ArchivedLogs:Za Vas

Za Vas
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Merit
In Absentia	29 January, 2013 '
Location <NYC> Russian Tea Time - Upper East Side
This chic and upscale restaurant serves surprisingly little tea for their name -- though it can be found, on their menu, and quite good quality at that. Elegant and understated, there is an old-world feel to this place. For those who make their dress code (and book reservations enough in advance), the food here is good, hearty Russian fare, although the main attraction here comes not from their extensive food menu but from their extensive bar. Their vodka comes three double-shots to a flight, for those with strong constitutions (and a safe ride home.) It's quiet enough, midday, not yet time for the overbooked dinner-rush. There are people in plenty scattered around the tables, but the bar is quiet. Mostly quiet. Down at one end, a tall blonde man in an elegantly tailored suit sits, a small collection of shot glasses in front of him. He has evidently not had all of them himself; his companion is a slender woman in a suit just as elegantly tailored, dark hair pulled up into a bun. She is leaning in close, exchanging quiet amused words in French; his answer, in return, prompts soft laughter from her. It changes into a vaguely irritated look when her phone buzzes, and she leans in to kiss him softly on the cheek before collecting her purse, her coat, paying the tab for both of them, and slipping out. Lucien doesn't move, yet, from his stool; instead he pulls a phone out from his pocket, opening up his calendar to frown at it. Shrouded in a long black coat of fine wool and wearing a black gambler's hat, Merit looks like an escapee from the set of a slick, contemporary Western--if Hong Kong cinema produced Westerns. A gust of wind billows his coat inward as he holds the door open for the woman departing the establishment and then enters himself. The mobile reception in the immediate vacinity drops precipitously. He walks with a tense, jangly gait, and his eyes flick rapidly from one focus to the next. He does not sit at the bar, but, upon gaining the bartender's attention, passes him a credit card, raises two fingers, and says, "Zyr." The bartender gives a curt nod and moves to comply. The glasses comes, accompanied with pickle and bread. Merit glances at Lucien and says, "Care to help me drink this?" His words are nonchalant, but he speaks them with a strange cadence--subtle, but alien to human language. Lucien frowns more deeply at his phone, as its reception drops off; his absent lifting it to new locations is a familiar Searching For Signal sort of move but eventually he just pockets the thing again. He turns, leaning an elbow against the bar, posture as languid-nonchalant as Merit's tone. His lips twitch, slightly, looking over the other man first, then the vodka. "Do you make a habit of that?" It sounds vaguely amused, as he looks back up to Merit's face. His words are lazy-languid as his posture, draped with a quiet francophone accent. Still standing ramrod-straight by the bar, Merit lifts a crust of bread from the plate beside him. "If you mean shooting three ounces of vodka, no," he replies, "but I need a central nervous system depressant." He turns the bread over in one hand as though it were some interesting but unimportant artifact. "If you mean offering drinks to complete strangers, yes. It is something of a ritual in my world." He inhales the scent of the bread deeply, and lifts the glass nearer to him with the other hand. "Za vas!" he says, pausing a beat for Lucien. "Need it? What for? There are more pleasurable ways --" Lucien's eyes drop to the bread, watching it turned over in Merits' hand. "-- But then. There are far /less/ pleasurable, as well. What world is it you come from?" Through these questions his slight smile does not fade. He leans forward, claiming the second glass and lifting it to Merit. "{To /you/}" is inappropriately in French, rather than Russian, but he offers it all the same. Merit inclines his head at Lucien's toast and tosses the vodka back in one fluid motion. He returns the empty glass to the bar with a faint but audible clink. "To dampen the interference," he says, a crooked smile curling his lips. Then, with a shrug that might have started out as a switch, he adds, "It happened to be the nearest method at hand." Little by little, he seemed to relax, as if an invisible beast were uncoiling from around his body. From the farther reaches of the venue, patrons regain mobile access and carry on with their digital lives. "I hail from The Nightclub, where music is life and liquor is mana." "Interference?" Lucien crooks an eyebrow upwards. Even as he lifts his glass, draining the shot as well, his eyes do not leave Merit. He watches the ticks of relaxation thoughtfully. "Mmm. I have heard of that land. I am surprised to see one of its denizens out and about at this hour, though. The sun is so high; I generally expect your kind to be safely asleep by now." "Interference," Merit repeats, almost gleefully, "the Eight of Swords." His eyes track across the room briefly, then snap back to Lucien. "Even the children of the night venture out in the light of day, if they must do so to get what they want. Besides..." He settles onto the stool beside him at last. "...I'm flexible." Picking up a pickle from the plate, Merit pops it into his mouth and chews it with an attitude of detached scientific curiosity. Swallows. "Do you ever visit my homeland?" Lucien watches Merit's gleeful speaking with a quietly impassive expression, though at the end his lips twitch upwards. "Interference,' he echoes again, soft and musing. "Who is trapping you, then. Or. Perhaps. Who are you trapping." He sets his glass back down on the table, one finger resting lightly against its rim. "I have been known to make forays into that territory. Now and then. What /is/ it that you want out here in the daylight?" "To be perfectly honest," Merit replies, "I can't remember her name, or what she looks like. I am reasonably sure she thinks she has me under her heel, though." He seems remarkably unconcerned about this as he produces a matte black electronic cigarette from an inner pocket of his coat. "I have just come from seeing her." He takes a long draw on the e-cigarette and breathes out the near-invisible vapor--clove-scented. "She has resources; I need access to them. She takes what she wants; I get what I want." He pauses, and an almost innocent smile touches his lips. "It is...elegant." "Elegant." Lucien's smile fades to bland thoughtfulness, gaze slipping down over the length of Merit's form. His eyes end half-lidded, a sleepy-lazy look belied by the way they stay alertly attuned to Merit from beneath their shading of eyelashes. "Mmm. That sounds like a good many of my arrangements. I suppose the key is just making sure that what is /taken/ does not outweigh what you want to get out of it." "She can only take but so much from me before I am not useful to her anymore." Merit rotates the e-cigarette between his fingers, examining it as if he isn't altogether sure how it got into his hand. "Besides," he adds with a genuinely amused chuckle, "she knows I /like/ being used. At least now I know, too." He takes another puff. "In what area do you...arrange?" "Using people," Lucien answers promptly, with a quick slice of smile. "Who like to be used. What uses do you provide?" "Apparently, I have a knack for seeking you out," Merit says. His tone is casual, but he sits up a little straighter. "I spin some mean dance music. I sort signal from noise. I like pain." He pauses and takes a long pull on the e-cig. "I have a knack with electricity. For some reason, that's the one people seem to want to use." He punctuates this with a very slight shrug. "And for seeking out pain. Although the kind I deliver generally only comes at price. What sort of knack?" Lucien is sitting a little straighter, too, curious. "Music. That is likely to be the most pertinent to /my/ interests. Although sometimes I confess there is little difference between good music and electricity. It certainly can get people wired, enough." "It's a gift of sorts, I suppose." Merit props his elbow on the bar and holds up his chin with the heel of that hand. "I might have to look you up in a professional context, sometime. My 'knack' is manifold, but at its simplest, I am a /conduit/." He gestures vaguely with the e-cig. "The same holds true for the music. The DJ is a channel that moves the music from a passive to an active state. Although," he adds, grinning, "too much music rarely kills people." "The DJ is a channel that moves the people from a passive state to an active state," Lucien says, absent addition rather than correction. "It seems a lot of people in this city have gifts. Though fewer seem to know how to use them to any -- useful purpose." He reaches into his pocket, slips out a wallet; from it he takes a business card. Simple and black, with green text embossed plain on it. 'Lucien Tessier', it reads, and a phone number. Nothing else. He offers it out to Merit on the palm of his hand. "To make it easier. If you wish to look me up." "A common problem," Merit agrees, "not limited to this city." He puts away the e-cigarette and reaches out to take the card, muttering a barely audible "Interesting" when his eyes catch the name. Tucking Lucien's card into a pocket of his coat, he holds out his own--half the size, but also black and bearing only the words 'DJ Straylight' in white lettering on one side and a number on the reverse side. "Consider giving me a call the next time you venture into my territory." "Not knowing how to use what you have is certainly not a geographical problem. But this city seems to have a higher than usual concentration of --" Lucien reaches to pluck Merit's card from his hand. His fingers brush, briefly, against Merit's with the motion, and this light touch is accompanied by a light trickle of sensation, something warm and pleasurable shivering through the other man. "Gifts." Merit sucks in a quick breath, but gives no other indication of his surprise. At least, not until every mobile phone in the establishment chirps or buzzes in complaint of lost signal once again. "/Interesting,/" he repeats, smiling an almost unguarded smile. "If that works the other way, too, I will most certainly look you up." He catches the bartender's eye and nods. The man brings him a credit card slip, which he signs. "A good day to you," he says, rising to depart, "I must to bed, if I want any rest at all before my world comes to life." "Interesting." There's a hint of a smile on Lucien's lips at the chirps from around the room. "It works many ways." He glances at Merit's card, and pockets it, too, his small smile lingering. "Good day to you, as well. Until next time."