Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Pursuit

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHtONLY_zJU
It had been a while since Matsu had stepped within a club. It wasn’t to say she didn’t like them – no, there was something predatory about a space like this. She’d lorded over places similar with Kesare back in the days when war and conquest hadn’t filled her dreams, back when she’d had the time to spend doing something mindless. But despite her absence it’d been the first thing she’d lit on when thinking of what to do with Sage. Her newest apprentice was proving to be a prodigious – if stubborn and often infuriating – force to be reckoned with and had shown particular aptitude for illusion. And what better place to practice controlling someone than here, where so many minds were desperate for a purpose higher than the one they knew?

Matsu sat in one of countless alcoves across from the bar, separated from it by a massive dance floor. The entire room centered around that dance floor packed with bodies writhing against each other, hands around drinks or each other in a purple-blue light just bright enough to see but just dim enough to leave the suggestion of something sensual, something dark and dangerous. A bar lined the left side and far side of the room, people clambering in rows to get to it and get another drink, another drink, another drink. It was well past midnight but for a crowd like this the night had barely begun, third drinks being sipped, bags of nosecandy only just slipping out of pockets. (And for once Matsu had a little bag of her own, an indulgence of glitterstim – the finest – that she would share with her apprentice only if he proved himself up to the task she would put before him. Enabling meant little to her.) All tight dress and dark lips she sipped something hard, something that pumped through her veins like the hum of the bass pounding through the club.

She’d let Sage taste freedom in pieces, something like how one would give only small bits of food to someone who had been starving for months so they wouldn't gorge themselves and get sick. She was certain he knew that if he ran he’d regret it – she knew one of the Galaxy’s best assassins on a first name basis and several of the best slicers as well. She would find him no matter where he buried himself. But so far he’d stuck around. She’d given him the time and place to meet her – and this would be no ordinary lesson.

[member="Sage Bane"]​
 
Sage was no stranger to the galactic nightclub scene. As a former drug dealer on Nar Shaddaa, clubs like these were the fastest place to find customers eager enough to shell out an untold number of credits to keep up a neverending high. Same with turning tricks. Most came to a packed Coruscant space like this to either get off or get it on. Tonight Sage was here for a different reason altogether.

His brown eyes searched through the crowd, looking for the familiar shock of red lips against porcelain skin and flash of white fangs, the hallmarks of his Sith Master, Matsu Xiangu. Calling upon the Force to supplement his senses, he attempted to pick up some traces of her energy in the ether. He was beginning to recognize it from afar, her distinct hum, a nocturne that resonated deep down in his sternum like a dirge. He finally found her in an alcove out of the way, nursing a drink.

The club’s lights cast a blueish purple hue on the expensive black suit he’d borrowed, read stolen, from his wealthy brother. His body filled out, his hair combed for a change, Sage’s appearance was light years away from the starving husk of man that Matsu had purchased from Zambrano the Hutt. Admittedly, her half-Chiss acolyte was still unsure of exactly how to interact with his Master. She was cold and secretive, and most of the time he felt a bit like a discarded toy, a nice decoration to be taken out and polished, like the sculptures in her luxurious apartment. For most, his words were full of jaded ridicule, but with Matsu he was different. At this point he knew what she was capable of, and it added a gravity to his demeanor that was unusual for him. Still, he was pushing the boundaries day by day, figuring out where the line was drawn so that he could dance on it.

Standing in front on her, Sage first bowed deferentially. Then he raised a brow, a small grin softening his face. “Is it so hard to find a date on Coruscant that you had to ask your acolyte to be your arm candy, Mistress?”

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]
 
His voice drifted across the haze of whiskey and music, wrapping around her head and sifting in to her ears somewhere in the lines of drifting thought she monitored – snatches, brief glimpses in the heads of those devolving on the dance floor. She tilted her head slowly towards him, admittedly surprised to see him dressed so finely. The level of emaciation in which he’d come to her hadn’t allowed for much imagination in the area of what he might truly be like. He wasn’t her type but she’d have to be blind to deny that he looked very, very good.

The joke was met with a genuine laugh as she settled in the booth seating, waving a hand to invite him to join her. “I’m afraid the only person I’d ask is rather busy,” she answered. “I’m also not suicidal,” she added, tilting her head towards the trio of women that had only just scattered after craning their necks to get a look at Sage.

She supposed her mannerisms were, like his appearance, lightyears apart from their first meeting. Matsu played both sides well, capable of the expected stony demeanor of her kind and equally as handy with camaraderie. She found the stuffy seriousness of many of her peers boring, ancient, comically draconian. It wasn’t to say she would not inflict the kind of pain impossible to comprehend on another – she was a sadist through and through, a consummate demon. Most of the Galaxy was beneath her, ants digging through sand in futile attempts at building something she might destroy simply passing by. But for those she spent a good amount of time around – Gabriel, Kesare, Vrag, her numerous acolytes over the years – she preferred a sense of partnership. The quickest way to dissolve the gift of her friendship was to prove weak. And so far Sage had shown that only in his need for drugs, an issue that could be cured with time if he wished it.

She’d slipped the bag of glitterstim back in her clutch, out of sight of her apprentice. There was no need to reveal the icing on the cake until he’d succeeded. Though she did pour him a glass from the bottle of whiskey she’d had brought to her table, pushing it towards him as she spoke. “I thought it might be nice to see how you work.” Shifting in her seat, she nodded her head towards the bar across the dance floor. “One of the patrons is a well-known associate of a bounty hunter I believe may be looking for me. If you can figure out who it is, and swipe any information they may have on me out of their heads without them suspecting anything, there’s something in it besides the practice for you.” Matsu of course, already knew which of the men and women at the bar was aligned with her hunter. But this was more than just practice – it would be easy for Sage to turn on her, spill her whereabouts and everything he knew to the scum at the bar and run. A nice test, she thought.

[member="Sage Bane"]​
 
A smile lingered across his face as Sage slid into the booth beside his Master. He stole a glance at her loveliness before his brown eyes strayed to the dance floor, bemusedly watching young and attractive Coruscant citizens pressing their bodies together, dancing and coupling without a care. Sage on the other hand, had a nagging problem on his mind. That little “incident” on Dorin when Matsu’s half-Chiss acolyte viciously massacred a good portion of the spaceport. Not only had he slaughtered innocent civilians, but he had also directly defied Darth Hauntruss’s orders. He hoped that that once Matsu was debriefed on his performance, as he was sure she would be, it didn’t reflect too badly on him. Darth Venefica had not seemed to mind the homicidal urges that overtook him that day, but then again the Dagobah swamp lady seemed a bit off to begin with.

Given Matsu’s friendly demeanor so far, it seemed that tales of the mass murder had not yet made its way back to her. That meant he wouldn’t end up with his brain in a jar somewhere. Not just yet anyway. The beast could show her face at the drop of a hat, and for that reason, Sage was relentlessly on his guard. Trying to hide his uneasiness, Sage took the glass of whiskey she’d pushed in front of him, and gratefully allowed himself a long sip, letting his eyes wander the room. Then Matsu gave him his task.

The exercise seemed simple enough, and much less lethal than what Sage's training on Dorin. What sparked his interest the most was the promise of that cryptic “something else” that he would be awarded, because he had a sense that it was substance-related. Just the thought of glitterstim caused his cravings to pulsate excitedly. A nice, long spice oblivion seemed like just what Sage needed to blot out the nightmares of dying Kel Dor civilians, their gaping, toothless beaks opened in fleshy chasms, screaming in their death throes.

“As you wish, Mistress,” Sage said, his head nodding once. He gulped down the rest of his drink and sprang from the table, instantly lost in the crowd.

Eager and obedient, just like a slave. You will never amount to more than a circus pony, doing tricks for others’ amusement.

Sage entertained those thoughts for a moment, stoking their fires, letting his hatred seethe until it washed through his mind like a red tide. Then he concentrated on calling the Force into him. A slight rush tickled the back of his mind as his senses were heightened. There was a being out there somewhere who intended to harm his Master. Sage could easily pick up impending danger to his own person, but danger to that of another? That was a deeper level of sensing that he had not yet attempted. He decided to focus on connecting the surrounding waves of the Force with any and all traces of Matsu Xingu.

A few times, his attempts simply brought him back around in a circle to Matsu herself. Eventually, with enough focus on he felt a tingling in his brain. He moved through the club, like a man possessed, until the sensation reached a crescendo.

Sage found the end note of the crescendo resting on a Balosar man, who was leaning against the bar, eyes lazing around the club, a deathstick dangling from his lips. He was dressed in a flashy striped suit jacket and black leather pants, and very easy on the eyes. Could have been a rockstar or an actor, although given his association with bounty hunters, it was more likely that he was a gang leader or perhaps a slicer. Sage quickly decided on his next move, a bold, disarming one that might or might not turn out to be a disaster.

The Balosar’s atennapalps twitched as Sage stepped up and took the deathstick from the other man’s mouth, dragging slowly off of the end. He smiled widely at his mark, and placed the cigarette carefully back between the Balosar’s lips.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]
 
Accounts of Dorin had floated past her mostly by way of her former apprentice, Venefica. But she didn’t mention it to her current apprentice because she was conflicted. Her sense of morality was convoluted, splitting hairs on issues that should have been entirely black and white. On the one hand, she couldn’t care less about the slaughter of innocents if it was the name of a higher calling. When Matsu had been an apprentice, her Master had burned the lesson in to her: no displays of power that lack purpose. To do otherwise was to drain oneself and prove nothing. She differed from Jared Ovmar in many ways, but in that they were completely agreed.

But on the other hand, she knew little of his reasons for defying Hauntruss’ orders – was it bloodlust or some deeper reason to ignore commands? For the moment, she kept her peace. If he succeeded and they shared the glitterstim, their heightened telepathic connection would out the truth.

She sat back as he began scanning the room, feeling the brush of his reach every time he circled back to her. The beautiful thing about mentalism – or perhaps, one of the beautiful things – was that it was experienced differently by every practitioner. It was an area of the Force with no black and white rules. She stayed out of his head as he worked, not wanting to muddy his listening by injecting her presence, but she pressed a feeling of approval at him through the Force so he would know he was heading in the right direction.

And then he was off.

_______________________________________________​

It was a bad day for Fantes. Coruscant should have felt like home – maybe even better than home. One layer below the surface level of Coruscant wasn’t so bad. The pollution was still far better than his homeplanet, there were pretty women at every turn, and there were even more suckers looking for death sticks. He’d climbed far above the average dealer though, a success he was somehow regretting.

Men followed his lead without question. He’d found power, the only semi-questionable loyalty of a gang of bounty hunters of all things. He took a small slice of their profit in return for his innumerable connections – he was that good. Even the greediest kind of sons of bitches in the Galaxy needed his intel.

And yet he still couldn’t get close to this Sith.

Where she lived was hardly a secret – that sprawling complex of apartments high on a Coruscant skyscraper was well-known as her residence. But touching her was dangerous. The place itself was guarded with all the caution one would expect when living so publicly, not to mention screwing with her was screwing with the One Sith – he’d heard about the man they called the Wrath of the Dark Lord. He had no idea what the feth it meant, but in his digging he’d found rumors of the connection between this Wrath and Matsu Xiangu. The pair was not one he wanted to mess with. 7.5 million credits had a hell of a ring to it considering he’d taken the job personally, but the more he learned the more it seemed a fool’s errand.

He was dragged from his thoughts just as the death stick was dragged from between his lips. Turning his head he caught sight of the thief and felt the familiar twitch of uncertainty he always felt around good-looking men of any species. There was something otherworldly about this one though, Fantes waxing slightly poetic as the smoke from the stick curled around the man’s features, high cheekbones and sharp jaw catching the neons off the bar. This was always when he felt strange, when he told himself he shouldn’t be thinking these things about another man.

When the stranger returned the death stick and asked about a drink, Fantes grunted something that sounded vaguely affirmative and nodded.

[member="Sage Bane"]​
 
Sage could feel the alien man’s hesitation, from his body language as well as his aura. However, there was a certain something hiding behind the Balosar’s eyes that told him that his brazen advance wasn’t completely unwarranted. Sage needed to tread carefully with this one. The retractable antennapalps that sprouted from the sides of the man’s forehead could subsonically sense danger. Did Matsu know the man’s species beforehand? If so, then damn her for giving him such a challenge.

At the man’s acquiescence, the young Acolyte held up one thin finger then sank into the crowd for a moment, men and women parting like a sea. Sage returned a short while later with a drink in each hand and a deathstick of his own between his lips. When the Balosar reached for his drink, and Sage held it just out of his reach, playfully tutting:

“Uh-uh, not until you tell me your name pateessa.”

As the purple smoke from his deathstick danced upwards, heading towards the neon rays that crisscrossed above them, Sage took a few moments to carefully probe the Balosar’s mind. Your average, ordinary Sith might find a weak mind and pluck the fear from it, using it as a mold to fill in a vision of personal horror. But Matsu was not your average, ordinary Sith. And neither was Sage, or so he hoped. He was learning how to use a being’s raw desires to make those visions manifest. To fool the victim into coming closer, craving a connection with him. A connection he would then viciously sever. It had worked on Dorin, where he had tricked a Jedi Knight into thinking him her long lost brother. The Jedi even stepped forward to give him a tearful embrace. He allowed himself to vainly savor that memory for a heartbeat.

Stay on task, Sage. He placed his own drink on the bar, and concentrated his search on the pleasure center of the man’s brain, attempting to ferret out his hopes, dreams, wants, and needs. Perhaps he would find the information about Matsu that he needed. Perhaps he would find something else to exploit. The entire time he kept his brown eyes trained on the other man's, his fingers gently tracing up the side of the mark's arm, both moves a necessary physical distraction. Sage only hoped he wasn't mistaken about the confused attraction he felt from the handsome Balosar, an error that would make the exchange painfully awkward.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]
 
He had maybe three minutes to get his poodoo together, irritated that in the span of thirty seconds some strange man had managed to shake his usual ironclad composure. He was a man that had answers, a man that others didn’t question for fear of the consequences. But he was also a man undone by men, undone by his refusal to accept one of the most fundamental aspects of his being. He liked control and when he felt his mind running away from him when confronted with a handsome face he got angry.

He felt the same twinge of irritation when the man came back and had the nerve to pull the drink back right before it got to Fantes’ hand, making the Balosar feel a grasping fool. If he’d been more comfortable it might have been attractive, a teasing confidence, but instead it snowballed on top of his already rampant discomfort.

“Fantes,” he answered with an almost grudging tone, about to slide the drink back across the bar and take his leave when…

…it wasn’t like relaxation, but it was like someone had tapped the reserves of his irritation and just let them drain. He was still unsure but there was none of that embarrassment. For once he felt like here in this club with hundreds of other people he might taste something he’d been too unsure of before, safe in anonymity among others less inhibited…like him now, like a melting, a warmth that pulsed outwards from deep in his mind. It was with impressive subtlety he looked the stranger over as he took a sip of his drink, feeling something stir at the way he filled out his suit. Fantes had an eye for fashion, as evidenced by the way he pulled off a loud, striped suit jacket with ease. He’d seemed to wrest that same control he craved so much back in a split second, his mouth easing in to a smirk, an expression that fit extraordinarily well on his face.

It would be good to unwind. Tomorrow they’d try to raid the Sith queen’s apartments, but tonight…tonight maybe he could take this guy home…

They were already close, close enough for the stranger to run his fingers along Fantes’ arm, but the Balosar closed another few inches, a distance that made it unnecessary to yell over the din of the club. Leaning over, he spoke low, inches from the stranger’s ear, breath a warm whisper over Sage’s skin. “Do I get to know yours?”

What had gotten in to him?

[member="Sage Bane"]​
 
It would be so easy for Sage. To share a drink with the handsome mark. Exchange a few snatches of flirty banter. Perhaps lean in and warn Fantes to leave the planet. Then excuse himself as he bolted towards the exit, killing off his life with the One Sith so that he could begin a new one. Catch the first shuttle off of Coruscant and go into hiding, perhaps somewhere in Wildspace. This wasn’t the first time Sage had thought of going rogue, but there was one important catch, and it was not his fear of Matsu, although that was a certainty. It was the Dark Side. His love affair with the Force was the new addiction that had replaced the old one. The power felt incredible, better than any spice or drink. Even better than glitterstim.

Now about that glitterstim...

Dampening his thoughts about fleeing lest Matsu catch them in the wind, Sage focused on Fantes. He discovered that a surge of anger had threaded its way through the other man’s aura as he teased the drink away from the man. Time to act fast before the Balosar hauled jets. The young Sith released a wave of warm, soothing energy, much like dopamine, right into the man’s brain. Pretty poison, designed to relax Fantes' inhibitions. Once his mark was comfortable enough, the other man’s thoughts flowed freely, like an open ley line back to Sage’s mind. In a moment, he could explore without restraint. Very naughty, that raid you’re planning Fantes. And suicidal, too. Do you happen to have a death wish, you handsome idiot? The day and the general time of the raid was cemented. Would it be enough for Matsu, or should he try for some extra credit?

That brought Sage to the other more interesting thing he found in Balosar’s mind, the reluctant desire that the man was loathe to admit. Sage realized with an amused grin that he didn’t have to spin an illusion, he was the illusion. Sadly, it was highly unlikely that Fantes would survive the next few days with the foolishness he and his men were planning. Frell, he might not even survive the night, depending on the mood of the Beast, and that was a crying shame. The Balosar was such an exquisite creature, with his beautiful bone structure, wicked grin, and a low whisper that made Sage's heart race. On the off-chance that Matsu was open to a telepathic communion, Sage sent her a joking whisper:

“Was the test to see how long I could hold out before I took this one to the bathroom for a shag? Because if so, I am going to fail miserably.”

Fantes would only see Sage’s mesmeric smile.

“Name’s Sage,” he answered.

“I’d ask you what brought you here tonight, but you’re obviously not in the mood for small talk.” The smoke from his deathstick curled up into a question mark, mirroring his next thought.

“Maybe you should tell me what you are in the mood for tonight, or would you like me to guess?”

A few more minutes in the alien’s mind, and perhaps he’d get another taste of useful data for his Master.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]
 
“Was the test to see how long I could hold out before I took this one to the bathroom for a shag? Because if so, I am going to fail miserably.”

From across their telepathic connection, Matsu returned a little laugh.

“I never said you couldn’t,” she returned, another long sip of her drink disappearing. She knew the value of playing with one’s food before eating it. Whether for practice or fun there was value in all encounters like these, at least when one was having fun. And sometimes the results were unexpectedly pleasant.

Her morals when it came to the minds of others had changed somewhat since she’d first gotten her start. At first she’d been reluctant to breach a mind without reason, citing her own past as motivation for her personal ruleset. But time had seen fit to change that. Now only those who’d earned her respect were safe from her domination. She didn’t pry in Sage’s mind, listening to Fantes’ side of the conversation by floating along the edges of his mind, careful not to touch. Two inside his head would be sure to at least give him some sensation of intrusion and she would hate to ruin the moment. From all she’d gathered he was a relatively successful crime lord, at least successful enough to be hired with some degree of confidence by her enemies and to amass large clutches of wealth and prestige among those in the Underworld. Originally she’d wanted to get the information and then have the bounty hunter killed quietly but…maybe this was one of those times playing with one’s food could be even better than expected.

“If you get everything you can from him, I’ll show you how to wipe his mind of something, or everything. It would make him a very useful source of information for you if you could rewrite him, wouldn’t it?” She imagined herself and her apprentice with a finger on the criminal underworld, a direct connection to information traveling in circles that could give them an edge. But if he wasn’t interested, they could least make the pleasure of killing him even better. “Or if you don’t want a toy, you could just wipe me from his memory, bring him over here, and we’ll all share this glitterstim. That heightened telepathy would certainly be something as he died…”

She sounded wistful.

_______________________________________________________​


Fantes didn’t notice a single thing when Matsu was speaking to Sage, not a moment of inattention if Sage even showed one. He was too caught up in white, white teeth in a question mark of smoke, curling in thick and thin lines as if telling him something he needed to hear. Fantes was not a poetic man by any stretch of the imagination but he chose to accept this Sage’s appearance as something like fate.

What was he in the mood for? Most of it wasn’t for polite company, eyes trained on an expanse of white throat, imagining pressing lips there, then teeth, unbuttoning that nice jacket with none of the care it should have been shown…it devolved, a show of animalistic want unfolding somewhere he thought this Sage couldn’t see. He had so much to do tomorrow, a cache of weapons to pick up from a Coruscanti spaceport for the task at hand arriving bright and early, but feth none of that mattered at the moment.

Something’s wrong Fantes.

Any hesitancy the Balosar had known before was gone, obliterated in a rush of dopamine, deathsticks, and Sage’s confident smile. He wondered if Sage was the kind of man who wouldn’t enjoy a month or two of a life of crime, all expenses paid until Fantes got tired of him.

Can’t you see what he’s doing to you?

A quiver of hesitation, the threat that he was in the presence of a predator, before it was gone again, drink and drug and unknowing mental caress making him forget his initial anger, a faux-sheepish grin crossing a beautiful mouth, though his eyes said he was anything but apologetic. “Sorry love,” he intonated, a voice husky in the wave of Sage’s allure. “Are you telling me you came here for the small talk?” The smirk crawled to a grin, accentuating cheekbones that’d cut glass.

“I think I’m in the mood for getting out of here, if that sounds good to you...”

He’s going to eat you.

[member="Sage Bane"]​
 
Decisions, decisions…

As Matsu telepathically pushed some of her plans into the back of his brain, Sage felt the weight of a choice. The decision was not whether or not to let Fantes live or die. It was clear that the Balosar would meet a horrific end fairly soon. The question was, would it be dirty or clean? Perhaps the Beast would rake her obsidian arms' retractable claws along the edge of his lean throat until it slipped open, two folds releasing waterfall of blood. Or maybe she would quickly break his mind, a small mercy for a hapless pawn. Despite his sealed fate, the two illusionists could grant him a brief stay of execution beyond the light of dawn, if Fantes could prove useful in collecting information that fingered more than just he and the bounty hunter. It was likely there were more in the Coruscant Underworld, perhaps even in the Balosar's immediate circle, in conspiracy against the One Sith.

Not to mention there were the other benefits that came with keeping a beautiful man around. A man who would be none the wiser once they reprogrammed him. A nanosecond later, Sage made his choice, sending a sibilant mental whisper to Matsu.

I would like to keep Fantes as a plaything.

The fact that Fantes’ fate rested entirely on Sage made him feel shamelessly flushed with power. Of course, Fantes would simply see this flush emerge as a wickedly prurient grin. Sage’s fingers curled around the other man’s hand and lingered there, close enough to feel the Balosar’s pulse racing uncontrollably. The inexperienced ones were always the most fun. Fantes’ mind was now an open book. The man was practically leaking valuable information, like the bit about the weapons cache he would retrieve in the morning. Sage planned to fully occupy Fantes’ attention in such a head-spinning way that when morning came, the gang lord would never make it out of bed, much less to the Coruscanti spaceport.

I’m not exactly used to doing this with an audience. Sage smirkingly told Matsu through their mind link. Then, he turned back to the Balosar, and leaned in close, tangling his fingers in the other man’s hair as he whispered in his ear.

“Let’s shake this spot, beautiful.” Sage said to Fantes, flashes of pink and cerulean neon glinting off his eyes.

He dumped the empty deathstick in his half-finished drink and tugged on the Balosar’s hand, nodding his head towards the exit.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]
 
She smiled when she heard her apprentice’s retort, hiding the seemingly random expression behind her glass. “Really? Could have fooled me.” And just like that he’d convinced Matsu’s hunter to seek something else entirely, the Balosar leading Sage off as if his hand wasn’t wound in the grip of a quiet, patient predator. The Sith lady made to get up, finishing her drink before lifting herself from the booth and calling for her ship. Matsu certainly intended for Sage to have his fun of course – what other reason would she have for offering the option to rewire Fantes’ mind? But the art needed to be taught first so that Sage might make his new plaything to his designs, mold him as he wished, so she would follow them and provide a lesson before leaving Sage to the pleasure of his choosing.

Halfway out of the club, she felt a tug at her hand, turning her head to see who was brave enough to touch her. Watching her with all the predatory grace afforded to a man with no idea with whom he was speaking, a good-looking human man smirked at the success of his attention-grabber. Matsu had to admit that in another life where she was less preoccupied and less worldly, she might have found this man’s expression – like he would rather eat her than go somewhere with her –somewhat alluring.

“Leaving alone? Seems a shame,” he said, tracing her outline with a gaze he didn’t bother to hide. There were very few things that made Matsu instantly angry, but being leered at was one of them – it called to mind the men that’d been staring at [member="Kesare Salazar"] the night Matsu had been reunited with her. But she smiled, something that quirked just the corners of her mouth as if he’d flattered her in to shyness. She felt a flare of satisfaction from him, a lesser predator’s momentary triumph at the thought of ensnaring particularly prized prey. She raised a hand, crooking a finger to beckon him along as she continued towards the exit. His pale imitation of danger, of the thing that drew so many others in, was amusing. The act made it easier to take control of him, closing around him before he’d realized what’d happened.

When they reached the landing pad outside, her ship coming to hover precisely where she was waiting, she pressed lightly on the man’s mind and watched as he kept on walking, walking…walking right over the edge of the pad in to the traffic below.
___________________________________________________​

Somewhere between the bar and the apartment he was renting, Fantes had lost any inhibition he had left.

It was a short ride, one he expected to have trouble with considering the swirling feeling in his head but instead was even simpler than usual. His status and usual paygrade afforded him a rental on the city’s surface, far enough down that looking through the windows would offer a view of more buildings, but not so far that one couldn’t look up and see the stars shining through the Rubic’s cube construction of Coruscant. All in all, a place he wasn’t at all worried about bringing this Sage back to, at least from a showing-off standpoint. Whether Fantes was prepared to do all the things he’d been denying himself was entirely another.

Resistance seemed tiring once they’d gotten inside, a mountain far too high to climb just to save face. Sage exuded something as close to Zeltron pheromones as it got, at least as far as Fantes was concerned, and despite the strange light-headedness he chalked up to too much to drink he still poured them both another. It was when he handed the glass to the other man that he felt another tug, something like string around the top of his spine that joined all his limbs in the approach. That either was holding something seemed not to matter as he leaned in, his lips inches from Sage’s, lids hooded after a sweep over the near-stranger’s features. “I don’t usually…” (Superfluous. Who cares? Just want…) He kissed Sage with the hesitancy of someone who’d trained himself not to give in, as if worried he might get bitten, but after a moment that left with his inhibition, replaced with the same control he exercised in everything else. Drink still in one hand, he brought the other up to twist fingers in Sage’s hair, tightening as he tilted the man’s head back and went teeth and tongue down his neck, imagining unwrapping forbidden fruits…

___________________________________________________​

It seemed almost a shame to break it up. She’d followed Sage’s signature before he’d gotten too far, getting in to the apartments behind the pair short work. The cacophony of emotions flying around the room was heady and she would have been content to stand there and listen, but she’d promised a lesson…and she’d rather leave the two to themselves.

Clearing her throat, she pushed off the doorjam and held up a hand when the Balosar spun around to confront the intruder. His expression seemed to go blank as Matsu moved to sit on one of the couches strewn about what served as a living room. “So…would you have him feed information back to you about the Underworld? Or would you erase him entirely, create something new in a handsome package? If you’re to erase only part of someone’s mind, you must be very careful about what you intend to remove, lest you ruin them.” Fantes was still staring off as if no one was around.

[member="Sage Bane"]​
 
Sage could have hastened Fantes fall during the speeder taxi ride through the Coruscant skies. A few well-placed hands lingering right on the edges of the most sensitive places, where fabric chafed against skin, or a twitch of his lips hovering near the other man’s ear, whispering filthy things in Huttese. However, he knew from experience there would be more mileage in letting the tension build during the ride. Once they reached their destination, he would deliberately hold back and let the other man make the first move. There was a deliciousness in forcing Fantes to be the instigator, especially given the Balosar's own inner turmoil about his proclivities. Making him want it, against his own will almost, then holding it out of his reach added insult to injury. Teasing was much too easy and gratifying for a man like Sage.

The taxi ride was the beginning of the end for Fantes, and the best part was that the Balosar was blissfully unaware of it.

Once they got to his apartment, Fantes’ eyes filled with a preoccupation that made it clear he was ready untangle his complicated desires and simply give in to them. The Balosar started with a gentle, reticent kiss, but quickly became unhinged. Jaws opened like a snake to consume Sage, to devour him with raw passion. Sage returned the devotion tenfold, roughly moving his hands into places where only women had been allowed, fingers undoing his belt buckle and slipping past his waistband, satiating his own ravenous appetite.

Before she stepped through the doorway, he could feel her lovely darkness. In that sense, Matsu’s arrival was not entirely unexpected, but her timing elicited a smirk. The emotion drained out of Fantes’ like water down a drain, and the antennaed man’s expression fell into a mask of unresponsiveness. Sage curiously waved a hand in front of the Balosar’s face and turned to Matsu with an amused smile.

“You could have at least let me gotten all the way to third base,” He joked, ruffling the man’s hair and taking a seat on the couch next to her. The fabric of his pants was shifted around for modesty’s sake. Then Sage cocked his head, his eyes wandering to the ceiling as he pondered the decisions before him.

“An underworld mole would be practical,” he reasoned with a nod. Then added. "We could continue to thwart any stupid enough to try and claim your bounty. As well as that of my brother's.”

It was ironic how one could care less about a detestable sibling until he was marked for killing.

“I’m not sure I want to erase his entire personality. It would be interesting to keep the reluctance along with the desire. The shame he feels is exquisite.”

His face slipped into a wider grin as Sage nursed the hastily mixed drink that Fantes had made for him. He faced his Master, his eyes lingering over the slash of red on her perfect pout.

“So how do we begin?”

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]
 

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