Re: Evans & Peel: Jack/Patrick/maybe Newt later.
Jack wasn't drunk enough to not notice. A half year ago, a full year perhaps, when he'd had less of an education. But he saw the glimmer of Newt's eyes for only a snatch of a second and the dropped conversation, lost like the tail-end of a thread in a crowded bar - yes, he noticed. There was a certain unconsciousness to noise and hustle that you acquired in a bar if you were especially familiar with bars and with tuning out a lot of noise, and indeed, if you were slightly inebriated. But tuning in, long enough to parse the darting, unsettled look of his brother, Jack was dimly aware that it was bloody loud and bloody crowded. Which was a success, but a touch overwhelming besides.
"We were. I suppose it would depend on which body," and he'd shouldered through bodies plural to duck into the recesses of the bar, where there was a (mercifully quiet) ancient radio from the forties fixed to the wall and the seating was broken up by heavy oak tables. Jack aimed for a back corner, one less clotted with people, and occupied space in between people (general category) and people (his brother and Patrick) in an expansive sort of way that blocked them off.
"Thank you, old man." Jack had an expectation Patrick would nudge himself out of the milieu of people who wanted to say hello to him and toward the back himself, he'd taken his hand off Newt's shoulder as he - well, practically - elbowed his way through a largely unaware crowd, and sat down, with his back to the room and the space closest the wall freed up. "We'll see what it looks like when I haven't paid half the local university to flyer the town."