08-28-2018, 09:29 AM
[table][tr][td][div style="width: 70px; height:70px; background-image:url(https://i.imgbox.com/4XVwGFUK.png); background-size: cover; background-position: top;"][/td][td][div style="width: 100px; text-align: center; font-family: arial; font-size: 7pt; color: #8A8A8A; line-height: 100%; padding-top: 5px; padding-left: 10px; opacity: 0.75; text-transform: lowercase"]Secrets on Broadway to the freeway, you're a keeper of crimes; Fear no conviction, grapes of wrath can only sweeten your wine
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Outside the room Rialto was waiting the moment Alexander exited, the dark-haired vampire's face set into a curiously neutral expression; not that he was typically thought to be a well of emotion regardless, but for a variety of reasons his expression was downright grim. Maybe it was for more reasons than even he could verbalise - like protectiveness but for the wrong thing, a silent storm of discontent that Rialto didn't actually understand. Adrien - Chat - had passed into the room with dried blood pasting tufts of fur together, and wounds still bleeding sluggishly underneath, and there was a glazed steel in luminous eyes that said nothing yet cleaved deep impressions, but while the blood seeped into Rialto's nose and touched his fangs that in itself wasn't the root.
Something about an outside force tarnishing the sanctity of the shitty beachside town they'd cobbled into something remotely presentable. They hadn't built anything new, really, unless you counted some of the inhabitants' attempts at cleaning it up and setting up shop, but their mess was self-contained and content. That was how it should have been.
Up until that point, Rialto hadn't come to a conclusion. A storm had been what the figureless mess of his thoughts could be likened to, but somehow it was a calm one; calm as in feeling had drained from his fingertips but he was lucid. Thinking. Planning, if only by definition in that he hadn't immediately departed to try making a statement about San Creado's stance on trading blows. No. Don't fool yourself, Rialto. His stance.
But it was more than pride. Those wounds smattered over Chat's flesh hadn't been coordinated; haphazard, for the sake of doing it. The torture had been for the thrill as much as it was for their own delirious fantasies. If he knew sadism at all, that wasn't just provocative. They liked doing it.
For a clutch, Rialto crossed his arms over the hidden knives under his shirt, the subtle jut of metal handle under fabric. He wouldn't move yet. If Jikai tried, Rialto would stop him.
His mouth curled as if on cue in response to Alex's exit, breaking out of mentally constructing Etch-a-Sketch espionage blueprints and tilting his head at them while he leaned into the outside wall. He mouthed, only fractionally in jest, 'Alive?'
Something about an outside force tarnishing the sanctity of the shitty beachside town they'd cobbled into something remotely presentable. They hadn't built anything new, really, unless you counted some of the inhabitants' attempts at cleaning it up and setting up shop, but their mess was self-contained and content. That was how it should have been.
Up until that point, Rialto hadn't come to a conclusion. A storm had been what the figureless mess of his thoughts could be likened to, but somehow it was a calm one; calm as in feeling had drained from his fingertips but he was lucid. Thinking. Planning, if only by definition in that he hadn't immediately departed to try making a statement about San Creado's stance on trading blows. No. Don't fool yourself, Rialto. His stance.
But it was more than pride. Those wounds smattered over Chat's flesh hadn't been coordinated; haphazard, for the sake of doing it. The torture had been for the thrill as much as it was for their own delirious fantasies. If he knew sadism at all, that wasn't just provocative. They liked doing it.
For a clutch, Rialto crossed his arms over the hidden knives under his shirt, the subtle jut of metal handle under fabric. He wouldn't move yet. If Jikai tried, Rialto would stop him.
His mouth curled as if on cue in response to Alex's exit, breaking out of mentally constructing Etch-a-Sketch espionage blueprints and tilting his head at them while he leaned into the outside wall. He mouthed, only fractionally in jest, 'Alive?'