whiskey guardian angel

On occasion, Bex gets to whatever bar she chooses for the day early to make nice with the bartender. If she’s going to be prowling around looking for possible borrowers, it’s beneficial to be a friendly face. Technically, what she was doing was good for both parties. Bex gets to talk someone into a quick under-the-table loan that they won’t really pay back, and whoever is bartending at the moment gets extravagant tips from someone who doesn’t really understand the consequences of spending that money.

She considered herself quite the sweet talker when she needed to be, and it was a skill she readily employed. It didn’t hurt that quite often the bartenders were easy on the eyes and fun to throw casual flirts around with. Not that she’d get too distracted by a pretty face. A pretty wallet was much more appealing.

Tonight, it seems, Hops was bartending. Typically their schedules didn’t align, and the two of them were more like vaguely friendly passing ships in the night. They hadn’t had a real conversation, mostly just Bex ordering drinks. But Bex liked the bun well enough, and found her frequent stumblings a bit cute. 

Hops putters around behind the bar, holding a platter with two glasses and a whiskey bottle on it with one hand. She’s talking to whoever the whiskey seems to be for, unaware of the wobbling happening on top of her platter. 

Bex approaches the counter, sliding onto a stool and resting her elbows on the counter. The whiskey glass slides, clacking against the edge of the platter. Hops still doesn’t notice. The bartending bun chats happily with the customer, leaning over to grab a thing of prepackaged chips from under the table. As she does, the trap tilts and topples.

“Watch it there,” Bex says, leaning over the bar to tilt the drink tray back up. “Don’t want to go dropping that, do we?”

“Waagh!” Hops startles, somehow not expecting another voice in the place of business where people typically are. She topples to the ground herself, and Bex barely manages to grab onto the whiskey bottle before the whole thing goes down.

The bottle survives, but the two glasses do not. They shatter to the ground besides where Hops is already crumpled to the floor.

“Noo….” she moans from the floor. “Not again…” 

“You alright, Hops? I would be careful moving around,” Bex peers over the counter, sitting the whiskey bottle down on the bar. “Do you have a dustpan somewhere?”

“... near the other edge of the bar…”

“Alright, I’ll grab it for you. Careful where you put your hands,” Bex stands, going over to grab the broom. The patron that ordered the whiskey seems unwilling to get himself in this social situation, and he simply exits the bar. She does have to admire his ability to hit the bricks so quickly. 

“Thank you….” Hops replies from her unmoving place on the floor. 

She returns as quickly as she can, inviting herself behind the counter to begin gathering up broken glass around Hops. They were small glasses, so luckily there’s not a ton of glass shards. Still, it takes a decent amount of time. The entire time, Hops just lays on the floor looking sorry for herself. 

Finally, it’s cleared enough. “You can probably move now, but careful,” Bex offers a hand down, and pulls Hops into standing. “Luckily, it doesn’t look like you missed any customers. Slow night so far.”

“Unluckily, those were really nice shot glasses…” Hops complains, but her mood already seems to begin to recover. “Well, at least you caught the whiskey! That would have been real bad. That stuff is like, at least a hundred carats. Thanks, Miss…” She trails off, raising an eyebrow. It seems that Bex had kept better track of bartender names than Hops has of thousands of customers. She can’t particularly blame her.

“I’m Bex,” she says, forgoing the handshake to hand the whiskey back. “Great to meet you formally, though I do think it may have been a greater meeting for you than for me. A hundred carat sort of meeting.” She grins playfully, sliding herself back onto the stool.

“Well, no promises about a hundred carats worth of repayment,” Hops says, grabbing another glass from the counter. “But how about a free drink? I’m already in the hole, might as well double down. What will it be?”

“I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness, but I will absolutely take a free drink,” Bex says. She calculates, and decides not to just immediately order her high-price regular. “How about your choice? Make me something pretty.”

“Roger roger, captain!” Hops gives a small goofy salute for some reason, and Bex chuckles.

The bartender gets to work, mixing all sorts of things into all sorts of things. Bex sorts of loses herself in it, having no clue what the hell she’s making. Certainly looks interesting though. There’s barely any patrons in the bar for now, so it’s not like she’s losing anything by staring.

Hops is humming a small tune to herself, and Bex leans her elbows on the bar and rests her chin on her knuckles. If the stirrings about Hops massive debt to the matron of this casino and bar were true, Bex understood a little more about Angora not wanting to let this one go. She’s certainly fun. If she wanted to be kicked out of the Rabbit Hole, Hops would be the kind of person she’d typically do her whole pitch to. But she’s sure Angora won’t take kindly to that sort of edging into her territory. Going toe-to-toe with the overseer of gambling in a loan competition was just stupid.

Bex’s eyeline is interrupted by Hops proudly presenting the concoction. “Peach Hellini, all yours! You look like a bun to like Peach Hellini’s.” 

She takes it, sampling a small sip. “Pretty good,” she comments. Wow, drinking alcohol below Clawdka proof could actually taste good. She forgot about that. Her next sip is perhaps a bit too eager, and Hops gets this endeared look on her face that Bex instinctively balks a bit at. No, she would rather not be considered ‘cute’ or ‘endearing’.

“Well, you have to quality control it, right?” She offers the glass back towards Hops. “How else are you going to be sure that I’m telling the truth?”

Hops laughs, but doesn’t hesitate to pick the glass up from her. “If you insist,” she says, taking a deep swig from it. Luckily for her, the only customer really paying attention to her in the bar right now is Bex. “I’d agree on the verdict of pretty good. Now c’mon, the rest of of it’s yours. Otherwise I’m not paying off my debt very well.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Bex chuckles and takes the drink. Paying off her debt indeed. She readjusts in the stool, angling to see both the door and Hops. “By the way, you mind me sticking around and doing some business in here?”

“Well, if you have anything fun, you have to offer some to me first,” Hops jokes. “Otherwise, just don’t stop people from gambling and there won’t be any issue. People love doing business here.”

“It’s a good place,” Bex replies. “A nice little hotspot of people with heavy pockets and heavy hearts.”

“Oh, heavy pockets and heavy hearts! That’s a fun little saying,” Hops compliments, busying herself with reorganizing some bottles. “Well, if you need any refills on the Hellini…”

“No, I couldn’t take advantage, like I said,” Bex replies, swirling the Hellini around in her hand. “But I’ll probably ask you for some Clawdka’s later.”

“So you’re a Clawdka bun! That makes sense, that makes sense. Well, I’ll be here!” Hops says, eyeing up a customer that seems to be approaching from the other side of the bar. “If my whiskey-guardian angel decides to bless me with another save, I’ll throw in a free Clawdka as well, hm?”

“No arguments here,” Bex says.

It was shaping up to be a pretty good night. All she needs now is a couple Hops-like buns to walk through that bar door and get real desperate for a few more carats. Then it would be perfect.

She takes a huge gulp of the Peach Hellini.