The devil comes in British costume

[Emily] [Favorite dice pool]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Emily] [Aha. No, seriously, Kahseeno. Do that again and I'll just ignore you out of spite.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Emily] [Corr 1: base dif 4, -1 practiced, extending for duration]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 3)

[Emily] [Extension: base dif 5, -1 practiced, -1 going slow]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 3 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Emily] [Note: Active magics: absolute placement, corr 1.]
to Jarod

[Jarod] Places like these tended to run together in Jarod's mind. Upscale nightclubs with plush seats and a shiny bars stocked with all the trendiest drinks. This one was fairly large, as clubs went, and had two additional floors above the main level where the dance floor was located. Tonight, he hadn't bothered with the lounge area. He wasn't here because he wanted to talk.

Everyone needed a chance to unwind. Him more than most, lately. He'd never had any trouble finding dates. There was an entire category of numbers in his phone that he'd acquired from attractive strangers of one variety or another. Tonight's companion was a man he'd met at a party that Nick's roommates had thrown last year. He was tallish (about an inch shorter than Jarod himself), had short brown hair, green eyes, and was probably about 25. He was also extremely pretty (though of course, not as much as Jarod himself - it didn't do to be upstaged.) This man's name was Sebastian, but he liked for people to call him Bastian. Like that kid in the Neverending Story.

Bastian was on his last semester of an MFA in creative writing. He had on a black sleeveless tank and a pair of skinny jeans with a white belt. Jarod was wearing a pair of black pants and a fitted black t-shirt, with leather bracelets on both wrists. They were dancing. The music was generic, but it was loud, and it had a strong beat. Drinks had come and gone by this point in the evening. He'd had three... no, four shots of silver Patron, with lime. His lips still tasted vaguely of salt.

Jarod was a good dancer. In some ways he was better when he'd had a few drinks, because he was less self-aware. Not so concerned with being this perfect being that stood slightly above and apart from the world at large. When he was younger, he used to dance a lot. He and Dana would go to clubs with their fake IDs. In the height of his attention-seeking phase, he'd often get up on bars or tables and perform mocking semi-strip-teases.

He hadn't done that in a long time.

The world was bright lights and pulsing sound. Thunder. Blood. Heat. Bastian smelled like sweat and strawberries.

[Emily] [Aware: Who's out there?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Jarod] [Are we sufficiently stamina-boosted tonight?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[Jarod] [extended]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 10 (Success x 3 at target 4)

[Jarod] [...yes, we are]

[Emily] By lunchtime, Emily has suffered more ingress of the magical world into her controlled weekday afternoon than she can stomach. Her Lake View flat has become a place of refuge, a Sanctuary shared, though it is imperfect and untried. Topics have passed her teeth that she wants no truck with: Marauders, Leavings, Nephandi, politics. They're heavy. Each of them are heavy in their own way. Fat like rain drops that fall with splatter, collateral damage, darkness that spreads in asymmetrical egress. It's a tide with its own ebb and flow and she is adrift in it. It comes in when it wants, it leaves without permission. It is chaos.

Other people are chaos. They are a tide unkept and unswayed by anything lesser than the moon overhead. She's no celestial body; Emily is just a college girl with a mind to be more. With a heart that occasionally sings true and a mind like a diamond. She's a world-bender coming to grips with what that means. There's an anniversary looming. It offers no succor, no sweetness, no ebullience or joy.

There are places she could go to find sanctuary of her own, people she could turn to -- Emily knows this. But people? Just a few nights ago she told Thomas in a particularly poignant moment that people were a gamble; that it was hard to put Hope in something self-determined and separate; that it was too big a Faith for her to hold to. And when that Faith in another is questioned, begins to crumble, the last thing Emily wants to do is compound it by turning to another. The fundamental truth of it all, at the heart of everything, is that they are all born alone. They live alone. They die alone. And in moments of grace and genuine connection, in Fellowship, and in Friendship, and in Love they transcend it for brilliant moments of grace.

There's a Reverence to her, but it does not seek out Grace tonight. She seeks a sea to drown in, for a moment, for a lifetime, for the space of a raindrop's chaotic downward flight, for the eternity it takes to wick Faith from the pious, for the moment it takes to rekindle that thing in her that is Unrelenting, that strives for Steadfast, that must grow into the mantle she feels she wears.

There is a club on the Mile. It's not so much that she's pretty enough to get around the line, as it is that she's got a fascinating accent and a flirtatious quirk to her smile and dark laughter that hides so many curious flaws. It's the words like lovely and poppet, and how the Otherness drips from her like lakelight.

There is a club on a the Mile where a gorgeous man dances with a man almost his equal. Where the world is bright lights and pulsing sound. Thunder. Blood. Heat. Where the smell of it, and the press of it, and the warmth of it suffocates anyone who's just sliding in from the out-of-doors. It catches her breath. It consumes her.

The girl is tall tonight, taller than most, and the click of her heels on the floor is all but inaudible over the music. She makes her way to the bar, all smiles and certainty, the sort of certainty that comes from knowing the absolute placement of every footsteps. The kind of comfort in knowing precisely how far each hand is from her, where to step to evade, to wrap all of that into a confidence she carries to ward off old fears.

Emily leans over the bar a little, tosses some flirtation and request to the barkeep. Smiles just so. It's not until she has a glass in her hand that she looses her senses to pick out who or what may be lurking on the dance floor.

A breath of cold air; Winter; sensuality; familiar.

Her smile quirks. The Singer girl bows her head a little. Runs her tongue over her eye tooth. Chuckles, quietly, to herself alone. Then she knocks back her shot, motions for another and waits to be noticed. It won't take long. It won't take long at all, with who they are and what they've been to one another.

[Jarod] [Awareness +1(slightly tipsy)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Failure at target 7)

[Jarod] His resonated strongly tonight. Emily would know why, if she looked. His pattern had been strengthened, his heart beating with the steady power of an athlete. Jarod was a fit person. Sleek - not muscular. But fit. He went jogging in the mornings, and attended a gym 3 times a week. This was different though. This was marathon-runner fit. He could have danced all night and into the morning of he'd wanted to. Maybe that was precisely what he had in mind.

Maybe he had other things in mind.

Emily noticed him, but he didn't notice her. Blissfully unaware, divinely entranced, completely and perfectly alive. He continued to dance as the song changed over, and Bastian turned around and backed up until their frames connected. Jarod nudged the man's head to the side and kissed his throat. Hands reached back and touched his hips. His own threaded around briefly to play fingers along Bastian's stomach and down to the waistline of his jeans. He was rewarded with contracting muscles, smiled softly, and stepped back to put a bit of distance between them again.

[Jarod] [...He resonated strongly. *sigh*]

[Emily] [WP: +2, so, so many reasons.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Emily] It doesn't take long to find them in the crowd, as Emily leans against the bar and considers her next move quite carefully. There are plenty open avenues, but few of them to places worth going. There's a nexus of some familiar temptation out there, on the floor, engaged in what she couldn't offer just now -- not so much couldn't, but wouldn't -- and even Emily, who is understanding, who is accepting, who is becoming a nice person, has her moments of abject selfishness.

There is a brief conversation with the bartender, and Emily exchanges her empty glass for a shot of Patron and a wedge of lime. (This, for those of you following along at home, is an exceptionally dangerous idea.) They're not for her, oh no, but rather for the fluid sensuality on the floor, already entangled with another's warmth. And it's possible he'll feel her as she moves toward him, threading her body between other dancers until she's just near enough to reach out and let her fingertips trail across the small of his back.

Just a small touch. A hello. Something both intimate and ever so slightly reserved. And if he looks over, if Bastian has not captured the whole of his attention just now, there's Emily at eye level with a shot, and a smirk-smile, and a host of bad intentions riding shotgun tonight.

"Brought you something..." Her voice is lost sound. There's nothing to it that directly intimates she's offering more, and perhaps the Singer will turn on her heel and make her way off the dance floor after their hellos. Maybe she's expecting him to turn away a willing and able partner for the frustration of another night chasing down avenues they won't pursue. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But it's a rare thing when she catches him out first, and there's that curl of laughter to the edge of eyes. Triumphant. Fleeting. She offers the lime wedge between the tips of her outstretched fingers, but there are many other ways to hand it over. She knows he's creative; she's obviously taunting.

[Jarod] Emily had never seen Jarod drunk, or even tipsy. She'd had drinks with him, but on past occasions it had always been she who was the less-controlled. There was something a little bit different about him tonight, though. Enough so that when she touched his back and he paused to glance over his shoulder at her, his eyes had a slightly unfocused, dreamy quality. They sparkled. (It was just the lights.) He smiled. He didn't seem to mind the interruption.

Bastian watched their exchange curiously, glancing between Jarod and Emily with an expectant gaze (as if to remind his current dance-partner that he had no intention of being excluded.) He didn't seem upset, at least. He was in too good a mood. They both were.

Jarod eyed the drink, and the lime wedge in Emily's outstretched hand, and something passed between them, silently. (You remembered. You're being wicked. I love it.) He took the shot glass from her and tipped back his head. The tequila burned warmly as it slid down his throat. Then he leaned over and took the lime directly from her fingers with his mouth.

He sucked on it for a moment, pulling the juice out as the acid bit into his teeth and tongue. Then he dropped the used rind into the empty shot glass and licked his thumb.

"Tonight the devil comes in British costume."

He looked at his dance partner (who looked right back at him) and said (nearly-shouted really - the music was loud), "This is my friend, Emily." Then, to Emily, "This is Bastian."

There. They'd been introduced.

Jarod strode briefly to the edge of the dance floor and reached out to set his empty glass on the edge of the closest table before crossing back to meet his companions. "Want to join us?" he said, to Emily. To his credit, he did glance at Bastian to make sure that the other man was amenable to this invitation. Bastian looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled. "Yeah, you should."

[Emily] You remembered. You're being wicked. I love it.

Once upon a time, Emily had been anything but nice. It resurfaced, this wickedness, in bits and pieces, in moments, in snippets of lost time and distant behaviours. The little thing that passed between them caused the corner her mouth to tug upward just so, it drew her gaze to his mouth at her fingertips when he plucked the lime away; just the smudge of a smirk, something darkly amused, something a little less caged and proper.

And yet she's the peripheral party, and Emily doesn't seem too inclined to challenge that just now. While they're introduced she's standing, arms behind her back, one hand catching at the opposing elbow. It's casual for someone as long limbed and lithe as she is, but it's also not terribly imposing.

They have each other's names, and likely both of Jarod's friends follow his exuent with watchful eyes for a moment before Emily leans over, and her voice is indeed all riddled through with Britishness and other places. With that sense of Other that pervades, seeps from her skin.

"If I'd know your poison, I'd've brought you one as well," she says, her voice a rich alto but just loud enough to be heard over the din. He'd have to strain to listen completely. It's an old, simple trick.

It's possible that this warmer Emily, who is now as charismatic as she is manipulative (though the latter she will always wear as an innate second skin), is on her way to being fast friends -- for the evening -- with the dashing Bastian by the time that Jarod invites her to stay.

To his credit he glances to Bastion for approval. To Emily's, she waits on Bastian's invitation before so much as quirking an eyebrow in reply.

"I'd quite like that," she tells them, and Jarod knows what that quite means in Emily parlance. He'd heard it the first time he'd invited her anywhere, but not with this smoke-and-ember darkness to it. He knows what that is, too, if the haze and glitter in his eyes clear enough for him to read beneath her wickedness for a moment. She's kept it hidden oh-so-very-well but there are only so many reasons Emily finds herself in a club, against all hope of sobriety, alone.

[Jarod] For all that he'd been so entranced with this person moments ago, Jarod seemed more than happy to open up his little circle to a third party. The fact that the third party in question happened to be Emily probably had something to do with this. But he was not thoughtless - not tonight - and he knew why he'd come here, and who he'd come here with. Bastian was most assuredly not cast aside. Instead, Jarod fell in between the two of them with practiced ease, and this time it was his turn to reach back and pull the other man closer to him.

This was the kind of dancing people did when in the midst of a tangle of bodies. It wasn't as showy, of course, but it was more sensual - more about a kind of dancing-as-sex (or something close to it.) He put his arms up, wrists crossed, and closed his eyes for a moment.

He didn't reach out for Emily just yet, because she was waiting for someone, and he was respecting that (in theory). But if she gravitated toward him, he certainly wouldn't push her away, and in-between moments of blissful trance, he'd open his eyes and watch her intently.

Not unlike the way he'd looked at her over tea the last time they'd met up.

[Emily] Emily was not the dancer that Jarod was. She was not the dancer that Bastian was. There were no understandings as to what this evening was between her and the friend she'd found on the dance floor with another, but there were understandings as to what it wasn't. It was not a prelude to tea and conversation, delightful euphemism that the phrase had become. It was not the first step across the line she'd drawn in the sand. Emily was not the dancer that they were, but she knew how to lose herself for a moment in the sway of the music and the mutual ecstasy.

It was the closest she could come to the release she sought.

Because the friend Owen had left to seek out had come home today. And Owen had not. And the friend was battered, and bruised, and wearied and worn. And Emily knows the things that do that to a person, and she hasn't been brave enough to ask. So there's something to dance for here, as if dancing would keep the postcards coming, and as if it could make her forget how afraid she was to her her fears confirmed: that he wasn't coming back; that he couldn't; that he wouldn't.

And Jarod was not safe by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the closest thing to home that she had left and the only one who understood what it meant to let go of the straight lines and the strictures and the neat little boxes they'd put themselves into. He knew what it was to need something so keenly you could drown in the wanting of it. And he knew, undoubtedly, what it was to be denied it.

So there's friction to the darkness, and there are lines they will have to dance along and carefully not cross, but there's a momentary abandon to it to. That wickedness. The longing. The ache that manifests as a dark curl of amusement, a playfulness in her dark eyes, a wanton distraction, a tease. But they both knew that he'd go home with Bastian at the end of the night, and that she'd use her walk to the El to give herself time to cool off.

They both knew it, so there was no danger in her dancing with them now. No promise to the closeness of her skin and his, with only damnably thin layers of clothing between them. No true sweetness to the faint scent of clove and vanilla, cedar and honey, things remembered, when they found him and mingled with the sweat and strawberries.

[Jarod] There was no promise, no. There was no expectation between friends and former lovers. But that didn't mean that this was safe, or that a line might not be crossed. They'd already crossed lines, Emily and Jarod, in so many small and intimate ways, with touches and looks and all those things not-spoken. There was no way that anyone could really say that they were only friends.

But for all that, Emily's promise to Owen had been kept. Jarod would not have done the same, had he been in her position. He wouldn't have made the promise to begin with. There'd been a moment at first, when she came onto the dance floor, where he'd wondered, inwardly, if it might not bother her to see him with someone else. Most people would interpret her ease and comfort with the situation as an indication that she was over her past feelings for him. And perhaps she was.

But... he didn't believe that.

And if the way he looked at her was any indication, he was just as attracted to her as he had been on the night they'd first slept together.

No, that's wrong. He was more.

And tonight, more than anything, he just wanted to feel something. And to let the rest of the world fall away. He knew what it was to need something so keenly you could drown in the wanting of it. He looked at Emily as they danced, and he could feel the proximity of her body - the heat and the delicate vibrations of her pulse - and occasionally they brushed against each other in small and insignificant ways, but he did not reach out to her, or put his arms around her, or pull her against him.

Bastian, though, did all those things to him, and as the night wore on and they danced (and danced, and danced) the air became saturated with the headiness of pheromones, until, at one point, Jarod turned around and pulled him into a very unambiguous kiss, and he did something (the view was blocked and it was dark - Emily wouldn't see) that made Bastian suck in a breath and growl something into his ear.

And then Jarod looked back over his shoulder at Emily. And the look he gave her was... questioning. Not exactly an invitation, but not the dismissal she'd probably expect. Bastian, too, glanced at her, then at Jarod, and he was probably wondering exactly what part she was playing in this evening's events.

It was he (and not Jarod) who said: "Do you want to come with us?"

[Emily] [Subterfuge: How well do I cover this?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Jarod] [Empathy - how well can I see past the cover?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Emily] Emily was not, in any way, over her feelings for Jarod. She was not safe here, in the huddle of bodies, in the echo of something they'd had before. The ease wasn't that Emily had moved on so much as she'd never had that sort of monopoly on his interests or his affections. There had always, then, been the probability that she'd share him with another, with others.

They never made those sorts of promises to one another.

In truth, Emily had made Owen no promises. Which makes what she's about to do harder, because there's a longing here and a need and it takes an outpouring of Will to step away from that tonight. Her smile curls and her chin drops a little, lashes sweeping down to obscure the color of her eyes for a moment while she considers the offer. And she does consider it. But it's just a moment, and then she leans in to kiss Jarod on the cheek (not quite chastely [not quite across that line just yet]).

"You two have fun," she tells them, excepting herself from the festivities. And maybe Jarod wouldn't read too carefully into her expression, into the way her gaze lingers on his lips before segueing to his eyes, before the wicked twist to her smile is paired with a craftily raised eyebrow and she steps back, steps away.

[Jarod] In that moment, when she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, there was a precarious instant where it could have turned into something more, because while Jarod heard a polite refusal, he saw something entirely different.

If it had just been the two of them, things would have gone differently.

But it wasn't just the two of them.

Her lips touched his cheek, and Jarod closed his eyes, and let go of a long, steady breath. His skin felt warmer than usual (flushed.) When she stepped away, he looked at her again, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he let his dance-partner do the talking.

"Had to try," Bastian said, with a knowing smile. But he didn't seem overly disappointed. He was, after all, still going home with one person. And judging by the way he looked at Jarod, this was hardly a consolation prize.

Jarod let his eyes linger on Emily for a moment longer, before he turned away and said something to Bastian that Emily wouldn't be able to hear. Then the two of them made their way off the dance floor and back out into the night, leaving Emily alone with her thoughts.