Remy and Sofia meet in a bar!

[x-viento.livejournal.com]

Because, you know.  Remy hasn't hit on enough of his coworkers in the last couple of days, let's now add booze.  Sofia is a little torn with her new life situation but manages to come up with a brilliant idea anyway.

“So, you make sure dat Illyana eat up all her vegetables and finish her homework before you left de house?” Remy said with an altogether unkind smirk. A day of faking insurance knowledge had left him in a filthy mood, since it turned out to be worse then the time he had to talk his way into a party as a nuclear physicist. At least then he could blather on high concept ideas that no one was supposed to understand. Now, he had to be able to point out how section 32 of the policy impacted form 427-B of the tax code. Fuck form 427-B! He slid over a glass of the only not terribly good tequila the bar stocked. 

 

“Her room is also clean and I’ve left her practicing the piano,” Sofia replied, swallowing the entire glass in one tip back, and sliding it back.  “Again. Those glasses are adorable.  Seriously, you should keep them.  No one has sex in this era right?” 

 

“Not de case. According to de bartender, you not de first married lady dat I—Remy mean Ray Ludlow brought back here.” The bottle came wobbly sliding down the bar, nearly toppling as Remy reached out to stop it and nearly sent it flying as he missed judged the distance, leaving Sofia to snatch it safely. “Fucking eyesight.” 

 

“That settles it.  We must be turning into these people.”  Sofia crossed her legs the other way, pouring herself another double, plus.  “You’re getting sex, Marie-Ange is smoking, I’m feeling maternal.  Have you seen the blouse’s Wanda has been wearing?” 

 

“Doug’s popular for de first time in his life. Mark too, at least as far as de Midwest is concerned.” Remy said, reclaiming the bottle for another drink. He took a sip and turned suddenly serious. “You know dat ‘manda don’t recognize us as anything but dese identities? Told me dat I needed a library card. Either she’s taking a bad joke way too far, or she literally thinks dat she’s dis person now.” 

 

“While normally I would comment that it is nothing more than a statement on your literary skills,” Sofia mentioned coolly, looking pointedly over at the back of the bartender’s head.  “I agree.  I suppose we can say it’s not magic related, then.” 

 

“If it was, nothing dat ‘manda, ‘yana or Wanda could come up that ever fit de bill. It’s funny, because it seems like a spell or something out of a fairytale, you know? Like dis is some kind of prison for someone from dis time or something?” 

 

Gently pulling on the ends of her hair, the slight curl straightening and bouncing back into place, Sofia thought quietly.  “Does it have to be a prison?” she asked, the weave on the collar of the man’s shirt shifting into depth, individual threads, and back to a blurry whole again, as she thought.  “I know, completely against everything you and I stand for.” 

 

“Dis look like some kind of heaven to you? Shitty army/factory town in de back of beyond?” 

 

“It might to someone,” Sofia replied, her voice cracking; she shook her head.  “It’s not to us, obviously.  Sure, Amanda might want to be a normal girl.  Doug might want to be prom king.  But what about Marie-Ange and Yana… I doubt this is heaven for them.  But on a whole.  Does that make sense?” 

 

“Den how does it work? Why give some people de ‘dream life’, Remy supposed, and not others? Not surprisingly, insurance never factored high on my list of things I wished I’d rather be doing.” 

 

“Oddly enough, I’m not big on the idea of taking care of some other woman’s children while being in the process of popping out my own,” she spat back, before pausing and taking a breath.  “On a whole, Remy.  Who would this appeal to, on a whole?” 

 

Remy chewed on his lower lip for a minute before scowling. It was one of Ludlow’s habits. He covered it with another slug from the bottle. “Some kind of idealist? If de base is here and de factory is, den… well, de town isn’t going to be de same dying hulk dat it is in 2008.” 

 

“Perhaps.  Or someone who was here.  Someone who was here when it wasn’t dying, when it was all about soda shops, yes?”  Sofia tilted her head, watching his mouth, and caught herself, concentrating hard on her glass.  “Ask your lackies to figure out who is old enough to have been here when town’s like these existed.  Trust me.” 

 

“You… wait—“ Remy rubbed his eyes for a moment. “You like Belafonte? I saw him last year in Miami. Negro boy but he sure can sing.” His voice had a slightly nasal elongated ‘a’ sound. He grinned and shot back the booze. “For a married gal, you sure can drink, sweetness.” 

 

Sofia ducked, long, dark eyelashes creating shadows on her face like a coy fan, as a blush rose on her cheeks.  It was only a strange pain in the bridge of her nose that caused her to sit up again, drawing back and backhanding Remy in the jaw with her ringed hand, leaving a slim cut along his cheek.  “Come back here, you goddamn egotistical ninja child.” 

 

Remy’s head snapped back, glasses flying. He stumbled back and fell off the chair, sprawling on the bar floor for a moment. “What de fuck--!” He snarled, searching for his glasses and awkwardly pressing them on his face once he found them. “De hell was dat for, you crazy bitch?”  

 

The barman came over, not to break them up, but to stare pointedly at Remy in case he was about to strike her. That sort of stuff was going to stay in private, not in his bar. Instead, Remy pulled the cloth from the man’s shoulder and pressed it to his cheek as he sat back down. 

 

Standing, Sofia laid a gentle hand on the bartender’s shoulder, her short, French nails just grazing the pressed shirt.  He looked between the two of them before returning to behind the bar, polishing glasses furiously.  “Your horrible Boston accent gives me pain,” she said, clicking over to Remy with somewhat lower heels.  It meant they were almost eye-to-eye, and she peeled back the towel with feather gentleness, checking the injury.  “<i>Pardon.</i>” 

 

“I switched, didn’t I?” Up until then, Remy had explained away the odd moments of blackness as elements of the world. In front of someone who wasn’t one of these pod-people drove it home for the first time.  

 

“Quite,” she answered shortly, thumbing the gash and wincing slightly at the blood that instantly pooled there.  “My name is not sweetness.  Or crazy bitch, by the way.” 

 

Remy pulled his head back sharply, more out of surprise than anything. “Sorry. Remy just—de last time dat I was another person, de consequences weren’t pretty. I don’t like de idea of losing myself ‘gain.” 

 

Sofia laughed, a strange sound, like a dog trying to crawl away after being run over on the highway.  “You don’t need to explain to me of all people, <i>petit</i>, hm?”  Her hand dropped to her side, the fingertips rubbing against the fabric of her dress, over and over.  “I’m that Doctor, remember.” 

 

“Dere’s patients you don’t want.” Remy picked up the bottle and sighed. “Be right, Sofia. Remy going to send whoever is still thinking on your idea. I get de feeling dat we don’t have a lot of time. So be right… because Remy don want t’ be here any more.” 

 

She stared at him quietly, and smiled.  “I prefer you with one obnoxious accent over the other myself, I must say.  I prefer… you, yes.  I prefer us.  Get on it.”  She finished the last of her drink.  “I’m off to go have sex with a man I’ve never met, while my assistant pretends not to hear, after all.” 

 

“Give him my regards.” Remy said. There wasn’t anything else that was needed as she walked out the door.