Log: Leeches
Summary: June is practicing her pool and Skinner gets roped into playing a game with her when he drops by. They talk of the most recent trouble June's had and Skinner's role in it.
Location: The Lucky Seven, Ista Weyr
Date: 9-17-09
The chorus of a bawdy song, led by a trio of energetic and quite likely drunken sailors, washes over the patrons in the main room, but here in the more dimly lit game room things are quieter. Especially back in the far corner of the elongated space, where the billiard tables are arranged and where June occupies herself just now. A quick tally will place all of the other girls at their usual tasks, bartending or cleaning or chatting up the men, so that would mean it's one of the tavern owner's days off. And she's spending it here, not very far from where her work keeps her, though the game of pool she's playing with herself can hardly be called work-related. A group of men dominates the front of the room, but they're too focused on their game of cards to pay her or anyone else much heed.
Skinner drops by those hard-working girls on his way through the bar, long enough to pick up one of Petra's beers from the woman herself. There's an expected lack of chat and then he's off again, wandering over to the games room to stick his head in. When he finds June there, he can't resist bringing the rest of himself in afterwards, announcing his arrival with a knock on the corner of the table. "Practicing your shark skills, June?"
"Shark?" June repeats, all puzzlement and innocence. She doesn't let him distract her from the shot she's lining up, three ball in the corner pocket. Her arm pulls back and pushes the cue forward in one sharp, swift motion and with a crack the ball goes hurtling into the hole. "I don't know what makes you think I'm a shark," she adds as she straightens, drawing up a smile now that her focus isn't pinpointed on the game. "And what are you doing venturing in here where so many men are prone to losing marks?" she asks teasingly, already circling the table in anticipation of her next shot, eyes turning down to study the angles.
"Well, I was kidding," Skinner answers, dropping into a lean against the table. He watches the three ball zip into its corner and lifts his eyebrows at June, eyes sparkling with amusement. "But the lady doth protest too much. I was just poking my head in to see if there was anyone worth talking to, and look." He spreads his hands and arms out to her and grins. "Here you are."
His flattery has little effect on June, past the humoring squint of her eyes above the smile that never dropped. She leans down, mouth falling open a bit as she carefully lines up her next shot and takes it. This one misses, but only just. "You wanna play while you drink, then?" June invites, dropping the butt of the pool cue to the ground and leaning on it slightly. "I can just gather them up again. Not much of a challenge to beat myself," she notes with a silent breath of laughter as she looks over the sparsely populated tabletop.
Skinner beams at her, hopping off the table. "It's not much of a challenge to beat me, either, but I'll do what I can to make you happy. Let's see." He reaches back into the corner pocket and tosses the three ball out, and proceeds around his side of the table fetching what he can. Then he grabs a pool cue and wraps an arm around it, holding it steady while he drinks and watches June expectanly. Somebody's got to rack the balls.
June racks them, attending to the pockets nearest her and emptying them before rolling them all into a rough group in the middle. "You need me to give you a handicap?" she asks him, pleasant overall but with just an edge of a tease that grows when she adds on a generous offer, "Maybe two strokes to my one?" The rack is placed and she grins at him over it as she places the balls in the middle of that border.
Lifting his beer dramatically, Skinner strikes a bold pose. "I shrink not from your challenge! I'll take my drubbing in good grace," he concludes more normally, lowering his beer so he can sip from it. His eyes skim over the table, but he leaves the break to her. Doing otherwise would require moving. Instead, he strikes up conversation. "How's business, June?"
Careful fingers settle the rack in position and raise it slowly upward, leaving the balls arranged in that colorful triangle. June retakes her cue and swings around to the other side of the table, leaving Skinner's question unanswered for the time it takes her to break that triangle with a satisfying crack. A stripe goes in, for which she gives a slight nod. Then she moves on to sizing up her next shot while she answers frankly, "Business is slowing down. I knew it was coming, I guess." She leans down again and braces a shot, but when the balls are done bouncing off of each other, none of them sinks into a pocket. She stands and indicates that he should take his turn. "I didn't see the leaches coming, though," she notes, eyes still studying the layout of the table.
Skinner doesn't spend much time analyzing the table. He finds a shot that's too tempting to pass up, a solid ball sitting right between the cue ball and a pocket, and goes for it. The ball goes too fast and rolls right back out of the pocket after seeming briefly to bounce in. "Damn. What leeches? Not me, I hope." He winks at her.
"You? A leech? No." June uses her most soothing tone, though it lacks conviction as she well knows he wouldn't be taken in by such a simple ploy and doesn't actually care if he is. "You give back in all of your... many ways." She glances up, smiling, for a second before sliding to the side a step to finally take her aim. She guides the cue once, twice, then shoots, bouncing another stripe ball off the bumper. It nicks a ball in its way, though, and careens off the intended path, ending June's turn. "These guys just take. And threaten trouble if you don't." A slight pause finds her gaze flipping up to find him again. "Your friendly with troublesome men, maybe you know them," she comments too benignly to be actually benign.
"Yeah?" June's description of her leeches brings Skinner's attention to her face, his own expression troubled by the flicker of a frown. "What're their names?" He picks up his cue and rotates around the table, unable to find a good shot and thus settling for the closest. By sheer luck, it ricochets twice and rolls slowly in. "I am friendly with troublesome men," he admits, since he can't deny it, and misses his next shot.
"Yeah," June confirms for him firmly, noting the change of his expression with just a flicker of her eyes. She leans down to align her shot, but pauses there, looking down the intended path of the ball as she answers, "Turiph and... Dur-something, dammit I don't remember." It all ends up in a mutter, the crack of her shot almost overlapping with it. The rather simple shot goes in easily. "You know these particular leeches?" she asks casually as she moves only slightly to line up another shot, which misses by much more than her previous attempts.
Skinner holds off for a beat, watching that widely missed shot. "Durskey," he suggests, which confirms he does know the men in question. "I don't know them," which does the opposite. "The Headwoman's looking for them, though. She figured I might know them, too." He slips up to a smooth smile, moving around the table to aim for his next shot. He misses, then looks back to June. "I'm starting to think I know the way they work, though. You get the idea they were doing it by themselves, or working for somebody?"
"Yeah, she mentioned them," June comments with a momentary twist of her lips that sours her smile at the very corner. Prior knowledge, it seems, didn't prevent the leeching. The rest she listens to while she analyzes her next shot. From where his shot left the cue ball, all of her options are impossible or too close to the eight ball to merit a risk. She taps the cue ball, hitting it gently into a cluster of balls that just makes his turn more difficult instead. "The guy talked about 'we.' Could have meant him and his partner, but it seemed to me that, yeah, they weren't exactly at the top. Although they were definitely able to make deals on their own." The sourness touches her tone a bit now, though it leaves her smile untouched.
Skinner shifts around the table with his pool stick at the ready, eyeing the many bad options she's created for him. In the end he can't resist going after one, and winds up knocking the cue ball into the side pocket. "Whoops," he says, fishing it out for her and rolling it across the table so she can reposition it. "It sounds like the black market's gotten comfortable enough to start its outreach program. I knew it back in Bitra." And his lips twist wryly to one side before he turns them into a smile for her.
June rests her wrist on the felt of the table, her fingers flicking open just in time to catch the easy roll of the cue ball. "Was that how you got to know our good friend Kozec?" she asks, lifting the ball into a slight heft as she moves around to the bottom of the table. She spares him a glance before leaning over to place it and take her shot, one that easily finds its pocket. From there, she lines up another, a combination shot that narrowly misses hitting the right angle. She waves him on to take his turn.
From where she left the cue ball, Skinner's perfectly positioned to knock one into the pocket with just the tiniest tap. He does so and pumps his fist in glory. "Nah," he continues as he repositions for his next hit. "I wasn't a big enough fish to fry back then. I borrowed marks from them to make up for a bad turn and..." he hits the ball, but it goes sadly awry and knocks a well-positioned ball away from the hole instead of into it... "forgot to pay it back."
June can't help but turn up a smile at the unfortunate knock that pushes his ball out of the way, her eyes glancing up to him from the site of the mistaken hit. "Forgot?" she questions it, lightly disbelieving, before dropping her eyes to the table again. She bends and extends her cue in a swiftly aimed stroke; it finds its mark just fine and sends a ball ricocheting into the side pocket. "I guess I should be flattered that I am a big enough fish to fry," she muses while scouting her next shot, cue twisting in her fingers idly. "You seem rather... comfortable," she selects the word with only a glance for him, a slight pause as she lines up her next shot. Before she takes it, she finishes, "In dealing with men like these two. Even we keep them at arm's length if we can." And they're whores. She snaps off her shot, which ends up knocked far off course. "Oops," she utters in an all-too-obvious way.
Skinner lifts his brows and wriggles his mouth up in an amused little face, looking from June's off-course ball to the woman herself. "Shark," he proclaims, and with a loud laugh moves around the table to take aim. "Maybe not so much forgot as reinvested. Even I, clever as I am, had to learn my business through hard knocks, June." So saying, he gives a hard knock to the pool cue that sends it shooting straight into a colored ball, then on into a jumbled mix behind it. He grins at the havoc he's wrought. "Didn't know where to aim so I just made it fun. Never give the predators what they want, June. It flummoxes them. It doesn't hurt that I've known these fellows long enough to have a good idea what'll get me hurt, and where the line is," he admits.
June, with what skill she has, isn't beyond appreciating a little havoc; her eyes flicker back and forth to follow the motion of all the balls and then jump to him with a smiling squint when they've come to rest again. The smile fades once again when she has to pinpoint her next shot, which she does easily enough despite the element of chaos he's introduced. "What would you say, then, to someone," a vague, faceless someone, of course, "who suggested that your dealings are just another form of support for these guys. What they do." Her voice grows absent toward the end as she takes her aim, lines up the shot, sends the ball careening all the way across the table at one of her stripes. The shot lacks sufficient force, though, and her ball teeters to a stop at the edge of the pocket. She twists her mouth a bit at it; that mistake, at least, was real.
"Oh, /so/ close," Skinner comments as that ball stops just shy. His voice is full of sympathy that's been exaggerated just enough to be a taunt, and he'll grin shamelessly at her if she notices. Maybe this is to distract her from the fact that, when she made her hypothetical suggestion, he wrinkled his nose up like she'd just brought something dirty to the dinner table. "I wouldn't know what to say - to someone," vague, faceless someone. "Dealing with that isn't part of the plan yet." He takes his own shot, misses, goes back to watching and perhaps taunting.
June recognizes the taunt for what it is, sure enough, but she reacts with no more than a glance and her usual, faint smile. "Planned or not," she replies in a slowed, musing tone, as if it were just small talk taking place while the lion's share of her focus is on the game. It seems that way, too, her pause falling as she finally decides on her line of attack and bends to execute it. "Seems like it's come up," she says, though, before she does. With a light tap, she puts the earlier-teetering ball into the intended pocket at last. Already she's circling around for a second shot as she adds in the same casually sweet tone, "And it seems a bit two-faced, doesn't it? Supporting us, supporting them, situation as it is." This shot takes a bit more finesse, but she angles it rightly and sinks another stripe, with only one left on the table to aim for. It's unclear whether it's her study of that last remaining mark or waiting on his answer that pauses her turn.
Skinner wraps his arm around the pool cue and rests his chin on the tip. It isn't chalked, so his skin is safe. "Well, that's where I improvise. Am I generating too much mistrust? That's an issue, because good will does a lot for me. So I do something to offset it." His gaze moves from its study of her upcoming shot to her face, and fixes there impassively. "But I won't throw away a part of my business for the well-being of my soul."
June listens with her eyes still scanning the layout of the table, waiting until he's finished to move into position for the next shot she'll take. She waits again, to take precarious aim and follow through to another ball in the pocket, to reply. "Would you throw away a part of your business for another part of your business?" she asks still with a smile. Just a simple point of curiosity for him to wrap his head around. Even with the dark eight ball waiting for her, she stands with an arm curled around her cue, looking at him while he answers this time.
"I'd do pretty much anything to keep my business alive, whatever that meant." Skinner flashes her a bright smile. "And that depends on what comes out of my assessment of the benefits. But I'd rather not go to a showdown." He shines his teeth on her once again, then puts them away to lean down by his cue and peer at the shot she's lined up for.
June leans down and braces her cue, expression unchanged despite all of his shining teeth. "Corner pocket," she calls quietly, indicating which one with a tiny jerk of her chin. Then she attempts it, not moving from her spot until the black ball careens into the correct pocket with a faint plop. With a simple nod she acknowledges her win and stands up again, turning her back to the table for the first time since the game started and settling into a lean against its edge. "That's good to know, I guess," is all she has to say in response, though she seems far from comforted by anything he's said.
She takes her win quietly, but Skinner straightens up with a loud, disappointed snap. "And my butt's kicked. Ah, well." He reaches out to grab the nearest, unpocketed solid ball and starts rolling it around beneath his palm. Considering June while he does it. "Really, you can ask for the help I'm willing to give - which isn't insubstantial - or you can try to squeeze it out of me, which I wouldn't like. I honestly don't see what you're pushing for, asking me to pick sides anyway."
"I haven't asked you yet," June points out flatly, unmoved by his cheery joshing. "What I'm pushing at is that there is a loss of trust there." He wanted more frank, she presumes. "Maybe enough that I wouldn't ask for your help if you came in here offering it on a silver platter." For all the weight that statement may carry, her voice remains light, inconsequential. Her eyes flick over his face in the short pause. "I haven't decided yet."
Skinner lays his pool cue out on the table, where he doesn't have to bother about it any more. "I can tell you things you want to hear, but I can't make you believe them. Since it seems to make no difference, I generally tell you the truth." There's a slight emphasis on you, because this is not a courtesy universally extended. "And in this case, I'll play as close to the edge as I can, so I don't close any of my options out until I get what I want."
June keeps her own pool cue, if only to provide an idle activity for the hand that isn't braced against her hip. "And what might that be?" she inquires lightly, putting just enough sweetened emphasis on it to indicate she might be humoring him with the question.
Skinner comes around the table and approaches June, non-pool-cue side, to throw a friendly arm around the winner's shoulder. "I want them gone," he answers cheerfully. One of the side effects of his generous, congratulatory gesture is that they're standing right next to each other, so he doesn't have to speak loudly and there's less chance of another patron listening in. "They've tangled up their really valuable services with parasitic detractions, and they're choking several channels of distribution that get in the way of real growth."
He can do what he like, June isn't going to move an inch in response to his friendly little congratulation. "Is that right?" She takes her cue from him and makes that question a murmur. He'll forgive her if there's a bit of skepticism in it. "And you have a plan to make that happen?"
"Well, obviously," Skinner agrees readily. His smile follows her, and when she's done putting her stick away he trails along to put his own back, as well. "Unless they screw it up in ways I haven't yet imagined, and the trouble rebounds. Which is another perfectly good reason to monitor things." He stops where he stands, at the rack, since there's nobody else headed this way to put any more pool cues away at the moment and this is a fine opportunity to take stock of June's attitude.
"Good thing you're friendly with the headwoman, then," June comments, careful fingers twisting the pool cues in their holdings so that the designs scrolled down their sides are all aligned. She proves herself still willing to be friendly, or at least play at it, when, after a puffed sigh, she notices, "You need a new beer. Are you sticking around for another?" They're done talking about the leeches now, at the very least. At his affirmative, she smiles and leads the way out to the bar, where he'll have the chance to bother Petra more.
Location: The Lucky Seven, Ista Weyr
Date: 9-17-09
The chorus of a bawdy song, led by a trio of energetic and quite likely drunken sailors, washes over the patrons in the main room, but here in the more dimly lit game room things are quieter. Especially back in the far corner of the elongated space, where the billiard tables are arranged and where June occupies herself just now. A quick tally will place all of the other girls at their usual tasks, bartending or cleaning or chatting up the men, so that would mean it's one of the tavern owner's days off. And she's spending it here, not very far from where her work keeps her, though the game of pool she's playing with herself can hardly be called work-related. A group of men dominates the front of the room, but they're too focused on their game of cards to pay her or anyone else much heed.
Skinner drops by those hard-working girls on his way through the bar, long enough to pick up one of Petra's beers from the woman herself. There's an expected lack of chat and then he's off again, wandering over to the games room to stick his head in. When he finds June there, he can't resist bringing the rest of himself in afterwards, announcing his arrival with a knock on the corner of the table. "Practicing your shark skills, June?"
"Shark?" June repeats, all puzzlement and innocence. She doesn't let him distract her from the shot she's lining up, three ball in the corner pocket. Her arm pulls back and pushes the cue forward in one sharp, swift motion and with a crack the ball goes hurtling into the hole. "I don't know what makes you think I'm a shark," she adds as she straightens, drawing up a smile now that her focus isn't pinpointed on the game. "And what are you doing venturing in here where so many men are prone to losing marks?" she asks teasingly, already circling the table in anticipation of her next shot, eyes turning down to study the angles.
"Well, I was kidding," Skinner answers, dropping into a lean against the table. He watches the three ball zip into its corner and lifts his eyebrows at June, eyes sparkling with amusement. "But the lady doth protest too much. I was just poking my head in to see if there was anyone worth talking to, and look." He spreads his hands and arms out to her and grins. "Here you are."
His flattery has little effect on June, past the humoring squint of her eyes above the smile that never dropped. She leans down, mouth falling open a bit as she carefully lines up her next shot and takes it. This one misses, but only just. "You wanna play while you drink, then?" June invites, dropping the butt of the pool cue to the ground and leaning on it slightly. "I can just gather them up again. Not much of a challenge to beat myself," she notes with a silent breath of laughter as she looks over the sparsely populated tabletop.
Skinner beams at her, hopping off the table. "It's not much of a challenge to beat me, either, but I'll do what I can to make you happy. Let's see." He reaches back into the corner pocket and tosses the three ball out, and proceeds around his side of the table fetching what he can. Then he grabs a pool cue and wraps an arm around it, holding it steady while he drinks and watches June expectanly. Somebody's got to rack the balls.
June racks them, attending to the pockets nearest her and emptying them before rolling them all into a rough group in the middle. "You need me to give you a handicap?" she asks him, pleasant overall but with just an edge of a tease that grows when she adds on a generous offer, "Maybe two strokes to my one?" The rack is placed and she grins at him over it as she places the balls in the middle of that border.
Lifting his beer dramatically, Skinner strikes a bold pose. "I shrink not from your challenge! I'll take my drubbing in good grace," he concludes more normally, lowering his beer so he can sip from it. His eyes skim over the table, but he leaves the break to her. Doing otherwise would require moving. Instead, he strikes up conversation. "How's business, June?"
Careful fingers settle the rack in position and raise it slowly upward, leaving the balls arranged in that colorful triangle. June retakes her cue and swings around to the other side of the table, leaving Skinner's question unanswered for the time it takes her to break that triangle with a satisfying crack. A stripe goes in, for which she gives a slight nod. Then she moves on to sizing up her next shot while she answers frankly, "Business is slowing down. I knew it was coming, I guess." She leans down again and braces a shot, but when the balls are done bouncing off of each other, none of them sinks into a pocket. She stands and indicates that he should take his turn. "I didn't see the leaches coming, though," she notes, eyes still studying the layout of the table.
Skinner doesn't spend much time analyzing the table. He finds a shot that's too tempting to pass up, a solid ball sitting right between the cue ball and a pocket, and goes for it. The ball goes too fast and rolls right back out of the pocket after seeming briefly to bounce in. "Damn. What leeches? Not me, I hope." He winks at her.
"You? A leech? No." June uses her most soothing tone, though it lacks conviction as she well knows he wouldn't be taken in by such a simple ploy and doesn't actually care if he is. "You give back in all of your... many ways." She glances up, smiling, for a second before sliding to the side a step to finally take her aim. She guides the cue once, twice, then shoots, bouncing another stripe ball off the bumper. It nicks a ball in its way, though, and careens off the intended path, ending June's turn. "These guys just take. And threaten trouble if you don't." A slight pause finds her gaze flipping up to find him again. "Your friendly with troublesome men, maybe you know them," she comments too benignly to be actually benign.
"Yeah?" June's description of her leeches brings Skinner's attention to her face, his own expression troubled by the flicker of a frown. "What're their names?" He picks up his cue and rotates around the table, unable to find a good shot and thus settling for the closest. By sheer luck, it ricochets twice and rolls slowly in. "I am friendly with troublesome men," he admits, since he can't deny it, and misses his next shot.
"Yeah," June confirms for him firmly, noting the change of his expression with just a flicker of her eyes. She leans down to align her shot, but pauses there, looking down the intended path of the ball as she answers, "Turiph and... Dur-something, dammit I don't remember." It all ends up in a mutter, the crack of her shot almost overlapping with it. The rather simple shot goes in easily. "You know these particular leeches?" she asks casually as she moves only slightly to line up another shot, which misses by much more than her previous attempts.
Skinner holds off for a beat, watching that widely missed shot. "Durskey," he suggests, which confirms he does know the men in question. "I don't know them," which does the opposite. "The Headwoman's looking for them, though. She figured I might know them, too." He slips up to a smooth smile, moving around the table to aim for his next shot. He misses, then looks back to June. "I'm starting to think I know the way they work, though. You get the idea they were doing it by themselves, or working for somebody?"
"Yeah, she mentioned them," June comments with a momentary twist of her lips that sours her smile at the very corner. Prior knowledge, it seems, didn't prevent the leeching. The rest she listens to while she analyzes her next shot. From where his shot left the cue ball, all of her options are impossible or too close to the eight ball to merit a risk. She taps the cue ball, hitting it gently into a cluster of balls that just makes his turn more difficult instead. "The guy talked about 'we.' Could have meant him and his partner, but it seemed to me that, yeah, they weren't exactly at the top. Although they were definitely able to make deals on their own." The sourness touches her tone a bit now, though it leaves her smile untouched.
Skinner shifts around the table with his pool stick at the ready, eyeing the many bad options she's created for him. In the end he can't resist going after one, and winds up knocking the cue ball into the side pocket. "Whoops," he says, fishing it out for her and rolling it across the table so she can reposition it. "It sounds like the black market's gotten comfortable enough to start its outreach program. I knew it back in Bitra." And his lips twist wryly to one side before he turns them into a smile for her.
June rests her wrist on the felt of the table, her fingers flicking open just in time to catch the easy roll of the cue ball. "Was that how you got to know our good friend Kozec?" she asks, lifting the ball into a slight heft as she moves around to the bottom of the table. She spares him a glance before leaning over to place it and take her shot, one that easily finds its pocket. From there, she lines up another, a combination shot that narrowly misses hitting the right angle. She waves him on to take his turn.
From where she left the cue ball, Skinner's perfectly positioned to knock one into the pocket with just the tiniest tap. He does so and pumps his fist in glory. "Nah," he continues as he repositions for his next hit. "I wasn't a big enough fish to fry back then. I borrowed marks from them to make up for a bad turn and..." he hits the ball, but it goes sadly awry and knocks a well-positioned ball away from the hole instead of into it... "forgot to pay it back."
June can't help but turn up a smile at the unfortunate knock that pushes his ball out of the way, her eyes glancing up to him from the site of the mistaken hit. "Forgot?" she questions it, lightly disbelieving, before dropping her eyes to the table again. She bends and extends her cue in a swiftly aimed stroke; it finds its mark just fine and sends a ball ricocheting into the side pocket. "I guess I should be flattered that I am a big enough fish to fry," she muses while scouting her next shot, cue twisting in her fingers idly. "You seem rather... comfortable," she selects the word with only a glance for him, a slight pause as she lines up her next shot. Before she takes it, she finishes, "In dealing with men like these two. Even we keep them at arm's length if we can." And they're whores. She snaps off her shot, which ends up knocked far off course. "Oops," she utters in an all-too-obvious way.
Skinner lifts his brows and wriggles his mouth up in an amused little face, looking from June's off-course ball to the woman herself. "Shark," he proclaims, and with a loud laugh moves around the table to take aim. "Maybe not so much forgot as reinvested. Even I, clever as I am, had to learn my business through hard knocks, June." So saying, he gives a hard knock to the pool cue that sends it shooting straight into a colored ball, then on into a jumbled mix behind it. He grins at the havoc he's wrought. "Didn't know where to aim so I just made it fun. Never give the predators what they want, June. It flummoxes them. It doesn't hurt that I've known these fellows long enough to have a good idea what'll get me hurt, and where the line is," he admits.
June, with what skill she has, isn't beyond appreciating a little havoc; her eyes flicker back and forth to follow the motion of all the balls and then jump to him with a smiling squint when they've come to rest again. The smile fades once again when she has to pinpoint her next shot, which she does easily enough despite the element of chaos he's introduced. "What would you say, then, to someone," a vague, faceless someone, of course, "who suggested that your dealings are just another form of support for these guys. What they do." Her voice grows absent toward the end as she takes her aim, lines up the shot, sends the ball careening all the way across the table at one of her stripes. The shot lacks sufficient force, though, and her ball teeters to a stop at the edge of the pocket. She twists her mouth a bit at it; that mistake, at least, was real.
"Oh, /so/ close," Skinner comments as that ball stops just shy. His voice is full of sympathy that's been exaggerated just enough to be a taunt, and he'll grin shamelessly at her if she notices. Maybe this is to distract her from the fact that, when she made her hypothetical suggestion, he wrinkled his nose up like she'd just brought something dirty to the dinner table. "I wouldn't know what to say - to someone," vague, faceless someone. "Dealing with that isn't part of the plan yet." He takes his own shot, misses, goes back to watching and perhaps taunting.
June recognizes the taunt for what it is, sure enough, but she reacts with no more than a glance and her usual, faint smile. "Planned or not," she replies in a slowed, musing tone, as if it were just small talk taking place while the lion's share of her focus is on the game. It seems that way, too, her pause falling as she finally decides on her line of attack and bends to execute it. "Seems like it's come up," she says, though, before she does. With a light tap, she puts the earlier-teetering ball into the intended pocket at last. Already she's circling around for a second shot as she adds in the same casually sweet tone, "And it seems a bit two-faced, doesn't it? Supporting us, supporting them, situation as it is." This shot takes a bit more finesse, but she angles it rightly and sinks another stripe, with only one left on the table to aim for. It's unclear whether it's her study of that last remaining mark or waiting on his answer that pauses her turn.
Skinner wraps his arm around the pool cue and rests his chin on the tip. It isn't chalked, so his skin is safe. "Well, that's where I improvise. Am I generating too much mistrust? That's an issue, because good will does a lot for me. So I do something to offset it." His gaze moves from its study of her upcoming shot to her face, and fixes there impassively. "But I won't throw away a part of my business for the well-being of my soul."
June listens with her eyes still scanning the layout of the table, waiting until he's finished to move into position for the next shot she'll take. She waits again, to take precarious aim and follow through to another ball in the pocket, to reply. "Would you throw away a part of your business for another part of your business?" she asks still with a smile. Just a simple point of curiosity for him to wrap his head around. Even with the dark eight ball waiting for her, she stands with an arm curled around her cue, looking at him while he answers this time.
"I'd do pretty much anything to keep my business alive, whatever that meant." Skinner flashes her a bright smile. "And that depends on what comes out of my assessment of the benefits. But I'd rather not go to a showdown." He shines his teeth on her once again, then puts them away to lean down by his cue and peer at the shot she's lined up for.
June leans down and braces her cue, expression unchanged despite all of his shining teeth. "Corner pocket," she calls quietly, indicating which one with a tiny jerk of her chin. Then she attempts it, not moving from her spot until the black ball careens into the correct pocket with a faint plop. With a simple nod she acknowledges her win and stands up again, turning her back to the table for the first time since the game started and settling into a lean against its edge. "That's good to know, I guess," is all she has to say in response, though she seems far from comforted by anything he's said.
She takes her win quietly, but Skinner straightens up with a loud, disappointed snap. "And my butt's kicked. Ah, well." He reaches out to grab the nearest, unpocketed solid ball and starts rolling it around beneath his palm. Considering June while he does it. "Really, you can ask for the help I'm willing to give - which isn't insubstantial - or you can try to squeeze it out of me, which I wouldn't like. I honestly don't see what you're pushing for, asking me to pick sides anyway."
"I haven't asked you yet," June points out flatly, unmoved by his cheery joshing. "What I'm pushing at is that there is a loss of trust there." He wanted more frank, she presumes. "Maybe enough that I wouldn't ask for your help if you came in here offering it on a silver platter." For all the weight that statement may carry, her voice remains light, inconsequential. Her eyes flick over his face in the short pause. "I haven't decided yet."
Skinner lays his pool cue out on the table, where he doesn't have to bother about it any more. "I can tell you things you want to hear, but I can't make you believe them. Since it seems to make no difference, I generally tell you the truth." There's a slight emphasis on you, because this is not a courtesy universally extended. "And in this case, I'll play as close to the edge as I can, so I don't close any of my options out until I get what I want."
June keeps her own pool cue, if only to provide an idle activity for the hand that isn't braced against her hip. "And what might that be?" she inquires lightly, putting just enough sweetened emphasis on it to indicate she might be humoring him with the question.
Skinner comes around the table and approaches June, non-pool-cue side, to throw a friendly arm around the winner's shoulder. "I want them gone," he answers cheerfully. One of the side effects of his generous, congratulatory gesture is that they're standing right next to each other, so he doesn't have to speak loudly and there's less chance of another patron listening in. "They've tangled up their really valuable services with parasitic detractions, and they're choking several channels of distribution that get in the way of real growth."
He can do what he like, June isn't going to move an inch in response to his friendly little congratulation. "Is that right?" She takes her cue from him and makes that question a murmur. He'll forgive her if there's a bit of skepticism in it. "And you have a plan to make that happen?"
"Well, obviously," Skinner agrees readily. His smile follows her, and when she's done putting her stick away he trails along to put his own back, as well. "Unless they screw it up in ways I haven't yet imagined, and the trouble rebounds. Which is another perfectly good reason to monitor things." He stops where he stands, at the rack, since there's nobody else headed this way to put any more pool cues away at the moment and this is a fine opportunity to take stock of June's attitude.
"Good thing you're friendly with the headwoman, then," June comments, careful fingers twisting the pool cues in their holdings so that the designs scrolled down their sides are all aligned. She proves herself still willing to be friendly, or at least play at it, when, after a puffed sigh, she notices, "You need a new beer. Are you sticking around for another?" They're done talking about the leeches now, at the very least. At his affirmative, she smiles and leads the way out to the bar, where he'll have the chance to bother Petra more.