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That red and white dog is hanging around the bar again, and Mark has still yet to see any sign of the animal's owner. But he's wearing a collar, and he's actually red and white instead of brown and more brown, so somebody's taking care of him.

But he looks awfully bored and lonely, so Mark decides to play with him a little bit. He digs a small mirror out of his bag, so the dog can chase the reflections around. It's difficult to keep him off the tables, but he mostly manages.

Until he doesn't. The dog spots the reflection up on the ceiling, and it's a quick hop onto a table, and then another tall leap and...

"Crap," Mark says, quickly putting the mirror away. He's managed to get a stranger's dog stuck up in the rafters. The dog really doesn't seem to want to be there either, but it also doesn't seem very keen on jumping back down.

A little help?

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"How the hell did you do that?" Bernard asks, ignoring the big hairy ghost that only he can see to his left.

"I... don't know?" Mark says.

But he did. And now he has to fix it.

"Come here, bud," he says, trying to coax the dog closer. The dog doesn't seem very sure on its feet, and acts like it might fall over at any moment, so Mark tries to make sure he's underneath the animal as much as possible.

"Well if he got up there, presumably he can get down." Bernard says.

The dog seems to disagree. Mark sighs and decides to get to work.

"Here, hold this," he says, handing over his backpack. After a moment's thought, he takes the machete off his belt and hands that over as well. "And this."

No sense in anybody getting hurt on it if he falls over, or the dog lands funny.

He grabs the table the dog hopped off of and moves it more underneath the beam, so he can climb up onto it as well.

Bernard does so.

"Why don't you put a mattress under him or something?"

"He'd still probably break his legs," Mark says. He climbs up onto the table, but he still can't quite reach the dog without grabbing at it precariously.

"Big scrawny dogs that are nothing but leg sometimes have that problem."

"Make him a little harness?" Bernard asks, with the breeze of someone who can suggest things when it isn't actually their problem.

Mark gives him an annoyed look as he tries to reach up to get the dog. "Come here, bub," he says, managing to grab the dog by just above his elbow. It's enough to throw what little balance the dog had off, and knock him over. Even as Mark catches him, the dog squirms and thrashes until he's safely on the ground.

"Easy, bud. You're okay."

The dog disagrees and runs away.

Bernard actually looks mildly impressed that both Mark and the dog didn't go splat.

"Where is Wilford, anyway?"

Mark gets down and puts the table roughly back where he found it.

"That the guy's name?" he asks, pointing toward the direction where the dog ran off to.

"The dog's owner? Yeah." Bernard says.

Mark takes his pack and machete back, and puts them both back on.

"I've heard he's, uh. Not very friendly."

The dog seems friendly enough, but that's hardly a reliable indicator for the owner's behaviour.

Edited 2017-12-12 21:48 (UTC)

"Well let me put it this way." Bernard says. "If Father Christmas turns up with a pink moustache, the sack's probably full of doorknobs."

"He really dyes his moustache pink?" Mark asks, no longer able to keep that bit of confusion to himself. But everyone's mentioned it so far, so it's probably at least true that the man has a pink moustache.

"Presumably. Either that or it grows that way." Bernard says. "Anyway, you can't miss him."

"Huh."

Mark's pretty sure people don't naturally have pink hair.

"And he keeps it that way? He some kind of hipster?"

"The hell is a hipster?"

"You know. One of those people who think eight-dollar coffee and hundred-year-old hair styles are cool."

Everyone knows what hipsters are, surely.

"Who the hell pays eight dollars for coffee?" Bernard asks.

"Hipsters."

Duh.

"In what year is this?"

"I don't know. Like, twenty-ten?" Mark guesses.

That's the last year he remembers being able to count. It's definitely not 2010 anymore though.

"Ridiculous." Bernard says. "I don't even pay that much for wine."

"I see you've met Buster," says a young woman in jeans and a Christmas sweater. "I hope you didn't feed him anything because otherwise he's gonna rain down a storm of barf from up there."

Mark looks slightly more alarmed than he already is.

"Wait, what?"

It's a good thing he didn't have anything on hand to feed the dog, but who knows what it had been doing before he found it.

"Yeah, he has some kind of weird stomach issue, so if you feed him regular dog food or something he blows prodigious chunks. I found that out the hard way."

Also about the jumping

"Oh. Great." Mark does not sound like he thinks this is great. He sounds like he just messed up royally.

"Is this normal too?" he asks, pointing up at the dog that's growing closer and closer to panic with each passing moment.

"For Buster? Yeah, I think. He's done this before, but with a tree."

She's trying to think of the best way to coax him down. It might not be possible without Pinkstache to assist.

Mark sighs. Somehow, he's not surprised.

"Well, guess I should get him down."

He takes off his bag, and after a moment's thought, takes the machete off his belt as well. The dog got up there with the table, so that's probably the best way to get him down.

"Know any tips?" he asks as he drags the table into a better position for dog-wrangling.

"You're doing okay so far. But last time he did this, his owner was around to talk him down."

She looks at the machete with mild interest, but of course she isn't dumb enough to touch it.

"I don't think I want him here, after everything I've heard about him."

He gets up onto the table and tries to reach the dog. All he can reach from here are those skinny little dog legs, and he doesn't want to break one of them.

"Come here, bub. It's okay."

Buster acts like he'd rather be running away, but doesn't know how.

"If you try to pull him you'll freak him out. Just get ready to catch him," YT says. "Buster! Hey, Buster, you kinda screwed up there, huh? It okay. You jumped up. You can jump down. C'mon, Buster."

She addresses the dog in a friendly and encouraging voice she almost never uses with, like, people.

Buster whines pathetically at his predicament.

“Catch me if I fall,” Mark says nervously as he reaches up for the dog. He can just about grab near Buster’s elbow, which is enough to startle him off balance. There’s a flurry of long legs and thrashing tail and Mark manages to guide his fall in the right direction. But 50 pounds of trashing dog is pretty heavy, and it’s almost enough to make him lose his balance as well.

“Easy, bud! You’re okay,” he says, trying to get down without getting either of them hurt.

"I'll take him," YT says, standing by the table with her arms out.

She looks small, but she can handle a 50-pound dog.

Mark hands him down as well as he’s able under the circumstances. “Got him?”

If all the things that could have possibly happened today, rescuing a dog from the rafters wasn’t one he’d anticipated.

YT takes hold of Buster like she's done this before. She has, with her poodle Stella, although not lately.

"I'm good," YT says, before gently lowering Buster to the floor. She pets him to calm him down - he still seems freaked out from his traumatic (self-imposed) experience.

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