Jean-Claude (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
baisant) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
undergrounds2016-01-15 03:31 pm
baisant) wrote in undergrounds2016-01-15 03:31 pm
DOWN COMES THE NIGHT (JANUARY CATCH-ALL)
I) THE CLUB
It's a regular night at Guilty Pleasures. A steady hum of conversation and music creeps across the air of the interior of the club, not too loud, but not too quiet besides. Phillip has just finished an act, received the appropriate attentions, and there arrives the appropriate scheduled break, allowing people to decide whether they want to hit the bar for a drink and stay for Awbrey or start to think about making the long, lonely journey home. Or maybe not so lonely. It's not up for Jean-Claude to decide how they arrive or exit, after all.
As the owner of the club, he tries to keep a relatively low profile. That is not to say that he will not book his own, private events, for the right customer, for the right price. But the public will notice, assuming the business should stay afloat for so long, that he does not age. They will notice certain other oddities about him as well. His pallor. The way that he hardly touches his drink.
And so his role in Guilty Pleasures is a bit less removed than another strip club owner's might be. He handles the background affairs. The performers and the employees, they all answer to him. But he has an announcer take his place. He is not the host. He is the Management. And he is always there. Always watching. Taking notes for the dancers, taking cues from the crowd. Handling a situation as it arises with all the grace that his collective six centuries afford him. And what a lot of grace it is.
He sits at the edge of the bar, nursing a glass of wine although he's barely drank any. Sitting still and poised as a statue. As his eyes meet the surly bouncers' across the room and he offers the man the barest of nods, which the bouncer returns in form.
And then he turns, and it is as if life has returned to his body as he raises the glass of wine to take a sip and asks, "It is not a bad show tonight, non?"
II) THE DELUGE
Jean-Claude may be good at adapting to a lot of difficult situations and scenarios. He may have an excellent poker face and he may know how to navigate himself through a challenging political moment better than most. But here he is, standing in an expensive velvet frock coat, with equally expensive if not moreso Italian leather boots strapped to his feet, staring out from the shop awning he'd found shelter beneath with something of a look of defeat. He has been caught out in the rain, and it would seem that the damned English weather has no intention of letting up any time soon. And he'd really liked these shoes.
He lets out a long and heavy sigh and swears low under his breath in French as he turns to determine whether he might at least explore the shop that he had trapped himself against. A... Convenience store? He sighs again. Will the day get any better, he wonders to himself.
III) THE THEATER
It isn't just because he's French that Jean-Claude loves the ballet. That's a cliché, and one that he resents, thank you very much. No, he likes the tranquility of it, the darkness of the theater, the beauty of the dancers' movements, of their costumes, the orchestra... How one can sit back in their seat and listen, or watch, and need not focus on the dialogue. Not of the mouth, at least. For dance is a dialogue of the body. And the human body is something that Jean-Claude knows, intimately. And loves just as much. For all its weaknesses and flaws. For all its beauties and temptations. He likes to sit and watch and admire, and the ballet is a perfect way to do just that.
It should come as no surprise that he's a season ticket holder. Despite being Belle Morte's plaything for centuries, he's managed to amass a tidy sum of money to his name, which he is as a rule rather frugal with. But the theater is a place he has been known to indulge himself, at times.
He has enjoyed the most recent production, and as the crowd slowly fills out into the street beyond, Jean-Claude lets himself be carried with them. In something of his own world as he remembers better days, better times, and the people he had known then... Having no particular place to go and no particular place to be for the rest of the night, he lets his feet take him where they will. He's perhaps too well-dressed for a night on the town, but that's never stopped him before.
IV) THE PURGE
He should have known that there would be trouble with this purging of magic, when it had come up. He should have known that he would not have been so lucky as to escape it. And he should have known that it would be Phillip, one of his most popular dancers, not only to fall victim to their fines, but to also find himself under arrest for the sheer amount of paraphernalia he had been in possession of. If Jean-Claude were capable of developing a headache, Phillip might have given him several in the last few days alone.
And so, despite wanting to maintain a low profile within the supernatural community, it comes to pass that instead Jean-Claude finds himself taking a taxi into Westminster to bail his trouble-making front man out of jail. Clutching his jacket tight around himself, he sets his shoulders square and schools his expression pleasantly blank, before letting himself into the building itself, asking around until he finds himself directed into a rather unassuming waiting room. Where no doubt he's going to be left to wait for an extraordinary amount of time, before forced to sign a lot of paperwork and sign over an exorbitant amount of money.
He sits back in his chair and lets out a sigh. He really should have eaten first...
V) THE MYSTERY
Choose your own adventure! Do you have an idea that I haven't covered here? Not a problem at all, just go for it!!
It's a regular night at Guilty Pleasures. A steady hum of conversation and music creeps across the air of the interior of the club, not too loud, but not too quiet besides. Phillip has just finished an act, received the appropriate attentions, and there arrives the appropriate scheduled break, allowing people to decide whether they want to hit the bar for a drink and stay for Awbrey or start to think about making the long, lonely journey home. Or maybe not so lonely. It's not up for Jean-Claude to decide how they arrive or exit, after all.
As the owner of the club, he tries to keep a relatively low profile. That is not to say that he will not book his own, private events, for the right customer, for the right price. But the public will notice, assuming the business should stay afloat for so long, that he does not age. They will notice certain other oddities about him as well. His pallor. The way that he hardly touches his drink.
And so his role in Guilty Pleasures is a bit less removed than another strip club owner's might be. He handles the background affairs. The performers and the employees, they all answer to him. But he has an announcer take his place. He is not the host. He is the Management. And he is always there. Always watching. Taking notes for the dancers, taking cues from the crowd. Handling a situation as it arises with all the grace that his collective six centuries afford him. And what a lot of grace it is.
He sits at the edge of the bar, nursing a glass of wine although he's barely drank any. Sitting still and poised as a statue. As his eyes meet the surly bouncers' across the room and he offers the man the barest of nods, which the bouncer returns in form.
And then he turns, and it is as if life has returned to his body as he raises the glass of wine to take a sip and asks, "It is not a bad show tonight, non?"
II) THE DELUGE
Jean-Claude may be good at adapting to a lot of difficult situations and scenarios. He may have an excellent poker face and he may know how to navigate himself through a challenging political moment better than most. But here he is, standing in an expensive velvet frock coat, with equally expensive if not moreso Italian leather boots strapped to his feet, staring out from the shop awning he'd found shelter beneath with something of a look of defeat. He has been caught out in the rain, and it would seem that the damned English weather has no intention of letting up any time soon. And he'd really liked these shoes.
He lets out a long and heavy sigh and swears low under his breath in French as he turns to determine whether he might at least explore the shop that he had trapped himself against. A... Convenience store? He sighs again. Will the day get any better, he wonders to himself.
III) THE THEATER
It isn't just because he's French that Jean-Claude loves the ballet. That's a cliché, and one that he resents, thank you very much. No, he likes the tranquility of it, the darkness of the theater, the beauty of the dancers' movements, of their costumes, the orchestra... How one can sit back in their seat and listen, or watch, and need not focus on the dialogue. Not of the mouth, at least. For dance is a dialogue of the body. And the human body is something that Jean-Claude knows, intimately. And loves just as much. For all its weaknesses and flaws. For all its beauties and temptations. He likes to sit and watch and admire, and the ballet is a perfect way to do just that.
It should come as no surprise that he's a season ticket holder. Despite being Belle Morte's plaything for centuries, he's managed to amass a tidy sum of money to his name, which he is as a rule rather frugal with. But the theater is a place he has been known to indulge himself, at times.
He has enjoyed the most recent production, and as the crowd slowly fills out into the street beyond, Jean-Claude lets himself be carried with them. In something of his own world as he remembers better days, better times, and the people he had known then... Having no particular place to go and no particular place to be for the rest of the night, he lets his feet take him where they will. He's perhaps too well-dressed for a night on the town, but that's never stopped him before.
IV) THE PURGE
He should have known that there would be trouble with this purging of magic, when it had come up. He should have known that he would not have been so lucky as to escape it. And he should have known that it would be Phillip, one of his most popular dancers, not only to fall victim to their fines, but to also find himself under arrest for the sheer amount of paraphernalia he had been in possession of. If Jean-Claude were capable of developing a headache, Phillip might have given him several in the last few days alone.
And so, despite wanting to maintain a low profile within the supernatural community, it comes to pass that instead Jean-Claude finds himself taking a taxi into Westminster to bail his trouble-making front man out of jail. Clutching his jacket tight around himself, he sets his shoulders square and schools his expression pleasantly blank, before letting himself into the building itself, asking around until he finds himself directed into a rather unassuming waiting room. Where no doubt he's going to be left to wait for an extraordinary amount of time, before forced to sign a lot of paperwork and sign over an exorbitant amount of money.
He sits back in his chair and lets out a sigh. He really should have eaten first...
V) THE MYSTERY
Choose your own adventure! Do you have an idea that I haven't covered here? Not a problem at all, just go for it!!
no subject
Whether she's being sarcastic or not, it's hard to tell with the way she says it and gives him a look with a raised brow. But it certainly seems as if her reply will depend on the answer.
no subject
"And are you a critic, then?" he asks, to follow suit, raising a brow at the woman in turn.
no subject
Though, really, who manages to watch that -- if it went as it was supposed to, which she's worried it did -- in rehearsals and think it's good enough to be performed by such obvious professionals? At an amateur theatre or a community high school performance, it would have been acceptable.
But not here.
no subject
"Humor me," he replies, spreading his hands wide in front of him in a grand and perhaps overly theatrical gesture, as the crowd around them has largely begun to dissipate at this point.
no subject
Her shoulders shrugged. "The whole production was underwhelming, but that's not a crime. A misuse of talented dancers, yes, but it happens. That scene, though? Was unforgivable."
no subject
"And you are familiar enough with the work to say such things, then?" he asks. Now that he is standing closer to her, she seems awfully young. And moreover, he can...smell something different about her. Although he cannot quite put his finger on what. Which is suddenly far more curious than her opinion about the dancing. (Though he would still like her explanation on that as well.)
no subject
It isn't a card she plays often. Really, she tends to hide the fact that she was so classically trained. She doesn't talk about ballet or about being a ballerina almost at all. But in this conversation? It's necessary. She isn't criticising the performance from an observer's opinion. She's doing it from a place of understanding what, precisely, goes into a ballet.
no subject
"I apologize. I hope that you will forgive me for my surprise."
no subject
This is different.
"The company is skilled. Their choreographer has obviously been lied to by everyone when they should have gotten constructive criticism about how to set a fight scene."
no subject
"Well," he says. "Perhaps I should make it a point to ask your opinion the next time I decide to attend, then." It might have sounded like he was taking the piss, but honestly Jean-Claude was doing anything but. It isn't every day that one meets anyone else that should really enjoy the ballet like herself.
no subject
"I was hoping it'd be a lot better, but other than that scene, it was a pretty good program."
no subject
"Perhaps we have gotten off on the wrong foot," he offers. "I am Jean-Claude. And while I have been attending the ballet for ages," literally, "I will be the first to admit that I am more charmed by the overall ambiance of the performance than the techniques of the dancers themselves."
no subject
"Or Sophie. Besides, I wasn't criticising the dancers. Just the choreographer."
no subject
And the real Jean-Claude begins to emerge, now that he is done being surprised and offended by her critique of the ballet.
no subject
His change in tone prompts hers. It's easier to do this than act the part of a posh prima. She still thinks she could have been one if not for that fall. At the very least, she'd have been dancing Juliet tonight. So she can't help but hate the girl who did.
Even if her performance was beyond reproach.
no subject
"I would like that," he replies himself, with the twist of a somewhat wicked smile.
no subject
Skip tilts her head. Whether she means to or not, she lets her red hair fall back behind her to expose her neck. It's mostly unconscious, drawn from the animalistic of the nature of a werewolf. Plus it tends to get reactions from others, too.
"Or do you wanna guess?"
no subject
"If you ever want to get a call, I suggest you'd better give me your number, ma chere," Jean-Claude responds. "I may be many things, but a mind-reader certainly is not one of them."
no subject
"I'll be expectin' that call, then." The Chelsea is dropping, and the Munster is rising.
no subject
"For you," he says in turn. "If you decide I should take too long myself. Ask for Jean-Claude. They'll find me." He cocks his head at her with a smile in turn. Yes, he much prefers this flirtation and he's willing to bet that she prefers it herself.
no subject
"Guilty Pleasures. I've heard of it. You own it?"
Good looking and rich. Those are both pluses in her book.
no subject
no subject
She flashes a smile as well, pushing a bit of hair behind her ear. She isn't usually one to call men. If they're not interested enough to call her, she doesn't bother, but this one... Well. Maybe he'll be worth it if he doesn't call. She hasn't decided for sure yet herself.
no subject
"Touché," he responds. He is not accustomed to chasing down women himself. They are usually prostrating themselves at his feet. But that is not to say he does not welcome a challenge every now and again. He straightens, flashing a smile at her, before he offers her a bow.
"Well. Until we meet again then, ma chère," he says. "By one means or another."