He was somehow not surprised when Charlie admitted this wasn’t odd for him. He didn’t think it would have been. Not to disparage the man’s character, but he had clearly done this before. Luckily, Baz mostly remembered where the rum was. It was somewhere in the vicinity of his workbench, he was pretty sure. It took a bit of rummaging and rifling around, but he eventually found the bottle in one of the drawers. A bit more digging turned up a clean pair of mismatched glasses. He unscrewed the top of the bottle as Charlie wandered his way over to the wash basin.
Baz blushed a bit, as Charlie noted the drawings on the wall. They were old ones, from last year. Studies he had done of migratory birds before they had left for warmer climates. He had more in a notebook that sat in his bedside drawer, newer ones that — in his opinion — showed marked improvement, but the ones on the wall were his particular favourite species. One of them was a robin, and the other a barn swallow. He intended to revise them once the birds began to make their way back as the weather warmed, but for now, what was there would do.
“I love birds,” he explained, pouring them each a glass of rum, “I find them fascinating. I think that we — as engineers — can learn a great deal from studying them and how they fly. Birds don’t need complex spells or balloons of volatile gas to take flight. They only need their wings and their own power. It might sound silly but I think that observing and studying them could revolutionize air travel as we know it.”
He made his way over, standing behind Charlie and reaching over his shoulder to offer him a glass. This was, perhaps, the closest they had been all night. As Charlie mentioned his pet, Baz smiled.
“A whice, hm?” he repeated. “What breed? I’ve sometimes thought of getting a pet bird myself, but I don’t think I’d have the heart to keep it in a cage. I’ll settle for watching the wild ones.”