singillatim | Hot Potato (party log)

Who: Chloe Frazer & any and all party people!!
What: Harvest Celebrations/Halloween Party/Ruby’s Birthday/Rat Marriage/Big Communal Cooking Party so Chloe doesn't burn down her house
When: October 12
Where: At Chloe’s house on Greene Street

Content Warnings: Food descriptions, probably.
Other Notes: Feel free to make this a mingle and reply to other characters!

Chloe had wondered whether to go through with the harvest party once Lalo had disappeared, but as they say, the show must go on. There's still a lot worth celebrating, and people need something hopeful after the mess last month. Luckily her house had made it through everything all right.

The poster had said to wear a costume, so she's hoping to see a lot of those, and she’d recruited some people to help her put together the menu exactly to Lalo’s specifications, so unfortunately no one is safe from British Potatoes. There are even candles for the birthday cake.

Chloe herself is dressed as a sexy lumberjack, with one of Lalo’s old flannels tied in a knot under her breasts and denim cutoffs made from the jeans Kostya had gotten blood on (shh). She's got a fire roaring, because otherwise she’d freeze.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He slowly breathes out. "It's not that simple where I come from."

Or rather, it is, in ways. But it's certainly easier to just live together without marrying when you have the luxury to do so in the first place. When you're heterosexual and the world won't think too much of it, for one. Or maybe when you aren't quite as aware of the pressure of society as Billy is.

He doesn't want to think about it for too long though. For obvious reasons. It's not exactly a fun thing for Billy to think about.

Maybe that's why he stares at Levi for a moment before he asks: "Why have you never cared about marriage?"

It doesn't seem strange to Billy, since he's asking it pretty calmly, but he can't help but be curious. There are plenty of reasons to not really care, but what is Levi's own among that myriad of reasons? The other is speaking about all of this so casually that Billy can't imagine Levi would mind sharing the answer, which in turn makes him ask about it rather easily. No need to overthink it then.

That immunity of societal pressure might just be it. Who cares what anyone else thinks? So long as they don't have the means to weaponize them, those people can shove their opinions up their asses.

Levi stares back, his expression shifting into a slight frown as he changes his posture a little, as if he were getting stiff limbs for staying still this long. It's not the most comfortable of topics, but also not something he actively avoids.

"Dunno," he says, a bit slowly, as if he's still thinking about it as he speaks. "Didn't feel the need to, I guess. People like me don't usually marry."

There's plenty of guesses for what exactly people like him might be. Gay? Poor? Disinterested? Criminal? Could be any or all of those, and it wouldn't make it wrong. Not a lot of marriage in the Underground, and he'd spent nearly all of his time topside at the military, concerned about bigger problems, like saving humanity.

Yeah, that's a very strange thing to say without further context - unless it's just that Levi doesn't want to talk about it, of course. It's what Billy assumes, because why else would he not elaborate on what people like him are supposed to be?

(And let's be real - being gay in a world where you were very much not allowed to be has given Billy all reason to believe it's not just something you can casually mention.)

"That is what I also thought," he mentions.

Sure, he doesn't know if Levi is gay or if this something else.. Who knows..

"Until I found out things were much more easy in this place." A pause, and then he adds, realizing: "Though that would still mean needing to have someone in this place you were interested in."

And not everyone is as 'lucky' as Billy in that department, that's for sure.

He's free to make whatever assumption he wants. Levi doesn't find any of them offensive, and it's basically the truth anyways, though if someone explained it to him he'd probably say he's not anything. There had been times when he'd felt a spark of something for a select few, but with the neverending fighting for survival or for humanity, he has never been in a position to do anything about it.

He makes a vague noise of agreement. "Probably ought to start with that, yeah," he confirms. "Looks like it worked out for you, though. Here."

He still doesn't say congratulations, but he does shove a gift at Billy's chest -- a nice linen bag of dried herbal "tea" he's scavenged from the local plants during the warmer months, after careful reading of flora identification books from the library. It tastes quite close to black tea, in his opinion, though obviously the decency bar is much lower here.

".. thank you," Billy slowly says, after having the gift shoved against him and moving to take it from the other. It is actually quite a nice gift, given that Billy does love drinking tea - look, he is English! He's very English! - and that it can be rare to find some of the nicer stuff in a place like this, considering their limited supply.

But even if the gift hadn't been nice, he still would have reacted the same way, really. Kind of surprised. Half-dazed. Like he isn't entirely sure how to deal with it, especially when going beyond the regular police niceties of just saying 'thank you.'

"Miss Frazer would have let you come here even without a gift, I'm sure." He seems to settle on after a moment, like he's figuring Levi probably brought this with him out of obligation. Why else would anyone do that, right. Unless they knew that Chloe had a wild side and will not hesitate to kick people out of the party.

Perhaps they should organize a tea afternoon at some point. Tea and British Potatoes for everyone. That would probably be an even bigger hit than this party!

"Maybe," Levi agrees with a slight shrug. "But it's not every day that you get hitched. Shit, I always thought gifts are half the reason people do it."

"Cornelius was the one who proposed to me first."

.. maybe proposed is a big word. More like just thrust a stolen ring in Billy's direction, half-intended as a bribe.

But some people's love language is just weird. Including Hickey and Billy's.

"Perhaps you should ask him if he is just in it for the gifts." It doesn't sound like that's exactly an upsetting idea to Billy - he sounds pretty calm about it, as per the usual.

Levi quirks an eyebrow at first, unsure whether that's supposed to make the proposal fake or something.

"It's none of my business," he answers simply, then considers for a moment.

"And wedding gifts say nothing about why he's in it." He means, of course, the relationship. Whether or not a marriage ceremony has other reasons, marriage isn't usually the reason two people get together in the first place. It's supposed to be encouraging, but who knows if Billy will pick up on that intended message.

Hot Potato (party log)

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