checkingout | a gent of good intent who's content to be ( OPEN )

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a gent of good intent who's content to be ( OPEN )

Who: Everyone!
Where: The initial arrival rooms, the main lobby, all over the place.
When: March 3rd
What: Welcome, newbies.

ARRIVAL.

you wake up when you hit the floor in a dark room, and the air is knocked out of your lungs. the carpet is threadbare, worn with use, kind of dusty. and you're not the first person to endure this crash landing. nor will you be the last.

once your vision rights itself, you can see the well-lit hallway through the doorjam straight ahead of you. not to say there’s monsters in the shadows, but something propels you towards that door and out into the bright hallway beyond.

and once outside your room, you can hear it: the steady thrum of rain outside.

MAIN LOBBY.

there's a staircase at the end of the lengthy hallway you tumble out of. grab your suitcase and follow the dull green exit signs on the ceiling until you reach the disappointingly bland stairs that lead you down to the ornate old fashion hotel lobby.

to your left is a warmly crackling fireplace, to your right is a lobby desk. straight ahead are three large sets of doors, though only one of them is open to the public. and outside the few (curtained, permanently dark) windows is the continually steady hiss of rain. once you leave the hallway you wake up in, you won't be able to return.

welcome to the hotel.

FRONT DESK.

though there is a bell and a plaque designating the desk to be the main desk, the customer service desk, there are currently no staff members behind it. none shall answer your calls, either.

terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

SCREENING ROOM.

on a long pull-down screen, a silent version of the phantom carriage will be playing on loop. at the back of the room, between the neat rows of fold out chairs, mounted on a wobbly table is the old-timey projector, and mounted on the walls are some rather old speakers that warble out "terrifying" old music.

along the curtained windows is another long table, with a large bowl of popcorn and a large hot drink dispenser full of hot water, but without any tea or hot chocolate packets around.

OTHER.

the ballroom is currently closed, and the grand doors locked.

there is no main door leading to the outside, good luck trying to find one.

the doors to the courtyard and breakfast hall are unlocked, but looks like you've missed the morning meal. sucks for you.

ROOMS.

you've a room key with your assigned room number on it. all the new guest residences will be located on floors three and four. while there is an open elevator in the main lobby, and the buttons light up inside, the doors will not close. all in all, you'll be better off taking the stairs.

while they're the same stairs you undoubtedly came down to get to the lobby, the door to the endless hall everyone woke up in will not reappear between the main floor and the subsequent residential halls.

there are twenty rooms per floor. feel free to get to know your surroundings; or your neighbors as they trickle in around you.

EXISTING GUESTS.

it's late when the newcomers arrive, there's a good chance you'd been about to go to sleep (or just waking up, who knows, your mom's not here to tell you when to go to bed or get up). but if you're paying attention, you might hear the hustle and bustle in the lobby below; or maybe you're just drawn there because your gut told you to go join the commotion. whatever the case may be, go mingle!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not the first time that he's been mistaken for someone else - Harry does cultivate an image of Generic Middle-Aged White Male in the specific cause of being forgettable - and it's not even the first time that he's been greeted with a squeeze to the arse rather than the more traditional tap to the shoulder.

It's not even the first time that both have happened in concert. (He's had that kind of career.)

He takes his lightly bloodied hand from where it was reaching for the stairs' handrail, and turns. He's aware he looks a bit of a sight at the moment; was hoping he could make it to his room before --

Well, Christ, it's not as if he has the first idea what might have befallen him. Jack is the first human being he's encountered since arriving.

"I'm afraid you have me mistaken for someone else," he says, and doesn't acknowledge the grope, because a gentleman doesn't.

Whoops.

Not exactly, but that is Jack's first thought followed quickly by the appreciation for what it had been. Jack's eyes flick first to Henry's face and then the hand although there's not a waver in his manner to cue in that he's seen the blood or noticed the obvious injuries in front of him.

"Yeah, I did, but 'afraid' isn't the word I'd use."

The easy going grin stays in place even as Jack gets a better look at Harry.

"You must work out. Felt good from my end. Wasn't Welsh enough to be who I was looking for."

He pats down his greatcoat, being careful with doing so and acutely aware of how empty the gun holster at his hip is. Bloodstains on someone this calm was never a good thing. He finally hooks a handkerchief from a pocket and offers it to Harry.

"Gotta smudge on your hand there."

It's dried on; he needs soap and water. But he doesn't reject the kindness, and instead reaches to take the handkerchief.

His hand trembles. He could suppress it; chooses not to. What he displays isn't calm so much as the extreme rigidity of someone who has a lot to vent but can't articulate himself.

Harry takes the handkerchief and scrubs at the blood. A little flakes off but what he's mostly doing is giving himself a mild friction burn.

"...Thank you." He glances up from his hand, meeting Jack's eye. "...Harry. Harry Hart. I'd shake your hand, but..."

Well, it's obvious why not.

"Easy."

When it comes to wounds or blood, Jack is more of a pro at it than he'd like to admit.

"Captain Jack Harkness. Let me give a try."

He tries to draw the handkerchief from Harry's grip. If successful, he'll wet the end from his lips and give it a try like that. If not, well, what Jack thinks he's seeing is shock. Some people need something to hold onto.

"Might need to get you upstairs and cleaned off. Looks like you took a glancing blow on the cheek too. Good thing it doesn't hurt your good looks," he says with a leer.

Harry doesn't think anyone's cleaned him with a spit-dampened handkerchief since he was seven years old. It's a bizarrely intimate gesture, not that he thinks for a moment that this Harkness character is unfamiliar with those.

He lets a short sound of amusement escape from between his lips. It's the sound of someone laughing so he doesn't do something more unpredictable, like scream or cry or faint. Appropriate to the character he's playing right now - almost equally so to the man he actually is, beneath that, though it pains him to acknowledge it.

(I killed all those people. I wanted to.)

"You're far too generous, Captain."

He reaches up to trace his fingertips over the scrape along his jaw. Until now he genuinely hasn't noticed it. Everything feels like it hurts equally.

"...I suppose a scar wouldn't go amiss. Meant to look dashing, aren't they?"

Being 'in charge', Jack has seen before how certain words or actions put people at ease. Or can set them off depending on what he wants. Plus, hey, he got to get a better look at Harry's hands. Besides the sensual side of things, if he's able to, his fingers slid along the skin checking for callouses from either knife or gun use. No one just shows up with blood on them this calm for a reason in Jack's opinion.

After all, he's seen Ianto with a machine gun. He's also discovered a kink for the smell of coffee and gunpowder.

"Compliments on my generosity, and I haven't even talked you into bed yet. Anything else might be a let down now. As for the scar, depends on who you are. Could either be a great bar story or call it a tragedy. I'd say go for the bar story. Gets you more free drinks."

Harry's act fools Jack enough that he doesn't press on what happened, doesn't stand too close for too long. Last thing he wants is a shocky person deciding he's the enemy.

"A lovely lady wearing too many clothes told me there are showers upstairs. You going to be okay?"

Harry does use a gun, and a knife, on a semi-regular basis (though he considers a mission to have gone south if either become necessary). However, he also takes exceptionally good care of his hands, because it would be a very poor secret agent who wore his lifestyle on his palms for all to see. (The scars under his clothes, acquired rarely but communicated over time, he tends to veil with a military history.)

"....I think so. Stiff drink wouldn't go amiss," and there it is again, the brittle high-stress chuckle of someone for whom calm does not mean fine, "but I think I'll manage."

An older Kingsman remains calm and cool and collected in the face of dramatic upheavals; files away every speck of information to evaluate later — by hand, if the glasses weren't recording, and since his lenses had rather effectively shocked him when Eggsy'd tried to adjust them, he'd wager they were no longer functioning — and then no doubt sit down and draw up blueprints from memory and plot an elaborate escape with little to no outward fuss. But a cool, composed reaction like that is only perfected over years of training (or maybe it's just natural skill, go Harry, but the point is —) and nine months carefully supervised training and one I Saved The World under his belt isn't quite enough to squash the instinctive fight or flight response from Eggsy.

It's what had him clutching his suitcase to his chest to ward off any potential attacks; had him warily slipping around people on the stairs with few apologies. And what'd had him primed and prepared to hurl his luggage piece through the next window he came to when his adrenaline primed senses pick up —

Harry. Harry Hart.

—... and then very little else, because he's whirling around and, apparently, seeing ghosts. It's like a (not entirely unwelcome) slap to the face, and Eggsy stands aghast for longer than strictly necessary. Even standing a good few strides away and behind the man, there's no mistaking that voice, that skull, that... Okay, it's predominatly the bespoke suit and shiny shoes, but Eggsy's sharp, and the rest of the puzzle pieces fall quickly into place. He can feel his knees again, and elation mixes with the frustrated fear that'd been swirling around his head mere moments before, spurring him forward; making a beeline for his old mentor with little care who he knocks out of the way as he approaches.

Including little care for Harry's new friend, whom Eggsy shoulders none too politely past — "Budge up." — to put him directly in front of the previously deceased.

Once there, however, words seem to fail him, and Eggsy gesticulates abortively towards the mussed, rumpled front of Harry's suit for a few long seconds before an emphatic, "Fucking hell, Harry!" gets past his lips in place of any real greeting (or question, let the explative serve for hello, how are you, more importantly, how are you alive?). But at least there's a hint of a big, jaw cracking grin that's about to bloom all over his face; if this is some sort of strange concussion dream from being knocked on the tavern floor or something, at least it was a good one.

It is - almost - enough to undo him.

Simply put, a small and stubborn and logic-proofed part of Harry believes that he is here because he is dead. It makes a kind of sense - even if he appears to be firing on all cylinders, there was no dodging Valentine's bullet at that range. (Was there?) He blames the mammalian part of his brain that is forced to create fanciful narratives to explain the inexplicable, because there isn't yet enough information to fill in the gaps.

He's possibly dead, and Eggsy is here with him. Which he can either take as proof positive that he is not dead, or -

Or he's apparently hellbent on making sure the Unwin gene pool runs dry.

"Eggsy." What he's doing now more than anything is just listening to himself speak. "This is Captain Jack Harkness, whom I've just met. Captain, Eggsy Unwin. We work together."

I have just been cockblocked by a kid.

That isn't a happy thought for Jack Harkness. Hardly ever is he in this situation and never by some kid that just shoved him aside. And apparently named 'Eggsy'.

"Someone's parents are cruel enough to saddle them with that name and those glasses?"

Captain Jack Harkness, ladies and gentlemen. Master of the speak first, regret later school of thought. His eyes dart up to Harry as he holds up his hands with that movie star grin. And hoping his pheromones are doing their job.

"No offense, they look good on you. On him? No."

Jack glances down at Eggsy, trying to think of a way to pull his fat out of the fire.

"They, uh..."

He shakes his head there, giving up. Even he can't tell that lie with a straight face.

"Kid, really. No. We used to call those 'birth control glasses' in the military for a reason."

Edited (word fix) 2015-03-05 08:32 (UTC)

Cockblocked by a kid on a mission, don't take it too personally; checking up on friends whom he'd previously thought dead took precedent over social graces, and if Eggsy'd been a little less shocked going into this whole ordeal, he would have stopped to read the room. But honestly, fuck the room right now, and forget the Captain who Harry is oh so cordially introducing to him — Eggsy's a little caught up in deciding between grabbing his arms and shaking him a little (you know, just to assure that he's real) or just going straight in for a hug.

...or had been a little caught up deciding how to express his relief. But then the Captain pipes up, and the not-so-nice ribbing about his name has Eggsy making a slow 180, brow furrowed and jaw jutted forward like he's chewing on his response.

Which is vehement, and mostly constrainted to a tight:

"They're functional." Or would be if he thought the camera was working. So they were functional. Anyways — He gestures loosely back at Harry, keeping a none too bemused glower on Jack. "D'you mind?"

Hi, my name is Gary, I'm rude and jump into conversations and make them all about me.

Harry lets out a breath. A gentleman does not acknowledge bad manners, and frankly they're both profiting from that right now because to call this a rather emotional day would be an obscene understatement.

(He's wearing the suit Harry had made for him; what does that mean?)

"I'm afraid Eggsy and I do have some catching up to do. Though I'm certain you and I shall cross paths again today," he says to Jack, and smiles faintly. "Thank you for your kindness. I apologise for the mess I made of your handkerchief."

Edited 2015-03-05 09:11 (UTC)

Cockblocked and dismissed. What is this world coming to?

"I-"

Yeah. Jack isn't quite sure how to take it as his eyes move from the kid back to Harry.

"All right. Yeah. See you around."

Giving way to the kid, Jack shifts his attention elsewhere. Just because that suit was wrong doesn't mean that he won't find Ianto here somewhere. There's a lingering worry about that tremble he saw in Harry's hand but the lack of battleworn places in his hands fools Jack enough.

He'd done his time in the Marines, made it halfway through the program before flaking out, but that was more than enough time to learn how and when to salute. Which might not be the most appropriate gesture here, but — oh captain, my captain — he gives Jack an idle, half hearted version before diverting all his attention back to Harry, and...

After a very obvious, sweeping once over that leaves Eggsy's lips pressed tightly together and has his shaking his head infintesimally from side to side:

"You look like hell, Harry."

There's blood on his hands. Just faint bits, and only a few spots on his collar that are going to stain. There's just enough physical disarray that Eggsy can put two and give together and get Southglade Missio Church. But then the math gets tricky, and his eyebrows knit in rather blatant confusion.

(He'll have to look Jack out again later, apologise properly. He doesn't strike him as a man who holds grudges.)

"You don't," Harry says, very quietly, as he gives Eggsy a sweeping once-over. He looks perfect. He looks -

He looks like a fucking Kingsman.

He blinks, once, and inclines his head towards the staircase. "We should talk. And we shouldn't do it here. My room is on the second floor."

Apparently. He hasn't actually made it there yet.

(Not when blowjobs are concerned, Harry, use that NLP.)

It'd be a lie to say Eggsy doesn't stand the slightest bit straighter when Harry says that; doesn't puff his chest out a little, or square his shoulders, or let that grin flit back across his features for a hot second before they delve right back into business.

"Yeah, alright, let's do yours." His room is on the fourth floor, which is just that many more stairs they'd have to climb before having a few important discussions — where the fuck are we, how the fuck do we get out, how the fuck are you so calm right now? just to name a couple. Even if Harry hadn't offered, that's probably where they'd end up. And now Eggsy gestures in the same direction Harry'd nodded, and falls into step a half-pace behind him. "Lead the way."

They reach his room without incident; the key works perfectly fine, and the room beyond is less objectionable than expected. Harry shuts the door behind them, sets his suitcase on the bed (perfectly aligned with the edge of the mattress, for all that it looks careless), then turns to face Eggsy.

"Tell me exactly what was happening immediately before you arrived here."

His voice is clipped. It's the question he fears most; hence, it's the first he has to ask. Everything else can follow.

This isn't his room, he won't make himself too comfortable (unless asked, some lessons stick), and just leaves his suitcase by the door, for an easy retrieval whenever he leaves — if he leaves, he's more than a little concerned.

And that clipped demand doesn't do anything to alleviate his worries, just has his eyebrows making their way up his forehead, and Eggsy shuffling further into the room.

"Lockin' a door. I was at the Black Prince." But he's a little purposefully hazy on the exact details on why, in case there's a gentlemen don't indulge revenge stories lecture in his future. "I killed Valentine, that's all over with. I was just going to visit my mum."

Locking a door in the Black Prince. He wonders, for a moment -

Then let me teach you a lesson.

but it's swallowed by larger things.

"Valentine is dead? And you - "

Killed him. Survived. Made it home. And certainly wasn't shot in the back of the head by one of his stepfather's mouth-breathing lackeys. Not even before his training was that likely to have happened.

He swallows dryly.

"You have no reason to think you might have been hurt," and finally there's a cold vein of fear running through his voice.

Hurt?

"Fuck nah," Eggsy insists emphatically. "I can take Dean and his muppets." Can, could, and he's more than a little sour he wasn't able to to get around to it before their kidnappers had deemed fit to throw him...here. Some limbo between the living and the dead, it seemed, because he was certainly alive, and Harry Hart was certainly dead.

Right?

And that must be hard.

"You alright?" Which sounds incredibly stupid after it's out of his mouth, and which Eggsy silently curses for after the fact.

Is he alright?

No.

No, he's not alright.

But Eggsy is alive, and Valentine is dead, whatever maniac scheme he planned to execute with his SIM cards presumably foiled. And of all the things Harry's ever regretted in his life, all the things he did never knowing he'd have reason to regret them, dismissing Eggsy's apology in favour of storming out of the house with a dismissive I'll sort this out when I get back - never knowing he wouldn't have the chance -

staring down the barrel of the gun and knowing he'd failed Lee Unwin's son

He doesn't answer. Instead, he grabs Eggsy's shoulder and pulls him into a fierce hug.

It hurts. He doesn't care.

It does hurt. Even on this end it's a little uncomfortable. It's tight and squeezing, and he hadn't been entirely prepared, so his right arm is trapped awkwardly between their chests for the long, blinking moment it takes for Eggsy to realize what's happening, and extricates his limbs to give him a few claps on the back.

They're light, and he's careful to avoid where Harry'd been shanked in the shoulder in case the bespoke bulletproof suit wasn't quiet knifeproof too, but it feels good to reaffirm that he's real; real and alive, and Eggsy lingers for a handful of heartbeats before pulling back.

"Yeah, you're not alright. You wanna wash? I can wait 'n tell you all about it. Or I could leave." But actually fuck that idea. "You know what? Sit."

On the bed. Where he's pointing. Like he'd point to JB.

Harry eyeballs him disapprovingly.

"I'm not your damned dog, Eggsy," he says - in keeping - but ultimately he's so tired that he just takes the path of least resistance and sits down on the foot of the bed.

His shoulder hurts but it's one of a plethora of other bruises from being punched and kicked and thrown around and God knows what else. The knife penetrated deep enough to stick for a while; the weave of the suit helped, it's a shallow wound, but it's still there.

"...Thank you," he adds, because even in the face of being treated like a small charmless thoroughbred, he can be polite.

Eggsy doesn't hear the thanks. Or, hears, but is too busy poking around the bland hotel bathroom for a rag. He looks for antiseptic too, but comes up painfully shorthanded, and instead improvises on the cleaning end; rubs a bar of soap viciously into the washcloth he's wetting in the sink in lieu of any proper sanitizer.

He's not Captain Jack Harkness, thank you very much, he won't clean Harry's hands for him. He'd look at the shoulder if asked, and run an errand for a doctor if one were present, but for now just hands over the washcloth and awkwardly hovers like a worried mother hen.

"For your..." He gestures by way of finishing his sentence; gestures at his own chin where he thinks Harry ought to start dabbing. And then after a good bought of carpet kicking. "Arthur was in on it, too."

"...Fuck."

It's quiet but deeply felt. He presses the rag to his jaw, cradling it more than cleaning it; he feels like he's been beaten with an entire church's worth of furniture, which is almost certainly the case. It's just as well that he hasn't broken anything. A few of his ribs feel a bit creaky but they'll heal.

The soap is a sharp sting; plain water might have been better, but he's not of a mind to correct him right now. More important matters to discuss:

"He's dead, then."

Kingsman forgives little. It categorically does not tolerate traitors.

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sigh DW reply-by-email coding is weird

staring down the barrel of the gun and knowing he'd failed Lee Unwin's son

laughs at u but still cries about hugs

fuck not again. I should probably just work out how markdown syntax works.

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