Logs:Flirtigo

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Cast

Jack Martingale, Alex Shaw, Teagan, Killy and Henrietta Taylor

Setting

Vertigo

Log

It’s a fairly busy night at the club, bouncing, as they say, and Killy is hard at work behind the bar. He doesn’t mind, it’s nights like these where he can make a killing on tips, chatting with customers and still moving a lot of drinks.

The country look has been popular, so he’s wearing a flannel that might be a smidge small with the sleeves rolled up and a couple buttons undone to show a little chest. His drink slinging is effortless seeming, almost like dancing as he moves around, an easy smile never far from his face.

Alex is already here, seated at a table off in the corner where her laptop is out on the table, but slid partly off to one side. Up until a few minutes ago she was seated with someone else in what looked more like a casual business meeting than a friend-thing or a date, although that person is gone, now. Not that anyone actually saw her get up and leave.

Her business having been completed, she leans back and reaches out to pick up the drink from the table in front of her, taking time to take in the place, the atmosphere, and the people.

It's been...a while, since Jack's been to Vertigo. Not the safest place for a recovering alcoholic, and definitely not when it was one of his go-to bars. But. At least there's dancing to be had, and company in the form of One (1) Teagan.

True to form, he's in jeans (purple, acid-washed) that look basically painted on, as well as his ever-present scuffed docs and a short sleeved buttondown that equals Killy's in its tightness. A studded belt and a smudge of eyeliner complete his 'looking nice, but not like he's trying too hard on this thing that Is Maybe A Date' look, as he steps into the club half a second behind Teagan.

Alex gets a double take and a smile, and he waves at her.

"I forgot how easy it is to find people you know, here, I feel like there's always somebody, you know?" He says to Teagan, and starts toward the bar.

Teagan always dresses like Teagan: skinny jeans, boots, a black tank top, their heavy leather coat. Their left hand rests casually on the small of Jack's back as they follow him in to the club; for those who can see miens, their glittering eyes reflect and refract bits of the club's lights, casting them outward again.

"Who are you seeing that you know?"

Killy looks up to take in the newcomers, smiling as Jack approaches the bar. “Hey there! What can I get for you?”

Alex's expression brightens when she sees Jack. It's not that it wasn't pretty bright before, it's just that she's clearly glad to see him over there. A wide smile flashes perfect teeth, and she lifts one hand to wave back to him before she reaches over, closes her laptop, and starts sliding it into the messenger bag she has with her while she slides out of her seat. Once she's standing she pauses, takes in Teagan, looks at Jack again, and hesitates, like she just realized she might be interrupting something if she goes to say hi.

Henrietta wasn't a typical party animal, and Vertigo definitely wasn't her usual scene but here she was anyways! Arriving in all her glory wearing black jeans and a lavender shirt with little buttons all up the front. Under club lighting, she had the misfortune of looking more like a waiter than someone ready to dance. She hesitated inside, looking around, and then glared at her phone. "Asshole," she snarled to herself.

Killy gets a smile too, and a quick once-over. Quick, but appreciative - Jack knows how to walk the line between 'I acknowledge you're attractive' and 'you're at work and I'm not gonna be an asshole about it.' "I'll have one of those fancy sodas -" he points to a bottle behind the bar, and turns to Teagan. "I'm buying, at least the first round. And that's Alex - my unofficial motleymate, we went to high school together, 'f you can believe that. She does work with Mearcstapa, she's a fucking genius with computers. She..." His grin falters slightly, taking on a slightly more nervous tinge as his silhouette gets a little scattered, "used to be 'Touched, but uh. She's an insomniac." All that said, he flashes Killy another smile, like he hadn't just said something mildly incomprehensible.

He also gives Alex a small 'wait a second' gesture, and an apologetic glance.(edited)

The Mirrorskin resists the impulse to slam their Mask closed like a clamshell over their expression, and that ends up being possibly a Bad Choice, because it becomes immediately obvious that Teagan does not like vampires. Their expression goes totally flat, the muscles along their spine tense, their shoulders go extremely square, and they clear their throat. "Hunh."

And a half-second later, they seem to realize that they've reacted, which makes them frown, and ask Killy for: "Grenadine sour, please." Virgin drinks for both of them, it seems, with Teagan eschewing their usual bottle of Yuengling. "Well, cool." It is not cool, and they just grunt, then, and shut up.

Killy eyes Henrietta’s upset for a moment, before taking in the exchange between Jack and Teagan. He keeps silent on it, but if they’re paying attention they can probably see there are gears turning—slowly.

“Here’s your soda,” he says as he sets it in front of Jack and starts on the grenadine sour. “Would you like to start a tab on a card, then? If you’re both going to buy, I can do both now if you like.”

Alex answers the gesture and glance with a nod and a smile, then pulls out her phone and starts typing on it. A few moments later a text arrives at Jack's that just says: You're welcome to tell me to bug off, if you want private time!

Then she picks up her drink from the table and downs the rest of it, and then heads over toward the bar, but not right to Jack and Teagan.

Hetty stalked to the bar and wiggled into a spot next to the others so she could get Killy's attention. "Helloo! Could I get a beer please? Whatever's best on tap is fine." She glanced sideways at Alex and smiled, cocking her head bit as she tried to remember where she'd seen her before.

"She's..." Jack sighs, and puts a very tentative hand on Teagan's back. "She's part of the reason we figured out what Robin was up to so goddamn fast. Good people. She wouldn't live with me if she wasn't." He glances at his phone with a small grimace before typing a response. nbd, just some tricky footing re: sleeping schedules. I do want you two to meet at some point

"Yeah -" He says to Killy, apologetically as he pulls a card out of his wallet, "for both of us."

Teagan just kind of stands there for what feels like -- to them -- an interminable amount of time, looking off into the near distance. It can be hard for Jack to see that, of course, but he knows their expressions by now, at least mostly. "Okay." It's one word, but it's a word that comes with Teagan's left elbow resting on the bar, rather than hanging casually by the side of their body where Jack must know Baby's hiding.

"Okay," they repeat, and clear their throat, the tiniest upturn of the corners of their mouth. "Cool. I trust your -- people."

And then they turn a small smile on Henrietta instead, offering her a brief chin-up of hello before they lean in to kiss the top of Jack's head. In public. It's a scandal.

Killy sets the sour down and takes the card with another nod and smile, stepping away to run the card and pour the beer.

He sets the card in front of Jack and the beer in front of Henrietta. “Brown ale, one of my favorites here. Hope you enjoy. A lot of people go for the IPAs, but I never cared for them.”

Alex gets a nod. “Can I get you anything else?”

"Another whiskey sour? Just add it to my tab," Alex says to Killy with a smile. "That last one was spot-on for the ratios, one of the better sours I've had in a while." She turns to look at Hetty, who she gives her most charming smile to. "Hi there," she says. There's something almost too perfect about her features. Absolutely flawless skin, symmetrical features, and so on. When she extends a hand toward Hetty, it's with short nails painted a ruby red. "Alex," she introduces.

"Thank you," she told Killy fervently, and took a long drink before taking Alex's hand. She shifted, a bit uneasily. "Hetty, nice to meet you. Although... you seem familiar. I can't quite pin it down. Have we met?"

Jack's cheeks flush at that kiss, and he gives Teagan an embarrassed grin before turning his attention to Alex, and giving her a small nod. It's okay, crisis averted for now. Hetty's long pull from her glass makes his eyebrow twitch upward, but he doesn't comment yet, letting Alex talk to her while he sips his fancy floal soda. And leans into Teagan a little.

They sling their arm around Jack's shoulders, then, leaning into making the other Darkling blush if only to cover up their own discomfort in the moment. Teagan rests their mouth against Jack's dark, rumpled hair, and murmurs for his ears only, "Ah, there are my favorite scribbles."

Teagan, you're mean.

Not that everybody's creepin' on this interaction between Hetty and Alex, but that's what's happening.

“Oh, well thanks. I like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at that one.” He starts mixing another with a little more panache than necessary, grinning, staying out of the talk of meeting for the moment.

In the brief time their players were busy nomming, Etta leaned an elbow up on the bar and studied Killy over her beer- which she was busy working through. "Fancy bartending. What's your coolest drink to make?"

Jack blushes still more at Teagan's affection, and turns just enough to take a drink, using it as an excuse to eye Killy, too. He probably gets all kinds of those, from guys like Jack, but at the very least Jack seems interested in whatever answer Killy might give to Hetty's question.

He pours Alex’s drink and hands it to her before thinking over Hetty’s question. If he notices the look from Jack, he’s used to it enough not to make a big deal of it.

“Depends, I guess. Coolest name? Probably ‘Death in the Afternoon’. The coolest looking? I’ve done one of those layer drinks before, it turned out alright. Coolest tasting? Hmmm...the ‘Aviation’, I’d say.”

"An Aviation? Sounds like fun. I'll take it, if it's not too much trouble. The layer drinks are pretty cool, but I won't pester you to make one of those while the place is so busy." She glanced over to Jack and Teagan, and gave yet another strikingly hot clubgoer a tiny smile.

Jack gives Hetty an upnod in greeting, his messy hair and flushed face giving him a little bit more of a 'hot mess' look than strictly 'hot'. But he makes it work well enough.

"What's in an Aviation? Death in the Afternoon sounds like a euphamism, I gotta say..."

"I don't think we've met," Alex says as she gives Hetty another look over. "I'd like to think I'd have remembered meeting you before, if I did. But maybe? What kinds of things do you do? What kind of places do you go? That might help us figure it out."

She picks up the drink one Killy pours and provides it, raises it in a thank you to him, and then turns her attention back to Hetty. "Oh, yeah, I get that. I love mojitos, but unless the bar is dead I don't ever want to bother the bartender with making one."

“An Aviation contains...gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, and crème de violette,” he answers as he produces each ingredient and starts to mix. “Death in the Afternoon is champagne and absinthe. Hemingway made it up, I think it’s called that because it’s nice for day drinking or something.”

He smiles to Alex. “Thanks, to both of you, for thinking of us behind the bar.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks as she refocused on Alex. "Ah, I don't go out out all that much. I work for the city though, and go to tech conferences pretty regularly?" She blushed more. "I guess that's kind of vague, sorry... and creme de violette? That sounds amazing, whatever it is."

One of the things that Teagan loves to do is watch people. There's a lot of that going on right now, so they're very content to just sip their drink, arm slung around Jack's shoulders, and observe. When Hetty passes over a smile, the corner of their mouth curves up just so. It's the silent how you doin'? that is so ... very... Teagan. They turn their attention back to Jack, then, leaning their face against the top of his head. No more muttered comments, though. One can only light up a Spring so much.

"Oh that sounds...fuckin' delicious. The aviation, I mean, champagne and absinthe sounds deadly..." Desire floats from Jack in waves, at least to Teagan and Alex. The others might notice that his slightly odd cologne - he really managed to get the smell of the air before a storm spot on - gets a little stronger. Not overwhelming, but definitely there. He takes another gulp of his soda, and watches Killy work.

"Oh reaaaally," Alex says, and if the fact that she was interested in Hetty wasn't clear to people before, there's a good chance it might suddenly be even clearer. She leans a little closer, still well outside of any personal bubble, and tilts her head slightly. "What kinds of tech stuff? Like CES? Or programming, or security?" She does glance over at Tegan and Jack, but she's also pretty interested in this conversation at the moment, and doesn't want to intrude.

Killy pours out Hetty’s new drink into an extra wide martini glass. It is very purple, and looks like a magic potion or something. “Oh, crème de violette is delicious, it’s violet flower liqueur, definitely makes the drink.”

He smiles at the tableau of interest and affection, before there’s a loud thunk from the back of the bar. “Oop. Just a moment, someone’s probably struggling with a keg. I always tell them to let me know, but they don’t want to bother me or something.” Nodding to the group, he steps into the back.

That was much more solid footing, even in unfamiliar social surroundings. she grinned. "Network architecture and data analytics, primarily. But I like to branch out a bit further afield sometimes just for shits and giggles. What are you in? You're obviously not an enduser?"

She put her hand to her heart when Killy presented the glass and sighed dramatically and happily. "Be still my heart. It's purple. I love you!" she called after him.

"Oh that is pretty..." Jack doesn't speak too loudly, clearly not wanting to interrupt Alex and Hetty's conversation, but he gives Alex a raised eyebrow and a grin. He knows flirting when he sees it.

Their arm tightens briefly around Jack when that roll of Desire comes off of Jack as he talks about drinks. They've gone mostly quiet now, just intently watching the interplay between the people here. "I like this drink," Teagan comments, "And this company. It's ... pretty good."

Honestly, that's borderline amazing when there's a vampire in earshot.

"Thanks for the drinks, go rescue the hapless!" Alex calls after Killy as he steps into the back, and then she turns back to Hetty. "I'm a red teamer," she says with a little shrug. "Which means I have to be able to do a bit of everything, but mostly, I figure out how to kick down everyone else's sandcastle. Of course, I do it in order to help them figure out how to make a more kick-resistant one."

She leans to get a better look over at Jack and Teagan, who she gives a smile to. "Hi Jack!" she says. "Hi Jack's friend! I should have known I couldn't possibly come here without running into someone I knew."

Killy returns lugging a keg with only a modest effort, it seems. Not supernatural or anything, just the leverage of his size and brute strength, in a way that makes you think of the word “manhandle”, assumptions about gender norms aside. He sets it down further along the bar, thanked by a couple coworkers, and then returns to the group. “Everyone still good on drinks?”

"I was just saying that," Jack says to Alex with a smile. "Alex, meet Teagan, Teagan, Alex." He gestures between the two of them, and presses the fingers of his other hand against Teagan's back, like he's reassuring them, before nodding to Killy.

"I'll take another one of these - haven't had this flavor, 's fucking delicious. Rose lemonade that doesn't taste like soap? Count me in." He slides his empty across the bar with a smile. "Crisis averted, it looks like?"

Henrietta's eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "That sounds like a fun game to play. I wonder if you could get into my personal system?" She arched an eyebrow, then waved to Killian. "I'm still good. Still just admiring the drink, actually." She hadn't actually touched the aviation yet, even as she turned it around in her hands. She took a sip finally, and sighed happily.

"Hey. Yeah. I'm Teagan." Usually they're so terribly smooth, but right now it's very much 'you are a vampire I am not killing' and that's about as good as it gets. But they are trying, right? "They/them. Or he, I guess." And that's news. They take another sip of their drink, and offer a salute of their glass toward Alex. It's nice without requiring physical contact.

And then another sip, which comes right as Henrietta says 'personal system.' Teagan coughs, once, loudly.

Killy smiles as Henrietta appreciates the drink, then turns to Jack. “Looks like, for now. On the busy nights I get a decent workout,” he adds with a chuckle.

He tilts his head at “personal system”, then shakes it and starts working at keeping tidy.

"All good here," Alex says, holding up her drink, which is still mostly full. Then she turns a mischievous grin on Hetty and says, "I'd be game to try, but only with your consent to my attempts at entry." She manages to do it without laughing or giggling, and with a steady tone. Not even a suggested innuendo in her tone.

And then to Teagan, "oh, thanks for telling me pronouns! Mine are she/her." She glances between Jack and Teagan and says, "I hadn't realized you were seeing someone new, Jack." At least she sounds approving, just curious too.

Jack's eyebrow twitches upward at the pronouns, and he gives Teagan a quick, curious glance. And luckliy he waits to take a drink, and manages to keep his reaction to 'personal system' to a simple sharp exhale.

And then Alex continues the innuendo and he ducks his head, laughing quietly for her.

"Ah -" he clears his throat, and nods, his smile a mixture of embarassed and excited. You know, like when you're introducing your friend to your new partner. "Yeah, it's...not so new anymore, I guess? We just haven't been...out. Much."

Hetty grinned, blushing furiously but clearly well aware of the innuendo. "I use she, too. Want to, uh, introduce your friends?"

Jack opens his mouth to introduce himself - and then his phone rings. Or vibrates at least, and he frowns at it. "That's...fuck, I gotta take this, be right back - 's nice to see you Alex." Teagan gets a quick kiss full on the lips, and everyone else gets a wave before he turns toward the door, asking whoever's on the other end what shit's on fire, because he took the night off for a reason...

Teagan's face silvers brilliantly when Jack kisses them, or blushes, for those who can see only their Mask -- while they have Rigid Mask and people who can only see that often can't tell what they're feeling at all, that requires them to consent or not consent to people seeing their feelings... and they got distracted, goddamnit. "Yeah, we uh... it's been a couple months but we -- haven't been out a lot."

And then they finish the rest of their drink and offer a lazy salute to those remaining but definitely not Jack who thankfully is headed for the door and hopefully won't see it. "I should follow my date. Nice to meet youse."

They might even mean it.

“Have a good night,” Killy calls after Teagan with a little wave. “Thanks for coming by.”

He steps away so Hetty and Alex can flirt about their keyboard skills in peace.

Alex laughs, because she's pretty sure she knows what it means if they've been dating for months but not going out much. "Have a good night, you two!" She waves goodbye to them, and then attention is back to Hetty. "That was Jack and Teagan," she says. "Jack and I are housemates, we've known each other since high school, and apparently Teagan is a new person he's dating." She shrugs and leans in to say sotto voce, "he's dating a few people, so I'm not surprised if I don't know them all at this point." She straightens up and takes a big drink of her whiskey sour, and then waves toward Killy to get his attention. While she waits for him to be free she asks Hetty, "would you be interested in giving me your number? I'd be happy to take you out some time if you wanted, but if you're not interested in that, I can always use more geek girlfriends."

"Does Teagan know he's dating multiple people?" Henrietta asked archly, as she took out her phone to exchange contact information. Her own eyes wandered after Killy (A pretty face wasn't a thing to be wasted after all.) before looking back to Alex. "Going out could be fun. I can always use more friends in town too. Most of mine are online."

"Almost certainly," Alex answers with a smile. "He's poly, not a player." Alex pulls her own phone out. "I have two girlfriends myself. They were already dating each other when I got involves with them, so yes, they definitely know about each other." She flashes a smile. "But, obviously, if you were going to let me take you out on a date, that's something it's polite to let you know ahead of time. And if you just wanted to be friends, I'm more than happy for that, too."

She finishes off her drink and sets down the glass, so that she can close her tab out.

"Consent is cool. Cheating, not so much." She shrugged. "Not that I've ever, um. Well, it's not something I've ever had to put a lot of thought into, from a personal perspective, you know? I'd like to go out though. Just for fun at least. If it's ok with your partners?"

"If it's a date I'll have to talk to them about it," Alex says with a smile. "If it's not a date, just hanging out, then it's definitely fine." She nods her agreement. "Cheating is definitely not cool. I am with you there, all the way. Anyway, it was nice to meet you, but I've already been here longer than I had planned to, and I should get going. I'll give you a call soon?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah. That sounds nice. It's been really nice meeting you." Hetty stumbled over the words, looking a little dazed and a little anxious. Nosferatu creepyhot, and paying attention to her? It wasn't one of her typical evenings by any usual standard.

"Likewise, Hetty," Alex says as she gets up and adjusts her laptop bag on her shoulder. "Have a good night!" She offers one last too-perfect smile, then turns to leave.