028 [video

[worksmart]

[The screen clicks on to a close-up of a bottle, cold condensation still clinging to the tinted glass. The image recedes - as the network device is set back on the table - and shows the drinker, sitting in what looks like one of the booths at the Blue Light.]I've put my card behind the bar. First round's paid for anyone who can tell me what we're

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tell me what you have and that's when I'll know if you have anything to start with

[oshutup]

[On the return trip he walks behind the bar only to pick up a cloth, running it across a section of the counter-top with a distant attention, his focus elsewhere though exactly where elsewhere is stays as his to know. Peter, for all that he has no particular interest in bars as bars, has been through the Lux, has been here and sees how plenty of the waitstaff converse with their customers and often friends, but that isn't as much for him--not off the bat.

The counter taken care of, he knows others could easily do this--would do it--but he likes to keep busy and that too is the reason for rinsing said cloth out before taking it to the free standing table just a few paces from Robert Chase's booth. He hasn't waited a table himself since Saturday. This is Claire's section anyway as he recalls--he really should write that down--and keeping things clean between customers makes clean-up later all the simpler.

With an Australian and his beer in the High King's peripheral vision, he considers asking him what Waltzing Matilda is but keeps that to himself too for the moment.]

tell me what you have and that's when I'll know if you have anything to start with

[worksmart]

[Chase leans back in the booth, eye caught by the swirl of a cloth across a dark polished surface, and the fall of fair hair reflected in the table from a head bent over it. He's never going to reconcile why someone who looks so much like him, grown, only holds a passing resemblance to his own memories (some more recent than others) of himself at that age. But it's been long enough for him to be used to things not making sense, so it's a passing thought rather than anything that might unsettle.

He lifts and tips his drink, nodding a distant greeting.]

tell me what you have and that's when I'll know if you have anything to start with

[oshutup]

[It doesn't unsettle Peter to think that the face is shared, though it intrigues him on a certain level that he never allows himself to give much thought on. In any case, likenesses of image would be the last things to send him into something ruffled or worth having a double-take over when something like Certain Knowledge is on the bar for comparison. Never mind that he doesn't feel the need to explain anything and highly suspects Chase doesn't need or want such explanations.

Caspian may be friends with this man but that does not make Peter his friend and it does unsettle him in the corner of his own awareness that this man knows about his involvement with the other king due to carelessness. It isn't anyone else's business, but mistakes happen, and for the better, when the other blond tips his drink, the flicker of this discomfort is distant enough for Peter to ignore it altogether.

He nods his head in return, moving the cloth over the tabletop in one more arc before stepping away and toward the booth occupied presently by one.]

Did you want something to go with that?

[Standard question, and on the scale of bars, it's early. Perhaps the doctor is on break or perhaps it's his day off, but either way it's polite to ask. Quite possibly he's already been taken care of, and far be it from Peter to skip in on someone else's tips--so very not what he is trying to do--but efficiency is efficiency and beneath that excuse, Peter may just be avoiding going back into his 'office' for a little while longer.]

tell me what you have and that's when I'll know if you have anything to start with

[worksmart]

[Certain Knowledge, with all it's meaningful capitalisation, is Old Knowledge by now, and if Chase had been bothered by it at first (he had) then he's beyond that point now. He hasn't seen Peter in the form that he considers his since a few weeks into his stay in the City, and perhaps that's a good thing. It saves direct comparisons and thoughts on relative age, and those would be unsettling. But as far as knowing goes...

Chase holds more secrets for people than could be counted his fair share, the main part of them professionally kept for patients who, while considered in his care, he couldn't claim to care for. Caspian is a friend, and keeping his confidences doesn't even require a second thought. Besides which 'TEENAGERS HAVING SEX' is hardly scandalous headline fodder, not in the decade Chase comes from. It's honestly not something he gives his time to thinking about unless asked to, not on a day when he's just in for a drink and some nostalgia. Not when the boy -- somehow a manager -- walks over.]

I haven't drunk enough to need soaking up yet. I'm good.

tell me what you have and that's when I'll know if you have anything to start with

[oshutup]

[ Though he is no mind-reader, it would not surprise Peter to find that the information is just something the other man knows and not so much anything that matters personally in the way of coming to the forefront of his thoughts, even when they speak, which for that matter isn't even all that often. This, for instance, is a rarity. What he knows of the doctor is second-hand, that he is--according to some--trustworthy, and that he is--also according to some--good at what he does, neither of which Peter has had reason to doubt, but it's different, this knowing versus not questioning.

The answer is clear enough and while Peter isn't one for small talk, usually, the Waltzing Matilda, beer, and guessing game combined with Chase being one of the few people who sit quietly enough for him to stand being near for more than a moment makes for reason enough to pause a bit longer. Though manager status, it isn't difficult to slip into a bit of what he was doing from the beginning--this being keeping an eye on the staff and things in general, their numbers and so on. It's not the same obviously as running a kingdom, but that's over two years gone now, and for no readily evident reason, Susan's words echo back to him: I think it's time we accept that we live here.]

Alright then. Claire should be through soon, if you change your mind.

[ Yes, so it wasn't much of a pause after all, but nothing that is forced has much of a place here. The doctor's reason for drinking to Something remains ever a mystery to the visually younger man and that's fine with Peter. He doesn't really believe in prying like that, barring a few exceptions, even when invited. Leave that to the others. Even Amory, who somehow manages to be contrarily intrusive for all his persnickety tendencies.

The blond nods casually once more before turning to go. ]