A Bar in Baltimore, Friday Evening

[suitably_heroic]

Right, Mical still wasn't answering Atton's calls, and frankly, he was happy with that. Atton had no classes set for the coming semester. Sparkle was getting better, and would probably be better off without a constant reminder of what happened anyway.

And Atton... needed a vacation. Bad. Just a chance to hang around the cantinas and pazaak dens that had given birth to Atton Rand to begin with. So... he was kicking this off with a nice, Atton-y lie: no, he wasn't going home immediately. He was parking the Ebon Hawk in a junk yard near Baltimore for a day and living it up in here.

"One more whiskey, please!"

... okay, so it'd been a long time since he'd actually gotten this drunk. He tended to play pretend, to keep a cool head. But that wasn't the point of the next month and a half, so: bottom's up. You go spin, bar.

[[ for a terrible life choice. ]]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

"Okay, a little bit better than not bad," Atton allowed. "What're you playing, gorgeous? And what's your name?"

"I'm Linda," the woman said, picking idly through her deck of cards. Somehow, she managed to do this with her arms lowered below her ample cleavage. "And we're playing Blackjack, boys. You are...?"

[talentforlying]

"You can call me Johnny, love," he said, tearing his eyes away from that lovely view to give her a wink. "'S a pleasure to meet you, Linda, and Blackjack sounds like a fine time."

[suitably_heroic]

"And I'm Simon," Atton said, lapsing into a random alias more or less out of habit. At least he didn't need any acting skills to look drunk. "Blackjack's the one with the... uh, you like-- twenty-one, right?"

"Are you asking about my age or the game?" Linda said dryly. "We're in a bar."

[talentforlying]

"He's asking about the game," John promised, giving 'Simon' a good-natured shove at the shoulder. "He knows better than t'ask a lovely lady her age."

[suitably_heroic]

"Sorry, sorry," Atton said, holding his hands up. "We had a, a whiskey. Whiskeys?"

He shook his head.

Linda made an amused noise, fixing a luminous smile on John. "Yes, it's also called 21," she said. "Me and my friends were playing some earlier, trading off on being the dealer. You know the game, right?"

"Yeah," Atton said, pausing just a second too long. "Yeah, I know the game." (Of course he knew the game. It was the closest thing this planet had to pazaak.)

[talentforlying]

John leveled a finger at Atton. "Whiskeys. Plural. Which are medicinal to deal with all the Brexit bullshit, you sodding lightweight."

He was not above making her think they were drunker than they already were, no.

"Pretty sure Blackjack is the same here in the States as at home," he said, taking a seat. "Why don't we say it's lady's choice as to the first dealer?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Ugggh, the Brexit," Atton muttered, groaning. (The advantage of being Alderaani by birth was that he could let just enough not-quite-British shimmer through to sound like an expat.)

"How about we start with you boys against me?" Linda suggested sweetly. "Just a friendly game for a few bucks, just to keep things interesting." She held up a fiver.

[talentforlying]

"I think we can manage that," John agreed, fishing about in his pockets for a moment to pull out his wallet and slap a five down on the table. "Though two on one don't seem quite fair."

Though if you thought it looked like he was thinking about a different type of tag-team... well, that was the idea.

[suitably_heroic]

"Aw, honey, we can always switch later," Linda said. She took the time to shuffle and reshuffle the cards, an effort that somehow managed to make her cleavage more pronounced.

Atton eyed it with an unsteady sort of interest. "I get a card, he gets a card, I get a card, he gets a card, right?"

Or boob.

[talentforlying]

That increasing-cleavage trick was a nice one, and if John snickered under his breath when she said 'switch,' well, he was playing the drunk card.

"Cards for everyone," he promised, waving down a waitress for more drinks. "What's your poison, Linda-love?"

[suitably_heroic]

"How about a Bloody Mary?" So she could pick at the celery and pretend she was drinking.

"I'll just go with more whiskey," Atton proclaimed. "Mm. All the whiskey." And while Linda was looking at John and the waitress and not his drunk ass, he'd give a little wave and Force nudge that nice card over there just... over here.