Repose

Who: Eddie & Juliet
What: Breakfast and reacquaintances
When: Fuzzy recent
Where: (Bad) Diner.

The town had two diners, three bars and a goddamn carnival parked outside, at Juliet's count. If it had a three-ring circus, she wouldn't be surprised anymore. She woke from the couch in the mostly empty living room, in the bluish light of the early morning and with a headache throbbing over her left eye and a hollow, unsatisfied feel to being awake that came with dreaming all the way through sleep to the end. Two diners meant she had crammed the hat down over thick, unkempt black hair and was inside the syrup-sweetened heat of someone else's place before she had time for the headache to pound through to nausea.

She sat, black coffee in front of her and fiddled with the paper end of the sugar, her back to the room, her face toward the door. A three-ring circus wasn't so bad. She couldn't remember the carnival. It was maybe the kind of thing parents took kids to see. She'd dug through memory often enough to know the limits, like rummaging a box of childhood detritus, and feeling the cardboard sides. Memory was limited. Imagining, she had that. Maybe there was a carnival, when Repose was home. Maybe they had gone together, before. Juliet slid her chin into the palm of her hand, studied the door without seeing it.

The three-ring circus didn't bother her. The lack of noise did. Woke her, which was the stupidest damn thing she'd ever heard but traffic, noise was a lullaby. It meant nothing had gone so wrong that all that living out loud got interrupted, and the pause in the hubbub still read 'wrong' loud and clear, even to her subconscious.

The door jangled. Juliet startled, and her fist came down on the table hard enough to leave a (slight) dent. She looked toward the door, sharply black gaze - which softened on the man in the frame.

"As I live and fucking breathe," all long slow drawl. "Come'ere. Sit down."

[Public]

Untangling Christmas lights can be added to my list of many skills. I have a gift.

[As 'Seven M']

Roughly how depressing is it going to be to spend Christmas alone with a baby in a new town? Money says anywhere from 'medium' to 'very'.

Who: Grant, Cat, and whoever else.
What: Drinks and billiards. Super innocent stuff.
Where: Mean-Eyed Cat ("Good" Bar)
When: Evening. Recent.
Warnings/Rating: None yet.

The Mean-Eyed Cat was busy and crowded that night. There was a line for the pool table, short games and names scrawled at the bar. It smelled like hops, like cigarettes, and there was no rule about smoking inside there. The air was thick, and the music wasn't Christmas despite the chill in the air outside. No, keeping true to the bar's theme, the music had twang and soul, and the seats at the bar were all crowded together. People sat close, talked loud, and the bartender kept the drinks coming. The waitress wandered, taking orders from people on booths and in chairs, and the place was a warm kind of loud. A couple danced pressed together between bar and pool table, and nobody bothered them. The whole place had the feel of being just outside of real, an escape that didn't bother pretending to be anything but what it was. What happens at the Cat, stays at the Cat.

Grant was at the bar a few minutes after a non-existent whistle blew in a non-existent factory after a non-existent day in 1941, wondering where the time had gone and contemplating a beer that wouldn't get him drunk. He kept an eye out for his former compatriot, sparing a thought for her passing allegiances with the kind of speculative military calm that other people called "waiting." The people in this town had been friendly to a fault so far, and Grant had made a conscious effort to blend in, wearing a sweater and jeans (probably tailored a little too close because he had only worn them twice in his lifetime), and maybe it was strange to be in a bar without a crowd of men with tags around their necks.

[Public]

There's gotta be like ten book groups with ads up at the library, a yoga group, tai-chi near the lake. What is this shit, Stepford? You got one good bar, Stepford, I'll give you a shot.

Christmas tree seven foot tall is a nice touch, gotta admit. Leave the blinds open, you don't have to get your own.