blessed are the landmines, stretched across the desert floor

[violenthearted]

Who: Erik Lehnsherr and Meyer Lansky
What: Just two dudes down the pub, except the pub is abandoned and there are no quizzes :(
Where: Kore's bar (SORRY LOGAN)
When: Day 77, Evening
Warning: 's these two. There will be swearing and the subject matter will inevitably get dark.



Erik does not really do "friends." With the exception of Charles he'd argue he still doesn't; the young mutants they'd collected had worked their way under his skin, but only so close to his heart. They were adolescents by and large, and he didn't understand them even they stopped being children and became soldiers.

So another man might say he's having a drink with a friend. Erik's perspective, astonishing no one, is different. Meyer is human, Erik will never really trust him, and frankly he'd think Meyer a fool if he were to extend the same to Erik.

That's the crux of it though, he doesn't think Meyer is a fool. Nor does he think he's many other of the vicious and ignorant qualities Erik often subscribes to humanity as a whole. Maybe they're not friends, but Erik understands the way Meyer sees the world, and he admires something in that tenacity. To have been born to nothing but refuse to accept. To understand that those who have fought for what they have understand its value.

He can certainly raise a glass to that, of whatever horrifying alcohol the bar has left. As such he is, at this moment, behind the bar itself, playing tender because it amuses him. Upon locating a bottle of something that appears to contain multiple snakes floating in a suspicious yellow liquid, he turns round and rests his elbows on the bar.

"Advertised to cure everything from farsightedness to hair loss," he grins. "Do we dare?"

No, and put that down immediately, please.

Comments

[recognize_an_opportunity]

Meyer, for his part, really trusts nobody. There are people in this town he considers to be pleasant to pass the time with, certainly, although even they're limited to a select few; the rest, he's pleasantly polite to, but keeps his distance from. There's only so close he can get to anyone without feeling deeply uncomfortable. To say he's Erik's friend would be greatly oversimplifying and overstating the matter, but he feels more comfortable with Erik than he does with many of the other inhabitants. They have something in common, although if asked to articulate what, exactly, the quality they share is, he's not sure he could.

The slow eyebrow raise he gives to the bottle Erik's holding up, however, suggests very little besides amusement. They might not be friends, precisely, but he's found that he enjoys Erik's company and his conversation, and that's plenty for him. "You're welcome to try it if you're worried about hair loss," he replies, "but let me say this as a guy who's often forced to drink gin made in a bathtub: liquor with snakes in it is below even my standards."

[violenthearted]

The bottom row of Erik's teeth come out, which is probably as good a sign as any that he is about to troll. Not Meyer, actually, nor anyone who is even present, but: "I should take it home, bestow it on Charles."

All of which is interesting in structure and word choice, home and Charles, conceptually; fortunately that's not the point, so Erik's not moved to analyze or self-correct. He explains, hefting the bottle between both hands such that its horrifying contents slosh merrily from one side to the other. "It's been put to him at length how he's going to bald."

Given Charles' absolute horror regarding even the possibility perhaps Erik should demonstrate a little more sensitivity, but that is unlikely. Meanwhile, as he's a pan-global citizen or whatever (more accurately he is a citizen of nowhere, at this point), Prohibition is even less comprehensible to him than it was to a significant portion of America, even those making fistfuls of cash from it. He indicates the stock of bottles behind the bar with a raised shoulder. "What do you suggest? If we won't be indulging in the medicinal."

The bottle really is going home with him, by the way.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll appreciate the thoughtful present."

Now, if only he had an equivalently horrifying liquor to take back home to Charlie, he could feel he'd really accomplished something today. Then again, the two of them have probably sampled enough horrifying liquor together at this point that it's not really necessary -- anything here has to be better than anything at home (snake wine being, maybe, the exception.) He can't say he'd ever refer to anywhere in this damn town as home, but then, he's not going to overanalyze Erik's words, either. What else are they supposed to call the places they're living?

His eyes scan across the bottles behind the bar, noting, with some concern, that like the food supplies, the alcohol supplies seem to be getting low as well. Running out of food is a serious problem, but running out of alcohol is, potentially, far worse. People, he's found, don't like being denied the ability to get drunk. He can't say he blames them: he doesn't make it a habit of getting drunk, but he likes to know the option is there. Within a short while, he assumes, the bar will no longer offer that option.

"Whiskey," he finally says, assuming it to be a relatively safe choice, and hopefully a snake-free one.

[violenthearted]

Somewhere there is surely at least a honky-tonk band that involves both whiskey and snakes, but thankfully not playing in this bar.

...meanwhile, the bottle Meyer's keen gaze has spotted turns out to be what Erik would call about mid-grade, but to Meyer may be the very tippest toppest shelf at this point. Given that the bar hasn't had staff in quite some time (if indeed it ever has, as the pervasive theory around town goes that this is all just so much set dressing) they lack the facilities for a splash of cold water or ice, but water at least can be obtained should Meyer be interested. Perhaps he considers it obscene to engage whiskey in any capacity but neat; Erik will add water to his own because he's particular about flavor and texture rather than drinking much to get drunk.

At least not today. He's certainly engaged in the past, but those were bouts of rage and despair such as will not be discussed today. Instead Erik will just pass along a glass of delicious amber refreshment with the slightly telling professional air that he has, in fact, tended bar before, because he has. "Odd jobs," he shrugs. "The curriculum vitae of the transient."

[recognize_an_opportunity]

It's been so long since Meyer's seen good alcohol that he's not quite sure what to do with it -- because, indeed, by his standards, this looks pretty good. Some of what he's seen and what he's tasted would probably make Erik cringe; it was amazing what people would drink, when their options were limited. There had been times when even he'd imbibed some pretty awful stuff, for the sole reason that there was nothing else available. Prohibition may have been profitable to guys like him, but it had also been hell on anyone who cared what their liquor tasted like.

"Before you finish up playing bartender and join me on this side of the bar, would you mind adding some water to mine, too?" Most of the whiskey back home had already been so watered down that adding anything else to dilute it further would have been a bigger crime, in his opinion, than selling the illegal alcohol in the first place, but around here, maybe he can finally enjoy a drink the way he'd like to. He'd never have thought that there was anything good about being stuck in this tiny town, but if there is, it's the fact that there's a decently stocked bar, despite its dwindling supply.

"What other jobs have you done?" He's curious about Erik, wants to know as much as he can about him, although he somehow imagines that learning particularly much will be difficult, at best. Still, it can't hurt to ask questions -- if Erik doesn't want to answer them, he won't. Meyer hardly thinks Erik's the type of guy to answer questions he doesn't want to.

[violenthearted]

Erik quirks a grin at something he doesn't elucidate, but then it's a friendly conversation; smiles are appropriate. Perhaps not one of Erik's like ....death's-head grins, that would require questioning, however in this case it's just that he recognizes the subtlety in saying something like 'before you join me' - it's clever, the kind of phrasing that generally has a personal half-way through complying before it occurs to him to question, if indeed it ever does. So his eyes are at half-mast to go with that secretive smile as he does, indeed, perk up Meyer's whiskey with the requisite splash of water.

After which he does come round to the other side of the bar, taking a stool and planting his feet on the bottom rung. He's long-legged and has a tendency to sprawl, deliberately taking up space like he owns it. "If you can do it without papers or staying in one place for more than a week, I've done it."

He ticks items off on his fingers, taking a second in the middle to try his drink. It's ...acceptable, he'd put it that way. "Grave digging." ...that one was fun. "The occasional hand at bar, of course," as Meyer has seen: Erik casually fetches himself one of those little metal drink stirrers without getting up, just flicks his fingers. Any pretense at hiding his mutation has gone out the window by now. To wit: "A lot of masonry. Construction. I seem to have a knack for it."

Let him have his jokes, Meyer. "And yourself? How did you come to be where you are today?"

Not like, stuck in a hideous fishbowl. Obviously.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Well," he says, turning the glass in his hand thoughtfully for a moment before taking a sip of the drink, "Nothing as interesting as grave digging."

Now that he knows about Erik's ability -- now that he knows that most of the people in this town have some kind of ability, although he and Charlie both make up the much smaller population that don't -- he's not alarmed to see Erik fetching himself a drink stirrer that way. Why not? It's easier than getting up, and it's not as though most people in the town don't already know about it. Still, he watches intently as Erik does so, like he can somehow understand how these powers or -- what had Erik called them? Mutations? -- work just by an intent gaze.

"I guess you could call me an entrepreneur."

It's true, to some extent. Most of what he's done has been outside of the scope of regular employment, but it's just as frequently been outside the scope of the law. "I left school young," he explains, not at all embarrassed by the fact (and why should he be, when he knows he's educated himself better than most teachers ever could have hoped to), "So I've worked for myself a lot." Many places wouldn't hire someone who'd left school after the eighth grade, but the crime world didn't discriminate.

"Lately, I've been running card games." And running drugs, but he doesn't need to discuss that with anyone unless they're interested in purchasing drugs from him.

[violenthearted]

Erik notes the space where Meyer's focus tunnels in, but doesn't draw attention to it; it's only logical as a reaction, and while he does love to show off he has nothing to prove anymore, sans that last great act of retribution he intends to commit. Though it would be deeply disingenuous to pretend he wouldn't invite questions if asked, and he may look as if he's casual in his acquisition of the little sliver of metal, but that takes work. Either way his mutation is in the background for now, and he thinks at the moment he prefers it that way. If this was how mutants could be seen all the time then maybe Erik wouldn't be sharpening teeth and knives in preparation for the day humans would inevitably turn on them--even Charles' thesis had recognized that peaceful cohabitation was short-lived.

Yet here they are, peacefully cohabitating, as far as Erik can tell. Peacefully sharing decent whiskey, anyway. "Interesting would be putting it kindly," he intones, dry. There are certainly appalling tales with which Meyer may be regaled, because that kind of work was even more hideous when Erik was doing it, and it's no walk in the park today. He makes a little tipping motion with his glass, and finally has the appropriate prop to do so! "To the self-educated."

Oh look, it's more freaky commonalities. "You're relying on the bartering system to make that work here?"

Since it's not like Kore has an economy, unless that economy is the Nicotine Standard.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

He nods, looking almost relaxed as he sips at his drink. He's always been good at appearing relaxed, always been good at putting on the guise of someone wound far less tightly than he really is, but around Erik, he does find himself somewhat more at ease. It's not as though he perceives Erik to be harmless -- far from it; he has the sense that Erik is possible of great violence, if provoked -- but he senses an odd kinship with him. It's something he'll analyze later, something he'll mull over and try to puzzle out, because, as has been his custom for many years, no puzzle can go unsolved, no issue can go without analysis.

"We're relying on the bartering system," he confirms, trying not to drink all of his whiskey in one gulp. "The way we see it, people around here are desperate for something fun to do, and some of us are also desperate for a cigarette or two. Combine those things, turn it into a game, everyone gets what they want, and money doesn't need to be involved."

It's strange, being in a place with no economy. Even in his own world, he's acutely aware that money isn't always the only form of currency, so to speak -- drugs, alcohol, weapons, sex, all of those things provide leverage and capital as well -- but to be in a place with no money at all is bizarre. He'd find it almost freeing, if he didn't find it so absurd. The bartering system seems to work for now, but, cynical (though he prefers to call it realistic) as always, he's sure it will break down sooner or later. That's why he needs to capitalize on it now.