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Entry tags:
crossover fic: Last Chance Saloonin' It Up, PG
disclaimer: not mine.
fandoms: Battlestar Galactica 2003/X-Men movieverse, X-Men comicverse, Stargate: SG-1, one or two others. Only the first two really have any sort of impact.
characters: Jean Barolay, Jean Grey
spoilers: Lots. BSG through 4.8, X-Men through all three movies, SG-1 through season 7. Er, and Farscape season 3.
rating: PG, language
length: 1600
notes: I was commenting on something that had NOTHING to do with ANY of these fandoms, except that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
weirdofromafar had used a Jean Grey icon, so I countered with Barolay, and... sigh. HORRIBLE INFLUENCE. Except not. Some of you may recognize elements from other crossover-type fics I've done within this one. (Jamaica Bay Inn ftw)
Last Chance Saloonin' it up
by ALC Punk!
"I'm fine," Jean snarls, rubbing her hand against her nose, tasting blood. The Cylon had slammed her into the wing of the raptor and she'd tumbled, going limp like she'd done a hundred (thousand) times before. She'd even made it to her feet again, Anders sounding worried somewhere behind her.
Except she's not, she wasn't, she never will be again. There's a dull ache in her skull and the tang of copper won't go away, even when she breathes through her mouth.
Anders isn't here, his voice cut off at the same time as Athena's gun cocked, somewhere distant.
"Let me help you."
She's not where she's supposed to be.
The room is two-parts bar, one-part something else, the lights swirling in a way that keeps her unable to focus for too long on any one spot. Except the woman in front of her is a solid shape, red hair the color of blood hanging down her back and her eyes aren't... right in some way Jean's not sure she wants to be able to name.
Jean squints and dodges the hand held out to her, "Nah, I'm good." she's not snarling anymore.
"You've hit your head, I'm a doctor," says the woman. She half-smiles, "At least let me help you to a chair."
Where am I? the question slips out before Jean can stop it, except that it's garbled and wrong when it exits her lips, "Who are you?"
"Jean Grey." Cool hands drag her to a chair. "Would you like something to drink?"
A laugh escapes Jean, and she can still taste blood, and this is wrong. "Barolay."
"Not a drink."
"I'm a Jean, too."
That takes the other Jean a moment to decipher and then she smiles. "Barolay. Would you like a drink? They have excellent tequila here."
"What's tequila?"
Jean laughs again, soft and not mocking, though it could have been. "I'll be right back."
That gives Barolay time to study her surroundings, try to understand where she is. She thinks she spots someone she knows near the back of the room and half-stands, but the young man turns more towards her when his companion tugs at him and she sits down, shaking her head. Not someone she knows. Not that it could be, since Ten-Point is dead, if not buried.
Her fingers clench for a moment, remembering things best left buried (Anders had once said that carrying hatred did no one any good, but he'd still slit throats and blow up skinjobs like she did).
"They've got a good year today," Grey says, dropping into a chair followed by a quick-footed waitress, also red-haired, her eyes snapping a little as she looks them both up and down before setting the drinks with a thump onto the table.
Barolay takes her shotglass before it's offered, knocking it back while hoping it'll make things make sense. It burns and she coughs, the room reeling for a moment, the blood at the back of her throat dripping thick and constant. "Ambrosia's smoother," she wheezes, missing the bite of Tyrol's rotgut, usually aided and abetted by slightly salty dried algae that you couldn't taste after the fourth drink.
You couldn't think straight, either.
Both outcomes were usually worth the headache in the morning.
"Janet wouldn't leave the bottle," Grey says, her tone amused. She pushes her own glass towards Barolay, "You look like you need this more."
The second shot doesn't burn like the first, and Jean's glad no one gave her that sophomoric advice. Rally would have. Rally would have thought it was funny as frak to repeat a ten-year-old joke everyone'd heard five thousand times. Rally had died when a bomb went off too early.
Her fault. Jean's fingers clench again, and she looks towards the boy who looks like Ten-Point and wonders if the girl next to him could have been Rally before the war.
"Friends of yours?"
The question drags her gaze back to Grey and Jean shakes her head, setting the shotglass down. "No one I know." The taste of blood is still at the back of her throat, though it's better. She picks up a rag and dabs at her nose, wincing a little.
"I've had friends come through," Grey says, settling a little in her chair, graceful hands folding around her empty shotglass. "It's hard, sometimes, knowing--" she looks away, eyes following a slim-figured brunette as she chatters to a slightly taller blonde, a silver sword flickering on each of their hips. "Even the ones I don't know..."
"Where am I?" It's the question she'd meant to ask, the one that got garbled long ago.
"I suppose you could call it a sort of limbo. Not quite the afterlife, but definitely dead--" Grey glances sideways as a man in spectacles and pinstripe pops into existence, then disappears an instant later, "--well, sometimes dead."
Jean wishes there were more tequila, though it's not really as much of as shock as it should be. "Should have known. Should have frakking know. Gods-damn Cylons." She should remember the cold of the floor as she'd fallen, and she doesn't.
The bitterness in her voice slides off Grey, though her eyes deepen with something that might be sorrow. "There always seems to be a war going on. Was yours worth it?"
"Frak, yes," Barolay says without hesitation even as she thinks of the promise of Earth. "Besides, they started it."
Grey's eyes flicker again, almost red for a moment, and she laughs, "Everyone says that, too." she's on her feet, the movement abrupt and graceful, despite her height. "I need a drink. You want another?"
She's gone into the crowd before Barolay can answer, and Jean watches her back, wondering at the way the other people seem to flicker and shift, avoiding Grey but not quite noticing her.
"Not everyone can see everyone else." Janet is back, another pair of shots. This time she adds a small bottle, and tilts her head to look at Jean. "You going to be here a while, I can rent you a room."
Jean doesn't have to plunge her hands into empty pockets to know her answer, and she says it quickly, eyes straying to the alcohol, "I've got no credits."
"Room and board are paid in work, I've always got dishes to wash and customers to serve."
"Oh."
Janet nods and disappears again, angling towards the back of the room and a grinning sandy-haired man with his hand up. There's some plastic lizard-thing in it.
The grin reminds Barolay of Anders before the war, like he's got no cares to worry about and nothing that will make him sad. She drops her gaze and hastily downs a shot as Grey reappears in a swirl of agitation.
"Don't drink mine--shit--" the other shotglass is up and gone, Grey swearing again a second later as she coughs.
"Something wrong?"
"Old friend--" her hand waves, like it's nothing, but the hand is shaking a little like maybe it is.
Barolay doesn't have to be asked, she pours them both another, letting Grey drink both before snagging one for herself. The bottle's half-empty already, but the room has a nice haze to it now. She remembers nights like this, on the Sophica, when Anders would be silent in his bunk, and Hilliard--
He'd be alive and snoring until she leaned over and smacked him.
Some nights, she'd fall out of her rack and Hilliard'd pick her up and Anders would wake enough to slide from the room, barely-dressed and blinking sleep from his eyes.
"I get that," she says. Bullet-heads. Frak 'em all.
The words distract her from the memories again and she shakes herself, like a dog coming in from the rain.
"Are you going to take Janet's offer?"
Jean blinks, then shrugs, "I don't know."
"It can be..." Grey hunches over, trailing a finger in the puddle of tequila that'd spilled after the last round. "Interesting. Helpful. Painful. Sometimes, you see the people you love most, but they can't recognize you."
"You've done it, then?"
A laugh cracks across the air (no one even looks up) and Grey straightens, leaning casually back in her chair, "Would it affect your decision?"
"Like to know what I'd be getting into."
If she does it. Frak. Hell. If she believes any of this at all. Barolay shoots another look around the room, trying to reconcile it with where she'd been. It could all just be some frakked-up dream, in the end.
"Not a dream," Grey says softly. "Though sometimes, I wish it was."
"I'll do it." Barolay wonders if she'd really been going to say that before the words tumbled from her mouth. Like some strange magic, Janet is there, clearing one set of shotglasses. "I'll take the room. And the job."
"You get tonight off. Tomorrow, you're on the schedule--" Janet nods at the dark-haired man behind the bar, "Crichton will show you the ropes. Don't annoy him, he'll sulk."
Jean can't taste the blood at the back of her throat anymore and when she reaches up to poke her nose it's not tender. She frowns a little, watching as the two kids from the back get up and head towards the door. They could be Ten-Point and Rally. Maybe not.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
A glass slams onto the table and Grey burps, "Want another round?"
Flashing her evilest grin, Barolay reaches for the bottle, "You ever played triad, Grey?"
-f-
fandoms: Battlestar Galactica 2003/X-Men movieverse, X-Men comicverse, Stargate: SG-1, one or two others. Only the first two really have any sort of impact.
characters: Jean Barolay, Jean Grey
spoilers: Lots. BSG through 4.8, X-Men through all three movies, SG-1 through season 7. Er, and Farscape season 3.
rating: PG, language
length: 1600
notes: I was commenting on something that had NOTHING to do with ANY of these fandoms, except that
weirdofromafar had used a Jean Grey icon, so I countered with Barolay, and... sigh. HORRIBLE INFLUENCE. Except not. Some of you may recognize elements from other crossover-type fics I've done within this one. (Jamaica Bay Inn ftw)Last Chance Saloonin' it up
by ALC Punk!
"I'm fine," Jean snarls, rubbing her hand against her nose, tasting blood. The Cylon had slammed her into the wing of the raptor and she'd tumbled, going limp like she'd done a hundred (thousand) times before. She'd even made it to her feet again, Anders sounding worried somewhere behind her.
Except she's not, she wasn't, she never will be again. There's a dull ache in her skull and the tang of copper won't go away, even when she breathes through her mouth.
Anders isn't here, his voice cut off at the same time as Athena's gun cocked, somewhere distant.
"Let me help you."
She's not where she's supposed to be.
The room is two-parts bar, one-part something else, the lights swirling in a way that keeps her unable to focus for too long on any one spot. Except the woman in front of her is a solid shape, red hair the color of blood hanging down her back and her eyes aren't... right in some way Jean's not sure she wants to be able to name.
Jean squints and dodges the hand held out to her, "Nah, I'm good." she's not snarling anymore.
"You've hit your head, I'm a doctor," says the woman. She half-smiles, "At least let me help you to a chair."
Where am I? the question slips out before Jean can stop it, except that it's garbled and wrong when it exits her lips, "Who are you?"
"Jean Grey." Cool hands drag her to a chair. "Would you like something to drink?"
A laugh escapes Jean, and she can still taste blood, and this is wrong. "Barolay."
"Not a drink."
"I'm a Jean, too."
That takes the other Jean a moment to decipher and then she smiles. "Barolay. Would you like a drink? They have excellent tequila here."
"What's tequila?"
Jean laughs again, soft and not mocking, though it could have been. "I'll be right back."
That gives Barolay time to study her surroundings, try to understand where she is. She thinks she spots someone she knows near the back of the room and half-stands, but the young man turns more towards her when his companion tugs at him and she sits down, shaking her head. Not someone she knows. Not that it could be, since Ten-Point is dead, if not buried.
Her fingers clench for a moment, remembering things best left buried (Anders had once said that carrying hatred did no one any good, but he'd still slit throats and blow up skinjobs like she did).
"They've got a good year today," Grey says, dropping into a chair followed by a quick-footed waitress, also red-haired, her eyes snapping a little as she looks them both up and down before setting the drinks with a thump onto the table.
Barolay takes her shotglass before it's offered, knocking it back while hoping it'll make things make sense. It burns and she coughs, the room reeling for a moment, the blood at the back of her throat dripping thick and constant. "Ambrosia's smoother," she wheezes, missing the bite of Tyrol's rotgut, usually aided and abetted by slightly salty dried algae that you couldn't taste after the fourth drink.
You couldn't think straight, either.
Both outcomes were usually worth the headache in the morning.
"Janet wouldn't leave the bottle," Grey says, her tone amused. She pushes her own glass towards Barolay, "You look like you need this more."
The second shot doesn't burn like the first, and Jean's glad no one gave her that sophomoric advice. Rally would have. Rally would have thought it was funny as frak to repeat a ten-year-old joke everyone'd heard five thousand times. Rally had died when a bomb went off too early.
Her fault. Jean's fingers clench again, and she looks towards the boy who looks like Ten-Point and wonders if the girl next to him could have been Rally before the war.
"Friends of yours?"
The question drags her gaze back to Grey and Jean shakes her head, setting the shotglass down. "No one I know." The taste of blood is still at the back of her throat, though it's better. She picks up a rag and dabs at her nose, wincing a little.
"I've had friends come through," Grey says, settling a little in her chair, graceful hands folding around her empty shotglass. "It's hard, sometimes, knowing--" she looks away, eyes following a slim-figured brunette as she chatters to a slightly taller blonde, a silver sword flickering on each of their hips. "Even the ones I don't know..."
"Where am I?" It's the question she'd meant to ask, the one that got garbled long ago.
"I suppose you could call it a sort of limbo. Not quite the afterlife, but definitely dead--" Grey glances sideways as a man in spectacles and pinstripe pops into existence, then disappears an instant later, "--well, sometimes dead."
Jean wishes there were more tequila, though it's not really as much of as shock as it should be. "Should have known. Should have frakking know. Gods-damn Cylons." She should remember the cold of the floor as she'd fallen, and she doesn't.
The bitterness in her voice slides off Grey, though her eyes deepen with something that might be sorrow. "There always seems to be a war going on. Was yours worth it?"
"Frak, yes," Barolay says without hesitation even as she thinks of the promise of Earth. "Besides, they started it."
Grey's eyes flicker again, almost red for a moment, and she laughs, "Everyone says that, too." she's on her feet, the movement abrupt and graceful, despite her height. "I need a drink. You want another?"
She's gone into the crowd before Barolay can answer, and Jean watches her back, wondering at the way the other people seem to flicker and shift, avoiding Grey but not quite noticing her.
"Not everyone can see everyone else." Janet is back, another pair of shots. This time she adds a small bottle, and tilts her head to look at Jean. "You going to be here a while, I can rent you a room."
Jean doesn't have to plunge her hands into empty pockets to know her answer, and she says it quickly, eyes straying to the alcohol, "I've got no credits."
"Room and board are paid in work, I've always got dishes to wash and customers to serve."
"Oh."
Janet nods and disappears again, angling towards the back of the room and a grinning sandy-haired man with his hand up. There's some plastic lizard-thing in it.
The grin reminds Barolay of Anders before the war, like he's got no cares to worry about and nothing that will make him sad. She drops her gaze and hastily downs a shot as Grey reappears in a swirl of agitation.
"Don't drink mine--shit--" the other shotglass is up and gone, Grey swearing again a second later as she coughs.
"Something wrong?"
"Old friend--" her hand waves, like it's nothing, but the hand is shaking a little like maybe it is.
Barolay doesn't have to be asked, she pours them both another, letting Grey drink both before snagging one for herself. The bottle's half-empty already, but the room has a nice haze to it now. She remembers nights like this, on the Sophica, when Anders would be silent in his bunk, and Hilliard--
He'd be alive and snoring until she leaned over and smacked him.
Some nights, she'd fall out of her rack and Hilliard'd pick her up and Anders would wake enough to slide from the room, barely-dressed and blinking sleep from his eyes.
"I get that," she says. Bullet-heads. Frak 'em all.
The words distract her from the memories again and she shakes herself, like a dog coming in from the rain.
"Are you going to take Janet's offer?"
Jean blinks, then shrugs, "I don't know."
"It can be..." Grey hunches over, trailing a finger in the puddle of tequila that'd spilled after the last round. "Interesting. Helpful. Painful. Sometimes, you see the people you love most, but they can't recognize you."
"You've done it, then?"
A laugh cracks across the air (no one even looks up) and Grey straightens, leaning casually back in her chair, "Would it affect your decision?"
"Like to know what I'd be getting into."
If she does it. Frak. Hell. If she believes any of this at all. Barolay shoots another look around the room, trying to reconcile it with where she'd been. It could all just be some frakked-up dream, in the end.
"Not a dream," Grey says softly. "Though sometimes, I wish it was."
"I'll do it." Barolay wonders if she'd really been going to say that before the words tumbled from her mouth. Like some strange magic, Janet is there, clearing one set of shotglasses. "I'll take the room. And the job."
"You get tonight off. Tomorrow, you're on the schedule--" Janet nods at the dark-haired man behind the bar, "Crichton will show you the ropes. Don't annoy him, he'll sulk."
Jean can't taste the blood at the back of her throat anymore and when she reaches up to poke her nose it's not tender. She frowns a little, watching as the two kids from the back get up and head towards the door. They could be Ten-Point and Rally. Maybe not.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
A glass slams onto the table and Grey burps, "Want another round?"
Flashing her evilest grin, Barolay reaches for the bottle, "You ever played triad, Grey?"
-f-