Jack & Pip: Some Dive Bar in Londontown

[handel]

[Continued from here.]


Somehow, they've gone from fisticuffs to a night out at a bar.

Pip isn't sure how, exactly... but that's often how it is with Jack. He could never quite keep up with the tempo of that man. Of when something was a joke or when it was serious, when things were stressed or when they were relaxed. Very possibly, it's his own fault. He tended to take seriously (and balk at) whatever Jack joked about, while imagining that some of the more outlandish tales Jack told about his life and London in general must be all folly (when in fact, time is more and more informing him, those stories were not.) Similarly, Jack always seemed to be rather too-relaxed about the things that Pip was rather too-stressed over. As a result, they moved to a very different beat of the drum, and Pip often found he was only halfway through the notes when suddenly Jack was dragging them both to a new page of music.

Case and Point: The dive-bar, the very night after his hangover, the very night after he'd sworn he'd never drink again. And drinking right beside the very man he'd almost taken to task over Estella's honour, at that.

He'd never really been to any of London's more reasonable drinking establishments-- he'd been told it was better to stick to shelling out money at member's clubs, 'seeing and being seen', whatever that meant.Hhe'd gathered, too, from Jaggers and from the general air of disdain for the common man his new social rung carried, that you didn't want to 'be seen' by the wrong people, which was what this bar was absolutely full of. Oddly, though, there really didn't seem to be anything wrong with the wrong people, just that they were rather more like Joe than they were like Estella: which meant, he'd feel much more comfortable here than he did at member's clubs, if he wasn't so uncomfortable with how comfortable it was.

...You can see why he'd be over-stressed, with thoughts like that.

Biting his lip out of a bad habit he meant to break, he'd take a seat beside Jack at the bar and peered over, for all appearances trying to hide himself in his coat collar, to avoid 'being seen.'

"Hello... ...are you sure that drinking more really cures the bad effects of alcohol?" Well, Nancy had said so, anyway. It just seemed like a hypocritical solution, to him.

Comments

[handel]

A small shrug of the shoulders.

"I do let it be." It ate him up inside, but. "I only come when she calls. I wouldn't presume otherwise. She deals in having suitors, you know." Many of them angry, frustrated, prostrate, weeping, gifting, phoning and emailing constantly. "That's why I didn't see the point in your calling on her. She has plenty who'd do anything for her, and make all kinds of shows of it, and aggravate her with it." And she did it on purpose, of course, but that wasn't her design and Pip couldn't bring himself to attribute it to her. It felt too mean and too vulgar. So, just as when they were children-- "I only go when she asks. But I think that she asks at all must mean there isn't anyone else to ask, and that's a shame. She's such a... sweet girl."

Thought No One at all, possibly not even Pip himself.

[artfuldawkins]

Calling on her.

"First things first mate? No one's called it in that in about 100 years," Jack rolled his eyes. "I was going to chat her up, flirt, not 'call on her'." There was another eye-roll at the thought of it. Like he could stand to be considered some prissy suitor who probably didn't know anything about the real world. He took another drink from the pint in front of him - about halfway through now - and shrugged at Pip, as if to tell him that he was only speaking the truth. He was, but he doubted the boy would see it that way. Oh, they might have been the same age, but Pip was still a boy.

"An' second - 'sweet girl'? No woman wants to be called that passed bein' an actual kid. It's, whatyoucallit... patronising." A side effect of having grown up around quite forceful personalities when it came to females; Jack Dawkins quite likely had feminist leanings. Odd, all things considered.

[handel]

"Um-- yes. Yeah." He corrected the 'yes' with 'yeah' tepidly.

He'd grown up speaking in slang, of course. He'd been a fairly bad reader, home schooled at that, and his language and accent had been one of those very telling things about where he'd grown up, and how. It had taken a vast over-correction to make him feel like he could stand still and maybe no one would notice him "in society"; any time he did have to speak up, he made sure to be as much of an anachronism as he could figure. It helped, actually. People thought you sounded 'educated'.

Or, well... posh, Dodger would have called it.

"But I didn't actually mean to say-- I don't flirt with her." Which might have been part of the problem... but everybody else did, and she knew how he felt, so he didn't see the point in badgering her with it by flirting. "It's patronising?" A little brow tilt at that and for the second time that night, he was stunned. "I didn't mean to do that either. What should I say? She's-- well. She's. Brave? A brave woman?"

That felt a little truer than 'a sweet girl', anyway...

[artfuldawkins]

"If brave fits then go with it," there was a shrug.

"An' maybe you should try flirtin' with her," Jack suggested, looking vaguely thoughtful on the whole thing. "I mean, not that I'm suggestin' you actually try to hook up with her, nah, sounds like you're better off out of it, but sometimes a bit of a flirt... it makes things easier."

It wasn't as thought he was really speaking from experience - except he might actually have been for all Pip knew. Just, from the way Jack look at what he'd been told? Didn't see like the bloke trying to have a bit of a flirt would do any harm. She might shove him away, but bloody hell, he kind of needed that at this point. Estella did not sound like the type of person you wanted to actually be around for more than a few minutes.

(People would say the same of him; he'd counter a few minutes was all he needed.)

[handel]

"No... she doesn't like me. I get that, I do."

She just... also did like him, and that made things confusing, and he couldn't will away loving her either way. He'd tried to, way back when. But now he seemed rather fitted with it, as it had been so long, and few other people managed to distract him.

"Besides; I don't see you having a girlfriend." Sitting up a little, brows raised. "How can you give so much advice on women?"

[artfuldawkins]

The question brought forth a laugh from Jack, one that was probably a bit too amused for it's own good.

"Mate, just 'cause you ain't seen one, don't mean they're not there," he said. "Don't exactly live my life around you, do I?" Besides which, he wouldn't really want to be introducing Pip to the type of people he usually dated. There'd only really been a couple in recent memory that were worth mentioning as people he had actually dated, and not just hooked up with on recurring occasions.

Dear Ruby had been promising... Until they had that fight and he caught her the next week in bed with soddin' Jem White of all people. Mind you, she chucked Jem fast enough to go shack up with a junior doctor. That was almost reassuring. Kelly... Kelly was a spitefire and too much like himself. Wanted more than he was willing to give - you didn't just ask a bloke to go brand himself with your name like that. An' Charlie... well, he'd buggered up north and found himself someone respectable.

"Also? I listen to 'em."

[handel]

"Well I think they're being the operative word here, Jack." Because wasn't the object to date continuously, and not switch-up between various partners? (Most men his age would laugh at that; but Pip didn't speak to most men his age, only Herbert, who agreed with him entirely on that point. They were a little bit like a sounding board echoing itself, sometimes.)

"...all right, well point. About listening to them. But all the women I've listened to have had as contradictory viewpoints as all the men I've ever listened to, which makes me think there is no solid advice on a whole entire gender, that people are just people, individuals, and must be judged that way, individually. Estella is Estella, and I can't treat her the way I'd treat everyone else, because everyone needs and wants to be treated differently. So I treat her the way she wishes, which is to come when she needs me, and to not spoil the time by flirtations she'd only return to me if she did hate me."

A broken clock twice a day, and all that.

"...Herbert says I ought to give her up, too. I gave him a rough time about it."

Funny, how he knew Jack, and he knew Nancy, but he didn't know who else they spent their time with. And how they knew him, but not the people he spent his time with. Life with its unlikely alliances was a funny business.

[artfuldawkins]

"... She come running when you need her then?" Jack asked causally, having listened to everything Pip had to say. He would give him a mark for pointing out that you should treat people the way they want to be treated, but something still didn't add up here. It sounded very much like Pip had to do as Estella commanded, and bugger what he wanted in the end. Now, Jack weren't much, but he weren't for that.

"Herbet," the snort was involuntary but honestly, what a name, "ain't wrong."

[handel]

"...I've never asked her to." But in the hypothetical situation that he did? A wary look sideways at Jack. "But no, probably she wouldn't."

Because she'd be busy, doing her own duty to Miss Havisham. They both understood one another on some level because they were both bound up by money they didn't own, and all the stipulations surrounding one day inheriting it. With the secondary option being poverty, obscurity, ruin, and the return to a rural life they'd both hated.

"I wouldn't know the first thing about 'getting over' her. Haven't you ever loved someone that much, Jack? Unconditionally?"

[artfuldawkins]

"Just an outsider here, but that don't seem right." He said, voice actually sincere for a rare change, hoping that might help get it through to Pip that well, this girl was using him. Not that he thought Pip actually gave a shit about it, but he should. Jack had seen this before, or ... well, a far more extreme version of it. He couldn't do anything for that one, save just be there, but maybe he could stop this one before it got too far. Maybe.

"...You reckon that's what you feel?" He always wondered why people asked him that in the past tense. He did love someone unconditionally - more than one someone. He reckoned it was pretty obvious as to the who, though. Mind you.. this was Pip. Blind as a bat sometimes.

[handel]

The funny thing about wealth (or the veneer of it) was that it has a habit of covering up the truth in gilt and gold. If you'd have asked Pip if he'd been misused as a child, he probably would have said yes; but beyond that, he'd have not very much to add. He didn't look the type. Jack, or Nancy: they looked the type. It was in the way they spoke, it was in their professional capacities, it was in where they lived and who they knew, it was in the way they so thoroughly understood the world... the truth to the world, in a way they laughed or rolled their eyes over, and took and offered at face value. Pip, and to some extent, Estella and Herbert, weren't at liberty to do that. If you'd asked him to elaborate on the misuse, he probably would have said 'my sister was very severe', and then would have felt a sight guiltily for having admitted it. It wasn't that those without money didn't have abuse-- they had much more of it, from what Pip had seen, and they were less likely believed when they spoke the reality of it. But in the wealthy circles, it was considered a non-reality. It couldn't be the case. And so, he didn't often think to it, to back to the time before money.

Sure, he'd been hit and harassed every single day of his life. Sure, he'd been made to work before it was legal. Sure, he'd been taken across town to be used as an experiment for hurting people by a little girl who was equally trapped and downtrodden. It was all the case. And all that being the case, it wasn't possible to make from that a fully-formed adult who felt entitled to people coming when he called. It didn't seem unreasonable, to Pip, that people should use you. It seemed unreasonable, to the contrary, to complain about it. The world beat that notion out of you right quick, that you deserved anything at all, much less complaints-- when you grew up similar to the way they did.

"...It doesn't seem wrong, either." Insisted, softly, going to take another sip of the beer before setting it away from him. Honestly, he'd never liked the taste. "I know it's what I feel. I feel it more than anything else." He loved Herbert, too, and that came close. He thought it might be harder to leave Herbert than to leave Estella, but it was easier to slip into thoughts of Estella than it was Herbert. He'd loved Joe and Biddy once, too; and those two, he'd left for a song. That hadn't felt right, or good. Why should he do it to Estella?

"...I don't mean to press." A rare moment of clarity: "But I notice you didn't answer my question, Jack. Is it too painful to speak on? I didn't mean to make you feel low." Jack had slipped right past the 'love' question, where pertaining to himself.

[artfuldawkins]

Jack would believe it, but then again, he had a long standing belief that wealth just made a person a tiny bit evil. Not much, in some cases, but for most who had access to money? Yeah, that evil was noticeable by anyone who wasn't their kind. Respectable had the same curse to it, frankly. It's why he avoided both. Pip, he reckoned, care too much about staying in these circles, staying respectable. He'd said as much more than once. Mind you, he didn't think he was actually listened to, that would be hoping for too much. Especially if he'd gone and gotten himself hung up on someone who was forced into a role that they sharpened themselves to fit.

"Just wonderin' why it's always asked in the past tense."

[handel]

"Forgive me... I've been selfish, rambling about my own problems." And here, it seemed Jack perhaps had one as well. "You're right. Love, not loved. You do have someone you love then? Right now?" After all, maybe Pip had read it wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.

[artfuldawkins]

Jack paused, the words hovering. Pip said someone. Singular. Should he...?

"That's what I was sayin', yeah."

No, it'd keep.

[handel]

"Would you... would you tell me about them?" Sitting back a little, trying to be patient and to listen now. He wasn't half bad at that at all, when he could unwrap his mind from the way it had been warped around Estella.

"Do they know how you feel?"

[artfuldawkins]

"... I reckon they do," Jack said evenly, staring into his own pint. "But it's not..." He paused, and shook his head, a bitter laugh coming from him. "But it ain't like anything can be. There's ... a lot an' that lot can't be shifted. So, that's that." Jack shrugged, and lifted and drained the last half of his pint, placing the glass back down when he was done.

"I'm getting another."

[handel]

"Like what? What is there in the world that you can't possibly shift?" Without missing a beat, he'd slide his mostly-full glass over. "You can have mine." He knew the effects of interludes on a conversation, after all, being rather the master of it with Joe, whether he meant to be or not. "Why do you think the lot can't be shifted? What does the matter come down to?"

[artfuldawkins]

"The matter comes down to needing a fresh pint, not something warmed over," Jack replied easily, standing and going to the bar to get a new one for himself. He needed the brief few minutes away from the table to gather his thoughts. Of course Pip would start asking, of course he would. But there was a lot he wasn't going to unpack. Sometimes even the Artful Dodger had stuff he couldn't shift.

[handel]

Well, they'd see about that, anyway.

Once Pip had it in his mind that someone needed something, he tended to feel an awful pull towards helping them get it, if they seemed like a worthwhile person. He didn't know that Jack was good exactly, but worthwhile?

He'd known criminals in his life, real thugs and bullies. Jack wasn't like that.

And everyone, as far as Pip could tell, deserved to be with the people they loved, who might love them. Anything less was torture, wasn't it?

[artfuldawkins]

Pip's opinion would change if he saw the way Jack would carefully lift from the people around him, more because he could than any real need to do it. Getting his pint, he nodded a thanks at the guy behind the bar, watching the till from the corner of his eye before he went back to the table. He knew the code to open it, could do it easily.

... He wasn't in the mood.

"Right, that's better."

[handel]

Looking up at him, expectantly.

Not a single word to pass from his lips, as he'd already laid his questions out bare. Now it was time for Jack to answer them in whatever order he would.

And not make the excuse of warm beer. In London, it all seemed warm to start with.

[artfuldawkins]

Jack looks back, poker faced.

"What?"

[handel]

An irate shuffle and a heaved sigh. Incorrigible, this one.

"Your love. What's so impossible about it?"

[artfuldawkins]

"Never said impossible, said nothing were goin' to happen," Jack said, taking a drink from his pint. Pip really did like to make things more dramatic than they had any right to be.

[handel]

The opposite of 'not going to happen' seemed like it should be 'possible', and possible seemed like the opposite of 'impossible', which... well, he didn't really see the linguistic difference, frankly. Jack was just a frustrating human being.

Narrowing his eyes in confusion, he'd give a small shrug.

"Well, all right. Have it your way. Why won't it happen, then? Have you told them outright how you feel about them?"