[John Brendan Cavanagh] It's well after midnight, a hole in the wall sort of place near the mile that opens onto a dark, still street. There are clubs dotting up and down the way, little herds of drunk girls in short skirts and high heels stagger between them. They have names that seem sharp, immediate - Fluid and Icon and Club Babylon which appears to promise both heaven and hell, with purgatory in between, just the way Dante dreamed it, just the way John Milton feared.
Gumby's[i] is on the same corner. The exterior is not mirrored glass and sleek, underlit neon, but planked wooden paneling. Mounted on the exterior wall is an old ship's steering wheel, from some huge old riverboat. The odd tourist stumbling drunk from one glittering dance club to the next would think it a kitschy themed seafood restaurant, the sort with a knotted net affixed to the ceiling, filled with plastic models of dungeness crabs and Maine lobsters, with swordfish and giant rainbow trout, nevermind the impossibility of their comingling in any actual fisherman's net.
It's not fish inside, but music. The blackboard mounted beside the captain's wheel lists Friday as a [i]loud and local night, and band inside is both - loud enough that the music makes the glass panes in the half-open front door shudder, local enough that they have a following even though they're without a record deal.
JB is inside, beer held loosely in one of his big hands, seated on a barstool it his back to the bar, listening. Just another guy, tall and broad-shouldered, but ordinary, really - wearing a Pogues t-shirt and torn jeans, with a scruffy day and a half beard bristling across his jaw.
[Luana Kirchmann] Well after midnight is still early in the party crowd, many of them wake at ten, dress and then head out to get drunk and high, and reek havok across the city. Luana is not quite one of them but she's similar enough and knows the lifestyle. Friday had her working, the late afternoon spent passed out on top of the bed covers catching some sleep before her weekend began. By Monday she's in sunglasses, popping advil, and a grumbling bitch.
But that's not now. Right now, the short woman is sliding up to the side of the bar, giving John the look over with a quirk of her mouth.
She's a little more dressed for a place like this, likely having come from or going to one of those clubs up the road. A pair of strapped heels up the ankles, dark, matching the dress that's a little longer on the thigh then most younger girls out there, with straps criss-crossing down the back and a decent plunge line at the front. There's a bracelet on the left wrist, a thin chain down her neck, glittering like a soft strand of spiders web, delicate and feminine. Dirty blonde hair is in back in a clip, slightly messed in the way it's been grabbed at the back. Across her hip is a small purse, its attached to the strap over her shoulder, blending in with the black of her dress.
From this she's pulled some cash, and she's lifting her accented voice to order a whiskey, of all things.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] It's not his sixth beer of the night, JB. It's not his first, either. And he's tired from a long day that began before dawn, sorting out deliveries, getting his daughter off to school, working dawn to dusk, and after, really. Friday nights in a strange new city usually find him jogging upstairs when service ends, maybe after a few beers with his staff, to tuck in his daughter while the rest of them head out for the night, to retire it in style. Tonight, though, Cindy offered to hang out, spend the evening with Lucy, give him a night off.
An hour and a half later, and he's lost most of the rest of his staff to other pursuits. Freddie's trying to score something decent weed from a dodgy connection on the northside, and Raoul followed some sharp faced, pretty little college girl out of Gumby's twenty minutes ago. "You'll be back," JB warned his sous chef as the squat little bulldog of a man left, laughing, trailing after his latest conquest.
By now, it's absolutely clear that he was wrong.
So instead, he's sitting here, listening to this loud, pseudo-punk band Either / OR made up, entirely, of philosophy undergrads from the University of Chicago. If he could make out the lyrics, he might laugh. It's all a growl of feedback loops, art school stuff, not his scene even if he totally gets the energy. The beer's good, though. They've got decent stuff on tap, and it's opening up his veins and he's taking an interest in a stranger's drink order.
"Not Bushmill's!" He tells her, and - reaching back with a sort of direct gesture, sets his hand down on her cash as she reaches it across the bar. "Jameson's cask strength is what you want if you're drinking Irish whiskey. Though you look more like a Cosmo girl."
[Luana Kirchmann] "I'm a whatever takes my fancy girl," she responds to him, amused at the way he's put his hand over her and the cash on the bar. Olive eyes flick over his face, the humour in her expression clearly expressed. "But whatever the man says." This was to the bartender who's come to get her a drink. Content with the suggested order, she leaves her cash on the bar and slips her hand back out from under his.
With him sitting, he's still taller then her. But she lingers by his side, facing him more then the bar now, as she waits for her drink. "What makes you think I'm a Cosmo girl?" Already sharp brows arch a little higher. Her pale painted lips curl up in a direct, playful challenge. The woman isn't only looking at his gaze, but taking in his features and even the name splashed across his t.shirt. She picks up the little details as she looks him over, slow, unhurried, before meeting his gaze again.
Even alone, the woman seems far from afraid of the college students, the drunk men, even those that are telling her what she should be drinking. Her sharp angled face is proud, though quiet, and hinted with a faint playful flirt under the guise of her dark shadowed, eyes.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Oh," he says, with this sort of exaggerated care, lifting his beer, holding it with his blunt fingers on the rim of the glass, humor glinting in his warm brown eyes. " - that sort." Underneath. Whatever that means. Then she slides her hand out from under his, and he releases her money. When the tender comes back with her whiskey, John Brendan gestures wordlessly to the man that he'd like another round. It's an easy, familiar gesture - the sort perfected by a certain kind of guy in pubs the world over. Then he drops his right arm again, resting the bottom of his beer glass on one solid thigh.
His jeans are worn white there, the threads of the underlying cotton visible at the knee. A dark, intricate tattoo crawls up the right arm, moving whenever he flexes his muscles, otherwise still. It is all curves, sharp dark lines, crisp and clean like the edge of a blade, joined together to a whole.
Must've taken hours.
He glances briefly up; the lead singer's at the mike, announcing a break, she's dressed in sharp red, a smear of color against the stage lights, and then gone. His brown eyes wander back to her again, " - why do I think you're a Cosmo girl?" he asks her, laughing, this big gesture of it that is mostly just his face, the broad way his mouth moves, the engaging gleam of his eyes.
His gaze drops to the hem of her skirt, and his grin crests into an edge of a smirk. Then he finds her gaze again, " - because I'm giving you credit for not being a frozen strawberry daiquiri girl."
[Luana Kirchmann] "I can't," she tells him, watching his eyes as they travel down her petite frame, plenty hidden in the folds of the dress, and yet folds show just what they should. It's downright modest compared to some, and allows her into clubs and into lounge bars, or places like this, without much a problem. "I get those ... what do you call them?" Her brow creases and she makes a rolling gesture with her fingers, making motion, "... those painful headaches when you have something too cold."
There's a quick flash of teeth in a grin.
Then she's reaching for her drink and thanking the bar tender with a small smile and nod of her head. Lifting the glass, she takes a sip from it, drinking it straight without the ice. Turning from the bar now, and the man in the stool, she faces the crowd. Another inches in against the bar, making her step to the side to allow them more room. She throws them half a look over her shoulder, and turns back to John after. Close enough now, her hip is almost against the side of his leg. Blame it on being at the bar.
"You like this music?" She asks of him, looking up to where he's sitting. Her glass is held at her waist, fingers curled over the top of the glass, protecting the opened space with her fingers. Too many spiked drinks, one can assume, has her naturally wary and certainly accustomed to clubs and pubs. Her fingers and hand is small, delicate, somewhat boned along the knuckles.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Ice cream headache!" he supplies, a little loud maybe. The band was loud, and there's still this sort of afterecho of the music thrumming in his ears. Were he more sensible, he might remember to wear ear plugs to a bar like this, on a night like this. It's not something he thinks about, though maybe the ringing in his ears gives him a flash of that, some old man in a pub cupping his ear going, eh? at the end of every queston. " - those things are foul, anyway. They just use mixes at any of these places. Seventeen kinds of chemicals engineered to taste like strawberry candy, and a boatload of high fructose corn syrup, to cover up the booze. Way I see if, if you're gonna get drunk, best you taste what the hell you're drinking."
Apparently, the man has opinions. He glances down as she crowds closer, gives her the fleeting edge of a smile, the sort of look that has him holding her gaze, sidelong, sure. Maybe even cocky. Then he tosses back the rest of his beer and reaches back behind her, sliding the empty over the counter, picking up the full glass that has miraculously replaced it.
"This shit?" he says, a gestue toward the stage, followed by a glance. The band's drifted away now, though he could probably find the lead singers red dress floating around in the crowd. "It's not bad. I mean, the fucking - concept is a bit self-indulgent, but they've got the hooks and know how to crunch a fucking chord." Then, he lifts his chin at her, a flash of white teeth. Asks. "You?"
[Luana Kirchmann] He has her laughing, a sound that is lost under the thrum of people and voices, loud talkers like John. Luana isn't that way, she's more quiet, at least volume wise. She makes up plenty in other ways. The way she's looking at him may indicate that. He's been around enough to know that its a similar look that college girl had given his co worker before dragging him out of there. This woman has similar plans.
"Does it matter, by the end of the night, you won't know the difference." Seeking to encourage his opinions, throwing a little more gas on the fire, so to speak. She knows it too, by the way her brow lifts and her mouth quirks.
Shifting her grip on the glass, she brings it to her lips for another drink, swallowed down with a quick gulp of her throat and motion of her cheeks. She had looked away again, over the crowd, this time a fleeting glance, before eyes drift back to him again. Her grin is quick, eyes crinkled briefly. "Hate it."
"I came in expecting to see fisherman and pick up good cocktails." It's jest, probably. It doesn't matter anyway, she's here and talking to a nice enough man. She's drinking. The awful music has stopped, long enough that she can fill it with some conversation. Another sip is taken.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Course it matters!" God knows he's had this argument before. She's flirting with him, though, and that has him focus on her rather more directly, sitting up as he lifts his beer to his mouth. "I'm not living for the end of the night, you know - " he tells her, smiling around the edge of the beer glass as he sips off the foam from the head. " - every moment in between counts, too. What is it they say - Life's too short for - " but he frowns, furrows, chasing the idea in his head. " - fuck if I know. I think it ends with bad beer, though." The stuff he's drinking is good. She could figure that out by the price. It's not Budweiser, or one of its lesser competitors.
Then, she confesses that she hates the music. "No way! Shit, I bet you like that fucking electronica stuff. You know, Music by Computer. Give me crunch guitars and blood and sawdust, and I'm a happy man."
Make that past tense, John. Then, a flash of a grin that shows the hint of a dimple - just the hint of it - in his cheek. "Oh, like those tiki cocktails, right? The ones that come with a spear and eighteen kinds of fruit, poke your eye out, those kind?"
[Luana Kirchmann] It worked, of course. He goes on, it has her smiling more, just short of grinning. Her eyes are practically gleaming at this point. She's watching him over her glass, drinking from it as casually as one would water. A shame, really. Maybe she's not even stopping to enjoy it. It's more likely that she's just a regular drinker, though, and more engaged in conversation then the warmth flowing down her throat and settling into her belly.
"I like all sorts of music, as long as it sounds like music, and not the kids next door screaming to some blared music out of a bad stereo speaker," she confesses, waving her drink a little as if to dismiss the idea that she was just into electronica. It wasn't true, either.
Laughing softly, she shook her head and indulged him with a wry expression. "The sort where shrimps are arranged prettily on the side and you eat it from a glass, not drink it." Whatever they're called. She hadn't meant drinking cocktails. It's seems she's one of those that may have mistaken this for some gaudy restaurant. Of course the music had been a dead give away. She's merely playing.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Oh," he says, getting it now. " - shrimp cocktails. I hear they do a great one of those at Red Lobster." He deadpans. Luana is being subject to his opinions on music. Best not get him started on chain restaurants.
"Now, see - " John leans over, alcohol on his breath, a nice hoppy pale ale, actually, that smells like bread, like yeast, the fermented sugars inside it. There's something golden about it, too - pale ales smell like summer, not fall. It's cool outside, clear tonight, a huge moon hanging like a baleful eye in the middle of the sky, now that the front has moved on and left the city bare to the stars, naked underneath them. She can sense his smile as much as she can see it, an edge of it, the bristle of his whiskers dark brown. He hasn't shaved since morning. They grow back fast.
" - now," he has a professorial air, really. No, that's not it. Barroom professor is more like it. "See, kids banging in their mum's garage, screaming over feedback of the third-fucking-hand amp they picked up from the pawn shop down the corner, that's exactly what music is. Right? S'about the experience of it. People yelling, putting together chords and the like, - about participation rather than this passive shite where some bloke feeds parameters through a computer and punches out something, then test markets it on a select group of inebriated thirteen-year-old who wouldn't know a fat chord progression if it smacked them in the face.
"We've been banging drums since the cavemen times. It's a fucking - you know - communal act. Making music, s'posed to be, anyway. Like a charm against - "
He doesn't finish what he was saying. Instead, he gives a gesture, down at the surface of her glass. "You want another of those?"
[Luana Kirchmann] All the while he talks and she listens. Whether he's right by her ear or sitting back on his stool, she's listening to what he has to say and what's found under it. Closer she can pick up other little things about him, like the smell of his breath, or any cologne he's wearing. She can make out the colour of his eyes better, too, now that he's sitting closer in the darkness of the pub.
This time there's nothing much to be said, but her interest is still there, not a bright spark, but just under the surface and in the way she hasn't left him to talk about such nonsense to the next man at the bar. Truthfully she doesn't know much about music, just which she liked and what she didn't. Chords, guitars, anything else was beyond her. Other people played it, even more wished they could, and then there were those like John that thought they knew everything about it. Alcohol makes the opinion stronger, so she thinks.
But when it comes to asking about her drink, she nods to him once and downs the rest in her glass in a sweep of her tilted chin and swallows it down. The empty glass is pushed onto the bar, reaching through his body and the person still standing next to the bar next to her. She's crammed between them, a little on the outside, so she's standing closer to his knee then his side now. "One more," she tells him, "and then I am leaving for better places."
"You should come." Direct.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Yeah?" He returns, his brown eyes gleaming, a little bit unfocused, but lingering on her, tracking the movement of her eyes. His own gaze drops to her hand, the empty glass, as she pushes it between them.
The shift arrests his rather passionate discourse on music, the nature of communal expression before he starts up again. The way he's looking at her, some shadow on his brow, suggests that he's disappointed she didn't rise to the bait, jump in and turn it around on him, offer an opinion, maybe loudly, no matter how wrong he considers it. That's there, on the surface, dissolving as he follows the line of her arm back toward the bar, the movement quiets that boisterous self that sparks with alcohol, opens in a barroom, that expansive sense of camaraderie, of rightness of the world that fills him up.
That opens up in him.
That gleams in his brown eyes.
He gestures to the bartender to get her another, leaning back to pay, holding sliding his wallet from his back pocket and unfolding a bill, leaving behind a generous tip before he lifts her drink back over the bar, offering it to her.
When she has her drink, he picks up his beer, leans forward, and says into her ear, still maybe a hint too loud, but with a grin underneath his voice. "What constitutes better places?"
[Luana Kirchmann] Taking the drink from him has her murmuring a quiet: "Thank you." She doesn't immediately lift it towards her mouth to drink from it, but holds it down by her waist as he leans back with his own drink. It's only moments later that he's folding his body towards her, coming close enough to her ear to know that she doesn't smell like the drunks, or the cheap body sprays on super market shelves, but of some subtle higher class oil pressed into the back of her ear, down by her collarbones, again at her wrists. Not a lot, but enough to know its only the start of the night and not the end.
Her tongue licks her lip, wets it as she hears his grin. Responding in kind, her mouth curved into a slow, more sly smile. All still flirtatious, quieter, maybe playful. "Less people," she tells his ear in return, "more room to move." Her smile can be heard. This close, she's watching him side ways, eyes flicking over the side of his face.
Leaning in close has her free hand resting on his thigh, closer to his knee then higher up. It just rests there, doesn't grip, hardly even steadies her. "Doesn't have to be electronica that you detest. But ... I'm sure we could work out somewhere we both like." Suggestive lilt.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] His laughter isn't quiet. She is close enough that she can feel it, the way his lungs expand with it, the way his shoulders move. He lifts his head, that flash of teeth again, rough jaw rising, looking up and away from her, down the line of the bar maybe, behind the next guy, and the next guy down.
Toward the front door.
It's open, a slice of the streetlife outside visible, a cool current of air that slices through the retained heat inside the crowded club.
His thigh flexes beneath her hand. The big, long muscles solid in the front of the thigh, the long bands that make up the quadriceps. The denim of his jeans is soft, washed and worn and worn and washed. Brown eyes drop to her hand, and there's a certain shift, a kind of conservation of energy. "I think you have plenty of room to move," he tells her, lower this time, the hint of his dimple reappearing in his cheek. Head still, he lifts his eyes to meet hers. "Right here."
Then, he shifts his beer from his right hand to his left. Reaches up, tilting her chin up with the flat of his index finger, tipping it higher with the blunt edge of his thumb. Not breaking eye contact now, not for a fraction of a second.
[Luana Kirchmann] Lifting her chin obediently, has him looking into paler olive coloured eyes. They're made lighter by the way her eyes have been shadowed in black and grays, carefully applied only a few hours ago, accentuating the large, slightly almond shape of them. Her eyebrows cut away from them sharply, shaped. Her mouth has stilled, like her expression, and holding her like that has her staring at him.
"You think so?" She asked softly, a mere mouth moving under the sound. If the band had been playing, her voice would have been lost under it.
Her body moves, shifts so that she presses her side into his thigh, and her hand curls from the top of his thigh to the inside, still down by the knee in safe areas. Her thumb feels the muscle, rubbing across it to feel the hardness of it under the pressing pad. The chin in his grip is angular, the lines of her jaw are long, raising up to the sharp angles of her cheekbones.
"And what about the music?" She asks, tilting her head just a little more to the side, eyes still direct. "When that starts, I won't hear a word that you're saying." Excuses. Testing the waters, to see what opinions he comes up with. There's a hidden smile in her mouth.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "You don't give a fuck," he tells her, looking at her aslant as she shifts herself to his side. The bottom of his beer glass rests against the opposite thigh, his fingers relax, loosen around the glass. Briefly, his eyes drop to her hand as her fingers curl inside his thigh - linger there, then up again, this cross-wise look accompanied by a dark, sweeping glance. His features are shadowed, a strong, bristling jaw, a broad, blunt nose that suggests it has been broken once or twice before. " - what I say, you know."
That sounds almost conversational.
He does not hold her chin up for long. Turning to face her directly, looking just down from his higher angle, he sweeps his thumb along the line of her jaw, the pad callused from work, rough against her skin. "It's all just placeholders." The touch changes, deepens. Without looking toward the stage, he indicates it with a gesture of his dark head. "The music starts up, we can just mouth the words. Same meaning, then."
[Luana Kirchmann] Surprisingly, her mouth starts to curve in a smile that widens further into a grin. She has nice teeth, either natural or afforded by a good dentist. The expression softens those sharper, harder angles of her ancestry. She has a strong nose too, broader at the base, but it matches her mouth just nicely and fits her face to make it attractive. "What sort of woman do you take me for?"
His thumb starts to take advantage. It's only fair really, her hand started it. Her drink is in her other hand, held down by her waist still, an elbow tucked closely into her body so she's not knocked around and the whiskey isn't spilled everywhere. "I give a fuck," the word sounds good on her tongue, harsher like her accent, "what you say. How else would I know it's called an ice-cream headache?"
The womans eyes are laughing around the edges, but the look in them is direct enough to be considered raw. Direct enough to upset Garou, often. She doesn't shy away. Smaller, petite she may be, but she's full of an unwavering force. Personality she has in loads.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] That's an open ended question and one that he, in his alcohol-haze, still wisely dodges. There's a shift of his shoulders before his torso tightens with laughter, some low chuckle, not really loud enough to be overhead above the ambient noise of the club, the garage band stuff they're piping in, quieter, over the sound system while Either / Or is offstage.
His hand drops from her cheek, then. Quite deliberately, he reaches down to grasp her drink, his big hands over the surface of the glass, over her fingers, tugging until she gives way. When she does so, he reaches back, sets whatever remains of her drink on the bar, not back where the bartender will reclaim it immediately, but forward, near the edge, suggesting she's not finished with it. His own drink, though, he finishes, lifts it up and drinks it down, pushes the glass onto the bar and farther back than her own, before rising, his big, broad frame filling the space, filling her space really, close. His t-shirt - The Pogues - is a bit loose hanging from his broad shoulders, just the suggestion of strength underneath.
He's looking down at her now, this look that is scouring and intent, hungry. The suggestion of intimacy turns a head or two of their nearest neighbors, but the bar is dark and they quickly look away.
Not touching her, he bends down - and down, for he's a full foot taller than she is - this seeking gesture that has a sort of energy, the sort of force that one magnet gives another, opposing magnet, then bends down to kiss her mouth, this leashed gesture, soft but rough. Held back. He is close enough that he can smell her high-end oils, the other drinks she's had, smoke lingering in her hair from some other bar. He head moves as he kisses her again, forehead close, his hands still loose, open around her body, not close.
"I think," he says at last, this close. "That you're the sort of woman who isn't used to being told no."
This time, he leans in, but does not touch her mouth with his own. His solid frame is tense, aware, alive to her closeness.
"And I think," then he smiles, a hint of regret there. " - that I'm the sort of man who has a sitter, whose sitter has a girlfriend, who expected her home an hour ago. Goodnight," he finishes, reaching back to pick up her drink, to hand it back to her. "Cosmo-girl."
[Luana Kirchmann] Her hand drifts from his leg when he shifts off his stool, stealing her glass from her in the process, given up with only a momentary hesitation. Stepping a touch back leaves him more room, only because she doesn't want to be staring him in the chest, suffocated by the largeness of him. Her head tilts more up, eyes looking through lashes from her shorter angle.
That is, until he's leaning down. He kisses her, making her head rear back at first, before she goes with it. It's not as pushy as her demeanor may have been, but it's opened mouth, softer then he may expect from her. Her fingers have found the warmth of his seat, steadying where she is in the throng of the crowd, in the corner space of the bar, other people, his taller frame.
She breathes him in when his brow rests to hers, eyes still open to look at his face from the small space that leaves her nose almost against his. "Maybe another time," she responds. It doesn't sound hopeful. It's just that, a statement. Luana doesn't offer her number or ask for his. The ball is thrown in his court for all that she's not used to being told no. How easily she can project something other then she is. She's told no quite often. But she likes a challenge.
With her drink back in hand, she lifts it in a salute. "Have a good night." She never got his name and doesn't ask for it. He's leaving after all.
Gumby's[i] is on the same corner. The exterior is not mirrored glass and sleek, underlit neon, but planked wooden paneling. Mounted on the exterior wall is an old ship's steering wheel, from some huge old riverboat. The odd tourist stumbling drunk from one glittering dance club to the next would think it a kitschy themed seafood restaurant, the sort with a knotted net affixed to the ceiling, filled with plastic models of dungeness crabs and Maine lobsters, with swordfish and giant rainbow trout, nevermind the impossibility of their comingling in any actual fisherman's net.
It's not fish inside, but music. The blackboard mounted beside the captain's wheel lists Friday as a [i]loud and local night, and band inside is both - loud enough that the music makes the glass panes in the half-open front door shudder, local enough that they have a following even though they're without a record deal.
JB is inside, beer held loosely in one of his big hands, seated on a barstool it his back to the bar, listening. Just another guy, tall and broad-shouldered, but ordinary, really - wearing a Pogues t-shirt and torn jeans, with a scruffy day and a half beard bristling across his jaw.
[Luana Kirchmann] Well after midnight is still early in the party crowd, many of them wake at ten, dress and then head out to get drunk and high, and reek havok across the city. Luana is not quite one of them but she's similar enough and knows the lifestyle. Friday had her working, the late afternoon spent passed out on top of the bed covers catching some sleep before her weekend began. By Monday she's in sunglasses, popping advil, and a grumbling bitch.
But that's not now. Right now, the short woman is sliding up to the side of the bar, giving John the look over with a quirk of her mouth.
She's a little more dressed for a place like this, likely having come from or going to one of those clubs up the road. A pair of strapped heels up the ankles, dark, matching the dress that's a little longer on the thigh then most younger girls out there, with straps criss-crossing down the back and a decent plunge line at the front. There's a bracelet on the left wrist, a thin chain down her neck, glittering like a soft strand of spiders web, delicate and feminine. Dirty blonde hair is in back in a clip, slightly messed in the way it's been grabbed at the back. Across her hip is a small purse, its attached to the strap over her shoulder, blending in with the black of her dress.
From this she's pulled some cash, and she's lifting her accented voice to order a whiskey, of all things.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] It's not his sixth beer of the night, JB. It's not his first, either. And he's tired from a long day that began before dawn, sorting out deliveries, getting his daughter off to school, working dawn to dusk, and after, really. Friday nights in a strange new city usually find him jogging upstairs when service ends, maybe after a few beers with his staff, to tuck in his daughter while the rest of them head out for the night, to retire it in style. Tonight, though, Cindy offered to hang out, spend the evening with Lucy, give him a night off.
An hour and a half later, and he's lost most of the rest of his staff to other pursuits. Freddie's trying to score something decent weed from a dodgy connection on the northside, and Raoul followed some sharp faced, pretty little college girl out of Gumby's twenty minutes ago. "You'll be back," JB warned his sous chef as the squat little bulldog of a man left, laughing, trailing after his latest conquest.
By now, it's absolutely clear that he was wrong.
So instead, he's sitting here, listening to this loud, pseudo-punk band Either / OR made up, entirely, of philosophy undergrads from the University of Chicago. If he could make out the lyrics, he might laugh. It's all a growl of feedback loops, art school stuff, not his scene even if he totally gets the energy. The beer's good, though. They've got decent stuff on tap, and it's opening up his veins and he's taking an interest in a stranger's drink order.
"Not Bushmill's!" He tells her, and - reaching back with a sort of direct gesture, sets his hand down on her cash as she reaches it across the bar. "Jameson's cask strength is what you want if you're drinking Irish whiskey. Though you look more like a Cosmo girl."
[Luana Kirchmann] "I'm a whatever takes my fancy girl," she responds to him, amused at the way he's put his hand over her and the cash on the bar. Olive eyes flick over his face, the humour in her expression clearly expressed. "But whatever the man says." This was to the bartender who's come to get her a drink. Content with the suggested order, she leaves her cash on the bar and slips her hand back out from under his.
With him sitting, he's still taller then her. But she lingers by his side, facing him more then the bar now, as she waits for her drink. "What makes you think I'm a Cosmo girl?" Already sharp brows arch a little higher. Her pale painted lips curl up in a direct, playful challenge. The woman isn't only looking at his gaze, but taking in his features and even the name splashed across his t.shirt. She picks up the little details as she looks him over, slow, unhurried, before meeting his gaze again.
Even alone, the woman seems far from afraid of the college students, the drunk men, even those that are telling her what she should be drinking. Her sharp angled face is proud, though quiet, and hinted with a faint playful flirt under the guise of her dark shadowed, eyes.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Oh," he says, with this sort of exaggerated care, lifting his beer, holding it with his blunt fingers on the rim of the glass, humor glinting in his warm brown eyes. " - that sort." Underneath. Whatever that means. Then she slides her hand out from under his, and he releases her money. When the tender comes back with her whiskey, John Brendan gestures wordlessly to the man that he'd like another round. It's an easy, familiar gesture - the sort perfected by a certain kind of guy in pubs the world over. Then he drops his right arm again, resting the bottom of his beer glass on one solid thigh.
His jeans are worn white there, the threads of the underlying cotton visible at the knee. A dark, intricate tattoo crawls up the right arm, moving whenever he flexes his muscles, otherwise still. It is all curves, sharp dark lines, crisp and clean like the edge of a blade, joined together to a whole.
Must've taken hours.
He glances briefly up; the lead singer's at the mike, announcing a break, she's dressed in sharp red, a smear of color against the stage lights, and then gone. His brown eyes wander back to her again, " - why do I think you're a Cosmo girl?" he asks her, laughing, this big gesture of it that is mostly just his face, the broad way his mouth moves, the engaging gleam of his eyes.
His gaze drops to the hem of her skirt, and his grin crests into an edge of a smirk. Then he finds her gaze again, " - because I'm giving you credit for not being a frozen strawberry daiquiri girl."
[Luana Kirchmann] "I can't," she tells him, watching his eyes as they travel down her petite frame, plenty hidden in the folds of the dress, and yet folds show just what they should. It's downright modest compared to some, and allows her into clubs and into lounge bars, or places like this, without much a problem. "I get those ... what do you call them?" Her brow creases and she makes a rolling gesture with her fingers, making motion, "... those painful headaches when you have something too cold."
There's a quick flash of teeth in a grin.
Then she's reaching for her drink and thanking the bar tender with a small smile and nod of her head. Lifting the glass, she takes a sip from it, drinking it straight without the ice. Turning from the bar now, and the man in the stool, she faces the crowd. Another inches in against the bar, making her step to the side to allow them more room. She throws them half a look over her shoulder, and turns back to John after. Close enough now, her hip is almost against the side of his leg. Blame it on being at the bar.
"You like this music?" She asks of him, looking up to where he's sitting. Her glass is held at her waist, fingers curled over the top of the glass, protecting the opened space with her fingers. Too many spiked drinks, one can assume, has her naturally wary and certainly accustomed to clubs and pubs. Her fingers and hand is small, delicate, somewhat boned along the knuckles.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Ice cream headache!" he supplies, a little loud maybe. The band was loud, and there's still this sort of afterecho of the music thrumming in his ears. Were he more sensible, he might remember to wear ear plugs to a bar like this, on a night like this. It's not something he thinks about, though maybe the ringing in his ears gives him a flash of that, some old man in a pub cupping his ear going, eh? at the end of every queston. " - those things are foul, anyway. They just use mixes at any of these places. Seventeen kinds of chemicals engineered to taste like strawberry candy, and a boatload of high fructose corn syrup, to cover up the booze. Way I see if, if you're gonna get drunk, best you taste what the hell you're drinking."
Apparently, the man has opinions. He glances down as she crowds closer, gives her the fleeting edge of a smile, the sort of look that has him holding her gaze, sidelong, sure. Maybe even cocky. Then he tosses back the rest of his beer and reaches back behind her, sliding the empty over the counter, picking up the full glass that has miraculously replaced it.
"This shit?" he says, a gestue toward the stage, followed by a glance. The band's drifted away now, though he could probably find the lead singers red dress floating around in the crowd. "It's not bad. I mean, the fucking - concept is a bit self-indulgent, but they've got the hooks and know how to crunch a fucking chord." Then, he lifts his chin at her, a flash of white teeth. Asks. "You?"
[Luana Kirchmann] He has her laughing, a sound that is lost under the thrum of people and voices, loud talkers like John. Luana isn't that way, she's more quiet, at least volume wise. She makes up plenty in other ways. The way she's looking at him may indicate that. He's been around enough to know that its a similar look that college girl had given his co worker before dragging him out of there. This woman has similar plans.
"Does it matter, by the end of the night, you won't know the difference." Seeking to encourage his opinions, throwing a little more gas on the fire, so to speak. She knows it too, by the way her brow lifts and her mouth quirks.
Shifting her grip on the glass, she brings it to her lips for another drink, swallowed down with a quick gulp of her throat and motion of her cheeks. She had looked away again, over the crowd, this time a fleeting glance, before eyes drift back to him again. Her grin is quick, eyes crinkled briefly. "Hate it."
"I came in expecting to see fisherman and pick up good cocktails." It's jest, probably. It doesn't matter anyway, she's here and talking to a nice enough man. She's drinking. The awful music has stopped, long enough that she can fill it with some conversation. Another sip is taken.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Course it matters!" God knows he's had this argument before. She's flirting with him, though, and that has him focus on her rather more directly, sitting up as he lifts his beer to his mouth. "I'm not living for the end of the night, you know - " he tells her, smiling around the edge of the beer glass as he sips off the foam from the head. " - every moment in between counts, too. What is it they say - Life's too short for - " but he frowns, furrows, chasing the idea in his head. " - fuck if I know. I think it ends with bad beer, though." The stuff he's drinking is good. She could figure that out by the price. It's not Budweiser, or one of its lesser competitors.
Then, she confesses that she hates the music. "No way! Shit, I bet you like that fucking electronica stuff. You know, Music by Computer. Give me crunch guitars and blood and sawdust, and I'm a happy man."
Make that past tense, John. Then, a flash of a grin that shows the hint of a dimple - just the hint of it - in his cheek. "Oh, like those tiki cocktails, right? The ones that come with a spear and eighteen kinds of fruit, poke your eye out, those kind?"
[Luana Kirchmann] It worked, of course. He goes on, it has her smiling more, just short of grinning. Her eyes are practically gleaming at this point. She's watching him over her glass, drinking from it as casually as one would water. A shame, really. Maybe she's not even stopping to enjoy it. It's more likely that she's just a regular drinker, though, and more engaged in conversation then the warmth flowing down her throat and settling into her belly.
"I like all sorts of music, as long as it sounds like music, and not the kids next door screaming to some blared music out of a bad stereo speaker," she confesses, waving her drink a little as if to dismiss the idea that she was just into electronica. It wasn't true, either.
Laughing softly, she shook her head and indulged him with a wry expression. "The sort where shrimps are arranged prettily on the side and you eat it from a glass, not drink it." Whatever they're called. She hadn't meant drinking cocktails. It's seems she's one of those that may have mistaken this for some gaudy restaurant. Of course the music had been a dead give away. She's merely playing.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Oh," he says, getting it now. " - shrimp cocktails. I hear they do a great one of those at Red Lobster." He deadpans. Luana is being subject to his opinions on music. Best not get him started on chain restaurants.
"Now, see - " John leans over, alcohol on his breath, a nice hoppy pale ale, actually, that smells like bread, like yeast, the fermented sugars inside it. There's something golden about it, too - pale ales smell like summer, not fall. It's cool outside, clear tonight, a huge moon hanging like a baleful eye in the middle of the sky, now that the front has moved on and left the city bare to the stars, naked underneath them. She can sense his smile as much as she can see it, an edge of it, the bristle of his whiskers dark brown. He hasn't shaved since morning. They grow back fast.
" - now," he has a professorial air, really. No, that's not it. Barroom professor is more like it. "See, kids banging in their mum's garage, screaming over feedback of the third-fucking-hand amp they picked up from the pawn shop down the corner, that's exactly what music is. Right? S'about the experience of it. People yelling, putting together chords and the like, - about participation rather than this passive shite where some bloke feeds parameters through a computer and punches out something, then test markets it on a select group of inebriated thirteen-year-old who wouldn't know a fat chord progression if it smacked them in the face.
"We've been banging drums since the cavemen times. It's a fucking - you know - communal act. Making music, s'posed to be, anyway. Like a charm against - "
He doesn't finish what he was saying. Instead, he gives a gesture, down at the surface of her glass. "You want another of those?"
[Luana Kirchmann] All the while he talks and she listens. Whether he's right by her ear or sitting back on his stool, she's listening to what he has to say and what's found under it. Closer she can pick up other little things about him, like the smell of his breath, or any cologne he's wearing. She can make out the colour of his eyes better, too, now that he's sitting closer in the darkness of the pub.
This time there's nothing much to be said, but her interest is still there, not a bright spark, but just under the surface and in the way she hasn't left him to talk about such nonsense to the next man at the bar. Truthfully she doesn't know much about music, just which she liked and what she didn't. Chords, guitars, anything else was beyond her. Other people played it, even more wished they could, and then there were those like John that thought they knew everything about it. Alcohol makes the opinion stronger, so she thinks.
But when it comes to asking about her drink, she nods to him once and downs the rest in her glass in a sweep of her tilted chin and swallows it down. The empty glass is pushed onto the bar, reaching through his body and the person still standing next to the bar next to her. She's crammed between them, a little on the outside, so she's standing closer to his knee then his side now. "One more," she tells him, "and then I am leaving for better places."
"You should come." Direct.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Yeah?" He returns, his brown eyes gleaming, a little bit unfocused, but lingering on her, tracking the movement of her eyes. His own gaze drops to her hand, the empty glass, as she pushes it between them.
The shift arrests his rather passionate discourse on music, the nature of communal expression before he starts up again. The way he's looking at her, some shadow on his brow, suggests that he's disappointed she didn't rise to the bait, jump in and turn it around on him, offer an opinion, maybe loudly, no matter how wrong he considers it. That's there, on the surface, dissolving as he follows the line of her arm back toward the bar, the movement quiets that boisterous self that sparks with alcohol, opens in a barroom, that expansive sense of camaraderie, of rightness of the world that fills him up.
That opens up in him.
That gleams in his brown eyes.
He gestures to the bartender to get her another, leaning back to pay, holding sliding his wallet from his back pocket and unfolding a bill, leaving behind a generous tip before he lifts her drink back over the bar, offering it to her.
When she has her drink, he picks up his beer, leans forward, and says into her ear, still maybe a hint too loud, but with a grin underneath his voice. "What constitutes better places?"
[Luana Kirchmann] Taking the drink from him has her murmuring a quiet: "Thank you." She doesn't immediately lift it towards her mouth to drink from it, but holds it down by her waist as he leans back with his own drink. It's only moments later that he's folding his body towards her, coming close enough to her ear to know that she doesn't smell like the drunks, or the cheap body sprays on super market shelves, but of some subtle higher class oil pressed into the back of her ear, down by her collarbones, again at her wrists. Not a lot, but enough to know its only the start of the night and not the end.
Her tongue licks her lip, wets it as she hears his grin. Responding in kind, her mouth curved into a slow, more sly smile. All still flirtatious, quieter, maybe playful. "Less people," she tells his ear in return, "more room to move." Her smile can be heard. This close, she's watching him side ways, eyes flicking over the side of his face.
Leaning in close has her free hand resting on his thigh, closer to his knee then higher up. It just rests there, doesn't grip, hardly even steadies her. "Doesn't have to be electronica that you detest. But ... I'm sure we could work out somewhere we both like." Suggestive lilt.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] His laughter isn't quiet. She is close enough that she can feel it, the way his lungs expand with it, the way his shoulders move. He lifts his head, that flash of teeth again, rough jaw rising, looking up and away from her, down the line of the bar maybe, behind the next guy, and the next guy down.
Toward the front door.
It's open, a slice of the streetlife outside visible, a cool current of air that slices through the retained heat inside the crowded club.
His thigh flexes beneath her hand. The big, long muscles solid in the front of the thigh, the long bands that make up the quadriceps. The denim of his jeans is soft, washed and worn and worn and washed. Brown eyes drop to her hand, and there's a certain shift, a kind of conservation of energy. "I think you have plenty of room to move," he tells her, lower this time, the hint of his dimple reappearing in his cheek. Head still, he lifts his eyes to meet hers. "Right here."
Then, he shifts his beer from his right hand to his left. Reaches up, tilting her chin up with the flat of his index finger, tipping it higher with the blunt edge of his thumb. Not breaking eye contact now, not for a fraction of a second.
[Luana Kirchmann] Lifting her chin obediently, has him looking into paler olive coloured eyes. They're made lighter by the way her eyes have been shadowed in black and grays, carefully applied only a few hours ago, accentuating the large, slightly almond shape of them. Her eyebrows cut away from them sharply, shaped. Her mouth has stilled, like her expression, and holding her like that has her staring at him.
"You think so?" She asked softly, a mere mouth moving under the sound. If the band had been playing, her voice would have been lost under it.
Her body moves, shifts so that she presses her side into his thigh, and her hand curls from the top of his thigh to the inside, still down by the knee in safe areas. Her thumb feels the muscle, rubbing across it to feel the hardness of it under the pressing pad. The chin in his grip is angular, the lines of her jaw are long, raising up to the sharp angles of her cheekbones.
"And what about the music?" She asks, tilting her head just a little more to the side, eyes still direct. "When that starts, I won't hear a word that you're saying." Excuses. Testing the waters, to see what opinions he comes up with. There's a hidden smile in her mouth.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] "You don't give a fuck," he tells her, looking at her aslant as she shifts herself to his side. The bottom of his beer glass rests against the opposite thigh, his fingers relax, loosen around the glass. Briefly, his eyes drop to her hand as her fingers curl inside his thigh - linger there, then up again, this cross-wise look accompanied by a dark, sweeping glance. His features are shadowed, a strong, bristling jaw, a broad, blunt nose that suggests it has been broken once or twice before. " - what I say, you know."
That sounds almost conversational.
He does not hold her chin up for long. Turning to face her directly, looking just down from his higher angle, he sweeps his thumb along the line of her jaw, the pad callused from work, rough against her skin. "It's all just placeholders." The touch changes, deepens. Without looking toward the stage, he indicates it with a gesture of his dark head. "The music starts up, we can just mouth the words. Same meaning, then."
[Luana Kirchmann] Surprisingly, her mouth starts to curve in a smile that widens further into a grin. She has nice teeth, either natural or afforded by a good dentist. The expression softens those sharper, harder angles of her ancestry. She has a strong nose too, broader at the base, but it matches her mouth just nicely and fits her face to make it attractive. "What sort of woman do you take me for?"
His thumb starts to take advantage. It's only fair really, her hand started it. Her drink is in her other hand, held down by her waist still, an elbow tucked closely into her body so she's not knocked around and the whiskey isn't spilled everywhere. "I give a fuck," the word sounds good on her tongue, harsher like her accent, "what you say. How else would I know it's called an ice-cream headache?"
The womans eyes are laughing around the edges, but the look in them is direct enough to be considered raw. Direct enough to upset Garou, often. She doesn't shy away. Smaller, petite she may be, but she's full of an unwavering force. Personality she has in loads.
[John Brendan Cavanagh] That's an open ended question and one that he, in his alcohol-haze, still wisely dodges. There's a shift of his shoulders before his torso tightens with laughter, some low chuckle, not really loud enough to be overhead above the ambient noise of the club, the garage band stuff they're piping in, quieter, over the sound system while Either / Or is offstage.
His hand drops from her cheek, then. Quite deliberately, he reaches down to grasp her drink, his big hands over the surface of the glass, over her fingers, tugging until she gives way. When she does so, he reaches back, sets whatever remains of her drink on the bar, not back where the bartender will reclaim it immediately, but forward, near the edge, suggesting she's not finished with it. His own drink, though, he finishes, lifts it up and drinks it down, pushes the glass onto the bar and farther back than her own, before rising, his big, broad frame filling the space, filling her space really, close. His t-shirt - The Pogues - is a bit loose hanging from his broad shoulders, just the suggestion of strength underneath.
He's looking down at her now, this look that is scouring and intent, hungry. The suggestion of intimacy turns a head or two of their nearest neighbors, but the bar is dark and they quickly look away.
Not touching her, he bends down - and down, for he's a full foot taller than she is - this seeking gesture that has a sort of energy, the sort of force that one magnet gives another, opposing magnet, then bends down to kiss her mouth, this leashed gesture, soft but rough. Held back. He is close enough that he can smell her high-end oils, the other drinks she's had, smoke lingering in her hair from some other bar. He head moves as he kisses her again, forehead close, his hands still loose, open around her body, not close.
"I think," he says at last, this close. "That you're the sort of woman who isn't used to being told no."
This time, he leans in, but does not touch her mouth with his own. His solid frame is tense, aware, alive to her closeness.
"And I think," then he smiles, a hint of regret there. " - that I'm the sort of man who has a sitter, whose sitter has a girlfriend, who expected her home an hour ago. Goodnight," he finishes, reaching back to pick up her drink, to hand it back to her. "Cosmo-girl."
[Luana Kirchmann] Her hand drifts from his leg when he shifts off his stool, stealing her glass from her in the process, given up with only a momentary hesitation. Stepping a touch back leaves him more room, only because she doesn't want to be staring him in the chest, suffocated by the largeness of him. Her head tilts more up, eyes looking through lashes from her shorter angle.
That is, until he's leaning down. He kisses her, making her head rear back at first, before she goes with it. It's not as pushy as her demeanor may have been, but it's opened mouth, softer then he may expect from her. Her fingers have found the warmth of his seat, steadying where she is in the throng of the crowd, in the corner space of the bar, other people, his taller frame.
She breathes him in when his brow rests to hers, eyes still open to look at his face from the small space that leaves her nose almost against his. "Maybe another time," she responds. It doesn't sound hopeful. It's just that, a statement. Luana doesn't offer her number or ask for his. The ball is thrown in his court for all that she's not used to being told no. How easily she can project something other then she is. She's told no quite often. But she likes a challenge.
With her drink back in hand, she lifts it in a salute. "Have a good night." She never got his name and doesn't ask for it. He's leaving after all.
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