Re: Evans & Peel: Jack/Patrick/maybe Newt later.
They were joking with one another as if they'd established a rapport, and Newt's eyes flickered between Patrick and his brother in curiosity. When a question was asked of him, or, rather, his input was demanded, Newt lacked the easy sociability of the other two men. He was quite far out of his element, and, unlike the gala, there wasn't even a wood surrounding them to offer a false sense of ease. That, and he'd not had a drop to drink. Newt glanced at the people pressing in distractedly, then back to Jack. "I'm sorry, what?" His brain processed much more slowly than it otherwise might, as it tended to need to allocate quite a lot of energy for monitoring the surroundings. "A body? Er." He'd meant to congratulate Jack, but now he was trying to think of somewhere to place a corpse, per whatever inside joke was occurring between Patrick and Jack. "I suppose it depends on what you want to do with it." His gaze was questioning when it landed on Patrick, as if asking if that made any sense in regards to the conversation, but even that flitted away. Jack had his hand on Newt's shoulder and Newt ducked his head.
They were discussing a handyman next, and Patrick broke to greet a coworker. Newt smiled slightly, even if he'd not made any manner of eye contact with the newcomer, and then they were gone. He noted Patrick seemed more on edge with his, Newt's, appearance, but he didn't know what he could do about that. He glanced at the bartender, who seemed quite busy, then back to Jack, then Patrick. "What?" Processing. Processing. "Oh, my postcard writer? I sent a hello, but I didn't get a response." Newt shrugged awkwardly under the weight of their attention. "Oh, erm, congratulations, Jack." He remembered to say it, before he forgot, and he nodded for emphasis in a flop of fringe. He smiled as he caught Jack's eye for the span of a second. "I'm quite happy for you. It seems to be, thus far, a success." Even if Newt was wondering where the hell his drink was.