(Untitled)
Who: Greed | OPEN
What: Greed get his hole of a bar open. It's not much and the selection is small, but any and all are welcome.
Where: The Devil's Nest | South Side of Town
When: Late Afternoon/Evening | June 11th
Rating: R for now - probably language,.
( Read more... )
What: Greed get his hole of a bar open. It's not much and the selection is small, but any and all are welcome.
Where: The Devil's Nest | South Side of Town
When: Late Afternoon/Evening | June 11th
Rating: R for now - probably language,.
( Read more... )
While the two of them chatted, Greed sprawled lazily. He tipped the cue stick forward, balancing it on the pointed toe of his boot. Whistled a tune and then when he got tired of that, he just plain watched them. It was interesting, really. The hushed tones, the glances he got from Naomi. And Javert was a smoker, look at that. The homunculus was entranced, even with the airs of someone who seemed bored. He was far from it in reality - the gears in his head spun behind apathetic eyes and he tilted his head, admiring the lights. It was dim in the bar and the darkness from outside just made it that more shadowy. The faint light caught dust and smoke, swirling it to the top.
"Anytime now, old man," he called from his perch, but there was no malice there. All smiles, all joy, all the time. Greed pulled himself from the pool table and took hold of his whiskey. Shot a gulp back that was far too over indulgent, but swallowed it nonetheless. It was rich and it stung all the way down to an empty stomach. He brushed his wrist against his lips and chin, removing any that may have slipped from his lips during his eagerness. Sat the glass down on the edge of the table once it was done and went down into a crouch.
He was watching other patrons now, but his eyes always wandered back to the couple. A night of fun had turned a bit dangerous. But he wasn't a creature of limitations - those were for things that hadn't lived a century or two, hadn't met death too many times to count. Greed loved his life rich in more ways than one. It was why he had upped the ante in the first place. Because really, he hadn't imagined that Javert would have taken him up on his proposal. He had a million in one things in mind, but nothing forced. He wanted there to be that desire there too, otherwise it would be no fun.
The homunculus bolted back up to his feet, albeit a little less graceful than previously. He grunted, rubbed at his neck. "Seriously - you're going to leave me hanging? Backing out of our game?" And then Javert was back. Greed thrust his shoulders, spread his arms at the elbows. "I wouldn't imagine hurting a lady - it's not my style. You reserve your right, just as I reserve mine."
He watched with the eyes of a vulture as Javert made his first shot. And was it a good shot! Greed howled, whistled and whooped. "You know, I should have seen that coming! Impressive, really." Cue in hand, he spun it once, twice, then jerked it still. Fanned the end over the side of his stomach, right above the hip. He leaned down, coiled tight like the viper Javert had so aptly named him.
Greed tipped his shades down and lined the end of the stick between thick knuckles. The ball was knocked with a pleasurable crack, sending one of his balls into a corner pocket solidly.
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"A fair shot," Javert observed with a twitch of his brow. He strode - meandered, even - around the length of the table once. He had a peculiar way of moving and playing where he would circle constantly, either on foot or visually with a broad sweep of the eye, as if he were examining the cue balls from every angle, considering each possibility carefully. Upon his turn, he abruptly bent over at a spot at random and knocked his shot with a sharp clack.
Thus the game began.
Javert settled into the flow of the game quickly. A puff of tobacco here, a sip of his spicy whiskey concoction there, and a lightning-quick tap of his cue ball to finish; that was the pattern he fell to. Despite the deliberation, the game was rather a disappointment at first. At a glance, to all observers present, it became far too apparent that Greed must have been the more experienced player. The old man did not successfully sink a ball at every turn, nor did he seem to accomplish much in the way of hindering his opponent's shots. Yet not once did he lose his cool, and never did he lose his perfectly calm, impassive and abrupt manner.
He could be overheard muttering phrases to himself throughout the course of the game. It was a rather disconcerting habit, to watch a man engage in an argument with himself beneath his breath. Phrases like, "Ah! There my luck is turned," or "Now I've got him!" or "It's all falling in!" hissed without a care, without pausing to consider how much like a mad old duck he sounded. Especially since he would mutter these things in stark contradiction to what was happening on the table, then fall into a contemplative silence for another turn and a half.
Occasionally he also took it upon himself to commentate and scold Greed's play choices. "Oh! Don't do that. Nothing good will come of it," he would caution with a light turn of the brow and a gentle click of the tongue. It was sure to be beyond infuriating and very irritating. But what did Greed have to worry about, if he was dealing with a loony? He was close to winning this idiot's run, wasn't he?
At last they were down to the final stretch. All that remained were one striped ball, Greed’s last obstacle, and three solid balls for Javert. The eight-ball hung awkwardly apart from the rest, floating off at some impossible angle that Greed would surely have difficulty nailing if he stuck to the rules and sunk his striper first. Javert’s cigarette was long gone, barely smoldering in the tray, but with the start of this home stretch, he procured a second and struck another light. His face, with steely eyes shining mysteriously, was an impassive, unreadable mask. He took a seat against an unused table’s lip, his cue laid across his knees.
“This is your last turn,” Javert said resolutely and blandly. It was so ridiculous, so comical how he declared it like a King issuing a royal decree, that it felt out of place. He observed Greed like a hungry predator. “Make it count.”
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The finale was unfolding and Greed took a moment to shoot back the last drops of his whiskey. He set down the glass with a loud thwack and puffed out his shoulders. He had been diverted by Javert the entire night. Part of him knew it, part of him just didn't give a damn. So what? The human was a clever old fool, but one that Greed could obviously appreciate. His hunger was just as bad as Greed's own. Two kindred spirits doing the tango on the fine line of pride and sheer competition.
Greed lined up his cue stick, felt his fingers numb under the wood. He raised a brow up high, creasing his forehead. "Oi, oi, oi," he muttered to himself. He kicked one leg out behind him, stretching it as far as it would reach. His elbows propped back, fanning out like fins. And his head bent down low, causing a vertical rise in his spine. One eye remained open behind his dark shades, while the other screwed tight under a black brow.
He struck his target, but it was off balance. Slid against the white ball, plowing it straight into the side wall. Greed huffed: "Well, that wasn't what I was going for." The cue ball rolled and tumbled, sliding across green. And then it sunk into a hole with a thud. "Ehhh?" The homunculus bent down, mouth open. "Did that really just happen? Jeez!" His body went careening back on his heels. Spine straightened, hands open to his sides. He shook his head in disbelief and groaned deep within his belly. "So damn close, too."
It was a scratch, a miss, and the perfect opportunity for Javert to snag his chance.
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That was that. Greed missed his final chance. It was exactly what Javert was counting on.
His step was measured, slow and even. He plucked the cue ball out of the pocket and considered the table carefully. He juggled it steadily, up and catch, up and catch, while he pondered and prowled, a guttural and upbeat click humming along from the hollows of his throat. His eyes darted around the table, to his first ball, second, third, and finally the eight. Which placement would he choose? He brandished the white cue ball with a flourish, a flick of his wrist presenting it high in the air.
The table was a tricky one. The remaining stripes balls formed something of a parallelogram, one ball at each side pocket, one in each of the opposite corners. Javert had the opportunity to select any easy shot. He could have placed the cue at the corner and sunk his 5 ball. He could have selected a space near one of the side pockets and sunk his 6 or 7. A novice would have placed the cue near one of these balls with a straight shot into a pocket.
Instead, Javert selected an empty void near the bottom center. The cue hit the table with a dull thunk. He lifted his hand away with a flick of the wrist.
The tall, dark, and mysterious man took his position, aiming toward the 5 ball in the left side pocket. He folded almost completely in half, his eye as close to the cue shaft as he could manage. He lined up his shot.
With a final suck of his cigarette, he struck and sprung back to watch the show.
Clink! in went ball 5. The cue sped past, ricocheted off the side--Clink! ball 6. Ricochet, bounce, Clink! 7. And then it crawled, slowly, inching, losing steam, tapping ball 8 as gently as a spring breeze. It rolled and struggled painstakingly toward the goal, hardly a breath was drawn. It hung at the edge of the decisive tumble into the abyss, teetering dramatically between end game and a second chance for Greed.
"Well?" prompted Javert irreverently under his breath, waving his cigarette-hand through the air as if prompting the ball to keep going and leaving a stream of sputtering smoke in its wake. He was lurking back at his place at the neighboring table, eyes tracing each of the ricochets violently across the table. Smoke streamed from his wide nostrils. "Continue!"
Clink! dropped the eight ball.
Sunk.
Game, set, match. It was over. Greed's last turn, after all.
Javert, who had intentionally made sure he drank slowly that night, triumphantly tossed up the last of his whiskey and stared at Greed over the glass rim.
"Didn't I warn you?" he mused calmly.
Had this strange and wolfish man ever had a doubt of the outcome? Who could say?
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But that would be dealt with in time. Greed wasn't of the fire and brimstone cut like his siblings. He kept a deal if he made it and he knew he had stuck his neck out there. He just wasn't exactly prepared for Javert to bring the guillotine down so swiftly. Cut, slice, done.
The homunculus rounded the table and pushed his cue stick back onto the wall. He adjusted his sunglasses right onto his face and looped his fingers in the back of his leather pants. He bent at a crouch, wandering up to Javert with that same old sneer. One would think a losing man wouldn't be so keen, wouldn't have such energy in his step. But Greed, as he so liked to point out, was neither good nor bad. He existed for his own fancies and his own pleasures.
"You did warn me, you did. You won, fair and square," the creature's voice purred out and his throat rumbled with a pleased sound. "I should have listen to you - I swear, old men will be the death of me." At least this time, his company had merely beaten him in a gentlemen's game. No swords in the throat or a burning hot pillar of molten lava for him. Just orders, which he could deal with.
Sorta.
He clapped Javert lightly on the back as he moved to the man's side. "Name your terms. I'm an honest man - no lying, no cheating as I said before. And you won. I'll give you props for being clever, but you've got talent. No wonder she likes you." Greed looked over his shoulder at Naomi and gave her the showiest of smiles. His teeth slid together - they were a set that belonged to his particular breed of creature, though he would argue he was better looking than the rest.
"I'm impressed! Truly, impressed! You know the two of you can come back any time. And I imagine you will." Greed tilted his head close to Javert and spoke in his ear. "Now, since I'm a good sport - why don't you tell me everything you have planned. I don't work for anyone, you know. I'm no dog, but I'll give you what you want - what you won." Jerking away, he rounded the table again and picked up his empty glass.
"Your husband's a fine player - but I bet you knew that already," he stated as he tipped his glass to Naomi. "Well played." But he wasn't mad. Not an air of anger or resentment there.
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Naomi might have been just the slightest bit annoyed with that tiny piece of whole equation, no matter how flattered it made her that Greed wanted her in the first place.
So, by the time that Javert had claimed his victory and the men's attention had returned to the wife that had been left behind at the unattended bar, it may (or may not) be a surprise to see she was no longer alone.
Surrounded by a group of six different men, a few claiming the prized stools beside her and the others leaning up casually against the counter, Naomi seemed to be enthralling the strangers with some tale or another as they all watched her with matched enthusiasm.
As Javert and Greed approached the tipsy woman and the gaggle of men who were all eagerly listening to her speak, the pair just may be lucky enough to hear the very tail end of her story. "...And so there I was, standing alone in the men's locker room just as the football team was returning from practice, and my dress had somehow completely disappeared." The men around her burst into roaring, good-natured laughter. "Oh, I was so mortified, I swore off all home games for the rest of the season."
But whatever she was going to say next slipped away as Greed called out to her, more or less confirming that her husband had indeed come out as the victor this time.
"You won?" Her eyes lit up attractively as Naomi turned around to face Javert, a wide grin stretching across her pretty, but flushed face. One doesn't need to take in the various empty glasses around her to tell that Naomi has obviously had just a bit too much to drink tonight. But when six men are all tossing money onto the bar greedily to get the chance to buy the beautiful woman a drink, how could she possibly say no?
And in a forward and very unsubtle move, Naomi slipped out of her stool to approach the pair, tumbling lightly right into Javert's broad chest. She really doesn't even notice that she stumbled on those heels of hers, to be perfectly honest. The room was just a little unsteady. "Does that mean that I get to win tonight too?"
As if right on cue, the men surrounding them hooted in delight, one particularly drunken fellow reaching forward to slap Javert straight in the back.
[ooc- SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY, a surprise twelve hour shift really did me in.]
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"Everything isn't something you need to know," said Javert swiftly while he examined his wife at arm's length. She sagged like a sack of bricks against his meager support. "Don't let's go so far to call you an honest man. Straightforward does not imply honest. I shall see if you are as good as your word."
He slid his large, sturdy hand to the back of Naomi's neck and kept her steady and upright. He more closely resembled the jailer collaring and herding his prisoner than a husband caring for an imbibed wife, but he performed it more naturally than even his strange strategy during the billiards game. Aside from the marked disapproval in his deep grimace, he took her behavior as well as Greed's to be business as usual. This fierce individual did not allow himself to succumb to his domestic face in a hive full of drunken scum, professional to the last.
With his wife leashed and steadied, he raised his intense eyes to Greed - the very same sharp eyes that escorted countless men to the guillotine, both figuratively and literally.
"You will give me information."
It was said as simply and curtly as that, sotto voce, quietly enough for the observers to struggle with listening, but firm and sly enough for Greed to get the message. He was the Commander of a spy network issuing his orders to a lowly sentry. He wrapped his free arm across his chest.
"Weekly reports on the out-of-the-ordinary. Or when I call on you. You are not an idiot; you will learn what interests me. You put out your eyes and ears, and I will hear your crows. You are my little raven in this wretched nest."
Greed was bound to notice that Javert had not given him a single hint as to what he would possibly use this information for. He had no intention of telling him, either. It was a risk, and Javert knew it. There was the probability that Greed would refuse him; that the game would have been a waste, and the agreement a sham. Yet still he gambled onward. A sharp, cold twitch appeared at his thin lips, and he firmed his grip at the hollow of Naomi's back.
"--You will find me an equitable overseer. Provided you stay useful."
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Greed liked them.
"Out of the ordinary? What, do you want a ten page essay on that, Chief?" The homunculus rounded the two of them, making sure to put some room between the pair and the gathering men. He shot his own glance, a smile so devilish that Lucifer'd probably get a little jealous. But he knew what he wanted - his things need not be played with by the average lot. "Oi, oi. Why don't you guys order another round or head on home, eh? The adults are having a conversation here." He raised his hand, protruded his fingers out, and waggled them in a gesture to get lost. "I don't like people who hang around without paying their dues."
He turned his attention back to Javert and Naomi and hung just inches from them. He cackled, throwing his hands right up into the air. "Raven? Hardly. I'm not exactly a squawker, Javert." Greed leaned in, hissing through closed teeth. "But I'll give you what you want, but you gotta make it worth it. I won't pull out of a deal, after all I am no liar, no matter what you think. What do you plan to do with all of this I'm giving to you, hmn? Plan to come back here and burn the place down? Because that just won't fly." A hint of venom, but Greed's smile was still a thin crack on his face. He pulled his lips back, feigning a snarl. "This is mine and I'm really adamant about keeping what is mine. Remember? I'm Greed the Avaricious." He pulled away, knocked on his heels as he did his own little twirl around the couple, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his leather pants.
"But I'll shoot and I'll play to your tune. You want it all too, don't you? You're one of those guys," Greed halted, stopped jerk-still. Opened his mouth and ran his tongue across his upper row of teeth. "I can live with that. But be careful - you mind succumb to that passion one day. And that, my uptight friend, will lead to your eventual fall." He turned, jerking his head right over his shoulder. He felt the fur touching his face and he breathed it in. Smelled like stale cigarettes with a hint of something exotically spicy.
"Ah, Naomi - Miss Naomi. It looks like you've had a bit too much fun." His hand hovered over her shoulder and the fingers just touched. But he backed off, moving like a cat to Javert.
"We have a deal, but I'll make this very clear." He pushed himself up, got up right in Javert's face. Touched foreheads with the other man and let his teeth out. "If you take what's mine, then it's off."
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The mystery and the shadows were Javert's safeguard; he was a man that operated by the light of the moon as well as he could improvise in daylight. In this case, he had the distinct impression he was making a bargain with the Devil himself, and he intended to combat shadows with shadows. If he kept his reasons and his aims close to the breast, then it would be one less thing for this Greedy monster to anticipate.
"Now!" Javert exhaled, the last plume of smoke slipping through his pursed lips. He bent around Greed and crushed the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray he left on the table lip. He grasped Naomi by the back of her blouse and took several long, lazy steps backwards. He pulled her gently toward the bar with him, right where she had left his lonely, forgotten hat on the counter. "Madame Naomi is spent. I don't wish to spend my morning holding her hair for her. She may keep her stomach contents, rather."
Javert scooped up his hat and fitted it back on his head. He glanced away from Greed just long enough to cast another once-over on his wife, then he unceremoniously hoisted Naomi over his shoulder. A slight smoothing of his coat here, a readjustment of his tilted brim there, and he shouldered his way through the swiftly-draining bar toward the exit.
Along the way he rubbed arms with Greed, his prize catch, the viper subordinate to the wolf. He paused only once in the middle of the doorframe, turning fully around to sweep his steely eyes around the bar. It was the look of a new foreman familiarizing himself with his factory. He fixed a falcon eye on Greed and gave him a sly, slow, almost mocking tip of his hat.
It can be perceived with that look that Javert had taken notes that night. He would not soon forget any of the details he memorized at Greed's establishment.
"You will see more of me shortly. Your health, Greed. Watch for my signal."
With that, the unique couple dissolved into the night, Naomi's fading giggles tinkling like out-of-tune bells behind them.
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