Mad science dressed as--

He hadn’t been staring, exactly. Well, by some arguments, perhaps, but in truth he’d been sort of lost in thought, trying to figure out who the bartender reminded him of, and if he’d seen him elsewhere before, and hadn’t realized he’d floated close enough to the bar to effectively be asking for service. 

His gaze sharpened into focus as the words pulled him from his thoughts, and his eyes lifted to find that other’s. His head tilted, and he smirked, slowly. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed his suspicions that there were, in fact, zero people behind him. It was a slow night. 

“Well aren’t you a delight,” he drawled, gaze and grin impish. 

Malachite’s expression didn’t really change as the young man finally brought his attention to them, used to the ever fluctuating bar flies that flit in and out. Often times Malachite went unnoticed, only coming to the Rookery when they needed a place to escape their labs, but that night they’d seen a chance to do something they hadn’t in a long time, and slipped behind the bar. It may have been a slow night, but they’d had a number of happy customers leave their side of the bar, and Malachite was ready to have this young man join the rest. Or leave. Whichever came first.

“And you still haven’t ordered. Choose.”

“I’m trying to decide how trashed I want to get,” Nadia admitted. She hadn’t been thinking that long and they really could have helped someone else while she decided, but she’d go ahead and make her order. “But I guess we’ll start off light-ish. I’ll take a mojito but make it a double shot of rum, would you? And you can keep the tab open.” 

“Well, that will certainly start you on the right track.” Shifting, Mal easily took her card to set up a tab, then went about the familiar motions of making her drink. They may not step behind the bar that often anymore, but Malachite had been a staple of the Rookery since its inception and knew enough to get by. Setting down the finished drink, they raised a brow at her, “Now are you getting trashed for a fun reason, or for a want to forget.”

“Mal,” Lacha chastised softly as she stepped behind the bar herself, before offering the woman they’d just spoken to a slight smile, “I’m sorry, don’t pay that any mind. Take your time and when you’re ready, let me know. I’ll take care of it myself.” A pause followed, in which her calm override did exactly what she wanted it to do, and the woman stepped to the side slightly, pacified. Then, sotto voce, she asked Malachite the only question she had, considering they were not, by her regard, a people person, “What in God’s name are you doing back here?”

Malachite didn’t bother to hide the roll of their eyes at Lacha’s admonishment, easily moving out of her way to placate the human on the other side of the bar. They watched as the woman gave Mal another glance then slid away pacified, and couldn’t help but let out a soft snort, “There was a line. I felt it prudent to offer my assistance.”

“You’re welcome to keep staring, but the longer you do, the longer the line behind you becomes, and I’ve only been tasked with manning the counter for so long. Sooner or later I will find something else to occupy my time and that does not include finding you something to drink.”

Yvette accepted the cheese from them–it was soft, slightly greasy to the touch now, after being exposed to warmth and air–and, telling herself that everything would probably turn out fine, she offered it back to the rat. The rat sniffed, scrabbling limply at the chunk with its fingerlike claws. Her fingers were pinched together at the furthest end nonetheless.

She sneaked her other hand to the side, inching the tip of her index finger toward the rat’s head. It had decided to seize the cheese chunk more forcefully; Yvette’s time was now. She closed the handspan. The fur was coarse to the touch, but not as ragged or dirty as she was expecting–but then the rat turned its head in the direction of her cheeseless hand. Yvette squeaked, yanked everything back, abandoning the cheese.

“Oh my god,” Yvette said, to the air or the rat or to the rat charmer. Whoever was inclined to answer first.

A soft laugh was surprised from Malachite’s lips at her reaction, and they didn’t bother to hold onto the rat as it squeaked and scrabbled after the abandoned cheese. She’d done better than Malachite expected, but she was still terrified of the small rat as so many others on the train seemed to be. It took only a few moments for the rat to finish off its cheese, and no longer being held by Malachite it lost some of its thrall and quickly scurried away, back to whatever recess it came from. “You did well. Still rather scared, but amusing, nonetheless. I would suggest not leaving your bag on the ground, though. He might still be hungry.”

“Fuck!” The sound of breaking glass seemed exceptionally louder in the empty subway car. Or nearly empty. Nickel hadn’t noticed the fey sitting on the other side of the car when he’d come in. Too busy texting the senator the information he’d found out at the party he’d just been to. The queen wasn’t the only one who had Nickel spying. With the senator it was strategy. Kept him in the loop despite all his activities that were aimed at pushing the senator’s buttons. He might be trying to get out from under his party boy reputation but he wasn’t completely over wanting to piss his dad off. Tonight he looked every inch the party boy. Right down to the bottle of expensive liquor broken at his feet, his shoes and pants wet from it. “It slipped,” he told Mal with a crooked grin and a slight shrug. “So hot date or wild party, which one has you out at this hour.” Nickel couldn’t resist messing with the older fey as he stepped over the mess he’d just made to sit beside Mal.

Malachite was used to being alone at this time of night, or if there were any other subway-goers, they were just as inclined to stick to themselves. Unluckily for Mal, it seemed they’d chosen the one car that Nickel just so drunkenly stumbled into, and, rather quickly, made a giant mess of. Snorting softly, they pulled up the lapel of their jacket to further curl into, and hope Nickel found something more interesting to play with that night, “Does it matter? It seems you had enough of both for the night.”

Down in the deepest marrow of her bones, she felt a shudder. Yvette heard her own father’s voice: you don’t really know where that’s been, do you? But he’d said that about Fido. Ungroomed, unclipped, Fido looked like something that trotted out from underneath an upturned trash can (it was part of his charm, Yvette believed, rigid in her loyalty), but there had been genuine concerns raised: rabies, lice, fleas, distasteful worms. But the rat charmer didn’t seem upset or worried by any of this. They’d declared the rat free of such things. 

Yvette swallowed. She extended three fingers, then hesitated, pulling back. She looked at the stranger, trying to divine any sort of course or motive. She wetted her lip just so slightly, with the very tip of her tongue. “Should I … should I have food?” she asked. The nervous waver in her voice was comically embarrassing. This is a farce, as her mom would say whenever something absurd happened to her. Yvette, on the other hand, always wanted to believe.

Malachite couldn’t help the low chuckle that left them as she hesitated, inquiring about food in a way that showed just how young she was. (Although to a fey several centuries old, everyone was young to them.) The rat was complacent, at ease with a stomach filled with cheese, and the calming affect of a creature at one with the earth, but that didn’t stop Mal from offering her a chunk of cheese as well. An olive branch from the frightened child to the innocuous rat that would go back to being as misbehaved and miscreant the second Malachite let it go, “Go on. Give it a whirl.”

“Did you - you missed that, right?” she asked, wanting to confirm that they, indeed, HAD not seen Elise yelling at some random stranger in the middle of the subway. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened but … she also didn’t need any feys knowing about her stupid impulse decisions ( not that she had been wise at hiding them ). Her eyes glanced at their book, wondering on how Earth they managed to READ on the subway, especially at a time like this.  More than that, where were they going? The court player had more questions than answers. 

“Where you headed?” 

“Which answer would you prefer?” Malachite might’ve only seen bits and pieces of the affair, but the way she was acting was all too familiar with a person having done something wrong and not wanting to be found out about it. Not like Malachite would say anything. The Players weren’t their realm to care about, and if they wanted to act out--so be it. Malachite wouldn’t get involved if they could help it. Raising a brow at the question, they couldn’t help the faintest of smirks from curling on their lips, “Home. Where else?”

Just an eyebrow–Yvette winced, smiled tightly, and got the message. An interrogation would be unwelcome. That made sense. Under ordinary circumstances she wouldn’t want strangers talking to her on the train, either. Slowly, she swung her feet to the floor again, settling her bag on her knees. (After checking.)

“It was cool, though,” she said meekly, one side of an inner debate winning out. Yvette tucked a lock of hair behind an ear. Fido sometimes snagged rats, birds, the like, and she worried, needlessly as it turned out, about disease. She wondered how they knew, how to tell. All rats, and in her experience the rats were mostly dead, looked more or less the same to her. “Thank you.” 

Malachite’s eyebrow lowered at the wince on the young girl’s face, sure she got the message that there was only so much conversation the fey was up to at that particular moment. When she started to unfurl herself from her seat, the fear that had scattered throughout the cabin dimming as people reacquainted themselves with their lost items, Mal figured that was that. And yet, she continued.

Mal’s eyebrow returned its upward climb and they sent her a faintly amused look as they continued to scratch under the rats chin, “No thanks necessary.” After a moment, that look included a faint smirk as they lifted the rat in their hands and held it out to her, “Want to pet?”

Elise tried to avoid trouble ( key word: tried ). However, there was only so much patience she had and the drunk stranger sneering at some poor woman on the subway, his comments mocking her, weren’t something she could tolerate. The court player intervened, trying to shut him down except the argument merely escalated. People quickly began to take notice, some even joining in. Thankfully, it wasn’t long until the drunkard stormed off at the next stop ( the crowd slowly unwinding from the commotion ). In the midst of it, she finally noticed the other fey. Had he been here the entire time? Awkward. 

“Uh, hey.” 

Malachite prided themself on going unnoticed these days. It’s what had allowed them to survive so long within the confines of the Court, but there were days where they wanted nothing more than to stand up and smash someone’s face into the plexiglass of the Subway window until there was nothing left. Rubbing at their brow, staving off the impending headache, they turned their attention back to the book in their hand and missed the intervention of Elise and the it was only the absent of drunken shouting that brought Malachite’s attention back to the train as a whole. Blinking at the attempt at conversation they raised a brow, “Hello...fancy meeting you here.”