in the middle of summer [ OPEN MINGLE ]

[postictal]

Who: Anyone!
What: Catch-all Denny mingle for the last week or so of July
When: Anytime between July 25th and July 31st
Where: Denny
Warnings: Label your stuff if it comes up



[Feel free to use this as a catch-all for whatever your character might conceivably be doing here. Are they loitering outside? Delivering supplies/food? Helping improve the place because god it certainly needs it? Cooking? Socializing? Eating? Just wanting to booze it up? GO WILD.]

[There are nominal rules but if you don't get caught you don't have to deal with them, so you do you.]

Comments

[vagabone]

I didn't mean that--it's just an expression--ugh.

[Someone's exasperated.]

No. Not my home. So you're not human?

[braceforimpact]

[This man is really hung up on that, but it's a question Kaworu can't answer.]

Are you just asking me that because I asked you?

[vagabone]

No. I'm asking you that because you're talking like you're not human.

[braceforimpact]

I said also human.

[He sounds aggrieved. What does that mean, he talks like he's not human--?

Only humans talk, it's human to talk.]

[vagabone]

[...fine, he'll let it go. It doesn't really matter. This place is a freakshow, that's just how it is.]

Okay, okay, you're human. I believe you.

So... where were we?

[braceforimpact]

[Yeah, that's right. How dare you question his status as something he's outright told a weird robot he isn't.]

Oh, it's called the Denny.

[And they're still there, in fact.]

[vagabone]

[Kaworu has earned himself a flat, unamused stare.]

I meant what were we talking about. It's a figure of speech.

[braceforimpact]

You really keep assuming I know what you mean.

[You know. Not like he had a lot of time for learning idiomatic speech, in the weeks of being alive he's had.]

But we're not the same. You can't be surprised if I get confused.

[vagabone]

[He's being unfair again, Héctor realizes. It's not that uncommon for someone to not be totally fluent in Spanish. (Shh, shh, don't tell him about the magic translation effect.)]

I guess we're not. [He says it grudgingly.] I was human when I was alive, though. It counts.

[braceforimpact]

[RECORD SCRATCH--]

.........when you were alive? What does that mean? How are you not alive.

[Kaworu is suddenly sounding really cranky.]

[vagabone]

[Immediately he feels the urge to beat his head on the table until it falls off. Wonder why.]

I died, kid. I'm dead. No longer alive.

Deceased. For almost a century.

[braceforimpact]

You're alive.

[Kaworu isn't sure how things like this keep happening, conversations that occur in the face of obvious facts.]

[vagabone]

[He throws his arms up in the air, so overdramatic--]

I'm a skeleton! I'm dead!

[braceforimpact]

You're human. You're alive.

[What is this guy even saying? Yes, you're a skeleton, Hector. He knows what the human skeleton looks like. That's not even related.]

[vagabone]

I'm human and I'm dead! Look at me, I'm all bones!

[Dios mío, what is wrong with this guy. What is going on.]

I died. I woke up as a skeleton in the land of the dead. Like everyone else who died.

[braceforimpact]

[Kaworu has taken a lot of things at face value in his short life. Most things, in fact. 'Magic' and human nature and the face of God... these are all things he accepts implicitly, because he must.

But Hector, he knows how death works.]

Are you telling me your soul was salvaged?

[This is the only explanation he can think of, and his brow furrows in thought and mild disbelief--not that it's impossible, far from it, but that he cannot understand who would salvage a bunch of souls to such a shoddy body?]

[vagabone]

I have no idea what you mean. Maybe?

[Okay, Héctor, calm down and try to explain it a little better.]

This is what happens to everyone who dies, like I said. There's a whole world, a spirit world for the dead, that living people can't see. Normally. And that's where I came from.

[braceforimpact]

[Uhhhhhh.

Now you're being confusing and wrong at the same time.]

That doesn't even make sense.

[vagabone]

[Excuse you, Kaworu, who's the expert on being dead here??]

What about it doesn't make sense?

[braceforimpact]

Everything. A world that living people can't see?

A soul doesn't take a new form after death unless you salvage it into one, it's unnatural.

[Kaworu himself is a salvaged soul, actually. He would know.]

No wonder you're falling apart.

[vagabone]

[Aaand he's sputtering. This is why we can't have nice things.]

What--I'm not--Skeleton! We're supposed to come apart! It's normal!

[Call him unnatural all you want, but he is not falling apart, he's fine. He doesn't walk funny, Miguel, stop it!]

[braceforimpact]

[Kaworu remains visibly unimpressed.

He doesn't even retort; he just stares Hector down in silence, making stubborn eye contact.]

[vagabone]

[Talk about unimpressed looks... he props up his chin, elbow on the table, and stares right back at the weirdo.]

What? I'm not going anywhere, you can't stare me away.

[braceforimpact]

...what?

[Kaworu falters visibly. Is that something that happens? You stare at someone and they go away?

Isn't that... the opposite of what eye contact is for?]

[vagabone]

[Yeah, he's not the weirdest thing in the room right now.]

Look, everything I said is true, so you can start blinking again. Why would I lie about being dead? Why would anyone?