[Open]

[pullmeapint]

Finn cleared the last of the dishes from the dinner rush and carted them into the kitchen for Tandy, laughing when she asked if he'd been demoted to busser.

That chore done, he headed back into the bar to do a walk around, checking with those in the game room and those at the tables and booths scattered around the bar area. He joked with a few of the regulars and greeted the faces he couldn't remember seeing before taking his position behind the bar again.

Leaning against the back counter, he surveyed his pub and couldn't help the smile that formed. For as much flak as he'd received from his family over his choosing such a small town when he finally struck out on his own, he really did love the town. The atmosphere was open, accepting, and the sheer fact that he could use his abilities without causing the National Enquirer to drop onto his head made it perfect.

He looked up when the door opened and called out a welcome to the newcomer.

"Welcome to the Pub."

Comments

[wastelandflower]

"I should open a business every week!" Rian laughs, enjoying a precious few minutes with both of his hands free. Sophie gurgles happily and kicks her little feet as she's lifted. They've made a few friends so far, but Finn is the only one who comes with the occasional free pint.

"I'll do my damndest, won't I love?" he coos at his girl.

[pullmeapint]

Finn laughed at that and continued to tickle the baby in his arms. "Seems to me you're off to more than a good start at it. You still up for playing every now and then on Friday nights?"

[wastelandflower]

Rian nods, grinning at the way Sophie's taken to Finn with such delight. Next time he's in Boston, he imagines she'll be adored by all her aunts and uncles in much the same way. "Yeah, shop closes around six for now. Might extend hours if I can find a sitter and the shop does well."

[pullmeapint]

"I'll keep an ear to the ground for anyone looking to teach a teenager about the joy of working for a living," Finn promised while he danced with the baby girl. "As for Friday nights, if you think she can handle the noise, you're welcome to bring her with you when you sing. I do a pretty good job of spoiling babies while their parents are otherwise occupied."

He wasn't the favorite uncle for nothing, after all.

[wastelandflower]

"Ah, young, hungry labor," Rian says, pretending an evil grin as he looks over at the pair of them. "I never really baby-sat much. At least not for people younger than me."

Mostly, he'd just kept an eye on Wren.

[pullmeapint]

"I've done more than my share of it from one family to another. Lived with my brother for about a year and when I wasn't mopping up the bar, I was mopping up his kids. To be honest, I'm not sure which one was my least favorite. Especially when the youngest decided his parents night out was the perfect time to get stomach flu."

Finn shuddered in memory of that fun night.

[wastelandflower]

"I was living away from my family for about ten years or so, when I was sixteen on," Rian explains, sticking with the vaguer side of the story. He gets recognized now and then and once someone catches him with Wren, some of the more musically inclined will put it together. For now, he's happy to just be Rian.

[pullmeapint]

"That's early to head out on your own," Finn commented, "must've been rough."

He'd been tempted, maybe more than tempted, to lit out and leave his loud, interfering family behind and live his own life. He'd made it as far as the bus terminal before his grandfather had talked him back home.

[wastelandflower]

Rian shrugs. What's he going to say? That he couldn't live with the legacy of two dead brothers and the sister who'd followed them? Or that his end of Southie had fallen itself to shit when they all realized that Whitey had been a rat? They all had the same sob stories, in the end. Anyone over a certain age from Southie did.

"All the good rock shows were in the city," he says. "And then one day I made a friend and never bothered to leave."

[pullmeapint]

"No regrets about setting out on your own?" Finn asked, because that was, to his mind, the most important thing. Setting out on a difficult road was one thing, but whether or not the journey is worth it was quite another.

[wastelandflower]

"Many," Rian assures him, because that's the simplest fact of it. Life happens with regrets. "But not enough to ever turn me back. And anyway, my ma won't let me back in her house."

[pullmeapint]

"I'm sorry for that," Finn said with real sympathy because as far as he was from his family now, he still called home often and went home at least once a month to see everyone. "For both the regrets and that your mother's denying herself this little beauty in her life." He gave the baby a little bounce and rock, making her giggle again. "Her loss, to my mind."

[wastelandflower]

"Oh Sophie's welcome, but her father got a divorce," Rian says, shaking his head with a wry grin. There's a lot a Catholic mother can forgive but not that. "So I'm not allowed."

[pullmeapint]

Finn rolled his eyes. "It's amazing how closed minded some can still be. I guess we're lucky in that my parents are a little more open than most. Probably better for my brother and his partner. Scared him green when he came out to them, then they were all laughing and crying in this huge hug when they said they didn't care who he loved so long as he was happy."

He'd always known he'd been lucky with his family, and he always hated that not everyone had the same experience. "I'm sorry you're bearing the brunt of that closed mind."

[wastelandflower]

"Family," Rian says, shrugging. What can one do with family besides live with it, most of the time. Live with them or run away.

"Mine have always been open about that kind of thin, but the fact that I rushed into a marriage and it fell out before Sophie was even born? That's on me."

[pullmeapint]

"I'd say on the both of you, to be honest, but that's just me," Finn responded with a shrug of his own. "I've never been married, never even been close, so the odds are pretty good that I'm talking out of my ass."

He gave the baby a little bounce. "Still. You got this little princess, right?"

[wastelandflower]

"Yeah, but my ma never liked my wife, doesn't much care. And I'm family." He shrugs and then smiles, thinking on Sophie. She's the one thing he got right and he means to make her the sun and moon for it.

"I did get my beautiful girl, yes."

[pullmeapint]

"Still, it's her loss, to my mind," Finn told him. "And if you're ever in the mood for an Irish Catholic mother to try and smother the life out of you, you're welcome to come home with me when I head down for Sunday dinner."

Finn grinned widely at the offer, that could almost be a threat.

[wastelandflower]

"Hot bowl of stew and a side dish of bread and guilt?" Rian asked, leaving off any qualifiers. He wasn't out to insult Finn's ma nor could he, honor bound, betray his own mother's stew because everyone's mother made the best.

[pullmeapint]

"Ah, you've been to my mother's then," Finn laughed easily, because it was probably true of mother's the world over, but Irish and Catholic just increased that ten-fold. "It's always fun unless you're the one getting the guilt."

[wastelandflower]

"Or you've been to mine," Rian countered. "And it's the same at my house. Usually I got away with everything, being the baby."

[pullmeapint]

"Christ Jesus, the dreaded baby of the family? That's some powerful magic there. I have the luck to be the third of four. Not the first child, not the first girl, not the baby. The trifecta of ignored child," Finn laughed, though it was clear he was probably nothing of the sort. Not as close as he still was to his family.

[wastelandflower]

Rian laughs and wonders if Finn has any idea just how much he's hit on the truth of it. All of his family are witches, going back generations. Their magic has come through, child after child.

"I wasn't meant to be, but then I came along and there was simply no outdoing me."