Winter Gala

[justaddh2o]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: Jeopardy
WHEN: Saturday, December 21 from 5:00 p.m. onward into the early morning hours of Sunday, December 22.
WHAT: The Winter Gala Fundraiser for Jeopardy Relief Efforts
WARNINGS: Please include any necessary warnings in your TLs.
NOTES: This post will serve as a catch-all for logs for the entire event (though you’re also welcome to post things elsewhere, of course).

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Well, mostly. In the wake of a near-apocalyptic event, the city of Jeopardy is in need. What started out as an idea to advertise Rikki Chadwick's burgeoning business, after a little more planning and nabbing some ideas from Kenzi's post, she and Rupert have reconfigured and rebranded their idea to focus less on her and more on the relief effort.


Characters will enter the venue after giving a small donation at the door and they will be greeted by a large room lit in blues, soft pinks, and purples. From the ceilings hang snowflakes made of glass. The centerpieces are also made of glass. Come to think of it, nearly all the decorations are made of glass. Except, that is, the mistletoe hanging from several of the rafters and archways. A buffet-style dinner will be served from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., at which point, the buffet tables and seating tables will be cleared away to make room for the makeshift stage for the DJ and a gigantic dance floor.

Drinks will be flowing, music will be playing, and people will be bidding on silent auctions to win everything from one of the centerpieces to a date with their favorite imPort and everything in between. So, eat, drink, and be merry until you can't stay awake any longer. Why not? It's all for a good cause, after all.

Comments

[flightforfreedom]

"Let's go outside." He doesn't want to get yelled at for smoking in the party, and they're pretty close to the balcony.

He takes the cigarette and slips it between his lips, unlit, and then shifts a little uncomfortably.

"When I told him that - that, you know, you kiss people differently based on how you feel about them, he asked if he could watch. I guess he wanted to figure it out. I don't know. You know how he is. I told him that it would make most people feel weird to watch their significant other kiss other people, but he just sort of waved it off. So I guess he wanted to see it."

[killtime]

Sure. Outside. Why not. She lets him lead the way out onto the balcony, leaning her back up against the railing as she puffs away like a regular old chimney. As he answers her, she holds out her lighter for him — apparently declining to light his cigarette with her own, keeping a relatively safe distance between their respective mouths.

"So, he watched you kiss me. And Finn," she reiterates a bit flatly, "Hope you kissed some people you aren't in love with. Just to make sure he got the full spectrum."

She's in a mean mood, isn't she? Going out of her way to put a few extra bricks in the wall between her and him, even though her temper seems diffused. Maybe this is a little worse.

[flightforfreedom]

Ow.

He just withers a little bit, curling in on himself as he braces the lighter under his cigarette, breathing it deep. He doesn’t answer it right away, instead letting the smoke slowly slip back out from his lips as he turned his gaze out to the city.

He doesn’t even know what to say, to that. It’s deserved, isn’t it?

He taps the ash off the side.

“I don’t know for sure if he did or not,” he says quietly. Eventually. “But you knew he was here. It wasn’t like it was private.”

[killtime]

She watches as the small flame from her cheap plastic lighter casts flickering shadows over the noble lines of his face - how the smoke curls from his lips as he stares off into the distance. From the corner of her eye, she considers his profile, handsome and familiar. How is it that they always end up in this place? Unwilling to take anything back but unable to move past it either.

“...You want to know the truth?” she asks after a moment, “I wasn’t convinced you’d actually do it until your mouth touched mine.”

It has been her, the other times. When the Porter gave him back. When she’d confessed her secret name. That day they sat on the back porch, waiting for the world to end.

[flightforfreedom]

He takes a drag of the cigarette, still not looking at her, and then breathes it out slowly.

“Yeah, well, I guess now you know just how flimsy my self restraint actually is.” Idiot. Won’t be making the same mistake again. He’s going to burn all the mistletoe, next year.

[killtime]

Now she really gives him a look, flat and skeptical, letting him feel the weight of her stare for a good long second before she finally responds.

"You're joking, right."

She'll call him out for a lot of things — she'll go for the low blows, sure — but that's not one of them. That's a little too much pot-and-kettle, even for a practiced hypocrite like Andy. And she knows that they both know — in the past year, there's a handful of times the line between them, ill-defined as it is, was crossed, and it was her that reached for him, every time before this one.

[flightforfreedom]

He gives her a look back, as flat and steady as her own, the cigarette slowly turning to ash where it dangled from his lips.

"What do you want me to say, Andy? You don't have any idea how many times I--" He cut off, biting into his cheek. Yeah. You've already messed up enough times tonight, Poe. That may be one confession too far.

He bristles a little and then takes a drag that's a little too fast and a little too deep of his cigarette and then pretends really hard that he doesn't have to cough despite his eyes watering a little.

[killtime]

She doesn't really want to hear him finish that sentence. Because she does have some idea. And it's probably about as many times as she's nearly done the same. The thing between them is chaotic. Charged. Sometimes it feels dangerous just to be near each other.

It's her that looks way first, tilting her head away to exhale another mouthful of wisping smoke before she finally answers him.

"...Maybe it doesn't matter," she murmurs at length, "We're going to do the same thing we always do. Pretend it didn't happen. Go back to normal, whatever the fuck that means."

[flightforfreedom]

He doesn't say anything for a long minute, frowning down at the ground and tapping the ash from his cigarette a little too hard off the side.

That was what should happen, right? That was what was bound to happen?

But he was just getting so tired of trying to keep his own feelings so closely guarded, especially when it was so clear he wasn't guarding them well at all.

He took another brisk drag of his cigarette and then roughly put it out on the banister.

"... It matters." He decided, his voice low. "I can't keep doing this. I have to fix something."