Reubin

**Reubin** is a minor character in The Smoke Room. He is a doctor and a good friend of Jim who comes to Echo along with Neil to celebrate Jim's bachelor party and wedding.

## Appearance

Reubin is a broad, stout cat with long white fur. For Jim's party, he wears a dapper suit with purple accents.

Samuel calls his voice musical.

## Personality

Reubin is good-humored and cheerful. He seems to greatly enjoy both teasing and being teased by his friends, but his high-society background means that his amusement sometimes comes at the expense of those he feels are beneath him. He readily indulges himself, and is eager for the ribaldry that Jim's bachelor party promises.

Despite his jovial persona, Murdoch notes that he seems as though he can't seem to sit in silence for very long and theorizes that it is likely because he does not enjoy being alone with his thoughts. Murdoch further concludes that Reubin and his friends fear how they will be perceived by their peers, leading them to be just as critical toward themselves as they are toward others.

## Story

### Prior to The Smoke Room

Reubin is likely from the same "big city" as Jim. They seem to have befriended each other in college, and have maintained a close friendship for several years. Reubin attended medical school and works as a physician.

### Murdoch's Route

Along with Neil and another man named Roger, Reubin is first mentioned by Jim's fiancée Holly during a Byrnes family dinner as she extols the successful careers of Jim's many friends from the city in order to impress her parents.

After traveling by train to Echo to celebrate Jim's bachelor party, Reubin and Neil arrive at the Byrnes family home. Upon their arrival however, Gretchen bars Jim from coming inside to keep him from seeing the bride before the wedding. As a result, Reubin and his friends go to the Saguaro's Hip to drink and carouse, accompanied by Samuel, Ralph, and Jim's brother-in-law Murdoch.

Once seated at their table, Ralph puts on a show of repartee with Neil that leaves Reubin in tears from laughter, before Reubin's attention is captured by the women dancing seductively on the Hip's stage. Jim slyly brings up that they will all later be having sex with a male prostitute together and Reubin is open to it, conceding "any port in a storm."

Reubin spends the rest of the evening getting drunk, and when the time for their booking comes, he turns up outside the door to Sam's room along with Jim and Neil. As he enters, Reubin caresses Murdoch's cheek, then looks on curiously as Jim and Murdoch become intimate. He then joins Neil in having sex with Sam. At one point, Jim seems to get overly caught up in the pleasure he gets from Murdoch, which earns laughter and ridicule from Reubin and Neil, and they speculate snidely about their friend's sexuality. Murdoch observes that this moment seems to indicate some kind of shift in the dynamic between the three men.

After Murdoch and Sam leave the Hip and Jim follows them, Reubin and Neil are left in the care of Ralph, who promises to make sure that their inevitable hangovers do not prevent the two of them from attending the wedding the following day. Jim later states that he is going to tell his friends to depart the next morning and not to attend the wedding, as he does not want them to witness his coerced marriage ceremony.

Despite being urged to leave, Reubin and Neil show up unexpectedly at Jim and Holly's wedding the following morning shortly after the ceremony begins. Sam notes that they are out of breath and disheveled, and given other concurrent events such as the Hendricks Mansion catching fire and the train being unable to make it into town, it is likely that Reubin and Neil found themselves unable to escape Echo as a result of a mass hysteria event ensuing.

## Relationships

### Jim and Neil

Reubin and his friends have a comfortably acerbic relationship, frequently making jokes at one another's expense but nonetheless sharing strong camaraderie. They also operate as something of a clique, and act rather elite and exclusionary. Notably, Reubin and Neil welcome Jim's invitation to have sex with men under the pretense of drunkenness and desperation, but seem to become suspicious and disapproving of Jim the moment he shows too much of a preference for homosexual intimacy. They also seem to ridicule Jim when Murdoch pushes him off, indicating that they find humor in him being rejected by someone of a lower class.

## Trivia

* In earlier versions of The Smoke Room, Reubin was called Raul. His name was changed to Reubin in the update in which he actually first appeared in the story.

## Gallery

Artwork of Reubin with Jim and Neil, posted alongside Build 24 of The Smoke Room.