(Untitled)

[realmrsreynolds]

After an appropriately maternal wink at her son the bartender, Sallie sets up shop with her music for her House of Arch classes and a cup of steaming peppermint hot chocolate.

It's getting on to time for a second annual Milliways Piano Recital, anyhow. Lady's got to make plans.

[ooc: If a piano recital in bar seems interesting to your pup, please

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[jack_f_twist]

There's got to be something that goes together better than coffee and a cigarette, but what it may be Jack's got no damn idea: just like there ain't much better that goes together than a Sunday night off and finding Sallie in the bar that he ain't been frequenting so much...recently.

Besides, it ain't like he don't have an appreciation for music, right? So he comes on by, lit cigarette precarious, propped between two knuckles of the hand holding his coffee so the other's free to drop on Sallie's shoulder and so he's free to bend down and smack an impudent little kiss on her cheek. "Hey, boss."

[realmrsreynolds]

Impudent indeed, and Sallie harrumphs at him before she waves him over to a seat opposite her.

"What have you been gettin' into, mister Twist? Gettin' on with Kate and Piotr at all?"

[jack_f_twist]

Her gruffness gets a laugh and another kiss before he avoids her waving hand to sit down, all relaxed jeans and loose limbs.

He sips at his coffee. It's too hot and he swears in annoyance before raising eyebrows at her over his cup edge. "Yeah, gettin' on fine. Nice folk, knew Kate a bit before anyhow."

Blowing on the coffee to cool it down, he takes a look about. "What's goin' on here?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"Not much -- organizing music to see if we can't pull off a second recital this year for the holidays."

You haven't told him yet, have you?

"Uhm...Jack?" Sallie pauses. "I got somethin' I need to run by you."

[jack_f_twist]

He makes a humming noise around the cigarette he's got now between his lips, and sets the coffee cup gingerly down on one knee to give her a curious look through the cloud of smoke that drifts up past his face.

"Yup?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"Do you ever..."

No. That's not a good way to phrase it.

"Do you think Ennis really left Shadow?"

[jack_f_twist]

That ain't...

Jack takes a long slow pull at his cigarette, and regards Sallie with sudden impassivity that can't quite hide the wariness in his face.

That ain't something they talk about. Hasn't been, not really, not since the mare got brought here and he moved the furniture back to the way it was before it was, and his answer, when it comes, is just as gruff as Ennis' ever might've been.

"I ain't seen him 'f he didn't." He purses his lips, glances away, flicks back to her.

"How come you ask?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"I think he's there."

( -- I'll close it behind me.)

"I was up, the other night -- Late, I know."

Sallie leans across the table to Jack, focused. "He was there."

[jack_f_twist]

His lips are suddenly dry, and he licks at them after pulling the cigarette away. When his voice arrives again, it's low and hoarse and full of...something that hasn't been there in a year.

"The fuck are you talkin about?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"Don't you curse at me, Jack Twist, I know what I felt."

A shaky inhale and exhale. "I go out to dinner on a different planet with the incarnation o' dreaming, ain't it at least possible that he's lookin' out for us?"

[jack_f_twist]

He twists his mouth at her scolding, but shuffles a little deeper, apologetically, into his seat. "Ain't him I'm worried about it bein'."

The fella that comes to Jack's mind hasn't ever really been the looking out for sort.

His jaw sets, cigarette forgotten between two fingers in the wake of a rising pulse and sudden flaring pain and, bizarrely, searing jealousy. It's that last he's trying to keep from his voice when he asks, carefully: "So what happened?"

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie attempts explaining -- the door, the shawl, just the...almost contact.

"...I can't convince myself I was dreamin'."

Dreams about Ennis are usually a lot more vivid.

[jack_f_twist]

"...You see him?"

He's trying so hard to keep his voice level and low but there's a little break of impatience and longing and loss there that he hopes to hell she don't pick up on--or, if she does, that she keeps quiet on it.

But this is Sallie, so he's not too worried.

[realmrsreynolds]

"No."

And that's probably the hardest part of all of it.

"I'd rather not think he was there at all. Almost." Looking up to Jack, "Oh, I'm sorry -- I shouldn't be tellin' you all this."

[jack_f_twist]

"Well, who should you be tellin it to, huh?" It's gruff and stubborn, which might almost throw Sallie off if she didn't know Jack so well as she does.

It ain't hard to keep himself steady and calm-looking, at least to a casual glance, but inside his heart's going a mile a minute.

Ennis.

So where is he? It's an effort to hold back the petulance and to give Sallie a little bit of a smile, a few watts less bright than usual. "I'd sure rather you told me than keep it to yourself."

[realmrsreynolds]

"Even if all I've told you so far is a fifty-fifty chance of me bein' a crazy person?"