singillatim | the wine, the beer, the whiskey are the only things that fix me

[ She'd had to spend some time scrubbing the floor and wall after the altercation with Konstantin and his squirmy, disgusting parasite, but by the time Easter comes, the saloon is once again shabby but clean, neat, and open for business.

Patrons and friends who come in may find Wynonna putting up thick dark blackout curtains, turning the inside of the saloon into a candle- and firelit cocoon, all slivers of the now near-constant sun blocked by heavy cloth. Interlopers with a new affinity for darkness who brave a few moments out in the sunlight will be rewarded with a dark, cozy place where they can hang out with a drink and do their best not to snack on any of the other patrons.

But sometimes the windows are left open, and the sun streams in. If an Aurora swirls overhead, Wynonna can be found taking advantage of the electricity to play music on a boombox she'd brought back from Lakeside, playing a few CDs and tapes she's collected over the months.

As for drinks, the usual pine wine is on offer, but so are a few new varieties, flavored with wintergreen or other forageables, while jugs of hillbilly wine flavored with canned fruit ferment in the back room. And if you're really nice to the proprietor, she might even share some of her secret stash with you: real bourbon or gin squirreled away behind the bar. Maybe don't mention the way the clinging aura of colors around her flickers, shifting from one to the next without warning.

Just be sure to read the sign on the bar — management reserves the right to refuse to serve assholes' — and behave accordingly. This management takes that shit seriously. ]

Edited 2025-05-12 16:34 (UTC)

[ Night isn't really a thing that happens right now, as the sun barely grazes the horizon and true darkness remains elusive, but it's plenty dim inside the little post office saloon, thanks to the blackout curtains she's put up and fastened along the windows. According to the clock, it's nighttime, even if the sun disagrees, and the last patron had headed out half an hour ago, leaving Wynonna wandering around the one-room saloon she and March had put together, wiping down counters and collecting glasses. It's such a normal thing to be doing, but after... everything... the last thing she feels is normal.

Tonight, the colors of an Aurora sweep overhead, mirrored in the colors that have been swirling around her since she dreamed the other night, and when she wanders by the boombox she has set up on the bar, she pauses for a moment with empty mason jars dangling from one hand to change out the CD that's inside, swapping Patsy Cline for a different disc she'd found weeks ago, back before any of what happened at Easter happened. She slips the disc into place and closes the top, and as she moves off, a wistful classical piece comes drifting into the air behind her. She's got no idea who it is (it's Bach), but it's not really for her, is it?

No; it's for the very last other figure still here with her in this makeshift bar. Probably putting on a collection of relaxing classical pieces won't help much with everything he's dealing with, but she's got to work with what she's got.

She wanders over to seat herself on the arm of his chair, familiar and relaxed as she reaches past him to collect another empty glass. ]

Want another round?

[ Of... tea, probably. But that's fine. She knows why he's here, and it's not to drink. ]

Edited 2025-05-12 17:22 (UTC)

[It's pretty late when Chloe slinks down to the new saloon she's heard so much about. She's still reeling from the results of that strange dream, and is hoping there will be fewer people around at this time. She isn't sure how she might react in a whole crowd of people with powers.

Sure, she's still a little wary of Wynonna, but she's happy to see her instead of March. He's still giving her shit about the whole “switched bodies with a cowboy” thing.]

Hey. Nice place.

Sup.

[ She looks around from where she's by the fireplace, collecting a couple of dirty glasses, trying to see the place through someone else's eyes. It's in pretty good shape, all told, aside from the long jagged crack in the wall from the earthquake that Wynonna had spent an afternoon patching with plaster. ]

Thanks. Kinda seemed like we all could use a place to drink.

[ She heads back to the bar, glasses dangling from her fingers, and tosses a question over her shoulder at Chloe. ]

What can I get you?

[Randvi isn't typically the type to share her sorrows, but she can't bear to be shut away in her house right now.

She always looks serious, but tonight she looks truly miserable as she approaches the bar.]

I don't suppose you two serve mead here.

[The honey might make her too nostalgic, but she wants to forget how to have thoughts.]

[She isn't wrong about the need for a place to let loose that wasn't the community hall full of people who think they're president or a poker cabin that's great but not open all the time.]

Do we actually have options, or do you just like playing bartender?

[It wasn't Jack but Jim that accompanies Raylan into the designated saloon, guitar in his other hand, wearing a smile as he swaggers into Wynonna's new spot. It was good to have a bar, even if they didn't have enough of the real stuff to go around and he was happy to support it.]

So you really did it huh? Here- [The bottle is set down on the flat surface in front of her.]

An openin' gift. Every bar needs some 'good stuff' to hold back.

Sorry. Tell me how to make it and I'll give it a shot for next time.

[ She leans on the makeshift bar, shifting her weight to the leg that doesn't currently have a still-healing bite wound in the thigh, and sets her chin in her hand as she looks at the other woman. ]

For right now I could put some honey in some whiskey for you. Make a hot toddy with some tea, if you're into that.

Can't it be both?

[ She's got a little hitch in her giddy-up as she moves around the little room, a flash of white bandage visible under the hole that's been gnawed into the thigh of her jeans. She hasn't gotten a chance to ask Tommy to patch it up, yet.

The glance she sends Chloe's way is one familiar to March and probably terror-inducing to Edward Little: it's an assessing, mischievous one that says wanna do something stupid? ]

Wanna be the guinea pig for our newest brew? Cherry wine, hillbilly style. Thank you, cans of pie filling.

[ She grins at him, nocking her hip against the makeshift bar as she reaches for the bottle, turning it in the candlelight. God, she wants to open it right now. ]

Well, well, well. Look what bad news blew into my part of town.

[ Thunk goes the bottle back down on the bartop, and her smile crooks. ]

Every bar could use a cowboy, too. Thanks for providing.

Edited 2025-05-13 18:36 (UTC)

If you make wine, it is a similar process but with honey instead of fruit.

[She doesn't know what either of those are, but right now that's probably not important.]

Something warm sounds lovely. My power often warms drinks that are meant to be cold anyway.

Sounds like fun.

[Chloe’s always liked cherry drinks, she's a sucker for anything red.

She’s a bit surprised to see Wynonna limping.]

You okay?

Love a lady who'll try a mystery drink.

[ She'd decanted it this morning — it was a messy process that left part of the tile in the back room stained a fetching pink — and now she goes to open the bottle of clear red liquid, pouring it into a tumbler as the aura around her flickers to a murky, exasperated green. ]

No. I got chomped on by a fucking worm like the size of my arm.

[ Wynonna sets the tumbler down on the makeshift bar and pushes it over. It certainly smells like cherry, although most of the sugar has been turned into alcohol. She'd tasted it before and found it reasonably pleasant, if not actually anything much like wine. ]

Damn thing tried to Very Hungry Caterpillar right through me.

Sounds easy enough.

[ (It almost definitely is not.) ]

Okay, toddy it is.

[ The lady — Randvi, right? — looks like she could use something comforting, anyway. Wynonna grabs down a teacup and spoons some honey into it, then adds a generous glug of actual whiskey before she goes to the fireplace to retrieve the tea she keeps available for the various non-drinkers who stop by. (Little, it's mostly Little.)

She glances up as she tops off the mixture and gives it a stir. ]

Never pegged you much for a drinker.

I'm Norse.

[Stereotypes about people who don't know how to have fun are a bit different in her time.]

We don't drink water. We didn't know about the animals.

We take our kicks where we can get ‘em.

[All things considered, this place can be surprisingly boring.

Maybe not this time, though.]

Shit, there are worms now?

[She does know about Kostya’s parasite but has never seen it, so she can't imagine it could be that big.]

[ Root eventually finds the saloon. By now she's settled in a bit, and she feels confident enough to arrive without Bear even though she's left her cochlear implant turned off, leaving her deaf in one ear. While she's in Milton it seems safe enough to take the chance since she knows the environment now, knows there's people around and thinks she could probably coerce some do-gooders into helping if she needed it. It's lower risk than when she was stranded out in the wild on her own with just her dog, and she desperately needs to conserve the battery.

Now she's intensely curious and actively exploring, and she ducks into the darkened tavern with a bright spark of interest, a tall lithe form in practical layers and with a sensible braid. She swans up to the counter and reads the sign, approving. ]

How's this work? Do you give out alcohol for free to people who aren't assholes?

[ Root smiles winningly, turning on the charm as if to demonstrate she is not an asshole. ]

There's at least one.

[ So far, she's kept the secret of what (or who) attacked her, but Konstantin only gets one strike. If she sees that worm again, or hears about it going after someone else, she's ringing the alarm bells. The thing's a menace. ]

Like we're not dealing with enough already.

Okay, well, do you know about the very modern tradition of telling your bartender your problems?

[ She pushes the steaming cup of liquid over to the other woman, then leans against the bar, one hand on her hip. ]

You look like someone, I don't know, stole your favorite axe. Something on your mind?

Why, yes I do.

[ Largely because there's no point in taking money when there's nowhere to use it. Maybe she should start, though. Get a pile to just lounge around in, Indecent Proposal-style.

She's been here so fucking long that even she, avowed person-hater, brightens up a little at the sight of someone new. It's easy to get sick of the same old faces, especially when so many of them are so annoying, so the newcomer's smile gets a mirrored one from Wynonna. ]

But we do accept donations, should you be overcome with the desire to support our little venture.

[Chloe takes a cautious sip of her drink, then throws the rest back.]

Not bad at all! Where did you see this thing, Lakeside?

There is always something on my mind.

[Randvi inhales the warm steam. There's always something so pleasant about that.]

So many of my friends here are dead or missing. I promised those children that I would protect them, but the bear took one of them, too. I was there when Young Bill died. There was nothing we could do. The aurora gifted me my husband’s arm several months ago. I know he lives, but little else. I'm not certain I want to return to my home, but he’ll need me…

[This isn't even half of what she's worried about. Maybe Bigby has a point.]

I'll keep that in mind. I'm new, so I'm not keen to give anything away just yet, but hopefully that'll change.

[ Root's smile remains but changes in character, a sly sort of invitation to be in on the joke. She has an attitude about her like she's having a great time and is waiting for everyone else to get on board with where she's going. ]

What you got? [ She isn't a reckless drinker, but she's habitually curious and dying to know what kind of alcohol is on offer in this setting. ]

[His eyebrows life over a cheeky grin. Bad news, huh?]

If that's the case, you'll see me around regularly. The noise of people'll be nice. And, maybe - [He lifts his guitar.]

You'll suffer my pluckin'. But you gotta ask Kate Marsh if she can play anythin' lively, or get some of those other people that play in here once and a while...

And no requests for Freebird are allowed.

Wynonna isn't the only one to have had an altercation with the worm, but Louis has kept quiet about that. He wanted to avoid any awkwardness with Konstantin, and also how the hell would he even begin to explain that? Even after Konstantin explained it to him, Louis doesn't know.

Everything tastes like sand to a vampire, but Louis keeps up the appearance of being human. He has been known to occasionally be seen drinking spirits, and the heart wants a place of familiarity. And there's one person who, if she were in the mood, would allow him to truly drink. (Whenever Louis hears about someone becoming allergic to the sun, he wonders if this time it will prove to be another of Lestat's fledglings, nevermind that Louis has been freer with his fangs.)

He only comes out at night. Louis doesn't like looking like a Christmas tree, but it is what it is. The pink can be safely stowed away unless Lestat were to walk in. Louis is hardly happy, so gold is right out too. But tired gray is often present, even sad blue or introspective purple. He takes off his old-fashioned hat and coat. His bright green eyes are clear, but not too clear. He knows, better than some of the newly minted night creatures, not to walk into a human establishment starving.

"Evenin', Miss Wynonna. Finally got someone to mind the store some nights." Those nights might be commandeered for Dungeons and Dragons, but Louis can't complain.

the wine, the beer, the whiskey are the only things that fix me

My friend named Jack, he's got my back — OTA

I'm not saying it's a problem I could stop it if I wanna — Edward Little

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