assassin_daddy | Duplicity Inbox

The thing is, as tight lipped as she can be, she's already decided she doesn't like this part of it - this uncertainty that she realizes she's probably going to feel every three months or so as long as they're paired up. She hasn't forgotten that this arrangement serves a specific purpose in this case in particular, and she has no idea how much progress Jacob and Vrenille have managed to make - and if wanting to contract together again might happen as abruptly as breaking apart had. And then there's the matter, much simpler, that Jacob almost brings up.

She smiles and picks up one of the glasses, though she doesn't drink it yet. She's still used to liquor being an extremely rare luxury, and she thinks for a moment she should save it for celebrating - that, or go the other way and slam it back and ask for more. She doesn't, but she does consider it.

"I don't want you to try," she assures him, because she's never been stupid. Her dark eyes do level on him though. "You think they'll be pleased with you, associating with the likes of me?"

There isn't room in the snug for two elephants in the room, but if there were, his relationship with Vrenille would be it. They're talking, even friendly, but it is t what it was. He's come to the realisation it may never be, but he's not spoken those words out loud. He's not about to here, either. It's not the right place for it.

Jacob, for his sins, does take a drink. He doesn't drink nuch when he works- he shouldn't drink at all but that's easier said than done. But he doesn't drain it, just sips it and let's the burn warm him through as he considers the answer to her question.

"I can make it work in my favour. I have an in with the SIN Guards, a useful contact. That's very helpful in my... lines of business." He leaves some things unsaid. Again, it's best not to say things too plainly, even here. "Besides, they all think you're head over heels for me. I've not dissuaded anyone of that notion."

He knows she isn't, but some of the patrons that have seen her come by like to laugh about what she needs from him to come all the way down here. Let then think that, if it keeps them from getting in her way.

Both eyebrows go up when she hears that, because Rosita is clever enough to keep her mouth shut when it's prudent, she can sway people one way or another when she really wants to sometimes, but she'd much rather be direct and she hates letting rumors about herself fly. Especially those.

It's not funny, but she sees the sense in not spreading too much of their business so she won't demand it change. It does rankle just enough though that she doesn't stop herself from asking, "And does that make you the big dick playboy then?"

"It certainly doesn't."

He can tell that she doesn't like it even before her eyebrows rise up to the ceiling, and truthfully, he doesn't like it much either. But people everywhere- here, home, in the millions of other universes and worlds there might well be, seem to make these assumptions about a man and a woman who talk to each other.

"I'm sorry. I should have had the presence of mind to deflect it." He says, and he does mean that. He doesn't want to swagger and posture around like people are falling over themselves to sleep with him. "But if they think you're here for that, they don't think you're here on SIN Guard business, trying to investigate them and their business, or that I'm selling them out."

He doesn't want either of them to face an angry gang of criminals.

She doesn't want that either, which is why she won't do anything to change it. But she's not so great at subversion that she can just not feel any kind of way about it, especially when it's more or less just the two of them.

"Why can't it be that you ask me to come by because you're head over heels for me?" she poses instead, although it's rhetorical. She knows. As the dealer between them he can't be asking her for anything, she supposes. But she's been in too many of these conversations throughout her life - she's been the side slut too often - to ignore it altogether.

"Jacob, it's fine. I just won't come here anymore and it'll solve it. But the contract can't go away so easily if someone decides to try and go after you."

Now that suggestion makes him smile, but it's not the wide grin of a good joke. It's something tinged with something deeper than that.

"Rosita, if you heard a rumour that I was in love with you, you'd run a mile."

Besides, if people thought he was so utterly besotted, they might think he'd be all the more willing to sell them out. And that puts them both in a dangerous position.

Her solution is the better one, and he nods to consent.

"I think that's best. For both of us- your superiors aren't going to like you coming down here, the Rubies won't want SIN guards on their patch, and no one here starts getting suspicious. But I still want a contract with you, if you'll have me."

She has no idea, really, what to do with the odd expression he pulls first; her brow furrows and she points out, "I do know the difference between a rumor and the truth," but there's still... something there.

Maybe it doesn't matter. There's only the one solution regardless, and the one major decision to make with that resolved.

"Yeah," she says, clipped. Obviously, all of that. She reaches down and taps the folder with her finger. "Any changes?"

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