[Blind Date] Church & Syrup

Date’s so far weren’t going to Church’s expectation, in truth, but perhaps he was setting his bar too high on the whole blind date to find the one to spend matentines thing. It’s not like he was expecting some kind of prince charming figure right out of the novels he liked to read, between a glass of red wine and whatever sweet treats his clients had thoughtfully brought with them. But there at least had to be something there, right? Some kind of spark. They didn’t have to be a real lothario, or some rugged handsome type Church knew he was in trouble when their eyes met from across the bar. They just had to make him feel something. Anticipation, excitement. That honey smooth afterburn of a good whiskey, or the heady draw of premium cigarettes. Inhale interest, exhale desire. 

Or something.

It’s another night, and yet another evening where he steps into the appropriate red light. One which had haunted his stomping ground long before lust had gripped burrowgatory in a fever pitch. Still it’s appropriate, and he takes a moment to adjust the elaborately patterned corset currently cinching his waist into a near-impossible silhouette, and then his make up in the window, waving clawed fingers at the Bell’s inside who caught him in the act. The venue tonight is slightly skewed toward more upper bracket individuals. The last one had been in a quaint little hole in the wall where the gimmick had been finding one another in a crowded room, and he wasn’t about to talk about that experience. Or how his heart had done something terrible like sag against his ribcage, beside itself. 

Lined floor to ceiling with candles and flowers, and gauzy drapes that should realistically be some kind of fire hazard, he’s shown to his seat and presented a menu he takes with a grateful expression. He’ll need whatever’s strongest on the menu, he feels like, just in case. 

“Should I do pants or a mini tonight?” Syrup asks, leaning forward over his own vanity to tap a powder puff coating in a more than generous amount of pale makeup over his face. His egghel beside him, as it often does, says nothing. Syrup pulls the puff away long enough to look down at the pastel creature, one eyebrow raised. Slut does its best to rock side to side in its shell but otherwise offers nothing. The bun huffs, brings his puff down, and is moments away from tapping the imp on the face with it. The only thing that saves Slut from a milky white powder coating is it dropping its head down  and pulling the top of its shell with it closing the creature off into a striped pink and white oval with a blue tail angrily swishing behind it. “What do I even keep you around for…” Syrup grumbles.

He drops his puff back into its makeup tray, grabs a lipgloss wand, and spreads a base of shimmery clear sticky stuff across his lips. It gives them just a hint of plumpness from the light catching the gloss. Perfect. Of course, egghel contribution or not, Syrup is fully aware what garments he’ll be wearing tonight. He selects a pink miniskirt, shimmies his legs into it and pulls the tight fabric around until a heart shaped cut out is sitting not on his hip as intended but slightly to the side and over his stomach, showing the shine of his glass torso in the opening. He pulls a sheer blue top over his shoulders, one that flows and drapes at the hem, obscuring his thin silhouette just enough to make his form mysterious. After a careful smattering of jeweled tiered necklaces and earrings and making sure the dermals tucked on either side of his collarbone were nice and clean, Syrup slips into his usual smoke-filled heels and trots from his burrowpartment. 

As he often does, Syrup has only one goal for the evening: A meal, a bed at the end of the night, and someone easy to schmooze out of a few hundred carats or so. Thankfully, matentines in the burrow makes his life of selling his body and company exceptionally easy. All he needs to do is bat his lashes and roll over to show his soft sensitive underside. Needless to say, when he arrives at the destination and finds it decked from ceiling to floor in opulence, he’s more than excited for the night and luxury that is bound to fall directly in his lap. He is not, however, excited about how the hostess asks him to put his cigarette out to avoid catching the decor on fire. He drops his coat on the bun in charge of stashing them, huffs in a horrifically inconvenienced way, and flounces along to find his seat.

Syrup is delighted to find his date already there and waiting. When he’s offered his own menu he denies it with a flick of his fingertips, takes a scoot closer to the bun waiting for him, and places his manicured nails on the edge of the menu they’re looking at.

“Mind if we share~? They’re all out of copies…” he lies.

He’s not sure what to expect, when it comes to who his mystery date is for the evening. Church has a type, naturally. He likes them tall and strong, and just a little bit mean. It doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t enjoy different flavours, he’d be out of a job if he couldn’t find something appealing about anyone and everyone who came through the door. A palatable palette got you far in life. Carats, jewels, clothes, everything really. 

His own room was a testament to the tried and true method. Cluttered, gleaming and expensive. 

The little bit of commotion that comes his way, draws peculiar eyes away from the lengthy list of Matentines themed drinks to settle on the Bun who had come his way. Taking them in from the shape of their pointy heart horns to the cut of their outfit, and the teasing reveal of the glass beneath. Giving away something without revealing it all, he could appreciate that. Half of his outfits on stage were similar, at least until the layers started coming off. Keep them keen and on the bit. Not a bad start at all. Church’s tail curls lazily around his furred ankle, and lets a smirk curl on to his lips as his chin rests atop jeweled knuckles. In time to the Bun scooting in and closer to him, nails tapping against the laminated card. Pushing said menu between them with a long, manicured nail of his own, filed to a purposeful point. Made to leave marks on whatever it touched. “Normally I ask for a name before I share anything.” He teases. “But for you I’ll let it slide.”

Syrup brings his opposite hand up to his mouth, touching his lips with his nails as he forces a dainty and delicate laugh. He feels a ripple of disgust through him at just HOW low and fake he’ll make himself be for a meal or five. Syrup would consider himself pretty damn far from dainty, but rich buns in the burrow love when their arm candy is delicate and wafer-like. He sweeps his eyes down to admire the man in front of him, with a particular focus on the amount of adornments through his ears and the golden loops on his horn. If this bun wasn’t rich, he certainly did an amazing job lying about it. Somehow, between layers and corsets and a regal aura coming from this bun, Syrup feels like he still looks like a scantily clad and low class rentboy next to him. He likes that about himself.

“Just for me?” he hums, swaying in so his side brushes against Church. His own tail sways a lazy pattern beside him, the glass bauble on the end shifting in the extravagant lighting in the room. “Well. Just for you - I’ll let you call me Syrup. Give me your name and I’d love to hear what else you’re interested in sharing. I’m sure I can find a way to squeeze into this seat with you,” Syrup snorts. He’s joking. He’d sooner be caught with his skirt down in public than sit in someone's LAP in public.

Wasn’t that the truth. The Rich Elite had a taste for the delicate, or, Church had come to recognise it for what it was underneath the layers. The fantasy of corruption — or at least, an adjacent feeling one got when they rubbed their dirty fingers on white linen — he'd had to laugh a time or two about it, tongue firmly wedged in his cheek. If they wanted something like that, they’d have a better time trying to lure one of those sweet little cherubuns into a spot of roleplay. Poor things might combust after 90 seconds, but at least they’d get their kick. 

“Syrup.” He repeats, as if testing the weight of it against his tongue, rolling it between his teeth. His own voice velvet and candle wax, with the sort of edge you’d expect a filigree knife to possess. “Got a story to go with that name?” All names had stories, maybe he was projecting, given that all his friends and including himself, hid behind a dozen names rather than their true one. As for his own, “It’s Church, and no, I don’t do confessionals for free.” He muses with a dry note, like he’s heard the joke a thousand times before, and while he can laugh at it, doesn’t mean it’s with the person on the other end of the line. “As for sharing, if you give a little, you’ll get a lot.” 

He might’ve commiserated, if he’d have known what was going through Syrup’s head. Better indecent exposure than an expose on intimacy. Still, he lifts a hand and gestures for the waiter to come over with a crook of his fingers. “So, what will it be for this evening?” 

Syrup drops his fingers to his stomach. He pushes up the fronds of his shirt to touch the glass bottom of his torso and taps his nails against it. They make a musical tinkling sound as they bounce off, echoing just around their little bubble of privacy. “Plenty of stories. Unfortunately, only people who let me go home with them get to hear those.” A delighted little ripple travels up his spine at the way Church’s voice blankets him. His tail wiggles with it, shifting up the body of appendage. One more scan over the menu and Syrup finally steps away from the doll, lifting one leg up to tuck his knee into his own seat, slide it down, and sit atop that thigh. One leg dangles from the front of his chair. He bounces it, almost impatient.

“Oohh… Alright, Church,” Syrup whispers. He leans forward, both elbows propped against the table in front of him with his hands curled under his chin. His lashes are pale, matching the white and blue shimmer of his hair. He bats them, of course, as any good flirt does. “Let’s make a deal, then. You pay for my dinner, and I’ll pay for your confessionals. Doesn’t that make us even?” He smiles. His teeth are yellowed from his cigarettes, but one is stamped with a heart shaped smattering of jewels, a new form of decoration that is all the rage in the burrow these days. “I’ll take a fauxbster tail, risotto, and a full glass of sherry.”

It’s a hook if he’s ever heard one, and a good one at that. Something that’d get someone on the bit and eager. The dangling carrot of a what if. “I can appreciate a good chase.” Keeping his sweetened, honey poured over ice lilt in his voice. Stacking his mental deck with careful deliberation and thought. He’ll take a cat and mouse game over stilted conversation and awkward side glances. While he’s adaptable and flexible, and not above a little work, there’s something about having to all but drag someone by the metaphorical reins over the finish line. 

Syrup uses his name, and Church’s ears twitch out of instinct, whip like tail unfurling from his ankle to curl lazily over itself. Imitation smoke against the dark leather of the seat. “A deal?” And he chuckles, because he can’t help himself. Could be a dangerous game to play, but his cards are stacked, so why not. “Tempting.” Moves to un-pocket his cigarette holder and gilded cigarette folder, pulling one from it’s clip and setting it neatly into place. Keeping Syrup in his peripheral vision, taking note of the jewel that sits in his teeth. Accessories told a lot about a bun, just as much as their clothes did. “I’ll bite. Dinner for a confessional.” 

The waitress looks like she wants to complain about the decor and Church’s lit cigarette being a potential hazard, but thinks better of it, and instead scribbles down Syrup’s order without much fuss. “The fauxbster as well, pearl couscous with a glass of gin.” Once she’s disappeared, Church exhales smoke lazily from his nostrils in dry amusement. “So, back to those stories.”  

Syrup fills his mouth watering - and not for the promise of a meal, a body to lay with, or a night wrapped up in “confessionals”. His eyes are fixated on the holder that Church retrieves, the fancy gilded clip and all, and the cigarette that slots right into the holder made for it. Damned little addiction sticks they are, the nagging feeling of need pricks at the base of his head, threatening to begin kicking up an awful ache if he doesn’t indulge in his own wants right now. The idea of a golden clip and fancy holder to keep the burning end away from his fingers is far too sophisticated for a man like Syrup, though, who makes most of his living parading around and pretending to live the life of a sophisticated and well mannered bun. There’s words he’d use for himself that would make half of the patrons in the establishment this evening gasp in awe - but they fit much more snug than sophisticated.

He keeps an eye on the waitress, mouth and gaze flat as he judges for some terse expression or a motion to tell Church to put out his smoke. When she makes no such motion, Syrup reaches into his bag, pulls out a plain red and green box of bun-branded menthols, tucks the filter end into his mouth - and leans himself across the table quite presumptuously. Instead of ‘kissing’ Church, he merely leans in so the tips of their cigarettes touch, pressing the end of his into the glowing orange embers of his companion’s until he can drag a long breath in, carry the heat upward, and ignite his own smoke. He sits back, smug as hell, and allows the smoke to billow around his tongue. 

“Let’s see… Oh~ You’ll never guess what a few fashion designers around town like to get up to in their spare time…”