August 12 | 10:45 PM | The holodeck, open to everyone.

[wise_ass]

It's late, but still a fairly respectable time to be up and about. He passes a few people on his way up to the holodeck but thankfully, when he gets to the door, he finds there's nobody else in sight. He lights up a cigarette and stands in the center of the dimly lit room, a blank page waiting impassively for his command. Bert takes a long, easy breath and sighs; the cigarette smoke is toasty, familiar, divine. The first one he's had in days.

"You wouldn't happen to know Mejis, would you?" he asks. His tone is polite-- it sounds like he's already forgiven the computer for not having the first fucking clue about where Mejis is, but before he can explain himself, the room has already started coming to life.

It flickers a few times through scenes Bert's not sure he recognizes as even from his world, but when it finally settles, he finds himself standing on one of the rolling hills overlooking the little town. The oil derricks, far over the hills to his left, are backlit by a fiercely beautiful sunset. On his right he can see a wide, treeless horizon that tells him he's not far from the Clean Sea.

It must have been a market day. The people below are packing up their stalls and loading up their carts. There's a tense moment where he's terrified he'll see something, someone he'll recognize before he realizes that the computer's brought him to a Mejis about fifty years prior to his ka-tet's infamous visit.

He heads down the hill and wanders a bit, trying to stay out of people's way, but enjoying, as he usually does, the novelty of secret immersion, not even minding when a woman gives him the obligatory small-town stink eye reserved for unfamiliar, unaccompanied young men. In fact, it makes him smile. It doesn't seem to improve her opinion of him any, but he can't help it. He walks through the market with that shit-eating grin, hands stuffed in his pockets, enjoying the alien quaintness of it all with a bizarre brand of contentment he figures can only be enjoyed by holidaymakers in other worlds.

He's in another world even now, though, isn't he? The station? The idea is an uncomfortable but not unwelcome knot at the base of his skull. He's spent nearly all of his time here doing penance, even if he hasn't realized it, but the last month has actually been penance in earnest. Bert had been drinking whiskey when zombi Alain had helpfully suggested he eat a bullet to better cope with his guilt, and mayhap it was a blessing, because the stuff just hadn't tasted the same after that. Or mayhap it was his own self-pity that didn't go down sweet anymore.

Cuthbert wasn't sure what he'd expected to feel, standing in the red dirt of Lower Market, surrounded by the smells and sights and sounds he's spent the last seven or so years trying to smother from memory. And mayhap it'd be different if he'd been dropped in at the right time and seen ole Kimba Rimer or Cordelia Delgado strutting through town. Mayhap.

But right now, the air feels clean, and somewhere a hundred wheels away, Cuthbert Allgood hasn't even been born yet. He closes his eyes and lets the idea sink in.

Behind him, the holodeck door opens, and he smiles-- that wide, idiot grin that says he's actually pleased for company-- and squints to see who it is.

"Hey there," he calls out, his voice warm and animated. "Just mind the cow pies."

Comments

[onlythefire]

Sandor still hasn't given up hoping this thing will provide him with a whorehouse when he asks for one-- it's only been a week or so, he's got lots of stubborn left before he gives up-- so when he realizes not only is there someone already in the holodeck, but it's the one-eyed kid with the guns, it's like two disappointments rolled into one.

He's ready to turn and leave, but something about the scene catches him. Maybe the fresh smell in the air, maybe the quaintness of the town square in front of him. Maybe he's so eager for something that doesn't resemble the angles and planes of the station-- something rougher, more natural-- that he doesn't even care who he's got to thank for it.

"Think I'll spot 'em before I step in 'em," he says, waiting for a cart to pass before joining Allgood at the edge of the square, adding with a smirk, "Twice as likely as you are, anyway."

[wise_ass]

Cuthbert gives him a bland look, eyebrows raised, and takes a long drag of his cigarette.

"Funny guy," he remarks after a beat, squinting against the sun in his eye. He likes something about the man-- maybe it's that he's one of the few new people that doesn't seem to be going to any pains to hide what he's about-- but he's watching his step with all of them, just the same.

He gives Sandor a sideways look, then, perhaps for comedic effect, a long, skyward double take.

"You know, it's interesting: tall men aren't intrinsically funny, nor are wide men, really. But it seems when an individual reaches a certain ratio of broad to tall and they've got sort of a mean look about the face, everyone laughs at their jokes! You ever notice that particular phenomenon?"

Bert's lips are puckered against a smile as he takes another drag of his cigarette.

"It's, ah, usually kind of a nervous laugh," he explains, sounding a little less confident when Sandor doesn't respond immediately, and then seems to offer a demonstration: a weak, emaciated chuckle that ends on a question mark.

[onlythefire]

"I'm not much of a joking man," Sandor says dryly, "but the nervous part sounds about right."

What's funniest of all is how he's mostly stopped trying to tease that panicked whimper out of people. It used to be one of the few sure-fire joys in his life-- scaring the shit out of idiots and watching them wet themselves in an effort to avoid tasting his knuckles. Since coming here, it's lost its luster-- and not for any lack of idiots.

The kid sucks on his smoke and Sandor can't help noticing-- it was all half of them could bitch about, Kara and Spike being the loudest and most annoying about it, but Sandor hadn't even known what a cigarette was before this place. "Surprised Thrace didn't slap that out of your hand the first time she saw you with it," he says, nodding at it. "Though I guess there being replicators means it's not exactly a commodity."

[wise_ass]

Well, Sandor's arrival has certainly not ingratiated Bert with the Hambry townsfolk. The streets are really clearing now, with a handful of people retreating into their houses and (loudly) shutting and bolting their doors.

Bert's surprised to find that he feels slightly responsible for, and therefore a little embarrassed by, their behavior, but he opts to just ignore it and continue with the conversation.

He follows Sandor's eyes to his cigarette, and gives a clipped, sudden laugh.

"Really! Mm, I wouldn't bet on it. They're not easy to get. For me, anyway. Sai Rogers gets them without even asking and he sends them on to me." Bert sidesteps a cart and spots a saloon down the road. Pint of beer would go down nice. Not so hard as whiskey, just a little something to soften the edges of this awkward meeting.

"But if you tell anyone my source, I'll have to kill you," he says seriously, flicking ash off.

[onlythefire]

Sandor snorts, rolling his eyes. "If it's gossip you're worried about, make sure you keep your mouth shut around Hook. Like a bloody chambermaid, giggling behind his hand all the time."

It occurs to him that he's supposed to be finding out more about them, not the other way around... but that's nothing Allgood couldn't have found out for free just by spending five minutes in the pirate's company.

"So what is this place, anyway?" he asks as a dirty child trudges past, leading a goat on a frayed rope, casting an eloquently derisive look up at the pair of them and pausing to scratch his arse and spit in the dirt before moving on. "You come here for fun?" His disbelief comes through clearly, even as he follows the kid toward the wide veranda and realizes it's an ale-house of some kind.

Well, if there's booze, it can't be all bad, right?

[wise_ass]

"Nah," he says, looking over at Sandor, squinting against the sun. "Just visiting. I came here when I was a kid. My first errand as a gunslinger."

He twirls a pretend gun and blows smoke off his finger. "Rode into town, vanquished villains, preserved innocents, inspired ballads..."

Nearby, one of the market horses snorts energetically.

"Actually I spent most of the time counting cattle."

[onlythefire]

Sandor's snort is a good echo of the horse's. He feels a little twist in his stomach, thinking of Stranger-- but it's gone almost as soon as it comes, and he shakes his head, grinning as he shoulders open the saloon door. "Cattle? Why, afraid you were gonna lose some?"

They take a seat at the bar, behind which stands a man whose face is as wrinkled as the dishtowel he's using to dry out a couple of pint glasses. "What'll it be?" he asks curtly. Sandor ignores the stinkeye-- he'd have taken more notice if the man hadn't looked askance at them-- and just says "Ale" in response, glancing at Allgood, letting him answer for himself.