milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: There'll always be an England. It's just that eventually, it's REALLY going to suck.]

The door opens, and for a moment the ruddy-gold light of candles and lamps can be seen on the other side. Not for long, though. The blue-clad, bearded fellow who trudges through closes the door behind him.

And then stops, two paces in, and stares.

Quinn Abercromby hasn't got any words at all for this.

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Quinn squints at the top for a while. Eventually, he shakes his head. "Sod this," he mutters, and goes for the simpler route-

"OW!"

Apparently pinching himself is insufficient to the task of making Milliways go away.

Raven just looks at him.

"I could pinch harder."

It is amazing how obliging Bird can be.

"No, thanks," says Quinn. "I think that'll do. Bloody hellfire- how?"

That's going to be a big question with him.

Raven is kind enough not to laugh.

Or at least he makes the effort to stifle it.

"Chance is, I have found, a very fine thing."

"Well, yeah, no arguments there or I'd be dead, but..." Quinn's head flops backwards and he stares up at the ceiling. "It'd be bloody stupid of me to ask why if all I can get for 'how' is 'chance', eh?"

"It is never stupid to ask questions, perhaps."

Raven's grin is sharp.

"Only to ignore the answers."

"Okay, then," says Quinn, not moving from his ceiling-stare. "Why?"

Raven shrugs.

"It is not a thing people know."

Blink.

"There are theories, perhaps. Some of them might even be correct. It is often so."

Quinn snorts, amused, and gauges whether or not it'd be worth it to lift his head again. (Answer: not yet.) "All right," he says. "I'll figure it out if I can."

A thought occurs to him.

"You've got indoor heat here. And electricity. Jesus, you've got electric lights."

"Is that what they are?"

Raven looks around, curious.

"It is a thing I had not known."

Possibly he is putting on a show.

Possibly it is genuine.

It is difficult to guess.

Quinn's only partly listening. He's staring at the light fixture as if he expects it to sprout wings and fly away.

"Not that we don't have electricity at the castle, but we've got to run the generator for that and it's hardly worth it for the lighting- Ajay needs it for the radio rig-" He straightens himself up. "Jesus. What else have you got here?"

"There are cookies."

Raven sounds very pleased with this state of affairs.

"Also showers. The water is very warm."

"...."

This is the face of Quinn Abercromby torn between two different OH MY GOD YOU HAVE WHAT options.

Raven just blinks at him.

"It is like rain. But better, I think. Except for watering plants. It is not a good place for gardens."

"Anywhere the dragons can't burn 'em is a good place for gardens," Quinn murmurs. And then a thought strikes him. "Oh, God- you know what I haven't seen in a dog's age? Chocolate. Does this place have any?"

He won't CARE if it's a hallucination if they've got chocolate.

Raven looks shocked.

And perhaps a little appalled.

No chocolate?

"It is easily obtained here, yes."

And he flags down a waitrat in order to prove it.

Quinn doesn't even NOTICE the rat. He's staring at Raven as if he expects the man to vanish in a puff of Large Ugly (But Deeply Concerned) British Medic Saying "Wake Up, Quinn, You're Scaring The Kiddies".

"Real chocolate?" he says at last, and he's more than a little wibbly as he says it. "The- the actual stuff?"

Raven considers.

"Possibly you might also obtain the fake kind. Many things are available for asking."

His tone says I do not know why anyone would bother, perhaps.

Only with more eye-rolling.

"No, I- look, Britain's been cut off from overseas supplies of anything for years on end now. There hasn't been chocolate since I was a teenager. Or- or coffee, or even proper tea." Quinn shakes his head. "I don't mind brewing what you grow under lamps, or out in the garden, but... all that other stuff's gone, where I come from. I don't know if there's ever even going to be chocolate again."

Raven just looks at him, eyes wide and black and old.
earth and blood and ash oh my people
"There are worse things to lose, I think."

Pause.

"Though not many, perhaps."

Quinn looks back at him, the look as human as they come.

"My mum, my country, my city, my civilisation, and the rest of the human population of the planet as far as I know," he says quietly. "I try not to think about that bit too much. The tea's bad enough."

"Yes."

Blink.

"Also the cookies."

He has a one track mind, apparently.

"Definitely the cookies," says Quinn. "I remember those. Sometimes for no reason at all."

"There is always reason for cookies, I think. They are a constant."

Or the memory of them is.

One or the other.

Quinn shakes his head slowly. "This is a pub, though, right? You lot take money, aye? We don't have much use for it at the castle, but I found some in the dirt when we were out planting today..."