( it's a good performance, the kind of shit they would lap up at the club without thinking twice. roughspun, with just enough polish to make you believe it's a glimpse into something rare, cubic fucking zirconia parading itself as a diamond — passable, until you go to examine it in the light of day, and not the neon flicker of a club. a little gravel in the voice, a little hush on the end of the sentence — a little softness in the right place, and clients think they've gotten somewhere with you. that they're a special exception to the limits you live by, the rules that keep girls like ani safe. that there's a sweetness in her that's not for sale, waiting for them to reach the core of it.
she's watched him run the same playbook back-to-back while he held court in that booth of his like a king. sat on her smoke break, heels off, puffing on her vape with a side of entertainment, all those pretty little things crowding his lap, bending easy. breathless for a second of his attention — like he hadn't trained every one of them to feel his gaze like a benediction. like it meant something, being chosen. like they weren't all the same, at the end of the day. just pets salivating over a treat when it's been offered by an expert hand.
like ani hasn't run the same game to empty a fat wallet, working like the rent is due.
it's fucking impressive. it's also fucking bullshit, like consuming empty calories — a craving you regret indulging later. she laughs, more airy than substance, a cloud of warm smoke from her mouth. making him work for the pleasure of the sound, even now. )
Damn, Daddy. ( unrepentant, mock-innocent. her lashes flutter, butterfly-winged. ) You don't gotta beg.
( a bubble of gum snaps in her mouth, weighing an invitation she's already taken, acceptance between her fingers as she spins that pretty cage around. it doesn't have to be sentimental. it doesn't have to mean anything that, out of his gaggle of admirers, he's asked ani. probably because she knows the score, like he does. it's just business, mingled with a side of pleasure. she knows where the boundaries are, how to keep it clean. )
Sure, I'll go with you. ( she pats him on the chest, indolently flippant. ) Wear somethin' nice.
Not one of those suits that makes you look like you got a hot date with a boardroom and not me.
[ It's just business, but he smiles anyway, swaying gently on his heels as her hand finds his chest. He's good at this, at indulging the harder edges of girlishness. Ani's the only one who's really seen that, here, besides Jinx. They're not cut from the same cloth, but they're songs written with a chord in common. Too sharp to be pushed around, too changed by some previous hurt to be truly soft even if they wanted to be. He'd be lying if he said he didn't like that about her.
But like is immaterial in the end, unimportant in comparison to what they can do for each other. And it doesn't matter that that doesn't totally account for why they choose each other. His choice is one thing. Hers — he hardly believes she's the kind of woman who wouldn't have any other offers — is another. ]
And here I thought you liked me on my knees.
[ His gaze falls to the butterfly. At least for the moment, it sits relatively still, shimmering blue wings lazily beating as its feet cling to the flowering branch that serves as its company. One more gift, approved, though he wonders what she'll do with it. A little life in her hands, more delicate and more readily visible than a plant's. He hadn't meant to follow one living thing with another, but perhaps that's its own sign of value. What's more precious than a life? A principle, he might once have said. An ideal. But he's had that luster cut away on the blade of a loving knife. ]
Tell me when you've picked a color, then, [ he adds, curbing any chance for the prior thought to linger. That he can bend doesn't mean he particularly likes to, though one more thing that Ani and Jinx have in common is a knack and desire to push him to it anyway. ]
( it's not the sway of a tree moved by the wind, the bending of nature to a greater force. ani knows the choreography of concession, clocks it for what it really is — an allowance of softness, slipped into her hand with the same smoothness of twenty crumpled in a g-string. not a gift, but an earned trade. permission to feel strong, pretend she's the one in control. like his edges wouldn't carve into her palm, if she ever mistook herself as having the sincere, real power to break him, push him, soften him. not a delusion she'll ever let herself entertain.
the nostalgia of the moment tastes perfumed on her tongue, like otherworld booze and silco on his knees. ani's gaze does doughy with feigned concern, virginally doe-eyed, flicking down to silco's knees. up again, with a lazy grin that cuts into the illusion. )
Wouldn't want 'em to crack. Every girl's gotta take good care of her toys.
( case in point: the butterfly wings fluttering around like a heartbeat. ani's nails slip away with a graze, tapping against the golden slats of its cage, recognition in her eyes. all that fight in something made small, made ornamental, raging against its imprisonment. beautiful for its short lifespan. later, she'll unlatch the door, let it decide for itself — stay perched on her windowsill, drunk on sugar water because it wants to stay, or fuck off into whatever version of freedom still exists out there. maybe it'll be more real than ani's. she pivots on her heel, turns to leave. casts a glance over her shoulder, lashes low. )
Pink. ( easily. there's a sparkle in her eye, imagining it — beauty and the beast, more used to his bruised blacks and reds like blood, condemned to sequin damnation. she flips a silky wave of hair over one shoulder, parting with a sugary murmur: ) I look good in any fuckin' color. Try not to get outshone.
Edited (the embarrassment of repeating yourself in prose aha) 2025-05-11 02:08 (UTC)
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she's watched him run the same playbook back-to-back while he held court in that booth of his like a king. sat on her smoke break, heels off, puffing on her vape with a side of entertainment, all those pretty little things crowding his lap, bending easy. breathless for a second of his attention — like he hadn't trained every one of them to feel his gaze like a benediction. like it meant something, being chosen. like they weren't all the same, at the end of the day. just pets salivating over a treat when it's been offered by an expert hand.
like ani hasn't run the same game to empty a fat wallet, working like the rent is due.
it's fucking impressive. it's also fucking bullshit, like consuming empty calories — a craving you regret indulging later. she laughs, more airy than substance, a cloud of warm smoke from her mouth. making him work for the pleasure of the sound, even now. )
Damn, Daddy. ( unrepentant, mock-innocent. her lashes flutter, butterfly-winged. ) You don't gotta beg.
( a bubble of gum snaps in her mouth, weighing an invitation she's already taken, acceptance between her fingers as she spins that pretty cage around. it doesn't have to be sentimental. it doesn't have to mean anything that, out of his gaggle of admirers, he's asked ani. probably because she knows the score, like he does. it's just business, mingled with a side of pleasure. she knows where the boundaries are, how to keep it clean. )
Sure, I'll go with you. ( she pats him on the chest, indolently flippant. ) Wear somethin' nice.
Not one of those suits that makes you look like you got a hot date with a boardroom and not me.
no subject
But like is immaterial in the end, unimportant in comparison to what they can do for each other. And it doesn't matter that that doesn't totally account for why they choose each other. His choice is one thing. Hers — he hardly believes she's the kind of woman who wouldn't have any other offers — is another. ]
And here I thought you liked me on my knees.
[ His gaze falls to the butterfly. At least for the moment, it sits relatively still, shimmering blue wings lazily beating as its feet cling to the flowering branch that serves as its company. One more gift, approved, though he wonders what she'll do with it. A little life in her hands, more delicate and more readily visible than a plant's. He hadn't meant to follow one living thing with another, but perhaps that's its own sign of value. What's more precious than a life? A principle, he might once have said. An ideal. But he's had that luster cut away on the blade of a loving knife. ]
Tell me when you've picked a color, then, [ he adds, curbing any chance for the prior thought to linger. That he can bend doesn't mean he particularly likes to, though one more thing that Ani and Jinx have in common is a knack and desire to push him to it anyway. ]
And I'll pick something to suit.
🎀
the nostalgia of the moment tastes perfumed on her tongue, like otherworld booze and silco on his knees. ani's gaze does doughy with feigned concern, virginally doe-eyed, flicking down to silco's knees. up again, with a lazy grin that cuts into the illusion. )
Wouldn't want 'em to crack. Every girl's gotta take good care of her toys.
( case in point: the butterfly wings fluttering around like a heartbeat. ani's nails slip away with a graze, tapping against the golden slats of its cage, recognition in her eyes. all that fight in something made small, made ornamental, raging against its imprisonment. beautiful for its short lifespan. later, she'll unlatch the door, let it decide for itself — stay perched on her windowsill, drunk on sugar water because it wants to stay, or fuck off into whatever version of freedom still exists out there. maybe it'll be more real than ani's. she pivots on her heel, turns to leave. casts a glance over her shoulder, lashes low. )
Pink. ( easily. there's a sparkle in her eye, imagining it — beauty and the beast, more used to his bruised blacks and reds like blood, condemned to sequin damnation. she flips a silky wave of hair over one shoulder, parting with a sugary murmur: ) I look good in any fuckin' color. Try not to get outshone.