2024-11-12 - Eight Ball, Side Pocket

Elmo is bent over one of the pool tables, carefully taking aim with his cue. It slides back and forth across his thumb and forefinger, his right arm guiding it while the rest of his body remains still. With an exhale, he pauses just before striking.

Clack! Click-clack! The cue ball hits a ten, which spins into a nine that ricochets into a side pocket. “Fuck yeah,” the man mutters, rising and rolling his shoulders to crack his arched back. “What’d you think of that?”

His voice is low over the bar music, and he walks a short distance to a two-top where a glass of beer rests on a soggy throwaway coaster. When he lifts it, he reveals a spottled rat that was curled up against the side, its hair matted slightly from the condensation. “You wish,” he says, seemingly to the rat, before taking a swig.

Lennox is sitting at the bar, a bottle of beer in front of him on a similar coaster, but without the rat beer cozy around it. He's off duty and so he's.. dressed in the same color scheme as when he's on duty. Black. Though now with a touch of grey! He has on faded black ripped jeans and chucks with a pale grey hoodie over a similarly grey t-shirt beneath that might be from some band or another though it's impossible to read, having faded significantly over time. He watches the shot and raises a brow, almost wondering if the question was directed at him until he sees the revelation of the rat on the table. Then he chuckles, mostly to himself.

"Rat's got opinions on your form?" he asks idly, voice quiet, low, but still audible over the music playing from the jukebox.

Elmo and Lennox must shop at the same places. His jeans are dark blue versus black, but they’re distressed (not artfully) and paired with a grey t-shirt. He was stomping around in heavy brown boots a moment ago, but stops when he’s addressed by a human.

Slowly, he lowers his glass. His gaze locks onto Lennox’s for a moment before he nods and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Rat’s got opinions on everything.” He extends his arm and allows the animal to scamper across it and climb onto his shoulder, tugging his sleeve down in the process.

Given there are only so many places to shop for regular clothes without going to the mainland, it's likely that they do shop at the same places. And who wants to lug back a bunch of shopping on the ferry? Not that people don't. It's definitely a thing that happens, but not as often as just picking up what is convenient.

Lennox watches as the rat scampers up Elmo's arm and settles there on his shoulder. "Does he play?" he asks. Let's not get into the logistics of how a rat might possibly hold a pool cue, but that doesn't seem to matter to Lennox. "Or just a shoulder quarterback?"

Elmo gives Lennox a long, hard stare while he stands there with his beer in his hand. Then he share a look with the rat. "Does he play?" He rolls his eyes as he turns his head back to look at the other man, who's familiar in the way they all are, even if they've never met. Such is life in as small a town as this. "He kills."

Taking a step forward, Elmo lifts his glass for another swig. The beer is cool and already giving him a welcome buzz. "Of course, he only plays other rats," he says, shrugging in a way that suggests it's only natural for the critter. People play people, rats play rats.

"Fair enough," Lennox says, seemingly unphased, both by the long hard stare, and the fact that the rat not only kills at pool, but only plays other rats. He then seems to muse a bit as he lifts his bottle and takes another swig from it. "I don't think I can get that small. Maybe rabbit sized. Is it rat only? Or are other rodents allowed in this league?" His expression holds a sly little smile and one might wonder if he's serious or just bullshitting at this point.

He's seen Elmo about in the way that one sees a lot of people about in a place where you live and work in a very small sphere for enough time, you will eventually run into a large portion of the population. But this is the first time that he's spoken to him. "You're over at the midway, right?" he asks.

Elmo steps up to Lennox’s table and pauses there, giving the rat on his shoulder a chance to look over the man. His little head turns to one side, whiskers twitching.

“I don’t fuckin’ know, I can’t get any smaller than this.” Size matters when it comes to joining the rat league. “And anyway…” It’s all in jest, his tone suggests. After another swig and swallow of beer, he nods. “At the arcade, taking care of the games.”

His eyes narrow like little grey-blue pebbles in his skull. “You’re someone in the spooky part. I remember your face.” Yet it seems like he can’t place it exactly.

Lennox is at the bar, not too far from where Elmo was playing. He tilts his head just slightly as he regards the rat while the rat regards him. He chuckles when Elmo also has no idea of the proper protocols of the rat pool league. He tips his bottle back and finishes it off, setting it down on the bar and motioning to the bartender for a refill and a nod toward Elmo in case he wants one, too. Apparently he's buying.

"Ah yeah, that's right," he nods when Elmo mentions what he does at the Arcade. "I've been in there a few times. I like the pinball machines." He's always been a pretty big fan of pinball.

"Bartender at the Spider Walk," he fills in when Elmo mentions the spooky part, a little grin tugging at his lips. "Lennox," he offers.

The rat tilts his head to mimic Lennox. His nose scrunches a bit as he sniffs the air, and then his little arms come up to rub the sides of his face.

Elmo will take Lennox up on the beer, but first he'll drain the rest of what he's got. With a breathy exhale, he reaches over to set his glass down and give the bartender a knowing nod. "Thanks," he says to both of them. "Pinball's fun. Pretty old school, but I guess that’s part of the charm.” They’ve got some newer ones in, too, but the concept has always struck him as ‘of the past’, for better or worse.

When he finally connects the face with where he recognizes it from, he quickly smirks. “No wonder I didn’t remember right away. I’m Elmo.”

Lennox observes the rat with a bit of an amused smile. And when the beers come he gives a nod of thanks to the bartender before lifting his and taking a swallow from it. "I like the new ones, too. And some of the VR stuff that they've been coming out with recently is kind of cool. But I sort of like the old school mechanical stuff." He then tips his bottle toward Elmo, "For the charm, yeah."

"Not a fan of the spooky side?" he asks with a bit of an arched brow. Lennox, for his part, certainly looks like he belongs on the spooky side most of the time.

The rat pivots and scampers a few inches across Elmo's shoulder, nuzzling against the warm side of the young man's neck. "I like the old school button mashers sometimes," he admits. “Street Fighter or whatever.” He reaches for his new beer and moves to tap it against Lennox’s bottle.

After a swig, he licks his lips. “Big fan of the spooky. I just mean that, if I was at The Spider…” he winces just a bit. “Probably my day off.” Which means he was drinking and less likely to hold bartenders in his memory.

"I haven't played Street Fighter in ages. Though that was pretty much my strat, just wildly mashing buttons in no particular order and hoping that I'd win," Lennox admits. "Just Chun-Li kicking my way through the ranks." He likes the games. He never claimed he was any good at them.

He chuckles and says, "Fair," raising his bottle and taking another swig. "I tend to do my day off drinking here. Something about drinking where I work.." he admits with a shake of his head. "Too close to home."

Elmo twists to his left and kicks, a sudden burst of motion from a man who hasn't shown much of that so far. "She's fierce," he says approvingly. "You gotta learn a combo, though. At least one." He says this very seriously, as if Lennox's life depends on it. "Up-up-down-whatever." He drinks some more of his ale. "A-B-B-A."

He nods a couple of times and looks around the place. "I had a friend in town, used a comp day on him. Otherwise, it's this place or home." He's got his haunts, though they must have always been ships in the night here.

Not that he never drinks at Spider Walk, but there are other options and other places that don't pay his bills seem the wiser option most of the time. "Ah yeah. Makes sense. I mean, if I'm drinking with the tourists, then it's sometimes around the park. Sometimes over at Tales and Tails." He gets that.

Laughing, he says, "Alright well, next time I play, I'll see if I can learn some sort of combo beforehand. Not sure it's going to help my overall situation, but I'll give it a go." He then asks, "So what's your friend's name?" He nods to the rat, to make it clear he means the one that's present, not the one that came in from out of town.

Elmo grunts his acknowledgement and shrugs. “Place is alright, sure,” he says, sipping this time from his glass. “And hey, I think most people are that way.” Whether he’d be the type to drink at the bar he works at or not is left unclear.

“Do it,” he says, extending his forefinger to point at Lennox. “Though, I’ll kick your ass either way.” He shrugs again, which causes the rat to stir. “This guy's The Freak. He’s an asshole.” For that, Elmo gets a whipped tail against the side of his face.

"No doubt," Lennox says when Elmo says that he'll kick his ass one way or the other. But that doesn't seem to bother him all that much. He'll play anyway, even if he gets his ass handed to him. "Just be careful that the student doesn't eventually outplay the master." He can't quite say it with a straight face though.

There's a little nod at the mention of the rat's name, slightly amused. "The Freak," he repeats. "Got it." Whether the rat is an asshole or not, he can only accept. "Been kind of hoping that I'd be able to talk to them at some point.. the animals. Know some folks who can do that."

“Doubt it,” Elmo retorts. Hopefully he’s better at games than witty exchanges; otherwise, this may not be a great challenge for Lennox. Still, it almost makes the man smile.

Lifting his right shoulder, he jostles The Freak around, making the critter squeak in annoyance. “Have you? Why?” The skin between his brows folds in thought. He’s only got the one animal and that’s enough for him.

Lennox laughs, smile broadening as he lifts his beer to take another swig. "Confident. I like it." And probably with good reason, too.

"Because I can turn into them, but I can't really talk to them. They sort of accept me as just another.. whatever.. but it'd be cool to be able to also like, say hey what's up. And my telepathy doesn't work on them, just people. Would be kind of cool to know what sort of info I could get out of them. You know, because being a bartender doesn't supply me with enough gossip."

Elmo sagenods and drinks some more beer. Foam coats his upper lip for a second before he licks it clean and smacks his lips.

“Can you?” While his tone seems indifferent, there’s a quirk of his brow that suggests he might be more interested than he’s letting on. “I figure animals are just horny and hungry all the time, but if you want to hear them complain about that late into the night…” Again, he shrugs.

Then, he turns his head slightly in The Freak’s direction. “I do not.”

Lennox laughs and says, "Yeah, I can, and I mean, from what I've been told, I'm not all that different. So I guess we have that in common." He then smirks, "I mean I'd want to turn it on and off. That'd suck if I just heard them all the time. Hearing people all the time is more than enough. Alright, I take it back. If I couldn't turn it off, I definitely don't want it." He takes another swig from his beer and glances over toward The Freak with a little chuckle. "What'd he say?"

Elmo snorts and says, "Oh yeah?" He glances aside and shifts his weight from one foot to another, lifting a heel off the floor. Then, he takes another drink. "I think hearing people all the time sounds awful. Definitely would pack it in if that were me." He grunts and nods, then gives Lennox an almost sympathetic look.

That is until he asks what The Freak said. "He thinks I'm an animal." Rolling his eyes, he jostles the rat around some more, but tiny claws hook into his t-shirt and root him there. "We don't exactly talk so much as understand each other. It's a funny thing." Their relationship. This magic.

Lennox grins and says, "Bartender. Kind of my job to hear people all the time. Most of the time it's fine. Some nights it's rough." He shrugs his shoulders as he he glances around the bar which isn't too crowded. "Nights like tonight, where folks are mostly just talking amongst themselves are pretty good. Can kind of just get in the zone. Pour and pass."

"Technically we all are," Lennox agrees and then flashes a broader grin. "Some of us more and more often than others, I guess." He nods though when Elmo says they don't so much talk as just sort of understand each other. "Huh. That's kinda cool."

Elmo's mouth tightens at its corners. "I mean he thinks I'm an animal," he says, leaning an inch closer to Lennox. As he speaks those last two words, his eyes nearly flutter shut and his voice takes on a gravely undertone. When he next glances to The Freak, he adds, "Which of course is slander," in his usually deep, yet youthful, tone.

He pulls back the inch and says, "I don't know how you deal with people like that. At a bar." He makes a face and shrugs. "I guess we all deal with crowds, though, at least." Thankfully, not many people at the arcade try and chat him up.

One brow goes up and then he laughs and says, "Certainly all lies and slander," though he does glance over at the rat and gives him a wink before gesturing a little with the bottle and saying. "Sometimes you need to make a game out of it. Sometimes I'll do a tarot reading for them and depending on how much of a pain in my ass they've been, tilt fortune in their favor, or against it. Usually generous tipping will help to bring the fates around to their side. Maybe. If not, I can recommend some very expensive remedies at the occult shop two doors down."

Elmo isn't sure about the wink; the rat gets ideas easily enough without someone to egg him on. "He can't be trusted. Don't let anything cute about him fool you." Again, he points at Lennox.

A nice swig of beer cools him down. "Tarot? Can you actually read from them? I don't know all the shit people have been able to do around here." It wouldn't surprise him to hear Lennox say yes, though.

"I'll bear that in mind," Lennox says with a chuckle. Not that he can really conspire with the untrustworthy rat. He can't even talk to it. But he seems amused either way.

"I mean, as well as anybody can. It's a lot more of a meditative process than anything else. Getting whoever you're reading for to think about whatever's going on in their life that associates with the cards and talking it out. But is anything mystical really going on? Nah, not when I do it anyway. I dunno if anyone else can read them and make actual future predictions, but I can't."

Elmo’s finger wags up and down, then curls back around his sweating glass. Bear it, he seems to mean. Bear it well.

He listens carefully to the brief explanation and nods once Lennox is done. “You could have told me anything, kept up the mystique.” He lets a small sigh escape, obviously theatrical. “Not that I want magic cards to air my laundry. Anyway, at least I know you’re honest.” That definitely counts for something.

Lennox smiles a little apologetically when Elmo sighs theatrically. "Sorry. Only the guests get the full dog and pony show, sometimes literally. I'm off-duty." He can't help but smirk just a little bit when Elmo calls him honest. "On occasion. When it suits me." Which is apparently now, but definitely not all the time. Which is also, ironically, honest.

Elmo shrugs, but this time he also tilts his head and rolls his eyes, like he's heard that one too many times. Only the tourists get the full show. Not that he actually cares, no way.

"Well, since you're off duty, how about a game?" He gestures with his beer toward the pool tables. "Last guy I was playing with was too predictable." This was, of course, himself.

Lennox pulls himself up from his seat at the bar and takes his beer with him, heading over to the nearby pool table and says, "Sure. I could use a game." He wanders over to the wall and grabs one of the cues off the rack, taking a little blue cube of chalk and chalking up the end. "You want to break?" he asks as he grabs the little triangular rack and begins dropping the balls into place one after the other, arranging them and giving them a little roll back and forth before pulling off the triangle and hanging it back up on its hook.

Elmo heads back over to the tables, but not before looking over his shoulder to catch the bartender’s attention. He lifts two fingers and mouths and order, figuring they’ll need them eventually and he can repay the round Lennox bought.

At the table, he leans against his cue and watches as the balls are arranged in their neat triangle at one end of the felt surface. It’s an imagine he’s always liked, an orderliness existing solely for a brief moment of chaos. “Be my guest,” he says, gesturing to the table.

Lennox nods as Elmo goes over to get them a round and takes a swig off his current bottle as the liquid is slowly drained from it. Then, when he returns, nods and moves around to the other side of the table to break. He draws back the cue and then smacks the cue ball, sending it careening into that neat triangle which splits and balls roll all over across the table, eventually coming to a stop, but none go in. He takes a step back then and leans against the wall out of the way, letting Elmo have a turn at his shot.

The sharp, familiar crack focuses Elmo's attention on the wild, darting, and spinning balls. He stays where he is, clutching his cue in front of him, until they all come to rest and await the next move. After he sets his beer down, he circles the table until he finds a shot to his liking, then leans over and sets up.

He pulls back and lets loose, hammering the cue ball so that it strikes a cluster of balls and sinks a solid. A quick glance to Lennox, and then he's on the move again. His next shot is a soft one, but too soft, and his target stops rolling just inches from a pocket. "Well, damn."

With Elmo having sunk one of the solid balls, Lennox moves over to line up a shot on one of the stripes. He gives the angle a quick check and adjusts his stance, moving just a little bit more to the side to try to bank the ball off of the side. He gives it a whack and it goes rolling over to the side, bounces off, and then taps the striped ball which eases into the pocket. He blows out a breath and then looks for another shot. Most of the stripes are sort of clustered up so there's no real good straight shot.

He moves over and just gives it a hard crack to try to break up the balls clustered up together. They all go rolling in different directions but none of them actually sink. He then steps back from the table and gives a nod to Elmo. "Your go."

The thing about the early game is that sometimes the balls bunch up together. Sometimes, your solid is on the other side of a wall of stripes. What do you do then?

Elmo licks his lips and leans over, shutting one eye to line things up. His arms and hands and fingers are all ready much like his last shot, but this time he lifts his right arm just before he hits the cue, extending the angle so that he makes the cue ball bounce up and over the stripes to hit his intended solid.

It doesn't go in or anything, but he still looks up at Lennox and winks.

Lennox watches as Elmo takes his turn, not in any hurry. He leans comfortably against the wall nearby and slowly drains the rest of his current beer, the new one sitting next to it, just waiting. One brow lifts up as the ball jumps over the others and he says, "Oh.. I see. A pool shark," an amused smile tugging at his lips. "Good thing I didn't put any money on this game." Well, he might have won if he put money on Elmo and not himself. He moves over and takes a shot, trying to get one of that line of stripes in. It rolls right up to the lip and finally drops in. "No showing off for me. The likelihood of me hitting somebody in the bar with the ball instead is high."

Elmo bares his teeth and grumbles, “And there’s blood in the water.” It’s about then when a server brings those beers he ordered, so he walks over to where he set his glass and drains the first one. He sways, blinks, and turns to watch Lennox.

“When the ball drops in, the edge of his mouth turns up. “Good shot,” he says, walking to the opposite end of the table to watch more closely. “I’d back you up if you want to give it a try.” The reward is worth the risk.

"To try jumping the ball like that?" Lennox asks with a laugh. "Sure. I can give it a shot. But if I damage the pool table are you going to pay the fee they charge me?" He finishes off his second beer and picks up the one that arrives, taking a swallow from it. Then he moves into place and tries to duplicate what he watched Elmo doing earlier, trying to get the angle so that it somehow scoops the ball into the air. This could go terribly right or terribly wrong.

It does in fact go wrong, but at least not terribly so. The ball does 'hop' only slightly and he manages not to tear the felt as he does it, but it not only manages not to jump the other balls but it doesn't even manage to hit another one.

Pay a fee? “Hell no. If you screw it up that badly, we’re running.” Elmo does, in fact, mean for Lennox to try jumping the ball. To do so, he walks back to the high two-top along the nearby wall, retrieves his beer, and perches on the edge of one of two swiveling seat.

The Freak maneuvers himself onto Elmo’s other shoulder, which must be a common enough thing, the rat roaming his body, for the man to not to even blink at. He drinks while Lennox makes the shot, then puts the glass down and slow claps at the result. “I bet you get there in a month.”

Lennox snorts and asks, "Where are we gonna run to exactly? We're on an island. They know where we live." Here. On the island. He doesn't look terribly impressed with his own shot, but at least he didn't damage the cue, the ball, the table, the man, or the rat in the course of that experiment. That counts as a win, right? The slow clap gets another slight chuckle as he looks over. "Maybe. That's gonna take a lot of practice." He reaches down and picks up his drink and wanders over to lean against the wall nearby. "But I guess we got time. Not going anywhere any time soon."

Elmo blinks and thinks, clearly not having planned so far ahead. His brow wrinkles with a flash of frustration and he clicks his tongue. "I'll run all the way to that uninhabited island. Start a new life. The Freak will be my Vice President." Obviously, come on.

He takes his cue with him as he surveys the table for a good shot. "But no, we're not." A ball sinks in with his next shot, and then another. "Plenty of time to practice." The next one he lines up, but misses, so he curses and stomps back over to his beer. "How long do you plan on being here anyway?"

Lennox laughs and gives that a slow nod of approval. "I like it. Establishing an entirely new regime under which you can self-determine. I can get behind that." He gives the rat a thumbs-up as well.

He watches the shot, making his way around to the other side of the table as he looks for a good potential shot of his own. Once it's his turn again, he leans down and takes careful aim. This time he manages to sink one. Then he moves around to the other side. There's no hesitation in his answer to that question, "Til they kick me out or I keel over. You think I'm going to leave a place where I can fucking fly? Hell no. When I retire I'm gonna seek asylum on your island kingdom and build a hut." He flashes a grain and then takes another shot. One more ball goes in. But the third does not, and he relinquishes his spot at the table.

"Yep," Elmo agrees. It sounds like a dream, anarchy except for the self-appointed title, though let's be real, he doesn't seem very presidential.

As they play, exchanging shots for shots, he makes a more thoughtful noise. "Not sure I want to give this all up, either," he admits. While he doesn't elaborate on whatever else he may be able to accomplish here that would be impossible elsewhere, there is at least the bond between man and rat clearly on display. A chitter from the latter suggests it's a mutual feeling.

"What's it like to fly?"

"Not sure anybody would want to give it up once they figure out they can do real magic," Lennox opines as he studies the table, the position of the balls, any potential further shots. He glances over to the man and then the rat and nods. "Getting fired from here would suck. Can you imagine? Like, you get booted to the mainland and that's it. Unless you could afford a vacation out here you'd just.. lose everything." He shakes his head. "No thanks."

As for what it's like to fly, he grins. "I get asked that a lot. It's.. freeing. Totally new perspective on everything from up high. It's quiet. Peaceful. And there's almost no traffic."

"I try not to think about it too much." Elmo doesn't want to get fired, or at least his attendance and attitude speaks to that. He's been here since opening and has kept his head down since. "But I guess it would be another adjustment." He clicks and easy ball into the side pocket, but it's too hard and he scratches.

"I think I drank too much," he says, walking over to his beer for some more while he listens to Lennox talk about flying. "Sounds dreamy," he decides, to be up there without the crowds they're so used to working at the theme park.

Lennox, too, has been here since the opening, and has successfully managed not to draw the wrong kind of attention. "Yeah, one that I'm not interested in making any time soon." He watches the scratch and then goes over to fish the ball out of the pocket. Dropping it back on the table, he makes another shot. That puts him at about.. five or six of his eight balls in the pocket and Elmo at about four or so. Either way, he somehow ended slightly ahead the last turn, but he doesn't widen his lead by much at this point. "It's pretty great. Honestly, just not being human sometimes is pretty great. Dogs get great hand-outs for food."

Elmo leans against the wall to watch and sip his beer, holding his cue in one hand like a staff. "Better play nice, then," he says. No breaking shit and running away, no pissing off management.

The Freak takes a chance to scamper down the man's arm and onto the small table, where his little claws click against the polished wood surface. There, he curls into a tight shape and blinks sleepily. "I bet they do. Do you have, um, a look or something? When you turn into one, does it always have the same fur. The same eyes?"

"For the most part," Lennox agrees with a little sidelong grin. "Wouldn't want to get too boring, though. Just a little light shenanigans. As a treat." The question about what he looks like when he transforms gets a little wry smile. "Maybe I should make you try to figure it out," he considers. Then he glances over toward The Freak and says, "You wouldn't rat me out, would you?" Bad pun. Bad pun.

Elmo huffs approval and finishes his beer. He draws the back of his hand across his chin and sets the glass down next to his familiar. "A treat," he echoes with a nod. "You mean, try to guess if every dog I see is you? Do you want me to get paranoid?" He's sure Lennox isn't the only shapeshifter on these islands, so every animal could be one of them. Or not. The seed is planted.

"I wouldn't," he says, rolling his eyes at the pun. When he pushes off the wall he feels lightheaded for a moment, pauses and then continues to the pool table to look things over.

With his three beers at this point, Lennox doesn't seem particularly tipsy. He's got a pleasant warmth going on, but aside from feeling relaxed, he doesn't show any obvious signs of intoxication. He leans comfortably where he is, grin broadening a little bit as he says, "Maybe." Though which question is that the answer to? Either? Both? The mischief in his expression indicates that it could likely be both.

But he relents as Elmo goes over to take his shot and says, "Yeah, I always look the same no matter which form I take. And they all have the same coloration. Black. Blue eyes." Like his hair and his eyes. "There are people though who can change every time. I'm not that sneaky."

"Don't. Be." Elmo leans over to take a shot and sink a ball across the table into a corner pocket with a solid crack. "A tease." He rises and crosses to the other end of the table, gently nudging another ball in with a soft tap. Now that things are thinning out, clearer shots appear.

There's almost a look of disappointment when Lennox tells him about the coloration, but perhaps that was a game best not to be played. He stares at the man for a long moment, and then nods curtly. "Black hair, blue eyes. Got it." He'll make sure to save some good jerky for that dog. That version of the bartender. "What a fucking crazy thing," he mutters, shaking his head as he tries to bank another shot and comes just short.

One brow goes up, expression amused. Then Lennox laughs. "I'm afraid that's just in my nature. SorryNotSorry," he says with a little rise and fall of his shoulders. Now that things are thinning out, the gap is also closing as Elmo gets closer to Lennox's meagre lead.

There are certainly other games that can be played that might involve a little less paranoia. "Or fur, or feathers, or hide, scales, whatever," Lennox agrees as he moves to take his next shot. This one goes in. And then the next. All he has left is the 8 ball to get into the correct pocket. He calls it, "Corner pocket." But t his shot doesn't make it. Elmo has a couple of balls left, but it's still anybody's game.

Elmo sucks in a breath and looks at Lennox when he says that, huffing out a quick laugh before taking his shots. When he gives Lennox the space to make his next move, the song changes to something bubbly, poppy.

"This song is lame," he says, eyeing the jukebox disdainfully as he posts back up next to The Freak, who is half-sleeping due to the noise and the activity around him. There's a moment where his attention falls entirely on the shot being taken, and then an exhale when Lennox misses. "Close one."

Lennox glances over toward the jukebox when the pop song comes on and doesn't seem to mind it, even swaying a little bit to the beat. Does he know the lyrics? His lips might even move a little until Elmo says the song is lame and then he shrugs his shoulders, clearing his throat a little. Nothing to see here.

He steps away from the table to leave room for Elmo to see if he can catch up and take the game in the final moments. "I don't have any quarters," he says, as far as the jukebox goes. It's an old one, and not one of the new fancy ones you can just control from and pay for through your phone.

Elmo strides over to the jukebox and gives it a gentle kick with the side of his boot. There’s a thunk, followed by a ripple of magic that runs through him and into the machine. With a thought, he bends and directs it in a way to issue a command: change the damn song.

The pop music halts, and the machine makes whatever typical noises it makes when switching to something new, and he’s awarded with the opening riffs to Creed’s, “Higher”. He pauses, sighs, shrugs, and proceeds to make a couple clean shots until all that remains is the 8-ball, which he misses.

“It’s anyone’s game,” he says, looking over at Lennox with a competitive glint in his eyes. “Who’s it gonna be?”

Lennox watches the exchange with the jukebox and smiles, shaking his head just a little bit as the song flips over. "Well, different, anyway." Leaning back, he finishes off what last dregs there may remain of his drink and watches as Elmo takes his shot at the 8-ball. When he misses, Lennox moves up to take his shot. He nods toward the pocket and says, "Side pocket." He then draws back and lines up his shot. It rolls in and drops into the pocket, ending the game, though it was by a very narrow margin.

"Guess tonight it's me," he says and offers a hand to shake. "Next time."

Elmo winces when Lennox sinks the winning shot, but he reaches for his hand to shake it like a good sport. A good sport who will not forget. "Next time," he agrees.

With that, he walks over to places his cue alongside the others, then shakes his empty glass. "Want another? I don't know if I should call it a night, yet." The Freak, whiskers twitching, seems to show indifference.

Lennox grins, knowing that look and knowing that Elmo will not forget. There will be a rematch in their future. Though, when he looks at his empty glass he says, "Should probably call it a night. Before I start to feel it too much and start making questionable decisions." He wanders back over to the wall and he sets his cue back into the rack, rolling the cue ball into a pocket with the others. The next people who play at the table will need to fish them out and re-rack them.

"This was fun though. We'll definitely have a rematch," he grins.

Elmo's eyes roll back into his skull as he groans. "Fine," he exhales, though it's a reasonable response and ends up with just the slightest grin. When he glances back down to look at Lennox, it's also to nod in agreement. "Yeah, good times, man. Here, hit me up when you want and I'll take the gloves off." He pulls out a phone to go through the process of exchanging contact info.

That done, he turns to let out a quick, sharp whistle. This wakes The Freak up, who scrambles over to crawl onto Elmo's outstretched arm.