Wild Roses fic prompt 005 "Outsides"
Title: Second and Occidental
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Hazel, Lin
Prompt: 005 "Outsides"
Word Count: 429
Rating: G
Notes: I had Ella Fitzgerald scatting with Duke Ellington on repeat while I was writing this. No idea how much it shows. :)
The singer was Very Blonde, the sort that only comes with arcane potions and kind lighting, cropped thumb-length-long to highlight her eyes. Fashionable pin-set curls only played up the fact that she was wide and curvy, instead of the boyishly-slim look currently displayed by most of her listeners.
It didn't seem to bother her, wrapped in crushed velvet and hip-slung beads that chimed as she swayed and half-danced to the beat, keeping close to her voice pickup. She and the man behind the keyboard were laughing at each other through the music, her lifetime-of-cigarettes voice following his jitterbugging fingers as easily as he underwrote her impromptu nursery-rhyme lyrics.
Most of the patrons of the smoky-cornered jazz bar were keeping time in one fashion or another, and the occupants of the elbow-high table nearest the stage were no different. They were both draped half over their tall chairs, fingers tapping the scarred surface of the table in time to the rhythm of the band.
Both were tall, and suited, outer coats draped behind them to add to the padding of the faded chairs, and the sort of pretty usually accompanied by girls dressing in men's clothes cut to fit them. The brunette of the pair had even gone so far as to slick back short-trimmed hair, styled to survive wearing a hat, while the strawberry blonde wore her hair in a flippy pageboy, just long enough to brush the back of her starched collar. She was by far the more active of the pair, tapping her fingertips on table, her knees and their half-empty glasses alike. Her companion more sedately kept time with a thumb, until the song ended and everyone applauded.
They looked up as a drinker from the tables closest to the bar came over, reeking faintly of second-shelf scotch but still walking straight.
"Might I buy you two ladies a drink?" he asked, attempting to leer genially but only succeeding in looking hopeful.
They looked at each other, then the brunette replied "Most kind of you to offer," in a baritone.
Everyone within hearing range did a double take as the pair's would-be suitor slowly flushed magnificently crimson.
The strawberry blonde started giggling, eventually flapping her hands at both blushing standing man and her blank-faced-yet-still-radiating-smugness companion, too breathless to say anything.
" . . a bottle of the top-shelf bourbon," said their erstwhile admirer, still pink about the ears, "for the very polite gentleman."
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Hazel, Lin
Prompt: 005 "Outsides"
Word Count: 429
Rating: G
Notes: I had Ella Fitzgerald scatting with Duke Ellington on repeat while I was writing this. No idea how much it shows. :)
The singer was Very Blonde, the sort that only comes with arcane potions and kind lighting, cropped thumb-length-long to highlight her eyes. Fashionable pin-set curls only played up the fact that she was wide and curvy, instead of the boyishly-slim look currently displayed by most of her listeners.
It didn't seem to bother her, wrapped in crushed velvet and hip-slung beads that chimed as she swayed and half-danced to the beat, keeping close to her voice pickup. She and the man behind the keyboard were laughing at each other through the music, her lifetime-of-cigarettes voice following his jitterbugging fingers as easily as he underwrote her impromptu nursery-rhyme lyrics.
Most of the patrons of the smoky-cornered jazz bar were keeping time in one fashion or another, and the occupants of the elbow-high table nearest the stage were no different. They were both draped half over their tall chairs, fingers tapping the scarred surface of the table in time to the rhythm of the band.
Both were tall, and suited, outer coats draped behind them to add to the padding of the faded chairs, and the sort of pretty usually accompanied by girls dressing in men's clothes cut to fit them. The brunette of the pair had even gone so far as to slick back short-trimmed hair, styled to survive wearing a hat, while the strawberry blonde wore her hair in a flippy pageboy, just long enough to brush the back of her starched collar. She was by far the more active of the pair, tapping her fingertips on table, her knees and their half-empty glasses alike. Her companion more sedately kept time with a thumb, until the song ended and everyone applauded.
They looked up as a drinker from the tables closest to the bar came over, reeking faintly of second-shelf scotch but still walking straight.
"Might I buy you two ladies a drink?" he asked, attempting to leer genially but only succeeding in looking hopeful.
They looked at each other, then the brunette replied "Most kind of you to offer," in a baritone.
Everyone within hearing range did a double take as the pair's would-be suitor slowly flushed magnificently crimson.
The strawberry blonde started giggling, eventually flapping her hands at both blushing standing man and her blank-faced-yet-still-radiating-smugness companion, too breathless to say anything.
" . . a bottle of the top-shelf bourbon," said their erstwhile admirer, still pink about the ears, "for the very polite gentleman."