multiversallogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who: Don and Nazca
What: Business! Strategy!
Where: A restaurant in Gross Coil.
When: AHAHAHA...the distant past? (Although not 1960s distant.) I blame LJ.
Warnings: Severe backdating.

A five-minute walk from the river, the Alameda's ash-gray brick and glass on the outside. There are structures in Baedal precarious as poses struck by dancers, buildings with no visible supports, that look to have been strung up on a wish. This isn't one of them: you don't doubt that if your hand smacks into the wall it'll scrape off some of the skin.

Inside music plays low; conversation's conducted in intent murmurs. Though the tables are packed in tightly, it doesn't feel cramped or crowded. Everyone here knows their business, where it begins and ends.

Don's waiting in the smoking section.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nazca likes the restaurant he's selected for that reason; it's full of people who know what they're about, and aren't wasting anyone's time. While there are occasions where fools are useful, setting up a business plan isn't one of them.

She comes to settle across from him. "Mr. Draper. It's good to see you."

At her approach he gets to his feet, cigarette left notched in the ashtray. Smoke twisting in ribbons toward the ceiling. "In person," he says, as if just struck by the thought. He sits, reclaims his cigarette. "I admit, I'm anxious to see what you can do when you're not confined to a screen. Can I get you a drink?"

He has something already, in a glass that sits almost at his fingertips. An inch or so's been drained off sip by sip.

"That'd be nice. What are you drinking?" While not all her preferences from home are impossible to get, they're generally not easy. She's been working her way through more readily obtainable options.

"This is an old-fashioned." Even as Don's hand moves to the drink he looks to her. A pause, doled out with a kind of wary expectation. People make jokes.

He picks up the glass, drinks. It eases through him. "Rye, bitters, sugar. It's strong," he cautions, the warning issued a touch archly.

Nazca's context is all wrong for that sort of joke; she's not so much modern, futuristic or anachronistic as just otherworldly in subtle ways.

She smiles, though, easily. "I don't object to strong." Rather the opposite. "I was generally a brandy drinker at home, but I don't mind branching out."

"That's why I'm here." He smiles in return, quick, a couple degrees warmer than the temperature they normally run, and summons the waiter with a gesture. With her matching cocktail on the way he takes a drag of his cigarette.

"So, Mr. Draper. How've you been settling in," she says, after a moment of shamelessly taking his measure.

With the tips of his fingers Don gives his glass an idle twist. "Not as well as I'd like, if you have to ask," he says wryly. He doesn't shrug but manages to convey it all the same: in the lightness of his tone, a lift of the eyebrows. "There's a lot to see. I can't say it's boring."

"You seem to be doing better than most," she asserts. The 'seem' is important. "But no, it's seldom that. It's been quiet, by this city's standards, for the last few weeks."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only