He wasn't sure which he hated less: the dingy back alleys away from public view, or these bright, unfamiliar streets and throngs of people. If he knew where he was, he'd be perfectly happy in a crowd. But as it was, he felt like he had a target on his back.
Still, Skippy led him with the practiced, albeit shuffling footwork of a woman well familiar with this part of town. As he followed, he watched her, his interest piqued by all she'd kept hidden. She was not just some priss who'd set her cat on him. Now she was a puzzle to be solved. And the more he looked for the signs, the more he saw that she knew what she was doing. And he was impressed. He almost forgot where they'd been going in the first place.
Right. Tobacco.
The first shop they approached was closed. She motioned for him to follow to another. She seemed confused. Almost frustrated. It was fine, though. He thought he could hold out a few more blocks while he sorted through all of this. He could —
"You're shitting me."
Fletcher did a double take, stopped in his tracks, and peered across the street. It couldn't be. Nobody was that stupid to stand out in full view with their pilfered earnings. But no. There they were, plain as day: the little twats who'd tried to rob him while he lay prone and disoriented. The two of them leaned against the wall of the far building. The cherry on top: they were smoking his cigarettes. "Ohoho," he chuckled under his breath, but it was a mean kind of laugh. "Is that so? Is...that...so." He clapped Skippy on the shoulder without so much as a warning. Hell, he didn't even look her in the eyes, but kept his own trained on his vertically-challenged targets like a predator on prey. He looked positively, menacingly gleeful. "I'll just be a moment," he murmured as he slipped away and wound around gaggles of oddly-dressed women and stuffy-looking men.
The urchins spotted their sailor victim far too late. By the time they had, and their beady little eyes went wide and their dirty mouths gaped open, he'd closed the distance between him and them and scruffed them both by the shirts. He held them there against the wall, immobile, grinning like a maniac first at one, then the other. "First rule of pickpocketing," he began, his voice dangerously silky. "You don't go and celebrate it for all to see. Ey? Now give me that. You're too young to be smoking." In one swift motion, he released the one on the left, plucked the lit cigarette from his mouth, and popped it in his own. He grabbed the kid's shirt again and took a drag, ignoring the sound of their whimpering as that first blessed pull of smoke rolled into his lungs. "Right," he growled. "Now you know as well as I that you don't fuck with a man's baccy. So I'll only ask this once: which one of you has the rest of it?"