“You hate the work, don’t you?”
In the weeks that she's known him, she has developed the habit of picking apart his face, separating each feature so that she can focus on the ones of interest - his slightly hooked, often-broken nose, the blunt chin and hard jaw that has, every day that she’s seen him, been dusted with an uneven layer of orange stubble. A memory abruptly surfaces, and she can remember very clearly touching the spongy bone of her father’s skull. Under the table, her hands curl into fists and dig into the tops of her thighs.
His friend clears his throat when she doesn’t answer, and Magpie finally blinks so that the individual features (familiar and foreign together) blur and become her half-brother’s face. “Charlie, I think everyone hates work. That’s why everyone’s here.” She jerks her chin up, makes a vague movement to indicate the bar and then pulls her braid over her shoulder so that she can chew at the end when Crow isn’t looking.
He’s always looking, though. Charlie gamely sits up and up looks around the bar at her unspoken command, but Crow keeps his eyes on her, lips pressed together in a thin line. She thought his name was the most pretentious thing she’d ever heard when he and Charlie had introduced themselves, but then he had sheepishly spread his arms out and winked. “It’s short for Scarecrow, which turned out to be one exactly syllable too many for most people’s mouths.”
Scarecrow she could see, because she was just shy of six feet tall and still had to look up at him, and now, wedged in the booth between the wall and Charlie, the man looks ridiculous and uncomfortable. His shoulders are forced up around his ears, and his spindly, frail limbs are bent at sharp angles. He can’t move without hitting either Charlie or the table, and whenever he shifts, his knees collide with hers. It’s still a stupid name, though.
It was apparent fairly quickly that Crow was the smart one. The division of duties might be slightly blurred, but the two seemed to have fallen into the comfortable, complementary roles of brains and brawn. Crow was half a foot taller than the both of them, but Magpie would’ve bet money that she outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. Granted, he might turn out to surprise her, but even when he wasn’t folded tightly into a booth, he was still the most awkward man she had ever seen. He moved in quick, nervous jerks and he had the habit of looking shifty and alert, like someone who had grown up getting the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis. And why else would he put up with Charlie? Magpie glances down at Charlie's thick, scarred fingers. Crow's knee bumps against the inside of her thigh and he murmurs a quick apology.
"Did you ever live with him?" she asks suddenly, and Charlie's head swings back in her direction. He looks confused, his brow wrinkled up, until Crow leans in and whispers something in his ear. "Oh, Singyard?" The man shakes his head, runs his hand through his hair and scratches at his scalp for a moment. "No. Heard he was an asshole, though."
She's got a headache suddenly, a stabbing pain behind her left eye that throbs in time with her pulse, and her tits are painfully swollen. She should've been home an hour ago because now Isaiah's probably screaming himself hoarse and she’ll never manage to calm him down. When Crow clears his throat and tries to catch Charlie's eye, Magpie shakes her head and pushes out of the booth.
"Give me a few days to think it over, okay? I've gotta talk it over with my husband." She won't say anything to Briar, she just needs to get out of the hot, humid air of the bar and away from Crow's watchful stare, dip into her stash and get a buzz going before trying to calm Isaiah down.
"Pick a better place next time, you guys. Gods, last thing I want to do is come in here on my day off."
She kisses Charlie's cheek, leans across the table to shake Crow's hand and then throws some money on the table to cover the drinks, waving away their protests. She looks back once after she's outside, and through the dirty window she can see their heads bent together in conversation. Charlie grimaces and shakes his head, Crow shrugs and starts gesticulating to make his point. She turns back around before they catch her watching and jams her hands in her pockets. Her head still hurts and she closes her eyes for a moment, trying to picture cool, dark water.
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