milliways_bar | (no subject)

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It's a quiet day in Central City. No dead bodies have dropped to call Barry into his day job, and a quick zip around the city yields only a mugger and one jaywalker who would've been pancaked by a garbage truck if 'The Streak' hadn't been there to rush him to the safety of the sidewalk.

(Seriously, he needs a better superhero name.)

With things so chill at home Barry is glad when he finds Milliways in his apartment. He was looking for something to eat, but the fridge and cupboards in his place are bare.

Obviously it's time for him to join Costco or something, but in the meantime...

"Hey, Bar," he greets the counter, sliding onto a stool wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt. "Can I get a-- "

A platter appears with deli meats and cheeses all cut down to fit on the accompanying Ritz crackers. It's the type of tray usually made to feed small armies of party guests.

"--snack."

Barry grins and while he starts assembling cracker sandwiches, Bar produces a chocolate milkshake; which earns a wary glance from Barry, but he soon discovers this one isn't a protein ruse.

[ooc: Here all day, and this will be open through the weekend.]

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He nods understanding to Baze, but again leaves the subject alone.

"I've got a lot in Central City, it would be hard for me to ever leave it." He doesn't really consider himself as 'stuck', but the truth is he is.

"A tactile system," Barry says with a nod. "We have one called Braille. That's cool that Bar could get you something like that. Heck, I think it's cool just the fact that everyone can all communicate at all here. Countless worlds and places represented and we can still all understand each other? It's pretty wild."

"I hope you never have to," Baze says, appreciating the knowing nod. Barry sure is wise for a young man!

"I didn't consider that for a long time after we'd arrived," Baze says, with a quick grin. "For some reason, I thought everyone was speaking Basic."

"It is how most of our galaxy works - I have heard Basic isn't so commonly spoken in Hutt space, but on most inhabited worlds Basic is the language of trade." Chirrut explains, stealing another piece of cheese.

"See, that's interesting, too," he says, voice expressing his intrigue. "To have that many worlds with one common language. It makes sense, for trade like you said, but coming from Earth, just our one planet has a multitude of languages, spoken and written. Even world leaders sometimes have to operate through translators because there isn't just one core, universal language."

He shrugs a little, taking up a pepperoni. "I guess English is close, but that's probably more American arrogance and assumption than truth," he admits. "I've never traveled to another country so I really wouldn't know."

"Jedha didn't have very many languages," Baze says, and counts them off on his fingers. "There's Basic, of course, and Jedhan, and the thieves cant which was found practically everywhere. The pilgrims which came to the temple spoke all manner of languages, however. I made it a point of pride when I was a kid to learn as many idiomatic curses from them as I could. Like the Jedhan curse, 'You can go pound sand.' That's a good one."

"And there's also..." Chirrut launches into a long rolling Jedhan phrase that has him grinning like a loon. It's one of his old favorites, that offers acerbic commentary about the parentage, morals, cleanliness, and sexual proclivities of the insulted all in one phrase. He loves it, it's so economic.

"That one... isn't for polite company."

Edited 2017-06-03 05:05 (UTC)

Barry laughs, amused by both of them.

"Yeah, I'm terrible at swearing so I don't think I have any good ones to give you guys."

"Oh, there are a lot of swear words that we know," Baze says, made giddy by Barry's laughter. "Kriff, farkled, crink, skogging... Honestly, I could go on all day. The Hutts--a large, alien species with prehensile tails and no legs--have the best insults."

"He can go on all day, I've heard him." Chirrut reports, bland as bland can be. "Didn't even repeat himself once."

Barry laughs again, shaking his head at the pair.

"Didn't you guys work in a temple?" He's just saying.

"It's true, Master Sheotar used to clean my mouth out with soap when I was a kid," Baze says, and do please forgive him if his tone turns a little wistful. Grief wraps a vice around his heart, turning him cold. He shoves his sorrow down, resolutely ignoring it.

Later. It can come up later.

Or never. Never is good, too.

"But she was the only one who really cared," Baze says, laughing. "Our order was rather violent, compared to some. It deserved swearing."

"The Jedi would be more severe." Chirrut explains, "Due to their belief that drawing on the Force with any emotion more negative would lead to their downfall. The Guardians believe that the Force is made up of every facet of emotion - to only follow one side is to court unbalance. I do not know if this works because there were none in our order who could actually use the Force's power to their own ends, or because we were, actually, correct."

A twinge of guilt hits Barry when he hears the wistful notes, but a moment later Baze's laughter eases it.

"Joe would have had me by the ear if I thought about popping off like that," he says with a chuckle.

Barry considers what Chirrut says about the Force, shaking his head a little. "It seems to me people are always going to have a variety of emotions. Suppressing the negatives ones seems like it would just... make them worse."

"Joe is wise," Baze says, grinning. He makes himself another Ritz cracker sandwich, and nibbles thoughtfully. "Bottling emotions certainly makes them worse. Grief will find an outlet, and anger hurts the vessel it's stored in more than that it's poured out upon."

Ask him how he knows that, Barry. Go ahead, ask.

Chirrut wants to know if the various stormtroopers Baze has shot during the occupation of Jedha would agree about the anger thing. He's not disagreeing, he's just saying they might need to spread that philosophy around a bit more.

"I take it your world's religion isn't so... even-handed?"

"That's deep." He says it with a smile, but he's by no means mocking Baze. The words have merit, and Barry takes them to think about.

"My world has a lot of different religions, but the basis for most isn't in emotions, but in actions. Doing good. I guess. Some people take it to crazy ends, and it's been cause for a lot of conflict, but overall just... being a good person, helping others is what I take from it," he shrugs, not being the best person for religious dialogue.

Baze is relieved that Barry decided not to give them a comparative religions lecture, like Harman. He has no doubt that Barry could have, if he truly wanted to, given his penchant for good explanations. But the information is largely useless to Baze, who probably won't visit Earth, and certainly won't take up an Earther religious order.

"We've heard a little bit about Earther religions," he says, just barely managing to keep the dryness out of his tone. "From Harman, a Jesuit priest who comes here. Have you met him?"

"If you do, don't get muddy near him - he really doesn't like that." Chirrut adds, grinning.

Barry thinks about it a moment, then shakes his head. "I haven't."

Looking between the two, he kind of gets the sense that, that meeting wasn't the best.

"Muddy? Like, with dirt?" he asks and chuckles.

"When we first arrived here, we showed up lying prone in the mud, and had a brief wrestling match in it to celebrate finding each other again," Baze says, with a quick grin. He plucks up another cracker. "Harman objected strenuously. He told us we were going to contract UTIs."

"He would bring it up every few minutes. I think we were stressing him inordinately." Chirrut giggles. "I hope he's recovered."

"UTI's?" Barry cants his head, puzzling through that one a moment before his eyes widen. "As in the infection?"

His expression and voice both shift to show confusion and that he's slightly disturbed.

"Why would he-- was he a doctor and a priest?" Or just a really weird priest.

"I... I don't know," Baze says, cocking his head to the side. "I don't think he was a doctor, but people have surprised me before. Can you actually catch a UTI from playing in the mud?"

"We didn't think so - either we have been incredibly lucky all of our lives, or..." He trails off with a shrug too big for his frame.

"I mean, I-- " Barry gives his own shrug, a bit helpless for explanation. "Maybe if you were naked? But otherwise... That's just a really weird thing to fixate on, I'm sorry."

But it seems like maybe they feel the same way.