Devil's Nest, Monday, 12/15

[bitten_notshy]

After a rather whirlwind if handwavey graduation weekend, Jack was now the holder of a BA in European history and a waiver that would let him start law school in a month. Meaning, if all went according to plan -- and he'd long since given up expecting that to be the case -- he'd be a full-fledged attorney in less than three years.

He'd also had a birthday, so he was now 23. (Or 133, if one was inclined to look at it that way, which Jack only was when he was trying to be unsettling.)

But while major life events came and went, Jack's work at the bar seemed to be eternal. As was, apparently, the island's capability to come up with new and surprising strange events. The dance floor was full of chickens in cunning little capes when Jack got to work. They squawked and flapped a little when he walked through them, but otherwise seemed content where they were.

He decided to let them be, even the one who decided his shoulder was a roost. He didn't particularly like having chickens inside the club, but he suspected he'd like having angry chickens around even less.

[OOC: Open club, open post!]

Comments

[filleauloup]

"What's this?" asked Éponine with a surprised little laugh, having nearly tripped over a couple of chickens on her way through the door. "Decided to take up the poultry business on the side to make your life more interesting, have you?"

Yes, she was aware that it was probably more of the island being weird, but damned if she'd let logic like that get in the way of her opportunity to tease him a little bit.

[bitten_notshy]

"Hardly anyone uses the dance floor," Jack said, going along with the joke. "Why not start a second business with the unused space? Everyone needs eggs."

[filleauloup]

"And all without having to go out of your way. Yes, of course, that's clever of you, I should have expected it." Éponine nodded, because joke or not she was now actually contemplating the feasibility of the concept, and she would have hated to know how much she resembled her father if she had seen the calculating expression on her face when she said it. "But why the costumes, then? Spectacle, maybe? A bit of something to entertain guests while they drink?"

[bitten_notshy]

"That, but also I thought they'd get cold," Jack said, and then snickered. "No, wait, I'm branching out into knitting and chicken capes made for a handy way to display my designs. That's at least slightly more logical, isn't it?"

He was halfway considering all of this now too.

[filleauloup]

"And considerate. I wonder if my cat would like one, too?" Éponine, no, do not think about trying to swipe one of the chickens' capes. No. "Though I'd be surprised to know when you had time to take up knitting."

[bitten_notshy]

"If you can get one off a chicken you're welcome to it," Jack informed her. A cat in a cape would be an adorable thing: He'd do nothing to dissuade Eponine. "And, er ... that is where the story falls apart, isn't it? Even if I had the time, which I don't, it doesn't really sound like something I'd do."

[filleauloup]

Now she was wondering how exactly she could bribe a chicken out of one of those capes. Alouette would be thrilled, undoubtedly.

"It's a stretch, a bit, picturing you surrounded by piles of yarn," Éponine admitted, laughing. "Though I don't doubt you'd learn quick enough, if you were really set on it. D'you think Tiny would spoil the story if you told people he was the one doing the knitting?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Not at all, actually," Jack said thoughtfully. "He's a man of mystery. Who knows what he gets up to?"

Tiny made a face and tossed a cherry at Jack at that explanation. Jack neatly caught the cherry between his fingers, saluted Tiny, and ate the fruit.

[filleauloup]

"Does that mean you wouldn't go along with it, then?" Éponine asked Tiny, in the sort of tone that meant she really didn't care if she got no answer.

To Jack she added, "There's no need to show off, now! But what have you been keeping yourself busy with, aside from the chicken business?"

[bitten_notshy]

Tiny rolled his eyes and made a show of turning to very slowly and elaborately polish glassware.

"But showing off is fun," Jack wheedled. "And believe it or not, I graduated over the weekend. And I'm also 23 now -- my birthday's the 14th. I feel quite wise."

[filleauloup]

"Isn't that quite a trick you've pulled off there! My heartiest congratulations, monsieur," Éponine said, sketching a half bow, and even though she was laughing her demeanor suggested she was serious. "Twenty-three, hmm? That's quite the accomplishment, even if you don't think too hard about how you're also a hundred-something, looking at it a different way. And you've graduated, too! I ought to be upset, you know, as I didn't know about any of this and didn't have time to get you a present."

Okay, that part she was teasing about.

"And graduated, too! You have been busy, good lord. So it's law school for you, now, is it?"

Where he would hopefully not take a cue from certain friends of Marius's and make it his life's ambition to never finish law school, Lesgles and Bahorel.

[bitten_notshy]

"I only say I'm 133 when I'm trying to confuse people," Jack said with a little laugh and a face going pink at her genuine praise. "You've got a century or so on me anyhow, if we look at it that way. And anyhow -- yes, law school. Then the bar exam, then I'm a free man again."

Not that he felt particularly far from free just at this moment.

"But I'm savoring this triumph for what it is. I never imagined it, you know."

[filleauloup]

"Yes, I'm much older and wiser than you, if you think of it that way," Éponine said, deadpan. 'Wise' being, of course, the absolute least apt description of her. "I'm happy for you, I truly am."

She was still more than a bit jealous, yes, though she did her best to hide that.

"But what's the sort of gift one gives in these situations? That's not the sort of thing I ever got around to learning, and now how do you like that, I need to know."

She'd get him something, one way or the other; the idea had popped into her head, and she was set on it now.

[bitten_notshy]

As if sensing her jealousy, Jack said. "You could do the same, you know. It might take some doing to work out the paperwork bits, but I could help with that."

Even a world that accepted magic, as Jack's did, wasn't exactly used to issuing legal papers to time travelers born in 1881. There had been bribery, fast talking, and some flat-out fraud involved in getting Jack's paper identity to hang together as well as it did. Getting Eponine's to the same point, assuming she needed it to, seemed like an enjoyable challenge.

"And honestly I don't know what the traditional gift is either. I suppose a watch or a pen, something like that?"

[filleauloup]

"Well, then, you'll have to pretend to be surprised by one of those things when I give it to you," Éponine informed him, half distracted by giving some thought to the rest of what he'd said.

"I think I've had my fill for a little while of made-up identities," she said finally, slowly. There were reasons (besides just being delirious from pain and fever) that she'd given her real name when she first arrived here, for all that she wanted nothing to do with her parents ever again. Reasons with somewhat convoluted logic behind them, but there they were. "And it's an awfully big chunk of money, it would be. Oh, but! It couldn't hurt to have the papers on hand just in case, could it?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Not at all," Jack told her, pleased she was taking his advice at least a little. He'd argue about money and identities later. "I got a black market driver's license almost as soon as I got here just in case. It's like -- insurance."

[throughaphase]

Kitty had managed to have an extremely rare day off of everything, and that meant she was more than happy to come in... and get away from the chickens she kept finding everywhere.

"Oh," she said. "They're here too."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm sorry," Jack said apologetically. "They haven't been bothering me too much since I set out some bread for them."

[throughaphase]

"I kinda feel like that's what they're really after," Kitty said, taking a seat. "Turns out trying to get breakfast with a chicken on your shoulder is kind of not possible."

[bitten_notshy]

"Tell me about it," Jack commiserated. "They got the bread because they kept trying to steal my sandwich earlier. I tried to tell them to go scratch for some bugs but I don't think they understood."

[throughaphase]

"Why is there no English-to-chicken dictionary?" Kitty said, only half teasing. "So chickens aside, how've you been?"

[bitten_notshy]

"All the animal transformations on the island, you'd think someone would make such things," Jack mused. "You could make a killing."

Smiling, he added, "I'm good, actually. The weekend was commencement and my birthday, so it had all kinds of milestones. How are you?"

[throughaphase]

"Congratulations and happy birthday," Kitty smiled. "I... had the day off? Yours is better."

[bitten_notshy]

"Thanks, and I'm not expecting too many more weekends like it," Jack admitted with a little laugh. "Days off are much more repeatable."

[throughaphase]

"For some of us," she laughed. "So does this mean you're done with school, or is there a next step?"

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm never going to be done with school," Jack said ruefully. "Not for a few years, anyhow. I've still got law school to go. So I'm saving the celebrations for 2017."

[throughaphase]

"You deserve to celebrate a little. You're like half done," Kitty pointed out.

[bitten_notshy]

"True. I'll get myself a free drink," Jack said, slightly wry. "Can I get you one, too?"

He wanted a party. He did. He just hadn't had a chance to think about planning one.

[throughaphase]

"Rum and Coke?" she decided. "So are you planning anything fun with all this time off till the next set of school?"

[bitten_notshy]

Jack mixed the drink for her, using the really good rum because it was a celebration, and got the same for himself.

"Nothing in particular," he said. "I'll spend some time with Emma, of course, but otherwise I'll just be here. What about you, anything more exciting than a day off on the horizon?"

[throughaphase]

"We're staying here," she said. "That's really about it for once. Low drama and everything."

[bitten_notshy]

"We can hope, at least," Jack said. "I think the island may have gotten drama out of the way for now with that ghost caper. Now it's just being silly."

He glanced at the chickens pointedly as he said that,

[throughaphase]

"Yeeeeeah, that does make me think we should go to one of the New Yorks," she sighed.

[bitten_notshy]

"Are there many differences between yours and his?" Jack asked, idly curious.

[throughaphase]

"Well, they don't seem to have mutants around, which is so weird. And they're pretty new to the messed up stuff that happens, whereas my world's been dealing with that stuff since I was a kid," Kitty said. "But we know a lot of the same people and everything, and if I go to his place there it seems like the New York I know."

Less destroyed, though, currently.