Drown Your Troubles

[daniel_stacy]

The sharp end of a dart whizzed through the air until it sunk solidly into cork. The quill vibrated in place. "Bullseye!" proclaimed its drunken thrower as he threw his hands in the air. Victory was his, assuming that darts were meant to hit a 'For Sale or Rent' board posted two feet from the game board. Daniel lumbered over and pulled the point from an ad for a 1976 Chevrolet with 40,000 miles on the odometer.

Hey... not a bad looking car.

Blindly, he moved to stab it into the correct spot. The air alongside his ear whistled. Thud. There was stinging pain in his right hand. "Ah! Son of a bitch!" He pulled the dart from the soft flesh between his knuckles. "You meant ta do that!" he accused an unknown assailant.


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[whistlersmum]

Whistler smirked. "You'd think." He picked up a half-empty bottle of beer from the bar and took a sip. "Problem is, I was aimin' at the dart board to the left of ya."

His attention went to the stranger's wound. "It wouldn't be the first time this year I'd be payin' for medical expenses. So, say the word. We can hit a clinic and have that looked at."

[daniel_stacy]

A clinic? Not a chance, not with his total lack of respiration or pulse.

"Nah!" He smirked and waved it off. "I'm a quick healer. Never had stitches in my life. Barten'er! Can I get a coupla shots for me 'n my friend?"

He pointed at Whistler. "You drink whisky?"

[whistlersmum]

Did Whistler drink whiskey? He was there when it was invented. The Agent tapped the first keg. "Twist my arm," he gladly replied.

"And two pints to chase 'em," he continued to the bartender. "Least I could do." He held out his hand. "Whistler."

[daniel_stacy]

"Daniel."

Whistler? Kind of name was that?

He slapped the man's hand in a loose shake. Now that he had a drinking buddy, the night was looking up. He really needed one or he'd probably end up sobbing into a mug like a bankrupt tourist who blew the last of the cash from his mattress.

Now that they were closer, he thought there was a peculiar smell about the guy. Not bad, just unusual.

He picked up the shot glass and lifted it to Whistler. "What are we drinkin' to?

[whistlersmum]

Weird handshake, Whistler thought. Almost as if Daniel was afraid to make contact. He didn't come off as a germophobe...

And his breathing was waaaay off.

But there was whiskey, so the Agent didn't rightly care.

"To fuckin' up," he offered as a toast. "And gettin' back up and tryin' again."

[daniel_stacy]

"Hey, man, you're speakin' my language." He put back the shot and wiped his mouth. "Woo!" A slap to the countertop and he grabbed the pint. In order to work up the nice buzz he had going, Daniel had been drinking for over an hour. He wasn't about to let it fade on him.

"So what'd you fuck up?"

[whistlersmum]

Whistler dropped his whiskey and chugged half of his pint. Tonic for what ailed him, and what ailed him (mostly) was Searchlight. Since he arrived, it'd all gone upside down.

"Fer starters, I flew into Nevada to convince someone to stay away from a podunk town called Searchlight, only I didn't. Then I hit a woman with my car. Inten--- Unintentionally. Then I gave 'em every reason to think I was insane. And earlier someone went and slashed my tires."

The demon finished his pint and ordered another round. "Can ya beat that?"

[daniel_stacy]

"I b'lieve I can," said Daniel. He leaned both arms on the bar and stared at the glossy surface. "I'm a vampire," he said, turning his face to Whistler. "You pro'bly figured that part out, am I right? And I'm dating this chick who's... well, let's jus' say she's connected to people who are a threat to my continued existence, so I tried to feed 'n not kill this girl at a bar and I wound up giving her apha... anaphyladic... crap." He rubbed his face. "Y' know what I mean, she's allergic to peanuts and I had just eaten a ton of them. I had to drive 'er to the hospital. I can't do jack shit." He took a gulp of his drink.

[whistlersmum]

"Okay, lemme get this straight." Two shots and two beers in, and Whistler's speech started to slur. He was usually a heavyweight when it came to alcohol. The feeling was not a good one.

"You. Vampire." Should've figured that out, time was I could've done it by sight. "And not only did you save a girl from death by peanut, You're feeling bad about it. Because your girlfriend is connected to the Council. Sum it up?"

It was easy to infer 'threat to my continued existence to mean either, A) Slayer, or B) Council. While the Agent knew of at least one Slayer dating a Were, he had a harder time thinking a Slayer would sleep with the 'enemy'. Of which Daniel, by his story, didn't appear to be.

"So I'd say you did somethin' right. Couldn't have known about a nut allergy. Not like you've got a three-page questionnaire you gotta ask before feeding. Puts a positive check mark in my book."

Whistler finished the second beer, and ordered two more rounds.

"You share, I share. I'm a demon. And the woman I nearly ran over? A slayer. So watch your back."

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel sneered. “Yeah, heh,” the laugh dissolving into hiccup. “Right.” The vampire didn’t doubt he’d be easy pickings for a slayer. However, he had massive doubts a slayer would waste time or the sharp end of a stake on him. “The Council’s here, too,” he said. “I met one of ‘em. She knows what I am and I’m still here.” He ran a hand across his chest to demonstrate the lack of puncture wounds. “Bigger fish to fry. Maybe you,” he said, sizing up his new friend, who didn’t look dangerous, but was apparently hell behind the wheel.

”Oh!” He slapped the bar top.

Finally! Someone to tell.

“I met a vampire, she says that town about an hour south of here’s trouble. Gonna be trouble. Undisclosed trouble. She had a map.”

What kind of map? Road map? Treasure map? It struck Daniel that he hadn’t bothered to look.

[whistlersmum]

The Agent knocked back his shot and began on his beer when the words 'Council' and, more importantly 'she', reached his brain and nearly made him do a spit take. Marjorie was here? He wouldn't put it past the old cunt, what with her granddaughter in the States. Some extra avoidance was in order. Maybe out of state.

Like that worked so well the last time.

The pounding on the bar brought Whistler back into the conversation.

"Wait. A map?" Maps equaled clues. And given the Agent's radar was on the fritz, he needed all the clues he could get.