16175/INTERLUDE: Brain melt

INTERLUDE: Brain melt
Date of Scene:	08 April 2024
Location:	Lucifer's Penthouse, Melville
Synopsis:	Lucifer is a social butterfly. Mister Sinister is not. Occasionally a reboot needs to happen. This one involved a pint of dutch chocolate ice-cream and a mnemonic of yesterday.
Cast of Characters:	Sinister, Lucifer

---

Sinister has posed:
Sometimes, it's possible to socially exhaust Nathaniel Essex. It's different when you're manipulating people. They don't really count. The emotivity isn't genuine. Building and maintaining something that's genuine is absolutely and utterly flattening after a while, to the unprepared Englishman within the depths of the Monster he created of himself.

So now, in the quiet moments when the club has closed, at three thirty in the wee hours, or perhaps even later given certain clientelle..... here he is, lying on the couch with a book over his face and his forearm resting on his forehead in a greek tragedy pose.

There's not even any music playing, just a soft metronome he's set on the table to tick-tick-tick. A rhythmical, hypnotic, orderly sound.

Lucifer has posed:
Book keeping is super fun. Especially when the books take a while to close out, and the staff need their tips, and it's tax season so he's been dealing with all of that. Quarterly submissions, making sure entertainment has gotten paid correctly. There's a lot to running a club that no one else sees, thinking it's just a life of indulgent luxury. But there it is.

So he's coming up to the Penthouse after one of those late nights. It's unsure what he's going to be walking into. Sinister could be doing a number of things. Cleaning, cooking, contemplating his eyelids. Though as Lucifer steps into their home he finds the man posed as if he's been up all night studying. Though that all depends on the title of the book currently covering the man's face.

Lucifer smiles softly, dims any lights that are on full, eyes the metronome ticking away but does nothing with it. He gently levitates the book off Nathaniel's face while also placing a blanket over the man to essentially tuck him in. Then, he sits in front of the fireplace, smoking on a cigarette and just letting the peace of the night carry on as long as it will.

Sinister has posed:
Self mesmerization has its limits.

The lifting of the book does not stir the Doctor. In fact, he looks a younger man than the wisdom of his years paints on his features, when genuinely mesmerized into something akin to real slumber.

And we'll note, slumber and dreams that haven't projected everywhere thanks to the mind having them. But the no-thought won't last when certain aspects have been removed from the trilogy of horizontal, book over face like you used to do once upon a time, listening to the ticking of a clock. Or now, the ticking of a metronome. Clocks that tick are so yesterday, that they're pratically antiquity.

Eyelashes flutter up after about five minutes. Enough time for end-of-night thoughts to be collated and at least one cigarette to be finished, at any rate.

"What time is it?" the metronome is stilled with a delicate fingertip. Not with TK.

Lucifer has posed:
"Little after three fourty-five, so close to four am..." Lucifer offers this as he turns on his ass to remain seated on the floor but facing the doctor now. "You were so cute laying there with a book over your face, lights on, metronome ticking... I didn't want to interrupt whatever was going on in that brilliant mind of yours." He adds this on with a smile.

"At least everything needing done for the club is officially done now. All the books are up to date, invoices and bills paid, quarterly paperwork done. I've got to remember to renew the liquor license next month...and the bartenders have to..." he clears his throat, "technically take food service classes...but...I get that paperwork fudged." Filling the man in on his own day and finally realizes the ticking has stopped.

"So, is everything alright? Did you just doze off while reading or was this a sort of resetting yourself moment?"

Sinister has posed:
"Well. That's good. I'm glad that's all sorted out -- there's probably a reason I don't run things like that. I'd be anally retentive about everything. Your accountant should be quite happy. I'm happy. Yes. Very happy..." He stares a moment, adjusts where his mind is at and trails his gaze over the archangel on the floor with his cigarette and presence.

"You seem calm. I..." he glances at the metronome "...I was attempting a meditation. Well. Trying to recreate the memory of mind-blank exhaustion from my days in my dungeon with my samples and theories." He chuckles drily. "Just a little overdone. Brisk off the charcoal from on top and I'll be fine."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer fishes out another cigarette, lights it, and floats it over to the good doctor. "I am calm. But I think that's just because things are done, and not a lot of totally weird shit has happened recently. It's been...peaceful. In a sense. I don't mind times like this." Then he stands and telepathically fixes two drinks at the bar while he walks to the kitchen to grab a couple pints of ice cream, spoons, and paper towels. These are brought over to the couch area where he'll motion for Nathaniel to at least lift legs so he can sit.

The whiskies are delivered to the coffee table which is moved to be positioned so everything is in reach one way or another.

"Did you succeed in your meditation? I hope I didn't interrupt it in any fashion by tucking you in..." He smirks, sits when he's able, and sets pints and spoons on the table as well in case one is favored over the other. Dutch Chocolate being one and Strawberry the other. "Plus, it's becoming spring. Which means the weather will be warmer and that makes me happy in many ways as well."

Sinister has posed:
"Yes, you're not a wintery type of person, my darling..." Legs are lifted, the socks are clean. One thing that will never be happening, unless by some month full of sundays, is Sinister having dirty socks, or unpleasant odours or... pretty much anything 'unclean' unless he's up to his eyeballs in something. Then it's a different matter.

"I don't know. I think so. Nobody was hallucinating anything in the club were they? As far as I can tell, I was simply... in the blissful cocoon of black." He inhales, exhales, smells the whiskey, flexes his feet so that the arches seem altogether pronounced and props himself up with a floated over black cushion. The ice-cream is eyed with a faint half-smile.

Is this an ice-cream on the couch moment? Could be. Could be.

"I just am a bit burned out on being nice. For you, it's quiet and nothing weird has happened. For me, I've had to be nice for far too long, without a distraction." He laughs.

Lucifer has posed:
"Well... how can I help? How can I give you something to be mean at?" Oh there are likely plenty of ways, if Lucifer ever actually let Sinister know some of the issues in the club on certain (perhaps off-camera) nights. He should really let Nathaniel loose on the ne'er do wells a bit more often. That would be spectacular to watch. And he'd just play piano while letting the man have at it.

Delightful.

Instead of taking up a pint or a glass, Lucifer picks up a foot. Or at the very least, he places hands on a foot and rubs at various pressure points. His hands - warmer than usual touch of anyone - are warmer still as he harnesses a bit more heat so that the rub is relaxing. "I could bring up a soul in need of a good tongue lashing...or...uhm...well hell I don't know. I suppose it doesn't even need a mean streak to it eh? Just as long as you can be anything but nice..."

Sinister has posed:
"Whereas..." began the man when the initial 'how can I help?' was uttered, the thought takes but a moment. And then there's a foot claimed and rubs began. The toes arch, then the foot curls, before relaxing into the thermo-therapy that it's receiving.

There is a very slight groan, a whimper almost, for the popping of silent not-really-tense tensions by dint of a good ol' fashioned foot rub. He flops his head back, ice-cream forgotten for a moment, until he reaches a hand out to the table and places fingertips on the glass.

Chilling a select area of his body down to very cold temperatures isn't a troublesome thing to do, it's just not often done. However the table makes a good cold-plate right now.

"I don't even think I need to -do- anything to anything, I just..." he lifts the hand off the coffee table, waves it helplessly as rhime inches up the whiskey glasses thanks to the chill. "...Am all niced out. Socialized out, too. I don't have anything good to say and Nanny usually told me to not say anything at all, if there wasn't anything nice to say. By the by, I absolutely and utterly love you. Right now, especially so. Particularly profoundly, even." A sigh follows. "Building friendships is troublesome and exhausting."

Lucifer has posed:
"Which is likely why I'm more of the social grace in our dynamic. Though I do appreciate any and all effort you give to be friendly to those in our circle." But, Lucifer does not doubt that it's exhausting for someone who usually doesn't have 'nice' in their vocabulary. The silent poppings of tensions under foot continue as he focuses on the arch and heel next.

"So, maybe we'll stay in for the next couple of nights. I can always leave the staff to do it on their own, they are very good at it now. And we'll just hang out up here and be anti-social for a time while your batteries re-charge. And if you need me to leave you be for some time so you can work in your lab or do whatever it is you need to do, just let me know." Offering this much as he finishes on the one foot - unfortunately he cannot cool the foot down so it will just have to temper on its own.

After a moment, he takes the other foot in hand and begins to give it the same treatment. "Or, if you really want, we could away to one of our other places for a little while. We haven't been anywhere just the two of us for a long bit. Maybe we're due some quiet time, just you and me..."

Sinister has posed:
"Maybe. Maybe, indeed." Red eyes close as the second foot receives some superlative treatment and he shuffles his shoulders, arches neck and back to assume a more comfortable and ever so slightly supreme position on the couch. 'tis the outer foot, so now, the devil's entirely captured by his occupation of the moment.

"You are by your nature, a social butterfly, my love. Though that's an illusion to a degree, that's where it all happens, I suspect. A person on thier own, unless they're a psychopath, isn't liable to get into too much... well, no, maybe that's not the case in this day and age." He laughs at himself.

"I've just reached a point, is all. It would be nice to maybe take a drive along the coast, maybe go and witness something relatively unique as an experience. Quiet time, research, whatever, whathaveyou... just I..." pause, then it just blarts out "...didn't want to go and tell people to sod off, stuff things where the sun doesn't shine, belittle stupidity and generally be a cantankerous old sod, when..." a hand is gestured, at everything. Whole lot. All the world. Here there and everywhere.

"I was never very good at friends in school, either. I didn't have any."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer gives a nod. "This isn't school though. You have friends now, but being social can be very taxing for a non-social person. I get it..." He offers this much while working on that foot. Just letting his warm touch soothe away tension and the like and bring some sort of ralxing comfort at the same time. "I hope you haven't felt....forced to be social in any way. You can always let me know when you're not feeling it...as much as I cannot lie, it wouldn't be a lie if I told people you weren't feeling like company..."

Then there's a chuckle. "Sometimes I forget you're older... the way you speak sometimes betrays you. Just when I think you're part of this time...you remind me you're from a bit of an older age. It's adorable." Offering this much and then he finishes with the second foot and settles himself back a bit. Only then does he bring his whiskey to himself for a drink and then looks between the two pints. "Pick a flavor...I'll have the other."

Sinister has posed:
"Ice-cream is for sharing," Sin replies, profundity abounding. So serious, he sounds! "Leastwise, it always used to be. I sometimes want to remember a simpler time -- when it was an absolute treat and you couldn't just go to the grocery store down the street and buy enough to put ANYone into a diabetic crisis."

His toes curl, uncurl and flex pronate, then he groans softly to himself and swings his legs off lap, sitting upright. The strawberry is floated back to the fridge, the dutch chocolate and two spoons are brought forth, along with his cigarette, which has about half of it still smokeable. He lights a fresh two, from the one previously done and holds the second to Lucifer.

"I'm a cantankerous old fart, that should've died a hundred odd years ago. But I've made a study of studying the zeitgeist, sometimes with better effect than others. The noughties left me floundering, I never did find the spirit of that decade..." a wry snort follows and he looks warm upon the lord of Hell.

"One day, I shall manage to distill that power you have, to be a part of a world you've watched for so very long, Lucifer. I will covet it. And give the devil his absolute due, when I do."

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer watches as the strawberry flavor is floated back to the kitchen and into the freezer. The chocolate stays, with two spoons, and two people cuddled together to enjoy it. Lucifer smiles. The cigarette which is lit is taken and he smiles at the whole moment as it is.

"Yeah but you're my cantankerous old fart that didn't die, which makes me a lucky Devil."

That last bit has Lucifer giving a chuckle. "If you really want to harness that power, you're more than welcome to try, but I rather like you in all your moments of both socialite and introverted. The latter gives me a reason to pause and spend time with myself and you...alone...which I know I can be stupid in not doing such things..." Then music starts to play, something soft and likely classical. A favored of both his and Nathaniel's. The blanket is shifted to cover both of them and the remainder of the night is spent smoking, eating ice cream and just -existing- with each other.