Marna's - Evening - Thunderstorm
Aidan Klein
"All right, gents! The name of the game tonight is: how drunk does Eryk have to be before he starts missing the dartboard?" Rheinallt grinned as Marna brought their first round of drinks—shots of rum—over to the table, and each of the four men present got one.
The thunderstorm raging outside kept them off the patio, but the nice thing about the weather was that literally no one but the four of them, plus Marna, were even at the bar, so they had the place to themselves. Aidan was pleased to see that the patch job on the roof was holding for now, even as sideways rain lashed the windowpanes, occasionally lighting up before a booming roll of thunder.
Of course, the real name of the game, as it were, was 'distract Drake from his stalker ex-boyfriend problems,' but it was one of those goals you were more likely to achieve if you didn't let on exactly what you were after.
Nero narrowed his eyes in Rheinallt's direction, accepting the drink from Marna before furrowing his brows. “You say it as if I'm going to miss even if I'm drunk. I don't miss, ass," he stated, downing the drink fairly quickly. Drake arched a brow at Nero as if he didn't quite understand what he'd meant by that.
“But... isn't that why Kas said how drunk?" Drake stated as Nero narrowed his eyes at him.
“You misunderstood me. Kas doesn't think I can hold my liquor from the way he's trying to challenge me," Nero replied.
“It didn't sound like a challenge."
"Ryk likes to interpret everything that way," Rheinallt teased, grinning a little to himself as he downed his shot.
"That's because you're exactly the kind of sly bastard who'd issue a challenge sidewards," Aidan replied, doing the same. The rum was at once acrid and slightly sweet on the tongue, though not overly so. He passed his tongue over his lip to catch the remaining drop, and shook his head.
Rheinallt wore an expression of mock offense. "Now that's not fair. I can be straightforward," he complained, almost in a whine, as Marna brought over the next few rounds at once. The three of them alone could go through quite a volume in a night, and even if Drake was a lightweight, he'd only add to the total.
“Sometimes too straightforward," Nero replied, rolling his eyes as he downed his second shot. Drake was still working on his first, though, making a face as if he'd found something sour before making a soft disgusted noise.
“How can you guys drink this stuff? Bleh," Drake spoke as Nero arched a brow in his direction.
“Because? How can you not?" Nero asked. Drake pursed his lips together as he regarded the other man through narrowed eyes.
“I don't drink as often as the three of you," was his reply.
"It's rum, Drake. This is about as easy as liquor gets, tastewise. The first time we ever came here, Ryk practically drank vodka from the bottle." Rheinallt grinned, snickering softly.
Aidan felt as though this was pretty obviously an exaggeration, but let it slide, taking his third drink but electing not to toss it back right away as he had with the first two. "Can always swap to beer or something," he noted. "They'll only pretend to judge you."
“Pretend? Who said anything about pretending?" Nero asked, arching a brow in Aidan's direction. Drake pursed his lips in Nero's direction as he merely shrugged. “I am not one to judge, Drake, if that is what you're worried about," Nero cleared as he downed another shot.
“Oh, good. Then I'll make the switch," Drake replied as he stood from his spot, perhaps, to go notify Marna. He returned with a beer in hand, and took a drink from it, seemingly more pleased with it. “Alright, so Kas said darts. Since there's four of us, should we do it in teams?"
"I'm telling you, it's really not fair while Ryk's sober. He's literally a ninja."
Aidan snorted. "Alright. On a scale of one to ten, how well do each of you rate your darts skills? We'll put the best with the worst so the challenge is more even. I'm probably a seven, but it doesn't change much even if I'm drinking."
"Eight, but closer to six if I've had too many," Rheinallt replied. "And if Ryk gives any number lower than nine and a half he's lying."
“I've never really had time to play darts, properly, so I'd say more of a three?" Drake stated, as if he weren't entirely sure how to rate himself. Nero narrowed his eyes before sighing heavily. “Wait, so Kas was right?" Drake asked as Nero nodded his head.
“Throwing darts isn't so different from throwing knives," Nero explained. “So I guess that means I have to play darts with Drake," he added, sounding a little upset about it, however; there was a small subtle smirk on his face that suggested otherwise. “Should still be able to kick the both of your asses."
"You're on, buddy," Rheinallt replied with a grin. "But everyone's gotta take another drink first."
"You realize that by your own admission that is handicapping you more than him, right?" Aidan drawled, following the suggestion anyway.
"Yeah but I'm betting it's even worse for Drake," he said with a huff of laughter. "Should we flip a coin for who throws first?"
“I don't know about that. If Ryk says he's as good as he is, then it really isn't going to be much of a problem," Drake stated with a shrug. Nero rolled his eyes, though, and shook his head.
“I'm not sure that's what they meant, but whatever," Nero stated as he downed his fourth drink. “I'm not even drunk yet, so it's still going to be unfair to the both of you," he said as he stood from his spot. Drake snorted softly as he pulled a coin from his back pocket.
“Alright, heads or tails," Drake stated as he placed the coin on his thumb and forefinger. Nero shrugged his shoulders, causing Drake to purse his lips together. “Fine, we'll call tails." He flipped the coin, watching as it landed on the table. It twirled for a few seconds before falling flat on its back.
“Well, guess you guys are first," Drake said as he glanced towards Aidan and Rheinallt.
"All right. I'll throw, then Ryk, bossman, and Drake, how's that?" Rheinallt offered.
Aidan shrugged, having no objections. While it was true that Nero would outscore either of them, they weren't at all bad, and he suspected the totals would be closer than Nero was saying. It was quite possible he was learning to trash talk, which was... kind of hilarious, come to think of it. He wore a slight smile as Rheinallt approached, throwing his trio of darts for a total of twenty four points. Since three bullseyes would have been thirty, that wasn't bad at all.
Returning to the table, he handed the darts over to Nero. "Have at it, ninja."
Nero huffed lightly as he took the darts from Rheinallt. “Don't call me that," he stated as he stood at the line. He glanced in Rheinallt's direction, narrowed his eyes, and threw his darts. All three hit the bullseye, giving Nero a total of thirty points. He turned his attention back to the dart board, retreived the darts, and handed them off to Aidan.
“Arceus, Ryk, you didn't even look," Drake stated, clearly awed by it. “I think you're just showing off, now," he added as Nero shrugged his shoulders.
“Told you, it's not so different. I could do it with my eyes closed."
"Jeez, Ryk, save it for when there are pretty girls around to impress or something, why don't you?" Rheinallt added, laughing a little into his shot glass. "Unless you're secretly into Drake, in which case, by all means continue."
Aidan rolled his eyes and took up his spot at the point they all threw from. Being on average very good at this, they stood about half again as far away as standard rules required, and honestly the target itself was a tad blurry to him. But it didn't really matter that much—he knew where the center was and after the first toss it was just about adjusting for feel.
The first went too low but was horizontally centered. The second two hit the bullseye and just to the left of it, respectively. Twenty six points; not bad.
Pulling the deeply-sunken darts from the board, he shot Marna an apologetic look when she tutted at him for it, but from the small smile she wore, she didn't really much care. Handing them off to Drake, he half-smiled.
"Let's see what you've got, kid."
“Sure thing old man," Drake replied as he took the darts. He threw his first dart, missing the board entirely which earned a slight huff from Nero. The second manage to land outside of the board, but wasn't sitting on any of the actual numbers. The third one, however, managed to land in the inside of the five area.
“Not bad if I say so myself," he stated with a proud grin on his face.
“That was bad. You missed the board entirely the first time, and didn't score anything until your third try. How did you manage to catch any pokémon with a throw like that?" Nero asked as he arched a brow at Drake.
“Lucky tosses?"
"Says the guy who had to throw pokéballs at maybe half his team," Rheinallt shot back with a smile. His second round was slightly better than his first, but already the game itself was hardly the focus of his attention. Which was fair enough, Aidan supposed. In a group like this the conversation tended to be... interesting.
"Okay, Rheinallt, what's your best catch story, then?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow curiously. His rings clinked softly against the next shotglass as he picked it up to throw the drink back.
"Sigrún challenged me," he said immediately, shrugging a little as he lifted his own drink.
"What, like, walked right into your camp and had a battle?"
He shook his head. "No, I mean like I was her opponent. Physically. She hit like a truck even as a riolu." He rolled his shoulders, as if in memory of some particular blow. "I did catch her, though."
“Wait... are you saying you actually fought with a riolu? Whoa. Those are dangerous even when they're that young. I'm surprised you didn't end up in the hospital," Drake stated, downing the rest of his beer before grabbing another one.
“What about you, Aidan? What's yours?" Drake asked, turning his attention towards Aidan as he took a drink of his beer. Nero arched a brow in Aidan's direction as if he were curious to know as well.
Aidan lifted his shoulders in a little shrug. "I don't know that any of my catch stories are all that entertaining. Frost did sit down on her ass and refuse to keep fighting halfway through my battle with her, though. I wasn't really sure why at the time, but I think she'd just decided going any further was undignified and knew I wasn't the type to continue a match with a pokémon that wasn't interested. I almost didn't throw the ball—I was looking for ones that wanted to battle, after all, and she just forfeited."
He knew some people planned their teams—what kind of pokémon they wanted to raise, where they'd find them, that kind of thing. Especially pros building competitive teams with knowledge gained from earlier years. But he'd never done that. All he'd wanted was pokémon that had the drive to compete. Type, species... beyond that he hadn't given a damn.
"Huh. I always figured she was your first, somehow."
The familiar little twinge in his chest almost made him grimace, but it was an old thing, now. "No. Just the first catch. How about you two?" He steered the conversation away from that topic and towards Drake and Nero.
“Oh that's easy," Drake started, chugging his beer a little quicker. “Deino tried to eat one of my pokéballs, and ended up catching himself," he said simply. “He's about as smart as Brick, in that sense, I suppose," he added with a light shrug. Nero snorted softly as if he'd found something amusing about Drake's story.
“Imp jumped in front of one of mine. I was trying to catch an ekans at the time, and the little shit was trying to be funny. He'd been following me for a few days trying to hypnotize me. He still does it to this day, the little shit," Nero muttered as he downed his sixth shot.
Aidan found himself chuckling at the recountings, shaking his head faintly. Pokémon could be undeniably strange sometimes. It was somehow completely unsurprising that Deino had done that—the knucklehead would be lucky to have two brain cells to rub together. The comparison to Brick wasn't inapt.
"And now he gets to prank you whenever he's out," he said, in response to Nero. "Devious."
“You have no idea," Nero responded, eyes narrowing slightly. Drake snorted softly as he polished off the rest of his beer. “You can borrow him sometime if you want to find out... might give me some peace-of-mind," Nero added, huffling lightly before rolling his eyes.
“I'm not sure that's how it works, Ryk. Plus, wouldn't he just make his way back to you?" Drake asked curiously. Nero sighed heavily.
“Yeah because he's an ass, just like Kas," Nero responded, causing Drake to snicker softly.
“That... rhymes," he laughed. It was evident that Drake was teetering on the line of drunk and tipsy.
Rheinallt laughed softly, rolling his eyes. "If you squint, I guess," he said wryly.
"How many times did you get that in the schoolyard?" Aidan asked, imagining that elementary school would have been hell if any of the kids had struck on 'Assimir,' which they surely had.
"Plenty, but they had other things to call me, too," he replied. "I wasn't exactly one of the cool kids, back in the day."
“I'd have taken that over being homeschooled," Nero stated, his lips pursing into a fine line. Drake arched a brow in his direction.
“You were homeschooled?" he asked. Nero nodded in reply, taking another shot before pouring hismelf another one, and downing it, too.
“Wasn't as great as you might have thought," Nero simply stated.
“Well that was a long time ago, anyway. Kids can be pretty stupid and mean," Drake stated with a light shrug of his shoulders. “People in general, really, but I guess it's nice that we have friends, now, right?" Drake stated, smiling a little lopsided.
“If you squint really hard, I suppose."
"Or if you're wearing beer goggles," Rheinallt snarked.
Aidan rolled his eyes. It was pretty obvious that both of them valued the company more than their remarks indicated, though, so he let it slide without comment.
"Yeah, yeah. Next person should throw or I'll demonstrate what I learned on the schoolyard."
The thunderstorm raging outside kept them off the patio, but the nice thing about the weather was that literally no one but the four of them, plus Marna, were even at the bar, so they had the place to themselves. Aidan was pleased to see that the patch job on the roof was holding for now, even as sideways rain lashed the windowpanes, occasionally lighting up before a booming roll of thunder.
Of course, the real name of the game, as it were, was 'distract Drake from his stalker ex-boyfriend problems,' but it was one of those goals you were more likely to achieve if you didn't let on exactly what you were after.
Nero narrowed his eyes in Rheinallt's direction, accepting the drink from Marna before furrowing his brows. “You say it as if I'm going to miss even if I'm drunk. I don't miss, ass," he stated, downing the drink fairly quickly. Drake arched a brow at Nero as if he didn't quite understand what he'd meant by that.
“But... isn't that why Kas said how drunk?" Drake stated as Nero narrowed his eyes at him.
“You misunderstood me. Kas doesn't think I can hold my liquor from the way he's trying to challenge me," Nero replied.
“It didn't sound like a challenge."
"Ryk likes to interpret everything that way," Rheinallt teased, grinning a little to himself as he downed his shot.
"That's because you're exactly the kind of sly bastard who'd issue a challenge sidewards," Aidan replied, doing the same. The rum was at once acrid and slightly sweet on the tongue, though not overly so. He passed his tongue over his lip to catch the remaining drop, and shook his head.
Rheinallt wore an expression of mock offense. "Now that's not fair. I can be straightforward," he complained, almost in a whine, as Marna brought over the next few rounds at once. The three of them alone could go through quite a volume in a night, and even if Drake was a lightweight, he'd only add to the total.
“Sometimes too straightforward," Nero replied, rolling his eyes as he downed his second shot. Drake was still working on his first, though, making a face as if he'd found something sour before making a soft disgusted noise.
“How can you guys drink this stuff? Bleh," Drake spoke as Nero arched a brow in his direction.
“Because? How can you not?" Nero asked. Drake pursed his lips together as he regarded the other man through narrowed eyes.
“I don't drink as often as the three of you," was his reply.
"It's rum, Drake. This is about as easy as liquor gets, tastewise. The first time we ever came here, Ryk practically drank vodka from the bottle." Rheinallt grinned, snickering softly.
Aidan felt as though this was pretty obviously an exaggeration, but let it slide, taking his third drink but electing not to toss it back right away as he had with the first two. "Can always swap to beer or something," he noted. "They'll only pretend to judge you."
“Pretend? Who said anything about pretending?" Nero asked, arching a brow in Aidan's direction. Drake pursed his lips in Nero's direction as he merely shrugged. “I am not one to judge, Drake, if that is what you're worried about," Nero cleared as he downed another shot.
“Oh, good. Then I'll make the switch," Drake replied as he stood from his spot, perhaps, to go notify Marna. He returned with a beer in hand, and took a drink from it, seemingly more pleased with it. “Alright, so Kas said darts. Since there's four of us, should we do it in teams?"
"I'm telling you, it's really not fair while Ryk's sober. He's literally a ninja."
Aidan snorted. "Alright. On a scale of one to ten, how well do each of you rate your darts skills? We'll put the best with the worst so the challenge is more even. I'm probably a seven, but it doesn't change much even if I'm drinking."
"Eight, but closer to six if I've had too many," Rheinallt replied. "And if Ryk gives any number lower than nine and a half he's lying."
“I've never really had time to play darts, properly, so I'd say more of a three?" Drake stated, as if he weren't entirely sure how to rate himself. Nero narrowed his eyes before sighing heavily. “Wait, so Kas was right?" Drake asked as Nero nodded his head.
“Throwing darts isn't so different from throwing knives," Nero explained. “So I guess that means I have to play darts with Drake," he added, sounding a little upset about it, however; there was a small subtle smirk on his face that suggested otherwise. “Should still be able to kick the both of your asses."
"You're on, buddy," Rheinallt replied with a grin. "But everyone's gotta take another drink first."
"You realize that by your own admission that is handicapping you more than him, right?" Aidan drawled, following the suggestion anyway.
"Yeah but I'm betting it's even worse for Drake," he said with a huff of laughter. "Should we flip a coin for who throws first?"
“I don't know about that. If Ryk says he's as good as he is, then it really isn't going to be much of a problem," Drake stated with a shrug. Nero rolled his eyes, though, and shook his head.
“I'm not sure that's what they meant, but whatever," Nero stated as he downed his fourth drink. “I'm not even drunk yet, so it's still going to be unfair to the both of you," he said as he stood from his spot. Drake snorted softly as he pulled a coin from his back pocket.
“Alright, heads or tails," Drake stated as he placed the coin on his thumb and forefinger. Nero shrugged his shoulders, causing Drake to purse his lips together. “Fine, we'll call tails." He flipped the coin, watching as it landed on the table. It twirled for a few seconds before falling flat on its back.
“Well, guess you guys are first," Drake said as he glanced towards Aidan and Rheinallt.
"All right. I'll throw, then Ryk, bossman, and Drake, how's that?" Rheinallt offered.
Aidan shrugged, having no objections. While it was true that Nero would outscore either of them, they weren't at all bad, and he suspected the totals would be closer than Nero was saying. It was quite possible he was learning to trash talk, which was... kind of hilarious, come to think of it. He wore a slight smile as Rheinallt approached, throwing his trio of darts for a total of twenty four points. Since three bullseyes would have been thirty, that wasn't bad at all.
Returning to the table, he handed the darts over to Nero. "Have at it, ninja."
Nero huffed lightly as he took the darts from Rheinallt. “Don't call me that," he stated as he stood at the line. He glanced in Rheinallt's direction, narrowed his eyes, and threw his darts. All three hit the bullseye, giving Nero a total of thirty points. He turned his attention back to the dart board, retreived the darts, and handed them off to Aidan.
“Arceus, Ryk, you didn't even look," Drake stated, clearly awed by it. “I think you're just showing off, now," he added as Nero shrugged his shoulders.
“Told you, it's not so different. I could do it with my eyes closed."
"Jeez, Ryk, save it for when there are pretty girls around to impress or something, why don't you?" Rheinallt added, laughing a little into his shot glass. "Unless you're secretly into Drake, in which case, by all means continue."
Aidan rolled his eyes and took up his spot at the point they all threw from. Being on average very good at this, they stood about half again as far away as standard rules required, and honestly the target itself was a tad blurry to him. But it didn't really matter that much—he knew where the center was and after the first toss it was just about adjusting for feel.
The first went too low but was horizontally centered. The second two hit the bullseye and just to the left of it, respectively. Twenty six points; not bad.
Pulling the deeply-sunken darts from the board, he shot Marna an apologetic look when she tutted at him for it, but from the small smile she wore, she didn't really much care. Handing them off to Drake, he half-smiled.
"Let's see what you've got, kid."
“Sure thing old man," Drake replied as he took the darts. He threw his first dart, missing the board entirely which earned a slight huff from Nero. The second manage to land outside of the board, but wasn't sitting on any of the actual numbers. The third one, however, managed to land in the inside of the five area.
“Not bad if I say so myself," he stated with a proud grin on his face.
“That was bad. You missed the board entirely the first time, and didn't score anything until your third try. How did you manage to catch any pokémon with a throw like that?" Nero asked as he arched a brow at Drake.
“Lucky tosses?"
"Says the guy who had to throw pokéballs at maybe half his team," Rheinallt shot back with a smile. His second round was slightly better than his first, but already the game itself was hardly the focus of his attention. Which was fair enough, Aidan supposed. In a group like this the conversation tended to be... interesting.
"Okay, Rheinallt, what's your best catch story, then?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow curiously. His rings clinked softly against the next shotglass as he picked it up to throw the drink back.
"Sigrún challenged me," he said immediately, shrugging a little as he lifted his own drink.
"What, like, walked right into your camp and had a battle?"
He shook his head. "No, I mean like I was her opponent. Physically. She hit like a truck even as a riolu." He rolled his shoulders, as if in memory of some particular blow. "I did catch her, though."
“Wait... are you saying you actually fought with a riolu? Whoa. Those are dangerous even when they're that young. I'm surprised you didn't end up in the hospital," Drake stated, downing the rest of his beer before grabbing another one.
“What about you, Aidan? What's yours?" Drake asked, turning his attention towards Aidan as he took a drink of his beer. Nero arched a brow in Aidan's direction as if he were curious to know as well.
Aidan lifted his shoulders in a little shrug. "I don't know that any of my catch stories are all that entertaining. Frost did sit down on her ass and refuse to keep fighting halfway through my battle with her, though. I wasn't really sure why at the time, but I think she'd just decided going any further was undignified and knew I wasn't the type to continue a match with a pokémon that wasn't interested. I almost didn't throw the ball—I was looking for ones that wanted to battle, after all, and she just forfeited."
He knew some people planned their teams—what kind of pokémon they wanted to raise, where they'd find them, that kind of thing. Especially pros building competitive teams with knowledge gained from earlier years. But he'd never done that. All he'd wanted was pokémon that had the drive to compete. Type, species... beyond that he hadn't given a damn.
"Huh. I always figured she was your first, somehow."
The familiar little twinge in his chest almost made him grimace, but it was an old thing, now. "No. Just the first catch. How about you two?" He steered the conversation away from that topic and towards Drake and Nero.
“Oh that's easy," Drake started, chugging his beer a little quicker. “Deino tried to eat one of my pokéballs, and ended up catching himself," he said simply. “He's about as smart as Brick, in that sense, I suppose," he added with a light shrug. Nero snorted softly as if he'd found something amusing about Drake's story.
“Imp jumped in front of one of mine. I was trying to catch an ekans at the time, and the little shit was trying to be funny. He'd been following me for a few days trying to hypnotize me. He still does it to this day, the little shit," Nero muttered as he downed his sixth shot.
Aidan found himself chuckling at the recountings, shaking his head faintly. Pokémon could be undeniably strange sometimes. It was somehow completely unsurprising that Deino had done that—the knucklehead would be lucky to have two brain cells to rub together. The comparison to Brick wasn't inapt.
"And now he gets to prank you whenever he's out," he said, in response to Nero. "Devious."
“You have no idea," Nero responded, eyes narrowing slightly. Drake snorted softly as he polished off the rest of his beer. “You can borrow him sometime if you want to find out... might give me some peace-of-mind," Nero added, huffling lightly before rolling his eyes.
“I'm not sure that's how it works, Ryk. Plus, wouldn't he just make his way back to you?" Drake asked curiously. Nero sighed heavily.
“Yeah because he's an ass, just like Kas," Nero responded, causing Drake to snicker softly.
“That... rhymes," he laughed. It was evident that Drake was teetering on the line of drunk and tipsy.
Rheinallt laughed softly, rolling his eyes. "If you squint, I guess," he said wryly.
"How many times did you get that in the schoolyard?" Aidan asked, imagining that elementary school would have been hell if any of the kids had struck on 'Assimir,' which they surely had.
"Plenty, but they had other things to call me, too," he replied. "I wasn't exactly one of the cool kids, back in the day."
“I'd have taken that over being homeschooled," Nero stated, his lips pursing into a fine line. Drake arched a brow in his direction.
“You were homeschooled?" he asked. Nero nodded in reply, taking another shot before pouring hismelf another one, and downing it, too.
“Wasn't as great as you might have thought," Nero simply stated.
“Well that was a long time ago, anyway. Kids can be pretty stupid and mean," Drake stated with a light shrug of his shoulders. “People in general, really, but I guess it's nice that we have friends, now, right?" Drake stated, smiling a little lopsided.
“If you squint really hard, I suppose."
"Or if you're wearing beer goggles," Rheinallt snarked.
Aidan rolled his eyes. It was pretty obvious that both of them valued the company more than their remarks indicated, though, so he let it slide without comment.
"Yeah, yeah. Next person should throw or I'll demonstrate what I learned on the schoolyard."