scorpions, frogs and teamwork: a true story

[fuckin_thirsty]

Who: Deacon Frost and Remy Lebeau
What: Because there's no 'I' in 'team'.
Where: Eliandre's temple in Griss Twist.
When: Two days after this.

They don't lock the doors, here, after dark. One of those places that understands its clientele and the needs of Baedal's citizenry. The dead don't have to worship death, necessarily, but they should at least feel at home.

Wooden doors engraved with justice scales are tested and pushed open by white hands. Inside, the light is kept with fire and electrical lamps that hang from bare rafters, and the space is wide, stone and wood, and there's the scent of dust and preserved hunting trophies - the heads of boars, deer, and even one dusty looking lion with glass eyes mount the walls. Wide windows, set with glass in defiance of the old world sensibilities, show in the nightlife city light, the artificial ambiance beamed off a cloudy sky in ghosting light pollution as opposed to genuine moonshine.

But that's alright too.

It's well after sunset, by now, and Deacon possibly seems out of place in expensively cut and fitted clothes, too much a businessman to be considered a hunter welcomed in this environment, or so appearances would have it seem. He doesn't light a cigarette, but he does absently toy with a silver lighter in jacket pocket as he roams in further, shiny shoes obtrusively sounding against the hard floor.

Comments

[fuckin_thirsty]

To Deacon, it's not exactly an unpleasant uniqueness, but he isn't completely in the habit of telling people they smell good unless it's strictly beneficial to the moment, and a lot of people, surprisingly, don't like to be reminded about these things. But naturally sulphur and storms would appeal. He watches, instead, the gesture of the cards left on the alter, and raised scarred eyebrow.

"Think the god of justice is a betting woman?"

His voice is all arrogant echoes through the cavern of the temple, dismissing reverent respect and moody silence in lieu of making his presence known. He is, naturally, only guessing this is the dude he's meant to be meeting; but Deacon doesn't trend away from relying on these instincts.

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

"Women don't bet, they win," he says, smoky laughter carried there without actually laughing at all. His voice is one shaped by region, culture, and cigarettes, accented and carrying a bit of gravel, but still warm in that inexplicable way the American south has under all circumstances. He straightens up and faces Deacon, appraising him for a lazy heartbeat before extending one hand.

"Remy LeBeau."

(The cards are a weapon, and a symbol that's personal; Remy isn't the sort of man to pay any particular reverence to gods or saints, but he's observant about his surroundings.)

[fuckin_thirsty]

Handshake is lazy but unhesitating, easy strength, his skin as cool as any human's might be on a stiffly autumn evening, taking with him the room temperature always. His kind of vampire sports death paleness and bright eyes, and when he speaks, over-sized canines are just apparent without hindering vowels and consonants.

There's also no need to tag his name onto that. 'Frost' was fine.

"So what are you meant to be?"

He rocks back a step because-- frankly-- height tends to demand a little distance, but also because it's night time and standing still doesn't always come easily, even if restlessness is made manifest in loose limbed pacing. "If not just a sympathiser."

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

In contrast to the strange aura he puts off, Remy doesn't feel and warmer than you might expect him to be. So that's weird, maybe, but given context, maybe not.

(Aw, Deacon. You'll appear as tall as you feel.)

"I'm someone who's fought a lot of wars over species and genetics," he says. "And I know what happens when militant bigots start in on just one faction. I've seen my people in camps 'cause they ain't human. I don't take kindly to this sort of business."

This sort of business. What a name for it.

[fuckin_thirsty]

"I told Ivan," he assumes all these people fucking know each other, "that what went down in Mafaton sounded like the result of the usual dick measuring that goes on in vampire world. Cleaning house of the ones too young and stupid to know better to create a little space. I've seen it before, with the older ones; it's like this constant fucking need to self-destruct."

Deacon finds a place to lean, the back of pew-like seating, hands braced against unpolished wood. "But that was just me assuming the only ones who know how to properly fuck with vampires are vampires. I'm guessing humans get a little more wily by the time they're several more pegs down the food chain.

"They hate that."

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

"I know what you told Ivan." Let Deacon think he's got plenty of people in his pocket - Ilde reports well enough for the both of them. Remy stays standing for now, casual.

"It wasn't other vampires - your young ones weren't the only ones to die. You were used."

Someone strangled the undead population until they were on a precipice, and then shoved them over, wielding exploitation like a knife. Better and more horrifying than a bomb, more personal and violating than a virus. Real people taken over and turned into mindless weapons.

"The anti-xenian propaganda's been a setup. They're bigots, sure as hell. But this weren't no aim of theirs. They pulled that to distract from somethin' else."

Worse than in-fighting and more insulting than hatred. Pawns.

[fuckin_thirsty]

"Well, us bloodsuckers have our exploitable qualities."

Like the food source, for instance. Frost's tone is flatter than it was before and his tone sharper, agitation at what Remy is saying, if it is indeed to be believed, becoming visible and audible in tension. His tongue drags against fangs as he considers the other man, slate-blue stare somewhat chilly but hungrily interested as well.

He wouldn't be here if he wasn't. "Alright. So what's the big picture?"

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

The only reason Remy doesn't look actively angry all the damn time is because he's so jaded. This shit is so endlessly typical, and over all the years of registration acts, extermination attempts, slavery, camps - it's almost enough to make a guy see Magneto's point of view. (And he would, if it was somebody besides Magneto preaching.)

So, it's an understandable reaction.

Now he does sit, leaning back against one of the rows of seats, facing Deacon but keeping distance between them. It's a conspiracy, sure, but there's no need to get cuddly over it.

"If whatever this thing is - movement, organization, cult - pulls shit like this? Whatever their real goal is can't be anything good. An' bet your ass it ain't gonna be anything folks besides baseline humans are gonna like. This ain't their first stunt, either. The spores, and the creatures before it? Same group. Candlelighters."

[fuckin_thirsty]

Helpfully, Deacon's face does not go blank in incomprehension. He understands that name and he understands where they fit into the discussion.

You're not supposed to smoke in church but there's no one around to tell them off. Whoever keeps the lamps lit and the miscreants out is in some other corner of the temple, evidently, and it's been a long time since Deacon has been asked to put out a cigarette - besides, they didn't start doing that until the 80s. His teeth catch on filter end, going about it lazily. The unlit item moves at each syllable, talked around.

"They chose an interesting demographic to piss off this round." And he doesn't even mean that in a way that suggests it was particularly unwise: vampires are about as easy to organise as cats. He'll leave it at 'interesting'. "What do you have on them?"

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

"Documents from some of their old hideouts, abandoned in a hurry, links 'em to the other events, an' suggests they've got a real invested interest in the fog - either they want out, or they want to bring in something very specific."

And thus probably very bad.

He gestures when he talks, a habit. "If they're tryin' to get out, their means are somethin' terrible, to keep 'em from asking non-humans for help - cutting off that big of a margin of potential ideas an' manpower is stupid, unless it's got a specific motive. If they're tryin' to bring somethin' in, it's probably somethin' that'll eat the rest of us.

Either that, or there's somethin' we don't know about the fog." Shrug.

... And if Deacon is having a cigarette, then he is to. Deal.

"I aim to figure out what, exactly, they're up to, and stop it. But it's not my academic interest in their goin-ons. This group needs to be be broken."

[fuckin_thirsty]

"If they're willing to fuck over xenians as a distraction, I don't think they're ready to ask us for cups of sugar, no, neighbours or not."

Smoke rises like the incense people sometimes light, then, only much more acrid, and just as dry. When Deacon flashes a smile, it is forced; barely just shows teeth and fades quickly, because-- "You're the man with the information; I'm just the one proper pissed off," and he mimics Remy's accent around those last few words. His sense of humour increasingly brittle.

But you know, as with Remy, you can only stay actively angry for so long. Sometimes it needs to be conserved for the right moments.

"Breaking things is not wildly outside of my skillset."

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

"I'd hoped it wouldn't be."

Vampires. Always good for some old fashioned hostility. It's the sense of humor that goes with it that Remy appreciates; Dracula can go fuck himself, the headless bastard, but he's always had a fondness for the locals.

"How do you feel about scaring the shit out of some potential Candlelighter muscle?"

[fuckin_thirsty]

He breathes draconic curls of smoke into the air in lazy, slow consideration. On the surface, it sounds like a petty waste of time, but it doesn't take long for Deacon to unpack the potential behind the offer. The corners of his mouth hint enough at a smile that it could even be an actual facts smile. It's just hard to tell, sometimes, with Frost.

"Positively."

He flicks off ash, glimmering embers that die before they hit the ground. Wryly, he adds; "I'll even do it for free, how's that sound."

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

The potential is the point. It's why Remy laughs a bit at the offer to work for free.

"Sounds like you get the idea, homme."

Remy isn't here to try and get anyone under his thumb, or to try and use Deacon as free labor. This is an opportunity to send a message and to dig deeper - he's only one man, but start kicking over rocks and trading whispers in the dark? Things start moving.

He pulls a folded up piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and hands it to the other man. It's a list of small-time gangs all over the city.

"Now, there's no proof anybody on that list was doin' more than a job they got paid for, no questions asked, as is their wont."

A shrug. "But they been known to move product for 'em. Who knows who's watchin', no?"

[fuckin_thirsty]

Deacon takes the page across the backs of the pews, promptly opening the page to scan it for the sake of context as Remy explains. It gets slid into the inner of his jacket not so long after.

"I can make them look," he assures, pushing his weight off pew back, then, and strolling on out for open space, leaving smoke hanging in the air, its slow disintegration.

"You just worry about what you're doing."

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

He grins, not entirely kind.

"I'll let you know if I hear anything. Don't be afraid to holler if somethin' comes up."

Remy'll head out in a minute - maybe from the front door. Maybe not. Maybe make a phone call first. He sharpens the glowing cherry of his cigarette against the wooden edge of the bench he's leaning against.

"Enjoy yourself, mon ami."

[fuckin_thirsty]

That does bring about a laugh, rough and dry though it might be. It's sort of an answer - Deacon probably will enjoy himself. There's no reassurance either way that Deacon will contact Remy, that Remy will contact him - they either will think it relevant to do so, or they will not.

He leaves the temple, respectful enough to at least drop and grind out his cigarettes on the second step down instead of the first, and vanishes into the evening.