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"Deeeeeessssperado. Why don't you come to your senses?"

The Eagles song, by way of Clint Black, Johnny Cash and now Grace Hanadarko, bounces off cinderblock walls and swirls down the dim, nondescript stairwell, husky and full-bodied like a fancy stout.

"You've been out ridin' fences, for so long now. Oh, you're a hard one..."

Boots scuff the cement stairs in an impromptu dance.

"...but I know that you've got your reasons. These things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow."

Imbuing it with a healthy dose of sarcasm, Grace snorts at the line and pulls herself around a corner on the banister. The sign says she's reached Floor Two and a Half, which is remarkably unhelpful; especially as she thought she'd started going up. Sometimes getting lost is fun; sometimes it's a pain in the ass, like when you run out of beer and need to grab a cold one -- or six -- from Bar.

"Weird."

Shrugging, she leans against the landing wall and lights a cigarette.

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The light fixture here looks like it came out of a turn-of-the-century hotel, brass and crystal both grimy with age. It flickers, dims and than grows bright again, too bright for a moment before fading back.

When she looks back, she sees him sitting on the stairs. He's leaning back on his elbows, white shirt sleeves rolled up. He sports suspenders above black trousers, long legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles.

It's a genteel look for him, but he's always had to adapt quickly to his surroundings. He is his own brand of time traveller, one might say. His boots are spotless. His long hair is slicked back and his eyes are hidden by dark blue glasses. Some things need not change.

"I have seen stranger things here -- than a floor between floors."

Awareness strikes Grace before her eyes -- uncovered and sharp, once the brightness fades -- land on the stranger. The tingling sensation of being watched travels across her shoulders and down her spine, rousting alcohol dulled senses and awakening a readiness drilled into her very bones. Weapons are mentally cataloged,

(Glock: check

Knife: check

Cigarette: waiting to be smoked)

and the man studied, all in the space of seconds.

"Yeah. I've seen some damn strange stuff." Cocking her hip and head to the left, she blows a smoke ring in his direction. "You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

He leans forward with the expected gesture to light her cigarette, save the flame dances on the tip of his finger.

"In a single day, I met both an angel and the devil himself. Alas, I have met -- no God."

He gives a little shrug as if to say 'typical no show.'

"Got it, thanks." Grace's eyes remain glued to that finger as she continues, "I hear he's a busy guy. God."

She looks up with an irreverent grin, focusing on those glasses like she expects to discern what's underneath through will alone. Typical no show is right, her expressions answers. He's like the guy who makes plans with everyone and only shows up to one party.

"All work, no play."

He rubs the tips of his fingers together in a classic magician's gesture, and the flame disappears. Simply an illusion, nothing more.

He has only to look at her to know her blood will taste like fire and the sweetest sin. She is spectacular.

"All the better for us to enjoy ourselves, wouldn't you agree?" There is a hit of the old country in his voice. Old, old country, where they still wear their crucifixes to bed at night of necessity.

"Maybe." Grace shrugs, shifting her weight against the wall and twisting her torso so her right hip is pointing at him like a gun but her gaze remains on his face. "Maybe I'd have even more fun with him watchin'."

The last word is exaggerated, calling attention to her own accent. His is not something she hears much (if ever) in Oklahoma, and Grace doesn't like to be outdone.

"Nice suspenders."

She punctuates it with a quick, startled-sounding laugh.

Her laughter raises an evil smirk on his face. And perhaps she's too focused on him to notice the way the shadows shift, drawing a little closer.

"Do you like them? I only wore them at Bar's insistence. I usually prefer something a bit more -- formal."

"You let a piece of furniture tell you how to dress?" asks Grace, eyebrow raised, before shaking her head, squinting one eye and miming giving his suspenders a good snap. It's a motion not unlike shooting an arrow. "Least you wear them well, man. Not easy to do."

If she notices the shifting shadows, or the change in decor, or even the way the smoke she exhales his way seems to shape itself around him and curl away in delicate wisps, Grace doesn't let it show on her face. She hums another bar of Desperado under her breath and walks back to the banister, shaking it, testing its sturdiness.

"What angel?"

He watches, his head falling to one side, and his eyes travelling over her body. The light flickers in the fixture again. The coal of her cigarette flares, struggling to stay lit.

"The bookseller. Tall and thin." The lie comes easily to his lips. He saw the man for a moment, and gleaned his nature.

"I'm curious why should ask. Is there more than the one?"

Grace spreads her arms wide and hangs her head, hair covering her face.

"A whole host."

Beat.

More laughter bubbles up from deep inside -- cynical and wry, faintly challenging. She straightens and takes a long pull on her cigarette. The words escape in a raspy tone before the smoke does.

"You wanna meet him? God?"

The man's expression shifts, hardens. Matching her cynicism and raising it an order of magnitude.

"No. I have no desire." He licks his lips, his expression clearing. The wicked smirk returns. "I suspect I would find him tedious and overbearing."

Except, Grace feels like yelling, when he's needed most.

But that would be far too revealing.

"A real pain in the ass," she agrees.

The corner of her mouth tilts up in a smirk around her smoke. Quick and rabbit-like, she darts by him, up to the next landing, and throws a leg over the railing like she means to slide back down.

"Gotta name?" is tossed over her shoulder, as she shifts and gets comfortable with her perch.

If he reacts at all to her mental diatribe, it's merely with a twitch of an eyebrow.

The light flickers again. Bright and dim, quick, like the fluttering of a failing heartbeat. Something about the whole building shifts and settles.

"Perhaps," he confesses, licking his lips and letting his head fall back to watch her.

There was a man -- one year ago, maybe two -- who used to come around the bar and lick his lips every time he saw Grace playing pool; quick and furtive, like a shy lizard. Later, when she caught him watching soft core porn on cable in the middle of the night, she realized the lip licking was just a sign he was getting all hot and bothered. She laughed long and loud, then gave him something more fun to play with than the remote.

Suspenders guy is nowhere near as desperate, but she stares at his mouth (nice lips) and drops her gaze to his crotch, anyway.

"Feel like sharin'?"

Only then does she lean back on the banister, slow and controlled, and squint up at the ceiling.

"Shit, man. You'd think this place would've figured out the electrical crap by now."

The moment her gaze turns to the light, the flickering slows, takes on the rhythm of a heart beat, FLASH flash, FLASH flash, FLASH flash, down to a resting heart rate.

It's mesmerising.

"Vlad. Vlad Tepesh," he intones, watching as she stares at the light.

Huh.

Staring at the light show, Grace is acutely aware when her own heartbeat quickens and falls out of sync. Suddenly she sits up and slides down the rail until it levels out and stops her an inch from the edge, leg within arm's reach of where Vlad's sitting.

Her toes curl in her boots. The knife presses against the outside of her ankle and calf.

"Grace," she offers him, absently. "Bet you got teased in school. Vlad."

Ah, not one for petty tricks then. Well, he'll wait. She'll come to him, eventually. He stifles a yawn.

"Not really, no. Private tutors. And being nobility spares one the indignities."

His school days were an age and a day ago. He barely remembers what it's like to be a child.

"Vlad," she murmurs again, a helpless note in her voice that could be real, could be an act.

The rhythmic flashing left her feeling like a thousand cameras had just gone off in her face, or just one, up close, taking a mug shot. It doesn't make sense. Grace scrubs at her eyes, fighting (always fighting) to clear her vision (her mind) of sudden bright spots and a lingering haze; the urge to give in to the high and let it ride, man. Let it be.

Shit, maybe she doesn't need that beer after all.

"You," Grace rasps, sliding off the railing in a move that's far more sensual than it should be and more controlled than the alcohol coursing through her system should allow. She drops into a crouch before him, then leans slightly to the left, head tilted and gaze direct as she stares. Her eyes are a little wild, a little angry; it's always there, the reckless fires banked until they're not. "You aren't another god damn angel, are you? Goin' about this crap your own way?"

Or more likely another devil.

(kind of hope it's the latter)

Edited 2009-12-21 18:36 (UTC)

The Prince shifts, lacing his fingers together. His eyes follow her every motion and his shoulders track with her. She might get the impression of staring eye to eye with a king cobra, or some other serpent, perhaps more pertinent to the subject at hand.

"Strange you should ask that. As I remember," he begins, his tone low and his words chosen carefully, "angels were truly monstrous creatures. The mere sight of them made mortals cower in fear."

He cants his head in mirror to her own gesture.

"You're not much for cowering now, are you?"

It sounds like this fact pleases him immensely.

"Nope," Grace snorts. "I'm a cop."

As soon as he mimics her motion, she angles her head the other direction and keeps watching. Her own reflection stares back from the dark blue lenses, somehow alien and unsure.

"Not big on being obsequious, either."

Grace is drawn in; both attracted and repelled, she's not going anywhere until she figures out what makes this guy tick. Everything about her goes still, a remarkable, if temporary, feat for a woman who thrives on constant motion. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Grace imagines this is what it's like to drown.

Or be blown apart.

A low, animal sound escapes her throat as she surges forward on her knees, grabs one of his shoulders with short, sharp nails and sticks her glock in his ribs.

Habit. Instinct. Challenge.

Grace's face is close to his, pulse racing and eyes roaming from the glasses to his mouth, when she says, "Angels. Demons. Even nobility. We've all got our grievances, right?"

He doesn't flinch away, if that's what she was expecting. She might also notice that the barrel of the gun feels less like it hit a man's torso and more like she jammed it into a granite wall. There is no give.

"Apparently," he smirks. And then he does move. Adrenaline gives her that strange, slowly unfolding perspective, the rush that makes combat seem like it's happening underwater. She can see his wrist move, watch as his long elegant fingers curl around both her hand and the gun, shifting the barrel off line. She can feel him rise like that cobra, spreading his hood wide, casting them both in shadow. His hand catches her at the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair and gripping her tight, bending her backwards.

Time slows.

He stares down into her face, bending closer, taking in the scent of beer and cigarette smoke. And beneath that, fire.

Expectations imply forethought.

Seconds pass in what feels like minutes, and when he has her bent back, trapped by her hair and hand, Grace can't even blink. One by one, her fingers release the gun and curl around his hand instead, biting into his wrist. Grace looks up at him and starts to smile,

(still can't see those damn eyes)

warm and very alive.

"Smooth," she breathes, because she has to say something to remember who she is, even just for a moment.

The hand at his shoulder whips up and snags in his hair -- pulls him down, pulls her up -- and she slams her mouth against those mesmerizing lips in a kiss that feels like a punch.

Edited 2009-12-21 22:24 (UTC)

He meets that savage kiss, the hand in her hair dragging her body up to his level. The gun clatters to the floor as his arm snakes around her hips, pulling her tight against him.

There is a low rumble resonating in his chest as he takes her mouth,. He kisses her, holds her as if he could possess her, every line of his body singing with a ferocious intensity as he tastes the rage and lust and fear coiling through her like a crimson banners of heat and flame.

Chaos. Her body, her mind, her will: everything is in chaos. It burns through her veins like a shot of whiskey hitting a raw throat. Thoughts (what if he's a devil, what if this is it, damn I don't even care) start to breach carefully constructed walls and then fly away, as insubstantial as smoke.

Grace lands in his lap, legs falling around him and holding on. There's strength there, strength in the arm that pulls him close and the half-formed fist that hits his shoulder twice before her fingers twist in one of his suspenders.

Her cop sense screams at her to pay attention to the parlor tricks and be scared, and she is. Deep down. Under the recklessness, the stubbornness, the fight; under the raging need to be right where she is that she couldn't, wouldn't want to explain even if someone picked up her gun and held it to her own head. Because this is different.

(God

Earl)

Grace wants to offer, and she wants to take.

The lightbulb above them flares phosphorus white, and explodes. In the darkness, the sounds of glass shards raining down mingle with the sound of their voices.

She is glorious, and he can't help but give her what she wants. She come to rest against him, and he groans, his grip on her hips tightening, grinding her against him.

The hand in her hair pulls her head back and to the side, exposing her throat. He bends to taste her skin, trailing a hot open-mouthed kiss along straining tendon and muscle.

His voice is gravelled silk, tar black and irresistible against her carotid, and the sound alone hits every sweet spot in her body.

"Let me in, Grace."

A moan rips free of Grace, starting in the shower of glass and rising to fill the silence left behind. It ends on a sharp, nearly mindless laugh. In the darkness, all that's left is sensation and the sound of her breath as her greedy body strains toward Vlad and more of what he's giving her.

God, his voice. Shivering, she cries out again -- a curse or a prayer, felt but not meant -- and arches her back. Not far, not enough to dislodge his mouth, but enough to grab at the hand holding her hip and help move.

(Let me in, Grace)

She can still feel the hot, sinful words slipping over her skin, stealing through her senses, and the only thought left in her head is, "Hell yes."

Going pliant in his arms, Grace's eyes close and she sees more color (red) than she did when they were open.

His eyes have gone completely dark, lined in blood. The invitation is both heard and felt, and he needs no coaxing.

He draws a breath, his grip tightening, both in her hair and at her hip. His gaze is directed upward, pooling the rage and fury at the heavens, feeling his fangs descend. He floods her thoughts with the most decadent images, pours pleasure into every dark corner of her brain, twists her up until she can barely breathe for intensity of it.

Then, and only then, does he sink his fangs into her throat, his groan filling the stairwell. Her blood spills down his throat and down his chin, hot and sweet, and in the moment, there is no greater sin than his sheer existence in the face of all things holy.

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