Fic: Five Moments in the Lives of a Couple of Small Businessmen (1/1) Guy/Kyle (Green Lantern Corps)

[perpetual_motion]

Title: Five Moments in the Lives of a Couple of Small Businessmen
Author: Perpetual Motion
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps (DC Comics)
Pairing: Guy/Kyle
Rating: PG
Summary: It can't all be explosions; sometimes they do run the bar.

Dis: Lies and bullshit.

Author's Notes: For moonsong42 who asked for the boys to be around the bar; I hope it meets with your approval, dear. Also pulling double-duty as a "writer's choice" for my dcu_freeforall table, because why not? Please do not go looking for any recent GLC canon. It's not here. And I know Natty Boh has been discontinued; I chose to ignore it because I wanted a Baltimore beer.


Five Moments in the Lives of a Couple of Small Businessmen
By Perpetual Motion

"I'm not stocking some micro-brew crap that smells like herbal tea," Guy said, pointing his pencil at Kyle in warning. "I don’t run that kind of bar."

"But you stock National Bohemian," Kyle replied and ducked the pencil as it flew past his head.

"Natty Boh's a Baltimore tradition. Watch your mouth."

Kyle held up his hands. "No besmirchment intended against the shining wonderfulness of anything vaguely related to Baltimore."

"Get out of my bar," Guy ordered. "You can come back when you learn some manners."

Kyle laughed and leaned against the bar to reel in Guy by his T-shirt. "I'm gonna go check the food stock."

Guy pecked him on the mouth and tucked a pencil behind Kyle's left ear. "Count twice. Boss's orders."

"If I see him, I'll tell him you said so." Kyle grinned and walked to the back room as Guy growled at him.

"Wiseass," Guy muttered as he went back to counting glasses.

*

"I think my tongue just peeled off," Kyle said, half-wheezing as he slammed his shotglass back on the bar.

"Jesus," Guy hissed, pressing his teeth together and grimacing. "When Vath said it was stout I figured he was just being macho, you know?"

"I can't—" Kyle scraped his tongue with his teeth, shook his head. "It tastes like pears. Really, really alcoholic pears."

"With gin," Guy agreed. He reached under the bar, pulled up two glasses, filled them with water, and pushed one towards Kyle. They both downed the water, and Guy refilled the glasses.

Kyle blinked. "I think I'm drunk already."

Guy tried to drink more water and the glass went skittering down the bar. "Huh," he said. "Me too."

"We're stocking this," Kyle announced. "We so have to stock this."

"Half-shots only," Guy said and fell over.

Kyle giggled, head on the bar, and knocked over his own glass.

*

"No," Guy said from the next aisle over.

"I didn't even—"

"You're in the microbrew section," Guy interrupted. "It's an automatic no."

"We carry microbrews!" Kyle insisted. He stood on his toes to see Guy's skeptical look over the top shelf of bottles. "Half the stuff we keep on tap comes from someone's backroom still."

"That's not microbrew; that's good business. We've got a particular clientele—"

"Word-a-day?"

"Shaddup. The bar's specialty is weird stuff. So we carry weird stuff."

"But we can't carry a single, Earth-based microbrew?"

Guy rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the store for a moment. "Sell me on it."

Kyle raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Sell me on it."

Kyle thought for a moment. "It has more calories," he said, and he laughed when Guy pulled a face. "People who drink microbrew aren't worried their beer is making them fat, so they're not going to make you hate them by ordering a Bacardi and Diet Coke."

Guy squinted. "More calories?"

"Also more alcoholic," Kyle added. He grinned when Guy smirked. "And you can charge more for it because it's specialty beer."

"Because we're paying more to stock it," Guy pointed out.

Kyle considered his options. He picked up a six-pack and walked around the aisle so Guy could see it. "Try this one," he offered. "If you think it's crap after you’ve actually had a couple, I'll stop trying to educate you on why microbrew is so much better than all the junk ruining our reputation at the tap."

"We don't have a tap reputation," Guy replied.

"Exactly."

Guy eyed the beer in Kyle's hand. "All right," he agreed, tone suspicious. "I'll try this one."

*

"We're low on wings!" Kyle called from the back room. "And fries! And chili!"

"And everything else!" Guy shouted in reply. "That's what happens when you have a ten-dollar cover and free refills!"

Kyle walked into the main part of the bar and handed Guy a scrawled shopping list. "We are also completely out of that weird blue sauce Arisia swears by for the ribs."

"Flip you for it?" Guy asked, digging a quarter out of his pocket. "Heads, you head out for the blue stuff and everything else in that sector; tails, you get to stop by Earth for the wings."

"Deal," Kyle agreed and watched the coin flip. It landed on the bar heads-up. "Blue stuff it is."

Guy leaned in, kissed him on the mouth. "Be careful. There's been skirmishes that way lately."

"Yeah, yeah, I see the same reports you do." Kyle kissed him in return. "And you're the one headed to Earth. Don't lecture me on skirmishes."

"Yeah. Yeah."

"Meet you back here at the end of the day," Kyle promised, and he jumped when Guy goosed him on the way out of the bar.

*

"Jubleale?" Hal asked one night, on Oa to deliver a prisoner and at the bar to, as far as Guy could tell, be a pain in his ass.

"Microbrew," Kyle said before Guy could tell Hal to just order a damned draft. "Guy picked it out all by himself."

"Don't say it like that," Guy said, snapping a towel in Kyle's direction. "You make it sound like I just learned to tie my shoes."

"I'll have a Bud," Hal said, putting down the menu. "I'm not brave enough for microbrew."

"Heh," Guy grinned as he turned around. "Told you I'm braver than Hal," he said, low enough so only Kyle could hear him.

"Course you are," Kyle replied and bumped his shoulder with Guy. "I don't date guys with bad taste in beer."



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