Who: Katou & Jack What: Dream talks and naked sketches. No, he does not paint Katou like one of his French girls, just shows him drawings, gawd. When: Backdated to Easter, before Katou half-died on Wendy's sheets! Where: Wendy's abode. Rating/Warnings: Low Status: Complete!
Katou had gone out earlier, and had picked up a dozen Easter cupcakes, some with bunnies on them, some with chicks, and some with those little mini-candy covered chocolate eggs. He didn’t have any dreams intention of giving them to Jack or Wendy, but, well, he had brought a few more than he was going to eat, so if they wanted to have a couple, he supposed he could allow it. He definitely hadn’t bought them specifically so the three of them could eat them or anything.
He had also bought some new strings for his guitar - his old ones were well overdue for a changing. And so, he found himself sitting on Wendy’s couch, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and a half eaten cupcake sitting on the table, intent on restringing his guitar.
‘Tis the season for chocolate rabbits and yellow little chicks with gooey marshmallowy insides, right? And egg coloring, though Jack had no idea how - he might have done it once when he was young and at school, but his mother was too busy working or drinking to ever take a minute to amuse him on Easter day. She’d come home with a couple chocolate eggs, so something was better than nothing.
“These are the shit,” Jack quipped, snatching up the spot next to Katou with a cupcake for himself, working on the icing first and foremost. “By the way, Wendy’s out. The whole swapped bodies thing is pretty weird. And she literally pissed all over the toilet bowl - I don’t think she knows how to aim it?”
“Ain’t they?” Katou asked, a little distracted as he threaded the last string. “My buddy Izzy made them.” Well, he assumed she had made them. He had bought them from Baxter Bakery, so he supposed that it could have been someone else, but he didn’t care about any of the other people who worked there.
The last string in place, he took a brief break before he began tuning it to take another bite of his cupcake. He couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of Wendy pissing all over the seat. “Well, I can’t blame her. I miss half the time,” mostly because he was drunk and/or high, “and I’ve had this thing my whole life. It’s totally fucking weird though. Like something you’d read in a comic book or something.”
“There’s a clear difference of when you take a piss, and when Wendy with a penis takes a piss,” Jack pointed out, hand motions and everything to emphasize his point. But he, too, missed Wendy’s soft femininity - it was a house with two guys and a woman, and with Wendy trapped in a man (a vampire man, of all things), it was like a sausage fest under the roof.
Anyway, he sunk into the couch comfortable and bit into the cupcake without mercy, taking a chocolate egg into his mouth to devour. “This is the second time I’ve witnessed this place going damn haywire. I feel like an actual citizen.” A very legit feeling, he’ll have you know. “Anything new? Maybe we can find an open bar. Do bars stay open during Easter?”
Katou snorted. “If citizenship involves being forced to tell the truth, and randomly swapping bodies, I’ll pass.” Actually, now that Katou thought about it… “You know, I’ve lived here my whole life, and I don’t remember anything weird like this happening before. That’s kinda strange, right?”
He looked at his guitar. He really, really hated tuning the thing. It didn’t help that he didn’t actually have a guitar tuner, and had to do the whole thing by ear. But it was such a giant pain in the ass. “Bar sounds great,” he said. “I don’t see why bars wouldn’t be open during Easter. People like getting drunk for the holidays. I'm sure [dive bar] will be open at the very least."
“Maybe you didn’t start noticing how batshit things were until you began the whole dreaming thing?” Jack shrugged. Possible, he guessed, but he wasn’t a metaphysic theorists that studied the OC and it’s ridiculous shenanigans much. He traveled far and wide and he had to say that this place took the damn cake with its uniqueness and hidden culture of ‘dreamers.’
If only those LSD accusations were true…
His bar suggestion sounded alright - he knew he really shouldn’t be encouraging Katou with certain things but he was certain he was stubborn enough to go out on his own anyway. Jack might as well play chaperone and tag along, make sure he stayed out of trouble. Moderation was key with alcohol. Drugs, though, he wasn’t touching that one.
“Sounds good to me,” he said, right before shoving a fistful of cupcake into his face, icing and cake crumbs all over his mouth. At least he waited to chew and swallow before continuing. “On our way back we’ll have to see what place is open to get Wendy something to cheer her up with. She’s freaking out about filing systems and drinking blood.”
Both very unrelated horrors, but still legit around these parts.
“You’re the second person to mention dreams to me as if they’re some sorta weird occurance,” Katou said, raising an eyebrow. “Pretty sure I’ve been having ‘em since I was a kid.” He had had one strange dream, over a month ago, but as it was pretty much just his childhood but in Japanese, he didn’t think much of it. It definitely hadn’t been as strange as the doughnut world dream that he had had a few weeks ago. The heroin tended to give Katou some pretty weird, vivid dreams anyway. “You think vampires can eat cupcakes?” Katou asked, closing the box of cupcakes. He went to go put them in the fridge. “Not that I like, bought them for you guys or nothing like that, but she can have some. If she can… you know. Eat them.”
That was a valid question - could vampires eat cupcakes? Either way, worth a try, or they could save one for her whenever the stars aligned and everything was back to its natural order. Adjusting to a man’s body was proving to be, uh, a little stressful - and a little messy - for their British Mother Hen.
“I’ve gotten shit from my dreams - ever wanted to see some old school boat tickets to the Titanic? The Titanic? The unsinkable ship that actually sank?” The ship of dreams is what they called it. “Also got my sketchbook from there. Filled with a lot more nudity than my actual one, too.” A lot of French woman liked their nude bodies sketched, apparently - he’d been happy to oblige, but for more artistic reasons than...manly reasons.
“Do I ever,” Katou said, actually kind of excited despite himself. Old tickets for the Titanic actually sounded pretty cool. “And a sketchbook filled with naked chicks also sounds fucking cool.”
Actually stopping to think about what Jack said made Katou frown a little to himself. “Whaddaya mean getting shit from your dreams though? They just like, show up?” Izzy had mentioned getting weapons from her dreams, but Katou hadn’t followed up with an questions on account of the fact that he figured she must have been high.
Jack always traveled light. Not a lot of things held sentimental value aside from his personal sketchbook, and lucky him the items so far were small in the scenario of him backpacking again. “They just...show up. Like a dream fairy that pops by and gives you free shit you only see in dreams,” he explained, brows raised with a shrug. He didn’t seem too bothered by it. He accepted the strange bullshit fairly easily. Kept things interesting, made for awesome stories.
But anyway, to the stuff - he motioned over to spare bedroom and pulled two third class tickets out, flapping them in Katou’s direction. “Won it gambling. Lucky me, to win tickets to a sinking ship, right? I need to be an internet meme.”
“Oh man that’s cool,” Katou said, reaching forward to pluck the tickets out of Jack’s hand to get a better look at them. “Didja get off the boat okay?” He wasn’t sure just how much he bought into this whole dream thing, but it really wasn’t all that weird when he thought about the fact that his roommate was temporarily (hopefully) a fucking vampire.
These dream things were kinda cool when he thought about it. Izzy got lots of cool weapons and fought people, Jack was on arguably the most famous ship of all time (well, famous for the fact that it was a fucking tragedy, but still pretty famous and that would probably be cool). “Think I’ll start this dream thing?” Maybe he’d be the pimpingest pimp ever and have lots of hot chicks hanging all over him because he was totally straight, really guys.
The tickets looked aged, much larger than their modern counterparts. Like an old relic, really - and if Jack touched them again his memory would hit back to the docks, the smell of sea salt and even the fresh paint that had still been practically drying off the damn vessel. “Not off the boat yet,” he sighed, more in an ‘oh well’ kind of way. “The ship sinks. Historically, anyway. The only way I’ll get off it is in a lifeboat -” which there didn’t seem enough of, actually, “- or I’ll drown.”
Considering the ocean was so cold it’d be like hitting thousands and thousands of daggers, it didn’t sound pleasant. Actually made him crave a cigarette - there was a fresh pack in his backpocket, and he’d have to step outside. Wendy would hang him by his balls if she came home and her quaint furniture smelled like an ashtray.
Next was the even older sketchbook, the one gifted in the dreams. It was frail, having been through plenty of travels, and the paper smelled like something old. Plenty of sketches were etched inside, hands and little girls and - oh. Naked French women. He’d let Katou see that, too. “And you might. I hear some people get really cool shit - super powers. Weapons. I got tickets to a ship that sinks, so the grass ain’t always greener on the other side.”
Katou took a closer look at the tickets before handing them back to Jack. “Well, if you ever wanted to sell them, they’d probably fetch a pretty penny.”
He looked through the sketches that Jack had drawn. He let out an impressed whistle. “Hey, these aren’t completely terrible.” He knew that Jack drew - had seen him sketching sometimes - but he had never really paid too much attention before. He definitely didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings in general.
“Super powers too? No shit,” that was actually pretty cool. Comics were for complete nerds and losers, but when he had nothing better to do, sometimes he read his friends’ comics and they were … well, not cool, but Katou sometimes enjoyed it. “Maybe I’ll dream I’m like, fucking Superman or something. Shoot lasers outta my eyes.”
Jack thought about it, but, nah. He didn’t need a pretty penny. Those tickets felt personal; they’d transcended realms, apparently. Or however it worked. He didn’t really think much about the metaphysical machinations of receiving items you dreamed out. Seemed complicated anyway, and he was sure people tried coming up with explanations? He’d leave that to the more qualified residents of this little melting pot of worlds.
There’d been clothes, too - the raggedy old things that he wore. Old boots, suspenders and trousers, a button up shirt with light stains from various things. Just more proof that something about these things were real. Sometimes he woke up, still smelling the sea salt in the air, hearing the boat’s engine. The uppity people in their ridiculous tophats and corsets. “Hell, I wish all the best to you if you do dream,” he smirked. “Still pretty mad about the superpower thing. But ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ and I’m okay with not having a lot of responsibility right now. And if you don’t dream….don’t feel left out - your life would feel way less complicated.”
Katou couldn't help but snort at the responsibility comment. "Oh please, if I got superpowers, there ain't no way they'd come with that responsibility shit. I'd just run around and fuck with people. That whole 'saving the world' thing ain't for guys like me."
He finished flipping through the sketchbook and handed it back to Jack. "Some of those chicks are pretty hot, dude. You nail any of 'em?"
Katou really was pretty opposed to shit getting complicated. He just wanted to lead a simple, regret-free and drug-and-music-full life. It kind of bummed him out a little bit that everyone seemed to be having these dreams and he wasn't (because maybe, if he did, his dream self wouldn't be as big of a fuck-up), but when Jack put it like that, he didn't mind so much.
If he had a penny for all the times someone ever asked him that…
“I didn’t nail any of those chicks,” Jack confirmed, chuckling with a shake of his head. He actually hadn’t nailed anyone in a very long time. There was a friend back in Nevada he stayed with for a bit, they’d done a few tumbles but it was casual and the friendship was still strong - she owned an art gallery he helped with a couple times, even tried to convince him to be a ‘permanent couchsurfer,’ but the road took him other places. “All for artistic expression, cross my heart, dude. Just...you’d be surprised how many chicks dig their body being sketched naked. I respected all of ‘em, actually. They were....” A click of his tongue. “Comfortable in their own skin? Not shy, it wasn’t anything sexual. Just...natural.” Curves and edges, and every beautiful flaw.
“Really? That’s a waste. They were already naked,” Katou shrugged. He wasn’t going to get onto Jack’s case about it, though. He and Youji tended to rib each other about missed opportunities, but a) it seemed really weird to make fun of someone for what they did or did not do in a dream, and b) Jack really wasn’t a dog like Youji was. Jack was actually different than most of Katou’s friends, and if Katou was honest, it was probably one of the reasons why he liked him so much. If Katou thought about it (which he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t terribly introspective), the same part of Katou that liked hanging out with Jack and Wendy was the same part of him that had stopped him from dropping out of school so far.
He began to walk toward the door to get his shoes. “Still thirsty?” he asked.
Ahhh, hormones. Jack rolled his eyes, more amused than anything, and reached to give Katou’s shoulders a tight squeeze before snatching up his wallet (it was falling apart, at this rate he might ask Wendy to knit him a new one, he’d carry it proudly), and reconfirmed the appearance of cigarettes and a lighter. Check.
“Thirsty as shit, yeah.” Drinks were still a-go, and he’d already been dressed. He was sure a bar was open; a nice watering hole for the people who didn’t have shit to do on Easter holiday to get together. Sad and convenient. He’d gotten a good bit of money from working odd jobs, and he’d given a decent share to Wendy to help out - food and bills, something, so he wouldn’t feel like a mooch. Not that he made much, but Jack wanted to help out somehow. And even then, he still had some drinking money left!
Adulthood. This is what that felt like.
“First round’s on me,” he grinned, sticking a cigarette into his mouth so it’d be ready to ignite the moment their feet stepped out of Wendy’s (house, not the fast food restaurant). “I’ll be broke after that.”
Katou let out a ‘woo!’ when Jack mentioned that the first round was on him. He too crammed a cigarette in his mouth to light once he got out the door, and gave his wallet a quick look to make sure that his fake ID was there. He did have a decent amount of money in his wallet, since he had just made a pretty good sale, and he was feeling pretty generous this weekend, so if Jack ran out of money, Katou'd probably buy him a few rounds as well.