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

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

Ticket bought, Cindy slips into the bar and right up to the tender, looking to get tipsy as hard and as fast as possible. Usually, she would sip slowly at something easy and spend her time people watching, but with her letter sent home, she's under the impression that it's only a matter of time before Bigby comes and gets her. And yell at her too, but yelling is so much better than having to stay in Baedal any longer than necessary.

One vodka shot later, she's nursing a Screwdriver, bobbing her head to the bassline of whatever song they're playing.

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

Sonja cuts her way through the crowd (note: despite her being armed, this is not literal) to sidle in next to Cindy.

"We're doing shots," she announces, "at some point. Even the librarians are out tonight."

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

Sonja's not the only one armed, though Cindy's weaponry is a lot more conspicuous, what with her knife stuck in her boot and her pistol strapped to her thigh. Not that she expects anything to pop off tonight, but one can never be too prepared in Baedal.

"Hey, after a while, even the books get boring," Cindy replies with a grin and a tip of her glass towards Sonja. She downs the drink in one go and slams the glass back on the bartop. "How about now?"

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

"Better than later." She summons the bartender mostly with a) a healthy use of her tendency to wear the lowest cut tops she can get away with without actually showing her entire bra and b) force of will.

"Tequila or whiskey?"

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Both," she replies, flashing a smile to the bartender to keep the shots flowing free and easy. Hallelujah and amen. Somebody's living on the wildside tonight.

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

"That is nasty as hell," Sonja informs her, and then immediately orders as much. (As with many things, whether Sonja approves of something or not is largely inferred via intonation, not what she actually says. And she approves of 'nasty as hell', apparently.)

"See anything good here in the bar besides the liquor?"

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Says you," Cindy retorts as the order comes up and she holds up her glass for a toast. "But you're still drinking it." The shot goes down kind of rough with the mixture being that potent, but it's good anydamnway.

"If I did, I'd be bent over in the ladies room with some guy whose name I won't remember in the morning." This is more the actual truth than Cindy just being cheeky. She does need to get laid and who best to do it than some nameless Mundy?

[rhinemaid]

"You are going to dance with me," is Ilde's pleased greeting, leaning against the bar beside Cindy, apparently all leg this evening judging by choice of outfit. She's already been drinking a little, and it's evident (which makes the fact she's not killing herself with those heels a little impressive, all told); she's always a little more extravagant when she's tipsy.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Excuse me. Is that how you treat a lady?"

Cindy laughs because she knows she's anything but a lady and Ilde ain't even close to it either. She, in fact, slaps Ilde's bare leg before ordering a shot for the woman.

[rhinemaid]

At some point, Ilde is going to end up on a table and it will probably have something to do with the shots. Not that that's any reason to object! ...and while her glamours can be very, very convincing, they're just illusions and she rarely feels the need to make them work any harder than that (though she could-); the bandage around her thigh is evident when Cindy touches her. Enjoy that!

"Were you going to introduce me to one?" she sasses back, regardless, because that's just how this conversation goes.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Sure, if I wanted to see her clutch her pearls and retreat to her fainting couch." Being on the counter is no big deal; it's pretty much guaranteed that Cindy will be right up there next to Ilde, flashing all in the bar. Hell, Cindy's jacket has already been shrugged off and thrown onto the back of some chair in here, leaving her bare-shoulder and clad in one of her fancier corsets.

Cindy takes note of the bandage, but figures it's a battle wound from the ant war. If only she knew the truth.

[rhinemaid]

"I will have you- I will have you know that I was supposed to be a lady," Ilde laughs, before her shot, though her family had been best known for their tolerable eccentricities and not their ability to toe the line with everybody else. "Once upon a time."

Fairy, fairytale, it's all good.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"And I was supposed to be a princess. Guess what didn't work out for either of us?" Cindy replies with a grin. Hers might be closer to the actual truth than Ilde's defense. "But look at you, half-dressed and drinking. You'll never get married acting like that."

You know all those fucked up old-fashioned rules.

[rhinemaid]

"My aunt used to yank my skirt hem down a bit every time I walked past her," Ilde reminisces, and - solemnly, as if in honour of whoever this woman is, not a blood relative by dint of the fact her father had no sisters - takes the time to hike hers up a little further. Just casually.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

Cindy sees what you did there, Ilde. And she helps you out by reaching over and hiking that skirt up higher an inch or two.

They are such gentle ladies.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde tugs the ribbon tattooed around her thigh loose and tosses it into the air, amused- but it's just an illusion, and the tattoo is still there when the one in the air flutters into nothing.

[cailisairgid]

The opportunity to cut loose is not something to be taken for granted when it comes around and Sol is unabashedly of the 'work hard, play hard' philosophy- if less obnoxiously than some. (Many.) The pound of feet, dancing, the heat of bodies, the sheer energy in the room, it's close enough to just exactly what he could use after the past couple months and it's easy, good, just sinking in and riding it.

When he comes temporarily out of the crush (catching a glimpse of Sebastian, satisfied he's not in any trouble, moving on), he stops at the bar beside Cindy and orders a shot of bourbon, drumming his fingers on the bartop in time to the beat.

"Cynthia, right?" He remembers you, lady who approves of his lifestyle and parenting choices.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

By the time Sol shows up on the scene, Cindy's thrown back a handful of drinks already and is just slightly buzzed as she sips on another. Sometimes the benefits of being a Fable fucking suck when it comes to just wanting to be drunk and facedown in a puddle of your own vomit. Oh well. Her drinks have been free so far just from flirting with the bartender. She's willing to flash some tit again for more.

"I see somebody found a babysitter." She grins over the rim of her glass as she nods an answer to his question. "Either that he decided that it's time the kid learned how to make it in the world on her own."

[cailisairgid]

"You're never too young to learn a harsh lesson about the world's realities." A beat. "I'll be turning into a pumpkin around three AM, yeah," with a deprecating grin. It'll probably be earlier than that - Sobek Croix is an out of the way place and he'll be walking the distance between it and the nearest train stop, and fuck does he miss the hell out of his car at times like this. "Get you another one of those?"

And she doesn't even have to flash him for it. Hellsing may not pay as well here as it did in Bete Noire, but the money's not bad, either; he can afford to buy a pretty, friendly lady a drink.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"I have to agree with that." That is a lesson Cindy learned hard and fast when she was a tiny herself. She doesn't even remember her first true name, just the one that came and stuck from being covers in cinders twenty-four seven. But she does remember that the world is mean and unfair and most of the time, it'll fuck you up if you let it.

Aaand that next part of Sol's speech has her tensing up. It came somewhat out of nowhere and it's far too close to her own story, something she feels only that Dawn girl somehow knows how to connect to her. Damn it. "Don't leave your shoes behind."

Because she might beat whatever info Sol has on her out of him with them.

[cailisairgid]

"I'd go barefoot more often if I could get away with it, actually," he says, speculatively, good-natured and aware of having misstepped somehow, if not exactly how; the slightly concerned incomprehension is pretty genuine, to the observant, as is his desire to not have to wear shoes. Or clothes, for that matter: "Naturist at heart, lawyer at wallet."

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Hippie by nature, dirty bloodsucking sleazebag by occupation you mean." That's all said in good fun, though Cindy hates Mundy lawyers as much as she hates anybody else. She's still suspicious of Sol altogether, but as long as he doesn't keep up the antics, she'll let it slide.

For now.

[cailisairgid]

"Environmental law," he protests, feigning a wounded look - he makes half the lawyer jokes about him himself, though, so no hard feelings on his part. (It's irresistible, sometimes, his life is ridiculous.) "Back home, anyway. I currently enjoy the privilege of being at Sir Integra's beck and call."

In Baedal he's a jack of all trades, better known as 'Whatever Integra Decides My Job Is Today', and in Bete Noire he dipped his toes in supernatural criminal justice. (Inventing precedent by the seat of his pants was actually almost fun, and pulling it off was pretty good, too.)

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

Now that gets a loud full laugh. "A fucking hippie lawyer fighting the good fight for the trees. You just get worse the more you talk."

Cindy could ask who Sir Integra is and why she's called Sir, but that's a different conversation for a different day. Right now, she's trying to piece Sol out and figure out what exactly he knows. She plays off her nosy picking by pulling a pack of cigarettes out from her jacket pocket, tapping the corner of the box on the edge of her palm.

"I would offer you one but it'll probably hurt your precious ozone layer."

[cailisairgid]

Sol doesn't quite laugh himself - he just tends not to, as a rule, it's a bit of a red letter day when something merits more than one of those wolfish smiles he's so good at - but he grins at her, with a little chuff of air that'll have to serve in its place. "I've been quitting for about fifteen years," he says, cheerfully self-skewering. He would say the nicotine habit came before the hippie attitude, but in fairness, he was always an avid gardener.

Slightly inexplicably, to those who also knew him as a boisterous teenager inclined to beaten up boots, old black jeans, and other people's girls.