No -you're- brooding (OTA)

[st_x5_494]

Alec sat at the bar with a bottle of Jack Daniels almost empty in front of him, though he was using a glass like a regular person. Still, despite his almost completion of an entire bottle, he looked like a man just starting on his journey of getting drunk - stupid genes.

He was trying not to dwell or let his mind wander, but he was doing a terrible job at that. Stark being here seemed to dredge up a lot of things Alec would most definitely prefer to keep bottled away - at least he hadn't disappeared to the woods?

He reached for a bottle of vodka. Round two: start.

Comments

[st_rongernow]

"Hell of a lot better than it looks like its going for you." Clarice said honestly. "Feel like company?" A beat, "just know that no matter what your answer is, I'm not leaving."

It could be silence company, drinking company, listening or distraction company, but it would be company.

[st_x5_494]

He smirked a little, just a hint. "Nah, I'm fine. Besides, you're good company, so I'd be an idiot to tell you to leave." He paused a little. "Plus I'd love to see if you could keep up."

[st_rongernow]

"Mutant verses freak? You're on." Clarice shot him a quick grin and poured a drink. "We might find out how good or bad my teleport ability is when I'm drunk."

[st_x5_494]

He raised his eyebrows. "Is that a little like drunk driving? As long as I don't have to be the guinea pig, I'm in."

[st_rongernow]

"Nah, I like you too much to cut you in half. I'd toss an empty bottle through first to see how it worked." Clarice shot him a quick grin and then drank from her glass.

[st_x5_494]

"Oh, you like me do you?" He glanced at her with a wry smile. "Good to know."

[st_rongernow]

Clarice smirked, "I guess you didn't catch that other part about just enough not to cut you in half." Truth was she did like Alec. He made her smile and that was rare in her world.

[st_x5_494]

"That's more than most people." He winked at her. "Just thankful I'm not on your shit list."

[st_rongernow]

"Words to live by. You should get that tattooed on you somewhere." Clarice said with a straight face and then returned the wink over the rim of her glass as she took a drink.

[st_x5_494]

He actually chuckled out loud - a rare sound for him. "You settling in better now? Even with your ugly-ass buffalo thing on the wall?"

[st_rongernow]

"It's satisfying to portal it somewhere else even when I know it's coming back." She shifted her weight to reach over for a couple of pretzels in the bowl at the bar. "It hasn't got old yet."

Clarice glanced back at Alec. "Things okay with you and your roomie?" She knew of Annie of course. She was pretty sure the whole inn knew by now and it was an adjustment - not just for Peter and Liz. Clarice seemed to have made it her mission to make sure Annie was okay, too. How had she become that? Johnny must have rubbed off on her - or Lorna.

[st_x5_494]

He glanced over with a slight eyebrow raise. "You mean with Peter and his sudden extended family?" He paused. "Fine, mostly. Don't like his father figure much, but the girl is cute." Even if he had no idea how to act around her.

[st_rongernow]

"Father figure?" Clarice asked, knowing he couldn't mean Quill. No one in their right mind would see him as a father figure. "Someone else come from Peter's world?"

[st_x5_494]

"Yeah. Tony Stark." He rolled his eyes and did air quotes, "Iron Man." It was probably clear by his tone his dislike for the man, though perhaps it wasn't entirely warranted.

[st_rongernow]

Clarice rolled her eyes and took a drink, "what is it about Peter's world with men and their nicknames? Starlord, Iron Man." She smirked, "did he introduce himself as Iron Man like Quill does?" Because that was amusing.

[st_x5_494]

"No. He seems to be a little less of a moron than Quill." Just a little, though. "I think the girls have weird names too. Like you can't be a superhero without one."

[st_rongernow]

"Maybe but would you introduce yourself with that name?" She was pretty sure that no matter what version of her existed she wouldn't say, hi my name is Blink... or Calypso.

"Makes you kind of wonder why so many from Peter's world are popping up here though."

[st_x5_494]

"I feel like it's a sign shits going to hit the fan at some point." Or maybe he just felt bad about the whole situation in general. "Or maybe the kid's wishing hard enough on falling stars - who knows how this place works."

He shook his head. "And no, I wouldn't intro myself as that. I definitely wouldn't even have a name like that to begin with."

[st_rongernow]

"I'm going with shit's about to hit the fan. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop here. Maybe all these people from is world is just the first sign of the Apocalypse."

Clarice was curious about something, "Did anyone at Manticore have code names? I don't mean like Star Lord or Iron Man, or did you just have designations like your serial numbers?" She assumed as being bred to be soldiers they probably only had the serial numbers or some other designation.

Governments were pretty good at thinking of people as property, so the odds were good there weren't names.

[st_x5_494]

"We had designations based on our batch." Which was said matter-a-factly and unlike the usual hatred that came out when Max talked about it. "My actual 'name' if X5-494. It was my friend Max who gave me the name Alec."

[st_rongernow]

That had been unexpected. She figured the government wouldn't have thought of them as anything other than property but she thought they'd at least had names. She couldn't imagine only knowing yourself as a batch number.

"Yeah? How did Max get his name?" She assumed Max was short for Maxwell unless it was short for Maxine, but Clarice was pretty sure no one had been named that since the 1900s.

[st_x5_494]

"She, actually. She and a bunch of others in her unit escaped, but before that they all sort of gave each other names." Should have been Manticore's first clue something was different about them. "My 'twin' I guess you could say, was named Ben - Don't ask me how he got that it - escaped with them. Fun times for all of us copies when that happened." Except not so much. 'Reprogramming' was not subtle in Manticore.

[st_rongernow]

Clarice could just imagine the repercussions of that would have been, especially after Sonya's murder as an incentive to follow instructions. "I bet either there was another mass outbreak or not a single one after that."

It would have gone either way, a mass revolt to the treatment and the success of the others getting away, or they would have stayed rigidly within the line.

[st_x5_494]

"Yeah. Second one for sure. Made an example out of the X5s that remained. We all fell in line after that." He shrugged just a little. "Thankfully Max is so stubborn she ended up getting most of us out before Manticore tried to kill us all to cover their ass."

[st_rongernow]

"Damn that sounds a lot like Sentinel Services. Kind of sad that government dicks are government dicks no matter what world." She paused, then added, "I think I'd probably like your friend Max."