Silently, Dominic was dismayed by the disappointment that welled in him when Gene said they wouldn\'t go, especially since it was fairly swiftly followed by a rising sense of hope when \'maybe\' was uttered. He was pathetic. Saying one thing and feeling another was tantamount to lying and really not his style... except when it came to vampires, of course. He\'d done it all when it came to being with them; lying, cheating, double-crossing, slandering, everything short of breaking laws (and that wasn\'t guaranteed, since there\'d been occasional drugs and the shenanigans that resulted from them when he was younger). It was pretty sad that he was still surprising himself with how weak he really was.
"Nah, man, it\'s not that," he assured Gene hastily, settling a little closer so that he could expand on his story - although the noise level in the room had grown steadily stronger as the young and funky crowd got off work and decided to stop in before they left the city or moved elsewhere to party that night. His right elbow was on the table, his beer grasped loosely between the first two fingers of his right hand and his middle finger used for leverage when he wanted to drink. Alternatively, his left arm was on the table, mostly parallel with his broad chest and his left hand was dangling off the edge towards his lap. He was casually positioned but his gaze was intense as it held Gene\'s, not noticing the crowd forming in the vast room or the gazes landing longingly on their unused pool table.
"I always had a good time at Risk. It\'s a great bar - though you don\'t go for the alcohol drinking, a beer\'s like twenty bucks or some shit," he snorted derisively. "Even though it\'s called Risk, everybody knows what\'s what and you pretty much get what you went for. The vamps are there shopping as much as us dicks, so you can have quite a bit of fun playing around. Once you find what you like, it\'s nothin\' to, like, just get drunk from out in the open, in one of the booths," he told his companion enthusiastically, swinging his beer as if indicating imaginary seats in a bar, giving a considering shrug.
"If not, there\'s these private areas where, believe me," he laughed, his grin turning sexy and filled with entendre, "anything goes on. It\'s pretty much a fantasy playground, where you can hook up on the spot, get your kicks, go home happy," he summarised brightly. Of course, he hadn\'t set foot in the place since he\'d met up with Lazarus again over two years ago, so he had no idea how it had been refurbished. The more he talked about it, though, the more he liked the sound of ending their night there; he had a wingman, the night was young and he was getting quite chirpy enough on the beer to believe everything would be fine and easy should they go to Risk. No hassles, no problems, a drink, a fuck and they could roll home happy.
"Or, in my case, you end up in some funky-accented guy\'s art studio, fucking the vamp that took your virginity while the accent vamp makes a statue of the two of you then joins in, while your boyfriend\'s at home waiting for you, completely ignorant to what you\'re doing - yeah, I was that guy," he sighed, cringeing at his own poor behaviour. "And you just end up wishing you\'d never been tempted to head back into Risk in the first place," he admitted, the beer loosening his tongue quite a bit.
Before Gene could put together Dom\'s hazy description of Orias and perhaps comment on what he\'d said, a man walked up beside them and paused by their table, saying, "Gene," in a friendly enough way. Dom frowned as he turned to look the guy over, feeling a little put out at being interrupted and not particularly loving the happy-discovery type of way Gene\'s name had been spoken, but anything he might have said died on his tongue when he got a look at the guy. He recognised a vampire when he saw one. Wordlessly, he looked the guy over, then turned back to Gene to gauge his reaction.
Standing there in his usual getup of jeans, black boots and a black button-up shirt made of a thick, heavy material, Sam was also watching the mortal for his reaction, a hopeful half-smile on his handsome face. His head was tilted slightly, his hair having been scooped to one side as he spied the blonde and walked up to him. He\'d returned to the bar numerous times since meeting Gene here, always hopeful he\'d catch him again but not really expecting it - he almost didn\'t believe his eyes when he\'d walked in a minute ago, surveyed the place and spotted him.
Feeling tingly with surprise and anticipation, he\'d tucked the fingertips of his right hand into his front pocket and squeezed his way through the crowd to Gene\'s table. He\'d glanced at the other mortal with him when he\'d got there, but dismissed him when he realised he didn\'t know him. It didn\'t matter, though. He\'d finally found the one he\'d been looking for after all these weeks.
