Chilly Boulder, Tuesday After Lunch

[bitten_notshy]

After sexual anthropology, flight class, and the cancellation of the rehearsal, Jack had a free afternoon. Getting something with more sugar than he needed in a week seemed like an utterly perfect way to use that time.

"I'm glad we're doing this," he told Tony as he surveyed the menu board. "I would have missed seeing you at rehearsal, otherwise."

[OOC: For one, but open parlor! wantstodirect modded with permission]

Comments

[wantstodirect]

"I wouldn't pass up the chance to spend time with the poster boy for polygamy," Tony grinned.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack groaned. "Is the lady doctor always like that?" he asked. "She walked up to me in the hall and asked if I was in a relationship, and the next thing I knew, there I was behind a screen and talking about who I spend time with."

This was his euphemism, yes.

"I don't think I came off too badly, though."

[wantstodirect]

"Nah, you did a good job," Tony said. "The class made me think of this argument I got into with a guy here a few months ago. Which somehow got him thinking I'm a prude, by the way."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack gave Tony a distinctly skeptical look. "Who thinks that about you?"

Seriously.

[wantstodirect]

"Leto," Tony said. "He was coming on to a friend of mine and didn't appreciate it when I told him he should be making things clear from the start." He shrugged. "Plus, I laughed when he told me about the orgies his people have."

[bitten_notshy]

"I've only talked to him a few times. I liked him," Jack said. He wasn't being argumentative; he was just stating a fact as he thought about what Tony had said.

And then they reached the counter. Jack ordered for a scoop of strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

[wantstodirect]

"So does Dinah," Tony said, refraining from rolling his eyes, since he didn't want to start an argument with Jack, especially over Leto. "Maybe we just hit it off wrong, I don't know." He ordered a double-mint, double-chocolate cone.

[bitten_notshy]

"I wasn't arguing with you," Jack said, taking his ice cream to the table and spooning off some whipped cream. And now it was his turn not to roll his eyes.

"Just -- I didn't get any of that from him, maybe because he wasn't trying to sleep with anybody when we talked." A tiny pause. "Orgies?"

[wantstodirect]

Tony sat down across from Jack and grabbed a few napkins, since he already had some ice cream drip. "They take some kind of telepathy-enhancing drugs and have orgies. It's some kind of religious ritual where he's from. I dunno. I figure, if you want to get high and have an orgy, just do it and skip all the religious crap, but I've never been that into religion, anyway."

[bitten_notshy]

"Maybe they're religious so they have permission to get high and have orgies," Jack said, a little smile on his lips. "If they stopped worshiping their god, they'd have no excuse."

"You aren't religious at all?" he asked, changing topics slightly. Jack ... well, he cared enough to stay Kosher, though that was mostly out of habit. He never went to synagogue, not least because it would have ruined his public face in Europe.

[wantstodirect]

Tony shook his head. "My mom's God and I don't get along so well. He's got issues with 'men who lie with men.'" He smiled wryly. "Maybe if there'd been more orgies, I wouldn't've stopped going to Mass."

[bitten_notshy]

"There has to be a horrifying joke about priests in there somewhere," Jack said, before he could stop himself or entirely consider the unfortunate pun on his surname. He scooped up some melting ice cream, swirling it on his tongue.

"I think as much as I believe in a God" -- which wasn't that much, all things considered -- "he has to have better things to do than worry about who sleeps with who."

[wantstodirect]

"I hope so," Tony smiled. "Henry thinks so. He's still a practicing Catholic."

[bitten_notshy]

"Sebastien doesn't believe," Jack said. "He's from before you started calling yourselves Catholics and Protestants, anyhow."

Sebastien de Ulloa: REALLY, really old.

"Henry goes to church?" It wasn't that Jack thought vampires couldn't do that -- they could in his world, too. It was that he'd never known one who would want to.

[wantstodirect]

"Not very often. Midnight Mass sometimes. It's more a personal thing" Tony said. He licked a drip of ice cream from the edge of his cone. "How old is Sebastien?"

[bitten_notshy]

"He says he's forgotten," Jack said. It was clear that he wasn't sure if he believed that or not; he thought Sebastien wanted to forget. "My best guess from what he does remember is 1,100. He remembers the millennium -- the first one, not the one I missed -- and he was far from young then."

He ate another bit of whipped cream. "How old is Henry?"

[Heading home, back tonight!]

[wantstodirect]

"Wow," Tony said. "Henry's four-seventy something. His father was Henry the Eighth of England."

[bitten_notshy]

There was something skeptical in Jack's expression, though it didn't quite come out of his mouth. It was so very easy for vampires to claim titles, and they were, after all "of the blood."

"Interesting. Was his mother one of the queens?"

[wantstodirect]

It had never occurred to Tony to question Henry's credentials. He shook his head. "No, he was illegitimate. But he was Duke of Richmond and a few other titles I can never remember."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack questioned everything through sheer habit, but that was where he looked like he was going to choke on his ice cream. Probably not a fraud, then, or a good one if he was one. "Henry Fitzroy?"

Jack was trying to remember what had happened to him, in his own history. Died of some disease as a child, he thought.

[wantstodirect]

"Yeah, you know about him?" Tony asked.

[bitten_notshy]

"Not well -- I couldn't write a biography of the man -- but a bit," Jack said, amused and still a little impressed. "I'm not bad at history, at least European history."

And up to 1899, and for his world. Then again, 'not bad' was an understatement.

[wantstodirect]

"Cool," Tony said. "I don't know much 'cept what he's told me." A bit of ice cream dripped on his hand and Tony licked it off. "Now he writes romance novels under the name 'Elizabeth Fitzroy,'" he added with a smile.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack mushed his melting ice cream and whipped cream together, following the motion of Tony's mouth with his eyes. "Now that is an interesting life path," he said. "Does he have to change the pen name so people don't notice she doesn't die?"

[wantstodirect]

Tony nodded. "Yeah, but he's been Elizabeth for a while now. I don't remember the last one."