Daycycle 116 [ November 13 - November 26 ]

[computerized]

daycycle 116

[Nov 13 - Nov 26]

[OOC Plotting for this Daycycle can be found here.]
[The Charity Ball Entertainment post is here.]
[This DC has been extended through 11/26.]

Early Morning [0800 - 0900] — All Troubleshooters Report for Duty

No Special Troubleshooters have been selected for a mission this morning.

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Morning & Afternoon [0900 - 1600] — Service Firm Positions
All Troubleshooters not assigned a mission should report to their Service Firm for their daily duties, unless specifically assigned a different shift.

Matt Murdock's office will be assigned to defend the most recent Specials accused of treason. He will not be allowed to contact the traitors directly, but he will be given the task of preparing his cases. He has 48 hours to prepare.

Jack Harkness has been selected to plan the entertainment for tonight's Charity Ball, thanks to the popularity of his performances during the Alpha Talent Show a few days ago. When he asks The Computer for help, several specials are assigned to him. Izzy Lightwood will be his event planning assistant and "Stiles" Stilinski will assist in MCing the night's event. Due to their popularity, all Specials will be approached about being auctioned off for dances in order to help raise money by Jack, Izzy and Stiles. They will also be asked if they're willing to take part in specially planned choreographed dances. Dance lessons will be provided for those that require them during the afternoon hours.

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Evening [1600 - 2200] — Citizen Improvement
All Alpha citizens are encouraged to better themselves through Alpha’s wide variety of educational, entertainment and cultural opportunities offered each evening. Attending these sanctioned events are not mandatory, but is highly encouraged by The Computer. Citizens choosing not to take advantage of these opportunities, have a growing number of other options available to them in how to spend their hard earned credits and free time.

Tonight’s event will begin at 1800 at the Alpha Museum of Fine Art and will be hosted by The Humanists Alpha Society for the Arts. Tickets to the event are 1000cr and can be bought up until an hour before the event begins. Attendees have been given special permission to wear Old Reckoning clothing for this event only, as long as it is the same color as their clearance level. Specials may notice that many of the Alpha Citizen's outfits have gotten key parts of Old Reckoning clothing wrong, with buttons instead of sequins, for example, or men wearing ties that are much too long and go to their knees. Alpha's Very Special Forces will be present to ensure the safety of those attending.

An entire wing of the museum has been cleared as a makeshift dance floor. In an attached room there are several tables covered in white tablecloths and set with the crystal and china that usually only graces Violet citizen tables. Along the wall is a massive buffet made with real food and including an elaborate ice sculpture. There is a bar in the corner where Alpha's finest spirits are being disbursed freely. For the first hour, the focus is on the food and mingling. The music playing is calming and instrumental. There are some that steal the dancefloor for a slow spin, but the majority of the attendees seem reluctant to move away from the buffet.

And then at approximately 1900, Jack Harkness will take the stage and begin the evening's real entertainment.

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Alpha Curfew Restrictions
All Alpha citizens should be in their quarters within the Wagon Wheel by 2200, unless they’ve been given permission from a GREEN or higher clearance level citizen. Sleeping Aid gas is dispelled each night in the Wagon Wheel at 2200 to assist citizens in getting a productive sleeping period.

Confession Booths
There are hundreds of confession booths available around Alpha Complex if a citizen would like to communicate directly with the computer. Please use these confession booths to report mission statuses, report treason or terrorist acts, unregistered mutants, confess your trespasses against Alpha Complex, request propaganda or speak with Your Friend, The Computer, at any time.

Comments

[rouxgaroux]

"Takes more than a dress to look really pretty and sweetheart, you got that down already." He tells her as the bubbles simmer in the bottle. Of course then there's a glance in her direction and she's out of her dress and Alcide makes himself look away rather than stare in shock. Not that he's never seen a girl in her underwear before, he has plenty of times in that and less. This one was just unexpected.

Alcide is comfortable with nudity. Wolves in his world are naked all the time, male and female. So it probably wouldn't have bothered him too much to have her sit there mostly naked once he realized she was comfortable with it. To Alcide, it just something about how comfortable she is around him and he likes that she is. In lieu of that, he's just gonna try to be a gentleman about it since Zee isn't a wolf and might not be so accustomed to it as he is.

She returns in a jumpsuit and he sends her a small grin, offering her the bottle of champagne. "It's bubbly and sweet. Not my go-to, but I'll take what I can get. If you liked that pink stuff you were drinkin' you'll probably like this." He takes one of her feet into his lap, knowing how past girlfriends always felt about wearing heels in a beauty is pain kind of way, and starts massaging her foot.

"I gotta tell ya. This night is way better than I expected. I didn't expect it to be horrible cause of you. But cause I don't trust this thing they're puttin' on. You just made it a lot of fun. Thanks for that." He says.

[satnalahcsauoyekil]

"You're so sweet," she croons back at him. Zatanna doesn't think she looks pretty swimming in an ugly red jumpsuit; she thinks she looks like a prison inmate who's been refusing to eat the nasty food being given to her. Which...well. Isn't entirely inaccurate. Zee can only stand so much of the soylent and she only eats what she has to to make her stomach stop hurting. The taste is bland if not terrible and she certainly doesn't feel healthy when she's finished. She feels tired and weak. She's lost weight when she'd already been petite. Zee doesn't think it's a very good look on her, but Alcide's compliment brings a smile to her face. At least she's just her own worst critic and that's all it is, then.

Bubbly and sweet sounds incredible to Zatanna about then, so she grins, taking the bottle from him. "I loved the pink stuff!" she squeals and as Alcide takes her foot into his lap to massage it, she groans and looks back at him with a mixture of emotion in her expression between appreciative, surprised, and completely put out. "Ugh, if I was ten years older, Al..." she says wistfully. "You're a freaking keeper, my friend. Thank you," she adds in case the appreciation was lost in her initially — albeit playfully — mixed response.

"Psh," she says dismissively before taking a sip of the bottle, adding an "ooh!" of delighted approval before offering it back to him. He's the one that smuggled it after all. "Like I went to it because of the event. I just wanted to get out of this ugly jumpsuit for a little while and have a reason to do my hair and feel pretty for a minute, because it's been a while. I knew I'd have fun with you though. This has been the best," she says and her words are finally starting to really slur as the adrenaline of a cream puff heist is winding down. "You're the best. You're the best of the best of the best. C'n I keep you? I'm keeping you," she babbles before popping another cream puff in her mouth. "My life would suck without you," she tries to add, but it comes out all muffled and crummy with her mouth full, so she has no idea if he actually understood it.

[rouxgaroux]

If anything, the red jumpsuits are the great equalizer. It's the ones who don't have to wear them that Alcide knows to question more so than the others. If he could choose though, he's not too picky. Jeans and a western shirt or tank top or tee shirt are usually his go-to when he's wearing clothes at all - which, to be fair, a lot of the time he isn't for ease of shifting back and forth.

He chuckles, deep and amused, when she says if she was ten years older. It's not the first time he's thought the same thing. "Right back at'cha Zee." And he means that. His fingertips continue to press into the arch of her foot and smooth over muscle. "I've never had any luck with bein' a keeper though. Just isn't in the cards. I'd like to keep you around though."

Zee's words start slurring and Alcide is so very amused as he takes the bottle back to take a healthy pull from it. He sets the bottle aside and pulls her close to him, pretty sure she's about to pass out and wanting to give her something other than the floor to lean against. "You've got me, Zee. Come here." His life here would suck without her too. She's become irreplaceable in his life and that means a lot to him.

[satnalahcsauoyekil]

Zatanna makes a face, her nose wrinkling heavily with distaste. "Then you're hooking up with the wrong girls cuz they're dumb. You're totally whelming," she insists, following her statement with a hum of appreciation for his massage. "Good, because you're — hic — you're stuck with me," she adds with a little nod meant to convey finality.

His reassurance as he pulls her in has Zee moving sluggishly but willingly to his side. Maybe he knows something she doesn't, because it's almost like the gesture makes her realize how tired she actually does feel. Or maybe it's the alcohol settling while her adrenaline rush has fallen away. Or that she's eaten more tonight than she has in all of the rest of her days in this hellhole combined.

Her eyes close and she leans against him, a yawn sneaking up on her as she opens her mouth to speak. "I wish every night was fun like this," she says through it. "Do you think they'll ever do it again? Something like this?"

[rouxgaroux]

She does look tired. Alcide's kind of worn out too. Adrenaline wouldn't be a problem if he had his wolf. But now he actually gets worn out. He can't say he cares for that very much. But at least he's in the same boat as everyone else. As horrible as that is, that so many here have had a piece of themselves ripped out, he still takes comfort in not being the only one.

"No one better to be stuck with." He barks a laugh and finds that he can't really disagree with her about the girls he's been with. Alcide is always all in. The girls he picks are not. That makes for very one-sided relationships until it all falls apart. Every relationship is like that. "My current girlfriend back home, Sookie, she ran off to her ex right before I got here. I was tracking her when I ended up here. I always knew she still loved Bill. But you know, can't always tell the heart no. Doomed from the start, I guess. Now there's Buffy, and I don't even know what the fuck that is."

That's another thing alcohol and the loss of adrenaline does. It makes a person introspective. He isn't looking for an answer, just... throwing these confessions out into the void as he holds Zee close. Whatever this friendship is between him and Zee, that's the one thing he's sure of.

"Maybe they will. Although I don't think it'll be too often." Because as much fun as they had, he thinks this was about putting them in their place, or showing them all the things they don't have and could have if they toed the line a little better.

[satnalahcsauoyekil]

It's a shame, sometimes Zatanna thinks, that she's so much younger than he is, because if they were closer in age, she thinks he'd be kind of perfect for her. They get along really well, they seem to be largely of like mind, and unless he's having her on, they find one another attractive. It kind of stinks that he's so used to crappy relationships and she's so used to exactly no romantic relationships but they can't even scratch the itch for one another. Get it together, Universe.

She wrinkles her nose and tilts her head to look up at him, vaguely away of how close his scruffy face is to her forehead when she does. "Well, then Sookie sucks," she says matter of factly. Like it's common knowledge. Like she has any place to call out people she's never met and might not ever meet, for that matter. She gives him a facial shrug of disapproval. And then he goes on to talk about another girl, one here, and Zatanna's heard that name from him before, even though she's still never met her. "Why don't you ask?" she wonders aloud.

Zee nuzzles herself a little closer to him and closes her eyes as she continues. "There's only one way to know what the thing is and that's to ask, Al. You — hic want me to do it for you? I'll totally ask her, if you show me which one she is when I'm not drunk so I'll actually remember," she offers, slowly opening her eyes again and looking sleepily up at him. "I've never had a boyfriend," she confesses abruptly. Her eyes close again and she frowns. "Closest I ever got was giving Robin a kiss on New Year's Eve back home but nothing came of it. I don't know why. I'm really nice, I think, don't you think I'm really nice?" Her eyes open again; it's like she's blinking very, very slowly, and she sounds a little sadder than she'd like for him to hear, but it is what it is. He's Al. He's not going to judge her. "And I'm not M'gann pretty but I'm pretty, kind of. I'm okay, right? I'm not disgusting or anything... ...right?"

Ahhh, and now the slippery slope down the depressive end of a buzz as it starts to settle into her a little too comfortably and the giggly portion is sloughed off. "You know, you'd think if they wanted to keep their Citizens happy or whatever, instead of wasting money on all those stupid Happ—hic—HappiTime pills, they'd just let us wear clothes, give us real food, and have a day off now and again. I'd be a heck of a lot more happy just for that, wouldn't you?"

[rouxgaroux]

Needless to say that if there weren't the age gap and he hadn't already fucked Buffy into a wall and somehow formed feelings for her in the process of trying to make that right, this evening would have been a completely different story with a different ending. Because everything about him and Zee clicks in a way that would definitely lend itself to that as far as Alcide is concerned. And when he falls, he falls fast and hard and completely.

Her response is everything he would want his best friend to have. Even if he doesn't think Sookie sucks, it sucks that she led him on the way she had for years. The rest though, he quickly shakes his head. "Cause she's got somebody she's with back home too. And I've been down that road repeatin' history again and again with women with one foot out the door no matter what I do. It's alright. I'll get over it." And by it, he means Buffy. And Alcide has never been very good at getting over anyone.

"Come on, pretty girl. Let's get you to your room." After putting the cork back in the champagne bottle, Alcide uses his suit coat as a bag, getting all the corners of it to carry the bottle and the cream puffs. He puts Zee's shoes in the dress material and does the same with them. Then he easily lifts Zee into his arms and caries her out. "Yeah, I'm not sure the Computer understands happiness, not real happiness anyway."

It doesn't take him long to get her to her room where he deposits her carefully onto the bed she says is hers. He kneels next to her bed and slips the heels and dress under her bed along with the champagne and his jacket full of cream puffs after taking two of them to take with him. Alcide leans over her and kisses her brow. "Sleep it off, Zee. Tonight was a great night. See you tomorrow."