milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The piano attracts him like a moth to flames; he can't keep away.

He circles around it, getting nearer and then walking away. Watching, waiting, wondering.

Then someone else sits down to play and Gren's not sure if he's relieved or annoyed or if he just doesn't care. After all, doesn't he have all the time in the world? It feels as if there have been days of nothing, nothing at all. Just reliving (reliving? is that a joke?) what happened the past few days before he was here.

Instead of watching the piano and listening to the beauty of the music it produces from close range, he takes the seat nearest to the corner stool at the bar. Old habit.

He misses making music. Wanted: one tenor saxophone, a box or two of reeds, a swab cloth. No sheet music required.

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She comes down the stairs, slipping on her sunglasses as she does.

The hair is a dead giveaway. She smiles and walks over to him.

"This seat taken?"

"I'm kind of saving it for someone special."

He flashes her one of his quieter grins. "I was wondering if you'd be here. I think no matter where I go from here -- if I end up in a bar at the other end of the universe, or if I get reborn, or if I find out none of this has happened and it's all a cosmic joke -- I'll never see a corner bar stool without thinking of you. Please, sit and join me."

He taps his fingers lightly on the bar, playing an imaginary piano. "I also think I should let you have your room back."

It's only polite, after all, and he is a polite person even in death.

Smiling softly, she joins him.

"I have that effect on men," she says playfully.

At his next comment her smile fades, just slightly. "I like having you there."

"Do you?" He blinks at the thought, and a few more follow. Thoughts like I'm used to having my own place and the company is nice and I don't know, Julia. Without you I might just be lonely.

Usually, he knows, the last thought is the most important one and the others are just so much noise.

"Would you be lonely?" He rests his head on his hand, watching her. "We can't have that."

Then he sits upright. "Have you eaten? You're pale." (He's still warm, warm, warm, like he's just come from sitting by the fireside: flushed and happy.)

"I think I would be, yes." She runs her fingers across the bar top.

"I'm always pale," she says, turning to him, light glinting off her sunglasses. "But food sounds good."

"Then maybe we should stay together. That way neither of us would get lonely. But I have two conditions for it."

His conditions aren't very severe. They never have been: they usually only involve the little things like trust and honesty and friendship.

Gren turns to face Julia squarely. "The first condition is that you have to eat something, even a little bit, every day. And the second is that when you're cold, you let me keep you warm. I think I have enough heat for both of us."

There's no innuendo to his words; he doesn't work that way and besides, women aren't really his style. He's just telling her what he needs.

She laughs lightly, but it feels good. It feels like it's been so long since she laughed. She feels...a little alive.

"Okay. But, you pick the meal."

"It's a deal. Should we shake on it?" His eyes do that crinkle-into-a-smile thing they're so good at and he ponders the concept of food.

Humans are energy-collecting food processors, when it all boils down to it. He hasn't been able to feel a heartbeat since he died, but he hasn't given up on that yet. He's still sleeping and he's still dreaming and he still gets thirsty and, from time to time, hungry, and he still likes his showers and he still brushes his hair and he still has music in his soul.

"How about... sesame beef and rice... with snow peas. For two, and two cups of green tea." He's watched other people order and he knows what to do now because it's simple and because he's a quick study. It takes a moment, but the food does appear; Gren slides one plate and one cup of tea and one napkin and one pair of chopsticks over to Julia. They're normal restaurant chopsticks wrapped in a thin sheet of paper; the writing on them reads Milliways Bar, est. before you knew it.

He laughs, always having appreciated a sense of humor.

She laughs at the writing on the thin sheet of paper as she unwraps her chopsticks.

The tea is delicious, as is the food, which she can feel warm her throat and stomach as it goes down.

"This is delicious. You always had good taste."

A man in a white T-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting black trousers slips in from outside. The piano and player get a long, thoughtful look; he shakes his head and turns to the Bar instead, where he's awarded something that could conceivably be limeade in a glass.

There's an open seat. It's next to the other guy's.

Gren turns and looks when he senses someone sitting next to him.

He's had a lifetime of practice assessing other men; he lived in a city with no women. Watching as the bar serves up something greenish in a glass, Gren shrugs. "Hello."

With a nod.

He tilts his head to one side, considering the words.

"Maybe. I'm not sure I always had such good taste in friends."

Titan was a long, long time ago, though, and war makes for strange bedfellows... so to speak.

Gren lets out a small sigh, but it passes by and he picks up the chopsticks and tastes the food, and it's actually quite delicious. Almost as good as the brandy-and-ice-cream dish he had the first time he was here.

What's dead, he wonders, if we retain the pleasures of living? Does it matter? And if it does, what difference does it make? I don't feel wiser; I don't feel omnipotent. I'm just warm, that's all.

"You're right. It is good." He leans into her just a little bit, glad for the company, glad for the friendship, glad for the food, glad for the shelter.

He's been exercising. He looks it. To a much lesser degree he smells it; there's very little of that trace hanging around him, really. Must've gone swimming or something. He's unarmed, and he gives no obvious indication of being a threat at the moment.

Rho looks up and nods politely. "Evening," he replies. "This seat wasn't taken, was it?"

Gren looks at the man, and looks at the seat, and looks back at the man, and at the seats next to him.

"Only by the most invisible of creatures." He shrugs, smiling. "No, it wasn't taken."

He's used to teasing. He's not sure everyone else is used to being teased, though. "I'm Gren, by the way."

"Didn't think there were any Karabantians in here," the man says in a deadpan tone. "All right, then. Thanks. Name's Rho, myself- good to meet you, Gren."

Rho pauses and looks Gren over thoughtfully for a moment. "Not to ask an intrusive question of a total stranger, but do I by any chance resemble someone you know?"

He shrugs, rubbing his chin. "Not unless you're visiting from Callisto... or Pluto and if it's the latter, I didn't do it."

That last one makes him smile. "Should you look familiar to me?"

"Neither of the two at the moment. Just plain old mother Earth this particular juncture, I'm afraid. Haven't been to Callisto in a couple of years and even that wasn't for more than a Terran week."

He shrugs. "Six out of seven people I've met since arriving here last night've mistaken me for somebody who apparently used to be quite a common visitor. Thought maybe you were another one who thought that."

The food is really good and she is doing her best not to just inhale it all. It's not very lady-like.

Between bites she asks, "Have you met anyone here?"

"I just got here; I've only met a handful of people and your doppelganger isn't one of them. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful."

Again, he shrugs. "But you've been to Callisto?" That's kind of fascinating; most people haven't been... although I wasn't there a couple years ago. Chilly place, isn't it."

It's an odd enough place for anyone to visit, never mind call home.

The tea is hot and despite his own warmth radiating, it still feels good in his hands. "I met... a crazy girl with a knife named Alice, I think, and a very pretty boy. His name was Nathaniel. There was a girl named Ed who lost a frog named Phil, and a young woman named Kim who told me about flowers called lilies." He sips the tea.

"Have you?"

With a tiny purple flower tucked behind one ear and her wand tucked behind the other, Luna takes the neighboring spot at the bar. She orders a butterbeer, humming distractedly to herself, and finally gives the man beside her a sideways glance. And then another.

"You have very long hair."

She thinks it's rather pretty.

"That's all right. To tell you the truth, it's kind of a relief. I'm a little tired of arguing in favor of my own identity."

He nods. "Chilly's not the half of it, although..." He considers Gren again, thinking. "We might be going at this from the wrong angle. What Terran Standard Year were you there for?"

"You have very blue eyes."

(So does he.)

He watches her with the amber bottle and it smells sweet, not like something he'd expect. "What is that you're drinking?"

Terran Standard Year? That's not the term he knows, but he's smart. He can extrapolate. "2070, 2071. How about you?"

He wonders if this man -- Rho, he called himself -- knows about Blue Crow. It's one of the bigger cities there. He also wonders if they're from anywhere like a similar point in time. He guesses he'll find out.

"Ah. Later in the developmental process, then- I was there for some less-than-pleasant treaty negotiations in 2002. Missed each other by a considerable margin. They were just starting to take foundation soundings in earnest when I arrived..."

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