinity, but had busied himself with drinking his soda in case she decided to change her mind. When she finally decides to talk to him, he gulps down the last of it and settles the glass down on the bar.

"Hi. Yeah, sure." He chuckles at her request, then raises his big stone Right Hand up and waves it to call over the bartender. "Hey!"

That duty done, he turns back to Tosh and offers his left hand while the bartender comes over to take their orders. "I'm Hellboy, by the way."

[warped-inside.livejournal.com]

Now Tosh has put herself in it -- she's dealt with enough aliens to know that it's never a good idea to ignore the social conventions they're expecting. Well, hopefully he's the friendly sort and won't just crush her hand into tiny bits.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Toshiko." She takes the offered hand and shakes it, feeling very small. "That's...sort of an unusual name. Where I'm from, anyway. I suppose it's probably perfectly ordinary where you're from. That wasn't very diplomatic, sorry."

[hehaseatenthepancake]

"Nice to meet you." Hellboy's handshake, while firm, is nowhere near crushing. What she says next makes him laugh, though. "'Where I'm from.' That's... hang on a second."

The bartender rolls up, and Hellboy briefly looks away from Tosh to tell him, "Another soda for me, and whatever the lady's having."

Once Tosh gives her order and the bartender goes to fill them, Hellboy smiles his mildly grotesque smile again and continues, "Actually, 'where I'm from' is kind of complicated. The name suggests one place, but to me, life began in England and moved to a military base in New Mexico. Either way, it's not a normal name, but my adoptive father was startled by how I showed up."

((Knew I was forgetting something the first time.))

[warped-inside.livejournal.com]

"Probably about time for me to switch to soda myself," Tosh replies, with a quick smile for the bartender before turning her attention back to Hellboy. It's hard to continue feeling nervous in light of the easy conversation.

"Well I was born in England too, though I imagine my parents were a bit less startled by that event. Do you mean Area 52?" Tosh can see why someone who looks like him would end up in at a secret government base.

[hehaseatenthepancake]

Mmmmm, soda.

"It wasn't so much being born as..." He deliberates a moment before deciding that it's a bit late not to say anything; besides, as he once told someone, It's just my life. "...appearing in a fireball in a burned-out old church." Hellboy refuses to use the word summoned.

He shakes his head. "Roswell Army Air Field. Well, until '47, anyway. Then the Army needed the space, so the Bureau finally got its own headquarters in Connecticut." He points to the patch on one of his coat sleeves. "Uh, that's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Kind of like what Hellsing does here."

[warped-inside.livejournal.com]

That kind of fits with the whole 'Hellboy', giant red guy thing going on, and Tosh nods. "That way you always win the 'funny story about when I was born' contest though, right?"

Ah, now that's interesting. Tosh has kind of special curiosity about people from earlier decades. Particularly ones she's experienced for herself, however briefly. "Your Bureau sounds like our Torchwood, only were more interested in aliens than the paranormal. Actually most things people paint as being paranormal where I come from are really aliens."

[hehaseatenthepancake]

Hellboy laughs at the idea of such a contest, then gives a so-so gesture with his Right Hand. "Eh. Back in the day, I worked with an amnesiac merman, a pyrokinetic, and a homunculus. My story is only so interesting in comparison."

Toshiko's description of Torchwood causes him to perk up a bit, realizing that she's a colleague of sorts. "Huh. How about that. We mostly had actual supernatural stuff -- vampires, werewolves, freaking Nazis who can't stop messing with forces from beyond." That last is a bit of a thing for him, and he takes a breath to calm himself down. "That said, there was that one case in '85, that started with satanist kids and missing cows and ended up in an alien ship and... actually, that's really about as much as I want to say about that one."