A little more conversation, a little less action
{Vaughan comes in to the Lucky Seven. He and Raveki talk... and that's it!
Topics include : Vlad, Loe, Saiyah, Ch'son, prize fighting, bookkeeping, the docks, and shirtless men. Oh, I already said Ch'son, prize fighting and the docks. Oops, redundant.}
Midafternoon sun pours in through the open door and windows, filling the Lucky Seven with bright golden light and a pleasant breeze. It's far from the usual veiling gloom, and might be part of the reason (along with the hour) that the bar is relatively slow. A few tables have occupants and three men sit together at one end of the bar, trying to outdo each other in flirting with the red head serving drinks. Raveki has claimed the small table tucked away in the far corner of the bar, remote and buffered by rows of empty tables. No one bothers her while she's got the ledger out - apparently math is less than sexy - even if she's wearing a short, flirty halter dress with her hair messily pinned up. She jots something down, scribbles on a slate, takes a sip out of the tall, slim glass at her side, then scans the room. Slender fingers tap the side of the glass and with a bored little sigh she bends her head again.
Too bad. Her glance upward and her bored sigh come a moment too soon, and her head is bent and her figure still when the short dockhand comes in. Like he's only seeing things in motion, or attracted most to that which moves, he misses entirely that she is over there in the corner-- or to anyone who didn't catch his slow gray visual sweep of the place, that would be a plausible excuse for his direct stroll toward the bar. Of course, wanting a drink would do just as well. He picks a spot not too close to the other guys, does not bother with the stools, and leans an elbow up to wait for service. While he waits, he experiments with the weight of his stare, to see if it alone has power enough to raise a bowed, brunette head.
The red head is quick to slink on over and she opens with a sultry grin, and a, "What can I get for ya, sweetheart?" She waits with somewhat diminished patience as Vaughan's attention is so clearly elsewhere. "She's just doing books, you should go say hi."
Raveki for her part is studiously bent over her work, but her attention to the matter can only stretch so far. Whether it is that heavy gray stare or boredom that is not cured by more numbers, she finally lifts dark eyes once more. It's a slow upward drift which suggests the palpable gaze might have been the reason after all, lashes slightly veiling the light in their depths and expression smooth as she glances to the bar. It is not hard to spot Vaughan, isolated at the bar as he is, and of course there is the fact that it is /him/. The slow-creeping curve of a soft smile wants to claim her mouth, and in greeting she lets it.
Vaughan's quiet in response to the redhead, but only for a moment. That moment is the one in which he watches the brunette head come up and the dark lashes twitch, the smile begin to inch onto her lips. Then he turns his head, emptying the space between himself and Raveki of his stare, and tells the redhead, "Yeah. I will." A short beat. "Rum neat? Mind bringing it over?" With excessive concern for whether it's a hassle, like that's not her job. But like it /is/ her job he's already drifting away, turning his gaze toward the de facto bookkeeper, hunting down a chair waiting hapless at her table.
"Sure thing darlin," says the redhead, with no sign of having noticed either his quiet or his concern. She can see where he's headed and that makes this conversation over. On the other hand, she does fetch him the drink he asks for, taking her sweet time. In the meantime, though the air of the bar is suddenly emptier without Vaughan's gaze, it continues to hold Raveki's. Hers is far less weighty to be sure, and when Vaughan comes walking across the floor it ends up more sidelong than direct, but she's watching him. When it becomes clear that he is in fact approaching her table she flips her ledger closed with an air of relief more than a desire for privacy, and she settles into her usual sprawl across her seat, nudging the empty chair toward him with a foot. Dark brows arch, but that's as close to a greeting as he gets.
His hand lands on the back of the chair, gently ending its motion. Then beginning it again: he turns it in place, so it's sideways to the table, and sets himself down in it, facing Raveki across the table's corner. He puts an elbow on the table, claiming a little space, and stretches his legs out so his ankles cross next to her chair. The sandals look strange on his awkward feet, for all that they've become lined by the combination of straps and sun. His toes wiggle, mudless. "Don't mean to interrupt," he drawls, a little slower than sometimes, and glances at her ledger. Then at her face, but that glance turns into a long, not-quite-empty stare. A full stare, even, it's just that it's not as telling what it's full of as sometimes she's seen it.
There is a little resistance to the stopping motion as Raveki pushes harder with her foot. It's clearly just to be obstinate - the pressure ends almost as soon as it began, and she crosses her legs at the knee. It just so happens that it shows a long line of tanned leg, made more obvious when she shifts her chair to face his a bit more. A tip of her head gives her a better line of sight for watching that stretch of his legs, that wiggle of his toes, and even with awkward feet the motion teases her smile into fullness. "You aren't," she drawls, her voice low an slow as usual. She bobs a foot, clad in the exact opposite of his sandals - hers are high heeled, with tiny white crisscrossing straps that show more skin than they cover. That full stare is met with vague curiosity but otherwise motionless patience - her only concession to movement is that foot that taps the air. Finally she speaks, brushing the ledger to the side to make room for his rum as it arrives. "Been a while."
"Thanks." But that's for the redhead, on account of the rum, not because he's not interrupting Raveki. He picks up the glass in a curl of fingers and leans a little more into the elbow on the table, the one whose hand has the rum. This is the equivalent of leaning toward Raveki's legs, though the table divides his space from hers. He tips the glass toward his lips, and over its rim casts a gaze down, so that her expanse of leg and strappy shoes aren't wasted, but his eyes come up before he's swallowing, her face the main attraction. Her eyes. "Yeah," he agrees, neither unhappy nor smug about the time passed, only agreeing that there has been some, and it did indeed pass. "Books?" He doesn't bother glancing at them, this time, relying on the word to make his question clear.
Raveki doesn't even look up at the redhead - she's busy watching that hand find its way around cool glass, then the parting of lips distorted by the same. When he swallows she tears her eyes away, lifting them to meet his gaze with that smile still lingering along her mouth. "It's a slow day," she explains though he didn't really ask...unless he did... and she makes a small waving gesture that's meant to encompasse the bar and its few occupants. "It's a good time to do the bookkeeping." So yes, books. That's the last she intends to think of them apparently, as she uses her elbow to nudge it and her slate to the far edge of the table, taking up the newfound space with her forearms. She leans into them, closing the space between her and the dockhand by a few inches. "So what brings you by? You already said you aren't terribly impressed by our rum."
"See you," the dockhand replies, but like it's an ordinary thing that ordinary people do, in a voice of casual companionship, rolling the syllables off with a shrug that's just as sparing. He lowers the rum at last from his lips, as it has remained there this long untasted since that first swallow and he has other work for his mouth, just now. His gaze goes with it, though, like her eyes aren't as riveting as all that, and he looks into the glass, like maybe he's abashed for having been riveted even a little while. Or trying not to stare. None of that fits. "Maybe it'd be better with cinnamon in." He looks up again. Ah: there's a light in the backs of his eyes, sharp and amused, predatory. Playing. Sporting. Maybe horrible. "In charge of them? The books."
The reply makes Raveki's brows go up, though there is no denying the pleased line of her mouth, even as she flips a casually dismissive hand. Coming to see her, casual companionship, she accepts it all with ease and her eyes do the same as his, following the path of the glass. It isn't as interesting as all that, but her casual demeanor might grow thin in the face of too much time under those gray eyes. She blinks then, peering at the rum as if it might hold the answer to what has her looking utterly baffled. "Cinnamon? In rum?" She can't help it, she looks up to see if he's even remotely serious, unable to keep the frown of distaste off her brow. "Coconut, yes. Cinnamon, no." It means she catches that light and all the many facets to it, and the frown smoothes to near a nearly blank canvas just begging for some emotion to be splashed across it. Instead he must content himself with a flicker of something in the dark depths of her eyes, and a nod. "I'm the only one with the patience and head for numbers," it's said with a shrug and a modesty that is genuine. "It's a step toward running things too," she admits just as easily.
"Good." At her admission. It comes with a flash of the nasty grin, but for her, perhaps the nastiness seems only sharp and wicked; for her, perhaps the sharpness in his eyes is a threat. If this means he is secretly harmless most of the time, so be it. It doesn't seem that people believe it. "Was a rider suggested cinnamon liquor," he should say 'liqueur,' but perhaps cannot, "in it. Ordered it, actually. At that shindig for the eggs with the weyrwoman and Ch'son." If she had any doubt a second ago that he has two grins-- if she might have thought that his mouth does something special for her only because she sees it that way, not because it really is that way-- this will settle the issue. /This/ grin is an ugly, mean thing. Ch'son. Or maybe just cinnamon-and-rum: ew.
That horrid, wicked grin - Raveki has seen it before as well as that sharp light in his eyes. She thrills to the sight, but after a single flash of delight that threatens to brighten her entire countenance she pulls herself back into something more appropriately subdued. There is still amusement around the line of her mouth and something warm in her eyes for him, and the laugh that bubbles out of her mouth at his second, far uglier expression is genuine and unexpected even to her. Then she blinks. There was laughter for his reaction to Ch'son, or the rum, but then what he actually said sinks in. "You were there? I didn't see you. How the hell did that happen?" Disappointment steals the mirth from her lips, and a hand casually slips over to cover his. "I didn't think to watch for you." Because she was busy. Or because she can't imagine him at something like that. Or just because. Back to the rum, she shakes her head and states, "Just because a rider wants it doesn't make it any good, by the way. Who was it, do you know?" Her interest here must be due to business as much as anything. Odds are they do not stock cinnamon rum at the Seven.
Vaughan's hand slips off of its rum so it can reside beneath hers, calm, warm, idle. "Didn't go on purpose," he notes, to excuse her not thinking to look for him, because he knows why she wouldn't have. But he gets more out of her words than maybe she meant to put into them, because the nasty grin comes back, then transforms into the wicked one, when she says what she says about rider wants. "Something puh-dig," he shrugs, though uncertainty on names he's heard is unlike him. "Was there with a girl, but not really with her. He left alone. She had company." This is why it's unlike him: he notices. But at the moment he winces, and reaches his other hand over across himself so he can get the rum, which he now needs. "Met the weyrwoman. Got stinkeye from Vlad. Weird party. Social."
The contact between their hands is light, almost thoughtless, and Raveki's hand is as still as Vaughan's, just a little cover of warmth. His grin makse her brows lift a bit, and the conspiratorial tilt of her grin suggest maybe she meant to put more into her words than their surface meaning as well. That name, mispronounced as it is, makes her lashes narrow a bit, and she offers, "P'draig? I hope so because he won't come here as a rule, so I won't need to stock it." She reaches for her own glass, which looks suspiciously like iced tea, and takes a little sip, watching him across the rim as he lists all these things he noticed and other things that happened. Surprise flickers as the words continue on, when even though the phrases are typically choppy they begin to pile up. "Were you the company?" It's teasing in tone, especially since he would have phrased it differently if that were the case. "I met the weyrwoman too... well sort of." A flicker of frown for that and then an arching brow for Vlad. "Why'd you get the stinkeye from him? Was it because you were being... social?" Weird is right. The very thought of him being social seems to have her all befuddled again, with the result being a rapid switch between expressions over the course of her response.
Snort! No, he was not the company. His eyes give her a flash that's almost like a warning, as though the very question crosses some line-- even though his answer was cheerful enough in its wordless vehemence. "He wants me to stay away from his girls," the dockhand says, with the kind of clipped rhythm that goes along with repetition, and yet he sounds a little indifferent. A little disgusted, but a little indifferent. He sips the not-impressive rum again, then puts down the glass beside their hands, so the other hand can counterbalance him a little in the chair. He's leaning a bit closer. "How'd you meet the weyrwoman? With Ch'son?" Less ugliness in the man's name, this time. Perhaps associating him with Raveki, or with Nenita, improves the idea of the bronzerider.
Raveki just flashes a grin for the snort, but her eyes are as serious as his, and when the grin fades back to neutrality she drops her head. It could be she's just looking down at the wood grain, or it could be silent acceptance of his just as silent warning. "Who are 'his girls' exactly, and why does he want you to stay away from them?" The amusement is creeping back, though the idea of 'his girls' and who they get to be around curls her lip a bit. "I didn't exactly meet her." Beat. Sip. "Chaes was being less than tactful, so I saved her by dragging him off. I don't think I actually told her my name." It's all casual until she shifts forward a bit in her chair and her fingers curl around his. "Do you think there will be another fight? One you might... fight in?"
Vaughan nods once, a jerk of his head, to 'Chaes,' and how Raveki did not exactly meet the weyrwoman. "Loe. Saiyah." About Vlad's girls. This is, however, very quietly spoken, and with even more disgust and much less indifference. It's a sore topic somehow, and he looks off to the side, into nowhere, for a moment while a muscle beneath one eye twitches fiercely. But the curl of her fingers draw him back and he turns his gaze back to her, eyes widening a little, as though her interest surprises him. Surprise delays his answer, makes him second-guess, takes care. His tongue parts his lips, pauses there, disappears again. His brows sink. "Yeah," he says, dubious in tone though certain in word choice. "Wouldn't you know?"
Thin brows draw inward and her fingers tighten further yet. "I say ignore him altogether. Loe can take care of herself and Saiyah thi- well, she has enough people watching her back." Irritation slips away and a soft smile touches her lips, head tipping to the side so stray bits of dark hair drift into her eyes. "I'm nobody's girl, you can bug me all you want." A bit of humor to lighten his mood perhaps, a tease to pull that tightness from around his eyes, for all that it is valid. As for knowing, she just shrugs, looking not entirely happy. "I haven't heard anything, actually." The admission sounds tight, forced out, and she adds more softly, "I wouldn't know about /you/ regardless and that's really what I was asking."
'Nobody's girl' has more effect than she might expect; for Vaughan, in public, the way he turns over his hand and grasps hers in it might pass for a bear hug. And if she's not happy about the state of the fights or their organization, well, he's got nothing for that but sympathy: "Ain't heard anything myself. Made a point of it, got nothing back." This might imply he's already taken her advice about ignoring Vlad's, at least. "Seemed like /she/ was happy with it. So I assume it banked. Ought to be another one, if this island's still above water." He shrugs, and reaches over his other hand again, not for the rum this time. He touches her fingers with his, then covers them, then withdraws the hand again-- a little too much tenderness, maybe. "If there is, I'll be there. S'all I know for sure."
It isn't like casual (or even not so casual) contact is not run of the mill for Raveki. Still, she looks down at their joined hands with a frozen beat of surprise before lacing her fingers through his. There's a struggle to keep a grin off her face which she almost wins, and the end result is more like her usual smirk than anything else. "I'll tell you when I hear anything if you'll do the same," she bargains. "When I asked Saiyah she didn't know, but we all know who's actually in charge. Loe being pleased is a good sign." She assumes that's the /she/ in question without hesitation, then blinks. "You aiming to sink the island, then? Need some help?" She lets his second hand escape, but slides her foot over to lean against his in exchange, brushing over the more tender gesture without comment, though her eyes say she noticed it. "I will be too. I'll make sure to watch this time."
He laughs. A single laugh. The guys at the bar probably heard it as a cough, but Raveki would know better. "Don't think that's literally possible," Vaughan replies, eyes suddenly sharp but bright, narrow so that they can better contain the blue fire of delight in their slits. That answer is a dismissal of the idea-- but no, actually, it's not. It is only a deferral. Here, he'd rathert alk about fighting. "Might lose," he warns her, without any loss of pleasure, without any sign of discomfort in their joined hands, but reaches over for the rum and lifts it like a toast to losing, and drinks what's left of it in a go. "Probably a better show if I do, though."
Raveki tsks, shaking her head with disappointment that is feigned this time. "I am certain you could find a way," she drawls. It could almost be the sort of fakery women of her ilk are known to toss around, where it not for the keen weight of her eyes, half searching and half appreciative. But the fight will do just as well as conversational fodder, and she lifts her tea to clink the glasses together. "To a good show." She sips her drink after the toast, rolling it around in her mouth the way she rolls the words around in her mind. When she does speak the words are slow, with pauses between them and dark eyes that find the swirl of ice chips in her glass far too interesting. "Win or lose, I'd like to see you that way I think. So long as you don't get really hurt." She finally sets the glass back down, tacking on, "I have a salve that's good for bruises too, after. If you want." Casual.
Vaughan savors the sight of her swirling her tea the way he should have savored the rum, but didn't, perhaps on account of only liking it enough to drink it. He puts the glass down gently, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Don't promise that," he rolls out, lazy and easy and slow, unworried. "I had my way there'd be fewer rules and more honest fighting in that ring." His shoulders rise and fall. "Someone like Ch'son, he needs to get it out. He'll be back."
Canting her head to the side, Raveki runs her thumb along her bottom lip, watching him in a considering way. "How about so long as you don't get dead? Because that would really be a waste." Her eyes say it would be way more than just a waste, but she's not letting herself linger on that. Instead she takes that foot that was leaning against his and runs the toe of her shoe lightly up his calf. "I think fewer rules sounds better. It will draw more of a crowd for one, and maybe it'll be more useful to the fighters too." She pauses, lashes going narrow as she gives the hand laced with hers a tiny tug. "What do you mean someone like Ch'son?" Not because she's upset, or offended or even because she disagrees, but simple flat curiosity. "Some girls really like to see a man all shirtless and worked up - that's enough reason for him I think." She hears the words, winces a bit, opens her mouth to clarify which girls she means and then just lets it lie - but all that comes first is probably far too obvious.
Sure they're obvious, the wince, the opened mouth, the lack of words to fill it. And they do the job her words would have done better than the words likely could have: Vaughan cracks a grin, tips down his head, looks up at her so his gaze is upcast through uneven lashes, sly-- and says, "Nah. If it was, he'd come work on the docks." Beat. He lifts his head, secure his point is made and assuming she knows he understood, and goes back to the point of her question. "He was angry, then. Her. Him. Think I said that before." When it was Blondie who tended bar. "Maybe he ain't angry now, don't know. Haven't talked to him." An implication is present that a talk could be on the agenda, if Vaughan makes agendas. He looks down at their hands, then up at her face. "Wouldn't turn down the salve."
Raveki is too busy feeling abashed about the too-clear expressions that danced across her face to notice the beginning of the grin. When she glances up through her lashes, almost coy, she cathces it and him giving her a look all too similar to the one she's offering. It wipes away the sheepishness and leaves only a small grin in its wake. "Yeah, I hear good things about those dockworkers," she agrees lightly, but then it's more serious to listen. "Yes, I remember when you said that before. You just seem..." she trails off, shaking her head - hesitant to judge how he is or how he feels or even just, as she said, how he seems. "He's a pretty simple guy but not a bad guy, far as I've seen." She pauses, thoughtful, then rolls a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. Her eyes follow his, down then up and she nods a slow nod. "That's open for any time you know. Dock brawls, bar room brawls... banged elbows."
"You the weyr's healer now, or just mine?" Vaughan asks, eyes bright, grin coming back but only for a moment. He glances at their hands. His loosens its grip, but remains willing, a platform for her fingers and a thumb to stroke them. "I seem angry at him," he suggests, and looks back up. His eyes are bright still, but knowing, now. Serious, if warm. Maybe: I dare you.
Raveki makes a show of considering this, tapping a finger to her lips and watching him through slitted eyes. "Hmm. Just yours, I guess. Maybe I'm just trying to get my hands on you again." She winks, bright-eyed and smirking. Meanwhile her hand shifts willingly enough in his, and her fingertips slide against the back of his fingers, a tiny caress. "You seem to not like him, which is different," she finally says in a slow, even tone. One dark brow lifts quizzically and she takes that leap. Not why, but, "Tell me?"
It's easy enough to tell. Too easy, in fact. "Don't like most people." Vaughan points this out less to correct her than to illustrate a flaw in thinking, and his thumb lifts to pet the side of her finger, then sinks again onto the table, a gesture which illustrates something else about what he's just said. "Fought because she wanted him to, and he didn't see why not. Didn't get what he wanted out of it. Not sure I know why. But you're right." His shoulders lift and fall. "Take him for all he's worth."
He's serious, and yet Raveki lets out the smallest the bubble of laugther and she curls her fingers up, using the back of her nails to stroke his palm once before settling back onto the platform his hand has made. "Most people aren't worth liking," she notes lightly, and then she nods slowly to each of his points. In the end she lets out a slow breath and follows it up with the smallest of shrugs. "No reason to particularly like him... the only interaction you've had with him involved fists after all." She pauses to let a sly smile drift over her mouth and then she nods. "I plan to. He's easy money though." Her free hand slides back around her tea, fingers marring the condensation that has gathered on it. "How are the docks?"
"Usually that's something." Fists. Better than nothing, when it comes to liking a guy. His hand freed, Vaughan recaptures the glass that held his rum, and carries it over to his thigh, where he just holds it, since there is no more rum in it. It gives his hand something purposeful to do. "Hot. Salty. Wet sometimes." He should shrug again, after such an indifferent recounting, but he looks at her a long moment instead, gaze narrowing, searching. "Shirtless guys worked up," he points out, after that long delay, a little less teasing and a little less lightly than he should be... but still, teasing.
Raveki releases her tea to raise a fist, shaking it with a teasing little grin. "I'll try to remember that." She watches that empty glass disappear down to his thigh and she leans to eye the bar. "Do you want a refill? We have a better rum than that if you want me to have her pull it out." With her eyes focused over his shoulder, she blinks at his words, her gaze slowly pulling in to fasten on his eyes. "I should-" she breaks off to clear her throat when her voice comes out of a throat suddenly gone dry with more than a bit of huskiness. "I should come visit you at work sometime." Her tongue slides out to wet her lips and she trails the side of her hip up his calf one more time.
His toes stretch, distant reaction to that caress. More telling, maybe, or more familiarly so, his mouth opens in a lazy, predatory shape, the grin that isn't a smile, that isn't necessarily happy or laughing at all, but isn't that thin nasty ugly thing, either. A shape meant for tasting, for savoring, and devouring. It's Vaughan's eyes that answer her, blue fire waiting there: Yeah, you should. Slowly, he closes his mouth, mostly to chew on some words, which then come out for her to hear. "M'good. Should get on and let you be productive, anyway." But he drawls all that out with a pleasant reluctance, like he does hate to go. "I'll remember about the rum."
Speaking of savoring and devouring, Raveki absorbs that too familiar lazy gape, and without her knowledge or consent her teeth gather her lower lip in to her mouth. Her breath is too deep, the swell of her chest pressing against her dress as if she might inhale him across the span of wood that separates them. But then her words are commonplace, if slightly breathless as her foot slides back down to the floor. "I will then. Soon." It is only with his mention of productivity that she drags her attention away enough to register that the bar is beginning to fill, and a glance at her ledger reminds her it is still unfinished. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. But..." she tightens her fingers on his for just a beat before letting him go. "Yeah, remember the rum." She nearly purrs the words, rolling them around in her mouth before letting them free. Her smile is warm, her eyes hotter still, but only for the beat before she reaches for her books.
He looks long upon her, after she's stopped looking at him. He saw the heat. He saw the glance at the bar. He saw her reach for the books, and his fingers curl and flex under the remnant influence of her touch. Then Vaughan shoves himself upright off the table he's been leaning on and the chair he's been sitting in, and carries his empty glass over to the bar, there to surrender it and some markpieces before-- wordless, throughout-- he sidles on out.
Topics include : Vlad, Loe, Saiyah, Ch'son, prize fighting, bookkeeping, the docks, and shirtless men. Oh, I already said Ch'son, prize fighting and the docks. Oops, redundant.}
Midafternoon sun pours in through the open door and windows, filling the Lucky Seven with bright golden light and a pleasant breeze. It's far from the usual veiling gloom, and might be part of the reason (along with the hour) that the bar is relatively slow. A few tables have occupants and three men sit together at one end of the bar, trying to outdo each other in flirting with the red head serving drinks. Raveki has claimed the small table tucked away in the far corner of the bar, remote and buffered by rows of empty tables. No one bothers her while she's got the ledger out - apparently math is less than sexy - even if she's wearing a short, flirty halter dress with her hair messily pinned up. She jots something down, scribbles on a slate, takes a sip out of the tall, slim glass at her side, then scans the room. Slender fingers tap the side of the glass and with a bored little sigh she bends her head again.
Too bad. Her glance upward and her bored sigh come a moment too soon, and her head is bent and her figure still when the short dockhand comes in. Like he's only seeing things in motion, or attracted most to that which moves, he misses entirely that she is over there in the corner-- or to anyone who didn't catch his slow gray visual sweep of the place, that would be a plausible excuse for his direct stroll toward the bar. Of course, wanting a drink would do just as well. He picks a spot not too close to the other guys, does not bother with the stools, and leans an elbow up to wait for service. While he waits, he experiments with the weight of his stare, to see if it alone has power enough to raise a bowed, brunette head.
The red head is quick to slink on over and she opens with a sultry grin, and a, "What can I get for ya, sweetheart?" She waits with somewhat diminished patience as Vaughan's attention is so clearly elsewhere. "She's just doing books, you should go say hi."
Raveki for her part is studiously bent over her work, but her attention to the matter can only stretch so far. Whether it is that heavy gray stare or boredom that is not cured by more numbers, she finally lifts dark eyes once more. It's a slow upward drift which suggests the palpable gaze might have been the reason after all, lashes slightly veiling the light in their depths and expression smooth as she glances to the bar. It is not hard to spot Vaughan, isolated at the bar as he is, and of course there is the fact that it is /him/. The slow-creeping curve of a soft smile wants to claim her mouth, and in greeting she lets it.
Vaughan's quiet in response to the redhead, but only for a moment. That moment is the one in which he watches the brunette head come up and the dark lashes twitch, the smile begin to inch onto her lips. Then he turns his head, emptying the space between himself and Raveki of his stare, and tells the redhead, "Yeah. I will." A short beat. "Rum neat? Mind bringing it over?" With excessive concern for whether it's a hassle, like that's not her job. But like it /is/ her job he's already drifting away, turning his gaze toward the de facto bookkeeper, hunting down a chair waiting hapless at her table.
"Sure thing darlin," says the redhead, with no sign of having noticed either his quiet or his concern. She can see where he's headed and that makes this conversation over. On the other hand, she does fetch him the drink he asks for, taking her sweet time. In the meantime, though the air of the bar is suddenly emptier without Vaughan's gaze, it continues to hold Raveki's. Hers is far less weighty to be sure, and when Vaughan comes walking across the floor it ends up more sidelong than direct, but she's watching him. When it becomes clear that he is in fact approaching her table she flips her ledger closed with an air of relief more than a desire for privacy, and she settles into her usual sprawl across her seat, nudging the empty chair toward him with a foot. Dark brows arch, but that's as close to a greeting as he gets.
His hand lands on the back of the chair, gently ending its motion. Then beginning it again: he turns it in place, so it's sideways to the table, and sets himself down in it, facing Raveki across the table's corner. He puts an elbow on the table, claiming a little space, and stretches his legs out so his ankles cross next to her chair. The sandals look strange on his awkward feet, for all that they've become lined by the combination of straps and sun. His toes wiggle, mudless. "Don't mean to interrupt," he drawls, a little slower than sometimes, and glances at her ledger. Then at her face, but that glance turns into a long, not-quite-empty stare. A full stare, even, it's just that it's not as telling what it's full of as sometimes she's seen it.
There is a little resistance to the stopping motion as Raveki pushes harder with her foot. It's clearly just to be obstinate - the pressure ends almost as soon as it began, and she crosses her legs at the knee. It just so happens that it shows a long line of tanned leg, made more obvious when she shifts her chair to face his a bit more. A tip of her head gives her a better line of sight for watching that stretch of his legs, that wiggle of his toes, and even with awkward feet the motion teases her smile into fullness. "You aren't," she drawls, her voice low an slow as usual. She bobs a foot, clad in the exact opposite of his sandals - hers are high heeled, with tiny white crisscrossing straps that show more skin than they cover. That full stare is met with vague curiosity but otherwise motionless patience - her only concession to movement is that foot that taps the air. Finally she speaks, brushing the ledger to the side to make room for his rum as it arrives. "Been a while."
"Thanks." But that's for the redhead, on account of the rum, not because he's not interrupting Raveki. He picks up the glass in a curl of fingers and leans a little more into the elbow on the table, the one whose hand has the rum. This is the equivalent of leaning toward Raveki's legs, though the table divides his space from hers. He tips the glass toward his lips, and over its rim casts a gaze down, so that her expanse of leg and strappy shoes aren't wasted, but his eyes come up before he's swallowing, her face the main attraction. Her eyes. "Yeah," he agrees, neither unhappy nor smug about the time passed, only agreeing that there has been some, and it did indeed pass. "Books?" He doesn't bother glancing at them, this time, relying on the word to make his question clear.
Raveki doesn't even look up at the redhead - she's busy watching that hand find its way around cool glass, then the parting of lips distorted by the same. When he swallows she tears her eyes away, lifting them to meet his gaze with that smile still lingering along her mouth. "It's a slow day," she explains though he didn't really ask...unless he did... and she makes a small waving gesture that's meant to encompasse the bar and its few occupants. "It's a good time to do the bookkeeping." So yes, books. That's the last she intends to think of them apparently, as she uses her elbow to nudge it and her slate to the far edge of the table, taking up the newfound space with her forearms. She leans into them, closing the space between her and the dockhand by a few inches. "So what brings you by? You already said you aren't terribly impressed by our rum."
"See you," the dockhand replies, but like it's an ordinary thing that ordinary people do, in a voice of casual companionship, rolling the syllables off with a shrug that's just as sparing. He lowers the rum at last from his lips, as it has remained there this long untasted since that first swallow and he has other work for his mouth, just now. His gaze goes with it, though, like her eyes aren't as riveting as all that, and he looks into the glass, like maybe he's abashed for having been riveted even a little while. Or trying not to stare. None of that fits. "Maybe it'd be better with cinnamon in." He looks up again. Ah: there's a light in the backs of his eyes, sharp and amused, predatory. Playing. Sporting. Maybe horrible. "In charge of them? The books."
The reply makes Raveki's brows go up, though there is no denying the pleased line of her mouth, even as she flips a casually dismissive hand. Coming to see her, casual companionship, she accepts it all with ease and her eyes do the same as his, following the path of the glass. It isn't as interesting as all that, but her casual demeanor might grow thin in the face of too much time under those gray eyes. She blinks then, peering at the rum as if it might hold the answer to what has her looking utterly baffled. "Cinnamon? In rum?" She can't help it, she looks up to see if he's even remotely serious, unable to keep the frown of distaste off her brow. "Coconut, yes. Cinnamon, no." It means she catches that light and all the many facets to it, and the frown smoothes to near a nearly blank canvas just begging for some emotion to be splashed across it. Instead he must content himself with a flicker of something in the dark depths of her eyes, and a nod. "I'm the only one with the patience and head for numbers," it's said with a shrug and a modesty that is genuine. "It's a step toward running things too," she admits just as easily.
"Good." At her admission. It comes with a flash of the nasty grin, but for her, perhaps the nastiness seems only sharp and wicked; for her, perhaps the sharpness in his eyes is a threat. If this means he is secretly harmless most of the time, so be it. It doesn't seem that people believe it. "Was a rider suggested cinnamon liquor," he should say 'liqueur,' but perhaps cannot, "in it. Ordered it, actually. At that shindig for the eggs with the weyrwoman and Ch'son." If she had any doubt a second ago that he has two grins-- if she might have thought that his mouth does something special for her only because she sees it that way, not because it really is that way-- this will settle the issue. /This/ grin is an ugly, mean thing. Ch'son. Or maybe just cinnamon-and-rum: ew.
That horrid, wicked grin - Raveki has seen it before as well as that sharp light in his eyes. She thrills to the sight, but after a single flash of delight that threatens to brighten her entire countenance she pulls herself back into something more appropriately subdued. There is still amusement around the line of her mouth and something warm in her eyes for him, and the laugh that bubbles out of her mouth at his second, far uglier expression is genuine and unexpected even to her. Then she blinks. There was laughter for his reaction to Ch'son, or the rum, but then what he actually said sinks in. "You were there? I didn't see you. How the hell did that happen?" Disappointment steals the mirth from her lips, and a hand casually slips over to cover his. "I didn't think to watch for you." Because she was busy. Or because she can't imagine him at something like that. Or just because. Back to the rum, she shakes her head and states, "Just because a rider wants it doesn't make it any good, by the way. Who was it, do you know?" Her interest here must be due to business as much as anything. Odds are they do not stock cinnamon rum at the Seven.
Vaughan's hand slips off of its rum so it can reside beneath hers, calm, warm, idle. "Didn't go on purpose," he notes, to excuse her not thinking to look for him, because he knows why she wouldn't have. But he gets more out of her words than maybe she meant to put into them, because the nasty grin comes back, then transforms into the wicked one, when she says what she says about rider wants. "Something puh-dig," he shrugs, though uncertainty on names he's heard is unlike him. "Was there with a girl, but not really with her. He left alone. She had company." This is why it's unlike him: he notices. But at the moment he winces, and reaches his other hand over across himself so he can get the rum, which he now needs. "Met the weyrwoman. Got stinkeye from Vlad. Weird party. Social."
The contact between their hands is light, almost thoughtless, and Raveki's hand is as still as Vaughan's, just a little cover of warmth. His grin makse her brows lift a bit, and the conspiratorial tilt of her grin suggest maybe she meant to put more into her words than their surface meaning as well. That name, mispronounced as it is, makes her lashes narrow a bit, and she offers, "P'draig? I hope so because he won't come here as a rule, so I won't need to stock it." She reaches for her own glass, which looks suspiciously like iced tea, and takes a little sip, watching him across the rim as he lists all these things he noticed and other things that happened. Surprise flickers as the words continue on, when even though the phrases are typically choppy they begin to pile up. "Were you the company?" It's teasing in tone, especially since he would have phrased it differently if that were the case. "I met the weyrwoman too... well sort of." A flicker of frown for that and then an arching brow for Vlad. "Why'd you get the stinkeye from him? Was it because you were being... social?" Weird is right. The very thought of him being social seems to have her all befuddled again, with the result being a rapid switch between expressions over the course of her response.
Snort! No, he was not the company. His eyes give her a flash that's almost like a warning, as though the very question crosses some line-- even though his answer was cheerful enough in its wordless vehemence. "He wants me to stay away from his girls," the dockhand says, with the kind of clipped rhythm that goes along with repetition, and yet he sounds a little indifferent. A little disgusted, but a little indifferent. He sips the not-impressive rum again, then puts down the glass beside their hands, so the other hand can counterbalance him a little in the chair. He's leaning a bit closer. "How'd you meet the weyrwoman? With Ch'son?" Less ugliness in the man's name, this time. Perhaps associating him with Raveki, or with Nenita, improves the idea of the bronzerider.
Raveki just flashes a grin for the snort, but her eyes are as serious as his, and when the grin fades back to neutrality she drops her head. It could be she's just looking down at the wood grain, or it could be silent acceptance of his just as silent warning. "Who are 'his girls' exactly, and why does he want you to stay away from them?" The amusement is creeping back, though the idea of 'his girls' and who they get to be around curls her lip a bit. "I didn't exactly meet her." Beat. Sip. "Chaes was being less than tactful, so I saved her by dragging him off. I don't think I actually told her my name." It's all casual until she shifts forward a bit in her chair and her fingers curl around his. "Do you think there will be another fight? One you might... fight in?"
Vaughan nods once, a jerk of his head, to 'Chaes,' and how Raveki did not exactly meet the weyrwoman. "Loe. Saiyah." About Vlad's girls. This is, however, very quietly spoken, and with even more disgust and much less indifference. It's a sore topic somehow, and he looks off to the side, into nowhere, for a moment while a muscle beneath one eye twitches fiercely. But the curl of her fingers draw him back and he turns his gaze back to her, eyes widening a little, as though her interest surprises him. Surprise delays his answer, makes him second-guess, takes care. His tongue parts his lips, pauses there, disappears again. His brows sink. "Yeah," he says, dubious in tone though certain in word choice. "Wouldn't you know?"
Thin brows draw inward and her fingers tighten further yet. "I say ignore him altogether. Loe can take care of herself and Saiyah thi- well, she has enough people watching her back." Irritation slips away and a soft smile touches her lips, head tipping to the side so stray bits of dark hair drift into her eyes. "I'm nobody's girl, you can bug me all you want." A bit of humor to lighten his mood perhaps, a tease to pull that tightness from around his eyes, for all that it is valid. As for knowing, she just shrugs, looking not entirely happy. "I haven't heard anything, actually." The admission sounds tight, forced out, and she adds more softly, "I wouldn't know about /you/ regardless and that's really what I was asking."
'Nobody's girl' has more effect than she might expect; for Vaughan, in public, the way he turns over his hand and grasps hers in it might pass for a bear hug. And if she's not happy about the state of the fights or their organization, well, he's got nothing for that but sympathy: "Ain't heard anything myself. Made a point of it, got nothing back." This might imply he's already taken her advice about ignoring Vlad's, at least. "Seemed like /she/ was happy with it. So I assume it banked. Ought to be another one, if this island's still above water." He shrugs, and reaches over his other hand again, not for the rum this time. He touches her fingers with his, then covers them, then withdraws the hand again-- a little too much tenderness, maybe. "If there is, I'll be there. S'all I know for sure."
It isn't like casual (or even not so casual) contact is not run of the mill for Raveki. Still, she looks down at their joined hands with a frozen beat of surprise before lacing her fingers through his. There's a struggle to keep a grin off her face which she almost wins, and the end result is more like her usual smirk than anything else. "I'll tell you when I hear anything if you'll do the same," she bargains. "When I asked Saiyah she didn't know, but we all know who's actually in charge. Loe being pleased is a good sign." She assumes that's the /she/ in question without hesitation, then blinks. "You aiming to sink the island, then? Need some help?" She lets his second hand escape, but slides her foot over to lean against his in exchange, brushing over the more tender gesture without comment, though her eyes say she noticed it. "I will be too. I'll make sure to watch this time."
He laughs. A single laugh. The guys at the bar probably heard it as a cough, but Raveki would know better. "Don't think that's literally possible," Vaughan replies, eyes suddenly sharp but bright, narrow so that they can better contain the blue fire of delight in their slits. That answer is a dismissal of the idea-- but no, actually, it's not. It is only a deferral. Here, he'd rathert alk about fighting. "Might lose," he warns her, without any loss of pleasure, without any sign of discomfort in their joined hands, but reaches over for the rum and lifts it like a toast to losing, and drinks what's left of it in a go. "Probably a better show if I do, though."
Raveki tsks, shaking her head with disappointment that is feigned this time. "I am certain you could find a way," she drawls. It could almost be the sort of fakery women of her ilk are known to toss around, where it not for the keen weight of her eyes, half searching and half appreciative. But the fight will do just as well as conversational fodder, and she lifts her tea to clink the glasses together. "To a good show." She sips her drink after the toast, rolling it around in her mouth the way she rolls the words around in her mind. When she does speak the words are slow, with pauses between them and dark eyes that find the swirl of ice chips in her glass far too interesting. "Win or lose, I'd like to see you that way I think. So long as you don't get really hurt." She finally sets the glass back down, tacking on, "I have a salve that's good for bruises too, after. If you want." Casual.
Vaughan savors the sight of her swirling her tea the way he should have savored the rum, but didn't, perhaps on account of only liking it enough to drink it. He puts the glass down gently, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Don't promise that," he rolls out, lazy and easy and slow, unworried. "I had my way there'd be fewer rules and more honest fighting in that ring." His shoulders rise and fall. "Someone like Ch'son, he needs to get it out. He'll be back."
Canting her head to the side, Raveki runs her thumb along her bottom lip, watching him in a considering way. "How about so long as you don't get dead? Because that would really be a waste." Her eyes say it would be way more than just a waste, but she's not letting herself linger on that. Instead she takes that foot that was leaning against his and runs the toe of her shoe lightly up his calf. "I think fewer rules sounds better. It will draw more of a crowd for one, and maybe it'll be more useful to the fighters too." She pauses, lashes going narrow as she gives the hand laced with hers a tiny tug. "What do you mean someone like Ch'son?" Not because she's upset, or offended or even because she disagrees, but simple flat curiosity. "Some girls really like to see a man all shirtless and worked up - that's enough reason for him I think." She hears the words, winces a bit, opens her mouth to clarify which girls she means and then just lets it lie - but all that comes first is probably far too obvious.
Sure they're obvious, the wince, the opened mouth, the lack of words to fill it. And they do the job her words would have done better than the words likely could have: Vaughan cracks a grin, tips down his head, looks up at her so his gaze is upcast through uneven lashes, sly-- and says, "Nah. If it was, he'd come work on the docks." Beat. He lifts his head, secure his point is made and assuming she knows he understood, and goes back to the point of her question. "He was angry, then. Her. Him. Think I said that before." When it was Blondie who tended bar. "Maybe he ain't angry now, don't know. Haven't talked to him." An implication is present that a talk could be on the agenda, if Vaughan makes agendas. He looks down at their hands, then up at her face. "Wouldn't turn down the salve."
Raveki is too busy feeling abashed about the too-clear expressions that danced across her face to notice the beginning of the grin. When she glances up through her lashes, almost coy, she cathces it and him giving her a look all too similar to the one she's offering. It wipes away the sheepishness and leaves only a small grin in its wake. "Yeah, I hear good things about those dockworkers," she agrees lightly, but then it's more serious to listen. "Yes, I remember when you said that before. You just seem..." she trails off, shaking her head - hesitant to judge how he is or how he feels or even just, as she said, how he seems. "He's a pretty simple guy but not a bad guy, far as I've seen." She pauses, thoughtful, then rolls a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. Her eyes follow his, down then up and she nods a slow nod. "That's open for any time you know. Dock brawls, bar room brawls... banged elbows."
"You the weyr's healer now, or just mine?" Vaughan asks, eyes bright, grin coming back but only for a moment. He glances at their hands. His loosens its grip, but remains willing, a platform for her fingers and a thumb to stroke them. "I seem angry at him," he suggests, and looks back up. His eyes are bright still, but knowing, now. Serious, if warm. Maybe: I dare you.
Raveki makes a show of considering this, tapping a finger to her lips and watching him through slitted eyes. "Hmm. Just yours, I guess. Maybe I'm just trying to get my hands on you again." She winks, bright-eyed and smirking. Meanwhile her hand shifts willingly enough in his, and her fingertips slide against the back of his fingers, a tiny caress. "You seem to not like him, which is different," she finally says in a slow, even tone. One dark brow lifts quizzically and she takes that leap. Not why, but, "Tell me?"
It's easy enough to tell. Too easy, in fact. "Don't like most people." Vaughan points this out less to correct her than to illustrate a flaw in thinking, and his thumb lifts to pet the side of her finger, then sinks again onto the table, a gesture which illustrates something else about what he's just said. "Fought because she wanted him to, and he didn't see why not. Didn't get what he wanted out of it. Not sure I know why. But you're right." His shoulders lift and fall. "Take him for all he's worth."
He's serious, and yet Raveki lets out the smallest the bubble of laugther and she curls her fingers up, using the back of her nails to stroke his palm once before settling back onto the platform his hand has made. "Most people aren't worth liking," she notes lightly, and then she nods slowly to each of his points. In the end she lets out a slow breath and follows it up with the smallest of shrugs. "No reason to particularly like him... the only interaction you've had with him involved fists after all." She pauses to let a sly smile drift over her mouth and then she nods. "I plan to. He's easy money though." Her free hand slides back around her tea, fingers marring the condensation that has gathered on it. "How are the docks?"
"Usually that's something." Fists. Better than nothing, when it comes to liking a guy. His hand freed, Vaughan recaptures the glass that held his rum, and carries it over to his thigh, where he just holds it, since there is no more rum in it. It gives his hand something purposeful to do. "Hot. Salty. Wet sometimes." He should shrug again, after such an indifferent recounting, but he looks at her a long moment instead, gaze narrowing, searching. "Shirtless guys worked up," he points out, after that long delay, a little less teasing and a little less lightly than he should be... but still, teasing.
Raveki releases her tea to raise a fist, shaking it with a teasing little grin. "I'll try to remember that." She watches that empty glass disappear down to his thigh and she leans to eye the bar. "Do you want a refill? We have a better rum than that if you want me to have her pull it out." With her eyes focused over his shoulder, she blinks at his words, her gaze slowly pulling in to fasten on his eyes. "I should-" she breaks off to clear her throat when her voice comes out of a throat suddenly gone dry with more than a bit of huskiness. "I should come visit you at work sometime." Her tongue slides out to wet her lips and she trails the side of her hip up his calf one more time.
His toes stretch, distant reaction to that caress. More telling, maybe, or more familiarly so, his mouth opens in a lazy, predatory shape, the grin that isn't a smile, that isn't necessarily happy or laughing at all, but isn't that thin nasty ugly thing, either. A shape meant for tasting, for savoring, and devouring. It's Vaughan's eyes that answer her, blue fire waiting there: Yeah, you should. Slowly, he closes his mouth, mostly to chew on some words, which then come out for her to hear. "M'good. Should get on and let you be productive, anyway." But he drawls all that out with a pleasant reluctance, like he does hate to go. "I'll remember about the rum."
Speaking of savoring and devouring, Raveki absorbs that too familiar lazy gape, and without her knowledge or consent her teeth gather her lower lip in to her mouth. Her breath is too deep, the swell of her chest pressing against her dress as if she might inhale him across the span of wood that separates them. But then her words are commonplace, if slightly breathless as her foot slides back down to the floor. "I will then. Soon." It is only with his mention of productivity that she drags her attention away enough to register that the bar is beginning to fill, and a glance at her ledger reminds her it is still unfinished. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. But..." she tightens her fingers on his for just a beat before letting him go. "Yeah, remember the rum." She nearly purrs the words, rolling them around in her mouth before letting them free. Her smile is warm, her eyes hotter still, but only for the beat before she reaches for her books.
He looks long upon her, after she's stopped looking at him. He saw the heat. He saw the glance at the bar. He saw her reach for the books, and his fingers curl and flex under the remnant influence of her touch. Then Vaughan shoves himself upright off the table he's been leaning on and the chair he's been sitting in, and carries his empty glass over to the bar, there to surrender it and some markpieces before-- wordless, throughout-- he sidles on out.