@ofgentleresolve | at Alfred again, because teh EDITor!!!!!!!!!!!!
He should meet this scenario with more urgency, he muses somewhere at the back of his head. Add the usual tension to it and his bones that he always meets the world with, be more cautious than cautious, knee-jerking into lies over lies, painting a picture foreign to him just because donning made-up clothes feels safer, less like he’ll crack at the first correct assumption.
But… What kind of trouble could he possibly get himself into, here, under the careful, tight scrutiny of a barista with a sharp eye and apparently enough skeletons in his closet or baggage on his back to find reason to use said sharp eye on him?
Patrick enjoys sharp people almost to the same degree he’d rather have nothing to do with them.
It makes sense, tensing up under the way the barista pieces his conclusions together, makes conjectures and speeds through the conversation with the finality of someone who doesn’t have time to waste on trouble he knows he can avoid, knows isn’t worth his time, when he’s got more important things to worry about.
But Patrick is violently flawed individual. He always enjoys, bitterly, cynical, to be reminded of his fears and concerns, to worry, to gnaw at his insides, to force these kinds of habits back onto his frame.
And also stupidly enamoured with humanity.
He smiles, dragged out of him with a sadist’s hook, asking him to show the blood on his teeth and the drowsiness of his concussion. He isn’t concussed, though, hasn’t bitten into anything in quite a while, not even his own tongue. He smiles at the offer of a napkin with a denying shake of his head, and finds himself still enough in his own hands to resist one of the many reflexes he’s picked up from humans, looking at the object of the conversation.
Stuff of amateurs. Just because he’s talking about his shirt doesn’t mean he instantly has to look at it.
It’s that little tick that becomes useful when you yawn, turn your head, check your watch and someone in the crowd follows you only milliseconds after, revealing where their attention had been focused on, whom it had glued to.
He’s a little gruffer than he’d expected him to be, the man who pours the drinks. He goes through his words with the efficiency of a well-coded algorithm or a well-broken soldier.
“Good advice,” Patrick lifts his head with a conceding sigh, folding his arms in front of himself, liberating only his left hand to pull his cup closer.
He lifts it in front of himself, presenting it to the man who’d made it, allowing an eyebrow to follow the motion into the same direction.
“Are you trying to imply I shouldn’t drink this? That’s a shame, it smells really good.”
He makes a show out of bringing the cup back to his nose and inhaling deeply, closing his eyes with the gentleness of someone expecting an angel’s kiss to their forehead.
The kind, soft angels introduced to children, not the actual biblical ones any sensible man would cower before, hopefully sinners and saints both.
He exhales with a pleased little 'ah~’ and opens his eyes.
If his smile is meant to insinuate that he’s poking fun at the man who pours the drinks and the distance, the tension he’s trying to add to the situation, well, that’s nobody’s business but… the barista’s, actually. How bad could the consequences he enacts possibly be to a being like Patrick, who pretends he doesn’t care about pain and collects slaps with the ancient sighs of resigned teachers.
Nah, this looks like it’s more a hassle to him than it’ll be to the wolf.
Potentially.
The wolf does tend to let things bother him more than he should.
He sets the cup back down, further implying he might never actually drink it.
“Information?” he asks, not quite perking up, trailing his gaze off by turning the cup in circles and frowning curiously at the various items littering the showcase of the barista’s craft behind him.
Information. Now, why would an information broker have any use for that? Unheard of, truly. He snorts to himself and tries to soften the reaction into something friendly, polite, non-threatening and perhaps a little soft when he makes to make eye contact with the man again.
Whatever’ll get him to not kick him out.
He’d hate to have to get up again. He could use getting to sit here and pretending he doesn’t want to slump into the wood and forget his own name.
Not the right kind of counter for that.
“What would I need information for?” cocks his head to the side, blinks open and unperturbed like an exhausted puppy with a leash of thorns around his throat, that usual tightness he can’t get out of the corners of his eyes, the uncharacteristic glow of interest to eyes meant to be cold.
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