crypticpieces
Planetoid
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2014
![SjLKGDG.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/SjLKGDG.jpg)
The inside of the Last Call was dimly lit, with lamps casting an amber glow around the space. Walls of posters, faded, peeling, and overlaid on top of each other like a DIY nightmare acted as decor. From somewhere within the dimness, likely tucked into a corner, was a jukebox that hadn’t been updated since the 90s, still demanding quarters and playing the same set of songs for anyone foolish enough to feed it. Most people didn’t bother seeking it out. Instead, music was dictated by the bartender of the night. In this instance, it was a curvy redheaded woman named Maxine, who enjoyed an aggressive clashing of country and rock.
Three members of the Brotherhood were currently occupying a high-top that wobbled to the right if leaned on too hard. Each was perched on a barstool, drinks at various levels of finished. “It’s your turn,” the woman with magenta-dyed hair declared. Suri was a short, slight woman with noticeably sharp features. A quick glance might suggest that a stiff wind could knock her over and that she spent her time seeking spiritual harmony, but Suri was quick and steady, meticulous, and opposed to spirituality of any kind.
“The fuck it is,” Kieran argued. Kieran was a formidable wall, all bulk muscle from working as a contract logger and fighting things that would rather eat him. He typified a hunter, following function over form: ripped jeans that weren’t a fashion statement but a product of working and shirts he didn’t mind wrecking. “Even if it were, that fucking woman…” He turned his head as though he’d look over at said woman, but the gesture went uncompleted. “She’s got it out for me.”
A vaguely amused smile appeared on Liam as he looked over at Maxine who happened to be the woman in question. Maxine was oblivious, going about her work and watching a game of pool taking place in the back of the bar. Suri’s eyes rolled back into her head. “Jesus, here we go,” she grumbled. “Not wanting to hop on your dick isn’t ‘having it out for you,’ you walnut.”
The unexpected insult, if grabbing a noun to use as an insult like it was a Madlib counted as an insult, made Liam laugh. “Fine. I’m going,” he said as he left his seat and Kieran looked on the verge of saying something outrageous. “I want it noted that it isn’t my turn. You owe me.” Liam, who dressed as though he’d never gotten into any trouble in his life by wearing button-down shirts and vests, intentionally shoulder checked Kieran. Of course, the man didn’t move, but he grinned all the same to get away with not having to approach the bartender again.
Shaking his head in mock disapproval at the struggle of the man who was about a decade his senior, Liam leaned his forearms on the bar, hands clasped in front of him. “Hey, Maxine. How’s it going?”
The redheaded woman turned her gaze toward the question. “Same as every other night.” That was the nice part of being in a quiet little town where nothing ever happened. Too much happened outside; the world was too wild. This place was blissfully predictable. “You three staying a little longer?”
Liam grinned. “Yeah, I suppose. Same as before?”
“Sure, kid.” Maxine was already pulling three freshly cleaned glasses, which were not all of the same size or type.
It was part way through Maxine pouring the first drink that the crack of something made its way through the muffled air of the bar. All at once, Maxine slammed the glass down on the bar with a curse, Kieran was calling Liam’s name, and Liam was turning to see what had happened. As best he could tell, the game of pool had gone sideways, which prompted the loser to break the stick of the winner over the man’s head in the worst type of congratulations. In short order, the men were in a fist fight and knocking into others who were just drunk enough to feel like they had something to prove.
This activity drew Kieran who was more fight than he was human, which pulled Suri along out of a sense of obligation, but not before she was slamming the rest of her drink. She scooted out of her seat and hopped over someone who went skidding across the floor in front of her.
It took no time at all for the whole bar to be involved and those who didn’t want to be were dodging their way toward the door. Looking back to Maxine, Liam shrugged one shoulder at her. “Same as every other night, right?” Mazine looked ready to murder every person in the bar, her face flushed.
Liam had time to turn, register that someone was trying to take a swing at him, and lean back. His response to the hostility was to use the momentum his attacker had already provided to bring the man’s head down into the bartop, making the glass Maxine had set down nearby jitter. Afterward, the black-haired man took the time to roll up his sleeves because as his typical attire indicated, he wasn’t a fighter. He could, but his specialty was elsewhere.
Liam got his second sleeve up right when he felt the blinding white crack of being hit in the face. It threw him sideways into the bar, but he had the presence of mind to push off, grabbing Maxine’s half-full glass, and ducking as he twisted away. The whole movement gave him time to find the source: a man in a blue and black flannel, with a face like a potato. Liam lobbed the glass at him, which was close enough to make his attacker duck and feel cocky enough to grin when it shattered behind him. The potato didn’t expect a punch to immediately follow his short-lived victory, and he went careening backward, knocking into the wall and bouncing off a table he nearly upended. He’d be back, but only after he regained whatever sense he had left.
Maxine had slammed a bat down on the bar, and while she was holding it firmly, she was on the line explaining to the police that “...another God damned fight’s broken out down at the Last Call.” Kieran barged by with a flailing, lanky man in a headlock, dragging him bodily toward the door. Amidst the chaos, Suri was too hard to see on the floor, but she’d hopped up on the pool table and was wielding a broken pool stick and kicking back anyone that thought they were going to take her high ground.