It had been a long day. There had been two call outs, with just enough time between to get Doc Prof to heal his broken nose. It was nice having a healer on hand, but that was pretty messed up, especially since he'd received a second in the next call out. Then he'd had to make stock for his store, put up with media attention as usual and CS still thought he'd needed to train in the danger room. He was feeling very sorry for himself, all things considered. The physical beating he'd taken was gone for the most part, but it left the mental strain with him.

So he found his way to a bar. They were having an open mic night, not that he payed much attention to it, but it was nice to have live music. Not that everyone was worth listening to. He was working his way through a scotch at the bar, trying to ignore how tired his brain was. Some guy was playing a country song. He didn't quite get it, but he suspected it was not about how much he loved New York. Something about it.

Another sip. Nope, that turned into finishing what was in his glass. Somehow money found its way onto the bar, to be swiftly replaced by another drink and some change, which he dropped into the tip glass. He really didn't need to pinch pennies. For that brief moment, he was back in the real world, then he was lost in his whiskey again.

It had been a long year...

Open mics, a guilty pleasure of the Ranger's. They were an excuse to play his guitar and harmonica and to give him a distraction from working. Normally he's play something more in like with Stevie Ray Vaughn so as to not scare away to Yankees, but tonight Yanks be damned. Tonight it was Texas Country. Tonight he was playing some Roger Creager.

The Ranger took the stage an acoustic guitar in hand and slung a harmonica holder around his neck. After announcing the song he began to play Storybook by Roger Creager. A personal favorite of his.

When he finished there was some applause and some confused faces. Clearly country, even Texas country which is to Nashville country as as prime rib is to a cracker, was not something they were used to up here. It was a good thing the Ranger didn't think highly enough of his audience to care about their opinion on his choice of song.

Leaving the stage, the Ranger stashed the harmonica and headed for the bar. He took a spot at the bar next to some pink haired weirdo. He leaned his guitar against the bar and ordered a beer.

As the bartender was fishing the Ranger out a beer, the Ranger looked at the man next to him. Pink hair aside, he looked familiar.

The song ended. Cafas was with it enough to recognise that. It shook him out of his contemplation of the bottom of his glass. A few seconds later and a guy was leaning a guitar on the bar and taking a seat next to him. The guy ordered a beer, which was about as surprising as smog in New York City.

The guy looked at him briefly. He felt it more than saw. He supposed he must have caught it in his peripheral vision. Cafas was kind of used to it. X-men drew attention, actors drew attention, pink hair drew attention. If he wanted to avoid attention, he had made some seriously wrong choices in his life. Still, Cafas turned to get a better look at the guy.

Do I...

A frown of recognition crossed Cafas' face. He looked back to his drink, trying to piece his memory together past the haze of the day and the alcohol. No, couldn't be what he thought it was. That was a dream. Vividly real, felt like it had taken years, and from what he heard on the grape vine, similar to the dreams of others, but a dream none the less.

He took a sip. That turned into a mouthful, funny how that kept happening. Then his clouded brain figured, heck, you never knew. He turned back to the guy. "Have we met before? I feel like I recognise you." He left out the bit where the guy had shot at him.

The other man turned and addressed him and the bartender produced the beer. Had they met before? The Ranger took a swig of his beer and looked at the man. He looked familiar, only younger and with hair that could only be challenged by a rainbow in gayness.

The Ranger believed he had seen him once, in a dream. A dream of a future Earth blighted by nuclear fire, a future where survival required strength, skill, and willingness to do what was necessary. A world where the strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must.

In that dream the Ranger had fired on this man. This man he had never met, but who happened to be a real. Could this mean that it was more than a mere dream? What had his name been? ...Cafas sounded right.

Setting down the beer he repeated the first thing he'd ever said to the man, "Roadwork ahead."

He certainly seemed familiar. He looked younger, but then, the dream had been years in the future. Cafas' foggy brain made some connections very quickly. He carried himself the same way. He seemed cleaner, but then, anyone would. It was all just too familiar to be coincidence. No he was being stupid, there was no way, it was just a dream.

"Road work ahead."

Apparently it was more than a dream. Cafas' brain cleared as he focused, trying to make sense of it all. Something really odd was going on. He knew the answer though. "Finally! I told the City about this mess three damn years ago!" Cafas smiled, finished his drink, put more money up on the counter, and received another drink in return.

Well I'll be damned.

"Michael Hunter? How the f***... That was a dream. Wasn't it?" Too far into his drinking to really care that he was half musing aloud. Also too confused. How? Dreams weren't real. Not unless this guy had jumped into his brain? Jumped into his dream? No, Verdy had been in it, and other people he'd never met. Why would this guy jump in for so little of the dream? It was beyond confusing.

"Well, this raises a lot of questions."

The man answered with his reply from the dream. So it was real or at least real enough, more than just a dream in any case. Which begged the question, what was it? Shared dream, vision of a possible future, or a glimpse into an alternate reality. Thanks to mutants, nothing is outside the realm of possibilities.

"My questions are what and why. What caused it and why? It likely wasn' jus' a dream. Things are never that simple, or convenient."

He picked up his drink again, went to take a drink, but stopped. He had to ask, "An' whats with the damn hair?" Then he took a drink.

"My questions are what and why. What caused it and why? It likely wasn' jus' a dream. Things are never that simple, or convenient."

Cafas tended to agree. Convenience was not exactly something life was renowned for. Mutants seemed to be the logical answer, but he wasn't sure exactly how it had worked. "Probably a warning or something, someone who can see the future or something. Can't imagine why someone would subject everyone to that otherwise. That's the only thing that I can think of. How about you? Any theories?" Cafas took a sip, and made sure it remained a sip, of his drink to help him ponder.

"An' whats with the damn hair?"

Cafas smiled. Yup, hard to avoid that one sometimes. He figured the guy next to him was one of the few people who'd know for certain that it was dye, not mutation. "It's so I can find myself in the parking lot." Habit was another answer. He honestly had forgotten why he'd done it in the first place. For laughs seemed like the correct answer. Why did he keep it? Probably Sophie had said it looked good.

"From what I remember I ended up cutting it out because I kept getting shot at. Hard to avoid being noticed in general."

"A warnin' makes sense. Though, a vision alone is about as believable as a homeless guy with an 'End is Near' sign." He took a sip. "An' if it was it'd make more sense t' show more of what caused it instead of what happened after it went t' shit."

The Ranger had to snort at the line regarding Cafas' hair. The statement was nearly ridiculous enough to make the hair not dumb as hell. "An' here I thought you'd exhausted all the pink dye in the world."

"A warnin' makes sense. Though, a vision alone is about as believable as a homeless guy with an 'End is Near' sign."

Michael raised his beer to his mouth. Cafas took that as a cue for a slight input, as was male custom. "Maybe, but I guess you work with the tools you have, right?" Cafas took a sip of his drink, as he was finished speaking.

"An' if it was it'd make more sense t' show more of what caused it instead of what happened after it went t' shit."

"Suppose maybe we weren't involved in how it went wrong, just caught in the blast of who ever sent the vision." Though Cafas did remember a fight at the mansion. Gut wrenching pain as his friends and comrades died around him.

He chose to simply laugh at the final comment. The thought that he had run out of hair dye was pretty ludicrous. How many people ran around with hair that colour? He sometimes felt he must be the only reason anyone stocked it at all.

"If nothin' else the vision showed I'd be able to do much more than jus' survive in an apocalypse. The Ranger began soberly, "But, only with a lot of hard work, sweat, an' blood. Much of it not mine." He looked down at his hands, images of memories from the vision flashed in his mind. He'd done what was necessary.

He took a long swig of his beer. For the most part he'd pushed aside the dream of the future. Until now there was no way to validate it as more than just a bad dream. Thanks to his time in the military he had been prepared mentally and physically, but he was not as materially prepared as he could have been. Certainly he was better off with regards to ordinance than virtually any other single person in the city, but food and a shelter had to be taken.

"If nothin' else the vision showed I'd be able to do much more than jus' survive in an apocalypse. But, only with a lot of hard work, sweat, an' blood. Much of it not mine."

Tell me about it...

Cafas sipped his scotch. He was starting to realise quite how cheap it was for how much he was paying. He'd known when he started too, but that was a while ago. He turned back to face the bar. "You could have painted a house with the blood my life cost me out there. Might have been less if it was just me I was trying to keep alive, but then, that's never really been me." Cafas took another sip.

Should really slow down.

"Thanks for not shooting me by the way. Not that it matters in the long run, bullets don't have much effect on me, but thanks anyway." Why was his drink gone again! Cafas motioned the barkeep over and turned to Michael. "Want another drink?"

"Oh? Bullets don' work on you? That seems rather unfair." He mused, "Had I shot an' it didn' drop you, would going up t' bat something built Ford tough have worked?" He waived off the comment he'd made with a dismissive grunt. It didn't much matter and no need for a pissing contest. "I hadn't wanted t' shoot yah. Even then I still wadn't a cold blooded killer."

The barkeep made his way over at Cafas beckoning. He wanted another drink, but after looking at is beer he decided he didn't want another of these. Yankee beers, like everything else they did, left much to be desired. "Best Mexican beer yah got, with lime." He'd learned a long time ago you had to ask for that here. Most bartenders knew you served Mexican beer with lime, but it seemed one too many didn't. He then drank the rest of the beer and set down the empty bottle.

"Oh? Bullets don' work on you? That seems rather unfair."

Was Rather.

"Had I shot an' it didn' drop you, would going up t' bat something built Ford tough have worked?"

Depends how much metal was exposed. He said as much.

"I hadn't wanted t' shoot yah. Even then I still wadn't a cold blooded killer."

That made one of them. He'd done more than his share of cold calculated killings since the collapse. A deranged part of his brain, obsessed with justice. An utterly arbitrary justice at that. An eye for an eye, where it had suited him. He did a lot with hot blood too. Mostly for friends.

"Better man than most out there then. The cold blooded ones tend to be the ones that live." Not very long. Not with the being Cafas had degenerated to.

Money was payed to the barkeep as drinks were given over the bar to the men. "So, what brings you here? Just the open mic?"

Gotta keep the conversation rolling.

"Cold blooded or content t' keep mostly t' themselves." The latter plus his ability to defend when the former came knocking had kept him alive. One could argue the Ranger's willingness to do what must be done makes him cold hearted, but those people live in a fantasy land... and a fine beer with lime was now in front of him.

Squeeze the lime, stuff it in, tip the bottle, enjoy. There is a reason some poople go to work just for cerveza money. "It's an excuse," He started with a wave vaguely toward the stage."a reason t' play. Not t' mention a chance t' culture these Yanks." A smile crossing his face with the last line. "What 'bout you? The booze is fair enough, but I can' say much about who they allow t' play here."

"Trying to numb my mind. Been a busy day as an X-man. This place was open, cheap, and had live music, so I came in." So far the alcohol didn't seem to be helping much. His mind was tired. Sleep was likely what he really needed, but alcohol... Well, it just had a way of drawing him to it.

That's all kinds of troubling right there.

He made a mental note to try and stop that. He promptly lost that note under the pile of others he'd made recently. He took a long sip and looked over to the southerner (though perhaps that term was somewhat more appropriate for Cafas, in terms of place of origin.) "You know, I used to think the X-men were this group who operated outside the law to do what needed to be done; Save who needed to be saved. People who had morals, tried to help the world even if it meant ignoring the law, or risking their lives." Another sip was called for.

"Now I'm there, you know what I see? A freak show SWAT team. We joined up with the police and now we're just cops without badges. It's bullshit. I'm starting to think that Judge character might have a better idea than the X-men."

Dangerous talk really.