thanks! here's a snippet from the jawyer 90s nightclub au i wrote a while back but still haven't posted oops. it's called White Noise
When the evening finally ended, coats lifted from chairs, hands shook and cheeks brushed with goodbyes, Jack followed the current out into the night. Cool air hit his face, sharp with city smog. He kissed his mother’s cheek, shook his father’s hand, smiled when told to drive safe.
The valet slid his keys into his palm. He loosened his tie before he even hit the car, popped the first button, collar gaping just enough to let him breathe. His reflection in the driver’s-side window looked off—damp hair still flattened from a scrub cap, skin flushed and tired, jacket sitting too stiff on his shoulders. Restlessness bled through every line of him.
Instead he cut east out of Beverly Hills, past palm-lined storefronts that gleamed too clean under the streetlamps, onto Melrose where the edges frayed. The sidewalks grew dirtier, neon signs older, their buzz sharp in the night air, flickering over smoke shops, punk boutiques, and bars with windows blacked out. His hands were tight on the wheel, chest wound too tight, like the evening hadn’t ended so much as kept wrapping itself around his throat.
He parked two streets from the club, shoved change into a meter without looking. Music already bled onto the sidewalk, low and relentless, like it had teeth. Jack walked fast, shoes hitting cracked pavement, suit still too neat for this neighborhood.
The line curled down the block, bodies pressed close under a red neon sign that hummed like it might burn out at any second. Jack slid in without thinking, without deciding, pulled by something sharp and inevitable. A folded bill changed hands at the door—clean, practiced—and the bouncer stepped aside without a word, like men in suits weren't supposed to wait.
The bass hit first. A low, relentless throb that pulsed through the floor, into his shoes, his bones, as if it was tuned to the beat of a racing heart. The club was dark in the corners but hazy-bright where strobes cut through the smoke. Damp already slicked the air even though it wasn’t midnight yet, cigarette haze curling above the crowd. The walls were painted black, chipped in places, sticky with years of humidity and bodies pressed too close. Neon signs glowed in the back like relics, casting everything in acid blue and red. The whole place reeked of alcohol, cheap cologne, and the sharp tang of sweaty people.