milliways_bar | (no subject)

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((OOM: Things improve.))

There is a rather stunned looking man standing in the doorway of Milliways. He hasn't seen the place for almost a year and a half and it's ... exactly as he remembered it to be, even if he spent quite a bit of time insisting to himself that it could have been some elaborate hallucination.

At any rate, more about him. His hair is trimmed, though somewhat touseled, and he appears to be wearing a khaki uniform and heavy overcoat of the same colour. The sleeves are rolled up and he is dirty.

Dusty is perhaps a more accurate term. The thick goggles are a hint at what he's just come from - his motor bike is parked just outside in the background.

He is blinking. "Well, this certainly isn't the motor shop."

It's hard to tell if he's really bothered by this. The grin on his face suggests that it is in fact a smaller blessing than a curse.

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Parker nods. "That's a lot of trust," he says.

A smile.

"Not too terribly much to lose, really." He takes a drag of his smoke.

"Misplaced?"

Parker pauses to think on that. Because since Isabelle, he's been bone-true loyal to only one person.

He believes himself when he says friendship is a word not to be used lightly. Friendship and love are words with heavy meaning. Words loaded like guns that could go off in your hands.

But maybe Lawrence is just asking if Parker would steal his things. "No."

It should be clear in the way that he studies Parker that he's not simply talking about stealing his things.

"I assure you I am quite pleased of that." He lends trust easily when he believes it is due - and if that trust is violated it is impeccably hard to get back.

He is a professional at holding grudges.

Parker shrugs it off. He worries sometimes what his own need to survive will cost him, which is why friendship in his own world tends to be brief and end abruptly.

Here, there seems to be less of a need to survive on the fat of the land.

"Sure," he says.

There's a nod and then he's glancing up towards the rooms. "Should I assume that you will continue to hop bedrooms now that I have returned?"

It's a light, indirect invitation by the way he says such things.

Parker grins, but his eyes are slightly dark. "And what's the going rate for a place in your bed, Lawrence?"

"Must there be a price for friends, Parker?"

This is troubling. He does not wish for Parker to think he must whore himself to stay in his bed.

Parker shakes his head, but he knows how the world works. "There's always... expectations."

"You're quite sure of that." A statement, not a question.

He feels odd. Parker feels there are expectations - but he sounds as if he wishes there not to be. Yet the intense kissing continued.

Most puzzling indeed.

"In any relationship there's always something expected by one party of the other," Parker says. "You think it's any different with two people who've had sex?"

It's glossing over the confusion of what he and Lawrence have, the raw emotional undercurrents between them, the friendship, the trust. Still.

Lawrence is a man, so of course glossing is perfectly acceptable for as long as humanly possible. Even if he is a passionate man, he is still wary of such things as relationships.

"I think perhaps that there need not be expectations if one member of the situation decides against it. It would be most improper to assume such things, on my part."

It's his rather jumbled way of telling Parker that he doesn't plan to push. Perhaps because he's being cautious, but more likely because he respects Parker. Doesn't wish to .. complicate things.

Parker nods. "No assumptions."

He drums his fingers on the table. "Am I always welcome there?" Asks lightly, a little teasing, but underneath... He blinks and it's gone.

His hand comes up to brush absently over Parker's wrist while he listens.

"Yes, of course." There's no hesitation in his voice. They both seem to have that odd problem of having emotions surface for a split-second.

Parker nods. "Well." Shrugging, he says, "This isn't going to simplify anything." And then almost immediately, "Everyone here wears swords."

He grins. "They do? And here I've left my own back at my suite once again."

It's most disheartening. "The uniform does not lend itself to swords."

And really, it's untidy and misbuttoned. He's terrible with that sort of thing.

Parker laughs, turns his wrist so that Lawrence is touching the soft underside. "I thought that was the whole British thing. Swords and 'once more into the brink'."

"Guns work just as well, Parker, and they tend to be quicker for city life."

His fingers trail up across the soft smoothness of Parker's wrist and forearm, watching him a moment or two.

Nodding, Parker says, "In formal uniforms, the army still wear swords in America."

He sighs against the fingers, quiet, though. Satisfied.

"Formal uniforms, yes. This is not a formal one." He smiles a tad.

"Mal seems insistent that I make a change back to robes. Apparently this uniform is not warm enough for her." It's amusing.

His fingers continue their phantom movements.

"Maybe she thinks that robes are more representative of who you are." Parker glances up, observance hidden under eyelashes and a small smile. "Do you feel more yourself in robes?"

"I feel more myself in nothing at all, truthfully."

He looks to Parker similarly - his own eyelashes are far too long, we're sure - and notes the smile.

"I certainly have more luck appearing tidy in my robes." Hence the misbuttoned shirt.

"Ah, but the untidy look is so attractive," Parker says. "I'm sure you catch all the boys with that look."

"Well, if I do I am not much for looking back."

There's a grin. "Except perhaps a particular one, but I must say I would hesitate to call him a boy."

This is what happens when Lawrence becomes comfortable. He gets flirty.

Parker raises an eyebrow. "Do tell, Lawrence."