strangetrip | [GP] Check-In Day: What a nice surprise; bring your alibis

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[GP] Check-In Day: What a nice surprise; bring your alibis

Every check-in day conjured memories of her first, and all of the others, which inevitably meant she spent the day with Lara on her mind, and Petey, Illyana, and Wyatt. She'd been blessed with dear friends and loves arriving, and yet she never stopped hoping she'd figure out the mess that was this pocket universe and get home.

It was starting to become complicated, though, almost a year later. It would hurt to lose the people she'd grown fond of here, almost as much as it would be good to get home. She didn't know what to do with that feeling, but it was what it was. All she could do was tend the bar with patience and understanding, and keep an eye on the readings her crude energy measuring devices out on the road sent to her.

For all the people that came in and out, it was a quiet day. So between drinks, she spent most of it bent over a notebook with a cup of coffee in her hand, trying to design better instruments to dismantle Yana's shackles. Maybe Percy could help her build them.

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Jag joined him on the balcony to have a look at the view. He hadn't taken the time to really think about where they were, other than 'stuck', other than 'not in London where Em was'. "This place is - what do you call it? Cruel and unusual?"

"It is. Both of those things. Yeah." Coby stubbed out the butt of his cigarette, and took a long drink of vodka. He wasn't sure why he was turned maudlin all the sudden, but hey, Jag was right. Cruel and unusual.

"Pot? Pot," he decided before Jag had a chance to answer. It was rarely a bad choice, if you asked him, and he went to grab the bag with his stash. "Bong or pipe?" Yeah, he had both. Papers were long gone, though.

"Dealer's choice," Jag answered over his shoulder, remaining out on the balcony for now. Not that Coby was a dealer per se, but it fit. Words were not Jag's strong suit.

"Nah, that'd be Kash," Coby joked, deciding to go for the bong. Another night, he might've called Kash to join them. They could all be baked sad sacks together. But it was Jag's first night here, and he'd had his heart punched hard. Introductions could wait for another time.

During the day, it had been warm for this time of year, but after the sun set it had cooled down a lot, he thought as he headed back to the balcony and started packing the bowl. But if they got chilly, Jag could always make fire. Hell, he'd probably want it anyway, feeling the way he was.

"He comes across as a grumpy asshole, but he's okay."

Kash. Jag made a note of that name. If he was the bloke with the plants, it was a name worth remembering, grumpy asshole or not. "I'll keep that in mind." He stepped aside to make space for Coby on the balcony, eyeing the chairs sceptically. "Do the design choices become more acceptable when you're stone?"

"Let's try it and see." More acceptable, maybe. Less weird, usually. And occasionally fodder for what the hell were they thinking with all this? The inclination was there to ask what Jag's room was like, the kind of question people fell back on here, because the answers were always so crazy, and it was an easy way to bond. But if his girlfriend had been there when he walked it, Jag might not have noticed anything else. Bowl ready, Coby held the bong out for Jag.

"Cheers," Jag told him, unable not to think of the first, and last, time they'd shared a bong. He pushed the memory aside, tied in as it was with one of the worst periods of his life, and cradled the bowl in fire until he could take a nice, long rip. Then he handed the bong back to Coby, silent as he focused on the spread of the warm buzz through his body.

Coby took a hit, savoring the feel of smoke filling his lungs until he had to let it out again. "If I start singing Hotel California, you've got my permission to throw something at me. It's the worst fucking earworm around this place."

"You fucking had to say that," Jag remarked after a beat, and leaned back against the doorway. "I'm tempted to throw something at you now."

"I had to fucking say that," Coby echoed. "Besides, I've done worse than earworm you, if you're going to start throwing shit already."

"Maybe I don't need much to start throwing things?" Jag offered, although he really didn't look about to throw anything. Especially since the only thing in his hands was his glass, and all he was going to do with it was take another drink, sharpness of the vodka against the chill of the buzz.

"Or maybe we'd both rather enjoy the buzz, skip the throwing things for awhile." This was what they needed tonight, to get comfortably numb under a starry sky, and maybe forget for a bit what being here meant they'd lost.

Edited 2017-12-17 19:45 (UTC)

"Fuck yes," Jag agreed. He spared the chairs another glance, decided against them, and sat on the balcony floor, his back to the banister. "Have you tried flying here?" he asked after taking another drink, making fire dance around his fingers. "The kind of flying that doesn't involve drugs."

Sitting down beside Jag – nothing wrong with the chairs really, if you were having breakfast on the balcony or something, but they weren't made for lazing; maybe Coby could bring up a chair from the pool sometime – Coby took another good rip, and set the bong and pot between them.

"Yeah, some. Not much when there are people around to see, but I'm not being as careful as I was in London either. Nobody'll care. Between the chick on the flying broom and her brother with wings like mine, I wouldn't be the only one flying the friendly skies. It's just habits are hard to break, you know?"

Jag nodded, and picked up the bong to have another rip of his own, using the flame he'd been playing with to heat it up. "It's going to be strange, doing this out in the open." He took a hit, then set it down again. "Have you had to relearn it?" he asked, turning his head towards Coby. "Flying."

"I went flying in London. With Anael, 'cause he could hide us. Or with-" Coby stopped himself before he mentioned Curnen by name. "Another friend who had ways of doing that too. So at least I know what I'm doing in the air."

Jag took another drink, then quietly shared, "I've been with Em, sometimes." It hadn't been where his mind had been going at all, originally, but Coby's answer about his angel had taken him there. "She can create a pegasus, and we've ridden it together, now and then." He glanced at Coby. "She knew him. Your angel."

A pegasus? That was seriously cool, and Coby almost asked how she did it, but then Jag said she knew Anael, and "I bet he liked her a lot." Anael loved everyone, but he liked some far more than others. If Jag's Em loved as deeply as Jag loved her, then she'd be someone Anael liked.

"He used to take me flying sometimes, before I got wings. It's not a pegasus," and they both knew he wasn't the person Jag wanted to be with, "but if you want to go up sometime..."

"Hanging on for dear life doesn't seem all that hot," Jag pointed out with a half-smile. The other half of that expression was longing, and muted sorrow. "Unless you've got superstrength along with those wings?" Jag certainly didn't get it along with the fire - which was fine by him.

Coby wasn't actually sure. He knew he was stronger than he had been before the wings. Stronger even that then first time Jag had seen them. But stronger than human, he didn't know. It was a good point, though, and something he should find out before he tried carrying anyone with him in the air.

"There you go, being all logical. Now I know you're messed up," Coby teased.

"Or not messed up enough," Jag retorted, and knocked back the rest of his glass.He reached for the bottle to pour himself another, and top up Coby's.

That wasn't the kind of messed up Coby had meant, but he was all for getting messed up Jag's way, so it was all good. So was more vodka, the smooth burn going down, limbs starting to go loose.

"Not as much to see here as London. Lotta scrub. Unless you go out to the beach; I usually fly there. Mostly 'cause I can. And because I'm not getting a surfboard on a horse."

"There's horses here?" Jag asked, interest very obviously piqued, even through the haze of the pot.

Coby looked mildly surprised by the sudden interest, but it passed quickly. He just hadn't expected a city boy like Jag to be into horses, but... he'd said something about a circus once, maybe? Coby wasn't sure he wasn't making that up, or confusing Jag with somebody else.

"Yeah. The stables are out," he waved a hand vaguely in what he thought the right direction was, but at this point who knew if he was right. "That way."

Jag was quite certain he'd have to be told that again the next day, but he'd just ask. That was the plan, anyway, drinking enough to forget at least some of tonight, hopefully the most painful parts, no matter how temporarily.

"I'll go have a look."

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[GP] Check-In Day: What a nice surprise; bring your alibis

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