isn't really the best place to do a lot of thinking

[fuckin_thirsty]

Who: Deacon Frost, Ilde Decima and Ivan.
What: An invitation accepted.
Where: Gutters.
When: Now.

On the surface, time is dictated by the sun, a given constant. Down here, it's a subjective measuring of wound watches and the steady, relentless tick of digital numbers, but it can also be measured by the amount of people flowing through the underground passageways that stem into Gutters.

Otherwise, the lighting doesn't care. The shadows are thick where there isn't that piercing sheen of artificial light staining the concrete walls, iron bars and steel pipes, and that's just the corridor, currently playing host to the nightlife ducking down underground. The space itself is as impervious to the logical progression of time as the people it caters to, permeated with the scent of the underground, water and earth, with cigarette smoke, with copper and salt. Music aches through the floor, a heavy bass, and security isn't particularly overt, but certainly present - that isn't counting the guy at the door handing off the money people give to get in.

This isn't really the best place to do a lot of thinking.

But it is Deacon Frost's natural habitat regardless, for all that he doesn't feed here, doesn't dance much, doesn't strike up meaningful conversation a hell of a lot. He's moving out of the backrooms and into the larger space, doing up the sleeves of his shirt with his CiD gripped in one hand, and going about his evening. Eventually, he's going to need some fresh air.

Comments

[fuckin_thirsty]

"And not the immediate problem, but it would be a shame if Candlelighters were just a head of a hydra, you know?"

One last puff of smoke has Deacon dropping his cigarette, crushing it out on the concrete beneath the heel of his shoe. A nice pair, shiny, but worn, the soles unseen ground down to a bald shine, but he presents well. He smiles at Ivan, quick and careless. "We were always on our own anyway, man."

[rhinemaid]

Acknowledging both their points - Ilde splays her fingers on Ivan's hip, pressing her thumb like punctuation - she tilts her head to the other side, rolls her shoulders in a lazy shrug. "You can still kill a hydra. You just have to be clever about it."

Which is her purpose, here, it may be becoming clear; a bit of cleverness, and a careful assessment of Deacon Frost.

[deservesadaisy]

"We were, and are, on our own," Ivan says. "But there's a difference between not being helped and being actively targeted. Especially when we still can't voluntarily leave."

[fuckin_thirsty]

This gains a shrug from Frost. He died, in his world. There's a measure of feeling done with it and taking to Baedal that somehow makes more sense to him than others, a belief and trust in ridiculous mysticism coupled with pragmatic mobster entrepreneurship. But Ivan makes a fair point and Deacon honours it with; "It's not like we chose the territory, no."

[rhinemaid]

"That's why the 'safety concerns' were such transparent horseshit," she observes. "It's a closed environment. If you starve predators, they have no choice, they have no where to go." Especially if you then proceed to give them a push.

[deservesadaisy]

"And given that those who could go into torpor did, they specifically targeted people who had no choice but to get desperate." Ivan sighs, and pulls out a cigarette.

"Regardless. Picking that apart isn't getting us anywhere."

[fuckin_thirsty]

Somewhere in the quasi-darkness of the bar, towards the other end of the cave-like space, there's a compulsive shriek, a cluster of bodies. It interrupts whatever Deacon was about to say, causing him to lazily glance back over a shoulder, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. The three are more or less left alone, and there's enough blood to go around that whatever scent Ilde is giving off doesn't have the sharks circling.

It doesn't stop them looking, of course, in small, knife-like glances.

"Doubtless we've all been picking it apart since it happened. So what gets us places?"

[rhinemaid]

Evidently, Ilde came prepared; she turns, leaning her back against Ivan's chest so he's not in her way as she fishes a card out from where she'd tucked it into one of the straps on her bodice, hidden by glamour until she produces it between two fingers and offers it across to Deacon. It's a CiD number and a name.

"Teamwork," she says, slyly, aware of her audience if not deigning to acknowledge it.

[deservesadaisy]

"Comparing notes," Ivan adds, on more or less the same topic. "And trying not to draw too much attention until we want it."

[fuckin_thirsty]

His tongue swipes over his own teeth in contemplation of this concept, but not exactly hesitation; Deacon takes the card with a thin smile, turning it over between two fingers to catch the name and number written there. Cold blue attention switches back to Ivan, that smile becoming a little more crooked, scarred eyebrow raising.

"I'll try hard," he promises, sliding the card into a pocket inside his jacket. "You know where to find me. Obviously."

[rhinemaid]

"If something more proactive than going to ground interests you, then you should call," she shrugs, tucking one foot behind the opposite ankle and letting her gaze move vaguely towards where that shriek occurred moments before; it doesn't stir her.

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan's fingers rested lightly at the small of Ilde's back. "I'm going to be on the move, but I'll answer my CiD."

[fuckin_thirsty]

"I'm hoping you're getting a better sense of my style by now than that, sweetness," Deacon says, presumably to Ilde, but really, who's counting, as the next part is to Ivan with; "I got your number dialed in."

And back to fairy with; "Don't get eaten on your way out." It's not actually unfriendly, somehow. Frank advice and flippant enough to imply Deacon doesn't think she will, a flash of fang in his smile.

[rhinemaid]

Her quick, sharp smile is a confirmation- if not, she wouldn't have given him the card. (Remy will get a call in the morning, just to let him know how it went, that she lived and that Deacon has his name and number.) The eyeroll, on the other hand, probably has more to do with the continued patronizing nicknames. They don't bother her, but she does feel obliged not to take him very seriously whenever she can get away with it. Sonja's a good influence.

"I wouldn't worry," she says, lightly. "Cruorvores have this bad habit of forgetting you're not the only kind of predator."