Gun Dealings (Closed RP)

The silence of the tavern was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps as a man entered the practically deserted building. The man was none other than Malcolm Graves, the Outlaw - though one might not recognize him at first glance with him missing a key feature, his trademark shotgun Destiny. It hadn't been as easy as he'd hoped to escape Piltover, but after the lucky break he'd caught with the assault on the prison he'd managed to do it after only a few months behind bars.

He'd still payed a price however, losing the one possession he placed any value on and at the moment had no way to get it back. His gun - his Destiny - had been sent away somewhere to be scraped for parts according to Caitlyn. It wasn't some toy for that top hat wearing bitch to pawn off to some egg head scientist so they could pick it apart to figure out how it worked...it was HIS GUN! He should've killed that pompous woman before leaving Piltover, though he knew that it would've gotten him nowhere. He needed a plan, but even before that he needed a drink. So he trudged over to the bar and sat himself on one of the stools before motioning Krutis whom he assumed was the bartender for a drink.

"Closed r' not, tellin' a man to leave n' gettin' him to do it are two entirely different propositions..." Graves replied dryly giving Krutis a look over the rim of his glass as he drank it down. He didn't particularly wan't to talk about his time in the Piltoverian prison or his escape not having any real knowledge about what actually happened himself. Someone absolutely insane had attacked the prison and it had given him the opportunity he needed to make his escape and eventual getaway from Piltover. If he had to guess it was that trigger happy woman he'd heard rumors loating around about. Jinx was her name if he remembered right, but Graves didn't care enough to give it anymore thought than that.

"Sounds like ya' got your ear to the ground. Folks' say all kinds o' things once they got enough drink in 'em though, don't they Miss?" Graves said attempting to play dumb. Whether or not Krutis called 'bullshit' was completely up in the air.

Graves only grunted in response to Krutis' comments, knowing that sometimes silence was the best answer. He didn't know himself if there was an actual price on his head, but if it were true it made no difference. He knew, as the woman pointed out, that it'd take either someone incredibly stupid or someone so full of themselves they wouldn't realize what they would get themselves into if they were to actually come after him. Zaun as far as the Outlaw was concerned was essentially a temporary sanctuary from the law enforcement of Piltover with the bad relations between the city-states and whatnot. He had no intention or reason to go back to the so called "city of progress" and that was more than enough to put his mind at ease.

"You gotta name?" he asked as he finished the last of his drink, wiping the residue from his beard with the back of his sleeve.

The door to the tavern burst open but it was almost impossible to tell if it was one of the regulars or not. The figure that stood in the doorway was only a human shaped splotch, back-lit by the sun streaming in from outside.

The outline became a feminine shape when the door closed shut behind her but just who she was remained unclear as she approached the bar. 
The reason for the woman's disheveled curls and the dark scowl on her face eventually became apparent when she sidled up to the counter and wordlessly dropped a length of rope in front of Graves.

“Ma’am” She inclined her head toward the pretty little barkeep along with the greeting. “I believe this horse’s ass here owes me a drink.  I’ll take a glass of the most expensive scotch ya have on hand, neat with a glass of water on the side.” Her knuckles rapped sharply on the counter top once and then she pulled out a stool and took a seat next to Graves.

Krutis facepalmed as the woman entered the tavern and let out a long sigh. "Do you always have this kind of fallowing?" She grumbled. Now this woman was begging for drinks from the outlaw. Krutis already got the message the moment Graves began to argue with the woman and he would find his cup already filled and ready.

She then flipped up another glass for the woman, and poured her a glass of the same stuff. "I don't have scotch and I sure as hell don't share my expensive alcohol." She said as she flipped up another glass to fill with water. "And if you don't mind you will pay for your own drinks." She said as she hardly even filled the glass with water, all the while holding a stern face.

Graves couldn't help but sigh in exasperation, bowing his head in shame at Elly's words. He didn't want to admit it but she was right. Here he was no longer within the jurisdiction of 'Piltover's Finest' and finally a free man. He'd gotten his hands on someone smart enough to whip him up a temporary arm replacement and gotten tons of free booze as a cherry on top of everything - and not a single one of these things would've happened if it weren't for Elly. Sure, he'd boarded up her booze cellar, let her say goodbye to her father and knocked some sense into her asshat of a brother, but it was all done to have a cooperative hostage if things went south when he made to beat feet out of Piltover for good - all he had done was use her and leave her for dead once they reached Zaun, which had seemed logical at first: he no longer needed her help and having her follow him around any longer would've been a hassle. In reality he'd just used her and then betrayed her trust once he had gotten what he wanted. It was something he was very familiar with and what he'd done simply didn't sit right with Graves. It wasn't so much because of what he'd done, but because he had done this to her - the woman who had gone out of her way to help him after he forced his problems onto her, probably ruining her life in the process.

'Ahhh hell...I gotta make this right' he thought to himself remorsefully, the guilt settling in for what he imagined he put her through knowing she deserved better. He stood up from his seat, scooping up her necklace and watched her make her way out of the bar. "Elly..." he called out to her in an assuaging tone hoping she would at least pause to listen, but she just ignored him and kept making her way to the door. Graves sat back down at the bar a bit defeated and subconsciously pocketed Elly's necklace. He wasn't going to chase after her to apologize, at least not while she was mad. He'd let her cool off and then see if he couldn't find her, figuring she wouldn't get too far not being familiar with the city and it wouldn't be hard to find a doe eyed Piltoverian bartender wandering around in Zaun.

"Any chance of these drinks bein' on the house?" Graves asked Krutis mundanely.

After being insulted by everyone in the room, Elly’s conscience had still demanded that she drop the first gold coin she’d ever earned on stale beer. ‘This is what I get for trying to help.’ She thought bitterly as she made for the exit.

Halfway there, Graves called out her name.   Elly paused at the sound of his voice.  His pleading tone tugged at her sense of friendship until she remembered that her so called friend had left her to die.   ‘Ha.  No sir!  Not this time.  Fool me once, shame on you but the second time is on me.'

 'Never again’  she vowed as she pushed the door open.  'Forget hero’s, forget helping people and forget this adventure crap!   None of it is worth any more than that stale beer.  The only person you can rely on reliably is yourself.'  It was a hard lesson but Graves had taught her well and it was time to face the facts.

 ‘The facts…’  Elly was halfway out the door when several inconsistencies hit her all at once.  No bartender worth their tequila salt would toss out good paying customers at this hour.  The beer wouldn't be stale if it was actually being served regularly  and a bartender did not share good alcohol; they served it for lots and lots of shiny money.

Years of knowledge about what it took to run a successful bar rushed through her mind and formed one single thought. ‘This is no bar and that is definitely no barkeep.’  She cast a backward glance over her shoulder toward Graves who sat trustingly at the counter, prepared to down his second free glass of booze.

‘It’s not your problem anymore.’ She told herself as the bar’s door swung shut, obscuring the scene.  Elly shook her head at her own naivety, then turned and started walking.  As she was mulling over how she was going to get home again without going back in to ask for the keys to the motor car, she spotted them.  

Half hidden in an alleyway across from the bar, stood the nice people who had helped her get free earlier that day. ‘But why would they be…?’  Her eyes narrowed as she answered her own half formed question. ‘Heh,  figures...  Helping out of the goodness of their hearts my ass.’

‘Graves is a champion, he does not need your help and if you’d had half the sense of a poro, you'd never have gotten involved in the first place!'  Elly reasoned with herself as her eyes lingered on the group.    Although her mind screamed at her to walk away, her damnable conscience refused to allow it.  At the very least, she had to warn him.

The bar door protested loudly as it opened but Elly's muttering could still be heard over the creaking barrier as she reluctantly rolled back inside.

“I wouldn't drink that...”  She warned, fixing her stare on Graves as she advanced toward the bar.  When he met her eye, she inclined her head toward the window. “Outside.” 

Elly waited till he went to look, then leaned up against the counter to level with the pseudo barkeeper behind it. “Lady I don’t know what you’re playin at and it’s none of my business either way."  She whispered her understanding with a smile.  "Let me give ya a friendly piece of advice though;  if you want to keep up pretenses, pretending like your just bartender and  this is just a bar, you may want to think about stepping it up a notch or two.”