i wrote this song while i was drunk

[boomvox]

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.

Comments

[toldastory]

Martha hasn't been in the temples for long enough to see the blood sacrifices, otherwise she probably would have had a bit of a problem with it anyway. While she believed in people believing in what they should, taking blood from people for a god, however willingly, still sat wrong with the doctor in her.

She looked to the man who was leaving, and then to the front of the temple and back once more. Perhaps he was leaving for a reason. The determination in his face was noted, and Martha slipped through door behind him, deciding that it was a good idea.

"Excuse me," she asked quickly. "Do I know you?"

[boomvox]

Oh, hello.

Jae doesn't startle - though not because of any super-senses, he just doesn't suspect anyone would jump him, over here.

"Hey," he says, greeting casual but polite. "You might. DJ Kim." He extends his hand. "I spin at the Vault and Anarchy 99, do you go?"

[toldastory]

Martha took his hand with a smile, and then she shook her head. "Nope, I'm not really a club-goer generally. I tend to work too much for that." And her free time was well-spent at home.

"Do you come here often?" Gesturing with her thumb back at the doors of the temple they'd just left, it was clear what she meant.

[boomvox]

"Not really," he says, starting to grin a little - he doesn't think this woman is really coming onto him, but it incidentally sounds like it. "I was just passing through. So no clubs, really? That's too bad, you should come see me sometime."

Because you are cute, lady.

[toldastory]

Things Martha Jones tends to be bad at: picking up blokes. When she wants their attention, nine times out of ten they don't see her and when they want her attention, she doesn't see it.

"It's not really my husband's thing, I'm afraid." Letting him down a bit gently.

"You seemed to leave quickly from the temple. Are you alright?"

[boomvox]

She could be pretty good at it, apparently. Even if Do you come here often? is a line generally used by weird guys in leisure suits making waggly eyebrow motions. It's kind of charming, regardless of whether or not she meant anything by it.

"Your husband's free to come too," he chuckles, joking in a good-natured way and without anything even resembling skeeze. "I'm fine, yeah. There are just aspects of the rituals that I'm not comfortable watching. It would be respectful of me to stay."

[toldastory]

She chuckled in return to his own; she appreciated the lack of sleaze, and the image of Severus Snape in either of those places was rather laughable at best.

"I've not sat all the way through them," Martha admitted, though there was a definite yet implied at the end of the sentence. "What makes you uncomfortable about them?"

[boomvox]

"Some people offer blood sacrifices." He shrugs. The only reason there isn't judgment in his voice is because he's practiced at sounding neutral at all times; radio hosts have to be able to handle most anything. Jae doesn't want to have issues with aspects of anyone's faith, but there's always going to be something fundamentally disturbing to him about blood rituals, or beings who subsist on the blood of others. It just bothers him. "It's not my thing."

[toldastory]

Martha wasn't too pleased with blood sacrifices. Oh, she was less worried about it than she might have been a few years ago, but the idea of asking for them made her concerned and her stomach rolled a little bit. She too shared the idea of religious freedom, but the doctor in her didn't think that was a good idea.

"How long have you been coming here?" She paused. "Sorry, I'm normally not this nosy," her words were spoken with a sigh and an apologetic tone. "I'm just looking for a friend of mine."

[boomvox]

"Who are you looking for?"

Even though he's glossing over her question about him, the genuine concern is plain enough; he doesn't know if she's waiting to meet somebody or if it's something more dire, but he'll offer whatever assistance.

[toldastory]

"A friend of mine," though from her tone he's more than a friend, but he's definitely not a lover. "He's called Mozenrath, and he was going to be working at the temple, but he sort of vanished. People have told me that because his CID stopped working, he's gone home, but I wanted to see if anyone had any information."

[boomvox]

"I'm sorry you're missing him," he says, and sounds sincere. "I haven't heard that name, though." Not that he's really been around long enough to know any of the temple regulars.

"It's fortunate we have that resource. The CiD, I mean. There's at least some peace of mind to know people haven't gotten lost or hurt somewhere in the city when it happens."

[toldastory]

Martha believes in his sincerity, and she just smiles a bit in response to his statement. Perhaps it's too much to hope for considering what she'd been told, but she wants Mozenrath to be here, and alright. Or home and alright, just alright somewhere. It doesn't seem too much hope for, considering there are gods about.

"That's true. At least we have them." Even if they spelled bad news for her at the moment. After a moment she offered him her hand. "I'm Martha, Martha Snape-Jones."