neverlands | more bob dylan; STORM FRONT part 1

"I'd stop workin' outdoors then, if I were you," Jez advises with an air of confidence without looking up from the little cigarette as he carefully rolls it between the thumbs and fingers of both hands. There's a moment of silence before he ducks his head to deftly run the edge of the carefully rolled cigarette across his tongue and inspects the result.

Seemingly happy with his handiwork he sets the first one on his left knee before picking up the second paper.

"Or, y'know. Invest in an umbrella."

"I've lost count of the number of umbrellas I've left in cars," Archie says, shifting from foot to foot. "After a while, you just give up. Fucking things do nothing in this wind anyway."

Archie eyes Jez's jacket with an appraising eye. "Maybe I'll just get a jacket like yours. Attract a different class of client with it."

"You should factor it in to your fee, maybe." The second little cigarette is likewise artfully rolled between fingers and thumbs as Jez muses aloud in reply. "Extra dollar for umbrella replacements, or something."

Work done, he tucks the little tin back in to a secret and voluminous pocket in the depths of his jacket and clamps the thinner of the two cigarettes between his own lips. He bows his head, now thankful for the bodily blockade that Archie has provided against the gusting wind, and raises two fingers to the end of the cigarette. A soft snap and a hiss and a spark springs in to life - not particularly impressive, but enough to light the smoke. Once done, he winces against the thin stream of smoke and murmurs glibly around the cigarette.

"Nah, mate. The kind of people who wear this jacket aren't the kind you want, trust me."

Jez straightens and presses the remaining cigarette in to Archie's hand and inclines his head to offer the lit end of his own - still clamped between his lips - for mutual lighting.

Archie watches Jez light the cigarette and resists the urge to step back. He doesn't know if he'll ever get used to that.

He places the cigarette between his lips and leans in, touching the end to the glow at the tip of Jez's cigarette. He's close enough to smell the marks of potions and charms now, that not-quite-there feeling in the air.

His cigarette lit, Archie steps away and leans back against the shop doorway. He inhales gleefully, sucking in the warmth and the tang of electricity in the air.

"Storm weather," he says.

Withdrawing his cigarette from his lips, Jez cups the thin smoke away from the rain that gets whipped into the little alcove behind the width of his palm as he clasps it gently between thumb and forefinger. He exhales a short, unimpressed little laugh as he plucks a stray tobacco shred from his lips with his off-hand.

"You gonna talk about the weather? Really?" His tone is more amused than accusing, but the look he casts sidelong at the man beside him is a little less impressed. "No wonder you're lackin' punters."

"They don't hire me for my conversation, darling," Archie says easily, eyes trained on a car as it rolls on past. Black Mercedes, private number plate, lone grey-haired man up front.

But it shows no sign of stopping, men reluctant to even roll down a window in this filth. Archie sighs and takes another drag.

"I defy you to summon stimulating conversation from this level of damp."

"By the looks of it they aren't hiring you for anything at all," Jez observes as the car rolls by, but offers Archie a companionable slap on the shoulder once it's out of sight. "You didn't want that one anyway."

The cigarette is replaced, inhaled thoughtfully, then removed once again so that Jeremiah can add as an afterthought, "I'm probably putting them off."

"Eh, you're all right," Archie says easily. It's quite nice to have some company on his street corner that isn't paying for it or trying to sell him something.

"The parlour's pretty steady. I can handle a few quiet nights."

"Oh, so you do have an inside post!" Jez smirks around his cigarette, suddenly assuming a faux air of melodramatic surprise - a theatrical overreaction made all the more over the top by the size of the little scrap of space the two men shared. "And there I was thinkin' all the whores outside of the east end were poor, homeless streetwalkers with no beds to call their own."

Archie laughs and favours Jez with a smile. "I'm not that bad yet," he says softly, as if trying not to bring a curse down on him. "At least I have some place to run when they chase me."

Jerking a drooping sleeve away from the fingers of one hand Jez pointedly reaches behind them both to brush his hand softly against the door at their backs: touch wood, as the old apotropaic magics dictated. He's seen the devastation wrecked upon the more unlucky - and less hardy - members of Archie and his brother's unofficial little tribe...

Still, Jeremiah isn't the kind to waste too much time worrying about things that might happen, but equally might not. Another suck on the smoke, then a brief raise of the eyebrows as he asks, "Who chase you? The filth?"

Archie makes each inch of the cigarette last, dragging it deep into his lungs.

"Mostly the bent ones," he says, kicking at the doorframe. "The fuckers always want something for nothing."

"You should get yourself some protection, then," Jez simply replies, as if ingratiating oneself in to a gang is just as easy as that. In his home territory back in the east end of the city he's done well enough to not have to resort to allying himself with any one gang - but in darting between all of them he's earned the trust of none of them.

"Costs you your independence, though."

Archie shrugs. He knows he operates on the wrong side of the law most days, but running with a gang is another thing altogether. He's seen the girls and boys that are owned by gang bosses - and what happens to them after.

"Costs most of your veins too," he says, mostly to himself and finishes the last of his cigarette.

"Well. Yeah, sometimes."

It's not as if Jez can particularly disagree, but it was just as they had talked about earlier: people don't get something for nothing.

"You've just got to be smart about it, that's all," he adds as an afterthought, subconsciously mimicking the other man's shrug but still not yet quite finished with his own cigarette. "Be useful, you know? That's what I do."

"Never did learn the trick of that," Archie says ruefully and smiles at Jez. "Cheers for the cigarette, darling."

He shrugs with one shoulder and reaches up to replace his cigarette between his lips with a quiet noise of nonchalant indifference. "S'just a fag," he eventually replies once the cigarette is idly removed again, only to turn towards the wood of the door behind them and stub it firmly out against the painted surface.

The question that comes next is seemingly out of the blue, but said in such a simple and conversational way that Jez could be asking what kind of shampoo the man uses.

"So how come you haven't propositioned me yet, anyway?"

Archie leans back against the door beside Jez and considers the question.

"I figured you wanted me for my sterling conversation," he says lightly. "And if you did want me, you might not be up for paying."

"You're right on that last part," Jez concedes with a smirk. It's not that he doesn't have money - Jeremiah's homelessness is a result of his own restlessness and a certain kind of satisfaction that he takes in managing to weasel his way in to various different people's houses in order to rob them blind - it's just that he doesn't like spending it. The thick roll of twenties in yet another secret pocket of the never-ending reaches of his jacket was testament to that - and testament of a successful night of wheeling and dealing. No, Jeremiah certainly has the money; what he lacks is the ability to part with it.

"Sterling conversation, though... You tried to tell me it was fucking raining and that you were gonna die at some point." Another smirk, wider this time. "You got a pretty mouth but your patter is shit."

Archie smiles, showing off his pretty mouth to good effect.

"There's a different class of whore you pay for conversation," he says, the critique sailing over his head. "My clientele aren't exactly enamoured with sugary words. They put my, uh, "pretty mouth" to better uses."

"Yeah. Well. Good luck with that."

Jez is looking back out in to the rainsoaked streets again, squinting in thought as he attempts to decide whether or not to continue the way he'd been heading. Unable to decide, he tuts aloud and reaches in to the depths of his jacket once again (yet another pocket, hidden yet again in some obscure level of the fabric) and finally produces a little compass after a moment or two of fishing around.

"You're not going to have a good night, by the way. I've just got a feeling," he says simply with his head bowed over the compass as he prises the lid open. "And my feelings are pretty good, too."

Archie watches the compass with an edge of nervousness, muscles tensing. He's getting very good at running.

"Maybe it's time for a change of career."

As if sensing the change in the other man's demeanour Jez casts an amused sideways glance at Archie and laughs huffily.

"I'm looking for somebody," he explains briefly before returning his gaze to examine the compass with a brief frown. He looks up, following the line of the arrow in to the murky darkness of the road but seems unimpressed with the results as he snaps the device shut again.

"That storm you were chattin' about earlier? You're right. Definitely bad news." Jez casts his eyes up to the heavens; despite his scoffing words earlier he's really just as worried about it as anyone else. "And yet... probably the least of our worries."

Bad things are on the horizon, Jez knows this for a fact, but he purses his lips against saying anything further and lets his words hang in the storm-pressed air between them.

Archie doesn't want to know what kind of bad thing it takes to worry a man like Jez.

"Time to get out of the rain then," he says, as lightly as he can. There's a club he works near the massage parlour, favoured by gang boys and bosses. Maybe it's time to look for inside work of a more reliable nature.

"Good plan." Jez pockets the compass again and deftly zips up the panels of the leather jacket against a fresh side-sweeping gust of wind that brings rain in to the little alcove. With a vague frown he pauses before stepping out to cast a long, heavy look at the other man.

"Watch yourself. It's not gonna be a normal storm."

more bob dylan; STORM FRONT part 1

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