Log: Sharing
{Hal gets stuck sitting between Raveki and Vaughan at the bar. They share cigarettes, and news of odd people in the bar, and maybe the knowledge that there's other sharing going on outside of this moment, and it is maybe a little awkward but not as much as you might think!}
It's just a bit past dusk, and there are a fair number of people at the bar. One of them is Halsten, who has been working his way through a relatively impressive quantity of cigarettes, not to mention drinks. Mostly alone, though for awhile there was a bit of conversation, the absence of which has left space to one side of him. However many drinks it was, perhaps it's been enough for the moment; upon finishing one, he leaves the glass sitting empty in his hands, eyes on it like it has some particular answers to life's questions.
Vaughan stalks in, but from the kitchen, which lets him out near the back of the bar. Maybe that's a little odd. He looks down the bar's business side, sees the sister tending, waits for her eye and tips a nod, and then goes 'round to the side where people actually drink, where he belongs. It's like he follows his nose to Halsten-- no challenge, with the cloying cloud of smoke thinning slowly in the air above the trader. "Got more of those?" comes from just behind Hal's shoulder, before the dockhand slides up onto the stool beside.
From above there is the sound of voices and then a closing door. Raveki trots down the stairs in her usual garb - short skirt, midriff baring top - absently running fingers through mussed hair. The gesture is only half successful, freeing her face of stray bits but leaving the rest tousled. An equally distant hand tugs her skirt a bit straighter as she hits the bottom step, and she heads straight for the bar and a drink. Halfway there she spots a pair of so familiar profiles side by side and her steps falter. She glances toward the curtained hallway like a quick escape might be in order, but then instead she just draws on a little grin and slips up on Hal's free side. "Hey there gentlemen, this seat taken?"
A generous spirit, Halsten seems to be this evening. A cigarette and a drink provided to the guy he was talking to before, and now, he pulls the pouch of tobacco back out to roll up another. "Not in quantity, on me, but enough if you want one," the trader tells the dockhand. "Got some stuff for you. Later. Not here, obviously." The cigarette, when finished, is offered up between two fingers. Considering he's relatively fair to start with, it's actually a little impressive the way the color manages to drain at Raveki's sudden proximity, though that's about the only sign of discomfort. "Not so far as I'm aware," he offers to her.
"One's enough so far," coughs up Vaughan on a ripple of something that might be dry laughter, and puts over finger and thumb to take the cig like a joint, but he puts it into his lips for safekeeping before looking for the business of a match. One elbow takes up a place on the bartop while he checks his pockets-- of course he has no such thing-- and when he looks up, here's Vek, sliding up on Hal's far side. And Vaughan coughs up another dry laugh, a single note of irony. "Evening," he greets her, and then eyes Hal: help a fellow out.
Raveki arches a brow at Hal's pallor and indifferent reaction to her asking about the seat, and it only inches higher at the wealth of glasses in front of the trader. "Gosh, Halsten, thanks for making a lady feel welcome," she drawls. The pocket patting on his far side has her lifting up on tiptoe and then stretching over to grab a box of matches. "Here, babe," she offers as she slides them in his general direction and then hops up on the stool before the box has even stopped. It saves Hal the need to be generous yet again if nothing else. She angles an elbow on to the bartop then stretches her weight into it, languid with dark eyes on the two men at her side. "You got any more of those?" Cue big eyes and long lashes, and perhaps just the tiniest hint of a smirk.
Hal really could have managed a match, was even looking by the time Raveki took care of it--and the absence of that excuse to pay attention to something else means the other request is more than welcome. "Sorry. Just--distracted." That's one word for it. He gets out the paper and starts to fill it, go through that long-practiced rolling motion again. "Didn't expect to be so suddenly popular this evening. Was just intending to stop by for a drink." Or a few drinks, from the looks of it.
If Vaughan needed something to settle his nerves, then this, the cigarette, and that, the 'babe' from the madam's mouth, are about as good as he can ask for. That there will be drinks to order shortly as well is simply a wealth of comfort, and the dockhand's leaning easily into his elbow while his hands fish out a match and strike it. Leaning back from Hal a little he lights and drags lightly before saying, as cued, "A few drinks." From the looks of it.
Raveki starts to sprawl as much as one can on the smallish circle of a barstool. Her legs go one way, a calf hooking around one of the stool's legs, a sandaled foot bobbing, and her torso goes the other. That elbow gets a lot more of her weight until she's all but lounging on top of the bar. "You didn't even protest. Mine never come out as tight as yours." The hand that's not busy keeping her from draping herself until she hits the floor sneaks out to take the cigarette. "Who said you're popular, sugar? Maybe we just wanted a smoke and a drink. The bar's sorta full." She winks though to take the sting out, and waves the 'keep over. "Another round for the gentleman here, and two rums for us."
"Yes, well." Halsten shrugs, more of a lift of a single shoulder than both, at Vaughan. "Wasn't planning on ending up in a conversation when I came in." Like it was just that single drink until he ended up talking. That's his story and he's sticking to it. "A couple of cigarettes for good customers isn't going to drain my purse." But he does raise a hand, fingers up and splayed, to this notion of another round. "I'm fine. Really. Not planning on staying long." Or already trying to plan how to make a diplomatic escape.
The 'keep comes over, one of the women who work bar of course, and Vaughan should probably say hello or something-- but Raveki orders for them both, and what he actually does is tip down his head as if the lank droop of dirty hair could hide his flash of grin. He's got it worked down to a thin smile, mostly in squinting eyes, when he picks his head back up. "No? You got business waiting?" Deadpan's a little ruined by the squint and gleam.
Raveki just shakes her head at the splayed hand and beckons the girl behind the bar. "Bring it anyway, I'll drink it." Before the drinks arrive she flicks a glance over Hal and gives a little shake of her head. "I just got settled and you're already running off? You're going to make me think you don't like me, Hal." She's leaned far enough forward to catch the grin and the head drop from the other side over there and a grin cups the corner of her mouth before it's hidden in the rum that's soon delivered. She takes a little sip then tosses out, "So you two were talking with someone else before I came down? Anyone good? Not anyone... strange was it?"
Head shakes quickly. "No business. Just bed." Never mind that it's early for that by most standards, much less by Hal's. "Work in the morning and all. It's nothing personal," to Raveki. It indeed is about as impersonal as anybody could possibly muster up. Hal is just a guy. In a bar. Who might as well not have seen Raveki before in his life. "Ah, no. Just me. Bit ago. Guy named Faruk? Bit odd, but that seems pretty much the rule around here. Wouldn't go so far as to say strange. Potential customer." Just like everybody on Pern still drawing breath.
Vaughan does not buy the impersonal guy in a bar who doesn't know that bar contains whores and a madam act, but he hasn't much currency to work with and makes no particular show of his poverty. Just watches Hal from the corner of his eye while he tips up his glass, takes a mouthful of rum, swallows it and puts the glass back down, leaning forward more deeply onto both elbows now. "Faruk." Doing that memorizing thing. "Of yours," customer, like everyone on Pern drawing breath, "or hers?" Vaughan looks over at Hal, tips his head in a little gesture across him to Raveki, waits.
"Is there..." Raveki pauses to run a fingertip around the rim of her glass, one brow inching upward as she drawls, "A /girl/ in that bed? Because otherwise you'd have to be opening for dawn to make sense this early." To nothing personal she just rolls her eyes and flips a hand. "Don't act like I'm a snivelling girl child, Hal. I wasn't taking it..." She pauses then, or rather the words just break off midstream. "I don't know that name." As though she knows every man who walks through those doors. And just maybe she nearly does. "Not a tall man with blue eyes, dusty hat, Southern drawl?" Her eyes flick to Vaughan, realization of some kind dawning in her eyes. "Guy like that dropped something off for someone recently. He was a little... odd," she clarifies, albeit vaguely. And then she's listening for the answer to Vaughan's question too.
"Who *her* customers might be, potential or otherwise, is not information I make a practice of obtaining." Halsten seems to find this empty glass of his progressively less satisfying. He is, however, still not going to take another. He'll just turn the empty around endlessly in his hands. He clears his throat. "Who there is in my bed is my business, hm?" A small smile. The knowing sort of a smile. Trying to suggest something, whether or not that something is true. "But no. Not by that description. Older guy. Probably couple inches shorter than I am. Couple broader." Another shrug.
Vaughan lets Raveki do the talking. He's not good at talking, see. But as she goes on talking his brows shove slowly upward, making aggressive progress on invading the territory of a faintly wrinkling forehead. Hal saves the madam from the dockhand's stare by saying what he says about not obtaining her customer list; for that he gets a chuff of a laugh, like well, if you say so, and after that the shorter man's grinning into his rum again. "Knot?" He'll just ask the easy stuff. And drink.
Vek just arches a brow for Hal's supposed lack of interest, giving him a flash of brown eyes out of the corner of her lashes. "Mmm, totally your business." But then, back to this guy whoever he is, and both brows draw down. "Not the guy then." Which is her main concern. She sneaks a little glance at Vaughan and then her rum is apparently quite interesting by the way she's peering down into it and sipping studiously. But yeah, knot. It drags her attention up and back over to Hal.
"Wasn't wearing one that I recall." And neither does Hal, so that should hardly be something he'd consider notable in and of itself. He finally manages to release that empty glass from his hands, and start to push away from the barstool he's been occupying since well before either of them arrived. "Really don't think he was anybody notable. Just somebody looking for a drink. I realize things have been a bit odd lately, but do be reasonable." In other words, please to be finding someone else to grill, kthx. "And I'd best be off."
Vaughan plucks the cigarette down out of his mouth, where it's resided between drinks, and signals gratitude to Hal for it. "Hours're changing. Maybe I should just come by?" He drinks, then puts the smoke back where it was, and holds the trader in his stare by way of a farewell.
Raveki's cigarette still isn't lit, it's just dangling there in her fingers, but she lifts it with a grin. "Yeah," she agrees with Vaughan as though he has spoken. "Thanks. And since I offered you one, I owe you a drink, next time you're around." If his urge to be reasonable bothers her she doesn't show it, other than to not reply at all to his words about this strange knotless man. "Safe walk back."
One hand waves acceptance. "Sure. Come by whenever you like," Halsten tells Vaughan. Then, just before he turns to go, a smile for Raveki. "Absolutely. Next time." And on that note, he leaves behind his empty glasses and his ashtray and his empty seat and heading through the crowd in the Seven back outside and home and whatnot.
A tip of a nod to accept Hal's agreement, and Vaughan straightens to watch the trader off, or at least watch him until it's clear he's leaving and not just finding another seat with less awkward (?) companionship and fewer dirty dishes. Then he goes back to leaning on the bar, looking down into his rum, giving it a swirl, giving it a grin. Not looking at Vek. Nope.
Raveki lifts her rum to Hal, an agreement to the deal of buying him one next time. She watches him go too, a peek over her shoulder until he is outside. Then she just tips her head, watching Vaughan under a fall of dark hair. "You spare one of those matches?"
It's just a bit past dusk, and there are a fair number of people at the bar. One of them is Halsten, who has been working his way through a relatively impressive quantity of cigarettes, not to mention drinks. Mostly alone, though for awhile there was a bit of conversation, the absence of which has left space to one side of him. However many drinks it was, perhaps it's been enough for the moment; upon finishing one, he leaves the glass sitting empty in his hands, eyes on it like it has some particular answers to life's questions.
Vaughan stalks in, but from the kitchen, which lets him out near the back of the bar. Maybe that's a little odd. He looks down the bar's business side, sees the sister tending, waits for her eye and tips a nod, and then goes 'round to the side where people actually drink, where he belongs. It's like he follows his nose to Halsten-- no challenge, with the cloying cloud of smoke thinning slowly in the air above the trader. "Got more of those?" comes from just behind Hal's shoulder, before the dockhand slides up onto the stool beside.
From above there is the sound of voices and then a closing door. Raveki trots down the stairs in her usual garb - short skirt, midriff baring top - absently running fingers through mussed hair. The gesture is only half successful, freeing her face of stray bits but leaving the rest tousled. An equally distant hand tugs her skirt a bit straighter as she hits the bottom step, and she heads straight for the bar and a drink. Halfway there she spots a pair of so familiar profiles side by side and her steps falter. She glances toward the curtained hallway like a quick escape might be in order, but then instead she just draws on a little grin and slips up on Hal's free side. "Hey there gentlemen, this seat taken?"
A generous spirit, Halsten seems to be this evening. A cigarette and a drink provided to the guy he was talking to before, and now, he pulls the pouch of tobacco back out to roll up another. "Not in quantity, on me, but enough if you want one," the trader tells the dockhand. "Got some stuff for you. Later. Not here, obviously." The cigarette, when finished, is offered up between two fingers. Considering he's relatively fair to start with, it's actually a little impressive the way the color manages to drain at Raveki's sudden proximity, though that's about the only sign of discomfort. "Not so far as I'm aware," he offers to her.
"One's enough so far," coughs up Vaughan on a ripple of something that might be dry laughter, and puts over finger and thumb to take the cig like a joint, but he puts it into his lips for safekeeping before looking for the business of a match. One elbow takes up a place on the bartop while he checks his pockets-- of course he has no such thing-- and when he looks up, here's Vek, sliding up on Hal's far side. And Vaughan coughs up another dry laugh, a single note of irony. "Evening," he greets her, and then eyes Hal: help a fellow out.
Raveki arches a brow at Hal's pallor and indifferent reaction to her asking about the seat, and it only inches higher at the wealth of glasses in front of the trader. "Gosh, Halsten, thanks for making a lady feel welcome," she drawls. The pocket patting on his far side has her lifting up on tiptoe and then stretching over to grab a box of matches. "Here, babe," she offers as she slides them in his general direction and then hops up on the stool before the box has even stopped. It saves Hal the need to be generous yet again if nothing else. She angles an elbow on to the bartop then stretches her weight into it, languid with dark eyes on the two men at her side. "You got any more of those?" Cue big eyes and long lashes, and perhaps just the tiniest hint of a smirk.
Hal really could have managed a match, was even looking by the time Raveki took care of it--and the absence of that excuse to pay attention to something else means the other request is more than welcome. "Sorry. Just--distracted." That's one word for it. He gets out the paper and starts to fill it, go through that long-practiced rolling motion again. "Didn't expect to be so suddenly popular this evening. Was just intending to stop by for a drink." Or a few drinks, from the looks of it.
If Vaughan needed something to settle his nerves, then this, the cigarette, and that, the 'babe' from the madam's mouth, are about as good as he can ask for. That there will be drinks to order shortly as well is simply a wealth of comfort, and the dockhand's leaning easily into his elbow while his hands fish out a match and strike it. Leaning back from Hal a little he lights and drags lightly before saying, as cued, "A few drinks." From the looks of it.
Raveki starts to sprawl as much as one can on the smallish circle of a barstool. Her legs go one way, a calf hooking around one of the stool's legs, a sandaled foot bobbing, and her torso goes the other. That elbow gets a lot more of her weight until she's all but lounging on top of the bar. "You didn't even protest. Mine never come out as tight as yours." The hand that's not busy keeping her from draping herself until she hits the floor sneaks out to take the cigarette. "Who said you're popular, sugar? Maybe we just wanted a smoke and a drink. The bar's sorta full." She winks though to take the sting out, and waves the 'keep over. "Another round for the gentleman here, and two rums for us."
"Yes, well." Halsten shrugs, more of a lift of a single shoulder than both, at Vaughan. "Wasn't planning on ending up in a conversation when I came in." Like it was just that single drink until he ended up talking. That's his story and he's sticking to it. "A couple of cigarettes for good customers isn't going to drain my purse." But he does raise a hand, fingers up and splayed, to this notion of another round. "I'm fine. Really. Not planning on staying long." Or already trying to plan how to make a diplomatic escape.
The 'keep comes over, one of the women who work bar of course, and Vaughan should probably say hello or something-- but Raveki orders for them both, and what he actually does is tip down his head as if the lank droop of dirty hair could hide his flash of grin. He's got it worked down to a thin smile, mostly in squinting eyes, when he picks his head back up. "No? You got business waiting?" Deadpan's a little ruined by the squint and gleam.
Raveki just shakes her head at the splayed hand and beckons the girl behind the bar. "Bring it anyway, I'll drink it." Before the drinks arrive she flicks a glance over Hal and gives a little shake of her head. "I just got settled and you're already running off? You're going to make me think you don't like me, Hal." She's leaned far enough forward to catch the grin and the head drop from the other side over there and a grin cups the corner of her mouth before it's hidden in the rum that's soon delivered. She takes a little sip then tosses out, "So you two were talking with someone else before I came down? Anyone good? Not anyone... strange was it?"
Head shakes quickly. "No business. Just bed." Never mind that it's early for that by most standards, much less by Hal's. "Work in the morning and all. It's nothing personal," to Raveki. It indeed is about as impersonal as anybody could possibly muster up. Hal is just a guy. In a bar. Who might as well not have seen Raveki before in his life. "Ah, no. Just me. Bit ago. Guy named Faruk? Bit odd, but that seems pretty much the rule around here. Wouldn't go so far as to say strange. Potential customer." Just like everybody on Pern still drawing breath.
Vaughan does not buy the impersonal guy in a bar who doesn't know that bar contains whores and a madam act, but he hasn't much currency to work with and makes no particular show of his poverty. Just watches Hal from the corner of his eye while he tips up his glass, takes a mouthful of rum, swallows it and puts the glass back down, leaning forward more deeply onto both elbows now. "Faruk." Doing that memorizing thing. "Of yours," customer, like everyone on Pern drawing breath, "or hers?" Vaughan looks over at Hal, tips his head in a little gesture across him to Raveki, waits.
"Is there..." Raveki pauses to run a fingertip around the rim of her glass, one brow inching upward as she drawls, "A /girl/ in that bed? Because otherwise you'd have to be opening for dawn to make sense this early." To nothing personal she just rolls her eyes and flips a hand. "Don't act like I'm a snivelling girl child, Hal. I wasn't taking it..." She pauses then, or rather the words just break off midstream. "I don't know that name." As though she knows every man who walks through those doors. And just maybe she nearly does. "Not a tall man with blue eyes, dusty hat, Southern drawl?" Her eyes flick to Vaughan, realization of some kind dawning in her eyes. "Guy like that dropped something off for someone recently. He was a little... odd," she clarifies, albeit vaguely. And then she's listening for the answer to Vaughan's question too.
"Who *her* customers might be, potential or otherwise, is not information I make a practice of obtaining." Halsten seems to find this empty glass of his progressively less satisfying. He is, however, still not going to take another. He'll just turn the empty around endlessly in his hands. He clears his throat. "Who there is in my bed is my business, hm?" A small smile. The knowing sort of a smile. Trying to suggest something, whether or not that something is true. "But no. Not by that description. Older guy. Probably couple inches shorter than I am. Couple broader." Another shrug.
Vaughan lets Raveki do the talking. He's not good at talking, see. But as she goes on talking his brows shove slowly upward, making aggressive progress on invading the territory of a faintly wrinkling forehead. Hal saves the madam from the dockhand's stare by saying what he says about not obtaining her customer list; for that he gets a chuff of a laugh, like well, if you say so, and after that the shorter man's grinning into his rum again. "Knot?" He'll just ask the easy stuff. And drink.
Vek just arches a brow for Hal's supposed lack of interest, giving him a flash of brown eyes out of the corner of her lashes. "Mmm, totally your business." But then, back to this guy whoever he is, and both brows draw down. "Not the guy then." Which is her main concern. She sneaks a little glance at Vaughan and then her rum is apparently quite interesting by the way she's peering down into it and sipping studiously. But yeah, knot. It drags her attention up and back over to Hal.
"Wasn't wearing one that I recall." And neither does Hal, so that should hardly be something he'd consider notable in and of itself. He finally manages to release that empty glass from his hands, and start to push away from the barstool he's been occupying since well before either of them arrived. "Really don't think he was anybody notable. Just somebody looking for a drink. I realize things have been a bit odd lately, but do be reasonable." In other words, please to be finding someone else to grill, kthx. "And I'd best be off."
Vaughan plucks the cigarette down out of his mouth, where it's resided between drinks, and signals gratitude to Hal for it. "Hours're changing. Maybe I should just come by?" He drinks, then puts the smoke back where it was, and holds the trader in his stare by way of a farewell.
Raveki's cigarette still isn't lit, it's just dangling there in her fingers, but she lifts it with a grin. "Yeah," she agrees with Vaughan as though he has spoken. "Thanks. And since I offered you one, I owe you a drink, next time you're around." If his urge to be reasonable bothers her she doesn't show it, other than to not reply at all to his words about this strange knotless man. "Safe walk back."
One hand waves acceptance. "Sure. Come by whenever you like," Halsten tells Vaughan. Then, just before he turns to go, a smile for Raveki. "Absolutely. Next time." And on that note, he leaves behind his empty glasses and his ashtray and his empty seat and heading through the crowd in the Seven back outside and home and whatnot.
A tip of a nod to accept Hal's agreement, and Vaughan straightens to watch the trader off, or at least watch him until it's clear he's leaving and not just finding another seat with less awkward (?) companionship and fewer dirty dishes. Then he goes back to leaning on the bar, looking down into his rum, giving it a swirl, giving it a grin. Not looking at Vek. Nope.
Raveki lifts her rum to Hal, an agreement to the deal of buying him one next time. She watches him go too, a peek over her shoulder until he is outside. Then she just tips her head, watching Vaughan under a fall of dark hair. "You spare one of those matches?"