A boy named Sous

Priestly woke up slowly and blinked sleepily at the ceiling of the hotel suite. It was nice and dark at the moment, only little bits of sun peeking in around the drawn curtains, so he wasn't sure yet if he had a hangover. How drunk had he gotten last night? He really liked champagne.

He turned his head and looked at Dinah, just starting to wake up next to him. He wasn't usually the one to wake up first, but hey. This wasn't Fandom. It wasn't the end of a weird weekend. They'd been entirely themselves last night, just drunk on champagne and romance. That might have been a first. He wasn't sure. He'd lost track of their hookups over the years.

When Dinah woke up, they'd play-by-play it, laugh at themselves, and marvel that at least they weren't on the beach or in a warehouse. They'd suffer the teasing and curious questions from the shippers -- he was pretty sure they'd escaped upstairs before any hanky-panky started, and this was New Gotham, not Fandom, so there were no squirrels reporting on anything. She'd go back to detecting and he'd go back to cooking and getting ready for summer classes, and life would return to normal.

"Ah, fuck it," he said, and rolled over to kiss Dinah awake.

Normal was overrated.

[for she who's been modded. And SP.]

"Alright, Mr. Priestly," the doctor said, holding up a cast saw. "You ready to get this thing off you?"

"I cannot possibly express how much," Priestly said. "Do you have any idea how much these things itch?"

The doctor laughed. "Actually, I do. You'd be amazed how many pens and rulers and things end up under casts. Especially full leg ones." He gave Priestly a sharp look. "But you're too smart for that, right?"

"I am, but I can't promise my red panda didn't jam anything in there while I slept."

". . . What?"

"So, cast! Let's get that saw buzzing!"

[ooc: possibly kind of late, but whatevs. Open for one expected, and any phone calls and messages that want to be dropped in!]

"I told you, man," Priestly said, leading the way into the spa. "There's no such thing as a city in America that doesn't have at least one sauna. It's basically a rule." He flipped over the little pamphlet. "This one apparently does infrared." He frowned a little at the slightly silly list of purported health benefits -- wound healing? really? -- then shrugged. So long as it was nice and warm. "Plus, private saunas. Don't have to worry about a bunch of sweaty old naked men." Which, you know, was always a bonus.

[ooc: expecting one!]

Priestly wasn't generally the sort to call out from a shift without being, like, dead or recovering therefrom (it was a little sad that he knew that about himself), but he'd've been sorely tempted to, today. As it was, most of the staff had commented that he looked "like shit on toast, dude" and a few customers had politely asked for a different server.

Yeah, it was the best day ever.

He tried not to rub at his eyes as he looked over the diner, keeping an eye out for one customer in particular and trying not to obviously look at the other customers who should be scattered about, laying low and ready to jump in if things went terribly.

He was not cut out for this sneaky stuff. After this, he was going somewhere where he didn't have to be sneaky at all for awhile.

[ooc: for plot buddies!]

Priestly had never worked at a place as large as this diner before. It was a bit of an adjustment -- especially when you factored in going from managing Luke's in Fandom to being a lowly peon here -- but he liked his coworkers well enough, no one tried to stick things in his hair, and there were even a few regulars he'd gotten to know working the lunch counter on the days he didn't have afternoon classes. New Gotham was almost as full of lovable weirdoes as Santa Cruz had been, which was good, as they needed the lovable ones to balance out the criminally insane ones.

And, hey, if harmlessly flirting with the hot cougar who came in every now and then to order a late lunch to go for her and her "business associates" got him a bigger tip, that was even better. She liked to stop and chat for a bit while she waited for her order, and Priestly always kept her coffee full and the compliments running while she did. Carlos, the usual lunch time cook, liked to tease Priestly about how he had to keep his dates straight so Dinah wouldn't find out he was cheating on her with an old lady, but Priestly was so used to getting grief from the kitchen staff that he barely noticed.

He did kind of miss troubleshooting Fandom's occasional harmless jaunts into the surreal, though. A lunch rush just wasn't the same if you didn't have an eagle turning into a naked mayor at the counter.

[ooc: for Them That Knows]

Hey, you've reached Priestly. Aren't you lucky! I'm not around to take your call, but you probably know what to do.

*beep*

So Priestly's class today had been cancelled in honor of Columbus Day. Which would be why Priestly was sitting at the kitchen island with his laptop, composing a long winded, honestly kind of insufferably preachy email to his study group about how terrible Columbus really was.

Because what else was he going to do with a random day off? Accomplish things?

Pfffft.

[ooc: expecting one, but also open to roommate/visitors if they're inclined.]

So apparently post-war on Dinah looked just a smidge clingy. Not that Priestly was objecting. Not even a little. He was still enjoying having her there and safe too much to worry about how much snuggling and petting was going on.

They'd marathoned Doctor Sexy yesterday, spent this evening watching bad kitchen reality shows, surrounded by junk food and soda (and veggies and water, because this was Priestly, here). Priestly had put several tiny braids in Dinah's hair and they'd done each other's nails, and then crashed out fairly early, Priestly steering Dinah over to the bed when she started falling asleep on the couch, reading a bit of Anthony Bourdain while serving as a body pillow before finally drifting off himself.

[ooc: for she who is mentioned in the narrative. Content note: will contain PTSD and memories/dreams of animal aggression and NPC character death.]

". . . the hell?"

Priestly, fresh from the shower, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, peered bleary-eyed into the medicine cabinet like it might do something exciting.

Which around here meant with no small amount of quiet terror.

He pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth and spit, then started carefully sifting through the rather full cabinet as though he was going to find a portal to another world -- you never knew around here -- but found nothing but the usual back wall.

And no hair dye.

None.

"I know I had at least a bottle of blue gel," he grumbled, sifting harder, then starting pulling stuff out. When that didn't turn anything up, he checked under the sink. Then behind the toilet. Then in the linen closet. He even went so far as to go out into the kitchen and check the fridge.

"Dean!" he bellowed. He had no idea if Dean was even home. "Did you throw out all my dye?!"

He as pretty sure that wasn't the case, but look, his hair was going to have to be natural colored today, and he needed someone to blame, okay?

[ooc: and thus begins Priestly's make-over. Open to anyone with a reason to show up.]

Priestly had been in a comma since passing out at the Perk yesterday. He had an acute brain tumor infringing on his occidental lobe in his cerebal palsy. It was very serious.

So he was laid out flat on the bed in his apartment. Still shirtless, of course, because clearly comma patients were more comfortable without shirts on. There were lots of machines making lots of mysterious noises connected to various nonspecific parts of Priestly's body, and that ever present hospital smell, despite Priestly's apartment not being a hospital.

How did he get here? Who cared? What, did you have some kind of carrying kink or something? He was just here, okay, and not in the clinic because of reasons.

God, if you don't like it, just don't read it.

[ooc: Priestly's not really going to be interacting here, but post is open for folks who want to come be emo at his side!]