there’s something to it, that simple answer of i’m rarely bored that poses more questions that it answers. any other time–any other person–and adrian might have asked, but he doesn’t. he knows very little about baz and he enjoys the mystery of it. knowing too much would be spoiling it. anyway, he gets the sense that if baz wanted to talk more about it, he would have.
adrian’s grin is coy in response to the assumption about cigarettes–he isn’t much of a smoker, of course, if at all. not tobacco, anyway. “i’m not,” he hums in lieu of a real answer, intentionally mirroring the essence of an unsatisfactory answer that baz had given him. yet his hand is extended expectantly nonetheless and when the pack is offered to him, he slides one out delicately between two fingers. “can’t be too much of a bad influence if i asked for it, can you?” he transfers it to his lips and digs a lighter out of his own pocket to start it, feeling the headrush of nicotine after just one drag. the smoke is harsh on his throat, which is only accustomed to marijuana, and it makes his eyes water when he’s sober. “gross,” he states placidly and smiles again. “i love it. come on, then! you have money you wanted to spend, right?” he gestures down the street, where a few neon lights blink eerily in the distance. “i really want that coffee now.”
── adrian didn’t question his ambiguity, and baz was glad for it. while he was quick to gloss over answers or counter with half-lies, he still preferred to play most anything else close to the chest, in every sense of the phrase. over years of carrying himself through places he didn’t belong, he’d learned how to talk about a great deal of nothing. the other seemed to recognize this and mirrored it in his own retort, a quick clip of two words at which baz let out a breath of a laugh. it felt like a game, and baz had an obvious affinity for such things. he would happily play along.
“no, i guess not. you could do way worse around here, anyway. lucky of you to have only run into me, really. a cigarette is pretty tame.” he took another long drag as if for emphasis and turned from adrian, spotting lights from a diner some block down and setting towards it. he hadn’t made much of a plan past his loitering at the bar and so the distraction was probably a good one, some sobering caffeine to help calm the itch to return to that table and make trouble for himself. the initial rationality that told him it was reckless to call attention to himself was being steadily eaten away by his decidedly lacking impulse control, so getting distance was smart. “suppose i’m gonna have to pay the bill for you too now that i bragged, huh ?”
