mother may i?

Luce

Sun 01:49PM CST
She has been here before; she has been here for two nights running, and the bartender and patrons have grown if not accustomed to her presence, at least less-sensitized to it. Her arms are draped over the edge of the bar like so much cloth; silk, or something like it, the low and liquid sweep, the boneless ease of her perch. The ashtray beside her right elbow holds exactly two butts of her sharp-smelling cigarellos, smashed to nothing with careful precision. Her third smoke of the evening is held negligently between the index and middle fingers of her pale hand. Occasionally, she takes a drag and spills more smoke into the already smokey atmosphere. Her other hand is wrapped around the neck of a bottle of beer, which is turn rests, sweating, on her denim-clad thigh, just below the long angled jointure with her narrow pelvis, wrist settled against the curve of her hip.

Such visible ease, such elemental caution: the hooded eyes, the flaxen hair spilling across her largely-bare shoulders, and her skin pale as the surface of the moon cast against the velvet night. She doesn't speak to anyone, she hasn't responded to anything said to her with more than a slow-blooming smile, wretched and poisonous and perfectly bright.

Ashe Kincade

Sun 01:57PM CST
The wooden stares creaked with each step he took to descending them. His hands hung loosily at his sides as he marched his way down into the main portion of the bar. Soon a single hand would grip the cheap banister and he'd shuffle down to the main area. Eyes scanned over the enterior a bit before deciding to continue on walking. This evening he wore a black bandanna accompanied with black jeans, and a tight fitting grey tee shirt. With this on, his muscles could be seen, as well as his broad chest.

Sniffling a bit, Ashe would make his way toward the bar, having just woken up. Coming closer, his eyes would shift over toward Luce a moment, then come back toward the tender. Yeah, she was the broad that came in not too long ago, but what did that matter? It wasn't like he knew her or anything. He'd bring his attention back to the tender further by leaning closer and listening to what th eman had to say. Nodding, Ashe would reach out, pull the cigarette from the man's lips, and put it in his own. From here, the rogue walked toward his usual table and kicked out a chair.

Luce

Sun 02:14PM CST
From the moment Ashe enters the room, the creature's shadowed, back-lit gaze follows his path. Raptor, hawk, viper: something with half-lidded eyes and a vague, malevolent intellgience, or so she would seem were it not for the skimming curve of her mouth, the wretched certainty of her confident sprawl.

Otherwise, she doesn't move, at least until Ashe has made his rounds. The bar, the 'tender, and then his usual table, the floor scarred from his usual manner of selecting a chair. After he has chosen his chair, the creature rises with a liquid grace; she seems to slither off her perch at the bar, hip bumping the stool back toward the bar as she sidles across the room. Her gait isn't deliberately sidelong, but is perhaps rather a byproduct of her shape: the long limbs, the narrow torso, the unexpected height.

Instead of settling into a chair, she perches on the edge of the table and puts her beer bottle down in emphasis. The cigarello - or is it a cheroot? - falls from one corner of her mouth, expelling smoke like a dull chimney until she takes another draw. "Evenin'."

Ashe Kincade

Sun 02:18PM CST
The chair scutted across the floor some. Ashe's responce to this would be to turn around and lower himself into it promptly. His boots rose to rest upon the edge of the table as he took in a drawing breathe of nicotine. His eyes moved to the sasheying hips of Luce as she drew closer. There was something about the girl that he couldn't quite place. As she came to his table, he'd woonder what the attraction was between them. "Something I can help you with darlin`?" He asked, rather as though he was unimpressed with her.

Luce

Sun 02:26PM CST
"Yeah," her grin: quicksilver. Her voice is rough with smoke, most traces of her French accent scoured from the weight and infelction of the words. "There is, as a matter of fact."

Oh, but she was enjoying herself. It sounded for all the world like the dialogue from some old movie, some movie filmed before the apparent invention of irony, when black and white shadows and long shuttered glances and smoke, spilling from the tip of a cigar, could mean something, and only that. Her mouth thins, just, with that rich background awareness, as she hitches herself further up on the table and hooks her high-laced high-heel'd foot around the bottom rung of Ashe's chair. "Business, not pleasure, though."

Ashe Kincade

Sun 02:31PM CST
His eyes followed down her leg in a manner that suggested he enjoyed what he was looking at. Slowly his smokey blue eyes would come back up to her as his arms crossed. After a second he'd tap his ashes into the nearest tray and cross them again. "And what sort of business are we talking about?" His voice grew a bit gruff toward the end, something that might tell those who know him his demeanor was turning serious.


Luce

Sun 02:41PM CST
The creature braces herself carefully, hands planted beside either hip, long fingers splayed wide. The cigarello remains in her left hand, held like a pencil or a paintbrush, the glowing tip carefully cast away from her body and out over the floor. The wooden table groans as she shifts her weight, balancing against both of her feet. As she leans forward, her spaghetti straps fall in helpless curves against her smooth upper arms.

Mostly, though, it is her face - the half-curve of a sly, delightered smile, the low-lidded light of the eyes - clear as she bends low. Her mouth stops less than an inch from the shell-curve of his ear, an audible snap of her dull white teeth disturbs the air and heralds the widening of her faint grin. "I have a favor to ask you, Mr. Kincade." Her voice is quiet now, it purrs from someplace coiled in her chest. He feels the vibrations, the faint currents of air almost as much as he can hear her voice. "I do hope you can oblige me."

Ashe Kincade

Sun 02:46PM CST
"That all depends on the favor.." He said, turning his eyes back on her.

Luce

Sun 02:53PM CST
"Of course," her smiles rakes rogue, pulling back from her teeth. She doesn't move, now, even when he shifts his stance subtly enough to catch her lashed gaze again. "It's simple enough. I'd like permission to enter your clan's domain and - on occasion - hunt. If you could pass on the request," she continues, offering an elegant shrug of her bare shoulders, "I would be most grateful."

Ashe Kincade

Sun 03:05PM CST
Ashe narrowed his eyes at her some. As she spoke of the blood, it was hard for him not to grimace and perhaps smack her. God how he hated talking about things like this in public. Even if it was his own bar. Talking in a private booth was one thing, but in the middle of the room where people could take the barest chance to listen? Dear god no. "Must you really speak so openly? Besides, I'm not the one you should be talking too.."

Luce

Sun 03:18PM CST
"Calme-toi, mon petit." The Rose flickering a shuttered glance at him, rising at last and lifting the cigarello to her mouth in one long, smooth motion. "There isn't anyone close." Her faint grin reveals even, white teeth, the tip her tongue against the damp twist of paper. "I am not wholly irresponsible," her gaze drops, the smile widens, and lashes shield her eyes, a curtain of pale color. "although, perhaps, sometimes, a little too - free, eh? Perhaps you could - ignore the latter request and pass on the former request."

Leaning back, sprawling again, the creature once more braces herself with either hand and lightly taps her foot against the cross-bar of Ashe's chair, elegantly non-chalant. "I get bored, sometimes - " a wave of her hand, a curl of fine-filtered smoke, " - with the museums."

Ashe Kincade

Sun 03:25PM CST
Ashe looked tired, as though he had been fighting since he was first embraced. His eyes rolled up to her own as he huffed a moment. Relaxing once again, he flicked the ashes away and took another draw of the cigarette. Exhaling, he'd continue. "What's the matter, too afraid to approach him yourself?" He asked, meaning Sonatine Vidale, the Primogen of Clan Brujah.

Luce

Sun 03:30PM CST
"Perhaps," she responds, her quickened mouth flattening, but only at the corners. The expression could be a smirk, but is protected from anything so crass if only by curve of her risen brows.

"I am - " she offers a gesture to the night, a flip curl of her slender wrist. The smoke from her cigarello describes cursive scrawl in the night, looped and intricate. "- what I am, after all, a delicate flower, indeed."

Ashe Kincade

Sun 03:33PM CST
"Huh.. I'm sure." He said eyeing her a bit. Ashe stubbed out the dwindling cigarette and shook his head. Soon his arms would cross again and he'd eye her a bit more. "So what brings you to the wonderful Windy City, baby?" He moved his feet some, repositioning them to cross on the surface. His eyes moved to her hips again for a second before centering on her eyes. He could have been looking past her hips to the bar, by the way.

Luce

Sun 03:42PM CST
Her gaze flickers coolly back, following the trajectory of his shifting glance: her narrow hips, the faint curve cinched into well-worn denim, or the bar lost in drifts of smoke. Briefly, she focuses on the bartender. The smile falls just from her face as she studies the man, all manufactured artiface fading into an intense blank canvas, more sculptural than expressive.

"That's a question and a half," she responded before she even began to turn. In profile, her sharpened features are defined and skimmed by the pale remaining light. Her mouth moves, the corner twitches upward, as she glances back at him, now with a focused intent. "Which answer do you want? I have many. I'll give you this one: it was somewhere on the map between New York City and oblivion." She pauses, then, sandal'd foot tapping lightly at the cross-bar of his chair once more. "Or did you want something better suited for polite society?"

Ashe Kincade

Sun 03:47PM CST
"Honey, I honestly couldn't give a shit. Mind games and enigmatic phrases aren't my fortei.." He said, nearly mocking her flawless french. God, it was amazing how many Germand and French eople resided in Chicago, Il.

Luce

Sun 03:54PM CST
"If you don't give a shit, darlin'," barely shifting to the broad New England tones of her human youth, the Toreador flashes Ashe a whip-razor grin, all white teeth and fine lips, sailor-mouthed. "why the fuck did you ask?"

Ashe Kincade

Sun 03:57PM CST
"To make you think you were special, of course.." He said, standing with the feintest of grins. After tipping an imaginary hat, Ashe turned and started to walk out the door. The city had business with him tonight, and he wasn't about to let an appointment slip.

Luce

Sun 04:00PM CST
The creature returned the imaginary tip of a hat with a raking smile and smoldering little wink. And then she watched him, with a ravaging sort of attention, as wove his way through the smokey confines of the bar and disappeared into the narrow stairwell, up, up and out.

It would not be long before she would follow.

let there be - light!

Ashe Kincade

Tue 10:32PM CST
Ashe sat, accompanied by two other men. Drinks were scattered upon the table in the forms of empty beer bottles, empty shots, and half filled bottles of vodka, whiskey, and tequila. The lighting was dim, the atmosphere enough to kick anyone out who wasn't use to the type of welcoming the bar might give them. It was a den of murderers, theives, and prostitutes. The bar was ran by a former Hell's Angel biker who had a soft heart for troublemakers and derelicts.

It's almost ironic that a primary detective for the Chicago Police Department often came here with his good friend, ally, and quasi-partner; Ashe Kincade. The other man to Ashe's left was a local pawn shop owner, Anthony Marchelli. They all looked pretty typical, but Ashe almost stood out against the other two hard-cases. Ashe held a look of both predator and prey.

Luce

Tue 10:40PM CST
The streets shine with the aftermath of the latest thunderstorm, but the rain hasn't lowered the temperature drastically yet. It's a balmy 63 degrees, enough that she can get by without a jacket, with nothing but a black camisol, worn, flared jeans and jackboots. There are a pair of what appear to be tribal tattoos on her left upper arm, inky black against her pale skin, and nothing about her stands particularly out, beyond her flaxen hair, pulled away from her face and secured with a broken chopstick and a greasy Quaker State pencil.

The front door swings open, then falls closed and the scent of rain billows, herald for the tall, lean woman. She pauses just inside, narrowing her eyes against the darkness or the smoke, while fishing something from a hip pocket. The door opens again and she steps forward and to the side, out of the way, sliding a cigarello between her lips and lighting it with a flameless lighter. She draws one deliberate breath, then exhales a long tendril of smoke while she studies the room.

Ashe Kincade

Tue 10:48PM CST
Smoke billowed from every table in the room. The place wasn't much to begin with; a few wooden tables, a bar, some stairs leading to the upstairs rooms for rent. Whatever the attraction people felt to come in, it certainly wasn't the warm feeling they'ed get. More than likely, that warm feeling was a bullet peircing your flesh.

Bikers made up the primary group of people in the room. Prostitutes came a close second, and older, less talkative males made up the rest. The place particularly gave off a bad vibe of trouble. If people were looking for it, they'd certainly find it here.

Ashe and his small cluster fuck of friends sat off to the side. Smiling a bit, they'ed continue talking about this and that. His eyes moved to the peice of work that walked in the door. She had her looks, but he was sure a background story that involved a bad break-up, a battered spouse, or a struggling artist was hidden in her luggage.

Whatever, it wasn't like he might have cared.

Luce

Tue 10:55PM CST
Background stories always involve something like that: something tragic and necessary, something that crawls under your skin, something you can't ever shake, because you don't wanna shake it, because you're addicted to the drama, because you're addicted to the sameness, because something buried somewhere in there is something that you need.

Maybe it was like that with her. Some people, after all, need trouble.

Two sets of perfect white teeth snap around the end of the smoke. She draws another breath and exhales. Where her entrance elsewhere might draw a few catcalls, a few muttered comments, a few open invitations, here it draws only a few shuttered looks, and a few other hungry ones.

She smiles to herself, the razor-thin edge of a dangerous little smile, and continues her casual survey of the other patrons. Bikers (check); hookers (double check); veterans and teamsters and whatnots drowning their sorrows in a few fifths of cheap vodka (check). One hip curved against the bar, she leaned back to give the 'tender her order, never, essentially, letting the cigarello out of her mouth. When the 'tender returned with the beer, she pushed a few ones across the scarred surface of the wood at him, then returned her attention to the small group off to the side. Her chin rose, just so: acknowledgment or greeting, or a vain attempt to find an angle from which the smoke wouldn't sting her eyes.

Ashe Kincade

Tue 11:05PM CST
The beer was brought to his lips as he settled back into the creaky chair. The wood had long since seen it's days of newly furnished years, now it served more simpler tasks. Ashe lowered the beer, allowing his fingers to curl around th neck of it. His non chalant attitude was part of his charm; the bad boy image often associated with James Dean, apparently. In truth, you could categorize Ashe under several different areas. Detective, Mercenary, Hunter, Private Investigator, Hitman, hired hand; he had been these things for the past decade or so.

Should she look more closely to his companions, the table, and himself; she might notice a few interesting articles. Stray bullets laid dorment ont he table next to an obvious silver revolver. A bootknife laid next to that followed by a zippo, three package of smokes, various glass containers, and a police badge.

Ashe, himself, seemed very at ease with himself and his surroundings. While normally very vigilante, one could diffenatley see that he was comfortable right now; if you knew him. With short brown hair, baby blue eyes, and three days growth of unshaven facial hair; he could be described as charming yet still very dangerous.

Teagan O'Braonain

Tue 11:08PM CST
This wasn't her scene. If she hadn't been caught in the storm, now nothing more than the occasional fat drop of rain and the faint rumblings of thunder, she would never have thought of taking shelter in such a location. Her hair was soaked through, strands dripping into her eyes as she huddled just outside the door, her hands tucked up under her armpits. Not shivering, just miserable. A patron who reminded her of a member of the Village People passed by her in a haze of smoke and booze and Teagan's nose wrinkled.

Should she go inside? A fresh crack of thunder decided for her and the Malkavian yanked at the door and took a step inside.

(Dark. Dark. Cannot see the light. Why are you here? Don't belong. They can see. They can see.)

Raising a hand to her face, Teagan lifted her chin and brushed aside some wet hair, plastered to her head and made quite the show of stalking toward the bar, aware of the eyes upon her figure, squelching forward::

Luce

Tue 11:15PM CST
She looks closely. She always looks closely, and sometimes too closely. It takes a minute - two, three, more - for her to finish her study. Finish she does, however, and when she does, the lean woman plucks the cigarello from her mouth and leans back, balancing her weight between one foot and both elbows, curled and resting against the bar. She lifts the other foot, twisting her ankle to deliberately put the cigarello out on the sole of her shoe.

Teagan crosses in front of her, briefly obscuring the group, and the woman drops the Malkavian a quick, deliberate little wink that the creature may or may not see from behind the mass of her wet hair.

The door falls closed, shutting out the sounds of the storm, and the blonde pushes away from the edge of the bar, carrying the now-unlit smoke and bottle of sweating beer in one negligent hand that rests against the narrow curve of her lean hip. When she reaches Ashe's table, she leans over, deliberately putting her hand down over something - a stray bullet, a glass container, a police badge, something - and lifts her smoke again to her lips. "Someone got a light?"

Ashe Kincade

Tue 11:23PM CST
As the blonde approached, his eyes would meet her determination. Perhaps the most alluring portion of his features, his eyes were a smokey blue color that took a moment to distinguish the hue. It was as though the years had grown to hide the true emotions behind them like a mask. The trio grew silent as she did question them for a light. However, even as Anthony Marchelli would smile to her and begin to move; Ashe's voice would nearly command him to halt.

"Didn't you have a lighter when you first came in here, honey?" His voice was a deep boroque; yet charming enough to perhaps draw a smile from the blonde. The man's relaxed mood showed clearly in his slow movement to take a further sip of the beer. Ashe was dressed in a black bandanna, slate grey tight fitting tee shirt, black jeans, and surrounded by a dark trenhc coat that did everything to conceal his tools of the trade.

Teagan O'Braonain

Tue 11:24PM CST
The sable eyes notice the gesture and peer after her a moment or two as she stands, dripping water onto the floor, shifting her weight from boot to boot. Then she uncurls her hands from around her coat's collar and proceeds to slide it from her lithe body. The leathers are tight enough when dry but the water has made them like a second skin and she doesn't look forward to prying them off later. The tank top is damp, but not saturated, one strap resting just off her shoulder.

Teagan pushes her hair from her face and drapes the coat over a bar stool, taking the ends of her shirt in both hands and wringing it out. As she does she glances around, aware of the curious eyes, but also aware that in her current attire she at least looks as if she may belong after all.

"Beer please. Anything strong."

Luce

Tue 11:30PM CST
The blonde's attention shifts to Anthony Marchelli as he smiles and shifts in his seat, reaching for (presumably) a light, or a book of matches, but snaps back to Ashe like a bullet's ricochet as he speaks up, instead.

Her wide mouth narrows into a faint, pleased little smirk of recognition or acknowledgment. "I did," she replies, with a faint lift of her chin and a certain distinctively challenging quirk of her brow. "But I must have a hole in my pocket." The beer bottle sings hollowly as she taps a sheer nail against the glass and the glass dances against her hip. "And I'm not particularly sweet; you shouldn't call me honey."

Ashe Kincade

Tue 11:36PM CST
The men chuckle a bit at her fiestiness. Ashe's grin turned into a cold smirk as he looked to them as though giving them a secret message between friends. "A hole.." As his eyes rose back to her, they'd pass Teagan O'Braonain, causing a pause in his thinking. He wondered why she would be in a bar like this. Ashe glanced past her a second as his eyes settled upon Luce. "..in your pocket? That's the best you could come up with in under a minute?" He asked. Ashe set his beer on the table and soon crossed his arms in near defiance.


Luce

Tue 11:42PM CST
"Mmm, no." Luce grinned, now - a blatant, rich fillip of expression that enlivened her sharp features and mirrored something sharp in her shuttered eyes. "It was the most obvious thing I could come up with in under a minute. Clearly, it worked.

"So - " with a small forward twitch of her jaw, she shifted the cigarello between her teeth. " - aren't you going to be a gentleman, or something?"

Teagan O'Braonain

Tue 11:42PM CST
Perching herself on the stool, the brunette's attention falls upon the bartender, who is fixing her with a leer she understands too well. Setting down the bottle before her after a moment, he winks and drawls in a voice aged with smoking and excess;

"On the house sweetheart. Aren't you a bit young to be in here?"

He eyes the fine cheekbones, the swan like neck, his gaze lingering on the shadowy hollow where her shirt ends and he can see just a hint of clevage.

She seems to bristle at the comment and if he wasn't mistaken her eyes darkened several shades. Almost black.

"I'm not as young as I look. Thank you for the beer."

The bartender shrugs and moves away, eyeing the little spitfire another minute or two before patrons call. Teagan turns her back on the bar, rolling the untasted bottle between her hands. She slips one foot beneath the other and chews thoughtfully on her lower lip, her eyes traveling the world that seems to exist within these four walls. Men and women she would never have known in her past life. They'd have been classed as beneath her. Now, well, they mostly intriged her. She feels a glimmer of recognition as her eyes stray to a small cluster at a nearby table. She tilts her head. Her eyes cutting the figure of the woman who winked at her. Making a study of her form.

Ashe Kincade

Tue 11:48PM CST
"What can I say toots? I'm not that type of guy.." His arms spread, as though promoting himself for her inspection. Ashe's head tilted a bit as he looked her body over carefully. A slight playful look came to his already charming features as he smirked at her. Once his hands came back to lace themselves along the arms of the chair, Ashe would nod toward the silver zippo laying dorment amongst the bullets.


Teagan O'Braonain

Tue 11:54PM CST
Her vision is somewhat obscured so she cranes her neck, trying to see around the woman to the man she is addressing. There's a familiar tingle running the length of her spine. The voices begin to whisper of familiar faces and she feels the icy wet of the bottle between her hands, drops of water trickling over her fingers from her hair. She stands, slipping her coat over an arm, her beer in the opposing hand and begins to move closer, feigning a search for the toliets.

Luce

Tue 11:58PM CST
"Good," she flashes back, leaning across the table to swipe the zippo and a pair of stray bullets from the table. "I despise gentlemen."

Blue eyes flash a certain fire, like the after-echo of the sun simmering on the horizon, like the hottest heart of a gas flame. And then they are reflecting fire - the shivered dance of the flame, just touched by a repressed shiver of primal fear. She did not swallow, but rather concentrated on the flame and re-lit her cigarello once more before snapping the zippo closed.

"Thanks for the light," she says, taking a deep draw from the smoke and slipping the beer, mostly unnoticed, onto the table. She transfers the bullets from hand to hand and holds them up, just so on the tips of her fingers. "And thanks for these, too. But I gotta go - " the bullets disappear into her hip pocket as she tips an imaginary hat in Ashe's direction. If her gaze lingers on him a moment too long - well, it could nothing, some stray thought, nothing more. " - toots. See you 'round."

With that, she pushes away from the table and turns to saunter toward the door.

Ashe Kincade

Wed 12:03AM CST
He said nothing to her as she pulled her best imitation of a female Humphrey Boggart. Watching her go, he'd shake his head and look back to the men accompanying him. They honestly didn't know whatto make of her, and neither did Ashe. Smirking a bit, he'd grin at them and take another drink of his beer.

God damn the bitter taste of it all.

As the wildcat left the run down pub, his attention would turn more serious as he looked toward Teagan. Excusing himself, the bandanna clad man would straighten his clothing out and stand. Setting his beer down, he'd begin making his way toward her, eyes focused and centered.