(no subject)

"...Mike?"

Don't mind Zuko, he's just going to stand there and blink owlishly at Mike for a minute, like he's just remembering what he looks like (because he did) and hasn't seen him in forever (because he hasn't.)

Just because you haven't seen Mike in a while, doesn't mean he's not there.
He's wiley that way.

"Hey Zuko," he says without really looking up.

"H--hey," the once-Prince says. You, as you do when you're a super cool King now and stuff and are totally chill. Not because you're still socially awkward or anything. "How're things?"

"Eh you know: same day, different apocalypse."
Then a thought occurs to him.
Maybe he's supposed to talk to Zuko about something.
He looks up, and his face goes on a journey.

Oh Hi Zuko! He smiles warmly...and then it all goes down hill from there.
Was I supposed to see Zuko?
I don't feel like I was supposed to see Zuko today.
Damn it, if that's not it, then what?
Wait, what if something is wrong with Aang.
IS THIS ZUKO STILL TRYING TO HURT AANG?
Wait...is the same Zuko?
Why is he this much taller than me?
Was he always this much taller than me before?
Okay, so he remembers me, so not like a new Zuko like there was a new Aang.
He eventually ends up back at smiling, but it's a dubious kind of smile.

Watching the mental gymnastics routine that Mike is currently going through, Zuko leans against the back, one arm up on the bartop and his weight in a comfortable slouch.

Once the worst of the contortions have evened out into a calmer mien on Mike's face, Zuko says, "Yeah I made that same expression when I realized Teja was around still, but couldn't remember if I'd met him before. Or if I knew that the talking cat talked before."

"Effin' Milliways, right?" he says around a good natured chuckle.
"I wasn't really sure when, where, or even IF I'd met you before. Kind of the biggest occupational hazard of the job."

"Yeah, basically," Zuko agrees, thought he's still happy for a brief and weird anchor in the churning sea of multiversal possibility. "But no. It's just me, Zuko. Regular flavor Zuko, I think."

He thinks.

Maybe there was another one and he doesn't know.

"The one who stayed with Wells a while, that one," Zuko supplies to help.

That...is one way to describe Mike, yes.
It actually wouldn't be a bad thing to put on a business card...

"Oh okay! Oh man Wells! I haven't seen him in a dog's age."
That pun is 100% not intentional from either Mike, or the narrator.

"Did you ever get to meet the second Aang? Or at least the second Aang on my watch? I think his kids stop by every now and again."

"Se-- Aa-- kids?"

Well, that was a lot to take in. Obliterated literally everything else they'd discussed, because honestly: Aang having children is so literally out there that he just sort of bluescreened out.

"Sorry," Mike says with a wince. "I didn't mean to like, spoil that for you."
But then that wince morphs into a face so earnest, so sincere, that you can almost tell what's going to come out of his mouth next is not just a lie, but a BIG lie.

"From what I hear though? The wedding ceremony was lovely, and that you were a beautiful bride."

"I mean," Zuko says, voice dry as sandpaper and about as pleasant, "it might be a match that everybody could agree on that would piss off everyone equally."

Mike cackles.
"I mean, you're not wrong. Okay, okay...so bring me up to speed on where you are and what you're doing, and most importantly..."
Mike pauses, does a shoulder roll back across Bar.
"What you'd like to drink."

"Here? Working in the forge and catching up on sleep," Zuko said with a wry grin. "Home? Working on a lasting peace and dealing with a stepfather and half-sister, while my other sister is trying to assassinate me, with the help of my ex-girlfriend's dad."

He sits at the bar finally, and adds, "That's why I'll take a Smoking Mountain with the pepper-jalapeno vodka, not without."

"You know," Mike says flipping the requisite shaker and lid into his hands. "I'm no longer retired anymore, so like...if you need help with the assassins..."

You know you want to see Azula duct-taped to a ceiling, Zuko.
You know you do.

"You're not?" That got Zuko's attention. "I mean, I wouldn't mind -- my sister's been very persistent. Finally got to the point of kidnapping and leveraging stolen children."

There's no coming back for Azula. She's gone so deep down the rabbit hole of her madness that Alice is concerned about Wonderland now.

"Yeah," he drink making motions only sort of slow to a bashful pace. "It was uh, a whole thing a while ago. Might have like...neuralyzed myself."

You know, no big.

"...do I want to know what that means?"

Because he doesn't know.

Before the door is even half way open, Bar will have a feeling of how beautiful she looks today, how good it is to see her again, and how about some of that Alderaanian pale ale she serves so well?

The man who comes in the door is wearing customised plastoid armour, and a smile that says coming into Milliways is the brigthest spark of an otherwise very dull and uninteresting day.

(The dirt on his armour suggests it hasn't been that uninteresting.)

Mike stops looking down at the middle-distance between him and Bar, and looks at Bar. The way she's reacting you'd think that Jack Sparrow had just come back into port.

Then he turns to see the focus of her attention.

"...oh that's just not fair," he say mostly for her benefit.

In order to make it more fair, Obi-Wan turns that smile on him, and drops a half-bow.

"And a good evening to you, too."

guh.
Whelp, it would appear that the pansexuality is still intact.
So there's that.

"Hey there," Mike says with his best grin on display. "Welcome to Milliways. What can I do you for?"

"Well, I was rather hoping for..."

Oh look, Bar already knows. Two glasses of that Alderaanian pale ale previously mentioned.

"...some of that, thank you. You're the barman, I take it?"

"I've been called worse, but yeah, I am custodian of all this.
He says this with a mixture of exhaustion and fondness.

"Is that stuff any good?"

Exhaustion and fondness - a state that Obi-Wan finds himself in more often than not, and frequently directly related to Anakin.

"I like, it, why don't you joing me?"

This is why there are two glasses after all. He slides one over to Mike. "Unless you're prohibited from drinking on duty."

"I'm prohibited from drinking on and off duty. There was this one time with a pocket dimension, a sacrificial altar, and a woman in a chainmail bikini...it's really not worth getting into, honestly."

Obi-Wan lifts an eyebrow, but not at Mike. She could have at least hinted.

Smooth as anything he takes both glasses to himself.

"In which case, yes, it's very good. I think they do a version with the alcohol removed, but I never saw the point myself."

"Is there a problem, and do you need help?"

That's from a newcomer, shy and very pale, in very black robes, his long, very black hair very neat, but with odd black markings running up his neck from underneath his robe.

"I will help you if I can!"

Mike looks up at the new voice, mouth forming a firm line.

"Do you read minds?"

"No, sorry!!" the pale new person says, flustered. Who knows, uninvited mind-reading might be a thing here?

"You're just making a very thinky face, and not a happy one. May I help you, please?"

"Oh well that's just my regular thinky face. Chances are good if I'm being thinky about anything, it's probably not all that much fun for me."

Or anyone in my direct vicinity, he doesn't say...but it's implication hangs heavy in the air none-the-less.

"Can I help nevertheless?" the pale young man perseveres.

John notices the confused-looking bloke and says, "Crossed a threshold and forgot why, eh? Happens to the best of us. Sometimes going back helps."

Mike looks up, and only slightly starts at the appearance of John Constantine.

"Is that a thing?"

John shrugs. "Among people who believe in folk magic, it is. Thresholds can be dangerous places, depending on what you believe."

"You know it's funny, I think around here it doesn't really matter what you believe, so much as whether that idea believes in you."

John chuckles wryly. "I'd like to meet some ideas and see what they have to say, in that's how it works."