The Quintessential Quartermain

Dominic rarely let his guard down. He took pride in seeing even some of the craziest things about to happen thanks to his line of work. However, even all of his experience with the Brotherhood, and especially Pyro, he wasn’t quite prepared for Clay to do that.

Clay didn’t make it back to his seat.

Dominic just shook his head with a smile as Clay went into his ramble about firstborn children and mixing them up with puppies. He grabbed the glass that the man had pushed towards hims and rinsed it out before setting it in front of him.

You can tell the people who don’t know Clay all that well: they’re the ones who still expect Clay to behave like a normal, rational human being.

Dominic almost rolled his eyes at the way his name had been spoken. His brow then raised at the all too familiar words that he swore he’d heard before. After a moment of thought he pushed it to the back of his mind to figure out later. He started mixing up a second drink as Clay prattled on about what the price for more drinks would be.

“Conversation I can do,” Clay said agreeably and prodded his empty glass back across the counter.  “But you should definitely not discount the firstborn child offer just because I don’t have one yet.  In fact, I’d say that you should only deal for kids from people who don’t have them yet.  That way you know what you’re getting one without any bad habits yet and hey, they haven’t had time to grow attached to them yet, so it’s easy to give away.  And you can name em anything you want without having to worry about them getting confused.”  Clay paused.  “I think.  Probably.”  He clicked his tongue and pretended to examine the ceiling for answers.  “I might have gotten children mixed up with puppies.  Again.  Yeah, that’s probably puppies.”

Dominic watched him a moment before starting to mix the drink. This man could put Pyro’s innocent act to shame. Once he was finished, he slid the drink to the man. “I’m Dominic, and I’m no ax murderer. I’m a bartender.”

"Dominic," Clay intoned, the same way someone might say 'Ave Maria'.  "You are a god among insects."  The first third drink goes down fast and easy, the first shot of alcohol to kick off what is looking to be a much better night than Clay would have thought.  Drinks from then on out can be savored but it doesn't hurt to get the buzz started early.  "Never let anyone tell you different."

Dominic had started, nearly missing catching a bottle. He set it down on the counter and looked over at the man, watching him walk over and set his chin on the counter top. Now, he usually hated being interrupted during his alone time, but the man looked like he had had a rough day.

And yet another victory for the Eyes of Innocence.  Clay was one more proof away from registering them as a super power.  The best super power, the one to beat all other super powers.  Clay has documented proof.

Open Bar | Open

"Oh sweet baby Jeebus," Clay breathed in only slightly exaggerated gratitude.  "You mix!"

For quite a long while, Harry was completely unable to offer even the slightest of answers to any of Clay’s questions, the Alpha being equally as unsure of what they would be doing together on their impromptu outing as Clay certainly was. As he thought to himself, he, in silence, wandered over to the corner of the room where he had previously kicked his combat boots off – during the process of slipping them on and lacing them, an idea finally struck Harry that was inspiration enough for their little trip.

Harry was insanely good at dodging his incredibly persistent security; the two of them were out of the building and into the dark New York streets before any of the guards on duty could do more than sputter.  Clay laughed, a loud and frankly ungainly snorting-thing of dubious attractiveness at their slack-jawed faces even on the heels of Harry's mad dash.  

“Sure.” Harry agreed, mentally filing away all discussions of age into the same hypothetical box that Clay had mentioned as containing topics such as work and the unspoken elephant in the room – neither of them liked to dwell on the fact that they both were not perhaps the men they came across as being.

"Something?" asked Clay with a bit of surprise.  "What kind of a something?  Is this a throw crackers at ducks and laugh maniacally kind of something?  A streaking through Yankee Stadium something?  Swimming in the fountain in front of a bank?  You have to give me more to go on."

"Forty seven," Clay grumbled and let his head finally drop to Harry's shoulder with a groan.  "I vote we never have this conversation again; it's depressing."  The words were muffled into Harry's sleeve but there was still a clear air of whining about them that Clay didn't bother trying to hide.

“Mhmm… the cherry stem thing. That’s a classy little trick that I haven’t heard anyone brag about in years – you really must be getting old if you think that’s still impressive.” Harry poked and prodded at Clay teasingly, smiling wildly as he did so and barely containing multiple little giggles.

The maze moved further in in layers, the first outer rings were just big enough to walk through single file, the halls opened up wider the deeper you got.

There was no way to track progress.  Driven snow covered any tracks they'd tried to leave and the storm clouds meant that GPS was a bust.  Comm links were barely audible through static and with every step it became clearer and clearer that they were on their own.

“Sounds like a plan.” Harry spoke through a barely contained yawn of exhaustion – he then stretched himself out across both Clay and the couch, arching his back much like a cat would, before shifting to settle comfortably across with his head resting in Clay’s lap. “Just so long as it doesn’t snow wherever it is you decide to take me, I don’t really care where we end up. The less people, the better.”