Happy Hour

[awesome_lilly]

Indy and Veronica did Happy Hour together last week. Indy's heard about it ever since, from a deeply (if perhaps a bit theatrically) wounded Lilly. His protest of "but Princess, I've been asking ya to do Happy Hour for ages and you've always said it sounded like too much work" fell on deaf ears, but eventually he figured out how to make it up to her.

Lilly's getting her own Happy Hour. She's behind the bar, chalking up the specials list with a serious look on her face. There's not much that Lilly takes seriously, but alcohol is on the list.

That's why the specials are mostly shots.

Three Stages of Friendship
Virgin Whore
Sweet Flower

She smiles triumphantly up at the board celebrating a few of her favorite things. The liquor bottles are within easy reach. The shot glasses have been washed and lined up. Her skirt is shorter than her apron. This is as close to ready as it gets.

"What up, Milliways? Who wants a drink?"

Comments

[q_in_training]

"That's cool. Can everybody who's dead do that?" she asks, crossing her arms and leaning on Bar.

It was a casual question, to start; it takes a split-second after she speaks for the implications to register, and Mac, suddenly, pales a bit as she drops her gaze.

[awesome_lilly]

"No," Lilly says hastily, aware of who she must be thinking of. "Not really a common thing."

She shrugs, one-shouldered.

"I belong to Dream, of the Endless. He gave me the freedom of the Dreaming and even before then, when I was all ghosty, I could visit people. But... most dead people can't. Almost all of them can't, actually."

[q_in_training]

Thank God. She doesn't want to think --

She had a lot of bad dreams after graduation night.

The tense hunch to Mac's shoulders eases. When she looks up, there's far more curiosity than worry now.

"What're the Endless?"

[awesome_lilly]

"Uh, Endless?"

Lilly laughs.

"They're anthropomorphic personifications of the big stuff, Death and Desire and Destiny and Despair and Dream and Delirium and... there's another one, too. Destruction! Anyway, they've been around since before time and are unbelievably powerful and you don't want to piss them off."

Dream probably wishes Lilly paid a little more attention to her own advice.

[q_in_training]

It'd mean one of them would, anyway.

Because after she hears the name "Destruction," Mac freezes, and doesn't hear much else.

"Are you serious?" she asks, a little sharply.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly frowns.

"Almost as serious as I get, actually. Why?"

[q_in_training]

Consciously, the next morning, she'd made a decision to write off that night as a dream.

Unconsciously, she'd never really thought it was.

"I met him." Quiet, but abrupt, as if she's trying to say it before she changes her mind. "The last one. Destruction."

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly's eyebrows go up. Way up.

"Oh? Um. How'd that go?"

[q_in_training]

"About as good as it could've gone when you're talking to the personification of destruction," she tells her, still low, and runs her fingers through the ends of her hair without thinking about it. "It was a while ago."

She pauses to consider.

"It...wasn't like he was mean. Just scary without even trying. One of those kind of people."

[awesome_lilly]

"Yeeeah."

Lilly nods.

"Dream's like that. Or he can be. Mostly we're cool, but when he's upset... you just know that he could blink funny and wipe you out. Which can be a bit disconcerting."

[q_in_training]

Mac snorts.

"Little bit, yeah. Plus the fact that -- okay, with Destruction, at least, he's roughly the size of a baby elephant."

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly giggles.

"Yeah, that wouldn't help much. Although... if he actually were a baby elephant, that would help a lot. Who could be intimidated by Dumbo?"

[q_in_training]

That gets a flat look.

And then, just the tiniest bit of a smirk.

"I've got four words for you," she says. "Just four. Pink Elephants On Parade."

[awesome_lilly]

"Oh, they weren't that scary."

Lilly pauses.

"I mean, okay, trippy as hell and I wouldn't want to chill in a dark alley with them, but I've seen worse."

[q_in_training]

"Well, yeah, but when you're five years old and watching it for the first time, it's way more traumatizing."

Seriously. Even if Mac had stopped fast-forwarding through it by the time she chucked all of her Disney movies in the garage, those things were evil.