abraxaslogs | 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕜𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕥, 𝕥𝕠𝕠 𝕔𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕙𝕚𝕕𝕖

[ Today wasn't one of her Libertas days. She had sword training with Altair today, and she's already been by Nadine's to have supplies for tomorrow, but there are hours yet until that, with no reasons to go early, no way to go hunting that doesn't take days, nothing to research for or on. Jo took herself to the Roadhouse with that bored yet building buzz in her veins.

It's been quiet most of an hour, and Jo's playing a one-person game of pool that required bounce-off-the-wall pocket scores and nothing else to burn off the energy building toward morning. Something with a higher precision focus than throwing knives. That needs most of her attention not to be distracted by any noise around her or in her head. ]

( sometimes, it's still a little strange to try and navigate other people's horizons who aren't wanda. he's gotten used to going to hers but other's, that's still something he's getting used to.

but, he thinks he's managed to find his way to jo's especially when he steps inside and hears the pool balls clacking against each other. he stops a few feet away, both hands wrapped around his walking stick while he listens to her play. )

[ Jo sinks another ball, having only two left, and she's about to line about the second to last when the door opens and closes. She's pretty sure when Dean brought her here the first time, the screen didn't quite make the right sound, but the longer she's here, the more things smooth out. It sounds right, that barely perceptible, almost squeak they'd all get around to oiling when the world wasn't ending.

She stops a combination of leaning her hip on the pool table and the pool cue set with its end the floor, a smirk starting to cross her mouth even as she starts. ]

Hey. Look who it is—all upright and everything.

You aren't looking for a new napping spot, right?
This table is currently occupado.

Uh, no. I'm — well, I guess I'm technically asleep to be here so I'd rather not double sleep. Not sure if I can even do that.

( but no, he's good and awake. he just thought he'd visit, say hello. )

This place reminds me of a bar I used to go to back home. Just the...sounds and all. The feel.

[ If he were someone else, Jo might dither into that distraction, rabbit hole, discussion on the technicalities of sleeping, and awareness that go into this thing. But she tries to play nice with the people who aren't actually from her world or were drawn to this interaction of bar here for a reason. ]

Yeah?

What kind of place was it?

Just a bar that my friend and I used to go to. A lot. Shitty beer, loud, not all that clean but —

( it was a home away from home kind of deal. and he liked it. he misses it. )

Josie let my friend and I run a tab because we were flat ass broke when I was in law school.

[ Jo have a soft hmm for the last part. You're part and parcel of the family when people do that. Her mom wouldn't have done it for some random law school kids, but they'd done it enough for hunters who fell on hard times, who it was more important to have crashlanded on them still alive than it was to present a bill at any time.

That's how it goes with family.
You know when's the right and wrong time.
When the needs to so much greater than the cost. ]

Sounds like a pretty nice place altogether, given that.

It wasn't bad. I think Josie actually liked us despite the fact that we were cheap and only settled our tab sometimes. She never kicked us out.

( but she also always had a lawyer on retainer for pennies. )

This place has that feel. Just — of being somewhere regular for people, you know.

[ It used to, she doesn't say, giving the bar a look over his shoulder. It's quiet time; most everyone cleared out for a while, Dean and Cas puttering through now and then in the background.

It's become something here, but she's still unsure of what. ]

It's getting there.

Should I get you a drink while you're here?
Pretty sure dissenters can have the first one free.

That'll work.

( he's had a few drinks in his own horizon but he doesn't know how it works here, if he has tp pay, if he can create money so better the first one being free. )

Still amazes me that beer tastes like beer in this place. Not your bar, just...the Horizon.

You know, I've been thinking about that whole thing.
Sin of the trade and all.

[ She's walking toward the bar backward, making sure he doesn't kill himself or anything. Though the guy seems to be doing fine and all, both in the city and here for as much as she can tell. ]

Does it taste right because we've imagined it that way? Or is it because it is exactly that thing? And if I make you something that I remember clearly, and think tastes right, does it actually taste the same for you, or does it taste like you think it should when you try it?

That's a little too much philosophy for me today.

( but they are good questions and matt wonders if anyone has the answers or even if they are answers. maybe it's different for everyone. )

I'm just glad that this place...feels real even if it's not all the way. That the people I can see her aren't dreams or hallucinations. We both remember it when we wake up.

[ Jo laughed ]

Careful, or I'll just run rings around you, Matt.

[ She slips behind the bar, nodding, thinking about how this place would go right back to not existing at all if the Horizon didn't work like that. She'd never had to question if it was reaching, if she should. Dean did all that before her arrival—and so long after her death. ]

One beer, or something else?
Go for broke while you can.

I'm not that risk taking.

( that's...a slight lie but he's going to be nice and normal for the time being. he smiles though, shrugs. )

Plus I have kind of a soft spot for beer. Reminds me of home and I haven't thought too fondly of that place in awhile.

How sad.

[ Jo's voice is mockingly disappointed, but her smile doesn't slip.
There's definitely a time and place for old comforts.
What was this whole place, if not that, for her?

Jo steps away, getting a beer and popping the cap.
Before setting it on the bar in front of him. ]

One golden oldie on the house, then.

Edited 2022-10-27 23:35 (UTC)

I know. I'm old. Something stronger than beer might go straight to my head and while I don't know if you can get drunk in the Horizon, I'm not gonna find out.

( he doesn't want to be the guy that wanders in and out of random people's spaces and makes a mess.

so, he grins when she gives him the tried and true beer and toasts her with it. )

Thank you. Can I ask about your place here? This something from home?

You're not that old. Old school, maybe.

[ Not old enough that there wasn't something nice about his face and his confidence, even with the glasses and the et all that came with them. Definitely better than that soggy, exhausted, taking public naps on law books look. ]

It is. I actually grew up here.

Not that old but getting there.

( he's not a senior citizen yet but it wouldn't be too long especially with what he put his body through on a regular basis.

sitting back, matt takes the beer in hand and looks around. he can't see the place but he can still get a feel for it. )

Grew up here? Huh. I grew up in a boxing gym so I can't really talk. What was it like, growing up in a place like this?

Huh. Boxing ring. That's unique.

[ Jo's smile slides toward a smirk, and she leans in on the bar, her expression and her tone already ripe with winning even when the game hasn't been laid on the table yet. He doesn't know enough to know, and there's some golden arrogance woven into moving the first piece in that alone, where she gets to play the part of blowing the roof off what the Roadhouse was back home and is here. ]

Take a guess. What do you think it would be like?

Take a guess, huh?

( matt shifts a bit, rolling his shoulders while he tries to think about how a place like this would be growing up. )

Busy? Different all the time considering the people that might pass through? Loud? Unorthodox?

Not bad, and not wrong, but also missing 90% of it at least.

[ Jo pops a second beer top. Because why the hell not when someone else is? There are no rules here or there in the Roadhouse. They didn't always, but sometimes they drank with the present people. Modicum, given the difference of this all being everyday normal for them. ]

The Roadhouse is a hunter bar. A place for the people who fight all those things that everyone thinks go bump in the night in the safety of their storybook pages. Easily closed behind thick covers and left to get dust on the shelf. Instead of waiting for them in every back alley and sunny coffee shop.

A hunter bar. Well, you've got Josie's beat. That's just a...bum bar. Where bums like me who can't always afford to pay the tab go.

( though, he was always willing to offer legal advice so there was some bartering there.

he sits up a bit. )

Never heard of a hunter bar. They common where you're from?

It's the only one of its kind.

My dad built it a good while before I was born.

[ Jo will never not sound proud. Of the place. Of her dad.
Patron idol of her soul and life's emulation.

And it was everything it was supposed to be, even after he died, and The Roadhouse was run by her mom and her. Right up until demons locked the doors and everyone inside was killed in some combination of a fire and an explosion that left only rubble slats and tiny bits of blown-apart body parts. But that's neither here nor there when it comes to conversations over a first beer, is it? ]

And there are a lot of these...hunters where you're from?

( he sounds more inquisitive than anything because for a guy that comes from a world with superheroes, people that hunt things that go bump in the night aren't all too common. )

How did people come to find out about it since I would guess it's not talked about in just daily conversation?

No.

There's more than you'd expect.
But normal people don't know about them.
Not until something rips apart their life.

[ She'd curbed the first impulse that went 'rips apart the bodies of their loved ones,' for the dude. Who says Jo doesn't have taste and the ability to read the room and actually act accordingly sometimes? Like once a year. Hunter Christmas. Merry whatever, Matt. It might not last long.

She took another swig from her beer, eying the room.
There are so many faces this room will never see again.

So many people who died screaming in this room that shouldn't exist.]

ɪ'ᴍ ᴀʟʟ ɢᴇᴀʀᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴄᴏʀᴇ

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