bigapplesauce | Don't Panic [open]

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Don't Panic [open]

Iman practically drags her new friend to the East Village, wandering with intense focus until she finally comes across the bar Jodie had recommended to her, which looks just like it sounds, a proper English pub. It's been ages since she went to an English pub. She's looking forward to it. A little hysterically, actually. No wait. Scratch that. She does not get hysterical. She's a scientist.

"Here we are!" she says brightly, drawing Daniel in. Oh wow would you get a load of this place. The lady behind the bar is in costume. Adorable.

"Wow you can kinda tell it's for people from an alternate universe, can't you?" She snorts and takes stock of the people, looking for someone to talk to, or someone whose brain she (they) can pick. It's pretty early for anyone to be drinking, so there's not too many people there, except one guy who is drunk, slumped over the bar. Looking exactly like she feels, or rather how she wants to feel in an hour's time.

"That one," she says decisively, not bothering to check if Daniel's with her on the idea of approaching a drunk stranger and asking him questions about their mutual cosmic misfortune. He's probably not. She doesn't actually care.

She goes straight to the bar, assuming Daniel will follow, sits herself on the stool next to the guy, and nods to the tender. "I'll have what he's having."

[[ooc: Daniel's just gonna be here for the initial thread, but Iman will be here all day! Say hi if you wanna.]]

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Daniel's still reeling from the speed it took for Iman to meet and greet and then immediately recruit him to help her locate the nearest pub (with which he was absolutely no help at all) and then from the alacrity with which she immediately settled in. He's still lost and has no idea how to get back to Lucy's from the park, much less here, so he's reduced to trailing behind his new acquaintance warily, hands in pockets and shoulders slightly hunched.

He slides into the stool beside Iman and waits as she orders. The place isn't crowded and Daniel doesn't know the guy Iman's decided to sit with but he promptly gets distracted over being impressed with how, yes, it appears that the commercial economy of the area has shifted to keep up with the changes in its natural environment and it's more than a little thrilling to get to witness that kind of adaptation at work firsthand.

Focus, Daniel.

Iman's apparent high comfort level with pretty much everyone raises a few question marks.

"Seem to know what you're doing," he remarks in muttered undertone. Which is good, because he doesn't. At all.

Edited 2014-09-25 03:04 (UTC)

Lucifer, in the meanwhile, has been steadily making his way through an entire bottle of vodka that's currently sitting in front of him; this is not his first one, not by a long shot, and it certainly isn't going to be his last. He drank the last bar down to dry-- and the one before that, and the one before that, ad nauseum, there's a rash of establishments that are closed tonight due to lack of inventory-- until all they had left was soda water and grenadine, and he is damn well going to do the same here.

He is stuck here, in this insignificant little island in a cesspool of a city, his powers unfairly stripped from him, forced into an inferior vessel, with the knowledge that, at some point in the future from his current perspective, Heaven will fall and all his brothers will perish. His youngest brother is, apparently, already dead. Or going to die. It's still a little quantum at this point.

And he is stuck here.

In light of literally having nothing that he can do and being unable to lay waste to anything to relieve his frustrations, the Devil has said to Hell with it. He's going to get drunk.

So he has ended up here, in this pub, pouring himself a very large glass of straight alcohol with a deceptively steady hand, when some woman with a rather lost looking man in tow decides to sit herself next to him. He looks over at her with an expression that someone would probably use if a very large amoeba decided to sit next to them.

"I doubt it," he says, then downs the glass all in one go. "Not if you like having a functional liver, anyway."

Well that sounds like a challenge, but also he's making his way through an entire bottle, and who knows how long he's been at this, anyway? Iman just shrugs and says, "What you're having, not what you've had. Maybe with some tonic," she adds to the bartender. To Daniel, she says, "I have no fucking idea what I'm doing, sweetie. This is panicked improvising. Also called 'getting crunk', in some social circles." Receiving her vodka tonic, she lifts it to the men on either side of her and says, "Cheers," then takes a rather generous sip.

"I'm Iman, that's Daniel," she says to the drunk guy. "We're new. Is this a midlife crisis you're having or are you just happy to see us?"

Daniel isn't listening, too busy squinting intently at their not-overly talkative neighbor. There's something genuinely unnerving about this man's quiet, restrained menace that sets all of Daniel's nerves prickling with dismay. In fact, he's not sure if "man" is the right word. The dark weight of presence hangs around him, heavy and thick and charging the air with something Daniel has no idea how to categorize. He just knows it's caused something to solidify in his gut that feels an awful lot like dread.

He wonders if Iman can tell, suddenly fearful for her and himself and pretty much everyone in the immediate vicinity. The latent knowledge from his time spent as an Ascended being isn't always helpful (or readily accessible), but now it's firing off like a sixth sense and leaving his lungs with an unpleasant sensation akin to them having iced over.

"What are you?" he whispers.

Lucifer refills his glass while Iman speaks and Daniel quietly has a minor epiphany about the nature of their barstool neighbor.

And had he been slightly less intoxicated than he currently is-- after consuming many, many bars' worth of alcohol, even the Devil gets tipsy-- he may have decided that these two were too annoying and flying under the radar is simply not worth the trouble, but alcohol mollifies even angelic nerves.

"At the moment, I'm trying to get drunk," he says toward Daniel, "that's what I am. I'd have thought it was fairly obvious, considering the bottle," he gestures at it, "the glass," and another gesture, "and the drinking."

And there goes another glass, down the hatch like it's water.

"That makes two of us," says Iman, casting a seriously dubious glance at Daniel. The hell kind of question is that? She'd almost think it was rude if she hadn't already clocked Daniel as hopelessly well-intentioned, and if hadn't been uttered like it was a really prevalent question. But let's just sidestep casually away from that, shall we?

"Maybe not quite that drunk," she says, eyeing the bottle. "I'm gonna need some brain cells left. But holy shit, let me tell you guys." She finishes off her cocktail and slides it to the bartender. "This was not where I meant to be today. I mean granted, I think we can all say the same thing, right? But I mean I had a fucking plan. It involved coming here and then going home. Half the plan goes ass up and I'm left here looking like a fucking idiot. Which, I'll have you know, I am not. Thanks." This last word to the bartender, who has insightfully bequeathed her a new vodka tonic, which she's already sipping like a goddamn boss. "Can I get a whiskey, too? Daniel, what are you having?"

She glances over at Drunky McGee. "Still didn't get your name, there, Snoozy. How long you been rift-side?"

This, as far as Iman can tell, is going great.

"Iman." He says it slow, dragging and thick with warning, as he stands and takes two rigid steps back. He's breathing too heavily as his eyes dart from the man to Iman and back again.

"You're not human." He directs the statement flatly at their neighbor and it's obvious once he says it, horribly and painfully obvious, that of course this thing's not human. He's not sure what it is, only that it justifiably terrifies him. And the boredom on the man's face, the sheer nonchalance as he addresses them, like they are so very inconsequential and tiny - Daniel has seen that before. He's seen it on the faces of those that would call themselves gods and demand centuries of worshipful slavery, but the difference between those and this is that this actually seems that it has the power to back that claim.

Unfortunately for the concept of common sense, Daniel has a habit of shamelessly confronting every god he meets. And he might be stone dead terrified because this thing feels so...big and so intensely horrifying, but the hard-edged stubborn streak remains.

"What are you?" He says it again, focused and scared and fierce.

"Some people call me Nick," he replies, opting for the technically true but not wholly true option, because he seriously does not need people getting all upset about him being literally the Devil. He just. Wants. To drink.

And are you really giving this gift horse a dental exam right now, Daniel? Is that really a thing you're doing?

"You know," he says, upending his bottle over his glass again and frowning when he finds it empty. He reaches out with one hand towards the bottles behind the bar, wiggles his fingers, a little come-hither motion, and one of the bottles makes its way off of the shelf and towards him. "I don't think I like your tone."

He takes the bottle out of mid-air and cracks the seal on it, and pours a heavy amount into his glass. It's amber-colored this time; whiskey.

"And no, I'm not human. But I don't see a sign on the door saying that I can't get a drink here, so I'm not really sure what your point is."

"Oh holy shit. Honey, no." Iman swivels around to face Daniel, mildly annoyed that he's doing this to them. "Look I don't know what the hell kind of implants or intuition or whatever you have, but this is probably par for the course here. I mean, you've met aliens, right? Gotta have met aliens. Come on. Sit down. Let's all be cool."

She swivels back as 'Nick' lays out his grievances and does a totally cool thing. "Whoa damn," she declares, watching with wide eyes as he airlifts himself a pretty nice caliber whiskey. She can do some pretty reality-bending shit herself, which would probably make at least Daniel go similarly wide-eyed, but she can't do that. With so little effort. While drunk.

"Wow, when I'm feeling a hundred percent me again I'm gonna want to ask you some questions," she says, the scientific curiosity portions of her brain partly engaged. "That was pretty neat."

Daniel still looks thoroughly spooked. So yeah, Nick can probably kill them, but Iman doesn't get the feeling he's into that right now. Supervillains gotta drink too, right?

"Daniel get your butt back over here. Nick promises he's only going to use his powers for drinking. Right?" She waves an arm to coax Daniel back. Come onnnn, science friend, don't leave her with the grumpy weirdo.

"No, you're - you're something else. I don't know what." Daniel's heart is juddering in the early stages of panic and he wets his lips nervously.

He can tell it's old. Something - early and foundational and terrible.

Then the thing just casually floats a bottle his way, like spontaneous telekinesis is no big deal and the fact that, for him, it probably isn't is more than a little intimidating. Oh god. Oh great. The smart thing to do would be to sink quietly into anonymity and slip away and not bother the immensely powerful being wearing the skin of a man who obviously is not a fan of being bothered.

Daniel has no weapons. He has nothing. He's armed solely with fearful self-righteousness and the small consolation that if he dies, he at least knows where he's going. Mostly. But he's ruled by pathos, and right now pathos trumps common sense. As always. So he steels himself into relative, icy calm and addresses Iman without once taking his eyes away from that thing - "Nick," or whatever else it calls itself, probably something a good deal more grandiose-sounding.

"I've met aliens. I know aliens. I've helped kill some of the worst. And that?" He jerks his chin at it. "That's something...worse than anything I've ever seen. And I used to exist on a higher plane so believe me when I say that's - bad." Bad doesn't even begin to cover it. Daniel doesn't think there's a language capable of covering it, human or otherwise.

Satan rolls his eyes at the dramatics.

"Yes, you've caught me. I'm the Great and Powerful Oz."

Cookie for you, Daniel; you're intuitive enough to figure out that the Devil is a nasty piece of work underneath the middle-aged meatsuit and newly-discovered taste for expensive alcohol. Fortunately for everyone involved, Lucifer has no desire to get his murder on right now.

If Lucifer hadn't been so completely out of fucks to give, though, he might have actually started to get really annoyed at this point, and an annoyed Satan is not something that anyone wants.

He leans toward Iman. "If you've got questions, you should really just ask them. I might even actually answer."

"Dan-yull. You're like grade-A freaking out on me here. He's a big scary monster, sure, fine. I believe you." She does! "But what exactly are either of us going to do about it? Cleave his head from his shoulders? I don't think they go in for that here." The bartender's unamused look pretty well confirms that. "Maybe instead of poking the big scary higher plan of existence bear, you should have a drink with it. Yeah?"

To Nick, she says, "No, no, not right now. I am not prepped. And also I have no frame of reference, and this whole 'what are you' thing - not a great foundation. So NICK." She leans heavily on the bar, pointedly ignoring Daniel. Get over here, dummy. "How long have you been here?"

Daniel has been told many times that he should learn to pick his battles. He's been told that his complete lack of instinct to do so is exactly the reason he's racked up such an abnormally high death count. He has yet to actually listen to this advice in any way. He's also very aware that his life is currently dependent on whether or not "Nick" is in a good mood. And Daniel, scintillating diplomat that he is, elects to ignore little things like common sense like the audacious, willful idiot he is.

"You don't know what it is," he whispers. He neglects to mention that he doesn't know what it is either, but that happens to be one of the many things about it that's scaring him. "Or what it's done."

"You need to prep? I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition."

And Daniel should probably start listening to other people's advice, because it's seriously better than what he's following right now.

Lucifer turns slowly on his bar stool to face Daniel, his expression the very picture of placid regard. It's like his face is the still, mirrorlike surface of a beautiful lake, and underneath there's something big and toothy swimming that's just waiting for unsuspecting legs.

"It," he says, "has a name, which it has already given to you, and it thinks that you ought to use it."

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Iman says gleefully, making herself laugh way too hard at her own reference, which she's not even sure either of them will get. She hopes they do. All universe's should have Monty Python - Monty Python is a multiversal constant.

"Daniel for fuck's sake," she says. "If you don't sit down and cool it I'm giving up on you. And then where will you be. I mean, no offense, Nick, but you aren't proving to be super great conversation so far."

She knocks back her whiskey and gasps, her eyes watering. Oh man. Oh fuck. That's how we do.

"You know what makes bad situations easier to deal with?" she raises her glass and waggles it enticingly.

"Nick." Daniel grinds the word out, flat and sharp and oh look, his hands are tremoring slightly and his heart's in his throat and he is so, so, so far in over his head and he knows it. "Why don't I believe you?"

Yes, Daniel, this is a very bad idea and he's actually growing a tad light-headed at the realization but he's making a point to commit. And Iman's trying her best to lighten everything up, bless her, but Daniel -

"And why don't I believe you won't kill us once you're done here?"

- presently lacks a filter.

"I don't know, because you're paranoid?"

He can already tell that, overenthusiastic though she is, he's going to like Iman better. She, at least, understands the purpose of being at a bar-- to get drunk, not to interrogate the other patrons on how they're totally not human and what their intentions are.

Lucifer is not drunk enough for this shit. He attempts to remedy it by turning back and drinking another full glass of whiskey.

Maybe it's his method of administration that's lacking. He may need to reconsider the middle-man that is his glass; it would possibly be more effective to simply drink straight from the bottle. That does, however, pose the issue of dignity and a certain lack thereof, because he is the Devil, thank you very much, not a drunken hobo. ~~Yet.~~

"If I really wanted to murder and lay waste and whatever else, there would be corpses already. Do you really want to know what I'm going to do when I'm done here?"

More whiskey goes into the glass. "I'm going to find another bar and I'm going to drink more. Call it an exercise in supernatural CYP2E1 function."

Every sense is still screaming for Daniel to get out before Nick's mood changes to something less favorable, but Iman seems very much intent on staying and getting drunk with him. It. Even if there are blazing klaxons going off in the far corners of his brain, he's not about to just leave anyone alone with this man, especially after that casual, not-very-veiled threat. Nick has quite plainly stated he's capable of what Daniel's afraid of but for unclear reasons lacks the motivation to follow through. It's hazy, but there's no immediate danger - excepting that which comes from Daniel not thinking anything through.

So he sinks back into the stool beside Iman, still glaring, and stays quiet. For once. Which is probably the wisest choice he's made all day.

Edited 2014-09-25 20:25 (UTC)

Iman bursts into a surprised laugh at the unexpected biochemistry reference. Well then. If that isn't the nerdiest thing she's heard all day, and she's the scientist hanging out with the other scientist. Old Evil or whatever he is, at least Nick is a nerd.

But more importantly, Daniel is sitting down! Yaaay.

"Atta boy," she congratulates him, slapping his back heavily. "Here, I'll buy you something." Well technically Jodie will buy him something. Whatever. "What're you having?"

The inner workings of the human body holds no mysteries for Lucifer. And if he wants to make bad jokes about it, than that's his prerogative.

Now that Dr. Paranoia over there has shut up and sat down and Iman is paying attention to him instead of the Devil, Lucifer can go right back to drinking until his liver enzymes aren't able to keep up. And considering that he's got some pretty impressive liver function going on right now, he's still got some serious progress to make in killing the rest of the alcohol in this bar.

Which he is going to make with a methodical, almost mechanical efficiency. Alcohol goes in the glass, alcohol goes down the throat. Rinse and repeat, until he has to wiggle his fingers at another bottle.

"I'll pass, thanks." Daniel might no longer be loudly postulating about ancient and terrible evils, but he's in no way relaxed. He's still rigid and pale and stony and wants to retain full use of all his biological faculties. And he's still staring at their neighbor of dubious origin with undisguised hostility, which is really sending all sorts of messages he shouldn't want to be sending.

"Oh fine, be that way," Iman sighs. There's just no helping some people. She turns back to Nick, trying to pretend like Daniel isn't trying to set him on fire with his mind.

"Sooo," she says, giving her drink a little swirl before finishing it off. "Telekinesis, huh?"

Not so much a question as a comment. She'll work her way either up or down.

And the Devil is going to completely ignore Daniel while he sits over there and tries to set him on fire with his mind. Take a picture, it'll last longer.

He looks sidelong at Iman while debating the merits of following up whiskey with more whiskey or trying the tequila.

"Parlor tricks," he says dismissively, then reaches out and and does it again with just as much ease as before. "Nothing to get worked up about."

Telekinesis was really the least interesting of his powers; mundane in comparison to some. Trivial when compared to the things he could do if he was at full strength rather than this watered-down, diet cola version of his Grace.

Daniel would disagree; the fact Nick considers telekinesis to be a parlor trick very much is something to get worked up about. He keeps the disturbing thoughts to himself. Instead he privately tries to work out what, exactly, it is sitting beside his new and possibly-in-danger friend, because he wasn't lying before - he's never seen anything like this. And, all right, so maybe this isn't the first time he's chatted with an ancient, unspeakable evil in a dining establishment, except this time it's calling itself "Nick" instead of "Jim" and it's over whiskey instead of coffee and it happens to be taking place on a very mortal plane of existence.

"Do this sort of thing often, then?" Daniel asks mildly.

"Fuck off," says Iman loudly. That whiskey is hitting hard and fast, like good whiskey ought. "Parlor tricks. I can't do that shit in or out of a parlor."

Bartender's already there with a follow-up drink. Good bartender. Iman is going to need to pay creatively, she can already tell she's going to go beyond the funds Jodie gave her. But she's not worried about that right now.

"Parlor tricks," she says again. "You think you're soooo cool."

When Daniel asks his question, she initially thinks he's talking to her, and turns to regard him in moderate confusion. Do what. Drink? Harass elder gods or whatever the hell Nick is? Oh. Oh he's asking Nick. Fair enough. She turns back to Nick, awaiting his answer with challengingly raised eyebrows.

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wah sorry for the delay v_v

no worries :)

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