I don't care, I love it (Open)

Avis stumbled through her apartment, eyes glazed over from a combination of hunger and exhaustion, her hair standing out in seventy five different directions. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and shuddered. There were days where she wasn’t the biggest fan of what she had to for work and heading into what she was sure was the grimiest section the city to watch for anything that was out of place. And, as usual, nothing that seemed to be skeezy was going on during her watch. The most exciting part of it had been her drawn out battle with the tree that her hair got stuck in while she was walking down the streets in a hoodie and jeans. She’d spent a good ten minutes extricating the wild strands from the branches of the overgrown and mildly offending shrub. The time spent being held hostage, well, it had resulted in the catastrophe sprouting every direction that she normally lovingly referred as her hair. She peeled out of her clothes and stepped into the shower, turning the water to hot and letting every droplet of it pound the exhaustion out of her skin.

After spending more than the usual amount of time in the shower and a rather arduous beauty ritual, the rather regular looking girl that had been fighting with the tree was replaced with Avis Leah Mahala, queen of bitterness and a right shallow bitch. The transformation was, as it should have been, rather incredible. She smirked with pride as she slid the dark red lipstick over her lips, completing the transformation. Only the cheekbones suggest that maybe, just maybe the two girls were one in the same and that was just the way she liked it. Now all that was left was food.

Most of the vampires near her relied on a combination of pay-per-nip services, she was a little more old school with the matter. Late at night, unmastered pets gathered and celebrated their life while everywhere around them their survival as a species was constantly put into question. Yes, a club would be just the sort of place that she wanted to go. Part of it was the thrill of the chase, capturing one in her webs. Another was the slim hope that someday she would a pet that was, well, more her style. She’d seen some of the palace pets, paraded around in silks and satins and made to look like the chihuahua’s of her mother’s clientele before the war. No, she wanted a pet that could survive a threat on their master’s life (or at least face it in a manner not involving screaming) and those, well, those were hard to find in this world.

Upon arrival at the club, she could feel it in the air, the hope that pervaded the humans. Were she here on a social visit, she would have made her way up the stairs, blending more easily into the crowds up there dressed as she was in designer everything. On this floor, the cut of her leather coat alone gave her away. But that was what she wanted, she wanted to be the center of their little worlds down here, some kind of benefactor they could count on for drinks, all for a little bite, right on the wrist. At the thought, she reapplied the dark lipstick. She’d found that a fresh coat helped prevent leaks, which meant that her clothes stayed clean just a little bit longer and she was completely happy with that state of being.

She laughed and moved through the crowd, brushing against the tightly crushed bodies, observing her options for the evening. A shock of blue hair caught her eye as she passed through the crowd. Perhaps, perhaps there were other options. She walked to the bar, leaning against it and scanning the crowd. She flagged down the bartender, smirk on her face. “Tonight, I need your help. You send me pets, I give you a hefty tip, round about seventy percent. Deal?” she asked, holding out her hand. He nodded and shook it, thus binding his will to hers in what was better known as a deal with the Devil.

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note: time for lexi to make a deal of her own xD
words: 694
outfit: here

Had she been a crimson, by this time in the night her eyes would have been ringed in red. Instead, all she felt was the insatiable hunger that came over her every so often. An azure, this pain and need for something other than food wasn’t constant. But right now, it was the one thought that she had in mind. She caught the scent of blood on the air and her stomach rumbled. Somehow, before this night was over, she was going to have what she needed. To her, it didn’t matter whether she had to steal it or make a deal for it. Tonight, she was a storybook monster, complete with bloodlust breaking through its bonds and. She’d been off her normal feeding schedule as a result of her recent watch detail and the that fact was becoming more and more apparent by the second as the bloodlust sank its claws deeper and deeper into her mind.

The club whirled around at a hectic pace. There was nothing civilized about this level. Once she had completed what she needed to here, she would be heading up the stairs and to a more refined area where the alcohol cost more but the company was better. As a rule, Avis did not slum. It was much easier to maintain her cover if she was the egotistical, arrogant, and capricious socialite she seemed to be. She felt a sense of accomplishment that everyone seemed to think she was quite a bit more stupid than she let on. Avis had never once heard from a ‘friend’ or a teacher that she was smart and that couldn’t have served her better in the long run. She didn’t need a history of acheivement following her around to do her job. It would do her no good. Given that she’d been infamous when she was younger, she had the trail of infamy, but all of her crimes against society also gave her shelter when she was out doing her service to the crown. No one would dare to think that the perpetual ne’er do well would actually do something other than expect the world to bow at her feet. That was exactly the way that she wanted it.

“New enough,” she said as she gave the girl a once over. Clearly, there was something more in her system than just alcohol, but that wasn’t a problem. In fact, it would probably make the entire process easier, given that her mind would be, well, more pliable should Avis decide to or need to use her more persuasive method of getting what she wanted. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily the first plan. The first plan was to get what she needed via other methods, cash was typically the easiest way to do that. She played with the fastening of her wallet as she considered what was currently her one option. Her hunger flared, the need to have something other than a sandwich making her considerably less picky than she usually would have been. Still, the girl seemed to be healthy in spite of the amount of drugs that her eyes showed were in her system.

Avis pursed her lips as she considered her options. “What’s the price?” she asked, hand still conspicuously on her wallet. She knew instinctively that she was going to be charged more based on her appearance, but she didn’t care. One thing that she had learned from her mother was negotiation, and she’d been forced to practice it enough over the years. It was key to let the other person in any bargain start with the upper hand. If you were selling, you asked the customer what they were willing to pay. If you were buying, it was best to ask the seller their price. This had led to wheeling and dealing standoffs over the years, but at the moment this girl didn’t look like she had the ability to think much past her next high. Things like that put Avis at an advantage, the more someone wanted something, the more she was able to influence things to go her way through force of will. Of course, neither of them were quite in the best mind to be making a deal, as the call of hunger from her stomach made Avis realize.

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note: ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, at least she complied with me >.>
words: 718
outfit: here

She looked around her, taking in the sights and the smells. The hunger heightened her senses, allowing her nose to be assaulted by the smells of cheap cologne and perfume over a layer of human sweat and blood. It was an intoxicating concoction as much as the artificial scents offended her nose. If nothing else, it smelled of life and of the possibility of eating well. Once she’d had her fill, she’d head to a safer place, a more comfortable place, a place literally above this one where her kind, both socially and genetically, were carrying on this same scene in more expensive clothes and with more expensive alcohol.

“Answer or not, it’s the only one you’re getting,” Avis said, her simper hiding mildly clenched teeth. The hunger was clawing at her, dragging her to the animal level that she hadn’t been aware she could even reach as an azure. She could feel the prick of her fangs trying to descend as she held them back. Even though this girl was a pet and was surely used to the sight of teeth, Avis didn’t want to do anything that could knock her off her high and into a low, not while her meal was at stake. Despite all appearances, Avis was a cold calculating pain in the ass of practically everyone around her. She was treated as a friends because if she wasn’t no drinks would be free and she would turn every connection she had made in the normal world during her years as a vagrant criminal against the person who had made her mad. That included quite a few less than honest bartenders, waiters, and bellhops. Once oh so spoiled Avis decided to make your life hell, it was never a fun ride.

It was a simple business transaction, a bite for a few bucks. That was all. Avis’ simper turned closer to a frown as she waited for the girl to put the pieces together, which wasn’t as easy as she thought it should be. There was most definitely something other than blood running through the girl’s system, but that was nothing that her body couldn’t handle. She’d fed from high humans before. They were easier to manipulate into what she wanted and she needed given their general lack of awareness and the fact that for the most part, her reputation hadn’t preceded her in their minds. To them, she was just another vamp, in a way just another trick to be turned. What she wouldn’t give for one of her own to keep, much like a houseplant, at home and waiting for her return. Wouldn’t that be heaven?

Avis raised an eyebrow at the price. It wasn’t unexpected to hear, but the general lack of confidence behind the statement made it obvious that this girl either went for the drugs or for whatever price someone was willing to pay. Had she been more in her own mind, less controlled by the hunger clawing at her, she would have jumped on that weakness, pushing the price as low as she could without losing the deal. That was what all of this was about: the deal. Avis had never been able to conceptualize of life as much more than deals to be made and cons to be run, which were really just deals with lies. People made a deal to love each other and broke it, they made a deal to hate each other. Everything was a deal waiting to happen.

“Fine,” she said, reaching for the wallet on the bar and thumbing through it, her fingers lighting over a single bill. “But first, you hold up your end,” she said, withdrawing the bill from the soft leather wallet. Unlike so many other deals, Avis wasn’t planning on not holding her end up, but she knew herself well enough that she wouldn’t put it past the girl to take the money and run.

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note: so yeah... hungry avis is hungry
words: 655
outfit: here

The cash wasn’t the problem, the hunger was. Avis, even when she’d been scampering about, living from deal to deal and moment to moment, had never had any problems with cash flow. She had a rather confounding way of getting what she wanted and a name that opened doors in every imaginable circle, whether it was criminal or legitimate. A lot of people owed her mother favors and many of those same people figured that helping one Mahala was as good as helping another and had holed her up when she needed it and given her quickie deals to make for them for a little bit of green. Needless to say, there wasn’t ever a time when someone out there didn’t need a skill set like hers, especially when they were trying to make sure that nothing went south.

“I’ve known enough liars and cheats in my day to be generally suspicious,” she said, grabbing the girl’s wrist gently and rolling it back and forth, as unemotional as a butcher in a chop house. Scarred, clear marks of someone who’d gone through at least one version or another of this very same process multiple times. There were marks that weren’t quite healed among them. This was a normal thing for her, or so this seemed. Avis’ eyes scanned the girls neck. Scars there too. Avis, although lacking in what most people called ideals, did sometimes wonder about what drove people, vampire or human, into letting it all go for one thing or another, one high or another. Not that she could say much better of herself in reality though, she was as bad as any addict when it came to getting that surge of adrenaline that she lived for. There wasn’t quite anything like the feeling of elation and relief and calming heartbeat after doing something reckless.

Avis ran her fingers along the vein in the girl’s arm, settling on a spot just below the elbow. It wasn’t as elegant as the wrist or the neck, but it was a relatively clean bite zone. Avis wasn’t particularly fond of biting on the neck when it came to anyone, she was too fond of her clothes and in her experience, there was just too much blood going through that zone to even make the rush worth it. She preferred wrists over necks for the simple reason that they were easier to control the flow on. But, she was more for a little higher flow and so the vein right at the nook of the elbow seemed to be perfect. Strange how the anatomy of a human dictated her decision, but at the same time completely sensible.

Location selected, the urge to bite suddenly came at her with a force she’d rather not feel again. Her fangs extended, her mouth opened, and she closed on the vein, red lips creating a blood proof seal as the blood burst into her mouth. It was better than any alcohol as the need that had developed as quenched by the coppery, salty taste that flooded her mouth.

The moment came when her hunger was sated, as the claws released from her stomach and the need subsided to a near zero level and the focus came back to her eyes. She licked the wound, letting whatever it was about vampire saliva heal the wound and stood, holding the bill out to the girl, an idea forming in her head. The girl was unclaimed and for a junkie, well, she tasted better than some. The biggest thing, though, that rang through her mind was that this girl was not a threat to her, in anyway. It seemed like zonked out was her normal state (not that she was forming this opinion on anything other than inference) and in that state, she was as threatening as a newborn puppy.

She ran a thumb along the bottom of her lip, sweeping off any blood that may have escaped and sucking it off. This really was quite the idea. “So, have you gotten tired of bouncing from bite to bite yet, or are you the kind that gets a rush from it?” she asked. Her personal opinion leaned towards the latter, but one could never be completely sure.

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note: omnomnom
words: 708
outfit: here

Avis’ mind settled back into a normal rhythm after she fed, the thoughts returning to predefined patterns and the spectre of hunger fading into the back of her mind. Thoughts took the place of that one driving motivation and as the blood worked its way through her system, she felt more and more like herself again. That ever present capacity for violence that lingered in every vampire faded back into its deep recess, letting her mind return to its normal ebb and flow.

She mulled over the idea of getting this girl into a deal and getting herself a pet as a result. The capacity for her to really consider ideas was returning and it still seemed like a good one rather than just an idea born out of her absolute desperation for sustenance. The girl still seemed completely unthreatening, even after the predatory hunt-eat-kill instinct that came with the territory of being a vampire faded into the woodwork. She was in fact quite inclined to believe that this was one of her better ideas in the last week or so, definitely better than going into the field running only on solid food. The dual food source was one of the reasons that she often thought being a crimson might be easier, despite the entire going crazy aspect. Able to survive on only one food type, well, there were only a set number of species that could do that and she wasn’t about to lust after being human, she liked her freedom and she liked being clean, two things that seemed to be mutually exclusive for the humans in the world. The ones that were free weren’t that clean and the ones that were clean, well, they were generally owned by someone or by the more overarching system that controlled the lives of everyone in the Aurum sector.

She tucked a stray hair behind her ear as she considered her approach to making a deal with this girl. She wasn’t sure whether being straight with her would be the right attempt or whether she should work her way in from the edges while slowly getting the girl to agree to terms. Both approaches had their advantages, but the second was much easier outside of this situation, more appropriate for when she was extracting promises from men she had in her thrall, work them into a comprehensive deal one small bit at a time, sneakily concealed in the pillow talk that came with certain activities. No, that approach would not be the right one to use here. For one, she wasn’t dealing with a male and for two, she wasn’t willing to take the time that it would take to make that kind of iterative deal in normal circumstances. Sure, sometimes it worked, but this was not one of them. She had a small window while the girl was still paying attention to her to make the deal. She had one chance and one only to get what she wanted.

She huffed slightly at the comment. She couldn’t judge her for that, not really, but if nothing else it was an important part of her cover to be less than nice to other people. “Don’t you ever get tired of it though, never knowing where your next high is coming from?” she asked, leaning against the bar as she gauged the girl’s reaction to getting bitten. There it was, the definite mark of someone who got high from the pain or the emotional surge that came with being bitten or both. This was something that she could work with, something that she might be able to use to her advantage in getting the deal that she wanted out of this. A small smile tugged at her lips. Tonight she was the devil and this girl was presented with a crossroads decision.

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note: omnomnom
words: 637
outfit: here

No threat at all.

This girl was starting to look more and more like a clean junkie for whatever her thrills were. Was that really a problem in the world order that Avis was considering at the moment? No, it actually made her feel more secure. It was a relatively rare thing that a junkie turned on their dealer, especially if there was a relationship of reliability there. Hell, throw a few bucks her way on top of the crazy deal that Avis was considering and the girl would probably be hooked. One rush and the money for the rest of them, well, it was like a nymphomaniac hooker. Or at least so she thought, she’d never actually had any experience in that arena, the only things that she paid for in life were blood and food, and not even those half the time. She knew damn well how to get what she wanted for free.

The lights were clearly becoming more inviting than talk for the teetering high girl in front of her. This was going to have to move along at a faster clip. There really was no more time for beating about the bush. And besides, if it didn’t work out in the end, Avis could always release the bond, it was the blessing of being the devil in disguise, she controlled each and every one of the deals that she made. Not that holding deals caused her trouble too often, but sometimes there were the dumb things said in bedrooms and unwittingly sealed. “I’ll love you forever” was not the kind of thing that she wanted to have someone bonded on. Those were released as soon as they were made and life carried on. And then there were the annoying ones where clearly the person the deal with didn’t understand what she meant by it and things just went to all hell. Oh well, as long as she could make and break deals, she’d be fine.

“Well, the thing is, I need a walking blood bag,” she said, a little bit sharply, trying to bring the girl’s attention back, “and you seem like you need a constant high. I think we could help each other with our problems.” There, the process was started. The base layers were slowly building up. It wasn’t that they were necessarily needed, but Avis would rather have a willing deal than a coerced one, those seemed to work out a little more in her favor than the ones she made by breaking people down and getting their consent whether they wanted to give it. Although, sometimes the subliminal shit worked out well too. It was just a fucking coin toss whether it would work out or not.

The key, really, was to make an offer that the little lightning bug of a human couldn’t refuse. It was really the rub of the entire mess. Avis could always buy a pet or something, or she could get one that was loyal so long as she was high (or so the vampire hoped). “And, if we could help each other, I wouldn’t be asking you to change your lifestyle, that’s precisely what I don’t want. I’d just want you to carry a phone and be where I need you when I need you. You do, of course, have the complete right to say no,” she said, trying to come off relatively blase about the whole thing, never let the see you sweat was one of her mother’s early lessons in making deals. Oh that woman’s joy when her daughter could make eternally binding and unbreakable deals. She’d been overjoyed. But this, this was Avis’ world and her mother could sit in the compound and cut deals, Avis was always on the ground, making them one at a time and building her little queendom in its own slow way.

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note: Aaaaand she's finally gotten to the point, kind of.
words: 641
outfit: here

Avis could see the gears spinning and locking into place in the girls mind as she mulled over the idea. It wasn’t hard to tell that she had finally gotten the point of this entire conversation. Avis did, however, appreciate the time that that girl was taking with it. There were two types of deals. The kind that were instinctually made and the ones that were considered. Whether logic or instinct was stronger with this girl, she was unsure. However, she suspected that everything was instinctual with her. There were few enough things that she could do to change how people made their decisions, she could only take advantage of their results. She was well and sure enough trying to take the advantage here. Once she had the girl in her clutches, she’d get what she needed and be able to survive much more happily than in the past.

She grinned as the girl made her decision to go along with the deal. A smile crept over her face as she she considered which method was quickest for sealing the deal. Despite her joy with the deal, she couldn’t react. If she reacted spoke, the deal would be off. It was an annoying but necessary caveat of her affinity. Given the situation, she’d better just go for the obvious seal, it would be easier than wheedling her way into a handshake. She leaned in quickly and pecked the girl on the lips. There, it was done. “Fantastic,” she said.

Whatever happened from here on out, the girl was in her power, however limited that span was. The girl would only follow her wishes so far as the deal went. Provided the girl was as mentally weak as she expected, there would be no problem making sure that she had one of her food sources. Even though she was the one who held the bonds, she didn’t feel them. All she saw was the result and how people reacted. The strong could resist and the weak typically caved, it had something to do with the personality of the individual. There were more than enough people who ignored her little deals with them, even though she knew they had the urge to live up to their end of the deal.

She reflected briefly on how much easier her life would be without the continued stress of finding a food source every night. She could just make a phone call and have a meal whenever she wanted it, even when she was on assignment. The girl probably wouldn’t even realize that there was a significant difference between the personas that she held. Although Avis would admit that she was prone to misestimating people every now and then, she normally didn’t have that problem. She’d learned to read people when she was comfortably living below the law. She hadn’t always been the star of society, even though that potential had been ever present, she’d avoided it for a long time, leaving that world to her sister and the rest of the family.

“I’ll have someone from the citadel find you in the morning, after I get the paperwork completed. They’ll have a new phone for you loaded with my contact info and your new mark,” she said, wrapping her hands around her wallet. Now that she had everything in hand, her wallet and a new pet, she was ready to head home and crawl into her bed with a glass of scotch and some kind of trashy romance novel. Yes, that sounded fantastic at this moment.

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note: Aaaaand she's finally gotten to the point, kind of.
words: 592
outfit: here