#c.netty

It wasn’t the first time - he’d lost count - and it wasn’t likely to be the last. With a nod to Carmine, the slender stagegirl who’d nipped forward to hold the door, Dani stepped through to little Mam’selle Michaeux’s room. The Green Fairy herself was in his arms. Dozing, fitfully, wrapped in his coat. Drunk as a skunk. Gin; could smell it. Not the worst he’d seen her. Which was a relief, really. When Carmine darted to his table at the Moulin, fluttering in her layers of scarlet tulle and sequins, face pale under the rouge, mouth set in a tight line, he hadn’t known what, exactly, to expect. Besides bad news. About Netty. And it had been. Too drunk, led away all the same by a john who just... seemed off.

And now, it was that fucking chazer’s nose that was off, off center, smeared across his face by the back of Dani’s hand. He’d scrambled out, after emptying his pockets. Netty’s time was going to get paid for fairly, even if she wasn’t being treated that way. 

Carmine had closed the door up behind them, ushering the other dancers away, no doubt. Laying Annette on her tousled sheets, Dani more or less gave up on getting his coat back. That’d be alright. He could always collect it some other time; wasn’t like he didn’t have more. Folding up the francs he’d shook out of that bastard, he tucked them under a tortoiseshell brush, something she’d use soon enough. Just didn’t want anyone sneaking in here to rip Netty off while she was this out of it. Dani latched the window, pulled the covers over her bare shoulders. A summer chill could sap somebody same as any other kind. Even someone so young. She was very nearly a child; a few years older than his boys would have been, he’d guess. Just a few. Netty murmured, faintly, reaching for... for whatever you reach for, in dreams.