Relax

John fell flat on his face, Abigail backpedaling and using his own motion against him. After he had practiced with Intercepting Strike for a while, she had grown more confident. She suggested that if he could so much as land a solid hit on her within five minutes, she’d give him half the money from her first bounty. If he couldn’t, he had to open another training barrier with her first thing tomorrow.

Though he had nothing to lose, he still felt like a fool for accepting. Recovering quickly, he used Jump to get behind her, striking forward with his hands in a claw… and they sailed through the flames of her torso. “Almost had me there, John!” Abigail laughed, stepping back and travelling around him as fire before pushing him down. He was lucky to be wearing his duster.

“Okay, okay. I give. I’ll make a barrier tomorrow. You didn’t seem to be this skilled in the forest when you were possessed,” John grumbled, taking her hand and getting up. Checking his phone, he saw he had about two and a half hours before Jenny would be home.

“I didn’t really want to win. And you were using your guns. Guns are stronger than fists in your case, John.” He would do well to take that advice to heart. He had grown fond of melee combat, and had a shiny new skill to boot, but guns were still his forte.

“I gotta go, gonna do… something. To celebrate Jenny’s first day and my success. I probably won’t be back to the dorm tonight, so… I’ll see you tomorrow,” John unequipped his duster, waving to Abigail as he left the training room. He took the loud thud he heard to mean she had gone back to wailing on the dummy.

He walked into the mundane Seven Circles of Hell nightclub, intent on visiting Jenny and watching her perform her first night. Along the way he stopped at a florist who was twenty minutes from closing and picked out a bouquet of red tulips. He would have preferred roses, but the shopkeeper regretfully informed him that she was in the process of putting things away for the night and didn’t have any roses out. Thanking (and paying) the kind woman nonetheless, he stowed the gift away in his inventory the moment he was out of sight.

“Hello Callum! Just need to get into the Inferno. Twelve thousand as usual, right?” John readied himself to take the money out of his inventory, he’d done this interaction several times over the past month and a half.

“Was wondering when you’d stop by, John,” the blond smiled, checking a clearly archaic flip phone before looking back up at him. “You’re Jenny’s plus one today, so you can head on in. It pays to have a girlfriend working for us, eh?”

“Uh yeah, I guess,” he didn’t really like the way Callum said that, but strolled on in to the Inferno nonetheless. A surfeit of Abyssal creatures flooded the entry hall, a crowd he had grown accustomed to pushing through. He followed the purple glass trail to Pride, the booming music already filling his head with a pleasant fog.

Alright, I’m under control. Dammit, why does this place have to be so great? The bar, the performers- right. Here for Jenny, he walked further into the gigantic hall, ignoring the larger-than-life stripper poles and numerous balconies to set his eyes on the mainstage, where his girlfriend’s voice floated toward him on high.

She was a goddess looking down on her subjects, her adoring fans a near-impenetrable wall between the two lovers. A matte black peachbloom hat with a single white feather askew on her head as she danced, microphone stand in her arms. She wore a black and yellow spotted jacket over a white shirt and pants which completed the ensemble.

“Yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeeeaaaaaaaaah,” the last was dragged out for a few seconds, her ruby lips inches from the mic. With a flourish, she tossed the hat into the crowd like a frisbee, half a dozen people crashing into each other, all after it.

The music slowed down, though the other performances higher up could still faintly be heard. Putting down the mic and slinging her bass over her shoulder, she spoke to her adoring fans, “You’ve been a great crowd tonight! I’ll have another show in about an hour. Until then please welcome onto the stage Sable and the Girls!”

He could hardly hear the next band’s name over the **** shouts for her to stay. He took the tulips out of his inventory and threw one onto the stage. Then he noticed that he wasn’t the only one. Bras, panties, flowers, hell, one excitable woman even flung an expensive looking bracelet on the stage. With a smirk and a wink, Jenny caught a white bra thrown and put it on her head as if to replace the hat. She finally noticed him near the back of the crowd and waved, ecstatic to see him there. John watched all of this with a big dopey grin on his face and caught the kiss she blew him.

The three band members strolled off-stage, though Jenny was the only one he recognized. Joan’s not Abyssal, so she was out from the get go. I guess Keith is too busy to play here daily.

He made his way backstage, ignoring the gropes and stares of the enchanted partygoers, too far gone to be blamed. When I’m this close, it doesn’t feel that much different from the rockstar monsters barrier that keeps popping up. They are here by choice though… I guess.

“Hey! What’re you doing back here kid? You’re not-,” a beefy, bald bouncer said when John slipped past the first door. The man looked ready to fight, but thankfully Jenny came to John’s rescue.

“Don’t worry about it, beefcake, he’s with me,” the redhead’s voice cut through the tension, rushing out of her dressing room door and hanging an arm over the man’s shoulder. “John Newman. Make sure he’s on the list.”

“So there’s a list now?” John joked, getting dragged into the luxurious break room by his girlfriend. The bra was still on her head, but John didn’t pay any mind to that as he was thrown into a giant, vermillion barrel back chair the same color as her hair.

“It is good to see you, Johnny, this place can be pretty intoxicating. When you’re here it’s easy to focus on what matters,” she straddled his lap as she spoke. With her so close he could smell the sweet, fragrant sherry she had been drinking... and then she was kissing him, such an expected yet instant action that it took him a few seconds to register what was happening and respond in kind.

It was a familiar sensation, but a welcome one. He could hardly focus on what was happening as the joy of being with his favorite person in the world overtook him after what had been a long day, whether or not he was happily coming down from a victory. She was swept up in passion, a building tension finally released after hours of playing the music she loved for a crowd of people who in the end were only there for themselves. To be with someone who so completely and totally understood her, and to give herself to him wholeheartedly.
“It’s good to see you too,” he laughed as she snuggled with him, content to rest there for a while. He pulled her into a half-hug as she relaxed against him. “I got you flowers,” he called the bouquet into his free hand, “but it looks like you got something even better from your adoring fans.”

He plucked the bra from her head and read the tag before laughing again, “36C, it’s your size!”

“Give me that!” she said, setting the flowers down. She snatched the bra from him and checked the tags to confirm it before twirling it around her finger. “I knew I had a good feeling about this one, that’s why I caught it.”

“That’s kind of gross,” John replied, using Move to levitate the flowers off the carpeted floor and onto her desk and mirror.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She tossed it at the wall, the bra falling into a garbage bin. “I’m glad you came to see me, but I have one more show planned. After that I’m all yours.”

He had meant to cook something for her and make a nice, meaningful dinner, but he could tell that she was already exhausted. He was too, though it was mostly staved off by his abilities. “I was thinking we could relax and order some pizza. A little celebration but still casual.”

“That sounds awesome. I know I’m gonna have to do this everyday, and I’m literally living my dream, but it takes a lot out of me,” she stretched against him, nuzzling into his neck.

“It looks like it. You were amazing up there though!” She was exhausted now, but he had never seen her more in her element than on that stage in front of those people.

“Yeah, I’m pretty cool,” her tone was that of someone admitting a deep personal secret. “So I’ve been thinking… I want you to meet my dad.”

“Wow. I mean, of course! I know how much it means to you. When?” A knot of apprehension built in his gut. He knew Jenny’s dad was the most important person in the world to her, and making a good first impression was going to be very, very important.

“I can only see him in the mornings, so Wednesday at around ten if you can. I don’t know how this is going to work with you being a bounty hunter now, are you still going to live in the apartment?” While he contained his fear on the inside, the doubt of their future was plain on her face as she spoke. She stiffened against him, not quite willing to meet his eyes.

“I have a plan for that! I got an ability that lets me make waypoints, which let me connect a network of places to teleport to. I’ll set one in my dorm, one in our apartment, and live in both. Obviously I’d sleep in our apartment, and do work stuff at my dorm. It’d be like commuting.” John had given it some thought, and it seemed like the best solution.

She hugged him extra tight when he finished. “Oh that’s great! So you can make it then?”

“Should be no problem. I haven’t even gotten any bounties yet!” He felt the tension leave her as she melted against him, leaning in to kiss him again. It could be them against the world, and in that moment, he’d still be happy. Their relationship had never been better, he was making new (and strong) allies, and he was just accepted into one of the most powerful guilds in the world. Things are really looking up for me.

“As much as I want you to stay for my last performance, you should swing by Keith’s. He said he needed to talk to you about something, I think it had to do with being a Bounty Hunter. Sounded pretty important. I’ll see you back at the apartment.” She slowly got up from him, taking off the small jacket she wore on stage and tossing it onto a small chair by her desk mirror.

“You don’t think it can wait? He’s got my number, he can text or call me.” John suddenly regretted all the time he had spent training. If I had come here sooner, I would have known sooner. Why didn’t he just call me himself?

“I wouldn’t keep him waiting, babe. I appreciate you wanting to stay though, you’re sweet. Get pepperoni for me!” with that she turned toward her mirror, taking off her shirt and shucking her pants.

“Alright, alright. I’m going.” He pecked her on the cheek, and she groped him quickly before guiding his hand to one of her bra-clad breasts.

“You can get me sausage too, just not on the pizza,” she joked before pushing him out. He looked back and saw her sticking out her tongue playfully as the door swung shut.