milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"Five years."

Mal never remembers these things on his own. It's more when he steps up to the bar and he receives a note of congratulations from his mother the Barman and a cupcake from the bar.

"Wow."

Mal orders a Coke to go with the cupcake, requesting also a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen to get some notes written out for later.

Come on by when he settles into a booth. He's got the time, apparently.

[ooc: ~~open. very open.~~ not so open anymore! off to bed. <333]

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"Here. I was just someone who struck up a conversation with her, before she became Barman. We became friends." He tries to make it sound simple.

"Well then. Shiny."

It's easy enough to assume that the simplicity is there. Ignorance is bliss, when it comes to Mal's mother sometimes. (Then there are the times it blows up in Mal's face, but that's neither here nor there.)

"What do you two talk on?"

"Things. Life in the Bar, her work here, poetry. Nothing special."
Except when it's Cubefall. Or April Fool's Day. No reason Mal needs to hear about that.

"Poetry."

Mal turns decidedly quizzical.

"That you or her?"

"My suggestion. Your era seems to know so little about the past, and your mother doesn't have any knowledge about that in particular, so I offered." He doesn't want to say that he thinks that Sallie really needed a better education.

"English, at any rate - Chinese opera 'n poetry's a little...enh. Ain't so interesting. I got most of that when I went off planet."

"I don't think it does much for her, either. Though she also doesn't get offworld much, does she?"

"Excepting Milliways? No. I'm not sure she'd take the opportunity even if it presented itself.

"The last time I can think of her goin' offworld in my where and when is when she came to my wedding."

"I get the sense that she likes meeting people from my when and where...'Earth That Was,' I think is the term?" It's not one she uses that much. "But that isn't the same thing as traveling. I think it would do her good, but I doubt she would agree."

"The fact she took the job here says a lot, actually - but maybe I don't need to tell you that."

Just how well does Charlie know his mother anyway?

"I was a little surprised she took the job. It apparently has strings attached." Like being psychically linked to the bar. "But she seems to like it a lot. And it doesn't interfere with the rest of her life. But you know that."

"I do. I didn't like it at first. 'Cause o' the strings.

"But it ain't my call and it never was."

He nods. "Not every son would say that. Especially with the farm and with her arthritis creeping up on her. But I think that none of those things would slow her." Nor would a disapproving son.

Mal exhales.

"Curse o' the Reynoldses, really - not knowing when to say when."

"She said you're some sort of pilot?" OK, she did say thief, but she also mentioned that he has a ship. Best to be polite about it.

"Spaceship captain. I can fly it, but I normally let that to Wash, my pilot."

"I never got a chance to do that sort of travel. I didn't even like air travel, to be honest. But that sounds interesting." Thief or not.

"Been livin' that way over a decade now. I usually prefer it now from being in the world, but you can't stay in the sky forever."

"So I hear. Though in my day, I would hear that second hand about people who could fly without ships."

Mal processes that for a second before asking: "Superpowers or wings?"

"Superpowers, though a few people do have wings. It can be confusing."

"Sounds like. Coming here ain't all that simpler."

"True. I've even met two angels." And a woman 25 years older than him who was younger than him when they met.

"For all excitement that might be," Mal smirks for a moment, some injoke that he doesn't expect Charlie to get.

"You also doubtful about them?" Charlie's agnosticism has been taking a beating.