(Untitled)

[i_machiavellian]

There wasn't much about that man on the bench that would attract anyone's attention. He sat with his elbows on his knees, an unlit cigarette in his left hand, and he was looking down as if the cigarette would light itself if he stared at it long enough. What light the evening sun could afford him made strands of dark hair a dozen shades lighter.

Comments

[maidenthespade]

"Possibly," she answers even as she hands him lighter. "Are you having spare smoke?"

Quid pro quo, Michael. Katya finds it restful to sit and smoke and think with Tens even if she is one no longer.

[i_machiavellian]

"Yes I am having spare smoke," he replied as he turned away and dug into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a box with bent corners that had seen better days. It wasn't like him to encourage someone else to have a stick of lung cancer but who was he to deny his Queen?

He flicked the lid open and allowed her to take her pick.

[maidenthespade]

Her lips quirk into a smile. "You know, it is strange, but now that I am Face everyone is always offering me cigarettes. I am not certain this is perk. Perhaps it is very slow assassination." Katya selects one at random. She limits herself to three cigarettes a day, sometimes less. She is wanting cigarettes, therefore she will not have them. It is all part of tight control she always is keeping on herself.

"Ah, that is good," she sighs, inhaling deeply once lit up. "There is nothing like smoke at end of long day. Thank you. "She reaches into her coat pocket and offers him a silver flask.

"Horilka?"

[i_machiavellian]

"Now that you are Face everyone will offer anything you ask for," he pointed out. Even if she wanted to kill herself through 'slow assassination'.

"Thank you for the light." He shook his head at the offer of the drink. He does enjoy a drink to go with a smoke at the end of a long day, like anyone else. But he doesn't drink to excess, and he doesn't drink in certain company. Like the Queen's.

"Do you have to get that from Outside?"

[hamelinic]

That's the thing about lurking quietly without attracting any attention. Sometimes, the other lurkers lurked into your vicinity.

And, unfortunately, this particular lurker is not a smoker. And is nevertheless going to give a slight sprawl as he settles that will distinctly take up more than his fair share of the bench space.

"Depends. Have you got a 'please' for me?"

[i_machiavellian]

Michael straightened up and leaned back against the backrest. He wasn't sure if a 'please' would get him nearer to a lit cigarette when it came to Cynric but he would humour him anyway.

"Alright. Please?" he said, and he sounded almost genuine.

[hamelinic]

See, that's what makes life so delightfully fun. Sometimes you get a lit cigarette, and sometimes you catch on fire. Or just get no light for your cigarette. Every minute of every day ought be a bit like Russian roulette.

Fun. Game. All that.

Today--or, at least, in these ten seconds--Cynric's in a pleasant enough sort of mood. And, well, has been practicing fire eating again lately, so a match is easily scrapped up from somewhere in his million pockets. Struck against the bench and offered with a smile. "A good day for civility, I think."

[i_machiavellian]

"I wasn't going to do anything 'uncivil' if you told me you didn't have a light," he commented after he lit his cigarette. Matches were only good the one time, and they only lasted a few seconds.

"Besides," he started, leaning back against the backrest of the bench.

"Isn't everyday a good day for civility?"

[bitchwithabite]

Amy had been out of the hospital for less than twelve hours. The first thing she'd done post-shower was smoke a cigarette. But she'd slept so much in the last three days that laying down in her own bed just hadn't been enough to put her to sleep, regardless of what she wanted to happen. Being in her room hadn't been good for keeping her eyes from wandering to the half-empty bottle on her writing desk, either. It took a lot, but she'd managed to grab her cigarettes and lighter and book it from her room downstairs and outside to start the evening's wandering.

It was fucking cold, though, and the best she could do was make it to the Green before sinking onto a bench, pulling her coat tighter around her, and lighting up her fifth cigarette in half an hour.

Old Spade men are cute, though. They just want fire, too, so she handed her lighter over. "'Course I do." Just. Anything to keep her mind off her aching heart. Anything, anything at all. Except drinking. Couldn't do that on workdays, even when her head was throbbing.

[i_machiavellian]

He placed his cigarette between his lips and mumbled a thanks as he lit it. The first hit of something dull that had once been enjoyable many decades ago now alleviated that symptomatic incurable itch.

He twirled the lighter between his fingers and offered it back to her between his index and middle fingers. There was nothing quite as annoying as someone running off with a lighter or a pen, even if the inconvenience might be unintentional.

"I heard you had been hospitalised." That was about as close as Michael wanted to get to asking how she was doing.

[bitchwithabite]

She shrugged, looking down at her slightly shaking hand while she tucked the lighter back into her pocket. "Partied too hard for Jordan's birthday. Face plus bar equals concussion, apparently." Look at her doing math. You'd never know she had a severe head injury!

But she wasn't going to talk about the binging that led up to that concussion. She didn't remember much from that night anyway, and most of it was what people told her -- which, admittedly, wasn't much. The night was a blur, but she was trying very hard not to think about it. Thinking about the night led to thinking about her reasons, and that just wasn't okay.

"You didn't come visit. F'my head didn't hurt so bad, I would've been insulted."

[i_machiavellian]

"Apparently," he replied with a tight-lipped smile and a tilt of his head. She didn't come here to talk about common sense regarding her excessive drinking and he wasn't going to start lecturing her.

"If I had to visit you every time you drink yourself silly, I wouldn't have time to do anything else."

Fair warning, going out of town tomorrow, so will be slow tagging <3!

[maystillcrow]

Pete smiled slightly and produced a lighter out of his pocket. He didn't, actually, smoke...but such things allowed him the opportunity to strike up conversation with people he might not talk to otherwise.

Like here and now.

"Sure, here y'go." And then a moment later, wry, "cold enough for you out here?"

That's one reason he'll be glad to get back to his office in Club Castle. But for now he's just waiting for someone.

No worries I'm slow too. and I lost this tag once at work @_@

[i_machiavellian]

"Oh. Thanks." He managed a lopsided smirk with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips, obscured momentarily by his hand cupping the wavering flame.

"Still a wee bit early to call it cold, isn't it?" Michael didn't feel it just yet.

"Why are you here then?"

Work, bleh. :/

[maystillcrow]

Pete shrugs a little, "you know, after the blizzard we had a bit back out of nowhere recently, I kind of think I'm just feeling the cold more than usual." Because it really had been a freak occurrence and all the power going out across the Deck for a few days certainly hadn't helped things.

"And I'm out here waiting on a very nice lady from the Spades who's going to let me buy her coffee." He offers up a rather 'pleased wit himself' grin for that. "You?"

[i_machiavellian]

"I'm between appointments. Did you say 'a nice lady from the Spades'?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Where'd you find one of those?" He wouldn't easily make tongue-in-cheek comments around other Spades but he could probably get away with it with someone like Pete.

[heartsthespades]

"I keep telling you these are going to kill you." Which doesn't stop Jordan from pulling out a lighter; Michael's not the only one with this particular deadly habit. And he supposes some people might say that some of his own habits might be just as deadly.

"You look thoughtful," he adds as he stretches out his legs.

[i_machiavellian]

"I'm still alive," he pointed out in a deadpan tone. It was almost as if failing to develop lung cancer had been a bit of a letdown.

He held on to the lighter for a little while after lighting his cigarette.

"And too old to remember what I might have been thinking about now that you've interrupted that train of thought. Tell me what you've been up to."

[heartsthespades]

Life was full of disappointments like that, really. No lung cancer, no emphysema. Whatever in the world happened to truth in advertising?

Jordan crossed his arms and leaned back against the bench, silent for a moment. Michael had known him a long time, before he'd built up the sardonic, condescending persona that kept most people at bay most of the time. He probably recognized the signs of trouble. "Nothing," Jordan said. "Everything's been going smooth as glass over at the Hearts." He was bored; the challenge of reorganizing and retraining the guards was long past, and now there was a slick system in place.

And Hearts didn't have enough disciplinary problems for him to do anything that way, either. It was probably why he'd been so quick to dip his toes back into Spade politics the minute he'd had an excuse.

"The brace is finally off my knee, though." From the car accident, of course. The one he'd gotten into after being dumped by letter, by one of Michael's fellow Tens of Spades.

[i_machiavellian]

"So you're bored out of your mind," Michael translated. Most people were content with things going smoothly. In fact you couldn't really ask for anything better. But a young man like Jordan probably had the attention span of a goldfish.

"At least tell me you'll be a little less reckless on the road."