dorian pavus (necromantical) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-09-19 11:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dorian pavus, yue katou |
Who: Katou & Dorian
What: Meeting over red velvet martinis
When: Beginning of September
Where: An out-of-the-way gay bar
Rating/Warnings: Mostly low!
Status: Complete
In Garden Grove, there was one gay bar in particular that not many knew about - it was rather ‘off the beaten path,’ in fact, frequented by extremely handsome Latino men and delightful drag queens. And one Dorian Pavus, of course, since he often stopped in for a drink after work - something to wind down with, you see, because occasionally those endless hours in a courtroom arguing really got to be a little much. All for a good cause though, since it was unlikely those he represented would even have a voice if he didn’t step up to give a shit about them when the rest of society wouldn’t bother. The drinks were strong, which he appreciated - and the list of specialty cocktails was good. You couldn’t go wrong with most, so he knew when he pulled up a stool to order a Red Velvet martini from the bartender, it wouldn’t taste like a jellybean infused with alcohol. No, it was deep and rich, sweet without rotting his teeth - the rim of the glass was rolled in red sugar, and there was a smattering of cream cheese frosting as well. Not great for the waistline but he so meticulously watched what he ate most of the time that on a Friday especially? He would allow himself a little indulgence. Delish. He couldn’t help the content sigh when he picked up that elegant glass and took a sip. Katou’d come back to the Orange County because something had been calling him to return. Maybe the loneliness of being one of the only five people he knew in England who knew about the other lives they lived. Maybe it was the fact that, while he had missed Jack and Wendy like he could barely believe, he also missed everyone at home too. Or maybe it was the complete and utter lack of demons that rampaged through the town, occasionally giving Katou something to do that didn’t involve playing music, going to watch music, or drinking. The UK hadn’t had much that the OC didn’t. They had one of oldest and most famous punk scenes in the world, but Orange County was also well known for their punk bands, and it wasn’t like Katou was ever at a loss for a gig to go here. But the UK also had anonymity. Which meant that Katou could waltz into any gay bar there without the worry that someone he didn’t want to see him there would. He had no such ease of mind here. The one saving grace was that if he saw anyone he didn’t want to see walk in, he could change his face in just a second with a thought. But that meant that he had to keep an eye on the door to make sure someone didn’t sneak in and see him first. But even if he was on guard, it didn’t mean he couldn’t look good. His dreams had given him some great clothes. Tonight, he was wearing his sleeveless zip-up leather vest, with zippered breast pockets on either side, a pair of torn, tight blue jeans, and the Doc Marten combat boots he usually wore out, with his shoulder-length blond hair tied back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. “What can I get you?” the bartender asked. “I’ll get a…” Katou had been about to turn his gaze toward the door again, but his eyes stuck at whatever it was the person next to him was drinking. Was that frosting? “Hey, Mustache. What’s that you got?” Dorian didn’t answer at first, just lifted a curious eyebrow. Well, that was a greeting. That was also an outfit - he hadn’t seen anyone work a leather vest like that in awhile, but in a spot on the map that never really knew what winter was? Or fall? Or any change of season at all? Why not. “It’s a red velvet martini, my good man,” he responded (sorry, Mustache didn’t really do nicknames), turning on his stool a little to face whomever spoke to him. His outfit wasn’t as punk - just a pair of pressed slacks, a crisp dress shirt, and a smart burgundy velvet blazer. No tie. Not necessary at the moment. “Highly recommended. Tastes like cake and chocolate, a little citrus.” It really was like liquid cake though, so not really an everyday sort of drink - he also wouldn’t advise more than one, but he personally didn’t plan to consume more than that anyway. Katou raised an eyebrow. Good man? He was trying to decide if Mustache here was making fun of him, but then his thoughts moved on. “You had me at chocolate,” he said cheerfully, and then added, almost mockingly, “my good man.” He ordered one, then took a seat seat in the bar stool next to him. He turned so he had both the guy and the door in his sights. “I didn’t even know they could make cake flavoured drinks. You know any others?” “Oh, certainly. Cake vodka is real, and it’s not bad. There’s a vanilla cake drink I know of that’s quite delicious. Then there’s more recently cake-flavored wine, black forest and strawberry and I think coffee cake - but it seems more prudent to enjoy a slice of cake and a glass of wine separate, not together. I make my own wine, so I’m a bit of a snob about it,” Dorian admitted with a chuckle. A bit was an understatement - he took wine seriously, and Maker help you if you did something like drink it from a box in his presence. But yes, he could go on about that for ages. A relaxing side hobby for him when he wasn’t annihilating the opposition in the courtroom. “There’s also a pub in Anaheim called The Hanged Man that has dessert drinks - and a drink in my honor, apparently, so I’ve tasted myself.” And it was top-notch, as it should be. Katou had no taste for wine. It really was the kind of thing that snotty rich people tended to drink. But he could probably get behind a nice, chocolatey, black forest wine. “So how’s that work? Do you get a bucket of grapes and then stomp around on it? Because that always looked like a good time when I saw it on TV.” He grinned widely. “I’ve been to the Hanged Man a couplea times. What’s that drink I always get. The King Alistair? Is that yours? Because it’s damn good.” Chocolate, ice cream, alcohol. These were a few of his favourite things. “I live on a vineyard, so I’ve plenty of access to grapes - and something like that, yes. Though technology these days allows me to keep my feet pristine,” Dorian replied. He didn’t have a lot of spare time but when he did, he was busy fermenting and creating. Wine, that is. Beer. Other spirits. Perhaps he seemed like an alcoholic at first glance but he would easily share the fruits of his labor - everyone needed a hobby, right? And he was pleased to hear that his newfound friend here had also been to The Hanged Man. Dorian felt a connection with it, thanks to both Hawke and Isabela apparently sharing his dreamscape. “I have not tried the King Alistair, but I’m sure it’s delicious,” he laughed jovially. “I’m Dorian though. Dorian Pavus,” and he held out his hand for a proper greeting. “And you are?” “Huh. The feet thing seems like it’d be more fun than just pressing a button.” But hey, what did Katou know? He’d only known people stomped on grapes in the first place because of television. “That’s too bad. Though, so long as you ain’t the Champion’s Cock I’m sure you taste fine too,” Katou said, winking. “Katou,” he said. “Nice ta meet you, Dori.” “Should you ever want to stomp on grapes and cross it off your bucket list, I suppose I could arrange something for you,” Dorian offered, all out of sheer amusement - and granted, Dori was a better nickname than ‘Mustache’ so he’d take it (though wasn’t that a fish from Finding Nemo? Ah, well). The wink made him chuckle. He hasn’t ever tasted the Champion’s Cock either but from what he heard, it wasn’t bad - oh, ho, ho. “Suppose you’ll have to find out, won’t you?” he said, picking up his martini glass and sipping. “Nice to meet you as well. And what is it that you do around here? This is, by far, the oddest place I’ve ever lived.” He hadn’t really lived in many other spots, but he’d traveled. Nowhere compared to the OC, but then again, it had only gotten more interesting as of late. Katou couldn't stop the grin from crossing his face at the idea of stomping on grapes. Truth be told, he'd never even considered it, so it wasn't on his bucket list. But hey, who could pass up an offer like that? “Suppose I will,” he said, his grin fading into something closer to a smirk. “Me? I’m a secret agent in a top secret government agency,” he said airly, well aware that there were very few people who would actually believe him. “It’s a pretty sweet gig. But yeah, there’s no place quite like the OC. I just came back from living abroad for a few months. I never thought I’d say that London was boring, but it sure ain’t like home. Where else’ve you lived?” Funnily enough, Dorian did believe him. If he personally could shoot fire and ice from his hands then meeting a ‘secret agent’ in a gay bar didn’t really seem like too much of a stretch. “I won’t ask for details about your line of work, then,” he decided. “If you tell me, you might have to kill me, et cetera.” Ah, London. He’d been there a couple of times - a well-seasoned traveler and wanderer of the world, that was what he considered himself. Though of course putting down roots was a whole other sort of thing. “I’ve always lived in California though we’ve got extended family in India - traveled all over in that neck of the words, did some sightseeing in Europe as well when I was more carefree in my younger college days.” Sightseeing and debauchery. The amount of alcohol and drugs he’d put into his system should well have rendered him dead by now, but he was made of steel apparently. “Now I’m an attorney representing LGBT clients, in a variety of cases. The wild oats have been sowed.” Most of them anyway. “Good. I hate it when I have to kill the hot ones,” Katou teased. Frankly, he wasn’t sure if the Agency would care much. Sure, ‘normies’ didn’t really know about it, but given that it seemed to be an open secret among dreamers, he doubted there’d be much repercussions if some poor innocent non-dreamer stumbled upon the secret. “Huh. Sounds fun. I never really thought about travelling much before I went to England. It was my first trip outta the state. But now I’m thinking I might check out Japan or something or something. My parents came from there. That, and I speak Japanese.” Besides, he dreamed of Tokyo. His time in Tokyo ended in 1999, and it might be interesting to see how the city had changed in the last two decades. “Seems a shame that you sowed all your oats though. Sounds a little boring, being all responsible and lawyery.” The I hate when I have to kill the hot ones made him laugh; Dorian felt a bit like a sexual predator since his bar companion looked young - the exact age he didn’t know, but perhaps not old enough to drink legally in this country. However, he was at least old enough to where prison time wouldn’t be an issue, so that was something. “You speak Japanese?” He lifted a brow, obviously impressed. That was a useful language to know. “Oh, you should certainly travel there at some point. I’ve never been to that particular spot of the continent - “ It was about a seven hour flight from, say, New Delhi to Tokyo (many people forgot that India was actually a country in South Asia; geography wasn’t the strong suit of most Americans). “But it seems quite intriguing. I hear the food is a lot different than the bastardized versions of Japanese food over here.” Healthier, for one thing - not as soaked in oil? More tofu? The mage shifted on his stool a bit, legs crossed with one knee tucked over the other. “And I doubt I’ve sown all my oats,” he pointed out. “One must always keep a supply at the ready to be sown when opportunity strikes.” “Yeah. My mom didn’t speak much English, so it was pretty much all we spoke at home.” He and Sae spoke English when it was just the two of them, since it was the language they were both more comfortable with, but Katou’d had the impression that his dad never really let his mom learn much more absolutely necessary. Sae had told him that she’d started making an effort to learn now that his old man had kicked the bucket. “I mean, some things are pretty close. You can’t really fuck up sashimi or nigiri. But maki rolls are totally different, and good luck trying to find some decent Japanese Curry in this place unless you’re lucky enough to get an actual Japanese person to cook it. What about Indian food? Samosas as good there as they are here?” Katou took a mental breath, though to his credit his trademark cocksure grin looked only a little strained. Going to the bar and picking up guys hadn’t been something he’d done before he went to England, but a foreign country where pretty much no one knew him had opened all kinds of doors for him. He’d been determined to get laid tonight, but now he kept worrying that someone he recognized was going to spot him chatting with some sexy older LGBT lawyer in a gay bar, because that was subtle. Still, this was all part of being alive or something. “Yeah? How’d you like to do some sowing back at your place?” he asked, and his smile faded to a contemplative frown. That didn’t sound nearly as smooth coming out as it had in his head. “Samosas are actually similar. I’d say the biggest difference is the level of spice - each portion of India, or even down to the individual family, has their own spice mix and I think many Americans would have their tastebuds burned off,” Dorian chuckled. “Americans also add cream to some dishes where it doesn’t need to be, but that’s pretty typical of here.” Adding fat whenever possible, why not! And supersize everything. The next bit from Katou, however, would have the dignified attorney doing a spittake if he had been drinking - but luckily he hadn’t been. He simply tapped his fingers on the bartop, eyebrows shooting skyward. Sure, he’d been propositioned before (and had even indulged in hookups, many of them, during his wilder days - now he usually tended to avoid that sort of thing), but there was something strange about this one. “You seem at war with yourself,” he observed. In fact, he distinctly recognized it - this was obviously someone who wasn’t out of the closet yet. A pity. However, it was a personal thing and there were probably reasons why the younger man wasn’t. Now it seemed he had an itch to scratch, and it was difficult doing that when you hid such a large part of who you were. “We can go back to my place but you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Katou's contemplative frown turned into a scowl, which he then quickly turned into a cheerful smile. It had bothered him to be seen through so easily, but only a second’s thought told him that, at this point, there was no point in denying it. “Hey, gotta be at war with something, right?” he said cheerfully. “I mean sure, every now and then this weird ass county gets invaded by freaks, but you gotta have something to fill the downtime with something. I wouldn’ta asked to do something I wasn't into though.” Dorian had been in those shoes before - but then he just sort of gave up on being who his family expected him to be, or who society expected him to be. He decided to be himself, and he wasn’t going to change a damn thing about that either. Because in his view, ‘himself’ was more than good enough. In fact, he’d bristle pretty hard if anyone told him he should change. Eventually, he hoped this young man got there as well. “Fair enough,” he said, leaving some money to cover drinks on the bartop. “Let’s journey onward then, shall we?” At the very least, Mr. Katou seemed like he could use someone to talk to who understood that internal war, something that straight folk oftentimes did not - so they’d see what happened when they got back to his place. No judgments if he just wanted to cuddle either. |