[Memory] [Mature] I Never Wanted Anything

[Tom Cooke]

Dark Streets • The Cat's Paw

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

T
om muttered under his breath, grit-toothed, “‘s what I fuckin’ said, toff,” but the drum of the rain fair swallowed it up. Hadn’t meant for it to be heard, anyway; wasn’t like it’d’ve got through that pretty skull to wherever the pina brain was. Wasn’t sure what else he expected of the sort of man who proudly called himself an object.

There was something flooding mesmerizing about that voice, though. More the way he talked than what he said, the way the fancy words spilled out of him all pretty-like, like they was at some dazzling party up the Court and not slumming it in Voedale. The laugh’d made the back of his neck prickle pleasantly.

For whatever else he was, he was keeping up well enough. A flood of rainwater slanting from a nearby awning’d caught him on one side, and he hadn’t missed a beat. His dark hair was slick and glistening, his narrow face still ghost-white in the night. The occasional light spilling out of a window or a street-lamp caught the edge of a blue eye, glinting. Vigilant as he was, Tom kept watching him sidelong, studying his sharp, delicate profile.

He raised one heavy eyebrow when Ewing began again.

He was wheezing with laughter, then, snorting through the rain. It was a good minute or so after Ewing’d done that he stopped, and then snorted again, like it hadn’t got finished washing over him.

A dancer’d been funny enough, as it was no doubt intended to be – he could hold his own in a gkacha, but this toff wouldn’t’ve considered that dancing, anyway – and there was something about the way he’d drawled day laborer in that flooding accent.

But the last one really took it. “Right on the ging, Ewin’,” he replied cheerfully, “that’s what I am.”

They crossed a broader thoroughfare; the rain was still pouring down, running in filthy rivulets along the curb. They was in the Cat’s Paw, now, Tom knew, and he could hear the sound of some benny caoja a street or so over, always just out of sight. Much as he didn’t care what Ewing got himself into, he reckoned running afoul of pirates was the last thing his toffin erse needed.

They took the back ways – some just alleyways, where the buildings pressed so close together overhead no rain got through but what ran stinking in the streets. They got narrower and narrower as they went, and the stones slicker and slicker.

Now, he kept one eye to the windows on either side, to the rotting makeshift boards under which beggars huddled for warmth. It was on an empty clothesline he saw it, first: a blue phosphor lamp whose glass was smeared charcoal. He was just able to make out the symbol through the mist, bleary-eyed and sobering up; he grinned. They’d changed the way again, but them that Ipadi trusted knew how to find it. He hoped Ipadi still trusted him after the incident in Bethas, anyway. Time to find out.

A mechanic. Nothing of it touched his face, nothing of what he felt; and what he felt burned brief – cold – settled where it’d settled for years now, a painful knot below his heart.

“Engines,” he mused, tilting his head to look again at Ewing; there was more than just amusement in his smile, and in the way his eyes swept up and down the drenched toff, studying him in the light from the lantern. “Should’ve known. I know the hands of a mechanic, Ewin’,” he said, as if casually, and shrugged. “Deft hands, oes? Hands as know the ins and outs of heavy machinery.” He pronounced the words carefully, clicking his tongue.

He went left where the alleyway split into two; he quickened his pace, stalking through the dripping dark. He thought, and thought. Too fucking sober, that he couldn’t keep himself thinking about all this shit, turning it over. He walked faster. Ne burn scarring on those hands, ne pina cuts and scrapes and burns as he remembered.

Cold. Tom barked with laughter, feeling another spur of anger.

With another big shrug, he wrestled off his mant coat, damp on the outside but warm and dry on the inside, even if the lining’d seen better days. He tossed it at Ewing, grinning.

“Worked on many engines, toff?” he called back, catching sight of another blue lantern in a second-story window, this time with a different symbol. He could just make it out through the cracked, dirty glass. “Always wondered what it’s like, wi’ all that heat an’ pressure.” He bit off the words.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
Somewhere Dark, The Cat's Paw

The guesses he'd tripped off his tongue had mostly been to entertain himself. Charlie had no idea how Tom would take any of it--if he would laugh, like he was meant to, or get into some kind of snit, like he seemed to like to. (That Charlie had that effect on a lot of people was not something he was thinking about now; he wasn't thinking about much of anything now.) But even if nobody else thought he was funny, Charlie thought Charlie was funny and that is what mattered the most in the end. It was important to have self-esteem; barring that, a sense of humor tended to do in a pinch.

Laughter it had been then, and Charlie had grinned along, pleased. Of course he was pleased with himself either way, but it was more gratifying when someone else got the joke. Sometimes, he reflected mournfully, he felt the keen sting of genius unappreciated in its own time.

Right on the ging--whatever that was, Charlie had been right with the last one. What had he said? Oh, that's right: serial killer.

That made a certain kind of sense. He'd said it as a joke, but there wasn't a lot of work that left a man that size looking as roughed up as Tom did. Also, he seemed distinctly moody. Serial killers were moody, weren't they? At least in stories they were. Charlie was not a great reader of novels, but he had read a few crime thrillers out of sheer boredom in his younger years. They had been moody. Is that what he had been invited to? A... serial... killing? His own, or someone else's? Charlie tried to decide which was more likely, if either. Someone else's, he decided in the end. If Tom had wanted to murder Charlie, he. Well, it would have been easy, and that would have proven many people in his life right, he supposed. Lesson learned.

"Well I hope you haven't been drinking on the job then. If this is all prelude to my own murder, I will be awfully put out. That seems like it would be dull." Charlie blinked up slowly at Tom in the gloom, lazy smirk falling for just a moment. The further they went, the more disreputable the environs. Far off, he could hear the sounds of a ruckus of some kind. He thought, almost--but they went away from the sound, to narrower streets that even here Charlie could tell were more back alleys than main thoroughfares.

It was difficult keeping his footing, somehow, even though less water made it through from above than it had been. Tom was looking around, had been the whole time. Charlie wondered what for. He kept coming back around to the whole serial killer business, and he wondered at his own lack of self-preservation instinct. Surely this was the point where he said goodbye to the oddly compelling giant man and his strange mix of compliments and mockery. Charlie just kept walking along. His eyes skipped over the destitute here and there, the same as they skipped over everything else around them. Looking, but not seeing much except what was directly in front of him.

Actually, as Charlie had started to talk about his job, he was beginning to think they weren't really going anywhere in particular. The serial murdering thing had been rather put out of his mind, mostly, but that didn't rule out this all just being a waste of his time. Time enough to waste, he supposed. What else was he going to do? Go home, talk to his bird? Prod at his clocking work? Drink until he fell asleep on his couch again, probably. Or the floor, as he'd done a few times already. The benefits of living alone; nobody cared what you did.

They were there briefly in that blue lantern light, Tom looking down at him. For a moment Charlie thought he didn't believe him, and he was prepared to argue it. But Tom went on; that was all right then. He heard, and he understood, and the implication was, indeed, extremely true. In his own estimation.

Something was there underneath, maybe, but it seemed like maybe a dull sort of something and anyway Charlie didn't care. No way to know unless he asked a personal question, and that was not what this little interaction was. Tom walked faster, and Charlie had to struggle to keep up; he already had to walk quicker than he would have to keep apace with the difference in their strides. Rude of him to bound off and laugh at Charlie being cold; Tom was probably used to it. Charlie didn't mind all that much, but he did like to complain.

"Laugh all you--oof!" He caught the coat that was thrown at him, but only barely. It took him a moment for his intoxicated brain to catch up to what had just happened, to connect all of the details. He blinked; no, the dots had connected, and he still didn't quite understand. "Oh. Er. Hmm."

The fucking thing was huge; Charlie would drown in it. Seemed rude to say so, though. Also, he really was cold. He shrugged it awkwardly over his shoulders, and he wasn't anymore.

"Many...? Oh, well. Not too many, yet," he confessed. Almost none, he didn't say. But he had time, he reminded himself. He hadn't been here long. Just a few months. There was time. It would work out, he knew it would. Eventually, it had to. He didn't know much about heat and pressure, either, if he were being honest. Because he wasn't, all he said was, "I don't know that I've thought about it much. Just like machines more than people--they either work, or they don't. Also, they mind much less when you yell at them."

His foot slipped on a slick bit of ground where he stepped sideways. Charlie stumbled, but caught himself with a laugh. The coat weighed him down, made him feel less like he was going to drift off into the sky. He shoved wet hair out of his face and looked up at Tom's broad back ahead of him. There was not much he could really ask about being a self-proclaimed serial killer.

"Say, did you still want that cigarette?" Charlie called forward, doing his best not to fall or lose track of Tom in the dark.

[Tom Cooke]

Dark Streets • The Cat's Paw

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

W
as he lost? Floods.

Hard to keep his head straight; hard to stretch himself between that funny, not-unpleasant way Ewing talked and these waterlogged, tangled-up streets. Everything felt waterlogged and tangled-up, and he was sobering up too quick for his liking. Where this alleyway met another twisting, narrow back street, there were two lanterns, one set by the curb, the other in a window up high – he glanced between them, then started off to the right, down.

Like machines better than people. It was a few seconds before what the little toff’d said sank in. He heard a wet scuffle behind him, and then a laugh, and finally turned to look over his shoulder.

What a flooding sight. Could’ve been a different kov, if it wasn’t for that pretty face, just barely caught pale in the dim light. He was a squat, baggy silhouette in that mant coat, trying to keep up.

It was almost worth the cold – almost, being honest. The chill was aching in his bones, droplets clinging to his beard and his brows, and his shirt was damp on his shoulders. He paused, sucking at a tooth; the rain wasn’t easing off, but these streets were fair shaded, and he didn’t think it’d hurt.

“Mujo ma, kov,” he said with a shrug, turning and taking a few steps back. He held out a big hand. “That’s thank you, ‘case you didn’t know, toff,” he added, grinning.

Not too far off, sounds of music and talk and laughter drifted out of a ramshackle-looking building; the back door was open a crack, letting a sliver of light fall out into the alley. If Ewing’d light him up, he’d watch those long mechanic’s fingers, lit pale by the flickering match-light. He’d lean back a moment against the siding for a breather, taking a first drag.

Smoke swirled up, edged hazy, dirty yellow in the light. “Wouldn’t know where to start with a machine,” Tom admitted with a shrug. Not many, he remembered, thinking again of those hands without burns or cuts; they either work, or they don’t, he’d said. Maybe you changed your mind, once you worked with enough of them. Or maybe Ewing was just a different sort of man. “Used to know a mechanic as compared engines to men. I reckon we all got our cogs an’ our wheels an’ our guts, oes?”

Fucking mung shit to say. He shrugged again, then started off. Things was starting to look familiar. This close to the bay, the canals started; the first sign of it was when the curb dropped off into the rushing water, high and pattering with rain, though the walks on either side weren’t so wet.

He kept an eye on Ewing’s footing, here, and didn’t let himself get too far ahead. Godsdamn, but his fingers were cold.

“I ain’t on the job,” he said, “so you ain’t got to worry about gettin’ a riff in your guts, ye chen? Even if I was –” He frowned, thinking about it, taking another drag. “You done anythin’ to cross the kov I work for, you jus’ better not say nothin’ about it tonight.” If he was joking, he wasn’t laughing. “Where you get these shitty spurs, toff?”

Wooden walks stretched over the overflowed canals, creaking underfoot. The first floors of old, old tenements and factories’d got swallowed up by the flow; the walkways’d been built to access the doors higher up, which had become the ground floors as the bay crept in. As they crossed to the other side of a canal, rushing not too far underfoot, there was a mant gap in the boards.

Tom stepped over it, careful-like; then he turned, and offered his free hand to the toff. “Watch your step, ye chen?”

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
Somewhere Dark, The Cat's Paw

Charlie was cheerfully certain he looked ridiculous, tripping along in Tom's clocking huge coat. He was starting to sober up just a little, but not enough to take any of the fun out of the twisting, meandering journey. There was a crossroads of a sort, and they chose the path that led downwards. By now Charlie was fairly certain he'd never be able to find his way back in the dark. Or in the light, quite possibly. He'd find out one way or the other.

"You know I don't," Charlie shot back, not really upset in particular. "But you're welcome anyway." That one at least seemed useful, like the other m-one before he thought might have been complimentary about his face, and Charlie resolved to remember it. Charlie resolved to remember lots of things that never quite stuck, but it was a noble effort by his estimation.

At least asking if Tom wanted a cigarette had given him enough time to actually catch up. There was a flurry of confusion as he tried to find them. Between the damp of his own coat and the depths of Tom's, Charlie's inebriated brain was having some difficulty deciding which pockets to check. Luckily Tom didn't seem to have too many on the interior, which narrowed Charlie's choices down considerably.

He found them in the end, and his matches too. Safe and snug inside their metal container, for all that his coat was soaked through. Charlie placed one into Tom's outstretched hand. For a second he thought to hand the matches over, too, and let Tom light up himself. Some better thought wormed its way down through the haze in his head; Charlie struck the match against the little strip on the back of the package and lifted it. On account of how he was such a gentleman, see? He could be if he felt like it. He watched Tom watch him in the small, flickering light; it almost caught his fingers, with the way his attention slipped. Careless.

Charlie just nodded; of course he wouldn't know. Most people didn't, or Charlie would be out of a job. He didn't know what to say to that second bit. It was true enough, in a roundabout sort of way. Seemed lofty for the kind of man Charlie imagined Tom keeping company with; it was lofty for Charlie, who liked machines precisely because they were not much like people at all.

"Maybe," was all he said. His head swam too much for philosophy. It reminded him too much of school, which wasn't his favorite subject. Tom shrugged; Charlie let it drift away. They kept on. It wasn't so hard to keep up, now.

Charlie stepped as carefully as he could, which was hardly careful at all. He could very easily go tottering straight into one of the canals, and that would be the end of Charlie--Ewing and Almond both, in one fell swoop. "Oh good," he said as he took an uncertain step, "that's alright then." Charlie didn't know who Tom worked for, and he didn't care. He laughed, though there was no joke to be found. He took another step, listening to the walkway creak under even his slight weight.

"Same place as everyone else--where do you think? They are terrible though, aren't they?" Charlie sort of liked that about them. They weren't as nice as anything more expensive, and the experience of smoking them wasn't nearly as pleasant. That was the charm, he thought. They weren't any good, and it didn't matter. Charlie bought them all the same.

Clocking hells, though, where the fuck were they? This part of the Rose looked ready for the sea to take it back at any moment--looked, honestly, like it would have been happier for it. The walkways, such as they were, had clearly come as an afterthought, scrabbling away from rising waterline over the years and ill-maintained after that. For the most part, the gaps weren't too big and even Charlie could cross them easily enough. He eyed Tom's longer stride with a small amount of envy. Must be nice. For every big step Tom had to take, Charlie nearly had to jump. They'd come to one bigger than the rest, and for the first time Charlie felt a little nervous. He couldn't swim at all, not one stroke. Certainly not wrapped up in the weight of Tom's coat; he'd sink like a stone.

"Such a gentleman," was all Charlie could manage. He didn't hesitate to take the hand offered him, leaning more heavily into it than he had with that tepid handshake at the bar. Charlie's pale fingers just managed to wrap around Tom's; he almost felt guilty about how cold they were. Almost. He took a step, stumbling with a curse at the end anyway.

Once he found his footing he looked up at Tom and grinned though, letting his hand travel up that wrist before he let go. "Thanks," he offered, all teeth and satisfaction. No watery grave for him tonight--not yet.

"I feel compelled to ask--do you know where we're going? Not that this little stroll hasn't been full of all kinds of beautiful scenery," Charlie gestured lazily around them, "but I'm just curious if we're both wet and cold in pursuit of a higher goal. Other than holding my hand, of course." Charlie flashed another grin, sidling up a little closer.

[Tom Cooke]

The Canalworks • The Cat's Paw

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

G
entleman, hey?” he grunted, taking Ewing’s hand with a firm grip and helping him across. Wasn’t like that watery shake back at Bill’s; toff held on, when he needed to. He was light, still, easy enough – for all Tom’s back was still twinging from the beating he’d taken his last job – and something about the whole thing was pleasant.

He felt it just before Ewing let go – just for a pina. Oddly warm fingertips brushing the inside of his wrist. He didn’t look down; he was too busy looking at the toff’s wide grin, teeth glinting in the dim, rainy light.

He laughed soon as Ewing found his footing, laughed good and hard. He didn’t start away just yet; that prickling was still dancing in the hairs on the back of his neck, on the backs of his arms, raising gooseflesh just about everywhere. And a damned pleasant tingling.

Shaking his head, he took another drag on his spur and stood enjoying the lingering of that sensation. When Ewing spoke again, he cocked an eyebrow. He shrugged his shoulders, kicking himself back into motion across the creaking walkway. It was winding up to higher ground, ‘til they were on a street far above the slushing canal.

He wasn’t about to grace that question with an answer – Ewing’d find out, wouldn’t he, if he wanted to – when he felt the toft ease up closer, thin shoulder brushing his arm through his thick old coat.

“Not a single fuckin’ clue, dove,” he replied cheerful-like, all the while keeping his eyes pealed for more marks and signs. All the while letting himself cosey up to Ewing just so, slowing his pace so they could walk comfortably side by side. He watched the windows, too, for eyes, but they was far enough out of the way he wasn’t too worried. Folk lived up the canals, but they was getting into the places in the Cat’s Paw where nobody went, save fugitives and pirates and them that not even the King’d take.

One last blue lantern, perched at the mouth of a familiar alleyway. “Hells,” he said, grinning down at Ewing, “I reckon it’s a good Ever tonight; they ain’t moved after all.” He caught a whiff of Ewing’s spur, mingled with Chrove’s Erse breath. “Fuckin’ terrible,” he agreed, waving smoke away with his own spur.

This tiny corridor of the Paw led down a flight of rickety stairs, barely wide enough for one man big as Tom to pass. He went first, holding fast to the railing; he reckoned it’d do no harm if Ewing fell on him. Might not be the least enjoyable experience, he imagined.

Something about that thought made him angry, mant angry; it was that same burning, old hurt, driving itself up through his heart. Same as he'd felt when Ewing'd said maybe, though he didn't know what else he'd expected to hear. Somehow, the anger only made the thought more pleasant, only made the want more pressing.

“Couple of tekaa,” he began, nonchalant, “got a kint down here, where the floodin’s the worst. Ipadi calls it eza – Mugrobi kind of moonshine, ye chen? King leaves ‘em alone, ain’t hurtin’ nothin’, but the green don’t come here, so everybody wins.”

The stairs twisted down into another street, narrower and darker; rain dripped and misted from grates overhead, and a film of water collected over the stones, but it was otherwise dry. Halfway down was a squat door set into the wall, a dim blue lantern at its foot.

He grinned back at Ewing through the dark, then – turned, then took a step closer, closer than they’d been since the Louse, inclining his head. “Ipadi an’ Arlo an’ their fami’ve a benny caoja,” he said in a low rasp, not particularly caring if the toff caught half what he said, “an’ if you do a damn thing to hurt ‘em – make any moves wi’ that voo, rat to the Seventen – that pretty face of yours’ll be missing some important shit.”

He winked, still smiling that same smile. One of his hands searched for Ewing’s in the dark, slow and gentle-like; he didn’t take it, just brushed it, just offered to.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Canalworks, The Cat's Paw

The height made Charlie dizzy. Maybe that had been the substances. Gods, he really should know what he'd had, shouldn't he? Or maybe not. Probably better that he didn't investigate that too closely; it was probably concerning, if examined in any detail.

All that dizziness was a good excuse to stick close, at any rate. Not that he needed the excuse, but he had it if he wanted one. At least he'd made it across that gap, albeit seemingly mostly by the grace of Tom Cooke being able to hold his weight like Charlie was a damp kitten. That idea didn't lack appeal, either, honestly. He could have blamed that on how fucked up he was already, but he knew it wasn't true.

"Oh, well then. As long as I know I suppose." Tom didn't walk ahead of him after that. There was nobody else around, and Charlie reasoned he should be maybe a little worried. But they'd made it this far without him being murdered or anything, so he thought the odds were good that Tom's interest in Charlie Ewing lay elsewhere. That didn't prevent anyone else from making a different assessment, but the nice thing about wandering around in the dark with a man who fucked people up for a living and was approximately the size of a small mountain? Less concerned about that coming up.

They came to an alleyway, blue light hung at the mouth of it. Charlie hadn't noticed until now, but he thought maybe they'd been following the blue lights all this time. Charlie blew a cloud of smoke in Tom's face when he complained, but he was in high spirits.

That cramped alleyway gave way to more cramped stairs that seemed like they only dubiously functioned for their purpose. Tom went first, which seemed smart to Charlie for a lot of reasons. For one thing, Tom knew where they were going. For another, if Charlie fell onto Tom (which was more likely than he wanted to admit) nothing would happen to either of them. As if to prove his point, Charlie stumbled and caught himself with his forearm braced on Tom's back.

"Is that so?" Charlie drawled, sounding every inch the spoiled rich boy in those three words. So much so it veered on parody. Maybe it was. He didn't know what half of that meant in specifics, though he thought he got the gist well enough. Charlie highly doubted Tom expected him to, anyway.

Where the fuck did all these stairs lead? Charlie was now confident that Tom was not, in fact, just taking them for a damp tour of the various rotting canals of the Harbor. He just didn't know where this strange journey was going to end. This street was so narrow he was surprised Tom fit through it at all, all of it seeming like it was perpetually damp regardless of the weather. And there was another clocking lantern, at the foot of a door that again seemed as if would accommodate Tom only grudgingly.

Tom stopped. He stepped closer, and Charlie didn't move. He looked up, his eyebrows arched and his face in that same lazy smile that seemed to be his default mode. All the threats were intimidating and everything, it was just that--the fuck would Charlie want to do any of that for?

He thought--he just sort of guessed, really, from context, that somewhere in there Tom had told him not to use his magic to do anyone any harm. If he'd said it any more plainly, Charlie could have laughed right in his face. Not only would he not do so, because that seemed like a lot of effort, but he couldn't even if he wanted to. Could Tom really not tell? He was less likely to do damage with his fucking field than he was to win against Tom Cooke in an arm wrestling match.

"Duly noted--no Seventen, no use of what I assure you are truly awe-inspiring arcane abilities. I appreciate that you are very terrifying professionally," Charlie slipped his hand into Tom's, not minding at all, "but we did not walk all this way for you to tell me how easily you could rearrange my face, yes?" It was hard to look cocky and imperious when he was wearing an old coat so big it could swallow him whole and rather voluntarily holding Tom's hand, but Charlie did his best. It was a little weird; less weird than any of the rest of it, somehow.

"I believe was promised self-destruction. So," Charlie said, putting slight pressure on Tom's hand, "let's get to it."

[Tom Cooke]

The Canalworks • The Cat's Paw

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

B
oemo,” he said, lingering there a moment longer after Ewing’d asked him to get a move on. Not a whit of that lazy smile’d got wiped off the toff’s face, for all it was dark and close, and he could see only a hint of it in the light that filtered from the grates. “Ne, we didn’t at that,” he added, running his thumb gentle-like over Ewing’s hand, finding the soft bumps of those golly calluses, “but I ‘ppreciate your ‘ppreciatin’, hey? Hope you enjoyed the show, leastways.”

He could just see the glint of the kov’s eyes. He was right in the midst of that field now, the woobly shivering round him, hair-raising and strange. He reckoned Ewing’d meant his truly awe-inspiring arcane abilities as a joke, or whatever the hell, but Tom wasn’t laughing; he just stood considering.

Wasn’t like wicks. He didn’t know woobly from woobly, but he knew how one minute you’d hear the word drop from some toff’s lips – some toff as you could break over your knee in half a second – and then you’d feel it all over you, the stinging weals, or a pain that surged through you like somebody’d set you on fire. He didn’t know woobly from woobly, and you couldn’t trust a single one of their kind.

Trust and fun were fair different matters, ‘course.

The smell of those spurs was cloying-strong; he took another drag himself, blew smoke into the space between them, and shrugged. His back still smarted where Ewing’d caught himself on it down the stairs. Self-destruction it was, then. He set off toward the door, and he didn’t let go of Ewing’s hand rightaway; he took him along, grinning over his shoulder, and when he did let go, it was with a lingering brush of fingertips.

The door was warped and rickety, and wobbled when he rapped at it with his knuckles. Some light drifted out from the crack underneath, dim in the shadow of the lantern; it flickered. Noise drifted out, too, laughter, quick sharp voices in tek, the sound of somebody plucking idly at a stringed instrument.

When the door opened, it was just a crack.

Then it slammed.

He banged again, this time harder, with the side of his hand. “Arlo,” he called, ragged, “open up, brunno!”

“Ent yer fuckin’ brunno!” There was a lull in the noise on the other side, then the door opened up again, this time revealing one glinting gold eye. “Clockin’ brave, showin’ yer face ‘round here after Bethas. An’ with –” The eye swiveled to Ewing.

“He’s benny,” said Tom, “on my word.” For all they went back and forth, Tom was grinning, and there was a smile in the lines round Arlo’s eyes.

“Thought I told ye,” said Arlo, “y’ent welcome at this establishment.”

“Ipadi round?”

“Ipadi ent fallin’ f’ yer ugly face again, or y’erse.” There was a hoot of laughter from inside, and then a few wheezing coughs.

“Who’s it? Is it floodin’ Cooke?” This voice was muffled, and had the lilt of a Mugrobi accent. There was a thump of boots on creaky wood. “Out the way, Arlo.”

The eye that replaced Arlo’s was dark; the low light caught gold flecks in the iris, and a thin line of gold paint on the lid.

“Hey, hey, Ipadi.” Tom grinned winningly.

Ipadi snorted loudly, and didn’t say anything. His eye swiveled to Ewing, now, and the eyebrow raised. “Jent can speak for hisself, can’t he? Ent in the habit of servin’ gollies,” a long pause, and the eye narrows, “but this one’s a pretty face, ent he?”

“Fair olio,” drawled Arlo, and there was another surge of muffled laughter.

The door opened a little more; Ipadi was a long, narrow face framed with braids, pulling his coat closer about him, a long pipe dangling from his long fingers. Behind him, the dim space was lit with candles; Tom could just see Linden with his zither in his lap, frowning into his beard. Beside him on one of the cushions was a man he didn’t know, reclined, faintly glassy-eyed.

“Ye got a name ye like t’ be called, kov?” asked Ipadi, considering Ewing.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Canalworks, The Cat's Paw

"Oh, I appreciated." Charlie let that roll of his tongue like a purr. Tom's thumb ran over Charlie's hand, a move he hadn't expected. He couldn't see in the dark, but he thought of it on the bar at the Louse, of helping him over that gap. Something pleasant shivered over the back of his neck. Familiar as those cheap cigarettes.

Charlie wanted to laugh at the way the door seemed to be more of a suggestion than a proper object. Tom knocked against it and the clocking thing wobbled; the form of a door, and none of the substance. Guess there wasn't much to keep out, down here. Not really, anyway. Who the fuck was even around who would be stopped by a door? Charlie waited, flexing his fingers in the dark.

The door opened, and slammed shut again. Charlie barked out a laugh. "You seem popular." Charlie didn't move; he had every confidence in the evening's ability to stay interesting. The door was, again, seemingly mostly a suggestion.

Charlie plucked at Tom's coat and he waited. Sure enough, the door opened again. Not much wider than it had, just enough for whoever was behind it--Arlo?--to stare at the both of them. Charlie didn't seem particularly welcome; didn't matter. He was used to it. In this context and beyond. He gave something like a lazy little salute after Tom vouched for him with the hand that held his cigarette. While they went back and forth, he took a last drag and then dropped it to the ground. Stubbed it out with the heel of his boot, again taking care to snuff out even the slightest spark. Grinding it down into the street--if you could call it that.

Another voice joined the first, and another eye replaced the one that had been there before. Seemed like Tom's word that he was--what was the word? Charlie couldn't remember. Allowed in, Charlie supposed. Didn't seem like that went far enough. The second voice spoke up again, second eye looking at him. Charlie didn't know if he liked feeling evaluated so much in one evening, but he changed his mind at the positive comment about his face.

"He can," Charlie agreed with a grin. "But I'd hate to interrupt all this discussion about the virtues of my face." That probably didn't help his case any, but Charlie couldn't help it. He was what he was, really. The door opened anyway, a little bit more. Ipadi stood in it, all braids and pipe and evaluation. Charlie couldn't see much beyond that from the angle he stood at, but he heard voices and what could have been music, if it weren't so half-hearted.

"Charlie--" He hesitated, trying to see which name would trip off his tongue. In the end he shrugged, motion largely hidden under the folds of that coat he still had hung over him. Long past time to give it back, but Tom hadn't asked so Charlie kept it. "Just Charlie," he decided in the end. Better not even mention the rest. Too many details to keep track of, for the state he planned to be in as quickly as physically possible.

[Tom Cooke]

The Canalworks • The Cat's Paw

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

I
padi crossed his thin arms over his chest, looking at Ewing with a tilt of his head. His lips were smirking when Ewing went with it, but his eyes weren’t all; they flicked from him to Tom and back, and then he said, “Boemo, Charlie.” He lilted delicate-like over the r and the l, in that way Mugs always did. Tom found himself grinning down at – Charlie, he thought, since that was the name he’d given, and that was the kov he’d be here. Charlie, pretty face grinning in the cool blue light, baggy coat swishing about his ankles as he ground his spur out under his boot.

Tom wasn’t going to, yet, not ‘til Ipadi blew smoke out the door. “Maguala,” he said, waving a long hand to disperse it through the air. “Put that filth out before ye come in, adame.”

“Boemo.” Tom grinned as he did it. The door came open wider, and out of it whirled a mix of smells – incense, perfume, ganja, the strong syrupy fug of opium.

Cramped, dark space, Ipadi and Arlo’s, full of moving shadows in the candle– and lamplight. They’d a makeshift bar over on one wall, and the torn sticks of furniture were supplemented by cushions spread out on the floor, some scratched-at and shedding threads. On the back of the sofa where Linden sprawled with his zither sat a mant tortoiseshell, eyes flashing mirror-like as she looked toward the guests.

Tom shouldered his way in, just about having to duck to get his head under the doorframe. “Lookin’ benny, Ipadi,” he said, eying the wick up and down as he did; the brush of that familiar glamour wasn’t unpleasant as he moved through it.

“Save it, desema.”

Arlo was as short and plump was Ipadi was tall and skinny, with a mop of red hair and the shadow of a beard just starting to grey. He was sitting over by the bar with Nevio, a wiry, shaved-headed natt with a cleft lip – and one of the King’s, though not one Tom knew fair well.

All of them, save the kov on the floor with the pipe, looked up as Charlie came in after Tom.

Linden was grinning his gap-toothed grin. “This’n’sss macha, Tom,” he slurred, drawing his fingers again over the strings; even piss-drunk and scattered to the winds, he managed an idle chord. “Y’ent brought ne pretty kov wi’ ye since – since…”

“What was his name? The scrap,” murmured Nevio in his lisping way, taking a drag on his spur. “I liked him.”

That tightening, again; that stab up through his heart, that funny wash of red, that prickling at the back of his neck. This time, it made him want to hit Nevio. Say that fuckin’ word again, say that fuckin’ – “Think I remember all their names, kov?” he laughed. Not a snort, but a sharp, ragged sound.

Nevio shrugged his shoulders, waving a hand. He blew out smoke, and Tom caught a benny whiff of red sage; he found the heat in him cooled a little. He started to wander over to the bar. Behind him, Ipadi was stepping closer to Charlie, and he felt a flicker, a flare of the woobly in his field.

“Pour the jent some eza, will ye, Cooke? Make yerself useful,” Ipadi said.

Tom poured himself some, first, and took a sip. Went down smooth, this time, smoother than last; damn strong kick, but there was a little hard-to-place sweetness, too. Damn strong kick, though. He cleared his throat. “Good shit, Ipadi.”

“Ye chen what y’owe me,” Ipadi said, but he sounded absent. When Tom turned with the other glass, Ipadi was standing fair close to Charlie. “Ye like it, kov, this kind of attention?”

Linden, suddenly, after an uncharacteristically off-tune twang: “‘S’jent’s a – a whaddaya call…” His head was tilted back against the sofa. “Nar… Narric…”

“Narcissist?” Nevio put in sharply, pale eyes glittering.

Ipadi turned to consider him, then looked back at Charlie, smiling. “Narkissos,” he said, “like in the old Bastian story, oes?”

Tom grinned, then grinned broader. “Fine an’ handsome hunter,” he said, “in love wi’ his face. Pissed off Hurte an’ ended himself starin’ into his reflection for the rest of time.” Nevio was looking at him with raised brows; Linden was laughing. “Heard it as a boch,” he said, shrugging, but he’d eyes only for Charlie’s face.

“Ye like lookin’ at that macha face ye got, Charlie?” Ipadi asked, getting a little closer; he reached up as if to trace a finger over the toff’s cheekbones, then stepped away, coat swishing round his ankles, laughing.

Tom offered him the glass, winking.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Canalworks, The Cat's Paw

The way Ipadi said Charlie's name, all lilting over the middle of it, made it sound like it belonged to someone else. Worked just as well as Ewing did, in the end. Once again, Charlie got that distinct feeling that he should reconsider what he was doing; once again, Charlie shoved it down into the back of his mind where he put all the rest of that kind of shit.

Evidently whatever they'd said--him or Tom or both or neither of them--was good enough. That sad excuse for a door opened wider to let them inside. It was the smell that got him first, all of it heavy and strong and too mixed together for Charlie to have pulled out anything individually. Some of his buzz had worn off on the walk over, but enough remained that it was all almost overwhelming for a moment. Charlie shook his head and the ground stayed under his feet.

This was a good sign. And if it wasn't, he was going to take it as one anyway. Because fuck it, right?

He snickered a little, watching Tom practically crouch to get through the door frame. Charlie, of course, had to do no such thing. Given that he was approximately a third of Tom's size, in most dimensions. The inside was just as disreputable-looking as the door was, which seemed very fitting to Charlie. A cat sat on the back of the couch, and she looked at Charlie with what he could only decide was condescension. Actually, everyone turned to look at them when they came in--namely, at Charlie specifically.

Maybe, he thought, this hadn't been a good idea, and not in the way he had thought it wasn't a good idea. At least whoever the fuck that was on the floor didn't seem to give a shit that he was there.

The problem was, you know, when he hung around public spaces--you know? It was normal, to just sort of pretend he wasn't there, unless you didn't want to. Everyone knew what he was, obviously, because he looked it and he sounded like it and he acted like it too. Charlie knew, too, and the world continued to turn and all that shit. This wasn't public, though. His skin prickled. Charlie resolved to ignore it.

He only listened with half an ear to the exchange--grinning at the part that was about him, sort of tuning out the rest. He looked around while playing at not looking at all, taking in as much as he could see in the flickering light. Wasn't much to see, he supposed, but he couldn't seem to let his eyes rest anywhere. He'd feel better, he thought, in a bit. It wasn't cold inside, but Charlie kept the coat on.

"Yeah Cooke, pour the--that's me, right?" He'd sort of half-drifted after Tom as he started towards the makeshift bar, without wanting to seem like he was sticking close deliberately. He wasn't, precisely, it was just--where the fuck else was he supposed to go? Ipadi stepped closer to him, and to his complete and utter surprise, he felt the brush of a caprise. He couldn't help it; he flinched.

That was new--he didn't think any wick he'd ever met had tried that with him. New, and weird, and wasn't at all helped by the way something in the incense, in the perfume, in the whatever else had given him the edge of a headache straight off. At least, he thought, it wasn't as bad as when another golly did it. Not so overwhelmingly invasive, and Charlie didn't immediately feel like he was being measured and coming up lacking. He returned it anyway, a lifetime of Brunnhold habit hard to break. Quick and shallow, and unmistakably uncomfortable.

None of it showed on his face, at least. He could keep that smile up all night. He'd have that smile at his own fucking funeral, probably. That, too, was a hard habit to break, even after leaving school. Charlie raised his eyebrows. Gold above and gold within.

Charlie looked at Tom when he started in on the story--Charlie thought he'd heard it before, but he didn't remember it well. Some class or another had taught it to him, he was certain. He knew, of course, what a narcissist was. He was the first to call himself such; although, he would argue, it didn't count if it was true. Charlie laughed too when Ipadi stepped away, only a little less easy than he had outside.

"What is art for, but to be admired?" The drawl was easy, lazy, again that parody of the mix of Vienda and Brunnhold in the way he spoke. He leaned into it, like he always did, and he leaned hard. Charlie didn't have to guess about whether he was being mocked or not; it was right on the face of all of it. That made it easier. He knew what to do with that. Reminded him of other times and different places.

This was at least more interesting than those times had ever been. Far, far more interesting. It'd be better less sober though. He tried to think too much when he was sober, and this was not the situation for that clocking useless nonsense. Charlie took the glass Tom offered him, bright blue glance lingering for a moment before he knocked some of it back.

"Alioe's--fuck!" Charlie coughed; it wasn't unpleasant, but shit was it stronger than he'd expected. Dumberse of him to knock so much of it back in one go, but what the fuck? The cough turned to another laugh, the smooth burn of it making him feel better already.

"That," he declared to nobody in particular, "is definitely good shit." Charlie had a little more, in no way planning to do anything that might approach "pacing himself". So he was being judged? If they thought--no, it didn't matter, because they could reach whatever conclusions they wanted. Everyone always did. And fuck 'em, he knew his worth. Down to the last square fort.