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[a_brutal_king]

WHO: King Bradley a_brutal_king and Jinx badluckykitty
WHAT: Bradley decides to have Jinx over for a game of poker, some tea, and pleasant conversation.
WHERE: Bradley's home.
WHEN: August 6, Evening.

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[hexyoutotuesday]

Looking at her hand, Jinx frowned. Once again, it was a pair of goddamn twos. Sighing, she decided to put down both twos and see what she would get out of the deck. And to her dismay, it was the other set of twos. That would have been four of a kind if she kept the first two, but she knew that it may have been different if she discarded anything else. No, she was not trying in the least to alter anything about this game. It just happened without her even trying. That was part of the ability she thought of as more of a curse. Since they weren't betting anything, not just yet, she would not try to bluff anything. This was just the luck of the game and a bit more.

Sighing, she put down her cards for him to see, and without even waiting to see his hand, she removed her scarf. "I'm bad luck," she told him bluntly, "good was never an option for me." She picked up the cards, shuffled, dealt them out and fanned out her cards to see a royal flush. "I grew up in a compound of one of the smaller families. I never knew anything about the real world. Vescovo killed my family and I was the only one who got away. I had never seen outside of the compound before, and I attached myself to the first person I met, and that person found out I was meant to be a weapon. He used me as such. It was an easy life and it kept him happy. And then when he found a better weapon, he threw me away." She laid down her royal flush. "Things changed when I got a conscience, though."

[a_brutal_king]

"A conscience? To my knowledge, those don't just sprout up," he mused, looking over his cards before putting them down, "A royal flush to match, dear. Do we both lose something, or lose nothing?"

The damned friendly smiled was still on his face. Most people who faked smiling never showed it where it counted. In the eyes. He had been doing this long enough to even show mirth in his one visible eye.

"What fun this is!"

[hexyoutotuesday]

"Well, maybe you need to research a little more about consciences. Because guilt and I never knew each other before this." Seeing what he put down, she quirked her eyebrow, then grinned. Standing from her seat, she noticed she had already removed her shoes and the door and taken off her jacket when he made that odd request. So shrugging, she pulled her shirt up over her head, brandishing her bruises and healing cuts from her recent endeavor, also showing off the older scars that littered her body from experimentation.

Tossing her shirt to the side, she sat back down. There was a knife sitting happily in her bra, between her breasts. Just for fun, she removed it and threw it at him, to see how quickly he would react. Right after she threw it, she reached for her tea and vodka. "Quite amusing."

[a_brutal_king]

He cocked an eyebrow at the litany of injuries that criss-crossed her body, opting not to make a larger deal of it than needed. They looked long healed, the majority of them.

"Well then," he said, taking a sip of his tea, "How did this epiphany come about?"

He continued to sip, deftly catching the knife between two fingers and redirecting it into a piece of funnel cake on the kitchen counter.

"Ah, that reminds me, I need to fetch the cake soon."

[hexyoutotuesday]

"Epiphany?" she began, grinning, watching him carefully. When he caught her knife without a second move, her grin grew wider. She still have a few more knives, but that would wait for later. No more funnel cakes were going to be harmed through her fun and games. Waiting for him to deal, she leaned back in her chair and looked down at her nails.

"You have a fine team," she said, rocking back in the chair. "Jushirou Ukitake is a wonderful man. He has this strange ability to bring out the good in anyone, no matter how far gone they are. His friend also helped with that one." Smiling, she took a long drink of the tea and vodka. "You still haven't taken off anything else. And you have you to tell me about your wife."

[a_brutal_king]

"Indeed he is," he laughed, "He's very agreeable."

He froze at her mention of his wife, then started to reshuffle the cards.

"My wife I will not speak of. Do you understand me?" he said, telling her more than asking her.

[hexyoutotuesday]

Well, that got to him. "Understood," she said, trying to look a lot more innocent than she actually was. Inside she was grinning. There, right there in front of her, was his weak spot. There was something she could use against him, if the time ever came. Just the simple mention of his wife seemed to let him teeter on a very unstable edge. That was a good thing to keep in mind. But she felt as if she had learned enough for tonight. Also, she still had things she needed to do in and out of the chaos of the city and her own mind.

Finishing the rest of her tea and vodka, she stood. With catlike strides, she came around the table and picked her gun off the floor, putting it back together and stuffing it into the back of her shorts. Next, she strode over to the funnel cake and removed her knife from it, licking it just a bit more than seductively and placing it back between her breasts. "You are a fine man, Captain Bradley," she observed, trying not to pace the room too much before she picked her shirt up off the ground. "But you should learn to smile more."

[a_brutal_king]

And there it was, plastered back on his face, the mask once again fastened in.

"Whatever do you mean, dear? I always smile, ha ha!"

He walked her to the door and opened it for her, bowing to her.

"Thanks for the game, it's nice to learn a thing or two about the people I deal with," he said, "Will you be alright getting home?"

[hexyoutotuesday]

Jinx shrugged on her jacket and scarf, then walked to the door with him. Leaning against the doorway, she slipped her boots back on, zipping them up slowly, part of her still trying to get his attention. It made her feel almost nervous when men did not respond to her actions. "I've slept with a lot of men," she told him, her eyes drifting casually over her boots, "and I've killed all but three. I know a fake smile when I see one, and I know a mask when someone is wearing one. And to get into positions of great power, men must wear masks that slowly become their faces."

After securing her boots, she picked up her motorcycle helmet and balanced it against her hip with her arm. Jinx called herself dumb, because she was never good with mathematics or science like her brother. She always relied on raw power rather than tactics. But she had impeccable insight and knew the inner workings of men all too well. It was from cutting up so many of them up. This insight was also accelerated when she was tipsy, for alcohol calmed her moody state.

[a_brutal_king]

He said nothing to her remark at first. He simply leaned against his door-frame, watching her move away.

"...Mafia," he finally said, his voice slightly strained, "The Mafia killed her. It was years ago. Her and my son were in our house when a bomb destroyed it. Nothing was proven, but...I knew what it was."

[hexyoutotuesday]

When he said the word mafia, she looked up at him and saw a different man. Setting her helmet down on the ground, she listened to him and her look softened. Giving a weak smile, she came toward him and reached up, touching her fingertips to his cheek. "I lost my twin brother. It's like... half of you gets taken away and you can never get it back."

Caressing his cheek, feeling... better, she told him a soft, "Thank you." She was not the type of girl to say she was sorry, because no one was truly sorry unless they understood. Jushirou understood a lot about Jinx because they were both dying, and now she had the bond of loss with this man.

[a_brutal_king]

He simply grunted in acknowledgement and bowed to her, ready to leave it at that.

"Good night to you, Miss Jinx."

[hexyoutotuesday]

His grunt made her smile just a bit more, and his bow put him at the perfect height for him to lean over and peck him on the cheek with a gentle kiss. "Good evening to you, Captain Bradley." And with that, she picked up her motorcycle helmet and laughed a little, walking away from his door.

"Next time, we play for money, and you're calling friends."