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He makes a face at her. "Murder work as worst?"
God if that isn’t a real story tradition though: the first time you killed.
Arthur's cabin, when he opens the door, is a pretty shitty place. It's not as bad as it once was, but it's bare. The walls have cracks in them, the furniture (apart from the bed, which was put there by Misty) is rickety. There's a map on his wall and a journal on his desk; a few pictures and books on a cabinet.
He isn't self-conscious about it. He just steps back and gestures at the spare chair next to the desk.
"Drink?"
"I don't wanna sound maudlin," he grumbles, elbows on the table. "I did plenty of dumb shit, but it ain't the dumb shit I think about at night."
"Sure, I'll take you up on that. This is Tess's, by the way--"
If she's supposed to have it, which he isn't going to question aloud; if Arthur isn't surprised that'll be enough of an answer. He pulls the confiscated gun out of his pocket, checking the safety by habit before he leans forward to set it down on the desk.
He's halfway through getting out a bottle of whisky when he sees the gun on the table, and he looks slowly out at Yunlan.
"Did she shoot someone?"
She definitely has permission to have that gun - you have an outlaw from 1899 to thank for that - but he doesn't like the idea that she did something with it that wasn't self-defense.
"Maybe that's for the best," he says, with a tight little smile at her. They are recovering from something of a spat, after all.
"What she was out there doing was collecting psychoactive blood from one of our resident vampires. Has anyone explained the vampire blood thing to you yet?"
"What? No- what the fuck?"
That seems like an appropriate response. He puts the gun in a holster of his own and sits down, just handing Yunlan the bottle. The occasion calls for it.
"So. One of the kinds of vampire here has blood that can get you high. Side effects apparently include getting addicted the first time you try the shit, plus a psychic bond so the vampire whose blood you taste gets to know how you're feeling for the rest of your life.
"I ran across Tess helping a vampire friend of mine clean blood off his face after a little mishap... and she insisted on keeping the handkerchief with the blood on it. I had to frisk her to get the fucking thing, which is incidentally why I decided to hang onto her gun until I could drop it off with you."
Tess not being notably fond of frisking.
He doesn't even start with a drink. He just rubs his hands over his face as he takes that in, wondering how he'd missed that, shocked that she's doing this.
"Fuck. I gave her that gun, but if she's gonna do shit like that - maybe I can't trust her with it. Addictive blood?"
Alcohol and cigarettes, he can live with, they're all grown-ups. Heroin and vampire blood he'd rather keep under stricter control.
He looks at it and wrinkles his nose before shaking his head again. What else can he say?
He's out of his depth here, he feels. "Thank you for comin' to me. I'll talk to her. You didn't put her in Zero or somethin', did you?"
"I'd appreciate you talking to her." He nods, sets the bottle on the desk, and glances at Arthur with a quirk of amusement at the corner of his mouth. "Tell her she can bootleg the less hard stuff all she wants, but let's not get anyone hooked on body fluids."
He grunts in annoyance - not at Yunlan, but at Tess getting up to things she's clearly too smart to be getting involved in.
He takes the bottle, and takes a swig before replying. The comment about the bootleg makes him feel a little unsettled - does he really know, or is he just guessing?
"Don't want her bootlegging the less hard stuff either," he settles on. "That's the kinda shit she got up to back home, no need for it here."
He leans back in the chair, smiling easily. "I don't envy you your job. She's sharp."
"And I, apparently, have lost my edge," he complains. Not because he didn't know about the bootlegging - but he found out around the same time Yunlan did. In London. And he had no idea about this.
"I like her. I know she's gonna make it outta here. But she keeps goin' back to what she knows."
He raps his fingertips against the desk. "Well! That's about all I needed to tell you -- unless you've got any questions I can answer?"
Arthur nods, satisfied as he can be with all of this going on.
"Thanks for takin' it up with me directly. Feel free to take that bottle."
As Arthur had felt free to take it from the Lounge.
He shakes Yunlan's hand, sees him out - and then calls Tess.
He almost never calls.
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