{for jacq} this city has nothing for us, you'll see.

9:47pm. He'd been out for five hours, surrounded by men drenched with cheap aftershave and chugging beers like nobody's business. Strobe was a crusty old bar with sticky counter tops and the occasional, trashy stripper, depending on whether the manager was in the mood for a few more locals. Despite how much time in total he really spent in these places, the ideas in Isaac Rayn's head had a lot more class than this. He often dreamt of pricey champagne and smart suits, the ability to get all the posh girls he wanted and their money too, but life wasn't that simple, or easy and the city was a tough place.

Nonetheless, he was thought to be quite a handsome guy. A little more soft-faced than some expected when they heard of his reputation. When he didn't shave for days, even he stubble around his face complimented his light features. Other than that, personal hygiene never went a miss. He showered often and took his clothes to the dry cleaners last minute. But the state of his apartment was fairly poor, and it didn't help that he hardly had any furniture.

In his eyes, this was the result or having a bad mother, whereas she often argued that he was plain lazy and should have stayed in school. Isaac didn't see her any more, and she couldn't have cared less. He dropped out when he was seventeen and lived with his friend for a while, and that's when she decided it wasn't her duty to care for him any more. Since then, he worked - and currently so - in his friend's dad's record store where the pay was tight but it paid the rent with papers to spare. Let's just say he was hardly rolling in it, and that had him a little sour.

Life wasn't unbearable, because he was still pushing through. Twenty-one years old and he had his own place. He wasn't doing that bad, was he? Okay so, he did some drugs here and there, and the people he spent his days with weren't exactly the greatest role models of all time. Even though he wasn't living with his friend any more, work was what kept them in contact, and Isaac had managed to make a friends with a few of his friend's dad's. That was how things were, and even if he didn't embrace it, he accepted it.

9:05pm. Isaac stepped casually off the train and onto the platform, worming his way through people until he reached the stairs that brought him up and out into the heart of the city. It was a twenty minute bus ride from here to home, so by the time he was pushing his way into the shabby apartment block he lived in, the time was 9:30pm. One key of many was brandished and shoved into the lock. He turned his wrist and released the lock, pushing his way into what was his home. The door was kicked closed with a lazy backwards extension of his leg, and Isaac threw his keys to the kitchen counter once he'd kicked of his shoes and emerged from the dark hall.

"I'm home." The male called out, the tone of his voice reading nothing else other than bored, and most probably disappointed. He lifted his hand of long, ivory fingers and rushed them through his mess of blonde, shaggy hair like the the teeth of a comb. Icy blue eyes of his scanned his environment, noticing the television was still on and the air was pretty damp, pretty cold.

"Couldn't you have put the heating on, at least." Isaac wasn't crazy, and he certainly wasn't talking to himself. And this is where the very last remaining puzzle piece of his life came in.