InsaneJournal

Who: Jaina and Theo
What: Jaina invites Theo out for an evening of letting go.
When: Recently
Where: A club
Warnings: PG-13ish for alcohol and dancing in a club



Music pounded behind Jaina’s eyes, and she almost rued her decision to meet Theo here, except this had been her idea and if she was honest, the view was fantastic. From where she leaned on the railing of the second floor she could see everyone dancing, and there were a lot of very attractive men and women, a lot of people to choose from to dance with.

Theo had been a very interesting person to be tethered to, and they hadn’t wanted to kill each other at the end of it. So Jaina had invited her out with no expectation but a dance. Jaina scanned the floor, trying to see if she was already there and maybe hoping to check her out while she danced first.

All things considered, being tethered to Jaina hadn’t been such a bad thing. It could’ve been far worse, and Theo knew it. Of course, she had gotten a little testy towards the end of the experience if only because she valued her personal space rather intensely. But she’d managed to not bite Jaina’s head off. She’d apologized for that, but still felt a little bad about it. Which was one of the reasons she’d agreed to go out with Jaina that evening. Truthfully, Theo could use a night a out, and whatever happened, happened. And she liked Jaina, even if she was being overly cautious about it.

Theo had gotten to the club a bit early, wanting a little time on the dance floor before meeting Jaina. It wouldn’t take away from the experience of the night with Jaina at all, Theo just wanted to expend some baggage so she wasn’t so weighed down. Dance was Theo’s outlet, and she loved being on the dance floor. She was dressed for the occasion, opting for pants instead of a skirt, and she had a tank top on. She didn’t stand out in the crowd unless someone was specifically looking for her. Theo’s eyes were closed as she moved to the music, letting off some steam as she threw her hair around.

Jaina found Theo after another minute or two and smiled as she watched her dance. She liked the way the other woman moved, and the way she filled out her clothing. Perhaps the best thing about moving to the OC was all the women she’d met; Jaina finally got to really indulge in her latent bisexuality. Maybe she’d find a man she liked, but her dreams kept reminding her she was a bad judge of men.

And maybe a bad judge of women too but it might be worth it. Slipping away from the railing, Jaina made for a staircase that spiraled around several cages where attractive women danced, and made her way towards Theo.

Had her childhood gone differently, Theo might’ve attempted to become a professional dancer. But as it was, she was happy with her chosen profession. She enjoyed helping people, even if she often didn’t take her own advice that she gave to her patients. But that was partly just how she was. Theo didn’t open up to people easily, if at all, and she could run both hot and cold depending on her mood. Today, she was in a relatively good mood, and blowing off steam always helped.

Theo spotted Jaina shortly before she got to her. She gave her a smile. “Hey,” she greeted when Jaina got close enough.

“Hey,”Jaina said, slipping past a couple grinding against each other and all but inserting herself into Theo’s arms. It was easier that way, and they could talk, or dance. Or both at once. “You looked like you were having fun and I didn't want to interrupt.”

“Don’t worry about it. I got here early to specifically lose myself for a little while before meeting you.” Theo responded, not minding the closeness to Jaina at all. She kept dancing, not quite able to stop herself from moving to the music. “Did you just get here?”

“A little bit ago. I wanted to people watch first.” Jaina inhaled deeply, moving her hips a little and trying to find some kind of rhythm. Her dreamself would be horrified to see her dancing like a trollop.

So she decided to dance like a trollop.

“Nothing wrong with that. See anyone that caught your eye?” Theo had taken a minute to glance over the dancefloor herself when she’d first arrived, but no one had really caught her attention. Of course, a couple guys had tried to catch her attention, but she blew them off. Men weren’t her thing.

“One or two,” Jaina said. “But they all had partners or were otherwise lost in the dance.” And she’d wanted to watch, rather than get involved with someone when she was still waiting on Theo to arrive. Not that she had any intention of going home with Theo.

Not that she’d mind that outcome.

Mostly she just wanted to forget her problems and her dreams.

“That’s how it goes sometimes. Though at least we have each other now, right?” Theo wasn’t angling for taking anyone home. If it happened, it happened. If it didn’t, it didn’t. They would just have to wait and see how things progressed that evening.

“We do,” Jaina agreed, falling silent as the song changed and became too energetic to try to speak over, let alone try to speak and dance to. A part of her still felt out of place, that warring between Lady Proudmoore and Just Jaina. But she ignored it.

When the song changed, it didn’t take very long before Theo was moving to the beat. She had good rhythm, and she made good use of it. She threw her arms up, bumping against Jaina as she danced. It was partially intentional, partially getting pushed around by the crowd.

The bumping around actually made Jaina laugh, and she hip-checked Theo before sliding an arm around her waist to keep her close. Jaina felt as though the best part of dancing like this was a sort of anonymous intimacy that one couldn’t get anywhere else.

Theo couldn’t help but laugh at the hip-check. When Jaina put her arm around her, Theo draped an arm over her shoulder, dancing close to her, definitely not minding the closeness. Right now, she kind of craved it. This was one of the reasons she liked clubs. While she was intensely protective of her personal bubble, when she wanted human contact, she went to a club so she could bump and grind against people.

It was too loud for conversation, and they were moving too fast for it anyway. Jaina let her body do the speaking, let herself get lost in the music and the physicality of it. Music, after all, was a form of science, of math, which was as beautiful a part of nature as anything else that Jaina loved and studied. She wondered if there was music inside her magic too.

Something to think about another day, when her skin wasn’t burning and the energy of the club wasn’t flooding her body with adrenaline and desire.

Sometimes losing one’s self in the music and the physicality of dancing with someone was needed more than someone realized. Theo hadn’t exactly meant to get lost in the music quite like this, but it was definitely something she liked. And something she was suddenly realizing she needed.

Theo pressed a little closer to Jaina. She was starting to get a little sweaty from the heat of the people on the dancefloor and from the friction of rubbing against Jaina.

Jaina’s skin was slick, her top sticking to her from the sweat. Her eyes were closed, her mouth hanging open slightly as she danced and tried to keep her breathing steady, even if her heart-rate was anything but steady. Jaina dug her fingers into Theo’s hip, pressing back against her, rolling her hips, breasts against breasts.

It wasn’t easy to keep breathing steadily in a club. Not with the bass reverberating through one’s chest and everyone else seemingly pressing in on one. She licked her lips and groaned a little feeling the way Jaina’s fingers dug into her hip. She pressed closer, setting her other hand on Jaina’s hip, her other arm still draped on Jaina’s shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked at Jaina, rolling her hips to the beat.

A low curse rumbled out of Jaina’s throat, and she didn’t care where she was or who she was with, there was only the music and the heat of Theo’s body and energy rippling through her as if she were absorbing the beat and the heat of the bodies around her.

Before she could do something she’d regret, Jaina turned around in her arms, leaning her back against Theo’s chest and tilting her head back exposing her throat.

When Jaina turned around, Theo pressed against her back, keeping her hands on her hips. She was a little shorter than Jaina, but when Jaina exposed her throat, it was rather enticing. However, she managed to not ravage it. She instead set her chin on her shoulder.

At least that kept things from escalating too quickly for Jaina’s taste. All she wanted was to feel something right now, and the dancing and closeness and physicality were doing exactly what she wanted. “Why does it feel so good to let go?”

“I don’t know, but I always have loved letting go.” Letting go in these sorts of situations, of course. At all other times, Theo preferred to keep it all inside. It was why it always felt so good to let go, it was expending pent up crap and letting herself feel lighter for a little while.

“It’s so hard for people like me to do so.” Jaina admitted. It wasn’t just her magic, it was just how she was. Jaina was by nature a student, a scholar. She hated when she let her emotions guide her more than logic, even if it happened more often than not. So maybe she was fooling herself.

Maybe it was just that it was too easy to let go, to unleash that power and her emotions. Jaina’s eyes glowed when she opened them again.

“I totally understand that,” Theo replied. She may not claim to be the biggest control freak in her family (in her opinion, that was definitely her sister Shirley), but Theo could definitely be a control freak when it came to her own emotions and pushing people away. She didn’t like people getting too close to her, it made her uncomfortable and she didn’t want to reveal her deep, dark secrets to anyone. Outside of what she revealed in sessions with her patients to build trust, of course.

“You love to let go, but you don’t let go that often,” Jaina guessed, turning around again, a faint trail of violet light following her head. She blinked her eyes and the magic faded. “Because it’s easy to start but hard to stop. At least for me.”

“More like I don’t like being open more than I need to be,” she responded. She noted that little trail of violet light. Theo hadn’t quite intended to make that admission, but she was being less of a clenched fist with hair at the moment, so it came out a bit easier than it normally would.

“Maybe that’s a lesson I need to get better at.” It had gotten her hurt with Arthas, and set her at odds with her own people of Kul Tiras as well as the Horde. It felt like no one respected Theramore’s neutrality.

“Perhaps,” Theo responded. She continued moving to the beat of the song, more than enjoying this. Sometimes it was good to be open, sometimes it wasn’t. Right now, it was good to be open and let go.

The music shifted, and Jaina put a few more inches between them, suddenly thirsty for more than dancing and debauchery. She pushed some strand of sweaty hair out of her eyes, peering at Theo. “Let me buy you a drink. I really need one myself.”

“I could definitely go for a drink,” Theo responded. She could use the breather herself. Finding an opening, she led Jaina off of the dancefloor and towards the bar. Once there, she ordered a martini for herself.

Jaina opted for something a sweet, with a lot of alcohol in it, and then paid for both drinks as she settled onto a bar stool. “This was a good idea. Don’t you think?”

Theo sat down on the stool next to Jaina, taking a couple breaths as she waited for her drink. “Yeah, it was a good idea. Thanks for the invite,” she said with a smile.

“You’re welcome, Theo.” Jaina focused her attention on the dancers, growing lost in thought. Lost was a good word for the mood she was in. Adrift at sea, in life, with no sign of land on the horizon. At least in her dreams she had purpose, a reason for being.

The only thing she had from her dreams was her magic, but that was at least the one thing that belonged wholly to herself.

But she still wished she could find some purpose awake.

Theo watched the dancers for some moments before she simply people-watched. Similar to Jaina, she seemed to have an ability from her Dreams that was crossing over, but Theo had no clue what exactly it was or how to even manage it. Of course, it was also confusing for her to Dream since she dreamt about being a ten year old in an old house that was constantly freezing despite the fact it was the heat of the summer.

She shivered suddenly, feeling a chill run up her spine. She glanced around, spotting a woman moving towards the door. Her hair color and hair style were very similar to her mother’s. There was perhaps a moment where Theo turned a little pale, but whether she actually saw a ghost or just saw someone who looked similar to her mother didn’t matter. She saw ghosts regularly enough that she rarely reacted to them beyond the shiver from the cold spot they generated if she was close enough.

Taking her drink in hand when it arrived, she took a long sip of it. Sometimes she really hated her “gift.” It made her feel like a freak, and the only person who accepted that about her was her younger sister. Sometimes she regretted moving so far away from Nell, and her other siblings to an extent, but she’d wanted a change to her life. Now she sort of wanted to take it back and go back to Boston.

But that would be admitting defeat, right? Theo definitely didn’t want to do that either.

“Are you okay?” Jaina asked,noticing the way Theo had seemed to shiver, like she’d seen a ghost. She had no idea how accurate that could be. Jaina put her hand on Theo’s arm.

When Jaina touched her arm, Theo felt that sensation of being adrift that Jaina had. It was really difficult to mask her reaction to getting that influx of emotions that definitely weren’t her own, but she managed to. And she managed to not look at Jaina’s hand like she wanted to push it off.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. I could probably use a second drink after this.” She said with a smile up at Jaina before she practically downed her martini. Whatever was happening, she didn’t like it, and it made her feel even more like a freak on top of being a medium. Perhaps she should just stop wearing tanktops and forever wear sleeves so people couldn’t make skin-to-skin contact with her.

Jaina looked doubtful, but she nodded and withdrew her hand to signal the bartender for two more drinks. Whatever was bothering Theo was Theo’s own business and while she’d be open to listening, she wasn’t going to push someone she didn’t know so well. Even people she knew well, like Chloe, were difficult to press at the best of times.

“Starting to feel too loud in here, I think.”

Theo was definitely one that never gave in to pushing. She’d push back just as hard, if not harder. She was always headstrong, more than happy with carrying her own demons and not talking to people about things that bothered her. Which was kind of hilarious given she was a psychologist, but it was how she’d always handled her problems.

“A little too crowded.” Theo liked things loud because it meant she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. And overthinking was one of her pitfalls.

Jaina picked up her new drink, and then slid off the stool. “Then lets take our drinks and go for a walk. It’s nice and cool outside. And quiet.”

She felt, suddenly, a lot more sober and subdued, and while she still needed some kind of escape or exertion, she knew the spring air would cool her down.

“Sounds like a plan,” she responded as she took her new drink in hand and headed for the door. While Theo liked clubs, she could only tolerate being that close to so many people for so long before she needed to get away from them. She wasn’t exactly someone who liked being touched overly much. She was definitely not a hugger, something her siblings could attest to. Though the only sibling of hers she willingly hugged and tended to initiate contact with was Nell. Everyone else had to work for a hug from Theo.

Jaina let the way outside, downing her drink as she moved through the crowded club. By the time she reached the exit she was able to put her empty glass down and then step out into the evening.

The cold air had the effect she was hoping for. While it wasn’t the chill of a new england March, back home, it still helped.

Theo also made short work of her drink, setting the empty glass down before she stepped outside. “Fuck, I should’ve brought a sweatshirt,” she cursed as she rubbed at her arms. It was cold, but not nearly as cold as she was used to in Boston, and yet it felt like winter to her. At least she was wearing pants. She wasn’t going to bother to ask Jaina if she was cold because Theo already knew no one, except possibly Elsa, would be as cold as Theo was on a daily basis.

“I could help with that,” Jaina offered, conjuring a little ball of flame to float around Theo. While it generated heat, it wouldn’t actually catch anything on fire or burn someone, but it could at least offer a bit of comfort.

And Jaina liked doing few things more than use her magic to help people, even if it was something as simple as heat.

Despite knowing about Jaina’s magic, it was still a little surprising to see a little ball of flame. But she was grateful. “Thanks. I didn’t used to be so cold, but this place is absolutely frigid more often than not.” And considering the things that happened here, like invasions and fighting? Theo had a feeling that it was cold because this place was littered with ghosts. Or something of the sort.

“I gave up trying to figure out the weather patterns here,” Jaina admitted. “But then my introduction was the sun disappearing for a week, so I had a rough start.”

And no, she would never, ever forget that. One did not move to California and have the laws of physics upended the same week and just forget about that, no matter how much magic and other insanity crossed her path.

“At this point, I’m just waiting for the damn dragons or something.”

Theo looked over at Jaina. “If dragons come, I’m going to hope the White Walkers aren’t coming in behind them.” She totally deadpanned that. Was there anyone here that dreamed of Westeros? Did that even matter? “At any rate, if a dragon comes, I’m going to hide behind you since you can actually fight them. I’d just make a snack for them.”

Luckily, they’d already had the walking dead, but Jaina knew her dreams could throw any number of things at them. Dragons, earthquakes, and gods knew what else. “I don’t mind. I’ve faced a few in my dreams, though most aren’t hostile if unprovoked. The big one I’ve been dreaming about lately though, he is, but he’d take a small army to defeat.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely running to you if there’s ever dragons. I’ve got no special powers to protect me.” Well, Theo had a sixth sense, but it wasn’t one that could be used to fight a dragon. Maybe empathize with it or something, but that was probably stretching it.

Jaina smiled and winked. “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.” She fretted, suddenly, that that was more flirtatious than she’d intended, but then did it really matter if it was? Either Theo was receptive or not, and Jaina had the impression it was more likely not.

She folded her arms. “Would you like a ride home? I can call an uber.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Theo responded with a smile. She didn’t mind flirting, especially from an attractive woman. At the question, she nodded. “I would appreciate that, thanks. I didn’t know how much I’d drink, so I didn’t drive myself.” She liked exercising caution in that respect.

“All right.” Jaina pulled out her phone and brought up the app. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to use portals right now, so she’d tag along and have the uber drop Theo off first. “That was a smart idea. No use getting someone killed.”

“Exactly. I’m not about to put my life or anyone else’s life at risk because I decided to be stupid.” Theo more than knew what a careless death like that did to a family. Okay, suicide wasn’t careless, but her mother’s death had left a lasting mark on Theo, and not always for the better. She’d decided to become a psychologist so she could try to help people from getting to that point, giving them the help they needed.

“So Jane in a silver Prius will be here in about five minutes,” Jaina said, slipping her phone back into her pocket and leaning closer to Theo (and the flame) as she felt a little chilly herself. “Thanks for coming out to meet me. I needed this.”

“You’re welcome. And thanks again for inviting me out. It’s good to let loose. And I like dancing.” Theo said with a smile. Sometimes she wondered if she could’ve made a decent professional dancer, but considering her childhood and teenage years, she was probably always bound for being a psychologist.