this is a bad town for such a pretty face Who: Damia Ravin & Miles Baines What: Will the real Damia Ravin please stand up? Where: Castle Ravin, Commoners When: October 31st, sometime after this. Rating: R to be safe, for implied things Status: Complete!
Damia. She'd named the doll Damia.
It was a catty gesture, of course, a vehement dig at the other woman — but all it accomplished was to make his thoughts drift back to Ravin herself. Like a boat veering off course, but unable to be righted or redirected.
So he found himself limping away into the night once their battle was done, taking the long and lonely walk from the nobles district towards the commoners district, his gait instinctively shifting with the transition (less the swaggering noble, stripping himself back down to good old Baines). He knew where she lived. Perhaps he'd even heave pebbles at her window, like some irritating teenaged suitor.
He paused at the corner of her street, balancing on one foot to readjust his boot, still uncomfortably damp with blood. His own. Faram, he hated spilling his own blood.
The man wobbled slightly as he put his foot back down. He still carried a near-empty wine bottle, his sole prize from this clusterfuck of an evening.
When Miles reached the building in question, he paused — then reconsidered, grabbed a few small pebbles from the street, and started throwing. He usually had quite decent aim, but the alcohol had dulled those reflexes: some of them ricocheted off the wall, others hitting neighbouring windows, others rolling back down and almost hitting him in the eye. Miles yelped.
Misfortune had found the man well, but it seemed, now, that luck was going to be on his side, for the first time that evening. He could've thrown pebbles at the window for the rest of the night to no avail; Damia wasn't home, and hadn't been for hours. What was most fortunate was her appearance at the end of the block, her intention solely to return home and throw herself into bed, only to find a certain mimic hurling rocks at her window.
Her heels echoed across cobblestone as she approached. A neighbor fussed in his own window, looking to open the blinds, but paused at the sound of her shoes. She sighed. It seemed the time for costuming was over, but at least she'd gotten a number of drinks in her before the night was out.
"Looking for someone? You're making a racket, Mr. Baines."
He whirled around (still a little unsteady on his feet) to face the—gangster? Was that a vintage gangster in the guise of a corsair, or vice versa?
"Oh," he said, a little mollified before stating the obvious: "You weren't home? Well, what a fucking waste of time and energy, then." Miles unclenched his fist and let the last handful of stones fall back into the gutter, then dusted off his hands. And then he squinted through the darkness, taking in the tailored cut of her clothing and the pinstripes that flattered her figure.
"Nice costume. Did you go mumming for candy?"
Damia smiled when she was within ten feet of him, a smile that said I've had something to drink, so I'll tolerate your snippiness for now. "I pretended to brandish a gun at them through my pocket, and they ever-so-obediently threw their candy at me. I would share but," as she passed her fellow guildmate, she plucked the fedora off her head and dropped it onto his, whether he'd appreciate it or not. "I'm afraid I devoured it all."
Without inviting him to follow — by her assumption, he would probably do so on his own — she ascended the set of steps leading to the front door. "Bad night? I can't tell if that is your costume, or you were aiming for the angry, drunken, and homeless look for a new identity."
"I've done angry, drunken, and homeless before. It wasn't a pleasant time. I much prefer this." Miles readjusted the fedora to a jaunty angle as he trailed her up the steps (with a slight limp), as casual and nonchalant as if they did this all the time.
"Very fucking horrible night," he said, tilting the wine bottle back and taking another sip while Damia busied herself with the lock, not looking at him. "I'll tell you all about it in a second. Hope your evening went better than mine."
She snorted. "From the look of you, it's safe to say the answer is yes, it did." With one last quiet jangle of keys — most of which weren't really keys but keychains, souvenirs from abroad; only an idiot would hang all her secret keys on a ring for all to see — the corsair pushed the door open, pivoting on a heel to face Miles. (With her shoes, she noted, she was just a hair shorter than him, but he was hardly standing straight.)
"Now, do you need me to carry you up the single flight of stairs, or would you prefer to slither up them yourself? I can hold your bottle, if you'd like." A gloved hand came out to accept his wine, with a smile to follow.
The smile was like another opened door — this was more welcome than he usually received from her, wasn't it? Realising this, Miles' posture straightened slightly as he obligingly handed over the wine. "I'll slither. I make a very decent snake, I'll have you know. Serpentine and untrustworthy, they've called me."
He'd followed her to the threshold, matching her step for step. He glanced down at the line marking the difference between outside the building and inside it, the metaphorical gate to the keep (which was, in this case, an apartment building). "With my alcoholic tithe paid, I can enter, yes?"
Her initial answer came in the form of her throwing the bottle back herself to steal a drink of her own, seemingly caring little about the mix of saliva. Wine downed, Damia licked her lips, gave him a challenging look, and passed over the threshold into the safety of the foyer.
"You may," she offered, already moving for the stairs. "Close the door after you, will you?"
An echo of past words, once spoken by him.
He didn't hesitate for a single second. The tables were turned and he was finally getting to see the inside of her apartment—so Miles went hurrying up the stairs, taking two at a time despite the slight flickers of pain from his scabbed-over, partially-healed ankle. He reached the floor shortly after her with a new bounce in his step.
"My first time at the Castle Ravin," he remarked, spinning slowly on his heel as he looked around the landing. The building was rundown, as one might expect from the lower end of the commoners district: creaking stairs and peeling paint, and he ran his hand along the railing before feeling it wobble. Miles recoiled lest he end up with a splinter embedded in his palm, looking down at it in distaste. (Spend enough time with the nobles, and one grew too accustomed to their surroundings.)
"What a charming domicile," he drawled. "Faram's sake. I should pay you more."
Damia's voice drifted up the stairs, accompanied by a horrendous creaking of wood that would no doubt wake the dead in the Necrohol. "Not even three minutes in the front door," she breathed, "and you're already insulting my living situation." Upon reaching the landing, wine bottle sloshing with her movements, she slid past him with key in hand to tend to her apartment door.
Shoving the key inside and turning, the blonde looked to Miles, expression completely serious.
"Wait until I show you the rats," she offered just before elbowing her way into the dark front foyer of her sad, empty apartment and flicking on the lights. It wasn't, literally speaking, empty, but Miles would likely see it another way. Everything lacked personality, from the furniture to the near barren shelves to the complete absence of personal effects. If anything, the half-consumed whiskey bottle and glass sitting on the low table by the couch were the only signs that anyone lived here at all.
This was a place simply for sleeping, and little else.
Miles took in the surroundings in thoughtful silence, scoping out the area much as he gauged new locations for a job: quickly scanning, counting doors and windows and visible rooms and things he could improvise into weapons, noting details as he went (the potential exits were the first to be noted). The sterile surroundings reminded him of his own apartment. He knew exactly why he didn't decorate, but now wondered what Damia's reasonings were. He wondered a lot of things.
"I'm gravely disappointed," he said, just as mock-sombre. "I don't see any rats."
Playing along, the corsair drew further into what she called home and began to undo the buttons of her pinstripe blazer. "They're only interested when I leave food out," she reasoned, eventually shrugging out of the article of clothing to reveal a black dress shirt, tie still done up neatly under her chin.
But the time for games, it seemed, was over, as she called out with her back still to him: "Where are you injured, Miles?"
"However could you tell?" It was sarcastic; he knew he'd given himself away with that limp. Miles flopped onto the only available seating, a sofa with what turned out to be some rather beleaguered cushions. "Leg," he said, working off his boots as if this were his home, grimacing as he plucked at the blood-soaked fabric.
"Had some of a potion earlier, but it wasn't very strong. Didn't want to interfere with the wine. We were attacked by a possessed doll, Damia. A fucking doll. I hate the Fete of Holy Saints."
Why in the world he'd chosen to come here after his jarring, rattling, unnerving experience was still open to consideration. It wasn't as if Damia were the nurturing sort, or a trained healer (if he wanted that, he'd have stuck with Hier on the way back to the clinic). It wasn't as if they were friends.
Which only left the one thing.
That very thing kept her eyes on him for three seconds too long, until she ripped her gaze away and made for the small, open kitchen that likely had never seen a cooking utensil in its life. "Mr. Baines, I think — and correct me if I'm wrong," there came a pause for her to drop down and retrieve something, popping up shortly after, "that you are quite a bit too old to be playing with dolls." Stepping out of the kitchen, heels hitting the floor without care for the non-existent neighbors down below, Damia padded over and threw that received item into his lap: a rag that wasn't white, but didn't appear recently used.
"Don't bleed on my floor." With a slow bend (as if to steady herself), she took hold of the nearby whiskey bottle by its neck and held it out for him to take.
"Yes, because it'll absolutely ruin the nonexistent carpeting." He took both offered objects, immediately turning them to their uses: wiping the last of the blood away from his skin, then turning to the whiskey bottle for a desperate swig, before he soaked one end of the cloth and swiped at the long, deep cut to disinfect it.
Miles took a sharp intake of breath, abruptly jackknifing in half, head down between his knees. The room spun around him and the distant, clinically self-aware part of himself, the one that unpacked every last movement and word and mannerism as a calculated gesture, said: Enough drinking. You're done.
So he handed the bottle back, and sagged further into Damia's lumpy couch. Its name was Damia, he almost said, but reconsidered at the last minute. That wasn't a road he wanted to explore, exactly.
"Did you go to a party? Tell me about your fantastic, lovely evening." Miles pressed the clean edge of the cloth against the cut, waiting for the throbs of pain to subside.
She'd watched him almost curiously, seemingly caught halfway between two opposing decisions but passing it off like she'd merely had too much to drink. Only when the bottle was returned to her hand did she avert her eyes to the abandoned wine bottle she'd left stranded. Once Miles spoke, she moved to join him on another cushion.
"I went to one." Damia occupied the space next to him without much grace. "But I was inevitably swallowed by an all-consuming loneliness that I had to leave and pacify myself by stealing goodie bags from children when they weren't paying attention. You'd be surprised how addictive gummy worms are," she finished, moments before tipping the whiskey back and taking a swig of her own.
For once, the words out of her mouth were honest.
"Stealing candy from children? That's hardly befitting a member of my crew. We aim higher, Mia. Counts, earls, dukes." His free hand gestured dramatically towards the ceiling. "Perhaps someday the king himself!"
"I somehow doubt the king would go mumming, let alone guising," she reasoned, setting the bottle down on the table. "But do let me know if you ever see him, one year. Are you done yet?"
"Done with what?"
"Bleeding."
"Let's hope so." But when he removed the cloth to check, it did seem to have staunched—Miles had set it off again by applying the whiskey, but at least it was clean now. And with that attended to, he was able to shift his position and notice how close she was sitting, and how comfortably they managed to lounge on this sofa. And most miraculously, Damia wasn't biting his head off for being here.
For one mad, half-drunk second, Miles considered the fact this meant something was horribly, grievously wrong — this was generally the point when someone walloped him over the head with a vase, wasn't it? Right when his guard was down?
"You're being uncommonly kind," he said, bunching the bloodstained cloth between his fingers and dropping it on the nearest table. His hazel eyes met hers, then drifted to the tie still knotted around her neck.
Noticing where his gaze had fallen, she reached for the white tie, fiddling with the knot to get it loose as if she hadn't been the one to tie it. "I take it this means you don't want me to Cure you," she posed in what was meant to be a question, but came out as a statement. "Because why else did you come here? Clinics do exist, you know, unless you're here for my excellent company."
"And what if I am?" Much as he'd done with her hair-tie once, Miles reached out — and with the ease of long experience, found the trailing end of Damia's tie and tugged to unravel it. (He'd trained himself long ago to master ties like a sailor preparing for a life of ropes asea: Windsor knot, half Windsor, Pratt knot, bowtie, Atlantic knot, four-in-hand, Christensen knot, twisting them over and over until he could tie them in his sleep and knew exactly which social strata called for which knot.)
Incidentally, and much to his goal, the movement had brought them even closer.
Her breath caught, something that might've been easier to hide had there not been alcohol swimming in her bloodstream. (Maybe, maybe that hadn't been a good idea, but she'd had no warning that Miles Baines would be throwing rocks at her window when she arrived.)
With fingers too close to her throat, Damia stilled, but still her mouth moved.
"Then I'm afraid you'll need to share it with the rats."
He shrugged. "I'm generous. I can share." And then Miles' hand was at the collar of her shirt (why were women always so damnably attractive in menswear?), tightening on the fabric to pull her closer, repairing the damage of one idiotic evening two months ago. It was wine, whiskey, blood, and the sensation of her lips on his, pain lancing through his leg, and breathing her in at last — and it was a Faram-damned terrible idea, he'd always told himself to lay off the women he worked with. But Miles Baines was, if anything, a hypocrite.
He kissed her.
And really, most certainly, her first thoughts shouldn't have been of the taste of him and how surprisingly pleasant this was all turning out to be. Evidently, all Miles had needed to do was kiss her to get her brain shutting down, one regrettable thought at a time. His lips were both sweet and bitter, and rather than waiting for her mind to process how that added up to something she wanted more of (or if she tasted the same, surely she did), Damia reached out, palm smoothing over his shoulder to grip the material there.
Fuck it all, this was a bad idea. But it was also the best idea she'd had in some time.
At some point, she had to pull away. Press her other hand to his collar, fist his shirt in return. "If you insult my bedroom," she breathed against him, into him, "I'm going to kick you onto the floor on your bad leg."
The offer was there, clear as day.
So he seized it, though he couldn't resist one last dig: "Wait, why? Is there particular reason to insult your bedroom? Is it covered in cheetah print tapestr—"
She dug her nails into his shoulder and Miles drew in a sharp breath, which turned to a laugh as he was safely silenced. They stumbled off the sofa and towards the bedroom. Presumably sans cheetah print.