A Round of Drinks - 7

Chapter 7

When he got up the next day, Travis found that Holly was long gone already, somehow.

She’d even tidied up after herself and all. The only signs that she’d been there at all were the slight scent of her perfume in his father’s bedroom and a small post-it she’d left on the small table by the kitchen. ‘Well… Hope you’re not off to get into trouble, Holly,’ Travis thought to himself, unsure of how to feel as he read the short message, barely more than a simple thank you, and the series of numbers that soon found itself added to his phone’s contact list.

She’d seemed genuinely concerned to find a place to stay the night, so he was, in turn, genuinely concerned for her wellbeing. But it wasn’t like he could do much by then, or even if he went out to find her. She was an adult and so was he and… None of them had ever done well when controlled. That ended badly, with people like them. Generally, that is.

‘Wonder if that place is still up,’ he thought idly, starting to prepare himself a simple breakfast and trying to find the will to go on with his day. Not a simple matter, but he was usually a full human being by noon. Good thing his working hours were what they were, he supposed, because he’d sucked on normal schedules. Maybe that was a remnant of working the bar with his father back in the day. Amongst… other things he’d done way back when.

He tried not to think about either too much.

‘Gotham’s being oddly welcoming,’ he thought to himself. Which for other people might have been crazy, considering someone had tried to mug him the previous day. Yet, Travis knew that for all the time he’d been around, that had been kind of a long time coming, really. It was kind of why he found himself somewhat pleasantly surprised, really.

He didn’t mean in regards to that though. His bar was doing well. Old family friends were still… well, old family friends. Even a friend of his had decided to give him another chance. Everything was going great as far as Travis was concerned. He thought he’d finally come full circle, back to Gotham where his life would finish crashing and burning… And instead he found himself doing better than ever.

‘Maybe you were the one with bad luck, old man,’ he thought to himself with a slight smile that he didn’t mean. No, he knew it’d been all him, after all. ‘Maybe my bad luck turned into good luck, finally?’ he wondered and that was a nice thought… Which obviously meant it had to go. That was the kind of thought that ended with you dead, or worse, in trouble. Which sounded very mild until one realized that it meant Gotham trouble.

Travis was no fool, much as the nickname had stuck.

Or, maybe it was better to say that he wasn’t as much of a fool.

Because somehow, someway, he found himself with the cards in his hands once more, shuffling them. ‘Reminds me of when I found them,’ he thought to himself. He’d never quite looked for them, used them, as much as when he’d first found them… until that point, at least. Although, it’d remain to be seen if he stuck to them for as long.

All the same, Travis dealt himself three cards, like always.

The Hermit. The Empress. The Magician.

‘Now this is a good reading,’ he thought to himself, eyebrows raising. His rotten luck had almost always carried to those cards. He only got good sets whenever he tried several times, to force the issue, or once in a blue moon. He was fairly certain they were tricked in some way, like weighted dice. They had to be, because it was impossible to get as many bad readings as he’d always gotten.

He just didn’t know how they could be, because he knew all the card tricks under the sun – or a fair amount of them, most likely –, but he’d never heard of cards that cheated on their own.

‘All the same…’ Travis thought, his index finger tapping under the middle card as he looked at them for a long moment. He pondered the possible meanings of all the cards, just like he’d done whenever he felt like doing an actual reading instead of just… using the cards for using the cards’ sake. He knew them, from the obvious to the abstract. He’d researched a lot, a child trying to feel closer to a parent that they didn’t know.

In the end, it was all useless. Just like the cards, it was a complete waste of time, he knew. He could be preparing for the day instead of being an idiot, a Fool. And yet, he found himself doing so anyway.

The Hermit fit. He’d seen a fair bit of that card throughout his life. The Empress could mean Holly, but that was a bit of a stretch, really. One that he found amusing, if nothing else. And then… The Magician.

‘... Yeah, if only,’ Travis thought with a roll of his eyes. ‘Resourcefulness, I guess. But then again, who in Gotham isn’t resourceful?’ You had to be, if you wanted to survive, after all.

So, he gathered the cards again, gave them a last shuffle because he could and set them inside the box, inside the storage.

It meant nothing, he knew, but it always made him feel better. Maybe it was a matter of having tried something, even if he didn’t think it’d work. That way, he could scratch a maybe from his mind, he could erase one of the options… and he could, hopefully, prevent a regret. Because he’d lived with a ton of those, so if he could spare himself one or two, he considered that a great deal.

Even if it made him look like a Fool.

He already was one anyway.

[}-o-{]

Travis proved once more why he’d been nicknamed as he had.

This time, he did so by purchasing a TV and getting it set up in a corner of the bar. He’d even gone the extra step and gotten access to a bunch of channels that showed sports, not just the usual sports either, but just about anything. Between that and maybe the news – if he was feeling like watching depressing shit –, it should allow the bar to be a little more lively and have background noise when it wasn’t.

The silence in slow days had worn him out, as it turned out. Being bored was a terrible thing for someone like Travis, and it was even worse for someone like Catherine. He also didn’t want to know what’d happen if Jason decided he wanted to do something interesting. So, for the sake of his bar and his peace of mind, Travis had decided that a sacrifice was in order.

That, and he guessed he’d been in a good mood, after finding Holly.

‘So much for saving,’ he thought, somewhat self-deprecatingly.

It probably said something about him that he didn’t even regret it too much. His savings for emergencies had suffered, of course, and he was a little nervous because he had been thinking a lot about when the other shoe would drop. All the same, he still found that he was fairly content with his purchase.

‘Here’s hoping I haven’t screwed myself over,’ he mused to himself, glancing at the TV every so often as he went about getting ready for the day to get started. He did so more calmly than a normal person would, but such was the way of Gotham. While the dread of future tragedies was always there, they’d all learned to live with it, much like one learns to live with back pain or ignore headaches.

Fortunately, he was spared of more unnecessary thinking when the bar’s door opened.

“Did you win the lottery, old man?” a voice immediately afterwards and he rolled his eyes, leaning forward and onto the counter of the bar. “Felt like showing off?”

“Felt like not being in silence with you in the room,” Travis said as Jason approached and took a seat across from him on a stool. Behind him, much slower and more subdued, came Catherine, carrying the tupperware container he’d given Jason. “Feeling alright?” he asked, as if she had called in sick before and not… What had happened.

“I… Yes, thank you,” she replied, rubbing her arm with her other hand and looking anywhere but at him. Not that Travis blamed her for being a little self-conscious and nervous. They barely knew each other, as it was, so it’d take a while before she realized that no, they really wouldn’t have a problem so long as she stuck with their deal.

“Don’t mention it,” he waved off, turning his attention towards Jason once more. “So, what’s it gonna be, little guy?” he asked. He paused to smile as the kid grumbled something under his breath before continuing. “What do you wanna watch? We can watch just about any sport you can think of and some that you can’t. There’s also regular TV, if you wanna watch cartoons,” he explained. He’d said that last part in order to tease Jason, and sure enough, the predictable little shit shot him a glare that was nothing to scoff at… if it weren’t for the pint-sized munchkin that was delivering it.

“Basketball?”

“Sure thing,” Travis replied with a shrug. He really didn’t care. Although- “I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and say… Knights fan?” he asked, knowing very well that Jason looked anything but a Knights fan. The Gotham Knights were, after all, the Gotham sports equivalent to Bristol Township or Gotham Heights. Those were for the rich, or even for those that didn’t have trouble making ends meet.

And if he knew anything about those that weren’t included in that, it was that they tended to hate those that didn’t struggle like them.

“Fuck that,” Jason cursed, proving him right by pulling an expression as if he’d smelled something foul. “I like the Goliaths better.”

“Have you even watched a game in your life?” Travis asked, genuinely curious.

“No, but they are from around here. Good enough for me,” the boy said, half-desinterested and half still annoyed about the Knights thing. He was one of those, Travis realized. One of those people that resented those that had things easy. Or maybe he had other, better reasons to hate those of a higher standing. All the same, he saw many of his old… not quite friends, but acquaintances in the boy at that moment. Everyone that grew up in their neighborhood and those like it were bound to see many people like that, after all.

Not that most of the rich bastards didn’t deserve it, admittedly, since more often than not they all ended up stepping on those “lesser” than them. Maybe they did it knowingly, like the pieces of shit they could be, or maybe they did it unknowingly, because they were too shortsighted to see how their actions affected others. There were also those that did so because they had no other options, but Travis held no sympathy for them, because while they lamented their actions, they remained well, their lives went on. Something that couldn’t be said about those whose lives they ruined.

“Well, maybe actually watching sports will make you pick an actual favorite,” he commented with a grin. “Now, do you guys want anything to drink while we wait?” he asked, straightening where he stood and stretching a little. Someone was bound to walk in soon, but in the meantime, they had some time to kill. Might as well drink something instead of just standing around awkwardly and watching the TV like kids with uncaring parents.

“A soda,” Jason called and Travis stared at him until the kid turned towards him. Then he raised an eyebrow, making the boy narrow his eyes. “I’m not gonna say it.”

“Either you pay, or you say please, kid.”

“... I’ll pay,” he replied, stubbornly. Travis had expected that, but he still chuckled and shook his head. He was one with strong opinions, that boy. It’d get him in trouble someday, of that he was sure. But there would be no stopping that, unfortunately.

“What about you, Catherine?” he asked, turning towards the mother, who was still looking like a wet cat off to the side. She shuffled over to the counter too, looking like she was trying to make herself small enough that nobody would notice she existed. Rather hard to do though, with the bar empty and his attention on her already. He gave her an A for effort though. “You can leave that on the counter, by the way,” he added, waving towards the container in her hands.

“Thanks for the meal. I’ll pay for that too,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, but carrying a firmness that surprised him. Travis hadn’t thought she had that in her, at all. Maybe there was hope for her, if she could muster that kind of backbone. “And just water is alright.”

“Sure thing and it was no trouble,” he told her as casually as he could. Maybe that’d make her feel better. He didn’t need to tell her that he’d charge her less than the usual rate for the meal and she would never know, since he’d prepared something that wasn’t on the menu.

A moment later, he walked back to the counter with a soda and two glasses of water, together with some snacks because he felt like it.

It was… nice, he decided. He wouldn’t call the Todds friends, but it was nice to have friendly faces around often. Maybe Holly would start dropping by at some point, but for the moment… He felt like he was doing alright for himself.

‘The Hermit. The Empress. The Magician,’ he remembered absently while taking a gulp from his glass and keeping his eyes on the TV. ‘Something to think about,’ he mused, but for the moment, he had other things to focus on.

[}-o-{]

“Wow, this is surprisingly good, man,” the client in front of him said, almost in awe. Travis, for his part, just smiled wryly at the man. Either he was a few players short of a full team, or he was more drunk than he looked. Wouldn’t be the first time he had to deal with either an idiot or a lightweight, admittedly. And that was without even counting his time as a bartender.

“Happy to hear that.” ‘Even if I could do without the “surprisingly” part,’ he didn’t say. Although, he really was happy to hear that. It was always nice when someone tried out one of his “rare” options and liked it. He was keeping track of every opinion he could get to maybe knock down some of the less liked options and… Well, he didn’t know what he’d do with the good options, but maybe he could make combos or promotions or something.

They were his signature addition to the bar, after all, what made it different from his father’s – other than all the stuff that had been taken, of course – and he wanted to show it off to the world. Provided it did well, that is, but Travis was getting more and more optimistic in regards to that. People actually seemed to like most of them, by the looks of it, but then again, not a lot of people tried them, so that might be due to the small sample pool.

“Hope it helps,” he said, because it seemed to have been the case. The guy had entered the bar dragging his feet and a face as long as any Travis had ever seen. He’d been dumped, apparently, and the first place he came across to do something about his heartbreak was The Devil. Not what Travis would recommend, admittedly, but then again, he was a bartender, so it wasn’t like he was going to tell the man that.

He’d just have to make sure the man didn’t drink too much.

“Yeah… Yeah, I think it does,” the man said, some of his previous cheer replaced with a somewhat sad smile that clung to life despite the odds. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Travis said with a smile. “If you need anything, give me a call, alright?”

“Sure thing.”

And with that, he left to get back to preparing drinks and food. He didn’t often deliver the stuff himself, but he liked the personal touch when it came to the rare drinks. Beyond that, he did help out sometimes when the bar got crowded and Catherine got a little overwhelmed. Maybe once she got more used to things, she’d be able to manage on her own, but as it was, there was no need to throw her off the deep end.

Last thing he wanted to do was push her too much when she had better things to worry about, like trying not to take drugs.

A lost battle if there ever was one, but Travis found himself both hopeful and optimistic. Rare things, but he felt like that all the same. Maybe he just wished to see another successful story like there were few around. Or maybe he just wanted someone he could see himself being friends with get better. Most of all, he wished for Jason to have his mother, because the little guy clearly cared, even if he was shit at showing it.

Children often were like that with their parents, he would know.

He got along terribly with his own father, yet he found himself missing him sometimes. Beyond the memories of fights and… other things, Travis remembered good times. He’d look at something and his mind would conjure one of those rare moments when his father was… almost soft, when it was easier for him to show that he cared, when it was just love without the tough.

‘Focus, Travis,’ he told himself, turning back to what he was preparing and speeding up a little. He couldn’t afford to take a trip down memory lane at that moment. There was a business to run and money to be made, especially if he wanted to make up for that TV. Although, a week in and it was proving to be a good investment, if only for his own entertainment.

“Are you doing alright?” he asked, firstly to Jason, but he half-directed it to Catherine when the mother dropped a few things she’d brought from a table.

“I can do this much, old man,” the kid all but growled. The proud boy that he was, he seemed to take the task – and his words, probably – as a challenge of some sort, because he was very motivated. Maybe his mother had said something on the matter to spurn him on too. Travis thought all of that was likely, if anyone asked him.

“I-I can manage, Mr.- Travis,” the mother replied, stumbling on her words a little. She seemed a little nervous, but whether it was because she was lying and she lacked the confidence to deal with the bar as it was or because he’d asked her and she felt nervous about some non-existent scrutiny, Travis couldn’t rightfully guess. He decided to err towards the former anyway.

“I can help out. Nobody has asked for anything that requires too much work to prepare anyway, so I can tend a table or two… Leave this corner to me, alright? We can see how it goes from there,” he commented, waving his hand towards a spot where new people were waiting for their orders to be taken. Perfect for him to replace Catherine, rather than another table that already was being tended to.

“Thank you,” the woman said, deflating a little and giving him a weary, nervous smile that told him he’d guessed right. Always nice when that happened. Much better than the alternative, that was for sure.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, moving towards her to make it clear he wasn’t done. “Don’t be afraid to tell me if you need help, alright? Better that than the clients getting bad services, you know?” he told her, which was the complete truth of it, even if it wasn’t all of it. Not like he could tell her most of his other reasons without making things awkward though. They weren’t that close anyway. “Besides, you’re still learning. No pressure,” he added, before turning and going back to what he needed to do.

If he had to add waiting some tables on top of the rest, then he’d need to actually put more effort into it.

Maybe the Todds had been a blessing in disguise, because he doubted he could have pulled off quite as much work as he had during those first few weeks forever. Busy weekends would have already been a nightmare by himself, and that was with his batteries full. The more time passed, the less he could pull that off. So, having some extra hands around took a lot of the pressure off, even if he needed to help Jason wash stuff every so often and Catherine needed a hand waiting tables when it got really busy.

Better than being on his own.

In more ways than one would expect.

Still, he had to keep an eye out for Catherine. Not just in case she was overwhelmed, but in case someone came in looking like trouble. More than once he’d had to tell her to leave a client or some clients to him, just in case. Half the time it was unnecessary – or so it appeared –, but he was taking no chances. He knew Gotham probably hadn’t changed enough for him to not be justifiably paranoid. The lessons he’d learned when he was younger were still useful, by the looks of it.

Although, admittedly, it wasn’t always a serious kind of trouble that he spared her from. Sometimes it could just be a particularly rowdy group that might spook the already fairly nervous woman or something equally as harmless. She was still new to the job, so covering for her with some of the worst kind of clients was part of his attempts to ease her into things. Especially after he realized that he really did need the help with the bar and he didn’t want to look for another employee. Not when he had someone reliable already at hand, or as reliable as Catherine could be.

He didn’t fear she’d steal from him when he turned around, at least, and that was high praise as far as he was concerned.

One such instance of him covering for her happened that day. Although, maybe it was just him being overly paranoid. All the same though, as he watched a bunch of kids that reminded him of Jason when he’d first entered the bar, Travis felt a part of him grow nervous. His eyes immediately followed them around, trying to piece together the puzzle pieces that he could see.

They looked around the bar, checking out everything, but their eyes found him and, once they did, they kept darting back and forth between him and the rest of the bar and the people in it. They shuffled inconspicuously, but they did a poor job at acting that way. They didn’t talk amongst themselves, even after sitting down. They just kept quiet, and kept looking.

“I’ll wait that table,” he told Catherine without taking his eyes off the kids. Because he had a hunch and he really hoped he was wrong. “Hey there, what can I do for you?” he asked as he approached the table.

“The soda and sandwich combo, can we get four of those?” the kid that had entered first asked and the others remained perfectly quiet, almost perfectly still. Travis was really not liking what he was seeing, because it was all pointing towards him not being wrong.

“You can pay, right?” he asked all the same, smile firmly in place. Surprisingly, the kid showed him the money without protest, and that was added to the list of red flags in his mind even though it’d have been reassuring at any other moment. “Then sure, any preferences?” he added smoothly. They told him and everything proceeded as “normal”, but he knew there was something going on there and he really, really hoped he was wrong. He wasn’t likely to be, unfortunately, and he knew it.

That was why, even long after they left the bar, he continued to feel uneasy.

‘So they are still around, huh?’ he thought with his lips pursed once he was alone at his bar after closing.

He didn’t know how to feel about that, or about the fact that they’d come for a visit.

 [} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I find myself looking at this chapter as one of those I don’t wanna comment much on. I’m not unhappy with it though, I guess. So, I’ll just quietly post this and try to get back to writing backlog for my vacation, if it’s all the same to you, guys.

Hehe…

Anyhow! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Hot Chocolate or Coffee? Personally… depends, but probably hot chocolate unless I’m really sick of sweet stuff at the moment the question is asked.

See you.