milliways_bar | (no subject)

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william douglas

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It's a long way to Arizona and back. A guy can only carry so many Twinkies at a time if he wants to stay aerodynamic. He might actually have to stop and nap once or twice along the way, which is no fun at all. It's not the kind of thing that even Peter does lightly.

Not that he'll admit that.

Anyway, he's back from the longest run he's undertaken yet and according to the TV Richard Nixon has declared he's not a crook, so that's cool, he guesses. Peter's just gonna flop in one of the Bar's chairs in the meantime and chill out because he can. It's all good.

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William looks a little startled when he comes through the door, but--right, all right, it's the bar. Milliways. Might as well pick up something to eat. And, when he spots Peter, might as well sit over by him and nod a greeting over his cup of ale. "Been here a while?"

"Eh." Peter wiggles one hand in midair. "Just got back from a long trip. Figured what the hell, nobody'll notice if I crash here a while. How're you doing?"

"I'm no so bad. Haveny been here in a while, wasn't expecting it. But it's all right to see the place, get a decent meal." He offers his plate: there's a good pile of fries. "Where were you off to?"

Hey, starches. Awesome. "Arizona," says Peter around a mouthful of potato. "Tracking down my grandfather. I don't think I'm gonna make that trip again. The guy's a jerk."

Starches with fat and salt! What could be better? William snags a handful and nods, stuffing one into his mouth. "Aye, I mind you were going to look him up. Did he tell you anything about...?" Shrug, another mouthful of fries: no pressure. Family stuff. Father stuff. It gets sensitive.

"Dad? Yeah," says Peter. "That'd be why he and Mom quit talking to each other. Zayde thought she had seriously rotten taste in men and it turned into a yelling fight."

He nods again, slowly. "Was anything he said useful, though?"

"Yeah, sorta."

More fries. Several of them. In a row.

"Remember that guy I broke out, who shot the- what we have instead of a king?"

"--Right," he says after a pause. It's been a little more time for William than has passed in the bar, but yeah, he remembers, now that it's mentioned. "Was that--?"

"Yep."

Peter kind of wants to run his hands over his face, but man, fry grease. And ketchup.

"Haven't told Mom I know yet."

"Sure, you've got to think what to say to her." Mothers sometimes cry or get mad or do other uncomfortable things. "Does she know about breaking him out of prison?"

William looks into his beer, and gives it a little tap. "Eh, want me to get you one too? Or something else?" Because that's a lot to take in. A person might want a drink.

"Eh." Peter wiggles one hand in midair. "She knows I went somewhere with a couple of guys she hadn't seen before, that Magneto escaped right after that, and that I came home right after it happened. And that I snicker whenever it comes up on the news. She hasn't asked me what I did so I'm guessing she doesn't really want to know. Somebody might ask her and then she'd have to answer."

"I could use a drink, sure. Coke's good. Or whatever."

"Knows as much as she needs to, then. ...Coke?" He looks suddenly doubtful. "They make that stuff to drink too?"

His introduction to coke was from young Jim Moriarty, and it came in powdery lines.

"I mean Coca-Cola. The brown kind, not the snorting kind," clarifies Peter, who is after all from 1973 and has seen and heard plenty about the world of recreational chemicals. "Coca-cola doesn't actually have the other kind in it any more."

"...Aye. Right." Sure. He knew that. He totally knew that. He'll just go get some of that brown coke, the cola kind.

When he comes back, it's with the coke and another plate of fries too, which he sets down between them. "Hungry work, running across the world? --You said you have sisters, aye? A twin sister?"

"Thanks. Yeah, two of 'em," says Peter. "Wanda's my twin, Lori's a lot younger. Lori's the one who goes around pretending to be a princess."

(OOC: The movies do not give a canon name for Peter's little sister. I have no idea if she's supposed to be Polaris or Zaladane or what. Lori will just have to do as a name until someone at Marvel gives the word.)

"Talked to Wanda about it yet?" Not that sisters are people you really talk to about things, as far as William's concerned--but a twin sister, that might be different.

"Not yet," admits Peter. "I don't really know what I'm supposed to tell her, exactly. She doesn't get all that upset about not knowing who Dad is unless one of her teachers brings it up in class or something. I'm thinking I should tell Mom I know first. Last thing I want is Wanda mentioning it in front of her when I'm not ready."

William rubs the back of his neck. "That's true enough," he says thoughtfully, "you wouldny want them talking and it coming out wrong."

What would he do himself? He'd, hmm... "I reckon if I were in your place, I'd save it up till I was about to be out of the way for a good long while. Well--" He laughs. "Let's be honest, I'd mean to, and then it would just sort of come out after supper and we'd have a great row about it on the spot and then there we'd be. But your mother must have been thinking she'd tell you something, some day, aye?"

"Yeah, she's like that," mutters Peter. "She's one of those people who waits as long as she possibly can before she comes out and says something important. I dunno if she's hoping I'll guess things myself or if she's just... really bad at knowing when to tell me things. It was like that when she sat me down for the Talk, too. She always thinks I don't know until way after I already know."

"Which Talk...? But any rate, seems like you might as well have it out with her sooner. Just jump in wi it and get any fighting out of the way. Or...maybe I'm no the best one to give advice. I'm all right talking with girls, just not mothers and sisters."

"They probably do it differently where you come from," says Peter. "'The Talk' in my country means when your mom or dad sits you down to tell you where babies come from, and then does a horrible job of telling you about sex because they're too embarrassed to use the real words for anything, so they talk about birds and bees and seeds and fountains and turn red in the face."

"Aw Jesus, you had to talk about that with yer Maw?"

Aw Jesus. "I think I'd die."

Peter snorts, and reaches for a handful of fries. "I don't have any uncles, so when Mom got pregnant with Lori she figured she'd better tell me what happened," he says. "I mean, I already knew. There was a kid down the street from me with a mom who worked in a doctor's office, and his mom gave him a book and said 'here, Doctor Brightstein says this'll explain things', so I read his book. Made it a lot less embarrassing when Mom tried to tell me."

"Oh, I've got nine brothers and sisters living, there's no fucking mystery to anything, but christ, I'd no want to sit down and make my mother talk through it all."

God. It's bad enough hearing things from his father. "--They have all that in a book? That wee bairns can look at?"

"I just couldn't believe that Mom seriously thought I'd believe all that fountain and garden stuff." Peter shakes his head. "Yeah, it's a book about the human body, not just that part. Things like how your eyes work and what your lungs do, and what's happening in your body when you get sick or a cut gets infected."

"Oh." He finishes off his beer and nods. "Well, that makes sense for a book. And you've got the books like they have here, don't you. With..." He's not really sure how to put it, so he just shrugs. "It's no some monk drawing pictures."

"Well, they use pictures, but it's a doctor or something who drew them," says Peter. "But they're printed like the other books here, so anybody could buy one at the store."

"Hey, if you want to know what your insides are doing with those fries right now, I bet you I could get a copy from the library they have here."

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