the broken window and the pretty blue sky

[hearnospeakno]

This is a medical emergency. I need alcohol. I will pay you back.

This is what you may find held up to you on Nick Andros' palm, if you seem like the kind of person who might buy a guy a beer on credit. If you're not, or he just hasn't gotten around to you yet, Nick is the skinny guy hassling people in the Smoking Room.

It's been one of those days.

Nick doesn't like this. He's paid his own way for years, and he's been buying his own drinks since he was first able to bluff his way into a bar. But he's not going to steal, and he hasn't carried cash since--he doesn't even remember when he stopped thinking about having money in his pocket. It's been a while.

If this is whatever comes next, Nick has some pointed questions to ask whoever runs the place about why he gets a room free, but not a drink. (Nick's experience with hotels doesn't extend to the kind with minibars, so he didn't think about going up there first. He's honestly not thinking much.)

He's not begging. He's done that before, and it left a sharp, slippery taste in his mouth like sweaty pennies. Whatever is going on, wherever this is, Nick is asking for a loan, not a handout. It might be a stupid thing to be hanging onto, but under the circumstances--

Under the circumstances, Nick just wants a break. Five minutes to sit, drink a beer, and try to reconcile this bustling, beautiful place with what came before.

(He indulges in enough bitterness to think that isn't very fucking likely, but hey. He can dream.)

Comments

[digyourman]

Considering the long and perilous trajectory of Larry's life, he could acknowledge that it was somewhat strange how little time he spent in the hotel's bar. He hadn't given up drinking by any means, but he'd not made much in the way of friends yet, and the idea of sitting there alone in the dim felt distinctly wrong. Blasphemous, even.

More often than not, when he wanted a drink in this place, he paid for a bottle of beer and carried it somewhere else, usually outside. Drinking alone purportedly being a bad idea, he didn't know if that was actually a better situation for his mental health, he just knew he liked the breeze on his face.

When he stepped toward the bar today, the plan hadn't altered any— That was, until he found himself met with an imploringly outstretched palm, the scrawl across it recognizable despite the imperfect canvas.

The words swam across his vision and then blurred through a veil of saline, because he knew, god he knew

(hoped, prayed)

the face beyond beyond would belong to someone he never thought he'd ever see again, although now, after everything, he didn't know why he'd assume that.

Breath caught tight in his throat, Larry briefly swayed in place, and the slender volume of Browning poems he had pilfered from the library slid from his fingers to the polished wood floor.

[freezedout]

Isaac's sight is pretty good. He doesn't mean to brag, but it's not like it's his own talent that he's so proud of. It's because of the werewolf senses that came to him with the bite that he can read the letters on the man's palm, even with some of the movement. It's too bad that he can't really do anything about it, though. Isaac offers a rueful smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "They won't serve me," he admits. "So, I'm pretty sure you're out of luck if I'm buying."

[weighted_reality]

Arthur's always been good at keeping his own council, but it's hard not to shove a hand in his pocket and grip his totem when he sees his face on another boy. It's like staring his teenage years in the face and investigating ever darker, twisting tunnels, though he can't say he ever spent much time communicating by signs. Too much army efficiency for that.

"Are you old enough to be asking for that kind of favor?"

[malachai]

Nick looked over from his seat at the bar and snorted a laugh. "I'd help you if I could, man, but I've lived the last two years in a place that didn't use money, so I'm tapped out."

He frowned, though, when he made the connection between the pad and the guy. He turned more towards him and signed. You deaf?