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Dahlia prided herself in her composure, in her unwavering steadiness in the face of circumstances that would ruin any lesser hitwoman. There wasn’t much she hadn’t seen in her line of work after all.
Save one exception, one that was approaching her right now.
Dahlia is the top of the food chain down here in the Bunny Burrow. The streets of New Meridian were a lawless land, just how she liked it, but in her section of the underground what she says goes.
Eliza knows that, and Dahlia knows that she knows that, but it doesn’t stop the Crimson Scourge from walking right up to the Bunny Burrow hostess and placing her hand next to Dahlia’s.
She lets out a low hum. “Can’t you see I’m busy, Eliza?”
Her client raises a brow at the interruption. Truthfully, Dahlia is thankful for it, he’s been dreadfully boring and she’d like nothing more than to put a bullet through his skull and move on.
“Doesn’t seem like you’re all that busy to me,” Eliza says after the briefest of looks at their company.
Ah, so she can tell. “You have something better for me then?”
The man gets upset at that, blabbering a bunch of nonsense about courtesy and decency. Dahlia grips the barrel of her gun tighter, but no, she doesn’t want to cause a scene just yet, she needs to see what sort of idea is bouncing around in Eliza’s head. Yes, she’s really quite curious now, and she can’t help a wicked grin blooming across her face, and from the look on Eliza’s, she knows she’s won this battle.
“Bonnie?”
Her secretary comes quickly, as always.
“See to it that this gentleman is tended to.” And by ‘tended to’ she means ‘disposed of.’ Bonnie, of course, understands immediately and takes the still flustered man by the arm and leads him to the back for ‘business.’
Eliza flashes a smile with teeth that are just a little too sharp, but Dahlia finds that she doesn’t mind.
The songstress intertwines her hand with Dahlia’s and leads her out to the middle of the Burrow. A fight then? Hopefully to the death; Dahlia wouldn’t mind going out by Eliza’s hand. But then the lights dimmed and there was an audible record scratch before a slower song started playing.
“Ah, so they did actually listen to me.”
“What’s this supposed to be?” Dahlia asked impatiently. She distantly noted that everyone was staring at the two of them, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Why, I thought you’d want to dance!”
“You- what?” And there it was again, that strange fluttering in her chest that only Eliza could make her feel. Credit where it was due, this had certainly been unexpected.
“Come now,” Eliza says with a mischievous look in her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to dance!”
Forgotten? How could she? Dahlia had loved dancing ever since she was a child, but as good as her prosthetics are for hiding an extra blade or two, she's never danced with them.
Eliza sees the flash of hesitation from the Medici's finest hitwoman and decides to lead with her right foot.
It's the 4/4 time signature of a waltz, one of the simplest dances. It should be easy, right? And yet Dahlia can't keep herself from stumbling when Eliza lifts her hand over her head and brings her partner around in a full twirl.
"Just keep your eyes on me," she says, in a voice that for some reason only makes Dahlia's heart beat faster, and pulls her closer.
Begrudgingly, Dahlia does, and as she focuses her gaze on Eliza's eyes everything else seems diluted and less important, as if there's a spotlight hanging over them.
The steps start to come a bit more naturally. There's still a creak of a joint or awkward moments where the movement happens more clumsily then she'd like, but she almost feels that awe again, of watching the dancers at her local theater, of slow methodical arching movements that she would imitate in the dark where no one could see her. It's strange, but it thrills her, different in the way a fight to the death would and yet similar at the same time, and for a moment, Dahlia lets herself go.
That is, until Eliza leans in, closing the distance between them.
The barrel of her gun is pointed at Eliza's heart before either of them can blink and the music cuts off as the record comes to a halting scratch.
Despite all of that, Eliza smiles. "What's wrong?" A question that she very much knows the answer to, but Dahlia doesn't want to give her the satisfaction of saying it out loud. Eventually, she huffs out a sigh. "Look, Dahlia, this night has been lovely and I'd really rather it not end with one of our guts on the floor. So I'll leave you with this."
With movements just a bit too fast to be entirely human, Eliza wraps her arm around Dahlia's waist and pulls her in.
The gun goes off, narrowly missing Eliza and instead hitting one of the chandeliers, but before Dahlia can aim another shot, there are lips on her own and nails just a bit too much like claws digging into her hips as glass shards fall like rain above them.
The kiss probably only lasts for half a second, stolen as it is, but time seems frozen for Dahlia. Eventually, Eliza pulls away, a bit of blood coating one of her fangs, and from the dull pain on her bottom lip, Dahlia knows it doesn't belong to the songstress. Eliza seems to notice it too, and in an action that Dahlia can only describe as a taunt, she licks her teeth clean, showing them off in one last triumphant grin.
"Now then, I have a show to be at, but thank you for this dance, and the delightful little treat," she says, whispering the last part for only Dahlia's ears, and with a flamboyant bow, she's gone, disappearing out into the neon lit night in the sleepless city of New Meridian.
The Burrow is slowly filled with hushed whispering as Dahlia silently leaves its center stage. Her bunnies watch her nervously as she debates what to say, but in the end the only thing that comes out is a tired: "Order a new chandelier, would you? I'll be retiring early tonight."
Dahlia swears that the bunnies are beaming as she leaves.