A man with dark shaggy hair and an unkempt beard sat alone in one of the private lounges of the honey bee inn. It was a lovely room, with damask wallpaper and long velvet curtains, that was marred only by the presence of the vagrant himself.
His filthy trench coat was laid across a king sized bed just a few feet away. His bulging brown eyes were fixed on the coat pocket as he struggled against his bungee cord and duct tape restraints. It was a common kink for some visitors of the wall market but not the case for Blake Jones.
This was all a terrible misunderstanding! He groaned quietly to himself as acceptance of his fate settled in. He wasn’t trying to solicit any of those dancers for anything lewd. He just preferred preaching to a captive audience. The people of Midgar deserved to hear the truth but the people on the street refused to listen. They dismissed his ramblings as that of a mad man!
Blake was pretty sure he was the only sane man left on this goddess forsaken planet.
The door opened, and for a second the music of the Honeybee Inn burst in and filled the room - euphonius, robust, and then immediately muted again as the door drifted shut.
His shoes matched his gloves - both leather, and both stretched with a pleasant noise as he walked and flexed his hands. His jacket was not worn, but draped across his shoulders. The rest of his three-piece-suit-and-tie outfit fitted so well on his person it might as well have been sewn while he was inside of it.
In other words, Dart looked immaculate as he had entered and took a seat on the edge of the bed, across the man who was very much opposite in terms of how he appeared.
He blinked slowly, and the hand flexed again before reaching forward. With a rough movement he ripped the tape off of the vagrant's mouth.
"So," he said. The single syllable hung between them for a good five seconds, lost like a dumb tourist without much of an idea of where to go.
A stillness fell over the prisoner at the sound of the door opening. His head hung lax over his chest as he subtly peeked through the mess of matted hair that hung over his face. A man entered the room and Blake was immediately struck by his ethereal visage. This person was so clean that upon seeing him the vagrant began to question his sobriety.
The subtle sound of creaking leather sent a cold tingle down the back of his neck, causing Blake to stir. He looked up into the face of the man standing right in front of him, trying in vain to turn his head away as gloved fingers reached for his face. The tape came away with several whiskers from his beard attached. The lingering sting from the tape confirmed that he was indeed awake and that this was actually happening.
So…
The word hung in the air like a poison and Blake had no choice but to breathe it in as he coughed a mix of blood and spittle. It was an ominous thing to say because anything could follow it and his warden gave him plenty of time to imagine what anything might be.
Blake’s bones ached from confinement and he was still haggard from the rough treatment of his captors. He’d been expecting a couple of troopers to come haul him off to the nearest jail cell. He supposed he must be in real trouble if they sent a suit after him.
“Thirsty.” Blake responded in a gravelly tone. The sudden grin on the other man’s face did little to allay his nerves. The derelict wasn’t accustomed to kindness and he assumed the man must want something from him. Blake had precious little to give.