terribly sorry, officer (baelfiery) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-04-06 16:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: ella lopez, ₴ inactive: neal cassidy |
WHO: Neal & Ella
WHERE: Barkers, that dive bar owned by an ogre
WHEN: Backdated to Saturday
WARNINGS: The floors are sticky, idk
STATUS: Complete
Neal would be the first one to say that there was a time and a place for a craft beer or a cocktail so finely crafted you had to gaze in wonder upon its creation. But when you wanted a dive bar, like a true dive bar, the time for craft beers and fancy cocktails flew out the window - instead it was time for ‘expertly crafted’ to consist of a pint of whiskey with a spritz of coke (the soda, not the nose candy), low lights, cash only, liquor strong enough to level a building, and neon signs and wooden beer coolers. Bonus points if the ambiance was ‘brick-walled rat’s nest.’ By the end of the night your feet should definitely be sticky. The place that fit the bill was a bar owned by an ogre named Fitzy, and the bar was called Barkers. He’d heard about it through the grapevine, from various locals, and it was stuck in kind of a shady area of the city - not ‘dead bodies in the streets’ level of bad, but lots of distressed buildings and unsavory dealings going on in alleyways. Perfect spot for a dive bar, really, and that’s where he ended up with Ella on their...date? It was actually a date. Download a dating app, and it did what it said on the tin - Neal was kind of amazed, admittedly. Mostly because Ella was gorgeous and he had no idea why she’d pick him to want to hang with out of all the downright modelesque people also on that app - but he definitely thought it’d be nice to get to know her better, so, here they were (the bar did have a pool table, and it leaned; also a jukebox that still played Johnny Cash). “I think this is the first bar I’ve been to where you tip the ogres to protect you,” he chuckled, turning the glass of whiskey he had around in his hands. But it was well worth the protection, in his view. “We had ogres where I grew up. Territory wars too, that sort of thing - you didn’t mess with them.” Honestly, Ella had never been a fancy cocktails kind of girl. She could drink beer and whiskey with the best of them, though she definitely enjoyed the more fruity drink options, too. But a dive bar wasn’t a place for that -- especially a dive bar owned by ogres, which was absolutely a first for her. But she’d decided on a fairly easy outfit for this date (of which she was honestly surprised she’d gotten so quickly after setting up her Tag! profile), something sexy but comfortable with a bit of flirting to boot, and well… if things progressed, even better. She currently sat back in the rickety sort of chair you find at places like this, leaning with her legs crossed and her own whiskey neat in a glass in her hand. “This place is still full of surprises for me, honestly. Seen a ton of things that I’ve never seen before, and yet a dive bar run by ogres…” She giggled quietly and brought the glass to her lips for a quiet sip. “I grew up in Detroit. Suppose we have our own kind of ogres there, just not the literal kind.” “Definitely not literal, but I’ve been to Detroit. It’s a hell of a place - did you grow up in a rough neighborhood?” Neal asked, though granted, rough could be the name of the game there regardless. At least with the neighborhoods he’d been in, the main piece of advice should be 'watch your back and your front.' Affluent digs were a stone's throw away, but it was like looking behind plate glass - you'd never really touch it, would you? He never had. Probably never would. It just wasn’t his lifestyle - amazing he’d been able to afford an apartment in New York City, after he’d basically entered adulthood on his own. When he was on the run from his crazy father and laying low in a land without magic. “Though I know what you mean about surprises. I thought I’d seen it all and - well, this place reminds me of home but it’s also...new? So much new stuff.” Like mixing fantasy and sci-fi or something, a constant D&D game. Kind of cool but also kind of hard to know where you fit into things. “Eh. Most of Detroit is rough in its own way. I didn’t grow up in a great neighborhood, though, no. My abuela had a lot of involvement in my upbringing. So did my aunt. Raised Catholic but didn’t really find my faith until about five years ago,” she admitted with a small shrug. “It’s been an ongoing battle with me and the Big Guy, y’know?” Ella took another sip of her drink and then set the glass down. “I have four brothers, so I kind of got my ass kicked as a kid by them. Again, not literally, but it was tough being the only girl, so I had to learn to fend for myself ultimately. But… not a great neighborhood meant getting involved in things we shouldn’t have. Learned how to pick locks and steal cars at a pretty young age.” Her nose scrunched then. “Not that I do that anymore, but the knowledge is still there.” She paused for a moment though and then laughed again. “My life was definitely kind of a shit show there for a while.” Well, if Ella thought her life was a shitshow, she was in good company - because Neal’s picture should be in the dictionary next to that very term. “Hey, cheers to that,” he flashed one of those eye-crinkling grins at her, letting their glasses gently clink together before he swallowed another sip of whiskey. Could level a building, yep, this shit was strong - it was toasty and charred and made him feel nice and warm. Cozy, almost. “Learned how to do both of those things pretty young too,” he admitted. “Comes in handy, right? I mean, I found my way from Neverland after being trapped there for a really long time - I was just a kid. I didn’t have any ID or paperwork or much training on anything. Neal isn’t even my real name.” No, he’d made it up out of necessity - did a lot of things out of necessity, when he was alone in a strange century and didn’t know any fucking person at all. “Eyy! Cheers.” Ella grinned brightly and took a sip of her drink after the toast, laughing a bit to herself. Honestly, if she had too much of it, she wasn’t sure what might happen. Her double right now might be enough to do the trick, but the night was still young. She nodded a bit in response to his question. “Definitely comes in handy from time to time. I don’t exactly go around bragging about it, but I’ve had to use the lock picking a time or two since joining the LAPD. Just don’t tell my boss, y’know?” Ella sank back into the chair again and let out a quiet, happy sort of sigh. Date aside -- she’d needed a night out like this. She just happened to also really be enjoying the company. “What is your real name then, if you don’t mind me asking?” Neal crossed his heart (but didn’t hope to die because - no, he’d already gone down that road), promising, “Your secret’s safe with me. Lock picking is a valuable skill to have. Safe cracking too but I haven’t done that one in awhile.” These days it seemed like everything was digitally stored anyway - paper copies of whatever were a thing of the past, so if he wanted to translate those skills to the modern era he should learn to be a hacker. Or something. “Real name’s Baelfire,” he added, with kind of a self-depreciating shrug because yeah. He was aware it wasn’t exactly a name like ‘Shawn’ or ‘Aidan’ or whatever was popular these days. “I got called Bae for short, sometimes.” Urban dictionary also said ‘Bae’ meant something else in 2021 so he probably wouldn’t go back to that moniker unless he had to; Neal Cassidy suited him just fine. He took another sip of his drink, relaxed in his seat and perfectly at home in a bar like this - he enjoyed the company too, and it was nice to get out of the house. Not that he disliked spending time there but Regina had her own life and Henry didn’t want to have his dad hovering 24/7 either, so. Everyone wins. “What’s the fanciest car you ever stole?” he asked. “If it’s fancy enough I’ll spring for nachos. I bet this place makes good ones.” Dive bars usually did, even if it was hard to fuck up nachos. But basically anything smothered in fake cheese was a hit with the drunk crowd. “Baelfire?” Ella asked, genuinely sort of in awe over how cool of a name that sounded. She grinned and brought a booted foot forward a bit to nudge his leg at the shrug. “Aw, c’mon, don’t look so ‘hmph’ about it. That’s actually a pretty cool name. Definitely not a common one, you know? And it’s a name that makes sense considering where you’re from.” Lucifer had said Neal was from a storybook, but it seemed to be so much more than just that to her. Grinning again, she tossed back the remainder of her whiskey and set the empty glass down on the table top, pursing her lips momentarily in thought. “Hmmm, pretty sure the fanciest car I’ve stolen was this beautiful black BMW M3. Dunno who thought driving that thing in Detroit was a good idea, but… y’know. And what’s the point in stealing a car if you can’t see how fast that car can actually go?” She laughed then, leaning forward to rest her arm against the table top, chin in hand as she looked at him. “Those things have got some power behind them, man.” She paused then and cocked her head to the side a bit, smiling. “Was that fancy enough for nachos? And maybe even another whiskey?” Daaaaaamn. A BMW was pretty fuckin’ fancy no matter how you sliced it. “Okay, I’m officially impressed,” Neal complimented. His grin turned into one of the face-splitting variety, behind his glass for a moment, and the warmth of the whiskey was definitely helping too. It was a toasty flavor. He could go for another. So when the ogre bartender shuffled on back, Neal placed the order - another whiskey, and a plate of nachos. Piping hot. With some cheese, bacon bits, and jalapeños to make for the ‘loaded’ option. The kitchen door swung back and forth after the ogre grunted in recognition and went to go pass the order on. But their whiskeys were served up quickly, poured into the glasses and placed down in front of them. “Never really stole anything that fancy myself - mostly just cars to get around in, wheels to get by.” Cars people might not even miss - but now that he thought about it, he’d just love to get his hands on a BMW or an Audi, really go racing with something speedy. “This was all way past the Baelfire days. Which - thanks. No one’s ever said my real name’s cool before,” he chuckled. She smiled and put on an air of innocence at his compliment, feigning a bit of humility as she tucked her long black hair behind her ear. “Naaaah, nothing to be impressed by,” she said with a grin of her own. “To be fair, the guy left it unlocked for some stupid reason, so…” There was a shrug and then another laugh. “I was also nice enough to return it, though I parked it in a different spot just to fuck with him.” Okay, Ella was officially excited for the nachos once they were ordered. Dive bar food was not-so-secretly still the best kind of bar food you could get, and she figured a dive bar owned by an ogre wasn’t going to be any different. “Seriously? No one’s ever said it was cool?” That puzzled her, but then again, Ella was… not really a ‘typical girl’. “Uhhh. Well, duh, it’s friggin’ awesome! Makes me think of some, like, powerful druid in D&D or something. Maybe a mysterious ranger like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings.” If Neal was more of a gif person, he’d have whipped out an ‘I understood that reference’ moving picture for that one (and it’s not like he wasn’t a gif person, he had died in the modern age, it was just that he appreciated the realness of face-to-face interactions). “I’ll keep that in mind in case a D&D game is ever started up - I could easily be Baelfire, the powerful druid,” he laughed, taking that first sip of the new whiskey. Ahhh. He was on his way to being pleasantly buzzed - sloppy drunk wasn’t really an option, but he was glad the waypoints were a thing and he hadn’t driven anywhere. “So what else do you get up to around here?” he wanted to know, since he was in the process of settling - time passed quickly, and he’d been here a few weeks now (wild, right?) but he imagined that it took longer to find a comfortable spot to mentally and physically hunker down within. “You have people from home here too?” “It’s a big city. I mean, since they don’t charge rent and stuff at Morningside, it makes life a little easier to… enjoy, I guess? Though I miss my old job from home.” Ella shrugged a bit then and settled back in her chair again, humming to herself for a moment as she thought. “I got to hang out as a mermaid the other week and go check out Atlantis off of the coast. That was cool as hell and kind of blew my mind. Though honestly? A lot about this place blows my mind. Los Angeles has some weird shit going on, but that’s like, not good weird shit.” Giving a small nod to answer his question, she picked up her fresh drink and took a healthy sip from it. Mm. “Yeah. So, the guy that owns Lux, that’s Lucifer. Like… the Lucifer. From my world, anyway. I didn’t know that until I got here though. And then Chloe’s here, too. She and I worked together before and she’s dating Lucifer.” Which sometimes made Ella the awkward third wheel. “The Lucifer, huh?” Neal lifted an eyebrow. That was...interesting. “I’m guessing he doesn’t collect souls.” No, instead it seemed like he owned a nightclub and was dating someone - so if the Devil could be lucky in love, maybe there was hope for Neal too. He’d try to keep the dream alive, anyway. The kitchen door swung open again and out came Fitzy with a plate of smothered nachos in one beefy hand - he set it down with a grunt, though Neal definitely managed a polite thanks because he felt as if he’d be crushed underfoot if he didn’t utilize proper manners. “Well, here we go, ladies first - “ He nudged the plate toward Ella, and didn’t those bacon bits look nice and crunchy? Plus that cheese was sure to clog arteries and he was here for it. “A nacho toast to...second dates, maybe.” No pressure, but he was definitely up for hanging out again - there was plenty to do around Vallo and if he got to experience the nightlife and the daylife with someone fun? All the better. “No, no souls. Expensive bottles of bourbon though? That’s a different story.” She flashed him a grin and then let her gaze follow his, eyes going wide when she saw the plate of nachos coming toward their table. “Oh my goodness.” Honestly, the plate was bigger than her head and drenched in cheese and other things that were just going to be delicious as fuck. She could only assume so, anyway, with the way they looked. Ella’s grin softened into a smile, looking at him for a moment. “Well, guess what? I’m totally down for a second date if you are.” Doing a happy sort of wiggle in her seat, she smiled and reached for a chip that was covered in just about everything the plate had to offer. She had to use her free hand to keep things from falling and she laughed as she put it in her mouth. “Holy shit,” she said through her chewing, eyes rolling a little in that ‘oh my god this tastes amazing’ sort of way. The happy wiggle was cute, Neal had to admit. He may have even blushed about it a little, red blooming in cheeks that were a bit scruffy. Not in an unkept way - but he always felt he looked better with at least some facial hair. “I’ll take that as a sign of approval for the nachos,” he laughed, reaching to grab one of his own - it was slathered with cheese, the kind that stretched like saltwater taffy when you pulled it. Needless to say it was kind of a production to free the nacho, but he got it. And ate it. And it was fucking delicious. “Dive bars really do have the best unhealthy snacks,” he sighed in contentment. Though often it was hit or miss - you’d find some hidden gems in terms of food, or the bar would just have pre-packaged shit and frozen pizzas heated up in a sputtering microwave. He was glad that wasn’t this. He’d definitely have to come back sometime - repeat customer (shady dealings aside) ahoy. “And yeah, mark me down for a second date, El Bell.” They’d figure something out - considering there was plenty to do around here, Neal imagined that part would be no trouble at all. “It’s honestly kind of rude how good the food can be sometimes. Like finding a needle in a haystack though. Or a unicorn. Though I guess using that metaphor is a moot point here since they actually exist.” That made Ella giggle a little and she took another nacho, carefully pulling it from the plate, and ate it happily. Yes. The nachos were an excellent idea. Her eyes lifted momentarily to look at him at the nickname and her own cheeks blossomed into a gentle pink, a sweet smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Good. I’d like that,” she said with a small reaffirming nod. “Cause I think you’re pretty cute and I like your company, so I was gonna be kind of bummed if a second date didn’t pan out, y’know?” And at least he didn’t strike her as the secret serial killer type like her last boyfriend turned out to be. He was cute? Stop, stop - Neal was definitely going to go full-out with the blushing now. They were both over here, turning red like a couple of school kids. It had been so long since he’d been concerned with looking good on a date, or even figuring out what to do on dates - but he had to admit, it was a pleasant new (old) vibe. Like riding a bike? Getting back in the saddle? “It’ll definitely pan out - even if you kick my ass at pool,” he stated, crunching on another nacho before knocking back a significant portion of that whiskey. “Come on, let’s see how decrepit that table is.” He’d bring the nachos with him though, and the rest of his drink - maybe order another, and see how he played with slightly blurred vision. All in all, a damn good time. Being alive again - it was wild. |