(Untitled)

[mr_gaeta]

"I can't. I'm sorry," says Gaeta when the napkin appears at his elbow, right next to the pages he's been filling with neatly-penned notes. "Not tonight."

Don't give me that, buster. You and I both need a break, reads the next napkin -- and before Gaeta can protest further, Bar snatches up his notebook. It vanishes into thin air as she adds, You'll

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[southphillysob]

"Royal Bill, huh? Goddamn!"

The swagger Gaeta probably recognizes: the accent, however, they don't make nowhere but South Philly. Bill leans against the Bar. "My tab's so high I gotta jump outta fuckin' airplanes. That nab me a free one?"

Guess what, Gaeta? THAT. WAS. HILARIOUS.

[mr_gaeta]

The cursing sounds a little strange, too -- kind of like how you make up less offensive words when you accidentally bark your shin within earshot of a kid. But the swagger? Yeah, Gaeta definitely knows that.

His lips quirk, just a little, and he leans on the bar. "I think I almost want to charge you more, that joke was so bad, sir."

[southphillysob]

Bill shrugs. "Yeah, give it a try. For one, it's fuckin' true, and two, I ain't afraid to go fist city with you over it." He flashes a truly impressive grin. "Come on, the hell's in a Royal Bill anyway? Figure I oughta know, seeing as how I'm named Bill and all."

[mr_gaeta]

"There's no violence in the bar," he answers immediately, but the faint half smile doesn't go away. "It's pear liqueur and champagne. Sound like something you'd be interested in?"

From the look of Bill, Gaeta thinks it could go either way.

[southphillysob]

He wrinkles his nose, dubious.

"Christ on a cracker, I ain't got a clue. Do I look I would be?"

On the one hand, pears ain't bad, when you can get 'em, and he's never had champagne, but it's supposed to be all right. On the other, it sure don't sound like it's the guzzling kind of drink, so he shakes his head.

"Nah, just gimme a beer. Whatever you got on tap." He crooks an eyebrow. "You Italian, buddy?" 'Cause he looks it, despite, well -- whatever he's wearing.

[mr_gaeta]

Mixed drinks are one thing -- that's just simple chemistry. Correctly pulling a beer from the tap is a bit trickier, especially when most of your prior bartending experience falls under "pouring ambrosia shots for fellow Fleet Academy students when you're kind of half-drunk yourself."

Gaeta makes a go of it anyway. As he fetches a mug and starts to fill it, his brow furrows slightly. "Not that I'm aware of," he says, eyeing Bill. "May I ask what that is?"

[southphillysob]

"For cryin' out loud. Italian! You know. From Italy!" He shakes his head and just accepts the mug. "You know what, forget it. This is place is nutty enough, I don't gotta explain no goddamn geography." It's said with no heat: Bill just has a way with words.

"Well," he says, after a gulp of the beer, "you got a name, my non-Italian friend?"

[mr_gaeta]

At least that clears up whether "Italian" is some obscure insult Gaeta's never heard. Or another bastardized curse word, for that matter.

"Felix Gaeta. And I'm Piconese, actually," he adds. Taking a not-so-wild stab in the not terribly dark, "I'm not from Earth."

[southphillysob]

"Well knock me over with a feather," Bill snorts. But hey, can't hold it against a guy that he don't know what he's missing. Bill sticks out his hand. "Bill Guarnere, United States Airborne." Check out those gleaming jump wings -- first of their kind, and that's a goddamn fact.

He cocks an impressively skeptical eyebrow. "You gonna drink something too? Where I'm from, bartender don't abstain."

At least when your barkeep is George Luz, anyway.

[mr_gaeta]

Any airborne units the Colonial military might've had were long gone by the time Gaeta joined up, but if you take the swagger, add the wings, and stitch it together with the bits of information Gaeta's gleaned about Earth over the months --

For a brief instant, the smile comes back, and turns into a grin besides.

(He hasn't seen many personnel since going down to New Caprica. None at all since the fleet jumped away.)

"I thought you might be military," he says, taking Bill's hand in a firm shake. Weighing the honorific with a little more than instinctive politeness, "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

And...he casts a quick look over his shoulder at the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar. He has work to do. He shouldn't.

One drink won't kill you, a few stray thoughts point out in a very convincing manner.

So with a sigh and an acquiescing shrug, he goes to select something of his own.

[southphillysob]

"Yeah, that's it!" Bill chortles, which always manages to sound either vaguely menacing or not-so-vaguely inappropriate. "I didn't take you for military. Thought you might be a butler or something." He gestures at Gaeta's outfit. "Hell, I don't know, what kind of get-up is that anyway? By the way..." He leans forward, his mouth contorted into an impossible expression. "Unless you're an officer, no need to 'sir' at me, you got that?" It puts a hell of a cramp on mingling with his fellow... ah, whatever they are around here.

[mr_gaeta]

"Ex-military, ex-officer." He scans the bottles, and --

Oh. No frakking way.

Nestled behind a few others, almost hidden from sight, is a nearly full bottle of Caprican ambrosia. With a barely audible exclamation of triumph, he pulls it out and nabs a shotglass to go with it.

"I served as a lieutenant in the Colonial Fleet until about a year ago," he says. "Now..." A wry, slight gesture to his clothes. "Chief of Staff to the President."

There's less pride in that statement than one might expect. Much less.

[southphillysob]

"It ain't still Roosevelt, is it?"

What? Guy's been in office since Bill was eight. This joke is hysterical.

[mr_gaeta]

Of course it is! As you can tell by Gaeta's complete failure to laugh.

Er.

"No." He shakes his head, uncaps his own bottle and fills the shotglass. "I, ah, don't think we ever had a President Roosevelt in office on the Colonies. Or at least not that I remember."

He sets the bottle down.

"No, now we have President Baltar."

[southphillysob]

Bill gives Gaeta the hairy eyeball, as it were. "Now pardon me if I'm wrong, but it don't sound like you're too enthused about the guy. Granted, I get not liking the guy you're working for, but goddamn, we're all about ready to kill our CO and it ain't no way to run a unit of soldiers."

[mr_gaeta]

Evenly, "Did your CO surrender to the enemy a month ago?"

Gaeta tosses his shot back.