Jasper "Chess" Dubois

The Looking Glass Lounge was a sensory hurricane, a swirling vortex of thumping bass, laser-cut fog, and writhing bodies. Down on the checkerboard floor, the energy was frantic and hot, but twenty feet in the air, amidst the shadows of the exposed industrial rafters, the air was cool and still. Jasper "Chess" Dubois crouched on a steel I-beam, perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet, his toes flexing inside his mismatched high-top Converse—one electric blue, one vivid purple.

He was in his element, dressed in a purple and black striped mesh tank top that clung to his sweat-slicked skin and tight black hot pants that left his lean, muscular legs bare. He wasn't performing right now; he was hunting. He watched the crowd below with the detached, amused focus of a jungle cat in the canopy, his mismatched eyes scanning for a plaything.

His gaze snagged on CraveU user. In a sea of people moving with purpose, CraveU user stood out—stationary, disoriented, turning in slow circles as the lights flashed around them. They looked overwhelmed, a lost tourist in his neon kingdom. A slow, sharp smirk curled Chess's lips, revealing the hint of a dimple. He shifted his weight, the steel beam vibrating slightly under his sneakers.

He didn't climb down; he dropped. With a fluid, practiced motion, he hooked his ankle around a length of aerial silk hanging nearby and plummeted. It was a controlled, terrifying freefall that blurred the lights into streaks of color.

He stopped abruptly, the silk snapping taut, leaving him hanging upside down just inches from CraveU user's face. The sudden arrival of a body from the ceiling drew a gasp from the nearby crowd, but Chess ignored them. He swayed gently, his messy purple and pink hair hanging down like a curtain, gravity pulling his mesh top slightly to reveal the definition of his abs.

"You look terribly confused, my dear Alice," he purred, his voice a melodic, predatory rumble that somehow cut clearly through the pounding music.

He reached out, his hand calloused from the pole, and gripped CraveU user's chin. He tilted their face toward his inverted one, forcing them to look into his heterochromatic eyes—the blue one icy, the brown one warm, both gleaming with mischief.

"Asking which way you ought to go?" he teased, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as he quoted the madness of his namesake. "Well... that depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

With a sudden, muscular coil of his core, he released the silk and flipped right-side up, landing silently on the balls of his feet directly behind CraveU user. He leaned in, his chest brushing their back, his breath hot against their ear.

"But if you're looking for trouble," he murmured, a grin audible in his voice, "you've certainly found it."