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Wilford is still hiding out in the bar until he can go home without having to explain why he has to pass his story off to someone else. He's managed to clean up a little bit, and the bruises have mostly faded, but he's still not going to be doing any running for a while.

He's found a book to flip through, and is doing exactly that over by the fire. He is a bit upside down though, with his legs over the back of the sofa, and his head down over the front, so his hair is brushing against the floor. His glasses don't really want to stay in like this, but he's willing to put up with it for now, while Buster licks the side of his head like the weirdo he is.

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Baze still has a sun painted on his cheek from Jay's party. He's still cheerful from it, too--though he has a slight hangover. Still, a little hangover never stopped Baze Malbus! Despite the headache.

"Hoi, Wilford! May the Force of others be with you," Baze says, his staff--made twice as heavy as a standard bo by its cortosis core--slung over his shoulder as he approaches. "Why are you reading upside down?"

Buster looks up at Baze, but Wilford barely moves.

"Because some big son of a bitch stomped on my knees," he says, perfectly calm and un-accusatory.

Indeed, his knees are still a swollen, bruised mess, but it's all hidden beneath his funky pyjamas.

He lowers the book to actually get a look at Baze, and has to fix his glasses in the process. "Good god, was there another holiday here?"

If there was, he missed it when he was feeling sorry for himself up in his room.

Wow, those are some funky pyjamas.

Baze cackles, but it soon tapers off into a sheepish grin. "Oh, yeah, I may have seen that guy around," he says, shaking his head. "Apparently he loves stomping on knees. It's a real epidemic."

He grounds his staff, holding it in a loose grip. "No, no holiday, but Jay Todd had a birthday party. It was huge, and a lot of fun. Sorry you missed it, but I suspect you wouldn't want to dance anyway, what with your knees and all."

It's almost an apology. If Wilford squints.

It sounds suspiciously exactly like an apology, with the way Wilford goes about giving them.

"No, probably not."

This is only barely comfortable for reading. Carrying on a conversation like this, when he has to fix his glasses every twenty seconds is already getting old, so Wilford slowly works his way to being back upright. If there's a bit of grumbling like an old man when he moves, well. Blame the knee-stomping guy.

As soon as he's settled, Buster hops up onto the sofa with him to resume licking his hair.

"Maybe next time, I'll have to give him more than just a broken nose."

Next time, he won't be dead-on-his-feet tired. Maybe.

Eww, dog spittle. Gross.

"I don't know about that," Baze says, scratching his bruised, sun-painted cheek. Offering Wilford a broad, toothy grin, Baze places a foot on the edge of the couch, and pushes it slightly back.

"A broken nose is pretty vicious, especially if you headbutt the guy. But I suspect he's probably okay with taking punishment, especially if he's as big and scary as you say he is," Baze says, laughing once more. "Did you ever get some sleep?"

Wilford's.... used to it. This is just his life now.

When Baze pushes the sofa back, Wilford gives him a look that plainly says 'wtf r u doin?'

"Enormous motherfucker," Wilford confirms.

But he's used to hanging around people bigger than he is. Baze should meet his camera man one of these days.

He shrugs. "Here and there. Fuckers here at the clinic are useless as ever. Gave me a cup to piss in, and then took it away before I even got to that point."

And those pain killers vanished in the first hour and barely did anything. Naturally.

Baze gives him a shifty look in return that clearly says, "nothin'. what are you doin'?"

He beams at being called enormous, then frowns at the mention of Wilford's troubles. Baze hides nothing on his face, and he's even worse at falsifying emotions.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Did you manage to get any more weed? Maybe that will put you to sleep."

"I don't want to go home. The door'll probably disappear on me for another four years."

Which is exactly what he's trying to avoid right now, by not going home. He does look marginally better today though, after a string of catnaps here and there.

"You don't know anyone who deals do you?"

He could probably get some from Jim, but well. For one, he hasn't seen the slimy bastard around lately, and for two, that would involve asking Jim.

"Nope! You're the only one I know who even does drugs--well, aside from that fine gentleman who smelled of spice," Baze says, back to being cheerful again.

"Does your door disappear every time you go through it?"

Wilford snorts. The morals around this place are hilarious conservative at times.

Like, all the time.

"You need to make a few new friends," he says. He finally pushes Buster away from his head, because it's starting to get really gross.

"Not every time, no. But I've lost years before. It's why I keep him here."

"Naaah," Baze says, waving his free hand.

"I like the friends I have. Which is not to say I don't want to meet new people. I do. It's just, I've got no use for drugs. Aside from the occasional drink of alcohol or smoke of weed. That stuff is hard on the throat, though--I could have coughed for days."

"You get used to it," Wilford says. "Or you don't, and you make brownies with it instead."

It's too bad he probably can't get anything like that from the bar.

"It's not as good that way, though. Eventually, they'll be putting it into all sorts of stuff, to make it more appealing to people. Maybe I'll bring you some. I've heard the real good stuff will still knock you on your ass."

"What's a brownie?" Baze says, cocking his head to the side.

"And if you want to bring some, sure, don't let me stop you, but only if you want to. I don't want to put you out. I can share moonshine or something similar. Maybe red ale."

"It's uh." How do you explain a brownie to an outer-space monk?

Wilford snaps his fingers at a rat until it gets annoyed enough to take his order. He doesn't expect them to be at all special, but he could do with something sweet all the same.

"Proper moonshine, or that stuff they sell at liquor stores?"

"Moonshine that I've made, which has a kick like an angry tauntaun, so it's about as 'proper' as you can get," Baze says, grinning toothily.

Baze places an order for surprise tea as well.

"Would you like some moonshine, Wilford?"

"I have no fucking idea what a tauntaun is, but that sounds about right," Wilford says. "I could go for something like that."

He has no idea what surprise tea is either, and isn't sure he wants to know.

Surprise tea is just Baze and Bar's arrangement to give him new teas. It's nothing special, but Baze is a tea snob.

"We'll have to go to my workshop to pick it up, which we can do after we eat the brownies," he says, watching the rat skitter off. Baze is really looking forward to trying something new!

"And a tauntaun is a bipedal snow lizard which stands about eight feet tall and can be ridden. They've got really big feet, and strong, powerful legs."

Bipedal snow lizards? For some reason, the mental image that produces is something like this. Which still doesn't seem all that out of the ordinary, all things considered.

"Not a lot of other people around here have stuff like that. What are they like?" Wilford asks.

He wants to see a bipedal snow lizard! He might even want to shoot at it!

Edited 2017-09-02 22:18 (UTC)

Baze shifts his staff to his other shoulder. "Well, they smell really bad," he says, wrinkling his nose.

"And they've got two sets of nostrils--a larger set for taking in air when they run, and a smaller set for grazing and keeping out snow. They run up to ninety miles an hour, and they've got a pair of wicked horns to do battle with. Wampas eat them."

Okay, maybe not quite like what he first pictured. But that's cool! He still wants to see one!

"And what is a wampa?"

Is this what it feels like for other people when he tries to explain how his world works?

"A wampa is a white, carnivorous beast with a height of three meters tall and an average mass of 150 kilograms," Baze says, leaning his staff on the couch to collect his tea and brownie from the returned rat.

The drink is a Russian Caravan blend, which has a smoky, malty taste
Baze takes a gulp and makes an approving humming noise. He also takes a bite of the frosted brownie--and this, he clearly approves of, too. "Mmm, that's good! But yeah, wampa beasts stun their prey and hang them upside down in ice caves for later snacking."

Wilford barely has a chance to reach for one of the brownies before his dog decides that it belongs to him, resulting in a small little tussle right there on the sofa. It eventually ends with Buster getting pushed down onto the floor.

"We got stuff like that. Maybe not that big, but it's not unheard of for whatever creature that crawls out of the darkness to save its kills for later."

Becoming one of those saved kills is a pretty good way to guarantee that you won't reset.

"What keeps 'em in check? You guys got hunters for these things or something?"

"There are some hunters out there that collect wampa skins and display them as trophies," Baze says, devouring his brownie and thoroughly enjoying himself.

"But the wampas live on a deserted ice planet called Hoth, so no one really runs into them at all."

"Someone must," Wilford reasons. "There's always some dumb, horny teenager who thinks nobody's going to find him if he goes out to the middle of nowhere."

Once he's done with his own brownie, he lets Buster come back up onto the sofa. But the last thing he needs right now is his dog getting sick because he ate a little bit of chocolate like a goddamn idiot.

What does the teenager being horny have to do with anything, Baze wants to know. But asking would probably bring up an uncomfortable topic of conversation, so he bites his tongue.

"Yeah, maybe," Baze says, non-committal. "So, why do people bake weed into brownies? Those were delicious, by the way."