Anthony can't tell whether he's just too drunk to understand words at this point or if this guy is speaking in another language, but he's going to assume he insulted him.

"I—well, no," he huffed. "but you're still a dick."

His inn was near. He'd known where it was all along, what with having rented the damned room, but, well.

Maybe he could get this fish out of water off the street after all.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, sir, but that sounds like something ..." he feigned surprise, "like something a dick would say!"

Anthony seemed genuinely taken aback by that.

"No, it isn't," he defended himself against this blow at his honor. "because.....you're a dick and I'm not." Checkmate.

Ropati stroked his chin in thought.

"'Dick' as in 'Richard'?" he asked with the utmost consideration, as though it could have been but a misunderstanding all along.

He held the inn door for the young man, though the young woman watching the desk was watching both warily.

Anthony narrowed his eyes.


"No!" he said, being very irritated with this man. "Dick as in......" he was in deep thought, for a moment. "..as in you're—you're a bad person."


He did enter the inn, though, a bit too preoccupied with being angry than actually thinking about what he's doing at the moment.

He raised his brows as though the young fellow had just cited a riveting article toward the point of this.

"I did stab a man, once." He hadn't. "Felt terrible about it - but I suppose it is something only a penis would do."

The woman at the desk was pressed as far back as humanly possible in her seat now, especially as Ropati signed himself back in.

The only thing Anthony cared about right now was winning this argument—if it could even be called that. He wasn't even phased by Ropati's comment. Anthony's internal monologue was spewing some bullshit along the lines of 'oh, boo hoo, you stabbed a guy, everyone does that, you're not special.'

"Yeah, well," he spoke again, god forbid. "I know plenty of people who've stabbed others and they're still not dicks."

That did make Ropati do a double-take: not because he suspected this little fellow to be carrying a knife (for he hardly expected a man in such state to be armed with wits let alone an actual knife), but at the implication that Ropati had, indeed, entered a rather ... stab-happy neighborhood.

... Wasn't there someone from one of those York beaches that had stabbed a fellow to death not so long back?

"Is there a free room, ma'am?" Ropati directed to the woman at the desk, who swallowed thickly and checked her book.

She nodded without looking up and shoved a key toward Ropati, and Ropati put down the money for the room.

"You have shown me the error of my ways, young man," Ropati said, and slid the key toward him.

Little did he know the real error of his ways awaiting upstairs.

Anthony realized, perhaps a bit too late, the situation and place he had now found himself in. After a few moments of being extremely confused, he forced himself to return back to his...less worrying and confused self, because who wants to be like that? Not Anthony, and not right now.

"Good," Anthony responded simply, looking very smug for a moment before returning to looking very confused as Ropati slid the key toward him. What is he supposed to do with this. Stab him? Be stabbed? Open a door or something? He's a bit too out of it to actually come to a conclusion, right now. Anthony narrowed his eyes at the key.

Ropati watched the man puzzle over not a puzzle piece, but in fact a very straightforward, numbered, everyday key.

Not for the first time, Ropati was filled with the relief of not having children in his care.

"Room 12," he said, hopeful it was merely the numbers that blurred ... though after a moment, the smile faltered. "Here, I'm headed the same way."

He started toward the stairs.