Finished/Closed

[stonyfaced]

WHO: Samuel Vimes and Ken Hidaka + anybody else who arrives
WHAT: Vimes does whathe does best and Ken runs into him? We shall see!
WHERE: Miscellenous neutral sleazy bar with a few inconspicuous mobsters and coppers here and there.
WHEN: Day 177
OPEN TO: Anybody who likes to drink, or to socialize with drinkers?

Comments

[stonyfaced]

When Vimes finished his drink, the world wasn't looking a bit fuzzier, but not nearly fuzzy enough. "'Scuse me," he said. Pleasantly, for him. The bartender kept on chatting to the kid beside him, jibbering about sports, or as Vimes put it, glorified, legal brawling. Not that there was anything wrong with it; even the most legal of them needed to get excess energy out by doing what should have been called the city's passtime: violence. Great fun, that. At least in sports, there was a notable lack of guns and brass knuckles.

"'Scuse me!" A bit louder, now, but not angry. No response. "Hey!" Damn. How long had he known this bartend for? How long had this bartend milked him of his money in exchange for good drink? How many times had he passed out on this filthy floor? Vimes thought he deserved better service than this.

"Horace!" He barked, frowning at the boy sitting beside him. It was one thing to be friendly, but another one entirely to deprive a man of his drink. The bartend gave a little jump and glanced over, finding himself faced with the unpleasant look of a half-sober, disgruntled Samuel Vimes.

"Yeah, Sam," the guy mumbled, "I'll get you one now, sorry. Not so often you get a friendly face in here, eh? Eh, Vimesy? You know, somebody not an alcoholic, haha. Vimes? ...I'll get your drink now."

Then Vimes' hand was wrapped around a cold glass again and things looked a little brighter. Glancing towards the guy beside him, he wondered what would ever posess a 'friendly face' to come into a bar like this one.

[artiglio]

Ken started as well at the final bellow of 'Horace'. He hadn't meant to distract the bartender that much, and was sorry he did.

He looked at Vimes, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry about that mister, I didn't mean to distract him that badly." He said with an embarrassed look. Dark eyes gave the older man a once over, appraising, and Ken smiled.

"Hey, let me buy you a drink, and we'll call it even, 'kay?" He thought it best to try and smooth over ruffled feelings, especially with a guy that would get THAT angry about being ignored.

[stonyfaced]

"Don't worry about it," Vimes said, waving him off. Mister. The boy called him Mister. Now Vimes was starting to feel really old. He was all right with being called Sarge, because that was what he was, and before, he was fine with being called whatever rank he had happened to be, and he was all right with being called Vimes, or even Sam, if you knew him well enough (which was depressing when you thought about the bartender calling him that), but Mister certainly wouldn't do. "Vimes," he said, then rethought it. "You can call me Vimes, I mean--no mister necessary."

The booze must be getting to him, he thought. That sounded downright pleasant.

"And I'll never turn down a drink," he said, frankly. It was true. A free drink was a rare and treasured thing. Vimes noticed an inebriated head lift beside him in interest.

"That wasn't for you," he informed the head.

It crashed drunkenly back onto the bar. Vimes found himself strangely pleased.

[artiglio]

Ken's smile turned into a child's closed eyed happy smile, you know the one they wear when they're inexplicably pleased about nothing at all.

"Alright, Vimes it is then." He said, taking a sip of his beer, "I'm Ken. Nice to meet you." It was still a struggle not to add the honourifics, especially since he didn't know this guy, but his months in Italy had taught him well.

[stonyfaced]

Vimes looked at Ken's face, open, and young, and God, it was both refreshing and depressing at the same time. He had half a mind to tell the boy not to get hooked on liquor, but decided against it. He was addicted to the stuff, and he was an upstanding citizen. Right? Right.

He nodded his head and took a sip of his drink, slower now, savouring the taste as it spread throughout his mouth. In his own personal opinion, friendly conversation diluted the alcohol, but he had enough before this, so that was okay. "Nice to meet you, then, Ken."

Then, looking around him, Vimes asked (despite the risk of sounding like a man who used bad pick up lines), "Are you meeting somebody here, or do you just drop in on bars--" the light in front of them flickered and died, a man on the other side of the room, slid to the floor in a happy, drunken stupor, "--often."

[artiglio]

Ken looked at him, a little surprised that the conversation was going to continue, but that didn't bother him any. He was sincerely happy to talk. Any resemblance to a bad pick up line went right over his head.

"Neither actually, I come to bars when I just want to be around people. This one's close to my house so I tend to come here a little more often then others." He said with a soft laugh and a sip of beer.

"I like meeting new people, and sometimes bars are the best place to do it." Ken continued, gesturing slightly with his non occupied hand. "You see, even though I see a lot of people at work, I don't have much time to socialize."

[stonyfaced]

"To be around people," Vimes repeated, a bit at a loss with the concept. Wonders never cease. Most people he knew (including himself, really) came to bars to get away from people. So some form of socially friendly people really did still exist in the world. "Fair enough."

He polished off his drink.

Something told him that a good conversationalist had something else to say. Something about people? Booze? Bars? Coppers? Jobs? Jobs. That was it. What do you do? The words were on the tip of his tongue.

But then it occured to him that the boy said he met a lot of people, and didn't have any time to... oh dear. If he was a, uh... escort, Vimes really didn't want to know. Really.

[artiglio]

Ken continued to talk, oblivious to Vime's chain of thought. "I like working for Sogyo-san, it means I get to be out and about all day delivering tea. With the recent violence, people have been holing up and not coming to the store, so that just makes me busier." He seemed a little sad at this remark.

"I don't understand how people can do that to each other. Its not right to hurt someone else to get what you want. It just isn't." Ken was silent for a moment, then broke back out with a smile. "Enough of that! Tell me a bit about yourself Vimes, I'd like to know."

[stonyfaced]

...Aha! Delivery boy. Vimes knew that. He got over his rather incorrect train of thought to think over what he just said: Sogyo-san. Now, Vimes wasn't the most cultured man in the world, but that little slip up meant that he was from Japan, not just one of those guys born in Italy.

Vimes didn't trust the Japanese. He didn't trust Mexicans either, for that matter, or the Americans, or the Canadians, or the Chinese, or the Korean, or hell, the Italians. Vimes didn't even trust the English and he was one. But he was allowed to distrust all of them. He rubbed elbows with 'em every day. It only irked him when people didn't like them and had nothing to do with him. But Vimes had every right to distrust them. Yep. It was his right, it was.

But Ken seemed like a nice kid. "That's a good way to think," he said, frankly. "Even if nobody else really does."

About himself. Well. Vimes had to think that through, not 'cos he had no life, but because he was getting drunk. Yeah. That was it. He had plenty of a life.

"He likes to drink!" Butted in the red faced Horace.

"Shut up."

"Sorry, Sam."

"Well," Vimes said after Horace backed off to continue cleaning the ever-dirty glass, "I'm a copper." He stopped there. It seemed to define his life pretty damn well. Yeah, he was in the Antimafia commission or whatever, but when it came down to it, he was still a copper, would always be a copper, and when a criminal asked, who exactly do you think you are?, it was much easier to say, Oh, I'm a copper, as opposed to, I am a prestiged member of the antimafia commission.

So that was that.

[artiglio]

Ken smiled at him again, happy with Vime's response. "What, you don't believe it either? Oh well, as long as someone does, it means the violence might eventually have an end." This was said with a joking tone of voice, not meant to accuse at all, but hopeful all the same.

A laugh was brought on by the interruption of the barkeep and Vimes's subsequent come back. "Ah, but its true though, isn't it Vimes? I mean, here you are, in this bar, with a barkeep you know well enough to call by first name. Hey, at least drinking is a more wholesome hobby then some have." He didn't seem at all disturbed by this, merely amused. "Though, you probably shouldn't drink so much, its bad for your liver."

Vimes's next remark was confusing, he'd never heard that phrase before. Ken gave the older man a questioning look. "Whats a copper? I doubt you mean the metal."

[stonyfaced]

"Well, I certainly don't believe in hurting people to get stuff you want, but it's a fact that nearly everybody else does," Vimes replied, drumming his fingers upon the counter as he lost all sensation in the tips of his fingers. It was a pleasant feeling. "But if somebody decides to hurt me, say,to get what they want, then I won't be so forgiving." In case Ken was dull, "Meaning that I'll use violence to keep something that I want, being my life, that is."

"I guess you could call drinking wholesome, though." Vimes held the glass up to the light. It was rather pretty, if one was so inclined to think on those sorts of things, which Vimes wasn't. "S'got wheat. People call wheat whole." Everything was bad for you these days. Drinking ruined your liver. Smoking ruined your lungs. Sex ruined your genitals (given the wrong partner). TV ruined your eyes. Although, in Vimes' own personal opinion, if it mattered to anybody (it didn't), if you didn't do at least one thing that could kill you, you'd die an early death. It was just one of those things.

He was torn out of his entertaining train of thought by Ken asking what a copper was. Huh. "A metal--oh. No." He frowned. He lived, what, ten years in Italy, and he still hadn't stopped saying copper. Some people recognized the term. Some people didn't. It was sad. "It's a cop," he explained. "A policeman."

Vimes decided to pause to think about being a copper for a little while, but found the fact too depressing, so he stopped to think about liquor for the while, which was a much brighter notion. If he squinted, the bottles began to wiggle. This amused him to no end, nearly drew the cynicism right outta him, except for his cynicism would never disappear forever. It was nice for half an hour or so, or for however long he passed out for, though.

[artiglio]

Ken nodded. "Defense is alright. There's nothing wrong with defending yourself or others. Its the senseless violence I object to. Sadism for personal gain is just...wrong." He said with a small, half smile.

At the explanation of what a 'copper' was, Ken's eyes widened slightly. Police meant association with the AMC. There was a moment of panic before he got himself to shrug it off. If Vimes hadn't said anything about it, there was nothing to worry about. His face took on a look of mock pity.

"Wow, sorry to hear that Vimes." He said, meaning it to be a joke.

[stonyfaced]

Wrong. Right and wrong. Nobody talked about it like that these days. Vimes had known people who talked like that. Known. Mostly other coppers, bright eyed, full of idealism, but they ended up splattered on the street. It was a good thing Vimes had met his mentor when he did, who taught him about fighting dirty, about running away, otherwise Vimes would have been dead too. Then again, if you lived, your idealism ran away and you were left as a cynical, drunken bastard. Living was better than dying, though, no matter the price, so Vimes wasn't about to complain.

"Hah," he said in response to Ken's joke, his mouth curling in a dry sneer and a thumb reaching up to wipe some liquid off of his stubble-covered lower lip. "Hold it in the same high esteem as everybody else does, I see. I'm sure you hear plenty about us." He laughed, hollowly - and alley oop, there was the alcohol - before remarking, "Or nothing at all."

[artiglio]

Ken caught the hollowness. "Ah, I'm sorry Vimes. As individuals, the police are great. They try to do their jobs with evil breathing down their backs. Its your superiors that get me." He signaled Horace for another drink for Vimes, as Ken wasn't yet finished his beer.

"Do you like your job Vimes?" He asked, looking at the other man with a smile. There was no malice or threat to his question, just simple curiosity. He genuinely wanted to know more about his conversation partner, as he seemed like a good guy.

[stonyfaced]

"Don't apologize," Vimes replied, raising a hand, his voice a growl and his face just as imperceptible as ever. "Everybody knows it."

Was this kid for real? Nobody was this, well... nice. Not for real. Looking at Ken's face, though, and seeing only honesty, was both surprising and unnerving. He was for real, wasn't he? And he'd stay this way, if he was like this after staying here. It was astonishing.

"Yeah," he said, after a pause. "I like my job." Like really didn't factor in. For as long as Vimes could remember, he was a copper. His life was his badge. He lived, breathed, ate as a copper. He went to coppers' funerals, and the only people present were his coworkers. It was his life, but it wasn't necessarily bad. It wasn't good. It was just how his life worked out. Then, in an attempt to be halfway friendly, "How about you?"

[artiglio]

Ken smiled. "I love my job! I mean, whats not to like. I have an awesome boss, great co-workers, plus I get to be out and about riding my bike. Also, I get to meet a lot of different people, and go all over the city." His voice rose and his hands waved as he spoke. He just was that enthusiastic about it. It was hard to believe a guy like this was old enough to be legally in a bar, but, here Ken was. In a bar, waving his hands about like an excited child.

But that wasn't all, Ken wasn't done. "Believe it or not, I like it here, too. I mean, sure, its a rough place, and really people are being over ridden like peasants, but the folks here are nice, they're friendly. The city is beautiful, well, in the day anyways, and I like the music they play on the street corners."