abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

[ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

WHO: sam wilson and anyone/everyone.
WHAT: captain america cookout.
WHERE: sam's horizon domain
WHEN: third saturday of september (aka, about 3 weeks after the jailbreak)
NOTES: see below!

HELLO ALL AND WELCOME TO SAM'S CAPTAIN AMERICA COOKOUT!!!!

Over the last week or so, Sam has been going out of his way to contact as many people as he knows to invite them to a cookout at his place in the Horizon. He knows that after the jailbreak, a lot of people were separated, and this was his first thought on how to bring people together. The purpose behind it is simply because Sam thinks that the one thing all of them have in common, opinion on the Singularity and their situations aside, is that they were all brought here and can actually access the Horizon. He sees merit and use in coming together when they can, especially in ways that don't involve the politics of the land they're now living in. So, what better way to do that than around food?

The long and short of it is - this is a peace meal. Leave your issues at the door. Sam has very few rules and there is very little he will give in terms of what this cookout will entail, but three things he will make very clear:

1.) There will be no fighting at his home. You want to duke it out? Take it somewhere else. There will not be warnings or second chances. Don't be an ass.
2.) There is no meeting or serious reason for this cookout. Literally, he just wants people to come together who may no longer be able to see each other due to the travel constraints. It's meant to be fun. Come have fun. (he knows y'all know what that is, even when some of you pretend you don't). Bring food if you want to! There is also a kitchen (if you know what that is) and places to crash. Hope you like seafood!
3.) Anyone who can come into the Horizon is welcome. He'd love it if everyone came, so spread the word.

The cookout itself is set up out front, with picnic tables and chairs and fire pits and lights abound. There are tables set up near grilles if anyone wants to do any actual cooking outside, and a table (probably multiple) set up with sides and napkins and utensils. There are a variety of different places to go and sit and hang out while you're eating. Anything and everything you can want is available - food, drinks, yard games, music playing from out in the trees that will remain consistent unless someone tries to find the speakers and hijack the playlists, etc. If you can't find something outside, you're more than welcome to check the house.

All throughout the party, too, there will be a new friend. Red, as Sam fondly calls him, is a blood-red hunting hawk with silver in between the feathers. He can be found circling around Sam quite often, or perched on his shoulders, but also if you are out and about you can often see him checking up on anyone and everyone. He's a very curious little bird, and also pretty sassy, if you want to interact with him.

If you haven't, or have, been to Sam's domain before, feel free to take a look around. Anywhere is open (save for one locked bedroom) so everyone has open access, but most of the cookout itself will be located in the front yard.

OOC: This is mean to be an OPEN LOG, so leave your TLs or closed threads below! This party will last basically as long as people want it to, but the idea is for it to be an afternoon into the evening. Y'all have free reign save for destroying Sam's home, but if you have any questions, hit me up on plurk (disarmingly or disco (dai#3757). Sam's TL is below, and he will be bouncing around like the good host he is, but lets get a little party started.

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He wasn't being scary at me, you know that guy Homelander? Jon did some, like. Weird cold read where he just knew all of Homelander's secrets. [She shrugs her shoulders with a too-casusl air.] It just. Reminded me of stuff from back home. [And a small scoff.] It's not like I had a pretty great time as a kid either, you know? I don't... really trust adults, anymore. Except for like, two.

He was so lovely, M'sieur Homelander, you know? I really liked him. He were coming to Nott... but I dunno where he is now. Captured, mayhaps? I hope not. He is a good man, that one. Or.... no. No, he is bad. But I like him, you know? He was so beautiful.

[She mimics Coraline's unaffected shrug.] Jon is stupid. The one to be executed or the other? Both are stupid, I think. But the other is so lovely to look at. He knows nothing, Jon, but I like his eyes. There's kindness there. The other, no. Why attack the man what wields the power when you have none? Idiot.
But so, for not trusting an adult. I don't trust people no more. Adults, children, and them between. All are interfering and serve themselves. Me too, I suppose, but it ain't nice. I don't care about home no more but I care for here.

[Whoa hey hold on, only she gets to insult Jon.]

He's not an idiot. Jon has power, he used it to make Ambrose tell the truth about why we're here and what's happening. [She stares back at Eponine with hazel eyes full of challenge.] A lot of us have powers, here, but Jon's one of the ones who's cut off from his source while he's here, so he's not as strong as someone who was actually made here.

So what?

[Powers, magic, sources - none of it means much of anything to Eponine. She shakes her head scornfully.]

He still used it against the people here. He still got caught - stupid man. Me, I wouldn't get myself caught like that, and to be hung for it? What is the point? To be a martyr? Pah! What good is he to be in a grave?

You wouldn't do it at all. [There's a bite to her tone, unimpressed and cold for it.] All you've done is follow everyone else along and you don't even like them. What good is someone who doesn't even think at all and just goes along with whatever someone beautiful tells her to do? At least Jon was fighting for something.

You wouldn’t like someone plotting to murder you, either.

[Eponine snaps back. It hurts to admit but there she goes.]

I were tricked to it and I ain’t waiting round to die. But then, what is wrong with beautiful? Or is it because you ain’t got it? That Jon were fighting to know stuff, it’s true. But stupid for he’d’ve taken it to the grave.

[The insult makes Coraline scoff, loudly, and look away with a disdainful grin. It's easy to act like that comment on her looks doesn't sting in a familiar, painfully sharp way.]

He wouldn't have, actually, he made a recording. So-- the fuck does it even matter, anyway, we're here and he's fine.

[She glares out of the corner of her eye, and from that angle her iris almost looks pure yellow.]

Besides, you are waiting around. To try and murder Julie, or get to some other part of the country, because you were too weak to do something smarter when you had the chance.

You call me weak?

[Eponine scowls.]

Since being here, I have escaped a mine, walked to a city, lived in the streets and taken care of that Estinien and Himeka, I have been shut up and starved twice for weeks and days on end. I have been beaten and had my nose broken, and I have survived. And now, I am on a street again, and you don't want to know how I make my money, for it is sure to burn your stupid cloth ears, and you call me weak? Well, I call you an idiot. All you have done is waited in a cell and then had a lovely time as a princess in a castle.

[Angry Glamour is a dangerous game - too far and she'll likely get slapped, or lose her own cool, but it needs to be real to be worth it.

Coraline looks Eponine up and down, working her bottom lip in her teeth like she's thinking, and decides to go with rolling her eyes in a full-body motion.]

Oh my God. So you're telling me you're weak and stupid. I got out of jail because I played it smart and got someone to sponsor me. Even if he wasn't smart enough to stay out of jail, I was. I didn't even have to go to the mine because I got in on a sponsor early and got to work at the festival they were having for all the welcomed people.

[She gives the other girl a withering, pitying look.]

Literally everything you just told me was because you made constantly stupid choices, so good to know I'm not as pathetic as all that.

What? NO!

[Eponine looks so frustrated. All she's tried to do, all she's worked for and at and it's thrown in her face like it's just ridiculous? Like she's ridiculous? She scowls at Coraline.]

You are a horrible child, Miss. Such an awful brat. My goodness, I wish my Pa were here to lick your arse with his belt. That's what you need, I think.

[She so wishes she had - was it soda? - right now. Had she a cup, she would have thrown it at Coraline now. Let the little devil feel humiliated for once.]

You're younger and pretty. Sponsors feel sorry for the likes of you. Me, I am made to be in prison. I bet they would have thrown you back if they knew how dreadful you really are.

Why didn't you just get your beautiful Homelander to get you out? I'm sure he'd have been happy to let you fuck your way to the top.

[She's not stupid - she's one of the lucky ones, in her Durance, because she didn't have to do that, but she's fully aware how close she came to it. Of what would have happened if her Keeper didn't keep His promise.]

You're not any better than me. You don't know anything I've been through or how long I've had to fight for everything I have, but you sure won't shut up about yours. Like it makes you special because you suffered, like the rest of us don't know what the word fucking means. Get over yourself.

He…
[She trails off. Homelander had never once offered to try to get her out. Well, only to fuck. He’d spent most of his time making her beg for food or attention and debase herself. Then he’d laughed.

Eponine’s cheeks blush an angry red.]

Is it you telling everyone I am a whore? Because all through the dungeons… it ain’t nice, you know? And so - so what? If it gets me a blanket or some sweets? So what?

[She tried to keep her chin up, to look fiercely proud, but her lack of eye contact and the tremor in her voice gives her away.]

M’sieur Nero loves me, you know? Not - not as a whore. He says I’m his pretty girl. He said I was beautiful, that he’d remember me forever. So there. I am better than you.

[She just scoffs loudly.]

I don't care that you're sleeping with people for shit, and honestly I didn't know until you literally just told me and made it sound like some oh so adult thing, that like-- [and here she puts on a high, simpering little girl voice] Oh, I'm just too young and naive to know what sex is.

[She gives Eponine a flat look, and when she talks again it's in her normal voice.]

Nero's a psychopath. He's only saying that because he knows you want to hear it, and as soon as it stops working he's going to walk away and he won't give any more of a shit about than Homelander, or your dumb know-nothing Jon or your parents or anyone fucking else.

[And yet again, she's being laughed at. It's okay when men laugh at her. She knows that. She's accepted it, both from her male peers and the more genteel class.
But for Coraline to be laughing at her is crushing.
Anything Eponine says is wrong. She gets that. But Coraline's laugh, her scorn only drives Eponine's chin higher, makes her sound the more obstinate. The tremor in her fisted hands probably gives Eponine away, the high pitch to her voice probably indicates the stress that she feels. God, she'd love to be Coraline, so pretty and sure and with friends. She'd love to be Coraline's friend, to count her as a peer. And yet, Coraline's laughing at her.]

I... I didn't say nowt of it. It's just not conversation for polite company, is it? Though how stupid of me, for you are not polite at all. So horrid are you that you deserve all of the bad luck in the world.

[She hoiks her saliva and spits hard at Coraline, aiming for her face.]

Nero will care for me. I - I were his first.

[No he won't. He'll use her and dump her, like everyone else. She knows it but she's denying it.]

He... He loves me.

The moment Coraline lifts her arm to respond to that, there's a hand on her wrist, and Jon pushes a cloth into her hand as he inserts himself between the two girls. A good many of his eyes are open, including two large ones on his throat, all narrowed in their many colors.

"Right. Miss Thénardier, is it? You should make yourself scarce before more bad decisions are made."

Coraline doesn't care what else Eponine has to say, after she spits in her fucking face.

She doesn't immediately wipe the hot glob off: instead she goes to raise her fist with fire in her heart at not having acted first--

--and Jon surprises her, grabbing her wrist and getting in the way. She just glares at him, before she whips the cloth at the eye on the back of his neck and storms away: she just uses her sleeve to scrub her face clean.

“Me?” Eponine replies angrily, surprised to see Jon come from nowhere.
“You see what the little trollop says to me and it is me in the wrong?”
It’s not fair. Of course Coraline has a man to defend her. Of course there’s someone to step in and send Eponine packing. And of course, it’s Eponine who is the villain once more.

“Sir, that child is dreadful.”

He looks after Coraline, some of those eyes rolling in forbearance before he turns back to Eponine with a tight frown.

"I didn't say anyone was in the wrong. But you're the one who took it from words to worse, and you're the one who will regret it more."

"You threaten me?" Eponine looks at him, considering and then laughs. "I didn't think you should have it in you, Sir. But me, I am harmless. That Coraline is a monster. She has told such stories about me, and laughed and - and -"

She shakes her head and leans back on the wall. "What do you care anyway? You are her protector, no? You care for her? You shan't believe me anyway, so what is the point in protesting?"

Jon sighs, running his nails through his hair. "I'm not threatening you. I just stopped you from losing an ugly fight, that's all."

"With that Coraline? Pah!" Eponine wrinkles her nose. "Sir, I am skin and bones I know, but even I have the strength to defeat such a brat as her. She is no bother, just priss. A good hard slap and she should be in tears and skulking back to you, and honest, she deserves it."

Jon snorts, shaking his head.

"Believe what you want. But I didn't step in to protect her from you, I know her too well."

And maybe he shouldn't have bothered, considering they can't do anything permanent to each other here. But he didn't want Sam asking them to leave, either.

"She has you under her thumb, I told you! That horrid thing, pretending to be so awfully good. Me, I were only thanking her for letting me be her servant in the castle on that day. I never got the chance, for the guards were that cross when they found out. And then she calls me whore."

It might be true, but it stings all the same. "I were hoping to be friends, Sir. But perhaps for me, friends are no."

He holds up an open hand, two eyes narrowly open in the scarred, turned up palm. "Miss Thénardier, no one can pretend anything to me," he sighs. "I am being polite and not looking too deeply at your conversation. But yes, I think you have burned that bridge with her.

"Anyway. She's gone. I don't think she'll be returning tonight."

"What are you?" Eponine asks curiously. "You look like such a thing I thought I saw back in Paris when I were that hungry, I were dizzy. I used to see monsters then - or thought I did. They were in my head, not real. But you are, no?"

She scowls. "Always it is me burning bridges. Never her. She is the one what calls names, not me. Would you stand and take such a slur? Though perhaps you are stupid enough to let her away with it?"

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