(no subject)

[amoray]

the picture prompt meme

1. comment with your character.
2. others will leave a picture (or two, or three...)
( 2a. if you like, link a visualosities post in your top level comment to give people material to work with! )
3. reply to them with a setting based on the picture.
4. for an idea of how this works, see bakerstreet, which is where i stole this meme from!
5. THIS IS A SLOW BURNING MEME IF YOU SAY YOU'RE LATE I'LL SLOW BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN

Comments

NO REGRET JUST DREAMS also idk what i'm doingggggg

[amoray]

[ the reasoning feeds her is murder most mundane, but not something he can take care of himself; native, in bed with vulcanus, total scum, and most grievously, getting in eridan's way. (it's hard enough to break into organized crime as is. some old fogey with too many rings isn't going to get in the way of a forward thinking young brat with too many rings for very long, particularly when he's determined.) he frames the man's crimes up rather than the man himself, dehumanizes him, makes him something overblown and amorphously evil — running drugs to kids, cold-blooded murder, toes dipped in human trafficking, real scum of the fuckin earth — but really, he's just in eridan's way. he needs to not be.

"you've got your bullshit fakey fake nonpowers, right? i need 'em. i'll get you whatewer you want if you help me, and i can get a whole fuckin' lot. anythin'. all i need is a couple a hours, rose. hell, you don't ewen hawe to get your dainty little hands dirty if you don't feel like it. just cower me. help me out here.

helpin' me means newer talkin' about what we do tonight, for the rest a our liwes."

there might've been some bribery, some cajoling, a little groveling he doesn't want to remember; all in all, it still comes out the same — a split lip, a purple smear across his jaw and the back of his hand, the way his fine leather killing gloves creak in protest whenever he flexes his hands, the friction of drying blood. the idle tapping of his shoe on the elevator floor is muffled and wet-sounding. thick. ]

Hah. This is kinda like a date, huh?

[ if one's idea of a date is killing gang lords. he thinks rose might appreciate the humor. ]

i dont know what im doing with my life rn we are lost souls

[nitidus]

[she thinks to ignore him. rose remembers a persistent boy, far too eager to instigate a rivalry she had to interest in, and how she blew his computer up with little intent other than to silence him. it is best, she thinks, to nip these things in the bud. ignoring him, unfortunately, would be terrible hypocritical of her right now, seeing as how she is here, beside him. it is a little late to begin ignoring eridan ampora.

she eyes the violet smear across his jaw. she is loathe to admit that eridan has grown up handsome. he suits the cruelty engraved in the way he carries himself and the arrogance in his tone. he sounds less like a little boy making idle threats, these days.

the corner of her mouth twitches.]

Is it? And here you haven't even brought me flowers.

[she flexes her own hands; black leather creaks and stretches and rose turns her attention to the floor numbers skipping by. she thinks he must have been desperate, to come to her for help. she thinks herself desperately bored for agreeing. ]

I haven't asked because I am dreading the answer. However: do you have a plan? Or is the plan to wing this?

[amoray]

Eh. Little a column A. [ his voice is a lazy thing, fat and contented as a cat, as he reaches into his mouth and yanks a loose tooth. (crowbars to the face, nasty things.) it finds itself tossed to the corner of the elevator, for the man's associates to find and link back to him later. he wants them to know who be afraid of, after all. ] Little a column B. Think best on my feet anyhow.

[ he thinks so, anyhow. it's barely a milisecond's worth of a glance sidelong, at her, at how terribly handsome and just plain terrible she is in a pair of black gloves — he can't risk anything longer, because this is one of the few times he doesn't want to be caught peeking.

someone else might feel a little bad in this kind of situation, like they're contributing to the moral decay of an innocent party. or something like that. eridan thinks it's great fun. ]

Off night for 'em. We already got through the couple guys watchin' the parkin' garage, nobody saw us in the elewator — nobody heard anythin', so nobody's gonna be expectin' us when we go traipsin' into his office. Couple guys in there, maybe. An' him.

[ maybe his two point five kids. eridan didn't bother checking. ]

Oughta be real quick-like. We'll be outta here in time for dinner. [ he checks his handgun again (sleek, small, silenced, and maybe there's something thrilling about letting rose see this, flaunting his murderous streak), for the nth time. ]

Can't promise you no flowers, but in case you don't got any dinner plans...

[ light, easy. he's expecting to get shot down, but there's something about murdering people that keeps eridan in an ineffably good mood. ]

[nitidus]

[she has a Look on her face. it is the look of someone who is not surprised and yet who cannot begin to comprehend her life. she wonders how eridan has survived this long being so completely unprepared and reckless. she wonders just how much dumb luck one person can have.

she tries very hard not to laugh. ]

It's lucky, then, that I can both fly blow things up with my hands. I can see now why you called me.

[she eyes his handgun; subtle, from the corner of her eye. it's a nice gun, she has to admit.]

You're paying. For dinner, I mean. Try not to die on me.

[she turns her attention back to the floor numbers. close now, she thinks and rolls her shoulders, the bones popping and cracking. her rate quickens. inside her gloves, her palms are damp. she holds her breath, blinks once and exhales. the floor number stops and rose glances at eridan with her eyebrow raised. ]

Royalty first.

MIGHT'VE POSTED THIS IN THE WRONG SPOT, W W H O O P S

[amoray]

[ maybe, embarrassingly enough, there's a little undercurrent of thrill at her implicitly accepting his implicit dinner invitation (implicitly) — not much, just the littlest perk to his posture, an agitated shifting on his heels, but it's something. he tries to cover by smirking and smoothing his hair back, as if that was, indeed, all according to keikaku. ]

Sure. Hope you like seafood.

[ to his credit, eridan walks out of the elevator in his tasteful black murder ensemble like he owns the place — it takes a certain sort of mindlessly stupid confidence to just walk out of an elevator, stroll up the hallway, and shoot a man in the throat, but he tries. he tries so hard to be cool.

oh my god does he try.

luckily, this is indeed an off day; something about a birthday across town his wife went to, or something. being a sentimental fella, this perpetually nameless minor crime boss sent the lion's share of his security along with her, just in case — eridan bought off a number of the remaining detail, and so there's only a handful of loyal ones to kill. eridan gets right on that, quickly popping the first man through the throat and another in the head, because if you're going to run around with a tyrannical napoleon complex, you might as well learn how to shoot a fucking gun semi-accurately. then it's into some little cranny in the corner, ducked down uncomfortably, just before another two roll around the corner and start shooting. ]

Still kickin'?

[ this is (very cleverly) shouted to rose, letting them know she's there if they didn't already. wwelp. ]

IT GOT HERE IN THE END THATS ALL THAT MATTERS also crying @ eridan ampora

[nitidus]

[if she had the time, she would pinch the bridge of her nose, count backwards from ten and then perhaps respond. as it is, she ducks out of dodge of a bullet and silent hopes eridan takes a graze to the shoulder for being a smart ass. rose is endlessly patient when she wants to be. being shot at apparently kills patience in its bed and has her itching to get things done quickly.

her powers aren't really magic. there's no spells to do what she does. in her hands, there is every negative emotion she can muster, given the physical form of a lavender light. it's pretty to look at it - it does an impressive job of blowing a whole through one grunts chest. a gun would have been neater, she thinks. next time.

she crouches down and peeks around a corner, giving eridan a wry smile and a thumbs up. she shouts back:]

Have you been shot yet?

[and then focuses on grunt #2. ]