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[poetryslamming]

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[reiterated]

[ It doesn't take a clever man to read her body language - the way she jumps at his presence, her harshness, empty save for whatever their token Jetset Politician has left her with. How unnecessary it all is. Politics and this sort of violence against Alexa, both. She, who's clearly already felt the darkness of the world. Unnecessary. He reaches for her glass and slides it closer to himself, though he doesn't drink from it immediately. Usually, he would.

Right now, he finds himself holding back. ]

You belong here more than he does. [ He leans in just a bit, a fraction, though he smells like sex and sweat still. Her poor olfactory senses will simply have to deal with the onslaught, won't they? ] I think we should go. Don't you?

[ Gaze slipping from her, gliding around the room slowly, he takes in all those horny queers, some kissing, some humping on the dance floor, others slipping away in the darkness, all of them driven by their dicks and nothing more. Feeling his own body respond, mostly as a painful twinge of sympathy, he suddenly feels the wrongness of it - of her, here, among all those men, consumed by this very basal craving because they don't have to care about anything else. Sighing, he leans away again. Repeats before she can answer: ]

I think we should.

[poetryslamming]

[ When he leans in, he stinks of dick and spunk and sweat and she should be grossed out, but Timm smelling like the sex he's obviously just had still feels more like home than all of In&Out does right now, so she doesn't lean back, she just sits there, clutching at her arm that's started to go numb. He thinks they should go. Well, won't you fucking look at that, she actually thinks so, too. ]

Yeah, whatever. Let's get lost.

[ She belongs, Timm says, more than the great minister Girard, although Girard is a man who sleeps with men and she's... yeah, that wishy-washy, in-between thing that it's taken her this long and probably longer yet to define. She doesn't even fuck men, isn't that what they're all here for? Like shit, she seems to belong exactly nowhere.

So Alexa gets to her feet, wincing at the way her wrist burns at the sudden onslaught of movement. She hasn't looked at it more closely - or, more like she hasn't looked at it at all, but it sure feels like a whole myriad of bruises are eating away at her usual paleness and wouldn't that just be grand, more proof, more fucking evidence. Can she gather enough of those motherfuckers to get him a ticket, if not a night in jail?

Yeah, dream on. When did a male politician ever break his stride over a girl's testimony? Shitty kind of world they're living in. She mumbles something unintelligible even to herself under her breath and turns her back on Timm, beginning to undo her cuffs to lessen the tightness around her hand.

Shit, it's beginning to swell up. Isn't that just fucking dandy, isn't that fucking cute? ]

[reiterated]

[ She gets up, he gets up, it's all in sync and he's thinking about where to take her, maybe go for a late-night cup of something that he probably can't afford... Then, she starts fiddling with her sleeve cuff, and he can't help looking at the skin underneath, her slight wrist positively painted in bruises. Gods, some people really do get away with anything, don't they? Because he'll get away with this. He'll get away with hurting her, it's as obvious now as it'll be in the morning. He shuts his eyes for a moment.

They always get away with it, really.

Taking a quick, decisive breath, he nods towards the door and sets off quickly. She'll probably have to hurry to keep up but all things considered, it shouldn't bother her too much. Getting the hell out of here ASAP, yes? He's left her beer glass on the counter after all, knowing without knowing that it's undrinkable, at least in the figurative sense. And for people like them, artists, sometimes what's figurative matters more than the rest. He walks past a few familiar-looking faces on the way, all of whom he ignores, and seconds later, he's finally breathing the fresh air outside. He breathes in great gulps of it, realising only now how much he actually reeks. Well. He's always been a man of contrasts.

When he's certain she'll hear him, he speaks. ]

Can I see?

[ She'll know what he means. ]

[poetryslamming]

[ He leaves her, but never to her own devices. Alexa follows him towards the exit, looks at absolutely no one while she passes through the crowds that have grown more packed as the minutes have ticked by. In half an hour, this will be a fucking meat market, won't it? A human slaughterhouse and everyone's come to smell the blood. The thought makes her feel queasy and she follows Timm quickly, pushing her way past a smallish guy on her way out the door. She makes sure not to think about her glass of beer that wasn't really hers to begin with, because he paid for it in credit and she paid for it in something much more difficult to balance.

Outside, the street is deserted except for a few late gays and the sax player from Shiori's band, leaning against the wall next to the entrance to Rosebud and smoking a cigarette in the pinkish light from the neon sign above the door. Fuck, she could use a smoke, too. But Timm asks, he doesn't take any liberties with her, he doesn't assume anything and how is she supposed to refuse, when he's being so fucking nice about it? And not in any Nice Guy way, in a regular I'm-your-friend way and it's a fucking miracle she can tell the difference, because she hasn't had enough friends since leaving Hamburg to have anything she can compare it to. She just knows, okay. He's asking, because he knows she couldn't fucking take it right now, if he didn't.

Without saying anything, she holds up her right hand and ignores the pain of lifting her arm up to height where he can look at it comfortably. With her left hand, she rummages through her pocket and manages to fish a cigarette out of the packet she finds there with her lips only, lighting it after a few futile attempts. The first whiff of nicotine makes her relax somewhat. ]

[reiterated]

[ She's a bundle of nerves and repressed aggression, the way you become when you're helplessly stuck with yourself and somebody else's mess. He understands, even if he rarely acknowledges why - after all, women and children they tend to say, the men, when they go to war. Either leave them or take them. Leave or take. He watches as she lifts her arm high enough that it can't be comfortable for her. There's a regular set of fingerprints there, he thinks. Evidence. Evidence of nothing, except how the world works, if anyone's in any fucking doubt.

He's getting angry now and has to breathe slowly once again, to temper it. Later, maybe. Perhaps he'll go back, once she's safely tucked away in a bed somewhere. He thinks, forbiddingly, about Alex. If anyone had ever done anything like this to him...

But they didn't. And right now, he needs to concentrate. Pish, past is past, look at his present! Look! ]

Nothing for it. [ He holds out his arm for her to grab if she so chooses. ] Let's go, my dear. We have a long, long road ahead of us and the stars won't be out for long.

[ He doesn't elaborate. After all, he trusts her to ask if she wants to know, if she wants to come with - or to refuse. He leaves all the doors open for her, basically, as he's won't to do; that's how they work best, the two of them. Open roads, open skies, such and such. ]