Hanging out

[sherrybb]

Who: Valentine, Ethan, Jamie, Daniel
Where: The Bronze
When: Sunday, January 3, 1999

Valentine chilled in the Bronze, a drink in hand and a basket of wings to munch on.

Ethan was at the Bronze, and halfway through a rack of ribs.

Jamie, lurking near the dancefloor, hadn't touched his drink in awhile.

Valentine waved to Jamie, trying to get his attention. "Hey, yo..."


Jamie waved back. "Yo yourself."

"How's things?" Valentine asked. "You have a good new year?"

Daniel was lurking with Valentine, being mellow.

Jamie shrugged. "Not too bad. I just stayed home, watched the ball drop on TV. You?"

"Same - kinda hung out and chilled," Valentine said. "C'mon over and sit with us - meet Daniel, my personal assistant. Daniel, this is my friend Jamie."

Daniel nodded. "Hi there!"

Jamie gathered his drink and slid into a seat at the table. "Hi, Daniel. Superstar here talked me up yet? I'm Jamie."

Sherry headed in, looking around for someone cute, someone she knew, or both.

"Well..." Daniel pondered that, then noted Sherry and waved.

Sherry waved to Daniel, and headed over that way.

"Hey Sherry- how you feeling?" Valentine asked.

Valentine then explained to Jamie. "We had a little incident while back - driveby shooting at Sid's. Sherry got hit."

Jamie shook his head. "What? That's crazy. Who'd do that?"

"Gang violence according to the news," Valentine said, shaking his head. "This place is rougher than LA."

"I'm fine." Sherry said "And sorry that ya'll got mixed up in that. How are you?"

"Gang violence..small towns are supposed to be quiet," muttered Jamie.

"I'm good- just wanted to get out of the house for a while tonight," Valentine said.

Jamie nodded to Val. "I know what you mean. The walls do tend to close in, sometimes."

"That's good." Sherry said "It's nice to get out of the house.. I'm lucky my Dad let me out."

"Yeah, though having Daniel around helps," Valentine said. "It's a lot nicer now."

"Mmhm." Jamie, nodding, smirked knowingly.

"Zack's out looking for another job, and I really haven't seen my other friends much." Sherry said "How're you Daniel? How's the arm?"

Valentine noted the smirk, and blushed slightly, eating a wing.

"Not bad," Daniel said. "It should be ready to come out soon."

"..Sherry, is it? How badly did you get shot up? Aren't they kind of hustling you out the door?" Jamie peered curiously at her.

"Wing?" Valentine asked, and passed the bowl around

"No thanks." Sherry said. "One gunshot wound to my collarbone. Knocked me unconscious, missed anything serious. I got lucky, and I refused to stay in that place another day. Daddy has a nurse check on me, and I got sick of being at home."

Jamie shook his head. "Nah, it's cool. Thanks, Val." To Sherry he said, "Lucky you."

"I'm glad it wasn't anything more serious," Valentine said.

"Just don't, uh, keel over," Daniel added.

"I won't" Sherry promised "And if I do, you guys can have my stuff"

"That's pretty morbid, you guys," Jamie noted, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry. I'm fine, guys. Besides, daytime telivision is really boring. I tried watching soaps, and.. wow." Sherry said

"And nothing but reruns is on nighttime tv" she added

Valentine laughed. "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I'd much rather act on TV than watch it."

"I don't understand how people can get hooked on watching a TV. I just can't do it." Sherry said

"It all depends what you're hoping to get out of it," offered Jamie. "For some people TV is easier to relate to than real people."

"What's really creepy is the people that assume tv is real," Valentine said. "I've had people think I'm really my character before- it's creepy."

"Really?" asked Sherry "They don't try to hurt you or anything, right?"

"No, they just wanted to tell me that holistic healing might help my fictional cancer," Valentine said.

"Do you just kind of nod and smile?" asked Sherry

"Yeah, kinda..." Valentine said.

"I'm sure they probably want autographs." Sherry realized

Valentine nodded. "Yeah, I sign those when people ask."

"The burdens of stardom, hey?" Jamie chuckled.

Valentine smiled. "Well, it doesn't happen all that often- especially now that I'm not actively staring in anything."

Jamie grinned and nodded. "Oh, that's cool. I just like teasing you about it."

"You might be starring in something soon. Auditioning was actually rather fun." Sherry said "But at least this place isn't full of photographers."

Valentine grinned too. "Yeah, you like teasing me, I know."

"People don't pester him much," Daniel added.

"If they did, Daniel could look tough and be my body guard," Valentine said, laughing at that thought since Daniel was both mellow and had one arm in a cast.

Daniel grinned.

Jamie quivered in mock terror. "Oh, he's a bruiser, alright. Just don't hit me, Captain Cast!"

"He's tough and sexy," Valentine said, grinning too.

Sherry smiled "You boys are fun."

Daniel grinned.

Jamie nodded, looking away over their heads and out to the dancefloor.

"I'd ask you to dance." Shery said, to Jamie "But I doubt I'm your type, I have a sorta boyfriend, and I'm supposed to take it easy, or something."

Jamie laughed, refocusing. "Hah, yeah. No overexertion on my watch. Besides, I don't want to deal with any boyfriends who get the wrong idea."

"Hey, I'll ask you to dance," Valentine said, grinning.

Jamie looked from Val to Daniel. "If you think we can outrun the pit bull, sure," he said, grinning.

"He's got a cast." warned Sherry

"So he does, but as long as he doesn't manage to hit me with it, I don't see a problem." Jamie laughed, smirking again. "I don't know, maybe wannabe stars aren't my type, huh?"

Valentine laughed. "It's just a dance, we're not going to pick out china."

He got up to head for the dancefloor.

Daniel waggled the cast at them both.

Jamie followed after, but not before grinning at Dniel and Sherry. "If you want to come make sure I don't hassle your boy, that's fine. You don't actually scare me."

Valentine grinned and started dancing when they got out there. "So what do you think?"

Jame grinned back, dancing at a careful distance from Val, for the benefit of anyone watching. "Oh, I dunno. If you're into invalids, i say do what moves you."

"Psh, it's not a permanent injury. I'm patient," Valentine said.

"patient, haha. Comedy might be your real calling." Jamie grinned, but looked a little distracted.

"So, Daniel." Sherry said "I have no idea what to talk about."

"Yeah, well... there's some other circumstances," Valentine answered, then noticed Jamie looked kinda inattentive. "What's on your mind?'

"Oh, stuff. Classes start again soon. It's a drag. The student thing is ..not as exciting as you might think. I kinda miss my family." Jamie refocused again. "Sorry. Kinda wollgathering. That's not cool of me."

"Me either," Daniel agreed. "Do you think they're flirting?"

"No, it's alright- talking's what friends are for, right? Yeah, we have to go back to school tomorrow," Valentine said. "It's crazy how fast winter break goes by."

"It looks like they're talking." Sherry said "Hopefuly not flirting. You like him, right?"

"Yeah, way too fast. I thought it was supposed to be a month or something." Jamie shook his head. "How'd you meet Daniel, anyway?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, nodding.

"My agent, Allen- he found Daniel at the emergency room," Valentine said. He frowned. "Poor guy- he was road tripping with his friends down to a Ren fest where they were supposed to work. Danny's an axe man. Anyhow, they got attacked by this big bear-like thing... and his friends were killed, and it broke Daniel's arm."

"Bear-like thing? What the hell is like a bear, but not?" Jamie looked puzzled. "Sounds like your agent's on the ball -- knack for being at the right place and all."

"I don't know... but it doesn't sound good, you know? I mean... shit in this town is crazy. There's all this stuff that isn't supposed to exist, and it's out there - and especially here," Valentine said, frowning.

Jamie nodded. "Yeah. The amount of crazy stuff I've heard about this place, whew. Blows the mind."

"I'm sure it'll be fine." Sherry said "So, wha're you going to do while we are in school?"

"So, yeah... good thing that Daniel's in my life, bad thing that his friends got eaten," Valentine sumarized.

Jamie nodded again. "The bad things are outweighing the good lately, aren't they?"

Valentine sighed. "Yeah, pretty hard. That shooting man... that shit was crazy. Like something in the movies. I lived all my life in LA, I never came that close to death before. It scared the hell out of me."

Jamie frowned, nodding. "Yeah. Makes you re-evaluate, doesn't it? Like, what's good and needs to stay in your life versus what'd bad and needs to get kicked to the curb."

"Probably just go over papers and stuff," Daniel said.

"That sounds okay. Do you want to do something else with your life? Like, if you didn't have to be an assistant anymore?"

asked Sherry

"It really does," Valentine said, looking bummed now. "And I really don't want to screw things up with Daniel, you know? Right now he's staying at my place, and he's got one good arm... so I don't really want to make him feel like he owes me shit. So I don't want to put the heavy moves on him... but at the same time, I want him to know I really dig him, so... it's just, man, I hope I'm not messing it up."

"I dunno." Daniel shrugged. "I didn't really have much in the way of plans before, and I don't now, either."

"Well, at least you're with Val. He seems like he's out for your best interests. You lucked out there." Sherry said

Jamie nodded. "Well, just be easy, you know. Establish a working partnership first, so everybody knows what the boundaries are. Once they're firmly established it'll be easier to step over them, I'd think." Jamie grinned.

"Yeah, trying... we're already pretty comfortable with each other," Valentine said, smiling.

"Right now, I should be getting home- have school in the morning and all that."

"I wouldn't worry about a thing, then. Just don't fuck it up and you'll be one of those forever couples." Jamie laughed. "Yeah. I need to get going too -- i was on my way out before you guys distracted me."

"I'm good at that whole distracting thing," Valentine said, laughing. He gave Jamie a hug and patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks for the dance."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah... he's pretty cool."

Valentine headed back table wards. "Hey, you ready to get out of here, Danny? I gotta get some sleep for school and all that..."

"So, I'll catch you around some time soon, huh? You and Captain Cast can entertain me with all the Ren Faire/actress chicks you've nailed." Jamie hugged Val back, grinning.

"See you guys." Sherry said

"Soon, definitely..." Valentine agreed to Jamie (sorry I messed the order of that all up)

"Have a good night, Sherry..." Val hugged her. "Drive careful."

Jamie grinned and waved to Daniel and Sherry on his way out. "That was a joke, son! I know you guys aren't into girls," he called back to Val.

"My stepmom is driving me" Sherry said "Eventually. See you tomorrow in school...if not, come by afterwards if you have time."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah... whenever you wanna go."

"You need a ride?" Valentine asked. "We could drop you offf."

"Sure." Sherry said "Thanks..."