Charity Ball

[fixedpointintime]

WHO: The well dressed and ready to party of Alpha Complex
WHAT: being well dressed and partying?
WHEN: daycycle 116, 1800-2200 hours

NOTES: There will be dedicated threads for the big pillars of the Ball, but feel free to make your own top level if you want to. You can use the account sweetcharity to RP as NPCs at the ball. The Game NPC journal is also been made available by Sam. Information on how to access both can be found here.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: All raffles/auctions/sign-ups/whatever will end when the daycycle is over. All basket raffles, dance raffles, and the winner of the dance contest will be decided with RNG and I will comment with the winners.

NEW! The dance auctions seem to be wrapping up on their own as they reach a natural conclusion, so we'll just use that method. If you need an NPC, let me know and I will try to find you one.

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The mingling portion of the ball lasts for about half an hour. The band playing light instrumental music that doesn't so much encourage dancing as it does give people ample opportunity to enjoy the buffet, browse the items available in the silent auction and the baskets for the raffle, and get a good eyeful of the various Specials in attendance, who they're with and what they're wearing. It'll be important later on.

On one side of the room, tucked out of the way but under a prominent sign, is a table where couples can register to be part of a dance contest with the promise of an exciting mystery prize for the winners.

Along a back wall, small round tables are lined up and showcasing items donated for a silent auction. There are a mix of actual physical items, as well as less tangible experiences, and bids are made on electronic input pads set up in front of each item, and using a citizen's ME card. Funds will be automatically deducted for each item won. Groups can bid on items together that the individuals might be otherwise unable to afford on their own. Physical items and vouchers for experiences will be delivered next daycycle.

In addition, there are a few baskets that will be raffled off during the evening. Winners need not be present to claim a raffle prize. Each basket has a theme, and tickets can be purchased at any time for five credits each using your ME card.

At 1830 hours, Stiles silently slips through the crowd, placing a lavish setee in front of the stage. Once Stiles is gone, Morgana makes her way over and sits on it. As soon as she's settled, the pre-recorded music dies down, then swells again in a new song. There is no formal announcement of the beginning of the entertainment, Jack Harkness simply crosses the dance floor, moving through people when he has to, and he and Morgana perform a choreographed waltz routine. Half way through the routine, a curtain on stage is pulled back to reveal a bandstand of actual live musicians, each wearing a suit jacket or dress of their clearance level. Yes, it's a bit of an eyesore, but they sound fantastic. Besides, people are meant to be watching Jack and Morgana.

Once the routine has got everyone's attention, Jack will activate a lapel mic and welcome the crowd to the evening's event. Someone will bring him the jacket for his suit, a suit so orange it's almost painful. He thanks Morgaga, kisses her hand, and then the band takes their cue and the music abruptly takes a turn for the upbeat. Jack encourages everyone onto the floor to learn a few line dances. Volunteers (including Stiles) will move through the crowd, encouraging people to join in as those in attendance are taught the hustle, the time warp, the YMCA, and yes, the unkillable chicken dance. Stiles will start a spirited conga line around the room while Jack sings Copacabana.

Around 1915, now that the crowd is good and energized, Jack will draw attention to the area available to sign up for the dance contest, and remind everyone that the silent auction and raffle tables will be open until the end of the evening.

He'll also be joined on the dance floor by Isabelle Lightwood, and the two will perform a tango routine in order to encourage bids for the auction prize of a private dance lesson with the pair of them. Anyone who doesn't want some one on one time with Izzy after seeing her in that dress is obviously insane. Jack will also follow this with the exciting news that the celebrity judge for the dance contest is none other than Alpha's beloved Teela O'Malley. All couples who have signed up will receive their numbers, and be asked to take the floor, giving spectators the chance to eat and to spend even more of their money on bids and raffle tickets. Couples will be eliminated by Teela, moving through the crowd, until only one remains. Their prize is an appearance on Teela's show, during Jack's opening section, on daycycle 118.

At about 2000 comes the part that quite a few specials won't enjoy. They haven't quite raised the funds he was hoping for yet, and Jack is auctioning off dances with Specials. As bidding progresses, he may attempt to persuade them to give even more of their time in an effort to drive the bidding higher. A few Specials have agreed to help out in this way ahead of time, and quite a few more will be talked into it on the spot. The rest of the evening will be peppered with Jack stopping the music to auction off a few more dances.

2100 brings a new idea from Steve that the specials aren't going to like any more than the dance auctions, the last dance raffle!. Which is really just an excuse to get the maximum number of Specials up on stage, through all of Jack and Steve's combined charisma and manipulation, for one last big fundraising push.

[[OOC: It should be noted that everyone who has helped Jack with the planning and execution of the Charity Ball, including anyone who took part in a choreographed dance routine, will not only get into the Ball for free, but will be able to come to the wrap party the next day after Teela's show, where even more real food and alcohol will be available. If you want your character to have a choreographed routine, or to otherwise contribute to the evening, you still have plenty of time to let me know.]

Formal Wear! In alphabetical order: Cisco Ramon, Jack Harkness, Lydia Martin, Natasha Romanoff, Primrose Everdeen, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark

Comments

[lefey]

If Morgana believed it anything, it certainly didn't involve this... because this was her life back home. Back home, where the King offered her company like you would offer a man a ride of your prize pony.

But tonight was different.

Even several cups of wine in it didn't escape her that Jack wasn't trying to sell her traits like he had with the others, when she had watched them from some shadowed corner of the room. The man had a knack for people that she had never quite seen before. He was new and they weren't terribly close, considering, yet he still knew how to treat her from their time learning their dances and the few times they had chatted outside of that.

Morgana wouldn't forget that, his kindness.

But twenty-five credits? The highest ranking Lady of Camelot could do better than that, thank you, Jack. Especially since the "good cause" she was supporting was actually her looking like a beaming, happy citizen that the computer could rely on.

She was uncertain exactly what to do, but she gave the crowd her best smile and twirled, her orange dress floating around her, a strand of hair falling free near her face.

'I think the good people can do better than that, Jack. They're so generous with their good fortunes tonight.' her voice carried the same joy that had painted itself on her lips. It was just a dance, after all, if Steve could do it so could she. 'And you taught me so well.' she said as she came to a stop, her hands smoothing out her dress, drawing the eyes of the crowd down with as her fingers left her feather-like bodice and onto the light skirts. Morgana may not have liked the game, but she knew the game.

Sure enough, someone took Jacks low starting price, followed by another with a slightly more generous "seventy-five!" who Morgana smiled at. Better, at least.

[a_man_out_of_time]

Twenty-five credits wouldn't do. It's absurd.

Even with everything that Steve has going on that night, he can't let twenty-five credits be Morgana's starting bid. He'd already been off duty for awhile now, since he had to swap out of security when his own auction came up, so Steve is standing, in uniform, near the edges of the auction floor.

"Two hundred credits," he says, lifting his head so that the sound of his voice could carry straight to the stage and to Jack.

[lefey]

She shouldn't have been surprised, when as she went to spin again a familiar voice rang out from the crowd.

Steve. Of course he would bid on her. With all the hubbub and fuss, she wondered at the fact he even had time too, girls had certainly been clamouring to get their hands on Alpha Complex's favourite bachelor, but he was there.

That was just how things were with Steve, awkwardness, fighting, revealing you might have been a ticking time bomb, none of it mattered at the end of the day, he would still be your friend.

The smile on her lips had been plastered there, fake as all the glitter and glitz in the ballroom, as the lighting in the halls and it vanished as she looked at him from the stage. Her head tilted slightly, and her smile grew in spite of herself. For once that night Morgana didn't look like the actress who knew she had to look happy, but a woman who really was.

It was just a dance, and he might not even win (but who else would bid on her?) but that he bothered at all warmed her, not an easy feat in her dress.

And two hundred credits was so much better than twenty five, thank you Jack.

[a_man_out_of_time]

To Steve, that smile that grows on Morgana’s face feels like enough. Like he’s done something right, and he can’t help but smile in return.

It might have been enough too, if after a few seconds, Steve didn’t hear someone else bidding. He just looks up at Morgana though, to watch her reaction to the other people now shouting bids on stage. Does she want them to win? Or does she want him to keep going? He’ll try, to figure that out.

It’s been almost two weeks since she’d kissed him. No, strike that. Two weeks since they’d kissed each other — he can’t ignore his own culpability for what happened — but things … things have been good. Still awkward, sometimes, but Steve wasn’t going to lose a friend.

“Three hundred and fifty,” he says this time, up to Jack, to compete against the other bids.

[lefey]

He was ridiculous, but his second bet made her smile all the more. While she had been willing to dance with whoever, more or less, it'd be a lie to say she didn't have a preference for a certain good friend of hers.

But didn't half the Complex?

Hell, if the Computer could dance it probably would've bet on Steve earlier itself.

After his bid, a few beats passed in silence and Morgana decided that was good enough, nudging Jack gently to get herself declared "sold", so that she might hope down out of these stupid lights and make her way through the crowd, an act made easier but the somewhat bewildered looks people were busy giving each other.

'You're going to start whispers.' she teased. 'You didn't have to, you know.' but Morgana couldn't stop smiling, after all, dancing had been how they'd really become friends.

[a_man_out_of_time]

It’s an odd moment, as Steve looks around the room, and people start to share looks and whisper. Probably just trying to decide if they want to outbid him, he thinks.

But then Morgana seems to nudge Jack on stage and he does the countdown, and he wins. This would turn out to be Steve’s one and only bid to dance with someone this evening, and he takes the stage like a gentleman to escort her back down to the dance floor.

“Let ‘em talk,” he answers, when she teases, offering her his arm. “I know I wasn’t gonna let someone to win your auction for twenty-five credits.”

He would have bid much higher — if for nothing else, then to make sure Morgana enjoyed herself tonight.

[lefey]

'I clearly need to show my face more, lest I ever get left at 25 credits and you're not around to rescue me.' she laughed softly, genuinely happy for once at being "rescued". 'Jack's mouth barely opened before people were willing to trade the very shirt off their back for your dance.' Not that she blamed them, honestly. She had considered bidding on him herself, but being that she was the one who had made their friendship a bit awkward, she had wondered how Steve might take her intentions.

Besides, she couldn't hog his attention all the time. Non-specials needed something to look forward to sometimes.

'Did you have a dance in mind?' her tone was a little softer then. Many of her best memories in this place were of stolen minutes trying to show Steve some of the (apparently outdated) dances she knew, though many of them required more than the two of them, she had made adjustments so it would work. There were no recordings from her time and so she had hummed along, lest they be dancing to no music at all.

Tonight was different, there was music, Jack and Izzy had taught her more modern dances and perhaps most obviously: they weren't alone, in jumpsuits not fit for dancing.

'I like the suit, pity they won't let you wear it all the time.' Where was the Computer with her Steve-crush when you needed her?

[a_man_out_of_time]

“I’m not sure you needed rescuing,” he says with ease. “I wasn’t the only bidder.”

When she brings up his auction however, Steve’s smile grows into something a little more self-depreciating. “To be honest, I … I was a little surprised it went as far as it did.”

Steve isn’t oblivious. It’s clear that the posters and Teela and something else all together had given him a sense of popularity here. But the poor, skinny kid from Brooklyn has never looked in the mirror and thought of himself as Special, or good-lookin’, or notable in any way. So while he’d expected bids, he really hadn’t expected the back and forth, or how high the final price got to be.

“We could try to do one of the ones you taught me,” he says, not really minding if they don’t move to the music the right way, even if it’ll make things harder. “Otherwise, I only know one other.”

The thought makes him glance around the room momentarily, as Steve looks towards the bar to see if someone was still drinking there. But there’s nothing he can do about that now.

“I didn’t think they’d be able to recreate it. But no,” he says, walking her towards a spot on the floor. “I don’t have the right to wear something different when everyone else has to wear jumpsuits.”

[lefey]

He's not wrong, but no one else had serious interest in her. Aside from Jack he was the only friend she had been able to see through the glare of the spotlight, and that was only because she heard him first.

'I'm not surprised. A lady hears things.' the gossip around Steve was absolutely astounding. All manner of rumours and whispers surrounded him, and it hadn't escaped the notice of some that he occasionally took people up to his rooms, even lowly oranges like herself. 'And you do have your charms... a multitude of them, in fact.'

And almost none of them involved the breadth of his shoulders or the line of his jaw, despite what gossip might say. No, there was much more value to be found in the gentle touch of his hands, of the sly smile he got when he wasn't quite managing to look as serious as he wished. In his eagerness to be kind and helpful and there.

What did give her pause was the sudden way he looked around when he said he knew another dance, almost uncomfortable at the idea.

'I was joking, Steve,' she chided gently about the suit. 'Is something the matter?' she asked, her voice much quieter.

Because a dance could wait, and it was his dance to take or leave.

[a_man_out_of_time]

He gives her a look, his eyes a little wider, a grin parting his lips, when she says she’s heard things. But when she tells him that he has charms? He chuckles a small laugh and shakes his head. No one’s ever told Steve Rogers that he’s charming before.

“You look …” Stunning, is the word he’s looking for, but even within the ease of their friendship, Steve has a hard time talking about this kind of thing. “Really great, tonight.” A regular Casanova, this one.

But when she seems to catch on to the fact that his mind had wandered, Steve’s focus is pulled back, and it stays there as he just shakes his head.

“I’m just keeping an eye on things.” Which, is true. He’s just not being very specific about what, exactly. But Steve’s also on duty tonight, so it shouldn’t be an odd thing to say. Plus, looking over at the bar isn’t going to help him anymore than it did last time, so slowly and deliberately, Steve takes her hand from his arm and passes it to his palm, and then guides them both into the right posture and stance for a dance.

[lefey]

'I agree, I do look really great.' from anyone else that would be a poor compliment, but it makes Morgana laugh. Unlike Steve, she had spent her whole life being the beautiful one, the pretty one, the one who was stared at across rooms. All she was worth back home was her silence and her body.

There was something so adorably innocent about the way steve barely got out his compliment that made it feel more genuine than the dozen others she had gotten tonight, and if nothing else it was very Steve.

'Mmmn,' she wasn't sure if she ought to believe him, things had felt off all over the Complex for days but she let it slide. This wasn't the place for that, and anyway he lead her to start their dance.

'Show them how old fashioned we really are?' or in this case, how old fashioned she had taught him to dance. 'Next time we have lessons I can teach you the waltz Jack taught me. It's fun.' she said, just before they began.

[a_man_out_of_time]

In his head, Steve already knows that Bucky could have complimented her ten times better, but when Morgana laughs, it takes the nervousness out of his shoulders.

He also can’t help but grin a little when she tells him to show them how old fashioned they are. The dances she’d taught him — honestly, Steve preferred them to what he’d seen on T.V. back home. They felt more deliberate, structured, less … ad hoc. They’re about two or more people interacting with each other, instead of self expression.

And we all know how good Steve is at self expression.

“That sounds like a plan,” he says, as they begin. And while Steve still isn’t quite sure where he lands on Jack yet — the man’s already done a few things that are more than a little too forward — he’s glad that Morgana’s spending time with more people. He knows she took Root’s arrest hard. He did too, even if Steve didn’t show it. But Morgana needs more friends.

Friends who genuinely cared about her.