-- good with the chaos? Or you gonna disappear when it gets loud again?"

-- make it more intimate by default. Just… more precise."

He glanced back toward the room, then returned his gaze to Joel, neutral again. "You sound like someone who’s thought about that," he said.

"So," Raz added, shifting the topic without fully abandoning it, "if you're sticking around, you --

-- stage, I don’t have to explain anything. The songs do the talking. People hear what they want, take what fits."

He set the bottle down, fingers lingering at the neck. "Talking like this," Raz went on, "you can’t hide behind noise. There’s no reverb. No feedback to blame." A beat. "That doesn’t--

-- contain himself.

At Joel’s last words, Raz stilled. He turned his head enough to really look at him this time, eyes narrowing slightly as if weighing the thought. "Maybe," he said after a moment. "Or maybe it’s just different kinds of distance." He tipped his bottle, taking a small sip. "On --

Raz huffed a quiet laugh at the beer comment. "Still," he said, his tone even, "I’ll get you back." He nudged his bottle a fraction closer to himself, a subtle line drawn without making a thing of it. "But thanks."

He nearly choked when Joel made the remark about the pizza, but managed to --

-- shot Joel a sideways look. "Talking’s easier. Lower stakes."

He took another drink, gaze forward, not quite looking at Joel—but not pulling away either.

-- conceded. "I won’t insult you by refusing. But I’m calling it even if you ever let me return the favor."

He leaned his forearms on the bar, posture easing slightly now that the set was behind him.

"And yeah," Raz added more quietly, "I’m done for the night. No more performing." He --

-- occasionally we’ll get a slice of pizza, if the owner’s in a good mood."

He eyed Joel when he offered to buy the beer, hesitation flickering across his face. Raz wasn’t great with people doing things 𝘧𝘰𝘳 him—especially not this easily. Still, after a beat, he nodded once.

"... Alright," he --

Raz let out a short laugh at that—a genuine one this time, which surprised him and made its way out before he could stop it. He shook his head, glancing down at his bottle like it had personally betrayed him.

"Welcome to dive bars," he said. "The pay is shit, and so are the benefits… except --

-- afterthought. Like it cost him nothing to say it. His tone stayed neutral, but he didn’t look away. "Just don’t expect me to entertain you. I’m offstage now."

He lifted his bottle slightly in Joel’s direction, not quite a toast. "Fair warning."

-- as resigned to the fact that Joel was still there and didn’t seem to be leaving. "So I’m stuck here," Raz went on dryly. "Drinking beer I didn’t pay for yet. Listening to people tell me which song they liked best, as if I asked."

"…You’re welcome to stay,” he added, like it was an --

-- slower this time, eyes flicking to Joel’s glass and then away again. He’d noticed. Of course he had. "Band’ll probably hang around for a bit. Pretend we’re not exhausted. Argue about tempo. Our usual ritual."

He shifted on the stool, turning a little more toward Joel now, not guarded so much --

Raz tipped his head back slightly, considering that. The bar noise washed around them, familiar enough to him that it barely registered anymore. He rolled his shoulders, like the tension was bleeding off him inch by inch.

"Same," he said after a beat. "Nowhere else to be." He took another drink, --

-- looked away, almost absently. "You sticking around long," he asked, casual but sincere, "or are you just checking in to see if we lived up to last week?"

-- committing to it. "You’re not wrong, though," he added. "This is routine for me. Same bar, same noise, same post-set beer." He tipped the bottle once against the counter. "If anything unexpected happens tonight, it won’t be because I planned it."

He studied Joel’s face for a moment, then --

-- again. "Expected parameters aren’t bad," Raz admitted. "Means nothing’s gone wrong yet." A beat. "And you did what you said you’d do. You came back. You listened."

That seemed to matter to him more than he wanted to admit.

Raz shifted slightly, angling toward Joel again without fully --