milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The Bar has an uncanny ability to sense when Ianto comes into Milliways to brood: she always asks him to bartend on those days. He supposes this is a good thing: it keeps him from dwelling too much in his own head.

There's nothing wrong with playing to his own strengths, too.

TODAY'S SPECIALS
COFFEE
Vermont Coffee
Gunline Coffee
Newfoundland Coffee

He takes off his jacket and tie, and rolls up his sleeves.

Ninja!barista!teaboy on duty.

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Ianto blinks at him. "Greetings, Teja. Just Ianto is always fine.

"Whose wardrobe did you raid?"

"I asked the bar for clothes from the future," Teja says, "and I was given this."

Pause.

"What is in these special coffees?"

"They suit you," Ianto says.

"The Vermont has maple syrup and rum, the Gunline has spices and chocolate, and the Newfoundland has rum and a couple different liqueurs. I thought I'd mix things up a bit."

"I would have that with the maple syrup and rum," Teja says. "I know not what a 'Vermont' is, otherwise; but the mixture sounds interesting."

"A Vermont," says Ianto as he gets the coffee pot, "is a place where they grow maple trees and make syrup."

He begins mixing.

"Ahhh," Teja says, "like a vineyard, for wine?"

Ianto chuckles. "In America, the country is divided into states. Like shires or provinces, I suppose. One of the states is called Vermont. The maple tree equivalent of a vineyard is called a sugar bush."

He twirls the cup as he pours in the maple syrup and then sets it in front of Teja.

Teja sips it.

"This is very good!" he says. "Is Vermont a place of many sugar bushes, then?"

"I assume so. It's what they're famous for." He leans on the bar, lazily swishing a tea towel back and forth. "I've never been."

"The new lands beyond the oceans are far from where you live, are they not?" Teja says, drinking his coffee.

"Thousands of miles," Ianto says. "It is four times as far from London to New York as it is from Rome to Constantinople."

"Oh," Teja says. "I am sure, before there were flying machines, men did not travel back and forth very often. It would have taken long."

"Weeks by boat, I believe. I'd have to look it up."

"Oh no, 'long' suffices as description," Teja says. "I do not mean to make the voyage by boat; if I go there, I go from here, through somebody's door."

"Best way," says Ianto. "Better in a blink of an eye than hours and hours, even by plane."

"I would hesitate to spend too much of my limited time in a world merely travelling, also," Teja says. "I only have ten days at the most. So, wherever I go, I would go straight there, and not stray too far from the door: - certainly not further than a day's travel!"

"I've heard about those complications," Ianto says. "When I've brought friends home they've not stayed much more than overnight."

"I faded, once," Teja says.

Ianto winces, but his natural curiosity gets the better of good manners. "What did that feel like?"

"Not much," Teja says. "I felt faint for a moment, but was distracted by the feeling I had, holding my beloved in my arms. And then, I entered again here, thinking myself fresh from my death, knowing nothing."

Ianto processes this with a frown. "Interesting," is all he has to say.

"It was very disquietening, to my friends and my beloved," Teja says. "But I had my memory of my afterlife returned to me, which was a great relief."

"I imagine it would be, forgetting all you've done since you initially died."

"Indeed," Teja says, "especially as I had forgotten about my beloved, and called him offensive names, and pushed him away from me."

Pause.

"It was a bad, confusing time, as I had all those things I had taken months for the first time around, thrown at me within days. But near the end, I was already opening my heart to him again."

"Indeed," Ianto says with a small shiver--if Jack ever forgot him--well.