Tatter is feeling just a little guilty. Well, quite a lot guilty, actually.

The crush of bodies on the dance floor and the alcoholic buzzing in his brain are serving to numb this undesirable emotion. After all - as he thought time himself sometime halfway through his third drink - he hasn't actually done anything wrong.

The only thing is this. He's supposed to be looking for a girl. And it's not like he doesn't want to find her or anything. But if he was really comitted to the search, he wouldn't be in the Warehouse. It's about the least likely place to find a girl of seventeen - and that is, in all probability, why he's there.

He's not dancing with anyone. More dancing with everyone in the near vicinity, pushing up against one body and then spiralling away to someone else.

Tatter glows and sparkles under the lighting. His hair is loose, chunks seperated from the red-gold mass with those bright metallic ribbons that people put on gift-wrapped presents and his face is covered with a thin film of silver glitter. The ribbons are tangled up with his earrings and metal braclets are rattling up and down his arms as he moves.

Dance. Don't think, don't focus, just dance. Dance everything away.

Valentine isn’t feeling guilty at all.

He should be tucked away in his dorm room studying for his test in tomorrows English Comp class. He should be sitting at his desk with piles of books and notes, or in the library with a study group, or in a friends dorm buddy-studying and getting fat on greasy pizza.

He isn’t. Obviously.

After the fourth hour of studying in his dim lit room and the third person coming to him to borrow his notes (we both have this test tomorrow. I get you need to borrow them to study but, well, I kind of need them to study.) he had decided enough was enough. His marks on his last four tests had been good and he was maintaining a steady high A in that class. One B on a test is not going to kill him.

Valentine was dancing because he didn’t usually make drinking a habit. He had come alone, he would have to drive his own car back and wrecking that beautiful classic camero was not on his agenda. He had circled the dance floor once before plunging into it with enough force and will to end up comfortably located somewhere in the middle of the floor sandwiched between a short, skinny little woman who looked ten years older and a young man who might have been his age. He’d stayed in that sandwich for only a moment, dancing in place between the mismatched pair. He looked like a dark beacon between the two blonds.

He emerged from between them and danced away, slithering between people and pressing against people. He’d only begun to sweat, a light sheen spread across his forehead and no where else, brought on by so much movement and the body heat that the mass of bodies produced. He was wearing a pair of black cargo pants that hung loose and cool on his legs. His shirt was missing sleeves and had a gray cross across the black background, running diagonally across the front of his body. His long dark waves had been pulled away from his face into a loose ponytail that was flipped over into a style at the base of his neck that hid the holder. Some loose waves had freed themselves and fell against his pale face.

He found himself pressed close to another pair of people, a young brunette, she looked too young to be wearing that slinky red dress, and a young man with glitter on his face and ribbons in his hair. This made him smile.

He should feel guilty but he doesn’t.

Tatter thinks he might know the brown-haired girl who he's almost dancing with. Not quite. He doesn't quite know her and he's not quite dancing with her, because there's another guy sort of in-between them. The girl's is reminding him of Jessie, no, don't think about Jessie.

Telling himself firmly not to be guilty, he dances a little closer to the man nearest him. Everything is feeling removed, viewed through a thin mental fog. If he doesn't focus, the room turns into a mess of rainbow, as if it's radiating from his rather colourful person.

He's wearing jeans, faded, ripped and unintersting, but you can see flashes of lime green nylon through the holes all up his legs. The body of his short-sleeved shirt, which is sky-blue - is only partially visable through a tattered vest of stoner purple 'net. His shoes are Converse, an old battered pair, of the sort with rainbows and butterflies all over them.

It would be unkind to say that he looks completely insane. Instead, we'll say he's... quaint and just slightly erratic.

Valentine and Tatter contrast sharply. It’s rainbows and colors and holes standing beside the black, black clothes and hair, no holes, not one.

Valentine moves again, behind the girl, dancing close, she is in the middle now. Now it’s rainbows beside her red, red dress beside his black, black clothes. He puts his hand on her hip and it’s dainty. She’s too young. She’s way to young. Valentine’s discomfort, one he probably isn’t even consciously paying attention to, moves him from her side to the man’s other side. Here he plants his hand on the shoulder, drawing close but not too terribly close. Dance floors still have personal space, it’s not nearly as much space as when you aren’t dancing but there is still a semblance of personal space. In this case, he’s closed the distance until there is three inches left down the line of their bodies and he’s reset his movements to match Rainbows.

Valentine still doesn’t feel guilty. He’s waiting for it to set in, he should be studying, not admiring all of the colors that glint off of the glitter on the other’s face.

"Hey you."

It's the sort of greeting that would normally have to be said softly, almost as murmur, and with a sultry tone. The location was hardly conducive to that, though and Tatter has to more or less shout, despite the closeness of Valentine. He's already getting this urge to brush the hair out of Valentine's face, but that would be a bit forward. Especially since you can barely see Tatter's exceptionally nice cheekbones for hair. And ribbon, of course. There are two obscuring the left side of his face, one green and one pink, and one on the right side, which is blue.

Tatter has always liked contrast - plays of light and shadow, sweet with salty - that sort of thing, so he admires Valentine's outfit in conjunction with his own much more then he would if it were Valentine's alone. Dark colours don't do it for him.

Rainbow colors don’t exactly do it for him. Too much color against that dark hair, too much light and his pale skin looks washed out.

The greeting brings a smile, a lift, actually, of one corner rising higher then the other. The urge to brush those dark strands off of Valentine’s face is met with an equal want to pull those ribbons off of the others face and pin them back with his hand against the back of the head, or neck, or anything to keep those ribbons off of that face.

“Hey there,” it’s an equal greeting, meant to be low and soft, sultry. Valentine manages that because he closes that personal space for just long enough to murmur the words against an ear hidden by ribbons. Then he’s back, the three inches between them repaired.

She is pressed like glue to the other’s back. She’s just too young. It’s too much like dancing with Addie, too much like bringing his little sister to a club full of sweaty, horny people. He leans in again. “Friend of yours?” This said in less of a murmur but still not a shout, which (obviously) is why he’s leaning in. He repairs those three inches again. It isn’t invading personal space if it’s only to speak for a few seconds, right?

If the other had brought this…child…to the club then Valentine will have to go in search for another dance partner. He can’t dance with someone who smuggles in kids his sisters age. Bad. Bad, bad.

Tatter glances at the girl again, and there's another pang. It startles him - it's not the guilt of being there when he should be looking for Jessica. It's more missing her - something he hasn't done in months.

"Don't think so," he tells Valentine, looking away from the girl and her soft brown hair. He's not sure whether the girl's a friend of his or not. He's not too worried about it. Everyone knows that it's genuinely impossible to get into the Warehouse if you're underage. That's what Tatter's counting on, anyway. Otherwise it would be perfectly possible for Jessie to be there. He's not exactly the sort to worry about whether or not someone is exactly of age or not. Which probably should be another item on his list of things to be guilty about, but isn't.

Valentine's leaned away, but Tatter has to move at least an inch closer to be heard if he doesn't want to scream it. The meaning tends to get lost if you scream entire sentences, anyway.

Valentine nods, almost smiles. Good. Because he’s enjoying this dance. He never really worries if someone is of age enough to get into the club, but when that someone underage is dancing with him, mingling with him, he doesn’t appreciate it. First of all, he’s too old to play with anyone two years younger if they’re under eighteen, as a law and as a general rule, and second of all because he doesn’t appreciate being drug into their mess if they get in trouble.

He turns his ear towards the other as he spoke and he could smell the vague waft of alcohol on his breath.

He dropped his hand to the other’s waist. He wonders if that violates the personal space rule but he doesn’t remove his hand. He leans in and speaks again. “Come with anyone?” Because if there’s going to be an angry girlfriend or boyfriend he would like to know before hand. His hand will cease to be on the other’s hip.

Questions like that are hard for Tatter to answers to. He has to think about it, just for a moment. He's amused to be being interrogated by this guy, though and he doesn't mind the hand on his hip. He nods. "Yeah, but single meaning only."

As in, he'd come with someone, literally. A friend of his and nothing more. She was probably off pulling strangers in a corner by now.

Tatter's breath may smell slightly alcoholic. The rest of him mostly smells like smoke - bit of tabacco, bit of nicotine, sandlewood, wood smoke from a fire and something just slightly sweet and probably not legal.

"How about you?"

It's funny how many people will ask you if you're alone when they aren't.

Yeah but single? He had to think his way through the wording of that answer and finally decided that he’d meant that he had come with someone but that Valentine would not have to worry about getting sucker punched or having his eyes scratched from their sockets. He nodded, as if confirming the thought. It just looked like he’d bobbed his head while dancing.

He could smell the mixture of burning substances over the alcohol but only faintly, just barely. He could also smell it mingling with the odors coming off of the crowd around him. It’s funny: you come to a club and it smells like a club but then you come during the day while it’s empty and it just smells like body odor. He supposed you came at night expecting that smell or that you were at least distracted enough not to pay attention to the smell.

“Alone,” he said, this shouted above the music, without leaning in. It was one word, it didn’t need leaning in.

Almost automatically, Tatter glances over the room. His friend's nowhere in sight but that's not really suprising. He turns his attention to Valentine, a slight smirk playing with one corner of his mouth. "Poor thing," he teases - he has to lean in again to do that, of course - "you'd best be sure not to leave the same way."

He's not really insinuating anything, not suggesting anything. It's falls under the category of harmless flirting. Harmless and almost unconcious, just the stuff you use to fill in the gaps in conversations and to ease the airspace. "Have you got a name to you," Tatter wants to know. He realises he's still got his English accent on, sounding eeriely like Sean Bean.

Valentine looks around the room too, even though he doesn’t know the face he’s looking for. It’s a reaction instinct really but it doesn’t matter since the only faces he can see are the ones dancing close to them.

Poor thing. He pouts his lip for sympathy. Although coming to the club alone was the best way, unless you intended to get drunk, because it meant you weren’t tied down to anything, anyone. He leaned back in and agreed, “best be sure.” Like you said, harmless. Valentine isn’t particularly into guys, he’s open enough about the idea to dance and flirt, and on two separate occasions kiss (make out), but at this point, dancing and flirting is fun and completely harmless.

The British accent is cute, to say the least.

“Valentine,” he replied, and he did murmur his name into the other’s ear. His breath fell on the other, breathing deeply because of the dance. He moved away from the ear but he didn’t move away from the other this time since they seem to be having a conversation while still dancing.

"I bet you steal a lot of hearts with a name like that," Tatter says, sweetly. Not that he should talk, of course - but Tatter is merely a nickname, after all. He supposes Valentine must be, too, and wonders how it came about.

Tatter came with his friend because they were both going, and you could always have fun with eachother if no one else was going to be entertaining. Plus it limited the likeliness of anyone getting horribly drunk and forgetting their way home. Two people could usaully manage to figure where someone's house was.

"I'm called Tatter," he adds, but the "I'm" sort of get's lost in the noise. There could be an S off the end that had gotten swallowed too, but not nessacarily. He doubts that the name requires much explanation. His clothing should, as usaul, do the job for him. Rags and tatters. "'S not quite such a pretty name as yours, but that's only fair."

“I break more then a steal,” he offers teasingly, though he does neither very often. College came and long relationships of any kind came to an end for his possibilities list. School and his sister, those were his only priorities right now. And having fun.

“Tatter?” just making sure he got it right. He smiled. “Surprise, surprise,” he said, glancing down. The space he had closed earlier left less then an inch between the lines of their bodies. He could just pull Tatter by the hips to close that last little fraction. There was something more teasing, more flirtatious, though, about keeping that last fraction of distance. “Don’t blame me. My parents were cruel.” He smiled. That should eliminate the possibility of that being a nickname, though it still could be. If it was and he didn’t like the nickname, though, he wouldn’t have been using it at all. The music changed.

“Why is it only fair?” he asked, not quite understanding that last comment.

"Broken hearts aren't such a problem," Tatter points out, grinning. He doesn't think he's broken anyone's heart lately, but it's not like he usaully hangs around to find out. "That's what duct tape's for, innit?"

"Tatter," he confirms. His mother had nothing to do with it, of course. She had this way of puckering her forehead whenever she heard someone calling him Tatters, and then she'd demand to know what was wrong with the perfectly good name she'd picked out for him.

"You should be thanking them. Think of the pick-up lines you could have," he points out. He's not objecting to the distance. It adds a certain frisson to that which comes from dancing with strangers. It wouldn't be helpful if you were in a relationship.

"Prettier boys should have prettier names."

Prettier boys should have prettier names.

“Broken hearts can be patched, yes,” he nods, the smile playing across his lips brings the other corner up to even the smile. “But tape peels off, doesn’t it?” He was thinking glue, or maybe sticky puddy. Or that cement that you patch the holes in your wall with.

He knows that look. His mother gets that same look when people call him Val instead of Valentine. Or when they call him V. She doesn’t understand what was wrong with the pretty name. Given his last name, Valentine didn’t understand why she couldn’t see what was wrong with it. Given his middle name, he could have strangled her.

“Pick up lines? Such as?” Such as the old cheesy ones that worked great when you wrote it down on paper but the moment it’s spoken out loud you regret you ever thought of it. ‘I’ll be your Valentine’ was among those.

“Pretty?” He drew in his eyebrows into a thoughtful frown. He bumped into Tatter, closing that distance for a second, then replacing it again. “Is being called ‘pretty’ boy meant as a compliment or an insult in this situation?” he asked, the smile still there.

"Duct tape mends everything."

Tatter has infinite faith in the healing properties of duct tape. For every problem, there is duct tape, or so he believes. Doubtless he'll be disillusioned in the near future, but the fact is it's useful. And especially for him, it's an important component of the wardrobe.

Thus far in life, he's found that "hey you" is reasonably good pick-up line. When he first saw...

Damn. He seems to be having some issues keeping her out of his head tonight.

"It's usaullly considered to be a compliment, pretty is," he points out to Valentine, with a bright, crooked grin. "But I suppose you could take it either way, whatever makes your little heart happy."

He manages to deliver the last line with a tone like making Valentine's little heart happy - and he couldn't possibly have realised that was a pun - is his number one goal in life, and like he would like nothing better.

He grinned. It was like that saying: if it moves and it shouldn’t, use duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, use WD-40. His father lived by the law, taught him to live by it.

At any rate, Valentine would love to see a creative outfit using duct tape in real life. He’d seen a prom dress on the web once made of duct tape. Weird.

Apparently ‘hey you’ is confirmed as a good pick up line on both genders as it had worked for Valentine as well as this elusive ‘her’. Hey you was universal language in his book, he used it to call his little sister, he used it to speak with sexy women whose names had escaped him, and a man on the dance floor of whom he knew not the name of had used it on him.

Maybe he’s having issues keeping her out of his head because he’s feeling guilty.

“Ah, well then I will take it as a compliment and I will say you flatter me.” He smiled still. He barked a soft laughter that, this close, carried over the music when Tatter unintentionally made a pun on his name. Yet another one of those bad pick up lines containing his name: You won my heart. Sickening.

Dancing is tiring, and Tatter's been at it for a while. That doesn't mean he's got any intention of stopping. He wants to be able to collapse from exhaustion at the end of the night. But he might have to stop and have another drink one eventually. He's obviously not quite tipsy enough yet. He can only see one of Valentine. Which is a pity, really. And she keeps invading his mind, slipping in through any gap. Silly little mouse-haired girl. What had she said? That it had been fun. And surely he didn't need any more closure then that.

"I haven't barely got started," he teases Valentine. Started flattering him, that is. "But I could tell you that you've got lovely eyes, if you wanted."

Valentine does. They're quite unusaul, really. Tatter's own are merely soft and grey, narrow and almond-shaped. Uninteresting, although generally thought to be aesthetically pleasing.

Valentine has only just begun dancing really, having just gotten to the club an hour ago. He was actually quite lucky to get in as quick as he had and he was even luckier to find a good dance partner of either gender so fast. People just can’t dance. But he’ll stop any given moment, and he might drink a little, but he doesn’t intend to get tipsy. He needs to drive.

“I’m sure you haven’t,” he replied. Valentine batted his eyelashes and lowered the dark wisp of lace down until they were damn near seductive, the blue of his eyes peering out through them. It caused the loose waves of hair to fall forward. “Aw shucks.” Smile. “Thank you. Your eyes are, hm.” Lovely wasn’t the right word, neither was beautiful, but they weren’t any less then lovely, it just wasn’t the word he wanted. “Intriguing.” The word was mumbled the way ‘hey there’ had been. He liked gray eyes. He liked green eyes too.

“Although those pants,” he grinned and stepped back, holding Tatter at harms length by the waist to look them over again. He grinned and moved back in again to say: “now those are some interesting pants.”

"Intruiging," Tatter repeats, flashing that crooked grin again. He still wants to brush the hair our of Valentine's eyes, but he's resisting the urge. "I like that. It's so much better then simply being pretty or such."

He's enjoying having Valentine to dance with. Such a pretty boy, and with such a nice name, too. He's good distraction and a good dancer, so Tatter's happy to have run into him even if he doesn't seem like a long-term investment. Long-term, of course - in Tatter's mind - is a month at longest. Maybe a little more.

"The trousers? They're a bit tatty..." The inevitable adjective, of course, "but they're just jeans."

Not to mention the bright green underneath, but those aren't part of the jeans. They're the legs cut off stockings that one of his female friends had ripped the crotch of. How, she wouldn't tell him.

"We should take a break," he suggests. "I need to catch my breath, you seem to have taken it away. Let me buy you a drink."

Valentine laughed. “Well then, you are intriguing too.” Oh well, may as well spread the word overall instead of just putting it down to the eyes. After all, he had to be intriguing or else Valentine would not be dancing, or holding a conversation, with him.

Long term in Valentine’s mind it anything between three months and years. He can do short term right now but really, as stated before, while he’s open to ‘investing in’ males he’s not typically or heavily drawn to them. Although in many ways they are more attractive, and less hassle, then women.

“They are tattered,” hey, when a word works, why change it? “but I think that’s why I like them. They give a certain…you to them.” Plus, the green nylons beneath them made him laugh. Nothing Valentine owns is torn or tattered. He takes too good care of his clothes. Plus he likes the cleaner look on his frame.

He smiled. “Oh, I take your breath away? Heart breaker and breath stealer,” he commented, letting his hands slid, almost reluctantly, away from the hips. “Sure, and then I’ll buy you one.” Smile.

He made a gesture with his hand: lead the way.

"I wouldn't say that," Tatter says, laughing. Intruiging implies that there's a mystery, that there's something to be found out. Which there pretty much isn't, with Tatter. What you see if more or less what you get, although the Sheffield accent he's currently sporting isn't exactly honest.

"The name came from the clothes, not the other way around," he says, in case Valentine's wondering. "College, SCA sort of thing. The queen herself called me Tatters, and everyone else naturally followed suit."

He'd been a court jester, and her majesty had indeed found his choices of outfits to be most amusing. It wasn't exactly SCA. More of a mock faerie court then anything else.

"Any other talents you'd like to share?"

Besides busting hearts and making off with people's air supply, that is.

It's probably a good thing to have Valentine pay for something. Tatter's not exactly flush, and the 'tenders here aren't prone to taking money that's made of air.

“I would,” he disagreed. When you know nothing about someone then there is always some degree of mystery, there is always something to be found. And when they are dressed the way Tatter is, it’s easy to be intrigued and interested.

“Oh I figured it did,” he replied and his chuckle was lost in the noise. “The SCA,” he asked slowly, as though he were searching for clarification. Given the british accent and the fact that even if her were initiate in knowledge he would not have thought of the court of faeries, he immediately thought: why would the queen of England call him tatter?

“Hmm. I’m a good kisser?” Grin. “If I have more talents they’re lost on me,” he said finally.

Tatter dresses the way Tatter does just to make it look like he's interesting. He honestly believes he's not, and whether he actually is remains something of a mystery.

"Society for Creative Anachronism," he explains, grinning as they head towarsd the bar, "grand scale dress-up games, really. You've probably seen them around. Sort of Medieval Fair things."

"Ah, but can you prove that," he teases. He's got no intention of actually making Valentine demonstrate his allegedly superior kissing skills. "But I'm sure you can do something or other else. Tie cherry stems into knots with your tongue, at all?"

Valentine snickered at the reply, the sound lost somewhere in the music, left behind as they continued to move. “I have. I still take my sister to them, once in a while.” To the Medieval fairs and to the Viking Festivals. He probably wouldn’t have stopped going even if he hadn’t had a sister to take.

“I,” he promised as they finally came out of the crowd, “most certainly can prove that.” He smiled. Being off of the dance floor was like breaking away from a current and finally able to swim easy. Dancing would be so much easier out here, so much less fun though.

He choose a stool where there were three across empty. “What do you want?” he asked.

The information that Valentine has a sister isn't entirely lost on Tatters. It may have lodged itself in his mind, and may reappear usefully at some other moment. Then again, it may have been eaten by the omniverous fog that's lying over all of his thoughts. Time will tell.

He raises an eyebrow - which is somehow half purple, matching the tips of his hair - at the suggestion that Valentine can proove his prowess. "Was that a hint at all," he wants to know, sitting down next to Valentine, fingers absently tapping out a crazy fast beat on the counter. "Or a tease? Eh, rum and coke. You?"

Valentine smiles and mimics the raise of eyebrow, as if to ask. “Oh, no, no hint at all,” he replied, smiling. Then held his fingers up about an inch apart, leaving a tiny space, a little room for questioning. “Maybe just a little bit tease.” Smile.

He stuck his hand out, at a dance club this size and a bar this crowded you never knew how long it would take the bar tender to notice you unless you made yourself noticeable.

How fortunate, he loves rum and coke. With cherries.

He ordered for them. “With a bowl of cherries, please.”

Tatters can't help but smirk just a little at the cherries. For some reason, cherries always seem like a dirty joke. Possibly this comes from his mind being permanently lodged in the gutter. Or maybe just the dubious meanings of the word cherry.

Oh good, a drink. That's really good. Enough liquid should eventually drown the guilt, assuming it's alcholic. And he really doesn't have anything to be guilty about, he assures himself, for the umpteenth time. Nothing at all.

There's a pause. The sort that makes people really want to ask, 'do you come here often?'

Tatter resists this particular urge.

He fills up that silence.

No he does not ask if Tatter 'comes here often.'

"Are you from around here then?" he asked. Ok, it's not much better then 'come here often' but at least it isn't the same old line. It's more like a sentance that you'll get around to eventually in any conversation at least once. He touched his lip with his finger tip almost as if to indicate words spoken or a voice or ... "It's the accent." Smile. "I had to ask."

See there, he didn't ask the same ol' question without an actual reason for asking.

The drinks came.

Valentine picked the stem off of one of the cherries and popped it into his mouth.

Tatter shrugs. Nah, he could say. I only just came here to escape the unpleasent end of a relationship. An amiable break-up, of course, but nonetheless unpleasent. So I've retreated to Canada to nurse my wounds.

"No," he says, taking more then a sip of his drink. "I come here sometimes, not for any particular reason. Sometimes I go to Montreal."

He's from West Virginia but he's not going to admit to that. "It's Sheffield. In England."

Which you probably have never heard of. No one in North America knows about Sheffield, as far as Tatters can tell. Although they're getting pretty well-known in the U.K., if only for being hopelessly pigheaded about football.