Any bar, any drink (Liv)

[Anonymous]

It was a wonderful night in Haviah, and Kav smiled as he inhaled the polluted air. It was a perfect night – warm enough that nobody needed anything more substantial than a light coat, and clear enough that the streets were packed with people out for evening walks and off to the various bars, clubs and restaurants. Kav himself was able to appreciate the night for another reason than just the weather – all those people were going to be a godsend to him. He was currently renting a room by the night in the cheapest hotel in the city (damp on the bathroom walls, but no fleas in the sheets), and he needed more credits to enable his stay to continue. Being homeless was not something he wanted to experience again – understandably.

Standing in the darkest doorway he could find, Kav closed his eyes and let his seventh sense take over – it was always there, but every now and then he needed to concentrate on it more than usual, and to do so he needed to be free from other distractions. Once his sight, taste and touch were out of use, he allowed his mind to block out the sounds of the world until all he could feel with was his mind. The usual background babble he usually got from other people’s minds was more audible now, and he casually explored the city through that map of thoughts and emotions, Kav searched for the busiest places, and the richest people.

Thousands of minds, some useful and some not. Sensory impressions, thought fragments, and scattered emotions overtook Kav’s senses as he explored – but where someone else might have been overloaded, Kav’s mind compensated. He never lost himself during these journeys, as some psychics were wont to do. His mind and his talent were too intertwined with one another.

A sharp clang echoed inside Kav’s head as he came up against something, and the force of it almost shook him. He retreated for a moment and then pressed forward as gently as possible, the lightest of touches – but this mind (it was a mind, of that much he was certain) seemed to be steel-coated. There was no way of getting in, no matter how hard Kav looked –

Something took hold of his mind and shook him, throwing him back with astonishing force. He opened his eyes, gasping, and was blinded for a moment by the silver imprint of a dragon’s silhouette, the creature’s wings outspread in flight, which flashed across his vision. He reeled, clinging to the wall at his back, and took a few deep breaths to steady himself before looking nervously around. Nobody seemed to have noticed, and none of these people appeared to be the owner of the mind which had so brutally reacted to his.

What the fuck? Kav’s hands were shaking. Whatever that thing had been, it had intervened from the outside and quite literally thrown him out of someone else’s mind. The image he had been given was his clue, and there was a piece of knowledge in his mind which must have been placed there – the mind must have been that of a Pilot, the outside force his or her dragon. That was the mind of a Pilot? Hell. Kav had never experienced anything like that before. He looked down at his shaking hands and realised he needed a drink to steady his nerves. A few moments later, he was in the nearest bar with his second double whiskey on the table in front of him.

[Anonymous]

Liv loved Stage Five.  What wasn't to love?  None of that Dragon bullshit, and, though he didn't have the prestige of a Pilot's title, all the free time he could ask for.  Well; not all.  But after eight years, he'd take what little he could get.  And Haviah wasn't bad, for all its flaws and foibles.  A chance to give his civvies a strut, get a new haircut--which he particularly, and loudly, admired.  He'd visited his mother, too, but that was excruciating more than anything, an exercise in carefully not saying almost anything either of them were thinking.  She was not kindly disposed toward the Aedolisian military.  Liv played the stolid part, which had never suited him well.  Certainly not as well as the blue silk shirt he found in the back of his mother's closet.  Really, it was quite masculine.

Toward the end of the day he meandered toward one of many argon-accented bars.  His usual drink had become all too unusual.  It was worth an overly lavish description.

"And then, after you add the cherry syrup, another shot of vodka.  Very good.  Now one of tequila.  Do you have lime juice?  Some of that, too.  A small umbrella.  Do you have any live frogs?  No live frogs.   OK, I can improvise."  He tapped his chin thoughtfully.  "Seltzer, whipped cream, six liquorice twizzles, and chocolate soda.  You may need a vat, but it's all right, I'll share."  

He slid one arm around the nearest warm body, a girl whose hinder parts had rather impressed him on his way in.  "Right?"

"Fuck off."

Liv put on his best incredulous look and withdrew his arm (after all, there was chivalry and there was chivalry).  "I hardly think it's the place, dear, but if you insist..."  Shrugging, he turned back to his drink, which he nursed while rotating idly on one of the bar stools.  Damn, that chocolate soda really went to one's head.  What would Macky have to say about this?  Another of his speeches, no doubt.  Liv had always been of the opinion that those given to speechifying were the ones least confident in what they were saying.  He tried never to have any idea of what he was saying.  The moment you made sense you were trapped.  Making sense was quite dangerous, really.

His drink half-finished, he stuck a liquorice twizzler in one side of his mouth and stood up, ambling toward one corner of the bar.  There was that strange man in one corner.  He'd seen him before, somewhere.  A whore?  Maybe.  He looked brooding.  Obviously he needed to be whacked upside the head with a bit of liquorice.  Maybe later; he was a bit larger than Liv... there was something else odd about him.  Liv almost reached out telepathically before recalling that it was his day off, and that paranoia was as unbecoming to him as yellow gingham.

"Hello."  Liv took a seat opposite him and plunked his glass (which was somewhat on the vatlike side) down in the middle of the table.  "Are you suffering from existential angst, or just constipation?  Have some cocktail.  If you knowwhaddamean."  The lower-caste slur on the last was purposeful, parodic.  It also had the potential to get him beaten into a pulp.  Could be fun, really.

[Anonymous]

He might have looked as if he were oblivious to the outside world, but Kav’s seventh sense was working overtime as he stared at his whiskey glass. Everyone who came into the bar was given a quick sweep by his mind, just enough to find out a little about them, and whether or not they would be open to his…well, ‘advances’ didn’t really seem like the right word. How he approached people all depended on whether he felt like taking them out the back for a quick screw, or whether he wanted to get the goods from them in some other way. And what he felt like largely depended on the person. Kav’s plans were, in a word, fluid.

He’d sensed Liv’s boisterous presence at the bar, and had known that the other young man was coming over as soon as he decided to. It was something not even on a conscious level – somehow he just knew what Liv’s intentions were, the same way he would know if someone was about to pull a knife on him or even to get up an relieve themselves in the gent’s room. So he didn’t even jump when Liv’s glass clacked against the table – he just looked up slowly, amusement written over his handsome face and a dry smile at the corner of his lips.

As soon as they made eye contact, Kav knew two things: first, this man was attractive. very attractive. Secondly, he was psychic. This second piece of information was the most interesting one, and Kav considered it for a moment. That put a limit on the sweeps he could do without being noticed. He tried a feather-light touch and received Liv’s age, rank and some kind of general impression of the other man before he withdrew for fear of discovery. This, he did as soon as he found out that the other man was a Candidate. He sure as hell wasn’t going to mess with anyone in the military if it meant they could discover him.

Kav’s dark eyes moved down over the section of Liv’s torso he could see above the table, a rather lascivious half-smile letting the other man know exactly what he thought of the view. When he met Liv’s eyes again his expression barely changed, and he leaned back nonchalantly in his chair. He didn’t bother to return the greeting, guessing that the appraising (and approving) gaze he had given the other man was enough. Instead he looked down at the cocktail Liv had set on the table and raised an eyebrow.

“Actually, I was contemplating who I’d get to buy me my next drink,” he said, picking up the whiskey glass and taking a sip. Kav’s voice was low, but clear enough to be heard even in the noisy atmosphere of the bar. The accent it carried was just a trace of his birthplace – however hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to shake off the faint, acidic twang of the area he always thought of as ‘the shit-hole’. He looked at Liv’s drink again and shook his head. “But if that’s the kind of thing you buy, I’m not sure you’re my type.”

[Anonymous]

Eight years of Candidacy hadn't left Liv naïve, willfully ignorant as he tried to be on the face of things.  He felt the brush of the stranger's mind, silky and only superficial before it shrank away, and he slammed down his strongest barriers just a little too late.  He hadn't expected that here.  He wasn't a Pilot, he wasn't a Candidate; Liv had been around for eight years, he could see that much.  For a moment he was crazily, irrationally angry, but he tamped it down and nipped at his licorice stick.  Heat was beginning to build beneath his palm; it cooled down when he did.  Unimportant, Livvy boy.  Fucked if you do and fucked if you don't, really, and the ways you're fucked have nothing to do with him--

--whatever he might be after.

He looked up again just in time to catch the stranger eyeing him.  With approbation.  At least he had good taste.  Liv found nothing more endearing than someone who liked him.  And there was no question the man had the charm down.  Not many had mastered that, Liv thought, watching the stranger.  Later he'd try something a little subtler than his 'master baiter' jabs at thusly talented Pilots.  Of course, it was bound to be a sore subject.  How had he avoided detection?  Jealousy, one of Liv's many vices, refused to excise itself.  And here he was an eighth-year Candidate, and his abilities, beguiling as they were, were really more nuisance than pleasure.  Not to mention the countless 'flaming' jokes.

"Liv Sulo," he said abruptly, removing the licorice stick from his mouth and setting it aside.  He held out one hand and met the stranger's eyes (quite a stare you got there, Mr. Charming).  Liv grinned back, broadly; once the stranger was solipsized into audiencehood, he bore him no more ill will.  "And if you judge people by what they drink, boyo, you'll--oh, I'll level with you, I was just fucking with the bartender.  Now that I've got someone better to fuck with--"  He lifted his right hand and pressed it to the panel beside the booth, which scanned his chip; and ordered two more whiskeys.

Admittedly, he preferred flirting with the reluctant.  This one either wanted him or could perform a very good imitation of desire, and that set Liv a little off balance.  Aggressor or aggressed, caressor or caressed; he didn't mind either, of course, but he hadn't really come out to get laid, and certainly not to pay for it.  

"--this might just be your lucky night."  Because flirting was fun anyway.  Their drinks arrived, and Liv grabbed for his, covering it with his palm long enough to (there was a muted noise of combustion) set it on fire.  "Then again, I've got the feeling you've had quite a lot of those..."  Reference to both his talent and his looks, of which Liv was frankly quite jealous.

[Anonymous]

Kav’s lips twitched in a smile at Liv’s words. For a moment he considered making a remark about how Liv had found someone better to fuck with, but he held off for now. There was something about this guy that made Kav think he was more bluster than intent, and he didn’t want to waste his time on someone that he wouldn’t get any money out of. But every now and then it was nice to have a good flirt and behave as if his only intention wasn’t to grab whatever he could to pay for his next meal, so he didn’t make his excuses just yet. After all, being as he couldn’t use his psychic talent on this one (he’d felt the barriers go down), he might just be reading the situation wrong.

“Kav Carras,” he replied, shaking the proffered hand. He didn’t let his hand linger in the way he usually would do if he was properly flirting – after all, he didn’t want to scare Liv away. The last name he gave was not his own, but that was a natural occurrence. He hardly ever gave anyone his real name nowadays: either his first or last name was a made-up one whenever he introduced himself. After all, it would be foolish to give people a way to track him down if he pissed them off enough to make them want to. He knew that Liv was a psychic and would be able easily to tell if he was lying, but he didn’t much mind. Kav’s real name was hidden too deep inside his mind for it to be easily accessed.

He knocked back his original drink as Liv pushed the new glass over to him, lifting it with a smile in a small toast of thanks. Naturally, his sharp eyes didn’t miss the small burst of flame that the other young man created in his own glass, but Kav was too tactful to ask anything about it. Besides, he had the feeling that Liv wanted to be noticed for that (since he was making no attempt to hide it), and Kav didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking him about his gift. In his experience, frustrating people was the best way to get them to engage with you.

Kav inclined his head slightly in recognition of the truth of Liv’s statement. He did have a good many lucky nights. He was attractive and knew it – Kav was a commodity, and some people were prepared to pay highly. There was also the easy business of getting someone distracted while he talked to them and hacking their microchip that way, although that was by far less fun than the first option. Idly, he wondered how much money Pilot Candidates had.

It looked like he was going to find out, at any rate.

“I have my share of luck,” Kav replied with a shrug. More than his fair share, if truth be told – he did have his seventh sense on his side, after all. It made things so much easier. He sipped the drink Liv had bought for him, and eyed the flaming shot in the other man’s hand for a moment before flashing a smile at him. “You hardly look hard-done-by yourself,” he pointed out. “Although your luck might run out if you feel up the owner’s girlfriend again,” Kav nodded towards the woman who had rebuffed Liv at the bar. The owner of the establishment was renowned for being brutal towards those who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

[Anonymous]

Liv leaned forward over his whiskey and blew out the flame, then, slowly, picked up the glass and studied the burnt surface of the alcohol.  He swallowed it in a gulp--he'd never been one to appreciate the harsh taste of liquor--but kept the glass lifted, peering at his companion through its bottom, as though through a spyglass, lips comically pursed.

"Like the name, Carras."  The guy was on the calculating side.  He paused too long before speaking.  Liv contemplating getting up and finding someone more easily annoyed, or less suspicious as a character, but he had to admit this Kav fella was intriguing.  Bad Livkins, bad.  Like a fucking drug, you know.  Oh yeah.  But others' charm wasn't a drug he found easy to resist.  It was, after all, so very rare to find someone as much of a bastard as he was.  This Kav probably liked to fuck with people more than he liked to fuck them.  It was just a feeling, but Liv was quite used to recognizing that dynamic.  He stared at it in the mirror every day.  Generally more than once, but vanity, in his case, was quite justified.

"Me, lucky?"  Liv laughed, and spread the fingers of his left hand, which were generously stippled with burn marks and a few bandages--the usual Sulo sloppiness, what ho, but his pyrokinesis was nearly as uncontrollable as his wildest dreams, which would persist, despite best soul-crushing efforts as per military code.  He twiddled his fingers, the gesture nearly feminine, and laced both hands together.  Then he leaned back, sliding down in his seat, hands behind his neck: lounging posture, studiedly casual.  "Lucky to be alive, but aren't we all. Lucky to be a Liv, now that's unique."  The tone he'd struck was casual, easier to maintain after a few drinks.  Besides, it was senseless to put on pretensions around a middle-caste.  No one understands you, Liv dear, and it's because you're so fucking angsty.  Suck it up.

"Anyhow," he added at least.  He shoved off the back of the bar and leaned forward suddenly.  He was prone to quick changes of posture, vocal tone, facial expression--it kept people guessing.  It kept him guessing--which was the point.  His elbows came down on the table, and his brow furrowed earnestly as he stared down into those have-a-Kav havocsome eyes.  Handsome eyes.  Provenance of psychics and sociopaths, and didn't he know a few of both--fuckin' military...

"Anyhow," he repeated, "don't worry on my behalf.  I'm quite gallant, and I know no, all too well--difficult as it may be to imagine the person who'd turn down a guy like me... 'cept a guy like you--but you'll protect me if the fella comes after me.  You will, right?  You like me, don'tcha?  I like you, Kavac."  Guileless smile.  Because at the bottom of it Liv wasn't in it for the fun of manipulating people (not that honesty wasn't a manipulation).  Today, or for the moment (which was as long as he could keep track of his shifting goals and desires), he just wanted to be liked, and all the twisting and chimeric nuances of likeability, well, how difficult were they, really, to decipher?

[Anonymous]

It seemed to Kav that he had found a person who was almost exactly his opposite – at least where mannerisms were concerned. While he favoured stillness, never using his energy to move unless he needed to, this Liv seemed almost hyperactive in his erratic movements, changing position quickly as if he got bored by being still for too long. He also didn’t think of himself as actually manipulating people all that much – after all, he only ever did what they allowed him to do. If they were manipulated into doing something, it was usually quite rare that he had inspired such a reaction by using his psychic power. It was more often because he had turned on the charm and they didn’t have a strong enough will to resist it.

The fact that Liv hadn’t left yet to talk to someone else was indicating to Kav that this was one of the men he most liked to chat to – someone who would probably be interesting to talk to and easy enough to distract when the time came. Kav liked them best. He didn’t for a moment believe that Liv was the air-head he pretended to be, but maybe if he acted as if he did the other man would keep playing up to the image enough to forget to concentrate all the time. That would be Kav’s window of opportunity.

He couldn’t resist an amused smile when Liv said that he liked him. It was the way he said it as much as anything else – puppy-dog eyes and all – and it drew a smile from him before he could help it. Is he really that pissed, or is he just putting it on? Kav wondered, but he could get nothing from Liv’s residual emotions to suggest that he was as drunk as he seemed to be, so he assumed that it was just another front. Maybe he had been able to use the illusion of intoxication to his advantage in the past.

“I don’t like you enough to risk losing any limbs,” Kav replied dryly to Liv’s question. “So I’m afraid you’d be on your own.” Losing limbs was considered a natural hazard if you messed with the owner of this particular joint, and Kav didn’t plan to part with any of his in the near future. Or, indeed, in any kind of future. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to stay in one piece for all of his life? Kav hoped that he would be complete when they buried him – although how long he would actually live with his kind of lifestyle was debateable.

Tilting his head to one side, he considered Liv for a moment before deciding to voice the question he had thought of earlier. “Are you as drunk as you seem?” Kav asked, mischief glinting in his eyes. “Because if you are, I may have to have my wicked way with you while I have the chance.”

[Anonymous]

"Not any limbs?"  Liv pouted, gnawing on the tip of one burn-scarred finger.  He removed it perhaps a minute later, when he'd judged he wasn't going to get much of a response. "That's really not according me a sporting chance, old chap."  He paused to buff his fingernails against the silk of his shirt.  It was a gesture he'd only ever seen in popular media.  That was the point of it.  Most everything Liv did was only for show.  It was an excellent way of maintaining privacy; when everything was surface and mirror, anyhow, for any who.

"How drunk do I seem, mm?"  He slid around in the booth, propelling himself with one foot on the wall, until he had slithered into place beside Kav.  He flung one arm around the other guy's neck, elbow crooked familiarly.

Maybe he was a whore, but Liv didn't feel too bad wasting his time; he'd been sitting in the corner brooding.  Hardly the way to strike up some business.  Besides, he was intrigued.  He hadn't figured this Kav Carras out enough to fuck with him properly, and that was--frankly--infuriating.  Most people were caricatures, they made it easy.  He was a caricature; it made things easy.  Of course it was easier when you lived with 'em for years and years and years.

Besides, he was a warm body, and Liv loved hugs.  Oh so very much.

Almost as much as he loved fucking with--with, not fucking--anyone he happened to meet.  Well... maybe it'd be unsporting... but that had never stopped him before.  He leaned over and spoke quietly, his mouth close to Kav's ear.  "Hey, K.C."  His voice was breathy, uneven, and not unkind.  "How long d'you think it'll be, before they pick you up and do to you what they did to me?  Not so bad, you said, but you've gotta make some mighty fucking effort, Kav, and you have made one, to keep that--that--thing.  Freedom, Casey, fucking freedom.  It tastes sweet.  If you wouldn't be anyone without it does that mean you're someone with it, or no one?  Be somebody, Carraway.  Fucking be somebody."

His lips were very close to Kav's ear, but it wasn't sexual, or if it was, it was aggressive.  That's what it was, all right.  Battering yourself against everything, because that's how Liv was someone, or anyone, or how he managed to be no one at all.

[Anonymous]

Kav suddenly felt very, very cold. He’d known that Liv knew he was psychic, but for once someone had managed to turn the tables on a conversation and gain the upper hand – and that was something he really wasn’t used to. Usually he was on the other side, the one holding the power instead of the one at the mercy of another person. Luckily for him, his years of cautiousness stopped any kind of expression from kicking in. While someone else might have run away at the comment, or at least flinched at it, Kav merely went very, very still – and even this reaction was something that only Liv would notice, close as he was.

He only had a couple of seconds to think about what to say. The obvious was ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, but he knew that this would never work – it would only serve to irritate Liv, and he didn’t know what the other man was capable of. It was a scary feeling – because he was used to looking into people’s heads as easily as he breathed, to not be able to take a look at Liv’s thoughts was a strange idea. The other man’s shields were too strong and anyway, Kav knew enough about Pilot Candidates to know that he probably didn’t want to look in there at all, for fear of what he might find.
   
He turned his head to that their noses were almost touching, Kav’s eyes meeting Liv’s with undisguised heat and respect. The fact that he had met someone he now considered to be an equal was a remarkable thing – but it wasn’t eclipsed by the fact that they could very well be being watched. It was the norm, after all, and the last thing Kav wanted was for him to be on some security camera somewhere having a fight with a Candidate. That could land you in prison or worse, and however much Kav wanted to lay out Liv with a punch before he knew what was happening, it really wasn’t a viable option.

Instead, Kav decided he would up the stakes. This was a game he was playing now, and the only way to win would be to keep going until Liv gave up. So he leaned in casually and gave the other man a kiss, full on the lips – nothing too dramatic, just a kiss – before taking the advantage to murmur in Liv’s ear: “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” yes, he didn’t think it would work, but he had another trick up his sleeve that he could use, and he did so now. Reaching out with his mind he didn’t even have to touch Liv’s mental barriers to get enough inside his head that he could start a conversation there.

“And I suppose you’re going to be the one to turn me in?” he asked, in a voice full of barely-contained aggression that Liv would be hearing with his mind only, not with his ears. It was rare that he got to have a conversation this way, and Kav found that he liked it. It was much more…intimate, somehow. “Jealous, are we?”

[Anonymous]

Interesting.

He'd expected anger.  Really, he'd wanted anger.  Liv didn't want to be right, nor did he really want to cause pain, but it seemed he had scored on both accounts.  Kav remained stock still for a moment, while Liv's disappointments, fears, and cetera, multiplied and divided in his head.  It had probably been a bad idea to bring that up.  Was that--remorse, Livvy?  Never say never after all.  Liv Sulo felt bad about something, go fucking figure.  What he wanted--well, really, what he wanted from any of the fights he tried to start, was just catharsis.  Kav was frustrating him.  Why'd he taken it seriously?  Liv had taken himself seriously for a moment, a moment too long, as usual.

Things weren't really supposed to mean anything.

K. Carras, whom he'd just finished classifying as stolidly stoic, turned to look at him.

Eh?  

Liv's mouth half-opened in surprise, one eyebrow twisting itself upward.  That wasn't the expression he'd expected.  What he'd expected--guarded worry, anger, veiled aggression--nope, none of that; what little of the latter he glimpsed seemed to be only the gloss of the usual Kavian temperament.  Instead, it seemed Casey thought the crueler class of insults was a turnon.  Well, shit, there's no room for two masochists to a table...  

Then the guy kissed him.  If only everyone he insulted responded that way, he would never need to move on to the flirting stage.  Liv didn't resist, though his other eyebrow joined the one already hiking itself up toward his hairline.  "Is that your solution to the hard questions, kiss and refuse to tell--"

Liv never spoke to other Candidates or Pilots telepathically.  It was easier; the skill didn't come naturally to him; and it was, above all things, safer.  In this situation, though, it had been fairly appalling of him to bring up the matter to begin with--it was worth the effort.  And if Kav was playing some sort of absurd game of chicken with the kiss, well.  This was for fun.  Wasn't it.  For fucking fun.  He slid one hand down the front of Kav's collar.  One upside to telepathic communication, he realized: you could do it while your mouth was otherwise occupied, but more on that later...

"Yeah."  His mental voice was flat; he had to work hard to keep it comprehensible, to modulate it into a speechlike pattern, rather than the eclectic gibberish into which it tended to collapse.  "Yeah, I'm fucking jealous; it's right in my name, Caseykins.  Livid livious Livvie--"  "--got it?"  "--but not evil, Car Keys.  I like to bring people down, not keep them there.  That's reserved for Yours Truly, but live and let Liv live, I say."  His fingers twitched, spasming from the unaccustomed effort of telepathic speech, against Kav's collarbone.  Back to verbal, a quick whisper.  "I say a lot of things, Kav."   "--but most people don't listen, which is the fucking trick, isn't it?  You won't tell on me, will ya?"

Now that had been real anger in Kav Carras's mental voice.  Another one for Team Livvie, then.  They'd get on just fine.  How cute.  

How fucking cute.

[Anonymous]

Kav himself found telepathic communication to be much easier than normal speech. Because he used his talents so naturally as a part of himself, mind-talking was, as an extension of that, actually his preferred method of talking. It was just unfortunate that he could use it so very rarely, for fear of being caught. He noticed the strain that Liv seemed to be under when he used his mental voice, but didn’t really care – it gave him no incentive to switch back to regular speech. This was more private and therefore more safe, and at that moment Kav couldn’t have cared less about what was difficult for Liv. The other man had been the one to raise the topic of conversation, so he could deal with how Kav wished to continue it.

The warm hand on his neck wasn’t something Kav allowed to distract him. He was used to things like that while he was trying to concentrate on other issues (usually taking someone’s money while he was kissing them), and although he found he rather liked the feeling of Liv’s palm against his skin, he was accustomed enough to pushing things like that to the back of his mind that he was safely able to ignore it. Instead he focussed on the things Liv was saying (mind-talking wasn’t like normal speech, exactly, and it didn’t have the same grammatical structure or even necessarily any words, which was why some psychics found it so difficult – and Liv’s difficulty in trying to use it was coming across and blurring the edges of his sentences).

It was difficult to know in what spirit Liv’s speech was intended – after all, there was little to no expression in his mental voice. But although Kav had perfected the knack of seeming completely amiable while having a mental argument verging on the poisonous, he didn’t get the feeling that Liv would have the same talent – and there was something in his expression which implied that he was in earnest. So if he really was jealous, it was only Kav’s duty to work out how he could exploit this. And if Liv’s implication that he wouldn’t turn Kav in to the authorities was sincere, he would need to work out how far he could push the other man without this implication turning around.

“Poor baby,” he replied, sarcasm dripping as his hand reached up to idly stroke the hair at the nape of Liv’s neck. He always had liked red hair on a man, and Liv’s was very soft indeed. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there are lots of people in the military who’ll listen. Maybe one day you’ll find a dragon and the two of you can have heart-to-hearts.” Kav was pushing buttons here, hoping he had remembered rightly from those brief impressions he’d got from Liv before the other man put down his barriers – that his Candidacy had been longer than average already, and that he was less than happy with that fact.

Kav kissed him again, more hotly this time, his fingers twining not-quite-painfully in Liv’s hair. “Attention-seeking little thing, aren’t you?”[/b] Kav observed. He didn’t know why he felt so spiteful all of a sudden – it was probably because being confronted by someone who had the power to ruin his life put him on his guard. “Tell me, if ninety-nine percent of what you do is for show, then are you really interested in men or is this just too gay for you?”[/b]

[Anonymous]

What Liv liked or didn't like fluctuated as wildly as his mood, but what he both liked and disliked, well, those things he liked very much indeed.  He both liked and disliked sexual aggressivity.  Liked and loathed, anyway; and it made him angry, which he just loved.

He wrenched free of Kav's kiss (he was tempted to bite the guy, but didn't), and stared him down.  It wasn't that he was male, though Liv preferred women as a general rule and himself, by choice or necessity, most of all.  It wasn't even that Carras was unattractive--hell, he was someone to brag about.  It was the dynamic.  It was strange and uncomfortable to be the pursued instead of the pursuer, and he didn't like how quickly it had gotten to this point.  For an ideological libertine, Liv was pretty prissy about actualities.

And he preferred his kisses unleavened with psychological barbs, or at least leavened only by his own.  Kav knew an awful lot about Liv--given the brevity of his scan--an awful lot.  Or he was making guesses.  Either way, this had proven itself to be a döppelganger encounter of the most perniciously surreal kind.  But he had to like the guy, even had to admire him, because to be Livlike was to be pretty fucking wonderful.

He still had to wait until he'd gotten over the next sudden flush of rage to muster up the wherewithal for mental communication.  Because he didn't want to make it obvious that they were conversing telepathically, he leaned forward again, his free hand coming up to grab the front of Kav's shirt.  The gesture was ambiguous from the outside--violent or sexual, either way--but Liv definitely leaned toward the former.

"Little?  LITTLE?"  He bent forward, then twisted in his seat and came up, hand still bunched in Carras's shirt, one knee planted between his legs.  He grinned, because no anger was worth losing one's sense of humor for.  Psychological cavity search?  Bring it on.  Everything was entertainment if you looked at it the right way.  Liv leaned down until they were nose to nose, staring Kav straight in the eye, still half-smiling.  His mental voice strengthened with his confidence.  "Attention-seeking, jealous, a consummate showman, not really interested, if you must know, in anyone but myself--sure--but don't ever call me little."

He narrowed his eyes in an ostentatious parody of suspicion, but the edge had come off.  It wasn't a surrender; just a shift in terms.  "So level with me, Kavass, are you really into men, or only from the top?"  Sex jokes!  Fun!  Enough with the psychology.

[Anonymous]

Oh, Kav wasn’t as reckless as he made out to be. He was very cautious, really – well, as cautious as a conman can be. Kav knew that he walked on a knife’s edge every day and that one wrong step could send him into either prison or the Pilot training programme (he wasn’t sure which would be worse for him), and as a result he was more careful than a lot of men doing his job were. So was he really that much like Liv? He would have considered that debateable – after all, he knew when to shut up, as a rule. He had the feeling that Liv was the kind of guy who would let his mouth run away with him until he ended up in a whole lot more trouble than he had bargained for.

Kav had been through more than his fair share of manhandling during his twenty-one years, and had experienced a lot of violence – it was a hazard of the job, after all, when you were the one taking money away from people who often weren’t all that happy about it. He’d been beaten up in a variety of different ways (Lady Luck really was with Kav, since he’d succeeded in lasting this long without having his face ruined at all), and although he guessed that Liv, as part of the military, would have to be fiercely fit, he was confident that his ability to usually get one over on an opponent and emerge without anything more significant than a sprain would hold out here.

So he looked into the other man’s eyes fearlessly as Liv pulled him up by the shirt (a rather fetching black one, as it happened, that he rather liked and would prefer not to damage). The fact that he had evidently hit a nerve interested him, and he listened to Liv’s tirade with an expression of faint, wry amusement. After all, he could hardly show any discomfort, could he? Liv was already drawing more attention to them than he wanted without him looking worried enough for anyone else to take notice. When Liv had finished his piece, Kav raised an eyebrow and held up his hands in a placatory gesture.

His and Liv’s way of changing the tone seemed similar enough that Kav guessed he had been forgiven. “Finished?”[/b] he asked at last, but the good-humoured tone he added to the question took any sting out of it. Gently, he pulled himself away from Liv’s grasp and sat himself down. He looked up at the other man and cocked an eyebrow, inviting him to sit, and then took a sip of the drink which the other man had so conveniently bought him. The next question got an actual smile from him – a real, genuine smile of amusement, and he even had to swallow a chuckle. Putting his glass down, he looked at the Candidate with mischief in his eyes.

“Oh, I’ll do anything with anyone, so long as they’re human,” he replied, and for a moment he realised ironically that this was the first really honest conversation he had participated in, in a very long time. It was, after all, very difficult to hide a lie from someone when you were mind-to-mind like this. And what he said was true – there were hybrids enough around that he could have made a living from them, but such things didn’t appeal to Kav. His mind-voice was as asmused as his expression as he added: “Sometimes I don’t even charge.”[/b]

[Anonymous]

Liv was, perhaps, just a little more drunk than he'd thought.  That had been a bit of bad judgment, getting into an epic psychic mindfuck in front of a crowded bar--but at least they had gotten out the antipathy, or most of it.  He should have expected this, really, from the minute he'd met the guy he'd known this could escalate--in either or any direction, really.

"So two angry masochists walk into a bar," Liv said out loud.  He put both hands on Kav's shoulders and bent forward, then, slowly, planted one knee on either side of the man and sat down, straddling him.  From that position he could do quite a lot, either militarily-inspired or--less so.  He leaned forward, cheek-to-cheek with Kav, and spoke into his ear.  "And the one says to the other--Gods you've got low standards.  And the other says, what about you?  Look who you're talking to."  

He pulled back and came to rest at a balance point, his thighs still over Kav's.  Behind him, he could feel the flickering, alcoholic humidity of the bar, its warm amber-and-azure light, and the toffee-flavored mutter of the subdued crowd.  They had faded into the salacious background again.  Lucky thing.

"And here I was hoping yours were high. Fuck anything?  You really must have sadly little self-regard."  He tipped forward, chin-first, until they bumped noses, lips quite close.  Now this--this was better.  The possibility of sex for the evening began to seem less unappealing, though he still didn't know--didn't really know--this Kav fella enough to tell if it was honestly a good idea.  A tentative mental push met up with a barricade to rival his own carefully-established mental walls, though while his were barbed-wire and electric-shock-tricked-out confections, Carras's were entrenched stone.  

"I suppose I'll have to raise them, then."  Thus far he had only, and only marginally, reciprocated K.C.'s advances.  Now, and not without a quick glance to the callipygian lady of the bar--now she'd think he was gay, what a shame--he kissed Kav, one hand on his throat and one pulling his head back by the hair.  With tongue.  Take that, Carras.  What was surprising was how much he enjoyed it.  He'd always felt bad really dominating women, but Caseykins--he deserved it.

[Anonymous]

Now here was an interesting turn of events. Kav was surprised to feel the slightest flicker of desire in his body as the other man straddled him – real desire, not the comfortable trance he usually allowed himself to drift into when he was with a mark. He had forgotten how long it had really been since he’d hooked up with someone just for fun, not because he was being paid. Although if he happened to get some money out of this one as well, then so much the better. Liv was surprisingly light, and Kav shifted a little so better to feel the warmth of the Candidate against his body. He was actually starting to enjoy this.

Little self-regard? Kav smirked. “You have no idea,”[/b] he murmured softly into the other man’s head. At once he checked himself, wondering if this was getting a little too intimate for him. He wasn’t as in control of the situation as he had been before…but then he smelled the drink on Liv’s breath, and realised that the other man was doing this because he was close to being drunk.

Excellent.

Although this position wasn’t ideal (he had a neat little device for hacking microchips, but it only worked if it was held within six inches of what you wanted to hack – and Liv’s hands were around his neck and not with his reach), he had to admit that it did have it’s benefits. It had been a while since he’d had anyone on his lap like this, and he found that he liked it. Generally marks weren’t eager to get this close to you of their own volition – you had to do all of the work. If anything, it was usually him sitting in people’s laps, rather than the other way around.

In this position, it was natural for his hands to slip underneath the shirt Liv was wearing so that they rested on the bare skin just above his belt – and Kav had never been one for going against the natural order. Should he move his hands up or down, he wondered idly…but then Liv was kissing him, and Kav decided that thinking about things like that would take away the fun. He’d been told that he was a good kisser (he had to be, the work he got into – he didn’t usually go a night without snogging some unsuspecting client in an alleyway and stealing their credit), and so he returned Liv’s kisses with as much force as he could, and when he felt the other man’s hands in his hair he decided he might as well play along by pulling Liv properly into his lap so that their bodies were touching properly. So he did.

“What about you, Livos?” Kav asked, using the other man’s full name playfully. “Answer your own question: ‘Are you really into men, or only from the top?’”[/b] he did, after all, have a vested interest in the answer.

[Anonymous]

He didn't love the reminder of Kav's relative strength--the man tugged him all the way into his lap, until his knees met up with the slick back of the barbench, with relative ease--but it was to be expected.  No matter how much lifting and training Liv did, he was built slightly, not that he didn't know a few tricks.  Ideally Kav didn't know a few more.  You thinking of sex or combat, Livvums?

Kav was really a good kisser, and what was he doing with his hands?  Oh, both please.  The exhibitionist in Liv (and he had quite a prominent one) hoped they were giving everyone quite a show.  He hoped they'd be jealous.  He shifted so his heels came in, digging into the muscles of Carras's thighs, and tugged the man's head back by the hair until he had access to his neck.  He'd always liked necks.  Made sense, he loved to talk.  Larynx: delicious, the thing spoke for itself.

The question took him a bit by surprise.  While he'd had some experience with guys before--he'd been willing to do anyone interested in him when he was younger and in his Mommy, am I pretty? phase, his Gods, this Candidate Gray does not flatter my figure at all phase, his I want the fuck out of here and I'll fuck anyone for the flittiest bit of relief phase--he had never--by choice--been the er um mumble--bottom.  Nor did he particularly want to start.  The balance of power here was delicate enough as it was.  He'd like to keep it on his side.  Mostly.  Oh, Livvy... since when do you care about power, it's not about power, it's about--

"Yes, actually."  Pause, pause.  Deal-breaker?  No, probably not.  "Usually."  Gods damn it, Sulo, you really don't know when to shut up, do you?  Well, it is true.  And it was.  It was only sex, after all.  Threats to his masculinity had long since extinguished themselves, smothered in their own ludicrous superfluity.  "But you were the one bragging you'd do anyone--not me.  I'm picky.  You should be flattered."

[Anonymous]

Although Kav was fairly slim – he had a scant enough diet that there was no fat on him at all – he was a petty well-built guy. He also had the kind of sinewy muscle strength which comes from having to make your living, very often, from your fists. He had won enough fights in his time to be pretty certain that he was stronger than a lot of the people he dealt with – and judging from Liv’s slight build, he was stronger than the other man would ever be without very intensive training. Kav didn’t get the feeling that the other man would have been trained for hand-to-hand combat in the way that his street-dwelling life had trained him…and if he had, then the three knives which Kav always kept on his person at any given time could come in very handy indeed.

Kav felt Liv’s surprise at the question – actually felt it through the tenuous mental like they had, and it made him smile. He had the startling feeling that he could really get to enjoy making Liv feel uncomfortable like this. There was few enough people in the world with whom Kav could honestly say he was on an equal footing, and his favourite of those had recently been snapped up by the military. Kav was holding out hope that he would see her again, but he had the irritating feeling that when she came out of her training and was actually allowed to wander the city he would find her a very different person than when he had last seen her.

And the reply to the question was very interesting indeed. “Usually?”[/b] Kav asked the other man archly, as his hands idly mapped out the terrain of Liv’s back. ‘Usually’ was something he would be able to work with – of that, he had no doubt. Kav could work with pretty much anything. He might, indeed, do anyone – but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his preferences. And one of those was that nobody marked his skin – indeed, as he pondered, Kav was busy making sure that Liv didn’t leave any evidence behind on his neck. If the Candidate was ever there for more than what seemed like a reasonable amount of time, Kav would dip his head and steal a kiss – thus encouraging Liv to go back to a different place on his neck next time.

The last comment made Kav chuckle. “Picky enough to have it off with a sometime whore?”[/b] he asked, not caring if Liv knew what he was or not. After all, it was just another thing to know about Kav – and he didn’t see that there was all that much wrong with a bit of whoring on the side. It was easy money, and that was all that mattered. (And if he was beginning to get a little obsessive about cleanliness nowadays, what of it? He’d been doing this kind of thing for three years now.) “I’m pretty sure I could change your mind about that ‘from the top’ thing, you know…”[/b] he murmured. It was worth a try, after all.

[Anonymous]

Awkward moment.  Liv had the tendency, and it was one he ought not to indulge, to make promises he couldn't keep.  To grandstand.  To try to please people.  It was one of the problems of proteanism.  He didn't know what he wanted--sometimes--except that it hooked into what other people wanted of him... the real problem of proteanism was its essential emptiness.  No one, Suloluv, no one.  You think?  You think it's no one behind that mask or raw flesh, which who wants to see that, really?  Good fucking Gods, Livvie, must be drunker than you thought, what's with the moping all of a sudden?

But that was the thing--about Noones--they liked the ones who could pretend to be Someones.  Liv knew Carras's charm for what it was, a telepathic manipulation.  But it was also such a seductive one.  The man was a good kisser, which helped--a bit of a bastard, which helped too.  Handsome in a faintly feminine way he found pretty fucking excellent.  Normally Liv lost himself, or poured his Noone, into himself.  He supposed Casey would do as a substitute self, for now.  Some shit like that, anyhow.

He pulled back to stare at Kav, spine rigid and the muscles of his back flexing themselves under the movement of his hands.  Eh, one-night stands, he'd be sour in the morning.  But it felt really good.  Well, whaddya want, true Liv love?  Don't exist, Sulo, it does not exist.  Cuddling, now, that was attainable.  Anyway, it was either Kav or self-service at this point.  He slid his fingers up the man's neck until his thumbs rested on the soft spots just beneath either side of his jaw, and tipped his head back, examining him curiously.  Those eyes.  Damn.  But there was something just a little--switched off about the telepath.  Missing, hidden... oh well, ideally he wouldn't cut Liv's throat at first opportunity.  That was it, that was the problem--he was used to being able to read people at least a little...

"Like I care what you do for credit.  Let's face it, you are entirely fucking enamored of me--"  He was going to move on to the 'your place or mine' riff, but realized, belatedly, that Kav was--not of his class.  And his mother would kill him if he brought a whore home.  His age notwithstanding, she still saw him as the fifteen-year-old he'd been when he'd left home.  "--and you can try to change my mind, but it may hurt.  You--not me."  He patted Kav on both cheeks, avuncularly, and grinned at him.  It was frighteningly hard to say no to him, and that bothered Liv a little.  All of his instincts were saying get up, leave, maybe kiss him one more time but you don't need this.  And then they said well... sex.  Is fun.  He's a clever guy, interesting, he'll give you attention, and, well... sex.  

He pulled back and slid sideways off of Kav, ready to key in a room rental on the order pad, but he stopped for just a minute and looked back at him, grin fading a little.  "Hey, you--"  For a split second his face was just blank need, or sincerity--you're a good guy, right or do you really like me or can I trust you or do I actually understand you or-- Whatever he'd been about to say vanished, and it was back to joking, skidding off a moment of sincerity into parodic turnaround.  "--does this mean I win, or you win?"

[Anonymous]

Kav watched with interested as Liv tipped his head back and scanned his face. He could guess a little of the other man’s frustration – in a way, they were both in the same boat. Both of them were used to being able to read people’s minds, and now neither of them could guess at the intentions of the other. It was strange feeling. Kav looked back at the Candidate as the other man scrutinised him. They said that eyes were the window to the soul, and Kav had, over the years, developed a knack of making his gaze perfectly blank and honest. There was nothing in his face to suggest that he was anything less than honest. But there was, if you looked just hard enough, nothing behind his eyes at all. Kav had a snake’s eyes, and he knew it.

Oh, he could make them look warm or seductive or friendly, but in reality they were always showing nothing. Nothing at all. He smirked at Liv’s words, glad that this one wasn’t going to run away from him because he was (in the eyes of a lot of people, at least) ‘soiled goods’. That would be such a shame, and would also require finding someone else to chat up and go through the whole process with all over again. He did raise a wry eyebrow, though – so Liv wasn’t up for anything other than being on top? An interesting guy, indeed. This one was going to be fun to play around with. Kav found himself almost regretting the fact that he would have to avoid him in the future – Liv felt like someone Kav would get on with very well indeed.

But, as ever, Kav pulled himself up short and forcibly reminded himself that getting on well with Liv – or, indeed, with anyone – was not something on the agenda. It wasn’t something he needed to be thinking about at all. He didn’t need any friends (it was too dangerous to be psychic and have people around you who knew it, in case the let slip to anyone who could be potentially dangerous), and still less did he need to put anyone like Liv in that category. He reminded himself sharply that this was a Candidate, a man who could very soon attain the rank of Pilot – and having someone like that know you were psychic was very, very dangerous.

For a moment he wondered if taking the man’s money was even a wise idea. Kav had noticed the little trick with the fire earlier, knew that Liv was dangerous that was even if he wouldn’t be a match in a fair fight. And Liv could do something to Kav which would undo everything he had been trying to do ever since he was a child – Liv could tell someone that Kav was psychic, and from then on it would be a slow descent into misery. But then Kav was distracted by the suddenly vulnerable look on Liv’s face, and it confused him.

What was he thinking in that pretty head of his? For a split second Kav worried that Liv would ask him a question which would require a lie from him – not because he had any scruples, you understand, but because Kav knew that Liv would probably be impossible to lie to. He would see through the words clearly, because one psychic could always tell when another wasn’t speaking the truth. But then the strange moment of tension passed, and Liv was joking again. “Never heard a of a draw, Sulo?” he asked, the smirk returning.

[Anonymous]

"Haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."  Liv grinned back and turned to the touchpad to finish his room order, flinging one foot into Kav's lap as a momentary distraction.  "Usually, when people beg for mercy, I tend to assume I've won."  When he was done, and the room number flashed at him from the little screen, he drew back and stood up, unfolding himself.  He hadn't drunk as much as he should have, but that was a good idea.  Alcohol could have sent his barriers into collapse, and while he was no longer, thank the Gods, under microscopic flogged-for-misdemeanors supervision back at the old ATC--fucking someone else over wasn't on his agenda.  Have to pencil it in for next week, just after coffee with the Devil and that other one.

Besides, it was a bit of a comfort, wasn't it--knowing Kav probably wouldn't do something horrible to the person who knew his secret.  Ideally he'd be clever enough to realize that it was just as dangerous a position for Liv--knowing about a psychic and failing to report him-- Not that whores weren't more trustworthy than most Pilots Liv knew anyway.  

"Come on, you."  His grin suggested the double meaning had been quite purposive.  Liv narrowed his eyes coquettishly and jerked his head to one side, fingers shoved through his own belt-loops.  Slowly, he backed out of the space between bench and table.  His first drink sat stickily melting in the middle, white whipped-cream foam and carbonation a small, sticky island in the middle.  Mood-killer, what?  Don't think about that, El-boy, you'd think you had feelings.  

He led the way up to their room, aware that the bartender smirked at him on the way up.  That one of his beer-bottles then exploded, heated to expansion, was actually an accident--or the old subconscious looking out for him, what ho.  They reached room 118 and Liv pressed his hand to the access panel, then turned to grab Casey by his shirt-tails, puling him forward by the hips.  He had to tip his head back just a little to reach eye-level--one of the reasons he preferred women, they were at least generally shorter, but it was fun to take his control issues out for a spin now and again.  Besides, there was that charm, and the planes of Kav's body were attractive in that tinged-with-jealousy way he found men attractive.  The jealousy made it more enjoyable somehow.  Perverse, as usual, he thought, not without a certain relish.  A little aggressive, just a wee bit violent, covetous.

Just as long as there was absolutely no doubt as to who fucked who.  Liv had gotten fucked over too many times already (ha, ha) to want to be the object of anyone's verb.

"Look at me."

He was tipping over into blood-pounding oblivion.  Words were comingling and there was an extravagant copulation of verbs and adverbs somewhere out there and he wondered if it was going to be one of those times, and it usually was, when he'd wake up and need to apologize for something.