milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Hey, YT," John says with sincere appreciation. "Nice to see you.

"Nice to see you too, Miss Stella." He offers a hand for the poodle to sniff. "Aren't you a pretty girl."

“He’s cool, Stella,” YT says. The dog happily approaches John’s offered hand, sniffs it, and then starts angling to get his hand in a good position for a scratch behind the ears.

“She is a pretty girl,” YT says, sitting down an an adjacent seat. “But, y’know, every dog is beautiful in their own way. Even the the teeny yippy ones.”

John doesn't need much encouragement to scritch.

"I've never seen a poodle this color.

"Teeny yippy ones have some sort of redeeming quality, I imagine. Perhaps they're good at cuddling or catching bugs."

“I think red and apricot poodles are kind of unusual, or something?”

YT did a lot of reading on poodles when she and her mom first got Stella. But that was a few years ago.

“Little yippy dogs are the way they are because someone bred their ancestors to be that way for a reason. Like, every toy dog breed is some combination of exterminator, watchdog, and low-tech personal warming device.”

"I suspect they are."

He goes on lazily scratching Stella behind the ears, enjoying the Soft.

"Poor dogs," he tells Stella, "getting so messed up by humans."

Stella looks up at John, knowing that he’s addressing her but mostly just enjoying having the top of her head scratched.

“There’d be no dogs in the first place without humans,” YT says. “But we made them love us and then we do shitty things to them, like breed them in ways that make them sick or chain them up outside or put them in dogfights.”

And then there’s the Rat Things, but that’s a little more complicated.

“Stella was from a poodle rescue. Her mother was a show dog and the owner was trying to breed more show dogs, but Stella didn’t make the cut because her eyes and lips are the wrong color for a show dog, or something stupid like that.”

John snorts. "Show dogs," he says with disdain. "You're perfect just the way you are," he tells Stella.

He says to YT, "Aside from looking after your dog, what have you been up to?"

“The most exciting thing that’s happened to me lately was a party that the cops broke up.” YT takes a drink of her beer. “I mean, we were out in back of this mansion, one of those big movie star mansions, but no movie star lives there. Nobody has for like a year now. That nice big swimming pool was just going to waste.”

They weren’t even vandalizing anything. Just skating in the empty pool. Okay, maybe they were littering a bit, but that’s no big deal, right?

"They got you on trespassing, I take it." He snorts again.

YT rolls her eyes. “We weren’t bothering anyone or breaking or stealing shit. But, like, we don’t have the deed so we weren’t supposed to be there”

Unfortunately, a thrasher’s notion of appropriate usage of big concrete-covered spaces (and ownership of same) is more liberal than conventional notions of property allow.

John's not a thrasher but he's squatted, so he gets it.

He sums it up with, "Damn pigs."

“A-fucking-men. At least they didn’t pinch anyone.”

They were MetaCops, who are generally out of shape and loaded down with gear. Makes them rather slow on foot.

“Other than that, it’s just been school stuff and work stuff.”

Of course, YT’s ‘work stuff’ involves skateboarding in traffic, but for her that’s just normal.

“What kinda stuff have you been up to these days?”

"Same as usual." He drinks some whiskey. "Tracking down demons and sending them back where they belong. It's physically draining, which is why I came here. Have a drink and chat until I feel like I can handle going back to it."

“So is what you do like that stuff in The Exorcist? Because that seems pretty intense.”

"Sometimes, yeah, but I don't do the Catholic ritual most of the time. I've found others that are more reliable."

“The Catholic ones sure as shit didn’t work in the movie,” YT points out, by way of agreement. “What kind of stuff do you do instead?”

"It depends on the demon," John explains, "or the situation. There are Tibetan spells, Hebrew, Creole, Latin, some you can even cast in English. It depends on what materials you have available or the faith and strength of the person casting the spell."

“So, okay, you have to figure out what kind of demon it is, what you’ve got on you that’ll work, and then basically use whatever thing you have to wrestle it into submission.”

Damn, that sounds exhausting. No wonder John needed a break.

John nods. "Just so." He adds with a wry smile, "At least the pay is terrible and I never get a vacation."

YT snerks. “Maybe you should unionize the demon-hunting wizards.” Pause. “Are there others? Demon-hunting wizards, I mean.”

"There are others."

Beat.

"We all hate each other."

“Man, that sucks.”

Stella decides she has had enough skritching and wants to nap. She withdraws from John and goes under the table to lie at YT’s feet.

“How’d that happen? Just professional rivalries? Or did the folks who taught all of you hate each other too?”

"None of us are good at sharing," John says, and folds his hands together to rest on his chest as they talk, now that he doesn't have a dog to distract him. "We've all got talismans or spell books or what-have-you that someone else wants. There's a lot of professional jealousy, too, or philosophical disagreements. For instance, I use any school of magic I can learn, while most mages focus on a single tradition. That upsets people."

“Man, that’s dumb. I mean, the part about covering each other’s magic shit, I can kind of understand. But getting snobby about mixing magic? It’s fucking demons and shit, who cares what you do as long as it works?”

YT has gotten a little agitated. Stella, under the table, is looking up at her with some concern.

“Well, anyway, there’s magic books in the library that probably none of those other assholes have. And there’s some other magic types here who probably won’t care how you do your thing as long as it’s only the demons who get hurt.”

Her agitation causes John to look at her with concern, too.

"It's been this way for centuries," John says, and touches her arm lightly to soothe her. "People like their traditions and want them respected, and trying to find your own path is regarded by them as disrespect. Honestly, though, it makes it easier to find your real friends.

"It's all right."