they say in heaven

Her laugh is freer, nothing quite so manufactured as those of the upper crust if such a thing existed within the Walls (though she knows it does, she’s on her knees before one of them), and as warm as the sun when the pen switches hands.

Now, she’s never been ambidextrous, but necessity has dictated that she be able to use both hands as well as possible.  The next heart, right where he dictated, is clean and clear.  It does require her to press her forehead to his stomach instead of her chin, needing her eyes on his skin to keep the little drawing recognizable.  To the wrong eyes on the right camera, the scene would look remarkably inappropriate.

“Like that?” Cass smiles.  The pen taps against her bottom lip.  She can’t quite keep herself from nudging it against the tip of her tongue, either - It’s one of those foolishly fancy metal types, cool to the touch but starting to warm the longer she holds it.  

Apollo doesn’t actually look very closely at the new heart—likely can’t, with his focus compromised as it is—before he nods approvingly. “Yeah, that’s perfect.” He thinks again of all the people he’ll piss off if he can’t get this ink off by the time he has his next shoot, and the mental picture he conjures makes him giddy. (He leaned into his role as resident problem child years and years ago, has since reveled in every opportunity to push the boundaries of what he was allowed to do.)

Her chin props itself just over his waistband as she looks up at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling.  “Oh, no,” she teases, voice ever so light.

It’s the champagne, the real champagne, with alcohol that isn’t more alcohol than drink, that keeps her knees on the floor and the pen in her hand.  More than that, it’s the champagne that has her keeping the pen to his skin, slowly starting to trace a heart onto his skin.  

“It’ll come off, I’m sure.”  Cass fills in the heart, adding the outline of another to its company.  “But it would be terrible if it didn’t.  I would feel horrible.”  One glass, and she’s already being a fool.  “Probably.”

Apollo laughs, but has the presence of mind to try to keep... relatively still. It wouldn’t do to ruin her masterpiece, after all. If it doesn’t come off, he doesn’t really care. He’ll get a lecture from the coordinator, maybe the photographer, but they’ll find a way to work around it. Makeup, or lighting and camera angles. For all that his behaviors are often frowned upon, he’s still allowed more leeway than they seem to like to admit.

“Probably,” he echoes, his smirk widening to a grin.

“Mmhm.”

She sets the flute down, then, committed to the train of thought and the fun that comes with it as she turns away from him.  Her back stays turned just long enough for her to pluck a pen - a marker, maybe?  They all look the same - from a stylishly utilitarian container.  It’s three-four-five steps to Apollo where he leans against the door, and a sly smile.

The way Cass sinks to her knees would be, in any other situation…  Well.

But, tugging his shirt up and baring the soft, City-smooth skin of his stomach, she can for the moment only see a perfect canvas.  Yeah, she thinks.  This will work.

It’s there that she writes the coordinates, and blows softly across the ink to dry it that much faster.  It wouldn’t do to stain his shirt.

“Oh.” The sound Apollo makes sits right between amused and surprised. He’s curious, and entertained, and he doesn’t make any effort to move, uncrossing his ankles or otherwise. He’s not assuming anything (something something assumptions something something ass out of you and me) so he doesn’t point out that she has tits and not the equipment he’s into. And, okay, even if it did start to go the way of what he’s... definitely trying not to assume, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like this with a woman.

But when she lifts his shirt and brings the pen tip to his bare skin, understanding sinks in. He smirks down at her, more impish amusement, even as the muscles in his stomach ripple in response to the rush of breath across drying ink.

“Mmm, I might.”  The threat of a ticking clock has her heart beating a little faster, anticipation for a potential sprint down the stairs with stolen heels left behind - She can run, but not in those.  Maybe she’ll keep them, when all is said and done.  Certainly there’s someone out there who’d enjoy playing around…

Briefly, the flat of her tongue flicks up the flute’s side.  How can something taste clean, she wonders, blinking and baffled at her own surprise.

“…Of course I do,” is finally said.  “I could give you the coordinates, if you’ll remember them?  I could write them down, too…  Not that paper is all that safe, but I could always improvise…”

If he’d remember them. Apollo laughs, loud and bright. He’s far too high to be expected to retain a set of numbers. “I wouldn’t even trust me with a street address right now.” Hell, he wouldn’t even trust himself to find his way home on foot, as high as he is now. He’d get distracted, forget he was going home at all. Find himself a nice piece of ass instead, maybe. He’s already getting distracted.

She finishes off the flute, brazen and warm from the thrill of the entire damn night.  It’s a moment of personal enjoyment that has her tongue held just so to the rim - Smooth glass, chilled, almost tasting like ice - until the whole point of her excursion returns.

The desk she leans against (though ‘sits on’ would be more appropriate, one leg crossing over the other as fabric shifts, and she is enjoying every flicker of sensations) is sturdy, not tilting for a moment.  She takes a moment to rock against it; not so much as a wobble.  Oh, what she wouldn’t give…  

The point, remember?

The need to get her words out drags up a sigh.  “There’s a party coming up in three weeks.  It’s hush-hush, no one but the big names are supposed to know until night-of.  But…”  It’s a distraction, to mouth against the side of the glass and feel the cold pressing against her cheek.  “A few gearheads got some Rigs up and running again.  There’s going to be a brawl.  One night only, winner take all.”

Apollo’s content to wait for her words, riding the renewed buzz of his high, now that he has the extra edge of impish enjoyment. He leans his weight back on his shoulder against the door, crosses one leg over the other, casual as can be. He’s starting to wonder if he could focus hard enough and hear Carlise and her not-a-boytoy boytoy going at it from here, confirm the rumor, when Cass finally speaks.

“I thought it was,” she muses.  A small sip nearly rocks her, so sharp in its sudden taste and bubbles that she has to take a heartbeat to process the change.  Her tongue fizzes.  Fizzes.  How long has that gone unfelt?  “Or I’d be incredibly rude.”

She Cass, here, in an identity unused for over half a decade smiles again, sly and conspiratorial in the small space between them.  It takes only a slight turn, her head tilting toward his and her shoulder (bare, for once, pale in a way that speaks of purposeful cover, hiding from the sun even as it warms her face) blocking out more of the crowd.  There’s limited time, she knows, but she wants to keep this one to herself for as long as she can, uninterrupted.

And how long has it been, really?  More than a few years, she can remember that much.  So much has changed since her last “visit” to the City.  She saw, on her jaunt through the quarters, skyscrapers where once there had only been construction sites.

“There’s some rumors brewing outside.  Something I think you might like.  But…”   ‘Cass’ takes another sip, savoring the flavors with a hitched breath.  “I don’t think I should say it here.”

The promise of gossip from the other side of the City wall is tantalizing, and Apollo is all too willing to find a less public space to hear it. He boldly slides an arm around her waist, ducking in closer to murmur a mirth-filled, “Right this way,” before he’s drawing her after him, through the crowd of the party to the rooms not meant for guests. Though it’s hardly a secret now to the good citizens of Battery City that he’s as straight as a horseshoe, he treats their slinking away more like he would a quick tryst, than a trading of secrets. Let them all wonder for a bit.

Good~  

~~

Now…

She doesn’t quite feel right, being up this high.  Height is hard to come by when your world is ocean-level at best and your home is a cave.  And yet, there she walks, slipping through a gathered crowd of the local too-rich in a stolen dress, smelling of heavy sunshine and enjoying the feeling of soft, clean fabric against her skin.

Those slits do wonders for sands-strong muscles, all things considered.  Add in a little bit of makeup, also stolen, and the scars become only the faintest of suggestions.  She could be anyone.  Specifically, she’s no one.

Still won’t be able to stay long, for as welcome a change as this dress-up will be.  She knows she’s on camera.  

She has an advantage - His face was plastered to some of the papers she spotted on the way up.  

It’s a simple matter to step to the side, letting a small group stagger past, brush up to the shoulder of Apollo St. Peters, and pluck the flute from his hand.

She offers only a sly smile over the rim in greeting.  Let him guess at her, first.  Oh, the gall.

Though he now has the expectation of meeting someone, Apollo continues to drift through the party, made more interesting than it really is by the something lavender he’d taken two of just half an hour ago, and chat with the other guests. Their host is nowhere to be found, which he suspects has everything to do with the gossip regarding Carlise and the member of her “security detail” she’d brought along with her.

He’s not really paying attention to to his side, scanning the party for someone interesting, when the second champagne flute leaves his fingers. “Oh, that’s–” His gaze slides over to the woman. She’s not familiar in the way even the strangers here are.

Women don’t do it for him, but if they did, he’d make more than an idle pass at her. She’s pretty, and in a way different than the other woman here. He fixes one of his signature smiles to his face, offers her a, “Hi,” plays the part of equally charmed and charming. “I don’t think we’ve...” met.

There you are!

You’ll want to hear this.

If I’m right, and I like to be, I’m guessing you’re about… Oh, thirty floors up?  Maybe forty?

I can hear the champagne bottles from here.

Well.

About that.

@hailprodigalson

Hey, you.  Got a minute?

There’s some gossip you might like.  Word by mouth only, though.

Well well, long time no chat. For you I do.

Oh, I plan to.  Whatever happens will be one for the history books.  Or the gossip columns in town, at least.

Makes you wonder whether or not it’ll go nuclear, or “nuclear.”

Ha!

Not quite, no.

Maybe a little… Closer than that.  I’m reminded of what happens when too much bleach gets on clothes.  It all goes white.

What a scandal in the making.

Saying that one of them should know better would be a bit.. Inaccurate.  Youths make lapses in judgement all the time.

The starch hasn’t quite washed out of those slacks.

Oh. Well, I can’t say that side of it is surprising. They do come out aiming high and eager to please.

Let’s see…

Word has it that there’s been a bit of stirring on the innermost rings.  A few certain someones playing house, if you catch my drift.

That’s how it is, sometimes.  Some secrets might stay as just that, for now.

.

.

I wouldn’t mind too terribly if you managed it.

If I get a definitive answer, you’ll be the first to know.