milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Most of the bar's patrons settle into booths regularly, but not many seek out the spaces underneath. It's comfortable there, though; the table overhead casts everything in shadow, and with the benches to either side it's like a small and tidy cave. Not even very dusty, not with the Oompa Loompas on the job. You can sit on the floor, press your back to the wall, and watch the oblivious feet of a dozen patrons pass by.

River's doing so now.

Her sundress, already dappled in tie-dyed shades of purple, is shadowed to murkiness; her arms and legs seem pale in contrast. Her face is subdued, inward-turned and blank.

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River ducks her head, still smiling faintly.

"Saxophone," she informs the tea.

"I remember."

"You're good."

And flexible, too. "But the saxophone will have to be some other time, because it doesn't like being played inside a fort." This fort is just for tea and some semblance of conversation, and he takes advantage and drinks his tea while it's hot.

Unsure why he feels compelled to ask this next question, he does so anyway. "River, is there anything I can do for you?"

When it comes down to purpose and what it is and what his responsibility is in regards to purpose, he thinks the kindest thing to do is offer whatever he can to the people he likes here. He's not sure how much time he has left, and he wonders ruefully if, after he leaves, he'll remember the taste of this tea and the table fort and the smile on River's conflicted face.

River stiffens a little, and her face tightening -- and then she flinches slightly, though it's hard to say what she saw or heard, and she looks sharply away at the far bench.

Low, "Got tea."

Beat.

"I'm fine."

Suddenly this situation feels awkward and he's not sure why.

It was probably him, and that's not self-pity talking. It's experience: sooner or later, things always get awkward with him or around him. Of course, he could just be internalizing something that has nothing to do with anything else.

"Did... I say something wrong?"

One could just as easily say that sooner or later things always get awkward with River. Her conversational skills are idiosyncratic even before one adds in the trauma, the psychicness, and the mood shifts.

She shakes her head. Closes her eyes, and shakes it again.

"Wants to," she says to the floor, very quietly. "I know."

"River? Wants to... what?"

He's never liked guessing games, but she's not playing. It's just the way she is and in an odd way he feels naked, exposed, even though he's not sure why he should.

"Doesn't matter."

She breathes in, and out, and tries a wobbly smile that doesn't quite fit right. It's been a long time since River was good at choosing her emotions.

Again, "Got tea."

It does matter. It matters to him, but he's never been one to force his own wishes on anyone so he takes a deep breath and lets it go.

"Good tea, too." Those three words exact a painful toll and he's not so sure letting things go is a good idea. But here, now, it's the choice he's made.

"Do you want to hear a joke?" He doesn't know any, but he'll think of something if she says yes: the mood in the table fort has to change before he'll leave.

A moment passes in silence.

And then one shoulder lifts an inch or so, and drops again. Without looking up, "Okay."

Well, he's really no good at this, but he'll try.

"Okay. This duck walks into a store and tries on a bunch of different lipsticks before she finds the one color she really likes. It's a really nice color, kind of a dark mauve, and it's the most expensive one in the whole store. The sales clerk says to the duck, how do you want to pay for this? and the duck says oh, just put it on my bill."

It's a stupid joke, but it's the best one he has to offer.

River considers that.

"Inherent," she points out.

"The avian market is untraditional for cosmetics."

She's not laughing, not even really smiling, but her tension has loosed fractionally with the distraction.

That's... why it's a joke.

"Not so funny, huh? Well, I'm not a very funny person."

It's not something he's ever aspired toward, so at least it's nothing to feel badly about. But... at least he didn't have to explain it. That's a point in his favor; he smiles in a very small way.

"Maybe I should take my tea and go."

Maybe she'd rather not have the company.

Silence.

Then, very soft, "If you want."

But you don't have to, says her tone.

"And if I don't want?"

He's beyond the point of expecting a straightforward answer from her and this, he thinks, is his last straightforward question for this conversation. Whether he stays or goes, from now on, he'll talk on her terms and not his.

"Okay."

Now, his eyes soften again into a smile and he raises the teacup to her in a toast before taking a sip.

"To music."

To music and to life and to spending time in a table fort at a bar at the end of the universe where the dead and the living mingle and the things that matter are the only things that matter.

He'll sit under here with River all night, whether or not either of them says another word. Sometimes, just being with another human being is more than enough.

For him, right now, it is.

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