sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Crab Boil

[MINGLE] Crab Boil

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Inn front lawn
WHEN: 21 June 2018, afternoon/evening and onward
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
NOTES: A few thinsgs: You may assume your character helped set up; There are tubers in pot with the red salt, negating the warmth effect; The list of of potluck dishes is here; The list of local provisions is here

The weather is great, the sun is starting to dip toward the horizon, and it's pleasantly mild. Time for an (extremely) old-fashioned low country boil.

We've got two small fire pits built out in front of the inn, each with a massive pot filled with loads of vegetables — corn, carrots, potatoes, onions — and of course the rainbow crabs Finnick and Annie discovered not long after we arrived here. We've even got salt, if you can believe it, although the red salt in this place is pretty spicy and usually makes me sweat, so I've only put it in the one pot, and then set a bowl of it out for garnishing.

Tables and chairs have been brought out from inside, a couple of them set aside specifically for piles of plates, bowls, cups and whatever potluck provisions the rest of the village brings.

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"Sounds about right for that colour." he laughs.

"I am from New Jersey, I think I have had stuff like it before." He gives her a bit of a grin. "Not bad though, I like it. But I get what you're saying. Especially considering how little we drink here."

"Considering the situation, I think it's a miracle we aren't skunked all the time," Sam replied. She knew she would be, right now, if not for the pesky fact that she was a fucking vampire again. But at the very least, she figured she'd spread around the joy to others.

Live vicariously drunk through them.

Or something.

Trying to be courteous, she offered him a hand. "I've seen you around before. I'm Sam. Resident vampire."

Shit, that felt weird. And also kind of liberating.

"Vampire?" Before he came to the villages he would have believed she was lying. But now that he is here...

"The whole bloodsucking, can't go into sunlight and everything?" He shakes her hand. "Danny Williams. Detective from Hawaii."

What the hell was wrong with all the inmates of this asylum? Sam just couldn't figure it out. Darwinism suggested that people who were always this nice and trusting ought to have died off with the dinosaurs.

Go figure.

"Bloodsucking, yes. Sunlight...more complicated." So complicated, in fact, that she was still trying to figure it out.

But that was her problem.

"Hawaii? Sounds like one hell of a gig."

He raises his eyebrows, curious about these complications, but that can wait.

"My ex-wife moved there with our daughter and her new husband, so I followed to be with my kid." He smiles fondly when he thinks of his daughter. "You've met Steve McGarrett here? He's my partner so I am not sure how good of a gig it is."

"Not familiar," Sam admitted. She wasn't the best at meeting people. Watching them, yes. Occasionally making up elaborate backstories about them, hell yes. But the name 'McGarrett' meant nothing to her.

Still, she smiled a little at his joke.

She might have made the same sort of quip about Avery, back in the day.

Fucking Avery.

"Well, nice to meet you under the shitty circumstances, I guess."

He laughs a little at that. "At least as things go here, a village cookout is one of the better ones as far as I have seen. You gotten any food yet or is it only blood? How do you do that if you don't mind me asking, do animals work or do you need donations?"

Oh, good. Awkward questions.

Well, in all fairness, Sam had set herself up for that.

Still, she felt a flutter of anxiety in her throat that she had to swallow back. In the days before the Masquerade drop--or what should have been the Masquerade drop--she'd felt the same anxiety. It was good. She supported it. But at the same time, she feared the torches and pitchforks. Of course she did. She was young enough to imagine herself on the other side.

She still was. She had to keep that in mind.

Delicately, she cleared her throat. "Animals work," she said. "When they can be caught. Pro tip though. Never try to catch a badger."

Danny studies her, trying to figure out what the nervousness was about. He has a suspicion but he isn't going to press her for it. He chuckles a little at the mention of a badger. "I can imagine. They always look like fierce little things. Thankfully we got a lot of farm animals now, right?"

He seems to be taking all this pretty much in stride, maybe that is just the alcohol by now. "I'll admit, you're my first one. We don't have supernatural creatures where I am from."

"You never forget your first," she said dryly.

In all fairness, it was true. Seeing her first vampire had changed her entire life. Hopefully, this guy would be a little bit luckier than she had been.

Then again, it wasn't exactly hard to be luckier than Sam. She set the bar pretty fucking low.

She shrugged, one of her synthetic curls sliding back behind her shoulder. "My world has a fuckton of vampires. My brother spent most of his unlife trying to prove that other things exist. You know, werewolves, ghosts, demons, changelings. That sort of thing. No real evidence, though. Beyond stories. Which is fine, really. We somehow manage to screw things up without any help."

"Yeah? Then again I guess there could be vampires in my world and I wouldn't know. And humans are able to screw things up on our own too so yeah..."

He smiles slightly. "Is it something you become or are you born a vampire?"

Well, that question caught Sam off guard. But then, why should it? Given all the genetic fuckery in her past, she supposed it was perfectly reasonable to ask.

Maybe, some day, it might even be feasible.

She shuddered at the thought.

"Uh, become," she said. "Became. Like in the movies, you know." She tucked her nose into the crook of her arm, like she had a long, flowing black cape. "Bleh, bleh, bleh. I vant to suck your blood. One, one victim. Eh-eh-eh-eh."

Danny laughs at that. "Hopefully not quite like that. You're not counting everything around us quite yet."

He shrugs. "Sorry for digging, old habit. One of those things that happen when you're a cop long enough. Keep wanting to know people's stories."

He shakes his head and takes another sip of the vodka. "I am sorry that happened to you."

Again, Sam found herself a little thrown off. No one...no one ever said that to her. Ever. But that 'I'm sorry,' it was really something she--make that all Kindred, really--needed to hear more often. Both because, yeah, she'd fucking died. And also to remember that it was something that had happened to her. It wasn't her fault.

...well. Not entirely, anyway.

"Thanks," she said. And then, because she didn't want to get maudlin, she forced a smile and added, "Don't worry. I'm used to questions. My brother's kinda in the FBI. He pretty much interrogates everyone when he meets them for the first time. Me included."

That makes Danny laugh. "Yeah I've met some of the fed types, they are intense, even by our standards." He smiles to hide the fact that his last run in with the fbi had been far from good.

"How long have you been a vampire?"

"Four years," she said. Which really sucked because she'd spend the rest of eternity being carded, trying to see an R-rated movie. That was, of course, if movie theaters ever existed again.

They probably would, at some point.

People liked to play pretend.

"It's not exactly long by Kindred standards. Technically speaking, at my age, I shouldn't qualify as a full person yet. But my Sire and I weren't exactly besties, so she cut me loose early."

A pause.

"Oh. We love euphemisms." Kindred. Sire. And worse...

"Clearly. Those terms sounds like something out of a novel. I can guess with Kindred means but Sire? What does that mean, in this context that is." He sips his booze, leaning on the table and watches her in curiosity.

"The vampire who makes you," she said. "In the community, they kinda get treated like your parent. For the first few years, any fuck-up you make basically gets blamed on them. There's a whole...emancipation thing. Usually not for the first decade but I was a special case..."

Sam shrugged. She'd made her peace with Karen. Somehow. But their first years together had been rough. And the best thing to come out of their entire relationship was still Avery.

"My brother? The one in the FBI? He's not my biological brother. We just have the same Sire."

"So like an adopted brother then." Danny shrugs, that one he could believe. "Sounds like it is a lot like having a kid, or a teenager really. Trust me I should know." He sighs. He misses his daughter and thinking of her makes it worse.

"Do they treat you differently because it's only been four years?"

Sam snorted. "They treat you differently if you're anywhere within in the span of an average, mortal life." All of the higher-ups in LA had been Elders, at the very least. No one fewer than 100 years allowed.

Ironically, those had been the first to bite the metaphorical dust. Too set in their ways, too ill-equipped to adapt and change to new circumstances.

"You're right. It's like being a kid or a teenager. Just on a crazy-ass scale."

"I guess you get a bit of a different perspective when you're immortal?" Danny shakes his head. "I'd go crazy if someone started treating me as a kid again, I am guessing it is not popular."

He'd be surprised what some whack-a-doodles were willing to put up with in exchange for immorality. But since Sam didn't want him--or anyone, for that matter--thinking that she was one of them, she just nodded slightly.

Going crazy was certainly a common-enough effect of the Embrace.

Another lovely euphemism.

"I gotta say, you...everyone, really...you're handling this whole 'vampire' thing with surprising ease. I wasn't expecting it."

"Well... If you'd told me back in the old village or when I had just gotten here... I would have thought you were on drugs honestly. But now.. Clearly this place isn't like what I am used to so why should you have to be. Unless... you're not on drugs, are you?"

That one actually made Sam laugh. She had a rusty laugh, out-of-practice from a complete lack of use. But at least it was genuine enough. Her eyes almost took on a gleam, like a couple of Christmas lights that were on their last legs, about to explode. "No," she said. "No drugs. Vampires actually can't do that."

Well, they could. But it was largely more trouble than its worth.

She had to admit, she did miss pot sometimes though.

Or at least pot brownies.

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