tampered | Log: Complete

Current Mood: predatory
Current Location: Casino

Log: Complete

When; August 30; Thursday Evening
Rating; PG-13?
Characters; Lacroix

master_lacroix and Nicholas Brocklehurst

razrsharp
Summary; Amused at the lengths which Brocklehurst will go to find information out about him. Lacroix invites him to meet face to face at the Casino over a game of poker.
Log;

Lacroix had arrived to the Casino much earlier then agreed in an attempt to check out his surroundings and check over the games. He sat among a group of poker players, a respectable amount of chips in front him as he waited for his opponents to make their moves. Playing such games with mortals was indeed cheating for him but he covered it well by losing a hand here and there.

Patiently he awaited the arrival of Nicholas Broklehurst. Reading the man had been elementary but Lacroix found himself rather intrigued. Perhaps he was feeling too nostalgic for his own Nicholas that he was transferring a bit as he had a tendency to do with both Walter and Alucard. It was a habit he had found himself falling into except this time... the one he was transferring on was entirely human. And from Lacroix's point of view the man had great potential to be more then merely human.

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Brocklehurst arrived, dressed in one of the two suits he had on hand. The dark blue one had been lost to Elle Driver, which left the muted charcoal two piece number. His professional dress was always impeccable, right down to the silk navy blue tie and black leather shoes. Too bad he felt Lacroix (Macintyre) wasn't worth the effort, but Rosiel had been spoiled by his attire. Work gear no doubt.

The Englishman approached the poker table where the vampire sat. He recognized that face anywhere, in the midst of a banquet crowd or behind tinted windows. He fucking hated that face.

"Played a hand, have you," said Nicholas, his voice cool and low, careful.

Lacroix had sensed Nicholas the moment he walked into the Casino. A smile crypted across his face when he looked up at the other man.

"I arrived early and decided to test my luck," he said simply. The human's hatred was evident no matter how collected he tried to be Lacroix knew better. "Shall we play a few rounds?"

"I think you want more than my money, Mr. Lacroix," said Nicholas in the correct accent, almost clipped. "I'm not playing cards for keeps," he said coolly while ordering himself a scotch on the rocks from a nearby waitress.

"I doubt you're here to give an interview, or are you," Brocklehurst asked, his gaze on the cards across the green felt but his attention on the vampire.

Lacroix retained his smile. "Tell me what precisely did you find out about me, Mr. Brocklehurst?" he asked, the emphasis on Nicholas's last name to show the man that Lacroix had been paying attention after all.

The human was sharp and with each passing encountered Lacroix found himself growing more intrigued. It had been quite some time since an actual human had been able to do that.

"Nothing you don't already know. Smart on you for not leaning on the boy."

Nicholas was referring to Roger Davies, the twit. He wasn't supposed to have literally confronted Lacroix. They were lucky the young man hadn't been harmed, Jas Hook wasn't another force with which Brocklehurst wanted to contend. He turned to lean against the counter, his back to the dealer. Something told him they were being watched, but not by whom. Finally his drink arrived.

"You run a swanky club on the books. Does it remind you of home," he asked casually.

"I'm a lot of things but even I do not take advantage of those who are cursed."

Roger Davies had served to amuse him and truly he did have a sense of humor even if others could rarely appreciate it. Lacroix sense the slight apprehension that Nicholas was feeling but chose not to react.

"Not precisely, I made some changes to it," he said with a smirk. It would be so easy... he thought to himself.

"You mean to say you have standards? That's a new one on your dossier," said the blond with just the slightest smirk on his mouth. He raised the glass of amber whiskey to his lips. "You've an interest in me too. I can smell it from here, Lacroix."

Lacroix could have laughed but he held it back of course he had standards. He hadn't lived nearly two thousand years by being reckless and uncouth. "Call it what you will," he answered simply.

"What can I say you make me nostalgic in ways you will never understand," he admitted, though he was fairly sure that Brocklehurst would go back top thinking he was Macintyre.

"Enlighten me, Lacroix. Give me all the reasons, the good and the bad. I'm an objective man when I want to be," Nicholas said, another twitch to his mouth.

Tit for fucking tat, this man. He scanned the crowd over the rim of his glass, recognizing no one save for the staffed regulars. Macintyre or not, they bloody well acted like the same man, the same sort of man that made even Brocklehurst sour. His own morals and ethics were already questionable; a man like Lacroix or Macintyre? Off the damned chart.

"Which reasons? The reasons for my nostalgia or the reasons you shall never understand my nostalgia?" He asked, clearly he was amused.

The thought that Brocklehurst would make a most entertaining immortal was definitely on Lacroix's mind. Sharp humans had a tendency to make even sharper vampires, but of course there was the matter of Christopher Styles. Yet another mortal that was entertaining in his own right.

"Try both, I've got time." Brocklehurst tapped the face of his wristwatch, a sleek and expensive Vacheron Constantin.

Christopher Styles was the very reason Nicholas had come alone. Even if they weren't the same person this man could not be trusted. Lupe Salvatore hadn't helped his case much. More importantly, it was Styles' voluntary involvement with their Macintyre that had led to the Washington mess. Christ he wanted to avoid that again.

Lacroix slightly snickered. There was so much there that could not be explained in the span of a couple of hours let alone an entire human lifetime. It would be so easy indeed... He could easily be upon Brocklehurst before the man even had a chance to react but he restrained himself.

"You remind me of my son who is also named Nicholas," he stated dryly. He didn't bother to mention immortal son for a reason. Truly he missed his Nicholas very much. And speaking with Brocklehurst as well as Walter served to remind him of that lost.

The risk of being embraced had occurred to Nicholas. Truthfully, never in his near forty-three years had he had to face off with a vampire, but what was the difference between a bloodthirsty immortal and a pissed off Pira carrying an SMG? Brocklehurst had a gun on him, two to be exact. He was already aware that in this place bullets couldn't kill a vampire, but hollow points could certainly slow one down.

He swirled his whiskey again then polished it halfway, lowering his glass with another smirk.

"Funny that, your son a Nicholas, my father very much a dead man," Brocklehurst maintained a straight face. "The buried sort," he conceded.

Lacroix could have showed Brocklehurst the difference between a bloodthirsty immortal and pissed off Pira but he was continuing to restrain his vampiric urges. Though it was with great effort that he was doing so. The last time he had this great an urge to turn someone it had been when he looked inside Light Yagami's dreams.

"Absolutely hilarious. You and he have several things in common. It is likely you would have gotten along," he added, which was the truth much to his chagrin. His inclination toward men who had vicious streaks mixed with bouts of humanity was quite grating at times.

He could sense a touch of restraint in Lacroix's manner alone. He had suggested the Casino, a very public place in which open embrace would not be acceptable. Nicholas believed the other man prided himself on public image and social etiquette; the mark of a civilized monster... or a monstrous civilian. Brocklehurst raised his chin, blue gaze drifting to the slots then back to Lacroix.

"See what you will in me, Lacroix. I'll see you for what you are; a jaded man seeking control because he can't keep up with the world that changes around him," the English man watched him carefully.

Oh he could keep up with the world changes quite well. Who would guess that a mild-mannered club owner was once a revered general in the Roman army? It was that very type of arrogance that attracted Lacroix to the same type of men. He rather enjoyed breaking them as time wore on.

"Perhaps I am jaded. Try living nearly two thousand years and then tell me you can maintain positive outlook on life," Lacroix said non-chalantly. Charles Macintyre was no where near the trouble that Lacroix was capable of causing after all.

"Try looking forward to seventy and hoping you die happy. A little harder, isn't it," the blond man nodded briefly. He set his glass on a passing tray, waving for the waitress to put the drink on Lacroix's tab. Nicholas Brocklehurst could be a gentleman and an exemplary bastard too.

"Have you not been happy thus far?" Lacroix asked. Oh he could be quite the bastard himself. "I never quite understood the draw of dying of old age even when I was human."

Like any great Roman general he had craved to meet his end on the battlefield, sword in hand and covered in the blood of his enemies. But Pompeii and subsequently Divia had other ideas.

"I take the unknown as it comes. It's called rolling with the punches, you old daft prick," Nicholas said casually, as if his word choice had been as polite as calling Lacroix a jolly old gentleman.

"But I suppose wanting something you can't have keeps you from facing the monotony of your immortality," Brocklehurst added with a brief rub to the side of his neck. He still hadn't caught any conspicuous surveillance, but the Casino itself had an intricate security system, to prevent the House from losing. "That's what nostalgia is, bittersweet longing," Nicholas shrugged once, pushing off the counter's edge.

And that was that exact attitude that continued to draw Lacroix in. Such insolence made him evem more nostalgic and made his need to control himself even that much stronger.

"You say that as if I really could not take what I wanted," he said simply. That was not a threat just a statement. "Something bothering you?" he asked finally noting that Brocklehurst seemed to be somewhat diverted.

"You could, but you won't," insisted Brocklehurst, that confident in his own ability to challenge Lacroix or consequently bluff him. "I have a meeting. The whiskey was lovely," said the Englishman in a facetious manner as he adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves. "Put those millennia to good use; don't think to fuck with me."

Nicholas' blue gaze sharpened on the older, much older man. He turned his back to Lacroix, a dangerous move were they in a darkened alley or an empty apartment, but they were in the Casino, the public arena. A challenge or a bluff.

"For now I won't," Lacroix said with a smug aire about him. The mortal could continue to believe he could out bluff him to his heart's content but one day Lacroix would longer indulge it. Though today he was feeling very indulgent. "Have a good meeting then."

Lacroix said nothing outloud to Nicholas's last remark. No, his last comment was reserved for Nicholas and Nicholas alone. "Be careful of what you challenge, next time I will accept the opening whether we are in public or not."

Nicholas arched a brow, certain he heard words but without the timbre of a throat and the din of the Casino. Fuck if that's what the others meant by a telepath, as good as MI5 with their abundant bug technology. He didn't respond to Lacroix, not aloud anyway. Brocklehurst raised two thick fingers and brushed them upward from his Adam's apple to his chin. Nothing like flipping the British bird to the old man, even if it made Nicholas feel like a juvenile again. He continued to walk away.

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Log: Complete

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