TDM - OCTOBER 2020

[robbies]

TEST DRIVE MEME - OCTOBER 2020

Everyone's entitled to one good scare.
CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors

---

“Help me. Please, help me…”

A child’s voice, calling out for aid. There’s no rhyme or reason for when it comes to you. It’s so quiet, a whisper in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Were it not for the sharp, stabbing pain it pulls out of you, you could ignore it. You could even pretend it’s just your imagination.

It all happens so quickly and powerfully. Left in the dust, your brain struggles to process it all. Blacking out is the least it can do, but it’s also all it can do, and it does so before you even have a chance to fully register just how young the voice is, and how deeply, heartbreakingly lost it sounds.

When you finally awaken with your bare feet tangled in soft sheets, a layer of fuzzy fleece or slinky silk clinging to your body like another layer of skin, the sunlight pouring in from the window next to your bed momentarily blinding you, and the cries of happy children playing baseball outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—

Something is horribly wrong.

---

OCTOBER 1st.

It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping. If you’re twenty years old or older, the bedroom you wake up in is very clearly a couple’s bedroom — with separate beds like a modest, modern couple of course! A similarly lost and confused stranger is in the other. They are your counterpart, for everything in this room has a matching counterpart — the nightstand and lamp each of you have beside your beds, the framed pictures on the wall, even your pajamas. If you’re under twenty years old, your room is smaller but more personalized, filled with comic books, model kits, stray baseball cards littered around the floor. Dolls, fashion magazines of people dressed from a bygone era, stacks of vinyl records neatly arranged next to a record player. And then there are the pictures. They’re everywhere in the house — in a frame on your nightstand, hung on the walls, stuck in the photo albums and scrapbooks lying on your desk or tucked away in drawers. Here you are on your wedding day, exchanging vows with your partner. Here’s you sitting in a fishing boat with one of the younger members of your house. Here’s a picture of you at ten years old getting ready for the first day of school. All of the photographs are aged, sepia, even yellowed and dusty in frames hung for a long, long time. By the time you make it down to the living room, you’ll notice that the television is on; someone must have forgotten to turn it off before they went to bed. On it, a cartoon pack of cigarettes and accompanying cigarette dancers prance around a black and white pumpkin patch, joined by dancing skeletons, ghosts and witches as a cheerful little earworm blares: ”Thirty days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, thirty days til Halloween—“

---

GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBORS.

As you get acclimated, you gradually begin to learn more about this strange new world you’ve found yourself in. You’re in a neighborhood on the east side of a town called Santa Rosita located… somewhere in California (wherever or whatever that might be). The year is 1961. If it wasn’t clear enough, your neighbors are more than willing to humor you if you ask. Even if you accost them with questions and demands. Sure, you and your family are a little kooky, and you have a very overactive imagination, but the key to any good joke is playing along! And how could something like “I’m from the future, from another world” be anything but a joke? A. AUNT MYRNA'S PARTY CHEESE SALAD. Over the course of the week, your neighbors will come by unannounced, each with a new homecooked meal to welcome you to their cozy little side of town. Meatloaf, potato salad, lamb chops. Gelatin molds — lots of gelatin molds. Someone even comes by to drop off a gelatinous yellow lump of pineapple, green peppers, celery and yellow cheese swimming in a soupy mixture of sour and whipped cream. “It’s my aunt Myrna’s recipe!” they gush once they drop the casserole tin into your hands, proceeding to rattle off every ingredient. Well, at least you won’t be starving anytime soon. When you bring it back in to your kitchen - and its cheery wallpaper and its floral patterned Pyrex dishware, you and your new...family(?) all stare at the cheese salad, the gelatin, the curiously frosted meatloaf spread. A smorgasbord courtesy of the insistent generosity! Who will take the first bite?

B. DON'T BE A SQUARE!

You can only avoid the cheer and the neighbors for so long, even as you sit inside enjoying all the amenities of your new home. The television can only turn its volume up to five, after all! One bright and sunny Saturday, the weather crisp and clear, news broadcasts and reruns of The Ed Sullivan Show are drowned out by the music in the neighborhood. Eventually it’s too much to bear — you simply must put on your shoes and go discover the source of that infernal racket.

Why, it’s the block party! Haven’t you seen the invitation — with instructions — sitting in your mailbox, silly? Wear a badge so everyone on the block can know you’re new and welcome you to their extended family!

Well! Each neighbor was supposed to set up a table with snacks and drinks and entertainment on their front lawn. Carter Mayhew, one of your Robbie neighbors, has a whole ring toss obstacle course set up for boys to play with, and his wife is cheerfully and blandly instructing a group of girls on jump rope rhymes. Colorful streamers hang from every lamppost and mailbox, balloons and party favors galore. Like you, there are even a few newcomers to Santa Rosita that are caught just as unaware of this event — though others are being welcomed in by husbands and wives and children, caught in conversations about building decks and the upcoming Halloween festivities.

Before you can decide if returning home or joining the party is your choice, a plate with chips and dips and yes, more gelatin is shoved into your hands and a party hat snapped on to your head.

“The guest of honor has arrived! Come and meet your neighbors, neighbor!”

---

THROUGHOUT OCTOBER.

Life falls into a peaceful haze for the next several days. Dull, unassuming, tranquil. As the month drags on, the spirit of Halloween begins to manifest in Santa Rosita, from the pumpkins people start putting out on their doorsteps to the smiling faces of paper skeletons pressed against their windows. And then, towards the end of the month, something terrible happens. You hear it first through word of mouth, rippling through Santa Rosita like a wave, dark murmurs accompanied by sad sighs and downturned eyes. Soon, you start to read about it. Grim business, they say. A tragedy. How could something like this happen. People stop talking about it by the end of the week. Best just to forget about it. Every day, that cigarette commercial comes on. It’s impossible to escape it. And every day, the number of days in the song changes, counting down. ”Thirteen days till Halloween—” “Eight more days til Halloween—” “Three more days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween…”

---

HALLOWEEN.

CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors

October 31st. It sneaks up on you whether you like it or not. When dawn breaks on Halloween day, things are as serene as they’ve ever been as men do yard work, raking leaves as their wives bake fresh pie and cookies in the house, the spicy scent of cinnamon, apple and pumpkin wafting through the neighborhood on chilly October wind. There’s a smile on every child’s face as they skip off the school bus in the afternoon, running into their houses to get their costumes ready. As it begins to get dark, the residents of Santa Rosita start lighting their jack-o-lanterns. One by one, little balls of light flicker to life on every porch and doorstep, jagged smiles grinning in the dark. For the entire night, nobody blows the candle inside their pumpkins out. It’s a tradition, a very old one, and traditions are just another way of saying rules. And Halloween in Santa Rosita, as it turns out, lives and dies by the rules.

A. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CANDY.

Halloween isn’t just for the kids, although they certainly make up the bulk of who you’ll see out and about on the streets. Walking through Santa Rosita, your neighbors are as generous with handing out treats as they are with handing out gelatin molds and pot roasts, and they don’t discriminate. Adults are received just as warmly as children; the worst one can expect is a quirked eyebrow if they show up to a house without a costume.

Apples, packs of gum, homemade cookies. Chocolate bars, nickels, popcorn balls. Your neighbors hand out all sorts of treats, most of them homemade. The Robbies are no exception, and it’s their treats that seem a bit more high quality than most, some of the candy they hand out being obviously expensive, brand names. The good stuff. They drop each treat into your bag with those same pleasant, mild expressions and too-tight smiles you’ve grown used to in your short time here.

Eventually, as everyone winds up doing at some point in the night, you decide to start digging into your treat bag to sample some of your well-earned goods — maybe in the comfort of your home, maybe outside on the streets. And that’s when the fun begins.

Maybe you bite into metal, the razor sharp end of a blade embedded into the apple or candy bar you’ve picked out burying itself in your gums, or splitting your tongue. Maybe it’s a needle, impaling itself straight through the roof of your mouth or a cheek. Or maybe it’s nothing that obvious. Maybe the realization that something is wrong comes moments after you’ve devoured that chocolate bar or cookie, the bitter aftertaste of rat poison hitting the back of your throat along with bile and the rest of the contents of your stomach as they rise up and out of your mouth.

Or maybe you’ll bite into plain, sweet chocolate or fresh fruit. That’s also part of the surprise. You really don’t know what you’ll get until you start eating.

B. ALWAYS RESPECT THE DEAD.

At ten o’clock, all the television sets in the neighborhood turn on, blaring to life right in the middle of that omnipresent cigarette commercial. The volume begins to rise of its own accord as your television starts to pick up interference, bursts of static squealing amidst the rising, screaming chorus of ”HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN!”

Breaking through the static, garbled and tinny, a child’s voice cries out.

“Can’t— I can’t hold them— back— Pumpkin— don’t blow the— out—”

And just as quickly as it cut in, the voice cuts back out. Commercial jingle notwithstanding, you’re alone once more. But not for long.

The doorbell rings. You can see them outside from your window: costumed children. Their masks and clothes are grimy and ragged from the muddy, slimy water they’ve been decomposing in for over a week. When they come to your door, squelching wetly as they shamble up the porch steps, they ring the bell or knock, as all polite children do. If you don’t let them in, they’ll find their own way, always by force. And once they find you, all they can gurgle in their reedy, waterlogged voices is, ”Trick or treat.”

From there, they attack.

With superhuman strength and speed, they tear and rip at anything they can get their hands on — clothing, skin, muscle, face, eyes. Being short and small, despite their strength, they're at a distinct disadvantage. They can even be thrown off, with some effort. But they don’t stay down for long, and attempting to hurt or mortally wound them only stalls them for a few moments, if that. How can you kill something that’s already dead?

Some in the neighborhood are willing to try and find out.

The only houses they seem to ignore completely are the ones with lit jack-o-lanterns still outside. They’ll loiter outside these houses, staring straight ahead at your door or window like they can see exactly where you are. But sooner or later, they’ll pass by and move onto the next house.

As long as the candles in carved pumpkins stay lit.

---

OOC INFO

Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's first TDM! Here's a few things we'd like you to keep in mind:

The TDM is canon. You can treat this as the game's first real event and pick and choose what threads you would like your character to remember when they enter the game. For characters who app into the game, the events of the TDM will be treated like a dream. Upon awakening from it, characters will find that time has jumped ahead to December 1st. You may also feel free to use similar reality and/or time distortions to explain why the family members your characters have in the TDM aren't the same as the ones they may be assigned to in the game proper.

If you would like to have Halloween content in your relaxed housing prompts, please feel free! You are not beholden to follow our prompts exactly so long as the spirit is maintained.

There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.

Although the TDM is canon in the sense that characters are free to remember its events when they app into the game, it does not count as an official plot heavy event, meaning that characters will not receive regains from participating in it.

With regards to the dead trick-or-treaters: you may NPC them however you'd like, but keep the details we've listed in their prompt in mind. They are supernaturally fast and strong, will ignore houses as long as they have a lit pumpkin on the porch outside, and will try to enter each house the moment the candle in the pumpkin goes out. Additionally, they can't be killed, but they can be momentarily stalled by injuring them. By November 1st, 6AM, they will disappear the moment the sun comes out.

---

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Comments

archer / archer / hit me up fam

[undiagnosed]

blue skies are gonna clear up

a. [full disclosure: this is not the first time archer has woken up in a strange place with no memory of how he got there. he barely remembers the nightmare of the child calling out for help thanks to the beginnings of a painful hangover forming, which... honestly is for the best. his reaction is already poor enough without him thinking his own kid is in danger.

he doesn't stay in the bedroom long when he regains consciousness regardless of what the unfortunate person stuck in there with him does or says. he staggers downstairs, mostly ignoring anything they might say to him with any responses being non-committal grunts or irritable dismissals, searching through the cabinets with purpose until... ah! a bottle of whiskey. it's not a 60s house without one of those, is it? archer pours himself a drink and leans back against the counter, finally giving his surroundings his full attention.]

So, you're gonna give me back my tactlecane or I'm gonna start breaking bones, [he calls out, not particularly at the other members of the house but not not at them.] just, you know, a polite heads up!

b. [once he's ascertained the "family" he's with are in the same odd situation as him (as sick to his stomach as even having a pretend family makes him, for many reasons he couldn't even begin to list off), archer isn't as rude or frosty with them. the kids, especially.

he's actually kind of an alright fake-dad, despite his abrasive personality. he makes sure the younger members of the household have food, though doesn't really disclose how he gets the money or the food objects themselves other than the fact they owe him for this. you know, the rare times he's even at the house.

when the neighbors start accosting them at their front door and he has to wonder if they spotted him doing recon or the odd time he broke into one of their houses in the middle of the night to try and find answers. passive-aggressive aspic is kind of a weird way of showing it, but he wouldn't put it past these freaks.

the husband from next door doesn't even get through aunt myrna's name before archer slaps the gelatin out of his hands hard enough to shatter the glass container he'd brought it in against the ground.]

Fuck. Off. [and then the door is slammed in the poor guy's face. how rude!]

put on a happy face

[then it's been a month and halloween has rolled around and archer is still in this goddamn down in california and he hates halloween--

congratulations! archer was not at home when the broadcast hit the tvs and the creepy kids appeared, so you win the lucky draw of him either attempting to kick your front door down (which he fails, thanks to the nerve damage) or using his cane to smash your window and climb in.]

Hey, so, hey. There's, uh, zombie children out there? I just need a moment to-- you know. Regroup. Thanks. Don't touch me.

[he mutters something about likely being in a coma again, then pulls a pistol from his jacket and loads it. looks like someone's been shopping down town! he takes a position against the wall, peering out one of the front windows. he has a couple of lacerations across his arms and he's bleeding from somewhere above his hairline, but he doesn't seem to care about it.]

Guess I know how the Torrances felt...

wildcard

[CUT THE BRAKES BABY YOU KNOW HOW THIS WORKS!!!!!!!]

put on a happy face

[righthandstand]

I'm not letting you assholes in!

[There's one jack-o-lantern with a dying flame outside this door, but Okuyasu is taking no chances. What if the creepy kids are waiting for someone to open their door?

He braces himself against the other side of the front door.] You're gonna regret this if you don't leave!

[undiagnosed]

[... if nothing else, you gotta respect guy's loudness. wait, no. the other thing. hate it. archer waves his pistol at okuyasu's face.]

Shut up, dumbass! You don't want them to know there's people in here!

[never mind the fact he just loudly broke in through the window himself.]

[righthandstand]

Like they didn't see you go through the window, idiot!

[Usually he's ignore a broken window in his house, but now that there's killer kids out there, he's worried.]

Get a blanket and cover the hole! Maybe they won't see it's open!

put on a happy face

[handycapable]

Goddammit, I'm coming--

[ Ray has to mutter it, since without knowing it's Archer pounding on his door (phrasing) he can only imagine the pearl clutching that would ensue if his surprise guest could hear him, but then: it's Archer. Ray looks at him, dead-eyed, as if silently demanding he make his case not to have the door slammed in his face.

He looks behind Archer then, and yep, zombie children, so after another few moments of narrow-eyed consideration he sighs and then lets the man in. ]

Pretty sure that zombies were not actually the issue of The Shining. [ He lights up a cigarette, looking out the window. ] Where the hell d'you get that pistol?

[undiagnosed]

[phrasing, he reflexively thinks before the door's open and he's almost falling face-first into the carpet despite ray's lack of attempt to actually help him get out of little hellion danger.]

Ghosts, then, [he shoots back, dusting himself off.] whatever.

[he doesn't have his cane with him; lost in his haste not to get torn to pieces. he'll have to make do with an umbrella from the stand by the door.]

Store downtown. You know, I don't actually know if it shoots BBs or bullets. I didn't have time to look.

[and, obviously, was mostly off his face drunk when he actually bought it. as archer tends to be.]

[handycapable]

[ STAY OUT OF HIS HEAD ARCHER

Anyway. Though this might be a safe house, Ray isn't entirely aware of the jack-o-lantern/candle correlation yet, so he draws the curtains with an aggressive flourish before moving a bookcase in front of the door.

Would sure be nice if they had reinforced windows right about now, but luckily it seems like most of the children are just lurking around outside, ignoring the house or simply observing it without trying to come in. Weird, but okay. Ray sneaks another wary peek out at them, then moves out of view from the window. ]

Dukes, you-- [ Wait. Ray makes a face. ] Goddammit, Archer! Is that damn thing even loaded?!

happy face

[handosaurus]

[[I haven't watched since the detective agency season, have mercy]]


[Lana hadn't exactly been an ideal housewife for the month- did these people even know what real suburbia was like for the non-'Leave it to Beaver' types of the world?- but she'd stopped trying to kick her hapless 'husband' out, at least. For today. It was freaking Halloween and all and he'd offered to take the kids around so she could have a little 'mommy time' with a bottle while a small jack-o-lantern on the porch flickered happily.

The pumpkin protection means it wasn't the creepy kids outside that caused her reaction. It was the TV suddenly blaring on followed by someone busting into her window that made her pull a knife from the block on the kitchen counter and almost throw it right towards Archer's chest. It's only training that stops her from letting it fly at the last moment as he assumes the position against the wall (no, we're not doing phrasing.)]

Archer, what the shit?

[Hopefully his dramatic entrance hadn't destroyed her one little pumpkin of protection.]

[undiagnosed]

Lana? [he's pulling himself up, brushing some glass shards off his suit and hair and grabbing his cane to pull himself up. oooh, but his leg disagreed with being landed on.] You were right next door and didn't think to tell me?!

[because obviously she already knew archer was around and was just purposefully ducking him, again.]

I mean, shit-- [okay, AJ is hopefully still in sweden.] Shit! What the shit!

[handosaurus]

My bad, I left my asshole-tracker in my non-living nightmare!

[She lowered the knife- but, notably, didn't drop it- and moved around the counter towards the clearly injured Archer. Strange, he normally recovered from jumping through glass windows faster.]

What did you do to your leg?

Happy face Archer WEAR IT

[nuuuuuuupe]

[ Lana has 99 problems right now and some asshole coming through her window is one that kinda puts her over her limit. Fuck this place, she needs to get home to her real family. AJ is left with Mallory's influence and she honest to god can't guarantee that her parents would keep her from her.

This was probably her whole idea in the first place, her mind helpfully yells while she goes still realizing who is crawling through her window.

Someone supposed to be in a hospital bed in a fucking coma and not banging down her door and failing that, smashing her window to get away from the zombie kids outside. ]

Nuuuuuuupe. Nuh-uh, get out. [ But she still automatically goes to help him in.

Way to go Lana, way to go.]

you come at me with this canon point IN MY OWN HOME

[undiagnosed]

[archer, as it turns out, does not get out. he instead takes her offered support and leans on her just a little heavier than he might normally. he leans against the wall when he's up, brushing the glass off his suit and kicking the cane up into his hand again.]

I will not be leaving your house - thanks for opening the door, by the way - and wander directly into the weirdly sharp claws of a bunch of kids, Lana.

[he flicks his hand to punctuate this, completely unaware of what she expects of him for once, and sends a few droplets of blood on to the wall with the now-broken window. making a mess of everything, as usual.]

You don't happen to have your TEC-9s with you, do you? [asked like he knows the answer to that question already, because he does.]

Shhhhhh shhhhhh it's okay lie back and think about how she's not married yet

[nuuuuuuupe]

[ She twitches and for a few brief moment she has to question why she missed this asshole. Because she's being reminded pretty fast as to his bullshit as he flicks blood on the clean walls. The irritation mounts and then redirects because this isn't home,it's not her home, so fuck it. Archer could piss all over everything like an ocelot and she wouldn't give a fuck.

Okay, no. Not true. She'd give a fuck. ]

Sorry I didn't open the door for some asshole who clearly didn't get the memo about the zombie kids. [ she doesn't sound very sorry. Only sarcastic. ] My thoughts kinda have been focused on the bigger issue of my daughter being left alone.

[ a pause, then a sigh,] No. I don't. You have any weapons?

blue skies - b

[roseapothecary]

[ David just happens to be passing by Archer's house on his own mission to hunt down reasonable, edible food when he sees the altercation go down. It's enough to make him stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the place and just stare. ]

Oh, my god. Wow.

[ Is the guy an asshole? Or did he just do exactly what David would have liked to do a dozen times already this month? He watches the dismissed neighbor scurry away and can't help but stand there looking between the spooked resident and the now impossibly interesting suburban two-story. ]

[undiagnosed]

[he's never had many inhibitions; to see archer doing something that a more civilized person would politely hold back from isn't all that uncommon... for better or worse. it usually gets him thrown out of respected establishments.

archer doesn't notice david observing this little disaster of an interaction he has with the neighbour at first, though he does see him when the door opens again and he flings something out at the retreating husband. hard to see what it is; it shatters on contact with the pavement.]

You forgot your dishes, asshole! [a beat, then he notices david watching.] What?!

[roseapothecary]

[ David experiences a full-body flinch when the door opens again and Archer throws the dish - it's a little embarrassing when he realizes he's been caught watching, sure, but it isn't like David isn't used to having his nose slammed in doors.

So to speak. ]

Nothing!! [ It's shrill and the tone implies that how dare Archer be accusing him of snooping. Or spying. Or... hedge-peeking (or whatever is done in freakfest suburbia). Because he certainly was not. ] "What" what!? 'What' to your whole-- thing, sir!

[ He's a stuttering mess. Also painfully normal for David. ]

put on a happy face

[miaoudel]

[Looks like Archer isn't the only person taking refuge here - the reason the door is locked is sitting on the floor. The boy, slight and blond, is wearing a black bandana across his face, black clothes and paper cat ears, and at the sound of shattering glass had covered his face; but it looks like before that, he was trying to wrap his ankle with a strip of bloodied fabric.

Honestly? He looks offended.]

Hey! That was the only thing keeping them out, they hadn't seen me! [And the boy is scrambling to his feet, pulling a hockey stick from the floor as he stumbles to his feet - then pauses at the sight of the weapon.] --you have a gun?!

[undiagnosed]

Do you not? [that's-- not a serious question. obviously the what looks to be ten year old hasn't managed to grab a gun. at the very least, he puts it away. archer's a dick, but he has some decorum around kids. please, congratulate him for doing the bare minimum of not waving a gun around.] Look, there's something special about doors--

[archer kicks it shut again, then looks back at chat while gesturing.

nope, still a dick.] Look at that! It's stopping them again.

[he sighs and rubs his face for a moment-- despite the show he puts on, he's actually pretty tired from running from them.]

Okay, two questions. Firstly, do you know where the booze in here is? Secondly, do you need help with that?

[miaoudel]

What? No!

[sir what kinds of questions are these to ask a teen? He looks at the floor, gritting his teeth as he gingerly tests his ankle. There's an awful lot of blood down there, he doesn't like that.]

This isn't my house, and-- I'm fine! [Just. Pretend to ignore how he's using the hockey stick to help him limp along towards the old man.] Why do you want to drink when there are things trying to attack us?

B

[letsfindout]

[A few moments later, there's another knock at the door. Should Archer decide to open it, he'll find a different man standing out front than the last one. He's positioned a little awkwardly, given that there's glass and gelatin everywhere, but judging from the vacant expression, he doesn't seem to be here to chastise Archer.

So why is he here...?]

[undiagnosed]

[mr peanutbutter is in luck! archer does indeed open the door, seeing as he was still in the hall when the door was knock-knock-knocked upon.]

I will shoot yo--

[oh! it's not anyone with disgusting gelatin. that, along with the fact the poor guy looks like he's just witnessed a murder, is enough to make archer not immediately slam the door again.]

What now?

blue skies b

[cuttingremark]

[Loki is out on the lawn of the house he woke up in, which just so happens to be near Archer's house. He chuckles as the neighbor walks away after having the door slammed in their face.

Perhaps he should go introduce himself.

So he crosses the street, not even bothering to look both ways before he does so. After taking the steps of the porch two at a time he knocks on the door and awaits an answer.]

[undiagnosed]

[predictably, archer takes another interruption about as well as one can imagine. when the door opens again, he's just, you know, casually holding a gigantic carving knife.

god, he misses woodhouse.

before loki gets a chance to speak, archer holds his finger up:] Lightning round, if you say the words jello, aunt, or neighbour, then I will not be responsible for where this knife ends up.

wildcard → you better call kenny loggins because you're in the oпасную зону

[m1895]

[ The man currently decimating the drinks table has classic charm to him: defined cheekbones, a strong jawline, thick dark hair neatly swept back. He reminds Vasiliy of Gagarin, Yezhov, a younger Voroshilov, though The American's bizarrely tall in a way he still hasn't gotten used to since coming to the states. Nonetheless, he's handsome enough to compensate for that in the short run, and judging by the level of care he's put into his appearance he may also be of a persuasion other than what these people automatically assume of all of them. Even if he's not, there's something to be said for attractive company, so Vasiliy takes his cigarette out of his mouth for the time being and approaches the guest of honor with a thin wisp of smoke trailing behind him. It's been a stressful week; he at least deserves this. ]

[ He leans against the card table the neighbors set the beers and bottles of scotch out on, careful not to put too much weight on the cheap piece of crap lest it fold back into two, and cants his head in The American's direction. Offhandedly, and with a trace smile: ] You drink like Russian.

[ It's a compliment, of course, not an insult— in the subtext, 'You handle yourself better than most Americans do.' ]

revvin up your двигатель

[undiagnosed]

[archer, for his part, has slotted into the general vibe of the place pretty well. he calls it his perfect situational awareness, anyone else would realise it's because he's a tall, good looking white man who gets what he wants no matter how ridiculously drunk he is. oh, 1960s, how times have...

...

...okay, never mind.

he glances over at vasiliy when he's approached, momentarily leaning on the table for support.]

Nyet, comrade, [he shoots back, in the kind of put-on accent people who think they sound russian would do.] I haven't met a single idiot Russian I haven't drank better... than.

[he takes a long swig.]

And I've spent a lot of time in Russia.