Ravens and Crows

Chapter 20 ~Ronan~

I woke up on a mattress that was worse than the one Adam has in St. Agnes. 

"Ronan?" I was suddenly aware of the voice calling my name. I sat up to find Wylan and Jesper staring at me from the door way.

"What time is it?" I grumbled squinting at the light through the window.

"Around noon," Jesper said. "You slept like a log."

"Probably because I haven't slept in three days." I rubbed my eyes and slumped back down on the bed. "I'm going back to bed."

"Come on," Jesper said. "You have three days here. You showed us the temptations of the future, let us show you the temptations of the past."

I sat up and glared at him. No plumbing, no cars, no Cabeswater, no Adam. "There is nothing good about the past."

Wylan thought for a moment then smirked at me. "There's no drinking age."

My eyebrows raised. "There could be some positives."

"We could take him to the Crow Club," Jesper offered.

Wylan stared at his boyfriend wide eyed. "You want to take him to the Slat?"

"Look at him, he looks more like a Barrel miscreant than you do."

I got up off the bed and stretched. "The Crow Clubs a bar right? Kaz's bar?"

"Yeah," Jesper said. "It's the main hang out for the Dregs."

I throw on the shirt they had laid out for me and traded my jeans for the canvasy pants. They were terribly uncomfortable. "Sounds like a wonderful place. Let's go."

"Hold you horses." Wylan blocked my path to the door. "This isn't just some random bar on the nice side of town-"

"Wylan, you're a nice gay," I said, "but I'll be frank with you. I am not a nice gay. I don't care that it's on the wrong side of town. I went to prep school, I've done worse."

"Crow Club it is!" Jesper cheered, throwing his hands in the air.

~-~

The first observation I would have to make about the past is that it smells like shit. Like, literal shit.

The nice grounds and people by where Wylan and Jesper lived faded quickly and the clientele and scenery became exponentially harsher. People asked you to come into their stores, women pressed against you and tried to drag you this way and that, and the the occasional dirty, scrawny, type would bump into you and try to poke at your pockets, but I didn't have anything and their grunts of disapproval after they bumped me confirmed that.

The Crow Club was in a nicer of the badder part of town. A lot of gamboling halls and bars ran the streets and the occasional bar brawl was already happening even though it was only early afternoon.

Kaz was talking to some of his guys when we walked in. He halfheartedly said, "Members only." Then looked up to see who it was, "Oh, it's you."

"Just getting some drinks," Jesper nodded to the bar. "Don't mind us."

The bartender asked us what we wanted and Jesper ordered whiskey, Wylan asked for some water, and I turned to Jesper and asked, "What's Ketterdam's finest?"

"That depends, how much do you drink?"

"Not as much as I used to, before I quit school, but I can drink."