love me / spin the bottle

[WANDERER]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]To be honest, Val zones out pretty quickly after he's said his piece. Though Quill gets a sharp yet painfully bored glance at his comment, it doesn't hit him too hard. The dog is quickly back to reading the book he'd closed, attention snapping from one monotonous word to the next as if his life depended on it. In truth, his life may not, but his sanity sure does. At least this way whatever's fighting to crawl out from underneath his skin dies down a little. Whatever he'd thought of Eugene drops a little further at what he says, the whole thing managing to pierce his concentration enough that his ears pull back towards his head (he's not — irritated, it's something else maybe), though the expression recovers quickly. Really, he'd played this game enough times back home to know for sure that there's not a stick up his ass, but thinking about sharing that with these sorts of people has him feeling gross down to his core. No matter how they talk, how they act, they're still living in a group where some people live their life in collars, and they're still not doing anything about it. (Guess he's not any better, huh?)

Butch makes it a little better. It doesn't really show on his face, still a bit of a clean slate when it comes to emotions, he glances up with a slow roll of warm amber eyes. Just to make sure he catches it. Yeah, he liked his books. Definitely more than he likes slavers. He won't say it though, just in case someone in this place is rubbed the wrong way.

The subtle amusement changes to concern within a moment as the collie's expression darkens at Quill's entrance, but he goes back to ignoring everything quickly enough. If it was bad enough, Butch would have walked away. Or started a fight or something. (Unless he was really that into Eugene?) Which — maybe, though he glances up to see a kiss on the cheek and tries not to huff with laughter, because whatever front Butch puts up, Val's pretty sure he knows just how many times he's been that close to someone's mouth. It's funny, then it's not, and he's back to reading. Trying to. But the spinning of the bottle draws his eyes up again, just in time to watch it stop... right on him. He's technically not a part of this game, not in the circle, not wanting to be a part of the circle, but it's right in the gap between two people. Val clears his throat and looks back to the book, no longer absorbing the words on the page. Some story that's as dusty as the pages; he stopped caring a while ago. "Spin again, Butch-man."