There's a place like this in every city, several if the city's big enough. It's that one narrow street, long and crowded and dim but for the neon lights advertising drinks in the dark windows of shady-looking bars. What isn't bars and crowd is unlit shops with metal bars over the windows or roll-down shutters.

It's late enough that the crowd is reduced to a few people milling aimlessly around, as everyone else has gone home or gone inside the aforementioned bars. Ceanady is one of those milling around. He's been kicked out of not less than two clubs tonight, once for fighting and the second because of ID issues. He doesn't look legal, not really, despite being over thirty. He looks like an angry, rebellious teenager - he's dressed mostly in black and leather, has jet-black hair in floppy spikes, too-thick eye makeup ringing bright red eyes, and dark lipstick. If it weren't for the obstinate set to his jaw, he might be mistaken for a girl.

There's a faint smile on those dark lips. Being kicked out of two bars in one night isn't enough. He's looking for fun.

Mort looks sober in more ways than one.
In a more relaxed individual, one might describe his long coat and high boots as some kind of 'alternative' style, but on him it looks...almost puritan, but for the square-framed glasses and rather fluffed-up hair (he's been growing it out to hide his antennae better).
He definitely can't get into any clubs, raising the question of what he's doing here in the first place.
To sum it up succinctly, he was wandering and stumbled into this area by mistake.
He is now walking around and turning about himself at intervals rather nervously.
Drunk people bother him.

Ceanady's not drunk, but he might as well be. He never curbs his behavior, drunk or sober, so there's little difference between those states aside from the clarity of his speech and precision of movement.

He approaches from the side, his legs going one way while his face is turned to another. He almost bumps into Mort, but at the last second stops short and grabs hold of the boy's sleeve.
"Hey, kid." There's a too-bright grin on his face, and his eyes gleam eerily. "You look lost."

"Uh..."
Aw, look. He's flatlining.

Ceanady is scary.

"N...no, um, no! I know exactly where I am!"

Aha, Ceanady thinks. A first-timer, a kid who's come out just to say he's been here.

He gives Mort a knowing look, and a wink, and slides a curiously light yet strong arm around his shoulders.
"Well, if you've come here on purpose, you must know that you've come to the right place." Lightly, he runs a finger along Mort's jawline. With the other hand, he fishes a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and offers them. "You smoke?"
Corrupting minors? Him? Never.

He wrenches away, taking a measured step back.
"I ended up here by accident, but I know where I am..." he explains, a hand to his face where Ceanady touched him.
"Yeah." he takes a cigarette.

He shakes another cigarette out of the package and tucks it between his lips, then takes out a lighter and holds it out to Mort. No use in an unlit cigarette.

"Hey, whatever the reason, you're here," he replies, unfazed, the little cancer stick bobbing as he speaks. "Make th' most of it. Lookin' for fun? Betcha I can find you something."

"I'm really not." he lights it, and there's a pause while he inhales.
"I was just taking a walk."

"Sure?"
Ceanady is mildly disappointed. The kid looked like he might be up for something.
"That's a waste." He lights his own cigarette, and his eyes seem to glow as he takes his first drag. "I mean, coming all the way out here for no reason."

He has decided he will make this fun.
For him at least, if Mort won't play along.

"Well, I didn't have anything better to do anyway..." gesturing with his cigarette, he waves vaguely.
"So I'll just be moving along now. Thanks for the smoke."

"Nuh-uh. No you don't."
In the blink of an eye, he's circled behind Mort and has one hand clamped on his shoulder, and his chin resting neatly on it.
"You don't get to go that easily. C'mooooon. I'll show you a good time, I promise."

"Get off of me!" Mort's voice comes out as a squeak, and the cigarette is dropped, forgotten as he tries once again to run away.

Ceanady chuckles and loops his arm around Mort's neck, not tightly enough to choke but not loosely enough for him to escape.
"Chill, kiddo."
He pulls back towards a dim section of sidewalk, and - yes, I think this is gross, too - runs the tip of his tongue down Mort's cheek, as if tasting him.

Mort gibbers for a moment, eyes wide with terror, and then he starts thrashing anew.
"Let me go! I'm warning you, let me go or else!"
Hastily, he begins to take his shields down.

"Or else?"
Ceanady tightens his grip around Mort's neck to keep him from getting away. This 'or else' option sounds interesting.
"Or else what?"
It could be fun. Maybe Mort's going to hit him? That could be fun. He could go for a good fight, to get his blood moving (figuratively speaking) and make him feel more alive.

Mort, still struggling, attempts to blast him.

He doesn't actually know how, though, so it's more a matter of dropping his shields and letting fear take over.

This is certainly an interesting 'or else'.
Ceanady's arm closes spasmodically around Mort's neck, and his whole body stiffens and seems to vibrate for the duration of the blast. By the time it's passed, he's paler, almost translucent, but hasn't given up any of his strength.
"That tickled," he says fiercely. "Nice try."

There's really nothing else to think but damnit, and nothing else to say but "Nnngh..." because while you're passing out in the arms of a frightening, belligerent, vaguely androgynous person who just licked you, they're the first things that come to mind, and because you are lapsing into unconsciousness, there's no time to come up with anything better.

"Hey."
Ceanady loosens his hold - just a little. Mort's fast becoming just a dead weight.
"Hey?"
...
Not gently, but not with unnecessary violence either, he drops Mort to the ground, then drags him by his coat to the nearest wall and props him up against it. He sits back on his heels and, frowning intently, pokes the boy in the face.
"Hellllooo, earth to whoever you are. Wake up."

A few minutes later, Mort stirs, batting weakly at Ceanady's hand before opening his eyes.
He winces when he sees that the freak-thing-person is still there, shrinking back against the wall.
"Leave me alone."

Ignoring Mort's plea, Ceanady leans closer and demands, "So. So how'd you do that?"
He felt it. And it was exhausting, whatever it was.
...Now, one can't expect Ceanady to just sit and do nothing while waiting for the kid to come around. He (for lack of any better word) did a little investigating, and said investigating turned up something odd - namely, antennae. He's parted Mort's hair to see them better, and now he flicks one with a fingernail.
"Was it these? I mean, it wasn't a tazer."

The antenna jerks upwards, and Mort makes a face half fear and misery and half disgust.
"None of your business. Screw off."

Wow.
He's way out of it.

"Oooh, someone's touchy."
He grins, and repeats the action to see if the antenna-twitch is a reflex.
"Seriously. How'd you do it?"

"Stop it." It flicks again.
He's very, very, very tired. So tired, in fact, that he's more irritated than afraid. He wants Ceanady to leave him alone so he can sleep again.
"I don't know how I did it. Why didn't it work?"

Hee. It moved.
He does it again.

"Damned if I know." He shrugs a shoulder and draws back his hand. "It was some kind of shock, right? ...Sometimes stuff doesn't work on me like it does real people. This might be one of those things."

He bats at the hand again, flattening his antenna against his head.
"...real people?"

Great. It's a not-normal-person-thing. Just what he needed. He tips his hand back against the wall, groaning in frustration.

"Yeah. Like,... I dunno. You're real. Not that I'm not, it's just I'm not exactly the same kind of real..."
He waves a suddenly transparent hand in front of Mort's face.
"Y'see?"

"You're a ghost?"
Just let me go home now...

"Uhhh...I dunno."
He shrugs and looks through his hand at Mort.
"Sort of, I guess... Actually, yeah, that's pretty accurate. Heh. 'Ghost'."
Ceanady grins and gives his head a quick jerk, indicating the antennae.
"What are you, then? Or are those things just some really weird mods?"

"Mods...?"
Deep breath. He shakes his head.
"I'm...I guess I'm Fae."

"Yeh, mods. You know. Like... surgery to make you look different? They can do all sortsa things now. Sharpen your teeth, point your ears, that sort of thing."
He tilts his head to one side and gives Mort a strange look.
"Really? Fae? You totally don't act like it." And putting down a set of behaviors to an entire race is not wrong at all. "Don't look much like it either. Are you sure?"

"That's what everybody calls me." his hand drifts to the base of one antenna, fingering the ring-shaped scar.
"I wouldn't know."

"Oh. So you could be something different, then?"
He'll stop this line of questioning in a minute. Knowing what people are is not nearly as interesting as what they can do.
"Heh..." Ceanady chuckles softly, leaning forwards. "You're funny. Think about it. You're Fae and a bug-zapper all in one. Useful, don't'cha think?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"
Ugh.
Time to go.

He lurches to his feet (or tries to; who knows how far Ceanady will let him get), making another bid for freedom.

Ceanady just...follows, chattering away.
"Well, if you ever decide to do yourself in, you're all set. Some fae are like these glittery wingy things, like bugs, and you've got those head-things, so you're sort of like a bug, and you can do that shock-thing, so you're like a bug-zapper. See?"

"Then why am I not dead yet?"
Stupid.

"How should I know?"
Ceanady playfully shoves him.
"Have you tried to zap yourself?" he asks, curious. "I wonder if that'd work..."

He stumbles, almost falling, and turns back towards Ceanady, his expression pleading and fearful.
"Please just let me go home."

He flings his arms out,feigning a hurt look.
"Am I stopping you? Huh?"
No, of course he isn't.
He's just tagging along and being a pain in the neck, that's all.

"Don't follow me!"
He turns around and starts walking again.