(Untitled)

[bring_a_sponge]

Here's one guy who won't be going anywhere tomorrow. Not anywhere he doesn't plan to, anyway.

Oh, except for this place.

He stops at the Door, rolling his eyes in a way that suggests he really isn't feeling very rapturous at all. Then stomps over to the Bar and growls for a bourbon.

It's not helping.

Comments

[not_yourproblem]

Mycroft knows that look well.

It's the look a man wears when his day could not possibly get any worse.

Oh look. Mycroft seems to be wearing it as well.

He'll just sit over in a lovely squashy seat, watching the man who, if he is correct (and he nearly always is) doesn't exist over a glass of scotch. There's just something about men who don't exist that make them instantly recognisable to other men who don't exist.

[bring_a_sponge]

Sure enough, that something goes both ways. Mycroft is being glowered at now. But he needn't take that personally. Glowering is Zed's default mode in here.

[not_yourproblem]

Mycroft doesn't take it personally. He's very good at not taking things personally.

Which might not explain the bit of what appears very much to be blood on his jacket. Blood he hasn't even bothered to clean up, because it had dried by the time he got out of the infirmary, and is just too damn tired to worry about running errands for the person the blood once belonged to.

"You may find that sitting is more relaxing," Mycroft offers, trying to work out whether this man is a smoker, and whether he prefers cigars or cigarettes.

He's done trying to start a revolution with the staff. Starting an all-out coup sounds far more interesting, now that his brother put the idea into his head, and men who don't exist are always great help for such activities.

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed is entirely in favor of a revolution, provided he gets to be the one who strangles the Landlord.

Zed eyes his usual seat at the bar. "Sitting implies I'll be here for a while."

This is clearly Not a Good Thing.

But he does have an excellent bourbon in hand. It would be a crime not to do right by it. So he lumbers up on the seat after all.

Then he gives the guy another look. "Agent Zed. Man in Black. From the Terran Year 2011, Zyclodian Cycle 73, Regulan Season 6531, Centauri Month of the Glittering Cascades."

[im_just_the]

Someone's sitting at the bar already. He's not growling. Or drinking bourbon.

In case anyone is confused about who we're talking about here.

[bring_a_sponge]

"Oh." Zed says.

"You."

"Big Bastard drags your ass in here too, eh?"

[im_just_the]

"I don't think I'd characterize him quite like that," the Middleman answers amicably.

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed squints at him for a while.

"Why the hell are you guys always so goddamn cheerful?"

[makesthings]

Sam remembers that look and is getting a refill for his own spiced wine,

"Bad day?"

[bring_a_sponge]

"Any day in here is a bad day."

Zed squints at Sameth. "Have we met?"

[makesthings]

"I think so. You and your friend had an amazing device that was a phone and other things."

[bring_a_sponge]

"Oh, that's right. Got it."

"Sameth, wasn't it?" He pats his own chest. "Zed."

"You had a knack for that tech."

Which is probably why Sameth just got what passes with Zed for a polite introduction.

[gammagammahey]

Jen is learning to detect the tiniest inflections of Zed growls. For instance, there's a growl for "get this alien cephalopod slime off my shoe" as opposed to the growl for "the President was impersonated for thirty-eight days by a shapeshifting alien from Zhiith-17 before we knew about it" and the short lived "but but but Black Oil is your friend" campaign. There was extra growlage for the last, she's sure.

The Jade Giantess sneaks up behind him and sits down on the bar stool next to him.

"How's life, handsome?"

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed looks up and might actually have smiled, if he ever did that.

"Sonuvabitch. Walters! How the hell have you been?"

"Where the hell have you been?"

Like he should talk. It's been months since the Door grabbed him.

[gammagammahey]

It's been a while since Bar grabbed her, too.

"Fighting a full-scale alien invasion of my Earth that ruined my pedicure. Then fighting a nastier redder version of my cousin. Where were you when all of this happened?"

She'll play grim for all of another 0.0009 seconds.

[bring_a_sponge]

"Invasion," Zed scowls. "What a pain in the ass. Who were they this time?"

Then he double-takes. "--Redder? How the hell many of him are there?"

[themysciradiana]

Diana, seated a few stools down at the bar, half-turns to look. Someone in that bad a mood could always be dangerous.

Or be injured.

"Great Hera," she says, after a moment of considering silence, "I do hope this is the end of your day."

A little sleep will do wonders. Sometimes.

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed gets ready to glower, and then thinks twice about it. There are some in here that even he doesn't try messing with, and whoever this one is, she has that certain gravitas....

"It's this dump," he waves an arm. "Morning, noon, or evening, ending up here always makes a day crap."

[themysciradiana]

Diana has been glowered at by worse, both with and without a particular bat-mask.

"Is it the circumstances of your arrival, or have you been Bound here before? I am fairly certain I'd feel more uncomfortable here if such had happened to me."

Give it time.

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed SO doesn't like to be reminded of that time when he was Bound. But even if he hadn't been--.

"It's the fact that this place exists. Offends every damn rule of the multiverse. And the Jerk in charge probably thinks that's just funny as hell."