Letting Each One Burn

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

Mills settles into his spot at the bar, eyes scanning the crowd.  There's something in the air tonight, making him restless.  Maybe it's the heat back home.  Maybe it's the moon.  Something just isn't right and he can't quite put his finger on it.

"Beer, please.  Thanks." 

Best just to keep an eye out.  Just in case.  At least here he can take his jacket off, and the locals won't give the .45 in its shoulder holster a second look.

fake tag: Gene Hunt

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Definitely not this particular local, who's going to be heading back home once she gets the right people together- pity one of them's run afoul of Security. Oh well.

"Hi, Mr. Mills. How've you been?"

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

"Ellen. Good to see you."

His face lights up when he sees her.

"Not so bad. You look a little worse for the wear, if you don't mind me saying." There's something in his voice that's different than the last time they spoke. She's clearly been through hell since then, and his tone carries a certain amount of respect for that fact.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"No, no, it's fair," Ellen says. "Do you know how hard it is to find a helmet that's any actual good in the Capital Wasteland? The only one I got my hands on restricted my vision so much I left it behind, and I kind of wound up regretting that pretty quickly." She reaches up to scratch at one of the places that would be a much nastier-looking scar if stimpaks hadn't been injected directly into the site. "I'm all right now, though."

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

"Good," he says, ever the eloquent one.

He takes a sip of his beer, obviously thinking for a moment.

"Vitamin E. You stick a pin in the end of the little capsule and squeeze out a few drops. It looks like syrup, but it's thicker. Just rub it directly onto the scar. Makes them fade, or so I hear."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'll have to get some the next time I'm in here," Ellen says. "Since when I go home I've got another fight waiting for me, so there's no point in trying to fix much of anything just yet."

She makes a wry face as she adds, "Unless Doc Hoff has a bottle of them somewhere on his Brahmin, of course."

[watching_you]

It's less than five minutes later that Veronica wanders in from upstairs, as if she'd known instinctively that he'd arrived.

(The real answer—that she's installed a microscopic tracking device in his shoe that sends a wireless signal to her laptop when he comes in—isn't nearly as romantic.)

She heads right over and takes the next seat.

"Well hey there, tall dark and handsome. Come here often?"

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

"Hey pretty lady," he leans over, snaking an arm around her waist and brushing a kiss against her temple. "As often as I can."

Of course he knows about the tracker, but he leaves it alone. He finds it strangely endearing, and also, he trusts her to use a passive signal, only available for use from her system.

"How's the shoulder?"

[watching_you]

"Better. Much. I mean it's not… the full range of movement I had before…" There's discomfort in her tone that matches well the action she makes, rolling her arm in its socket, lifting it but coming to a stop before it's fully extended above her head. "Don't think I'll ever get that back, though.

"I was practicing with it on the firing range earlier. So of course," she puts on an aw-shucks sticky-sweet sing-song voice: "I thought of youuu."

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

She knows him far too well, and yes, her confession makes his cheeks colour. He dips his chin and smirks up at her.

"You went shooting without me?" There may be an attempt at puppy dog eyes.

[watching_you]

"Well I know how keen you are for me to show actual, you know, competence at things like that. So I do my best to surprise you by improving. Crazy, right?"

It's so easy to make him blush. But she never gets tired of it.

"Not that I am. Improving, I mean."

[the_gene_genie]

Gene's on his way over to a table with a bottle and a newspaper when he spots Mills, and decides to make a detour. He'd been a good bloke last time they talk.

'Wan' somethin' stronger?'

He's already unscrewing the cap for his own drink but he'll share. He's good like that.

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

Mills looks up at the familiar voice, and seems to think about the question for a moment.

"Yeah, sure. But just the one."

Mills doesn't care to get too lubricated in public. It's a thing.

[the_gene_genie]

'OK.'

But it's a big one, count on that.

'You look like you've a 'ad a shit day, mate.'

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

Mills' eyebrows rise a bit at the level of booze in the glass that's set in front of him. But far be it for him to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Something in the air. Full moon. You probably know how it gets."

He's a cop. He probably knows better than anyone.

[the_gene_genie]

'Yeah, well,' he picks up his glass and looks at it for a brief second before making half of it disappear.

'I normal jus' chalk it up t'people bein' wankers, y'know?'

Full moon's a bit poetic, for him.

[ol-yellow-eyes.livejournal.com]

Data is sitting at the bar as well, reading something on a datapad. So when the man sits down, it seems polite to nod once and greet, "Hello."

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

Mills returns the nod, easy in his own skin. He registers the pale skin and the yellow eyes instantly.

Something niggles the back of his mind, but he can't quite put his finger on it. What the hell? A little proactive information gathering never went amiss. He gives Data a friendly smile.

"Evening. I'm Bryan Mills. Don't believe we've met before."

He offers a hand in greeting.

[ol-yellow-eyes.livejournal.com]

"No, we have not." Data turns, taking the offered hand and shaking it firmly. "Lieutenant Commander Data, of the starship Enterprise."

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

That would be the little fact that was eluding him.

Mills' face lights up, not unlike a twelve year old boy.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir." His eyes fall to the datapad for a moment. "Anything interesting?"

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

This'd be Ace then, utterly bored, since back at the farmhouse she hasn't a husband to play with.

Stupid moon.

Well, it's an Ace that's utterly bored now. As evidenced by the soot she accidentally smeared rather than wiped off her nose, and the generally smoky aroma, she's been having a bit of pyro fun before it got dark out back as well.

So yes. Bored now. At least there's chocolate alcohol, right?

Alas.

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

Mills knows that smell. Knows it intimately, in fact. He's spent enough time in country for that smell to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

He swivels in his seat to see where it's originating.

The woman with the soot on her face. "Ace, isn't it?" He quirks an eyebrow at her. "You have a little -- erm -- something..." He gestures to her cheek.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Hmmm?" Ace absentmindedly rubs at her face, accidentally transferring some of the mess to the other side.

Now she's got warpaint. She's a fierce little pyro, she is.

clearly it's time to go hunt the Dalek.

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

Mills smirks, turning a bit to face her.

"You look like you're ready to go throw the pigskin around. Or maybe rugby?"

[bought-a-plant.livejournal.com]

Parker climbed up into the rafters as soon as she entered the room, so as not to be noticed or recognized crossing the crowded Friday night bar. Safely to the other side of the room, she drops to the floor in a crouch and immediately wonders how she missed the gun. She tries to look casual and leans on the bar, deepening her voice.

"I'll have what he's having"

[particularskill.livejournal.com]

It's not every day a lithe blonde acrobat drops out of the rafters, Mills thinks, even in a bar like this.

"Sam Adams," he says, wondering whether or not he's supposed to mention her entrance. He goes with not. "The beer, that is. I'm Bryan. Bryan Mills."