multiversallogs | if god was one of us, he'd probably drink vodka

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if god was one of us, he'd probably drink vodka

Who: ~~Benny~~ Vanessza Bernát and ~~Bruce Wayne~~ Tom.
What: Catching up, resigned side-eying, and drinks. (One of them is getting a diet soda.)
Where: Mog Hill.
When: Shortly after Benny's arrival.
Notes: UP IN DA CLUB DON'T GIVE A FUCK you guys I need to stop youtubing mixes made by random internet people.
Warnings: None expected.

Of all the people he expected to see in Baedal - hell, expected to see again, ever - Vanessza would be very low on that list. He's thought about her since then, yes; not in any pining or wistful way, but there's no two ways about it: that encounter was unique. It's something that, for many reasons, he's occasionally tempted to inspect.

(And yet he hasn't. Surprise.)

Bruce is at the Valhalla in short order, though he doesn't engage anyone and moves with the kind of purpose that telegraphs that he doesn't want to be bothered. He doesn't go any further than the lobby, and looks for the blonde-haired doctor - who is probably there?

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Coming down the stairs, just in time; she's not completely happy about being obliged to take a room here, and she doesn't intend to stay past the first night or two, but lugging her suitcase around the city while she reorients herself isn't a practical option. She'll cope, she'll just pout about a little on her way down to meet ... Tom. Who is memorable, yes, but not someone she anticipated running into again, either - they had a good night, the three of them, but it was intensely surreal and for that reason a little like lightning in a bottle. They're not men she expects to run into buying groceries later on.

In fairness, this isn't much less surreal, which may or may not make either Tom or David the most appropriate people to bump into. Food for thought.

"On reflection," she says, sticking with Hungarian now, "I still like the other one better."

'Lightning in a bottle' is a good phrase for it; in a way he's unnerved to see her again - he'd have been content to leave that whole encounter vaguely in the past - but since she's here, well. She's here. The uncanny kinship of silence is something he's more comfortable with than anyone who might actually attempt to pry.

"I'm with you there," he answers, wry, and also in Hungarian. (He'd feigned a sort of half-assed ignorance, back then, but now his accent is modern and bizarrely on-point, navigating with a clear education, though not perfect fluency.) "The last time I was truly trapped, it was worse than this."

So, one bright spot, even if he still doesn't sound thrilled.

Benevenuta's Hungarian passes incredibly closely for native, but French is closer to that truth and Greek what she considers her true first language; it doesn't matter, because mostly they understand each other in terms of that silence. He doesn't ask, so she doesn't ask, and everybody's happy.

Or as close to happy as they can get when her first glimpse of Baedal outside the inn doesn't inspire much more confidence than the inside. (At least she wrote down the name of that pawn shop recommended to her; she'll have to have a look, after she's caught up with Tom.)

"I think I prefer to travel the old fashioned way." Which old fashioned way, madam?

It's just as well; while Bruce can read old Greek, it's not like he knows how to converse in it, and wouldn't that be a puzzling academic situation all around. (Academic. Yes.)

"There aren't any cars here," he says, utterly unhelpfully. "Were you serious about that drink?"

As she might recall, he doesn't actually drink, so it's not his impulse to find liquor - but he he knows where things are, naturally. Just like he somehow did in the nexus.

"Horsepower," she observes, watching a carriage rumble by them on the street - she looks almost pleased, for a moment, nostalgic. Just like old times. (She's got a lot of those to pick from, all told, but she spent large parts of the early 20th century in seclusion and automobiles still have a veneer of novelty to her.)

After a beat, drawing her attention back where it belongs instead of getting sidetracked by her own curiosity-- "I was, but just the one." She can hold her liquor fine (as he probably recalls); she's not going to subject him to being the only sober man in the room, she'd just like to deal with the rest of this clusterfuck over a glass of wine for a while.

It's understandable - and a far more normal coping method than any of the ones he's indulged in, anyway.

Curiosity is a good reaction. Probably. He's mostly quiet for the walk to the Apache; it's not far away, and it's not the sort of place he thinks she'd spend her time in voluntarily (he recognizes expensive taste when he sees it), but they won't be bothered there. Privacy is his default.

He does remark, however, that the pamphlets in there are ostensibly accurate to the extent of available information.

The Apache is not, admittedly, a bar that Benevenuta would've chosen to go to - but neither does she turn a hair on arriving in it, so there's that. Then again, given how coolly she dealt with the decapitated head of a robot, he's probably not surprised that she leaves her pearls unclutched, settling opposite him in one of the out of the way booths.

"How long have you been here?" she asks, resting her fingertips at the base of her glass.

He gets water, sitting back and appreciating the dim atmosphere of this place, if nothing else. Stigmata was ever the exception; he doesn't make a habit of frequenting bars, otherwise.

"Nearly a month." Though he's difficult to read as a rule, it's clear he's not pleased by that. Being trapped is the last thing he wants, or will ever resign himself to.

"Comforting." Not really, but given what she's observed so far - the network isn't without its uses, and at least there's a bare minimum of Facebook-style inanity to wade through - it's along the lines of what she might've expected.

At least, she supposes, she does have the time to spare kicking around in Baedal...though a closed system is going to be hard to hide in if she can't get out before she outgrows 'Vanessza Bernát'. It's not an immediate concern, but it's on her mind, and it's better to be thinking about it now than to put herself unprepared into an awkward situation a few years from now.

"Do you know what the hospitals here are like--? The technology seems a little all over the place, but I'm assuming emergency medicine is going to be useful anywhere." She takes a sip of her drink, almost prim, and it's almost testing; is he going to call her on it? (No.)

Edited 2011-11-23 02:21 (UTC)

Of course he doesn't call her on it, but he does note it. Selfishly, maybe. But he doesn't think she'll be shocked to discover he's got a Machiavellian bent, no matter how genial.

"Understaffed but hardworking." So that's one thing he expects will be familiar. Medical care the world over is always in a similar state. "The lack of widespread technology means a lot is supplemented with magic, but it seems like healers are in as rare supply as surgeons."

By the quick wryness of her expression, it certainly rings a few bells and she tips her hand over her glass; as long as she's not going to be obsolete, she can work with it, and this too is more or less what she expected. (The magical aspects of Baedal are interesting, but mostly Benevenuta is curious rather than disturbed; she'll have a lot to learn here, and that's not a bad thing.) It's what she counted on, almost, since--

"The sooner I can get work, the sooner I can reliably get out of the inn," she says, with that wryness; it's not that she isn't invested in finding out what's going on here and what the powers are (who looks in charge and who is, but she's going to need to have somewhere to investigate that from. Work, somewhere to live, a working understanding of the city's day to day...it's a place to start. "It seems like I'll have more to offer if I can learn more about xenian biology as well. Once I know where to start."

She's not a mad scientist, relax.

"Not everyone can be fixed using magic," he remarks, "And not everyone wants to be. The diversity here means there's a demand for just about everything." Built-in niches, thanks to both reality incompatibility and distrust alike. Bruce doesn't blame anyone who doesn't want to be healed with magic, personally; the lack of explanation bothers him, too. As ever, his issues with the supernatural hover between the poles of his control issues and his inherent bad temper.

A pause, then, because he's uncertain for a variety of reasons, but-

"If you don't mind the unusual locale, you're welcome to stay with me versus the Inn, in the interim."

Benevenuta doubts she'll ever be able to offer magic, but at least she might be able to get the hang of treating non-human species without it; that's worth pursuing. It's all theoretical for now, though, and she's going to need to find out what kind of medical resources Baedal has for her to work with, and in the meantime--

"Bearing in mind the entire situation," a little dryly, "I think maybe you should define 'unusual'."

Which is not a no. They may be only slightly acquainted, but it's still preferable to relying on the inn.

"The district I'm staying in is called Bonetown," he says, and the lack of italics there suddenly is because proper names are not borrow-words, not inexplicable sudden emphasis, "Supposedly it causes magical abilities and advanced technology to stall. I've seen it happen on tech, the residents swear it happens with the latter."

He sips his water, and doesn't try to justify or explain his decision to stay there, of all places. It's where he knows he's the least likely to be monitored without his knowledge, and it's a comparatively low-key area, considering the insane mix of citizens in Baedal. It's also not a hotspot for bigots, thank fuck, he'd be really annoyed otherwise. Most residents aren't human, even, just beings from other worlds who have no real use for magic or tech, taking advantage of the ratio of property value to property quality.

Some speedy mental arithmetic happens here-- she's not magic, though, that's something else and while there are Immortals who've mastered it in one form or the other (she knows of a few), she isn't one of them. Maybe the slight pause is just Benevenuta registering that he really is that much of a control-freak? Sure.

"Honestly, that sounds like the perfect place to get my bearings," she settles on, because her visits to Xanadu were brief - she's never spent any significant time outside of her own world. "I'm dropping by a pawn shop after this, so I should be able to sort out my own place this week, but I wouldn't be imposing--?"

Since they really do barely know each other.

Bruce watches her pause and calculate without looking like that's what he's doing; he has no way of knowing what she's thinking, or why. It could be any number of things, up to and including 'Is he really that much of a control freak?' (yes) and also 'Why is he even offering?' Valid questions, all.

He makes a small gesture - not an imposition. "..Someone I know from home was kind enough to let me stay with her when I first arrived. Consider it paying it forward."

There's no concrete answer for making the offer, even in his head. He wants to say it's because he's doing what he should, that Vanessza is a veritable friend. But he wonders how much of this is a desire to know more about her for strategic purposes. Should he be doing that? ... Is there a difference with him, any longer? Is he capable of separating?

The question of why he's offering is still on the table, after that answer; 'consider it', yes, but words matter. Consider it. What is it when she isn't examining it and interpreting it the way she's been given permission to?

...it's still better than the inn, and 'not asking' isn't the same as 'not wondering'. Tom is someone worth knowing (strategically, even; they both have their uses), and that's somewhere to start, too.

"I doubt the inn will mind freeing up a room, then."

A half-smile and a nod, in response. They both know they're very nearly playing a chess game, then; that's fine. It's better like that and, perhaps inexplicably, he's more comfortable for it.

(It's not a malicious affair, anyway, just a curious one.)

"It'll give me a reason to finally get furniture." ... Bruce.

He isn't the only one; Benevenuta is so much more comfortable when she knows the rules of the game she's playing (she's more comfortable when there are rules). Of course, it's not entirely out of the question that they get along so easily because they're both so fucking bad at it.

"Tom," she says, half-chiding, amused - not really surprised. She gestures at him, lightly, with her glass. "I haven't camped on the floor since I was a kid."

(That was a really long time ago.)

"There's even extra rooms," he says, casting a faint impression of sheepishness, "There's just not anything in them."

Still want to skip out on the Inn, Benny?? ... Well, probably, yes, the Inn is deeply unnerving. And he really will go get something, as it's unlikely she will be his last guest.

Benevenuta shakes her head, but she's still smiling and she'll be fine if she does in fact end up camping on the floor of an empty room; it's not like it'll be the strangest accommodation she's ever had. Maybe the strangest roommate.

"Why don't you sort that out, and give me the address, and I'll go by the pawnshop and the inn and meet you back there?"

He'd never make her camp on the floor - it's interesting, though, that she would do it just to not stay in the arrival area. Not that he would, either; Bruce didn't stay for a full five minutes. Living on the streets and sleeping in parks was preferable.

Anyway.

Vanessza gets shit done. He likes that. So he writes down the address (and a little cross-section of a map) on a napkin, neatly. "That sounds reasonable."

"Great." She examines the address and the map for a moment before sliding the napkin into her tote (this outfit doesn't have pockets) and finishing her drink, because Vanessza gets shit done in a timely fashion, thank you. "I'll get organized."

It's better than wasting time. (Not that he doesn't enjoy her company, but let's just look at the both of them objectively, here.)

"I'll see you later, then."

And yes, he pays for her drink.

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if god was one of us, he'd probably drink vodka

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