before the fall

@lichteeth​ said ;    ‘I should hate to be predictable.’   /   ft.   gil brodie  &&  pelessaria b’sayle 

peebee  audibly    snorts.      ‘    bullshit.    if  you  really  meant  that  ,    you  might  try  letting    me    win  every  once  in  awhile.    ’    which  was  about  the  farthest  thing  from  the  truth  at  the  moment  ,    hence  the  unabashed  scowling  at  the  cards  she  holds  in  her  gloved  hand.    it  lasts  only  a  second  more  before  ;      ‘    I  fold  !!    ’      and  tosses  her  three  of  a  kind  haphazardly  onto  the  table  with  a  noise  of  dramatic  frustration.    peebee  leans  back  in  her  chair  then  ,    brings  the  bottle  of      whatever  the  hell    sort  of  andromeda  beer  she  was  currently  harboring  to  her  lips  and  takes  a  hefty  swallow.    gil  can  relish  in  his  494th  poker  victory  ,    for  all  she  cares.    it’s  an  obtuse  sort  of  human  game  ,    and  ,    if  given  the  chance  ,    she  would  absolutely    crush  him    were  the  tables  turned  and  they  played  something  more  from  her  end  of  the  galaxy.    but  it  was  never  the  cards  that  brought  her  here  ,    not  really.    no  ,    she    likes    his  stupid  company  ,    as  embarrassing  as  that  is  to  admit  …    even  within  the  confines  of  her  own  skull.    

‘    so  ,    I  figured  I’d  be  going  stir  -  crazy  by  now.    thought  maybe  kosta  and  I’d  reach  our  inevitable  explosive  end  ,    y’know  ??    drive  each  other  absolutely    bat  -  shit  …    ’    her  hide  -  y  hole  had  been  jettisoned  ,    the  escape  pod  lost  to  an  active  volcano  and  ever  since  ,    she’s  found  a  new  home  in  the  armory.    with  liam  ,    more  often  than  not.      ‘    instead  ,    I  kinda  like  it  …    ’      and  her  nose  scrunches  almost  comically  in  response.      ‘    stupid  ,    right  ??    ’      head  shakes  ,    disbelievingly  just  before  she  takes  another  ,    long  drink.

GIL ALWAYS WINS, but this time feels like the one with cards to fold. Because Peebee might not have the best poker face, but she does have a new spring in her step and sway in her hips. She's got stars in her eyes and not just the kind entangled between harsh whisps of the Scourge. What she's got tucked into her hand is far more valuable than chips or bragging rights. It's something real -- something that Gil spots in Kosta's eyes just as dazzled when the two lovebirds bump shoulders outside storage.

And he's happy for them. Of course he is.

But he can't deny the subtle strain that pulls awkward at one side of his mouth before he schools it back into the typical slant of a smirk.

“Nah. Not stupid.” He reaches for her cards discarded in defeat over the table to stack back into the deck; shuffling them lazily out of idle habit to keep his thoughts just as occupied as gloved fingers. “Don't get me wrong, I was fully prepped for an explosion -- part of my job description. But I'm glad, y'know? Obviously.”

He finally glances across at her, able to soften his teasing grin into more of a fond smile. Much as he’ll poke fun or bury down an ugly prickle of loneliness, he’s still happy to see the restless asari finding something worth sticking around for. “I may play the cynic, but I like being proven wrong.” Sometimes. He can’t help but recall the bitter pill swallowed so thickly down when he'd been told to play by Kallo's rules and blueprints. But that's a thought that leads to a dangerous web of tangents he’d rather not stray across just yet. 

Time to grab for his own drink -- a boring, lukewarm beer that doesn’t wash the sour taste off the back of his tongue. Mostly adds to it.

IT’S BEEN A FEW LOOPS SINCE HE’D DRAGGED EGOR TO HIS WOLF’S DEN to disrobe and devour. Not as literal as pretty red stains on pearly whites (like he thinks about), but he'd still sunk his teeth in enough to leave marks. Marks that had disappeared with the turn of the Loop that had thrown Egor all the way back to his ramshackle laboratory by the time Aleksis had blinked awake in his bed.

That's one of the best perks of Blackreef: no awkward morning conversations. No pesky chit-chats about meaning and connection and feelings. Which is why Egor’s messages and phonecalls have been avoided as much as possible (and more than usual). Besides, Aleksis is a busy man! A respected scientist should know not to hinder the progress of glamorous greatness.

And yet, Egor still finds him like a leech to blood. He’s skulking back beneath his roof, though this time with the midday sun up in the sky. Aleksis’ party is hours away and he’s in the middle of picking an outfit for the festivities. He’d been succeeding in not directly acknowledging the tall, awkward shape lurking nearby, but apparently Egor can’t be the polite gentleman he so often claims to be and has the audacity to speak whilst Aleksis compares clothing.

Frank always appreciated a fellow rambler, especially in Aleksis’ case. Nothing worked better to get an unsavory train of thought out of the mind than the cascading bullshit of someone else’s. To Frank, it was quite endearing—hell, even a relief.

As Aleksis made his sudden stop to bitch at him, he took on a sympathetic furrow to his brow, “Now that’s just plain crossin’ the fucking line there,” Frank muttered, disappointment in his tone as he shook his head. Personally, he wasn’t exactly surprised by this news, considering how acquainted with their other fellow Visionaries he had become, but he was just as well (honestly probably more so) with Aleksis to know that an insult to his parties was like an insult to the very core of the guy’s being.

Squeezing his shoulder, Frank did his best to match the gaze that laid behind the shadowed slits of the mask’s eyes, “Don’t let any of that shit get to you though, sweetheart. The others wouldn’t be able to tell a proper party from a goddamn graveyard. Trust me.” There came another pat to Aleksis’ chest to emphasize his point before he ushered him back into motion towards the bar outside of his room.

“Besides, outside opinions don’t matter. Not when it’s a fact that you throw bitchin’ parties.”

IT’S EXTREMELY RARE THAT ALEKSIS FINDS SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS both the glitz and gore of his ravenous essence. Who can jive with his beats, can zig with his zags. But Frank? Frank's always been able to match his moves step-for-step. It's why Aleksis dropped Aeon's name when they met up at that topless pool party years ago (ten? twenty? fifty? a hundred or more?) -- because Spicer can stand enveloped within the cacophony of Dorsey's chaos and mesh himself so easily within every sway and swell. And all with a suave smile on his face.

“Thank you! Fucking finally someone's makin’ some fucking sense around here!” He exhales a very dramatic sigh of relief, flopping more weight into the singer's side with pointed ears nudging toward the side of his head. At least someone on this balls-freezing island has their priorities straight. Rule number one? Protect the Loop, sure, fine. But rule number 2 should always be to pet The Wolf and make sure he's well fed.

So as they get to the bar, he's already feeling his spirits lift. Enough so that he spins himself atop his seat as soon as he slides into it after disentangling himself from Frank’s arm. But he’s a rare stillness as he waits for his drink to get prep’d, eyes squinted behind the harsh slant of mask holes.

“FASCI-- FASCINATION?” Aleksis nearly spits the drink he'd taken a gulp from. Instead, he laughs from inside his fake face; a half-wheezed, sputtering cackle as he leans his side into the bar he’s got set up downstairs. It’s Aleksis’ turn to host the latest Aeon meeting, though any function manages to turn into some kind of schmoozy cocktail party when it’s under Dorsey’s roof. This one’s on the eerily quiet end (for now).

“Okay, uhhhh, fascination? Nice fuckin’ try. You're reaching, assclown. Reaching as far as you can with tinyyy little baby arms.” As though to emphasize this, he dangles his beer glass over Charlie’s head as though daring him to make a swipe for it. But he finds himself wondering why he’s even having this conversation. Because there is something about loud, bleating Montague that has had him poking his snout around the guy more and more lately. 

“ of course this happens to me.  i can’t even be surprised. ”         #reavager  &  #redrghthand

the world is a shuddering, uncertain thing.    ground shifting underfoot, the sky falling in streaks that blot out only for the darkness around it.    everything is a ruin, stretched and sundered..   samson cherishes the way its shattered.    how the mess around him feels more honest than any high-walled chantry of a make-believe brotherhood ever had.    in the chaos, there is no maker.    the prophet is a husk, decorating the spires of twisted lyrium that paint everything he sees in shades of red.    the walls…   floors.    his flesh is red and the eyes that watch it tear are red as well.    leave it to the almighty inquisitor to go against the grain.

across from him, the malignant leap of green warps itself around its bearer.    twinkles like star-fire that burns if stared at overlong ;   a confession had for his lingered interest, perhaps.

“  hoped the fall would’a killed us both, ay ?  ”        his smile is as undaunted as his lean, back into the rubble that’d just narrowly missed crushing the both of them.    a battlefield that’s lost its purpose and foes who, for the time being, lost theirs as well, it would seem.    in close enough proximity to trace the slope of sharp ears and a sneer that’s put heinous grooves in its wearer’s features.    if his lot could see him now.

“  no…  ”        crooked teeth are no cage for his laughter, muted to a snicker though it is.    a taunt that needs no rallying to gain momentum, though, with canted head and widened eyes, its found the stride to bolster itself.        “  y’ don’t wanna go throwin’ all that power away so soon.    can’t blame y’, either.    feels good t’ have ‘em all at yer beck ‘n call, don’t it ?  ”    /    @lichteeth​

THE BATTLEFIELD IS WHERE FAELON LAVELLAN HAS ALWAYS FELT PURPOSE like a singing in his bones, a drumming in his blood. Where other Dalish have dragged fingers across arcane treebark and sought connection in the oldness of their ancestry, he'd found it in the adrenaline that surges his body forward into clashing steel, crunching knuckles. He'd even sought it in scraps outside seedy shemlen bars or noble courtyards whenever the aravels would settle close enough for him to hop human walls. Anything for that spike, that thrill, that stroke over an ego that had sometimes caught itself limping within the company of his clan.

But there is nothing about Faelon that limps today. Not in the thick of the fight as he carves himself a path paved acid green with the anchor’s light that encourages excited war cries from his men.

So interruptions are not well-received, especially not ones that make him fall clumsy and startled through crumbling ruins that had only collapsed due to his own reckless destruction. And especially not while accompanied with the coarse, ugly snarls of a man with all his crimson mistakes scabbed like scales in his skin. It’s all enough to scrape at the Inquisitor’s flimsy patience as he paces around their new surroundings once the dust clears. Like a trapped wyvern in a cage. 

“Hah!” A barked-out laugh, but there’s tension hissing beneath its bravado. “I'm not so easy to kill. Did Corypheus fail to mention that?” The anchor's aura crackles in neon lightning; envelops his proud silhouette in green, green light that lingers like a threat in his eyes. Though he looks more hunched and skulking than smugly imperious, a sneer still pulled into his lips tight enough to flash sharp teeth. “And what would you know? We’re not the same. Thedas adores its savior, after all.”

“ admit it; you have no idea where you’re going, do you? ”   /   #antichantry & #pariahed

the wending woods wound an unfortunate maze on themselves.    paths that diverged would re-meet, later, unknown till, eventually, you diverged again.    a ranger would know the tracks they followed better.    they’d have picked out the differences between their own and the padded shuffle of fleeing bandits, their carts full of a merchant’s wares and, more importantly, that merchants body, as well.    and to’ve split from the rest of their party, anders too enamored with his commentary on the sylvans to offer any worthy input, nathaniel had succeeded in little, save growing a headache to match the pitch in his groaned response.

“  is that to say you would prove yourself more capable, anders ?  ”        crouched, it carries on a broken wind that gives no clues toward the avenue to trek.    dark leathers, more suited for subterfuge than a walk in broad daylight, make little sounds by way of protest as he stands, the glance over his shoulder begging a response to sink his teeth into.

decorum..  it had its limitations.    a noble arch to his spine could only carry so far before buckling beneath the weight of mounting frustrations.

“  by all means, if you have a suggestion, i would be most obliged to hear it,  ”        obliged enough to stamp on the edge of a snarl.    persuade the anger from his eyes.    nathaniel was obliged enough to drop the square from his shoulders and situate hands, resolutely, at the narrow of his hips.        “  there’s little to admit ;   i’ve not known the course to take for some time now.  ”        as the crow flew or the bear yawned, nothing out of the ordinary would give way towards a clue, either.        “  perhaps we should have stayed with the group.  ”        he doesn’t place blame with anything more than a knowing look and two steps back, away from the path.

“  it’s getting dark, we’ll need to make camp here, on our own tonight, and hope the others have seen better luck than ourselves…  unless you have mind for an alternative ?  ”        the needle in his paw that would allow mild irritation to overflow.    /    @lichteeth​

THERE’S A SMIRK SMUGLY WEDGED INTO THE LINE OF THE MAGE’S MOUTH as he wanders after Nathaniel's bootprints in the dirt. Not because he'd meant for this misfortune to befall them, but because he has always been a man very much at peace with wrong turns and dead ends. A lifetime spent running from too-close walls makes every path under pine branches and starlight a path to be savored along with any gulps of cool, open air.

Not musty air, dank air, heavy air. Not the air thickened hard in sore lungs, sore ribs. Not the air that smothers as much as it keeps him breathing, keeps him glaring at slickened stone and blood-caked fingernails.

So when Howe speaks with a snarl budding beneath all that well-trained patience, Anders can't help but take some satisfaction in it. The archer could use it, maybe; a little unwinding from all that tight-drawn composure and stoic calm. Especially when it’s so often Nathaniel muttering his complaints, disapproving of the apostate’s wayward decision making. “Someone's not accustomed to being wrong, looks like.”

He's got his own hand at his hip as he lazily throws a glance around the trees with a very long, drawn-out huff of a sigh. Though these woods are ripe with old magicks and dark tricks, Anders will take this over Blackmarsh any day. Will also take it over the Circle or any other tall, ugly tower. “I could alert our beloved band of misfits to our position, but that would also alert everything else to our position. And you'll run out of arrows eventually. Might even need me to save you. If that happens, I will be telling them all about it in colorful detail,” he warns, finally stepping in closer.

They've been at each others' throats all afternoon, slinging insults from across Updaam's loud speakers with mounting fervor and creativity. It's as the sun starts to sink into waves of dark, icy sea that they finally agree to meet in the Square. To duke it out with fists rather than words -- "alpha-style" as Aleksis had declared to his butler as he'd snapped his fingers for a suitable ass-kicking jacket from his wardrobe.

It's the red one, of course. Better for the blood spatter he can already envision painted so copper-sweet victorious across his sleeves.

But when he actually stomps out of his mansion to meet Charlie in the road, there's a hot lurch of something else in his stomach when he sees him (and it's not bile like it should be).

The asshole just has to shuffle through the snow with that look in his eye and hands stuffed in big, stupid pockets. Has to have a cigarette wedged between his teeth and a contemptuous sneer in his lips that itches a hunger up through Dorsey's throat.

Wanna bite it off.

Because out of all Aeon's members, Charlie's the one always bleat-bleat-bleating away. Always the one scoffing and shrieking and spitting at the delicacies of brilliance that Aleksis always brings to the table. Instead, he should be slathering pungent saliva all over his lambskin loafers, thanking him repeatedly for the mere chance to do so. And yet, he only ever has vitriol to scream at him from across a coward’s drawbridge. 

That’s a mouth that needs shutting up. 

Aleksis had thought his knuckles would do the job, but now that he’s stalking over to him, there’s a hatred burning so palpable on his tongue that a new urge takes its place. And it tastes very salty there, prickling and needling as his teeth grit tight behind the muzzle of his mask.

His hands tighten into fists in the same moment that he notices Charlie’s do the same. It’s all led to this -- teeth gnashing and spit frothing into anger that’s finally found the boiling point after so many days, weeks, months of stewing. 

And rather than swing a right hook into Montague’s scritchy-scratchy jaw, Aleksis grabs roughly for the guy’s collar to slam him into the bakery’s brick wall. Weirdly, Charlie doesn’t Shift free, but seems intent on doing the same -- a hand at Dorsey’s jacket to yank him in with him as his cigarette falls into the snow.

Which is when Aleksis tears his mask aside so he can crush his mouth sloppily, gracelessly, over Charlie’s before the dipshit can blurt out a new insult. 

Swallow the ugly bleating! Devour the rancid spite!

It’s a hot-breathed mess of spit and teeth. Their faces aren’t angled well, they’ve got hands twisted in fistfuls of clothes, and their mouths move ravenous and clumsy like this too has become a contest -- a battle of the egos meant to be won. So much so that Aleksis doesn’t part for breath, kissing so firm and heated that he practically smothers him against the wall as though breaking contact would be unthinkable.

It’s only when there’s the choked start of a shivery whine from the very back of Charlie’s throat that Aleksis finally parts to hiss triumph through his teeth.

“Now that's more like it.”

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck y--”

Aleksis is quick to stifle the fresh flood of angry swearing with another crushing of his lips roughly over fumbling chapped ones; deciding vey quickly that he might actually be able to stomach Montague more if he was pinned to a wall and being kissed stupid. There’s a pleased, smug squirm in his belly to notice that Charlie takes to it so... weirdly well. And is just as determinedly holding him tight by the lapels of his jacket as he kisses back with the same suffocating gusto. 

❝Like you know what suits me.❞ A momentary spike of obstinance; Shepard forces the hackles to smooth over. He approaches the glass, and for a moment Shepard’s back stiffens, not in preparation of an attack, or a strike, or some other manner of uncontrolled violence in the face of a controlled environment, but something else. He studies her as if he finds an answer in the cracks of exposed skin and the way her irises have peeled away to expose ocular implants. In turn, she studies him back. Hates that the similarities are there, the sickly glow of cybernetics that indicate something isn’t right. The original frame was not sufficient, according to their designers. Upgrades had to be made.

Shepard didn’t have a choice, she reminds herself. He did. And he still chose that. They’re not the same. Case closed.

❝Perhaps if I answered to them, they would.❞ But she had declined the offer of reinstatement, and agreed to remain in the Terminus system - out of Council reach - for her mission. Despite the declination, some small favors were still granted. Favors such as this. Because for all the denial and forgetfulness the Council exhibits in the face of Reapers, they still know there are kernels of truth, waiting to grow, waiting to take root.

❝… You had a -❞ Tether. Collar. Leash. ❝Connection with the Reapers. I’m going after the Collectors. It’s rumored the two may be tied somehow. The Collectors targeting entire colonies now, abducting people wholesale. I need to know if you know something, anything, to help me stop them.❞

HE SEES IT  —  THE STEELED STIFFEN OF THEIR SPINE that’s mirrored in the hard, augmented line of his own. As satisfying as it is to see Shepard’s fate aligned so eerily parallel with his own, it churns something unsettled in the pit of an ice-cold gut. This really is the only way, then — a pound (or three or four) of flesh in exchange for a sharpened, mechanical ruthlessness needed to save the galaxy. Maybe Shepard will properly understand and utilize this where he himself fell short.

But on to business. Though he doesn't remark on the loss of their Spectre status, he still acknowledges it with a snort and subtle flare of his mandibles. Makes sense, after all. The Council would never acknowledge that their pretty, plastic presentation of a galaxy at peace could be mere moments away from rupturing wide open. Shepard would've had no choice but to turn elsewhere; something more they have in common, even if his own “elsewhere” had been the jaws of the very beast he’d sought to placate. For the good of the ungrateful masses.

“I might.” Spoken as the harsh paleness of his eyes narrows carefully after he considers the motivation behind this cute little house call — The Collectors. He does know things. In fragments and data that can burn into static when his cybernetics ache and groan in his skull on the bad days, but knowledge nonetheless. So he lifts a hand up to cup his chin thoughtfully, gaze unmoving from the Commander’s red-raw eyes. “Tell me what you know about the Collectors. Have you made contact with one yet? Studied it? Noticed anything... familiar about it?”

If there had been some kind of brief lapse in Aleksis’s unusually placid demeanor, Charlie didn’t notice it. He’s too busy going absolutely ape shit over his own god-tier joke. Is it just the weed, or is Charlie especially hilarious and funny tonight?

Now Aleksis is slapping his hand against Charlie’s face with the limp consistency of a bologna slice, and it’s kind of harshing his vibe.

“Touching me.” The giggles wind down, and Charlie recoils at a sloth’s pace as he catches his breath, sinking back into the couch with a leer. “With your little fuckin… nasty ass baby man hands.”

He bats Aleksis away, then draws his own hands up to slowly swipe them down his face, dragging the bags under his eyes and the corners of his lips down into an exaggerated droop. 

“She opened my everything, man,” he mumbles. “I never even kissed a girl before her.”

EVEN LIKE THIS, THE WOLF DOESN’T CEASE HIS ONSLAUGHT. Charlie might sluggishly lurch away, but Aleksis still brandishes his hand limply at his face to further emphasize his point in the only way he knows how: crudely and physically. “Not-- Not nastyyyy, Charlieeeee.” He laughs again in a lazy chuckle from the back of his throat. “Fuckin’ soft. Like peaches n’ cream. Like a velveteen cloud. Like a baby wolf's lil’ silk belly...”

But he finally drops his arm to simply lounge where he's sprawled over the cushions. His mask has gone a bit lopsided, so he adjusts it to better glance at Charlie blurrily through unchanged mask sockets. “Oh, I bet she opened everything-everything. Everything. Ya--Y’know what I’m saying? Ev-er-y-thiiiing.” He clumsily mimes a crass image to color his very subtle innuendo -- poking his index finger through a circle made with his curled-up other hand. It only actually lands its mark through said circle twice out of the five or six times he makes the gesture.

He falls quiet, though, when Montague's words succeed at last in truly puzzling him. His voice even sounds cast in a strange kind of wonder rather than the harsh, mocking cackle his sober self would definitely have responded with. “Damn. Like... never? For real?” There’s a beat of silence as Aleksis lets this soak slooowly in through his weed-bogged mind. “That’s some kind of cotton candy fairytale shit. Like destiny saw you two and was all, ‘this freak and this freak HAVE to do it!' Fucking magical.” 

Perhaps there’s something to be said here about glass houses and stone-throwing, but Rhys is starting to think that this Professor Nakayama guy might have been a bit of a pervert. He supposed if it were part of the job description, obsessing in that much fine detail was probably to be expected–and, on that note, it seems to be something Jack expects of him, too. 

It makes sense. Rhys can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like–knowing but not knowing what it’s like to touch, to taste, to feel at all–but it does fill him with no small amount of apprehension. Promising Jack something he’s unable to deliver can’t possibly turn out well for him, but nor can saying no. For now, he simply has to keep moving forward; say ‘yes’ now, figure out how later.

“My ‘priorities’ don’t have anything to do with this dumpster fire planet.” He emphasises the quotation marks with his fingers. “I was only ever here for one thing. It’s just–taking a bit longer than it was supposed to.”

This time, the silence doesn’t feel as uncomfortable when he pauses. Perhaps, if it weren’t for the chill air, there might even be a certain warmth to it.

“I’m, uh. I know it’s all been pretty weird, but…” In spite of himself, he feels his mouth curving into a slight smile. “I’m… glad you’re here, Jack.”

HIS HOLOGRAM SMIRKS WIDE AND CROOKED IN WARPED BLUE. Lets his smugness wash away the fleeting figment of envy that had needled into fingertips that don't even exist. Because at least Rhys understands. Understands that Pandora is a festering filth-pile. Understands that the big, beautiful H in the stars is the only hope for order in a rot-reeking sprawl of galaxies. Understands that a man needs to keep his eyes on the prize and never, ever lose focus.

I was only ever here for one thing.

Power. Control. Success. Angel. Conquest. The Warrior.

Echoes drag down the back of his digital neck, prickling over buzzing lines of code like teeth. Makes Jack's image shiver in a lazy glitch that wobbles and slants before fixing alignment. Sometimes, Rhys just... sounds so much like him. Like John so determined to climb his way up that golden corporate ladder (no matter what).

“‘Course ya are. I mean, come on! It's me!” Jack's smirk slackens some of its sharpness, leans more like some kind of smile in his fabricated lips; an expression that doesn’t suit all his harsh angles and lines.

“I’m, uh. I’m glad too. Beats being dead, obviously.” There’s a pause as he watches to see if Rhys turns his face, visuals latched onto the corner of the guy’s slightly upturned mouth. “And I could'a been stuck with some idiot who wouldn't, uh-- wouldn't understand, y'know? Could've thrown me out or crushed the data without even hearin’ me out. It's Pan-freakin’-dora, after all.”

“A wh–a flut–whuh…?” Rhys isn’t exactly great at waxing lyrical himself, let alone being on the receiving end; that much, combined with a firm, steady hand clasped around his wrist is enough to induce a tremble. His own hand grips the air, fingers clutching clumsy as if to return the affectionate pressure.

He stands up just as Zer0 lets him go, slightly off-balance, crossing around the desk to perch on the edge of it, so that there’s less of a barrier between them. That feels earned, somehow, even if he’s spent most of this conversation with his foot in his mouth.

“I… want this to be different. So I appreciate that–really.” He sinks back a little, crosses one foot over his knee. After only a short pause, he finds the silence unbearable, and starts making noises with his mouth while he pieces together what it is he really wants to say. There’s a bit to filter through. “Aaany-who… you can stay as long as you want–n-not that you, like, have to stay, just… if you want. I’ll always have a place for you at Atlas.”

ALREADY, RHYS SEARCHES TO CLOSE SOME SPACE BETWEEN THEM. Already, he tests where the boundaries between colleague and friend might blur. Zer0 has always kept some level of distance between himself and others, even with those he'd come to call his friends in a place as unlikely as Pandora's skag-infested dunes. But times, tyrants, and regimes are changing. Which is why the assassin doesn't stray toward the window or the allure of the fish tank. He simply remains where he stands, regarding Rhys through a tinted visor that's gone blank.

“I do want.... to stay / Atlas is ripe to blossom / And so are you, Rhys.” His head cocks slowly to the left and his hand rests atop the sleekness of one hip. He's not here to kiss Strongfork's scrawny ass, but he's feeling more... open than he has in years. The cooling blood of the corrupt on his gloves must put him in some kind of warm, fuzzy mood. Good to know.

So he hums what must sound like a soft, languid laugh. It vibrates akin to the hum of machinery through his narrow chest. “Funny to see it / Once a Hyperion stooge /  Your own man at last.”

The sound of distant, muffled banging was not quite enough to pull Frank from his thoughts as his thumb lightly brushed over the small collection of polaroids in his hands. Sentimentality always seemed to know just how to grab him by the balls. Colt too.

Frank’s face twitched as a bittersweet mix of nostalgia and souring disappointment washed over him while he flipped to the next photograph. Although slightly blurred by the movement that came out of the captured moment, he could still make it out clear as day. The toothy grin he had gotten out of Colt there was one of Frank’s favorite: nose all scrunched and eyes barely able to keep open because he couldn’t even contain his bubbling laughter. It was such a great fucking laugh too…

Aleksis’ voice proceeding to echo throughout the club and approaching his room fast finally seemed to snap him out of it. Frank’s lips twitched for a second before he plucked the remaining nub of his cigarette from his lips and tossed the photographs into the metal waste bin beside him. Following a smoky sigh, Frank stood back up from where he had been sat on the side of his bed, but not before snatching his glass of whiskey and taking a quick swig.

Thank fuck for Aleksis. Frank was desperate for a distraction.

The remainder of his drink was poured over the discarded polaroids, which was then followed with the glowing stub of his cigarette. Frank didn’t even watch the flames that followed, simply walking around towards the staircase. Sure, those photographs would be back good as new the next Loop, but Frank needed some tangibility to his current coming to terms.

Setting the now empty glass atop the ClassPass dispenser, Frank began to make his way down his stairs. He brushed his hands off of one another as he descended, a crooked half smile on his face at the sight of a good (and not traitorous) friend—even if he hadn’t really caught a good chunk of whatever the hell it was Aleksis was bitching about. But a friend in need was a friend in need.

“Aleksis, my man! Caught me just in time!” Frank’s hands now clapped together as he skipped the last couple steps with a hop. He approached Aleksis with swift steps, arm soon swinging over the man’s shoulders.

“You came to the right man, though.” He patted Aleksis’ chest with his other hand, leading him on out of his room (and away from the smoke), “Frank hears you—and guess what?—your needs are my needs, sugar pops. Let’s get you those fuckin’ margaritas.”

ALEKSIS NARROWS HIS EYES BEHIND SLANTED MASKHOLES. Like there's something... off about Frank that he can't quite wrap his head around. Like there's a shadow in his eyes, a strain in the crooked lean of his smile. But that doesn't make sense. He, Aleksis Dorsey, has arrived! So there's no reason for anything to hold Frank back from unabashed delight, excitement, and fulfillment? Well, he does seem glad to see him, so Aleksis can quickly discard whatever suspicion had sharpened his gaze into that skeptical squint. Until—

“Is that...?” He lifts his pale, plaster snout as he catches wind of something smoky on the air. Something freshly burned with a paper crackle and chemical glaze? Aleksis turns his head toward Frank in an accusatory snap. “What're you smokin' without me, huh? Tch. Rude.” Like how Spicer used to slink off with Colt to do all kinds of mischief that had been so stupidly private between them. He'd always figured they were getting handsy in dark corners, but Frank could've at least told him about it. Or invited him along. 

Colt, though, is a sore subject right now. Even if Aleksis is less discouraged and more amused with the Captain’s shocking betrayal. It just feels like a game — a fun twist to spice things up when it had started to taste stale at the back of his throat. Bring it on, big boy. He likes dance partners who can really boogie.

But he's distracted by a familiar arm over his shoulders and the reassuring pats across his chest. Instantly, he leans into his side with a drawn-out, dramatic sigh of relief. “Yes, yes, yes! Daddy needs ‘em, Frankie. Otherwise my head's gonna explode! My— My whole-ass perfect alpha self will fucking splat right here, right now! And not in the sexy backstage pass of ‘58 kinda way.”

He’s already looping his own arm around the singer’s waist as they walk. Like drunken post-post-post-party wanderings in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. “I can always count on you, y'know? Fuckin— Just always.” He squeezes him tight in the crook of his arm just as the ClassPass on his hand starts prickling its unpleasant itch. “And you needed a dose of Dorsey. I can tell. Written all over you— your pretty lil’ face.”

ALEKSIS KNOWS HE’S HOT SHIT. He's always been hot shit; the throbbing pulse of any party, the blazing sun in everyone's sky. He's the alpha wolf because his howl has always led the pack, has always turned heads in blind adoration. He's charisma personified, animal magnetism made flesh.

So when he decides to take an interest in sad, sulky Egor Serling, he expects the praise to come flowing in for a free ego-boost. Expects Egor to dote with sugar-sweet words spun like honey on his salivating tongue. Expects Egor to pepper kisses across every surface he offers whether it's skin or plaster. Expects worship to come in the form of bended knee and devoted mouth.

What he doesn't expect is Egor staring long and hard at his exposed face once his mask gets pulled off. In the heat of their hands grabbing and fondling in one of Frank’s coat closets, Aleksis had hoped there wouldn't be any hesitation to lock mouths. It’s not as though Serling had been that shy about slathering kisses across the bone-white muzzle of his mask. Hell, he’d even used tongue. 

But now Egor’s put a pause in the passionate exchange as broad palms cup Dorsey’s cheeks in a tenderness as foreign to him as writing checks for charity. At first, it causes him to wrinkle his nose and squint an unimpressed leer that hopefully prompts Egor to get with the goddamn program.

“Wow. Just look at you,” sighs Serling. His thumbs rub soft, slow paths along Aleksis’ cheekbones. This makes long eyelashes flicker before there’s an impatient click of The Wolf’s tongue.

“Uh, yeah? Hello? ‘Course it’s me, slut. Y’know? Big Daddy Alpha ‘bout to rock your fuckin' world? So just--”

“Y-yeah. You.” 

Him.

Aleksis. 

No, not just Aleksis, but Aleksis stripped bare -- a creature pried apart and laid raw. It’s a strange kind of nakedness where he’s completely clothed except for his face. A face with pretty cheekbones, come-hither lips, hungry eyes, refined bone structure, sleek jaw. There's nothing about his face that looks “bad” in the mirrors he preens in. And, yet, the more he’s stared into the reflection of his human face and traced each detail, each birthmark, each line, the more it’s looked (felt) wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The wolf's face, though, fits into all the seams where his man's face doesn't. Rather than prickle unpleasantly like his features are smeared into a blur of static, his lupine likeness fills the gaps and voids and glitches that he glimpses in too many reflections. His beauty has never been in question, but the weakness of wearing a face that doesn’t match the savage hunter of his wolf’s soul? An agony he could never explain, an unsettling confusion that had pimpled itself a blemish into a life meant only to splay immaculate.

So to be without his true face -- his true self -- curls his lip with the consideration to maul Egor’s mouth until he gets the picture. Because he just keeps staring and smiling. Smiling like he’s only done once before and it had been whilst beholding the Anomaly.

That’s when it clicks. Egor can see the truth that eludes all others -- can glimpse what is both man and wolf, both beast and billionaire. He sees the fur where it isn’t, the ears that would be better pointed, the fangs shining where they should be. It’s all there, mapped out in the eyes that gleam bright behind tinted lenses. The eyes of someone cherishing what is special, what is rare, what is sacred.

A whisper escapes Aleksis before he can help it. “...Me?”

“You.” Egor’s thumb strokes down the fresh part of his lips. For once, Aleksis must look like a deer in the headlights with his gaze so hazily transfixed. Like he’s lost momentarily in those wide eyes, that dumb smile, the face marked up in too many stupid band-aids.

O-ow! Leks, c-care-- careful? You-- You’re like a wolf when you bite like that. Ow...

The memory plucks at something Aleksis is incapable of naming. And it presses him suddenly closer with an actural snarl in his throat, needing to crush his mouth onto Egor’s with ravenous intent, with heated vigor. With a legitimate hunger that tastes the lamb on his teeth and abruptly wishes he could savor his iron sweetness impossibly deeper. Wants that reverent stare burned into his being, into lusting meat and bone.

Hearing him laugh, he doesn’t think it matters if it’s real or not; Handsome Jack is alive enough for him, although whether or not that’s good is still up for serious debate. Still, as Jack rambles on, everything seems to slow. For a moment, his mouth even curves as if he might laugh too.

It’s like nothing changed. Like Jack is still there inside him, sharp and soft, stirring his insides gently before slashing them apart from within.

“Uh-huh.” And he is tired. Tired of how Jack’s voice still makes his heart thunder heavily in his chest–and not even with the fear he knows would be sensible. “I’m gonna go to bed right after this. Just… figured I’d get it out of the way.”

So it couldn’t keep him up any more… even if now, he’s pretty sure it will anyway.

“I was gonna leave the news on, maybe. Figured… you’ve got a bit of catching up to do. Been a while.”

JACK IS TRANSFIXED WITHIN A DIZZYING HAZE OF LIGHT, color, and shapes. He’s swimming in it, basking in it, reveling unhurriedly in what his manufactured and evolved senses have sought so desperately within the dark. An AI isn’t dependent on humanity’s basic instincts and desires, but he’s been programmed to thirst for them -- thrive on them -- regardless of what designed, digital code seeks for efficient functionality. 

So he’ll stare up at his face in some kind of... momentary satisfaction, regardless of an acidic bitterness prickling practically tangible somewhere inside his tangle of 1s and 0s. Like the Handsome Jack of years past, of flesh and blood, momentarily subdued with a thick cigar between his fingers. 

“Can't conquer the universe if you're not gettin’ your beauty sleep, cupcake. Try not to drool too much.” He ignores that Rhys makes it sound like he's just an afterthought to be discarded. An inconvenience holding up the rest of a schedule stacked high with separate priorities. Like there's so much more to be done outside of this program's seething existence stuffed in a cold, cramped device.

Not like the warmth of this idiot's head and its welcome web of neurons. Much as he'd hungered for freedom in the fit of a space station, he'd still take the old meshing of his code with Rhys' biological synapses over the bars of his current cage. Would so easily slip into his skull, his ribs, his limbs, his skin like one tugs on a favorite jacket that smells just as good as it feels.

He sighs long and slow. Does nothing to hide what hisses solemn in the wash of a breath that doesn't exist. Fabrication, a sad mimicry, a hollow ghost. All he’ll ever be.

“...How long has it been?” he asks abruptly. Again, his voice is eerily sincere with its curiosity rather than a cutting, slicing sharpness. “Not that it matters, being an immortal machine that flips off time's bullshit on the reg, but, uh, ya-- y'know. Felt long-ish. In the dark.” Felt like eternity. Felt like more than eternity. Might as well put a number on it. Might as well know how long Rhys left him in some drawer to collect dust. “Sooo. Uh. Why dont’cha... stick around? Pop some popcorn? I bet there’s gonna be some hilarious headlines.”