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

[norea]

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?

Comments

[caballero]

He laughs a little - brief and voiceless, but still - when she hugs him, and lets his arm rest around her and stay there, companionable. (Oh god, glitter never goes away, now he's stuck with it forever.)

"I thought you'd like it." His voice is subdued as always, but still clear enough to be heard despite the noise. It's fine, he'll pass off dressing semi-appropriately with a few conspicuous notes of leather on not wanting to be 'Hasi's insane friend in the bad Christmas sweater'; that he both looks like and carries the air of someone who knows what he's doing here (and halfway does) is totally irrelevant. Totally.

[norea]

"I do." She looks at him for a second, pleased but (however briefly) quiet. And then, of course, it's back into high gear, as though she'd never even left.

"What do you think of the club?"

[caballero]

"It's very you."

It's also a little busy for his tastes, but based on the chipper attitudes of the waitstaff over tip revenue, he suspects that has a lot to do with the weekend and the little event Hasi's made for her cohort. He's not decided how he feels about it as a facility just yet, but he already thinks he'll probably come back; he likes the employees he's talked to, and the risk to both performers and guests is... palpable. He is not going to fuss, but that awareness is with him.

"Your dance was great."

[norea]

Most of the club has a slight air of tension--the kind that makes it into a risque appeal--but that room, the one with the constantly-closed red door you have to sign a waiver to get into, suggests there's more truth to the place's hyped reputation than one might think.

"Thank you! It went pretty well, considering I haven't been on stage in so long."

[caballero]

The fact that there's a waiver for just one place suggests that, by comparison, everything else is safe and without need for protection against whatever one might need a waiver for. This is not wholly true, based on his observations, and that's what sets Bruce on (his typical) edge.

(It is entirely possible he's far too paranoid for his own good, but this is not news.)

"I get the impression you won't ever lose your knack, to be honest."

[norea]

"Mm. Then let's hope every place we go has use for me." She has a lot of skills, but a lot of the things she relies on are based on her looks and her sexuality--Hasibe doesn't define herself by those things, but they're always been where she fits most easily.

"Found anyone interesting, since you've been here?"

[caballero]

It's funny, maybe - Bruce sees her skills as being about the way she interacts with people; she's smart, she's meticulous. She plays people like other people play chess pieces, and has been such a relief on his arm in Gotham the handful of times she's helped him. He figures she's just having fun this way.

"It will." Meaning if they keep getting thrown together, anyway. And then he wrinkles his nose a little like, does she mean in the club? Of course he's fine with the content, it's just himself in context with that content that's still strange. He remains unsure. "Waitresses?"

Even when he's not loaded, Bruce is a sucker for tips. It's an illness.

[norea]

She's somehow not surprised, but the reaction is endearing. Hasibe gives Bruce a playful little nudge. "Well, we do have some very nice waitresses, I won't argue that. I mostly meant have you socialized."

At all.

Besides with Hasibe herself.

"Because I can introduce you..." It's more of a playful threat than anything serious.

[caballero]

"Waitresses count."

He's not even drinking! He had a soda! They totally count. And yet somehow he feels this will not actually save him, so:

"One of your friends from the cohort. Red hair. Rachel."

[norea]

"Waitresses are trying to get you drunk so you'll give them all your money, that doesn't count."

However:

"Rachel!" She beams at him, approvingly, as he possibly predicted her reaction to an actual name. "She's lovely, isn't she? I actually promised to get her VIP seating and show her the sights."

[caballero]

Bruce just gives her a look because they both know he's not going to get anywhere near drunk considering he doesn't drink, and that surely waitresses are people too! Surely.

"She's nice." And to his eternal relief, completely unlike anyone he's been entangled with before; her hair is, of course, going to remind him of Marion no matter what, but they're nothing like each other. Thank fuck. "She was a little overwhelmed by the noise, I think, she was very tolerant."

Of... him? Yes.

[norea]

Just because he won't drink doesn't mean she won't keep imagining the idea of Drunk Bruce and bringing it up from now until eternity. The concept is too delightful to discard entirely. Hasibe just smiles, incorrigible.

"She gave me the impression of being almost too normal for all this madness," she admits, "but I'm sure that's not the case--statistics suggests we're all weird in some respect."

[caballero]

Speaking (or not) of drinks - the bar tender has, by now, very tolerantly refilled his soda, and slid it over. (He watched, out of the corner of his eye; there's nothing else in there. Bruce, why are this paranoid.)

"...Hey, I'm normal."

He sips his soda.

[norea]

She presses her lips together in affectionate amusement, and airily addresses the ceiling. "Well, I suppose if you say so, you must be. Who am I to argue?"

Hasi loves you, Bruce.

[caballero]

Instead of laughing, Bruce takes another drink, but there's nothing he can do about the fact that he's still smiling when he sets the glass back down.

"We're is well adjusted as we want to be."

This is only funny to them.

[norea]

Morbidly delighting in their own strangeness. She muffles her laugh behind her manicured fingertips, though there's still a trace of it rippling through her voice as she speaks.

"Don't drink too much caffeine," she says, severely, "you'll get a headache."

[caballero]

"I'm on my second glass," he says, in such seriousness, "I'll try to maintain myself for you."

Life on the edge.