There it was.
The very first thought to emerge with coherence from the flurry, after the crash of glass against the counter (louder than it should have been in the too-resonant space) and the swift motion that brought what was left of the bottle into his line of sight extinguished whatever he had been about to say regarding his estrangement from Daddy: a smug little told-you-so from the part of him that knew something like this was bound to go down, that had been waiting for it, to the part of him that had opened the door and invited it to happen. Before panic, before anger, “Well, you were pretty much asking for it, and wouldn’t it serve you right if everything ended here in this room you barely remember.” Or something like that.
Sober, he might have been tempted to obey instructions and shut up, but the same anodyne state of mild inebriation that had influenced him to let Jude in then managed to convince him now that this wasn't as serious a situation as it would have appeared to an observer -- or, closer, that it was as dead serious as it looked, but who cared: he had brought this on himself, so if the kid had any follow-through, in a few days maybe somebody would show up, and they’d find the stolen dog licking Near’s blood off the floor, and with that image came an absurd amusement that rippled across his face in the form of a semi-smirk.
“For chrisssake, kid,” adrenaline left his voice tight, trembling a little as he straightened, abandoning the wine bottle on the bartop so he could raise empty palms, “you think nobody ever threatened me from across a bar before? You want something, take it. Hell if I’m going to stop you.”
The very first thought to emerge with coherence from the flurry, after the crash of glass against the counter (louder than it should have been in the too-resonant space) and the swift motion that brought what was left of the bottle into his line of sight extinguished whatever he had been about to say regarding his estrangement from Daddy: a smug little told-you-so from the part of him that knew something like this was bound to go down, that had been waiting for it, to the part of him that had opened the door and invited it to happen. Before panic, before anger, “Well, you were pretty much asking for it, and wouldn’t it serve you right if everything ended here in this room you barely remember.” Or something like that.
Sober, he might have been tempted to obey instructions and shut up, but the same anodyne state of mild inebriation that had influenced him to let Jude in then managed to convince him now that this wasn't as serious a situation as it would have appeared to an observer -- or, closer, that it was as dead serious as it looked, but who cared: he had brought this on himself, so if the kid had any follow-through, in a few days maybe somebody would show up, and they’d find the stolen dog licking Near’s blood off the floor, and with that image came an absurd amusement that rippled across his face in the form of a semi-smirk.
“For chrisssake, kid,” adrenaline left his voice tight, trembling a little as he straightened, abandoning the wine bottle on the bartop so he could raise empty palms, “you think nobody ever threatened me from across a bar before? You want something, take it. Hell if I’m going to stop you.”