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WHO: Hank Anderson | NPCs | Open
WHAT: A hunt for information and a desire for good whiskey. People can also find him at the boardwalk or drinking at the bar.
WHERE: A speakeasy on the boardwalk
WHEN: Towards the end of July
WARNINGS: 🎜🎝 Hank's mouth needs washing out with soap. Suicidal tendencies.

Hank usually tries to tie up his hair while he's at work. He's still not cut it. It's a holdover from years of depression. He didn't fucking feel like cutting his hair so other than some beard maintenance he just let that mane happen, and mentally he's still not found the place to chop it all off. Now he just keeps it in a half-ass high ponytail with half of it hanging out while he's on the job, like a heavyset loose samurai. Now he's just got it down, looking like his usual casually sloppy shaggy dog self in a bold shirt and a well-worn jacket. At least he looks like he belongs in a bar drinking.

The boardwalk is only mildly busy. It's a weeknight, people are off work, the food is cheap but everything isn't lit up like a James Cameron daydream quite yet. Give it a half-hour. There are rows of little restaurants and game booths and a few hole-in-the-wall establishments down little turn off side-streets. The places for grown-ups to go while the kids play.

That's when Hank first finds a bar that he's heard a couple of claims about. Maybe bullshit; a couple of the other bars he's also checked out have been bullshit. But fuck it, another place to get whiskey, right?

Another holdover from three years of depression.

The old detective (former detective, maybe future one) settles himself at a distant side seat on the bar, somewhere where he can see whatever the live stage performance is when it starts while he tends to a neat whiskey.

He draws the attention of a scaled woman next to him as he downs his glass without so much as a flinch and pushes it forward for a refill. No sign of the notorious whiskey face. He's scalded that reaction right out of his throat. He might as well have a fuckin' booze callous the way this nigh on toxic shit doesn't phase him.

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Hank makes a bit of a face, jaw tensing and eyes shifting as they follow trails of thought.

"Wait, is your brother the guy that showed up all bloody and dead?"

“Bingo,” Nida says and he is now definitely eyeing the alcohols on the back wall of the bar.

“I hate this place. How do you deal with this?”

"Not well. It's hollow."

He looks down into the glass. Even without someone needing him at home, he feels this... lack of richness. A glitter covered stage persona with no greater message to their music, meant only to dazzle. A self-proclaimed thug of a football player beating his chest in interviews and then constantly fumbling at the final yard.

"Ask for juice with some bitters or soda water. It might trick your brain," he suggests, when he finally catches where Nida's looking.

"Your brother alright?"

"I don't know," Nida sighs, fingers coming up to rub at his temples. "Only ever had beer and really terrible stilled vodka. Place I was in before this, where Jason died, didn't have alcohol but what we made. And... he's as alright as you can be when you come back from the dead twice."

Almost as bad as being almost dead four times in a month. But that's just life. He waves the bartender down and places the order as Hank suggests. Something, he needs something.

"Yeah, he told me about that. Sounds like he was one of those guys that goes through so much weird fuckin' traumatic shit that he's just started treating it like it's normal. Problem is your brain and body usually know it's not normal. Fucks you up a lot. And you guys have a pretty high weird-shit-o-meter."

He makes a motion in the air. The shit-o-meter? Up to there. Hank's is only moderate with the normal amount of emotional pain for a cop and grieving father.

"I gave him some pizza. Because really that's the best you can do for someone brought back from the fuckin' dead." He sees Nida order his drink, and then offers- "Wanna toast to somethin'?"

"Jason's weird-shit-o-meter is a lot higher than mine. We're not from the same planet. Gotham sounds a lot more messed up than Hyne. And I mean, I've had to deal with a period of time of non-existence because of an evil Time Sorceress."

That one tends to make people flinch. Nida's beyond taken Time Compression into stride. But it makes him smile to know that Jason had other people being kind to him. Always seemed to make Jason hesitate.

If only he'd been more supportive.

"What would you toast to?"

Edited 2019-07-22 01:51 (UTC)

Hank's face scrunches up dramatically. "Wait, are we talking the same Time Sorceress as the belt kid? Storm- no it was Squall, wasn't it? And he was stuck in some mercenary child soldier timeloop school thing with spells?"

All of these words just came out of his fuckin' mouth and he is not drunk enough to work this out.

"So the Alice in Wonderland guy who got killed by the Middle Eastern terrorist with a hate-on for his former partner and then killed by a doppelganger assassin thing is your brother but like... brother by association or brother in law or- You know what, let's just fuckin' toast family. That works. That's a good one."

Storm? Nida bursts out laughing at the name. That's terrible. Nida is SO using it. And other weather names. Can he call Squall 'Typhoon' or 'Drizzle'?

"Well, not all of us had the 'fated to be the person to cause the founding of the same school that will make you a child soldier' thing that Squall has. He is... he was my boss. And trust me, neither he nor I are pleased to be sans magic."

Oh dear, Hank's gotten a lot of information from the other people. From Squall and Jason. Nida doesn't know what to do with that. In fact, he stares at Hank in shock. What in the world...?

"We've adopted each other."

Edited 2019-07-22 02:15 (UTC)

He makes a so so motion with his hand. "I remembered windy rainy type name beginning with 'S'." He tries to keep up. And, generally, that's how he does his detective work.

"Perfectly fine way to get a brother." He pushes his glass forward to have it topped off so it'll be full, and then holds it up.

"I have two that way," Nida agrees, shrugging. And there is only so much he can do about all of it.

With his own glass in hand, Nida raises it and offers the toast.

"To family." And, with a smile gracing his lips. "Present and future."

What? He may have aspirations.

"To family." God he hopes his future family isn't fucked. He clinks glasses before down a huge swallow of his. Weight means he takes longer to get drunk, and he knows he's not far off. The tipsy will set in eventually. But at least, out of his respect for Connor, motions to the bartender and adds something for himself.

"A water here, too. So you checked out the magical tattoo things yet? They don't sound like they're as impressive but maybe they can show you how fuckin' magic in this place works. I have no idea. We don't got anything like that back home."

"Our magic back home is very different too."

Still, Nida rolls back the sleeve of his leather coat and a shirt sleeve. His right arm is covered with a twisting, swirling pattern of greens and blues and purples. Clearly meant to evoke something along the vague concept of wind.

"I look good with it too."

He's gonna have to learn tattoo meanings all over again. Tattoos among criminals are a secret cipher, a language that tells a life story in hieroglyphs etched into skin. You can tell how much time someone did, what their crimes were, who they were associated with. And it varied. A gopnik's not gonna have the same as southern brotherhood isn't gonna be the same as cartel guys. Now he's got to figure out what these things are.

He wishes he had Connor's fuckin' amazing memory.

"I'd ask how it changed color like that but I'm gonna fuckin' guess 'Magic'. What's it do?"

"Nothing I can display in here," Nida admits with a brief shrug. "A form of wind magic. I can control wind enough to send gusts of it forward, blasting things."

And he doesn't have quite the same acute control as he had the last place, but he adores it. It's fun. Now he just needs some water magic on the other side. And then flight back.

"Has it been workin' alright?"

He's hesitant with his idea. He probably should be trying to make himself more at home before he considers spending money on anything else.

"S'alright. I don't need an immediate display. I'm just curious. Don't know whether this bullshit's worth investing in."

Has it been working alright? Nida grins as he raises his arm to inspect the ink. What a beautiful thing. Beautiful and complex and shifty. Some might suggest that it's just like him.

"Used that 'get one free' coupon. Definitely a good investment. Keeps Seifer in line most of the time. But only most of it."

Clearly he seems pleased with it, grinning.

"I've been thinkin' about it. Honestly, I'm sorta worried that if I did, it'd keep me from being able to go back somehow. I've fuckin' hated tech for a long time, but I can't just keep being a fuckin' Luddite for the rest of my life. I gotta be able to work better with it.

"So I keep thinking maybe some mod could help me out."

He's nowhere near adventurous enough to try the magic thing.

Mods? Now that's something that makes Nida cringe. His body is a temple, blah blah blah. Mostly the idea of impregnating his body with tech is not a good one.

"I'll pass. I'm still flesh and blood this way. And magic is just a way of life back home. At least for me and Misty and Seifer."

what? The guy said he'd met Squall. And Nida's still amused over the idea of general weather names for Squall.

"Yeah, you're probably right." There's an edge of disappointment to his agreement, though he was probably trying to find excuses not to as much as he was trying to encourage himself to try. Knowing his luck, rather than form any useful connections he'd probably end up just talking to the Head by accident or something and no one would want that.

"So wait, his name is spelled differently from C-Y-P-H-E-R, isn't it?"

Hank remembers a lot of stuff and he almost remembers stuff. It's no wonder he keeps a whole catalog of notes.

"S-E-I-F-E-R," Nida confirms. "Though he is a puzzle in his own rights, my brother."

What? The joke seemed like a good one. And he does go to sip at his drink again. Not as good as alcohol. Better than having alcohol.

"Honestly I don't know what I was expecting of magical people. Seifer suits the skills."

He doesn't laugh at the joke, but there's no sign that he doesn't respect the use of wordplay. (He was a father, but he wasn't a father long enough to achieve the final evolution of Master Pun Maker.)

They aren't exactly magical people. Just people who magic happens to. It's a bit confusing, and Nida doesn't want to explain paramagic or anything like that.

"Not really. More like he suits the term headache. Migraine. But I love him anyway."

Their family is one they've chosen and it's the only sort Nida's had.

"Would that be spelled with an A-I at the start too or would that be asking too much of meaningful names."

But he relents. "Only so much I can say, though. My name rhymes with too many words to let me off easy. Sounds like you found something good for yourself."

Would it be spelled with a... Huh, Nida wasn't expecting that comment. The last place he was there hadn't seemed like many different spellings for things from what he was used to. Or even here on the text online. But maybe Hank wasn't seeing something Hank was.

Or maybe he just hadn't gotten the joke.

"No, just the usual way. But Seifer used to be my bully when I was growing up, so we're past the names thing by now. In fact, it's just easier if we skip straight to fist fights. All three of us are good in a fight, so it's a useful way to handle things."

Yeah, he had found something good for himself. That reminder makes Nida smile and he finishes his drink. Finishes and pulls out some money.

"For your drink, Sir," he says. Because like hell he's outing an off-duty cop. That's just wrong.

Edited 2019-07-26 01:00 (UTC)

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