dinner gathering

Who: Billy, Maddie, Oz, Sophie and Jocelyn
Where: Restaurant
When: early evening

It had been agreed that they'd all meet up for dinner - Maddie had wanted to avoid bars in town because of her pregnancy and Billy was all for that. Anyway, if he was introducing Jocelyn to people, then dinner would make it easier to talk, even if a little more formal possibly that he'd normally go for. Still, he'd chosen a place with as laid back and relaxed an atmosphere as he could, and with it being a Sunday night there were few other people around as they arrived and headed for a large table.

Jocelyn arrived not long after, scanning the dinning room for Billy and finally spotting him near a larger table with his friends. She was nervous, but not as nervous as she'd been the previous day meeting Kurt, Grayson and the twins. That meeting had been a combination of meeting new associates and Doc's kids. This time she was meeting new people to just make friends.

Billy spotted her across the room and broke off the conversation they'd been having to stand up to meet her, his hand at Maddie's back as a gesture of reassurance and support, given their conversation the other day and her obvious inclination towards jealous twitches. She really had nothing to worry about. "Hi, glad you could make it," he said to Jocelyn as she got to the table. "everyone, this is Jocelyn. Jocelyn, this is my fiancee, Maddie. And that's Oz and his wife Sophie," he said, doing the usual round of introductions.

Maddie was sitting next to Billy, and had her eyes scanning the place now and then. So she was paranoid. She was a protector, they were a paranoid lot. Or, that was what she was telling herself today. It wasn't at all being pregnant and hormonal. Really! She was also making some sort of an attempt to tell herself that she wasn't going to be as tactless as she usually was. Her boy, the wolf and Sophie, hell even the kids, they were used to her and her entire lack of tact, but other people weren't, and well. She was making a real effort to be on her best behavior. Which was much easier before the girl arrived. When she did, she nodded to her, and gave a bit of a smile. She'd been told before that she was the type of woman that looked annoyed if she wasn't smiling, even if she wasn't actually annoyed. "Nice to meet you." she said, Irish accent clear. But hey she'd got it out and it sounded genuine and everything.

Oz, for his part, was more relaxed. He was kind of still spinning his wheels on some things, but they were things he could put aside for the moment, to meet someone new. Plus, it was actually kind of rare for the werewolf not to be spinning his wheels on something. When he'd seen a girl standing over across the way, looking over in their direction, he waved, and gave an easy, laid back sort of smile. Thankfully, it was later, and the lights inside the place weren't overwhelmingly bright, so his eye wasn't going to be landing him with a headache. When she got to the table, he used his foot to push her chair out for her. "Nice to meet you, Jocelyn." he said, in his usual friendly sort of manner.

Sophie, for her part, gave Jocelyn a smile that was genuine, if not overly wide. "Hello," she said, adding her English accent to the greetings. Nobody around this table had a local accent, which was one fo those things. She was feeling a little twitchy today, a little on edge, though she knew it was nothing, just her feeling like she was thrown off kilter for no reason at all - no real reason anyway - and she was hoping that a night out would help her there, take her mind off things.

Jocelyn smiled brightly and nodded in return to everyone as they greeted her. "Hi," she offered as she undid her coat and sat down in the chair Oz had pushed out for her. She relaxed almost instantly, feeling the definite lack of scrutiny her last gathering had come with. No one here seemed interested in her capabilities, but more just her as a person, which was relief. She could sense a thing or two about each of them, knowing something was different, but it didn't really matter. The range of accents had thrown her a little. Her accent wasn't local either, but she'd lost most of the Southern twinge in the past few years. "Thanks for inviting me out again, Billy," she said to him directly before turning to the group. "How is everyone doing?"

Keeping her eye on the girl, Maddie relaxed slightly when it apeared Jocelyn did. Seeing that the girl was a little nervous actually helped her own tendency towards jealousy. But relaxing after the introduction of the fiance, that was a good sign. There weren't any cues that would indicate that she had eyes that were going to stay on Billy, so she was feeling less on edge. "Fine, so far." she said.

Oz glanced over to Maddie, half wondering if her statement meant the current circumstances, or the fact that no one had been brutally attacked today yet, which was starting to be counted as a good day. He was aware something was a little off with his wife, though also knew that she was blowing whatever it was off. He was kind of used to that by now, even if it bothered him to know but not know. He hoped the dinner here would help her get her mind off of things, though. "Doing pretty good." he answered her. "Hungry." He passed over some bread sticks that had been brought out beforehand, and offered them to her.

Sophie sipped at her glass of water, letting that answer go for both of them as Billy caught the eye of their waitress. "Does anyone want anything to drink?" he asked, finishing off his soda and wondering about ordering a beer, before deciding that it was a bad idea, given that he'd be driving his pregnant other half home in the snow.

"Water works for me," Jocelyn answered as the waitress arrived at their table. She flipped open the menu to scan the options for dinner. She ended up ordering a salad with something extra, as they have a most places, mostly because she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten a vegetable. "Glad everyone's doing well." Sitting back in her chair to wait for everyone else to order it dawned on Jocelyn that she was the fifth wheel of sorts in the group and she wished Doc was with her. That got her wondering if they'd have nights like this, just meeting up with friends for dinner out, acting as if they were a normal couple (ignoring the fact that he was twice her age).

After ordering, Maddie took it upon herself to start getting actual conversation going, instead of just the normal niceties of 'hi, how are you, oh that's lovely' that she tended to skip over a lot. Even if she'd been alive again for a month or so, she still tended to behave more like she had when she was dead, and the rest of the world couldn't see or hear her. It was like seventy five years of habit to try and get over. "So, Jocelyn, tell us a little about yourself." she invited.

Oz, who was deplorable at communication in general, but more or less a people person, chuckled a little at Maddie. He kept his easy grin in place, and looked at Jocelyn. "And if you don't want to be entirely on the spot from the get go, you could always shoot questions or whatever our way too." he told her, cheerfully ignoring the Look Maddie gave him. In fact he grinned at her, and Maddie rolled her eyes, looking far more put out than she was.

Billy chuckled a little at that and leaned in slightly. "Maddie has a tendency towards getting to the point," he told the other woman, giving his girl's hand a squeeze. "So yeah, if you don't want to give us your life story, questions are just as good," he assured her.

Honestly Jocelyn hadn't felt too put on the spot with the question, but she wasn't entirely sure how to answer. So much of her life wasn't standard table conversation. "It's ok Maddie, I don't mind," she told the woman. "As for me, I work over at Babylon, it's a club. Mostly just waiting on patrons and such. Sometimes when they are really short handed they make me bartend." The answer about her profession was accurate, but left the details out of the mix. "I've started sort of a part time gig working for a friend, but that's just getting off the ground. I met my co workers yesterday." The word "friend" was somewhat forced, but most of that was because Jocelyn wasn't really sure how to refer to Doc in regards to their relationship. "I've been here about a year or so, originally from New Orleans, but I've travelled around quite a bit between leaving there and now." She turned to Billy remembering something about his introduction. "You said fiancee didn't you? When are you two getting married?"

Maddie took that opportunity to show off her ring, holding that out. She'd looked mildly pissy for a second about people talking around her and everything, but that seemed to evaporate entirely at the mention of her wedding day. The ring she had was a band of alternating rubies and diamonds. "Next weekend, probably." she answered the girl. "We're having it out at the house. We've got more than enough room, and we love our home. Just recently got it, it's on the lake." Not that that helped during the hip-deep-snow thing, but whatever. "I have my shop out there as well, actually." she continued. "But...yes. Billy and I have been together for a long time now." she said, and just like mention of the wedding evaporated the pissyness, Maddie actually looked like a sweet girl in those moments, talking about Billy. There was a softness that came over her when she did so that wasn't usually present.

Oz was just watching, leaned back in his chair. He usually got a kick out of Maddie and her rapid swings on things when she got on different subjects. Mostly he was paying attention to Jocelyn, seeing how she was doing. He figured it had to be overwhelming to get hit up with two couples at dinner. So, he was hoping she wasn't feeling too awkward. He was also wondering if she wondered about his scars. Or had noticed, like he had, that she was older than the lot of them. Or, well. She wasn't older than Maddie, but Maddie actually looked like the baby among them. He didn't say anything, not wanting to derail the subject before his best friend got to weigh in on the wedding talk.

"We've been meaning to for a while now," Billy told her, adding his own bit in there. "But things keep putting it off, so, we figured we should really go with short notice or it was never going to happen," he explained, using that specific wording simply because it was true - 'things' did keep happening, things that were completely out of their control.

Sophie felt a little guilty on that one, knowing she was one of the things that had happened, given that she and Oz had actually had to skip town for a while, but that had needed to be done, so she wasn't going to give into that. She kept mostly quiet for now, letting the conversation go on around her, also aware that Jocelyn was being hit up with two couples and not wanting to emphasise that two much. Let Billy and maddie do the couply thing, but for now, she was leaning forward, resting on the table and giving the majority of her attention to anyone but oz.

"Next weekend! That's got to be at least a little overwhelming," Jocelyn said to Maddie as she leaned in to admire the ring, which was beautiful. "Congrats though, that's beyond exciting." Even though Jocelyn's views on marriage were skewed after her own fiancee had died, her words were genuine. It had crossed her mind that they were younger, but she didn't think much about it. If her life had gone as planned she would have been married at 17, and in the South most couples are married by 25. She'd noticed Oz's scars as well, but there wasn't much to be said about them. The last year had found Jocelyn immersed in a world where very few people she knew didn't have scars. The world wasn't as pretty as most people imagined it was. "What kind of shop do you have?" Jocelyn was really starting to warm up to Maddie.

"White magic, mostly." Maddie answered. "Mostly little protection charms, some bigger things. Ingredients for magic of most types, some handwritten spells, depends on what people want, really." she answered. "Lately people have been big on wards, though." Which she was happy to do, she just hated that they kept coming back for werewolf wards, and she was always aware of the fact that if she had one in the house, the wolf couldn't come inside. So that wasn't a good thing, especially when at the drop of a bloody hat, things could go so terribly off kilter. "And the wedding won't be that stressful, we don't know many people." That happened when one of you was a loner and the other had been dead since the thirties. It didn't make for huge social circles.

Oz was amused. He was watching the proceedings, and he thought maybe Jocelyn was actually kind of liking Maddie. Which was odd, because most people found the girl massively abrasive--which she was. So, it was just kind of funny to watch proceedings where that wasn't actually the case.

"I'm going to have to check it out your shop then," Jocelyn told Maddie with a smile. "I practice myself." Which was still somewhat true though she'd deviated from the white magic for a while. But she'd probably have to get back into it again to properly with her new line of work. She was curious if Maddie was a just a dabbler in the arts, or if she did consider herself a true witch. "A small wedding sounds really nice though. I was going to do the big wedding once, but now I think if I try that mess again it will be very tiny."

"That's what Billy was sayin." Maddie said. "What do you generally do? White magic, black magic..." there were other types as well, though she generally avoided them. She could do white and black. Anything else she wasn't touching with a ten foot pole. "I'd stick with tiny. The bigger it is the more likely there are problems that'll pop up." Say, invasions of shadow creatures, for instance.

Jocelyn didn't respond to the wedding comment although she knew all too well how things could just come up and ruin everything. Like dead fiancée. Briefly though the idea of another wedding flitted through her mind but it was a silly thought. If the man hadn't gotten married in 50 years prior to being tasked with saving the world he certainly wasn't going to now. "I was raised in white magic," she answered Maddie's first question thinking of the tattoo that crawled up her back. "But I've expanded to black magic since then."

Maddie nodded. "Well, if you need anything for spell components..." she said. She had just about everything. And she tried to make sure she had enough for several people, just in case. "I tend not to delve too much into black magic." she added. One, because it tended to kill her. Or it had the once. It wouldn't again, but that was hardly the point. One still built up a healthy aversion to something when it backlashed and made you die. Left a mark, that did. Plus there was the kind of addiction factor. She wondered how well Jocelyn did with that.

Jocelyn wasn't doing too great with the addiction aspect much at all, but she kept the fact close and didn't talk about it much. The last massive white magic work she'd done was designing the sprawling tattoo on her back; a task that took her many sleepless nights to completely put together. Not a big deal until one acknowledged that it was something she could have easily doodled on the back of her notebook in English class while still taking notes on Shakespeare when she was in high school. Her white magic skills were beyond rusty at this point. They were the Tin Man stuck in the apple orchard. "It's a hobby of mine. A black magic curse doomed my family years ago and that sparked my interest. I'll definitely stop by your shop whenever I'm in need. Thanks." Jocelyn's smile was genuine and easily covered up the vague sense of shame she had about her magic practices.

"I would have thought that a curse that doomed your family would have set you against magic, not attracted you to it," Sophie said, trying to keep her tone conversational. She made efforts not to bring attention to her aversion towards anything to do with magic, especially in the company of Maddie and Billy, but they knew it was there. Sophie didn't trust magic - more than that, she avoided it wherever and whenever she could.

The statement caught Jocelyn off guard, but mostly because she'd been expecting Maddie, not Sophie, to respond. "That's the reaction most of my family had for years afterward. It was banned in our homes." She turned towards Sophie to respond properly. "But the thing with it, it was done wrong. It would have set us free of a violent feud but instead it just forced us into a bitter truce. I guess as rebellious teen I wanted to know why it had gone wrong and if it could be fixed, ridding us of our misery." Plus she was angry and tired of worthless wards that only prevented the supernatural and didn't stand a chance against humanity itself. Jocelyn had noticed inklings of Sophie's distaste, but assumed it was more directed to Jocelyn's interest in black magic, rather than just magic in general. "The more I learned about it, the more interesting I found it, especially in how it varies from white magic."

Maddie couldn't necessarily talk--she knew how to do her own fair share of black magic regardless of the fact that it had killed her. She just knew it for the very practical kinds of connotations attached to it as opposed to any true pull or calling towards it. She was a protector, and that was just how that worked. Sometimes she was flat out going to need it. But still...she avoided where she could. She just couldn't really come down on Sophie's side, because her own practices made her look just as strange. Though, Sophie also had a stick firmly jammed up her arse about magic that Maddie often wished she'd dislodge, but they all just sort of talked around it around the girl. She couldn't blame her entirely, though, which was why she never really said anything about it. People had their ticks. Magic was Sophie's.

Oz decided to kind of step in at that point. "We sort of had a bit of a run in with some powerful magic back when we were a younger." he said, as a way of explanation, though it wasn't really said as something that was meant to be taken as an excuse for Sophie's statement. "It..." he glanced at his wife a moment, then back to Jocelyn. "Caused a lot of grief." Even if he'd never reacted to things the way Sophie had, it still, at the end of the day, had in fact caused them a ton of grief. Years worth. Hell, they both still carried deep emotional scars over that.

Jocelyn nodded in agreement with what Oz said, even if she didn't know the details of the situation. "I understand actually. I was raised in magic; anyone in my direct bloodline is trained in the arts. But it's not always safe, and it's not always pretty." And I understand grief, she thought as her mind wandered to Jean. Jocelyn turned her gaze to Sophie. "I hope we can still be friends," she told Sophie, her voice soft and full of hope. More than anything Jocelyn wanted these friends and wanted them to like her. She needed friends.

Sophie blinked, thinking that sounded rather playground, but she smiled and covered her momentary surprise well. "Of course," she said, with polite warmth. She generally tried not to let her own prejudices leak out too much, or affect her relationships with others. As long as nobody actually tried to get her involved with magic, or pushed it down her throat, she would be fine.

Billy looked around the table and decided that now was probably a good time to get away from the subject that seemed to touch on a few nerves, in one way or another. "So, Jocelyn - how are you finding the winter up here?" he asked. Not the smoothest conversation topic change - and one that didn't help that he couldn't recall exactly how long the woman had lived here for, but he thought that getting away from magic was probably a plan, though, in all honesty, if it hadn't been for Sophie's presence, he would have encouraged it so Maddie could talk.

"It's terrible," Jocelyn laughed. It wasn't her first winter, but it didn't get any easier when you were used to a winter that didn't have snow. "But I think I'll manage. Just don't invite me to any outdoor activities after December." Billy was obviously attempting to change the subject, so she rolled with the transition. "Did you have any luck with that roof you were trying to work on the day I almost crashed into you?"

"Yeah, I got that all finished up, thanks," Billy told her with an easy smile. "And I decided to take a few days off after that - that doesn't get to happen all that often, and it's long overdue," he added. He'd enjoyed having some time at home. It'd been nice.

"Yes it is." Maddie put in. She much prefered when Billy had time off. She didn't like when he had long hours on big jobs where she didn't get to see him. She was far too used to seeing him whenever she felt like it, regardless of where he was or what he was doing. "I like it better when my boy's home." she said to Jocelyn.

Oz was glad they'd gotten off of the magic subject, since Sophie...well, she just wasn't ever going to get over that. End of story. "And people say I'm possessive." he put in good naturedly, chuckling a bit. And he was! Maddie just happened to be as well.

Jocelyn smiled at Maddie and Billy to hide the inkling of envy she felt. "I can only imagine how nice that is." Which was more than true. Her own relationship, if it could even be called that, was marked with confusion and a promise that time together wouldn't always be available. In addition, Doc had made it clear that "they" ended when work began. "Possessive isn't always a bad thing," Jocelyn reminded Oz. "Provided Billy still gets space to breathe if he needs or wants it." Her smile shone with laughter as Billy didn't strike her as the type who needed or wanted space from Maddie.

"Hey - no speaking about me in the third person when I'm sitting right here," the guy in question protested lightly. "I wouldn't say that liking to have someone around is possessive - that's more when you can't deal with them being elsewhere. Anyway, with the weather lately, it's been causing some damage, so I've been out a lot more than I normally would." He glanced over at Sophie and Oz. "And then there was you house, which took a long time in itself," he added.

"We had a bit of a fire," Sophie explained to Jocelyn, skipping out on the fact that it had been started by vampires. The woman might use magic, but that didn't mean that vampires were a conversation to have in the middle of a restaurant - or even that she was aware of their existence at all.

And Dean shot the house all to hell when the shadows were around. And tons of other little things that generally aren't great to talk about in public. Oz thought to himself. "And it's gotten back up to being liveable." he said. "But there was a lot to fix. At least it's done now. And we really don't plan on having any more fires."

"Probably a sound plan," Jocelyn told Oz with laughter in her voice. "At least things are liveable again though." As for vampires, Jocelyn knew full well they existed. Her family feud was actually against a vampire, but that didn't make it any more of a casual conversation topic. Between her history and time at Babylon the number of supernatural creatures that really caught her off guard was dwindling. "I must say I'm a little jealous that you've had a chance to lay down roots and have a house. I've been living a nomadic lifestyle since longer than I'd like to remember."

"Hey, nice way to make me sound like I just got the bare minimum done!" Billy protested, good naturedly, as their food arrived.

Sophie laughed a little at that. "Well, you did more than that. And yes, it's good to be back home again. I like to be settled," she agreed. She liked everything in its place - which was why she'd been so bugged all day to realise that she kept finding things out of place. But here and now wasn't the place to bring her twitches about that up.

"He did far more than the bare minimum." Oz said dutifully, laughing a bit. "I helped!" Granted, a lot of that was just kind of bitch-work because he wasn't nearly as handy as Billy was. But he was mostly competant. "And I like being settled too." For someone who was really territorial by nature, it was kind of a must for less twitching.

Maddie smiled a little. "It's nice to have a home." she said. She loved her home. She was still trying to find what was making the kids twitch about it, but she loved it. It was beautiful, and she'd never in her own life had anything quite so nice, or welcome-feeling.

"I haven't had a home since I moved out of my parents' house. I keep a room here in town, but that's it, just a room." A room in a building that moves, which is just about as nomadic as an actual residence can get. "Things are starting to shape up that I'm probably not just passing through Marquette anymore, so I might eventually settle somewhere more permanent." With the new employment with Doc that seemed to hinge on the survival of the town, there was far less motivation to leave. For now Jocelyn would stay at Babylon, because he thought she was safer there, and being that close to the center of everything was helpful. Granted if Grayson was working there as well they might not need her there full time anymore. For now though, she'd stay where she was and sort out the rest as it came.

"Well, there are nice places around here - if you ever want to look for somewhere bigger," Sophie offered, determined to make an effort there. She'd spent a great deal of time househunting before they'd found their current place, so she knew where the good plots were. She would have added more, but she could tell that around the table, people were turning their attention more to the food and away from conversation.

Oz smiled. "Yeah, Sophie knows where a lot of them are. Maybe we could take a ride sometime." he said. Which Sophie would have to drive for, since he wasn't allowed to. ...unless a crisis hit then he just didn't ask. "For now, let's eat." he said, digging in. Well, the meet and greet had been alright. Maybe they'd see her again sometime.