VINDICA TE TIBI

She turns, stepping to the slab in the middle of the suite and pulling the sheet down on a body halfway through it's prep. Spinning a scalpel in her fingers she considers his question for a moment. "If my absentee parent of a sire had been told no, we'd already discussed the next step. It would have happened anyway."

She nicks the femoral artery, clamps what she needs to clamp, and runs a bit of tubing. It's the carotid next.

"I get what you're implying - red tape, gatekeeping, telling people what they are or are not meant to be. They aren't things I'm..." She stops, plopping the scalpel blade in her mouth while she considers how to word things. "They aren't things I'm not sympathetic to." She starts a switch, the sharp bite of glutaraldehyde and phenol faint as they push the humours out of the body with a mechanical whir, draining stale, dead blood down the runner and into the drain.

'Cause he's an absentee sire, through and through. "So they don't mean nothin' to you then." The stench of stale death lingers, and Garrick glances around the tin-lined room as if it's a tomb. Then he watches her work; an undertaker that isn't masked up from the risk of a plague, or spitting nonsensical prayers to the already been and gone. It's modern, and graphic and somehow still more delicate than he's ever fuckin' seen. She's precise, an' he's impressed. But he ain't letting it distract him from the reason he's there in the first place. "Yer useful to them, but what they doin' for you? 'Cause way I see it, when I'm finished with them, there ain't going to be nowt left for you to be protected by, not in this city, anyhow."

But he understands that he's just one man, and Pret's an army across the globe. He can't offer her much, either. Just freedom, and cutting the bars of the cage she ain't paid attention to yet.

Only takes one person, and a good cause to get people listening.

The truths he shares, the way he tries, it almost makes her think that if he'd swung back around sooner - it would be the two of them greeting the moonlight in a home or in the back of a fancy, stolen car.

Her thoughts are brought back to the forefront by the talk of his sister again, and she offers something of a softened smile - sibling issues, no matter the age or the time, are still sibling issues. What would Garrick say, she wondered, if he knew that she and her brother might have their own spats in a few centuries?

At his second question, she raises a brow. "Oh - a plot. We're plotting."

She eyes him, searches her memory - no, wracks it - to make sure there isn't a conversation here half-started that she isn't recalling.

"Is this like an ancient animosity thing or are you just bored? I can understand and appreciate both, by the way." She stops in the doorway that leads down into the suite, turning to face him, head tilting. "Just want to know if this is absurd or insane and yes, there is a difference."

She likes the immortality, but don't got a torch for the rest of them. He's aware that's him, all the same.

She catches on fast, too. She's got spunk.

"You ain't doin' anything yet." He points at her from behind as she walks ahead. She's gotta know how big the spiderweb runs. It's old — ugly. Both older and uglier than him, even. Ain't no point talking about what could be, if her mind's been all fogged up by them shmucks. He ain't forgetting she could be playin' a game here, either.

He don't take much issue with her really, but he'll rid a problem before it comes one, if she's thinkin' she'll get clever about feeding it back to high and mighty sitting on the throne of bones. Take him back to jukeboxes, biscuits and when the city's made damn sense. Hooligans pulled down them banners, and set fire to those suits. Levelled the field some. "I'm just askin', doll."

Garrick doesn't think speculation fits any descriptor. It's an idea; tear it down, build it up. Give the power back to the folk like Tressa, and Saint Cormac, who got new ideas, and new minds that don't think like the rest of him. Him, neither. Where traditions exist that they've never heard of, things that don't matter. Blood is blood, ain't nobody measuring it by worthiness, or rights. Whether fuckin' wet wipes like Pretorius want to hold court about the next generation of deadfolk, others are doing it, anyway. No permission needed. Garrick ain't wanting an army of them, just a bit of even standing across the oceans; the water don't ask, before it sinks thousands. It's hungry, and it feeds.

Just like they do. No fuckin' stopping it.

He did it to Lara. Long while back. His comeuppance ain't got nothing to do with them.

He looks beyond her shoulder, to the suite behind. Then back to her, "If them shmucks had told you, no, when you and that sire of yours went to them. You gone take than as final?" Ain't no searchin' for another way. "Ain't no need for them, is there? Plenty other clans, with less puppet strings you could've got your kicks with." He don't much like half of them, but they don't all bat the same ancient laws around like scripture. Smirking, his intentions are out in the open, now. "Plenty room for new ones, too, ay?"

who: open to all!

One night. He needed one fucking night where he could forget who he was and what he'd lost. His magic was still on the fritz -- ha -- which meant he had some time before it might seep out of it again. Or maybe it would never fully come back. It had barely been there to begin with.

"A shot of your finest alcohol, kind sir!" TJ smiled widely at the bartender, waiting patiently for him to put a glass and a lime in front of him. TJ wasn't used to this -- partying. But he could pretend he was. He sucked on the lime first, thinking that's what he was supposed to do, and then downed the shot.

Garrick's no saint, and he don't assume that the world don't get better at some things.

There's a lad next to him, making a show of fruit and shots. It's funny, 'cause he's paid no mind to the boy, really. Hasn't even turned around to admire the dancefloor, from his seat parked at the bar. Kid's not his type. But he don't suppose that matters, when lad's striking a conversation, and buying drinks like he's got green to burn.

Eyes slide up, and ears tune down the volume of the music, to be able to hear what the boy's saying, exactly. A gentle shake of his head, "You don't need to do that, lad." Clearer, for the sake of the liquor-whipped. Garrick ain't there in the wind, yet. Club's loud, and he's more aware of it, the more he has to shout over the noise. "There's nothin' to you." A prompt to acknowledge he's a small fishy in the sea of men. "But you should slow it down, you'll sooner choke on tha', than swallow it. You want to last the night, ay?"

The conversation turns back to Frankie, though, and she hides her reaction through another sip of her drink. She's worried, of course she is, but not for herself - for Birdie, for Garrick. She'll take blows, lick her wounds all she needs to. But if either of them get hurt, she'll have to learn how to fight. And quick.

She offers Garrick a small smile at his explanation of Frankie's unhappiness. Her anger made sense - if he left her behind, too. They've had much, much more history than two of them had. She understands, but isn't sure why she has to be in the middle of it. "Yeah, there's not much advice I can offer there." If he even wants it. "Gotta give it time, maybe - we're immortal, we got that in spades."

He smirks, teeth peeking between his lips. "Just say the word, doll."

There hadn't been any meanin' to bothering Lara with his truths. She ain't gonna care about old sibling spats, or about when his sister's gettin' all twisted up about festering wounds. She's got her own, and he gets that. He shouldn't have dwelled on the finer parts, but he'd wanted her to know he's not hidin' nothing from her no more.

Sipping his drink, he laughs, "She don't do patient." He don't know how much Lara and Frankie ever got to know each other, back when the world was simpler. But Garrick isn't exactly the epitome of patience, either. He just thinks he knows when to pick a moment, most of the time. Shrugging off the concern for Frankie's temperament, and her dedication to follow through with a plot. Garrick dismisses the worry before he posts himself outside the Cabaret's door every night. "But I'll sort it with her. Always do."

Half-lie. It's been a while since they talked history, and hurt with one another. But he don't wanna ruin what he's building with Lara, 'cause of a sister who didn't get hugged by her brother enough.

Apparently, Garrick did know how to text, and wasn't completely baffled by modern technology, which was surprising considering he'd had trouble sending a pigeon her way fifty years ago. Frankie still thought a bird would've been easier for him than figuring out emojis. Not that he texted her often, actually, he only ever texted when it had something to do with his beloved corpse bride.

No How are you, Frankie? No Did you have a nice snack, Frankie? No You're looking super skinny and cute, Frankie. No I'm so sorry I'm a loser dick, Frankie.

The only time Garrick's name lit up her phone was when she'd done something he didn't like. Then he was saddling up his white knight horse and charging into battle, swooping in to rescue his ex from the big, bad, hot wolf.

As if Frankie was really going to hurt her. She wasn't. Well, at least not on purpose.

"Don't text me," Frankie had written back when he'd warned her about touching corpse bride. Then she'd followed it up with, "Burn in the sun." Maybe something about that had actually done the trick, because Garrick hadn't texted her since. Frankie decided she'd parade herself somewhere he frequented, just to twist the knife, but also because she missed him, and because their fight had been awful, and she hated it.

Not that she was going to say any of that.

She was going to have a drink, smile that big smile of hers, laugh too loud at things that weren't funny and steal glances at him from behind a bald man's head.

If Garrick didn't know better, he'd say she's gettin' herself into a spot with those fake laughs and shoulder touches. But he does know her, and her desire to feel wanted, and seen. To be the glitter in the middle of the room that draws every eye, and sticks to every crevasse no matter how hot the shower. She'll eat them all, long before she gets the gall to stop spying on him, and tell him to burn in the sun, to his face.

Garrick's too old to be petty. Too tired of fighting with a sister, to care about how pathetic and cruel she'll sink just to hurt him. He'll take it, 'cause he deserves it, for leaving her after she got free of them Brotherhood scums. But he did go back for her, right before he left her. No matter what she says, he'll stand by sayin' that he did it so she stayed out of his breed of trouble.

But she didn't need to bring Lara into it, because she felt challenged for his attention.

He doesn't turn around from where he sits at the bar, but he expects she'll hear him from across the room. Quiet, he speaks to himself. "You sittin' there all night, peach? Or you going to come talk to me."

That was before Port Leiry had gone upside down.

Now, one must call before one comes to call, because the open door policy is suspended while werewolves are extra crazy and hunters are spinning donuts in the streets like it's open season on anything without a pulse.

Also apparently the dead are coming back, if Jude 'Now I have a Chiseled Jawline' Grigsby is anything to go by.

But the dead - the actual dead - they don't really ever stop being born, and so while the policy's different, the all hours nature of the business isn't. That's why Tressa Shaw nearly misses the the alert on her phone that somebody's banging on the doors. That and the trap metal blasting in the basement while she carefully siphons organs with rhythmic bobs of her head.

When the back door opens, she's only half-kitted; gloves removed, goggles perched atop her head, hair pulled up. She stares at a face that's familiar only in the academic sense - in that she knows he exists and she knows they are, nominally, batting for the same coach.

"Garrick." She smiles, and then steps to turn sideways, inviting him in.

What she says next, it's not bitchy - or at least it's not meant to be - it's just they've never interacted once for this long, and with the silence from Pret leadership since the post-Conclave shakeups, she's not quite sure she has a terribly well-founded guess of her own.

"Why are we talking?"

"Tressa." Leiry's latest dead'un when it came to newbloods of ancient groups, apparently. He's heard of her through the grapevine as an undertaker of sorts, and then through a gallery lad who dropped her name. She went to the highers too with her sire, and got it all approved like it's some modern century ritual. She looks at home, in her plastics and wrappings. But old blood bristles his nose, long past its due.

They're talking 'cause he wants to figure out what she stands for, and how deeply rooted these new fangs are when it comes to Pret.

Garrick ain't one to mince his words, on a good night. So, he'll be damned if he cares about formalities in a funeral parlour. "You like them stick up their arse lot who went and said you could die, ay?" What a bunch of lily-livered shmucks.

He's following her through the dark corridor, listening to know if there's anyone else in her company beside the corpses that don't talk. If he really wanted to get the attention of the old hag up top, he'd gut this girl and start a civil war in the city.

Be like New York had been, sending bloody messages back and forth like love letters.

"Say someone wanted to bring down the tower and get buildin' a new one, how's you feel about that?"

That's about all she can ask for.

"Birdie is.. not really enjoying being the head honcho. It's kinda been foisted upon her rather than something she chose. I keep telling her the fact that she doesn't want it means she'll be kind of good at it." And so the conversation circles and circles. "No wolves have come callin' yet. They took one of ours, we took one of theirs. You'd think that'd be that. But. I don't know, got a funny feeling about it."

She leans back after a sip of her drink, brushing some of her hair back - she knew bringing up Frankie would lead to this. "I'm sorry you two aren't.. on good terms." Her face twitches into sympathy, because losing a sibling hurts, no matter how it shakes out. "I'm not upset with her and she didn't hurt me, just had a few choice words about us.. talking."

Her fingers tap on the counter, "She just was that sort of fake-sweet, nothing threatening or insulting." Lara lies easily, because she doesn't want to mention to Garrick the comments about the scars on her face or the pointed barbs about the knife. "I get the sense that she's.. unhappy with me for hurting you? Or jealous?"

Leaning forward, she rests her hand on his, squeezing it. "She's not going to hurt me."

She hopes.

"Usually, the better leader is the one the people pick. It ain't the guy gunning for the top." Probably makes Birdie a better fit than most. She doesn't want it, so sod's law says she's probably the one who'll do right with leadership. Lara's reading from the same book. "Well she gots a good second in her ear, helpin' her out, ain't she?" He nudges the woman's arm, and winks. Garrick ain't too big on hierarchies on a good day, but he gets how they work. Some folk need someone to do the talkin' for them, 'cause they ain't got the gall to do it themselves. Ain't always a bad thing.

He certainly ain't into the tit for tat thing that's got Lara's admitting she's feeling a little off about the whole wolf pack. He knows two ways to get a mark off a back; to get rid of the fuck whose coming for it, or to give them something new and bigger to target so they forget all about the small fry.

"You need me to do somethin'. I'll do it. I ain't gonna let no wolves bother you, nor your woman." He says, with the confidence of a man prepared to total every pack in the city, like it's another day sailin'. Lara's always been able to rewrite his compass in directions he don't usually go.

As for Frankie.

Garrick isn't sure Lara's gonna lay it on him about how Frankie's being particularly brattish in her new lavish lifestyle of falling in love every week, and splurging on diamonds and champagne to shower upon her fix of the week. It's a side of his sister he ain't seen in a long while. But they've been apart long enough that they ain't the same people they were. Garrick don't think his heart's changed all that much. It's still dead, and still silent in its intentions to know the world in the light again. Still beats in tandem with the ocean, and the stars. For Lara, and his sister. Even for the ones he's lost in the waves, long before he got comfortable on land.

He don't know if Lara cares enough for him to empty the thoughts he has about Frankie of late. Ain't meanin' to burden her with nothin' like that, either.

Before he cuts in to remind Lara she don't gotta worry about his sister, he listens to the rest of her explanation.

Eyes drop to the hand on his, a fleeting memory of a saxophone on a stage playing slow jazz, and a singer drowning out the low hum of voices in a dark speakeasy. Sequins in peripherals, and the scent of liquor and cigarettes fill the senses. Too early in his memory, but even decades later, the only thing that had changed is the company.

"She's always unhappy about somethin'. If it ain't a cracked fingernail, it's 'cause her bedwarmer of the week ain't tell her she's a catch a hundred times a night." Garrick has to believe her intolerance is about him, an' he's takin' it out on Lara to spite him. "She don't like I's wanna build a bridge between you and me." He leaves out that she isn't the only person he's left behind in his act to try and save those he loves the burden of the violence and trouble that eventually follows him. He'll blame the alcohol, but they both know one drink ain't touchin' a thing. It's just Garrick tryin' to show Lara he doesn't wanna lie no more to her about everything. So it words it carefully. "A whiles back, same as you — I should'a been somewhere an' I wasn't. She got real hurt."

Frankie's scars ain't on her face. But Garrick'll eventually have to make peace with the fact he ain't never gonna be able to get the guy that made the ones on Lara. He's still workin' on the ones that got hold of his sister.

He almost forgets that Lara didn't know him and Frankie as they were in the shadows seventy years ago. Givin' her flashes of history, and shit about his sister seems like she ain't needin' to know it. Garrick remembers Lara had a brother, she talked about him once, he thinks. But he'd never met the lad, 'cause he'd gone and died fightin'. He ain't sure he knew too much more than that, and he didn't poke that fire. Yet, he remembers plain as day her mama don't — didn't, like him. That stuck. She's clearer in his mind, than a boy he ain't never met and had long kicked the bucket in a war boys had no business gettin' into.

The bartender brings by two glasses full - her favorite, and something that she knows Garrick'll like. She'd made sure they stocked at least a little something for him the last time he stopped by, just in case he ever wanted to come by again.

"Nah, you're welcome here. Anytime. You should know that." The bartender moves away quickly, once the drinks are delivered and Lara gives him a look that says it's a private conversation. Smart boy. She turns her attention fully to Garrick now.

"Yeah. 'Maru's - we're not in shambles, but things are rocky. Birdie got the top spot. I'm helping where I can." Difficult position to be in, knowing that it's only a matter of time before wolves come knocking. "Only thing I'm worried about is if we're gonna get some visits from some mutts looking for revenge. You'd think we were living in a Hinton novel."

She takes a sip of her mojito - it doesn't suit the weather, but fuck, something's gotta give her some whimsy these days. "You talk to your sister, by the by? She had some.. words with me the other day." Lara should probably be bothered by it - but they should both know that now that they're reunited, it'll be hard to separate them. She figures that goes for two sides of the triangle.

Takes the fun outta half the drive.

And then there's a drink in front of him, an' he knows it the moment it hits his nostrils. He didn't know she how to pull it off. She's traded out his Manhattan habit, and added poitín as a liquor. "You tryin' to get me goosed, Lara?" He thanks the bartender, and turns his gaze back to the only woman who'd include that detail in something as finite as a drink. There's a lot of good lookin' women around in her house of night too. "I ain't got a good track record, y'know. You's gonna toss me out if I's three sheets to the wind, ay?"

She knows. 'Cause she probably remembers as good as any that he weren't all that civil in some places, 'specially to folk who'd been lookin' at Lara in ways he didn't much like. Lookin' at him, like they had a bullet nice an' ready for his backside. Between laughin' and gassin' around, he'd been someone else to that city. He's mourned what could have been, already. He thinks she has, too. Garrick'll try be better, in this version of them.

But he ain't someone changin' overnight.

Kanemaru's chill, so Lara says. Something like that. "How's Birdie takin' to that?" He don't know her all that well, but judgin' from nights they had together in blood, she's got a little apprehension that don't wanna pick fights she don't need to.

He didn't know it had anything to do with the dogs, though. That's news. Has his eyes narrowing with concern, "You's messin' with the wolves?" Not necessariy, her, but he tries to make it sound like he isn't suddenly about to go to war with every pack in the city — "I's meanin' that I don't likes that there's eye for eye with Kanemaru with you's in it." Garrick don't have beef with were's, as long as they mind their own. He don't understand how there's revenge, if 'Maru lost. "Did your clan take one of theirs?"

Recipe for a war, that is. Ain't the time, nor the place for monsters to crawl outta the woodwork 'cause of a lil old scuffle. Now he's got all the more reason to rip down Pret's tower, or at least borrow the helm of it to steer Lara clean outta trouble.

And she'd been worried about him?

Garrick ain't known his sister's gone off script, either. The fuck have I been? And that's more troubling than any talks of battles. Frankie's a cannon on a rogue ship. He don't think there's harm in Lara knowin' he and Frankie ain't so close at the moment. "She ain't too happy with me, lately." he confesses, lifting the drink to take a swig, "What she say to you, 'cause it's probably a load'a shit, doll."

But there's something else, and he carefully navigates Lara up and down, beyond the scars, to look for signs of somethin' else. "She ain't do anythin' to you, did she?"

"I—I dunno ‘bout that," he said, dragging a hand over his mouth. "But I’ll take your word for it. If you say we met, then we met. I’m just… losin’ pieces tonight, I guess." If only it worked that way for the rest of it. If he could forget what his friend had turned into, what the world had turned into, hell, he’d take that deal in a heartbeat. But it didn’t leave him alone.

"I’m havin’ a real strange night," he muttered into his half-empty glass. The rancher tipped it back, swallowed what was left, then set it down, asking for another. The bartender hesitated, pouring slower this time, while looking past Colt’s shoulder at the man beside him, as if asking for permission.

Up close, Colt decided, the blonde looked pale, his eyes a light blue, but rimmed red like he hadn’t slept in days. There was a softness to his face, something almost swollen in the cheeks. "I can do this myself," he said after a moment, not shrugging the hand on his shoulder off, but not leaning into it either. "Don’t gotta babysit me." A breath of a laugh. "I ain’t that far gone. Just… bad night."

He rubbed at the back of his neck, words starting to tangle. "I had—” He paused, "I got this friend." How the hell could he even explain this? “It’s… a long story.” He shifted, restless all of a sudden, struggling to put his jacket on, before he gave up on it entirely, shrugged it off and slung it over his shoulder as he slid down off the stool.

There ain't no pity, or judgement though, even when he keeps the chit chat going.

"You's losin' them pieces 'cause you's drownin' demons with them bottles." Haven't they all? They don't go anywhere even soaked brown. They still haunt relentlessly, the moment you's wake up from whatever attempt to kill 'em you's made. It's like fuelling a fire; it ain't purged with liquor; it numbs just as it burns. Lad's a ringer for it. Even without airing out what other monsters he's seen.

Ain't strange at all, if Colt weren't so human in amongst it all.

And he is, there's no escaping that detail. Garrick follows the bartender's pause, who' looking at him expectantly. Garrick decides he'd give the laddie one more if he puts up a big enough fight about it, the same as he'd get the chance once more to go outside and take a walk, before he runs his mouth any louder. It'd get him the wrong attention, or it'd get him slapped with that ol' lunatic stamp.

When the man gets a hold of himself, Garrick takes his hand away and lowers it back to the bar top. "Sounds like more of a bad night, lad. You's talkin' some real big things." Subtle reminder that he's got details about monsters that are too close to the truth to be fictitious madness. Garrick's had a drink with the rancher before, he ain't once mentioned things in the night, until now. Something's changed, and he's gonna be damned if he don't squash that bug before it bites.

Sure, there's the occasional dolt. She can handle those. Right now, her sights are trying to keep set on the bigger picture - on what comes next. Difficult to do when she's not sure what's going on in the here and now. She and Birdie have a lot of work to do, it seems.

Lara hears him before she sees him - the accent sticks out like a sore thumb up here in the PNW. Sliding up next to him, "Lady's not here, but the main attraction is. You should text me."

She gestures to the bartender to bring them both something, and she turns towards him - "You know, you're going to get yourself in trouble." She's thinking about Frankie, mostly, and how that conversation had gone. "What's up, buttercup?"

He tips his head towards one of the barstools, in case she's gonna sit.

He ain't gonna ask her to go out back, 'cause he thinks he's already scared some of them girls last time he'd come by and shocked Lara in her dressing room. He ain't meanin' to cause any ill will to her girls. Not at the Cabaret, at least.

Garrick's brow lifts at the remark, 'cause he don't know if she's teasing.

So his smile is crooked, and he snaps his tongue on his teeth "Now you's know I ain't so good at that, doll." If he don't find it, it often finds him. Trouble is a snare he gets caught in, no matter where he is. Ain't no getting out of it, without chewing through it, or ripping it to pieces. Garrick don't want to say it (in case it's true), because he's bitter at the thought of what she might have meant, but he does so, for Lara's sake. "You's don't want me comin' by, Lara, you's just tell me that." Ain't gonna stir no trouble with her if that's what she's meanin'.

So she don't think he's there to hassle at her place or nothin', he makes it quick. Glancing to the bartender to their left, he wonders if they're smart enough to keep their ears plugged. Don't matter, he think's if he's quiet enough, and clear enough in a gentlemanly dialect for her to get it, they don't get to listen in to their business.

"I heard about Kanemaru." He still don't know if it's his place to ask, or if it's a tragic excuse to see her. Then, in a more levelled tone, "Ain't sure how you were keeping."

Leaving a clan because one man wants to wipe them from the face of the earth, though - that does not interest him. Pretorius is a place to hide, at the end of the day. It's a way to be kept hidden away from those who wish to do him harm simply for the fact of being a hunter turned monster.

He hasn't come face to face with Pretorius leadership to know if what Garrick says is true, but he does know he writes a check for said protection. He scratches at the scruff on his cheek and chin as he thinks, "You want equality. Or equity? To put us all in equal footing - Does that mean you don't care for clans as a whole?" That interests him, too.

"As for Tressa, we've spoken once or twice. We're not close." He's not close to anyone. He thinks for a moment again. In this hallway, he ignores the sounds of his club, thinks of what it must have been like for the leaders of the hunter guilds for a man who did not care for their ideals and simply wanted a chance to kill and paint.

"There is no leaving for me, I have no choice. I need the safety net of some sort of group, larger than just two." He has no other option, but he does not want to get into that with this man. But maybe this Garrick could offer an alternative. "But if you decide instead of razing the Earth, finding another method of getting the same goal, I would gladly help."

"No, I's just got no interest in watchin' old shmucks captain a sinking ship, lad." He don't think nobody wants to take them orders, either. Sooner they just let ancient laws go, better for alls of them. Power's a drug, and so many are weak to it; consumed by the idea that it means a fuckin' damn. Garrick's done hearing about some new prestige project, made out of gold mined by starved men. Ain't be so fuckin' bad, if them who hacked away at the stone, got one out of it too.

If Tressa's as foolish at this boy is, then he's losin' hope for the young ones. An' he ain't the type to give up like that either, but lad's clearly got his smarts in other places.

Of all of them fucks, he's gone and got in the boat with Pret? He thinks about Lara, and what she'd told him about her allegiance. Bridget, too. "It ain't the only one around." He looks towards the door to Saint Cormac's club again, and shakes his head. "Should've picked any fuckin' other." Hardly an improvement, but it is one, nonetheless.

"Gas?” Colt leaned closer, squinting, near about poking the man in the eye with a finger just to see if he’d get a rise outta him. The fella hadn’t moved in a minute.

"You still with me, Gus?"

No answer.

He’d already dropped his secret like a wet sack of feed in the middle of the table. Hard thing to pick back up once it hit the ground. What the hell was he supposed to do now, just sit there with it?

Colt shifted in his chair and tried again, stubborn as a mule. "C’mon now. Don’t go dyin’ on me. I ain’t even got to the real crazy part yet." He had, but those words alone should've woken Gus up. When he barely stirred, Colt leaned back with a sigh, dragging hands over his face. His granddaddy used to say he was as headstrong as a bull. Wasn't a compliment, he reckoned.

On a busy night like that one, the seat to his right didn’t stay empty long. A fella slid into it, looked a sight sharper than Gus had. The sort that could probably hold his liquor without passing out halfway through a conversation. Chatty type, from the look of him. "Nothin’, nothin’—" Colt waved a hand, then slapped it down on the bar a little harder than he meant to, knocking his own shot clean over.

How much of that had the man heard? Colt turned slow and gave him a long, squinting look. "I know you, don’t I? Where—" He leaned in a little, studying him. The brown in his eyes barely showed through the haze of whiskey. No. Didn’t recognize the face.

They didn't. Jus' a beer, and a whole lotta talkin'.

Drew his eye. Man for the people, even after the business of it all. Good spirit. Soft, an' that, but ain't nothin' wrong with a little bit of soft when sharp edges are around.

Grandaddy.

He's not sure he's trackin', but he lifts his arm anyways to sniff as if he's suddenly noseblind to whatever the lad's picking up. Arm drops, and he blinks, "I ain't none of that." Nobody's father, nor grandfather. Ain't nobody but himself and a name that should'a died a long time ago. If it's an insult, Garrick don't care much for it, just puffs a laugh to the man's drunken slur.

He's been in that chair plenty o'times. Knows exactly what it's like to run a mouth into trouble; most of the time, Garrick's lookin' for it.

He reckons Colt's gonna get himself in the thick of something he ain't handlin' though, if he keeps tryin' to talk to bartenders about monsters. Garrick's hand falls on the man's shoulder, and squeezes softly, "I's think we should get you walkin' off some of this, ain't you? C'mon lad, air's good for the lungs."