[color=00a651]"Give the man some credit. LeBron's been playing since I was a preschooler; everyone's got to retire some day. You want to be doing this in seventeen years?"[/color]

Hanging from the wooden rafters of the bustling little bar, a ceiling fan under significant duress from the crowd creaked its agreement.

"I would rather be doing [i]this[/i] than the alternative," Khabif Stroganoff said with his typically blunted edge. Everything about the Russian was blunt - a heavy forehead and an anvil of a jaw that left his face looking like something that could bust through anything short of metal, massive knuckles and heavy muscles that could choke out a gazelle, and a thick Russian accent that left every jab - even the affectionate ones - sounding gruff and heavy. It was easy to see why he and Sloan worked so well in tandem; classical yin and yang, whatever one didn't have covered, the other would match for. Together, they were near unstoppable.

Only issue was, Sloan's Bloodline and Dagula scores had left him a natural fit for Division Six. Beef, God bless him, was more fitted to general Assault. The feeling of acclimating to a new team - finding a new Beef - was something that had even the notoriously people pleasing Sloan Negasi on his toes. 

"A true champion is dethroned. He does not quit, or he is no champion at all," Beef continued, oblivious to his friend's inner turmoil. "LeBron has years in him, a good four or five years. Who was the champion before we were born? Your famous American, Chicago Bull--"

[color=00a651]"Jordan," [/color]Sloan Negasi corrected helpfully. [color=00a651]"He [i]played[/i] for the Chicago Bulls." [/color]Teaching Beef the fundamentals and nuances of basketball, the interrogator opined, could have gone much better than it ended up being. [color=00a651]"And even if he didn't quit, his body did."[/color]

"Ahh, well. We are all men, flesh and bone and muscle to be conditioned and maintained," Beef said sagely, chewing on the frayed brown edges of his leather wallet as he stared down at the pot. "Yes, pretty boy, [i]muscles.[/i] I know they're sparse on you, but in Assault we learn to hone them every day. [i]You[/i] may have noticed them in your fancy anatomy textbooks."

[color=00a651]"Yeah, sure. Dagula are trained to notice things." [/color]Sloan smirked and gestured with his hand of cards to Beef's sleeve. [color=00a651]"Like that ace you've been hiding up your sleeve since you told me to check my ESPN app. Don't need no encyclopedia to know the oldest trick in the book."[/color]

"Bah. I did no such thing." Khabif had, of course, done such a thing. Poker games between the two were always underhanded and dirty affairs, prone to attempts at distraction, espionage, and even four cumulative cases of outright sabotage. If either of the two friends were naive enough to believe that the circumstances surrounding their final bout would force them to play honorably, the other would have proved them wrong. The past two hours had been rife with hidden cards, stacked decks, childish [color=00a651]"Look behind yous!"[/color] and even, in Sloan's case, a near-successful attempt at hiding two one hundred dollar chips on the roof of his mouth. They'd fallen out when he laughed after his first flush; no Bloodline could have explained it away.

Sloan was about to retort when his phone made the fateful buzz the two Butei had spent the entire game anticipating. With a wary look up at the Russian bruiser, Sloan reached for his phone and opened the message.

[color=00a651][i]Sixth Avenue Starbucks, 10P.M.[/i][/color]

"That the call?"

[color=00a651]"That's the call. See you on the other side."[/color]

"You're going now? And here I thought you weren't going to leave without getting the bartender's number."

[color=00a651]"I thought charming her was [i]your job[/i] for once. It's 1:30 now. As it is, I'm cutting it close with the train station. I should go."[/color] Sloan stood up and scooped the final pot up into a fat wad of money, slapping Beef's iron pectorals with it. [color=00a651]"Thanks for covering the ticket, buddy. [i]Assalamu alaikum.[/i]"[/color]

The two Butei stood awkwardly for a second before wrapping their arms around each other in a tight hug.

"[i]Wa alaikum assalaam[/i], Negasi," Beef said hoarsely. "Stay safe out there. Give me a reason to make a return trip."

Sloan smiled grimly and smacked his friend's chest with the money again.

[color=00a651]"Believe me, I've read up on this place. I don't think you're gonna want one."[/color]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ah, Starbucks. Back in the day, you couldn't wiggle away from the warm embrace of Venice Beach without it. Back in the day when Sloan's biggest worry was finishing the 8th grade without enough demerits to bury him alive, and whether he and Jenna Masters would break up before the night of formal. You would have to be insane not to miss that on some days. Others...

[color=00a651]"--mygod, babe, you wouldn't believe it. I'm gonna kill myself cramming like this. Next semester I'll make a change, I promise,"[/color] Sloan swore, walking around in a circle for the fifth and final time outside the Starbucks. If Beef's voicemail box had any objections to being the dummy call to set Sloan up as a graduate student, or if he had anything smart to say about being called [i]babe,[/i] the answering  machine left them unvoiced. [color=00a651]"Matter of fact...I might kill myself standing out here. Not a good place to be. I'm just gonna get some Starbucks like I mentioned earlier and head back to the apartment. I'll get you something cold. I know you like it cold - caramel? Yeah. Yeah. Bye!"[/color]

Hanging up the phone, Sloan casually carried himself into Starbucks and inserted himself into the near-empty line. [color=00a651][i]Vanilla bean, make it heavy on the whipped cream,[/i][/color] he rehearsed mentally. [color=00a651][i]Yeah, sorry, I forgot - venti's fine. And--are those scones?[/i][/color]

Sloan hadn't had a scone since he left California.

Mmm. Scones...