Untitled

"Oh um but how does the fake person pick who the winner is? I don't think I get it still." Gibson sat down at the table none the less watching as the cards were distributed. "Um no I can't speak them all. Just read most of them. I think I was born somewhere in France. And you still speak 3 languages so that's super impressive. I can't speak Korean at all so even broken is impressive."

"That's fucked up," he finally managed. "So do you feel indebted to the vampires? Or is it more like, out of the fire and into the frying pan?"

"I had a pretty good life up until now. I was being trained by one of my superiors to sort of... blend in with humans. Just watching them, it wasn't really clicking. My mentor asked me one day to investigate Krovos Castle, because he thought I'd be good at it. And one of the vampires tricked me into a contract." He gave a bitter laugh at the memory. "I thought I was getting a job as a goddamn bartender. But instead, they locked me up down here. And I've been here ever since."

Aster was still certain that he'd die before he ever got free. And he just might. This life was aging him beyond his years. He felt so much older than his 100. He used to be like Gibson. Young and stupid and full of sunshine. But something in him had been eclipsed as soon as he was shackled. One of these days he might just bite off his own leg to get out.

"If we're talking reading, you still have me beat. I can barely read English." Aster snorted. "No, the fake person won't be judge. We can just pick out a card for them."

"I'm not exactly the most friendly of people. Hi. Aster." Aster shook the bottle of booze. "You want some, or not?"

Aster took another shot, feeling himself numb just enough to calm his nerves. "So. What kind of doctor are you?"

"Oh I don't know how to play Cards against Humanity. But I like humanity why are we playing cards against them?" he asked with a tilt of his head, taking the name more literally than he should. "It is nice to meet you Aster." going to the shelving that held the games he began to look through the boxes. "Oh huh? I mean I can read and write in Latin but I don't remember learning Latin. Mostly like bad French I think? Some German. The place I was before here didn't have a lot of English books till the last few years." he said with a little shrug. "A nice person taught me to read. Actually funny story their whole family was really nice to me. Before them it was their father, and before them their father. They gave me books to read and told me about the world."

Aster found the sleek black packet of cards.

"It's this game where you have question cards and answer cards, and whoever is asking the question picks their favorite. But we'll probably have to play with a fake third person since you need at least three people." He took the cards and separated them into sections, dealing five to each boy and the imaginary third player. "You know a lot of languages, shit. I think I can speak latin too. But I can only speak really broken Korean."

"Well, Don Julio is a tequila for non drinkers. Just try a shot. Maybe not more than one if you don't usually drink. But this shit is good, I promise." He offered the boy the bottle. Searched his face for one bleary minute. If he knew this person, he couldn't remember them. But he didn't think they were a slave. They had a certain... freedom about them that slaves lacked. There was light in his eyes still. "I don't think I've seen you around here before. Where do you work?"

“Hey, I don’t blame you,” the shifter replied. “But you know you can’t have that shit down here. Who gave you that stuff?”

He gave the bottle an inviting shake. It was halfway gone now, and he wasn't terribly buzzed. But if he got to bully some high and mighty guard, it'd make his day. He took another shot, feeling it spread down his chest to warm his fingers. "You need to lighten up. What's your name?"

He was delighted when the other told him he would play a game with him. "Ok! What do you want to play? I can play most board games except Monopoly, it's diametrically opposed to who I am as a being."

"Monopoly is an ass game. Let's play something fun, like Cards Against Humanity." It wasn't strictly a board game, but it was a lot more fun than any board game he'd ever played. If anything down here could be considered fun and not just distractions and wastes of time. He didn't know what he'd rather be doing, but pretty much anything beat what he was doing now. "Hi, Gibson. I'm Asterios. You can call me Aster."

He motioned for Gibson to follow him as he went hunting through the room for board games. But something Gibson had said stuck in his mind, and he found himself growing curious. "What did you mean, you just learned to read English? What did you read before?"

As far as keeping a low profile went, deciding to essentially infiltrate the town’s police department entirely for his own gain likely wasn’t the best course of action to take, but Abbàn had never been the type to do anything in half measures – being one of the first voices to call for a declaration of war against the vampires all those centuries ago was likely a prime example of such a fact. His impromptu meeting with Tiernan had been informative to a degree, though the cons seemed to outweigh the pros if the councilman’s reactions to his prying were anything to go by. Still, any consequences of such an action could be worried about at a later date.

Nursing the vodka soda he’d ordered without wholly meaning to – there’d been a brief scan of the drinks menu and a flippant wave of his hand alongside the request to ‘just make something’ – the former general curiously scanned his gaze around the game room from his seat at the bar. The castle’s layout was still vaguely familiar from his time spent occupying the residence when it was still under Fae occupancy as a fortress during the war effort but the atmosphere within it nowadays was irrevocably tainted. Lingering within it wasn’t the smartest move; even with Faust’s magic still doing a wonderful job of keeping his true identity safely hidden from perception, skulking around the enemy’s domain as brazenly as he was would undoubtedly become an issue sooner or later. It took Abbàn a moment to register the unmistakable feeling of being watched as he shifted in his seat. “Is there something I can help you with?” He made no attempt to face the stranger in question, a lazy smile spreading across his face as he readjusted his uniform to look at least a little professional despite the shirking of his duties. “The whole staring from a distance thing isn’t particularly subtle.”

The kitchen staff was currently in chaos because one of its servers had called in sick. Asterios had the bad luck to be taking a smoke break around the back door to the kitchen when a manager demanded that he go take their place. As if he knew how to wait tables. But the manager didn't seem to care, shoving a pen and paper into his hands and tossing him into the chaos of the restaurant floor.

Despite the amount of people sitting down, nobody seemed to need anything. Without anything to do, Asterios slunk into a corner so he could watch the chaos of the dining room unfold. Already, he was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of conversation going on. He found it difficult to focus. He wondered vaguely if it'd be worth the punishment if he were to just leave: he truly wasn't doing anyone any good by being here.

As it turned out, leaving would've been the right answer. He'd been staring in the direction of some guy for perhaps too long, and made the guest uncomfortable. He could barely hear the complaint, but his disapproving face was one that Asterios was intimately familiar with.

"Pardon me, sir. I didn't mean to stare." He faked with his fakest polite voice. Suits loved that voice. He hoped it'd cover up his having no clue what he was doing. "Do you need anything? A refill, perhaps?"

Gibson stretched his legs as he stood on his tip toes, walking forward in a straight line, his arms outstretched like a tight rope walker. Not that he had ever been to a circus, but his last foray into a master's chambers they let him watch television and he had seen a movie about it. The celestial always dreamed of heights, and being up on a rope like that seemed thrilling- though it's not like he'd worry about falling. Normally anyway, because in this instance he did fall as his rather mundane sense of gravity made him trip over his own feet, tumbling down onto his ass staring up at the ceiling.

He'd been trying not to laugh as he watched the stranger pose and take entirely too delicate steps for his large size. He felt safe enough in the presence of another slave. Safe enough in the Undercroft. So he didn't waste time with hostility, or his usual bite. Besides, this person had just made a fool of themselves, and it'd be silly for him to be mean to them for that. There was very little to find joy in these days.

"Sure, man. What do you want to play?" Asterios asked.