milliways_bar | (no subject)

Taking Indy's advice to meet people to heart, Baldrick, chef's hat and all, wanders over with a copy of tonight's dinner specials.

"Hi! Can I get you anything to eat?"

Lilly looks up, smiles.

"Sure, sai."

She takes a look at the menus.

"Can I get just like, a cheese and vegetable pasty? I don't want anything big, I have a party later."

"Righto!" A moment later, and Baldrick returns from the kitchen, hot pasty in hand.

"Hey, are you one of those gunslinger types?"

Lilly giggles.

"Yeah, not so much. I just stole their slang. Thanks for the pasty, sai."

"You're welcome, sai." He chuckles. "I'm Baldrick, by the way. Milliways sous-chef under the great Gil Whimple."

"Nice to meet you, Baldrick," Lilly says, smiling. "I'm Lilly, DeadNeptuneCaliforniaEarth2005."

"I'm from Kensington, London, England, 1798. Er, and not dead!"

"Hope none of the woe and doom in the bar hasn't been affecting you?" he asks, 'cause there's sure been a lot of it about today.

Lilly shrugs.

"It involves my friends, of course it's affecting me. Right now I'm just trying to help them out as I can."

"Yeah, a few people I know are affected... quite badly. I'm just trying to make sure the kitchens don't collapse in the meantime!"

"Anyway, must get back to work. Nice to meet you!"

And he bounces off back to the kitchens.

"Hey, pretty lady," Logan said, grabbing her. "What's up with the doomsday patrol around here? It's like it's the. Uh. End of the universe or something?"

It's a feeble joke, turned at the last possible moment from a statement about it being the end of the world.

Lilly smiles, kisses him lightly.

"What up, sai? You noticed the general air of misery, huh? It's been a really rough week around here."

Logan wraps one arm around her, squeezes her. "What's the story, then? Because I'm not getting a warm and fuzzy from the aura around here. It's got to be majorly bad, no?"

Lilly leans her head on his shoulder, nods.

"Let's see... Xander's boyfriend broke up with him. Meg's boyfriend left to return to his own world. Crowley, a demon who's one of my friends here killed himself to stop from being annihilated by the Angel of Divine Vengeance. He'll be back when he gets a new body from hell, but no one, including his boyfriend knows when that's going to be. Indy's friend Svava went off to fight in her universe's apocalypse despite knowing that according to prophecy no one survives. And Bernard..."

She pauses.

"Bernard's fiancee and this guy Bill, both wizards, got captured in their world in a war they're fighting. They're probably being tortured right about now. So. Yeah. Pretty damn bad."

Logan is silent for a minute, stroking her hair. When he speaks, his voice is hushed. "Huh. Almost makes Neptune like a day at the beach, doesn't it?"

"Wait, Svava? Blonde girl, pretty, serious? I met her. A few days ago. Apocalypse..." he falls silent, thinks about it all.

Lilly grins wryly at his comment about Neptune.

"Yeah, seriously. I swear, all this shit makes being left to die by my mother seem like a Hallmark moment."

"I didn't know you'd met Svava. I'm sorry."

He laughs softly at her comment, then sobers quickly.

"I only met her the once," he says softly. "But she was really nice, and really brave. I had no idea what she was talking about half the time, but it's making more sense now."

He sighs. "Is it a tequila sort of night, m'dear?"

Lilly tilts her head, smiles at him.

"It might be, yeah. You know I think most nights are tequila nights anyway. I can't get too drunk though, I have a party later. I have to save some drunkenness for that."

"Most nights ought to be some sort of alcohol nights, especially around here," he says lightly. "I think you should have a few drinks, just to get in the right mood for the mystery party."

"Uh, where did you get the idea that you needed to talk me into a few drinks?" Lilly asks, laughing. She waves down a passing waitrat.

"Hey there, can I get some tequila and a couple glasses? Thanks!"

It's a few minutes before the waitrat returns, as bar is slow today, but he does eventually return with the requested items.

Logan downs his tequila quickly and pours another. "So, who's the party for?" he asks. "And why aren't I invited?" He's trying to sound teasing, but the mood in the bar is getting to him, and he sounds rather querulous.

Lilly sips on her tequila, eyeing Logan.

"It's a birthday party for a friend of mine, Alain. He's not a big birthday guy so Kooshbert and I are keeping it small, just people who know him. Otherwise you'd totally be invited."

Logan takes his second drink more slowly. "No worries," he says. "But...Kooshbert? Now there's a kid whose high school years were a misery."

Lilly giggles.

"That's not his real name, it's like... key youth bert or something, but when I met him it sounded like Kooshbert to me and so that's what he became. He even has a kooshball named Kooshbert junior now."

"Nice one," he says. "Lilly Kane, introducing American pop culture to the multiverse, one strangely-named man at a time." Logan raises his glass, toasts her.

Lilly clinks his glass, smiles as she downs more of her tequila.

"You'd be surprised what I manage to get done around here. Pop culture's just the beginning."

"Do tell," Logan says, arching his eyebrows. "You certainly are a popular young lady, but then, that's no surprise."

Lilly arches an eyebrow right back at him.

"Not worrying about my popularity already, are you? You're still top of the list, you know."

"Not me," he says, frowning a bit. "Just...stating the obvious, I guess. Should I worry? Because I can get on that if I do."

Logan sighs. The mood at the bar seems to be rubbing off on him; he's just a bit tetchy.

"I don't think so," Lilly says. "But you can decide for yourself, you know the people I'm with around here, Nathan and Ophelia and Pete and all."

As soon as Lilly says Peter's name, she groans inwardly. That'll calm Logan right down, or not.

"No," Logan says coolly. "I don't, in fact, know the people you're with around here. Except for Pete, and I do know him. Please forgive me if knowing you're hanging about with him doesn't ease any hypothetical worry."

Except, it sort of does, weirdly, because Logan gets the vibe that Pete is a very one-woman sort of guy, and would expect that one woman to reciprocate in monogamy.

Still, Lilly doesn't need to know that.

Lilly rolls her eyes, knowing that this is probably partly her fault, but getting annoyed anyway.

"Remember how you were the one who didn't even want disclosure? Why are you freaking out now? And you have nothing to worry about from Pete, at least not on my end."

"I didn't," Logan says curtly. "And I didn't ask to know, you just started telling me of your conquests. I don't want to know. And maybe I do, maybe I don't have to worry about Pete. I'd really rather pick for myself, thanks."

"You asked," Lilly points out calmly. "You wanted to know if you should worry, and I told you. I thought it might be reassuring that Pete's on the list. I mean, sure, he thinks he's in love with me or something but he's a one-woman guy and I'm anything but a one-man woman."

She knows perfectly well that this isn't going to do anything reassuring for Logan, but, well, there were reasons they broke up a lot. The ability to provoke each other like this was definitely one of them.

"Right. We're all clear on that. Doesn't mean you won't decide one tequila night, that you don't actually care about the realities of the situation, and fuck his poor British brains out and leave him pining for you until the next time you get drunk enough to forget all of your principles."

It's low, Logan knows that, but he also doesn't care. He just feels the need to lash out, to make her hurt. Like he hurts, just knowing things will never be the same with them, that she's had this whole other life here, without him or anyone else from home in it at all.

Lilly smiles, calmly and infuriatingly.

"Oh, you've totally got a point. I could see that happening, boys do tend to pine for me. Especially after we've had sex. I just fail to see how it's any of your business if it does work out that way."

In a way, this kind of ~~fight~~ conversation is as familiar as the sex they had all weekend, and weirdly only slightly less welcome as a reminder of her past life.

Logan does not calm down in the face of the face of her cool logic.

"Because. They always come to me, you know that? And they think it's my fault, like I have some sort of special claim on your fidelity that they don't, and if I cared to I could stop you from running around. And they yell, and they bitch, and they moan, and usually they hit me, and while I think I can handle the hitting from the average high school kid, your Pete? He has a sword. A big shiny one, which you fetched for him. I'd not like to be on the wrong end of it, thanks. And he doesn't seem like the kind to be forgiving."

Lilly does not point out that he does have a claim on her that none of the others did. She always came back to him, after all. But she doesn't think Logan deserves to hear that right now.

"Please. I don't think you have anything to worry about, Pete's not the randomly stabby type. He's British. He's more likely to glare at you over his tea than fight you."

He definitely doesn't, and if he did hear it, he probably wouldn't care.

Logan also thinks Lilly is entirely wrong about Peter. Likely to glare, yes, but certainly not above a good fight, if the case warrants it.

Logan thinks that to Peter, Lilly would warrant it.

"Whatever, Lilly. You're nuts, and he's crazy about you, and you're going to break his shriveled, unused British heart to bits. You might even feel bad."

Logan stands, juts out his jaw stubbornly. He looks like a very tall toddler.

Lilly sighs, rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, okay. If you're so worried, I'll just tell him not to touch you. If he's as crazy about me as you claim, then he'll listen, right?"

"No," Logan said aggrievedly. "Men do not listen to women about that kind of thing. We are far, far too pigheaded to do that, and, in fact, it generally just makes things worse. Don't tell him anything on my behalf. I'd advise not telling him anything at all about your sexual relationships, but when did you ever listen to me about that sort of thing?"

((OOC: Must go home and crash...shall we finish tomorrow?))

Lilly tilts her head, looks exaggeratedly thoughtful.

"Hmm... never? So I kinda have to wonder what makes you think I'd start now. Death hasn't changed me that much, Logan."

"I didn't," Logan says. "I don't. I'm covering my ass, just like always. It's what I'm best at, after all."

"Pretty much," Lilly says. "Well, that and the thing with your tongue. Seriously, though, you need to just chill the fuck out. Nobody's going to be beating you up over me unless you start the fight."

He nods curtly. "I'll take that under consideration. Night, Lilly," he says as he walks off, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Logan won't admit to feeling about three years old and temper tantrumy, but he does.