[LOG] With the fall...
Even midday this time of year takes no prisoners. There isn't so much heat yet since the sun has only had so much time out, but the humidity is more than enough to make up for it. For most, indoors is the only option for escape and pity any of the population whose job takes them outside. Dragonriders have it tough as well, especially the ones with the weyrs so high up their noses threaten to bleed. Like K'aus's. It only gets hotter further up, but luckily his home is shielded by the sun and by most of the heat by the outcrop of rock above the ledge and the thick blanket of heavy curtain spread across the entrance. Ehrudith is dozing outside of that, his great head tipped over onto its side.
June has been out in that unfriendly humidity for a while, from the look of her, as she's helped down from the young blue on transport duty today. Ehrudith will have gotten a short warning of someone coming and now he gets a smile of greeting, a hasty nod from the redhead that someone turned out to be, though the rider and dragon pair both remain coolly indifferent to the brown's presence. Once she's steadily grounded, a round-bellied basket is handed down to her and then, job completed, the rider and his mount prepare their departure. June protects her hair with a covering hand as the wing-spawned wind whips at her curls and stands eyeing the heavy, drawn curtain. After a hesitant moment, she clears her throat delicately and addresses Ehrudith, "Have you let him know I'm here yet?" She watches him expectantly, as if for a response, for only a short few seconds before she drops her eyes and, over a puff of silent laughter, shakes her head lightly. Back to waiting.
Indeed, there was a warning. Ehrudith's weary response is the opening of one eye to regard the approaching blue. He doesn't bother to move, the other dragon is small enough to fit. But when he sees who the passenger is he rouses himself further, even going so far as to adjust into a more appropriate sprawl than before. Some exchange must occur between the two dragons for Ehrudith's regard is there briefly, then on June when she stands there alone. Neither curtain nor brown dragon budge, but she might be surprised when her question does indeed earn a response. It comes in a low rumbling like very heavy rocks shifting and a tapping of his taloned finger near her. A second later the curtain does move, K'aus, in boxer shorts and a loose short-sleeved shirt, sweeping it open with one arm and lifting an eyebrow at what he finds. June and a basket. It could be he's had stranger things happen to him. After a moment, "Well that makes sense." He steps aside, widening the opening and silently offering her in. /He/ still looks awful, there's still an ugly bruising around his eye and the cuts on his lip and cheek, his other hand is pressed to the ribs on the opposite side as if he could hold them together from out here; one of its fingers is splinted.
June's gaze darts away from that tapping talon and the brown to which it's attached as soon as the curtain moves and then roves over K'aus and the various injuries he presents, cautiously curious as if he were some contorted anomaly at just another of Ista's sideshows. "What does?" she inquires just as her look meets his eye again and she starts forward to accept the offer of entry. Once in, she finds her way across to the bar and leaves the basket atop it, freeing her hands to smarten her heat-tossed appearance. A hair-smoothing and forhead-swiping later, she plants a hand on her hip and sighs lightly.
He doesn't form a reply until she's inside and, with a look exchanged with the dragon standing sentry on the ledge, he follows. The curtain closes behind them with subtle movement. K'aus is limping still, it's a limp that carries him slowly after her but he stops short of actually following her to the bar. Her brief ritual is allowed to go uninterrupted, it's only after she sighs that he says, "You being here with a basket." Of course. The couch is near to him so he leans his hip on it and takes a careful breath. "If this is the part where I ask you what you're doing here then okay, I give. What're you doing here."
When he mentions it, June drops a look at the basket, considering it while he finishes. "I ran into the girl who was bringing you food, thought I'd save her the trouble since I was headed up here anyway. Not that you're trouble," she gives it a half-hearted attempt, the other half dry sarcasm. Still without an explanation, she returns her gaze to him and orders, "Sit down. Lay down. Whatever you need to do. You look like you'd crumble if I touched you." Which she has no plans of doing. Her eyes drop away, sweep the interior of his cave while she finally pulls out that explanation he was asking after. "A guy. I knew him once, I guess you could say, and he's trouble. He was at the tavern last night."
There goes the eyebrow again. Even when she adds that he isn't, maybe K'aus she was right about the trouble thing. And of course it would be her telling him to do everything but that would inspire him to cross the weyr (cave) and approach her and the basket with a lingering look at the former before he turns to investigate the latter. He's in the middle of rooting through the contents one-handed when she comes to the issue of her visit, an issue that pauses him, watching her again. A tension forms between his brows and angles them over his suddenly very intense gaze. "He... /is/ trouble. Not was." Now instead he uses both hands to ready them both a drink, and hands her a glass half-full of clear brown alcochol. She might be talking during this.
"Is." June confirms it easily, adding after a moment, "In general." She leans a hip against her corner of the bar and rests an elbow on it, watching him and his preparations idly. "Though he was once, too. That's not the point. He's here now and he's made me think I need to... take some precaution. Not that I expect you to help just now." A gesture emcompasses his injuries and broader situation, then drops to the glass he's offering, her fingers just curling it to her unsipped for now. "But. I need a knife." Her eyes drop to the side for a thoughtful second, then return. "Several. Maybe. And," she utters with a concluding tone, "for some reason I thought you might know a little bit about what I need." The corner of her mouth grows pointed, a half-hint of a smile at his expense.
In there, at 'just now', K'aus gives her a pointed look like 'hey'. Just never you mind all these ouchies, he's obviously still in prime protecting condition. When she has her drink he takes his and while she might want to delay the first sip he finds no reason to agree. Half the glass is emptied in a few swallows, the sound he makes after a rough but pleased one. She's at her smile by then so he looks at her evenly and presses his mouth into that line she knows so well as if in spite of it. She should get ready for something like a lecture. "You need a knife but you don't need me, which leads me to think you need /several/ knives, maybe even seven of them. Which makes me think maybe you plan on taking care of this guy by yourself. Selves. Which goes against our agreement." Pause. "Who is this guy," he has to wonder, that would have June of all people seeking weapons.
A lecture. It drives June to drink. Or at least to take a drink, her huff of breath muffled into the glass as she indulges in her first sip. "A former client," she answers without hesitation on the swallowing end of that sip, "and not one of the good ones. I'd introduce you, but I doubt he'd accept the invitation to this little cave here and, well." K'aus isn't leaving this little cave of his. Another drink is slipped in, only a brief pause before she continues, "You being locked up here, however good the reason..." She's made no secret of her disapproval for his recent erratic behavior toward unsuspecting sailors, but neither has she just come out and spoken it like that. "Doesn't exactly work with our arrangement."
"Hey I'm not locked up." Cue a futile gesture with his glass at the curtain. See? No doors, no locks. She doesn't need to know he's under certain orders, and even if she did know /that/ she also knows he'd disobey them in a heartbeat. She isn't getting out of this one so easily. "So he's a client and he won't be visiting. I get that. But whether or not I'm stuck up here right now, that says nothing for tomorrow." He takes a sip, swallows. "Or the day after." Another gesture with his glass. "In fact I see plenty of days in my future where I'm not here anymore. So what's this guy look like, what's his name. I'm guessing he isn't from around here." There is a casualness in the way K'aus is asking these questions, in the way he's been behaving about this whole troublesome ex-client business, that suggests he isn't that concerned. Afterall, it's just some riled guy. Right?
"Fine," June relents, tilting both her head and her glass at him gently along with the allowance. "You can... do whatever it is you do." Free reign given, she lifts a sip to her lips then sets the glass aside, unfinished, crossing her arms in its absence. "But until you can get out of your hole, I still think I should find some knives for us. Just in case." A beat is allowed for that point to percolate, then she informs, "The guy is... He's tall, lean build, darker hair," she begins, her eyes wandering off into a remembering blankness as she recounts the details of some riled ex-client. "Handsome guy, too handsome for anyone's good. Strong, square features, you know the sort. His name... I don't remember so much. Ku-something? Maybe I've blocked it out." A moment later her attention returns to the here and now on the fall of a shrug and her eyes go to meet his.
There was a grudging allowance in the lifted eyebrows and quirked mouth of a moment ago, if June wants knives K'aus can give her knives. In fact there might have even been an instant compliance, his keeping up on his end of this new deal they have, some moving for some hidden cache of weapons somewhere, but it never happens. Nothing happens in fact, and when she's returned from her memories and is looking at him she'll see him staring back at her with the most blank rendition of a dark and growing anger. Maybe if she'd stopped at the description, maybe if she'd only given him the vague recollection of a name, maybe if it had only been one or the other of those things, he wouldn't be teetering on the border between suspicion and dreaded realization. In a flat voice, "It wouldn't happen to be Kozec would it."
June blinks, her words coming slowly. "It sounds familiar... yeah. You know this guy?" she demands. That's the cue for her own suspicion, shored up by sudden presumptions of cahoots or collusion, and June's brows slip gradually downward into a frowning set.
There's a problem with the combination of being kind-of strong and really tense, if you're not paying attention it can have startling results. So while he might not be able to actually /reply/ to her, K'aus gives June her answer by clenching his glass so hard that suddenly a large piece of it breaks and his thumb slips into the new gap and he curses, "Shit," and drops the thing spitefully on the bar so he can inspect his soon-bleeding hand.
June starts at the snap of the glass, her eyes dropping to it immediately. "... the fuck," she utters low under her breath, anticipating the ooze of blood and rousing herself to action sooner than K'aus himself. There's got to be a towel or scrap of rag somewhere in this bar and she peers over the counter, slides open a drawer, then another before she finds one and whips it out. A corner is wrapped around the thumb when she brushes in to interrupt his inspection. "Press on it," she tells him, giving him an example with her own firm grip before she and her hand retreat back to a waiting, cross-armed pose, inquisitive peering lifted from the makeshift bandage to his face.
While June is making herself actually useful, K'aus bleeds on himself and mutters a string of profanity that would frighten some people. Who knew some of those words even existed. Surely they shouldn't. Focusing on her face when she takes care of his situation and watching her intently even while she's pulling away, he numbly obeys her and really fucking presses on it. There is a smear of blood on his shirt, his other hand is smudged here and there; what a mess. He's since been staring down at the makeshift bandaging and the dark red and taking deep breaths. Eventually he takes one more and heaves it out. "It's gonna be okay."
Wherever he's looking, June watches his face, all but staring, her faint frown dropping back into place gradually as his silence goes on and on. Not that what he says does anything to ease the expression away. She doesn't really respond to it, she just directs them right on back to the topic they broke away from. "So who the fuck is this guy to you?" she wants to know, voice calmly steeled.
There's no way out of this without pissing her off or telling her too much and K'aus is slowly coming to realize that. Still, he stalls and stalls, not daring to look at her because what if the tone in her voice is on her face as well? His eyes search the empty space they stare into for something, anything, he's good at getting out of things, this is just another thing. But ultimately there really isn't any other choice that would work as well as the truth, maybe not even the whole truth, and he rests his elbows on the bar with his hands above his head and leans his forehead into his wrist. "He killed a girl."
Nothing much changes with June, when he shares that snapshot of truth. If he'd look, he'd find the same closed-off stance, the same deepened frown, though it's no longer directed at him, her eyes passing a glassy, wide stare over his hunched shoulders. "He killed..." she repeats, vacantly whispered while the realization sinks in. There's an audible catch in her next deep breath and then the air comes rushing out of her desperately. Anxiety seeps all the way to her feet and sparks a few paces that turn her back on him, though not completely. "He was... sniffing around Valenia, and he... I /knew/ he was rough, but..." The fragmented narrative musings trail off and it's then that doubts like weeds begin to infiltrate her immediate belief. With a pivot she brings her gaze back to him and asks, "How do you even know this?"
June is allowed her fragments, she's allowed everything sinking in with no pressure or forcing from him. She'll know eventually or she won't, K'aus is only giving up all control of this, for this, and having a very small breakdown there on the bar. Don't mind him. His eyes close on Valenia's name as if he should have seen that coming and now regrets that he didn't. She won't have to wait long for her answer. "I can't tell you. I just... know."
"You just know," June echoes, clearly dissatisfied with that response, though quietly so. But it's all she's going to get out of him, even she can see that, so she abandons her displeasure and returns to a more demanding worry. "This isn't... it isn't the normal sort of trouble, K'aus. I don't think you should handle this on your own. I'm going to go to Loe, ask for the Weyr's protection." Not that she's about to run out on him and do that right now, she's standing her ground and staring down the back of his head.
After those past few moments spent in hiding, K'aus comes out from behind his arms and straightens with a wince that slows his roll a little. He gives his hand a quick glance to make sure it isn't oozing past the rag and then takes a breath. "You're right." That was easy. Too easy, as he demonstrates. "You could go to Loe and tell her there's a man here who did something bad. And she might believe you. And maybe even Fayre and the kid would believe you. And then what, they kick him out? Send him somewhere else? Do you think the people who loved the girl he killed didn't try telling someone?" All casual conversation, this, while he moves finally to leave the bar, to go to the dresser.
June turns her face aside as he goes on, throwing her gaze and the sour moue her mouth has become into stark profile. She can't resist tracking his movement, though; when he goes her eyes follow and eventually she has to pull her chin up again to see where he's going. "You have an alternative." There's question in her voice, sure, but the scales are tipped to the side of flat epiphany.
"I'm not sure yet. He wants to be a bad man and as luck would have it, I have a notable amount of practice in the field." One might guess he'd be going for one of the drawers; no, K'aus lowers himself carefully to his knees and leans his shoulder into the hulking piece of wood and after being very stubborn it slides across the uneven floor an inch at a time, making an awful noise the whole way. There's something behind it, as more is revealed it proves itself to be a crevice, a hole in the wall large enough to contain the trunk that he pulls loose and drags out into the open. He reaches under the corner of the nearby rug for the key to the lock and once it's opened he begins taking things from it. Long things wrapped in cloth.
June looks on with a faintly disturbed curiosity, brows hovering at a confused level between high surprise and low reproach. But she doesn't move to hinder or help, she doesn't move at all until she sees what comes out of that trunk. Then her steps draw her along nearly the same path he took earlier, and while she goes she voices one objection. "I don't want you getting yourself killed over this." When she reaches him, she hovers nearby, close enough to view the items he pulls from that wrapping cloth but not enough to touch them.
Her concern is met at first with silence, K'aus busying himself with setting those long bundles out, one by one, one next to the other. They're all the same size within an inch or two either way, the longest one as long as June's forearm and the smallest maybe three inches shorter than that. There are four of them when he's done, and three more that are much smaller, about as long as a kitchen knife. He settles back on his heels and looks at them arranged on the floor and then up at June. "I die, he dies." After holding her gaze for a sober moment after he beckons her down with his good hand, which isn't all that good with the splinted finger. But still. Whether or not she's going to join him on the floor, he's unwrapping a bundle to show her it's a knife. A sharp, shiny knife that he hands to by its blade.
June seems far from soothed by his theory of death as a means to an end, and she meets his sober gaze while letting out a hot breath. She allows him to distract her with the knife, though; she untucks her arms and sinks onto a spot of the floor next to him, her kneel concealed by the pool of skirts around her. Her grasp as she takes the handle speaks to the fact that she's used to holding a knife, at least, if not using one. She examines it seriously, moving the blade to glint this way, then that, then tells him, "Too big. We have knives when we're at the tavern, we need something portable." Gingerly, she takes the blade by its blunt edge and returns it to him.
And he watches her calmly, unmoved while she settles, then while she examines the knife. As if he's done this plenty of times before, with her, and this is all perfectly normal, regardless of what's actually going on in his head. When the weapon is deemed unfitting he takes it back like an appeasing salesman and flips the wrap over it. Since most of the others are of the same size he neglects them and goes right for the smaller brand. This next one he shows her would do the trick. Their closeness is intimate, the knife held between them, and K'aus tilts his head a little. When he speaks it's in a low, secret murmur, just for them. "Tell your girls to aim for the belly, it'll be a bigger target and it'll bleed more."
June's fingers curl around the new blade and she nods over the different feel, the lightness of it before looking back up at him. She's tranquil during all of it, but her voice reveals just how much control is keeping her that way; it's an agitated tone, cruel and hot, ill-fitted to her high voice, that encompasses what might have otherwise come off as a joke. "And it has the added advantage of being close to his dick if you slip." Dropping her gaze, she flips the knife into a stabbing hold and out again before going to return it to him. "You have seven of those?"
K'aus's eyes wander. No matter the context, the thought of knife and dick... Luckily he has her next move to distract him, and it does, and maybe not in the good way. A woman who's just mentioned cutting into someone's junk should not then be wielding a sharp object so very near to your own. He's only too happy to take it back from her and give a quick, "No." Because there are just three there on the floor, alone once he replaces the larger bundles. "But I'm a man of many resources," he adds confidently, sliding a glance sideways, "I think I can acquire four more."
June leans forward a bit in her kneel, planting palms on the stone floor while she utters, "Okay," in a pondering tone. She delays a moment longer, head turned to the side as she runs her eyes over the three little knives left out. "Get me four more, then," she tells him decisively afterward. "And sheaths and straps for all of them. I'll reimburse you," she promises matter-of-factly, raising her gaze again.
Four more. And sheaths and straps. K'aus takes this down mentally and is nodding along up until she reaches the part about repayment. Another glance over, this one sharper and it lasts longer, not at all brief. "No, you worked for that money." And nevermind that some of it she might have given him could very well have been his. "Besides," and with he turns back to the task of closing the trunk and locking it, leaving the little knifes out, "I've been saving up for this." He shoves it back into its hole and with an uttered word of pain stands. June will have to gather her new toys herself, he only has the one hand anyway. Speaking of, he's plucking the rag away from his palm to look at it. The bleeding's stopped, the cut must have been shallow. Without a care he tosses the blood-stained square of cloth over his shoulder and leaves it.
A protest is readied on the tip of June's tongue, but she bites down on it when he adds what he adds and watches him mutely instead. She'll follow him in standing eventually, but only after she's interrupted her probing gaze long enough to gather what's now become hers. One knife, two knife, three, all bundled, and then she's up. He's the subject of another scrutinizing look, but that can't continue while she takes a stab with her next question, so she drops it to the knife wrapping as she pulls it tighter, makes sure the knives won't fall out. "Who was she?" Kept weightless as possible considering the situation, her question might as well be about the fabric her fingers fiddle with. Once it's out there, it's safe to look up again, but June does it slowly, carefully all the same.
While she fusses he begins to move further away, perhaps his intention is the bar or something, his shuffling limp is aiming him there. He makes it a few steps before she asks her question. Maybe she will notice that he falters, a pause of sorts, before recovering and acting like nothing happened and, following her lead, as if this is a very easy thing to talk about. Because it must seem as though it is. K'aus does reach the bar to find the bottle they left there and since he ruined his glass and it's too much trouble getting another one he just drinks straight from that. "She was just some harper, she was young I think."
While she fusses he begins to move further away, perhaps his intention is the bar or something, his shuffling limp is aiming him there. He makes it a few steps before she asks her question. Maybe she will notice that he falters, a pause of sorts, before recovering and acting like nothing happened and, following her lead, as if this is a very easy thing to talk about. Because it must seem as though it is. K'aus does reach the bar to find the bottle they left there and since he ruined his glass and it's too much trouble getting another one he just drinks straight from that. "She was just some harper, she was young I think."
June puzzles. She puzzles over that pause her attentive eye catches, puzzles over her her missed mark, puzzles over whether it was missed at all. But if that's all he wants to give her, she lets it stand unchallenged, in the end. Easing back from the searching squint, she nods. "I'm going to let you get back to healing," she informs him, letting a hand trail over the back of the couch now that her readjusting is finally finished. "Call me a ride?"
He gives her one of those tight-lipped smiles and holds his cut hand up like ha, very funny. Next he busies himself with aimlessly searching the bar for bits of the glass to clean up and even finds some to throw into the broken belly of the glass itself. Among this he tells her, "Done." That easily. Not so quick to let her actually leave though, even though they probably have a moment or two together before her ride does come and thanks for Ehrudith being out there to alert them, K'aus wanders back over to where she stands and stops perhaps uncomfortably close. Given their history, perhaps not. The touch he aims to her cheek is aborted when his hand comes into view and he turns it away from her, giving it a frustrated glance before dropping it and settling with meeting her eyes. "It's gonna be okay, June." And, quickly on its heels, "Hey slip me a little tongue would you please, I haven't gotten laid in like a year up here."
June holds her ground no matter how close he comes, moving only to tip her chin slightly to maintain eye contact with him. For his aborted touch she has just a dart of a glance and a sympathetic curl of a smile, which passes through a moment of limbo only to emerge a bit stronger in response to his request for a kiss. A meager, dry levity works its way into her words as she draws closer, her cut-free, splint-free hand conforming to the curve of his neck. "Just don't tell anyone you got a freebie. I have knives now," she warns. She pauses a breath's distance from him, flicks her eyes to meet his for only a second, then nudges her mouth onto his. She could be thinking of it as his last from the kind of heat she pours into it, using even the press of her body to pull him into the effect of it all. She even treats him to a gentle scrape of teeth across his lower lip at the end, just before she pulls back and lifts her lashes to look at him again. "Good enough?" she wants to know, though an assurance in her tone says she's pretty sure it is.
The narrowing of his eyes is her answer: he'll be quiet about it. And there's a little curve to his mouth when she takes it, right before, and then there's just warm, his eyes gone closed and the less wounded of his two hands finding her hip when she presses, because she presses, because maybe he's a little surprised by the intensity and because maybe he gets why it's there. She shouldn't need to ask at the end, the noise he makes, desperate and needful, somewhere in there is a dead giveaway. All too soon she's pulling away and he's relishing every second she toys with his lip with a wince. She may have found a sore spot; he may have liked it. Answer: "Mm." And more, he looking into her eyes with his half-closed, his mouth opening-- Whatever meaningful thing he was about to say, and it would have been, is replaced smoothly with, "Your ride's here." Indeed there is a sound of wings and paws outside on the ledge.
June tilts an ear toward the ledge when he alerts her of the transport's arrival and so is there waiting for the sound when it does come. Her hand slips down, skimming his chest on its way back to her side as, presence confirmed, she turns back. "You'll let me know what happens?" she wants to know before she goes, though she's poised to do just that.
"Probably not," K'aus answers honestly, but he knows June and after considering he adds, "Maybe." Because that is a lot better. "Have fun with your knives." And that really isn't.
It isn't ideal, but it will have to do. June squints at him, flattens her lips at him, all for the span of a blink, then answers with a simple, "Will do," and turns to go. He'll see her roll her shoulders gently and toss on a careless little smile before she steps out onto the ledge and is obscured by the curtain that falls closed after her.
June has been out in that unfriendly humidity for a while, from the look of her, as she's helped down from the young blue on transport duty today. Ehrudith will have gotten a short warning of someone coming and now he gets a smile of greeting, a hasty nod from the redhead that someone turned out to be, though the rider and dragon pair both remain coolly indifferent to the brown's presence. Once she's steadily grounded, a round-bellied basket is handed down to her and then, job completed, the rider and his mount prepare their departure. June protects her hair with a covering hand as the wing-spawned wind whips at her curls and stands eyeing the heavy, drawn curtain. After a hesitant moment, she clears her throat delicately and addresses Ehrudith, "Have you let him know I'm here yet?" She watches him expectantly, as if for a response, for only a short few seconds before she drops her eyes and, over a puff of silent laughter, shakes her head lightly. Back to waiting.
Indeed, there was a warning. Ehrudith's weary response is the opening of one eye to regard the approaching blue. He doesn't bother to move, the other dragon is small enough to fit. But when he sees who the passenger is he rouses himself further, even going so far as to adjust into a more appropriate sprawl than before. Some exchange must occur between the two dragons for Ehrudith's regard is there briefly, then on June when she stands there alone. Neither curtain nor brown dragon budge, but she might be surprised when her question does indeed earn a response. It comes in a low rumbling like very heavy rocks shifting and a tapping of his taloned finger near her. A second later the curtain does move, K'aus, in boxer shorts and a loose short-sleeved shirt, sweeping it open with one arm and lifting an eyebrow at what he finds. June and a basket. It could be he's had stranger things happen to him. After a moment, "Well that makes sense." He steps aside, widening the opening and silently offering her in. /He/ still looks awful, there's still an ugly bruising around his eye and the cuts on his lip and cheek, his other hand is pressed to the ribs on the opposite side as if he could hold them together from out here; one of its fingers is splinted.
June's gaze darts away from that tapping talon and the brown to which it's attached as soon as the curtain moves and then roves over K'aus and the various injuries he presents, cautiously curious as if he were some contorted anomaly at just another of Ista's sideshows. "What does?" she inquires just as her look meets his eye again and she starts forward to accept the offer of entry. Once in, she finds her way across to the bar and leaves the basket atop it, freeing her hands to smarten her heat-tossed appearance. A hair-smoothing and forhead-swiping later, she plants a hand on her hip and sighs lightly.
He doesn't form a reply until she's inside and, with a look exchanged with the dragon standing sentry on the ledge, he follows. The curtain closes behind them with subtle movement. K'aus is limping still, it's a limp that carries him slowly after her but he stops short of actually following her to the bar. Her brief ritual is allowed to go uninterrupted, it's only after she sighs that he says, "You being here with a basket." Of course. The couch is near to him so he leans his hip on it and takes a careful breath. "If this is the part where I ask you what you're doing here then okay, I give. What're you doing here."
When he mentions it, June drops a look at the basket, considering it while he finishes. "I ran into the girl who was bringing you food, thought I'd save her the trouble since I was headed up here anyway. Not that you're trouble," she gives it a half-hearted attempt, the other half dry sarcasm. Still without an explanation, she returns her gaze to him and orders, "Sit down. Lay down. Whatever you need to do. You look like you'd crumble if I touched you." Which she has no plans of doing. Her eyes drop away, sweep the interior of his cave while she finally pulls out that explanation he was asking after. "A guy. I knew him once, I guess you could say, and he's trouble. He was at the tavern last night."
There goes the eyebrow again. Even when she adds that he isn't, maybe K'aus she was right about the trouble thing. And of course it would be her telling him to do everything but that would inspire him to cross the weyr (cave) and approach her and the basket with a lingering look at the former before he turns to investigate the latter. He's in the middle of rooting through the contents one-handed when she comes to the issue of her visit, an issue that pauses him, watching her again. A tension forms between his brows and angles them over his suddenly very intense gaze. "He... /is/ trouble. Not was." Now instead he uses both hands to ready them both a drink, and hands her a glass half-full of clear brown alcochol. She might be talking during this.
"Is." June confirms it easily, adding after a moment, "In general." She leans a hip against her corner of the bar and rests an elbow on it, watching him and his preparations idly. "Though he was once, too. That's not the point. He's here now and he's made me think I need to... take some precaution. Not that I expect you to help just now." A gesture emcompasses his injuries and broader situation, then drops to the glass he's offering, her fingers just curling it to her unsipped for now. "But. I need a knife." Her eyes drop to the side for a thoughtful second, then return. "Several. Maybe. And," she utters with a concluding tone, "for some reason I thought you might know a little bit about what I need." The corner of her mouth grows pointed, a half-hint of a smile at his expense.
In there, at 'just now', K'aus gives her a pointed look like 'hey'. Just never you mind all these ouchies, he's obviously still in prime protecting condition. When she has her drink he takes his and while she might want to delay the first sip he finds no reason to agree. Half the glass is emptied in a few swallows, the sound he makes after a rough but pleased one. She's at her smile by then so he looks at her evenly and presses his mouth into that line she knows so well as if in spite of it. She should get ready for something like a lecture. "You need a knife but you don't need me, which leads me to think you need /several/ knives, maybe even seven of them. Which makes me think maybe you plan on taking care of this guy by yourself. Selves. Which goes against our agreement." Pause. "Who is this guy," he has to wonder, that would have June of all people seeking weapons.
A lecture. It drives June to drink. Or at least to take a drink, her huff of breath muffled into the glass as she indulges in her first sip. "A former client," she answers without hesitation on the swallowing end of that sip, "and not one of the good ones. I'd introduce you, but I doubt he'd accept the invitation to this little cave here and, well." K'aus isn't leaving this little cave of his. Another drink is slipped in, only a brief pause before she continues, "You being locked up here, however good the reason..." She's made no secret of her disapproval for his recent erratic behavior toward unsuspecting sailors, but neither has she just come out and spoken it like that. "Doesn't exactly work with our arrangement."
"Hey I'm not locked up." Cue a futile gesture with his glass at the curtain. See? No doors, no locks. She doesn't need to know he's under certain orders, and even if she did know /that/ she also knows he'd disobey them in a heartbeat. She isn't getting out of this one so easily. "So he's a client and he won't be visiting. I get that. But whether or not I'm stuck up here right now, that says nothing for tomorrow." He takes a sip, swallows. "Or the day after." Another gesture with his glass. "In fact I see plenty of days in my future where I'm not here anymore. So what's this guy look like, what's his name. I'm guessing he isn't from around here." There is a casualness in the way K'aus is asking these questions, in the way he's been behaving about this whole troublesome ex-client business, that suggests he isn't that concerned. Afterall, it's just some riled guy. Right?
"Fine," June relents, tilting both her head and her glass at him gently along with the allowance. "You can... do whatever it is you do." Free reign given, she lifts a sip to her lips then sets the glass aside, unfinished, crossing her arms in its absence. "But until you can get out of your hole, I still think I should find some knives for us. Just in case." A beat is allowed for that point to percolate, then she informs, "The guy is... He's tall, lean build, darker hair," she begins, her eyes wandering off into a remembering blankness as she recounts the details of some riled ex-client. "Handsome guy, too handsome for anyone's good. Strong, square features, you know the sort. His name... I don't remember so much. Ku-something? Maybe I've blocked it out." A moment later her attention returns to the here and now on the fall of a shrug and her eyes go to meet his.
There was a grudging allowance in the lifted eyebrows and quirked mouth of a moment ago, if June wants knives K'aus can give her knives. In fact there might have even been an instant compliance, his keeping up on his end of this new deal they have, some moving for some hidden cache of weapons somewhere, but it never happens. Nothing happens in fact, and when she's returned from her memories and is looking at him she'll see him staring back at her with the most blank rendition of a dark and growing anger. Maybe if she'd stopped at the description, maybe if she'd only given him the vague recollection of a name, maybe if it had only been one or the other of those things, he wouldn't be teetering on the border between suspicion and dreaded realization. In a flat voice, "It wouldn't happen to be Kozec would it."
June blinks, her words coming slowly. "It sounds familiar... yeah. You know this guy?" she demands. That's the cue for her own suspicion, shored up by sudden presumptions of cahoots or collusion, and June's brows slip gradually downward into a frowning set.
There's a problem with the combination of being kind-of strong and really tense, if you're not paying attention it can have startling results. So while he might not be able to actually /reply/ to her, K'aus gives June her answer by clenching his glass so hard that suddenly a large piece of it breaks and his thumb slips into the new gap and he curses, "Shit," and drops the thing spitefully on the bar so he can inspect his soon-bleeding hand.
June starts at the snap of the glass, her eyes dropping to it immediately. "... the fuck," she utters low under her breath, anticipating the ooze of blood and rousing herself to action sooner than K'aus himself. There's got to be a towel or scrap of rag somewhere in this bar and she peers over the counter, slides open a drawer, then another before she finds one and whips it out. A corner is wrapped around the thumb when she brushes in to interrupt his inspection. "Press on it," she tells him, giving him an example with her own firm grip before she and her hand retreat back to a waiting, cross-armed pose, inquisitive peering lifted from the makeshift bandage to his face.
While June is making herself actually useful, K'aus bleeds on himself and mutters a string of profanity that would frighten some people. Who knew some of those words even existed. Surely they shouldn't. Focusing on her face when she takes care of his situation and watching her intently even while she's pulling away, he numbly obeys her and really fucking presses on it. There is a smear of blood on his shirt, his other hand is smudged here and there; what a mess. He's since been staring down at the makeshift bandaging and the dark red and taking deep breaths. Eventually he takes one more and heaves it out. "It's gonna be okay."
Wherever he's looking, June watches his face, all but staring, her faint frown dropping back into place gradually as his silence goes on and on. Not that what he says does anything to ease the expression away. She doesn't really respond to it, she just directs them right on back to the topic they broke away from. "So who the fuck is this guy to you?" she wants to know, voice calmly steeled.
There's no way out of this without pissing her off or telling her too much and K'aus is slowly coming to realize that. Still, he stalls and stalls, not daring to look at her because what if the tone in her voice is on her face as well? His eyes search the empty space they stare into for something, anything, he's good at getting out of things, this is just another thing. But ultimately there really isn't any other choice that would work as well as the truth, maybe not even the whole truth, and he rests his elbows on the bar with his hands above his head and leans his forehead into his wrist. "He killed a girl."
Nothing much changes with June, when he shares that snapshot of truth. If he'd look, he'd find the same closed-off stance, the same deepened frown, though it's no longer directed at him, her eyes passing a glassy, wide stare over his hunched shoulders. "He killed..." she repeats, vacantly whispered while the realization sinks in. There's an audible catch in her next deep breath and then the air comes rushing out of her desperately. Anxiety seeps all the way to her feet and sparks a few paces that turn her back on him, though not completely. "He was... sniffing around Valenia, and he... I /knew/ he was rough, but..." The fragmented narrative musings trail off and it's then that doubts like weeds begin to infiltrate her immediate belief. With a pivot she brings her gaze back to him and asks, "How do you even know this?"
June is allowed her fragments, she's allowed everything sinking in with no pressure or forcing from him. She'll know eventually or she won't, K'aus is only giving up all control of this, for this, and having a very small breakdown there on the bar. Don't mind him. His eyes close on Valenia's name as if he should have seen that coming and now regrets that he didn't. She won't have to wait long for her answer. "I can't tell you. I just... know."
"You just know," June echoes, clearly dissatisfied with that response, though quietly so. But it's all she's going to get out of him, even she can see that, so she abandons her displeasure and returns to a more demanding worry. "This isn't... it isn't the normal sort of trouble, K'aus. I don't think you should handle this on your own. I'm going to go to Loe, ask for the Weyr's protection." Not that she's about to run out on him and do that right now, she's standing her ground and staring down the back of his head.
After those past few moments spent in hiding, K'aus comes out from behind his arms and straightens with a wince that slows his roll a little. He gives his hand a quick glance to make sure it isn't oozing past the rag and then takes a breath. "You're right." That was easy. Too easy, as he demonstrates. "You could go to Loe and tell her there's a man here who did something bad. And she might believe you. And maybe even Fayre and the kid would believe you. And then what, they kick him out? Send him somewhere else? Do you think the people who loved the girl he killed didn't try telling someone?" All casual conversation, this, while he moves finally to leave the bar, to go to the dresser.
June turns her face aside as he goes on, throwing her gaze and the sour moue her mouth has become into stark profile. She can't resist tracking his movement, though; when he goes her eyes follow and eventually she has to pull her chin up again to see where he's going. "You have an alternative." There's question in her voice, sure, but the scales are tipped to the side of flat epiphany.
"I'm not sure yet. He wants to be a bad man and as luck would have it, I have a notable amount of practice in the field." One might guess he'd be going for one of the drawers; no, K'aus lowers himself carefully to his knees and leans his shoulder into the hulking piece of wood and after being very stubborn it slides across the uneven floor an inch at a time, making an awful noise the whole way. There's something behind it, as more is revealed it proves itself to be a crevice, a hole in the wall large enough to contain the trunk that he pulls loose and drags out into the open. He reaches under the corner of the nearby rug for the key to the lock and once it's opened he begins taking things from it. Long things wrapped in cloth.
June looks on with a faintly disturbed curiosity, brows hovering at a confused level between high surprise and low reproach. But she doesn't move to hinder or help, she doesn't move at all until she sees what comes out of that trunk. Then her steps draw her along nearly the same path he took earlier, and while she goes she voices one objection. "I don't want you getting yourself killed over this." When she reaches him, she hovers nearby, close enough to view the items he pulls from that wrapping cloth but not enough to touch them.
Her concern is met at first with silence, K'aus busying himself with setting those long bundles out, one by one, one next to the other. They're all the same size within an inch or two either way, the longest one as long as June's forearm and the smallest maybe three inches shorter than that. There are four of them when he's done, and three more that are much smaller, about as long as a kitchen knife. He settles back on his heels and looks at them arranged on the floor and then up at June. "I die, he dies." After holding her gaze for a sober moment after he beckons her down with his good hand, which isn't all that good with the splinted finger. But still. Whether or not she's going to join him on the floor, he's unwrapping a bundle to show her it's a knife. A sharp, shiny knife that he hands to by its blade.
June seems far from soothed by his theory of death as a means to an end, and she meets his sober gaze while letting out a hot breath. She allows him to distract her with the knife, though; she untucks her arms and sinks onto a spot of the floor next to him, her kneel concealed by the pool of skirts around her. Her grasp as she takes the handle speaks to the fact that she's used to holding a knife, at least, if not using one. She examines it seriously, moving the blade to glint this way, then that, then tells him, "Too big. We have knives when we're at the tavern, we need something portable." Gingerly, she takes the blade by its blunt edge and returns it to him.
And he watches her calmly, unmoved while she settles, then while she examines the knife. As if he's done this plenty of times before, with her, and this is all perfectly normal, regardless of what's actually going on in his head. When the weapon is deemed unfitting he takes it back like an appeasing salesman and flips the wrap over it. Since most of the others are of the same size he neglects them and goes right for the smaller brand. This next one he shows her would do the trick. Their closeness is intimate, the knife held between them, and K'aus tilts his head a little. When he speaks it's in a low, secret murmur, just for them. "Tell your girls to aim for the belly, it'll be a bigger target and it'll bleed more."
June's fingers curl around the new blade and she nods over the different feel, the lightness of it before looking back up at him. She's tranquil during all of it, but her voice reveals just how much control is keeping her that way; it's an agitated tone, cruel and hot, ill-fitted to her high voice, that encompasses what might have otherwise come off as a joke. "And it has the added advantage of being close to his dick if you slip." Dropping her gaze, she flips the knife into a stabbing hold and out again before going to return it to him. "You have seven of those?"
K'aus's eyes wander. No matter the context, the thought of knife and dick... Luckily he has her next move to distract him, and it does, and maybe not in the good way. A woman who's just mentioned cutting into someone's junk should not then be wielding a sharp object so very near to your own. He's only too happy to take it back from her and give a quick, "No." Because there are just three there on the floor, alone once he replaces the larger bundles. "But I'm a man of many resources," he adds confidently, sliding a glance sideways, "I think I can acquire four more."
June leans forward a bit in her kneel, planting palms on the stone floor while she utters, "Okay," in a pondering tone. She delays a moment longer, head turned to the side as she runs her eyes over the three little knives left out. "Get me four more, then," she tells him decisively afterward. "And sheaths and straps for all of them. I'll reimburse you," she promises matter-of-factly, raising her gaze again.
Four more. And sheaths and straps. K'aus takes this down mentally and is nodding along up until she reaches the part about repayment. Another glance over, this one sharper and it lasts longer, not at all brief. "No, you worked for that money." And nevermind that some of it she might have given him could very well have been his. "Besides," and with he turns back to the task of closing the trunk and locking it, leaving the little knifes out, "I've been saving up for this." He shoves it back into its hole and with an uttered word of pain stands. June will have to gather her new toys herself, he only has the one hand anyway. Speaking of, he's plucking the rag away from his palm to look at it. The bleeding's stopped, the cut must have been shallow. Without a care he tosses the blood-stained square of cloth over his shoulder and leaves it.
A protest is readied on the tip of June's tongue, but she bites down on it when he adds what he adds and watches him mutely instead. She'll follow him in standing eventually, but only after she's interrupted her probing gaze long enough to gather what's now become hers. One knife, two knife, three, all bundled, and then she's up. He's the subject of another scrutinizing look, but that can't continue while she takes a stab with her next question, so she drops it to the knife wrapping as she pulls it tighter, makes sure the knives won't fall out. "Who was she?" Kept weightless as possible considering the situation, her question might as well be about the fabric her fingers fiddle with. Once it's out there, it's safe to look up again, but June does it slowly, carefully all the same.
While she fusses he begins to move further away, perhaps his intention is the bar or something, his shuffling limp is aiming him there. He makes it a few steps before she asks her question. Maybe she will notice that he falters, a pause of sorts, before recovering and acting like nothing happened and, following her lead, as if this is a very easy thing to talk about. Because it must seem as though it is. K'aus does reach the bar to find the bottle they left there and since he ruined his glass and it's too much trouble getting another one he just drinks straight from that. "She was just some harper, she was young I think."
While she fusses he begins to move further away, perhaps his intention is the bar or something, his shuffling limp is aiming him there. He makes it a few steps before she asks her question. Maybe she will notice that he falters, a pause of sorts, before recovering and acting like nothing happened and, following her lead, as if this is a very easy thing to talk about. Because it must seem as though it is. K'aus does reach the bar to find the bottle they left there and since he ruined his glass and it's too much trouble getting another one he just drinks straight from that. "She was just some harper, she was young I think."
June puzzles. She puzzles over that pause her attentive eye catches, puzzles over her her missed mark, puzzles over whether it was missed at all. But if that's all he wants to give her, she lets it stand unchallenged, in the end. Easing back from the searching squint, she nods. "I'm going to let you get back to healing," she informs him, letting a hand trail over the back of the couch now that her readjusting is finally finished. "Call me a ride?"
He gives her one of those tight-lipped smiles and holds his cut hand up like ha, very funny. Next he busies himself with aimlessly searching the bar for bits of the glass to clean up and even finds some to throw into the broken belly of the glass itself. Among this he tells her, "Done." That easily. Not so quick to let her actually leave though, even though they probably have a moment or two together before her ride does come and thanks for Ehrudith being out there to alert them, K'aus wanders back over to where she stands and stops perhaps uncomfortably close. Given their history, perhaps not. The touch he aims to her cheek is aborted when his hand comes into view and he turns it away from her, giving it a frustrated glance before dropping it and settling with meeting her eyes. "It's gonna be okay, June." And, quickly on its heels, "Hey slip me a little tongue would you please, I haven't gotten laid in like a year up here."
June holds her ground no matter how close he comes, moving only to tip her chin slightly to maintain eye contact with him. For his aborted touch she has just a dart of a glance and a sympathetic curl of a smile, which passes through a moment of limbo only to emerge a bit stronger in response to his request for a kiss. A meager, dry levity works its way into her words as she draws closer, her cut-free, splint-free hand conforming to the curve of his neck. "Just don't tell anyone you got a freebie. I have knives now," she warns. She pauses a breath's distance from him, flicks her eyes to meet his for only a second, then nudges her mouth onto his. She could be thinking of it as his last from the kind of heat she pours into it, using even the press of her body to pull him into the effect of it all. She even treats him to a gentle scrape of teeth across his lower lip at the end, just before she pulls back and lifts her lashes to look at him again. "Good enough?" she wants to know, though an assurance in her tone says she's pretty sure it is.
The narrowing of his eyes is her answer: he'll be quiet about it. And there's a little curve to his mouth when she takes it, right before, and then there's just warm, his eyes gone closed and the less wounded of his two hands finding her hip when she presses, because she presses, because maybe he's a little surprised by the intensity and because maybe he gets why it's there. She shouldn't need to ask at the end, the noise he makes, desperate and needful, somewhere in there is a dead giveaway. All too soon she's pulling away and he's relishing every second she toys with his lip with a wince. She may have found a sore spot; he may have liked it. Answer: "Mm." And more, he looking into her eyes with his half-closed, his mouth opening-- Whatever meaningful thing he was about to say, and it would have been, is replaced smoothly with, "Your ride's here." Indeed there is a sound of wings and paws outside on the ledge.
June tilts an ear toward the ledge when he alerts her of the transport's arrival and so is there waiting for the sound when it does come. Her hand slips down, skimming his chest on its way back to her side as, presence confirmed, she turns back. "You'll let me know what happens?" she wants to know before she goes, though she's poised to do just that.
"Probably not," K'aus answers honestly, but he knows June and after considering he adds, "Maybe." Because that is a lot better. "Have fun with your knives." And that really isn't.
It isn't ideal, but it will have to do. June squints at him, flattens her lips at him, all for the span of a blink, then answers with a simple, "Will do," and turns to go. He'll see her roll her shoulders gently and toss on a careless little smile before she steps out onto the ledge and is obscured by the curtain that falls closed after her.