Soft Hearts Hold Secrets

A Bloody Office

"You do know how late it is, right?"

Asra's voice was impatient. A complete and utter juxtaposition with his gentleness from earlier in the night when he dropped Muriel off at his apartment. Then, his voice had been quiet, accompanied with a smile as he watched Muriel try to sober up a little in the passenger seat -- mumbling directions to Asra with his face in his hand, cracking the occasional smile Asra had come to know as a rare pleasure. He had nodded and assured Muriel everything was fine after every nervous apology all the way to the old apartment complex somewhere in the very heart of South End. He had made very sure with a concerned furrow of his brow that Muriel would be okay getting up to his room, and then smiled warmly when he said goodbye -- making sure to tuck his hair one final time before the night ended and Inanna guided Muriel up into the apartment building.

The instant Muriel was gone, however, Asra's patiences began to thin.

That's why he found himself bitter and grouchy in the presence of Lucio. After such a night, all Asra wanted to do was go home with Faust and sit up in bed, his head cupped in his hand and the image of Muriel's smile hanging dreamily in his mind. Instead, he had to Uber to the Palace, all while attempting to sober up Julian in the back seat. Instead, he had to stand in front of Lucio's desk at nearly twelve in the morning, the buzz from the alcohol already faded into a painful, thrumming headache. A headache he was sure would get worse, subjected to a voice such as Lucio's.

"You could have given us a better warning," Asra continued to grumble. "We were out drinking."

"Oh, I'm sorry that my business emergency, which the two of you are obligated to respond to as your job entails, had to disrupt a night of drinking. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you when your liver's fail I'll be sure to put it on my to-do list." Lucio leant over the desk slightly, learning on his human hand, drumming his sharp golden fingernails on the desk. He was irritated- that much was obvious. It was a dangerous game to play, provoking him when he was already frustrated, when he was on his very last nerve.

He might have spent a lot of his time angry, but being this angry was rare. Only once or twice had Asra or Julian had the displeasure of being in his company when he was like this. Julian was more familiar with the negative consequences, though, for the reasons of him being more expendable than Asra. He wasn't inconsequential enough to be wasted without reason, or sent on a mission Lucio knew he wouldn't come back from, but he was less urgently needed than Asra was.

So he faced the poor temper more often.

"Uh, Count," Julian began, his words noticeably slurred through his instinctive stutter. Lucio's eyes narrowed.

"Shut up, Jules. I want you two to just do your goddamn jobs. There's someone in the other room that has a lot of information that we need to get. That you need to get. I'm not going to get my hands dirty."

Julian let out some drunk murmur, his cheeks warm with embarrassment after having been snapped at so sharply. He always shut up so obediently whenever Lucio snapped at him, it was something that Lucio liked. That meant that it was naturally something Asra hated.

"You can use whatever items you want, whatever tools you want, you can say whatever the hell you want, but I want all the information we can get out of him and I want it by dawn." Lucio got to his feet, walking around the desk and standing before the two of them- taller than Asra by about two heads (thanks to his heels, mostly) and shorter than Julian by about a head's height.

He looked up at Julian.

"You're a doctor," he said. "So you know where to target and how. And you," his attention fixed on Asra. "You know all kinds of malicious spells. Use as many of them as you want. There are no limits here. This inferior is so low level that neither of you would know him, but he has been stealing from me and distributing my information. He's a rat, a snitch, and must be punished as such. I have no tolerance for people like them. Thankfully, though, as I have people to do my bidding and plenty of code words, so there were no crimes that could be tied directly to me."