Meeting the Knight

[G. Graves]

If there was one thing that Graves genuinely hated, it was coffee. It wasn't the taste, it wasn't the colour or the smell: It was simply that there was no alcohol in it. Really, what was a man supposed to do when they were bored out of their mind and trapped on an incessantly small freeport with virtually no means to tell the time because the bloody clock on the wall was broken. Graves simply refused to believe that only half an hour had passed since he had arrived here. With an audible sigh, he looked at the barkeeper which was trying his hardest to ignore him by polishing the same glass with the same sullied rag for — one moment — yes! For about twenty nine minutes now, since Graves had gotten his coffee and tried to explain to the bartender the intricacies of wholesome family values. "Saaay," Graves drawled, wanting to break the silence somewhat, which got unnerving after half an hour during which the bartender doubtlessly had tried to ignore the gun that was not even hidden in Graves' mantle. He had seen too many action flicks to not know where this was going. "Are we just going to pretend like we're some old couple that's married for about thirty years now and doesn't talk to each other anymore because we lost interest in each other about three months after marriage and only stay together because our thirty years old son is a fat piece of shit that doesn't manage to move out of our basement or get a job, which drives me to alcoholism and you to manic depression all because we just needed to marry because our son was an accident and we needed the tax reliefs?" Graves asked him, all in a single breath. The bartender blinked in reply. Graves couldn't rightly tell whether the twitching corner of his mouth was an indicator that he found what was said funny or whether he was having an aneurysm right now. "Hellooo?" Graves waved a hand through the air, accidentally knocking over his coffee and spilling it on the ground in front of himself. "Golly gee, silly me. However am I going to make up for that." He wasn't being honest about these words of course.

Expecting to see the man now squirm and wipe away the coffee stains, this was what Whitaker would enter the canteen to, Graves sitting at the bar with a spilt coffee in front of himself. Pouting inwardly, Graves had taken notice of the woman somewhat belatedly, though since he didn't know how his contact would look like, he also couldn't just approach her like that. I mean, that'd be really weird, right? Approaching random strangers? No? He would probably recognize her as soon as he'd hear her voice, however.