A Pub on the Mainland, Tuesday Evening

[uncertain_dume]

Okay, so Kanan had gone from 'starting to speculate whether there were adult women on the island at all' to 'having plans with three of them all within the span of the same week' in roughly no time at all. Which suited him well enough, really. It was a distraction, and a welcome one, considering the fact that he was starting to get comfortable around the island, and comfortable, with Kanan, was generally a sign that it was time to move on. The plans, of course, weren't making him any less comfortable, but they were certainly doing wonders to keep him from getting bored.

That said, there was only so much that could be done around the island, so tonight's plans had involved a jaunt to the mainland, to a pub there that seemed to have passable drinks and food that actually, if you squinted closely, somewhat resembled food. Not that Kanan considered himself a pro on the topic just yet. It was just that people seemed to be eating it and keeping it down, which was more than he could say for the fare at some cantinas he'd visited in his lifetime.

"So," he said, glancing at his company for the evening. "Can I start you off with anything?"

[OOC: For that one who is willing to overlook Kanan's goatee!]

Comments

[fjordicswagger]

"Well, it's too early for shots," Tamsin said, judging the interior of the pub and finding it... slightly more wanting than Kanan did. (Some of it didn't seem sanitary.)

On the other hand, it was a pub. Who cared? "Bloody Mary is usually my drink."

[uncertain_dume]

Sanitary was clearly for people who had never tended bar for Okadiah, honestly.

"Bloody Mary," Kanan echoed, clearly not recognizing the drink name but game to give it a try all the same. He flagged the bartender down. "Sure, we'll start with those, then. I haven't been around these parts long enough to have a usual just yet."

Unless you counted ryncol, which was just a bad idea all around and which Kanan hadn't had since the island's little multiversal jaunt during the summer. Which was really for the best.

[fjordicswagger]

"You've been here for what, a month, at least?" Tamsin said, as she put her elbows down on the bar. "Obviously you've not been looking for one hard enough."

[uncertain_dume]

"Through the summer," Kanan confirmed, shrugging his shoulders. "But I figured I was going to be around the island for a while, and it would be a shame to pass up on the local brews of the places the island was visiting. Besides, I'm not completely certain which ones on the island itself are from Earth and which aren't. It's a process."

The perils of living on an island that had access to many of the drinks from the multiverse at large.

"I'm not complaining, mind."

[fjordicswagger]

"Most of them are from Earth," Tamsin said dryly. "Since we are on Earth. Anything that looks funny, I'd blame Tino before I blamed somewhere else."

[uncertain_dume]

"Fair enough," Kanan replied, smirking faintly as the bartender slid them their drinks. "Though my definition of 'looks funny' might not be completely in line with yours, either."

The milk was blue where Kanan came from, Tamsin. 'Funny looking' was sort of relative.

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin shrugged. She pulled her celery stick out of the red goop. "Here's your first lesson on Earth drinks, then," she said. "Bloody Mary. Vodka, tomato juice, celery. It's like dinner in liquid form."

[uncertain_dume]

"Vodka, tomato juice," he pulled out the green stick thing. "Celery?"

He was catching on. Look at him go.

"Seems like a pretty straightforward combination."

[fjordicswagger]

"There's also a ton of salt and Worcestershire sauce and who knows what kind of crap in here," Tamsin said. She bit down on her celery stick. "But I don't want to make your pretty head work too much."

[uncertain_dume]

"Salt, I recognize," Kanan chuckled, shaking his head. His pretty head could probably handle the effort, but they weren't exactly here to discuss the chemical composition of Worchestershire sauce, anyway. He bit into his own celery stick, more or less just content to follow her lead. "Beyond that, I suppose my pretty head will just be content to know that it doesn't taste half bad."

Dinner in drink form suited him just fine. Kanan was of the opinion that life was short. If you liked it, eat it.

[fjordicswagger]

"Their take on it doesn't suck," Tamsin said. She rolled her eyes. "But it's an Irish Pub. You don't actually come here for cocktails."

She nodded at the beer tap.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan wouldn't know 'Irish' if a Leprechaun bit him in the ass. But he did know a beer tap well enough, and considered it thoughtfully.

"Yeah? Is any of it any good?"

He was at least wise enough to wait until the bartender had wandered out of earshot before asking that one.

[fjordicswagger]

"It depends. There's Guinness stout, which drinks like it's mud," Tamsin said, tilting her head. "Then there's the reds. Those aren't half bad."

[uncertain_dume]

So help him, Kanan was tempted to try the mud. Maybe later in the evening, for now he was working on his Bloody Mary and giving the taps another thoughtful nod.

"After this, have you got any interest in trying some of those, then? Or are you going to stick to the dinner in a cup and play it safe while I experiment?"

[fjordicswagger]

"I like how you call it 'playing it safe', like a pint of Kilkenny is going to knock you on your ass," Tamsin said dryly. She took a sip of her Bloody Mary. "How about you try what's in front of you first?"

At least he clapped back okay. This would be a decent distraction - well, procrasination - for talking to Jessica about the... thing.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan prided himself on his ability to be a decent distraction.

"Or I could do that," he said agreeably. And then, because she was what was more or less in front of him right then, he said, "so, what do you get up to when you aren't busy running the town?"

[fjordicswagger]

"I drink," Tamsin said. She took another sip of said drink just to drive home the point. Relenting, she added, "I do what everyone around the island seems to do. Stay in, watch TV, occasionally show up to the Trooper Station because I miss my old job. Less paperwork."

[uncertain_dume]

Well, that got a raise of Kanan's eyebrows.

"You used to work with the troopers, huh? You're law enforcement, then?"

Not that this was a dealbreaker, but it was definitely an unexpected development. Somebody hadn't spent enough time around the island's troopers to really grasp how... them... they were.

[fjordicswagger]

"Yeppp," Tamsin said, letting that last p 'pop'. "Or I was. Now I'm the mayor. It was a nice break from a life of getting called in to help someone overcome their fear of lawn gnomes for like, five minutes."

[uncertain_dume]

"Their fear of what?" Kanan was just slightly bemused at that. He knew what a lawn was, at least. He could more or less piece the rest together with context from there. "What is it that the troopers at the station actually do, exactly?"

Kanan, if you'd been listening when Obi-Wan told you they weren't anything to worry about, you wouldn't be so surprised right now.

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin shrugged. "Hang out at the trooper station, call each other stupid names, come up with weird-ass games - especially Ralph, he sucks - and sometimes people call us because they found a gremlin in their house, or they think one of the lawn gnomes is moving around."

Fandom was special like that.

[uncertain_dume]

It really, really was.

...

...

"I'm not entirely certain what kind of answer I was expecting," Kanan admitted. "But I know it wasn't that one."

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin sipped her drink for a few moments, eyeing him over the glass. (She did it mostly for effect.)

"Fandom still hasn't broken you in yet, huh." Beat. "We do things weirder and stupider around here."

[uncertain_dume]

"After the place with rainbows, or the one that was cheese, I kind of figured the weirder bit," Kanan sighed, then took a mouthful of his drink. "The stupider part, I'm still getting used to."

Cecil was helping with that one.

No offense, Cecil.

[fjordicswagger]

"Well, when things aren't traumatising, they're pretty stupid," Tamsin said. "You stop taking anything at the station seriously after the first time you've seen Ralph and one of his identical buddies deal with an Alot of Feels."