HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYTTON
Characters: Mainly Khadir (Kunzite,) Zaide (Zoicite,) Jensen (Jadeite,) Nicholas (Nephrite,) and Mina, with some mentions of everyone else.
Prompt: "vodka"
Pairing: V/K
For: lovelylytton
A/N: Bumping hers up due to birthday-privileges ;D
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUN
The bar was alive with churning bodies, flowing booze and pumping music. Smoke drifted around the ceiling, gleamed from the golden glow of cigarettes and cigars pin-pointing the relative dark. There was no room to think, no quiet to talk; hardly any air to breathe, so far as Khadir was concerned. After much conniving and no little amount of intimidation, the four of them had managed to procure a table near the back corner, directly beside the stage where the house band was set up. Nicholas had seemed eager to be as near the speakers as humanly possible--Khadir had to admit some surprise that the man had yet to simply press his ear to the three-foot black boxes thumping at the corners of the stage.
There was, however, some relief to be found in sitting at the very back of their booth, behind the speaker. The sound was dampened here, thanks to simple acoustics, and though Khadir could still feel every pump of nauseating bass like a gush of blood through his body, his head had not yet begun to ring. Regardless, he knew that he would feel this in the morning.
Nicholas and Jensen each downed another frothy mug of the bio-hazard they called "booze," slammed the mugs upon the table simultaneously and laughed. Zaide called out a number which Khadir couldn't hear, but judging by the amiable glares the other two threw at one another, judged that their drinking contest was still on equals. He rolled his eyes and reached blindly for his glass of water.
The stench of the liquid brought to his nose gave him pause, and he glared down at the glass for a moment. There was something wrong with...
Zaide's fingers wrapped around the glass, then, and put it back down on the table. With a sarcastic smile, the blond pushed a different glass toward Khadir and mouthed the words, "That's mine." Khadir shook his head, took the right glass and sipped it only after a careful sniff of the contents.
Lounging back against the seat, he looked out into the crowd as the music changed from one indistinguishable dance number to the next; people changing the same tired chorus lines, stuttering the vocals and adding crazed, pointless beats underneath. He would give anything for silence, or, at the very least, a simple guitar and un-decorated singer. There were days in which he felt that he'd been completely misplaced by being born in the modern area, and today was no exception.
His subconscious poked him to remind him that he could have refused their invitation, even if it had meant that he'd be teased and put down for the next week as a "party pooper." Sitting in a corner glowering wasn't helping that reputation at all.
It was then, as he was trying to find some vestige of silver lining for this sorry state of affairs, that the crowd parted like the red sea and bore him witness to the table across the floor from theirs.
All six of them were Asian, though he couldn't place their origins on sight, but that was where their similarities ended. Two of the women were as a-typical of the type that they were almost unremarkable--one was possessed of long, dark hair and stern features, the other meek of posture and dress. One of the women had a peculiar hair style, buns and pigtails, and was wrapped around the arm of the sole man with their group. Another woman, with soft brown hair and muscles chisled into her bare arms, was a definite beauty with her broad grin.
But it was the woman who sat at the outside of the rounded booth who caught his eye.
It was rare, at least to him, to see an asian woman whose bleached hair was neither brittle nor orange; her blonde locks looked perfectly natural upon her, as if they'd been gifted by Allah himself. Her clothes were neither modest nor whoreish, a safe combination of respectful and sexy that sparkled like diamonds in the limited light. She laughed at something one of her friends had said, and it was as if the sun had risen in the middle of the bar.
Then her face stilled, surprised, and she followed a tiny gesture from her stern-faced friend to look across the room...
Their eyes met.
In another instant the sea crashed together again, and she was obscured from his sight by a flood of heaving bodies. Khadir became aware of a hand being waved across his eyes and he turned to see Zaide's bemused smile a handful of inches from his face. "Houston to Khadir; do you read?"
"Better than you do."
Jensen laughed at that, his breath spewing a pungent assault from across the table. Khadir wrinkled his nose as Zaide settled back into the seat. "What the hell were you staring at?"
"Just..." He glanced back out at the dance floor; the tide thinned enough that he could see the eastern goddess had disappeared. With a frown, Khadir shook his head. "Let me out," he nudged Nicholas, "I gotta take a piss."
No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than did diamonds appear at the edge of their table. The woman's eyebrows rose as his eyes slowly made their way up her body--in his own defense, he was simply surprised by her appearance. Even in his thoughts that sounded terrible.
Khadir gulped when his eyes met slanted pools of blue, and resisted the urge to hit Nicholas for the wolf whistle in his ear. "Um," he stated.
"Don't let me stop you," the woman chuckled softly and for a moment he thought that the noise of the bar had made him imagine the british accent. But, no... he was fairly certain it was there. Were it not for the existance of this goddess, he might have further damned his friends' choice of establishment.
She lifted the glass that he only just noticed in her hand--why did she have two? "I thought you might like a refill, on me."
The glass was handed over to him with a dazzling smile. He took it without hesitation, ignoring the grins on the two drunks' faces, as well as whatever Zaide was trying to sign him across the table. From the corner of the eye, the blond looked like a frantic mime. Instead he stuttered out a thanks to the woman and took a sip.
It was like fire in his mouth; it burned his mouth and nostrils and he gagged on it, spilling a good portion of the pungent liquid down his front. As he coughed, Nathanial's hand banged upon his back. The lummox shook his head even as he "helped," and sighed at the startled woman, "Look'it 'im. Wastin' all this good vodka like tha'..."
"I'm sorry was..." The woman began when Zaide leaned over to rescue the drink from Khadir's hand before he spilt any more of it.
"The sprite and vodka was mine, dear," he grinned, "And Khadir, here, is a pick-and-choose Muslim."
"OH! I..." Her apologetic gasp melted into a confused frown and Khadir wiped the pained tears from his eyes. "... does that mean you don't drink."
He cleared his throat a few times and tried to smile bashfully at her; it felt more like a grimace, "Alcohol, no. I... wasn't paying attention. But I am grateful for the, uh, thought... um..."
"Aino. Mina Aino." She held out a hand, leaning half over Nicholas to shake Khadir's. Nicholas stared blatantly down her top, but she didn't seem to care.
"Khadir," Zaide snickered a second later and fixed his boyfriend with an amused look, "Didn't you have to go to the bathroom?"
"Oh, uh..." He had probably been holding onto Mina's hand too long, he realized and let it go immediately. Leveling his best glare at Nicholas, he shoved the man's shoulder. "Up."
"Aye aye," the drunken cowboy slurred and wobbled to his feet to let Khadir up. Without pausing to say anything more embarassing than he already had, Khadir made a beeline toward the restrooms at the other end of the bar. Behind him, he just barely made out the sound of Zaide's voice over the music.
"Why don't you join us, Miss Aino?"
~
"They ask thee concerning wine and gambling, say: "In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit...""(2:219)
A/N take 2: This really got away from me. XD Not sure where it's going but ... well. Hope you like it, regardless. Motherfucker, I have a new Verse on my hands. >.>
Prompt: "vodka"
Pairing: V/K
For: lovelylytton
A/N: Bumping hers up due to birthday-privileges ;D
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUN
The bar was alive with churning bodies, flowing booze and pumping music. Smoke drifted around the ceiling, gleamed from the golden glow of cigarettes and cigars pin-pointing the relative dark. There was no room to think, no quiet to talk; hardly any air to breathe, so far as Khadir was concerned. After much conniving and no little amount of intimidation, the four of them had managed to procure a table near the back corner, directly beside the stage where the house band was set up. Nicholas had seemed eager to be as near the speakers as humanly possible--Khadir had to admit some surprise that the man had yet to simply press his ear to the three-foot black boxes thumping at the corners of the stage.
There was, however, some relief to be found in sitting at the very back of their booth, behind the speaker. The sound was dampened here, thanks to simple acoustics, and though Khadir could still feel every pump of nauseating bass like a gush of blood through his body, his head had not yet begun to ring. Regardless, he knew that he would feel this in the morning.
Nicholas and Jensen each downed another frothy mug of the bio-hazard they called "booze," slammed the mugs upon the table simultaneously and laughed. Zaide called out a number which Khadir couldn't hear, but judging by the amiable glares the other two threw at one another, judged that their drinking contest was still on equals. He rolled his eyes and reached blindly for his glass of water.
The stench of the liquid brought to his nose gave him pause, and he glared down at the glass for a moment. There was something wrong with...
Zaide's fingers wrapped around the glass, then, and put it back down on the table. With a sarcastic smile, the blond pushed a different glass toward Khadir and mouthed the words, "That's mine." Khadir shook his head, took the right glass and sipped it only after a careful sniff of the contents.
Lounging back against the seat, he looked out into the crowd as the music changed from one indistinguishable dance number to the next; people changing the same tired chorus lines, stuttering the vocals and adding crazed, pointless beats underneath. He would give anything for silence, or, at the very least, a simple guitar and un-decorated singer. There were days in which he felt that he'd been completely misplaced by being born in the modern area, and today was no exception.
His subconscious poked him to remind him that he could have refused their invitation, even if it had meant that he'd be teased and put down for the next week as a "party pooper." Sitting in a corner glowering wasn't helping that reputation at all.
It was then, as he was trying to find some vestige of silver lining for this sorry state of affairs, that the crowd parted like the red sea and bore him witness to the table across the floor from theirs.
All six of them were Asian, though he couldn't place their origins on sight, but that was where their similarities ended. Two of the women were as a-typical of the type that they were almost unremarkable--one was possessed of long, dark hair and stern features, the other meek of posture and dress. One of the women had a peculiar hair style, buns and pigtails, and was wrapped around the arm of the sole man with their group. Another woman, with soft brown hair and muscles chisled into her bare arms, was a definite beauty with her broad grin.
But it was the woman who sat at the outside of the rounded booth who caught his eye.
It was rare, at least to him, to see an asian woman whose bleached hair was neither brittle nor orange; her blonde locks looked perfectly natural upon her, as if they'd been gifted by Allah himself. Her clothes were neither modest nor whoreish, a safe combination of respectful and sexy that sparkled like diamonds in the limited light. She laughed at something one of her friends had said, and it was as if the sun had risen in the middle of the bar.
Then her face stilled, surprised, and she followed a tiny gesture from her stern-faced friend to look across the room...
Their eyes met.
In another instant the sea crashed together again, and she was obscured from his sight by a flood of heaving bodies. Khadir became aware of a hand being waved across his eyes and he turned to see Zaide's bemused smile a handful of inches from his face. "Houston to Khadir; do you read?"
"Better than you do."
Jensen laughed at that, his breath spewing a pungent assault from across the table. Khadir wrinkled his nose as Zaide settled back into the seat. "What the hell were you staring at?"
"Just..." He glanced back out at the dance floor; the tide thinned enough that he could see the eastern goddess had disappeared. With a frown, Khadir shook his head. "Let me out," he nudged Nicholas, "I gotta take a piss."
No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than did diamonds appear at the edge of their table. The woman's eyebrows rose as his eyes slowly made their way up her body--in his own defense, he was simply surprised by her appearance. Even in his thoughts that sounded terrible.
Khadir gulped when his eyes met slanted pools of blue, and resisted the urge to hit Nicholas for the wolf whistle in his ear. "Um," he stated.
"Don't let me stop you," the woman chuckled softly and for a moment he thought that the noise of the bar had made him imagine the british accent. But, no... he was fairly certain it was there. Were it not for the existance of this goddess, he might have further damned his friends' choice of establishment.
She lifted the glass that he only just noticed in her hand--why did she have two? "I thought you might like a refill, on me."
The glass was handed over to him with a dazzling smile. He took it without hesitation, ignoring the grins on the two drunks' faces, as well as whatever Zaide was trying to sign him across the table. From the corner of the eye, the blond looked like a frantic mime. Instead he stuttered out a thanks to the woman and took a sip.
It was like fire in his mouth; it burned his mouth and nostrils and he gagged on it, spilling a good portion of the pungent liquid down his front. As he coughed, Nathanial's hand banged upon his back. The lummox shook his head even as he "helped," and sighed at the startled woman, "Look'it 'im. Wastin' all this good vodka like tha'..."
"I'm sorry was..." The woman began when Zaide leaned over to rescue the drink from Khadir's hand before he spilt any more of it.
"The sprite and vodka was mine, dear," he grinned, "And Khadir, here, is a pick-and-choose Muslim."
"OH! I..." Her apologetic gasp melted into a confused frown and Khadir wiped the pained tears from his eyes. "... does that mean you don't drink."
He cleared his throat a few times and tried to smile bashfully at her; it felt more like a grimace, "Alcohol, no. I... wasn't paying attention. But I am grateful for the, uh, thought... um..."
"Aino. Mina Aino." She held out a hand, leaning half over Nicholas to shake Khadir's. Nicholas stared blatantly down her top, but she didn't seem to care.
"Khadir," Zaide snickered a second later and fixed his boyfriend with an amused look, "Didn't you have to go to the bathroom?"
"Oh, uh..." He had probably been holding onto Mina's hand too long, he realized and let it go immediately. Leveling his best glare at Nicholas, he shoved the man's shoulder. "Up."
"Aye aye," the drunken cowboy slurred and wobbled to his feet to let Khadir up. Without pausing to say anything more embarassing than he already had, Khadir made a beeline toward the restrooms at the other end of the bar. Behind him, he just barely made out the sound of Zaide's voice over the music.
"Why don't you join us, Miss Aino?"
~
"They ask thee concerning wine and gambling, say: "In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit...""(2:219)
A/N take 2: This really got away from me. XD Not sure where it's going but ... well. Hope you like it, regardless. Motherfucker, I have a new Verse on my hands. >.>