Re: [Second City: Cat & Jack]
The cushions underneath his elbow were heavy and fat, overstuffed and fringed with embroidery. It was warmer down here than it had been overhead, which was hardly bloody surprising given the limits of an underground city. But these were small observations, part of a larger whole and there was no disparaging the fact that the girl who lounged as she slid her shoes into reach with the hook of her fingers, was at least visibly not the same woman who had gone - at at least attempted to go - to Russia.
But Jack didn't feel like bloodymindedness, and he didn't feel like shoving fingers through holes in pockets. The newspaper office had felt like an enclosure after the boy who had no name laid down challenge and left, and christ alone knew he'd probed her boundaries enough to know the limits of the walls. He had scooped up his own shoes when finding a place between the bodies for a small boy who hadn't learned to use his elbows effectively yet, and he dropped them in the dust.
As big as the Capital he believed. This place was the kind that unrolled by degrees, down the bloody rabbit-hole you went. But he leaned back into the prop of the cushions and smiled at a proclamation on bourgeoise filth. "I wasn't referring to this, but the magic in the market. You can buy and sell people elsewhere, but it's not the same. It's like looking through a mirror. It's the same, but it's not the same, there's a sliver of difference enough that you can't assume it's exact." It was more insightful than he dragged out usually, but he was watching the people rather than the woman.
"It is beautiful." Not the pillows and the environment, but the people. 'I like it very much. Thank you for showing it to me." This much was true, he sat with one arm looped around his own knees and the light of curiosity and carefully kept pleasure in watching and witnessing. The little boy dug through the crowd to the front and Jack grinned for erstwhile companions.