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's nostrils flare as she approaches Boyd from the left.

She is also keeping a weather eye on the hand he's got in his pocket.

It's been that kind of week.

"Hello."

For the moment, at least, she stays standing.

"You are drinking. Again."

Someone here has a keen eye for the obvious.

"It's a bar," Boyd says, glance shifting briefly in her direction, just long enough to ascertain her identity. "Drinking happens."

"There are other things, too."

Like rescuing your friend from an eldritch horror from beyond the bounds of reality.

Or, you know. Shooting at the ghost of your dead father.

Whichever.

There is another man using a drink at his right hand to assist in thinking, though it's doubtful that Boyd's enlightenment weapon of choice is Atlantean.

Dan Evans has his head bowed.

He's done that a lot, the last few weeks. Kept his head down, kept out of trouble. And kept an eye out for his boy.

(A father's duty, some might say.)

He lifts it at some point to scan the room for any familiar faces, and drinks, making silent note of the man two stools over who seems to be doing much of the same.

"Nothing at the moment that's more attractive."

Both Boyd's hands go on the bar. There is no bullet.

He picks up his glass.

Boyd, we can be sure, is doing something similar.

Something approximating eye contact happens; Boyd offers a miniscule nod, and picks up his drink.

He can manage the bare minimum of social nicety, he supposes.

X keeps her gaze on his pocket for a second, then flicks a look toward his hands.

"I am allowed to ask why?"

It's a mixture of habit (never turn your back on a man you don't trust) and boredom on Dan's part - he's been stuck here since the day he died, minus the two supervised excursions to the 'out-of-doors'. And while raiding a dwarven treasure trove and attending his own funeral were interesting, sure...

...sometimes you go looking for variety.

Dan returns the nod as his brings his glass once more to his mouth; after he swallows down the swirling, unnatural liquor-wine-whatever they call it, he speaks in a tone that is low enough for just Boyd to hear. No sense in drawing attention to the conversation.

"Long afternoon, or just stoppin' in for the usual?"

Boyd slants her another look. "It's a free country."

Beat.

"You surprised that someone would come to a bar to get a drink?"

"Dry county," Boyd returns, in similar tones. His are a little more wry. "You do what you have to do."

"I am Canadian," X offers.

Technically, anyway.

"And I am not surprised."

Beat.

"But other people are not always drinking. Here."

The face of apology Dan makes is slight, and brief, expression only lingering a heartbeat or two before one corner of his mouth lifts the barest hint of a smirk.

(He's less sarcastic when Wade's not around. The outlaw tends to bring it out of him.)

"At least this place tends to be convenient in that regard," he replies. "Most of the time."

Canadian gets a look of suspicion.

And then his glass gets a look, and he drinks.

"Then maybe they don't know what a bar is for."

"Certainly more convenient than a trip to the next closest legal purveyor of spirits," Boyd agrees.

And drinks.

X looks dubious.

"I do not think that is likely."

Somehow.

"Unless their world does not have them."

Hmm.

Boyd takes another drink.

"So this mean you joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union?"

Dan is rarely grateful for dying when he did (leaving the boys behind, leaving his Alice alone, leaving their ranch to struggle and wither in the Arizona sun) but missing out on Prohibition is one moment where he will indeed count his blessings.

"Though I suppose the distance traveled depends on just how far your present locale really is from the end of all the universes," he points out. "S'an awful long trip from Bisbee, so far as I'm concerned," he adds.

He figures it's a stretch for this man too, but perhaps Boyd will prove him wrong.

X blinks.

"I do not know what that is."

"Means you're against the general existence of alcohol in a way that prevents people drinking it."

The man gets a sidelong look.

"Not familiar with Bisbee." Beat. "Far from Harlan, though. Kentucky."

"Drunk is stupid," X offers, matter-of-factly.

"And dangerous."

Beat.

"And it is not safe. To pick fights. Here."

Boyd raises his eyebrows.

"That a threat, Miss X?"

"No."

Threats are for other people.

"But many people here are jerks."

Present company --

Well.

"It is better to be careful."

"You see anybody else in my immediate vicinity?" he inquires. "You ever see anybody else in my immediate vicinity? I come here to drink alone and go home. That's it."

(He is perhaps not aware of his voice becoming slightly less modulated toward the tail end of all that.)

(There's a bullet in his pocket.)

"Southeastern Arizona Territory," he offers, along with his name (just 'Dan') and the year he 'left' (died), which is a few years after the end of the Civil War.

"I've been through Kentucky," he adds. "Wasn't unpleasant by any stretch."

Minus the part where he'd just lost the leg and was still dealing with the repercussions of the injury.

*Date is ambiguous due to canon inaccuracy re: the construction of Yuma Territorial Prison. Somewhere between 1868-1870.

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