Final Fantasy XII, Penelo/Basch, formal, "and when I dance for him, somebody leave the light on"
Her heart thumps.
The room is tinted dust and musk, and yellow-molass gold, the floor hard, warped wood and strange textures on her gravel-tuned feet, the night air cold against her torso. There is but one patron, and him sitting in the corner. The clatter of a glass set down hard against one rough table, the squeak and scraping of his chair against the floor, a soft, warm chuckle.
Liquid chuckle, that was - soft and warm, syrup-smooth, rich and trickling down her neck, down to puddle between her legs.
There is a skylight over the bar; dancing honey-flakes through the crosshatch window swirl in patterns that she could follow with her hips and legs and arms if her mind let her, but she - and it - doesn't. Instead she is all gangly and jarring and attempting to find the dip-step-step in her soul and failing quite miserably, and suddenly she is frustrated and slumps against the side of the bar.
Another warm, flowing chuckle that enwraps her and brings to her the scent of remembered rosemary, and herbs hanging over someone else's door, when she hadn't had to use the threat and promise of her tongue and teeth and lips and fingers and hips, when she had been innocent.
Her heart thumps.
She doesn't know how to dance, in all honesty, and she admits it to herself; it is simply that when the music flows into her soul, and she bares her soul, there is grace in her movements. Grace, sexuality, movement. Lust. She is a sixteen-year old female, and there are times that she suppresses herself so that she can bring it out when her performance needs it.
But this is not one of those times, and again, alone except for one husky voice (for his figure is too lost in the cast shadow), she tries to bring out the grace she knows is waiting inside.
Dip, step, step, dip, step, step.
try to find the beat in your mind, 'Nelo.
dip step step dip step step
Did they want a hip sway? She tried to imagine a leering (chuckling) audience, full of hunky (husky) young (old) men and thrust her breasts out in the direction of the audience, eyes closed. She tried to -
ignore the way the man in his chair was shifting, rubbing his hand over his pants, because goddamnit, she'd danced in so many bars now that even open masturbation wasn't an unfamiliar sight, but gods, the way his muscles flexed; she could easily picture a sword in that rough hand, could as easily picture a staff or a hammer or a gun, could as easily picture that hand sliding smooth around her breasts or up her tights, could easily picture his one rough finger sliding down the underside of her arm, over her shoulder-blades and trailing near her inner thighs and
There is another liquid chuckle that breaks her thoughts, and she leans back into it, letting it breathe warm air into her ear.
Her heart thumps.
There is a scrape of his chair as he pads, naturally lupine, through the skylight for just one moment, and Penelo herself catches a glimpse of him. Long blond hair, chiseled-jaw, neck-muscles flexing and moving his torso, hidden as that is by a sleeveless suit and tie that is at once showing too much and too little skin. She's not an arm girl, damnit, (though those biceps are certainly distracting) she's a chest girl, and that suit is showing off far too little skin. Although that tie...
His voice is still liquid smooth, like fine whisky, not that she'd ever know what that felt like, of course, smooth in your mouth but setting your tongue - and every bit of skin it can reach - afire and burning even after it fades away.