multiversallogs | ( i am at one with a sea of sensations, glitter, silk, skin, eyes, mouths, desire )

Entry tags:

( i am at one with a sea of sensations, glitter, silk, skin, eyes, mouths, desire )

Who: Ilde Decima, Jules Grumley, Hasi Ozcelik
What: Girls Night Out
Where: Hasi's apartment, then Gutters.
When: The same evening as this and this.
Notes: part of an episodic story arc! Also, OUTFIT REFERENCE, because you all care as much as we do.
Warnings: Incidental violence, frank discussion of sexual situations. Ding me if I've missed something.

Ilde leaves Ivan's flat shortly after texting Jules, leaving a note behind (out for the evening, call you later) and heading back to the villa to change into something that doesn't say 'I sat around my boyfriend's apartment painting my toenails all evening'. (Is it really necessary to leave her perfume on everything he owns? Likely not.) It's a while before she's expecting Jules, which leaves her time for all the parts of evening preparation that she isn't going to handle with illusion (cuts her make up budget by about two thirds, that); large parts of this involve pushing Orion off the end of her bed before he can sit on the dress she just took off and trying not to speculate about exactly what's going on with Hasi and Mitchell.

She's aware (has long been aware) that she's not exactly ideal to be anyone else's sounding board or anything like emotional support, but at least she can provide alcohol, diversions and in at least the figurative sense a sympathetic ear. Maybe if it's like gifts, the thought that counts, it'll be something just that she tries. The sentiment feels too Disney to solidify and she discards it along with something feather-trimmed and probably too much for clubbing; they'll have a few drinks and do something stupid (there are tunnels deeper into Gutters that she hasn't seen the inside of and would like to) and it'll be fine.

Jules, who she gives a quick opportunity to pick through her shoe collection before they leave for Hasi's, is probably right to be slightly concerned. All things considered.

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"Sushi?" Jules looks up with a little surprise, hands busy scratching behind Huan's ears, rumpling his fur as she lavishes attention on him. "I've never had it. What is it, actually?"

These two are both so glamorous, by comparison to Jules. She feels somewhat out of place, and so continues to stay crouching and scratching at Huan, as if she can make herself ignore all the things about this that making her uncomfortable. "Yes, Huan. Have you had sushi? Do you know what it is, hmm?"

Huan wavers, thoughtfully, and then, with a massive thump and a whuff of air, rolls over onto his side. This is a sign of approval; Ilde is inoffensive, even if she carries with the scent of other animals (sort-of-cat, another dog, must investigate, boydoggirldog what is it), and Jules is giving The Scritchings. Very important part of the Huan approval process, those.

Meanwhile, Hasibe pauses with the phone, holding her hand over the mouth.

"It's...well, it's raw fish, but I can get some cooked, too--it's really good, I promise."

When she finishes her phone call, she meanders over to the little bar in the living room.

"We should have a preliminary drink, though, to start us off. They definitely don't have champagne at Gutters, and that'll keep us from getting completely wasted, soo--?" What do you two think? Hasi is flexible here, God knows she's got enough kinds of alcohol on the premises.

"Faerie alcohol tolerance," Ilde demurs, holding up a hand in a sort of 'I would, but' gesture that she's getting used to making; she'd ordinarily do it anyway, but she's more likely to pace herself for Gutters than Anarchy. Then, "Maybe just a little bit? In a shot glass."

...that she won't drink as a shot, because, but of course Hasi is going to have the glasses, surely.

"I'll try it, absolutely." 'Raw' wasn't something that bothered her too terribly. She grins at the giant dog flopped onto his side, and continues her attention scratching down his neck and his back, horribly unladylike, she suspects, in comparison to Ilde and Hasi.

Oh. Ohhoho. Glancing up towards the bar, Jules considers it for about half a second, tops, before nodding. "I'll have whatever's around, really." Which is to say, nothing will keep her from getting wasted at Gutters, if the need so strikes her. However, she will at least try, seeing as she has company. "I think I'll have something bigger than a shot glass, though. To be daring."

"Can do. ...Jules, I think my dog is going to steal you." Huan twitches his ears in reaction, like he knows she's talking about him. Hasibe pours two champagne glasses and puts about a double in one shotglass, distributing them as required.

"I really appreciate you guys coming over," she says, sinking into one chair, legs crossed at the knee, "my week has just been awful, and I can definitely use the night out."

Tiny little glass in hand, Ilde sinks sideways to rest against the arm of the sofa where she can keep both Hasi and Jules readily in view (and because it's comfortable and she goes boneless at the drop of a hat). "The least I can do," she says, resting her weight on her elbow, "and I promised Jules we'd take her out to Gutters to see what it's like. A while ago, actually."

But she had plans with Alucard that night, and had figured it was probably best to break Jules in slightly more gently than that.

Laughing quietly, Jules manages to keep rubbing Huan's back and shoulders with her feet, now that she's straightening up to hold the glass without risk of Tragic Spillage. "That would require my not stealing him first," comes her light reply. "I've always wanted a dog, actually. I might have to get one here."

A sip of her champagne as she listens to the others, settling back on her seat. "Mmhmm. Getting a chance to go out works well for all of us. I've been looking forward to it." And dreading it. A bit of both. "This is delicious, by the way-- but why was your week so bad?"

It's rather nice, actually, having a chance to just sit and chat. Rather surreal, still, but definitely nice. If unnerving. And ever so slightly terrifying, underneath that all - the champagne really will help.

"You should," Hasi says, prone to automatically enabling anything anyone says that way-- 'might have to', 'might like to', and she'll turn up being encouraging. The question makes her wince with memory, though there's a smile in it, too, wry.

"It was great--grand, actually, until the other night. There's this guy I'm sleeping with, and I really like him, possibly in a way beyond the usual friends-with-benefits arrangement...it's too early to tell, really, but--" She shrugs. "I accidentally poisoned him with my blood. He's okay, but I feel awful that I wasn't more careful."

Hasi pauses.

"And then I found out some things about how he views sex in relationships and his past...stuff--Ilde, you explain that, please, I need to drink this entire glass of champagne really fast."

Collectively, these three have the best coping mechanisms in all of Baedal.

Edited 2011-12-07 03:52 (UTC)

Ilde pulls a face, on cue, leaning forward to put the shot glass down so she can gesture without losing champagne all over her dress. "Mitchell-- I had a conversation with him not long after he arrived in Baedal, because Ivan wasn't completely sure if he's just preoccupied with blood or if their breed of vampire actually can't get off without it and he told me to go ask Mitchell--" this is so blithe, just as the initial series of inquiries were.

"But so, we talked about his past sex life a bit and he told me about the last girl he was with, and how they weren't fucking, and how that made it 'better' and 'more pure' than anything else he had. I mean, he specifically said he thought the lack of sex made it more pure." Subtle facial cues or not, it's not difficult to figure out what she thinks about this. "I didn't know where to start with that so I just told him it was a shitty thing to say."

A little smile at the encouragement, and she nods. "I might need to get a bigger place, first." And that means she might need to do more work, and right now she's still feeling a bit apathetic in regards to taking car of herself and all that sort of silly thing.

But, wait. She needs a moment or two to catch up, so she pauses, just mulling over what each of them has said. "Firstly, I've met Mitchell! He seemed really nice." A beat. "No idea he was a vampire though. It's rather nice, actually." Nice to meet Ilde, who while unnerving, certainly doesn't compare with the monsters from home, nice to hear of a vampire who is friendly and who Hasi likes and who apparently has ideals of a sort - even if she doesn't agree.

Give her a moment; she needs to have more of her champagne. "Secondly; poisoned him... with your blood. How?" A moment skips by, and she realises how that might sound. "Not to be accusatory, but it's simply... I've never heard of that." And she's heard quite a few things about human consumption. really. "I mean, if it were possible in my world I'm sure humans-- I'm sure we'd all try and do whatever it was to protect ourselves from hybrids and monsters."

And finally, and perhaps most importantly: "I have no idea why you'd think things were better without sex. It's totally mindboggling. Sex is amazing. More sex for everyone." Yep, there goes some more of her champagne.

Hasibe briefly considers saying that Mitchell's niceness is largely a huge front, as she suspects this is mostly the case, but--that may make him also seem worse than he is, and she doesn't want to sink anyone's fondness for him, since she certainly likes him, too. Not quite finished with her own champagne, Hasi gestures, lightly, with the glass.

"My type of witch has poisonous blood. No idea why. Things like vampires, physical predators at home, they don't...well, historically, they didn't faze us. The so-called queens of the supernatural. Matriarchal, to boot." She rolls her eyes. "I don't pay it a lot of attention, frankly."

That last remark, however, gets her to crack a more genuine smile.

"That's what I thought! I understand he loved her, I respect that, but if the relationship was so much 'purer' without sex...I don't know what the fuck he thinks of me, because we're so physical. It makes me apprehensive, and men never make me apprehensive."

This is partially cockiness and partly reality; she's just sort of been so promiscuous for so many years that she's difficult to rattle. Mitchell, though, knocks her off-guard, with his volatile nature. He's so many things she likes at once, including the monster she craves.

"So that's why I need to go to Gutters and do something, or someone, I shouldn't." And she raises her glass in a tiny salute.

"I like the matriarchy," Ilde opines, and somewhere in her world Ælfræd develops a rage-headache about his last scion trailing around behind witch queens like the fae haven't long since learned to keep their bedamned distance, what are you doing, child. "It's how things are with the enclave, now."

Which has been a learning curve, mainly for the men affiliated; she took to the notion that they should suck it up like a duck to water.

"And Mitchell tried to backpedal after I told him he was being shitty, but I don't know. Maybe he just says things." Stupid things.

Edited 2011-12-07 05:17 (UTC)

Part of her feel rather hideous at not being open with Hasi and Ilde, considering that she knows what both of them are. It's also a matter of self preservation, nervousness since the last time she told someone, for all pretences of love and support and expenses, she spent six days twisting at the hands of a relentless fanatic of a sulfur slave. Her jaw tenses, nervousness drumming through her muscles for a brief moment, spurred by the consideration before she forces the tension down again, massaging the livid handprint over her shoulder. "It sounds lovely," she replies rather vaguely. "Though I think the monsters have a matriarch, as well. Calathea."

Shaking her head, she snaps herself out if it, like it will clear the fog and make operating normally a few shades less challenging.

"People do that. Say things because they think it's what someone wants to hear, or it'll make them sound better." Ah, no, there's more bitterness there then she means to let sneak into her tone. Brightening her voice up, Jules straightens up, resting her hands on her knees. "It could have just been with this one individual. Or maybe she was just bad in bed and he doesn't want to admit it."

Okay, that was mean... but she's chuckling at the thought, anyway. "Pure, oh my God. That's practically puritanical."

As an observer of people's natures, and behavior, and someone with a relatively decent grasp on understanding others, Jules is sometimes totally fascinating and totally worrying for Hasibe. She can see Jules repress something, shove it down deep and pushing away the darkness, and maybe now is not the time to delve into that, but it's one of those things that presses at the back of her mind. She wants to know what that's about--very much so, because it seems like it hurts.

But she smiles at 'puritanical', shaking her head. "I'm sure she was lovely, but I don't know where it comes from in his head; he's definitely had no trouble with sexuality with me."

Hasibe is not sure she could have a relationship with no sex, period.

"Ilde's vampire is a lot more normal," she adds, teasingly, "in as much as a vampire can be. He helped us out."

And punched Mitchell, but nevermind that.

"Ivan," Ilde declares, with a teeny-tiny sip of champagne, "is normal for a vampire." Which doesn't suggest anything positive about his interactions with humans, honestly, but she doesn't seem to be paying any mind to that (or even considering that she should). Hasi was right, earlier, about the appeal of Gutters; somewhere to go where human is the minority, and it's reflected in the ways she lets her illusions thin.

It's a very conscious thing-- she has her own familiarity with repression that leads her to following Jules around, poking at her to see what she can stir loose.

"I didn't really plan for him to be my vampire in the first place, though. I don't know how that happened."

"Mm." A troublesome thought, actually. Given all the cracks and fragments that had fallen away in her relationship (so-called relationship, really), however, Jules has become just a touch jaded. Mistrustful, really, in terms of sexuality and romance and how sincere a person can really be.

"I think, that perhaps-- that maybe, time might be the best judge. People can say and do all kinds of things and not mean any of them." And for all the effort at optimistic, light delivery, it comes out rather weary.

Not quite sure how to take that, Jules tilts her head, glancing between the two. "What does 'normal' typically entail for a vampire? I'm only familiar with old stories, but... they weren't ever real, so far as I knew." A drawn out silence, and as she flops against the chair's arm, her gaze settles on Ilde - with a slightly mischievous smile, yes. "Does it just mean you can't eat garlic?"

"Yes, tell us," Hasi says, cheerfully, just about as the doorbell rings. She leaps up, glass in hand. "Don't think that means you're getting out of going on about Ivan's vampire normalcy, Ilde, I'm just going to get the door."

...in her robe and whatever lacy little thing is underneath it, yes.

At the door, she can be heard chatting a little with the deliverywoman, but it doesn't last very long. Hasi figures they can eat sitting by the coffee tables in the living room--this is hardly a formal occasion, and sushi and champagne is about as ridiculous as it gets for pre-clubbing supper.

Ilde is still laughing when Hasi returns with their take-out, a gurgling sound in her throat that doesn't seem immediately as though it should be as pleasant as it is. (The unusual sound is sometimes alarming, the first time, but after a while people seem to get used to it.)

"I mean, I don't know, if he were human then he'd be a psychopath or something." ...but he isn't human, so that makes it normal? This makes perfect sense, thank you, and is only slightly influenced by the champagne. She really wasn't kidding about her alcohol tolerance.

Alarming, yes - Jules' eyebrows actually raise a bit, but all in all it just makes her laugh harder.

Laughing seems to be about the only appropriate way to deal with that rather unsettling news. Laughing, sweeping it under the mat - anything that means she doesn't think about the repercussions, the kind of things she'd do to someone like that if she were home. Ilde and Hasi are the closest things she has had to friends in quite some time, and going after the people they care about is hardly much in the spirit of friendship. If anything, she could take grim comfort in the fact that people like that were here; maybe it wouldn't be so hard to find someone to eat, after all.

"That's extremely comforting. Thank you." Leaning forward, Jules isn't very good at concealing her interest in the food. "Do you need a hand, Hasi?" And then can she set her hands to helping her eat, immediately?

"If everyone's like that at Gutters, we're in for an interesting night."

"Oh, sure!" She hands over a couple of the trays obligingly, setting down the leftover ones on the edge of the coffee table in the middle of the living room. With her wine glass balanced on top, until she deftly reclaims it.

"It varies, at Gutters. This one," she inclines her head at Ilde, "should not be wandering around there alone, for the record. Don't make a face at me, at least half of all vampires are paralyzingly short-sighted and won't think of the consequences for going after you alone."

Ilde being the vampire version of a small and highly coveted dessert of some kind, like an eclair or a macaron.

In spite or because of warning note to, Ilde pokes her tongue out at Hasi in a show of true maturity; she laughs again, a moment later, shaking her head. "I haven't been there alone yet." A beat, "Well, not for long."

It was less than ten minutes, she was just a little early to meet Alucard, it was totally fine, no one ate her.

In an aside for Jules benefit, "My blood is sort of like a drug, to them." It means she smells different, too, and the sensitive ones pick it up when she walks in.

Moving quickly - perhaps just a shade too quickly, she can lose focus a bit when she's had a drink or two - she takes the trays and sets them down. "That's... interesting." Extremely strange and disturbing, also. "As long as they don't try to snort you, or something of the like, I'm sure we'll be fine." She will, however, be keeping a close eye out. She isn't sure of the nature of a vampire's strength, not Ilde or Hasi's for that matter, but she's quite capable of wreaking a bloody havoc, if the situation calls for it. Ah, but... "Can they smell it? The differences between different types of blood?"

Something like that could make her life rather difficult. Mitchell certainly hadn't made any indication that he could tell she wasn't human, but then again, Mitchell hadn't been sniffing at her, and she honestly isn't sure how that works. As a hybrid, you're left to deduce monsters, hybrids and humans by your wits or sheer luck, be it good or bad. Devils and sulfur slaves just made her skin crawl. "I'll just keep an eye on both of you, I suppose."

"Oh," Hasi says, sinking down to the sofa to sit with legs crossed, "you don't have to worry about me, I promise. I'll slink off by myself for a bit, but it's the usual stuff where I'm concerned."

She smiles, shrugging.

"My blood seems normal, as far as I know." That's the point of the so-called 'Sisterhood of the Oleander' and their premise--lure them in, snap down like some kind of venus flytrap. ...witchcraft is especially charming in Hasibe's world. She carefully portions sushi onto a plate. "Most of them don't look very hard, though. They may be so-called members of the damned, but in a nightclub, everybody's superficial."

"Some of them can smell it, though," Ilde adds, draining the last of her shot-glass as she shifts off the sofa to sit on the floor, investigating the offerings of sushi and picking out what she wants to eat. "Not all; there are so many different breeds. Some of them aren't even magic."

She sounds mildly disapproving of this; she's got in the habit of expecting to be able to feel vampires, and when she can't it's a disconcerting moment of dead space where she doesn't think there should be any. That and she disapproves of science-based vampirism on principle.

"Again, I hardly know whether to be comforted by the common ground, or mildly disturbed." It's not a surprise, no, but hearing it like that is different.

Since she has never used chopsticks in her life, Jules is going to try to, as gracefully and apologetically as she can, eat sushi with her hands. Actually taking the sushi is an interesting exercise, making her turn it around to inspect it, intrigued by the seaweed wrapping, the rice, the different fillings. The entire thing is a nice distraction, as if she can make herself less of an open book. "If something isn't human but isn't magic, is that bad?"

She's not certain about the Devils and their contracts, how you'd qualify that, but the monsters are probably closest to some breed of alien. And, well, that would make her particular breed of something rather less than magical-- though that concern is bumped away by her investigation of wasabi.

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THANKS FOR THE NO NOTIF LJ FFFF

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