Astro Gets A Job, Kind Of

Astro could admit easily that he just wasn't the best at certain things... well, he could admit it to himself. As far as everyone else should be aware, he's perfectly capable of doing anything and everything with natural talent.

Except Hops. She would probably beg to differ after their multiple drinking sessions, most of which were while she was still on the clock, which means she was a perfectly good bartender to complain to.

Unfortunately their last drinking session ended with some shattered bottles, which would usually just be annoying and maybe a little dangerous, but those bottles had still been full, which meant Astro now had a debt to pay off and he wasn't about to actually fork over any of his (hard earned and honest, thank you very much) carats, so now he got to work alongside Hops, although luckily his debt wasn't nearly as big as hers.

Although it technically wasn't his shift yet, he had to come in early to actually learn how to make the drinks he's going to be serving for the next couple months.

Surely he'd manage. It would basically be chemistry but less dangerous, right? And he's done chemistry before. Sure, it hadn't really gone well the first couple times, but vodka typically doesn't explode when exposed to air and he's almost certain the bar wouldn't have gas taps to forget to turn off. He’d never been behind a bar before, so it’s not like he actually knows what goes on back there. Yet.

Astro managed to get through the back door and into uniform without much fanfare, although he had to catch himself against the changing room walls a couple times trying to get the shoes on- he's thankful he managed to negotiate getting smaller heels than Hops, just looking at her shoes made his feet hurt, no wonder she keeps dropping everything, he barely managed to keep balance with regular sneakers on, and he’s already slowly realising he may spend more time at the Rabbit Hole than Angora had originally planned.

Eventually making his way over to the bar after only getting distracted by about seven different things and tripping over a wire, Astro smiled and gave a small wave to Hops as she beckoned him over, a selection of bottles gathered on the counter in front of her. A quick catch-up later and Hops started instructing him on making what she thought would be the easiest first drink.

"So, usually I'd say the Sin and Tonic is easiest, but I know you make coffee a lot, so an Iris Coffee would probably be more ideal, since it's just coffee with liquor"

"Oh thank the demons, I was expecting you to say I need to do something, like, I don’t know, accurately mix five drinks then shake them at just the right speed for like, two minutes and twelve seconds exactly"

"That's for the more complex drinks"

"What"

"So first, you know how to use a coffee machine, we have these beans-"

Having made plenty of his own coffee at home, Astro found the process of an Iris Coffee quite easy, managing to only nearly spill the entire thing as he brought it to the bar counter and carefully balanced himself to fill the rest of the partially empty glass with enough alcohol to make anyone with a below-average tolerance fall flat.

Hops gave him a little round of applause, and announced that next was a Sin and Tonic.

...About an hour and a half later, the good news was that Astro was in fact capable of mixing most of the drinks. The bad news was he was now tipsy for his first day on the job and still had a shattered glass to clean up from when he nearly twisted his ankle because his foot decided it felt like going sideways instead of down as he was about to try putting together a Peach Hellini.

...Well, it's not like he had much else to do most days anyway, he could manage a little more debt.