fandomtownies | Devil's Nest, Monday, 5/20

Where Jack is fussing with diced things, and Tiny is happy to serve beer and shots.

Éponine had her own brooding reasons for frequenting this particular establishment despite the enforced age rule or, as the case might be, stopping in while on her route.

"Hello, monsieur," she greeted Jack vaguely upon entering, though she seemed preoccupied with looking around at . . . nothing particularly discernible. Not that she was terribly focused on the best of days, but today was probably not one of them.

"Bonjour," Jack responded, using the French without putting much thought into it. His tone was easy enough, but his eyes had something darker in them at her obvious preoccupation. "Ça va?"

Éponine was singing softly to herself, a couple of broken lines of some old music hall romantic ballad, trailing one finger along the edge of a barstool.

"Oh," she answered, still not looking at him, "I'm very well today, but what's all this you're doing?"

Jack tilted his head, trying to place the tune, but couldn't. It was from just far enough before his time to have been mostly forgotten by his own music hall visits.

"I am attempting cooking," Jack said mock-haughtily. "Or possibly chemistry, I'm not sure what to call it. Anyhow, if this goes well we'll have some new house-made flavored vodkas by this time next week."

"And if it doesn't?" Éponine did look up now, more to get a glimpse of the proceedings than to actually make eye contact, and her gaze was as unfocused as the rest of her demeanor. "What will you do then?"

"Then I'll explain to Eric why I wasted a hundred dollars on an undrinkable muddle," Jack said darkly. "But I'd prefer it didn't come to that."

His eyes lingered on Eponine's gaze for a moment; he was a fair reader of moods, and the girl was just -- off. In a way that went beyond the way she was always off. "Are you quite sure you're well?"

"Quite sure, yes, of course. You don't need to worry about that, monsieur." Quite possibly, the only successful deception that came out of that brash declaration was the one wherein Éponine believed it was convincing.

She turned abruptly, smoothing down the sleeves of her blouse as she inspected a nonexistent spot on the countertop, and added, "You'll only distract yourself from your work, and it would be a shame to waste that much money on something no one cares to drink."

"Suit yourself, but it's just chopping things and dropping them into bottles," Jack pointed out. "I may not be a gourmet chef, but I'd be a poor barhand if I couldn't talk to my friends while I did that much."

He gestured to a basket of raspberries, still a quarter full after he'd started the bottle of mixed berry vodka. "You can help yourself to the ingredients I'm done with, by the way."

Éponine's eyes lit up with a flash of lucidity, followed by confused surprise, at the word 'friends,' but only briefly before habit had her all but pouncing on the basket of berries and taking a handful that she proceeded to eat with no regard whatsoever for decorum.

"Oh, that's good," she declared, licking the juice off her fingers. "Not too sweet. I don't think I like it when fruit's too sweet, do you? It makes me feel sick, as if it's going bad, even if it's perfectly fine and only tastes as if it's not."

She was rambling a bit more than usual.

"I never thought about it," Jack admitted, and delicately took a berry. "I've a weakness for sweet things -- but you're right, the kind of fruit that tastes as if it's on the verge of going bad isn't very appetizing."

"No, it isn't very pleasant to eat," Éponine allowed with one of her odd little smiles. "There's a trick to it, of course, if you've absolutely got to, but -- well. You'd know, I think."

She bent forward a bit to examine some of the other ingredients, humming another bit of melody that would have been more cheerful from someone with a better voice. "What's all this, though, these leaves and things? One'd think you were making medicines instead."

"They're insane recipes," Jack said, cheerfully enough. "Mixed berry was the simplest among them. This is star anise that goes into one with chile and cardamom, and the bowl next to it is fennel, which goes with the grapefruit. And I just finished a batch with bay leaves and celery. It's all terribly fussy. Maybe I should have made medicines instead."

"As if you'd have the time to learn that, full as you're already cramming your head with things!" Éponine laughed, a little too loudly. "I think I'd have liked to learn to draw, myself. I used to have a few lessons when I was a girl, but -- anyhow, medicine doesn't taste very good, so you're very well off with what you're making instead, if you ask me."

"And vodka has medicinal purposes," Jack nodded. "I'm almost certain of it. Really, this is for the best."

He put a few peppercorns into the bottle he was working on. "Do you still draw at all?"

Éponine not-so-stealthily reached for another raspberry, humming, and shook her head as she stared past Jack at the wall.

"Only little scratches here and there, when I had a place to put them. Azelma and I didn't dare touch Father's paper except to carry his letters for him, or there'd be hell to pay." Her lips twisted in a mirthless smile as she fell silent, and her expression darkened. It seemed like an effort when she burst out several seconds later, "I half suspect I've forgotten how entirely, by now."

"I don't know if you can forget something like that entirely," Jack said. "-- not that I'm much for drawing myself, to be honest. But you'd think it would stick with you."

"Yes, I suppose it might," Éponine answered, apparently distracted and not immediately interested in finding out. "It's funny, the things you do forget and the ones you don't, isn't it? Or perhaps it's awful. I'm never really quite sure."

She peered at one of the vodka bottles. "You'll have to tell me whether those turn out well, you know."

Since she wasn't about to outright tell him to break the rules for her. Circumspectly imply, though . . .

"I don't remember much from before I was ten or so," Jack said, careless and lying. He wanted it to be true so much he'd almost convinced himself it was.

Of the bottles, he said, "Of course. If it's any good I'll want to share it with everyone, anyhow."

The law did not apply outside the club, as far as he was concerned.

That was because if you asked her, he was sensible about that silly and inconvenient law.

"Yes, it's mostly a queer sort of haze for me too," agreed Éponine in the same tone if slightly more vehement, and if that was in any way true it was only because she sometimes managed to make it a haze. "Though every now and then there's something that surprises me, as if someone had been walking toward me in the fog and I couldn't spot them until they'd come right up beside me."

So not always a pleasant surprise.

"That's very generous of you to share, monsieur, if you succeed," she added. "If I can be of any help with that, you've only to ask, you know."

The offer was, as always with her, made with some hope of collecting on a return favor later.

"I like the image of the fog," Jack agreed. "Sometimes I hear a song, or a prayer, or smell something, and -- it's like the fog is gone for a moment."

And then he generally did his best to turn away and bring the fog back.

"I think this batch is almost done," he added. "But if there's anything you'd like me to experiment with ...?"

The fog that Éponine did her best to maintain between her present and childhood was meant to help her avoid remembering how far downhill her luck had gone, but in obscuring the details -- like the ragged and threadbare dresses of the dolls she'd owned as a little girl -- it had the unfortunate side effect of making things worse whenever she felt like torturing herself with those memories.

"Yes, it's a bit like that," she agreed, regretfully, and lapsed into a thoughtful silence for a few breaths, having apparently forgotten she'd been asked a question.

At least until she snapped back to attentiveness with a forced laugh and an exclamation of "But I'd like to know who thought of putting these beans and nuts and things into spirits, for certain. Is that coffee? I can't quite remember the last time I had coffee."

"Some woman named Martha Stewart," Jack answered. "Apparently she's famous for coming up with ideas like this. And you know, coffee is a drink I'm allowed to serve you if you'd like a cup."

"She must have plenty of time on her hands," Éponine decided, but immediately dropped the thought. "And yes, I'd like that very much if you don't mind."

"I think she makes her living at it," Jack offered, not sounding terribly interested either. He went to get the coffee things. "Do you like cream or sugar?"

"Both, yes," said Éponine (who as a matter of fact had coffee fairly regularly, but wasn't really in a state of mind to remember that), wandering slowly along the bar and inspecting all the bottles with perhaps more interest than they warranted. "I think it's a bit bitter otherwise, don't you?"

"I like it about as sweet as I can get it and still taste the coffee," Jack answered. "So -- yes, I agree."

She started singing under her breath again, this time something that sounded like a children's song about going to the baker's for some sweets, tilting her head as she looked in his direction.

"I feel we understand each other, you and I," she said finally, sounding surprised. "That's nice, d'you know?"

"I think so too," Jack agreed, more genuinely than he would have for many people he knew, "and it is."

He placed the coffee, cream pitcher, and sugar packets before her on the bar. "What were you singing?"

"Oh, only some thing my sister and I would sing to each other when we were girls." Éponine reached for the sugar packets, fumbling with them a bit before she managed to tear one open and pour it into her cup, then another. And then a third. "Sometimes to my brother when he was very small and wouldn't stop crying. Do you know very many songs?"

"The usual number, I suppose?" Jack ventured. "I don't sing especially well, though."

Éponine looked up from the cream she was adding to her coffee and gave him one of her strange little smiles; he probably sounded better than she did.

"That oughtn't matter all that much if it's only for fun," she mused. "We're neither of us likely to earn our living that way."

Jack let one shoulder rise and fall in a slight shrug. "True, but I don't tend to do things I'm bad at in public."

"Then I shan't ask you to do it, simple as that," Éponine decided. "I'm sure you can't be that bad, but --" She paused briefly. "I won't make you, don't you worry about that."

For dancing and lounging.

For the owner & invited guests.

Meh, Monday.

Devil's Nest, Monday, 5/20

The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Re: The Bar [5/20]

Dance Floor & Lounge [5/20]

VIP Section [5/20]

OOC [5/20]