14892/After hours, after dark

After hours, after dark
Date of Scene:	04 April 2023
Location:	Club Lux, Melville
Synopsis:	A little discussion, some piano and plans in the making to hire a nepharious army of helpfully smitey types. Good times.
Cast of Characters:	Sinister, Lucifer

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Sinister has posed:
Been a quiet night, actually one of those Mondays when it was worthwhile shutting early. It might just be the weather, some vibe, or everyone decided that they needed to stay in and do their taxes! Whichever is the case, cleaners are taking care of the slight stickiness in spots of the floor, the glasses are all being polished to put them away and a man sits at the piano, playing chopsticks with himself.

Nathaniel Essex' skills as a surgeon are unparalleled, but his tickling of the ivories leaves much to be desired, but he's giving it a try. A fag dangles from his lips at the corner and he is in a far and away kind of place, letting the smoke congregate by his ear in whisps and curls. An attempt at nursery rhyme jingles happens next. Why? Oh, why?

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer was in the back office running the numbers for the night and closing out all the server accounts so they can cash out their tips. Now that the paperwork is done, he emerges from the office to hear the sounds of simple piano playing. This draws him towards the piano, and tilts his head to find Sinister sitting at the piano smoking a cigarette and...attempting to play.

"Is that some new version of Mary had a little lamb?" He chides at Sinister and then shifts to sit at the piano with him. "Do you know Heart and Soul?" Asking this even as he attempts to begin the song with the repetitive rift that it uses. "Play this...and just keep repeating it..."

Sinister has posed:
Not incompetent with the keys at least, the riff is easily held and in good time also. Timing, to a surgeon, is everything. "I was seeing if I remembered anything at all -- I had terrible memories of knuckles being whacked with a ruler and doing endless scales. I did those because they gave me hand flexibility, but the music... so damn rusty." Shuffling down the ways on the stool enough so that there's easy room for both, he keeps eyes on his fingers. Da-da dee-dee Doo-doo da-da la-di di-di doo-doo da-da...

"Good night for tips at least? It was lousy for clientelle. Not a single interesting individual came through those doors tonight, though I guess it's fair to say you can't win them all."

Lucifer has posed:
"No. The tips were shit...but the staff will never know. I compensate them on rough nights so they don't go home with little more than pocket money." Lucifer explains as he begins to play the main tune. "Da-da-da, dada-dee-dadada, da-da-da, dada-dee-dadada, da, do, da da dee da do, da, dee-da, dee-da, dee-da-do."

"Sometimes I wonder why you ever wanted to live forever if life was so hellish for you growing up. All these stories you tell me...it makes me angry that people would treat others so horridly here. Which also just makes me more upset at my father...who supposedly made people in his image but if that's the case then his image seems to have a lot of cracks..." Offering this as the tune continues.

Sinister has posed:
"I had things I wanted to achieve -- and I didn't have enough life-time to do it in. It vindicates, that the world is only just catching up to where I was about two centuries ago..." Nathaniel shakes his head, listening with one ear up, as the simple melody is actually tickled out of the keys, as only the Devil can manage. "And honestly, that was society at the time. I was also ambitious, and my mind was forever racing, I aspired to things beyond what I had been born to - Military men are automatically gentry, but usually they are low on the scale of things and that was the origin I came from. So, I kept looking up." He pauses, then chuckles softly. "The japanese fox spirits, the kitsune, do what is called 'punching down' or 'punching up' - their mischief is either orderly with a lesson to be learned or chaotic with a different kind of moral to be had. When I was young, I punched up. Later, I punched down, for a while." He grins, wry.

"Occasionally, I wonder if your father wasn't trying to figure something out by running endless scenarios. Much like my island of Me."

Lucifer has posed:
"Ah. Yes. That makes sense. Cause you're stubborn enough to keep trying to achieve what you want and not even death can stop you. That is definitely a trait of yours I also admire." Lucifer offers this and then simply stops playing his part of the tune. "I bet if you kept at this you could be somewhat of a minor player of the piano...which is nothing to scoff at. I cannot help but be perfect." He grins then.

"Who knows. I don't even think my father knows just what the hell he wants out of all this. Mankind continues to thrive and evolve and he's just up there trying to see how many puppets he still has on strings." There's a scoff there and then a grin. So, what shall we do with this early night?"

Sinister has posed:
"Why, thank you." Sinister grins, bowing his head like a maestro that just got a standing ovation. He settles in after the last measure of the bar and rests his fingertips on the ivories. "A measure of greatness would be no small feat. But I think fetish and folly are what takes me to the keyboard these days." He winks, finishing off his cigarette and lighting a new one off the old cherry, before stubbing the other out for later incineration. He glances to Lucifer's profile, one eye squinted just a little more shut than the other.

"You know, just about every pantheon seems to be all kinds of over themselves. I don't think there's one that isn't a hyperbolic reflection of man's many idosyncracies. The greek lot speaks the loudest there, though the same thread is found all across..." he pauses, muses. "And I got tangled up in some of that, along with you. Postulant:--" he draws a breath, holds up a finger skyward "--do you suppose we ought to have a proper meeting, not just a social, with Strange? I do sometimes feel what we've found in the past is a ball in completely the wrong game. Here I am playing snooker and here comes the universe and the magical strangeness, playing dodgeball."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer lights up a cigarette for himself and then floats over a bottle of cognac and two glasses, one with an ice cube within. He pours liquid into both and then the non-iced drink is set before Sinister while he enjoys his cognac on the rocks. "I think you're right. About the pantheons. But I think some of them get it almost right. You never really -hear- stories about the Egyptians...unless you're actually studying them or something very specific is going down. Same with the Celts. And none of them are perfect, or all right or all wrong. My father is just an asshole. And narcassistic."

He takes a drag off his cigarette and then considers. "Yes. I would like an actual meeting with Strange. I also want to hire the man with the mask that was in here that night. I might want to keep him around to take out the trash every once in a while..."

Sinister has posed:
"I wonder if he still is. Your father that is, given that there's been some revisionist writings after he was all wrath and nonsense. Either that or someone got a hold of his PR and spun things." Like the metatron, for ex. "Rorschach and the Juggernaut on the books, that is quite a phenomenon." But lets face it, Rorschach is a little more... understated. Or at least despite the smell and the grime, he actually blends in a times. The cognac is taken, raised and the glass clinked softly.

"I think we have to probably be on our A-game with Strange. And I suspect Rorschach will have words, many of them choice."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer seems to think on that first statement a moment while taking a drink after clinking glasses. "I don't think I want to entertain that idea. Whether he is or isn't. I've already rebelled against him once and look where that left me for a long while." He says this with a chuckle before Sinister speaks more. "Pretty soon we'll have an unstoppable army on our books and what will the world do then?" That is, if they ever found out. The last bit about Strange has Lucifer giving a nod. "He will be quite a contender. Strange I mean. I almost want to have him and Nick in the same room just to see what happens."

Sinister has posed:
Sinister laughs at that last. "I think they might be familiar with one another, but probably not on the same ... playing field? I don't know what's up tonight with me and sport's analogies but I swear, they keep popping up!" he shakes his head, downs the cognac with a suck of his teeth and refreshes the glass.

He muses "I used to keep squads of useful and morally lapse individuals. I still do, I think. Somewhere out there, if I call, they'll come. I called them the Marauders."

Lucifer has posed:
"I mean, lets be honest. If I really wanted to...I could call up an army of demons and release hell on earth. Quite literally. There's reasons why I don't." Lucifer offers with his own chuckle and then downs the rest of his own drink and finishes his cigarette. He takes it, and the one Sinister snuffed out earlier to incenerate them to nothing like he tends to do. "Looks like we'll be busy for a bit. Meetings. Trip to the Savage Lands. Vacation. How did our schedules fill up so fast?"

Sinister has posed:
"Life. And a pathological allergy to bordom," Sinister replies, standing from the piano. "But for now, I think a shower and then a massage. Coming?" It's how he says that last, that tells a story.