milliways_bar | (no subject)

Tess isn't giving off anything special other than the occasional sigh. She's sitting off to one corner, slouched in an armchair and nursing a cup of coffee.

He does like her scent though.

He heads over, all slow, predatory grace, settling down in the chair opposite her.

"Rough day at the office?"

"Something like that."

She offers with a small smile.

"Hi."

"Hi yourself."

He smiles. "Can't you just sack the really annoying ones?"

"If I did that I'd have no one left."

She sighs again.

"It's more of a personal project. And my ex being a jackass."

"Well," Eric says, "It must suck to be him. Knowing that he is your ex and all."

He leans in a little. "And I hear you. Good staff is hard to find."

"It does actually suck to be him, so that helps, a little."

She leans her head back to look at him.

"Of the ones I have to personally deal with, yes."

The movement does lovely things to her neck.

"Good thing you can come here to unwind," he says. "And I might know a perfect place to relax."

"It's more that I come here so I don't kill anyone."

She quirks an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"An intimate, luxury spa experience, " he purrs.

She normally likes it when he purrs. Today, she's just too grumpy.

"And where would this spa be?"

"My bathroom," he tells her with a small smirk.

"I have a lava hot spring in my bathroom."

"In your bathroom upstairs?"

She might be getting interested.

"Oh yes. It's in its own room. I like to keep it private."
And lets be real. His regular bathroom (as his bedroom) isn't.

"I bet."

She smirks.

"It sounds heavenly though."

"A soak, a drink or two. A - backrub?"

Or other tactile, stress relieving things?

"That sounds almost too good to be true."

And it probably is.

"Want me to order something to take upstairs?"

He is being gallant and everything.

"Enough scotch to get me feeling good."

Who needs food?

"How smoky do you want it?" he asks, getting up.

He'll just get her a bottle.
And a glass.

She shrugs, moving to sit on the edge of the chair now.

"Doesn't matter. Something good."

He orders a bottle of really nice Scotch from the bar and offers her his arm.

Edited 2016-12-12 18:51 (UTC)

Sinric is curled up by the fire, a pen and pad in his hands. He's drawing what looks very much like an Icelandic stave rune.

He also looks like he's been very ill and is only just recovering.

Edited 2016-12-10 02:29 (UTC)

Eric drifts closer, looking at the drawing.

The rune has power, even on the paper it shines. But Sinric does not seem happy with it. He carefully draws over it with another rune, defusing the power to it. He delicately folds the page into a flower and sets it in the fire. There's a brief flash of gold as it burns and he starts over.

All unaware of Eric's nearness.

"You shouldn't play around for with secrets out in the open, " Eric tells him in old Norse.

Secrets being the same word as the word for runes of course.

"I was opened to the secrets." Sinric answers in the same tongue, his voice very soft. "To learn them. To learn to use them."

"They still don't belong in the open," Eric says with the voice of someone not terribly invested in the outcome.

Sinric closes his book and looks up at Eric, his eyes much darker than usual. "Does it bother you? That I have been taught the magic of your past?"

"Why would it?"
Maybe. A little. Mostly because it belongs in the past.

"Most of that shit was fake anyway. Thought up to impress the gullible. "

"Do you believe me gullible?" He asks, leaning back languidly

"Yes. Because that's what being human is. You'll talk yourself into believing almost anything."

Hope is very human too.

He lifts a hand, taking up the pen. On his palm he scribes three rues - Raidho, Isaz, Berkanan, binding them together as he closes his hand.

When he opens it again, he's holding a single rose made of ice. He turns it slowly, the small thorns scratching his soft palm. Blood wells, staining the crystal ice as it melts. "Do you still think me human?"

Eric looks at him blankly.

He fucking hates magic.

"I don't think about people's humanity. I taste it," he said as he draws another breath. Tasting the air.

Sinric lets the rose melt, resting the shapeless lump that is left in a cup at his side, drying his hand on his hem. The scent of blood in the air as it leaves little red streaks in the cloth.

His blood still smells human, weak and malnourished and low in vitamin D. There's a soft echo of modern painkillers and sedatives in his blood.

"And what do you taste?"

"So far, that you ought to eat and drink more and stop playing around with magic."

Sinric laughs tiredly, letting his eyes slip closed a moment. "Master Serpent. I haven't the strength to tempt even you. "

"I wouldn't say that," Eric says, lowering his voice.

He is a predator.
Predators likes weakness.

Sinric smiles up at him, lifting his scratched hand to touch Eric's arm - warm and human and soft. "As much as I know I would enjoy the violent delights of your pleasures, Master Serpent, I'm not entirely sure I could endure them."

"Ah, but there are ways around that," Eric purrs, a trace of eagerness in his voice.

Sinric sighs and touches Eric's cheek, all marble and alabaster. "The allure of your healing blood is as strong to me as I suspect mine is to you. Perhaps we tempt each other." Which is not a no. Far from it.

"You say that as if it is a bad thing, " Eric murmurs.

Sinric lets his hand drop back to his lap. He looks up at Eric for a long moment, those warm brown eyes seeming to darken a shade.

He seems to come to a decisions and sets the book and pen aside. "And where would you lead me, Master Serpent? That you would sup on me like a bird with a broken wing." He rises slowly, still pale but perhaps a little warned by the prospect.

"My room should suffice I think," Eric says, in a low and intimate tone of voice.

"Then take me, Master Serpent," He smiles, cheeks warm, "like a broken bird to your lair and have your way with me. Perhaps your violent pleasures will heal more than they break."

"At times, people seem to think they do," Eric says, as he gets up to lead the way the way up the stairs .