Summary:Scott, Jean, and Zatanna meet up at Westchester's least charming bar. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Harry's Hideaway. It's what passes for nighttime entertainment in Westchester. That's the trade-off for being outside of the city. No trendy hipster craft cocktail bars have made their way out here yet. But for the most part, that's okay. People in Westchester usually aren't looking for a drink outside of their homes late at night anyhow. Unless they happen to work at that school up the road, where it might be a little awkward to have drinks with a bunch of high schoolers around.
aJean actually went back to the city for Monday, but her class schedule is a little unusual now that she's at the tail end of her final semester, so she took the trip back up to Westchester this afternoon. The thing is, she's still sort of working up the courage to go back to the school. Which is why she's staring at a glass of whiskey at the bar, looking between it and the bartender. "People just…order this straight, huh?"
So apparently Zee lives in Westchester County, not so far from the Institute. That's mighty convenient, really. It means he doesn't have to plan trips out to the city to meet up with her if he wants to have a drink. Unfortunately, though, Westchester also doesn't really have much on offer in terms of entertainment. A few movie theaters, maybe. Restaurants, but nothing that exceeds the quality of the local Chevy's. There was a put put place down the street, but the staff all seem a bit offputting and it seems real sketch after the sun sets. And there are a few dive bars, though among them only one really stands out. Harry's.
So this is where Scott is now, dressed like any other poor slob that might find themselves in here on a week night, wearing a red and white plaid Western style shirt, with half of the front tucked in under a pair of blue jeans held to his waist with a worn out brown leather belt. Sleeves rolled up. Grease stained workboots. Ruby red shades firmly in place. He holds a bottle of beer in one hand, and a pool cue in his other, as he circles around the table with a couple of locals, one having bent over to line up a shot.
"You're gonna miss," Scott says, as he looks the shot over. "You're gonna hit it too sharp, and you'll wind up missing the two in the side pocket, but sinking my eleven in the corner, so… uh… Thanks."
The local just gives Scott a glare, to which the tall mutant lifts his hands, beer and cue held loosely, and says, "It's your money, pal. I'm just tryin' to do you a solid here."
Local shoots. It plays out exactly how Scott called, but Scott doesn't gloat. Not verbally, at least. Instead, he just shakes his head with a lopsided grin, as he looks down at the dull blue light coming from the screen of his phone, firing off a text. As the phone gets pocketed, he lifts his gaze just in time to catch a glimpse of Jean over at the bar.
"Sorry about this, compadre, but I gotta wrap this up," he mutters, before he uses the tip of his cue to point out his shot.
Cue to the 9, knocking it into one of the corner pockets, but not before it knocks the 13, which banks off the side and into the side pocket. The cue ball bounces off another corner, whipping around to drop the 8 Ball into a final corner, leaving the table with only solid colored balls left. Scott's win.
Scott claims his winnings with an outstretched hand as he passes by the local who is now eyeing him with suspicion. And, setting his pool cue aside, Scott makes his way to Jean, where he sidles up next to her and says, "Whiskey, huh? That… is so not you. Or maybe it is. What the hell are you even doing here?"
"What the hell am I even doing here? You invited me, goof." Before Jean can even answer, a certain raven-haired magician speaks up from behind the pair. Zatanna Zatara stands out at Harry's Hideaway, because she's dressed like she always dresses, which is not really the expected fashion of someone who would hang out in a place like Harry's Hideaway. A black blouse, black waistcoat, black boot-cut slacks, black boot-cut boots (tall heels!), a black choker around her neck… Zatanna looks like she's dressed for an especially glamorous office job more than she looks like she's ready for draft PBRs.
"Shit!" Jean almost throws the glass of whiskey when Scott shows up at her side, flailing and then flushing. "Jesus." Carefully, she sets the glass neatly back down on the cocktail napkin it came with, scrubbing her other hand over her face. For anyone - especially Scott - to surprise her, she must have been deep in some thought. And given the sheepish look when she drops her hand and looks back at him, it probably had to do with him.
"I was trying to work up the guts to go back to the school and see -" Which is right when Zee arrives and speaks up, and Jean cuts herself short, swallowing back the words with a friendly smile. "Zee, fancy meeting you here," she exclaims. "I didn't take this for your kind of place."
Scott actually jumps when Jean curses and nearly sends the glass of whiskey flying. He recoils from her, as shocked as she was apparently. "You okay there, Chief?"
When Jean starts her confession, Zee's timely arrival cuts in, and again, Scott is left with a start. His head whips around to catch sight of the black clad magician, before he turns his body to the side to get a better look at her. His lips curl into a grin, and he gives a small upnod, before saying, "Hey."
Leaning his side against the bar, Scott rests an elbow on the counter, and pats gestures for Zee to join them at a seat next to him. "I was talking to Jean…"
As if that wasn't obvious.
"You remember Jean, right? I introduced you both at the Center. With Elmo. Jean, you remember Zee?"
Because it's only polite to reintroduce people. To Jean, Scott says, "I invited her out here. She doesn't live far from the school, and this is sort of the best nearest place to meet up, really. But what are you doing here? Working up guts?"
"Yeah, you ever see that creepy house kinda east-northeast-ish of here?" Zatanna grins to Jean as she sits down where Scott indicates. "That's my creepy house." She eyes the glass in front of Jean. "Whiskey! Good choice. Bartender?" Zatanna motions for three of them.
"And yes, I do remember Jean! You had the sandwiches." Zatanna grins. She's got a really nice smile, and that's just an objective fact. It's part of what keeps her so famous! (Well. 'Famous' by the standards of magicians.) "I wasn't able to take you up on that, but tell you what, hopefully you can accept a drink on me." The bartender is already pouring three shots, and Zatanna motions toward them, bidding Jean and Scott to each take one. "And I didn't even realize this place was here until Scott invited me. So, what say we have a toast?" Zee picks up her shot. "To new discoveries?"
"The one that the kids always sneak around to at Halloween?" Jean starts to look between Zee and Scott, then clears her throat, hiding a grin. "I mean, I would know nothing about that, and am sure that no one from our school would be so inappropriate as to trespass on property which does not belong to them." She doesn't answer Scott's question about guts out loud, though there's a quick mental answer while the shots are coming out. « You. After The Talk. »
"To be entirely honest, Zee, I don't usually drink straight liquor, but I was told I ought to try new things," she admits, smile wry. "So I figured I would. So new discoveries fits right in for me!"
"Hey now," Scott says, as Zee takes her seat, and he shifts so that he stands between Jean and her. Lifting his hands, he rests one on each of their shoulders, as he looks to Zee. "I know you're kind of rich and all that, but allow me to get the drinks."
A pause.
"Or… well… Let's drink on Carl, because it's his money I'm spending tonight. You two should thank Carl. He's right over there."
Scott cocks his head in the direction of the local that he had just decimated at the pool table. Scott lifts his hand from Jeans shoulder and waves to him, "Hi Carl!"
«You shouldn't have to work up guts to see me. It's not like I've become someone else since we talked.» he replies, the only indication of his mental rapport with Jean being a momentary scowl as he reaches out to grab the shot poured for him. He pushes that scowl aside quickly, however, as the women exchange small talk, and even gives a faint chuckle. Looking to Zee, Scott says, "Well, it's called a hideaway for a reason. One of the best kept secrets of the area. Though, I'm willing to bet your place has some juicier secrets."
That… didn't sound awkward at all. Smooth Scott.
"I mean… because magic stuff."
Right. He nods his head, looking straight forward so that he's not staring at either woman directly, and lifts his glass. "To new discoveries, then. I can drink to that."
Scott's 'juicier secrets' line makes Zatanna sit there for a moment, holding her shot, eyes just a bit wide with a grin that looks like she's trying to keep from laughing out loud. It's a face she's made at Scott before, in similar moments. She seems like she has to swallow her laughter before she nods. "Oh, I don't mind the kids. They never get far, anyway. Too spooky, I guess."
Zatanna holds up her shot along with Scott, and says a cheeky little "chin-chin" before she drinks hers. She sets the shot glass down delicately on the bar, and calls over, "Thank you, Carl~!"
Jean raises her glass and downs it, making a face and shaking her head quickly right afterwards. "Okay," she gasps. "I mean. I'm pretty sure I could just drink mouthwash, but sure, that's…that's a thing." She smacks her lips a few times, giving her head another shake. "Truth and confessions," she notes to Zee. "I mostly just drink cider. Or, you know. Fruity cocktails. I blame the city for this."
Twisting to one side so she can better see both of the others, she hooks her arm over the back of her stool. "So what brought you guys out here tonight?" she asks. "I'm not interrupting a date, am I?"
Carl tries his best to look mad. He huffs and he puffs and he scowls and he shakes his head. But in the end, he just lifts one hand to wave them off before giving off a reluctant grin and going about his business with some of his other buddies.
Scott, meanwhile, tips his shot glass back, letting the whiskey pour into his mouth, though he doesn't just down in. He holds it there for a moment, not quite swishing it, but letting it roll around in his mouth and over his tongue before he swallows it. Tipping his glass upside down, he settles it back on the counter, and grins, as he releases that sigh that comes from the burn. "Yeah… It's not for everyone. But, if you let yourself taste the whiskey, it's really good. It's sort of smokey and sweet."
He looks back to Zee, and nods his head in response to Jean's confession. "The city has her drinking like a painfully white sorrority girl. And… sadly, when we were teens, we had too much going on to ever go out and do that whole beer pong and getting blackout drunk on beefeater vodka thing that most kids seem to do."
Turning his attention back to Jean, Scott shrugs one shoulder, and says, "It's been a second since Zee and I got to hang out, and… She has her magic, so I figured I'd show her a little of mine. Probably the only thing I'll be better than her at."
He cocks his head back at Carl and the pool table.
Zatanna shrugs to Jean, and says with a grin, "I'm usually a wine girl, myself. Don't sweat it." Then, she looks over at Scott and his answer to Jean's question.
"Really? Oh, okay. I mean, I kinda thought this was a date. Maybe not a DATE date, but a lowercase-d one." Zatanna smiles. Sometimes it's impossible to tell if she's fucking with someone. That's the secret of every good magician. "Takes the pressure off me trying to get you drunk off shots and drag you back to my spooky haunted house," she teases.
"Oooh, I hope you didn't put any money on that," Jean winces at Zee, only half-kidding. "The only way to beat him at pool is to cheat. And you say that like that's something wrong with painfully white sorority girls," she laughs at Scott. "I'll have you know, they're very…Well, they've got their reasons." She settles forward again, propping her elbow on the bar and setting her chin in one hand as she looks between the pair. "He's not always great at communicating," she asides to Zee, not entirely aside.
"It's not not a date," Scott replies to Zee in typical Scott fashion. "I mean, it's definitely not a capital D date, but it's…"
He just sort of looks around for a moment and shrugs his shoulders. When Zee mentions getting him drunk and taking him home, on the other hand, Scott's obscured eyes drop instantly to the bar's countertop as if something intensely fascinating resided there in the grain of the old, booze stained wood. His face turns as red as the lenses of his glasses, and he feels the rushing of blood in his eardrums. "Oh… Uh. I mean… Heh. I'm sure if you just invited me I'd just come."
"Over. I'd come over. To your house."
He chokes. Clearing his throat. Making that rolling gesture with his hand, he looks momentarily to Jean and then back to Zee before continuing. "For like a tour. Or something. Magic."
The glasses prevent the ladies from seeing how hard he is squeezing his eyes shut at this point in time, at least. When Jean chimes in, he shrugs his shoulders, and replies, "I know they've got their reasons. I've got a bit of experience with sorrority girls, myself."
No he doesn't. Everyone here knows he doesn't.
"…No I don't."
Being put onthe spot, though, Scott looks to Jean and tilts his head, brows knitted together over his nose. "I'm a great communicator! It's literally what I do! Part of being a great communicator is knowing what to not talk about!"
Zatanna actually laughs out loud, but not in a cruel way. It's a fine distinction, but she's laughing more WITH Scott than AT Scott. "Easy!" she coos, punching him in the arm gently, with absolutely zero force behind it. "I'm messing with you, Scott!"
Zee turns to Jean, and says with a big grin, "Isn't he adorable when he gets like this? I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself." Again, not quite an aside, since Scott has working ears and all.
Zee puts her palms face down on the bartop, and says, "Just breathe, Scott. I promise not to do that to you again for at LEAST five minutes. I can't speak for Jean, though…"
"He's definitely not someone you can accuse of thinking with anything other than his head," Jean smiles faintly to Zee. That's a compliment, right? No one likes guys who think with other parts. She's quiet for a beat longer than is strictly comfortable, struggling with her own reactions, before she reaches for her first glass of whiskey again, taking a smaller sip instead of a quick shot.
"Okay, that's…less bad when you take it a little slower. So, uh…" Jean is not usually awkward. That's usually Scott's thing. But there are some conversations that can't help but be that way. "Magic, huh?" Great save.
Zatanna doesn't seem particularly awkward at all. Then again, she ALSO seems like the sort of person who walks into a room and immediately makes themselves the center of it. "Magic," she confirms with a grin. "Been doing it since I was a kid. Which is good because I never did the whole sorority thing. Or the whole college thing, for that matter. So no degree, but I can catch a bullet in my mouth. So I'd call it about even-stevens."
"Sounds a lot like the way most of us grew up." Jean's smile flickers again as she looks in the direction of the school from the bar. "Part of why I decided to go to school in the city, actually. I wanted to make sure I got some of that…normal in my life, too. Just so I could say I'd tried it. You know, like brussel sprouts," she adds, a glimmer of humor in her features.
Zatanna winks at Jean. "Oh, I do normal, too. Meetings with accountants and managers and all the boring parts of what I do. I do a magic show and then I sit in the hotel room watching Mr. Robot in my pajamas. I just make people THINK my life is all crazy stuff all the time forever." She mirrors Jean's humor in her own expression.
When Zee punches his arm, Scott's body sort of leans and twists to go with it as if there were far more force behind it than there actually was. He does grin, though. Bright. But, he needs the time to compose himself. He lets the girls talk, blissfully remaining silent so that he can take a breather without one or the other of them making him feel all… stupid. They both have that affect on him. They get him tripped up and he just comes across like some bumbling idiot kid. So while they talk, Scott remains mum, waving over the bartender for another round. He leans in, and whispers into the bartender's ear. The tender nods with a small grin, and just gives a thumbs up before sliding down the bar to get to work.
"Hacker Club. Love that show." Scott finally chimes in.
"Normal is definitely relative," Jean chuckles, taking another measured sip of her drink. "I'm pretty sure hotel rooms and managers aren't strictly normal either. But compared to magic "tricks," she even does the air quotes, "On stage, it's definitely more normal. Whatever normal means anyhow. Seems like that's one of those things we lie to ourselves about too."
"The devil's in the details," Zatanna says with a gentle roll of her shoulders. "Might not be NORMAL normal to meet with your manager to go over a tour itinerary, but it's normal to have to answer to someone at your job. Might not be normal-normal, either, to be staying at the Luxor while you do a residency there, but it's normal to need your own space at the end of the day." Zatanna grins. "We can't lie to ourselves if we don't know what the truth is, right? So that means every lie has that little bit of truth hidden away in it." Zee has the stage presence and the skill with patter to say this and not sound COMPLETELY like some sort of college-sophomore blowhard.
"But you're both right," Zatanna concludes. "Pretty much anything is more normal than being on stage. And it IS a good show." She grins over at Scott.
"Everyone has their own normal," Scott says with a sort of bittersweet smile still playing on his lips. "I don't think there is any real normal-normal. I think that's a fiction. That family down the street with the two point five kids, the minivan, and the dog and cat? Behind closed doors, if nothing else, there's bound to be something that someone would consider not normal. I know that sounds like I'm implying some dark and heavy stuff, but it doesn't have to be that. I just think… Everyone is weird. In some way. Everyone has the unusual as a part of their everyday, "normal" life. Zee grew up with the touring and the lights and the cameras and the stage, so… that became normal. You and I, Jean? We had… our stuff. The private school life with our unique education and field trips and extracurricular activities. That was our normal."
About that time, the bartender comes over with three martini glasses filled with something hot pink and bubbly, with a garnish of lemon peel.
"Thought this might be more your speed," Scott says to Jean with a playful bob of one eyebrow. It's Scott for winking.
The slight awkwardness that's lingered over Jean from the beginning eases a bit at that 'wink' from Scott and the arrival of a more girl-friendly drink. "Thanks," she chuckles, trading out the whiskey for the fruity drink. "Hey, speaking of weird things. I was checking out the Disaster Zone the other day because it was raining, so I figured it'd help me see if anything else invisible was wandering around. But I met Captain Marvel. Turns out she's back. Apparently she got so mad about registration she just…stormed off into space."
"Can't blame her," Zatanna says off-handedly as she accepts her pink girly-girl drink. "I would have loved the option, myself." She lifts her drink toward Scott. "Thank you, Scott. Or should I thank Carl again? No, y'know what, it's all you."
"Oh, yeah," Scott says when Jean mentions having run into Captain Marvel, nodding his head. "Actually, we saw her, too. The uh… The night Zee and I met, we were ice skating down at Rock Center and she showed up. I didn't get a chance to talk to her, though. I was kind of too distracted by the company I already had… But is that where she went? That… That's disappointing."
Scott frowns, taking up his girly drink… Pink Passion, by the way. Lemon-lime soda with cranberry juice, Tequila Rose, and peach schnapps. It's fruity and almost painfully sweet. Scott even kind of winces. But he takes it like a champ. Lowering the martini glass, he continues, "I don't know. She could have stayed. Rallied against it. Become a symbol. If she bolted over it… I don't know. Somehow seems… I'm just saying, it's like Zee said. Plenty of us would have loved to have that option, but no. We were stuck here, boots in the mud, actually dealing with it and doing something."
He shakes his head, letting that tangent nip itself in the bud, before turning and offering a small, warm smile to Zee. He just nods his head, and says a simple, "You're welcome."
Jean's lips twist at Scott's words, rueful. "Yeah, that's more or less what I didn't say to her," she agrees. "Mostly because I'm pretty sure I couldn't actually take her in a fight, and also I didn't really want to bring down the wrath of the Avengers? And, you know. I figured I'd let her know that there might be people trying to help in there soon, so if they could not nuke it from orbit, that would be helpful. And telling her it was kind of disappointing that she just stormed off would have been counter-productive."
She takes a sip of her drink, glancing back at Zee. "Did you get a lot of flack back then? I guess I figured there was some plausible deniability there, but it's hard to overestimate the ability of people to be really weird about the idea that someone else has more than they do, even if it's not exactly a more sort of thing."
Zatanna takes a first sip of Pink Passion. "Oh my god, I can feel my tooth enamel eroding," she says in an aside, with a teasing tone of voice. She can't help but be not-quite-so-serious while the discussion turns to the morality and ethics of blasting off to outer space.
Then Jean puts the question directly to Zee, and the magician sighs thoughtfully. "I… you know, I didn't get a lot of flack from OTHERS, but I'm still not sure if I did what I should have," she admits. "I was like, eighteen years old when all this happened, and… there was a lot going on in my life, and a lot of stuff that I suddenly had to take care of. So I just kind of… removed myself from it all. Not to space, or anything. I just worked on my career, and did the things on the side that I needed to do, and voted how I voted, and that's… I mean, I don't know."
"Well, I doubt she'd have done any of that," Scott says, lifting up one hand in Jean's direction, palm facing towards her. "If she did that, that would just be tyrannical authoritarianism. I might think she's less heroic for taking off like that, but I don't think she's Von Doom or anything, Jean."
Scott silences as he turns to appraise Zee, as she speaks her piece of what life was like for her during that time, and how she handled it. It feels like Jean might have uprooted Zee's infamously steady footing and actually got her off balance. And Scott's surprised by that, somehow. When she's done, Scott gives an uptick of his chin, and reaches out to put his hand on her shoulder.
"It's alright," He says, as he scowls behind his glasses, looking pensive rather than angry. "I know that with everything I just said about Captain Marvel, you're probably thinking that we might think less of you for confessing that. But… You did what you did and you never signed up to be some big damned hero. You're an entertainer. And you were young. I know it was difficult and scary, you know? I was right there in it, but I had to be. Otherwise I'd be a hypocrite to the life I chose for myself, and I couldn't be that. And I feel that's the problem with Captain Marvel, if she up and left the planet over registration. She did sign up to be a big damned hero. She's been touted as a symbol of what it means to be a hero, even. So… You're cool. Thank you. You know… for sharing."
"Yeah, no judgment," Jean assures Zee, raising her glass to the other woman. "I've been on the receiving end of the 'pretty mutations' or 'invisible mutations' comment more than once, after all. And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't benefitted from it sometimes. The white privilege of the mutant world," she concludes, dry.
She makes a face at Scott still though. "It's not that I thought she necessarily would so much as I was just, you know. Being prepared. And I'm sure she had her reasons. Everyone does. But yeah. It was still sort of a disappointing thought. Also, it would be entirely our luck for something massive to happen while we were in the Disaster Zone and the Avengers to roll up and then think we did it. You know it would."
Zatanna does indeed seem off of her always-sure footing for that one moment, and that sense continues as the two X-Men reassure her that it is, in fact, okay. Scott's arm on her shoulder makes her turn just a little bit pink, even. Not as pink as her cocktail, because nothing could ever be that pink.
Zee is quiet for a moment, letting the two share their thoughts. Then, impulsively, she puts her own hand on Scott's shoulder, and leans up to kiss him. It's not a big, flashy thing. It's just a peck on the lips. It tastes like the Pink Passion she's been drinking. Or maybe Zee's lipgloss tasted similar enough for there to not be much of a difference. "Thank you," she says to Scott, quietly, and then looks to Jean. "I… sorry, it just kinda, uh, happened. Thank you, too." An attempt to kiss Jean does not follow.
Scott can't comment on the whole "invisible mutant" thing. He had been trying to keep the M word out of the conversation altogether, for the normies in the room. But, he himself treads that line. He "passes", but just barely, thanks to his glasses. Weird ass glasses, but they do the trick. He just gets to look like a douchebag Chad who wears his sunglasses indoors all the time. Like someone perpetually on his way to a televised poker tournament. He just lowers his head and shrugs his shoulders.
"Yeah, I guess that really would be our luck," Scott admits with a wry smirk. "But I think we'll b-"
Scott is cut off by the hand placed on his shoulder. His head turns to look at it, and then to Zee just as she's leaning up to close in for the kiss. Scott… freezes. Every muscle fiber in his body turns to solid, if slightly trembling steel, as if he had suddenly gained the mutant powers of Piotr Rasputin. Her lips meet his, and for a moment, Scott is just paralyzed as he tries to think of just what he should be doing in this situation, at this time, in this company. Sadly having a brilliant strategic mind does him little favors in processing this particular scenario. But, it ends quickly enough that he doesn't have to muppet flail his way into looking more like a jackass. As Zee pulls away and thanks him, Scott's beet red face lights up with a smile, and he simply looks down, sliding his hands into the back pockets of his jeans with a shrug of his shoulders.
Sometimes, Jean is incredibly grateful that she's the one with the mutant power to read minds and feelings. Usually she's even more grateful that years of practice mean she knows how to lock her mind down tighter than Fort Knox. It helps with those moments when your stomach drops like a stone into your feet but you'd rather not share that with everyone around you. "Yeah, he has those moments sometimes," she smiles faintly to Zee before she hides her features behind a sip of her drink, giving that a moment to pass over.
"And hey, good news is, no one has to register. Now. For now. Did I tell you I talked to Raven recently?" she asks Scott, flailing for a new subject. "I know I mentioned it to Doug, but I can't remember if I told you."
Zatanna, for her part, straightens herself out on her bar stool and focuses on her drink for a moment. Normally when she gets Scott to turn red, it's followed by grinning and gentle teasing, but right now that would be pretty cruel. So she nods to Jean: "No registration," she agrees. "Thank God." Then she drinks more Pink Passion while Scott and Jean have their moment to discuss someone Zee isn't acquainted with.
"Huh?" Scott emotes, as his head snaps up, realizing that he's being addressed suddenly, as if he had just been jerked out of some haze. He shakes it off, literally as well as figuratively, and turns his ruby-lensed stare on to Jean again. His expression is unreadable when he puts together the words he had heard and processes them into meaning. "Oh, you did? No. You hadn't told me that. Who was she this time?"
Knowing full well that Zee is lost in this thread of the conversation, Scott turns to her and explains, "Raven is someone who… used to be like… well, like a part of the team. But then she… wasn't. And then she got herself into a lot of trouble. And now she's… well, still trouble. Just a different kind of trouble. It's complicated. She's complicated. Your lips taste nice."
"An old friend who took a different path," Jean offers in counterpoint to Scott's description. "And she was herself. Or, you know. Her public face. It was good to know she was still okay, at least." It sounds like Jean still holds some fond feelings for this Raven. And then Scott has to go and keep saying things, and she takes a larger drink, straightening up a bit. "I should, uh. Let you guys get back to your date," she smiles faintly. "I'll probably need to drive back into the city in the morning, so I should get back to the school and get to bed."
Zatanna is at the crossroads every person faces at some point in their life when they've done something not appropriate for public display without realizing the full history and context that makes it so inappropriate, and a choice must be made between letting someone walk away from it or trying to keep them there without realizing that they'd be making that other person uncomfortable. Lucky for the magician that she makes the right choice. "It was nice seeing you again, Jean," she says, and to her credit, it sounds friendly and genuine. (In fact, whatever ambient psychic indicators she's giving off point to it really BEING friendly and genuine.) "Safe drive into the city, okay?"
"Yeah. It's definitely good to know that," Scott agrees. His own emotions seem to be more neutral. For Scott, it feels like a betrayal and an abandonment to him, alone, to leave behind the fight that he's been fighting ever since he had a moment of freedom. That dream. But having so completely turned against it, actively working to thwart it? He's not certain that he'll ever be able to really, truly feel true affection for Raven ever again.
"Uh, Jean… Let's get you an Uber and get you back to the school for the night. I'll give you a lift back here to pick up your vehicle. I just… I don't want you driving right now, okay?"
He might have asked if that was okay, but his tone of voice makes it clear that he's not asking. In fact, he's already pulling out his phone and thumbing at the app. "I just want to make sure you're good."
"Good news, I don't have a car anyhow," Jean assures Scott, holding up her own phone with an app already open. "It's fine, I've got it. Enjoy your date. Zee, I mean it when I say don't bet money on a pool game with him unless you just want an excuse to give it to him," she adds with a crooked smile for the other woman. "Or if you're going to cheat, which I encourage you to do in ways that make him doubt whether or not you did." She winks, still walking backwards toward the door. "Go on, have a good time you two. Nice seeing you both," she calls before she makes her escape.
"Oh, don't worry, I'll cheat," Zatanna assures Jean in a matter-of-fact way.
.~{:-:[ end of log ]:---------——:}~.