milliways_bar | (no subject)

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As entrances to Milliways go, this is one of the more unprepossessing. A man stumbles through the door in slacks and T-shirt (a particular brand of underwear showing above his waistband); despite the fairly well-groomed hair and care with his appearance, he still seems a little crumpled and ungainly. The door swings near someone, and he instantly apologises before standing almost straight and looking around.

(Interesting.)

'...oh. Um.

...oh.'

Well, this is new. Jim likes new.

[OOC: Note on playing with Jim here. If more than one person tags, could we please only have one intro thread? Anything after the first will find him either sitting a little nervously at the bar, or gazing in wonder out of the observation window. Thanks! :D]

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"That's okay," Eric says. "Lots of people here haven't."

His eyes glide down the side of his neck. Watching his pulse.
He is a predator. And he is always hungry.

"I don't mind questions."
At least, not here.
Here, he likes curious people.

Hmmm.

He's not the type to let himself become prey, but he can't stop his brain running through the advantages to going down that route.

'You don't get bored of them?'

Disadvantages, too. He doesn't get his hands dirty, after all. And there's no need for it, beyond curiousity and his innate need to know things. Or boredom. He does get bored a lot.

"Of course. Mostly if the people asking them think themselves clever and unique. You never are."

You meaning humans in this case.

He shrugs.
"You can ask. I might answer."

'I can guarantee I'm neither of those things.'

He looks flustered, the way ordinary people do when they're put on the spot to ask something.

'Well. Does it taste good to you? Everybody's tasted their own blood, and it's pretty disgusting.'

"It is the most delicious thing I can think of," Eric replies with a purr in his voice.
It's the voice he uses on the fangbangers at the club, when he gives a shit.
If they're pretty enough or interesting enough.

'Did you think that before you became a vampire?'

His voice is a touch cooler, perhaps in response to the purr. As though, maybe, he doesn't quite like the assumption implicit in that tone.

Eric shrugs.

"I hadn't given it much thought. I've tasted it often enough, split lips and teeth knocked loose, that sort of thing."

He notices the sudden distance. Of course, he will always chose to interpret that as someone trying to convince themselves that they don't quite like what is being assumed.

'Get into a lot of fights, do you?'

He should say got - surely a vampire doesn't have to worry about split lips and knocked-loose teeth - but he's not going to appear to know too much about it.

Anyway, the distance has retreated with this question. He's back to curious, and a little awed.

He leans forward, just a little.

"I was a Viking," he says. "Before I was turned."

And that's ll he says, because in his experience, if people know about Vikings, he might as well let them fill out the picture themselves.

'...oh.'

He acts surprised, and suitably awed. And laughs in his head, because wow Eric, do you not think Viking is written in every line of you?

'And these days?'

"These days I own a nightclub," Eric replies.
"In the States. Down South."

"Fangtasia."
He smiles.

No one knocked themselves out coming up with that name, did they? Jim pulls a tab of gum out of his pocket, puts it on his tongue and smiles.

'Sounds like fun. If clubbing's your thing.'

It is usually not his thing, but he's had to endure a bit of it recently. Just to get the right effect.

Truth be told, Ginger came up with the name. Though Eric still thinks it was Pam.
It was in the old days though. She was - better functioning then. Ginger.

"It's a place where the curious go to mingle with vampires. A little less - safe than your average clubbing, I should say," Eric replies, breezily.

Well. That's interesting, for once. He has a vague spark of hope that it might remain so.

'Curious about what?' he asks, in the tone of voice that suggests he can understand where such curiousity might come from.

"About what it feels like to be wanted by a powerful immortal who can snap your neck like a twig, I'd imagine," Eric replies. "Or about what death feels like and if they'll be able to resist its pull. Or maybe just if being bitten truly is the most exquisite experience one could possibly have. Who knows? I don't bother asking."

'Wanted?'

He laughs shortly, though it cuts off nearly at once as if he's worried about giving offence.

'I mean...do they really want them? Us? Y'know...mortal people.'

"Does the wolf want the deer?" Eric says in a low, intimate voice.

'Yeah, but only to e...oh.'

Well, that's a whole different kind of want.

Eric smiles.
"Yes," he says. "There's that. And there's those other urges. We have those too. And to me, most humans look increasingly more appealing as their pulse picks up."

He takes a sip of his drink.

"As long as they're not pathetic. That's a turn-off."

Jim smiles. Pathetically.

'And how do you define that?'

"They're the growling ones, the needy. The over-eager. Those who are so desperate for attention that they will erase themselves completely to be whatever they think I want."

He sniffs.

They always get it wrong anyway.

'Oh?'

He smiles just enough to emphasise his nervousness.

'And what is it they think you want? What do you actually want?'

"They seem to think that I want crawling sex slaves. When really I prefer people who know what they want."

He shrugs.
"As long as they understand that what I want is what we'll be doing."
Smiling again.
Hungrily.

He is not missing the hunger in that smile, not at all. And he's laughing to himself, because someone talking about desperate people with such derision while being so desperate himself...is the irony not obvious to him?

'But what if-' and here, he gives every impression of having to steel his courage to ask such a bold question, complete with quickened heartbeat, '-they know what they want, and it's different to what you want?'

What a delicious sound.

Eric cants his head.
"Here, I walk away. At home - "
Another shrug.

"It depends."