hey, bartender

[Deleted]

CHARACTERS: @blurr and open to anyone!
LOCATION: Why, right here; pull up a stool!
CONTENT WARNINGS: High-grade energon (alcohol) and over-fueled (drunk) patrons. (Maybe).
PLOT SUMMARY: "The boss is out, what can I get you?" LEGENDARY racer turned bartender is here to serve the good stuff! Who's in?

[Deleted]

«You’re who?» He pinged back tiredly.

«It’s SWERVE! Ah, of course you remember me! How could you forget that time back—»

Blurr didn’t finish processing the message. Easily, he had wanted to reply but ultimately refrained.

«Anyway, I had a kind of proposition for ya, buddy. I hear you were a bartend at Maccadam’s, yeah? Well, I can’t possibly be at my place all the time. Whaddya say about a part-time job offer?»

He inserted hesitant but indifferent sub-glyphs alongside: «Sure, why not?»

It’d been the beginning of an unlikely partnership, one that had apparently been ordained since before the whole planet fell into civil war saga. Blurr could not recall ever having promised anybot anything of that caliber. However, next to racing, bartending comes as a close second passion of his, and by the Allspark how he’d missed doing it.

Lucky for him, part-time barkeep for Swerve’s means that he really never sees the owner which is probably good fortune, considering how much of a diehard fan he’d made himself out to be on the rare occasions they’d communicated faceplates to faceplates or over a comm link. With the war being millennia past, you would think his racing days would have been a forgotten remnant. It’s almost flattering, really.

Swerve’s hadn’t been getting much action lately which is a shame because Blurr had been itching to show off his high-grade mixing and serving prowess. And, as fate would have it, the door to the bar opens, and the blue racer lifts his optics at so fast it would have given another bot whiplash.

“Hey! Welcome to Swerve’s!” His vocaliser greets in uncharacteristic merriness, his frame buzzing with unspent energy; when you’re a Cybertronian that operates at hyper-speed, and you've been stationary, the excess charge is basically tangible. Blurr readies a cube for dispensing whatever his patron may want before smiling. “What’re you having, then?”

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Dreadwing considered himself an intelligent mech. His sharp wit and keen mind were a boon on the battlefield, and were much a weapon to be wielded as his sword and ion cannon. He liked to think he was reasonably clever. That being said, a inter-dimensional bar that existed in all universes and none of them at the same time where anybody and everybody could come to socialize under the banner of truce and neutrality defied all logic and reasoning, and he could not understand it at all.

The major thing that stumped him was the very bar itself. It was not clear how one actually even got to this bar (he’d just simply appeared at the door with little recollection of how he'd gotten there) nor was it clear where this bar even was. It made no sense! He had also been appalled at its very premise. Anyone who could so easily set aside their values and principles just to go out and have drinks would surely show themselves later to be lacking loyalty and integrity!

… But then he’d learned that Swerve’s kept some high-grade Vos vintage on tap. Well, no seeker could resist that, now, could they?

Thus Dreadwing had slunk into the bar, taking care to leave his swords and his ion cannon at the door with the monosyllabic bouncer (he kept a few bombs in his subspace, juuust in case.) so as to not blatantly violate the rules of the establishment. It came as no surprise when he was immediately jumped upon by one of the bots tending to the bar. He tried to keep his sneer to a minimum - the bartender was an Autobot, and an incredibly energetic one at that.

He blinked. Was the Autobot vibrating?

“... The Vos vintage,” He finally said, a little bit petulant, and feeling more than a little disloyal -but this place had proper Vosnian vintage, and even the fact that the bartender was an Autobot did not discourage him from ordering.

[Deleted]

Blurr is no glitch. He knows caution when he sees it, and, for spark’s sake, when he feels it. The other’s EM readings reek of it, and when the former racer’s optics lift he now sees why. Even if the glaring Decepticon emblem isn’t a clue-in, just the mech’s build and presence suggest that he’s not used to being in a place of true neutrality. A lesser bot might have been afeared of the large seeker, but Blurr is confident that no bot would waltz in just to start a fight—well, he hopes not, at least.

The bartend smiles casually after less than a nanoklik of surprise. Primus, that stuff’s about as vintage as you are. He holds his glossa on that particular remark, not sure if the Decepticon would be open to, ah, poking fun. “Sure thing.” He chirps.

He slides horizontal down the bar on his wheeled peds, bending to retrieve an ancient-looking bottle, one that had never really been replenished because it—hadn’t been needed to yet. Luckily, Vosnian vintage ages quite nicely. Luckily for his customer, too. With unmatched speed, he returns to where the blue and gold seeker is seated (who, by the way, is comically large comparative to the barstool he’s perched on).

Blurr replaces the regular-sized cube with a more elegant-looking one, the shape and girth supposedly maximizing what the sensory receptors would capture for consumption purposes. He could roll his optics; while he might be well-educated in the art of bartending, he would be inclined to take some good ol’ sweet, standard high-grade to get over-fueled with rather than anything too fancy.

Taking the bottle in his left servo, he holds the cube up with his right and tilts it as he pours at an even rate: not too fast, not too slow. He turns the cube with his digits deftly, the vintage high-grade falling against the glass in a dark burgundy cascade. He leaves approximately one-fourth of the cube empty, swirling the liquid with a satisfied look before neatly placing it before the Decepticon.

“For the Vosnian himself.” Blurr presumes cordially, placing the bottle next to the other in case he needs a refill.

@dreadwing

[Deleted]

It had been millenia since he’d seen actual Vosnian Vintage, and even longer since he’d had the privilege of tasting it, and to find a bottle of it now in some mysterious bar… it was beyond comprehension. It was also highly suspicious, and Dreadwing wasn’t entirely certain this wasn’t some sort of Autobot trickery. Goods from Vos (and especially the energon) had become unobtainable following the fall of his great home city-state, even on the black market - Dreadwing knew, because he’d tried to get his claws on some with very little luck. Where had this Autobot gotten a hold of it?

The bartender moved with speed a grounder should not possess, and even Dreadwing’s battle-practiced optic had a hard time working out each step of his process. There was the fancy cube he’d be served with, and there was the fancy pouring techniques, and out came the bottle he’d thought he’d never see, but the barkeep’s actions were otherwise blurred. With a final swirl of the precious liquid, the cube was delicately placed in front of him.

“... Thank you,” He said, just a little bit grudgingly (’How did he know I am from Vos?’ he wondered, and then felt particularly stupid, because his pit-damned wings were a rather big giveaway, now, weren’t they?) but even the fact that an Autobot was serving him did not take away from the fact that he was about to taste Vosnian Vintage. He would savor the taste, and the feeling of home he’d not had in a very, very long time.

That feeling lasted about three micoseconds into his first sip, and then he gagged and spat it straight back out.

“What is this… this swill?!” Dreadwing demanded, bristling in indignation - the taste still lingered in his mouth. “Do you take me for some fool easily tricked?! This isn’t of Vos at all!”