ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Live Stream

Vignette - Live Stream
Dramatis Personae Lucien
In Absentia	2013-05-13 Takes place concurrently with Noxfight. (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Somewhere in Brooklyn
It's an elegant sort of home, sleek and modern, one condo in a bank of condos in Park Slope. The décor is minimalist, monochrome, heavily favouring black and chrome in its low tables and leather seats. The walls have an abundance of mirrors, in strange shapes and strange mosaic patterns. Wherever he goes he is distracted by glimpses of movement in the walls, his own face fragmented and looking back at him. He can't decide if this is an overabundance of vanity or not enough. The fractured reflections are jarring. A glimpse of green eye here, a sliver of crisp black button-down there. Teeth flashing white in too small a fragment to tell if this is smiling or threatening. Some tiny animal part of his hindbrain interprets it as threat every time. It's a part that doesn't cease its pinging, steadier and louder when he turns away from the mirrors to the people they reflect. An elegant sort of people, sleek and modern. Minimalist. Monochrome. He fits right in in tailored black slacks, tailored black shirt slim-fit against his form. The few splashes of colour catch his eye as much as the mirrors do. Bright. Warning. A red dress here, a blue tie there. Bloodred nails on long slim fingers reaching for his hand. Bloodred lips leaning in to murmur into his ear. Hindbrain, though, is still brain. These small warning pings are kept clamped down firmly, locked away beneath a veneer of smile and polish. Of sleek-modern-elegance. These are not the sorts of people who sleep with knives under their pillows. As work goes it's enjoyable enough. He stands out on a balcony, sipping at a glass of single malt Scotch and watching the nighttime lights of the city below. Conversation and the sweet clove smoke scent of kreteks wash around him pleasantly. It's an easy banter even if the subject matters sometimes are not; it bounces from Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy to speculation on which state will be the next to legalize same-sex marriage to the war in Syria to the urban farming initiative his date is spearheading. Occasionally he volunteers a tidbit of information here (Minnesota's vote the next morning is likely to go the right way) or an opinion there (... the right way) and these are taken, absorbed, and when there's dispute its mild. Polite. Even their opinions are sleek and modern and elegant and while his opinions do not change from company to company the way he chooses to couch them and voice them (or not voice them) often does. In this company he takes less care to offend. They know his profession and do not care, past a brief flurry of discussion about the archaic puritanism of laws about the sex industry. They know his companion's gender and do not care, past a brief flurry of discussion about the archaic puritanism of gender mores. Eventually the cigarettes are spent. Eventually his Scotch is empty. Long slim fingers with bloodred nails slip into the crook of his arm and they head from cool dark night to cool bright kitchen to cool dim living room. Somewhere along the way his Scotch is refilled. The living room is louder, bright with laughter even if it's dim in lighting. The conversations in here are much the same. He does not offer his opinion on the state of affairs in Israel; he does offer it on Vermont's assisted suicide bill. He sits on the couch, helping tap out a neat line of white powder with a credit card against a mirror (they're everywhere, it's inescapable) on the glass-and-chrome coffee table. He declines the offer to partake, content for now with his Scotch, with the buzz of conversation, with the small light thrill of echoed-high every time his companion's fingers trace absently against his knuckles, his arm, his neck. There is cheering, abruptly, and only then does he bother to glance to the television. A fight is on. He tunes those out, in general; he keeps up just enough to never be at a loss when conversations about sportsball come up, and no further. The television today is hooked up to a laptop (sleek and modern and elegant) and, at second glance, the ring does not look like a wrestling ring at all. He eyes the cage with a brief furrowed-brow of puzzlement. This isn't a show he recognizes. He tunes it out again shortly. At least until he starts focusing on the conversation surrounding it. The hoots, the gasps. The commentary. Oh my god, have you seen what some of these things can do? Is that lava it's going to burn her alive . Alive, is it even alive? It looks straight out of a horror movie. Her? Is that a woman, it looks like some kind of shadow puppet. It's this last that draws his gaze back, green eyes riveting there sharply. He has just one question, after a moment of quiet observance: Is this live? At the affirmative answer, he settles in to watch. No longer riveted, a lazy half-lidded sort of watching as he sips at his Scotch, slowly. Around him the hooting-gasping-commentary continues. There's a hand that finds his, lips that find his neck. That little hindbrain alarm is hammering, strong. The pleasant buzzy echoed high from his companion's touch cuts off sharply, senses curling inwards, walls slamming hard into place to leave his mind clearer. His expression looks foggy, though, distracted-lost with the press of lips to neck. His soft hum sounds pleased. It is good Scotch. Someone is addressing him, here, by name, and though this registers straightaway it is a longer pause (buzzed? Distracted? Engaged in the fight?) before he shifts his gaze towards them, eyes opening just a touch wider than their previous half-lidded state. They're talking of the fight, commenting on how much more gripping it is live, wondering how they contain these monsters. There's the briefest moment of delay before his lips curl into a smile. "It would be gripping, wouldn't it?" He glances back to the television, the hint of smile lingering, a crisp polished veneer of white over the dark knot of black hatred tied up beneath. Sleek. Monochrome. "They fight like wild things. Wild things are hard to cage for long." He knocks back the Scotch in one swift gulp, eyes dropping away as shadows resolve back into woman, as batons come down, as she is pulled away. There is a new pair of combatants coming up. He pays their stage-names little attention, leaning forward instead to cut a new line against the mirror. This one is for himself.