A NIGHT ON THE TOWN
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SAGE & CHAI SHARE A DRINK
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Half off drinks was an incentive few could resist... made all the more difficult by the day that Elisage had had. Her phone had buzzed with the message shortly after leaving the ridiculous spill fest, and with a shrug of her shoulders, she tucked it back into her pocket. She'd intended to go home. To go home, take a shower and curl up with a dose of amps and the latest episode of House Guest.
Hopping into the shuttle, she made the trek to the LCD with every intention of listening to her better judgement - and she might have... if Mooly's hadn't been exactly halfway from the shuttle dock to her apartment, and if she hadn't seen the tall dark and handsome space cadet from Grief Counselling go in first...
It wasn't that she was particularly interested in the man - he was an oddball, to put it mildly, and she wasn't entirely convinced all his cogs were fully rotating in the right direction. But he seemed fun, and a little carefree, and maybe that's why she found herself ignoring reason and following after him, through the front doors of the packed bar. Swearing in her mind, she approached the man, who seemed suddenly much taller and bulkier than he had in their little sharing group, and reaching up (much further than she ought to have), she tapped him on the shoulder.
Strong liquor just wasn't the same unless you could feel the burn, and he certainly did. The whiskey slid down his throat with a satisfying bunch, nearly bringing tears to his eyes as he placed the shot glass back on the bar top and sat back on his heels. The beer follow-up was delivered, the bartender gave him a wink, and Chai smiled. One shot in, the beer slid down his palate easy and smooth and the first gulp was followed with a satisfied 'aah.'
Chai cocked his weight on to his right leg and leaned his elbow against the bar, staring idly across the way at the line of glass bottles with liquids of all colours in them. Patrons swirled about in a mad frenzy of conversation, a hundred loud voices competing with each other and the music blasting through the surround sound. Being around so much was kind of soothing; he was anonymous in a crowd.
Or, at least, he was. The tap on his shoulder caused him to perk up and steal his beer from the bar top, thinking he'd gotten in someone's way. He stepped to the side to invite them to the counter, but upon doing so, caught a glimpse of the lass from the corner of his eye.
"Ah, you're that wee thing from the meeting, ya?"
"Wee thing…" Sage winced, lips pursed, "Yeah… that's me, I guess." Rubbing the back of her neck, she was suddenly all too aware she had no real intentions for approaching him, except a general breed of curiosity, "You're Chai, right? Like the tea…?"
Chai pitted a response of agreement to his name. He tilted his head towards her, taking her in more fully. Orange aura. Strange, he thought. He'd only meant one other like that before. "And your name?" He asked. "Wanna beer?"
"Sage... " She responded, with a small smirk, "Like the herb. And I'd love one." As she found an empty stool, she sank onto it, "I won't keep ya, though, if you wanna be alone. I just saw you come in and thought…"
But what had she thought? Did it even matter…?
"I just thought after that ridiculous counseling nonsense it wouldn't hurt to say hi."
"Of course that's it," he said off-handedly, though seeming to pause in his movements for a second at the comment before continuing on. He turned back to the barkeep, waving the tender down and ordering a copy of his own drink.
To her continued rambling, he merely shrugged. "Company s'always nice," he explained, sliding the beer her way when it was delivered.
"Better when the drinks are half off." Sage noted with a small chuckle, gesturing to the sign on the countertop, "Not too bad a-- Oh, hey… I already…" Blinking, she looked up as the tender slid another beer before her, and one to Chai as well, before he turned away, returning to the other patrons.
"...Well, okay? Guess they're half off and buy one get one, now?"
"Got that message, as well, eh?" he said with a soft chuckle at the end. It was the only reason he was there. There were important matters to tend to at his flat, but everything could be delayed for a well-priced drink.
The second drink appearing did cause Chai's eyebrows to raise a bit. Ain't nothing in that city that was buy one, get one. Nothing, except maybe bad attitude. "Huh," he snorted. He threw back the last sip of his first drink and moved to the second. "Guess so."
"Message? Me? Nah." Blinking then, she straightened and looked up at him, caramel skin suddenly paling as her hand found her phone in her back pocket, heart pounding, "Wait… what… what message??" As she spoke, her beer went unattended, but this didn't stop the tender from delivering a third to the pair, and spinning, her frown deepened, "What the hell…?"
The message. The drinks fell to the back of his mind and he shook his head. Did he risk it? No. He shouldn't. He gnawed down on his tongue; secrets were never kind beasts to Chai. They crawled through his skin and slashed through his resistance. "Ne'remind," he remarked, staring at the set of new beers with a mostly full one still in his hand. "Even a fella like me can't pound 'em back like this."
All along the bar, however, the sentiment seemed shared, as the tender poured and pulled tab and slid glass after glass after glass, without pause. There was nothing in his expression that seemed terribly concerned, nothing that seemed off, but as the voices rose and the people seemed more and more unnerved by the odd display, Sage rose from her seat, "What message, Chai?"
"About Mooly's. Half off drinks or whatever," he clarified with a soft clearing of his throat. "Got it after the meetin' at the Warehouse, s'all." He was not a particularly good liar, either. That was the blue aura in him. He squirmed for a second, averting his steady, chestnut colored eyes towards behind the bar and furrowing his brow.
"N' another. Got a weird one a day or so back, after the lady… fell." He decided fell sounded nicer than jumped.
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FINN & UMA'S VISION
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Finn shouldn't have been so surprised the first fight didn't go so well. In truth, he'd wanted it to be like every other time, but he'd known going in that it wouldn't be. Try as he might, the memories were still there, still too fresh, and it wasn't the mind set anyone needed before going into the ring. He'd gotten his hits in, and it had felt good, but he was sloppy and angry, and the first punch Carson Briggs had landed struck right across the bridge of Finn's nose. Stars burst to life before his eyes and swearing, he backed up as blood poured down his face, into his mouth. A second swing from above drop him to his knees and choking on the acrid taste, pooling down the back of his throat, Finn held up his arm to block, but too little, too late. The third strike connected across his jaw and he went down.
For a moment, consciousness swam in and out, the room spinning, and Finn could hear Briggs and his coach, shouting back and forth in broken Russian, heard the coach screaming for the medic. A knock-out in the colosseum was nothing to celebrate. It had only happened twice, but each time there had been one hell of an inquiry by the Dream Police, and no one wanted that... least of all Darius Costello.
The wiry blonde headed in quick with a snapstick of salts to break underneath Finn's nose, having done this more than a few times. She directed her partner to get ready to snap out a stretcher if Finn didn't completely snap out of it, and she patted his face, eyebrows pinched together with a look that could be construed as concern.
"Oi, kid, come on, snap up," Uma said.
The salts were foul, but effective. It didn't take more than a second or two with the pungent things beneath his nose before his eyes cracked open and groaning, he shifted, up onto his elbows, "...Kid? C'mon, Uma. I thought we had somethin' special."
"See, this is the problem with you young people. Always thinkin' you're special," Uma jabbed back with a slowly-spreading smile, a drop of ink in water. She hooked an arm underneath his armpit and lifted him up into a standing position with surprising strength. Her grip was firm but not uncomfortable, and she waved off her compatriot with the stretcher.
"You been sloppy tonight, bud," Uma noted.
"What, me?? Nah, Uma.. I had it sorted. Had him on the ropes, right where I wanted him. Not my fault his coach was a pansy." Rubbing a finger beneath his nose, he grimaced at the blood that came away, reaching to the bench in the corner for a towel. As he straightened, pressing it to his face, the lights overhead flickered and for a moment… a brief, passing moment, the Colosseum was bathed in an eerie orange glow.
The towel dropped from his hand as his eyes took in the sight of utter ruin… The wire frame of the dirigible was bent at an odd angle and the canvas covering split, the sky outside split by streaks of deep purple lightning. Fire sparked, and screams pierced the air, cries for help, desperate and weak, frantic and broken.
Heart slamming against his chest, he spun to face Uma, but as he turned, the lights flickered once more and all returned to normal.
"Did you…??"
Uma stared, almost starstruck, before glancing at Finn. Her mouth had gone completely dry, her normally rock steady heart beating at a furious tympanic rhythm. She would have discounted what she had seen as exhaustion - such a weird word to have in her lexicon, implying that it was an option - but Finn's question immediately put the kibosh on that.
Her eyes said as much, darting nervously around her at the others.
"Yeah," she answered breathily, sitting on the bench with him gingerly. "Yeah I did. I think we need to talk about it elsewhere, though."
The room had resumed as normal, despite what they had seen, the conversations uninterrupted, the crowd still a wave of noise as they discussed the near-miss knock out. The Russians stood off to the side, muttering to one another, but there was no sense of discomfort, beyond the obvious fear of trouble over the DP. His eyes drifted to Uma and slowly, he nodded, "Yeah. Maybe got his a little harder than we thought? Should probably go to your office…?"
" 's our best bet. I can pull the door half-closed, say I'm doing an in-depth cranial examination or something," Uma agreed, unfolding her lanky self as she stood right back up, leading Finn away. She passed by the Russians coolly, her stare on her office, while the rest of the ring inside the dirigible continued its bloodsport. After going through a few hallways away from the crowds, she walked into the medical bay past some of the occupied tables to her private office.
"Go ahead and sit on that examination table, and I'll put some butterfly bandages on that jaw. Looks a little rough - he socked you good, even if you had him on the ropes," Uma said as she busied herself with the cabinets.
Pulling himself up on the table, Finn stared down at his hands. He always wrapped them, but he never really understood why. He was destined to lose - it was in his contract - and a few hits now and then were fine, but they'd never count. Not really. They couldn't…
But none of that mattered now. Something much bigger had just happened, and the fight, his injuries… they could wait, "Uma. What the hell did we just see?"
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SAM & THE MOTH
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Her name was Ginny. Ginny, with a G and an I… and on any average night at the Moth, she wouldn't have needed to explain that to the clientele. But that night was not an average night, and roughly the fourth time that she had been called Jenny, she had officially decided that their new promotional night was absolute crap.
There were too many people unaccustomed to how the Moth ran, too many people in discount suits, ordering discount drinks with discount manners, and she had had about enough.
"Ginny…" She muttered, to the latest man to mistake her name tag, as she passed his bourbon and ice down the bar. He was tall, with a mop of blonde curls that seemed the wrong color for his sallow skintone, and pale grey eyes that gave his face a washed out, murky look. A stringbean in a wrinkled tan suit, with an irritatingly high-pitched voice, and a nose that whistled when he inhaled, "It's Ginny… with a G… and I."
Leaning against the bar, Sam eyed the bartender with a quirky smile, his body language belying the truth that was in his eyes. Tall, dark, and broad shouldered, Samuel Booker towered over most of those within the Moth and yet every thirty somethin' seconds, his eyes surveyed the room. There wasn't much to see, except…
"When you have a mo'... Ginny with a G… and an
I. I'll take whatever you recommend."
Her gaze switched from the pasty fellow with the nose-whistle and in a moment, Ginny's countenance shifted as a small smirk twitched at the corner of her lip, a pleasant dimple filling the opposite cheek, "What I recommend, Sugar, is no more of these ridiculous free-for-all nights… but I don't exactly have the sway with the managers that I'd like, so here we are. As far a drink, you look like a Sidecar man." As she spoke, she'd already begun to prepare the drink, and finishing with a twist of lemon, she slid it his way…
"Welcome to the Moth."
"Cheers." Sam replied, arm extending to snatch the drink off the bar. Bringing the glass to his lips, Sam dipped his head in thanks before taking a swig. Not exactly what he was used to, but it tasted as good as it looked, almost better even, than the woman who made it.
Snagging an empty stool, he finished his drink with a flourish and spoke with a crooked smile. "Might just have to have another."
"Hm." Smiling, Ginny bent to fix another, "So what bring you here tonight, Big Guy? Doesn't exactly seem your crowd. I mean… not to judge a book by the cover, but uh…" Waving a hand at him with one hand, she set the glass down before him, "Well…"
Laughing, he glanced down at himself with a shrug before taking another sip. Resting his elbow on the bar, he leaned in a bit before speaking. "That easy to tell, huh?"
Shaking his head softly, he continued with a somber smile. "Figured I'd honor someone with a drink or two… Experience somethin' new, ya' know? Guess I can finally check the Moth off the list."
"Honor, huh? That line usually work for you?" She teased, effortlessly, "But I gotta tell you… your bucket list includes this place, Sugar, you gotta get out mo-'"
"Oi! Jenny!" The beanpole called, snapping his fingers her way, "I'll have anoth er!"
"It's Ginny. You need hearin' implants or somethin'?" Sam frowned at the pallid dude and rolling his eyes, turned back to the bartender to continue where he left off. "Never really used it, come to think of it. Prolly should from now on, hm?"
The man frowned, clearly slighted, but if Ginny noticed it didn't show. Her lip twitched into a smile and she shook her head, "Probably not. That other bit, though… Stickin' up for me. That's pretty charming. Got a name, Sugar?"
"I do," Sam said with a smile that matched hers, impressed that she didn't miss a beat. "It's Sam… Sam Booker."
"Well, Sam Booker. Thanks… for that, and for makin' this night maybe just a little less awful…"
The beanpole rose suddenly, his large, flat hands smacking the countertop, "Listen, honey… I dunno what the hell kinda service the Moth normally does, but I came here to drink and I'm starin' at an empty mug here. What's say you fix that, hm?"
A brow quirked, and Ginny turned to the man, frowning softly, "What's say you sit down and wait your turn. I'm with a customer."
The man's eyes narrowed and he moved to sit, but halfway paused, bolting forward instead to loop his hands around Ginny's wrist, giving just enough of a tug to pull her closer, "I'm a customer, too. Bitch."
"You need to let her go and calm the fuck down." Sam said quickly, standing from his stool to take a few steps forward. "I don't wanna speak ill of your mother, but she must've not taught ya how to speak to a woman."
Sam wasn't a fighter, but there were a few things that pissed him off enough to qualify balling his fists. One, disrespecting his mother. Two, touching a woman in anger…
"You got another second, dude. Let her go or I'll make you."
Ginny tugged her arm back, but the man wasn't relenting and with eyes narrowed, he looked to Sam. In height, there wasn't much difference, and whether or not he was intimidated seemed directly correlated to the four empty mugs in front of him. "Make me? I'd like to see you try, Sasquatch. Maybe back the hell off, and mind your own business!"
"I warned you." Sam said softly, his arm raising and cocking back as he did. He put his entire weight into the punch, the solidity of his stance shifting as his fist made impact. "I really did.."
Ginny gave a small yelp as the Sam lurched, his fist connecting hard against the side of the other man's jaw. As the inapposite beanpole crashed to the floor, his grip slackened on her wrist, but not enough that gravity didn't shift her forward as well. Her arm crashed through the small stack of tumblers and with a shattering burst, glass exploded.
Within mere seconds, the bouncers arrived and swearing, Ginny straightened, waving to the man on the ground, "Get him the hell out of here!"
"What about…" The second bouncer started, as the first hefted the blonde man to his feet, ignoring the sputtering strain of angry curses.
Looking to Sam, Ginny shook her head, "Knights in shiny get free drinks, Reece. Just make sure this guy…" vaguely, she waved an arm at the beanpole, "Gets out and stays out."
Nodding, the bouncers started for the door with their quarry as Ginny hissed out a wince, cupping her hand over the gash in her arm, "Hell."
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OLIVE'S REUNION
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No one approached. Of course, that wasn't the way in Tot's. Discretion. Until Madam Velma had a nice, long conversation with you, you were just a visitor in her cozy sitting room, and nothing more. Never anything more, until you were approved. Velma was a curious woman - no taller than four-foot-ten, with bright blue eyes and powder blue hair. Her skin, despite her supposed ninety-plus years of life, was supple and free of crinkles, but for the corner of her lips and eyes, her voice cool and smooth, smile warm and friendly.
She served tea and cookies - and no one left Tot's without taking a to-go bag, even if they weren't accepted as a client.
But no one approached Olive, and had she known the protocol, that might have struck her as odd. The woman behind the desk said nothing, only stared down at the book in her hand, twisting a lock of hair around her finger, and the few men sitting in awkward silence on the couches made little attempt to remove their eyes from their hands, knotted tightly in their laps. Now and then, someone would come out from behind a closed door and greet one of the men, and they would follow into the hidden room…
But no one approached Olive.
It was a quarter past midnight when the knock came. Not on the door, not on the desk counter, but on the window outside, and there, eyes fixated on the young woman, waiting desperately for her answers, Parker Johnson watched his sister.
Her brain told her to run, but her body wouldn't let her move. This place gave her the creeps. She didn't like the silence, ambiguity, the fact that no one looked at anyone and that tiny little desk lady was enough on her own. In her nervousness, time was hard to pick out. It didn't feel as long as it should've felt, but her phone never buzzed and it was hours until she realized how long she had even been sitting there. And yet still, Olive could not move. No, she wouldn't move 'till dawn, when the sun shone bright on this place and her next shift would start. She couldn't leave until she was sure no one would come.
Olive has been gnawing on a finger nail when the knock came, snapping her out of her stupor. She glanced around wildly, looking for the source, when a face she hasn't seen in so long greeted her from behind the window.
She was out of her seat in a second and out of the lobby the next. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and take in his cologne, the terrible one that he always insisted on buying, but now the one she had missed so much.
Instead, wild eyed, Olive stood but a few feet away from her brother, waiting for him to say something, anything. But he didn't. Instead, without a word, Parker turned and took off. And maybe it was strange - considering the knock. Considering who he was… who she was. But there was little time to question it. He turned, almost as soon as she'd made it outside, and he'd run. He made it halfway down the block before he stopped and facing Olive again, he gestured for her to follow, then turned the corner.
Her mouth fell open in shock as Parker turned and ran the moment he saw her. She stood dumbfounded in his absence, unable to will her body to move. Why was he running? She couldn't make sense of it, and it only got worse when he beckoned for her to follow.
"Wh-- Parker, wait!" She cried, setting off after him.
As she rounded the corner, Parker's arm shot out and he caught Olive by the wrist, dragging her into the alley way with him, a finger to his lip. After a moment of waiting, silently, he stepped back, releasing her.
"...We can't talk long, O… Are you alone? You came by yourself, right?"
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BRAD & A STRANGER
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Footsteps echoed along the sidewalk outside of Jake's. Black stilettos in a criss-crossed pattern - a swishy, feminine sound, that mirrored all too well the figure it belonged to. The woman was on the shorter side, and thin, but very lovely, ivory skin in contrast to the dark mahogany brown of her hair, which was pulled back in a loose bun. She wore a black pencil skirt and a red blouse, buttoned up her slender throat, and a shade of lipstick that matched her shirt almost exactly.
Earlier that morning, Dolly Whitfield and thrown herself from the roof of the warehouse, leaving behind more than a few questions. That evening, she fancied a stroll downtown.
Pausing behind the man knocking, her red painted lip twitched up into a smile, "If you need a drink, Mooly's has a half-off deal going on up the street. But if you ask me, they're probably just watering everything down."
Bradley spun about at the sudden voice behind him, jolting him back to the edge of his previous blathered state from the day's events. The woman was a visage of dreamy, almost as if she didn't belong in such a grey spattered world. Or perhaps it was his perception of being face to face with a woman so well dressed and smiling that made her more vibrant than the backdrop.
"I'll keep that in mind," he said almost in a slur. "Uh..."
There was something about the woman he couldn't quite place. The way she carried herself. The color of her hair. Had they met before? Bradley never thought he would forget a face that pretty, yet here he was feeling as though he knew her.
"You going to Mooly's?" he asked.
"Hm. Wasn't planning on it, but it's been a pretty long day, and I could probably go for a drink." A brow quirked and she smiled gently, twisting a curl behind her ear, "You asking... or inviting?"
His eyes cast over to the closed door of Jake's place, still closed and still quiet. No one was coming, which made no sense, unless...
Bradley eyed the woman suspiciously, but as subtly as he could muster. Had the woman in red organized this rendezvous posing or perhaps working with Lightyear? It honestly made more sense to the spindly Bradley Henderson than an attractive woman interested in grabbing a drink just for the fun of it. And perhaps she could unlock the connection he felt, as if their paths had crossed once before.
"Both, I suppose," he blurted. "We can see if the drinks are watered down."
"I wouldn't doubt it, to be honest. I'm fairly certain Mooly waters down his drinks when he isn't charging half price." Gesturing then, she started along the sidewalk again with a small nod of her head, "Course, I don't make it a habit of going anywhere with a stranger. You got a name...?"
"Brad?" The inflection was not intended on his part, and yet there it was, his name presented as if he did not even know it himself. But the woman not knowing his name threw him off just slightly for the assumption they knew each other was now void. Brad was not typically the version he would give complete strangers. It was too late to back out now.
"What's yours?" he asked as he walked beside her. What a strange and intriguing happenstance that befell him. His fingers pushed past the mysterious note in his pocket to find his phone, careful to pull it out without losing the piece of paper in the process. No further messages from Lightyear.
Her eyes shifted away, staring straight ahead, and for a moment there seemed to be a measure of self consciousness in the woman, but it faded as quickly as it had appeared, a smile twisting up the corner of her lips, "...Dorothy." She said, simple, "But my friends call me Dolly."
This gave Bradley enough of a pause to cause him to stop walking entirely. The coincidence was too much, but as the woman walked a bit ahead he saw it. The familiarity was far more evident, or perhaps his mind was rationalizing it by holding tight to the name given. It could be an imposter, but to what end? He couldn't rationalize
how.
"Nice to meet you," he said as he snapped out of his lull and caught up with her once again. He brought his phone into his other pocket and removed the note, giving it a glance before holding it out to the woman. "This mean anything to you?"
A brow lifted as she glanced to the note, and the smile remained, though when she looked to him again there was a touch of sadness to her eyes, as she bowed her head in a nod. She didn't reach for it, the note. She didn't need to... she knew exactly what it was, "I guess that'll teach me to leave things like that lying around. Were you on the roof, then?"
Despite the lack of exchange, the note lingered between them in Bradley's hand for a moment, his eyes fixed on Dorothy as she claimed the note with a nod of her head. Eventually, the note was tucked back into his pocket for safe keeping while his brain tried to process what was happening.
"I was," he said. "I watched you jump. You died. We... we had a whole... Am I high right now?"
"I'm sorry." She said, softly, shaking her head, "Usually no one goes up there. If I had known... No one was supposed to see. I am sorry." Looking over to him, she shrugged, "You tell me, Brad. Do you think you're high right now?"
"I go up there every now and then," he said, and shrugged. "I don't think I'm high. But this is kind of trippy. I went to this mandatory counseling thing because of your death and there was this lady there that saw you, you know..."
Bradley used his hands to illustrate her dive with a whistle and a clap for emphasis. "She saw the messy bit," he said. "So... maybe we got it all wrong. Oh, hey, your ex will be so relieved! He was pretty upset about it. Oh, geez, Dorothy, someone died and we all thought it was you. Who died?"
"Finn..." A sigh escaped, and Dolly shook her head, "Poor guy." Biting her lip, she looked over to him and for a moment, seemed to weigh what she was going to say very carefully, "What I'm gonna tell you isn't gonna make a lot of sense, Brad. But I promise you, it's true and I need you to trust me. I realize that's crazy, considering we just met, but it's really important. It was me. And to all intents and purposes, I did die."
Pausing, she reached out, a hand to his arm, "But things aren't what they seem... I can't tell you everything. There's just not time. But you've felt it... We all have. That there's something wrong in this city. This morning... that was the first step to proving it. And this is the second. Me, being here... right now."
