milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The Front Door opens to allow a small rubber ball to come bouncing into the bar.

"Sam!"

"Sam! Do I have to do everything around here?"

Moments later, a grumbling White House Director of Communications comes into the bar. Not that he's noticed--he's too absorbed in scowling at the sheaf of papers he has in his hand. He reaches down automatically for the ball, which has come to rest against a chair leg, and only as he rises back up does he notice where he is. Just in time to hear the Door slam shut behind him.

"Not again!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I don't drink. It only makes it worse."

Yes, getting disconnected from the present all by yourself can really make the end of the universe even worse.

"And really, this place is not nearly so bad as home."

"Me, I like my home. I like my apartment. I like my office. What I don't like is being dragged to the End of the Universe."

Toby sighs. "But, what are you going to do?"

"So, uh, your government is trying to kill you, you said. Are you some kind of activist?"

"I'm someone who's well aware that the Emperor is a rapist and a murderer," and my uncle.

He'll leave out the bit about setting the bridge on fire and blowing up the Basilica. It just doesn't sound good to strangers.

Probably true, though Toby knows a lot about spin control.

"Yeah, I could see how that would make things.... delicate."

"It's hard enough trying to reach compromises with the politicians of my country, and they don't have that kind of record. Usually."

"He's also claimed himself as an apostle of the Unnamed God, not that I think that should have any weight in anything considering the Unnamed's choices so far," he grumbles, "and--"

No, perhaps not necessary, this.

"Former military. Former for a reason."

"Former military too," Toby replies, gesturing toward himself. "Spent my tour along the border between two countries, both of them called Korea. There'd been a war a couple decades before, and my country was still there, trying to keep the peace."

"Sometimes I think that was more nerve-wracking than an actual war would have been."

"Well, no," he adds quietly. "Probably not."

"I was in very docile occupied country," he answers, feeling oddly okay with sharing part of his past with someone who seemed to understand a little. "And then the 'Emperor' decided to play games."

Games. Games that killed people.

"They usually do. Something about all that power, they just can't leave it alone. Guess our worlds aren't all that different, at least in that way."

"Was there a freedom movement in your country, at least? Or did he really have a lock on everything?"

"He pissed off the kindest people in the country until he could justify using his pet killers on people to 'settle things'."

Toby shakes his head. And then, after a moment, lifts his glass and says solemnly, "To their memory."

He nods and raises his glass.

~~and his mun facepalms~~

It's got water, but it doesn't mean he means it any less.

The thought counts for everything.

"So. You got your daughter out safely then? What happens next, do you think?"

"Raise her, mostly," he admits. "My companion and I seem to be doing well enough with her. My father's here, dead though he may be. And I'll try to keep avoiding my mother, alive though she remains here."

Toby has to smile at that. "Parents. It's the other way around for me. Never got along too well with my father. We've been better lately--we're both working at it."

"But--he made some bad choices along the way. You know how it is."

"My father died before I was born," he admits. "I didn't get to meet him til I came here. He looks almost exactly like me except covered in blue diamonds."

Hard to have a comeback for that.

"My father... isn't."

"Is that, uh, normal? No offense."

He rolls his eyes.

"How should I know? I don't have the first clue of what's normal, so if you're looking for that, you'd be best to look elsewhere."

He sips his water.

"My mother is here as well, though I'd advise you to avoid her as she's a thoroughly irritating example of a human being."

Slightly embarrassed, Toby nods in agreement. "Sorry. Guess we could all just shelve the word 'normal' around here anyway."

"So what's your mother look like? So I, uh, will know her if I see her."

"She's green. That really ought to do it."

"Green?" Toby looks alarmed. "She's not about this short? Full of threats about making fiends? ....Or something?"

"Oh. Uhh, no, guess not. Never mind. Forget I said anything."

Fucking Milliways.

He shakes his head.

"She's rather tall... and she doesn't make threats so much as just do whatever she's going to do. Dressed in black with a great black hat on her head, no doubt."

"Good. Err, ah--I'll, uh, watch out for her then," Toby mumbles.

Well, at least he didn't say anything about 'fiends.'

He looks at him sideways.

"Fiends? Are those anything like flying monkeys?"

"I couldn't tell you. I'm, uh, kind of hoping I never find out."

"Aha."

...

"Fiends?"