[Closed] [Mature] Our Young Faces

[Tom Cooke]

In the Rain in Lionshead Beach

Time No Longer Has Meaning on the 27th of Ophus, 2719

H
is hands were shaking. He pushed himself up, breathing in the mud and ice-cold slush; his eyes came into focus on a crooked, rumpled cigarette butt, half-unrolled and dissolved in the river between two cobbles. He smelled sweet-sour piss, too, and wet dog, mingling with the rain. It was all sharper than it had been, as if he’d been wrenched out of the haze. All the same, his ears rang like somebody’d fired a gun just beside his head; the stones pulsed and swam, stretching, motes drifting in the dark.

The taste of blood still clung to his mouth, metallic and cloyingly sweet mingled with the ganja. He licked his lips, then clicked his teeth. That wasn’t something he tasted every day.

He heard Charlie’s voice, soft and far away, as if from the bottom of a barrel. It was more like a couple of sounds than a word; he couldn’t seem to parse it in his head, and it didn’t matter much, because it dissolved into laughter. He jolted at the sound, grunting and pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead.

There was a hoarse edge to Charlie’s laughter; it almost broke over itself.

He found himself snorting as his hand came away, wet and speckled with dirt. He cut himself off before he started laughing properly. His throat was too raw, anyway; it ached something laoso.

Charlie went on, and he grunted again. That didn’t sound good.

One step at a flooding time, he thought. Sit up, get your head straight, or straight as it’ll ever be. He took a deep breath, and the cold air still tasted like blood and cannabis; everything tasted like blood and cannabis and dog piss. He plucked idly at the hem of Anatole’s long coat, drenched in mud, then clicked his teeth again. He managed to sit up, the stones cold and hard against his erse, but only just. He lifted his head to look at the laundrylines and the alley began to spin. He shut his eyes instead, swallowing, fingers curling into the grit between two stones until they ached.

What the fuck was that?

“An eventful evening,” he blurted out without thinking, his voice scraping even rougher from his throat.

When he opened his eyes, he managed to look over at Charlie. His pale face was a broad grin, one eye still caught in bright blue by the streetlamp, all crooked-toothed and giddy and incredulous. His hair looked a damn mess, ponytail awry. He pushed a sheaf of it out of his face with one long-fingered hand as he watched, and a few stray drying hairs whispered about, limned in blue too.

He swallowed, glancing away, down the alley where they’d gone. Then: he snorted again, burying his face in both of his hands. “What the fuck did I just do?” he breathed, remembering it all at once. He couldn’t bring himself to apologize; it was altogether too strange for that, and his heart was leaping and turning over and aching, as if he’d just woken from a dream. “Why the fuck,” he said, louder, lowering both hands, “did I do that?”

He wasn’t sure if he expected a response from Charlie. There was a little smear of blood on his hands – from his lips – when he looked down, and he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, muttering another curse. Happily, he remembered Charlie saying, as if they’d all made a right bargain. Well, that hadn’t panned out. They’d dusted, he thought, before Charlie’d had a chance to hand over his; there was that, at least.

He remembered to go through his pockets, then; he cursed again. “Took my wallet,” he muttered, then rooted deeper, then fumbled with the buttons and searched his inside pocket. “And my – fucking – hotel key.”

He blinked; for a moment, he couldn’t remember – had he put that in his vest, or in his coat pocket? In his coat pocket, surely. The vest was back where he’d left it at Ten’s, flippant; he hadn’t been thinking of anything but his wallet, hadn’t even expected –

The natt had taken it, surely.

He started to pull himself shakily to his feet. “Why did that work?” He let out another snort, catching himself on a wall when his head spun. “Fuck me,” he hissed.

[Charlie Ewing]

Ophus 27, 2719 - Late, Probably
In the Rain, Some Horrible Alley

An eventful evening, Anatole shot back from out of the dark. Charlie's laugh caught on a wheeze then. He just couldn't seem to stop. He laughed so long he'd stripped all the polish off of it; he sounded moony as fuck. Fucking fair enough though, right? Considering.

"That's what I was asking you," he whined cheerfully. So neither of them knew what that had been. Did it matter? It had worked, whatever the reason. And here they were, whole and hale. Well, Charlie was—Anatole had blood on his mouth. His own, or Boss Genius'? Did that matter, either? There were worse things than a little blood on your face. Probably.

Enough sitting around in this alley of a street, though. Charlie pushed himself up to his knees, and the absolutely refused to think about what was on his hands. Or his clothes, or any part of him really. The longer he sat here, the more in his own skin Charlie felt, the more he was aware of their surroundings. Filthy, stinking, damp. The recipe for a delightful night, surely. He was still grinning when he came to his feet, but the laughter had stopped.

A cigarette. That's what he needed. Tobacco to calm his nerves. The pipe was on the ground somewhere, but Charlie wasn't going to look for it. He couldn't imagine that was going anywhere near his face now anyway. The very thought was appalling; he was appalled. Charlie was steady enough on his feet, but his hands were less so as he fished around for his cigarette case. It went clattering to the ground.

"Alioe, full of fucking grace!" Charlie kept muttering to himself as he bent over to retrieve it. Swiftly, before the damp got in and ruined the contents. Anatole was muttering to himself too, and going through his pockets. Charlie held the metal case in his hands like an idiot for a while, just running this thumb over the seam where the two halves met.

Part of the muttering caught Charlie's ears. He looked up from the case, gleaming in the blue light, and over to where the other man was going through his pockets. "Your what? Why the fuck would they want— You know what? Nevermind. Criminal minds." Charlie snorted. Hotel key. What kind of mugger took a hotel key? The same kind that ran away from an aging politician shouting gibberish, apparently.

Keys, keys, keys. Thinking was still hard. Crawling back into his own clammy skin or not, he'd still had quite a few substances of unknown origin in the last few hours. The effects had dampened, maybe, but not dissipated. Just the fun ones, unfortunately.

Charlie felt his own pockets. He still had his wallet, at least. And his own keys, which was nice too. Hard to get in without them, and his landlady wouldn't wake up at this hour. She slept like the dead, which was good when Charlie lived above her and tended to keep odd hours. Fewer complaints that way. From her; his other neighbors felt somewhat differently. "Guess you'll have to sleep on the str—"

An idea came to him; his face lit up. Anatole was pulling himself to his feet, catching himself on the wall. "Sure thing," Charlie offered in answer to that hiss. Lightly, but really. The time for subtlety, even the mild amount employed all night, had very clearly passed. Charlie was grinning from ear to ear again now.

The idea was not a good idea. Bits and pieces of him didn't like the idea. Other bits and pieces didn't think the idea would work. But most of the bits were wreathed in smoke and soaked in alcohol. Soaked in rain and gutter water that smelled like an animal had pissed itself and died in it. They thought it was a brilliant idea, so that's what his mouth came out with.

"Well I still have my wallet," he said, stepping closer again, "and my keys. I do live... Somewhere." He held out a pale, slim-fingered hand. His feline grin glittered in the dark (or so he imagined). "I also have hot running water."

[Tom Cooke]

A Filthy Alleyway, Lionshead

Time No Longer Has Meaning on the 27th of Ophus, 2719

S
ure thing, he heard Charlie say, somewhere distant. He snorted; he was too tired to do much else. He snorted again, and then he laughed, his hand still braced against the dirty wood, and pressed his other hand to his forehead. “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he managed to drawl, “I’m terribly shy about this sort of thing.” He snorted again, because he hadn’t realized he’d said it aloud.

Criminal minds, Charlie’d said, flippant enough, and he was glad he hadn’t pressed the point further.

Alioe, full of fucking grace, he found himself mouthing before he stopped himself. The phrase echoed through his head, knocking about the inside of his skull, Brunnhold enunciation running into the mud with the rainwater and ash.

Whatever the other man had been looking for in the dark and slush, he’d found it. He looked over curiously and caught the edge of a glint in his hands. He groaned, remembering his pipe. His eyes ached and burned, and he couldn’t make anything out, least of all dark, slick-varnished wood.

Charlie had cut himself off, and he wasn’t sure why. He might’ve made it back to the hotel; they’d recognize him, he supposed. He didn’t fancy the long walk on his hip, and funny enough, he was tempted to sink down and spend the night right here.

He felt the static field brush closer, though it was held as carefully apart as ever. He glanced up at the flash of Charlie’s pale face, the glint of his grin. He was close enough then again to smell the wet wool of his coat, and other scents.

He remembered what he’d been on the verge of doing; he remembered it like a dream, though the dream had only got stranger. He felt a dull, remembered tingling in his lips. The alley still threatened to turn over; he managed to keep himself upright. Charlie’s face was an anchor, a thing that wasn’t moving. He felt a tug through him, and he wondered – feeling moony – if he might do it even after all that, as if they were lads and it’d been nothing but a stone thrown between them.

Then long pale fingers unfurled between them, and he looked down at those. The words swam up in his head. “Somewhere,” he repeated dubiously, all the warning bells clanging in his head.

He snorted.

“You really do know how to treat a pretty girl in need,” he grated, with a bitter twist of a grin. “Hot, running water. My, my.” It was almost a purr. Still, he hesitated a moment before he took Charlie’s hand. “Do you live nearby, or does your valiance extend to cab fare?”

His skin was cold and grimy, but he felt the warmth underneath. There was a surprising amount of strength in those long, tapering fingers. He tried not to think too hard about them; instead, he held on firmly, and he let Charlie take some of his weight as he eased off the wall, finding his feet again. He almost slipped, but he stayed upright.

The other man was steadier on his feet, but he wasn’t sure by how much. Are you all right? he thought to ask again; he couldn’t quite bring himself to it, with the mechanic’s sly grin, and with that laughter still bouncing around in his head. He almost wanted to laugh himself, breathless, his heart still hammering erratically. “Thank you,” he said instead, matter-of-factly.

His umbrella lay not a few feet from them. When they got to it, he bent carefully down to get it, feeling like his brain was knocking about inside his skull as he did. He tucked it under his arm, coming upright with a heavy breath.

“I could use a cigarette to clear my head,” he said. He let go of Charlie’s hand, but he held onto his shoulder instead. “Whatever your man Ten sold us, it’s still hitting me hard.” He snorted, running a dirty hand through his hair and rolling his eyes skyward. “Clearly.”

Kenser-monite. “Is that enough blasphemy for you for the evening, or do you have more in mind?” He glanced over, raising one red eyebrow sharply.

[Charlie Ewing]

Ophus 27, 2719 - Late, Probably
In the Rain, Some Horrible Alley

The agreement he'd thrown out there had been a joke, but also entirely sincere. Charlie still grinned and laughed at that "terribly shy". Both because it was funny, and because that wasn't the same as a "not interested". He could certainly work with that, if he had to. Just because he didn't normally have to work so hard didn't mean he was incapable of doing so.

Anatole had looked first from Charlie's face, wet and gleaming, and then to his hand. Which was, honestly, probably almost the same. He didn't move it, not even after that dubious repetition of his "somewhere". The street wasn't the most comfortable place to have stayed. Maybe the hotel would have let him back in, even a bedraggled, filthy mess like he was now. But Charlie thought he made a pretty good offer, right?

"A gentleman would never leave a damsel in distress," he said, all smirks and promises. Slim white fingers and calluses. "And I don't, but it does." He was pretty sure it did, anyway. He'd check his wallet. They'd certainly get closer, right? Less walking was less walking. Charlie wasn't exactly frothing at the mouth with desire to go the whole way back to Cantile himself. Worth the money. Assuming he had it.

Really, it was astonishing how quickly one could recover from unpleasantness with sufficient motivation. Charlie felt just as terrestrial as he had before, jostled unfortunately back into himself by being rudely shoved to the ground, but that was probably good. Maybe? He had no fucking idea. His head sure as shit wasn't on any straighter than it had been. Anatole's grip on his hand was heavy and firm; Charlie's own hand was relatively steady. He didn't falter, anyway.

"Should I be offended?" Charlie's eyebrows raised, pretty little dark arches on a pale face. He wasn't offended even if he should have been. If there was an insult intended for him in the words, Charlie was ignoring it. He didn't think there was, anyway. Just, you know. One never did know. It was always possible. He flipped his cigarette case open obligingly and held it out. Gentleman, so on and so forth.

"No idea what he sold us, it's true. His own special blend of herbs and spices, I suspect." Charlie put a cigarette to his own lips and shrugged. He offered Anatole the light first, thinking it couldn't hurt his case. Whatever his case was—"come back to my place, meet my bird, by the way I have been aggressively hitting on you all night"? Sounded about right.

Charlie lit his own cigarette. Inhaled deep and watched; exhaled slow and kept watching. "Not sure," he said somewhere between a purr and a drawl. "I try not to plan that far ahead."

Yeah, this was a great idea. This was a great idea and it would work. Why didn't he think so before? He couldn't remember now. A distant worry. Now all he cared about was getting a cab back across the city. As soon as possible, before certain people could change their minds and really spoil the evening.

Charlie started off in a direction he thought was likely to lead to a bigger street. Somewhere they could hail a cab at least; there had to be some about, even at this hour. Even out here. He didn't think about it too hard, knowing that any thought he grasped for would slip away quick enough anyway. Better to let his feet do the thinking and take them where they were going to go. That this was the policy that had let them to this particularly charming little side street wasn't a fact he was sober enough to dwell on.

They'd been fine here anyway, right? So who cared, honestly?

[Tom Cooke]

A Pleasant Stroll in the Rose

Time No Longer Has Meaning on the 27th of Ophus, 2719

H
e laughed. It must’ve been whatever the hell Ten had sold them; he was strangely tickled – had been all night – to get a laugh out of Charlie, and somehow that only made what came out of his mouth next even funnier. They were drifting back up the alleyway, and he was still laughing, not hoarse or hysterical but soft and snorting. His heart was starting to calm itself, though he still felt like he’d got hit with the runoff of one of those static lightning spells. All his weak golly muscles aching from the wrench and the fall.

“I don’t know,” he said, clasping Charlie’s shoulder once and letting his hand slip away. “Maybe it’s fun, being offended. I do it often enough it ought to be. D’you want to be offended?” If he could’ve told anything by the delicate arch of those eyebrows, or the smile on his lips, the question didn’t need an answer.

He stood on his own well enough now, though he stayed shoulder-to-shoulder in case. There was something pleasant about it, too, the wool and the warmth of him; it was damned cold and only getting colder, and the rain had picked up again, whisking the chill breeze

He wasn’t sure if he was coming down from his high, or if it was wafting itself into a different shape. He couldn’t seem to help what was spilling out of his mouth. Everything and nothing made sense; everything was sharp-edged, but his eyes couldn’t seem to land and stay on any one thing – the stones underfoot were a dull blur, and the clotheslines, and the streetlamp smearing in the rain – except for the one thing he wasn’t sure he wanted to look at, and that, he could’ve looked at for hours.

The cigarette case flashed in the mechanic’s long fingers, and he took a spur with a surprisingly steady hand.

He had to look eventually. There was a cigarette in his thin lips, and he was looking at him expectantly, clear blue eyes under long lashes. The match was lit, as matter-of-fact as outside Ten’s flat, and sparks of reflections caught and echoed through them.

He’d offered him the light first. You really do know how to, he thought to say, then realized he’d already made the joke once that night. He grinned, then put his spur to his lips and let Charlie light it.

The first drag, his face smoothed out; he wasn’t smiling or frowning. He blew out smoke, curling in the cold air and mingling with the white fog of his breath. He felt all of himself sagging and sore, and the rustling beginnings of a nasty headache, but it was good. It was fair good.

“Whatever the hell it is, it doesn’t agree with me,” he said, speaking through the cigarette in his lips as he opened up his muddy umbrella at the end of the alleyway, “or it agrees with me too much, and either way, it’s damned worrying.” The umbrella came open with a splattering of mud and dirty rainwater and gods knew what else. His lip curled, but it wasn’t as if they were clean.

Damned worrying that nothing’s worrying, he thought. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of as-yet-unforeseen blasphemies, but he did rather like not having a plan. There was no shadow on his heels tonight, and he let himself sag, disheveled and tired and still on the edge of a laugh.

Back out in the rain, he huddled closer, and the scratchy-wool-steaming-breath hunger for warmth took the place of whatever he might’ve felt at the touch of those macha fingers.

They walked for some time; he wasn’t sure how long it was, smoking in the rain, but his hip and the soles of his feet ached. They came out onto broader streets, but if passersby gave them a first look, tired-looking natt and huddled folks rushing from one well-lit, warm bar to another, nobody gave them a second.

They were headed toward Lossey, he realized after a while. He knew these streets, too. And he knew the intersection of Loughty and Villin, crowded enough this time of night in spite of the rain. All cheery lights and noise spilling out of bars, shopfronts lit hopefully.

Everything wreathed already in Clock’s Eve decorations. He’d forgot it was little more than a week away.

Here they did get looks, startled; there was the occasional brush of a field from folk as double-took at the sight of him, red hair wet and cowlicked and Anatole’s expensive coat bedraggled, no high collar underneath it. Charlie looked a sight, too, and both of them smoking cheap spurs, huddled together like beggars under a black silk umbrella with a hole torn in it, pouring one thin stream of water steadily down under the umbrella.

He recognized the Villin stop, too, when they came to it, the covered bench where a tired-looking human couple sat, a bundled-up boch sitting in between them. They glanced up at him and Charlie warily; the boch, sucking a thumb, stared with something that looked like mild terror.

The omnibus wasn’t there; he wasn’t sure how long ago it’d been since it’d left, and he didn't hear the whickering of horses or the sound of hooves. He wanted nothing more than to sink down onto the bench, but he glanced again at the boch, who huddled a little closer to her ma, and thought better of it.

“Godsdamn, what a night,” he breathed, putting his cigarette back between his lips to shove his hands deeper in his pockets. “You know, I never did ask if you were whisking me off to your flat to kill me. Suppose I should've.” He grinned.

[Charlie Ewing]

Ophus 27, 2719 - Whatever Unholy Hour
Meandering Through the Rose

The alley they'd been in was sheltered from the rain enough that Charlie hadn't worried much about needing the umbrella. Not even as he was trying to light that cigarette in the thin curl of his mouth, or Anatole's. That wasn't true for long; Charlie made a token noise of protest when the muck on the umbrella splattered on his shins, but he was already disgusting. So the additional filth hardly made a difference, honestly. They came out of the mouth of the alley and the wind walloped against the side of his face swift and merciless, driving some of the water with it. Not enough to put his cigarette out, at least. Small mercies.

"Then you worry too much," Charlie said through a long exhale. He flashed another smile up at the other man, leaning a little heavier into the point where their shoulders touched. "I try not to worry about anything; bad for the complexion."

They went on for however the fuck long they ended up walking. Charlie thought he was coming down from whatever high he'd been on, but time was still a slippery concept. At this hour—and he knew it was an Hour, because it had been heading that direction when they left the Duckling and had not improved since—he wasn't sure it mattered, things like "time". The closer they got to properly inhabited bits of the city, the thicker the crowd was, too. So maybe less of an Hour than he thought. Well, who cared?

We must look absolutely horrific, Charlie thought, and the idea made him laugh a little. (As horrific as he ever looked—even filthy, wet and bedraggled, he was still himself after all.) Nobody paid them much mind at first. Sure, they got a glance, but that was all. That changed the better-lit the area became. Then, they got a first look and a second, too. Long and disapproving, or else concerned.

Charlie hadn't really thought about it until they got there, but while he'd said he would pay for a cab they had ended up at a stop for the omnnibus. More in his budget; Anatole didn't seem to have any objections. And if he did, well, too fucking bad.

The Villin stop had a shelter above it that someone had optimistically decorated with a bit of bright Clock's Eve cheer. A little bit of greenery, a ribbon, that sort of shit. Charlie batted at it as they ducked under the overhang to stand near to the bench and discovered there were bells in it, too. How sweet.

They weren't alone. There was a little family there, young, with a young child between them. All of them looked over in something like terror. That struck Charlie as not wildly unfair. He glanced down to the child and grinned. It did absolutely nothing to help; the brat cuddled up closer to her mother, who was clearly torn between glaring at him and looking away. Ah, well. Ten years time, maybe his face would have worked on the kid—bit early for that, though.

Charlie leaned comfortably back against a shelter support and found himself laughing again. He was, he thought in an idle, distant sort of way, doing that a lot. Charlie suspected he may well be having fun, outside of the vodka or anything Ten had sold them. What an absolutely bizarre thought.

"You'll just have to wait until we get there to find out," he cackled. "But it would make anything else sort of difficult, so probably not. A pulse is important, usually." His grin was crooked, sharp. Probably he shouldn't make jokes about necrophilia in the presence of small children and their parents, but, well. He was sure the kid had heard worse. If not, she would eventually.

"And I'm positively wounded," he continue on, finishing the end of his cigarette and dropping it to the street at his feet. Despite the damp putting it out on contact, Charlie still ground it to tobacco-and-paper shreds underneath the weight of his heel. These shoes were absolutely fucked, he realized. Oh well. He wasn't likely to try anything like that fiasco at the ballroom again anytime soon. "You say that like you haven't been having fun."

As he said it, he heard the clatter of hooves and the creaking rumble of the wheels. "What luck," Charlie chirped. Blasphemy, he thought with a sort of delighted good humor. The human family on the bench seemed relieved, coming to stand as the omnibus pulled into view. The relief was short-lived as they realized that Charlie and Anatole were also, in fact, waiting for the omnibus. It approached, louder and louder, and Charlie remembered just in time to fish around in his pockets for the tallies for the fare. He dug a sharp corner into his thumb, reasonably eager to sit down again.

"After you," he gestured with a flourish that wobbled—he was, perhaps, less sober than he thought before—when the coach pulled up, already half-full. "Ladies first," he added on a whim, choking on his own laugh.

[Tom Cooke]

An Omnibus Bound for Cantile

Time No Longer Has Meaning on the 27th of Ophus, 2719

W
hen Charlie ducked under the support, one of those pale, long-fingered hands came up to bat at the greenery – and he was halfway through shutting up his umbrella when he heard the jingle, and he dissolved into snorting laughter again. He cut himself off with a grumbling clear of the throat. He buttoned the tie and tucked the damp, bedraggled thing under one arm; he eased back against the supports on the other end.

The mechanic was laughing again. It reminded him of a bell too, clear and pleasant; it hadn’t the hysteric edge it’d had earlier in the alley, though it tilted into a sly cackle. One he’d’ve said he didn’t much like, roundabout the first part of the night. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

The boch’s da was sitting stiff-like in his coat, staring straight ahead, and her ma’s lip twitched at a particularly sharp stroke of laughter. The boch hadn’t looked at him since that grin; she was looking studiously away, and hadn’t, he thought, looked at him a single time.

He couldn’t exactly blame her. The windows had been lit well enough in Lossey he hadn’t caught sight of his reflection, and if they’d been dark before that, he hadn’t looked.

Charlie spoke up, drawling again over the rain. He looked across, putting his own spur to his lips and lifting his brows.

There wasn’t much avoiding looking now, but he rather wished he hadn’t. He thought he might’ve understood why the boch looked so frightened, if it hadn’t been for a fair different reason entirely.

Without the hunger for warmth, the drudgery of walking, there wasn’t much else for him to worry about anymore except for that fine-featured face. His hair was still a mess; there was a black tangle swept across his forehead, glistening above the arc of thin dark brows, and another, smaller wisp by his curling smile, just beside the two little moles.

Try not to worry about anything, he thought mockingly, glancing abruptly away as his heart gave another funny little flop. He snorted. Bad for the flooding complexion. He put his spur to his lips again as Charlie ground out his own, and it was only then that the words sank in, only as the boch’s ma stiffened slightly and held her lass a little closer.

He spluttered, fumbling the cigarette ‘til it fell to the dirty stones.

Lass’ da glanced over, nervous, then at his hands folded in his lap.

“Well, I have a, uh,” he took a deep breath, blinking, “I have a pulse, at least.” Godsdamn, but he was too high to think about all the shit he could’ve been thinking about.

He cleared his throat, rolling his shoulders as if he’d damn well meant to do it. He ground out his own spur at almost the same moment as Charlie. “On the contrary, Charlie Ewing, I haven’t had this fun of an evening in a very, very long time,” he said, finding a lopsided ghost of a grin.

He didn’t have much time to think whether it was true, or worry about much of anything. Perhaps his complexion would benefit; glancing down at one pale, freckled hand, he doubted it.

Omnibuses had always looked to him a bit like many-legged beasts, with the two horses and their eight legs cantering along, with the wheels creaking and hissing over the stones. The omnibus was a bulky dark shape against the rain.

Luck. The word went in one ear and out the other, because he was too busy letting the anything else from earlier sink in.

Charlie was closer then, and though their fields were still careful apart, he felt his airy voice like the brush of a caprise. It choked on its laughter, not quite the Brunnhold drawl, and he found himself laughing too. “Shit,” he muttered. The natt family was standing, but holding well back. Shrugging, he climbed board, almost swaying and stumbling himself.

“My valiant gentleman shall be paying my fare,” he called up to the driver, more loudly than he’d meant, and immediately regretted it.

He knew this route well enough; there weren’t many folk aboard yet, though there’d be more by the next stop, and even more by the Court. He wondered idly where they were going, but didn’t wonder long.

He took a seat at the back, catching sharp, uncomfortable glances from a tsat couple pressed nearly to the windows on one side. There was a funny sort of smell in here, and he realized – belatedly – it hadn’t been there until he and the mechanic had gotten on. But he was so relieved to feel the bench against his back that he almost didn’t care; he didn’t look up when he felt the brush of Charlie’s field again.

He did blink his eyes open after a moment. Two bochi, looking a little like urchins, were sitting nearby; one couldn’t’ve been any older than six, and she was clinging to what looked like her older brother, a lad of nine or ten.

They were both staring, unabashedly, glassy-eyed.

The omnibus lurched into motion. Passing lights flickered over the car, shifting strangely. The couple from the Villin stop was sitting at the front of the as-yet-mostly-empty bus, as far away from them as possible.

“I don’t look that bad, do I?” He eased back against the seat, grunting. “Shit. May I ask where we’re getting off” – he immediately regretted that, too, but soldiered on – “or is that a surprise, too?”

[Charlie Ewing]

Ophus 27, 2720 - Fuck, Who Knows Anymore?
On the Omnibus Towards Cantile

If not for the circumstances—you know, being wasted and filthy standing next to what he assumed was a perfectly nice family in the shelter of an omnibus stop—Charlie might have taken the opening the reaction to his extremely good joke had given him. Do you, he could have said, and reached to find it. Yeah, could have done. Could have done so anyway, honestly, but he snickered again instead.

That was the most ridiculous fucking thing though. He made his absurd godsdamn joke, and it had gotten a reaction. A splutter, a fumble of the cigarette so they were both crushing the butts underfoot at about the same time. And the thing that got him the most was that faint grin, breezily declaring he was having fun. Of course he was, Charlie protested to himself; spending the evening with Charlie was always a good time. Who didn't have fun when he took them out?

Ah, fuck.

He was just fucked up still, that was all. Anyway, they were both having fun, so that was good. Right? Yeah. Fun was good. Charlie liked fun. The family they'd been sharing the bus shelter with seemed determined to let them get on first. Well, that was fine. He wasn't going to argue. He gestured grandly for Anatole to go first, which he did. Wobbling, but no more than Charlie was. Maybe, probably.

Charlie nearly lost his shit entirely though when that "valiant gentleman" crack came back to him. Loud as hell; more than one person turned to look, and they did not look pleased. Charlie himself had trouble getting enough of a grip on himself to hand the coins over to the driver. The driver looked at both of them like he really, really wanted to tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. To stay the hell off his omnibus, at least. But he didn't.

Anatole made a beeline for one of the seats at the back while Charlie paid the fare. Charlie followed along after, ignoring glances from the few others on the omnibus already. Charlie had taken this route a few times, though not often. More people would likely pile on after this, although given the hour he wasn't so sure. They had a few stops between here and their destination.

By the time Charlie sat down, Anatole's eyes were closed. They stayed that way as Charlie settled all his thin limbs into the seat next to him. He propped the heel of one foot up on the edge of the seat. Gracious clocking Alioe, they probably both smelled atrocious. Charlie couldn't tell outside, but he was more aware of it once seated. Well, fuck. What was anyone expecting? They were lucky to be alive, with only the regular number of holes in each of them. Charlie's hair was sticking unpleasantly to the side of his face, though.

Hot running water. He'd promised that, hadn't he? Among other things. Charlie was looking forward to it, rather a lot. He might live the way he did, but he didn't actually like to stay filthy himself when he wasn't at work. Work, he reflected, was different entirely. Charlie sighed longingly and slumped some of his slender frame against Anatole's shoulder. A casual amount of contact, acceptable-ish for the venue. There were two children staring at them; Charlie stuck his tongue out and made a face at them both.

"You'll always be beautiful to me, darling," Charlie offered in a sort of lilting, absurd sing-song voice. He chased after it with a particularly dazzling smile and a lifting of his eyebrows. He snorted, like the mature and world-wise adult he was, at the deployment of the phrase "getting off", but made no further comment.

"Cantile," Charlie said with a shrug that jostled both their filthy, sodden coats. The omnibus hit a hole in the road and Charlie swore. "Can't remember what stop it is; I'll know it when I see it. You'll just have to entertain me until we get there, so I don't fall asleep and miss it."

He was really more wasted than tired, truthfully. Everything he'd put into his body all day swirled around in him, and the adrenaline from earlier too. Charlie felt sort of stretched tight and sore, wired and aching. He wasn't about to pass up the excuse to lean a little more heavily into that shoulder, though.

[Tom Cooke]

An Omnibus Bound for Cantile

Time No Longer Has Meaning on the 27th of Ophus, 2719

C
harlie’s head was against his shoulder – he was rather sharply aware of it – so he couldn’t see what expression he’d made. What he could see was the little lass’ eyes widening nearly round on her face, and her mouth opening in a tiny ‘o’. The lad, still holding tight to his sister’s arm, looked at the window across the aisle and set his jaw square. He didn’t look back, though the lass snuck the occasional glance over at the two gollies, seemingly mesmerized.

He shifted to look down at Charlie, just in time to catch an equally bedraggled grin.

He almost laughed; he managed a straight face this time, furrowing his brow. “Oh, don’t lie to me, my dear,” he shot back in his best imitation of Diana’s voice. It wasn’t a very good one, with Anatole’s – everything. “I know I’ve lost… my…”

He couldn’t finish. Whatever it was, it was swallowed up by another snort and a cascade of laughter.

Charlie was a fold of thin limbs in the seat beside him, his rainslick, ruined shoe up on the bench, one bony knee sticking up from the hem of his coat. He’d settled back into him now, and if it hadn’t been for that funny, prickling, heart-flipping-over feeling, like he was doing something he really oughtn’t be doing, it might’ve been pleasant. Almost without meaning to, he eased against the other man.

He realized somewhere in the muddle of everything that he was taller than Ewing. There was a tangle of his wet hair against his cheek; it didn’t just smell like ash and mud, though he couldn’t’ve said how it was the other man smelled. He straightened a little again, only – like anybody who’s ever leaned on anybody in a cab – it made him lean a little deeper, and that wasn’t much to his liking, either.

That, or it was too much to his liking.

“Cantile,” he grunted. He grunted again with a twinge in his back when the wheel hit a hole, and he looked out the window, watching Lossey slide by. More Clock’s Eve decorations, silver ribbons and tinsel swaddling streetlamps, glimmering copper-bright in the blue phosphor.

And where does a toff who’s slumming it live? Some apartment on the nicer end of Cantile, maybe paid for by his folks, for all he didn’t care to wear their name. He felt another twinge of bitterness and took a deep breath.

He snorted again, smile softer than he’d meant. Thinking he might not’ve objected to the toff falling asleep on his shoulder, and thinking he might not’ve been this clocking high in a while. “Will I, now?”

Second stop. The human couple got off there, the boch in her da’s arms. A group got on, this time, a gaggle of human lads with what looked like a pub crawl’s afterglow. One of them caught sight of them in the back, and the rest of them roared with laughter, collapsing onto a row of benches with widespread legs and plenty of space between them. A handful more humans in grey factory uniforms got on.

A mousy young nattle, gawky and tall, climbed on next. Reminded him a little of Grace Carre, but with a smaller face. She was swaddled in a worn coat a size too big.

The lads hadn’t left much room in the one less-occupied corner of the omnibus. The thing jolted into motion before she’d got her seat, and she caught herself awkwardly on a bench, nearly jostling into the tsat couple. She looked with mild terror at the two of them, but there wasn’t much choice; she took a seat nearby.

“Let’s see what tales of derring-do’ll fit between here and Cantile…” He sucked at a tooth. “Any requests? Sordid topics I haven't covered yet?”

The nattle shifted uncomfortably. “S-S-Sirs, sorry to interrupt,” she stammered, small fingers white-knuckled around the handle of her worn old bag. She didn’t quite look at either of them. “D-Did you say – Cantile? Y-You wouldn’t happen to know which stop to get to – er – to get to Finley-Blue?”

[Charlie Ewing]

Ophus 27, 2720 - Fuck, Who Knows Anymore?
On the Omnibus Towards Cantile

Whatever that impression was that Anatole was doing, Charlie couldn't tell. It sounded very vaguely like Mrs. Vauquelin, if you squinted and didn't think too hard. Not as good as Cherry's, but Charlie kept that idea to himself. Too busy swallowing more laughter, he supposed.

Cantile, he was tempted to say again, like the third time they said it that would reveal some secret knowledge that hadn't been there before. Somewhere between the edge of it and Sharkswell, he could have added, but he didn't. Not the worst part of it, but not the best either. Charlie wondered rather idly what kind of place Anatole thought he lived in. The soup he'd made of all of his thoughts was trying to remind him that he didn't normally want anyone to think about where he lived. Charlie peevishly reminded the soup that it was too late, they were on the bus already, and he'd see it with his own eyes before too much longer.

Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie watched the streetlamps flash by—blue, blue, blue, a gold flash in there every once in a while. Tippy would need to be fed, when they got back to his flat. Charlie could have snorted with laughter again, thinking about it. Just have a seat on the sofa, don't mind the pillows, I just sleep there most nights. This was a terrible, awful idea. Charlie was too comfortable to care.

"Or you could guess where I live, that's fine too." He snorted, a bit less bite in it than there should have been. They came to another stop. Not the right stop, Charlie confirmed by looking out the window. He'd already lost track of how many stops there had been, and how many more were left. The family got off, and they were replaced with a group of rather laddish young men. Charlie rolled his eyes when they broke into laughter; not much below his age, Charlie thought. But very, wholly, entirely human.

Charlie's eyes drifted a little closed, not paying much attention to anyone else who got on after. Until one of them came to sit near Charlie and Anatole. Then he cracked open one blue eye and sat up a bit straighter. He was awake, he whined to himself. More awake at the jolt of the omnibus pulling away, at the girl coming to sit nearby.

"Requests? Weeeell," he drawled, casting around in his mind for a suitable subject. It was getting hard to predict what he could ask about at this point. He hadn't reached a conclusion when the girl piped up, although she didn't bring herself to look at either of them. At least the brats had the boldness to stare.

Charlie swiveled his head, not sitting up much more than he already had. Did they look so terrible? Charlie hadn't thought so, but he knew he looked lovely no matter what. Lovely, Charlie reflected, was not the same as trustworthy. He very rarely looked that.

Finley-Blue, Finley-Blue. Which fucking stop was that? Ah, shit. He was too pissed to remember. Finley-Blue... Oh. That was their stop, wasn't it. Different directions, same stop. "I do," he crooned, grinning at her out of habit. "You'll be getting off with us, I believe." Charlie snickered. Couldn't help it. He hadn't meant it that way, but it was funny. Okay, it wasn't really funny so much as he was in the sort of mood where he'd laugh at a lot of unfunny things, but that was basically the same.

"Aren't you lucky," he added, and laughed again.