(no subject)
Who: Kaitlynn (Queen of Hearts) and Jake (King of Hearts)
When: Midnight the 17th. HEAVILY BACKDATED!
Where: Chock Full O’Nuts
What: Explanations, getting to know yous, and revelations
Rating: R! They both have foul dirty mouths!
Jake lived only a few blocks away from Herald Square, and so the poor man found himself at the near empty Chock Full O'Nuts pacing nervously with a large black coffee in hand as he waited for Kaitlynn to arrive.
Hell, what the hell did one say when meeting your last..technically first wife? How did one admit who one was to one another? Jake had scarcely ever met another Tale in his lifetime, having pegged the entire scene as just too time absorbing for someone on the move upwards; someone normal and happy.
And yet here he was, nearly Midnight still dressed in his slacks and shirt from work, argyle sweater vest pulled on and his tie just vaguely loosened going out of his mind.
About to throw himself completely into something extraordinarily foreign. He hardly even knew the details of his tale, having read the book 10 damn years ago. And yet he felt as if this girl, since he'd run into her last night, he'd known his whole life; intimately and exclusively and it was enough to make any happy bachelor's brain just explode.
And it was with that twitchiness that he turned every time the bell of the doorbell rang, only to find another neighbor or policeman entering.
Vegas had not been prepared to go out for midnight coffee. Vegas had been curled up on the couch she had been sleeping on since her first night in New York. May's couch was comfortable and on occasion she would be nosed by Kettle, Kilroy's outrageously pampered cat. So when the almost plea for a meeting had come from tall, dark, and yuppie Vegas had to tear herself from the warm comfortable confines of her covers and get dressed.
Vegas did eventually make it to the coffee shop. She was uncharacteristically makeup less, her long hair was up in a loose pony tail and had not bundled up and was just wearing the nearest heaviest coat she could find. The only thing about it she knew was it was one of the guy's and it smelled vaguely of smoke. When she walked in she headed straight for the counter and ordered her a house decaf with a shot of vanilla. The last thing the chronic insomniac needed was caffeine at midnight.
At the bell, he swung around again, eyes wide and he felt almost mute for a minute. What the hell did he say? Hello would be a good start, dumb ass, or maybe thank her for coming out to meet you at this god awful hour..or..Jake shook his prying brain away from him with a grumble. Moving then quite cautiously over to where the girl waited for her coffee, that gnawing pain back in his stomach and this time he knew it wasn't from hunger. "Kaitlynn?" He finally managed out, now the rest just had to make it out smoothly.
Vegas took her cup of coffee with a smile to the barrista and a mumbled thanks. Once the smoldering cup was cupped between her hands she turned to look at Jake. She stood there for a moment bothering to actually study him a moment. The flip in her stomach was strong...almost too strong. It was stronger than even the churning that Nava gave her and Nava was the closest to the Queen there was, or so Vegas thought.
"Do we need to sit in the dark back corner?" She arched a brow and quirked a smile. It was amazing what makeup could hide and with out it the dark rings under bright blue eyes shown quite clearly in comparison to clear naturally pale skin.
"I..No." Shit, attempt number one down. Come on Jacob, you deal with girls all the time, Hell this girl isn't even you're fucking type! He motioned over towards the booth he'd claimed where his jacket lay on the bench, sitting down albeit nervously and picking at the napkin. "Fuck..well.."
He felt himself panicking again, felt that weird nauseous urge rising up in him. Jake was never nervous, why the hell would he get nervous now? Just say it, just say 'You were my Queen in our past life.' You were.. "You.." He began, "You hate white roses about all else, you don't like dogs, the tart recipe is your mothers, and your feet are ticklish." Smooth. Not quite what he'd been going for, no...but it would get the ball rolling at the least.
Vegas stepped over to the booth and after sitting down her coffee eased out of the coat she had snatched. She tossed it in the booth before sitting down and scooting to the middle. She would blame Neil for it later but she had become more and more conscious of her actions and her Karma and all the other cosmic mumbo jumbo that Neil waxed on about. Vegas thoughts though screeched to a halt and her attention became focused on Jake and Jake alone.
It was their lucky night that Vegas had not been drinking or even holding her cup of coffee when he began spouting things about the Queen and herself that few if any knew at all. Vegas was not a brainless moron like many pegged her for being and the pieces fell in to place rather easily. She ran a hand over her face and just let it sit covering her mouth as her eyes angled up to look at him. "This explains so much. That look last night...the fact you have a stronger feeling than Nava...huh.."
And to think she had debated not coming but that whole do a good dead so you don't come back as a cockroach crap had come to mind.
It seemed that all tension that had previously been welled up in those straight shoulders of his had melted out leaving him back to that same relaxed guy he normally was. A good out take of air escaped. "Good, you got it...You know you're the first tale I've ever really met."
"I could introduce you. The White Rabbit is my best friend. I'm sleeping on the March Hare's couch. The Caterpillar is like a depraved father figure for me...if you want to that is...I guess everyone has a different reaction. My life wasn't exactly great nor normal so being told I was a Queen and given an escape from the shit around me was one hell of a bonus. I sort of jumped in with both feet." She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. She was rambling but...she really couldn't help it.
"I...I suppose I could. I never really cared to meet any of them to be honest. I had a fine life and the whole Tale thing just seemed like an unnecessary interruption." Jake simply hadn't needed the escape. He'd been on top already, and being told he'd been a King hadn't been too much of a surprise. "And then you and those fucking tarts came around..."
"Must be fucking nice." There were only three people that Vegas held her tongue for two were obvious being Thea and Otis and the other was Miles for some reason. She shook her head cracking a smile. "I'm going to have a fine life one day. But until that day I live in a van with four others and happily play my guitar till my fingers bleed."
"Whatever suits you, Kaitlynn. I can't say I could pull that off within an inch of my life, granted I doubt you'd ever be happy to switch places either." Jake simply shrugged from his cup of untouched black coffee; really the two of them were indeed polar opposites in every single way. And somehow the two had come to love each other devotedly just one life ago....and now...well...where the hell did this leave them then. "So, you said you were involved. Who are you seeing? Another tale?" Of course he'd be interested!
"I like living in the van. It took a while to get used to it. Thea wasn't much too pleased when she found out I dropped out of school to tour with a rock band but she got over it." She played with her cup looking up at him. "So what do you do that grants you the permission to wear a sweater vest?" The one sided devilish smirk that graced her lips was a look that just suited Vegas so well at times.
The question of who she was seeing brought a chuckle to her lips. "Harri is a sweetheart. He is a tale. I find it hard to date non tales actually. With as off as most of us Wonderlanders are we are liable to be committed."
"I'm just horribly fashionable, I'm also a paralegal." He replied with a bit of a lopsided grin, taking a sip of his coffee finally, resting back in the booth. "You look nicer without all that make up." He wouldn't comment on her clothing however, and listening to her talk about Harri; whoeevr the fuck that was, it almost made him smile. "Sounds good, so he's a...what do you call yourselves..Wonderlander...too?"
"Ourselves, pumpkin, ourselves. Like it or not you are one of the bunch...just not as leaky in the brainpan." Where pumpkin had come from she wasn't quite sure. As far as Vegas knew she had never called anyone pumpkin...it just sort of felt...oh fuck thinking about it it was just going to make her head hurt. "You like the insomniac zombie look, huh?" She chuckled as she played with her cup fidgeting.
"Tweedledum and adorably clueless at times. He doesn't twitch in fear around me. Nasty side effect of being the catch phrasing militant one."
"Leaky in the brain pan...that's one way to put it I suppose.." He smirked at the pet name, veiling it with a good sip of his coffee. "It's far better than the tramp strolling a street corner look that you had going the other night, dear." And then she went on to explain her boyfriend, she was dating a subject? Wasn't Tweedledum one of those two idiots in the forest or whatever? "He sounds nice."
"Boy aren't you the charmer." The look on her face showed her less than pleased reaction to his thoughts on the way she presented herself. It didn't bother her. Vegas was rarely affected by the thoughts of someone she barely knew. "It is a side effect of being in a band where the boys wear as much make up as I do at times."
"Oh I am, you'll soon find that out." Jake smirked actually reaching out to tweak her nose. "I was simply saying you’re pretty enough without all of that gook, you ought to donate the eyeliner to those boys then." He shuddered inside to think of the sort of music this girl played. For a man well versed in classical and jazz, with a true love of Elliot Smith and Sergio Mendez he could hardly fathom what sort of people these must have been that played music and wore make up.
"Will I now?" She quirked a brow and followed his hand as her nose was tweaked. Her eyes stayed crossed a moment before giving him a look that simply screamed crazy fuck. "So my lipstick is King approved?" She continued to fidget playing with her calloused finger tips as she looked at him. She was pushing for something...this was just strange she wanted more awkwardness...this felt like she was having coffee with Sammy and the fact she wasn't uneasy made her all the more uneasy...
"I can't tell you what to wear..." He shrugged easily enough, letting his head sink into the vinyl cushion of the booth. It was definitely odd, not having as much awkwardness as he guessed, he was enjoying this time with her. And even worse, he felt an odd part of him that he never even knew he had suddenly filled up...now that was awkward.
"This is true. So you are a paralegal? I had a good friend back in school that was studying to be a paralegal eventually. She always laughed at how they would have to give me an extra diploma to fit all my majors and minors." She chuckled to herself mostly as she finished what little remained in the bottom of her cup.
"Yes, though it's only a stepping stone towards my eventual career." He smiled, laughing a bit when she mentioned her multitude of majors. "I always knew what I wanted to do. What were some of these many subjects that caught the Queen's interest?"
"Oh I did to since the moment Otis jerked me up for running around the casino and cursed about my mother not giving me structure so he put a guitar in my hands." There was a fondness in her voice when she spoke of the man she considered her true father above all others. "I was going for a double major in Creative Writing and Classical Guitar with a minor in Music Composition."
"Oh, that sounds like an intelligent course for a musician. I graduated Yale with a major in Philosophy and a minor in History." He shrugged a bit with a laugh, eyeing what was left of his cup. "So you have a band...with boys who wear make up..you're not one of those horrible whiny bands right?"
"I dropped out with one semester left but I didn't finish the one I was in so I am a year away from a degree. I am in a band. It isn't mine. It was formed long before I joined." It wasn't hard to figure out what he meant when he said whiny bands. "It is rock leaning heavily towards punk with a dash of Emo. If it is just me and my guitar though it is blues."
"I might adore you, I think I hate your band." He sat back finally tearing into the cup as it was drained of the last bitter dregs. To hell with Starbucks, Chock Full'O Nuts was where real coffee could be found. "Do you plan on finishing your degree ever?"
Vegas shrugged. "I hope to. I know Thea was disappointed when I dropped out. My life fell apart though and I just needed the hell out of Chicago and away from everything that had been defining me." Vegas had learned to hate Chicago lumping all her pain and bitterness on to the city rather than the people that had hurt her and the decisions and situations that had broken her.
"Hrmm.." Do you have a habit of running away from your problems? He didn't voice that of course, but it was indeed his first thought when she mentioned running away. "Well, I'm sorry to hear nothing went quite your way. Though for what you are interested in, a degree doesn’t help you any more than natural talent and luck."
"Hard work. You can't forget hard work. I have practiced till my fingers bled since I was a kid." Vegas wasn't apposed to hard work and in all truth she preferred to work for all she got. It made it truly hers. It was most definitely the influence of Otis. He was a rough man with many faults but he might as well have been made from gold and hung the stars as far as Vegas was concerned.
"Hard work...or..I suppose dedication, is extremely important...More so then any amount of paper from an Ivy League school." He smirked a little bit, Jake was excessively proud of those little pieces of paper himself, but he would be the first to admit that they weren't necessary for success in life. Not if your passion didn't require it. "I'm sorry I dragged you out so late."
"Don't worry about it. I probably wouldn't have slept regardless. I'm a chronic insomniac, thus the reason for zombie eyes." She pointed to the dark circles under her eyes. She had oddly been sleeping decently well on occasion thanks to May's extra comfortable couch. There wasn't a science to how she slept though. There were good nights and bad nights.
"Hmm, you know cooled tea bags help to get rid of them." Jake murmured a bit off handedly, for the man who had had many all nights, he had found a few ways to try to disguise them the day after when he had to often look his best. "Insomnia is never fun though, temporary cure or not, have you considered medication?
Tea...why did so many things in life return to tea? "Finding a tea bag shouldn't be hard staying with May." The talk of taking pills for her insomnia though made Vegas uneasy. "I don't really have the means. Not a fan of pills." Vegas would smoke a joint on occasion but that was as far as it went other than alcohol. She had seen what popping pills every five minutes did to people.
"The shitty Lipton type works best." He shrugged a bit an eyebrow rising at the mention of limited means, he half wanted to offer to pay for her. He felt some sort of ingrained affection for her, some need to take care of this girl.
She technically was his wife, and yet a total and complete stranger. And this was all entirely too confusing for his own good.
One of the many things that Vegas' pride would not let her do was take handouts. Even the help that Kilroy had given her and the guys with plane tickets she had repaid him. She fully intended to some how repay Otis and Thea one day for all they had done for her but she had yet to find it. "I will have to get shitty Lipton ones. The March Hare doesn't buy shitty tea."
"March Hare...the tea party with the Hatter..right?" He didn't remember much of his own Tale, not enough to make exact connections. "I'd expect not...if that's the person.."
Vegas felt the supreme need to inform the poor guy of who he was dealing with in all this she grabbed her coat and with a sort of chuckle got out of the booth. "Hold that though I'll be right back." And with that she headed out to the van and with a bit of rummaging found just what she was looking for and brought it back in. It was cold to the touch do to the weather but there was a good thirteen years of Wonderland insanity in that picture album among other things. "Alright time for show and tell." She turned to a page and a picture of May and Kilroy. "Mad Hatter and The March Hare. They are the writers and directors of the TV show To Bed."
A picture album? Well that was a better way then ever to learn, right? He'd of course have to borrow it in order to study the faces and names as well. "Alright...May and Kilroy..TV show..." Jake repeated leaning forward in the booth to eye the faces, smirking at the picture of May. "She's cute."
"I hope one day they will realize they are completely retarded for each other but I'm not going to hold my breath." She flipped the book around looking for a picture passing a few of a pint sized Kaity. She flipped it back around so he could see it. "Neil is the Caterpillar. He is an actor and Scottish...chain smokes."
"Alright.." He watched as she flipped, an eyebrow quirking at the picture of Neil. He seemed familiar, not just in the tale sense either. "I think I've seen him before....airline TV on an Aer Lingus flight." Brown gaze soon settled on the little version of Kaitlynn. "Awww..."
"Probably he has done a large amount of TV." She quickly flipped past the pictures of her when she was younger and stopped when she reached a picture of her and Nava a few years back. "This is Nava. We used to terrorize everyone over the compendiums when we were kids. She is the White Rabbit."
"Alright...the White Rabbit, she looks like a bunny sort of..I can remember that..." Jake nodded, finding this all so fascinating. Why hadn't he been told earlier that there were other Wonderlanders? Why hadn't he cared enough to seek them out?
These were his subjects, he was supposed to lead them..or take care of them..He knew that much, but hell he didn't even know who half of them were..And Kaitlynn, she'd seemed to know them all her life.
"Now I just need to find a picture of Kitten...er...Gabe." She didn't catch herself in time but it was just her way of toying with Gabe. It was his nickname and it was force of habbit. The only picture the happened to have of him though was a picture from their mock wedding they had done to play a joke. "Cheshire Cat. Gabe is a sports news caster or something like that I forget. We took a road trip to Niagara and pretended to get married."
"Honeymoon capital of the world hmm?" He grinned a little bit, looking over the people in the picture. Again he was almost amazed at how she had come to find all of these people. "Romantic."
"Yeah...we got a crazy idea on the way out to Long Island. The group of hoodlems on the other page are Smith Road." The picture on the other page was of the whole band. Vegas herself was standing in the middle of the picture in front of a beat up old van he would recognize as the one they still drove. "That was taken the day we left Chicago."
"Long Island to Niagara? That's a 12 hour drive for a crazy idea." He only shook his head, laughing gently at the thought of it. This girl was absolute out of it, sporadic and exceptionally spontaneous.
It both amused and terrified Mr. Moreau in many ways. The hoodlums that comprised her band, they didn't do much else to ease his mind.
"You've been in New York for how long then?"
"I haven't had a stable residence for going on two years now. A twelve hour trip is nothing to me. You don't even want to know how many miles we have probably tacked on Toots." She chuckled folding her arms on the top of the table.
"Since a week before Christmas. We usually don't stay this long in one place. Sammy is sticking around to see his boy out in Jersey though. And May loves us and keeps having to go on trips so we are looking after her place. And Kilroy left me Kettle why he went to rehab." She shrugged. She really didn't know why they were still in New York. She half expected to get told tomorrow they were on the road again.
"Sounds like a whole big bustle of obligations to these friends of yours, admirable though. How do you like it? Being settled that is..." Jake was not one for a multitude of change himself. He'd lived in Connecticut until just a year ago, and now that he was in New York..he figured he would stay there for the rest of his life. Sure, travel was always on the menu, the spoiled man had seen nearly all there was to see of Europe, had spent a small amount of time in Kyoto as well; cruises were his favourite form of travel but all of that was only ever done knowing he'd come back to the same place.
"Most people look at me crazy when I say this but Toots, our van, was one of the first places that ever felt like home other than when I moved in with Otis when I was twelve." She shrugged her shoulder dismissing the oddity of a twelve year old moving out. "I had an apartment I lived in, in Chicago with Luke but it never felt like home. And it really didn't after he tainted it. I'm very peculiar about my comfort zones."
"Tainted it?" Already she could maybe see a protective fire rolling up within him, straightening significantly though he hadn't a clue who this Luke was or what he'd did. It'd been enough to make Vegas not consider her apartment home. "I suppose I could maybe understand? I..no I can't, sorry...I've always had a white picket fence and a tree house growing up...I had one of my own even after I moved out, waiting for the family to fill it up, and then I moved here and the only reason I don't have a house here is because..well there are none."
"Walked in on him sticking it to my best friend and the drummer of the band I was in at the time. I was hanging on to bare threads at the time and that just killed Chicago for me." Vegas was leaving out some key pieces but she wasn't going to tell Jake her life story.
"Yeah....never had that. I probably would be dead if not for Otis. My parents liked to forget I existed. They had Sabella and were good. I was another kid they shouldn't have had." Vegas was bitter but it wasn't even a hard edged bitterness anymore. It was just an accepted fact she just happened to not like.
"That's wretched, all of it." Not that there was much that could be done now. But it at the very least showed that he did truly care for the strange girl, which Jake in turn slightly smacked himself for. Kaitlynn was not in need of any more caretakers it seemed, she had an entire damn family of them.
Vegas shrugged. "You deal or die. I have just been lucky to find people that filled in the gaps I was missing. It has unfortunately given me a few complexes though...like a run before they can run from you issue. And my self worth is pretty horrid" She tucked her hair behind her ears and returned her arms to their position.
She was telling him an awful lot for having just met him, it was sort of funny really. All incredibly curious and somewhat confusing for Jake who unlike usual found himself utterly intrigued by this girl's life. "We all have our complexes, no worries...I mean..well..alright, Sartre, he once said 'Hell is other people', which is true for all of us I think..it all essentially boils down to how we respond to different eccentricities and volatile behavior of fellow man. Some run, and some fight back...I think what I'm just trying to say is that you're not alone.." Right? Right. Damnit Jake, there was one way to make a complete and utter idiot out of yourself.
"I haven't read much Sartre. I am more of a fan of Nietzsche and Voltaire. I am very fond of his quote 'Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.' It is inscribed on my guitar case." She rarely talked philosophy with anyone but Neil and Neil always talked about the potential past or what have you.
"A woman after my own heart, Mister Arouet was the subject of my senior thesis." He grinned then, leaning forward as she went through her favorite quote. She did like philosophy! Or so it seemed, and that was enough to gain any sort of grounding with Mister Moreau. "Though a surprising quote, when I think of you Kaitlynn I think of his comparison of Nature to Education."
"I have a lot of time to read in the van when I'm not driving." She shrugged her shoulders managing through force of will alone not to blush when he spoke of her being a woman after his heart. "I'm not sure I remember the one you are talking about."
"He said...'Nature has always had more force than education’...I--" Jake replied quickly enough, though a rather loud yawn broke through the end of his statement. Taking that as a cue to check his watch for the time, eyes widening at just how long they had lingered at the coffee shop. "Hell, I feel as if I ought to treat you to breakfast now.."
Vegas couldn't help but laugh. "I have been called a force of nature on many occasions" She looked to the window and then back to him. "I think you need to get home and sleep. I'll take a rain check on breakfast." She pulled the photo album closer to her and shut it.
"I agree, Rowanne will have my head if I'm late for work." He grinned pushing himself up from the table, pulling his Burberry scarf around his neck and picking up his coat. "You can consider that a deal then, thank you for coming out on such short notice."
"Yeah...she probably will." She chuckled and stood herself slipping on her coat. "It was a pleasure. I am going to go see if I can return to my pajamas and my couch." She started for the door with a wiggle of fingers goodbye to him.
"Alright, have a good night." Jake made a motion to wave as she headed out as well, watching her head for the Van, how she maneuvered that damn thing around he'd never know. hell, he loved his cars, collected them like dolls but never would have brought out anything bigger than his Roadster. "Sleep well.." And with that he made a stop at the counter to gather a new bag of coffee.
When: Midnight the 17th. HEAVILY BACKDATED!
Where: Chock Full O’Nuts
What: Explanations, getting to know yous, and revelations
Rating: R! They both have foul dirty mouths!
Jake lived only a few blocks away from Herald Square, and so the poor man found himself at the near empty Chock Full O'Nuts pacing nervously with a large black coffee in hand as he waited for Kaitlynn to arrive.
Hell, what the hell did one say when meeting your last..technically first wife? How did one admit who one was to one another? Jake had scarcely ever met another Tale in his lifetime, having pegged the entire scene as just too time absorbing for someone on the move upwards; someone normal and happy.
And yet here he was, nearly Midnight still dressed in his slacks and shirt from work, argyle sweater vest pulled on and his tie just vaguely loosened going out of his mind.
About to throw himself completely into something extraordinarily foreign. He hardly even knew the details of his tale, having read the book 10 damn years ago. And yet he felt as if this girl, since he'd run into her last night, he'd known his whole life; intimately and exclusively and it was enough to make any happy bachelor's brain just explode.
And it was with that twitchiness that he turned every time the bell of the doorbell rang, only to find another neighbor or policeman entering.
Vegas had not been prepared to go out for midnight coffee. Vegas had been curled up on the couch she had been sleeping on since her first night in New York. May's couch was comfortable and on occasion she would be nosed by Kettle, Kilroy's outrageously pampered cat. So when the almost plea for a meeting had come from tall, dark, and yuppie Vegas had to tear herself from the warm comfortable confines of her covers and get dressed.
Vegas did eventually make it to the coffee shop. She was uncharacteristically makeup less, her long hair was up in a loose pony tail and had not bundled up and was just wearing the nearest heaviest coat she could find. The only thing about it she knew was it was one of the guy's and it smelled vaguely of smoke. When she walked in she headed straight for the counter and ordered her a house decaf with a shot of vanilla. The last thing the chronic insomniac needed was caffeine at midnight.
At the bell, he swung around again, eyes wide and he felt almost mute for a minute. What the hell did he say? Hello would be a good start, dumb ass, or maybe thank her for coming out to meet you at this god awful hour..or..Jake shook his prying brain away from him with a grumble. Moving then quite cautiously over to where the girl waited for her coffee, that gnawing pain back in his stomach and this time he knew it wasn't from hunger. "Kaitlynn?" He finally managed out, now the rest just had to make it out smoothly.
Vegas took her cup of coffee with a smile to the barrista and a mumbled thanks. Once the smoldering cup was cupped between her hands she turned to look at Jake. She stood there for a moment bothering to actually study him a moment. The flip in her stomach was strong...almost too strong. It was stronger than even the churning that Nava gave her and Nava was the closest to the Queen there was, or so Vegas thought.
"Do we need to sit in the dark back corner?" She arched a brow and quirked a smile. It was amazing what makeup could hide and with out it the dark rings under bright blue eyes shown quite clearly in comparison to clear naturally pale skin.
"I..No." Shit, attempt number one down. Come on Jacob, you deal with girls all the time, Hell this girl isn't even you're fucking type! He motioned over towards the booth he'd claimed where his jacket lay on the bench, sitting down albeit nervously and picking at the napkin. "Fuck..well.."
He felt himself panicking again, felt that weird nauseous urge rising up in him. Jake was never nervous, why the hell would he get nervous now? Just say it, just say 'You were my Queen in our past life.' You were.. "You.." He began, "You hate white roses about all else, you don't like dogs, the tart recipe is your mothers, and your feet are ticklish." Smooth. Not quite what he'd been going for, no...but it would get the ball rolling at the least.
Vegas stepped over to the booth and after sitting down her coffee eased out of the coat she had snatched. She tossed it in the booth before sitting down and scooting to the middle. She would blame Neil for it later but she had become more and more conscious of her actions and her Karma and all the other cosmic mumbo jumbo that Neil waxed on about. Vegas thoughts though screeched to a halt and her attention became focused on Jake and Jake alone.
It was their lucky night that Vegas had not been drinking or even holding her cup of coffee when he began spouting things about the Queen and herself that few if any knew at all. Vegas was not a brainless moron like many pegged her for being and the pieces fell in to place rather easily. She ran a hand over her face and just let it sit covering her mouth as her eyes angled up to look at him. "This explains so much. That look last night...the fact you have a stronger feeling than Nava...huh.."
And to think she had debated not coming but that whole do a good dead so you don't come back as a cockroach crap had come to mind.
It seemed that all tension that had previously been welled up in those straight shoulders of his had melted out leaving him back to that same relaxed guy he normally was. A good out take of air escaped. "Good, you got it...You know you're the first tale I've ever really met."
"I could introduce you. The White Rabbit is my best friend. I'm sleeping on the March Hare's couch. The Caterpillar is like a depraved father figure for me...if you want to that is...I guess everyone has a different reaction. My life wasn't exactly great nor normal so being told I was a Queen and given an escape from the shit around me was one hell of a bonus. I sort of jumped in with both feet." She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. She was rambling but...she really couldn't help it.
"I...I suppose I could. I never really cared to meet any of them to be honest. I had a fine life and the whole Tale thing just seemed like an unnecessary interruption." Jake simply hadn't needed the escape. He'd been on top already, and being told he'd been a King hadn't been too much of a surprise. "And then you and those fucking tarts came around..."
"Must be fucking nice." There were only three people that Vegas held her tongue for two were obvious being Thea and Otis and the other was Miles for some reason. She shook her head cracking a smile. "I'm going to have a fine life one day. But until that day I live in a van with four others and happily play my guitar till my fingers bleed."
"Whatever suits you, Kaitlynn. I can't say I could pull that off within an inch of my life, granted I doubt you'd ever be happy to switch places either." Jake simply shrugged from his cup of untouched black coffee; really the two of them were indeed polar opposites in every single way. And somehow the two had come to love each other devotedly just one life ago....and now...well...where the hell did this leave them then. "So, you said you were involved. Who are you seeing? Another tale?" Of course he'd be interested!
"I like living in the van. It took a while to get used to it. Thea wasn't much too pleased when she found out I dropped out of school to tour with a rock band but she got over it." She played with her cup looking up at him. "So what do you do that grants you the permission to wear a sweater vest?" The one sided devilish smirk that graced her lips was a look that just suited Vegas so well at times.
The question of who she was seeing brought a chuckle to her lips. "Harri is a sweetheart. He is a tale. I find it hard to date non tales actually. With as off as most of us Wonderlanders are we are liable to be committed."
"I'm just horribly fashionable, I'm also a paralegal." He replied with a bit of a lopsided grin, taking a sip of his coffee finally, resting back in the booth. "You look nicer without all that make up." He wouldn't comment on her clothing however, and listening to her talk about Harri; whoeevr the fuck that was, it almost made him smile. "Sounds good, so he's a...what do you call yourselves..Wonderlander...too?"
"Ourselves, pumpkin, ourselves. Like it or not you are one of the bunch...just not as leaky in the brainpan." Where pumpkin had come from she wasn't quite sure. As far as Vegas knew she had never called anyone pumpkin...it just sort of felt...oh fuck thinking about it it was just going to make her head hurt. "You like the insomniac zombie look, huh?" She chuckled as she played with her cup fidgeting.
"Tweedledum and adorably clueless at times. He doesn't twitch in fear around me. Nasty side effect of being the catch phrasing militant one."
"Leaky in the brain pan...that's one way to put it I suppose.." He smirked at the pet name, veiling it with a good sip of his coffee. "It's far better than the tramp strolling a street corner look that you had going the other night, dear." And then she went on to explain her boyfriend, she was dating a subject? Wasn't Tweedledum one of those two idiots in the forest or whatever? "He sounds nice."
"Boy aren't you the charmer." The look on her face showed her less than pleased reaction to his thoughts on the way she presented herself. It didn't bother her. Vegas was rarely affected by the thoughts of someone she barely knew. "It is a side effect of being in a band where the boys wear as much make up as I do at times."
"Oh I am, you'll soon find that out." Jake smirked actually reaching out to tweak her nose. "I was simply saying you’re pretty enough without all of that gook, you ought to donate the eyeliner to those boys then." He shuddered inside to think of the sort of music this girl played. For a man well versed in classical and jazz, with a true love of Elliot Smith and Sergio Mendez he could hardly fathom what sort of people these must have been that played music and wore make up.
"Will I now?" She quirked a brow and followed his hand as her nose was tweaked. Her eyes stayed crossed a moment before giving him a look that simply screamed crazy fuck. "So my lipstick is King approved?" She continued to fidget playing with her calloused finger tips as she looked at him. She was pushing for something...this was just strange she wanted more awkwardness...this felt like she was having coffee with Sammy and the fact she wasn't uneasy made her all the more uneasy...
"I can't tell you what to wear..." He shrugged easily enough, letting his head sink into the vinyl cushion of the booth. It was definitely odd, not having as much awkwardness as he guessed, he was enjoying this time with her. And even worse, he felt an odd part of him that he never even knew he had suddenly filled up...now that was awkward.
"This is true. So you are a paralegal? I had a good friend back in school that was studying to be a paralegal eventually. She always laughed at how they would have to give me an extra diploma to fit all my majors and minors." She chuckled to herself mostly as she finished what little remained in the bottom of her cup.
"Yes, though it's only a stepping stone towards my eventual career." He smiled, laughing a bit when she mentioned her multitude of majors. "I always knew what I wanted to do. What were some of these many subjects that caught the Queen's interest?"
"Oh I did to since the moment Otis jerked me up for running around the casino and cursed about my mother not giving me structure so he put a guitar in my hands." There was a fondness in her voice when she spoke of the man she considered her true father above all others. "I was going for a double major in Creative Writing and Classical Guitar with a minor in Music Composition."
"Oh, that sounds like an intelligent course for a musician. I graduated Yale with a major in Philosophy and a minor in History." He shrugged a bit with a laugh, eyeing what was left of his cup. "So you have a band...with boys who wear make up..you're not one of those horrible whiny bands right?"
"I dropped out with one semester left but I didn't finish the one I was in so I am a year away from a degree. I am in a band. It isn't mine. It was formed long before I joined." It wasn't hard to figure out what he meant when he said whiny bands. "It is rock leaning heavily towards punk with a dash of Emo. If it is just me and my guitar though it is blues."
"I might adore you, I think I hate your band." He sat back finally tearing into the cup as it was drained of the last bitter dregs. To hell with Starbucks, Chock Full'O Nuts was where real coffee could be found. "Do you plan on finishing your degree ever?"
Vegas shrugged. "I hope to. I know Thea was disappointed when I dropped out. My life fell apart though and I just needed the hell out of Chicago and away from everything that had been defining me." Vegas had learned to hate Chicago lumping all her pain and bitterness on to the city rather than the people that had hurt her and the decisions and situations that had broken her.
"Hrmm.." Do you have a habit of running away from your problems? He didn't voice that of course, but it was indeed his first thought when she mentioned running away. "Well, I'm sorry to hear nothing went quite your way. Though for what you are interested in, a degree doesn’t help you any more than natural talent and luck."
"Hard work. You can't forget hard work. I have practiced till my fingers bled since I was a kid." Vegas wasn't apposed to hard work and in all truth she preferred to work for all she got. It made it truly hers. It was most definitely the influence of Otis. He was a rough man with many faults but he might as well have been made from gold and hung the stars as far as Vegas was concerned.
"Hard work...or..I suppose dedication, is extremely important...More so then any amount of paper from an Ivy League school." He smirked a little bit, Jake was excessively proud of those little pieces of paper himself, but he would be the first to admit that they weren't necessary for success in life. Not if your passion didn't require it. "I'm sorry I dragged you out so late."
"Don't worry about it. I probably wouldn't have slept regardless. I'm a chronic insomniac, thus the reason for zombie eyes." She pointed to the dark circles under her eyes. She had oddly been sleeping decently well on occasion thanks to May's extra comfortable couch. There wasn't a science to how she slept though. There were good nights and bad nights.
"Hmm, you know cooled tea bags help to get rid of them." Jake murmured a bit off handedly, for the man who had had many all nights, he had found a few ways to try to disguise them the day after when he had to often look his best. "Insomnia is never fun though, temporary cure or not, have you considered medication?
Tea...why did so many things in life return to tea? "Finding a tea bag shouldn't be hard staying with May." The talk of taking pills for her insomnia though made Vegas uneasy. "I don't really have the means. Not a fan of pills." Vegas would smoke a joint on occasion but that was as far as it went other than alcohol. She had seen what popping pills every five minutes did to people.
"The shitty Lipton type works best." He shrugged a bit an eyebrow rising at the mention of limited means, he half wanted to offer to pay for her. He felt some sort of ingrained affection for her, some need to take care of this girl.
She technically was his wife, and yet a total and complete stranger. And this was all entirely too confusing for his own good.
One of the many things that Vegas' pride would not let her do was take handouts. Even the help that Kilroy had given her and the guys with plane tickets she had repaid him. She fully intended to some how repay Otis and Thea one day for all they had done for her but she had yet to find it. "I will have to get shitty Lipton ones. The March Hare doesn't buy shitty tea."
"March Hare...the tea party with the Hatter..right?" He didn't remember much of his own Tale, not enough to make exact connections. "I'd expect not...if that's the person.."
Vegas felt the supreme need to inform the poor guy of who he was dealing with in all this she grabbed her coat and with a sort of chuckle got out of the booth. "Hold that though I'll be right back." And with that she headed out to the van and with a bit of rummaging found just what she was looking for and brought it back in. It was cold to the touch do to the weather but there was a good thirteen years of Wonderland insanity in that picture album among other things. "Alright time for show and tell." She turned to a page and a picture of May and Kilroy. "Mad Hatter and The March Hare. They are the writers and directors of the TV show To Bed."
A picture album? Well that was a better way then ever to learn, right? He'd of course have to borrow it in order to study the faces and names as well. "Alright...May and Kilroy..TV show..." Jake repeated leaning forward in the booth to eye the faces, smirking at the picture of May. "She's cute."
"I hope one day they will realize they are completely retarded for each other but I'm not going to hold my breath." She flipped the book around looking for a picture passing a few of a pint sized Kaity. She flipped it back around so he could see it. "Neil is the Caterpillar. He is an actor and Scottish...chain smokes."
"Alright.." He watched as she flipped, an eyebrow quirking at the picture of Neil. He seemed familiar, not just in the tale sense either. "I think I've seen him before....airline TV on an Aer Lingus flight." Brown gaze soon settled on the little version of Kaitlynn. "Awww..."
"Probably he has done a large amount of TV." She quickly flipped past the pictures of her when she was younger and stopped when she reached a picture of her and Nava a few years back. "This is Nava. We used to terrorize everyone over the compendiums when we were kids. She is the White Rabbit."
"Alright...the White Rabbit, she looks like a bunny sort of..I can remember that..." Jake nodded, finding this all so fascinating. Why hadn't he been told earlier that there were other Wonderlanders? Why hadn't he cared enough to seek them out?
These were his subjects, he was supposed to lead them..or take care of them..He knew that much, but hell he didn't even know who half of them were..And Kaitlynn, she'd seemed to know them all her life.
"Now I just need to find a picture of Kitten...er...Gabe." She didn't catch herself in time but it was just her way of toying with Gabe. It was his nickname and it was force of habbit. The only picture the happened to have of him though was a picture from their mock wedding they had done to play a joke. "Cheshire Cat. Gabe is a sports news caster or something like that I forget. We took a road trip to Niagara and pretended to get married."
"Honeymoon capital of the world hmm?" He grinned a little bit, looking over the people in the picture. Again he was almost amazed at how she had come to find all of these people. "Romantic."
"Yeah...we got a crazy idea on the way out to Long Island. The group of hoodlems on the other page are Smith Road." The picture on the other page was of the whole band. Vegas herself was standing in the middle of the picture in front of a beat up old van he would recognize as the one they still drove. "That was taken the day we left Chicago."
"Long Island to Niagara? That's a 12 hour drive for a crazy idea." He only shook his head, laughing gently at the thought of it. This girl was absolute out of it, sporadic and exceptionally spontaneous.
It both amused and terrified Mr. Moreau in many ways. The hoodlums that comprised her band, they didn't do much else to ease his mind.
"You've been in New York for how long then?"
"I haven't had a stable residence for going on two years now. A twelve hour trip is nothing to me. You don't even want to know how many miles we have probably tacked on Toots." She chuckled folding her arms on the top of the table.
"Since a week before Christmas. We usually don't stay this long in one place. Sammy is sticking around to see his boy out in Jersey though. And May loves us and keeps having to go on trips so we are looking after her place. And Kilroy left me Kettle why he went to rehab." She shrugged. She really didn't know why they were still in New York. She half expected to get told tomorrow they were on the road again.
"Sounds like a whole big bustle of obligations to these friends of yours, admirable though. How do you like it? Being settled that is..." Jake was not one for a multitude of change himself. He'd lived in Connecticut until just a year ago, and now that he was in New York..he figured he would stay there for the rest of his life. Sure, travel was always on the menu, the spoiled man had seen nearly all there was to see of Europe, had spent a small amount of time in Kyoto as well; cruises were his favourite form of travel but all of that was only ever done knowing he'd come back to the same place.
"Most people look at me crazy when I say this but Toots, our van, was one of the first places that ever felt like home other than when I moved in with Otis when I was twelve." She shrugged her shoulder dismissing the oddity of a twelve year old moving out. "I had an apartment I lived in, in Chicago with Luke but it never felt like home. And it really didn't after he tainted it. I'm very peculiar about my comfort zones."
"Tainted it?" Already she could maybe see a protective fire rolling up within him, straightening significantly though he hadn't a clue who this Luke was or what he'd did. It'd been enough to make Vegas not consider her apartment home. "I suppose I could maybe understand? I..no I can't, sorry...I've always had a white picket fence and a tree house growing up...I had one of my own even after I moved out, waiting for the family to fill it up, and then I moved here and the only reason I don't have a house here is because..well there are none."
"Walked in on him sticking it to my best friend and the drummer of the band I was in at the time. I was hanging on to bare threads at the time and that just killed Chicago for me." Vegas was leaving out some key pieces but she wasn't going to tell Jake her life story.
"Yeah....never had that. I probably would be dead if not for Otis. My parents liked to forget I existed. They had Sabella and were good. I was another kid they shouldn't have had." Vegas was bitter but it wasn't even a hard edged bitterness anymore. It was just an accepted fact she just happened to not like.
"That's wretched, all of it." Not that there was much that could be done now. But it at the very least showed that he did truly care for the strange girl, which Jake in turn slightly smacked himself for. Kaitlynn was not in need of any more caretakers it seemed, she had an entire damn family of them.
Vegas shrugged. "You deal or die. I have just been lucky to find people that filled in the gaps I was missing. It has unfortunately given me a few complexes though...like a run before they can run from you issue. And my self worth is pretty horrid" She tucked her hair behind her ears and returned her arms to their position.
She was telling him an awful lot for having just met him, it was sort of funny really. All incredibly curious and somewhat confusing for Jake who unlike usual found himself utterly intrigued by this girl's life. "We all have our complexes, no worries...I mean..well..alright, Sartre, he once said 'Hell is other people', which is true for all of us I think..it all essentially boils down to how we respond to different eccentricities and volatile behavior of fellow man. Some run, and some fight back...I think what I'm just trying to say is that you're not alone.." Right? Right. Damnit Jake, there was one way to make a complete and utter idiot out of yourself.
"I haven't read much Sartre. I am more of a fan of Nietzsche and Voltaire. I am very fond of his quote 'Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.' It is inscribed on my guitar case." She rarely talked philosophy with anyone but Neil and Neil always talked about the potential past or what have you.
"A woman after my own heart, Mister Arouet was the subject of my senior thesis." He grinned then, leaning forward as she went through her favorite quote. She did like philosophy! Or so it seemed, and that was enough to gain any sort of grounding with Mister Moreau. "Though a surprising quote, when I think of you Kaitlynn I think of his comparison of Nature to Education."
"I have a lot of time to read in the van when I'm not driving." She shrugged her shoulders managing through force of will alone not to blush when he spoke of her being a woman after his heart. "I'm not sure I remember the one you are talking about."
"He said...'Nature has always had more force than education’...I--" Jake replied quickly enough, though a rather loud yawn broke through the end of his statement. Taking that as a cue to check his watch for the time, eyes widening at just how long they had lingered at the coffee shop. "Hell, I feel as if I ought to treat you to breakfast now.."
Vegas couldn't help but laugh. "I have been called a force of nature on many occasions" She looked to the window and then back to him. "I think you need to get home and sleep. I'll take a rain check on breakfast." She pulled the photo album closer to her and shut it.
"I agree, Rowanne will have my head if I'm late for work." He grinned pushing himself up from the table, pulling his Burberry scarf around his neck and picking up his coat. "You can consider that a deal then, thank you for coming out on such short notice."
"Yeah...she probably will." She chuckled and stood herself slipping on her coat. "It was a pleasure. I am going to go see if I can return to my pajamas and my couch." She started for the door with a wiggle of fingers goodbye to him.
"Alright, have a good night." Jake made a motion to wave as she headed out as well, watching her head for the Van, how she maneuvered that damn thing around he'd never know. hell, he loved his cars, collected them like dolls but never would have brought out anything bigger than his Roadster. "Sleep well.." And with that he made a stop at the counter to gather a new bag of coffee.