Of course she needed some r n' r. Things had definitely gotten out of hand back home of late, but she'd cleaned up the town pretty well in the last couple weeks. Still, she was worried about what might happen there while she was gone. And ending up on vacation in the city during Pride was not exactly what she'd had in mind, particularly in a gay bar… not that there was anything wrong with that.
"It's a mixed bar, Wynonna," Waverly corrected her, when Nicole had waded off through the crowd to get them a round of drinks. "There are guys who like girls, here. That's why I chose it. Not that you need getting involved with some random guy right now."
"Who said anything about getting involved?" Wynonna asked her, taking the last pull out of her beer. "I'm just—"
"I know, I know, looking to work out some kinks. Wait, is 'kinks' the right word?" Waverly adorably furrowed her brow and scrunched her nose.
Wynonna chuckled at her sister's expression.
"Nothing that involves signing a consent form," she replied, then let out a small huff of irritation. "But how am I supposed to know which dude likes which… what? If they're not doing that, I guess." She nodded at a lanky boy with bee-stung lips and assless chaps who was laughing while reclining across the laps of several other men, kissing one then the other, and then shouting toward someone the bar:
"Oi! Don't just get me one shot! You know you want to have more fun than that. Don't be a cheap bastard!"
"Which one?" Waverly asked, pushing up on her tippy-toes to try to see.
"My Fair Lady over there with the accent. If someone starts singing 'I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts,' I'm out."
"I don't think that song's from that play," Waverly told her, rolling her eyes.
Nicole slid up to them carrying three shots in her hands while three more beers were tucked under her arms.
"What'd I miss?" she asked, looking in the direction they'd been staring, while the other two relieved her of their drinks.
"Bert the chimney sweep dancing with some gay penguins," Wynonna answered, knocking back her shot.
"Wha—?" Nicole managed, looking around in confusion. Waverly took her arm and patted it.
"Nothing, just my sister apparently hates English accents but would like a good roger," Waverly informed her girlfriend.
"I don't care what his name is, as long as he's hot," Wynonna stated, causing Waverly to roll her eyes again.
"Wait, do you mean—" Nicole started with a grin, but was interrupted when an obviously intoxicated man bumped into Wynonna, who bumped into the other two, her beer sloshing out of her bottle and to the floor.
"Hey!" the middle Earp sister exclaimed, eyebrows lowering.
"Sorry, cutie," the guy mumbled, then wove back into the crowd as the vacationing trio watched him go.
"'Cutie?!'" Wynonna echoed, looking more offended than necessary. She took a step in his direction.
"Oohhkaay, let's take it down a notch," Waverly suggested, taking a hold of her sister's arm. She followed her sibling's fixed stare towards the man, tilting her head as it became clear Wynonna's gaze was aimed at his finely-formed ass. She let go of her hold. "But don't let me get in the way of you going to 'give him a piece of your mind,' or whatever it is you'll say that you'll do." Wynonna glanced at her, trying to look serious.
"That is exactly what I'm going to do," she informed the other two, and took off in the direction the guy had gone. Nicole took after her.
"Where are you going?" Waverly questioned.
"To see what your sister gets up to, and make sure we don't have to bail her out later when we'd rather be in our hotel bed."
"Right," Waverly mumbled, following her hot cop girlfriend. "There would also be the option to leave her there 'til morning," she sighed to herself.
Meanwhile, Wynonna had spotted her potential prey. He was certainly good-looking, in a devilish, scruffy way, which was her favorite way, to be honest. Unfortunately, he was talking to another tough-looking, wavy-haired brunette in a crop top and leather jacket.
"Looks like he's got a type," Nicole teased as she caught up, "...'cutie.'" Wynonna gave her an unamused sneer as Waverly joined them.
"Well, at least it looks like he's straight," she observed, as the man in question leaned forward to whisper in the other brunette's ear, placing his hands on her hips.
"Ugh," Wynonna answered, but before she could say anything else, another woman emerged from behind the brunette in his grasp and snaked her arms around her exposed waist under theleather jacket, then leaned in to kiss her neck. The tough girl smiled, and didn't turn her body away from the man, but leaned her head back and proceeded to make out with the girl behind her.
"Whoa," Waverly noted, "that's not hot at all," then shut her mouth as her girlfriend turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, happy Pride," Nicole snarked with a grin. "What we're seeing is the spectrum of sexuality, figure three." Wynonna shot her a narrow-eyed look.
"Guys," Waverly prodded, "uh…" she nodded at the thruple and Wynonna turned to face them, only to find all three of them looking at her and smiling like a pack of wolves in heat. The elder Earp child felt her own jaw drop.
"And that could make for an interesting night," Nicole grinned slyly, draping her arm around Waverly's shoulders. Wynonna looked back at them, momentarily speechless.
"No, absolutely not," she finally pushed out. "Just because I'm here to… celebrate your first pride," she rambled, indicating her sister with a wave of her hand, "doesn't mean I'm… proud of anything else, or—" She sputtered for a moment. "I'm very much… I'm a one-way road, not some… sexy… sex highway." Her forehead was breaking out in sweat. Both of her companions gave her appraisingly wry looks at that, seeming about to smirk out a rejoinder.
"Look, let's just…" Wynonna began, but then she glanced back at the leering trio. "Wait a minute. Did you just—?" Nicole met her eyes with her own open wide.
"Wynnona—" she began, but didn't get anything further out before the cursed Earp started barreling toward the three flirts, pulling out Peacemaker as she went.
"Shit," Nicole swore behind her, but Wynonna was already halfway through pushing through the crowd.
"Excuse me… crazy chick with a gun, here!" the Hellspawn hunter shouted, effectively dispersing the gaggle of drag queens who were blocking her, a chorus of "oh, Hell, no"s flying in their wake. By that point, she had reached her target, pushing the scruffy/hot man off the two women and pressing him to the wall with an arm-bar to the throat. He gurgled.
"Oi! What the bloody hell?" she heard, before a small, dark frame slammed into her shoulder, effectively knocking her from her hold on the stunned man. She quickly regained her balance, turning to face the intruder.
It was the small, punk rock brunette who'd been at the center of the three-way makeout session, and she looked sincerely pissed.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the woman yelled, and Wynonna dropped the hand she'd been holding up in a gesture of appeasement.
"What the hell? Does everyone have an accent straight out of Hot Fuzz, here?" Wynonna asked, raising up Peacemaker to aim it at the man she'd attacked.
"'Hot Fuzz?'" Waverly repeated under her breath, casting an inappropriately tickled glance at her girlfriend.
"Ma'am… lady… person," Wynonna verbally fumbled at the enraged British bird, "I need to ask you to step away from that guy over there." She nodded towards Mr. Scruffy. "He's very dangerous."
"Call the cops!" someone shouted, and Nicole stepped forward, flashing her badge, oh, no written all over her face.
"I'm the police," she interjected, holding her arms out in an everybody stop, it's cool, gesture. "Just stay calm and make your way to the exits in an orderly fashion," she instructed. "Everything is under control here. " She may have swallowed and looked slightly panicked as she did it.
By then the music had stopped and half of the patrons had already skedaddled to the relative safety of the street. Waverly began waving her arms like a flight attendant.
"That's right, everything's fine here. Proceed toward the exits at the front and back and… probably out the basement delivery doors, I guess," she coaxed.
The room cleared out in a rush, leaving only the two trios and the assless chaps guy all staring at one another.
"Look, officers," he began in a placating tone, "I'm sure we can all work this out… safely if we all keep our heads. My sister and I were just leaving." He nodded at the fiery punk rock ho glowering at Wynonna.
"Like bloody fuck-all, we were," she snarled, slurring a little in her drunken outrage. "You fucking cocked up her leg!"
Wynonna followed the path of the Londoner's pointed finger to take in the other female from the recently groping group sprawled on the ground, clutching her shin.
"Sarah—" the brother started, while
"Wynonna—" Waverly began.
"We've got to get them out of here," Wynonna insisted, then dropped her voice to a stage whisper, giving her friends a slightly panicked look. "He's a revenant."
"He's a what, now?" the pugnacious brunette called Sarah interjected, her face screwed up in confusion.
"What do you mean?" Nicole asked Wynonna, her hand slipping toward her concealed service weapon. "What did you see?"
"Just… look at his eyes, goddamn it!" Peacemaker's guardian sputtered at the cop. "They're red!"
Everyone looked at the guy who was still slumped against the wall, holding his hands up as if he'd experienced being at the business end of a law enforcer's gun before. He coughed painfully from his bruising throat.
"They're red?" Sarah repeated. "What are you on about? What does it matter?"
"Listen, lady," the Earp with the long gun snapped, "it matters because he's a goddamn refugee from He—"
"Hot Springs!" Waverly yelped over her sister. "He's a refugee from Hot Springs! We've been chasing him since Arkansas!" Wynonna gave her a look of stymied ire.
Sarah seemed to be thinking better of her decisions, holding her empty hands open and up. She shuffled back a step from the accused Hellspawn, who admittedly was not looking very threatening to Wynonna at the moment.
"Hey, I don't even really know this guy," she levelled at Wynonna, with a glance at Nicole. "I mean, we were just hanging out. But I'm pretty sure freaky contact lenses aren't grounds for arrest." She squinted at the bearer of the gun.
"You're not really a cop, are you?" she accused, then flicked her eyes back at Nicole's badge, "and from the looks of it I'm pretty sure you're out of your jurisdiction."
"Sarah," her brother hissed, "let's not agitate the woman with the ridiculously long gun." He looked at Nicole. "We could just be on our way, if you—"
"... Contact lenses?" Wynonna repeated, her eyes sweeping back to the cowering accused.
"Yeah, I mean, they're kind of dumb, aren't they?" Sarah answered, "but I don't see you assaulting Ms. Purple Rain over there."
The gang from Purgatory all looked at the woman holding her shin. Under a brightly shining, paused dance light, her unnatural shade of electric violet irises were easy to pick out, if you were looking for them.
"Wait…" Wynonna murmured, and gingerly made her way over to the man she'd tackled, relaxing her arms slightly but not lowering her gun. She crept up close to him peering at his eyes. He looked up nervously to offer her a better view.
"But they were glowing," she insisted, posture sinking in doubt.
"Well, it's a bloody black light, innit?" Sarah pointed out scornfully, indicating the glowing purple fluorescence above them. Sure enough, it was aimed at what looked to be a black velvet copy of a Tom of Finland drawing, painted in shining neon hues. There was a pause.
"Shit," Wynonna observed.
Four hours later, the two spunky rebel women were seated at a bottle-littered backroom table of a nearly empty all-night diner, right hands raised and clasped together before them, elbows planted on the table.
"Right, so if you win, I'll entertain the idea of this 'revenant' nonsense you've gone on about," Sarah drawled, a challenging grin on her face and the whiff of numerous shots of alcohol on her breath. Wynonna smirked.
"Sure, and if you win, I'll consider this multiple-human-clones bullshit you've been feeding me."
"And pay the bill. Alright. One… two… three." Sarah grunted, surprisingly strong bicep bulging as she pressed against Wynonna's arm. Wynonna was sincerely impressed, although there was no way the punk could match her supernaturally-fed strength. She smiled for a moment before decisively pinning Sarah's hand.
"Shite," the Englishwoman observed, "I didn't expect you to be that strong."
"Yeah, bearer of a magic curse," Wynonna shrugged, "of course I'm 'bloody' strong." They both honked the hearty laughs of the heavily inebriated.
"Alright, 'revenant killer,'" Sarah acquiesced through her full, fangy grin. "You win. I'll foot the bill." She stood up with great ceremony, picking up the scrawled invoice. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wallet, yanked out a handful of assorted dollars, and tossed them pointedly on the table. They were both still laughing when Wynonna noticed something.
"Hey! How the hell did you get my wallet?" she gaped. "I'm the wallet-taker around here." She rose and prodded a poorly-controlled finger into Sarah's shoulder. The Brit just laughed harder, then flung her arm over the the other woman's shoulders.
"C'mon, Earp," she urged her new drinking partner, "let's see what other trouble we can get into in this town."