Friday night, it meant so many things to so many people. Freedom, a chance to unwind and relax, to cut loose and prepare for the repetitious holiday that was the weekend. Of course not everyone got to enjoy it, be they in the service industry, the transit workers, or any number of other blue collar jobs. Even Alex wouldn't be exempt from this particular tradition, she had a shift tomorrow night. But for tonight she was free, tonight she could go wehre she wanted, and of course...she wanted music.
But tonight isn't a performance night, because Alex was anything but ready, no tonight was a night to listen, to enjoy, and to feel the energy of the crowd. So it was a tiny venue with a little bar and plenty of alcohol that she is found in, dressed as she so often did, in a little red dress and heels with an over large, patchwork leather jacket. It's covered in band logo's and tour patches, and it is obviously not sized for her. But she wears it regardless as she strides into the bar, her brown hair set free for once as her hard blue eyes survey the crowd, getting a feeling for the energy of the place.
She'd move to the bar first of course, grabbing herself a beer, she was on her own this time, free of her fellow firefighter's who were off playing basketball or some such, they could get her if they needed, her cell phone was close at hand. But for now it was all her, and the band that was getting ready to play.
Dubois & MillerThe band is local and not well known (yet) but they do have a small but loyal following, and although it is not yet too late in the evening there is a decent crowd come to hear them play and watch them set up. They are almost too many for the stage which takes up half of the floor and is set in the corner, darkly curtained and a tangle of wires.
There are four tables and eight chairs set up in front of the stage but they've already been taken over. There is a wooden arm rest banding the rest of the main floor, and were the lighting not dimmed for a performance there is art on the walls. Two bars there are: one the bar you expect with deep scarred wood and illuminated glass and bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles and light subtle light glancing off've taps and the bartender's thick-framed glasses and that bar is there as soon as one comes into the main staging area, just off a short hall. The short hall also opens into a lounge area: it wants to be swank and boozy, it wants to be old Hollywood, it wants to showcase art and so it does, music piped from a sound system that has nothing to do with tonight's performance. The bouncer is a broad man with dark skin and sharp hazel eyes.
There's a tapas bar, too. A waitress who hangs at the tapas bar, which is on the other side of the entrance from the drink-drink bar, and all they serve are tapas, and she does bring drinks and tapas to those who came early enough to snag a seat, but otherwise she just hangs out near the back and flirts with the bartender and not the cook.
The band is local and not well known (yet), and their thing seems to be swing or big band or something. There's somebody for the bass and somebody for the baritone sax and somebody for an alto sax and somebody for the trombone and somebody else for drums and of course the main attraction's the pianist and the singer.
The energy is expectant. The bartender is nice with green eyes behind those bottle glasses as he pours Alex her beer. The room is dark; there are plenty of places to stand along the wall. There is plenty of floor to dance on should the music take that kind've turn, once it starts up. Some of the people seem to know each other because they do.
Enough about them.
There is a man: right there. He carries himself well (solidly), although his features are unremarkable, even and rather plain, nondescript although doesn't the shadow of a place like this lend him a touch of mystery which also lends him a touch of glamour or maybe the glamour's all in the cut of his blazer, the tousle of his darkish hair, and although he keeps a sharp eye on the crowd he doesn't seem to know anybody.
Right there is at a premium spot along the wooden handrail which compasses the room, the spot being very near the stage but not so near that eardrums are likely to rebel.
It's a good spot; the crowd is still slight enough that there are lots of spots left immediately around him as people (out-of-towners, some) discuss the show and then the band coming on after the show (poor opening act).
Alex FisherShe has her beer, and Alex, well Alex ate before she arrived because bar food was always to expensive and its portions to small. No she would ignore such diversions and instead she made her way for that railing, the one place in the bar that would allow for a good view as well as the opportunity to move if one so desired it. There would be no real opportunity for swing dancing in this place, maybe some basic movements, simple things in amongst the crowd. But there would be no flying skirts tonight.
Alex was fine with that, she was here to feel and hear, to get the sensation of that music rippling across her skin as it inundated her brain with sound of pure and exquisite creation. So she pushed her way up to the railing, managing to squeeze her way in beside a slightly glamorous if unremarkable man.
As she shouldered in her eyes might meet this barely glamorous man's hard blue into those sharp eyes. Theres the briefest of smiles, that 'hey sorry for elbowing you there' look that was meant to pacifiy as she got comfortable [claiming her spot, good luck dislodging her].
"Anything exciting happen yet?" She asked, looking briefly at the man to indicate it was indeed him she was talking too.
Dubois & MillerHis eyes are an uncertain colour in this light; something muddied, something indeterminate. But the skin around his eyes crinkles when he smiles, coupled with a surprised but not unwelcoming lift of his eyebrows as Alex elbows her way into position. He is just not particularly interesting to look at, except for tonight a dim air of just-rumpled-enough Noir put-togetherness. If Alex pays close attention, perhaps in the sharpness of her eyes she sees something familiar, because don't people in the service recognize their own -- or those who were their own? Sometimes?
And he remains as solid as a fixture, as steady as a statue, as if he'd weather all manner of things in this one spot, including not-unwelcome young women in leather jackets and vavavoom red dresses.
He's taller than her and he inclines his head down to make what he says a conspiracy and a conversation just for them, see?
"Depends on your parameters for exciting," he tells her, and there's something about the man's voice. Enchanting, isn't it? "The trombone player dropped his trombone and the bassist laughed."
Alex FisherShe'd elbowed her way in, which usually resulted in one of three actions by the elbowee, they either got angry, got moving, or got friendly. This one got friendly and with that look in his eyes as he smiled and oh that voice. Alex couldn't help but smile a little wider, a little fuller at the whole situation. She hadn't intended on making friends here tonight, but if anyone in this place might manage it, it was this man.
""What scandal." Alex offers with a wry chuckle as she stood upright, actually having to tilt her head upwards to meet the man's gaze. "Trombonist shoulda turned and popped him one in the face with the slide." As she said so her features turned upward just a little more, that smile becoming lopsided, perhaps even a little smirkish, but all in good humour.
"Alex." She said holding out her free hand to the man, willing to take those first few bold steps into a full on conversation, baring herself in that oh so small way. "What's yours?"
She takes a swig of her beer then, letting the pale ale slide down her throat as she waited to hear those enchanting tones once again, were men even supposed to be able to sound like that?
Dubois & MillerThe skin around his eyes crinkles again when Alex tells him what the trombonist should've done and her smile becomes smirkish. He continues what body language began when he inclined his head downward, turning a touch so he is facing her more fully than he was before.
The man accepts Alex's hand and shakes it. Do people still shake hands? They do sometimes. Some of that solidity, that assured steadiness and will to weather anything translates in his grip. His hands are warm, but on the cool side of warm. And he doesn't do anything as cheesy or as out of place in this environment as bring her knuckles to his lips; that's a good way to get one popped in the lip if the young lady's feisty.
Maybe he held onto it for a moment longer than necessary.
Maybe. So hard to tell, to read signals.
"Gary. So musical instrument brawls do fall within your parameters for exciting. Should I be concerned that you're suspiciously conversant with ways to turn a trombone into an assault weapon?"
Alex Fisher"I dunno Gary, should I be concerned that your voice could be considered a deadly weapon to most of the female population?" She inquired raising a singular brow as she took her hand back. Her face seemed to come closer, as if to inspect, or challenge perhaps thoguh the smile remains upon her lips longer then even she might realize.
"I bet even a good portion of the men. You better get that thing licensed. Might have to report you if you don't." She said absently as she looked back to the stage, it was a momentary gesture a 'your not the only thing in this room that sounds good' sort of motion, before she was looking at him once more.
"So you hear for the music or the inter-band drama?" She asks looking him over briefly. "Or did your girlfriend drag your ass out here to get you some culture?" She inquires, that smirk flashing onto those lips once more as she jests a little more.
Dubois & MillerHe laughs a surprised laugh at that sally, and as with his smile it touches his eyes and causes them to crinkle. "I have faith in bureaucracy's ability to bury reports," he tells her, slips in like a ninja before her so you here for this or for that.
His sharp cut of a gaze has slipped the leash Alex's engaging presence has put on it (or maybe that's the red dress; gotta love a red dress and leather) and takes in the room again. The crowd's a little fuller; the band is actually about to start playing.
"Little of this, little of that. Wouldn't be here if it weren't for the music, wouldn't be after the music if it weren't for a somebody. Culture and I however are currently at an impasse. What about you, Alex?"
Alex Fisher"Hey gotta let my hair down sometime." She said gesturing to herself. "This is about as girly as anyone ever see's me, and if anyone says otherwise they are a fucking liar." Her grin widens again before she sipped her beer and set it on the railing. "I come for the music firstly, the beer a close second. I find it helps me unwind, reminds me of a lot of good things." She looks at the variety of woodwinds and classical instruments on the bandstand before sliding her gaze back to Gary.
"Usually I prefer something that tends to shake me to the core, rattle my bones and shake my muscles. You know something heavy and pounding....but this is fun too." She brings the bottle to her lips once more but halts to say. "At least it is right now."
She drinks then, downing a heavy gulp of beer that Gary might expect to phase her, but she seems not to notice, and not to care....an iron clad constitution it would seem. "So...who is this somebody, and should I be prepared to dodge some unforseen object hurling at the back of my skull?"
Dubois & MillerAlex gestures to herself and Gary takes it in: the oversized leather jacket, the sense of somebody who holds herself like she's used to being one of the boys (perhaps). Salt of the earth. That's a good phrase for how Alex seems to present herself. A blue collar dame. He watches how she says good things and looks at the instruments; their eyes meet when she looks back at him and he listens. Wisp of an agreeable chuckle.
He might've said more but then Alex wants to know if this somebody of his is going to throw something at the back of her skull.
Gary doesn't seem like the kind of man who smiles when he doesn't mean to smile or like the kind of man who squanders his expressions. He isn't inexpressive; he isn't stone. But to a student of human behavior, he doesn't waste his expressions or seem to squander them on insincerity. Which is to say there is nothing that strikes a discordant note or sashays toward the greasy when Gary smiles again.
A respectful note when she chugs that beer like beer and she are old friends.
"Now I don't know," he says, his tone must be teasing; that can't just be his voice. "Do you feel that you've done something worthy of an unforeseen object hurled at your head by a somebody?"
"Or maybe," this a touch more absent, glancing toward the band as they finally start to play, something boozy and woozy - something that's a well-known song re-imagined into swing, "you're just more violent at heart than you look. Martial artist?"
AlexGary inquires about what lay in her heart, if she perhaps simply encouraged violence around her and Alex looked down at herself briefly, as if trying to see herself in such a light and failing miserably. She chuckled when at last she finished and shook her head. "Theres no violence in my heart." She said touching one to the skin visible beneath the leather jacket, right over her heart.
"Though, I can't deny that theres been a few times I've had to finish something someone else decided to start." She hooks one shoulder up and down, and tilted her head with a diminished smile before picking up her beer bottle as if to take a sip, but then realized that it was empty. She plumped her lips and held it aloft briefly as she shook the empty before setting it back down.
"As to what i've done tonight?" She looked Gary's features over, but her gaze did not lower to his body. "Other then chat with you I've been pretty fucking good, I haven't even had a chance to get another beer." She said gesturing to the empty.
"Firefighter, by the way." She said with a quick grin, as if that might well change the dynamic they were sharing, preparing herself for it.
Dubois & Miller"Funny," Gary quips, an easy deadpan. "I've been finished a few times after starting something."
As to what Alex has done tonight: she looks Gary's features over. He's an average somebody, for sure, taken piece by piece, not one who'd stand out in a crowd, not one of the beautiful people for all he dresses damned well and he knows just how the shadows love you more than the light, whatever the fuck that means, but go ahead. Be persuaded to like 'im. He'll wait.
"But I pick myself up..." He mirrors her hand-over-the-heart body language, placing his own hand over his breast. As to what she has done tonight: nothing but talk to this guy with the enchanting (yes, godamned enchanting) voice who certainly isn't a chore to talk to.
The smile that hasn't been far from his expression during their conversation appears again even as he's raising both of his eyebrows. "Sounds like the lady wants another beer. What's your drink?" Eyes go from her face to the beer bottle, and having acquired that information he says, "Guard this position from the horde."
Then he goes to get the lady another beer.
AlexHe's deadpan when he makes that comment, but the raised brow and dropped chin that Alex gives him is mixed with an entirely amused grin. It all mixes together to say 'really now?' in a friendly and perhaps intrigued way, it was that damn voice after all, the man could probably schmooze the feathers off a turkey if he needed too.
She says nothing in regards to it, lets it hang there between them for a few long moments as if it might be a point to pick back up off the hook later on depending how the night progressed. His next comment was something entirely chivalrous and when his eyes move from her features to the beer her own blue eyes followed before she shrugged.
"Knock yourself out Gary. This space ain't going nowhere so long as I'm still standing." She offers him the other bottle so he can dispose of it, no reason to leave it for some waitress to pick up, by that time it would likely be pieces on the floor.
"Don't get swallowed by that horde now." She said as she turned back to the band, letting that sound wash over her as she put her hands on the railing and tipped her head back, a brief smile plastered there.
Dubois & MillerThe band is local and not well known (yet) but they do have a small but loyal following, and although it is not yet too late in the evening there is a decent crowd come to hear them play and watch them set up. They are almost too many for the stage which takes up half of the floor and is set in the corner, darkly curtained and a tangle of wires.
There are four tables and eight chairs set up in front of the stage but they've already been taken over. There is a wooden arm rest banding the rest of the main floor, and were the lighting not dimmed for a performance there is art on the walls. Two bars there are: one the bar you expect with deep scarred wood and illuminated glass and bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles and light subtle light glancing off've taps and the bartender's thick-framed glasses and that bar is there as soon as one comes into the main staging area, just off a short hall. The short hall also opens into a lounge area: it wants to be swank and boozy, it wants to be old Hollywood, it wants to showcase art and so it does, music piped from a sound system that has nothing to do with tonight's performance. The bouncer is a broad man with dark skin and sharp hazel eyes.
There's a tapas bar, too. A waitress who hangs at the tapas bar, which is on the other side of the entrance from the drink-drink bar, and all they serve are tapas, and she does bring drinks and tapas to those who came early enough to snag a seat, but otherwise she just hangs out near the back and flirts with the bartender and not the cook.
The band is local and not well known (yet), and their thing seems to be swing or big band or something. There's somebody for the bass and somebody for the baritone sax and somebody for an alto sax and somebody for the trombone and somebody else for drums and of course the main attraction's the pianist and the singer.
The energy is expectant. The bartender is nice with green eyes behind those bottle glasses as he pours Alex her beer. The room is dark; there are plenty of places to stand along the wall. There is plenty of floor to dance on should the music take that kind've turn, once it starts up. Some of the people seem to know each other because they do.
Dr. JacobsGary does not stand out in a crowd. He is sharp and he dresses sharp and he is not beautiful but he is connected. He notices things. He has an ear and a voice and so long as one is in possession of at least a shred of sense it will take the rest of the body far.
Stood at the bar dressed in a charcoal gray suit with a shirt that's some pastel color no tie or waistcoat or any of that nonsense is a tall dark handsome individual who glances over when Gary comes into view. It isn't a glance of longing. They're acquaintances. They've known each other a couple of months. Long enough to have decided the other one isn't worth burying yet but maybe not written it off completely.
Whatever this man says to Gary stays at the bar. Alex isn't looking at the bar. But Gary has this man at his elbow when he returns with his beer. [When in Rome. René hates beer.] Maybe four inches taller than Alex he hasn't shaved his face since yesterday and salt is shot in amongst the pepper of his hair and growth both. His features are chiseled but his eyes are soft. He wears a tarnished wedding band on his left hand.
He doesn't say anything before Gary does.
Dubois & Miller"I'm depending on you," deadpan, again. And then he's gone.
He doesn't get swallowed by the horde.
The opening number was boozy and woozy but the second number is more nostalgic. Dark vintage doo wop is the theme isn't it and that's a lot of get into your bones and make you want to sway that's a lot of brass, son, a lot of the lead singer cocking her hip in time like it's still war-time ration-stamps and sultry isn't just a way to describe summer nights. Alex usually likes the kind of sound that's heavy and pounding rattles her bones and shakes her muscles but this is good too. Music and beer and now look company.
He doesn't spend too much time at the bar, although Alex has time to people watch on her own and to need defend their prime position as another few people crowd into the performance area.
And when he returns, a beer for the lady in hand as well as a tumbler of whiskey for himself, he's brought a friend. "Alex, this is René. René, Alex," this, as he hands Alex her bottle.
AlexAlex had time to soak up the sound, savouring the rhythm and the lyrics. Feeling the various instrumentals as they take their time in the limelight throughout the songs. Her eyes are closed as she listens and only when the song finishes does she let them flutter open once more. Its then of course she realizes she has company and she turns herself around bodily to find the vocally gifted Gary, paired up with a gentleman who could easily be considered one of the pretty people.
Those hard blue eyes set in her expressive features took in the pair of them, before she turned that gaze upon Gary. One fine brow rose gently in question of the man before she let her wide lips spread and she offered the newcomer a nod. She extended a hand as well, the free one not holding the beer.
"Hey Rene." She said as she looked him over briefly. Her brown hair was loose and flowing about her features, teased ever so slightly to frame her face more effectively then it might normally. She wore a little red dress that fell to her knee's and a pair of black heels. The most notable bit of clothing she wore was an old, patch worn leather jacket into which her body seemed to disappear, the coat itself covered in old band patches and tour badges. Any figure she might have is thoroughly hidden by the coat.
"Needed reinforcements did you?" She inquired as her gaze slid back to Gary, offering her own deadpan tone before she brought that beer to her lips, a good natured smirk hidden behind the bottle.
Dr. JacobsThe beer is already in René's left hand. He does not have elegant hands. They're rough in the way that people who do delicate work all day have rough hands but on the pads. Not the knuckles or the palm. His skin isn't soft and his grip is firm but not overpowering. René knows when to end a handshake and he knows to make eye contact. Even in this he's gruff.
Hey René.
"Hi," he says. This is her first introduction to his accent. Heavy French. Like he's never going to get rid of it. The 'h' is loath to leave his throat.
Once they're done shaking he puts his hand into the pocket of his slacks. Alex looks him over. He looks at the band and doesn't look back until she addresses Gary. Looks between the two of them as if to find the hidden joke but doesn't laugh when he figures it out on his own.
That glance coupled with the accent might prepare her for a man who doesn't speak such good English. Maybe he's just going to stand here all night and nod like he's following along. That's not what happens. He leans in so he doesn't have to shout over the din.
"He said you had a better spot for watching the band play so I decided to stop, eh, holding up the bar." He leans back again and glances to Gary. "'Reinforcements'?" Gestures to her with his beer. "You're going to fight, later?"
Dubois & MillerThe spot is a good one too, so there. Gary takes a drink and while Alex and René are shaking hands glances briefly toward the door, the air of a man who stays aware of his surroundings there for anybody adept at reading airs to interpret. The air of a man waiting, yes, but as content as he ever is.
"Never hurts to be prepared, does it." Still deadpan. His particular brand of humour must be a wry one, although the wryness is softened or sweetened by the re-appearance of a faint smile, the lines deepening again around his eyes as he intercepts René's glance and then slides his own back to Alex like she's the center of this knot of people. Which indeed she is. "But here's hoping it don't come to a brawl. Have it on good authority that Alex here finishes fights."
And the French run away from them.
"You both save lives for a living," Gary observes in the tone of one who does not. "I was just about to ask Alex what she thinks I do for a living and why she became a firefighter."
Friendly air of expectant interest. The trombonist who's not doing much in this particular song dips the singer. It's a slow twirl; a couple of the people who claimed those tables up front decide that maybe they're going to be the brave ones who start dancing.
AlexThe energy in the bar was changing, it was slowing moving from a spectator's standstill, to a hip swinging lively movement and might soon burst into a full out dance full of rhythm and power. It might well sweep them all up in its grasp should their inhibitions be low enough. Alex's grips is firm, perhaps surprisingly so to some, her's is not a dainty shake nor is her gaze a gentle one.
"Damn straight I do." She said as she let the hand holding her beer rest before her, no longer willing to set the beer on the railing with so many people moving and dancing, it made it tough to keep track of after all. "Gary would have one hell of a time coming out of it with that nice suit of his in as bought condition." She winked to Gary, in a good mood as her eyes were drawn back to Rene when there is talk of saving lives.
"Seriously? She asks looking the man over one more time, as if it might give her a clue as to the how he goes about it, as if he might be wearing a sign that said 'EMT' 'Doctor' or the like. But then theres talk about guessing games and asking her the why of her decision to do what she does and that brow raised once more as Alex chuckled.
"You can ask all the fuckin question's you want Gary, wether you get answers comes down to just how much you think you can get me to drink." She catches the sight of the singer being twirled, and her lips flashed a smile for a brief moment before she turned back to the two men and leaned back against the railing.
"Fuckin hell, what is with everyone and expecting me to guess at shit?" She shook her head. "I will tell you right here and now, I am the worst person on the face of this earth for guessing games." She thought for a moment before waving a hand at Gary and said. "You a.....fuck....a radio talk show host? Maybe a pilot? How bout a garbage man?"
Dr. Jacobs
This almost makes him laugh. Snorting doesn't count as laughing but René doesn't usually laugh because something amuses him. He usually laughs because it's an easy way to convey disdain.
"'Fuck a garbage man,'" he says almost to himself. That beer isn't going to drink itself, guy. He ignores it in favor of glancing not up at the stage but around the room now. Namely in the space behind his back that like his beer he has ignored for a time.
Dubois & Miller"As a matter of fact, you guessed it," Gary says, with a pleased smirk or smile and a slow lift of his eyebrows. The smirk-or-smile's like the strike of light on a spill of honey, the honey being his voice. A Look for René and that snort. He'd frowned briefly at 'how much you think you can get me to drink' and he's watching Alex so he sees the way she smiles at that twirl. The same way she looks at the instruments.
"I have my pilot's license." He does not. But can he make everybody believe he does? That is the question of the night.
"Do you want to dance? René's not terrible."
Let's apply a little more power. He's either wingmanning the handsome man who doesn't need it with a wedding band around his finger or he's planning on, if René and Alex dance well, swooping in just after. Or he wants to wait until his somebody gets here before completely abandoning wallflower status.
"I assume. Could be a load of shit."
AlexRene snorts at one of her guesses, practically laughs as she declares Gary must be a garbage man, because obviously a man with a voice like drizzled honey is going to waste his time slinging garbage bags. But then Gary declares her correct and in the group no one looks more startled by that declaration then Alex. Her eyes actually widen, that hard look lost as her blue eyes pop against the wide whites of her eyes.
But then shes looking at him, really looking at him before she herself snorts and shakes her head. "Utter bullshit." She said as she pointed her beer bottle at Gary. "You know how I know? Because I have never...ever guessed a damn thing right on my first try in my entire damn life and I highly fucking doubt that this, moment, here with a trombonist making moves on the lead singer over there, am i gonna fuckin start now." She smiled wryly at Gary and shook a finger as she held her bottle aloft.
"Good try though." She looked at the dancers once more at the dancers, and for a moment, a brief imaginary moment she might actually seem wistful before she shook her head and turned back to the two men. "Sure, I'd love to dance, hope one or both of you are ready to have your feet stomped flat by my lead lined soles, the experience improved by the steel like drive of a heel into your unexpecting big toe." She shook her head and smirked.
"I prefer to save lives, not wreck them thanks."
AmberA woman walks into a place with two bars, one for drinks and one for small amounts of delicious food. There is a band playing jazz or something on a stage. It does not seem the sort of place one would find this woman, but how much is known about this woman, really? She is tall with a powerful athletic build. Her dark brown hair has been twisted up from the back of her neck and into a clip, its hold loose enough that the red-painted streaks at the front frame her face. And what a face she has. What a figure she cuts. She is like a statue, a creature carved from clay, her life breathed into her by some primordial entity forgotten in these more 'civilized' times. In the low light of this place the color of her eyes can only be guessed at, but they look dark. Hard. Sharp.
Enter Amber, a woman of some repute it would seem, not that she knows it. She stays out of trouble, or tries to. She tries to live as quiet a life as she can in these dark nights. She is dressed in a light, black leather jacket. Beneath it her shirt is pale ivory with a scooped collar, and four buttons spaced down between her breasts. Her jeans are worn and bear numerous and multi-colored splashes of stains.
Just inside the door she pauses, rising up slightly to peer through the crowd. She's looking for someone, and when she finds him she starts in that direction. Then the crowd parts and she sees another someone who makes her eyes narrow and her step hesitate for just a moment. Clearly she was not expecting to see one Dr. René Jacobs here tonight. Her surprise is not enough to stop her making it to her destination.
"Gary," says Amber when she's joined them. Her eyes cut toward René, sweep down over him in a brief assessment, and then it's back to Gary. "Lux said she'll be a bit. She had to see a man about a horse."
Dr. JacobsRené waits for Alex to finish laying out the verbal waiver one of them will have to assent to before getting out there with her. Looking the way that he looks might lead one to believe that he is a debonair dancer. But the French aren't exactly renowned for their dancing.
And god damn it Gary we've been over this he's not French he's Belgian.
"Christ," he says. Might be about to hand his beer to Gary when Amber moves from the door to their place by the rail.
For what's it worth he does not behave like a person who is aware of having committed a social faux pas by ignoring a text message. So far as Amber can tell Amber being the only person in the room who was aware that she had sent the text message in the first place he is behaving in the same neutral manner in which he behaved when they concluded their contract relationship.
Maybe he's busy. Or forgetful. Or a self-centered prick. Or Apple has once again decided it doesn't feel like delivering text messages to Android users. There are plenty of reasons why he could have not responded to her. But she looks over at him and ignores him beyond that quick up-down-up and René either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
"If it comes as any consolation to you," René says to Alex as if they had not been interrupted and uses his beer to indicate Gary, "that was in fact a load of shit. I don't dance."
Dubois & MillerHe's maintaining an air of innocent incomprehension when Alex calls him on his bullshit. He'll stick with it, just wait. He never lets things go.
Now they've been joined by a golem of a woman; an earthy, clay-shaped intensity-hardened thing, and is this the somebody Gary was waiting for? It is not; must be that Lux person. The sharp-dressed darkish-haired man greets her with easy companionability, an air of confidance. "Thanks," even, for the message. He extends that air to René, come to think of it, and perhaps to Alex as well. He's companionable tonight, even if there's a lick of aloofness at the core, a measure of self-control.
That measure of self-control is what keeps him from asking what horse.
Anyway, a smirk for René although he's answering Alex - " - my big toe considers itself warned." He hands the Belgian (pft, Frenchie) his half-full glass of whisky. "Amber, meet Alex and René. Alex, Amber."
And he holds a hand out to take Alex's and whisk her off to dance. He's an assured dancer because he enjoys it. Is he good? Eh. Depends on the night.
AlexA fourth join's the trio, and Alex finds herself in one form or another, surrounded by beautiful people. Be it their physical beauty, their voice like honeyed wine, or their sharp sense of style and general prowess she is pressed to the rail by such levels of unerring excellence. That is not to say that Alex does not fit such levels in her own ways, that she is not of a level of excellence of her own. It simply might not appear as readily, not so easily on display.
Regardless the situation does not hamper her nature, it does not douse her own vigour and need for this night, nor does she look at Amber as if she were some sort of competition or danger. She simply nods to the woman and sticks a hand out. "Hey Amber." She says with a brief flash of a smile across her wide lips before she finds a hand extended in offer to her regardless.
She glances at that hand dubiously, at last out of her depth before she looked up at Gary with a hard squint, as if trying to suss out his game plan. But he offered, despite her warnings and attempt to brush the idea off.
She was not the sort to let an opportunity go without a fight. So her hand fell into his and she shook her head at him. "Psycho." She declares as she moves with him towards the dance floor, briefly looking at the other two as they began to merge with the crowd who had allowed the music to take them up, to make them swing and shake to its tune.
AmberAmber accepts the hand offered. Her grip is firm, strong, her palm and fingers rough but warm. There is a power to her frame which is hidden by the fall of her leather jacket. "Hey," she replies, meeting the woman's gaze. There is an intensity about her, like a storm on the horizon, a squall trapped within a feminine form. It is not meant to be directed at Alex or at Gary or at René. Like a force of nature, it simply is what it is.
She releases a hand which is taken up almost immediately. Amber does not know what is going on here, she joined this group but she's not really part of it, is she? Are the two men vying for this woman's attentions? Is Gary winning? Probably. He is charming and has a voice that slides through a mind like a spell, that wraps around the base of the skull and slides down down down, infecting every part of a person.
Add to that his charm, and who could compete with him, really?
Amber watches the exchange between man and woman. Then Gary is leading Alex away, and Alex looks back in time to see Amber slide her hands into the pockets of her jacket and take a step to the side, opening up the space between herself and the doctor. Opening the space the group had taken so that when the other two return from their jaunt around the dance floor Alex won't feel so hemmed in. If she thought being surrounded by Gary and René and Amber was a difficult cocktail of beauty to behold, just wait until Lux arrives.
"How've you been?" she asks the other ghoul without looking over at him, not because she's sulkily ignoring him, but because she's watching Gary. There aren't many clubs that allow for the kind of dancing he's especially fond of, but maybe this place is good for it.
Dr. JacobsJust because René wears a wedding band doesn't mean he isn't out here cruising. It's the "my wife died this past year and it was a long illness and I don't know if I'm ready to move on yet but okay fine I will invite Dr. Guirguis out for fucking coffee" that means he isn't out here cruising.
But he is unruffled when Gary whisks off Alex. Truth be told he looks relieved. René is not charming. He can pretend to be charming in a crisis situation but that's different from actually being charming. Superficialities like his appearance or his accent make up for the fact that his personality is a rusty thing.
He was nice enough to Amber when they were negotiating the painting contract. Seemed genuine in his appreciation of her talent. Distracted. In hindsight we can say he was distracted and now she knows why. Even in the dim light of the club the man looks like he needs a vacation but Amber isn't looking at him.
When she asks a question the other ghoul leans his forearms on the railing. His beer is near to untouched.
"Eh," he says. You know, he doesn't say.
It's loud in here. People are dancing. René takes a sip of his swill.
Dubois & MillerThe Anarch Ghoul and the Lady Firefighter surface out've the crowd near the stage. The band is playing something else a little more lively and Gary doesn't assume that Alex knows any of the steps but that's just fine. He didn't ask her to dance because he thought she was secretly a swing dancing blues dancing demi-goddess. He asked her to dance because he thought she wanted to and the music definitely wants somebody to dance and besides that other couple dancing needs to know that they're not the best.
As they swim through the crowd to that sweet spot to the side and the front:
"You know your doubt about my flying credentials just makes me say to myself, hmmm," and let's try to lead her in a twirl, to show her how to move her legs and then draw her close, ridiculous leather jacket and the accompanying trouble of where to put the hands no trouble at all. "How can I prove that I'm not a liar?"
The best liars prove they're not liars by lying really really well.
Gary can lie really really well.
[Dex + Performance. DANCE WITH ME, LADY FIREFIGHTER.
Does he spend WP because his domitor MIGHT COME IN AND SEE HIM?
Because Amber is totally watching?
Because that other dancing couple needs to recognize?
Yes he does.
Or maybe it's just because his player doesn't want him to pull a groin muscle.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Alex[Dex+Ath Cause Alex has all the enthusiasm, and none of the skill]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
AlexThe dance floor, it was both a dreaded benighted thing of painful memories and broken heels, yet at the same time held such rosey promise, of fun and free movement, of perhaps romance and love...not that Alex expected the latter two, infact she might well frown and cuss and grumble about such idea's being for people with more free time on their hands.
But she was out there, she was doing this thing, and though she completely utterly lacked any skill or 'moves' [Like her drumming] she had enthusiasm, and inbuilt natural ability. [like with her drumming] So she follows that twirl and is pulled in close by Gary who would find that beneath the folds of that body is a firm, hard body built up to save lives and fight fires, there was still some curve, but it was threatened continuously by the muscles desire to bulk and square off rather then round.
"You can take me up in a real plane and not kill us like an idiot who knows when he's been found out, thats fuckin how." She says as she twirls around, dancing along with the man who would be, could be a pilot. Her eyes are kept on his face, only occasionally spinning off to the band, to that other couple [who looked downright miffed] or to Amber and Rene over by the rail.
"You know...that or tell me the truth, cause like I said, I know me. I know me so well I know I couldn't guess to save my ass or that of fifty others. But hey, thats your call."
Summer BarrettOne might wonder why this cold woman walks into such a venue. She's not here for the dancing, certainly...Summer doesn't dance. She was at a dance hall early upon her arrival in the city and the person she met there...well, that person is no longer a part of this world. She also doesn't come for the music...Summer doesn't have an affinity for music. Music is (for the most part) functionally useless for someone without the capacity to feel. Sure, there are times she will use it to allow her to focus on a task, because it blocks out distractions. But she has no such task to bring her here.
She's not here for the people, either. There is no travelling here for a clandestine meeting, though it is most commonly why she comes to such places. In truth, Summer couldn't tell you why she's here. But there is a reason. She just doesn't know what that reason is. She's not that self-aware, and that means that she has come here without a specific focus or goal. This is a rarity for the stone-faced blonde woman.
At least she's somewhat dressed for the occasion. She's not wearing combat fatigues or muddy farmer's clothes, nor does she come wrapped in plastic despite the fact that she just came from work. She used the poor unfortunate's shower once she had done her cleaning work and the chemical smells are now gone, replaced with a faint smell of raspberries from the shower gel she had appropriated. No, instead she is dressed in a black body-hugging top with full sleeves and a knee-length skirt of the the same color, with a brown leather jacket completeing the ensenble. Her hair is just now finished drying as she walks inside, no time for styling it in any manner and she probably wouldn't try particularly hard to do so anyway. That's only for those rare times she needs to make a certain impression.
She pauses when she gets in, brows furrowing slightly as she looks the place over. She is drawn to this place, and she doesn't know why. They pass over the dance floor, the people there whom she doesn't recognize. After a moment the browns unbunch and she just goes with it. Such is the way of her lineage sometimes. She turns and makes her way over to the main bar (she can nurse a drink. She can't nurse tapas of any kind), slipping around anyone along the way.
AmberAmber remembers the day Dr. Jacobs found her. He'd seemed very sad and that was months ago. He'd been wearing his wedding band then, too, and a look like he'd lost the person wearing its match. At the time she thought she understood that pain. She'd lost her own person, sort of, at least at the time she had. That's why she was painting walls for money, and why she was apt to accept his offer of a contract, see.
There had been a sense of understanding, at least from her. Maybe not from the older ghoul. Maybe whatever connection she'd thought they had had been completely one-sided. She asks how he's been and he answers her with Eh and she nods. Like she does know the answer to that unspoken response. It's a singular thing, her nod, one dip of her chin before it lifts again.
Then Amber turns without a word and weaves through the crowd toward the bar. No word of farewell or sign that she's coming back.
It's not like they're friends or anything, or that they're here to hang out, you know? She gets to the bar, tall, svelte, clay-formed creature, and she leans against it. Gets the bartender's attention because who doesn't notice that face on first glance? Who sees it and doesn't try to make their way closer, get a word in, try to catch her eye in return? The bartender comes over and Amber orders something (shock!) that does not contain alcohol. She can drink most people under a table but truth is she rarely has more than a beer when she's out. Looks like tonight she might not even have that one.
In her leaning as she waits for her order to be filled, she looks down the bar and sees - is that the woman from the alley? Small world, this. Small city.
Dr. JacobsStrange thing about grief is it can start out strong enough it's all people see when they look at you and even when it starts to ebb it's still there. Can't see it or get your feet wet in it. But life goes on. It goes on for a very long time and then your domitor does something fucking stupid and here you are standing in a club staring at people dancing and don't you just look so aloof and unperturbed.
Amber turns to leave. It isn't until her back is to him that René looks away from the dance floor and watches her go. Not a long lingering lustful watching but more than a glance too. And when he's done glancing he is left alone watching Gary and Alex and the pitiful mortals surrounding them and holding onto this beer.
This beer tastes like shit. He doesn't drink it any faster. So he paid four dollars for it. He'd pay another four dollars to just be rid of it. Americans and their comatose fucking palates.
Dubois & Miller[on the dance floor]
"You have a supernatural power which allows you to always guess wrong. Quick, Alex," and a pause while the music kicks up zigzags all over the place and there's a moment of just dancing. "Guess that I'll never win the lottery or that I'll die violently."
He isn't wrong about how much Alex knows about dancing, but as it happens she surprises Gary with an untapped but natural ability and a responsive and controlled athleticism. He pushes her. Not literally, people. But since she is so ready to be lead, to follow along, since he's so fucking good at dancing himself, he isn't shy about letting the music carry them into some of the more difficult or at least fancier looking twirls and turns and yes even a dip. He swings her out and he swings her in and he's not going to drop her because he'd never drop a lady not even one who purportedly cusses like a surly sailor.
Cuts a dashing figure when he wants to.
And she's not half bad. Keeps up, and maybe if some of her firefighter buddies saw her they'd bring it up for weeks just to see if they could annoy her.
He grins. "Maybe I will take you up in a real plane. Here comes the end," because the music tells him so, that the end is nigh. They'd come into it toward the middle of the song, hadn't they? The end requires some sort of flourish, doesn't it? He provides. Applause for the band when the song ends, and Gary Miller is a warm presence even through the leather.
That other couple gives Gary and Alex a nod and that eye contact which comes from people having the same kind of fun, but Gary doesn't seem like he's planning to stay and shoot the breeze with the other dancers. He's ready to return to René, search out Amber who's at the bar, make sure he knows where she is too, swing his gaze back to the entrances and exits again.
[in the crowd]
Seems about time for the lead singer and the pianist to talk about the band while getting ready for the next song, which will be something slow. Blues.
AbrahamThe door opens and through it comes another face. The face looks through the crowd and knows not a one of them. It's detached, eyes half-lidded, part-shuttered or shades drawn like a window, mouth almost open and jaw slackened, having let go as it glazes over the people contained in the room with the twist of a neck back and forth.
The face knows none of these faces so there a certain characteristics that win out. People dancing? That's a little much. Let's start this slowly. Those overflowing tables claimed as territory? Gangs of greatest apes slapping each other on the back in congratulatory outburst with one hand whilst throwing verbal shit at one another with the others. Please. Slower than that. Something easier. Path of least resistance for once.
Beauties by the bar. That's hard to turn down.
The hooded sweatshirt looks new, its neon orange coloring drawing the eye like a hunter's jacket in foliage, and that color's an off sort of compliment to tailor (sweat shop fingers) fit camouflage cargo pants he's wearing. A pair of laced up construction boots with the little Timberland tree on the side of each heel, pad-shuffle-slapping deeper in his street wear.
Of the streets. A reminded. He pulls down the hood and the shadows on his face don't go away. He's dark skinned like the bouncer. He's not as big, though, and he's not nearly as intimidating. His head is a bundle of bundles of braids and twists, nappy hair and decidedly cleaner with straight razor fading sharpness on the sides and scruff down his cheeks and chin, neck again clean shaven.
His eyes go wide for a second, intentionally forcing them to adjust with long and slow blinks as he walks through, hands behind his back and when he reaches the bar they come up to plant his fingers splayed on its surface. He looks over the bottles, noting names, and he smells the food deeply and steadily when it wafts on the air from cook tops and plates carried past and table tops.
Look at all these people looking at each other. Eyes following after each other, watching one another walk away or towards, inspecting. It's a watering hole. Of course it is. Somewhere there are predators hiding, ready to pou-
Fuck. That's me. It registers on his face like an internal revelation, a registered epiphany, and he's dour and contemplative all at once.
Don't call him brooding. There's no chip here. He even rolls his shoulders like he's shouldering his way through it.
The realization reminded him of one thing: He turns from the food and the liquor and toward things that could satisfy his appetites: Companionship. Entertainment. Fulfillment. Not sustenance. Maybe sustenance? Damned. Sustenance.
The music stops. This is when people talk. Abraham licks his lips like a predator ready to pounce or prey ready to lap at the water's edge.
[ Auspex (Aura Perception): Perception + Empathy. Cursory scan of the area for other leeches. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 1 )
Summer BarrettIt isn't difficult for someone like Amber to get a drink at any bar. Even with her rather cool countenance, the statuesque nature of her features and her profile tend to attract the attention she needs. And it's a vodka tonic she orders, clear and cold and sterile-tasting, much like the feel she exudes. She pays without a word and then holds the drink in her hand, turning to cast her attention across the interior of the place. There's an analytical nature in those ice-blue eyes...examining, absorbing, collating data in her mind and storing it away for future use.
The dancers. The bartender. The two at that table over there. (Possibly here on a date. Clearly not just friends, and clearly not siblings. Work acquaintances perhaps.) The band, getting ready to slip into something bluesy. The man who just entered, dark-skinned and letting his hoodie fall back like he's shedding his skin. He seems...something. Worthy of further study, perhaps. And near Summer herself...
The woman's eyes pause on Amber. Here, this is someone that she knows. And someone she has head something about. There is a moment where she watches Amber intently, coming to a decision in her head. Logic separates into two possible paths. And one is chosen, and she steps away from the bar to approach the woman. There is no smile, no nod. She does the latter pleasantry only occasionally, the former in the rarest of occasions and only for affect. Instead she moves to take a seat at the bar next to where the earthen beauty leans, looking over to her.
"Good evening. We did not have the opportunity to make better introduction the last time." She regards Amber a moment. "My name is Summer. It would appear that we have a mutual associate. She goes by Lux."
And there it is, laid out for the ghoul. "She spoke quite appreciatively of you."
AlexAlex is lead, and the only reason she is so lead is because well this is not her realm, dancing and frolicking and frivolity is something she thinks about, dreams about, not something she actually does. But shes managing, and Gary...well Gary is a fine lead in this moment. Guiding her and letting her own ability keep herself aloft and keeps her heels out of his toes and shin's. When at last they finish she is flush, not from stress but from endorphins and the fun that produced them. So mcuh so she is smiling broadly, that hard gaze melted away for several long moments.
"Ok, if your ability to dance is somehow, impossibly attached to your ability to fly, then your an ace fighter pilot who can shoot the wings of a fly with nothing more then a goddamn bb gun while you lean out the window of your plane, doing a fucking barrel roll." Maybe it was low expectations that made her compliment him such, or maybe it was because she had an unexpectedly good time. Regardless she does it, and when shes sure she has her footing she looks around and then says.
"Ok, enough of this pussy footing bull crap, I'm gonna go buy us a pair of drinks so fucking good it will make our eyes bleed glory and our asses shit gold, and then you are gonna tell me the truth, or so help me I'm gonna guess you are gonna live forever and have all the money you could want." Shes still smiling as she says this, and she follows it up by pointing a finger decidedly at him before heading towards the bar.
She does note of course that Rene is still at the railing, but Amber, she doesn't spot her till she gets closer to the bar. But she doesn't know if she left for a reason, if she wanted her space...so Alex airs on the side of caution and simply nods to her, giving her that space if she needed it. She strode up to the bar beside Summer, not out of choice but convenience, and calls for the bartender.
"Whiskey! Gimme Whiskey before I fall into some utterly craven hell hole where I see the world through a rosey pair of glasses for a second and my mind shorts out of my for seeing it."
Dr. Jacobs[I am a loser and taking advantage of the hugeness to fade René without writing an exit post. Thanks for the scene guys!]
Amber[thank YOU, Jamie!]
AbrahamAbraham's eyes open wide again and maybe his pupils dilate for a moment when they stop on Summer. Reflex indicating interest. She is black and white. She is aged papyrus. She is covered in dust. She is a mark of ink like a tattoo or scar, something static in a world of living color, and he returns her analysis a moment too late because she's already walking over to talk with Amber.
Don't be a fang block.
It's amusing enough for Abraham to smile to himself and he kicks up off the bar top and takes a few steps closer. Close enough to look past them up at the stage, feigning interest in what's going on up there, and maybe listen in to what's going on between them.
One of the people on stage just told a joke about Benedict Cumberbatch and that's funny, right? That's worth listening to? He puts his hands behind his back again, fingers of one gripping the meat of the other hand, and looks intently as he waits for the next song and listens elsewhere.
[ Manipulation + Subterfuge: I swear I'm not eavesdropping. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
AmberAnd so it begins. People are talking about Amber and Amber is finally hearing about it. Just the once, though, but didn't Flood say something? Something about a Toreador knowing and so things will get out.
She's not thinking about that, though. The blonde from the alley who is not-a-cop and who has interesting ideas about what cops do, she gets up from where she's sat and she moves down the bar to take up a place next to Amber. Amber's expression is a mobile thing that trends toward the intense, and toward the aggressive. There is a twitch to her brow and a quirk to her mouth and she glances over the woman, taking her in, studying her as she slides into the seat. Then Amber leans back, spine stretching, cat stretching and about to strike? But no, she does not strike. She merely shifts, herself, and settles half onto the seat. One booted heel hooks onto a rung, the other remains firmly planted on the floor.
This woman she met under strange circumstances, the woman with the immobile face and the placid demeanor, she mentions a mutual associate and Amber's eyes narrow, suspicious. Goes by Lux, ah. Her expression, her demeanor, they relax though they don't open up a whit. Although.
She spoke quite appreciatively of you.
Amber's chin dips and she turns her face away to watch as the bartender sets a glass in front of her, full of dark bubbly liquid. Only Coke. She wraps the fingers of one of her hands around it and she studies the creases of her fingers and the way the bubbles rise up and burst across the dark surface. And she swallows.
Turns her head and looks back at Summer. The way she's angled, she hasn't seen the man in the orange hoodie yet. But she sees the bartender go to meet Alex's demand. Amber blinks, her eyes shifting over to Summer again, making all sorts of guesses about her. "Amber. How d'you know Lux?"
[Lux said what about me?? :D :D I MEAN >:| (manip+subt)]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Dubois & MillerGary. He doesn't seem particularly phased when Alex cusses although he raises an amused eyebrow at her almost stream of consciousness compliment. "Not that, anything but that," Gary says when she threatens him with a guess of eternal life, with certain rueful quirk of the mouth.
And thus, all the ladies to the bar.
Meanwhile, Gary and René, GhoulBros (Ghouls Can't Be Bros) over at the rail near the exit in the dark. They're having a conversation and Gary's keeping an eye on the place because Gary's always an eye on the place and because he's still waiting for that associate Summer mentioned. How long does it take Lux to see a man about a horse anyway?
[ooc: for the record, f' post order.]
Summer Barrett[[Per+Subt 'cause why not, +2 diff for flaws]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )
Alex[Per+Sub cause everyones doing it? +1 for distractions and such]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Summer BarrettAlex comes up next to Summer and, in very colorful terms, orders a drink. That gives the woman pause and she diverts her attention to the firewoman, looking her over. It's assessment, pure and simple. Black and white, like she's pulling a Benedict Cumberbatch herself (when he's in character, anyway). Or perhaps scanning her like she's a blueprint to be studied. But Alexandra isn't concerned about her; she's concerned about whiskey and not hating the world.
That scan completed, she looks back to Amber. The distract caused her to miss Amber's reaction, and now there is just the casual stance from the ghoul. Of course, Summer had noted the narrowed eyes, the suspicion upon approaching. She understands (which is to say she doesn't, but thinks perhaps she does). She was where Amber is now once, in certain ways. Regardless, the reaction registers the same to Summer. She takes the information (or lack thereof) and uses it to store away later. Perhaps she will chart where things go from here, use that to guess where future incarnations of their conversations may go.
"Lux and I belong to the same organization," is her answer. "I do not know her well yet, but we have met on a couple of occasions. Shared information when it is useful or important to us to do so. I foresee us having a very favorable association, barring unforeseen circumstances."
Abraham's quiet eavesdropping has also not been noted, though his clanmate continues to make note of him. She usually keeps herself cognizant of everyone near to her out of habit, her eyes moving around the room every so often. When you do not feel the need to play social nicety games, it is easier for your attention to divert from time to time.
AlexAlex stands there for several long moments, as her order was filled, as she worked thoughts over in her mind that usually warred with her own internal and external views of the world. She looked over her shoulder briefly, scanning the crowd and then turned quickly back, she shook her head quickly as if to clear it, or at least focus those thoughts.
The whiskey's were brought up, and her money was taken. She could have moved then, could have picked up the drinks and moved off to find Gary once more, to give him his drink and then get her answers. But she lets her ears wander, hear's the surprise in Amber's reaction, notes a guy watching the woman she was standing besides, and a myriad of other things.
Mind you, in a setting like this, that could mean anything, or nothing at all. But what Alex does notice, does take in, is just how BUSY the place had gotten. It was almost packed to the gills and in that realization she felt her elation seep out of her, and a shiver run up her spine. Her eyes fall to the drinks and her lips purse and her brows furrow, she takes a deep breath...hoping, willing it to be enough.
Its not, she turns then, the drinks untouched and moves to stride past Abraham...intent on the exit. It seemed she had to get out of there...fast.
Abraham[ Note: For Alex to see through Amber's Manipulation + Subterfuge roll and Abraham's Manipulation + Subterfuge roll would take two separate Perception + Subterfuge rolls with notes of which they're for. ]
Alex[That's fine, I really just wanted to roll dice, so no biggy that she didn't see him watching others.]
AbrahamDon't push your luck.
If you've noticed it might register in his actions. His hands fall to hang at his sides and he looks restless for a moment. A woman seems intent on the exit and her drinks get left on bar top.
Abraham is never one to turn down a prop. It's like handling an artifact. A relic of another life. Of life.
It's a shift and another target for his attention while he's running on little more than luck. He's not as nonchalant as he'd hoped, but no one seems ready to squish-swat the fly on the wall. One of those drinks for his empty hand and it'll help him blend in and the other left for whoever will spot it and actually have the inclination (ability [bravery]) to drink it.
He's cataloging names, mental Rolodex note taking, and turns back over toward Amber and Summer where they're standing adjacent on the bar. One of his fingers goes to the drink still standing there and he clears his throat to get their attention. "One of you-"
The music starts up again and he starts again, his voice a little more full, bass louder, "One of you want this? I don't think she wants them," referring to the woman who had just made a beeline for the exit and the drink he hadn't snatched up like a dollar off the sidewalk.
AmberAlex is watching the room, watching too many things at once perhaps. She is just a hair too late to catch the way Amber looks at her drink. She sees her look at Summer and somehow reads surprise in that look, as she introduces herself. As she asks after a mutual associate.
The same organization, replies Summer, and Amber's eyes narrow again but this time with thought. There is much that she has learned about the denizens of the dark, their organizations or their lack therof. But there is still much to learn and she is a young ghoul.
Still, she thinks she catches summer's flatly offered drift. On the other side of her, Alex goes still, and then Alex turns away, and then Alex is heading for the door. Amber sees the change, the boisterous woman suddenly gone silent and then all but bolting away. Her expression tightens, but she doesn't go after her. Amber isn't the girl who chases down someone and asks if they're alright and hovers and holds back their hair when they need to vomit against a wall.
And that's what she assumes needs to be done. That all that vigorous movement on the dance floor was too much for Alex's poor stomach and she needed to get some air fast fast fast.
Such is the way of a busy, packed Friday night in a bar that Alex's abandoned chair isn't left vacant for long. A dark man in an eye-catching orange hoody fills the void and takes up one of the forgotten drinks. Clears his throat to get someone's attention and oh, he's looking over here? The look on Amber's face says Because of course he does. Two pretty woman at a bar with a male escort, of course the sharks start swimming.
Amber turns then. She looks toward the exit Alex was rushing toward, and she looks across the room to where Gary and René are standing off to the side, having a conversation. Did Gary, watchful thing that he is, notice that? Does he care to go after her? That's what Amber looks for, not for the woman what just fled.
And of course it means she doesn't answer the question asked about the drink.
Alex[And at that im out. Thank you all for dropping in and making this full of awesome. I'lll catch you all later.]
Dubois & Miller[Thanks for the scene, Shay!]
Summer Barrett[[Nini Shay!]]
Summer BarrettThe woman at one side of her slips away, moving none-too-casually toward the exit suddenly and of course, Summer notices. Alexandra is a little wisp of death slipping away into the night to the Malkavian, lost amidst a charnal house of the moving, breathing, walking dead. (And of course there are a couple non-breathing walking dead as well.) Summer could easily lose sight of someone amidst all of that death, but she at least notices when the spot next to her is vacated with purpose, and then filled again by the man who had been nearby not so long ago.
And the latter is why Alex's flight is given only a brief notice, a footnote filed away for later. Abraham asks if either of them requires a drink and Summer raises the untouched one that she has. "No." There's a momentary pause, a hitch in the thought as if she had forgotten and suddenly remembered, before saying, "Thank you."
And now that Abraham is closer, he is given the same appraisal as Alex was earlier. Tactical, efficient, analyticial. Amber's expression is unsurprised at the offer, to say the least. Summer's is placid.
Amber has turned her attention away to look at Gary and see if he's going to head off after Alex. That gives them a momentary break in their conversation, and Summer turns to Abraham as a result. "I am aware that you just picked it up off the bar near me, for the record. But I must say that I would be concerned about the intellect of anyone who simply accepted a drink from someone that they did not know without it having come straight from the bartender."
It's merely an observation, nothing more.
AbrahamAbraham looks down at his hand, one finger still pointing down at the drink, the one not yet moved or touched on the bar, to make sure he's making his question clear enough.
He is.
Summer gives him an answer, and a thank you, but something just seems to catch. Rub and scratch the wrong way.
Amber is just ignoring him.
So, this is what a shark looks like? Who in their right mind ignores a shark? Well, to be fair floundering is just going to get it interested, but he's already interested. Sharks don't start swimming. They keep swimming until they're dead. (That's where the metaphor gets a little muddied.) Anyway, too late to hope he's going to swim away. He doesn't get an answer and he stares.
And waits.
And keeps on staring like he's expecting it's going to come some time or other. It has to. He's not one of those people who gets forgotten or ignored. Let's set things straight.
Oh, no, you don't, his eyes seem to say.
His jaw is still a little loose, or is until he starts chewing on his own teeth, waiting. If he's angry he doesn't know it yet. He's not conscious of it. His eyes are half-lidded again, half-closed, and the two brown half-moons visible through them are on Amber.
[ Auspex (Aura Perception): Perception + Empathy. Target is Amber. (I've never had a character with this Discipline before. This is fun.) ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Amber[you think i'm ignoring you but am i really? alertypants]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
AmberLet us set the record straight, shall we? Amber's attention is diverted to a woman who appeared to be distressed and the person she knows in the room most likely to at least act like they care enough about her to go after. That's not exactly ignoring anyone. She is aware of Abraham's presence, and she hears what Summer says to him and the corner of her own mouth lifts into a slash of a grin.
Abraham takes Amber's diverted attention to mean that she's ignoring him, well isn't he the narcissistic one? He sits down, unasked, uninvited, and expects the people already having a conversation to drop everything and look at him look at him pay attention to him.
Amber is not ignoring him. Soon as she looks at Gary and Gary does whatever Gary will do she's turning back. Which means as soon as Summer's done talking Amber's turning back. To look at Summer of course, but there's another and he's still sitting there and he's-
He's staring at Amber. There was a time, and that time was not really all that long ago, when turning her head and seeing a stranger staring at her the way that Abraham is staring at her would have Amber bristling or better. Lunging across Summer to try to put her fist into his eye. That would teach him to stare at women like he's owed the privilege of their attention.
Amber is more controlled these days than she was back then. Still. Whatever calm he'd seen around her shifts to a spark, a spike, a dagger of irritation when she looks at him. Her eyes narrow but she does not snap. The irritation retreats to a dull simmer, and how does that look on her now? Is it a low, gentle orange glow? And what about the vitae that's stopped her aging? How does that look to him when he tries to stare a hole through her?
Anyway, it's not so long that Amber's looked away, and it's not so long that she looks irritated to find him staring. Instead she reaches over and slides her own drink closer. "Looks like you got yourself a couple free drinks."
AbrahamAbraham has gotten an answer. It's not a polite one, but it's more polite than none at all.
"Oh," his response to her assessment of his situation? No. Eyes opened for a moment before they return to that drifting off state, lips closed and then licked again, before he elaborates like he has noticed something:
"Looks like you got a taste for the harder stuff. Old engine oil. Redwood syrup out a tap from a dead tree and thickened over cold fire. Fossilized blood. Amber. That explains it," and one of his elbows sets onto the edge of the bar top, forgetting the drink he had been offering like he understands and is satisfied with the explanation he has unearthed for why it hasn't been taken. He cranes his head to look at Summer and his eyes forget about Amber for a moment while the focus on the statuesque woman.
His eyebrows shift in a way that show he's regarding her and doing his own calculations, ready to offer his own observation by saying, "You must be concerned for a lot of peoples' intellects if not taking candy from strangers is your baseline."
Dubois & MillerAlex flees. Gary does notice. He notices when she's at the door or perhaps even after his - ah - colleague (is that the word?) makes some gloomy Eeyore comment. Does he care enough to go after her? He says something to René who gets a page and, with an air of weariness particular to the Tremere ghoul, hies himself off. Gary is considering the entrance, but he isn't following.
He's drinking the remains of the whisky he'd left with René after coaxing the firefigher onto the dance floor. He blends when nothing is drawing attention to him. He doesn't fade but he does become an exercise in pointilism.
Just another point, one among many, paints a picture of a bar on a Friday night with a good crowd and good music and humanity humanity humanity.
Gary. He's still watching the entrance instead of checking on his other Ghoul Associate over there at the bar. Attention taken, not snagged. It's subtle. He's not a golden retriever and he's not an untrained puppy, he's a professional, even on a Friday night meant for the equivalent of relaxation, but guess who's finally here for - what - a cameo before it's time to move on?
Addiction, wearing a lovely shape.
A night with the streets rain-soaked and silvered under the streetlights. Lux is a shark, too. Blood in the water and doesn't it just draw her in, did she smell it when she was still outside seeing a man about a horse? A drop or two, a scratch, that's all it takes; this metaphorical blood that gets the social sharks moving. What does this mean?
Patience is one of Gareth Miller's virtues and he gets to be virtuous for a little while longer. Lux espies a blond and a redhead at the bar and an orange hoody and she heads that-a-way, as sure as a knife in the hands of somebody who knows their way around incisions- or is that too sharp?
Summer BarrettSummer's comment to Abraham outside of the (for her) polite refusal draws no response, as he's focused his attention entirely on the ghoul. The way that the man is staring at Amber now means that Summer is staring at him, directly that same sort of intent focus on the other. Amber pushes her own drink over to the man and as for Summer, the drink in her hand is just a prop and almost forgotten by the woman--easy enough when you only sense your pressure on the glass, not the chill of the water or the tickle of perspiration against her fingers.
It has nothing to do with any sort if disdain for Abraham, for the record. There are no protective urges coming to the surface, she is no white knight (or even a black one). She is a projection screen in her neutrality sometimes and people will take what they want from her, but it doesn't change who and what she is. She is more analytical than anything, this twist of behavior drawing her attention because she knows people who act out of social confines well. You always know your own, it is said. And perhaps they are two peas in a psychotic pod, because she is being no more subtle about her attention being focused on him than he is about his focused on Amber.
And then finally he responds, and she answers matter-of-factly. "I do not particularly care one way or another. I was speaking hypothetically."
And Lux is approaching, but Summer doesn't notice because she's focused elsewhere.
[[My turn! Auspex 2, +2 diff again, WP]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN10 (3, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Summer Barrett[[Switch "pushes her own drink over to the man" to "pushes her own drink closer to herself" because I'm a moron.]]
AmberBlood in the water is a good metaphor. Amber is a treat, at least she appears to be. Her beauty draws the eye, her intensity draws other attentions, making her something of a magnet for dark forces. Isn't that how she became the way that she is? Surly and gruff and unaging.
And what a strange situation she's found herself in tonight. All these unliving creatures gathering around her, one after the other after the other. Is it her? Is it Amber, really, who is drawing them all through the crowd, through the music, through the press to this one place?
"What?" she asks, question hard as a hammer blow to the temple, brows crashing together in a troubled look. "How'd you-" but she stops, because where exactly is she supposed to begin? With that description of the 'harder' stuff? Syrup from a dead tree, fossilized blood. Amber is no idiot and she's more than a little clever, of course she knows what that means. Or should she start with how he knows her name already?
Luckily, before she can answer he's turned his attention to Summer so that Amber can shift her weight. She slides off that seat like she's going to go...where? She has a drink in her hand and all the tables are taken and oh look there's Lux. Slipping through the crowd and toward them with a sharp efficiency that stalls Amber, keeps her from wandering away.
Summer Barrett[[Sorry to skip people on the posts but I just noticed the time and I work in 6.5 hours, so!]]
Amber slides off of her seat and almost as if it is causation to this result, a vibration jars Summer's pocket. She reaches in, pulls out her Bluetooth headset and slips it in.
"I must go," she says to them both. If she had any concerns about leaving Amber with Abraham (and would she, really? unlikely), they are alleviated by the fact that Lux is approaching. There is a brief moment when she locks eyes with Lux in acknowledgement of the other and another when she locks eyes with the new vampire, as if searching his gaze (though for her they are rotted sockets with dead eyes) before she steps off her stool and heads to the door.
Whatever reason she had for being here, she never discovered. Or perhaps she did without realizing it. Something to figure out another time.
On the way to the door, she discreetly sets her own drink out of view. Too many untouched drinks around that bar area would start asking questions.
And then she's gone.
AbrahamOne he's maybe tripped, another explaining she's being hypothetical before leaving, another taking a purposeful and driving walk toward the bar. He's almost had trips queens, but he'll settle for a pair, not that he has any of them.
They're on the table. They'll add to his hand. Or at least effect it, the odds, the outcome, the game.
Amber has questions and she wants to leave before they're even near answered. Maybe she can get answers for them elsewhere? In any case she stops when she also spots that other one. The woman who is wearing a form like love. An abstract. An unfathomable. He doesn't gawk. Maybe he tries not to?
Abraham hadn't sat down at that bar. Leaned against, kicked off, but never put down roots or lifted his feet of the ground. Grounded? That's not right, but he wouldn't give up the traction. Light, but on his feet, not up in the clouds.
"You look important," and Abraham smiles. It's not a mean smile or a foreboding smile. It's a smile like someone who remembers how to sit on his stoop and talk to his neighbors. Someone who remembers how to be nice for niceness' sake. The superego still asserts itself, however else he's cracked and scattered.
Abraham[ That last part is directed at Lux as she enters stage right or descends from the Heavens via deus ex machina. ]
Dubois & MillerThe (female) Malkavian Anarch locks eyes with Lux on her way out. Lux wasn't expecting to see Summer (this is the first time indeed that she has run across Summer by accident and not by design) and Lux doesn't let her go without lifting her imperious little chin in a sharp hello not without the suggestion of a smile and of interest. Maybe only so many predators to a room?
The creature tonight is a gloom-catching fall of dark hair, asymmetrical and raked back so it falls in a pompadour. Frivolous and improbable shoes: silver-gilt ankle-length boots with heels and the heels are angels and the baroque wings bear her feet up and her toes are on the clouds. Hip-skimming skirt like to fall just so's all fabric knows of grace some blush of color. Blush of color's the color of her top's a high-collared thing, right up to the notch at the base of her throat, cinched sharp at her waist by a belt.
Jacket's pale, because Lux sucks at being low-key. Before she actually says a thing, like, hello Amber, here's Abraham. Who gets a smile like it's impulse-tugged, a Compass-needle can't resist it smile. "Do I?" eyebrows have raised; sluice of consideration and, "Well you look kind. Weathered and kind; say it's not a lie?"
"Making bar friends?" This to Amber. To both of them, really, but more meant for the intensely (earthen [carved, statue]) beautiful living woman.
AmberAmber slides off her seat and so all of them are standing. Summer is standing and leaving, her time spent in the bar slash gallery slash music venue very short indeed. Amber watches her go, or watches when she starts to go. She is not a wary and watchful sort of creature, no. She is strong and indpendent and in the presence of independents. A stranger said her name out of nowhere and that's disconcerting, but she (thinks she) knows what's up. She does not know what Abraham is, of course she wouldn't. It's not like vampires walk around with the word VAMPIRE tattooed 'cross their foreheads for all the breathers to see and know to run away. But he is something different. Nathan can speak to ghosts, maybe Orange Hoody knows the names of people he meets before he meets them.
Maybe he reads minds, and if he reads minds Amber needs to get the Hell out of Dodge because her mind is full of secrets she'd rather die before letting them be discovered.
But there's Lux heading this way. Amber's eyes are on her. She does not look to Abraham and ask her questions. Making bar friends? Amber is risen and poised to move and besides. 'Amber' and 'making' and 'friends' are words that do not belong in the same sentence.
She does look at Abraham then, though, tilting her head, eyes slanting to look at them from their corners before her head tilts a little further and she's not looking at him sideways. "Not exactly."
Abraham"That's not for me to say," and he looks back at Amber who Lux is already looking at. He has to look back because as she's standing with her questions half-voiced, and as Lux is asking her own to the woman, and he's wondering if this bar isn't getting a little crowded.
He has to look back because he's already on his feet and they're taking him away. No, he doesn't look like he wants to go, but it seems the time. The shift of his shoulders and the turn of his head, a little restless, like he's looking at his watch. He's a rabbit with somewhere to go, down some other rabbit hole, and he won't get snared up here.
"Trying and barred," his answer, even if the question isn't all for him, or not at all for him. "Let me go before I get any more weathered or seem any less kind; I don't want to be a liar," and he's walking off with a drink in his hand and like Summer's it gets tucked away wherever it is vampires hide the drinks they don't drink.
Abraham[ Thank you both for the play and good night! ]
Dubois & Miller"What a way he's got," Lux says, once Abraham has been dragged away by whatever tides work on him. The words are a scrim of foam, aren't they; foam and blood and brine, an easy drawl. Watches him go like maybe he's a drink, still as a held breath and then he's gone and motion returns like a sigh, the creature all a-slouch looking Amber over. "What do you think, do people who say they don't want to be liars mean it or are they just the lyingest liars there are?"
Amber; she was poised to leave the bar. Lux doesn't need a drink. Gary's waiting over there by the wooden rail, up near the front of the stage. Lux cants her head in that direction like why don't we go that-a-way.
[Percept + Empathy, too. Amber. Was that dude unsettling you?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2) ( fail )
AmberNot exactly doesn't mean No, Abraham. Maybe if he hadn't started his approach by staring and staring and staring at her. Maybe if he hadn't weirded her the fuck out by uttering her name before she'd said it to him. Or all that talk about knowing what she is.
Amber is tense as he starts to shuffle off, and she doesn't quite relax once he sets his drink down into some nebulous space for someone to find later.
Lux asks her a question and Amber looks at her, frowning, unsettled. That he was there? That he left? Who knows what Lux reads from that, or what she imagines is the cause. Amber looks in the direction that Lux angled her head, over to where Gary is waiting, and she gives a slight nod. Her drink is still in her hand and she keeps hold of it though the ice has melted and most of the carbonation has fizzled away.
"That guy," she says, flicking her head back thataway, toward the door. "He knew my name. He knows what I am."
Dubois & MillerUsually, Amber is easy for Lux to look at and see clearly; as if the ghoul were a shallow sheet of water, clarity, and all Lux needs to see to the truth is look, lucent-thing, and see. As far as Lux knows, that's now, too; she studies Amber and reads that tension as a yearning, as a godamned wanting, reads that frown as a wary protectiveness or covetousness.
"Really," Lux says, intrigued. "How interesting." The band's doing another of their Now-We-Talk, This-is-the-Show, laugh-with-us, be-silent-during-our-sorrowful-stories, listen, listen, between songs. It's not difficult for them to wind through the crowd although don't eyes find themselves pulled. Tugged. Kept. Burnt. Covetous.
Yes, covetous eyes.
"What, he just came right out and said it? Maybe he's one of Daniel's pals."
AmberUsually Amber is an open book for anyone to read. She is a children's story, you know, the sentences simple, not too many big or unusual words. With a large and easy-to-manage font and illustrations to drive the point home. Sometimes she hides things, though. She is ghoul to a Lasombra, after all. She is a ghoul at all. She has secrets that she's meant to keep.
"Sorta," she replies. Winding through the crowd, she keeps her eyes on the prize. The spot over by Gary. If Amber were to look at the crowd and see all the glittering eyes watching her so hungrily, well, that might just bring that temper of hers back to life again. "When I wouldn't take the drink someone left at the bar he said I liked harder stuff, and then spouted some weird shit about syrup from a dead tree and fossilized blood. Then he said my name and said, 'That explains it.'"
Lux suggests he could be one of Daniel's pals, and Amber she shakes her head. "He would've told me."
Wouldn't he? Amber thinks so. He told her about everyone else before. But he hasn't told her about his pack, the current one or the old one. She would give her life in service to him, but there are things he keeps from her still.
Dubois & Miller"Mm. I understand why it struck you so, but perhaps he was only caught in his own metaphor - the proverbial mosquito in amber. As far as your name goes," she corrects herself. "But knowing what you are," see, a slanting frown. "There is a certain sort of discipline that, if you're very perceptive, I'm told will tell; or maybe - "
Wasn't she just telling Nathan Marszalek this? It feels as though she was, and when she was, it felt as though she were explaining to Amber that there is way to tell who's in the club and who isn't. Threads of connection.
They've reached Gary Miller now and Lux touches the ghoul's forearm with her fingertips for a hello.
Gary has secrets that he's meant to keep too. He'd give his life in service for Lux and he'd do it willingly and happily and his last thought would be of her. His last thought would be a hope of her. His fingers don't quite tremble now but he was drumming them just a moment before because his heart still beats and it beats a tempo a tattoo of need. He needs a fix but he doesn't behave like a junkie. He smiles wryly when her fingers touch his forearm and then he takes her by the hand and reaches for her waist. Draw her in for a hug, a kiss by her ear.
He keeps secrets too and keeps them well. Lux tells him a lot and relies on him for much, but there are things she doesn't tell him too.
Ghouls. Only trust them so far.
Or maybe - she'd let that hang. Lux doesn't know much about the other powers that might be in the dark dark world; she's never been too interested in delving, really delving, into the occultish possibilities just because her fate's seen fit to make her one of those occultish possibilities.
" - well I don't know. I should be better schooled," reflective, she. "There's just," the kissing curl of a grin, "so much to do. I hope I see him again." Him. The mystery man; a touch of waryness. Not every Sabbat is as nice to hang around as Flood, hm?
Gary, for his part, has sharped up looks between the women, alertly; or maybe he looks after whoever else it was they spoke to before arriving at his spot, noting what should be noted before he investigates later on. An eyebrow raised.
"I'm going to observe," Gary says, and isn't his voice a gift? Isn't there something to it that catches one out? "that I've lost my dates. Are we staying?" A slender pause, follow it with, "And if we are, Amber, will you take a turn on the dance floor?"
AmberThey all keep things from each other. Amber has people she keeps things from, and she in turn is kept in the dark (hah) by her domitor. But he does it skillfully these days, not like that one time, the time outside the grocery. Maybe he realizes now how much Amber fears the dark. After all, terrible things lurk there. Flood is in that darkness, but that woman was in there, too, the one who came at Amber on the roof.
No. Amber does not like being kept in the dark. Either literally or figuratively.
What Lux says makes sense, but Amber is still not wholly convinced. Vampires have so many strange abilities. And Lux just said she could be better schooled. Lux hopes she sees the man again, but Amber? Well, Amber isn't so sure. If he's another vampire she'd prefer to keep her distance. She's less likely to become a liability to Flood that way.
I'm going to observe-
Amber's attention shifts to lock onto the ghoul. Sharp as that look is, the tension of that weirdness at the bar starts to leech out of her. At least, the edge of it is shaved off, rounded and made smoother for the sound of his voice. She looks at him and where she might have looked at someone else with incredulity, she looks at Gary with...well to be honest there's some incredulity in that look, but there is also a touch of disappointment.
"I don't know how to dance." Which is not the same as I don't dance. Both his dates, though, does that mean that he and René...no don't be stupid, Amber. Date doesn't have to mean romantic.
Dubois & Miller"Neither did Alex. I'll teach you a couple of easy steps," Gary says, coaxing.
He answers Lux's question before she asks it. "A lady firefighter who kept me company while I was waiting," a touch of wry, because wasn't he waiting a long time. "René was here too." He says it like Lux knows René or might care about his presence. Lux: she says she wants to know everybody, doesn't she? So maybe Amber isn't surprised Lux and Gary apparently know her erstwhile employer.
"So what do you say?" This to Amber. He offers a hand. A plain man, but charming, right?
[Come dance with me, Amber. Manip. Subt. Persuasive: Specialty. -2 diff, Enchanting Voice.
(Maybe his player just wants to test out the Lu-Light Name 1s theory.)]
Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Dubois & Miller[7. Theory tested. *squint*]
AmberNo, Amber is not terribly surprised that the Toreadors know that other one. Lux does want to know everyone. Maybe she knows half the bar already. But it seems to Amber that people like her and people like Lux (ghouls and vampires that is) would be higher up on the list of people Lux would like to know.
She does look at Lux a little different, though, if only for a moment. If Lux knows René then maybe Lux also knows the man from the parking lot, the vampire that Laurel's so hot under the collar over. And oh, did Amber ever tell Lux what Laurel said about her? If she didn't, she's not going to now. It's not the right place for that sort of thing.
And besides. Gary is coaxing Amber out onto the dance floor. And with that voice how could she possibly resist? If there's a roll for it her player sure as hell isn't going to roll for it, god damn, man. So there is Amber, looking uncertain and perhaps a little green at the idea of getting out there on the dance floor. She really does not know how to dance. Or at least, not in a graceful sort of way. Amber is athletic, she knows how to groove on a club floor, but here? With Gary? Gary who Amber imagines wants to be Yul Brynner or Fred Astaire?
But how can she say no to that allure, that charm? Amber's eyes narrow and she looks at the dance floor and she looks at Lux like maybe Lux can offer her an escape, but Lux was mum about Flood taking Amber to the karaoke show so maybe not. And even so.
"Alright," she says, and she takes his hand, but she doesn't allow herself to be led, no no no. She walks with him, and perhaps her grip's a bit too tight. Amber is nervous, see, she doesn't like to be made a fool and god LUX is watching.
Dubois & MillerLux's mouth slants, amused, but it's not quite a smile and it's not quite - oh no not quite - a suggestion. The creature's shoulders round and she sets them against the wall and the wooden rail, fixing herself in place; go on, then, dance, and maybe she's thinking about René.
René, Molly, István, Nathan; maybe they're all connected in her mind, a clotted-up wadded piece of thread. Her gaze doesn't get distant but her lashes do sink low while Amber looks at Lux like halp an out not dancing.
"He's a good teacher," she says.
Hadn't been specifics about Laurel. Laurel oh Laurel. Laurel who was supposed to call. Just those texts. Or had there been more? Lux doesn't think about Laurel right now. Does think about her on occasion: and that's not a good thing. Ever since Nathan told her what Laurel said to him. Did Amber and Lux talk about Kragen since the public spectacle of his demise, back in April? Did they go out for celebratory drinks or smirk, sharp enough to draw blood? Maybe Amber has too much conscience for such a thing: even disliking the man as she did. Maybe Amber's got too much heart. Not so: Lux. Lux is lovely and never lovelier than when hatred animates her: burnishes her. Makes her into the morning star, Venus falling.
Gary's hand is warm. They walk out to the floor and Gary picks up a place that isn't too too front and center. Listens to the music a moment and maybe now's not going to be his Fred Astaire moment. Maybe he squandered it all before Lux and Amber arrived, but wasn't he so sharp? Won that. Won that enough to put will into dancing, again.
"All right. Here's the first step," and he shows her. "And here's the second step," and he shows her. "String them together, but move this way or that way and it looks a lot fancier than it is."
Gary. He'll try and help her get those simple moves and then he'll twirl her out and he'll twirl her in; he'll provide all the support he can. Fred Astaire, hah.
The man does like to dance.
[Dex + Perf + WP again because by god there will be no botches.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Amber[yes did we feel too conscience-y to go have a celebratory drinky drink? diff+2 because Kragen]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 6, 7) ( fail )
AmberAmber has a lot of heart for one with such dark blood running through her veins. But then she is still a young ghoul, a young ghoul who was still quite young when she someone slipped her into all of this. Couldn't say she was dragged, no, Amber was not unwilling but she certainly was unknowing.
But for all that heart and for all of that conscience, Amber hated Kragen more than she could say. Not as much as she hates another ghoul, no, but she hated him quite a lot. She found him creepy and she almost, almost wished for a chance to slug him one good, just once. She does not revel in death but she absolutely does not mourn that one, no no no. She was not too human or humane to keep from smirking when she heard about it (especially since he took no one else with him), nor to keep from making a celebratory toast or something in honor of one more creep wiped from the Earth.
That was then. Here and now, Amber is more than a little bit nervous. Going out onto the dance floor when she's far, far from a dancer. She's not worried about looking like an idiot (or tripping and getting trampled) in front of all these strangers. She's worried about Lux. Would she still speak appreciatively of Amber if she watched Amber fall square on her face?
This is not a good idea. But it's too late to turn back now.
Amber's there on the floor and at least her hair's up off her neck, though she's still wearing that leater jacket, but at least it's light. She watches Gary when he shows her the first step, and then the second step. Cautiously, Amber tries to mimick him, but she doesn't get it right. Steps off with the wrong foot and nearly collides with him. Stops, shakes her head.
Does something stupid. She calls upon her blood to please please please. Make her a little more nimble? A little lighter on her feet at least? Once done, she puts her mind to it and she concentrates on getting this right.
[dex, no performance! -1BP (yes shut up), +WP (yes yes, shh)]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Amber[if we change that to athletics, then that's one extra die! and that last roll was one extra success!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Amber[just for fun let's reroll the whole thing like we planned it as athletics from the start]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Dubois & Miller[Hmm. Gary, that is a beautiful beautiful turn.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Dubois & Miller[Hah, suck it blood-weakness.]
Dubois & Miller[I type with respect so as not to provoke a failure of that roll in a horrible setting of doom.]
Dubois & MillerThe Anarch Ghoul doesn't treat her as if she were some precious glass figurine in his arms. Amber is a flesh and blood woman and a ghoul, sturdy and far from glass. There's no delicacy unless perhaps its in her brush-strokes. He treats her like a flesh and blood woman in his arms. Doesn't make soothing noise or anything, though there's an encouraging light in his eye when she gets it wrong the first time. Dancing's a game for mirrors.
He knows that she's nervous. He just adapts, patiently; and isn't he light on his feet? Isn't he fucking graceful? You'd never suspect him of being so godamned good.
Toreador Ghoul. Maybe it's the blood; it curdles in his veins (addiction [obsession]) and plugs him into music in a way that his domitor isn't plugged into music. Ah well. So Gary: He treats Amber like a flesh and blood woman, not like a delicate flower, and doesn't make soothing noises at her when she steps wrong, just adapts and adjusts and then she gets it.
Unskilled, untutored, but she gets it and he smiles a crinkle-eyed smile at her. They look pretty damned good together. Dashing, you get it? Swankified.
Like the last one, this song also ends. Applause for the band, but maybe for the dancers too. Maybe the applause sounds like thunder, regardless of who it's for, when one's so self-conscious.
"Looks like you do dance," Gary says.
Lux; she'd watched her ghoul and Flood's ghoul take to the floor. Hadn't she looked at Gary for a moment like he made her remember something that's always there, waiting; a blessing turned into a curse, feeling, true feeling, captivation is feeling: captivation and possession - why's it all gotta be so much a trap in the world of immortals? She's smiling; energetic, vibrant, pleased.
Somebody asks her to dance, she says no.
Somebody else asks her if she wants a drink, she says no.
Somebody else (magnetic, okay? Magnetic and compelling) dares try their luck with a line so bad it gets a Look, but doesn't ruin her mood.
[How much of a Look was the Look. Char + Intim, just 'cause I never roll this!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
AmberAmber concentrates and she puts her back into the dancing. She is watching Gary, though, and quite intently, too. It is that intensity about her which is so unnerving to people, so unsettling and off-putting. Amber likes the people who don't get unnerved, though, who aren't unsettled or put off. Hopefully Gary is the latter, he's seemed like he wouldn't be the sort to wither under a sharp, intent look from the clay-shaped statue given life.
She was unskilled and untutored when the song started. When the song ends that's not quite true. Like Lux said, Gary is a good teacher. And so the ghouls were able to cut a rug without bringing shame to either of their patrons' names. Amber because she won't come home bruised and bloodied from dancing, and Gary because he was able to teach her a few steps. And because out there on the floor he moved like a dream, like a vision of grace and agility.
The song ends and the band talks about the inspiration for this song of theirs. The singer starts about such and such time in their life, Amber doesn't know, she's not paying attention. There is applause roaring in her ears - or is that her blood? And the blood of her lover that she forced to enliven her muscles.
She gives Gary this slice of a grin, crooked and sharp as a cleaver. "You're a good teacher," she says, echoing Lux. It's not modesty, not really. Amber has some raw and untrained talent that Gary managed to hone into something more refined.
Reaching up, she brushes a strand of bright red back behind her ear, stark against the dark earth of the rest of her hair. "Did you maybe, I dunno. Wanna go again?" Maybe she will learn to dance, this Amber. Maybe she will learn to be graceful just as she is learning to be calculating and cunning. Maybe she will do well by Flood and he'll be proud of her. It's not something she would've wanted from a lover before she met him, but these days it's almost all she thinks about. Doing right by him. Doing well by him. Doing well for him.
She looks over at Lux, who is declining an offer and then turning to give someone else a Look. Amber's brows lower over her green eyes, which turn to storms. But the one with the terrible line gets the point without the tempest having to step in and whirl them away.
Dubois & MillerDoes he maybe wanna go again?
He doesn't laugh at her. The smile crinkles the skin around his eyes again. Gary's solid and watchful and, having taken the room's temperature once more, he reaches for Amber's hand to coax her into a spin out and then in. He gestures with her other hand until she gets it. He doesn't look toward his domitor.
"I do."
The music begins again. He shows her the steps. They're versatile steps. This time the tempo's different and this time he's going to want her to (lead her into) using them with just this kind of sashay or move and it looks so different but the step's the same. Dancing; isn't it all about repetition. Hearts pumping; hearts beating.
The band's good.
---
[Gary, don't shame yourself now.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Dubois & Miller[Lux, are you going to dance tonight? No WP because she isn't a dancer so she doesn't care that much if she fails tonight. Hah! Take that.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Dubois & Miller[Later, if you dance with Gary? Same 'Hah!' take that.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Dubois & Miller[Gary, later, if he dances with Lux, NO WP because if he pulls a hamstring it's fine.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
AmberAmber's heart is a beating heart. She is a living woman in need of blood pumped through her system and oxygen to give it life to sustain her. When Gary twirls her out and spins her back in, her heart is jumping in her chest.
He shows her different moves, but maybe this time she gets it. She understands that this step is the same as that one, but with this little flair to it. Maybe she will learn this stuff yet.
Maybe she and Gary (and Lux) will make this into a habit. And some night she will ask Flood to take her dancing and they'll actually go dancing. Not prank take-Flood-to-DDR dancing but actual dancing in a place where Amber has to get dressed up again. Which means she should probably learn how to do this in heels, shit. But that is for another time.
Tonight, now, Amber is relaxing into things. She is not trying quite so hard to learn and know and not-fuck-up. She is trying to enjoy herself.
The song ends, though, as all songs do, remember? Amber will retrieve her drink and she will guzzle it down (relax, folks, it's only Coke). The beautiful, ageless, unaging trio will wander out and take the life of the party with them as they do. There are galleries to see, you know? And people for Amber to meet, maybe, to be introduced to at least. And the night is a nice one, pleasant, the air cool but not chilling. It is a night to enjoy themselves, above all. To take the night as it comes and then let it go when it's time for the sun to rise.
But that's hours off, yet.
[dex+ath! one last time!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Dubois & Miller[CREDITS.]
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