milliways_bar | Entrance

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sergeant wells

Entrance

It would be hard, one supposes, to mistake Milliways, the Bar at the End of the Universe for the Drover's Arms. There is s significant lack of Yorkshire farmers, for one, and it is not, as it were, situated in Darrowby.

One would also suppose that a tired, cranky vet smelling vaguely of cow would recognize this fact, and yet Siegfried, turned slightly to speak to the man behind him, breezes in with barely a glance around to deposit his coat with a careless turn of his wrist on a barstool, seating himself next to it.

"Pint of bitter, if you please," he murmurs absent-mindedly, preoccupied with searching his pockets.

"Where in the bloody hell are those castrators?"

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The other one is just a bit more observant, and is glancing wide-eyed about him.

"Um, Siegfried --"

Tristan cuts himself off, however; he was about to say 'probably not here,' but all of a sudden, a pint of bitter and the castrators in question (or a reasonable facsimile of) appeared on the bar in front of his elder brother.

"Good Lord!"

His brother looks around irritably, thus missing the rather miraculous appearance of both the pint and the bloodless castrators.

"Well? What are you on about now?"

His hand finds the pint, the other slips the castrators into a pocket without a second thought.

"Siegfried. Your drink. And those castrators. Just appeared. By themselves."

Tristan turns to his side very quickly, then turns back, looking about.

"And this is most certainly not the Drovers' Arms."

"Don't be ridiculous."

He takes a pull at his pint, and sighs.

"Ah, that hits the spot."

Mellowing, he smiles benignly upon his brother, apparently not noticing the exploding universe out the window.

"Come on, Tristan, have a pint or two. That calving took it out of me."

Familiar accents are something of a rarity around here. Wells heads towards the sound, therefore, and comes up to the Bar just to one side of the squabbling (if you could call it that) siblings. "Pint of Bass, please," he asks the Bar, and lo, it appears. Only once he's got his drink does he glance over at the two men. "Evening," he says with a slight nod.

"Er. And the same to you," Tristan says diplomatically, still staring at the magically appearing drinks (and other items).

"You can't tell me you didn't see it that time!" he blurts in Siegfried's direction, still a bit too timid to actually sit down.

"See what? Good Lord, what are you talking about?"

Siegfried gives his brother an appraising glance, before his face relaxes into a smile of cherubic patience.

"Now, Tristan, you've been having too many late nights, and it's beginning to catch up with you, you see. You're pale and just see how nervous you are. You'll have to cut down on those evenings out with the Bellringers Association, won't you?"

"Ah," says Wells, "I'm going to bet you two are new here. Welcome aboard, lads; this is Milliways, not whatever destination you were aimin' for when you left the house this morning. And yeah, it appeared, all right." That last was aimed at Tristan. "That's how it works hereabouts, so y'might as well get used to it."

He sticks out a hand for the shaking. "Sergeant Wells. Light Infantry. Pleased t'meet you."

"Maybe I have gone mad. But if I were having such a pleasant hallucination as this, that calving would not have been included --"

Wells' speaking seems to calm Tristan more than anything Siegfried could say in a year, however, and he quite happily shakes the offered hand.

"Tristan Farnon, and I'm afraid to ask."

"Good God!"

The explosion from Siegfried finally comes, as he sits up straight, and looks around in bemusement.

"Tristan, I thought you said we were going to the Drover's Arms! And this is certainly not it--look around!"

He waves an arm expansively.

"Christ, warn a man the next time you change your mind like that, won't you?"

Wells glances sidelong at Siegfried, and then back over at Tristan. "Boss of yours?" he asks sympathetically. "The place tends to take people by surprise. Dunno how you two got here, but we're at what I'm told is the End of the Universe-"

He points to the Observation Window.

"That's about the best proof I can offer, only I dunno how it works. Don't worry, we're safe here."

He waits, now, to let the reactions happen.

"My boss and my brother, and I serve as assistant and universal scapegoat," Tristan answers, in a sort of belabored tone.

He turns again to Siegfried, after collecting himself a bit, and tries again:

"Last I checked, we were! And you were the one who walked in first and didn't even seem to take note! How many times do I have to point it out? ... you wouldn't happen to have a light, would you?"

The last bit's to Wells.

"Good evening, my man," Siegfried says to Wells, smoothly, smiling charmingly, before turning back to Tristan with an icy look.

"I beg your pardon, you said nothing of the sort. And now look where we are--what on earth will James do when he finds he's at the practice alone?"

"Nothin', most likely," interjects Wells. He fishes a Zippo out of one pocket and tosses it to Tristan. "Considering that one of the peculiarities of this place is that time here doesn't count against time back home. Nothing's going on back where you two come from, I expect. First drink's free, by the way. House policy."

Oh.

A lighter.

How pleasant.

Lighting a Woodbine, Tristan is suddenly much more calm. This somehow manages to be more normal -- possibly it's just the familliar smell. And at least Wells sounds like he could be from the Dales.

"Is that the first drink for each of us?" he asks hopefully, trying (for the time being) to forget about James. "And I'm sure Jim'll be just fine."

Stuffing odds and ends back into his pockets, Siegfried looks around with interest as a calving rope disappears back into the depths of his coat.

"What a fascinating place," he murmurs, his eyes lighting. "And the bitter isn't half bad."

Turning to Wells, he looks pleased.

"Free, you say? Well, that's fine. I'm sure I've a few pounds in here somewhere, though..."

"Yeah, first for each of you," Wells says. "They'll run you a tab if you need it, too. Uh, three rules, might as well get 'em out of the way now... no violence in the Bar, that's for out back. No old business from home, which is mostly to say no grudges here. And if you happen to take up with a young lady and things start getting interesting, take it somewhere private; they've had trouble with that before. Other than that y'should be all right."

The rope gets an interested look. "What business're you two in, if you don't mind my asking?"

If the limits on public displays of affection make his face fall, it's almost too quickly to notice.

Tristan pauses then to sniff the air, and adds, with a rakish grin, "You can't tell? We're veterinary surgeons. Not the pretty kind, either, taking care of the neighbors' pets."

The tell-tale cow smell might even be getting stronger.

"Siegfried Farnon, M.R.C.V.S. at your service."

Siegfried nods to him, a carelessly graceful gesture, then studies him for a moment.

"From the Yorkshire area yourself, are you?"

"Islington, actually," says Wells with a grin. "My wife's got relatives in Harrogate, though. Between that and twenty-five years in the service, my original accent didn't stand a bloody chance."

He nods to Tristan. "What, arms up the cow's arse at three in the morning, sheep shit up to the knees during lambing season, stuff like that?" There's a brief whistle. "That's real work for you. I've seen the sort of thing large animal vets've got to deal with. Not pretty."

Not often, mind you- he's a city boy- but he did serve in far more rural parts of the world.

"Now, I think I like this one, Siegfried," Tristan says rather jovially, raising his own pint -- yes, the one that just materialized -- to Wells. "Seems to understand the, er, finer points of the career."

Carrying a lighter is helpful for gaining Tristan's favor too, of course.

"Thankfully it isn't lambing season, or we'd smell much worse."

"Christ, yes, bloody sheep," Siegfried expostulates. "Though I prefer them to cows, any day. I rather like having my patient be smaller and weaker than me for once. Not like the Ayrshire Cross. Back like a dining table, that one. Good thing you were there to lend a hand, Tristan."

All iciness gone, he smiles jovially and sips at his bitter.

"You see a lot in Bosnia," Wells says. "The villagers where my unit was stationed were a bit short on men, and this one time they came to ask for help, our commander sent one of my mates along with 'em. Poor bugger came back a couple of hours later lookin' like he'd come second best against the heavyweight champ- the village only had but one good bull, and it'd gone and run afoul of barbed wire. They'd wanted the soldier to lend a hand keeping the beast under control while they patched his hide up. Nasty business. Swore off animals for the rest of his life, so he did."

"Somehow I'm reminded of Charlie Dent," Tristan agrees. "Fellow who had this pig with this nasty haematoma on his ear, and no one really wanted to deal with it. I got so many bruises that night I'm afraid to reflect on it."

He nurses the pint more closely.

"And well deserved they were, too," Siegfried says, looking at him sharply.

"Damned ridiculous how long that haematoma was left to itself. But, yes, bulls can be big buggers and if you don't have someone there who knows how to handle them it can be a nasty business."

Wells wrinkles his nose. "I'd as soon leave it to the professionals, really," he says. "About the only animals I seem to get on with anyway are dogs." These days, anyhow, he mentally amends.

"We've got a bloody pack living in our motorcar," Tristan points out, happily wandering back away from the subject of the pig's ear. "Of dogs, I mean, not bulls. Don't suppose bulls would fit."

"I really don't see why people keep dogs as pets," Siegfried tells Wells, apparently deaf to his brother.

"They're utterly useless and they take up far too much room. Working dogs, yes, but I shall never agree with pet owners on the subject."

"Didn't say I had a pet, now," Wells points out. "I get on with the ones at the base, and the ones I've met when I've been posted to countries where they keep dogs. Not too many of 'em in the Gulf, mind, the Arabs won't have dogs within a mile of the house if they can help it. Border collies and such, though, on farms- that's something else again."

[OOC: *dies of sheer delight* Wah, but of all the nights that I've got too much going on to play.... *bounces happily anyway*]

[OOC: *grins* I look forward to Siegfried meeting Merriman!]

OOC: Squee Squee and Squee again!

[OOC: *grins* All your fault! well...partially.]

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