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

[boomvox]

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.

Comments

[boomvox]

"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.)

[gwynn]

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.

[boomvox]

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.

[gwynn]

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.

[boomvox]

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."

[gwynn]

"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.

[boomvox]

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."

[gwynn]

"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?"

[boomvox]

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.

[gwynn]

"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.

[boomvox]

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.

[gwynn]

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?"

[boomvox]

"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--"

[gwynn]

"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."

[boomvox]

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."

[gwynn]

"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.

i hope you appreciate the intense thought i put into this

[boomvox]

"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.