>>YEAH WE DANCED ON TABLETOPS AND WE TOOK TOO MANY SHOTS

[zerosuitjill]

Who; zerosuitjill and satangotmylungs
What; Ex-cop teaches exorcist how to dance. In Hell. ...No, there's no punchline coming.
Where; The market, and then a club.
When; Last Friday Wednesday night.
Rating; John's mouth alone makes it R, so we'll go with that.
Status; Closed; complete

Comments

[satangotmylungs]

John wasn't a man prone to enjoy shopping. No, he bought suits when he needed them, and packs of undershirts, and ties when they had good sales at mildly fancy places. While she had spent all day making herself feel prettier by trying everything on and off and possibly fishing for compliments by the dead, John had spent his day being much more productive.

Lies.

John had spent the day trying to figure out the perfect flip so he could put the stage of abomelets behind him, resulting in him going through a carton of eggs. He ate every damn omelet nightmare he made, too. Good thing the man had a stomach of steel.

Then he'd gone to the bathroom and done his secret grooming by way of partially manicuring himself. After a shower, of course, he sat with a towel wrapped around his thin waist and took to the care and keeping of proper fingernails as the gel in his hair began to take hold. Who the hell gelled their hair after taking care of their nails? An idiot, that's who

[zerosuitjill]

Jill turned quickly, habit making her take in all the little details more than immediate notice. He looked... well, like he hadn't just thrown on a jacket and walked out the door, as she'd half-expected he would.

She smiled at that, although there was more than a hint of a curious smirk in the look. "Is it really that flamboyant?"

[satangotmylungs]

John looked down at her, snorting softly in that completely unattractive way of his.

"Compared to the monochromatic theme that seems to permeate this place like the Plague did to Europe? Yeah, yeah you are."

[zerosuitjill]

It was a full smirk now that crossed Jill's face. "I'll take it. Thanks."

She glanced down the street and nodded. "All right. As long as it's not entirely tasteless, a club's a club as far as I'm concerned." She indicated that John follow her with another light, beckoning dip of her head. "Any preferences on your end?"

[satangotmylungs]

"No tails," was, apparently, his only preference. "None of that Jacob's Ladder kind of club."

Not that he could really prefer one over the other with the amount of times he'd been in Papa Midnite's, seen the miracles of the Son preformed by charlatans for the sake of blasphemous amusement, watched vampires tear apart the flesh to devour the blood they need.

Taken part in animal sacrifices.

Watched witch doctors divine the future from the spilled guts of birds.

Oh, the things Jill didn't know.

[zerosuitjill]

"Noted."

The streets were busy, but not enough to threaten to separate the two of them unless one seriously lagged. Jill stayed close enough to be able to talk at a normal volume, a proximity that let her pick up on -- yes, that was cologne. The quirk in her smile was subtle.

"I didn't think the dead would bother with a nightlife," she mused as she scanned the buildings. "Or that I'd ever come to see it as completely normal."

[satangotmylungs]

"The Underworld isn't hell, exactly," he replied. He wasn't lagging at all, so there was no issue there. "The Underworld is where everyone dead goes, if myth is correct. There's other places here, but the only one that would be comparable to the hell most everyone thinks of would be Tartarus. Elysion is where heroes and good people go, basically. Tartarus. Well. I'm glad we haven't seen it yet."

A few times he brushed against her, of course, and even his hand to the small of her back at one point. Not out of any sort of ill-timed perversion, more to keep them together.

[zerosuitjill]

Jill paid no mind to the touches. When unexpected, when from people not exactly comrades, reflex made itself known; when casual, from those she trusted, it was disregarded easily as nonthreatening, filed away as acceptable on some instinctive level that worked faster than the more human parts of her brain.

She didn't exactly ignore the contact, but she didn't react to it.

She threw John a glance. "At least one of us knows our mythology," she admitted. "The most I remember are bits and pieces from poems in high school." Homer and whatnot. "But let's hope we don't," she added a little more seriously, in accordance with his last statement. "If what we deal with now is supposed to be casual, God only knows what we could expect there."

Looking over and across the street, Jill considered a larger building: the bass could be heard from here, music occasionally when the front doors opened. It looked busy, but tolerably so; there was no line or dead bouncer standing guard. "Possibility number one," she offered.

[satangotmylungs]

"Tartarus might not be the worst place on its own," John commented, thinking aloud just as much as he was informing her. "It's the beings and people stuck there that you'd want to stay away from. A bit like hell in that regard, actually. Constant torment from creatures the like can't be imagined. Better than what happens in the end to hell, though."

He could hear the bass, and if her lack of reactions to his slight touches bothered him, it wasn't possible to tell. In fact, he was doing it just as reflexively as she was accepting it-simple. He was out with her, and he didn't want them to get separated. Occasionally, a few close encounters between them were necessary. That was all.

[zerosuitjill]

"What, Judgment Day?" Jill inquired without looking over, taking the initiative and leading them across the road. She was listening to everything he said, filing it away like she did most information, just in case -- her life seemed to be full of just in case instances, so it was experience, not paranoia. "Hell gets what's coming to it and everything?"

As they neared the entrance, she turned just enough to put a hand on John's arm -- not grasping his sleeve, not taking his hand, not hooking her fingers under his arm. Just a guiding touch to add to making sure they stayed together as they moved through the crowd.

[satangotmylungs]

"Yeah, that," he murmured, following her lead. The subtleties weren't lost on him, but he didn't make any move to "fix" them. They weren't anything he could quantify at this moment, so there was no reason for him to "make a move"-to interlace their fingers, to fake "bumping" into her as a way for his hand to touch her skin, nothing that would have seemed conventional in that manner. Though, clearly, with the conversation they were currently having, "conventional" wasn't even in the damn ballpark.

"Hell's temporary, see," he continued. "In the End Times, it'll be turned over into a worse place, the Lake of Fire. That's when the real terrible shit gets started, for everyone in it. And that's where they'll stay for all of eternity. Earth'll be paved over with gold and shit, yay for the meek and low of spirit, for they shall inherit the earth."

[zerosuitjill]

Jill glanced over and up at him, her expression briefly thoughtful, almost a frown, before she looked ahead again. "I didn't know there was really a worse when it came to Hell," she replied, a little more quietly. She was doing her best not to let her train of thought show -- and while she was normally good at faking it, the thoughtfulness didn't leave her face.

"That's kind of... harsh, isn't it? If they're already doomed to eternity, why make it worse?"

[satangotmylungs]

"It's not just God God who's got that going on," John replied. "I ain't tryin' to start some religious debate, but there are undeniable horrors in any religion. Hell, even the Buddhists have stories of women being demons at points in time. Religions that claim tolerance and peace like to hide away the blaring, nightmarish parts of their holy texts. Of course, you can't say that about things like Islam in this day and age without being deemed a racist fat redneck son of a bitch, ignorant and brutish, that sort of thing. But there's some pretty non-peaceful things in there. Book of Mormon? Batshit. But people dig it. Jehovah's Witness? Well, if you thought Mormons were deluded into batshit, you would be shell-shocked that it can get worse

[zerosuitjill]

Jill listened without input, watching him partially straight on, partially in the corner of her eye. When his hand moved, she dropped back into closer step beside him -- and in a gesture of... support, really, rather than any form of restraint, she put a hand on his forearm and gripped gently. Not enough to stop him or pull him -- just to say she was there, and listening, as she tended to be.

"Nothing's perfect," she said in the same soft tone, referring to John's speech just then. "Same goes for anything humans are involved in. That's how we operate. Even if something starts out entirely pure and innocent, we'll mess it up given enough time. But even then, there's still better things we strive for."

[satangotmylungs]

His first instinct, his first mode of programming, was to jerk to his arm away. He may not have been trained for combat, but a person didn't have to be trained for combat to have learned reflexes. And it wasn't a natural reflex at all. A kid pulled their hand away because something was hot. John was defensive of his terrible, disgusting habit, and that meant his cigarettes, his lighter, and everything involved in it.

It was evident such was present-but after a slight jerk, he simply looked at her, stopping. "I have to," was all he said, dark eyes seemingly less dark now, some light glinting acceptance in his his gaze. But then he perked up and looked down the street, and cigarettes were forgotten.

For now.

"That place looks good," he said without any segue, quite pleased to go in much of anywhere right now.

[zerosuitjill]

Releasing him at the reaction, Jill just watched him coolly. She nodded at the suggestion, though, and put her hand harmlessly, unassumingly near his shoulder again to begin guiding them forward.

She paused briefly at the entrance, having to back up nearly against John's front as she waited for a couple to pass, and then they were in. It was a surprisingly lighthearted atmosphere: not one of those dark, smokey places that rendered a person half-blind with a dim light show -- although there was a time and place for that, and Jill didn't mind them now and again. Rather, this place was decently lit, larger inside than the outside suggested, allowing them to move with minimal risk of running into anyone on the outskirts of the dance floor. A short bar sat on the right.

"Surprise, surprise," she murmured, mostly to herself. She shot John another glance, her voice picking up. "So, how much experience do you have, exactly?"