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"Yeah, well, ******** that," Finn replied, more measuredly than he would have liked to, because they were in public and getting angry about superhero things here was just very far down the list of bad ideas. "You're a strong, independent young woman, and you don't need that a*****e telling you what to do." He scowled.

He scowled deeper. "The <********>," he declared, drowning a fry in fancy ketchup. (So fancy!) "Did I leave town and suddenly everyone went to ******** crazyville?" Chris, palling around with the DMC - a royal DMC? Chris, overseeing corruptions? "Does Europa know? Europa will ******** kill him. Kallichore, too, probably." Had Chris forgotten their first meeting? <********," he said, eating the fry. "********, I'm gonna kill him, that ******** a*****e, acting all holier-than-thou when he's over there ******** licking boots and whatever the ******** else being friends with those creeps entails. Just. ********."

Maybe it was a good thing he was back in town, after all, if only to go knock some sense into his rival.

"You know he treats me like I'm some kind of awful ******** up stupid idiot?" Finn asked Zia angrily, reaching for his water. "Like I'm some kind of ******** disgrace. He's got no ******** right to talk to me like that. Not when he's king stupid of stupid mountain, in bed with the chief moron."

It was a real shame that he was designated driver tonight.

"God damn it," swore Finn, very narrowly resisting the urge to bang his forehead against the tabletop. "I leave town for a year and a half and suddenly everyone's drinking the crazy juice." Chris - friends with a Dark Mirror Prince? Kallichore looking corruption in the face and saying, yeah, okay, you might be a good idea? Tate, dead and gone and Avalon still walking around as some dark, twisted parody of herself?

Yeah, ******** that noise.

At least the french fries were proving to have surprising demonstrative powers. Even if he did grab a fry and mix the two aforementioned sauces, because curiosity never killed anyone, right?

Grimacing, Finn agreed, "Yeah, that was gross."

"Anyway, that is all very bad news bears that we should definitely deal with later, but right now I think I want another drink and also maybe for our entrees to show up and hey, let's speculate about what kinds of sex noises the frat guys at that booth over there make. Or something. The cilantro mayo stuff is interesting."

"Hey," Finn said, reaching over to rub her shoulder in what he hoped was a soothing and reassuring manner and not just patronizing. "It's okay to not be effortlessly good at flirting with everyone ever. I'm sure not." He'd also been dating the same person for approximately two and a half years, so maybe he was a bad example.

"And faking it until you make it does not make you a skank," he added, nodding appreciatively to the waitress as she set down their plates. "It makes you normal. And from what you've told me about your ex, he didn't know what a good thing he had with you and you deserve better, and if finding someone tonight to go make out with as a rebound thing makes you feel better, then you should do it."

Good to know he was still good at pep-talks, at least.

"Any guy in this club would be lucky to even get to look at you, okay?" he assured her, as he decided which angle would be the best one to attack his fish from. "They're not gonna be thinking about whether you're good at anything or clumsy or what. They're gonna be thinking wow, what divine power did I suck off to land this beautiful girl."

Finn studied the frat guy in question, trying not to be too obvious about his staring and probably failing - subtlety had never been his strong suit. "Haircut's practically a crime against humanity," he agreed, "But the a** more than makes up for it. And look at how his shirt fits. I bet he works out. Got pecs, maybe a six-pack?"

Finn shrugged. He didn't see anything wrong with Zia going over and trying her luck with this guy if that was what she wanted, but he also thought that she could probably do a lot better. "This is, like, a meat market, okay?" he said. "Almost everyone here is looking for someone to go home with. So all you've got to do is take your pick and commit to it and you're almost guaranteed victory. So yes, that guy could be a good pick, but look around a bit longer if you're not in a hurry."

He dedicated a moment to his entree and then, considering, said, "Well, I don't think it matters who dumped whom if the relationship wasn't working. He wasn't right for you, case closed. You deserve someone better, and if you had the foresight to get out when you could then good for you and I respect that."

Breakups were breakups, didn't matter whether you were dumper or dumpee, it was still hard to cut someone out of your life. He and Tate hadn't been anything approaching romantic, but he still knew how weird it was to have someone you were used to seeing and talking to every single day be gone.

Finn shrugged. While it was true that his relationship with Andrea was (subjectively) perfect in every way, shape, and form, it didn't seem like it would be fair to brag about that to Zia. Tonight was meant to be about her, and about cheering her up and making sure she enjoyed her birthday, and about getting her over her own relationship drama. Talking about his ridiculously wonderful magical boyfriend only seemed like it would sour that.

Still, it wasn't like she'd given him many other options. "It is definitely easier," he said. "Communication's a big thing." And he could understand how turning into a magical cat-girl would be a secret Zia would want to keep from any civilians. It was, after all, a pretty big deal - and probably something that could get people killed if the information landed with the wrong people, same as any other secret identity.

"Nothing here tonight's gotta be serious," he assured her, in case part of her worry was that she might get sucked back into another relationship with a civilian. "And, you know, you're not alone, okay?" He knew she felt like it sometimes, and he understood why - having half your faction blown off the map, followed by the remaining members turning into weird, evil parodies of themselves would be rough on anyone.

"I'm not, like, a cavalier or whatever I'd be if I was from your universe," he said, "But you're one of my best friends at this point and I'm here for you." (He had kind of lost a lot of friends.)

Finn shrugged. Determined as he was to convince Zia that she was not a terrible person, she was trying her hardest to make him see the worst in her. Well, the only way to win that game was by not playing. "So you're a better, more mature person now," he said, in a way that he really hoped was reassuring. "Your sense of self-awareness about this is really good. Like, if you'd treated him badly and weren't cognizant of it, that'd be a problem? But this - knowing you were wrong is like, the first step towards self growth."

"And," he added, "We've already discussed how Chris is an a*****e, so that's not a conversation we need to have again because really, it's not going to add anything. If he's not going to date you himself-" which Chris obviously wasn't, unless he and Paris were in the market for a threesome "-then he doesn't get any say in the matter." And also, Finn thought, Zia and Chris weren't suited for each other at all. He doubted that anyone besides Paris was really suited for Chris.

The change of topic was... mostly welcome. He'd spent enough time talking about Chris Gallo already tonight.

"Fun?" asked Finn, cocking his head to one side, trying to figure out the subtext. "Yeah, we do," he said. "We go on patrol, and we go to movies, and we hang out. I went to Thanksgiving dinner at his parents' house. We'd do Skype calls when I was in Alaska." He sort of suspected she was asking about sex, but he wasn't going to go into that without more prompting. Andrea had only turned eighteen while Finn was in Alaska, and even now, nothing beyond cuddling and kissing seemed like a priority.


"About Alaska," he added. "I'm back. I'm in this for the long haul." He'd been waffling, debating whether or not he could go back to Fairbanks or not, but everything was becoming increasingly clear lately. Babylon's place was in the fight, and Finn's place was as Babylon.

Finn decided it wouldn't really be worth it to tell her about how everyone was making sacrifices for the war - she clearly already knew that, or else she wouldn't have told him about getting into her dream school, and it would only rub in that he'd come to the realization himself far later than he should have. He didn't miss her apparent elation that he was back for good - but that also didn't require any commentary, he didn't think. What he did owe her was an explanation for why he'd run off in the first place, and he'd apologized for that so many times in the last few weeks that he had it down pat.

"I'm a big, stupid, good-for-nothing coward," he explained, with a very slightly flippant tone. "I mean, there's a lot more to it. Like, a lot a lot? Like, pretty much everything just got stupidly overwhelming and I had this opportunity to get out so I took it." He'd spare Zia the details, like that he had to carry Europa - Europa, who he thought had all of her s**t together permanently, forever and amen - home from patrol one night because she passed the ******** out, or that he didn't feel like he could ever live up to his ancestor's expectations (and still didn't, <********>). He was pretty sure she could extrapolate.

"So anyway, Chris drags me back here because he reckons if anyone can bring Avalon back from the dark side, it's me, but ******** that, I can't, and I got myself good and cut up for trying," he continued, and he knew he wasn't drunk enough to blame his sudden melancholy on the alcohol, because he'd had exactly one drink. "Everything about Tate that I loved is gone. I can't save her because there's nothing there for me to save, and that's my fault. I'm the one who left. I'm the one who left her alone and let her do this to herself and I can't ever undo any of that. I was a coward and my cowardice is what killed my best friend. So I'm back, because if I'm not, who else is going to go and get themselves killed and blame me for it? And rightly, I might add?"

Self-flagellation: practically an olympic sport.

"s**t, sorry, s**t," he added meekly. "s**t. That got dark. I should have another drink."

"Thanks," said Finn tiredly, scooting over to make room for Zia, and then leaning against her. He appreciated her camaraderie, and the fact that she didn't try to change his mind about how things had turned out: plenty of people had already tried that, and he was frankly tired of hearing about it. No one who hadn't been there could tell him Avalon's corruption wasn't somehow, at least in part, his fault. He was just beyond convincing.

But Zia didn't think he was a coward, so that was something. "Thanks," he repeated. "That means a lot."

The thought of going back into the bar and trying to dance seemed sort of ridiculous at this point, and he was pretty sure that Zia needed to be cut off for a while, whether or not she agreed. "Hey, I seem to recall we solemnly swore to watch the Lord of the Rings," he said. "How do you feel about stopping by the late-night liquor store for cheap wine, heading back to your place, and calling it a night? We can pick up some cupcakes on the way home, too."

Because honestly, he felt like he'd kind of killed the mood.