"HardCase's Angel" Part II
Time: Two and half Years ago, late night/early morning, 1-2 am
Setting: HardCases. Outside Salem Center. Shady Suburb.
Blowing an annoyed breath up at her bangs that hung to her chin she watched her normal early morning customers on this incredibly slow night drink their drinks, play pool on the last left table from the fight earlier, and generally goof off with each other. She might have smiled if it had been any normal night. Might have found a reason to hang around a table and laugh with the gents. But tonight was a different sort of night, and she was out of sorts.
Her mother was in for surgery tonight, and whether they got along at all in the last seven years didn't seem so important next to her mother having a fatal medical problem now. She wished she could have killed the guy who did
it. She had no love loss in the last years, but I didn't mean she didn't love her. You only got one mother.
With a glance of almost empty sympathetic pain she looked to see whom the next person coming in was when the door opened. Another regular. One who hadn't been in a month or so again. Liked to drink, brawl, flirt sometimes,
and most of all be left alone and lost in thought. He liked to do all of it a lot. In some ways he was a favorite customer of Sal's. The man had a tolerance for liquor she'd seen few men twice his size could. Good customer,
always paid his tab, liked the place, always came back.
He was the short, burly type. Usually wore blue jeans, leather jacket when he came in, cowboy boots, and sometimes a beat up setson hat, too. Rugged features, dark black hair with silver tints sometimes. She loved his eyes
though if anything. You could never really tell exactly what it was he was thinking. Sometime when he was drinking a beer she thought he looked happy, and sometimes when he was fighting he looked sad almost. Came with buddies
sometimes, but only very rarely.
Baby Jane just smiled at him, when he nodded the front of the beat up old hat to her with a type of respect she rarely got, sitting down in front of her. A few eyes raised from corners and people whispered. His name was Logan, but his rumors followed him more loudly than his own speech to hear him talk did. Rumor was longest hanging now that he was a mutant. Personally she didn't care. The man was a terrific customer, and as long as he kept up his tab he would be treated like one.
"Back so soon?" She said with a playful grin, trying to press off her dour thoughts best she could, as she pulled out a cup and set it in front of him, closer to her on the counter.
"Something strong this time." He said, this glint of light touching off the blue in his eyes, as he took of the hat and laid it on the counter next to him. "Long time, darlin'. Thought you wanted out o' the business?"
"Baby Jane, leave her favorite customers? Perish the thought!" Shrugging she turned going on an idea of something she could add to it that might make him happy, and spoke over her shoulder so he'd hear her over the noises she made opening, and mixing things. "It pays the bills. I gotta have something that does that."
Turning back she handed him the drink and smiled, her head tilted slightly. "Actually am looking at a part time, during the day, on the other side of town, in West Chester. Some place called Harry's Hideaway."
Since he didn't move to say anything and continued watching and listening, she did what any woman and bar tenders would do while they looked that way. She kept talking. "It's a nice stand up place. Almost makes me think I'll be
bored there after all the excitement I see here night after night."
He simply nodded as if he understood and went at his drink. Something about him seemed different she couldn't put a finger on it. He seemed down cast? Sad? Unhappy? It was almost disturbing. Looking at him you could see easily if you knew how to look that he was a fighter, but that there was also something tender and lost in him.
"What d'you do, Logan?" Baby Jane asked quietly after waiting on a few other customer in booths, watching him down five drinks and ask for another still stronger drink. Handing him another drink, she picked up a rag and started
wiping off the counter by the register waiting for him to answer.
"Save the world."
She furrowed her brows looking up from the counter top. It wasn't that she expected he would answer eventually or not. He was a quiet man. And as a rule a lot of normal customers until heart broke kept their problems to themselves unless they were completely plastered and didn't have the smallest recollection of what they were saying.
"From what?" she asked good naturedly, with a curiosity biting at the chomp in her next to a laugh. Yes, he was drunk. SuperLogan! A small image of him in a superman costume, or one of the Avengers costume's popped into her head.
"It's self."
"It's self?" she beckoned the question back at him. What'd the world need saving from? The government? Aliens? Mutants? No, she got it. He was FBI. Someone like Mulder. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!!! She muffled a tiny laugh into a cough.
For one second alone she wondered if he heard it because he looked up at her suddenly with those blue eyes and her mood immediately dropped. God, the expression was like someone who just lost their best friend, or had watched
the love of their life die. That almost child like you ran over my puppy and the world is going to end now expression inside his eyes.
"What's yer real name?" he asked and she realized again, she had no idea behind those eyes what was going on in his head. She looked towards the pick window barely when Sal whistled to say she had bout ten till closing.
"What? You don't like Baby Jane?" She asked with a chuckle as she stopped wiping the counter all together and tossed the rag at the end of the table behind counter with everything else on it. Looking back before she walked to
the counter and sets her hands on the edge looking at him, she wondered what a man like this went through to carry the expressions he did. War? Heart ache? Loss?
"My mother christened me Jennifer," her voice replied softly. She knew what came next. It always did. The whole 'how did Jennifer get to Jane' line of questioning. It was actually pretty simple, and sometime annoying to
explain, so she shot back a pretty regular question, too. "You got any kids, Logan?"
He stopped as he scooted the drink over across the counter, and picking up his hat. He glanced to the door and her eyes followed his. They widened a second later. The door hadn't made a noise like it always did opening, but there was a man standing in the doorway. One of the guys he'd brought before. Tall, dark, long trench coat, Cajun accent. Remy something if she remember right and she usually did.
He looked back at her at about the same second she glanced back to him. His expression changed, and he looked some how suddenly-- annoyed? Angry? Tired? He pulled a wallet out and handed her the money. "Too flamin' many."
What was going on? Then another question stung her suddenly. Where did he go when he left here? Home? To a family? He said he did have kids, but he didn't say it at all the way a parent would. Home to an empty house?
"Jenn'fer," He started not letting her say anything yet. The name was clenched in his accent, and Baby Jane tried not to wince or look too surprised. No one called her that anymore except her mother, and the thought only made the pain in her stomach hurt more and think about her mother again. "Find the place y'ur happiest and don't leave it fer nothin'."
And with that he walked out, leaving her there, again, one hand on the top of the glass she needed to wash, watching the door swing, the other hand holding the cash. Left searching for some huge deeper message she couldn't figure out right then, but knew was there in his words.
Time: Two and half Years ago, late night/early morning, 1-2 am
Setting: HardCases. Outside Salem Center. Shady Suburb.
Blowing an annoyed breath up at her bangs that hung to her chin she watched her normal early morning customers on this incredibly slow night drink their drinks, play pool on the last left table from the fight earlier, and generally goof off with each other. She might have smiled if it had been any normal night. Might have found a reason to hang around a table and laugh with the gents. But tonight was a different sort of night, and she was out of sorts.
Her mother was in for surgery tonight, and whether they got along at all in the last seven years didn't seem so important next to her mother having a fatal medical problem now. She wished she could have killed the guy who did
it. She had no love loss in the last years, but I didn't mean she didn't love her. You only got one mother.
With a glance of almost empty sympathetic pain she looked to see whom the next person coming in was when the door opened. Another regular. One who hadn't been in a month or so again. Liked to drink, brawl, flirt sometimes,
and most of all be left alone and lost in thought. He liked to do all of it a lot. In some ways he was a favorite customer of Sal's. The man had a tolerance for liquor she'd seen few men twice his size could. Good customer,
always paid his tab, liked the place, always came back.
He was the short, burly type. Usually wore blue jeans, leather jacket when he came in, cowboy boots, and sometimes a beat up setson hat, too. Rugged features, dark black hair with silver tints sometimes. She loved his eyes
though if anything. You could never really tell exactly what it was he was thinking. Sometime when he was drinking a beer she thought he looked happy, and sometimes when he was fighting he looked sad almost. Came with buddies
sometimes, but only very rarely.
Baby Jane just smiled at him, when he nodded the front of the beat up old hat to her with a type of respect she rarely got, sitting down in front of her. A few eyes raised from corners and people whispered. His name was Logan, but his rumors followed him more loudly than his own speech to hear him talk did. Rumor was longest hanging now that he was a mutant. Personally she didn't care. The man was a terrific customer, and as long as he kept up his tab he would be treated like one.
"Back so soon?" She said with a playful grin, trying to press off her dour thoughts best she could, as she pulled out a cup and set it in front of him, closer to her on the counter.
"Something strong this time." He said, this glint of light touching off the blue in his eyes, as he took of the hat and laid it on the counter next to him. "Long time, darlin'. Thought you wanted out o' the business?"
"Baby Jane, leave her favorite customers? Perish the thought!" Shrugging she turned going on an idea of something she could add to it that might make him happy, and spoke over her shoulder so he'd hear her over the noises she made opening, and mixing things. "It pays the bills. I gotta have something that does that."
Turning back she handed him the drink and smiled, her head tilted slightly. "Actually am looking at a part time, during the day, on the other side of town, in West Chester. Some place called Harry's Hideaway."
Since he didn't move to say anything and continued watching and listening, she did what any woman and bar tenders would do while they looked that way. She kept talking. "It's a nice stand up place. Almost makes me think I'll be
bored there after all the excitement I see here night after night."
He simply nodded as if he understood and went at his drink. Something about him seemed different she couldn't put a finger on it. He seemed down cast? Sad? Unhappy? It was almost disturbing. Looking at him you could see easily if you knew how to look that he was a fighter, but that there was also something tender and lost in him.
"What d'you do, Logan?" Baby Jane asked quietly after waiting on a few other customer in booths, watching him down five drinks and ask for another still stronger drink. Handing him another drink, she picked up a rag and started
wiping off the counter by the register waiting for him to answer.
"Save the world."
She furrowed her brows looking up from the counter top. It wasn't that she expected he would answer eventually or not. He was a quiet man. And as a rule a lot of normal customers until heart broke kept their problems to themselves unless they were completely plastered and didn't have the smallest recollection of what they were saying.
"From what?" she asked good naturedly, with a curiosity biting at the chomp in her next to a laugh. Yes, he was drunk. SuperLogan! A small image of him in a superman costume, or one of the Avengers costume's popped into her head.
"It's self."
"It's self?" she beckoned the question back at him. What'd the world need saving from? The government? Aliens? Mutants? No, she got it. He was FBI. Someone like Mulder. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!!! She muffled a tiny laugh into a cough.
For one second alone she wondered if he heard it because he looked up at her suddenly with those blue eyes and her mood immediately dropped. God, the expression was like someone who just lost their best friend, or had watched
the love of their life die. That almost child like you ran over my puppy and the world is going to end now expression inside his eyes.
"What's yer real name?" he asked and she realized again, she had no idea behind those eyes what was going on in his head. She looked towards the pick window barely when Sal whistled to say she had bout ten till closing.
"What? You don't like Baby Jane?" She asked with a chuckle as she stopped wiping the counter all together and tossed the rag at the end of the table behind counter with everything else on it. Looking back before she walked to
the counter and sets her hands on the edge looking at him, she wondered what a man like this went through to carry the expressions he did. War? Heart ache? Loss?
"My mother christened me Jennifer," her voice replied softly. She knew what came next. It always did. The whole 'how did Jennifer get to Jane' line of questioning. It was actually pretty simple, and sometime annoying to
explain, so she shot back a pretty regular question, too. "You got any kids, Logan?"
He stopped as he scooted the drink over across the counter, and picking up his hat. He glanced to the door and her eyes followed his. They widened a second later. The door hadn't made a noise like it always did opening, but there was a man standing in the doorway. One of the guys he'd brought before. Tall, dark, long trench coat, Cajun accent. Remy something if she remember right and she usually did.
He looked back at her at about the same second she glanced back to him. His expression changed, and he looked some how suddenly-- annoyed? Angry? Tired? He pulled a wallet out and handed her the money. "Too flamin' many."
What was going on? Then another question stung her suddenly. Where did he go when he left here? Home? To a family? He said he did have kids, but he didn't say it at all the way a parent would. Home to an empty house?
"Jenn'fer," He started not letting her say anything yet. The name was clenched in his accent, and Baby Jane tried not to wince or look too surprised. No one called her that anymore except her mother, and the thought only made the pain in her stomach hurt more and think about her mother again. "Find the place y'ur happiest and don't leave it fer nothin'."
And with that he walked out, leaving her there, again, one hand on the top of the glass she needed to wash, watching the door swing, the other hand holding the cash. Left searching for some huge deeper message she couldn't figure out right then, but knew was there in his words.
