2014.01.09 - Obnoxious Redheads and Difficult Doors

The dude stranded Terry there like half an hour ago-- but the door is really sketchy, the booze is both free and really good, and twenty is plenty legal for drinking in the UK and in Ireland. No reason to brave leaving and possibly ending up god-knows-where, at least not yet.

That's when a man somewhere in his late twenties comes in: rumpled black suit, loose tie, unbuttoned collar, scuffed shoes, telltale signs of an occupied shoulder holster under the jacket, and yet the most mundane-looking person to come through that door in the whole time Theresa's been present.

He comes in with a wreath of cigarette smoke swirling in and dissipating in his wake, spies Theresa, pauses for a half-second, and goes up to the bar beside her. "Tamdhu," he tells the silent golem behind the bar, "neat. Double."

Terry is about two sheets to the wind, having drunk but not gotten /drunk/ drunk. Not quite. Not in her estimation, anyway. Her hair is a little dishevelled, and she's looking at a mostly empty glass of what used to be some kind of dark beer with a frown, elbow on the bar and her fingers curled in her hair. The thought crosses her mind that, first, she is not going to let anyone who looks like David Bowie take her to a bar again, and second that -

She is distracted when a man comes by. She turns her head, and when she hears words come out in an accent that is at least vaguely familiar, she speaks. She sounds a little thick. "So what time is it outside? Let me guess, it's bloody twenty-five-twenty-five by now while I've been drinking -" A glance at the glass. "Is this really mead?" The golem is examined skeptically.

"Depends on where you came in from," the black-haired Englishman tells Theresa with a crooked grin, leaning on the bar. The motion exposes a sash or strip of some kind of purple silk wrapped around and around one side of his belt, under the jacket. "Or at least, where you intend to leave to."

The silent golem gives Terry a completely unreadable look as it puts the man's drink on the bar in front of him; the man's oblivious to it, squinting at Terry's glass instead. "Wouldn't have any reason to doubt it, but it might be shitty mead." Then he sticks his hand out. "Pete Wisdom. You're Sean Cassidy's daughter, ain't you?"

Terry's eyes go down to that sash, but without recognition. She looks towards her glass and rings it with a fingernail. "Well if I'm going to have mead, /I/ want some that /isn't/ shite," she tells the golem, and then turns to look towards Pete again. Her expression is brightening, a warm ray of sunshine seeming to fall across her face -

Which is turned off like a lamp when he offers his hand and drops that name. "Yes," she says, flatly, reaching out to take that hand and giving it perhaps the most perfunctory handshake in recorded Earth history. "I see you know my father."

Perfunctory handshake of scathingness, and Wisdom's eyebrows have gone straight up. His hand goes immediately to his Scotch as Theresa releases it. "I might only know of your father, but yeah, we've met. He helped me out with some Sentinel bollocks about ten years ago, maybe a little less. Haven't seen 'im since-- don't blame the man for that. Drank too much coffee in primary school, stunted my concience's growth."

Throughout that, his tone's mild and self-deprecating. Finally, Pete straightens up, drinking half the glass and holding it in his mouth for a moment; he savors it as the golem puts a glass of really good, really sweet mead in front of Terry. He puts his glass down, and all uninvited, pulls up the bar stool next to her and has a seat.

Ten years ago? Maybe a little less? And the man can't even be thirty yet.

"Doesn't," he says, looking at her sidelong, "mean I don't think he's a horse's ass. No offence." Taking out another cigarette and a black mini-Bic, Wisdom lights up ritualistically. "Know who you are. I were in the various extranormal divisions of Brit Intel over the years."

"Well I'm glad he was helpful t' somebody then," Terry says, practically blares. As she's given a glass of mead, she eyes it skeptically, because it looks sort of like flat champagne to her relatively innocent eyes. With a tongue and soul corroded by the kind of whiskey you find in a girls' school, can she really endure it?

She lifts up the glass, and takes a small sip, frowning. She doesn't quite do the mental math on Pete's age, taking a larger sip afterwards - a third of the glass gone. She twirls it a little.

Then she actually laughs. It's brief, though surprisingly clear. Turning in her stool, she leans halfway forwards, rather conspiratorially. "Oh, so you've read my /file/. I imagine that means you know everything about me. Are you here to extradite me, Mr. Wisdom? 'coz I have a completely legitimate educational visa /and/ I know I can get sponsorship to become a Yew-nighted States Citizen for the asking. Any time!"

Another sip of the mead. "Probably Canadian too, frankly," she says, thinking with distant fondness of Logan: one of the first men she was taller than.

Again, up go the eyebrows. "No, I don't know everything about you. You didn't hit the radar until the end of my employment with Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service. And even if deportation were remotely in my job description, why the fuck would I want to pick a fight with you?" Wisdom takes a drag off his coffin nail, mildly amused if his expression's anything to go by, and sips his Scotch with an air of utter appreciation.

It's really good Scotch.

"Canadian's probably slightly safer," he allows, "they're Commonwealth, at least. Anyroad, you're one up on me; I stop working for the U.N., I get deported."

"To where, exactly," Theresa says suspiciously. She takes another long sip of the mead.

"This is fucking delicious," she says, looking at the glass with some surprise.

"So why'd you bring it up then if you didn't want a fight?"

"England," Pete says with some surprise; he puts the glass down and stares at Theresa. "Brought it up to explain I don't know you through your Da, since as soon as I mentioned him you shut off like a light. Got no beef with you; sorry you've got one with me."

He takes a long drag of his cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray to his far side. Picking up his glass again, the Briton sits up and glances at the occupants of the bar behind them, few as they are. Odd as they are. "Bloke I meant to meet with hasn't shown," Wisdom allows, then finishes his drink and starts collecting himself to go. "If you like that one, you should try the maple. Fucking best invention since fire."

"God you're ridiculous," Terry says with a sudden laugh.

She finishes the mead and purses her lips. "Wait," she then says.

Quite persuasively too! She gestures for another glass of the mead. "If you're able to come out of your picturesque scenario of writerly ennui, Missssster Wisdom, there's actually something I'd like to ask you about very quick. Terribly simple, though..." She trails off, leaning an elbow on the bar as she is re-served, looking at Pete directly with one of those annoyingly small smiles that might mean secret knowledge or moderate intoxication.

Wisdom pauses, one hand still on the bar, though he's gotten up. The corner of his own mouth turns up slightly, though his manner's still mild: could be he's just tired. Long day, like. There's still that trace of detached amusement, anyway-- Terry's not wrong in her accusation, at the moment. "Show you the way to go home?" he guesses. "I can get you to New York, at least."

Terry's smug expression vanishes. In other words, to put it in emoticon terms: she goes from ;) to :I in a trice.

"Well that's convenient," she complains, sipping her mead. "Were you looking for a man who looked like a young David Bowie by any chance?"

The SHIELD agent shakes his head, though he frowns slightly. "No, but that fuckwit was here? Only so many young David Bowie lookalikes come here, and I've been looking for that little rat for a month." The frown deepens, and he shifts his weight, leaning against the bar and crossing his arms. "Threw me under the bus in Otherworld, beginning of December."

"Oh, that sounds awful," Theresa says, nodding.

A beat. "Where's Otherworld?"

She also drops some money on the bar, a little vaguely. "D'you tip here, or is it like back home?" she asks, equally vaguely. "And show me how the hell it is you get back to the city, too, obviously..."

Pete rolls his eyes and gives up, lighting another cigarette and starting toward the door. "Tip away. Maybe the barman there can get itself a soul on the cheap." Blue smoke trails behind him. "Follow me. Exit's wherever I got in, so you'll have to keep quiet; I got in through what was the pantry yesterday."

He pauses at the door and glances back. "In Doctor Strange's kitchen," he says, deadpan.

Terry tips generously. It would not be good to earn the ire of the bartenders here, perhaps. She may realize that, or perhaps she's just a soft touch. She swallows as she walks through second-hand smoke, stumbling momentarily but not protesting. "Fine, fine," she mumbles. "Bleeding extradimensi... Dimensional..."

"Oh, that's in Greenwich village, isn't it?" she says before stepping through. As her voice fades back into conventional reality, she says conversationally, "Can I throw up in his toilet or should I try to wait til I'm outside?"