[ No surprise there. He's not sure what it is that caused Treavor Pendleton to target him with such animosity from the first moment he walked into that shitty little basement office, but the unblinking stare is becoming familiar by now.
(If only he could say, reasonably, that this treatment was somehow new, somehow extraordinary. That he had never in his life walked into a room and met with the hostility of peers. He has learned, hasn't he? To hold himself firm in the face of it, and reflect back only a controlled air. To not let it wound him anymore.
This is only transitional. All things are temporary.)
(And anyhow, this isn't wholly hostile. Treavor's drunk.)
Alice looks down briefly at the blanket on his arm, his mouth working against some emotion he doesn't quite care to name or follow through to any course beyond its flickering - a star across the night clouds of his face. Come and gone. And then he breathes heavily, and returns his attention to the other man, head inclined just so. ]
If you're not going to chase me, I guess that means I win.
[ A small, forced smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and he approaches with care - strides easy, strides slow, his footfalls unobtrusively breaking the silence - and shakes out the blanket. Crouching and drawing this around Treavor's shoulders happen in one practiced movement, one hand drawing the two edges together at a thin chest as the other rests comfortingly on an equally thin shoulder. ]
Hey. How about you call it a night on the liquor. [ With some feigned reproach: ] If you pass out, you're not going to be able to show me the stars. Or tell me the next verse of that song for my cat.
no subject
(If only he could say, reasonably, that this treatment was somehow new, somehow extraordinary. That he had never in his life walked into a room and met with the hostility of peers. He has learned, hasn't he? To hold himself firm in the face of it, and reflect back only a controlled air. To not let it wound him anymore.
This is only transitional. All things are temporary.)
(And anyhow, this isn't wholly hostile. Treavor's drunk.)
Alice looks down briefly at the blanket on his arm, his mouth working against some emotion he doesn't quite care to name or follow through to any course beyond its flickering - a star across the night clouds of his face. Come and gone. And then he breathes heavily, and returns his attention to the other man, head inclined just so. ]
If you're not going to chase me, I guess that means I win.
[ A small, forced smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and he approaches with care - strides easy, strides slow, his footfalls unobtrusively breaking the silence - and shakes out the blanket. Crouching and drawing this around Treavor's shoulders happen in one practiced movement, one hand drawing the two edges together at a thin chest as the other rests comfortingly on an equally thin shoulder. ]
Hey. How about you call it a night on the liquor. [ With some feigned reproach: ] If you pass out, you're not going to be able to show me the stars. Or tell me the next verse of that song for my cat.