savetheearth | clever title here [closed]

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clever title here [closed]

Who: Chris Starsky and Matt Brillion
What: DRANKS. Classy dranks. Also discussion
Where: A BAR
WHEN: friday nite

She'd been prudent enough to actually call ahead for once, and so it was that despite how crowded the Barking Cat was on a Friday evening, she had a small private booth in the very back, complete with curtain. Privacy. She might not have had Matt's money, but she'd been here enough to know when to call to manage that.

Despite how dark it was, she wore her sunglasses. She'd forgotten her contact lenses and had gotten halfway down the street before realizing, and so she'd stumbled about in near darkness, hiding behind tinted lenses. It took her a bit to actually GET to the booth, and the server looked at her oddly. She slid inside, and waited.

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He arrived a few minutes after her. Finding parking had been a bit of hassle, especially considering he owned a very expensive car. He was still dressed to the nines, like he always was, but today was bit more business casual than suits and tuxedos. It takes him a few seconds to find her, but there she is. Same old Chris - although she is wearing a pair of sunglasses. Inside. At night.

He slides into the seat opposite her with a lopsided grin, "Don't tell me you've had your eyes dilated. Especially now of all times."

"God no," she said, reaching around to tug the curtain shut. "I've got a much better reason for that."

She peeked out to make sure the server wasn't coming yet, trying to see and yet also trying desperately not to attract her attention. No? Good. She pulled the curtain shut a second time, then just took off her glasses.

No fanfare, no announcement, no warning, she just let the evidence sit, the dim red glow illuminating her cheekbones eerily. It made her look inhuman, something not from here.

"Some of us got really weird shit with that number," she said, finally. "Weird, weird shit."

Matthew didn't strtle particularly easily. He'd developed an excellent poker face over the years. The glowing red eyes still made him jerk back in surprise. For a few seconds he just stared, trying to think of what he could possibly say to that. He finally leaned forward, chin in hand.

"That seems to be putting it mildly."

He ran a hand through his hair, brow furrowed in a little frown.

"I think I'm going to need more than a beer for this one."

"Yeah," she said, looking down. This was stupid. Almost embarrassing, really. But at the same time, it was still good to talk with someone she already knew, someone she (mostly) trusted. To know that someone else besides a freaking high school student was in a similar boat.

"They have really good whiskey here, and it's not too expensive. And they make killer cocktails. ... I'm debating ordering something froofy and pink, for once."

"Whiskey sour," Matt raises a finger, "I'll taxi home, if I have to."

Because it sounded like it was going to be a bit of a long night. He leaned backward against the cushion of the booth with a shake of his head.

"I'm afraid that my own experience is vastly different. All I remember - well, all I've been affected by - is the memory of a physical sensation. It's... strange."

At that moment, the waitress came over, and Chris froze. Her sunglasses weren't on.

"Woah, are those contacts? Where'd you get 'em?" asked the waitress.

"Uh. They're experimental. I'm from MIT, friend at the lab makes them, I signed up to help test the tech. I'm under an NDA, you know how it is, can't let you look closer..."

"Anyway the point is that I'm going to have a raspberry martini," she said. And then paused.

In that stupid memory, that liquid energy stuff showed up pink, right? And it was in those weird square cubes...

"Yeah, put it in a square glass," she added. "This guy's going to have a whiskey sour."

"Anyway..." she said, once the waitress was gone. "Physical sensation is probably both the least weird and most weird thing I've heard. Though I got hit with something like that too... but tell me what it was like, first?"

"Smooth," Matt quipped once the waitress had gone. A smug smile threatened to tug at his expression and then it vanished as the topic steered back to the weirdness they'd found themselves in. He rolled his shoulders in a shrug and tilted his head back to regard the ceiling, one finger tapping against the table.

"It's hard to describe," he admitted after a moment of reflection. He dropped his gaze back down and met her's across the table, despite the eerie red glow.

"Have you ever gone running? I want you to imagine a runner's high - the feeling of invincibility and power, of floating. Combine that with an adrenaline rush, then magnify it and add a thousand volts of electricity and you might come close to what I remember."

"... like pulling off your first dive in a glider," she said, slowly. "That moment of pure invincibility, of knowing that you've mastered the air, and laughing because gravity can't even stop you now..."

"Like that?" she asked. "But you didn't get anything else? Just that feeling?"

"Only that," Megatron nodded, "I've no idea what it means. No images or anything of the sort - simply the feeling that I was on top of the world. Very strange."

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "Part of me still wants to dismiss all of this as a mass hallucination."

"These," she said. "Are not a hallucination. They're steel and glass. And you know how I used to be blind as a bat without my glasses? I can see better, now. I'd wager I'm at 20/10, at least."

She sighed. "I mean, yeah, it's still... none of it makes sense, either. I've gotten memories, too -- flying above some kind of machine-city under an alien sky... beautiful place, probably the most beautiful skyline I've ever seen. It felt like home. And a lecture about a substance which I'm pretty sure can't exist, something called Energon, a state between matter and energy where energy still behaves like matter. Those two I can see being connected, but then I got this crazy one about fighting a dragon, being a giant, and taking over a medieval castle."

She shook her head. "And then everyone else's... this high school bio teacher I met? Lyall's his name, dude can smell like a wolf now, it's eerie. And Bakura, the poor kid I tutor? I don't know what's been happening with his head, but he's reacted really badly every time I've seen him get one of these flashback things."

At that moment, the waitress returned with their drinks, so she paused until the woman had left. She turned around the bright pink drink in her square glass.

"Energon looks just like this, by the way," she said. "Only it glows in the dark."

Matt arched a brow, "...fighting a dragon? Are you sure that one wasn't whatever you had for dinner that night? It hardly seems related to flying in a machine city, getting new electronic eyes and..."

He trailed off and eyes her glass for a moment, "Energon."

He lifted his own glass and took a long pull from it, "I suppose I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop to see what I end up getting. Who knows? Maybe I was Julius Caesar. Or Napoleon."

He gave a wry little chuckle at that, "Invest in platform shoes... All I know is that I can't help everyone, I can only do what's best for me and mine. Speaking of which..."

He eyed her over, "You feeling alright after that disastrous expedition? From what I hear it was... unpleasant."

"I don't..."

It was one thing to bottle up feelings and to try to look tough in front of people like Bakura all week, or to throw herself into what was, in the end, basically an engineering project. It was another thing to be sitting here with her friend (even if it was an odd friendship) rapidly getting drunker in a quiet booth.

"God... damn it," she said. She wasn't crying, no, of course not, her face was just wet for some reason, damn it, stop that, especially not in front of Matt. "I can't decide if I'm a coward for running away or if I was right to do it. I ran. I just ran, I didn't even fire a single shot, and at the same time nobody should have been there in the first place. I thought that fucker just wanted to do some reconnisance, maybe figure out what they were and that the guns were for protection, but no, he wanted to hunt people down and not even stop to figure out what was going on. Some of the people there were kids..."

She put her head down on the table and squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn't cry. "I fucking ran. I didn't even try to make sure everyone was OK..."

Honestly, Matt had held her bag while she puked into a planter, he'd covered for her when she needed an alibi, he'd even been involved in a few heated arguments with her. He carefully set his glass down and leaned forward across the table, But watching Chris cry? That was a new one. He leaned across the table, offering his hand in a silent gesture of solidarity. Their friendship was an odd one, but it was still a friendship.

"Chris, listen to me," Matt's voice was low, the words meant only for her ears, "You did exactly what anyone else would have done in that wretched situation. That's what I would have done. You cannot hand firearms out to people and expect them to be your personal lynch mob - honestly, getting out of there was probably the best thing you could've done."

He took a deep breath - having a few drinks out on the town and shooting the breeze were apparently no in the cards tonight.

"You've nothing to be ashamed of."

She took his hand and squeezed it. "This is all so stupid. We're not heroes, dammit, we're just... people. Why us?"

She sat up a little and wiped her eyes. "God, I keep half expecting to cry pink goo or something out of these, you know?" she said, gesturing at her eyes. "And here I am saying that we should go back and break shit. I dunno if I'm any more sane than that stupid bastard Casval..."

Matt gave her hand a reassuring squeeze in return, "I don't know why and I don't understand half of it, but we're not soldiers and anyone who expects us to be is fooling themselves."

His face split in a wry grin and he shrugged, "Oh, I don't know. Breaking things sounds like your usual modus operandi."

"Yeah, maybe a little," she said, with a hopeless laugh. She wiped at her eyes with a napkin, but didn't let go of Matt's hand.

"Anyway. As for you, if you end up as anyone it's probably going to be Machiavelli, right? You do battle in the boardroom, not in the trenches. Well, unless Risk counts as a battlefield..."

"I do enjoy strategy," Matthew laughed, "But I'm no general. Maybe I'll end up being some sort of statesmen or great orator."

He gives her hand another squeeze and then releases it so he can lean back and nurse his drink for a little bit longer.

"I think it'll end up working out, one way or another. I might not be a soldier, but I have connections and resources."

Quite a few, actually.

"You do," she said. She took a sip of her own drink, thinking.

"... say, you remember how you keep offering me a job, and I keep telling you to go screw yourself? Well, I think since I pissed off Casval I'm probably out of a job again, so, um, are... there any openings? Part time only, I'm going to finish my degree, dammit."

Matt smiled and it turned a bit smug as he lifted his glass for a lingering sip, "Well, maybe if you ask nicely, I can pull a few strings..."

He hasn't said "I told you so". Yet.

"Oh my god are you really going to be this smug about this? Don't you dare say I told you so. Don't you dare..."

She screwed up her face a bit. "Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase~?"

"I won't say 'I told you so'," He replies with a smug little grin.

He totally just said "I told you so".

"Besides, what's the point of being a rich capitalist if I can't indulge in a little nepotism now and again?"

"God damn it man, I hate you so much you big jerk," she said. But she was grinning as she did. And maybe laughing a little. Alright, so this week sucked, but...

Old friends were old friends, however strange they were.

"Thank you. I mean that. For a lot of things."

"You're welcome," Matthew smiles in reply and raises his glass, swirling the contents for a few moments and eyeing them intently. Then he glances over at her again and his smile broadens as he hoists the glass a bit higher.

"To us? And whatever madness we find ourselves in tomorrow."

She lifts her glass as well, a crooked smile crossing her face. And, a strange thought.

"To us, and to the stars we'll surely conquer," she says.

That earns a deep laugh from Matthew and he clinks his glass against her own with a nod, "Agreed. That seems fitting somehow. We'll conquer those stars yet..."

He takes a sip, "In the meantime... give my assistant a call on Monday. I'll see about finding you a spot. And no, I'm not going to put you underneath anyone you consider your mental inferior. I know how that ends and I'd rather not lose any of my program managers."

"Oh come on, I'm not THAT much of a backstabber. Probably. That thing with that one TA was just one time," she said.

She nursed her drink a bit. "But yeah, should I put together a CV and expect an interview or what?"

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clever title here [closed]

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IRONY. IRONY EVERYWHAR.

Ahahaha

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