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arthur (_arthur) wrote,

It's a Wednesday, rainy and cool, and Arthur has just gotten far enough into his drink and idle table talk with the rest of the Langley contigent to soothe the vicious tedium of two and a half days' agency conferences -- in Philadelphia, of all places -- when the barman appears at the booth with another Glenlivet, neat. Arthur isn't more than half finished with the drink he still has in hand, and when he looks up to decline, the barman only shrugs and cocks his head toward a figure seated at the other end of the bar. "Take it up with him," is the only answer he gets.

The bar is suitably dim, just enough so to make it a strain to identify any particular features from across the room, but he gets the impression of broad shoulders, close-cropped hair, a crooked smile that evens out when his gaze is noted. The garishly pink cocktail he takes into account almost as an afterthought; unimportant, but he has a thing about details. He deals in facts, despite what the gossip about his current project might say to the contrary; in dreams or out of them, there's no benefit to lying to himself. This is why Arthur isn't too prideful to know what the other man sees in him, in turn: some baby-faced kid in a suit, tie loosened, hair a little rumpled -- Mallorie Miles, at his left, is half French but entirely continental in her notion of personal space, all the worse for the four drinks she's already had to his two. She practically glows, leaning against his shoulder with a lilting laugh. "Charmingly thuggish," she pronounces, following the trajectory of his gaze. "Looks like you've made a new friend after all, hmm?"

"I don't have friends," Arthur reminds her, but it falls short of sharpness. It's impossible to be sharp with Mal.

"Yes, yes," she sighs. "Heartless Arthur, desk agent extraordinaire." The look she gave him was fond, though. "Do we have to call you that up here, too? Honestly, mon chou, it's hardly becoming."

It isn't. But the job is the job, its needs before his preferences, and if they want to assign him the lamest callsign to ever grace American soil, so be it. "Verisimilitude," he says, climbing to his feet (to much protest from Mal) and brushing down the wrinkles in his sleeves. "If you take this seat, Mal, I swear to God..." She waves him off, already making overtures to badmouth him to the rest of their tablemates. It leaves him free to walk his drink down toward its donor, calculating as he goes.

The man's attention is ... not unflattering, the closer he gets. Maybe Philadelphia deserves a little credit after all.

"Excuse me." He remains on his feet, the fresh drink in his hand. "There seems to have been a mistake at the bar. I think this must be yours."