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[ota]
Sonny has been on this ship for not long at all, but he is already behind the bar where he knows how to be. There's a sign on top of the advice that says Free Fuckin' Advice on top as he leans against the other side of the bar. He is not responsible for the sign for the record. Sonny is also not responsible for the fact that some people who end up at this bar will find themselves far more likely to share their troubles than they would be ordinarily. They'll suddenly find words for troubles they've never been able to describe before.
It's the ship's magic, and Sonny is a demon and a bartender who is over eighty years old. He's done some terrible things for selfish reasons, and he's done some terrible things for the good of others, and he's loved and had a family. Nothing's ever that fucking simple.
He has plenty to say, but he's going to say it all in his own fucking way.
Come have a drink.
Come spill the things you can't ever normally put to words. Come let someone listen or give a word or two that might set you on the right path or the wrong path or any fucking path.
It's what he's here for.
It's the ship's magic, and Sonny is a demon and a bartender who is over eighty years old. He's done some terrible things for selfish reasons, and he's done some terrible things for the good of others, and he's loved and had a family. Nothing's ever that fucking simple.
He has plenty to say, but he's going to say it all in his own fucking way.
Come have a drink.
Come spill the things you can't ever normally put to words. Come let someone listen or give a word or two that might set you on the right path or the wrong path or any fucking path.
It's what he's here for.
no subject
Eighty seemed like several lifetimes ago, and it might as well be. He was well over 2,000 at this point. He'd lost track at some point when he was buried, as unable to keep time as he was to keep up with how many times he died repeatedly during that ordeal. It was a wonder his sanity remained intact, and there were many times he wondered that if he'd hadn't been an immortal product of the Rose's Bad Wolf design, if he would've lost his grip on reality a long, long time ago.
But unfortunately, reality was a very real thing, and sometimes it settled on your shoulders like an impossible weight that refused to budge, bearing down on you with all its might. Jack was no longer in the business of dwelling on the -- well, the reality of it all -- but seeing Martha and Donna again had somehow brought everything he'd lost in a relatively short span of time crashing back down upon him.
And that called for a drink.
"Bartender," Jack calls, "give me... Give me your worst."
Not like it'll kill him. And if it does? Not like he won't come back.
no subject
The demon always wants to. Sonny only does so when push comes to shove and there's no better way to fix a situation).
"One of my worst coming up."
It's said without further ado, and as an eighty year old bartender, he knows a few tricks up his sleeves as to what could be the worst.
"Any reason you need the worst tonight?"
no subject
Whatever Sonny's feeling from him, chances are, it's not pretty. It's dark and murky, filled to the brim with a gloomy sort of certainty that's been lurking for longer than anyone ought to be holding on to anything. With Jack it's a constant, and today it's out in full force.
"A better question would be why don't I," he comments, hopping up onto a stool. "List's shorter."
no subject
"That bad?"
He's fixing up a glass for him quickly, setting it down in front of him.
"Think of the fuckin' bright side, now you're on a ship in the middle of nowhere."
There's a light smirk, an awareness that might not be a bright side to everyone. It kind of is to him.
no subject
He took a sick sort of pleasure in throwing the literal into the vagueness of his tone. It was hard to tell at times whether Jack was simply joking around, completely bullshitting, or being dead serious. (Pun very much intended.)
That gets a slight laugh out of him. "Guess we should be glad it's not a ghost ship. Not even Scooby-Doo could find us all the way out here."
no subject
They usually tend to be vampires, and while angels and demons can have a very long lifespan, angels can live up to 1,000 years that's not forever. Most don't make it that long. The Callings take over their head that way.
He smirks. "Yeah, think this would be a little fuckin' out of Scooby-Doo's realm of mysteries to be solved. That van can't turn into sub... at least last I checked."
no subject
Then he laughs, albeit bitterly, because he used to the be the sort who excelled at solving these kinds of mysteries. All sorts of things came out of the Rift back in Cardiff, and he's been in more than a few strange situations with the Doctor. They fixed the miracle, but he can't get himself off a damned ship to nowhere?
If only he could figure out how to get his Vortex Manipulator working again, but it's fried. Again, and the Doctor was dead set on keeping him in one place. He failed to see what was so dangerous about him hoping around time, other than running the risk of giving the Time Lord a case of the heebie-jeebies by showing up somewhere he was unannounced and bothering him with his wrongness.
no subject
She's been here for a very, very long time, wandering the endless rooms that take her from one place to the next, but never really take her anywhere. The sight of him has her pulling in a small breath, and she leans against the wall, watching him mix drinks for a while.
"What if we're not looking for advice?" she asks, finally making herself known.
Her voice will be exactly as he remembers it, if not a tad thick, but she's smiling. No reason to make this hurtful. Some people aren't good at goodbyes. Olivia has never quite been good at hellos.
/FLAILS and lies here incoherently
It's one of those rare times where he doesn't. He's old. He's lived through plenty, done plenty he isn't proud of, and then there comes the sound of her voice like a ghost from the grave. The whole of him shudders, and he shifts where he is standing, and he doesn't know how to react.
She tries not to make it hurtful but it is because he dug her hand out of the-- out of the wreckage.
His jaw locks so tightly he almost can't breathe through the tension inside of it, and he shuts his eyes. His hands grip tightly to the bar.
"You're not-"
real
is what he wants to say except he wants her to be real, except he half doesn't give a slight fuck if she's real or she's not.
no subject
There isn't a handbook on how to react when one of your team members - who died grotesquely, by the way - suddenly find themselves in a ghost ship along with you. She will try, because it's what she does, but Sonny wouldn't be Sonny if he didn't see right through that.
Her eyes fill, and her smile wanes, and all of this suddenly feels all too familiar.
"Now that's not a nice thing to say."
She is very real.
Even if this was just a product of the ship's imagination, or Sonny's - which it's not - how would it be any less real?
no subject
His eyes burn, and he shakes his head.
Her hand. He remembers finding the remains of her-- her hand in the burned up building and the rubble. Of course, he does, and there it is as if--
when he gets close enough, he reaches out to take her hand in his own (it is solid, it is real, she is real). his eyes burn more and he is not a demon or a leader of a bar at all, he's a broken man holding the hand of a woman he loved and lost, and every carefully built part of himself threatens to fucking crumble all at once.
"Olivia."
Her name is a strangled thing.
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Olivia seems to sense that is what he fears - and can she even blame him for it? - so she stays in place, waiting for him to approach her instead of the other way around. They've almost come full circle, haven't they? The first time they met, she was hiding behind a dumpster like a wounded animal, blood dripping from her mouth. Her very first transformation - her very first kill, too - as a behemoth. He approached her tentatively, the way he is now, except back then his fear would be she'd dart away in fear.
She isn't going anywhere this time. She glances down at their hands as he reaches for her, her smile finally growing tearful.
"Hiya, Sonny." It's said so simply, when it is anything but. She is trying to be strong for him. If he crumbles, she surely will.
"You look old."
Older and more tired than she remembers, and it aches her chest, though that's not how she says it. No, she calls him old like she's being a little shit, because she is. It's who she's always been. See? one would think she is trying to say. Still me.
no subject
It's something like a fond and broken laugh when she sounds so much like her. It is. It's still her. There's that laugh which escapes him, and he used to respond in a different way arguing with her about it, calling her too young. He does neither of those things this time.
He lifts his hand up until he is cupping her face against his palm. His eyes burn more, and the tear finally escapes, slides down his face. "I am old."
He is much, much too old, and she died much, much too young. And that's the way the world works except when it gives you an impossible moment like this..
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He didn't just teach her how to get a hold of her demon powers. He taught her how to embrace the monster in her. So many people would fall all over themselves to reassure her that she isn't, and a part of her is, of course. She knows what she is capable of; what she has always been capable of. And Sonny saw it, too, but he never feared it. She blinks through the tears, her fingers gripping tight hold of his. Her eyes close, like she has found relief, the moment his hand cups her face.
She leans into it, the warmth of his hand. It is as warm as she is warm.
A thumb draws out to wipe the tear away from his face, and all too quickly, she is finally (finally!) gathering him up in her arms, hugging him tightly to her. "Older," she says then. Older than she remembers.
More broken than she remembers, too.
no subject
People will sugarcoat. They'll want someone to feel better, but a person has to know what they are dealing with in order to handle it best. Sonny has never believed in giving anything other than the truth, and the truth is they both have monsters inside of them. No, he could never be afraid of her, of it. Never. Sonny swallows thickly as he sees her blinking through the tears, and his hand slides further over the side of her face as his chest aches tightly with it, painfully with it.
He closes his eyes against the burning there, leaning into her touch as she wipes the tear from his face, and he is quick to wrap his arms tightly around her too, pulling her into a protective hug as he presses his face against her shoulder, breathing her in.
It smells like her. There were times when he'd-- he'd swear he smelled this scent of hers, and he was always wrong. Sonny wraps his arms around her, and his expression crumples as the tears flow more freely, reliving that grief tearing through his chest like something terrible. His fingers slide into her beautiful hair as his eyes burn.
"I am so fucking sorry."
no subject
The words are said thickly against his own shoulder, her arms tightly holding him in place. She shakes her head stubbornly, almost like she can will him to swallow those words back before they ever left his mouth. Olivia knew exactly what she was getting into when she stepped into the Crowbar and accepted his help. She also knew exactly where she would've ended up if she had not done so, and she would choose the Crowbar, choose him, a thousand times over. He never did get that through his thick skull.
She can feel the tears, hot and blinding, form in her eyes, and she closes them stubbornly to keep them inside. It's strange. She knows that she is a ghost to him, but she does not feel like one. She feels alive and tangible; she feels the rough punch to the gut in the stomach at his words.
"Don't. It wasn't your fault. If you still feel guilty about it after all this time, I swear, Sonny - "
Olivia doesn't know how she planned on finishing that sentence, but she does swear.