itinere | Bonfire Mingle Post || OTA

With a nod, Cisco makes a mental note: check out the south sometime. It sounds to him like Jill is suggesting that the Southern hospitality stereotype is rooted in reality and, honestly, after living his whole life in a big city where no one really gives a damn about each other unless they're in the middle of a crisis, that might be a refreshing change.

"You should," he agrees with a small smile. "I should, too, come to think of it. I never have. I never really cared to, but life has a funny way of putting unexpected things into perspective in equally unexpected ways, I guess." Case in point, he's been relocated to some pocket dimension full of people carefully plucked out of their own realities and Cisco can't help wondering just how many different Earths are being represented in this town. Probably more than he can accurately count.

Shaking his head, Cisco takes another drink. "Mmm, we had a medical research wing way back when but..." He trails off. Caitlin is the only one left from that. Most of them were lost to the Particle Accelerator explosion whether directly or because it turned them off to what was left of STAR Labs before it officially had to shut down entirely. As it stands, it only still continues in secret and largely solely revolving around research and development integral to the good fight against bad metahumans. STAR Labs now exists to help the Flash.

"That's cool, though. I was always garbage at that stuff, but it never stopped me being at least a little interested in both. I'm not really a big science guy as a general statement; I'm a mechanical engineer. The science guys invent the technology and I build cool stuff utilizing it." He shrugs. That's probably the easiest explanation anyway.

"The problem is that traveling costs money." It always boils down to money. Jill had to quit college because her scholarship ran out and didn't get renewed and her pelgrants got rejected and there was just no money. Her parents are strung out on drugs. She's a bartender. It's not like she's rolling in the dough. Sure, Lucy's parents would have paid for her college too, but Jill just couldn't accept that on top of every other kindness they've shown her because she was Lucy's best friend.

She sighs wistfully. "Someday. Right? In the meantime there's here. Itinere's pretty cool too, for the most part."

Yeah, Jill was off on the medical assumption. But the fact that Cisco is a chemical engineer catches her interest. He builds things. He knows how things work. "So, do you know anything about modern keg systems, Cisco? And if not, would you be interested in learning or is that way below your pay grade?"

"Yeah, tell me about it," Cisco agrees. While he makes good money now, that doesn't mean his income is disposable. After all, he didn't just wake up one morning a mechanical engineer; it took six years and a couple hundred thousand dollars of debt to get there. He might have a decent relationship with his family and they might not be by any stretch impoverished, but Cisco's own income has too many things to cover and not enough extra to spare for expensive frivolity. A new X-Box game: justifiable. Dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on a weekend trip to Cancun or Las Vegas: not so much.

He nods, though, at her wistful sigh. "Someday," he agrees. "And so far, I can dig this place. The whole not having to pay for stuff is a pretty good deal," he admits.

Jill's question catches him a little off guard and his eyebrows lift with amusement and interest. "I know that they fill my pint glass with liquid sunshine," he jokes. "But that's about it. I wouldn't mind learning, though, why...? It's not like pay grade really matters here, does it? My student loans are back home. I'm good to go while I'm here."

"I like everyone I've met here so far. I mean, they seem to be nice. I don't actually know a lot of people, but I know a lot of people because of The Houndstooth... and Lucy." She explains. Because she's met a lot of people. She doesn't know them. "Speaking of which, you should meet Lucy. She's a lot of fun."

Okay, so maybe she's reaching here and she doesn't know it. But he did say he builds things so... "Well, Marley, the guy who ran The Houndstooth back home, he'd been planning on updating the ancient keg system at the bar for awhile. He'd been saving up for it because the system is just so old. I thought maybe you could take a look at it cause... I don't really know the mechanics of it so I wouldn't even know how to begin with a more modern system."

She puts an arm out to indicate the wall. "So here's the wall behind the bar. On the front of it is obviously the taps. We have about thirty different brews at any given time. On the back side is the keg room where the kegs and the CO2 are stored. So... I don't know, maybe you could take a look back there and help me figure out what I need to make Marley's dream happen." A pause. "Or... not if you aren't interested in a fun side project." Because surely that would be fun. Right? Maybe.

"Yeah that seems to be my experience, too," Cisco replies. Except, you know, for the part where he doesn't really know anyone at all and he only knows a couple of people. Less than he can count on one hand, because he figures the dudes in the super suits — or whatever they call them on this Earth — don't really count, since he doesn't know who's underneath the masks.

As Jill responds, Cisco casually sips at his beer, listening. He's already not really sure he's the guy for the job because he's hardly an expert at what she's specifically asking for him to try to do, but maybe she's at so much of a loss for someone who would be an expert that he seems like the next best option. In which case, that poor girl.

"I mean, I can take a look, but I can't really promise I'll be helpful?" he asks. "I'm always down for a challenge, but this isn't really in my normal wheelhouse and the last thing I want to do is screw up the tap system at the best bar in town. So how about if I meet you halfway and promise I'll come by and have a look, but I won't actually touch anything unless I think I can figure out how to do so without, you know, breaking stuff?"

"When you come into the Houndstooth you'll see it even more. I haven't had to throw anyone out or slap a guy for getting too handsy yet... which is actually weirdly stepford when you think about it." She finishes thoughtfully, then shakes her head to try not to think about exactly how stepford that is. Back home she was always having to do things like that. Well, to be fair she would go tell the bouncers when someone was being unruly and they would do the kicking out.

Well, maybe she is barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. It was kind of a shot in the dark, after all. She still knows nothing about the kinds of things Cisco builds.

"Well maybe you can come in for some brew and I won't put you to work." She adds with a small, crooked smile and a shrug. She doesn't want to wrangle him into something he has no interest in. "I mean I could probably read books and figure out how to wish it into being once I figure it out too. I'm just... not very mechanical or..." She waggles her fingers at him. "Musician here."

That has Cisco looking interested. That's not exactly normal, after all, is it? He's never been to a bar where something didn't get a little rowdy or slightly out of hand. That's the nature of inebriation colliding with non-complimentary personalities, isn't it? So he looks a little impressed at that. "I'll take stepford if it isn't the creepy kind, any day," he says honestly.

"Well, that was kind of already in my plans, anyway," he tells her with a smile. Of course he has every intention of stopping in now that his project is pretty much finished and he has little else to work on at the moment. Trying to get home is only as difficult as finding their doors and hoping for the best, after all, so it's not like there's that task to focus upon. He's still hoping Caitlin will arrive. She's the only thing he really, truly misses about Central City.

He grins a little and shakes his head. "I'll take a look, it's no big deal. I just won't try anything until I've seen the equipment and see if it's something I can manage. I don't profess to be a genius at everything. ...just a genius at my regular skill set," he says with a little laugh. "That's cool though, what kind of music?"

She nods her agreement, deciding not to admit that now that she's thinking about it, it is creepy. All of Itinere is that way when it boils down to it. The day to day is a little too perfect. Maybe that's why she doesn't get too stressed out on the rare occasion when things seem to fall apart. Those imperfections are almost a relief in spite of the occasional horror of them.

Jill is all too pleased that her ramblings haven't scared Cisco away from giving The Houndstooth a try. It's really a great place for a bar. Jill loves the atmosphere of it. Back in Alabama it had been her home away from home. Marley, its owner, almost a father figure. Marley was the first person Jill trusted outside of Lucy and her family.

"Still sound like a genius to me." Working at a place like STAR labs and building things. To her, that's pretty genius.

"Oh all of it. But I used to have dreams of being a classical pianist. I play the piano." Those were dreams though, the dreams of someone far above her station. Jill never had the money or the support to make that dream happen. "Sometimes I play jazz at The Houndstooth though. Bar crowds aren't much for classical. Marley, the guy who owns the place back home, he got a better piano in the place just for me. There's live music there almost every night. But sometimes he'd block me in for a set... which was really cool of him."

Cisco, on the other hand, could really use a little bit of perfection and calm now and again, because back in Central City, he's got to be turned up to eleven all day every day. If it isn't one thing, it's another, and usually there are metas involved. Cisco's kind of okay with a little madness that cleans itself up neatly and downtime that actually feels like downtime, even if that manifests itself in stepford-like chill that shouldn't and kind of doesn't make sense. So he isn't going to think about it too much.

Laughing a little, Cisco takes another drink. "Hey, I'm not gonna complain about a pretty girl telling me I sound like a genius," he replies. "It'd be pretty counterproductive of me."

Music isn't really Cisco's thing in that he's never been a musician. He doesn't know the joy that is losing himself in music he's making. It's nice to lose himself in other people's music but it's interesting to talk to someone who made their own. "That's so cool," he replies with a small but genuine smile. "I've always admired that in people. Musical inclinations, I mean."

Really, Itinere is great for Jill's ego the way boys call her pretty, and not in the creepy way she's accustomed to. Working in a bar, yes she gets her fair share of creeps looking at her through beer goggles that no one in their right mind would take seriously. Well, that was the truth back home. There really hasn't been creeps here. But the way boys call her pretty here, let's just say Jill has never had that before.

After a whispered 'thanks', she ducks her head and lets her hair all in her face, only kind of pushing it back when she looks back up and gives him a lopsided smile.

"Oh it's easy, probably easy for me in the way building things is easy for you." She says. "I hear music all the time... like, even now. There's a soundtrack going on in my head space. Weird, I know. But it's true." She shrugs. "Anyway... yeah, weird."

She lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I've always admired people who make tangible things. I mean you build something and you can see and touch and utilize the fruits of your labor."

"Yeah, easy for you," Cisco echoes with a grin. She's the musician, of course music comes easily to her. That's what makes her a musician, isn't it? But she's not wrong. Engineering has always come easily to him. Cisco was one of those kids that used to spend hours and hours over a span of several days making sure the Legos fit together to look exactly like the picture on the box the set had come in. He had Lincoln logs. Erector sets. While the rest of his classmates were making bongs and birdhouses in shop class, Cisco had been building computers from raw parts.

So he gets that and he nods. "Well, music can be tangible in its own way, too, though," he points out. "You can record it. The disc is tangible. I get what you're saying, but I can promise you, nothing I've ever built will ever hold the kind of memories that music can. You know?"

Well...maybe the Cold Gun. Maybe the gauntlets. But those aren't really up for discussion, so he figures they don't count.

"Yeah. Music is always more emotional than anything, internal than external... or it should be." Jill says with a slight shrug, knowing how she feels with every song she hears. "I always figure that if I didn't make someone feel something then I'm doing it wrong." She smirks. "Which is kind of dumb since I mostly play in a bar these days."

Most of the time when Jill plays there's laughter and conversation and drinking going on around her and mostly she's just ambient noise that people would only really notice if she quit playing. That's okay though. She feels the music and that's what's important to her.

"But yeah, I get what you're saying too." She adds. "What kinds of things do you build?"

Cisco tends to agree with Jill on that point and his nod indicates as much. "No, yeah totally, I agree," he vocalizes it a moment later. "But I think that's the beauty of music, though, because it elicits a lot of feelings and it sort of intertwines itself with memories and just sticks with a person. Like, you know, some of my first memories literally in my entire life, really revolve around laying in my playpen when I was tiny and hearing the music my mom used to listen to. Music's funny like that, it really stays with you. And I think, like, even if you're playing in a bar — which by the way, I don't think you should shortchange yourself for — those songs still tie in with memories people are creating at any given time, so maybe they don't feel things at the moment they're hearing it, but that doesn't mean it just goes away forever. There's one thing I think music is not, and that's fleeting."

He's not really sure why he feels so passionately about that, but maybe it has to do with those very first memories. He can still hear the Spanish lyrics and the way his mother sang along slightly out of tune. He can't remember how old he was or why he was in the playpen rather than with his mother or Dante, but he can remember the song. That makes music powerful, in Cisco's opinion. More powerful than any weapon could ever be, to that degree.

"Uh, back home, I mostly did like specialized weapons for the authorities. Well, specialized stuff for them, I should say, because I also designed a new and improved suit for firefighters that would've given them a lot more range of movement while being still more protective than the gear they wear, plus it would've been more lightweight, blah blah...anyway, the town lost respect for the lab after the Particle Accelerator explosion so the suit never caught on."

That part is...sort of a lie. Central City Fire Department didn't start wearing the suit. ...but The Flash did.

Jill nods, agreeing with much of what Cisco says. She has those memories too, none of them having to do with her parents or any blood family, of course, but with other people. The first song she sang in music class, the first time she heard her music teacher play the piano, the first time she sat down at a piano with the sixth graders practicing their choir piece in the background. There are lots of memories associated with music for Jill.

"No, I think you're right." She does have a problem short changing herself since playing in a bar is so far removed from what she'd once set out to do. But he's right. "Thanks." And she means that, for making her see it from another angle.

Although the more he explains what exactly he does, well... anything else sounds like small potatoes. He's probably someone who actually finished college. Or maybe he's just that smart without it. Jill knows that some people are just that imaginative and ingenuitive. "Wow. That's impressive. So you're literally a genius... unappreciated because sometimes stuff happens between point A and B of inventing stuff."

With a smile, Cisco nods. He knows how easy it can be to start cutting yourself down if the environment around you doesn't tell you to cut it out once in a while. Dante always gives him crap about his "useless" job "playing with toys." Sometimes Cisco has to remind himself that the work he does is a lot more important than most people know.

"Hey, no problem," he says with a genuine smile.

A facial shrug follows and he does look a little bit humbled having it put so bluntly. "Uh...yeah. Kinda, yeah," he says. If by kinda, he means trees, he's absolutely tested at genius levels. "That explosion changed a lot of things back home…"

Like making Cisco himself a meta. He clears his throat and takes a breath, huffing it back out before he sips on his beer again. "Anyway, enough about me."

"But you sounds so interesting!" She blurts out when Cisco tries to sway the conversation in another direction. Then she instantly regrets it because it seems he doesn't want to talk about himself and if anyone can really understand that, it's Jill. So she quickly shakes her head and shrugs. "But that's okay."

Jill dips her head and quickly tries to think of something else to say that isn't about Cisco. "I mean... there's this tonight and I'd rather you have fun so..."

She glances around for Lucy in the hopes that her friend can come save her from making it awkward, then back to Cisco. "Do you have friends here?"

Cisco huffs a surprised laugh at her objection but he smiles and nods. "Well, thank you. You sound interesting, too, for what it's worth," he points out. "Pretty girl, plays music in a bar, that's my kinda cool," he adds with a smirk. Bohemian hipster, that's what he's decided. The good side of hipster, not the obnoxious side. Definitely.

"I am having fun," he says before taking another drink. "Yeah I...yeah, my friend Barry is here. We work together at the police station. Well, more at the lab. Eh, it's complicated." Let's not get into that, shall we, Cisco? That's just asking to blurt out something that ought not be shared with someone you've just met, no matter how pretty she is.

He nods out toward the crowd. "What about you? You have friends here?"

She's been called a bohemian hipster before, also a hippy, also some less than stellar things. And it's true, her style is almost always the boho style. It's a style that speaks to her with an anything goes as long as it makes you feel good aura about it. But to be called cool and pretty? Well, that's one that's less popular than the rest. It makes her smile on the inside if not on the outside. How does a person normally deal with compliments like that?

"Barry. I'll have to look for him and introduce myself sometime." She's been here so long that sometimes it feels like she knows who everyone is. But sometimes she comes across new faces, like tonight with Cisco, and that's always nice as well as surprising.

She nods and points over to Lucy, who she's almost always got in her sights. Lucy is leaning up and kissing and hanging all over a tall guy across the way. "That's Lucy. We're best friends from home. Home is Alabama. And I'm lucky she's here. Sometimes she comes in and helps out at The Houndstooth."

Cisco looks around and spots Barry several yards away. He points. "Tall guy, pasty white, talking to the redhead," he says to her and wonders if said redhead is this Lydia Barry is so fond of talking about. "He's awesome, I have two best friends and he's one of them. This place would be hella boring without both of them and Caitlin's not here, so at least I have one, you know?"

Following Jill's finger as she points, Cisco nods. "That's cool. There seems to be a lot of cool people here, but I can't imagine going it alone either, if that's what you mean. I'd probably end up spending even more time in the lab than I already do just to pass the time. I like to think I'm fun to hang out with, but I've never been, like, super good at being the person to kick a friendship off, you know what I mean?"

She's kind of hoping that Cisco will just bring Barry with him into the Houndstooth. That's her safe space and she's much more personable there. Jill the bartender is way more fun than just Jill outside of the bar or without the shadow of Lucy in front of her. Also, he and the red head might as well be brown haired Ken and red headed Barbie as far as how they look goes.

"And Caitlin could show up too. You never know." She says, looking back to Cisco. "I mean, if you think she'd like it here and it's not weird to wish her here. Personally, if Lucy weren't here, I'd be wishing her here cause when it comes to her, I'm just that selfish. I get what you're saying, about making friends and how hard it can be for some people, you and me. People like Lucy help with that. Barry probably helps with that too."

She doesn't know if they're as joined at the hip as her and Lucy, but they're probably close enough.

The idea of Caitlin showing up actually makes Cisco visibly brighten. He and Caitlin have been really good friends for years and she's like the yin to his yang. Caitlin is the soft and calm where Cisco is the loud and excitable. Ronnie used to be that happy medium between them when he'd been alive. If possible, Caitlin and Cisco had grown even closer after Ronnie's death. They'd both missed him a lot on different levels.

"I don't know, I think she'd like it here. I think Caitlin would like it anywhere that was more chill than home, to be honest, and even with those monsters running around last month, this place is still a lot calmer than home ever seems to be. Take last month and just make it perpetual and that's a little more like home," he explains. It'd be so cool to have Caitlin join them so they could be a team again. Yeah, they've pulled in newbies to flesh out the team, but it's not the same without Caitlin.

He smirks a little. "If you think I haven't already been wishing for her, you're wrong. I know we're not able to do that but...it doesn't stop me trying. Kinda reflex by now. But yeah, Barry does help."

"Your home sounds... interesting. And the opposite of boring." Jill has met a lot of people here who live in worlds that only exist on movie and television screens and books where she's from. It's amazing, really. Her mind has had to expand to catch up to the idea that in some places, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are real live things that happen, or similar to it. Jill kind of likes the idea of fantastical heroes being real, live things.

Her life hadn't been boring except when compared to the stories she hears from people here. The monsters weren't anything obvious. They were just human. Her life had been awful up until she cut ties with her parents. But she read a lot and she used to dream that those heroes from her books would sweep in and save her from the crap-hole she lived in. It took her awhile to realize that Lucy was her hero. IT took her even longer to accept that she had to be her own hero.

"I'll wish for her too. I know we can't wish people here but it can't hurt, right?" She says.

"That's being incredibly generous," Cisco laughs. Interesting is a very nice way of putting it. Stressful; mildly terrifying. Those might have been more accurate descriptors. "Never a dull moment, though, I'll give it that." That much is plenty true. If it isn't one thing, it's another. Metas and breaches and time travel, oh my.

When Jill says she'll help wish Caitlin here, Cisco smiles fondly and gives a little nod before lifting his beer bottle up a little. "Don't suppose it can. That's very cool of you, mamacita, thanks," he says sincerely.

Cisco finishes the last of the beer in his bottle and reaches for another. "I should probably move away from the liquor before I drink this party dry," he laughs. "Where should I put the empty?" He doesn't want to litter the beach, after all.

"Oh. Uhm, I've been having people put them here." She brings a large cooler forward and opens it to show a stash of empty beer bottles. "Since those aren't twist off's, they can be used for brewing. Uh, a friend and I, we're gonna try to brew some beer. It's easier to distribute brew to friends in bottles."

Which is a whole lot of explanation. But she doesn't want Cisco thinking she's some crazy lady who collects glass bottles for no good reason. There's a method to her madness. See?

Cisco's eyebrows lift with interest when she explains why she's saving the bottles. Initially, he just sort of assumed she liked to take them to the recycling place or whatever.

"You brew your own? That's really cool, Jill," he says with impressed sincerity. "Sign me up to try some when you're finished fermenting. I'm gonna go find Barry, but stop by STAR sometime, I'll give you a tour," he says with a grin before giving a little wave and starting to wander away.

Bonfire Mingle Post || OTA

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