#vitalphenomena: andy.

[guttersniper]

@vitalphenomena as andy said: you should be like a nail.

and then we danced.

she stares at him. he stares at her. it's all very sergio leone. (mutt must have seen that movie three times, at least, and in a different language each time, when it was new and top-billed.)

he reaches first for the proverbial pistol in the side-holster. " i'll nail you to the wall, then, if you bring it up again. "

violent threat his words might be, he doesn't mean it. doesn't mean his voice or expression has to give that away. she should know him better than to expect that.

[rejectory]

@vitalphenomena: “Best leave it alone, I say. I’m sure it’s nothing that could fester and eventually become a source of resentment and regret.”

All the while sipping her cuppa Joe. Speak of the devil.

❝Poster child for growing and letting go,❞ Booker scoffs under his breath when he means to laugh.

Conversely, he hasn’t seen Andy die of a broken heart yet. Maybe 'cause it happened before him. Or maybe she just doesn’t have any left. These are both ways she’d like to bullshit him, he has to tell himself.

The mark moves and with her, Booker’s aviators.

❝I won fair and square, right under God’s nose.❞ That someone’s husband won’t see that is an old age problem, but sure as shit not Booker’s. ❝Take it up with Him.❞

Him who. Him where.

[guttersniper]

@vitalphenomena as andy said: i hoped for less, but i expected more.

the old guard.

his gaze busies with seeking out any and all weak points in the armor sported by the pair across the way from them. crook between the arm and chest. that would be too high for him to reach without first grounding them, lowering them. to take a flying leap was too much of a risk.

further down, then. all was covered until a tiny gap, just big enough for the slip of a blade, between boot and hem of trouser leg.

a breath, steadying and scarcely audible, pulls into resilient lungs. "there's a gap between their boots and their pants. take out their achilles tendons. you take the bigger one."

one knife is extracted from the strap on his arm. he lifts up higher on the balls of his feet, at a walking crouch. closely, he watches for her signal. (stalwart deference. trust. it is, perhaps, the grandest show of respect mutt can offer.)

[guttersniper]

@vitalphenomena as andy said: that's what worries me.

the client.

his eyes flicker something wry, challenging—a defiant look for a defiant man-boy. mutt weighs the worth of arguing in the hollow of his tongue. it is more of a stubborn habit, though, than any real use that could come of it.

"fine." he doesn't sound wholly defeated as of yet, but the acquiescence is genuine. "i'll play it safe."

[guttersniper]

@vitalphenomena as andy said: i'm very okay with it. i have been for a long time.

all of us strangers.

he's wearing a plain navy sweater underneath a carhartt jacket, both slightly ragged. his boots are scuffed, this pair not yet in need of self-repair. only when his garments become so threadbare as to be no longer functional does he accept the prospect of replacing them.

from the outside, he just looks like any other vaguely improper boy sat on a low stone ledge having a smoke. he knows, though, as does his company, that he isn't quite like every other vaguely improper boy that sits on this low stone ledge having a smoke.

concern, questioning, molds a pinch between his brows. no other part of his face even twitches, the movement isolated. it's a split-second expression, there and then gone like some brittle leaf in the late autumn wind.

he shrugs lightly. he sniffs, bringing one foot onto the ledge. the sharp point of his elbow rests on his knee, while his unoccupied hand loosely wraps around his leg. they're both so infuriatingly inscrutable. " i didn't say you weren't. "