The clock ticked away as Damian put the final touch of ink on his skin. The codes and cyphers pictured on his body would fade in time, but their secrets would forever stay with him, imprinted in his brain by the mere effort of painting them down, as it always did. The room was silent and the light was dim in his small studio, and he liked it like that. Lounging near his latest canvas on the hardwood floor, the twenty something years old male looked as his reflection on the ornate mirror in the corner of the room, near the door. His skin looked like parchment, covered as it was in black lines and squiggles. He would have to make sure that it would be gone by morning, as the information written down was most sensitive in nature, accumulated by the various spies he handled over the years.

Damian posed as a painter to throw off suspicion from those who would otherwise destroy him for his gall. Indeed, those he sent his spy on were in fact the rich and powerful of the diseased Veronelle, a city corrupted by greed, hubris and sloth.

Standing back up, the young man made his way to the tub on the darkest corner of his studio, near his bed as he disrobed what was left of his clothing. Turning on the faucet, he entered the rapidly filling tub and sighed as he made himself relax in the warm water. A little scrubbing would take care of the rest in time, but for now he would enjoy the small luxury of a hot bath. As steam rose and the mirror he frequently looked upon fogged, he set out to compound the information he had been given today.

It seemed that the mayor was plotting something again, last time's fiasco having apparently not deterred him from scurrying favour to the mafia. The municipal election period approaching certainly having a say in his decision, no doubt. He would have to look into this tomorrow.

Raylen paused in front of a shop window, his granite-like eyes piercing through the city's reflections. Long closed and dark inside, the shop offered him a perfect mirror. He inspected the bruise and cut just under his right eye. He had the feeling that he wouldn't be seeing out of it come tomorrow. He grunted and pulled back from the store that he now noticed had been foreclosed on. His evening wasn't supposed to go like this.

His handler had him getting close to the mayor's wife, a rather buxom lady with big hair and lips painted too red. She was the sort that was fond of theater and rich food, the sort of things that made him sick. His sensitive stomach preferred salads above anything else. She also preferred men younger than her husband. Their little affair had been one of many and Raylen had no doubt that the mayor knew all about it and didn't care as long as she came home to him every night.

Today though, the woman had been outraged. She'd slapped Raylen hard, the gold ring on her finger cutting into his cheek. She yelled something about having no interest in affairs now and threw him out. Surely it wasn't a sentiment she truly believed, but he could do nothing to convince her otherwise. He was suspicious of this new development. Now the young man, barely twenty though his sharp cheek bones and small dark eyes often made him look older, made his way to his handler's studio.

He didn't bother knocking, a bad habit of his. Instead, he flung open the door and trudged inside. "You here?" he called.

An annoyed sigh followed by various splashes of water pierced the heavy fog now permeating the small studio as Damian got out of his tub, not taking notice of his nudity nor to the now smeared symbols on his skin. That particular spy of his couldn't seem to learn the basic courtesies such as knocking. Taking the time to drain the now black and tepid bathwater, he then turned back to Raylen with another sigh as he lazily dried himself with a nearby towel.

"Yes... how many time did I tell you to knock? I could have been busy, as you no doubt know." Damian sighed, annoyed by the other's antics.

Now dry, he made his way to the sole window of the studio and opened it, letting the putrid air of the city at night in and the steam out, letting him see his spy for the first time of the evening. What he saw exasperated him.

"What happened?" He said brusquely as he made his way through the room and took Raylen's chin in a firm grip as he examined the damage. "What happened with that new girlfriend of yours?" He repeated, making sure his spy understood that they were not in a secure location to talk frankly.

Raylen chuckled at the scene he had walked in on. Of course he knew that knocking would avoid such things, but it wasn't as if he minded. Since they both knew that he knew better, the young man didn't bother to say anything. Instead, he shrugged out of his jacket while Damian was drying and dropped it haphazardly on the floor. He shook out his hair from where it was still tied innocuously in a bun so that the ruddy red strands fell down almost to his shoulders. The ladies loved his hair, but he kept it tied up most of time because red hair tended to attract too much attention.

As usual, his handler went about things as if Raylen hadn't just strolled in at an unusual hour. Raylen's patience was just starting to run out when Damian opened the window, letting in enough light to see well by. That got the guy to look ruffled finally. Raylen was surprised when Damian walked across the room right to him and grabbed his chin. It took him a second to pull away.

"Hey, you don't have to stare at it," the redhead griped. "What do you think happened? She broke it off with me. Decided to be loyal to the big papa after all," he said, obviously making a reference to the mayor.

With a bothered glare at his tool, Damian hummed to himself as he nodded slightly to show that he understood “Mhm... this is a shame but I guess that it can't be helped... we will have to find you another one, I fear. I'm sure you know how it goes...” Was the flippant remark as the young man set his soiled towel on the windowsill to dry, a heater near the window helping the process along.

His task done, he set about to dress himself in a loose robe, not feeling like anything constricting that night as he pulled down the hood of the silken piece of clothing on his head and set out to prepare his painting equipment. Gesturing to the nearby divan, he told his spy to strip silently as he fetched a canvas and some paint to start his cover work.

Mixing the paint without any hurry, Damian hummed once more a small tune that told his agent that the next target would be a criminal. A peculiar criminal that was the primary contact of the mayor, the Morse code he made of his brush precised, as such thing could not be said aloud.

“So tell me, how did last week go?” The handler undercover as an artist asked, preparing to put secrets into his canvas, camouflaged beneath various layer of oil paint.

"I swear I'm about ready to give up on these types of women. I'll get ill if I eat another crab cake," Raylen complained with a shake of his head. He was glad for the room's pleasant warmth as he stripped as instructed, dropping his clothes wherever he pleased. He dropped lazily onto the divan, lounging rather than properly posing. It was just a cover anyway and he was tired. Why bother with all the effort?

But Raylen couldn't help but smile as Damian dipped into code, explaining who the next target would be. He hummed a little yes, both to say he understood and that he was pleased. It seemed he didn't need to complain earlier after all. He then paused to organize his thoughts.

"A strange week. Nothing happened until thursday, and then a shadow visited." He paused again because that was almost the most accurate description he could give of the shady fellow who appeared in a hat and cloak at the mayor's house while he was slipping out the back. He never saw more than a shadows worth of the guy, only enough to know it was a man by his thickness and height alone. From that day, the wife had grown more distant from him.

Raylen ended up tapping that out as best he could on the floor with one of his groomed nails. He was always better at understanding morse code than he was as sending messages. That was why he preferred finding abstract ways of saying what he really meant. Some days, abstraction was too abstract though.

Damian made a noise of compassion as he inscribed what he learned in dark paint in the vast expense of white before him. He would have to send another of his tools to investigate that shadowy man soon if he was to get any more information on the mayor's machinations. Maybe Laura would be fitting? He would have to think upon it before he summoned her tomorrow morning. For now he would concentrate on what Raylen discovered, as any piece of dirt was important at this stage of the game.

The next target was an aggressive fellow with a particular hatred for women, he coded once more, and did not seem receptive to any advances of the romantic nature. "I have a friend you absolutely must meet..." he droned in a listless manner as he started to camouflage the hidden messages in a crude approximation of the other man's figure. "He said he would love to meet you at the Gentlemen's club down the street," he added, in his way telling Raylen where his next target was usually found, a piece of information he had been informed of last week.

Afterwards they were both silents, an hour passed before a knock on Damian's door resounded in the small living quarters as a sweet voice said "Damian darling, are you there? I have news from my sister!"

It did not seems as if he would need to summon Laura after all, Damian though with a smirk.

Raylen figured he could have a nice long conversation with a guy who hated women. He was beginning to feel the same way. They were always so demanding of attention. "I love gentleman's clubs..." he muttered sarcastically, then fell into silence. The rhythmic sound of brush rasping over canvas had him starting to drift off to sleep. His head was inching ever closer to a cushion behind him when a girly voice broke apart the silence.

Jumping slightly, Raylen looked to the door, not the least bit happy to have his rest disrupted so abruptly. A scowl set on his face. "Is it a freakin party now?"

"No, you, however, did come here without an appointment and therefore are disturbing my usual routine, as I'm sure you are aware." Damian intoned in a bored voice as he signalled at his "guest" to dress up and leave as he made the small journey to the front door. Pasting a roguish smile on his face, he opened the door to let in a petite blond woman that immediately started to babble a mile a minute as she hugged as kissed him, apparently not having noticed anyone but her 'darling'.

Damian continued to smile as he made sense of the information the fast passed cooing really was, long since used to his spy's adoration towards himself. He did cultivate it for over a decade, after all... Charming Laura into working for him had been easy but he still had to make sure her "love" for him never wavered as a woman scorned would be disastrous to his line of work. Laura was a local prostitute and was his primary informant on the seedier side of life, a fact he never once forgot to make use of.

"Good evening, my love," he whispered in her ear, "what was that about your sister?" He asked, fully aware that the sister in question was merely a code for the madam of the brothel she worked in. Not paying attention to his male spy, he ushered the woman inside and on a small armchair by the window, eager to hear about the latest gossip of the underworld.

With a smile, Laura told him everything... and what was it but some dirty secrets of the mayor? Today seemed to be of some worth, after all...

Raylen grumbled and pulled to his feet, moving about the room to find his clothes and put them on. He kept one eye on the chatty woman that looked so into Damian that she didn't even notice the half naked redhead in the room. He pulled on his shirt and winced as the material scratched his face.

That woman had the most grating voice, so bubbly and he had to stick out his tongue at the affection between the other spy and their handler. He decided he was glad he wasn't the one hanging off the dude's every word. For a second, he considering doing something stupid to throw a wrench into their little word, but he decided against it. That was like to end in repercussions too much for him to handle. Instead, he headed for the window, figuring he'd just skip out before anyone took notice of him. He always did love exiting through windows.

"I know when I'm not wanted," Raylen muttered. He stayed long enough to hear the woman's juicy news before he hopped out the window and went off walking back to his own place.

Dawn crept up the small studio window as Damian looked upon his latest creation, the sounds of morning mixing with the ticking of the grandfather clock on a corner of the room and the dripping sound of the leaking faucet of the tub. Laura had just left after a long night of gossiping and more pleasant activities that left him lethargic to say the least. Many more half covered canvas now littered the small apartment, their code not yet fully integrated into a piece of art. He learnt a lot last night, and would have to warn his agent of what the mayor was planning as assassinating one's spouse could do wonder to ruining the man's reputation... he could certainly use this.

For now, however, he had to finish covering the canvas to prevent others from understanding their secrets and only then would he hopefully get some sleep and quiet for a few hours. Looking at the paint covered pieces of wood and fabric, the young handler set to work.

Raylen was not a morning person. After walking along the dark streets last night, avoiding the sort of people that thought he was selling something he wasn't, he had slept immediately upon returning home. He slept until the sun was already well and up in the sky and only woke when the sunbeams from the window on the opposite side of the room reached his face. He sat up on his mattress that sat on the floor and stared into his kitchen. He was glad to learn that his face only hurt a little where the woman had slapped him. Perhaps his beautiful face would be fine after all. He didn't have a mirror in his apartment though.

As he was eating raisin bread, he thought over his meeting with his handler. He would go to the gentleman's club later in the day to see if he could meet this 'friend' and get close to him. For a couple hours though, he planned on lounging at home and flirting with the single woman next door. Her fondness of him had her doing little favors from time to time. One time she even lied for him to the landowner. Thinking of her, Raylen decided to throw on some clean clothes and go outside. He found her hanging out laundry in the sun from her balcony and leaned on the railing, striking up a pointless conversation.

It was well into midday when Damian finished his work and finally crashed in his bed. The art of painting secrets and messages was a long and arduous task, though it was also very worthy of it's hassle. He slept well and only woke when the sun was making it's way down the sky, colouring it with vibrant orange and reds tinged with violet and purple. Admiring the sky for a moment from his bed, he finally stood and dressed smartly for his trip to the market, where one of his more promising spy worked as a merchant and where he could get some food to settle his groaning stomach.

Locking the window and door of his studio tightly, he set off down the stair leading to the street, nodding and smiling to his neighbours in passing. Reaching the market, he put on a brilliant smile as he reached the old man he was looking for.

"How is business?"

Raylen slipped into the gentleman's club some time that evening. It being a members only type thing, he used a vent to get in and crawled out into a thankfully empty bathroom. A less slender man would have had serious difficulty entering that way, but most men would find some other way in.

Smoothing out his nice clothes that he secretly hated, Raylen pinned his hair up and slipped on a hat. That done, he walked confidently into the main room of the club. He had the information Damian had given him, but it still took a few scans of the room to find the 'friend' he was looking for. Not wanting to look too direct, he wandered about the room and talked to people as if he knew them. Eventually he sat down at the bar two seat away from the target who was drinking scotch.

Raylen called the bartender over and ordered himself a drink before turning in the other man's general direction and speaking as if talking to himself. "It's been too long since I've been to this place. It's nicer than I remember."

Arms laden with groceries and head full of informations, Damian made his way back to his studio, eager to put down what he learned in a concrete way. Opening his building door and ascending the stairs with practised ease, he unlocked his door and entered his domain. Putting the food away, he stalked to his easel once more and set to work.

Two hours later he was finished and was washing his hands, preparing to make dinner and fully expecting at least one of his spies to knock on his door shortly. That slab of beef looked appetizing, he though as he cooked it on the oven with some onions and potatoes. The whole room's usual smell of turpentine and paint mixed with his next meal's aroma, making his stomach growl hungrily as he was reminded sharply that he did not eat anything today.

By the time the other man left, Raylen had gotten much closer to the guy, Lenard, than he expected. At first Lenard had been wary of him because it was hard to expect an interesting conversation out of someone who looked as young and out of place in the club as Raylen. Something must have gone right though because the other man had invited him to the race track a week from now. Lenard was a fan of betting on the horses.

The redhead must have had one too many drinks because he sat alone at the bar for some minutes before he realized he was in fact alone. He figured the stomach pain it was going to give him later would be worth what he had learned, so he walked out into the early night air that held just a hint of chill to it. He felt like sleeping, so he headed for his own place, figuring that Damian could wait to hear his information. That's what he was thinking, but as he came up in front of a door, he realized he was exactly at the studio he wasn't aiming for.

Stepping back a step, Raylen stared at the door. Didn't he take a right on Elm street? The street that ironically had pines instead of elms? Or were elms that really fat short trees...tall trees? He knocked loudly on the door before nearly kicking it open, yelling at the same time.

"I'm knocking this time, okay!"