John "Quirkless" Hwang (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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stateofdecay2024-11-09 12:00 am
lineman) wrote in stateofdecay2024-11-09 12:00 am
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WHO: Nat Stokes and John Hwang
WHEN: Monday afternoon, 11/4
WHERE: the Lobby, Whitney Depot
WHAT: Whitney’s second and Lundegaard’s third attempt to get to know each other at a convenient time.
WARNINGS: None
A dour man sits down at the bar, dressed in dark and practical clothes, his dark hair pulled practically back, and his expression darkly practical—that is, blank, masking considerable trepidation. He swallows, stares down at his fingertips laid gingerly on the countertop, and searches for the bartender.
"Well," John says to Nat. "I am here to get to know you better. So that we may make pronouncements about each other's relationships in a fairer, more substantiated way."
There’s so much solemnity to the entirety of John’s appearance that it takes a moment for Nat to remember the conversation John is even referencing, so typical it was for her to brush past the boundaries of relative strangers with her opinions.
“I’ve never had someone say they’d like to get to know me so that they can judge my life choices better,” it isn’t actually what he’d said, but Nat enjoys the misinterpretation. She grimaces as she heaves another growler of something onto the bartop.
John makes a face at Nat as he processes her misinterpretation: eyebrows furrowed in dismay, lips pressed together in a line, squinting as though she's shined a very bright light directly into his eyes. Staring at Nat does give him that sensation—of a bright light. Not unlike being in the hot seat at the dentist or at the business end of a microscope. He feels he's been misinterpreted too severely for any hope of course correction, diagnosed with a cavity of strangeness or his cells scientifically identified as weird. Better just to accept things and move on.
"Yes," John accedes. His eyes dart to the container of mystery liquid that Nat has just placed on the bar top. "What's in there?"
“Gin,” she answers, pausing briefly as if to weigh the truth of that. “Mostly. We had a few batches that didn’t turn out to our standard,” drinkable, she means. “So I’ve made a Long Island ice tea of sorts for Edgar’s party. Given the way things have gone as of late, I’m guessing more than a few people won’t care so much for the taste as the effects.”
It isn’t said with mercenary intent, there’s a rueful tilt to the press of her mouth as she shares what she assumes is a commiserating look for the emotional state of the Quad. But Nat is pragmatic, if people want to drink in the bar, then she’ll give them what they want in a controlled space.
“Ah. The party. How could anyone forget.” John deflates, having forgotten all about the party. Maybe I should leave now, he thinks. He doesn't want to be caught at Whitney once the party starts. But he’s also just begun this conversation with Nat—it would be rude to leave with only a handful of words exchanged. Even he knows that.
He’s also curious about the kind of person Nat is, somebody who feels comfortable telling a stranger they are self-sabotaging a relationship with their only living relative. An astonishingly bold thing to say. Nat might be fun.
“You don’t sound especially excited about the party,” John ventures. “Otherwise, you might be more concerned about the taste of your gin.”
Nat seems unbothered by the assessment, maybe even amused.
“It’s for the drinking game he has in mind,” she corrects him, “so really, it’s the perfect opportunity to get rid of these batches and sweeten, so to speak, the competition. We’ll have the good stuff there too,” she adds, like she also needs to reassure him. “Wouldn’t want anyone to have a miserable end of the world. Again.”
Nat’s sense of humour is often irreverent, sometimes seen as insensitive, and she’s not exactly apologetic about it. Which is where she’s crossed a line with John and his boundaries before.
“I think it sounds like a lot of people need a proper outlet.”
"Drinking is not my outlet." He says this stoutly but notices that his hands are still in a tense, clawed position. Hm. John makes himself relax: palms flat, shoulders down, a small exhale to expunge himself of any residual tension. "I enjoy prayerful contemplation or working. Listening to my music."
Then, although he'd like to avoid the bright light of Nat's eyes, he studies her. Up and down, assessing her carefully in a shameless sort of way. She's such an interesting study—he forgets it's rude to stare at someone so thoroughly, right where they can see you do it. Nat looks as though she's thinking of something funny, which John associates with confidence, poise. How to be like that? he wonders. Whenever he thinks of something too funny, he makes a noise like a donkey being doused with cold water.
"If you want, you can share your preferred outlet." Your turn, he thinks.
If she wants? Nat’s hands settle comfortably at her waist as she absorbs that offer, giving her the appearance of some sort of admonishing barkeep, though it’s really just because that vat was fucking heavy. The perpetual amusement still lingers on her face as she submits to John’s once over.
“Drinking isn’t my outlet either,” Nat pushes her curls back from her forehead and ponders the question indulgently. “My preferred outlet is this, honestly. The creating,” she clarifies while settling into a lean at the bar top. Nat doesn't particularly feel any way about the bartending aspect of her job (which she does infrequently to begin with), but the distillery had become a safe space, her space in a matter of months. “I like to experiment. As a kid I was always trying to figure out how the world worked, putting two, three things together just to see what would happen to my mother's best Dutch oven. It’s what I like about chemistry,” there’s real affection in her voice, a love so deep but without the usual subject to receive it anymore. “Making liquor may not exactly be the kind of experimentation or creation I had in mind before, but it satisfies the itch in me.”
John wouldn’t know this about Nat, but nothing ever satisfied her itch, not now when she had to funnel a skillset into something that was growing repetitive, and certainly not before when she jumped from one thing to another in an attempt to find fulfillment, leaving an unfinished Phd and a stalling career behind.
“And I tinker on other projects otherwise, I like the challenge of our limited resources,” her eyes are bright with it. “I like a problem to solve. Unless we’re talking about vices, then my answer, unfortunately, is smoking.”
John flinches, reacting physically to the way all the emotion in Nat's voice comes to a hard stop with 'smoking.' The stop itself seems, at least to him, incongruent with the brightness of her eyes. Again, he thinks of her confidence and poise, gets the feeling that Nat is thinking of a joke she has yet to let him in on. But oddly, he's not bothered. It's comfortable, being around someone comfortable with themselves.
"A considerable vice," he replies seriously. "And a difficult one. I imagine cigarettes and tobacco leaves are hard to come by these days." John pauses, considering whether he too can play with Nat in this game of confidence. "So you must be forced into a state of virtue."
Nat chuckles. “Oh very virtuous, that’s me. You have to laugh at an apocalypse being one of the best smoking cessation therapies while also being the biggest source of why any of us need one.” It was true though, tobacco cigarettes were a precious commodity these days, and didn’t that make them all the more enticing.
“You mentioned prayer,” she inclines her chin, deliberately misinterpreting once again. “Is that your vice?”
John tilts his head, his expression amused, a toothy smile with pointed canines. He feels as though Nat has thrown him something and he’s successfully caught it. “Now this is revealing,” John says, leaning forward on the bar. “How can prayer be a vice?”
She lets him feel like she’s been caught and smiles back. “Any dogma can be a vice. I don’t think it’s always so much the thing as how it’s practiced, devout pondering or not. What does your contemplation look like John?”
John shrugs. He’s still smiling, but it’s just a smile—amusement devoid of any expectation as to their conversation's outcome, some delight just to be playing along. A nice back and forth, this exchange with Nat, he thinks. Snappy. He feels like Gideon. “Dogmatic, probably,” he replies. “To you.”
“Well I am a scientist,” Nat volleys back, settling into both the bar top and her enjoyment of this. “It gives me hives to talk in absolutes. But I'm no stranger to deep contemplation, mine just probably gives the most organized person hives. Chaos,” she mimes an explosion with her fingers (without the sound effect). “Ordered chaos.”
“Hm.” John watches Nat move her fingers. “I must not contemplate as deeply as you.” He copies her finger explosion. “Or as chaotically.”
Again he studies her in another too long, too unabashed, too unblinking stare—not to search for anything in particular, but just to observe. She has wide-set eyes, striking; short hair that could speak to some preference for functionality over aesthetics. Nat did say she was a scientist, after all. John cannot imagine it would be very practically scientific to get one’s hair in one’s mysterious, gin-like compounds. But hard to say. The short hair suits her, he thinks, so perhaps aesthetics won the day after all.
“I once attended a lecture on the Big Bang,” he starts, moving abruptly from silence into seemingly non-sequitur speech. Nat gives an intrigued hum of acknowledgement. “About how the universe was created from an explosion. Order from chaos, or ordered chaos, depending on your point of view. That sounds like you.”
“Are you flirting with me John?”
All the tension that John carried into their conversation and lost over the course of it comes rushing back: the Big Crunch to Nat’s Big Bang, one final singularity of embarrassment. He lets out a nervous laugh, and it does sound a lot like a donkey being doused in cold water, actually. “I don’t know,” John replies, wide-eyed. “Am I? I can stop, but I didn’t realize I was doing it.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing hugely. “Apologies.”
Nat’s piercing, expectant expression creases with mirth as she winks. “I’m just fucking with you. You sure you don’t want a drink?”
John fixes her with a wary, almost betrayed expression. “Nothing alcoholic, please. I enjoy water.”
He continues to watch her, as if she’ll accuse him of flirting with her again at any second, and this time mean it. “Although I suppose you are used to it?” he ventures, thinking out loud. “People flirting with you. Bartenders get that a lot, I suspect. Especially when they are attractive.” The last part he says with a plain, matter-of-fact affect, as though pointing out she has a nose.
“Bartenders do get that a lot,” she confirms indifferently as she gets him his water, choosing not to acknowledge the comment about her attractiveness lest she have to tease him into a further flustered state. What a wild conversation this was becoming. “Can’t say it’s the highest quality of flirting, but I think an apocalypse made most of us a little rusty.” And lonely. And bold. Desperate for connection. “If they had any game to begin with.”
“Hm. Not much flirting for us at Lundegaard.” This he says like he’s remarking on mild weather. “Most of us have families, I expect that’s why. Or if there is flirting, it happens where I do not see it.” He smiles at her in thanks for his water and takes a sip. It tastes different from the water at Lundegaard—he should ask Roswell if they can take a look at Whitney’s pipes. Or maybe it’s Lundegaard’s river water that is not wholly clean.
“Of course, we do have murders.” His smile turns wry without him realizing. “Keeps us occupied.”
“Some people are into that,” she responds breezily, arms now crossed over her chest as settles back. The party won’t start for a few more hours, and there’s little urgency in getting things any further set up until Edgar directs them with his vision. “Roswell doesn’t have any groupies?”
John raises his eyebrows, but his wry expression remains. He thinks of Gideon and his confession—Roswell the last thing on his mind, before the cougar’s claws. “Maybe,” replies John. Coolly he takes another sip. “But that would be Lundegaard business. If Edgar has any groupies at Whitney, I expect you would prefer to keep that to yourselves.”
Nat’s laughter escapes her before she can manage it into a more respectable scoff. “I didn’t realize groupies were a state, sorry community secret. And if Edgar has groupies it’ll be the business of the entire Quad.” He did have one actually, not that the actor had noticed, and it wasn’t Nat’s business to blow up this fan’s spot if they weren’t ready for it.
“What about you John,” she cocks her head, curious. “No intentional flirting happening for you?”
John looks pleased with himself for making her laugh, relaxes a little into his pleasure. He even manages not to be too bothered by her question. “Not lately. The material conditions are quite bad right now. If you were not aware.”
Then he squints an eye, trying to come up with a more satisfying answer for Nat. It’s good to make her smile and laugh, he thinks. If those things are part of their game, he wants to win. “I used to be a fantastic drinker,” John admits. “I probably flirted more back then. But I’m not certain. It was a different time.”
Mm. A common tale, sometimes social lubricant was the only way.
“It couldn’t have been that long ago,” she prompts, handing over two dirty glasses to a passing bartender. “What was John of that time like? I unfortunately have to tell you that alcohol makes everyone think they’re a successful flirt.”
Another shrug from John. He gives Nat an innocent look.
She pauses then, as though something just occurred to her. “Who did you spin the bottle with?” Like she needs the reminder, like she doesn’t already know.
“Courtney Slaughter,” he replies promptly. Again he is pleased to provide a quick answer, oblivious to any misdirection from Nat. But it occurs to him he should not be so forthcoming about himself and Court—he and she have talked about this topic, the perception of others. Very bad, to expose the vulnerabilities of a friend. Jumping a little in his seat like he’s been shocked, John gulps down the rest of his water, to keep himself from saying anything more
Nat watches him do it, his reaction confirmation enough to a suspicion she’d been harbouring. “Pity you’re in too bad a state for flirting then,” it’s offered casually with a smile that isn’t at all knowing. “If you stay for the party maybe your luck will change.”
He raises an eyebrow over the rim of his glass, starts to answer before he’s even finished swallowing. What follows is an explosion of noise, half choking, half coughing, entirely indignant. He pounds his chest, eyes watering as he struggles to get air and water down their correct pipes.
Finally, he manages to croak, “Not if I can help it.”
WHEN: Monday afternoon, 11/4
WHERE: the Lobby, Whitney Depot
WHAT: Whitney’s second and Lundegaard’s third attempt to get to know each other at a convenient time.
WARNINGS: None
A dour man sits down at the bar, dressed in dark and practical clothes, his dark hair pulled practically back, and his expression darkly practical—that is, blank, masking considerable trepidation. He swallows, stares down at his fingertips laid gingerly on the countertop, and searches for the bartender.
"Well," John says to Nat. "I am here to get to know you better. So that we may make pronouncements about each other's relationships in a fairer, more substantiated way."
There’s so much solemnity to the entirety of John’s appearance that it takes a moment for Nat to remember the conversation John is even referencing, so typical it was for her to brush past the boundaries of relative strangers with her opinions.
“I’ve never had someone say they’d like to get to know me so that they can judge my life choices better,” it isn’t actually what he’d said, but Nat enjoys the misinterpretation. She grimaces as she heaves another growler of something onto the bartop.
John makes a face at Nat as he processes her misinterpretation: eyebrows furrowed in dismay, lips pressed together in a line, squinting as though she's shined a very bright light directly into his eyes. Staring at Nat does give him that sensation—of a bright light. Not unlike being in the hot seat at the dentist or at the business end of a microscope. He feels he's been misinterpreted too severely for any hope of course correction, diagnosed with a cavity of strangeness or his cells scientifically identified as weird. Better just to accept things and move on.
"Yes," John accedes. His eyes dart to the container of mystery liquid that Nat has just placed on the bar top. "What's in there?"
“Gin,” she answers, pausing briefly as if to weigh the truth of that. “Mostly. We had a few batches that didn’t turn out to our standard,” drinkable, she means. “So I’ve made a Long Island ice tea of sorts for Edgar’s party. Given the way things have gone as of late, I’m guessing more than a few people won’t care so much for the taste as the effects.”
It isn’t said with mercenary intent, there’s a rueful tilt to the press of her mouth as she shares what she assumes is a commiserating look for the emotional state of the Quad. But Nat is pragmatic, if people want to drink in the bar, then she’ll give them what they want in a controlled space.
“Ah. The party. How could anyone forget.” John deflates, having forgotten all about the party. Maybe I should leave now, he thinks. He doesn't want to be caught at Whitney once the party starts. But he’s also just begun this conversation with Nat—it would be rude to leave with only a handful of words exchanged. Even he knows that.
He’s also curious about the kind of person Nat is, somebody who feels comfortable telling a stranger they are self-sabotaging a relationship with their only living relative. An astonishingly bold thing to say. Nat might be fun.
“You don’t sound especially excited about the party,” John ventures. “Otherwise, you might be more concerned about the taste of your gin.”
Nat seems unbothered by the assessment, maybe even amused.
“It’s for the drinking game he has in mind,” she corrects him, “so really, it’s the perfect opportunity to get rid of these batches and sweeten, so to speak, the competition. We’ll have the good stuff there too,” she adds, like she also needs to reassure him. “Wouldn’t want anyone to have a miserable end of the world. Again.”
Nat’s sense of humour is often irreverent, sometimes seen as insensitive, and she’s not exactly apologetic about it. Which is where she’s crossed a line with John and his boundaries before.
“I think it sounds like a lot of people need a proper outlet.”
"Drinking is not my outlet." He says this stoutly but notices that his hands are still in a tense, clawed position. Hm. John makes himself relax: palms flat, shoulders down, a small exhale to expunge himself of any residual tension. "I enjoy prayerful contemplation or working. Listening to my music."
Then, although he'd like to avoid the bright light of Nat's eyes, he studies her. Up and down, assessing her carefully in a shameless sort of way. She's such an interesting study—he forgets it's rude to stare at someone so thoroughly, right where they can see you do it. Nat looks as though she's thinking of something funny, which John associates with confidence, poise. How to be like that? he wonders. Whenever he thinks of something too funny, he makes a noise like a donkey being doused with cold water.
"If you want, you can share your preferred outlet." Your turn, he thinks.
If she wants? Nat’s hands settle comfortably at her waist as she absorbs that offer, giving her the appearance of some sort of admonishing barkeep, though it’s really just because that vat was fucking heavy. The perpetual amusement still lingers on her face as she submits to John’s once over.
“Drinking isn’t my outlet either,” Nat pushes her curls back from her forehead and ponders the question indulgently. “My preferred outlet is this, honestly. The creating,” she clarifies while settling into a lean at the bar top. Nat doesn't particularly feel any way about the bartending aspect of her job (which she does infrequently to begin with), but the distillery had become a safe space, her space in a matter of months. “I like to experiment. As a kid I was always trying to figure out how the world worked, putting two, three things together just to see what would happen to my mother's best Dutch oven. It’s what I like about chemistry,” there’s real affection in her voice, a love so deep but without the usual subject to receive it anymore. “Making liquor may not exactly be the kind of experimentation or creation I had in mind before, but it satisfies the itch in me.”
John wouldn’t know this about Nat, but nothing ever satisfied her itch, not now when she had to funnel a skillset into something that was growing repetitive, and certainly not before when she jumped from one thing to another in an attempt to find fulfillment, leaving an unfinished Phd and a stalling career behind.
“And I tinker on other projects otherwise, I like the challenge of our limited resources,” her eyes are bright with it. “I like a problem to solve. Unless we’re talking about vices, then my answer, unfortunately, is smoking.”
John flinches, reacting physically to the way all the emotion in Nat's voice comes to a hard stop with 'smoking.' The stop itself seems, at least to him, incongruent with the brightness of her eyes. Again, he thinks of her confidence and poise, gets the feeling that Nat is thinking of a joke she has yet to let him in on. But oddly, he's not bothered. It's comfortable, being around someone comfortable with themselves.
"A considerable vice," he replies seriously. "And a difficult one. I imagine cigarettes and tobacco leaves are hard to come by these days." John pauses, considering whether he too can play with Nat in this game of confidence. "So you must be forced into a state of virtue."
Nat chuckles. “Oh very virtuous, that’s me. You have to laugh at an apocalypse being one of the best smoking cessation therapies while also being the biggest source of why any of us need one.” It was true though, tobacco cigarettes were a precious commodity these days, and didn’t that make them all the more enticing.
“You mentioned prayer,” she inclines her chin, deliberately misinterpreting once again. “Is that your vice?”
John tilts his head, his expression amused, a toothy smile with pointed canines. He feels as though Nat has thrown him something and he’s successfully caught it. “Now this is revealing,” John says, leaning forward on the bar. “How can prayer be a vice?”
She lets him feel like she’s been caught and smiles back. “Any dogma can be a vice. I don’t think it’s always so much the thing as how it’s practiced, devout pondering or not. What does your contemplation look like John?”
John shrugs. He’s still smiling, but it’s just a smile—amusement devoid of any expectation as to their conversation's outcome, some delight just to be playing along. A nice back and forth, this exchange with Nat, he thinks. Snappy. He feels like Gideon. “Dogmatic, probably,” he replies. “To you.”
“Well I am a scientist,” Nat volleys back, settling into both the bar top and her enjoyment of this. “It gives me hives to talk in absolutes. But I'm no stranger to deep contemplation, mine just probably gives the most organized person hives. Chaos,” she mimes an explosion with her fingers (without the sound effect). “Ordered chaos.”
“Hm.” John watches Nat move her fingers. “I must not contemplate as deeply as you.” He copies her finger explosion. “Or as chaotically.”
Again he studies her in another too long, too unabashed, too unblinking stare—not to search for anything in particular, but just to observe. She has wide-set eyes, striking; short hair that could speak to some preference for functionality over aesthetics. Nat did say she was a scientist, after all. John cannot imagine it would be very practically scientific to get one’s hair in one’s mysterious, gin-like compounds. But hard to say. The short hair suits her, he thinks, so perhaps aesthetics won the day after all.
“I once attended a lecture on the Big Bang,” he starts, moving abruptly from silence into seemingly non-sequitur speech. Nat gives an intrigued hum of acknowledgement. “About how the universe was created from an explosion. Order from chaos, or ordered chaos, depending on your point of view. That sounds like you.”
“Are you flirting with me John?”
All the tension that John carried into their conversation and lost over the course of it comes rushing back: the Big Crunch to Nat’s Big Bang, one final singularity of embarrassment. He lets out a nervous laugh, and it does sound a lot like a donkey being doused in cold water, actually. “I don’t know,” John replies, wide-eyed. “Am I? I can stop, but I didn’t realize I was doing it.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing hugely. “Apologies.”
Nat’s piercing, expectant expression creases with mirth as she winks. “I’m just fucking with you. You sure you don’t want a drink?”
John fixes her with a wary, almost betrayed expression. “Nothing alcoholic, please. I enjoy water.”
He continues to watch her, as if she’ll accuse him of flirting with her again at any second, and this time mean it. “Although I suppose you are used to it?” he ventures, thinking out loud. “People flirting with you. Bartenders get that a lot, I suspect. Especially when they are attractive.” The last part he says with a plain, matter-of-fact affect, as though pointing out she has a nose.
“Bartenders do get that a lot,” she confirms indifferently as she gets him his water, choosing not to acknowledge the comment about her attractiveness lest she have to tease him into a further flustered state. What a wild conversation this was becoming. “Can’t say it’s the highest quality of flirting, but I think an apocalypse made most of us a little rusty.” And lonely. And bold. Desperate for connection. “If they had any game to begin with.”
“Hm. Not much flirting for us at Lundegaard.” This he says like he’s remarking on mild weather. “Most of us have families, I expect that’s why. Or if there is flirting, it happens where I do not see it.” He smiles at her in thanks for his water and takes a sip. It tastes different from the water at Lundegaard—he should ask Roswell if they can take a look at Whitney’s pipes. Or maybe it’s Lundegaard’s river water that is not wholly clean.
“Of course, we do have murders.” His smile turns wry without him realizing. “Keeps us occupied.”
“Some people are into that,” she responds breezily, arms now crossed over her chest as settles back. The party won’t start for a few more hours, and there’s little urgency in getting things any further set up until Edgar directs them with his vision. “Roswell doesn’t have any groupies?”
John raises his eyebrows, but his wry expression remains. He thinks of Gideon and his confession—Roswell the last thing on his mind, before the cougar’s claws. “Maybe,” replies John. Coolly he takes another sip. “But that would be Lundegaard business. If Edgar has any groupies at Whitney, I expect you would prefer to keep that to yourselves.”
Nat’s laughter escapes her before she can manage it into a more respectable scoff. “I didn’t realize groupies were a state, sorry community secret. And if Edgar has groupies it’ll be the business of the entire Quad.” He did have one actually, not that the actor had noticed, and it wasn’t Nat’s business to blow up this fan’s spot if they weren’t ready for it.
“What about you John,” she cocks her head, curious. “No intentional flirting happening for you?”
John looks pleased with himself for making her laugh, relaxes a little into his pleasure. He even manages not to be too bothered by her question. “Not lately. The material conditions are quite bad right now. If you were not aware.”
Then he squints an eye, trying to come up with a more satisfying answer for Nat. It’s good to make her smile and laugh, he thinks. If those things are part of their game, he wants to win. “I used to be a fantastic drinker,” John admits. “I probably flirted more back then. But I’m not certain. It was a different time.”
Mm. A common tale, sometimes social lubricant was the only way.
“It couldn’t have been that long ago,” she prompts, handing over two dirty glasses to a passing bartender. “What was John of that time like? I unfortunately have to tell you that alcohol makes everyone think they’re a successful flirt.”
Another shrug from John. He gives Nat an innocent look.
She pauses then, as though something just occurred to her. “Who did you spin the bottle with?” Like she needs the reminder, like she doesn’t already know.
“Courtney Slaughter,” he replies promptly. Again he is pleased to provide a quick answer, oblivious to any misdirection from Nat. But it occurs to him he should not be so forthcoming about himself and Court—he and she have talked about this topic, the perception of others. Very bad, to expose the vulnerabilities of a friend. Jumping a little in his seat like he’s been shocked, John gulps down the rest of his water, to keep himself from saying anything more
Nat watches him do it, his reaction confirmation enough to a suspicion she’d been harbouring. “Pity you’re in too bad a state for flirting then,” it’s offered casually with a smile that isn’t at all knowing. “If you stay for the party maybe your luck will change.”
He raises an eyebrow over the rim of his glass, starts to answer before he’s even finished swallowing. What follows is an explosion of noise, half choking, half coughing, entirely indignant. He pounds his chest, eyes watering as he struggles to get air and water down their correct pipes.
Finally, he manages to croak, “Not if I can help it.”