A Round of Drinks - 1

Chapter 1

Life could take interesting turns, Travis knew, but sometimes… Sometimes those turns could be a road that leads right off a cliff. That’s how the last turn felt like for him, in all honesty, and that might have been a bit of an understatement. He wasn’t sure how one could classify waking up to news that one’s parent was dead, much less… everything else.

So, there he found himself, with a sandwich, sitting at the counter of the bar under the apartment he found himself owning. Everything seemed to be in his name, the apartment, the bar and more, his father had left him everything. Everything was his, for reasons that he couldn’t fathom. His father had hated him the last time they’d seen each other. Surely he’d have gone for one of his friends or something when it came to leaving all that his life had amounted to, right?

Wrong, apparently.

Part of him thought it was almost too good to be true, really. After all, he’d gone from having to share the shittiest of apartments to having a life dropped on him. He had a place to stay and a business already prepared to start off at any given time. Granted, the bar was kind of… barebones, apparently. Anything that could have given it a personality had apparently been given away… or stolen, maybe both. Everything that made it a bar was there, sure, but the decorations, pictures, little treasures that his father had lined the walls with… All of it was gone.

Travis didn’t recognize the place as it had welcomed him.

It was still a great deal in his opinion…

If not for… Well, everything else.

Next to his plate and the glass of water he’d served himself was a newspaper. There, he’d read through with increasing dread page after page. Dread, but also… nostalgia, even if it felt wrong, morbid, twisted. Granted, news were often pretty depressing. When were they not? It was always deaths this, traumatized people that and so on. Happy news were few and far between. Such was the way of the world.

The problem laid at the top of the newspaper though.

The Gotham Globe.

Gotham was his home, the place he grew up in, but Gothamites knew what a shithole it was better than anyone else in the world. Nobody lived in Gotham because they liked the dreary, deadly place. Maybe they saw opportunities, or maybe they were reluctantly attached to the place, or maybe they were just trapped, without other options. Because for as much of a death trap as Gotham was, it was also cheap. Hard not to, considering everyone would get the fuck out of dodge at the first chance otherwise.

And Travis… Travis wondered where he fell in the gigantic Venn diagram of people that lived in Gotham. Was he there because he saw an opportunity? Probably, he was there for the bar and the apartment, but he could probably sell them and get something less likely to end up with him dead somewhere else. It’d be lesser, of course, but his life wasn’t worth that, right?

“Leave! Leave and don’t expect me to help you anymore! Not after I gave you everything and you spat on my face for it!”

Or maybe he was there because he was attached? He’d grown up in that apartment, that bar. He remembered sharing meals with his father at that very counter he sat at. He remembered customers, regulars, treating him like he was a nephew or a grandson, tussling his hair and throwing a few coins his way for sweets or snacks or games.

“I should have known, like mother like son! Get out, before I throw you out, like we both know I should!”

Maybe he was there because he had nothing. Years on his own and he had nothing to show for it. Struggles and jobs and effort and he still had nothing at all. His pockets were empty and he’d known no home since he was kicked out. So, maybe he was reluctant to let go of something he’d been given only to go back to that. Because selling what he’d been left wouldn’t earn much, not in Gotham of all places.

“You’ll learn one day. You’ll have to. Because the world won’t let you remain stupid forever, one way or another.”

Maybe he was there because he was taking it as a punishment, or perhaps a lesson. God knew his father would have loved that. ‘It was all about tough love, right, dad?’ he thought wryly, taking the glass of water and making the liquid inside sway this or that way. ‘And nothing is tougher than Gotham.’

What did that all mean for Travis though?

‘Gotta get back to the flow of things,’ he thought with a wry smile as he turned the stool he was sitting on around to look at the rest of the bar instead of behind the counter. He leaned back, taking a deep breath in and draping his arms on the counter as he took everything in. ‘I’m sure you think it’s hilarious, don’t you, dad?’ he added before he let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle.

One way or another, he’d have to study and he was sure his father was getting a kick out of that wherever he ended up after dying. Probably downstairs, in all likelihood, the man was also likely to be saving him a seat somewhere there. For the moment though, he’d need to learn where everything was once again, learn how to prepare the drinks his father had sold… and maybe a few others.

‘Might as well make this shithole more me if I’m going to be trapped here,’ he thought, ideas coming to his mind.

And as he thought of how he’d have to run his father’s old bar, he remembered better times… and worse times.

Because even nostalgia was all sorts of wrong in Gotham.

[}-o-{]

A few days later was when Travis decided to open the bar again.

He was not a patient person, that much was evident, and besides, there was really no point in waiting for long. As the days went by and he studied the basic drinks his father had served other than plain spirits, he’d admit to wanting to get over it already. It was actually quite interesting though, as he dove into other mixes, cocktails and such while in his “studying” time. He was surprised to find out that it sounded like fun. It was fun to learn the different processes and ways to mix up all the many, many drinks that humanity had come up with to poison their bloodstreams and dull their minds.

Admittedly, though, it was so tempting to prepare some of them for himself...

However, there was something neat about preparing the drinks. It was sort of like cooking, he imagined, but a lot simpler. Then again, that comparison might be wrong, considering that he hadn’t been a great cook either. It was the best he could describe how it felt though.

Travis was honestly even excited to learn flair bartending when one of his tangent research moments landed him on that, which was the name that was given to… Well, bartending but with flair, basically. Juggling bottles and generally making a show of the preparation of drinks. The few videos he’d found on that were pretty neat, and he honestly wanted to try his hand at that.

It helped that his father would have hated all that “unnecessary bullshit” as he’d have called it.

Although…

Well, he wanted to get business underway before trying to spice it up with extra difficulty and shit like that. He imagined it’d take him quite some time to get all those moves underway and not end up breaking bottles every few seconds because he was a clumsy idiot. He knew lots of bottles, glasses and more would be harmed in the making of his flair bartending skills, whenever he got around practicing. So he preferred to leave that for a moment when he could afford such losses… If ever.

Back on topic though, he’d started taking notes of all the drinks he learned. Starting to fill a notebook with them, from the instructions to make them to notes that would help in the process but weren’t always mentioned in the previous ones. He took every single thing that he thought could be useful and wrote it down. Travis wanted any and all drinks in his menu, he decided somewhere along the line, from the popular ones to less so. Maybe adding some things that weren’t commonly found would work in his advantage, he guessed.

It was also somewhat interesting, which was why he went for it.

During those days, he got more work done than he ever had… at least while staying motivated.

‘Maybe it was just you that made this job look like a nightmare, old man,’ he mused with a wry grin as he skimmed over the many pages he’d filled with information on drinks. Then he turned to the side. The day prior he’d gone out instead of staying inside for more studying. Why? Well, because he kind of needed a menu for clients to look through and order whatever they wanted and his father’s old ones didn’t quite fit anymore on account of the changes he was already going to start making. Travis imagined the clients would have drinks they already liked, or they might just want a beer or something like that, and then it wouldn’t be necessary, but still. If he was going to add lesser known or available things, the menu would be necessary for others to know the options were there, right?

That was how he reasoned it, at least.

Yet, with every preparation, Travis couldn’t help but feel a little dread creeping in him. He wondered idly with a nervous grin on his face, if he was getting ahead of himself. Granted, he’d looked up stuff like how to price stuff and generic advice for businesses such as his. He even did his best to check what little his father had left behind lying around on how he ran the bar. He tried to remember all that he’d been taught growing up too, but…

But when was the last time something had gone well for him?

“Did you want to see me stumble around and fail, dad?” he asked the empty bar as he looked up at its ceiling. He didn’t know why though. His father was very unlikely to be up.

[}-o-{]

‘Here’s hoping I’m not wrong,’ Travis mused as he looked at the sign over the bar. A reminder with mixed feelings for him, like it’d always been. The uncertainty and hope of a what-if mixed with the much more definite but abstract wrong nostalgia that plagued his mind those days. ‘XV The Devil,’ he read, in the stylish red letters that his father had very obviously not picked himself. The card with a surprisingly good design of a devil on it stare down at him, grinning.

He looked at it wryly, remembering times when it had felt like seeing a cool friend and others when it had felt like it was a spider welcoming a fly to its net. 

Briefly, Travis had thought about changing the name to something else, maybe even changing the whole sign. A thought that came from the same slightly rebellious part of his brain, the same one that urged him to change the menu, to try things his father would never have. However, there was more to the bar, to the name of it, than just his father and he didn’t want to throw that away quite as badly as the outdated drink options.

It was more… meaningful, in a way, he supposed.

Besides, it was also the right kind of shady without being obnoxious about it, he supposed. His childhood home wasn’t in what one would call the safe side of Gotham, not that anywhere was particularly safe, but… yeah. If his father had done one thing well while alive, it had been to blend in as best he could without actually dipping his toes into Gotham’s polluted, borderline deadly metaphorical waters. So, following his steps in that regard would likely help…

He hoped so, at least.

Furthermore, it’d be better to use whatever remained of the bar’s reputation to get some people coming, he figured.

Thus, with a deep breath in, Travis made his way inside, twisting the sign on the door to mark the place as open. Considering some people had tried to enter the place with the sign marked as closed during the time he took to try and get ready for opening day? He expected there’d be some clients coming his way. In Gotham City of all places, people had more reasons to drink than not, and that depressing truth worked in his favor. Nevermind that, again, his father had run a somewhat successful bar for decades before kicking the bucket, and some of that would likely carry over.

Or so he hoped, again, because maybe Travis – and his father – had left his reputation underground all those years before.

For good measure though, he put a blackboard sign with some discounts for opening week. It was the first show of change he brought too, because his father wouldn’t have been caught dead offering discounts unless it was a spur of the moment thing for a friend or some such. Maybe it was a bit of a risk too, admittedly, but he wanted to try and get some attention directed his way.

Besides, he could somewhat afford it for a bit to try it out. His father hadn’t been loaded, but Travis had been left enough of a nest egg to be covered for about a month without being completely screwed. Completely being the operative word there, but it was better than it could have been, so he wasn’t complaining too much.

‘... Maybe I shouldn’t have worried so much?’ Travis mused not long after that. Clients had come, drinks had been served, and things went… relatively ok. He’d have to get used to the job, that was for sure. It was a little nerve wracking, balancing all that was part of it, taking orders, preparing them, taking them to the clients, charging the clients… Things that weren’t all that difficult by themselves, but when he had to do all of them together for a number of different clients, tables… It got a little overwhelming.

It was also, however… nostalgic too, and for once it was in the normal meaning of the word. It reminded him of simpler times, when things hadn’t strained to hell with his father and when he hadn’t yet started his downward spiral. Things hadn’t been good, per se, but they had been easier all the same.

He missed that.

Back to business though, things were going relatively well after a few days. He’d only gotten confused once during his first day and it hadn’t been all that bad a mistake. Some clients had just gotten a laugh out of it, which was a lot better than how he’d expected things to go at the moment. The mood was almost good, even if Travis could have done without the critics about not having music or anything to entertain further than just the drinks, the food and the pool table. The bar had what it had though, and his father had either given the sound system and the TV to someone or it had been stolen in the time it took Travis to get there. He didn’t think he had enough money to throw around to add those things back without seriously endangering his future either, so… It’d have to wait.

He did take those comments as best he could, assuring everyone that if things went well, those would be the first things he’d get. Many also told him that his drinks weren’t “that bad” which he took as a compliment, quite honestly. Not that most people were picky when it came to drinking their sorrows and shitty lives away. The food was similarly praised, and he thought that spoke a lot more about him doing well so far. Not that he served anything difficult, but still.

Maybe he’d make less money if he continued to focus on quality, admittedly. He imagined that was why there were so many shitty places. However, at least that way he’d feel like he was doing something right… and different. Because his father’s place hadn’t been bad, but quality food and drinks hadn’t been the focus of it, not unless he was paid ridiculous amounts and he had to bust out the good spirits. Travis didn’t need to make a fortune anyway, just make a living and get a comfortable life underway. Maybe he could even add taking pride in his business to that, if things went well, and getting out from under his father’s shadow.

That’d be neat.

He couldn’t say owning a bar had been in the plans for him at any point, admittedly, especially after his fallout with his father. However, he had thought that having a cafe could be neat, back when he still had hopes and dreams. It was close enough, right? Maybe if he thought that enough times, he’d stop feeling like he’d failed, like his father still loomed over him. If he ended up not liking it, he could change things afterwards too, so there was that. That was the plan, actually. For the moment, he had to make the best of the situation he was in and see where he could go from there.

No point in thinking over stuff he could not change for the moment, or even far into the future. ‘One step at a time,’ he mused as he carried a tray with a few beer mugs on top towards a table. When he heard the door open, Travis turned to look as best he could.

It was a bit of a habit he had developed immediately. Maybe he’d grown paranoid over the few days since he’d come back to Gotham City, old habits coming back like he’d never left them behind, but he couldn’t help feeling like every person could be a mugger, a thief, a murderer, etc. Everyone was dangerous until proven otherwise in that hell hole. So far so good though, but he wasn’t holding his breath on that staying the case.

Travis had seen the news when outside, on the newspaper and on his phone, after all. Things had stayed the same ever since he left. If anything, they even looked, at times, worse than before. He was sure it was a question of time before something bad happened. And yet, even with that, he couldn’t help but grow a little more relaxed with every person that entered through the door. ‘Focus on the positives, I guess, deal with the bad whenever it comes,’ he mused.

Things would be as they were. That didn’t mean Travis couldn’t try and make plans to make things safer down the line but… Well, there was little to be done in the case someone came through the door and pointed a gun at him. Sure, he could make some preparations in that eventuality, but at the end of the day, things would be largely out of his hands in that situation.

[}-o-{]

The end of his first week of work back in Gotham City was… Exhausting. Maybe – read, certainly – because it was also the end of the week for everyone else. He tried to be optimistic about it though, since it meant business was going well and money was coming his way. He just had to hope it wasn’t a novelty thing and it wouldn’t die out fast, but he wasn’t that optimistic.

He was a Gothamite, after all.

Regardless, the weekend seemed to be a time when a lot more people wanted to get drunk. Who’d have thunk, right? Travis was very grateful for the few days he’d had to get used to his new job again, because if he’d started right away on a Saturday, he might just have died. Although Thursday had been more of a nightmare than he’d remembered it being, so he’d only had a few days to get used to it before being hit by a half week of work that really made him hope he’d make enough money to hire some help.

If he turned out to have to do all that work by himself to make a profit, he might legitimately cry.

How had his father done it?

“You ok there, man?” one of the clients at a nearby table asked him when he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You look like you need a drink yourself.”

“You are not wrong,” Travis replied, forcing a smile on his face as he regarded the man. “But I think that’d do more harm than good. Thanks for the concern though.”

“Hey, you give cheap drinks. Gotta make sure you are alright to give them though,” the man pointed out, making him chuckle.

“Only for opening week,” he reminded him with a grin.

“Eh, I’ll take it, might even try out one of those fancy drinks,” the man commented idly. “Any recommendations.”

“The expensive ones,” Travis said, making it obvious that it was a joke with a wide grin.

“Well, at least you are honest,” the man said with a grin of his own, before he was interrupted by the door opening. “I’ll think it over while you tend to... Oh come on, don’t rats have better shit to do than bother people that want to make a living?” he groaned then, looking towards the entrance.

Travis turned to the door himself, even though he’d been about to anyway. Sure enough, there was a rat if he’d ever seen one, just not the animal. Travis watched the kid that had entered his bar with some curiosity and the usual suspicion. Not even kids could be trusted in Gotham, after all. He’d know, he had been one of those kids himself.

“Well, give me a call if you decide, yeah?” Travis said, not turning his gaze away from the new arrival.

“Yeah, man. Don’t let the rat bother you too much,” the man told him and he nodded absently. Admittedly, he wasn’t sure how he wanted to handle that whole situation, but he had to do something either way. So, the first thing he did was to approach him.

“What can I do for you?” Travis asked, stepping behind the counter while the kid took one of the seats at the counter. The first thing Travis noticed about the child was that he was trying really hard to appear calm and in control. It was both amusing and sad. Not a combination that he was used to, that was for sure.

“A sandwich and a coke,” the child said, pointing at one of the combos he’d listed on the blackboard.

“Do you have enough for it?” Travis asked, trying not to sound accusatory. He wasn’t too sure he succeeded considering the scowl that formed on the kid’s face. He wasn’t moved though, simply raising an eyebrow at the little rat. Eventually, the boy sighed, deflating on the seat and moving to leave. ‘Was he trying to get the meal and not pay for it, the little shit?’ he wondered immediately, more amused by the attempt than anything. He imagined his reaction would have been quite different if he’d have fallen for it though. “Hey,” Travis called, a smile on his face as the kid stopped. “How much do you have?” he asked.

‘I’m an idiot,’ he thought to himself. It was just… he didn’t want to turn away the kid. He could picture it so clearly, the boy roaming the Gotham streets, starving as he struggled to not die. He’d seen so many of those, been friends with some of them even. ‘Dad always did say I had a problem with rats,’ Travis thought with a sigh and a self-deprecating smile. ‘Kid might not even legitimately be a street rat.’ Then he blinked as he saw the kid drop his money on the counter. It wasn’t enough, it was more like half the price, really.

Travis sighed again, running his fingers through his hair and regarding the boy.

“I’ll make you a deal, kid,” he decided, eyes roaming the bar for a moment. “I’ll give you the combo, you keep your money, but you help me out here for a bit, how does that sound?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the narrow-eyed look the child gave him.

“What do I have to do?” he asked hesitantly.

“You see that table over there? The empty one? Gather the stuff on it on a tray and leave it over there,” Travis explained, signaling both the table, the tray and the spot he was talking about. “After that, you spray the table with this bottle and clean it with this rag over here. Simple enough, right?”

“... How many tables do I have to clean?” the kid asked, making him smirk.

“Good question,” Travis replied, considering that for a moment before he had an idea. “Tell you what, we’ll keep count of how many you clean, if you do enough of them, I’ll even pay you on top of the meal.”

“What’s to say you’ll keep your word?” the kid asked, narrowing his eyes at Travis.

“The fact that I’ll give you the combo right away?” he shot back with a raised eyebrow, grinning at the wide eyed look from the kid. “Please, don’t try to cheat me out of the help. That’d be annoying.”

“I… Ok, deal,” the kid agreed, maybe too fast, but Travis wasn’t complaining. He was in sore need of some help anyway, so he felt like he was the one winning the most in the arrangement, honestly. He’d just have to keep an eye on the little rat, just in case he tried to run for it, or worse, rob him.

“Travis Larson,” he introduced himself, extending a hand to the kid. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

The kid stared at the offered limb for a long moment before giving him a grin and taking it.

“The pleasure is all yours, old man,” he said, laughing at the face Travis made before he let go and set out to work. “And the name’s Jason Todd.”

 [} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

New story, crazy that.

So, to make a long story short, I asked for opinions and people said they’d rather add a new story to the rotation rather than some other options I offered, like extra content, omakes and spin offs. The people spoke and this was chosen.

Now, fair warning, I’m not 100% sure I can keep the schedule up with four chapters a week. There might be a week here and there where I’ll have to not write a chapter for something. I have some backlog for everything other than GoM, so I guess I could burn that if it comes to it, but yeah, that’ll only last so long. Thus, as of this moment, A Round of Drinks is the one that’ll end up falling off the wayside if it comes to prioritizing what gets written on a bad week like that. Who knows though? I might hold a vote to raise it in the priority list down the line and have one of my other stories replace it as the least favorite child.

On a separate, unrelated note, if you really like this story idea over all my other non-published projects (they are mostly discussed and some snippets have been shared in my Discord server, but also in Kingdom Fables, if less so), you can thank Roy, the absolute Chad. He’s the one that chose this story from all the options and even helped me tinker it a little from the original idea, since it was an old one.

Important: I’ll admit, I’m a little intimidated by DC as a fandom, because comic fandoms are… a mess. There’s so many timelines and so many variants and… Ugh. But I’ll try anyway, because that same problem also makes it a vast world to work with and that’s certainly an appeal. So… yeah, if you’re a diehard fan of DC and such, please don’t come for me with pitchforks and torches if I get something wrong, alright? My knowledge is limited and I’m using the wiki like my life depends on it, so… Yeah, mistakes are gonna happen, 100%.

With that said… I don’t have much to say about the story in particular, really. I don’t like talking about stories in progress unless it’s about what’s already written for fear of spoiling and since this is the very first chapter, there’s a lot I could spoil without meaning to, obviously. Thus, I’ll just let you guys decide what you think of it on your own.

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter though, obviously.

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Did you expect the Spanish In- I mean, the new story? I bet you didn’t. Additionally, I’d appreciate some initial opinions, of course, because I’m addicted to Validat- I mean, because I appreciate your opinions and feedback.

Patreon Question! I’ve been debating this for a while, but I was always too lazy to actually do it with the existing stories. Do you guys think I should add “previous chapter” and “next chapter” buttons to the Patreon posts? I don’t know if they’d actually be useful or not, since 99% of the stories can be found in other platforms that are already designed for that kind of thing, but maybe that’s just the lazy in me talking.

See you.