Roses bite too

The band played, and Iris sat atop the back-fitted counter with drumming fingers. Waxed, of course. His martini glass swirling idly between fingers as he nursed it like a bottle of water.  It’s rim smudged with the same purple that sat upon his upper lip. The music wasn’t bad; A tad slow for the atmosphere but pleasant when accustomed to it. 

“What’s a thing like you doing out here?”

The viera slowly lifted a violet gaze from his glass to sweep over the stranger placed at his side. Broad. Composed. Leather hugging in all the right places yet open upon a large wrist; A tattoo of paired dice. Both ones. Iris almost rolled his eyes at the amount of self pity one must have to garner such an idea, or one stupidly prideful. Either way it stabilized the annoyance settling in his gut.

“...”

A click of a tongue. “Aw, come now- what’s with the silence, pretty boy?”

Pretty.

His nose wrinkled at that word. His masculinity tickled in an unpleasant way that caused sharp nails to bite within the fat of his palm as he contemplated a thought. Snake eyes was big, but Iris had taken bigger. Slowly, his gaze traveled from the faded tattoo up to the man’s face adorned with a confident smirk. It fell flat upon the heavy lidded, unimpressed response given palatably with practiced ease.

He took the clue to leave as quick as he appeared but Iris gazed like a predator stalking it’s prey. A starter quickly burning rogue upon tinder. Large pupils of prey shrinking as they honed upon a target. If his friends were here perhaps they would have caught the warning signs the smaller broadcasted. Would of held him back. But they weren't. The rose martini was thrown back haphazardly with a lick of his lips catching stray drops, his tongue swiping over sharp incisors before following after with clicking boots.

“Hey.” Iris interrupted, his tone feigning an almost friendly front as he neared.

Snake eyes stopped mid step to turn towards him, his gaze transforming from one of shock to a smirk. Iris hated that look. The one men like him gave to their defenseless girlfriends. Fetishizing his small size, his lithe, delicate features  and seemingly-docile associations to Vieras. It made him sick. Fucking sick to be associated with something so out of his control, and even more so that Iris found solace and content in men like him. In their big hands that wrapped easily over his waist and forearms large enough t-

Iris squashed that thought with the gnash of his teeth behind a sweet smile aimed up at Snake eyes. Like a siren beckoning his prey, he sought to relax the man. He hardly saw the gentle gaze switch to that of rage, and to a fist pulled back with a roll of a shoulder. With practiced speed the fist shot out- connecting with the tender bone of Snake Eyes nose with a  resonating, satisfying crack.

“Yeah i’m real fuckin’ pretty, huh?!” Rage and bitterness thrown into the air as one punch, two.- Three were landed in succession. “Say it. Say it again.”