circle7 | the fine art of Figuring Out What The Hell You're Doing

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the fine art of Figuring Out What The Hell You're Doing

Technically speaking, there was nothing about the situation that wasn't at least vaguely familiar. The locale was in the same area, if not the same bar (for some reason, Bentley seemed strongly opposed to that option and Evan supposed it was all right, since they might as well canvas what the area had to offer while they were at it anyway). Evan was half-sure they were playing the same songs, personally sure that they were serving the same drinks. The faces might have been different, but strangers were still strangers until they...weren't, which was the point of this entire outing to begin with.

Bentley still seemed a little...stiff, although that too was something that was, perhaps, also the same.

Evan forcibly wedged a tall glass of rose-colored something into Bentley's grasp, managing it despite the lack of cooperation and the fact that he was balancing a drink of his own in his other hand. The drink was transparent and fizzy with carbonated bubbles, adorned at the top with a modest sprig of green mint or whatever the local planetary equivalent was. It even had a delicate little straw, for the doctor's delicate little sensibilities. Evan pushed Bentley's hands into raising the cup to at least mouth-level, even if he couldn't force the other man to take a drink.

"Don't look so spooked," he encouraged, clinking the edge of his cup against Bentley's drink before taking a sip. "You've done this before, remember?"

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He had convinced him, in fact. Bentley was down to his usual button-up (a nice maroon color, though, rather than white), but the rest was his usual attire - nice pants and boots. It did change his aura, though, so to speak. He looked just slightly more cool, and less like a waiter.

Of course, he wouldn't feel so cool if he knew the rumors going around. Never being one for socializing or gossip, he hadn't heard a thing.

"I-I was not... 'into it'," he stated indignantly. "Unless you mean dragged into it, then yes.

"And no offense, but I am relieved Viana couldn't make it." Bentley took a daring swig of his cocktail, finding it to actually be rather good tasting.

Evan blinked at Bentley over the rim of his cup, the dark liquid still tipped towards his mouth. It obscured whatever expression his mouth was making (if it was making any at all), but then he took a sip, swallowed, and calmly tilted his head. "You were pretty into it," he argued, narrowing one eye in recollection.

And, if the rumors in the First Circle were to believed, Bentley was so into it he probably came out the other side.

"No, I was not," he repeated. "You were there! You saw me gladly leave when it was time to go!"

"But you're always ready to go," Evan pointed out, not to be deterred. "And besides, Vi was threatening you with bodily harm if you didn't get a move on it. That doesn't count."

A slow smile spread across his face, just a little bit devious. "The point is that you were talking to somebody new. You were holding up a proper conversation with an interested party, and it was going well. No one tried to shoot you!" Evan said, proving that he was, indeed, a master of apparent optimism in the most dismal of inappropriate situations. He slapped a hand on the counter and leaned forward, eyes wide, and stressed, "It lasted more than thirty seconds."

Bentley slowly leaned back as Evan leaned forward.

"That's... your idea of 'well', is it? Not getting shot at?" Steadying his drink on the counter, Bentley's gaze faltered, wandering off somewhere nervously. "I-I wasn't even interested!"

At that, Evan reeled back, a physical backtrack. "You weren't? But you kept it up."

"I-is that not the polite thing to do when someone wants to talk with you?"

"Not for twenty minutes," Evan answered with a smile, half amused and half sympathetic. Sometimes, Bentley behaved as if he didn't know the first thing about human interaction, and sometimes, he was just as much a stickler to his perceived sense of social properness. It made figuring him out just a little more difficult, given certain situations. "Usually, I'm pretty sure you excuse yourself before the guy starts pushing his...er...assets in your face."

"His assets?" Bentley raised an eyebrow, beginning to look worried. "Are we talking about the same thing?"

To Evan's credit, he did look sheepish.

"Oh, that's right," he backtracked, running a hand through the dark-colored hair at the side of his head. "I've sort of known her since she was still a 'he' and sometimes it slips, you see."

Just sheepish about the wrong thing, that was all.

Considering the blank look on Bentley's face, he clearly didn't understand.

Unfortunately, Bentley looked like that normally half the time, so in the dim light of the club, Evan couldn't immediately tell. Instead, he nudged the shock-frozen doctor in the shoulder, half-turning to survey the rest of the people present. "But see, you got on well enough back there. I'm sure there's plenty of people you can carry an even longer conversation with 'round here. It isn't hard."

Bentley's eyes narrowed a bit. This whole conversation was a little lost on him. Where did people suddenly get the idea he was interested in... well, anyone, for one?

Sighing, he chugged down the rest of his drink, leaning his elbow against the bar.

"I appreciate the... opportunity, I suppose, but I'm really, um, not looking for anything?"

The man to Bentley's left downed the rest of his small shot glass and set the empty cup back on the counter with a clink before standing up to leave. As he shuffled away, Evan was quick to steal the seat, perching himself on the top of the cushioned counter seat and leaning back against the counter edge with the sort of ease that Bentley couldn't quite manage to possess in these sorts of situations, even with a few drinks in his system (not yet, anyway - Evan was working on that). Evan's cup was only about three-quarters of the way through.

"We've been over this, doc," he explained, waving the bartender over to replace Bentley's drink with something larger, more golden-brown in color and with a bit of foam on top - something that was sure to last the doctor a few more minutes than the last one had. With no need to go into specifics (they were both well aware of the circumstances by now), he said, "It's not about looking for anything. I mean, if you put that way, technically, it'd be pretty inconvenient to find something."

Turning back around, he leveled a small, sideways smile at Bentley. "It's about being able to talk and connect with other people for a bit. You sort of lose perspective of that ability on board, seein' the same faces day in and day out, and after a while, it disappears, like a vestigial tail. I'm not saying that it's as necessary as breathing air, but it's one of those things where, if you can help it, it'd be worth it not to completely lose."

He raised his glass a little into the air as if toasting an imaginary friend. "It just doesn't hurt if it's somebody that's easy on the eyes."

Bentley inspected his new drink curiously. It looked... heavier than the last. He didn't take a sip yet, but instead just kept his metal hand around the base. The fingers tapped against the glass, but the sound was lost in the noise of the bar.

"I... guess I see your point." It was rather deep talk for Evan, actually, but his reasoning was sound. Thinking on it, Erica wasn't 'hard on the eyes', so to speak. Maybe they even connected a bit. She was rather colorful, too - figuratively and literally. Bentley finally lifted the drink to his lips as he considered Evan's little speech and Erica. There was something different about her, but he couldn't place his finger on i- wait. What had Evan said?

Bentley froze, mid-drink.

Slowly and carefully, he set his cup down.

"About Erica... w-were you meaning to say it was she who was... a 'he'?"

Evan, who had been bent over with his elbows on his knees, stopped swirling around the last dregs of his drink around the bottom of his cup, where it was no doubt mixing with melted ice water and creating a diluted concoction that was, most likely, positively disgusting. He looked up, blinking with a mild expression on his face, and considered that reaction, the conversation prior, and all the things that apparently implied.

"...She didn't tell you," he hazarded.

"Oh, god," Bentley sighed, planting his face into his hands. "That... suddenly explains a lot of looks I've been getting."

"Looks?" Evan frowned a little, straightening. "They been bothering you?"

"No, no," he reassured, and almost seemed to recover a little from the shock, but then he remembered something else. Bentley's arms folded in, thunking against the bar as he hid his face even deeper. "Calibri knew! Oh, god, that means Boss knows, which means who knows who knows! I-I mean, there's nothing wrong with, you know, but, it's hard enough getting on around here! Now I have to worry that people think I'm into some kind of... I don't know! I wouldn't trivialize it like that, I swear! I mean, I'm a doctor, I deal with that stuff all the time! She's a person too, I wouldn't have done that!"

Bentley ended his rant with a deep chug of his drink.

What he didn't realize, was in his ranting, he managed to slosh a bit of it around - and it landed right on the face and arm of the neighboring person at the bar. Who happened to be a big man. Big big. Muscly. Seven feet tall, at least. And not only big, but part cybernetic himself. And he also happened to not be alone.

They looked like a pack of hounds about to pounce a weak rabbit.

All things considered, most of the time, if Evan had to put himself into situations like petty bar fights, he much preferred and tried to put conscious effort into being on the side without the weak rabbit as his sole ally. He was just not made for damage control - half the time, his job consisted of fanning the flames of unfortunate infamy and slander, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," he said, standing up and forcibly taking the incriminating half-empty cup from Bentley's entirely-too-excitable hand and setting it down on the counter where it could no longer splash into the face of any other aggressive strangers. He shoved Bentley away from the seat and the gathering crowd with the same hand. Though Evan was tall, these men had a good three-quarters of a foot and about a hundred pounds on him. In such a small, crowded space, they seemed to fill the air with their bulky frames. "Really, sorry 'bout that. Can I buy you guys a round to make up for it?"

He kicked Bentley in the shins behind him, cuing him to chime in with the apology.

Bentley jumped up, all too frantic and eager to join in.

"I-I'm terribly sorry, I um. Got a little... excited, there. I can cover a round for you... guys, too," he said, trying so hard to sound as casual as he could. It almost sounded painful. "A-and a new... shirt, maybe? I-is it ruined? Um."

"How about a new eye," growled the man. His face was dripping, still, and at first Bentley didn't understand. That was, until a small spark fizzled into the air, originating from his eye. It was mechanical.

"I, uh. Thought they made those waterproof nowadays," Bentley mumbled, entirely unhelpfully.

Evan stepped back and slammed the heel of his foot into Bentley's toe.

It was too late, however. The man was turning a vivid color that was putting Bentley's rosy pink drink on his face to shame. The mechanical eye whizzed in its socket, trying to focus to no avail, its glowing iris buzzing erratically from ceiling to floor as it no doubt continued to short-circuit thanks to one very excitable doctor and his very exciting story about his less-than-exciting conversation with a She who used to be a He. His friends didn't look all too excited either, indignant for the sake of their companion and maybe just a little too ready for a fight, given the almost comical display of pent-up aggression behind the initiator.

One of them was even pounding his fist into his other hand.

"What didya say?" snapped the man, advancing a step.

In return, Evan shoved Bentley back a step. There was space for it - the crowd was spreading around them, forming a little circle (or a little cage, depending on how you looked at it) for them to maneuver. Perhaps they sensed the imminent violence or source of entertainment in the air. The drunken crowd was always surprisingly attuned to such small shifts in the air. In fact, they might have drawn a breath even before the mechanical-eyed man shot a hand forward, the butt of his palm forcing Evan to stumble back, right into Bentley.

He didn't even mean to step on his feet that time.

Bentley fell back, conveniently right into an open seat, barely catching Evan. The movement was almost terrifying, if just for the fact that it only looked as though the man exerted as little force as it took to push open a swinging door. He wasn't even trying.

The men accompanying the mechanical-eyed man all laughed as Evan was pushed up to his feet. Bentley was holding his palm up peaceably, stuttering another apology.

"I-I didn't mean anything by it! I'm really sorry," he said. "W-we can leave if that, um, makes... you feel better. I-I'd really rather not fight."

"Lookit 'im, hidin' behind his friend like a coward," spoke the man who was previously punching his palm in anticipation. "We oughta' teach him a lesson about bein' a man." These were the worst types, Bentley knew - the kind who were violent simply because they could be.

While the group was still laughing, Evan grunted out a sound of frustration before pushing himself off of Bentley, patting the doctor on the arm as silent thanks for not tumbling back onto the ground and creating an even greater spectacle to laugh at. It was, conveniently, the metal arm, and on the last pat, Evan's three-fingered hand tightened around the metal elbow, brow raising in slowly dawning realization. "You got an arm," Evan remarked coolly, which wasn't exactly his most enlightening comment of the night, but thankfully, he followed that up with a quiet, thoughtful, "You know how to use it, doc?"

That earned Evan a raise of Bentley's brow. He looked between Evan and his arm, the metal fingers flexing upon the mention.

"U-unfortunately, yes," he said quietly. "Are you really suggesting we..?"

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HAHA CAME OUT I get it

I DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT INTENTIONALLY HA HA

LOL I'M SORT OF IMPRESSED THAT YOU DIDN'T EVEN MEAN TO

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BENTLEY JUST COMPLETELY MISSED THE IMPLICATIONS OF ERICA

JUST A DELAYED REACTION

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FITTING ICON GO

SO PERFECT

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i cannot fuckin edit this thing correctly

oh my god inbox spam

I'M SORRY I-I'M SO SORRY /bentley