Fuel to Fire | Bode & Vincent
Between the extra jobs he was apparently taking up all over the city, he hadn’t quite learnt how to say no as of yet, Vince was exhausted. The bone weary kind that settled in the frown that found a permanence upon his lips, that made eyes heavy and suppressed any form of appetite he might’ve once had. But at the mention of street food, much less a chance to catch Mason beyond the confines of the precinct he hauled himself across the city.
It was remarkable the more he thought about it, just how much the city had changed in the past months he’d lived here. It’d been on the brink of meltdown more than a few times. The taste of ash and dust in the air as it went up in smoke. But now it was serenely calm. Unnervingly so if you asked Vincent. Although the city was still not without its darker side, he avoided the northern districts at all costs unless strictly necessary and only wondered south beyond the corporate controlled zones if he was visiting Dionysus.
He really ought to thank Mason for succumbing to his polite pleads and bestow an old exo-suit on him, Vince had then spent a week and a half preparing it for the young man. Outfitting it with the latest tech that he could reasonably get his hands on, most importantly a compact filter that’d purify the air for him, administrate drugs. It wasn’t a cure. But it was a solution and one that’d get him back onto his feet, the one he’d asked for. At the mention of a transplant the man had given him a cold stare, Vince had translated that into a firm no.
Reached the noodle bar of choice earlier than Mason, for which he was thankful it gave him a brief moment of respite, to build up his energy reserves for the man. “I’ll take a miso ramen soup, thank you.” He offered a tired, strained, smile to the one-man chef who was otherwise unoccupied at this moment in time. Tad too early for the evening rush.
He leans against the make-shift counter, the vendor is nothing but an old shopfront converted into a hole in the wall serving food. Despite his underwhelming appetite as of late it’s piqued a little now that he’s here. Few moments longer in the waft of spices and other cooking delights he might devour it all. Unlikely, he’s not ravenous yet and if anything he could do with a drink. Polite, curt nod to the chef and Vince makes a last minute amendment to his order, a simple beer. Far too many evenings out to bars with John and Mikey meant the occasional drink had grown on him.
His amiable attempt at idle chatter with the chef was growing thin just as he caught a glimpse of a familiar face, “I thought you weren’t coming.” The humour is there, faintly but it’s there if you look hard enough, might perhaps need a magnifying glass to see it, but it existed. “What’re you eating, drinking? It’s on me, I still haven’t had the chance to thank you for the grand favour.”