milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

sands,
te lawrence

(no subject)

Lawrence is sitting at the fire with a hot cup of tea, curled up in a blanket.

It is quite possible that he is sulking over the fact that Mal's gone home and he's got considerably less people to cuddle with.

But he will not say that, naturally. At least ... not the cuddling part. But go ahead, prod him.

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“Is she going to come back?” asks a voice from behind.

Sands is stood a few feet away, regarding Lawrence calmly.

He arches a brow and looks over his shoulder.

"I assume so." He holds up the note:

Lawrence -

I'll try not to get my head cut off again. See you when I get back.

"This makes me assume, you see."

“Ah. I see.”

He nods.

“Mine just said ‘bye’.”

"Maybe if you didn't injure her so much, yours would have said differently."

He tucks the note back into his pocket and produces from his pocket a pen and notebook.

Then he begins scribbling. It should be noted that this is not meant to stop Sands from talking. He stops after a moment to nibble the end of the pen thoughtfully.

Idly,

“Considering what she did to me, I’d say we’re even.”

As he speaks, he lights up a cigarette and takes a cautious drag. There is coughing.

"Your fault."

It's simple, really. "When you offer yourself to a vampire, there are implications."

One might notice the scars on his own neck. Not from Mal, however.

Sands might well notice, and he might well store this... interesting piece of information somewhere in the recesses of his brain. He might well.

But all he says is, “My fault. Of course.”

Lawrence licks his lower lip delicately.

"Yes, well. You did offer yourself to a reformed vampire. Surely a smart man like you must know that is risky at best."

Snark, what snark?

Boredly, with the air of one tired of explaining,

“I didn’t know I was offering myself to her at the time. ‘Bite me’ is an expression where I come from.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“And, whatever I did, it barely measures up to her own actions.”

"She is much younger than you, if not in years."

He frowns, still chewing the end of his pen.

“That’s no excuse.”

The calmness is, perhaps, as telling as if he had shouted.

"Indeed it is not. An explaination, perhaps."

Lawrence sighs. "You are far too attached to this. It is unhealthy."

A grin, without humour.

“How else am I supposed to react to people invading my brain?”

"Hm. Well, she apologized. There are worse things that she could have done."

He frowns.

“Like what?”

Stick a knife into someone and all you learn is the colour of their blood.

"Well, for example..."

He pauses, thinking. "She is not human, but you are. It is feasible for her to leave you in a room by yourself and restrain you until you die from dehydration. Stick you in with scorpions, of course .. but that is rather trivial, isn't it? It is not difficult to become creative in torture."

“And here we enter the realms of fantasy.”

He rolls his eyes.

“I believe the question was what worse could Mal have done. She's hardly the scorpion type.”

"You confuse her with the vampire you were taunting, I believe. Things like that are often separate."

The man who killed mercilessly and the man sitting in front of Sands, for example.

“No. She is the vampire. The vampire is she. You can’t start separating the two.”

Sands may be crazy, but he’s self-aware.

“And I wasn’t,” he adds levelly, “taunting her at the time.”

"Repression does that, sometimes."

He eyes the other man. "And you can separate the two easily enough. I should know."

He snorts, looking unimpressed.

“Then we shall just have to agree to disagree.”

"If you insist. I rather dislike spending time arguing."

Levelly,

“I’m sure.”

"There are more efficient ways to deal with people that I dislike, most times. But then again, they are most often Turkish."

Sometimes Lawrence is not the most stable person. Really.

“The people, or the ways of dealing with the people?”

His expression is one of mild interest.

"The people."

Short, to the point. Perhaps snappish. It happens.

“Oh.”

Perhaps a little disappointed at that.

"I am familiar with the practices of their torture."

He might tighten his jaw a little. "I shall share them not."

Lightly,

“That gives them the upper-hand.”

"It's much more efficient just to shoot them."

A light observation. He grins, in fact.

“What if you don’t have a gun? Or," he adds blandly, "a sword."

"Such a situation would not arise."

It's simple enough.

“But what if?”

He’s grinning now.

"Then I would find a way to extract their eyes with my thumbs."

The Wrong thing to say, but he doesn't know that.

The shift in mood is almost imperceptible.

A slight tense, perhaps his breath catches in his throat. His grin falters, just a little, twisting at the corners. A finger, barely shaking, touched to his eyes.

Calmly, “You done that before?”

Lawrence licks his lips.

And he's aware quite acutely that this is a very bad idea. But he does not wish to lie.

"When the occasion has called for it. Pinned to the ground under certain circumstance makes it necessary to survive." Even. No hint of malice to it, however.

“Really.”

His voice is bright, cheerful even-

“Necessary to survive. Of course. I'll remember that."

- verging on maniacal.

"When there is a broadsword at your throat? Yes, it is necessary to survive."

Lawrence watches him.

"That is, of course, what happens in war."

“Yes, of course. Tricky business, war. Painful.”

A grin, bright and sharp as a knife.

“Of course, so is having your eyes gouged out. The feel of it. The noise of it. The sound of an eyeball popping… it’s louder than you’d expect. Or maybe,” he adds with a soft, humourless laugh, “that’s just me.”

"Not so loud as the gunshots, as far as I can tell. But louder than expected."

He lights a cigarette and takes a slow, even drag of it. "There are things equally bad." Not 'worse', because he's got a feeling that Sands will threaten him if he says something so careless.

“Are there?”

A blank look, and then he laughs again.

“Scorpions.”

"Pipes."

His left foot twitches unconsciously. "Turks."

Darkly,

“Mexicans.”

"I have yet to meet them."

But he's not disputing this.

A snort of laughter, calmer now.

“Don’t.”

"And you should keep away from the Turks. I'm sure we'll both agree the other will be better off."

“Duly noted.”

He nods.

As sincere as you’re ever likely to get with Sands, "Well, It's been… interesting, talking to you.”

Lawrence pauses, thinking.

"And you as well." There's a nod. Then he goes back to his scribbling.

And Sands returns to his corner of the bar.

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