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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Baze's eyes widen, and his mouth makes a little 'o' shape. "Oh! Ohhh. That... really is a weird thing to fixate on. It's... nice of him to be concerned. Yes."

Baze doesn't even know what to say to that. He flounders, accidentally mimicking Barry's fish-like gaping. "So, um, we should change the topic. Chirrut, come up with something, won't you?"

"Ahh..." Chirrut is equally gobsmacked, but valiantly attempts to rise to the occasion. "Do you... like... tea?" When in doubt, retreat to tea - it's worked for him so far.

Yes, Chirrut, please! Barry turns to him expectantly, willing to take any topic at this point.

"Ah, yeah, I drink more coffee than I do tea, but I like it okay," he answers, nodding. "Do you have a favorite?"

He doesn't have much to say on tea, but he'll try and stretch the topic as much as he can to put distance between themselves and the other.

Ah, tea! Baze could rhapsodize about tea for hours.

"Chirrut's favorite is sapir, which is delicious--it's a green tea which tastes of life and growing things," Baze says, cheerfully ordering Chirrut another cup. Bar provides. "I myself don't have a favorite, though chav is all right--it goes down smoothly, and coats the palate--but don't you dare offer me that nasty Tarine stuff. That starts out a little sweet, but then turns bitter and acidic, and the mouthfeel is weird. Lately I've been having Bar surprise me with teas, and asking for recommendations from patrons I've met here. I am always searching for the perfect cup of tea."

Edited 2017-06-05 18:39 (UTC)

"Taurine," Chirrut adds, long-sufferingly, "Is fine. It's cheap, it's plentiful, it won't poison you. Baze just hates it because it was all we could get on NiJedha some... months."

Years.

Whatever.

"Yeah, having the same thing all the time can get pretty old. It's a great thing that you've got Milliways now to give you whatever you'd like."

Barry decides then that he should try more things now that he's found Milliways, too.

"Like I said, I don't drink a lot of tea, but in the summertime Iris makes a sweet tea that's pretty great. As far as I know it's just Lipton and sugar, but she insists there's more to it than that and I can never get it the same so I guess there must be some kind of secret to it."

[ooc: AHH, I'm sorry, y'all! I thought I had replied to this and either never hit post or the internet ate my tag.]

"I'll have to try this Lipton," Baze muses, nibbling on a cracker. "I wonder if Bar can provide your friend's tea? And why does she only make it in the summer? Tea should be drunk year round."

(OOC: No worries! That happens.)

"Especially in the coldest months - any excuse for something warm." Chirrut has made tea from leaves that no longer really imparted any flavor to the water, just to have something to wrap his hands around to keep them warm.

"It's an iced tea, so it's pretty perfect for summer. Central City can get kind of hot around July," he replies.

He looks at the counter, ready to ask and smiling when Bar provides without him having to.

"I guess she can," he says with a chuckle, sliding one glass to Baze and lifting one of the others to offer to Chirrut.

"Here you go, Chirrut. It's pretty basic, but I like it." He holds out the tea, the ice tinking gently against the side of the glass.

"Iced tea?" Baze says, raising his brows. "I've never heard of such a thing. Back ho--on Jedha, ice was the purview of the very rich. I'd never tried it until we cane here, and then it came in a bucket. Which I dumped in Chirrut's lap, naturally."

Naturally.

Baze pulls the glass towards him and takes a gulp--no cautious sips for him!--of the cold tea. He lights up with a warm smile. "That's delicious! Your friend sure knows how to make a good tea. July is a month, right?"

Chirrut takes his glass with a word of thanks, though Baze earns a sour expression.

"Can you believe that, Barry? We get ice for the first time, and his reaction is to try and send me into shock."

He's only mad because Baze beat him to the punch.

Barry lifts his own glass and takes a drink, nodding in approval. Personal bias would have him believe that it isn't quite as good as Iris's, but it's still pretty tasty.

"For real?" he asks, a bit surprised. "For us ice is always just a quick trip to the kitchen away."

Barry tries not to take things for granted, but he certainly never thought of ice as a luxury.

Hearing their first encounter with it he laughs into another drink from his glass, nodding to Baze, "Yeah, July is a month. Some days it can be hot enough that you don't mind an ice bath."

"Well, the thing about Jedha was that the water... When we turned on the faucet, we had to wait until the water bled red, then black, then changed to something approximating clear. You wouldn't want to freeze that," Baze explains, cheerfully drinking his tea. "Fresh water had to be imported, and the very rich would import ice, too, I imagine. They probably had it in buckets, too--which they likely didn't dump in other people's laps."

He shakes his head. "I can't even imagine a whole bath of ice. Baths seem like something else that should be kept warm."

Chirrut, who has become increasingly fond of baths, looks properly horrified at the idea of an ice bath.

"Do people really do that? Bathe in ice?"

Barry makes a face when Baze describes the water on Jedha, shaking his head. "Yeah, no, I can see why you wouldn't want to freeze that."

Or drink it really, but he can understand if that was all they had.

Setting his glass down he chuckles about the ice baths. "I was kidding, but actually they do. Athletes, mostly, especially runners. They call it cryotherapy, and it's supposed to help with circulation and muscle recovery. My friend Caitlin has been trying to convince me of the possible benefits, but I'm a hot water guy myself so I say nooo."

"There was a lot of boiling of water before consuming it on Jedha," Baze says, raising his tea glass in a salute before draining it. "And the water made the tea taste just awful, being as it was. I much prefer our situation here."

He laughs. "Yes, you'd mentioned you were a runner. Do you really run enough that a recommendation for an ice bath is justified?"

"Now it's the water making the tea taste awful. Some day he will admit it really wasn't that horrible." Chirrut sighs, long-suffering. "How much running would justify an ice bath? I... don't know that this number actually exists."

He still can't wrap his head around someone willingly doing this. It sounds horrific.

Oops.

"Me? Ah, not-- not really, no. Sometimes, y'know, on occasion I'll uh... run. If you could call it-- " In addition to fumbling his words Barry also bobbles his glass, nearly knocking it off the counter and just managing to save it from tipping over on the snack platter.

Righting the glass he snaps his hands away from it, composes himself and very casually says, "Y'know, I'm more like a jogger, really."

Very smooth is Barry.

"Usually it's distance runners who do the ice bath thing. Marathon runners training to go twenty-six miles in a few hours."

Something Barry would never do (it would take him minutes).

That's a lot of protest for a jogger. But if Barry doesn't want to talk about how much he runs, Baze isn't going to force him, by any stretch of the imagination. Still, Baze does wonder why Barry's friend would recommend ice baths for him if he's just a jogger.

But first, to answer Chirrut.

"That tea is kriffing terrible, and you know it," Baze says, scoffing. "You're not going to get me to budge on this."

He's just glad he doesn't have to drink it anymore. He turns to Barry. "Tell us about this friend of yours--Caitlin?"

Edited 2017-06-17 03:48 (UTC)

Well.

That was an interesting reaction. It's not an outright lie... but...

But.

If Barry wants to avoid the topic of his running, so be it. He hardly knows Barry, he doesn't have a driving need to ferret out this truth.

"The tea was fine, and watch out, Barry. This one's secretly a horrible sap."

He really needs to learn to curb that knee-jerk reaction to act like a loon whenever his secret comes up, and he will (sort of), but for now it's just good that these two don't feel the need to press him.

Running his thumb along his eyebrow in a nervous movement to settle himself out he cracks a smile at the two's exchange.

"Well, at least you can get whatever kind you each want now," he says, not about to take sides on the tea issue.

Smiling about Caitlin, he's much less awkward talking about her than when Iris was brought up earlier.

"She's a doctor. She's my doctor, actually. She's been acting as my personal physician for a little while, making sure that I'm doing okay, but she's also a neurosurgeon and bio-engineer."

"Thank the Force for an impressive tea selection," Baze says, indulging in another cracker. "Why do you have a personal physician? Are you rich?"

Chirrut chokes on his tea.

"And you call me the rude one." He snorts, moved to laughter rather than further rebuke. "I'm never letting you forget this."

Barry laughs as well, shaking his head.

"No, not rich. I uh-- I was struck by lightning about nine months ago." Which is weird and awkward to say, but no secret. "It put me in a coma and I woke up just a few weeks ago."

He gives a shrug, because it's crazy and he knows it.

"Caitlin and the people she works with at S.T.A.R. Labs saved my life, and they've been helping me in my recovery." Which is all true, minus specific details.

"A few weeks?" Baze says, his eyes widening. "That's... You must have missed out on so much! Your foster father must have been so worried, too. Oh, man, that's awful. I can't even imagine being in a coma for eight or nine months."