#araexec

The bar is closed. The lights are low and warm like syrup, and the music is filling all the spaces of her head she works so tirelessly to ignore. She laughs at his question, head tilting back and back until she has to jolt to catch her balance before she falls off the counter she's perched on.

That just makes her laugh more.

There's warmth in her skin, her cheeks. She's fishing out another whisky soaked cherry with less than refined fingers.

Send 🩷 and I'll give you a compliment ♡

This evening has gone badly.

A raid on the parlor and Piper had been caught up in it. Cuffs on her wrists, arms bent awkwardly behind her back, she had been forced to sit while the NCPD wrapped things up.

And so she sits by Katsuo, eyes watching the NCPD pigs harangue some of the other Tyger Claws, kicking their legs with the toes of their boots just because they can.

She tips to the side, and her shoulder touches Katsuo's.

"I say we book it." Her voice is a whisper, lips barely moving. "There's a back way out of here, yeah?"

The actual idea of running isn't so much a question as much as it is an invitation for Katsuo to get in on the action. Either way she's leaving.

send me 🎵 and I'll share a song I think would fit your muse

𝑫𝑰𝑭𝑭𝑬𝑹𝑬𝑵𝑻 𝑾𝑨𝒀𝑺 𝑻𝑶 𝑲𝑰𝑺𝑺 𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑶𝑵𝑬. [ french ] a deep, passionate kiss with the use of tongue

No one would ever call Piper a good influence. She liked to think she wasn't a bad one, neutral maybe, but certainly not good. It was no wonder then she and Katsuo ended up where there they did: at a concert with too many people and too loud music, a floor sticky with spilled beer.

There, with her hand in his hair.

Who was to say who started it, really? Maybe they both did, in the way their hands had remained laced together long after she had stopped pulling him towards the barrier. Both of them, in the way they had stayed close, too close.

In the way they laughed, how eyes moved to trace the soft line of lips one too many times.

It had been teasing, the way her tongue had flicked out just to see what would happen, just as it had been teasing the little tug she gave to his hair.

Teasing, the way she grinned at him when the kiss broke after they were jostled this way and that.

PROMPTS FROM QUEEN OF THE SOUTH. / @araexec

Here it goes. V rolls her eyes before turning her head to the side, to face the other, an afterimage of something sharp reflected in her eyes.

"And here I thought you'd never say it." Took him long enough, but people like him are, nine times out of ten, only strong when they talk. Some not even in that way, so V decides he's allowed to, in the end, earn a point.

Piper liked to drink, socially of course. Getting drunk was a thing of the past, something for deep bouts of depression and more youthful days, but a nice lazy buzz was just fine in her books. Even better when that buzz was shared in the company of a friend.

Her head lulled as she looked at him, lips pulling into a wry smile.

"I used to have my tongue pierced." A pointless fact but a fact all the same. "You should do it, your lip I mean. If you don't like it you can always take it out so not a huge deal."

The ice in her glass clinks as she gives it a lazy swirl.