ArchivedLogs:Darwin's Club

Darwin's Club
Dramatis Personae Eric, Parley
In Absentia	2013-03-23 A discussion of Darwin's philosophies
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Tucked down an alley, this out of the way coffeeshop is easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for. Unassuming from the outside, its inside makes up for it -- spacious, with abundant seating and plenty of plush couches and cosy armchairs along the room's edges. The coffee is good, the prices are cheap, and there is a definitive alternative vibe to the room, from the music they play to the art that hangs on the walls. The real draw to this place, though, stems from its client base -- one of the very few businesses in the city that is welcoming to mutants, Evolve has become widely popular as a hangout with that crowd, and it is quite common to see them among clientele and employees both. At night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits over the coffeehouse. It's a Saturday night and the cafe throbs so subtly with the 'unce unce unce unce' beat pulsing through the walls and ceiling from the night club upstairs. There's a fair mix of club kids in high platform gogo boots, partygoers and nighttime coffee enthusiasts all drifting through the cafe itself, but mostly only as a mid-point between other more pressing engagements above or outside, where they catch a smoke or a cab. Parley has composed himself into a seat near the entrance to the upstairs rooms, wearing a simple black t-shirt and a gray flannel, his spiky hair bound at the back of his head in a little nub ponytail, absorbed in observation of these exotic creatures as they come and go. With elbows on the the little two-seater table and ankles crossed beneath his chair, he supports a cup of coffee beneath his nose and at his elbow, a half-eaten cheesecake, which he slivers off thin bites to melt on his tongue. Eric does not much look the same as the last time that he and Parley met. In fact, he looks quite the opposite. Where previously there was formal dress clothing, it has been replaced by an almost sinfully tight pair of black jeans with a studded black leather belt and a red mesh shirt that is at least one size too small for him. A strapped leather jacket hangs loosely off of his shoulders, zipper at a slant and undone. The malaise of the last meeting is replaced with a warm, bright smile as he steps into Evolve's cafe, presumably on the way up to the club. He stops, however, at the cafe counter to get a cup of coffee and flirt with the waitstaff. Remaining of the same slightly rumpled poise for Eric's passing, Parley's eyes track him over the surface of his coffee cup. "Is that what you wear under your uniform, officer?" he asks, so lightly it drifts alongside Eric like a flicker of smoke. And then his eyes lower again to consider his coffee as though it weren't /him/ that had said it. Hmhmm. Eric glances around to find who had spoken, and a smile widens on his lips as he glances at Parley and winks. "Hardly. This'd chafe somethin' awful underneath my uniform. What I wear for work is a lot tighter than this, most days." he says, eyes twinkling. "The benefits of being a bike patrol officer." "You ride a motorcycle?" Parley's interest pulls up his brows, squinting with his head tipped back so slightly - and then he waves a vaguely summoning hand, "I'm sorry, I can't see very well at a distance, could you step nearer?" He scrutinizes Eric's physique from toe tips to eyes, where his gaze then fixes with a subtle sharp curiosity. "/Are/ tight clothes beneficial to your work?" His empathic pick up works very much like a Sarlaac pit; a large open throat that swallows up all information that falls out of those around him -- all the easier to read between the lines in what a person says and what they /mean/. From himself, there is no such respective boon. Just a mercurial smile. "Motorcycle? No, a /real/ bike officer." Eric says, picking up his coffee mug and stepping over towards Parley. He does not blush as the other man eyes him - but showing off is no problem either, as he stands and strikes a pose in front of the other man's eyes, his own twinkling mischievously. "After six hours of biking, if you did anything but tight clothes, your body would hate you very much." His smile grows wider as his eyes flick up and down the other man, a flicker of hunger showing in his expression. "I'd say they were more beneficial to my personal life outside of that, though." Eric takes the 'serve' part of 'Protect and Serve' quite literally, and is somewhat infamous for picking up people while working - for after work, so his bosses don't care. "Ah - Like a /bicycle/." Parley's not laughing /at/ Eric, he doesn't actually look like he was /meaning/ to laugh at all, his generally composed face jarred slightly into an apologetic knit, contradicted by a vague relaxing when he smiles. The sense of overt /hunger/ from Eric slips a warmth through his cheeks, and he allows it, dilating his channels to let the full weight of the other's intentions make themselves clear, "Are places like this," he twirls a finger to the ceiling above, "what you would consider your personal life?" He quietly presses his knees together under the table and pulls his feet up onto the outer edge of his chair, sitting slightly on a hip now. He pulls his plate nearer to him to begin slicing off a bite with the care of a scalpel edge. "A part of it, certainly." Eric says, glancing around the coffeeshop and taking a sip of his coffee. "Not all of it, to be sure, but a part." His eyes flick up and down the other man carefully, blatantly, and he tilts his head slightly to one side as he smiles. "Part of it is at home. Part of it is in clubs, part at the gym. Part of it is for hobbies, and another part is for other people's apartments." Here, the hunger shows again, at the same time as the playful wink. "And the surfaces thereof." "Are you a man that prefers to live on the surface of things, then?" Parley volleys back, his eyes bright and observing of both wink and tilt of head offered by Eric as though they merited a deeper study. His cheese cake spoon is held in his mouth to rid it of every smear of cream before releasing it. "You neglected mentioning 'friends'." It's not necessarily said with sympathy, or even a friendliness. But it's said with /curiosity/, leaning harder on the table's surface to readjust in his seat. Eric raises an eyebrow, taking a sip of his coffee. There is a frown inside him that does not at all show on the surface, smile still warm and in place. "I think you misunderstand what I meant." he says, with no small amount of amusement. "I would be happy to show you, but I think this is not the right place for it." A brief pause, before he answers, "Friends are part of all of it, of course. They don't need their own category." "Perhaps you should speak more clearly," Parley suggests right back, a challenge for disclosure that somehow slips sideways into a different deflection - this time with a few teeth shown behind his smile barbed in self-awareness. "What is your name, officer?" "I meant that I was pressin' someone into a counter as we had sex. Or they, me." Eric says, bluntly, watching Parley for a reaction. "Sutton." The policeman extends his hand towards Parley, smile on his lips. "Eric Sutton. And you are?" he asks, eyebrow raising on his head as his accent briefly shifts, making the sentence sound like an odd amalgum of a New York and Georgian accents. Intending to parry, Parley fumbles when the dialogue aims /low/ and it costs him his fork, which had been in the inopportune transit from mouth to plate. A tine snags on the dish rim and falls from his fingers. The quiet 'clang' is resounding, "Oh." He wets upper lip with tongue, and then plucks his utensil back up /smartly/. "I'm called Parley. You have an interesting accent, Mr. Sutton. Would you like to sit down?" Eric's eyes sparkle as the other man drops his fork. "Oh. Yes, they do usually say that." he says, voice a purr. "Are you invitin' me to sit with you?" he drawls, even as he sits down in the seat next to the other man. "It's good to meet you again, Parley. You seem... quite a bit more composed." He settles back against the chair and leans back, looking over the other man. "I would quite like to see you less composed," he says, voice a low and flirtatious purr. "Ah- that's..." Parley looks /half/-inclined to protest, recalls at a point that he'd /told/ the man to be more clear, and finds himself instead with hand wrapped around his fork as though to weaponize it, "You met me at a very unusual time, Mr. Sutton. I assure you, those moments will be /rare/." With his brows slightly pulled together, it would be a hint of aggression in his face that isn't mitigated by a very hard smile that arms his features. "And would require a great deal of work to find." "'Tis a pity," Eric says, leaning back in his chair with a wink and a sip of his coffee. "I've always found that the people who have the least amount of time to be... unsettled are the ones who tend to need it the most. I know when I'm coming off of a particularly stressful shift, nothing is better than..." he trails off, yes half-closing, as whatever perverse things Eric is imagining - or remembering - flicker through his attention. "Mm. Well." He takes another sip of coffee and places the cup down next to him. "Please. It's Eric. If I'm in uniform, you can call me 'Officer', but..." he waves his hand, as if dismissing a servant. "Eric." "Are you saying if I wanted your /guard/ down, I would have to just sleep with you?" Parley holds his fork now between /either/ hand, tines neatly suspended in left, the tip of the other handle from the right. "I think you're lying." Eric laughs at this, giving Parley a bright, amused look. "Again, I think you have missed what I am saying, Parley," he says, dragging out the other man's name just a hint longer than the word requires. "It is not your guard I would hope to take down, but rather your tension. And your clothing." "You're bold," Parley says this with a hand pressing over one eye, as though shielding the side from a point of over-bright light. "I'm a police officer. It takes a certain kind of boldness to put on the uniform every day," Eric says, comfortably, shifting on the chair. A chuckle is in his voice as he continues, "Not that I am saying most police officers are like me. The way I see it, there's no point in hiding what we want from people, or playing silly games. If people want the same thing, they should get it. If not, there's plenty of other people out there who will, and no sense in dancing around the bush because you're bashful." "An incredibly Darwinian philosophy," Parley drums his fingers on the table once, sliding his gaze over Eric once more, and more slowly, "That the world and its opportunities belong to the fearless." Something inward hums as a quiet machine, moving along one point, to the next, to another... Then, abruptly, "Give me your jacket." Eric gives the other man a brief look of confusion, glancing around for a moment. "My jacket?" Even as he asks the question, though, he shrugs his jacket off of his shoulders and passes it over to the other man. It is a somewhat heavy little thing, made heavier by the lighter and cigarettes in one pocket, the wallet and cell phone in another, and the tin badge in a third. Jacket claimed, Parley slips considerably narrower arms through the sleeves. And, as though Eric weren't there, he begins to rummage through the pockets, withdrawing the lighter, turning it over, and then the wallet. Which he proceeds to flip open in search of cash. Eric blinks for a moment, reaching out a hand to grab the wallet out of the other man's hands. He looks bemusedly at Parley, raising an eyebrow. "It's generally not considered polite to rob someone, nevertheless right in front of their face." "I thought we'd foregone 'polite'," Parley counters, and though divested of the wallet, he has other pockets to explore, extracting cellphone next. "I asked. You gave it to me. I should get what I want." "Ah. I see. I was, perhaps, unclear." Eric says, and this causes him to frown slightly at the ground as he repeats the conversation as best he can in his mind. "Don't confuse boldness and want with force. I said, if people want the /same/ thing, not if one person wants it. It must be mutually wanted, not just tolerated, or even not." Parley sighs, as though suddenly bored, and neatly tucks Eric's phone back into the pocket it had come from. And holds out a hand to take /back/ the wallet, a very frank challenge in his expression for it, "I don't know that I would be able to satisfy you, Mr. Sutton. I'm not terribly... experienced in the ways I think you would appreciate." His eyes are very hard, and very flat. "And the ways that I am, I do not think you would like." Hesitating only for a moment, Eric hands back his wallet. There is, to be sure, not too much cash in it anyway. His eyes meet Parley's, but where the other man's are hard, his own are warm and soft, and though there is a considering look on his face, there is a smile too. "Perhaps. Don't underestimate me." He shrugs his shoulders, then rolls them. "Well. I am going to dance, I think, but perhaps if you change your mind, you can come find me. I have bedded plenty of inexperienced people. That is not a concern." He stands up and holds out a hand for the jacket. There's a deep pulse that touches Eric's mind; it's a very delicate flush of /warmth/ that stirs with a subtle hunger of its own; the sense of an opening, an invitation to be filled up and flowed /through/. From far within, it suggests. << (don't underestimate /me/.) >> Parley picks up his coffee and speaks into its contents, "If I'm still here once you've danced, perhaps you could find /me/." Eric's eyes darken slightly, and he gives the other man another look over and a renewed hunger bolts through him. "I must admit, you have captured my attention away from dancing quite effectively," he says, giving the stairs upwards to the club a brief glance before he looks down into the other man's face. His hand drops, and his tongue darts out to briefly wet his bottom lip - an almost incongruously nervous gesture for the man that looks out of place. "There are times when I wonder how intensely I count as a person," Parley murmurs down to his plate, as though the conversation were on matters no more thrilling than the cafe's menu. "I'm a channel, Mr. Sutton. What I receive, I re-express - in intimacy..." He makes a slow, thoughtful shrug, watching Eric's single nervous gesture -- and seeming, for the one moment it shows, far more interested. "I wonder -- how much do you like yourself?" A chuckle, and Eric's smile widens slightly. "Quite a lot, I would think, though I am not sure I like myself quite enough to be a sex partner to myself, if that is what you are referring to. I quite enjoy another presence besides my own. An active presence, not a merely passive one." Parley considers his (woe) empty plate for a moment. And then, placing two fingers against its rim, he pushes it back, "Alright." He dabs off his mouth with a napkin and then stands, placing him in front of Eric in a presence that mostly shifts and evaporates - though, to be looking at him directly, there is a core nugget that remains, hard and steely and reserved. Which makes it sort of... uncertain when he reaches out to place a hand against Eric's chest. And then compressing his fingers there, exploring the surface area under which his pulse could be felt. "--I have no intention of being passive." His voice is steady. His arm - has a slight tremor, until he tightens the muscles in it to control it. Eric's chest is visible underneath the mesh shirt. His chest is broad and muscular and unyielding as Eric looks curiously down at the other man, considering. One of his hands rests gently against Parley's shoulder, squeezing it gently. "I'm glad to hear it," he says, leaning in and down to press a kiss to the other man's forehead. The hand on Parley's shoulder rises to lift his chin up, and Eric captures Parley's lips with his own in a reserved kiss that belies the flare of hunger that rises rapidly in him. The touch on his shoulder earns no recoil, Parley's eyes sliding on side to observe the contact with a curious indifference --. The set distance flickers and fades when his /forehead/ is kissed, earning a brief confusion that lessens whatever harder reservation he might have been preparing. Eric might feel, so subtly at this limited distance, with this contact, the sense of... expanding. The wide, territorial sense of filling wide and expanding ones own personal space, corresponding with something softening and fragmenting in Parley's own instinctive signal. He is only a warm mouth, the raising of a hand to touch the side of Eric's jaw, an edge of shoulder. Each place confirmed in tactile is very real. All else is slowly painting itself in colors of /Eric/. It's enough to flush color into Parley's ears. He pushes up onto his toes to press back. One of Eric's hands swoops down to pull Parley slightly closer to him, trailing gently along the other man's back. A note of confusion and, perhaps, wonder flits through his mind as he feels himself growing, expanding, and feels Parley take on some of his own essence. At the moment, it is quite a lustful thing. Eric breaks the kiss, eyes darkened, looking down at Parley. "Would you care to come back to my place? It is not far. A quick cab ride away... unless yours is closer." Waiting is not his idea of fun. Parley looks down, clearly not /entirely/ sure how he got here, but with a passing compression of his mouth seems intent on just winging it, snorts, "I'm not taking you to /my/ home." THAT line of boundary stated overtly, he allows a loosening of a few others, somewhat abruptly, recklessly letting his body relax into Eric's hands. It's another sense as well, this easing - allowing his presence to crumble further, as he stops /holding/ it together. "Yours it is." He still /has/ an underlying jittery-anxiety, felt along the skin of his back, but deeply flowing, Eric's own... /sentiment/, if not voice, can be heard in his tone. He digs in his toes to give a little push of his own. Eric is cognizant of the other man's anxiety, and he pulls him a little bit closer, as if to protect him from whatever is causing him this fear. It is an instinctive reaction, of course, that likely does absolutely nothing to actually decrease Parley's anxiousness - and, in fact, may cause the opposite. He gently pulls on the other man, heading out of the coffee shop. It is easy, at this time of night, to flag down a cab. He climbs into the back seat, intentionally entering the cab first and letting go of Parley to do so. Just in case the other man doesn't want to follow. If anything, Parley seems frustrated /by/ every small slip of anxiety he shows, and makes an annoyed sound when Eric responds to it. He knuckles through it, quietly, jaw tight. One foot in front of the other, he requires very little coaxing as he measures his movements to match his unlikely partner's. He does pause at the entrance of the cab, but only long enough to send a text back home, to let someone know he's not coming straight home. Then he tucks his phone in a back pocket, considers the stars above with an oddly formed half-smile, and then joins Eric in the back seat. Eric smiles broadly as he gives his address to the driver - an address in Hells Kitchen. It is not a great area, but to be fair, you'd have to be a pretty fucking huge idiot to mug Eric - or so high as to not be able to see straight. As soon as they are off, Eric leans in to kiss Parley again. The cabbie, too, gets involved - by driving faster, before he has to wash the seats.