For Kim

[bleak_midwinter]

Thomas Shelby knows what people believe in in America, and it's not just what he's picked up from television as a child. They believe in a handsome face, a good suit, and a good story told in confidence.

Thomas has all that, and a British accent that he poshes up considerably. Not that he thinks most people in New Mexico would be able to tell the Queen's English from his pure Brum one, but he'll not take his chances.

Tonight, he's set up in a nice cocktail bar near the office district. Go to a shabby place and you'll never make any money, go *too* nice and people won't be willing to interact with strangers. Lawyers and financial types looking for interesting new people is perfect.

Comments

[saintclaire]

It's been a long week. It feels longer still when she realizes she still has one more meeting about Mesa Verde's next expansion, and she will have one more glass cowboy on her mantle to celebrate when she wants nothing more than to be eyeballs-deep in complicated PD cases. But who can walk away from a client that keeps her fed and housed, especially when it's a massive pay cut, and terrifying instability?

She'll be doing this forever.

The only revenge she has is taking an evening for herself, some filing foisted off on her paralegal. A drink will be good for her. It's a little bit more crowded than she'd like, but she sees an open spot at the bar and beelines for it, stilettos clicking on the tiled floor. She sets her purse down and flags down the bartender, ordering a Moscow Mule. As she takes her seat, her phone beeps –– she glances at it, and with some finality, she turns it off entirely.

"As far as I'm concerned, observing office hours should be the law," she comments to the guy next to her.

It's a white-collar place. Anyone here could relate.

[bleak_midwinter]

"You can always claim you drove through a tunnel, crossed state lines, fell into a big hole?" He gives her a rakish little grin. Office hours, ha. He's wearing a nice enough suit, he has a good haircut, modern and sleek, but he's still visibly foreign.

And now, audibly too.

"Besides, you're in a bar now. I think they must scramble the signal the moment you have a drink in your hand."

[saintclaire]

"My client might actually buy the state line one, if I say it was on their behalf," she replies, with the faintest trace of humour. They'd love it, she's sure. They'd praise the industrious and tireless Kim Wexler, and give no second thought to some extra billing hours.

It makes her want to run screaming and never look back.

She takes a sip of her drink and remarks:

"You're a long way from home."

No one who came here as a kid keeps an accent that heavy.

[bleak_midwinter]

There's something wild behind her eyes that intrigues Tommy. She's beautiful and well-dressed, and the edge of stress and boredom most people here have is sharper. Harder.

"Oh, my few weeks of being here haven't made me blend in at all?" He gives her another smile.

[saintclaire]

The corners of her mouth twitch, but she's loyal to making him work for it.

"Anyone in this bar who isn't a familiar face at the courthouse is a guest of someone who is," she says. Not strictly true, of course, but it's for a finer point: he knows the rules, if not the territory. It makes him interesting. "But you're here alone. Where are you from?"

[bleak_midwinter]

"I was born in Birmingham," he tells her, because why lie about that? She's not going to know what he's supposed to sound like, and in either case there are plenty of posh people in Birmingham who don't sound like he naturally does.

"Not Alabama, as you might have guessed."