multiversallogs | It's like paradise, spread out with a butter knife

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It's like paradise, spread out with a butter knife :: [OPEN]

Who: EVERYONE
What: Réjean has decided that more people ought to celebrate and help raise a bit of dosh for one of his favourite bars. See: flyer.
Where: The Apache.
When: Misdi night and into the wee hours of the morning.
Warnings: Discussion of Pickman's manky feet.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap. Tonight, the bar is packed with people from all across the city, different cantons and cohorts, all out to celebrate surviving the fungal plague. Patrons are encouraged to buy tickets for a door prize with the proceeds going to repair the damage tunnelling ants made to the cellar.

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Jack arrives fashionably late – emphasis on the fashionable, as always, but the Apache not being the most formal kind of place, he's taken the opportunity to break out the leather jacket and that shirt without buttons he never gets to wear. (Yeah, it's well fitted. He doesn't work out for his health, after all.)

It's not often he gets to go to a real party anymore – stuffy charity events and dinner-meetings, yes, but politicians are expected to possess a better-developed sense of decorum than princes. Which is tragic, in his opinion, and he intends to compensate fully tonight. Starting with a whiskey.

(Or several.)

The leather jacket gets an appreciative glance from Isobel as he approaches the bar. This one looks like he might know a thing or two... or at the very least be able to tell her some things.

She doesn't say anything at first; she simply tries to subtly catch his eye, shyly, as though she fancies something, either him or his leather jacket.

Jack knows a great many things, including how to play the looking-but-not-looking game. But with women, his style is substantially more direct – why hide what you're faking to begin with? – and so it only takes a few glances to reel him in.

"What are you having?" he asks, already flagging the bartender. Not 'Can I get you something?' because he is getting her something, apparently, which he considers fair only because he doesn't expect anything in return. (This may not, in fact, make it fair.)

Fair or not, it's a game Isobel is more than willing to play. She has no real plans to give him anything in the way of drinks in return. No, her mind is on the information she can get from him... and if anything else happens afterward, it's all fun and games as far as she's concerned.

When he walks over to her, she offers him an inviting smile and shrugs in response to his question. "I hadn't really decided." Which is a full-out lie considering she's already had at least one glass. "You could surprise me. I'm very new still and unused to what they serve here."

Though unaware of her motives, Jack is comfortable with a certain amount of mutual deception. Everyone lies, himself more than most, and it would hardly be fair to expect any different from anyone else. So he doesn't. He accepts what he sees, which at the moment is a shy and presumably attractive woman in need of drinking advise.

"Where did you come from? To help me decide." And not because he's chatting her up or anything, clearly. The bartender is having a heck of a time back there, so they have a minute.

"Virginia, USA," Isobel answers with a slow, sultry smile. Yep, she's a southern girl, but she's got a lot of things wrong with her that color her perception of... everyone and everything else, sadly. "I attended Duke University in North Carolina for a few years."

It's more than she tells most people, but then again, the ones in Mystic Falls who had known her had already known that. It wasn't much of a secret anymore.

"Do I get to ask where you're from?"

Wanda is a fairly decent drinker, and she's only had one tonight--so she heads for the bar for her second. The bartender, however, is quite busy, given the large number of people present, and though she flags him down, he seems a little flustered, and she is informed it'll be a minute. Which is fine, of course. She's understanding.

"Maybe I should climb back there and offer reinforcements," she comments to Jack, with a faint smile.

Jack has just had enough to mellow him at this point, and he looks in no way opposed to the company.

"Don't, you'd never get out again." He offers her a little curve of a smile in return. "But then, considering you'd have all the booze back there with you, you might not want to."

"I could give the bartender a run for his money; I used to have his job." Wanda does not look like a bartender, for the record, that is not her vibe, but she doesn't say it like she's intending to defy any expectations. (It was another one of these kidnap cities, you see.)

She eyes the man as he waves at her to indicate 'just one second', and then turns to Jack, a little sympathetic, a little amused. "I don't think he's quite accustomed to this kind of traffic. Are you waiting on your order?"

"Didn't you leer at my car once?"

...Sol misses his car, as is semi-evident by the accompanying expression on his face and almost nostalgic tone in his so-memorable voice. Nevertheless: he is actually pretty good with faces and people generally, and he has certain knacks for telling apart the identical or alternate that mean he is, in fact, pretty sure that this is the same guy.

"Sol Koenig. I don't remember if we were properly introduced." But he's aware of Jack as a politician, either way; he is Hellsing's lawyer, it's his business to know.

"Possible. Probable, in fact." Knowing him and cars.

"Jack Benjamin. I don't think we were." He swaps his drink and offers a hand, looking as if he's trying to place the face. Ah: "You defended that woman who was turned without informed consent, didn't you? I remember the trial."

It was the big story while he was preparing a play for Minister of Justice, so it's safe to say he was very attentive.

"Nikita," he agrees, remembering- that had been an interesting thing, and reminds him briefly that he needs to catch up with Wanda for a drink and an explanation. (And that's all.) "I'd like to think I did something for their justice system," but he doesn't, his tone dry and not bitter as he shakes Jack's hand.

"I'm at Hellsing, these days."

"I love your jacket."

Men who make an effort should be rewarded with compliments; she genuinely does like the jacket and it looks good on him, so Rachel is not about to hold back.

Also, mental note: get a leather jacket. Half the people she's run into tonight have had fantastic ones and she wants to join this club.

She smiles, setting an empty glass down on the bar and canting her head at the bartender, a short distance away. "Is the service any faster down at this end? I was having a hell of a time earlier, down at the other end."

"Why thank you." Compliments are generally just shy of meaningless to him – he's had too many – but he pretends well, and he appreciates the thought. His smile is warm, a little alcohol-infused by now, but not to the point of embarrassment. (Yet.)

"I don't know about faster, but the company is better." Imagine his brain is just full of lines like that. At least he doesn't seem like the type to take himself too seriously. "Rachel, isn't it?"

"Well, thank you. That's very kind of you to say."

She peers a bit more closely and then she laughs, with a sheepish shake of her head. "Excuse me, I'm so sorry. I'm usually better with faces."

She's also usually not several drinks into a party when she meets someone in person for the first time. She offers him a hand.

"I'm Rachel, that's right. Hello, Jack. It's nice to meet you face-to-face. How's campaign season treating you?"

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It's like paradise, spread out with a butter knife :: [OPEN]

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