1.41 Bad Luck Tavern and the Monkey's Paw Boyfriend

Hoping to find a more private setting to get to know to Malcolm, Jyoti invites him to the small tavern that Kevin refused to enter over a year ago when she asked him if they were supposed to be dating. We're just going to call this place Bad Luck Tavern.

“So it isn't like, a romantic setting or whatever, I just wanted to check the place out. We can still get tropical drinks and pretend we're at the beach in some faraway place, and not stuck here in Starlight, with chores and homework and curfew.”

He looks at her idea and isn't sure he likes it.

“You know we have a massive paper to finish for Simmanities, and group projects in two other subjects this week? We have to get some studying done.”

“Right, I know...” Where was his sense of adventure? “I just want to have some fun before all that work has to start.”

“If we get the work out of the way first, it'll be more satisfying to relax.”

She didn't want to hear that.

Malcolm hates the plan of drinking at a bar while being underage actually. He thinks it's a bad idea, but she looks disappointed so he agrees. “I'll go in if you really want to.” He says, trying to appease her.

“Yeah...” Her enthusiasm is tampered, but he did agree. What if he thinks she's rebellious, like her brother and doesn't find her respectable?

She just wanted to see what she's been missing out on in life.

“I hear the food's good. My dad is actually really amazing chef, I think that's more impressive than his performances, actually. I've learned a little bit, but it's not nearly on his level. I don't know how he makes the time for it. But it'll be nice to eat something that's not left over cake from some party and veggie burgers- my mom's favorite. Who thought the idea of tofu as a burger was a good idea? I can't work out properly on that stuff.”

Malcolm has eyes in his head, so he's noticed her penchant for all things exercise-y.“Well you have extracurriculars, school work and the weight training you've been doing before sports club. I'd like to learn how to eat better too. Maybe I can make something for you after a workout, sometime.”

That was just what she wanted to hear. He has redeemed his earlier uncoolness with the promise of future bribery.

“I'd probably have to make a dozen test meals, first though. I can't just feed you experiments, can I? It should be really good if I focus.”

He doesn't sound confident at all, and it's not like he's trying to be flirty, she doesn't think (although he did manage to walk awfully close to her during a conversation about how bad tofu is). The attention is nice though, it kind of feels like she actually has a boyfriend for a moment that she's said more than a few words to.

Don't make that face. You've need to practice this sort of thing in the mirror, first. He looks like an old man picking out pickles at the grocery store, for some reason.

It doesn't help that her flirting is not impressing him at all. She's relied on her humor too much in interactions with friends, and he can't take her seriously when she means it. To make matters worse, she's unsure about what dating is supposed to be like, so when things are predictably awkward she's not sure how to salvage them.

Dating can be so annoying sometimes. You know, in reality. It rains on them so they venture into the seedy bar she's been dying to check out ever since she can remember. She's seen all kinds of different people going in and out, or heard loud fun music playing from the outside when she was biking or jogging by, even as a child.

Malcolm is tired lately too, and doesn't think to share his umbrella with her, which would've been nice as this is classified as a date.

Whatever, we'll have fun when we get inside, she thinks.

She orders a round of drinks for the bar because she's seen it done in movies (her dad is a superstar so yes, she is allowed to do this), and Malcolm decides to get work done on an essay for Simlish.

Her boyfriend did not just open up his laptop on their date. “What-are-you-doing.” She says, annoyed again and not masking it well.

“Homework. Research for a paper.”

“Your paper is about playing videos games... and cars.”

“Engines, actually, and how different societies developed the technology according to people's habits. There's some great videos on the subject and I have to review a few of them for it.” He doesn't think to assure her that this won't take a long time. He has to get some of it done tonight, the laptop is on loan from someone else and he has to give it back.

“Awesome. That's great, I hope you get a good grade.”

He hears nothing off about her tone. “Thanks.”

She gets recognized as one of Element the Suspicious' kids by a child who is at the bar with her dad. This date is so romantic!

She finishes her drink and then dances alone for awhile. He was supposed to notice and come join her.

He did not, so she moves from romantic drinks to party drinks. “Are you having fun?” She intones, no longer making eye contact.

“Uhh, yes?” Malcolm totally hadn't forgot they were out together.

“Awesome. That, like everything, is awesome.”

Her muscles are going to burn later if she drinks too much of this. Is that why people drink when they're upset, to make it hurt? Maybe she should stop now.

After trying this one.

That old man is going to drop dead any second, she thinks irreverently. He has that shouldn't-still-be dressing-himself look about him.

It's not like Jyoti to have nothing to say, but this guy is nothing close to romantic, and she has high expectations for her first 'real date'. What she was getting instead right now is indifference, at best. He didn't have to ride in and rescue her from something, a knight on a valiant steed, and she didn't think there was anything at the moment that she actually needs rescuing from. So barring the hopeless romantic tropes (as she is not one), how does one warm up a date that was going this poorly?

By the time Malcolm announces that he's finished with the bulk of the research he needed to get done as the rest can be finished easily enough at home, she doesn't even bother to respond. She is less important to him than his simmanities grade.

“I was thinking of getting something to eat...” He trails off, sensing that her mood has turned sour.

She continues stretching until he sits down to order something. Far be it from Jyo Sparrow to interrupt a hard working student in need of refreshment.

She sulkily takes a sixth drink. These aren't doing anything at all. The bartender must actually know her dad if he made them all kid friendly.

One more drink for good measure until she's given up completely, choosing to join in a game of foosball on the other side of the bar. She figures she won't have to deal with Malcolm for a while as there's no way he'd approach a group of strangers to try and get her back to the date.

But before she knows it he's at her side, ignoring the other women and just playing silently.

Teaming up they beat the other side. More importantly, the little taste of fun keeps the date from being absolutely atrocious.

“I need to head back home if I'm going to fit my workout in,” She tells him, wanting to save herself an exit if she still needed it.

“We could-” Malcolm looks around for something that doesn't involve too much public embarrassment and comes up short. “Uh- dance, I guess...”

To his horror, she agrees.

“You sure you're brave enough to dance, shy guy?” She appeals to his less cowardly side. He has to admire how that bolsters him and helps chase away the uncertainty he had been feeling.

“I guess I have to be.” He says, grinning for the first time since they've been in here.

So he heads over to the dance floor, as far away from the center of the room as possible. One or two songs like this, being separated by several other people dancing, and Jyo calls it and says goodbye. If he's disappointed at all it is indiscernible. She knows how to have a good time out with other people, but he is proving to be more than a challenge for her to try and understand every time they're together.

He tried, she thinks, he tried in his own way.

She jogs back home and heads to the workout room, thinking it over and over in her head. Had she chosen such a bad location, was it the wrong night for a date, when so much work was due? He didn't even try to be close to her, not really. And all she can think of as she drifts off to sleep is that she kind of wants to kiss him.

As she sleeps, as if on cue, she is greeted by someone familiar. The recurring dream has all but ceased, but he still appears in various ways that are less repetitive. They have more in depth discussions, she feels less pressure and more reassurance that she's on the right path in life now. He reminds her often that it's okay not to have the clairvoyance needed to see around every corner in the bend before one gets to it. She can wing it, or they can, together.

“You've been having a hard time.” He says.

“Usually you show up later, after I've had dreams with fairy tale monsters in them, faeries that I can outrun in marathons, mummies I fight off while plundering ancient treasure in dry, desolate places...”

“You're saying that I have a certain expectations to meet.”

“No, not really.” Then it dawns on her. “...You have a horse?”

“You've been thinking it would be nice, to be rescued.” He shrugs. “I find you perfectly capable of doing that sort of thing for yourself, but it seemed like a timely gesture.” No biggie bringing her an actual horse to ride, not that high of a bar to set for a dream.

“Are you feeling alright?” Immediately Luke notices something is off, of course. He's so in tune with how she's feeling it's crazy sometimes.

Already this setting is more romantic than her real life date was. Pathetic.

“I'm okay, just a little bit off today,” she admits.

“I'm sure we can do something to help you feel better. We'll figure it out together.”

“Sure.” She agrees easily enough.

Jyo walks right up to the horse despite having no training with the large animals at all. “He's absolutely beautiful!” She can't help but enthuse.

“She.”

“She then, how progressive.” Jyo teases.

“It's hardly progressive if there's a fifty percent chance.”

“Wow, okay, so is something wrong with you today?”

He contemplates this, then begins to dismount. “Not really.”

He lands with a wet thud, ass on grass. He curses under his breath. “My foot slipped...”

“Shoot. Luke, are you okay?” You didn't have to bring out a horse just to impress me if you didn't even know how to ride it.”

“This horse loves me though. I brought her to meet you even though I think she's a bit jealous. She bucked just now.”

“She did not you just missed your footing.” Jyo has a flash of insight here. Is this an argument I'm having with my actual dream boyfriend? “Bad luck, huh?”

“I was fine until I entered your dreams.” Despite the accusation, Luke's tone remains observing. “You were with Malcolm, just now?”

“Sure. We got to hang out a bit.” She folds her arms over her chest, subconsciously defensive. “Why?”

“Maybe his bad luck is affecting you, it must be a powerful fortune to stay with you this long.” It's such a ditsy thing to say that Jyo does a double take and forgets her annoyance. “Why the mystical assumption? You usually seem so practical when we have our conversations.”

She is rewarded with a wry tone in response. “It becomes inevitable eventually. The more you see, the more you realize that you are not, and cannot ever be, fully in control. I'm usually on the lucky side of things, technically. But there's no real relying on it.”

“This is the part where you tell me your own personal monkey paw story.” She prompts, remembering some dumb legends from simlish class a while back.

“I wouldn't know how mine ends though, I'm still in the process of wishing. Also we're discussing luck, not curses.”

She manages to blithely ignore all the un-fun things he just said. “So you're waiting on the negative consequences? What is your wish about?”

“Nothing, at the moment, as I've already met you.” He says.

“Aww, that's sweet.”

The horse sniffs Jyoti's hair and pulls her lips back.

“She's smiling at me. Is that a smile? Can I pet her?”

Luke seems unsure about this. “I don't know, she's in a bit of a mood at the moment. Let me look around, there's probably some fruit we can give her to calm her down first.”

That leaves Jyoti and the horse, just standing and staring at each other. After a few minutes of Jyo not knowing what to do, the horse nips at her and she jumps back about a foot. “Uhh- Luke? What did I do?”

He sighs and walks back from a nearby apple tree. “I told you she's jealous. Usually she gets all of my attention.”

“Calm down horsie, I probably met him before you did.” Jyo tells the horse. “Uhm- what's her name?”

“I don't know, none of this is real.” He shrugs. “Just pick one.”

“Okay- Vanessa. Calm your hooves, Vanessa.” The horse does not like Jyo's tone and just snorts air angrily into her face.

“Yeah, so Luke- this isn't working for me. She hates me.”

Luke wonders where his normal good fortunes have gone. 'Dates' with Jyo are normally easy because she's so impressible. Seems she's raising her expectations.

“I'm sorry. Let me get her something to eat and then you can probably still have a ride.”

“Yeah- that's a no from me. I'm going fishing.”

Yelling at the horse does not make her behave too much better for Luke.

Jyoti finds herself amused in this dream. It's as if somebody threw the script of it all out the window and just said 'let's see what happens this time'. Her dream dates are starting to become equally as boring as her real ones. I mean, his horse isn't even white! ...wasn't it supposed to be?

Not that she minds fishing of course, there's just nothing at all she wants to do with the fish.

“It's okay, it's okay...” He soothes the beast.

There will be other nights.

Jyo is once again reminded that not everybody can have the kind of relationship that her parents enjoy.

“May I sit?” He asks after the horse magically disappears from the dream.

She nods.

“You've not been feeling well lately.”

“You've already told me how you think I am feeling.”

He inclines his head to get a better look at her face. “Seems true though. And whenever I'm with you, I can feel it too, what you are feeling. I don't want to let you be melancholy, when we're together.”

It's been a while since the last dream, Jyo stopped counting how many nights the gap lasted this time.

“You're just imaginary, you know- some day I'm going to grow out of this- being with you.”

“Don't say that- I might just grow along with you. I'm not intending to leave you alone, Jyo. At least, not for the foreseeable future.”

She looks him over.

“Luke... what are we to each other?”

“We're good for each other. Aren't all relationships merely a means to an end of our own personal happiness?”

“Sounds existential.”

“It is. That's the kind of mood you're in though.”

“Don't put this all on me.”

“I won't. I was in that mood myself a bit, before meeting you.”

“If you can have your own moods than you aren't just a figment of my imagination.”

“I've been trying to tell you that.”

“And yet you never appear in my waking life.”

“I can't help that- you just aren't ready.”

“Then why bother talking to me at all? Isn't there someone better, who you don't have to wait for to be with?”

“I'm accustomed to waiting, Jyoti. And no- there is no one I want more than you.”

She doesn't know how to respond to that. His voice rings with quiet conviction, so she can't just write it off as flattery.

The spend a good portion of the night just getting lost in talking to each other. She enjoys the banter, and even some of the implications. It's too impractical to believe that any part of these dreams, let alone Luke himself, will ever become a part of her life in reality, but in a weird, spin-off world or another timeline, she would have found it difficult to hold back with him. There's something of a promise in the way he looks at her, and she doesn't have the same worries about saying the right thing or not with him. It's just so natural.

He listens to her.

She complains for an hour about how bad things are going right now. Life was easier when she wasn't trying to make everything perfect.

He tells her that she is already perfect and doesn't need to try so hard. She thinks there's no excuse not to try hard at things, but he'd want to be with her despite that.

“You may not know this, but I dream about you too.” He tells her. “I have for a very long time.”

He asks for her permission first this time.

Even her dream boyfriend can learn and be better. So why not the real one?

He makes her feel things in her sleep that she never does in real life. In real life she is the sporty, funny girl that nobody wants to date. And when she does have a date, they want to do anything else than be with her.

These dreams return nightly with a complexity and depth that she feels sometimes she would rather never come back to see the surface from.

She finds herself returning his feelings, feeling his sentiments. Feeling his presence overtaking hers in a heady attraction. If this was real, she would be worried about falling for him so fast- but she's safe here, she can let herself go into it, let him deeper and deeper into her mind, and maybe her heart.

Here she matters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In which Malcolm has such bad luck that he screws things up for even her dream date.

More bad flirting.

Wow, what a great title for an update. Too bad it's just stuff I made up on the fly and will have no real implications for the story. ...probably. But we are talking about a few people who really do have bad luck in the story. Malcolm of course does (as he's interacting with an heir, specifically), so we knew about him. As for Luke, well he's got his own set of fate that doesn't suit him as well as expected. 

...Has anyone figured out what I have to be repentant for, yet? For what' it's worth, I'm at the tale end of this generation in my game now so I'm more confident (nearly happy, even) about how things will turn out. I'm a perfectionist in real life. Sort of- like, a casual perfectionist. xD

Yes, yes Jyoti is being unfair to Malcolm in her expectations. She's also not exactly telling him what her expectations are in the first place. But she's had more time to think about what dating should be like than to actually date.