(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

[ishineon]

"Afraid not. My apologies." She's much more subdued today, and for good reason. Even if he never considered the rumours about Hector being her lover to be true (which they were), the fact of the man's death last week would have reached him by now. Tens dying on Deck were rare. Tens dying Outside were rarer.

Still. She wasn't here for sympathies.

[i_machiavellian]

He paid enough attention to gossip as his rank deemed appropriate, and nothing more. If Hector was going to come up as a topic, he certainly wouldn't be the one who brought it up.

"Lung cancer can wait another day." He tucked the cigarette behind his ear. If there was anything comforting he could say, his eyes did all the talking.

"It's been a while," he said after a moment's silence.

sorry to make you wait so long for this tag!

[ishineon]

"I've been... distracted." With the shift in her duties, with the holes coming after Rachel's departure that had to be filled in. With making things work the way they used to. Not to the level of Silas' sleeplessness, perhaps, but she had a daughterward to badger her into nominally taking care of herself.

"Things have been well for you, I suppose?" David's absence... remains an unofficial thing. She'll not acknowledge it unless he assures her of it himself.

No worries mate ;D

[i_machiavellian]

"Yes, well. I think we've all been a little 'distracted' lately." A job was a job and he did it to the best of his ability. Now with David gone it seemed as if he enjoyed it so much, he just couldn't get enough of work.

"Good to see that despite all this, you're not cooped up in your office being miserable. I thought I might never see you again outside of work after you made Face."

[heartylaughter]

"Actually..." he finished lighting his own cigar, and reached out to hand over the expensive gold lighter. It was somewhat antique in design with a side wheel instead of a top wheel to scrape the flint, and a lion on the lid. A gift from his father. "I do, here you go Michael."

He grinned, sucking on the end of his cigar, taking slow deep puffs, before letting the smoke out in a slow thick stream through his lips. You don't inhale cigars, you savour them.

"You look lost in thought, why are you sitting here so focused?"

[i_machiavellian]

Michael flipped the cool, heavy lighter over, running his thumb over the lion before lighting his cigarette. It wasn't every day that you saw something more fancy than a zippo - of which Michael had at least half a dozen lying around at home.

"Thank you," he said as he handed the lighter back. He leaned back and slumped in the bench a little, breathing out a soft sigh.

"It's nothing. Just... work." He's been handed a lot of David's shit - sorry, 'duties' - to take care of when he took off to wherever and Michael didn't like people waiting on him hand and foot, or asking him how to do their jobs. Unfortunately it seemed like those were difficult habits for people to break.

"Is there room in the Hearts? I should like to move in," he joked.

[heartylaughter]

They'd smoked together more than a handful of times in the years they'd been friends since Tunde came onto the Deck. Well, at least acquaintances. And if Michael had never held the lighter before, he'd at least seen it. The Nigerian did so enjoy his cigars, more than just from time to time. It probably accounted for his even deeper voice than just genetically prevalent in african men. And the associated loud boom of his laugh

[i_machiavellian]

Michael laughed at that. Would he be content with being a Two of Hearts? Better a Two than any other rank - he's known that for over forty years. And yet here he is, a Ten and far too involved in Deck politics - too responsible, too mature, too uncertain (or perhaps afraid, still, after all these years) about the consequences to just up and go like a certain King. Would he even have bothered coming back to the Deck if Julien decided to do something else with his life?

"There's nothing wrong with being a Two. You can blame someone else for bankrupting the Suit."

see? this works! Smokers UNITED!

[indeliblespade]

"Ah... deh..." he handed over a cheap plastic bic, blushing as he whispered "Do... you have an extra cigarette I could have?"

He didn't normally sit with strangers, but he was out of smokes, and he desperately wanted one. He'd come to beg himself into the older man's good graces so he could have a cigarette to drain before going back to work.

Yay!

[i_machiavellian]

"Sure." Michael exchanged what was left in his packet for the plastic lighter. There were maybe four or five smokes left in there. He returned the lighter after lighting the cigarette in his hand.

"You shouldn't smoke," he said after he took a puff, turning away to blow smoke over his shoulder.

"It's bad for your health," he added as an afterthought.

[indeliblespade]

He took one, just one, it was rude to take more than what you asked for, and handed the pack back to the older man with both his hands. It was polite to be reverent to people older than yourself, wiser people. He accepted his lighter and lit up, sucking with the cigarette hanging on his lips, before squinting at Michael with a slow, confused expression.

"Eh?" He crammed the plastic thing back into his jean pocket, which meant he had to lean back, because skinny jeans did not have a lot of room as a rule, but then again, he was so thin it shouldn't have mattered.

"Is that a joke?" he muttered under his breath through a slow exhale of cigarette smoke, in Korean. "It is not as bad as other things" He knew this from experience. "You shouldn't smoke too, why did you give me cigarettes only to tell me not to?" He'd already given up meth, at least for now, was he going to have to give up all his vices? He couldn't even drink Soju in this stupid place... he was running out of ways to relieve stress.

[i_machiavellian]

He seemed mildly surprised to be given back the rest of the packet, but he took it without comment and slipped it back into his jacket pocket.

"Because people don't change overnight." And it seemed rude to ask for a lighter and not offer a cigarette in return when it was asked of him.

"But you're young and you have good reasons to quit." He was old and decrepit and didn't give a toss. In a few years' time he wouldn't even be able to read the health warnings on the packet without glasses.