Frey wrinkled his nose as he stepped inside the tavern. It probably was a fancier kind of tavern by a commoner's standards, but the mere concept of such a place seemed horrendous to him. All kinds of people would have rented the rooms upstairs. How could someone even imagine lying down in one of those beds?

"You didn't say we were going to a place like this. Why did we have to come here?" he whispered to Damien. "Why did I have to come here?"

"I need to get acquainted with the owner. With the tavern this close to the harbour, he picks up his fair share of relevant rumours and gossip." Damien gave him a tired look. "And you wouldn't have followed if I'd told you where we were going."

"Well, you're right about that," Frey muttered as he watched a staggering man disappear upstairs together with a giggling lady. He pitied the tavern beds. "You could just as well have sent servants to find that kind of information out."

"I want to hear it in person, especially if it's about sensitive subjects." Damien began making his way through the crowd, and Frey hurried to remain close to him.

"Lord Clausson! Lord Clausson, over here!"

Frey's eye twitched and he pursed his lips together as he turned towards the source of the voice. He didn't generally associate with people who spent their time at a tavern aside from the aforementioned Cromwells, but neither of them had a deep voice like that. His eyes fell on a curly haired, young man with twinkling brown eyes and a wide grin on his face.

"Stable boy," Frey confirmed under his breath, low enough so no one could hear. So that's where his friends had taken him. He began turning away but the other man wouldn't budge.

"I never see you here! Are you here on business?"

He'd clearly been drinking, not that his manners were flawless to begin with, but Frey's discomfort as people began turning their heads towards him made it hard for him to make a scene. He instead turned back and nodded briefly at the stable boy to acknowledge him, hoping that'd be the end of that, but another voice soon joined in.

"The Lord Clausson?" Another man at the same table stood up to look over the stable boy's head. "What's he doing here, Marius? Did you invite him?"

The rest of the table's inhabitants looked just as intrigued by this exciting encounter and began talking over each other while speculating what a lord could be doing there.

"Don't be stupid." Marius pushed his friend down onto his chair again. "He's obviously here to do some, uh..." He waved his hand in the air as if grasping for words. "Some important lord thing!"

"You should sit with us!" The friend stood up again and tried waving Frey over. "There's plenty of room and we're just getting started!"

"Stop it, Oliver. He's busy, probably..." Marius shook his head as if embarrassed, but still sent a look in Frey's direction as if expecting a reply.

"What's wrong, Marius?" The man called Oliver raised his voice further. "Are you scared we'll tell him how much you wanna fu—"

"I never said that!" Marius hurriedly talked over him, clearly delivering a kick to his shin under the table. "Shut up!"

"But it's so obvious the way you talk about him." Oliver kicked him back.

Frey wasn't really listening to the conversation anymore. He only tried to slowly move away from the table, acting as if he was above caring about all gazes currently being on him.

"Come on, Lordy. Sit with us!" Oliver tried again, and even if Frey had considered it before, the attempted nickname made him even more certain it wouldn't happen.

Damien glanced over his shoulder at him with a pitying expression but didn't stop talking to the tavern owner. At that point the table full of Marius' friends had started chanting 'sit with us' and Frey took a silent, trembling breath.

Marius looked mildly concerned at first considering Frey's status, especially with the presence of his employer further away, but he eventually joined in on the chanting anyway.

Frey tried murdering them all with his gaze, but failing to do so he instead walked over as discreetly as he could.

"Listen," he hissed. "I'm not going to sit with you. I wouldn't step inside the door of this place if I didn't have to, and I certainly would not drink with commoners."

He thought that'd do it, but the talkative friend held up his hand as if whispering to his friends despite him almost yelling.

"He can't hold his liquor."

The rest of the friends simultaneously said 'ah' and Frey closed his eyes in frustration.

"That's not what I said."

"No, no, it's fine!" Oliver raised his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "I bet whatever overpriced bottles you higher ups share wouldn't be enough to get anyone drunk in the first place so it's understandable!"

"It's the opposite!" Frey raised his chin. "I wouldn't even call... Whatever this is—" He gestured at the glasses on the table. "—Proper drinks. I'd bet it's the disgusting remains from when good whiskey was made and diluted with water, at best."

"Well I suppose worms like us will never know whether or not that's true." Oliver smiled triumphantly and Frey scowled. He knew he was being manipulated, but part of him wanted to allow it. He wanted to show that low life scum just how different they were, so he turned around and marched up to the bar.

"I'll take your most expensive bottle," he said to the owner, and Damien arched his eyebrows at him.

"Frey?"

"Now." Frey didn't acknowledge Damien. He received a fairly expensive bottle, not so expensive it shocked him but good enough, and returned to the table.

"Let's compare them then."

"Am I supposed to pay for that?" Damien's voice called out behind him but Frey was too focused on the people in front of him to care. Marius' friend opened the bottle and began pouring drinks for everyone around the table. He then poured another drink for Frey. One from a bottle they'd had there since earlier.

"You sure you can drink it? Perhaps it'll burn through a sensitive throat like yours?" he taunted Frey, and the latter reluctantly considered the possibility for a moment as he studied the liquid inside his glass, but he wouldn't back down. He'd rather have his body take a blow than his pride. So he took a long sip of the cheap liquid, and to his surprise it wasn't bad. He wasn't sure he could tell the difference between this and the brand he was used to. It irked him. Why was their whiskey decent? Maybe even good? He refused to acknowledge it, and he forcefully curled his lip as if it'd tasted awful.

"You know it just might." He placed the glass down on the table. "Burn through my throat that is. I'm surprised any of you can drink this filth."

Marius, who'd just taken a small sip of the expensive whiskey frowned and seemed to linger on the taste.

"I mean... It's good, but is it that good?"

"You've gotta compare them thoroughly then!" Marius' friend switched places of their glasses. "Now try the expensive one, Lord Clausson!"

Frey looked at the glass in front of him with wide eyed horror. Drinking from a glass someone had already drank from? It just wasn't happening.

"No," he therefore said, and the others gave him disappointed looks but it changed nothing. Frey couldn't do it, even if they'd been of a higher social class. Of course, Marius' friend would have the last word then.

"So so... I take it you give up? You couldn't even stand a sip of actual whiskey?"

"I'm just not drinking from that glass!" Frey shoved the glass away, almost sending it off the edge of the other side of the table hadn't a girl sitting there grabbed it at the last second.

Marius frowned again, likely offended, but soon remembered who Frey was.

"We'll get another glass then. No reason for my Lord to taint his mouth with cheap whiskey and then be denied to get rid of the taste.

Frey leaned back against the chair with an arched eyebrow. He supposed the stable boy could show manners after all.

He received a new glass and took a sip of the expensive whiskey. Just as he'd thought he could hardly taste the difference. Did that mean the expensive brand wasn't that good? He looked over at Damien who was still talking to the owner and then back at the stable boy. He supposed he could try each brand a couple more times.

"So, my Lord..." The talkative friend brought out a coin. "Heads or tails?"

"What?" Frey shook his head in confusion as he placed down his glass on the table.

"Let's play a game. We'll flip a coin and each take turns to guess which side shows when it lands. If you guess wrong you either have to take a sip of your drink, or you have to remove an article of clothing."

The corner of Frey's mouth twitched.

"Seriously?"

"I mean, we'll all play of course," Marius chimed in before Frey could throw something at the other man's head.

"It would only get embarrassing if you can't handle a couple of drinks." Marius' obnoxious friend grinned and tossed the coin over to Marius. "Here. You go first."

"What's on the line?" Frey asked coldly. He could hardly believe himself. Any other time he would've just walked away. Why even waste his time on those bottom feeders? He glanced over at Marius and narrowed his eyes. For some illogical reason he didn't want to look bad in front of him, but it wasn't as though he had anything to prove. If he'd ignored it all he would still have lost nothing. He'd still be of higher rank and have his dignity intact, but that was the thing. Marius didn't seem to care much about that. Would he care about Frey's ability to drink though?

There was one way to find out.

"Bragging rights?" Marius' friend suggested with an arched eyebrow and Frey shook his head.

"As if I don't have enough of those."

Marius chuckled at that and held up the coin in front of his eyes.

"Look, it's not so much about winning as it is trying not to sit in the middle of a tavern with no clothes on, Lord Clausson." He flipped the coin and placed a hand over it as it landed, never breaking eye contact with Frey as he did. "Heads."

***

"How unnecessary," Damien muttered as he held Frey's arm over his shoulders.

"You're telling me," Frey slurred and almost tripped as he attempted to kick a pebble on the road. "I was winning and you just had to interrupt me."

"You were halfway off with your shirt!" Damien almost dropped him, and Frey had a feeling it may have been on purpose. "Was I supposed to just let you continue?"

"The others were worse off." Frey shrugged. "Some of them only had their undergarments left."

"Yes, but they also seemed less drunk."

"I'm not that drunk."

"Drunk enough to almost remove your clothes in a public space."

"Yes, alright, I get it." Frey waved his hand dismissively and shifted more of his weight onto Damien. "But Mazi and Lance were almost out of clothes and drunk, so there."

"I don't know who these people are, but I'm going to assume they'll be escorted out of there by a guard soon enough if that's the case." Damien shook his head and pushed Frey back so he'd stop leaning so heavily on him. "And if I hadn't intervened that could have been you. Honestly, Frey, I can understand young people of their class coming up with games like that, but they have so much less to lose than you do."

"Think they were gonna steal my clothes or something?"

Damien shrugged and held up a hand.

"Well now that you say it, maybe? But I was actually talking about your reputation."

Frey didn't reply to this but rolled his head to the side with a frown. They walked in silence for a while, the wrinkle in Frey's brow refusing to go away.

"I..." he began but closed his mouth again, trying to find the right words for what he was feeling. "Despite, you know, everything... I think— I think I had... Fun?"

Damien shot him a concerned look.

"With them?"

A nod.

"But you hate commoners," Damien continued, as if he had to pick up where Frey's personality had lost track of itself.

"Well, I mean... I'm supposed to, at least?" Frey shook his head. "It's what—"

His words choked and Damien knitted his eyebrows.

"... It's what you've been taught to think?"

"It's not like Father outright told me to hate them, he just made it very clear there's a difference between us and... I don't know, the disgust just kind of followed?" Frey held a hand against his scar and closed his eyes. He'd done his best to not think about his father this past year, not that his surroundings and constant nightmares made that an easy task.

"Well... It's not like you're a saint towards people regardless," Damien made an awkward attempt at making him feel better, but Frey's eyes narrowed.

"I know that." He drew in a trembling breath and continued with a whisper. "... I know everyone hates me."

Damien frowned but didn't say anything and Frey smiled weakly.

"Not even gonna try to object?" he asked, and Damien exhaled through his nose.

"It's not that. I'm just... Shocked. You've never cared about what people think, and especially not people of a lower class."

"I guess I'm not too concerned about everyone's opinion, but I thought..." Frey ran a hand through his hair. " Maybe it would be nice if... He didn't hate me..."

"Who?"

"... Marius."

Damien blinked.

"The stable boy?"

"Yeah, him."

Damien let out a hesitant laugh.

"You really are quite drunk, aren't you? I mean, I understand you're oversharing but this—"

"I just—" Frey interrupted louder than he'd intended. "I just think maybe, for once, it feels like I'd... Like a friend, or you know... Something."

Damien remained quiet for a while after that. It was possible Frey's sudden change in attitude had finally left him speechless, but as they approached the gates to the Hargreaves mansion he awkwardly patted Frey's shoulder.

"Well, if it's any consolation... I'm your friend?"

Frey gave him a faint smile.

"Yes, but... A friend my age perhaps? And preferably someone who hasn't practically raised me for more than a decade."

Damien frowned.

"You're making me feel old."

"That's not so surprising, since I'm pretty sure you've never been young."

"You know I could just drop you right here."

Frey blew raspberries.

"I could stand on my own if I wanted to."

So Damien let go of his arm and Frey took two steps before tripping over the doorstep, smacking his face against the door frame.