singillatim | [open] General Store

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[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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How come? [ He looks over at her curiously. The shadows on the walls stretch into nightmarish creatures, but he focuses on her as much as he can. ] You don't like to sit still?

I was working, before this, and everything was time-sensitive. [First Sam was kidnapped and then everything was exploding. And then they'd had to stop the train.] And here, in the cold, you have to keep moving or you'll die.

"Working," huh? What is that you do for "work," Miss Chloe? [ He doesn't physically raise an eyebrow, but his tone implies a raised brow anyway.

Lalo fans himself with a hand. At least he's not seeing things right now, but the feeling of burning up from the inside out is still there. He fans himself with a hand. The irony of doing that while talking about the cold doesn't escape him. ] Yeah, I hate the cold. In Mexico, the weather was much nicer than it was here. [ It's nice, having a subdued conversation like this. ] But a while ago, I started feeling warmer out of nowhere. At first, I didn't know why. Now I guess I do.
Not you, I take it?

Edited 2024-03-15 20:58 (UTC)

[She shrugs.] I find stuff for people.

Can't blame you for missing Mexico. I bet you never almost froze to death back there.

You think this fire thing makes you run warmer?

You "find stuff." [ It's a prompt but not a demand. He won't try to force her to share more than she wants to... not that he's in a position to force her to do anything. Still, even if he couldn't, he wouldn't. ]

Gotta be it. What else would it be? [ At first, he'd thought he was just staring to acclimate. But if he's got fire powers now, wouldn't that explain it? Lalo vividly pictures a little furnace in his chest, assuming that's probably how his new - and at the moment, unwanted - powers work. ] 'Specially now. Whew! [ Lalo fans himself with a hand against. He forces himself to focus on Chloe instead, to avoid ripping his shirt off. ]

How are you doing? The numbness getting better? Worse?

Yeah. Not as simple as it sounds.

Well, I'm glad I don't do that. Sounds like a pain in the ass. [Maybe literally, if you're unlucky with the fire.]

Still the same. It's probably going to hurt like a bitch when it comes back. [If it does. It has to.]

[ Wordlessly, Lalo waits to see if she'll elaborate, but if she doesn't, he won't pry.

She does get a small smile out of him when she says it's a pain in the ass. Right now, he can't argue about that.

He puts both hands on his knees. Looks up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. ]

It'll come back. [ He sounds oddly sure of that, for a man who won't look up. He's still not looking at her when he says, quietly... ]

Thank you. [ He still doesn't understand why she's doing this for him, but he's grateful. ]

Don't mention it. [It's a bit too genuine in this moment when they're both so vulnerable.]

I'd show you pictures, what I can do, but you can't see straight and I can't work my phone.

[ He laughs a little when she says she can't work her phone. It's a small chuckle, but it's genuine. Lalo, being from 2004, pictures a flip phone, complete with the grainy pictures flip phones produce; he has no idea of the capabilities of a smartphone like Chloe's. ]

Don't worry about it. The pictures wouldn't be any good anyway. Why don't you just tell me about it?

[ He could use the distraction and besides, it's useful to know what types of different abilities he might end up dealing with here. ]

[Chloe gasps. Unbelievable that this guy still has the presence of mind to insult her photography skills.]

Rude.

We were picking our way through ruins to follow vague historical descriptions of the destruction of an ancient city to try and find an artifact the kings had owned.

[ Lalo chuckles at her indignation. ] Nah, nah. That's not what I meant.

Those phones, they just don't take good pictures, is all.

And? How was that going?

[Chloe sniffs, unreasonably defensive:] Mine does.

Let's say stressful but educational. We almost blew up so many times.

[ Her defensiveness makes Lalo chuckle even more. It's hilarious - dare he say, almost cute? - to watch her get so huffy over a phone. It takes his mind off of his current circumstances for a second; helps him forget some of his fear and humiliation. ] Yeah. Sure. Yours does.

[ But it's clear from his tone that he doesn't believe her. ]

But you didn't. And now you're here. That's an amazing story. [ For a moment, he sounds genuinely impressed, because he is. She looks tough, sure, but not the kind of tough to be able to do what she's describing now. Somehow, though, against his better judgment, he believes her. Arrogance helps there; Lalo believes that if she can best him, she can best anybody.

But he's also filing it all away, the extent of what she can do. He imagines this must be all the more terrifying for her, then, if she's usually so strong and flexible, to rendered numb and helpless like this. He's caught between a hint of schadenfreude and a little whisper of proto-empathy as he realizes the parallels in their situations; Lalo, who has always prided himself on his sharp observational skills, unable to trust even the most basic things he sees. Chloe, so nimble and surefooted, unable to even stand up without risking her life.

Well, if she's willing to be his mind, for now, then he can be her muscle if he needs to. At least until this shit wears off.

But rather than express any of that - ew - Lalo just reaches over to poke her. He's not sure how hard to poke so she'll feel it, or if she'll feel it. He also can't be 100% sure he's not just poking the able or something as he hallucinates a non-existent version of her.

But if he successfully gets her attention, Lalo will nod her gaze in the direction of Randvi and Bigby. ]

Hey. Check it out. Are the viking and the cop flirting or am I hallucinating that too?

[ He wouldn't be surprised if he did, in fact, hallucinate this too. ]

[Chloe doesn't feel the poke against her skin, but he pushes hard enough to shift her a bit and that gets her attention.

She snickers at the look of mild horror on poor Bigby’s face.] Yeah, that's real. She was not like that at Ruby’s party. Maybe there's a different mushroom effect for boring stick-in-the-mud types. Keep an eye out for Edward Little or Rorschach.

[ Her snickering is like music to Lalo's ears, letting him know he can laugh too. He tries hard to keep it short and quiet, under the radar. He drops his voice to a whisper when she mentions Little and Rorschach. ]

Edward Little! Have you seen him marching around at night? Doing his "patrols?" [ Lalo doesn't actually make air quotes, but his eye-roll makes them for him. In a deliberately mocking voice: ] "Look at me, everybody! I'm a busybody who can't mind my own business!"

Oh yeah, I've seen him. [She has to factor his 'schedule' into her breaking into your cabin routine, buddy.] Rorschach nearly had a conniption when I tried to take out the box of newspapers he has at the library, but I don't know if that's a rules thing or because I'm a woman.

I woke up in the community center with him leaning over me one day. Do you know what it smells like to have 'im that close to you? Whew! [ Lalo makes a big show of waving a hand by his nose in imitation of somebody smelling something foul, and then grins at her, hoping she found him funny. ]

He’d never do that to me. Too scared that I'd use my wiles on him.

[She snickers again, watching the Viking girl trying to squirm into Bigby’s lap.] Maybe that's a valid fear here. Look at her go.

[ That's enough to make Lalo laugh too. He whistles quietly under his breath, low enough for only Chloe to hear. ]

Whoa! I didn't think she had it in her. How much would it take for you to get that close to Bigby, eh?

[ Lalo seems to be in much higher spirits now, at least. ]

[She gives him a considering look.] I dunno. I mean, really hairy guys do nothing for me and I hate cops, but if he had food…

Edited (Autocorrect) 2024-03-25 03:47 (UTC)

[ Lalo nods his head in agreement. ] Yeah. Tell me about it. I don't think I could ever get that close to a cop. [ He allows himself a breathy exhale through his nose, a soft sound that might be the beginnings of a laugh, when she allows for "if he had food..." ]

Yeah, then maybe you could stop stealing from me. [ He looks at her curiously. ] What? Are you really that hungry? You don't have any food of your own?

[Chloe snorts.] Yeah, well. It's different for me, I think. [It’s not like she's got bribe money. Sometimes you have to cozy up to cops to protect yourself from something worse.]

I am! Do you think I just hoard it or something? [Confirmation at least that he hasn't been in her house.] I eat probably twice as much as I did before I got this power and sometimes even that isn't enough.

Yeah. [ No argument from him; that one word - 'yeah' - does a lot of heavy lifting. ]

I don't know what you do. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, you throw it in a hole just to have an excuse to annoy me. [ He laughs a little. Watches Randvi wrap her tentacles around Bigby's neck, and looks down, twiddling with his thumb. He exhales heavily through his nose. ]

Okay. Here's the deal. I have some smoked rabbit I've been saving. When you feel better, you can have it. I'll leave it out for you.

After that, I want you to stop breaking into my house. ¿Comprende?

[As if she would just take something someone left out for her. What's the catch?]

I dunno. I think you'd miss me too much.

[ He should have figured, of course. He does say: ] Yeah, that's smart of you. What if I poison it? [ Enjoy that paranoid thought, Chloe. Lalo's smile threatens to betray his real feelings when he argues: ]

Bullshit! I want you out of my hair.

[ That's not true. ]

A. Home Improvement

B. Having a Few People Over

C. Open for Business

D. Back in 15

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