Skippy's Mistake (attn: Archae)
Ginnie stalked down The Strip in a black leather miniskirt and a slouchy gold halter top, topped by an open black leather jacket and spike-heeled boots that went to mid thigh. It said, I'm dangerous, looking for a dangerous time, or I'm for sale. The look of death walking on her face, negated the for sale sign on her clothes, and it was a very pleasant giant bouncer dude that took her cover and let her into Skippy's Mistake.
Skippy's was not a place for the faint of heart, or the week of stomach, they served her three favorite men, Jim, Johnnie, and Jose, and if you were stupid enough to drink from the slimy glasses, beer. That was all, and if you asked for anything else you were...politely escorted from the premises, and asked never to return. If you wanted something to eat you could take your chances with the bowls of nuts, or go someplace else and come back when you were done.
Ginnie glanced around the place and saw the usual rough and tumble crowd, she even recognized a couple of the faces. The walls had aged to a dull greasy gray, and the tables and chairs had done the same. The bar was a dark slick wood, made that way from hundreds of sweaty hands and violent bar fights. The floor was covered in grayish sawdust, that she knew for a fact got hauled out once every week, but it never looked fresh even after it was just laid down. In short the place was depressing and just what her mood needed.
She crossed to the bar and slid her ass onto one of the stools. The barkeep waddled his fat ass over to her and gave her his most charming leer. "Get'cha?"
"Johnnie Black, line'em up and keep'em full." She let her brogue come out full and thick and was rewarded with another leer as he began to set up a neat row of shot glasses before her.
But driving would have made finding a suitable bar much faster. Given a choice between irrational, barely contained terror and walking, Archae chose walking. See? He could make compromises. Honest.
The blood sucker was dressed usually, black trench coat, featureless rust-colored shirt, blue jeans, black combat boots. The only thing that really set him apart from the average was the black duster. You just didn’t see many people in those anymore. A cigarette smoldered between his lips, curling smoke up into the night air.
He stopped out-front a suitably gloomy looking place, lips curling downwards. His ice blues took in the large bouncer with distaste. He had a tendency to dislike bouncers, seeing how they had a tendency to dislike him. A quick glance at the building, and then down the street a ways, and he issued another sigh. This place would have to do.
Archae moved towards the door, keeping his cool eyes on the bouncer.
((leaving control of the very pleasant giant bouncer dude up to you.))
So she was rather shocked to see him actually conversing with someone of the male persuasion. And not just anyone of the male persuasion, dude with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, looked tall and he had the reddest hair she'd ever seen, and she figured he would have looked girly if it wasn't for the whole big bad dude in my trench coat effect he gave off. She chuckled as he put money in the afore mentioned hand and turned her back to him, not caring anymore what he did.
She slugged back number five in her line of six and on second thought turned her head again to watch which way he went. He looked like an interesting prospect for a meal later and she wanted to judge what kind of a tactic she'd need to use.
((Slight movement done with out permission, let me know if you want me to change it. But I figure moving the bouncer means moving you just a tiny eensy bit.))
He deposited a fiver in the man’s hand and swept past him, eyes surveying the gloomy room beyond. Grey sawdust, grimy tables, oily mugs, rough-looking patrons… It felt entirely too much like home. He sighed, tapping some ash from the tip of his cancer-stick. His eyes lingered for a moment or two on a woman who was obviously looking for attention. Trussed up like a goddamn gothic Christmas tree.
Who was he to point fingers; he knew his outfit belonged on the set of El Derodo. He just didn’t give a damn. If she didn’t care that she looked like an assassin’s prostitute, more power to her.
The vampire moved towards the bar, taking a last drag on the cigarette, before tossing it to the ground and stomping it out in the dull sawdust. He slid into a seat two stools away from Miss Tall dark and leathery, drumming his fingers on the smooth wood of the bar.
((fine with me))
He gave her his leer and swiped at the bar with his grayish towel. "Don't know's you're good fer it."
Ginnie wondered if anyone had ever taught the man to speak English, or if he'd just learned it from watching very bad television shows like...um... old Saturday Night Live reruns, or if he was just too lazy to care. She stuck her hand in her jacket pocket and pulled out a thick fold of bills she pulled off the top one and slapped the Ben Franklin on the bar. She shoved the rest back into her pocket and glared at the man.
"We'll call this my tab and if you keep them full until I leave you get two more."
The bill disappeared into a grimy fist and the bottle appeared in the other. He filled her five empties while she drained the sixth, then he filled that too. She gave him a nod and he went off to see Mr. Duster that's meant to hide my Ak's, that just sat himself two stools from her, had an order to give.
She turned her attention to said man, and wondered what his story was, she didn't care much, but her innate curiosity had her wondering just the same. So she offered him a smile and the worlds oldest chat-up line.
"Don't think I've seen you in here before. New in town?" She made sure her Scottish origins were obvious, and she was certain a few of her words were barely understandable to the untrained ear.
Mr. Fat, a-gramatical and smelly waddled off, and Archae settled in to wait in piece for something to take his mind off the place he was damned to live in. He had closed his eyes, and was really getting down into a good brood, when Ms. Leathery started to talk. To him. He barely repressed a groan.
The icy blue orbs snapped open and fixed her with a glare. He responded with little more than a grunt that could have been imaginatively construed as a ‘yes.’
"Well if you decide that you want to bring more than your body out of the Neanderthal cave you dwell in, then I'll be more than happy to hold up my end of a conversation. Otherwise your on your own, sport."
She chalked it up to being female or some other stupid crap. She seriously didn't have the energy or the inclination to glamor him, or even care if she did, and yet she's spoken a second time. With a roll of her eyes she threw back another shot and hissed at the burn.
He took a slightly defiant sip from his drink and continued to glare at her, the bar, and the universe in general.
"You know, not everyone has sex on their mind when they say hello in a bar, champ. Sometimes they're just being friendly. It is through no fault of their own that they happen to try and be nice to an asshole who woke up on the wrong side of the mattress on the floor."
She was getting pissy for no good reason, she'd really just come in here to get drunk then find some drunk idiot to feed off of, then stumble her blood drunk self back to Duibne and sleep it off in the bed in her lab. That had been a good plan it, and it would have worked if she'd not given in to that stupid girly thing and talked to trench coat man. She needed to blank out from the world around her for a awhile, especially since beginning the next night she was embarking on a very dangerous job. She slugged back another whiskey and hissed it down.
Yet another little problem to add to the growing fly infested dung heap festering on his mind. Wonderful. He dunked down another mouthful of mind numbing idiot juice. He knew, in theory, that it wouldn't make anything better"�he never got drunk"�but hell, it was a comfort. Not enough of a comfort, apparently, if the twitching eye muscle on the left side of his face was any indication...
She turned around in her seat and leaned her elbows against the bar, knowing she was getting greasy smudges on the elbows of her jacket. She eyed speculatively, letting her gaze travel up and down his body, more like he was a particularly expensive side of beef and not like she wanted to figure out what was under that trench coat of his. She could take him easy, she could even do it with out glamor.
"So why is it you're such a jerk? Or is it that I'm just special?"
He looked up at her again, frowning. “So, what possible reason could you have for wanting to engage me in conversation? Surely not my sparkling personality.”
"It is quite possible that I would have left you alone had you the common courtesy God gave and ant. But since you chose to be an ass, I chose to engage you in conversation. I seem to have a bit of a masochistic side when it comes to surly gay men in trench coats."
She replaced the shot glass and picked up another. "Yeah that part didn't escape me, champ. So now that I've got you talking we should start at the beginning." She threw back the shot, put the glass on the bar and offered the red-head her hand. "I'm Ginnie." She said by way of a proper greeting.
He sighed and resignedly clasped her hand, giving a firm, sturdy shake that was as much testing the girl’s grip as it was an acknowledgement of greeting… “Arthur. Michael Arthur.” He was fond of that alias. He was a big fan of both the mythic heroes, and found the two names together just had a sorta ring to it. It was also the name he had listed in the phone book under “Private Investigators.” Advertisement never hurt, even if it was directed at a talkative bimbo in a grungy bar.
Chuckling she spun back around to face the bar and her newly refilled shot glasses. She threw one back and wondered if this was number ten or eleven, but she didn't care the buzz was starting in her head and the edges of her vision were just a little fuzzy. It wasn't like she'd get much beyond this point, but the small high was nice just the same.
"If you plan to get as slobbering drunk as you let on then you might want to ask our jolly friend to give you the liqueur he charged you for and not the watered down version he's been slipping into your glass."
She wasn't going to be taking her meal from this man, he irritated her too much to even begin trying, that and she wasn't entirely certain glamour would work while she was inebriated. Not to mention the whole gay thing, she tended to use sex to lure her prey that wouldn't work with him and she just didn't feel like being violent tonight.
"One wonders what one would find if one were to Google Michael Arthur? Care to enlighten me or shall I find out on my own and come calling on the morrow?"
Ginnie snickered softly and tossed back another burning shot of whiskey.
Oh. And we mustn’t forget that the bartender was cheating him. Sitting on his fat, slurring ass and counting up money for a product not-rendered.
Archae’s hand crushed the beer glass; he winced, let out a snarl that was more irritation than pain, and started to pick shards of glass out of his skin, counting, towards an indeterminate number that he would decide on when he reached it…
The man made noises of protestation, Ginnie tilted her head to the side and gave him a smile that made most men wet their pants and one or two to actually cry. He gurgled something unintelligible at her and went off to pull Michael's beer.
"There now, that should do."
She threw back the last of her row of shots and gave a gentle burp. Ginnie dug into her jacket pocket and placed two one hundred dollar bills on the grimy wood. Slipping down from her stool she stood very close, but careful not to touch the rather pissed off red-head that had been her drinking companion, whether he'd wanted it or not.
"Don't kill him. I like this bar rather a lot."
She pulled a small business card holder from her pocket and took a single white card from it. Still careful not to touch, she slipped her legit. card, the one that held her true name, her position at Duibne Industries and her actual phone number, on the bar next to Michael's fresh beer.
"I plan to Google you Michael Arthur, and I plan to find out a lot about you. Not because I want anything from you, but because I can. It's been interesting."
This time she dared to touch him, not knowing what would happen or if she'd come back with her hand when it was all over, with a gentle pat to his upper arm.
"Do enjoy your evening, won't you?"
The vampire shot the bartender a glare that would have twisted a medieval fortress gate and made sure to watch every move he made as the fat man prepared a replacement. The tender visibly sped, if only to remove the staring reminder of the patron he had pissed off.
Archae listened to Ginnie’s parting words without turning away from his intense vigil on the bartender. He rolled her hand off his arm when she touched him, but otherwise made no move to dissuade her from doing it again.
Just as the girl was leaving, he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Night, Leatherypants. And be careful how deep you dig. Some things in the darker fathoms don’t like being disturbed.”
He then turned back to his alcohol and proceeded to use the rest of the night to intimidate several more drinks from the fat ‘tender.
((I think we’re about done here, don’t you?))
"Night, Leatherypants. And be careful how deep you dig. Some things in the darker fathoms don't like being disturbed."Â?
The only answer was her musical laughter filling the room and following her out into the night. She was no longer pissed at the world and she'd a a fine time bothering some random asshat. It had turned out to be a good evening after all. She was no longer in the mood to feed, opting to head home, drain a bag and find Alec.
((Ginnie out. Great fun, thanks Archae!)