1017/Sinuous Life

Sinuous Life
Date of Scene:	19 June 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Jessica Jones finds her way back into Lux for yet another evening, sharing a night of open honesty with The Bartender. When she presses him, yet again, on the matter of his identity he presents her with an offer, a riddle: all part and parcel of a puzzle she can't even begin to resist trying to solve.
Cast of Characters:	Lucifer, Jessica Jones

---

Lucifer has posed:
Even though it's been 'back' but a few weeks, Lux has become a swiftly rising star in New York. Rumors swirl about who's in there and doig business, where they come from and where they go. Underworld deals, bargains, thugs for hire, vast sums of ill-gotten gains transferred and obtained.

And darker rumors from those plugged into the community of magic, from hedge wizards to full sorcerors-- that Lux is a place where dark bargains are struck and sealed.

But at the moment, it is merely a dance club, one pounding with rhythm and sinuous life as the wealthy elite of New York descend onto the illuminated dance floor to twist and writhe with one another. The upper lounge is less occupied than usual when Jessica arrives; the bartender, ever-present, is on the wrong side of the bar for once, and reading a book with a dark colored stout in a beer glass at his elbow. Seems everyone is down below.

Jessica Jones has posed:
She shouldn't be back here. Klein is at home tonight. The price is creeping ever-higher on that book. Six million now. Jessica Jones has been getting the updates from various sources. She tells herself Lux is one of those sources. And it is. But that's not really what drives her through the doors yet again. What drives her through the doors, as she pays a cover charge that she really shouldn't be paying, is something else entirely. Visiting this place has dangers. She's sure of it. Hidden pitfalls she hasn't fully grasped yet. But it also has twice provided her with a balm that she hungers for.

A little red number tonight, though it's much like the previous two outfits she's worn here. A modestly cut jumpsuit with short sleeves and a V-neck that doesn't show off anything in particular. She's starting to look more at home in these clothes. The combat boots have been replaced with strappy sandals. She's swept a corner of her hair up on the left, held up by a sparkling red comb. Her lipstick matches her clothes. She's also spending way more on clothes than she ever has before either, and vows that three Lux outfits are more than enough outfits.

She comes up to the bar and then stops short to see the man she's dubbed Vegas reading, apparently on break. "Sorry," she says, just in case he's aware of her presence. Maybe this area was supposed to be closed? No, there are people here... She gives one of those rueful twists of her mouth that she makes when she's approaching a smile but isn't quite there yet. "I didn't realize-- " What? She's not even sure of what she hasn't realized. Sometimes finding the unexpected can throw even hard-bitten PIs for a loop.

Lucifer has posed:
'Vegas' looks up at Jessica, and a flickering smile of approval tugs at the sides of his mouth. He's dressed informally-- loose, unbuttoned black vest, black slacks, a white collared shirt with sleves cuffed to his elbows and no tie. He must either just be coming on shift, or just coming off of it.

"Sorry? For what?" he inquires, in a tone of good humor. The book *snaps* shut. He doesn't bother with a bookmark. The man must live dangerously. It's a very old book, leather bound with painted title-- 'Mr. Weston's Good Wine'. A small book, short enough to be read in an afternoon or less.

"You look lovely tonight, Miss Jones. Is that a new outfit?" he inquires, eyes roving up and down. "Red suits you, if you don't mind my saying so. Can I fix you a drink?" he inquires, putting a hand on the bar to ease himself up from his seat.

Jessica Jones has posed:
"I thought maybe I was interrupting," Jessica admits, with an utterly rare sheepishness. She seems to appreciate the compliment without knowing precisely what to do with it for a moment. She has come in sober. The frank appraisal hits her differently, depending on whether she's drunk or whether she is sober, but after a moment where she holds a little too still she decides it's not unpleasant from this man in particular. And anyway, she's about to rectify that sober thing.

She touches the hair comb with an equally rare self-consciousness and finally settles on, "Thanks."

And then, with a far more common wry humor, "Everything I've worn here is new. I'm a jeans and leather kind of a lady, you know. The things a woman does for--"

She'd meant to say case. But that's not what comes out.

"A great bartender."

The smile becomes a little more genuine as she slides behind the bar.

"I //would// like a drink. I don't have any special requests. Surprise me. I have a feeling you'll choose something precisely right."

Lucifer has posed:
"Flattery gets you everywhere," the bartender says, chuckling at Jessica. He doesn't hold that look at her, either, while she dithers over the compliment-- mercifully giivng her room to blush and consider her options without putting her even more on the spot, anyway. At least not in a public area, though the lounge seems mostly unoccupied with the dance club pounding downstairs. Seems most of the patrons are using an alternate entrance to get there.

He climbs up onto the bar, sitting on the lacquer, and lifts his feet to spin on the wood. With a grunt and an agile hop, he kips off the bar with his hands and lands on the workspace to start rummaging around. "Let's see. Surprise you," he mutters, contemplating his tools.

"I like to start the evening with clear liquor," he tells her. "Something ... light. Promising. Enough to wet the whistle but not run the evening down to ground prematurely."

He starts digging around for several goodies stored in bottles, shaking and mingling. Fresh, sharp citrus scents prickle at Jessica's nose-- and something herbal, just to give it a little bite.

He mixes the cocktail and pours it all into a wide, shallow cocktail glass, and garnishes it with a bit of crushed basil.

"Basil foam," he says, grinning at her. "Prosecco, pureed white peach, St. Germain, and basic simple syrup, over vodka." The foam is light and frothy, and a trick of physics makes the small amount of puree suspend itself lazily in the vodka.

It's sweet-- surprisingly sweet, and refreshingly tangy, without being cloyingly so. The herbal basil pricks the nose without overwhelming the liquor, and the sweetened foam smooths out the bite of the vodka.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica's brown eyes light up a little as he explains his philosophy behind the choice. She rests her chin on a clasped fist as she watches him, the rare sparkle coming out. A hint of arch mischief left unspoken as he explains this dance of promise vs. prematurity.

She inhales the scents though, and her eyes widen with another spark of surprise and delight at the idea that something like basil foam even exists. "I've been drinking all wrong all my life," she says, with mock mournfulness. Maybe it is a little mournful, because she is learning the right drink at the right time can be as soothing in what her physiology registers as a thimble's worth of a dose as the wrong drink can by the literal gallon. She takes a little sip; in the presence of an artist one doesn't gulp or just down the shot, and her eyes slip closed as she just allows the taste of it to dance right over her tongue. She lets out a long, pleased sigh. "I was right. You /did/ pick /just/ right. But then..." She indicates the book he was reading with a quick movement of her head, "You do study your craft."

Lucifer has posed:
"Oh, this?" The Bartender picks up the book and glances at the title, then spins it around and hands it to Jessica. "It's not a winemaker's guide," he tells her, shaking his head. "It's a novel from the late '20s. Written by a man named Powys. It's a little antiquated," he admits, "but I enjoy reading it once in a while."

He regards Jessica thoughtfully, then leans on the bar with an elbow and holds the book out towards her in a clear offer. "Here, why not have my copy? I've read it a dozen times," he tells her. "You look like the sort of girl who enjoys a good book and hasn't had time to curl up with one in a while," he says, flashing another smile at her. Not the gale-force sunshine one she keeps coming back for, but it's still warmly affectionate without a professional's impersonal familiarity. "Keep it," please, he suggests, anticipating her objection.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica opens her mouth in surprise, but he's already anticipating her objections, her wait-are-you-sures. By the time she's collected her wits he's already smiling at her, and the book is already in her hand. The truth is she //does// like to read. And the truth is..."Not since I was in high school," she admits. When she takes the book she does so carefully, like someone who was trained in the preciousness of books. "Curling up with a good book, I mean."

She gives a lightning quick smile in return. "Library day used to be my favorite day, when I was a kid," she admits. "I'd go in, spend hours just...scouting the shelves. Walk out with a stack tall enough to fit under my chin. Thank you. I'm looking forward to diving into it. If you've read it so many times something in it must speak to you."

Something else comes over her features, a rather touched look as she turns the book over in her hands. She's having trouble remembering the last time someone just gave her a gift out of the blue, either. It's...been a long time.

And then she turns mischevious and opens up the flap, where someone who got a book as a gift might have written a little dedication out to the recipient, or where someone might have stamped a 'this book belongs to 'name' in there. It's a tease at trying to find his name out, and a nod to her own investigator's nature that requires her to seek out answers in spite of herself. But even as she does so, she says, "Thank you."

When she thanks him, the habitual hard edge has evaporated from her voice entirely, softening her tone.

Lucifer has posed:
"A hard boiled private detective like you? A bookworm?" the Bartender says, grinning at Jessica from across the bar. "I can see that." He laughs easily at her attempt to suss out his name, shaking his head at her. "Sorry, sweetheart-- won't that easy," he assures her, easily reading her intentions as she searches for identifying marks.

"Let me guess, you were one of those kids who was bored in class all the time," he surmises. "Ten chapters ahead of everyone else in the assigned reading?" he inquires, eyes dancing.

There's some noise from the dance floor far below that momentarily gets his attention, and he takes the interruption as a moment to hop over the bar once more with a casual disregard for propriety, retaking his seat adjacent to Jessica Jones, and taking in the ravishing red outfit before focusing on her face again.

"I'm curous what you liked to read, though," he says. "Bookworms like you... I want to say high fantasy, but you'er a bit too pragmatic for that. Hardboiled noire is too easy. Bet you a free drink that you snuck a few sappy romance novels in that pile once in a while, though," he says, challenging her with a sly, urbane smile.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica only laughs when he assures her it won't be that easy, because she didn't really expect it to be...but she couldn't help herself. The noise from the dance floor jerks her head around as well, closes her face down, hardens it; she tenses like she expects trouble. Her mind knows this bar is safe, because she's been told violence isn't tolerated here, and she actually believes it. Her body, though, shoots adrenaline through her veins, prepares her. For a moment she's a hunting wolf about to leap into the fray to protect someone or stop something...and then it's just a noise. She makes an impatient noise, just a little scoff at herself and...

Suddenly Vegas is there beside her, just leaping over the bar and sitting next to her. Her face clears, and she relaxes. Takes another sip of her incredible drink, laying the book gently back on the bar to be taken up and out later.

And then? She smirks and her eyes dance as he calls her on the sappy romance novels. "Sure I did," she agrees. "Lots of so-called sappy romance novels are filled with some really cool explosions and dramatic window leaps, you know. Love makes the stakes doubly high. Saving the city or whatever, saving your own future at the same time."

She grins, warming to memory. "I liked a whole mix though. Hard SF sometimes. I did like mysteries and suspense stuff, but...not hardboiled noire, no. I didn't have any thoughts of being a PI in high school. I liked heroes and heroines who used their brains to solve tough problems, I liked books that brought me to weird locations or opened me up to new worlds that I hadn't seen before, didn't know anything about. Dick Francis to carry me off into the world of horse racing and high society. Ellis Peters to show me how a crime might be solved in medieval times. Sometimes something a little less dramatic though. The Bean Trees, where the stakes are as simple as whether a woman was going to be able to care for the child that was dumped in her lap, and, in the sequel, whether she'd get to keep her."

She snorts at herself, then says, "I didn't like being boxed in. If a book looked cool, I was going to read it, and screw what anyone thought. Now your turn though. Are you normally all about the classics?"

She taps Mr. Weston's Good Wine with one fingernail. "What else sneaks into the libraries of mysterious bartenders?"

Lucifer has posed:
"Anything that encapsulates the human condition," the Bartender tells Jessica, resting an elbow on the lacquered wood behind him with a lazy, sprawling comfort. He seems utterly at ease, and the noise from the dance floor sounds more celebratory than dangerous.

Lux's reputation as a frequent host of bacchanalia suggests that the sound from the sub-basement dance area is anything but outrage.

"Humanity loves their heroes, but it's really the villains that hold a light up," he professes, framing an imaginary narrative with his hands. "The best of people are good for aspirations, but it takes a villain to really show how ugly the path could be. How dark things might be without someone whipping humanity on towards... a higher purpose. A goal of excellence."

"If all that people read are stories about heroes, it's too easy to think that the world is full of nothing but noble, well-intentioned folks. Villains remind everyone to work just a little harder not to let everything fall into the dust."

Sensing Jessia's alertness, he glances at the dance floor again, then looks back at Jessica. "Is the noise bothering you? We can sit somewhere quieter," he offers.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica's face turns very thoughtful. She turns his words over and over in his mind, clearly doing so even as she turns the glass around and around in her hands. All of that resonates with her, all the talk about heroes and villians. "Especially since all villians think they're heroes," she says, with a dark, grim purpose. "Never realizing they've danced over that thin, invisible line. Never thinking to try to dance back. Gotta pay attention to that line, too, or it doesn't matter how hard you work. You'll end up working for the wrong shit, every time."

Dark thoughts. She is shaking her head to shake them off when he offers to take her to sit somewhere quieter. She shakes her head. "It's fine. My line of work can make me a little jumpy, is all." There are oceans of understatement in there, really, but she leaves them buried beneath the surface.

Still, curiosity provides a powerful tug upon the mind of the investigator, and she says, "But I won't say no to quieter, either. If nothing else," she smirks. "It'll spare you watching me get jumpy, I guess."

Lucifer has posed:
"I'm not going to dignify that with an entendre," the Bartender sniffs-- but he grins at Jessica anyway, easygoing and amused, and gets to his feet to gesture towards the lounge area beyond the bar. Isolated seating areas scattered around the lounge provide a modicum of sound insulation and privacy, while doors left half propped open indicate that the private cocktail lounges-- often used for business meetings and the like-- are available as well.

"The tragic antihero is a character I enjoy," the Bartender tells Jessica, too. "Even more than a villain. The villain /thinks/ they're doing the right thing for the right reasons. The antihero often does the wrong thing, for the right reasons. That's a much more difficult line to straddle. I think it challenges us in new and different ways."

"So Jessica, not to pry, but this is the third time you've shown up here dressed to kill and keeping me company," he tells her, his tone wryly amused and a little knowing. "Is there a special someone in your life? Boy? Girl? A special pen pal who lives in Canada?" he says, his tone a little more lighthearted to distract from the serious topic.

Jessica Jones has posed:
This /is/ nicer, not that every part of the bar isn't /nice/, and Jessica Jones casts an appreciative gaze around before sliding into the comfortable seating with a pleased sigh.

She had smirked at the entendre line, but the same caution that kept her from making her own entendres way back when he was making his drink stops her from responding in quite that way now. She tucks the book carefully beside her in the seat, not wanting to lose track of it.

Something very wry comes into her face when he says he enjoys tragic antiheroes, people who do the wrong things for the right reasons, the difficulty of straddling that line. That one /really/ hits home, and she can't even keep that fact off of her face.

He switches the subject again, and...suddenly there goes the caution.

"Special pen pals in Canada? People still spin that line? I thought they'd moved on to more sophisticated shit, like photoshopping themselves in with underwear models and posting it up on Facebook. No. There's nobody like that."

She leans forward, smirking. "And if there /were/ someone like that, I'd generally insist on knowing, you know. His name." Still, she isn't as put off by that as she might seem to be. It's not as though she doesn't enjoy a good mystery, after all.

Lucifer has posed:
The bartender slips into the same bench Jessica does, half a cushion down. Close enough to be intimate, not enough to be pushing into the dark haired woman's personal space. He crosses his legs and rests his elbow on the back of the sofa, fingertips resting against his temple.

At her saucy unspoken reprimand, he grins, then laughs. A warm, full-bodied laugh, warming the air perceptibly, and he shakes his head at her. "Wouldn't that be cheating?" he inquires, eyes dancing merrily. "Would it change anything at all? 'What's Montague?" he says-- and suddenly, his voice takes on a quality Jessica had never heard before. Resonant. Filling the air around her. "It is not hand, nor foot, nor arm nor face; nor any other part, belonging to a man! O, be some other name? What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet!"

Nothing changes around her-- the lights, the sound, the smell-- but the world still falls away for a moment. One can almost hear Juliet giving plaintive cry in her soliloqy at the back of his voice, as if a harmony of voice speaks from one mouth. "So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without thy title. Romeo, doff they name, and for that name which is no part of me, take all myself."

And though his voice dosn't change, it's impossible to miss the sense of a new pitch from somewhere 'else' in this imaginary stage, calling from the far right, and he holds Jessica's eyes while he says the lines: "I take thee at thy word; call me but love, and I'll be new baptized. Henceforth, I never will be .... Romeo."

Though nothing around them changes, when the last line is delivered, reality reassets itself around Jessica as if the little intimate lounge seating is reassmbled by invisible stagehands while the Bartender delivers his quote."

Jessica Jones has posed:
She can't help it. She laughs in delight as he begins delivering Juliet's monologue, and to perfection. It sparks so many more questions of who this guy is. Educated, refined, armed with a stage magician's tricks, a trained actor's memory and delivery, a mixologist's tastes. She tilts her head at this sense of being surrounded by stage hands, at this sense that his voice is coming from two places at once.

She doesn't ask how he's doing it, knowing a magician never reveals his tricks, but it's a sure bet she's asking /herself/ that very question. But she meets his eyes while he delivers the lines, boldly, not shying from the contact, more intimite in its way than anything he could have accomplished by sitting closer, and yet less threatening, accepted in a way his closer proximity might not actually have been, just yet.

"Well played, well played," Jessica says, raising her glass in salute, eyes sparkling. "And an interesting choice, given our literary discussions of the night. After all, everyone /thinks/ that play is all about the passion of love, but it's not about that at all. It's about the passions of violence. But well played, nevertheless. You sure you don't belong on Broadway? Because it was 'well-played' in more than one sense. Or...do you just do that every other Tuesday?"

Lucifer has posed:
"You missed my show at the Velvet Room last week," the bartender says, grinning at the outrageous sally. "I bust into a mean version of Viva Las Vegas." He laughs, that easy, warm laugh-- perhaps not the one that Jessica craves, but still warm and effortless with an uncensored quality of good humor.

"It's a brilliant play and terrible all at once when you think about it. A fourteen year old boy and an eleven year old girl, suicide by poison in the middle of a family feud. The Taming of the Shrew was at least /funny/. Throw a pie, y'know?" he suggests, mirth dancing at the corner of his lips.

"Tell me something else about yourself, Jessica," he suggests, making it a polite request with just a hint of brassy imperative. "You're obviously a lover of literature, you have a keen eye for fashion and for following hunches." He scratches his temple, then flicks a fingertip vaguely her direction as if propelling a question at her. "Tell me something important about yourself. Points for something you wish more people realized without having to be told."

Jessica Jones has posed:
She finds it's alright. She may crave the other, but...she's still feeling pretty happy right now. And it's a version of happiness that's normal. She feels /different/ here, she feels /better/ here. It's the difference between drinking a light beer and a gallon of whiskey, though of course one version is certainly healthier than the other.

She's barely made it halfway through the drink, enjoying the company more. Having fun and being at ease without being drunk. It's foreign. It's refreshing.

She laughs out loud. "I have a terrible eye for fashion. My sister Trish helped me shop for this, and she was very excited to do so. She's now on some sort of campaign to update my whole wardrobe. I keep trying to tell her that I end up covered in mud or garbage or blood or whatever in a way that makes this all futile."

But he asks his question, and she pauses to really think about it. What does she wish people knew about her? Something important about herself?

"I'm not sure I can do it the way you want," she says slowly. "Mostly-- and you seem to be a real charming exception that proves the rule-- I don't want people to realize a damn thing about me that I don't deliberately show them."

It's her turn to look him in the eye. "Kind of like you, I'd guess."

Lucifer has posed:
Oh, she's good. A slow grin spreads across the Bartender's face at her retort. It's smoothly executed, with that brassy self confidence that clearly has gotten her to the point she's at today. The subtle cock of one brow, the uplift of her chin. Even dressed to kill in scarlet with her hair pinned back, she's got the chops of a seasoned investigator.

It doesn't rattle him. Quite the contrary, he seems inordinately pleased at how effortlessly she redirects the conversation.

"Touche," he conceds, tilting his head. "I'll make you a deal, Jessica. How about a game of quid pro quo. You ask a question, I'll ask a question. Honest answers only-- and if it's something too sensitive, you can pass. Deal?" he inquires, eyes dancing with a merry jig. Definitely not a mere bartender sitting here-- no service person has that sort of sanguine self confidence when facing a regular, particularly without the delineation of the bar between them.

Jessica Jones has posed:
He can bet that she's noticed all the little details, every bit that doesn't fit. She smirks and leans back, taking another sip. The right to ask him questions has scored a point, and she's already assembling the ones that might be important to ask. Even as she decides...not to go for the one she's already asked him twice. No, she'll go with some other ones. "Deal," she says.

The quid pro quo seems to please her as well, the fact that he's game to answer something, the fact that he ups the stakes a little bit. Honesty for honesty.

And, with the same straightforward boldness he's already observed, she decides right off the bat that it's her turn. It's because of how he phrased it. You ask, I ask.

She could go for more factual, pragmatic questions. It would be in her nature to do so, to get the bedrock, bare facts of the 'case', such as it is. But she finds herself rejecting every one of those questions in favor of something...else.

"If we were figures out of literature, right now," she says. "Or players in some enduring stage drama. What role would you be filling in that story? Would readers, or the audience, if you prefer, see you as the hero? The villian? The anti-hero? The wise counselor that moves the plot along? Or someone else entirely?"

It seems appropriate, after all of their talk of stories. And, she thinks, the answer may be telling in the way she wants it to be telling deep down. For once, she finds that understanding the actual facts of the situation isn't remotely enough for her. Seasoned investigator she may be, but this puzzle, this person, seems to require more.

Lucifer has posed:
He grins. He grins and laughs easily, and then it /is/ sunshine and happy thoughts and that feeling like being wrapped in a warm cotton cloth right off a summer clothesline. The chortle rings and he tilts his head towards Jessica at her question-- so subtle and penetrating all at once.

"Everyone wishes to be the hero of their own story, yes?" he inquires. "As you said, no one thinks themselves the villain-- and even the antihero believes that they do the wrong in the name of the greater good. So if I were to pick a role I feel I fulfill best, then you might call me Holden Caulfield, and make of that what you will for my answer."

He sips his cocktail, examining Jessica carefully. "My turn," he says, recrossing his legs and shifting minutely closer to her while he muses over the infinity of options out there.

"Voltaire opined that this is the best of all possible worlds," he remarks. "That we exist in the only possibility that we logically can occupy." A finger on his cocktail glass upticks minutely. "Let us assume he is wrong. What is it, then, that you would change of this world-- one thing-- to make it your 'perfect' world"?"

Jessica Jones has posed:
"Well, Holden Caufield's a better name than Vegas," Jessica teases, once again swept up in that wave of warmth. It takes her a moment to remember the character, but she eventually finds it somewhere in her mental databanks.

The rebel, and the hater of all things hypocritical. It's been a long time since that book rested in Jessica's hands, and it was a high school reading assignment, but it's enough to remember.

She doesn't shy from his lean in, not now, not in the least.

But his question is a good one, and prompts a look of reflection. Her perfect world. "People, on the whole, and on average," she says at last, "would be kinder. They'd give more of a damn. They'd have a little more of a capacity to put themselves in someone else's god damn shoes. It might be just enough, you know? I don't think it would be smart to create a world utterly devoid of challenges or anything. Just...maybe one where we're all a little less ugly, a little less eager to cause each other pain because we can. There's challenges enough without, say, the kind of vicious sadism humanity is way too capable of."

She looks down, frowning self-consciously, the sudden vulnerability of someone who thinks they've given the world's /dumbest/ answer. But it surely does not ring false. It's what she'd do, if she suddenly had the power.

She clears her throat and recovers though. It is, after all, her turn. "But. Anyway...Mr. Caufield. If you could change anything about /yourself/, what would you change?"

Lucifer has posed:
"Nothing," Holden answers, shrugging one shoulder. He smiles apologetically at any expression of skepticism. "The honest truth," he assures Jessica with that strangely unimpeachable sincerity. "I enjoy who I am and what I do. My purpose is clear and my person is what I desire it to be."

"And, nuts to you for stealing my next question," he says, tapping his chin in thought.

"Ah-- I know. The young have dreams that never flourish. It's part of life to let one dream go and move on to the next," he remarks. "Goals, ambitions, desires. What was it you dreamed of being as a child?" he inquires, tilting his head minutely to one side.

The low bassy pulse of the club is little more than an afterthought, a heartbeat of the city in the distance. No one enters their little sanctuary in the lounge, the acoustics and the company working in tandem to give the very real feeling of Jessica and Holden being the only two people in the world at this moment. The way he focuses on her-- his hazel eyes staring intently, consuming every nuance of word and action-- goes a long way towards reinforcing that feeling of being absolutely near the center of the universe.

Jessica Jones has posed:
She quirks an eyebrow. Nothing? Nothing at /all?/ "You must be the most confident person on the planet," she says with a wry laugh, but...he says it's honest truth, and she believes he won't subvert their little game. So other than that comment? She lets it go. Her lips quirk in amusement when he says she took his question.

She is conscious of the feeling. She's never felt anything quite like this-- at least, not anything that wasn't overtly and oppressively threatening. But she feels safe enough now. Her fantastic drink is given its final sip, the glass is set aside, and she finds she doesn't need another. This answer comes easily enough.

"I wanted to be a reporter," she says, easily enough. "Well, unless we're reaching waaaay back into my childhood, at which point I wanted to either be a firefighter or an astronaut, but the reporter thing was the longest running thing. Not some sort of surface-level reporter either. The type who does really in-depth investigations that matter, huge features, the occasional book. Or, if I went to visual media, the same sorts of hard-hitting stories coupled with intensive documentaries. A serious and contributing member of the good old 'fourth branch.'"

She shifts in her seat, a shift that indicates someone getting really comfortable. Some new layer of guard coming down. The woman has many, many layers of guard, though Holden has certainly slipped past defense after defense.

Brown eyes meet hazel, and she asks, "What makes you happy? Really happy, not just content, or entertained, or kind of amused."

Lucifer has posed:
It is a curious fact of gravity that all celestial bodies converge around a common center of gravity. True for planets, true for people, true for even ... whatever Holden is, as he and Jessica inch closer by tiny measures, less than half a cushion separating them anymore. His drink is set aside too, though it's not quite consumed, as if joining Jessica in her sobriety.

"Being pleasantly surprised," he tells her finally, after giving it serious thought. "I love nothing more than when I expect the worst to happen and the best lands in my lap instead. I'm admittedly a bit of a pessimist," he says, shrugging one shoulder at her. "Or a pragmatist, if you like that better. But once in a while something happens that I didn't see coming. Even more rarely, some-one-."

The phrase 'his eyes twinkle' gets overrused in writing, but as Jessica watches his face, there's no better word at all for the little jig that his hazel gaze dances at the innuendo, playfully innocent and flirty all at once.

His grin spreads a little again. "What's the worst pickup line you've ever heard that you still fell for?" he inquires, his tone becoming lighthearted to break the ice a little in the intensity of their back and forth.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica's smiles cannot produce feelings of floating on clouds or being wrapped in warm blankets, at least, not in any celestial sense. But there's one she almost never gives, one that is beyond a teasing grin or the more common wry smirk. He manages to produce one of these with his answer for her. She drops her gaze from him, still grinning a bit.

His question sobers her a little. It should be a fun, silly question. Or an opportunity for some teasing, even though they're being honest. She could yank his chain a little, produce something he's said.

But they set the terms. And the terms are honesty.

Honesty in this case even means different things. The wry look returns, cut with some manner of pain, as if he'd brushed his fingers against a broken limb and produced a stoic stiffening of her very soul.

"That's not how it really works for me, usually, Holden," she admits at last, slowly. "To the point where I'm not sure I can dig one up. The answer isn't light or funny, cute or clever. Might be a little too honest."

She doesn't ask another question, because she hasn't answered his yet, not for real. She leaves the door open, to see if he wants to hear something so heavy, but allows him the out if he doesn't. It's not a pass either...she's willing to tell him. She's just conscious of the fact that maybe sometimes people trip on asking something that maybe, just maybe, they really don't want to know.

Lucifer has posed:
Holden's smile falls a little. As if, despite his own statement to the contrary, he'd hoped for something other than the worst case. He studies her profile as she looks away, making note of the hollowing around her eyes, the thin press of lips. The bartender, whatever his name, is astute on an entirely different level than most people.

But she doesn't push him away, and doesn't back off. She doesn't get up or 'pass' or make a joke. And so he looks at her, patient, until the silence stretches and it becomes clear what she wants /him/ to say.

Holden reaches across the gap between them and sets his hand on the cushion near her knee, palm up. An offer. A point in reality to cling to, a bit of contact of a very human sort.

"I'm listening," he tells her, a bit redundantly. "If you want to tell me," he adds-- equally redundant.

But sometimes the affirmation of words is as important as the actions that go with them.

Jessica Jones has posed:
She hesitates before taking his hand. It's a very human thing, but touch is very fraught for her. She has to overcome barriers, leaps and bounds, to accept even that simple lifeline.

Eventually, though, her pale hand slides into his. And squeezes. Not with the fullness of her strength, of course, which could easily break a human hand. Right now, it's just like any other woman's.

"Normally," she says, "I'd have to be beyond drunk to let a man sit this close to me," she says at last. "Drunk enough for the rest of the world to look like an impressionistic painting to even touch someone as much as we're touching right now. And by then? I am basically walking into a place, picking out a man I've decided I want right that second, and telling him exactly what I want. No flirting, no games. We go back to his place, or a hotel. Not mine, not ever. Sometimes I tell him my first name, but never my last, and sometimes I tell him to shut the fuck up and get on with it. If he is interested enough, or tenacious enough, he might impress me a little by figuring it out anyway, finding me, and asking me out. That's just enough time for him to figure out what a damned dumpster fire I am, and he doesn't ask again. And normally? That's just fine with me. Because it's not about dating, and it's not about sex, and it's not about picking or or being picked up. It's a big damned fuck you to a dead man, a finger shot in his general direction, an I'll-be-damned-if-you-take-jack-shit-from-me. So if some of them caught my attention with some dumbass line, I don't even remember it. I probably thought it was hilarious at the time, or was at least impressed that he was the one with the guts to speak up."

And now, honesty delivered, she gives a hard smile, one that says she's prepared to retreat back behind her walls if she needs to, one that says she's gearing up for a whole host of unpleasant or negative reactions. When these psychological fortifications are neatly in place, she says, "So, Holden Caufield. I suppose my question to you, now that it is my turn again, is whether you're still quite so pleasantly surprised."

Lucifer has posed:
"Not surprised at all, but still pleased," Holden responds, and his fingers tighten on Jessica's. Just a little. Just enough to keep her rooted in space instead of letting her float away behind those high walls. There is again, that /something/, impossible to define-- not just that smile, that strange sense of peace around him, but a resolute as firm as bedrock. A mountain that'd be steady even in the upheaval of an earthquake.

"It doesn't take a great bartender to spot someone escaping a bit of pain and looking for some liquid cure for loneliness, Jessica," he remarks, holding her gaze. "It just takes a little empathy. You came here for a job. And yet every time I've seen you, you've done nothing but talk to me. That's not someone who's filling her life with work. That's someone who's looking to fill her life with some companionship."

"You weren't just honest yourself, though. You were honest with me," he tells her, his voice quiet, strong, and speaking with the sort of certitude normally reserved for the clergy and a quiet that one generally associates with someone much older than a fellow roughly in Jessica's peer group. "I know you're trying to scare me away. To startle me. Or goad me. Or entice me. It's all right," he tells her. "I don't mind," he says with vast sincerity, squeezing her fingers again. "I'm not insulted or repulsed. Thank you," he tells her. "For being so honest."

Jessica Jones has posed:
"Well. Normally I really would be on the job," Jessica Jones admits, the hardness fleeing from her shoulders, her eyes, her mouth. "But it seems like you have kind of a knack for upending 'normal'. Maybe because you...have that empathy."

Empathy. The thing she'd give the world if she could change it. She is a moth to the flame of empathy; it draws her as nothing else can.

As does steadiness and certitude, because she has certainly had little enough of that.

What is she trying to do? Startle him or scare him? Goad him or draw him closer? For a moment she has no idea at all /what/ she's trying to do. For a moment she's just lost, and that look of being lost, hesitant, uncertain, all of it flits over her face, uncertain what step to take next, or even what to say. It strikes her in that moment that she can't really think of a single other human being besides her sister that she can talk to this frankly, this openly, this safely. That realization leaves her quite a bit lost too.

She hadn't really thought of herself that way, before. As being lonely.

"You're welcome," she says, at last.

They've broken the rhythm. He hasn't asked her another question, even though he answered the one she put before him.

She steals another all the same. "When I come back," she asks, leaning in just a little, closing just a bit more of the distance between them, even as she keeps her fingers entertwined with his. "Because I will, for one reason or another, for work or... for other things... Do you prefer me to stick around down there," she nods vaguely in the direction of the lower club, where all the work and all the action is taking place, where the rumors are flying and the money is changing hands, "or do you prefer me to come up here?"

There are a lot of reasons why it's important to her, to give him outs of every kind, to allow him to gracefully say whether or not he prefers her to seek his company or prefers her to back off. Many, many reasons indeed why she doesn't assume, why she's not even 100% certain of her ability to read the signals correctly. Spotting details, discrepencies, things that don't add up, asking the right question at the right time, digging persistently through 1,000 bits of irrelevant information just to get to the one relevant gem of facts in the bunch, researching and pretexting...all of this comes naturally to her. But interpersonal interactions?

Not so much. Those are horses of a different color. Her only tool here is, in fact, honesty: the honest question, bluntly asked.

Lucifer has posed:
Holdon watches the wash of emotions flicker over Jessica's face. The confusion, the realization-- uncertainty mingling with dread, with reflexes to run and stay warring so fiercely that they hold her in tensed equilibrium. His expression is a smile and sympathy all at once. It's a nuance that-- perhaps on more even reflection-- one might realize is just impossible on its surface. Always /precisely/ correct. Always /just/ what he clearly means-- what Jessica seems to want.

But one is hard pressed to see a sunspot on the sun at noon, too.

She leans closer, and so does he, until their shoulders are brushing and their hands blur the line of demarcation between them more than mark it. He listens to her question carefully, noting the fret of a lip and the uncertain flicker of her eyes, the subtle excuses people make for themselves on behalf of other people.

It's a very careful finger that snakes a half-circle to brush a single, stray bang back from the corner of her eyebrow, a perfect little flaw in her otherwise stylish updo. Holden stares back at Jessica's eyes carefully, missing nothing, not even the pulse at her throat.

Abruptly he smiles, a warm and reassuring rush of summertime once again-- that warm blanket of security and comfort that is just so much /more/ than what a smile /should/ be able to do. As if joy itself leaks from behind his eyes.

Holden touches his thumb and forefinger to her chin, barely stirring the skin there. "You're the detective, Jessica," he says with that low, knowing grin. "You tell me what I want."

Jessica Jones has posed:
An intake of breath as warmth sweeps over her once more. A soundless chuckle, more a rush of breath than an actual laugh. She is simultaneously a woman developing genuine feelings and an addict sucking down the world's best high.

She knows what he wants. She knows what /she/ sure as Hell wants. And it would be so easy to just fall into him right here, right now.

She reaches up to snake an arm around his neck, draws in like she's going to try to kiss him. There is less than a whisker of space between her lips and his when she suddenly stops, something inside of her putting on the brakes. Perhaps because she can't do anything the easy way. But just as much to the point...

She has remembered something. A hard line that she's already put down, however teasingly. A line that she doesn't want to cross. Something that pulls her back, even now. And a thought that she has, about the nature of honesty. Something he values, and yet there is one big evasion, one big omission, one she could ignore were she anyone other than who she is, what she is.

"I think I know after all," she agrees. "Because I /am/ a /very/ good detective."

One hand is still caught in his. She brushes her thumb against the back of his knuckles and whispers, "I will be back. I'll be back, up here. And maybe, pretty soon, we'll both get what we want. But not, I think, tonight..."

She gently lets go-- of his neck, of his arm, drawing back, adding, "Because while your /archetype/ is Holden Caufield...I'm willing to bet your /name/ absolutely is /not/."

She smiles, turns, and gathers up the book he has given her. Her smile is warm, warmer than any smile she gives to any other person in this world, but she stands.

"Thank /you/," she says. "For an absolutely magical evening."

Lucifer has posed:
Holden grins at Jessica's reticence, and-- with a damnable amount of surety-- seems unsurprised by her sudden hesitation. And when she rises, his hand turns and lifts under hers, a hand up for the lady. Considerate and genteel, and not the least put out by her reversal and sly rebuttal.

"It is not," he agrees with her, and his hands slip behind his back to interlace as she gathers her book and her person to herself.

"But," he says, before she can leave. "I do love riddles. So I'll make of you a deal."

"I'll give you three guesses for my name," he says, that sly, playful grin lurking at the edge of his mouth. "Not now--" he hastens to add, one hand upticking. "Take your time. Three guesses, and three guesses only. And you must guess at least once per visit."

"If you get it right, then I'll give you a gift. Something rare and wonderful-- something I think you've craved for years and not found in a long time. You'd never think to ask for it, and once you'll have it you'll wonder how you live without it."

"But if you can't say my name, then you'll give up something to me. Something you can't stand and don't want. It won't fit in your hands but it weighs you down," he replies, enigmatically.

And that grin, that wide, amused grin still lingers on his sharp features. "And just because I'm a sport, if you ask /very/ nicely, I'll give you one hint tonight."

Jessica Jones has posed:
There had been a part of her that had absolutely wondered if this would be the point where he'd get pissed off. Certainly a lesser man would. This would be the point where many people would throw a tantrum, or a manipulative accusation. He surprises her yet again-- and pleasantly!-- by his genteel reaction, his sudden hand up. Her head tilts; she is yet again intrigued. Intrigued, as well, by the way he uses his body language-- he helps her up, then puts his hands behind his head, winning still more points by showing in that one deft moment that he respects her, and her wishes, her boundaries, what she does and does not consent to.

Three guesses for his name, like something out of a very famous fairy tale, which automatically rules out, she rather thinks, the name of said fairy tale. He is hardly some stomping little goblin, after all.

"This sounds like a Win-Win for me," she admits, as he lays out his terms. Either she gains something wonderful or loses something terrible. Doesn't sound so bad. Though the far more analytical part of her wonders what these things can be. She doesn't think he's giving her inflated promises. She thinks she's hearing more absolute truth, which is even more intriguing.

Grinning but still with his hands behind his head, still respectful of her space, she does not read 'very nicely' as carrying any of the sleazy connotations it might hold, had it been said by one of those lesser men.

So she asks nicely. In the old fashioned way, with another genuine smile of her own playing on her lips. Simply: "May I please have one hint tonight?"

There are people in places not so enchanted and strange as Lux whose jaws would hit floors hard enough to break, to hear her being so very polite.

Lucifer has posed:
He steps closer, with a slow, swaggering step, taking his time to ease into Jessica's proximity. Were his hands free it might be too much, too close-- but his hands stay at the small of his back, and he leans forward the last few inches to whisper into her ear.

" "All who hear me fear me; but none truely know me. I am in front of no army and behind all of them. I am the first; I am the last; Many praise me, but only one loves me. Who am I?" "

He leans back, the vapor of his breath taking a preturnaturally long time to cool-- or is her skin just /very/ warm? And he kisses Jessica's cheek on the way back. Just a brush of lips, and then he's walking towards the bar, turning his head to grin at Jessica.

"Good night, Jessica," he offers.