Caritas, Wednesday [01/09].

[not_a_bird]

"Ooh. Oh. Uh. Hey, Tiiiiino?" Sweet Dee, bewildered, stood in front of the drafts with a pint glass and a confused look on her face, and she turned to the other bartender and held up what had poured out of the spout for him to see. It was not at all the pilsner she had expected to pour, but something dark and red and easily recognizable as wine. "That's not normal...is it?"

Something like that had probably happened before, sure, and normal around here was a very relative term, but he agreed that it was at least unexpected, especially since checking the kegs and the lines revealed that everything seemed to be beer up until the point where it was actually poured. And when Sweet Dee asked if they should be worried or have someone come check it out, Tino just shrugged like it didn't matter. And since he had seniority over her by a long shot, she figured any blame for the situation could be foisted on him without any real effort on her part, except maybe to play up the wide-eyed newbie (with fifteen years of experience) a little.

So Sweet Dee just shrugged as well, continued to fill up the pint glass with a nice cabernet to sip on and appreciate the fact that it was actually pretty good, too, and it solved at least one potential problem for her evening as well.

Because let's see some stupid fancyboy bitches complain about the head on her beer now.

[[ open! ]]

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[built_fjord_tough]

Already well-versed in Seivarden's gift for hyperbole, Fjord had decided to take it upon himself to make a stop by Caritas today, introduce himself to the new bartender, get an idea of what the hell Seivarden's idea of 'all foam' even meant.

This was probably not going to go according to plan.

"Evening," he said pleasantly as he slid onto a stool at the bar. "You must be the new bartender. I'm Fjord."

Pronounced like the trjuck.

[not_a_bird]

'All foam' in this case was actually 'half foam,' and Sweet Dee had been pretty proud of it, too, so, yeah, that guy could go eat a dick.

This guy, meanwhile...

"Oof," said Sweet Dee, once she took a moment to consider the lighting in here, to consider her pint of wine, to determine that, nope, not her eyes playing tricks on her, this dude was green. "What the hell happened to you?"

Sure, Sweet Dee had acknowledged the fact that there were blue people and green people, shark people and cat people, people on fire and people who were not actually crackheads but were actually zombies, here, but this was her first time ever being confronted with it so far.

"Whatever it is," she added, "it better not be contagious, because I do not have health insurance."

Big old government scam, really.

"What'd'you need?" she asked then, remembering that she was here to kind of do a job and stuff.

[built_fjord_tough]

"I promise," Fjord said, after a brief pause, his tone only slightly dry, "you won't catch a case of half-orc. I'm well past the point of being contagious."

Because he never had been.

"And I'll have a beer, if you would."

[not_a_bird]

Sweet Dee didn't look too terribly convinced, but she wasn't about to make a big deal about it. She'd probably been exposed to worse at Paddy's, anyway.

"It's just bottles and cans tonight," and thank God; having decent taps was turning out to be more trouble than they were worth so far. "Anything we try to pour just comes out at wine."

It was...not a problem she minded having. As both bartender and consumer.

[built_fjord_tough]

Fjord blinked, slightly taken aback.

"Comes out wine?"

He was looking speculatively at the taps, now,

"Well... I suppose that's better than eggnog."

This place.

[not_a_bird]

"Eggnog?"

It turned out, Sweet Dee was actually pretty good at emoting...so long as she wasn't actually trying to emote, because that look on her face was the perfect blend of disgust and intrigue, as appropriate to something that sounded so disgusting and yet so amazing.

She, too, eyed the taps speculatively a moment before hitching a thumb toward them and asking, "So they do things like this often?"

That...could explain why Tino seemed to unperturbed. Sweet Dee had just assumed he was just an apathetic asshole.

And this...could also be a great line to build for any future complaints. It's out of my hands, man, it's just these stupid taps!

[built_fjord_tough]

"These taps, the taps in people's homes," Fjord confirmed. "If it runs liquid, on occasion it'll do something... odd."

He considered her for a moment, and then said, "You know what, forget the beer entirely. I'll have a whiskey. Neat."

He wasn't actually the ale person he liked to let people believe around here, so sue him.

[not_a_bird]

"I know for a fact the taps in my apartment weren't pouring wine," Sweet Dee noted, sounding like this slight was a personal affront.

But whiskey she could do, especially neat, and she nodded as she turned and...

...oh, right. This was a nice bar, with nice things, and more than just the cheapest whiskey and a bottle of top shelf stuff that was actually just filled with the cheapest whiskey.

She had...a lot of sampling she needed to do.

"Any preference?" she asked.

[built_fjord_tough]

"Shame about your taps, then. Might as well take advantage of it here while you're paying beer prices for the wine, hm? As for me..."

Fjord glanced at the selection himself, and then hiked up one large green shoulder.

"Learned the hard way that fire whiskey here isn't the same thing it is back home," not that he minded the cinnamon flavoring it had here, but it hadn't been what he'd been expecting in the least when he'd bought some before. "Might as well just stick to something basic. Jack Daniel's? Tennessee Rye?"

He had no idea what a 'Tennessee' was, but it sure sounded damn good in that accent.

[not_a_bird]

Maybe that's why Sweet Dee went with the Tennessee Rye. Maybe it was just because it was closer. It was probably the latter, really, but in short order, Fjord had himself an honestly generous pour (Dee served like she drank, really, and this was a woman drinking wine from a pint glass over here, she didn't need to be told to take advantage of anything), with a coaster underneath.

Because this was a nice bar.

"There you go," she said. Which was about as much flair as she had to offer.

[built_fjord_tough]

Fjord gave an approving nod, reaching for that glass with a satisfied look on his face.

Whatever Seivarden's complaint had been, she clearly hadn't ordered the right drink.

"Much appreciated," he said, lifting his glass to her with a pleasant little smile and a bow of his head before taking a mouthful.

See? A more than decent portion of exactly what he'd asked for. Her opening line when he'd come in could have used some work, but her bartending skills seemed up to snuff where he was sitting.

"So," he said, content to settle in with his drink. "How's the island treating you so far?"

[not_a_bird]

Wait, so he didn't want to just sit there and drink in some sort of morose silence? Well, that was different. And weird. And Sweet Dee was just going to look mildly disturbed about it for a moment.

"Fine," she said, almost cautiously. "It's fine. I teach all of three students first thing in the morning on Mondays."

And she had barely left her apartment since she got here.

Aaaand this was a bar where people apparently tried to talk to bartenders.

"It's great." Sweet Dee smiled with every one of her teeth and all of her eyebrows. "Really...great. But, hey! You know what? There's actually..." Her words got progressively more cheerful and forced as she went on, "something...that I need to do...over there!" She laughed a little, shaking her head, oh so regrettably, and thought to herself that she should probably come up with a better excuse than that when she needed to make a hasty exit out of a weird situation around here, but so far, it'd been working like a charm, so...

"Part of the job, y'know. Arrrggh." She threw a little frustrated sound in with another awkward laugh. "But, hey, if you need anything, you just...let me know."

If Sweet Dee put even half as much energy into actually talking to people as she did avoiding talking to people, she might actually be somewhat decent at this. But, since that was never going to happen, she was just going to go ahead and try to tend to the completely made-up thing she had to do at the other end of the bar, hitting Tino with a what the hell is up with this guy? look as soon as she turned.

[built_fjord_tough]

And Fjord sat there in bemused silence as he witnessed what he could only describe as a slow descent from social awkwardness clear into madness and then back again.

He was also giving Tino that look, yes. And then shaking his head, knocking back his drink in one swift go - drank like a saillor, this one, funny that - and standing to leave before that could get to him.

So much for the benefit of the doubt.

"Fair enough. I had somewhere I needed to be."

He did not. But if her reasons for getting weird about it were anything like her opening line might have suggested, he probably didn't want to stay for long anyway. Drinking around bigots always brought out the worst in him.

Without another word, he waved to Tino to put the whiskey on his tab, and the headed for the door.