Chapter Text
It all felt incredibly cliché.
A thunderstorm that had blown in out of nowhere. A town that I’d never been in before. A cloak about my shoulders, the hood pulled up over my head to try to block the relentless rain. I could almost imagine I was an intrepid adventurer on an epic quest.
Romanticized images of myself aside, though, I was cold, hungry, and tired. The wind, which couldn’t seem to make up its mind on which direction to blow for more than a few seconds, snapped my wet cloak against my legs over and over. I splashed through puddles along the wide street, despite trying to steer my unwieldy trunk away from them, and cursed as a fresh wave of water got into one of my boots.
I looked through the sheets of rain for a decent place to stop. The streets of Dublith were empty, aside from a few stray souls who’d just come from the train station like me. It was late enough that most places would have closed by this time on a good day, and the rest had probably shuttered early on account of the weather. I couldn’t have blamed them one bit.
What I needed was somewhere to stay for the night—just to sleep for a few hours. Then, I could backtrack to the station and continue on south tomorrow. I squinted against the wind, trying to look for any nearby signs or directions. The street lamps, while on, weren’t offering enough light to be of much help in the deluge. I stumbled along for another minute until a crack of lightning lit up the sky and revealed something promising. There was an overhang on one of the buildings lining the street, just half a block ahead. I made my way towards it as the rumble of thunder followed too quickly for comfort.
Through the rain, I had assumed the overhang was a storefront until I nearly tripped down the descending stairs. Catching myself on the railing, I cursed again, taking a shaky breath to calm my nerves. When I’d gathered myself once more, I poked my head back out into the pelting rain just long enough to read the sign above the entryway. The worn, wooden board declared the place to be the “Devil’s Nest.”
I frowned, pulling my head back in. It sounded nothing like the inn that I needed at the moment, but with the night and weather taking the turns they had, I couldn’t afford to be choosy. I sighed in resignation, pushing my hood back. As I started down the stairs clumsily with my trunk and squelchy shoes, I hoped I’d be able to get help in whatever sort of place this was.
At the bottom of the staircase, I found a dilapidated wooden door on half-rusted hinges. I tried the handle, and it pushed open with a creak of protest. Well, at least they weren’t closed. Looking inside, I saw a large room with gray stone walls. There was a group of plush leather couches and chairs to the right and a long, polished wooden counter to the left. There was also a figure behind the counter, I noticed, drying off a drinking glass. He stood in front of an extensive selection of booze, and he turned to look at me when he heard the door.
His voice was gruff when he spoke. “You barely missed us. We’re just closing up for the night.”
I sighed again, shoulders slumping as I took another step into the place despite his words. I kept the door propped open with one arm to show my intention of leaving, but I at least needed to get some directions first. “Do you know where the nearest hotel is?” I wiped my brow with my free hand, trying to prevent the rain that had nearly soaked through my clothes from dripping into my eyes. I probably sounded irritable, but given the circumstances, it was proving hard not to.
The man opened his mouth to respond, but a different voice cut through the air before he could speak.
“Now, now, Dolcetto. There’s no harm in letting her stay for just a little while,” the voice said smoothly. I looked towards a doorframe set in the far wall, and a second man emerged from the shadows.
The man behind the bar—Dolcetto—shrugged in a way that indicated he was completely unbothered. He shifted his attention to a smudge on the glass in his hands. “Whatever you say, boss.”
I inclined my head towards the second man, remembering my manners at least a little bit. I was glad for even a brief respite from the elements. “Thank you.”
He stepped further into the light. “Hey, it’s no problem,” he said easily. As he sauntered—and yes, that was the only word for it—towards the bar, I got a better look at him. Spiked dark hair. Leather pants. A fur-fringed black vest that showed off muscled arms.
First impressions exist for an important reason: they help to keep the person having said impression alive. Knowing that, I rarely felt guilty for sizing anyone up. Especially now, when I was underground in an unfamiliar city with two strangers, it seemed reasonable to be wary.
My read on this guy, who I presumed to be the owner, was that he absolutely looked like trouble, but not necessarily a threat. As in, if I weren’t so distracted by my own difficult night, I’d probably have gotten distracted by how good-looking he was, instead. So, when he sat down at the bar and beckoned me to a nearby seat, I accepted. I untied my cloak to hang it on the empty coat rack near the door, then went to sit a few stools down from him. At the last moment, though, I hesitated.
“Hmm? Something wrong?” He looked at me expectantly, elbow on the table and chin in his hand, tapping a rhythm into the bar top with one finger.
“I, uh… I’m pretty wet from the rain,” I said, stating the obvious. There was a dark trail of water droplets on the stone floor between the door and me. “I don’t want to ruin your furniture.” I stared down at the wooden stool, frowning.
The man in the fur-fringed vest barked out a laugh. “Don’t sweat it. They’re beat, you couldn’t ruin them if you tried.”
I nodded after a moment, pushing aside my hesitation and shifting down into the seat. It was good to be off my feet, though my wet clothes were still clinging to me like a second skin. I moved uncomfortably, trying and likely failing to be subtle.
“What’ll you have?”
I looked back up at the owner, caught off-guard by the question. He nodded towards the wall of alcohol without breaking eye contact.
“Oh! Let’s see…” I wasn’t looking to drink, really, but if I was taking shelter here after hours and trying to get directions from these guys, buying something was probably the decent thing to do. I spotted a few familiar things on the wall. “Rum and cola, please.”
Dolcetto hummed in recognition, fetching the bottle from its place. He was a stocky man, with sharp eyes and a fluid, assured way of moving. I sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes while he made the drink for me, something else for the owner that looked to be straight whiskey on the rocks, and then slid the glasses across to each of us. I thanked him when we briefly met eyes, and he nodded and went back to cleaning behind the counter. I examined the glass. The lights above the bar reflected off the minute scratches and chips across its surface, no doubt gathered over years of use.
From my peripheral vision, I saw the owner turn to look in my direction, so I mirrored the motion. I’d expected he maybe wanted a toast, but instead, he drank half the contents of his glass in one go and returned his gaze to me, putting the glass down with a solid thunk. “So, what brings you to our humble home of Dublith at this time of night? We don’t get too many out-of-towners.” He nodded towards my trunk. The calculating look in his eyes belied the conversational tone of his question.
“Ah, I’m just passing through,” I said, waving a hand a bit nervously. It was probably needless paranoia, but I tried to never give away more information about myself than I had to when traveling. And besides, the look in his eyes was strange. He seemed slightly suspicious of me, though I couldn’t imagine why. Trying to brush it aside, I continued.
“I’m headed further south, actually. But I had a delayed train this afternoon and now they’ve stopped running for the night, so I had to stop here.” I took a sip of my drink; it tasted like it was around eighty percent rum, and I willed my face not to screw up as the cocktail burned my throat. I looked over the rim of the glass at the owner, then at Dolcetto. “I’m looking for a place to stay, if either of you know anywhere nearby.”
Thunder rumbled outside while I awaited a response, reminding me just how much I wasn’t looking forward to going back out. But I was beyond drained, and midnight was fast approaching, so I could only bide my time here for so long. I tried not to make my impatience too obvious.
“Actually…” Dolcetto began, trailing off and shooting a look towards the other man. I got the impression he was asking for permission, or perhaps for backup, on the rest of his unspoken thought. As the seconds dragged on, I raised an eyebrow at the apparently one-sided exchange, glancing back and forth between the two of them.
The tension hung in the air for a few moments longer. Finally, the man seated next to me sighed. “Yeah, that’d be alright.” Finishing his cryptic communication with Dolcetto, he turned to face me again. Whatever suspicion he’d been regarding me with previously seemed to have dissipated. “We’re not exactly a hotel, but we’ve got rooms upstairs. It’s where most of us stay.” He threw a thumb towards himself, then towards Dolcetto. I inferred he meant the other employees. “We’ve got an extra room, if you just need somewhere to crash for one night.”
My second eyebrow went up to join the first in surprise. I certainly hadn’t been expecting that, and it seemed almost suspiciously convenient. Not to mention, I’d never heard of people living at a bar. But who knew how long I’d wander the streets in the rain looking for somewhere else?
My exhaustion was decidedly outweighing my common sense at this point. Before my logical brain could fully catch up, I heard myself asking, “How much?”
“Well, if you don’t mind sleeping in a stranger’s bed while they’re gone for the night…” He looked up, tilting his head back and forth slightly, then eyed his drink. “Pay for yours and mine,” he suggested after a moment, lifting the glass just slightly off the bar top. “I’ll call it even.”
I frowned. Something wasn’t adding up.
“That seems oddly generous of you, sir,” the man behind the counter broke in, a cautious note in his voice. He’d paused in wiping down the back counter to throw a confused look over his shoulder. Well, it was a slight comfort to know I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. And unless this was all part of a trap, it seemed like they probably weren’t plotting something together, at least.
The owner shrugged a shoulder carelessly, swirling his drink in its glass, then grinned. I noticed that he had unusually sharp teeth, and it sent a small shiver through me. I’d never seen a smile quite like that before. “What, I can’t be charitable every once in a while?” He stretched his arms out behind him, cracking his neck, then glanced at me. “Whaddaya think?”
I hesitated again. The odd arrangement seemed to have fallen into place too easily. But my wet clothes were growing colder and heavier the longer I sat in the stone basement, and my willingness to go back out to the street had all but evaporated. Finally, with two expectant pairs of eyes on me, I nodded. “Okay, yeah. Thank you both. I’d rather avoid having to go back out in the rain,” I said, voicing my thoughts. The man hummed, drumming his fingers against the counter once more, then quickly drank the rest of what was in his glass and stood. I followed suit, trying my best not to wince at the sting of the alcohol.
“Alright,” he said, turning back in the direction he’d come from, hands going into his back pockets casually. “I’ll show you the way.”
I moved to follow him, hoping I wasn’t about to get abducted. I shot one last glance over my shoulder at Dolcetto, but he was again absorbed in his work making the bar spotless for the next day’s shift. I took the fact that he wasn’t trying to gesture for me to run away as a good sign—not that I had any cause to trust him. Still, he somehow seemed inherently more trustworthy than the man I was following.
We went down a short hallway, then up a rickety flight of stairs to another dark hallway with doors lining either side. I stepped up next to the still-nameless man on the landing.
“So,” he began, pointing a hand to a door slightly off to the left, “that’s your room for the night.” He pointed to one far end of the hall. “Shower’s in there. You look like you could use it,” he said offhandedly, glancing over my shivering form. I didn’t have it in me to be offended at that point. He gestured to the next door over. “That’s a storage closet for blankets and towels and shit.” Towards the opposite end of the hall. “And that’s where Dolcetto will be, so bug him if you need anything, alright? Anything else?” He was asking me and searching his own brain for an answer at the same time by the looks of it, his palms up and open.
I shook my head, bowing slightly and trying not to show how utterly thrilled I was at the prospect of a hot shower. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind to a stranger.”
The man chuckled. “Don’t mention it. Just don’t mess up Martel’s room. She’ll probably try to kill me if she finds out I loaned it out.”
I gulped, hoping that whoever Martel was, she wouldn’t be back tonight.
---
The water pressure in the shower was, in a word, unreliable. It sputtered and hissed the entire time I was in there, but the water was scorching hot, and that alone made it everything I could’ve asked for.
Staying in someone else’s room did feel odd, but I made do. The Spartan space was essentially devoid of personal items, aside from a few short blades resting on the worn dresser. I tried not to think too hard about what they might have been used for, and I refrained from opening any of the drawers. Luckily, the clothes sealed in my trunk had stayed almost entirely dry. I borrowed a few blankets from the supply closet, trying to stay quiet as I moved around the upper floor. I wasn’t sure which of the other rooms were occupied, but I didn’t see anyone else that night.
I laid a thin blanket out on the narrow bed I’d been assigned, then sandwiched myself between it and another two blankets. It’s what I would have wanted a stranger to do if they were staying in my room. I heaved another sigh, this time from some mixture of relief and contentment. Despite the peculiar circumstances, the thrumming of rain on the building’s roof was familiar and comforting, now that I was safely and surely huddled away from it. The door to the room I was in was locked and deadbolted, too, giving me at least the illusion of safety.
The rational part of my brain still realized that I was very much not in a hotel, or even a regular bar—I was, decidedly, somewhere strange. But figuring out the specifics would just have to wait, I told myself, and the rain lulled me to sleep.
---
I woke up late the next morning. Sunlight streamed through the glass of the small, dirty window across from the bed and onto my face. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked at my watch sitting on the bedside table. The trains had probably been running for a good few hours already.
I packed my small trunk and trundled down the stairs with it awkwardly, trying and failing to not be noisy. The smell of food had hit me as soon as I’d stepped out into the hallway, and it was getting stronger as I got closer to the bar room. My stomach growled insistently in response. I’d been so relieved to find lodging the night before that I’d almost managed to forget I missed dinner, but now, that knowledge had returned in full force. I made a mental note to grab something filling before boarding the train.
When I stepped into the main room, four pairs of eyes turned to look at me. I made a physical effort not to shrink under the scrutiny.
Seated closest by, I recognized the two men from the night before. They were joined by two more tough-looking guys I wouldn’t have wanted mad at me, eating breakfast at the bar counter. “Yo!” That was Dolcetto, looking freshly showered with his hair less styled than the night before. “Sleep okay last night?”
I nodded and put a polite smile on my face, rolling my trunk along as I came to stand by the bar. “Yes. Quite well, actually.” I turned to look at the owner, who raised an eyebrow at me and paused in eating his breakfast. He looked exactly the same as the night before, I noticed—almost as if he hadn’t gone to bed at all. “Um, I was wondering—about the blankets and towel I used. I left them just outside the room, since I didn’t know where to put them.”
“Roa?” The man asked, not looking away from me. One of the large men seated further down the bar grunted. “I’ll take care of it before Martel gets back,” he confirmed in a gravelly voice.
With the matter apparently settled, I nodded towards him. “Thank you.” I returned my gaze to the owner, bracing myself for the answer to my next question. “I never did pay you last night. What do I owe you?”
The man glanced towards Dolcetto. I was getting the impression more and more that he never did anything himself, if he could avoid it. Dolcetto appeared to do some mental math. “Nine-hundred fifty cenz.”
I blinked at him, surprised. I’d been entirely prepared to be price gouged on those drinks, but apparently, that wasn’t their intention. Warily, I shifted my weight to take money out of my pocket and set the right amount on the counter. Dolcetto slid it vaguely towards the cash register on the other side of the bar, to be dealt with later.
I stood there dumbly for a moment, sure that this was somehow too simple an ending to the last twelve hours. I still had a lot of unanswered questions, but they weren’t really my business to ask, and no one seemed to expect anything more from me. Perhaps I’d be better off not sticking my nose into other people’s lives, I reasoned.
Letting out a quiet sigh, I bowed my head. “Well, thank you all again for your help. I’ll be off, then.” I started making my way towards the door.
“Already? Did you want breakfast before you go?” That was the owner. I turned back to look at him again. The bacon and eggs on the plate he was holding out looked almost as good as they smelled, and I was sorely tempted to take a seat. But alas, now wasn’t the time.
“Wish I could,” I said honestly, chuckling as I fetched my cloak off the coat rack. It was still damp, so I threw it over my arm rather than putting it on. “I’ve gotta head out if I want to make it where I’m going on time, though.”
The man shrugged, setting his plate back down. “Alright, then. Stop by if you ever find yourself in Dublith again, doll.”
I nodded and raised a hand in parting, willing myself not to linger on the term of endearment from a stranger who surely meant nothing by it. “I’ll do that. Thanks again!”
With that, I turned and hurried up the stairs as quickly as my trunk would allow. I had a train to catch and a patient to see.
---
Once it was clear their overnight guest was out of earshot, Dolcetto turned from the door, a thoughtful frown on his face. He looked at the man next to him and cut straight to the point. “Why’d you let her stay basically for free? I only suggested it ’cause I thought we could make some money.”
His boss took his time responding, prioritizing another hefty bite of scrambled eggs and a sip of the day’s first beer. Eventually, he smirked. “Oh, come on, it was no loss for us. And besides,” the glint became clear in his eye, “it never hurts to make someone feel like they owe you a favor.”
“Ah,” Dolcetto agreed, nodding pensively. That was more in line with the personality he’d grown used to, even if it didn’t fully explain things. “I figured you must’ve just thought she was cute or something,” he said after a moment. There were murmurs of agreement from their companions.
“Hah! You all really think me that base?” The man grinned shamelessly without waiting for an answer, sharp teeth on full display. “That was just an added bonus.”