Happy Holidays, elistaire!
Title: Two Guys Walk Into a Bar
Author: amand_r, aka It's Santa, Baby.
Written for: elistaire
Characters/Pairings: Joe, Amanda, Methos, K'Immie of the Week
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: Property destruction. Past tense storytelling with present tense narration.
Author's Notes: This is gen, because Elistaire likes gen. I wanted to slash Methos and Joe, but an inner voice was suggesting completely inappropriate sexual props, and I just couldn't face it. A few references to Office Space, but you don't have to have seen the film to understand this story.
Summary: It's amazing that Joe's hasn't been damaged by a Quickening. Oh wait...
DECEMBER 3RD:
I think the best adventures I've had in the past decade have all started in a bar. Many good adventures start in a bar. Moby Dick, for instance, sort of started in a bar. Casablanca started in a bar. That's why there's that joke: 'Two guys walk into a bar." It has fifteen thousand different endings, except in Farsi, where it has one, and it's not actually that funny.
The joke didn't have a very good ending in my head as I stood outside the caution tape and watched as two firemen sifted through the wreckage, coming up with a busted and charred neon sign reading, 'Joe's.'
I'd tried several times to get someone to tell me if anyone had been inside, and Joe wasn't answering his cell, and there was this horrible smell, like burning flesh. Mac wasn't answering his cell either. I don't understand why Mac has a cell to begin with; he leaves it on, and then the batteries run down and it dies, and then he discovers it three days later. Then it goes in the charger for two weeks until he either gets a call or remembers that it's there.
I wasn't convinced that there had been anyone inside, but on the other hand, I am particularly well versed with the smell that the human body makes when placed in an inferno. Perhaps I had been misled altogether and that was simply thirty pounds of frozen wings from the bar freezer.
I stood there, cursing Joe and his cheap methods when it came to installing track lighting when I was startled out of my mournful reverie.
"Yeah," Joe said, sidling up next to me and watching the firemen do their thing. "Amanda owes me so big." He cocked his head. "If I ever see her again."
I think I might have hugged him if I wasn't a) still in shock and b) too manly for that kind of stuff. At least in this century. Guys didn't hug in this day and age. Why do we say 'day and age' anyway? Isn't 'age' enough? Why does one have to reference the day?
Joe turned his head to glare at me. I immediately wondered if somehow I was to blame. I couldn't have been. I hadn't been at the bar in a week. We watched a fireman poke a wall with an axe handle and the molding fell from the doorframe with a thud and a cloud of ashes. I wondered just how flammable a bar was, what with all the alcohol.
"Yeah," Joe said again. He looked a little peaked, as if he hadn't slept in the last twenty-four hours, which he probably hadn't. "Really, you won't fucking believe it."
DECEMBER 2ND (OR EARLY DECEMBER 3RD):
All of our stories start at the bar. Seriously. All of our stories start at the bar. Christine Saltzer and the Watcher Database debacle? Bar. Byron and the overdose scandal? Bar. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Bar. My daughter and Morgan Walker? Frickin' bar. It's like the bar is bad luck.
So, the bar is bad luck. It doesn't surprise me, what with alcohol being one of the greatest causes of bad luck in the history of ever. I can live with this. I, the proprietor of the bar, must be responsible for a thousand hard luck cases and tales of woe in the Seacouver area alone. I'd like to hear some of them, but inviting drunken people to tell their sad stories that would eventually end up becoming your fault is a great way to get a whiskey bottle upside the head. Because it's a bar.
I have been miraculously lucky in the way of bar damage over the years. Only about three fights or so, and to my great surprise on thinking about it, no Quickenings. I'd thought about getting a Buddhist monk to consecrate the place years ago, when I first met Mac, but I felt kinda bad asking some nice harmless pacifist to do it for me, what with the misdirection and everything. Plus, alcohol and the eight-fold path don't exactly intersect, so he probably wouldn't have done it anyway.
So I hadn't convinced myself that the bar was really bad luck until I was counting the register one night while Mike wiped down the tables, and the band packed up. The band is local, and they like to play for beer and a few bucks. Mostly they do it for the practice, and I'm more than willing to let them, as long as they don't do any Jimi Hendrix covers, because they suck at them. Oh, and also because that's my specialty.
Hey, I own the bar.
The door was locked, and that means that we're closed, but that didn't seem to bother the person outside hammering away on it like they were posting Martin Luther's declaration against the Catholic church.
I glanced at Mike. "Don't answer it." I had the till open and the deposit bag right there. Of course, just as we're closing, someone desperately needs to use the one pay phone in a fifteen block radius because their car has broken down and they have three kids in the back seat and it's so cold and they just have to call AAA. Yeah, and then I lose the night's earnings to the pointy end of a firearm. I wasn't falling for that. Again.
But the pounding kept getting harder, and finally I heard this female voice, and I know that I'm a sucker for the ladies, but I couldn't leave a gal outside when it was snowing so hard. One of these days I'm going to lose my shirt to one of them.
"Oh hell," I said, "Let her in."
Mike took a bat to the door just in case, which is the kind of forward thinking that ensures his employment, and when he unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door, a woman slinked in with a gust of cold air and a flurry of snowflakes.
"We're closed, lady," I said from across the room, "But if you need to use the pay phone it's in the back." I slid the bank deposit envelope under the counter. I'd had a good night, and I didn't want to give it up for anything less than a shotgun in the face.
"Joseph Dawson," Amanda purred, "as I live and breathe."
I don't have to explain why Amanda's presence is bad luck. I don't know how omens are tied into the whole luck thing. Are they a sign that bad luck is to come? A hint? Fate saying, 'Run away! Brave Sir Robin run away!'? But like all southern men raised with a grandmother who had lived through the depression, I understood what bad juju was, and Amanda was 'bad juju.'
Especially, when for no reason in particular, she acted very surprised to see you when she walked into your bar, like she has done at least a dozen times before.
"Amanda," Mike said appreciatively. There's a lot about Amanda to appreciate: the hair, the eyes, the...huge tracts of land. Amanda is the kind of girl my grandmother warned me about, probably right after she informed me as to what exactly constitutes as 'bad juju.'
I zipped the deposit bag up and tucked it on my jacket. It wasn't that I didn't trust Amanda, but it's no secret that she has compulsion issues. "What brings you to town? And do you own a watch?"
Amanda waved her wrist, displaying a very impressive gold wristwatch. "Yes, Cartier. Why?" She blinked. Mike chuckled and finished placing the last of the chairs on top of the tables. I watched him go into the back for the broom before I continued. Amanda didn't take her coat off, but she meandered through the tables, in no hurry to reach the bar, or go anywhere, apparently.
"Does Mac know you're here?" I asked, rounding the corner of the bar and moving out to the front for a quick hug. When we pulled apart I checked my jacket for the deposit bag. Still there. Amanda really has compulsion issues.
Amanda waved a hand. "Yes, of course." When I stared at her, she bit her bottom lip and did that downward dip with her face so she could look at me through the top lashes. "Well, not yet, but I was on my way there when I met this man-"
"Oh no," I said, backing away, "I'm not helping you. The database is off limits."
Amanda crossed her arms. "Did I say anything about using your Watcher stuff?"
I took my overcoat from the peg on the wall and shrugged into it. "You didn't have to." And seriously, she didn't. Ever since Methos had hacked into my account in Paris, it had become no secret that I might be available to 'help out a buddy', as Methos had so eloquently put it. Bastard.
Amanda sighed. "Despite what you might think of me, I am capable of taking care of my-" she froze then, her eyes widening. I watched her reach for something in the inside of her coat and shook my head.
"Oh no, you didn't-"
There was a loud banging on the door. Amanda shrugged and held out her hands as if to say, 'what can you do?' "Amanda Darieux! I know you're in there!"
This is what I'm talking about-bad omens or signs of bad things, like black cats or black crows, or-wait, aren't all crows black? And come to think of it, Amanda's hair was looking very dark. She gave me that smile that she gives Mac when she's broken something or stolen something and he's just found out about it-you know, the one with the wide mouth and the raised eyebrows and gritted teeth and the innocent eyes? Yeah, that one. Stop trying to make it. If you're not Amanda, you just look stupid.
I sighed finally, grabbing my cane and slung my guitar strap on the other shoulder. "Okay, we'll go out the back door. Mike," I called over my shoulder to the man sweeping the floor. It can wait. We're outta here until tomorrow." I gave Amanda a pointed glance as Mike grabbed his coat and squeezed past us down the hallway to the back door.
The guy outside continued to pound. I shook my head. "Do you at least know this guy?"
"Nope." When I glared at her, she shrugged. "Hey, I was just walking down the street and he-"
"Come out and fight me like a man!" the voice continued.
I turned to her in the hallway. "'Like a man?' He does know about those, right?" I gestured at her chest. Amanda reached out to brush her hand on my cheek.
"Why Joe, thank you for noticing," she drawled, smiling. I felt for the deposit bag. Still there. Amanda has compulsion issues. It bears repeating, in light of what was currently happening.
And she was probably right. The guy was probably here for Mac, and she just happened to be in the way. Except that he knew-
"Wait, he knew your name," I said as Mike unlocked the door.
Amanda winced, and I took a moment to internally indulge in a few curses that would have cost me a few bucks in the swear jar, if I had a swear jar. This was the kind of thing that usually got me in trouble, because later when Mac found out (and he would, you know. This guy would come out of the woodwork like a drunken termite and confess everything before Mac beheaded him in a sulphur mine or something.), I would be in a heap of trouble, and Amanda would be in another time zone. That's how our dynamic works.
"Well, see, he was very attentive at the club, and he bought me a drink-"
I smacked my forehead and nudged Mike in the back. "Let's go before he figures out there is a back door to this place," I said. I'd yell at Amanda later. Or better yet, I'd march her to Mac's and let him yell at her. And then they'd probably fuck like bunnies. Why did that never happen to me? Why wasn't this all an omen of raucous sex to come, like it was for all of the rest of my friends?
"Uh, Joe," Mike said, raising his hands up from his sides, "too late." Straight out of some comedy film, he backed into me, and I backed into Amanda as the business end of a .44 pushed itself into the doorway and Mike's sternum. Amanda made a little 'oof!' sound behind me, and I snatched at her wrist to keep her from bolting for it. Then again the front door wasn't just a deadbolt. There was a key lock involved.
The man pushed himself the rest of the way into the back hall, his gun trained on Mike as his eyes flicked from me to Amanda and the room beyond. "Who else is here?"
I raised my own hands. It doesn't hurt to show that you have absofuckinglutely no tricks up your sleeve when threatened with bullets that aren't made of rubber. Actually, rubber bullets hurt like hell too, so it's best to avoid them as well. "No one but us chickens," I said in my most good ol' boy voice.
I don't know if the guy believed me, or if he just didn't care that there were other people inside. We all filed back into the main room and pressed our backs against the wall by the storeroom while the guy cased the joint. It was fairly obvious that we were the only ones there, and Amanda glared daggers at him when he unsheathed his sword and pointed the gun at Mike and me.
"Leave."
Oh hell no. In fact, I think that's what I said. "Oh hell no. This is my place." I gestured to the door. "You take this outside."
Amanda's mouth gaped. "Joe!"
I shrugged. "Hey, you brought it here, lady."
It's not that I didn't feel for Amanda. In fact, I was edging closer to the bar itself, because somewhere down there was a shotgun. A shotgun that was unloaded, but I was willing to bet that our swordsman wouldn't know that, and that he'd be painfully aware just how much of his head I could take off from point-blank range.
The sword swayed towards me. The man had a big sword, I'd give him that. And pointy. Well, they're all pointy, but when they're pointed at you, you consider just how pointy they are. I stopped edging towards the bar.
"You two leave. This is between me and Amanda." He gesticulated with both the gun and the sword. Amanda held her hands up in offering.
"Look sir, can't we just talk this out?"
The man faltered, and his jaw dropped. "Sir?" he asked. "Sir! We spent three weeks together in Spain!" When Amanda made a clueless but apologetic face, he dropped the gun hand altogether. "Barcelona? 1958?" I started to feel sorry for him. Not a lot, because he still had a gun and a sword. "I made you crepes."
Amanda shook her head. Sometimes it amazes me what Immortals do and don't remember. She knows how much money she lost to me in a poker game three and a half years ago, but can't remember a lover that she shared three weeks with.
"Brian DeSantos?" Amanda said finally, her face hopeful.
"De Salvatore!" the man roared. And then more softly, "You stole my heart. And my car. And the contents of my safe deposit box." He raised the gun again. "Which brings us back to the matter at hand. Your sword, my lady."
I started to say something about no sword fights in the bar, but Amanda unsheathed her blade and stepped away from the wall. I opened my mouth, but Mike edged a little closer to me and whispered, "Don't distract him." I followed his gaze down to his right hand, were his cell phone was out and flipped open, and his thumb was punching in 911. Mike was a great barkeep. And a great Watcher. And just a great guy to have around in general.
"Brian, I wish we could work this out," Amanda said softly. I saw her shuffle her feet to the left and wondered if she was going to lead him on a merry chase through the tables. I started my slide to the bar again.
I was rewarded when Amanda made a mad dash for the front door through the tables. De Salvatore had to round a different set in hopes of cutting her off, but she pushed a small table-for-two at him, the chairs tumbling in the way and hitting at his gun. He dropped it, but that just allowed him to push another table in Amanda's way as she resumed her retreat.
Amanda doubled back, around the tables toward me and gave me a pathetic look. I rolled my eyes, but in reality I had decided to look for my own cell phone. It was buried in my coat pocket under my wallet, keys and a pair of gloves.
"My life savings were in that deposit box," De Salvatore said angry, kicking a chair out of his way. He stalked by the stage, knocking the microphone stand down with his sword.
"I'll make it up to you," Amanda said as she hid behind the bar, crouched down, and skulked down the length of it. I could hear her voice getting farther away as she moved to the other end. "Honest, I can do that."
De Salvatore was having none of it. He picked up a bottle from the bar and brandished it. "Really? You can heal my aching soul?"
It took a lot for me not to make a gagging sound at that moment. Instead, I decided that bottles upside the head, while in keeping with the whole bar fight theme, were dirty pool.
"Amanda," I called, earning a dirty glare from De Salvatore, "he's got a bottle-"
Too late, Amanda popped into view, this time with the sword in one hand and the shotgun in the other. She missed De Salvatore's swing, and the bottle smashed against a slew of mugs hanging from the upper bar by their handles. I cringed. Still, better them than her head.
Amanda swung the shotgun up to point at De Salvatore's head, and his eyes widened in surprise. Then I heard the chick-chick of her finger trying to pull the trigger and the predictable silence of a shotgun not firing. I knew I should have loaded it. From now on I'm loading the shotgun, and it is staying loaded.
Amanda flashed me a dirty look as she brandished the weapon and tried to use it as a club while swinging with her other hand, but De Salvatore caught the barrel on the other end and wrenched it out of her hand, dodging her blade when the swing went wide.
"You have to take the safety off," De Salvatore said, pushing the button by the trigger. Amanda took a step back, her sword at the ready. Her combatant pulled the trigger and again, nothing happened. Maybe I wasn't gonna put shells in the shotgun after all.
I found my cell phone, and none too soon, because Amanda ran back towards me and vaulted the bar on the other end, almost catching her foot on the brass rail. She whirled in time to catch De Salvatore's sword in one gloved hand, a feat I would have called gutsy if I hadn't been so desperate to remember if Mac was number two or three on my speed dial.
Mike had slipped down the back hallway and was frantically trying to dial the police when the De Salvatore's sword was deflected away and dug into the counter of the bar; and I had my cell open and was frantically trying to call Mac when Amanda's blade went wide and destroyed a lighting stand that cost me five hundred bucks. It occurred to me then that sword damage wasn't the worst thing that was going to come out of this.
"Hey no wait," I shouted, almost crushing the phone in my hand, "Hold on!"
Too late. Amanda swiped low and came up from her crouch just in time to give me a guilty look as the head flew a few feet, plunked around on the stage and landed in the bass drum. Oh god. It was another bad omen.
No no, wait, when the wiring sparked and ignited inside the walls, that was the bad omen.
***
LATER, ON DECEMBER 3RD:
I cornered Amanda at the airport. It was easy, since her overcoat was fire engine red. That, and the fact that I have a built in proximity alarm.
Unfortunately, Amanda has one too. She saw me coming across the airport and offered me a toothsome smile that meant that she had no intention of telling me anything I wanted to hear.
"So," I said nonchalantly as I settled next to her in a chair at Gate 45. I wasn't above buying a ticket to get to the terminal. Tickets to Seattle were fifty bucks, and I intended to make Amanda pay every bit of it and more. "Who was he?"
Amanda closed her copy of W. "A big mistake." She put her hand on mine. "Tell Joe I'm sorry."
I watched people on the moving walk. "You should repay him."
Amanda scoffed a little bit. She might have even looked a bit panicked. "Oh come on. Insurance will pay him a big wad of cash, and you know I don't have the money." She sighed. "If I did, I might consider it, but right now...I had to fence three necklaces from my private stash just to cover my hotel in Budapest last week." Her hair hid her eyes for a moment. If I were an anime watcher, I would tell you that this is the classic sign that a person is hiding something, and since I just told you that, I guess that makes me an anime watcher. You watch one thirteen-episode series, and all the sudden you think you're an expert.
Finally, I shrugged. Amanda was right. But still, it rankled me a little bit that she had left Joe there so callously that night. Or maybe I had taken her destruction, however unintentional, of the bar as a personal affront. I did love that bar. Joe bought the best peanuts. And I had seemed to be the only one who knew that the cue ball on the pool table was light, so I could swindle extra cash if I was bored.
Amanda picked up her bag as the flight attendant opened the door to the gate and read a memorized spiel over the loudspeaker in a bored monotone. "That's my flight."
I didn't stand. "It's not right," I said, amazed that the words had come out of my mouth.
Amanda smiled. "It'll all be all right, Methos." And with that, she swooped down, kissed my cheek, and turned for the gate in a cloud of Chanel.
I watched her disappear down the ramp and turned back to watch the people mover. Amanda was right: Joe would get the insurance money and probably have enough left over to revamp the tiles in the men's bathroom. If course, the stall in which I had used a penknife to etch 'For a good time call the Highlander-he'll stuff your haggis!' followed by Duncan's phone number were long gone in a blaze of glory, but that didn't mean that I couldn't start anew with a fresh bathroom stall.
Still, it wasn't right.
***
DECEMBER 20TH
So the holidays were here and I was a little pissed because the bar still looked like a broken down mass of abandoned meth lab. I'd gotten a call from the arson investigator, who concluded that lightning had struck the inside of the bar, and that he didn't have an explanation for that, but that it definitely hadn't been arson, which I could have told him. Except for the part where I couldn't have told him you know?
But his call had been followed by a call from the insurance company, whose adjuster had been trying to be funny by saying, "What ancient Greek god did you piss off?" before telling me that this had been an act of god, and therefore they didn't cover it. An act of god. Apparently, lightning striking the outside of the building would have been a different matter, but they didn't see how they could possibly make an exception for something out of the X-Files.
So the bar was trashed, and if I wanted to rebuild it I would have to shell out for the repairs myself. Which, I was informed earlier today, would have involved upwards of forty thousand dollars.
I really need to get on the Watchers again about a 401K.
Needless to say I was pretty grumpy when Methos showed up at my apartment and suggested we grab lunch and drinks, heavy on the latter and lesser on the former, or some sort of convoluted turn of phrase that I can never seem to remember.
A half-hour later, we found ourselves shoved in the corner of the local Chotchkie's, a chain with bright colors, blaring televisions and a team of servers bogged down with suspenders covered in buttons. Our server, a disgruntled girl named Joanna, took our order with a mixture of efficiency and distractedness.
"What's with all the buttons?" Methos said when Joanna returned with our drinks. I stared at the menu again. What was with everything being slathered in Jack Daniels? If I want Jack Daniels, I'll get myself a bottle from the bum in the alley down the street.
Joanna sort of frowned, but I could tell she was trying to smile. Poor kid. She fingered a button near her clavicle. "This is my flair."
"Flair?" Methos said, sipping from his glass. "Did you pick them yourself?"
"Yeah, I guess. They're part of the uniform." The waitress grimaced a little, and glanced about before saying, "I don't really like to talk about my flair." If I ever get waitresses again at the bar, they will never have to wear flair. Or any uniforms at all. I folded a napkin in my lap. These pants were khaki, and whatever I had just ordered was predictably covered in some piss poor alcoholic beverage.
"I'm sorry about the bar," Methos said when Joanna left to put in our food order. He'd said it about fifteen times since we'd sat down, and I started to wonder who'd miss it more: me or him.
I sighed. "At least no one was hurt. And that it wasn't Amanda they found in that wreckage."
Methos's eyes widened, and over the bar the televisions flashed a sea of green and white when the Seahawks scored. "They found a body?"
I sipped from my bad drink. Rum and coke it wasn't. Folks, Pepsi does not substitute for Coke in a drink. Never. Ever. "Well, there was. My guys didn't have enough time to get it out before hand. It magically disappeared, along with any paperwork."
"So the bar is ready to go?"
I sighed and watched a toddler try to eat a buffalo wing. It was kind of like watching early man trying to consume a moving pterodactyl. "When I get the money together, yeah. It's not like I have that kind of cash lying around."
"Ah." Methos removed an envelope from his inner coat pocket and set it on the table. He had his 'serious face' on, which was odd and out of place in the cacophony of the restaurant. Off in the corner, a group of servers, bedecked in their 'flair' and clapping frenetically, started to sing a Happy Birthday song to someone. I remembered that it was Mac's birthday tomorrow. Too bad, because the old vinyl copy of John Coltrane that I'd gotten him had been in the bar. It probably still is in the bar, in a lump of plastic and ashes.
Dammit.
I eyed it warily. "Are you going to bribe me to doctor Chronicles again? Because I said no."
"This is not a bribe. Or a gift," Methos said, as he slid the envelope across the table, narrowly missing a water ring. "It's also not a loan either."
I put my hand over Methos's and slid the envelope back. "No thanks."
Methos blinked once. "It's an investment. In the future."
Joanna returned and wordlessly placed our drinks on the table, slipping away without interrupting. The birthday party in the corner got louder as the guest of honor unwrapped presents and everyone's sugar highs kicked in. Somewhere behind Methos the bar erupted into cheers when the Seahawks scored another touchdown.
The music overhead switched to a horrible cover of 'Santa Baby.' It was jarring enough that I removed my hand from Methos's and sat back. I needed another drink.
"I don't know," I said. On one hand, taking something like that was a big deal. I didn't know, for example, where Methos had gotten it. The envelope was thankfully too thin to be a stack of bills, so it had to be a check. I suppose that if I looked inside the envelope I could find out, but I still wasn't convinced that I could pick it up from the table.
Methos picked up his new glass of whiskey and sniffed it, making a face. "I suppose this place would suffice as our new hang out," he said off handedly. "Happy hour, low-grade whiskey, all-you-can-eat wings." He smiled. "You could set up on the corner there with that little Park amp you have-"
"Fine, fine," I said hastily. Hanging out in Chotchkie's every time I was in Seacouver was unacceptable. I picked up the envelope and held it in two hands. It was almost too much. Methos didn't do things like this. Methos sponged off my bar's never-ending alcohol supply.
"Methos-" I began.
"I do have one slight change I'd like to make, though," Methos said, looking elsewhere.
Oh dear lord. It could have been anything: nothing but Queen in the jukebox, a bar tap that led directly to his mouth, honeyed ants and sea anemone buffets.
"I think you should rename the place, 'Adam's'."
"No."
"'Ben's'?"
"No."
"'Le Blues Bar, Part Deux'?"
"How about 'Joe's'?" I said testily, but to be honest, I wasn't genuinely testy.
"How about 'Big Bad Byron's Beer and Brewery'?" Methos grinned. Now he was just playing with me. He's good at that.
"How about 'Joe's'?" I repeated.
Methos watched me take the envelope and tuck it into the inner pocket of my jacket with a trace of a smile on his lips. "'Joe's' it is, then."
END
Author: amand_r, aka It's Santa, Baby.
Written for: elistaire
Characters/Pairings: Joe, Amanda, Methos, K'Immie of the Week
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: Property destruction. Past tense storytelling with present tense narration.
Author's Notes: This is gen, because Elistaire likes gen. I wanted to slash Methos and Joe, but an inner voice was suggesting completely inappropriate sexual props, and I just couldn't face it. A few references to Office Space, but you don't have to have seen the film to understand this story.
Summary: It's amazing that Joe's hasn't been damaged by a Quickening. Oh wait...
DECEMBER 3RD:
I think the best adventures I've had in the past decade have all started in a bar. Many good adventures start in a bar. Moby Dick, for instance, sort of started in a bar. Casablanca started in a bar. That's why there's that joke: 'Two guys walk into a bar." It has fifteen thousand different endings, except in Farsi, where it has one, and it's not actually that funny.
The joke didn't have a very good ending in my head as I stood outside the caution tape and watched as two firemen sifted through the wreckage, coming up with a busted and charred neon sign reading, 'Joe's.'
I'd tried several times to get someone to tell me if anyone had been inside, and Joe wasn't answering his cell, and there was this horrible smell, like burning flesh. Mac wasn't answering his cell either. I don't understand why Mac has a cell to begin with; he leaves it on, and then the batteries run down and it dies, and then he discovers it three days later. Then it goes in the charger for two weeks until he either gets a call or remembers that it's there.
I wasn't convinced that there had been anyone inside, but on the other hand, I am particularly well versed with the smell that the human body makes when placed in an inferno. Perhaps I had been misled altogether and that was simply thirty pounds of frozen wings from the bar freezer.
I stood there, cursing Joe and his cheap methods when it came to installing track lighting when I was startled out of my mournful reverie.
"Yeah," Joe said, sidling up next to me and watching the firemen do their thing. "Amanda owes me so big." He cocked his head. "If I ever see her again."
I think I might have hugged him if I wasn't a) still in shock and b) too manly for that kind of stuff. At least in this century. Guys didn't hug in this day and age. Why do we say 'day and age' anyway? Isn't 'age' enough? Why does one have to reference the day?
Joe turned his head to glare at me. I immediately wondered if somehow I was to blame. I couldn't have been. I hadn't been at the bar in a week. We watched a fireman poke a wall with an axe handle and the molding fell from the doorframe with a thud and a cloud of ashes. I wondered just how flammable a bar was, what with all the alcohol.
"Yeah," Joe said again. He looked a little peaked, as if he hadn't slept in the last twenty-four hours, which he probably hadn't. "Really, you won't fucking believe it."
DECEMBER 2ND (OR EARLY DECEMBER 3RD):
All of our stories start at the bar. Seriously. All of our stories start at the bar. Christine Saltzer and the Watcher Database debacle? Bar. Byron and the overdose scandal? Bar. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Bar. My daughter and Morgan Walker? Frickin' bar. It's like the bar is bad luck.
So, the bar is bad luck. It doesn't surprise me, what with alcohol being one of the greatest causes of bad luck in the history of ever. I can live with this. I, the proprietor of the bar, must be responsible for a thousand hard luck cases and tales of woe in the Seacouver area alone. I'd like to hear some of them, but inviting drunken people to tell their sad stories that would eventually end up becoming your fault is a great way to get a whiskey bottle upside the head. Because it's a bar.
I have been miraculously lucky in the way of bar damage over the years. Only about three fights or so, and to my great surprise on thinking about it, no Quickenings. I'd thought about getting a Buddhist monk to consecrate the place years ago, when I first met Mac, but I felt kinda bad asking some nice harmless pacifist to do it for me, what with the misdirection and everything. Plus, alcohol and the eight-fold path don't exactly intersect, so he probably wouldn't have done it anyway.
So I hadn't convinced myself that the bar was really bad luck until I was counting the register one night while Mike wiped down the tables, and the band packed up. The band is local, and they like to play for beer and a few bucks. Mostly they do it for the practice, and I'm more than willing to let them, as long as they don't do any Jimi Hendrix covers, because they suck at them. Oh, and also because that's my specialty.
Hey, I own the bar.
The door was locked, and that means that we're closed, but that didn't seem to bother the person outside hammering away on it like they were posting Martin Luther's declaration against the Catholic church.
I glanced at Mike. "Don't answer it." I had the till open and the deposit bag right there. Of course, just as we're closing, someone desperately needs to use the one pay phone in a fifteen block radius because their car has broken down and they have three kids in the back seat and it's so cold and they just have to call AAA. Yeah, and then I lose the night's earnings to the pointy end of a firearm. I wasn't falling for that. Again.
But the pounding kept getting harder, and finally I heard this female voice, and I know that I'm a sucker for the ladies, but I couldn't leave a gal outside when it was snowing so hard. One of these days I'm going to lose my shirt to one of them.
"Oh hell," I said, "Let her in."
Mike took a bat to the door just in case, which is the kind of forward thinking that ensures his employment, and when he unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door, a woman slinked in with a gust of cold air and a flurry of snowflakes.
"We're closed, lady," I said from across the room, "But if you need to use the pay phone it's in the back." I slid the bank deposit envelope under the counter. I'd had a good night, and I didn't want to give it up for anything less than a shotgun in the face.
"Joseph Dawson," Amanda purred, "as I live and breathe."
I don't have to explain why Amanda's presence is bad luck. I don't know how omens are tied into the whole luck thing. Are they a sign that bad luck is to come? A hint? Fate saying, 'Run away! Brave Sir Robin run away!'? But like all southern men raised with a grandmother who had lived through the depression, I understood what bad juju was, and Amanda was 'bad juju.'
Especially, when for no reason in particular, she acted very surprised to see you when she walked into your bar, like she has done at least a dozen times before.
"Amanda," Mike said appreciatively. There's a lot about Amanda to appreciate: the hair, the eyes, the...huge tracts of land. Amanda is the kind of girl my grandmother warned me about, probably right after she informed me as to what exactly constitutes as 'bad juju.'
I zipped the deposit bag up and tucked it on my jacket. It wasn't that I didn't trust Amanda, but it's no secret that she has compulsion issues. "What brings you to town? And do you own a watch?"
Amanda waved her wrist, displaying a very impressive gold wristwatch. "Yes, Cartier. Why?" She blinked. Mike chuckled and finished placing the last of the chairs on top of the tables. I watched him go into the back for the broom before I continued. Amanda didn't take her coat off, but she meandered through the tables, in no hurry to reach the bar, or go anywhere, apparently.
"Does Mac know you're here?" I asked, rounding the corner of the bar and moving out to the front for a quick hug. When we pulled apart I checked my jacket for the deposit bag. Still there. Amanda really has compulsion issues.
Amanda waved a hand. "Yes, of course." When I stared at her, she bit her bottom lip and did that downward dip with her face so she could look at me through the top lashes. "Well, not yet, but I was on my way there when I met this man-"
"Oh no," I said, backing away, "I'm not helping you. The database is off limits."
Amanda crossed her arms. "Did I say anything about using your Watcher stuff?"
I took my overcoat from the peg on the wall and shrugged into it. "You didn't have to." And seriously, she didn't. Ever since Methos had hacked into my account in Paris, it had become no secret that I might be available to 'help out a buddy', as Methos had so eloquently put it. Bastard.
Amanda sighed. "Despite what you might think of me, I am capable of taking care of my-" she froze then, her eyes widening. I watched her reach for something in the inside of her coat and shook my head.
"Oh no, you didn't-"
There was a loud banging on the door. Amanda shrugged and held out her hands as if to say, 'what can you do?' "Amanda Darieux! I know you're in there!"
This is what I'm talking about-bad omens or signs of bad things, like black cats or black crows, or-wait, aren't all crows black? And come to think of it, Amanda's hair was looking very dark. She gave me that smile that she gives Mac when she's broken something or stolen something and he's just found out about it-you know, the one with the wide mouth and the raised eyebrows and gritted teeth and the innocent eyes? Yeah, that one. Stop trying to make it. If you're not Amanda, you just look stupid.
I sighed finally, grabbing my cane and slung my guitar strap on the other shoulder. "Okay, we'll go out the back door. Mike," I called over my shoulder to the man sweeping the floor. It can wait. We're outta here until tomorrow." I gave Amanda a pointed glance as Mike grabbed his coat and squeezed past us down the hallway to the back door.
The guy outside continued to pound. I shook my head. "Do you at least know this guy?"
"Nope." When I glared at her, she shrugged. "Hey, I was just walking down the street and he-"
"Come out and fight me like a man!" the voice continued.
I turned to her in the hallway. "'Like a man?' He does know about those, right?" I gestured at her chest. Amanda reached out to brush her hand on my cheek.
"Why Joe, thank you for noticing," she drawled, smiling. I felt for the deposit bag. Still there. Amanda has compulsion issues. It bears repeating, in light of what was currently happening.
And she was probably right. The guy was probably here for Mac, and she just happened to be in the way. Except that he knew-
"Wait, he knew your name," I said as Mike unlocked the door.
Amanda winced, and I took a moment to internally indulge in a few curses that would have cost me a few bucks in the swear jar, if I had a swear jar. This was the kind of thing that usually got me in trouble, because later when Mac found out (and he would, you know. This guy would come out of the woodwork like a drunken termite and confess everything before Mac beheaded him in a sulphur mine or something.), I would be in a heap of trouble, and Amanda would be in another time zone. That's how our dynamic works.
"Well, see, he was very attentive at the club, and he bought me a drink-"
I smacked my forehead and nudged Mike in the back. "Let's go before he figures out there is a back door to this place," I said. I'd yell at Amanda later. Or better yet, I'd march her to Mac's and let him yell at her. And then they'd probably fuck like bunnies. Why did that never happen to me? Why wasn't this all an omen of raucous sex to come, like it was for all of the rest of my friends?
"Uh, Joe," Mike said, raising his hands up from his sides, "too late." Straight out of some comedy film, he backed into me, and I backed into Amanda as the business end of a .44 pushed itself into the doorway and Mike's sternum. Amanda made a little 'oof!' sound behind me, and I snatched at her wrist to keep her from bolting for it. Then again the front door wasn't just a deadbolt. There was a key lock involved.
The man pushed himself the rest of the way into the back hall, his gun trained on Mike as his eyes flicked from me to Amanda and the room beyond. "Who else is here?"
I raised my own hands. It doesn't hurt to show that you have absofuckinglutely no tricks up your sleeve when threatened with bullets that aren't made of rubber. Actually, rubber bullets hurt like hell too, so it's best to avoid them as well. "No one but us chickens," I said in my most good ol' boy voice.
I don't know if the guy believed me, or if he just didn't care that there were other people inside. We all filed back into the main room and pressed our backs against the wall by the storeroom while the guy cased the joint. It was fairly obvious that we were the only ones there, and Amanda glared daggers at him when he unsheathed his sword and pointed the gun at Mike and me.
"Leave."
Oh hell no. In fact, I think that's what I said. "Oh hell no. This is my place." I gestured to the door. "You take this outside."
Amanda's mouth gaped. "Joe!"
I shrugged. "Hey, you brought it here, lady."
It's not that I didn't feel for Amanda. In fact, I was edging closer to the bar itself, because somewhere down there was a shotgun. A shotgun that was unloaded, but I was willing to bet that our swordsman wouldn't know that, and that he'd be painfully aware just how much of his head I could take off from point-blank range.
The sword swayed towards me. The man had a big sword, I'd give him that. And pointy. Well, they're all pointy, but when they're pointed at you, you consider just how pointy they are. I stopped edging towards the bar.
"You two leave. This is between me and Amanda." He gesticulated with both the gun and the sword. Amanda held her hands up in offering.
"Look sir, can't we just talk this out?"
The man faltered, and his jaw dropped. "Sir?" he asked. "Sir! We spent three weeks together in Spain!" When Amanda made a clueless but apologetic face, he dropped the gun hand altogether. "Barcelona? 1958?" I started to feel sorry for him. Not a lot, because he still had a gun and a sword. "I made you crepes."
Amanda shook her head. Sometimes it amazes me what Immortals do and don't remember. She knows how much money she lost to me in a poker game three and a half years ago, but can't remember a lover that she shared three weeks with.
"Brian DeSantos?" Amanda said finally, her face hopeful.
"De Salvatore!" the man roared. And then more softly, "You stole my heart. And my car. And the contents of my safe deposit box." He raised the gun again. "Which brings us back to the matter at hand. Your sword, my lady."
I started to say something about no sword fights in the bar, but Amanda unsheathed her blade and stepped away from the wall. I opened my mouth, but Mike edged a little closer to me and whispered, "Don't distract him." I followed his gaze down to his right hand, were his cell phone was out and flipped open, and his thumb was punching in 911. Mike was a great barkeep. And a great Watcher. And just a great guy to have around in general.
"Brian, I wish we could work this out," Amanda said softly. I saw her shuffle her feet to the left and wondered if she was going to lead him on a merry chase through the tables. I started my slide to the bar again.
I was rewarded when Amanda made a mad dash for the front door through the tables. De Salvatore had to round a different set in hopes of cutting her off, but she pushed a small table-for-two at him, the chairs tumbling in the way and hitting at his gun. He dropped it, but that just allowed him to push another table in Amanda's way as she resumed her retreat.
Amanda doubled back, around the tables toward me and gave me a pathetic look. I rolled my eyes, but in reality I had decided to look for my own cell phone. It was buried in my coat pocket under my wallet, keys and a pair of gloves.
"My life savings were in that deposit box," De Salvatore said angry, kicking a chair out of his way. He stalked by the stage, knocking the microphone stand down with his sword.
"I'll make it up to you," Amanda said as she hid behind the bar, crouched down, and skulked down the length of it. I could hear her voice getting farther away as she moved to the other end. "Honest, I can do that."
De Salvatore was having none of it. He picked up a bottle from the bar and brandished it. "Really? You can heal my aching soul?"
It took a lot for me not to make a gagging sound at that moment. Instead, I decided that bottles upside the head, while in keeping with the whole bar fight theme, were dirty pool.
"Amanda," I called, earning a dirty glare from De Salvatore, "he's got a bottle-"
Too late, Amanda popped into view, this time with the sword in one hand and the shotgun in the other. She missed De Salvatore's swing, and the bottle smashed against a slew of mugs hanging from the upper bar by their handles. I cringed. Still, better them than her head.
Amanda swung the shotgun up to point at De Salvatore's head, and his eyes widened in surprise. Then I heard the chick-chick of her finger trying to pull the trigger and the predictable silence of a shotgun not firing. I knew I should have loaded it. From now on I'm loading the shotgun, and it is staying loaded.
Amanda flashed me a dirty look as she brandished the weapon and tried to use it as a club while swinging with her other hand, but De Salvatore caught the barrel on the other end and wrenched it out of her hand, dodging her blade when the swing went wide.
"You have to take the safety off," De Salvatore said, pushing the button by the trigger. Amanda took a step back, her sword at the ready. Her combatant pulled the trigger and again, nothing happened. Maybe I wasn't gonna put shells in the shotgun after all.
I found my cell phone, and none too soon, because Amanda ran back towards me and vaulted the bar on the other end, almost catching her foot on the brass rail. She whirled in time to catch De Salvatore's sword in one gloved hand, a feat I would have called gutsy if I hadn't been so desperate to remember if Mac was number two or three on my speed dial.
Mike had slipped down the back hallway and was frantically trying to dial the police when the De Salvatore's sword was deflected away and dug into the counter of the bar; and I had my cell open and was frantically trying to call Mac when Amanda's blade went wide and destroyed a lighting stand that cost me five hundred bucks. It occurred to me then that sword damage wasn't the worst thing that was going to come out of this.
"Hey no wait," I shouted, almost crushing the phone in my hand, "Hold on!"
Too late. Amanda swiped low and came up from her crouch just in time to give me a guilty look as the head flew a few feet, plunked around on the stage and landed in the bass drum. Oh god. It was another bad omen.
No no, wait, when the wiring sparked and ignited inside the walls, that was the bad omen.
***
LATER, ON DECEMBER 3RD:
I cornered Amanda at the airport. It was easy, since her overcoat was fire engine red. That, and the fact that I have a built in proximity alarm.
Unfortunately, Amanda has one too. She saw me coming across the airport and offered me a toothsome smile that meant that she had no intention of telling me anything I wanted to hear.
"So," I said nonchalantly as I settled next to her in a chair at Gate 45. I wasn't above buying a ticket to get to the terminal. Tickets to Seattle were fifty bucks, and I intended to make Amanda pay every bit of it and more. "Who was he?"
Amanda closed her copy of W. "A big mistake." She put her hand on mine. "Tell Joe I'm sorry."
I watched people on the moving walk. "You should repay him."
Amanda scoffed a little bit. She might have even looked a bit panicked. "Oh come on. Insurance will pay him a big wad of cash, and you know I don't have the money." She sighed. "If I did, I might consider it, but right now...I had to fence three necklaces from my private stash just to cover my hotel in Budapest last week." Her hair hid her eyes for a moment. If I were an anime watcher, I would tell you that this is the classic sign that a person is hiding something, and since I just told you that, I guess that makes me an anime watcher. You watch one thirteen-episode series, and all the sudden you think you're an expert.
Finally, I shrugged. Amanda was right. But still, it rankled me a little bit that she had left Joe there so callously that night. Or maybe I had taken her destruction, however unintentional, of the bar as a personal affront. I did love that bar. Joe bought the best peanuts. And I had seemed to be the only one who knew that the cue ball on the pool table was light, so I could swindle extra cash if I was bored.
Amanda picked up her bag as the flight attendant opened the door to the gate and read a memorized spiel over the loudspeaker in a bored monotone. "That's my flight."
I didn't stand. "It's not right," I said, amazed that the words had come out of my mouth.
Amanda smiled. "It'll all be all right, Methos." And with that, she swooped down, kissed my cheek, and turned for the gate in a cloud of Chanel.
I watched her disappear down the ramp and turned back to watch the people mover. Amanda was right: Joe would get the insurance money and probably have enough left over to revamp the tiles in the men's bathroom. If course, the stall in which I had used a penknife to etch 'For a good time call the Highlander-he'll stuff your haggis!' followed by Duncan's phone number were long gone in a blaze of glory, but that didn't mean that I couldn't start anew with a fresh bathroom stall.
Still, it wasn't right.
***
DECEMBER 20TH
So the holidays were here and I was a little pissed because the bar still looked like a broken down mass of abandoned meth lab. I'd gotten a call from the arson investigator, who concluded that lightning had struck the inside of the bar, and that he didn't have an explanation for that, but that it definitely hadn't been arson, which I could have told him. Except for the part where I couldn't have told him you know?
But his call had been followed by a call from the insurance company, whose adjuster had been trying to be funny by saying, "What ancient Greek god did you piss off?" before telling me that this had been an act of god, and therefore they didn't cover it. An act of god. Apparently, lightning striking the outside of the building would have been a different matter, but they didn't see how they could possibly make an exception for something out of the X-Files.
So the bar was trashed, and if I wanted to rebuild it I would have to shell out for the repairs myself. Which, I was informed earlier today, would have involved upwards of forty thousand dollars.
I really need to get on the Watchers again about a 401K.
Needless to say I was pretty grumpy when Methos showed up at my apartment and suggested we grab lunch and drinks, heavy on the latter and lesser on the former, or some sort of convoluted turn of phrase that I can never seem to remember.
A half-hour later, we found ourselves shoved in the corner of the local Chotchkie's, a chain with bright colors, blaring televisions and a team of servers bogged down with suspenders covered in buttons. Our server, a disgruntled girl named Joanna, took our order with a mixture of efficiency and distractedness.
"What's with all the buttons?" Methos said when Joanna returned with our drinks. I stared at the menu again. What was with everything being slathered in Jack Daniels? If I want Jack Daniels, I'll get myself a bottle from the bum in the alley down the street.
Joanna sort of frowned, but I could tell she was trying to smile. Poor kid. She fingered a button near her clavicle. "This is my flair."
"Flair?" Methos said, sipping from his glass. "Did you pick them yourself?"
"Yeah, I guess. They're part of the uniform." The waitress grimaced a little, and glanced about before saying, "I don't really like to talk about my flair." If I ever get waitresses again at the bar, they will never have to wear flair. Or any uniforms at all. I folded a napkin in my lap. These pants were khaki, and whatever I had just ordered was predictably covered in some piss poor alcoholic beverage.
"I'm sorry about the bar," Methos said when Joanna left to put in our food order. He'd said it about fifteen times since we'd sat down, and I started to wonder who'd miss it more: me or him.
I sighed. "At least no one was hurt. And that it wasn't Amanda they found in that wreckage."
Methos's eyes widened, and over the bar the televisions flashed a sea of green and white when the Seahawks scored. "They found a body?"
I sipped from my bad drink. Rum and coke it wasn't. Folks, Pepsi does not substitute for Coke in a drink. Never. Ever. "Well, there was. My guys didn't have enough time to get it out before hand. It magically disappeared, along with any paperwork."
"So the bar is ready to go?"
I sighed and watched a toddler try to eat a buffalo wing. It was kind of like watching early man trying to consume a moving pterodactyl. "When I get the money together, yeah. It's not like I have that kind of cash lying around."
"Ah." Methos removed an envelope from his inner coat pocket and set it on the table. He had his 'serious face' on, which was odd and out of place in the cacophony of the restaurant. Off in the corner, a group of servers, bedecked in their 'flair' and clapping frenetically, started to sing a Happy Birthday song to someone. I remembered that it was Mac's birthday tomorrow. Too bad, because the old vinyl copy of John Coltrane that I'd gotten him had been in the bar. It probably still is in the bar, in a lump of plastic and ashes.
Dammit.
I eyed it warily. "Are you going to bribe me to doctor Chronicles again? Because I said no."
"This is not a bribe. Or a gift," Methos said, as he slid the envelope across the table, narrowly missing a water ring. "It's also not a loan either."
I put my hand over Methos's and slid the envelope back. "No thanks."
Methos blinked once. "It's an investment. In the future."
Joanna returned and wordlessly placed our drinks on the table, slipping away without interrupting. The birthday party in the corner got louder as the guest of honor unwrapped presents and everyone's sugar highs kicked in. Somewhere behind Methos the bar erupted into cheers when the Seahawks scored another touchdown.
The music overhead switched to a horrible cover of 'Santa Baby.' It was jarring enough that I removed my hand from Methos's and sat back. I needed another drink.
"I don't know," I said. On one hand, taking something like that was a big deal. I didn't know, for example, where Methos had gotten it. The envelope was thankfully too thin to be a stack of bills, so it had to be a check. I suppose that if I looked inside the envelope I could find out, but I still wasn't convinced that I could pick it up from the table.
Methos picked up his new glass of whiskey and sniffed it, making a face. "I suppose this place would suffice as our new hang out," he said off handedly. "Happy hour, low-grade whiskey, all-you-can-eat wings." He smiled. "You could set up on the corner there with that little Park amp you have-"
"Fine, fine," I said hastily. Hanging out in Chotchkie's every time I was in Seacouver was unacceptable. I picked up the envelope and held it in two hands. It was almost too much. Methos didn't do things like this. Methos sponged off my bar's never-ending alcohol supply.
"Methos-" I began.
"I do have one slight change I'd like to make, though," Methos said, looking elsewhere.
Oh dear lord. It could have been anything: nothing but Queen in the jukebox, a bar tap that led directly to his mouth, honeyed ants and sea anemone buffets.
"I think you should rename the place, 'Adam's'."
"No."
"'Ben's'?"
"No."
"'Le Blues Bar, Part Deux'?"
"How about 'Joe's'?" I said testily, but to be honest, I wasn't genuinely testy.
"How about 'Big Bad Byron's Beer and Brewery'?" Methos grinned. Now he was just playing with me. He's good at that.
"How about 'Joe's'?" I repeated.
Methos watched me take the envelope and tuck it into the inner pocket of my jacket with a trace of a smile on his lips. "'Joe's' it is, then."
END