milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Doc's been around. When he notices Will looking like he's gotten the shit kicked out of him he doesn't stop to talk to him because it hits a little too close to him. So he goes upstairs instead and pours himself a glass of the rum and drinks it while he eyes the damn book with the date in it.

One glass of rum turns into two, then three. By the time he's drinking the fourth he throws the book across the room, hitting the wall as hard as he can. It feels good. The glass in his hand follows and shatters and it feels better to watch it hit the floor in a hundred pieces.

Except now he has no glass.

Dammit.

A short time later Doc makes his way downstairs. It's obvious that he's already on his way to drunk, and the next glass of rum he picks up from the Bar helps that. He'll be hungover in the morning but he's not caring.

The music starts up in his head, or maybe it's the bar first. He's not sure. He again, doesn't care. He just smirks and starts singing:

I'm feelin' like Tonto,
Ridin' a Pinto,
Tryin' to chase the Lone Ranger down.
I'm a little unravelled,
But I'm still in the saddle,
Cryin' your name out to the clouds

Is he singing to you?

OOC: He might be. He's drunk enough.

[not!tags: Leela, Pirate King]
[tiny tag: Broadway Goes Brutal]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well. It's...it's awful complicated. Y'see I...well..."

Doc thinks about how to put this and it comes out in a bit of a rush. "Y'see there's this guy named Billy the Kid and I ride with him and we're sort of a gang out west?" A beat. "I was a ranch hand then I moved to New York and was an English teacher...up 'til about six months ago outside time."

He shakes his head. "Can't farm for shi...crap myself." She is a lady and it's not proper to be swearing. "Just worked cattle."

These days, well...lots of riding from the law!

She blinks her one eye at him incredulously. "You were an English teacher?"

Perhaps not the reaction one would expect. She did live in New New York, though; who wasn't in a gang? And he did look like a cowboy, so she was feeling more vindication than shock at his admittance of that.

Really, in the year 3000 A.D., English teachers are kind of the novelty. "Oohs" and "Aahs" scored for that one.

"I was, taught boys at a public school in New York...the old one, I guess." Doc smiles a little bit at the thought of it. "Just your basic readin' and writin' and such. I'd like to get back to it if I get home."

If.

It's always an if. Always a hope, a prayer, a fleeting chance. Doc takes a drink at that thought and nods a bit more.

"Sorry, the singing and dancing threw off my introduction. I'm from the year 3000; yes, New York has been rebuilt; no, I'm not an alien; yes, I am a mutant," she says all in one breath. Her manners aren't the best in the universe, but she tries.

She takes another sip of her drink, thinking about his last statement. "You can't go back home?" she asks.

"To be honest, Miss, I wouldn't have been bothered at all if you hadn't explained." He's seen weirder looking people here at Milliways. One eye and purple hair? Pssh.

Now, the Pirate King and that chest hair...

Doc shudders at the thought, inwardly. "1880, New York City, though the door opens out to New Mexico right now. Billy the Kid...well we got into some trouble a few years back and we're kindaontherunfromthearmy."

Also one breath.

"Really? There's only been one other person I've met so far who hasn't wanted to know everything about my world," she says, relaxing a bit. She nods in approval; no 20 Questions with this one.

"I've heard of Billy the Kid. Some stories have survived up through my time, though it's hard to say how much they've changed over the centuries. You've got yourself into a bit of a mess, huh?" She eyes him worriedly.

"Well basically they embellish them when I'm from so I hate to ask how many men they say he's killed in your time," Doc admits, before he takes another sip. "We're just making a run for Mexico, then hopefully things will get easier when we are out of the country."

And away from the government.

"I don't understand much about places where ships travel the stars," Doc admits. "Even with explanations, I just can't picture it."

"Three-hundred and forty-seven," she says, blinking at him. "In one night, with a machete and a tank. Is that wrong?"

...

Well? Is it?

She just happens to be a pilot of one of those star-traveling ships. She works for a bizarre company, with a bunch of idiot coworkers, for a crap salary, with barely any intellectual stimulation, but she is fairly intelligent and has her moments of well-thought speech. "You live in New New--er, just New York, right? Think of the port towns, where the bay opens up past Lady Liberty to the Atlantic. You get a lot of large ships and barges coming that way. Spaceships are little different, only instead of cutting through water they glide against the belly of space. In your time people left one land for another and called it a 'new world.' Actual new worlds aren't much different I think, when experiencing them."

Who knew she could articulate like that?

Doc laughs at that. "Twenty one. One for each year of his life apparently," he says. "And even that is a stretch, giving him credit for some of mine." A pause. "Not that I'm keeping score or anything."

And he's definitely not proud of being infamous or anything.

Then he nods. "I guess that makes sense, we get a lot of steamships in from England, bringing both goods and people, and I know that it's basically the same idea, and hell," a nod of his head over at the Window and the universe. "Obviously the stars exist..."

She blinks. Well, that's hardly impressive. "I've never even heard of you," she says bluntly.

Let's hope he truly doesn't have much pride in his infamy, as Leela might have just stuck a pin to his ego.

"Stars, planets, people, food, vegetation... there's all kinds of new things lurking beyond Earth's atmosphere," she nods. People from pre-space travel time seem to think too much; it's not such a hard concept if you can wrap your brain around the idea of traveling to different countries. Just a bigger expanse, is all.

She cocks her head to the side and regards Doc quizzically. She's seen him around, knows he's been here a while, and he has quite a few friends. "Hasn't anyone offered to take you to the future, to their time, before?" she asks.

"No, I've gone back, though. To Will's Sherwood. But never forward."

Doc had enough trouble hooking up the DVD player to the TV that bar gave him. Forward would be...interesting.

And he nods at that. "That makes sense. I certainly didn't think that we were the only planet able to support life...we don't know that much about the stars yet, well, we know about the stars but not the other planets. S'good to know they built New York again."

Leela takes for granted her life in the 31st century to the point that she's more baffled by the idea of not knowing about space travel. She can't imagine being confined to only one planet.

"Well, if you ever want to see the future and experience space travel for yourself, I happen to be a pilot. The Professor will probably consider you a tourist and charge you for the trip, though."

Who knows, Doc might actually like Mars. It's not entirely unlike New Mexico.

"I'll keep that in mind...thanks." Doc smiles honestly at that offers and thinks on it for a moment. That would be very interesting indeed if not strange and possibly frightening somewhat. "It might be fun."

He takes another drink - he's drunk but he's not drunk - and then looks over at her.

"We don't even have planes yet, not for another few years."

"Really? Then definitely come for a visit sometime. The Planet Express ship will knock your socks off.

"How do you travel in your time? Don't tell me you walk everywhere!" she says, sounding slightly horrified. She'd met a young girl from the moon who said walking was their main means of travel, and Leela almost fell out of her chair.

"Me personally? Horseback. Though when I originally left New Mexico it was by train. We do have trains. But I like horseback...definitely better than walking. There's a stagecoach in almost every territory too, take it to git places the trains don't go."

Obviously since they have to stay on the tracks, but the towns are always built around the tracks and stations for that reason.

She knocks back a healthy gulp of whiskey at that. It's hard to think of his time as anything other than primitive. She can't imagine functioning without a faster means of traveling than by train.

"I suppose that makes it harder to outrun the law," she grimaces. "Or easier, maybe. Your police must be cowboys too, I suppose."

Days to cross the country. Weeks, months to cross the ocean. Leela would have a fit and then some.

"It is at least an even match. It's not easy beause there are more of them after us than there used to be." A small smile crosses his face. "Machete and a tank you said it was? Billy will get a kick out of that..."

She would indeed have a fit. If she didn't kill herself without the technological advances of the 31st century, that is. You guys don't even have electric can openers!

She is mildly insulted by his amusement. "Hey, I only know what the history books tell me, okay?" She'll refrain from mentioning how they go on to say he subsequently discovers plutonium and invents the macerana.

"Sorry, just struck me funny," Doc admits, as he takes another long drink. "You'd like him. Or kick his ass, which, hell, he needs it half the time."

Or all the time.

Hmm. Maybe that's not a half bad idea!

Leela smiles faintly, leaning her cheek in one hand. "Sounds right up my alley," she teases, sipping at her own drink.

Actually, it really does. The music from their earlier stage show is still ringing distantly in the back of her mind, and somebody is going to get a really cheap facelift for it. Doesn't matter if they deserve it or not.

"Aren't you two friends, though?" she questions after some thought.

"Yeah, we're pals," he admits. "But I don't always agree with everything he says, you know? You got a friend like that, maybe? You like them as a friend but you don't think they know what the hell they're doing for shi..."

Doc trails off with a drink.

She snorts in an admittedly entirely unladylike fashion. "Yeah, I think I can relate," she says with a roll of the eye.

"He's one donut shy of a bakers dozen, half the time shouting nonsense and making up wild stories; is a lazy ass who gets everybody else to do his work for him; is completely unable to see the big picture; is always getting into trouble and dragging the rest of us into it, and never ever listens to the voice of reason!" Namely: her.

...I'm sorry, were we not swapping war stories here? Leela tends to get a bit carried away when the subject of Fry comes up.

Sound familiar, Doc?

"...please don't let him meet Billy, they're likely to blow up a building I'd reckon."

Doc taps on the bar again and both glasses refill, again on Doc's tab. He's got a job here, it works out well enough to keep him fed, pay for the room, and anything else he brings in on his own.

She full-on facepalms at that, collapsing with a groan. "Don't ever let me meet Billy either, if that's the case."

She offers Doc an appreciative smile as her glass refills. "Thanks. I was just going to offer to buy the next round. Now that we've talked I can understand why you're driven to drinking."

It was spoken good-naturedly, but Leela had noticed a dark shadow over Doc tonight, even during the musical portion of the evening.

"Don't usually but tonight...was not a very good night. Up until the dancing, that helped somewhat," he says honestly with a hint of a smile on his features. The drinking has helped that too. "As much as I don't like dancing...you're a good partner."

He nods a bit.

"He comes in here sometimes. Be bragging or boasting or goin' on about stuff."