Welcome to Gaia! ::

The plan had been simple, spend a bit of time with Kidder on his day off, and just hang out. This had resulted in them hitting up a bar that Lucas had not been to in a while, mainly giving Kidder the glorious job of designated driver. Lucas had gotten both his drink and flirt on, and had found a cute, smallish blonde who had decided that it was far too hot in the bar, so he'd done the "gentlemanly" thing and had escorted her out, but not before texting kidder to let him know to come meet him in the alley in five if he didn't text him he was getting some work done.

It would not have been the first time he'd done something like that.

As she leaned against the back wall though, he leaned an arm on it, allowing his upper body to bend forward more toward her height.

"Don't worry about it, I don't bite... unless you want me to." He said, with a teasing link and a lick of his lips. "Besides, bigger just means better able to help you out if you get into trouble."

Lucas was posturing himself just like the blonde had hoped he would; arm propped against the wall and leaning towards her. She did her best to keep her smile tentative and shy, blue eyes big and wide as she looked up at him. Tactfully, she reached up to tuck stray hair behind an ear then took that same hand and rested it on the bicep of the arm.

Nails painted the color of her top scratched lightly at muscle.

"I'm not sure how I feel about biting," she said with a slight tilt of her head, making it a point to watch the way his tongue ran along his lip. "You'd do that for me, protect me from trouble?"

If only he knew that she was the trouble.

She took her other hand and tapped her way up his chest before she grasped at the front of his shirt and tugged him forward. "If you do bite, where do you like to?"

Kidder had a few things to growl about of his own, though none of them were really as interesting as the ones Lucas did. He drained the last of his overpriced coke (while admitting to himself that being jumped by crazy people and being put in a coma for a week had left him in a state of nervousness that would have done credit to "Spooky" Mulder.)

He then slipped outside with an inconvenienced mutter, edging past the inbound crowd and making a vague polite excuse to the door guy that he was pretty sure was ignored. (If he had to pay to get back in he was -definitely- taking it out of Luke's wallet at first opportunity.

Well maybe half of it.

...Well maybe he'd just leave a rude note that he -could- have done it. Guy probably needed every red cent as much as he needed his little Barhop Beauty.

He took a deep breath of night air for a moment, then patted himself down for a cigarette and lighter, and put a dent in the fresh night air thing.

It didn't take much longer than that though before he quietly started edging toward the alley to lean around the corner, fumbling for his phone with the lit cigarette trapped in his smirk.

Check out this girl so he could harass Lucas about it later.Maybe he could pick up some embarrassing lines to teach Boudica.

Lucas let out a small chuckle. "I like the sound of that," he said, and as she leaned up to him, he was more than happy to meet her halfway. He wasn't unused to stooping to get kisses, he'd been doing it for as long as he could remember. Never really cursed his height, it came with some fairly large advantages and he wasn't about to turn those down. All the same, when she said she'd take some kisses instead, he was all too happy to oblige.

Leaning in, he let his lips meet her own with a bit of fire to them, after all, he wanted to make sure he made a good first impression. Sure, he probably tasted like cigarettes and hard liquor, but hey, they were at a bar and he was a tried and true smoker, these things were not going to go away overnight.

He found her hand placement a bit odd, but whatever, girl did what she wanted to do. He kept one hand on the wall but the other moved to her hip because why the hell not.

Stellerite was pleased to discover that Lucas knew how to kiss, she had experienced too many instances where her victims didn't. It took a bit of concentration not to get swept up in the kisses, especially when the man tossed a bit of kindling on the flickering spark, because she was directing some of her attention to stealing energy.

A little noise escaped her when he grabbed her hip and she responded by grabbing a fist full of hair. The small orb in her free hand was sizable enough that she let it fall to her side so she could slip it in her pocket, the same hand trailed up his chest against before -

Oh.

No that was interesting.

Her hand had slipped somewhere else and flashes of Alkaid sticking her hand in Stellerite's chest pass through her mind. She reached a little further and felt her fingertips brush against a smooth gem. Fingers pulled it into her palm and she sunk back on her heels as she pulled her arm back.

"Oh, what's this?"

He noticed the crook first, though he'd have some confusion later which he'd really noticed first, the crook, or that one of his few real friends was in danger. Either way the timing of the crook felt a little like blackmail from the universe at large.

It appeared in front of him. Just... a stick. Well... a shepherds crook. Just... right there. Like a Shepard's crook had even the faintest business being just in front of him on a well traveled sidewalk, -asking- him to grab it, like a pull in your gut, except that he'd had enough weirdness. He'd already nearly died once and he did not need this... this... -craziness plague- infecting his life any further.

"Lu-CAS!" He protested, voice rising and gaining an edge as he turned to look down the alley again because -dear freaking GOD- someone had to be witness to this weirdness and the street was on a lull. Except for that one problem.

"LUCAS!!" Moderate fear turned into a knife of terror, looking at his friend lying on the alley floor. There wasn't any blood, not that he could see, no knife in her hand, and the scene he'd just been looking in on didn't indicate anything that made him think Lucas had been drugged.

Blackmail from the universe. Grab the crook or be helpless, because he remembered the speed at which the girl with the pockets had moved, and he was unarmed and her... whatever she did she could drop people like nothing. He didn't want that for Lucas. No tubes, no hospital, no terror in his familys eyes when anything they expected failed to match up to the evidence. Not that they might not convince themselves otherwise, but Kidder... he'd know.

Blackmail.

Well fine, he guessed. Well. NOT Fine. Not fine at all, not when he was terrified out of his wits, but if you got offered weird to fight weird...

Well technically he was pretty sure X-files suggested it was literally a terrible idea, but possibly also the only one, and he reached around and grabbed the Crook because -he had no idea what else to do-. Throw a damn trash can lid would have been an option, except that they didn't really have those in alleys that much anymore. They had a huge a** dumpster, and that was down near her, and well if she could hurl any part of THAT at him he was ******** anyway.

So he'd just have to do what he did best and -lie through his teeth-.

"HEY!" He gripped the crook in both hands, like a cross between a baseball bat and a golf club, only one that felt like the kind of dry old wood you'd find on an antique pick axe or something from an salvage shop. Supposedly Shepard used to break sheep's legs if they needed to but he was pretty sure that this thing would break before her shins did. A few good welts though maybe, he could probably deal out some welts.

Maybe a good Nether Wallop. ...And he'd figure out later why he wanted to cackle about that in a desperately, scared of of his mind cackle of hilarity. "That's a friend of mine Retro-Barbie, tell me what you did before I knock you clean back to the dream house!"

He threatened, brandishing the crook as he advanced. That was... pretty much the extent of his plan. Yell a lot and look vaguely intimidating, and pray for people to take notice or call the cops. Maybe an ambulance. Oh god what the -******** was he wearing anyway-?? Where there hell was his Mighty Ducks jersey?? He liked that Jersey! And these boots made him feel like he'd had an over enthusiastic toddler helping him with his laces.

He hoped he looked a lot more impressive from that end because he felt like he'd just mugged an Celtic nativity scene.

Darkness was not a strange thing to Lucas. Oblivion was a state he often welcomed, usually brought on by the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. His therapist called these events "Self Destructive Behavior" and advised him against taking such actions. Lucas sometimes listened, but sometimes he just needed to forget, and so he'd have to tell his therapist he'd failed again, and his therapist would tell him that it wasn't a failure just a setback and try to boost him up but Lucas knew better.

This darkness though, was different. True emptiness was not something Lucas had ever experienced. His body had begun to cease it's function, and without medical care - or his soul returned - it would not take long before his body became naught but an empty shell.

He was unaware for the transformation of his friend, of his friend now coming to his aid to defend him, shocking his assailant into dropping the gem that was his soul back onto his chest, where it more than happily entered with little prompting.

Because, for as much as Lucas thought he wanted to die and end it all, a part of him, the strongest, most masochistic, part of him, wanted to live. To suffer the longest life possible knowing that Mary's blood was on his hands, and that it was his failure as a brother that had led to her death. He woke again, eyes fluttering open and mouth and lungs gasping desperately, painfully for air as his body shook and jerked in the pain of his Resurrection.

Panic consumed him. You did not live long in prison if you did not defend yourself even when you were laid out, weak as a kitten. That meant a shiv was about to enter your ribs and you were going to bleed out there on the dirty floor. No... Fight or flight kicked into the panicked red-head, and with all the strength he had left to muster, he kicked his booted foot out toward the ankle of the girl who just seconds before to his mind he had been kissing.

The monster that had, unbelievably shoved her hand in his chest.

His strength expended, he lay there, unable to do much more than watch, and hope that the kick was enough to allow the strange man dressed like some Christmas pageant threw up to do whatever it was he was gonna do to that girl with his weird stick.