Mateo
"Do not worry yourself. You have not disappointed me yet," Mateo assures Vesper with a catlike smile, the botanist tipping him a wink and swiftly palming the rest of the snapdragon back into his pocket as they settle in with their first dose of jewel-toned ecstasy. "And I daresay we ought to be feeling quite wonderful in the next five minutes. Just enough time to finish our drinks, no?" Reaching out to clink his glass against the other man's one last time, Mateo's negroni is gone far before those five minutes are up, and the combination of liquor and drugs on an otherwise empty stomach is just the kickstart to his night he's been looking for.
And Mateo doesn't know about Vesper, but for the botanist at least, the next few hours are a blur of euphoric sensation - cheeks that hurt from smiling, music so loud and low that the drumbeat of it climbs his legs and settles deep in his hips, the taste of sugar rims and liquorice and the sweetness of strangers' drinks on their tongues. Having traded the stained glass cocktail bar for the low, heady light of the more popular boulevards in The Silk Houses, Mateo remembers the crush of other bodies on a dancefloor shortly before he's called to snort a bump of something directly off the perfumed cleavage of a dear friend (or someone he'd met two minutes before, same difference), and then the night ramps up all over again.
Gods it feels good to be reckless and at home.
Reaching for Vesper an indeterminate length of time later - Mateo having ensured that he never leaves his Torcher friend behind in the bedlam, naturally - and with his thoughts like watercolours bleeding into an over-saturated canvas, the botanist draws them into the cool night air only a hop, skip and jump away from the infamous Mother Molly's. Her silks flutter in the breeze overhead and out of windows, and given that the chill breeze does absolutely nothing to start sobering him up, he gestures towards her invitingly open doorways. "Can I tempt you?" he purrs, not for the first time that night.
And probably not the last.
And Mateo doesn't know about Vesper, but for the botanist at least, the next few hours are a blur of euphoric sensation - cheeks that hurt from smiling, music so loud and low that the drumbeat of it climbs his legs and settles deep in his hips, the taste of sugar rims and liquorice and the sweetness of strangers' drinks on their tongues. Having traded the stained glass cocktail bar for the low, heady light of the more popular boulevards in The Silk Houses, Mateo remembers the crush of other bodies on a dancefloor shortly before he's called to snort a bump of something directly off the perfumed cleavage of a dear friend (or someone he'd met two minutes before, same difference), and then the night ramps up all over again.
Gods it feels good to be reckless and at home.
Reaching for Vesper an indeterminate length of time later - Mateo having ensured that he never leaves his Torcher friend behind in the bedlam, naturally - and with his thoughts like watercolours bleeding into an over-saturated canvas, the botanist draws them into the cool night air only a hop, skip and jump away from the infamous Mother Molly's. Her silks flutter in the breeze overhead and out of windows, and given that the chill breeze does absolutely nothing to start sobering him up, he gestures towards her invitingly open doorways. "Can I tempt you?" he purrs, not for the first time that night.
And probably not the last.
if anything could fall at all, it's the world that falls away from me
