savetheearth | when the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake [open]

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when the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake [open]

Who: Rachel and any and all guests and trick-or-treaters
What: HALLOWEEN PARTY
Where: Rachel's brownstone
When: Starting in the evening on Thursday, October 31.
Warnings: Halloween things. Power flareups. Drinking. Probably people misbehaving.

Rachel has been finishing up preparation all day. With the current condition of the city, it hasn't been easy to get everything, but it's done! Outside, the brownstone has jack-o'-lanterns glowing on the steps and stoop to welcome guests and visitors to the door.

Fake cobweb is stretched above the door and the atmosphere is right. Inside, music is playing, decorations are set, there are games to play, there are tables of food and drinks and a large bowl of Halloween candy by the door. The fun even extends to the backyard!

On the second floor, there's a room with a flatscreen TV and a big couch playing classic monster movies. Finally, there's a wet bar that she's trusting the adults to keep the kids out of.

The invitation is out, so all there is to do is wait.

[ooc: subthreads up! go forth!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Cool, no problem." Brooke nods at Chloe in approval before filling up a glass about a third of the way with water. She has no idea if that'll ruin the taste, but it probably won't. Probably. She keeps up conversation while mixing it, and she's being careful to put a little less in there than usual.

"You're just offering to drive drunks back home? You really are a kind soul." She's already said it, of course, but she's glad people like Chloe exist. "I can't believe you've been around here so long and you haven't gone all cold and cynical like a lot of people."

"I'm sure our host won't want to trip over people in the morning, if this is as brain-smashing as you say," Chloe intones with an inoffensive little point of her index finger. "So I'm happy to. Plus, I haven't been around that long..."

She looks over her shoulder at a group wigging out and bursting into uproarious laughter over the passing around of a feel-box.

"And even if I had been, well."

No reason to get all in-depth. Already, she liked this bunch. Grinning, she returns her attention to Brooke.

"But now I wish I'd thought to bring the things for Pumpkin Fevers!"

"Pumpkin Fever?" Brooke echoes, finishing up the drink. She hands it over to Chloe and can't stop herself from matching her friend's expression. Her happiness is definitely contagious, and that's not just the party atmosphere talking.

"What's in that? We might have stuff for it here. And if we don't, I'm always looking to add more to my repertoire." Not that she's a bartender or anything. She's just—well, no reason to get all in-depth.

"Spiced rum, pumpkin liqueur..." Chloe accepts the drink with a little raise of her glass, sipping thoughtfully. She lights up; it's so sweet! "Cream, milk, cinnamon."

She twists her glass and taps a finger against its rim.

"And a sugar rim!"

You don't spend all your life around a campfire and parents who liked to entertain without learning a festive cocktail or two, after all.

Oh, good, Brooke made it right. She smiles halfway through the ingredient list, but there's a hint of regret behind it. "Would you believe I couldn't find any pumpkin-flavored alcohol?" Probably. There is some kind of pumpkin-themed holiday going on. "That does sound delicious, though. Maybe it can be a Thanksgiving thing, too. I mean, it's all the same season."

While she works on committing the recipe to memory (but she can get it later if and when she forgets), she asks, "Where did you pick it up? One of those wild college parties I hear so much about?"

Chloe waves a little hurriedly, laughing as though that was not only genuinely amusing, but surprising, too.

"N-No, no, nothing like that," she assures. "My parents are just fond of entertaining! And my aunt loves these. Without the fancy cup and the sugar rim, it makes a good bonfire drink. Warms you right up! Maybe not like a hot chocolate with, say... hmm, hazelnut liqueur, but..."

Thanksgiving, that was right. October had really flown by, leaving the winter months piled up with holidays upon them.

"We probably have some pumpkin left. It goes just as well with Thanksgiving!"

Fond of entertaining, hm? Well, so are Brooke's, but she gets the idea that their parents have never really hung out together—she'd probably have heard about Chloe before now, among other reasons.

"Hot chocolate and hazelnut? Like alcoholic Nutella?" Leaving any thoughts about the class divide and how snooty her parents are aside, Brooke's now brimming with interest. "Maybe you should be the one behind the bar. I'll see if I can throw a Thanksgiving party together. God knows I'm giving thanks that I found you guys more often than not."

She fiddles with the cuff of her right sleeve absentmindedly, only briefly looking down at it. Even with her newfound, ah, statuesque features, Brooke can't bring herself to curse what the super double secret internet has brought into her life. "The numbers club is way too good to me."

"Ah. I did say you needed a tag-in, right?" She all but offers right there, pressing a brief smile into the rim of her drink before sipping again. "If a Thanksgiving get-together is in our stars, I'd love to help. My family's... it's mostly the same property-owners, year after year. And now my parents are absolute snowbirds!" Which meant plenty of 1. time, 2. space, and 3. privacy for their less innocuous members.

She sobers after a moment, a bright glance raking over Brooke's fidgeting and then away again just as quickly.

"Quite a few might have new things to give thanks for this year." Or, you know, find it hard to identify what it was they gave thanks for previously, though she doesn't say as much. "Can I ask what makes you say that?"

"Oh, you know," she dithers, but what harm could it do to come out with the real reason she likes the club so much? "I don't have a lot of friends in the 'real world'. Work friends, sure, but they're not the same. And then I just... log on to this network one day, and there's people all around the city who I've never met before, and it's like." Like a whole new world? Chill out, no musical numbers.

"I feel like I belong here. Like I was supposed to meet you guys." She smiles. "That's why I can't be mad at the echoes. My life before all the echoes and the numbers club was boring and lonely." It might be kind of a naive worldview, but she doesn't care. Her circle of friends just keeps getting bigger, and that's awesome.

"Get back here, Chlo," Brooke says jovially, trying out a nickname. She doesn't know if she likes giving nicknames to people yet. Not a lot of experience with it. But either way, she sweeps her arm out and invites her friend back behind the bar.

Following suit, Chloe laughs at her new nickname and pushes out of her chair to wind her way around around into the bar. While she was more worker bee than social butterfly, she would certainly be among the first few in line to tell someone, 'You look like you need a good drink and a long chat, on the house.'

"Maybe I don't have the right to say it, because I only have one echo," she says, tempering her thoughts with leaning over to check what sorts of things were already in the bar, "but there's a kind of camaraderie among us that you won't find elsewhere. I'm sure of that! People going through difficult situations together — or... what I assume is difficult. If you're talking about being angry with your echoes... maybe it'll be painful, but it won't be lonely. We have something no one else does."

She's thought about it, of course. How it had the potential to turn her life right on its head. But there was something so very important right at her fingertips, and she can't not want to give it her all, even in theory. Humming lightly in contrast to her musing, she sifts through the bottles for a black raspberry liqueur.

"And the network was there all along for us to meet, after all!"

"Hey, hey. Don't get like that." Brooke moves away from where all the alcohol is to let Chloe look. It's pretty well-stocked, and even though it's not Brooke's bar and she hasn't looked through it much, she's confident it should have a little of everything.

"We're not in the Olympics here. One echo or a million of 'em, we're all in this together." It's like Chloe said: Camaraderie. Brooke slings her good arm around her friend's shoulders without much care as to whether she's doing anything else. "And I 100% mean it when I say that I've got your back through anything."

Only some of this is alcohol making her more affectionate. "Hope that's not weird," she adds. "I just like helping people, especially if they're my friends."

When the weight of Brooke's arm closes in over her shoulder, she's surprised into a laugh. Of course, she was right; there was no reason to try and quantify their experiences, as long as they were all on the same side. She's about to remark as such, throwing an apologetic gaze sideways, but while her laughter fades, her surprise doesn't. Because the feeling of her own heart is all of a sudden too loud for her, and it courses right up into her throat and then again all the way down to her fingertips.

That weight was something she's felt before. There's a laugh ringing in her ears, but it's not her own, or anyone she knows. A voice muscles through: Marry me, baby!

Chloe nearly drops the bottle of raspberry liqueur, face lighting up like a Christmas tree.

"Ah..."

Brooke... well, she kind of recognizes the expression. She hasn't caused one of these to someone herself in person, or at least not that she can remember, but she's seen it happen a couple times before for unrelated reasons. She doesn't take her arm off Chloe's shoulder, but she does reach for the bottle instinctively when she sees it might get dropped.

Once that's all taken care of and it looks like Chloe's not in the throes of an echo anymore, Brooke does take her arm off and looks at her friend like she isn't sure how she should react.

"Another echo? Do you feel okay?"

Blinking rapidly, as if to clear away an image she hadn't actually seen, Chloe jumps when Brooke's questions finally register. Looking up, bright-eyed, she wills her face to cool down before anything else. (It doesn't exactly work.)

"An echo," she repeats, nodding slowly. "I-I forgot what it felt like! I think that was it."

Smiling in an effort to reassure her, Chloe gathers herself back up.

"Of all the places..."

Whatever Chloe just went through, it seems like it was mostly benign, so that's probably the best possible outcome. Speaking of the best possible things...

"If we're going to be getting echoes, I'd rather get them at a numbers club party," Brooke says thoughtfully. "I can't imagine a safer place." Better here than in public somewhere. Her friend's smile helps to ease some of her worries.

"Everything okay? You didn't grow a second liver or anything?" Shame. Of all the echoes, that'd probably be the most fun. She grins. "Or did you just think of something embarrassing all of a sudden?"

"My liver has a way to go yet," Chloe quips back, albeit a little thinly. Still, she's being genuine in her attempt to prove she was just fine, even has she quietly tries to parse the memory enough to talk about it. "I wouldn't be able to imagine the trouble two could get me into."

In punctuation, she gives her attention to the bar again, at least partially, to pluck a bottle of tequila from one of the shelves.

"How do you feel about raspberries and chocolate?"

"I think they're a wonderful combination," she says, eyeing the tequila. "You know, tequila's one of my favorite liquors. The best thing about it is that everyone has a different story, but they all end exactly the same way. Like, okay."

She puts both hands on the bar and surveys the party quickly, as though the underage attendees won't find some way to overhear her if they want to.

"One time in college, I did 13 shots of it in about three hours. People tried taking the bottle away from me, but I kept finding it and 'sneaking' more." She does the air quotes. "I wasn't very subtle. And that night ended the same way everyone else's tequila stories end. So what's yours?"

"Then, how about an Agave Kiss?" Fruity, chocolaty, creamy, vintage, and unexpectedly chock full of the number one liquor that has felled many a man. Or woman. In line with the offer, Brooke had a point; there were drunken stories, and then there were tequila stories. Chloe lines the mix up with a stifled giggle and reaches for a cocktail glass. Their hostess had quite a lovely collection.

"Thirteen shots sounds impossible! You're the one who may need a second liver."

Not that she isn't contributing.

"Mine... skinny dipping in a lake," she remarks nearly off-handedly, though she does have the grace to look at least a little sheepish when she holds her hand out to motion for the raspberry liqueur she'd nearly dropped. "Though I woke up on my roof. Someone, ah, said something about stargazing and feeling gravity once I got down."

Which she did, without puking, thank you very much. Though she was covered in hay. No one could explain that, so she doesn't either.

Brooke hands over the liqueur readily, only smirking a little bit. At least she'd never gotten "suddenly naked" drunk. (That she could remember.) But ridiculous tequila stories aren't a competition; they're a community event that brings people together, and she already feels a little closer to Chloe because of it.

"Are you sure you were only drinking?" she asks, the smirk growing. "Stargazing is always great, but I didn't think being able to feel gravity was a booze thing. An agave kiss sounds great, by the way."

The more suggestive a drink sounds, generally, the better it is. That philosophy's worked great for her in the past.

"No, no! N-Nothing like that all all." She waves quickly; she had stories, but not those kinds of stories. It was mostly in the company of family and friends of family anyway; any number of the sprawling Weiss clan were usually present for holidays down on the farm, where the rules were looser and it was more difficult to get in trouble.

"My cousins and my sister..." A fond laugh as she layers up her drink. "They were all able to drink before I could. That was around New Years, but," a smile as she tops her raspberry-cream-tequila concoction off with creme de cacao. "I didn't see a lot of them until the Fourth of July."

Chloe picks the glass up and holds it out.

"Making up for lost time, hm? My first... and last! Tequila story."

Brooke takes the glass and raises it to Chloe. "Here's to less nudity in the future." Well, it's bad luck to drink a toast to yourself, and it seems they're both trying to temper their drinking anyway—though it could just be for tonight on Chloe's side, for all Brooke knows. Anyway, it's a pretty solid toast, if she were to say so herself. She takes a celebratory sip, because she is a demure lady, and smiles appreciatively.

"Wow, this is really good! Ever consider taking up bartending as a side job, o disciple of Dionysus?" The last part gets added with an enormous grin, because she can't believe she's gone this long without making a proper reference to her costume.

Chloe will toast to that. Even if it was a little ironic, celebrating a hope for a future involving less alcohol-tinting with... alcohol. They were playing safe though, and the party atmosphere was far too enticing to play the part of the wallflower or otherwise. And the time of year did little for wanting to go skinny dipping much of anywhere, which is a thought that silently amuses her.

"You dress better for it," she intones, twisting at one of the circles of fabric around her wrists. "I waitressed a little around the holidays and summer, but... mm, no, I never thought about bartending!"

"Please. This is just a costume." Never mind that it's not much of one—add sleeves and she's basically got her walking around clothes. "You've got the knowledge for it, and you're adorable enough to make bank in tips. Not that I'd go back to tipped work if I could avoid it."

She puts the drink down on the bar, nudges herself a little closer to Chloe, and lowers her voice, because she is about to swear. "I kind of like not having to kiss ass to survive."

Oh, getting conspiratorial, are they. She gives no indication she takes issue with the dreaded swearing, nodding in agreement instead.

"That's — too much! About the knowledge, and otherwise. I was just keeping myself busy, at the time," she admits, not sounding overly fond of her experience, but hardly granting it any ire, either. "But now with classes, and trying to get my certification in equine therapy, I've run all out of time instead."

That's probably a good opinion to have with regards to the service industry, as far as Brooke is concerned. She doesn't exactly hate the dues she had to pay in it, but they're not the best of times, either. At any rate, it's Chloe's academic interests that catch her ear.

"I didn't realize you needed to get certified for that kind of thing. How intense is the process? ...Wow, sorry, you don't have to answer that. I sound like somebody's nosy aunt at Thanksgiving."

when the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake [open]

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