x xxXX x Xx

When he enters the clinic (enters, like he can't just walk through a door without it being dramatically slammed open), Conrad's usual preparatory scowl is immediately replaced with a lost moue of surprise. The tiny, dingy office is crowded - there is laughter, beer, cigars. Don Armanini has just donated a dialysis machine, to be used at his convenience and shared with any patients as had need of it. Don Armanini, see, liked his privacy. He also liked his untaxed income, and preferred to see it go to other 'free enterprise', 'charities' and 'non-profit' organizations. Oh, and the place was a dump, Luce, could he get Matilda in there to get things up ta professional fuckin' standard?

Doc Worth is nodding, grinning bashful (predatory) like, ah gawrsh boss I'd be much obliged, yadda yadda. He is leaning back on his desk, palms on the edge, legs thrown out into the milling crowd, crossed at the ankle, as a line nearly dividing one half of smoke-haloed celebrants from the other. Nobody seems to want to cross the line of direction Worth's legs are pointing in, and this is a Very Important Respect of body language that Conrad breezes through, obliviously, narrowing his eyes to duck through the crowd in search of the mini-fridge hidden from view. At this arrival and the handful of scowls turned toward the disrespect, Doc Worth stands.

"Oi, not tonight Sunshine."

There is an incoherent, grievous reply through the slowly dying hubble of conversation.

" 'S upstairs," Doc calls over a few balding heads, chin jutting out in a scowl.

Don Armanini is a tall, rectangle figure who carries his obesity and alcoholism with well-dressed dignity. He looks down his nose at Worth, one eye narrowing under a heavy brow. "This is the kind of tweaker trash I'm talkin' about here, Lucy. You keep it out of sight during my appointments, d'you hear me?" The surrounding conversation is now background noise to the polka music coming from the dusty cd player atop one of the filing cabinets.

An icy retort, Conrad's pale face peeking over a broad-shouldered obstacle, "Trash? 'It'?" as Conrad approaches, Doc Worth meets him (hastily) in the closer press of the crowd now trying to impede Conrad's advance. Worth pushes past a pair of stern, pin-striped lady-shoulders glaring Conrad down; he grabs a fistful of shirt and redirects Conrad's approach toward the door of the apartment stairs.

A low mumble brushes hot and furious against Conrad's ear, "Yer cordially invited to get the fuck up there and get what you need. I'll be along in a minute." There is no diminutive nickname applied where it might have been rude and comfortable at the end of such a demand, and maybe this is what turns the little lightbulb on over Conrad's head and gets him through that narrowly opened door without further protest.

Worth slams the door after, a small furious bark of wood against wood, hand tightening on the knob before turning to offer an apologetic leer at lady-suit with her lady-scowl. " 'E's a... discrete sort. No worries." More than one ear is blithely turned toward the exchange, more than one chin is nodding at the chin in front of it as if agreeing with a general conversation. More than one person in that room is covertly closing their jackets back over their gun holsters, twitches and fidgets covered by boisterous laughter, a sea of shoulders tilting as they shift from foot to foot, a crowded clinic office swamped in expensive cologne and beer-sweat.

Meanwhile, Conrad has climbed the stairs in similar cautious suspicion. He can't even look toward the small square of carpet between the bedroom and the bathroom, and fixates instead on the tiny corner-kitchen crowding the livingroom, with its single counter and stand-alone sink. The television, a ludicrously oversized flat-screen, is at Conrad's elbow as he pries the refrigerator open. The mounted squirrel-heads over the couch judge Conrad silently as he lays eyes, then a palm, over the veritable mound of cold blood-bags laying along the center shelf. He plucks a single serving up for himself, savoring the heft, a knot in his stomach loosening as he eases the fridge shut. Then, on second thought, Conrad pries the fridge open with another satisfying knthnk, burglarizing a beer from the bottom shelf once it's clear that there's nothing else to be found.

And it's a fresh beer, too, which either said something very good about how often Doc Worth drank beer, or something rather not good (depending on how much Conrad wished to police the choices of alcoholics, which was very little indeed).

On searching the single cabinet below the single narrow countertop, Conrad unearths a single drinking glass - it's clean, impressively lacking waterspots - and sets all he has gathered atop the counter, sorting and switching the items, staring at the display, biting his lip. The baggie goes first, paying its fee of a quick mouthful through a ragged fang-hole before it is upturned above the glass, jet of sluggish blood squeezed out. There's no measure to the process, though Conrad likes to pretend at it as an expert bartender might, eyeballing the amount, a little more in, a little more sucked down with a 'ngk' of satisfaction, as much as is left to the glass, but on second thought no. Bag hanging from between Conrad's teeth, sucking at its remains with all the indulgence of a chef pulling a smear of delicacy from his thumb, Conrad cracks the beer bottle open on the sharp corner of the counter.

Beer joins the glass of blood in a merry gurgle - Conrad pauses to let the blossoming foam diminish - continues pouring at a careful speed, ducking his head to sip at the (pinkish orange-ish) head. The taste is thick and disgusting, bitter and strangely unsubstantial the way cheap alcohol could be, but it's drinkable - it doesn't make Conrad want to gag and he hopes, maybe, that he might actually be able to get something like a buzz if he tried this with good wine, at home.

When Doc Worth arrives (a heavy clump-thod-shuffle of a lanky frame up narrow stairs), it is to find Conrad leaning a hip against the (single, scuffed) kitchen counter, one arm crossed over his waist, contemplating the couch balefully over the rim of a half-empty blood-beer.

"Make yerself at home," the door slams behind Worth, startling Conrad out of his cold reverie.

Conrad is holding the glass up, elbow propped against wrist pinned against ribs, and glances, wide-eyed, from blood-beer to Worth and back. " ... I'll wash it when I'm done, calm down."

"Ain't talkin' about the fuckin' table piece."

A snort, lip curling up to reveal a stunted fang. "I'll reimburse you for the beer. What are these, thirty cents each? Seventy-nine?"

"Ain't talkin' about the fuckin' brewski!"

Conrad is confused enough to take a look around, searching for just what the hell Worth was (actually, visibly, impossibly) upset over. "You told me there was, er, supply up here, so I came up here and took some. What the fuck is your problem? If I've overstepped your hospitality, then I'm s-"

"You wanna getcher fuckin' kneecaps broken? 'S that it? Or is it ya want me ta get my kneecaps broken? Huh? 'Cos I can still do m'doctorin' from a fuckin' wheelchair, and those sharks down there know that better'n anyone!"

"Well," Conrad's nose is good and properly wrinkled at the corners by now, and he sets the beer down with a decisive gravity. "It's not exactly anyone's fault but your own, if you let people like that through the door."

"Shut th'fuck up," Worth snaps, crossing his arms defensively into the wrap of his lined whitecoat. His chin recedes down into the tobacco-stained fur and he slinks across the room, an uneasy pace from couch to door to television back to door. "Ya ignorant twat. I would hafta shoot ya myself, just ta hide th' fact that it wouldn't actually kill ya!" He's fuming, is Worth, and out of the corner of his eyes can see Conrad deflate with realization.

"Well, Jesus, couldn't I just apologize, or -"

Worth shakes his head, running fingers back through the scruff of his hair, "The sign on th' god-damn door said 'closed'. If I had enny 'a yer contact information like I been askin', I coulda left you a phone message 'r sommat, tellin' you ta keep away." A lower mumble, hissing with frustration, "And it ain't like they'da let me lock the door, no, paranoid fuckin' anti-establishment lot, that one. Like I'd try ta off 'em with a bomb. Tsch."

"So you're saying I shouldn't have shown up here at all, tonight." Conrad scrubs his face, pinching his fingers up under his glasses with a forced huff. "That I shouldn't have seen any of them, here, with you, like they can't have a witness to that?"

"Yeh, well, y'didn't see the most important face, and that's what'll prob'ly save yer stupid, arrogant, cock-sucking life. That, an' if ya wait 'til they all leave 'fore haulin' ass back to yer bat-cave, ya might not get followed."

Bristling for more than one insult, "I don't live in a cave, I live in a -"

"Don't fuckin' tell me that; a legal residence only makes it a good percentage more likely they could find ya, an' try an' kill ya." Worth flaps a hand irritably through the air, and the wafting scent of relatively recent wounds under warm bandages pulls Conrad's eyes shut in a flutter.

Conrad shakes his head, "Yeah, 'try' and kill me. It's not like - I mean, I'll need an excuse for being dead at some point." Nodding, forcibly casual, "Getting shot would be way easier than staging some fiery auto-crash, and hey you can write up the death certificate!" A short, dry chuckle. "Sure, why not. I've always wanted to attend my own funeral. Sounds like fun - no time like the present, why put off til tomorrow what a gangster can do to you tonight, all that." His anger simmers just under the hint of sarcasm, as if with-holding his phone number from Doc Worth could have ever had such disastrous results.

"Y'don't wanna go down that road, Connie," Worth's voice cracks on the nickname, and he pauses to carefully consider the peeling, blistered paint of the apartment door. "A head-shot might scramble somethin' y'don't want scrambled. Might end up attendin' yer own funeral as a droolin' mongoloid, 'r what."

"Wouldn't matter if I were. I plan to lie very still in the coffin with my eyes shut, and see how long I can hold in my laughter. Maybe a grievous head wound in the expiry report would help - closed coffin, stifling the snickers, rather necessary."

Worth cracks an eye open, grin curling up through the storm of his worry. "Yer a sick puppy."

"Don't say that; you sound like my mother when you say that." Conrad, mildly relieved that they had moved past the topic of his (huge, awful, pointless) mistake against the safety of all in the room, picks up his beer to take another mouthful, hissing air in through his teeth and wincing at the awful tang.

"Yer mum was an Aussie?"

"She's English. And she did - she does - think I was - am - a serial-killer. Just waiting to debut my elegantly planned primary-school massacre." A twist of the voice, washed down with a bitter mouthful of coppery hops. "That I was 'sick'. That I am." Because why not go ahead and share while imminent bullet-induced trauma loomed just moments nearby.

"Pff, what, you turn fourteen an' she find yer horsie porn?"

Conrad rolls his eyes. "I think that's enough personal chat for one night. When do your friends leave?"

"My clients are already on their way out. I'mma deal with installation an' whatever babysitters they wanna leave behind fer that, dunno how long that's gonna take." Worth gestures at the door as if it's to blame, one hand shoved into his pocket, the bulge of a clenched fist through shapeless denim. "Yer gonna stay the fuck up here an' yer not gonna make a peep, in the hopes they got it in their heads ta forget yer existence."

"Right." Conrad salutes with his glass, "I'm Harry Potter. You're Vernon Dursely. Got it." But after the reference, Conrad purples about the neck and ears, and silently curses Hanna's taste in audio books, because it's very obvious that Worth doesn't get the reference and is trying to decide if it's okay to admit that or not, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Conrad takes a breath, feeling sourcelessly guilty for knowing a literature reference in front of someone who might not - "It's from a -"

"I know what Harry Potter is. JK, roight?" The accent is exaggerated, leaned on, hidden under, a thin back-of-the-nose and front-of-the-mouth quip. "You been spendin' time with Red, huh?" The line of questioning is methodical despite its rapid delivery, and careful. It tip-toes where Worth normally steam-rolls. Doc shoves both his hands in his coat pockets, flapping the sides out like a bird steadying itself with its wings. He steps in Conrad's general direction. Pauses. Steps again, looking at him from a different angle. "Wanna ask yer somefin', 'fore I go handle the penny gallery."

Conrad eyeballs Worth side-long. "Okay," he allows carefully. "But you can do that from right where you st -" the beer sloshes in the glass as Conrad jerks back, balking at the loom of someone he maybe hadn't realized was all that tall for how much Worth kicked around in a slouch.

"Hey," Worth gruffs, and his voice is so serious and his face is so stern that Conrad swallows, hard, worried again that they might be talking about dying, again, and how it was that Conrad had kind of fucked up major in letting his anger get the better of him, or something. But Worth only squints, and those eyes are green or maybe blue, sparking with intelligence and life that the rest of his corpus does its best to masque. "You had green eyes, didn'tcha?" Voice rising up a notch at the end of the question, as if he knew the answer but was only making sure.

Conrad takes a breath, confused, then another - angry - "Did you fucking steal my medical records?"

"Shut up," Worth commands again, clamping his eyes shut, exhaling through his nose. "Ya had green eyes, yellow-like, an' they was ringed in a sorta brown, right? Right?"

"My wallet. No, my optometry records. That's it, that's what you - don't fucking tell me we knew each other, don't you dare suggest I ever met your stupid face and -"

"CONNIE -"

The bellow dries Conrad's words up, forming a knot in his throat and puckering his lips in over his teeth. He is wide-eyed, and inclines his chin forward to silently, furiously prompt an explanation.

"Yes or fuckin' no! You had green fuckin' eyes and you usedter wear -" Worth's hands fly up in between them, a furious scrabble of fingers through the air, "Polo yuppy shit."

Conrad is silent, trying to read over the valley where Worth's shoulder and fur-ruff meet. "I... What the fuck, Worth?" A nervous, half-angry laugh, "There might be a picture like that, somewhere, sure. I worked for a magazine that did a feature on its graphics and layout department, I might have been - you could have Googled that. And so fucking what if I did have green eyes? You found a picture of me; good job, stalker."

Worth is working the bellows of his lungs in a shallow wheeze, and fumbling a cigarette as he steps away, lighting up with shaking hands. Over the terse silence, a wavering and hardly audible grunt - "The term 'peelin' grapes' mean ennything to ya?"

Conrad snorts, arms crossed, but his silence tumbles down into stillness and a shocked, heavy, muted immobility. When Worth turns to prompt an answer, Conrad opens his mouth uselessly, starts to shake his head, but it turns into a reluctant nod. "My uh, my Gemma used to have me do that. She um. She had cancer, and I wanted to help, so she said I could peel her grapes for her. I was also kind of a nervous kid, so maybe it was just to keep me from fidgeting too much, I don't know." A hard, forced laugh. "You're talking like you've met her. My grandmother. And she showed you a family album and told you irrelevant stories." Suspicious now, because Conrad didn't think Worth above traveling as far overseas just to fuck with his life.

"So tell me what the fuckin' snake means," Worth mumbles around his cigarette, and at Conrad's confusion - perhaps over the blithe acceptance of the very personal reveals that were happening - Worth rephrases. "You ever get bit? By a snake?"

"I... had a snake. Mum was allergic to just about any other type of animal, so my cousin gave me a corn-snake when we came to - well, he gave me one."

Worth turns his hands through the air, impatient. "So what's the story with the fuckin' snake, c'mon I got people ta answer to downstairs. It died, right?"

Conrad swallows uncomfortably, clutching up the empty beer bottle against the quarter-full glass in a rattling clink. "It got out of the terrarium and swallowed a mouse that had eaten poison pest-bait. Mum found it in the wax-fruit bowl in her tea-room. She thought I had killed it, and put it there." And in this moment Conrad looks young, hurt, and vulnerable the way Englishmen always seemed to be when talking about their mums. "To torture her for not getting me a dog, or some rubbish." Conrad's one good fang flashes in a grimace, as if the memory had come up to bite him before disappearing back to the depths from which it had just swum. A small, bolstering correction, "I mean, garbage."

Worth is shaking, tiny tremors from head to toe, an energy that speaks nothing at all now of nervousness or fear. He pulls sharp at the cigarette, cheeks hitching under his bruised eyes as if facing a bright sunset. He has to look anywhere but Conrad's face, attention snagged by the pattern a pale, manicured fingertip is tracing in the condensation of the glass in Conrad's grip - a curly-q pattern, over and around, under and up, the rehearsed path of wet grapes rolling across summer-hot flagstones.