(Untitled)

[master_wayne]

When the door opens this evening, anyone nearby may get blasted with the stench of oil, and heat and harbour. The noise that blows in is of someplace busy, where no one is speaking English and alot of machinery and crates are getting moved around

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[cutting_edgex23]

Maybe it's the scent that catches X's attention.

Maybe it's the difference in the way he carries himself.

Maybe it's something else altogether.

Whatever the reason, X approaches him from the side, slipping onto a barstool one down from Bruce.

"You came back."

[master_wayne]

'Yeah.'

She gets a small smile as their last conversation comes back to him.

'I didn't mean to but I guess people weren't kidding when they said a door can appear anywhere.

How are you?'

[cutting_edgex23]

"No. People do not joke about that."

Beat.

"I have been busy. Here."

There is a short pause.

"And at home. But I am okay."

She doesn't quite frown, just tilts her head fractionally, studying him.

"You are okay, too?"

It is entirely possible she sounds a little dubious about that one. Insofar as X ever sounds dubious.

[master_wayne]

Define 'okay' is what he thinks.

'I'm fine.'

Quite fine.

'What's been keeping you busy?'

[olyabird]

There is a pale woman sitting across the bar from him, an ashtray in front of her, cigarette held loosely between her fingers. At her elbow is a bottle of Russian vodka (the lid lost somewhere), and a glass.

The hand that holds the cigarette is not entirely still. He can see the tip of her thumb chasing along the pad of her ring finger. She is staring intently at a point just a few inches above the surface of the bar. If he's observant enough, he might see something that looks like heat distortion, hovering in the air above her hand.

[master_wayne]

The heat distortion catches his eye after a while and he watches it, and then the woman, with a level interest. His gaze is not rude, or threatening, or imposing. It's just there.

When she catches his eye, he nods a silent greeting.

[olyabird]

The moment he catches her eye, her fingers separate and the heat distortion darts away, into the air, like a small mouse escaping the claws of a bored cat.

She glances after it, her lips pressed together. And then she looks back to him. As she speaks, she refills her glass with two fingers of vodka.

"Who comes to a bar to drink tap water?"

From her thick accent, he can tell she is Russian.

[master_wayne]

"I didn't choose to come in," he says evenly, wondering what she just did.

"And I'm not staying long."

He's starving. And if he thought about his old life, he'd probably love a beer as well. But he's not going to eat here, or get a comfortable room upstairs. To do that would be cheating.

[makesthings]

Sameth looks over to him from where he's sitting and asks,

"Good fishing where you are?"

His clothing is always fairly simple, a linen shirt that's not as white as it might be from his days in the forge and some good quality breeches and nice leather boots.

[master_wayne]

Bruce looks down at his pants.

"Not really, because I'm not a fisherman. I was just on a boat."

[makesthings]

"Oh, sorry. No one here ever seems to be what they seem. I'm still getting used to it."

[master_wayne]

He smiles and gets up to come over.

"Mind if I sit? This is only my second time here so it looks like we have the same sort of problem. I don't have a clue what anyone is unless they tell me.'