multiversallogs | 003 | OPEN. red lipstick on the end of a cigarette.

003 | OPEN. red lipstick on the end of a cigarette.

Who: Hasibe Ozcelik, and OPEN.
What: A show premieres at The Vault.
Where: The Vault.
When: Evening til the wee hours of the morning.
Notes: I will set up sections in the comments for people to hang out.
Warnings: WELL IT'S AN ADULT CLUB, SO.

The show starts at nine o'clock, and the bar is full pretty quickly thereafter, but the variety in the club is pretty striking. Xenians in their best suits, non-Xenians in leather and ripped fishnets, everything in between. There doesn't seem to be a lot of cultural divide here between human and not, even given recent issues. Hasibe makes good on her promise to have members of her cohort given seating preference, as she's sweet-talked the cocktail dress-clad hostesses, and the bartenders (in their vague approximations of suits with very open shirts) are aware that she's invited a lot of heavy drinkers. ...she just assumes people in her cohort want to drink--they've been kidnapped to a strange city with many new things to offer, so why wouldn't they?

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He reaches out to tuck back a stray lock of her hair, smiling slightly as he does. It's not the nice smile she's so used seeing, but it's not the cold calculating face of a predator either.

Everyone should look blissed out after good sex, regardless of the species or depth of their monstrosity.

"A little rumpled," he offers graciously, then reaches to take her newly dropped hand and bring it towards his mouth. "I like rumpled," he clarifies, nipping a little at her fingertips. "And invitations."

He considers that for a moment. "Do people still call it a date? That's like shite American romcom talk." He stops short of saying 'that's something that George would call it' because...well. "Besides, she asked me along. I think she called it 'facilitating,' if I remember correctly."

The gesture makes her smile widen, as does his more delicate description of her undoubtedly somewhat tousled state. Though she certainly had no qualms about returning the favor. Hasibe draws herself up to kneel next to him on the sofa, close enough that her body brushes his.

"And I like a man who leaves a mark." Look, she might not be able to see them, but she is pretty sure they're there. She can explain it away if anyone asks, but...more likely she'll just be aggravatingly enigmatic about the whole thing, as is her standard MO. "I'm surprised I didn't go under; I wouldn't have been able to go back out there again if I had."

Now she's going to explain the ego reduction thing that sometimes happens to her. It is, in fact, pretty lucky that didn't happen, considering what a shock it can be to someone who's not accustomed to seeing it unfold.

"I have no idea what people call it. I've been married for 70 years," Ivan points out. "But I think a lady who invites an addict to a place designed to cater to his addiction is worth getting to know."

"Go under? How do you mean?" He tilts his head to the side, forehead creasing in a show of concentration. Which does seem only to be show for moment --there is a beautiful, naked woman next to him after all-- but he jolts to attention. He's listening, really.

Mitchell is, she thinks, the first man since Hyde she can explain this to and trust he won't be too deeply alarmed--or so she hopes. Even Henry was sort of discomfited at first, though that quickly changed.

"You may have noticed," she says, idly combing fingers through her hair again--it's not that she's showing off, per se, she's just wholly comfortable with her body--as she speaks, "that I have a little bit of a thing for pain. Ego reduction--subspace--it's a term for when enough pain and enough pleasure combine and you sort of lose your mind. The whole world disconnects except for the person with you. They sort of become your god for however long it lasts."

And it is the only way she ever really detaches from the omnipresent feeling of her powers, of the sutures in her psyche. It's how Hasibe escapes.

"Slightly more clinically speaking, the parasympathetic nervous system goes wild as a result of an enormous amount of chemicals--the ones from the 'fight or flight' instinct--flooding through the body. Afterward I'm..." There's a trace of a shrug, and then a shiver, as though she's remembering how it feels to disappear that way. "Cold, at first. Disoriented. It requires a little aftercare. It can have lasting effects if those are denied on a regular basis. But it's worth it, it's always worth it."

She watches his expression.

"I'm not freaking you out, am I?" But that mild, knowing little smile has returned, so perhaps that's not really what she's expecting.

"Yeah." He breathes it out a little as he says it. It would be obvious to anyone who knows Mitchell that he's clearly growing fond of Hasibe.

More soberly, he continues, "She has an interesting take on matters." ...a slight understatement.

"Oh? In what way?" Given that Ilde likes her, Ivan can't say he's surprised by the revelation.

"It's...not the weirdest thing I've heard," he says, after a moment. Mitchell, at least, has the benefit of having lived over a hundred years. It sounds alarming but he doesn't let it show much. Instead, he tries to focus on the scientific information that's just been relayed to him.

"I can even sort of understand it." He thinks about his own state of mind when it comes to going clean and the savage euphoria that overtakes him when he gives in to his desires. With himself, he knows the reasons, as convoluted and twisted up as they are inside of him. Which prompts him to ask, "Although I'm wondering why?"

He still doesn't have any idea about the extent of Hasibe's powers, despite the explanation of her origins.

"Try it with me sometime," she suggests to Mitchell, lips quirking upward in one of her wilder grins, "and you'll see."

She leans forward to kiss him, then, because by now her lipstick is totally gone, and she feels like re-initiating physical contact. Her body temperature is always somewhat warmer than a human's by about two or three degrees, and the contrast is enjoyable with anyone who isn't preternaturally warm.

But she makes a little sound of protest a moment later.

"I should really get dressed, though. I hate getting dressed." And this is accompanied by the jut of her lower lip in what is probably the world's least serious approximation of a pout. It's also debatable whether that shimmery white thing she intends to keep wearing really constitutes 'getting dressed'.

"Really," he says, both hands firmly staying on her hips in order to keep her close. "Because I don't think I like clothes right now."

Interestingly, he might protest against the idea that he's the sort of vampire with possessiveness issues. And he would be wrong, although they are somewhat unusually defined compared to most. It's something that both of them will no doubt discover in time (God help everyone).

Kissing her pouting lower lip, Mitchell does relent with, "But I realise you're working." That gets a theatrical sigh, despite the fact there are a few matters of his own he intends to take care of tonight.

Hasibe (as a result of her personality and her abilities) tends to both encourage and then blithely trigger possessiveness--she's promiscuous with few boundaries by nature, but there's something she finds enjoyable, in a very twisted way, about being dragged back into someone else's check. Most of the time.

Sometimes it also just doesn't occur to her, because she's so free-spirited about things--at a certain point, at least, she realizes she's going to have to explain her association with a certain anti-Xenian activist to Mitchell, since she is a) a Xenian who passes rather expertly as human and b) not a bigot. That can come later, though.

"I have guests to entertain," she concedes, "and an afterparty to work."

She steals one more bitey kiss before disentangling. "Are you planning on sticking around and seeing the sights?"

"She believes that there's nobody good or normal. And that I need to be more honest with myself." He carefully focuses on the burning end of his cigarette while he says it.

No doubt that's what a lot of people have told Mitchell over the years, but he's much more inclined to take that advice from a beautiful woman he can get lost in (as he's wont to do) as opposed to Herrick and his more brutal methods.

"How did you take that bit of advice?" Ivan is more interested in what Mitchell does than concerned by it. Then again, he's the type to go watch the fall of Saigon for a lark, so this might be less than reassuring.

On the other hand, he doesn't have any stones to throw on the subject of falling for madwomen.

Mitchell begins to reach for his own articles of clothing, depending on where they were flung about the room, replying, "For a while." Recent activities have made him work up an appetite --physically, although testing the boundaries of his psyche hasn't helped much either-- and he knows it would be a good idea to feed tonight. Or try.

Idly, he wonders how much of an active choice that will be when faced with a bared, human neck. His conscience continues to weigh on him. And then he wonders how much of it actually is his conscience and how much of it is force of habit by now.

He drifts out of it as he pulls on black jeans, saying, "I think I might have to keep to the other side of the club from you for the rest of the night. Or I might end up dragging you into one of the private rooms. And what a shame that would be." He does not sound sorry. At all.

When he speaks to her, she's in the process of leaning over her mirror again, fixing her hair and make-up, reapplying that bright-red lipstick. Hasibe's smile is visible in the mirror, and she sets her lipstick down to make her way over to Mitchell, tucking her thumbs through the loops of his jeans. With her heels off, she's shorter than him, though only by about an inch.

"I wouldn't mind. But if you don't..." She tips her head back, playful, but deliberate, too: once someone opens this Pandora's box with her, she considers it her right to drive them up a wall at all times. Excess calls to her, as does hedonism, and sexuality tends to be her preferred method. "Every time you see me across the room tonight, or even think of me mid-conversation--and you will--I want you to think about how I'm going through the night wearing your fingerprints on my skin. Your teeth, too."

Those little bruises and bites delight her, in their way.

"Okay?" And then her smile flashes bright and cheerful, as though that soft, provocative note never happened, and she backs up a step. So innocently.

"I have. Some look as though they could be the source of potential injury. I can't say that I'm entirely discouraged but I'll approach with caution." Though he isn't particularly attached to being here, either, and he motions back to the stage area with a questioning look. Silently asking if she wanted to lead the way.

The thought appeals to him, as demonstrated by the fact Hasibe's not getting away that easily. He makes a grab for her wrist, tugging her back for another kiss. She may well have to re-apply that lipstick again.

Although when Mitchell breaks away with a sly smile, he considers something he previously hadn't. "How smudged am I?" A lot, probably, but he lacks a reflection to check. He rubs at his face with the back of one hand.

"I haven't yet." Yet. Although as things stand right now, it won't take much.

For now, he reclines in his seat, considering matters.

Judging by the quick, bright laugh, quite a lot, yes. Hasibe attempts to help him out with that, summoning a cloth from her vanity and handing it over.

"I'm going to have to forsake the lipstick around you, I see." She waves the tube in his direction. "You're different like this."

With his persona down, but not wholly the killer, either. Somewhere in between. (She likes it, though, as is probably obvious.)

He wipes at his face quietly, considering what Hasi said. Once again, he can't help but think back on what he used to be like under Herrick's influence, when he was pushed and enabled to extremes.

But Herrick isn't here. Neither are George and Annie. It can feel dizzyingly weightless.

"I'm not sure what 'this' is yet."

She applies one final coat of lipstick (hopefully), and watches his expression in the mirror. There's something about this ritual she actually quite likes, despite her earlier assertion about clothes--getting dressed, feeling the bruises, the aches. There are parts of a person that can only be learned in the aftermath.

"You don't have to," Hasibe says, reassuringly. "Just...feel your way."

He continues to dress in silence, slipping on boots and buttoning up his shirt with the exception of one conspicuous looking gap. Once done, he turns and opts to kiss Hasibe's neck rather than cause more disarray.

"That seems to be tonight's theme." He lightly rests his chin on her shoulder for a moment, before adding. "Although I think I better leave before I change my mind about being dressed again."

Despite the habit of treating Ivan like mobile furniture that she's entitled to at all times, Ilde isn't actually spending her entire evening glued to his hip and can occasionally be found exploring on her own, cocktail in hand. The chandelier appeals to her for several reasons over the course of the evening; it's beautiful, so she has every intention of taking advantage of the fact she's being spoiled with it this evening, and it's also a little less bustling than below. It's never that she doesn't want to be social, just--

Sometimes it's easier than others, and sometimes it's not such a terrible thing to have a bloody great chandelier to retreat to with her drink, a little bit quieter and a little less packed. Alcohol makes the large crowd easier to deal with, but not so much she's not lighting another cigarette upstairs and enjoying, for a moment, crowd-watching from somewhere that's a little less intimate with the rest of it. She slides her foot up the back of her other leg, registering briefly Hasi and a man she doesn't recognize, then letting her attention wander further.

In the mirror, she sees--well, herself. She knows Mitchell is there, pressing herself back against him (a touch more provocatively than is totally necessary if she wants to actually get them out of hat room), but she can't see him. Vampires. She tilts her head to the side, unfazed.

"You'll see me again soon, I promise. I do have some company staying at my apartment at the moment, or I'd invite you back." Hasibe likes Sally well enough to let her crash there, but is not sure a vampire with the more-than-occasional desire to eat people should spend a lot of time around her.

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003 | OPEN. red lipstick on the end of a cigarette.

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