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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X gets a look.

"Ups the risk of spilling your drink, don't it?"

X considers that, head tilting.

Then --

"Not if you are prepared."

Travel cups are all the rage.

Really.

"Well, I'm prepared to sit here on this stool with my spillable drink," Boyd says. "And that's about it."

He is too old for rafters, except in the most dire of circumstances.

"Okay," X says, and sips equably at her drink.

She's not on duty yet, but she will be soon.

There is no reason to go anywhere in the meantime.

After a suitable moment, and another drink or three, Boyd says, "Saw something the other day."

His voice is low, and a decent approximation of casual.

X tilts her head, studying Boyd carefully.

Then --

"Outside?"

Beat.

"Or indoors."

It could be relevant.

"It was indoors." He turns the glass in his hand. "Over near that window, right by the door."

"Apparitions happen often?"

X flicks a glance in that direction, nostrils flaring again.

Some things leave a scent residue.

Some do not.

Then she looks back at Boyd.

"Not often," she says eventually.

Carefully.

"But sometimes."

Beat.

"You are okay?"

"No blood appears to have been spilled."

It's true.

"I know," she says.

She does.

"Sometimes that is not relevant."

"Why wouldn't it be relevant here?"

"You do not have to bleed," X says, very clearly, "to be hurt."

Boyd grins. There's something a little feral to it.

"Why, Miss X," he says. "You a licensed psychologist?"

"No," X says levelly.

Her expression is blank.

"But I have been dismembered."

That was never the worst part.

There is just enough of a pause to indicate that this has registered with Boyd Crowder as something out of the ordinary.

"Then I suppose you know," Boyd says, "that the presence of blood might indicate that somebody got hurt."

X tilts her head, studying Boyd a bit more intently.

"Hurt," she allows, with a one-shouldered shrug. "Or dead."

They are not the same thing.

"But that is not what I said. You know."

He looks at X for a moment, unblinking.

And then Boyd says:

"Miss X, what you might not realize is that men like me, we don't much care for contemplating our own inner mechanisms out in public with somebody else. So that's not what I'm talking about. And that's not why I started down this line of inquiry."

"I do not think it is just men," X says, expression more than a little dubious. "Who do not like to do that."

Beat.

"You think you are hallucinating? Or you are worried. About that."

X is terrible at guessing games.

She is also terrible at meandering around a point.

"I suppose," Boyd says after a moment, "I'd like to know if it's a common occurrence to run into spectral figures from your past who have the ability to commit violence upon your person and who then vanish."

"It is not common," X says.

"And Milliways dead do not vanish. Like that."

A pause.

"But I do not think you are the only one."

"I suppose that might be a comfort," Boyd says, a little dry.

"I do not know."

Her reply is matter-of-fact.

"It has not happened to me."

"Well," Boyd says, "it's nice to know it's not likely I've started hallucinating all by myself. But it's not as nice to know that there's a pack of personal ghosts that can harm an individual roaming around this place."

X blinks.

Twice.

"You said you were okay."

She does not, however, look surprised.

"Ghosts," Boyd says, patient, "are supposed to go right through you. This one could land a punch."