<blockquote>[OUT OF CHARACTER] i sold my soul Private for Leaf's Ploy. Dyo 17th, 81382. [IN CHARACTER] but don't you dare call me a whore He knew where he was going. It was a small bar, the door beaten and mauled by so many years of patrons being shoved out, patches of it faintly stained with blood. Shifter, as the bar was called, was located between a pair of much larger buildings. Without further investigation, it would've appeared to just be a secondary entrance to one of the other buildings. My god comes in a wrapper of cellophane. Parallax, if he remembered correctly - Requiem Falahau, who linked reason with greed and pain. Or was it the Medhsjytas, now dead and haunting Fromina? There was that one habit again - some people did it with poetry - of giving one's life a soundtrack. He slid through the door and seated himself at the bar, hanging his jacket on the back of the chair whilst leaning himself back against it so that it wouldn't be stolen and ordered a glass of bourbon. "Hey," rasped an older arden sitting next to him with a sickly look in his eyes. "You're in those movies, aren't ya?" He winked. Genocide stared back fiercely. He still hadn't lost the ferocity and sassiness of teenagerdom. "No," he lied fiercely, feeling vulnerable. "You must be mistaking me for someone else." The other arden turned away. He returned to his drink.
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-size:12px;"> The scent of liquor tainted the air among other things; smoke, sweat, and somewhere intermingled in the mix was the musk of lust. Seedy, horny, drunk people everywhere. Ploy didn't know what the hell he was doing in here, of all places. Lamaria had dragged him in, bought him a mocktail, and made him sit on a stool that was within sight from her booth. A wobbly, stiff and fully uncomfortable little stool. The kind guy he was, Ploy had obligingly went along with her each of requests... he knew how nervous she was about meeting a new arden for the first time in months, and played himself to be a good friend, a role he consistently found himself in. Staring vacantly at the bartender's vast array of booze, he inwardly kicked himself in the nuts for acting so willingly. He hadn't touched a drop of candy-brandy in ages, true. But time hadn't made his desire any weaker, not in the least. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, wasn't that the saying? He was having booze pangs, plain and simple. Ploy finger-thumbed the toothpick that was dug into his cherry with spite, then glanced over his shoulder to peer on Lamaria. Her head was tilted back and her lovely mouth split open. Pouring out was laughter. I'm glad she's having fun. And so he gave a great walloping sigh, defeated by the delight of his friend, and then reached his smokes. If one addiction he couldn't sate, then another he could tease. He struggled with his case and eventually lost the fight; it fell to the ground clinking a mental-clink when it hit. He went down to fetch it. "You're in those movies, aren't ya?" The sleaze-bag arden beside him had spoken words Ploy wished he hadn't heard. With a wry grin, he bet the girl who he'd whispered them to felt the same way. He peeked to his right to see just who the sordid guy had spoken to. To his surprise, he saw an arden. </td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font face=verdana color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> P L O Y A C H A K S E T T E </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>Disgust lingered in Geno’s wide, phosphorescent-orange eyes. It had been established by those who knew him well enough that his eyes were the most expressive they had ever come across. Despite his best efforts, intense emotion etched the answers in near-English in his citrine irises, each time threatening to betray dark secrets to the world when it didn’t deserve to know. Both proverbial windows to his soul were now fixed ahead on the bartop. He thanked the fuckers above for the shadows on his face. As an afterthought, he tore a piece of looseleaf from his jacket pocket and scribbled down a phone number. "Here," he said vehemently, passing the ragged arden he’d just spoken to the paper. "You wanna fuck someone pretty? This is my cousin’s number – he’s a whore in Watani. Looking for new business. Bet you’ll be perfect." The other man smiled back bitterly and accepted the paper. In all reality, Meth wouldn’t sleep with that sleazebag for all the money in Bhim, but why not tease him? A grin tugged at the edges of his lips and pulled. A muffled ’ping’ clicked against the floor, and he twisted his head, snake-like, towards the arden who had dropped his smokes. Ah. Niiiiice. He’d thrown out his disposable lighter an hour ago after he’d used up all the fluid, and a sudden urge hit him – he grabbed his spoon pipe from his pocket and stuffed it with nujeq. The bartender eyed it longingly; he knew Geno and he wouldn’t bother him – he bought weed from him on a weekly basis, and he was undoubtedly waiting for him shift to end to fulfill his own needs. "Hey," he murred to Ploy. "Have a light?"</blockquote>
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px;">OOC: Sorry this post isn't fantastic... I'm rustttty. His fingers slid out, their skin cross-hatched with little scratches from whatever the arden had gotten himself into, and snatched up the steel case in a quick, predatory sweep like a heron whisking its beak in the water for a fish. It took him no time at all to whip out one of those slender looking sable sticks and set it to his puckers. The cigarette's paper flesh left a sweetness on his lips. Lamaria joked that one day she'd get to taste Ploy's sugary kiss, but hadn't yet gotten close to her goal. The frowzy ol' chap to his right shuffled in his seat as he spoke in conspicuously low tones to Genocide. By then Ploy had lost interest in following the two with their dingy conversation and had made muse of his box of matches, shaking the whole bit in the clasp of his callous touch. Eventually he withdrew one from the case, lit it, and sparked fire to his smoke shortly after. Just as he was about to flick out the flare a voice reached out to him in soft, questioning drawl. He turned his head. Luckily for Genocide, Ploy wasn't exactly an avid watcher of pornography. In general, his sexual know-how was awfully inhibited. It'd been stunted by the haunting ghosts of his past and the arden had never found reconcile. Thus, he'd never even watched an episode of "Thumpin' Rumpin'" in his entire life. Still, Geno's lambent gaze made Ploy pause a moment longer than normal. The flame still creeping up the match found its way to his fingertips and awoke him sharply from that temporary daze. <font color="#e2e0af">"Yeah, shore."</font> With only lingering disgust, he dropped the first match into his neglected mocktail then worked another from the box slowly. There was no sense of urgency to the male's actions. Ploy seemed like a quiet guy and the night's disdain threw an even more subdued air on him. Had it not been for the spidering network of brutish scars lining his face, he might've even come of as soft. Fsskt. The small wooden match found its little head blazing. One can only hope that a match isn't sentient... In any case, the first fire was overcome by a slight whisk of wind. Dammit. He hadn't noticed that the stranger was going to be smoking from a pipe. He continued to fumble his matches. </td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> PLOY AHACK SETTE </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>ooc. Sooooo sorry this took so long. ; ; ic. Geno peered out the window, folding his arms over the bartop. The rain looked snowish again, the street a black hollow, the precipitation white and silver against it. Well-lit city streets at night, especially when empty, looked like movie sets. "Ah - " he said, blushing under his shadowy fur. "I thought you had a lighter - didn't mean to cause you any trouble." He blinked once, twice, eyes bright and wide as Mia moons, made sensual with kohl, or some Revlon equivalent. "My name is Genocide," he said softly, feeling suddenly small next to the scarred, older arden - he seemed genuinely nice, though, despite his foreboding appearance "Might - might I ask yours?"
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px;">Ploy wasn't usually approached in such an upfront manner, so when Genocide asked for his name, he couldn't help but fish-hook a brow. Now what did this fella' want with his name, the arden could only wonder. The look of suspicion on his face was temporary, however, and no sooner had it arisen did it fade back. Meanwhile, a tiny fire danced a final fatal salsa on the head of a now lit match. This time around the flame got noticed; Ploy lifted up his hand and brought colour to the cherry-end of his cig'. Puff, puff, and then he spoke. <font color="#e2e0af">"'es okay, I shoulda looked b'fore I began usin' thum up so quickleh, Gen'cide. M'name's Ploy. An' I'm stuck 'ere."</font> he mused with gentle scorn though much less for Geno's sake and more for his own. He turned himself just enough so that he could make eye with the Anubian male. And what startling eyes he had. Ploy, however, was underwhelmed. Many would've been stricken by the snow-stark brilliance found on Geno's face, and although Ploy could not deny a flicker of admiration, it didn't surface too heavily on his face. Instead a weary, yet familiar, grin was in place. <font color="#e2e0af">"An' you? Es not such a great nioght to go and fetch liquor by yorself."</font> he said, referring to the weather. </td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> PLOY AHACK SETTE </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>Genocide's smoldering citrine eyes met Ploy's as he set his finely-chiseled jaw on his open palm, his long, articulate fingers curling around the side of his face. He inhaled from the pipe; ash tumbled over the edge as he accidentally tipped it, crossing his legs at the knee. "Stuck? Well - I like the rain. I suppose I could brave it. But - " he said, interrupting his sentence with a suggestive smirk. " - I'd rather not walk home by myself." The nujeq clouded his mind, made everything soft and clumsy and beautiful, and Ploy - Ploy was beautiful. "Mhmmmm," he purred airily, pressing his sultry, rain-dampened frame to the older arden's. "I don't like being alone. Let us drink together?"</blockquote>
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px">OOC: yayyy, bacccck, raaaal. The Anubian arden was like the shadows, liquid and slender, daring to approach all the borders to daylight that he could. And here, he approached the brightness that was Ploy, attempting to fetch him with his leery lips and fiery-warm stare. A jovial spirit he might be, he definitely was not inclined to any sort of... homosexual relations, or any sort of touchy-feely experience to begin with. Thus, when Genocide's frame sidled his, Ploy could not help but stiffen all the lengths of his form... well, not every length. Heh-heh-heh. Anyways, it was slight and almost indeterminable, his body's tautness, so much that Geno probably wouldn't have caught it. <font color="#e2e0af">"Wot 'as a nioti like you 'ave ta fear of th' night, mm? Yer old 'nough."</font> he queried in a rolling baritone, then sucked on the smoke. He took the drag long and slow, the movement smooth enough to convince other's that his gruff and grizzly appearances were only that: appearances. Really, he was just trying to mellow himself from the <font color="#e2e0af">"Shore, chap."</font> As cautious as Ploy was, he wasn't going to flat-out dismiss the guy. What harm would a drink or two do with an overtly-friendly, nujeq-cloudly character do? No harm at all.</td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> PLOY AHACK SETTE </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>He felt trapped in his own body, burgeoning awareness swimming through his sentience like molasses through thick, black ink. Genocide wanted to tear his own skin off, wanted breathe, wanted to live, to love, to cry, to fuck, wanted to go on top of a skyscraper and scream to to the world, "I LOVE YOU", and then - - Ploy suddenly stiffened, like a piano wire pulled too taut. Geno probably wouldn't have noticed it, if not for the fact that he were so close, and he'd become especially sensitive to things like this: body language, pupil movement, the shy curl of a tail around a leg. "Sorry for being so... forward," he slurred. His grasp on reality was slipping away like fine sand through his hands. "It's only my nature. I'll be alright, but - some creepy guys out here at this time. Friend of mine got raped once walking out of here."
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px">There was much to taste in life -- such a medley of flavours, but who could resist? Ploy's eyes glittered as the light from a bypassing vehicle spilled into the bar and exposed everyone's ugly, inebriated faces. He stunk like sobriety. <font color="#e2e0af">"Fo'ward?"</font> he quipped, brow tugged and smile gentle, playing on the dark lines of his lips. Not wanting to cause the arden embarrassment, Ploy slid a warm hand against the curved slope of the other's back and let his touch hang there for a few heartbeats. <font color="#e2e0af">"Ah ratha' you be forward then backwa'd."</font> A real joker, that pendragon was. <font color="#e2e0af">"Yeh? That's 'orrible, I'm truleh' sorreh' to hear about that. Myself, I ought t'be more careful."</font> His slight displeasure made itself known in the quiet knots in his brow, in the tiny tightening of his lip. Just then a thought passed through his head. <font color="#e2e0af">"Well, let's have a go fer drinks, and then when ya' ready, Genocide, I can help ye' home. Ah'm only here to make shore that lass in the right corner doesn't get into aneh' trouble."</font> Of course, poor Ploy wouldn't be having any drinks at all. Not unless they were like his sorry old mocktail. </td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> PLOY AHACK SETTE </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>ooc. OMG NO WAI IT'S A POST. :O ic. The room shuddered in the storm, the furnace gasping emphysematously, the windows bucking in their casings. The rain made colored slices of the streets outside and the fingers of black buildings. A pretty sight, but distant – and Genocide had barely nudged a piece of poem into his head – the rain is raining all around, it falls on field and tree – when the downpour had shifted once again to swift, unnerving wind. He wrenched his neck, tossing his gaze away from the window and back again to Ploy, catapulting a few loose pieces of fine white in his direction. “Ah, sorry," he muttered, brushing the ash off the arden’s broad shoulders and thighs. The nujeq in his pipe had smoldered down to nothing more than a pile of pale, dusty particles, and he dumped the remnants in a nearby ashtray before replacing the small spoon pipe around his neck, tucking it under his shirt. “Uh… I o’ly live a few minutes ‘way from ‘ere," he slurred, the beginnings of his words clipped by his faltering tongue. “But yeah, I’d enjoy tha’ a lot, Ploy." The arden tossed a few pale, jingling coins to the 'tender. "'Nother round for both of us."</blockquote>
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px">OOC: yoooou won't reply this in FOREVER because you're away, but i'm gonna post ANYWAY, snortsnortkisskiss. ---- The bartender gazed at the sloppy pair with eyes of indiscriminate and neutral gray. Ploy, meanwhile, frisked away straggler ashes with a brush of his scarred and heavy-knuckled hands. Huh, what a guy, spilling ashes on him already. Though it was already pretty deep into the night and the likelihood that the arden had already drunk himself into a warm state of merriment. Lucky sucker. <font color="#e2e0af">"Ai be havin' the same as ai ordered before, thanks suh."</font> His eyes of unfaltering blueberry-tangerine watched intently as, first, the tender made art of Genocide's drink. <font color="#e2e0af">"Ai been dry lioke a desert forra long time..."</font> he spoke halfheartedly, mostly for himself but with the understanding that Genocide would hear. His gaze kinda glazed over with the orange glow of the overhead lights but then refocused when the drinks clinked, chiming in glassy voices, as they hit the bartop. </td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> PLOY AHACK SETTE </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>ooc. NAOW I LIIIIIIIIIIVE. 8D ic. Genocide attemped to brush a few stray bangs from his face, but to no avail - they merely fall back over his smoldering eyes, and so he peered at Ploy from behind a Halloween-palette fringe. The Anubi took a long, lingering sip of the cocktail presented to him - the hard bite of vodka, the crimson sweetness of the grenadine, and then something else, sour and sharp. "'S good," he said, nodding curtly to the bartender and grinning, revealing a sliver of moon-flesh teeth and dark-ringed lips. "Ploy," Geno said, his voice unusually hushed, and his hand settled over the other arden's. "You don't drink usually, or wha'?" One hand ran to the back of his head and re-spiked a few loose pieces of dark hair, twining them with the use of some saliva and the dried gel that was already there.</blockquote>
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px"> His eyes followed Genocide's face intently, watching as the arden's expression became renewed with pleasure. Although it was nothing more than a grateful smile, the pendragon's face was becoming. It mirrored the sort of sleek and glamorous attraction that one found when flipping through the magazines... A shiny fang came forth to tug momentarily on the inky edge of his bottom lip. A sure sign of thought. <font color="#e2e0af">"No, ai don't drink."</font> He said this with a very small shake of his head. Shortly after, came his mocktail, the color of the setting sun. A sliver of citrus fruit, brilliant scarlet in colour, hung along the glass's edge. That he picked up and placed slowly in his mouth, pulling the peel away. <font color="#e2e0af">"Es' been a long time since ai' 'ave. Ma' chums like me at parties, cos I'm always th' driver,"</font> With that he gingerly recoiled with a smile, trying to make fun of a dead serious matter. When the other's hand collapsed over his own, he made note but, otherwise, did not react -- he took it as kindness, as care from a stranger. Of course, Ploy didn't want to allude to his rather horrific past with drinking, so he carried on. <font color="#e2e0af">"No need ta' drink on nioghts as wet as these. Got meself far enough to walk, come home loike a puddle."</font> </td></tr> <tr><td style="background-color: #8cb1a7;"> <font color="#e2e0af" style="font-size:15pt; font-family: comic sans ms; line-height:6pt;"> PLOY AHACK SETTE </font></td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>In the blood-red barlight and drifting smoke, Geno raised his glass briefly and brusquely nodded, as if to salute some old companion now lost to him and Ploy. The whore licked his lips, and his burning gaze wandered outside – night had fallen like a whore to her knees over the city, black heroin hair beneath a yellow opium moon. The scraggly old arden who had previously sat besides him had abandoned his drink, and Genocide was more than happy to take the toothpick from it, waggle it for a moment between thumb and forefinger, and then suck the olive off. He chewed methodically for a moment, then drank the rest of the martini down. “C’mon," he said, and then he raised his brows, shrugging in a distinctly feline roll of muscle. Geno rose, pushed a few bills to the bartender in appreciation, and started out the door. Bhim was a living, breathing beast – sweating mist, gasping from its sewers, snoring through its telephone wires. Smelling of death. Tasting of destiny.</blockquote>
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px"> The slow slur of conversations blurring into one made his attention wander, his eyes flutter and refocus. No matter where one was from and what language was spoken there, the sonance of a hundred voices bleeding into one always sounded the same. So many stories were simultaneously being spilled out like oil from mouths but all Ploy could hear was a babble. What Genocide purled out smoothly nearly became apart of those pooling voices. He reached back inside of himself and, head shaking, came back to the scene. <font color=khaki>"Pullin' stunts, are weh now?"</font> He reeled back against his seat; further back, he had a better look at Genocide. It almost gave off an air of challenge, that male's look did with his sinister, lazy-eyed grin. <font color=khaki>"Ah ain't no small guy, ah kin take drink, but don't expect t'be buying me more..."</font> With that he clicked his teeth, shiny, sharp ivory, together in a tssking manner. And so he let his fingers take the drink, with its skin of ice over a body of glass, while his mouth carried on. <font color=khaki>"Ah gotta answer t'ma friend over there, sa' don't be gettin' me int'any trouble."</font> As he spoke he flicked his head back over in Lamaria's direction. She was, at the moment, far too immersed in her present company to even remember Ploy's presence, and just as likely, existence... </td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>"Pullin' stunts, are weh now?" Ploy breathed, and Gen couldn't help but grin. The whore was amused by the fisher's sudden wariness: suddenly, he seemed to want to back out, run to his friend (or perhaps this was just his drink-sodden mind)... but then again, perhaps he never had been in. Genocide had shown no explicit come-ons thus far, and as far as he could see - which admittedly wasn't very far - he had no plans of changing his mode of action. But a desire to simply touch a finger to his cheek welled within him, gaining in strength and tenacity with every slurred word the lukuo spoke. "Looks like your friend is occupied," he laughed, poking his head back in the door. "C'mon - le's go."
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px">OOC: and soon, my pretty, you will see where i wanted to go with this thread... p.s. Geno's Anubian, not a lukuo. (; ----------------------------------------- The cataractous slosh of poison, the type we brew and consume with pure deliberation, was a sensation all too familiar to Ploy and as he followed through the movements of downing his drink, a sickly shudder reverberated through his body. The sneaky serpent of desire that coiled around his neck tightly whenever he visited those AA meetings was returning with a smile that was all too wide. Snakes can't even smile. Still, it was only one drink and no one need worry about the big fella getting drunk off that. Although it'd been a hellishly long time since he'd allowed for even a drop of that fiery water it still would take another 26'er more to get him anywhere. A glance over the shoulder to ensure 'maria was still utterly absorbed in anything but him and then, oh, the tug of Genocide's voice made him slip from his stool. <font color=khaki>"Where we goin'?"</font> inquired the sea-beast while ruffling his mop and laying down a tip. <font color=khaki>"Y'should be more wareh a' strangers, noti'."</font> </td></tr> </table>
<blockquote>ooc. I was talking about Ploy, because FOR SOME REASON I THOUGHT HE WAS A LUKUO BUT OHHH NO. x3 -stupidstupid- ic. Genocide breathed in the cool night air, shoved his broad hands into his jean-pockets, slinking towards Ploy until he was within reasonable distance, his smile still disarmingly beatific. "My place." He paused, then, reconsidering, his eyes shifting to the side and his shoulders heaving in another shrug before he amended: "there's far more t'be wary of them strangers." He was baiting Ploy subtly, expertly, with flashing eyes and stumbling, sticky fingertips. The arden wove a web with sticky, deft spider's feet around the fisherdragon, and carefully he waited to tie it up and him within it, just for a touch - a taste? - of his sea-salt skin. Geno began to walk, nudging Ploy with one shoulder to urge him onwards.
<table width="90%" cellpadding=10><tr><td> <font style="font-family: verdana; font-size:12px; line-height:16px"> <p style="text-align:justify">With the patterned clop of feet hitting floor, repetitious and reliable, it was most certain that following that shoulder-nudge Ploy was in tow, like a wake to a boat. A fitting analogy. The bar's crowd abruptly silenced itself with the final swinging smack of a door and into the cool night did they descend. In the atmosphere there hung questions, a great many of them, yet to be realized by an act of tongue. Walking down the shady streets of Bhim you could feel all those questions in the air, erecting the hackles and grinding the jaw. And even if you were too preoccupied to notice those, then at least you'd take note of the crack, among other seedy drugs, being smoked. The smell of chemical death hung in the darkest corners, grundgiest alleyways. 'Come high-ther,' they cooed. But the drugs were only secondary in Ploy's list of priorities. Getting the lad before him back to his respective flat was all too important, what with all the talk of r-a-p-e. <font color=khaki>"D'ye live in thes' neighbour'ood?"</font> he asked with a none-too-subtle leer of his scenary. </p> </td></tr> </table>
