(no subject)

[aleister_author]

Tyler staggers down from his room and to the bar. He has had better mornings.

"Oooh. Poor life choices why do I make you?"

Mostly because having your brains smashed in, either by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick or the cheaper cousin that is a used and broken length of two by four, generally leads to a hangover of some sort.

"Painkillers. Painkillers and water. Please."

No loud noises, please.

Comments

[mnt_raph]

"Looks like you could use a Fluffy," says a gruff voice just to Tyler's left.

[aleister_author]

Tyler flinches at the noise. Then winces at the flinch.

"What's a fluffy?"

Will it make the man with the chisel who lives in his head go away?

[mnt_raph]

"Hair of the three-headed dog that bit you."

He gives Bar a tap and a glass of something smoking appears before the new guy.
It's a shot of Blishen's Firewhisky, Ogden's Old Firewhiskey, and White Rat Whisky, all in one tumbler.

[aleister_author]

The tumbler of doom gets eyed carefully. So what, if the order had been for a Tiny he'd be looking for a crane setup?

"Shit. Who the hell names a Cerberus Fluffy?"

Question asked Tyler instead sips his water. It's about the limit of what he can handle at the moment.

[mnt_raph]

"Guy that goes by the name of Hagrid. Can't miss him, he's big."

Raph...is not a tiny man himself, so when he says someone's big, they're big.

[aleister_author]

"Huh."

There's another pause before Tyler demonstrates why he hangs out in a sub-culture that considers him an emergency food supply. He drinks the glass. Then he drinks the water.

"So, before I die, what's your name so I can haunt you?"

[mnt_raph]

"Michaelangelo. But my friends call me Raph."

Hey, there's a potential haunting on the line here.

[aleister_author]

"There'll be chains to rattle and everything."

Tyler gets another glass of water.

"I've got some standards after all."

[mnt_raph]

"Traditionalist, huh?"

[aleister_author]

"Not as much as some people I know, but I write for a living. People do better when you can give them a story to follow along with."

[mnt_raph]

"Depends on the story. What sort of stuff do you write 'bout?"

[aleister_author]

"Horror now, the hours are better than investigative work."

Tyler starts working on the second glass of water.

"The pay is better too."

[mnt_raph]

"What like...Nightmare on Elm Street stuff?"

You can tell Raph's a big reader by the fact that the first thing in the horror genre that comes to mind is a movie.

[aleister_author]

Tyler has options on the big reader front too.

"If you're looking for the cable movie version you'd want Vietnightmares."

"They butchered my book making that."

[mnt_raph]

"Vietnightmares?"

Raph was raised by a Japanese man....er rat. So he can only imagine how FANTASTICALLY ACCURATE with regards to culture a movie with that title is.

"What was the book about?"

[aleister_author]

"Soldier, maybe haunted, maybe just nuts, back in the States after 'Nam."

The book was better as far as accuracy goes than Raph is probably expecting. Mostly because Tyler built it out of interviews with people who actually died in Vietnam.



They got better. It's a Kin thing.

[mnt_raph]

"Haunted by what he saw? Or what he did?"

[aleister_author]

"A little of A, a little of B, with a side of C. Where C is hearing that your friends have been dieing, maybe suicides, maybe not."

He shrugs.

"It paid the car loan and it didn't hurt my name recognition. So, commercially it wasn't a bad choice."

[mnt_raph]

"No offense, but I think I'll sit that one out."

He taps on Bar's top and a stein appears. If you watch closely you can see it fill itself with ale.

[aleister_author]

"It's not for everyone. On the other hand, the great things about stories is that they are dead easy to carry. I've managed to sell some of them in other worlds. It helps to, you know, cover the poor life choices when tabs come due."

[mnt_raph]

"Now that's somethin' I can relate to. Not so much nowadays, but before I got hired. Only really a few lines of work for a guy like me, you know?"

[aleister_author]

"Not a lot of call for that astrophysics degree?"

[mnt_raph]

Raph grins.

"Hey, economy's tough out there for everyone."

[aleister_author]

Tyler grins back.

"Ain't that the truth."

"Well, it's got to be good for someone here. Cross section of the multiverse, right?"

[mnt_raph]

"Think she's the one who makes out best in all o' this," he says giving Bar a pat.

[aleister_author]

"Wouldn't surprise me, agrees Tyler, "Pretty sure I read somewhere that the biggest fortune that got made during the gold rush was a guy who sold trail rations and gold pans."