fandomtownies | Devil's Nest, Monday, 12/03

Entry tags:

Devil's Nest, Monday, 12/03

Jack was up and down at the bar a lot today. It happened, when you magically became 13 years old for most of a week and had no idea what email was, let alone that if you didn't check it regularly you fell hopelessly behind. He'd put out the worst fires over the weekend, but there was still inventory to check, paperwork to retrieve, phone calls to make...

By lunchtime, he'd amassed three miniature decks of playing cards, two matchbox cars, a teensy wooden moose, and an elastic bracelet made of crimson beads.

Tiny and the DJ might get part of their salary for the week in trinkets.

[OOC: Open bar, no OCD.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So, making an effort to leave the house before two in the afternoon just so she could deliver Jack coffee without having it be a weird unnecessary early-evening coffee -- that was being a good person, right? It seemed like the thing to do given how they'd randomly become BFFs or something while they were both tiny, and repression was now the name of the game.

So. Coffee. Which she slid over to him with an expression of 'repress last week right along with me or the coffee dies.' It was a pretty recognizable expression, April thought.

"Hey."

"Hi," Jack said, a bit more subdued than usual. He liked April; he just didn't mean for her to know every detail about his past, and that made it awkward to see her again.

His younger self really needed to work on finding better ways to impress older girls.

He took the coffee, grateful she didn't look like she wanted to start with a major session of sharing, and ventured, "Thanks. I could pay you for this in beads or playing cards, if you like."

Boo, sharing. Sharing was for losers. Not to worry, Jack.

April arched an eyebrow. "Collections of yours?"

"The island's," Jack explained. "Every time I leave my seat, there's a gift when I get back. Dollar store stuff, mostly."

He nodded to his collection by way of proof.

"It's less sticky than the powdered sugar and smells better than the sheep, so I don't mind."

"Saves money on gift shopping, I guess," April mused, idly rolling one of the matchbox cars in Jack's direction with her finger. "Cool."

Jack rolled the car back. "And it's only a few days early for Hanukkah," he observed. "The island's done worse."

"It's kinda creepy when it does nice stuff," April observed. "Like the puppies a few months back. Gets a whole Stockholm Syndrome thing going."

"Someday I'll live in a place where nothing strange happens," Jack said wistfully. "And then I'll probably miss it. I'll feel like something's gone wrong when it's been a month without turning into anything."

"Pretty sure the weirdness is part of why I stick around," April admitted after a moment. "Shitty and crazy is better than boring, right?"

"I'm no good at being boring anyhow," Jack agreed.

He hesitated, then: "Look, the stuff I told you last week-- I don't mind you knowing, I'm not ashamed of it, but I don't normally tell people any of that."

Having been property was hard to work into a conversation.

"Your secret's safe with me," April replied, toning down her normally-intense gaze just for a moment to look a little bit more sincere. "Long as you don't rat me out for having dudes making out as my phone background."

Okay, so she was sort of dating them, but still. It was the most offhand thing she could come up with; everything else about her teenaged self, she'd rather leave unremarked-upon.

Jack laughed in relief. "All right," he promised. "Are they at least your boyfriends?"

April grinned a little. "Yeah," she said, flipping open her phone to show him the... blurry, badly-lit disaster of a picture. "Derek and Ben. Thinking about texting them to tell them I hooked up with a viking the other day."

From her tone, Jack could probably reasonably infer that they would not mind.

It was a horrible photo, but enough Jack could tell they weren't ugly. "Not bad," he said. "I wish I had a good viking story. I've been monogamous for months and months."

So boring and conventional, man.

"Gross," April said, but lightly. "With who?"

"I'm still not certain it's natural," Jack said, smiling in return. "Her name's Emma. She's in college in New York. She's the one who let me in on what was going on, last week."

And then it was his turn to pull out his phone to show off a photo.

Edited 2012-12-04 02:07 (UTC)

"Hot," April said approvingly. "Good job."

"Yes, but she knows it," Jack told her. "But I like that. You stop wanting people who aren't a challenge, you know?"

Or maybe that was just Jack.

"Totally," April confirmed. Then after a pause -- this felt like an overshare, given her usual standards of laconic-ness -- she added, "I'm not really a hookup person. When I'm normal and not annoyingly desperate."

So if you were wondering how April felt about her younger self, Jack...

"I used to be, but it got less interesting after a while," Jack told her. "And you weren't annoying."

April just shrugged at that.

It was probably a good thing that Jack was used to Derek and how very talkative he was, right?

"You were cute," she offered after a moment. Which was... maybe slightly less of a Derek thing to say.

"I'm still not completely repulsive," Jack said teasingly. "But thank you. You're ... still the good kind of weird."

That was not something she'd expected to hear. "Thanks. So're you. I'm just less likely to try to get you drunk."

"I'll be 21 on the fourteenth," Jack told her. "I'm going to pretend I'm American and get absurdly drunk. Could I still convince you to help?"

It was a ridiculous ritual, and a ridiculous drinking age, but given the year he'd had he felt he deserved it.

Edited 2012-12-04 03:38 (UTC)

"Oh, if you're asking, totally," April decided. Because corrupting a thirteen-year-old was way different from attending a twenty-first birthday party. Trufax. "Not here, right? I still can't drink here."

"I don't know exactly where," Jack admitted. "I work here, but Caritas would be easier for you and a few other people. I'll let you know."

"Awesome." April cocked a little finger-gun in his direction. "Happy birthday in advance."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Devil's Nest, Monday, 12/03

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject