Jeff Calhoun (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bardish) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2018-08-01 10:10 am
bardish) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-08-01 10:10 am
and i wonder, when i sing along with you [OPEN]
who: Jeff Calhoun & OPEN
what: August Catch-All
when: ALL OF AUGUST
where: Various
warnings: Prompt II has brief references to past drug use and... VAGUELY demons.
i. it's a kind of magic (GRAMARYE)
[ Of everything Jeff could complain about with regards to his life here (Such as the recent kidnapping-by-cult! That's still a big one!), there's one thing he's totally content with: his job. Working at Gramarye, he gets the same joy of teaching as back home, only without the constraints of testing and curriculum drama. Also, the pay's marginally better. That helps.
Here in Riverview, he gets to teach kids who don't have a lot of opportunities at the public school, whether because they can't control their magic (or other abilities), or because the facilities aren't equipped for them, or they just... haven't had the best experiences with non-magical people in their own worlds, and feel safer with people more like them. Whatever the reason, they get their schooling at Gramarye, and Jeff's one of the teachers who works with them on their fundamental education. Not with magic (not a chance in hell he'd try to teach magical lessons, with there being ten thousand different types of magic here in the first place), but mundane subjects.
It's a challenge, coming up with lesson plans that can both cast a wide net and be allow him to customize for each kid's needs, but he loves it. And he gets to focus on all kinds of different things, depending on the students. Critical thinking! Reading comprehension! Self-expression! Occasionally, some degree of math!
For all that he might give off a slacker vibe, it's clear that he at least takes his job seriously. So, Jeff can often be found at Gramarye, whether it's during school hours for the magical youths, or after-hours: grading, lesson planning, or cleaning up after some magical mishap or another. Look, it's a hazard of the job. If he weren't so totally gunshy about doing magic, himself, he'd just... enchant the damn papers so no teenage wizards with a strong affinity for pyromancy could set their tests on fire when they get too stumped by a question...
Kyle.
So that's his current mission, when he's not teaching: asking his coworkers (or frequent visitors of Gramarye) for tips or spells to MAAAAYBE baby-proof his classroom. ]
Look, they're good kids, but sometimes they can get a little, ahh... excitable? It's like... shit happens! Things explode a little! So, if you've got a spell for that, I could really use a hand here...
ii. i'm burning through the sky, yeah (OPEN MIC NIGHT)
[ It's funny where life takes you. The last time Jeff played in front of a crowd, it was... 1995? A packed house, the crowd a mass of sweaty bodies, drunk, high, hopped up on this thing or that. He was shitfaced, too, trying to fry a voice out of his head with a cocktail of substances, but he could still hear it, even through the fog. From what he can remember, the set went from okay, to not-so-great, to a total shitshow. He lost time, blacked out, sometime around the last song in the set, and whatever happened after, he still has no memory of.
He found out after-the-fact that the night ended in yet another fight between him and his bandmates. Only by then, it was one fight too many, and that was the end of that. Bye bye, band.
And that wasn't even when he hit bottom.
This is the first time Jeff's picked up an instrument and played for an audience (instead of just himself) in over twenty years, and it couldn't be more different. Open mic at a coffeehouse, mellow music for a small, mellow crowd. Not normally something he'd do-- god, there's still a part of him that expects everything to go wrong, even as he's strumming a guitar and singing covers of other musicians (never his own stuff, not anymore)-- but, fuck, Athena's a bad influence here! Living with another bard, and not having his daughter around to pour all of his attention into, it's gotten harder for Jeff to keep on pretending he can live a full and satisfying life without music.
So, here we go. He's not flashy like he used to be, and half the people at the coffeehouse aren't even here for the open mic performances-- they're doing their own thing and hardly paying attention-- and that helps ease him through his initial waves of anxiety and settle into a nice groove here. It's just a few songs, by a few artists. When he's finished, it's a rush, that buzzing thrill beneath the skin that he always used to feel when he performed.
When it's over, Jeff sticks around to mingle and chat with people. Come say hi!
(And he enjoys the open mic thing enough that he'll come back a few more times over the month to play a short set. If Athena's with him, you can bet there will be duets.) ]
( And here's some references for songs he might've played: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. )
WILDCARD.
[ More prompts might pop up later. IN THE MEANTIME: if these don't strike your fancy, you can choose your own adventure. ]
what: August Catch-All
when: ALL OF AUGUST
where: Various
warnings: Prompt II has brief references to past drug use and... VAGUELY demons.
i. it's a kind of magic (GRAMARYE)
[ Of everything Jeff could complain about with regards to his life here (Such as the recent kidnapping-by-cult! That's still a big one!), there's one thing he's totally content with: his job. Working at Gramarye, he gets the same joy of teaching as back home, only without the constraints of testing and curriculum drama. Also, the pay's marginally better. That helps.
Here in Riverview, he gets to teach kids who don't have a lot of opportunities at the public school, whether because they can't control their magic (or other abilities), or because the facilities aren't equipped for them, or they just... haven't had the best experiences with non-magical people in their own worlds, and feel safer with people more like them. Whatever the reason, they get their schooling at Gramarye, and Jeff's one of the teachers who works with them on their fundamental education. Not with magic (not a chance in hell he'd try to teach magical lessons, with there being ten thousand different types of magic here in the first place), but mundane subjects.
It's a challenge, coming up with lesson plans that can both cast a wide net and be allow him to customize for each kid's needs, but he loves it. And he gets to focus on all kinds of different things, depending on the students. Critical thinking! Reading comprehension! Self-expression! Occasionally, some degree of math!
For all that he might give off a slacker vibe, it's clear that he at least takes his job seriously. So, Jeff can often be found at Gramarye, whether it's during school hours for the magical youths, or after-hours: grading, lesson planning, or cleaning up after some magical mishap or another. Look, it's a hazard of the job. If he weren't so totally gunshy about doing magic, himself, he'd just... enchant the damn papers so no teenage wizards with a strong affinity for pyromancy could set their tests on fire when they get too stumped by a question...
Kyle.
So that's his current mission, when he's not teaching: asking his coworkers (or frequent visitors of Gramarye) for tips or spells to MAAAAYBE baby-proof his classroom. ]
Look, they're good kids, but sometimes they can get a little, ahh... excitable? It's like... shit happens! Things explode a little! So, if you've got a spell for that, I could really use a hand here...
ii. i'm burning through the sky, yeah (OPEN MIC NIGHT)
[ It's funny where life takes you. The last time Jeff played in front of a crowd, it was... 1995? A packed house, the crowd a mass of sweaty bodies, drunk, high, hopped up on this thing or that. He was shitfaced, too, trying to fry a voice out of his head with a cocktail of substances, but he could still hear it, even through the fog. From what he can remember, the set went from okay, to not-so-great, to a total shitshow. He lost time, blacked out, sometime around the last song in the set, and whatever happened after, he still has no memory of.
He found out after-the-fact that the night ended in yet another fight between him and his bandmates. Only by then, it was one fight too many, and that was the end of that. Bye bye, band.
And that wasn't even when he hit bottom.
This is the first time Jeff's picked up an instrument and played for an audience (instead of just himself) in over twenty years, and it couldn't be more different. Open mic at a coffeehouse, mellow music for a small, mellow crowd. Not normally something he'd do-- god, there's still a part of him that expects everything to go wrong, even as he's strumming a guitar and singing covers of other musicians (never his own stuff, not anymore)-- but, fuck, Athena's a bad influence here! Living with another bard, and not having his daughter around to pour all of his attention into, it's gotten harder for Jeff to keep on pretending he can live a full and satisfying life without music.
So, here we go. He's not flashy like he used to be, and half the people at the coffeehouse aren't even here for the open mic performances-- they're doing their own thing and hardly paying attention-- and that helps ease him through his initial waves of anxiety and settle into a nice groove here. It's just a few songs, by a few artists. When he's finished, it's a rush, that buzzing thrill beneath the skin that he always used to feel when he performed.
When it's over, Jeff sticks around to mingle and chat with people. Come say hi!
(And he enjoys the open mic thing enough that he'll come back a few more times over the month to play a short set. If Athena's with him, you can bet there will be duets.) ]
( And here's some references for songs he might've played: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. )
WILDCARD.
[ More prompts might pop up later. IN THE MEANTIME: if these don't strike your fancy, you can choose your own adventure. ]
There is totally other furniture if Jeff wants to sit
And Jeff, he knew, was informed about most of his life already. He also seemed to be surprisingly good at sticking around. A trait that had endeared Alex to Richard a few years ago. After all, it wasn't that he disliked people, he just disliked getting close to them. They were always a disappointment and a waste of time when they inevitably betrayed or abandoned you. Jeff would eventually disappear, but that was a foregone conclusion in the situation they were in. For the moment though, he didn't seem as if he were planning on abandoning them because of demon nonsense and everything else that came with being involved with him and Alex.
"Coralee is my wife." There's no ex there, no dead wife, just wife. It's a fact that hasn't stopped being true even though he knew things were over. Knew she would never come back to him, and knew that he didn't really want her to come back. Not after knowing what she'd done, to him, and more importantly, to Charlie. "Before we were married, she had a, transgression, with a Baptist minister. Four months ago Alex had a two-night stand with a man named John." Probably the one who sold Jeff the furniture. Richard wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.
no subject
It's the rest that throws him for a loop. The affair with a Baptist minister, and Alex sleeping with somebody named John. Which, okay, that's a common name, but the only John he knows here is John Sheppard, who he's hung out with a few times. Boy, it'd sure be awkward if everyone's connected like that.
"Ohhh..."
Say something else, Jeff.
"And you guys were-- ah..." He searches for something to say, trying to figure out where all the pieces fit together. He knows Alex was here before Richard, but he doesn't know all the details, how far apart their arrivals were staggered, if they were a couple or not in her time or his-- all this arrival-by-portal shit can be really confusing! Plus there's the whole 'wife' thing, and wherever she fits. "You were already together when she did that?"
no subject
"But she's using her belief that I wouldn't love her as an excuse." Not just accepting that it happened, but putting the blame of it, of something that really needed no blame, onto him. At first, it had been the fact of it, that she would use the same type of flirting that was at the core of what was them with another man, but as he thought about it something deeper had taken root. It was the immediate guilt that she had when she realized why he was upset. It was the use of her uncertainty of his feelings as a justification for doing it. They weren't together, no, but it seemed clear that in her mind it was almost like cheating.
no subject
But then he gets to the real root of the issue-- at least, from his perspective (god, there's so much here for those two to unpack)-- and Jeff... well. He can't blame the guy for feeling upset. Richard doesn't have to explain why Alex's excuse got to him; by framing it like 'Well, I did it because you wouldn't love me,' it was shifting the blame to Richard. Passing the buck! Totally unfair.
Of course, he doesn't know if that's really how Alex was feeling about the whole thing. If she's anything like Jeff (which she sure seems to be), it's likely she was just flustered and shoving her foot in her mouth. He knows from yeaaars of experience how easy to say something you don't really mean, don't even think through, in an attempt to fix things. How you can, with the best of intentions, really hurt your partner a hundred different ways.
"Like... it's your fault," he ventures, just to make sure they're on the same page here. "Do you think she really believes that?"
It's a genuine question, asked without judgment. He's not pushing for any particular answer or admission here.
no subject
He frowned, finally taking a drink from the glass. "Alex and I are complicated, even at the best of times. And I don't expect anyone to understand, but she can be, irrational. It's highly likely that she believes that the reason is my fault." Isn't it often his fault? Her telling everyone about his past, his personal and private history which she knew he didn't want to be known had also been his fault for not being here. For not telling her not to say. Never mind the fact that she continued to do so even after he'd told and asked her to stop, several times.
no subject
"Sometimes I wonder if you guys are speaking different languages at each other." You know, like it all sounds like English, but the meanings are totally different from one ear to the other. "I'm not an expert on all things Alex, but... I know what it's like to shove your foot in your mouth and double down. Especially when you're a, ahh... more... abstract kind of person, talking with someone who's a lot more rational." Jeff rubs the back of his neck, grimacing. "Whoever she slept with, it's not your fault, and I don't think she really believes it is, either."
no subject
"She specifically blamed everything she'd done for the past four months on my absence." It was blaming him for an absence that he couldn't change, couldn't have even known he needed to change. Aside from Charlie, there hadn't been a moment when he wasn't by her side in the past year. She should have known that, if given the choice, he would have chosen to be here, with her. And yet the blame stayed there, lying and festering in her. "I don't think she wants to believe it, but on a fundamental level, she does. If I hadn't left her," Again, "none of this would be happening now." At least that's the implication that she'd been giving over and over, the sentiment that seemed to have pervaded all of their arguments since his arrival. "Even if she doesn't believe it on the surface, there's an underlying blame. Eventually, I'll have to accept that blame." It was something he was good at, taking personal blame for things he didn't do. It was his fault Coralee left, his fault that Alex was involved with what was going on at home; and now his fault that Alex had been doing what she had been for the past four months. And he would silently take the blame, eventually. It wouldn't be Alex's fault that they fault, it would be his. It was something he'd already accepted when he walked into his office door.