InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Amburgers & Wootbeer."

Samuel Madin (tiger_says_rawr) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-06-14 12:42:00

Entry tags:

shere khan, wicked witch

Who: Joanie and Sam.
What: Talk of tattoos and drinking, more emphasis on the drinking.
Where: Starting at the ink place then off to some bar.
When: Erm. Monday night?
Warnings: Rated PG-13 for language and mild thematic elements.

Sam wasn't exactly sure why he randomly decided to get a tattoo - maybe it was because he was starting over in a new place, a new building, and it was a way to mark a fresh start. But good lord, was he turning into his father with the way he just went through life at random, making decisions on the fly and who knows, maybe tomorrow he would end up having bought a brokedown tractor?

But no, that wasn't it. He could exercise his usual practicality in this decision despite having Issues much like most of the inhabitants of Bellum; he was his own person and he was going to live his own life. It had actually been fun, discussing placement options with Joanie, who seemed very dedicated to 'her craft.' Between the shoulder blades seemed like the best idea - it was covered easily by any shirt he wore, calf tattoos made you look like a tool (Sam was convinced of this), he was not eager to put anything on his feet, and the shoulder was too cliche. As far as what it would be, names were out and so were Chinese symbols because they were so overdone. For some reason, he really liked the Hindi word designs - but what to say, was the question? That could be decided later. He could always come up with something and then ask Joanie to draw it, which suited him just fine. It was officially Booze O'Clock, so drinks were the name of the game right now, and he would wait patiently while she did what she needed to do to close up.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 05:57 pm UTC (link)

While Sam waited outside, Joanie closed up the shop. Old Sol had already taken off for the night, citing his granddaughter's dance recital for the reason why he disappeared at three o'clock. So it was up to her to ensure that the shop was clean, the register was counted, and the autoclave was running the last batch of needles for the day. It took all of fifteen minutes, and soon she was locking the front door.

"Okay," she said, stuffing the keys in her pocket and pushing a hand back through her hair. "Work is done." She smirked, tucking her hands in the pockets of her black hoodie and leading the way down the street. "Now it's time to play." Assuming that Sam would be following her, she started along the block, moving parallel to Bellum. Though the Juke Joint had a special spot in her heart for obvious reasons, she figured that it wasn't a good place for a tattoo artist and her client to talk.

So they headed for a more modern bar closer to the tattoo parlor, a slightly nicer place that was still fairly blue-collar. Joanie lead the way inside and grabbed a table for them, flopping into her chair and leaning forward against her elbows. "This place okay?" she asked, bouncing her feet on the floor. At least they didn't stick.

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 06:29 pm UTC (link)

It was all the same to Sam, really. Alcohol was alcohol, and beer on tap was pretty hard to fuck up. "No, I demand that you take me to Martha's Vineyard," he quipped, scooting his chair in. "It's fine, Joansie. Business going well for you?" he asked. It had seemed like a reputable establishment to him - no shady characters lurking around looking all crazed. "I just want to make sure, before you jab a rusty needle into me. It looked pretty clean."

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 06:33 pm UTC (link)

At his quip, she snorted. "Pay for gas and we'll see." She fiddled with a coaster, leaning against one elbow as she flicked the piece of cardboard about between her fingers. The name "Joansie" was a bit unsettling. Didn't "to jones" mean "to need something," with that something inevitably being an illegal substance? She wasn't that degenerate. Yet. She'd see what Bellum had in store for her.

She smirked, spinning the coaster on its corner. "Don't worry, the rusty needles are for the bad customers. So far, you've been on the Nice List, so you get the nice, sterile ones."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 06:43 pm UTC (link)

"Then that would be more like me taking you, wouldn't it?" Sam responded, folding his hands on the table for a moment. "But hey, pay for the hotel and we might be table to strike a deal. I'll get the first round, so I can stay on the Nice list and you won't give me hepatitis. What would you like?" He resisted the urge to tack her new nickname on the end of that. Sam was clearly the master of Gifting People with Nicknames They Didn't Want. But he'd keep thinking about it, as good as he thought that one was.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 06:47 pm UTC (link)

She raised a brow. "A self-sufficient young man like yourself shouldn't expect the ladies to pay his way through everything. Either you pay for gas or you owe me, and I reserve the right to sell you to the Chinese." She pointed at him for a moment as if in warning before laughing, pulling her finger back and continuing to mess with the coaster.

At the offer of buying the first round, she cracked a half-smile. "So generous. I'll have a Bud." She waited a beat, realizing that this was the point at which normal people expressed gratitude. Her gaze dropped to the coaster and she shifted slightly. Finally she looked up at him. "Thanks."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 06:55 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, I don't expect that but don't you expect some sense of equality? I'd be okay with owing you. What would the Chinese do with me? Sell my kidney on the black market instead." Sam grinned good-naturedly and then stood up to go to the bar for drinks. He was back not a minute later, with a Bud for Joanie and Newcastle for him - this bar actually had it, way to go!

He slid the bottle over to her as he sat back down. "Don't worry about it," he said, eyes playful; the girl had problems with 'thank you,' obviously, and he was satisfied he got even one. "So..." Sam trailed off, looking over at her. "What are you?" he asked, and he meant which fable. Around here, one just couldn't go with 'what's your sign?' Hopefully she wouldn't ask him to elaborate. Sam wasn't sure he could put it into words. But so far he knew there was a werewolf (maybe?), some dude from Les Miserables, and the Invisible Man - except he wouldn't mention that because he had been sworn to secrecy.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 07:07 pm UTC (link)

She took the beer and tipped the neck towards him slightly, a gesture of thanks that she found to be much easier to convey than the actual words. As she was about to open her mouth and start some inane conversation about nothing, he cut her off at the knees. Her jaw dropped, eyes wide for a moment as she tried to find her footing again.

His expression was direct, his question undisguised. There was no question as to what he was referring to. Her expressions shifted between irritation, disbelief, and fear before settling in a stony indifference that she had cultivated over the years. Taking a swig of her drink, she set the bottle down, raising a brow.

"How long have you been here? Are you seriously asking that already?" She paused, unable to stop herself. "Enjoy your innocence while you have it, Colonel."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 07:13 pm UTC (link)

"What do you mean, already?" Sam scoffed, rolling his eyes before knocking back a healthy swig of beer. "I was here for five minutes and some guy told me to stay in my room during the full moon, and that we had werewolves and half the cast of Dracula here, and that he was a character from Les Miserables. So I was just curious, Jo..." He wrapped his hands around the bottle, his fingers folded together, and continued to watch her expressions. "I'd rather talk about this than the usual bullshit, wouldn't you?"

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 07:21 pm UTC (link)

She winced as he mentioned both Dracula and Les Miserables. She had seen Luther's heavy-handed warnings, but opted to say nothing. After all, he was a grown-up. If he wanted to go be stupid and let everybody think he was insane, she couldn't stop him. Not that she didn't try, but he clearly wasn't interested in being helped. And it was starting to exhaust her.

It was like being under a microscope, sitting across from him. She shifted uncomfortably, pursing her lips and looking down at her beer. What was there to say? She imagined that it was awesomely cool when you were brand new and experiencing all of this for the first time, but when you'd been living with it for two months, it got old fast.

"I guess," she said quietly, shifting subconsciously to lay her left forearm on the table, a barrier between them. "It's different when you've been here for a while. It's crazy, but...it's also normal, in a way. You start to expect it." She recalled how easily she had taken to her own magic. "And don't listen to what that chick in 204 says, Dracula is not sparkly. Don't mess with him."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 07:31 pm UTC (link)

"Look, Joanie..." Sam rubbed his hand over his face, pausing to dig his fingertips into the corner of his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm not trying to poke at you or make you uncomfortable, but you have to remember what it was like to have just moved in and be told all of this, like, oh it's just so hilarious that you're not in on the joke when all you wanted to do was move someplace new and - " He stopped rambling, collecting his thoughts. "Dracula," he repeated, shaking his head with a wheeze of a laugh. "Why doesn't anyone just drag a Holy Wafer over him? Jesus Christ. Alright, anyway...not sparkly, Dracula bad, got it. Anything else?"

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 07:37 pm UTC (link)

Why did this still freak her out? Why did she suddenly want to run and hide? Maybe it was the fact that explaining all of this to somebody new meant that it wasn't just a prank. Maybe it was that this was getting more and more real every day, and though she pretended to be fine, Joanie wanted nothing more than to lock herself in her apartment until it was all over.

At his reassurance, she steeled. "I'm fine," she said sharply, expression grim. Of course she was fine. She wasn't uncomfortable. Nope. Taking a sip from her beer, she wanted to laugh with him when he mentioned wasting Dracula, but couldn't. If it were that simple, Aiden would've done it already.

"I actually got here just before all of this shit happened," she said, voice slow as she collected her words. However, it hastened as the story got away from her. "I'd been there a week, okay? I woke up in the middle of the night, looked down, and saw that my hands?" She took a dramatic pause, a brow raised imperiously. "Were bright green."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 07:46 pm UTC (link)

Sam was also trying not to go completely apeshit but all of it was just so odd. And then yesterday with Jasper - the guy had turned invisible, and Sam hadn't been hallucinating. Not to mention the way even Jasper had flipped out over...something. It must have been bad, because Jay certainly didn't seem like the flipping out type. But that aside, Sam busied himself with chugging beer while Joanie spoke.

"I wonder how it all started," he mused, then reached across the table, taking one of her hands and turning it over, studying it. It looked okay now? "Just your hands were green?"

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 07:51 pm UTC (link)

The fact that he had stolen her hand without permission surprised her, though she managed not to whack him for it. Instead she let him poke at her palm for a moment before she collected it back, taking a sip of her beer. "No, not just my hands," she said, rolling her eyes. "It was a dramatic flourish, you know. Adding to the atmosphere of the story."

She paused, staring at him for a moment before she wrinkled her nose and rubbed her palm against her forehead. "For Chrissakes, I was green all over. Like a damn plant." She took a deep breath, dropping her hand and tilting her head to the side. "I think you can figure out "what I am" from that," she said almost bitterly. There was no sense in trying to hide what she was, really. It was posted on the forum now. Anybody could look it up.

"And I don't know how it started. I just know that nobody had changed like that before I got there. But I doubt that was the first weird thing to happen there. I haven't really asked."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 07:57 pm UTC (link)

"Ah. Dramatic flourish. I'm with you, Mrs. White," Sam chuckled, then raised his eyebrows almost to the hairline. "I'm sure all of this fuckery wasn't brought on by just you. Green like a damn plant, huh?" He grinned crookedly, obviously having no qualms about what Joansie-Jo was. Besides, Jasper had said there was a Wicked Witch here. "You don't like who you are?" he wondered then added with a wink, "We must be soulmates. She was always one of my favorites." It was true! Fuck that Glinda bitch. Her and her poofy pink dress. He'd get lost in that crap.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 08:13 pm UTC (link)

She snorted as he mentioned it wasn't brought on by her. "I know that," she spat, rolling her eyes. "I'm just saying that it wasn't the best welcome. Hopefully you'll at least get settled before anything weird happens. And you've got a heads-up, which is scary, but at least you won't be blindsided."

She was halfway through taking a drink of her beer when he commented on her fable. Choking, she yanked the bottle away to cough and hack, laughing and gasping at the same time. She looked over at him, face red both from amusement and her hacking fit. "Don't do that when I'm drinking!" she laughed, wiping her mouth and coughing into her hand.

When she had recuperated, she snorted. "Would you like being green once a month? It kinda sucks." Plus, the cackling was freaky. He didn't need to know that, though.

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 08:26 pm UTC (link)

Sam laughed too - but quietly - he masked it with a cough to hide it, but the look in his eyes was still one with a great deal of mirth. "Weird stuff has already happened, hate to break it to you. But no, not being blindsided is appreciated," he said, tipping the bottle back to get the remaining drops of beer. "Except now I can't decide if I want to just put all my shit in a box and leave, or stay so I can officially join the ranks. I think you'd look good in green," he added, grin still present.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 08:32 pm UTC (link)

She took a drink of her beer, setting it down with about a quarter of the bottle left. As he mentioned being caught between staying and leaving, she shrugged. "It's your call," she said. "I mean, you've got time. Still, it's kind of entertaining, when you aren't confused as all hell."

As he mentioned her looking good in green, she raised a brow. "Excuse me?" She tried to maintain a serious face, but snickered, taking another sip of her beer. "I'll have you know that Kermit was completely right. It isn't easy, so don't go glamorizing it. Do you know what I get to wear when I'm green? Black. That's it." She didn't seem to notice that she was wearing a black tank top and hoodie with dark jeans and black boots. Apparently, it only counted when she couldn't wear anything else. "Anything else would clash."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 08:40 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah, entertaining..." That was a word for it. "It's not like me to just puss out," Sam stated. "So I'm sure I'll stay. I mean, it's supposed to be - " He didn't know what it was supposed to be. A glimpse into the past? Into the person you once were when you were...fiction? It probably didn't make sense unless you had sniffed a few sharpie markers previously.

He checked out Joanie in her gothic garb, lifting an eyebrow. "You wear black all the time anyway, right? At least the green...brings out your eyes." And hell if he knew what other colors went with green. "Gold?" Sam suggested. "I guess it wouldn't matter though. It's not like you're going out to party when you're green."

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 08:44 pm UTC (link)

"Good man," she said as he resolved to stay. She tipped her beer to him before throwing it back, draining the bottle. "At least you won't be suffering alone." She smirked. They were all kind of on this boat of shit together, really. Everybody in the building, whether they liked it or not.

She rolled her eyes as he mentioned the green bringing out their color. If anything, she thought the green made her blue eyes look weird. Then again, Joanie had never had much good to say about her appearance. She had the average amount of confidence for a teenage girl - that is to say, she had a negative amount. "Gold?" She laughed, cringing in pain at the thought. "Yeah no. No, I think I'll stick with black." She paused, frowning slightly. "And there's nothing wrong with it. It's a good color. Slimming." She nodded definitively at that.

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 08:52 pm UTC (link)

"Misery loves company, right?" Sam said wisely, folding his arms on the table and leaning in a bit. "Alright, so talk more about you besides the green - now that we've gotten that out of the way. You know, the basics. Where you're from, what you did before ending up on this planet, all of that. Maybe add some other random tidbit of your choosing, just for the hell of it." He waited patiently, as if he expected Joanie to tell her whole life story - which he sort of did.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 09:02 pm UTC (link)

"Clearly. Can't think of any other reason why I'm still here," she replied flippantly. She was content to trade quips when he shoved all that fun aside and began to act outrageously. She raised a brow as he asked about her life story. Was he for real? Did people actually do this? She snorted, laughing in disbelief.

"The basics about me?" she asked. When he didn't contradict her, she realized that she'd either have to evade like hell or actually have a conversation with a human being. Both options sounded hard. "I'm from a house that always had the AC running, I used to be a space pirate before some assholes on Pluto gave me the wrong directions out of spite, and I have done nothing with my degree in sociology."

She raised a brow, flicking her fingers at him. "Now your turn."

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 09:31 pm UTC (link)

Sam twisted the beer bottle cap around on the table, looking at Joanie with a combo of disbelief and amusement. "Oooh, great! This is one of those two lies and a truth things. Okay..." he started, trapping the bottle cap with his hand. "Let me figure this out. The AC running is a metaphor for how you grew up in a cold and unloving environment, am I right? Sociology, that's killer. And I would have taken you for a Mars girl, personally."

Two could play at this game. "I'm from a cluttered house filled with carnival mirrors. I used to be Captain Jack Sparrow before I ran out of rum, fell into a black hole, and ended up here. I graduated from Cornell. Figure out which one is the truth," he challenged sarcastically.

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 09:42 pm UTC (link)

She raised a brow as he speculated on her answers. Honestly, she had thrown out whatever popped from the top of her head. Was there any grains of hidden, deep truth in them? Not really. She snorted as he concluded. "Actually, the AC thing can be taken at face value. I grew up in the south." She stuck her tongue out childishly in an "I win" gesture. Though her accent was perfectly covered up when she was sober, another few beers would tease that southern drawl out. "And they say men are from Mars, so you'll excuse me if that assumption seems suspect."

As he started, she leaned against her elbows, listening with mock intensity. "Okay," she said, holding out her hands and ticking off things one by one. "I suppose the carnival mirrors could be true, however seeing yourself in them all the time might have given you self-esteem problems, and from what I can tell, you aren't lacking that at all." She moved on to her second finger. "Now I know Captain Sparrow, so that one can't be true. That must leave Cornell." She crossed her arms, leaning back in her seat and smirking. "So, are you an Ivy League brat?"

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tiger_says_rawr
2010-06-14 09:56 pm UTC (link)

"Is Captain Sparrow in the building too?" Sam asked with fake shock evident in his tone. "Well, shit! You win, Josie." Hmm, yes, he liked that one! He may stick with it for the time being. "And the AC was on all the time, which must have meant...you came from at least an upper middle class family? Using the AC can be expensive."

At the Ivy League brat comment, he nodded. "Yeah, I am. But you like me anyway, right?" He grinned and set the empty bottle aside. "Next round is you, just so you know. Though maybe I could be persuaded if you tell me something else."

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wickedwicker
2010-06-14 10:04 pm UTC (link)

Josie? She supposed she had been called worse. His surprise at Captain Sparrow's existence made her snicker. So Russell wasn't exactly Captain Jack, but he was close enough. Besides, "Deppititis" was too funny to let go. "Of course I win," she said breezily. As he began to question her family's economic status, she snorted and gestured to her nose, which had a fairly prominent bump at the bridge. "Clearly, I'm Jewish. You shouldn't be surprised."

As he kept talking, she raised a brow. "You should never ask somebody that question," she said with a smirk. "It opens you up way too much, which just takes all the fun away." Leaning against her elbow as he mentioned the second round, she snorted. "So basically you're asking me which I value more: dignity or beer. Is that it?"