Sunday Mass & After-Party (Superbowl-less Superbowl party)

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Sunday Mass & After-Party (Superbowl-less Superbowl party)

[ooc: I can do this every Sunday if people wish]

Who: Kurt (OPEN)
Where: The Pub
When: Sunday morning around 11am-ish to Noon and then whenever
What: Mass and hanging out afterward
Notes: If people wanna troll after Mass, go for it. Multi-threads, threadjacking...go nuts!

Mass was informal, in English, and over. Kurt, wearing a blazer over a dress shirt and jeans, joked about what he was wearing. Explained mutants and attributed his appearance to that, which is more or less true. Being a natural performer, he sought to entertain as well as teach. His sermon was short, humorous and basically an introduction. He indicated that he'll be providing unblessed wine and wafers for those wanting to receive Communion but for whatever reason cannot touch blessed items.

He recanted his offer to bless things that could be used as weapons against other passengers, especially inmates, but says that those who wish to discuss it are welcome to do so.

And after Mass, it's baked goods and hanging out time! He'll be around the pub all day having the Superbowless Superbowl Party.

Kurt is currently helping himself to a plate of baked goods at the service table.

[ooc: lol tenses fail. GDI 6am in the morning]

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Spike sat at least three rows behind or in front of anyone else, Elizabeth's rejection clear to anyone who cared to look. But everyone else had gotten up by now, to leave or to mingle. And he was left, the last monkey in the bed.

He sat, quietly smoking, Kurt's words of being a mutant washing over him. Not a demon after all. He wasn't processing the words anyhow. He hadn't processed half of the entire sermon. Halfway through, he'd gotten rather sidetracked by recalling women in funny hats, back when this was a biweekly ritual for he and his mum.

Before she had come down ill.

And then, of one service after her death, after his death; a glorious tribute to Angelus' reign of terror. Silly hats, in all colors and sizes, littered the aisle. He even remembers Will's smile, though not reflected in his countenance. He was rather scowling, if the expression had a name.

If he had deemed it an appropriate time for self-reflection, he would have criticized himself for acting so much like his Sire. His self-pity was very nearly palpable. He realized, belatedly, he'd forgotten to stand for communion, not that it meant anything. Even symbolically it was an empty gesture, but he had the odd inkling he was letting Blue down, somehow.

It felt good to be behind the pulpit (in this case, folding card table) again. Kurt was surprised a bit at the turn-out, but he probably shouldn't have been. It was a place of Salvation, after all.

During his Papist song and dance, he noticed Spike sitting there, practically oozing misery. Alone. Damn. Miss Bennett had been furious at finding out Kurt's heritage and his explanation must not have sufficed.

And there was guilt.

But he was brand new to his demonic heritage mattering at all unless Blackheart showed up on his doorstep wanting to be BFFs.

He hadn't seen his father in six years.

He should have been clearer to Spike. Gott, he must feel let down by Kurt's mutant explanation. He needed to try and fix it.

After Mass, he carried his plate of brownies and cookies over to where Spike stood so woefully. "Are you...all right?" He asked in a very soft whisper. He'd become an expert at speaking in a way that only someone with enhanced senses could hear. "I'm so sorry about Miss Bennett. I'll try and talk to her. The whole mutant demon thing is so complicated."

He shrugged, not looking up just yet. "Not your problem, mate," he muttered, mechanically, a bit muffled by his cigarette.

"Says you." Kurt said, "I sick my tail into everyone's business. But, ja, this is 'my bad'...she caught me off guard. But, if she got really mad at you. That's a good sign. She must be very fond of you. She'll come around. Trust me. I know women."

Says the priest.

"Cookie?" Kurt held out his plate, "These brownies are fantastic."

He put out his cigarette on his boot, tucking it behind his ear to take a cookie. Spike never said no to a cookie.

"Doesn't matter, yeah? Drop it, Blue."

"Consider it dropped." Kurt said, completely insincerely, already plotting, "Take a brownie as well." He looked around, "Want to know a secret? I didn't bless anything this time. I don't want people pocketing Communion wafers to use as projectiles and loading squirt guns with blessed wine. I feel like an arms dealer."

He snorted, genuinely cheered by that. "Good show, mate. Knew there was a reason I liked you." He took a bite of his cookie, waving off the offer of another sweet.

Kurt grinned impishly, "A bottle of Absinthe - unless you already nicked it - says that there's going to be a bar fight or at least a good ruckus. Two says at least someone ends up in zero."

"I'll take that wager," he said with easy confidence, not that he felt it. "Nice sermon by the way." ..Not that he'd heard it.

"Should I open the pub back up? What do you think, too soon?" Kurt said, already walking in that direction. "Thanks." He said with a grin, "Did you like the part about the ninjas?"

"I did," he replied instantly, liking any church where ninjas were present. He followed after Kurt, a little absently, and shrugged. "Never too early for booze, mate."

Kurt clapped him on the shoulder an chuckled, "I'm getting a Guinness. It's a nice dessert beer." He held up his plate of goodies, "So, I finally met the infamous Alistair. Well, talked to him. How bad is he? Ruby didn't go into details."

"..Why do you think I know?" There's some blinking as he reaches for the bottle of tequila.

"Not thinking. Just hoping. He seemed less than thrilled to have me about." Kurt shrugged and pulled a Guinness from the cooler. "Keeping track of people who might want to turn me into blue fuzzy car-seat covers. It seems prudent."

"Right," he said, smiling tiredly. "Self-preservation, what's that?" He was now, decidedly, poking around for a lime.

"Apparently something that all of us who signed on voluntarily lack." He sent his tail to the cold drawer to fetch a small plastic container of sliced limes, covered in cling film. It snaked up and offer the bowl to Spike. "At least it won't be boring."

"Ta," he offered distractedly, sliding onto a barstool with his collected items. Nothing like tequila to sooth the soul, eh? "What's up with this Alistair cat, then?"

Howie wasn't Catholic, and wasn't quite used to Kurt's style, either, but, to be perfectly honest, he would have taken anything from a ravingly boring Presbyterian to... well, this, right now. It did, undoubtedly, put him in a better mood than he had been for weeks. There was just something very comforting about religion which wasn't just him and his Bible.

And there was cake. No immediately spottable Mother's Union to have made the cake, but that would have been creepy, on second thoughts. So he was currently attempting to pick one, sipping at a cup of coffee. He meant to talk to Kurt at some point, but he figured that could wait.

Aziraphale was almost beaming with happiness. This was exactly the kind of religion he approved of - non-offensive and informal and, above all, cheery.

"Isn't this wonderful," he said to Howie, acquiring his own mug of coffee with something like a bounce in his step. "There's even demons around! Well, not demon-demons, just that vampire over there, but still - it warms the heart."

Howie gave Aziraphale a generous smile, and eventually settled on a brownie, "It is, definitely. And a massive improvement on attempting to worship alone." He glanced around and noticed Spike, who was, at least, a vampire like Angel, and he could sort of tolerate that, "I would have thought demon-demons would have had the same objections as some of the vampires, so again, it's certainly surprising."

"Oh, demons can't know true death just as angels can't," said Aziraphale with the kind of breezy casualness one uses to discuss day-to-day life. "Blessed things certainly pain them greatly and, at worst, send them back down Below, but you can be assured that they still exist and can eventually retake corporeal form if they choose. Vampires... well, they truly can perish."

Then he took a sip of his coffee, paused, and changed it into tea. He never was a fan of the more jittery kind of caffeine. He knew for a fact that Crowley had helped popularize it, so he treated it generally with suspicion.

"Oh, but forgive me if that's too morbid discussion for such an occasion." His smile turned a little apologetic. "I'm simply pleased that everyone can get along for this sort of joint worship. All the splintering of the Church causes so much unpleasantness."

"It isn't morbid really, and I can certainly see why its like that. You can't destroy evil once and for all, after all, you can only triumph over it, but it doesn't destroy it." Resiting temptation never led to removing it entirely, it was what made him human, which is why he never wished he was entirely free from it.

He decided the coffee needed more sugar, so added a little, then had a sip, "It does, in general. It always struck me as odd how someone could think themselves part of some elite club where God loves them better than everyone else because, what, they don't drink on a Sunday, and enforce a law to that effect, or something." Bitter much about the difficulties of Scottish licensing laws? No, not at all.

Aziraphale looked at him over the rim of his tea sympathetically. "You don't need to preach the cause to me, my dear. Every year I intend to be more patient with those that have very firm 'core values' but it's always a test.

"I am glad to hear you think the same way on defeating evil, however," he went on, placing his mug down on the snack table. "I was talking to O'Brien recently, and merely reading his words makes me feel like he's questioning my entire existence. He's convinced that his Party has managed to completely subdue any resistance, that it's won out over human nature. I'm sure you can see where I'd take such a discussion to heart."

Howie shook his head, as he did only just realised he was preaching to the more than converted. "Sorry, it's a force of habit, especially here. Although I was always told in life I still had that trace of the seminary in me." He wasn't about to deny it, but equally didn't know quite how true it was.

"He probably is, but his world... he tortures people and is unrepentant, and no matter how much Sveta tells me 'but he was brainwashed', it never strikes me as a good excuse for committing such a sin. Whether he believes it or not, whether he's repressed it or not, he's still subject to human nature, there's still a part of him who knows that was wrong, and part of him which can do otherwise. He might be convinced of that, but his system may still fail. Just because he's convinced of it doesn't mean there's a chance of it being true." O'Brien was sort of an issue he took quite personally, too, but for different reasons.

He blinked, the idea of Howie as a priest settling into his view of him neatly. But he let that topic drop for now in favor of the other, more serious, one.

"Absolutely," he agreed readily. His tea sat forgotten beside the pastries. "You've taken my argument right out of my mouth. I said nearly the same thing to O'Brien just the other night, and while I agree that there's never an excuse for sinning, understanding its origins can help prevent a repeat incident. I believe Sveta is in fact correct: after all, if you were suddenly transported to an isolated place where everyone was telling you you were wrong, wouldn't you seem brainwashed to them?

"Not that I doubt the veracity of our point of view at all," said the angel immediately thereafter, effectively covering his tracks. "It's merely that the perspective might help you distance yourself."

He nodded, because he didn't deny Aziraphale had a point, but it still struck him as something he couldn't quite get his head around, "Yes, but if he's brainwashed at all, he's brainwashing himself. Constantly. It's... how his world works. You're so controlled that you start to control yourself, you know? Either way, I still don't know how..." Howie paused, not sure where to go with that, "you shouldn't excuse what he did, because it's still wrong, perspective or not."

He had a long drink of his coffee and shrugged, because he wasn't entirely sure on some of it, but if there was anyone he'd want to discuss it with, it was probably Aziraphale.

"It's not meant as an excuse, at least not from me," said Aziraphale gently. "It's just that we must all see the sinner past his sins. I don't approve of or condone even his mentality, much less his actions - but ultimately his judgement is not ours." He shrugged. "Not even mine."

"I didn't mean from you, but... you're right. It isn't ours and I can see that he must be capable of realising what he did was wrong. I believe he can, and thus we cannot judge him." Howie frowned and took a sip of his coffee, "It's just very difficult to get out of your head what he did, and especially the fact he doesn't understand that he hurt someone." Again, possibly a little more personal than he'd like to admit there.

"At times like these I take consolation in the fact that He will see that things are sorted, if not in this lifetime than afterward." The capital was very audible. He picked up his mug again, took a swallow and then admitted, "Of course it's a very different situation for me, and even the Barge itself is quite different. But sometimes things are simply out of our hands."

Aziraphale smiled. "It's not your responsibility to redeem him. So don't take his moral state too seriously."

Howie nodded, "It's a good consolation, too. I'd just hate to give up on anyone, even if it's not my responsibility. I still think about it and if I just ignore his moral state and dismiss him, it means I could just as easily dismiss my own inmate."

After a long drink of his rapidly cooling coffee, he returned the smile, "I don't take it so seriously as to get caught up in it, espescially knowing that if all else fails, God will set it right, in a sense. But I'm not exactly going to ignore it, either."

Armand attended, quietly and respectfully. He wanted to hear Kurt's story, and the explanation was enlightening. Still, the process did little to lighten his heart. He picked up a single cookie and went back to his chair to think.

[OOC: Feel free to bother him.]

Mass had been interesting - first time the priest had ever been blue in Bartlet's experience - but he'd enjoyed it all the same. It was good to have a church aboard the Barge.

After Mass, he caught sight of Armand, looking rather pensive with a cookie. "Armand! How are you?" he said cheerfully, holding a muffin.

Armand glanced over at Jed and smiled, "Oh monsieur president... how are you?" He liked Jed. He hoped he wouldn't gloom at him.

"I'm doing all right. You know how it is. But really, how are you doing? I haven't seen you in a while." He still worried about Armand, and he hoped that maybe having a semiregular Mass on board ship would help him out.

Armand thought about his answer. He did that a lot lately, when talking to anyone. He fidgeted with the cookie. "Better I suppose. Tis been easier to get out since Rose left again."

"Okay. Okay. I'm glad, Armand. It's good to know you're doing better." Bartlet smiled at him. "I've got more tea in case you want to come talk sometime. You know you're always welcome."

"I don't like to worry people with my personal problems," Armand explains, blushing a little. "I'd like to visit sometime, but perhaps just to social."

"Sure, sure!" Jed said amicably. "So what've you been up to, eh? How's your inmate?"

"Well, Loki seems to be doing well. He has a tiny bit of his power back, and hasn't killed anyone in months. Maybe he's getting over that part." He didn't seem to want to answer the part about himself.

But after a moment, he said, "I've started a book club, and I play chess with JD when he's not dead, in zero, in the infirmary or has his warden breathing down his neck." And now he goes to Mass, which will eventually help immensely.

"A book club?" Bartlet sounded interested. "What are you reading, then?" He noted that Armand didn't answer the specific question, but he'd let it go for now. No sense in making him uncomfortable - if he wanted to talk about it later, he would.

"Various things. I think we're tackling A Tale of Two Cities next." he nibbled on his baked good. "You can can come if you like, or to a future one."

"Ah, 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times'," Bartlet said, quoting the famous line. "I'd love to come! Just let me know when and where."

"I find it a very interesting book. Tis hard to read fiction about my home."

[OOC: the post for the meeting went up either Wednesday or Thursday last week? He can tag into it late or just write Armand a note why he can't.]

Edited 2010-02-23 04:58 (UTC)

"I can imagine," Bartlet said, nodding. He'd made it a point to stay away from popular fiction about politics and Washington, DC - he got enough of it during his day job, he didn't need to have that in his leisure time too. He preferred nonfiction anyway. Most of the popular stuff was crap.

He'll just write a note. I fail lately, sorry. :x

"I am curious to know what the people of the future think though."

Inara had made a conscious effort to put herself out in the open since she began showing signs of antisocial behavior. She knew that withdrawing would only cause her to pine for home, and going home wasn't an option so early on. She entered the bar silently, returning any eye contact or greetings with smiles or a friendly nod. She took a seat at a table and withdrew a book from a small purse she had brought, settling comfortably. Though Inara was reading, she was sure to hold herself in such a way that she still seemed approachable.

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Sunday Mass & After-Party (Superbowl-less Superbowl party)

Utterly open (and a little pathetic).

awww

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I'm going to the pub in a mo, but come bug him. I'll be back.

consider yourself bugged :D

totally his most favourite angel ever, azi.

because his competition is so stiff XD

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bother!

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Good grief he is officially the ship's counselor, brb, getting a Deanna Troi icon.

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late crappy post is late and crappy

*hugs*

Fanks.

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hugs