A bar on the mainland- Saturday evening

[notconflicted]

It had been months since Sia had been able to go out unescorted (even Jessica technically served in a professional capacity), and she only had to go to a whole other galaxy to do it. And the reason why she was here was pretty unexpected after all these months.

She found a table- not the bar since she didn't really want to deal with a bartender as a third party today- and sat down to wait. She wouldn't say she was nervous; maybe wary of how things would go? But if they'd gotten to this point they'd probably be fine.

And if not, she was already in a bar.


[For one!]

Comments

[notconflicted]

"You would think," she said, sipping the drink a little faster because if they were going to get on this topic, she'd prefer to have alcohol.

[suitably_heroic]

"You want me to get something harder than that," Atton asked, gaze dipping down to her drink.

Look, he hadn't wanted to be drunk right from the get-go.

[notconflicted]

"Please. Nothing with tomato," she told him.

[suitably_heroic]

"No tomato? Being an empress has made you all demanding," Atton said, sliding out of his seat and heading up to the bar to get something more alcoholic.

Maybe something involving tequila.

[notconflicted]

"I've always been demanding," she called after him.

[suitably_heroic]

"You don't deserve the margaritas I'm about to get!" Atton hollered back.

Sometimes you just had to have margaritas.

[notconflicted]

"Mm hm," she said, pushing the tomato juice glass towards his seat.

[suitably_heroic]

"You just don't respect the noble tomato," Atton informed her as he returned with two blessedly yellow drinks and set them down.

[notconflicted]

"Not when I'm drinking it," she said, taking her drink to have some other taste there. "Thank you, that's better."

[suitably_heroic]

"There are many drinks in the world, but you can never go wrong with a margarita," Atton said, sipping some from his own.

[notconflicted]

"Says the man who just made me drink ketchup."

At least she could rag on him like normal.

[suitably_heroic]

"It's not ketchup," Atton said, pulling a face. "It's tomato juice!"

Beat.

"Drink your booze."

[notconflicted]

Sia actually laughed a little- a tiny bit- taking a drink. "Was the first one not supposed to have any alcohol in it?" she checked.

[suitably_heroic]

"I didn't want to get tipsy on the first drink," Atton said, shrugging. "So sue me."

[notconflicted]

"That makes sense," she decided after a moment. "Though I feel like I should tell you that you have nothing to worry about with me."

She didn't want him to feel like he had to be that guarded.

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm not worried about you," Atton said. "I'm worried about this going well."

[notconflicted]

"That's actually what I mean," she said. "I don't want either of us to be on guard around each other."

Granted, she absolutely was, at least a little. But she didn't want to be.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, but we probably shouldn't be drunk, either," Atton said.

[notconflicted]

"No, but that's when you just take a very long time to actually drink," she said.

[suitably_heroic]

"I think not drinking too much alcohol probably works better," Atton said, eyeing his drink. "So you said you had questions, plural."

[notconflicted]

"I suppose now it'd be hypocritical of me to say that I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to actually ask them," she realized.

[suitably_heroic]

"You led with that earlier," Atton pointed out. "I'm still game."

[notconflicted]

She took a moment to mentally brace herself, and asked, "Why didn't you want to talk to me in all that time?"

That was the nicer-to-herself version of the question.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton sighed.

He rubbed his forehead as he sank back into his seat.

"The honest answer? Because I don't know how to handle this."

[notconflicted]

The obvious question: "Handle what?"