welcome to the justice lounge

Zee has her hair half done up in curlers as she’s instructing a few staff members on where she’d like some of the last few decorative pieces placed around the ballroom, “No no no, I’d really prefer you to try and space out the snowmen, I don’t want it to feel like they trying to band together to form an army or anything…creepy. And why does that tree still not have lights on it??”

Tim spent the last few hours pacing his room at Wayne Manor in a somewhat successful attempt to calm his nerves and convince himself attending to Gala is in his best interest. With his suede black shoes, black three-piece suit, crimson shirt and Bruce’s Hermès Faubourg tie, he looks ready to dazzle the crowd with his appearance. Sadly he still doesn’t feel that way when he joins Zee and the chaos that her preparation is. He steps closer, watching people scurry to the tree while blaming each other for Zee’s possible wrath. “Am I this early or are you this behind on schedule?” he asks with a quick glance at her hair.

Zee her mouth is set with a frown as she thinks things would’ve already been done her way had she allowed herself more time to prepare for party and less time spent pouring over her mother’s diaries. She couldn’t expect her staff to to everything for her. At Tim’s sudden arrival she has to check a nearby clock just to be sure, it felt like the group had been rearranging already placed items for hours now, “No you’re early. But we are still behind. Ridiculous. I feel like Ollie got all these decorations and told whoever was working that way to set things up they way they wanted. It looked like a monkey decorated the place when I got here.”

Tim looks around as Zee explains the cause of her delay. Understandable, he thinks with a small amused smile as he envisions Ollie dumping piles and piles of decorations only to forget about them himself. “In that case you’re doing a good job. It does look like you could use another pair of hands,” Tim offers already undoing the buttons on his jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. He has done his fair share of party-planning regarding W.E. galas and foundations, after all.

"Oh no no no, c’mon you’re supposed to be a guest. You don’t have to help Tim really it’s fine," but as Tim takes off his jacket an rolls his sleeves, Zee just sighs letting him do what he wants, "You and Bruce have very similar manners, you know. Which is to say you politely do what you want."

"I offered my help, Zee. It’s fine." Tim swings his jacket over a chair and re-arranges the ornaments on a nearby table. The comparison to Bruce causes him to look at her over his shoulders, eyes curiously narrowing at her. "Politely do what I want? That’s better than what I usually get, which is people telling me I have control issues," he responds as he moves on to another table, folding napkins and swapping a white candle with a blue one from a third table to create the exact same decoration composition on each. Satisfied, he steps back and observes, hands on his hips. "Besides that, yes, I do think we have similar manners. Does that bother you?" he asks looking at her and then around the room once more for another task.

Zee shakes her head, as she watches him work- obviously he’d be familiar with how a gala should be presented. She has to admit that his centerpiece design is even better than she one she’d been thinking on, “It doesn’t bother me, no. It’s just funny seeing similar mannerisms in someone else. I’m surprised I’m just picking up on it now. Yeah, maybe you and Bruce have control issues, but whatever. I knew him when we were younger so I’m used to his ways. Or at least as used to Bruce as he’ll allow. So I’m used to them for you too I guess.”

( let it metaphorically snow )

KSpenz drinks all the eggnog on the Tower. ALL THE EGGNOG.

Ollie strolls by with yet another gingerbread latte, since he gorges on these things come Christmastime. “I hope you rummed that up,” he says.

"Wouldn’t have it any other way," Kate replies, and she has a little bit of a nogstache, to be perfectly honest with you.

Ollie hovers, not quite sitting down, restlessly tapping his fingers against his thigh and looking around. “Something feels … hinky,” he says, nose twitching. “In the air. Don’t you feel it?”

KSpenz hadn’t, actually. She cocks an eyebrow, considering. “What do you mean, hinky,” she asks, raising an eyebrow that incredibly high level that only really happens when she’s tipsy.

Ollie frowns, still looking around. Scenting the air, is what it seems like. “I dunno,” he says. “I just feel wild under my skin. But not in a sexy way. Or even a beat-things-up way. Like I got electricity itching under there.”

"Maybe it’s the rift that The Guy From The Future came through?" Kate says, looking slightly disappointed that he’s not feeling it in a sexy or a fight kind of way. She sips her rapidly-cooling eggnog and considers heating it up in the microwave, which would be a fucking disaster.

"Humph," Ollie finally says, and sits down, sprawling his legs out. "I guess it’s a misfire. Maybe I’m wound up from the Thanksgiving bustle."

"Or maybe it’s just that there’s unresolved business," Kate notes, though she probably wouldn’t have said this if she weren’t drinking; better to not be so damn blunt, to dance around things a little more. "That everyone’s got a lot of unresolved business."

( and excavation means blood and bone )

KSpenz has gone for a checkup, remarkably without any reluctance, because she doesn’t know what else to do with herself. She’s next to useless in a fight, Mar’i isn’t accepting anyone’s calls, and everything feels like a ceramic that’s been broken and then put back together slightly askew.

KSpenz gets some news she wasn’t expecting, and is therefore deep in thought as she absentmindedly heads towards Coffee, Nearest Available (it’s like she has a tracker in her head).

Ollie has at this point eaten the frosting off of three cupcakes and has almost finished his milkshake. He’s a little bit nauseated but a lot jumped up on sugar when he sees Kate come in with coffee, and waves at her, pink staining his fingertips.

KSpenz catches the fluttering pinkness out of the corner of her eye, and it’s odd enough to catch her attention and divert her Ollie’s way. She appraises the carnage of de-frostinged cupcakes and nearly finished extra-large milkshake—just looking at it makes her teeth ache. Then, she plops down across from him, forgetting she shouldn’t do that and hissing through gritted teeth. Even so, she manages to reach out for one of the bare cupcakes and starts to unpeel it. “You’re sweet already,” she quips.

Ollie blinks at her, unprepared for that quip and honestly, not quite sure how to take it. “You know who you’re talking to, right?” he finally says, taking the peeled cupcake paper and slowly chewing it into his mouth, where he continues to chew all the cake flavour out of it.

( who's that creeping round my stair )

It’s only somewhere before mid-day that Talia wakes, and when she does, it isn’t the groggy, post-coital blur of thoughts and emotions: it is a clear, sharp awareness that slices the tendrils of sleep still curled around her. She sits up, her eyes moving to the thick, ballistic glass of the window, blinking a few times. Something is wrong.

Jason has always been a light sleeper, and blinks awake, slightly disoriented when he feels the bed shift as Talia sits up. It takes a moment to register where he is and why… and why he’s not alone, having expected to wake up to an empty bed. He leans up on one elbow, watching her, brow furrowing. “Something up?” he asks, voice low, still heavy with sleep. He’s still too drained to feel much anything else, and a bit shaken by the odd dream that he can barely remember now. Idly, he reaches for the talisman, only to find it missing, still tucked away in the pocket of his jacket.

Talia sits up, unaware of her nakedness, her brow furrowed. She seems unaware, even of what has happened here between them, the hairs on her arms and legs standing upright as she exhales. “Something’s not.. right,” she states, pushing a hand over her hair, smoothing it over the patches that are missing, even as she breathes, evenly, eyes narrowing as she looks out of the window, and then, back at Jason. There is no artifice here, no notes of deception. “Do you hear anything?” And there it is: the lack of sound from the city outside. No traffic. No horns. No airplanes overhead.

Jason frowns, following her gaze towards the window. Slowly, he shakes his head. “There’s nothing.” And as he tries to listen for any noise outside, it strikes him just how odd the quiet is. He picks safe houses in uncrowded areas, but there’s never nothing, there’s always a few cars passing by, or even a helicopter over head. Pushing himself up, he swings his legs over the side of the bed, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from a chest of drawers as he gets up and moves closer to the window, pulling them on as he stares at the silent world outside. It takes him a second to notice it, then his eyes slowly drift up, and up. “Holy shit.”

( light up, light up )

"It’s been a long time since I cycled so much," Ollie said as he hung his bike on the wall, in the sublevel of the Arrow penthouse where they did all their training and constructed most of their equipment (it had, over the years, become a storage space for sporting gear and other tools and odds and ends as well). He grinned as he unstrapped his helmet at Kate’s expression — no way did the green Queen empire allow for Ollie to become rusty on a bike — and amended, "Since I cycled so much while tipsy. But who could resist a craft beer cycling tour as we head into autumn and the beeriest month of them all?"

He didn’t mention it, but it had also been a while since Ollie’d had anything much to drink. He’d still been able to navigate the roads home without careening into a tree, but his head was swimming pleasantly and there was an amber glow in his belly. Then again, he thought as he watched Kate’s body stretch to put up her own bike, maybe it wasn’t all from the liquor. “Pretty lady,” Ollie murmured, helmet dangling from his fingers.

"Make that cycled so much while tipsy, yeah," Kate said, and to be fair, she was a little drunk herself, off-balance a bit as she set her own bike up on the hooks where it was kept, brushing a stuck on leaf off half-assedly with the back of her hand. "They say exercise burns it off but I don’t buy it. I always feel a little more sloshed the more I move around."

( nut-brown leaves and liquor )

Kate reads the reports, says to herself, “…the FUCK?” and heads up to the Tower medbay.

Kyle comes awake again but his eyesight is still blurry, his head still pounding. No panic, that wouldn’t help anything or anyone. Instead he lays on his bed in the Medbay and makes his breath come long and slow. Long in through the nose and out again. No mouth-breathing. He closes his eyes again and groans, loudly.

Kate looks through the Medbay—it’s pretty damn full—and wanders in vague confusion until she sees Kyle. Who wrote the report that doesn’t tell her a whole lot, though, to be fair, he looks like crap. “Ese?”

Kyle frowns, wondering if he’s imagining things, but his ring confirms the presence of Kate Spencer. “Kate?” Kyle says, cracking open one eye to squint where he thinks he can hear her voice. He is looking for vermilion. “Ramsey’s with Helen and Madame Minxx, in her dimension. Why…what’re you doing here?”

Kate lifts an eyebrow in confusion. “Trying to figure out what’s going on,” she says. “I’m glad Ram’s okay. But clearly you’re not?” And apparently he can’t really see, which is confusing.

Kyle shifts, sitting up in the bed and turning in the direction of Kate’s voice. “I’m okay. There was another attack on a city in the Caribbean.” Kyle pauses, a memory of something Mar’i mentioned finally surfacing to his consciousness. He adds on, “Like in Kasnia. We went to investigate and help and there were three men - three meta, I think - who were causing all the chaos. Blind, deaf and mute. You know like —” Kyle does the impression of the monkeys - see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. “Mar’i and me fought a couple of the three badguys, she lost her hearing. Is she okay? Can you see her?”

( visit beautiful Solinique )

K TXT: You want to get lunch this week?

O TXT: I would love to get lunch. Let’s go somewhere off the beaten. Let’s go to a diner in Iowa or something.

K TXT: We probably turn heads even in Iowa, but this place looks pretty good, according to those in the know.

O TXT: It DOES come with a giant cock, that’s a plus

K TXT: I thought you might appreciate that
K TXT: insert cock joke here
K TXT: insert ‘insert cock’ joke here

Ollie snickered at the joke and was about to respond in kind (and perhaps more salaciously) when one of the pages came into the greenroom, letting him know it was time to go. He dashed off a different message quickly before tucking his phone away and trotting out into the hallway.

O TXT: I’m just about to head into an interview with Queen Latifah, meet you there in an hour

K TXT: You’ll get out of that in an hour? Uh-huh.

Kate knew better than that—both because of the interviewer, a great lady who would more than succeed at bringing Ollie back a notch, and because of how television worked. Try more like an hour and a half. Or two.

Even so, she waited at the nearest zeta point in her rented convertible, letting the warm late-summer wind blow her hair and the tassels in the end of season cornfields that sprawled the sides of the highway.

It did in fact take an hour and a half before Ollie materialized on the zeta contact pad, rather boringly dressed (for him) in a regular ol’ black suit and tie. “Hey there,” he said as he shook off the tingle of the transport, leaning over the driver side door to kiss Kate’s cheek before heading around the car to hop into the passenger seat. “Nice, isn’t it? All the heartland. Gold and green as far as the eye can see.”

( and a damn fine cup of coffee )

KATE: That dress okay, by the way?

OLLIE: Shit, I didn’t answer, did I? Yeah, it’ll do great. I don’t expect a lot’ve people are gonna go for blood red, but that kinda makes it even better.

K: I figured it was something I could move pretty quickly in, at least.

O: No, it’s perfect. Red always does suit you. And since they know you’re La Rojita, after all, it’s best to have the visual reminder so they keep it in the forebrain.

K: So what trouble are you anticipating, exactly? I doubt Walter’d go all the way to LA.

O: No, not necessarily Walter, unless he was really motivated. But I’ve been coming down pretty hard on all the drug dealers up and down the coast, and there’s this fella out in LA who seems to be taking particular offense from it. Keeps sending members of his gang after me.

K: *nods, eyes narrowing a little in consideration* I’ll wear comfortable shoes. What’s the venue? The weather’s supposed to be nice, at least.

O: Some upscale place with an ocean view called Sunkiss. I’ve never been there, but they apparently make the best pisco sour in the western hemisphere.

K: Good, I think we’re gonna need it.

( luncheon meat )

K TXT: doing better now, the cough stuff helped. Just a bullshit cold, I'm mostly okay, I
K TXT: look, is it okay if I come see you?

Ollie reads the text, standing at the kitchen counter with a rag and cleaning spray in one hand and his phone in the other, and even though he’s in direct, buttery-warm sunlight the words send a shiver up his back. It’s a good shiver and he makes a little involuntary sound as he answers, quick as can be.

O TXT: Come see me. Please.

Kate can almost hear Ollie say it, and how he’d say it, and her lips quirk as she flicks the reply button with her thumb.

O TXT: There in a minute. Swear I’m not contagious.

Adebayo had said as much, anyway. Besides, the reprocessed air of the Watchtower is getting old, drying her skin, and California sun before she gets back to Gotham—okay, more than just that sun—is what she really needs, rather than more decongestants.

"Hey, güero, whatever happened to day of rest?" she asks, stepping from the patio zeta platform over to the open doors to the kitchen, blinking the dizziness of the transit off of her and clearing her throat. "And on the seventh day, God cleaned the house, the counters and the sinks, the dish drain and the stovetop, and it was good?"

It’s still her place, just enough, and she’s glad for it.

( round and round )

K TXT: I got you in with Dr. Schultz for teeth repair at 12:15. No questions asked.

O TXT: No questions asked from him or from you?

K TXT: him. I got the report this morning, though I don’t have any questions myself.

O TXT: Thanks, kate. for the appointments not the no-questions o your part, if you ever want to talk about anything you know there’s no subject forbidden.

K TXT: I know. Are you going to be okay?
K TXT: why am I texting you i’m in the damn kitchen

O TXT: Because I’m in bed and I don’t wanna move?
O TXT: Also the ol’ voicebox isn’t working the way it should, that boy of ours has a strong grip
O TXT: come on back to the bedroom and see me sometime, suggestive wink

K TXT: You want coffee?
K TXT: stupid question, I know you want coffee

O TXT: bring me whatever coffees you have! strong and sweet an full of cream
O TXT: the way i like my lovers

( schism )