Cronus looked at himself in the mirror, rubbing his scruff. should he shave it off or keep it? the scruff could be a nice touch sometimes. make him look like the rough and tough kid that he so definitely was. he eventually decided to shave it clean, nicking himself and letting out a loud yell that made Eridan come in and check on him. "Yes Eri, I'm fine, go the fuck awvay", he groaned, finishing with that and ending up late because he had to stop the bleeding and make the nick unnoticeable. the rest of his face though, was soft as fuck. he greased his hair back and it looked wonderful as always. he took a deep breath and double, triple, quadruple checked the date as he took the ring, looking just as it always had, blowing off a bit of dust carefully. he put it in his pocket and left, walking next door to Meenah's, knocking on the door as he checked his hair for the 6th time that afternoon, waiting for Meenah to answer.

Meenah was the portrait of content languidity, sitting back in the self-made hollow in her lush, rumpled bed, arms tucking loosely behind her head, a rich pink polish adorned foot leaning on the opposite knee, kicking gently to the sickly infectious beat of whatever savage, bubblegum rap spewed from her computer speakers and practically shook the walls of her room, the noise's cacophony a sharp, though complimentary contrast to the content placidity of it's sole audience member. The lazy, vaguely smug looking smirk tugging at her lips just /shattered/ at the knock she could barely make out over her music, cursing crudely under her breath and hoisting herself off the bed with a huff of effort to slink over to the window. Letting her hand swat away her loudly patterned curtains far enough to let her peek through the glass, she vaguely contemplated the possibility that some crotchety neighbor had dropped by to bitch about the noise , and the subsequent possibility of dumping the remains of a nearby soda bottle that had effectively graduated to the prestigious position of sovereign ashtray upon the offender from overhead. If she looked annoyed at the mere interruption, however, she /scowled/ at the sight of the actual offended. That runny, filth-caked sludge rippling at the bottom of that bottle was looking more tempting by the second. But she decided against it. She'd surely receive a long winded grievance about the ruination of those ever meticulously upkept coifs for it anyway. Instead, she simply sucked distastefully on her teeth, jamming a hand deep into her pocket as she slipped out her door and stomped noisily down the stairs, music still blasting faintly behind her as she made her way to the landing and wretched the door open, lips pursed out tightly, pink eyes hooded while pierced eyebrows arched with dully resigned expectancy. "… You lost or somefin, slick"

"Not at all, I'm right vwhere I vwanna be", he grinned smugly. He looked Meenah up and down, the music playing upstairs almost making him want to grimace. He kept himself together though, knowing that he could easily run back and get his records if things went where he wanted it to- bed, of course. He had quite the same reaction to Meenah's music that she would have if he had proposed sex to her right there. Except without the physical violence. He looked up into her face and cleared his throat, shrugging. He pretty much could go there whenever he wanted, since her mom liked him so much. He walked inside and leaned on the door frame, shutting the door behind him and looking at her pretty little face. His nose was a bit crooked from being broken, his fingers calloused and his hair greasy as ever. "Can I havwe a minute?", he asks, putting his hands in his pockets, looking around her immaculate house, before going back to her face.

Her jewelry-dotted face twitched irately at that toothy grin slicing its way across his snide face, not quite the stuff of venom, but definitely antipathetic enough to sting. She was less forgiving when it came to him flouncing his presumptuous ass through her threshold like he owned the damn manor, however, grinding her tongue idly between molars, the only thing keeping her from barking her protest was the threat of her mother flouncing her own equally brazen ass down from her quarters to take a few lewd puffs off one of her sickeningly swollen cigars and lusciously purr something about being a sweet lil shrimp and treatin' the damn guests with some flipping cordiality, hand in hand with the sky scraping likelihood of said ass being barely clad in something far too tight or fluorescent for a woman of such advanced years. As much as Meenah admired the gaudy broad, and adored the piles of wealth she'd reared her through all her 18 years of life in, the woman's illicit affinity for the grease-slathered object of her own endless irritation quite frankly made the heiress feel like puking all over her fuckin Dolce Gabbanas. Screw it. Maybe she'd at least get a laugh outta this. Seeming to think for a moment, jamming her tongue into her cheek and glancing around idly, before letting her arms crossed languidly across her chest, she strolled back to the nearby staircase landing, scaling a single step before turning, leaning against the railing, and jutting out her chin as if to disenchantedly instruct "make it snappy"

He started smug, waving to her mother and making idle coversation before she had bounded back up the stairs, trusting that meenah would take good care of him. It was odd that the elder seemed to prefer him, since most of the mothers in the neighborhood (and the city) would die before letting Cronus near their daughters. his own jeans were cheap and ripped, much more so than he'd like them to be as he sat down on the nearest sofa and patted the seat next to her. "C'mere kitten", he cooed in a voice almost as greasy as that awful hair of his. "Listen, you're hot, I'm hot... I think vwe should take both of our hot bods and get together, you knowv? make some fire." he grinned, putting his hands in his pockets. "Let's havwe a little discussion about this, Meemee."

As accustomed as she was to the sound of it prodding and prying and articulating into every breed of lewd pseudo-compliment and corny ass pickup line under the sun, the way his voice dripped like poisoned molasses, lilting and purring at her, was another thing that had an impressive knack for making poor Meens feel like losing her lunch. She failed to follow his coaxing hand, of course, clicking nails idly against a loose gold bangle with an offhand jibe of "Pretty shore I've told ya somefin boat you callin me kitten, shrimpdick" Sucking loudly on her teeth when he seemed to have exhausted his opening, she idly strolled round the back of the sleek sofa he lounged his grubby self on, not bothering to glance down at him, at least not from the angles he could study her face from. It was routine at this point. The only thing that surprised her about this shit was how deep seeded the delusion that he was anything short of repellent seemed to be. /Probably because you keep lettin' him in the fuckin door/ she mused dully to herself, eyebrows knitting together as she pulled her lips into a smooth, humorless smirk. "ya want a fire to light up under my ass for ya, eh?" She sneered, rocking on her heels, bumping her hips against the back of the sofa just enough to make the piece shift forward and back by the tiniest notch. "ya want me all- all steamy an sweaty and burnin' the fuck up over ya, dontcha?" Leaning in to cradle her chin in a hand and rest her elbow beside his shoulders, she let his leer meet her bittersweet glower defiantly. Pink eyes narrowed dangerously as her smirking lips twitched through a bitter chuckle and curled into a hard snarl, "Well lemme fuckin tell ya sailor-" before her free hand lashed out to shove his face roughly away from her own, and she straightened to loom over him once more, passing him a vaguely disgusted scoff. "I'd rather burn ya than fuck ya. Dont need to chit chat 'boat it."

Cronus savored her touch, though he knew that it was a hateful and spiteful one at that. He turned his face and kissed the palm of her hand before she shoved him, expecting the rejection but it stung as much as it would have if she had slapped him all the same. he only smiled at her smugly, his voice dripping with venomous desire and lust, running a hand through that greasy hair of his before leaning back into the couch and spreading his legs in an obscene manner, in the way that careless, carefree men do. He often thought to himself, why did he try? It was a good question. He sighed quietly, though not one of defeat, relaxing against the leather couch. "Listen, doll, vwhy don't you just havwe a seat, hear me out, you knowv?" He honestly wouldn't come to terms with his self loathing until she tried to kick him out, physically pulling him to the door.

Wiping off his kiss, plus a streak of grease her fingertips had caught on the front of her baggy pants, she crossed to the front of him, eyeing his languid lounge on her mother's fancy imported upholstery with rapidly fizzling patience. The worst kind of insufferable tool was a committed one, she decided. Or would obsessed be a better word? Meenah sighed, a theatrical heave of winded resignation, and flopped loosely down onto the sofa, as far off to the opposite end as possible. "ill hear ya out if ya hoist yer ass off my couch" She muttered with casual dismissal, avoiding his lecherous stare to dully eye the filthy ashtray on the glass coffee table in front of them, her nails making an impatient clicking noise against her bracelets as sugary techno-babble continued to blare obscenely from upstairs. "Maid's on leave and ain't no sucka in this house gonna scrub yer grease stains out the fuckin' Italian leather…"

He nodded and stood up reluctantly, trying not to let his defenses fall. They were so firmly in place, that it had been years since he'd actually 'been himself'. The peak of his stupid greasy smile and Italian black hair framing his face, the honest picture of an Italian greaser. What a prick. He smiled at her, smugly still, toying with the ring in his pocket that would no doubt only fit Meenah's pinky finger now. "listen, Meemee", he began, starting with a nickname she hated, but convincing himself that she loved, since she loved it when they were younger. "do you remember vwhen vwe vwere like... babies?", he asked, referring to when they were more like 8. "and vwe vwere outside. I vwent to the arcade earlier that day and uh, I came ovwer and vwe vwere playin' pretend or vwhatevwer that I vwas your knight in shinin' armor? It started rainin' so vwe came inside. sound familiar?"

Now that she could fully splay out over the couch, the pose she chose to lounge in may have been even looser and more uncaring than his had, her attention dividing between Cronus and the paint on her nails, with the gaudy manicure squarely in the lead. Considering her hopes for these stand offs to finally dwindle, or at least fall into a less puke-inducing narrative than Cro's infuriating Don Juan delusions, Meenah usually put the extra effort forward to at least make these exchanges as depressing as possible for him. She rarely caught it working. When she did, it was always equal parts satisfying and pitiful. Raising an eyebrow weirdly at him, she shallowly raked her memories. The incident rung a bell in a funny way that made her expression harden and a pang of nostalgia idle weakly, before dissolving as easily as a salt grain tossed to the sea. She didn't press her powers of recollection any further. "Cut to the chase so i can kick ya outta here quick like, would ya?"

"Alright, alright, just fuckin- just gimme a sec, vwould ya?", he groaned, taking a deep breath. He stood in front of the couch, towering over her much like his father towered over many of the men he had met. the violet in his eyes loomed over her body, the smugness she projected to him. he took a deep breath and let his fingers move over each little part of the ring in his pocket. "You said that princesses don't get married until they're 18. That I should ask again in 10 years. That vwas 10 years ago. I'm not your knight in shining armor no more. I mean- I nevwer vwas, really. You vweren't the type that needed savwin', I guess. But I'm not evwen noble like a knight or nothin'. IF anything I guess... I'm one of those bard things. Humiliatin' themselvwes all the time, you dig?". He took a pause, a deep sigh leaving his lips. His eyes go from her to something that he suddenly found interesting on the floor. "Vwhen vwe vwere little, playin' that stupid game, I vwent home and you vwere still a princess. Vwhen I vwoke up, you vwere still royalty. You alvways havwe been, you knowv? I guess- the game nevwer ended for me. I'd go to sleep and I thought that I'd one day vwake up next to you. I thought that it vwas gonna be fate, that I vwas gonna savwe you and then vwe'd be together. But now I'm older and I get that it's all bullshit. You're a princess and the princess is vway out of the bard's league. He'll humiliate himself and shit but she'll nevwer notice him. She's got a vwhole line of suitors to fuck vwith. I knowv nowv that I can fuckin' destroy the shit in any second. Anything I built up I could ruin. And I can't bring it back. I'm sorry. I'm so goddamn sorry. I knowv that I'm a stupid pretentious fuckup more than anyone. Evwen more than you. I ruined the best thing I evwer had." He sighed and took out the ring from his pocket. "I bought a calander vwhen vwe vwere younger and marked the date so I could ask you again. 10 years ago I asked you to marry me. And I obvwiously ain't gonna ask you to nowv. And so I thought I'd ask you to go steady vwith me. But a fewv years ago, that vwent dowvn the shitter too. So I guess I'm askin' you for a chance. Let me do something for ya. Vwatch a movwie, take you to dinner. Just... Somethin'." He put the ring down on the table, clearly too small to fit anything but her pinkie finger now. "Just thought you should havwe this. I guess I'll catch you later, meemee.", he said quietly, starting to head for he door.

She kept her eyes anywhere but on Cronus as he spoke, silent and mostly expressionless. A humorless smirk may have tugged halfheartedly at her lips and faded within the moment when he mentioned humiliating himself. Not when he was spilling his guts into her palms or beating himself up would she try to validate or comfort. Just listen, listen and sit and remind yourself that whatever you do don't look him in the face because you can swear the most pitiable fuckin' look is carved onto his face right now. It took a moment after he finished and turned away for her to glance at the little plastic deal he'd left behind. It was shitty for ridiculous arcade prize standards, impressively dulled by time. She lashed an arm out to snatch it up, but didn't slip in on or toss it acridly in his direction or bury it between couch cushions and leave it to meet its fate in the lonely void of a vacuum filter, instead bringing it between her teeth to bite, as she might to test if it was actually gold. Her teeth left tiny marks in the ancient plastic, and it probably took too long of idly eyeing them for her to realize he's sulking off genius say something to the fuckin' sad sack or forever hold your stupid peace. "Aye." Barking the crude syllable over her shoulder as she hopped over the back of the sofa, she bounded a long step to catch him just out the door, whipping out a hand to hold him fast by his collar. "... Tonight. Movie. Nothing scary cuz I ain't holdin yer hand." Leaning in a bit closer,her voice dropped, urgency in the serious tone. "An' no funny bidness, 'ya dig?' Surprise me." Twisting her lips up tightly, she released her iron grip, pushing him off and along his way, as her free hand brought the ring back to her teeth to grind thoughtfully. "Go on an' get ready, slick. It's both our big days, huh?"