(782 words. Full prompt is "sleeping with someone because they remind you of someone else", so this is Daud/OFC but also kind Daud/Billie.)
"This one is on me," the serving girl says as she holds out his drink to him, waving off his efforts to shuffle through his meagre handful of coins for the payment. She leans in close as she does so, smiling with half-lidded eyes and a tilt of her head.
It is an obvious look, but he has to delve far back into memories from his youth to recognize the meaning implied there, and it startles him when he does. This woman does not know his face or his crimes, he realizes, does not see him for the killer he is. He is just a man drinking alone who caught her eye for some reason. Has he finally gone far enough, kept his head down long enough, to escape the reputation he was once so proud to have earned? The thought is strangely elating, even over the hint of bitter disappointment at the back of his throat.
He has to dig back even further to remember how to respond to such a gesture, to muster up a smile as he thanks her and to let his fingers brush over hers as he takes the glass.
The woman grins and begins clearing away empty plates from the recently vacated table near his, keeping herself half-turned to face him as she does. "You look like you've been travelling," she says. "Did you get a room here for the night?"
He takes a long drink before he decides how to answer her, and he uses the time to try and look at her through the eyes of what she sees him as, an ordinary traveler drinking at her inn. His first inclination is to lie and say no, let it die off there, but…
But she is quite pretty, in the sea and salt-roughened way of most people living in these small port towns. Dark skin and dark eyes, rare up here, and younger than him but not so young as to make him balk at the idea. There is something old and knowing to the lines of her face, but the curve of her lips seems easy and genuine, like she's seen much of the worst this world has to offer and still hasn't quite let it beat her down. It is a look he admires, has admired before.
The familiarity there isn't something he wishes to consider too deeply, but it is enough, along with the novelty of having such an option, to make him say, "Yes," and then, after a pause, "The room at the end of the hall."
"A man who likes his quiet?"
He shrugs and drains the last of his drink. "Only sometimes."
The brush of hands is much more deliberate and lingering this time, as she takes his empty glass and piles it in with the rest of the dishes. "I'll come by later," she says, "see if you want anything else."
"All right."
He watches for a while as she goes about her work. She smiles freely as she moves around the room but does not linger with anyone else in quite the same way. As the tables begin to empty of their patrons, he stands up to leave as well, climbs the stairs and heads to his rented room at the end of the hall.
It is a fight against every instinct he has to leave the door unlocked, to turn his back and stand at the open window and watch the lights flickering over the empty streets until he hears the handle turn. He glances over as the door clicks shut again and then reaches out to quietly pull the window closed as well.
He does not know this woman's name, he realizes as he walks toward her, but she hasn't asked for his either. That's probably for the best, for a number of reasons, though he knows it will make it easier for another name to flit through his mind and try to fill the blank.
She meets him halfway across the room. She lays her hand on his cheek and smiles, and he reaches up to close his fingers around her wrist before she can touch his scar.
He feels suddenly that he should warn her off somehow, tell her who he is and what he has done, tell her that he has killed more people than she has probably ever met in her entire life spent in this tiny seaside town. Instead he swallows and says, "It's been a while for me."
The woman laughs, a sound much too similar to the one in his memories. "Well, don't I feel special, then?"
He closes his eyes and lets her pull him close.