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.