Re: sushi-time: adrian, patrick, lou
Lou didn't have history at this table and she got that she was flying blind, catching up on loaded nuance she didn't have the experience to read into. Didn't believe in nuance, in leaning heavy into hinting. Lou was an up-front kind of girl, whether shit was about to collide with the fan or whether it was good news. Throwing yourself in was a lot better, got your weight behind your fist for whatever was coming, rather than trying to duck. The same went for humor, Lou's was maybe too far out for Adrian to catch on that a challenge was all about taking the joke further along to get a rise.
She was leaning forward now, one elbow down on the table and attentive roiling off her like scent in the air. The threat was shadow, but Lou was the kind to snap at shadow to keep it shadow and she liked to level, so she didn't understand when Patrick looked like he'd subsided, like all the air had knocked out of him as he switched gear into patter. Her chin cocked, like maybe she'd lost the thread of where he was going, despite being hand-over-hand on the rope behind him.
"I said something that shut you down?" Lou was blunt, but she was also honest. She didn't scramble for steel chopsticks when they came, but she knew how to use them without tossing raw fish all over the place, and she was looking at Patrick now, her face thoughtful. Now at Adrian:
"Wolf," without much explanation. "Bite, not blood. Are you worried about this guy," she meant the Facility guy, "Or this one?" Adrian, with a jerk of her thumb and a grin, warm and affectionate and feral in his direction.