(no subject)

[river_meimei]

Once again, River heads straight from the front door to the hallway that leads to the Security office. It's a long while before she reappears. There was a tension to her body, a faint troubled frown on her face, a stressed and wary watchfulness in her gaze; all of that is still there, undiminished.

She heads for the far wall of the bar, where she climbs rapidly from bench to table to booth back and settles into the rafters.

Comments

[jack_f_twist]

"For a harmonica?"

Jack looks disbelieving.

"Don't seem likely. Ain't quests usually a bit more--I dunno--after somethin a bit more valuable?"

But it is a thought worth consideration, and he muses for a moment.

"'Course, sure was an awful nice harmonica."

[river_meimei]

"We'll call it a miniature."

[jack_f_twist]

That gets a grin.

"You gonna help me out with it, or let me muddle through on my own?"

[river_meimei]

River doesn't grin back, but the tension in her face fades a little more.

"Could see my way to it," she says solemnly.

[jack_f_twist]

"Well, good," he says, and sticks his thumb through a beltloop, craning his neck to look up at her.

"Cause I sure am pretty damn helpless on my own. Ask anyone."

[river_meimei]

River makes a skeptical face at him.

[jack_f_twist]

"It's true," he says, earnestly. "Lureen sure says it all the time, and my daddy too. Even a few people here likely to say so."

He's joking. Mostly.

[river_meimei]

"We'll deputize them to search the cellars."

[jack_f_twist]

"This place has cellars?"

He looks interested. Well, of course it probably would, wouldn't it? It's a bar, after all.

Forcing himself away from a scenario in which his daddy is locked away in a cellar for the end of all eternity, he nods.

"Sounds like a good start."

[river_meimei]

River shrugs, loose-jointed and uneven.

"Sometimes. He can fabricate the boundaries."

[jack_f_twist]

He leans against the bar, the better to look up at her.

"Who, darlin?"

[river_meimei]

River blinks at him, confused.

[jack_f_twist]

"You said 'he'," Jack reminds her, helpfully, after a long moment spent with the two of them blinking at each other.

[river_meimei]

"You can pick," River offers gamely.

Still maybe confused.

[jack_f_twist]

"Well, s'long as I get some choice in the matter," Jack says, and shrugs, before rubbing at the back of his neck.

"You gonna sit up there all night?"

[river_meimei]

"It's very comfortable."

[jack_f_twist]

"Not for me it ain't. You're killin' my neck."

[river_meimei]

River looks suddenly worried.

"Not," she says hesitantly -- it's meant as a protest, but it sounds more like a question -- and lifts a hand a little.