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Sometimes a man needs to find his bearings after a rough weekend. Lucifer Morningstar, cad about town, sits lazily in a chair while a tall, thin figure in an apparently dull grey suit and a broad, shorter man who probably won wrestling medals in the Soviet version of the Commonwealth Games confront him. The conversation has the timbre of a bad negotiation going sour, but the simple fact is, bargaining with someone who can read the worst sins of a soul is never going to be fair.
Three vodka shots are arranged in a triangle, and the business of a deal goes down the way it must.
“Two hundred fifty pounds from Bulgaria, delivered fresh,” Lucian says, quietly. “Another hundred after that, dried, again from Bulgaria. I explicitly want the Kazanlak dried, is this clear? They need to be here in ten days.”
The uncomfortable shift from the fellow on the left, the thin one, speaks to who is probably responsible for supply chain management and transportation. He starts to shake his head, his Russian harsh and guttural. “It simply can’t —”
“Three nights here,” says his counterpart, cutting off the Russian businessman. The stockier partner shows his teeth. “Three nights to host Mr. Csenlak, and assure nothing should happen while he is in the country. Before we ship.”
That he speaks Kazakh does nothing at all for the blond, and he flicks his fingers languidly. “Consider it done, though he has an upward limit of $250 on alcohol, and none of the reserve bottles. If he provides his own, fantastic. If he does not, he buys them at market rate. And I only assure his safety. Not his entourage.”
Anger bubbles away, but with the nod from the Kazakh-speaking wrestler, the deal is done. Lucian shoves two glasses of vodka over, the third reserved for himself. “Drink to a deal. It’s done.”
“But—” says the Russian.
The Kazakh slams it back, and nudges the other. He sips reluctantly, but genes are genes. It goes down easily. They both look expectantly at Lucian.
He watches them without a sound, and his eyes turn a brilliant, incandescent blue. The liquor in the tumbler ignites, vaporized to a shot of flame that dances almost to the ceiling, hot as stuff that starts first ignited from.
“Cheers. Remember the deal, and if you cross me…” It needn’t be said. He gets up with a smile. “Enjoy your time at Lux.”
*
Submitting herself to even the partial shift the next day after visiting Lux and delivering her gift of baked goods was difficult. She wasn’t precisely hung-over, just acutely uncomfortable beneath her own skin — it’s clear that the Otherness didn’t approve of the skyrocket into inebriation and the consequential crash afterwards —
— and acutely uncomfortable about the fact that her tupperware container was still at the club. Hindsight is terribly twenty-twenty…and that was her only tupperware container. The rum had befuddled her enough to convince her that Lucian should keep said container.
It had been such a blow not having a way to stash away her lunch for today’s shift. And what about leftovers tonight?
Thus, steeled by the firm belief that she was going to get that cookie container back before dinner that night, Rosemarie descends the stairs leading down to the main floor of Lux. She brushes fingertips along the plane of translucent green glass that serves as dividing wall, admiring it in a moment akin to realizing that the light does a painting justice at a certain time of day.
It’s not busy, not at all, and she might be the first patron of the evening, literally. This gives her reason to pause on the lowest landing as she scans the room below and beyond. In simple jeans and a blouse and with courier-like purse slung across her body to rest on her hip, she looks woefully out of place. Then again, she never intended to go clubbing this evening.
Just…a simple fetch-quest.
It never makes sense to check the balcony. Humans never look up anyways.
*
She runs headfirst into a woman simply there at the bottom. Black t-shirt and jeans welded on tight foretell the punk movement years before it will happen, thanks to girls like that. Hair tightly braided into twin rows down her back leave her black fishtails severely showing the bone structure of a face faultless in its way.
Except for those eyes, heavy-lidded, feline, capable of delivering a glare that would daunt the likes of smoldering Elizabeth Taylor.
“He’s busy,” Maz says flatly. Her voice has all the promise of low smoke, a torch singer gone awry in life to be serving instead of giving harmonics to those pretty pipes on a record label.
Radios would love the unusual style she has, crooning somewhere in a midnight alto; her accent isn’t similar to Lucian, either. Instead of English, she sounds vaguely Italian or French, which probably has something to do with that tremendous purr hidden behind certain rolling vowels. With the dusky colour of her skin, it’s probably a combination of Sardinian or Sicilian where Moorish blood delivers that opulent olive complexion.
It’s not entirely rude to ask, considering she is a bartender, but the question is pointed flat at Rosemarie. “What do you want tonight?”
How brave is the Other, staring into the face of one of Lilith’s many, many children?
*
Simply there and simply not budging without an answer, it seems. Rosemarie is daunted by this woman. She’s everything her momma warned her about in the guise of curves and smoky lashes and be damned if her heart doesn’t do a wry betrayal of a pitter-patter behind her ribs.
“M-my t-t-tupperware,” confesses the lambkin, her fingers of both hands wrapping around the slash of a strap across her body. It might center her in the moment, who knows? “It w-went b-b-behind the b-bar, I th-think.”
And she dares a tentative extension of a finger towards the locale, with its pristine surface and mysterious array of alcoholic potions in many colors on shelves behind.
The Otherness stirs like mist within her blood, slipping through in rivulets. It’s been called forth by aforementioned jumpity-skip of heartbeat and the sense of possible threat, in the most primal sense. Being in way of host, potential problem, must ascertain. All that Maz might catch, if this patron ever dares to meet her eyes, is the raptor-gold edging about pupils.
*
“Your what.” It isn’t even so much a question, flat delivery in the deadpan tone leaving precious little indication Maz has any sort of humour. If she does, it probably died in the desert alongside some bleached bones of a cow or a steer from roundabout a century ago.
Death moo.
She gives no indication, this woman in smoke and leather and suffering, that she has the least idea of what Tupperware is. Nor what might lie behind the bar as some kind of illicit delivery. Chances are fair to good her confidentiality is an extension of her superior’s; what Lucian knows is, conversely, Mazikeen’s business not to let on that she knows.
Rosemarie gets the plain, simple blank look of darkly glittering eyes. “Is it known you will come and get it?”
*
“M-m-m-m-m — ”
Maz might as well have stolen the librarian’s voice from her very throat. The red beneath her freckles cheeks increases further.
“T-t-t-t — ” The sigh forced off to one side, for Rosemarie can’t bear to look this woman in the face, is short and ragged at the end.
“T…” The consonant hangs as she forms the word slowly in her forebrain and concentrates. “Tupperware.” Huzzah! Emboldened, she speaks on, knees locked in unspoken adamant refusal to leave without it. “M-my t-tupperware. It is n-n-not kn-known, n-n-n-no.”
She has no heart to lie — or no courage to, one or the other. Nails dig into the inner side of the strap of her courier purse. My, my, what fascinating shoes this bartender has.
*
Patience is not an element common to all the denizens of the Hells or Heaven. Ignore what your scripture taught you. Angels are so used to eternity they cannot comprehend anything else, and the need to spit something out now and be patient about allowing that individual to spit it out in a travesty of proper diction is absent.
Angels are not nice. Neither are their infernal counterparts, the fallen, the Lilim in between.
Mazikeen rakes her hand down the bountiful curve of her hip, fingers biting into the painted on pocket of jeans too well tailored to be anything save custom. If she even tried to hide a bobbypin underneath, the whole garment might tear.
“You haven’t told me what Tupperware is,” she cuts right to the heart of the matter. Simple, that.
*
That admission brings Rosemarie to look up at this server with plain astonishment. How does someone not know what a tupperware container is? Does this lady live under a rock?!
“Y-You — ” Nope, Momma taught her better: don’t point out someone’s flaws, even if they are scary. Well, self-preservation adds in that secondary notion. She swallows and glances towards the bar again. “It’s a c-container. It h-h-had c-cookies in it. P-plastic.”
Yes, there, she admitted it. She brought the barkeep, with his leonine hair and that crisp white shirt and those summer-sky eyes, a tupperware full of cookies. One hand slips up to soothe itchy skin at her hairline behind her jaw and farther back. All the while, the librarian studiously keeps her gaze towards the bastion of booze, with its marble countertop and all.
*
Mazikeen has the deep olive coloration common to the Mediterranean, possibly a dose of the Indian subcontinent in her distant ancestors. The tight black braids sway slightly as she looks over her shoulder, the bar concealing anything in the paraphernalia of remedies and medicinals left on its shelves.
It may be less than satisfying to assume she’s using X-ray vision to determine whether or not the Tupperware is there. Not really. Checking to see whether the proprietor has come down yet — he hasn’t. However, with a moment of notice, she points to one of the horseshoe booths unoccupied by anything, not even a dust bunny.
“Sit there. I will make inquiries.” The bar is apparently not for the likes of dirty water drinkers, a sin against all the things Lux stands for.
Mazikeen cuts a straight path at rapid time to the counter. On the way, she collects two of the bombshell servers and makes inquiries. There are odd looks at ‘cookie’ and ‘container. ‘ It isn’t innuendo; therefore, activity sends the two busy bees zipping off to check the kitchen and the practice room.
A quick glance becomes a more thorough one. No cookie container at the bar.
*
Post-haste, Rosemarie travels to the empty booth. She first watches perched on the edge of the seat, eyes flickering alertly from Maz to the other servers and then to how they scatter to the four winds within the club.
Then, confronted by the idea that she might seem too interested and thus engender more flat looks in her direction, she adjusts her purse upon her body and slides further into the booth. Perfectly in the middle now, with the table between her and anyone else who approaches, it gives an impression of safety, for all that it also feels like having cornered herself.
Still, she can’t shake the feeling of being somewhat spotlighted as the only occupant of the booth, not even accompanied by a dust bunny, and chooses to observe her folded hands and the status of her nails.
“I wish that I hadn’t done this…” she admits to herself in a silent mouthing towards her cuticles. Eh…yes and no. If the barkeep enjoyed the cookies, well…goodness. She’ll be pleased as pie and likely set to burst at the seams — with plumage.
*
The search proceeds apace. Drawers and cabinets are checked, a measure of research performed with hands and eyes more than casually sauntering by and saying, “It couldn’t be there.” Lux runs on efficiency.
Maz continues to assess possibilities and one of the girls dashes up to the mezzanine, slipping into a Web work of offices and business-oriented facilities beyond the pretty fixtures. She haunts the hallway and peeks here and there, at least where it is safe.
Rosemarie then must wait in limbo, fearful she has made the wrong choice or possibly out to wriggle like a fish on a hook. It wouldn’t be out of character for the staff; they’re not entirely nice people. Some are nice, yes. But not people.
With a lazy poke of a fingertip into a cabinet, the dusky woman stands. An arched eyebrow and a flat palm are communication enough. Lucian drops the heavy plastic container into her hand. “You can deliver it yourself, if you’re so interested,” he says with a faint grin.
She doesn’t smile back, half her face frozen in a leering glare, the other in shadow. He rounds the bar and saunters out.
“You know, sit like that and it’s practically an invitation for people to squeeze up next to you,” he says instead of any greeting.
*
Ah, the torture of a limbo of simply not knowing what is to come. Her cuticles are confirmed to be well-tended as always, nails kept clean and rounded as to not catch on possibly thin book pages. It’s not as if she goes about getting dirty. Not this librarian.
Greeting or not, the sudden appearance of Lucian is enough to gain him a quick flick of shoulders up around her ears and what might have been a squeak. Maybe. Rosemarie looks up from her nails, managing a rather prim shift in posture, and he can probably see the myriad answers being considered behind her eyes. She has a propensity to stare when thinking hard, even if it is nearly through him rather than at him.
An inhale, to center herself, and she speaks. “Oh.” That precious little vowel sound. “I’m n-n-not expect-t-ting anyone t-to d-do that.” A quick flick of her tongue fights dry mouth. She averts her eyes from his face, looking perhaps for the servers sent after the Tupperware. “H-How are y-y-you then?” She can do small talk while she waits.
*
Maz comes in front the other side, a classic pincer attack to block the escape from the U shaped booth. Clearly a calculated effort, she looms over the table long enough to put the plastic container in front of the librarian.
“This is yours,” she says. Manicured black-blue nails freckled by starry glitter maintain the barest contact to the slightly scuffed lid, using minimal force to lower it.
Lucian raises a golden brow. His habitual cigarette isn’t about, nor a white rag, or anything else that marks him as the bar man. “Even had it washed out,” he adds, a fox smile briefly showing his teeth. “I thought it unlikely to require seasoning, like cast iron.”
He casually hooks his elbow against the corner of the booth and leans there, his fingers briefly examined.
*
Oh dear. Cornered in the booth. A little unconscious rise of her shoulders communicates this understanding even if the rest of the body language seems to not actively note this status.
Indeed, that is the very Tupperware she was asking after. Rosemarie looks from it to Maz and considers the server with the very real wonderment about predatory behavior and would this woman ever end a drunk fight in this club. Yes. The conclusion is yes, she probably would, not break a sweat doing it, and likely never smile in the process. There’s an abiding and bone-deep fearful respect for the server implied in how the librarian drops her gaze to the plastic container.
“Th-Th-Th-Thank y-y-y-y-you,” she whispers, waiting until the cookie holder is untouched and simply sitting on the tabletop to reach out to pull it closer to herself. “A-A-And th-th-thank y-you.” She addresses Lucian this time, daring to raise up her eyes to him. “F-F-F-For washing it o-o-out, I m-mean.” Lazily propped as he is against the corner of the booth, he seems rather personable and in her personal space…which isn’t a difficult thing to achieve when one keeps most folk at length with a metaphorical ten foot pole.
Goodness, thinking to ask the next question even entices a little quiver from her, purely from nerves. It takes her a moment, showcasing the possibly inspiration for the phrase ‘a frog in one’s throat’ or even ‘cat got your tongue?’
“…w-w-were th-they enj-j-j-j-joyed?”
*
Mazikeen has no reason to withhold an arch of one slim, perfectly curved brow and the cold shimmer in dark eyes travels right over the librarian’s head. If she had talons, they might be meticulously kneading the flesh to bloody. Helpful woman that she is.
Lucian casually shakes his head, golden highlights in the shock of wheat blond hair, teeth flashing white. “Washing out a container is never enjoyed. The contents therein were good, thank you. A most unexpected gift.”
The server slithers off the other side of the booth, contempt drizzled in every movement of her flowing hips and gravitational pull worthy of a black hole. She measures Rosemarie and then Lucian. “Simple things.”
“I never did mind,” Lucian adds to them both.
*
Looking between Mazikeen and Lucian like a tennis match spectator, she finally decides to endure the attention of the barkeep with the leonine mane of hair.
"Y-Y-You're w-welcome." Relief is a coolish rush through her veins and takes at least one syllable out of each round of stuttering. The Otherness preens to itself in her sub-psyche; Yes-yes, well done, gift accepted, gloss feathers, pat-pat on the shoulder. She pulls the Tupperware closer still to her person, silently accepting it back in truth. "I u-used s-s-some of the m-money f-f-from the r-r-reward from th-the b-b-book to b-buy a n-new m-mixer. I th-though it-t-t-t w-would be n-nice to sh-share s-something w-with you." She dares to raise her eyes again to his face.
*
Log Edit: cooling, not coolish.
*
"A mixer, how devilishly sensible of you." Lucian cracks a slightly wider grin. Absent the actual cigarette or martini glass, he has to find something else to do with his hands. Bat about one of the low-hanging Edison bulbs? Never, perish the notion. He watches the shadows undulating about the mezzanine, and then runs a thumb over the edge of the curved booth. Height is easy enough to manage that. "Something like that will assure you stay fed, which is no bad thing. We wouldn't want you wasting away for lack of nourishment."
*
The slide of that thumb, paired with the smile on his expressive face, is enough to make Rosemarie…melt into the booth a little — go metaphorically somewhat jelly-kneed. The blush remains and she can't find the wherewithal to meet those summer-blue eyes again.
"I d-don't m-m-make them often," she admits quietly, now pulling the Tupperware into her lap and out of sight. "It d-did s-s-seem sensible, y-y-yes. M-M-More than f-f-fair. I c-c-can…m-make m-more, if y-you'd like?" What a sweet offer — literally.
*
Now mind you, that mixer may survive the next fifty years with minimal difficulty while actual nations vanish from the globe and others reappear as their borders emerge from a vast yellowness or redness. Depending on her chosen brand, Rosemarie may have invested pretty darn smartly.
"You must have a good recipe, then, to come out with something consistent. I don't want to put you in my debt that way," Lucian says. "Do something if you want to. Not because you feel you have to. I want nothing of anyone, not like that."
*
The one she chose might just survive beyond that.
She frowns, suddenly very uncertain. "It w-w-wasn't a d-debt. It w-w-was b-being kind." Not mentioned is the bonus of having a good reason to visit the club and the barkeep without the need revolving primarily around the really too-good rum doled out by the shot or glass atop that pristine marble countertop.
*
"Being kind." Lucian inclines his head at that, rolling off the side of the horseshoe booth. "Most people wouldn't think to be like that to me." He doesn't seem put out or angry, not even really perplexed. The truth comes as the statement he presents, his hands resting behind him, cuffed easily. "Well, kindness can fill someone's belly. I'll have to amend that position."
*
A faint laugh escapes her and Rosemarie tries not to smile. "Y-Yes, I s-suppose it d-d-does. I c-c-can b-bring more. D-Do…" Oh gosh, be brave. "…d-do y-you have a f-f-favorite k-kind of cookie?"
The scrape of the Tupperware beneath the table means she's doing some fidgeting of her own and she immediately stops, looking put-out for the sound having given it away. Maybe…maybe she can sneak past him now, slide out the end of the booth without falling on her face. …maybe.
*
"A favourite?" The question hangs on Lucian's tongue for a moment, and he frowns. "I've nary the foggiest. Not something I consume on a regular basis." At least the answer is an honest one, left bluntly positioned between them. He raises a shoulder easily enough. "What do you prefer? I suppose there must be some good one."
He doesn't block the other option. Easy for her to slip away through the other direction.
*
"I'll b-b-bring chocolate chip n-next time."
With that, she does, in fact, slip around the open side of the u-shaped booth. The Tupperware is clutched to her chest, valuable thing that it is, and she gives Lucian one last attempt at a proper smile. "I-I'll b-b-bring them w-when I can." Mazikeen is given a faint 'thank you' once again — manners apply even when the server serves to scare one something good — and then she retreats to the stair. Up, up and away, out into the evening and home to make dinner and squiggle inside about the whole thing.