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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"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.

"The laws of physics only apply to me when I feel like it," he says, because apparently he's been roped into this conversation whether he wants it or not. "So, yes, I do this often. I can do much more, just as easily."

He reaches out and presses one finger against the side of Iman's glass; frost creeps across its surface from that single point of contact, spreading until the whole thing is hazy white. The liquor inside is frozen solid after a few mere seconds. He removes his hand then, to avoid possibly shattering the glass from thermal shock.

"Parlor tricks."

Daniel recoils a little at that. Yeah, that's definitely a tingle in the air and it's not one that he'd categorize as "good."

His eyes flick up to stare at him again, a whole mess of mistrust and fear and moral outrage and all sorts of things he shouldn't be projecting all over the place. And then he asks, because he apparently hasn't pushed his limits enough this evening:

"So why don't you? Do more, I mean?"

"Hey, I was drinking that," says Iman, sitting up straight and snapping her hand back from the suddenly frosted glass. Her irritation is pretty well diluted with fascination, and she leans down to examine it. "That was amazing. Holy shit, you'd be useful in a lab."

And there's Daniel's talking again. Holy shit, Daniel.

"Dude," she turns to level an incredulous stare at his dumb, adorable, morally overconscious face. "Are you trying to get him to fuck you up? You think he can't do that to your innards?" She reaches out and puts a hand clumsily on his face, somewhere between trying to soothe and trying to subdue. "Man, if you can sense this shit offhand you'd think you'd be better at not being a dumbass about it."

She looks back at Nick and drops her chin into her palm, giving him a wide-eyed stare that says Some people, huh. "You wanna room temp this back down or do I have to pay for another one?" she says drolly.

The moral outrage just leaking off of the good doctor over there was almost hilarious in its intensity. And Lucifer hasn't done anything worse in his presence than move a few objects around and freeze a glass of liquor; he hasn't even been destructive. The Devil has been practically pleasant, and Daniel keeps on insisting on giving the gift horse a dental exam.

Someone has the bad habit of poking sleeping dragons.

He taps the glass and the liquor goes from frozen solid to liquid again, back to room temperature like it had never been cold to begin with. Instant thermodynamic equilibrium, because the laws of physics are for saps.

"She isn't wrong, you realize," he says, and puts a finger on the rim of his empty glass, rocking it back and forth. "There isn't much difference between your insides and that glass of liquor. And just because I haven't done anything greater than a few minor tricks around you doesn't mean that I can't. It just means that I haven't."

Though, at the moment, he's capable of considerably less than he normally would be; someone around here-- the 'Rift', he'd bet-- must not be particularly happy about his grand entrance in Central Park. Probably had to do with the body count.

"And just because I'm sitting here now doesn't mean I've lived through worse." Okay, if one wants to get technical about it, "lived through" is a very liberal interpretation of those events but - well, there's not really a but.

~~Shut up Daniel.~~

Edited 2014-09-28 21:11 (UTC)

Ho-lee shit.

"Daniel, I swear to god, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna punch you out," says Iman, and boy, she means it. She loves this guy. He clearly needs to be looked after. Like a baby. He will just crawl right off the raised surface without any hesitation if someone doesn't stop him. "I can do it, too. And know that if I do, it'll be for your own good."

She wants to grab him by the shirt and shake him and shout you're offering yourself up on a fucking platter, you idiot, but he should be able to FIGURE THAT OUT ON HIS OWN, and she's starting to get the sense Nick doesn't need any added incentive. Who knew drinking could be such a strenuous activity in this universe?

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wah sorry for the delay v_v

no worries :)

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