milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The specials show up on the board the minute he gets there. Bartending's fun -- at least he had fun the last time he was back here -- and if nothing else, he'll have paid off that new set of clothes Bar gave him after his trip to Ellen's world. The last thing he wants is to be known as some kind of freeloader. He's always paid his way, ever since he was seventeen and found himself alone, and there's no reason he'd stop doing it just 'cause he's stuck here.

Tonight's Specials

Easy Action
Between the Sheets
A Goodnight Kiss

The specials make him laugh but hey, they're kind of appropriate and at least they go in progression. He adds one more thing to the board before setting up shop for the duration:

Pyramid advice & info always free

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In and out of trouble: that sounds familiar. Even for someone who was contractually obligated to keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble as much as possible, he still managed to find his way into it.

Not quite as much as some of his teammates, but he gave trouble a run for its money. He's still doing that wherever possible.

"Who's new on the team? What kind of shit are they causing?"

'Cause new people always make things different. Can't be any other way.

"Well," Dinah says, "there's the detective who doesn't seem to trust anyone. It took forever to explain that he had to trust us with his name if he was going to join the team. We've had trust issues in the past, is the thing."

"But you've gotta be able to trust your teammates, or they're not teammates." It's so godsdamn fundamental and he knows he's completely overstating the obvious, but what the frak.

And who hasn't had "trust issues" in the past? Or in the present? Everyone has.

"I'm guessing you were able to persuade his sorry ass?"

Either that or kick him off the damn team.

"Yeah," Dinah agrees. "It helps that he already knows me, 'cause we're based in the same city. And he's already friends with our new heavy hitter. He's just not a people person, and neither, really, is Hawkman. Who's my uncle and I love him, but sometimes I think he just wants to get into a fight.

"That your uncle who owned the gym?"

Idly, he wipes down Bar's surface. Something to do with those good hands of his while they talk.

"The same one who taught you to fight?"

Dinah shakes her head. "Not that one. That was Wildcat."

With a smirk, she shrugs. "I had a few uncles from Mom's Justice Society days."

"A few, huh?"

He had uncles and aunts and cousins but none of them lived on Picon, although he's got the vaguest memories of some big family get-together, some reunion or other, when he was a little kid.

"All looking after you, all turning you into the kickass lady you are now." It's just a little fond supposition on his part; he's got no idea what it was really like and that's exactly how it should be. They're not even from the same world. They only intersect at a place that shouldn't even exist and no, he's decided he's never gonna give up on that supposition, on the theory that all of this might just be some long involved dream.

"Just not kickass enough for your pyramid team to beat mine."

(He had to throw that in.)

"Are you kidding?" Dinah says, apparently unimpressed. Although that doesn't fit well with the laughter she's biting back.

"I've seen your team lineup. What, did you lose the coin toss and had to pick last?"

"Hey." His hands go out, generous, palms up. "Someone had to get stuck with me."

"It's true," she admits, heaving a sympathetic sigh. "Those poor jerks."

She lifts her glass, notices it's empty, and hands it to him.

"So how about Between the Sheets?"

He doesn't even miss a beat. "Oh, I'm good there."

Even for an older man. But he doesn't give her much time for rebuttal, just gets a clean glass and mixes up the second drink. Brandy, rum, Triple Sec, and a squeeze of lemonade, all shaken together. Because he can, he garnishes it with a pair of cherries linked by the same stem -- something appropriate about that -- and hands the glass over with a wink.

"Between the sheets."

He is, if she stopped to think, probably about the same age as someone who has been making lewd remarks like that for a while now. In fact, Dinah grins when the drink arrives.

"Some of my team would be devastated to miss this happy hour," she remarks.

"Well, you know, there's only so much of us to go around." He's awfully amused, thinks about telling her that Bar put the drink specials up there, not him, but ultimately he decides it's more fun not to protest his innocence.

Why start now when he hasn't done it his whole life.

"It's true," she says. "There's already one other who comes here. I think I like having it as my secret. At least until I catch up with all the future people who litter the place."

If he only had the ability, he'd open up that frakking door and usher in all 98 of his people, no question about it. That's one place he and Dinah definitely differ, on the whole secrecy thing, although he can see its appeal. He also knows just a tiny bit about future people littering the place, although Felix only counts as one and the guy's not exactly crowding him out.

"These future people, are they people you know from home? Like... future versions of them? Or did you meet them here for the first time and figure out about being from the same place after?"

"Mostly they are future versions of people I don't know yet," Dinah says. "I mean, Diana I know at home, now. But Batgirl, Charlie, um. Stephanie? You know her?"

Stephanie, Stephanie... nope. He shakes his head. "Should I?"

He doesn't know Batgirl or Charlie either. Shows how much getting around he still ought to do.

"No," Dinah says. "I haven't seen her for a while. But she's like, this teenage superhero from my world who thinks I'm the greatest person to ever step on to a rooftop. It's nice, but I thought my Mom's were big boots to fill. I didn't think I'd have to fill my own."

Filling other peoples' boots, that's something he knows a little bit about. He remembers the pep talk Coach gave him when he first got to Atlas Arena as a member of the C-Bucs, about how he was the franchise's hope, about how people were looking to him to bring the Kobol Cup back to Caprica for the first time in 48 years, but no pressure, Sam, no pressure at all, just get out there and do your thing. At least no one expected him to have superpowers.

Or maybe they did.

"So is there anyone in your world who isn't a superhero?" He can imagine if they all have superpowers, it might get pretty redundant. Then again, everyone's gonna excel at something, and it won't be the same all around. Aside from knowing flowers and being a hell of a fighter, he hasn't even asked Dinah what her special power is.

Personally, he thinks she's kickass enough even without knowing, but that's just one guy's opinion.

"Yeah," Dinah says. Clearly amused.

Just because everyone in her immediate acquaintance is a superhero, that means nothing. There's most of the entire world, for one.

"My Dad wasn't a superhero. He was a cop and a PI. Just the regular kind of hero."

Man, that makes him nostalgic. "My dad was a marine biologist. My mom, she was the hero in the family. A nurse." Really, they were both heroes. It's a discussion he heard them having over and over while he grew up, although he doesn't need to share that with Dinah or with anyone. They're gone and the memories -- like the one of that playful argument -- that's all he has of them.

That's all he has of most things.

"What was he like? Your dad, I mean."

"Dad?"

She settles her hands around her drink, with the said fond smile she had for Ted, only tainted with the sadness of loss.

"He was funny. Or at least, he tried to be. Took nothing too seriously and always assumed everything would work out. If you could bottle cocksure optimism, that would be my dad.

"And he had impeccable style."

Under other circumstances he'd make some crack or other ("impeccable style like mine, you mean?") but nah, not here, not this time. It's not appropriate.

"He sounds like a great guy. Natural optimists like that, they're pretty rare." A lot of people give lip service to it, but they're just twisted cynics deep down.

"What happened to him? If you don't mind me asking." Sometimes dredging up the past is good, but other times? Not so much. He'll leave it up to Dinah.

She doesn't mind. It's not the easiest topic in the world, but it's not too complicated, and one of the perils of her chosen life.

It takes a swallow of her drink before she can answer, though

"Alien invasion," she says. "He didn't usually tag along with the Justice Society on missions, but I guess that night he got caught up and went along to help? And it went wrong."

Only one thing he can really say about that.

"Frak. I'm sorry that happened." He knows what it's like to want to go and help. It's why he volunteered to go with Ellen, and he didn't even think twice about it until Kara got mad at him for offering to go. Probably Dinah's dad felt the same way, just felt like he was being useful or wanted to see what it was all about or...

Yeah.

"Mine died when I was seventeen. Accident on a deep-sea research ship. Took my mom too." Dinah didn't ask but misery kind of loves company, so what the frak. It's not like it's a secret or anything, and at least this way she'll know his sympathy isn't... isn't false or contrived.