Two spies on a park bench (Closed)

[ukase]

Who: Brock Rumlow (ukase) & Byerly Vorrutyer (vorrutyer)
What: Two perfectly normal gents meeting on a park bench to people watch, drink alcohol, and gossip.
When: The evening after this thread occurred.
Where: Park bench. In a park. Per the map.
Warning(s): Probably language. Will add as necessary


[Rumlow had been amused that they had agreed on friendship over discussion of orgies, then moved to attempting a dinner date somewhere and finally settled on drinking on a public park bench. That seemed to be his stride, and he recognized that this was one of those situations that would either allow them a better assessment of each other and keep the 'friendship', or they would likely hate one another for life. That's how most of his relationships went anyway. He was either liked and respected or he was loathed.

His opponents generally didn't survive long. He'd hate to have to go that far with his first friend of new beginnings.

He had come to the park bench earlier than the set upon time, performing some general recon on the area, the escape routes, the general population that came around here, and noting all the points where he could have his head blown off. There were many of the last point, but that was the risk with public meetings. He didn't consider himself well-known or infamous enough to earn a hit so soon.

He stepped up to the bench at ten minutes to seven and settled himself upon it, armed with a sidearm on his hip and a knife hidden on his calf. He might not be expecting trouble, but he was always prepared for it; he was from a country where openly carrying a sidearm was allowed in the law, and he saw no reason to change that here and now.

He slung an arm along the back of the bench and watched people as they did their evening walks. All chatty, all hands gesturing, all with weird manner of pets in tow. He set one ankle on his opposite knee and looked perfectly comfortable, like he belonged there. He also had a bottle of his own alcohol of choice, since friends shared. The bottle was sealed; he hadn't looked into the laws of public alcohol consumption.]

Comments

[ukase]

[He grinned and took a drag from the bottle, making a clear show of it. He was moderating his intake at present. The last thing he needed was to end up shivved in a bush somewhere.]

What? You don't like a challenge? If you don't like it, I'm sure you can pay for a good time. Me personally... I like to fight for what I'm going to really enjoy.

[vorrutyer]

I get paid, actually. [ Casually and easily: ] I'm a top earner at the Shades Darker brothel.

[ Then: ]

But no, I'm not a great fan of working hard. I like the life where pleasant things come easily to everyone. Isn't that the ideal sort of world? None of this huffing and puffing and sweating just for a reward.

[ukase]

[He's positive he didn't take this meet up as a proposition for prostitution. He had made that mistake once long ago and vowed never again. He couldn't help giving By the side-eye all the same.]

I don't pay for sex, hugs or company. Just throwing that out there.

[Though, he'd always heard that whoring was hard work. It wasn't all laying around taking it; one had to pretend some kind of sincerity. This guy was good, he would admit.]

I need a challenge or I become bored, and when I become bored, I have a habit of making a lot of trouble.

[vorrutyer]

[ He presses his hands to his heart - ]

Mon militaire, I would never deceive you. I'm an honest man. Well - honest-ish. Let's just say I don't shit where I eat - a lack of forthrightness is bad for business.

[ Then, dropping his hands - ]

But what a promise. What if a fellow likes trouble? Could he induce a bit of boredom in you?

[ukase]

[He snorted at the correction, offering the bottle over to his bench companion. Honest~ish sounded about right.]

I'm hoping you shit far away from where you eat, and you wash your hands too between each of those activities. There is a time and a place for lies and intrigue.

[He ran fingers through his hair, fluffing it up a bit.]

You like things to be easy to be comfortable, and now you might want to see the other side already?

[vorrutyer]

[ Innocently - ]

Ah? What sort of trouble are we talking about, then?

[ He takes the bottle and takes a deep, indelicate slug from it. His mannerisms are a mixture of foppish and rather soldierly. ]

[ukase]

If it's trouble and I'm bored, I'll find it. I don't limit my need to stir things up to any one subject.

[He watched the bob of By's throat and shifted a little to recline more on the bench, seeming entirely comfortable with the situation.]

Limitations are boring.

[vorrutyer]

[ By smiles easily in return. He fancies he knows what sort of trouble Rumlow gets up to, no matter that the fellow plays coy. A man who calls out on the network his intention to seduce a woman who clearly would have no interest in him - that's the sort of man that Byerly knows quite well. It's the sort of man he's destroyed, more than once. One of the few times he enjoyed his job.

Not to say that Rumlow is necessary in need of destruction. Plenty of men were assholes but weren't necessarily wicked. ]

You're a secretive fellow, aren't you, Rumlow? What do you do? Oh, this and that. What sort of trouble do you like? I'll find it when I want it. What's your first name? I'm not going to tell you that.

[ukase]

[He reached out and took back the bottle from By, swirling the contents in the glass container and looking up at the sky. He didn't care what people thought of his post; it had given him valuable information and that's what mattered.

He knew how to plan the next step of keeping his body parts in one place. It had also earned him a seat on a bench next to this guy, so it was a win-win in his books. Some jobs just required a certain risk.]

When you're working from the bottom up, information is the currency of elevation to a higher standard of living. Besides, people can't use against you what they don't know.

[vorrutyer]

[ With a cluck of his tongue - ]

Such paranoia.

[ The same paranoia that leads By to keep his own secrets. There's no Barrayaran Empire to spy for any longer - but that sure as hell doesn't mean that By's going to admit to being a spy. Better to make sure you can still surprise people, if necessity calls for it. ]

But paranoia can be counterproductive, my handsome fellow. Sometimes you gotta give to get.

[ukase]

[He had to chuckle at the idea that he was paranoid. In his line of work, it was a necessity to survival and keeping the secrets of his organization. Everything had to be said and acted with absolutely plausibility.

So yeah, maybe he was paranoid.]

And sometimes you know better than to give anything. Some people offer more of themselves when you play hard ball.

[vorrutyer]

Do I strike you as that sort of person, though?

[ By crosses his leg at the knee, his posture languid. ]

You aren't from my home, so you don't know my reputation, but I am famously lazy.

[ukase]

Underestimating anyone is a good way to earn a shiv from my experience.

[And he had placed many shivs in his time specifically for that reason. He had years upon years of practice keeping personal information to himself and dispatching others who might not have the same restraint.

Old habits died hard.]

Is that so? If you're so lazy, why bother to meet me here and shoot the breeze? We could just keep it to the network. Less work for you.

[vorrutyer]

Ah-ah.

[ By raises a cautioning finger. ]

Don't confuse laziness and idleness, dear fellow. I'm rarely idle. I'm always out seeking new pleasures. But lazy, yes. For example, nothing sounds more irritating and stressful and altogether beyond my interest than trying to dig some truth out of you. At least not without a guarantee that the truth'll be nice and juicy.

[ukase]

[Interesting, was all he could think as he watched By next to him.]

Where I'm from, laziness and idleness tend to go hand-in-hand. [It was all he said to that; it was an interesting call out to have, and he respected that.]

Well, it depends what kind of truth you personally find nice and juicy.

[vorrutyer]

[ And in response, Byerly smiles. He smiles quite a lot. He's as secretive as Rumlow, of course - he just passes it off as a vague silliness. ]

I love gossip. [ A winsome sigh. ] I love drama. Do you have anything dramatic?

[ukase]

[He kept his secrets closely guarded, but he suspected there were some in this place that wouldn't value that in him. They would likely spill the few secrets they knew in a heart beat if only to make themselves feel like they were doing something productive.

He snorted and set the bottle between them, taking a break from drinking. It wouldn't do well for him to get drunk after all. He knew what he was like.]

Definitely dramatic. Gossip... well, not much into that. I'm more of a straight shooter when it comes to stuff I've heard.

[vorrutyer]

Straight shooter? You? [ Laughing - ] M'sieur I-couldn't-answer-a-question-if-my-life-depended-upon-it?

[ukase]

You aren't asking the right questions, and I also don't know you well enough to trust you with the kind of information I'm carrying.

[Intrigue. Definitely. He had learned the hard way that telling anyone about what he was almost always ended up with them being thrown in a shallow grave. He learned to keep to himself.]

Besides, you wanna be my friend or just my drinking buddy?

[vorrutyer]

Why, friend, of course. I do like having friends, ever so much.

[ukase]

Oh yeah? And what kind of fun gossipy things do you do with your friends?

[He hoped there was something in there about Jessica, if only to troll her about it at a later date.]

[vorrutyer]

Ah. [ His smile broadens. ] That depends on the friend. Do you have one you're curious about?

[ukase]

I definitely am curious, but it's up to you what you decide to share, if at all. Let's me gauge what kinds of things we might do in our friendship.

[He grinned broadly and swept a hand through his hair, looking casual but as curious as his tone was.]

[vorrutyer]

Well, you're a prude, so we can't fuck. And obviously drinking is already happening. Have you ever been arrested?

[ukase]

[Rumlow snorted at being called a prude but decided it wasn't worth challenging.]

Yes, I have. You?