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Log Title: Bieneville at Dusk

Log setting: See above. ;)

Log Cast:
Trace
Jean-Batiste

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The sun is setting, but here on Bieneville it's a welcomed event. The hot skin of the dancers in the parlors welcome the cooling air. The dealers and the pretty girls and boys with the empty, beckoning eyes can all conduct their business without the spotlight of the sun overhead. The grime of the street itself can blend unseen into shadows, the sidewalk a neutral grey underfoot. Trace finds himself here tonight, a boy on his own barely legal mission. Fake ID, he could kiss you right now, you blessed length of plastic. Now the treasure is a beautiful speciman, sleek and smooth with purple and blue-flecked color changing glass, the little pipe now curled in brown paper wrappings. He slips into the doorway of the run-down little headshop, and it gets one stolen, proud glance before being shoved down deep to nestle in one denim pocket for the walk home.

It's easier to look pretty once the sun goes down. Your sweat doesn't shine, your clothes look better, and smudged kohl-lines look mysterious instead of weary. There's a little community-of-sorts along Bienville, familiar faces doing familiar deeds, little cliques that form for protection and chatter. They stroll and posture and watch the cars and passers-by with those empty, beckoning eyes. One of those cars pulls over near a cluster of loitering prettyboys about half a block away; they look up, attention focussing, until the back door opens and two of their compadres climb out. The first, young and long-legged, pale hair hiding dark eyes; the second, a wide-shouldered Spanish man with blue-black hair. As the first steps away and glances around restlessly, the second leans back into the car, laughs at something said by the driver, then closes the door and steps back. As the car pulls away, the first rubs his hair back from his face and murmurs, "Hey, give me a smoke." No room for cancer sticks in his outfit, after all. The second digs one out, lights it, then hands it over after taking a drag. Familiar faces, familiar voices. Batiste and Marco.

Jean-Batiste�s Desc:

It is a familiar voice, and it tugs at Trace's mind without even letting him consciously know about it. The voice hits his brain, makes his head turn, but doesn't let him know what he's about to see, so that full surprise gets to hit him without any buffer. And a surprise it is indeed, a very puzzling one. Not every day you look up and see your best friend dressed up like one of the Flygirls. Trace stays close to the wall now, though doesn't go so far as to press against it. Watching you from the shadow of the building, with hesitant steps to bring him carefully nearer. He saw you dressed up for Hell once, and that was a bit risque, but you know, in that 'we're going to a party' cool way. It wasn't... well, it wasn't vinyl daisy dukes! Is that really *you*?

It sounds like Batiste. It looks -- well, clothes aside -- like Batiste. Therefore, it must be Batiste. Right? He doesn't really -seem- like Batiste, though. His restlessness is predatory and cagey, rather than skittish, and his words have a callous brashness to them that normally doesn't exist. His manner...well, that's the closest to familiar. It's that coolly-calculating, at-a-distance expression he gets just before saying something flippant and mean. This isn't the shy, gentle Batiste, no. This is the WorkingBat.

He scans the street, cigarette dangling at his side and sending up tendrils of smoke. Marco snatches it away, and Batiste's attention snaps back; "Fucker," he mutters, slapping at the smoke-thief with irritation, and the clove bounces to the sidewalk a few feet away. Marco just laughs, dark peals of amusement, and crouches to recollect the cancer stick. He studies Batiste as he drags on the smoke, mutters something quiet as he exhales, chin tipped up; Batiste gives the spaniard a pissy look and holds his hand out, waiting for the smoke. Marco steps in close, and offers it back filter-first, ruffle-petting Batiste's hair as soon as he accepts the smoke. Another quick ripple of low-pitched syllables, to which Batiste just shrugs and takes another drag. Marco back-steps, giving pale hair a final tousle, and looks out to the street. "You let him get to you too much, 'Tiste. Eh?" he adds, glancing back. Batiste doesn't answer.

Trace has never met the WorkingBat. He existed way back in California or something, sure. Might as well be Neverneverland. Giant redwood forests, mermaid lagoons, it's all the same to him. A long time ago, in a place far, far away. Not in his city. Not Bat, at least. Brows furrow a little, ugly reality warring with a painted one. He holds his ground, and considers walking away, considers rushing out and covering you up with something and carrying you home. Blue dreds press gently to the cool brick of the building, so now he is pressed up against that wall I suppose, with hands that find his pockets and burrow. Fingers curl around the little paper-wrapped, glass treasure in his pocket, and the other hand finds nothing and makes a fist. A benign fist, sheathed in soft worn denim and never likely to pop out and strike anything. Still he watches.

Jean-Batiste smokes his clove and stares out at the street. He's sullen, undoubtedly, but it doesn't stop him from settling into a practiced posture -- quarter-turned away from the street to make boy-slim hips even slimmer, forefinger of his free hand looped into a beltloop behind his back to keep the 'picture' clean of such unnecessaries like limbs. Image is everything -- it's no coincidence that he itches his stomach as a car slowly rolls back, or runs a finger around the vinyl hem of his short-shorts to adjust the way they cling. The car continues; as it passes, the prettyboys relax from their carefully-composed postures, and Batiste looks to Marco, gesturing with subdued anger. "'Course he fucking gets to me. I'm not like you. I can't -be- like you." He glances to the street, ember flaring as he drags hard, ebbing as he exhales. Marco crosses the distance between the two of them with a loose-limbed stroll, and flips the ends of Batiste's hair around with his hand. "Hey," the spaniard says. "Hey. 'Tiste." Batiste looks back, again saying nothing, though the frown fades as he studies Marco's eyes. He lets out a sigh, and offers the clove back.

Okay. Trace may try to paint his world, and he may be prone to the occasional lapse into naivety, but it's usually intentional. Like understanding that he's happier not knowing about some things. But the boy's seen streetwalkers since he's been out on his own. He used to watch the little girls that would traipse around in their day-glo skirts and thigh-high boots and marvel at them. Always looked more like girls playing dress-up, those little ones, but to the old men that was part of the draw. It's hard to watch, harder to believe, but he isn't stupid. Turning in time with those other boys, sporting the dress code even, this sick choreography you've all learned, the art of the lure. He doesn't need to jump to conclusions. No jumping involved at all, he just got conclusions shoved right up in his face, unbidden. A delicate, weary flinch purses his lips in a gentle twist, screws up his pale brows. And what's he gonna do? Nothing, he can't do a thing. That Marco intimidates him now, and even without him his own trepidations hold him fast as ever to that road of the least resistance. A step forward, and another, another, And then he's there, a few paces away, still watching you, and caught in that painful half-flinch. Lingering surprise has been dulled in the face of resignation and quiet sadness. Disappointment, vast and unveiled. He doesn't say a word, and takes a step backwards again once he's certain you've seen him, and his unhappy realization.

Marco takes the clove and steals a quick, sharp hit from it before passing it back. "Eh," he notes on the smoky exhale. "You think too much, 'Tiste." He laughs then, sounding either carefree or uncaring, and gives Batiste a gentle nudge to the arm. Batiste scowls for a moment then, faced with Marco's grin, relents and chuckles once. "Yeah, yeah," he mutters, pulling a lungful of smoke in. "Tell me something I don't know." He glances around again, restless, expecting to see the same-old-same-old...and finds you and your look of resigned, unhappy disappointment. "Uh," he exclaims softly, taken -quite- by surprise. You're here? You're -here-? A look down, eyes closing in a wordless, 'Well, -fuck-.' Secrets never last, Batiste. You should know that by now. He blows out a sigh and pitches the smoke away as he looks back to you. The expression is resigned, rueful; yeah, you found me out. He glances away when you step back, and licks his bottom lip. As you start to walk away, you can hear him say to Marco, "Gonna call it a night, Marco. Maybe see you 'round your place later, okay?" Footsteps -- not towards you, but away. He doesn't want to talk to you right now, either. Needs to figure out what to say, and how to say it...and if anything can really be said at all. Time to grab a shower at Marco's, grab some real clothes, and leave the WorkingBat behind like the discarded heap of cotton and vinyl on the floor.

Leave it behind? But you won't, you won't leave anything behind. How many lives can you juggle, how many secrets? He was right, in his ugly snarl to Doug that shattered night, cruel as it was to the bewildered boy. You boys turn whore and you can't get it outta yer system. And it's true, every one of you he's ever known, you come out so jaded and twisted, clingy and aching... Not just Douglas and yourself, though your shared examples are many. Others. Starlight, Drew, Jordan, *Jason*, all of you cynics before your time. And you all dare call him naive. Well he doesn't feel naive. He feels he's having a very wise moment, actually, this sorrow-struck, piercing clarity. Trace is already taking another step backwards, as you turn towards Marco, and he's turned, tearing himself away with quick, numb strides. One hand still clenches around the little pipe, though its appeal has been lost to him, and the other a tiny white-knuckled fist that doesn't unclench until he's far from the ironically named Bieneville, surrounded by trimmed lawns and tiny, restored cottages, and a blanket of sky above, her winking stars fully cloaked in the thick orange-grey of city lights.

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