kim jae hyun. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
boomvox) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
multiversallogs2012-01-19 09:28 pm
boomvox) wrote in multiversallogs2012-01-19 09:28 pm
i wrote this song while i was drunk
Who: Jae and you.
What: Sorting his head out, getting back to work.
Where: Various places around town, including bar hopping and slice of life activities in Creekside, at work at the Vault, Anarchy 99, and the radio station, and at a temple in Brock Marsh.
When: Over the next week.
Notes: Would you like to bump into Jae somewhere? Note the location/vague timeline in your tag and it shall be so.
Warnings: Unpleasant thoughts about rape culture, drug use.
In the aftermath of attempting to help Megan and his encounter with Hilmi, Jae has a difficult time processing the series of events as things that happened to him - because things haven't happened to him. Things happened to Megan. Sure, if you hit a vanity with a sledgehammer, it's not just the glass that's cracked, but he's still not the fucking mirror; Jae's reeling from the turbulence. So is everyone else who knows (well, maybe not Sonja) and everyone else who will know - and more people will react to what Jae did, and so on, and so on, like ripples, because every time anyone does something violent or cruel, the whole of their world feels it. Society didn't become soulless overnight. It took a hundred million weeks like these and now, even when people feel the backlash, they don't seem realize it.
It's normal.
(It's horrible.)
Jae buys a couple of tabs at the Vault before his shift and rolls all the way through it. If there's one thing he appreciates about Baedal, it's that so much more is perfectly legal (or at least, perfectly unregulated), and the ecstasy (or space ecstasy) he can get is pure, none of this shit cut with coke or speed like he had to worry about back at home. It's a good night for everybody, which is fortunate; it's always good when he works whether or not he uses any enchantments, but this week, he's not even letting his subconscious do anything - he feels like there's a great gaping wound somewhere intangible inside him, and the stitches keep splitting. He just doesn't want to bleed anymore.
While he's been made one of the floor staff family with ease at the Vault, his experiences at Anarchy 99 have been more - well. It caters to dwarven metal. Still, there's a fair amount of enthusiasm for his style ("Just put some more INXS on it"), and when one of the waitresses asks him what happened that one night with Hilmi (because he hasn't come back), he just shrugs. Jae isn't sure if he should be feel fortunate that she's the only one who noticed they walked out back together, but while some of the girls liked Hilmi, some of them really didn't, and she decides to interpret that shrug as him having done everybody a favor. The notion of it makes him uneasy - but it's not like he can correct her and not lie, so he just stays quiet, and thinks about the same thing he thought about that night. That if somebody comes to arrest him, he'll just go. The notion of being locked up is like a suffocating nightmare at the end of a long and dark hallway on his head, but what's even more terrifying is the idea of becoming the kind of person who wouldn't take responsibility for doing something awful. (He'll ask Ilde for Sonja's number, he decides. He'd rather apologize to her than the police, and he knows enough about the military to know speaking to someone's commanding officer is as good as.)
Too much liquor, long nights, and investing in a pill cutter; Jae almost feels human again, losing himself in work. The radio station is a hilarious disaster, but he likes his boss, as much of a lunatic as she is. That he's at the bottom of the ladder again makes him feel like even more a child, stumbling over himself and his magic and his emotions as he is in this strange place. But there, it's not as bad. He hits the bar across the way from his flat in Creekside, he buys groceries and a new pair of sunglasses, and then he comes home ("home") and lays on the floor and stares up at the ceiling and pretends his head spins because he's been drinking too much.
He doesn't sleep for two nights, and then spends the third up and reading the book that appeared in the arrival room with him. It's the first time he touched it since he shoved it in the back of his closet when he moved in. The next evening, he goes to one of Shada's temples in Brock Marsh, and doesn't do anything beside sit quietly in the back.
omg :V
Sort of like his magic itself, at the moment. While he's normally perfectly capable of dampening it down to such an extreme level that he passes for totally baseline human even in the face of other magic-users, his efforts over the past few days haven't been heeding much of anything. His encounter with Hilmi ripped open the binds he'd wound himself in to such a degree that even with all the care he's put into trying to rebuild them, it's uneven and slap-dash.
Which means that the tall, white-haired man heading out the back exit after the end of his sound check shift matches the remnants of the local unstable enchantment perfectly.
no subject
She feels a little conspicuous, using the same exit as the man she's following, and it being the back exit - presumably less used by patrons and more for staff, which she is decidedly not - but then, she's trying to catch his attention, so a more obvious approach is better.
no subject
Waiting for her to catch up near the door, Jae's expression goes through an interesting spectrum of barely-visible emotions. Confusion, a little fear, a brief moment of near-panic, and then... resignation. He exhales and something relaxes about his posture, as if he's just thought, Okay.
(It's funny, that this is happening so close on the heels of him deciding that he'd just go quietly if anyone came. He didn't really expect to have to.)
Jae holds the door open so she can follow him outside, where they'll actually be able to hear each other without shouting. Once the door shuts behind them, Jae just sticks his hands in his pockets and gives her a faint smile that doesn't do anything to diminish the tired sadness in his eyes - a big change from the way he was projecting himself while in the club itself.
"Hi."
no subject
"Hello." She inclines her head in greeting - she isn't very good at giving reassuring smiles, so she doesn't even try, but the fact she stays calm and seemingly relaxed might do something to mitigate the looming cloud of authority she carries in that simple, small badge and dark clothing (and small amounts of weaponry). "Youko Shimura of Hellsing. You were involved in what happened here the other night?"
no subject
"I'm Jae Kim," he says, and nods in greeting. "That depends on what you mean. Did Hilmi call you?"
It'd be a ballsy move for the other man, all things considered, but he could be vindictive and mentally askew enough to have done so. (Oh, what karma.) Jae assumes she's here because of that, one way or another, but just in case, he'd like to clarify.
no subject
Because of course he knows that he's kind of leaking energy like a pot bubbling over right now, right?
"So what happened with Hilmi?"
no subject
Jae winces a little, and scratches the side of his neck, an aborted nervous tick that might be hair-fussing, on someone else. (He can't fuck with his hair, okay.) He's been trying to keep it in check, because he doesn't like pinging on any radars, but this just reminds him how bad he is at it - and everything else, concerning his magic.
"I'll tell you," he says. "I'm not - I mean, if I fucked up, I fucked up, I'll do whatever I'm supposed to." Be it be arrested, or... whatever. "Can we go sit somewhere, though?"
Opposed to standing right here, where his boss is probably going to lean out and peek at pretty soon.
no subject
That's... not a question, she's walking across the street and over to the cafe on the assumption that Jae will follow. Because if he doesn't, if he tries to run, then she will work on the assumption that he's done something worthy of running from Hellsing for, and therefore something worthy of kneecapping to prevent escape. SO... DON'T RUN, JAE.
no subject
Jae's been in the cafe before - smart money stays open late, near nightclubs - and he's polite and friendly with the hostess who waives at them to sit wherever they like. Jae plunks down near the window, away from other patrons, and orders coffee.
"I'm a sorcerer," he starts, subdued, which is probably a bit 'well, duh', but he looks unnerved saying so. "I haven't really been trained. At home everyone has to keep quiet about not being normal."
Coffee arrives - and whatever Youko ordered, if anything - and Jae holds it between his hands for a while, staring into the liquid. Is this really happening? He takes a sip, and carries on.
"A friend of mine was assaulted. Kind of." He frowns at his old phrasing and looks out the window, brow creased, clearly still weighed down by whatever it is that happened. He knows he can't tell this Hellsing woman who it was; he'll never cough Megan's name up, no matter the circumstances. "The guy who did it to her, they slept together while she was drunk, and he didn't tell her what he was beforehand. She thought he was human, and it turned out he's some kind of fae with..." Jae trails off, unsure how to describe it without sounding vulgar. "Something happens when he sleeps with anyone, they get bound to him and obsessed, and it kills them slowly without an antidote."
no subject
That tells her more about Jae, which is stored away for later - what she really needs to focus on is the description of what happened. Which... is sounding quite bad already, and her frown deepens. A shen - a fae with those kinds of powers, to seduce and kill those he slept with, using them irresponsibly? That was the kind of thing she would have looked into at home, nevermind under Hellsing's auspice.
"And... this fae, he did not give her the antidote? He was content to allow her death?" Otherwise, Jae would most likely not have called it an assault, she's guessing.
no subject
He still sounds angry - tempered, but apparent, frowning at nothing, staring out the window. Finally, he looks back at Youko.
"I went to talk to him about it. Someone who knows him said he wouldn't care and wouldn't help, but I just... In retrospect, it was really stupid of me. But I went to him to ask for help. And he told me to let her die."
no subject
"And so you lashed out, with your magic?" It isn't anywhere close to accusatory, but it's a serious question. "In the face of such... disregard for human life, it is understandable to react, especially when you are friends with the one being hurt. It is simply advisable to react with more care." Or to let people with training handle things.
"What exactly did you do to Hilmi, when he said this?"
no subject
He nods, at her first question, and it passes for an agreement with the rest of her assessment, too. (The guilt is almost a palpable thing.)
"I'm not sure enough to give a technical explanation," he admits, and feels a little ill saying so. "Usually I can nudge peoples feelings to be stronger. It isn't mind control-" he feels this is a very important distinction- "somebody told me it's sympathetic empathy. I was trying to force him to tell me where to get an antidote, and he hit me, and I just. Reacted. I made him feel everything he makes everyone else feel. And I told him to stay away."