Farah al-Suyuti's Story

He'd noticed the car rolling up, had even heard it when it turned onto the short dirt road to the studio. They were indeed lucky to find a place like this in Los Angeles. Oliver still stood and enjoyed his coffee and his cigarette, relaxing. He was happy that someone was already coming to the studio, as he had been looking forward to seeing the rest of the band. To him they were family in all but blood. Except the bassist whom he had only spoken to once over the phone, very shortly.

"Hey, Dai." Oliver looked over the rim of is coffee cup and took a sip. He offered his friend a smile and looked him over. Guessing he's been up for a while. He thought. When he first met Daisuke, Oliver had the distinct impression that he was a little introverted. That quickly went away as the two of them got to know each other more, and now Oliver just classified it as quiet. He was easy to be around. When Dai told him that his sister had sent her greetings, he smiled and nodded. "Thanks, how is she doing?" It had been a long time since he had seen Akira. She had done amazing work for them and Oliver liked her very much.

When they had first met Akira and started talking about working with her, it had just been easy. The band had some ideas for the album cover and designs which, when brought to Akira, fused with her ideas and became something even greater. That was how Oliver remembered it, anyway. Silently, he hoped that she was going to visit them at some point so he could see her again.
Snapping out his own thoughts, he discovered also that his gaze had drifted from Daisuke. He'd been staring straight into... Nothing.
As he was about to ask if he was fresh and ready for the day, excited to meet the new bassist and all that, Oliver was interrupted. There was a familiar sound. Another car was speeding up the road to the studio. Oliver looked slowly over at Dai.
"That can't be a taxi." He simply stated and chuckled. "That's Gavriel..."

Sure enough, the black Honda soon came into view. A moment later it was parked. Oliver took yet another sip of coffee and a drag from his cigarette and looked at his old friend. "In a hurry, Gav?" The guitarist said with a smirk and watched him approach. If he hadn't hurried, he might have been there late, but Oliver didn't mind. Today it wasn't incredibly important. He wasn't expecting them to get to playing all that much, perhaps throwing some riffs around and discussing ideas and getting comfortable. Oliver liked it when people were on time, but respected that it could slip from time to time. "It's good to see you." When he spoke he made sure to look at both Dai and Gavriel.


It was remarkable how they all showed up at roughly the same time. It was a band after all, and bands were not always easy to coordinate. Thankfully the people in the band were serious and not so famous yet that they had a shitload of meetings and other things to take up their time. "What are the fucking odds..." Oliver said, astonished as a taxi came up the road now. That could only be their new bass player. "Fuck's sake she's taller than me..." He mumbled low enough that she wouldn't hear. He returned the smile she offered them and nodded in her general direction. He still stood leaned up against the car and only at the last moment remembered to lean away, place his coffee on the roof of his car, switch his cigarette to his left hand and straighten up.

"Don't worry at all." Oliver said when she apologised. "LA traffic can die in a fat fire." He listened to her as she spoke and nodded, still smiling. He was excited about meeting this new person and playing with her. She was definitely not what he had expected, but that definitely didn't have to be a bad thing. "Hello Farah, I'm Oliver." He said and extended his hand in greeting. "Very nice to meet you."

From her readiness and the way she asked if they should head into the studio, Oliver had quickly perceived that as something your typical workaholic would say. Then it shifted. Maybe she wasn't. Now he'd have time to drink his coffee, finish his cigarette and relax just a few minutes more. For a brief moment, he thought about what an impression she made. That was quite something and it was all by the way she walked, looked at you and then her height, for Farah hadn't said much yet. For some reason, it made Oliver smile.

When he finally snapped out of his own thoughts and focused on the conversation at hand, he looked at Farah and listened. Apparently, she had thought he was the singer. What he should make of that, he wasn't quite sure. "Oh, backup vocals is the most you'll hear from me." Oliver said and chuckled. "As much as there is a reason that he is the singer," he added and pointed at Gavriel, "There's a reason that I'm not." It wasn't exactly horrible when he sang and he did fine singing backup, but there was a clear difference between him and Gavriel.

He took another sip of his coffee and a drag of his cigarette, ran a hand through his hair and exhaled deeply. The fact that they were going to record and album excited him immensely. In his experience, a band grew and got better when they had to sit down and focus so intensely as you had to when recording an album. You also had to talk about how you wanted certain things about the songs and threw around ideas. It was usually quite a personal thing to do. Or maybe it's because I think it has to be personal... He thought to himself and shrugged.

"Do you smoke?" Oliver remembered his manners as he looked at Farah. "Or would you like a cup of coffee?" Inside the studio there'd be coffee for her, if she'd like. When he looked at her, he figured that she could be the sort of person that didn't drink coffee at all and didn't smoke, or if she did drink coffee it had to be organic. Then again, she could also be the opposite and smoke a lot, drink too much coffee and didn't give two shits if it was organic or not. Oliver really didn't know any of that, but was excited to get to know her.

Don't let the conversation die... He shouted in his mind. Oliver despised awkward silences. Granted, maybe everyone else didn't think it was awkward, but he did and that was enough. But Farah had politely declined his offer and so he ran out of things to ask. He felt that they hadn't known each other long enough for him to ask more personal questions, while those he could ask might make her feel bombarded with questions. I think about these things too much. The big man said with a deep breath and a drag of the cigarette. Needless to say, he wanted to please everyone. "A healthy attitude." Oliver commented, throwing a smile in Farah's direction briefly.


A few minutes passed in silence as they finished their coffee and he finished his cigarette. Oliver put it out, stepped on it and then walked to the back of his car and fished his guitars out. Stepping back around it he looked at his band and nodded. "Let's go." Silently he prayed that everyone came with thoughts of their own and perhaps some ideas. It'd give them a place to start but also make it less dull. The whole creative process was the thing that interested him. That and the wild touring life.
He headed towards the door, fished his key for the studio out of the pocket and unlocked it - stepping around Farah - and opening the door. A long hall stretched out before him. "Second door on the right." He said out loud, mostly for Farah to hear. Oliver himself went down the hall and opened the first door on the left, entering the kitchen. Man's gotta eat, right? The guitars leaned against the door, he went the familiar way over to the coffee machine and did the usual thing. Fuel for the fire. Out of habit he checked the fridge and tilted his head, finding nothing of interest within. Slightly disappointed he returned to pick up the guitars and go to the studio itself.

"All these fucking keys." He muttered under his breath but eventually found the right one. When he stepped inside the scent was the first thing that struck him. It smelled like hot tube amps, old strings, beer and... People. Not sweat, just that scent in the air when there's been more people in one room than the fire marshall would allow. That kind of thing. Oliver proceeded to go straight for the window and open it. "And this will be home for a while." He said, smiling as he turned and looked around. They stood in the control room itself where the techs would sit and the talking would probably be done. The recording room itself was beyond the soundproofing double paned window (with space between for isolation), with the drums, amps, microphones and all the necessities of a quality studio.

"Coffee is brewing, don't worry. There's tea as well." The last part was again offered to Farah. Did she even like coffee? Or did she like tea? What did she like. Fuck. Well, she'll probably let him know at some point, in some way. Oliver sat down on a leather couch and leaned back, waiting for everyone to settle.

At last, it was time to get things moving-- Farah preferred not to waste too much time brooding, regardless of just how much reason the universe loved to give her to brood. She hoisted herself up to her feet as the guitarist led the way into the studio and managed to slam her head on the threshold on the way up, because of course she did. She gave a pained chuckle at her own clumsiness and rubbed at the impact site a bit with her free hand, the other toting her bass along as she stepped into the studio, keeping her head calculatedly ducked beneath the threshold of the door.

"Second door on the right," the guitarist called back as he headed down the hall, presumably for Farah's benefit, and she answered with a quick thanks before she made for that door. Unfortunately, when she gave it a pull, it was locked anyway, so she had to wait around a minute for him to come back and unlock it before she could step into the studio itself-- the control room, anyway, the place where folks who knew what they were doing fiddled with knobs and switches and such. She was the last one in, and she was already closing the door behind her as she began to say, "So, this is where you lot generally discuss your-- ?"

She didn't have time to finish the question before a sound that was either a gunshot or a door being slammed open really, really fucking hard cut right through her words.







Man, Gabrielle was fuckin' ready for this shit.

About fuckin' time, too. Two years of slummin' it-- she'd forgotten how much of a pain in the ass it was to get a band off the ground. Hell, it was enough of a goddamn tribulation just gettin' a band on the ground in the first fuckin' place. And it was two years with her nose to the metaphorical grindstone, scraping up every cent she earned, seizing damn near every opportunity for a show within reach, doing everything short of buying fuckin' billboards to advertise the band's demos and EPs-- had it been this much of a goddamn slog the first time around? She remembered it bein' a hell of a lot less of an uphill battle, but then, that could probably be attributed to the rose-tinted glasses known as 'a metric fuckton of drugs'.

Didn't matter. It'd been a pain in the ass, and over the course of those years she'd hired and fired and hired and fired more people than she had fingers and toes and other digits to count, but the line-up she'd assembled now was strong, and the band was ready. It was time to record their album. Gabrielle'd spent the last two years assembling a thrash metal dream-team of songs, trimmed the fact, perfected every last riff until she had ten go-for-the-throat thrash-fests ready to be put to tape, so to speak. It'd just been a matter of getting the right line-up to record them.

And a matter of finding the right studio, 'cause this recording shit don't come cheap if you wanna do it proper. She'd found this one, grilled the owner something fierce before concluding it was the one, and the only sour spot of the whole affair was that evidently it had been double booked. Who the fuck does that, anyway? she wondered as she paced along past the cars parked in front of the place and thrust the door into the studio open with the force of a UFC heavyweight champion delivering the knockout blow. Double-booking a goddamn studio, the fuckin' notion...

Oh well. Whoever else was here, they were clearly here now, and that meant Gabrielle had to greet 'em, 'cause it woulda been rude not to, eh? "Howdy!" she boomed as though the ears she was trying to reach were several miles away and not several meters away, if that.

Shaking his head, Oliver looked at his friend apologetically. He had not expected that Gavriel had been up really early, made sure he got his breakfast and perhaps a cup of coffee. He had a pretty good idea of how he might have spent the night. Regardless, the man was hungry and Oliver was forced to disappoint him. "Not much. But we can always order something, or drive downtown to get something." He offered, shrugging. They all found their way into the studio one by one, Farah seemingly almost relieved to be moving again. Perhaps she'd thought it awkward before, or perhaps she was just excited to get started. Perhaps both. Oliver looked up at her as she talked, already forming an answer in his head. But she was not allowed to finish her sentence.

"Did someone hit the door with a battering ram?" Oliver asked. He'd almost flinched from the sound. The guitarist looked around at everyone else with a puzzled expression. There was a moment of silence before they heard another sound. Whoever the person was, that the voice belonged to, must be hard of hearing. It sounded female, but he was not sure. The word boomed through the hall of the studio and reached their ears, the volume of it stating her presence in an as equally violent manner as her entrance. Oliver slowly stood from his seat and passed Farah on his way to the door. "Let's go see."

It must have been amusing to watch a man as large as Oliver, peep out of the studio like he did. His face was all you saw and it seemed like he was prepared for a tank to drive right through the hall. When he deemed it safe, the rest of him stepped out. "Hello." He greeted in a clear, calm yet slightly confused tone. The woman that walked towards him was... Well, she was a musician of course. An artist in some way, at least. In this business, you couldn't find a regular person. It was fucking impossible. When it came to personalities, it was always from one extreme to the other. Or people always had an attitude or a statement and so on. Sometimes it was downright tiring. Yet, the woman before him had a more neutral attire which made it more interesting to talk to her. That was the way he was going to figure out what kind of person she was. From what he gathered so far, the direct opposite of himself.

"What did the door do to you?" His face remained serious for a brief moment before the corners of his mouth tugged upwards in a smile. Perhaps she was here to talk to one of the other's. She didn't look like staff. At all. And he hadn't heard of any other bands. using the studio, so it must be an aquaintance of someone else in the band.

It didn't seem anybody but the burly guitarist was of a mind to go see what in the living hell had just assaulted the studio, but for her own part, Farah would have been lying if she had claimed she didn't harbour just a glimmer of curiosity. "Take care of my bass if I never come back," she said with a passing smile to the other two still in the room. She'd only just stepped into the room by the time whatever entity of hatred and malevolence was out there had announced its presence, so she simply turned and walked right back out into the hall, stepping almost gingerly after the guitarist as though mildly concerned she'd find his decapitated corpse lying on the floor with some grisly message spelled out across the floor in his blood.

Instead, she looked down... and down... and down further still, until her eyes fell upon--

"Jeez, and I thought Big Bird here was one tall motherfucker." Farah blinked, finding herself face to face with... well, her face was at least a foot and a half above the stranger's face, but as the idiom goes, she found herself face to face with something of an oddity. The woman spoke with a voice so rough Farah might have believed she'd spent every morning since childhood gargling broken glass, but the jocular grin pasted across her face was as at odds with her gruff voice as it was with her physique, which Farah might have described as 'Herculean' were she not fairly certain Hercules would have had at least five feet of height on this woman. In one hand, she was toting along what was very clearly a guitar case, but she was pretty obviously not a member of this band, so... ?

Beside her, Farah heard the guitarist ask, "What did that door do to you?", and the women puffed her chest out as if in indignance. "Got in my way," she fired off. "Ain't got no time for doors, man. I got shit to do. People to meet. People to do! Nah, not that last one, actually." Farah opened her mouth to say something-- then again, what exactly could she have said, anyway?-- but the other woman had already moved on, staring back up at Farah and grunting, "Jesus, they sure watered you when you were sproutin', didn't they? Almost wanna grab an axe and chop you down."

"We may finally find out the answer to the ancient question," Farah managed to put in, finally catching up to the shorter woman's (clearly five thousand miles a minute) thought process. "If a metal bassist falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does the bass still get buried in the mix?"

"Ha!" The other woman gave a sharp bark of laughter, her grin broadening, her entire face lighting up with the expression. "Not if it's in my woods it don't. Nobody mixin' nothin' of mine is gettin' away with skimpin' on the bass. That's the law!" She was still chuckling pleasantly as she heard steps approaching behind her and turned to find none other than one Kai Devon standing there with his guitar lookin' like he had no clue what in the good lord's name was going on. Gabrielle wasted no time calling out, "You gonna get your ass in here or keep standin' out there like a puppy that got left out in the rain?" She turned back to the two beanpoles (er, one beanpole and one Goliath-lookin' motherfucker) and said, "That's Kay-- oh, and I'm Gabrielle. And we..." She trailed off-- it was the first time Farah had seen her slow down-- as she looked from one person to the next.

The other woman, the bassist, looked friendly enough but a little confused; the big dude looked fairly bemused, and even Kay didn't seem to really understand what was going on. Her smile slowly abated as Gabrielle realised just what was up, and groaned, "Oh, for fuck sake, I'm the only person who's got half a fuckin' clue what the gig is here, aren't I?"

"Think so," the beanpole bassist put in helpfully (Gabrielle liked that one, she'd decided).

"The studio's double-booked," Gabrielle explained. "I wanted the soonest available time-slot they had that was convenient and they said it was this one, but that there was some other band-- I 100% forgot what the balls you guys are called, sorry-- that was also doing some recording and we'd have to coexist somehow. I figure, whatever, right? Studio's these days got the shit to handle two bands recording their shitty music at once, and the timing's perfect. Guess they forgot to mention that to you, though."

"Seems they did," Farah mused, scratching the back of her head-- this had surely not been mentioned anywhere when she'd accepted this work. But she was, she decided, not annoyed: like this woman, Gabrielle, had said, two separate soundproof rooms was all they needed.

Gabrielle, for her own part, had already moved on from this little roadbump, turning to Kay and grunting, "Say, you heard anything from those two other assholes? They better have their shit here on time or I'm firin' their lazy asses and recording the bass and drum tracks myself."

More small talk? Well, I ain't gonna complain, I suppose-- Gabriel figured there wasn't much wrong with getting to know the folks they'd be sharing a studio with. And anyway, Gabrielle liked meeting people! Unless those people were assholes. Actually, even then, she liked meetin' 'em, since that meant she got to put an asshole in their place, and that was always nice. Hell, Vivi, their newest addition to the revolving door of various faces and names that was Gabrielle's band, was here 'cause Gabrielle had dragged the previous bassist out of their rehearsal space by the ear for, you guessed it, bein' an asshole. Puttin' assholes in their places was easily in her top five hobbies. She wasn't sure what the other four were, but that was definitely up there.

Then again, she wasn't sure how that was relevant to this at all. Nobody here was an asshole. Except K. K was totally an asshole. But the tolerable type, y'know? Not too bad. Way too uptight for his own good, but that wasn't no business of Gabrielle's. Dude could play and didn't start shit, that was enough for her.

Wait, this still wasn't relevant to anything, was it? Dammit, every fucking time she was stuck trading little bits of small talk with somebody, her brain went to every conceivable place. Like the other day, she'd been in the middle of chatting a bit with the lady bagging her groceries, and right then and there, Gabrielle had totally solved the issue of the unified field theory. No no, seriously, bear with her on this one. So you know that whole thing about putting the cat in the box and then the cat's both dead and alive or whatever? Which is actually morbid as hell for a 'thought experiment', if you really think about it, physicists are some pretty fucked up folks--

... goddammit.

Reluctantly but firmly, Gabrielle forced herself to stick with what was going on around her, which was always difficult when she wasn't actually moving or doing anything. She listened as Oliver, the guitarist, talked about their band name, mentioned something about a video game (Gabrielle didn't know much about those except that playing them turned you into some sort of psychopath), and then asked her how long her band had been together. She proudly puffed her chest out, grinning, and answered, "Band's been a thing for nearly two years now." Then, deflating somewhat, she paused, and then added, "Though, this lineup..." She rubbed at her chin thoughtfully, and then finished, "One or two months, I reckon."







Farah hadn't been lying when she'd said she knew when to hang back and let things play out; with Vivi having headed into his band's little nook of the studio (and the other guitarist having followed suite-- kinda amused her that two so reticent folks had ended up in a band with two so... totally not reticent folks), she was left to herself. She watched the others exchange animated words-- the tall burly dude was chatting with the short burly lady, and the drummer of the other band was doing much the same with the other two members of Azmodan (Azmodanians? Azmodanese? Azmodanites?).

Actually, the drummer didn't look all that enthused with the conversation. I mean, Farah'd gathered by now that he wasn't much more of a social dynamo than that bassist, Vivi, but she sure got the notion that he preferred to be doing something else, and she could guess what that was.

She stepped up to where he stood beside the vocalist, a little detached from the conversation the other man was having with the other band's drummer. "Want to head back in?" she suggested, nodding her head vaguely towards their room of the studio. "Maybe get a head start on some of these basslines I've got for your drum parts."





Vivi gave a start as she heard somebody step into the studio after her-- she really didn't need to look, it was hardly up in the air who had decided to detach themselves from the conversations in the hallway to come here, but still, she glanced over to find Kai walking in. He didn't waste much time before setting to taking stock of the studio, so Vivi turned away again, setting her bass down against one corner of the room before moving towards where her set-up had been... well, set up. There was a chair, a stool really, in front of where her stuff was, so she plopped down on it and dug around in her pocket for her phone.

Call her spoiled, but hey, she sure did love being able to scour the whole of the internet from the palm of her hand. Mostly she used it to check up on her blogs, see if there were any new comments, any new arguments to be had, though she probably shoulda known better; she was way too easily drawn into the dreaded 'internet argument', and it tended to ruin her mood for hours at a time. Not exactly something she needed to deal with now, in the studio, but fortunately, there was nobody looking for a fight this time. She flicked through some new comments, replied to a couple, and then shoved her phone back into her pocket to wait for Gabrielle and Evie to get finished with chatting.

She frowned. I'm gonna be waiting a while.

"No, there aren't very many of us." Evelyn started, then seemed to think about it. There probably were a lot of female drummers, she just hadn't seen very many in popular bands. "I haven't met them, at least." She added. As she beheld the man in front of her she noticed that he looked toward the members of her own band. Two of them had left and it wouldn't strike her as surprising if Vivi came off as awkward and shy. Which he was. Contemplating on commenting on it, Evie stood and watched the rest of the gathering talk to each other. Quietly she decided not to say anything about Vivi. She figured that Gavriel might want a chance to get his own impression from each member, instead of hearing her talk about them. "Anyway," Evie put a hand on Gavriel's shoulder and flashed Daisuke and Farah a grin as they turned and walked into the room they'd come from. "I'm sure we'll get to talk later, I better report for duty." She finished with a wink and a wave of her hand, turning around and heading for the room Vivi and Kai were in. Only the Gods would know when Gabrielle would join them.

Kai and Vivi were both in there, and it was a stark contrast to what had just been going on. Silent as the grave. Vivi had just put her phone back in her pocket as Evie came in and Kai was fiddling about with something and looked around the room. For a moment she just stood there and looked at the two of them, hating how awkward this silence was. "We're not forbidden to talk to one another, you guys know that right?" She attempted in a typically Evie sort of manner. "Even though it can be hard to get a word in when Gabby starts." And just as the words had left her mouth, she froze and went pale. "Don't ever tell her I called her Gabby."

---

He had done his very best. His very, absolute best. Still, he found it difficult to keep up with this phenomenon that was Gabrielle. This force of nature. When she finally landed and answered his question, he nodded and smiled. "I see." Oliver smiled. "Which is the newest member then? It seems like you and... Evie, was it? It seems like you have known each other for a little while longer than the rest." Given that they had only been a band for a few months, it might be hard to pick out the newest member. Azmodan wasn't the original lineup either, so he could kind of relate to how it was. Now he was just as excited to hear them play as he was to get working on his own stuff.

He wasn't at all sure how he was supposed to react to the statement about their previous guitarist. Oliver didn't know Gabrielle well enough to know if she was joking or not. He may never get to know her that well. Perhaps no one ever would. As he was given room to think he made a mental note to always prepare himself for a conversation with Gabrielle. One had to do that in order to keep up. Even thinking about that had cost him valuable time in which he should have listened, but the woman in front of him had trailed off for a brief moment. Oliver raised an eyebrow, surprised. Partially by the fact that she had paused, but also by the fact that he too had not really noticed people leaving them. This prompted Oliver to look at his watch just to keep track of time. He wanted to know if he was now suddenly busy. It wasn't so bad. Thankfully, they had been reasonable and gathered at the studio early.

Oliver blinked and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think we've been abandoned." He said and shrugged. Seemingly, the rest of the respective groups were ready to start working and that only inspired him to get going as well. Farah seemed very nice and he looked forward to working with her. Before rushing off, Gabrielle slapped him on the back. "Likewise!" Was what Oliver managed to get out. The slap had moved him. Physically. Gabrielle had fucking slapped him on the back and he'd moved from it. He wasn't used to that. Especially not from women, so he stood there for a few moments looking confused before snapping out of it. Oliver then turned around, shaking his head but still wondering about this thing that was Gabrielle. He stepped into their part of the studio and began taking out a guitar of its case. "Did someone say 'jam'?" He asked with a smile.

---

I'm going to figure this man out sometime. She thought to herself and sighed almost inaudibly. Kai wasn't easy to get close to and that was the first thing Evie wanted to get. She wanted the best for everyone else than herself. Still, he was the only one who got to say anything to her before Gabrielle slammed the door open. Evie's eyes had just fixed themselves on Vivi's and it had seemed that the bassist was about to say something. Evie visibly flinched where she stood. "Fuck's sake, Gabrielle." Her British accent filled the room. "You're going to be the death of me someday, do you know that?" She had been so busy getting her heart rate under control that she'd forgotten to laugh at the frontwoman's joke. "I could do with something fast, if you're game." Evelyn took her seat behind the drums and twirled on the chair a few times, shaking her hands to warm them up and straightening her back.

She looked at her bandmates and smiled, waiting for everyone to get ready. She figured that jamming a track or two would be good, just go get the juices flowing. When everyone had found their instrument, she nodded and counted them in.

How it felt to be back in the studio, jamming again, was indescribable. It only confirmed Oliver in his belief that playing music was what he was born to do. And it was so exciting having someone new in the band, playing with them. He was impressed. Farah was good. She fit in well. That was his first impression. He was sure that their time in the studio could produce something good. But that was Oliver for you. Optimistic and willing to work. When they stopped playing he set his guitar down and set his amplifier on standby to let the tubes cool. "Well..." His voice filled the room as the cymbals died. There was a smile plastered on his face. "That wasn't half bad." Oliver's face revealed that that was an understatement. Sense of time was lost, but that didn't bother him. It had been spent in a good way. He looked around at Dai, Farah and Gavriel. "What do you think?" It was an open question and he genuinely wanted to know what everyone thought. If they were all up for it, drinks didn't sound so bad. He was sure at least Gavriel would want to go.

---

"Fuck. Yes. Gabrielle!" The excitement still pulsed through her veins, and the suggestion her singer had put forth was perfect. Evelyn had made sure to say her full name though, and not use one of her many nicknames for the woman. For the briefest of moments, a sad expression appeared on her face at the thought of Gabrielle never getting to hear all those wonderful nicknames. She snapped out of it quickly and re-entered the conversation. "Aw, you're not coming Vivi?" Being Evelyn King, she wanted them all to go out and have fun. "The borgs won't go anywhere." She added, glancing at Gabrielle, suppressing a laugh. She put her drumsticks on the snare drum and disabled the snare. "What about you, Kai?" Whether he wanted to go or not, she wasn't sure. At all. Actually, she leaned towards him not wanting to go. It would be an eventful evening with Gabrielle, as it always was.

Oliver wasn't exactly surprised by the suggestion Gavriel came with. Not that he constantly thought that way about his bandmate, but it would be just like him to be the first to suggest they go out for drinks. And Oliver agreed. But before he could voice his willingness to come along, someone interrupted them. It was good timing though and he had a good feeling with the band. He looked over to find Kira standing in the door and a bright smile appeared on his face. They were talking about her sketches and Oliver reminded himself to ask about that later. Firstly, he wanted to wrap her in a big hug. Gavriel kindly introduced Kira to their new bassist and he was again glad to find Farah so polite and kind. He'd set down his guitar and run his fingers through his hair before he approached. "Kira!" He said in his deep voice, smiling. "It's been much too long." And then his much larger frame wrapped the smaller girl into a tight hug.

He didn't hear Farah's full sentence behind him, but understood that she wasn't coming with them for drinks. He released Kira and let a hand rest on her shoulder as he turned to the bassist. "Well, if you'd like to come along another time, the offer remains." Oliver said. He could understand if she felt like staying home instead of coming with them. "Anyway, Kira. How have you been?"



Evelyn shrugged and tilted her head slightly, pouting at Kai. She wished that he would come along with them and have some fun, but he really seemed like that was something he would never do. Evelyn decided to leave him alone and stop pestering him since she kind of got the message from the body language. She merely chuckled at Gabrielle's comment about cutting Vivi's hands off. It was insane, but it was Gabrielle. What followed was actually pretty funny though, up until Evelyn got that mental picture in her head. Stumps. Instantly she decided that she hated that word.
When Gabrielle wrapped her arm around her, she tried not to flinch, but failed. When it was clear she wasn't in danger, she relaxed a little and nodded. "I'm sure we can sniff up some alcohol, mate." She sounded certain, figuring that they would find plenty of bars around.

"Hey, do you think the other band's going out too? There's one or two of them in there I think are up for some drinking..." The words were more a case of Evelyn thinking out loud, but now she had said it and so expected an answer. It had been a long time since she last got drunk. Part of her wanted to get drunk and do something stupid, but another part didn't. They had to work, after all.