milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

doc scurlock,
katya

(no subject)

At some point after stepping into the bar, and after running into Bill, Doc finds himself at a table near the entrance to the staff hallway with what he's calling his evening meal: a plate with a large slice of blackberry pie and a scoop of ice cream.

He also has a newspaper, well-folded and creased, and is reading about the expansion of the railroad into the 'lawless territories of the southwest' with no small measure of amusement.

(This would explain the snickering, when he gets to the part about the 'savages' attacking the 'greatly outnumbered Pinkertons' in a 'brutal, merciless bloodbath'. The papers are so full of bullshit these days...)

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The tiger wants to know why you're giggling, Doc.

Truly!

He's wrapped up enough in the web of lies that it takes him a half-second to glance up from his newspaper to the figure standing across the table from him.

And then, he goes still.

Very still.

(No fear, not yet, because for all he knows this is Katya playing a trick on him. Should it prove otherwise...then the fear might start to creep into his scent.)

"Didn't think cats could read," he muses, eye on the tiger.

"Cats," She somehow manages to say (by cheating) without proper vocal chords for human speech, "Can do whatever they want."

"Suppose that's true 'nough, the ones at my mama's house certainly seem t'think so."

That might explain why his trousers are covered in a fine layer of hair around the ankles, anyway. Barn cats, really.

"Smart cats." Katya approves, even though she only truly mimics the feline form. "Soooo, what was so funny?"

He turns the newspaper around.

"Apparently some 'defenseless Pinkertons' got themselves attacked by a 'raving band of savages'."

"Huh." She snuffs. "Nothing I have met that is raving has been much good as a fighter."

"You git mad, you git stupid, usually," Doc points out, reaching for his spoon - he can't let all this ice cream melt, after all. "Least, far as I've come t'notice, in all my years."

She attempts to look innocent as a tiger, realizes she's failing somewhat.

So she switches to a somewhat less scary form (if you don't know what you're looking at) and tries again.

With slightly more success.

"I have to admit," he says. "I do prefer this side of you."

She laughs, stealing his spoon and then in turn a bit of ice cream with light fingers fast as skittering shadows.

"That is because you've never seen me with a knife, da?"

For a half-second, he's reminded of the scar in his arm that still aches with the changing weather - from the deep drag of a steel Bowie through his skin.

"Do I have reason t'see you with one, in my future?"

Pleasant and relaxed enough, for now.

Dixie prefers dime novels, which is why she's reading one now. Her smile's nonexistent, however. She eyes the fellow laughing at the other end of the bar, feels there's something familiar in his chuckle, but she dismisses it.

"I think," she declares, closing her book, "we ought to switch. Yours sounds like more fun."

He looks over at her, and the title.

"Can't say I've ever read that one," he comments. "So I may not be the best judge of its content."

Closing the book, she lies it aside and to the left of a petite snifter of whiskey, which she's been nursing for most of the night.

"It's a fine story to someone who hasn't lived through it."

Dixie's on the sixth page - and on the twelfth is a story of near escape and daring do involving her boyfriend.

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