milliways_bar | (no subject)

Lilly comes over, smiling.

"What up, sai?"

Cuthbert glances at her, perhaps a bit warily.

"Long days and plasant nights...Lilly, isn't it?"

Lilly looks mock-affronted.

"Kooshbert, you can't remember my name? I'm totally hurt."

Cuthbert snorts. "Yes, it's a terrible thing when you can't get someone's name right, isn't it?"

Being Cuthbert, he looks a bit exasperated, but mostly amused.

Lilly looks solemn.

"It is, indeed. And that is why I have brought you a gift, Kooshbert."

She tosses something at him. It's a rubber ball filled with something like jelly and covered with hundreds of rubber spikes, and it's rainbow-colored.

Cuthbert catches the object easily, and then blinks and stares at it, turning it around in his hands.

"Dare I ask...?"

Lilly beams.

"It's a kooshball! It's your namesake."

For a moment or two, Cuthbert continues to examine the kooshball, looking a bit perplexed. Then, he glances back up at Lilly, grinning.

"Alright, this? I declare, as of now, is Kooshbert."

"Kooshbert junior," Lilly corrects. "Take good care of him. He's very impressionable."

She pokes the ball.

"See?"

"And I'm a bad influence. We'll get along famously."

He shields it from Lilly's poking. "Hey, you don't just poke a man's kooshball like that!"

Yes, that statement just came from someone who had never seen or heard of a kooshball ten seconds ago.

"So, tell me, Lilly...anyone else have fun nicknames from you, so I can at least go laugh at them and feel better--I mean, commiserate?"

Lilly laughs. Kooshbert Jr. is clearly in good hands.

"Well, let's see. Mal is now known as Captain Mu Ji, but that's totally his own fault. Don't drink tequila with the dead if you aren't prepared to limbo, you ken? Oh, and your friend Roland would be the Bad News Sai if I thought he'd get the reference."

Cuthbert chokes.

"You've met Roland?"

Well...she doesn't look like she's been shot recently.

Lilly beams.

"Yes! And at first I think he wanted to kill me with a pistachio, but now he's coming to my karaoke party. So he'll probably kill me after that instead."

Cuthbert is now looking at Lilly with an odd mixture of amusement and horror.

"I'd say you're probably safe as long as he's only armed with pistachios, but knowing him..."

Lilly nods.

"Grumpy, huh? Yeah, I caught that. God, does he ever need to just loosen up a little. The party'll be really good for him."

Cuthbert snorts.

"Grumpy's one way of putting it. As for loosening him up...I have no arguments, but should probably warn you that I've been trying to get him to loosen up for twenty years or so, with extremely limited success."

He tips his hat to her briefly as he adds, "So, I salute any efforts, but you'll pardon me if I don't await your success with bated breath. Although getting him to attend a party is impressive, I must say."

Lilly smiles.

"Thanks, Koosh. And yeah, I got him to do that the second time I'd ever talked to him, so maybe you've softened him up enough that I will be able to shake the stick out of his ass. Or not, seeing as the whole reason he's going is that I promised to leave him alone till then. Whatever, he's still going to end up singing karaoke."

Blink. Headtilt.

"Karaoke?"

Lilly tilts her head back at him.

"You've never heard of karaoke?"

"Nope. You said singing...is it some type of music, from your world?"

Lilly grins.

"Kinda, yeah. It's a machine that strips the lead vocals from your favorite songs and displays the lyrics on a screen so you can sing them instead. It rocks, you'll love it."

Cuthbert looks a bit perplexed, but nods--he thinks he gets the gist of it.

And then, he does his impression of a deer in headlights. It's quite good. He's had practice.

"Me? Thought you said you'd talked Roland into going."

Lilly blinks.

"All the gunslingers are going. Everyone is. It's not really about whether you're talked into it or not so much as whether or not you come peacefully."

Cuthbert eyes her warily.

"Telling you I can't sing worth a damn is not going to buy me anything, is it?"

Lilly grins.

"Not a thing. Everyone says that. Have a few drinks, you'll be convinced you're a diva."

And there's a Susan, on the couch by the fireplace.

Smiling at him.

Cuthbert returns the smile, and heads over to join her.

"Evening, Susan."

"Long days and pleasant nights, 'Bert."

She holds out a hand to him, still smiling.

"How do'ee fare?"

It's not an idle question, although she doesn't look worried.

"And may you have twice the number." He sits beside her, taking her hands and raising it to his lips briefly.

"I'm well enough." There are still things weighing on his mind, but he's in good mood tonight, despite them. "And thee?"

"I'm well, say true." She looks it, and sounds it also.

"It's been -- busy, mayhap, but things are well enough at present."

He nods, then looks down at their joined hands for a moment before speaking again.

"Did thee get Eddie's note?"

She nods even as her smile fades, and her look becomes grave. Susan says quietly,

"I did, aye. And talked with him, and Roland as well."

Cuthbert looks at her steadily, his own expression intent.

"You're with us?"

His tone makes it clear that he, for his own part, wants her with them.

"Of course--"

She looks surprised.

"--how could'ee think I wouldn't wish to be?"

Cuthbert smiles, and it's a bit sharper than the smile he usually wears around Susan.

"Just making sure. Like Eddie said, it's important to know we're all together on this."

"One from many," she reminds him, gently but without a hint of doubt in her words.

"And thee were the one who first assured me that it were so, that I were a part of it."

He smiles faintly--it seems incredible now to think there was a time when her place among them was uncertain.

The smile fades, then, as he looks down for a moment.
"Susan...I don't know if this really needs to be said, but I remember when we talked about the chance of my going after Faith, and..."

He looks up, eyes meeting hers. "I mean to do my part of whatever fighting there'll be."

"Thee are a gunslinger, Cuthbert."

A quiet breath, even as her hand tightens on his.

"And so, I know thee will, aye."

Cuthbert looks into her eyes for a long moment.

To love a gunslinger is always to accept certain risks. No one ever warned Susan about that before she fell in love with Roland.

But she's always been strong.

He nods wordlessly, squeezing her hand.