milliways_bar | (no subject)

At the bar, Susanna lifts her head from her book and blinks.

"Asking if you had a bad day's probably too much of an understatement for me to bother," she murmurs.

He snorts.

"Yeah, you could say that, lady. You could definitely say that."

"On a scale of one to ten, about a fifteen?"

The more often she comes here, the more often she finds herself quoting people from the hospital.

It's odd.

"Actually," he replies as his ritual Corona with lime appears, "more like a negative 4.8 times thirty."

He looks to her.

"Got a name, babe?"

More quietly, "Susanna."

She's not always too good with pet names. It only takes her a minute to remember that this is Milliways and there is no Trouble Lurking that other people won't notice, and she regains her usual volume.

"Susanna Kaysen, from Boston, since people like to ask."

He cocks his beer bottle towards himself.

"Darien Fawkes. Call me Darien or Fawkes or any permutation of either of them, but any 'Mister's will be promptly ignored."

He takes a long drink out of his bottle before turning to her.

"From California myself, Susie. Been East a couple of times, but never up to Boston."

He's amusing, she thinks.

"I like Darien. Sounds like the perfect name for a lead role. Possibly an antihero-type, no offense meant ..."

That is when she realizes she's babbling, and shakes her head.

"I think I went to California once when I was younger. Not since."

He straightens up and puffs out his chest.

"Oh yeah, you got me. Hand me a trenchcoat, paint me in black and white and I'm your classic noir studmuffin."

He grins at her before sipping from his bottle again.

"Only went the once? Where'd you go?"

"I don't ..." Susanna looks at her hand for a minute, thoughtfully, as if it's holding the answers.

"I can't remember. I was little -- six or seven, I think. I know there were fields, though, and people who weren't as tall as the people at home. But that's a six-year-old's memory."

Darien's still taller than Susanna.

It's hard to be taller than Darien.

"Well, yes of course. We're all Munchkins, you see. They just put me in a taffy puller to see what might happen."

He's grinning...and mixing childhood stories like Mother Goose on a bender.

"Must've been awful."

She smiles.

"My friend Georgina -- she loves the Wizard of Oz. I'll tell her I met a real Munchkin, sometime. One I had to look up at to look in the eye, but nobody says a Munchkin's got to be short."

"Especially not them. Short man's disease. It hit me hard."

Utterly. Serious.

"And adding a couple of feet was the only way to save your life?"

Ladies and gentleman, Susanna Kaysen is seen here having a lighthearted conversation. The prize goes to Darien Fawkes, who is there right now, but don't stare too long.

He nods again.

"Of course. This is a donner head. The first one wasn't this handsome."

"Get it from the Princess Langwidere?"

Looks like Georgina isn't the only Oz buff.

"She had a few extras lying around, as I remember."

"One hundred and sixty-odd, last I checked."

"That was before I went head-shopping."

He's joined at the bar by a six-foot-tall heap of purple and crimson stone.

"Bar? May I have some granite?"

The Horta's order appears...but is sculpted like this (http://www.sculpturegallery.com/austin3/eternal_spring4.jpg). Naraht sighs.

"You're killing me, Bar. You do know this."

Darien looks over to see who might have asked for granite and nearly falls off of his--no, check that, he did fall off of his stool.

And he went invisible. It's a reflex thing.

"Holy shit!"

The THUMP attracts Naraht's attention.

"Excuse me, sir? Are you all right?"

He glides over to Darien. Quicksilver ain't invisible to creatures who don't use visible light to 'see'.

He squawks again and crabwalks back a little farther. If Naraht is listening, he can probably hear a low murmuring mantra of freaked out secret agent/former thief babble.

"Holymotherfrickinghellthefuckdon'teatmeplease?"

To the humanoid population, it appears that several chairs spontainously fall over...followed by a sudden shift of a table.

To Naraht, an extremely cold, humanoid figure is scuttling back in a panic. With a long-suffering sigh, he stops where he is.

"Oh please, sir. Even if there wasn't a no-violence rule, you're hardly on my menu. Not only do I find humanoids as generally pleasant companions, but non-fossilized organic matter tastes nasty."

He waves a bit of fringe at him. "And, is that your normal skin temperature or should I direct you to the infirmary?"

"No, man, I'm..."

Blink.

The Quicksilver flutters off of him and he appears. Or, in Naraht's view his body temperature rises.

"...I'm talking to rock."

Then he shakes it off before breathing in and out.

"Sorry. Just, uh, startled me. No offense meant, you know what I mean?"

Probably not, since he's being as clear as mud, but there you go.

"And no, I don't need medical assistance. Got enough of that, thanks."

"None taken," Naraht says with a chuckle. "I'm used to startling people...but I must admit that yours is the most extreme reaction I have had in some time."

He extends a bit of fringe to shake Darien's hand. "Lt. Dahai Iohor Naraht, at your service. Do stand up before Security begins to think you're in trouble."

He stands and dusts himself off before nodding at Naraht.

"Lieutenant? You military?"

Another species is one thing, but government was something else. He'd have befriended a Great White Shark if he was wearing an anti-establishment button or something right this very moment. ~~Don't give Ed any ideas, please.~~

"Fawkes. Darien Fawkes."

He's not looking at Naraht and he's not shaking his hand. Perhaps his tone when he said 'military' explains that.

"I'm with Starfleet," Naraht answers. "And, although we are the protective arm of the Federation, we also handle exploration, relief efforts and a good chunk of pure science."

Naraht retracts his fringe. "Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Fawkes." The fringe sweeps up a bit of the Quicksilver flakes that are visible (to him at least) on the floor. "Hmmm...if you don't mind me asking, what exactly is this shell that fell off of you? I mean, you appear to be a standard-type human from what I can see."

"'Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.'"

He contemplates that for a moment before blinking at Naraht.

"Starfleet? What? You some kinda space cadet?"

He's being a little more offensive as usual and that has to do with what he'd just gone through at home. Usually he's a friendly sort, but after that kind of thing, it's hard enough being a person let alone friendly.

He rubs at the back of his neck before shaking his head.

"Shit, man, just ignore like...half of the stuff I've said. Bad day, man. Just a bad day."

He puts out his hand.

"Darien Fawkes, the asshole who owes you an apology."

Naraht's glittering fringe gently wraps around the human's hand.

"Well, we all have our bad days," he says, ruefully. "Consider it forgiven and forgotten. And, believe me, the races of the Federation have had that little lesson about progress shoved in our faces more than a few times. Come on back to the Bar. You could probably use a drink and I'm hungry."

A free bit of fringe waves at the statue on the counter. "Bar's bizzare sense of humor notwithstanding. And to answer your question, Starfleet is the enforcement, exploration and relief arm of the United Federation of Planets in my universe. I myself am currently assigned to the starship Enterprise."

There is a steamy chuckle. "And I am told I was quite the 'space cadet' as an Ensign. I've matured a little since then."

He nods and picks up his beer again, glad it hadn't toppled.

"Hey, man, I'm playing newbie right now in Fish and Game. It happens."

He thinks, however, that he is plenty mature, thank you. He's not right, but that's what he thinks.

"Nice to meet you, Nar. Glad you're cool with things. Didn't mean to be a dick, but things've been kinda crapy lately."

He sips at his beer and settles on his stool.

"As for the, er, shell? That's Quicksilver. It, uh, makes me invisible to most people. Not to you though, huh?"

"Hey, you should have seen me a couple of weeks ago," Naraht says. "The copralite was hitting the turbine by the metric ton and my mood was anything but sweet."

Naraht scoops up some more of the Quicksilver and contempates it.

"It bends the light spectrum generally used by humans?" he asks. "A personal cloaking device. Interesting."

The flakes are taken under to his grinders where he slowly eats it. "Ick! Definately organic based...strangely high chromium content..." And Naraht begins to rattle off a list of chemical names, coupled by percentages and ratios that is likely making Darien's head spin.

Darien gives him a thumbs up.

"Try it as a condiment."

It's an idea.

"And yeah, makes me invisible to people. Got a hefty price tag, but that's what happens when evil bastards sneak their way onto the research team and no one listens to you."

"Thank you, but no. Far too high a protien content for me to find it palatable," Naraht responds.

Evil bastards infiltrating science teams is something that the Enterprise's crew has experience with.

"Oh, hell," Naraht says. "What did they do?"

He taps the back of his head.

"The thing that makes me invisible? Yeah, the stuff has this chemical in it that over time as it builds up, makes me insane. As said evil bastard put it 'it blows the lid off my Id'."

He shakes his head and sips at his beer angrily.

"Doesn't even matter if I don't use it, it still produces enough of the stuff to mess with me after a week or so."

He holds out his wrist and shows the snake tattoo.

"This thing? That's how much longer I have till I go bonkers. And guess who're the only people who have the temporary cure for the bonkers? The government schmucks who got me into this mess in the first place."

Naraht listens quietly until the end...then starts swearing.

In Klingon.

Very colorful Klingon.

"I don't know German, man. But I'm right there with you."

Naraht pauses in his tirade.

"Give me a minute. Once I run out of Klingon ephitets, I'll switch to Rihannsu. That's enough to burn the audials off a Denebian. The shale-brained morons..."

And Naraht is off again. It takes a full five minutes to go through both Klingon and Romulan. It's cathartic, at least.

"There. Now...is there anything I can possibly do to help you in this...predicament?"

"You a genius?"

It's a simple enough question. He likes this guy though.

Naraht shrugs. "Well...not really. I fear my specialty is biomaths and circuitry troubleshooting. But I can do detailed chemical analysis by 'flavor'."

"I can ask the Keeper and see if that'll help anything. She'll, uh, probably question where I got my information, but she questions everything about me and then pokes me with needles so it's kinda the usual."

He nods to Naraht.

"Thanks for the offer though, Nar. If you wanna work on it, that's cool. I'll, uh, submit to some testing. Anything to get this thing out of my head."