Warnings: The kind of language you would expect from Niles. Reference to past violence/eye gore in part 2.
Niles really hated charity gigs.
Not that the charity part was a problem. It was the idea that these rich types couldn't just give a shit ton to charity and accept the tax breaks. No, there had to be a whole song and dance about it, a big party event with entertainment and a chance to show off how generous they all were.
"Is there any way that I can avoid these?" Niles said aloud.
"Be less funny or quit waiving your fee for charity gigs," Leo said mildly. "Anyway, you're on in five minutes. Wanna do warm ups?"
Niles wondered if all managers really wanted to be film directors or if Leo was just a special case. "Well, if you're offering…" Niles purred.
Leo hit him with his clipboard without changing expression. "Four minutes."
He was no fun to tease anymore. After knowing each other for so long – before Niles made it big, even – Leo was immune to his particular brand of humour.
At least Niles had the new material to test out on these socialites. Half of them were probably very repressed, but pretending not to be, so his normal material always got the best reactions. If it were just telling jokes, he wouldn't mind so much, but it was the black tie event afterwards which really made him itch. Part of it was that wearing a bow tie still made him feel like a bit of a fraud, like someone was going to suddenly throw him out, not helped by the clumsy passes from rich kids who wanted to 'slum it' for a night. The other part was that the evening would inevitably be spent fending off personal questions about the scars around his eye – he'd worked the absurd entitlement of such questions into his material for a reason, yet there were always a few who thought they were an exception.
"Two minutes," Leo said. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," Niles said, making an effort to relax his shoulders so Leo wouldn't worry.
"Well, Camilla is here tonight if you need rescuing," Leo said. He always seemed to see right through Niles.
Leo's older sister was… nice enough, Niles supposed, but she'd threatened to kill him if he ever broke Leo's heart, back when she thought they were dating. Niles hadn't been able to tell if she was joking and he'd been slightly wary of her ever since. At least she took looking out for her family and friends seriously, which he could respect.
"I notice you're not offering to come to my rescue."
Leo snorted. "I remember how that went last time. You might have found it amusing, but I have other things to do tonight than be flirted at all evening."
"And yet, you still voluntarily spend time with me."
Leo had to stifle a laugh as a stage hand appeared to wave Niles on. "Break a leg," Leo said. "I'll see you after and you can tell me how terrible everyone else is."
Niles grinned and blew him a kiss. "Oh, I plan to."
The lighting guy had really screwed up. The stage lights were shining right in Niles's eye, making it absolutely impossible to see the audience. Niles kept his trademark smirk as he did the obligatory opening spiel about the charity itself, but it was difficult not to pout. Watching the audience's expressions was half the fun. At least his routine tonight didn't require any audience interaction, but he'd have to remember to tell someone when he got off stage. Half of Arthur's entire act was talking to the audience, and he was due on third. They'd swap him with someone after the interval, maybe, use that ten minutes to fix it? Ah, well, Niles was sure Leo could handle it. He had a tendency towards hyper-competence.
"Are you all excited to be here tonight?" Niles said to the audience. A trite and boring question more typical of half-rate children's entertainers. He wasn't surprised when it got a lukewarm chorus of 'yeahs'. He offered an apologetic smile to the room in general. Since he couldn't actually see anyone. Fucking lighting guy. "I know, I know, it's a stupid question, but I have to ask. Stupid questions drive me up the wall. You know, I had somebody the other day ask me why I had a glass eye."
He let the first, polite chuckles start up, and then gave the audience his best 'what the fuck' expression. The laughter grew a little louder, a little more genuine. It always took a bit for the audience to get into it when you were first on stage. When they were more into it, they'd laugh at anything. Niles took it as a compliment that he was supposed to open the show tonight.
"Seriously, why do you think I have a glass eye?" He tapped his glass eye in front of the microphone. The sound echoed out of the speakers around the room and he had to let the response die down a bit before he could continue.
Niles shook his head in a disappointed manner. "Of course, the worst part is that that isn't their actual question. They want to ask, 'how did you lose your eye?', but feel like that's a bit personal, so they just sort of hope if they ask a different question… I'll end up giving them my entire life story?" More laughter. They were really getting into it now. "Lady, I'd rather tell you how I lost my virginity than how I lost my eye." He let them have two seconds as a pause, and then added, "It was two guys in a spitroast by the way."
The laughter took on that slightly nervous edge when you brought in a taboo topic. Niles grinned. Now he was on a roll.
The good part of going on first was that he didn't have to go straight from the gig to talking to the socialites. Namely, he could get a few drinks in to help cope. Leo wasn't drinking, but he was keeping him company, watching the remainder of the comedians on one of the cameras backstage. Niles's set had gone well, so he was prepared to enjoy mocking everyone else for even minor slip ups with his ego safely cushioned from the pain of hypocrisy.
"I see what you mean about the lights," Leo said. "Look at that guy squinting."
"No, I've seen Azama before," Niles said. "He always looks like that."
"Oh, he's the one who used to be a doctor, right?" Leo paused. "I think my sister-in-law is friends with him."
"Wait, Hinoka?" She'd always struck Niles as very uptight and humourless on the few occasions they'd met. At least she and Xander were well matched. "I didn't think stand up was her thing."
Leo shook his head. "They met when he was a med student." Well, that was comforting to Niles's view of the world. "Their Foundation gave him a scholarship… wait." Leo squinted at the screen suddenly and frowned. "He's the one who treated Siegbert."
Niles sat up a little straighter. "What?"
"When he was in chemo," Leo said, as though Niles could've been confused about what he meant by treatment.
"Cancer doctors—"
"Oncologists," Leo corrected.
Niles rolled his eyes. "Cancer doctors make a lot of money, right? Why would you quit that to go into stand up?"
"Not everyone does it for the money, Niles." Leo shrugged. "Anyway, it's not like I know him. I only met him a few times, and that was years ago."
"…Siegbert is still doing okay, right?" Niles said. He'd never known quite what to say when it came to being comforting, especially as he had no reason to care about Siegbert other than the fact that Leo did.
"Yeah, he's five years in the clear now. He wants to be a medical researcher." Leo rolled his eyes, but Niles could see the fond uncle in his prideful smile.
"That's good." He could at least be sure that was the correct response. No longer having cancer was generally regarded as being good for your health.
Niles owed Leo a lot – he'd decided that Niles had potential even when Niles spent half of their first meeting at an amateur comedy club mocking him for looking 'stuck up' and wearing his collar inside out. Leo was, if Niles was being honest with himself, one of his only real friends. But he'd always felt as though being friendly with Leo's family was somehow… encroaching on something that didn't belong to him. Or, worse, making himself vulnerable to strangers for the sake of some twisted nostalgia. After all, the people Niles had regarded as family had betrayed him. Just because Leo had proven to be a friend didn't mean that his family would treat Niles with the same kindness.
They lapsed into silence, watching as Azama continued with his routine. Niles had never paid much attention to him before, but he found himself chuckling at odd moments.
"Being a comedian is great," Azama was saying. "You can insult people, and they just assume you're joking." He smiled blandly at the audience as they laughed. "See, you thought that was a joke, didn't you?"
He seemed a little like a kindred spirit to Niles, since mocking people and getting them to applaud it had always been his favourite part of this job.
Azama sighed. "But if you're a doctor…"
The audience laughed harder.
Azama looked pained, although that could have been a side effect of the lights shining in his eyes. "You tell one patient, 'well, what the fuck did you expect to happen?', and suddenly you're being 'written up' for 'inappropriate behaviour'."
"I can believe that," Leo muttered. "He never had a bedside manner. Siegbert loved him for some reason, though."
"I took the criticism on board!" Azama protested, to the howling audience. "I tried to soften my approach a bit, you know, break the bad news to patients gently. 'You have a brain tumour and approximately three months to live.'" He clasped his hands together in an almost priestly manner and continued in a solemn voice. "'But as long as we're remembered, does anyone ever really die?'"
Niles gave up on trying to maintain his professional superiority and just laughed.
Later in the night, after everyone got to do their routine, it was time for socialising with the rich kids. Niles would've skipped this part, but it was considered rude to leave after less than two hours, according to Leo and his ridiculous etiquette. Maybe Niles would be able to waste the time bothering the other comedians, instead. He'd already prepared a ready excuse about a headache caused by the lighting issue if he needed to escape urgently.
Niles scanned the room and spotted a lone figure by the bar. There was that Azama, who he'd actually found funny instead of just appreciable from a professional standpoint. Maybe he'd do for good conversation.
Azama was at the bar, blank-faced watching people mill about and talk. He didn't seem to actually be drinking anything, which Niles found to be genuinely perplexing. Even if you didn't need to drink to cope with people generally… well, it was an open bar. Why would you not?
He slid into the seat next to Azama, who raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh, it's you."
Niles felt slightly offended. He wasn't that bad, was he? "The one and only," he agreed.
"You know that it's an open bar, right?" Azama said. "You can't offer to buy me a drink."
"Don't worry about me. I have plenty of other lines." Niles rested his elbow in the bar, leaning forward slightly into Azama's personal space and smiling. Azama had small eyes and a plain face, and all in all, wasn't Niles's usual type. But there was no harm in flirting a little anyway. The gods only knew that with Leo busy, he wasn't exactly missing out on anyone else's scintillating company. "I just saw you here at the bar all by your lonesome and thought I would provide you with some company. Even the bartenders aren't talking to you."
"Oh, I already chased them off." Azama's smile was a little sharp, but that was hardly going to chase Niles away. If anything, it made him more interesting. "If you must know, I've been roped into leeching more donations from the simpletons, so I'm keeping a clear head until they're all too drunk to remember what money is."
"An impressive plan, but how are they supposed to get that drunk if you're sitting at the bar stone cold sober, having sent even the bartenders running for the hills?"
People were giving the bar a bit of space. Azama glanced around and shrugged. "They'll get desperate enough eventually. I'll just enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts."
He gave Niles a pointed look. Niles ignored it and just smirked at him.
Azama gave up trying to rattle him after a moment. "A little birdie told me you liked my jokes. I'm flattered."
"So, Leo's already been to pay his respects, has he?"
The corners of Azama's mouth turned down slightly. "He seemed to think it was a social nicety. I tried to tell him I'm not into that sort of thing, but he insisted."
"It's a flaw of his," Niles admitted.
Azama smiled. It must've been genuine, because it lit up his entire face and made him look his actual age instead of like a dour old man. He seemed to want to take it back afterwards, because he reflexively scowled after an instant, and the moment was gone. Still, for that moment, he was considerably more attractive. Niles considered flirting with him in earnest, but then he remembered that Azama was supposed to stay at the party for most of the night. Even if Azama had been the prettiest person in the room, it wouldn't have been worth it.
"I have to admit, I didn't realise the two of you were actually friends," Azama said conversationally. "I'd always assumed you used that 'borderline creepy sex maniac' act as a way to keep everyone at an emotional distance…"
Niles choked on his drink.
"…but I suppose even you can't act like that all the time."
Niles squinted at him, unsure what to say. He wasn't even totally sure if Azama was mocking him or just really bad at 'friendly' banter. "Have you ever… just tried telling people to fuck off?"
"Where's the fun in that?" Azama said. "I don't see you resorting to anything so direct."
He did have a point; sometimes Niles did flirt aggressively with people just to make them go away. Not that he was going to admit that to Azama.
"Not usually," Niles replied. "But with this lot…" He made a vague gesture at the rest of the room with his drink, frowning at them reflexively.
"I didn't think people of this social calibre would be receptive to your flirting."
"Thanks," Niles said dryly, "but there are always a few who want to try slumming it after a few drinks."
Azama pulled a face. Niles was uncertain if it was at the idea of the socialites, or the idea of sleeping with Niles, until he said, "Who?"
"What?"
"Are there any repeat offenders in the room?"
Niles looked at him for a moment, wondering if he was serious. Azama was scanning the room as though some of them might have 'common people fetish' tattooed on their foreheads. Niles eyed the taut line of his shoulders with interest. It really was a remarkably well-fitted suit.
"The tall man in the navy suit. At the back."
Azama made a noise of recognition without actually appearing to look at that half of the room at all. "Anyone else?"
"Woman in the ridiculous heels."
"Niles, that's half the women in the room."
Niles snorted. "Gold dress."
"Oh, I see her…"
Most people tended to get rebuffed once and accept they'd struck out – at least with Niles. Even though the room was crowded, there were only about half a dozen of the 'repeat offenders'. Still, Azama seemed satisfied somehow.
"Why did you want to know?" Niles asked. He didn't feel any particular need to keep secrets for people who'd been so annoying to him, but most people also normally didn't ask for that many details. Except for Leo, who Niles didn't tell anyway. Leo had this protective streak and thought there should be repercussions, whereas Niles tended to believe having such a blatant superiority-inferiority complex was its own punishment.
"I'll blackmail them later," Azama said blithely. "It's all for a good cause."
Niles laughed.
They spent a fun half hour fake psychoanalysing the six guests, inventing increasingly embarrassing childhood failures from which sprung their complexes.
"…And the obligatory 'none of them were hugged enough as a child'."
"No, no," Niles said, laying his hand on Azama's arm. "If you aren't hugged enough as a child, you just end up like me. It's only getting hugged by the nannies or whatever the fuck they're called that really does them in."
Azama glanced at the hand on his arm and raised an eyebrow. "So you flirt with everyone you meet because your parents didn't love you enough?"
Niles smiled at him but did not withdraw his hand. "Please! Even I'm not that Freudian. I'm just saying, at least I admit to being a bit of a mess." He finished his drink and set his glass aside, waving away the bartender who made a move to refill it. He was getting precariously close to drunk and, regrettably, still had to be semi-functional for the remainder of his evening. "Anyway, it wasn't their fault they were dead."
"Morbid."
He finally removed his hand, not wanting to give the impression that he was still flirting. "What about your parents?" Niles said. Mixing serious questions with flirting just gave off the wrong message. Even if he was only wondering what sort of messed up people might raise Azama.
He seemed surprised by the question, and actually stumbled for a moment with an answer. It was the first time Niles had seen him even close to flustered all evening. Not that Niles was putting in his best efforts, but it made him interested in what Azama would look like when flustered. It was a pleasant fantasy for the moment it took Azama to gather his thoughts.
"They keep a shrine up in the Hoshidan mountains." He shrugged. "Closed circle, nice enough, country folk. You know the sort."
"Wait, you were raised religious?" That was possibly the last thing Niles had expected to hear from him.
"Well, there was an attempt." When he laughed, Azama smiled, gratified. "I might try that line out at my next show."
"Hmm." Niles propped himself up on one elbow. "So, what? You wanted to go to the city, do something more exciting?"
"Not really. I always expected I would spend my entire life there." He seemed wistful all of a sudden. "Then I saved Hinoka's life, and, well… things happened."
"Things happened," Niles repeated. "And when did you develop your talent for understatement?"
"I was just born with it. Really, sometimes I wonder if I should have left at all, but it is more convenient to be here than in the middle of nowhere."
"Convenient," Niles repeated again, this time incredulous rather than amused. "You make it sound meaningless."
"Most things are."
Niles raised his eyebrows. "And you called me morbid. No wonder you're sat alone at the bar."
"What are you, a figment of my imagination?" Azama said. "Although you're nearly right, anyway, your manager looks like he wants you for something."
Niles looked over his shoulder and groaned. Leo was striding towards him purposefully. Thank the gods Niles had decided against that seventh drink. Or was it eighth?
Whatever, he was still sober enough to weather the storm. Leo called it networking. "See you around."
Azama looked like he wanted to say something, but he seemed to change his mind at the last moment, merely making a noise of acknowledgement and going back to intimidating the room at large.
He's not even drunk and he's brooding, Niles thought. Maybe that was the real reason Azama wasn't drinking. He seemed the type to get particularly morose.
Leo's expression was quite smug.
"Who is it this time," Niles said tiredly.
"A producer. They're starting a new panel show, she's been dropping hints all night about getting some big names on board to help it take off." Leo poked him in the shoulder, making Niles scowl at him. "Camilla has been softening her up all evening, but still, play nice and I think I can get you 5k per episode."
"Yeah, but how much work are we talking?" Not that Niles really minded; it was still a ludicrous amount of money by any stretch of the imagination. What he didn't like, and was always slightly paranoid about, was the idea that people were deliberately underpaying him – that they still thought of him as something exploitable that had crawled out of the gutter.
If it were up to Niles, he probably would only get half the amount of work he currently did from offending everyone and their mother, but Leo was a much better negotiator than he was. Sometimes it was slightly disconcerting to see how ruthless he got about business transactions, even though he wasn't especially careful with his money. A product of his upbringing, no doubt. Niles knew little about the siblings' late father, Garon, except that he had been ridiculously wealthy and was always spoken of in hushed, fearful tones, as though talking about him too loudly would raise him from the dead.
The meeting with the producer went well, although that might've been because she spent half of the discussion talking at Camilla's breasts. Whilst Camilla's breasts were very noticeable, Niles had never found them to be great conversationalists. Leo was pleased with the informal agreement he conned out of her. Camilla had suggested that the producer email a rough draft to her PA, and like most people under the spell of Camilla's tits, the producer had taken it as an order, so she couldn't back out without a whole lot of embarrassment on her part. Leo had said she would probably try to round a few figures down and up with the excuse of typing errors, but he was going to let her have those ones.
This ended most of Niles's formal obligations for the evening. He got another drink from the bar and allowed himself to get pulled into a few conversations, making polite small talk whilst he slowly circled towards the door.
In the final stretch, Niles was accosted by a young couple. He cursed mentally, but it only showed in a slightly strained smile.
Neither of them appeared to notice. "Niles!" the young woman said. "I loved your skit! I just wanted to ask—well, I mean, if it's not too much trouble, I know I read online you don't always like to but—"
"You'd like an autograph?" Niles drawled.
She flushed and bit her lip. "If you don't mind?"
She was pretty cute, and so obviously nervous and uncertain, that Niles took pity on her. At least she didn't ask with the same sense of entitlement as some people did. Maybe she was new money, or had only come as her boyfriend's plus one, or was just a nice person in general. "Ah, go on then. You've caught me in a good mood," Niles said.
The young woman's grin immediately turned blinding and she fumbled in her boyfriend's pockets for a pen and paper. Niles dutifully signed away, and even gave her a kiss on the cheek, although that was mainly to rile up the sullen-looking boyfriend.
"Hey, I've got a question," the guy said, glaring at Niles whilst his girlfriend tittered nervously. "What happened to your eye, anyway?"
Niles simply raised his eyebrows. There was a reason he included a joke like that in literally every show. The woman had frozen, glancing between the two of them. "Nick," she hissed, "don't be rude—"
"I don't see what's so rude about just asking," he replied loudly.
They were starting to turn heads. Niles held back a sigh. Oh, for gods' sake. Save me from soap opera drama.
"You create so much buzz about by refusing to talk, come on, you're practically begging people to ask you—"
Niles's hand was starting to ache from gripping his glass so tightly. "Sweetie, if I wanted you to make me beg for something, you'd know about it."
The man's face flushed and he clenched his fist.
Arthur suddenly interposed himself between them. He was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, about half as wide as he was tall. His voice was even larger than the man himself and boomed out like a loudspeaker. "Friend! This is not in the spirit of the event! You must have had too much to drink. Allow me to escort you outside for some fresh air!" The man mumbled some kind of protest, or it might as well have been a mumble, because Arthur spoke over him almost at once. "No, please, I insist!" and started pushing him towards the front doors.
There were still a lot of eyes on Niles. So much for making a subtle escape. He didn't even get to goad the asshole into doing something really stupid. That was probably for the best, but Niles wanted to be annoyed about something, and it seemed a good a thing as any. Whatever. There must be a back door in this place somewhere.
Eventually, he found the fire exit.
"Fancy meeting you here."
Niles sighed. "Oh, it's you."
Azama gave him a thin smile. When Niles was in a bad mood, every smile looked insincere to him, but he was pretty sure this one was genuinely insincere. "The one and only."
Niles could've made a joke about stealing his lines. Instead he said, "Fuck off."
Azama didn't appear to be bothered at all. "Oh? And who ruffled your feathers?"
It would be party gossip soon enough anyway. "Some entitled brat made a big drama over asking about my mysterious backstory. Again."
"...Don't you tell people not to do that in every show you do?"
"Ah, but you see, me talking about how I hate people asking that question is really me wanting to be asked that question."
Azama rolled his eyes. "There's just no helping some people."
Niles laughed. The cool, evening air had made his head feel a bit clearer. He breathed in again, deeply. "What are you doing out here? Making a bid for freedom?"
"Ha," Azama said, pulling a face. It was pretty close to the one Niles made when Leo gave him lectures about ducking out early. "No, I was stargazing."
Niles looked up at the night sky. It was a clear evening, but they were in the biggest city in Nohr. The light pollution was awful. "There aren't any stars."
Azama sighed. "No," he said, looking wistful, "but you can almost pretend."
It was like the moment earlier, when Niles had surprised him into really smiling – even though stargazing was such an old person hobby, it was the honesty of the expression which made it attractive. Nostalgic, a little pained, with a wry, lopsided smile of remembered happiness.
Then Arthur burst in and the moment was gone.
"Niles!" Arthur said, in what was probably his best attempt at an indoor voice. "The rude gentleman decided to leave! I am sorry you had to be troubled so on this fine evening."
"Are you real?" Azama said, his entire face lighting up like three birthdays had come at once.
"Indeed!" Arthur replied sternly, not at all sensing Azama's desperate desire to mock him mercilessly. "I, too, was astonished at his rudeness, after Niles so kindly volunteered him time for this event, not even accepting a token fee!"
Azama's lips were pressed firmly together in a line. He looked an inch away from dying of laughter. Arthur did have that effect on people, but Niles prefered it to be at someone else's expense. He sighed, but he could've been the one in trouble if Arthur hadn't stepped in. "Thanks," he said, trying to sound a little less like the word had been forced out of him at gunpoint.
Arthur beamed and clapped Niles on the back, waving to Azama before heading back inside. God, he was so obnoxiously cheerful and nice. His gigs were like that too. Wholesome, even. Worse than that, tonight was his first major gig and he actually deserved every success. Hopefully the brat was not anyone too well-connected, but Niles made a begrudging note to mention the incident to Leo just to make sure it didn't… get out of hand.
Azama, meanwhile, just looked at Niles, as though betrayed that this treasure had been kept from him for so long.
"He's not as fun as he looks," Niles said. It may have come out a little defensive. He folded his arms. "It's like kicking a puppy."
"No, no," Azama said wistfully. "Like telling a puppy to go fetch but only pretending to throw the ball. Much more amusing. I can already picture his expression…"
Arthur did make hilarious constipated expressions when mocked, but that wasn't the point. And anyway he was, whisper it, an actual decent person who had helped Niles more than once. Niles felt compelled to say something in Arthur's defence. "No, you don't understand. So much shit happens to Arthur. You watched his routine today, right?"
"And?"
"It's all true. Everything actually happened."
Azama's look grew incredulous. "What, all of it?"
Niles nodded solemnly.
"Even the part where the wyverns—?"
"Especially that."
Azama gave him a searching look, and seemed to eventually decide that Niles was being serious. He made a thoughtful noise. "No, you're right, it does sort of take the fun out of it. How could I possibly complete with the ill-will of the universe?"
That was… not quite how Niles would've put it, but he supposed the message had gotten through.
"How do you find these people?" Azama said.
Niles really ought to be leaving, but he couldn't resist snarking back. "With my natural charm and good looks, of course."
Azama looked at him askance.
He had to pretend to be put out, even though he really wanted to grin. "I'll have you know that one person once described me as handsome."
"And as we've established, with dead parents, 'a face only a mother could love' is out of the picture." Azama bowed gracefully. "I concede the point."
Niles snorted, and they moved on to other topics. He kept meaning to carefully ease himself out of the conversation but never managed it. Azama had that air of Being Educated (deserving of capital letters) that Niles normally hated, but he said everything with such a shit-eating grin that Niles found he didn't mind.
After a while, Azama had to return to the party. He paused at the door with another lingering look at the starless night. Niles thought he was about to say some kind of poetic shit, but instead he said, as though it wasn't important at all, "I guess you aren't as annoying as I thought you'd be. If you want, you could actually buy me that drink next time."
Niles snorted. "Careful you don't come on too strong with that kind of line." Azama gave him a flat look, and he added, "Yeah, sure, I'll look you up. No free drinks, though."
Azama smiled and then he disappeared.
It suddenly seemed to Niles that there had been a purpose to the evening, and he walked home cheerfully. Leo sent him three nagging texts about leaving through the fire exit without telling anyone – 'what if you had hit your head or something and no one realised?' Thanks, Mother, but I wasn't that drunk – but it was worth it.
Niles didn't do many panel shows. Even the most free-ranging of them still had a lot of scripted lines to record and re-record, half of which was then cut before broadcast anyway. Niles would call it stilted, except it seemed slightly hypocritical when half of his stand up shows were literally just him standing at the front of a room and talking at the audience for a while. This particular show was styled as a pop culture quiz, although the points didn't actually matter and it was just an excuse for the comedians to show off their stuff.
To Niles's delight, Azama was also one of the guests. He was on the 'opposing' team, but that just meant Niles could wink at him at opportune moments.
As expected, filming was tedious, but eventually they got to the good parts—where the two teams were supposed to 'face off' against each other by exchanging short snippets of stand up based on the comedian's chosen topic. It was allegedly supposed to be about tropes and storytelling and so on, but really was just an excuse to use small stuff that didn't have a place in a full show.
"Niles, your culture spot is about…" Orochi paused. He watched her mouth the word to herself, slowly. "Pirates?" She turned it over. "Do I have the wrong card or…?"
Niles grinned. Orochi put on a look of concern and the audience started to look nervous.
He wasn't even sure why, apart from possibly 'oh gods, is he going to make pirates a fetish now?' but he couldn't say he wasn't enjoying himself as he took his turn by the mic.
"The idea of 'being a pirate' is really one of those things that most people don't really think about past the age of ten." An old man in the front row made a loud fake cough and glared at Niles. One of the camera crew, proving they weren't total incompetents, immediately swung round to grab some shots. The old guy had a scarred face and an obviously fake leg. Niles enjoyed it when the hecklers had their own sense of humour. "Alright, Shanty Pete, chill your booty."
The audience laughed. That was barely even Niles's joke, but hey, he wasn't opposed to freebies.
"Anyway—" Niles shook his head as though upset at being interrupted. "—as I was saying, the piratical tradition is in decline. You don't really think much about this as an adult, but I can assure you, the younger generations are well aware of this problem. A friend's kid—" Alright, Xander wasn't really a friend. "—heard I had a glass eye, and I thought he was going to ask me something like 'oh, how come?' – no!"
More laughter as he shook his head exaggeratedly.
"Only adults ask those trivial questions," Niles continued solemnly. "I explain to him that it's a fake eye, the kid asks me, 'Are you a pirate?" This got them to laugh again. Wow, they were easily pleased tonight. He let it die down. "I say 'no', he says, 'well, why not?'"
He spread his hands and waited for the noise to die down a little as they laughed again.
Niles scratched his head. "As you can imagine, it's difficult to find an answer to a question like that." He had been genuinely baffled at the time as well, although that had been partially because it seemed weird that a child of people as serious as Xander and Hinoka would ask that kind of question, even if he was five. "I gave this really lame excuse, you know, 'oh, I, uh, I don't think there's many job opportunities for being a pirate these days'. He sort of gave me this look—" They were now entering completely made up territory, but Niles gave his best impression of what a disappointed, passive-aggressive Siegbert would look like. "'Well, you could at least wear an eye patch.'"
Again, laughter. It went on for a few seconds. This one was supposed to be a punchline, so Niles didn't begrudge them.
"I'd had this glass eye for over ten years at this point," he said, "but it had never once occurred to me to get an eyepatch. I immediately thought, yeah, why the fuck am I not wearing an eyepatch?
"It turns out—and I'm sure Shanty Pete will back me up on this—" More laughter. The old guy nodded, managing to keep some semblance of a straight face. "—it's actually really damn hard to find decent quality eye patches these days! I had to go to this middle-aged couple who do historical re-enactments… I did get a customised one for no extra charge though, so thanks Janice."
It was Azama's turn next for the opposing team, and took the microphone from him with a raised eyebrow. Yeah, okay, fair, it was a little outside of Niles's usual scope.
Niles thought Azama stayed silent at the mic for a minute to help the editors, but it actually turned out to be part of the joke. "To be honest," Azama said, "I was actually going to make this a kind of meta commentary on plot twists by using stuff a little more… let's say, optimistic than my usual style." Azama looked back at Niles as the audience laughed. He winked before turning back. Niles wasn't sure what to think of it. "But I seem to have been upstaged slightly."
He paused, but didn't get much of a reaction.
"Come on, you can't pretend like you didn't think that pirate stuff was going to go in a way worse direction. I could see your faces!" They did laugh at that, and Azama continued, "Instead, I thought I'd explore what is, to be honest, a much more compelling topic for me. So we're going to talk about how action movies are really all about existential crises. In case you find this kind of in-depth analysis boring, the upshot is, basically, life is meaningless—" He had to stop as the audience started to, absurdly, cheer. Then again, Azama did have a reputation for this sort of thing. "—so if you're intellectually deficient, there might as well be some cool explosions as anything else."
He smiled, which the audience seemed to take as reassurance that he didn't really mean it, and laughed. It seemed more likely that Azama just found his own joke funny. "I promise there will be fewer insults if you actually listen to the rest."
Afterwards, Azama approached Niles cheerfully. "I think that went rather well, considering I made it all up on the spot, don't you?"
"Wait, you really did make that up? I thought that was just for effect."
"Nope." Azama tilted his head as though in deep thought. Niles found himself distracted by the curve of his neck. "Although I can't pretend I haven't previously had thoughts about the typical action hero and how they represent a crisis in the writer's masculinity, and usually the audience's…"
Niles made a noise of agreement. "I don't know why more women don't watch those sorts of films, to be honest. It's not like anyone is watching for the plot anyway, and for some reason, the main guy seems to lose clothes as the film goes on."
Azama laughed and steered Niles towards the exit. "You would notice that. I don't know if everybody likes their men quite that bulky, but you know what, you make a good point. Maybe I'll add that one next time."
Niles was tempted to make a comment clarifying that he didn't really have a preference for bulky men, but he thought it might be a little heavy-handed. "Are we going anywhere in particular?"
"A place I know nearby. It's awful! You'll love it."
"A dinner date? I'm flattered."
"Ha! No, I thought we'd skip that part and go straight to getting so drunk, that sex no longer sounds like a bad idea."
"Are you saying you don't like the look of me sober? How rude."
Azama actually stopped to look Niles up and down. Niles found himself stopping as well, unusually invested in his answer.
"…I guess it would depend," Azama said with a shrug.
He carried on walking. Niles remained still for a moment. What kind of answer was that? An infuriating one, which was probably what he should've expected from Azama.
Azama insisted that this 'awful place' was only a few blocks from the production studio filming the panel show. Niles found this difficult to believe. They were in a fashionable part of the city, one of the oldest parts which had once been terraced slums for some factory owner, but which had been taken over by the middle classes when the architect who designed them suddenly became a big name upon his death. Now a lot of the ground floors of the buildings had been turned into shops, restaurants, or bars (mainly bars; the middle classes had a lot to drink about, apparently), but it looked comically forced to Niles, since the floor space was so tiny and dimly lit. Some businesses had had to bright idea to rip out most of the front and put in wall-to-wall glass windows, which certainly made things brighter, but also completely ruined the aesthetic they had supposedly been interested in in the first place.
It seemed so very like something that Azama would despise, but after a few shortcuts down narrow alleys and a few corners, the city began to look a bit more aged and respectful, full of smaller places that had obviously been here for a while. Yes, this seems more his style. He was probably born forty.
They walked past a second-hand bookshop called You Kant Take it With You. "Are they serious?" Niles said, jamming a thumb over his shoulder as they passed it. "Although I don't know why I'm asking you, it sounds right up your alley."
"The pun works on both a philosophical and literal level," Azama said defensively.
"Like I said."
It turned out that 'The Library' – a pub with a truly terrible name – was just a few doors down.
The pub itself was not quite how Niles had imagined it; he'd thought it would be a little more like a real library, but instead it was covered in that fake book-spine wallpaper and there were only a handful of books scattered on high shelves across the room. Every available wooden surface had been painted some kind of charcoal grey colour and it was dimly lit, as though the owners had purposefully set out to make the room look as grubby as possible without actually failing health and safety standards. It looked like one of those places that had been recommended as a 'hidden gem of the city' and had been struggling to scare away all the tourists ever since.
Azama was enthusiastically explaining the terrible cocktails inspired by classic literature, earning a few dirty looks from the folks at the bar. He didn't even let Niles order, too busy telling him about how people assumed this book must be really profound because it was beautifully written and had spent a hundred years analysing it, desperately searching for some kind of meaning, but it was actually just nonsense.
"It's still beautifully written, though; you should read it," Azama said. Their drinks appeared before Niles could ask if he really looked like a classical literature sort of person.
The bar worker prompted them with the price. Azama looked at him expectantly.
"What?" Niles said. "You asked me out and ordered. I'll buy the next round."
"I wasn't planning on there being a next round," Azama said, but it didn't seem a very strenuous objection when he added, "You haven't even had the best one yet."
"You were going to waste this kind of atmosphere on only one drink? Shame on you."
Azama grinned as they made their way to a table in the corner. "It's so try-hard, isn't it? They might as well enforce a 'sexy librarian' theme for the staff." He said it like it was the most delightful thing in the world.
He was joking, but Niles still pulled a face. "Bar staff get enough shit from drunks as it is, let's not encourage all the balding middle aged men in the world to re-enact their sexy teacher fantasies on some poor student or something."
"You think they'd try that here?" Azama asked, with mild interest. "I would've thought that people impressed enough by their own intellect to drink at a place called The Library would be the teacher in their sex fantasies."
"Even worse," Niles said. "They think they're doing you a favour."
"Have you ever actually been a bartender?"
"No, but I've dated several." Azama raised an eyebrow, so Niles added, "Not that many opportunities to meet new people, when your main hobbies include getting up to no good and drinking your sorrows away."
"Oh, no," Azama said, "I was just surprised at the idea of you committing to anyone."
Niles winced. Ouch.
It continued to reoccur to him at odd little moments throughout the night. Was Azama's comment really what people thought of him? Some emotionally damaged commitment-phobe? Ugh. Maybe he'd gone a little too far with the over-the-top flirting. Not that he could help the 'emotionally damaged' reputation, though, people tended to assume things like this when you had a glass eye and scars and a sordid past. That was the reason he'd originally started joking about it, way back when he was trying to shout over heckles rather than actually tell jokes. To prove that it didn't bother him. And at some point, it had become (mostly) true.
But it seemed the rest of the world hadn't caught on yet.