Say When (A New Year's Brunch)

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot had been warned by various people that New Year's often brings some kind of supernatural mischief to Darrow, and this news had only made him more determined to stick to his plan. No power of god or man or eldritch entity place-spirit or army of fish people will prevent him from throwing a damn party. 

It made sense, really, and part of him wishes he'd done something like this before now. He needn't frame it as a sort of surrender to this imprisonment, but rather just indulging in something frivolous because, as far as his understanding of the metaphysics goes, none of this really counts. So why shouldn't he enjoy it? He's been here long enough to decorate the apartment some, and it really is a marvel the amount of things available through Nile. There's more comfortable furniture, potted plants, and a series of apothecary cabinets and display cases for magical components that give the whole place the air of some eccentric explorer's gallery of curiosities. 

He's even managed to get enough appliances that the little kitchen is decently functional, and has spent a few days stocking up and preparing for what he hopes will a successful brunch. He has enough eggs to feed an army. There will be copious crepes. There will be mimosas for days. 

Eliot's used to working through a wicked hangover this time of year, so he built that into consideration in his prep time. Thanks to the night's adventure, though, he spends his downtime sober and scrubbing mer-blood off of himself, and still feels a bit frazzled by the time the first guests arrive.

[It's time for brunch! Brunch is a state of mind, not an actual timeframe, so please feel free to have your pups show up whenever in the day, honestly. Tag in, tag around, chase the memory of merman horror away with a mimosa, air your grievances and dirty laundry in the neutral ground of Eliot's apartment. This is a safe space. For Drama.]

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[hear_the_blood]

He looks a bit like he's just tasted something that disagrees with his palate, and she realizes that she can relate. Normal is a hard pill to swallow, these days.

"Normal is good, John," she says, though she sounds like she's trying to convince herself. "Normal is normal. Sometimes the rest of us mere mortals need that." She doesn't mean to sound bitter, or even to steer the conversation away from talks of pet pros and cons. But she doesn't think she's wrong, either. Normal is good, and sometimes it's good to be reminded of that.

[statement_ends]

"I—" John starts, getting halfway through 'I know' before the rest of us mere mortals registers, and then he stops, as abruptly as if a hand had closed around his throat, and presses his lips together into a tight frown. Setting aside the fact that he'd sooner characterize normal as atypical as opposed to bad, it's impossible not to feel hurt by the implication that... what, that he's beyond it? That it isn't for him anymore, anyway? That he's forgotten what it means, that he doesn't at least intellectually understand that it's a good thing?

Maybe he's overthinking it. But then, he's slowly losing whatever knack for lying he ever possessed, and that includes lying to himself. All of those implications might be unintended or unkind, but that doesn't make them strictly untrue, does it?

"And what would I know about mortal concerns," he volleys back in an almost rhetorical undertone, though there's a pained edge to his customary dry humor.

[hear_the_blood]

Daisy winces a bit at that. Well, fuck. She hadn't meant to do that. Her words taste like copper in her mouth and she fixes him with an apologetic grimace.

"John, I—" she says, and forces herself to say the rest. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant it in the... casual, playful, 'oh look you're an aloof arsehole' way, not in the... 'oh look we're both weirdo monsters' way. Not that that sounds better, now I say it out loud..."

She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, muttering to herself about needing a fucking drink.

[statement_ends]

John snorts quietly, but some of the tension leaves his shoulders. He does know that Daisy wouldn't have meant to outright insult him — she's not above giving him a verbal kick in the arse when he needs one, but her intention has never been to hurt — but, well. They're both still... adjusting, to all of this. It's no surprise that said adjustments aren't always graceful.

"How do you feel about mimosas?" he asks. "Or I suppose you could go with straight champagne." She'd probably need a whole bottle to get anywhere at all, but it would be rude to raid Eliot's liquor cabinet for anything stronger.

[hear_the_blood]

"Rather a decent scotch," she admits, but she has the same moral obligations as John not to raid Eliot's flat for something better, and it's obvious in her tone. "Suppose it'll work for now," she adds, "but you owe me something stronger for that scare."

It isn't as though she'd been clutching her pearls like an old woman, but she does want to drive the point home to John: don't be an idiot. Let her do her job.

[statement_ends]

"Fair enough," he allows, though a small part of him is already thinking, a little despairingly, of how much mid-shelf scotch Daisy could put away on his dime without breaking a sweat. It might be more cost effective to go buy her a bottle of something rather than go out somewhere.

They make their way over to the drinks table, and as Daisy pours, he asks, "What did you make of last night? Get a good look at Darrow's idea of a mer-person?" Christ knows how he ought to gender the things; his examinations hadn't been particularly revealing in that regard.