9835/So a minotaur stripper walks into a bar...

So a minotaur stripper walks into a bar...
Date of Scene:	30 October 2019
Location:	Club Lux, Melville
Synopsis:	John and Selene talk business over drinks at Lux. John walks into the wind.
Cast of Characters:	Constantine, Selene (Underworld)

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Constantine has posed:
It isn't exactly the Magic Demon Bar what's name Constantine has forgotten, but Lux is owned by the Devil... So it can't be all bad.

Seated in a booth to add to the noirness of his appearance, the middle aged alcoholic is nursing a half glass of really expensive scotch. Leaning back in the seat, one arm stretched out along the cushion, and his ankles extended beneath are crossed at the ankle, he looks like he's settled in for the long haul... or until they grow wise that letting him open a bar tab probably wasn't in their best interest.

There's a dancer on stage, presumably, but it is not a minotaur, which is unfortunate for some..

Likely less so for the less magically inclined.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
It was about a week ago that they ran into one another in the dark and rain of Gotham city, with his slovenly hobo-esque charm and her World of Darkness-reject attire, they clearly hit it off quite well.

Or who knows, maybe they'll be sworn enemies. Either way, Selene happens to be at this bar tonight, after all a bar owned by the Devil is a bar that often has the kind of information she's after. She also notices him as he's seated there at his booth.

She's dressed in similar attire to what he'd seen her in last, but now its simply black leather pants, and a dark gray sweater that clings to her form, a pair of heeled boots that raise her height up further as she walks across the distance between them. In his haze of discontent toward the world around him, a black shadow passes in front of him, then settles into the booth across from him... her hair isn't drenched in rain water tonight, its straight and well cared for, black and softly reflective of the ambient light around her. Her skin is pale still, but not quite as stark-white as it had been last week...

She shows a soft smile at him, as she stares at him with brown eyes. "I would say its odd finding you here, but that would be a lie, wouldn't it? You rather fit in quite comfortably here." She says in that sultry tone of voice.

Constantine has posed:
Right about the time Selene spies him, which is to say almost at the moment Selene is ontop of him with a knife, Constantine glances up from revelry of the dancer to regard the pale woman in black. At first there's only vague recollection, like he's staring through a lot of fog at a tree he's pretty sure he saw the last twenty seven times he back tracked the same area looking for a tree that looks almost identical to the tree he's now pretty sure is that tree, even though it could be different.

"Oy!" Recollection!

Holding up his glass to her in salutations, "You're not as wet's the last time I saw you." That's his explanation for why there was that momentary memory gap and certainly not the fact that he's almost certainly already drunk, "You drink?" Other than blood, "Or sit? I don't think I've seen you do either... except on a bike.. I guess that's something, innit?"

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene would look different so his inability to instantly place her doesn't offend her, in fact it makes her show a ghostly smile of amusement. "I do both." Selene responds to his question of her sitting or drinking. "And quite a lot more." She adds for the sake of it. She does sit across from now now at his table and she places her own glass of deep red hued liquor down in front of her, its likely wine, not blood, don't be silly.

As for not being as wet as when he'd last seen her, she responds. "You're more drunk than the last time I saw you. Or you were hiding it a bit better last time..." She doesn't linger on that topic, she gets the sense that being drunk is quite normal for him. "That spell you provided me was very beneficial... I found who I was looking for. I wanted to thank you for the effort you gave to me, without charge no less. It was very helpful." A short pause. "So yes, thank you." She raises her glass for a sip.

Constantine has posed:
"Ah, good, I suppose being mostly dead doesn't aleviate the tensions in your legs from standing around looking dower all the time, but I think Gotham is the appropriate city for ... brooding." Constantine adds with only a hint of a pause for just a touch of dramatic effect, then swallows a large portion of what remains in his glass.

"Aye, it's not a bother." Flampently twisting his hand in the air dismissively of his hand in assisting her search, "Hopefully that fat cunt got what was coming to him.. I cannot abide an overweight Asian." Because that's clearly the most important part of what she was doing, helping him reenforce stereotypes. For a man of such worldly travels and experiences, he can be awful closed minded!

Allegedly!

"You stalking me, then? Or is this a random, unexpected coincidence where you just happened to find me at my drunkest point of the day? I assure you, my blood is like tallow.. ya think it'll be good, but then your mouth is coated in a fine wax after consumption."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene's glass is gently set upon the table in front of her and then both of her hands rise up to place her chin against the pads of her palms while her fingers curl up and rest knuckles against her cheeks, its a casual position for a good stare at someone, though it looks a bit more feminine and innocent an expression than when he'd seen her in 'business mode' in the Gotham park last week.

She just stares at him like this, leaning on her elbows while he speaks. A small grin visible upon her pale lips. "I've no plans to drink your blood." She says to him in that sultry voice. "In fact I dread the thought of it." That might come across as an insult, but she says it with that glint of humor that only a European can really master in a lifetime, or over 6 lifetimes in her case. "If you must know, I don't drink from humans any longer. My people have synthesized a blood replacement to sustain us. Its apart of our desire to eventually separate ourselves from society, once our mission is complete."

With a light exhale, she lowers her hands then to cross her forearms over one another. "And Wutan squealed like a pig, if thats what you'd like to hear." She states then about the person he'd helped her track down. She glances out at the club. "And I came here to speak to someone, saw you from the bar." She states, looking back to him. "If I'm pestering you, I can return to it though."

Constantine has posed:
Constantine doesn't do sultry very well, naturally. It's a skill he's picked up over a lifetime (which was almost spelled laughtime, and likely just as accurate) of being a cad. Chasing skirts, sometimes pants, sometimes both. John has been a lot of things over the years, now he's being a drunk sharing a drink with a vampire.

With the last of his liqour sliding down his throat, he turns a little to glance about for one of them scantly clad waitresses that've been ever so attentive since he's been here. When one makes temporary eye contact, he holds up his glass and motions back and forth with a downturned finger at himself and Selene, then returns his loose gaze to the woman in question. "Well that's bloody, pun intended, boring."

Leaning back a bit more, stretching out a little, his feet rest on either side of hers. "You'd never bother me, love. I was likewise here to talk to a mate of mine, but he left an hour or so back.. now it's just me and another fella I've known since primary: Jimmy Walker." Tapping the rough end of his nail against the side of his glass.

"So everything is about your mission, is it? Then you can ride off into the metaphorical sunset to live out the rest of immortality on an island like bloomin elves?"

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene's eyes glance toward the waitress as well but she's soon to look back to the man across from her. When he speaks, his words once more make her show a faint and short smile as she looks down to her wine glass for a moment. "It isn't an island, its a mansion in Budapest." A vampire from Hungary, the irony. "And I didn't say I wasn't capable of drinking your blood, I said that I choose not too." She shows the hint of a grin then before she raises her red wine up for another sip of it.

Once her glass is set down again she flickers her gaze back up upon him. "I get it, you don't respect what it is my people are doing. I'd agree with you that from an outsiders perspective its likely a silly looking affair, but its a situation I wasn't given much choice in joining or not. My people, my people's leader specifically, found my on my death bed and he rescued me by converting me. I owe him for that, otherwise I would've died a very, very long time ago."

Another glance away toward the stage and the performer is taken then before Selene looks back. "What of you?" She asks. "What is your 'mission' in life, John Constantine." She had his card after all, she knows his name well now. "You seem like you could use one... if I may be so bold to say."

Constantine has posed:
John watches Selene watching him with both arms laid across the back of the cushioned seat while he waits for the refill of his scotch, always a sloppy grin parting the stubbled mouth, "Retiring to the life of immortal luxury, then. That's nice, I suspect you've earned it after so many centuries putting furry men to the torch." He's yet unaware that she's not wise to him funning with her and not funning at her.

Then he becomes aware.

His brow furrows a bit, head canting to the side. He starts to say something, but then the waitress is there with his new glass so he pauses long enough to bask in regard her, then back to Selene. "It isn't that I don't respect what you're doing." He dabs a finger in his glass and sucks the liqour from the tip, quickly taking it up proper thereafter. "It's only that I find it ... amusing. Ironically so, anyways.. but then I'm not really a stranger to it. I've a library teaming with information on your lot and other lots and just about every lot. Now, to be fair, I didn't know that until after we'd met, but it's there all the same."

There's a lot of things in his Mansion of Mystery he doesn't actually know about.

"You've a purpose, that's a good thing. I never fault someone for having convictions so long as they stick at them, innit? It's those wishy washy fuckers I can't stand.. bouncing hither and tway like leaves on the wind.." Flip flopping his free hand on the back of the cushion like a dying fish.

"As for me? Eh... cause as much chaos as I can before I die. Maybe put a pin in the Master Plan party hog along the way. I'm a bit of a trouble maker, I know it's hard to tell from my gentlemanly exterior, though."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
A light nod is offered to him when he speaks of her earning her luxury retirement, but she doesn't comment on that, instead she just continues to listen to him speak with her hands together at the base of her wine glass, the sleeves of her sweater are a bit more losoe and belled than the slim fit fabric is on the rest of her is.

"So you've a library. Filled with knowledge and information on... Vampires and Werewolves... and after our meeting you went within it and sought out this information to read up on us?" She asks then. "Now you're here in the same club as I am tonight and you're asking me if I'm stalking... you?" She points at herself and then at him as she says those last bits of that indicating herself and him with a pointed index finger.

She flashes him a grin then. "A troublemaker, is your briefest summation of yourself then?" She raises her hand she'd pointed with up to prop her chin in it as she'd done earlier, only now with just the one hand, her fingertips tap on the side of her cheekbone. "I don't know, John, what I see before me is someone who comes off as being... utterly bored with life. Which is a shame, because I also see someone who's likely capable of making life quite fun."

Constantine has posed:
There's a moment of quiet contemplation, which could be drunken laziness, and a long drink of scotch to accentuate the point. His blue eyes rove a little, not anywhere particularly untowards, but certainly lower than waify sleeves and wine glasses... so maybe a little untowards.

That is, until she calls him out on being a stalker. "Hey now, that's unfair... A bloke meets a saucy dark clad vampire in a park and he's a right to do a little recreational reading on her people.. You telling me you've never been a student of human interactions or... history... or nothing? It'd be almost criminal not to be a little interested, yeah?" He shrugs a shoulder and sips at his glass.

Giving her a moment to fill the void created by his lack of talking with observations of him, which he clearly finds amusing. "I suppose there's no small amount of truth to it.. but I'm not bored with life, just callous of it. Get a sense that you've been there and done that enough times and eventually you're going through the bloody emotions rather than actively participating." Another swallow, then something occurs to him and he points out from his glass, "Mmmm.." While swallowing, then continuing, "And that doesn't mean I'm not fun. I'm not some stick in the mud wanker just because I'm cantankerous and ornery."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
Selene is of course gently shaking her head to his initial statements. "No no, I don't fault you for looking it all up. You needed to know if you just gave your business card to an absolutely mad woman in the middle of a crime laden Gotham park, I would've done the same. Of course, I probably wouldn've used the internet and not a 'library' but it is 2027 after all. Leave it to a 640 year old vampire to call you out on that behavior..." That was a clear and definitive tease there at the end, and she follows it up by taking another sip on her wine glass.

Once its set down again she has to respond on his follow up. "Oh, I fully believe you're fun. But yes, you do strike me as someone who's done a great deal and... Mmm, I guess even after all my time I'm having trouble delineating the differences between boredom and callousness. I guess I'll have some research to do - online - when I get home." Another light grin is shown from the vampire to the wizard.

"So your friend left an hour past, yet you linger, the drinks here are not that great and priced twice as much as they should be, so I'm guessing you're interested in what? The dancer?" She asks, looking to the stage again before back to John. "Contemplating how you'll approach them after the show for an invitation back to your library of perpetual unending information you didn't previously know was there?" A slow and sweet smile spreads along her lips then.

Constantine has posed:
"Right? It'd be insane not to investigate the validity of the insane woman spreading misinformation about the undead..." Constantine says with a teasing wink, "Here I thought you were all wearing blooming capes and speaking in sexy Eastern European accidents., creeping about in your knickers feasting on the unsullied neck of some virgin tart... I guess that's only the males of your people, though innit?" Thoughtful, as if this might be a real working theory.

He shrugs and sips his scotch, barely even hinting that it has an effect above water to his pallet.

"I don't rightly know why I'm still here, if I'm honest." Glancing around the establishment with a little shrug to accompany the turning over of his hand laid across the cushioned back of the bench, "I was here and already drinking, there were people to watch.. and there's a feeling in the air. Something familiar, only different that I can't rightly place... suffice to say, I very rarely bring anyone back to my library." Pointing across the table at her, with a smirk.

"Fuckin' kids these days are all into their video games and hand held cellular devices attached to social media... Back in my day, we sent emails like a proper fuckin savage."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
"For over 600 years my people did not have a synthetic solution to being satiated on blood." Selene softly responds in a very calm and comfortable voice, for such a topic. "I've had my fair share of virgin tarts throughout that time, thank you very much." Whether thats true or just a good natured joke, she doesn't show it on her face and just raises her glass up for another sip from it.

She flickers her eyes up to his to look at him and show a light smile once her glass is down again. "The world won't ever stop changing, John." She responds to him then. "I've watched it first hand for a very long time now. The youth of today still acts like the youth of... well, when I was amongst them, its just more interconnected now. Louder, you might say."

There's a small pause before she asks then. "Where did you learn your craft?" She then asks him, seeking more information about him, it would seem. "My library didn't have a John Constantine tome within it." A little smirk is shown then.

Constantine has posed:
"So we'll figure for five hundred fifty so years, give or take, of drinking that sweet sweet virgin blood..." Constantine sips a bit more from his glass, one brow perked, and a grin firmly set in place on his face, "How in the name of several of the seven hells would you bring yourself to start drinking fake blood? I mean how doe sthat even bloody work, love? You just dash a couple packets of Grandma's instant vitae into a glass of pure water and, bobs your uncle, you've a tasty after sunset treat for the whole fanged family?"

He seems dubious. VERY dubious.

Also teasing. VERY teasing.

"Oh, I know it.. Gods how I know it. These yanks don't even realize it either.. they think the worlds always been just as it is, virtual reality dating, text messages on the blue gums or whatever it's called.." Waving up to his ear, "They always look like tossers to me.. walking around talking to themselves with that little device in their ear.. I genuinely don't like technology, I think it's taken the personality of the world." Which is just the old soul in him, probably.

And leads nicely into where he learned his craft, as it turns out. "Always had a bit of it, even when I was a lad." Hand out to indicate aproximate height, "Saw spirits and the like, but it wasn't until I was much older and a lot dumber, I ended up in Hell for a bit... after that I got really good at a lot of things that I'd previously only dabbled at."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
As he speaks, Selene's hands come together and she slips her right thumb and fore finger beneath the wrist of her left then draws out a long spike, probably nine to ten inches of polished, she turns the spike horizontally un takes a second to snap it open after unscrewing it in a specific way. She slides the pointy end across the table to him... at its base is a revealed glass vial filled with a wobbling dark liquid.

"Virgin blood and... well your blood, taste the same. Its a myth that they taste any different from one another, like perpetuated by Hollywood." She then folds her forearms together again on the table. "And to be perfectly frank with you, I've never really drank it because I enjoy the taste, I've drank it to survive and because of its rejuvenation properties to my physical well being."

She pauses a moment and tries to think of a better way to explain it, and to let the waitress pass by before she continues as well. "For a time after I drink it, I feel warm inside, like I did when I was... still just a child." Her eyes flicker to the vial she'd pushed toward him, then back up to his eyes. "My skin flushes with color again, my heart moves in my chest again. I feel alive." She turns the butt-end of the silver spike over her fingers, tumbling it over one after the other. "Thats why it wasn't hard to switch to synth blood. Because those benefits, the real reason I drink it... are still there."

She pauses for a small moment then smiles. "The biting is fun sometimes though, depending on the partner." There's a predatory look upon the Vampire beauty then, but she tames it again and lets it vanish.

"I came across a home with an evil spirit in it not that long ago. Wicked place. Foul really. I chased a pair of targets into its... trap. It did my job for me, tried to do me in as well. But I made my way out. I should've gone back and burned that place to the ground, truth be told, but, I'm busy."

Constantine has posed:
Constantine is.. surprisingly patient when he needs to be or when whatever he's waiting for is worth the wait, which in this case, it seems to be. He watches her unfold the spike by way of the special manuevers along its length and then reaches out to turn the small polished object over with the tip of his finger so the dark liquid inside coats around the orb in which it's contained.

As she explains the nature of drinking blood, he nods knowingly, and even smirks slightly at the justifications for why she does so.. if not at her willingness to bite depending on the partner, "I always tell people I'm a screamer." He muses absently, then flicks his wrist up, reaching into his inside jacket pocket for the ever present silk cut cigarettes. One taps out from the paker package against the straight of his finger and he captures it between his lips. As the pack is returned the small metal box of matches is taken free, then shaken up near his ear. The nearly silent rattle of a single match brings another grin to his face, which tucks inwards around a puckering drag as he lights the end of his cigarette with a hand out to shield against the sharp glow of flaring amber.

While waving out the match he watches Selene through the smoke of his exhale, "So is that what you're into, then? Biting fetish?" Teasing, hand jostling the smoke from infront of his face with an absent wave, "I've never had a particular aversion to a little nipping under the right circumstances. If you'd a book about John Constantine to read, it'd be cover in chapter one: John is a heathenous creature."

Though she draws his attention back to the here and now with mention of the wicked place, "Still stands?" More than just idle curiosity, but a sense of professional interest as well.

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
After the spiky vial is investigated, Selene recaps it and holds it there on the table beneath her hands. She shows a soft grin to his words then, especially with regard to her fetish being associated with biting. "It has its place, and its moments." She responds softly, mysteriously in a way. "But. When you live with the responsibilities and situations that I do, you find it hard to ever get such opportunities. I live in a mansion here... its quite nice, lovely really, big rooms, fancy furniture, a chef who'll make you eggs any time of the day you ask for them. But there's also an unending party going on in the main sitting room, those within the Coven here constantly enjoying one another, out in the open amongst one another. Telling stories, gushing over their latest 'catches' and its no different from what I'd left behind in Hungary. I was told this is the 'New World' and it would be different. But..." She glances away. "Thats certainly not the case."

At the talk of the house still standing, Selene just nods her head once. "It does. I passed by it on my motorbike just the other night. Its on the outskirts of Gotham, speaking of mansions, though its a smaller one its still a... nice old home, I suppose you could say. American colonial variety. Nice especially if you like a spirit that wishes to shove you down a flight of stairs onto a conveniently placed set of garden tools laying at the bottom of..."

Constantine has posed:
"Sounds like Tuesday." Constantine jokes of the never ending party, finishing off his second (that she's seen anyways) glass of scotch with another long drink and follows it quickly after with a drag from his cigarette. His fingers scissor out from it as his lips pucker, then capture and spirit it away to lay arm down across the back of his booth, "So you never indulge, then? Always out kicking lycan ass, but no time for a revelry?" Does the teasing ever cease?

He nods understanding, smoke coiling out from the corners of his mouth and nostrils alike. "I get it. I make a grand show of it, sure, but I don't really fancy parties... I'm more the drinking alone sort, if we're being frank, but I do love good company." Point up from the empty glass he's yet held fast to in Selene's direction. "You're pretty good company... plus you keep the same hours." Pointing up and around at the general night-time fixture that is their two worlds.

He snorts at the description, "Summer home, then... perhaps you and I can revisit this little sancrecine home and do our civil service ridding it of evil spirits, eh? Can always put it on your resume, should you find retirement boring..."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
At the question of revelry, Selene takes a moment before she shakes her head just a little. "Not amongst my people, not often at the least. Its been some time. It isn't appropriate for me, not in my opinion. I'm the leader of the army, one of the oldest amongst them left yet... here. There are some within the Coven who would very much desire me to join in to the festivities, but... it isn't my place." She glances at a pair of people getting up from their table near by and the man placing the coat onto the woman's shoulders, helping her into it.

She looks back to Constantine then. "The man who sired me into the Coven, all those years ago, did so because I reminded him of a daughter he'd lost in this underground war. In her absence he felt a swell of sorrow, and... through me he's seemingly recovered from some of it." She leaves her explanations vague, at least for now, there's so much to tell and say, it would be impossible to do it all in short order. Hundres of years of inner politics and Coven dramatics... who even cares?

A small grin is shown when the house is discussed. "I could aid you with it." She says then. "I've not much experience with ghosts or demonic presences, however. But there's more to it than what I've told you. There was... a little girl. Her spirit there as well. I don't believe it was the demon playing tricks on me. I believe she was genuinely a second entity within the home. She begged for help, but--" Selene exhales and shakes her head. "It really isn't my specialty. I'm no cape wearing super hero."

Constantine has posed:
"So even among the dead, there's politics?" John doesn't seem the least bit surprised by this revelation, even grinning slightly at it as he takes another drag from his cigarette and flicks ashes down cross ways into the path beyond the booth, "I've been to Hell, a couple times now, and at least a few other plains of existance.." He explains quietly, rubbing at his stubbled jaw, "In all those places, I've noted one solitary truth... politics." Always with a bit of smoke coiling from his mouth and nostrils.

Like an atmospheric addition to his person.

"Terrible thing, losing a little one." He agrees, betraying his gruff exterior, "Never had any of my own.. not much good for them, so that's probably better off, but I can see how that bond might harbor a mite of discontent if it were lost... I've an aprentice, in a lot of ways, I suppose the relationship isn't far from that mark, if not specifically my own, so..." He shrugs beneath his coat and tugs at the knot of his tie to further loosen it around his neck.

"Alright, then.. We'll nip on over and see if it's just some jolly spirit taking the piss or some real bugger of an entity that needs directions on where it can go fuck itself." Snickering to himself, but his eyes are on Selene, "Technically, these things generally require a young priest and an old priest.. but we'll have to draw straws to know which one of us is which."

Selene (Underworld) has posed:
"You'll have to describe it to me." Selene says of Hell before she softly adds onto it. "So I know what to expect." And there's a hint of a smile, knowing full well where she's going once her undeath reaches its end.

The last of her wine is finished off then and she offers two small nods to what he says about losing a little one. "My brother and sister were much younger than me when they perished in the fire that the Lycans set to our home. They're, in fact, one of the driving reasons I'm doing what I'm doing yet still today." And that is information no one in her Coven has ever even been told. She doesn't talk to any of them about her true family.

The part about 'nip on over' makes Selene look toward the general direction of leaving the club. "What?" She asks then. "You don't mean right now?" She's obviously not overly eager to bust ghosts tonight. "I mean, I suppose we can... I hadn't really thought of it." He seems to have her a bit befuddled. She then looks up to him and tilts her head, her black hair on that leaning side dangling down toward her shoulder. "What if we do it tomorrow? You see I didn't bring my ghost slaying spikes." She's teasing again, obviously, and there's a hint of a grin forming on her lips to prove it.

Constantine has posed:
Constantine really doesn't talk about himself very much, at least not himself as it relates to things human. Which is kind of an odd contrast, really. The 600 year old vampire talking of family and the middle aged human only talks about hell, the irony isn't lost on him either. Grinning about it just then, fingers running along his stubbled jaw.

"Oy, that's a rough pill for anyone, it is.. It probably makes smoking them out and snubbing them off a list a lot easier for it, though. Less conscious involved if you've loved ones lost tied into the equation." He murmurs, looking down at the table top as his hand rises up to present another drag for him.

"Hm? Oh, nah.. not tonight. I've had a few and while I contest that it only improves my wit to engage in libation, I don't want to tussle with some spectral wanker while enebriated... certainly not while a pretty vampire is watching, eh?" Winking her way as he finishes the cigarette and glances around for someone to stub it out.

Which means reaching sideways over the table to do so in the lone ashtray. It stretches his jacket up some and reveal his watch, "Bloody cranks.. Is it really two in the morning?" He doesn't sound upset, so much as surprised. "Fuckin'.. I tell you what, love, we'll adjourn until tomorrow and pick this up with a nip before we nip.." Patting the pocket where his flask resides as he slips from the booth. "I'll save you the trouble of having to ride off like a black clad badass after a fat chinaman, this time.. Instead, I'll treat you to John Constantine's pattened, walk against the wind depature.. beware your meltin' loins."

A few steps back and a twouch of two fingers to his brow as he swings about to do just as said, walk out like he owns the place. Which he does not. Nor does anyonet hink he does.