Re: The Jaded/The Disaffected
The guy sipped his drink. Spirits. Emil could feel the smell sidle up his nose, he looked at the glass, unblinking. Emil didn't get buzzed. Didn't drink spirits, didn't drink cans of cheap beer in a parking lot, nothing. He wasn't a drinker at all. Until he was. He was slow to rile, slow to come to any kind of boiling point, until he wasn't. In fact, the majority of the things Emil was, he was until he wasn't. About the only thing that had any consistency was that Emil decided exactly when the switch flipped.
The guy had a point about return on investment, but there was the thing. Emil was careful. Not cautious, careful. The likelihood of getting caught in the act of going through someone's luggage and the probability that that luggage looked like nothing Emil had packed himself, was higher than anyone in authority coming across the mail-car on a stopped train. Emil looked like he had birthdays. Everyone had them. Raiding baggage was a two person job to be done properly and Emil didn't trust anybody, except one. He didn't go shouting about it. Didn't need to wear it written across his chest. But he got things done.
He didn't go to concerts, or get hands on with the band but if he had the cash for concert tickets, he wouldn't be going through birthday cards for ten bucks a pop, would he? The guy smirked. There was a long pause and Emil's mouth ghosted with a thin smile. He was willing to bet the guy was finding the right place in the alphabet. He was unsurprised when the guy opened his mouth. Unsurprised, but mildly amused he knew his federal statutes.
"What's the ring?" Emil didn't believe in not asking the question right out in front. He didn't, often. It showed interest and people got excited about squeezing interest out of someone else, but the guy was a walking billboard for attention deficit.
"Whose to say I'm not working backwards?" Deadpan. Idly. To the latest stack of envelopes, I this time. I didn't surrender anything good. I was all white envelopes and Emil pressed his forefinger and index along the edge of each envelope, bitten cuticles and all to test the weight, the width, to see if white envelopes had hidden depth. Hands-off was a philosophy people could afford until they couldn't. Emil looked bored. He stopped flicking envelope through envelope, dropped the stack back into the slot and turned. Stood face-on. Looked over the piercings, the shirt, the jeans. The ring.
"Go on, then." Deliberate. One thin, dark eyebrow arched upward. Icy-blue eyes settled on his face, meaningfully. Participate.