losttheright | (no subject)

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daniel sousa

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With as long as she's been in Darrow, Molly is pretty well used to the way things work here, inasmuch as anyone can be. People disappearing has become an unfortunately normal part of her life, so many of the people she's known and cared about gone now. The loss of Clarke, though, her oldest and closest friend, so close on the heels of losing Stephen, admittedly has her a bit thrown. All she can really do is keep going through it, something she learned from experience a long time ago, but she still feels oddly heavy, worn down in a way she can't totally ignore. She'll never stop thinking that she's lucky to be here, no matter what happens, but it's still hard to be the one left behind.

After work, thinking it's less miserable than drinking alone in her apartment, she heads to a nearby bar, somewhere she's visited frequently in the time she's been here. It's a reasonably nice place, though not so much so that the drinks will bankrupt her, so it's kind of perfect.

She's ordered herself a gin and tonic before she catches sight of someone she knows sitting a few seats over. With a smile, she says, "Fancy seeing you here."

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Daniel didn't drink that much or that often, not now that he'd gotten past the first few months without Peggy, but some days he wanted to wind down with a drink. It always felt less lonely to wind down with other people around, even if he didn't talk to anyone but the bartender, and this bar had food too. That meant he didn't have to have a sad dinner of booze and beans on toast.

When Molly addressed him, he looked up from his whiskey and water to smile.

"Great minds think alike, I guess," he agreed easily.

"How's things?" Molly asks, taking a sip of her drink when it's put down in front of her. She might not know Daniel very well, but that's all the more reason to be glad she's run into him here. It's a lot easier to have a conversation and catch up over drinks than while shooting, which she mostly does as a sort of therapy anyway. This is better, no matter what stress might have driven her here in the first place. Hell, she could probably use the distraction.

"Alright, I hope?"

"Well, I'm still here, but here is also still here and not completely weird, so we'll call it a draw," Daniel shrugged. "You?"

He felt like he'd settled in pretty well here, gotten over Peggy as far as he needed to for the moment, and made a few friends. But he was still actually here.

"That... sounds about right, actually," Molly says with a smile, nodding slowly. Her expression is perhaps a bit warmer, a bit more amused, than deciding to call it a draw should probably call for, but there's no sense in doing otherwise. The way she sees it, as long as she's still here, alive when she shouldn't be, she's lucky. She doesn't get to complain about that. Darrow pulls some fucked up shit sometimes, but that's the price of getting to live here.

"Or maybe it's the other way around. But either way, I guess I'll take it."

"Oh, you don't see me looking this particular gift horse in the mouth either," Daniel agreed. "After some of the stuff this place has done to me and to people I know? Not a chance. I'm just gonna drink my whiskey and hope I don't catch anything's attention as long as I'm here in Not Jersey."

It was a safe plan, and he was in favor of that right now.

"Oh, yeah," Molly says, brow raising as she nods. Pretty much anything going on could always be worse. She's learned that the hard way several times over. It's hard to be appreciative when things are pretty shitty, but she knows better than to let herself not be. At least she's here at all. It always comes back to that. She suspects that, as long as her borrowed time lasts, it always will. "If I can keep flying under... whatever's radar, even better."

"I'll drink to that." He raised his whiskey in a little toast, then took a sip.

"One weekend, I woke up and I was eighteen. Just, boom, eighteen again for a few days and then about as suddenly I was back to the right age. I mean, what the hell do you do with that? If you told anyone that wasn't here about that they'd have you in to see the shrink."

"Oh, yeah, no one would believe it for a second," Molly says, lifting her glass in turn. "Then spend enough time here, and it's sort of the opposite. Someone tells you something totally outlandish, and it's just, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense." She doubts anything would seem entirely unbelievable at this point. Of course, she knows better than to let herself think that nothing could surprise her, because that's a surefire way to jinx herself, but there's a lot that she'll believe these days.

"It's getting to the point that if I have a normal month, with no crazy stuff happening, I'm getting nervous about what's gonna happen next. When's the shoe gonna drop, you know?"

He'd felt the same way when things had been too quiet in Europe. Some Panzer division was gonna come over the next ridge, sure as anything.

"I know what you mean," Molly agrees. "Things never stay quiet that long. If it seems like they are, it usually means something's coming." What sort of something is a bit more unknowable, with events ranging from the weird to the truly horrific. Rarely, they're even just sort of funny. But whatever it winds up being, there's always something.

She doesn't think it's the sort of thing a person ever gets used to, but she's at least learned to prepare herself for it. That became necessary a long time ago.

"I don't know if we're at that point yet now, but I think we might be getting close."

"Halloween," Daniel said a little grimly. "If it's anything, it's gonna be Halloween. Or, just to throw us off, it'll be Thanksgiving. The place likes holidays, you notice that?"

People were crazy all year long, but this place liked holidays. Weird shit happened around them. Maybe not on them, but around them.

"Yeah, things do tend to happen around holidays," Molly says, exhaling slowly before taking a sip of her drink, then gesturing to the bartender for another. "Probably as close to a pattern as we'll ever find in it." Mostly, though she pays attention, she isn't particularly motivated to try to get to the bottom of whatever is going on with this place. She's here and alive, and that's enough for her. Still, it's fucking weird, and other people deserve those answers.

"My money's on Thanksgiving. We had two fucked up Halloweens in a row. Or close enough, with that movie thing last year. You hear about that?"

"Thanksgiving. Alright, I'll be watching out for giant mutant turkeys. I mean, more giant an mutant than they already are," Daniel joked. The turkeys here and the turkeys he remembered were practically not even the same bird in terms of size and shape.

"Yeah, but I didn't go see the movie, so I was okay. I don't really like horror movies. Seen enough blood and been snuck up on enough in my life already."

"Yeah, I stayed away. Not a big fan of them either," Molly says. It's for largely the same reason, too, albeit different context. She just doesn't have any interest in seeing the violence that usually goes hand in hand with them after the violence she's experienced. They're fine for some people, she's sure, but they just aren't for her. "I heard about it all after, though, and it sounded like a nightmare, even by this place's standards."

At the thought of giant mutant turkeys, though, she can't help but laugh. "That actually sounds pretty plausible. Just... giant turkeys roaming the streets."

"Like Donald Duck in the Macy's parade, but worse," Daniel agreed. "Good luck finding an oven to cook that drumstick."

He actually didn't really like turkey, so he'd be skipping that drumstick in any case. It wasn't bad, but it didn't have much flavor as far as he was concerned.

"If anywhere'd be able to handle it..." Molly says, though she's almost entirely joking. Darrow is weird in ways that she'll never fully understand, but even here, she thinks that would throw any and everyone for a loop. Soon enough, though, it would probably be like nothing ever happened. As creepy as it often is, she can at least respect that resiliency.

"Well, here's hoping that doesn't happen. No one needs that much turkey anyway."

"Especially not me. I don't like turkey," he admitted. "We never had it when I was growing up and no one should be introduced to a food by the United States Army. Not even Saint Jude could have rescued the first turkey I had."

Some of the food the Army provided wasn't bad, but some of it was just awful. And he didn't really know if she'd get the saint reference, but she had a scripture verse on her arm, so maybe she would.

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