he won’t rest ‘till he’s dead – anso’s sure of it.
his hand doesn’t shake as he lifts the lighter, flame catching quick – burning bright, in the dark cover of the night. the dark canvas of the night sits too tight around him, so he rubs the pad of a roughened thumb along the engraving on the casing. one time, two times, three times, four – - lithe fingers pluck off the cig from his lips as he leans the long column of a throat bare to exhale, eyes fluttering shut.
anso’s just gotten off a gig, if that much isn’t clear from the swanky way in which he’s dressed up. all the rich bitches like their men so pretty, want them to bark low and bite hard. he loves playing the caricature of it. ( funny how the hair never tips them off. what trust fund kid walks around with brassy hair for a chance? he’d think his reputation would get ahead of him, but the perpetrators of it never live long enough to kiss and tell. ) his gaze is serpentine by nature, it opens slow and sharp again as he straights his head, tilts his jaw this way and that until he hears the satisfying crack of bone settling into place. he drops the cigarette, barely flushed – crushes it under the heel of a clean, black shoe that goes along with his all black suit ( shirt, tie, and all – ) before leaning off of the car he’d taken for the night. like he said, the gig was swanky. funny though, she bled all the same. all that money didn’t make the blood any thicker.
he moves across the street and into the private lot, quiet as a shadow. he knows his way around here well enough given the fancy he’s taken to this particular object of affection. it’s not common that anso stays – - he gets bored easy, pretty little things only keep his attention for so long. ( they all have the same necks to snap, the same breaths to catch – pretty little things always break and anso doesn’t have the patience for the way they grate on his attention, his time. they’re never worth their weight in blood. ) the jury’s still out on why he sticks around for bennett, but maybe it has to do with the glory of having shao ye under his cull. ( wouldn’t the streets just love to know how the great shao ye gets on his knees for some street rat from nowhere? ) or maybe it’s because he breaks so pretty under him, splinters along the edges and lets anso leave him there to fall apart.
anso doesn’t think too hard on it.
it’s not like him to bother knocking, and at the call of the voice – anso doesn’t plan on bothering again. he keys in the code and lets himself in, shuts the door behind him and doesn’t bother to keep it quiet. the black shirt he has on, expensive as shit, nestles on a cut on his chest that’s sputtering away a slow bleed – but you can’t see it through the shade of it. his steps take that of a prowl, body breathing big into the space he’s grown accustomed to with all the trysts that’ve accumulated into this affair. anso’s in the mood for a celebration with an easy hit off his mark and a big payload waiting in his bank account. it seems, so is bennett.
he moves into the light of the room without much of a formal greeting, heads straight for the liquor cart to pour himself a drink. there’s something languid in his moves – like he’s putting on a show. ( and well, isn’t he? ) he only tuns to eye bennett properly once he’s got the drink in his hands, leans behind him and takes a burning sip of what his glass holds. he waits there, let’s his gaze, the silence, and the burn of the amber on his tongue settle. and then he’s moving again, taking another long pull from his glass as he moves to come to a stand in front of him. when anso leans over bennett to sit his glass down, he takes his time pulling back, hands reaching to loosen the tie around his own neck when he straightens.
“you win big today?” he says, words low, smirk on his lips – high. his head tils; anso considers bennett then, tongue darting out to trace the seam of a wet lip. “sitting all pretty for it – preenin’. musta made him eat shit.”
he watches, gaze careful and trained on the man who maneuvers through his apartment as if it is his own. bennett has always been drawn to arrogance, perhaps due to the similar nature which careens through his own blood. it drips off bennett’s pores, viscose like honey, shimmering like gold dust. his father is the law, the jurisdiction. a man with no time for his son, but a reputation which gleaned like the north star on particularly clear nights. bennett has never wished for his father, never wished for a bond with the man who birthed him. affection and kind words he thinks, are the playground of the poor. in a power hungry household: the promise of a dui being kept quiet, or incidents of reckless driving going unnoticed once a name is mentioned is how families show love.
they are ruthless in their desire for power, for greed; fingers itching to create a perfect family portrait even if the reality differs. there’s one hanging in the zhu home, far away from the house bennett has curated for himself. it makes them seem perfect: no matter his father is a dirty cop in a high position, his mother is addicted to painkillers, and bennett is the leader of a small time gang. one which races faster than life should allow. the name zhu is enough for most of law enforcement to turn a blind eye whenever they see bennett’s face as a car window rolls down, pulled over for driving over the limit.
“ left him in the fucking dust with his shitty firebird. ” bennett had nearly howled with laughter when he’d seen the clown pull up in the camaro, sans modification. bennett has nothing against vintage cars, in fact his first car was a pontiac ( smuggled from the mainland under the guise of a police vehicle ). what he does have a problem with is nasty little fuckers, not unlike the one he raced against today, rolling up in their nonmodified cars and thinking a brand will be enough to give them an in into bennett’s crew. “ the little fuck thought he could take me on without modifications, fucking cock sucker. shoulda run his damn car off the cliff. ”
anger simmers, restrained, in bennett’s veins. everything about him is restrained: from the way his veins in his forearms flex, to the tightening of his jaw. so he shifts his attention; there is no use getting angry here; with anso in his apartment, on his couch, drinking his liquor. he isn’t shào ye here; he is simply bennett. and bennett has missed anso, sorely; even if he won’t admit it. a hand reaches forward, duly undoing the rest of the tie and tossing it behind the couch.
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