milliways_bar | (no subject)

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How bore to be dulling. Er... dulled to bore? No, wait, that's not it. Iesu mawr, Howell, dos i chwarae efo dy nain. Aros. Da, da.

Some nights, having an extreme love affair with the walls of a place can be a very reassuring thing. Other nights, walls are simply the props that allow one to get through life with relative dignity (relative being the operative word). Tonight's one of the latter for Howl. There are no poetic undertones to anything he does as he makes his way carefully to a nearby table where he sits blinking rather heavily. One of the wait-rats stops by, but Howl only orders coffee.

With sugar.

And heavy cream.

Two cups.

(For himself.)

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"Expecting someone?"

He looks up, shields his eyes against the light, and gestures to the nearby seat.

"A very big hangover."

"Oh." She plops down into the seat. "Coffee never did anything for me when I was hung over. Can you ask the bar if she's got some kind of intergalactic hangover healing potion?"

Every word is pronounced very carefully and painfully slowly. "My dear beautiful Argen... Argen... South American movie-going poetry-reading friend, I doubt I could even e-nun-ci-ate the words you just said." Grateful for the rat's quick return, he pours half the cream and one, two, three lumps of sugar into the first cup.

It tastes... like very sweet coffee, rich and dark and heavily, heavily masked with other things. "But I'll be all right. Eventually. Take my mind off the fact the room's spinning. Tell me a story."

Pretty please, with sugar on top. No, Howell, no more sugar. Enough's enough.

Okay.

She closes her eyes for a moment, opens them.

"There once was a doctor in the land of...Hospital, and he created a wonderful pill called aspirin. And apsirin helped cure all sorts of things, like headaches. It even helped relieve hangovers a little. The wonderful thing about aspirin is that you can get it from the bar."

"That's a terrible story." Howl laughs. "Even in this state, I could do better. For example: there once was a former rugby player who didn't know his limits. Even though he'd not been part of the team for years, he still insisted on joining the club for reunions where he inevitably got pissed as a newt and promptly fell off the face of Wales and into a black hole at the end of the universe. There, he met the loveliest and most interesting people from all walks of life and death. But still, nothing any of them did or said could take his mind off just one thing: hot coffee."

He raises the cup to his mouth. "Iechyd da! To your health. That's the single tamest toast I know; have the other cup if you like before I get maudlin and start telling real stories about myself." His eyes, still slightly unfocused, try to stay steady on her face. "Helo, Howell ydw i, mae'n braf i'ch gweld chi. Pardon my Welsh."

She chuckles and reaches for the other cup. "I said I liked to read stories. Never said I could actually tell them."

He's utterly crestfallen. "Everyone tells stories... don't they?" Sometimes, he's like a child, especially when things don't go his way. While it's true he can fix most anything with a wave of his hand or a properly-incanted spell, he can only do those things when he's sober.

At the moment, that's something he definitely is not.

"Everyone does, but not everyone's good at it."

"You, my dear, are as much a slitherer-outer as I am. And I've had years of experience at it." Drunkenly, he rests his chin on his hand; his elbow promptly slides off the edge of the table.

Howl shakes out his hand, wondering suddenly why a funny bone is called a funny bone. "There's a second reason I ordered two coffees of cup. Cups of coffee. One for the pretty girl, one for me. No, two for me. Because I had a hangover remedy here one time that worked so well I decided never to take it again. Kept me sober for a month and a half. Where's the fun in that?" Idly, he draws a pentagram inside a circle on the table's surface with a dab of cream. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the drunkest one of all?"

"...you know, I'm going to see if the bar has a special hangover potion." She pushes the chair back.

[ ooc: and I'm gonna make a quick run for tacos. brb! ]

"But I don't want a..."

Any protest falls on deaf ears; she's halfway across the room before he can even tell her how lovely she looks from this angle.

That's probably a very good thing; pushing his cup out of the way, he rests his head on his hand.

And she's back within a minute toting something that doesn't look too appetizing.

Well, if it's medicine, it's not supposed to look appetizing, right?

Howl gives it one horrified look.

"I can't drink that. It might turn my hair pink." He's got good reason to be sceptical. "I don't mean to offend, but a wise wizard never drinks something he can't recognise."

"And you want to keep feeling that way? Coffee won't do anything but make you feel awake. So you can feel every single last one of your headaches."

Why, yes, Eva is his mom.

Now she sounds like Megan, and if there's a woman in the universe he can't stand, it's his sister.

"I'd rather feel than not feel."

He's lying, but he's also stubborn; at the moment, stubborn wins.

"So you'd rather be sick than healthy?" She nudges the potion closer to him.

"Not sick, my lovely friend. Under the influence. There's a vast difference."

You sound like my sister. Stop it.

"But I'm exceedingly appreciative of the offer, if that matters at all..." At the moment, it's what he can offer.

Well, she's not going to stop pushing the drink his way, that's for certain.

"Coffee always gives me the jitters after I've drank too much of it."

"There's a spell for that." Raising one finger, he pauses: what are those words again?

He'll have to remember them some other time. To be polite, he takes the hangover cure and sniffs it. "What's in this, pretty poetess?" Perhaps he can divert her attention just long enough to pretend to try it.

"I don't know. Ask Bar."

"I could do that."

Let's see: as stubborn as Megan and as unflappable as Megan. This does not bode well.

"I will." Getting up onto unsteady feet, he bows to her rather gracelessly. He takes the potion cup into his hand and saunters over to the bar.

After a moment's pause there, where he appears to be speaking rapidly, a piece of paper appears. He brings that back to the table with him.

"Here we go." Clearing his throat, he sits and holds out the paper. "Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog. Cheers." Lifting the hangover cure glass to his mouth, he drinks.

"Delicious."

Then, Howl laughs. "I was teasing. It's a combination of herbs and florals. Nothing harmful in it at all. And... I'm feeling better already." He'll never tell another soul they were right, though.

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