The Show Must Go On

The beat was droning, though infective. It spread its way through the club, adding a back drop for gyrating throng of bodies before her. Hot and sweaty, nothing in the room seemed to bother the crowd as the all morphed together, creating a mass of moving limbs.

As the girl sat on her bar stool, the leather jacket she had worn to fend off the winter cold, slung behind her on the bar, she found she could hardly tell where one body ended and the next begun. A temptation to join the crowd was great, a strong pull.

And as a not so bad young man, with a pretty smile walked past, tilting his head towards the floor, she found she coudldn't turn down the opportunity.

Walking past the boy, neither accepting or denying his offer, merely allowing him to follow, the girl threaded her way through throng, moving her body to the beat, her hips moving smoothly as she lost all her worries, merely focusing on the music and the dance. For once in her life, she hardly cared or noticed who was close to touching her.


Outfit

Teddy had insisted that he get out of the house more than he did already, so here he was. France. It was far enough, Teddy insisted, that the mere thought of 'her' - for some reason the man seemed fearful of speaking her name around the half angel - could be lost in the crowd of dancers.

As if he'd ever want to lose the thought of her.

Pausing outside of the entrance, he reached inside his pocket, hand shaking so badly that he could barely rise the gold filled vial to his lips. Drinking down the substance, a shiver flashed through his body, taking over his body from head to toe before he was still again. Closing his eyes on a relieved sigh, he rotated his head this way and that, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders. Blinking his eyes - now a dark deep goldenrod - he straightened his leather jacket slightly, uncaring of how it rumpled his black wife beater or how it flashed a portion of his muscled pale skin.

Walking into the pulsing wall of sound Tre was nearly thrown for a loop, thrumming through his body like a force itself. Somehow making his way to the bar, Tre leaned against it, his fingertips brushing the polished wood. A jolt went through his arm, and he was suddenly looking down at his fingertips.

What was that?!

The crowed was closing in around her, hiding her from sight. In another mood, she might have been suffering from claustrophobia, worry about who was touching her, and what they might have meant by it.

But not tonight. Tonight she was in control. And she knew it.

"Now, now," she cooed, moving a hand that was placed on her swaying hips, setting it promptly back at the mans side before putting her own hands firmly on his shoulders, holding him in place while keeping a careful distances, "I didn't say you could put that there, now did I?"

"But-" the man leaned closer, his lips hovering towards her own. She stalled his motions by carefully laying a finger on top of his lips, pushing him back.

"If you want to get this," she gestured to herself, before sashaing back, the crowd parting easily, the group of young men that had been migrating towards her since she came onto the floor followed with ease. "Then you have to ask nicely. A gentleman."

A careful grin was alight on her face, as her eyes danced with mischeif. She was out for trouble. Watching each man carefully, blue gaze bouncing from one face to another, like a cat playing with a flock of mice, she pulled herself up onto a slight incline to the floor, raised above the man floor, affectively placing herself onto a pedestal about the crowd.

"Now," she tilted her head, blonde hair shining off the flashing club lights, "Who's gentlemanly enough to earn the next dance?"

His eyes narrowed as his fingers idly swept across the smooth wood of the bar, barely touching it at all. It felt... different. Like he was feeling every atom - every molecule in the wood, almost the tree itself. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on anymore, but it wasn't... bad.

His attention was caught by a brunette that sashayed past, her brown eyes glinting invitingly as he glanced up from the polished wood. He watched her falter as his gaze met hers, and then she was pausing, a grin splitting her face as he pushed off from his position against the bar. She vanished with a flick of chocolate colored hair into the crowd, and he followed her like a lost puppy.

The bass was pounding through his body like ripples on the surface a mountain spring as icicles slipped through the topmost layer of ice. His amber gaze leveled on the girl, who slipped closer, moving around him with all the grace and intimacy of a gypsy. His hands found her waist, and his thumbs brushed the exposed skin there, the feeling of skin on skin an electric shock. It felt like he was feeling her soul move underneath his fingers, each bead of sweat a delicacy, the way her hair shined in the flashing lights distracting in itself.

That was nothing to the feeling of her moving against him.

The music pulsed into her as she approached the salvating crowd again, her heart thudded along with it - though she knew it was an artificial thrill. Hollow compared to the way-

A bad immiatation was better than nothing. That was what she was here for, wasn't it?

"You know boys," she drawled, affectively keeping a bubble around herself, with a pointed look to any who got too close, "You just don't seem to want it enough. I think if you want to be a proper gentlement... then you need to find me first."

Flashing them all a beaming smirk, she melted back into the crowd, moving her way through the people, grabbing only the collar of a muscled ginger, turning him away from the petite brunette he'd been with, and back towards her.

"She was below you anyways," the girl breathed, placing her hands carefully around him, drawing his body towards hers, before slowly guiding his hands to her hips. Brushing herself against the boy, who's bewildered face was slowly morphing into infactuated desire, she bit her lip, lowering her eyes in mock timidness, "You don't mind do you?"

The answer was already written all over his face, and in the way she could easily guide him around the floor. She doubted he even noticed that with each swish of her hips, each blissful bit of contact for him, she had been dragging them back another few steps.

Right back until -

Her back lit up, each nerve ending jumping to life, tingling with excitment even though the back she had walked into was layered with both jacked and wife beater. She could feel each blissful tingle as every fiber of the delicate wings carefully inked onto her back blaised to perfect, visiable life.

There was only one person in the world who could do that.

"You know," her voice was calm as ever, even as her heart rate picked up, bouncing out a beat that was so iratic, it could only becoming from her, not any thing else, "I think you might have lost something, sir. " Her eyes flicked behind her for the briefest of moments - the red heads hands still enjoying their coveted spot - before she was gazing forward again. "Do you need any help, finding it?"

It was almost too much, the combination of the music and body moving against him. His fingertips were more than content simply rubbing circles into her skin, even as her dances became more purposeful, causing a slight rush of blood that stopped before it could get anywhere interesting. He blinked down at her as she spun out of his arms, a coy look crossing her face as she stepped away. He wasn't exactly sure how his hand wrapped around her wrist, but there it was, holding her in place as her pulse beat against his skin. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, and she was suddenly transfixed.

He was broken out of his reverie by the extravagant euphoria that slammed into his body as someone else brushed against him. The feeling of his tattoo shimmering beneath the surface of his skin as they became visible both familiar and unbelievably new. Had it always felt that- that- vibrant? The flashing lights seem to catch on something - some shadow like reflective material in an all too familiar shape - before the illusion was gone, and he was consumed by the sound of her heartbeat, even as his rushed to keep time.

Her words were only bare brushing on the back of his mind. He turned and looked over his shoulder, just missing her gaze. Instead, he stared down the redhead, something in his expression causing the other boy to falter, his hold on the blond loosening to almost nonexistent before he seemed to remember himself and tightened the grip instead. The gold in Tre's eyes was muted slightly, but brightened almost instantly.

"I'm sure I found it." He murmured, just below the bass, his voice soft enough to caress the inside of her ears. "Thanks for the offer." Turning fully to see her - the brunette was now standing off near some other men that had been more single minded about their attentions - Tre wrapped an arm around Ashleen's waist, tugging her backward and out of the other boy's reach. His fingers rejoiced at the feeling of whatever she happened to be wearing - he hadn't had the time to check yet - and his hold tightened possessively.

"Would you like to...?" He asked, glancing at Ash, and then the dance floor.

The redhead receded from her mind in an instant, his grip slipping from herself the only thing that briefly reminded her that another being other than herself, and him existed.

The smirk on her face softened for the breifest moment when she thought she caught sight of an odd shadow - a familiar shadow - the temptation to reach out and touch it appeared as soon as the brief glimps of it was gone.

"Always glad to help," she breathed as she felt his fingers slowly draw closer to her skin, the feeling as soft and intimate as the whisper of his breath had been to her ears. "You should remember that."

"Dance?"

Her fingers ran softly along the skin of his hand as she filled in the word he hadn't said. Together, the only two stationary beings in the throng of people, and yet she didn't feel that way. The others were the ones frozen, not moving, completely insiginifcant. They might as well not have been there at all. In the heart of the frozen chaos, there were only the two of them - pulsing hearts, baited breath. They were moving towards each other, even when they were hardly moving at all.

Slowly allowing her finger to trail up the rest of his arm, she followed it, turning around in his arms, the black dress, as tight as a second skin, allowed her to brush against him with every moment, until she was there, looking up at him, gazing into that face she knew so well.

Better than her own.

Tiling her head to the side, plump bright lips pulling into a possesive little grin, she leaned her self closer towards him, almost grazing skin as she spoke, "Thought you'd never ask."