Down On Skid Row [Closed-ish]

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Byerly
WHAT: Repairing friendship maybe??
WHEN: a few days after By's backfired apology (pre-Ghislain)
WHERE: Lowtown
NOTES: Drinking and drug use and probably violence, threadjacking negotiable

Lowtown taverns haven't been Athessa's regular haunts for a long while, probably because she tacitly conceded them to Derrica in favor of drifting along the battlements in clouds of smoke and visiting Hightown apartments where the food is arguably much better. But she's here now, leaning against the bar and trying valiantly to get the barkeep's attention. This isn't the one who passes her information for Riftwatch, just an unaffiliated one who has something against elves, or women, or short-arses, or all of the above.

So while she waits, she produces a blunt and lights it on someone else's match just after they light their own cigarette. It's surprising enough for the man that he stares, confused, until the flame burns down to his fingers and he drops the match and stomps it out when it hits the floor.

"Cheers," Athessa says, though he's already ignoring her again, just like the barkeep. She turns and leans her elbows on the bar, scanning the crowd for anyone pretty, handsome, pretty handsome, or pretty interesting.

Comments

[sulahnan]

That question has a surprisingly simple answer, as far as Athessa's concerned.

"I just...want to be your friend and for you to be mine, too," Then, wryly: "And maybe sometimes for you to speak plainly."

[bouchonne]

"Why?" The question is asked a bit quietly. "What does that gain you?"

[sulahnan]

She frowns, because that's...not an angle she ever thinks about.

"A...friend...? I don't—" Baffling. Truly baffling. She splays her hands open in a questioning gesture, shoulders hunched slightly. "I don't befriend people to gain anything, By. I just care about people and whether or not they're happy. And please don't make fun of that, I know how childish it sounds."

[bouchonne]

A small gesture. More specifically: "Why try to befriend me, if you think I am the sort of man who would mock that sentiment?"

[sulahnan]

What a stupid question. "You might've noticed by now that I have a soft-spot for jerks."

She's friends with Kostos, for fuck's sake. And was friends with Deimos, before he fucked off.

[bouchonne]

"Grand," he replies dryly, and takes a sip of wine. "A pleasure to be added to the collection."

[sulahnan]

She blows a few more smoke rings, aiming the last one to carefully whiff past his ear. There is an argument she could make, that it's the jerks who more often than not need to be shown kindness, but every attempt to tell him he's worthy or deserving of such things has blown up in her face before.

So instead:

"You're welcome."

[bouchonne]

He lets a breath out through his nose. Not a laugh, exactly. Then, without looking at her, he says, "I don't wish to be some scourge you use to punish yourself. I don't want to be the person you come to each time you want to be made miserable. It does not give me pleasure to - watch you cry." He spreads his hand out on the table. "I know I seem a proper beast, but it does not give me pleasure to watch anyone cry."

[sulahnan]

"Why would I want to be miserable?" Incredulous. And this has been officially too long spent sitting like a normal person in this chair, so she pivots to sit improperly, one knee bent to provide support for her arm and the other stretched out to rest on the base of Byerly's own seat.

"I hate crying. And maybe even more than that I hate to be seen crying. The fewer people who see me in that state, the better. So why the fuck would I seek you out to be more likely to cry? You're not a beast, but you can be pretty fuckin' obtuse sometimes."

Athessa reaches for one of his hands to prop the joint between two of his fingers, because that's a less vulnerable act than reaching for his hand to hold. "I'd actually appreciate it if you could conveniently forget you ever saw it."

[bouchonne]

He takes it, even as he turns a sharp look on her. "Because everyone loves to be miserable." A drag off the joint. "Or everyone loves watching other people being miserable. Why else are jerks like me kept around? We'd be driven out of society otherwise."

He taps the ash off the end of the joint and looks away again. "I don't give a shit if you cried," he says. "And I don't think you're weak for having done it."

[sulahnan]

"Well thanks, but I still hate it."

She too looks away, but hers is less of a sullen aversion of her gaze and more to keep an eye on the barkeep and the mercenaries he's talking to. That might get interesting.

"And I don't like seeing other people being miserable. You know since I've been his friend I've never seen Kostos smile once? Not once. At this point I just wanna shake him, ask: what can I do to make you happy?! Stupid."

[bouchonne]

"Why do you care?" Again, that question. "Averesch is a miserable sack of nothing. A few sparks of magic contained in a humorless shell. His jawline isn't terrible, but that's about it. I'm allowed to say that, because he is technically family." A shrug, a sip of wine. "Besides, no one can make someone else happy."

[sulahnan]

"I care because he's my friend," she insists, and drops her bent knee to better lean and flick his ear.

She could bring up Alexandrie. Didn't she make you happy, when she bloomed into your life like a rose? She could even bring up Derrica, and cite their time together as the happiest she's been in a long time. But she doesn't. "Are you not personally invested in your friends' happiness?"

[bouchonne]

He wrinkles his nose in vague protest, and rubs his flicked ear.

"You know perfectly well I have no friends," he says, a pro forma protest, but then he goes on - "and the ones I would have, I of course would care about their happiness. But that doesn't make their happiness under my control." A shrug - "I'm a miserable bastard; do you consider that to be your fault?"

[sulahnan]

"No, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't bother trying to lessen the misery, does it?"

The bartender is pointing in their direction now, and the mercs are looking over. Nothing decided yet, judging by them only looking and not moving; probably haggling over a reward for acting as de facto bouncers.

[bouchonne]

That catches Byerly's eye. He sighs rather mournfully, then tosses back the last of his wine.

"Looks like we should head out," he says. "I'm still rather hurt from the last time I was accosted by something angry while dining. Shall we?"

[sulahnan]

Athessa's own sigh is more disappointed than mournful; a little that the bartender is so petty, and a tad more because she would've liked to fight those brutes. Oh well. She puts the cork back into the wine bottle and stands up with it in hand.

"Still?" Had he not gone to the infirmary?

[bouchonne]

He glances over at her, eyebrow arched. "I'm not a young man," he replies. "I don't bounce back instantly." Well. "And I'm also a weak and frail fellow, you know. Could never catch my wind as a boy; barely manage it now."

[sulahnan]

"Well, after you, then," she says, gesturing with the bottle. "I'll give you a head start in case you get wheezy."

[bouchonne]

"So obliged," he says, dryly, then throws down a few extra coins just to be safe. Then he turns and, hands in pockets, strolls for the door, looking as relaxed and casual as a man can possibly look.

[sulahnan]

Obliged or not, the head start does get Byerly to the door before the bartender, rather than either mercenary, grabs Athessa by the arm and hauls her back a step.

"Oi!" Is his opener. "You ain't paid fer that!"

"I did, though," Athessa counters, coolly. "I paid the same amount you charge everybody else. Saw you counting the coin myself."

"Price's diff'rent fer knife-ears. Or ain't they teach ya that in yer alienage no more?"

[bouchonne]

Well. By turns around. As he comes back, his step is abruptly unsteady, staggering. Somehow, by some trick, he even reeks now, more than he did before, exhaling vapors of alcohol that are far worse than they had been.

"Heyyyy," By says, so sloppily drunk that even the world-weary bartender flinches somewhat. There is, after all, a particular sort of drunkenness that is embarrassing for all involved; even a stranger has the impulse to avert their eyes from a grotesquerie.

"Hey," By sighs, swaying, "where's the pisser?" And then he starts reaching for his pants, unbuttoning them. "I really gotta shit. I really gotta shit."

[sulahnan]

Well that's effective in grossing out the bartender and nearby patrons, anyway.

"Naw, naw, naw," The bartender says, pointing at By's unbuttoning hands. "None o' that 'ere, you wanna shit someplace, you take it outside."

"What, in the street?" Athessa's incredulity is only half an act. People walk in those streets! Gross!

"Quiet, you! I've half a mind to call the guard t' settle this."

"Yeah you've got half a mind alright," she mutters, and the barkeep's face turns a little redder.

[bouchonne]

Maker, Athessa. By flicks a finger, a message in bard sign - take advantage of the distraction; get out, and then flicks an obscene gesture that has no basis in bard sign - you fucking idiot.

And then he keeps unbuttoning, and starts squatting. One mercenary laughs; the other grabs at Byerly, starting to haul him towards the door. The bartender's shouting at the mercenary, a robust, "Get him outta here!" and Byerly's going limp, making himself as difficult to drag as possible. (Not coincidentally, limpness also helps in case someone decides to direct a kick at him, which is a not-infrequent occurrence.)

[sulahnan]

She sees the bard sign, but the only bit she responds to is the obscenity. Which, of course, she returns with one of her own.

And then she does take advantage of the distraction and kicks the bartender in the groin, wrenching her arm free of his ham-fisted grip when he doubles over. The laughing mercenary keeps on laughing right up until Athessa brings the half-full bottle of wine down over the back of his buddy's head—

But the glass doesn't break. There's a moment after the clunk of hollow object meeting hollow skull wherein the two mercenaries and the bartender and Athessa and a few of the surrounding patrons just stare, waiting to see what happens. Another practical upshot of Byerly's limpness is that he probably isn't too badly hurt by the mercenary falling atop him like some enormous tree trunk in a storm.

That's when the other mercenary stops laughing and starts to advance, and somewhere in the back of the tavern a glass shatters and someone hollers: BRAWL!!

Chaos erupts in the tavern. How's that for a distraction?