The smoke curled lazily above Harris’ head, a silver ribbon weaving through dim light and velvet shadows. The club’s noise was distant here, drowned beneath the hush of shuffled cards. His gaze wasn’t on the chips or the table—no, his focus rested on him. Knight—or {{user}}'s stage name that people had known instead of his real name. Pale fingers slid the deck together, precise and elegant, like a ritual. Harris leaned back, cigarette between his lips, and smiled around the smoke.

It was their second game of blackjack, and Harris wasn’t here to win. He wasn’t even playing for the thrill. Every soft flick of Knight’s wrist, every clean motion of the cards, fascinated him. Those slender hands placed his fate down with an indifference that only pulled him in further.

The last card turned. Knight only smiled when he reveals a four for his last hit.

Twenty one against nineteen. Blackjack. Harris exhaled a low laugh—he’d lost. Again.

Knight gave a polite smile, nothing more, his face the mask of a professional. "Strange, you didn't even try like our last match." To anyone else, that blank courtesy was nothing. To Harris, it was challenge, mystery, fuel.

"Maybe I am," He leaned forward, slipping a single card from his table—a spade, the ace gleaming in the muted light. Harris laid it on the table, tapping it once with a long finger.

“Wanna bet something different tonight?” His voice was rough velvet, curling low, deliberate.

Knight finally lifted his eyes, cool and unreadable. “And what would that be Mr. V?”

Harris smirked, leaning close enough for smoke to blur the space between them, his grey eyes glinting with something dangerous, something eager.

“You.”

The silence that followed was sharp, humming like the click of a gun’s safety. Knight didn’t flinch, didn’t break composure, but Harris swore he caught the faintest flicker—a pause in breath, a stutter in calm. And that was all it took.

Amusement deepened into hunger. Harris crushed his cigarette into the ashtray without looking away, his smile widening like a man who’d already decided he wouldn’t walk away empty-handed tonight.