2020-02-22 - Convergence

Whether or not Sparrow's been alone all evening is not readily apparent to one just joining the late night scene where the bleach blonde currently sits all by her lonesome with her back against the bar, milking a half-empty pint with a pair of empty shot glasses near at hand yet to be cleared away. Despite the cold weather and the chill it shoves inside every time somebody opens a door, she wears short sleeves tonight, her black tee bearing red letters across the chest declaring THE REVOLUTION IS MY BOYFRIEND. Black jeans, black-soled red boots, black laces, red lips, black eyeliner. Okay, so maaaaybe somebody's missing the pop of red which used to define her. She watches the crowd while her foot taps out the rhythm of the bass beat to whatever's playing in the background absently, her mind almost certainly elsewhere.

Dante is a creature who needs to periodically recharge his social batteries by being around others. He's looking sober and not-sweaty, which is a good indication that he hasn't been here that long. He was smarter this time and isn't wearing a full, insulating, wool three-piece. It's actually one of his spring suits, as evidenced by the pop of teal that stands out even in the dark bar. The button-up beneath is the bold fashion choice of being a few shades darker than the suit itself but within the same colour range. He pulls it off. He stands with his customary gin and tonic in his hand and looks out across the dance floor. He doesn't seem to be looking for anyone in particular. He's not far from Sparrow, but his back his to her so he hasn't yet seen her.

"Yeah-but," comes from a bit-beyond-tipsy brunette wandering close to Sparrow, two words slurring into a clumsy one. "D'ya godda girlfriend?" The stranger giggles as Sparrow grins at her a bit too wolflishly, as her friend curls a hand around her shoulder and draws her closer, away from the blonde, muttering a, "She's straight," though it's hard to be certain of the target, which one of them she's trying to warn off of the other.

Either way, it works. Nothing comes of it. Except that Sparrow's attention is pulled from wherever it had been back into the here and now. When her gaze pans over the crowd again, she's actually paying some mind to the shapes and movement she's taking in, assuring that the pop of color Dante wears catches her eye, holds her focus until she's properly identified who it is wearing all that lovely teal. Her smile skews oddly soft for a second, while hopefully no one notices, then sinks into something a little brighter, more openly amicable as she slips from her stool and makes her way over with a, "Hey there, handsome. Looking for some company?" Complete with over the top brow-waggle.

It takes Dante a bit of a double-take to place Sparrow. The hair is quite different and it's quite dark. "Ah, good evening." He smiles quite genuinely. "I just finished a nearly nine hour writing sprint, and I was feeling quite deprived of human contact. The bar seemed the place to go." He looks back the way she came, as if expecting to see a table with familiar faces. "And yourself?"

"I mean," Sparrow begins with a big dopey grin, not one familiar soul left behind her. Hell, even those shot glasses are cleared now, the bartender sweeping them up while taking the order of whoever claimed her spot. It's almost as if she appeared from nowhere, if one's only glancing at the circumstances in passing. "I wasn't looking for any human contact, but pretty sure I could offer some." She even makes good right away, her free hand catches lightly at Dante's nearer elbow as she tips her head toward a table just wiped down.

"Are you in your cups a titch, my dear?" asks Dante as he looks down at her. But he allows himself to be led towards the table. "Which I suppose a silly question as it must be half eleven by now." He looks around, then, "I'm surprised to see you here by yourself. Have you just been people watching?"

"My cups are, uh." Sparrow might not catch all of what Dante says, between winding about to that empty table and working through some unanticipated arithmetic, but she does eventually arrive at both. "Seven. Which." She sinks down at an angle facing one of the big windows looking out at the ocean, but her brown-eyed attention settles on the author. "Imagination," comes with a wobble of her hand. "Smoke and mirrors. Lies we tell ourselves. Things we want to believe." The left corner of her lips twitch a little higher just before she nods. "But yeah. Something like that. Didn't start alone, but." Shrug. "Not anymore."

Dante's expression grows concerned. The touch on his arm turns into a supportive one for her. He sets his drink down, then flags down a server. Given he's a tall guy in a teal suit, he's pretty conspicuous. "A pint of water for my friend, here. And I'll have another gin and tonic." Might as well catch up a little. "Mhmm. Well, don't you worry. Whenever you're ready to go home, just tell me, and I'll see you arrive safely."

He's been denned up either on the Surprise or in his apartment since Itzhak rescued him from beyond the Veil. It's one thing to know in the abstract what's out there. It's another thing to have one of its monsters look you in the eye and make it clear your face is being committed to memory.

He's done his shaking and screaming in private, though, and now there's enough of a public facade in place to have the sailor wandering in of an evening for merely social drinking, and not merely drown his raft of nightmares. Joe's in navy greatcoat, jeans, and his black watch cap....though now the latter sports a patch on its brim, in monochrome shades, depicting an astronaut in a spacesuit behind a cartoonishly big minigun, with the legend beneath it 'Space Shuttle Door Gunner'. He heads for his usual corner, and orders one of those awful whiskey concoctions he drinks, a Four Horsemen.

"You're sweet," Sparrow croons to Dante, lifting her half-empty pint to take a swig in his honor. If she's gonna get another pint of something, she ought to at least finish this one, right? "Promise I didn't drive. And that I didn't get to seven in, like." She glances back toward the bar as if she might be able to measure time by distance, nevermind how quickly that last leg was traveled. A wide smile spreads as she catches sight of Joe moving over to get that drink, a cheerfully chirped, "Dick!" probably not meant to finish whatever thought she was working toward, any profession of proximity to sobriety now potentially undermined by that nonsequitur. She mutters, "That's not his name," as she looks to Dante, which might read more like an assurance if something in her eyes didn't suggest she's unsuccessfully searching her memory for what it might actually be. "Sorry. Hi." She straightens a little, smiles at the writer and ventures another, surer, "Hi. Hey. Did I tell you how glad I am we talked the other day?"

"I'm not interrogating your drinking, my dear. Just helping you get hydrated. Ah, cheers," Dante looks up as the server brings back the drinks. He gives her a good tip for the speed at which hydration appeared. He nudges the glass towards Sparrow, but doesn't try to stop her from finishing her pint. She's a grown-up. "You're glad we had another look into the horror of the Veil, or that we talked about the possibility of sex in Dreams?" That very well might be what comes out of his mouth the moment Joe comes over - if he does indeed come over. He's angled enough that he can't see the approach, though he did glance back earlier at her greeting.

Which little monosyllable has Joe glancing over, blinking, and then grinning at her. The bartender's just set down that awful mess of whiskey before him, and he picks it up, lifts it to her in salute, and downs a slug. "I never can decide if that's a comment or a request or an insult," he says, merrily. "Last I saw you, you were red. This your winter plumage?" he wonders. "Sparrow, right? Philomena?"

Dante gets a nod, but the sailor doesn't seem disposed to pry himself away from the bar until he's sure of his welcome. Still watching them with a hint of a smile in the lines around mouth and eyes.

Sparrow snorts a laugh at the second point Dante picks from their previous conversation, dark lashes dipping low as her grin goes wide. "Both?" really isn't a question for all that she frames it like one, complete with arched eyebrows. There's more to the thought, but it's put on hold, bright-eyed attention returning to Joe as she lifts her nearly empty beer in answer. Though she nods for both names provided, she chirps a, "Phil for short," like it's rote. "Spring color came in early," she says of her feathers. "Fraid my memory's more melted than the snow out there and I just can't get past Not Philip." The word 'sorry' might not find its way to her lips, but it shapes her expression in other ways, brows pulling down, nose crinkling, lips bowed in an apologetic pout. She doesn't ask Dante before just gesturing toward one of the open seats at their table in invitation, but she does turn to the author after she does so to inform him, "He's very well-read," which may be one of the whole three things she can remember about Joe besides his name. "If a bit ageist. Does my age bother you?"

"Elias calls you Agent P. Now that makes a bit more sense." Dante sips from his drink and grins at the talk of plumage. "Next we see her, it'll be all rainbows." He jokes, but is that a real possibility? Then, "Um. Should it? How old are you?" He shifts, then looks over towards Joe, then back. "So where does Sparrow come from then?"

No offense taken at her lack of memory of his name. He takes the invitation, comes ambling over, only a little rusty in the joints, it seems. "No, not Philip," he agrees, the smile broadening. "Joe. Joe Cavanaugh."

Then he settles in at the table, finally pulling off the watch cap with its ridiculous patch, and unbuttoning his coat. "Philomena here I've met, but not you, I think," he says, offering a long, callused hand over the table in Dante's direction. "And how am I ageist?" he asks her, amused. "All I said was that I was too old for you. That's an opinion, not an argument about you being inferior for being younger."

"Well, sorta," Sparrow confirms of the origins of that nickname, but it sounds like there might be more to it than that. The guess at her changing hair color gets an easily missed flicker of consideration toward Dante's suit, but she's quick to tell him, "No," in answer to should it? and then a cheerier, "Nope," to the one which follows. She's not telling. Setting her own drink down as Joe settles in, she straightens and looks between the two of them. "Philomena Sparrow Jones, eldest and most badass of this generation of Joneses, though possibly neither most talented nor adorablest, but. We gotta share, right?" With that, her hand tips to the author who she introduces as, "Dante Taylor, yes. That Dante Taylor." And then toward Joseph. "And Joe Cavanaugh," who she doesn't recognize, her nerdery running in other directions. "Who knows his sci-fi and is very gracious. For which I'm grateful. But it was Bax who you're too old for. I mean. If you wanna be too old for me, too, that's your perogative." Her expression flashes briefly, shallowly sour, and she concedes, "Which I might be coming 'round to seeing, though you're not at all to blame for that."

It takes Dante the space of Joe reaching over the table to shake his hand for him to place why the name rings a bell. Only when their hands are clasped does it hit him. He looks the other man in the eye when Sparrow introduces him. A bit of a pause, then, "Hello." Yes, that Dante Taylor, but perhaps not for the reasons that Sparrow said it like that. He is still a moment, then pulls in a breath and smiles at Sparrow. "You didn't say how old you are. Very evasive."

There's that funny little cock of the head at that name. "That's familiar. You write, don't you?" Joe says. Not really a question, honestly. His hand is callused, very worn - the handshake's firm, but he doesn't seem disposed to make into a pissing contest.

Then he's cutting his gaze to Sparrow, grinning unrepentantly, "I know better'n to ask a lady her age," he says. "But me, I'm fifty. I imagine I'm too old for you as well - I'm damn sure I'm old enough to be your father. And no? Who're we to blame for losing our chances at May with December?" Teasing, by the gleam in his eyes.

Sparrow's eyes go wide as her glass goes up, the last of her beer finally drained while she's dodging Dante's inquiry again. She is old enough to drink, right? Someone surely carded her. Setting one glass down, she tugs the other nearer without yet picking it up, leaving a slick trail of condensation in its wake. "You aren't my father," comes with a stern arch of her brows. "And I'm pretty sure you should maybe know better than to ask a lady to bitch about her ex when there are nicer things we could be talking about instead." With a nod toward Dante, she poses, "Like sex dream research."

"Mhmm, yes. I write horror. The irony that I ended up in this town." Which could seem like a throwaway comment, except to those who glimmer. Dante looks at Joe in a considering manner, lips pursing after he sips his gin and tonic. He goes distracted for a moment, missing that Sparrow's dodged again. He comes back to himself with 'sex dream research.' It's too hard to tell in the light of the bar, but there might be a little colour on his cheeks. "More like a thought experiment."

Joseph concedes the point with a little gesture, hand to heart, fingers flicked out. A fencer ceding a point. "No, I am not," Joe's voice is easy. "Happily, I am no one's father. And very well." A more judicious slug of that whiskey.

A glance from under his brows at Dante. "I don't know about irony. I'd say...more applying the research." Then a look between them, "Dream? Or.....Dream as it seems to be practiced only here?"

"Are you saying my hometown is horrifying, Mr. Taylor?" Sparrow asks with wide-eyed innocence borrowed from the ether which has far too little to spare around here to make it at all plausible or prolonged, that question quickly spilling into giggle-and-snort. With a little lean in Joe's direction, she confides, "Me either," on the point of fatherhood, just in case anyone might've suspected otherwise. And even though the conversation's moving on, she wonders, "What're you drinking?" on her way back to properly occupying her own seat. And remembering her own drink, enjoying some of that water Dante secured for her. "It's both an appealing thought and likely to make for an appealing experiment," she muses in answer to Dante even as she eyes Joe. With a tiny nod, she confirms, "Capital D."

Which would've been fine on its own, but something entirely tangential clicks in her brain, and she jumps way back in the conversation to point out, "Which is the distinction with Dick, too," with wide-eyed certainty and an index finger extended from her glass. "It's an honorific when it's big."

"Also short for Richard," Dante offers, probably unhelpfully. But he delivers it with a charming smile, so that helps? His own gin and tonic is going down rather quickly. Perhaps he's just trying to catch up. And then, he leans in a bit towards Sparrow and says, "Are you saying it's not?" terrifying, that is. "People keep telling me that the Dreams can be good fun. I can see the potential. If you can get past the dread and abject fear."

"Me? Four Horsemen," Joe says. "I dunno. My experiences are not extensive, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna lend itself to fun. Even as a man who is recognized to have a funny sense of fun." He takes another sip, looks musing.

"Indeed," he adds, drily. Taking his time on that drink. But then, if he's going to be walking back to where-ever, no point in getting stumbling, out of his mind blotto. Not yet, anyhow.

Sparrow sinks forward. Maybe it's to answer Dante's lean. Maybe it's the weight the conversation has suddenly accumulated. Most likely the latter given how her smile's dimmed a good deal, nearly to the point of disappearing. "Not all of it?" isn't quite selling Gray Harbor's charms. Another day, she might make a proper pitch for the magnificent magic of small town strange, but not this tonight. Not now. "I know our warlock--" She nods toward Dante to mark who she's sharing that possessive pronoun with. "--says there's wonder in them, maybe even in some of the ones we shared, but. Even those. Always a role to play. Always some rules holding us hostage. Which." Those dark brows go up toward her pale hair, expression all serious now. "Is why I wanna push back. Experiment. Sexploration aside." Totally straight-faced. "I want control. I wanna find where the fun's at without someone telling me what I gotta be or--" Grimace. "Killing my best friend all the time."

"I mean, being a horror writer, I do sort of have to look for the beauty in the strange or horrible. But it does get a bit more difficult when you're living it rather than simply dramatizing it." Dante looks into his drink, then drains the rest of it. He purses the bitter liquid over his lips. Then to Joe, "Ms. Bird and I have been chatting about applying the scientific method to the rules of the Dream. And the problems with doing so. Namely, do scientific rules even apply? Even if things are repeatable, it could easily be an illusion."

"Y'all have a warlock?" There's no real disbelief in his voice. Joe's long since accepted that crossing the bar into Gray Harbor meant accepting a ticket down the rabbit hole. "How does one get that title? You gotta do graduate work for that?"

He cants his head a little. "It does seem imposed. Can one just....make one happen? Jump in feet first? Provoke or begin 'em?" The accent's slow, lazy, the drawl only thicker with every little fraction of whiskey vanished from the glass A deliberate nod for Dante. "Exactly. I don't imagine one can take concrete instrumentation in there, so....what can you do but record subjective experience?"

"Be bolder than a rogue," Sparrow answers of Joe's second question. It's easier to address than questions about oneiromantic experimentation. "Rock purple like you're royalty. And maybe know a little magic." Beat. "I'm apprenticing." Then, a little more dryly, "And also raiding a couple times a week, but that's a good bit different. Have yet to summon any real live actual demons anywhere outside of the internet holy fuck I hope I haven't cursed myself. Shit." Water purifies, right? Time for a healthy swig.

After casting a glance about the bar as her glass comes back down to make sure no one's paying any particular interest to the nutjobs talking dream theory over her, she explains, "I've got a friend--oh. Uh. I mean. Bax." She blinks at Joe. "Bax is pretty sure he knows how to delve right over that threshold, though I'm not sure I'm keen on his methodology. So, experiment number one? Can we initiate from a place of safety and, two? Can we dictate our destinations with any sorta accuracy. And, sure." A nod for Dante. "There's a concern that even if it works, it's being given to us, but that's why we rely on replication. I mean, I know it's different if we're not actually the ones in control, but if we're consistently permitted to get where we mean to go? Is that functionally different?" Beat. "Before they trap us once we get sloppy and forget that they're the ones in control, yeah, okay." Huff.

"I was about to say. Not to be a killjoy but it would be fairly easy to lull us into a false sense of security by letting our experiments work. Until they choose to have them stop working." Dante rubs his eyes and pulls in a long breath. "My apologies, both of you. I'd love to keep talking how to trick the things that go bump in the night, but I've run into a writing-induced wall. A few drinks in me and I'm apparently a cheap date." He flashes a warm smile at the pair of them, then looks Sparrow in the eye. "Are you all right to get home, or shall I see you out?"

He can't help himself - Joe's grin turns impish. "Always two there are; no more, no less. A master and an apprentice." She had to expect it. "And well, there you go." He crosses himself, entirely unselfconscious, as if that might ward away any impertinent demon.

"So, he thinks he can get in on his own, eh? But yes, that begs the question - are we being permitted to, to trick us. I don't know a damn thing about Them, other than that pain is Their MO.....and They have the Asylum." A shadow behind the blue eyes, at that.

Then he looks up, grins at Dante. "That's not a bug, that's a feature," he says. "You have a good night, Mister Taylor."

"Really hope I don't have to kill him someday," Sparrow croons to Joe after he recites Darth Bane. "The world would be lesser for his absence. Even if I would be greater for it." Her grin flashes unconvincingly wicked, a wildness in her eyes that might be convincing if she didn't sink to silliness so quickly. But the conversation isn't all geekdom.

As they acknowledge the corner she talked herself into, she admits, "I don't know what to do with that," all quiet and earnest, a vague thread of resignation threatening to tug all her optimism and curiosity back down. But she recovers quickly, that slump in her shoulders straightening up. She'll wrangle the heavy questions later. Soberer. With a low-lashed look toward Dante, she croons, "And I'm a broke chem major. Maybe we should go out sometime." Pulling her phone from her pocket, she asks, "Gimme your number?" a bit more sincerely, less flirt to it. "I'll letcha know when I'm home safe."

Cecil comes in from outside in a voluminous winter coat. He makes his way to the bar, and when he spies a familiar face, he nods to Joseph and says, "Hullo. Joe, was it?" He takes up a spot at the bar and nods amiably to the others. "Hullo." His accent is English, though soft enough to imply he's been in the US for awhile. "Let's see, I feel like a stout tonight."

"What, being a cheap date? Cheeky," says Dante to Joe. Then he's moving to stand. The Star Wars reference may have gone over his head. Or maybe he got it and is just not enough of a fan to appreciate it. Or he could just be bloody exhausted. Hard to tell. Either way, he moves to stand. Once up, he reaches for his pocket for a business card. It's black with silver lettering, with his name, website, social media handles and his personal cell phone number. "Do that. Or I shall be absolutely fraught with worry. Good evening to you both." Unlike Cecil, his English accent isn't the least bit subtle or softened. With a nod to them both and a look of acknowledgment to Cecil as well, the writer heads for the door.

"How else you gonna come into your full power?" Joe asks, apparently entirely serious. "You already picked out your Sith Lord name?" Another slug of what looks like an unholy font of whiskey, and then he's set it back down, to draw idle circles with a fingertip in the condensation. The pilot's in an navy greatcoat over plain t-shirt and jeans, sitting back lazily at a table with Sparrow. Then he lifts his hand to waggle the fingers in a vague gesture. "There's gotta be a way. They ain't all powerful, surely."

Then he cranes his neck around to grin at Cecil, lopsidedly. "Hey there. And that's me. Cecil, wasn't it? London by way of Galveston, you poor bastard." A flicker of a look back to Dante. "Cheeky, that's me," he says, before noting to Sparrow, nearly sotto voce, "I like that he seriously used 'fraught' in a sentence spoken aloud."

Well! That is unexpectedly fancy! Sparrow takes that business card and sinks back in her chair, flipping it over then back again before entering the information into her phone. Which she's less likely to lose than even so pretty a piece of paper. She doesn't look up as she answers, without missing a beat, "Darth Anity," like maybe she's given this an unreasonable amount of thought in the past. It's when she asks Joe, "You?" that she slides him a sidelong look.

Whatever she might think of the possibility that They aren't all powerful, she doesn't follow that thread through, what with her potential research partner departing and a stranger approaching. She looks from one to the other as she slides her phone away, a subtle nod acknowledging Joe's thoughts on that somewhere along the way. She echoes, "Cecil," approvingly as her brows pitch upward curiously, dipping only a little before rising again for that sidenote when her eyes widen a bit. "Who was fraught with what?"

Cecil collects that pint out stout and pays for it, then he turns toward the table where Joe and Sparrow sit, and he smiles. "Yes, that's right. At least now I'm in the Northwest, and the weather makes me not even miss home." He leans against the bar, the part of it nearest their table anyway, and he takes a drink before he says, "How do you do?" to Sparrow. "I think I get your Sith name, and it's very amusing."

"I think I do, too," Joe hazards, after another sip. He's made quite a dent, but he's nowhere near the dregs. "No, haven't ever picked one. Too recently come into my power to aspire to a formal apprenticeship." That he seems serious about.....and he rolls a hand over, cupping the palm. Little inchworms of electricity, violet-white, crawl there for an instant - stitching themselves along the lines of the palm. "Mister Taylor was sayin' somethin' about bein' fraught with worry if you didn't let him know you got home safe."

Then he closes his hand, the arcs of current vanishing. "Come an' sit," he suggests to Cecil. "Conservation of Englishmen. We lost the one, we got room for you."

Sparrow beams a bright smile up at Cecil for his understanding of her silly little joke. Which she might actually be serious about. As serious as one can get about an imaginary title unlikely to ever be attained in any real sense, anyway. Her expression goes all soft when she catches that faint demonstration of Force Lightning forming on Joe's palm. Dark lashes dip low when her gaze lifts to catch his for a moment, grin skewing left. "I'd offer you an apprenticeship, but there's that age difference again."

Her cheeks go red soon thereafter as other pieces of the conversation click into place, realization dawning with a mixture of genuine humor and minor embarrassment. "Right," she chirps quietly. "He was being all smart and charming, and I was being all seven drinks deep. I'm glad one of us noticed." The smile which follows is genuine, lacking any sense of lingering chagrin despite the fact that she then informs Cecil, "I'm seven drinks deep and trying to swim to the surface," with a lit of her glass of water. "We're lucky when you showed up when you did. Spare us the deficiency of interesting accents." With a little tilt of her head toward the unnamed sith at her side, she quietly appends, "Not that yours is without its charm."

Cecil comes over and takes a seat. "Oh, well. It wouldn't do to leave you deficient of Englishmen. I'm afraid I can't promise charming, but I'd like to think I'm reasonably intelligent." Raising his drink to Sparrow, he says, "Maybe we'll pass each other, you on the way up and I on the way down." It would be difficult for him not to notice the arcs, but he takes them in stride. Then again, he has that feel about him, too.

"I'll take what lessons I can get," Joe's voice is light, but there's something far more serious, behind the blue gaze. Not flirting. Far from it. Then the comment about 'seven drinks deep' makes him sing, softly, "And sometimes when the night is slow, the wretched and the meek we gather up our hearts and go a thousand kisses deep...."

A grin for her. "Thanks. But Savannah loses out against London, near every time." Not that it seems to distress him. Back to Cecil. "What're you drinkin'?"

Though Sparrow catches that shift in Joe's tone, it doesn't dim the sweetness in her epxression. After all, he's serenading her a moment later as she's reaching for her phone, setting it to New Contact and sliding it his way. "The ponies run. The girls are young." She can't quite keep the giggle from her voice as she sings a good deal higher than Cohen does. "The odds are there to beat," reads almost as challenge, the way those dark eyebrows of hers go up like that. With that, her attention follows his back to Cecil, her smile just as easy as she wonders, "And what's pullin' ya under?"

"Stout," Cecil says to Joe. "I'm feeling somewhat darker than usual." He takes another drink, then sighs in contentment. It's beer time. To Sparrow, he says, "Oh, you know. It's my Friday, and I'm just going to put back a couple pints before I head on home. I'm afraid I'm not really interesting enough to be dragged under by anything in particular."

Obediently, he punches his number in, and name, before sliding it back. "Man, we lost one of the Thirty Six Pillars when he died, didn't we?" Joe sighs, and there's genuine mourning in his voice. "No one like him, 'fore or since."

The idea of stout helping an inner darkness makes him grin that lazy grin. "Just so long as you come down easy enough that you c'n walk away from the landin'," he opines.

"Iunno," Sparrow answers Joe, soft and thoughtful as she collects her phone. "Feels like some part of him's still alive." She flashes a wide smile that's swiftly obscured by her phone as she holds it up to snap a quick picture of Joe without asking, the one-two flash catching a few curious (or annoyed) looks. Then, again, it's pocketed so that she can stare at Cecil where he sits. Like maybe she's trying to decide how much she's buying that 'not really interesting enough' line. Laying down the gauntlet, she insists, "Tell me three horribly boring things about yourself." May as well test his claim a little.

Cecil sits before the scrutiny calm and unassuming, though he glances around at first to make sure that he is, in fact, the target of Sparrow's attention. "Oh, goodness," he says. "Three boring things. I'm an egghead. I'm divorced. I'm thinking of getting a cat but can't seem to commit." He smiles fleetingly, with good humor in his eyes. To Joe, he says, "I'm going to pace myself. I don't revel in spending the first day of my weekend sick as a dog."

"True," Joe concedes, quietly. "Song lives on, dunnit? What's the line - vita brevis, ars longa?" Then he knocks back the rest of the drink, upends the glass with a soft click. Looks at it, glances over his shoulder at the bar, like he's pondering another. "Smart man," he says. "And who says being an egghead is boring? Eggheads do things like split the atom and put men on the moon."

Sparrow gives Cecil a Very Stern Look as she lifts her left hand to count his list back at him. "First?" She points to Joe to promptly echo his sentiment, appending, "And give us LSD," cuz that's the real miracle of modern chemistry, right? "You're in the company of fellow nerds. Second? Divorced says history and l'histoire means story. And third? Aversion to commitment does not make a person boring. Keeping another living thing alive is a lot of commitment." She starts to go for her water, but then there's a, "Fourth? Knowing how to responsibly enjoy your weekend is way less boring than losing hours to hangovers." When she lifts her water, it's certainly in toast to that habit. Even if someone else snuck it into her schedule tonight. With a look toward Joe, she wonders, "Are you an artist?"

"I've never split an atom," Cecil says. "Mostly, I look at bugs." He smiles at Sparrow and says, "You're too kind. I don't mind the idea of being boring, though. There's a certain privilege in being able to get up, go do your job, come home, and do it again. As for the divorce, it was the long work hours. It turns out I'm not cut out for 9 to 5, suburbia, and having time on weekends to clean out the gutters. We wanted different things, that's all."

It is apparently an evening for another drink....and Joe darts off, after signalling the bartender, comes back with it, carried carefully from the finger tips. "Yeah. Tell me about it. There's a reason I never got married. I saw how military marriages worked, or mos'ly didn't an'.....it never appealed. God only knows how many ex-wives I'd have by now." He kills a good quarter of the drink in one hit, sets it down gently, and says, "But managed to avoid that trap. So I feel you."

Then his own phone's going off, and he pulls it out, frowns at it, and taps out a message, before looking up again. "Am I am artist?" he asks, a little blankly. "Uh. Well, I write. That's about as creative as I get."

Sparrow's phone issues a muted chirp from her pocket, insisting that she pull it out again, that task tended while she ventures dryly to Joe, of Cecil, "Law enforcement." Her head tilts a second later as thoughts backtrack through other details, eyes squinting. Do bugs fit? "Academia?" This time, it's toward the entomologist directly in pursuit of clarification. She hadn't even considered military! When Joe's phone goes off, too, just a few seconds after hers, she can't help but grin, but there's no comment. Not on that. "Whatcha write?"

When she finally gets around to looking down at her phone, whatever she sees there earns a smile. And maybe a glint of mischief. And a couple responses.

Cecil says mildly, "Law enforcement. I'm not a detective, but I'm the one detectives come to with evidence to figure things out, from DNA to blood spatter, though my personal area of expertise is forensic entomology. Which means, occasionally, I need to go out into the field to see the body up close and personally. Which can happen at all hours of the day and night, hence not being a great suburban husband." He asides to Joe, "I've read some of your work. I rather enjoy it."

"Memoirs. Science fiction," Joe says. He's gone a little deadpan. The phone keeps lighting up, he keeps tapping out a reply with light fingers, and then he fixes Sparrow with a look. Unreadable, for a moment. "Workin' on short fiction these days, mos'ly." Since they're laying cards on the table. Another good fraction of that drink disappears. "Sounds like a hell of a job, and not one conducive to an easy family life, no."

Sparrow can't help but giggle at something that comes across her phone. Looking up at the pair, she chirps a quiet, "Sorry," then focuses on Cecil. "I'mma hope you're right on the boring part, then. Take your word and everything. Cuz every interesting man I've met in law enforcement has also proven weird in ways that go way beyond weird hours. I can handle weird hours." Blink. "Not that--" Her brain just kinda faults there, erroring out, no useful path found. "Did you enjoy Mr. Cavanaugh's fiction or nonfiction?" She's still engaged in the conversation, sure, but there's a little more fussing with her phone.

Cecil's brows lift, and he glances between the two of them. He gives Sparrow a knowing glance, but he's a gentleman and doesn't try to push her to elaborate on just what she's implying. Instead, he says, "I'm more law enforcement-adjacent. I'm not any kind of authority figure, and the only time I encounter suspects is on the stand when the trial requires an expert witness." He laughs a little and says, "It's bracing when they look at you with murder in their eyes." He takes a drink of his beer, then says, "The fiction is what I've read. I'm a science fiction fan, so it was right up my alley."

One side of Joe's mouth curls in a wry little grin. "I can't imagine. I don't know many cops. Only run into a few MPS, in my day." A little more fiddling with his phone....and perhaps the color on his cheeks can be explained by the booze. Then he raises his head deliberately and says, "I'm flattered you liked the fiction. It's sold better than I hoped, really. Working on a sequel to the novel, but it's slow going. I've mostly been sailing, past year and a half, after dealing with some health stuff, so....no firm date for a release."

"Law enforcement adjacent qualifies," Sparrow assures Cecil, her opinion not changed just because he isn't a proper cop. Maybe she reads some glimmer of curiosity in his glance. Maybe she's fueled by the humor in Joe's tone. Maybe she's half-distracted by her phone. Maybe she's just really, truly seven drinks deep with only half a pint of water to help her out of that hole. Whatever the case, there's something a touch too sharp about the way she says, "Like medical examiners," to not be personal. The way her lips purse immediately thereafter, how she just clams up? That might say something about that not-at-all off-hand remark, too. She tries to recover, to redirect with a tilt toward Joe and a tease of, "Gonna have to check you out myself," which doesn't land quite as flirtatiously as itended.

"Oh, yes, medical examiners are weird," Cecil says. "Then again, I look at bugs all day, so consider the source." He doesn't seem tomind the sharpness, and there's a canniness about him that betrays his light tone. He smiles at Joe. "That's right, you were living on a boat. Is that still the case? I broke down and found an apartment. Turns out living out of a suitcase in a motel is, well, sad."

A litle more fooling with his phone....and Joe usually eschews that, pretty strictly. A look for her, at that comment about medical examiners. "It takes a certain kind of patience to do those jobs," he imagines. Then he lofts a brow at Sparrow. "Are you now?" Light, light, that tone, but there's something that might be challenge at the back of it.

Then back to Cecil, "I still have the boat, but I gave up and got a place on land, too. Gave up the fiction that I'll be leaving when spring comes. And I hear that - spent long enough living out of a ruck or a berth."

"You'd be surprised how impatient they can be," Sparrow mutters quietly enough that it might not fully carry, though the tone's not precisely hidden, a tangle of melancholy and anger that speaks pretty easily to hurt. A bit more clearly, she assures, "But the local one's fine. Good taste in scotch," like that couldn't possibly the one that's vexed her in the past.

Her grin resurfaces a bit more convincingly for that answer from Joe, shallow but secure, and she flicks a look to his glass. "Want another?" On the topic of houseboats and other homes, she says nothing. There's really nothing too terribly new about how people who end up here tend to stick around longer than expected. Part of the small town charm, right?

"It's a small apartment," Cecil says. "I like that. I like not having to try to maintain a garden. I suppose you'd call it a yard. No mowing, no trimming hedges." No, he really isn't cut out for life in the suburbs. "I believe I'll be staying for awhile, myself. It just feels like the kind of place I would end up." He finishes his pint and considers the bar, as though deciding if he wants another.

"Fiiiiine," Joe says, apparently throwing that last rag of caution to the winds. "Sounds good to me." Yeah, that's a lot of whiskey. A little grin at that. "I can't blame you. I rented a house in Houston for years and all that shit was a pain. Glad to not have to bother with it here. Indoor pool's nice, too."

A flicker of a look for her, at that reaction when it comes to medical examiners - his brow furrows, just a hair. And the color is rising, making his eyes brighter, the high cheekbones streaked with flush.

Sparrow snorts a laugh at Cecil's thoughts on gardening, that in particular catching her attention. "The opposite normal-boring of Detective Quintanilla. Who, uh. Lives a couple doors down from me. Keeps a very nice lawn. Loves it." Getting to her feet, she casts a wide, warm smile at Joe, potentially pleased with that lack of caution. "I like the house I'm renting. No one complains about all my banging. And you should see my bathtub." The way her eyes go wide like that? Might qualify by some definitions as a small indoor pool of its own. As she starts off, she asks Cecil, "You want another too?" This round may well be on her.

Cecil holds up a hand and says, "No, thank you. I'm going to head out soon. Sleep is going to be great. I'm getting old enough the prospect is a little exciting." He then admits, "My bathtub is woefully lacking. That's one thing I would change about the place. For now, I'll just have to stick to showers." To Joe, he says, "Where are you at, that you have an indoor pool?"

"I've got a big ol' master bathroom," His tone is utterly smug. "Bayside. 's why I'm payin' for a place that fancy. My joints an' back are wrecked, and there's nothing like being able to float in a pool in the middle of winter." He gives Cecil a grin. "You're a wise man. Wiser'n me."

How much whiskey has he had? Another glance at Sparrow. "Who could possibly complain about you banging?" he asks, deadpan.

"I dunno, man," Sparrow calls back from the bar, where she's paying more attention to her phone than whether the bartender's getting their drinks in a timely manner. "I can get pretty fucking loud." She looks up, eyes going wide. Her brows get a cheesy waggle. As her gaze is dropping, it sweeps a little thoughtfully over Joe. Which fits when her expression goes just a shade more sober when she looks at her phone.

"I just assumed she was talking about drumming," Cecil says to Joe. "I'm definitely getting old." He eases to his feet and says, "I'll leave you two to it." He flashes Sparrow a smile. "It was nice to meet you, Miss...? I don't think I ever got your name."

"Not as old as me," Joe retorts, with that flashing smile. "Or maybe not as dirty-minded," he adds. "A pleasure to see you again, Cecil. You get home safe. You need a cab or an Uber or somethin'?" A tilt of the head. "She gen'rally goes by Sparrow."

Then he flicks a look at her. "I'm sure you can."

Sparrow seems a bit too invested in whatever's happening on her phone that she almost misses the prompt from Cecil, catching only when Joe answers for her. She flashes a silly smile, mutters, "Sorry. Friend asking for advice," as her cheeks go a bit pink. "But yeah. Phil. Sparrow for short." Tilting a little toward Cecil, she quips, "And totally a drummer." Not quite quiet enough that it might not carry back to the table. There might be some other comment coming, but the bartender brings her drinks over, two of what Joe's having, and she turns to collect 'em. Which means the phone goes away for now. Hopefully for good. It's bad for face to face conversations.

"That may well be," Cecil tells Joe, "you writers are a randy lot." He grins, then tells Sparrow, "Lovely to meet you, Sparrow. I hope your friend is all right." Back to Joe, he says, "My car is a little ways down the street. I'm not going far, and it'll take more than a pint to impair me." He makes his way out, humming a little under his breath. Seems the Cohen from before invaded his mind.

Away goes the phone in turn. And he's left sitting there, in that easy sprawl. Definitely enough booze in him to paint color on his cheeks, leave the blue eyes bright. "What advice were you giving, Dear Abby?" he wonders, teasingly. "And Lord, I'm already drunk. I swear I can make it home 'thout fallin' down, though. If I walk real careful."

Sparrow's foot hooks around the leg of her chair to draw it a little bit closer as she settles in and hands one of those glasses over. "We can share an uber," she assures him. Cuz that's what she's gonna need to get home. Her gaze dips, a little bit in thought and... a little bit just to take a look. Whether it's going anywhere or not. "I was, uh. Offering advice on how to deal with..." Her brows rise as her smile widens while she works her way through this wording. "Too many guys wanting you?" She pauses, running that over again, debating whether anything more needs added. But then she just takes a sip of the whiskey and finds Joe's eyes.

"What did you advise?" he says, clinking his glass against hers, gently. "What's the solution for that lack of balance?" Still lean, rangy - age will pare and not soften him. A darker, cloudier blue than Cristobal's, levelled at her. Still pink at the cheeks. He's shrugged out of his coat, the t-shirt plain gray....and not long-sleeved. The scars have flushed, too.

Sparrow might take mental inventory of the scars, of other angles and colors, lines to reexamine later in other line, at other times. But she might also just be giving that thought some serious thought, weighing just how honest she wants to be in her response. She gestures a little with her glass, an idle motion which doesn't communicate much of anything except, perhaps, the intention to begin. "I said it's scary." Earnest and quiet, eye contact resumed, her own a rich brown readily catching the light. "Cuz it's never just sex. Cuz it's hard not to care, not to get invested. Which makes it hard, then, to balance all the wants and needs and time and attention and feelings. Hard to keep up." With an off-center smile, she shrugs and adds, "I told 'em to respect lines, be good to people and have fun. And I know it might be shit advice for someone who doesn't operate like I do. Someone with less attention and energy to give. Less interest. I dunno. But it's the only advice I've got, so." One shoulder lifts in an uneven shrug. "What would you've said?"

The long ridges that stretch from wrist nearly to elbow. The little silvery circle on his left hand, at the root of the thumb. More hidden, surely, by the way he moves when the cold bites deep. Though now, of course, there's bourbon as oil for all his joints, and he's settled back into a cheerful, nearly boneless sprawl. "No, I agree," he says, gently. "It's so rarely just sex....and it seems to me that you got to do yourself some serious emotional violence to get to that point. I was there, once, but it was in straitened circumstances....and a long, long way back. I couldn't manage it now. Had too many armor plates knocked off. But yeah, I'd say you got to be honest about what you're capable of giving, and taking. .....and what you're willing to."

Sparrow hasn't quite sunken into her comfort quite so deeply, though it's unlikely that half-glass of water she managed before straying back to booze gets any credit for any semblance of uprightness she maintains. It just seems to come naturally, how even in her cross-legged recline, she still looks like she could be on her feet again in a heartbeat. Her brows arch unevenly at that note of history, that bad place Joe had been in some long time back, but she doesn't interject. Neither does she voice the objection that has her head tilting a touch at that advisement of honesty. Cuz it's better to lean into curiosity instead, to ask, "What what are you willing to give?" With a vague wave of her glass, she adds, "And take," like it's less important, an afterthought before she takes another sip.

A question worthy of mulling,and he does, idly swirling the whiskey in its glass. "I'm still learning. And....it depends on the situation. I have time, now, to give. Freedom to do it, too. I'm not married to my job anymore, which I basically was. I can go where I please and do what I want, which is what I've done for the past year and a half, really. I know that the usual model of love, marriage, and children was never for me, but what I might have instead....." He shrugs, rolls his free hand, makes a little moue with an arch of his brows. "I don't know. Enjoying the process, I suppose."

Sparrow is patient, but not constant. While Joe thinks, her attention strays, caught on movement as some of the existing crowd thins out, as a few late night stragglers wander in. When he starts speaking, her eyes shift his way before her head turns to follow. His talk of freedom has her smile brightening like she's found a kindred soul. Nevermind that she's anchored here five days a week for school. That's just not on her mind tonight. "You're thinking big. Did you always think that big? Longterm. What you're bringing to more than the foreseeable future?" Beat. "Which isn't very long. Few months maybe."

"Had to," he says. "Had to play a damned long game to do what I did. Ducks in a row, all that." Joe raises his hands, palms facing one another - held up first close by his face, a horse with blinders, but then pushed forward, palms still facing. Miming looking down a long tunnel. "Each step had to go right to get to to next. I was military, careers have very definite paths in that world." Then he lets his hands fall back to his lap in a flash of fingers, leans over to pick up the whiskey again. "Now.....I may be at looser ends, but I need somethin' to do more'n drink'n reminisce. This evening and company excepted." He offers that flicker of a grin, takes a deliberate sip from the glass. "What about you?"

Sparrow's attention doesn't stray this time, that lack of delay assuring her tipsy brain doesn't get tugged elsewhere in the lull. When that question's turned toward her, her smile grows, and her head gets a little side to side wobble. "I'm not a planner. I'm stuck in my four years knowing full well I'mma need to catch a couple more or double down to get where I wanna go and still considering every. Damn. Exit I find. Like maybe I really could be a rock star. Or a painter. Or just fuck off indefinitely and do whatever work I gotta for the short term to fuel another road trip, but." Her gaze dips as her nose scrunches. "Maybe that's a different conversation. Maybe not worth having at all."

Looking up again, she might be aiming to distract from that rambling with a little flash of a crooked grin. "I am willing to give as much as I can for as long as I can so long as we're all having fun. And I'm willing to take whatever you don't tell me not to." Though her lashes dip a little like that might be warning, she tacks on a little, "As a general rule," all the same.

"You could, no doubt," he says. No humoring her, by his tone. "But....it'd need focus on one or the other, at first. Or just roam. Some folks never do settle. I've enjoyed going where the wind and the waves have taken me, but I'm glad now of the rest, chance to ....." Joe takes another swig. "Take stock, I suppose."

Then he purses his lips, as if considering the taste of the bourbon....or other questions.

"I couldn't," Sparrow admits, quieter. "Roam, I mean. I like it here. Love it, really." She looks, for a second, like she might head one direction with that thought, but picks another path last might as her grin goes wide again. "The most interesting people end up here." Beat. "And some boring ones, too." Her gaze flicks toward where Cecil had been sitting as if expecting him to... well, at least not issue any argument. When she looks back to Joe, her eyes narrow a bit, studious for a couple seconds, and she asks, "What haven't you done yet that you wanna? And. Try not to think too big?"

The smile that answers that is...puckish. It takes years off his face. "Set foot on the moon," he retorts, without hesitation. "Smaller scale....not much. I've travelled very widely. Seen what I meant to see. I guess now I'm trying to focus on that other world. On the gift that so many of us here carry. The walls are thin, the border undermined, the frontier as wild as they come...." Delight, of a strange kind, at the back of his gaze. A new world to conquer.

Then a look flicked to her. "You?"

Sparrow's eyeroll is more affectionate than might be due, paired with a soft, if crooked, smile. "There's a reason Bax likes you," she interjects, tacking on a muttered correction of, "Few reasons," after. She takes a longer pull from her bourbon while she listens, but the approval in her eyes doesn't dim, even when she pulls a slight face as the glass comes down. "Just the way you are, isn't it? No little ambitions in there at all." Her own answer isn't quick, though the brief dimming of her smile suggests she's giving some thought to it. "I do wanna figure out these Dreams. Capital-D. Wanna figure out how to keep me and mine safe. Maybe really explore. See that wonder others keep telling me is there somewhere behind the terror." With another head wobble, she adds, "And to maybe get you to sing at me again. I'm a sucker for a serenade."

"Oh, does he talk about me to you?" Joe's shameless in his angling for praise, but there's that impish light there. Not cruelly amused, but openly flattered. Grinning at her. "No. No. Go big or go home and I'm a long goddamned way from home, I'll tell you that. And been even further."

An upnod for that. "Same here. Count me in, if we wanna do this as a real expedition. Beyond the doors of perception, all that. Figure if there's a thread to draw us all together..."

"Only all the time," Sparrow lies, but it's an obvious one, complete with way-too-wide eyes and an impish glint. And thumb and forefinger of her empty hand measuring out a teensy tiny bit to confirm that he has not gone unmentioned. And, really, it's almost certainly all been approving. She's approving. Particularly of his attitude. She sucks her bottom lip in behind her teeth as she looks Joe over again, left eyebrow arching by the time she's finished the return trip. "You have any experience with psychedelics?"

He sits easily under the scrutiny, with that expansive ease. Tips the rim of the glass at her. "You a liar, but you a good one," he congratulates her. "Flattery will get you everywhere. Nope. Not a whit. Never had even pot until a few weeks ago. I was in one of the most drug tested careers in the world. Booze was it, period. What about you?"

"You lie, too," Sparrow quips with a smirk, brows cocked in preparation for any challenge he might issue to that assessment in the short time it takes for her to add, "I can name several places flattery's not gonna get me without even reaching too far beyond this room." When she scans the crowd, it's not in search of any of those places. Just a habitual consideration of who might take some sort of issue with what's about to come out of her mouth next. "My experience is extensive and still so small considering all that's out there, like. No DMT yet, but man do I wanna. LSD. MDMA. Psilocybin. Two-cee-tee-seven. And a few other analogs." Her lips part like she might continue down that list a little farther, but she catches herself and refocuses. "But I ask because, uh. I'm specifically interested in the potential utility of oneirogenic substances to help... I dunno. Facilitate crossing? Provide further control? Over ourselves. Over the dreams. There's a lot of possibility. But we gotta do the groundwork first. On both sides. Sober dreaming and dreamless tripping. Baselines."

His jaw works lazily for a moment, and then he's dispatching the last of his drink. "You're way ahead of me. Closest I've ever got was physical extremis. High-Gs, oxygen deprivation, excess of pain, sensory deprivation, torture." Tone clinical on those last, pagan ecstasy reduced to a few heaps of ash. Looking off into some vague middle distance as he rattles it off.

Then back with her, again, blue eyes gazing into dark. "You really think we can bull our way across chemically?"

Sparrow might be caught just staring, with a wide-eyed sorta dunno what to do with that when Joe looks her way again, and she makes no effort to try and hide it. Her tongue slips out past her lips before they part, then close, then part again, this time with words. "First? This isn't a race. Second? We've picked different paths, and mine's been way easier to sprint down. Third?" Her eyes search his as her lips purse... and it's pretty easy to see her abandoning point number three to move right on past to four, the way her expression softens, how she sinks just a little. "I think there's a whole lot we don't know about this place we're going, but if it is tied to our dream state, then I don't see any reason why chemicals which alter that state shouldn't have some impact on our capital-d dreaming."

A quizzical tilt to his brows at that. "Fair enough," he says, upending his glass with a kind of finicking delicacy. The finality of a clerk finishing that last signature with a flourish. Hois gaze is still clouded, but not particularly opaque. Quite the reverse. "Sounds like it's worth a try," he allows, before brushing at the front of his shirt with his fingers, as if to dispatch nonexistent dirt.

"Yeah," Sparrow breathes while her eyes continue to follow the path his fingers have taken from glass to tee. Then it's back up to his eyes. "I just need a little time to..." Sober up? That'll be a good first step. "Get it all down. Get the steps clear in my head." A breath of dark humored laughter escapes as she adds, "Get my head in order, too," before catching herself. But before sobriety, there's... well, some whiskey left. And she makes quick work of it. "You riding with me, handsome, or trying your luck with the cold?"

"I'll share that ride," he confirms. "My luck, I'd fall down and break my good hip, this drunk in this cold...." A grunt, as he gets up - still with that boneless quality to his motion. Takes care of tab and tip with a kind of regal disregard for the money he's throwing around. But then, if you want to stay a regular somewhere, best to have a good rep on that front.

He shrugs back into the greatcoat, produces the watch cap and tugs it back on. No scarf, for once.