For Whom The Bell Tolls

[Cecil Wathen]

It was that time of year again, Cecil's absolute favourite holiday. Halloween was never really overly celebrated back home, beyond the odd small house party and one or two trick-or-treaters. Cecil had always loved it, however. Primarily because it gave him a real excuse to get costumed up and throw himself into the spirit of a character without the odd looks he often got while LARPing with his mates in the park.

The bar had been massively decked out for the occasion, with spiderwebs draped everywhere, blood leaking from the woodwork and all manner of giant rodents, bodyparts and monsters hiding in every nook and cranny. It had taken Cecil and his staff two days to get the place kitted up to a high standard, but looking around it now he firmly believed every moment had been worth it. The place had a genuine eerie feel to it, and there wasn't a tacky balloon or string of plastic bunting in sight. Cecil could not have been prouder of his team for helping him pull it off.

It was, of course, all topped off with themed drinks. Cecil and the Churchkey staff had spent several hours coming up with drink ideas and trying them out, playing with different flavour combinations to be able to concoct drinks that both tasted great and had a dramatic visual impact. A number of specials had been created for the occasion, all offered at prices lower than the bar's usual rate.

It had been two hours since the doors had opened for the Churchkey's Halloween party and the place was buzzing and alive with energy, a small local band was playing suitably themed music and Cecil paraded around his own little kingdom, so thrilled to have the chance to bring out a costume and have the chance to interact with others in a slightly surreal and fantastical setting. Every now and then the Welshman would slip into character, disappearing from the main floor and standing outside a window looking in or hiding behind two narrow beams, barely visible until people noticed and jumped in surprise. Because what was Halloween without a little mischief and mayhem?

Drink Specials:
Click for pictures
Black Lagoon
Bleeding Heart
Brainwave
Vials
Eyeball Highball
Pina Ghoulada
Shrunken Head Cider


[OOC: Come on in and have fun! Absolutely every character over the age of 21 can hop into here (yes they will be checking for ID and yes under 21's will be told to shoo. Sorry!). Mingle, chat, drink and be merry! But remember: no costume, no entry!
This thread is set on the 25th October, the night before the Hammel Halloween ball. There is absolutely no posting order at all in this thread, and you can throw in as many over-21 characters as you wish. Have at! If you have any questions please message me. Party on woooo!]

[Oliver Seabrooke]

Ollie really did need to get out of the dorms more. He knew that, he did, but sometimes it was just easy to sulk in his own misery and direct his hatred at the way his life had become towards the most badly behaved students, giving punishments left and right unlike his two coworkers, who seemed to think just some light lecturing would change behavior. It wasn't that he always managed to keep them in line - he didn't - but he did find he was getting more successful the longer he worked there.

Tonight, though, he was letting himself get dragged out to this Halloween party at the Churchkey. It was costumes only, apparently, so he had gone to the effort of dressing himself in some black and red clothing, temporarily dying his hair black, and putting some red, burned-looking makeup around his right eye - the blind one. Oh, the irony. He wasn't trying all that hard to look like Zuko, but at least it was something. And he got to mope about it being ironic.

He hoped he felt better once he started drinking.

"Holy shit, is that Slenderman?" the Brit asked as he entered the bar, turning his gaze to Zach as he pointed at a white-faced, still figure in the corner. Huh, maybe his vision in his one good eye was starting to get better. He tried to keep himself from shying away from all the people in the hopping place (which looked fantastically eerie, he had to admit), but he had been keeping mostly to himself for a while and he couldn't help but gravitate towards the walls.

He hoped he didn't look as out-of-place as he felt. Alcohol. He needed it.

[Eddie Digby]

Digby wasn't exactly one to dress up for Halloween - not for years, at least. He liked the holiday, it wasn't that, he just wasn't a very dramatic person. But he was working tonight (with a special bonus for working the event), and costumes were mandatory. So, he'd taken a look in his closet, seen a ton of plaid flannels, and decided - hey, lumberjacks wear plaid flannels! (It also helped that Steph had frequently told him he looked like a lumberjack when his stubble grew out.)

Of course, if he just wore a flannel he'd look... like he always looked. Which is why he'd taken the time to pick up a cheap set of suspenders and a trapper hat that would at least kind of imply lumberjack. The day before the party he'd finally caved and gone to a party store to pick up a fake chainsaw so he could look at least a little on the scary side. Except he'd be behind the bar most of the night, so no one would really get to see it - except for when he propped it up behind the cider bowl! As he did now.

[Deleted]

"I….think it is!" Zach peered in the corner at the tall faceless man in a suite with an incredulous stare.

There was only one reason why Zach had come out to this party tonight…Ok, there were two reasons. The first was that his best friend Oliver really needed to get out and stop locking himself up in the dorms as if he were….Zach.

Right, that was honestly all Zach wanted to do right now, but he didn't condone it for his best friend who was only doing it out of mopey-ness. The man needed a social life again, he needed something to get excited about (he needed a girlfriend), and…he needed alcohol. Yup, alcohol was always the answer!

The second reason was because it was at his regular bar, the Churchkey, and he had promised that he would up tonight. And, as apathetic as Zach was about Halloween altogether, he put no real amount of effort into his costume. He just put on some black clothes as he left his apartment, picked up Ollie, stopped by Wal-Mart, and bought a hockey mask and a plastic machete.

Boom. Costume.

And he didn't even plan on wearing the mast for any amount of time save for getting through the door. And once that was done… "Come on. Let's get some drinks. IPA? Or Octoberfest?" he asked of his best friend.

[Devon Wentsworth]

Devon had been planning for this for about two months, the art teacher making sketch after sketch of potential costume ideas and ending up with a waste paper bin overflowing of half-drawn doodles and pictures torn out of magazines. He knew that for the Halloween party being held at the school he would probably have to turn down the extremity of the costume, but for a night out at the bar surrounded by other adults he had gone absolutely no holds barred.

Halloween never tended to be celebrated all that much in England but he had seen enough TV shows and movies to know that it was a big thing in the states, and as someone who had always had a deep love of both parties and having any excuse to be a bit mad, he had relished the build up to it.

The Brit's costume had taken him days to prepare, from purchasing the inflatable ball and making a mould of it right through to the painting, neck-piece making and clothes decorating. It had been a massive effort but one he had thoroughly enjoyed, and once he had arrived at the Churchkey right at the start of the party he was certain (in his mind at least) that his costume was one of the best ones there.

Since Devon knew how to prioritise, a hole big enough to fit a straw through had been made in the pupil of the eye, through with a straw was currently slotted as Devon sipped on an eyeball highball as he danced his way across the pub room, his spirits higher even than the ones in his glass, looking for anyone who looked willing to be interacted with.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean loved Halloween. It was his favorite holiday for a number of reasons: 1) Children loved it, and he enjoyed being around children and seeing them happy; 2) the holiday allowed for the ability to don costumes and encouraged creativity in doing so; 3) adults had coopted the holiday to encourage food, sweets, and alcohol, all of which the telepath enjoyed, and it was a social holiday. Even the glorification of horror movies, which he disliked, failed to put a damper on his enjoyment of the holiday as a whole.

Fortunately for Sean, his partner enjoyed the holiday almost as much as he did. Since their reconciliation, they had attended several parties together, and Josh favored coordinating their costumes when at all possible. This year, with the party at the Churchkey, they had worked at finding an appropriate theme, and then compiling all of the necessary costume parts.

They had hired a babysitter to stay home with Bailey, as she was far too young to go to a party at a tavern. Then they had donned their costumes and driven downtown.

Universal Pictures Classic Monster Icons had been easy enough when they had first chosen their characters. Partially because they were easy to recognize and partially because Josh had been insistent about being able to wear a cape this year. The makeup had been a bit more difficult, since neither man was a professional makeup artist, and as cisgendered, gender-normative men who didn’t engage in theater, they had no practical experience wearing any makeup in their day-to-day lives. Still, the telepath thought that they had done a fair job.

Thus, Sean was dressed as Dracula (as portrayed by Bela Lugosi) while Josh was dressed as The Phantom of the Opera (as portrayed by Lon Chaney). Both men wore capes as part of their costumes.

Upon entering the club, they made a beeline for the bar. Sean took a moment to study the menu, before he said, “I vill have a Bleeding Heart, and get my friend the Phantom anything he desires.”

[Angie Flores]

It had, sadly, been Marcus's idea for her to go to this party. She'd been working a lot, the campaign had taken its toll, and between that and trying to tend to Marcus, she hadn't exactly had a lot of time to herself. Or to meet other people. She'd known it was bad when Marcus had been walking downtown with her to pick up a few things, had spotted the poster, and had instantly ripped it down to show it to her.

"You should go."

She'd peered at it. "Marcus, that's right before your dance. Don't you want me to--"

"Nuh uh." The boy was quick. "You always say that. You should go. Hang out with adults who don't have criminal records."

She had been doing a lot of that too, she had to admit. Her lips twitched up into a crooked smile, and she took it. "All right, fine. But only if you can get a babysitter."

Of course, he'd picked Damien. And Damien's boyfriend Josef had been surprisingly okay with that--and she'd been surprisingly okay with him, considering that she could be pretty finicky in who she handed Marcus over to, and rightly so--so she'd ended up here, at the Churchkey, pondering drinks. She did have an unerring fondness for fruity drinks, she'd admit. She supposed she could do that, considering her costume was more gamer-chic than it was sexy. So she could be a stereotypical girl in that respect. She did, however, want to hit up the Slenderman in the corner. She grinned as she saw Sean and offered him a little wave, then collected the Pina Ghoulada she'd ordered and approached the guy in the Slenderman costume.

"I swear, I'll let you get back into character in a minute, but that is awesome."

[Oliver Seabrooke]

"Okay... That's bloody brilliant," Oliver had to chuckle nervously, staring at the Slenderman-costumed person until a girl approached him and he glanced away. He gazed around at some of the other costumes, feeling a little dumb now that he had gone so plain, but the Brit really hadn't felt up to putting a lot of effort into his look. At least Zach hadn't either.

Yes, he was aware his best friend was trying to get him out more. Yes, he appreciated it, even if he didn't say so. Oliver knew it wasn't good for him to hole himself up in the dorms all the time, but he didn't know how to go out and be social anymore. He just felt so... Off.

Which was why alcohol was needed. "Um, let's see if they have any specials, yeah?" he asked, carefully following after his friend without looking like he was having a hard time. All the noise and movement was making it hard for him to get a good direction on where he was going, and he bumped into more than one chair and person with mumbled apologies. Though, a particular costume caught his eye (heh, puns), and he had to stop for a moment, tugging on Zach's sleeve to pull him back.

He didn't know Devon was behind the giant eyeball. "That's a, uh, that's a great costume," he tried to compliment, though it came out a little awkward even though it was genuine. His social skills had seriously declined lately. He began to start edging towards the bar again, but slowly enough so the bloke could follow and chat if he so wanted to. "Did you, um... Make it yourself?"

[Cecil Wathen]

Cecil was fully aware that he didn’t really have the build to pull off the Slenderman costume quite as well as he would like. He was tall enough sure, but his broad shoulders and overall fairly solid build did ruin a little of the illusion. Still, with the upper-body sleeve completely obscuring his facial details there was no doubt that he made a pretty creepy sight; it had taken him a quarter of an hour to get Mephit to calm down and stop barking at him in confused worry.

He tried to make sure he spent some of his time helping out behind the bar, but he knew that he was also compelled to act as host and try to get everyone into the hype of things, which was proving to be a touch difficult since a few people seemed to be arriving determined to sulk. At least the overall spirit in the pub was high and some people had really seemed to go above and beyond when preparing their costumes, which was awesome to see.

It was also very reassuring to see such a diverse range of people attending; it helped prove he was doing well at preventing the Churchkey from getting pigeonholed with one particular group of people.

A voice to the side caught his attention and Cecil slooooowly turned his head towards the sound, doing his absolute best to maintain the creepy eeriness, but as he took in the woman’s costume he failed utterly as a quiet laugh left his lips. Character broken, he smiled (the movement just about visible through the sleeve) and took a step back to admire her costume. “You’re looking pretty awesome yourself, Chell. It’s been far too long since I last played Portal.” Cecil’s voice was slightly distorted by the sleeve covering his face but it was still audible enough. “Thanks for coming out, by the way. Are you enjoying it so far?”

[Hay-lin Mae]

Zack Drove to the churchkey after picking up Hay-lin, he had promised her that he was going to make her do something worth wild for the holiday that was in a few days. He wanted her to have some fun.

However, Hay-lin did not think being forced to do something was fun, or even funny. She didn’t want to go to a club, or a dance with loud music, and a bunch of people, especially when one of them were going to have a lot of drunk people. She didn’t want drunk guys hitting on her, she did not want to have to deal with that, as well as having to deal with the loud music. Even though she didn’t want to go, she was still found in the passenger seat of Zack’s car. ”I’m never forgiving you for this” she said to him in her native language. ”Yes, you will, and you will also forgive for putting you in the matchmaker thing at Hammel.” Zack responded, he wouldn’t be doing any of this for her if he didn’t think she would forgive him. Zack was right, Hay-lin will forgive him, she did not hold grudges easily.


They came up to the bar, Zack helped Hay out of the car, and guided her into the bar. Hay-lin let out a rough sigh as the music hit her ears, and meshed in her brain. She was totally taking aspirin when she got home. This time she really would be able to get drunk since Alex wanted to stay at Hammel this weekend because of the dance, and all the other things going on for Halloween. However, Zack could not drink, he wasn’t even going to touch anything with alcohol in it.

Zack was wearing a butt load of costume makeup that made him look like a skeleton, zombie thing, as well as a one piece skeleton outfit to go with the makeup. Hay-lin was wearing a costume from a music video that, she had heard yet didn’t know anything about the outfit other than Zack telling her it was a samurai costume. With that she left it alone, it was good enough for her. Hay-lin followed Zack to the bar, and sat down, soon after, without helping his sister order anything he went off to mingle. Now she had to wait for someone to help her, hopefully that would happen sooner rather than later.

[Devon Wentsworth]

For as many people as there were laughing, joking and dancing, there seemed to be an equal number who clearly had no want at all to be there. As hard as he tried, Devon couldn’t understand why people would bother going out to a ‘no costume no entry’ Halloween party and not even try to make some form of effort. He had always been blessed with very high spirits and a love of life and he couldn’t even begin to fathom why some people seemed to be determined to be miserable. Sure there were those with genuine reasons to be down and disheartened, but for the life of him he didn’t know why some other people seemed to actively seek to be that way. Why go to the party if you had no intention of at least trying to enjoy it?

He wasn’t going to let this get him down, however, and it would be clear to even the most casual of observers that the giant roaming eyeball had every intention of enjoying itself and likely would achieve that goal even if it were in the room completely on its own.

It had taken the Brit a very long time to adjust himself to the feeling of having something enclosing his head. It was primarily the reason Devon had started drinking before he’d even left the house, but he had come to terms with it a little more now despite the fact his vision was rather limited by the rest of the dome. However, as Devon was on occasion blessed with a small amount of common sense, the pupil of the eye was made of a very fine black mesh, letting him see through but creating the illusion of just being a black space. It did mean he had to turn himself right around to be able to see the person who had just spoken to him though, but he thought that just added to the creepiness and that pleased him.

Thankfully Devon had enthusiasm and sociability to spare and he greeted Oliver brightly. “Ollie! Good to see you out, mate!” The art teacher had bumped into the dorm monitor around campus a few times and had always let on, and even though they didn’t really know each other that well it was good to see a familiar face. The compliment made Devon beam and he wandered towards the bar with Oliver; he could use a top-up anyway. “Thanks! I did, yeah. Headache getting it together but so glad I kept with it.” Spotting Sean, Devon gave the psychiatrist a bright wave before ordering another of the same. Turning his giant eye to the man Oliver had arrived with, Devon offered out a bloodied hand. “I’m Devon, good to meet ya.”

[Abe Milton]

Abe wasn't altogether sure why he was here. Technically, he had his own business to run and his own things to manage. However, the restaurant had been dead, and he'd had trusted the people on staff, so instead of hanging around to hover over their shoulders, he'd taken a look at some of the posters on the board he kept near the entrance, so students and other community members could see, and saw the poster for the party at the Churchkey.

Well, that would explain where everyone had gone. It wouldn't have been the first time. He laughed softly, then tugged it off and examined it. Well, he could see what he could dig up.

He drove back to his place and rummaged through his wardrobe, trying to see if he could find anything that could work as a costume. Abe didn't do Halloween. He'd never had any kids, and while he periodically passed candy out, he didn't do much else. Eventually, he found his old FBI suit--black, straight lines, severe. Seemed like he still had a badge too. Abe flipped it open thoughtfully, pursed his lips, then smiled. Yeah, that could work. He shrugged out of his cooking attire and into the suit. Some grease in his hair, a pair of old aviators--he left off the gun holster and replaced it with a cane instead.

That was how Abe arrived--admittedly a little late, but dressed to the 9s and looking official enough to get a few curious looks. He offered a smile in return, removed the shades, then looked at the drinks menu. Haha, no. He didn't drink all that often, but he didn't do fancy drinks.

"Jack on the rocks," he said. "Thank you." He left a nice tip--to other people in the trade, of course you had to--then turned around and glanced around, smiling. Interesting crowd--the floating eyeball was especially a nice trick.

[Lahja Morgan]

Lahja hadn't had any plans to go out for Halloween; between a lack of time and general tiredness she simply did not have the motivation and had no urges beyond working on her next magazine column. She didn't doubt that she would probably enjoy it if she did go out, it was simply that it would be a lot of effort for one night that could otherwise have been spent doing something that would bring in some extra cash.

However, it hadn't taken all that much persuading from her assistant manager to convince Lahja to attend the Churchkey's first ever Halloween party.

Her costume had taken a little while to come up with, but after raiding through her large stash of fabrics Lahja had uncovered some very sleek deep red dress fabric, with metallic silver fibres running through it that made it shimmer in the light. The very low-backed, high-slitted dress took a whole week of stolen hours to create a pattern for and sew to fit, but after she had bought a pair of dark red thigh-length heeled boots, long purple gloves and gotten a friend to help temporarily dye her hair red, Lahja was more than ready.

Arriving at the Churchkey with a grandiose air, Jessica Rabbit sauntered to the bar with one gloved hand on her hip and the other gently swinging by her side, holding a small red clutch purse. Slipping onto one of the stools at the bar Lahja elegantly crossed her legs, exposing the bare skin at the top of her thigh as she cast a coy smile to those milling around. When the barman approached she requested a Long Island iced tea, please and thank you, and retrieved her purse from her bag in order to pay.

[Abe Milton]

Abe was mostly here to people watch. Eventually, he planned to strike up a conversation with Cecil, from one business owner to another. He should probably learn those drink recipes at some point, even though he was not particularly interested in learning how to make—a quick glance at the menu—a bleeding heart. No, not really. Abe was pretty conservative even when it came to just drinks, and besides—his place had a bar, but he didn’t keep it open late enough to compete with any of the bars in town. That wasn’t really his style. So he was observing a girl in an orange jumpsuit talking to a—he actually had no idea what that was, but he seemed to be fairly animated now—someone in black and red with a…burn scar? Hm, and then a chainsaw massacre guy. Interesting crowd. His brows climbed as a woman in a slinky red dress entered.

Wow.

Then again, that wasn’t a very good thing for a good Jewish boy to think. Especially one who hadn’t been in the game, so to speak, in a very long time. So Abe cleared his throat and returned to sipping at his drink.

However, when she came over and ordered a drink, another idea occurred to him. He’d never been very good at this, even when he wasn’t years out of practice, but she was very good looking, and…well, why not? Not like he was getting any younger.

“That’ll be on me,” he told the bartender, slipping the cash to pay for it onto the counter. He offered the woman a smile, then returned his attention to his drink. Even if it went no further, he’d be pleased to know that he’d made a move. 

[Everett Lilien]

Everett had left the apartment earlier than Gabe and went into the night, because well...he was Batman. He was the night! Halloween was one of his favorites and it always had been, and it became even more fun when he could legally drink. He usually went as some sort of superhero or supervillian every year. This year, he went as one of his personal favorites. Batman. Cape, mask, the whole shebang.

He walked into the Churchkey bar confidently, marveling at everyone's costumes. Where was Gabe? His roommate and fellow Hammel employee was running late. Ev didn't even know what his costume was!