milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"You have GOT to be kidding me."

Standing in the open doorway, Cisco stares at the bar shaking his head.

With a sigh he tosses his toolbelt onto a bench beside the doorway and steps through into Milliways, letting the door close behind him.

His annoyance at what he had to go through to get here evaporates quickly, and when he takes a seat at the counter he’s all smiles.

"Hi, Bar. Remember me?"

That is absolutely not a squeal of delight when Bar produces a napkin with a cheerful greeting and a mug of Butterbeer to go along with it, anyone who hears one is clearly just imagining things.

Taking a drink, he turns on his stool to observe the bar at large, wondering just what exactly he can get into this time.

[ooc: link leads to a short oom.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh yes, those references definitely register. Visibly.

"Three for three," says Andrew, with evident delight. "There are definitely people here who've been, shall we say, on an extended trek across the stars."

Cisco's face breaks into a wide grin and he claps his hands together once.

"Oh maaaan, I love this bar!" And you, Andrew! But in a kindred-nerd spirits kind of way.

"Okay, so look, it sounds like you've been around awhile and know a thing or two about what's awesome," he notes, dropping his tone to a more confiding level. "How do you not like, geek out when somebody tells you they pilot an X-wing?"

Because Cisco seriously almost sawed his tongue in half holding it on that one.

"Dude, it is the hardest thing, you just have to develop a poker face. And like -- don't tell people you know them from a movie, or know stuff about them that's private, until you give them a chance to get used to the idea." A rueful look crosses his face. "Full disclosure? First year I was here, I accidentally freaked out this little kid because I --"

Midsentence, he remembers he's talking to someone from the same canonical universe as some variant of Bruce Wayne, and edits what he's about to say on the fly.

"-- recognized his name and knew who he was gonna grow up to be, and that was definitely my bad."

"Yeah, that was the first thing Barry made me promise not to do when I got here." It's been SO HARD.

"But, damn, that's messed up, man," he says about the kid, before admitting, "And probably something I'd do. I guess I gotta keep on my toes until I get the poker face going."

"Tell you what I do," Andrew confides, "when I can, I'll drop something in conversation early on, to explain why I might know stuff. Like, if I'm talking to someone from that galaxy far far away? I met Princess Leia here, a bunch of years ago, so as soon as a chance comes up I'll tell them that. And then if I accidentally say something about the Rebellion, or the Jedi, there's an explanation right there for how I'd know about it."

Half a beat, and he adds "Course, that doesn't help so much with, like, screaming internally because you just met Princess Leia."

Cisco doesn't squee, but he does squeak and reaches out to grip Andrew's shoulder.

"Dude, you met Princess Leia? Princess Leia comes here? Has she hooked up with Han yet, or is there a chance... OH MY GOD, DOES HAN SOLO COME HERE?"

"Sorry to disappoint, new friend," and he does sound genuinely sorry, "but the princess hasn't been back here in years, and I only saw Solo once or twice."

A long beat.

"Indiana Jones used to be a regular here, though."

Cisco draws his hand back, a flash of apology in his expression, and then he says, "Yeah, but you saw him."

Cisco has all the envy right now.

"And Indiana Jones. Damn, bro, you've got like all the fantasy hero bingo boxes checked."

"Yeah, well." He does not look smug, but it's taking a special effort. "You hang around here long enough, sooner or later everybody walks in."

"I'm holding you to that," he declares, pointing at Andrew. "In the meantime I'll work on my poker face, and the whole not spoiling people for their destinies thing."

"Good man," he says approvingly.

"... Also it's probably fair to warn you that when I say everybody, I mean, that's not just limited to the good guys."

"For real? Okay, as awesome a brag as it would be to say I got force choked by Darth Vader, I'm thinking it'd be a sucky experience," Cisco says, frowning. "Do the bad guys actually stick to the rules here, or should I have my superhero backup on standby at all times?"

"Sometimes they do, and they're willing to abide by the neutral ground thing and leave outside business outside. Sometimes they take advantage of the neutral ground thing to be smug about how you can't touch them, and the sucky part there is you have to let em do it." He looks a little sour about that.

"And then sometimes they'll be like 'rules, pff, rules are for lesser mortals' and attack somebody, and then depending on the scale, either Security arrests them or there's a big battle."

He nods, getting all of that.

"Yeah, Barry was telling me there was a throw-down with a Balrog recently." Cisco is both disappointed and extremely glad he missed that encounter.

"Wasn't here for that one, but I heard about it," he says ruefully.

"... There's a fourth kind of thing that happens here sometimes, though, with bad guys. Sometimes they wind up going down a different path than the one you're expecting."

"Okay, I'm interested, explain," he replies, giving a 'go ahead' nod.

"Well, so just for instance ... a bunch of years ago a young guy came in here who was barely out of high school, but already well on his way to becoming so powerful and so evil that people wouldn't even say his name. Course by time he got to that later point in his life, almost nobody knew his real name, so his earlier identity was let's say a riddle."

A quick glance: with me so far?

Cisco's eyes narrow as he puzzles through that, then widen and he gasps when he gets it, nodding rapidly.

Yeah, he's with you, Andrew.

"Okay, but let's say he spends some time here and maybe meets some people. Folks he never would have met if he'd stayed back home. And I don't know, maybe he makes friends, maybe something more than that. Maybe he has a couple of life-changing experiences here. And, long story short --"

He gestures widely. "Poof, alternate timeline where Lord Don't-Say-His-Name never existed, and there's this guy somewhere else who maybe once dreamed of being an evil overlord but really he's a lot happier where he is now."

"Milliways reformed the Dark Lord?"

"... basically yeah?"

Andrew spreads his hands palm up and smiles, in semi-conscious imitation of the shrug emoji.

"That's so awesome." Cisco grins. "And also interesting, because it means that things really don't necessarily happen the way we uh, might've seen."

"Right. I mean, if you've seen it, it's probably happened somewhere -- but the person you're talking to might not be from that particular timeline?"

He lowers his voice. "What I still can't figure out is how the stories leak like this. People are writing stuff that they think they're making up, but somewhere it actually happened. Is that some kind of narrative causality, or is 'making up' just some bizarre extra-extrasensory perception where you tune in to actual events on some kind of multiversal frequency, or what?"

He considers the issue and options, and shakes his head. "I don't know, man, have you ever seen Stranger Than Fiction?"

"... is that the one with the guy who starts hearing his life getting narrated? I remember the trailers but I never saw it."