Bang Bang Bang :: [Lust △]

[L△LIA]

i love freaks
i don’t care
if you’re a wild one

With pickup lines, it’s usually best to stick with the classics. “Anybody ever told you you got pretty eyes?” Says Gunner to the girl with an eye patch, charming as fuck.

The drug lord’s daughter is wearing a heavy gold chain encrusted with meth crystals nearly as big as her fists and a smirk that is neither apologetic nor accidental. She is a gilded gutter — polished filth and the glorification of a lowlife’s high life. It takes a very particular kind of stupid to be this ballsy, but it certainly doesn’t require a man. That’s why she flirts with the same heavy handed subtlety as hiding her oven-baked family jewels in plain sight.

Diamonds are for basic bitches.

The compliment isn’t insincere and the shit-eating grin stretched across her face says: You can slap me if you want, but I’m gonna like it. The plural was on purpose and although Elya doesn't look like the type to be easily offended, a show of fragility wouldn’t have prevented anything. However, Gunner hasn’t stopped fidgeting with the length of rope she was absently tying into knots when the other girl walked by and it almost looks like a nervous tick, the way she winds it around and around and around —

Until those hands rebel against any accusation of anxiety, abruptly hurling the rope up into the air. It sticks, tethered to the hilt of a throwing knife and nestled in amongst at least half a dozen matching craft projects of La Torre boredom: nooses, artfully hanging from the ceiling fifteen feet above their heads. All she can do is shrug as an explanation, a hum of deadpan amusement coiled in her throat. "I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing until I saw you."

Classic.

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

Elya Johnwayne

when we laugh indoors, the blissful tones
bounce off the walls
and fall to the ground

She was busy picking at her the dirt under her nails with a throwing knife, surveying the other tributes, when Elya had caught the attention of someone from a district that was actually worthy of her attention. "Anybody ever told you you got pretty eyes?"

She snorted, caught off-guard. "The windows to the soul," she mused. The retort came to her tongue more easily than any curse, a side-effect of a full youth inadvertently spent practicing the chase. A smug grin broke over her face, straddling the line between mischievous and cruel, where a bored Elya Johnwayne so often found herself. She winked, wheeled on the District Four, and flipped up her eye patch, revealing the empty scarred-over socket beneath. "What do you think of my soul, Gunner La Torre?"

Elya held her eye shut for a second, for two, but she could leave herself vulnerable for no longer than that. She dropped her patch and met Gunner's brown eyes with her single slate one. When she noticed that Gunner's self-satisfied smirk matched her own, she dropped that too. Still, her face retained its shape of mischief.

Her challenging stare was broken when something left Gunner's hands for the ceiling. Elya reflexively tensed up, tracking the object with her eyes, where it lodged in the ceiling among a dozen of its brethren. Nooses.

"I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing until I saw you."

Elya forced a chuckle. "And you settled on hanging?" She spun the knife around in her hands — as much a nervous habit as a power play. She took a step forward, tucking the knife behind her ear and folding her arms across her chest. "I think you can kill me better than that," she dared.

{ ! ! ! }

[L△LIA]

GUNNER LA TORRE now if we're talking body you got a perfect one so put it on me Confronted with the scar of an empty eye socket, the still smiling La Torre girl doesn't flinch. Her father didn't raise her that way. "I've seen worse," and she has. For as far back as she can remember, she's been there every time the flesh of a thief's hand was peeled away in slow motion punishment or bullets were swallowed by the mouths of double-crossers. At first she cried when they screamed, but then it all became background noise for everyday life and she learned how to pull triggers like blinking, like yawning, like taking a piss. Easy. Racing hearts should be saved for pretty girls, not wasted on dead men. As for Elya's soul? An educated guess would put it somewhere between the systematic breaking of bones during an interrogation and payday. All bad, but maybe the fun kind. The nooses above them hang empty now, but haven't always. Gunner doesn't pause to contemplate her own soul because she knows it isn't a point between one idea of sin and another — it's a constellation dotted through them all. "I think you can kill me better than that." Well, obviously. This isn't a question of skill, but rather a matter of whether the girl in front of Gunner is worthy of a heartbeat or not. Is this saving or wasting? "You don't look like someone with a death wish," Gunner says, pressing two fingers to the center of Elya's forehead, thumb pulled back in the shape of a gun. "Bang!" A moment of consideration follows before whispering, "too easy." Tracing her hairline, fingertips go from temple to jaw to neck, cutting straight across to slit her throat. It's skin on skin in slow motion and definitely warmer than a gun pressed into her palm. "But this is for slaughter animals strung upside down and bled dry." Her hand stays put as she takes a few steps to stand behind her could-be victim, chest-to-back with one arm wrapped around to cradle the other girl's neck in the crook of her elbow. "Now this feels better." Flexing enough to tip Elya's head back so one ear is pressed to her mouth, she let's time stretch itself out as lazy as can be. "I might like taking your breath away." At this, however, Gunner finds herself wondering just how easy Elya Johnwayne might be and if one of them could really make the other scream. Either way, the trigger needs to be pulled.

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

Elya Johnwayne

peel the hardwood back
to let them loose from decades trapped
and listen so still

If it was good for nothing else, at the very least Elya's eyepatch was catnip to the sort of girl she often found herself with an interest in. By extension, it served as a reasonably accurate litmus test for who was worth her time, and who would bore her. With her borderline-unimpressed "I've seen worse," Gunner La Torre had steered herself in the direction of the former category. And though she still had plenty of time to ruin it, the choosing was slim from there on out: ten other girls, most of them uninteresting.

"You don't look like someone with a death wish."

She just shrugged. Truth be told, Elya hadn't wished for a damn thing in years, death or otherwise. Wishing was unactionable, and therefore useless. If she wanted something, she worked for it, planned for it. Angry or inspired, Elya's mind followed a single track, and would not be derailed. Dan had always taken what he wanted, when he wanted it, but his sister was no slave to instant gratification — and was all the more dangerous for it. No one ever seemed to be as intimidated by discipline as they ought to be.

Gunner pressed two fingers into her forehead. Elya didn't realize it was meant to be a gun until the "Bang!" The muscles in her face twitched in response, heart rate rising as the pair of fingers traced their way down the side of Elya's broad face, down her firm jaw, across her neck. It took all of her focus to keep her breathing even as the other girl put her halfway into a chokehold, halfway into a hug.

"Now this feels better."

It didn't, not for the girl who'd despised being snuck up on before getting blindsided and savaged and left for dead some four years prior. Her pulse pounded, anxiety threatening to overpower arousal. But still, she played along.

Elya leaned back into Gunner, gently, gently, and rested her hand on top of the other girl's. Then, in one ear: "I might like taking your breath away." She turned to face the words as if to respond to them, smile small across her face — 

— then unlocked her knees and threw her entire bodyweight back and upward and over, hurling Gunner to the ground at her feet. Elya didn't give a shit if that was some sort of violation — someone had said something about not fighting with the other tributes until the Arena, but this somehow didn't seem to qualify; the venn diagram of fighting and flirting was practically a circle for the one-eyed girl.

She planted her feet on either side of Gunner's head and folded her arms back across her chest. Her smile spread into a triumphant smirk, lips parted to allow a low chuckle to escape. This was where she was meant to be: in control, staring down at her latest prey.

Smirk maintained, she bent forward, locking her single eye on Gunner's pair. Tumbling forward into a tunnel, her brown hair shielded everything but the District Four from her view. "And I might like getting you on your back first," she murmured, voice low and deliberate.

{ ! ! ! }

[garnet beauford d8 [earthling]]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	CIRCE LYON
	She'd been living her life one dagger at a time since she'd been able to walk. At first they were wooden, light and polished. Then, they were iron, heavy and dull. It wasn't until she came of age that she was given the ones with jeweled hilts and steel tips. They were as lavish an adornment as any necklace, bracelet or ring, and she treasured them more highly than baubles. Daggers wrapped around her hips, strapped to her calves. She had daggers in her eyes. They had work to do, Elya and Circe, weighing the competition. Some of them would have to become allies, even though she wanted no one else at her back. Circe threw weapon after weapon at the targets, lazily, paying only half a mind. She was ready to approach a boy with a famous brother when her spine prickled. She flung the last dagger, arcing it up and wide. It lodged into a ventilation pipe as Circe slunk across the training center. She dawdled at the edge of the rope station, arms folded and head cocked. Watch your mouth, La Torre, she did not say. When you are speaking to a god. She may have always adored daggers, but she had never been so very jealous of a hunk of metal than she was of the one spinning between Elya's deft fingers. Her mouth went dry even as she crossed herself over her empty chest. No one would kill Elya; no one could kill an immortal. But it was a very small comfort as La Torre quickly disarmed the merry murderess. Without thinking, without hardly even moving, Circe shifted two daggers into each hand, ready to spring. As had become customary over the last several months, she was rendered useless. That, more than anything else, was why she followed Elya, even though leadership ran in her blood. She didn't have to stick around to watch the show; she knew how this play ended. She drew the dagger's blades together, sheering until they sparked. She beheaded the noose swinging between her and the tumbling girls. "I'm breaking for lunch. We're having some delicacy from your district, La Torre," she said, shifting her weight from hip to hip. As soon as she caught Elya's gaze, she sheathed her weapons, replacing them with a sharper-than-steel smirk. "I'm always happy to help gut bottom feeders."
	district 2 female of the 70th Hunger Games

[L△LIA]

GUNNER LA TORRE i like it a little rough too such a beautiful view It's almost too easy. One body pressing into another — navel to spine and hand on hand — there's warmth, but it's cheap, like dancers ditching their dresses for dollar bills. Gunner would say come here and they would, but at least Iggy was expensive and had a talent for making lap dances feel like part of the chase. The small smile Elya turns to her with won't be rejected, but it doesn't scorch the La Torre girl's gut the same way as back and forth games of maybe, baby, maybe — Then she's as airborne as anthrax. She takes it back, all of it, so far back that she's lying on it, tucked into a bed of being wrong. This hurts too good to be boredom anymore and if she didn't know better, she might think she'd just fallen in love. Despite what the clichés say, that's not exactly the reason all the air has been knocked out of her, sending her head spinning dizzy and her heart into madness. "And I might like getting you on your back first," murmurs a voice from above, but laughter is already thrumming in the girl sprawled across the floor before all the words are even out. "I was worried common ground might be hard to find," she replies through her gasping amusement, thumping a fist against the floorboards to emphasize her terrible pun, "but I could really... come around to your way of doing things." Casually crossing her legs at the ankles, as if this is always how Gunner La Torre lounges, she puts her hands behind her head and settles in to enjoy the view. "Especially when it ends with you straddling my face." That grin. That never ending assault of teeth and lips and don't you wanna to know what else a mouth like this can do, it wouldn't know how to stop even if it wanted to. They're interrupted before Gunner can elaborate. "I'm breaking for lunch. We're having some delicacy from your district, La Torre." It's one of the other girls from Two and if she weren't ninety percent legs, especially from this angle, then the intrusion would be much less forgivable. "I'm always happy to help gut bottom feeders." "I dunno about fish," she deadpans, "but I could eat." There's a pause as she looks up at the one still brazenly straddling her, one foot on either side of La Torre's head. "What're you in the mood for, Elya? I hear there's good room service here." That voice, it sounds like: Maybe, baby, maybe —

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

Elya Johnwayne

the city is my home
construction noise all day long
and gutter punks are bumming change

"I was worried common ground might be hard to find, but I could really... come around to your way of doing things."

Half a laugh and half a groan escaped from her throat at the awful pun, but between the jest and the shit-eating grin between her feet, she couldn't keep the amusement off her face. And despite herself, Elya smiled. Something — no, everything — about Gunner La Torre was so ridiculous that scarcely remembered where she was, or why.

Or she didn't until Circe Lyon stalked over, daggers and claws out and on display. While she couldn't blame the girl for showing off — after all, half the point of training was to intimidate the others into leaving you the fuck alone during the bloodbath, into literally pissing themselves when they saw you coming into view — clearly Elya already had Gunner under her heel. "I'm breaking for lunch," Circe announced. Invited. Demanded.

And just like that, Elya became acutely aware that the other District Two's buttons were just as easy to press as Gunner's. She fixed her eye on Circe's, head cocked slightly to one side. She said nothing, didn't even blink — wink — not while Gunner La Torre mouthed off to the Lyoness, and not for the full eternity it took for Circe to take the hint and fuck off.

If the other girl was jealous, that wasn't exactly Elya's problem. And if she thought that she was protecting her, well... annoying as that might be, she could certainly use that to her advantage. So long as Circe never forgot who was in charge. So long as she never forgot that she didn't need her. For a human shield that could fight — and fight well — it was worth it to put up with whatever clingy bullshit came with, at least until she could yell at her for it.

It wasn't a new problem for the one-eyed girl: of those who wanted a piece of her, most wanted more than one. Attachment was never Elya's style. With all of District Two at her disposal, that wasn't a problem. Here, however, her options were limited, and the ability to disappear was restricted to death — or killing, for that matter.

From Elya's perspective, that worked out okay. Her hobbies were limited to fighting and fucking, and anything that helped to facilitate either. Or both.

"What're you in the mood for, Elya? I hear there's good room service here." But her appetite for the latter was diminished. She stepped off to one side and hoisted Gunner up by the front of her shirt.

"Fighting. First." But later...

ooc - ack, sorry for the delay

[L△LIA]

would you pay it as a tribute
the only thing you let hold you
wear it now like a mantle
always there to remind you

There is light even in the darkest of places. Something has to be there to cast shadows and to tease the stupidity of hope into being stubborn, otherwise the children on the wrong side of town would give up and go extinct. Their gods — drug lords and welfare queens — would have no one left to praise or grovel at their feet and then...

Then Gunner La Torre wouldn't be anyone anymore.

So she keeps her extravagant mouth turned on bright, all fire-white teeth and sugared lips. It makes it hard for anyone to look away. The distraction of cheap pickup lines and calculated collisions of skin means no one ever looks too closely at someone so obviously shallow. The depth is only in the dark. Infinite. Starless. Tangibly empty.

Circe and Elya have a silent showdown and Gunner just lays there on the floor, ignored, as she antagonistically swipes at the air with her hands transformed into clawed feline paws. "Meow," she hisses, more than content to be an object of tension between the two. It's a game of tug-a-war that she'd happily volunteer to play any day. "Don't worry, Lyon," she can't stop herself from calling out as the blonde stalks away in bristling annoyance, "we'll kiss and make up later."

The small victory is satisfying not because of Circe's defeat, but because Gunner knows persistence when she sees it. The girl won't be gone for long and Gunner has no interest in pretending that she isn't looking forward to round two. This is her kind of fighting for fun. Elya doesn't seem to share her amusement, however, yanking the snickering girl up from the floor by the front of her shirt. "If you're trying to feel me up, you're doing it all wrong —"

"Fighting. First."

All the La Torre girl's shadows are colored bright neon, warning blindness to anyone who might dare to look too close. It's a threat, a promise of poison confidently marked upon the hide of a feral animal that doesn't always play nice. Plucking the small knife out from behind Elya's ear, it whirls between her fingers before the warm steel comes to rest in her palm, gripped tightly enough to bleed her knuckles white. Gunner La Torre rarely does anything that isn't just for fun, but fighting has always been the occupational exception. "Winner takes all?" She was born into the business of violence and her face flickers, automatic, like clocking in. Gunner forgets her smile for a moment.

The light goes out.