Before the Show | Tuck & Blair & Elias & (Anyone Else)
Elias stepped in a little after dark. There had been more running around to do, more settling in, and an important meeting with the Records Office. The days seemed to pass faster in Glynn, when everything seemed packed into the same week, but Elias preferred it that. It left him with little time to dwell on things he could not change, or on his swift departure from Belailles. He hadn't even responded to his siblings' journal messages - perhaps tomorrow, or over the weekend.
Antoine's Blues Palace was even busier than it had been the first night Elias had come in. His sharp eyes picked out the regulars, the staff, and the women and the men who must be more of those bedmates - still a strange, new notion, but not an unpleasant one. He thought he saw a familiar head of dark hair, but he wasn't here for Caden - not just two nights from that first encounter, and certainly not in front of Tucker Belmont and his guests. Elias was sure and certain of the sort of welcome he would receive if word got out, but there were times where he wanted to just throw caution to the wind, and let the cards fall as they may.
He sighed, running fingers through his short hair, as he willed the dangerous exhilaration away before it could bubble over. He might as well have taken a longer moment to compose himself, because as he walked up to Tucker and Blair's table, he found them incredibly close. So close that Elias thought for a heartbeat that Blair was one of the bedmates, a little birthday indulgence. But from Elias' vantage point, shrouded in the darkness that the colour lights left in their wake, even with Tucker's head bent so close, it was easy to recognise Blair's pale face.
A curl of something between unease and disgust squirmed through him, but Elias decided that it wasn't really his problem. He let them have a moment more to arrange themselves into a less... bizarre position, before stepping into the light, as if wordlessly declaring himself in Marches when he roamed those alleys in the middle of the night.
"Tucker. Blair. I see the festivities have already started," Elias greeted with a warm smile that betrayed none of his previous thoughts. He presented the man with an aged whiskey, figuring that Tucker must already have all the best vin de coca he could get his hands on, and a different luxury would be more appropriate. "A small gesture, but it is your birthday, and I am regrettably late."