(Untitled)

[gabriel_tam]

Regan is at a meeting, and thus the New Mayfair house is quiet when he arrives home-- early, for once.

On impulse, Gabriel sorts though the evening news before selecting the Finance Journal and the Londinium Times. With both in hand, he focuses and steps through the doorway into Milliways

Comments

[call_me_shane]

Hard boots beat a solemn rhythm across the wood floor as a man in hard-worn jeans and a button-down gingam shirt strolls in from the back, beating rainwater from his hat, a wet full-length duster over one arm.

He certainly doesn't move like a cattleman, even after all these months out of practice.

[gabriel_tam]

No. He doesn't.

Gabriel glances up abruptly at the sound of booted footsteps, and his expression is guarded and wary.

After a moment's observation, he nods a greeting to the other man.

[call_me_shane]

After a moment, the lean man nods back, though if anything his own body language becomes equally guarded. He's been marked - how many times has he gotten such looks in various towns? Still, there is no immediate outcry, so he continues on to the Bar and orders a single malt whiskey.

He is still very careful to keep his back to the Bar, a habit he won't ever be able to lose.

[gabriel_tam]

He's still holding the paper in both hands as he watches this. The man moves like one of those xī niú gunslingers, but from his angle he can't see if there's a weapon slung at his hip or not.

[call_me_shane]

Carefully he takes the dripping duster from over his arm and hangs it on the back of a nearby chair to dry out in the warmer bar air. As he does, he turns away from the watchful Mr. Tam for a moment, exposing his right side... where there is no gun.

It almost makes him look lopsided, unbalanced, oddly, though at a superficial glance he is just a ranch hand.

[gabriel_tam]

He doesn't visibly relax, but all the same something of a tightness about his jaw loosens.

"Unpleasant weather outside, I take it?"

His tone, unlike the other man's duster, is very dry.

[call_me_shane]

His stance chances, subtly - there's something inherently dangerous about the way he moves, even as he innocently hitches himself on a barstool.
"Spitting a bit, sir." He acknowledges, nodding. "Care for a drink?"

[gabriel_tam]

He raises his own glass of whiskey, nodding cordially in acknowledgement of the offer.

"I'm amply supplied at present, thanks all the same."

A beat.

"I don't believe I caught your name."

[call_me_shane]

"That is because I did not offer it, sir." Shane replies placidly, picking up his own glass again, his back to the Bar once again. Every few moments he scans the barroom, another long-practiced habit.

[gabriel_tam]

Gun or no gun, he decides, there's something about the attitude that reminds him very much of someone he dislikes.

"So you didn't."

It's pleasantly, cordially said, and Gabriel leans back in his chair.

He takes a sip of whiskey, then sets the glass aside and starts to open his paper once more.

[call_me_shane]

He may be disarmed, but when someone across the room accidentally slams his chair against the wall, his right hand has already dipped to his hip bare moments after the crack of wood on wood snaps through the room.

Something has him nervous.

Nothing that can make a gunfighter nervous and watchful can be a good thing.