milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[ oom: this cowboy keeps his word ]

He didn't expect to see the bar just yet.

Doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate the happenstance.

Ben Wade heads toward the counter to order a whiskey. He's in a damn good mood.

[ tiny tag: the russian astronaut ]

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"Not with that accent of yours. I am from...Well, it would be Russia in your time, I suspect. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in mine."

A pause, and an amused smile.

"Course, if you want my full name, it's a right mouthful."

"Russia," he echoes. "Well, now. Kinda far from Arizona."

He takes off his hat and puts it on the counter.

"Go right ahead, Miss Esfir. Think I can handle it."

"Lieutenant Esfir Shostakovna Yazycova."

"Esfir Shostakovna Yazycova."

A (somewhat smug) half-smile, then he quirks an eyebrow.

"Lieutenant?"

She doesn't look military, small and delicate as she is, but he'll suspend his disbelief in this place.

Her green eyes flick up and meets his. They are a pretty colour, and warm enough with her good humour, but if eyes are the windows into the soul, than she's in trouble.

Still, she smiles and nods.

"Da. In the Soviet Air Force - I flew fighter planes."

Green eyes. Like the sea.

He studies them for a few heartbeats before he speaks.

The use of past tense didn't go unnoticed.

"Don't anymore?"

Her eyes had flicked up, now they flick down.

"I...was killed. A friend, he has a civil war and they need pilots, but...they don't have planes, exactly."

And ah, yes. There's the vodka.

Ben's expression sobers immediately.

"Sorry to hear that. Woman like you's too fine to be killed."

Civil war. Know what that can be like, all right.

One hand curls around his glass of whiskey, and he pulls his mind from thoughts of Dan's iron foot.

"Gonna help some folks out?"

Esfir nods.

"That I am. I wouldn't be...useful on the ground, but put me in something with wings and guns that can fly?"

She grins, sharp and fierce and eyes alight with the sheer joy of flying (and fighting, never let us forget, but mostly flying)

"I can cause damage."

"Can you now?"

She may be getting an ~~appreciative~~ appraising once-over. Even though that look in her eyes is a little too close to the late Charlie Prince's.

(And Ben's, sometimes.)

Calmly, simply,

"Yes, I can."

A grin.

"Wouldn't mind seein' that."

A beat.

"But you said this friend ain't got the kinda machinery you're used to handlin'?"

"Han's world? Is so, so much more advanced than mine."

And that is just the glow of pure delight. Little girl in a candy store, little girl reading books of star ships and getting to see that they are real.

"So, I'm practicing. They have simulators upstairs, and the principle is the same."

Edited 2008-07-20 06:55 (UTC)

The grin widens.

"Han Solo?"

"Da," she says, those green eyes narrowing slightly. Not suspicion, just a sudden concentration of thought on Ben himself.

"I'll be damned."

A slight head-shake, a quiet chuckle.

"He's pullin' you into his revolution."

The kinda crazy I like.

She smiles.

"Yes. Yes, he is. You?"

A one-shouldered shrug.

"Ain't run into him to know. Last time I saw him was before I left."

Half a beat.

"Didn't see me, though — he was blind."

"He can see, now."

A short nod; he's genuinely glad to hear that.

"So tell me, Lieutenant," and there's a flicker of amusement in Ben's eyes, "how your trainin's goin' upstairs."

"I'm sure that's classified to people who I know their name of," she points out without losing a beat, green eyes bright and expression demure.

"Ben Wade."

A slight tip of his head.

"Southwest Arizona, 1865."

"A hundred years before me, if rather different country." Beat. "That the, uh, 'Wild West'?"

Flicker of a wry half-smile.

"Might say that."

"Oke."

That delighted look is back.