too many secrets, too much scotch. | forest & jaelyn.
@pembrcke | closed starter
Sometimes Jae was convinced that events like this were the sole reason someone bothered to invent alcohol. She was on her second glass of scotch, after three glasses of wine, and she still wasn’t drunk enough to say she was enjoying herself. It didn’t help that the gala was, in and of itself, a reminder of the secrets she was keeping from her best friend. People had died because they were Clairs, what if the same thing happened to her and that’s how Forest found out? She wasn’t one to make other people’s tragedies about her, but this definitely made her think long and hard about the decision to keep this from him.
She downed the remainder of her glass as she pushed the thought from her mind. Coming out may have been something she’d developed a knack for after the constant stream of heteronormativity thrown at her throughout her life but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. She ordered another drink and turned to look at Forest, dressed to the nine’s in the polka dot bowtie she’d bought specifically for him. The fact he was here proved, to her, that he wouldn’t run screaming the other direction if she told him, but it didn’t put her anymore at ease.
Conversation would help get her mind off things so she racked her brain for a topic and started talking before she’d fully comprehended what she was saying. “How do you feel about hors d'oeuvre? Should we order some? Are you hungry?”
Events like this always made Jae feel vaguely off-kilter, at least until she’d gotten a few drinks into her. It didn’t help that she felt like she was hiding something, not that there was anyway to identify other Clairs that were here, no one knew she wasn’t being upfront. And it didn’t help that the cause was to support victims of a hate crime of which she was part of those being targeted. Maybe a few drinks is an understatement.
Finding friendly faces was fairly easy, it seemed like a majority of Seattle had showed up in support, but finding a friendly face she actually wanted to see was a whole different story. Finally she spotted Seb, someone she knew wouldn’t ask too many questions she didn’t want to answer, and ordered two glasses of champagne.
“You look like you,” She set one of the flutes down on the table in front of him. “Could use a drink. And no, you can’t refuse, I don’t drink alone and you’re the only person here I feel like talking to.” She offered them a small smile before taking a sip from her own glass. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”
Crisp suit, good hair, better shoes. All key ingredients for a nice night out, he’d say. If the cameras were rolling, at least he made sure that they caught all his angles. ( Which ones were the best? Answer: all of them. )
There was tension in the air surely, after more Clairs have been the target of outlandish hate crimes and misplaced fear, grown exponentially using charismatic ministers and deranged fanatics of what far right Christian movement sprung up next. But popular movement was to support these Clairs, to show a smile and give enough support, since without enough resources or protection, one of these Clairs---especially miss Larson, could have been him. And so here he was, a smile behind his glasses and his sister gallivanting off somewhere, mostly with people from her cliques, for a lovely PR stunt that the publicity team had cooked up for him.
Though, none of it---the bright lights and some of the inane questions, could have prepared him for the feeling when he saw Dylan walk in.
It was awkward, to say the least, to know that your sister went to a club owned by an ex, and even more awkward to disregard the same ex when he was ten feet from him. And yet, he couldn’t help but bristle, or at least give a resounding cough to draw attention to himself.
( Sue him; subtlety wasn’t his best suit---at least not now. )
Slamming into someone, or really attracting attention at all, when you were trying to get away from a fight you started was probably not the best idea. Neither, of course, was getting blood on their clothes. Jae felt a sort of horror, or maybe panic, well up in her chest as the site of the red smeared on the girls shirt and she hoped, for the sake of not getting arrested, that the blonde in front of her wouldn’t start throwing up. “I’m so sorry. I can, uh, pay for your dry cleaning? Or buy you a new shirt? Whatever you want.” She stopped herself from talking to much, despite her sudden urge to babble out apologies. “And no I didn’t kill anyone, or anything like that, I promise.”
Jae turned the ball over in her hand once, before whipping it at the stacked cans behind the counter. The attendant looked surprised as one by one they all toppled over but Jae’s grin was triumphant, her hand outstretched for the second ball. She repeated the process twice, knocking all the cans over and deliberately acting like it was no big deal, until the attendant showed her the row of prizes she could pick from. She picked out a blue monkey the size of her torso and turned to Zach with the toy held towards him. “Someone to keep you warm at night. He’s probably the best looking creature to ever crawl in there with you anyway.”
The crowd was thick and if Jaelyn was in attendance for any reason other than solidarity with her fellow Clairs—despite not being open about her status as such—she would have left. She didn’t actually mind crowds that much, it could be enjoyable to be in a bunch of people that didn’t really give a shit about you, freeing in a way. No one cared about you so you could do whatever you wanted. However, most crowds weren’t littered with people holding signs objecting to her very existence.
The first protestor she’d seen had grated on her nerves. The second had pissed her off. She lost count after eighty and by that point her blood was boiling.
It wasn’t like anyone had wanted this. Jae knew she sure as hell didn’t. People were terrified, herself included, but that was no excuse to hate something just because you don’t understand it. The words being thrown around—abomination and satanist and unnatural—were unnecessary and damaging to people that had already suffered and sure, she could name the amount of fellow Clairs she could name on one hand but that didn’t mean that they had to take this.
She was in the midst of a throng of people holding signs when the guy behind to her, twice her height but skinny as a beanpole, started screaming about how all Clairvoyants should be executed. She briefly thought about Kaleb, about how she’d feel if anyone said this kind of stuff about him, and reacted without thinking. The police couldn’t do anything, but someone needed to show everyone that people wouldn’t take misguided hate speech born out of fear and desperation.
Her fist hit his cheekbone before he’d even realized why she’d turned around and his sign—a piece of card board on a stick with “not in my present” written in blood red paint on the front—hit the ground as he brought his hands up to cover his face. “You need to shut the fuck up.”
For a second he looked as if he wanted to say something and as if hadn’t been expecting any resistance, before he lunged at her, his fist aimed for her stomach. She twisted out of the way, her height a benefit for once, and kicked him in the lower back, sending him sprawling on the ground. The grim satisfaction of a minor victory didn’t last long as he got up without much pause, looking more angry than surprised now.
“Let me guess, you know one. Well, let me tell you something, little girl, they’re unnatural, and unnatural things-” She cut him off mid-sentence with an upper cut that knocked him off his feet again. This time she didn’t wait for him to get back up, pinning him down with her legs across his thighs, one hand clutched in the front of his grey t-shirt the other in a fist.
She felt bones crack as her fist connected with his nose, blood spraying the grass beside his head. She pulled back to hit him again when she felt arms wrap around her waist, pulling her off him. Jae’s instinctive reaction to be picked up was to ram her elbow into the head of whoever had dared touch her, and she hit the ground when they dropped her. The anger was still running hot in her veins, and part of her want to push the small crowd of people away from the man that she’d attacked and hit him again, but rationality was seeping in and the reality was that would be the dumbest thing she’d ever done. Dumber than that time she’d tried to hide a stray cat in her bedroom when she was nine.
With one last scorching glare in the asshole’s direction she slipped through the crowd, wiping the blood off her knuckles on the inside of her shirt and wondering what would happen the next time something like this happened.
Realistically, Jae shouldn’t have gone anywhere near the battle of the bands. She was a pop person—aside from the brief stint in high school where she’d listened to nothing but screamo—and most, if not all, of the bands would be playing music that was not pop. The only reason she found herself among the masses of music fans was Alex, she'd always be there to support her friends and this was no exception. "So are you, like, in this band? Or are you just here for the competition? And if you're not already a part of this band do you wanna start a band with me?" Jaelyn flashed a grin full of humour. "I can play a mean triangle."
The hustle and bustle inside the convention center was a welcoming feeling for Jae. She’d always loved the mania of crowds, the voices blending together, the sense of being just one small person in a much larger picture, and being in a crowd with someone a foot taller than her—rather than Kaleb’s measly three inches—was a blessing. “Forest! Look at these!” She grabbed his hand, dragging him to a table littered with hand-knitted infinity scarves. She picked out a deep purple one and pulled it over her head, putting her hands on her hips to model it with a wide smile once she was done. “What do you think?”
