#human!smaug

The best thing Ruston could do was to raise a brow. A fake substitute for a natural response.

“Pray you forgive me, if I don’t look impressed,” said he coldly, “I avoid acting, when I’m not paid for it.”

Burrow rolled his eyes.

 “Amateur,” stated he in a condescending drawl.“Not all of us need extra practice to please the audience.”Ruston knew he had to put more reserve into his comebacks, but the day had already been enough of a disappointment, and if there was anyone to blame for it, it was the swaggerer in front of him.  

Otherwise he’d had to blame you, for being so stubborn and committed. And himself, for nursing some expectations even now, one more disastrous evening up his belt.

He couldn’t say you had been completely unresponsive. He was not that of a failure not to succeed in making a woman admire him, when he wanted, and yes, this time there had been no lack of determination on his part. But the result of his attempts was far from desirable. Your laughs became softer and there was a certain degree of appreciation in your return pleasantries, yet that was the only height he could achieve. You clearly treated him like a work of art rather than a lover wannabe, showing no intention of changing your mind willingly.   

He had a strong wish to see how Burrow behaved, when he was with you. What he had done to win you. And if he was the one to dance or the one to play the music.

Burrow smiled again. He did that a lot, as if he knew it made him especially unattractive.

“You’re a good guy, Spring,” said he, “I’d play it with you, if I had more time.” 

Uncrossing his long legs, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gaudy plastic lighter. The button made a dry click-clack. Burrow squinted at the flame that sprang out readily. The reflections swam and spread between his narrowed eyelids, making his eyes glow with dirty gold.  

“I admit that I was tempted to make it physical at first, but it’s too messy a job. So let’s agree you can go and woo her in public for now. I don’t want her to pay the damages to that…plate of filth, your director. But don’t you push it. You’re being a bother.”

“Am I?” inquired Ruston in a tone of calm mockery, “She never mentioned it.”

The visitor moved, letting one spasmodic tilt of the head slip in, then leaning forward slowly.

The lighter clicked again. And again.

“She never mentioned I’m a huge dick. Doesn’t mean that I’m not.”

Ruston sneered. It was entertaining - in a way. A less humiliating approach to throwing off the tension than what he’d had in plans for the night.   

“I would hate to argue with a guest. Glad I don’t have to,” said he unkindly.  

“Nice one,” admitted Burrow with a lazy smirk.

He was having his kind of fun, too. 

A dragon. Ruston wondered who had suggested the concept first and what his own role in that farce was. The man couldn’t really cherish the idea of squeezing him into the armour of a dragon fighter and biting through his backbone, once the sword was drawn.

He was old enough to know such stories were never about the glory and the victory. If anything, they were about a purring beast, a dripping sleazy cave and the stench of someone else’s rotting corpses.

And he no longer felt an inclination to be a knight errant, if it had ever bothered him at all.

“I heard no threats yet,” reminded he, easing back into the armchair and steepling his fingers.

Burrow watched him silently. The lighter in his hand was dead and still.    

“How was the dinner?” asked he all of a sudden.

Ruston ignored the question. 

The intonation wasn’t nice, and if he had to firewalk, he wished to make the first step when he thought it appropriate. 

The man blinked slowly.

“Forgive me,” said he in a minute, “I deviate. Threats…You were a tough deal. I thought I’d poke a finger in your taxes...”

The beginning was better than Ruston had expected.  

He couldn’t say the line of Burrow’s thoughts had come as a surprise. It rhymed with what he’d heard about the man. With some of his own surmises, as well.

“Is that what you’ve done to Troi Richards?”   

It’s been a couple of years since the Richards’ dynasty had crashed down through what seemed like the biggest tax scandal of the century. The scale of the financial misconduct was equal only to the scale of the penalty that followed. In mere months the monstrous, mighty, bloated Richards and Sons Syndicate was torn apart by auditors, who turned out to be extremely well-informed about all that had been happening under the carpet there for decades.

They used to say the Richardses had denied the bribe to someone they shouldn’t have crossed with. Or that the oldest Richards had quarreled with a bosom partner and was paying for it.

The whole family went from riches to rags in one, two, three.

The name “Burrow” came to the surface just once, when drunk Troi – back when he still had enough money to waste on drinks - promised to stomp on the actor’s throat, no further explanations offered.

Nobody took it seriously, or didn’t care enough to. In the end of the day, even the closest allies agreed that the golden family had it coming sooner or later. It didn’t matter who pulled the trigger eventually.    

“Yesss…I forgot you two knew each other,” Burrow shrugged, “No, I didn’t threaten him. I just destroyed him, that is all.”

“Was he a bother, too?” 

 “His old men were. But that’s not your business. None of you, friends, hurried to help him, right? Anyway. Your taxes are tolerable. That it strange, by the by, with all this…” Burrow glanced over the room, then nodded at the empty bottle on the floor, “And your love for jewelry auctions. But yes, I was being predictable. Should have known better. Unfortunately, you’re clean. A bore and a snob, you are, but that’s a common knowledge. Seeing how you seem to be proud of being both, I thought there was nothing in it for me.”

He pocketed the lighter, stared at his empty hands for some time...

“Did she touch you?”

His voice was placid, but tension in the air jumped up a hundred points.

The light eyes went up, and Ruston felt his muscles toughen uncontrollably in response to the silent hatred in them. The man was corroded with anger. 

“Admit it, Spring, you hoped to get a kiss tonight,” taunted he, “For real, for all your fancy courtship. Come on, didn’t she throw you a bone? Was there a peck on the cheek? Or did you lick her hand, like a good boy?”   

“Cut it, Burrow,” snapped Ruston, almost regretting he couldn’t “make it physical”, indeed, “I need my beauty sleep.”  

Burrow laughed, a short, jarring sound.

“I don’t give two spits about what you need, Spring. I’ll tell you what you don’t. You don’t need problems with your precious offspring. He’s in Europe now, isn’t he? Nursing his heart’s wounds?  Like father, like son?”

His face was a paragon of ugly now. The dry glamour was peeling off him like a snake’s skin, baring the inner monster in all his foulness.

“Now you listen here, lover boy. I’ll leave you be, but I’ll ruin his life in all ways I can imagine. And that’s a lot. I’ll make sure the earth crumbles where he goes. And I’ll make sure he knows why. How about that?”

There was a moment when Ruston believed he would lose it. The stab was painful. Bitterly unexpected. And this time, the fault was all his.

He should have seen it coming.

He tarried with the answer, waiting for the red shroud before his eyes to thin out on its own. There was no point in raging, unless he intended to please the ghoul even more.

“If you touch him, I’ll bury you,” promised he quietly. He didn’t need to raise his voice to be convincing on the matter.

“Perhaps,” said Burrow, not looking away, “But first I’ll watch you burn…”  

Unwilling to accept his defeat that easily, Ruston gave himself a break and said nothing. 

He admitted he was nailed to the wall for now. But he still had enough self-respect to refuse calling it an end.   

They were sitting in silence, like a pair of old pals, too comfortable in each other’s presence to speak up and ruin the quiet moment.   

“For a big bad dragon, Rhys…,” murmured Ruston at last, “You are exceedingly desperate. Was it something she said?”  

“You’re damn right,” agreed the man with a slow nod, “It was something she said. And you know what that was?”

He must have been tired of dramatic effects, too. The words that followed sounded vapid in contrast with all that had come out of his mouth by the moment.

And still stung worse than anything of that.

“She said I do.”