[MINGLE] Scout's Honor

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Hot Springs
WHEN: 21 Sept, after sunset
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn in your subject line as needed
NOTES: Details found here

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It's been a strange, rough couple of months for our intrepid villagers — Bunkers, superpowers and clones, oh my! Perhaps the Observers are sympathetic to their plight, or maybe they just have a peculiar sense of humor. At any rate, they've set up a gathering space chalk full of summer camp goodness, no strings attached. Not that anyone knows that part.

Just before sunset, a cheery message pops up on wrist devices all across the settlement and beyond. The instructions seem simple enough, although one does have to wonder at what dubious gift awaits them all after everything is said and done.

Marshmallows are on the house, so grab yourself a stick, strap on a sash and get to roasting, villagers. Skinny dipping, sing-alongs and friendship bracelets optional.

Comments

[freightcars]

"Lucky me," he corrects, in that good-natured way whipped men often do. He pulls the stick away from her face, still rimmed with a little left over molten mallow glue, and watches her swig down some of his booze. Collects the bottle back when she's done, twists the cap on, tucks it under one arm so he can hold the other one out in an offer to shake.

He's old-fashioned like that. "Bucky. Kinda figured, we don't exactly have a huge population. New faces kinda stick out."

Plus they have a vibe, one of those green 'I have no idea what's happening and everything's fine' auras that stands out like a sore thumb. Barnes has two methods of dealing with them.

1 - talk about chopping wood
2 - offer them booze.

So far 2 has had better results.

[unraisehell]

She grins at the correction with some unspoken admiration for this unknown woman, and shakes his hand easily enough. She's used to old-fashioned. Old fashioned used to live in her barn while he adjusted to the sunlit and dysentery-free modern world.

"Yeah, can't escape the small town vibes even when I'm kidnapped by aliens or- whatever this is," she motions to their surroundings with vague confusion and annoyance. "Never would have thought the facehuggers wanted me to go to summer camp."

[freightcars]

There's a lot to unpack there, admittedly, not in the least because he has no fucking clue what facehugger is. He's opting not to ask, though, and decides to just drink his way through the confusion with a nice pleasant swig from the bottle. Once it's down, he offers her a little shrug himself.

"Pretty sure it's aliens round two for me, too, so." Can relate. "On the bright side, the plumbing works and there's ample moonshine?"

[unraisehell]

Yeah, sorry Buck. You gave the xenniel disaster booze, you're in for pop culture references, but the blue-collar profanity half of the conversation will be far, far easier to follow.

"No shit? For me it's just a buttload of demons and a magic six-shooter. We don't really have the budget for fighting aliens, I don't think."

[freightcars]

Oh good, add her to the list of people who talk about shit like The Addam's Family or Ru Paul's Drag Race and expect him to get it. Sorry ma'am, he's going to be about as responsive to a witty zinger as a brick wall.

He can at least vibe with the profanity, though.

His lips purse up together in an amused sort of moue. Buttload of demons and a magic six-shooter.

"Sounds like a riot anyway," He muses. He holds the bottle out to her in offering again. Seems like she might could use another swig.

[unraisehell]

She'll catch on to the blank looks. Eventually. They won't make her stop though. After walking the Actual Fucking Doc Holiday through using Spotify she's learned to accept both total culture blindness and listening to a lot of Adele without making a thing of it.

She's also obviously a recent enough arrival that talk of the six-shooter makes her unconsciously reach to touch the absence of weight where Peacemaker's holster should be. She doesn't even notice that she does it.

She does notice the bottle, and does not hesitate at all to accept. "It is, if you like westerns, I guess." And then, with more hesitation than bragging, "my last name is Earp," she explains. "If that means anything where you're from, I'm sure you can connect the dots."

[freightcars]

Apparently she touches on one reference he does actually get, and his eyebrows shoot up.

"Earp like Wyatt?" Don't get him wrong, he'd always been more into dime store scifi paperbacks than old westerns, but Wyatt Earp was a legend that transcends time. The OK Corral had been one of his history teacher's favorite stories back in grade school.

Obviously she knows about it, she's bringing it up, but is it coincidence or is she like a descendant? That'd be damn nuts. The damn characters in this town, he'll tell ya.

[unraisehell]

Okay. That is... not a reaction Wynonna is used to getting. At all. And it shows in her reaction to his reaction. Surprise, maybe a little confusion, and a touch of relief that even she doesn't know is there, much like feeling for the gun.

In her hometown, her name had been more of a mark of shame than anything worth bragging about. It brought the occasional (very unlucky) tourist to Purgatory, but otherwise the Earp Legacy was as much of a curse for her as the curse. Especially for her, the crazy demon girl who killed her own father in a home invasion. Who started fires and left town the second she could.

"Yeah," she says, and actually laughs a little. "He's my great-grandfather. This is- this is actually cool to you?" she asks, somewhere in between amused and incredulous.

[freightcars]

Cool might not be the most accurate word to describe what he's feeling right now. This god damn island just keeps on getting crazier and crazier; next thing you know Abraham Lincoln himself is going to burst through the fountain with a sniper rifle and telekinesis.

"It's something," is what he says instead, inscrutable if a little bit jaded. Not about her, mind you. This fucking place.

[unraisehell]

"Well then, at the risk of using too many cowboy-esque metaphors, I'm not looking this gift horse in the mouth," she says. "You come bearing booze and a reaction to my full name that isn't vague distrust or accusing me of being a western-themed drag queen. You got a name, Lucky Man? I do generally like to know the names of people I take questionable liquor from."