shatterverse | (no subject)

Every little town in Kansas has a bar, still.

Kansas is the only place left in the world where that's so. Everywhere else in the world is pretty much a war zone these days, but life really hasn't changed that much in smalltown Kansas.

Smallville's a bit bigger these days, with a lot more refugees than ever used to come through, but the bar in town is pretty much the same as it ever was.

Just a small room, smelling of cigarettes and beer. Usually populated with between three and ten men, mostly over sixty, talking about the latest events on their farms and sometimes the football. The barman is older than the lot of them, small and wiry and cheerful. (He's named Tom ... of course.) Lots of strangers come and go, of course, and there's plenty of gossip about what's been done to the old Kent place, with its hospital and cruise ship and castle.

The only concession Tom's made to the increased business since the apocalypse is to hire a new girl to help keep up with the drink orders. She's cheerful and sassy, gets on well with the regulars and always seems friendly to everyone. And since she started working, nobody's managed to steal from the place, and there've been almost no fights.

Tom puts that down to her cheerful smile. At least, out loud. He figures it's probably best for their working relationship that way.

It's early evening, and the sun's setting over the cornfields. Anyone want a drink?

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"I'm a constant ray of sunshine," Sokka informs her, beaming as she dirties his cheek, closing the bag in his hands. "You just don't notice because of all the time you spend pissed off."

And his happy bubbly girlfriend could argue that, it's true, but it will much more difficult to do so if Sokka leans in to kiss her first.

Even if she stomps on his toes?

... well, that doesn't interfere with her kissing him back, so probably he wins the argument. There's only quick kissing, though. She is on the clock, after all.

"Are you here to spend time with the locals and show off your pillowcase of loot?" she asks, grinning at him happily, "or just for beer?"

"I can't just show off my girlfriend to the locals?" Sad Sokka is sad! Though that has more to do with the quickness of the kiss than anything else, really.

He dumps the pillowcase of loot in a both and shrugs, leaning against it. "I won't say no to a beer, though, if it's cold. It's horrible out there." And he has enough sweat on his skin and clothes to show for it, in the humid Kansas summer heat.

"Mmm, you are kind of smelly."

And sweaty and slightly grease-smudged. Steph's mock-disapproving face isn't fooling anyone, really.

"There's always cold beer." She picks up her tray of glasses again. "It's not always good cold beer, 'cause Joachim brews it up in his backyard still before he sells it to Tom and if the last week's batch was really good, he's not so steady when he sets up the next one. But it's cold!" She grins at him.

"You want food too? There's stew heating up in the back, or there's always fries. I'm good at fries. It's nothing fancy but it's filling."

"This is the smelly of good, strong, hard work," Sokka protests, meeting her mock-disapproval with a mock-pout. "It's manly, important, sweaty smelly."

There is totally such thing as important smelly, Steph, obviously.

"Are the fries cold? Wait, no, that'd be gross. Beer first and maybe when my body temperature is less than one thousand, I'll want food." He grins at her and reaches out, fingering the edge of her skirt appreciatively. She never wears the uniform enough back at the farm! "I'd ask for water anyway but there's probably more beer than that."

"For my special customers, I arrange water," Steph says, pushing him down into the booth seat so that she can lean over to kiss his hair. He's smelly, yes, but he is also correct in that it is good smelly, at least from the point of view of ex-superhero girlfriends.

"And salad. I think we got salad. Is that manly and important and sweaty enough if I get you a salad and a glass of water? I could arrange it in pretty patterns if you think it's not manly enough."