Luke's, Monday

[vdistinctive]

The dishwasher was dressed as a pirate. The cook was wearing a black and white striped shirt, a beret, and a pencil-thin mustache. The busboy stood between the two men as they faced off, wearing what looked like an antebellum ballgown, his gloved hand pressed dramatically to his forehead.

Eliot ignored all three of them, still focused almost entirely on his phone.

"Hey!" one of the waitstaff called. "I think the butcher's here!"

Eliot leaped up from his seat, nearly knocking it over. Which was a nice trick, considering that stool was bolted to the floor. "Where?!"

". . . The back door?" the waiter said, backing up slowly. "He wants you to sign for the ten pound buck the cook ordered."

Eliot was going to end up killing everyone who worked here. And it wouldn't even be because they finally annoyed him into it.

Today's specials
Braised venison with rosemary and shittake
Spinach salad with orange vinaigrette
New England apple cider cake

Luke's was open and OCD free.

Comments

[fjordicswagger]

"Hey, Spencer," Tamsin called. Upon entry, not at any particular time she might have actually spotted Eliot. She just figured he was here. "You still owe me booze!"

And she'd just run out, which was why she'd remembered about it.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot blinked at her without comprehension for a moment, then rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You know I live next door to you, right?" Also, hadn't it been most of a year? "What'll you have then? We've got . . . beer. And I've got some whiskey in the office."

[fjordicswagger]

"Beer's fine," Tamsin said. (If it had had anything to do with the actual type of booze, rather than her just deciding to be a pain in the ass, she might have gone for the whiskey. But nope.) "Why does your staff look like they just peed themselves?"

[vdistinctive]

Because Eliot could be kind of terrifying.

"Because they're a bunch of pansies," Eliot said, reaching for the beer cooler set into the lunch counter. "How much booze you figurin' I owe ya? You're not chargin' me interest, are you?"

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin shot him an offended look.

"Of course I am," she said. "I'm the Mayor."

She still would even if she'd still been a cop. Valkyries weren't big on laws that weren't martial.

[vdistinctive]

Yeah, that didn't actually automatically follow in Eliot's head. But he wasn't really going to try arguing with someone like Tamsin.

He was tempted to offload some of the extra stock of "thief juice" on her, though.

"Alright then, Madam Mayor. Coupla six-packs do you, then?"

Honestly, as far as he remembered, he'd mostly drunk Vic and Pam's booze that night. Of course, Pam's booze amounted to an entire bottle of absinthe, so his memory wasn't really to be trusted.

[fjordicswagger]

There had been precious little booze in the house that was Tamsin's at the time. That's why she'd held a BYOB party to begin with. But she wasn't about to remind Eliot any.

"Coupla six-packs is fine," she said, idly mimicking Eliot's twang for a second. "What's up with you?" she added, mostly as an afterthought. "Besides dealing with these idiots."

She didn't know the staff. She didn't care.

[vdistinctive]

"Nothin'," Eliot said automatically, then growled faintly at himself. It wasn't as though anyone would buy that. He pulled out two six-packs of local microbrews, one full of ales, the other lagers, and set them on the counter for her. "Got somethin' I'm keeping an eye on on the mainland. Old enemy of mine's rumored to be comin' into town, but he hasn't shown his face yet."

It was making him very twitchy.

[fjordicswagger]

"Oh, one of those," Tamsin said, pulling a face. She reached out to pry a bottle out of the packaging. Just any at random. "Blah blah old archenemy blah blah playing games blah blah cliché. That's always a pain in the ass." She lifted her chin. "Anything we need to worry about?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot shook his head. "I know better'n to bring my business to the island." If any of his enemies found out about Portalocity -- well, that'd be bad. "And I wouldn't call the Butcher and archenemy. Just a pain in my ass."

[fjordicswagger]

"Oh god, 'the Butcher'?" More face-pulling. "There's just no originality these days."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot snorted. He'd never have admitted it to Kathy when she was making light of the whole thing last week, but he rather agreed. "Not among the Ukranians, anyway."

[fjordicswagger]

"At least in ye olden days they tried to keep it exciting," Tamsin said. "Y'know, Eric Bloodaxe, Swyen Forkbeard... okay, there were a lot of guys called Ironside or Axe-something, I'll give them that."

Not that she knew this by experience or anything.

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah," Eliot said. "I've met enough guys who think they're modern day vikings. They're never half as creative in a fight as they think they are with their names."

[fjordicswagger]

"The modern day ones are just white power freaks trying to make themselves feel good," Tamsin said. She snagged her key ring out of her pocket and took the lid off the beer. "Not a single real warrior among that bunch. Don't really know the Ukranians, though."

[vdistinctive]

"Butcher's their top enforcer," Eliot said. "Good enough in a fight -- gives me a run for my money if I ain't careful -- but I don't know if that'd make him a 'warrior' or not."

It wasn't a word Eliot tended to use, anyway. Most folks who described themselves that way were, in his experience, as bad as the ones who thought they were vikings.

[fjordicswagger]

When 'taking true warriors to Valhalla' was pretty much your species' job description, sometimes you slipped in the modern vocabulary department. Oh well.

"I dunno," Tamsin said, giving a shrug. "I've never seen you fight. Or do anything besides barge into parties without a gift for the hostess."

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, well, I was a little distracted that week." What with knowing for a fact that Hardison and Parker were around and having sex without him. And not being willing to admit to himself yet how much that bothered him. "I promise not to do it again."

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin took a swig off the beer and took a second to contemplate the taste.

"You're forgiven," she said, putting the bottle down in front of her. "So what's the story with this guy, anyway? You can pretend I do or don't care if you want, whatever works."

[vdistinctive]

"Ain't much of a story," Eliot said with a shrug. "One of the students has been workin' in Baltimore, fancyin' herself a superhero. Caught the eye of the Ukranian mob, they called in the Butcher. I've taken him out a coupla times already, and I'm gettin' kind of sick of it. So this time I'm finishin' the job."

There was more to it than that, of course. Mostly the fact that Eliot absolutely had started looking on the student in question like a daughter and bristled like hell when she was threatened. But that was the gist.

[fjordicswagger]

Meh, sentimental stuff. Tamsin wasn't good with that crap anyway.

"Sometimes I think we should put a curfew on these kids," Tamsin said. But then she usually remembered she didn't care all that much. (Or didn't want to and was succeeding at that.) "But if you can knock 'em out, shouldn't be too hard to just put a knife between the ribs or something."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was surprised despite himself at her speaking so plainly about it. Sure, she always struck him as the sort who'd be able to do it, but she was the mayor.

Actually, a bit of ruthlessness was probably an advantage in a mayor in this town.

He nodded. "That's generally the plan," he said, then gave her a bit of side-eye. "The Butcher, mind you. Not the kid."

Just to be clear.

[fjordicswagger]

"No, the kid, you'd just knock out and drop off to cool their heels in a cell at the Sherriff's office," Tamsin said, rolling her eyes. "Obviously."

All would probably make more sense if she was more forthcoming about the Valkyrie thing, but nope.

[vdistinctive]

". . . Would be harder for her to get out of than just tyin' her to a chair," Eliot admitted.

Pray for the youth of Fandom.

"Ain't stickin' a knife in her ribs though."

[fjordicswagger]

More eyerolling. "No, because then I'd have to lock you in jail, bonehead, and that would be even more of a pain in the ass than anything we've just talked about," she said, taking another swig of her beer. "Chair's not good enough for these kids, though. Knock 'em out, put them behind bars, maybe knock them out again, just to be sure. There's too much stupid in there."

She had never met Kathy. She just knew there was stupid.

[vdistinctive]

It wasn't as though Tamsin were wrong about that.

"Just makin' sure," Eliot said, pulling a beer of his own from the cooler and cracking it open. It wasn't as though one beer would make him less able to take the Butcher on, and he could use the moment to relax, if he was honest. "Ain't like this place runs on any of the usual laws." Of man or nature.

[fjordicswagger]

"My law is 'don't kill anyone on the island without letting me know'," Tamsin said dryly. "Murder investigations suck. But locking up teenagers, eh."

[vdistinctive]

"Will do," Eliot promised. ". . . That doesn't include the, uh. Dinosaurs and things when they're invadin', does it?"

Because that could be awkward.

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin was halfway through another mouthful of beer when he got that one out, so she had to scowl at him in lieu of talking for at least fifteen seconds. "Obviously that doesn't go for stuff that's trying to kill you," she said.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot smirked faintly. "Just makin' sure. Would hate to get back on your bad side."