WILD CARD.

JAX. twenty-six. nine. Nephilim & impostor. He was a wild animal, ruthless and spontaneous, unpredictable and flighty, as dangerous as a blade and as cold-hearted as death itself. He knew what he was. A monster. A beautiful fucking monster.

[killerangelsplot]

♕ 9 PM // RONDA ROUSEY BOXING GLOVES

[ronanalexander-blog]

It was to no avail that Ronan got to his feet, a simple clench of the jaw made it easy to tell that he was not impressed by the recent bid. He had money, but not that kind of money. He turned on his heels and carried himself over to the recent bidder and leaned against the wall next to him, “Listen, buddy,” He said lowly enough for just the two of them to hear as to not cause another disaster that Drew were to be involved in, “Those gloves belong to Drew and since neither of us have the money to outbid a million– how about we work something out in order for you to… hand them over to our little princess over there? I’m not much of a beggar, or a little bitch, but I’m sure she deserves them the most out of all of us here and I’d literally kill for them to be in the right hands.” 

[jaxandaces-blog]

        He’s surprised when he sees the lean form ambling towards him with evident purpose, but chooses not to show it, meeting the man’s intense black gaze with hooded eyes, corners of his mouth lifting slightly at the unexpected spheal. Although the stranger doesn’t seem the serious type, there’s a distinct sincerity to the words. It’s almost — touching. 

         “Well, buddy.” Keeping an eye on cake-girl, who he now presumes to be Drew, Jax turns just enough to address the other man. “I saved both your asses then. You really think I’d spend a million dollars on a used pair of gloves?” He lets the question hang for a moment before going on. “I know that girl. She can’t afford what she’s bidding, and I’m not the only one raising the roof. So what do you want? For me to hand her a million bucks?” He raises his eyebrows. “I don’t do that type of charity.” 

[killerangelsplot]

♕ 9:20 PM // SILVER SPANO XIII

[impishjacob-blog]

    Bids flew left and right, inching the price cautiously higher before a substantial offer was made, causing many - not just Jacob - to swivel around in surprise. At last, someone who was willing to play the game. Though judging by his stance, it seemed far from being just a game to him. Someone with money; Jacob’s favourite type of person - perhaps to make up for his own less than desirable pecuniary situation. Easing himself back into a more comfortable position, Jacob cast a quick glance at the silver vehicle before raising his card, barely caring about the consequences if no one placed a bid after him. “Three point five million? If we’re going to play like that, we might as well bring it up to five million.” Just how much would people be willing to pay for it? Testing the limits; that was where all the thrill of life came from.

[jaxandaces-blog]

          Who the fuck was this kid? Jax’s brow furrows in a perplexed delight at the sight of some twiddly-dee silver-spoon fed child, looking as smug as his hair. Nodding as if to say alright, I’ll play, he swallows his drink. “Let’s do a nice ten million then, yeah?” It was hilarity either way, competing or losing to this rich little beanpole; but if he had to choose, he’d take the former. At the end of the day, it was a damn nice car. 

[killerangelsplot]

♕ 7 PM // FREIDA KAHLO SELF-PORTRAIT

[aramintayaxley-blog]

Quietly seething in her seat was not how Araminta anticipated an evening at the charity auction to go. She couldn’t exactly punch Jax from across the room at a crowded venue as he made a countering bid against what she had already begun to consider as her painting. On top of that her boss had joined the bidding - Araminta was definitely not below stealing to get what she wanted. 

Knowing that the look that Jax had thrown her way was to gauge her reaction, she didn’t even attempt to refrain from mouthing a ‘fuck off’ in his direction. Clearly irked and preferring to verbally communicate her bid to stress this, Araminta lifted her paddle in the air. 

“One hundred thousand.”

[katerinamontenegro-blog]

Katerina had watched Araminta’s reaction along with Jax, an eyebrow raising at what was not said (but nonetheless mouthed). Her mouth curved into a pinched smile of amusement; a cat watching animals of no concern to her nip at one another. She had expected better decorum from Araminta, but there were greater concerns that vulgarity.

And she still wanted the piece. She raised her hand this time, speaking for herself:

“One hundred and five.”

[jaxandaces-blog]

     He weighs his choices as they flash before him. As expected, Araminta’s reaction is true to her character, a dramatic two words that make him lean back in his chair with laughter. He doesn’t notice Katerina’s bid, however, until her voice rises in lieu of an assistant’s signal - and as always, there is a skip in his thought, a brief pause in that feral, calculated jest that he often fell into. He doesn’t particularly care for the piece, art is to him as music was to a snake. Beguiling, but utterly false, unnecessary. As a rule, Jax doesn’t bother with the latter. But now he does, because he wants to see just how much his unnecessary is their desire.  “One twenty.” Casual.

[killerangelsplot]

♕ 9 PM // RONDA ROUSEY BOXING GLOVES

[ronanalexander-blog]

atlasarrington:

Fingers tingled anxiously once the stranger raised the bid once more, but she met his acknowledgment with a nod of her own. However, nothing would dare stand in the way between her and those exorbitant gloves. Opening her mouth to bid again, her intentions are interrupted when a familiar voice blares a higher figure from across the room. “Fuck, Ronan.” The curse causes her neighbor to startle, so she offers them an apologetic expression before searching the area for her best friend. She shot Ronan a confusing glance after her eyes find him, absolutely certain there was no possible way he had access to that substantial amount of cash. While Drew was appreciative of the fact he cared, she couldn’t allow him to do this for her when he was struggling financially just as much as herself. “Seven hundred thousand,” she called back quickly in response to Ronan’s outburst, her previous confidence level decreasing by the second once realizing how they were nearing the million dollar mark. 

When Ronan’s gaze met hers, he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders in attempt to seem as if he didn’t care about the consequences. He’d pick-pocketed and stole enough to at least afford one of these items, and since he could cross that car and puppies off his list, he was willing to go in on something Drew wanted– or more so needed. However, he had yet to count his ‘earnings’ of the night, “Eight hundred thousand!” He called out, even louder than before, waving the paddle obnoxiously in the air. People around him were annoyed. It was a given when Ronan was around, but he waved the piece of plastic with pride.

[jaxandaces-blog]

          If not for the random bout of commotion and his own desire for a reprieve from the elite, Jax wouldn’t have caught the situation. As it was, he was leaning easily against a back wall of the first floor, back against velvet, watching an old man nearly break his back in his eagerness to bid for some ancient felt hat. Then, a flick of the eyes, serpentine, and then they widen. “Holy shit,” he mutters under his breath after another minute of observation. Then, with the monotony of someone doing an unpleasant but necessary duty, he raises his paddle before his feisty little acquaintance has a chance to sell her soul for something so trivial. “A million.” He’s saving her ass. If she bids again, it’s her funeral. 

[killerangelsplot]

♕ 9:20 PM // SILVER SPANO XIII

[impishjacob-blog]

     He knew nothing about cars, but he knew everything about the words ‘Limited Edition’. He also happened to know exactly the type of competition that would arise from such an item and he had every intention to rile people up as much as humanely possible. It was a dangerous game to play, especially for someone who didn’t have the pockets to back him up, but who cared - certainly not him. Leaning back into his chair, he crossed his arms, pretending for a moment to assess the vehicle on display, pretending to know what he was doing (just like many of the other guests at the auction). Eyes squinting, left leg shaking… “I’ll start this off nicely with two point three million,” he declared finally, faking nonchalance, his British accent pronounced clearly for the entire room to hear.

              Let’s all just have some fun shall we?

[jaxandaces-blog]

      “Ah, there it is.” With a knowing smile, Jax straightened up from his previous position at a beautiful woman’s ear, and without saying goodbye, moved to the balcony to have a better view of the silver beauty onstage. Automobiles and the prospect of moving at a rate incomprehensible to most had always caught his attention with a morbid clasp, and gazing at the Spano for a brief moment as the first bids were made, he raised a hand casually in the air, imparting his bid to the assistant waiting against the velvet curtains. He was going to raise it substantially — it was better to establish a threat earlier than to wait for the small fish to take their bites  —  but then he thought: how much was that car worth? Five milllion? Ten million? “Three point five,” he finally intones, moving his gaze to the screen ahead where figures flash and change, a smirk already finding its way onto his features. 

[littleadalfieri-blog]

     For a moment, the little Adalfieri’s mind blanked as she searched for a cohesive answer; she could hardly tell him the truth, not when her father had so strictly forbidden her from ever mentioning it to anyone. “I don’t know,” Lucia admitted, her thoughts casting back to the firm ‘no’ she had received after asking to remove it. “The doctors haven’t mentioned anything about it yet.” Deception was far from something she was comfortable with and she wondered whether anyone would see through her lies. Though they weren’t exactly lies, only selected pieces of truth. “I’m not sure where my family is…” She swivelled around in her chair, sweeping her gaze across the throng of suits and gowns, searching for familiar silhouettes, only to find nothing. “I suppose my parents are already inside. I’m sure I’ll find them once I go in.”

[jaxandaces-blog]

       The moment of hesitation didn’t escape his notice, but it’s origin was unknown. Jax had never quite mastered compassion, both literally and in his false state, and so he had no indication of what was appropriate when it came to the realm of children, or those morphing out of that precarious state of life. Innocence. What a sickening concept in the midst of war. He almost felt badly for her, for her jaded father and insufferable brother, to be in the position they were in. It was far easier to be free, attached to no one and nothing. Alone. “You’re sure you’ll be alright?” Concern masks his lack of it. “I hope you don’t mind me leaving you then. Astrid wants a lowdown on the highlights of the evening before it begins, and you know how she gets.” He turns to leave, but after crossing some distance, as an afterthought, turns back and calls - “Good luck tonight!”

[katerinamontenegro-blog]

Her date is somewhere else, removed from her, on a path to get drinks for the pair of them that will be slowed down by the flirtation of other women and the occasional man – and in that interim of relative solitude, he managed to find her. It seemed to be one of Jasper Gray’s greatest talents. Her eyes turn over the whole of him, top to bottom, before returning to the sight below. When she speaks, it’s with her gaze fixed on the auction: “And you always make the most bleak assumptions, Jasper.” A pause, then the quirk of one side of her lips, the raise of her brows as she cants her head in amused consent. “– Albeit you’re right.” Silently, she raised her paddle, waiting for an attendant. “Though I still like to find some use for these things.” At the arrival of the assistant, she leaned over to whisper her bid on the object she didn’t want or need. 

Her bid arrived next through the mouth of another – a figure that, to the shock of the men below, doubled their previously promised amount.

“Dismantling ego, for one.” She smiled as punctuation.

[jaxandaces-blog]

    “Very little in this world is charitable.” Sweetheart hangs on his lips, an afterthought that he uses to soften blows and pad brambles - but it feels immensely bold to label such an exquisite being as anything but what she chooses, a boldness that he is yet to embrace. Wariness. It tinges the edges of his consciousness, unresolved, unacknowledged. His trigger finger still bears the imprint of her father’s last breath . And with the recurring thought of how utterly strange they were to one another, Jax laughs, releases the concern in the form of sound waves, incisors bright. Beneath the lies of his lips, they might compete with those of wolves. 

     “Does your date know how dangerous you can be?” It’s a casual question, posed in the wake of laughter, and perhaps that is why he doesn’t feel as if his envy is palpable. Cool eyes meet hers, and raising his own paddle, he doubles the new bid that the men had posed in response to the spike. “You know, I’d rather not give them the satisfaction of being beat by you. It’d be a compliment. The great and famous Kitty Montenegro, expending her amusement on insignificant, bickering men.”

[katerinamontenegro-blog]

-- TALK IS CHEAP ♜ KITTY + JAX.

[katerinamontenegro-blog]

She almost expected ash and debris to still cling to his muscles, highlighting his cheekbones and hair. It would have fit. But when Jasper answer the door, he was clean - corporeally, at least; his soul was likely still dark and scarred by blaze. And sin.

 His smile was curved like two sardonic commas, and even after he said her name, Katerina continued to feel as though they were a sign some other action or word was coming. 

“I wouldn’t consider this your inaugural visit.” Her tone had a musical quality to it that did not quite wrap around her words. With Jax behind her, Katerina appraised his apartment with sweeping gaze. A great deal of red and black. Fitting, for a suite at the Empire. She wondered if it had been this way when her father had gifted it to his (her) soldier. “Your place is… fitting.”

She raised only one eyebrow from her seating position on a lounging chaise overlooking the bar, but assented with an order: “Whiskey on the rocks.” Her father had taken it neat, but she didn’t have the tongue for that yet. Tides moves to the moon’s command, so Katerina remained silent and in place as Jax poured her drink, waiting for him to move closer physically or verbally before she gave him anything more.

[jaxandaces-blog]

       “To my tastes or yours?” The way she spoke, there was always another layer beneath the veneer, impenetrable, her thoughts, her being, the very standard at which she stood. “I’ve been told that it’s too dramatic. Anxiety-inducing, even. Then again, that was just Miles.” When Luca had given this place to him, it had been grey, neutral, that soothing array of indifferential sleekness that appealed to wide audiences and angered few. Jax had made it his own, intentionally or not; and despite his apparent carelessness, it was perhaps the place which best displayed the truth of him, these hidden darks and the soaring lights, washed with blood. He smiles once, briefly, as he hands the glass to her, his fingers brushing momentarily against hers. Intentionally or not, despite his apparent carelessness. As with all things. 

      He takes a seat opposite her, leaning back with this lounging, predatory grace that in any other environment might endanger him. They are not so dissimilar. Hers is an elegance imbued through years of control, beautiful discipline. His is one feral and restless, a purr that rumbles through the night. “Well. Tell me then. To what do I owe the pleasure? I know you’re not here to chat.” 

[littleadalfieri-blog]

     “I really should thank you again for saving me. The doctors said that I could come to this event, so I think that reassured my father.” His worries about her attending an event so soon after the previous incident had been repeatedly made known to her; emphasised again and again that if at any moment she felt weak, all she needed was to say the word before they would bring her home. But she was here for the auction and bidding at least once was definitely on her agenda. “I think it’ll most probably be by sight. I didn’t have time to look at the catalog yet. What about you?”

[jaxandaces-blog]

          “I was going to apologize for not doing the same for your wheelchair, but your new one looks like it’s holding up even better than the last.” He blinks at the excessive decoration that adorns the metal frame, before gesturing at Lucia’s leg with lighthearted commentary. “So. When are you getting that cast off?” He imagined that it was an unfortunate thing to be constrained in such a contraption...he would despise it. He does despise it, being contained within the boundaries set by another. “I suppose I’ll be making my decisions as they come. You never know quite what to expect at these things.” He tilts his head in question. “I think dinner’s about ready. Are you waiting for someone, or going in?”

[leonamai-blog]

Fingers curled around a flute of champagne, a faint smile gracing her face as she thanked the waiter with a murmur. One night off, she had told herself, it was just one night off. What harm could it cause? Besides, how was she supposed to decline charity and generosity? 

Her roaring heart ( bathed in the desire for ruination ) muted for the brief moment as she turned to the person beside her, striking up light conversation ( for the silence was apprehensive on a night like this ). “Anything caught your eye yet?” She asked, the jewels glinted at her throat beneath the grand chandeliers. 

[jaxandaces-blog]

       It was always slightly disconcerting, and extremely satisfying, to see the officers of his father’s ever-vigilant watch integrate themselves into society, not knowing that the people they walked among, smiled and admired with so much fervor, were the wolves in sheep’s clothing which they so pursued. There was a particular irony to it that never failed to amuse him, the epitome of this disillusionment. 

     “Quite a few,” he chirps in response, finding himself in an inordinately good mood tonight. The velvet animosity in the air is sustenance for his veins, buzzing through them, turning his eyes bright and his mouth sharp. “But I’ve learnt that its best to cast your bid when everyone else is finished with theirs.” And now he glances at Leona with a slight, jesting smile. “It eliminates the possibility of humiliation. Pride is a concept very important to us Grays. Go big or go home.” 

[rosaliefaulkner-deactivated2015]

           Click. Clack. Click. Her Louis Vuitton heels audible against the granite flooring of the Los Angeles Theater, the drifting focus on the sauntering female stiffened her shoulders rising a self-taught smile onto her tainted red lips. The attention she always seeks easily given by the sound of heels made Rosalie Faulkner feel alive - feel as if she is arms reached of the title of defining beauty and glory to the world. The wondrous taste of fame on the tip of her tongue causing cravings altered by the neurotransmitters of her system, it made her want more. Brush the tips of her fingers ever so slightly seconds to only snatch it all away.

           The sound of a voice breaking her concentration turned her head to look over her shoulder, a fainter smile creeping when connecting the voice to the face of the one and only, Jax. A guy she can have so much fun with; a guy she can finish the game with. He doesn’t know it, but he gave her so much to step closer to success. “Don’t act like we met just yesterday. I’m always doing good for the people.” Tilted head to the side, her dark hair cascaded over as she took closer steps to the male. “The question is why are you at the auction tonight? You never read off as an individual enamored with the buying for charity.”

[jaxandaces-blog]

        He maintains that stance of impersonal discord that he knows she so hates, features smooth, mouth curved in something terribly neutral as he watches her walk towards him, that vision of absolute divinity, made hellish only by the fallacies of her nature. Rosalie Faulkner, despite all her beauty, assumed wrongly - that the sky and stars and all the cosmos existed for her. They didn’t. He didn’t. And someday, not today, she would come to realize that. “What would the alternative be, Ros?” And he tilts his head, meeting her gaze boldly, displaying that lack of propriety that characterizes their relationship. With Miles still out of town, there was some leniency allowed for his little secret, but in this city, the walls had ears and the ceilings had eyes. They were never quite safe. 

    “Would you rather I take your arm,” and he reaches out to grasp her slim wrist, voice dropping to a level meant only for her to know, “and escort you in like we’ve been fucking for months?” Jax laughs and retracts his hand as quickly as it had come, turning and stepping away from Rosalie and towards the end of the hall, falsely warm and then genuinely, icily, cold. “It’s quite simple, sweetheart. I came to see, you came to be seen.” 

[killerangelsplot]

♕ 7 PM // FREIDA KAHLO SELF-PORTRAIT

[jaxandaces-blog]

aramintayaxley:

Araminta was never really interested in art works or forms. Whatever was deemed as suitable by Adriana or her publicist or some other big shot she would take to keep up appearances of the supermodel Araminta Yaxley. She didn’t believe that anything of worth came from fake, emotionless pieces of synthetic other than the need to show off or impress. And who did Araminta truly need to perform for? Besides her parents’ murderer; no one. Definitely not in a place she deemed as utterly staged as this charity auction itself.

Araminta almost laughed as the teddy bears went up for bidding. What else were they but glorified masses of wool and fur? She sighed in boredom and irritation, expecting the next item to be just the same, when her heart all but froze at the sight of the portrait displayed on the screen. Her eyes trailed from the thorns around the painter’s neck to the expressionless countenance of her face. The pain, the torture, the agony. Araminta lifted her paddle in the air, displaying an indifferent outward expression, while her eyes burned with intensity. 

“Sixty thousand,” she spoke. That portrait was going to be hers.

           He wouldn't have been aware of the next auction item arriving onstage if not for the gasps that arise about him. Pausing in his sardonic commentary, Jax glances towards the television screen on the wall opposite with disinterest; a disinterest that would be maintained if not for the unexpected voice that rises to his left. He glances towards it, and sees none but Araminta, passive, cold; yet willing to bid for the strange painting that has everyone twittering. 

        Her motives interest him far more than the auction itself, so he raises a hand with two fingers lazily in the air, calling out so that the auction assistants don’t need to come to him to take his bid. Those around him stare, wondering if they should make a bid after his. “Sixty-five.” And he shoots a look in her direction, partly to gouge her reaction, partly to make it known that he’s doing this only to irk her.  

[jaxandaces-blog]

sugarcoatedvixen:

“Oh my god, hi!” she gasped, throwing exuberant arms around the neck of the man whose shoulder she’d quite literally cried on outside the police station. “I won’t get mascara stains on your shirt this time, promise.” Pulling back, she gave the friendly face a smile. In their exchange she hadn’t even received the man’s name, but after sharing a moment she deemed so intimate, such formalities were irrelevant. “There’s, well, not a whole lot in my pockets to empty, but I’m an amazing window shopper.” Viva La Vida was her ticket to financial independence — or, that was the line that seemed to work best on Charlie — but the bills she brought home couldn’t possibly hope to outbid the likes of Hollywood’s elite. The opportunity to rub shoulders with them, however, was priceless.

          Oh my god is an appropriate reaction for the unexpectedness of the girl’s sudden movement, a throw and drape which Jax has the instinct to dodge from, but for propriety and to avoid a spill, endures. “You...seem recovered. Emotionally.” He responds to her wide smile with a slight curve of his lips, forced. “This might not be the best venue to window shop, sweetheart. You’re up against people with twenty million to spare.” The irony of the statement is that he himself has no bounds when it came to money. Wherever he threw it, it was replaceable; and so he cast it out with a degree of calculated abandon. “But the truth is,” he leans forward as if imparting a secret. “I’m hoping that things get ugly - it’s always more interesting that way. And it leaves room for our window-shoppers,” he glances at her mischievously, “to make their steals.” 

[jaxandaces-blog]

katerinamontenegro:

“The first bidding war of the night,” Katerina mused, jutting her chin to motion to the two rival bidders vying intensely for the same object. “I almost want to bid on the bidders themselves, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to withstand the irony.” She had lowered her voice conspiratorially in amusement, tacking to the end of the statement with raised brows at another thought: “– And I suppose it wouldn’t be entirely charitable.”

     Somehow, he had gravitated towards her again, as always; as always. Jax studies her with eyes cast in shadow as she speaks, he leaning upon the gilded banister that she so gracefully touches, an entirely different demeanor separating them. He looks over the expanse of bidders below, a crowd dressed in all the silk and chiffon of high society and those feigning it, but really, he would rather drink in her appearance to counter the past month’s dry spell than discuss the auction. “You always make the most profound observations, Kitty.” He responds with a voice light, open. “But you and I both know that the only charity these people come for is their own. Materialism, wrapped up and set out for the press.” 

[jaxandaces-blog]

littleadalfieri:

          “You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Lucia commented, her eyes flickering up to meet his. Her lips teased into a small smile and she shrugged; this event was not unlike the many others that the Adalfieri’s had a habit of attending. “It makes my father happy to buy me something and I see no harm in getting something I like, especially if it is for a good purpose.” 

       “Oh, no — not at all.” He dons his sharp tone for a smile that's soft, at the edges at least, one as fond as he can have for a girl that he saved from certain death. He has yet to reap the rewards of the feat, and if not for his confidence in their deliverance, he might growl instead. As it is, it would be in his best interest to treat the child with his gentler persona. “I’m glad to see you out and about after our less-than-ideal last encounter. Are you bidding by sight, or do you have your heart set on anything in particular?”

[jaxandaces-blog]

cortezia:

               That was certainly one way of putting it. Penelope had put aside nearly two months’ worth of cupcake funds in order to have spending money for the charity evening– she hadn’t really worried about the good of the world. Maybe the good of whoever got to keep the money, because they’d sure get to buy a lot of cupcakes. She shrugged. “No.” Realizing how mean the answer sounded, she quickly added, “Not that I don’t want the world to be good– ay, dios–  I guess the answer’s yes.”

      He raises a brow at her indecision, a form of amusement glittering in his gaze - not entirely unkind, but not definitively kind. Rather, there is a meanness that streaks through him like paint on a canvas, internalized or not; it becomes all the brighter in the presence of innocence. “Don’t guess when it comes to morality, Penelope.” And he shifts his stance, glancing down at her with a sense of superiority that rises of its own accord. “Be confident. We can’t afford to be wishy-washy when things start to matter, can we?” Then, as if realizing himself, Jax shifts like a creature from dark to light, suddenly dropping all allusions. “So. Anything special in mind? Seen the auction list yet?”

[tvdiariesdaily-deactivated20151]