milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Grace saunters out of Captain Perry's office, already tapping a cigarette from her pack, and tries not to smile. The guys are all looking at her, thinking she's in trouble with their new boss. Quite the opposite. Perry's an old friend from Vice and if Grace loved laughter any less, she'd warn Butch about being all UT in her face, at least for awhile; but he’s been a big boy in a unit full of Sooner fans for years now. It'll be entertaining.

She shoulders open the door to Major Crimes, then the stairwell, and mutters a half-hearted curse. Milliways. A few days without Earl’s making her soft. Whatever, it’s still a bar. Better to smoke with a drink than without one.

When Bar gives her the note, Grace tosses back her head and laughs. She looks at it again; laughs again.

"Sure thing. I could use time to think."

Because pouring drinks in between drinking her own will help her figure out why the motel manager got dead in one of his guest rooms. Obviously. Pushing her hair back, she pulls some not-so-random drink ideas from the proffered book and goes to work on the specials board.

HAPPY HOUR!

Absolut Hell
Holy Water
Jack and coke
and
Shots of Yukon Jack

Dance with the bartender, get a free shot. Bartender's choice.

Smirking, Grace rummages around behind Bar until she finds the sound system remote and cranks the volume to almost too loud. The classic rock already playing suits her fine. Time to shake up this place, she thinks. Time to shake Earl loose.

"Belly up, people. What'll be?"

(tiny tags: Grace Hanadarko, Cal Chandler, Michael, the Pirate King)

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With a snort, she grabs the bottle of Yukon Jack she'd found, slaps two shot glasses on the bar and haphazardly fills them. Whiskey gets all over the wood, but seeing as how it's sentient, she just grins and leaves it.

Okay, she'd probably leave it anyway.

"Eh," she echoes, tapping the shot glasses together and handing him his. Her whiskey is gone before his is out of her hand; she turns the glass over on the bar, then chases the shot with Budweiser. "Damn."

Slowly the whiskey begins to seep into the finish of the sleeping Bar.

Raph takes the shot and eyes it before he shoots it.
"Ain't exactly reassurin' when the bartender goes chasin' somethin' with crap beer."

Either way...down his goes.

"Crap beer?" she asks, feigning incredulity. "There's such a thing as crap beer?"

Smiling at him, she takes a big ole' gulp of her beer. It's probably best that she never looks at the 'born on' date.

Raph winces. That is not the best thing he's ever drank.

"There's a crap version o' everythin'. Can I get a Jack to wash that outta my mouth?"

"If you're real picky."

Using the same glasses, she pours the Jack and nods at the Canadian whiskey.

"Picked it for the name," she admits, which is as close as she's going to get to saying it wasn't on par with her usual.

"Ain't picky, just know what I like is all. Big difference."

Oh sweet delicious Jack Daniels. Raph doesn't shoot it, he sips and savors.
Happiness is.

"Got a name, yankee?"

She takes the shot, slams down the glass. Messy blond hair goes everywhere as she gives her head a good shake.

"Raph."

He downs the rest of the shot.

"An' you?"

"Grace Hanadarko, Oklahoma City PD."

A nod at his badge.

"You a cop?"

Raph snerks, and lifts up his badge for her perusal. It reads Milliways Security.

"Hardly. Just a bouncer. This is my ticket to the show, on the off chance the doors go disappearin'."

"Since when do bouncers need badges."

Damn, Earl's thorough.

"They do that a lot?"

He shrugs, letting the badge drop back to his chest.

"Since Tim thought we needed 'em. Helps identify us from everyone else from everywhere with a shield of their own."

He's eyeing that bottle of Jack.

"An' yeah, they do. Or rather, they can."

"Tim your boss?"

The bottle slides across the bar with the smallest of shoves. She's got more.

"The damn door better not do that to me. I'm in the middle of a case."

Raph grins as he picks up the bottle. He likes this one. Mike should keep her around.

"Tim? Nah...or no wait, was he? Fuck all if I can remember. He was a friend of mine before he became a dick an' then died."

He eyes the bottle, then his shot glass. Raph very seriously considers drinking straight from the bottle but realizes getting that trashed would probably not be in his best interest, so he leans across Bar and picks up a tumbler from where he knows they're stowed.

"Suppose it'd be takin' a piss in your Cheerios to tell you the damn door kept me outta here for nearly ten years, huh?"

"It happens," she says in response to the Tim story.

If it helps any, she's certainly liquoring Mike up. More whiskey hits Bar as she goes back to the Yukon Jack and raises her shot glass in a silent toast to a fallen friend and comrade.

...who had not become a dick before he died.

She does the shot; looks at Raph.

"No shit. Ten years? I'd kill him."

Raph considers bringing up Grace's inadvertent alcohol abuse, but decides against it. If Mikey's going to be Big Head Honcho he's going to have to take all that comes with it too.

So that smile he's smirking? It's not at Grace's expense.

"I been seriously considerin' doin' that for years. Then I got over it."

Grace meant Earl. There's no way she's going to clarify that point, however.

"So the door just came back?" She suddenly leans forward. "People back home think you're crazy?"

"Folk back home knew I was nuts long before I ever stumbled into this joint. I think it takes a bit o' crazy to get here in the first place, you ask me."

Raph will not only drink to that, but he'll toast for Grace in the process.

Grace laughs, at that.

And then laughs harder.

If he only knew.

"More like a mack truck full of crazy." This time she drinks straight from the bottle. "So what kind of people do you get around here? Besides nuts."

He shakes his head as he gulps from his own glass.

"What kind don't we get 'round here. List is smaller.
...
Actually, that list is kinda non-existant."

She smiles.

"Trust me. I see all kinds in Major Crimes."

His shoulder rise in a silent chuckle. Cops. When will they ever learn.

"Uh huh, 'm sure you do."

"You ain't seen nothin' until you take down a dancing hot dog in a mall food court, Christmas season."

Beat.

"This your full time job?" she asks, not unkindly.

Raph would beg to differ. You haven't seen anything until you've seen...well, most of what he's seen, with a good chunk of that being within the confines of Milliways.

Clearly she's new.
No matter really, as he doesn't argue the point. She'll learn soon enough, and some day that hotdog will be a fond memory.

"It's my only job, but it ain't full time. I pull a shift here an' there, but it ain't like some 40 hour a week pencil pushin' thing."

She is new.

And stubborn as hell.

"What d'you do with the rest of your time?"

Here, at home. Whatever. Grace is leaning fully on Bar now, fingers playing with the single braid on the side of her head. Raph has her attention, but every now and then she lets her eyes wander over nearby patrons.