Shady

Well, that made this choice harder. Did he want to commit to the bit? He basically had to at this point. It’d be humiliating to admit to faking. He didn’t ...

“Mm…” Pratik gave a contented sigh. “I’d buy that.”

Ah, so the bastard was trying to get a rise out of him after all. Aleth carefully didn’t so much as hesitate in his breathing. The apothecary had seemed to ...

Pratik chuckled. “Rest in paradise my friend.”

Aleth didn’t know where the focus was right then, but he’d resolved to ‘sleep’ until the man left or specifically came over to wake him up. So he resisted the ...

“Especially not ones this fat.” He sat down heavily with a dramatic sigh, sinking into the overstuffed cushions. “And heavy.”

Tadaaki and Ky both looked over at Aleth. By all accounts, he appeared to be asleep. That seemed odd. He was usually as paranoid as they were — awake the ...

“Must have been a bitch to get them up here.”

Tadaaki shrank, flushing and dropping his gaze. He didn’t like this attention. He didn’t like it at all. Aleth, predicting the attention was likely to shift to him before long, ...

“Ah, look at that!” Pratik turned back to him with a grin as they rounded the corner and chairs came into view. “A fine specimen if I ever did see ...

“No sir.” Tadaaki said with a shake of his head. “The curse of traveling too much.”

"Only one way to find out." Pratik took a few steps that way.

"No sir." Tadaaki shook his head, then decided to risk elaborating a bit before the man could ask a more pointed question that could be harder to redirect. "I never ...

"Let's..." Pratik glanced around for the nearest seats. "Find somewhere to sit for now, then we can figure out what we want to do."

"I'm, I'm not sure I can claim one. I traveled with my uncle -- he was my guardian -- following his job every few months, until he passed. But I ...