tampered | Log; Complete

Log; Complete

When; Dec. 18 (morning)
Rating; PG-13 (language)
Characters; Boy Blue

playstheblues, the Corinthian

bitingnightmare
Summary; The morning after another night in which our two players acquaint themselves with each other in secrecy.
Log;

Cold again. Winter had returned in full force after the previous day's curse. The Corinthian stirred from a dreamless sleep, from the quiet abyss of his work where he could feel the oily black of the rapist's return to the city. It was no threat to Blue or himself, and even if it were, the nightmare would be the first in line to deny it entry into his space, his place. He'd fought it once before, he could do it again and more viciously so now that he had something to protect. Was the blonde still there?

Cori narrowed his eyeteeth in awakening, remembering where it was he'd fallen asleep. His cheek rested upon a thin futon in an old room filled with untouched weaponry. He hadn't been here in some time, not since she'd been taken by the mark. Her swords were immaculate as ever, sharper than any ivory, and for a brief moment he thought he saw metal move, catching the pale light that filtered through the small window.

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It was something he had learned in the Eastern Courts when he was younger, before he even knew about the Adversary, when his mother had encouraged him to travel. The swords lying in the room were too much of a temptation.

He swung them through the air in an arc; they passed through it like molten silver, his legs twirling, the fact that he was out of practice no deterrent. Korean Sword Dancing - something the Fables had, a legend, something that wasn't really real anymore.

Blue would be the first to admit he looked a little odd for the part, but he loved the feeling of movement with the sword. Even the Corinthian's awakening couldn't distract him - he was set to finish.

It was Blue. Cori remained on the futon on the floor, silent but hardly feigning sleep as he watched the younger man twirl a Geom over his head. He was good, the nightmare thought to himself, noting how Blue deftly handled the long blade. After visiting his dreams he wouldn't doubt the blonde's ability to wield a sword. But this was a Korean art and Cori would make no mistake at nailing Boy Blue for a European fable through and through. When had he learned such a tradition? A visit to the Eastern courts?

The nightmare silently moved to sit up, not wanting to disturb Blue's dance, not wanting to spoil the ritual he found rather alluring between the rays of sun. The contrast of reflection off Blue's golden hair and the cold carbon steel was delicate and dangerous all at once.

He took a deep, gulping breath and did the last twirl before kneeling on the ground in the final position, the sword embedded an inch into the floor of the room. He waited there a moment, collecting his thoughts Not in the eastern court, there is no king to give his approval, your eyes don't have to turn passive and emotionless, just keep breathing and turned to look at Cori.

He didn't say anything - words weren't coming yet, not this close to violence. He just kept his gaze firm, staring at the nightmare.

Cori hardly flinched as the steel bit into the ground with flawless execution. There was as much to learn about the golden boy as there was to learn about the nightmare. A difference of over 1200 years meant nothing; it was about experience and blood.

When those blue eyes turned to meet his unreadable teeth the Corinthian made no motion. He recognized the seriousness in Blue's gestures. It wasn't a game, as the blonde had said before, he wasn't 'into' playing. Cori raised his chin briefly in silent acknowledgment of the once battlefield soldier's prowess. Then he tilted his head, following the tip of the blade to its hilt, Blue's hand around it, up his arm to his shoulder and neck, to his lips and then his eyes again.

"Do you want it?"

The sword. The sword.

1200 years, most of it in war, the glory of it a false, tempting lie. He didn't believe in it anymore, but he still danced when it suited him, he still fought when he had to.

Boy Blue didn't play - not games of the mind, the heart, or the body. He wasn't into liars or cheaters. He didn't like the Eastern Fable courts because that's all they were, secret-keepers and double-speakers, but the Western courts were no better. He was just a farmboy with a prestigious mother and a habit of working hard to get what he wanted.

"No." Blue said, dropping the sword. "I don't want a sword like this one ever again." The last time he had held a sword like that, he had sliced a man open from neck to navel. It had been one of the only times he had killed someone he cared about.

"It belonged to a friend of mine," he mentioned as he stood up to pick the sword off the ground. The Corinthian placed it back in its scabbard then wrapped it in cloth on top of a crate with care. The blade deserved a pair of good hands or no hands at all. It didn't deserve to be in the possession of someone unsuitable for wielding it, but Blue had refused the offer. No harm done.

He took a seat on one of the other boxes, unfazed by his own nudity. Modern standards and their emphasis on clothing were a farce, at least in comfortable casual settings like this one. However, far be it for Cori to openly admit he felt comfortable in Blue's presence. He dug into his jacket for a cigarette, first one of the day.

"Have you been doing that long," he asked while taking a drag, referring to the dance.

Blue watched Cori put the sword away. It had been too much of a temptation to pick it up and dance, only for the few moments.

"About eight hundred years. I went to the Eastern Courts, spent a little time there," Blue explained, stretching his arms over his head. One thing that dance served to do was make him tight. "I haven't done it in a number of years."

He pulled the black training outfit he had found among the boxes a little closer to his skin and shrugged. "Mostly it's broadsword, now," he explained with a little bit if hesitancy. He usually didn't share that information right away, but the Corinthian had caught him dancing, so it was the least he could do.

He left it out of its box on purpose, the geom there for the taking if Blue should reconsider his decision to leave it.

"I wouldn't have noticed," said the Corinthian, a compliment with a smirk. Blue was better rusty than many mortals (or mundys) he knew currently trained. The white horror shrugged. "Broadswords are good too, rapiers, gladius, same old shit. You learn to pick up new tricks so you're always one step ahead," of who he didn't say. Cori blew smoke upward, he'd noticed the hesitation.

"You're good at it," he added, and whether he meant at the dance or at being one step ahead he also didn't say.

"Or re-learn the old ones," Blue pointed out.

He turned and hefted a dagger out of one of the boxes - a curved, nasty looking one, and threw it with swift accuracy to the other side of the room. "I used to be able to pin a fly with those," he said, not bragging, just honest. "Now I can find a target maybe...fifty percent of the time."

He walked over and yanked it out of the wall. "Now it's just a matter of practicing - old tricks, same dog, and muscle memory that prefers the Vorpal Blade."

He set it down and sat cross-legged on one of the crates. "Thanks," he said with a small smile.

"You're lucky no one charges rent for this place," Cori remarked as Blue made yet another scratch in the room. "Traded the trade for a trumpet?"

He returned a grin, then quirked a brow. "Vorpal Blade, snicker snack? You know that's cheating," he nodded once while tapping ash... on the floor. Hm, he was no better than the blonde in that respect. Nonetheless he smoked the cigarette down to the filter then ground it out.

"You're welcome."

"I'd fix it, if they did." Blue shrugged.

"Snicker-snack, it was the battle hymn of my very short period as a vigilante." It wasn't that short, really, but who was counting? "It is cheating," Blue agreed congenially. "but I wasn't going for glory. Sometimes you just have to be able to win." Blue had the skills - but he army was better trained than he was, and he had needed to get through the Homelands fast.

"Now I'm used to it. I should probably polish up skills with a non-magical weapon," Blue realized, watching the nightmare smoke down his cigarette. Bad habits.

"A regular handyman too? You're a fucking jack of all trades," he smirked, reaching over to swipe his thumb along Blue's cheek. The nightmare had no intention of referencing that Jack with his remark, really.

"Right," the Corinthian sounded in agreement, nodding once. The boy knew his objectives well, when they counted anyway. Cori was the same; he preferred his balis for their flexibility and knack for trapping. Predators and conquerers knew nothing about fairness. He flicked the white Mild Seven butt aside, considering Blue's realization.

"You should, but it'd mean picking up that which you'd rather not remember," he raised his chin again and crossed his legs.

"It's the kind of thing that Bigby told me to pick up when I was working for Snow," Blue said. "Just everyday sort of things. Nothing special. I tried to learn how to cook and I almost burned the apartment down, though."

The Corinthian's words were true, and Blue knew that, but when he looked up there was a mild surprise written on his face anyway. "It's not that I don't want to remember," Blue said softly. "It's that I worked really hard not to have to."

"Kind of like being a mechanic or a cook," he nodded in agreement, though the Corinthian had learned those skills more for his interest in the profession rather than any need to eat or work a machine.

He was secretly fascinated by human life, everything they did and what made them tick, what made Mr. Smith an upstanding citizen lust for his own daughter or what made Mrs. Jane Doe Teacher of the Year want to drown her own newborn. But on the surface, Cori maintained that uncaring veneer of indifference. It was just a job.

"It's part of the learning process, or relearning process," Cori smirked, thumbing Blue's chin this time. "I'll help you. That stoney bitch Mazikeen did a number on me, I must be rusted."

"Yes, exactly," Blue said. "It was just that we didn't have the money to hire a huge staff - Fly worked off his community service, and I was basically working for rent and not much else." He scratched his head. "I have a lot of strange skills." Like how to re-construct a murder scene, or quell a Farm rebellion.

"That's why Bigby made me go to high school," he said. "Skills. I went through on the vocational track." Classes on basic mechanics, woodworking, and drivers ed had all been a part of that, but if asked Blue suspected the Bigby just wanted his own personal driver.

"Raelly? I'd like that." Blue said, his eyes lighting up. "I'd like to spar with you."

"I hooked when I was broke," he mentioned almost naturally to Blue. He rarely shared that information with anyone, but they were on the subject of money and skills, and Cori had the oral skills for it. "For a couple months," added the nightmare, clarifying that it wasn't something he did regularly.

Exile and a complete stripping of his title and function had led to that short period of desperation. Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything at all. He scratched the back of his head, quickly following that line of conversation. The Corinthian rather liked seeing those blue eyes light up. The range of emotions Boy Blue had, from the hardlined serious soldier to the amiable adolescent, fascinated him.

"All right, I'll spar with you. You're a little on the Short Round side but we'll choose assists appropriately," he smirked, knowing the short reference was an exaggeration.

Blue paused at that bit of information, then told him, "I let everyone think that I was the stupid idiot who went back to the Homelands for no reason so I could protect Prince Charming's interests." That was as close to whoring himself out as Blue got. "I didn't even get money out of it. I got a prison sentence instead."

It was just his natural self - a nice, wide range of emotions, a matter of letting himself feel a little instead of bottling it up, a rebellion against his military past.

"I'm not that short," Blue said with a sigh. "I only look short because I slouch a lot." He crossed his arms. "I'm actually pretty tall, even if I am shorter than you."

"That takes the cake," he remarked, not about to sensitize Blue's admission. Whoring himself out for the sake of Fabletown was admirable, but doing it for the Prince to hand out a prison sentence? Tough fucking luck.

The Corinthian laughed this time, a genuine laugh. He tipped his head back, teeth grinning at the blonde. "You're smaller than me, that makes you short," boasted the nightmare. Now, he wasn't one to stand behind the old adage that size does matter, but for the sake of pushing Blue's buttons he did. He was a trickster and teaser at heart.

"That's why we bicker all the time," Blue said with a small laugh that was more bitter than genuine. "It's a farce. I was a fool, but it's okay, he's wound up tighter than a clock now."

At the laugh and the tease, Blue pounced the Corinthian to the ground, his hands on the nightmare's shoulders. He wasn't really upset or hurt - he recognized good-natured teasing when he heard it - and he snorted, "Shorter but not any weaker. Lighter but lither."

He'd yet to meet the illustrious Prince Charming, unless touching the hands of his room mates who had trashed the man counted. Good show overall, even if Cori had only heard about it and not participated.

"Hey--" The Corinthian should have come to expect this of Blue, especially after last night's pull into the water. He rolled onto the ground, neither hurt nor upset (he was supposed to be the invincible one). Cori raised his chin in defiance, feeling Blue's lighter weight on top of himself, and the black fabric of his robe.

"Means shit to me," he replied before quickly kicking out to wrap his legs around Blue's waist in an attempt to reverse their positions.

Blue laughed, and when the Corinthian tried to reverse their positions he writhed a little, using the flexibility he had to turn his body without losing a grip on the nightmare, tumbling them both around.

He hadn't learned to wrestle from the Greeks, but he had taken lessons from Weyland Smith (he always lost) so he had some clue of what he was doing. He landed back upright on the nightmare, using more muscle to keep the other man down.

Damn the flexible and limber. He felt them both roll twice so that Blue was on top of him again, this time straddling higher on Cori's waist. His longer legs had no way of wrapping around Blue now and neither did he want to hook his heels over the blonde's throat. This wasn't a serious grapple, but Cori should have taken care to remember that look in the golden boy's eye, when he had finished his dance. Blue could be equally mercurial.

Cori grunted, back stiff along the cold floor. "Nff. Okay, you proved your point."

Blue grinned and backed up off the nightmare, grabbing his box of Mild Seven's and tossing it over. "Not my fault you're an old man," Blue laughed again, closing the robe he had found, sitting back on one of the crates.

He crossed one leg over the other and grabbed a bit of taffy. "Breakfast of champions," he said with a smirk. "There's a new pair of jeans for you on the box over there, by the way."

He caught the carton with one hand, reflexes still sharp for an old man of twenty-five... hundred years. He even gestured with the pack as he sat up, a motion of 'Reflexes like a god damned cat, okay?' before lighting another cigarette. Cori noted that taffy consumption again, wondering how Blue avoided cavities. Then again it had to be the same way Cori avoided lung cancer.

"Those'll kill you some day," he quipped over the sugar before blowing smoke rings from his lips.

New jeans? The nightmare glanced aside then went over to the fresh pair of denim. Size 32 and slim fitting, just the way he liked them. "Thanks, I owe you one," said the Corinthian, knowing owing him was a moot point. He pulled his briefs on then the new jeans over them. "Rose'll wonder where you've been going lately."

Cavities weren't a problem. He brushed and flossed twice daily, and used mouthwash, too.

That, and he kind of suspected that Fables didn't get cavities, really. At the comment he just looked at Cori with a sort of disbelief in his eyes. "I'll stop when I get diabetes if you stop when you get lung cancer." Both were equally unlikely, and Blue knew it.

"Rose already has. I tell her I get lost, which is partly true. I don't really like to tell lies."

"Deal," he answered around a cigarette with a smirk and puff of carcinogens. No, neither scenario was likely, but the Corinthian was bound to run into more trouble as anti-smoking laws increased. Damn the luck. He wasn't fortune's favorite son at all. He tapped out the ash against the edge of a crate.

"Tell her you've been practicing your technique," the nightmare grinned, leaning closer to the blonde's face.

In an odd way, Blue liked the Corinthian's eyes. It wasn't about them being inhuman, or hard to read, because Blue could pick up a lot from them - it was something about their shape, about the teeth, about the fact that it was a nightmare that didn't frighten him because it was a nightmare that he would never have that made him so intrigued.

At the comment, Blue turned red, predictably enough. He didn't open his mouth to reply right away, knowing the only thing that would come out would be a stammer, but licked his lips. Finally he managed, "I don't have my horn with me," he pointed out. "At least if I get lost, she can't see through that."

His eyeteeth were unique only to him... and his predecessor, but sometimes they were one in the same. They could emote too, it was just a matter of taking the time to learn the subtle differences. On the other hand, the Corinthian was ageless and an often ephemeral presence in the lives of others. Few had the time to learn how to read him.

Ah just what he was looking for, that flush of color to Blue's handsome cheeks. Cori loved it. He stood up again, tucking the cigarette between his lips before putting his boots on.

"Keep dancing circles around the truth with her. We don't have the best of histories between us," the nightmare admitted. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged it over his shoulders, foregoing a t-shirt. The salt had rendered it unsalvagable, not that the white horror minded.

Blue moved back and changed into his board shorts and his shirt, sorry for the lack of heater during his run home, and hoping that he could climb back into his window without waking Rose (or Fly). "Rose is the least of my worries right now," he said, thinking of Prince Charming and Fly's reaction - more the you're dating a man than you're dating a nightmare?

At least his clothes were dry now. "I'll meet you soon?" he asked, almost a statement but not quite.

"A pregnant woman? The least of your worries?"

Cori pinched his glasses and grinned three ways. He wasn't aware of the possible repercussions concerning those other two from his homeworld, much less the man-on-man aspect of it, or the 2500/30-on-1200/16 side to it. Mortals wouldn't understand in his opinion and were best left out of the equation (no, he was afraid that someone from his world would tell Blue the truth).

He took another step closer to Blue and pressed their lips together, tobacco on his tongue fresh as the taffy. "I said I'd spar with you."

"Really." Blue said.

He imagined it wouldn't go over well. Fly might be okay with it, if he explained it, and then probably harass Cori about it...but Prince Charming would laugh and feel vindicated. Or mock ceaselessly. And then he would talk to Cori. It was worse than having parents.

Blue enjoyed the kiss, smiling into it, and when they broke apart he nodded. "Alright, but I told Tony that I would take him and his boyfriend to a jazz club. He didn't know who Duke Ellington was." Blue scratched at his head. "How about tomorrow night?"

"The poor deprived souls. I knew Canada was worthless," the nightmare feigned a sigh as he streamed cigarette smoke from his nose.

"Tomorrow night, eight o'clock," Cori suggested then glance around the room, "outside the back of this building." Easy and secretive enough. He puffed on the cancer stick, watching Blue. Already he could tell that the blonde didn't want this sort of arrangement to be common, but the Corinthian needed it to be. Or so he told himself.

"I bet they don't know who Satchmo is, either."

Blue recognized the need, but he didn't like it. He wanted something a little more normal, but until he was willing to choke it up and tell Prince Charming (or at least Fly) then secret would have to be a secret instead of merely discreet. It wasn't like Blue would have been making out in public in either scenario.

Besides, they had agreed, and Blue didn't go back on his agreements.

"Deal," he said, giving the Corinthian a quick goodbye kiss.

"Something out of a bad cryptozoology reel from the Yukon," he remarked, shamelessly mocking the snowy country.

The Corinthian would have liked nothing more than to kiss him in public, to let the rest of those sons of bitches know he still had it in him, but those intentions were far from what Blue had in mind. They were unfair claims, Cori liked the retired hero's company too much to be completely unfair. He pursed his lips when they kissed again.

"Great," then he stuck the cigarette back into his mouth. "I don't take inventory, Almond Joy," reminded the nightmare as he turned to exit through the door.

Blue watched the nightmare leave before he gathered all his things. He didn't know what he was doing, really - he knew exactly why he liked Cori, of course - but aspects were still a bit confusing, even though he knew exactly what was going on.

He would never tell the Corinthian that he knew about John (the Network's public status made those kinds of things easy) or that John wouldn't change anything.

He looked around and thought of the Corinthian's words, then took a sword with him. The Vorpal Blade would be cheating.

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