Re: Near the ring of fire, later...: Cat C & Reece E
Strangely enough, Reece had spent a lifetime too trying to get into similar places—though, where Cat might have sought out old money, rich woods carved intricate, and the men who lived among it all—Reece wanted cutting edge. Like, those cool bathrooms with blue-lit sinks as thin as razorblades and twice as sharp (*wink*). Still, that difference was actually minor when stacked against the similarity of the endeavor. Perhaps, a bigger difference would be the fact that Cat was more adept at it, at acquiring. Reece worked hard for it, but he had never had many friends—he couldn't pull it off, the whole remaking yourself thing. Oh, he had the haircut now, the clothes, and he could get close, but he couldn't close his fingers on the identity he wanted so badly to be his own. Maybe one day.
For now, he was too busy to think on it for once. He was rolling his eyes at Cat when she said she might teach him what casual actually looked like and he was smiling at her when he called her a tease. What she didn't seem to get, was Reece understood she could do much... um, more? Worse? She could be a much bigger tease and that she wasn't actually trying with him.—His eye couldn't pick up stress itself, but he could catch tension, without a scan even, but it helped, registering a constriction of peripheral blood vessels and a slight uptick in her heartbeat, though nothing he would have noted as strange, save for the fact that, watching Cat (not creepily), he knew she was freaked out. Or... worried... or something. The fact that she glanced more than once at the old man who was practically snoring across the bar—just confirmed that.
But, he didn't comment on it. His eye counted the number of bills (or attempted to, allowing that there was a chance it would be off (and giving Reece the percentage of that probability)), but even that action didn't require much from him. He watched Cat's fingers move, watcher her mouth, looking down almost embarrassed when she told him making himself smaller didn't work.—He told her about Michael and waited, patiently, as Cat finished up her business of ...closing up her business, smiling once again when the woman set two shot glasses on the bartop.
"He can't say. As in, he doesn't remember." Reese finished off his beer, wiped at his lips thoughtlessly, and shook his head, sending that already-loosed bit of hair further down, until it brushed at his eyes. Annoyed, he pushed it away with metal fingers, looking at Cat almost suspiciously. "Why?" Was she going to blackmail him? Or, wait--was she--did she think he was--Reece took his shot, drowning out the whir of questions in his mind with the splash of whiskey against the back of this throat.
He flexed his fingers reflexively when Cat's eyes fell down to them, spread them for her and practically offered them—he was used to questions about it. Most people, he didn't like... you know, actually touching it, but for her, he pushed back his sweater at thin, ball-joint wrist, up to elbow, revealing sleek black. His fingers, reticulating joints extremely complex, were the same color, save for his knuckles and for slivers of metal that made up the aforementioned joins. It was all very responsive, lifelike in its movements, without any jerkiness or even lag between the communication of thought and action.
"You can touch it," he told her, before looking at her and the slant of her lashes. For once (it happened much more often than 'once,' but let's allow the man his fantasy), Reece wasn't sure what the implication of importance was about—as in, what the context was, as in why. But, all that whiskey warming his throat and his gut, topping off three beers, and he didn't hesitate. "No." If she had taken his hand or picked at it, he constricted his fingers, almost as if testing her grip. He couldn't feel with the hand, not like one could with a real limb, but he could feel weight in it, tugging almost at his shoulder. More thoughtful than suspicious this time, he asked again: "Why?"