milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The day has finally come, and Wilford realises there's one thing that actually scares him.

In the end, it all worked out, and this time Wilford was sent home without fuss.

After spending way too much time lying down, Wilford had to get up to move around a little. Funny enough, even though this time it's only his face that's causing him problems this time, moving around is still incredibly uncomfortable. He's still fuzzy and tired enough when he steps through the bar that it takes him a few long seconds to realise where he is. He didn't intend to be here, but he can wallow in misery here just as easily as he can at home. He heads over and lies down on the sofa near the fire.

His entire jaw is swollen and bruised, to go with that black eye that still hasn't quite faded from the weekend, making him look like a battered chipmunk. A few moments after he gets comfortable, a rat brings him a bright orange frozen smoothie - with a spoon rather than a straw - from the bar. After a quick taste, he determines that 1, it's peach and delicious, and 2, there doesn't seem to be a hint of dairy in it. He can't eat it very quickly, but it's still helping.

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Maybe something else will help. Birthday presents cheer everyone up, right?

Admittedly, the circumstances of this gift are a little unusual. For a start, there's no one there to actually hand it over. Secondly, it's delivered by means of a rat dragging over an enormous birthday card, one with a massive pink clown on the front. (Jim is sure Wilford just loves clowns.)

Inside, it just says Happy Birthday! in jovial letters, followed by your gift is at the bar.

And there it is. Not being held by Bar, but tied to her.

It is quite large, for something so small.

...perhaps young would be the better description, because it's never really going to be small. But it is very cute and it does have a big pink bow around its neck, one end of which is being chewed. Well. Chewing is being attempted. It's more drooling, really.

...yeah, it's a puppy.

Happy birthday, Wilford.

It's a damn good thing the morphine is all out of Wilford's system by now, because he'd have written the entire thing off as a weird hallucination. As it is, he's just... confused.

Why is he getting obnoxious birthday cards? And from whom? And how do they know it's his birthday? Did he mention it to anybody recently? He can't remember. Ugh.

He waits until he finishes his smoothie to get up to see what the hell is going on next, and trudges right past the puppy. He asks the bar about this mystery gift, and gets only a napkin. With an arrow. Pointing vaguely in the direction of the puppy.

What in the fuck.

The puppy - who has not been named, despite the unbearable temptation to call it something absolutely terrible - sees someone looking at her, and stops trying to gnaw the ribbon. She gets to her feet, tail wagging hard enough to almost push her over, but a bit too shy to step forward.

Cute, though! So cute!

Nope. Nope nope nope. He is not doing this. Someone else can do this. Wilford does not want it. He turns to go home, because fuck this shit. He's not even going to pretend to be doing this.

The Bar has other plans, because that leash that's tied to her? Magically becomes untied. Before Wilford even has a chance to notice, a very sad and affection-starved puppy follows him home.

Walking by with a basket with a baby porg in it, Cisco spots Wilford and stops in his tracks, flinching back.

"OH, who dented your face, man?"

It's a good thing the dog isn't here, or that would be a basket full of ex-porg. Apparently those things are delicious to former street dogs.

"An over-paid surgeon," he says. Kind of. There's a lot of mumbling happening right now.

Cisco tilts his head, trying to make sense of the garbled words.

"You paid someone to do this to you?"

Looking Wilford over again, Cisco asks, suspiciously, "Was this some sort of Face-Off thing and you're like really Nick Cage under there?"

"What?"

He's not even high right now, so there's no reason for words to be this confusing.

"No."

What?

"Hey it's Milliways, you never know," he replies.

Sometimes his crazy-ass theories turn out to be true!

"So what was it then? Wisdom teeth?"

He motions vaguely at his face, as if that's not what the current topic of discussion is. "Fixed an old break."

Which is an extremely mild way of putting 'major reconstruction 20 years after the fact.'

"Oh, ouch." Plopping down into a nearby chair, Cisco sets his basket down on an end table. The porg chick inside rustles around, but it's just eaten, so Cisco should have at least a few minutes before it starts shrieking again.

"That sucks. What's your recovery time like?"

"Not quick enough."

That smoothie feels amazing on that spot where teeth used to be, but aren't anymore. He was really hoping to avoid that part.

"Hm. Well, at least you get all the ice cream and slurpees you can suck, right?" Bright side, maybe?

"Nope. Can't have ice cream."

But he's got a smoothie! The smoothie is nice!

"Can't even use a straw 'cus the took my teeth."

He's going to be annoyed about that for a long time.

Cisco prods the backs of his own teeth with his tongue, then shakes his head.

"That is literally the worst. It's like those dreams, y'know? When all of your teeth fall out for no reason, and then you wake up and you're freaking out, worried that they're gone... "

He gives an exaggerated shudder to the thought.

"Only for you, they are. And as I told a friend of mine recently, those puppies don't grow back."

Wilford looks at Cisco for a loooong moment, and then blinks a few times, as if to make sure that this is all really happening.

"Jesus, I'm not even on anything. What??"

No. Apparently he doesn't know.

"Ohhh, you've never had that dream? It is the freakiest," he assures Wilford. "My friend Caitlin, she's a neurosurgeon, she says that in psychology those kinds of dreams can represent a person's inability to assess emotional experiences."

While he speaks Cisco digs into his shirt pocket and pulls out a sucker, opening the wrapper and popping the candy into his mouth.

"I guess not having them says you're either pretty terrific at figuring out your emotions, or you're a sociopath and emotional assessment just doesn't matter to you."

"Of course. I'm fucking terrific at everything." Wilford wishes he could smoke right now. These nicotine patches are not strong enough for dealing with other people. They've managed to mostly fend off the baiting sarcasm, right up until now, which was apparently the limit of what Wilford could handle.

"And you mean psychopath. If you're going to insult me, get it right."

He's totally joking, right?

"Hey, chillax, nobody's insulting anyone," Cisco says, holding his hands up with an awkward laugh.

"Dream reading is a pseudoscience anyways. I mean, if it were real then what deep and insightful inner psyche revelation could something like dreaming about eating the world's largest tostada reveal, right?"

"I remember you," Wilford says suddenly. "You're from the world where supervillains don't even try, aren't you?"

Of course dreams are meaningless. Except for when they're not, and need to be taken absolutely seriously.

Cisco sits up straighter, affronted.

"What do you mean our supervillains don't even try?"

A beat, and he hastily amends, "And what do you mean supervillains? Because, y'know, those aren't a thing. That I deal with." Ever.

Nope.

"You sure that wasn't you?" Wilford asks.

Maybe Cisco was being hypothetical during that conversation. Wilford wasn't. And he's too out of it to notice any extreme denial right now.

"Mmm, no... no don't think that was me," he denies, taking that freebie 'get away with it' card and playing it.

"You told me about your crazy stuff, though, with the werewolves and whatnot, and the Foundation. You also mentioned cults."

That card is working, because Wilford is too out of it to care.

"Yeah, we got a lot of them too."

Which 'them'? All of them.

Yup, Wilford's world is on the list of 'places not to see' for Cisco.

"Must make your job easy. You're a reporter, right?"

"Journalist. There's a difference," Wilford says.

He tries to re-settle himself on the sofa. He's sick of being still, but hasn't got the energy or pain tolerance to do anything else.

"Yeah? What's the difference?" he asks automatically. Obviously it's important enough to be corrected on, so he'd like to know.

"Reporters are told what to say. Journalists figure out what everyone's not saying."

He gives up on being comfortable and decides to finish off his smoothie.

"They're both better than news readers though. Those fuckers'll say anything they're paid to say."

Edited 2018-07-10 19:50 (UTC)

"So not a talking head, gotcha." Cisco gives a thumbs-up.

"You look uncomfortable there. Anything I can get you?" he offers.

"Shot to the face?" Wilford suggests.

It might actually be less uncomfortable than this. A thought suddenly occurs to him. When was the last time he saved? He has no idea.

He spends a few moments looking confused and vaguely concerned about this, but being confused and concerned isn't getting him anywhere. A brown leather journal appears suddenly in his hand, like it was always there, and he clumsily flips through the pages. Before he gets to where he meant to be, he stops at a page where he seemed to be logging saves about every twenty minutes. What the hell was he doing three years ago that necessitated that?

"Shot as in, you want me to punch you, or shot of something pain-killer-y? Either way, I don't think I can help you without going to the infirmary. Sorry."

The confused looks are a little concerning, but when the book just appears out of nowhere Cisco's brows lift and he laughs.

"OH! Houdini. How'd you do that?"

Wilford answers both of Cisco's questions by pulling a loaded .44 Magnum out of the same place the journal came from.

He doesn't hand it over just yet. He flips to the end of his journal.

And he saved this morning. He doesn't remember doing it, but it's there, in his writing, so he must have done. He's in enough pain that he actually offers the gun over.

"Just avoid this area," he says, motioning to the lower half of his face.

The appearance of the gun makes him flinch, and he's stunned enough that he accepts it dumbly.

Holding it well away from himself by the hand grip the same way a person might hold out a stinky fish, Cisco blinks at Wilford.

"You say whut?"

He's not seriously suggesting what it sounds like he's suggesting, right?

Wilford's journal disappears just as effortlessly as it appears.

"It's not going to be distracting if you hit where it already hurts," he points out.

Wilford is so casual about it that Cisco finds his words and capacity to blink.

Also, his sarcasm.

"Oh, so like, just put a slug in your leg, then?" he says, waving in Wilford's general direction.

A beat, and then Cisco ramps up to shouting, "ARE YOU CRAZY?! I'm not gonna shoot you, man."

Wilford actually flinches at the sudden shouting.

"Fuck, then why'd you take my gun?" Wilford snatches it back before it can be confiscated, all gun safety totally disregarded.

For a brief heartbeat Cisco tries to hang onto the gun, but an instant later he surrenders it, brushing his hands off quickly.

"Because you gave it to me!" he replies, shaking his head at Wilford. "What the hell is wrong with you? You sure they just fixed your face and didn't do a full lobotomy?"

"You took it, after I told you what I wanted you to do."

For fuck's sake, people are so annoying.

Now Wilford's arguing, which makes the pain even worse. Maybe there's a bridge he can jump off of somewhere nearby.

"I didn't think you were serious. What kind of sense is that? Your face hurts so you want someone to shoot you?" Clearly the man is nuts.

Wilford shrugs, and the gun disappears again. "Yeah, why not?"

He doesn't want to shout and argue right now. His entire face hurts, which was the entire point.

"Because it's crazy," he replies, fully ready to argue right now.

"I thought you said you weren't a cultist. That is some straight up Kool-aid logic right there."

Wilford rubs both sides of his face. As much as he doesn't like the disconnected way they make him feel, those pain killers the doctor gave him are starting to sound real good right now.

"Oh, go away," he says, lacking the energy to even try to argue.

"Oh, I'm goin'," Cisco assures the man holding his hands up and walking. "Whatever you got might be catching."

And Cisco just got over a batch of crazy, thank you very much.

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