taxonomites | [location: John Everton's House] [OPEN TO ALL!] BLOCK PARTY!!!

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[location: John Everton's House] [OPEN TO ALL!] BLOCK PARTY!!!

The time had come. Charlotte left John in charge of setting up the bar, giving him only the one request that he have a decent selection of beer, and did the work of dialing up the food. She knew she was going way over board. For all she knew no one might show up, even though she'd gotten a bit of a response to her invite. How could people resist, though. Food, drink, Dean's music, kittens? Okay, and an ex-vampire, but that wasn't his fault.

Pushing that thought away, she continued laying out the food and the carefully crafted warding spells that would protect it from the kittens. They had been given run of most of the patio, but not the yard, and not the food area. That meant they'd still be popping in and out of people's laps, but at least they wouldn't do it to plates.

When everything was ready, Charlotte ran up to change into skinny jeans, a crisp white button down and a ridiculously shiny pair of cowboy boots. Not unlike Dawn, not that she knew it, Charlotte was having too much fun with the fashion options the replicators afforded. Properly armored for the event, she headed back to the patio to wait for their first guests.

OOC: This is an open event, folks, anyone should feel free to tag in, even if they just discover the party. Start a new thread with a label if you want or just tag in on another thread. Feel free to hop around, too. IT'S A PARTY, PEOPLE! Also, this will go on as long as people are interested, so backtag all ya like. We know people will be in and out all weekend. Have fun, drink all the booze.

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Dean was there so maybe Inara wouldn't try to kill him or anything. For now he would just make a greeting and slip away. Maybe later they would talk.

"Miss Serra. Thank you for coming. Charlie's around somewhere." He offered her a beer as a peace offering, before clapping Dean on the shoulder.

"Now, if you'll both excuse me." He dipped his head before fading back into the party.

"Hey..." Inara said to Dean with a brightening smile. He'd saved her life after all, and now here he was bearing gifts of beer, something she appreciated despite her supposed refined tastes...

And then there was John. To her credit she didn't stop smiling, even if it went a bit frozen and her body language stiffened. "Hello," she said with polite neutrality, but waved off his beer since she already had the one Dean had given her in hand as an excuse.

She didn't really start breathing again until he walked away again and she looked back to Dean with a slightly sheepish smile. "It's good to see you too. You know...I'm sorry that I didn't get the chance to thank you properly for saving me. I was considering a fruit basket but it seemed just a bit underwhelming given the circumstances."

Dean glances at John, giving him a grin as he comes through. Oblivious. But he did notice how tense Inara was as John walked by, which is weird. Dean doesn't ask for now, just continues the conversation at hand.

"No problem. It's part of my job description," Dean shrugs it off, sipping his beer. "Tell you what. Have fun at this party tonight, drink a few bottles, go crazy, and I'll consider it a proper thanks, alright?"

Inara couldn't help but laugh, shaking her head slightly. "Companions don't go crazy. I can certainly attempt to mingle and relax a bit, though."

Relaxation sounded very good right now. For all her meditation and incense and focus she had been a giant knot of worry and tension since the attack. "I still reserve the right to send you a fruit basket, though. When you least expect it."

"You could be the exception to the rule," Dean suggests, grinning. He's joking, really. He's happy that she's not traumatized by the attack, honestly, and he's glad that he got to do his job, no matter how bloody it had gotten.

"Alright, alright, I surrender. I'll be on the look out for rogue fruit baskets." Dean snorts.

"I can be remarkably sneaky, even when laden with fruit," she said with a wide grin, fiddling with the cap on her beer until it more or less came loose and then finally off and took a drink. And it was decent beer, even, whoever thought or summoned or created it up out of the hatches had good taste.

She also knew how to keep a drink in hand for quite some time to pace her drinking and not get intoxicated while still being sociable.

"At any rate, I won't make you mind me all night. Thank you again, though, for everything," she said with a brief, earnest squeeze of his arm. And really she did already owe him several times over, whether he accepted it or not, only the most major incident was saving her life.

"So what, you're a fruit ninja?" Dean asks, chuckling. His own beer is half empty, and it's probably something like the third one he's had so far. He's only just starting to feel a bit of a buzz, though. Pacing himself isn't exactly what Dean's good at, honestly.

He'll give her a warm grin, though, when she thanks him. "If you get lonely, don't hesitate to call me over." He nudges her, and then heads off for the crowd, glancing over his shoulder to wave.

Seeing Dean actually walk away from a pretty woman, Charlotte had to wonder what her secret was. He was a sweet guy, but a little hard sell sometimes. Then she realized just who that pretty woman was and she headed over immediately. She had only spoken to Inara once, but she'd liked her.

Flashing her best, bright hostess smile, Charlotte walked up to Inara. "Welcome to the party. How have you been?"

Oh, yes, watch Charlotte put her foot rather firmly in her mouth. Such a shame when there was such good food around.

Inara blinked for a while, completely at a loss for how to answer. "I've...been better," she admitted finally, and then cleared her throat.

She honestly had no idea how to react to Charlie. She hadn't seen the other woman on the network after John's vampiric rampage, hadn't seen her mention it. Did she know about it, even?

"How...have you been?" She asked carefully, frowning slightly.

There was enough hesitation in Inara's response that Charlotte took a mental step back. She thought through what she'd said, then Inara's words, then the time since she'd seen Inara and....just shuddered. "Honestly? Up and down." She unconsciously touched her throat where the bite marks were almost completely healed. "More up now, but it takes work."

At Charlotte's touch to her own throat Inara's hand wandered to hers as well. She was attacked too, then? Well...that would only make sense. Perhaps the first person to be, or the last, or everything in between. But she'd survived? She suddenly had dozens of questions.

"Did you...did he..." she started and then sighed. Few of them were appropriate to a nice party and a lovely night, and Inara was nothing if not painstakingly drilled in social niceties. Obviously things were all right between them now though, weren't they? Or else she wouldn't be here.

Unless she was his mind-slave or thrall or something...vampires could do that, couldn't they?

...now she was just getting silly.

Charlotte took a few steps to Inara's side, pulling her subtly away from the rest of the party. She was impressed that Inara had come. That showed real strength. "He did. Asher did. That's what he was called." She exhaled slowly. "I knew he had to have hurt others, but I haven't talked to any of them. I'm sorry I didn't get word out fast enough, but I-"

She shrugged. She'd been unconscious for a long while, then Ianto had been looking out for her.

"How many others?" She asked with a frown. None of her other friends had been attacked that she knew of, but it only stood to reason that there were more out there.

And then she couldn't quite help her eyes moving to Charlotte's neck with a frown. "And since then he hasn't...you know...?"

She didn't quite realize how tightly she was holding her beer, but her knuckles were going just a touch white.

Of the two questions, Charlotte was enormously glad that the one she could answer was the second. She hadn't liked to ask around much about the first. She knew John would take whatever came from that, but she hated that she'd been so out of it that she couldn't stop him. That she'd fought like hell and been sexually assaulted in the process didn't figure into her calculations at all.

She exhaled slowly, picking her words. "I don't know how many, people haven't come rushing forward to punch him in the nose. I do know that since he woke up at Buffy's, he's been the man I know. A good man, gentle, and honorable to a fault." Yes, he was a soldier of a sort, too, but that wasn't how he was with her.

Inara pondered this. "I think maybe I might have felt better about things if I'd punched him in the nose. Do you think that's still an option?"

There was light, strained humor in her voice. It was a party after all. At least her assault hadn't been as awful as it could have been, though. And then her eyebrow quirked lightly. "I don't know how gentle and honorable he is currently, he did call me a bitch."

And for some reason this was just too, too amusing, to the point that she started to giggle and just...couldn't really properly get it to stop.

The laugh was infectious, drawing Charlotte in even when she knew she should defend John, at least a little. "I'm pretty sure we could make a case for still punching him. Feel free to suggest it to him and see what he thinks." She raised her eyebrow high. "Wait, he called you a bitch after he'd changed back? Really?"

"He did! I can't imagine why, with the way I was insinuating that he might still possibly be a monster and could offer no assurances that it wouldn't happen again..." She rubbed the bridge of her nose with a small sigh. "I suppose I was unkind. I think I was just being cautious, but really...he was churlish."

Charlotte put on her most innocent expression, the one she saved for the very most special occasions because of how much work it took, and smiled sweetly at Inara. "Churlish? Never. John has always been the embodiment of sweetness and--" No, she couldn't do it. Not when the first few times they'd spoken had ended with snapping at each other and very nearly thrown computers. "He is, I fear, a man of strong feeling. When he decides a conversation is over, he'll end it how he has to. Including name calling and stony silences."

She shook her head, exhaling slowly. "He hates not knowing and there's only so much I can tell him." And less that she would. "He wouldn't like knowing, either, of course." She glanced over at Inara, lowering her voice to a troubled whisper. "Did he-- Was it very horrible?" She couldn't bring herself to ask flat out if Asher had assaulted Inara in the same way she had been.

"Not knowing?" She asked with a quirk of an eyebrow. "Not knowing what in particular? About what happened?" He had asked who he'd attacked on the network, claimed to not remember..."Why wouldn't you tell him?"

She sighed and laid a hand on her neck, covering the spots from the puncture wounds that his fangs made that were still healing. "I was out walking, he came up behind me and tried to get me to go into the forest. I suggested that we go visit my...the ship that I reside on instead because something seemed off, and after we rounded a corner he tossed me up against a wall and bit me. I tried to shoot him, he knocked the gun from my hand, I tried to fight him...and then I collapsed in a great big pile of victim from loss of blood, I imagine, and that's where Dean found me some time later."

Charlotte had no intention of answering the why honestly. Not at the party, not ever "I only know the parts I was there for. And I-- I got knocked out for a good while." After being fed on a few times, among other things. "And the thing that attacked us, it really wasn't him. Asher is not a part of John." She wanted that to be utterly clear. "It's much more like he was outright replaced for that time, not taken over or changed."

She sighed softly. "I am so sorry. It took me so long to figure out and then I couldn't stop him. But when he says he doesn't know, he truly does not know." Not wanting to spoil the mood completely, she raised an eyebrow. "That said, bopping him in the nose still isn't out of the question. That bitch part is all on him."

Inara sighed also, patting Charlotte on the arm. "Don't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault. You were a victim just like I was, and likely others as well. And I suppose it could have been much worse. I remember from a few weeks ago that one of the other people here was taken over by a malevolent god...perhaps that sort of thing just..."

She couldn't help a small, involuntary shiver. "I suppose it just happens here at times." Who even knew who could be next, and what could happen to them if that was the case? Being taken over by outside entities...it was an alarming prospect.

And then she sipped her beer, eying John from afar. She would probably switch over to punch after this, she didn't have a very high tolerance for alcohol even sipped delicately and she didn't want to get silly as one of her very first impressions on the greater populace of this place. "Yes, I still vote for hitting. Perhaps later, though," she said with a grin and a nod.

Charlotte wasn't sure how she felt about Inara's kind reaction. Being angry at herself was easier than a lot of other ways to look at a situation she couldn't change, but it wasn't healthy. She smiled faintly at Inara and nodded. The smile faded more when she thought about the kinds of things that could go wrong. Not a one of them was attractive. At all.

Rather than deal with that, she followed Inara's gaze to John. "Later. When his resistance is down some." Maybe they could even gang up on him. That would be nice.

Inara left her hand on Charlotte's arm, watching her with concern. It was easier to be worried about someone else, it drew her out of her own spirals of doubt and focusing so much on herself. She wasn't suited to worrying about herself, and she did quite enough of it in general that she really didn't need to do more of it. Something else was going on, but here, at a party, she wasn't about to pry.

"I'll have to remember that. After a few drinks?" She grinned a bit herself, knowing that he at least indulged occasionally. The man had been drinking when she met him for the first time.

Charlotte shifted closer to Inara, looping Inara's arm through hers and leading her over to the bar area. Her smile came back, full force, as she let the idea of the two women ganging up on John for some healing abuse wash over her and give her peace. "After he's had them or we have?"

Both ideas only brightened her smile. Two tipsy, pretty women descending on him would turn John a few shades of red. It was absolutely perfect and she had to have it. She'd make it up to him later.

"Him, I think," she said with a laugh. She really did intend for the beer to be her only alcoholic drink, and she could nurse the huǒ kēng out of a single drink. "Unless there's going to be hitting. Then I'll likely need a bit more to get me to the point where I'd actually bop someone in the nose."

Buddhist after all! Even if it wasn't the strictest form of Buddhism and had evolved over hundreds of more years. And the branch she specifically followed was of course sort of tweaked to make it specific to being a Companion, something that was very much a matter of faith.

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aesthetic_mojo - 2009-07-16 23:23 (UTC) - Expand

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