Now that was a surprise. Neither Fuu nor the man had been expecting it, though both expressed it differently. Fuu kept silent, contained, still in the same open, unguarded position she'd been in before -- though there was something far less lazy about it, more alert, as though a faint electric current ran through her veins. Blue-gray eyes were nearly silver in the light, metallic.

The man's face, by turn, increasingly reddened, the muscles in his chest contracting under James' gloved hand. He stared back at James, met the smaller man's eyes for a long moment, judging, evaluating . . .

But in the end, he was just a drunk -- a man irritated that his pride had been wounded, then further usurped by a second party he both hadn't expected and had been prepared to deal with. He was still sober enough to understand that whatever James offered could escalate fast, in ways he didn't really want.

So he pulled away, twitching as though to shake the moment off himself. "Bitch," he muttered, and skulked away, back towards the pool tables and his friends.