mogget_cat | New Orleans w/Jason

From the bar, the two of them step out into the humid, New Orleans night. The clouds cover the stars and moon, leaving it up to the streetlamps to cast light upon the people who are out and about this evening.

There's the scent of rain in the air. Rain, and the scents of people, cheap hot dogs, alcohol, and the underlying scent of the city, always there.

"It's not far. Just a few blocks over," Yrael says as she looks out at Bourbon St.

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"I enjoy trying for a quiet drink while fending off over-enthusiastic opportunists in the politest way possible," Wik says, grinning at him over the rim of her drink.

Ignore the not'cat at your back, Jason. She just swallowed wrong. The coughinglaughingfit will pass shortly.

Jason rolls his eyes and makes a disgusted smile, but still grins. "Jesus. Some people just can't take a hint, can they?"

He glances over his shoulder at Bianca, shooting her a not too friendly look and praying they call her onstage soon.

He turns back to Wik. "So you must sleep in the daytime and perform and/or try to enjoy quiet drinks. Hmmm...sounds like quite the life to me."

"No, apparently not. And I work during the day, thanks," she says, sipping her rum and coke. "Tomorrow's just my day off."

Yrael ignores Jason in favor of the Outrageous Flavor going on onstage. It's kind of outrageous. Or is trying to be, at least. Enthusiastic Flavor may be more appropriate.

They're loud at any rate. Makes talking a bit harder.

He laughs. "Well I guess I can scratch 'vampire' off your list of occupations." He's joking, of course. He wouldn't really think she was a vampire. They smell completely different...

"Hardly," Wik says as she stubs out her cigarette on an ashtray, though she does sound amused. "Not even in this town."

"This tow...oh right, the books." He snorts slightly: he'd tried reading them once and had fallen over laughing. Not to say that some things weren't eerily true, but...

"Get a lot of the hardcore fans around, do you?"

"Some," she snorts. "As you always do. The city makes a tidy sum off of the Haunted New Orleans tours even without looking to airport fiction."

"Eh, what city doesn't want to cash in on whatever it can? So long as the crazies keep their crazy to a minimum."

If it's one thing he's come to hate, it's the vampire freaks. Only want one thing, and it's not him. One woman...girl...even went so far as to ask him where the vampires slept...whilst in mid-coitus. Talk about a turn-off.

He turns slightly to offer a hand with a wry grin. "I'm Jason, by the way. Not one of the crazies. At least I don't think I am."

She hesitates a moment, before moving to shake his hand in return. "Nice to meet you, Jason," she says with a wry answering smirk. "Genevieve, though I'm technically here as Wik, tonight."

"Genevieve? That's pretty. This is one of those times I'd love to fling some French at you, but it always just goes in one ear and out the other."

Granted, he's usually hearing the more genteel French right before being rolled, and he couldn't remember it if he wanted to.

"Where'd you come up with Wik?"

She laughs. "I don't even know any French, not real French, so I'm afraid it'd be lost on me, hon." Chuckling, she sips her rum'n'coke. "It was a joke at work, since I work in reference at the city library. A friend of mine said I knew where to find information on anything."

The name got extrapolated from there, then shortened.

Jason chuckles. "Clever. It's a catchy name, too: good for stage."

He eyes her appreciatively. "You know? I wouldn't have pegged you for working in the library, but it kinda makes me happy to know you do. Makes reading look good."

His smile broadens. "You could do lectures at the local middle schools, and you'd have teen boys hitting the library in droves."

"I was aiming for upper management, but I gotta work my way up before I can take on the library as a whole," she smirks at the flattery.

"Hmmmm, we do need to get our numbers up. Even if the boys wouldn't be there to actually use the library, if they walk in the door, they count. The question would be if I could stand dealing with the middle school boys being there."

Wik pauses, then shifts to lean her elbow on the bar. Despite herself, Jason is offering interesting conversation. "What about you? What do you do when not listening to unfamous people wanting to be famous?"

Jason considers this. "They are pretty rowdy. Maybe workshops? Word gets out that a hot library chick is teaching a workshop, and maybe it'll keep them busy. Play your cards right, they might even learn something. Just make sure it's something they can relate to: so show how it can relate to getting a girl to go home with them."

He chuckles and drops his head slightly. "Me? Well..." I'm like the PA for the master vampire of my city who munches on me at least every other day, I hang out with the leader of my local werewolf pack to which I am a member, and sometimes offer myself up for sex with our local necromancer who has become a real life succubus.

He grins. "I strip."

One of Wik's two black, arched eyebrows becomes even more arched.

"Really?"

She looks him over.

"You any good? Most people wouldn't come right out and admit that."

He chuckles. "I like to think I am. I'm one of the headliners at any rate. So...yeah, I'm pretty good."

He cocks an eyebrow at her, giving her a roguish look. "Why lie? You never know when someone's going to call you out on it."

"Explains the attitude, at least," she chuckles lowly into her rum'n'coke. "Where're you working? Anyplace local?"

"Use what you've got, right?"

He shakes his head, scooting a little closer to converse without shouting.

"Nah, I'm from St. Louis. I'm here visiting an old friend." His grin is mischievous. "Why, you want to catch the show?"

"Possibly," she smirks at him. "It'd at least give me the opportunity to see if you've got anything to back up that attitude of yours."

In the background, the mediocre band draws its enthusiastically mediocre song to a close, to mediocre applause.

He looks more than a little pleased with himself as he leans in to smirk. "Why wait so long? I could show you right now."

The laughter in his eyes means that he might be teasing. Then again, he might not...

"Ohhh," she smirks. "So you're performing tonight, too."

She meets his teasing with her own.

It just so happens that after Outrageous Flavor has cleared the stage, Bianca Silvestri is called up. From the applause and few cheers as the pale girl from the seat behind Jason takes the stage, her name is recognized.

"I got talked into it, but unfortunately I'm not going to be dancing. So I have to try to impress you before they get me up there."

He's about to make another suggestion when Bianca is called up. He smirks over his shoulder, turning so that he's able to see Bianca onstage, but still remain close enough to Wik to converse. And to just be close.

"You better work fast," Wik grins. "You might be called at any moment."

Up on stage, Bianca sits at the piano. After a moment of pause, her head tilted as if listening for something to inspire her, she begins to play.

Whoever said that rock piano was impossible never met a Bright Shiner on a mission. The beat is fast, the tempo driven on by the fierce, rhythmic chords of the keyboard. It's a challenge, picking up the spirits of all of the bar patrons who hear her, urging them on, especially when she begins to sing. Her voice carries the challenge, the quick, forceful chords of the piano carry the urgency of it.

"Gotta fight- gotta strike-
'cause there's no turning away
From what you don't want to know.
Gotta see- gotta be-
If they're all going astray,
Don't let them take you in tow.

You're a one-man shift in the weather...
You're the woman who just won't sell...
Climbing up, I'm ringing the belllllllll-

Ooh-Ooh-Ooh you're gonna make your-
mark this time...
Ooh-Ooh-Ooh you gotta set your-
hope on fire..."

Jason can feel the influence of the Bright Shiner as soon as she begins her song, and he smiles to himself: she does have his back.

Well used to having his mind manipulated, he opens himself fully to the power in Bianca's song. It tears through his cool, playboy demeanor, leaving something more akin to a primal hunter in its place. He suddenly finds himself much closer to Wik than he remembers being, but he notes with with satisfaction her flushed cheeks and pounding heart.

Well done, Yri...

He leans close enough that his mouth is hovering behind her ear, and his breath is hot against it as he whispers, "Just how fast do you want me to be?"

She can feel his breath, hot on her ear and neck. Her calm is enough to let her drain the rest of her rum'n'coke, her hand only slightly unsteady. "Not so quick as to fail to make an impression, I'd hope," she murmurs, her eyes flickering between her glass Jason's hand resting on the bar, hesitating at making eye-contact, should that prove too much.

In the background, the music continues, the audience rapt. Some soloists with their attention fixed on the musician on stage, others becoming more and more focused on their conversation partners.

"Gotta leave- gotta bleed-
You've gotta stop lying still
'cause this is no kind of life.
You don't need guarantees,
You just want something to build
Before you turn to the knife.

When the streets are aflood like a fever,
It's a holiday of the new.
We're coming closer now to the truuuuuth...

Ooh-Ooh-Ooh you're gonna make your-
mark this time...
Ooh-Ooh-Ooh you gotta set your-
hope on fire..."