[oAnD Bar] Darkness and Light

''You're early'', his father said from behind the bar the minute Samael walked through the door. ''Classes let out early'', the young man answered as he looked around the already dim lit room. Empty, except for him and the old man cleaning the already clean bar. Unusual, yet in some ways expected considering that the bar didn't open for another hour. This, however, did not always stop some of his father's older friends from coming over and simply sitting by the bar, talking, for the lack of anything else to do.

''Head up'', his father told him after the few seconds Samael needed to make sure the room was truly empty were over. ''Dinner will be ready soon'', he added and Samael nodded. ''I'm coming back down unless you follow me in less than ten minutes'', the young man warned his father, before disappearing through a small door leading to the apartment over the bar. His mother greeted him on the other end, probably having heard him come in. His father followed in exactly seven minutes and twenty three seconds. Ten minutes later, they were all having dinner.

An hour or so more, and Samael had already been behind the bar for at least twenty minutes. He had been asked to make a drink twice, and how the new school year was going at least a hundred more times. ''Fine'', he said once more time, sighing quietly under his breath. ''It's going fine'', he said, indicating with his tone that that was all he was about to say on that topic. ''What are you drinking, Jared?'', he asked, hoping that the older man would somehow get the message, even though he usually didn't.

''Your old man is already making me a drink'', the older man said in his usual manner, waving his hand at Samael. ''So, this is your last year?'', he continued his questioning. Samael tried calculating in his head how many more minutes before they were all to drunk to talk, let alone question him about anything.

In the end, his estimation turned out to be wrong. For about two minutes. Still, two hours later he was free of his father's friends and bar regulars, tending to the not so familiar customers: those who either chose to stay quiet whenever they came or actually visiting for the first time.

''Good evening'', he said, addressing a yet another unfamiliar man.

@"Trahnael": you said they could meet at the bar. I hope this setting is alright.

''Depends what you're in the mood for'', Samael said, his tone pleasant, an equally friendly smile on his face. It was a good look to have when talking to customers, he learned, no matter how down or angry the said person looked, for most of the times it stopped them from getting even more sad and angry, and in some rare cases, it would turn out that a friendly face was just what they needed for their day to become slightly better.

''And how drunk you're looking to get'', he continued to speak, his hands already moving towards certain bottles lying around the bar. Not all customers were the same, of course, but a certain routine could be apply to most of those coming into the bar for the first time, especially if they weren't sure what exactly they were in the mood for.

''Here'', he said after the drink he was making was done. ''Something to give you a taste'', he pushed the drink towards the man. ''It's a house special'', he explained, a drink being indeed one of the pair his father had come up with a long time ago, just after he had bought the bar. ''We call it Angel around here.'' It was a light drink, both in terms of colour and strength; one that was clearly alcoholic by taste but couldn't get even the most inexperienced of drinkers drunk. It's counterpart had been named Demon in order to match the bar's name and was mostly ordered either by people visiting the bar for the first time or experienced regulars looking to get drunk in the shortest time possible.

''I hope it's to your liking'', Samael finished off. There were no other customers to be served right now, so he stayed near the man, waiting to hear his reaction, or the next order.

@"Trahnael"

''Indeed'', Samael said, nodding his head. ''Both drinks were designed by my father over there'', he said, pointing towards the older man standing at the other side of the bar, leaning slightly against it as he talked to his seemingly even present friends, all of them erupting occasionally in rounds of a slightly loud, slightly drunk laughter. ''And were named so to match the them of the bar'', he continued, still smiling as another man approached from the dimmer part of the bar, the once he could not clearly see thanks to the bright lights intentionally placed above the bottle shelves, making the bar, and the area just in front of it, the most lit parts of the whole room; a setting which allowed people who didn't want to be seen not to be seen.

A moment later another drink was pushed towards another customer, and Samael turned again towards the man sitting at the bar. The air around him seemed to have cleared somewhat, though it was still very far from light. Samael, however, was usually used to that, for people, well, people other than his father's friends, he supposed, rarely came to the bar when happy.

''Do you want me to make you another Angel then?'', he asked after the man confirmed that he had liked the drink. ''I don't recommend Demon however if you're truly not looking to get drunk as it is indeed the complete opposite of this one'', he said, pointing to the light, almost see through drink in front of the man. ''I've seen man much bigger than you fall down to the floor after three or four glasses of that'', he warned as he always did with new customers. Somehow however two out of three people never believed him, ending up drunker than they had set out to be that night. ''Just so you know.''

''Samael'', the young man said in response, introducing himself as his hands already reached for all the bottles he needed to make another Angel, gathering and pulling closer those needed for the opposite drink as well. ''Samael Fein Carnige. I'm the owner's son. I help out every other night'' Something his father insisted on, every other night from opening to midnight at first then until closing.

Demon: black drink, tasted like hatred, like poison, yet still intoxicating. Samael tried it only once himself, when he had turned eighteen and had started helping behind the bar for real. It was hard on the tongue, hard on the stomach and he knew he would get drunk if he finished it but he found himself unable to stop. It was the direct opposite of the Angel's lightness yet still, one could not not finish the glass.

''Alright, then. It's your choice'', he said, wondering already if he should perhaps ready the room they offered to the customers who seemed to drunk to get home safely on their own. It was something his father added pretty much for those willing to try the Demon out.

''I'm Samael'', the young man said, smiling quietly to himself for Deith was not the first person to be won over and drawn to his bar by his father's drink. Half of the regulars, those both quiet and anonymous as well as those loudly familiar and boisterous, have started exactly as Deith just did: with the taste of Angel still on their lips, asking for another drink.

''I help around here every other night'', he continued, his hands moving practically on their own after all these years of practice, pulling the bottles needed for making the Angel close, as well as slowly gathering the ingredients he would need for the Demon later. The other drink was not only heavy where the first one was light, dark in colour and almost bitter, but also much more complicated to prepare.

''Don't worry though, my old man is the one who invented that drink, so I'm sure you'll like his version somewhat better anyway'', he explained, still with a slight smile on his face. Soon, the second Angel was done. ''Here'', he said, pushing the glass towards the man. ''Enjoy. Warn me a few minutes before you're ready to get bone drunk though'', he said, going back to gathering bottles and making yet another drink for patrons emerging from the darkness of the outer bar.

''Demon is a bit more complicated to prepare'', he finished his explanation, leaving Deith to his Angel again as he mixed three other, regular drinks in a row.

''Once'', Samael said, nodding his head an amused smile slowly forming on his face as he turned away from the last customer and back towards Deith. ''The day I turned eighteen'', he said, the fondness he felt towards the memory showing clearly in both his eyes and voice as he spoke of it.

''My birthday is on the first of January you see'', he said, laughing softly as he began explaining, as this was one of his favourite memories, yet despite this, he didn't mind re-telling it, even to the strangers that he had just met, as it was also once of his best stories. ''So the night before my father let me organize a party for some of my friends right here in the bar'', he said, his hands always moving, even while he spoke, cleaning glasses, moving bottles-either bringing them close or putting them away in their proper place.

''Nothing fancy, just a few friends hanging out'', he hummed, remembering. ''With parent supervision, of course'', he said, his smile growing slightly in brightness. ''None of us were of age yet, I was the first one to turn eighteen, and this, after all, is a bar'', he explained, shrugging his shoulders. ''Didn't stop me from trying to sneak a drink a few hours early, though'', he said afterwards however, laughing lightly.

''Couldn't get past my father though, let alone my mother'', he scoffed then, his voice still light, and fond, and warm. ''So the day went on, considering it had still been afternoon when we had started with the 'New Year's Party'. But we had a good time'', he added, as he straightened himself up the moment it looked like his father might be looking his way.

''All of them had to leave before midnight though, having families on the Island and what not'', he said, finally getting to the part that actually had any relevance to the question the man had asked him. ''Which meant that the bar was empty by the time midnight actually rolled around. No one but me and my old man in it'', he said, remembering how he thought it strange that even his mother and brother had already went upstairs.

''So he takes one look at the clock, deems that about half a minute past midnight is enough for me to count as an adult and slowly steps behind the bar'', Samael continued with his story, getting more and more drawn into the memory, a smile on his face never wavering.

''Makes me an Angel first'', he said, laughing lightly again. ''Tells me to drink it, see what I think'', the young man said, scoffing a bit good naturedly. ''I've seen him make it before, but he had never even let me step behind the bar properly before that night, let alone drink it. So I do, and like everybody else, I liked it'', he said, grinning, his body still a never ending, yet subtle motion. ''I tell him that, and he nods his head. A few moments later he's handing me the Demon'', he could still remember a slight state of shock he was in as he realised that.

''Same as with the Angel, I had seen him make it before, and as I've said, I've seen both regulars and newbies drink it only to end up on the floor soon'', not literary, at least not always, but close enough.

''He tells me that I don't have to drink it if I don't want to but that I should at least know what I'm serving to the customers'', Samael continued with his explanation, happy, for once, that there were no drinks for him to make, as he would hate to interrupt the story. ''I am of course curious as hell, so I don't even think twice about tasting it'', the young man laughed at himself there. He could still remember the hard bitter taste of the drink, especially after he had just tasted the lightness that was Angel. Still, he could not help finish the whole glass.

''You can imagine it had hit me pretty hard'', he said, rolling his eyes. ''Considering that I have never drank before and all. My memory gets a bit fuzzy after that, naturally'', he said, even though he still clearly remembered the way his father had let him step behind the bar after he had finished the glass and had thought him how to make both Angel and Demon despite knowing that he would probably forget half of the process by morning. That part of the whole evening was private, and not part of the story.

''I still remember the headache I woke up with the next morning'', he said, laughing again. ''It was the first thing I have had to experience in my life.'' He had first woken up somewhere around noon which was entirely too soon considering how much he had drank and when he had gone to sleep (two more angels one made by himself one by his father, and at least three more glasses of something else up in the apartment and two AM), his head a throbbing mess, his mouth drier than a desert. It took him a whole day to recover.

''So yeah, I know what it can do to a man from a personal experience if that's what you have been wondering about'', he said, looking for the firs time directly at Deith. ''I know that it's the bartender that's supposed to listen to the customer's life story, but some how it doesn't feel the same if I just say 'yeah, I did once''', he said, shrugging his shoulders. Usually, the people he told the story to didn't mind, but he never knew. Some were there just to get drunk and took offence at him doing anything but making them drinks.