1964-06-15 - Unexpected Victories
Summary: Bucky is having an unnaturally good day.
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
lucian bucky 


What a terrible employee. HE accepts a job, shows up for his first day looking like someone else….and then vanishes. Weeks later, and there's a message to Lucian that John Frost has reappeared at the back door to apologize.


Perfection incarnate. A night reduced to dusty golds and faded coppers beckons to the first night, at least the first with any sort of atmosphere conjured on a somewhat rocky world where a creator for such things could stand lightly upon the peak of the mountains or the tumult of the sea and witness how a newly kindled sun shone its beams over the puffy cumulus clouds built up into dramatic anvilheads, attesting to the rightness of the Creator's divine plan. He who fulfills it may marvel assuredly at the glory and the mystery afforded in every wisp of cottony purity, and the slanting light. Here, with the pollutants thrown by cars in the sky and the desperate humans crawling around never looking around them to admire, it's a fall by far for the race meant to be as God.

No wonder Lucifer drinks.

He drinks because he wishes, sampling something poured out of a shaker into a glass. The hue is rightly mandarin, softening to a paler concourse rimmed in a translucency found, usually, in the breaking hour of dawn. It's all the more reason for him to drink. All the more reason for his glowing eyes to fade to their usual shock of summer sky blue and slant upon the intruder so distinguished first by Mazikeen, dread warden she is.


He should be under wraps at Rogue's, this haggard little ghost. But there's Bucky, as Bucky, in dress shirt and pants and boots, a light jacket to cover the arm. That's the downside of t-shirt weather, so much harder to conceal the damn thing. Maybe he should butcher one of the more opaque pairs of hose and make one into a full length glove. That'd help, right? Even dinner and a shower and a shave aren't enough to obscure the wear the elves left on him. Death and death and death, each one a little ordeal. He looks at Lucian directly,though, no shyness, hands at his side.


No illusion of Bucky. No hint of the man who took his way in, innocent as you please. Mazikeen makes a gesture and two of the servers take flight, all but literally, into the upper floor of the club. Certain doors to be checked, certain rooms to be considered. Those in LUX with any idea of their whereabouts and the sudden newcomer might be contending with checking for cameras or cover, as it stands. There are always patrons here, to be sure. Lucian raises a brow slightly at the man headed in. His drink doesn't shake, the liquid level. A sip follows, long and slow and measured. The way of the world; the Morningstar would do nothing else. Let him come to the mountain, if the mountain won't come to Buchanan.


Which he does, pace measured. No scuttling, no shrinking. That only serves to draw attention. Act like you belong, even if it's painfully clear you don't. James paces softly towards Lucian, gaze direct.


No shrinking, no stumbling. Soldier through to the end. There's another man or two that Lucian might know that to be. He swirls the liquid in the glass and sips more. Enough to whet his palate and then drops it down on the counter. "Back room," he says without comment.

And that means a simple, plain walk that owns the world. A stride tempered by nothing, he heads through a black door — it suits the decor — to a hallway slipping into the honeycomb of background activity.


He follows. It tweaks some memory, something that walks chill up his back. The way the Russian officers walked in front of him, blindly confident the American was tame enough not to sink a knife into them from behind. James has that prisoner's lack of expression on, for all the blue eyes are thoughtful.


The decorations in the backroom are more elegant than most clubs, featuring swish art with an eye for the tasteful avant garde, compositions that defy easy expression and strike for emotive responses. Some are simply gorgeous: an oil painting of a watery landscape at night, a wild, Klimt-style nude awash in gold and bronze. Lighting here glimmers softer and darker, the hues more intense in their fashion, playing to the textural sensory experiences.

The whispers chasing the blond and his quarry are bound to go down in legend. Though, once inside, presumably privacy prevails.

Lucian turns, and he waits.


This is unnerving. More than it should be. But then, things remain off. "I'm sorry," he says, without preamble. "You gave me an opportunity and…." He runs out of steam, looking rueful. "Things happened to me. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I….just wanted you to know it wasn't laziness or fear that had me vanishing like that."


What makes for unnerving reality is par for Lucian's course. He shows quiet patience for everything unexpected. Why not see what the fates deal? His elbow rest against the wall as he leans back. "You make a number of assumptions there," he says. Dryness lingers there in every crisp tone. "Laziness? You do not strike me as that. But the thought is important."


"No doubt," Bucky concedes, quietly. "I wanted to thank you." How many genuine thanks does he get, meant in earnest, the Morningstar. "No, whatever my flaws, I'm not lazy."


Phosphor; the bright star of morning. He affords no hint of that status but for the gravity of his regard. "Most everyone has flaws. You aren't obligated to tell me the whats or wherefores. Not until you are on payroll, of course. Understand up and disappearing will dock your pay, presumably, but there are times it happens." He spreads his hands. "Essential part of the business, naturally."


It comes out as an almost-squeak. "…..I still have a job?" Buck's voice has gone tremulous, at that. He's all but goggling, to be honest.


"It so would seem you did not show up for your first day, as yet." Lucian flicks a bit of his blond hair from his face. "It matters not to me what you did in your off time."


He deflates, just a little. Still in shock, in a far more pleasant way. It's been a good day - Steve got him dinner. Everyone knows Rogue. And he still has a job. James blows out a breath. "All right then," he says. "Thank you."


A good day so often precludes the fall. Just ask him. Lucian mindfully straightens his cuffs and gives Bucky that thousand-yard, atomic-reading look without making the effort to blunt it. "Are there any questions you have so far?"


Whatever he's been up to in the past few weeks, it's been bloody. Violence, death, red in tooth and claw, searing hate. Did Lucian hire a werewolf? He already knew the guy was some sort of murderer. He meets Lucian's gaze with a weary guilelessness. That look….he's taking it for a far more mundane undressing, though he can rest secure in the knowledge that Lucian's got far more beautiful staff to prey on than one backroom crate-lugger, if his inclinations run that way.


He can rest secure in the knowledge he might get a paycheque and less of a knife in the back. Very little acclaims itself in Lucian's expression. He merely raises his shoulders and nods. "You will need to be here starting in afternoons, unless you have a preference for other times."


He spreads his hands. "I'm entirely at your disposal," he says, simply. "If that's the shift you want me for, I'll be there."


"That will work as a start, and we can figure out all the rest," he states with easy candor around every sound. Lucifer raises his shoulders and then gestures. "You'll need to wear a black shirt, as a start. Or you can go for something more suitable and tailored if you insist. I do not require it, of course."


"Black shirt it is," he says, agreeably. Rogue will soon be treated to the spectacle of the Winter Soldier, feared assassin, trying to remember how the hell an electric steam iron works. He's going to set his hand on fire.


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