Wilford Warfstache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-08-11 08:24 pm
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-08-11 08:24 pm
Entry tags:
He suddenly remembered screaming at Abe over something
It had been ages since Wilford had gone to a party. He couldn’t even remember the last time. It was something he’d grown out of without really noticing. But this wasn’t really a party, apparently. Mark had a little poker night every week, up at his castle in the mountains. Wilford wasn’t very good at poker, but even if he lost his ass at the table, it still got him out of the house.
Wilford was the first one through the door, greeted by a butler who seemed a little too friendly for no reason Wilford could put his finger on. “Greetings. Drinks will be served once the rest of the guests arrive,” he said, guiding Wilford through the massive foyer. “Master is—”
He was cut off by the sound of a door being thrown open and several people stomping down stairs somewhere nearby.
“I told you not this week!” a woman shouted. Something clattered to the floor, and the butler rushed off toward the noise.
“Celine,” Mark called, almost indifferently toward her. “This week, next week. What’s the problem? You didn’t have anything planned.”
Wilford could hear the sound of somebody — probably Mark — being slapped with a handbag. “That’s not the point. I’m—I’m leaving. Benjamin, please open the garage.”
“Of course, my lady,” the butler said, before rushing across the foyer to the opposite side of the house. He disappeared through one door as Celine stormed through a doorway, followed closely by Mark.
“Celine, don’t…” He spotted Wilford and gave up his chase, shaking his head and walking toward Wilford instead. “Sorry you had to see that,” he said as a door slammed hard enough to rattle a suit of armour standing nearby. Mark cringed. “Usually she’s already gone by now.”
Wilford looked off toward the direction where Mark’s wife had disappeared. “Well, she’s gone now.”
Mark laughed. “Yeah, she sure is.” He began to lead the way toward a large, open living room. The entire house (it was an actual fucking castle) was the most ostentatious, gaudy monstrosity Wilford had ever seen in his life. Suits of armour guarded the hallways, portraits decorated the ceilings. Wilford wondered how anybody lived there. Maybe that was why Mark’s wife was in such a hurry to escape.
“Everyone else should be getting here soon. I have a few things to take care of before we get started, but Benjamin can make sure you’re not bored.”
Wilford didn’t expect to be left alone so soon, but before he could turn to question the situation, Mark had already disappeared. Behind him in the foyer, Wilford could hear the butler rushing to open the door again. Two more people Wilford didn’t recognise walked in, one of them handing off his coat to Benjamin as if he’d done this a dozen times before.
“Oh, hey. It’s about time we got a fresh face around here,” the other said, closing the distance toward Wilford. He made like he was about to shake Wilford’s hand, but changed his mind and snapped his fingers instead. “I’ve seen you around. William, right?”
“Wilford,” he corrected.
“Right. Sorry. Wilford.” He finally offered his hand to shake. “Abe. Formerly of the LSPD, but I retired; got out of all that. Private work now. I saw that piece you did on Bigby.” He inhaled sharply and shook his head. “I’d been after him for five years, but couldn’t get close enough. Then you swooped in with your cameras and got a conviction! I wish I could have pounded his ass like that.”
The whole situation was already beyond anything Wilford had been prepared for. Had he really got so old that he’d forgotten how to socialise at a party? He didn’t think so. He’d thrown a party for Jim and Sherlock just fine, with only a few minor hiccups. But something about this particular party seemed to have him on the wrong foot.
Over the next twenty minutes, more people walked in — some Wilford recognised, others he didn’t. He was severely out of touch with Vinewood culture, and for the first time since he’d moved there, he realised it was a bit of a bad thing. But he didn’t have to know the Who’s Who of Vinewood’s elite to recognise one of the men who walked through the door. Apparently Mark was friendly with the mayor of Los Santos. While everyone else had dressed comfortably for a night of… whatever Mark had planned, Damien showed up in a tux, with his stupid little Mayor badge on his lapel. He even carried a fancy walking stick around with him.
Actually, he seemed exactly like the sort of person who would be friends with a man who put portraits of himself on the ceiling.
There were seven guests in all, with Mark making eight once he finally returned from whatever he’d been doing upstairs. Nobody seemed to think there was anything odd about him making everyone wait like that, so when the drinks were finally passed around, Wilford quit worrying about it and decided it was time to have some fun. He’d managed to speak to most people, and those he hadn’t spoken to, he listened to gossip about. Mark surrounded himself with people who weren’t only important, but useful. A detective, the mayor, a lawyer, a producer, a paranormal investigator, a doctor, and Wilford, a journalist. Mark wasn’t making friends; he was collecting people. And Wilford was extremely eager to find out why.
But then they were all shepherded across the house to another room, already set up for poker and a lot of drinks, if the fully-stocked bar was anything to go by. Once they were all seated, Benjamin came around to sell the chips. Wilford already knew it was $1000 he was never going to see again, so he took his chips, drank his champagne, and watched everyone else around the table. Damien seemed less than keen on the huge buy-in, as did Abe and the paranormal investigator. It was probably lack of confidence in skill, rather than the buy-in, at least when it came to the paranormal guy. He had his own show, which Wilford had never seen but had heard of. There probably wasn’t much money in being a private detective. And everyone knew the mayor had a not-so-secret gambling problem that had led to a few scandals in the past. But Los Santos being what it was, the voters kept sticking with the fuck-up they knew, rather than giving an unknown fuck-up a chance.
The night started off relatively calmly. Benjamin manned the bar while the game got started, with each player testing the waters to see how much they could get away with. But as the drinks kept being served, and more hands were dealt, the players got more brazen with their attempts. Cheating became more obvious, more shameless, and before long, punches were being thrown. As Damien and Dr Hanscomb shouted at one another and drew guns to see who would be the first one to back down, Craig, the paranormal investigator, leaned over to talk to Wilford privately.
“You could put a newborn fawn in this house, and it would turn murderous,” he said.
That got Wilford’s attention. He looked over, not entirely sure he heard what he thought he did.
“You can feel it too, can’t you?” Craig said. “This house was built on so many graves.”
Wilford almost choked on his drink. “So was my house,” he said. “I called a few priests and mediums and took care of it.”
Craig was right though. From the moment Wilford stepped inside, he’d felt like he’d been on the wrong footing. He’d thought it was himself. Knowing it was the house somehow made it a little easier to relax. He wasn’t losing his touch, then.
But Damien was losing his cool. He fired his gun over Dr Hanscomb’s shoulder, shattering a bottle at the bar. Benjamin squealed at the indignation, and suddenly the game was over. Wilford scooped up what chips he had left and stuffed them into his inventory as an all-out brawl broke out between the two. While Damien and Dr Hanscomb wrestled around on the floor, Wilford decided poker was boring and headed over to the bar. While Benjamin hurried to clean up the mess, Wilford grabbed a bottle of whiskey down for himself and pulled out his stash from his inventory. The sound of a cheap spectacle case opening was like a beacon to those who hadn’t got roped into the brawl. Mark, Craig, and Abe all joined Wilford over at the bar while he divided out a few lines of coke. Since it was his coke, he took the first line before passing the straw off toward Abe.
“Is it always like this?” Wilford asked, watching a doctor strangle a producer on the floor.
Mark nodded before taking his turn at Wilford’s stash.
“Fuck.” That producer was definitely turning blue. Wilford wondered if someone should be stepping in. “Where have you been all year? I’ve been bored out of my mind since I moved here.”
Someone found — not necessarily deliberately — the stereo and the light board, and suddenly the room was full of pounding music and ridiculous strobing lights. It was like rave for middle-aged men who couldn’t hold their tempers or their liquor. Wilford was so into it.
He didn’t remember falling asleep on the floor, but being woken up with a ladle to the face was not something he’d ever anticipated happening. It took him a moment to realise where he was, which was a moment too long. The biggest, nastiest-looking motherfucker he’d ever seen smacked him in the face with his ladle again.
“Who said you could sleep in my kitchen!?” he demanded. He looked like some sort of murder hippie, with long hair falling over his shoulders.
“You what?” Wilford asked.
A third smack to the face was enough to get him up and moving. He fled the kitchen, deciding to check his inventory as he went. Loads of poker chips, a couple empty bottles of whiskey, which got tossed onto the floor where he stood. His gun was there, but it was completely out of ammo. That was… alarming. He didn’t remember ever using it.
Suddenly Benjamin was beside him, offering a highball glass. “For your hangover, sir.” Wilford nodded and took the glass, but Benjamin wasn’t done talking. “If you’d like to, uh, replenish what you used last night, and cash in your chips, you can see me in the bar later.”
Wilford blinked. Then he swallowed what was offered to him, realising entirely too late that it was about 50% cocaine. By then, Benjamin was already gone, no doubt to go pass off his hangover cure to everyone else. Wilford put the glass down on a nearby table and wandered off to find anybody else. The place was a disaster. The party had definitely spread beyond the confines of the bar, and had even managed to make it outside judging by the mess of broken glass out on the patio. Wilford headed outside with the broken glass to get some air and clear his head to be able to plan his escape.
“I hope it goes without saying that what happens here doesn’t get repeated outside.”
Wilford jumped, having not seen Damien as he stepped outside. Damien seemed to have had the same idea as him, regarding fresh air. He looked miserable, and probably had a broken cheekbone under that massive black eye.
“I’m pretty sure anything I said would just incriminate me as well,” Wilford pointed out. He had no idea what had happened, but it clearly wasn’t good.
Damien nodded. “That’s the idea. Mutually-assured destruction, as much as I hate the phrase.”
Wilford laughed. It hurt a lot more than he’d expected it to. “You guys do this a lot?” he asked, rubbing his side. Something didn’t quite feel right, and when he looked down, he realised some of that broken glass had found its way into his side. He suddenly remembered screaming at Abe over something, and Abe breaking a bottle and using it as a weapon.
Damien watched Wilford make this realisation. “If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure you shot him.”
That would explain where his ammo went.
“We used to do this every week, if you can believe that,” he went on. “But you know how it gets trying to walk away from this kind of thing as you get older.”
Wilford was barely listening. He was too busy inspecting the damage. Abe had got him about an inch above one of his old scars. At least there was nothing left underneath it to damage. “I don’t think I’d be able to handle it every month.”
It was an absolute lie. He couldn’t wait until the next invitation came around.
Wilford was the first one through the door, greeted by a butler who seemed a little too friendly for no reason Wilford could put his finger on. “Greetings. Drinks will be served once the rest of the guests arrive,” he said, guiding Wilford through the massive foyer. “Master is—”
He was cut off by the sound of a door being thrown open and several people stomping down stairs somewhere nearby.
“I told you not this week!” a woman shouted. Something clattered to the floor, and the butler rushed off toward the noise.
“Celine,” Mark called, almost indifferently toward her. “This week, next week. What’s the problem? You didn’t have anything planned.”
Wilford could hear the sound of somebody — probably Mark — being slapped with a handbag. “That’s not the point. I’m—I’m leaving. Benjamin, please open the garage.”
“Of course, my lady,” the butler said, before rushing across the foyer to the opposite side of the house. He disappeared through one door as Celine stormed through a doorway, followed closely by Mark.
“Celine, don’t…” He spotted Wilford and gave up his chase, shaking his head and walking toward Wilford instead. “Sorry you had to see that,” he said as a door slammed hard enough to rattle a suit of armour standing nearby. Mark cringed. “Usually she’s already gone by now.”
Wilford looked off toward the direction where Mark’s wife had disappeared. “Well, she’s gone now.”
Mark laughed. “Yeah, she sure is.” He began to lead the way toward a large, open living room. The entire house (it was an actual fucking castle) was the most ostentatious, gaudy monstrosity Wilford had ever seen in his life. Suits of armour guarded the hallways, portraits decorated the ceilings. Wilford wondered how anybody lived there. Maybe that was why Mark’s wife was in such a hurry to escape.
“Everyone else should be getting here soon. I have a few things to take care of before we get started, but Benjamin can make sure you’re not bored.”
Wilford didn’t expect to be left alone so soon, but before he could turn to question the situation, Mark had already disappeared. Behind him in the foyer, Wilford could hear the butler rushing to open the door again. Two more people Wilford didn’t recognise walked in, one of them handing off his coat to Benjamin as if he’d done this a dozen times before.
“Oh, hey. It’s about time we got a fresh face around here,” the other said, closing the distance toward Wilford. He made like he was about to shake Wilford’s hand, but changed his mind and snapped his fingers instead. “I’ve seen you around. William, right?”
“Wilford,” he corrected.
“Right. Sorry. Wilford.” He finally offered his hand to shake. “Abe. Formerly of the LSPD, but I retired; got out of all that. Private work now. I saw that piece you did on Bigby.” He inhaled sharply and shook his head. “I’d been after him for five years, but couldn’t get close enough. Then you swooped in with your cameras and got a conviction! I wish I could have pounded his ass like that.”
The whole situation was already beyond anything Wilford had been prepared for. Had he really got so old that he’d forgotten how to socialise at a party? He didn’t think so. He’d thrown a party for Jim and Sherlock just fine, with only a few minor hiccups. But something about this particular party seemed to have him on the wrong foot.
Over the next twenty minutes, more people walked in — some Wilford recognised, others he didn’t. He was severely out of touch with Vinewood culture, and for the first time since he’d moved there, he realised it was a bit of a bad thing. But he didn’t have to know the Who’s Who of Vinewood’s elite to recognise one of the men who walked through the door. Apparently Mark was friendly with the mayor of Los Santos. While everyone else had dressed comfortably for a night of… whatever Mark had planned, Damien showed up in a tux, with his stupid little Mayor badge on his lapel. He even carried a fancy walking stick around with him.
Actually, he seemed exactly like the sort of person who would be friends with a man who put portraits of himself on the ceiling.
There were seven guests in all, with Mark making eight once he finally returned from whatever he’d been doing upstairs. Nobody seemed to think there was anything odd about him making everyone wait like that, so when the drinks were finally passed around, Wilford quit worrying about it and decided it was time to have some fun. He’d managed to speak to most people, and those he hadn’t spoken to, he listened to gossip about. Mark surrounded himself with people who weren’t only important, but useful. A detective, the mayor, a lawyer, a producer, a paranormal investigator, a doctor, and Wilford, a journalist. Mark wasn’t making friends; he was collecting people. And Wilford was extremely eager to find out why.
But then they were all shepherded across the house to another room, already set up for poker and a lot of drinks, if the fully-stocked bar was anything to go by. Once they were all seated, Benjamin came around to sell the chips. Wilford already knew it was $1000 he was never going to see again, so he took his chips, drank his champagne, and watched everyone else around the table. Damien seemed less than keen on the huge buy-in, as did Abe and the paranormal investigator. It was probably lack of confidence in skill, rather than the buy-in, at least when it came to the paranormal guy. He had his own show, which Wilford had never seen but had heard of. There probably wasn’t much money in being a private detective. And everyone knew the mayor had a not-so-secret gambling problem that had led to a few scandals in the past. But Los Santos being what it was, the voters kept sticking with the fuck-up they knew, rather than giving an unknown fuck-up a chance.
The night started off relatively calmly. Benjamin manned the bar while the game got started, with each player testing the waters to see how much they could get away with. But as the drinks kept being served, and more hands were dealt, the players got more brazen with their attempts. Cheating became more obvious, more shameless, and before long, punches were being thrown. As Damien and Dr Hanscomb shouted at one another and drew guns to see who would be the first one to back down, Craig, the paranormal investigator, leaned over to talk to Wilford privately.
“You could put a newborn fawn in this house, and it would turn murderous,” he said.
That got Wilford’s attention. He looked over, not entirely sure he heard what he thought he did.
“You can feel it too, can’t you?” Craig said. “This house was built on so many graves.”
Wilford almost choked on his drink. “So was my house,” he said. “I called a few priests and mediums and took care of it.”
Craig was right though. From the moment Wilford stepped inside, he’d felt like he’d been on the wrong footing. He’d thought it was himself. Knowing it was the house somehow made it a little easier to relax. He wasn’t losing his touch, then.
But Damien was losing his cool. He fired his gun over Dr Hanscomb’s shoulder, shattering a bottle at the bar. Benjamin squealed at the indignation, and suddenly the game was over. Wilford scooped up what chips he had left and stuffed them into his inventory as an all-out brawl broke out between the two. While Damien and Dr Hanscomb wrestled around on the floor, Wilford decided poker was boring and headed over to the bar. While Benjamin hurried to clean up the mess, Wilford grabbed a bottle of whiskey down for himself and pulled out his stash from his inventory. The sound of a cheap spectacle case opening was like a beacon to those who hadn’t got roped into the brawl. Mark, Craig, and Abe all joined Wilford over at the bar while he divided out a few lines of coke. Since it was his coke, he took the first line before passing the straw off toward Abe.
“Is it always like this?” Wilford asked, watching a doctor strangle a producer on the floor.
Mark nodded before taking his turn at Wilford’s stash.
“Fuck.” That producer was definitely turning blue. Wilford wondered if someone should be stepping in. “Where have you been all year? I’ve been bored out of my mind since I moved here.”
Someone found — not necessarily deliberately — the stereo and the light board, and suddenly the room was full of pounding music and ridiculous strobing lights. It was like rave for middle-aged men who couldn’t hold their tempers or their liquor. Wilford was so into it.
He didn’t remember falling asleep on the floor, but being woken up with a ladle to the face was not something he’d ever anticipated happening. It took him a moment to realise where he was, which was a moment too long. The biggest, nastiest-looking motherfucker he’d ever seen smacked him in the face with his ladle again.
“Who said you could sleep in my kitchen!?” he demanded. He looked like some sort of murder hippie, with long hair falling over his shoulders.
“You what?” Wilford asked.
A third smack to the face was enough to get him up and moving. He fled the kitchen, deciding to check his inventory as he went. Loads of poker chips, a couple empty bottles of whiskey, which got tossed onto the floor where he stood. His gun was there, but it was completely out of ammo. That was… alarming. He didn’t remember ever using it.
Suddenly Benjamin was beside him, offering a highball glass. “For your hangover, sir.” Wilford nodded and took the glass, but Benjamin wasn’t done talking. “If you’d like to, uh, replenish what you used last night, and cash in your chips, you can see me in the bar later.”
Wilford blinked. Then he swallowed what was offered to him, realising entirely too late that it was about 50% cocaine. By then, Benjamin was already gone, no doubt to go pass off his hangover cure to everyone else. Wilford put the glass down on a nearby table and wandered off to find anybody else. The place was a disaster. The party had definitely spread beyond the confines of the bar, and had even managed to make it outside judging by the mess of broken glass out on the patio. Wilford headed outside with the broken glass to get some air and clear his head to be able to plan his escape.
“I hope it goes without saying that what happens here doesn’t get repeated outside.”
Wilford jumped, having not seen Damien as he stepped outside. Damien seemed to have had the same idea as him, regarding fresh air. He looked miserable, and probably had a broken cheekbone under that massive black eye.
“I’m pretty sure anything I said would just incriminate me as well,” Wilford pointed out. He had no idea what had happened, but it clearly wasn’t good.
Damien nodded. “That’s the idea. Mutually-assured destruction, as much as I hate the phrase.”
Wilford laughed. It hurt a lot more than he’d expected it to. “You guys do this a lot?” he asked, rubbing his side. Something didn’t quite feel right, and when he looked down, he realised some of that broken glass had found its way into his side. He suddenly remembered screaming at Abe over something, and Abe breaking a bottle and using it as a weapon.
Damien watched Wilford make this realisation. “If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure you shot him.”
That would explain where his ammo went.
“We used to do this every week, if you can believe that,” he went on. “But you know how it gets trying to walk away from this kind of thing as you get older.”
Wilford was barely listening. He was too busy inspecting the damage. Abe had got him about an inch above one of his old scars. At least there was nothing left underneath it to damage. “I don’t think I’d be able to handle it every month.”
It was an absolute lie. He couldn’t wait until the next invitation came around.