pleasuretoburn (pleasuretoburn) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-12-14 22:08:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | noah restic, npc, ~ro clark |
Struck Out
Who: Ro/Noah/NPC
What: Fight or Flight
Where: Las Vegas, Omnia
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: Threats, troublesome talk, typical Noah stuff
Omnia at Caesar’s Palace was the type of nightclub where tourists and residents of Las Vegas alike went to feel like bright, young things. It featured a rotating list of celebrity DJs, a dizzying array of lights including a giant, multi tiered chandelier, and a rooftop terrace with expansive views of the Strip. That’s where Dylan found himself now, a drink in hand and a girl in his sights.
He made a beeline toward her, a stylishly short haired woman wearing a black top with an embroidered, shiny scorpion that bounced back the light. “A scorpion in the desert,” Dylan joked loudly over the music. “Appropriate.”
The dark circles from under Ro's eyes had nearly vanished and what remained could be mistaken for an effect of makeup under the club lights. She smiled at her new companion. It was so much easier when they came to her. Maybe after tonight Ro wouldn’t have to disguise a pinched look and shadows under her eyes with makeup. Her energy stores were nearly restored.
Ro smiled, tilting her head as she looked up at the man. A fingertip traced the rim of her glass. "Hopefully I'm not as poisonous."
“Maybe I won’t mind even if you are,” Dylan joked, returning her smile, an eye on her finger as she touched the glass. Of course it made him think of her using her hands in other places. “I’m Dylan,” he told her. “Just visiting, or are you from around here?”
Noah had gotten a tip from one of the loan sharks he worked with that a man who owed a great deal of debt liked to frequent high end clubs like Omnia. He needed only to bribe one of the doormen and provide him a photo of the man in question and received a text that he was indeed at the club.
And now here Dylan was, talking to Ro. It was too perfect. Smirking, the pyrokinetic slowly approached the both of them, weaving his way through various clumps of club-goers.
"You looking to get bit?" She looked at Dylan appraisingly, trying to judge how interesting he was likely to be. "I'm Arrow. Where we've been and where we're going doesn't really matter. We're here now."
She looked to see how that went over and caught sight of a familiar figure coming up on them from the crowd. "Speaking of where we've been." Ro didn't know why Noah was here but she was at least a little grateful that it was no longer obvious she stopped eating after him.
Dylan laughed, taking a sip of his drink which seemed to only bolster his courage. So far, she wasn’t walking away, and that was definitely good for the ego. “Are you offering?” he countered suggestively, moving infinitesimally closer to her. When he spotted the other man hovering near them, however, his tone changed. “Can I help you, buddy?”
Noah ignored the man’s question. “Hello, Ro,” he said, watching her face intently. As good as her word, he hadn’t seen nor heard from her at all since the day she left his apartment. He knew from Roman that she had cut ties with him, as well, which gave him some level of vindictive satisfaction. Then he turned toward her companion. “Actually, you can help me, Dylan. You can give me ten grand and I’ll walk away.” He gestured to Ro. “Unless she’s not worth that much to you.”
Ro was relieved Noah's appearance tonight had little to do with her. If he'd been following her, she might have to take care of a problem. This appeared to be business and Noah's loansharking was none of hers. It was what happened if this man she had just met didn't pay that worried her. Noah killed for money.
She set her glass down and folded her arms across her chest. Some of the sequins on her shirt dug into her skin. "Funny," Ro said slowly. "That's the closest you've come to calling me a whore."
Dylan’s stomach dropped to the pit of his stomach, and the hand holding his cocktail glass became slippery with perspiration. He knew immediately what the other man was referring to. “I told them I’d pay by the end of the month,” he replied, his mouth suddenly dry. “I don’t have it all right now. I’m…” He cut a glance at Arrow/Ro. “Moving things around right now. Making some things liquid.”
Noah noted the defensive gesture from Ro. “I wouldn’t call you that,” he told her. “Mostly because it’s not money that you take from people, so that would be factually incorrect.” The pyrokinetic shrugged and turned toward the squirming man next to her.
“That was three months ago,” he reminded Dylan. “I think they’ve been more than patient. It also doesn’t look like you’re struggling.” Noah paused, feigning like he had just had a light bulb of an idea. “Why don’t we hit a few ATMs and you can give me what you do have. As a gesture of good faith.”
"If you leave with him, I'm coming too." She didn't say why. Noah would know the reason and Ro had to imagine that Dylan would have no reason for complaint. If he wasn't an idiot, he might think this was a set up but a witness was a witness.
“What, like a threesome?” Noah smirked. He glanced at Dylan. “I mean, he’s not really my type, but…” He trailed off, watching in amusement as the man became even more visibly uncomfortable.
“I don’t know,” Dylan answered, his gaze shifty. “I don’t really have a lot in my account, and it’s late, and…” He swallowed, racking his brain for more excuses. While this guy didn’t exactly look physically threatening, there had to be a reason why he was sent to collect.
"You wish," Ro said shortly to Noah. She looked back to Dylan. There would be no meal there tonight.
"Look, whatever he wants, give it to him. If you need to go somewhere, I'll stay with you so you're not alone. But pay him. Trust me, it'll be better for you."
Dylan sighed, closing his eyes briefly then opening them again. His night was now dashed on two different fronts. “So, you know each other, and you both want to escort me to an ATM so I can withdraw money and give it to him?” He gestured to Noah. “How does that not make you complicit, again?”
“She wants to come with us to make sure I don’t kill you,” Noah told him, clearly amused. “Even though there’s still the possibility I’ll kill you in front of her, anyway.” He looked at Ro. “How much are you willing to save this stranger’s life, anyway? I’m curious.”
Ro glanced between the two men. They were discussing Dylan's life and he was almost irrelevant to the conversation. "Are you asking me for a price, Noah?" She couldn't tell if Noah's intentions were to dangle a way to keep this stranger alive or to give her an opening to walk away.
"I think you don’t want me to see something that would force you to make a decision about me. Maybe you don't care but I'm guessing if you had a preference, you don’t want to make that choice about me. So as long you're here, I'll stay with him." She nodded towards Dylan.
All Dylan heard in the back-and-forth chatter between Ro and Noah was that this guy was threatening his life. He looked around the rooftop terrace. To get to an exit, he’d either have to run past Noah and through a thick crowd, or push Ro out of the way and create a distraction. He chose the latter, grabbing the woman roughly and pushing her into Noah, making a run for it. He bounced into a passing server and a tray full of drinks clattered to the ground, the sound of glass breaking and people swearing filling his ears.
Noah caught Ro, steadying her quickly before giving her an inscrutable look and taking off after the clumsily retreating target. “Stupid asshole,” the pyrokinetic mumbled under his breath. He might not kill the guy in front of her, but he was certainly going to hurt him for making him give chase.
The heels of Ro's boots clicked as she stumbled. At full strength maybe she doesn't stumble at all but her energy reserves were back up enough that she should easily be able to catch up with Noah. That wasn't what worried her. What worried Ro was what happened to Derrick - Dylan - whatever his name was, when Noah caught up with him.
Noah's expressions might be hard to read but at least some of his emotions were less so. There'd been attraction the second Ro had been in arms. She pulled on that now, smashing it forward in his attention. Hopefully that bought Dylan a few seconds to slip off through the crowd.
Some strange yet familiar sensation passed through him and caused Noah to halt in his tracks. He could see Dylan’s back being swallowed up by the crowd of revelers. He turned back to look at Ro, a mixture of anger, confusion, and curiosity on his face. “What the hell did you do?” he said, his voice raising over the music and chatter that surrounded them. Forgetting momentarily about Dylan, he took a few steps closer to her.
The pyrokinetic shook his head slowly. “That’s really playing dirty,” he told her. “And that’s coming from me.”
This time it was Ro's turn to look inscrutable as she shrugged and spread her hands. Lights glinted off the sequined scorpion on her shirt. He wasn’t wrong. "I never said I was a saint."
There was no use in continuing the chase. Dylan was gone now. Noah would have to find him somewhere else, which delayed the job, a fact that annoyed him greatly. “You’ll have to find yourself another meal now,” he told Ro. “Not that he was any great loss.” The pyrokinetic needed some alcohol.
“You want a refill on that drink?” he asked her.
She'd drawn her line with Noah. She should go. The trouble was these last few minutes were the most interesting thing to happen to her in the last month. That was the thing about lines in the sand. They were easily shifted. Ro would have to redraw hers when she walked away tonight. But she had to walk away first.
"I have nothing else to do with my time since you ran my feed away."
Noah led the way to the bar. There were no seats available, but he found a space where he and Ro could stand. After a few moments, a bartender made their way over to the pair of them. After putting in their drink orders, he turned to his erstwhile companion.
“You know,” the pyrokinetic began, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly as if in amusement, “I could be a pretty low-effort meal option.”
Ro looked over at him. "What a convincing, well-thought argument. I'm ]impressed." She shook her head a little. "Has something changed since the last time we spoke?"
He thought of the things he had told Rhiannon. Her comment that Ro must have brought out something from Noah that was already there, buried deep down, had stuck with him. “I liked the way you made me feel,” the pyrokinetic told Ro. “And...I liked spending time with you.”
Noah pulled his newly arrived drink toward him. “Even if I wanted to stop doing the things that I do...I don’t think I could. Because I don’t feel things the way other people do. I’m completely aware of this. I’m different. An outlier. But when I’m with you, I think maybe I get close to that.”
Ro was glad their drinks arrived and she could busy herself with that before she answered. "I knew a man once," she said slowly, "who talked like you. One of my regulars. I was seeing him a lot. This was...years ago, probably back before you were even born. He liked to talk about how free I was. So full of life. He was so controlled, so buttoned up into his regular life. If only he could be more like me. That when he was with me he just wanted to let go of it all."
She had probably told bits of this story to him before. Ro didn't mind telling him again. "And for a little while, he was happy. And then the beginning rush began to fade and he still had the same problems as before, except this time it was my fault because I was supposed to fix him. He wanted more and more. Until one night he saw me out with someone else. Suddenly that freedom he loved before wasn't so attractive since I was meant to be a fix for only him." She sipped again from her drink. "I'm sure I don’t have to explain how dangerous a man can be when he thinks he owns a woman. It was not a good time for me."
She paused and looked at Noah. "I think I may have told you last time I'm not interested in saving anyone. I don’t want to and I don't even know how. There are some feelings I'm not capable of either."
“You were perfectly fine saving Dylan back there,” Noah countered wryly, before taking a drink. “I don’t want, nor do I expect to be ‘saved’. I don’t think I can be, anyway. And I think I’ve proven that I’m not jealous.” He paused, thinking carefully about the wording of his next statement. “I understand what you do, and why you need to do it. But if you think I’m going to try to persuade you with something that would be a complete lie, like I’m planning to stop doing my job, then you’re mistaken. It’s your choice.”
"But you want me to make you feel things. That sounds a lot like saving." Ro had a sip of her drink before continuing.
"You know when you asked about getting another drink, I decided that tonight as long we're here, it was truce. That whatever happened could happen, as long as we're here. When I left, we'd be what we have been. Same deal. Now I'm not so sure." What part she was unsure about, Ro didn't say.
"Let me ask you something. Why do you want me to make you feel things? If you're just looking to make your toes curl, your boyfriend Roman is good for that."
Noah sighed and brought the glass to his mouth, taking a long, bracing drink. “You know it’s about more than that,” he told Ro, his expression deadpan. “It’s more than just the sex. And I happen to know that you find me interesting, and I know that I helped break up the monotony for you.”
He put the glass back down on the bar. “You’ve been doing this for decades? A century? Doesn’t it get monotonous? Meals are plentiful,” Noah gestured around the club, “but they’re simple-minded. One-dimensional. They don’t challenge you. You might as well be wandering onto a feedlot and picking out a cow. If it were me, that would bore the absolute shit out of me. Even when I’m doing my work, I make it fun. There’s a chase. There’s fear. Stakes.”
And here, the pyrokinetic smiled. “It’s like comparing slots to blackjack. Which one is more likely to get your adrenaline pumping?”
There was no point in arguing. Ro couldn’t. She was bored. She was always bored. It was why Ro was always looking for a game, even one as simple calling people by silly nicknames. The only time she didn't feel close to boredom was when she baked.
"I do," she agreed. "You get what I need because you're the same way. We're remarkably similar except for where we're not." And there were some gaping differences.
"What's the fun if I just say yes?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Tonight's a truce as long as we're here. Plenty of dark corners for getting into trouble."
Noah met her eye and chuckled. “And what makes tonight so special?” His tone was lighter than usual, almost flirting, a verbal trail to a singular point. He put down his drink and licked his lips, his gaze drawn to all those dark, hidden places they could go. He tore his eyes away to look at himself in the mirrored wall behind the bar, and then turned back to Ro.
“Is it because you already struck out?” the pyrokinetic asked, smiling. “Or because you’re just tired of trying to justify the perplexingly mundane life that you’ve chosen?” Noah leaned in, just a little. “Poor July-Arrow-Ro-another name no one will remember in fifty years. So empty you have to hang out with a killer to fill yourself up.”
He stood back up straight, his eyes never leaving hers. “If I could feel something, something real, I think for you it would be…pity.” Noah rapped his knuckles twice against the bar, nodding toward his glass. “Thanks for the drink.” And with that, he exited the terrace, following the panicked path that Dylan had earlier.
Noah had been just trying to convince her how alike they were, how he wanted her to make him feel. The whiplash of the sudden reversal set Ro back on her heels. Hurt flashed across her face and then anger. Before Noah could get too far away, she repeated her trick from earlier. Noah was still attracted to her and she yanked that feeling forward. A parting shot. A reminder.
If he looked back, he'd see Ro with her face carefully blank, turned up in a way she knew emphasized her beauty. If Noah looked back, Ro would blow him a kiss.
He felt that pull but it wasn’t as startling as the first time, and Noah was able to keep his stride though his throat moved as he visibly swallowed and blinked. What he didn’t do was look back. He was thoroughly sick of Ro being a weakness, a need. The further he got from her, the less Noah would feel it.