[OTA] The Beer Must Go On

[intotherough]

Being friends with a bartender had more pluses than minuses. For one, Ben probably got more free scotch than any man in the Deck, thanks to meeting and befriending Dan, the regular bartender at the Diamond pub that was just a little darker and rougher than the Four Suits. For another, people seemed to tell bartenders absolutely everything, and Dan

Comments

[mightbedrunk]

Curious. Not that she was usually in this particular bar, but still- Ben was hardly Dan. So- Curious. Very curious. Leaning up against the bar, she raised her brow ever so slightly at him.

"I'll have a Black and Tan, if you'd be so kind mate." Which might be cruel to ask for considering the Celtic pride he had going on at the moment.

[intotherough]

...Now, Leona, you're just lucky Ben's not actually Irish. Or Victor, in particular, though he doubted that Victor would ever be volunteering to man the bar.

"If I must, I must, lass," he told her as he began the process of building one. And then, seemingly at random, he slid into another song.

He did know things beyond Celtic ballads, after all.

[mightbedrunk]

She had to laugh at his song choice, smiling a bit more brightly than she would have otherwise until he finished.

"Never took you for showtunes," she said as he sat her drink down in front of her, her face beaming. "But I like that one." Even if it made her miss Manchester just a bit more than normal.

"You're chipper, any reason?"

[intotherough]

"I have a broad and far-reaching range." Unlike his best friend, who limited himself to the realms of Irish music and swing. It was a shame, really, but Ben wasn't going to try to introduce Victor to the wonderful world of modern music.

Some things were just exercises in futility.

"I can be a cheerful person," Ben said. "But as it happens, I got some news from home."

[likemarilynsaid]

While she's normally a regular over at the Four Cups, there's not a bar on Deck that she hasn't patronized with acquaintances at least once, and even in the shadier ones she makes friends. Which is why when she slides up to the bar, there's a look of surprise on her face.

"Now this is a surprise. Not that it's not lovely to see you, darling, but where's Dan?"

[intotherough]

"He's got the flu. I got a croaking, miserable phone call, oh, about three hours ago." With a reminder that Ben owed him more than one favor.

He leans his elbows on the bar and smiles, though. "What's your poison, lass? Nothing too complicated, I'm new at this sort of thing."

[likemarilynsaid]

"Oh, the poor thing. I hear there's a bit of that going around." She makes a sympathetic face, leaning on the bar herself. "You're a good man, to be covering for him. Though I didn't think the bartender was also expected to be the entertainment." Hard to miss a singing voice like that, honestly, and she's only teasing a little.

"I'm in an adventurous mood tonight. Surprise me?"

[intotherough]

He gives her a considering look, then sets to making her a Rob Roy, whistling as he does.

"There you are," he says, pushing it across the table. "A drink named after a tragic hero of Scotland. But then, they're mostly tragic."

[hamelinic]

That's patently ridiculous. What sort of bartender sings without accompaniment. Only the most strange and unusual of bartenders, surely.

Now, admittedly, the lute is Not a fiddle, banjo or guitar. It's just that when a man spends enough time plucking opposite a fiddle, it's not so dreadfully difficult to pick up the this and that of good Celtic accompanist.

And that's why there's a Joker actually settling down at the end of the bar rather than just wandering through stealing the remains of abandoned drinks. Don't kick him out. He'll even sit on a stool rather than the actual bar, and he follows along to changing tunes with the best of them.

[intotherough]

There's more'n one Diamond who'd say Ben was a strange and unusual man. And in truth, it's the pipes that ought be accompanying this particular tune, but he'll take what he can get.

And when Jamie MacPherson's been tragically delivered to the gallows, he gives the Joker a nod. "I ought warn you," he said. "The tips are terrible with this lot."

[hamelinic]

But who the hell plays the pipes in this day and age, when there are much more sensible, totally non-extinct string instruments to play. Honestly.

Of course there's the expected bit of a sigh as his fingers find some absent riffs on the theme to continue along with, almost entirely unconscious. "Isn't that always the way, Master Alba?" Look how he suffers. He's practically wasting away. "But how're the hourly wages, mm?"

[intotherough]

...Lute, Cynric. You're playing a lute.

A lute.

"Mackinnon's good enough, I should think. And the hourly not bad, so long as you dinna mind being paid in whisky and beer." And what Scot minded that, he asks you? Certainly not a real one.