gotgreenmagic | 116

116 - Voice

[Someone sounds like she overslept.]

Mmf.

Okay. Brain says Friday, clock says Tuesday, I.....guess I was in a coma.

I love how that's just a thing here. 'Oh, hey, I just lost a bunch of my brain functions and lay here unconscious for four days, no big deal'.

What'd I miss?

[OOC: I couldn't think of anything to do with her so lol retroactive Barge coma :|]

[Spam for Reaver]

[Checking over the network for the past few days has given her a slight headache and simultaneous feelings of disappointment re. having missed a fairly benign flood and relief re. having been passed over for the opportunity to turn into her ditzy little headband-wearing alter ego again. Miss Go is seriously the closest thing Shego has to an archfoe at this point.

Either way she needs a drink. She shoves her way into the pub, sees the guy behind the bar and - ]

Looks like the universe picked the day for me to quit drinking.

[She's already shifting her weight to turn around.]

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[Reaver had probably taken his eyes off the door after the first week of working, believing himself to have a fair idea of who comes into the pub and when and at what frequency. This also seemed a fair means to distract himself while he pretended to dislike learning a new trade. (Not entirely new, as he'd spent a port as a bartender before.) He's laying down a couple drinks at the bar when Shego's voice catches his attention, and he glances up.]

Breach treated you a unfairly, I take it?

Coma. Also? Leaving. I would try to spare your feelings and say it's the atmosphere tonight but no, it is totally just you.

Fault a man for doing honest work, why don't you? [He shrugs] I'm amused to know I still affect you so strongly that you are incapable of ignoring me, but you needn't blame the spirits. It is not as though I make them.

Or do you think I managed to charm my way through those doors and behind this counter, against my Warden's sanction, just to ruin your evening?

Wouldn't put it past you.

[She rubs at the bridge of her nose.]

Reaver. You are the only person on board this ship who has ever, knowingly, tried to take advantage of me while I was incapacitated by random Barge whackedness. Do you really think I'm gonna be comfortable getting so much as tipsy near you? Like, ever?

I'm pleased to know you think me so cunning.

[He does appear to consider what she says after that a moment while he polishes a glass, perhaps in some attempt to appear he is concentrating harder on something else, but overall it fails.]

Then all I may do is assure you that if I'm not a perfect gentleman, my Warden would likely have me scrubbing toilets for the rest of my abnormally long, perfectly dressed existence. I'm not looking to jeopardize this job while I have it.

I don't think you're cunning, Reaver, I think you're opportunistic scum. Teeny difference. And the fact that you have a badly dressed wizard to stop you doing stuff in place of, I dunno, actual moral standards is.....actually kind of disturbing.

Which are you more likely to care to hear -- that I would be severely punished for stepping out of line, or my personal assurance that I have no interest in taking advantage of you whilst inebriated?

Reaver, have you ever actually talked to a human being? Sheesh. Maybe someday when you can say it and mean it I'd care to hear an apology, but in the meantime? Yeah, I'd rather know you're capable of putting the brakes on yourself and don't need somebody to do it for you. I'm already taking it as read that if you 'step out of line' with me I'm polishing the bar with the bloody remains of your face, so I don't really care what 'severe punishment' anybody else might have in mind.

[There's a look of vague surprise and amusement, and one can almost sense he'd like to say something smarmy, but look at him controlling himself. Then, with resignation:]

I assure you that I can control myself, Shego.

[Well, obviously that deserves at least five more minutes of her incredibly captivating presence. See, she's a Warden now, she can be encouraging.]

Then I guess you can pour me a soda and then I'll see how I feel about watching you mix a cocktail.

I'll do my best to be interesting should the time come. [As such he sets to work on the order.] "Cola," or...?

[Not many people come in asking for these. He just knows where that is because booze eventually goes into it.]

Diet Coke. [She leans over to point it out on the fountain.] That one.

"Coming right up." [He finishes the order, pausing only to garner extra details -- ice or no ice, mostly, before placing the glass in front of her.] Will there be anything else?

I don't know, can you make conversation for half an hour without making me want to knock all your teeth out?

I always enjoy a challenge. [Out of curiosity, and because traffic is slow, he pours himself a smaller glass of what she's having.] I've never tried this variety before. Is there a reason you prefer it? [He starts to take a sip -- he's had regular cola before, if anything because he wanted to know what rum and coke tasted like. This -- no, it's not the same. He can't avoid making a face.]

[She rolls her eyes. A lifetime of diet sodas and regular anything just tastes like fizzy syrup to her.]

Never needed the empty calories and I like the taste better.

Hence the "diet." [In reference to the lower calories] I see. [No he doesn't. Why would you drink something that tastes like bubbly nothing? He tends to prefer his sweets as solid food rather than in drinks, however, so it's not as disappointing as it could be. Fizzy pop is what his guests would get after they'd cleaned out his liquor cabinet back home.] We don't do things like this in my world, but I could see the attraction, I suppose. [Suuuuubtle pouring of the rest of that down the drain.]

You don't do things like this in your world because your world doesn't have artificial sweeteners yet. [She tilts her head.] I think. I know you're not from any version of Earth like mine but you seem....just-post-industrial-revolution-ish?

[He shrugs] Probably safe to say, but then that's speaking from the inside as it's going on. I would think it much easier to pass such judgments as an external observer, after it has already taken place. Perhaps in another hundred years I can better answer that question. As for artificial sweeteners -- my experience with them is limited to this very moment -- if they are meant to substitute proper sugar, should they taste so very different? [He sees it as an issue of quality. As a man who runs a factory that, on occasion, puts out some very "cost-effective" products, the notion of 'calories,' even when mentioned, does not occur to him as being the sole reason for it.]

Edited 2012-08-07 18:35 (UTC)

They don't. But since your tastebuds are so delicate that you clearly disagree, fine: people are prepared to deal with things that taste different if they aren't so bad for you.

[He pours a small glass of the regular cola.]

Taste and tell me it tastes the same.

[He frowns at the glass] Mind you, even this is very different from what is manufactured back home. [Since sodas where he comes from are probably made with actual cane sugar and not high fructose corn syrup, but he doesn't know what that is.]

Edited 2012-08-07 19:18 (UTC)

[She takes a sip and pulls a face like she knew she would.]

I take it back. That's just gross. All I can taste is sugar.

[She nudges the glass back across the bar.]

What're you doing here anyway?

A definite difference. I won't hold your preferences against you -- I for one prefer my sweets eaten and not to drink.

[He shrugs noncommittally] My back was against the wall, in a sense. It was this or work mornings in the kitchen, and if nothing else, I had some experience in this arena, coming in.

[Because being a bartender in a port for a few days totally counts as experience.]

[Yeah not sure she believes this.]

Did you? Because the last time we talked about what you did for a living, I came away from that talk thinking you ran a factory or something.

You are absolutely correct. I had a business to run before coming here, but industry, in itself, is fairly new to Albion. Before that [nostalgic sigh] leisure -- a "throne" to assume, more figuratively than literally, piracy before that. Marriages. Expeditions. But Bartender? Not by my choice, actually, and still a more recent development. There was a port, some time ago. [He frowns on thinking.] My, that was when Sherlock was still here. [A shake of his head.] In any case, I learned a little then, as well. It wasn't at all uncomfortable. [Until the part where he was beaten to a pulp in an alley.]

Edited 2012-08-08 12:33 (UTC)

Re: [Spam]

gotgreenmagic - 2012-08-08 23:38 (UTC) - Expand

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