milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There is faint, familiar music, and then Bran Davies, face shielded by dark glasses, enters Milliways. He is looking for Will Stanton. He does not expect to see John Rowlands.

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"Hey, Corey. Haven't seen you in a while. Buy you a drink?"

"Tea," Bran says firmly. "Thank you. How are you, Trina?"

Since Trina is a SoCal girl, she thinks tea should come cold, and preferably flavored like some kind of fruit. Which is why Bran has just been presented with raspberry iced tea.

"I'm very good. Busy, busy, busy you know, darling, but a good productive busy. One or two minor little kinks to work out with the production, casting is such a chore, I tell you, but it'll be fine. How are you? Did you find whatever or whoever it was you were looking for?"

Bran takes off his sunglasses to inspect the beverage. He takes an experimental sip through the curly straw, and manages to contain his wince.

At least it hasn't got any alcohol.

"Yes," Bran says, touching the harp lightly. "Thank you. What production are you working on?"

Trina is much better with alcohol than she is with tea, really.

"My movie," she says. "The Aaron Echolls Story."

It's made for TV, but still a movie, right?

She looks at the harp. "What's with the angel harp thing?"

Bran chokes on his curly straw. "It is my harp. I play it."

"How very . . . Gabriel of you," she says. "You don't play the piano like a normal person?"

Bran grins. "Bah. There's no subtlety in piano."

"I hate to tell you this, Corey, but I don't know that there's anything all that subtle in wandering around with your sunglasses on indoors, carrying a great gold harp around like you're about to announce some very unsettling news to some poor unsuspesting virgin."

Bran snorts. "Do not worry, I am not going to tell you that you have been chosen."

She reaches out and pats his cheek.

"Oh, honey, that's sweet. Naive, but sweet. I haven't been qualified for that job in years."

Bran's sunglasses conceal his blink. "...I do not think I needed to know that."

"Probably not," Trina agrees. "Did you want to?"

"Not particularly. Fortunately I am not recruiting for mothers of God."

"Good. There are some roles I'm just never going to be auditioning for."

She takes a sip of her wine.

"So, what are you up to, Corey?"

"Studying for exams, mostly. A lot of work, it is." Bran manages to swallow more of the raspberry iced tea.

"If you care about the grades, yeah, I suppose it is."

Trina didn't, especially.

"Tea not to your liking?"

"Well, if I do not get a scholarship, I will have to work for a few years before university," Bran says, ignoring the question about the tea.

"Oh, I see," says Trina. "Then, yeah, you'll need to study. So what are you doing hanging around in a bar?"

Raven pokes, very carefully, at the sunglasses Bran is wearing.

"They are good for seeing, perhaps?"

Bran straightens, ignoring Raven's hand. "I have funny eyes. Too bright, it is, without them."

Actually, it was early evening when Bran left Wales.

"And with them, perhaps you trip over tables?"

Raven tilts his head, blinking.

"Or possibly it is different from the inside."

"I am used to them," Bran says, sitting down in a chair several feet away from Raven.

"One can get used to many things, perhaps."

Raven's voice is quiet.

This may be because he is arranging himself in a chair near Bran, and is distracted.

"Yes," Bran says, and takes a breath. "I am sorry. How have you been, Raven?"

Raven quirks a grin.

"I have been well enough, I think. Though I find myself glad of houses, perhaps. Yourself?"

"Glad of houses. A good way of putting it, that." Bran agrees. "You were there, weren't you? Thank you."

Raven grins. It is a little overbright.

"You are welcome, I think, though such things are not needed. I was not fond of her."

Fire flickers in his eyes for a moment.

"Not fond at all."

Bran leans back in his chair, but all of his muscles are taut.

Pause.

"If I could have, I would have killed her."

Raven quirks a faint smile.

"I would not have objected."

There is a pause.

"It is not, in certain respects, a bad plan at all."

"No," Bran says. "It is not."

He laughs.

It has edges.

"There will come a time for it, I think. Or something similar. I do not think we are quit of that one so easily."

Oddly he does not sound entirely regretful of that fact.

"I do not think so either," Bran says quietly. "And when the time comes, I hope that she falls by my hand."

Raven watches Bran, eyes dark.

His smile has edges.

"I find myself rather hoping she does not."

Fire flickers a little brighter, then. And it takes a longer time to fade.

"I would be glad to have help," Bran says, with an equally sharp smile.

Raven nods, once.

"Sometimes plurality is useful, I think."

He almost laughs.

"It makes escape more difficult."

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