Winter, Smoke, and Burgers [Past]

P. Mercury
Pen does not coax Liz, but Robin does. Robin is good at coaxing, and so is Thane. Thane is good at coaxing in a very different way from Robin, but Thane also did not get any hang-out time with the cabal as a whole, not really, before there was disaster and doom, and he wants his people around him damn it so he is going to get his people around him, or so he hopes, so in the end they're at a corner booth in the Sloppy Eagle, which is a broad and roomy New England pub, weathered wood floors and relatively high ceilings and iron light fixtures and one room with televisions another room without (but it has a pool table), deep leather booths with very high backs and chairs too.

Pen seems inclined to gaze out the window.

Thane is inclined to keep an arm around both people he is sitting beside, or who are sitting beside him. He does this with casual warmth, and if one has the feeling that any moment he's going to hug them closer for conspiratorial purposes, one is correct.

Thane: "So who is everybody spending tomorrow with? Whose day am I going to crash?"

Robin is not the first one to reply.

N. Hyde
For Liz, Liz has been rather quiet.  It's late, and they were all drinking and in various stages of tipsiness earlier that evening before Liz and Pen left, so perhaps some of this can be forgiven - this is the state alcohol tends to leave people in when the buzz wears off.  It's the feeling of having been too long at a party.

Pen is inclined to gaze out the window; after he has noticed this, Nick drops an arm around her shoulders.  If she is sitting next to Thane, he may drop his arm over Thane's as well, but this doesn't especially matter to him.  He has a glass of whiskey sitting in front of him.  He doesn't have be on skeleton crew at the crisis center this Christmas, and he is going to enjoy it.

Liz is sitting next to Robin, and has managed to ingest two glasses of water already.  Where she might ordinarily talk, she is instead putting the straw in her mouth and taking a long pull from the glass.  In spite of her subdued demeanor, she is still the first to answer.  "I'm driving up to Northampton to be with my family tomorrow."  Who knows what she was planning to do with Elliot tomorrow, had the events of tonight not taken place.

Nick glances over at Pen.  He will be going to Arizona to see his mother and his sisters soon; Pen's family is here though.

P. Mercury
Robin, who is at the end of the booth opposite Penelope, ceases to watch the door to the kitchens and lifts his drink, a holiday special Old Fashioned with muddled cranberries, something dark and blood-ruby dark, and says, "Driving," by which he means his driver is coming, or he's taking the train, "up to New York to see mom and dad and the cousins. You are welcome if you wish."

"How fancy will it be?" Thane inquires.

"Very fancy," Pen says, before Rob can reply, with a grin. "Nine trees and a gold flakes in the hand-whipped cream for Santa hot cocoa. I've only heard tell."

Pen has a leg tucked beneath her, and has leaned against Nick's side. She has her right hand on his knee, and is playing with the shape of it.

"Probably not nine. The town home isn't that spacious," Rob says, dryly. He pauses, as if counting in his head, then decides not to share his findings. He is enjoying his personal space.

"Niiiiiick? Penpen?"

N. Hyde
There is a smile from Liz at the renewed banter between Pen and Robin; she can count on them for this, and it's almost a relief after the events of the night.  Some normalcy.  Perhaps she is even feeling a little relief, that she is no longer worried about them finding out or about what Elliot might do while she is away.  (She will feel guilty for feeling relieved later on.  For now, just - relief.)

Nick has been enviously looking at Robin's holiday special Old Fashioned, while drinking his whiskey with his right hand.  He swirls the ice in his glass to melt a little more water into the liquor before answering Thane.  "My sister is supposed to be flying in tomorrow," he says, "and we're flying out to Arizona together to see our parents and Vivienne later this week."  Vivienne - the Hermetic sister.  Perhaps they've heard tell.  "Anna is probably going to want to watch Christmas movies and to drag me all over town to look at Christmas lights."

Another sip.  "What are you doing, Thane?  You could convince Robin's family to arrange their nine trees around the fireplace, if you go there."

P. Mercury
"I'm not joking about holiday crashing what's your sister like and hey," Thane slaps his hand on the table, taking his arm from around Liz and pulling Nick toward his armpit, following this up with a point-across-the-table-at-Rob, "that's true! You won't have my trees in your study for us to have a ritual of the dance to, but your family will have nine trees? Foul, Robin, oh most verily foul."

"My parents do not dance around trees," Robin Anton says. He does not mean the sentence to be funny, but Pen's face lights up with laughter, even if she does a credible job of not actually laughing. Then, "Newport is particularly fine for Christmas Lights."

"It is," Pen says. "Downtown Mystic is picturesque, but nothing will be open."

N. Hyde
Thane isn't joking about holiday crashing; Nick knows this, and smiles in a manner that is warmer than usual, particularly when he is drawn in against Thane's side.  It's difficult not to respond to Thane this way.  He laughs, releasing Pen so she isn't dragged in along with him.  "You would probably like Anna," he says.  "She has a lot of energy.  A teacher in our high school used to call her 'vivacious.'  She eats it up."

Liz sucks some more water through her straw.  "I've met her.  She was really funny."

To Rob and Pen's contributions of the best places to look at Christmas lights, Nick nods, absorbing.  This is his first full year in the area, or at least in this part of Connecticut.  Prior to that, he was in school.  "I don't think Anna will care that nothing's open," he says.

P. Mercury
"Oh ho ho ho I do like energy in a friend the better they keep up with me isn't that right Liz?"

At the same time that Robin says to Liz: "When did you meet Anna?"

And Thane: "But hmmm okay Pen?" There is a hopeful loft to his eyebrows. Thus does the table divide into conversations.

"I'm going to spend some of the afternoon at my sister's with the rest of the family, "but after dinner Lysander - " Her master. They don't call them mentors in the Order of Hermes: you have a master, you are an apprentice, then you are a journeyman. Penelope is barely a journeyman. There is a slender pause, searching for the right word. "Well, he asked me to come over and join him and his cabal for some 'holiday cheer.'"



N. Hyde
Liz, who generally does have the energy to keep up with Thane, gives the Verbena a smile.  Nick is watching her in the seconds before his attention is divided and he turns his interest to hearing about what Pen will do tomorrow, thinking that Liz looks like she could use another drink.  He is torn, briefly, between friend-instincts and the newly-initiated counselor's idea that he should not encourage his friends to cope with existential crises using alcohol.

Then Pen speaks about Lysander, so he looks over at her instead.  He has heard of, but has not met, Lysander; the same is true (of course) of Pen's family.  "Is that likely to be very cheery?" he asks.  From what he knows of Hermetics - mainly through Vivienne - he suspects not.

Liz answers Robin: "Last month.  I was getting coffee with Nick and she dropped in...kind of out of nowhere.  She lives in New York, I guess."  Speaking seems to have reinvigorated her somewhat; Liz generally doesn't stay down for long.  She eyes Robin's drink for a moment and then wiggles her fingers in a grabbing motion at his glass.  "What is that?  Is it any good?"  Then, hardly without pause, "Does your family know you're Awakened, by the way, or is it going to be awkward tomorrow?"

P. Mercury
"It is very good," Robin Anton says, taking another sip. His innocence is studied. Tytalan 101. "The muddled cranberries add juuust the right touch of something special." Another sip, with an ahhh.

If she is still at that point wiggling her fingers, he puts the drink down within her reach. Says, "They know some of it." Legacy kid. "But the only thing awkward will be when my uncle gets tipsy enough to talk earnestly about communism. What about your family?"

He sounds bemused/musing, as if it hadn't occurred to him that Liz's family might know what's happening in her life.

Meanwhile and at the same time,

"Why wouldn't it be?" Pen says, giving Nick a bump which crushes him between herself and Thane, amused - though her pale eyes drift over to Robin for a moment. The drift of that conversation, contemplation. "You don't think we're going to put on black robes and discuss the state of the world like some dire parliament of owls, do you?"

("I think that now," Thane says.)

"I'll be the kid among grown-ups, but ... Why don't you come?"



N. Hyde
Liz is indeed still wiggling her fingers, and once the glass has been set down within her reach she takes it up and takes a sip of it.  A pause to consider.  "That's better than I thought it would be," she says - but not a bourbon or whiskey drinker, she nods approvingly and then sets the glass back down in front of Robin.  His mention of his uncle amuses her, and she says, "Is he kind of a black sheep, then?"

Every family has one.  Of her family, she says, "They know, kind of.  I didn't want to keep anything from them.  But they're all Sleepers, so at first they just thought I was crazy, and now they're always worried about me.  I think they're adjusting, though."

Nick makes a surprised noise as he is smooshed between Pen and Thane, and wiggles for a moment to get comfortable.  "Viv is always very secretive about her meetings," he says, at the same moment Thane comments.  They perhaps share a look - of the small group of them, he and Thane are probably the most alike in their magical style, which is distinctly not Hermetic.

The dry amusement he affects at the image of a gathered flock of Hermetics in black robes can't quite conceal his simple pleasure at being invited.   "I would like that.  Who's going to be there, other than Lysander?"

P. Mercury
"No. He just doesn't argue his points very well," Robin says, of his uncle, and then there's a little frown. "Are you grooming them to be consors?"

He halves his attention for the moment, in order to say, "Don't do it, Nicholas. You'll regret it. Penny, it's very cruel of you to invite him."

Then back to Liz, "Sorry. You were saying?"

Pen dismisses Robin with a languid wave of one hand, and is engaged in keeping Nicholas smooshed between herself and Thane. Thane is also engaged in this smooshing; it is fun! Thane certainly shared a look with Nicholas, but then he shared one with Pen, and now there it is a conspiracy.

"I don't know," she says, of who is going to be there.

Thane is not a man who enjoys his personal space. Arm around Nick stretches out so his hand brushes Pen's shoulders, and he raises his eyebrows at Robin and Liz.

N. Hyde
Nick, being squished between both Pen and Thane, is for once oblivious to any conspiratorial glances or significant looks at others around the table.  Pen's moment of distance earlier that evening, and his concern over the dynamic, left him somewhat preoccupied (what did he do? what should he have said differently?); and so for the moment he is basking.  It doesn't look like basking, or much really, but he is.

Robin interjects, and Nick's attention is drawn over to the Tytalan for a moment, then back to Pen.  "So what am I in for?"  He gently elbows Thane in the ribs, easy to do from his vantage point.  "If I don't come out again, you can have my bike."

"Make sure you dress up, Nick," is Liz's sage advice.  She has not answered Robin's question, because it had not occurred to Liz that anyone would groom their family to be consors, at least not intentionally.  She has to think about it, to wonder if perhaps this is what she is inadvertently doing.  "I mean," she says, in the process of flagging down the waitstaff to order a drink for herself, "not really.  I think what I do makes sense to them, but also doesn't.  If they wanted to learn, though, I would teach them.  Do Hermetics usually make their families consors?  I heard somewhere that Hermetics mostly came from consor families."

P. Mercury
"Thanks man. I'll sell it for extra money though can't make my truck jealous he'd just break down on me every time it was my turn to transport the High Holiday wood and drinks and not all Covens are chill about a lack of drinks."

"Good whiskey, perhaps some old war stories," Pen says, after Thane is done. "I really don't know. I haven't spent much time with Lysander's friends and cabal." She hesitates, which is rare enough; that she doesn't follow up on the hesitation, but turns it into a full stop is rarer.

Meanwhile, "Whoever told you that was a liar or a snob," Robin says. "But we do have a number of - the largest, in fact, among the Nine - Sleeper members, and ... there are a few notable lineages."

N. Hyde
Nick clutches his chest in mock-horror as Thane says he would just sell the bike.  He is attentive to Pen thereafter: war stories and good whiskey, the things that could be expected from a good Hermetic gathering.  He picks up on Pen's hesitation, though, as could be expected; this is a thing Nick can be counted on for.  "Are you nervous?"

His mentor was a loner, someone who was there for much of his training and then gone again.  Perhaps Pen knows this: many of the people of import to Nick have blown through his life and left him changed in their wake.  Pen's relationship with Lysander, and that Lysander has a cabal, is something of a curiosity to him.

Notable lineages.  Ah, yes.  This is a thing most from outside the Order are familiar with, this concept that many of them come from family traditions steeped in magic.  "Do you think you would teach your family, then?  It must be so different for you than for us."  Different: often much more diligent studying, for example.  Some Choristers, they learn Enochian and very structured magic just as Hermetics do, but Liz has never been that type.

P. Mercury
[Robin, Manip + Subt, doo dee doo]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

N. Hyde
[Don't botch this time, Nick.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

N. Hyde
[Liz]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

P. Mercury
[Thane?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
[Pen?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

P. Mercury
[Robin: *smuuuug*]

P. Mercury
[Meanwhile! Pen Manip + Subt]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

N. Hyde
[Contesting.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[tie-break!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

N. Hyde
[Tie break?  Don't botch again, for reals.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[...]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

N. Hyde
[Niiiiiiiiiick]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 6, 8) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[annnnyyyyway, Thane contest!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
[Rob contest!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

P. Mercury
[Rob: Who can lie better AND read people better than anybody? *smugsmugsmug*]

P. Mercury
Robin finishes off his drink, and his eyes sparkle with merriment. Bedevilment. All of that. He can be a handsome guy when he isn't looking dour, and some of that alleged charm can sneak through the hair and brooding.

"'Us' meaning you, Thane, Nicholas, and the rest of the rabble?" He is clearly not serious in his snobbery. "I should hope so, but no, I'm not planning on teaching any of my blood relatives. Wouldn't suit, and I'm not ready to divide my attention from my own studies to compass the studies of a student, even if a consor would be helpful to me."

He'd half-glanced at Pen, and who knows what he got from that glance. Robin Anton is a mystery.

Pen is not, not really, not really even when she tries her best to (for instance) not hold herself in an obviously different way as Rob and Liz's conversation washes over her; but she does. Holds herself stiller, by Nick's side; reserved. Held in reserve; and it is because there's something she doesn't want to say to Robin, and yet does, because Pen is always honest right? And something about what Rob and Liz are discussing has gotten to her. These things even Nick and Thane can notice.

But is she nervous. Pen blinks at Nick and rests her chin on his shoulder. "Of what, you seeing us in our black owl robes? No. You'll have to wear one too and I'm quite sure we'll only have a short robe left so everyone will need bask in the light of your very excellent calves."

"Hot," Thane says. "Calves?"

"Excellent ones!" Pen says.

N. Hyde
Nick has finally picked up on this, some subtext buried in the conversation, and his eyes linger a moment on Robin and Liz.  Pen is honest: Nick likes this about her.  Admires it, even - that it takes extra energy for Pen to not be direct.  Still, he does not call attention to it or question Pen on it, at least not right away, and instead side-glances at Thane.  "See?  If you had an appreciation for bicycles, you too could have excellent calves," he says.

The rest of the rabble.  Liz smiles, only slightly abashed, and says, "Well, I meant the Chorus."  She listens, in earnest (as though there is any other way for Liz to listen), to what he says about his blood relatives.  There is a pause, where perhaps she is lingering - 'helpful.'  "That's smart, I guess," she says.

Nick, hearing mostly the tail end of this conversation, gently scritches Pen's ribs enough to draw her gaze.  The look he gives her is a questioning one.

Liz's drink arrives then - what appears to be a simple rum and Coke - and she takes a swallow from it.  Her vision clouds over in the momentary pause, and even if it's chased away later, it is evident she is still trying to distract herself.  Conversation is helpful for that.  "Are you not going to see family, Thane?"

P. Mercury
[Hmm. Thane Dex + Ath.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
"Ah." Rob might pursue the differences between Chorus and Order, but the conversation is flowing - to calves and then to Thane's family.

Because Thane, when challenged thus by Nicholas, raises his eyebrows. He has had the least to drink of anyone tonight, though likely the skirmish sobered everybody up, certainly the boring slog in the snow and the destruction of evidence was a sobering experience, but he doesn't need to be anything but sober to put his excellent athleticism to use and put one leg on the table, knocking no glasses over and kicking no appetizer plates. He pulls the leg of his pants up to show off his calf. Thane is quite tan, a man who spends time outside, and winter has only begun to make him pale; he has hairy legs, too. But his calves are muscular.

"I rock climb, son. My calves are like steel go ahead and feel it."

Pen hasn't removed her chin from Nick's shoulder, and the scritch scritch of her ribs does draw her (studious) gaze; the questioning look causes her to slip down so her mouth is pressed against the side of his shoulder instead. It's nothing she can say in company. But Thane's calf, man. Pen winds up with the ridge of her eyebrow and her temple against Nick's shoulder instead, looking at Thane's calf.

Robin judiciously lifts his drink off the table.

Thane says, "Nah," as to going to see family. "I'm just going to make a nuisance of myself - Liz, Rob, you feel too - around here."



N. Hyde
Nick, with a very studious air, squeezes Thane's calf once he has presented it to the rest of them.  "I stand corrected," he says, "and I'm sorry I ever doubted."

Liz laughs and shakes her head as Thane suggests that she and Rob squeeze his calves; she had merely been watching, almost with bated breath, as he had lifted his leg onto the table without knocking any appetizer plates or glasses off their bearings.  This is not a feat Liz herself could have accomplished.  "Well," she says, "you'd be welcome at my family's."

Her tone is warm.  Liz is not the most perceptive of them, but it doesn't take that to extrapolate from what Thane has said, and what he hasn't.

P. Mercury
Rob doesn't touch Thane's calf, but did anybody expect him to? He considers the Verbena, the Euthanatos, and the Flambeau, and his expression is thoughtful; the thoughts are not about bicycles.

"You're leaving early, aren't you Cookie? Maybe Thane should spend the night, or you two can crash at my place."

"My calf wants touches, c'mon Pen Liz Rob! Nick liked it. Nick is sorry he ever doubted!"

Pen shakes with silent laughter; it's subtle. She isn't subtle, but sometimes humor is a contained thing, right? And then runs her finger from Thane's ankle to his knee; she is absolutely trying to tickle him.

N. Hyde
Pen goes to tickle Thane, and Nick almost reflexively raises one of his shoulders so that at least his jawline would be protected in the event of a kick.  This is the mark of a man who grew up with two sisters, one of whom was regularly referred to as 'wild' and 'hyperactive' when they were growing up.  He notices that he is doing it even as he does it, and it makes him smile.

Liz, for her part, gives in and laughs and pokes Thane with a fingertip.  Her finger curls back into a fist as Rob offers to let her and Thane stay at his place.  The gratitude in her expression is difficult to miss.  They brought the body out to the woods, but the blood soaked into the floorboards and the resonance wound around her home: that is going to take longer to scrub away.  "I'm going to do that.  That's really nice of you, Rob."

She means it; Rob does not give the air of a man who is frequently comfortable with having people stay in his home.  Perhaps this is an untrue assumption - nevertheless.  "Nick, can you still take Charlie while I'm gone?"

"Of course."  If this is a decision Nick suspects he will regret, none of this is in his demeanor.  "I'll spoil him.  You should keep Rob and Thane company."

P. Mercury
[Hmm. I will not giggle, says Thane.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

P. Mercury
"I know," Rob says. To that's really nice of you, Rob. And he does know it. He knows it really well.

Thane does not allow himself to giggle when Pen runs her finger up his leg like that; he shoots her a look behind Nicholas's back, and makes exaggerated eyes. Pen is going to try to tickle him? He is going to try to make her blush.

Eyes he'll turn on Liz next, when he says in a tone of utmost heartbreak, "He gets to take Chazster?"

[Thane's Manip + Empathy. Bluuuush.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

N. Hyde
Thane looks so very disappointed, and Liz had seen how much Thane had enjoyed having the dog with him earlier.  She and Rob had come upon them all after they'd seen the short column of fire between the trees as they were coming up on the others - he'd brought Charlie with him then.  She has no way to resist Thane and looks absolutely guilty.  Blushing: Thane was indeed successful.  "Well, I didn't realize you like him so much, Thane!  Besides, Rob probably doesn't want Charlie in his house.  You could take him, if you want to?"

Nick watches the exchange, amused.  While it would be easy to fluster Liz further by protesting her latest offer to leave the dog with Thane, he does not.  With as exhausted as she is she might well burst into tears without warning.

The Chakravanti yawns, stretches an arm behind him over the back of the booth, and rests his chin on the top of Pen's head.  "You never told us what you meant to do with the trees," he says to Thane.  "Some sort of ritual?"

P. Mercury
Thane can now say that he makes all the ladies blush. (Pen could no more resist than Liz could, though her response was not to apologize or say anything, but to keep her silence.)

Now for the gentlemen, hmmmmmm?

"I own horses and hounds," Thane says. "I am a Verbena." Hand over his heart. He smiles at Liz, "But we can work it out."

"Besides, good Saint Nick - " Now this. This could be masterful, if it works out. It's a Look, a frankly knowing and acknowledging sort-of look, something that guilelessly meets the other person's eyes first and then sweeps to Nick's arm and Pen's head and the Frankly Knowing Look is also a Soulful Look - " - well it's Christmas Eve after all. He'll be busy, non? Too busy to look after one adorable mutt!"

How to try and get Rob, that's going to be tricky.

"But yeah, it was a ritual. Something about renewal and solidarity, as the seasons turn and change; ever green, ever winter. We were going to dance." Wistful.

[Thane's Manip + Empathy BLUSH BLUSH Nick.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

N. Hyde
[Game face, man.  You work in a crisis center!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 10) ( success x 1 )

N. Hyde
Liz smiles back at Thane, though the Verbena has turned his attentions elsewhere, to his other cabalmates, intending to make them blush one by one.  "Maybe you should get a little pet dog like Charlie, since you like him so much."  Her words could sound standoffish, but they do not - Liz says this with all the generosity a soul can muster.  Pets work wonders for people, after all.

Thane, though, he's turning his eyes toward Nick, and they're Knowing and Soulful.  Nick, a newly minted counselor, has one of the least enviable jobs of the profession.  He has been spit on, cursed at, and groped by his clients before, and has had to do his best to minimize his own reaction each time.  However, most of the time he is not feeling as exhausted as he does at the moment.  He tries to resist, but Thane gets him too, almost the minute he makes eye contact.  "I'm never too busy to help a friend out," he says, with as much grace as he can muster.

Liz, meanwhile, went from a mildly shocked expression to giggling into her drink at Nick's expense.  Nick, recovering, says, "That's too bad.  Maybe we can do it once the food gets here instead."

P. Mercury
[Rob *squint*]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

P. Mercury
"Dance once the food gets here?" Thane says, with a smile that is not wicked because Thane is definitely never ever wicked.

Robin Anton raises one eyebrow at Nicholas' glowing face, and he gives Thane a most mild look. A shake of his head. "I don't think we can set up the grove tonight, by which I mean we cannot. Some of you may dance some other night; it sounds like a fascinating ritual." He just prepares himself.

"But Songrobin," using Pen's nickname for Robin can be an excellent start on a Get-Robin-to-Blush mission, or so Thane thinks, "you'd be an excellent dancer. I haven't heard much about your calves, but your thighs are another story." Different tactics for different people, man.

[Same thing, but +1 diff because Robin is ready for him.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
[Robin, pshaw.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
[DAMN YOU DICE.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
[Pshw, I said!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

P. Mercury
Rob, without a hint of blushing, "They are nothing compared to my ass, but I am glad you think I'd be an excellent dancer. I will never allow Reality to change your mind."

N. Hyde
Robin neatly dodges Thane with a grace that Nick studies and Liz can only envy and wish it were within her power to attain.  Liz, though, has latched on; perhaps she simply is glad to not be on the receiving end.  "I feel like there's a story here.  Why haven't I heard it?"

Nick looks between the Verbena and the Hermetic, with only a little expectation there; if there is a story, it will likely not come from Robin.  Pen has been quiet though, and this occurs to him once he is no longer taking in Liz, smiling and laughing, and Rob, who has no visible signs of shell shock.  Nick is not nearly so naive as to think that this means that all is well forever - but for now, it means things will probably be all right.

He glances down out of the corner of his eye at Pen.  "Tired?"

P. Mercury
Robin smiles at Liz, but it is such a mild (enigmatic) smile. It means nothing; he is going to steeple his fingers in the next moment. And ah, here are their burgers, smelling of savory spiced meat and goodness.

"What kind of story do you think you sense?"

Thane's mouth is now occupied with half of his burger. Half of it. He makes a sound; it is a delighted mmmmfrrrfghh sort of sound.

Pen takes a sweet potato fry and dips it into the jalapeno cheese sauce. Tired? "Not at all." But pause; pitches her voice low and intimate: "But let's go to my place after dinner, not Rob's for dessert."

Pen knows Rob well enough to know that after-burger drinks and dessert was in the offing, something really delicious but.

N. Hyde
Pen suggests this, and Nick's eyes, almost in a panic, flick over to Thane, as though to make sure that he didn't hear.  Because, whatever the reason Pen wants to skip going back to Rob's, Thane has made Nick blush enough for one night.  He will steel himself for it later, too.  He has learned that he has to do a lot of steeling, among his new friends.  There are friends among whom teasing equates to affection, and vice versa; these are those sorts of friends.  "Sure," he says.

He steals one of the fries, and, with a sheepish look, possibly one or two more, before occupying his mouth with his burger and looking over at Liz and Rob.  If Liz does manage to coax the story out, well.

Liz is cutting her burger with a fork and knife.  It is the quirk of a onetime clumsy eater who has learned how to cope in adulthood.  "I don't know.  I thought maybe someone had convinced you to dance once."

P. Mercury
"I was the butterfly in my school's production of the Last Unicorn," Rob says.

"And then there's the youtube video," Pen says, beatifically.

"... The youtube video?" Thane says. Well, he attempts to say. It comes out more as mrr mromffluh

N. Hyde
"Tell us more about that, Rob," Nick says, and his tone is innocent, curious; Nick manages to do this because his interest in other people is genuine.

Even if he were feigning, Liz is not.  "Rob, you have a YouTube channel?  Pen, where is it?"  And she immediately sets her knife and fork aside to pull out her phone.

P. Mercury
"Youtube," Pen says, then swallows another fry. Or two. Dips them in the coleslaw which comes on the side instead of the jalapeno cheese sauce, catches a bit of sauce on the fingers of her left hand. Eats with her right.

Rob steps easily into the breach; there is no breach. But he steps easily into the hypothetical breach, by saying - a note of real chagrin - "Oh. Er. It's just for school projects and Harry Potter fanvideos, it's nothing worth looking for."

"But you do have that one dance video, don't you Tweety?"

"Pentagonal Pentagram," Rob says, through his teeth. "Ixnay."

Thane, "Oooooh, I can't wait to see it. Did you find it Liz? I bet its under kestrelmelchior."



N. Hyde
Liz, oblivious to the short answer Pen provided, is searching "kestrelmelchior," and manages to find it, albeit with a few misspellings.  "You make Harry Potter fanvideos?"  This is almost of enough interest to Liz to make her stop looking, though finally she is back on task and pulling up the channel.

She leans over to allow Thane to see the screen.  "Oh, is this maybe it?"  Click.

Nick eats his burger, silent and perfectly content.

P. Mercury
Thane's jaw drops; a piece of burger rolls out of his mouth and hits the table. Disgusting, yes. But the other option was Thane, choking on that piece of burger. It is actually an involuntary response.

Rob looks at Pen; Pen looks at Rob.

N. Hyde
"Ohhh myyyyyyyy goooooooooooooood"

Liz dissolves into helpless giggling within the first few seconds.  She has to set the phone down on the table because she is covering her eyes with her hands, peeking through her fingers at Rob pulling his shorts up, Rob crossing his legs on the bike, Rob flirting with the camera.  Each peek makes her shake harder.

"Robwhydidn'tyoutellusaboutthis"

Nick has stopped with his burger halfway to his mouth, which is also hanging slightly open in a way that suggests that of all the things, he had not prepared himself for this thing.

"this is amazing."  Liz wipes at her streaming eyes with her fingertips, then clutches at her stomach.

Nick can only manage, "But you won't dance under trees."  His voice is strangled.  He is trying not to laugh.

P. Mercury
[Be cool, Rob. Manip Subt.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

N. Hyde
[Oh no.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

P. Mercury
[Tytalans don't cry, bitches!

Not, uh, that that's what I'm doing behind this FLAWLESS MASK.]

P. Mercury
[Pen contest tho!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

P. Mercury
"As I said, my thighs are nothing compared to my ass," Robin Anton says, with impeccable dignity and easy good will. He hasn't stopping looking at Penelope, but she has stopped looking at him; she hasn't the mental fortitude for a protracted stare-down, not any more. She is loosened and unstrung. "And I'm afraid my frolicking days are over."

"They aren't really," Pen says. "You're such a beautiful man, and I am so glad to know you." And she is being sincere, not flippant.



N. Hyde
"Why should they be over?  I think you have a gift," Nick says, and while he is being wry, he too is utterly sincere.  Then, with another quick glance toward Liz's phone, "I could never do anything like that."  Again, honest.  He can't tell whether or not Rob was actually upset by their viewing, but Nick's instincts are frequently to soothe and protect, to affirm when in situations where people might otherwise feel shame.

Liz, still wiping at her eyes, stows her phone back in her pocket.  A few tiny aftershocks of mirth are still bubbling from her lips.  "Your secret is safe with us, Rob.  Where is that song even from?  How did this happen?"

P. Mercury
Robin Anton is a fencer. A verbal fencer, a fencer of words, although he can handle a blade too - well enough to know what part to stick in. Perhaps he tells himself that his well-meaning friends are, tonight, a test; something to fence against. They do not get anything like the real story from him, and perhaps most of them don't even realize why.

Thane doesn't grow quieter as the evening goes on, but more gregarious, more desirous of human warmth.

And Robin, Thane, and Liz do have a fancy (gourmet) dessert at Robins house, something suitable for the midnight hour when snow is hushed hush-a-bye and Santa is supposed to be flying overhead.

Penelope doesn't linger, but as soon as Nick looks done with his burger has the waitress wrap hers up and stands to fare-you-well everyone. She isn't cold to Liz, but she isn't effusive either. Robin covers it up. He's good at that. She hugs Thane; she and Robin shake hands, and it's a little strange. He says something private to her; and she flashes him such a worried look just after.

Robin invites Nicholas to make use of his house if he needs to on the morrow. On the morrow, his phrase. He is very Man of the Manor in this. But nobody tries to keep Nick and Pen too long - they're new, and perhaps nobody expects it to (necessarily) last, but there's no harm in having fun.

Sometimes harm to a cabal, but nobody thinks Pen or Nick are the type.

It snows all night; Elliot dissolves into ash and winter and snow, and he won't even be bone fragments. Memory, though. Memory and winter and smoke.