For lack of better ideas (Malcom)

[Yulia Sokolov]

Lia was still caught in some awful mental purgatory. She was not sure where she stood there anymore, or where she stood on the issue of her own accident. On the bright side, when it came to her ankle she now had no reason to possibly even try to avoid some physical therapy. As a result her leg was improving as well. The limp had long since faded, well that limp, but the muscle stiffness made her gait awkward when she ran. That was a physical manifestation that she had been self conscious about, but it was not being fixed. Then again the bruises now were a much more attention grabbing than any jogging lopsidedness had ever been. The other unfortunate part of this all being that it was all coming out of pocket for her. She was not going to report anything that had happened, so there was no way to go through the insurance provided to her.

After a particularly disheartening session that had left little else but sore she headed to the bar. She’d taken this road before, but she was much more conscious of her decision this time. That had been an experiment gone wrong, but now she knew her limits. Consequentially it was not like she was going to spend a lot of money here, she was a complete lightweight.

Her initial post accident fear was still there, but Lia found that she was starting to push her boundaries a little more. She thought that she had understood how she functioned, and now she had doubt nestled into every spare corner of that knowledge. Part of her was desperate to forget it all and move on, another part wanted to talk it all through with someone who might understand, and the last part wanted to find the point that she had pushed herself to again if only to understand it. The last part was mostly driving this little trip. She wanted to see if she could just loosen the rigid mental self control that she had been trained to possess.

Lia sat down at the bar and found that she looked slightly out of place. In comparison with some of the others she was clearly missing some bells and whistles, namely a skirt and a pair of heels. However, given that these were things that would look some kind of twisted along with the bruising she had avoided them. She ordered a beer, keeping it basic. Lia sipped at it. She was just trying to relax a little, not get hit hard by it all. There was some mild commotion near the door, and Lia glanced that way.

[Malcom Black]

Pilot Ridge was not the place to play poker games. After five years here, Malcom had learned this lesson very well. If you wanted to gamble, you did it online, where no one who was there was likely to track you down and shake you down for either something you did or something you owed (although he tried really hard to make sure he didn’t owe anyone anything, because that was how you ended up in bad shape). On the other hand, you couldn’t cheat online. So occasionally, when Malcom was doing really badly, he sighed and went to the in-person games. He usually won at those. Of course, that also meant he got into trouble with people wondering how he’d done it.

This was the case now. Apparently, the man he’d met at the door was the same man he’d cheated out of five hundred dollars. The man took a dim view of that. He’d lunged at Malcom, Malcom had leapt back and into a table, and he’d had to do some fast talking to get himself out of the situation. He righted the table—with his hands, just in case the broke man was also a broke metaphobic man—bought a couple of fancy and strong drinks for men and remained wreathed in smiles throughout the entire thing. Not any easy task. He could feel his jaw tensing under the strain. But he joked with the proprietor in order to convince him that it was just a misunderstanding, honestly mister, I’m a decent guy, and the waitresses all say I tip really well…and about then he was finally allowed into the building. His smile faded as soon as the owner was out of sight, and then he shook his head and came to sit next to a woman who had been watching the mess at the door.

“I swear,” he told her, “I’m a pacifist at heart, so don’t be alarmed.” It wasn’t a great way to start a conversation, but he was tired and sore from being nearly knocked over a table. And irritated. C’mon, didn’t people know how to lose graciously anymore?

This was said completely ignoring the fact that Malcom threw a tantrum every time he lost. He had the decency to do it privately in his own room.

“How about a drink for the…uh…” Feminism. His sister had given him a full lecture on it. Chivalry was all well and good, but she said that it was downgrading to females and he should make sure to treat them like equals and not like someone different. Which baffled Malcom. He treated his fellow men pretty badly—why should he treat women the same as that? Still… “Nice woman here?” He offered his hand and a smile that was a little less beaming than the one he’d given the people he’d had to impress. “I’m Malcom.”

[Yulia Sokolov]

As the commotion seemed to get worse Lia looked over. She was not expecting to see a bar fight going on, but that was what graced her eyes. Then again this seemed to be awfully silly and one sided on a few fronts. For the first part she didn’t not expect this kind of activity in Pilot Ridge of all places. As such that threw her off a little. And then it was just one man lunging, or so it seemed to her. Then again, despite the nearly universal attention on the incident Lia did try to look away. She felt like she was intruding on the situation, and that situation was really something that she was not ready to deal with in the least. Not with what she had been through in the past weeks. She didn’t need to even look at any battles that were not there.

Still despite this she was having trouble looking away from it right now. She kept glancing back, or looking down before looking up at it again. Then again, it was a short conflict to say the very least. It seemed as if the other man at the table had it under control. Lia looked back at her drink once the owner trotted over there as well. There was nothing else to do now, not in the least. She could just sit here and sip her beer. She could just relax and generally just let her mind wander, however when had she ever been allowed to do anything of that sort? No, just when she thought she was about to sink right back into the anonymity of being in a bar she felt someone sit down next to her. Lia just glanced over and then had to do a minor double take. It was one of the men from the conflict over the table, the one who hadn’t jumped. She looked at him for a long moment, hearing what he said to her but unsure what to say to him. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of being approached. She simply blinked a few times at the explanation.

Lia’s eyebrow curled up, half out of interest and half out of confusion. Either he was just looking for a place to sit down and then making good about it, or perhaps he wanted to talk to someone that he thought would not hit him in the face, well, not that hard.

Well, it seemed that she would be saving a few dollars no matter what, as he was courteous enough to buy her a drink.

The bartender slid Lia a drink that she didn’t recognize. “Thank you,” Lia said tentatively as she took a sip of the new drink. It tasted a hell of a lot better than beer. Still she put it down and twisted to slip her hand into his. “I am Yulia.” Then she paused for a moment and considered before continuing. “But most people here call me Lia.”

She was at a loss for what to say after that, not having really expected company. So she looked into her drink. “I do not know what this is, but it is good.”

[Malcom Black]

She didn’t seem to know what to do with him. That was fine. Malcom was definitely used to people not knowing what to do with him. It was a state of being—a point of pride by now. Kind of funny how that could work out, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who worried about it too much. Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost. And Malcom definitely knew how to lose with flair. Hence, why he was here buying a pretty lady a drink after just being shoved over a table. And as silently promised to the bar owner, he slipped the bartender a nice tip as he slid them both a drink. He eyed it and held it up to the light when his back was turned, then shrugged and knocked it back.

Taste? What taste? Malcom firmly believed the purpose of alcohol was to drink it to get drunk, not to sit around musing on the composition of the flavor. He blinked when she turned to him, then shrugged and set down his glass to spin around and return the handshake. His was firm. That he’d been taught in the military.

“Malcom,” he said. “Most people call me Mal.” There was the grin, quick and white and vanishing in a blink of an eye. “I’d rather you didn’t. Nice to meet you, Lia.” That accent, he could place it. He waved for another drink, then looked over at her. “Russian, right? I’m gonna guess…Hammel employee?” All right, so it wasn’t a guess. He might have seen her around. Security officials got to see everyone and everything at some point—part of the job. He didn’t want to talk about Hammel, but she’d expressed interest in conversation. So he might as well try to engage while she still thought it was a good idea to be talking to him. “Oh, and…” He picked up the glass the bartender had just given him—the same as the first—and offered it to her. “Have any idea what this is? I didn’t think about ordering something specific. It’s not bad; I just want to make sure I’m not drinking something poisoned, that’s all. He might be gunning for you himself and knock me off as competition.”

It had occurred to Malcom that he was probably paranoid, and could definitely use the assistance of someone with a “doctor” in front of their name. Oh well. He was crazy and liked it that way. Anyone who had a problem with that could just take it up with one of his many siblings. It was great having a posse at your beck and call.