RP:It's Getting A Little Gangster In Here

Part of the The Dust Up In Cenril Arc

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Summary: Hudson and Valrae talk about Irenic's ghosting and Hudson's mobster problems and the shambles that is his personal life. Valrae asks him why he doesn't stop what he's doing, and he tells her that he can't, but also that he doesn't want to, that revenge on the Larket mob is now personal. She agrees to help him.

The Witch-Run Nail Salon in Larket

Hudson has been splitting time between the nail salon and The Office. It's fairly common knowledge among the witches who work there that his home had been burglarized, that a man had died and another had escaped. He'd left in the middle of the day one day, when a neighbor had showed up in a white faced panic. There's been some speculation that this event is both linked to the body found in the dumpster and also the cause of Hudson's neverending strange mood. It's been over a week now. (If only people knew how that was just the tip of the iceberg.) Strange men of the big and silent variety have been by the nail salon since, evidently muscle hired on Hudson's dime. They become fixtures around the place, and they do impart a level of comfort although they aren't the friendliest. Business, for its part, continues in isolation from all these mob-related activities. Rich ladies need manicures. Valrae may not be fired but Hudson's asked that she be scheduled in a way so as to not overlap overmuch with him. Since the day they'd melted that body together, this is the first day they're at the salon at the same time. He's been upstairs, working on a new product, and had forgotten, in his concentration, that she worked there. He's only reminded of the fact when he checks into the break room and goes about rummaging through the ice box for a beer. Lo and behold, Valrae. "Oh, hey," he says.

Valrae is sitting on the break room counter laughing with one of the other witches when he enters. The laughter dies with his entrance. She slides off the counter and adjusts her skirt. "Hey, Hudson," She has The Look on her face. The Look people get when they know bad news about you that you haven't told them and are concerned. "How are you?" The younger girl she'd been giggling with, Hanna who always has great shoes, makes an excuse to leave while also giving him The Look. The last time she'd seen them they were in an alley talking over a dead body. The note he'd left her was surprising. The way it was tucked under the skull she'd asked for had made her smile. What a strange life. She's feeling awkward, so she starts fidget with the braid in her hair.

Hudson opens his beer and, turning to lean with his back against the counter, considers Valrae and Hanna, the latter of whom has now just escaped. "Fine," says Hudson, in that tone of people everywhere when they say 'fine' and are not actually fine. He drinks from his beer. Seems to be mulling something but unsure of how to say it. It takes him a second. "Kinda not fine, I'm sure you heard," he amends his response. He considers her during a brief but sharp silence. They're really not strangers, at all, silences count. He looks at the ceiling, licks his lips, mouths an expletive, and then back at her again. He goes the extra mile to not seem irritable to clients and other folks he hardly knows, but before the women who've gotten to know him at the nail salon, and Valrae especially, he's clearly struggling. The veneer breaks down someplace, always. He sighs, looking apologetic because now he's just making it extra weird needlessly, like a wounded animal. "Has uh, how's your... Irenic?" he asks. "You guys ... good?"

Valrae can't help the pained, sympathetic look that flashes in her dark eyes as she watches him struggle. She nodded, yes she's heard. Gossip is almost a form of currency here and she has recently discovered she's not above listening to it... When it involves him. She struggled with her desire to cross the room, touch his arm or offer a hug. No, they weren't strangers. They weren't exactly buddies either. She wanted to be sorry for this, in a clean and honest friend way. Not in a sleazy ex-paramour way. Hudson has moved on, though, to somehow safer waters. Her own personal tragedies would be easier to navigate. The witch snorts. "Hardly. I'm actually surprised you hadn't heard." Val does cross the room now, to lean with him and snag his beer. Sure, she was working but she heard sleeping with the boss was supposed to have perks. Never mind that had been ages ago. "He came in on the expensive train of the queens dress. Apparently, he's been in Larket this whole time. Hiding from me, playing dress up as some sort of knight." She rolls her kohl lined eyes and takes a long drink before handing it back. "I don't think I made a good impression." She gave Hudson her own look of apology. "I made a scene... I actually thought the only reason Joanie didn't toss me out was because of you but... I guess not." Val shrugs.

Hudson looks into his beer, tapping the mouthpiece with his forefinger. He's thinking about how he does know a little something about Irenic, but technically he doesn't know the answer to his question, circumstances might have changed, after all. And then she's crossing the room and robbing him of his beer. Hudson's gaze grows as Valrae reveals that Josleen had been here. And presumably seen Valrae. Ohhhh that's no good. Already his life is no good but Josleen is Alvina's best friend, and if he knows how his works, Alvina's already received a seminar on why he's a dirtbag for hiring Valrae. (It's complicated, hadn't been his finest moment, etc.) No wonder she's holding the line up in Frostmaw. This thing about Irenic is disturbing, too. His gaze flicks to Valrae in time to receive the beer back from her. "Joanie likes you," observes Hudson, drinking from the bottle and still looking at her beside him. "And I like you." He sighs, looking into the beer as if it held secrets. "I have to be honest about something, Valrae. I saw Irenic in Cenril and didn't tell you. At the time, he was like... literally seemed homeless and was speaking in a foreign language. I didn't want to tell you because... I don't know what I thought, besides that it was crazy messed up and maybe you didn't need to know and feel sad about it. I don't know, maybe I feared telling you would cause a problem too. Anyway, you know now. Sorry that guy's a dick."

Valrae is still blissfully unaware of Josleen and Alvina's friendship. She just assumes she ruined that encounter with her emotional outburst and accidental insults. Sure, she'd noticed a subtle frostiness about the queen but... Well, isn't that just how queens are? A small smile curves her lips, stained a darker red than usual today to match her crimson skirt. "Lucky for me, I guess." She comments playfully. Hudson starts in on his confession and her smile drops away. She was almost hurt by the admission. Almost. Maybe if Irenic had actually been interested in finding her, talking to her... Mostly, she was confused. "Homeless? He seemed... Homeless?" She asked, but waved her hand. "Actually, I don't know that I even want to know. He showed up here in some knightly disguise and was talking gibberish. Showed me he had no wings and basically ran out? I don't know." She crossed her arms and shrugged. A quiet moment passes. "I get it, not telling me... I guess. I think it would have just given me some sort of false hope that he'd run off because he was in danger and not because... Not because he just wanted to leave without a goodbye. Anyway, Thanks for looking out." She tilted her head as she looked at him now, considering, and her golden hair tumbled over her shoulder. More quiet opened between them. "If, er, if I can do anything for you Huds," She did reach out now, touching his arm softly. "You know I will. A spell, a curse, poison. Anything. I'm glad no one was seriously hurt," Her dark eyes hardened. "But I know you're not letting something like that go unanswered. If I can help, I will."

Hudson doesn't know how to explain it any better than that, he shakes his head into another drink from his beer. "He was like, shirtless and ... it was a mess, I sort of wondered if he's an addict, honestly," he runs his hand over his face. Sleep on the Office couch hasn't been the greatest. He feels better confessing this run-in with Irenic to Valrae, though. Doesn't change all the other things creeping in on him from all sides, but it's just one less thing, and if there's one person he doesn't want to lie to, it's her. Speaking of... She's touching him on the arm and clearly referencing what happened at his house. He clears his throat and looks at her. "Thanks. I have people on it. We are... definitely at war, perhaps you noticed," he says. He looks at her, frowning because he's not sure whether he wants to tell her the last thing he's holding. That he's held from everyone, except for the girls at the club, it's been kind of obvious to them, what with his sleeping on the couch. He takes a quick drink from his beer, squares up to face her. "Alvina left me and took the girls. Last straw," he tells her, opening his hand around the mouthpiece of the bottle in the weakest of shrug gestures. "They're in Frostmaw. I get to go visit them in this... daycare, supervised." He scratches the side of his face, makes scare quotes, "This, until I 'quit' my job. About that." Nervous laugh. "Yeah. Except I'm not quitting, Val. I'm going to kill every single Larket wise guy I can get my hands on." He puts the beer on the counter a bit roughly, it makes a jarring noise. He laughs again, with jagged feeling. "I think I'm becoming this bad guy, Val, I don't know..."

Valrae frowns at this new information. If Irenic was an addict, which was hard for her to wrap her mind around because he seemed pretty far from the type... But he'd also looked into her eyes and told her he loved her before she'd woken up alone. She shook her head and blinked herself back into the room. If Irenic was an addict that was his problem. He'd made it plenty clear how he felt about her being involved. They've moved on, so the witch nods and happily moves her mind away from the subject of Irenic. She'd noticed, with the dumpster gifts and stone faced body guards that had become a fixture in the salon. Though, she suspected one of them was a little sweet on Hanna, of the good shoes, because she'd managed to convince him to let her paint one of his pink finger nails a glittery blue when most people couldn't coax a smile. Val jerked her head to look at Hudson again, startled. "She...? Oh, gods. Huds." She didn't say anything for a long moment, let him finish and decided to fish out a fresh beer for him. She took the old one, tossed it. What could she say? What should she say? He was so obviously struggling with this. "Why?" Val finally asked softly. "No judgment. Just say the first thing that comes to mind, don't think about it. Why haven't you quit already?"

Hudson and Valrae just look at each other while Hudson's last remaining secret permeates the space between them. She fetches him a beer, it's sort of apt. He drinks from it and looks at her, the room ringing around them with silence after she's posed her question. "It makes me feel good," he says, looking at her. "I'm good at making the product. The money is unbelievable, I can pay for... everything. That's why I kept in it at first, but now... I like owning these businesses, being the boss, handling stuff, taking care of people I care about." He rubs the breakup beard he's growing. "I... like knowing that I've got an army of people who would kill for me." He looks at the beer in his hands, rolls it between palms. "I don't want to stop the ride now, I'm afraid of what'll happen if I do. I'm too in it." He lifts his gaze to her once more. "It's a little dark, Val, I gotta wonder if it's the wolf, you know. Or, maybe I'm just a bad guy, I don't know. Bad guy who loves his family, but ... maybe a bad guy. I mean, where's the line, I have lost sight of it. Would you have left me too?"

Valrae watching him, studying him as he answers. She should have be able to guess by the beard that Alvina and him weren't on the best of terms. His answer was only a little surprising but what she needed to know. The way he felt about the situation would dictate her advice to him. His unexpected question had her winging her brows at him. She gave him a look that was equal parts, 'you don't really want to go there do you?' and 'we both know the answer to that'. Valrae wasn't made of the same morally clean stuff Alvina kept proving herself to be carved out of. A pretty glaring flaw in the witch's character. "You know I wouldn't Hudson but that's not fair. I'm not like her... And we don't have children together." It pained her to say, not because she particularly regretted that but because it would always be a strange open wound in her heart. "The wolf is a part of you now. I've always said you separate yourself too much. It's not healthy." The witch shrugged. Not the point. "I don't know where the line is, never have. I suppose it's where Alvina draws it." She gave him another look. Her moral compass was just as broken as his. He was the the best case and point for that fact. "Now, you just have to decide if your why means enough to you that you accept scheduled visits for the twins and a life without Alvina to mark that line in the sand comes with it." There, she'd said it. It almost sounded like she was defending Alvina, even to her own ears, but she wasn't. She was just trying to lay it out in front of him. Help him see it more clearly. "I don't know that any answer you chose makes you 'bad'... But I've never been good at pinning down terms." Another shrug.

Hudson isn't sure why he'd asked her. Maybe he'd just wanted A Woman who loved him to say he wasn't all that bad, not worth leaving over this. Her response isn't surprising but it humbles him. He shouldn't have made her say it out loud, especially the part about not having children together. He swallows the feeling of guilt in his throat, drinks his second beer, and says nothing just yet. Valrae is probably missed out on the main floor but they know she's back here with him, so... He groans in an ambiguous manner as she gets into Alvina drawing lines, and him making choices, he doesn't want this advice from her. "I think she knows she's asked for something she can't have. I don't think it's just about the job, if you get my drift," he says, gruffly, tempering a sigh. He stares at a fixed point on the wall. He doesn't want to look at her, because then she'll know that maybe it's about her too, sometimes he thinks that Valrae is like a stain and no matter how many times they try to wash her out, there she is. "I think even if I wanted to quit, people know me, Val, we'd be looking over our shoulders..." he lets the statement die off. "I don't know," he interrupts himself. Shrugs. "I don't want you to have this weird conversation with me, I've put you through enough. All I know is right now I have to clean house with these Larket guys. And ... I need you. You're good at what you do. And, I need a friend and I think you are that."

Valrae struggles with her own feelings of guilt when he hints at what she can only assume he means she was the other part of his family problems. It reads on her face clearly. She never intended to be such a disrupting force in his life, not even when they were sneaking around to see each other, but somehow it was worse now that her existence was causing such friction when they hadn't been anything other that platonic and friendly to each other for a while now. Actually, most of their encounters were mostly to unload the mess of their lives onto each other and mutually agree that things sucked before going their separate ways. And maybe getting rid of a body but that was only the one time. She gave him a small nod when he voiced his fears on leaving. The witch couldn't help but agree. She'd seen enough of it in her own life in Cenril. Things like this don't just come out in the wash, to roll with laundry comparisons. "I think we've both gotten pretty good with weird conversations lately." She gave him a half smile and waved away his comments on putting her through enough. She wouldn't ever see anything that way. And she was moved by what he said. "I am." She said after a quiet pause. "I'm behind you, whatever you decide to do. Whatever you have to do with these guys and after that." Val took his beer again, drained and tossed it. She walked to the door but paused, turned just enough to say over her shoulder, "Again for what it's worth, I don't think you're a bad guy."