Work Text:
He had just sat his glass down at the one free space at the end of the counter and was turning to ask Éothain what he wanted when he saw her. She was perched cross legged on the last barstool in a sleeveless dress with a long hem that fluttered every time she tapped her boot in time with the music. His eyes travelled back up, up to the hint of collarbone, up her long neck, to berry stained lips, up-
“You have freckles.”
His eyes kept moving up as the nose with the aforementioned freckles wrinkled a bit, up in the direction where a little furrow appeared among another constellation of freckles between dark brows.
Éothain breathed out an incredulous laugh beside him.
Well shit. He did not mean to say that aloud.
“You know,” she started slowly, “my mom told me about the first time she got the right prescription and saw that trees had leaves. New contacts?”
Her tone was a little serious and lot teasing as her eyes inspected his.
Green. Leaves. And currently glimmering with amusement.
Éothain was practically shaking with contained laughter beside him.
You ain’t had enough drinks to be acting this stupid, Éomer.
He managed to tear his eyes away from hers and met the bartender’s who was blessedly hovering close enough to catch but not to overhear.
“Another whiskey, please,” sliding first his empty tumbler to the bartender and then a questioning look to her and the highball with melting ice on the bar in front of her, “and for the lady a-?”
“Soda with lime, please,” the corner of her eyes crinkling with humor at the faint surprise that crossed his face.
Freckles and kind eyes.
“A good girl then.”
What the actual fuck is wrong with my mouth tonight?
She took it in stride though, unbothered: “My rebellions have always taken a...different shape,” she said with the air of a woman who knew exactly how much trouble she was capable of making and was going to leave it at that.
For now, he thought, a little intrigued despite himself.
Éothain, who could apparently no longer contain himself, guffawed. Probably first because of what he said, and then what she said, but mostly because he delighted in situations where Éomer was in just enough trouble but didn’t require saving.
Éomer turned to him with familiar exasperation. “Why’re you still here?"
Éothain laughed big that time and then doffed his invisible hat towards her with a shit eating grin.
“Miss.”
“Cowboy,” she returned with her fresh drink lifted in salute and a smile pulling at her mouth.
They watched as he spun on his heel and sauntered off. Was he whistling?
“You’re not from around here,” He said as they turned their attention back to each other. He’d both abandoned what remained of his tattered dignity and heard enough to be curious. He’d noticed an occasional long vowel and one swallowed consonant, but her words were otherwise too clear to have long taken shape in this place.
She laughed truly at that and he watched as the neon light from the sign behind her moved in ripples across her long, dark hair as she shook her head slightly.
“No, but it sure does feel familiar when you say it like that.”
He sipped his drink quickly to clear his throat, “Yeah?”
“That’s what people said to me when I first blew into West Virginia, where my mom came from. But eventually they learned that just because I didn’t sound like them didn’t mean I couldn’t talk like them.”
He sat with that for a second and decided that, yes, that was just roundabout enough to be sound country logic.
“So, not quite country, not really a drinker. How’d you end up this far south in this bar?”
“Just reclaiming lost things.”
He stored that away next to rebellion in the to-be-explored file as she continued,
“I wanted to know what watching that-” pointing to the ball game on screen mounted on the wall behind him, "while listening to that-” pointing at the guy in the corner making a pretty honest effort at Merle Haggard, “while sitting right here-” the seat near the back with a view of the entire evening unfolding before her, “felt like.”
“And?” He leaned forward, mostly unconsciously. Mostly. “How does it?”
She met his eyes and hell if he wasn’t more than a little delighted at the color blooming under those freckles.
“Good. Real-” and her eyes twinkled as she spoke that countryism-“good.”