Who: Freddy Adler and Njall Strand What: (Fire)Whiskey & Sympathy When: 13 April 2019 | Evening Where: The Crimson Kestrel Warnings: Parental Advice, Mentions of Dead Relatives (but mostly safe)
He'd been sitting at the bar for long enough that his beer had gone completely flat. Njall was almost afraid that if he started drinking that he wouldn't know when to stop. Or even if he could stop. He'd been stone cold sober since his mother's funeral, because that feeling had started in even then, and he'd been afraid of giving in.
But he wanted to be a good customer, so he kept ordering appetizers and rounds for the other people sitting at the bar itself. They drifted in and out of his orbit, pulled in by the promise of free food and drink, but pushed away by away by the heaviness that he just couldn't shake. He was alone now, in the Saturday crowd's ebb. Stranded in his own thoughts.
He snorted a laugh, low and bitter, at the obvious pun. The amber liquid continued its siren's call. It sounded uncannily like the sea.
Without neglecting his barkeep duties Freddy had been keeping watch of Njall all evening. It wasn't unheard of for people to come in and not drink but something about his mood seemed a little off for the healer. It wasn't something he wanted for folk to take advantage of as so often happened whenever the word free was bandied about the bar. So he kept a more or less watchful eye until he could actually take to time to check in himself.
It wasn't a particularly busy night, even if the Kestrel was one of the very few places in Snowcap one could go to at night for a good time, and he soon found himself being told by his mom to take his break now while there was a lull in the night crowd. Freddy grabbed a bottle of pop before heading out to the front of the bar and taking the seat next to Njall.
"Y'know you keep this up and people'll be expecting free food and drink whenever you come in here," he quipped before popping the lid off the bottle. "You can tell me to mind my business if'n you want, but I know there's got to be something wrong when a guy is more intent on making sure others have food and drink without even finishing off the one and only beer he's ordered. So, any particular reason you've graced this bar with your presence if you're not intending to drink at all?"
With a glance at Freddy, Njall huffed a laugh and shook his head. "Maybe it's just my irrepressible need to please other people." He paused and then laughed even harder. "No one has ever accused me of selflessness. It's probably more like I wanted to buy other people's limited affections, even just for the space of a drink or an appetizer. Probably beats the heck out of prostitution."
Freddy laughed. "Probably does. Less complications for the most part. Still people will probably keep expecting it whenever you're in the bar, and that could get messy - depending on how drunk they are at the time."
He grinned, but the expression didn't meet his eyes. Reaching out his still full and now very room temperature glass, he tipped it against the side of Freddy's bottle, something satisfying in the solid clink of glass-on-glass. "On the other hand, it probably would behoove me to start actually saving what I can." Njall set the glass back down, still untouched. "How much do you think college is going to be in the next eighteen or so years? Half-a-mil a semester hour? What kind of percentage do you set aside for Iris?"
He smiled before taking a drink, noting that Njall still didn't even touch a drop of his. "It wouldn't surprise me," he snorted derisively. Freddy had been fortunate enough to have gone to ACU. If it hadn't been for the partial scholarship he'd won from The National Spelling Bee he would probably be a lot further in debt now rather than having paid off what student loans he'd had a few years back. "I... we started up a fund the moment we found out we were pregnant - even if it was more Anne's idea to think ahead then rather than later. We always put away about twenty percent each sometimes more if we could."
Freddy sighed as he stared at his bottle a moment. "Don't really go out much these days so I usually end up putting more into the fund anyway," he added with a shrug, before looking up and giving Njall a curious look. "Why'd you ask? Didn't know you had or were thinking of kids."
At some point, Njall had started to nod, and now that his head was moving, it couldn't seem to stop. He was like one of those bobble-headed figures that had been all the rage a couple of years back. His gaze snapped up to Freddy in disbelief, eyes narrowing a little, but he didn't get the impression that the question was one of guile. He tried to school his face into something else, anything less hunted.
"You've seen Nat and Tony's Wizgram posts." It wasn't a question. This was a small town with wifi and little else to do but follow one another on the socials. Even still, he waited for some kind of nod of assent or other outward sign that the other man knew what he meant before pointing at himself. "Not had, definitely never thought of--at least in a very long time. It's probably been at least ten years since I even entertained the notion, and now here we all are. Thinking about college funds, and how the hell am I ever gonna help raise a kid."
"Ah." Freddy had wondered who the father was but it wasn't any of his business so he never bothered to ask. He'd somehow found himself roped into answering whatever questions Nat had - which he was happy enough to help with even if he did keep bringing up memories of Anne. Three years, and still felt equal parts like forever and just yesterday. "It's definitely a crazy ride, and not the easiest thing in the world, but it's worth it," he commented with a smile as he thought of Iris. If not for Iris and his family he wasn't sure how he'd have managed. "This'll sound completely unhelpful but the best thing you can do in helping to raise a kid? Just try. Just be there, and try."
Freddy was suddenly wishing his bottle was beer and not pop. "Anne and I didn't have the first clue as to what we were supposed to. Even after reading practically everything and asking questions we still made mistakes and just learnt as we went along," he told Njall. He frowned as he stared down at the countertop of the bar. "Never actually thought I'd have to go at it alone though, but she - Iris - keeps me going, and family too."
It sounded so simple, and on some human level it probably was. Certainly the practice of it wasn't, even on that human level--anyone would concede that. But the problem was that the human perspective wasn't the only one he had to contend with. And it certainly wasn't something he necessarily wanted to discuss in the middle of The Crimson Kestrel on a Saturday night. He nodded slowly at Freddy, sympathizing and at least making a show of understanding. Well, no. He did understand a little, but from the other side of things. "My móðir--my mom raised me after my dad…"
How to even phrase that now that he knew the truth? Left? Died? Drowned? Jumped into the fucking ocean because he didn't care enough to stay? Was his bastard of a father still out there somewhere, gambolling as a fucking seal in the Icelandic coastal waters?
Shame and revulsion warred in his gut, but he shoved it aside. He tried to focus more on Freddy, and remembered just how shattered the other man had been when he'd come back to Snowcap without his wife. He'd made it through somehow. Maybe Njall just needed to get his shit together before this new life came along. "I just mean--yeah. Being there. It means a lot. Iris is a lucky little girl."
Freddy nodded silently. There wasn't really anything he could say. There weren't words to make it better, and to say that it must've been hard and such would be redundant. It did, however, make him think of his daughter though, and how she'd been managing. There were days when he knew it was hard for Iris as well but worse were the rare nights that inevitably broke his heart were when she'd wake up calling for her mum.
"She is. We both are," he responded, managing a small smile at Njall's comment. Definitely lucky. Without a doubt he knew if not for his family being there those days, weeks, and months after that their situation would be far worse off. "Having family around will do that though. As crazy as things might seem now, or might be later, I'm sure you and Nat will manage."
That was the second mention of family, and this time Njall couldn't hold back his wince. Any family he had left was scattered along the East Coast, or quite literally scattered in the Eyjafjörður. A Norse funeral. His mother had been oddly specific on that point. It had been a handful of months, but it still hurt.
"Nat's got support out the wazoo," he agreed as much to distract himself as anything else, and turned his pained expression into something slightly more wry. "I'm pretty sure Tony is going to alternate between being the best uncle ever or an unholy terror. Probably with nothing in the way of in-between." He chuckled. "But I know Stevie will be great, and their Uncle Jesse too. And, let's face it, all of Snowcap eats it up whenever a new baby comes. Back-to-back-to-back baby showers up until the kid turns twenty, am I right?"
It took a second after having noticed the wince for realisation to kick in like a pair of boot-clad feet to the gut. Freddy pinched the bridge of his nose a second as he mentally reprimanded himself. "Sorry, Njall. For a moment there I completely forgot," he apologised. "Too damned focused on my own memories that I didn't even think...."
Njall wasn't wrong though. In a small town like Snowcap the people ate it up and went all out when it came to baby showers and the like."But yeah, Nat's certainly got quite the back-up team, and I'm fairly sure that Tony doesn't exactly has an off switch to him," he said, and it was immediately followed by a sort of 'how'd I get into this?' face. "Somehow managed to get myself roped in there as well when it comes to baby questions."
With a wry smile, Njall shook his head and made a dismissive gesture. "No, hey, it's fine. Really. Can't do anything about it, so it's okay. I never expect for people to be wrapped up in my life when they have their own." His smile became a grin as he shrugged. "Not quite as self-centered as that. But I can't really afford to be now, can I?"
The untouched beer remained so, but he pushed at it and watched the surface ripple. If that wasn't an analogy for his life right now, he was hard pressed to think of a better one. He had to laugh at Freddy's comments about Tony. "Comes with the territory, I'm afraid, you being one of the resident parents." His smile froze, fell, and he carded his fingers slowly through his hair in a gesture that spoke to his current anxiety levels. "I'm about to be a 'resident parents'."
"If you say so. Still would've been nice for the brain to mouth filter to have kicked in and given me some warning signal before I ploughed ahead." Freddy took a drink from the bottle, and smiled as he shook his head slightly. "Yeah, once you've somebody else to be caring about it's a little harder to be selfish or self-centred even."
"And all I did was offer to help out with painting the walls of whichever room is being turned into the nursery." He gave a shrug of his shoulders. Freddy had to bite down on his lip to stop from smiling. As amusing as it was to be seeing someone else go through the same anxiety he'd once gone through was still not really a laughing matter. "Afraid so," he commented, holding his bottle up as if he was saying congratulations. "It's not so bad though. Crazy rollercoaster of a ride but one that's worth it in the end."
Freddy, with bottle still in hand, gestured to Njall's untouched beer. "You want something fresh, or you okay with that?"
This was a night for swallowing back his responses, because questioning if it really was "worth it" would have probably painted him as some kind of inhuman abomination. Well, at least one of those things was true. Njall considered his glass for a moment, glanced behind the bar in an obvious inner-debate, and then shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. Thanks though. And thanks for the chat." He nodded toward where Mrs. Adler was mixing a drink. "I'm pretty sure your mom's been looking over here and wondering when you're going to relieve her for a couple of minutes now. Don't let me keep you. I should get going anyway. Nothing like being gone for a few months to necessitate the Get Caught Up on Charts game."
"Hey, no worries. All part and parcel of being a bartender, and in my case usually because I like to think I'm a pretty decent guy," he responded with a smile. Freddy glanced over where his mum was, and getting a look with a raised eyebrow in return. Hopping off the bar stool he grabbed the near empty bottle. "Probably have overstayed on my break, I guess. And ouch, I do not envy you having to play that game a bit. I'll see you around." Freddy took a few steps, paused and turned back to Njall. "You ever need someone to listen or whatever you know where to find me."
His coat was hanging off the back of his bar stool and he reached back to pull it on as he stood as well. "Yeah-" he pulled his scarf around his throat- "thanks, man. Hopefully my questions won't nearly as relentless as… other people's. Hope the rest of your shift is, well, I think uneventful sounds pretty safe. Tell Iris I said hi. But maybe tomorrow, if you're here late. See ya later."
As Njall left the bar, bank account a little lighter than it had been going in, he reflected some more on his circumstances. The brief chat with Freddy had allowed him to air some of his insecurities while not necessarily making him feel better--which was not a reflection of the other man, but of his own state of mind--but it did help him feel secure in the knowledge that Nat would always have the support she needed. And that made all the difference as far as he was concerned.