Izzy's brows furrow as he tries to put the story together in his mind. It very quickly becomes apparent that this is no errand for a master. This is a personal purchase and one the man desperately wants.
He really shouldn't barter. He really shouldn't. But who is going to hold him to his actions? His father is old, drunk, and unconcerned so long as the ledger remains black. This business rests squarely on Izzy's own shoulders. It's stressful, yes, very, but places him in a position of power to make these small decisions.
And really, he is a hopeless romantic. If this fine young man wants this bolt of cloth, it is undoubtedly to give to his sweetheart. It would make a very fine gown. Perhaps for a wedding.
A small breath and he holds out his hand, palm up.
Lucius's grin is broad and grateful and he fishes in his pocket until he can find the ring he pulled from the last fellow who was fool enough to shake his hand as he took someone else's mail. He hasn't had time to get a proper look at it, but it seemed nice enough. No signet, no precious gems, but a great heavy bit of something semi-precious set in a masculine cut slab of silver. He takes it out and gives it a quick glance before setting it in the merchant's hand.
He's shit at bartering, but he knows what's worth what. That ring at a stall would have cost him more dearly than this bolt, but he doesn't have a stall, and he's not a jeweler. He'll take what he can get for it.
The quality of the purse gives him pause, but it has been a long day and to be honest Izzy is a pit past caring. He takes the ring and looks it over. It has a hallmark which is a good sign, and some weight to it. Finally he bites it with a sharp canine and when it leaves a small dent, he is satisfied.
Izzy pockets the ring and holds his hand out for the coins which also go into his pocket before picking up the bolt and moving it to a pad of fine brown paper to wrap, tie, and stamp with the company arms.
His purse is empty and this man is wrapping that bolt in paper for him, and Lucius can barely do anything but grin. He asks a question, some light followup, and unfortunately he doesn't have an answer. He gapes, like a slack jawed fool for a moment or two and then--well, it's not a lie, but only because he's just thought of it.
"New set of Sunday clothes," Lucius says as he watches him wrap it. Yeah, that...that makes sense. He can take it back over to that tailor, see if he can't get him to make an outfit of it in place of one of the brocades he picked. It won't be fancy enough to have him passing as a page but...but he can wrap himself up in it and just. Be. When he needs.
"Man's got to have a few nice suits, right?" Lucius asks, and the statement looks a bit odd, a bit haughty on his youthful boyish face.
"You...carry this sort of fare often?" He asks, redirects and watches as he ties it up in string.
Sunday clothes. The fabric is for him. That's interesting.
He isn't sure why, but it is somehow delightful to now that this is not a gift for some very lucky woman.
Izzy nods along and offers the package, giving his client another once over now that payment is made, the transaction is complete, and he is slightly less than completely indifferent. It's always business first, then personal thoughts. But their business here is done.
"I do.. If you'd like to leave your address I can see to it that a circular is included with your mail."
And, seeing as he is feeling particularly self destructive today,
"I know we have some bolts of lavender coming on the next ship. I think it would suit you."
Lucius wouldn't want a circular, not sent to his rented room, not with anything like his actual name attached...but then he gets that second offer and it has his brows creeping up. His polite smile doesn't shift but he is silent a moment as he considers the fellow across from him. He's hesitant, of course, it could just be a fluke...but it doesn't seem that way. He leans his hip on the table as he hoists his bolt. It's not that heavy but it's awkward enough to excuse the casual change in stance.
"Do you?" Lucius asks and nods as he pulls a thoughtful, amused face. "I can't disagree, I've always been the lavender sort."
He drums his fingers on the tabletop, the empty space where his new bolt of fabric once rested, and looks down.
"Do you have a pen? Paper? For the circular, of course?"
Lucius's surprise is not well hidden and neither is his bemused delight. He'd thought he was being coy as he wrote out an address on the paper but, here, this man had just undercut his clever little fingers. He twists the pen deftly between his fingers and, unconsciously, his tongue darts out to wet his lower lip.
"What a salacious coincidence," he says and picks up the paper to flash the address. "This one?"
It's worth an honest laugh and he lets one bubble up as he lowers the paper. It's risky business this, always, but there ought to be some reward for tempting fate, shouldn't there? Upstanding gentlefolk with official stamps of business, with ledgers and proper jobs, have much more to lose than he does by admitting to his proclivities.
Lucius clucks his tongue and flips the paper over. In the corner, in fine script, he jots down a real address. His real address. Once he's finished, he tears that bit free and waves it a bit to dry the ink faster. Once he's done it, he holds out both the pen and the scrap.
"Not for the circular." He clarifies. "In case I miss you tomorrow night."
Izzy laughs with something like delight when he sees the address, and brightens even more when he is given the second.
The real address is safely stored in the little pocket of his waistcoat which he holds a hand over as if to offer his loyal secrecy.
It's only then that he leans in a bit, face taking on a bit of mischief. He isn't all stuffy fabrics and ledgers.
"There is no circular."
But it might be a good idea.
See this? This right here is why he loves London so. It's a horrible, stinking cesspool but he would be very hard pressed indeed to have this sort of easy luck in Liverpool. It makes all the traveling and drudgery tolerable.
Lucius snorts another laugh and swats him, fondly, with a quick flick of the wrist and a grazing little glance of fingers against his shoulder. He likes this one. With that, though, he stands upright and adjusts his hold on his newly purchased bolt. It was stupid, he's going to have to work hard tonight just to have money for food tomorrow, but he can't find it in himself to regret the buying.
"Well, I'll be seeing you tomorrow. Right now I've got to speak to a man about a suit," Lucius says and, without it even occurring to him to give a name, he wiggles his fingers in a low-key wave and turns to meander back out of the market.
Lucius doesn't catch the tailor before he closes, unfortunately, and settles instead for taking his bolt back to his actual rented room. It's a bit of a hovel, the price spent largely on anonymity and the promise of being completely ignored. They hadn't asked his name and, as such, he hadn't provided it. He ends up leaving the fabric on his cot and pulls apart the corner of the paper just so he can sit and drag his fingers over it.
It's nice...in a way that helps sate his loneliness.
But, he only has a bit more daylight left and now he's entirely out of money. So he leaves and sets out for the docks. The remaining silver baubles he's nicked make him a meager amount. Enough for booze at a club or a day or two of bread and cheese. No surprise which he would rather spend it on, aye?
That decided, he risks another foray through the market--the stalls are mostly closed and empty, there's few people about, and the only vendors still in business are selling old pies. He nicks one but, as is his luck, gets caught out and that ends up with a merry little chase through a backalley or two. He makes it away from the vendor but, to his great dismay, runs headlong into someone he's already pick-pocketed today.
The gentlemen is, understandably, less than pleased to see him and, unfortunately, not actually a gentleman. Lucius gets punched twice in the gut and once in the face for his nonsense and, ironically, mugged of his new wallet, few shillings, and dinner. He really ought to have stayed home, or not purchased that fabric at all, but he drags himself back and just resigns himself to a hungry belly.
The next day he's sore, slow, and sporting a split lip, all poor qualities in either a page or a pickpocket, and thus goes hungry. He'd be madder about it, overall, but he manages to deliver a bit of fake mail before he heads off to the little backroom club he's meant to meet his new friend in.
It's the back of a brandy shop, hidden behind a number of bottles and past their store-rooms. The underground club has the general air of a crowded betting parlor, hot, uncomfortable, cramped, but merry. Liquor flows freely, as do compliments and flirting, and Lucius drops down onto a stool at the bar like a lady onto a divan. He spends his meager tip, tossed his way for giving a fake letter to the wrong person, on a pint and savors it.
The man Lucius is there to meet arrives midway through the night. In truth, he had planned to be there early so he could scope the place out and see who was there that evening, but it didn't go down that way. These places, while secret and sacred, draw all types and there are a few he would rather not meet on this particular occasion. Some dandy, some the total opposite, but he has a good feeling about this new gentleman, and he wanted to feel like he had a mastery of the space before engaging.
Unfortunately, even the best laid plans and all that. Work had called which kept him in his office for hours longer than he wanted and on his way there he swore he saw the familiar back of a leather clad vagabond he knew only too well. Tall, broad and charming, they had met on several occasions and Izzy knew were he to be seen that would be the end of his potential evening and the start of a very different one.
Best not to go down that road tonight.
It meant having to take the long way round and circling back several times to be sure, and in doing so had spun up his anxiety to an enormous, great beast of a thing. Would the new man even be there? Someone so handsome surely wouldn't want his attention anyway, is he just being a pervert? Say he shows and the boy doesn't, it would make a fool of him. Sat there waiting like a fucking idiot.
Izzy had gone back and forth and back and forth so many times it was almost dizzying, and the pit in his stomach was heavy by the time he finally managed to force himself to enter the shop and disappear down into the hidden gem.
Dim and full of song, with dancing bodies and roaming hands, it is as sinful as it is safe. He doesn't much care for the overall air of the place but there are very little options for a man like himself and so there's nothing else to do but embrace it. He is a sinner.
If only he believed in God.
Luck, though. Luck he believes in. And he is lucky tonight, because he would know the straight back and short hair of the man he met yesterday, anywhere. Sure enough, because he had spent the entire night and all of today thinking about him.
Izzy takes a breath and steels his nerves. He's been here a hundred times, this shouldn't be so rattling. No one is looking at him, only the passive glance of people hoping to know the newest occupant, and so he approaches and takes the seat on the right of his gentleman. If he is a gentleman. Izzy isn't sure he thinks so, and that is so very exciting.
"Port, Jackie," he says to the bar woman. Broad and dark and immaculately styled as a man, herself. She makes a small face but doesn't judge and pours the drink, exchanging it for his coin before she leaves and lets a smaller man replace her who is completely disinterested and turns his attention to cleaning glasses.
"I never caught your name," he says, trying his best foot forward and hoping his nerves don't betray him. They sure are trying.
"Didn't give it," Lucius answers smoothly. He's been sat here a while, nursing his beer, but he can't say he minds the wait overmuch. It's comfortable to be in a throng of like-minded people. He lifts the mug as he turns a smile on the handsome merchant, the lip of the mug covers the split in his fairly well.
"Had to be sure you'd show up, first," he adds as he lowers the glass and tries not to smile too wide. It's hard, his natural inclination is not to scowling.
"Lucius," he says and sets down his drink to extend that hand. He's cleaned up but his knuckles are still a bit scuffed from the extremely one-sided fight last night. "And you?"
That's all rather fair, in Izzy's opinion, and he takes the offered hand. The shake is a rather new and novel form of greeting, and he has to say he quite likes it. You can tell a lot about a man from the way they grasp you. Their temperament, their intentions. Weak or dominant or confident.
He sees the scraped knuckles before he sees the lip, and wonder immediately riles up beside concern and a certain kind of possessiveness he has to right to. Mugged, probably, he thinks. Poor fucker.
"Izzy," he answers, preferring the shortening, and commits Lucius' name to memory. It suits him, really. Distinguished but comfortable on the tongue.
"Seems you got into something fun yesterday. I should have warned you that fabric fights back."
"Just my luck. Of all the bolts with the nice hands, I pick the one that can make a fist," Lucius replies easily accepting the humorous out for what it is. He turns on his stool, then and drapes himself against the bar. His eyes casually rake down Izzy before him--Izzy. What a name. He wonders what it's short for, there are a few choices that fit. He wont pry, though, not into that at least.
There's a certain air to clubs like this, a casualness and ease that Lucius both adores and hates. Izzy seems comfortable here, but that can mean anything. At the very least, though, he probably won't be surprised by his next question.
"Did you want to dance...or retire somewhere private for...conversation?"
Lucius doesn't sound like he'd prefer either, but his gaze rests heavy on Izzy's handsome face. There's either promise or threat in that look and it's hard to tell which it will be--if not both.
Lucius's expression pinches with curiosity and, just like that, he's got his whole focus on this man.
He can't say he objects to the idea of getting to know someone, but that's not...people usually don't want to know him. They want to bed him, they want him to leave, they want him to deliver something, but they never usually want to know him--it's a feature of being a servant, or...having been, rather. It's made his new life easy enough, given all the dirty little secrets he keeps, but it's also just excruciatingly lonely. He'd have settled for physical intimacy but...knowing him? Nobody's ever preferred to know him before.
"Would you now?" Lucius asks and takes another sip of his pint. He purses his lips once he has and then takes a short, sharp breath as he mulls that over.
"Alright, Izzy," he agrees and his smile pulls at that split in his lip before he can catch himself. He grimaces and tongues it briefly before he continues. "What would you like to know?"
Tell me about yourself is such a boring opener. Sure, it’s what he wants to know, but it is so completely dull.
Not one for free love without any basis whatsoever, the idea of taking Lucius to bed is very appealing but he wants more first. Sex is all well and good but it does very little to quench the thirst of loneliness.
It is, at best, a temporary drizzle when you need rain.
“If you could do anything, be anything in the whole world, what would it be?”
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He really shouldn't barter. He really shouldn't. But who is going to hold him to his actions? His father is old, drunk, and unconcerned so long as the ledger remains black. This business rests squarely on Izzy's own shoulders. It's stressful, yes, very, but places him in a position of power to make these small decisions.
And really, he is a hopeless romantic. If this fine young man wants this bolt of cloth, it is undoubtedly to give to his sweetheart. It would make a very fine gown. Perhaps for a wedding.
A small breath and he holds out his hand, palm up.
"Show me the ring."
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He's shit at bartering, but he knows what's worth what. That ring at a stall would have cost him more dearly than this bolt, but he doesn't have a stall, and he's not a jeweler. He'll take what he can get for it.
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Izzy pockets the ring and holds his hand out for the coins which also go into his pocket before picking up the bolt and moving it to a pad of fine brown paper to wrap, tie, and stamp with the company arms.
"Do you have any plans in particular?"
Can't help it, he is curious.
"For the fabric."
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"New set of Sunday clothes," Lucius says as he watches him wrap it. Yeah, that...that makes sense. He can take it back over to that tailor, see if he can't get him to make an outfit of it in place of one of the brocades he picked. It won't be fancy enough to have him passing as a page but...but he can wrap himself up in it and just. Be. When he needs.
"Man's got to have a few nice suits, right?" Lucius asks, and the statement looks a bit odd, a bit haughty on his youthful boyish face.
"You...carry this sort of fare often?" He asks, redirects and watches as he ties it up in string.
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He isn't sure why, but it is somehow delightful to now that this is not a gift for some very lucky woman.
Izzy nods along and offers the package, giving his client another once over now that payment is made, the transaction is complete, and he is slightly less than completely indifferent. It's always business first, then personal thoughts. But their business here is done.
"I do.. If you'd like to leave your address I can see to it that a circular is included with your mail."
And, seeing as he is feeling particularly self destructive today,
"I know we have some bolts of lavender coming on the next ship. I think it would suit you."
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"Do you?" Lucius asks and nods as he pulls a thoughtful, amused face. "I can't disagree, I've always been the lavender sort."
He drums his fingers on the tabletop, the empty space where his new bolt of fabric once rested, and looks down.
"Do you have a pen? Paper? For the circular, of course?"
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Izzy nods and produces both from his back table, feeling something like adventure creep up into his chest.
"Here."
And he waits for whatever it is the man decides to write while he weighs the virtues of being brazen.
Should it come to a fight he feels secure int he notion that he would win, and so he decides to push the limits.
"There's a molly house not far from here if you know the one I mean. I'll be there tomorrow night."
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"What a salacious coincidence," he says and picks up the paper to flash the address. "This one?"
It's worth an honest laugh and he lets one bubble up as he lowers the paper. It's risky business this, always, but there ought to be some reward for tempting fate, shouldn't there? Upstanding gentlefolk with official stamps of business, with ledgers and proper jobs, have much more to lose than he does by admitting to his proclivities.
Lucius clucks his tongue and flips the paper over. In the corner, in fine script, he jots down a real address. His real address. Once he's finished, he tears that bit free and waves it a bit to dry the ink faster. Once he's done it, he holds out both the pen and the scrap.
"Not for the circular." He clarifies. "In case I miss you tomorrow night."
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The real address is safely stored in the little pocket of his waistcoat which he holds a hand over as if to offer his loyal secrecy.
It's only then that he leans in a bit, face taking on a bit of mischief. He isn't all stuffy fabrics and ledgers.
"There is no circular."
But it might be a good idea.
See this? This right here is why he loves London so. It's a horrible, stinking cesspool but he would be very hard pressed indeed to have this sort of easy luck in Liverpool. It makes all the traveling and drudgery tolerable.
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"Well, I'll be seeing you tomorrow. Right now I've got to speak to a man about a suit," Lucius says and, without it even occurring to him to give a name, he wiggles his fingers in a low-key wave and turns to meander back out of the market.
Lucius doesn't catch the tailor before he closes, unfortunately, and settles instead for taking his bolt back to his actual rented room. It's a bit of a hovel, the price spent largely on anonymity and the promise of being completely ignored. They hadn't asked his name and, as such, he hadn't provided it. He ends up leaving the fabric on his cot and pulls apart the corner of the paper just so he can sit and drag his fingers over it.
It's nice...in a way that helps sate his loneliness.
But, he only has a bit more daylight left and now he's entirely out of money. So he leaves and sets out for the docks. The remaining silver baubles he's nicked make him a meager amount. Enough for booze at a club or a day or two of bread and cheese. No surprise which he would rather spend it on, aye?
That decided, he risks another foray through the market--the stalls are mostly closed and empty, there's few people about, and the only vendors still in business are selling old pies. He nicks one but, as is his luck, gets caught out and that ends up with a merry little chase through a backalley or two. He makes it away from the vendor but, to his great dismay, runs headlong into someone he's already pick-pocketed today.
The gentlemen is, understandably, less than pleased to see him and, unfortunately, not actually a gentleman. Lucius gets punched twice in the gut and once in the face for his nonsense and, ironically, mugged of his new wallet, few shillings, and dinner. He really ought to have stayed home, or not purchased that fabric at all, but he drags himself back and just resigns himself to a hungry belly.
The next day he's sore, slow, and sporting a split lip, all poor qualities in either a page or a pickpocket, and thus goes hungry. He'd be madder about it, overall, but he manages to deliver a bit of fake mail before he heads off to the little backroom club he's meant to meet his new friend in.
It's the back of a brandy shop, hidden behind a number of bottles and past their store-rooms. The underground club has the general air of a crowded betting parlor, hot, uncomfortable, cramped, but merry. Liquor flows freely, as do compliments and flirting, and Lucius drops down onto a stool at the bar like a lady onto a divan. He spends his meager tip, tossed his way for giving a fake letter to the wrong person, on a pint and savors it.
no subject
Unfortunately, even the best laid plans and all that. Work had called which kept him in his office for hours longer than he wanted and on his way there he swore he saw the familiar back of a leather clad vagabond he knew only too well. Tall, broad and charming, they had met on several occasions and Izzy knew were he to be seen that would be the end of his potential evening and the start of a very different one.
Best not to go down that road tonight.
It meant having to take the long way round and circling back several times to be sure, and in doing so had spun up his anxiety to an enormous, great beast of a thing. Would the new man even be there? Someone so handsome surely wouldn't want his attention anyway, is he just being a pervert? Say he shows and the boy doesn't, it would make a fool of him. Sat there waiting like a fucking idiot.
Izzy had gone back and forth and back and forth so many times it was almost dizzying, and the pit in his stomach was heavy by the time he finally managed to force himself to enter the shop and disappear down into the hidden gem.
Dim and full of song, with dancing bodies and roaming hands, it is as sinful as it is safe. He doesn't much care for the overall air of the place but there are very little options for a man like himself and so there's nothing else to do but embrace it. He is a sinner.
If only he believed in God.
Luck, though. Luck he believes in. And he is lucky tonight, because he would know the straight back and short hair of the man he met yesterday, anywhere. Sure enough, because he had spent the entire night and all of today thinking about him.
Izzy takes a breath and steels his nerves. He's been here a hundred times, this shouldn't be so rattling. No one is looking at him, only the passive glance of people hoping to know the newest occupant, and so he approaches and takes the seat on the right of his gentleman. If he is a gentleman. Izzy isn't sure he thinks so, and that is so very exciting.
"Port, Jackie," he says to the bar woman. Broad and dark and immaculately styled as a man, herself. She makes a small face but doesn't judge and pours the drink, exchanging it for his coin before she leaves and lets a smaller man replace her who is completely disinterested and turns his attention to cleaning glasses.
"I never caught your name," he says, trying his best foot forward and hoping his nerves don't betray him. They sure are trying.
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"Had to be sure you'd show up, first," he adds as he lowers the glass and tries not to smile too wide. It's hard, his natural inclination is not to scowling.
"Lucius," he says and sets down his drink to extend that hand. He's cleaned up but his knuckles are still a bit scuffed from the extremely one-sided fight last night. "And you?"
no subject
He sees the scraped knuckles before he sees the lip, and wonder immediately riles up beside concern and a certain kind of possessiveness he has to right to. Mugged, probably, he thinks. Poor fucker.
"Izzy," he answers, preferring the shortening, and commits Lucius' name to memory. It suits him, really. Distinguished but comfortable on the tongue.
"Seems you got into something fun yesterday. I should have warned you that fabric fights back."
no subject
There's a certain air to clubs like this, a casualness and ease that Lucius both adores and hates. Izzy seems comfortable here, but that can mean anything. At the very least, though, he probably won't be surprised by his next question.
"Did you want to dance...or retire somewhere private for...conversation?"
Lucius doesn't sound like he'd prefer either, but his gaze rests heavy on Izzy's handsome face. There's either promise or threat in that look and it's hard to tell which it will be--if not both.
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Can’t help but wonder if he’s bendy, too.
That stirs something carnal and the decision he’s asked to make becomes an easy one.
“I was never really one for dancing. Always ended up doing the playing.”
A boast? Maybe so.
“But I think I’d rather get to know you.”
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Lucius's expression pinches with curiosity and, just like that, he's got his whole focus on this man.
He can't say he objects to the idea of getting to know someone, but that's not...people usually don't want to know him. They want to bed him, they want him to leave, they want him to deliver something, but they never usually want to know him--it's a feature of being a servant, or...having been, rather. It's made his new life easy enough, given all the dirty little secrets he keeps, but it's also just excruciatingly lonely. He'd have settled for physical intimacy but...knowing him? Nobody's ever preferred to know him before.
"Would you now?" Lucius asks and takes another sip of his pint. He purses his lips once he has and then takes a short, sharp breath as he mulls that over.
"Alright, Izzy," he agrees and his smile pulls at that split in his lip before he can catch himself. He grimaces and tongues it briefly before he continues. "What would you like to know?"
no subject
Not one for free love without any basis whatsoever, the idea of taking Lucius to bed is very appealing but he wants more first. Sex is all well and good but it does very little to quench the thirst of loneliness.
It is, at best, a temporary drizzle when you need rain.
“If you could do anything, be anything in the whole world, what would it be?”