(Untitled)

[callsignhusker]

"A going out in spirit," he said, and looked at me as though he expected me to understand what he meant. I didn't know what he meant. The disappointment was too much for him, and I did not hear from him for ten years. I couldn't really call it a letter. More like he took a scrap of paper and shoved it in an envelope. On the piece of paper he had

Comments

[aj_crawley]

It's funny how, even on a Friday night, there's an empty seat at the bar when a demon just so happens to feel like making himself comfortable there with a glass of wine. It's a little less fortunate, though, that the Friday night customers are plentiful enough, and close enough, that Crowley jostles Adama's elbow as he slides onto the neighbouring stool.

"Ooh - sorry - "

[callsignhusker]

Adama looks up, and nods briefly. "It's fine."

The kind of man who wears sunglasses inside has never been the kind of man that Adama can identify with.

The purpose of opaque glasses is too obvious.

"Busy night," he remarks, idly. His own eyeglasses rest on top of his book.

[aj_crawley]

"Seen worse," Crowley replies with a grin, tapping Bar's smooth wooden surface and giving her a pat of thanks when a glass of the house red appears by his hand. "At least nobody's getting married this week. Though I 'spose then, at least, drinks'd probably be on tap."

[callsignhusker]

"People get married here," with mild amounts of disbelief. His eyebrows rise.

[aj_crawley]

"Sure," Crowley says, after an exploratory sip of his wine. "Next most popular activity after bar-fights, and holding a party for no reason at all. Suppose the people who can't leave have to find some way to take up their time."

A slight pause, and he glances across at Adama.

"New," he hazards.

[callsignhusker]

"You could say so." He picks up his glass. "New enough not to have seen a wedding yet."

There isn't anything antagonistic in his manner. "You're not?"

[aj_crawley]

Crowley shakes his head.

"Long-time regular. Been out and about away from my door in, the past few weekends," and a strangely incongruous widening of his grin, here, "but still."

Setting his glass down, he - well, he shrugs his jacket off and drapes it across the bar, first, but then he extends his hand.

"Crowley."

(A somewhat... singular introduction, especially here.)

[callsignhusker]

He meets Crowley's hand; his handshake is brisk, firm, businesslike.

Strange, that the glasses should bother him like that. He doesn't show it, but it might show anyhow, in his own introduction: "Adama."

If this is a game, two can play it.

[aj_crawley]

"What's your where and when?" he asks, leaning against Bar with wine in hand once more. "I don't recognise the uniform, and I've seen a lot."

[callsignhusker]

"I hold the rank of commander in the Fleet of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol." Adama's voice is even, paced. "The fleet has traditionally been headquartered on Picon."

If you don't have to explain to everyone you meet what's happened, you don't have to think about it. The goal now is to do his job, which is what it's always been: to protect the Colonies.

Or what's left of them.

The stakes are higher than they were, and the resources are fewer. That's all.

[aj_crawley]

"Oh."

Crowley blinks - or rather, gives the impression of blinking, inasmuch as any actual blinking remains well-concealed behind the opaque lenses of his sunglasses.

"Most of that went... right over my head, so. Not from Earth, then. I'm assuming then that," with a wry gesture at himself, "London, early twenty-first century, means about the same to you?"

[callsignhusker]

"That's right." Adama picks up his glass. "The people I've spoken to so far from Earth largely seem to be from around the early twenty-first century."

[aj_crawley]

"We do tend to clutter up the place," Crowley agrees. "I mean, for a given value of 'we' and 'from the twenty-first century', anyway."

[callsignhusker]

"What would that given value be?"

[aj_crawley]

"Broad brushstrokes?" Crowley suggests, with a slight snort. "Or semantic anal-retentiveness. The difference between 'coming in from the twenty-first century' and 'being from the twenty-first century'. Which are generally more or less the same for Average Joe Human, but in my case, not so much."

[callsignhusker]

Average Joe Human, he says.

Not in his case, he says.

Something in Adama's chest tightens, feels like it turns to steel. Hot steel.

"Cylon?" It's a question.