undergrounds | [open] Aces take your time

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[open] Aces take your time

You're at one of the nightclubs in South London; they're always best at this time of year in some people's estimation. Much livelier, better music, and the summer promotions are always better in July than in August. It's when the promoters are finally in the swing of things, but they still need to try that extra bit harder to entice people to come inside.

What might stand out to the keen observer, is a rather attractive woman sitting at the bar. Nothing so strange about a good looking woman hanging by herself in a club of course, but what might strike a person as odd is the wide berth people seem to be giving her. No one sat next to her, barely even anyone acknowledging her as she nurses her drink - glancing around the room on occasion.

But maybe there isn't anything strange to you about this, maybe this is just the person you're looking for. Following rumours or a tip about someone who'd be good business to get to know. Or maybe you just fancy talking to a pretty lady for a bit.

Have fun with that.

There's a cool breeze on the air on this fine afternoon. Eames wanders through Camden enjoying it; London's humidity come summer has never been something he's overly fond of, but today it's tolerable. Lots of people out and about, sitting by the lock or dodging flierers on the street, but he moves through the crowds easily. A certain fondness for the area that sometimes makes him think - he doesn't fuss too much with who owns what borough, but this is one he'd certainly like to see taken from the Council's control. Honestly there's a sad kind of irony in one of the last homes of punk in London being beholden to the "protection" of such an establishment.

Never the matter, he supposes. Not much to be done about it right this moment.

He has an ice cream in his hand because he's a grown-ass adult and he can do what he wants, and he's currently engaged in a heated debate with one of the vendors in the Stables Market. A man selling vintage furniture who thinks he can get away with jacking up his prices because he's in a popular area.

In his wild gesturing-- well. Either you dodge it or you don't, but either way all Eames has now is a hollow waffle cone sans ice cream and a laughing salesman. What a day.

Or, whatever! HMU on Plurk if you've got something particular in mind, or just. You know. Bug Eames.

Also brackets are cool, I can do either.

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Maybe he was wrong about that honesty thing.

"I'm sorry, would you prefer to be dead?" Because being up front to begin with doesn't even cross his mind as something he could've done. Humans are just so touchy.

"Well- no! I- I don't want to be dead! But you've been following me this whole time?" She takes a few steps closer, coming to stand in front of him where he sat.

"That's just- it's creepy!"

"Not me specifically. I'm a busy man." He says almost dismissively and looks up at Nancy, attempting to read her expression. Now he's said it out loud, it occurs to him that 'I've had someone else stalk you on my behalf' potentially wasn't the best place to go with this.

Ah well, he's said it now.

Oh no. That just made it worse.

"You had someone else that I don't know follow me around all of London?!" Alright, she needs something stronger than gin, but she'd already drank all the tequila with Kenzi and had yet to buy herself more.

So she'll just drink more gin.

"Well let's say you were meeting a client who happened to be a hungry vampire? They'd smell me a mile off," is the explanation he elects to give, "I can't take that risk."

He had a point, but that wasn't fair. Nancy rolls her eyes at him.

"You're so nonchalant about the fact that you hired someone to stalk me! And- how do you even know who my clients are, let alone what I do?" Probably the same way he had her phone number. And her address.

"I hired someone to keep you safe." He gestures as if there's really much of a difference, seeing as one begets the other. He's having the complete opposite reaction to Nancy about the whole thing, if anything he'd think someone would be glad about someone looking out for them like this.

He squints thoughtfully up at her, he'd rather not spend his day arguing about how she feels about this whole thing. "I see now that you'd prefer to be consulted beforehand about this sort of thing."

That's something he'll probably conveniently 'forget' if this sort of thing happens again in the future.

"And what if this person you hired wasn't nearly as trustworthy as you thought, hmm? And they let slip when I'd be alone to whomever it was that tried to attack me! Then what? You're bloody right you're going to tell me before you do something like this. In fact, maybe you'll have the forethought to ask if I want a security detail!"

She let out an exasperated sigh. There was nothing worse than working yourself up only to find the person you're arguing with is so blasé about it.

Okay well he's going to ignore the insinuation that he would make that kind of mistake because Nancy's angry and people say all sorts of things when they're pissed off.

"I'll keep that in mind." And it's certainly something he'll consider going forward, he supposes he can't really fault someone for wanting a little control over their situation, "but I hope you can appreciate that I was acting out of concern for your safety."

"Alright," she said after a moment, breathing in and out as she spoke. She was calming down considerably now, and was more than willing to actually talk and hear Eames out. "Thank you. And yes- I do. I really do." Seriously.

"It's just terrifying to think I had people following me and I didn't know." Extremely. Unsettling.

Eames nods gently - not going to offer anything by way of apology since it'd be far too insincere, but he's taken this on board at least. So that's something.

"You alright otherwise?" He asks, gesturing to... Well, all of Nancy. She didn't look to be in pain at all, but her feelings on other matters may be covering that for the minute, he can't really tell.

"I'm alive," she informed him pointedly. "I think that fae nicked me with his blade..." She turned as the adrenaline slowly started to leave her body, allowing the pain to actually set in. Shifting, she turned her attention to the outside of her left thigh.

Sure enough, she was bleeding.

"Shit."

Well isn't that something. Eames tilts his head to look at it, but he won't be able to tell if it's serious or not until it's cleaned up. He stands with a sigh and puts a hand on Nancy's shoulder, trying to direct her to sit and take some weight off her leg.

"I don't suppose you keep a first aid kit under the sink, do you?"

"Yeah, it's in the cabinet under the sink in my bathroom," she said vaguely gesturing towards her own bedroom.

"Usually I can just heal this sort of thing right up with magic." Or, at least, in case of some wounds, cover it up. She let Eames push her to sitting, and she propped her leg up on the coffee table, slowly working now that she could breathe on pulling off her heels so that, aside from her skirt, her legs were bare.

"You don't think it looks bad, do you?"

"Won't be able to tell until it's cleaned up." He grins at her as he glances in the direction she pointed, "but if you've a spell for this kind of thing, then by all means."

He leaves and comes back with the box a moment later, and crouches on the floor so he can get a good look at her thigh. Carefully, he pushes her skirt up a little to see how much actual wound she's got going on here before he sets to the task of cleaning off all the blood. It'll probably hurt, but Eames doesn't bother warning her about it. He's just staying focused on the task at hand.

"Well, we'll see how it looks," she says.

When Eames is back, she shifts to allow him better access to the cut part of her leg. He's extremely gentle, and it's not as odd as she thinks it should be. She's had plenty of men before who've been sweet and gentle with her. Some who really just want to talk or have someone to go out to dinner with. But those were few and far between with the level of clients she worked with. She was far, far more likely to get the quick slap-dash up-against-the-wall men.

She sucks in air hard, trying not to wince away as he cleans. "ow- that bloody hurts."

"It will do." He pauses briefly to smile at her as he finishes up, putting the bloody wipes aside as he inspects her a little more closely. Eames has a light touch, very careful not to aggravate the wound any. If Nancy's looking to let it heal the normal way, then it'd probably be for the best if he doesn't start poking and prodding at her, huh.

"Good news, it doesn't look serious." His chirpy tone of voice a little at odds with the way he's frowning intently at it, "probably gonna leave a nasty scar though."

She groaned, twisting to get a better look at it. "Great". Now, light scrapes, cuts, that she could take care of. But anything that was deep enough to scar, she could only really cover up. Case in point: bite-marks.

"There should be super-glue in there." Quick and easy way to close the wound. Seriously. Doctors did it.

That definitely doesn't sound like a thing anyone does, and he squints up at Nancy like she's said something completely nonsensical, but if the human wants him to glue her together then so be it. It's not his woefully mortal form on the line here.

He takes the cap off, all ready to do this, but then he stops abruptly because she has to be fucking with him. "Just so I'm clear on this-" he points the tube at her thigh "-you're asking me to glue this shut?"

Humans, she knows, are weird.

"Unless you'd rather sew it up, that's an option as well. I'm just not good enough to get rid of it the way I should. We've used super glue before, with the boys." If Fagin ever got too angry with them and took his cane or even belt to them, it could leave some nasty, nasty welts.

Well that makes him grimace - no way is he sewing her up. He's not a squeamish man by any metric, but the idea strikes him as all kinds of unpleasant.

"Glue it is then."

Eames hesitates a moment, biting his lip in concentration as he thinks about the way to do it. The glue has to go in the cut to actually hold it closed, right? That sounds awful. God is he glad not to have to deal with this kind of shit.

"This is going to be extremely unpleasant, I imagine." Which is all the sympathy he has to extend before he gets to task. Though he does try not to be too rough, but he has to pucker the wound to apply the glue and then pinch it to make sure it closes as he goes along, so... Think happy thoughts, maybe?

"It's like a makeshift stitch," she tells him, but loses the ability to make words when he puts the glue in the wound. It stings, and she hisses again.

"Bloody fae," she mutters under her breath. Not Eames, but the one who'd tried to kill her. "Who plans these anyway? Who decides what's in this year? It's awful."

"I believe it's left to the whims of the royals."

Eames takes another antiseptic wipe when he's done with this whole glue... Situation, (still not entirely convinced it's in any way useful but Nancy knows better than him,) and cleans off any excess blood or glue on her thigh, blowing gently on it to both help everything dry a little faster, and to cool it all down a bit too. He puts a hand on Nancy's knee once he's fairly certain he's done and looks up at her, scanning her face to see how she's doing.

"Got to wonder what I did to piss off them, then." Maybe she shouldn't have gone to that event last month. But she'd been invited, and so she'd gone. Not that Fagin would let her not go.

His hand on her knee is soft again, and it gets Nancy to angle her knees towards him better, just slightly parting them. But her lips are pursed as she looks down at Eames.

"Thank you. You really didn't need to do all that."

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[open] Aces take your time

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