Cian Veri

There had been a reason why Cian had the bar’s grand opening a year ago on Christmas Eve. There was nothing like drunks trying to avoid their families during the holidays to fill up a bar. This year wasn’t quite as busy, but there was still a decent holiday crowd. Cian called out to Jenn for a mixed drink, a Red-Nosed Reindeer—one of the holiday themed drinks that she and Mike had come up with. He would be glad to get back to his normal menu of drinks. Even if eh couldn’t mix any of them, he didn’t hate the names.

He opened another bottle of champagne, pouring a couple glasses and taking them to a couple sitting by the window before approaching a new patron that had found a seat alone. “How are the holidays treating you today?” He asked, having found that if he said Happy Holidays to people spending the time alone in a bar, the average response he got was either a scowl or something to the effect of, ’Is it? I missed the memo.’ “What can I get for you?” He added with a practiced smile.

Happy Holidays, @wolfeharwen

What awaits Wolfe at his front door isn’t a stack of packages or boxes beautifully wrapped. It’s a dark red envelope, wedged in between the door and the doorframe. Inside it is a plane ticket to South Lake Tahoe, a confirmation of a two week reservation at a cabin near the lake, and a neatly written letter.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as leaving.”

—Terry Pratchet

Wolfe Harwen,

I admit, I spent too long trying to decide what to gift you during this annual tradition. Then I realized, the best thing to give an artist is time, and perhaps inspiration. At this cabin, you’ll find instruments, everything needed stocked there, and hopefully most importantly, you’ll find the serenity it seems only nature can provide. Take time away, write, create. And if you find yourself craving more adventure, there will also be tickets waiting for you to go skiing or zip lining. I’ve been told there are also beautiful hiking trails in the area. Art finds new meaning in every place you go, or so I’m told. I hope this provides another source of art and inspiration for you. Or, at the very least, a lovely getaway for a couple weeks.

Wishing you wonderful holidays, and safe and exquisite travel,

Today is the kind of day where it feels like shit just comes together. Arturo keeps to himself. An untouched mug of coffee sits in front of him–a four dollar offering for the pleasure of bumming the cafe’s wifi because the hot spot on his boat couldn’t handle the download. The email from his publisher had come a few hours ago with the attachment he’d been waiting for. It’s finished.

Tide, his third collection of photography in all it’s finished glory. Digital glory, anyway. Though, now as he watches the progress bar inch across his screen, he’s wondering if even the cafe internet, shared by a few dozen other patrons, was up to the task. 

“No, go ahead,” Arturo says, without taking his eyes off his screen, as though if he looks away the bar will bounce back to zero. He doesn’t bother looking around to see the open tables until the man breaks into laughter. Turo smiles, nodding, again, towards the empty seat in front of him. “What makes you think I’m good company?”

~

Cian would be the first to admit that if guilty of any sin—any sin that was legal, technically speaking—it would be pride. So it was with narrowed eyes that he noted the way the man didn’t bother looking up as he acknowledged Cian’s presence. He didn’t particularly like being ignored, or his practiced song and dance of finding his way in to speak with someone to be brushed to the side. Still, his smile didn’t slip, tugging his long coat out of the way gracefully as he took the offered seat.

He nodded to the laptop in front of the man. “I find only those either passionate about their work, or with too much shoved onto their plates by their superiors do work in code shops. Both cases tend to lean towards intelligent people. Intelligent company makes for good company.” Now that it seemed he had at least a modicum of the man’s attention, he let his lips curl into a slight smirk, eyes flicking down to take in as much of the man as he could see above the tabletop before meeting his eyes again. “Attractive company can make for either good company or unbearable, and you seem far from unbearable. May I ask what you’re working on?” He added, mostly because he’d found that if he left off on a compliment, there was a fifty-fifty chance the man would simply get freaked out and leave, or ask Cian to. Leaving off on a question allowed him to ignore the comment if he wanted to.

Relaxing doesn’t tend to be at the top of my list, but. The hiking trails around here have been nice to explore. Either outdoors, somewhere with a view, or home with a book. Relaxing for me tends to involve few, if any, other people around. 

.

Of course her printer would run out of ink the second her morning reports were faxed in, which left her scrambling for cartridges at the local shopping center. They were an easy find. While she hadn’t lived on the island long she possessed an innate sense for direction. A trait Ally attributed to being well traveled. Still, it took her forever to check out because the line stretched half the store front. Who did their Christmas shopping at an office supply store? Her inner monologued steamed, although she withheld her frustration from the sales clerk. It was their fault every idiot within walking distance had showed up. 

The sheer stupidity didn’t stop inside. 

Aly paused on the sidewalk to return a few emails. All questions about where the morning reports were, which she quickly and with much annoyance replied to. A man’s voice caught her attention but her dark, chestnut eyes didn’t look up from the phone until he asked her for directions. Another fucking tourist. “Do I look like a fucking GPS to you?” Didn’t these morons have smart phones?! Aly really didn’t have time for this.

~

In Cian’s experience on the island, most people were friendly. In New York, people were not, so it seemed that Americans as a whole were difficult to pin down. This girl though, she certainly broke the mold he’d made for Catalina residents. He took half a step back, hands held up towards her in a show of innocence. “Mi dispiace. My apologies, ma’am,” he said quickly, offering a smile.

“My ah, employee insisted the bar needed redecorating, and I’m rather hopeless. I was hoping I’d be able to ask the opinion of someone who clearly has a much better idea of fashion and aesthetics than I do,” he spun a story easily enough. It was only half a lie. He hadn’t intended to try and get the woman into a conversation about aesthetics or decor. He could manage it himself if he had to, he just rather hated it. It was one of the may parts of owning a business that he found he could do, and do well, but which was agonizing and time consuming, and overall dull. “There would of course be free drinks in it for you, anytime you happen to find me there.”

When he first started frequenting the hotel with the occasion late night guest, Cian didn’t care much for the hotel itself. It was nice certainly, but offered nothing any other hotel he’d been in didn’t. Except for the company, as it turned out. Annaliese had become an interesting companion as of late when he found himself wandering the hotel as he did tonight. He spotted her heading through a door a little ways down a hall he hadn’t yet ventured, and followed just behind her.

She wasn’t alone, it seemed. When he pushed open the door into the room, the reflection from thee pool seemed to glitter across the walls. Annaliese and a woman he knew to be her mother only from overhearing how someone at the front desk referred to her, were walking around the edge of the pool. Annaliese looked stiff, head facing directly forward, not looking at her mother—if she’d been turned to look at the woman, Cian suspected she’d have noticed Cian behind them. The last time he’d seen her so tense was—ah. It had been when he’d caught her dancing off her anger at her mother.

Cian wasn’t one to be impulsive. That said, he mentally cycled through a few options, ranging from simply claiming he needed Annaliese for something or another, to leaving the pair be, then objectively chose the most impulsive option. He walked quickly and quietly as he could towards the pair, only speaking when he was nearly within arm’s reach. “Ah, Mrs. Atwater, could—“ he broke off when he reached the pair, purposefully not stopping when they did, and instead slamming into Annaliese, knocking her sideways into the pool. “Oh, Annaliese! I’m so sorry, are you alright?” He asked in feigned shock and concern. He turned an apologetic smile towards Rose Atwater. “I’m terribly sorry, the attendant at the front desk was looking for you. It sounded urgent. I’ll help your daughter out here. They sounded rather frantic at the front.”

He crouched down beside the pool as the woman left, concern morphing into amusement across his features when he heard the door swing shut. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on, then. I expect it will only be a few minutes before your mother realizes the front desk is as glad to be rid of her as you are.”

Holidays had never been Cian’s favorite time of year. His family had been miserable when he was a kid, and the various people he’d been around during the holidays following being on his own with his sister hadn’t been much better. The only benefit the holidays had was that he could count on the bar doing well. He fully expected the bar to see an increase in patrons avoiding their families and their problems. It was why he’d had his grand opening last year on Christmas Eve. This year though, Jenn had insisted they decorate and ‘do the holidays properly’ as she’d said. He was starting to regret making her his assistant manager. But she knew what she was doing, and she’d insisted he spend a few days exploring the island and all of the places that had already decorated for the holidays to gain inspiration.

Which was how he ended up with a peppermint mocha something coffee—a holiday special, the barista had told him—and looking around for a place to sit. The coffeeshop was busy, but not terribly crowded. His eyes were drawn to a table by the window where a man sat alone, and he made a beeline for the table. If he had to be out and finding holiday inspiration or whatever, he may as well do so in attractive company. “Hello, mind if I join you?” Cian asked, offering a practiced smile. “It’s busy in here, I’m afraid, and—“ he broke off, laughing a little at himself as he glanced around and back to the man. “Alright, I’m lying. There’s plenty of places to sit alone, but a friend of mine tasked me with finding holiday cheer, or something of the sort, and I expect it would be a much more enjoyable experience in good company.”

It wasn’t normal practice for Cian to be hanging around the bar so early in the morning, but it was the weekend after Thanksgiving. Which, according to American traditions as he understood them, meant that he was supposed to have the bar decorated for the holiday season coming up soon. The only issue he was running into was the fact that almost all decorations were specific to one holiday or another, and as far as he could tell, the locals and transplants on the island spanned a range of celebrated winter holidays.

“Wreaths are holiday neutral, right?” He called out to Jenn. She only hummed an answer that gave him no answer at all. “Maybe I’ll start with the holiday menu instead. What kind of cocktails can you make that taste like holidays? Something with peppermint?”

“Sure, I’ve got a peppermint schnapps I don’t get to use nearly enough,” Jenn answered, more chipper than she’d been when asked about decorations. “We can call it Home for the Holidays.”

The implication of the name wasn’t as cheery to Cian as she made it sound, but he didn’t comment on it. “Whatever the strongest holiday themed drink you can make, I’m calling it Aunt Karen.” She threw a rag at him, earning an amused smirk from Cian, just as the bell above the door jingled. “We open at—Oh, it’s you,” his voice dropped from pleasant to tried and annoyed the second his eyes landed on the man that had let himself in. “You can stay if you taste test my holiday themed cocktails.”

Shopping was not where Cian had intended to spend his day, but after multiple suggestions from his employees that the bar needed….something that they weren’t even specific on, to liven up the place? He wasn’t even certain. Jenn had yelled out something about color, Danielle had said something else about elegance and gold. The only consensus had been that the bar was looking too boring for their tastes. And he had nothing better to do for the day, so he decided to indulge them.

“Excuse me,” he said, offering a polite, hopeful smile to a young woman on the sidewalk. “Do you happen to know where Via del Corso is? Someone recommended it to me, but I’m hopeless with directions, I’m afraid.” Jenn had said they carried Italian inspired decor. He wasn’t certain how authentic it would be, and his hopes weren’t high, honestly. But if he was going to be redecorating the bar, he may as well do it properly.

Cian made it his business to know if anyone of a certain…reputation was on Catalina Island. Or anyone that had come into too close contact with anyone of a reputation that would reach his ears. So he’d heard the name Silva, knew of the musician, knew a little of his late sister, and knew more of his father. Cian’s own former employer in Italy hadn’t had much connection to the Silvas, other than a heavy dislike, but Cian didn’t share any loyalties with the man. He didn’t even offer any loyalty of his own.

Still, Cian hadn’t sought out the younger man. If the rumors were true, he knew they’d meet eventually. Bad Alibi wasn’t known for being a party scene, but it was known for a good atmosphere and strong drinks. Sure enough, late Saturday night, Cian put on a pleasantly surprised smile when he spotted the young man approaching the bar. “I’d heard rumors the composer Silva was on the island these days,” he said, exaggerating his already thick Italian accent a little. “What brings you to my little dive bar?” He added in easy Italian, mostly out of curiosity if the young man knew any of the language.

“Victor. Thanks for coming in on your day off,” Cian said by way of greeting when he came out of the kitchen to find the bartender in question where Jenn was supposed to be, if she hadn’t called out sick an hour ago. Jenn was usually the one to help him with restocking after the weekend rush. “The truck just arrived. Hopefully it won’t take too long to unload everything.” It was still a few hours before the bar would open, and Monday night would be slow anyway. Mondays were mostly about catching up from the weekend and making the bar look less like a dive and more like the fine establishment that it wasn’t.

-

Great. Well it seemed as if Kyla’s night was going from bad to worse after her plea for help had been rejected twice. Don’t worry about him. She almost rolled her eyes because his words of reassurance were truly of no use to her. And so she waited for Dave to return, twiddling her thumbs as she tried to form another plan. She always had the option of just leaving but Dave held some kind of creepy aura that made Kyla feel as if he was definitely the type to follow her out. 

But what unravelled next left Kyla’s mouth to loosely drop open, her eyes bouncing from one man to the other as they exchanged abrupt words. In a matter of seconds she was finally free of her previous annoyance and knowing he was gone allowed a rush of relief to wash over her and Kyla instantly relaxed. She looked up at the bartender, her smiling gleaming as if he was a celebrity who had just given her an ounce of attention.

“I mean, it would be wrong of me not to try a Snow Day. These cocktails names are incredible, by the way.” her lips tweaked into an amused smile before she suddenly realised she hadn’t even thanked him for saving her ass. “Oh my god, that was the best thing I’ve seen all week.” Kyla pointed her thumb backwards, indicating she was talking about the man who was not happy about being kicked out. “I know it’s probably not the first time you’ve had to do that but I still really appreciate it. It means a lot.” she smiled honestly, hoping that the bartender knew just how much his actions had effected her day.

~

“A good choice,” Cian said, before turning to call down the bar. “Jenn, can you whip up a Snow Day for our lovely guest here?” He turned back to the woman with a practiced smile. “Between you and me, I’m hopeless at making cocktails, even if they’re our signature,” he offered in a conspiratorial whisper. “A friend of mine called Snow Day a hippie white russian once,” he added with a teasing smile. He was sure it was a jab at the unusual addition of chai to the drink, but enough patrons had told him it tasted good that he decided the odd combination had to stay.

He waved off her words dismissively, arching under the counter for a glass and pouring himself a soda. “Assholes like that tend to give bars bad reputations, and I don’t like bad reputations,” he said. “Grazie,” he offered quietly to Jenn as she passed the drink down the bar, and he passed it to the woman. “If I’m not here, or any of my employees don’t notice what’s going on, you can always tell one of them if something like that happens. None of us are strangers to kicking people out of this place, and anyone here would be happy to call you a cab, have someone walk with you to your car, kick someone out, whatever you need. It’s important to me that our patrons here feel safe.” For one thing, it kept people coming back, and for another, it kept him on the good side of the local authorities, and that was never a bad thing given his other activities outside of the bar. The less he gave them to question, the better.

“So, what brings you to the bar tonight? Drinking to forget, or trying to find someone to forget things with? Bartenders make good wingmen,” he added with a teasing smile.

The theme of the event was one Cian found amusing, if nothing else. Which of the deadly sins did people see themselves as possessing? The curiosity between the sins they chose for themselves, and those that others would choose for them, he wished he could understand. He wished a little that he knew some people well enough on the island to see the disconnect between those for himself. Observing that reactions of others though, he would find rater interesting. He himself had chosen a dark pink, almost magenta dress shirt under a black tie, with a black suit. Pride. It was as safe a choice as any. He wondered how self aware others in attendance would be, if they’d actively choose a color based on how others perceived them as Cian had. He knew Mike for one would likely make a jab at his decision to choose pride over wrath. 

He didn’t look good in orange anyway.

Cian made his way to the patio on the rooftop for the view more than for the loud company. Though not all the company was unwelcome, as his eyes settled on a familiar young woman. “You look in need of a dance partner, Annaliese,” Cian commented as he approached. He offered a hand to her with a practiced smile. “I must believe it should be tradition now, that I have to ask you to dance on any appropriate occasion,” he added, eyes sparkling in amusement. Since dancing with her at the wedding, and learning how often she danced in the ballroom at the hotel to have some time to herself, he felt it necessary to offer himself as a stand-in dance partner when she needed one.

WHERE: Bad Alibi, Avalon

WITH: @catalinastarter​

It was still odd, maybe even uncomfortable somewhat, to be back home again. The island held many good memories for Kyla and yet for ten years it was somewhere she had avoided returning to like the plague. The friends she once knew had now grown up and moved on, with their own families and jobs and houses. But Kyla had just spent ten years in L.A. and yet she still felt as if she was in still water, floating in no particular direction. She had made some progress though, she had her nursing career and hadn’t touched drugs in three years but she still somehow didn’t quite feel successful.

Her train of thought had been quite abruptly stolen from her when a man appeared to be rather determined in wooing her but despite all efforts on her behalf, he wasn’t quite grasping the concept that she just wasn’t interested in him at all. 

Glancing to her left, Kyla suddenly latched onto a plan to finally be free of him after his return from the bathroom. “Excuse me - hey.” the brunette leaned to the side slightly, spinning in her bar stool aside the bar. “Could you do me a solid and pretend that we were supposed to be meeting here tonight for a drink or something just so I can get this guy to stop chewing my ear off? In return I’ll buy you a drink and then we can go our separate ways. Just - please? He won’t stop talking about Storage Wars.”

~

Cian had seen his share of nosey people, over-sharing patrons, touchy guys who couldn’t take a hint, outright assholes, as well as just clueless ones. Tonight, he’d seen at least one of each. He’d already kicked out a couple of them. It wasn’t something he ever had a problem with, though some of his bartenders usually tried to ease tensions before they stooped to outright kicking people out of the bar. He figured they probably wanted the tips, but he didn’t have much patience for people like that, and over the months, it had gained Bad Alibi a somewhat upstanding reputation. As much as a dive bar could have an upstanding reputation, anyway. There was a certain irony in it that he reveled in, if only quietly. He hadn’t noticed, but Jenn had pointed out that single women tended to frequent the bar more often than they did when they first opened last Christmas, and that meant something to her at least.

So as he slid a beer across the bar to someone sitting beside a woman, he couldn’t help but overhear the woman’s request. He also didn’t miss the way the younger woman just kind of gave her a tight smile and walked away to return to the table with her friends by the window. “Don’t worry about him,” Cian said, thick Italian accent giving his words a distinct bite. He didn’t comment further, knowing the man would be back soon, so he poured a beer for another patron, yelled out an order for a mixed drink to Jenn—he was hopeless at mixing them himself—and stayed close to the bar where the woman sat. He waited until the man he’d seen talking to her earlier reappeared.

“Out,” he said, barely looking up at the man.

“Excuse me? I haven’t done anyth—“

“I said out,” Cian repeated, setting down the glass he’d been filling and looking up at the man more clearly. “You want to harass someone in a bar, go to another bar. Stay out of mine.” The man huffed and tried to grumble another reply, but Cian didn’t budge, and he eventually made his way out of the bar, flipping his middle finger over his shoulder at Cian as he did. “Drinks on the house tonight,” he said to the woman, tone polite and casual as if the scene hadn’t happened. “We have pretty much any beer or wine you like, but I recommend something off the cocktail menu. Snow Day is one of my favorites. It’s a twist on your classic White Russian.”

@cianxveri​

Mike quirked a brow back at the other man, smirk growing only wider as he watched Cian’s eyes skim down his frame and then back up. He laughed, not even insulted, and said, “Yeah, that’s a fuckin’ lie, my ass is perfect.” Mike watched for a moment as the other man turned to hand the wine glass in his hand to the woman a few seats down. There was a clear familiarity with the place and it wasn’t until Cian turned around that he found out why. 

“No shit? Ey, honest tah God had no idea. But if yer so quick tah insult people I’m surprised yah even have regulars.” Really, Mike wasn’t even mad. Far from it in fact. He was amused, and that amusement showed. “The man who don’t drink has a bar. Color me surprised, un rompicoglioni.” 

He paused, then, offering a bright smile to the young lady making the drink, content to have something that wasn’t a beer. It turned smug a second later. 

“Love it when yah talk dirty, baby.” Mike drug the drink closer and took a sip, humming appreciatively at the taste of it. “But, that’s all beside th’ point. How the fuck didja end up in this hellhole?” 

@michaelxzacchia​

Cian offered an impatient, deadpan stare in response to the man’s comment. “I’ve been better.” He honestly wasn’t even certain ow exactly he’d ended up on such a…. Almost familiar level of conversing with Michael. He hardly knew him, but he supposed there was something to be said for knowing people within his line of work. There was an immediate understanding, a certain level of familiarity ingrained into that knowledge alone. Cian wasn’t entirely happy about it.

“I’m not so quick to insult people. Only you,” eh added, a teasing smile curling up his lips. It faltered a moment at the comment about not drinking, and he threw a rag from under the counter—a clean one, he wasn’t a heathen—at Michael’s face. “That’s not exactly common knowledge, jackass,” he said in swift Italian, his smile in place and tone perfectly polite should anyone be listening. He somewhat regretted telling Michael that honestly, but the man had given him little choice. Still, it wasn’t that the information would be bad if it got out, exactly. Cian just enjoyed the freedom it gave him to feign indulging in the poison while others around him drank the real stuff. People were much more trusting and loose with information while sharing a drink with a fellow alcoholic.

“You have a low bar for dirty talk, then,” Cian said in English again. He was being an ass, more so than he often ever was, but Michael was one of those people that… either brought it out of him, or shot it back just as easily, making it less risky to do so. He wasn’t entirely certain yet. He shrugged, reaching for a glass and pouring himself a soda before leaning against the bar in front of Michael. “Go where the work is, right? This islander needed a good old-fashioned dive bar,” he said. He knew Michael would understand the double meaning behind the first statement without him needing to explain. “Besides, Jadzia loved the island as soon as we got off the ferry. I can never say no to her. What brought you out to so-called paradise?”

“I found it when I was looking for an Italian bistro one of the regulars at the bar told me about,” Cian explained as he and Jadzia walked down the sidewalk. Lafayette Square was probably the neighborhood he was least familiar with on the island, living and working elsewhere, but it was beneficial to know the entirety of the island. “Never did find it, but I stumbled across this place, and I thought you might enjoy a shopping trip,” he added, turning to offer a rare genuine smile to his sister. He didn’t care much for traveling, despite seeing dozens of different countries over the course of his life. But the one thing that made traveling worth it was seeing the way his sister enjoyed news things, new places, and the way her eyes lit up when they stumbled upon something she found particularly exciting.

“Here,” he stopped in front of an art supply store, bright signs in the windows and on a chalkboard on the sidewalk advertising various brands of paints and decor items for sale. “I did promise you that we’d stay here for a while,” a promise he’d made reluctantly, and knowing he may have to break if anything in his past were to catch up to them. “So I thought, perhaps we could set up an art studio for you in one of the spare rooms.”

“Good evening” Daphne said back, a small smile on her face. Daphne enjoyed drinking at Cian’s bar. It attracted fewer tourists than some of the others on the island seemed to, and quite of a few of her fellow members of the Catalina Island Police Department seemed to prefer it as well. She shook her head. “Just a glass of wine” she said as she slid into a seat at the bar. “Its been a long day, but not bad enough to warrant me having anything else.” They’d all been working longer since the latest break in Helena Gallagher’s case, the boss coming done on them for not finding the new evidence sooner in the investigation. “Honestly, this whole case has been a nightmare from the beginning.” She had flashbacks to interrogating one of her co-workers about the missing woman.

Cian pulled a bottle of riesling from the wine fridge and took a glass from under the shelf. “I can’t imagine,” he said, offering a sympathetic smile as she spoke. “Island paradise like this, I’m guessing disappearances aren’t a common occurrence. At least, I hope not,” he added as he poured her glass and slid it across the bar towards her. He corked the bottle and turned away to put it back in the fridge before returning, leaning against one arm on the bar. “This might sound like a weird question, but was she married? Helena Gallagher. I only ask because myself and a few others came across a ring, and we wondered if it could be connected.” He pulled out his phone as he spoke, scrolling through the few photos he had taken before finding the one he was looking for. He set his phone on the bar, turning it to face the detective to show a picture of a dull, rusty looking wedding band. “The inscription’s a bit unclear in the photos, but it says D&D Forever on the inside of the ring. I mean, it could be nothing. Probably just a careless tourist that lost a ring.” He honestly thought that was the most likely scenario, but at least one person of the small group that had been with him when they found the ring had thought otherwise. He watched Daphne’s face carefully, more interested in whether she happened to think anything of it.