Clemente
Her smile makes his own twitch at his lips unbidden. He can’t help it, his mother used to say he had a face made for mischief and joy. ”Same to you,” he says awkwardly, feeling like his syntax is far too underdeveloped for her elegance, her smooth words and perfect dictation. Instead he feels discomfort and fear tightening in his gut, and he ducks his head to try and avoid her seeing the emotions written plainly across his face. It’s frustrating. There’s so much to learn, to do, and he’s at the worst disadvantage he’s ever been in. Even when Clem had first been a fully-fledged orphan at fourteen he had at least known the lay of the land. Her offer makes his hackles rise, shoulders jutting up and arms crossing over his body as if to shield himself from her.
”I don’t hook anymore,” he hisses, but the warble of uncertainty is evident in his tone. Pale hazel eyes stare her down, but...she seems kind. Welcoming. And surely someone well off enough to have multiple bedrooms wouldn’t be in need of those kinds of favors from someone as pathetic as him? Not that it was necessarily sound logic, with the high-class rollers he’d seen picking up the girls on the streets. So he tentatively edges closer, trying to hold tight to his optimism. It had gotten him through many tough spots, perhaps it was time to lean on it now. Trust just a little.
”You....do you have beds?” The way he asks it is like asking if she has a golden fountain, something he has never really known even as a child. He’d always shared a lumpy, bare mattress with Mom and then a pile of blankets on the floor when her sweats and shakes would keep him from rest. ”Just for tonight,” he says firmly, if only to feel like he has a say in where his life is going. Whether ‘just tonight’ turns into ‘escape out the window if things go south’ or miraculously ‘stay another night’, he’ll just have to see.
i stopped being a kid the day
you sent me down here to die
