cacophonish | open rp post

When Matt Jamison first stumbled on this spot, he was sure it was a dream. Then he was sure he was crazy. Now he's back to thinking it's probably a dream, but with a 25% to 35% suspicion that it might be some value of real and a statistical margin of error that he's had a break with reality.

Tonight, Matt is:

At the bar

With a book

In a band tee that's too big because it's vintage

Busily not thinking about his latest disagreement with Vincent

Wearing a scarf indoors

How could he be unhappy? The signs around the place say there's music tonight.

Jeff's here. He's on stage (small and coffee-shop intimate) and he has a guitar in his hands. According to dream logic, that means he ought to be playing, even though he doesn't know where he is or how he got here.

Why should he question it? Shit's been crazy enough lately, so it stands to reason that this is just a natural extension of that crazy.

And besides, there's already an audience. Doesn't matter if it's one person or a thousand, he's going to keep their eyes on him. So he starts strumming (the guitar's already in tune, that's nice), eyes closing, humming along to one medley, then another, before he settles on a tune. That's when he looks at the crowd with a playful smile in his eyes that soon passes to his lips as he sings.

"You keep saying you got something for me..."

That's some Nancy Sinatra for the crowd, which feels both big and small, impossible to really focus on. The more he plays (another song, and another, moving from one genre, one moment in time, to the next, without any cohesive theme to speak of, until his fingers hurt and his throat aches), the more the others fade to the periphery, while one figure starts to stand out in greater clarity.

The kid at the bar. ("Kid," like they're not the same age.) It's like he could be real, tangible, unlike the rest, who don't feel quiiiite right.

So Jeff looks right at him as he starts on his last song, fingers finding familiar chords as he shoots that knowing, playful smirk at the stranger. "Outside there's a box car waiting..."

Here Comes Your Man. Yeah, that's Jeff Calhoun for flirting.

Somewhere along the line, Matt sets down his book.

He doesn't know if he had a drink before, but he has one now--a half-depleted, golden something he can feel heating his throat. The singer meets his rapt gaze and gives a little smile, and Matt's throat goes that much warmer.

What more could he ask for? Beautiful music, a beautiful guy playing it. Time and space to be alone but not alone, in the way music always makes him f--

Oh God that's the Pixies. That's a Pixies cover. Is it being sung at him? Matt flushes immediately, which is impressive given all the blood loss he's been experiencing lately.

When he next looks down, his drink is gone. That liquid courage has got to be why, when it seems like there's a break in the music, Matt tucks his book under his arm and walks over. (Because like literally, he never does this. He always waits until he bumps into the frontperson, bassist, or occasionally drummer an hour or so later and they hook up in the alley.) He extends a sweating glass of water.

"Great work." A sheepish smile. "Uh--I can get you a better drink too, it just seemed like. You've been working hard."

Jeff sits at the edge of the stage, long legs dangling over, as he watches the cute guy in the Breeders shirt make his way over. That idle little smile on his face grows into something lopsided with mischief (though unformed and undirected, more like the intent of mischief than any set-in-stone plans of mischief) when the stranger comes right up to him with a glass of water.

Usually people buy him a beer, or some shit with watered-down tequila and a cherry. (The cherry, incidentally, is always his favorite part.) Water's more, like, practical, like this weird window into thoughtfulness, which he doesn't really possess, himself, but is always a total sucker for.

"Thanks." He takes a drink-- like, a proper drink, not a little sip. Throws his head back and downs half the glass. His throat aches a little, though he doesn't really remember how long he's been singing. He just went where the music took him, for however long...

Wherever they are, time doesn't seem to matter much. At least, he doesn't feel any sort of urgency. Moments flow in a lazy kind of way, which suits him just fine.

"It's good. Tastes like top shelf water." He winks, teasingly, then pats a spot of stage beside him before offering a hand for the guy to take. It's low enough that he probably doesn't need a hand, but hey, Jeff's a fucking gentleman. "You know, I half expected you to have an English accent..." He points to his own neck, miming a scarf. "Seems like an England thing."

Look, his logic is sound.

(Because he probably associates 'wearing scarves indoors' with Doctor Who.)

Oh, he's got a really cute smile. And great legs. Matt watches his throat move as he swallows.

--Then he shakes himself out of that moment, and takes the guy's hand to settle on the stage. Matt tends to carry himself with either a pleasant private-school sprawl or a certain birdlike energy, like he reserves the right to flutter away if necessary.

He bursts into a startled laugh.

"I'm, uh." Maybe he means cravats? Matt adjusts his scarf self-consciously. "Sorry, but I'm pretty sure I missed my chance to have an English accent. Studied abroad in London and I still sound like ... this."

Another smile.

"Hi. I'm Matt."

He leans back on his palms, watching Matt, taking in the way he moves with a sort of lazy observation. It's hard to say how much he notices, in the moment, will actually stick around in his head. It isn't that he's actively thoughtless, per se, so much as passively thoughtful, which he likes to see as two very distinct qualities.

Still, on some subconscious level, he knows he doesn't want to make the guy flutter away. So: no sudden moves-- or the conversational equivalent of a sudden move, anyway.

When Matt laughs, Jeff beams, sunny and bright, if a bit dimmed at the edges.

"'This' is good." He shrugs, head tilting a little as he takes in the whole of Matt. It's like he could be all angles, but he doesn't come across as pointy. There's a softness to him, like Jeff could drape all over him and not worry about getting his eye put out.

(If anyone could hear Jeff's internal processes, it would probably very quickly become apparent that he's not the one writing much of the lyrics in his music. Not exactly a poet here.)

Anyway. It's cute. He's cute. "I'm not disappointed you don't sound like London." He takes another gulp of water and sets the glass to the side.

"Jeff. Hi." He cranes his neck, practically contorts himself further down on to the stage to try to get a peek at the book in Matt's hand. "What're you reading?"

Edited 2020-01-13 12:46 (UTC)

“—Oh. Uh, it’s.”

Matt actually has to check his own book that he’s carrying, because he hasn’t been reading it so much as using it like a paper-brick amulet. Aleister Crowley.

Of course it is.

“He’s undoubtedly the embarrassing racist-and-or-sexist uncle of the magical world,” Matt disclaims, rueful. “But he has some good points. ‘Love is the law.’” He smiles, shaking his head. “Anyway, it’s not like I was getting a whole lot of reading done while you were playing. I didn’t want to miss anything. You are seriously, really talented.”

"Ohhh..." He sinks down onto the stage, since he was already halfway there anyway, practically flopping back in defeat once he sees the author's name. "I never could finish any of his books." Any time he'd try to read Crowley (because, of course, Gifted kids are encouraged to read everything, no matter how tedious), it was like every sentence would rush right out of his head the moment he moved on to the next.

Old British guys. They might as well have been writing in a foreign language.

But. 'Love is the law.' That sounds nice. He smiles dreamily as Matt says those words, then lifts his head again, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Aww... And I didn't even have to cast a spell on the room or anything." His smile crooks up a notch, angled with a sort of roguish intent. "You seem like a sweet guy, Matt. I don't meet a lot of sweet guys at my usual shows."

Since his usual shows are far more like magic-and-drug fueled bacchanals than laid back acoustic covers. It's not like there's many chances to just chill out and talk with any of the sweet guys who might be in the crowd. Nobody's ever sober enough for a relaxed meet and greet, least of all Jeff.

Edited 2020-01-23 13:13 (UTC)

"If you didn't like his prose, stay the hell away from his poetry," Matt observes with rueful amusement, and is maybe about to go off on some bookish tangent when Jeff--

Well. Looks at him like that. But also keeps talking, which provides a lot of very interesting and distracting information.

"I, ah. Try to be, I guess." Matt's answering smile, as he toys with the ends of his scarf, is tinged with erotic nostalgia--half embarrassed, half warm. V has called him sweet before, but he's usually talking about the way he tastes. "But back up a minute. 'Spell on the room'? What kind of spell are we talking?"

It only took the vampire's man, Joslin, three and a half hours to get his Master to LA from Phoenix, speeding openly on the empty road in the supped up SUV with darkly tinted windows, like it was carrying the Prince of the Seine. Once it got into LA, it might as well have been. Matthew made a few stops, one to a dirty warehouse that clashed against his dark green velvet tailored suit where he loaded up on his 'party favors', before stopping by a much higher end building for the rest of his 'party favors'.

The latter was women, to be frank, two or three that looked like they should be beside him with their glamorous short skirts and useless fur cropped jackets, and the whole lot of them clamored out of the SUV as it drove up to the door of the venue, spilling out like a Rich someone with loose pockets with faces full of laughter and cocaine. It would be easy to say and assume that the women with him were being paid for their time, but the bouncer that Matthew sweettalked his way past without so much as a bill changing hands suggested something else. He and his women were a little too high class for the place, a little too Extra for what this club normally saw, but it didn't seem to bother them in the slightest.

Matthew got himself the largest table with the best view of the stage and ordered drinks over to it, settling in with a curious glinting eye over the crowd as he drank and laughed and was generally the loudest, jolliest partier in the small place. But once the show ended, Matthew left his table to be guarded by the tall, pale Russian Joslin as he and his ladies plied their way backstage.

Someone wanted to see the Band.

It's not often that Jeff really sees the people at his shows. When he's on stage, the crowd becomes a mass, some singular entity with a hundred faces, all blurring together.

But this guy and his crew, they stood out with how much they just didn't belong. They looked like the type who would light cigars with hundred dollar bills and, like, bleed diamonds or something. They looked like some kind of royalty.

Jeff's scene is just too dingy and grungy for people with that kind of money.

But boy did the guy seem to enjoy the show. It was like he was on another plane of revelry from the crowd, like he didn't need to be touched by the magic woven into every note to feel the music.

So maybe Jeff's a little distracted, even as he flops on a couch in the green room and starts chugging at a bottle of water, leaning against Ally like a ragdoll. She drags her fingers through his damp hair, teasing him about his future sugar daddy in the crowd with a snicker in her voice. He teases her back about eyefucking those fancy hookers with Mr. Future Sugar Daddy, and-- well, fuck, look who it is.

"Speak of the devil," Ally murmurs in his ear, nudging him with an elbow before getting up off the couch. Jeff stays where he's at, though he shoots a languid smile at the man and his chicks.

"Don't tell me: you guys are here for autographs, huh," Jeff teases. As if a Nervous Tix autograph is worth anything to anyone.

Matthew was grinning brashly as he walked in, jacket and tie lost somewhere to the evening already and leaving a little triangle of chest peeking out above a few popped buttons to compliment his otherwise perfectly coifed hair. Always nice to be welcomed warmly, without any daggers to the eye or curses upon his house.

"Oh my god, you were amazing," his brunette gushed, smiling in that on Cloud 9 way that only fangirls and those lucky enough to fall under charms were. It was immediately followed by the blond gushing a similar sentiment, along with a- "Do you guys have Merch?"

Matthew hadn't needed any touching to feel the talent there, but even under the smell of dried gum, spilled drinks, some poor girls vomit being tracked in by various shoes no matter how much bleach the staff used to clean it, Jeff smelt Different.

It had been a long time since Matthew had found a Mage that wasn't already well aware and properly warned and protected against his kind, and while he couldn't be sure that's what he had here, he was willing to roll his dice and bet.

"You made quite an impression, I must say," Matthew followed, his softly French-twisted accent curling with his luring smile. "I am fond of finding up and comers, people who maybe need a little more attention than they're getting now." There was something about his voice, the sultry smooth promise of it that Jeff might recognize as a different but similar kind of Magic. One that oh so subtly encouraged him towards agreeing with whatever Matthew might have to offer.

"You could pack a lot more in than the mere hundred and fifty you've gotten tonight, no?"

Edited 2021-09-27 00:07 (UTC)

"Fuuuuck."

Why does the sun have to go and be so bright? Doesn't it know some people are trying to sleep. Jeff groans and drapes an arm over his eyes, dramatically, petulantly, and he doesn't even know if anyone's awake to appreciate it.

Fuck getting up. Jeff's just gonna go back to sleep. And so he lays like this for... who knows how long, his brain stubbornly refusing to black out, his fingers twitching impatiently, and his shoulder feeling all kinds of tweaked-- okay, okay. With a grumble, Jeff rolls onto his side and opens his eyes, taking stock of the situation.

He's in a bed. He's with Klaus. That checks out, since the last thing he remembers is partying with the guy, after he'd wrapped his show. Now here they are, a whole night of mysteries between them, lost in a cocktail of drugs. Jeff's got a dress on (wouldn't be the first time), some cheap slip thing, there's a discarded high heel shoe at the end of the bed (which he's pretty sure wouldn't fit either of their feet), and there's glitter in the sheets (RIP those sheets).

"Did we fuck, or did we just play dress up?"

Edited 2021-09-26 22:28 (UTC)

Klaus doesn't answer at first. For a few, long minutes, he just burrows his head deeper under the pillow, blanket yanked over his head. Quickly, he realizes he won't be getting back to sleep, the ache in his bones and pounding in his head that he's aware of now that consciousness has dawned is not going to allow it.

He lets out a long, drawn out groan as he pushes the pillow off his head and flops dramatically on top of it, facing toward Jeff. "Mmm... I don't remember." He squints over at him and lifts his head to glance around the room. "Where even are we?" He isn't sure he even recognizes the room, not an uncommon thing after a good night, though.

open rp post

jamjar music hijinks

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LA, here we come

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a tasteful morning after with Klaus

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