bartending

[salver]

All Bobby wanted to do was come in for a six-pack so he didn't have to go out for one. He's got his own idea of what he needs to be doing -- there's a sheaf of papers ripped out of a book to translate and send down to Cheyenne to be pieced back together, and there's his battered old copy of The Milagro Beanfield War to reread for the fifth time -- but apparently the bar has other ideas.

"Yeah?" Bobby asks the bar. "What's in it for me?"

A note appears.

Bobby smiles.




Shortly thereafter, he slings a towel over his shoulder behind the bar, and chalks something up on the board in very precise handwriting:

SPECIALS

MOONSHINE MADE FROM A CACTUS

I DIDN'T ASK WHAT KIND OF CACTUS AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU

AND IF YOU GO BLIND IT'S NOT MY FAULT; CAVEAT EMPTOR

Looks like happy hour is open.

[Open until ten Mountain time! Threadhop! Try the moonshine!

And for the record: there is no known liquor made from the cactus.]

[ETA: The witching hour has happened! All threads are slowtimed. Thank you for tagging in! And good god, what is WRONG with you people that you would subject all your characters to CACTUS MOONSHINE. *laughing*]

Comments

[salver]

Perhaps very unexcitingly, it's a percolator, some coffee, and a couple of eggshells. "If you don't mind the wait...? It'll just take a couple of minutes."

[ellectrical]

Not so unexciting that she ever looks away.

But, she shrugs one shoulder.

"What else am I going to do?"

[salver]

"You could read a magazine," Bobby suggests. "Or a newspaper. Or something else."

[ellectrical]

Pause.

"I'm good," she decides, in an only slightly too sweet tone.

[salver]

He catches it.

Doesn't seem to react to it, though, beyond a very brief pause in what he's doing.

"Suit yourself," he says, cheerfully enough. "I know when I've spent most of the day reading or being busy in one way or another, inspecting the wall seems like a real nice way to wind down the evening."

[ellectrical]

Elle doesn't seem to notice.

And she answers, more like a question, "But you're not doing that now."

[salver]

"I wasn't too busy today."

The coffee's perking. Bobby pulls down a mug that reads WORLD'S BEST BOSS and pours. "One coffee," he announces, "with sugar." The glass cylindrical dispenser goes down in front of Elle with the mug.

[ellectrical]

She doesn't say 'thank you.'

Instead, she's very careful in picking up the mug (its message gets a short, puzzled glance) and sips at it, very slowly.

Even after that, she only asks - "You don't have anything to do?"

[salver]

"Well, I'm bartending." Mildly. "Don't that count?"

[ellectrical]

Elle looks both ways down the bar.

"Yeah. You're busy now."

It's too even to really sound like she's agreeing with him.

[salver]

"Well."

Still mild.

"You got any suggestions as to what else I could do?"

[ellectrical]

"No."

Now, it does sound like she's agreeing with him.

"I don't know you."

[salver]

"Well, okay then," Bobby says easily. "How's the coffee?"

[ellectrical]

Elle takes another sip.

After a moment to consider it, and in that too-sweet tone again: "I'm not blind."