Who: Qrow Branwen, Leon Orcot and Sara Lance What: Sara has to deal with problematic customers; Qrow and Leon try to help Where: The Double Tap When: Sometime last week Rating/Warnings Some violence, nothing serious and no one is terribly hurt Status: Complete!
More and more lately, when Qrow wasn’t in the mood to drink alone at home he came to the Double Tap, which due to recent events had really become his bar of choice. Plus, he figured he owed Dan Smith for helping out with Weiss and Elsa, even though he really didn’t have to.
Shaking the remnants of the day off his shoulders, Qrow made his way to his usual bar stool, giving a nod to the blond haired detective who’d already sidled up to the bar for the evening. Despite the fact that the police still made Qrow wary, he’d come to expect Detective Orcot’s presence at the Double Tap. He and Dan seemed to be pretty close, so that took a bit of the edge off. “Evenin’, Leon,” he said as he sat down.
Qrow then turned his attention to the new young bartender, Dan’s recent hire to replace the last guy who’d decided he’d had enough of Orange County. “Whiskey, please,” he said. “And if you don’t mind opening a tab for me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Qrow,” Leon said, nodding his head and lifting his glass to the other man. Sara couldn’t help the small, amused smile. The name, unusual as it was, was fitting. He almost looked like a crow, perched on the bar stool with his dark hair.
“One whiskey, coming up,” Sara said, already moving toward the bar to pour him a glass.
Once she set the glass down on the counter, Leon lifted his own glass for a silent cheers, and then asked “so, how’s it going?”
Qrow nodded his thanks to Sara and handed her his card so she could open a tab for him. He glanced at Leon before taking his first sip. “Alright, I guess,” he said in response to Leon’s question. “Been keeping busy, but I can’t complain.” He smiled faintly into his glass. Busy was one way to describe his activities last month. A side look towards the detective and Qrow wondered how much Leon would have appreciated the story of how he and his nieces and their friends had launched a rescue mission that had involved sabotaging the life of the man who owned one of the largest diamond companies in the world. It hadn’t been exactly legal, but then again, nothing Jacques Schnee seemed to have been involved in had been legal either. “You? Still hanging in there?”
“I’m managing,” Leon said. Things weren’t great, but they could be worse. He still had Chris, and his friends, which is more than a lot of people could say.
Sara smiled at them, deciding her bartending duties weren’t needed here for the time being, at least until they finished their drinks. She was fine at the whole chit-chat part of the job, and even at the listening to everyone drunkenly spill their regrets and problems at her, but if they had each other it was better to leave them to themselves.
Another group of men had sat themselves down at a table in the corner, and she left behind the bar to go get their drink orders. It was slow enough that she could easily manage both the job of waitress and bartender, after all.
They were a dirty lot, probably worked on cars if the embedded grease in the creases of their fingers were anything to go by. They leered at her as she approached, and she managed, barely, to resist the temptation to roll her eyes at them. Instead, she smiled, and said “can I get you anything?”
“Wouldn’t mind a taste of that ass,” one of the men, the one closest to her, said, and his two buddies laughed as though he had just told the greatest joke of the century.
“Sorry, that’s not on tap,” Sara said with forced cheerfulness.
The guy’s friends laughed again, but this time at him instead of with him. The leer on his face turned into a glare, and he grabbed her wrist. Before she knew what was happening, he was pulling her towards him, and she let out a surprised “hey!” and rammed the palm of her hand into his cheek. His grip released suddenly, and she stepped back out of reach quickly.
It was the hey that attracted Leon’s attention, and he looked up just in time to see the man get out of his seat, taller, and beefier, than Sara.
“Hey!” Leon bellowed, getting off of his stool, catching his foot on the barstool base, and slamming face first into the floor.
It had been the annoying laughter that had caught Qrow’s attention, causing him to glance in the direction of the table Sara was at. Red eyes narrowed sharply at the leering look on the face of the grubby handed patron. He hadn’t seen them in here before, so they must have been unaware of Dan Smith’s intolerance for certain behaviors in his bar. Had he been there, he probably would have thrown the group out for even making the comment about Sara’s ass.
Qrow was on his feet at the same time as Leon and already moving towards the table while the poor detective took a faceplant to the floor. Qrow heard the thump against the wood, but didn’t have the time to go back and help him up. He crossed the room to stand behind Sara, his eyes locked on the group at the table and the tall thug that had gotten to his feet. “There a problem here, Sara?” He asked.
Sara almost told Qrow that there was no problem here and that she had it handled. But with the appearance of Qrow, all the men were getting up from their seat now and it didn’t look like their intention was to walk quietly into the night. Knowing self-defense or not, Sara couldn’t take on all of them by herself yet.
“Yeah, four of them, actually,” Sara said, stepping back so she was standing next to Qrow and crossing her arms, no hint of fear in her voice. “Now, you guys can choose to leave, or my,” she almost said friends, but Leon was cursing to himself behind her and probably didn’t lend much to their image, “friend and I are going to have to escort you out.”
Qrow was aware that his presence wasn’t doing much to diffuse the situation, but it was too late to back down now. He was also aware how quiet the bar had suddenly become. He didn’t have to glance around to know that eyes were on them now. Some of the owners of those eyes would be willing to step in if it looked as though things were going to escalate. Others were expecting to be treated to a brawl. Qrow let out a silent breath. This was not how he wanted to spend his evening.
His attention remained on the four patrons, who were all on their feet now. Tall, lanky and dressed in street clothes, he knew he didn’t look like much. He certainly didn’t have the brawny-brawler look to him. But he did have another type of look: A trademark glare -- one of the few things he and his sister shared -- that clearly told anyone it was directed at that if they were looking for a fight, they better damn well be prepared for one. Raven was much more liberal with this look than Qrow was, but each of them certainly had the ability to back it up.
Leon was on his feet now, rubbing his jaw but still managing to glare at the grease monkeys.
One of them was looking at Qrow, and swallowed. “Hey, Steve, let’s find another bar, man,” he said, lying a hand on arm of the man who had grabbed Sara. Steve shook him off.
“Fuck no,” Steve spat. “You think you can tell me what to do? Let’s see how tough you are now.” The last he said, reaching out and grabbing Sara. Sara slammed the heel of her foot into his tow, already ready to elbow him in the face when looked down at it.
One of the other men lurched forward toward her, and that was all the incentive that Leon needed to jump in, fist flying. The man who’d tried to calm down Steve looked around, grabbed a beer bottle off a gaping couple’s table, smashed it on the table, and advanced toward Qrow.
Not the wisest of moves on the part of the only one of the group Qrow thought had any sense. He should have just decked his idiot buddy and dragged his sorry ass out of the bar. But, no, instead he chose to stand and fight, with a broken beer bottle, no less. Couldn’t even give the guy credit for originality.
“You sure you wanna do this?” Qrow asked. He was backing away slowly, hands up in front of him. “You can still leave, if you want.”
The guy wielding the beer bottle just grinned at him, confident that out of the the three, he’d chosen the one who’d turn out to be the coward in this fight. That was the wrong assumption to make.
Long strides had taken Qrow towards the middle of the bar and (hopefully) far enough away from both Sara and Leon to not interfere with their fights. It would have to be. The guy lunged forward, thrusting the jagged edge of the beer bottle in Qrow’s direction. The clumsy attack made it obvious he wasn’t a fighter and had probably never been in a brawl a day in his life, much less a bar brawl.
Qrow easily sidestepped the attack. He lashed out and grabbed the guy by the wrist and slammed it against the edge of the closest table with enough force to make him cry out in pain and drop his improvised weapon. Qrow then brought the elbow of his other arm back and clocked the guy right on the bridge of his nose.
Somewhere between blocking punches with his face and giving them back just as hard, Leon became aware of how outmatched Sara was. He’d lost track of Qrow somewhere, but Steve had come back with a vengeance, and, easily the biggest of the three men, had effortlessly overpowered Sara, and was holding her by a handful of her hair.
Leon, who had been holding onto to the front of his punching bag shirt, changed tactics and threw him back into the table. He grabbed a wooden chair from one of the empty tables, muttered “Sorry Dan,” and broke it across the man’s back. The man not only let go of Sara, but crumpled to his knees, and Leon took a moment to appreciate his handiwork. He hadn’t realized just how much he had been itching for a fight these last few weeks (these last few months?), but for the first time in a while Alex wasn’t lurking in the back of his head.
He was a little surprised when Sara ran past him, and turned around just in time to see her land a well-aimed kick on the third man, who was now wielding one of legs of the now destroyed chair, right between his legs. The man’s legs seemed to turn to jelly and he curled into the fetal position on the floor. Leon involuntarily winced, and then looked around to bar to see how Qrow as doing.
Qrow wasn’t doing too badly. While Leon and Sara handled their two fighters, Qrow was tousseling with his own, attempting to keep a distance from them and in the process ramping up his semblance. About the same time Leon broke a chair over Steve’s back, Qrow and the Bottle Man (no longer with bottle) crashed against a table, knocking it and all its contents to the ground and sending the people who had been sitting there scrambling away.
In the back of Qrow’s mind, as he scrambled to be the first to gain his footing again, he was aware that the only people actually fighting were himself, Leon, Sara and the three assholes. Which was weird, honestly, and not at all what Qrow had expected. Apparently, Dan’s rules about fighting were so well ingrained (or Dan himself was so well respected) that not even those Qrow had thought were itching for a fight a few moments ago were scrambling to get out of the way and not get involved. Out of the corner of his eye, Qrow saw Granny Barfly -- Agnes -- who was as much of a fixture at The Double Tap as Dan Smith himself, dart behind the bar and reach for the phone. Who is she going to call, a detached part of Qrow’s mind wondered.
He’d probably never get an answer to that. He was on his feet first, but with just barely enough time to brace himself and catch Bottle Man as he tackled him at center of mass and drive him backwards towards the bar itself. Qrow staggered a couple of feet before bringing his knee up and elbow down on the man’s head and neck.
Leon watched Qrow’s fight, and sighed heavily now that it seemed they had the threat subdued, while at the same time Sara sank into one of the booths, breathing heavily. He wondered if she was alright. She seemed calm enough, but if Leon had been her he probably would’ve been scared.
Sara was looking at him expectantly. “I guess I should take them in,” he muttered. He wasn’t really looking forward to it. He didn’t know how the captain would react to hearing that Leon had gotten into a bar brawl, but he didn’t imagine it would go over well.
Sara raised her eyebrows. “You think?” she asked sarcastically, and Leon sighed again.
“If you have any twist ties, you might as well get them,” he said, and then headed to his car to get the spare set of handcuffs he usually kept on him from his glovebox.
Qrow wasn’t sure if arresting the three was really necessary -- Dan would have just thrown them out and told them to never come back -- but he wasn’t going to tell Leon how to do his job. With a sigh he leaned back against the bar and rubbed his now aching shoulder. He was going to have a few bruises tomorrow, and maybe even be a little stiff.
He kept an eye on the three wouldbe fighters as Leon went out to his car. Two of them were passed out, the third was still curled up tight and moaning. Yeah, they weren’t going anywhere. Qrow let out another breath and raised his eyes across the bar. For the most part everyone seemed to be resuming their normal chatter, the one broken chair and crashed table notwithstanding. A few looks were bast their way, but over all, everyone else seemed fine.
Qrow let out another breath and after rotating his shoulder a final time, pushed from the bar. He looked over to where Sarah as seated like a heap in the booth. “You alright?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m alright,” Sara assured Qrow, hoping that he didn’t notice the slight tremor in her hand. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would have done if Qrow and Leon hadn’t been there, but she didn’t like the feeling of being helpless, or of needing to rely on the presence of a couple of men to keep her out of harms way.
“What about you? That guy didn’t manage to cut you, did he?”
“Nah,” Qrow answered. He did notice the way Sara’s hand was shaking, but dismissed it as being a side effect of the adrenalin still surging through her. The fight had been brief, but fairly intense. It’ll be another minute or so before any of them could breathe normally again.
Qrow gave another glance around the bar. One table was on its side, broken glass and alcohol spotted the floor and one chair was in pieces. He winced a little. Dan was probably not going to be a fan of the scene when he saw it. Qrow figured he was partially (if not mostly) responsible for the mess all things considered. The men hadn’t actually gotten to their feet until he’d approached the table.
Another puff of breath and another look around the bar. “Sorry ‘bout this,” he said.
“You didn’t do anything,” Sara said, rubbing the top of her head. “I mean, other than help me out. Thank you, by the way. I think you earned a couple of drinks on the house.” And if Dan didn’t agree, well then Sara would just cover them out of her tips.
Leon walked back into the bar, immediately heading to Steve to cuff him. He was out cold, but he’d been the instigator in all of this and Leon wasn’t about to let him cause anymore shit once he finally came to.
“You guys want to press chargers?” Leon asked, and was, he had to admit, a little relieved when they both indicated no. He didn’t want to have to do all the paperwork involved with that, and then there’d be court where he’d have to explain his part in everything. It was probably for the best.
That didn’t mean he was gonna let them just get away with it. Twenty-four hours in a holding cell would hopefully make them rethink their life choices. “Well, it’ll be a few before my colleagues get here. Qrow, why don’t you help me clean this place up?” Maybe Dan would be a little less pissed if it didn’t look like a complete disaster area when he inevitably showed up. And when you feel up for it, I’ll take another cold one, Sara.”
Qrow visibly winced when Sara told him he deserved a couple of drinks on the house. He really didn’t. Had he not been there, the whole thing may not have escalated as it had. He was about to tell her so when Leon came back inside and proceeded to cuff the offending trio. Relieved to finally put the night’s unpleasantness behind him Qrow shook his head when Leon asked if he wanted to press charges. With any luck hopefully these three would never show their faces in the Double Tap again and they all could get on with their lives.
“I’ll get a broom,” he said, already making his way towards the back.