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singillatim2024-02-05 06:23 pm
[open] General Store
WHO: Louis de Pointe du Lac and YOU (new players welcome too)
WHAT: Opening the General Store!
WHEN: throughout February (at evening/night if you want Louis) + party on an Aurora night second half of the month
WHERE: General Store, Milton
Feel free to also use this setting as open starters or closed to characters other than Louis! Just indicate it if you do! His general store? No... Our general store...
A. Home Improvement
CONTENT WARNINGS: a little bit of vampire blood, talk of hunting animals for food
It started out of the practical need to store and barter goods. Louis's home is not a fit place to entertain anyone other than rats, and he doesn't want to disturb the people who live in the Community Hall.
Louis turns his attention to the thoroughly-looted husk of the General Store. Louis feels oddly shy about starting up anything, self deprecation rearing its ugly head. Lestat called his business back home a "human hobby."
He needs all the help he can get. There's the plumbing and leaks from the recent storm, trash to throw out, walls to paint, shelves to fix. He'd like to make arrangements for daytime hours when he can't be there. And finally, putting a new coat of paint on the GENERAL STORE sign with an addition:
Marché du Lac
How handy is he? Louis did small repairs at his club when a handyman wasn't available at night, he's fairly nimble... and he's never done construction in his life. But any fool can board up a broken window and repair shelves, he reasons.
"Fuck!" he hisses when he hits his thumb with the hammer. He automatically puts his thumb in his mouth, and the taste of that little bead of blood is shockingly good. He must be hungry. Time for a break.
He slips his hammer into the loop of some scavenged cargo pants. He might be terrible at construction, but at least he looks good doing it.
...Why is he working at night?
B. Having a Few People Over
To celebrate the reopening of Milton's only general store, Louis invites the town for food and drinks on the next Aurora night. At the risk of being accused of living in it, he wears his best 3-piece suit, the gray one from home. The place is well-lit, both due to the Aurora and every light source Louis could get his hands on. It's a myth that vampires don't like light. They just have a sun allergy.
Louis used to run a club, he knows how to plan a party. He doesn't know how to cook; he enlisted help for that. Among as much variety as Louis could get, the caterer Lalo Salamanca made a mushroom stew. Delicious--but watch out! A few special mushrooms may have found their way into the batch, possibly into a few bowls, and Louis has no idea...
He puts jazz records on and opens the doors. Empty shelves have been pushed out of the way for mingling or making music--he sorely misses live music. Louis would only request that it be good. (Louis reminds himself to explicitly instruct Lestat not to eat any musicians he deems bad.)
C. Open for Business
It's little more than a single counter and a few shelves worth of stock. Louis contemplates trying to bring in people to sell their own wares just so the rest of the shelves won't look so empty.
He arranges the odd collection of whatever he could scavenge and make presentable: dry goods, cans, candy, alcohol, cigarettes. The storeroom is depressingly half empty. The freezer, moved to an unheated room, is surprisingly full of meat.
In the window he puts up a passable copy of Tim's missing bunny poster. He sets up a little seating area where people can eat and drink if they wish. (It feels odd not to place the round little tables and woven chairs outside like at home, where the weather was mild enough.)
Louis emerges from the back room in an apron at the sound of the bell over the door. His suit and tie are so people won't mistake the owner/manager for a lowly clerk... as much as anyone can "own" anything in this scavenged town.
"Evenin', what can I get for you?"
D. Back in 15
Louis expects at least one teenager to take up loitering... Big mistake. If any hapless souls hang around too long and are trusted not to steal, Louis simply takes off his apron, dons his coat, and says without warning as he leaves,
"Mind the counter while I'm gone."
Congratulations, you now work here until he returns. He'll be back in a few minutes... right?
Do you:
- Invite friends and avail yourselves of the candy, booze, and free aprons
- Actually tend the store
no subject
He's unlicensed at operating this equipment. And it shows.
With a start- a tiny jump of his shoulders and a shuffle look alive, to sit upright, Tim doesn't miss a beat in pointing an accusing finger at his boss. "You do not, because if you really wanted this place to be 'pest-free' you wouldn't have let me in in the first place."
Self own. Those are rare.
But then Tim's child is moving around his shirt again, and the kid looks sheepish. Mostly because he needs to come up with a better name than Tiny Tim stat and--
"Don't worry about it, that's just Derpy."
no subject
"Very funny. Put that finger away. What in the hell is a 'Derpy'?"
It isn't attacking Tim. Must be some pet. Tim knows Louis isn't a huge animal person. He's surprisingly very gentle with the bunnies, but a little standoffish, doesn't coo at them like a little kid, and talks candidly about food reserves.
talking animal death
He's delighted at having the word derp (it's a word, right?) come out of Mr du Lac's mouth, and strangely it shows. Tim hurries a Sorry at having pointed fingers, swings around to face the man properly. It's a testament to the selective nature of the magic of this place, that he knows that Louis isn't going to fawn over his baby.
"Its eyes are pointing in different directions," he explains. "So... derp. Derpy. It doesn't want to eat so I thought I'd at least keep him warm, until..."
Well. He cuts himself off, troubled by the idea. Nonetheless it's what he's braced for. Derpy wiggles. Tim smiles a sad little smile and shrugs the troubles off. Or tries to. His next words, despite a raise in volume, are still a bit subdued.
"Hey! I have a questio- two questions. You left me all alone before I could ask."
cw: this animal is maybe now a pet??
Louis raises his eyebrows at him and gestures with splayed fingers at the wiggling lump. "If you were really goin' eat it tonight, you wouldn't've named it already. And you sure ain't goin' keep it around for breedin' unless you want all your bunnies' eyes to come out crossways. You're dead in the water, Tim."
His way of saying Tim has a pet for however long the pet deigns to live. Congratulations Tim is now the proud father of a... bunny.
He sighs. Somehow he dreads letting Tim lead him where he may: "Okay, what are you askin'?"
cw this is now animal experimentation talks..... sighs....
His baby.
Okay.
Tim can deal with that, and having made sure the little fuzzy critter is breathing, he mirrors Louis. Raises his brows, because what you never seen a teen pregnancy before.
"I thought you sucked at hunting," he says. Voice low, but sure to carry. Kind of curious, kind of confused, kind of concerned. He looks to the room where the-- meat is all hung up. And it's not a question, but it is, and if Mr du Lac doesn't want to answer it, fine. Tim can always offer an out. "And I need needles. Hypodermic needles. Syringes. Do you have any?"
He shifts Derpy. Looks away, back to the cash register. Explains that, "Twenty-one to... twenty-five gauge would be, like, ideal. The higher the number is the smaller the pointy end, and I need some for, uh."
He shifts Derpy.
"Blood draws?"
Re: cw this is now animal experimentation talks..... sighs....
"I got better," is the only explanation he gives as to why he's suddenly capable of catching his own meat some of the time instead of almost none of the time. Sure other Interlopers have gained powers too, but Louis is so used to keeping them under wraps that he just went on erring to how he conducted himself back home.
The meat room is a closed door marked employees only, beyond which Louis has allowed the freezing temperatures of outside to roost. Inside is the freezer box, and, when he can get ahold of someone who actually knows butchering, some large pieces of hanging deer.
A crease appears between Louis's eyebrows. "I ain't givin' no twitchy boy needles for unknown purposes. I'd sooner give them to the good doctor or even that kid at the autopsy talkin' about poison." Forensics, technically, but poison figured into it.
cw talking abt needles and autopsies
All of that is soon forgotten, though, and Tim scrunches his expression into something equal parts This Should Be An Eye Roll and Genuine Horror.
"Oh my god," he says, frozen from picking at the machine. What had compelled him to watch an autopsy he'll never know, and the image of it flashes in his mind.
"I'm not twitchy," he defends. A little breathless because the image of death wants to make him sick, as does the ridiculous notion that he knew the kid... it doesn't make any sense! He slips off the stool in an attempt to ground himself (heh).
(Okay he's a little twitchy.)
"I told you what I'd use them for. Some of the rabbits woke up really cranky. I don't know if it's the Aurora or... or-- uh. I think. I had three questions. Actually."
Just a little twitchy.
no subject
"I do have a little help huntin'. I am not incapable of workin' with others. What is your third question? If it's anythin' to do with rabbit science, I know less than you."
no subject
Tim will worry anyway.
There's worry in his eyes, both at how he'll be perceived and at the thought of being... wrong. Because that'll mean he's crazy.
Tim takes the plunge.
"Do you feel like you're missing something?"
no subject
Louis is shelving feminine hygiene products in a discreet section of the store, because idle hands are a sin or whatever. Really, he just wants to make efficient use of his time here so he can have more time for leisure activities. Sadly staring at a book is his hobby.
He stops to cross his forearms on the top of the shelf and rests his chin on them to consider Tim levelly. He blinks slowly like a cat.
"Cultural edification and enrichment, fulfillment in my personal life, the ability to feel happiness as often and as fully as others do? Every damn day, Tim, what's your point?"
cw teen pregnancy, magic memloss mention
(He doesn't really pay attention to what Mr L is stocking- Tim was with his girlfriend when she was pregnant all the way up to delivery.)
"That's not what I meant." And so, practically touching the man (but not, because personal space), Tim says, "I mean like..."
...a universal truth is that he's no good at words, not when they're meant to convey what is within him.
"I don't know. Do you feel any different? Not different from who you were back home. I think all of us need have changed somehow to adapt, right? I mean, like... I'm not crazy. Just putting that out there. Does everything you do... make sense? Like-- you're not different one day to the next, right?"
no subject
That's close enough, and Tim draws even closer, and Louis is concerned. Louis is of the opinion that a lot of what Tim does doesn't make sense, but it must truly be bad if Tim is unsettled by it.
"What's not makin' sense, Tim?" he asks more gently, and he doesn't blink. He forgets to. "You losin' time, or is it somethin' else?" Someone else, he might say, but that feels like salt in the wound.