Who: Deacon & Dolores What: A crossing of paths. Where: Outside the Vega. When: Reeeecently. Warnings/Rating: Eh, none.
Dolores Castillo didn't normally go anywhere near places like the Vega. She went from her apartment (which she shared with an entirely responsible roommate and said roommate's cat), to work (where she sold XXX videos, dildos and the like, while popping into the peepshow booth for a good half her shift, and making a decent amount of change as the most awkward dancer to ever sit herself behind plexiglass).
The Vega was nowhere within her skillset, and she knew it. But the girls at work had been talking it over all evening, and Dolores was rather a curious thing. That was how she'd ended up working at Showgirl Video, and it was how she ended up walking along the street that led up to the rather impressive club with the red lights and the line wound round outside.
She stopped there, and she looked at the building, and she wondered if perhaps she couldn't do it. She'd no great amount of confidence; quite the opposite, really. She was too heavy to be a stripper (and she'd given up on trying to quash her late-night habit of Swiss Miss Rolls), and possibly too old (at 25). But she did well as the awkward girl behind the glass in the blue booths at work, and perhaps there was a need for that on a stage? But that was the rub; a stage.
Behind the plexiglass, it was just her, enclosed, and she could barely see whoever sat in the dark on the other side. She could hear them a little, but barely more than that. She could talk to them, but mostly it was her own voice that echoed back at her. If they laughed, it didn't carry. If they brought their friends to laugh, that didn't carry either. Though they did approach her after, so she wasn't completely oblivious. But a stage was open and vast, lights and there would be so many faces it. It was entirely terrifying, and it was entirely thrilling.
But Dolores was a twenty-five year old virgin, one that rather liked girls, and one whose largest lifetime moment of risk taking was her current job. She spent her evenings with video games and movies, and she looked as terribly awkward as she felt. She stood there, hair temporarily dyed blue for the evening, in a bright blue corduroy skirt that showed off ample, soft and doughy thigh. Her shirt was Star Wars, short sleeved and with Princess Leia brandishing a phaser, and her Converse were the same blue as the skirt. She stood out, certainly, but not in the kind of way that would get her past the bouncers at the Vega. She tugged at a white, knee-high sock, and she took another step closer, braveness coming with a trip over an untied shoelace.
The Vega was like his Holy Grail. Or, well, maybe it was more like the building which housed the Holy Grail, because that shiny little treasure itself wasn’t actually a thing but a person. A woman, five years older, whose name was a star and who Daddy Dearest had entrusted with responsibility he didn’t want but toys he did. Maybe. Deacon lived in the moment, day to day, barely thinking of consequences or the future until he was in the middle of it. There were men who told him he should find work, a job, somewhere within his father’s spiderweb empire of crime, but he’d shrugged off such obligations his entire life and wasn’t inclined to change now. He had money, he had a last name that carried weight (his, it was his, the Greek surname that he and Lyra shared) and he didn’t mull over the reality of wealth not being an endless pit he could continually draw from. He was still young even if he acted like a prince who’d been gifted with immortality and a golden touch.
A little over two months in Sin City, though, and he hadn’t actually gone inside yet. He hadn’t found his long-lost sister, either. He’d partied and sampled the finest the city had to offer, and then he went underground and rolled in the filth and degradation; the difference between him and them, though, was that he climbed back up and washed himself off. They stayed down there. The furthest he’d gotten was hanging around outside of the Vega--some might call it lurking, creeping, whatever--and amusing himself by trying to incite the bouncers outside. He wasn’t scared, no. Hell no. But for once in his life Deacon actually cared about not fucking something up, though he’d never admit such a thing; hence his hesitation.
He was in a good mood today. Waking up at noon in the massive marble bathtub, half-filled with water and champagne, with a brunette snuggled against him and two more, blonde and male, sprawled out next to each other on the carpeted floor. Fuck whoever said carpet didn’t belong in a bathroom. His suite was, surprisingly, still in decent shape, and after ordering up coffee and greasy food he’d escorted his nighttime companions out the door with dazzling smiles and honeyed charm despite having no intention of seeing them again. The rest of his day had dragged by lazily; he’d smoked for a while, watched some tv, did a line of pretty white power on the table and counted the bills he’d collected from the meth he’d sold the night before. Hadn’t even been top notch and they’d still paid in full; suckers.
And here he was now, in a gray v-neck tee and jeans and black boots, perched on a garbage can outside the club and making faces at the bouncers and various patrons all lined up in their very best waiting to get inside. On days like today his youth shone through, and he dug in his pocket for his cigarettes and lit one up as he observed the crowd. But one in particular stood out; she wasn’t in line, wasn’t some thin supermodel wannabe with dyed hair and too much makeup. Blue hair and some Star Wars shirt, and Christ, that skirt. Those shoes. Either this girl was blind as a bat or just didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. He could respect the latter.
Either way, she was new. Different. Looked like fun to him. Deacon hopped off his perch and approached Little Miss Knee Highs, all confident swagger and smirk. A drag, inhale, and he blew smoke her way. “Nice hair.”
It was the cigarette that drew her attention, oddly enough. The tiny ember was small and nearly nothing in the Vegas neon night, but it was at an odd height, and there were no intentional lights to add ambiance to a garbage can, even in a place like this. She glanced over, the woman who was a combination of two left feet, dreadful fashion sense and who, yes, had learned to just not give a damn over the years. She jingled when she turned, the golden saints tucked behind Princess Leia announcing her notice, long before she ever managed to speak. It was a blur of movement, really, him jumping off the garbage can, and she wondered if that said as much about a person as she could assume it did. Had this been a video game, the young man on the perch would surely have been carrying a quest or something worth purchasing. Oddly, she didn't think assassins perched on garbage cans, and that was rather enough proof that he wasn't going to kill her here, outside this neon palace.
The swagger was dreadfully familiar. Boys came into Showgirl in packs, groups of them like hungry little dogs, and all trying to walk with more swagger than the next. She'd thought them rather entertaining at first, until she'd learned they could be cruel in masses. Alone, they lost that swagger. Their hands tucked deep into their pockets, and they were decent then. They'd talk comics, as they sheepishly purchased their condoms and, she'd learned she liked them quite better alone, when they were less likely to mock things in order to feel bigger. But this young man swaggered, and there was no one about, which she verified with an exaggerated look beyond his garbage can throne.
"Nice garbage can. No chance you've a quest for me? That would make it rather less creep and more MMORPG," she said, kneeling to tie the offending lace that had almost sent her onto her face on the sidewalk. Her accent was an odd collection of things, something british, something carribean, something middle america, and she looked up at him before standing, the lace safely knotted, and she was willing to admit that he was interesting, in a rather trouble sort of way. "Have you been inside the neon palace?" she asked trustingly, though her sisters would surely comment about his smirk in hushed whispers that were perfectly audible. Telenovela Whispers, Dolores had always called them.
Deacon would scoff in the face of anyone who called him a boy; he knew boys. He might be young, yes, might have only just graduated college, blah blah blah, but he was no pretender who had to try at anything. Confidence wasn’t feigned, wealth and power wasn’t played at, because he had it all in spades. He took what he wanted and, as his father had taught him, never let anyone take from him. While he was smirk and swagger now he could be snarl and violence in less time than it took to snap fingers, but there was no sign of that danger on the surface, no, not even a hint. “Yeah, I’m pretty partial to it myself,” he said of his temporary throne, as modern-day princes had to make do with what they came across on the streets they tread. He had no idea what MMORPG was; growing up his childhood hadn’t been a childhood so much as it had been years in which he was young, and his father was not the sort to suffer frivolities or mindless pursuits lightly. Yeah, sure, he had an Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3 and a bunch of games to go with both but it was a relief for boredom, or something to do when he was high because everything was so much fucking funnier then. “Sorry, doll, I’m short on quests right now, but the guy two streets over near the dumpster might have one for you.” The cigarette was clamped between his teeth as he looked down at her, amusement lighting up his gaze as she re-knotted her shoelace.
If he’d cared he might have tried to place her accent, but he didn’t. That it was different was enough for him. “Nah, not yet.” He shrugged, like it didn’t matter, and looked up. “Me and the bouncers, though, we’re pals.” He shot them a grin and a wave, wiggling his fingers like a child might, only to receive thin-lipped daggers glared at him in return. “You going in? ‘Cause, hey, I like your look but I think they might be a little uptight about the dress code.”
Dolores had never known snarls or violence. Her life had been altogether calm in that regard, despite her time in the foster system. Her adoptive parents had been loving, and the Murphys had been Stepford, but inoffensive. She'd avoided the pitfalls of bad connections in college, and she'd come to Las Vegas and moved in with an old friend, all without any true ripples in the water of her life. Her adoptive parents had died in an accident, and even that had left little scar tissue behind. She'd no idea that swagger could turn to anything but verbal cruelty, because Showgirl had very good security, and she'd not been there long enough to experience any of the true ugliness that came with the sex industry.
She looked around herself when he spoke, looking, looking, still looking, and then her gaze settled on him once more. "Is there a doll here?" she asked, more entertained than anything else. She wasn't the kind of woman that men wasted pet names on, but she didn't actually find his use of one offensive. It was odd, new, strange, and she did like new things, rather like this neon palace and the women who walked in, looking like they'd walked off a magazine page. She jerked a thumb back in the direction of the dumpster, and her heel caught on a crack as she did, but she righted herself before her step managed to do more than hiccup. "The man back there?" she asked. "Oh, we've met. His quest was too low level for me," she quipped, knowing he'd have no clue what she meant. If he was stamped with anything it was Bad Boy. In the grocery store of life, he'd certainly never been near the Geek aisle.
She lifted a blonde brow when he said the bouncers were his pals. "Oh, I can tell they adore you entirely," she said, laughter in it, and she looked down at her clothing when he mentioned it. "I'm entirely too well dressed for them, I know. I'll show up everyone else in line, and then whatever will they do?" she asked with a deadpan that said she was used to criticism for her wardrobe. "Why are you really here?"
His eyes brightened they way they did when he was entertained, like a cat who’d found a mouse who was willing to do more than lay down and die. “I think a couple of them might have enough plastic to give Barbie a run for her money,” he said, jerking his chin towards the line that ran around the corner. He intentionally spoke loudly enough to earn himself a few glares through cat-eye slits, to which he responded with a flash of straight white teeth only money could buy and a wink before returning his attention to his new blue-haired friend. “But, see, dolls means you’re cute.” It was said with a knowing smirk, the sort that could tell who was used to being complimented and who wasn’t; he doubted she had a line of guys waiting to knock on her door, at least not guys who didn’t have sellotaped glasses and braces and the same kind of Star Wars shirt she did. He didn’t outright laugh when she stumbled, but his eyes sparkled with mischief that said he’d noticed, he’d pegged her as clumsy but hell, it was kind of endearing. Deacon was fond of pretty things, shiny things, different things, at least so long as they held his interest, and she definitely fell into the latter category. He was a collector of sorts, not of things but of people. “Too low level, huh?” Yeah, no, he couldn’t make head or tails of quests or levels but he figured she meant that it was too easy or something. “Maybe you should try the basements of those Chinese take-out places. Getting down there is an adventure itself.”
One day soon, once he found his sister and charmed her as he’d charmed everyone else, Deacon delighted in the thought of the bouncers answering to him. It never occurred to him that she might cast him out because he simply wasn’t accustomed to not getting what he wanted. “You’ll start a riot,” he told her. Which, incidentally, might be fun. As for why he was really here, he had to consider whether he wanted to give her the truth, a lie, or a bit of both. He did like to embellish. “Can you keep a secret, Blue?” He lowered his voice conspiratorially, mock serious as though her silence was of the utmost importance.
Not only was she lacking a line of men to knock at her door, but she didn't even have one. She didn't have any girls, either, and that had rather been the state of things from cradle to present. Her adoptive sisters had all been impressively dark beauties, long hair and olive skin, and she'd always been a pasty thing that was too chubby for any positive notice. When she'd ended up with the Murphys, the pallor hadn't been a problem, but she'd been graceless and dreadful at socialization, and the Murphy girls had been bred with silver spoons upon their tongues and etiquette flowing in their veins. It was obvious that she was as unaccustomed to compliments as fish were to breathing air, and her mouth turned into an O of surprise, and she ground the tip of her shoe into a very ill-placed crack. Balance restored, a moment later, she grinned when he mentioned Chinese basements in regards to low-level questing. "You've no idea what I mean," she said, a hint of smug finding its place in her voice again. "And I've no idea why you'd go near the dreadful basements of Chinese carryout, seeing as your shoes could buy everything on a much better menu." She might not have money of her own, but she'd seen it rain down upon the Murphys like summer showers; she knew what quality looked like, even if he tried to make it all look terribly Evanescence.
She leaned closer when he lowered his voice conspiratorially, and she looked about herself, as if the world itself could be listening over her shoulder. It was a very badly done imitation of stealth, and her smile was devil-may care bright when she looked at him again. "No, because I've so many people to tell. Can't you see all my admirers, flocked behind me, desperate to hear every last word I utter?" The sarcasm was thick, but the smile was genuine, and she didn't correct him when he called her Blue, which was (perhaps) telling.
Like a shark scenting blood in the water, Deacon zeroed in on the surprise that followed on the heels of his compliment with a sly smirk. He could have gone in for the kill but no, this one would be fun to play with, he’d only nibble at her heels for now. Never one to admit his own ignorance he merely shrugged when she said he had no idea what he meant, as though he couldn’t care less either way, or perhaps that he simply didn’t care enough to prove her wrong (or right). “Hey, Chinese food that’s so damn bad it’s good is priceless,” he said. “None of my shoes can buy that. How do you know about the buying power of my shoes anyway?” He raised his eyebrows, all playful challenge.
He looked behind her like there was something there to see, and he pressed his lips together thoughtfully. “I’m sure you can resist the temptation.” The tease came with a slow, slow smile, before he lowered his voice again. “My long-lost sister’s in there,” he told her, with the same sort of exaggerated drama a soap opera star might use as he gestured to the club beyond. It was vague enough to keep the details under wraps but enough to, as he expected, elicit some sort of response.
"Have you ever had Cuban food?" she asked, the pale and pasty thing that should have no knowledge of anything that was even slightly unBritish. "It's better than terrible Chinese," she insisted, confident that she could speak more to food than he could. After all, she was quite certain two of his thighs made up one of hers. She was self-conscious about it, but not as dreadfully as she'd been before the peepshow. A dollar to sit in a booth and watch her strip for a minute wasn't any great salary, but at least someone was willing to pay said dollar. And it could be argued that no one knew what they were getting when they entered the booths at Showgirl Video, but the addition of fresh dollars certainly accounted for some level of interest, tripping and thunder-thighs and all.
She glanced down at his shoes, and then she looked up again, her own smirky gaze focused on his raised brows. "I'm a shoe connoisseur. I've knowledge about all the best footwear, regardless of class or level. Sandals for your Mage? I'm your girl. Boots for your Pally? I've just the thing."
She managed to remain entirely, unaffectedly cheeky until he looked at her like she was worth sharing secrets with. Then she melted just a little, an ice cream cone dripping on the sidewalk. She looked over at the club when he shared his secret, precisely as intended, and she looked back at him. "I've a brother I've never met," she admitted, the admission too genuine and uninvited to be anything but awkward. But her recovery was admirable, and she looked at the bright oasis that was Vega once more. "Why don't you simply go up and announce yourself?" she asked. Wasn't that how it was done in soap operas? Completely with the requisite close pan-in, of course.
She didn’t look like she’d been near anything Cuban in her life, no more than he had. Deacon liked food that tasted good and that was about as far as his culinary knowledge went; he’d never cooked a day in his life and had, on separate occasions, managed to set a stove on fire and blow up a microwave. Sometimes he went for cheap takeout and sometimes he ordered the most expensive meals he could find, fancy-sounding food that didn’t make sense to him but tasted like wealth and skill, gold and precious gems in edible form. “Maybe,” he shrugged. “I don’t know. Have you?” He sounded like he wasn’t all that convinced that she had despite her appearance. Some people were too moral and good to judge, but he wasn’t one of them; he was selfish and shallow and judgmental more often than not, and he’d toss someone to the curb for little more than not liking the way their nose looked or the way they talked, but there were times when he didn’t give a damn and those had nothing to do with any selfless bullshit. And hey, sometimes all those Barbie dolls stopped being so perfect and started looking the same, which got boring, and he loathed boring.
He laughed outright when she claimed to be a shoe connoisseur, a pleased, entertained sort of sound despite not knowing what the hell a Mage or a Pally was. “Next time I need new shoes, I’m taking you with me,” he told her, and he could already imagine the spectacle they’d make in the high-end stores with their snooty clientele and six-figure prices. He could make a game of it, see how long it took them to get kicked out; his idea of a good time.
Her reaction was exactly what he’d hoped for, but her admission was like the cherry on top; unexpected, but no less sweet. “Is he here too?” As for why he didn’t just go announce himself, which admittedly was usually how he liked to do things (he was all about making a scene), well, that was trickier to explain with his usual careless ease. “I’m working on it,” he said after a moment. “Gotta do it right, you know?”
She wasn't at all surprised by his question. Ever since the very first day of school, she'd realized she wasn't truly like her family. All those subsequent years, she'd felt certain she'd feel ever so much better had she been adopted by glowingly white people with pasty skin. When her adoptive parents had died, she'd had a momentarily terrible hope that she might be adopted by people who looked like her. It had been a fleeting thing, and she'd felt enough guilt afterward that she'd lit all her mama's saints for a week, until they'd come to take her away. When she'd ended up with the Murphys, she'd realized that skin colour meant entirely nothing at all, and she'd counted the years until she could be reunited with the dark sisters of her childhood. And there they had been, unquestioning as always, and she'd never been so happy as she'd been to end up in a place where she stood out like a sore and perpetually white thumb. "I'm Cuban," she said defiantly, as if she was challenging him to question her on it, British accent and all. "We've misa on Sundays, at that little church off Alta Vista Dr. There's always food after." She coughed, of course, inelegantly, after issuing the non-invitation. She'd always been a nervous cougher.
She looked down at his shoes a moment later, thankful for the distraction from her unfortunate coughing fit. "I think you've a perfectly good idea of what kind of shoes you want, Smirk," she said, looking up at his face. "I was raised by these dreadfully rich supervillains, you see, and they wouldn't turn their nose up at your kicks. Supervillains are quite picky about their footwear. Don't let appearances deceive you."
His question about her brother was met with a shake of her head and scuff of her foot against the sidewalk in a failed attempt to casually dislodge a loose stone. Said loose stone stuck, and she stumbled, and she had a good laugh at herself after righting herself again. "No. I've never found any trace of him." Though she'd looked, and she'd likely look again. She nodded toward Vega. "The girls at work were talking about auditions, and I came to see if it was the palace they'd all made it out to be." She turned her attention to him once more. "What, precisely is doing it right?" she asked, wondering if it required the planning of a raiding party entering and instance. Perhaps it did. "She works there?"
The blue-haired Star Wars fangirl couldn’t have looked less Cuban if she’d tried, but then again Deacon was fairly sure he didn’t look Greek, not like his father had, straight off the island, and besides he had heard of adoption. Whatever. “Okay,” he shrugged, simple as that. Sometimes he liked arguing with people just to piss them off, but he wasn’t in the mood just then. The mention of a church lit up his eyes with a mischievous fire, memories of life when he was young and his nanny had tried to drag him to mass and he’d ended up crawling under the pews and knocking over the candles near the altar, nearly burning the place down, and the priest had angrily denounced him as hellspawn. He’d thought it was hilarious, and he often viewed religion in any form with scorn and contempt, unable to understand how anyone could have faith in something they couldn’t see. No thanks. Still, crashing some church thing might be fun, and she’d just told him when and where. He took it as an invitation though he played it casual, glancing up at the sky and over at the club like he hadn’t heard what she’d just said, or registered it as he should have. “Cool,” he remarked. “I like food.” It wasn’t a hey, maybe I’ll stop by, but it wasn’t an outright rejection either. It was just enough to, he hoped, keep her guessing and wondering if he’d show.
“I am the kind of guy who knows what I want, Blue,” he shot back with, what else, a smirk. He made a show of looking her over when she said she was raised by supervillains, because this girl didn’t look to have a bad bone in her body. “Rich supervillains. You must be the black sheep of the family, huh?”
He couldn’t remember having actually met someone who was not only as clumsy as her, but had the ability to laugh at herself instead of getting all embarrassed and stuttering and turning red. Sympathy wasn’t his thing, but he made a sound that was meant to be something the lines of that fucking sucks, because it did, even if his disconnect from people as a whole meant that it was near impossible to care. “You want an audition?” No one just waltzed on up to the Vega and decided they wanted to be a stripper or whatever girls wanted to call it these days, but he just couldn’t see her up on stage doing anything that resembled dancing. “Doing it right means not fucking it up,” he said matter-of-factly, and he shook his head when she asked if his sister worked there. “Nah. She owns the place.”
She' wouldn't have placed him as Greek, no, but she'd never met anyone who was Greek. Her time before the Murphys had been entirely continent bound. Her adoptive family had no interest in leaving the United States. They were entirely middle class, but taking a family of five on vacation was rather costly, and it just didn't happen terribly often. With the Murphys, she hadn't gone on many holidays. The family went, but they'd realized she didn't fit in quite early, and she stayed behind with governesses and servants. Strikingly, those were some of the best holidays she recalled in the eight years she spent with them. She'd the manor to herself then, and all the books to read, and all the blankets to make into forts. For a young girl with an overactive imagination, that manor had been nearly a castle when the king and queen were away, and it had been oppressive when all the small princes and princesses returned home.
She wasn't expecting the church to light his eyes up like that, and she wondered at it. He hardly seemed the religious sort, and she was pondering that when he gave her his non-answer. It wasn't rejection, precisely, and she smiled at him like a blue-haired dolt. She would have likely made an even bigger fool of herself had a pretty girl not walked by just then and caught her attention. She followed her with her gaze, and then she turned back to him, just as he was looking her over. She faltered, she blushed, and she wondered that she could do perfectly fine to get naked in front of everyone in a blue booth, but do so terribly with all of it out in the real world. "See? My disguise is perfect. You think me harmless," she said, straight and without any hint of teasing, save the smile that lit up her blue eyes. She was still smiling when he asked about the audition, and she shook her head. "I wouldn't last a minute in there. It was only dreaming," she said truthfully. "I'll stick to my peep show," she said without shame, and her expression softened when he said that doing it right was about not fucking up. "I'm sure she'll like you," she said kindly, dashing any potential hopes of being perceived as a supervillain with the softer tone.
Pretty things were always guaranteed to catch his eye, men or women though his preference was the latter, but this time Deacon paid more attention to Blue’s reaction than the girl her gaze followed. There was appreciation, even admiration, and then there was something more, and he often amused himself by telling the two apart. He was all charm and smiles when she looked back at him, however, and he decided he liked the way the flush in her cheeks contrasted with the paleness of her skin. “I’d love to see you prove me wrong,” he teased, but it was no innocent jest, devilish mischief in his eyes and wrapped around the words. Pushing people past their limits was, quite often, better than any high he found in powder or needles, and knowing that he was responsible was a rush of power he couldn’t put into words.
Most of the time tact was one of those things he treated as optional, and he had no problem telling people the blunt, harsh truth regardless of the consequences. He didn’t need to step foot inside the Vega to know that she’d be laughed right out, but sometimes, just sometimes, he was capable of keeping his mouth shut. He felt like he deserved a medal every time it happened. “Your peep show? Where?” A grin spread across his features, because oh, this was good. She was the last person he’d have ever pegged to do that kind of thing and surprises always made life more interesting. Her expression softening, though, he didn’t quite know what to do with that at first. Kindness wasn’t something Deacon was used to. Even as a child, no one had really been kind to him. Being spoiled wasn’t the same, because having his every whim met didn’t necessarily come with emotional attachment. And his father? Hah. Constantos had been smoke and mirrors, a man whose every word hid darker intentions, and he’d never thought for a minute that his father loved him. He hadn’t loved him either. Admired, yes, but there was no love. He couldn’t say he’d ever loved anyone. His first instinct was skepticism, because why would this stranger care if his sister liked him or not? He gave her a long, doubtful look, as though attempting to determine why she would say such a thing, and then shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Yeah, maybe.” Whatever. If he did care, he’d never admit it.
"By the time you realize I've proven you wrong, it will be too late. You'll have been boiled in your own pudding, as Charles Dickens said," Dolores informed him, looking for any recognition of the quote or Dickens on his features. The expensive shoes said he'd money somewhere, but they didn't necessarily say he'd been educated. But his speech patterns weren't lowborn, and she was counting on there being absolutely no confusion at all about who Dickens was. She wondered why he was playing so very diligently at being a little street rat, and she assumed it had something to do with the sister that owned the club they were in front of. Or perhaps he just desired "street cred." Either way, her blush eventually subsided, chased away by curiosity. She was dreadfully curious about everything, though her sisters felt sure that tendency should have ebbed away with childhood. At her age, she should be thinking of marriage and children. Instead, she was trying to figure out why Smirky had expensive shoes.
"Showgirl Video. It's off strip, but dreadfully popular," she explained of the shop that sold all manner of sexual toys and videos. "We get tourist buses full of gamblers on Fridays. I wouldn't come then," she told him, not believing he'd come at all, really, and knowing he'd be more interested in one of the other girls, if he did decide to show up. The booths were popular, and the girls were lovely, and she mostly worked mornings and after church on Sundays, when the elderly and tourists came. She'd only just begun to regret giving him the name, because what if he did come? And was it too late to name another place and pretend she'd misspoke? Panic was setting in, and her foot was tap, tapping against the sidewalk, and then something shifted on his features and it was more interesting than her own concern that he'd show up to laugh at her. It was that dismissive nonchalance, the pretense that he didn't give a rat's arse if his sister liked him, and she knew it was false. She believed it was false, because she'd truly never had to spend any kind of time with cruelty, and she felt certain he was simply hiding his tender sentiments to maintain that bravado that he was so desperately clinging to.
She gave him a genuinely kind smile. "If you'd like to talk or anything, after you've met her, you can call me at Showgirl. Just ask for Dolores, or Lo. I work most late nights and mornings," she said, because she'd little to do but work and game, and she picked up shifts anytime she could, really, as an excuse to get out of the house.
Charles Dickens, right, yeah, he knew who that guy was. The guy’s stuff had been shoved down his throat back in his private school days, but Deacon often forgot what didn’t interest him and very little of what he’d learned in an educational setting hadn’t bored him senseless. There was no confusion in his gaze, but the recognition came with a grimace as though he wasn’t particularly thrilled about being reminded of his old school days. “Dickens said some weird shit,” he remarked, shaking his head.
“I’ve heard of that place.” Dickens didn’t thrill him, but this? This did. He had the money to hire high-class escorts and didn’t need some sex shop with booths, but Deacon liked to dabble in both worlds with the knowledge that he could always go back to his thousand-dollar suite, room service, and champagne fountains. “No Fridays,” he smirked. “Gotcha.” Not having a job meant that he had a lot of time to spare, which also meant he became bored very, very easily. He was pretty sure he could find an hour or two to head down to Showgirl Video and see what he could see. The way her foot tapped against the sidewalk, a nervous tic if there ever was one, and that only made him all the more determined to actually follow through and show up. But once again her kindness threw him, and it was indicative of how he’d been raised that he couldn’t distinguish an act, which he was used to, from the real deal. Once again there was that skepticism, as though her offer for him to call was some sort of trap laid out to make him look stupid. After a moment, though, he nodded, slowly, and decided that he wasn’t interested in skulking around the Vega anymore. Nah, maybe he’d head back to the suite or one of the casinos on the Strip. “Sure,” he said. “Anyway, I’m gonna head out. Y’know. Good luck with the audition, if you go for it.” He shrugged. “See ya.” His dismissal was brief, simple, and he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it as he walked away, not even realizing that, while she’d given her name, he’d never given his. Oops.