lostcarnival | always do sober what you said you’d do drunk

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always do sober what you said you’d do drunk

Who: Childermass & the Psiioniic
When Evening of D53
Where: Back at ye old waterlogged carnival.
What: Childermass never did get around to asking about that sigil...

Strange would ask about the vampires and Childermass would ask about the meeting in the woods, the one they hadn't been meant to watch. That is what the two magicians had decided out at the reef, far beyond Atlantis, and it was only a matter of time before he settled on which supervisor to ask. Since it had been the Psiioniic that had begun this inquiry, so it only seemed proper to let him end it.

Whether that meant coming away with any useful information or not was yet to be seen.

It's during the later evening of the carnival — gates long since thrown open to the fishy public of Atlantis and slowly beginning to wind down — that he goes searching for the foreman. With the shows at the big top tents already over for the night, he's free to look, tiredness not factoring into it as it often does not with him. The one silver lining for Psi is that he's too lazy to cloak himself from the crowds and lurks the old-fashioned way, which means he won't be appearing out of thin air all of the sudden.

Whenever he does find him, wherever that happens to be, he'll drift to a halt and find a spot to prop a shoulder against and lean idly, arms folded, waiting. There's definitely something expectant about that waiting, too, making no attempt to hide the fact that he's watching Psi finish up whatever work he's at currently.

Because, really, why interrupt when you can be a shark waiting ominously just within eyeshot?

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By now, getting himself turned back around in the water has been made easy enough by practice, so he does and closes those few paces he'd been ahead of Psi once more, stopping in front of him. Near, but not uncomfortably so.

"As are the vampires? Or that sigil in the woods you're all keeping hidden?"

He nervously watches Childermass swim closer, not because he's afraid of the man, but simply because he doesn't know what to say. That feeling vanishes when Childermass speaks next. Psi expression shifts, to surprise, confusion, and then careful indifference. His looks quickly to the right, taking note of the presence, or rather the absence, of other workers around them.

He wonders briefly why Childermass had come to speak with him. Did he think he could threaten the troll with his own poorly spoken drunken ramblings? Or did the Psionic just seem like the kind of person it was easy to make speak? There are a lot of things the Psionic could say to the magician and plenty of things he could do with the information Childermass had just given him, but almost none of them would do either of them any good.

"I don't know you hope to gain from this conversation, but you're risking more than it's worth."

It's a dangerous play, he knows, but it's also more of an offering than an effort to intimidate. Childermass can't possibly blackmail the Psionic if he has something to use against him right back, now can he? Whether the troll will see it or not, he can't know. He's honestly not sure just how predictable he is yet.

"What I am trying to protect is more than worth any risk," he disagrees, firm in tone. Whatever it is, he really does believe that to be so. "But I can do very little towards that end if I don't know what might be coming our way, Mr. Psiioniic."

Mr. Psionic. He nearly looses it right there, it's only the serious tone of their conversation that helps him keep it together, but eitherway, he smiles. He can't help it, he understands and respects Childermass' sentiment, even if he can't agree.

"Come to my trailer with me."

Well, he sure wasn't going to say 'Mr. The Psiioniic'. That's even more bizarre! Though that after all the nervous eye-darting from before, that he smiles and say that is actually unexpected. He won't even bother trying to disguise that, either, even if the look of surprise is only him raising his eyebrows for a second or two.

"Your trailer?" Where no one else can overhear. That makes sense. "Of course."

Psi nods before swimming past Childermass and leading the other man to the Supervisor's Grove. Childermass might already know where Psi's trailer is, but seeing inside of it is an experience. It's a mess, intensely so, also it looks bigger on the inside than on the outside. Just like most trailers there's a kitchenette and a living area, but both are bigger than the norm for most workers. Also, nearly every inch of the kitchen and counters are covered with tacky, strange, and questionable knick-knacks and souvenoirs. There's random clothes piled on the couch in the living room and a strange collection of electronics piled by and plugged into the television.

"I hope you're as smart as you look" he says entering and closing the door behind them.

Childermass follows, not bothering to say anything else right up until they're inside the colossal mess of a trailer. He'll take it all in without comment, although there may be a little bit of squinting at anything he finds he can't really rationalize. He's not exactly surprised by the weirdness, but the amount of it...

Well, no matter. He'll just focus on Psi instead of everything around them.

"I guess we're about to find out," is the response he has for him.

"You're right. Because if you do something stupid with this you'll get in much worse trouble then me." He heads to the kitchen, getting a can of soda from the fridge for himself and then offering one to Childermass. It's probably some gross flavor, like grape, or fudge.

"I'm not usually inclined towards rash actions if that's what worries you."

He isn't exactly free of bad decisions, either, though those tend not to be the sort fueled by recklessness. He will accept the offered soda, though, even if he's not actually sure what it is. A drink, obviously, and thankfully grape. It's not going to end well regardless, but at least what's written on the can doesn't put him off of it from the get-go.

"What you're doing right now is rash." Psi says, shaking his head. He opens his own soda can and it pops as the carbonation fizzes out. It's clear Childermass is clever, but being clever didn't mean you wouldn't act rashly, it just meant you needed the right motivation.

"So why do you want to know?"

"I did say usually," Childermass points out, opening the can of soda at the end of saying that as if to punctuate it. He is distracted for a second or two by the fizz, frowning at it some before continuing on. "I want to know because if the carnival is striking first, Strange will be stuck going out alongside the Nightrider."

And he would have gone on with why that's a problem had he not decided to try the grape soda. One sip is all it takes for him to hold it away, far away, again and make a face. Now, normally he wouldn't complain about a drink he took mostly to be polite, but good God, Psi...

"What is this?"

It takes quiet a bit of strength not to laugh at Childermass here either. He raises an eyebrow, watching the other man with a clear look of amusement.

"Grape soda?"

"Grape? It tastes like nothing but sugar..."

Which is honestly the only way he can describe soda right now.

He does laugh at that.

"Yeah, it does. That's kind of the point."

He would probably laugh about it after the fact, too, the way he wrinkles his nose and says, "That's terrible."

And way too much sugar, Psi. Way too much, but it's also distracted from the original conversation, so he'll set the soda aside next to something akin to a tacky fake cactus and continue where he'd left off.

"But as I was saying before..." Before grape soda. "Mr. Strange being dragged off into some unknown danger is not something I can stand by and do nothing about."

"Right, you're not friend." He says, with a little smirk.

"You know, for someone you claim not to care about you seem rather concerned for his safety."

"This again," Childermass can't help but say with a sigh. "I may not call him a friend, but he is nonetheless important to my world. It would be much deprived should he never return and myself much out of time and place for the same reason."

Honestly, the fact that Childermass finds it irritating only makes it that much more amusing to him. He doesn't bother continuing though, just taking a sip from his soda after Childermass explains. The pause is enough for his mind to turn back to the topic at hand, as disagreeable as the topic is.

"So your worried about the vampires." he bites his lip after he says it, thinking about what he can say. Nothing good, but if Childermass wanted to know that bad he could at least tell him the truth.

"Personally, I still think it's all Mari's fault." He comments, setting his soda aside. He leans against the counter, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "The Ringmaster makes some money sending the Nightrider off to take down certain folks. Well their crew didn't do their job and got followed back here by the stragglers."

It's plain enough to him that he's talking about an assassination attempt gone wrong, but humans could be funny sometimes. He looks to Childermass to make sure the other man is following along.

To which Childermass nods, showing he is, indeed, following along. The fact the Ringmaster has mercenaries at all makes that unsurprising to him, as what else would they even be for if not for hire?

"So the Nightrider fails, the vampires come here to the carnival, and...?"

Nothing good, he assumes.

He smiles, but there's nothing happy about it. It's the smile of a cynic watching as all his I told you so's become real. Did Childermass really have to ask? Or maybe he was looking for something more specific.

"Panic, terror, death." He lists them off looking away as he does so, because he can still remember that feeling of dread as the screams of the dead filled his head split seconds before they'd struck.

"They can control you." he says, with a small laugh of horrified amazement, "Make you do things against your will, attack your friends."

And he does look at Childermass here because he's sure the other man knows well that feeling.

"The people who didn't die went home when their contracts were up. Sans got a promotion."

He does know that exact feeling. He also hopes to never know it again. It also means he won't ask what happened to those who were controlled (he can make some educated guesses) or if the Psiioniic himself was controlled. If not him, then friends of his. It's cruel on either side, really.

So the Warden died, too. Another thing he won't say out loud, but an interesting fact to know.

"And then the Ringmaster began collecting anew." This does finally explain how understaffed the carnival had been when he first arrived. "But what of the sigil? Or is that unrelated?"

He sighs, looking to the side, his annoyance from before returning. Annoyance at the memory of learning of the sigil though, not at Childermass.

"It's a mark they left, to curse us or something. The Ringmaster is going to get rid of it I guess."

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