milliways_bar | (no subject)

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That was unpleasant.

And yet Boyd, like so many, cannot help but pick at a sore spot. And he wants to know what that was -- that thing that's left him with a bullet in his pocket to turn over and over in his hand.

It's what he's doing at the bar right now. There's a drink at his right hand, to assist in thinking. The bullet can and will be palmed.

And Boyd is ready, if it happens again.

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"I'd daresay that sand still looks like sand, no matter when and where you're from," he retorts, lifting his glass to drain the last bit of Atlantean from the glass. Being dead has its perks: improved alcohol tolerance, for one.

"They got black sand somewhere in Hawaii," Boyd says, a little absently.

Unfamiliar of the locale Boyd mentions, Dan considers the idea of black sand, and isn't sure if he'd like the looks of it.

"It'd just make me think I was walkin' on coal, rather than in the desert." It's said more to himself than directly to Boyd, as he continues to contemplate the image. "It'd be different, in the least."

"Imagine it's a little more pleasant than that."

Boyd takes a drink.

"Coal forms different than that, anyhow. Sand there'd be volcanic. Coal's sedimentary."

A half-hearted, one-shouldered shrug:

"Never heard of Hawaii," he 'explains'.

Boyd nods; he's not bothered. "Out in the Pacific," he says. "Little clump of islands. Last state in the Union, up through when I'm coming in from. Happened around... what, 1950? Something like that."

"That explains the volcanic formation, then," he says, understanding better. "Think my sons learned a bit 'bout that last year, in their science lessons."

A pause.

"Well, bit longer than 'last year'", he clarifies, after doing the math in his head. "Given as I've been residing here for nearly five, myself."

A sidelong look.

"That a willful residency?"

Dan mulls his words in his head for a moment before responding.

"Perhaps not entirely willful," he admits. "But most certainly a necessary one, given as the circumstances of my arrival here were less than ideal at the time."

"I hear that can happen," says Boyd Crowder, the soul of courtesy.

And that courtesy is gratefully accepted.

"I suppose in that regard, it was convenient," Dan muses. "And likely preferable to any alternate destinations that may have been planned."

Dying an unrepented sinner never ends well.

Boyd's not entirely sure he cares for where he suspects this conversation might be going.

"There's worse places," he agrees.

"Indeed."

Which is why it is just as well that Dan intends to take it no further than that - it wouldn't be polite to presume anything in regards to Boyd's personal standing with the Lord, after all, and he'd rather not venture into improper topics of conversation with a man he barely knows.

(And despite having lived the last four years and some-odd months in a bar, his sense of tact remains strong as ever.)

He turns to the counter and taps his fingertips lightly against the bartop, signaling for a refill.

This time it's whisky, rather than other-wordly wine.

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