OH OH and π for gothfox pleasseeeee
π- A chilvarous kiss to the back of their partners hand
YOU ARE SICK FOR THIS !!!!!! sick!!!!! Set post-tpof with 49 year old human trafficker Ren and vampire Reymas
Ren should not have let her rope him into this.
It's not that he's a stranger to crowds, or formal events for that matter, and he's done quite a bit of this shtick in the past decade- enough to know how to act and how to charm the old rich fucks all dressed to the nines that are always the mass majority at these things. Its just that he fucking hates it.
He can practically hear Reymas in his head when he thinks it- you're an old fuck dressed to the nines. He makes a point not to linger on how easy it is to conjure her voice in his head.
She insisted on picking him up. At the time, he was too flustered and irritated to bother arguing, but now that he's standing in his porch in a black-tie suit, he feels like a fucking teenage girl awaiting her prom date. He has no idea what she drives, and is already working himself up for the wash of embarrassment when she has to hand the keys for whatever beater she is inevitably going to pull up in to the valet.
It's a mixture of feelings when she smoothly rolls up to the curb outside of his house and gives one polite honk to address her arrival. She refuses to exchange phone numbers with him, which he thinks is ridiculous- they spent five years so far up each other's ass they may as well have been conjoined twins, and now she wants to act like distant strangers-
The point is he gets no text from her stating she's arrived, just the honk. When he peeks out the window, the car is also shockingly not a beater from a scrapyard.
It's a Volvo, something new but clearly not brand new. All black, completely spotless, and it looks like a hybrid, based on how quiet the engine is.
He can feel her eyes on him the second he opens the door, tracking every step he takes down the driveway that he's cursing himself for making so long. Nobody should be able to have him feeling so awkward and jittery, least of all her, but he finds himself pausing with a hand on the passenger side door, trying to swallow his anxiety.
The atmosphere in the interior of the vehicle immediately hits him like a wall. It's warm inside, the heat blowing softly, and all he can smell is her. Licorice, blood, cherries, and a slight hint of tabacco. He wonders if she's taken up smoking again. If she ever stopped. There isn't much reason not to, given she can't get cancer.
"At least you look nice," is her first utterance to him, done so under her breath and looking straight ahead.
He Almost replies with something similar, but catches it on time. "Remind me again why you're dragging me out to this."
She puts the car in drive and pulls down the street smoothly, though a little fast given they're in a suburban neighhorhood. Its bizarre to see her driving- she didn't have a license last time he really knew her.
She lolls her head to the side with a flashy grin, "Don't act a stranger to black-tie charity galas, I know you're a frequent flier."
He nods, "Yes, but you aren't."
She sucks her lower lip between her teeth and releases it with a pop. She looks nice, he has to admit that. Dangerous, not at all like someone who would be attending a charity gala, but nice all the same. He doesn't know how she's planning to hide the teeth from the other attendees, but he also isn't very worried about it. She can handle herself. She's made that very clear.
"There's someone here I've been trying to get my hands on for months. His security is really tight, and he rarely leaves his estate."
Ren groans and leans back into the seat, "This is a murder," he says with a flip of his hands, "You fucking idiot."
She gives another catty smile, "Did you think it was for fun? I don't think I'll recognize the guy in a crowd, but you will. Hence, your entire prescense tonight."
He turns to face her, briefly taken aback by how alive she looks for someone who is technically dead, "You brought me to a charity fundraiser where I will know people in attendance?" He looks at her in open shock for a second, expecting an explanation, but when he gets none he shakes his head in disbelief, "You are a demented cunt, Reymas."
She isn't shaken by his insult in the slightest. It's a little unnerving, if he's honest with himself. She's just so- so poised. So together. He's never seen her like this before, but then again- most of his visual memory of Reymas is either from them as fucking kids, or her covered in blood, lashes wet, face twisted in pain or desperation or hatred. So rarely has he seen her.... calm.
Her dress is all black, matching her hair, and the straps are a respectable width, but the cut is slightly too low to be formally acceptable. It looks long, and he only hopes she's wearing appropriate footwear, though he can't imagine how she'd drive in heels. She's wearing minimal jewelry, just some modest but expensive looking gold pieces here and there. The makeup is slightly outlandish- her eyes too dark, her lips too red, but anything else with this look would have been out of place.
They pull up to the venue auspiciously late, which is only proper. Ren really did not want to be a pre-placed fixture by the time the big dogs started strolling in. At least this way everyone he may know will be caught up in their own conversations by now, hopefully a few drinks deep and entirely unable to recognize him.
Reymas leaves the car idling, and reaches over to rifle through the center console for a hand-bag. Ren takes the opportunity to begin the process of making her regret inviting him, so he gets out of the car and wraps around the front of it. When he swings the drivers side door open for her, he's met with a deep scowl etched into her features.
She says nothing, because what is there to say? Don't show me the bare minimum of chivalry expected at an event I invited you to?
She swings her legs out and to his disgust, her bare feet touch down on the asphalt. A second later a pair of heels click down beside them, and when she has them on she stands and tries to take the door from him, clearly intending to rob him of the baseline satisfaction of closing it for her.
He gives her a thin smile, and tightens his fingers over the top of the door. She pauses for a second, and then abandons the pursuit entirely, clearly not wanting to fight with him over something so small in such an open, public place.
She hands the keys off to the valet, and they're direct towards the sprawling estate the chairty event is being hosted within. On the climb up the ridiculously lavish marble steps, Ren leans in close.
"Do you even know what charity this gala is for?" His voice comes out in a low hiss.
Reymas looks momentarily perplexed, like the thought had never occured to her before now, "No," she admits, "Kids with cancer probably. Does it matter?"
He straightens up again, "No. How did you get invites to something like this?"
The tops of her cheeks color slightly, and she waits a suspiciously long time before answering him. "You really weren't careful about hiding your psudeonyms from me," she says slowly, "the first one I submitted the request for worked, and they all come with a plus one."
As if to prove it, she hands him the tickets. Sure enough, a name tied to most of his legal, above-board dealings is looking right back at him, along with another fake name for her. This is unbearably stupid. She's lucky she picked an alias that actually works for this sort of thing, one he's used in this situation before. He's lucky she didn't just try his actual fucking name.
Their tickets scan without preamble. He's shocked when the security asks for photo ID and Reymas manages to procure one that is startlingly authentic-looking, and has the same name as her ticket does.
The inside opens to a massive, dimly lit foyer with candles as the main light source. It's comfortably warm inside, which is probably on account of the bodies milling about. All old. All very rich. There's some new money floating around, too, but it's very clear what sort of society they've entered here. He casts a worried glance at Reymas, because he can't picture her knowing how to act around these people.
Not that they're dangerous insofar as someone slipping up when it comes to manners or social niceties, and even if they were, Reymas isn't really in danger from any normal human people. Ren just happens to know the sort of people that swim in these lakes because he deals with them every day. People don't come cheap. It shouldn't be a surprise that the only ones wealthy enough to make invididual, high-tier purchases within the human trafficking world are the same assholes in front of him drinking champagne.
It's got him on edge. Even if he were to be recognized, nobody would ever in a thousand years say anything about it. He's usually careful - they've never seen his full face, the only name they have to go by is Fox. People like this don't usually have a vested interest in fucking with the hornets nest, so he's never had any trouble in terms of being tracked down, but this may be seen as him doing just that.
It would be like if a normal corporate Joe's plug showed up at his office on a Monday morning at nine o'clock. Nobody is going to take kindly to figuring out the man who auctioned them off a sex slave last month is now attending the same gala as them.
"Well," Ren starts, taking her elbow and guiding her towards the refreshments table, "what now, genius?"
She side-eyes him and picks up a glass of bubbly rosè. He knows she can't drink anything that isn't blood without it tasting like ash on her tongue, but to her merit she takes a sip without making a face.
"Now, we act normal for a little while until you spot the guy," she hands him her phone subtly, and he takes a look down to see the name of someone very familiar.
"Jeez," he says, voice dripping with venom, "you should have told me you were planning on cutting my flow of income off at the knees. I would have jumped for joy at the chance to aid and abet-"
"We talked about this," Reymas hisses, showing two pointed canines, "you have more than enough to live comfortably, there is no reason to continue selling-"
He can't slap a hand over her mouth here, so he silences her with a particularly urgent look. "Not here," he stresses, voice stern, "Fuck. Anywhere but here."
He lets her finish the rosè, and beckons her to follow him before she can argue. Act normal, she says? Fine. He can act normal.
He brings them out to the middle of the dance floor, where people- mostly elderly- are twirling around in relatively synchronized movements. Can she dance? He has no idea.
He holds his hand out to her, and she has the good graces to look slightly abashed. "What-"
"We're dancing, Reymas," he says innocently, with a not-so-innocent smile, showing his own teeth, "isn't that what people usually do at a these things?"
She takes his hand, and she can't appear very icy about it, either, otherwise it would draw looks. He steps closer, and keeps eye contact as he brings her hand to his mouth, skin ghastly cold against his, and presses a kiss to the back of her hand.
The look of devastation in her eyes is enough to keep him going all night, regardless of the impending bloodshed.
