let's start a [RIOT], tag; the INTREPID mr. jericho

[Audra Hendrix]

[ s h e ’ s n o s a i n t b u t s h e ’ l l b r i n g y o u t o y o u r k n e e s ]
[ t r y h e r , b o y , b u t s h e ’ l l s t i l l d o w h a t s h e p l e a s e ]

A soft sigh escaped Audra Hendrix, lingering for only a second before its sound died away and she was left again in silence that hung, stretched, overwhelmed. She distracted herself, thin fingers working nimbly to arrange her hair just so. Her hands finally stilled as she set the restless appendages, now empty of all bobby pins and ponytail holders, on her bathroom counter and looked at her dim reflection in the dim room.

She looked ready for a night on the town, lips painted and hair swept up, but she felt far from footloose and fancy-free. Her face was solemn under its mask, lips pursed and eyes filled with something so overwhelming, so gripping that when she saw it in herself, when she fully realized it her stomach clenched and she had to make an effort not to vomit. A sound came out of her, an odd sort of strangled sob that lasted no longer in her ears than her sigh had. Everything was fleeting, ephemeral, but somehow moving so goddamn slow that sometimes she forgot she was moving or breathing or even living at all, and she didn’t know how much longer she could stand that awful sinking feeling. She was moving too fast, so fast that she couldn’t hold on.

But by then her face was masked, her eyes were bereft of all emotion. She knew how to hide things so damn well. The danger of that, though, is forgetting where you set things. She swallowed hard, audibly, took one last deep breath and stood up from the chair she had pulled to the counter. The red fabric fell back down to her knees as she did so, and her hands automatically moved to smooth it out. The whispery fabric was dark in the dim lighting of her bathroom, a merlot color that seemed to consume.

Audra made sure all the lights in the apartment had dimmers; she wasn’t much one for the bright lights. Yet here she was, about to step out onto a stage.. Or was she? She wondered vaguely about this as she passed into her bedroom, retrieved her keys and purse, proceeded to lock her house and get in her car. Was she really stepping into the floodlights, where everyone could see her? Or was she pulling someone else into the shadows?

She was actively not thinking on her way, distracting herself with the pattern of clouds against the setting sun or a line of a song from the radio, keeping her mind off of everything crushing down on her at that moment. She arrived at the casino, pulling into a parking space and killing the engine as she gathered her purse. She paused, titling her head toward the rearview mirror and fixing her face; her smile, her eyes, to make sure she looked like the proper girl. Lately she didn’t trust herself much with others, but maybe, just maybe tonight would be, for at least a little while, a time when she could reconnect with the part of her that new how to give and have a good time without any effort at all. At this thought, Audra gave herself a once over in the small mirror and a sarcastic smirk found her lips, a spark seized her eyes. Ah. There it is, lovey…

She opened her door, sliding out in a rather ironically delicate manner compared to the size of her rather imposing black truck. She shut the door, locked the truck, and set her sights on the casino, eyes narrowed in a sort of wily determination. Her laughing smirk stayed firmly in place, suggesting to the world that she might just have an inside with joke she was sharing at God, laughing at the world for its foolishness.

With each authoritative snap of her high heels on the pavement, she felt another familiar piece of herself returning, slowly building up her wilder, party-going and party-throwing side. As she passed inside, her heels now sinking into the carpet slightly with a well-known soft thud, her hips swayed a bit more with each step, neck inclined and smirk now seductive as well as laughing, appearing almost frighteningly predatory.

She found her mark quickly, seated alone at the bar. She didn’t miss a beat as she arched an eyebrow and changed course, headed for his bar stool. “One more.. a double.” Audra slid smoothly onto the seat beside him, eyes flicking over him appraisingly as she motioned to the bartender. To the side she asked for her drinks, one straight whiskey and one something smoother but infinitely more complicated involving an amaretto and kahlua mixture that would no doubt give the bartender a headache. It came out automatically, a reflex at any sort of bar. Her eyes never left the man, though. This was her mark, and this was her time to shine.

Seated sideways facing him, she leaned forward in the already close quarters of the bar and spoke in a lowered voice. “You..” She paused, waiting for his attention to turn fully to her. “..look like you could use some company, hm?” Another careful arch of her eyebrow, questioning him silently. She’d been working him for a while, and so far things had gone rather smoothly. She could sense some secret he was keeping back, and if the past is any suitable platform, he was most likely not of the heterosexual persuasion. This could, of course, work out in her favour, especially as guilt was one of the heaviest cards that could be played with him.

An hour later, three drinks, and several rooms away, a door blew open, slamming into the wall behind it with a reverberating crash. Audra stormed through it, whipping a cheap champagne flute from her hand. It hit the wall and shattered, sliding down the wall into a scattered pile, something glittering and pretty enough for the short-lived glance, but nothing that could ever withstand the scrutiny of even a moment. She turned to look at the glass, eyes narrowed and chest heaving. Her left hand came up, rubbing her forehead as she turned in a circle, unable to find an appropriate or sufficient way to release her anger. Storming the corridors was out; a rampaging patron would probably be reported. She should probably just concede, but at that moment she would rather have taken a stroll down to one of the mob families for a chat with a nine millimeter. “VERDAMNTE!” As she shifted her head, her thick curtain of hair moved as well, revealing the cell phone in her hand.

The alcohol was fading from her system quickly, leaving her in a rapidly deteriorating humor, and this really was not the night for this. She had least worked herself into a considerable snit. Her upper lip quirked upward slightly and her eyes narrowed, a sure sign that something was about to blow within her. She took a deep breathe before speaking, her words beginning in a biting whisper and slowly escalating. “I mean really, holy hell, you couldn’t beat your libido into the corner for five bloody minutes?”

It wouldn’t take much to work the night in her favor. Just a few more words, hopefully, and she could be rid of this mess for a good damned while. “No, I understand. Really. I understand that you couldn’t be bothered to, hm, I dunno, CHECK IF YOU WERE GAY, YOU HORNY BASTARD. BUT WAIT. YOU’RE NOT HORNY NOW, BECAUSE I HAVE A VAGINA. Or are we even allowed to say that word anymore, hm?” Alright, so she’d basically yanked him out of the closet by the balls, but preferred to think of it as fulfilling a moral duty. Personal freedom and all that, you know. The guilt was there, but minimal, due in large part to her instinctual effort to put it out of her mind or write it off as something else. She suffered a few more entreaties from the party on the other end of the line before hanging up in a huff and subsequently collapsing on a nearby couch, feeling suddenly drained.

Audra didn’t usually have such a delicate internal balance and typically kept her emotions fairly well under wraps, but tonight was an odd story and woe unto you if her wrath tipped toward your personage. As she got a second wind, she began to ponder her recent return to Vegas and just who might alleviate this vexing and constant feeling of listlessness. Needless to say, with the previous night’s horrendous events, the ungodly bright lights of the casino, and the lack of sleep, Audra Hendrix was in a right foul mood and she’d be damned if she was going to suffer alone. She flipped through her mental Rolodex, and as she alighted upon one name a devilish smirk found her mouth. Time to reminisce with old friends.

A few more hours later, Audra watched her plan fold out rather nicely from conveniently placed, nearby shadows. As it began to wrap itself up, she made her way down the strip a few blocks, soon reaching a little hole in the wall that, if she remembered correctly, Warren Jericho just loved to crawl into when things went south, and people were thankfully creatures of habit. She made a living off of old fashioned predictability, and a good one at that. Audra made her way through the dim establishment, finally settling herself in the small booth in the back corner, eyes turned to the door and smirk spread wide.

[ h e s a i d s h e w a s l o o k i n g f o r t r o u b l e ]
[ a n d s h e s a i d , “ t h a t ’ s r i g h t ” ]

[Warren Jericho]

Another day at work. Another new client.

Nothing unusual. Nothing that had peaked his highly tuned internal alarms, or send off any mental warnings. Nope, there had been nothing peculiar to warn him of any future predicaments, much less any possible ulterior motives. It had all been relatively smooth actually, clean and efficient. Just the way he liked to ruin business. Surprisingly, Warren Jericho was known for running a tight ship with his, ‘employees’ and carried out the King’s plans with remarkably precise speed. He was never sloppy, except for his days off and those were few and far between - a self professed workaholic. Today, he was impeccably groomed, freshly shaven and sporting a custom, hand-tailored suit imported directly from Italy and matching dark brown leather shoes with just the right hint of contrast.

He cleaned up nice, when he chose too.

Unfortunately for the ladies, he chose too more often then not for work, rather then playtime. A natural man of multiple faces, his confidence carried him through a vast soiree of styles and he would have made a natural actor. Too bad crime got it’s hands on him first. Anyway, on this particular work venture Mister Jericho strolled down the street with one thumb hooked on his pocket and the other hooking the suit jacket casually over his shoulder. A fedora is worn low over his eyes, for two reasons. Primarily, he doesn’t like to take risks for it comes to his work and secondly, you never know what cops, feds or other enemies might be snapping photographs.

Normally a showboat man, Warren plays the cool and subtler hand when it comes to his public face of the resident drug king. The note in his pocket told him he was only a few blocks away now, and he accommodates by adjusting his pace to a slower, more indifferent stroll. First Impressions were everything, and he didn’t want this new, potentially huge client to think he was the nervous, unstable type. Nobody wants a sketchy drug supplier.

Everything was normal, and going according to plan. That was, until he reached the note-destined location and realized the female there was vaguely familiar. Could this be his new contact? She was wearing the dark green pants like in the description he had been told to look for over the phone. She has to be. Who else wears dark green pants? he thought to himself, approaching more slowly then he would have otherwise, and from an angle so she wouldn’t spot him until the last possible minute. Like I said, Warren Jericho takes no chances. Not when it comes to the King.

The problem was, while he was sure as hell convinced he’d seen her somewhere, the son of a bitch just couldn’t quite place his thumb on where. Maybe he’d met her at a bar, he met lots of women at bars. Jericho had a inkling of a suspicion that he’d fucked her though, but even that wasn’t a definite. After all, it wouldn’t exactly be a lie to say he had thought about screwing many more females then he actually did (and trust me, that number was still a hefty one.) That in and off itself should not have stopped him from approaching her, but the fact remained that if she was the woman he was supposed to make the delivery with - Jericho always made the initial delivery with a client himself, he wouldn’t trust anyone to not fuck it up too bad - there was no way he could have known her. His new client was only supposed to have been here in America for a couple hours.

Instead of taking up a seat at her table like he had been instructed too, he slipped into a table behind her and kept a sharp eye out. Never once looking at her directly but watching her through the reflections of other objects, and by making the most of his peripheral vision. It was a good thing he did, because shouldn’t you know it but he spotted a few more things that made him suspicious. One of them included a ghost car parked half way up the street, with only one plain clothes officer sitting in it. Warren was no fool, not only could he spot any police vehicle from a mile away but he knew for a fact that in Vegas, every officer was required to have a partner.

Which meant there was one missing officer, and that made him uncomfortable.

The woman-in-the-green pants was also smoking an american brand cigar. Seeing as she was supposed to be from Cuba, he had trouble believing she would chose to smoke so lesser a product then that produced by her homeland, especially since authentic Cubans are easy enough to come by. Interesting. It was around this time Warren began to remember why her face was so familiar, she’d been working the desk the last time he’d been taken in for questioning. Jericho didn’t like what that meant, if the cops where here setting up a fake deal with him, then that meant someone had given them a tip, or set him up. Neither of those made him comfortable.

Rather then just turn and jet however, Warren rose from his chair and strode confidently right up to the persumed-cop and took a dramatic seat across from her. Leaning half over the table, he wagged his eyebrows dramatically and was sure to give her a strong look up and down. “Well aren’t you awfully pretty to be here alone?” A charming, cheeky grin and then “Why don’t I take you back to my place.” Okay, so he couldn’t help rubbing it in a cops face. He wouldn’t mention anything about a drug deal, and would act entirely like a charming man hitting on a woman. If she was a cop undercover, she’d get annoyed. If she wasn’t, well then he might just have a new pretty little thing to show the finer points around his bed.

If nothing else, he’d find out why they were here, literally out of the blue.

A few hours later, he was storming rather aggressively towards a familiar barricade of doors. Shoving it open with an angry hip as his vexed stride takes him across the span of the room and towards the bar located at the back within only a few steps. He has barely ordered his drink, tonight it was rum, before he spotted her. This time, he knew he not only recognized her, but knew her well. “Well, well, well... If it isn’t the volatile Miss. Hendrix.” he snapped, lingering in his angry-statued stance only long enough to pluck his finished from the ‘tenders hands and strolled towards his old friend. Audra Hendrix, the scam master in high heels. She was a fucking site, although he was less then keen to admit it. Women were already his weakness, and he didn’t want to give her any more power then she already possessed. As it was she could give him a run for his money in the acting department, and he loathed this with a competitive edge.

A master of his emotions, Warren did not expose as much but instead wore an indifferent, and if anything, amused mask as he stalked straight up to her. Not even trying to bother to hide the fact he let his eyes slowly, sexually roam over her as his devilish lips tweaked into that cocky, dimpling smile. “What brings you back to my side of town?” He remarks, rather pleasantly given the days close call, and the fact he was sure she had something to do with it. He rose his glass in the sign of a toast, and held it out towards hers between thick fingers. “Wouldn't you know it, but I ran into a bit of trouble earlier today...” he gave her a curious look then, as he brought the glass to his lips and lost an eyebrow within the unruly mass of hair. “I suppose I have you to thank for it?” Someone had tipped them off, Warren was far too careful - not to mention had a few insiders keeping his name cold - to have warranted the cops interest himself.

[Audra Hendrix]

[ t h e y d o n ' t c o m e m u c h m o r e s l i c k t h a n y o u ]
[ i c o u l d g o o n i f y o u w a n t m e t o ]

Ah. God comes through, and what a fucking sight he delivered. Or perhaps we’ll call it human nature, because not many around there seemed to be on good terms with God as of late. Not that Audra could blame them; the bothersome man was always larking about, setting plagues and sexual tension and the like upon the populace. Attention, pay attention, you babbling igit. She typically began addresses to herself a small mental slap upside the head.

Warren Jericho blew through the door with a slightly effeminate gesture, causing one of her eyebrows to quirk slightly, and headed straight for the bar. Nothing much changed there. Audra’s smirk widened slightly as her eyes narrowed, appraising and retracing long-remembered lines, and she leaned back against the slight stick of the vinyl booth as Warren (Wait for it.. one.. two.. three..) spotted her. “If it isn’t the volatile Ms. Hendrix...”

It had been a long time, but—at least in reference to his dress—he was just as sharp as ever; she had yet to see if he was still on his game, but the fact that he was even here was certainly a testament. And just as she always had, Audra felt the small, nagging whisper in the back of her head, encouraging her to give him the benefit of the doubt as her eyes fell to that flickering spot on his neck where she’d always wanted to taste his pulse. Bastard. Her eyes narrowed briefly and she blinked a bit too quickly as she snapped back into focus, her eyes finding his again.

“Well, if it isn’t the volatile Ms. Hendrix, then you’ve chosen quite poorly in the subject matter of your hallucination. First of all, I am likely the one person in your history most capable of and most inclined to draw and quarter you and keep you as a trophy under my stairs.” She flashed something between a smirk and a smile, a full-blown mental patient expression when it came to scariness and the lurking suspicion that she just might actually do every thing she said she would.

“In addition, if this is a hallucination, you have, without a doubt, worked entirely too hard for your swagger and girlish rouging.” She paused, tilting her head to indicate the door he had passed through rather violently a moment or two ago, then looked back over his face as if considering. Somehow that smile was indecent, obscene.

“You know love, your effeminacy and generally pansy-like airs increase exponentially in proportion to that ‘angry’ flush, and I know you Fire Island boys like to lead with the pelvis, but your assault on that poor, unoffending door was a bit too much of an undermining of your manhood. Not that you’d recognize respect or, God forbid, upstandingness outside of a certain crude sense, of course.”

Her eyes followed him as he approached, watched him attempt eye sex, and she held out her glass to his when he raised it to her. Something about being back in the familiar, in her old haunts and drinking her regular drink instead of something fruity with an umbrella that was always hell-bent on stabbing her in the eye gave her a pleasant ache that grew against her bones. Something about Vegas made her feel like she was at home and in charge. Something about all of this coupled with Warren Jericho gave her that pleasant ache, and something about that pissed her off.

What she thought was an incensed breath from Warren brought Audra back to the present, though it could just have been the draught of annoyance wafting through the cluttered recesses of her mind as things registered with her. “Oh, this and that and their money have brought me back. You must know how that goes, changing street corners every night. Must get a mite annoying being shuffled about, but pimp always knows best, I hear.” Her eyes flashed briefly to his hat. “I see you’re emulating.. You always could pull out the old hero worship when you need to, couldn’t you?”

There was a considerable heap.. No. A veritable Kilimanjaro of evidence to support the statement that Audra Hendrix was used to glaring at rocks and hard places (minds out of the gutter, please and thanks). Insurance. I should have gone into insurance. That would have been so much a simpler a life to lead. No bespectacled, balding men dashing about in earnest to bash each other into bits for the silliest things, no egomaniacal sod that she had to pretend for. Just simplicity: someone dies, you pay; someone has a wreck, you pay; someone loses a foot, you pay; someone decides to get a little crazy with the S&M, you pay.

It would be a satisfying life, knowing you always had a job you were well within the probability of carrying out. And remaining sane and/or alive while doing so. But no. I had to pick the maddest choice out there. Couldn’t stick to A or B or C, could you Audra? No, you had to have choice Z7. Of bloody course… “. . . I suppose I have you to thank for it?” Hm. It appears that I was supposed to have been listening. She thought back, searching for the point where his words met her thoughts. Ah. Spot of trouble and all that, there we are...

“Indecent exposure again? Dear, that just won’t do.” Audra frowned at him with mock concern. “Careful, love. You can’t fanny about blaming whomever who like for all manner of fallacy and fuck-up. It’s rather hard to see where you walk with your nose so high in the air.” She reached out before she really aware of the action, gently bumping a knuckle of the hand that still held her drink into his nose, in emphasis of her point.

She frowned slightly at the contact, at the memories it brought to the surface as well as the thought that she hadn’t touched him in so long, and the first time she did she was making the gestures of a drunken five year old. Well great. You’re fucking Mary Poppins, bucking up whomever you should happen to come across with a bit of molestation, mental and otherwise. Is a spoonful of sugar nex—What sort of sugar are talking about here, exa—QUIE—There won’t be any of that tonight. (Are you still fucking speaking? Keep your damnable thoughts in that deep, dark, idiotic and cocaine-inspired hole that created them, woman.)

Fighting not to roll her eyes at herself and forcibly shutting up the various voices in her head, a small smile spread back over her lips as she conceded (though her mind protested diligently at even the hint of yielding to him with a hearty “Fuck no, you spineless little sheep’s bladder.”), and she leaned back against the stiff vinyl.

“But I couldn’t very well make any sort of respectable entrance without paying long-awaited due diligence to my dearest friends—flamboyant though they are—now could I? Appearances and all that, love.” It was quite the question, how Audra had ended up back in Vegas, but it began with a man named Gritty and ended with champagne flutes tossed against walls, and that is a tangent for another day when we have more time, more coffee, and many more college kids desperate for work demonstrating an abstract idea through interpretive dance (those unwilling to have a bit of buckshot moving toward them need not apply). Audra tilted her head to the side, regarding Warren with a quietly raised eyebrow as she waited for a response.

[ w e l l h e y , f l a t h e a d , d o n ’ t y o u g e t m e a n ]
[ s h e ’ s t h e s e c o n d b e s t k i l l e r i e v e r h a v e s e e n ]