True to its name, the basement club known as Ashtray is a grey and smoke-filled place. Not all of the smoke that hovers in the air is from the ever-present cigarettes-- a good portion of it is pumped harmlessly from one of two fog machines. Everything smells of tobacco anyway.

Club-goers drift through the miasma like ocean liners, each topped with a festival of haircolours. The predominant colour of clothing is black, though there are many in the club wearing brighter things and seeming not in the least out of place.

The music that throbs weakly through the air like the feeble heartbeat of a baby bird is a poor substitute to the live band that had been performing earlier-- and that is due to perform again, fairly soon. Anything live needs a break, though, and this is it.

Over by the bar, there's an odd gap in the smoke and artificial fog. This sphere of clear air isn't defined enough to be immediately noticeable-- it's something that those in the right fram of mind could easily pass off as a conincidence of air particles, or a quirk of the eye. Sitting languorously in this patch of clearer air is a cadaver-thin young man in dark but not particularly remarkable clothing: black jeans, tight on the thighs but flaring out around the knees, a pair of black polished combat shoes, and a fishnet shirt. He's not wearing anything under or over the fishnet shirt, and the black mesh mixed with his white skin results, at a distance, in grey.

Perhaps it's this apparent mix of black and grey that makes him resemble Andrei Petrov. Perhaps it's his height and thinness. Whatever it is, it's certainly not the grace and poise with which is lounges at the bar, not so much like a cat as like a cat who owns the world. The eyes that drift over the smoky club are white, in contrast to the thick black eyeliner encircling them-- in contrast to the pure but apparently undyed black of his hair, which is long and straight and braided out of his face.

Lorre had stopped going to clubs when he was a bit over twenty-two, too intent on his work and making money to really care about the whole nighttime scene. Before that, he would go every other night, drink himself silly and dance with whatever willing ass that gravitated towards him. Depending on how well he danced, or how well she danced, he would take her back to wherever he was staying and fuck her senseless.

Rochelle had changed his ways. Now that she was out of the picture, would it matter if he fell back into those old habits? He wasn't that old yet, and responsibility wasn't exactly necessary at the moment.

And he always liked dancing. It was an art all on its own, bodies undulating to the beat of wildly pulsating music, gyrating against other bodies, a throbbing sea of whilring people. He could lose himself into scenes like this.

Cut back to Lorre and his apparel. He knew how to dress for places like these—hell, he even had clothing stuffed in the back of his closet for situations like this. Black pants that slung low on his hips and had too many buckles. A black shirt that clung to his skin as if it were poured on, a shimmering hue that stuck too close and left too little the imagination—cutting across his his shoulders, revealing his jutting collarbone and tawny skin. A choker hung around his neck, black and looking morbidly like a belt. Make-up was limited to glitter around his eyes—he never could bring himself to wear lipstick or eyeliner.

The overall midnight theme to his outfit brought out the shocks of red in his dark hair, wild and lush.

Through the haze of smoke, he saw a clearing. Just a small batch of clean air that shouldn't be there, and was hard to notice. It took a moment to realize just what was unnatural about the batch, and then another moment just why it was unnatural. An oasis, his tricky mind provided, and his lips curled.

He started towards the man, smoke curling from his lips.

The air cools the closer one gets to this fishnet-shirted, white-eyed young man. Even as Lorre approaches, the bartender slides a drink to him and he catches it in icy fingers.

This is not an initiated club, so the effect isn't overt-- but it is there, if one's watching, The condensation sweating down the sides of the martini glass turns white as it freezes in a thin crisp layer all around his fingers.

He was close enough to see, and was momentarily thrown off balance. Such a casual use of magic was new to him—he wasn't used to seeing someone so flippantly, if unconsciously, doing something.

He didn't like the cold.

With practiced grace he sat beside the white eyed fellow, hooking his ankles around the legs of his chair. Almost defiantly, he attempted to radiate pulsating heat—and managed rather successfully.

He took a drag of his cigarette and appraised the man. He looked like Andrei. Not completely, but there was a familiarity there between him and his roommate. Perhaps they were related? His lips quirked.

The white-eyes stranger glances at Lorre, glances down at his drink where the ice is melting on the points closest to Lorre, and then back up at the pyro with a dark eyebrow quirked upwards.

"Do you mind?" he says, in a voice that could convince the hottest of coals to become ice and diamond. "I'm trying to enjoy a cold drink, here."

"Hello," he responded, chilled by the arctic voice but at the same time wondering if he could do that now that he had powers. The shiver still ran down his spine, and he idly wished for some gloves, but banished the thought by a burst of warmth that came from somewhere in his solar plexus. "What should I mind?"

He called for a rum, preferring that alcoholic beverage because it burned on its way down.

Azrael blows on his drink, and with a very faint chink, it ices over completely.

"Do you mind turning down the heat," he says levelly, his white eyes looking through Lorre as much as at him. "As I said, I'm trying to enjoy a cold drink."

The look is likely more unnerving than when Andrei does it-- after all, Andrei only has one eye that can see through to a person's, for lack of a better word, soul.

The kid probably wouldn't like being told how much he looks like his father-- how much this quirk of the expression and that twitch of the lips mimicks Death's.

He looked faintly amused by the request, taking the rum as it was slid to him. He did what he was asked to (or rather, tried to—it was much easier to turn it on than turn it off, and he certainly wasn't perfect at his magic, yet).

Now, how to ask the million dollar question?

Who are you?

With the hand that was holding the cigarette, he picked up his glass and took a sip, ice melting against his lips. He turned to face the crowd. Watched the sinuous bodies. Closed his eyes and let the music travel through his blood.

Who are you?

In his mind's eye, he could see himself dancing with everyone else, pushing against a girl (boy?), caressing, holding, drawing sweaty trails against sweaty skin. Bumping and grinding, messy and glorious like sex.

Who are you?

The ice clinks softly as Azrael allows it to melt enough for him to take a sip of his drink, which he does. His lips leave frost imprints on the glass, like white lipstick marks.

His own gaze is drawn back out into the crowd, though a smile remains on his pale lips. he can hear the question echoing around inside Lorre, but he'll let him ask it himself. Occasionally he'll answer questions before they're spoekn aloud, but tonight, he just doesn't feel like it.

Someone brushed against Lorre's legs, invitingly, but backed away at the invisible incandescence emenating from his body. He smiled wanly, sipping his drink, turning a blue eye to look at the man beside him, recognizing him, desperate to ask.

The bass rocked his chest, outbeat his heart.

He took a long sip from his rum, eyes wandering back to the crowd.

"Who are you?"

It was so quiet, drowned from the music.

"Are you..." ..death?

"...Death?" It has a capital D, and that's how he pronounces it. It's his title, his name-- it's who he is. It's much more than the mere end of life.

He nods and takes another sip of his drink. The ice clinks around the glass.

"Yes." A simple affirmitive.

There's an ironic twist to his lips, not quite a smile, but definitely not a grimace. How interesting. Idle flummery with Death. He pressed out the remnants of his cigarette.

"How do you exist?" It wasn't a trenchant question, more like curious. How were you created? Do you come with the existence of mankind? If there's a Death, is there a Life?

His fingers moved to the music.

The god sets his drink down and lifts both his eyebrows at Lorre. The gesture puts emphasis on the flat white of his eyes.

"I could get technical, but the words just don't exist in English, so I'd have to make some gross over-simplifications and imprecision really isn't my 'thing,'" he says, then flashes the young mortal man a brilliant white grin.

"It's probably best if you just think of me as simply... being here."

It was an explanation he had trouble swallowing. Mere mortal minds needed in depth, scientific reasons for existence and creation—even religions had stories for why people were even running around in the first place.

There was no way someone could just be there.

Did he come with belief? With faith?

He sipped his drink, unsatisfied.

"Come now, surely that isn't your only question?" The god's gaze draws over Lorre's face like fingers of mist.

"Admittedly I don't think you were seeking me out tonight, but most mortals have questions for me when we come face to face, even if it's just "Is my aunt Betty in a better place now?"."

He turns back to the crowd, smiling.

"Unless you were looking for me, which would explain the blasé attitude."

"I never had an Aunt Betty, and, er, yes, you weren't the pers—being—I was really trying to seek out." In fact, he was probably the last. He had killed too many people, and although small, he still had a bit of guilt. Very very litte. Minute. The size of the tip of a needle.

He shrugged. "I've never really had any interest in the afterlife, if you want to know the truth. Which you probably don't, because really, I'm rather insignificant. At least to beings like you. Well. In the grand scheme of things, also. Anyway, the afterlife doesn't interest me. I figure, if I'm dead, then I'm dead, and there's really nothing I could do about it. If it's good, it's good. If it's bad, it's bad. Que fucking sera, and all that."

Azrael rubs his fingernails on his fishnet shirt, then blows on them. Black nailpolish appears. He repeats this process with the other hand.

"But dead isn't the only option, and afterlife isn't the only destination." He smiles, and then shrugs-- if Lorre doesn't want to know, Azrael isn't telling.

Well, he isn't telling anyway, actually.

"Who were you looking for? Violence?" That's capitalized too, and it's apparent-- he says it as a name, not as an offer to beat Lorre up. "I see you've met him before."

He blinked in surprise, missing the emphasis on the capitalization momentarily.

"Violence? Thanks, I've had enough of that in the past couple of weeks. I could use some peace—wait, 'he'? And I've met him?" He was lost—to him, San was nothing but a passing fuck, not anything special. "When? And why would I be looking for him?"

It was then he remembered what San has said. 'I go by many names'..

Nah. Couldn't have been.

"I don't know." Azrael shrugs and picks up his drink again, taking a sip. "The people he... takes... tend to hold grudges."

Clink clink.

"Yes, Violence. Like myself, he goes by a number of names... you may know him as Viol, Sanguis, or Ares."

Sanguis...

"I could imagine why," Lorre managed, then sighed. "Oh well. With my current luck, he's long gone. I'm looking for him, but rather casually. What am I going to do?" He scoffed. "Set him on fire? Blow a hole through his chest? Both are pretty ineffective, I've tried. On other beings." Like your son.

"How long have you lived?" What an odd question to ask Death. He rethought his words. "Existed, rather."

"You could always summon him." Oh, evil. His lips curve into a grin. "There's a spell, a very specific spell, which will summon and trap him for a time."

Clink clink. Sip. Silence.

"I've been around for... millennia. I'll be around for millennia more."

Was there, now?

Casually, he sipped his drink. He didn't appear too interested, except for the fact that his eyes lit up rather sadistically.

"Really. And I'd imagine you know this spell, correct?"

Of course he did, it was a rhetorical question.

"But I'm also guessing—forgive me if I'm wrong—that I'd need to sacrafice something in order to get such...valuable information."

But he was tucking away the fact that gods could be summoned for later use. Cranberry might appreciate such information.

Azrael is, of course, trying to suggest that only Violence could be summoned by mortals in such a presumptory manner.

"Sacrifice something? To me? Couldn't hurt." His eyes glitter like snow and stars-- distant and cold in the night sky. "If you mean will I just tell you how to get Viol's attention... no."

"Had to ask." What was he supposed to do, start a brawl and hope San would appear? He would pass, thanks. Too many fights for him.

"And it could hurt. Sacrificing something to you, that is." It was true—sacrificing anything could be a very painful process. "Not for you, of course. I'd imagine it would be rather gratifying."

He lit another cigarette, putting his empty glass on the counter. "Are you in more than one place at once? I understand you're everywhere, because you're Death and all, but that's not what I meant. Do you have another physical version of yourself, running around another bar, in another town?"

Azrael grins approvingly.

"Good question! I like you." He sets his drink back on the bar and folds his now-painted hands in his lap.

"Yes. And no."

"Well, good." That he was liked, by the way. By Death. That was always a plus.

"Yes and no? How so?" He was amused, slightly, by his rhyming capabilities. "Are they so different from you that these versions carry different personalities and memories and...well, self-ism (making up words was fun, sometimes) than you?" Idly, he scarred the counter with his hand, searing the surface.

Death laighs and shakes his head. The braid of thick, dark hair waves with the motion.

"No, no not at all." He waves a hand, as if trying to explain. "It's... difficult to explain to something like a human, which thinks and moves in linear time. There are no copies of me running around-- no clones. I'm like Santa Claus-- I can hit the whole world in one night, but there's only ever one of me. Just all over."

Lorre tried to grasp that, and failed. He couldn't help it, after all, he was a mere mortal.

"So, er, does that mean Santa really does exist? I guess that would make sense, why no adults get gifts from him if he does. I mean, after all, after you lose the innocence of childhood you stick yourself permanently on the naughty list." They were lazy thoughts, ones that had no real connection with the conversation—just idle curosity, maybe.

Death. What an interesting concept.

The music was playing loudly, and he wanted to dance, but Death was alluring. He didn't want to kill the conversation by succumbing to the palpitating thrill of the music.

"No. No Saint Nicolas, sorry." Grin. "Not really."

He stands, and the smoke whirls away from him. With a rather mischevious grin, the pale God offer Lorre his hand. It's as though he'd sensed Lorre's urge.

Actually, considering who it is... scratch the 'as though.'

He looked at the hand curiously, then gave a shrug. Well, he had already had sex with another man-like being—so what if he danced with another man-like being? His sexuality was already becoming questionable (had he really checked out that guy's ass on the way in?) why not just throw it to the wind? He could enjoy both genders as much as the next.

It just seemed kind of funny that only one gender had been gravitating towards him, lately.

He took the hand and pulled himself up. He hoped, valiently, that if this were to lead to sex (it could, anything could. Anything could happen. Anything was happening. It turned his head), he wouldn't end up with something stolen from him again.

Azrael's skin is cool and dry to the touch. He feels like silk, soft ice, and coffin cushions. As Lorre stands, he tightens his grip and pulls the mortal closer, to where the air is cold and free of smoke. Mortals radiate body heat. He's like a void of it.

The music picks up and Azrael, grinning, begins to move.

Imagine smoke-- imagine snow. Imagine silk. Imagine whatever you like, cold and inhuman but made to seem alive by the way it moves, fluid, languid, in beat.

Some artists didn't know how to dance. Some musicians were horrible at it. They spent too much time calculating what they were doing, watching their step, making sure they looked good while only succeeding in looking really bad.

Lorre knew how to lose himself in the music. He wasn't quite as good as Azrael—he had mortal limits—but he was an excellent dancer. To him it was art, and Lorre was good at art.

The man across from him was cold, he was hot. The fog froze around Death, and it burned away around Lorre. He danced with Death, gracefully, matching the music, matching Death's beat. His movements were sinuous, seductive—there was no jerky awkwardness to his steps. He brashly slipped his arms around Death's waist, stung by the chill, hating it, relishing it, captivated by it.

This invited, Death presses closer, the chill that radiates off of him making it seem as though his clothing had been stored in a freezer-- except the chill is actually from his skin, not just cool clothing.

He slips his own lanky arms around Lorre's waist, thus inhibiting both their motion to some extent. It doesn't seem to bother him.

This close, it's apparent he has no heartbeat-- and is not, in fact, breathing.

It was quite unnerving, to dance with someone with no breath, no heartbeat, no sweat. In fact, it was the first time Lorre had danced with someone where he didn't end up sweating. The fire tried to battle the ice, but lost, and Lorre's breath condensed around his lips.

Movement by themselves was limited, but together it opened very interesting doors.

His own breath was hot and spicy, smelly only faintly of cigarettes and rum.

He was lost in the music and the man in his arms.

Fast forward-- some time later. The God doesn't seem to get tired, but the band does, and they're back on music piped in through the speakers-- louder now, and better, though, courtesy of a slight tweak. At some point, azrael had undone his braid, and now the thick, dark, and slightly wavy hair hangs loosely around his pale and agular face. Despite the physical exhertion, he doesn't sweat-- nor has he bothered to breath a breath the entire time they've been dancing.

His hands are hooked in Lorre's back pockets. Not shy, his chest, stomach and hip are pressed right up against the mortal and have been for some time. Ice is beginning to condense on the floor beneath them, though it melts into beads of water when exposed to Lorre.

He wasn't tired—not yet—he could go hours dancing without needing a break (he realized now it was probably because he relished in heat, while others shunned it, needed escape from it). His own hands weren't shy, tracing enticing designs on the back of his neck, teasing, sliding down his spine in a way that would make a normal person shiver, trying to draw out reactions from the frozen god against him.

His eyes were closed to fall into the music, the rhthym of dancing (that was so close to sex, so close), and they opened then, dangerous with lust. He kept the demon at bay, kept his eyes on Azrael. His movements were provacative now—a reaction to the music and to the intense dancing.

He doesn't react like a normal person, not physically, but dance is like worship, too, and he basks in the attention. The belief of thousands far away is good, but this close, the worship of one is sweet and he lets it wash over him.

As Lorre's motion changes, a slow, warm smile spreads across Azrael's face, melting the ice of his features. He shifts as well, undulating the length of his body in time to the changing beat of the songs being played. One hand lifts and traces ice up the mortal's vertebrae.

The ice melted seconds within the contact of his skin, but he shivered at the feeling anyway, pressing closer, instinctively searching for warmth then breating himself for such a stupid action.

His movements were matched and he looked at Death, curiously. Asking, what next and saying your move.

Death grins and, gently, leans closer to Lorre. "Think of home," he whispers in one ear, and places one spidery-cold hand on the back of the mortal's neck. With soft pressure, Azrael presses Lorre's head against his shoulder. The club fades, blurs, and dissolves into a bedroom-- Lorre's bedroom.

Well, that probably counts as an invitation.

Good enough one for him. With his face pressed up against Death's shoulder, he could see fractions of his room—the futon at the far corner, with the maroon silk sheeks rumpled and pushed to the side in his haste at getting up and laze at making the bed—the couple of new pictures he had drawn to fill the emptiness of his walls—the bureau, faded and scarred with age.

Daringly, he slid his hands up Death's sides, under his shirt. Daringly, he looked him in the eye, invited him in.