Soul of a Gambler

Bonus: Original Story Pitch

//Originally featured in Three-In-Hand

"Settle in, boys. Have a drink."

Four shot glasses hit the marble tiled counter of the bar along with a pair of well-worn leather boots. A flickering fluorescent light strobed what would amount to blinking it's last across the dusty, splitting toecaps. The boots' owner inspected a clean bottle, half full with deep amber liquid that he hoped was whisky. It didn't really matter, the thought having came only after he had finished spinning off the cap, sending it plinking onto the wood floor beneath the bar stool he was mostly off of. He poured three shot glasses equally, and gestured with the bottle to their intended recipients. The fourth he filled over, letting the nameless spirit muddy the seafoam green of the tile.

"I'll tell y'all a story. 'Ts a good one. I swear."

He took up the fullest glass, carelessly sloshing liquor onto his hand though most of it was caught by his fingerless gloves; what wasn't dripped from scarred fingertips onto the floor. He took the shot and set the bottle down in the same motion, chasing the smoky-sweet burn with a sharp suck of air through his teeth to cool the burn in the pit of his gut.

"We aren't here to listen to your stories, Jax. We're bringing you in on the authority of the Blackwatch." The man on the left told Jax things he already knew, he was hoping they would come for him here. Curiously enough, he was also the only one of the three to express an active reaction to his offering of the drink. The man in the middle, some years younger than the one on the left and dressed one-garment-less-formally as well simply held up a silent hand in refusal.

Jax couldn't help but smile as the man on the right, aged between the two but losing his hair at a rate he would look more like the the oldest among them in no time should he continue making smart decisions took the shot. The other two shot him a look, and he threw back a smile.

"Yet here y'all are. You're gonna have to clue me in as to why you're not tryin' to put me in cuffs right now."

"Oh, easy, "The liquor-lubricated lips of the right hand man had gone loose enough for the words that normally should have been kept back by the tension of the moment to fall out, "Your reputation. You're a dangerous man, Jax. Half this galaxy knows it, and apparently the whole of the one next door."

"Not my fault you guys can't keep your dicks out the parts of the map where they don't belong. I for one been sayin' y'all need to get slapped right in the jewels for a long time and it brought me great joy to see it happen." Jax interjected with a smirk, one hand behind his head, still clutching the empty shot glass and the other stroked a short goatee down his gaunt face.

"Doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned you'll see what gets stuck where back at Ironrock Prison. I'm just hoping you'll come quietly, no need to rack up any more charges against you, no need to shed more blood. I know you're a reasonable man and--"

"Do ya' wanna find the Hammer or not?"

His question stunned the filibustering hunter mid-speech, silencing the rhetoric the Blackwatch was galaxy-famous for. The three of them leaned in over the bar, nearly touching his boots.

"Didja miss that? I asked you if you want to find the Hammer. That's what this all boils down to, isn't it. I'm not stupid, gentlemen I know what I've done warrants six death penalties and a life sentence and as soon as you bring me before any judge on any of your worlds I'll be sentenced to all of them before the audience sits down. I'll tell you, right out, and we can all go our separate ways."

His bet was placed, his continued life riding on the off-chance that these men, likely Blackwatch commandos in plain clothes probably all from the same unit underneath the "people's darling" General Shadow. There was a sizeable chance that each of them was probably certified specifically in capturing high value targets. If there was a power position, they were in it, but there was a chance that they believed in the public's idea of Jax enough to overestimate his ability.