Jack felt eyes settle on her and without so much as a seconds hesitation, without even glancing up from her new baby, she cleared her throat.<br/><br/>“Yo, purdy! Y’gon’ keep lookin’ all day or ya gon’ say somethang?” If living in a household with six men had taught her one thing it was how to be goddamn heard when she wanted to be. She was a husky voiced critter, sounding, for all the world, like bad dominatrix phone sex on a gravel driveway and when she wanted to project or slice egos in two she could wield it like a goddamn weapon!<br/><br/>After a moment of finishing up her video flicking, her gaze travelled up to James, expedition leader, she shot him a smile that tipped only one side of lips, “Hey suuugar, whatchya thinkin’?”<br/><br/>As her Ma would’a said, this one’s bad news girl, stay clear of him.<br/><br/>-------------------------------------------------------<br/><br/>Chief?<br/>… That was a name shared by guys in headdress and scrappy, nine year olds, with peanut butter smeared around their mouths, taken out on their first baseball trip ever, around the world. Nino already knew which one he resembled more and felt the back his cheeks start to burn angrily.<br/>Now, someone with that much visible ink was only allowed a limited view on first impressions by social law, but the short ass in specs already knew EXACTLY how he’d just painted himself for the rest of the trip and groaned internally.<br/>Believability? Or what little he had left… well, that was a bit of a joke now, wasn’t it!<br/>Imagine if the government or something much, much worse DID decide to test on them and he was the only one there with sense enough to point it out! He’d be laughed out of town or at least booted out of camp! He could almost hear it…<span style="font-style: italic">Aww, don’t worry guys, Nino’s still a bit woozy from the flight, he doesn’t know what he’s saying…</span><br/><br/>YES HE DOES!<br/>FUCK YES, HE DOES!<br/><br/>Whilst his head was stuck in this internal monologue (and getting genuinely quite pissed off at the imaginary version of the crew), his body was on auto-pilot, nodding an awkward thanks and grinning gingerly, still looking a little like he’d been dragged off the beaten path.<br/><br/>“Yeah, maybe,” he replied eyes flitting to the bottle, scratching the back of his head more for something to do with his hands, feeling rude if he just took it immediately.<br/><br/>Eli… he hadn’t had a chance—or at least he hadn’t allowed himself the chance—to take the guy at proper regards. At a glance the kid was well made up, clothes left no lasting impression, but Nino’s years of being preened for a high end education, left him aware of the… that signature NEATNESS that came with costly goods…<br/>Eli spoke in a manner that was all too familiar too. From a mirror background to Nino’s perhaps, because that was a<span style="font-style: italic">trained</span>tongue, right there! His words were clipped in all the right places.<br/>… Then there had been the whimsical jingle of glass and, like a magician smoothly pulling off well prepped trick, Eli had produced a here’s-one-I-prepared-earlier bottle of booze from his bag.<br/><br/>“Go on, I’ll take you up on it,” he nodded, trying to feign an air of relief and gratitude, that was the appropriate reaction here… kind of… in truth Nino’s curiosity was sparked, as it often was by new arrivals into his sphere of existence. Stealing an opportune to eyeball his new comrade, he came to a few conclusions [may later be subject to change] and they were; Rich up bringing, miserable childhood, that one came from the ‘more your speed’ attitude to booze plus well education mannerisms… second possibility was that he was on a rebellion against himself, deduced from the well tailored clothes (which he’d maybe attempted against and found he couldn’t bear to be without) coupled with then not-so-middle-class beard and hair. Our third and final option was that… well, when people wanted to hide they did one of two things; they either put on an image to the extreme to throw folk off of their scent (like Nino did) OR they wore themselves like a cover of a magazine, glossy, but relatable and with no obvious meaningful content…<br/><br/>But then again this could all be bullshit. Everything was just theory without meaningful evidence!<br/><br/>Nino switched to scanning the back of the bottle for any giveaway illuminate logo’s or heavily manufactured ingredients…<br/><br/>He paused for a moment, frowning, then took a swig… before shuddering, “Thank you,” he winced, handing the bottle back in defeat, “So… what are you about, mate? What brought you on the trip?”