Crazy Train (OPEN, join me!)

[Eli Sterling]

Boredom was something that Alex Kingston was terrible at handling. She could handle danger, she could handle terror, she could handle anything except being absolutely, dreadfully bored. Stuck at home on her night off, she had made the decision that going anywhere was better than sitting on her couch, and so she headed out for the Mojo Lounge. Of all the bars and clubs in the city, it was the one that called to her. There was something wicked about the place, a smell of sex and blood and just a little bit of evil. The Mojo Lounge was more primal than the other clubs, and it called to something inside of her. She had slipped on a little black dress and a wicked pair of thigh-high leather boots and some dark red lipstick, matching her appearance to the way she felt inside. She was sexy, slinky, and most definitely in a mood to find some trouble.

There was a Blues band playing "Sweet Home Chicago", one of the oldest and best known blues songs in all the world. She was unsure as to why they were singing a song about Chicago in New York, but she accepted it as simply being a classic. Making her way to the bar, she peered out from beneath her ebony locks at the other patrons. As of yet, there was no one that caught her interest. She wanted to be taken, to have hot wild sex in the bathroom or in one of the back rooms. She even wanted to go home with him if he was really cute, and show him a good time all night long.

Taking a seat at the bar, she rapped on the top with her knuckles. A pretty little thing with deep coffee skin and wild eyes approached her from the other side of the bar. Alex had never seen her as a 'tender before, but she had certainly been waited on by the girl.

"Bianca. What are you doing back there?" she asked, smiling at the girl. She liked Bianca, girl was quick on her feet.

"We're real busy, bar's getting backed up. What can I getchya Alex?"

The Pakana grinned a little wider. "You know this. Whiskey on the rocks, the biggest glass you got."

The server nodded and poured Alex some of their cheapest whiskey; the way the woman went through it, she couldn't give her the good stuff. Alex couldn't afford it besides. Bianca handed the drink to Alex and went back to serving her tables, leaving the young woman to survey the scene. She kept looking about, eying everyone like a predator assesses potential prey.

[Shannon West]

Shannon was in the process of lecturing her friend when she ran out of her drink. "Hey!" she said, slapping Rafael across the face lightly. "Don't be a bastard! Xander, Adam, Sean and I won that game fair and square, and you're just mad because you couldn't cheat your way out of it," she said, jabbing her index finger into his shoulder, no doubt a little sore from their hockey game earlier. She knew the real reason was because he was a tropical fruit loop and couldn't skate on ice to save his life, but he wasn't going to say anything. "And besides, shoulder checking is perfectly legal." She turned to signal Paris for another drink.

The blonde came over, brows raised. She practically radiated glitter, and it was all over the bartop. "Ddddaaaang Tweety, what the hell happened to you?" she drawled, eyes trained on his still-healing bruises as she mixed Shannon's Whiskey Sour. Paris was obnoxiously done up, as usual, with her platinum hair piled on top of her head and loose streaks of neon pink and orange strewn about. Her liner and shadow made her look like some sort of raccoon, while her lips were tastefully nude in shade. She looked like some sort of bizarro doll, especially with the pixi-dust effect her skin had.

"It's not fucking legal for Xander to body check," Rafael said, banging his hands on the counter in conjunction with the point he was trying to make. "It's fine when you do it, because you aren't eight feet tall and made of cement," he added, glaring at Shannon.

Shannon glanced at Paris, and there was no doubt in her mind that Darren's bathroom floor was coated with a layer of glitter so thick he'd never be able to get it out. She turned back to Rafael and beamed. "I told you that you could pick first but you wanted to be all nice and let me go. It's not my fault you ended up with Connor as a goalie. Who knew he'd duck every time I took a chip shot at his face?" She snorted into her drink. "I'd better not find any glitter in this," she warned Paris, a hateful tone to her voice.

"Hey man, they love that shit. They pay extra for that shit," Paris insisted, pointing her thumbs at herself - at her chest, actually, which was only barely hidden by the neon pink string bikini top under a layer of white fishnet that had been shredded 'artistically'. And it glowed under the blacklights - how keen. "Don't be jealous," she teased.

"Are you kidding me?" Rafael scoffed. "I'm not jealous of Darren when he sees what a mess you made playing in your glitter supply drawer. How does he feel knowing that every day of his life will have an extra sparkle to it?"

"Hell, he don't get to have a say if he wants me to keep comin' around," she said with a grin. She turned as Seth ran up to her with one emergency or another, which caused her to depart ahead of schedule from their banter. "If you ever finish that, let me know," she said, pointing at his drink as Seth lead her away to deal with whatever had broken/exploded/fallen over in the back.

Shannon was not one to be bored easily, and so she surveyed the room quickly before spotting someone else she recognized. "Hey, she's with Frost," Shannon said suddenly, pointing past Rafael to Alex. "Let's go say hi." And with a hand hooked into the collar of his jacket, Shannon ripped him off of the stool he was content to meld with, nearly causing him to spill the Mojo Juice he'd been tentatively 'sampling' in his hand.

[Eli Sterling]

Alex looked over at the two people approaching. The woman she knew well, since Shannon was known by everyone in the hunting guilds. Not knowing Shannon would be difficult. She smiled at the woman and glanced over the man, curious as to his identity. She had seen him around to be sure, and while he was absolutely gorgeous, there was something about him that made her feel just slightly on edge.

"Shannon! It's been a hot minute, hasn't it?" she asked, standing up and opening her arms to hug the woman. There were few people in the world that Alex genuinely liked, and the trainer was one of them. The woman was calm and collected compared to Alex's furious temperament. The Pakana sat back on her bar stool after a quick embrace with Shannon and looked over at the handsome gent she had brought with her.

"Who's your friend Shannon? Not Frost for sure, and definitely gorgeous," she commented before holding out her hand for Rafael to shake. "Alex Kingston, Frost Hunter and general troublemaker. Extremely pleased to make your acquaintance." Yeah, he would do in a pinch.

[Rafael Ortega]

The conversation was going nowhere fast because Rafael wasn't going to admit that his problem with the game was that he couldn't ice skate to save his life, he weighed practically nothing as a parrot (especially compared to the massive werewolf that had been shoulder checking him), that it left him beat to hell, and finally because there was no way in hell he could blame the very human guild leader from Crimson for not wanting to take a hockey puck to the face on the multiple occasions that Shannon aimed for his.  Rafael had done everything in his power to avoid a puck to the face, and then he'd actually slid wrong on the ice and essentially fallen into the puck once.  He had an angry looking gash that had bruised one entire cheek, but the nastiness was slowly going down.  Shifter healing factor was amazing.

Obviously, the hockey game had put him into something of a sour mood, so he didn't have a problem turning that mood to Paris and her 'relationship' with Connor's cousin -- and glitter.  Under normal conditions, he'd have been very interested in talking to Paris, but this was Shannon he was with, and he wasn't in a particularly good mood.  That drink was helping, but he was drinking it slowly because it was suspicious and he wasn't sure if he trusted it.  The look he gave it when Paris mentioned it only went to prove that. 

He should have been regarding Shannon with more suspicion than the drink at that point, since she went off on a totally different tangent as soon as Paris left, grabbing him by the collar of his coat and literally dragging him off of his stool to go say hello to someone from Frost.  Someone he didn't know, which was just spectacular, and might have explained why he considered drowning himself in his Mojo Juice as soon as she started talking to him.  As much as he didn't try to fit the bill where parrots were concerned, he was fit to be the poster boy.  This woman, while pretty and obviously interested in being friendly, was not a part of his social circle as of this moment, and was thus in uncertain territory.

Pausing in his attempt to down a large portion of his drink in preparation for the rest of this conversation, Rafael covered up the fact that he nearly choked when Alex called him 'gorgeous' with a very convincing laugh, shaking her hand in return.  He could play the social game well enough until he knew her.  "Rafael Ortega, Onyx.  Good to meet you, too," he told her, then shot Shannon a glance.  "There anyone you don't know, Shan?"

[Shannon West]

Shannon returned the embrace openly, falling into a relaxed posture with her weight shifted to one hip as Alex spoke. "Somewhat, yes. I don't get over to Frost much these days. Stavros has me busy making sure he doesn't kill our trainees," she said with a quivering threat of a smile. Stavros did not like to be discussed, and his methods went with that clause. Zaine was the same way, and for good reason - they'd never get recruits. It would make Shannon's job harder, and she didn't like it when her job was hard.

"This is - yeah," she said, giving Rafael a slap on the hurt shoulder as he introduced himself. She might have been gunning to make him spill that drink, but that was Shannon for you. She turned to look at her crayon-coloured companion and smirked. "No, there isn't anyone I don't know. Do you forget what it is I do? They all have to come by my desk at some point."

She turned back to Alex, her brows raised. "So what brings you out? I haven't been to the Lounge in a while, but since there aren't many places that have the Mojo Juice, I figured I'd make an exception so my buddy here could get his drink on," she said, glancing to Rafael again with a fond smile. The dynamic between them was and would always be a strange one - they seemed to be better or worse for eachother given the situation, but it was always comical. That was almost a guarantee when Shannon was involved, because she didn't like for shit to be too serious. That was what her job was, and she hated being at work longer than she had to be.

[Eli Sterling]

The dynamic between Rafael and Shannon was definitely a strange one - Rafael's current discomfort with it was almost palpable. Alex shrugged when Shannon asked her why she was at the Lounge. She did enjoy Mojo Juice, but she had decided to start her evening off on a lighter note. After all, she still liked the taste of whiskey. It reminded her of being human, of the days when it actually made her drunk.

"The Lounge is just the best place for me to relax. It's dark, it's nasty, and it has the best booze in the world. Besides, the music here's much better than anywhere else in the city," she said. Looking back to Rafael, she wondered what it was that made him so anxious. He was Onyx, which meant that he was the sneaky kind of deadly and not the in-your-face kind. It made sense enough, but it was still perplexing to Alex how anyone could be socially awkward. She was the opposite of a wallflower, after all.

"So, Rafael, would you like to dance? I promise that I don't bite unless you want me to..." She turned to Shannon. "Scout's honor." She held up two fingers in the traditional scout pose and laughed again.

[Rafael Ortega]

It was an effort not to spill Mojo Juice everywhere when Shannon slapped him on the shoulder like that, and again, part of that was the hollow bones.  Whereas Xander wouldn't have moved at all if she hit him like that (even Connor, who was about 5 inches shorter than Rafael, wouldn't have nearly spilled his drink), Rafael jerked and essentially made Shannon look like she was hella strong.  Shoving a man who was 6 feet tall and fit the way she had at her size was definitely impressive, unless you knew that said man's skeleton seemed made for flight.  He still didn't understand why, considering the fact that parrots were chai elavie and therefore didn't have a demi form (which would have made hollow bones practical), but it was something he tried to use to his advantage as often as he could.  One of the few pluses during hockey was that it allowed him to skate extremely fast because he was very light, but his lack of grace on the ice really didn't make that a good thing.  His body was reminding him how bad of an idea hockey and fast skating was every time he moved, actually.

On top of his physical discomfort, there was now the social discomfort.  He and Shannon had a habit of being bad influences on each other (though, Shannon tended to get him into more trouble than he got her into), and tonight definitely seemed like one of those nights that she was being a bad influence.  She got him beat to hell by Xander and shoved Mojo Juice into his hand, and now she was rubbing elbows with a woman who was very aggressively social.  Rafael was starting to think that Shannon was trying to kill him.

The Mojo Juice that he'd impulsively guzzled was fuzzying him up, a sensation that was pretty foreign to him, actually.  He'd been born a shifter, so he'd never been able to get drunk until Aristide showed up with the Mojo Juice, and then he'd rarely touched it.  Of the three of them, he was the least prepared for drunkenness, which was a bad thing for him.  It made him just a little more socially aggressive, but he wasn't exactly awkward.  He was just shy around new people that he wasn't expected to lie to and put on an act for.  If he had to be himself, he wasn't so sure how to deal with brand new acquaintances.  Shannon knew that, but here they were.  He shot her a sharp look for the slap on the shoulder and her ability to ignore the fact that Alex was totally coming on to him, but he was still all smiles for the Frost Hunter.  Shy also didn't mean 'rude' to him. 

The prospect of dancing was hysterical, but not in a 'funny' way so much as an 'oh my god, I'm gonna die' way.  Near death situations could still be funny.  "Oh, I really don't think you want that," he warned her, dipping his gray eyes for a moment and running his hand through his crayon-red hair.  It was always amazing that he could be at all shy and socially uncomfortable, given the naturally red hair and the island-punk kind of style he tended to go with.  He was wearing ripped jeans, leather sandals and jewelry made out of leather, hemp and 'found' objects, compliments of his mother.  He didn't know why she was so into it, but she loved making that jewelry, and he liked the thick necklace and the leather cuff just fine.  He still refused to have much of a jewelry collection, but she was trying her damnedest to change that.  His father was tactfully lacking in an opinion. 

The ironic thing about dancing was that, when he wasn't bruised and beaten by large, crazy wolves on ice skates, he was pretty good at dancing.  You didn't have parents like his and not be, and though both parents were surprisingly light-skinned (especially his father, who was essentially white), he didn't dance like a white boy.  He could pass well enough for a white boy that he sometimes faked that he did, though.  That was when he wasn't buzzing up on Mojo Juice and abused, which was why he wasn't so confident.  Plus, this was an unfamiliar female and he felt kind of guilty for leaving Shannon.  That might explain why he glanced at her, hoping for a response of some kind.  Maybe, even a rescue?  He so didn't want to go try to dance with the way Xander had busted him up.

[Shannon West]

Shannon laughed at Alex's promise. "He got pretty busted up on the ice today," she replied, a knowing smile on her face. "I'd be surprised if he could take two steps onto that floor. You should have seen it, man, it was amazing. I am definitely on the team with the wolves again next time," she said, making motions with her hands to illustrate how big they were. It didn't help that Sean was a Witch and all of the knocking-down in the world done by Erik wouldn't keep him on his ass long enough for them to get a lead. Having Adam on her team was just unfair, since he played hockey constantly.

She looked pointedly at Rafael, who had that helpless, glazed over look in his eyes he got when he was put on the spot. "How's your knee?" she asked, a brow raised. So, not only was Xander large, but he was pretty bad about hitting people with the stick, too. Rafael had taken far more than his share of abuse - but so had Shannon, to be fair. She was just used to falling on ice, so her body didn't hurt as badly. If Rafael wanted to dance, Shannon didn't care, but she didn't like the idea of him feeling obligated to, especially if he was in pain. She set her drink on the counter and hoisted herself up into a bar seat, remaining carefully neutral of the situation.

[Eli Sterling]

The Pakana nodded knowingly when Shannon explained that Rafael might not be able to dance because of injury. She had been too sore to dance before herself, though she couldn't remember a time that she had ever been too sore from hockey. Then again, she was usually the one roughing everyone else up when she played. Hockey was her favorite sport, of course, since it was one of the few where smacking people around was legal. Football was the same way, but the pads were bigger and girls usually weren't allowed to play. It had been quite a while since she had played, however, and just thinking about it made her want to go look for her roller skates. (She was a real klutz on ice-skates, but would never admit it.)

She smiled and shook her head just slightly. "Alright, but I want a rain check. I don't wanna force you to dance on a bad knee, but one of these days, you owe me a dance," she said with a wild grin. "Bianca! Bianca!" She called to the waitress, who strolled over looking less than amused. Alex cocked her head to one side and pointed at her nearly-empty glass. "Let's step it up. Mojo juice. Add it to my tab, please," she ordered. The waitress nodded and headed off to grab the drink.

"So, Rafael, if you can't dance and you're just barely nursing that drink, what are you here for?" She glanced from Shannon to bird-boy and winked. "Trying to find someone to come home with you and work out those tense muscles?"