Author: Kat
Title: Behind the Bar
Story: In the Heart
Colors: Twilight 8 (Absinthe), admin yellow 2 (I hear dying makes you thirsty.)
Supplies and Materials: Miniature collection, feathers (Everybody here studies the dead./Everybody here is a kind of haunting.), yarn (this image), beading wire (this image), novelty beads (All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer by the stars. - Rush, The Pass).
Word Count: 700
Rating: PG
Summary: The life of a bartender.
Warnings: none.
Notes: So apparently Lars is veeeeery slightly bi, and just never did anything about it. Huh. For SWL's prompt, "Lars: things bartenders overhear."


Early in the evening, when it's busy, he doesn't get to hear much. Snatches of orders thrown over the crowd, people waving and tugging at his sleeve, the cool slick glass of the bottles as he pours and mixes and hands out the drinks only to get another wave of orders. It's too loud anyway, early in the evening, when the bar is packed and the dance floor a heaving mass of people, the music pounding and the ocean-surf babble rolling under it. He doesn't even try then, just works and sweats and hopes he'll make it through another night.

--

There's a girl sitting by herself at the end of the bar, checking and rechecking her phone, ignoring the Bloody Mary she ordered half an hour ago. Something in the way she holds herself, so vulnerable and yet so brave, reminds him painfully of Summer.

"Hey," he says, and she looks up, her eyes shining with tears. "You okay?"

"She was supposed to come," the girl says, her voice choked. "She said if she... if it was okay, she'd come. And she didn't."

Broken heart. It's familiar. He smiles at her, sympathetic. "You want to talk about it?"

She does.

--

The bar closes at three on weeknights, but people start leaving long before that, and by one-thirty it's usually slow enough that he can take down a rag and start wiping down the bar, eavesdropping as he goes. It's his favorite part of the night, after one-thirty, when the only people left are the drinkers and the desperate. Sometimes it's people like Russell, who are both.

It's not his place to judge, and usually he doesn't. People need a place they can go to feel safe. If for them that's a bar, he'll make it as safe as he can.

--

This man reminds him of Russell, all louche grins and easy charm over a seething mass of trouble. Girls, and some boys, flock to him, offer him drinks and dances and more, and like Russell he plays with them a little, picks out one to favor.

Lars can remember when he was that favorite. It makes him a little nostalgic, but only a little. He always falls for the bad ones, hazardous to his health, but they shine so bright he can't help it.

"That's your last," he tells the man, when he starts getting snappish.

He remembers that too.

--

Closing time is the hardest. The only people left are the dedicated drinkers, the ones with no place to go, and none of them want to leave. They want to move in, nest among the glittering glass bottles, see the world distorted through vodka and rum.

He gets that. He does, better than they think. But it's not healthy, and it's also illegal, and he would like to go home and go to sleep next to his girlfriend, lulled by the wheezing snores she makes sometimes.

So he throws them out, though he really understands. There's better places to live.

--

That one is haunted, shadowed grey eyes smudged with dark circles. He's seen that look on Danny's face.

Any other time he'd listen, but it's closing time and he's tired. So he taps the bar in front of the patron and says, "Hey. Time to go."

Those eyes look suddenly weary. "All right," the patron says, and moves to go.

"Hey," he says. "I got a friend... you need some help, you go talk to them, okay?" He offers a business card, a psychiatrist he knows.

It might be his imagination, but he thinks those eyes lighten, just a little.

--

Three AM in New York City is not as dangerous as it used to be. He takes a cab anyway, because the mere thought of the subway exhausts him.

The city rolls by, the lights and the stars blurring into lines as his eyes unfocus. Sad night tonight, sad people. There are other nights, party nights, newlyweds, graduates, people getting engaged and people just meeting. Friends, family, lovers.

He watches, mostly, and listens. Behind the bar he's everyone's confessor and nobody's friend.

But he's got his own family and friends and lover.

He smiles and closes his eyes. He's good.