multiversallogs | but it's enough to make me wonder what's in store for us

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but it's enough to make me wonder what's in store for us

Who: Jae and Megan, though open to other people (see: notes).
What: CLUBBING.
Where: Around town.
When: At some point after Jae's arrival and getting something akin to settled in.
Notes: IF you have a burning desire to run into Jae sometime, either out partying or just wherever, feel free to use this like an open post. You can partycrash him and Megan too! Ping me first though so we know you're coming. mO_Om
Warnings: TBA though probably recreational substance use. Will edit as needed.

With his godawful motel room warded to the teeth and his anxiety finally running out of steam, Jae's found that sitting and hiding inspires a similar sort of terror to being trapped in that room; his rented room is too small, and holing up there is uncomfortably crazy-making.

So fuck it. He's got to make it work, as it were, and skittering around not going outside except to collect bits of familiar hardware or grab another bottle of coffee liqueur isn't enough to keep him from going nuts, no matter how angry he remains at being abducted.

That's how he ends up out with Megan, wearing an outfit artfully crafted from thrift stores and glamour stitches, having already pre-gamed with half a bottle of Kahlua to kill his nerves - both for the experience of finally heading out into Baedal, and for Megan herself. He likes her, he really does, but her inescapable inhuman visage still makes him feel like there's a laser-guided target on her (and thus him by extension). It isn't bigotry that stresses him out, but fear, and so he acknowledges it and forces himself to go past it. Megan has been really nice to him for no reason other than just being a nice person; she's way too cool to deserve his neuroses being inflicted on her.

He'll relax once he gets going, anyway. He always does.

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Megan is acutely aware she's a visible target, and was forced to understand the privilege of passing in a very painful way when she was still a kid. It's unfortunate how often that happens at that age, when kids are arguably the least equipped to deal with it; genetics and circumstance conspired to make her initial adjustment pretty rough. In a way, though, her inability to pass as human is a relief -- she doesn't live with the fear of being caught that people who can hide their differences do, and she's seen firsthand how that can destroy people emotionally. She'll never know which is worse and doesn't really want to.

At least in Baedal, her reception is generally positive. People do still stare and she's not blind to anti-xenian prejudice, but it's not as pronounced as it was back home by far and she's enjoying her newfound freedom to walk down the street without worrying about being hassled by the cops or assaulted by her neighbours. She breezes past anyone staring pretty easily, having clearly had a lot of practise in acting like she doesn't give two tugs about anyone's opinion about her. (She totally does, it's just about learning to fake it.)

Their El stop is Ludfallow, in Ludmead, which, being in close proximity to TMU, it's no surprise to find a wide variety of clubs and bars too rowdy to fit in to Brock Marsh. Megan wasn't kidding when she said once that her strategy is to find the nearest school and start flirting with boys there -- where there's a university, there are parties and booze and boys. This one also has the bonus of a low cover charge -- she's got money and can spot him but she knows if their positions were reversed she'd feel kind of weird about that, so. "I found this one like, a week after I showed up. I don't actually remember most of it from the first time, but like, usually I just kind of assume if I don't remember anything it was probably pretty tight. Like, you'd remember being bored, right? It's never steered me wrong before! Okay, it steered me wrong once, but in my defense I'd been drinking tequila, and nothing you do on Patron is ever a good idea, but whatever doesn't kill you, right?" Uh, actually -- "But I went back after that and it seemed like a good place to start. Don't say I didn't warn you about the music though." What? She didn't warn anyone.

At least it's not weird obscure German techno.

She's got on some silver sequin backless monstrosity on top but had the good sense to wear pants, not a skirt; she's planning on getting hammered and dresses present some obvious problems when you can fly and are too drunk to care whether you bothered to put on underwear.

The university scene is one Jae knows well enough to be familiar with; he's a graduate, after all (even if it was only a two-year degree and he wasn't the best at turning in his papers on time). Something about the broad range of ages, rages and even species is comforting about it - he's still going to have nerves, but it makes him less paranoid to see things in a broad scale, versus just other-Ilde and her I'm a faerie and ... whatever Megan is. (Jae's senses aren't the best, magically; he doesn't know if he'd be able to tell what she is or not.)

"What warning are you giving me about the music? Am I going to be embarrassed for somebody?" Meaning whomever's spinning - unless it's just some kid's iPod on shuffle, or whatever. (Plebeians.) He can pay to cover himself, at least; this isn't Jae's first turn around being broke and needing to be busy despite it. He's not a pick pocket, but he's got his own ways. (Wiles? Ways.)

"Probably!" she says with the same cheerfulness of someone who is actively trying to convince you to drink something vile because it would be fun/funny; sometimes it's more fun when things are bad. When they get in -- Megan making an obvious effort not to flirt too much with the doorman, but uh, yes, she absolutely does -- she has to do some extra maneuvering to get past a clump of people standing in the way without bumping her wings.

It's not atrocious and it's, again, certainly not bizarre German techno, but the difference between the music they play here and anywhere on Earth. For one thing, there's the obvious non-Earth influence, but there's also definitely a strong 80's tinge to it, probably owing to the fact that technology's a bit harder to come by here and the tools used to create are more limited. It does sound a bit like Some Guy's iPod, yes.

It is blessedly free of Justin Bieber remixes, anyway.

She makes a beeline for the bar (surprise) and orders some gigantic terrifying cocktail into which a lot of different bottles contributed, all of them alcoholic. "Also you have to try the booze here, like, the stuff that's not from Earth, it's crazy. Some of it's like, totally heinous, but oh my God they make this, like -- I don't know where it comes from but it's like ten bazillion proof and blue, it's so cool. It might be from space?" She sounds so excited about that. Spacebooze!

The doorman seems to think Megan's with with the silver-haired guy behind her, but Jae just gives him a metal horns salute and slides on by; he can be her wingman, it's cool. (Shut up.)

At least she's easy to see in a crowd, and Jae keeps pace behind her in a less hurried fashion, nodding along to the beat - which is different, but interesting, and the part of him that's analyzing it is currently louder than the part of him that's enjoying and experiencing. Which means he needs more to drink, so he bobs his head all the way over next to Megan to catch up with spacebooze.

"Awesome," he declares, and then looks at the bar tender. "Whatever the blue shit is, can I get that?" He points at Megan helpfully like, The thing she was talking about, man, and apparently that actually works even in the noisy hall.

The Blue Shit must be pretty popular, but to be fair, it is from space possibly. "It's usually pretty bumping here," she says, shouting a bit to be heard over the music. "But doesn't have a huge line, which, y'know, is good because I cannot be fucked to wait in lines." Not that she usually has to, at least not here -- that's the advantage of being a pretty girl, especially one who is rapidly acquiring A Reputation. Her career makes her pretty public and people are starting to understand that she's got some incredible hookups without being some territorial drug lord pushing dirty shit.

"But the places in Howl Barrow are insane, you have to see 'em. There's this great drag club but it doesn't usually start picking up for another couple hours, like. If we don't get too drunk we can stop by there maybe, I probably shouldn't port while trashed." And yet she absolutely does, which is usually how she tends to wake up on one side of the city and find her shoes on the other.

Jae is engaging without being aggressive at people, and the bartender seems friendly enough as he obtains his space shot - even if he seems to be staring mostly at Megan. (It's a little strange; he hasn't realized just yet how young she is, even though he himself had one of those perhaps-disturbing early starts with the partying lifestyle. To him she seems worldly, and thus grown, mature in a way people who make better decisions don't tend to get.)

He knocks it back while she talks, and screws up his face a bit after - though he doesn't cough. "Ya," he exhales, laughing. "That's great - what kind of drag club, is it like an everybody drag club?" This is Important, for a guy, because while Jae has no issues with anyone (and is equal opportunity for who he'll go home with), he's had his fair share of alarming experiences walking into gay clubs.

He's not quite at the level of buzzed he needs to be to ask her if she's ever teleported herself into a wall, or something, but he's getting there.

She works on her cocktail as quickly as she can -- Megan does not know how to pace herself even on her best days, but she's not a casual drinker, she's either sober or pants-on-head drunk, or in the process of changing between those two states. She also needs to catch up a little since she's just now starting, so when she's done she starts on vodka shots with no chaser. "Yeah! I mean, nobody got all weird at me, and I'm like, 100% sure I'm straight. Well, 90%, anyway. They're having a drag king pageant next week, it's gonna be awesome." So that might be the 10% there.

Even with her wings folded tight to her back, she has to lean forward when people walk behind her to keep them from bumping against them -- which isn't a big deal, it's just annoying, like having people constantly brushing shoulders with you. "Howl Barrow has the craziest clubs but I guess it's kind of over-the-top for most people?" Lesser people, heh heh. "Or -- around TMU there's some good dive bars, but like, mostly across the river, south, in Griss Twist. I've heard things about Mafaton but I've never been."

... thank God, because that won't end well.

"I mean - I get hit on." A lot. And he's fine with that, just. Sometimes. But he makes a hand motion like It doesn't really matter, though- because he figures by the time they're ready to mosey on that-a-way he'll be way too trashed to care. And he likes that idea. "Do you ever do that? Top hats and suits?" He grins - she'd be cute.

Jae gets an Adios and asks for it to be made with Space Blue Shit, because it's sort of seeing stars in a pleasant way from that already. "I was in Mafaton the other day, but I didn't realize what it was, right? I think I almost got jumped. But it was just one asshole, everyone else was fine."

"Pffffft, and nobody in the world is surprised --" Whoops, wait, conversation is moving, she pauses to think about that like her brain can't keep up with the rest of her. (Sometimes it can't, okay, she has a lot of energy.) "No, I don't! Cause I wouldn't look like, you know. A king. It would just be totally creepy, like, someone'd be all 'you want some candy, little boy?'" Ma'am.

"Oh my God! I heard it was like -- bad. But people exaggerate stuff so much, y'know?" Megan, of course, is absolutely innocent of any exaggeration. Ever. "Have you ever met a vampire? I haven't. Not a real one. I knew a guy once who had to eat blood to live but he was just a mutant and anyway he was more werewolf-y than anything, like, he was all hairy, but maybe he was a vampire bat or something. Werebatty? Here batty."

"No not like a creepy pageant boy, you'd be like Lady Gaga's Victor Victoria." This is an important distinction, okay. He sips his cocktail and wrinkles his nose at the intensity of it - but it's mostly due to the immediate face full of fumes. Space fumes. He hopes it really is from space; tomorrow he'll wonder what it's doing to his liver. Maybe.

"It looks fine, I wasn't here for whatever happened." People are weird about discussing it, he's noticed, and part of him suspects it's because he looks like a normal human and never bothers to correct anyone who assumes he is. He's still not sure how to handle it, here. "There batty," he says, nodding solemnly. "I have, and he was a fucking jerk." Vampires in general wig Jae out, as they seem to all be a part of some Instant Sociopath Club, no longer real people and now terrifying blood-hungry assholes who equate anyone with a pulse to cows. "I keep hearing there's a bunch in our cohort."

Megan is pretty sure people have two livers, so she's not concerned about what's going on with hers. Unfortunately she is absolutely wrong.

"Oh my God. I want to be Lady Gaga when I grow up. You know what's the worst thing about this city? I can't find her albums anywhere. Not even like, on vinyl. I don't know how to live. How could a loving God allow that to happen? Gods. How?" Yeah, she's getting pretty buzzed.

Not knowing much about the Mafaton riots -- she arrived just after that concluded, and was unnerved to discover that, like, vampires are totally real and stuff -- she has nothing to contribute about that. She takes a shot instead. "Yeah! I talked to some guy who said there were. And some other person, I don't remember. I don't remember who they are, though. Okay, no, like, someone ate someone else's friend, like actually ate him, what the hell, right? And then I forgot who it was, like, the person who ate someone, not... the person who got eaten, I mean, I'd ask but that would be weird and stuff. Anyway, in conclusion, shit's nuts."

"Are you fucking serious?" Oh my god. Jae has not, truly, thought about the issues of popular music - okay, he has, but he thought things were going to be more like, not as big of a selection in Tower Records, not there's no fucking Lady Gaga. The look on his face is one of both wonder and terror. It's not that he's some kind of die hard obsessed Lady Gaga fan - it's just that this probably means he's not going to be able to find any Lupe Fiasco or Jedi Mind Tricks, either, if the all-consuming current-era empress of pop music is devoid of influence. Damn.

"-Ate him?" His poker face is slipping, with this much to drink. They're going through 'em pretty fast, though, so that's no surprise. "That is fucked up. So no clubs in Mafaton, I don't want to get eaten." He says this with an air of authority, and holds up his class to christen the decree - no getting eaten. He's serious.

"As a heart attack," she says, hand over her chest as if she's swearing on it. This is evidently super serious business. "I went to every music store I could find and what wasn't, like, local was some of the randomest stuff I have ever seen. I found a Menudo record. I wasn't kidding when I said I was sick of deedly-doo strummy folk music, dude."

To be perfectly fair there are plenty of local rock and pop bands in Baedal, even electronic music being produced -- it's just that she misses the music from home. "I did find some Cher records, though! So there's that." Yes... Cher almost makes up for it.

"Yes, don't get eaten! Then I'll be sad, because who else will come drink experimental space booze with me? Nobody, that's who." What, plenty of people will come drink with her. That's basically what happens whenever she goes to work. She's just trying to make him feel special. She also very seriously taps her shot glass against his, making this perhaps the most alarming way to drink to someone's health ever.

It's both a terrifying and fascinating concept - to never again have music that's familiar, to set aside all the sounds and tracks he's sunk so much of his head and enthusiasm and career into, but to have all these doors and windows opened to things that Earth couldn't imagine. He's impossibly curious.

At the Cher comment, Jae cracks up. "It's true," he asserts, "cockroaches and Cher. Oh my god." Not even interdimensional abduction can stop her.

He doesn't believe for a hot minute that Megan is hurting for anyone to hang out with, but he likes her attitude. He smiles, and knocks back the rest of his cocktail like a pro (sigh) and grabs one more shot for the road - he should stop, he's on a budget - and then: "You dance, right?"

She polishes off what she's been working on -- it'll start to hit her harder later, she's had five or six years to build up a tolerance but she's very small, there's only so much she can do about that. She hits the shot glass on the bar with a resolute smack. Boom. Done. "Yeah! You wanna go?" God knows how she's going to manage on the floor with those wings. ... probably by smacking people who get too close to her with them.

"Absolutely." While he certainly does spend enough time at clubs just watching, he's too restless to lurk enigmatically in the shadows, tonight. It's a whole new world, but some things have to be the same, right?

As they move away from the bar, the same thought occurs to Jae, about Megan's wings, and as the alcohol drains away the edges of his anxiety, he lets himself get a little more creative. He feels good, and so he encourages everyone around them to feel good, too - and to be nice about the fairy wings. (It isn't mind control, it's just a spell that nudges peoples emotions towards being happier; if someone is completely against being nudged, it won't work, but generally coaxing a crowd full of drunk party-goers into more joyful abandon isn't too hard.)

She's pleased that people are actually getting out of her way -- one would think she'd be difficult to overlook, but she's petite and, well, this is Baedal. She's not even the weirdest-looking person in this club.

Megan is actually not a bad dancer, even though at no point has she actually had to learn -- the kind of dancing she does for a living, well, most of it isn't technically dancing. But she took classes as a kid and spent her entire teen years at clubs and raves, so it would probably be more difficult for her to not pick up some skill. Completely unsurprisingly, she's all manic energy and enthusiasm, and she cheats by using her wings when she has room to. Her feet aren't always on the ground.

Jae moves in a competent, confident way that is actually pretty good (you know, for keeping rhythm to music he's never heard before), even if he's relatively reserved - he's not used to having to try very hard to get attention from other people. That he's just some other decent-looking guy with neat hair here is a relief; he likes the attention, at home, but he's not used to it here.

Everything about this is surreal, from the music to the people on the floor to Megan herself, and the more they dance the more he sinks into the sound, until he feels like his head's swimming. It's not unpleasant. A group of super drunk girls join them for a bit, happy to sing along to lyrics he doesn't know and grab his hands and giggle at Megan, and he finds that totally fine. Someone recognizes her and offers to buy her and her date another round and, hey, he's not going to object. He'll go for as long as she wants, and as his walls melt, his magic breathes easier, and somehow he feels more human for it.

Megan is more than happy to introduce him to whatever friends and acquaintances pop up here, with an air of "look what I found! everyone adopt him immediately!", although clearly nobody expects anybody else to remember anyone's name. Once, she has to haul him halfway across the club to avoid someone she knows from work -- "so rich, but soooo boooooring," she offers by way of explanation -- which probably isn't going to work out for too long given that she's this tiny sparkly pink disco ball with wings and this is not actually that huge a club.

The glitter that was previously contained to her hair and upper arms is slowly spreading everywhere in her immediate vicinity like a creeping infestation of bad decisions and Goldschläger. (Which she drinks a lot if, although it goes by another name in the city.) "Hey," she shouts eventually, with more than a tinge of drunken slur to her words, "you wanna go to Royal Jewels?" He can probably guess that that's the drag club previously brought up.

Even as intoxicated as he is, Jae will remember everyone's names and everything Megan says about them. Connections in the club scene are kind of his bag at home, and it's a habit that's hard to break. Which isn't a bad thing - he's got to work here, too, and it's not like he's going to be any good at any other goddamn thing besides what he's already been doing.

"What?" He asks before he's even fully processed the question, but when he does process it- "Yeah! Let's go. I wanna see you in a top hat."

"Okay! Here, hold on to me -- the train's too far away, I cannot be fucked." She grabs his hand before she vanishes them both, poof! Megan's kind of teleportation is instantaneous, which tends to leave her disoriented less because of the actual power and more because of the sudden change in location, but she's been to this club before and has a pretty good idea of where to set them down -- just outside the front door. If she tries to port somewhere she's never been, she usually winds up in the air as an apparent instinctive guard against teleporting into the ground, which is great in that she's not dead and awful in that she falls on her ass a lot.

No dignity.

"That's like, way super faster than the train," she slurs happily.

Despite knowing that in theory, Megan can teleport, Jae doesn't really grasp what's going on until they've already done it. One second they're in the middle of a club, dark and thrumming with music and people around them, and suddenly they're outside. Somewhere else. Across the fucking city.

Panic surges up in him - giddy panic, really, as his suddenly-interrupted spell mirrors back at him (them). They just teleported! They just fucking teleported. Disoriented, Jae raises his arms to balance himself, not-quite-flailing, and then clutches onto Megan like a lifeline.

"What. Just happened."

"I teleported us!" She says it super proudly, as if she got straight A's on her report card or something else more mundane and entirely of her design, rather than a more-or-less accident. She pauses after a second -- briefly considers putting her hands on her hips like a superhero, discards that idea after some serious pondering -- and glances at him. "I did tell you I can teleport, right?" She did, actually, but she can't remember.

Well.

She raises her arms and does a jazz hands-y gesture. "Surprise?"

She did, yes. But there's a very big difference between announcing that you can teleport and actually teleporting your drunk new friend who has some anxiety issues with super powers.

Fortunately, the optimal word in there is drunk, so he's not in a position to freak out. Instead he just turns his head to look at Megan, blinking, and fiiiinally releases her and stands back up.

"... That was kind of cool."

You know, now that he's not going to puke or something.

"I know, right?" Wait, that's not the proper response to that, is it? Something something humbleness? Oh well, she's too drunk to care -- like she's also too drunk to care what she had to go through to be able to do it to begin with.

(If she had to trade, she'd never give up her wings -- but she'd give up the teleportation in a heartbeat.)

She grabs his hand again (she is very grabby, this one, especially with that many shots in her) and hauls him towards the door. She's not actually that strong so it's more like a persistent tugging until he follows her. Royal Jewels brings in enough revenue without needing a cover charge -- that's not unusual for a venue with frequent live music, and there's never a slow night here -- and it's not like either of them would ever need to wait in line because... look, they're both fabulous.

The interior is like an LED explosion, a thoroughly modern club by Earth 2011 standards, and there's a live band on the main stage playing some kind of alien electronic synthesizer rock opera.

Jae goes with her as if he is dragged, because as surprisingly well as he took that whole teleportation moment, he's eager to get inside and get back to distracting himself. It's not quite his usual scene, but it's familiar, as is the way a painted-up bartender turns to look at him like he's got a radar built in for cute potentially straight boys who need to be gleefully trolled. Some things are just plain universal.

"Does nobody listen to hip hop here?" He has to shout a little to be heard with the noise, but he sounds pleased, anyway, like he's laughing. The live music is awesome.

She starts drinking again once they're inside, although to be fair she's switched back to cocktails that are mostly juice and syrup instead of doing more shots. She's probably young enough that she's not even going to have a hangover from all this, because she's awful. "No! They don't! Okay I guess they do but it's kind of hard to find! I heard some people freestyling a few weeks ago but when I went back they weren't there, and, like," she gestures helpfully with her glass and manages to not spill it all over everything, "I was too shy to hang out."

Megan, too shy? What blasphemy is this?

"We have to find it. Sniff it out with our... like... music... noses. Ear-noses. What?"

"I refuse to believe there aren't emcees," he says, and ends up ordering some kind of hilarious dessert drink because the bar tender is making eyes at him (he plays along, though he hovers near Megan anyway, entertained). "You should have gotten them to do an intro for your dancing. Yo listen up it's Megan on the floor--"

"I want --" She punctuates everything she says with jerky gestures and interrupts herself pretty frequently with giggling fits. She is also totally happy to be his reverse-beard, but she's pretty oblivious to any potential macking right now, like she usually is here -- this is actually one of the few places she doesn't get a lot of attention, compared to the elaborate costumes etc other people dress in, and she kind of likes it, because she's needy and insecure but it's nice to not be the center of attention all the time. "I want -- a better name than Megan, then. Like. To use. I want a burlesque name. Is that a thing? Burlesque rap? Can we make that a thing? Jae, we can be pioneers in the field of hip hop."

Edited 2012-01-06 07:22 (UTC)

Jae is very particular about his hoery; he doesn't like hooking up unless he's out by himself, and to be out by himself (otherwise it's just rude), he'd have to be a VIP guest or a performer somewhere. And even then, guys are just too forward. They need to suffer a little and work for it.

"Yes." That sounds brilliant. (Actually, it sounds terrible, but booze does interesting things.) "M-Unit. Dame M-Unit. Is that burlesque? Martini Thugs, for life."

"Yes! It is! Let's do that!" No, what? Stop doing that immediately. Megan beams, completely pleased with herself, and to be fair she'd probably think of this as a great idea even when sober, so. "I wanna be um. Hoface Killa." Stop that.

Fortunately she is preoccupied by booze, but she is rapidly approaching the line between pleasant drunk and throwing up everywhere drunk, a line that she doesn't really want to cross, so when he's done with whatever he's on she's just going to drag him back out on the floor for more dancing all the time forever.

"Hoface Killa, she's a straight-up thrilla, she's gonna wreck all you other pretenders to the throne, the hard core stripper, don't you other bitches mess with what you know Miss Megan already own."

Wesssssiiiide.

(JAE, NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.)

Completely amenable to dancing - hey, it's not really bad for you if you work it all off - Jae knocks back the rest of the drink, both so he can permit himself to be dragged and also in victory of his newest foray into the ever-creative world of rap music. He's got too much of an experienced tolerance to let even this surreal as fuck night knock him out, but he's right where he needs to be. For a while, between the lights and the music and the pleasant disorienting blur the alcohol makes in his head, he forgets he isn't at home.

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but it's enough to make me wonder what's in store for us

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i hope you appreciate the intense thought i put into this