clockbox | It's a Party!! New Years Eve at the Warehouse, hosted by Thea Queen

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It's a Party!! New Years Eve at the Warehouse, hosted by Thea Queen

WHO: Everyone is welcome, it's an open party
WHAT: Come and celebrate the New Year
WHEN: Evening, December 31st
WHERE: The Warehouse club
WARNINGS: Drunken debauchery and midnight kisses

She'd simply planned on moving some of the drinks around. Since she couldn't just magic things around as she pleased, she had to use actual muscle to move things so that when she wanted to stop playing bartender and start having fun, there could still be an open bar. Given the number of people, she had to make sure she had plenty of shot and other types of glasses and the alcohol to go with them. More than that, she had to make sure she had the champagne for the end of the night.

When she got there to start planning where she was going to put things, though, she found a few boxes that definitely hadn't been there the last time she'd been in. Clearly something was interested in celebrating the end of the year because inside were various types of hats labeled in any number of years (and some she couldn't recognize as being years in the Western calendar) as well as a box or two of sparklers and noisemakers. That was when she put out the call for help. She'd planned on moving the drinks by herself, at least some of them, but she couldn't do that and spread out the sparklers and noisemakers and offer people hats when they arrived.

She half-expected something to happen. Some disaster to creep up and destroy the holiday and, oddly enough, the feeling didn't have anything to do with this place at all and everything to do with the holidays in general. But as the hour she was going to start the party arrived, nothing happened. And then people were arriving and she breathed a sigh of relief.

The theme of the club was a little more retro than Verdant had been with a hodgepodge of wood and stone and brick topped by honest-to-god disco balls on the ceiling. But it was the music that turned it from some kind of terrible amalgam of decades worth of clubs into an actual modern dance club. It held the steady thrum that was guaranteed to get under your skin.

In boxes near the entrance and spread out among the various booths and along the bar were the accoutrements that she'd found last night. Otherwise the club was pretty much dressed as it was. She could, after all, only do so much with what she had available.

But her watch was set to two minutes to midnight, well in advance in case either the Clock or someone inside had decided that fireworks were necessary. Otherwise, they'd have the countdown inside and she'd celebrate her first new year within this half-paradise, half-limbo.

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Bartending
It was kind of nice to be behind the bar again, especially knowing that she'd been the one to set this whole event up. Actually, it was nice to be doing something again, anything. Talking with Anduin yesterday had made her realize just what kind of a problem people had here: lots of things to do but little that actually made any difference. She doubted that she’d be able to throw raves every night, so she’d have to figure out something else. Get people together. Get into a routine.

But that would be a task for another day because tonight she had something to keep her occupied and not feeling the malaise of boredom that she’d likely feel in a few days. She finished the drink she was working on, handed it to the person who’d asked for it, and then turned to the next person.

“What can I get you?” There was a real smile on her face. Whatever this cross-eyed blessing of a place threw at her next, at least it couldn’t take this feeling away.

Nearing midnight
Eventually, it was her turn to reap the rewards of the preparations she’d made. Anyone who wanted a drink would have to either grab one of the beers or other drinks she’d put on ice or go behind the bar and get something themselves. She didn’t feel like dancing at the moment, but she mingled and waved at the people she recognized and occasionally checked her watch. She also checked the doors. She was pretty sure she knew a way to the beach, but with the way things went around here, she wanted to make sure that the route didn’t change.

The only thing that left her with a pang is the thought that she didn’t have anyone for her midnight kiss. She wasn’t quite sure she was ready for a relationship, but she was definitely ready for a kiss.

Still, unless she found someone in the next...twenty minutes, there wasn’t a good chance that she was going to get that kiss. Well, it didn’t matter. Maybe by next Christmas. Or when she went home and then Christmas would only be another six months away.

As promised, Blas had gathered up a whole lot of fireworks, making sure they'd be impressive: colorful, loud, ones that made shapes and spirals or burst into other fireworks. He'd set them up on the black sand beach, but also packed quite a few haphazardly into a bag over his shoulder just in case for some reason this place prevented him from opening a door onto the beach.

So now a walking firehazard was wandering around the interior of the club, staring at the shiny disco balls as if he'd never seen one before. Because he hadn't. It was so sparkly. Nearly unable to take his eyes off it, he wondered if anyone would notice if he stole the thing after the party had ended.

He clearly is not dressed to celebrate New Year's because he has no idea what that means. Wearing black cargo pants stuffed with tools, gunpowder and who knows what else, and an army green shirt about 3 sizes too big for his emaciated frame. Approaching the bar he wrinkles his nose at the smell of alcohol, still smelling like gasoline to him.

"What is it?"

"What's...that?" she asked, pointing to the ceiling at what he was looking at. "It's a disco ball. It uses mirrors and spins around to reflect the light around the room." She was pretty sure she saw a wick hanging out of the bag he was carrying, so this must be the man who's promised her fireworks. Though man might have been an overstatement. He seemed little more than skin and bones, was minus an arm, and his complexion was...well, not normal.

If it'd been a few years ago, he would have terrified her. He still unnerved her a bit, but not enough to forget to be polite, especially when he was doing her a favor.

"You're the one helping with the fireworks, right?" She held out a hand, making sure it wasn't for the one that seemed to be missing. "I'm Thea. Thea Queen. Thanks a lot for putting the show together."

Blas was blisfully unaware that being a one-armed demolitions expert wasn't going to instill much confidence in people about his abilities. He hadn't lost the arm in an explosion, but that was the obvious conclusion to draw just from who he was and what he did.

"Sure am. Name's Blas Cap." He nodded to the pack on his back. "These are just a few extra, case this place decides to muck with what I already set up on the beach."

Shaking her hand, he was glad that enough people had done that to him that it wasn't even a strange gesture anymore. He was learning. Also good that he hadn't painted himself in years or she would have been getting a palm full of yellow clay mixed with sulfur, the source of his stained skin.

"I can set 'em off whenever you'd like. Though I'm told there's something special about midnight?"

Blas Cap? Who named their kid that. Though it probably wasn't the guy's parents, which meant he'd named himself that, so she supposed that the real question was who nicknamed themselves that. Someone with an affinity for explosions, she supposed, since she'd been so readily offered his services. It wasn't exactly a name that rolled off the tongue, though she couldn't really complain. Neither did Green Arrow and that was what her brother called himself.

"Midnight, celebrating the new year," she explained. "We all come from different times and places, but it's the new year here, so I suppose that's what counts."

She had to think about the whys. She'd always seen late night ball drop from New York or been out at some party and she'd never stopped to wonder why they were celebrating.

"Fresh start, maybe? A new year represents new things. Moving forward."

Coming from a place where they didn't accumulate days into weeks or months, let alone years, he barely understood this whole new years thing. But if he got to set off fireworks then it was all good with him.

"I'm all for a celebration that hails fresh starts with minor sparkly explosions." He tilts his head to think about it. "Symbolically destroying the past to start the future? Not a bad idea. How do you decide when it happens? A certain number of days? Or is it something else?"

His eyes kept being drawn back to that disco ball. He was definitely going to steal that thing later. Maybe after the fireworks when everyone was distracted or going home. Time to figure out how he was going to climb up there one handed and then unhook it without dropping it and smashing it into a million pieces.

"Only downside is that now people have a reminder of how long they've been here."

Her eyes followed his and she hid a smile. Well, it wasn't hard to see what he would want if she ever decided she was getting him a Christmas present. It seemed he liked the shiny. There were a lot of shiny things she could come up with. Of course, finding things in this place was somewhat haphazard, so she'd have to be on the lookout. If she ever thought she wanted to get him a present.

"I don't know. I'm in this weird place where sometimes I like being here and sometimes I'm completely bored. It really depends on my mood."

She looked around. "Right now, I like being here."

It'd been a while since she'd felt a sense of accomplishment.

"This place is great! Food, shelter, clothing, anything you want whenever you want it. Wish I could bring in people from back home." He smirked, "Don't think anyone is gonna believe me when I describe some of the food they got here."

Also so many people in one place, and none of them were fighting or killing each other. It was all a little strange, but he definitely liked it.

"Bored? This place a lot like where you come from?"

"And being locked in random rooms, headaches when you don't basically hug other people, showing up and having all the food be raw." Of course, maybe that last one was more her problem since she didn't cook. "Sometimes I'm worried about what this place'll bring next."

And then there was that whole 'being here before' thing, but luckily that had only come up once. So far.

"It's...not a lot like where I was. More so than I'd like to admit." Weird was definitely on the table back home. Just not this sort of weird.

"Raw food is still food. And being locked in rooms wasn't so bad. Least I didn't think so." He shrugged, being locked in a room full of blankets, ice cream and old VHS tapes was kind of a nice vacation for him.

"That's good though, most people got all kinds of great tech where they come from. I feel really far behind." He picks up one of the beer glasses on the bar, rolling it on the counter before holding it up to his eye and looking through it. "Though haven't met anyone who could just think about something and have it appear like it does here."

"Raw ground beef isn't food. It's a food-like substance that's just waiting to give you a stomach ache. At least if you don't know how to cook it yourself." There was a bit of a mournful expression on her face. It'd be nice to know how to cook for herself if she were going to stay here. If the place were going to pull the same stunt.

"Uh, yeah. That trick is pretty interesting. Even if it doesn't always work the way you expect it to."

"Put it in fire til it't not red no more." Said Blas Cap the problem solver and eater of garbage with a stomach made of steel.

"I guess gettin' the raw parts of things isn't so great, dunno why it broke like that. Seems to be fixed now. In any case, nothing that's happened here has been so bad to make me want to leave. Or even think about it much."

"Because this place is weird." Which really wasn't any more of an answer than 'I don't know'. But she didn't have an answer, either. The only way she could describe it was 'magic' and she wasn't exactly comfortable in that field. Maybe if her brother were here. Or his friend John.

But she did grin at him. "Since when is chicken red?"

He grins back, "Got me there. Having food you gotta cook is new for me. Where I come from everything comes outta cans, you can just eat it like that. But all this is loads better."

Reaching into his pouch he dunks a few sparklers into a nearby glass. "I should probably go make sure the fireworks are all good to go. Ain't a party without a shower of sparks."

Thea had grown a lot in the four years since her brother had come back, but she still wrinkled her nose at the idea of eating out of cans. She'd never been put in that position. Maybe when she'd been out on Lian Yu, but she hadn't been there long enough. Even in Corto Maltese, she'd had good cooking from the restaurants in the area.

The wrinkle only stayed a fraction of a second and then she smiled widely. "Thanks. I'd appreciate that. I can't wait to see the show."

"A bourbon, if you wouldn't mind."

Tyler slides right onto a barstool, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table as he observes Thea. It had been pretty fun to set up and get everything squared away in the afternoon: he got to meet a new friend and feel like he was doing something productive.

(Even if it would end in a boozeladen fest, at least it was something different.)

He'd returned to his apartment and changed too, into a fitted black blazer, gray t-shirt, and dark blue jeans - something a little dressier than normal, but not quite so fancy that he'd feel overdressed. He might've showered too; he smells more like cologne and less like the boxes he'd been lugging around.

"But seriously, when're you taking a break?"

"You old enough to drink?" she teased before turning around to grab one of the bottles. She'd judged his age when she first saw him to be about her own give or take a year. It'd actually been a bit surprising because most of the people she'd met had been closer to her brother's age or older.

But, as she'd predicted, he was definite armcandy material.

Especially once he'd cleaned himself up.

She poured him his drink and offered it to him. "Why, have something in mind?"

“Turned legal in February,” he promises, with a twinkle in his eye that suggests that he's skirted the law a lot longer. “Or I'm turning legal in February. Details.”

He doesn't take a sip, though; he's far more interested in befriending Thea, considering there is a sad dearth of people their age. Caroline would especially love her, he thinks. Maybe they should get a group together, as some support group kind of deal. Him, Thea, Caroline, maybe Anduin or Sam? He can count everyone on one hand, and he really wishes that he can't.

“I was just thinking you should have a little fun. You worked way too hard to not enjoy it.”

So it seemed like the conversation they'd had over the phone was just a teaser of what was to come and not a fluke. She found herself smiling and leaning a little closer over the bar. "You say that like working at the bar and chatting up near strangers isn't fun." Little did he know that it was probably the most fun she'd had since she'd first gotten here.

"But I'm game. What did you have in mind?"

She knew where this was going and she was absolutely interested. But she wanted him to ask first.

"Oh, it's loads of fun. You get their entire life story over what, two glasses of booze? Maybe even one if they're a total lightweight."

Tyler might've also had a wee bit of experience with the bartending gig. Not enough to say for sure, but enough to witness people spilling out their entire life experiences and then some. (Worse: he's seen his parents do the same at fancy parties.)

"Mm, maybe a dance or two, if you think you could afford a break."

"Maybe we should wait around until you've had that second drink." Okay, maybe she was a little curious about a guy who didn't dance at clubs but knew how to take her into a proper waltz.

"Although I think you have it a little wrong. You're talking about bartenders in dive bars. The one where people come in to drink their troubles away. Have you ever actually seen the bar at a successful club? I'm not talking here, where the population of the entire place doesn't seem to be more than fifty people. I'm talking about a proper city club, where there are hundreds of people in and out in a night if not more. People looking to get a drink are lucky if they can get a word in edgewise let alone trying to share their life story."

She glanced around at the near-empty bar. "I think I can manage that."

"Ah, see, you lost me at city. My hometown had six-thousand something people. You were lucky if the bartender wasn't your babysitter. Also equally lucky if you had someone to join you at said bar."

He laughs, allowing himself a sip of that bourbon. Thea had struck him as a city girl from the moment he had first laid eyes on her - she had the confidence and posture of someone who had been in the middle of that urban jungle. Tyler wouldn't know it yet. He had yet to move to New York City, or anything beyond Mystic Fall's borders. Even his college was tucked in the middle of nowhere.

"Good! But before we go, let's finish this - where'd you call home? Before the Clock pulled you in?"

"Makes it kind of hard to sneak into a bar, doesn't it? It's not exactly like you can flash a fake ID for someone who used to read you bedtime stories. I don't know how you managed it in the first place." Probably the culture. She could imagine - read, had watched movies about - a party in the woods somewhere with a keg or two of beer. She'd had something similar if you exchanged the woods for a parent-free townhouse and a keg for said parents' liquor cabinet.

"Star City. Starling City before it got its rebranding a year ago. Some bigwig who happened to be my brother's ex's ex was this big CEO and had this plan for making Starling City a place to be again." She shook her head. Their city ended up being a neverending spot for all the crazies to come to, including her father.

At least here he was definitively out of her life.

"What about you? What's a place that has fewer people than my high school called?"

"Best friend became the bartender," Tyler says offhandedly, like that explains everything. The truth is a little murkier - and a little dubious - but the logic's the same.

He takes a sip as he listens, though he furrows his brow a little at the name. "I don't think I've heard of it." That's bad, right? Tyler knows most major US cities. Star - or Starling - City wasn't one of them. "Oh, um, I'm from a place called Mystic Falls. It's about an hour from Richmond?"

Or an hour and a half. Point is, it's far from urban jungles.

Thea made a face. "I think there's some kind of other-universe thing going on here. Or..." She sighed. "Or I don't know. I know there are people here who are dead. And there are people who say that I've been here before. Believe me, I wish I remembered that. But I don't."

Which meant there was either a chunk of her life that she didn't remember or else she'd never lived it in the first place and it was some other Thea who'd been here and then vanished. Either way, the whole thing made her nervous and she didn't like to think about it too much.

"But if it helps, I know Richmond. At least if we're talking about the one in Virginia."

People who're dead - his heart almost stops, because he thinks of Cami, and if Cami's not the only dead person, does this effectively mean the Clock is an afterlife? For those who couldn't move onto the Other Side?? Tyler takes another sip to stall for time.

"I think so too," he says, letting confusion color his voice. "It can't be anything normal, at least."

He brightens, though, at the mention of his home state. "The one and only. Thank God. I know some people're from other worlds, but usually? If they're from Earth, it's hard to tell what they'd know and what they wouldn't."

She swore that she saw his face pale and she understood. The idea of people who weren't dead being around was a little disturbing both in the good and the bad way. Especially if you'd never seen anyone come back in other ways. She let it pass.

"I don't really have a lot of experience with it. Other..." How to put it? "Unusual phenomena, sure. But not other realities. That's a different group of friends."

She wasn't sure what Barry and his crowd got up to and she wasn't sure she wanted to try to piece it together.

"It still exists where you're from."

Which is way more than what Tyler can say. He'll take another sip, just to stall for time.

"See, where I'm from, things like parallel universes and time travel and I don't know, pocket dimensions? That's strictly science-fiction stuff. Not... the stuff I live and breathe."

"Yeah, it was strictly science fiction stuff where I was from." She gave him a pointed look. "Until it wasn't." It wasn't like she'd grown up believing in magic or superheroes or people who could travel in time, but look at her life the way it was now. She'd literally helped someone come back to the dead. The person being the one she'd killed didn't have anything to do with it.

She shot him a curious look. "The kind you live and breathe? Country life?"

Until it wasn't, yeah. That summed up their entire shared existence in the Clock, where mandated sleepovers and cuddle cures were another Tuesday.

He deliberates on telling her, because it's not as if he has any powers running through his veins, but - heck, why not.

"Uh, no. The supernatural life. Witches, werewolves, vampires, the whole nine yards."

"Oh." She had to think about it for the moment and then shrugged. "Okay."

Since she'd noticed his hesitation, she smiled at him. "Really, it doesn't sound much different than back home. I mean, have I ever heard of vampires or werewolves back there? No. But considering some of the things I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if they existed." There was a moment of consideration and then she added, "Well, okay. I'd still be surprised, but not shocked, you know?"

There was a question in her eyes. Was he one of the above? But it was kind of a rude question, especially when she wasn't sure she'd want to answer similar questions about herself. Her world? Sure. She'd talk about superheroes and people coming back from the dead, but she wouldn't mention names or that she'd been one of the ones who'd come back from...well, from certain death if not actual death itself.

Thank God. Tyler was used to disbelief, and people reacting as if their whole worlds had ended. Then again, after living in the Clock for a few months, everything felt possible. Tyler's world had opened up to way, way more than he could've ever dreamed about.

"I get that," he says, smiling as he takes another sip. "I'm not uh - I'm not one of those, but when you live in a town called Mystic Falls, most of the neighbors end up having powers."

(And his girlfriend, though Tyler doesn't mention that out loud. Caroline's secret is hers to tell.)

"You know, you're kind of lucky. Three years ago, I might not have believed you. I mean, we had the Hood as the city vigilante, but it wasn't like he had powers or anything. He was just this guy with a bow. But now, with the things I've seen?" She shrugged. "I find it hard to completely disbelieve anything."

There still wasn't any judgment in her expression. If he'd had powers, it wouldn't have bothered her. In fact, it might have been a little cool. Look at what Barry could do.

"But I guess you must be pretty used to the unusual?"

"See, the fact that you can say vigilante with a straight face is impressive. We don't have those yet."

Or ever, he secretly hopes. Vampires and werewolves and witches (oh my!) are more than enough to keep a guy busy. Tyler may not have his powers, but he sure isn't in a rush to re-acquire them anytime soon.

"Unfortunately. It comes knocking on my door like, once a week, so I know a thing or two about taking a vampire down."

"You don't have those that you know of," she replied. She was pretty sure that the country as a whole didn't really care about what happened in Star City, although the Flash might have been something they'd taken interest in. People with powers was definitely something that'd be noteworthy, but people like her brother? There might be vigilantes in his world and he'd never even know it.

"I've never had to deal with those. Wooden stake through the chest, I'm guessing?" She wondered if a sharpened bokken would work. The practice swords she'd trained with weren't really harmful in their own right unless you bashed someone over the head with one, but for vampires? They might just work.

"I'm guessing they're less the soulful kind than the people-eating kind?"

"Usually, though I prefer spontaneous combustion. Harder for them to dodge."

He's half-kidding. A sharpened stake (or hell, a sharpened pencil if someone wanted to be inconspicuous) worked well enough nine times out of ten. Tyler's forever grateful that this isn't his world anymore. He has a normal existence, and he's going to embrace that as long as he can.

"It depends. They're like humans: some are the nice, eating-animals kind, while others are the deranged, gotta-eat-em-all type. I hated the latter more than the former."

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It's a Party!! New Years Eve at the Warehouse, hosted by Thea Queen

Thea Queen | OTA

Bartending!

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slides in super late

Totally fine.

❤️

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