[Memory] [Mature] I Never Wanted Anything

[Tom Cooke]

The Dancing Louse • Voedale

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

H
ell’s teeth, you get uglier every year. Far’ye?”

“Boemo, your beata said it better.” Wasn’t much in it, for all Bass grinned his gap-tooth grin and laughed ‘til he looked fit to piss. Tom wasn’t doing much smiling, but he shrugged careless-like, sitting back in his chair with a great creak. Fucking rat-gnawed leg wobbled everytime he moved. “Don’t know,” he said, his eyes wandering over the card table nearby, “fuckin’ wonder I’m still around.”

He’d come down here to drink alone. Bass wasn’t getting it. Bass’d never got it. He looked same as he’d done some ten maw ago, when they’d first met, all wide-set blue eyes and straw-yellow hair, except he was starting to bald. He looked same as he did and Tom didn’t want to be looking at him.

The Dancing Louse wasn’t hopping this seven; the rain pounded outside, ran in the streets. Bill’d already given him the look that said he was on thin ice, which was fine; he didn’t much like these kov anyway, and they didn’t much like him. He’d been sitting minding his own flooding whisky, half wondering if that olio Callan tumble’d ever show up round the place, watching the Rooks table not far off with a half-curious, half-bored eye.

Until he saw him.

“You seen him before, Bass?” he asked, sitting up, propping his head on one big fist. He raised a dark brow at Bass.

“Ne.” Bass frowned, looking over with his crossed eyes toward the bar. “Talked to Bill earlier – says he ain’t been here too long. Golly,” he added, a raggety stage whisper with a mean grin. “Not, uh, the King’s Court type.”

He nodded, smile dropping off. “Hells, Bass.” Tom was staring at the little man. “Ain’t nobody welcomin’ him, showin’ him the Louse’s hospitality,” he pronounced.

“Tom,” slurred Bass.

“Oes?” He bit the word off, hissed it through his crooked teeth. He was already raking his fingers through his thick dark hair, pulling the tangles of it back into a bun.

“Ain’t a good idea, maybe, chen?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Tom replied cheery-like.

He shoved up from the table and snatched up his glass, dashing a pina manna over the edge. He was already halfway across by the time Bass could slur out his name again like the fucking mung he was. He was already half gone anyway; kov held his liquor about as well as a hingle, and all his nancy chroving was starting to piss Tom off. Let him scrape his erse off the floorboards in a house, but the night was only getting started.

Wasn’t like he expected to be proved wrong. Was a golly kind of woobly he felt stepping up to the bar, to the empty stool besides him. He didn’t pause for half a second, spite of the clenching he felt in his jaw, the prickling at the back of his neck. Circle clock, he hated it, swimming against his skin. This one wasn’t so bad as most, but it still had that press glamours didn’t.

He didn’t slam his glass down on the bar. He set it down gentle-like with his big scarred hand, careful from practice, for all the glittering lights behind Bill swam and sang. But he loomed there for a moment, looking down at the little kov, his blunt fingertips perched delicate-like on the rim of the glass.

“Ain’t never seen you here,” he said, and added, “sir.” He’d a high, scratchy voice, not the sort that carried well; it almost didn’t carry at all, underneath the raucous swell of the Louse. Since the last time he'd broken his nose, it'd come out stuffy.

After a moment, he slid into the stool beside the toffin. Bill gave him a look under his brows; he grinned at the dagka.

Then he looked at the toffin, dark eyes glittering under his heavy brows. “‘nother round, kov, or d’you accept a drink from such as me?” His scarred lip twisted.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Dancing Louse, Voedale

Maybe this had been a mistake.

Charlie had been in Old Rose Harbor just a hair over two months now, and he was still getting his feet under him in the place. This was nothing like the Stacks, and nothing like Vienda either. Not even the Dives quite felt the same (for all the Charlie hadn't spent much time in them, he still thought he could tell). What better way to get his--sea legs? Land legs? Harbor... legs? Clock it. What better way to get used to a place than to find every shady-seeming bar in town and try it on for size.

The plan had seemed solid enough. Charlie simply had miscalculated just how shady a bar could get in the Rose. He had thought he had the measure of it; he had thought, Voedale seems like the kind of place to really test the theory. The Dancing Louse had been selected on the whimsy of the name as much as anything. Honestly, Charlie just wanted to get well and truly guttered and he didn't quite have the income to do it somewhere he was less out of place. It was too soon to write home and ask for money. Even Charlie's dignity wouldn't allow for that.

Nobody liked him here. (That was their loss, as he was a treasure and a delight, but it was still true.) Oh, the bartender was at least careful enough not to show it outright, but Charlie was practiced at sorting out when people liked him and when they didn't, so he picked up just fine on all the subtle hints. Charlie was about as welcome in the Louse as... as... well, as a louse was anywhere else. Sure, that made sense. (Charlie might have had one or two drinks already, so what?) But his money still spent the same, right? Better, one might argue, than most. So they could all go fuck themselves; Charlie would leave when he wanted to and not a moment before.

The moment might well have been approaching if it hadn't been for the clocking huge hand setting a glass down, careful as anything, next to him at the bar. Charlie looked up. And up. And up some more, for good measure. Good clocking Lady, they grew them big here, didn't they? How the fuck big was--six feet? And then some. Surely. Charlie was not a large man by anyone's measure; at least among his own kind, he wasn't quite so outclassed.

"What? Oh. No. Er." Charlie did his best to sound casual, but he was honestly surprised on several fronts and found it quite difficult. Front the first: that face and that voice did not match, at all. In fact, Charlie could barely hear him, and had to lean closer than he'd like to do so. Front the second: he sat down, directly next to Charlie for reasons he did not understand--everyone else had been more or less avoiding him.

And front the third: that sitting and talking was followed by, as far as he could tell, an offer to buy him a drink. Charlie looked down at that positively massive hand, then up at the scarred face. He was not, strictly speaking, opposed to anyone buying him a drink--a policy that had served him well his last year of school and he hoped would carry him into the future. This was just. You know, rather a bit. Different. Wasn't it?

"Er. Yes? I mean--sure." Charlie did not need another round; this was meant to be his last round, in fact. He was going to go home and talk to Tippy, he supposed. She rarely answered, but he found their conversations very enriching.

Circle, that was a pathetic thing to think wasn't it?

"Why not?" he said again, a little more breezily before. Somewhere he found that self-satisfied curve to his mouth that had served him so very well in the past. When he said he was "everyone's type", he hadn't thought he meant it so literally. But, well: he did own a mirror, didn't he? So sure. Why not. He was only a little nervous that every answer he could give had a poor outcome. Just a pinch.

[Tom Cooke]

The Dancing Louse • Voedale

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

W
hat? Oh. No. Er. Fuck if he hadn’t got this before. Something satisfying about it, in a bitter, tsuter kind of way. Toff was looking at him like he was some kind of mant banderwolf, which he wasn’t – yet. Hadn’t got enough drink in him yet, he reckoned; that, or nobody’d pissed him off bad enough.

The oil lamp was catching toff’s face all pretty-like, picking out his cheekbones and the slope of them toward his chin, those fine golly features. Something petulant about the set of his lips.

Something like that about the whole of him. The woobly still lapped and tickled at him, making the hairs on the backs of his arms stand on end, and on the back of his neck, and in his beard. You got used to it eventually, unless it was like that clocking monster of Uzoji’s rosh’s; that didn’t make it any less flooding weird right off, fresh from expecting a man to have nothing but the empty air about him.

Toff was looking at his hand like he’d never seen nothing like it, or maybe like he’d never seen nothing so ugly. He wasn’t sure whether you could call it a haughty sort of glance – he looked surprised, if anything – but it wasn’t the easy manner of gollies like the Taxman and Uzoji.

Sure. “Sure,” he repeated, drawing out the syllables, raising one heavy eyebrow. That all you got?

Something changed, then. Like a kov staggering off onto the docks, getting his legs back underneath him. Why not? Those lips looked all the more petulant.

And Tom grinned, then laughed – a laugh that ended in a loud snort.

“Be answerin’ that question, an’ soon enough,” he shot back, shrugging his big shoulders and waving to Bill, “but I’ve a fancy for a kov likes to yach the fire. I’m that manner of kov myself, ye chen?” That crooked twist of a smile was still playing at his lips, not altogether kind.

Old Bill’d been chattering idle-like with a couple of dagka down the bar, creaky-coughing, spilling out a haze of pleasant-smelling smoke from their spurs. He’d been laughing, too, though he’d lost some of his blithesome disposition when he’d caught sight of Tom’s hand. There was a funny pinched look about his eyes as he came over, his dark eyes darting from him to the toff. Some of it might’ve been irritation; some of it might’ve been fear.

He smiled anyway. “‘Nother round for my friend here, hey? Whatever toffin shit he’s drinkin’. Put it on my tab.”

Bill shook his head. “Up front,” he said.

Tom’s lip curled again. He stared at Bill, hard, then he shrugged. He grunted, fishing his battered wallet out of the pocket of his trousers. “Boemo.”

Wasn’t like he couldn’t pay it, anyway. Wasn’t one of them, but his qalqa paid well enough; the King treated his kov good, whatever hama said. Whatever anyone said. He was flush tonight, and he’d’ve paid his tab anyway. Like a balach. He put it away and turned back to the toff.

“Tom,” he said, “Cooke.” He put out his hand, scarred and batter-knuckled, for a natt shake.

“He bothering you?” cut in Bill, half-turned away. He glanced between Tom and the golly, frowning.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Dancing Louse, Voedale

That "I have made a terrible mistake" feeling? That did not go away in the least when the absolutely massive man laughed at Charlie's casual "why not". If anything, it increased, because he hadn't thought it was that funny. This was definitely, absolutely, firmly different than the Stacks.

"Yes?" Charlie thought that was a safe answer to as much of that statement as he could puzzle out. He had only understood about half of it; the rest was that dreadful wick vocabulary that made no sense to him whatsoever. He thought he was starting to understand a little more of it, but only a very little. At least some of it had been what was reasonably close to proper Estuan. Charlie kept his easy, arrogant smile on his face, even if he didn't think he liked the tilt on the other man's.

Clocking hell, though, if his newfound company didn't look like some kind of stock character from a morality play about the perils of a life of crime. That wasn't a detriment, not really, but it was sort of unsettling. Charlie was already tipsy enough to not mind. That was possibly bad for his health; the morality plays did not end well. Which is, of course, what made them morality plays: and also, part of the appeal. Yes, Charlie assured himself, this was a perfectly acceptable idea. How else was he to really get a sense for the... the... His thoughts swam and it took a moment for him to catch them. The local color! Yes. That was it. How was he to learn that if he was too interested in his own self-preservation?

Although if this was all a prelude to some kind of violence (as one tended to hear), Charlie rather hoped it would avoid his face.

He blinked at the distinctively tense interaction between the large man--who was human, despite all the... talk, and that was even more baffling--and the old bartender. This would all be fine, he reassured himself. Also, the alternative was to just leave now and abruptly and he didn't fancy the results of that either. The bartender business seemed to sort itself out quickly enough, anyway. So that was all... good. Keen.

Charlie raised delicate dark eyebrows at the hand held out towards him. He couldn't, in his current state of inebriation and discomfort, immediately divine what the giant of a man wanted. While he blinked, some of that cavalier self-assurance faded while he tried to work it out. The bartender cut in, and Charlie couldn't tell which of them the old man was talking to. Him, Charlie thought, and not the other man--Tom Cooke, he'd said. Because Charlie was never a bother to anyone, being as he was perfectly charming in all instances.

"Hardly," Charlie said with a smile that was only strained at the very edges. At last he remembered that hand-shaking thing that was common among the lower races and that sort of aggressively masculine posturing that military men were so fond of. He took it, gingerly, not entirely certain how to proceed. The difference in scale there was... hmm. Charlie didn't know what to make of that, and chose not to think about it. Away, thought!

"Charlie Al--uh. Ewing. Charlie Ewing." Shit! That was the third time he'd done that today. He was going to have to get used to this assumed name situation, or what was even the point? It was just so hard to remember, the thought with a bit of a whine even in his own mind. It should be easier. He wasn't sure how long one let this sort of thing linger, and was loathe to pull away first and be wrong. Even though his discomfort mounted every passing second; he kept it out of his expression at least, which was still lazily arrogant.

[Tom Cooke]

The Dancing Louse • Voedale

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

H
ardly. Bill looked at the toff for a moment, skeptical, and then looked at Tom, even more skeptical. You heard the man, he thought, and gave Bill his most charming smile before turning back to the toff.

Both of those thin, manicured eyebrows went right up at the sight of his hand. Tom’s dark eyes glittered. He wondered for a split of a second whether he’d get it; he wasn’t sure if it’d’ve been damned funny or damned disappointing if he hadn’t, and just let him hang there with his flooding hand out.

Or maybe he got it just fine, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch such as him; maybe that was a little too far for slumming it, shaking hands with a big, scarred-up natt. That look on his face seemed to say so.

But he took it, in the end. Toff’s hand was a little cold, all delicate bones and tapering fingers – and faint, raised bumps on his palm and fingers. Not many. The surprise didn’t reach Tom’s face, but he thought on it, wondering. Not a factory worker, but not a dilettante either, he thought.

Toff took it and held it, like he wasn’t sure what to do with it, so Tom gave it a benny firm shake.

Then, toff made a slip.

The smile on Tom’s face spread itself out into another grin, lip curling back from his crooked teeth. “Charlie All-Ewing,” he said, nodding slow-like, like – well, he was a big, lumbering, mung natt, wasn’t he, and gollies could have such names as even they couldn’t wind their tongues around, so who was he to question it?

He filed it away. He could’ve let the slip go, easy, like maybe he hadn’t heard it; it was more useful, on the whole, if a kov didn’t know you’d caught it. But he wasn’t on the job tonight, and it wouldn’t hurt none to fuck with him. This Charlie toff hardly seemed like the type he usually dealt with, anyway. Probably some Brunnhold gollymancer here to slum it with the lower races, ready to scamper his pretty little erse back wherever he came from when da’s money ran out.

He wondered what that al would’ve wound itself round to. He didn’t look like a Ewing. Aldridge, maybe, or Albington. He knew an Albington, one of Hawke’s little pen-pushers up the Court, who usually showed up to harass the brigk if they were holding any of his; maybe that was why this Ewing-go-lightly wasn’t too keen on using his name.

It was a benny sort of mystery, he reflected. Kind you got every night in these parts, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a distraction, and a distraction was what he’d come here for, even if this one wasn’t a tumble. And if it was the kind of distraction ended you up in the bay, boemo, he’d been vying for the privilege for thirty maw now.

“An’ what brings you t’ Voedale this evenin’, Mr. All-Ewing?” he asked, soon as Bill’d filled them up again. He made sure to enunciate all his words, this time, just in case Ewing found his low speak objectionable.

He leaned on the bar, stool creaking underneath him, fingertips perched again on the rim of his glass. He studied Ewing. Blue eyes, he noticed. Something infuriating about it. The lamp caught one of them sideways, lit the iris crystal-pale.

Behind him, one of the old wicks coughed, waving away smoke. There was a scattering of claps from the card table, and a grunt. He took a drink, steadying himself on the burn of it and the warmth that trickled down to his belly. He was starting to get used to it, that funny, heavy feeling in the air; he always did, for better or worse.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Dancing Louse, Voedale

Shaking hands was better, Charlie thought, than a caprise, but it was still weird and he still didn't much care for it. At least with a caprise he knew what to expect and how to behave; it was a damn sight more invasive, but he understood it better. Maybe this man who looked like he could break Charlie in half wasn't the best place to start. He didn't think normally it was meant to be so intimidating. Although, reflecting on the sorts of men (and a few women) he knew who were into that whole business--shaking hands, that is--perhaps intimidating was not an unusual intention after all.

Charlie resisted the urge to flex his fingers after that shake-and-release. Instead he set his hand quite firmly back on the bar and didn't think too much about anything. Somewhere Charlie's sense of danger was waving its arms at him and shouting, but it was doing so from a little raft in the middle of a liquored-up ocean. Not aided in the least by the fact that in all of his twenty years so far on Vita, he had rarely actually been likely to come to any real harm no matter how foolish he was being. Not physical harm, anyway; one could make a strong argument for other kinds.

"No, not--oh, nevermind." That was still far enough from his actual name, he thought, and close enough to the one he was just starting to use. Like name training wheels, or something. He couldn't be sure if the man had actually misheard or if he was doing it on purpose. Either way, it struck Charlie Ewing as firmly in his better interests to leave that alone.

The old man came back with more of whatever it was Charlie had been drinking--he honestly had no clue, all he knew was that it was doing the trick just fine and didn't cost too much. Strong, too, and Charlie knew--was absolutely, dead-on certain--that he should not have another. As soon as it was set in front of him, he drained a little of it away. Gave him time to think of how best to answer that question, the warmth of the drink making him feel a lot better and less tense than he had felt just a moment before.

"Oh, well, you know--new to the city, so I'm just taking in the..." Charlie trailed off partway through his obliviously cheerful answer, glancing around the Louse. Very pointedly not glancing too long at the person he was speaking to, because he knew his glance would turn into a stare and did not know what it would turn into after that. This was not a situation he really was equipped to handle. But, he thought, that was the point of all of this. So that was good, maybe.

"...sights?" Charlie had the distinct impression he was being studied, and not necessarily in the way he was usually being studied, which tended to fall into one of two camps: admiration, or scorn. Sometimes a little of both, really. "See new places, meet new people. All that." The grin had fallen a little on his delicately pointed face, but he picked it back up easily enough. Tried his best to project an air of nonchalance, like he hung around places like Voedale every night of the week. Maybe he would! It was possible. He hadn't yet decided, after all.

"And, uh, how about you, Mr. Cooke?" He took a slender finger and started to trace the rim of his glass without paying much attention to what he was doing. His head tilted to one side and he looked back to Tom at last. If there was anything Charlie could always manage, it was looking very interested in what someone at a bar was saying to him.

[Tom Cooke]

The Dancing Louse • Voedale

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

E
wing took a drink soon as Bill set down his glass, like it couldn’t’ve got there fast enough. The light glanced through it, molasses-dark amber, and Tom caught a whiff of familiar bitter; Chrove’s Erse was almost always on tap at the Louse, or some other mant strong dark ale brewed round these parts. He gave a curious look to the glass and then to the toff as he set it down. Wasn’t what the folk down south or west along the Arova called ale, or even in the Court.

He minced his words, oh, well, you know… Tom couldn’t rightly place his accent, being honest. Wasn’t Rose. Maybe Vienda, maybe Brunnhold. Kov looked young enough for the latter, given you couldn’t always tell with his kind.

His head was swimming, so he took another draught of his whisky; pieces were afloat and he couldn’t seem to put them together, but the trying was the fun.

Taking in the, toff started, those clear blue eyes rolling about the place.

Tom watched them skim over the heads of the card players, one bald, one a mop of grimy towhead curls. Tumble chip sat nearby, watching all intent-like, her cheek propped up on her fist; she sat with her legs wide, showing a shapely shin encased in stocking. One of the players folded, and the other men roared with laughter; so did the tumble, grinning, revealing a few missing front teeth.

Tucked out of the way, just under the stairs – shit it, Tom thought, there he was. Callan was sitting on the edge of another kov’s table, head tilted, dark curls spilling over one shoulder. He was giving the kov a look as told him all he needed to know about where he would be that night.

Kov was pretending to be disinterested. He was sharpening a knife with a low, rhythmic hssk, hssk, hssk; it glinted faintly in the light, though the room was all patches of shadow between the gritty lamps.

In another corner, a dark-headed freckled lad – wick, no doubt, by the looks of him – was tuning an instrument. The sight tickled at Tom’s head in a way he didn’t much like, but it opened another window, too – thinking of the soft calluses on Ewing’s hands. But they wasn’t calluses like those.

The one sight toff didn’t seem much interested in taking in was him.

“Benny,” he said, nodding all serious-like. See new places, meet new fucking people. Pet the local animals. Tom’s lip curled again; he scratched in his beard, still watching Ewing. And him? Ewing was looking back at him, now, those chilly eyes and all that macha face intent.

He shrugged his shoulders again. “Wastin’ time, I reckon,” he said, his eyes wandering down toward the bar between them. He studied the rough wood, then found his eyes wandering up to Ewing’s glass, to the one long, pale fingers that ran its narrow fingertip round the lip.

He watched it trace circles. Mant distracting.

“What brings any man to a place like this? Wallet full of ging I’m too mung to spend anywhere else, an’ a soul as needs the kind attentions of strong liquor, ye chen? You know.” He parroted Ewing’s laid-back, arrogant tones, drawled out something like a toff accent – then grinned back up at him, dark eyes glittering. “An’ what d’you think of the sights you been seein’, Mr. All-Ewing?”

Another drink of whisky; he set the glass careful-like in its ring of wet on the bar, turning it so the light caught on a hairline crack at the rim. He tucked a loose wavy lock of hair behind his ear, tilting his head and meeting Ewing’s eye again. He gave every bit of Ewing's attention back to him, fixing his dark eyes on his face, studying him again.

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Dancing Louse, Voedale

Nothing Charlie saw when he had looked around the Louse had been particularly encouraging. Which was encouraging in and of itself, in a sort of twist of logic that even he had to admit he didn't fully understand. A generally sordid lot, from the card players to the prostitute (plural? he couldn't quite decide) to the man who was sharpening a knife. Charlie tried very much not to think about it. The bitter ale--he supposed that's what it was, in a roundabout sense--helped immensely.

Charlie had asked what Tom was doing here, and he had no idea what to expect from the answer. Part of his attentive posture was just that--posture, put on by long habit. Only part, though. The giant of a man had stopped looking at him and moved his eyes to the bar momentarily. When Charlie saw him look to the hand that was lazily moving across his glass, he felt a little victorious. Unaccountably so. He didn't stop, even when there was a part of his brain reminding him where he was and that the idea slowly starting to develop was absolutely horrible.

It took Charlie a moment to process bit that came after a declaration that Tom was just wasting time here in the Louse. More of that wick talk that Charlie had never bothered to understand. If everyone here talked like this, he might have to--he did not, after all, intend to keep strictly galdori company. It didn't matter, anyway, likely. Just noise to fill the air, same as anything ever said by anyone at any bar. Charlie heard something of his own manner of speaking imitated back at him, followed by a grin. Was that meant to be insulting? What was he supposed to do even if it was?

No, Charlie resolved. It wasn't--well. Maybe it was, but he was choosing to ignore it. The ale rather helped; it helped all of this, generally speaking. His finger paused in the orbit he had been tracing around the glass.

"Some sights," he said carefully, attempting to weigh his words and actions and failing, "have been better and more interesting than others." A tutor from his younger years had once told him that he hadn't the common sense the Circle gave a hingle. At the time he had been quite hurt, but hadn't argued with the assessment. Now, Charlie found that highly insulting--he knew what he was doing.

Mostly. Sort of. He would figure it out in the end, at least. And if he didn't, well, that erstwhile tutor could always find him to say "I told you so" if he really wanted to. He could still hear the knife being sharpened somewhere out of his sight, under the stairs.

What Charlie needed was to stop worrying about it so much. To that end, he lifted his glass again and had another drink, trying not to wince at how unaccountably bitter it was. Each mouthful seemed to linger on his tongue longer than the one before it. Charlie couldn't figure that out, either--surely one adjusted after a while. Yet another thing he resolved not to ponder overmuch. The light and the liquor caught together to keep that self-assurance high. Yes, this was all a perfectly good idea. Whatever it was. He set his glass back down without any particular care and didn't let his attention drift.

[Tom Cooke]

The Dancing Louse • Voedale

Evening on the 18th of Loshis, 2718

T
hat slim white finger kept on tracing slowly round the glass. With each circle, it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes on Ewing’s face, though there was plenty enough to look at there, too. He studied it; he scoured the tilt of the thin lips, the delicate arc of the brows, the muscles that tightened faintly – now and then – oes, petulant and bold, this little kov, but not in his element. Not if Tom had to guess, and Tom didn’t often misjudge men.

And what did he see in the eyes? Tom wasn’t smiling anymore; he was staring into them, his own eyes flicking back and forth, one eye then the other.

Somebody he’d known once’d told him the eyes of men were like mirrors. Where the lamplight glinted in Ewing’s eyes, he could see a bulky dark shape reflected back at him. Ewing had to look up to look at him, a fair mant ways. What did he see in his eyes? What did he want to see? Why the hell was he doing this?

He was already in a foul mood, oes; there was something like pleasure in making it worse, in seeing how low it’d go, in seeing what spitch and wonders you found when you got to the bottom.

The cacophony went on; the kov with the guitar’d started playing, now, some meandering melody that snagged familiar in his head but couldn’t stay long. Bits and pieces. Bass was half passed out at the table across the Louse, he knew, his head lolling as always. He’d eyes only for the toff. There was a rhythm to all of it, to the swell and dying of laughter, the sharpening of the knife and the delicate motions of that finger lining up perfect with the thrum of his pulse.

It was when the finger froze that he broke eye-contact, his eyes darting back down to the glass. When Ewing spoke, his lip twitched and curled.

He’d said it, hadn’t he, he liked a kov as yached the fire? He felt a kick of anger like a spur in his side, and then something else – or maybe they were the same feeling. He was smiling at Ewing, now, as he took a drink.

“What sights d’you find most interestin’, Mr. All-Ewing?” he asked, shifting his posture, propping his head up on his scuffed, scarred knuckles. His eyes followed Ewing’s glass attentively as he set it down; they traced back up to his macha face, where he could’ve sworn he’d seen a sliver of a suppressed wince.

You trying it on for size, Charlie Ewing? You like it?

He glanced back over behind the bar, skimming the bottles with his eyes just so he had something to look at. While he did, he took the tie out of his bun, letting his hair fall back down; he ran his fingers through it, raking a few thick dark tangles over one shoulder.

Still smiling, he cocked an eyebrow at Ewing. “I’d bet a ha’bird – maybe more, dependin’ on Ophur’s grace,” he grinned, “you ain’t been here too long. You like a local to show you round, kov?”

[Charlie Ewing]

Loshis 18, 2718 - Evening
The Dancing Louse, Voedale

Which was worse: when the smile fell away or when it came back? It depended on which part of his brain you asked, Charlie thought. All of it was drowning in whatever bitter shit was in this glass. He had a sneaking suspicion it was just grain alcohol and coloring, for all the pleasure there was to be found in it.

Charlie didn't know what to make of all that staring at first. Had this been at home or at school, somewhere else--maybe he would have. But here, really? Now? Well, maybe he knew what to make of it after all--once again he reminded himself that he knew what he looked like. Appreciable from every angle, by everyone. (Truly, apparently, everyone--he had no complaints.) It had gotten him into more trouble than it had ever saved him that was for sure, his face. And all the bad ideas behind it. Mostly the ideas.

This was a good idea, though; Charlie was enjoying himself, wasn't he? That kind of nervous feeling was starting to fade away under the onslaught of cheap alcohol he kept pouring on it. Circle bless the distilleries, whichever one was in charge of those--Charlie had never been much for religiosity. They kept his smile wide and bright, even if he was starting to develop a crick in his neck from looking at Tom next to him at the bar.

"Uh," he said very intelligently and elegantly. Alioe's clocking tits, this was strong stuff. All starting to catch up to him at once. His smile faltered as he tried to think of how to answer in something even resembling a coherent sentence. He was better at this normally, he really was. "Lotsa--hard to choose, really." Sure, that was close enough. This is why Charlie let his face do most of the talking for him.

It was that guitar, he decided. Somewhere it had started up, and the song was unfamiliar enough he couldn't quite get it to fade into the background like it should. Charlie looked at those knuckles and that face and once again had the sense that he was trying to bite off a whole hell of a lot more than he could chew. Tom looked away and took his hair down; it was important, Charlie had always said, to expand one's horizons. Developed one's character, and so on. And so forth.

"Those are hardly long odds," Charlie said, finding a cocky kind of drawl and leaning to his very fresh-from-Brunnhold mannerisms. Smiling was better than not smiling. Charlie was doing it too, wasn't he? "What gave me away?" As if it weren't perfectly obvious had had not stumbled in here on purpose, the only golly in the place. As if his play at casual were complete, and not that he gave himself away with every twitch of his pretty pointed face.

"Only if you're volunteering." The dumberse words left his face quicker than he could stop them. Well, he was following this impulse through as far as it would carry him, now. No sense in quitting while he was ahead. Charlie angled a little closer.