2020.10.26 Dark Reflections
Scene
Lizzie is seated at the bar, nursing a cheap beer and keeping to herself. The gang in the bar seems to be leaving her be. For now, at the very least.
In through the front door, comes Floyd. The gang present look at him with quiet tension as the man stands there in the entrance as if waiting for someone to pull something. "We gonna throw down or what?" He asks, as people gravitate away from the man. "Good." He passes by the bar and tosses a fifty onto the bar. "Yo! Barkeep! Round of drinks on me, n' kick the music up." Floyd rubs his hands together. "Let's get this party -started-."
"You like looking for trouble?" Lizzie asks, looking over at Floyd with a bit of a smirk. "I'm good," the woman claims, waving off the barkeep when he looks in her direction and asks if she would like a second beer. "I'm Lizzie, by the way," she adds, extending a hand towards Floyd.
Floyd turns and looks at Lizzie, arching a brow. "Me? I've been known to kick down the proverbial door from time to time." He approaches Lizzie and leans on the barcounter next to her, taking her hand and giving it a companionable squeeze. "...Floyd. Nice to meetcha." He says, letting the hand go. "So! What's a hot girl like you doing in a place like this with no collective of admirers, paramours or bodyguards? Or are you the trouble I am looking for?" He smirks.
Lizzie shakes the man's hand, grip firm and surprisingly strong. "Floyd, eh?" She says with a bit of a smirk as she takes her hand back and wraps it around her bottle of beer. "Second person I've met with that name. Didn't realize it was quite so common. As for trouble, I'm just sitting here drinking my beer and listening to people talk. What brings you here?"
Floyd shrugs. "My kinda place." He says leaning back from the bar and rap tap tapping fingers on the bar. "Decent watering hole. Pool tables. And the people here keep the riff raff out. It's like a win win." He says with a smile. When she says that he is the second person named Floyd his smirk gets more impish. "Really now? Well hopefully I turn out to be the better one! Or at least the /important/ one." He says looking at Lizzie as he waves a hand to the bartender. No drinking for him.
Lizzie snorts loudly, looking amused. "The other one seemed grumpier, to be honest. Seemed to think that I was aiming to get something out of him. You seem a bit more... Energetic," she adds, lifting up her beer and taking a small sip before setting it back down once again. "Wanna play a game of pool?"
Floyd laughs. "Who isn't?" Something else, however, that Lizzie says just seems to make Floyd giggle. "...never letting it go." He lets out a happy sigh. When Lizzie offers a game of pool Floyd looks over at it, then back to Lizzie. "What's the ante?"
"Didn't have anything in mind," Lizzie admits, sliding off the bar stool and continuing to hold onto her beer. "Any suggestions?"
Floyd shakes his head. "Nope! I'm good for a good ol' game of pool." He walks over and plucks a pool cue. "Cuz I totally suck at pool." He admits openly. "But I will happily lose to you. So you can break first." He puts some quarters in the table and grabs the depleting balls putting them into the triangle.
Lizzie helps with the setup and once the balls are removed from the triangle, she lines up her pool cue and smacks the white ball into the others. There is the distinctive sharp sound of the balls making contact with each other, then they roll about the table. Nothing goes into any of the pockets and with a shrug, Lizzie beckons for Floyd to have a go.
Floyd watches the break and hisses. "Fuuuuck. I -knew- I should have asked for five minutes in heaven if I won." He shakes his head. "Silly me. Oh well!" Floyd was not lying when he said he didn't know how to play pool. He's not a pool shark. He does have one edge though - the science of pool is what he grasps. It makes him appear, when he plays, as a casual try-hard. Good enough to make you question whether he was actually lying about not knowing how to play, noted by getting two striped balls in in a row...then slipping the only way a novice would, by blitzing past another ball and basically bouncing it back close to where it was in the beginning.
Lizzie can play, but it was never her favorite game. She sends a pair of solid colored balls into the pockets, then misses her third shot. "Don't know if I could give you five minutes of heaven. Hardly an angel," she says with a grin, stepping back and letting Floyd have his turn.
"That's cuz no one's an angel, but you can definately feel close enough to put a pin in it. It's what I say anyway." He says as he lines up a shot smirking. He sinks a stripe in a very epic shot that would make him look like a pro were it not for the cue ball practically prancing it's way to a hole where he scratches the shot. "_feel_ like heaven, and that don't take angels."
Lizzie mmms, as she locates the cue ball and places it back on the table. Lining up an easy shot she sinks her target and moves on to the next likely target. "That is true. Don't need angels for that."
Floyd smirks. "Exactly." He says to Lizzie. "Sometimes you just gotta put the angel back in the box, let the devil have it's day. Or night. or whatever. Kick back and cut loose." He says as he leans on a pool stick.
Lizzie manages to sink yet another ball, but the cue ball rolls to a stop in an unfavorable position and she is unable to makes her next shot. "Cutting loose, eh? What does that entail for you?"
Floyd shrugs. "Depends on the company!" He looks at Lizzie with a smile. "Best days are with company. Otherwise it's just masturbation. But getting up to no good is always a good way to go. Shrug off the norms and the expectations. Do what you want, let the freak flag fly." He says. "Can't find out what makes you tick without wiggle room, and by wiggle room I mean nights upon nights of mischief and id-fueled mayhem." He follows Lizzie's missed shot with one more stripe in the hole. He then tries to be fancy for his last stripe, but hops the cue ball and it falls flat into a pocket.
"Freak flag fly, eh?" Lizzie replies, then laughs. "You have no idea what you're asking for," she claims, sinking the last of the solid coloured balls and making the eight ball disappear last. "And I think that means I win."
Floyd laughs. "I know exactly what I'm asking for." He teases, watching as Lizzie puts the ball in more holes. When the 8 ball goes in he stomps the pool stick on the ground. "See?? Good thing I didn't bet." He laughs. He tosses the pool stick on the table. "GG. GG." He says. "There ain't nothin' you can show me that I haven't seen already. But this! Calls for a drink." He flags down the bartender for a beer.
Lizzie drains off the remainder of the beer she has been nursing this whole time, setting aside the empty bottle. "That well travelled are you?" Liz says with a smirk, waving off the bartender when asked if she wants another drink.
Floyd smiles at Lizzie as he takes his beer bottle. "Let's just say, in my time, I've seen things you just can't unsee." He winks at Lizzie and takes a swig, lowering the bottle and licking his lips. "mmmmm. Fermented grass." He looks at Lizzie. "What about you? You seem entrenched that your skeletons will pop my weasel and make me regret it? Which. By the way. PERFECT season for that sort of thing." He says chuckling.
Lizzie laughs. "It is the season for that sort of thing. Almost time for all the ghoulies and ghosties to walk the street and extort sweets from the unwary. How fast you planning to drink that? Just asking, as I was thinking of heading out."
Floyd looks at Lizzie and then looks at his beer bottle. "This? You gotta better idea for the evening?" He says. "Cuz if you do I will totally toss this in the bin." He says, taking a swig and then promptly tossing it in the garbage bin. See? "See?" Tada.
Lizzie chuckles, then flashes her teeth in a wide grin. "Certain I can come up with something," she claims, before making her way out of the bar and out into the street.
Setting
Scene
Floyd sniffs. "Ooooh we'll see." He licks his lips. Apparently the anxiousness is getting to him. Excitement makes his fingers twitch in anticipation as Lizzie heads out the door, Floyd following shortly behind.
Once out side, Lizzie draws in a great lung full of filthy city air and releases it in a great huff. Grinning widely, she turns her head to watch as Floyd follows her out of the bar. "Ahh. There you are."
Floyd gestures to himself. "Hey! You suggest! I arrive." He says, tucking his hands into his pockets. "So!" He saddles up next to Lizzie and gives her a hip bump. "Where to?"
Lizzie wets her lips, grinning and returning the hip bump. "Well..." She says, trailing off and looking towards the nearby alleyway and then making her way towards it. "All depends on how exciting you want to start the evening?"
Floyd looks at the alleyway and then looks to Lizzie as she makes her suggestion of the alleyway. "My my..." He says with a smile. "Well let's see what you got then." He smiles, following Lizzie into the alleyway.
Lizzie's hips sway a bit suggestively as is trailed, disappearing into the alleyway.
Once in the alley, Lizzy turns, presses her back against the wall and just smiles. Arms held open in invite.
Floyd comes into the alley and looks at Lizzie present herself for Floyd's attention. He smiles. "Like to live dangerously. I like that." He says, approaching her and takes her hands into his and pinning them against the wall and locks his mouth to hers.
Lizzie aggressively returns the kiss, pressing her body against his. Things progress as they are wont too in these sorts of encounters. That tube top is pulled up, buttons are undone and clothing is loosened. Just when things are getting really exciting, they take a turn for the weird. Lizzy goes from kissing Floyd's neck to sprouting and pair of fangs and biting down. A sharp moment of pain for Floyd, followed by a violent reaction from Lizzy as she shoves him away with a great deal of force. She stumbles a few steps further into the alleyway, hand clasped over her mouth. Grabbing onto a dumpster for support, a dark liquid spills out of her mouth and past the covering hand. The alley fills with a bloody coppery scent as the woman gives up on trying to hold back and vomits messily onto the street, body convulsing with the force of her illness.
Things were going so well! It isn't often that you get to fondle a bare-breasted femme in an alley. But that's why the Shadow is the one who brings the fun. The Psyche, with it's lame ass self-righteousness, will never get to play. Then Lizzie had to go and get weird. "GAH" Floyd says, as the murky, coagulated, dessicated stuff that once used to be blood makes Lizzie's tummy decide to let it's freak flag fly on it's own. Floyd gets shoved back with deceptive strength, stumbling as slaps his neck and wipes a bit of black, sick-smelling gunk from his neck. He looks over at Lizzie and smiles. "THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!" He laughs. "See?! THIS is why you never get the ladies!" He laughs. He stands upright and crooks his neck as the smile widens. "Let's play, vampire."
You lose one Temp Angst
Lizzie doesn't respond at first as she continues to violently empty her insides of vitae. "What the fuuuuuuuuuck," she says shakily, then spits out the remnants of dark blood from her mouth and straightens up. Lizzy looks over at Floyd with an expression of fear an utter confusion.
Floyd's eyes glint from the night sky. He doesn't seem particularly caring for Lizzie's predicament. With all the blood on the ground a normal person would think that Lizzie just gutted herself. Floyd isn't normal. Obviously, so he strides over and takes Lizzie by the hair. "I ~toolllld~ you. I've been around the block." He says with a smile. "Let's just say...our mutual namesake isn't as mutual as you might think. Now pucker up, buttercup and I might fetch you a capri-sun bag all for yourself." As he kisses her again, all blood-and-...ugh...whatever the hell you call is in Floyd's veins, smearing across their faces.
Lizzie is clearly revulsed and attempts to pull away, finding herself surprised once again as the man holding onto her is stronger than she is. Panic starts to set in as vicious looking claws sprout from her fingertips and she takes a swipe at her assailant.
Floyd is having too much fun. His tongue snaking into her mouth in, what was once probably teasing? Now just feels weird. Aggressive and subjugative. He breaks the kiss in time to see the claws flash out of Lizzie's fingers. "OOooooooOooo SCARY." As the claws rake across Floyd's chest. It cuts through the jacket, the shirt, but when it touches flesh it might as well have been screeching across solid steel. Floyd not looking anymore the wiser, or weaker, from it. "HEY! I LIKED THESE CLOTHES." As he uses the opportunity to headbutt poor Lizzie in the head.
Lizzie hisses violently, fangs on full display after recovering from that headbutt. "Fuck you!" She screeches, attacking once again in a blur of speed and near panic. As before, she strikes out with her claws, arms moving in a maddened blur.
Floyd gets clawed! A lot. What clothes he had are now shredded. For the Kindred underneath the mask however, the tattered clothes makes him look far more familiar than running around in biker gear ever did. Yet when the claws strike solid skin, the emphasis of solid still holds true. Gliding across dead flesh as if she was simply running a finger across it rather than the dreaded claws of vampiric power. "Fine." Floyd sneers. "Wanna play that way huh?" Floyd says. "Fine. We can be naked!" He licks his lips as raw strenth rips the rest of Lizzie's tube top off and casts it aside.
"How the hell!? You're supposed to be a damn ghost," Lizzie whines, near starving and in a complete and utter panic now. In a last ditch effort she drops her Mask and gives Floyd a good look at that shark tooth may of hers, bulbous black tongue dancing about. Oddly enough she lacks any and all hair.
Floyd laughs. "/AM/ I?" He says. "I proclaim I'm a ghost...and I /touch/ you." He licks Lizzie's face, in time for Lizzie to shortly afterward drop her mask. What would scare away most, does not scare Floyd away. As a matter of fact, her ugliness simply seems to rile the ghost..er...not ghost, half-ghost, former-ghost? Whatever, with a rue sense of humor. "Now /there's/ the face you've been wanting to show....wanna suck face?" He teases, leaning down with his strength as if he was going to suck that black, grotesque tongue into his mouth when he suddenly stops.
"No!" Floyd says. To no one. "No! I'm so close! SHE'S NOT BETTER THAN US! I'M GONNA KILL HER! STOP!"
In a moment. The strength sags. Floyd's demeanor changes. Where he was more fluid, languid, subtle hostility is instead simple raw nerves and resolve. He looks around, looking at the freakish monster under him. "....You need food don't you?" He says, slowly backing away. He looks at his clothes. His clothes! He pulls at the shreds. "Are you fucking kidding me?! YOU CAN'T GO A DAY WITHOUT RUINING MY CLOTHES??" He groans.
Ed hisses in response and tries to scramble away, wanting to flee and disappear into the nearest shadow or sewer grate. Whatever she can find first.
"Hey!" Floyd says to the scrambling monster. "I'm trying to say I can -get- you food. AND I can get me some clothes, if you just STICK AROUND." He kicks the massive pool of blood in the alley as if sending some diving message, splattering black and red gunk blood on the nearby dumpster.
Ed's form becomes indistinct and she ends up looking rather ghostlike in the dark alleyway, as she gains her feet and makes a straight up run for it. Stick around? Oh hell no.
Lifesight and Deathsight are common to the dead. To the Risen, they still are. It is a testament to Ed's abilities that the hollow sense of Deathsight is minimal when she blends into the shadows. But there are multiple exits in an alley and only one of Floyd. For all the seedy nooks and crannies the alley offers it isn't like Floyd could force the monster to suddenly just stop, turn, and act as if nothing happened. The Doomslayer fights Oblivion as a past-time. It shouldn't surprise him that when the Shadow takes control...it likes to...indulge, in the traits such a profession entails. "Look!" He says, before the beast begins to bolt. "I'm not asking to be friends, shake hands and be besties! I'm asking for a truce. I help you, you help me. Olive branch." The hunched frame seems familiar, but Floyd can't put his finger on it. Must be the exposed chest region, cuz Floyd never sees anyone naked. Whole new world indeed. "I just need you." He says, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it forward. "To put on your sexy face, and put that on. The least I can do. Deal?"
Ed squints her oversized eyes in the dark, looking between Floyd and the tossed jacket. Slowly she straightens up and reapplies her Mask... Which gives the illusion of her clothing being undamaged and intact. "What the hell? What are you, some sort of fucking zombie?"
Floyd waves a hand. "Same could be said of you." He says, giving the monster-now Lizzie the once over. "Be right back. Look...well...put back on your come hither face." He says, and then slips out the alleyway.
You would think it wouldn't be hard to weasel someone into going into a dark alley way where a zombie and a Nosferatu were lip-locking and wrestling and giving each other their own unique perspective of flipping the bird? But apparently all one needs to say is 'hot girl. over there. looking for good time.' In a ripped up shirt for someone to be dumb enough to weasel on over to the alleyway, with Floyd playing 'Nothing To See Here Guy'.
"Shithead," Lizzie snaps at Floyd, but she isn't about to pass on an opportunity to feed. Not now. She stands at the mouth of the alley and smiles when one of the locals is pointed in her direction. Her victim is lured into the shadows and after a very brief 'warm up,' Lizzie has sunk her fangs into the man's neck and is feeding. They're both wrapped in shadow and unseen to most.
Floyd waits. Patiently. Like a statue, looming at the entrance of the alley as Ed...er...Lizzie, does her business. He slips back into the alley after a few minutes, waiting for Lizzie to finish. When she is, and the man is still in a daze, Floyd knocks him upside the head and knocks him out. "You're a peach too." He says, dragging the man near Lizzie's come-hither-den-of-doom and begins undressing the man's jacket and shirt. Apparently, Floyd knows his size. He's probably done this before. "As for the zombie part. Guess you can say that."
Lizzie watches at Floyd undresses the man, wincing a bit at the growing lump on the poor saps head. "How the hell are you walking around? I might be dead, but I was never a ghost. Also, what the hell? You have a fucking bipolar disorder, or something?"
Floyd is -ripped- when he doesn't have a shirt on. Testament to his profession perhaps. He looks up at Lizzie. "You have noooo idea." He says. "I've known Vampires have talked about it some...you ever feel like something is nudging you like in the back of your head? Well...when you die, and pass over...think that. Then give it a personality, a voice, and a real need to devastate everything around it emotionally, physically and mentally. And your sort of in the ballpark." He shrugs on the jacket. "What about you? Your not the ugliest thing I've seen by far...that a vampire thing? I thought all of you were supposed to have that unfathomable 'come hither' ness."
Lizzie snorts loudly, face twisting up in a sour expression. "It is a me thing. So, you staying this way, or do you turn back into a ghost, or what?"
Floyd stands up and adjusts the clothes. "Well don't worry. There's Nephwracks who make you a beauty queen." He says as he adjusts his jacket. "For now. I have work to do upstairs." He looks back to Lizzie. "Otherwise, no offense, but I wouldn't be here." He says to Lizzie. "So. There's only one medium I know of who knows me that I don't recognize because they wore a mask and refused to take it off. I take it that's you?" He makes a face gesture.
Lizzie sucks on her teeth for a moment, then nods. "Yea. That is me. I've gotten better at the fake face thing."
Floyd nods. "Well...nice to meet you." He finishes prepping himself and then props the unconscious man in the come-hither nook. "Obviously." He says, stepping away. "....Ed. Right?" He asks, giving Lizzie the once over. "How're you feeling?"
"Hungry," Lizzie admits, looking down at the man propped up in the corner. "And it's Lizzie with this face." She continues to stare at the man for a moment, then swallows hard. "I need to go."
Lizzie has a challenger in the 'poof' department. As she looks down at the unconscious man wearing torn clothes and jacket when she looks up Floyd is gone. Poof. Not even footsteps.
Lizzie looks down at the man, sighs and steps out of the alley while pulling out her phone and making a call.
