open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

[boomvox]

Who: Everyone.
What: The Grand Re-Opening of the Gravity Falls Station.
Where: Babylon.
When: Veerdi to Sukkardi.
Notes: Party post!!! Go nuts y'all.
Warnings: Probable alcohol (and drug?) use. Flag stuff in subject titles if it needs a warning and I'll edit it up in here.

It's clear from the first moment anyone even gets on the Skyrail tonight that the Stratosphere Entertainment Group's pricey investment is going to pay off - every rail car is crowded with people decked out and excited for the event. To natives of Baedal, the idea of a holiday is days off work, maybe some camping - escape is alien, a little frightening, and completely thrilling. Even when the Gravity Falls station had hosted other venues, it was nothing so ambitious as to capture the imaginations of the city as a whole. And to immigrants to the city who no longer have the luxury of even simple trips out of town - well, it's priceless. A bittersweet but suddenly vital excursion.

Doors open just as the sun begins to set, the light reflecting off the water of the ocean illuminating the great floating platform as if the entire sky was on fire, before slipping into deep purple then black, the ceiling of their experience dotted with brilliant stars. Staff members wrangling the hazards of the first night are anxious but excited, kind and helpful even if they end up frazzled by the overwhelming turnout. There is security, all sporting neon purple shirts with lion logos, but even by their own admission, they're only there to breakup fights - and even they're smiling all night, too.

Comments

[captaincocksure]

"Yeah, we'll be all right," Jim decides, leaning on the bar with a faint smile.

A couple of minutes later, the bartender returns bearing two drinks. The one she sets in front of Clarice is sort of what they expected: elaborate, a layer of green on top of a layer of purple, garnished with a couple of fruit wedges, a glowing straw, and a long swizzle stick with stars set into clear plastic that makes it look like the stars are cascading up out of the glass.

Impressive.

Jim, however, gets a plain glass tumbler with an ungarnished blue liquid. He looks down at his drink, and then he meets the bartender's gaze, eyebrows raised.

"It matches your eyes," she explains, in what's probably not a professional tone. And then she wanders off to help the next patron.

Jim has the good grace to look startled by this development, and to further turn over the napkin under his drink--when he lifts the glass, you see, he realizes it has a CiD number written on it.

"Sorry," he says to Clarice, sheepish, leaving a slightly-larger tip than he would usually offer on top of the upturned napkin. "Should we go find somewhere to sit?"

[andyoullmissit]

Clarice laughs as the bartender walks away. "I bet that happens to you often," she suggests, mischievously, as she carefully picks up her concoction. "And yes, let's, I don't want to try and stand and drink this. I won't be offended if you take the napkin," she adds, an afterthought.

[captaincocksure]

"From time to time, yeah," he allows as they find seats, waiting on his feet until she's seated to join her. (The Federation, they beat good manners and gentlemanly ways into you, they don't want you causing an interstellar incident at a bar or anything like that.) "I got it a lot more back home."

Where he tended to go out more and was also a more recognizable figure. Here, there's less of both, though he's working on the first one. And he's left the napkin back on the bar: "--Life's complicated here, and can you imagine if I dated a bartender and it went bad? Spiked drinks forever."

It's an easy cover for his reticence to get quite that close to anyone here, just yet.

"But I guess it's nice to know I've still got it? I guess?" he says, laughing.

[andyoullmissit]

"I suppose," she says, smile lingering. "Life is complicated anywhere, though, isn't it?"

Clarice sounds like she might be genuinely asking. Given her sample size of her world and Baedal, she's inclined that way, but she supposes hers isn't a typical one, from what she's gathered.

"Probably nicer if it's a good drink. I'm afraid mine is going to put my eye out if I approach it wrong."

[captaincocksure]

"I guess it is, yeah," Jim relents. It's true, life's a complicated mess no matter where you go.

But Jim often feels like he's a walking complication. Best not to inflict that on anyone who's not ready for it.

He glances over at her drink, grinning. "It does seem to call for a certain sense of adventure. And good coordination."

[andyoullmissit]

"Lucky I've got both." She eats one slice of fruit and drops the other into the drink. Taking a sip (holding the swizzle stick out of the way), she looks thoughtful and says "Not bad. Sort of what you'd expect."

[captaincocksure]

"Gracefully done," he remarks, gently teasing. He holds his up for examination--yes, he's still being a troll--and he sniffs it before taking a sip.

"...Believe it or not, it even tastes blue. I don't know, like you'd expect the color blue to taste." Like some sort of tropical fruit, maybe, it's difficult sometimes to explain what goes on in Jim's head.

[andyoullmissit]

"Did you have popsicles where you were from? I kind of remember the taste of blue popsicles." Which is what she's imagining now. "They just sort of tasted like colors, not fruit."

[captaincocksure]

Jim sits up a little, excitedly nodding. "Yeah! Yeah, like it's-- you know it's supposed to be some fruit flavor but it isn't. That's exactly what this is like. Like a popsicle."

A pause, and he makes a face. "Or like some of the fruit we'd get on board my ship sometimes. Replicators. People swear there's no difference but I grew up on a farm, I can tell sometimes."

[andyoullmissit]

"Yeah. Here the fruit may be unidentifiable, but at least you know it was generally grown on a plant." Some comfort, at least! "What could the replicators make? Anything?"

[captaincocksure]

"Organic material, things that weren't horribly complex." He shrugs, sipping his blue drink. "So food and drink, mostly. It could handle some basic medical compounds but not much, nothing complicated. It's handy on long trips but I don't think I could eat replicated food for the rest of my life."

[andyoullmissit]

"I guess it's necessary. You get hungry enough, anything tastes good, right?" She smiles and asks it lightly, but she doesn't really have to ask. "Solves the problem of storage, though, if you only create it right before you eat."

[captaincocksure]

"It really does, you don't have to store anything or worry about it spoiling." He grins. "That's why I put up with it even if I'd rather have something grown the right way."

And once, when he was fourteen, a colony ran out of food and there weren't replicators, and replicators might have saved everyone... but he doesn't like to talk about those days. He just harbors a tiny bit of resentment.

"...Sorry, it's a nightclub and here I am talking shop."

[andyoullmissit]

"I don't mind. I'm actually not very, um, practiced at this sort of thing. What do people usually talk about in nightclubs?" In some parts, not much of anything, based on the level of the music.

[captaincocksure]

He shrugs, an easy gesture. "Not much. Either they're drinking and complaining, or drinking and trying to pick up a date for the night, or dancing and trying to accomplish the same. Sometimes they're dancing because they enjoy it."

[andyoullmissit]

"The last part sounds the least complicated," she observes, sipping her drink. "Did you come intending to pick up a date?"

It's shameless, but it's not coy. She's just curious.

[captaincocksure]

Jim lets out a laugh, as startled by and appreciative of her directness as he is amused by the question.

"No, I didn't," he admits. "There was a time when I devoted a lot of time to that, but not anymore. It's not really a priority for me these days."

[andyoullmissit]

"What changed?" She's going to be nosy as long as he lets her.

[captaincocksure]

A faint smile tugs at his lips; no one's ever been so direct but he doesn't mind explaining. "I guess my priorities changed as I got older," he has the nerve to say, like he doesn't still look like the troublemaking kid Pike challenged in a bar. "I didn't have a lot of direction or satisfaction with my life before, so I was chasing guys, chasing girls, drinking, trying to find something to fill the void. Not that there's anything wrong with choosing to live that kind of life," he adds, "if it's for you, and sometimes part of me even misses it. But I enlisted, and the Academy took up my time, though I still dated. And once I was commissioned and got my own command, there wasn't time. The job comes first."

He takes another sip of his drink, thoughtful. And then--it's hard to say if it's because he's already opened up that much, or if the weird blue drink that tastes like popsicles loosened his lips, or if it's just one of those moments where something you've been holding inside for a long time finds its way out:

"...And for a while, there was someone. Someone who meant the world to me, who changed me. But I never got my act together and I never figured out how to tell him how I felt, and now I'll never have the chance. I guess I'm still..."

He shrugs, but with his hands, not his shoulders. Still figuring it out. Still trying to get over it. Still hurting, still full of regret. Maybe that's what he's trying to convey, he's really not sure.

[andyoullmissit]

Clarice softens, a little. He's been more honest with her than she probably deserves, as someone who's never met him before, but she can see there's real regret there. She's not one to generally let her own guard down much, even with people she knows well, but he gave her a genuine answer that deserves a real response.

"I'm sorry. I know what you mean - about someone who changes you. It makes it hard to... When you know you won't see them again, it's easy for other people to say it's healthier to grieve and move on, but it isn't only the person you lost. It's about knowing that anyone new could be lost too. That nothing's guaranteed."

She can't help but think of the people she'll never see again. Not just Ahmyor, which is how she'll always think of him now, but of the others. Sydney. Rogue. Mr. Creed. ...her real parents, on her darkest days.

[captaincocksure]

He nods. "Yeah. It takes away your sense of hope, too. That's what keeps you going sometimes, that idea of what if or maybe someday. But losing someone like that..."

He can't quite bring himself to say the words, but the way he feels, he's just not sure he can maybe someday with someone else now. Not when the wound is still so fresh.

"That's one of the terrible things about this place. The way it separates people from the people they need."

[andyoullmissit]

"Some people get home, though, I hear." She doesn't want to hit a sensitive spot; after all, she can't go home. But she's not sure if it's something he might view as possible. She doesn't quite make it a question.

[captaincocksure]

"They do," he confirms. "He did. My friend."

[andyoullmissit]

"You don't think it's possible you will?"

[captaincocksure]

"I don't know," Jim admits. "He came and went twice. I've been here a year, now." It feels like he'll never go home.