Where Roads Mead 5 Part 1 - Unedited (Patreon)

AN: Yo, Started writing the next chap for this story. I'll be sure to have it done by tomorrow night at the latest. 

I'm sharing the first part for the moment. 

Chapter 5:

A week had passed since that eventful New Years Eve.

The mahogany front door to Where Roads Mead opened with a jingle as Em walked in, shaking the fallen snow from her purple locks with a free hand. “Sheesh, it’s freezing out there.”

Dressed in a turtleneck sweater and jeans with headphones hanging from her neck idly playing the lyrics to [I don't want to be – DeGraw], and holding a bag of takeout with her other, she looked around the dim bar. “Leo?”

“In the kitchen babe!” His voice called from the back.

“Squawk!”

The beautiful lamia put the bag down on the bar top and raised a brow at the second response, eyeing the lime green parrot on a perch in the corner of the bar with a tuft or orange chest feathers. The color was visually insulting, and the eyes of the avian were particularly degrading as it looked down at her. “Hello Jack.”

The bird squawked. “Captain!”

Em rolled her eyes and walked past it. “Yeah, yeah.”

The bird cat-called her as she passed, and Em fought down an urge to turn it to stone, simply flipping it off as she pushed through the back door leading to the kitchen, where she found Leo standing over the kitchen island counter covered in an assortment of glowing potion bottles and liquor bottles as his ghostly grimoire floated around him.

“Why do you keep that infuriating creature again?”

Leo looked up from where he was stirring different liquids together with a chuckle. “He’s funny.”

Em scoffed and hugged him from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Maybe for you. He insists on his captain title.”

“Well, it IS his name after all.”

“Couldn’t you give him something less aggravating?”

“I thought it fit him perfectly.”

Leo thought back to a few days earlier when the bird showed up.

Flashback:

He had just opened for the day when the door jingled, and when he turned around, all he found was a lime green bird standing tall on his bar top staring at him intently.

His gaze moved from the ajar door letting in the cold and back to the bird a few times before he spoke. “…Can I help you?”

The parrot tapped a claw on the bar top as it spoke in a craggily voice. “Rum.”

“Rum?” Leo repeated with a raised brow.

“Rum.” It confirmed.

Leo calmly held up a finger to pause and lit a cigarette, taking a deep breath and exhaling. ‘Gonna be one of those days then.’ He had seen enough weird shit in the last week to learn to roll with the punches. “Can you actually pay?”

Weird or not, he was running a business, not a charity.

The bird narrowed its eyes before raising a claw in a universal gesture for ‘one moment’, and then took off back to the door, nudged it open, and flew out.

Leo just shrugged at the scene and went back to setting up when a few minutes later, he heard what sounded like a car crash a distance away before the bird flew back in through the door and dropped an object on the bar.

“Rum.” Is stated simply while looking him dead in the eye.

Leo picked up the watch the bird dropped in bemusement. “Is this a Rolex?”

The bird croaked. “Pay.”

There was a bloodstain on the watch’s band. “Did you steal it?”

“….”

“….”

“RUM!”

“….sure.”

Flashback end.

The bird didn’t leave after having its drink, in fact, it stuck around while Leo went about making drinks for customers and began singing sea shanties the more it drank.

Surprisingly, it was a great singer while drunk. Unfortunately, it was worse than Justin Bieber being choked out while having his ass penetrated while sober.

But if that wasn’t enough, it even started and ended a bar fight with a satyr, knocking the timid creature out with a beer bottle to the head.

Leo was so amused he decided to keep it. Well, not so much keep it as put up a perch for it at the bar and watch as the bird didn’t seem to have any inclination to leave from close proximity to its favorite drink.

He had to set down some ground rules about not taking from bottles without permission or leaving droppings inside the bar, but the Rolex it had dropped off paid off a large tab for rum, and Leo had no intention to short change someone who paid, no matter how it was paid as long as it matched the value for the drink.

The bird didn’t even seem to consume anything but rum and peanuts Leo left out for drinkers, as far as he could see anyway.

He named it Captain Jack Sparrow in honor of its habits, and the bird seemed highly taken with it. And despite the fact that Jack seemed to be an asshole to everyone he met, he listened and never acted up against Leo, so Leo found it even more amusing and always had an extra distinguished set of taste buds to help him try drinks.

He came back into focus when Em whispered in his ear with a plea. “Are you sure I can’t make a statue out of it? Realistic parrot statues could fetch a decent price.”

Leo withheld a chuckle and shook his head. “Nah, he adds some entertainment to my days.”

“Am I not enough entertainment for you~?” Em flicked out her tongue to teasingly poke at him, making him turn his head to catch her lips before pulling back with a small smile. “Down you, I’m trying to focus here.”

She raised a delicate brow in amusement and looked over his shoulder at the counter. “Having some mad scientist fun in here baby?”

He nodded shamelessly and turned back to his work. “You could say that. I’ve been up since sunrise working on this.” Half a dozen mixing glasses were set before him on the kitchens central island counter, all glowing with various color mixes and surrounded by the rest of the potion and liquor bottles, creating a scene out of a chemists lab.

Em snuck her hands through the bottom of Leo’s shirt to run her fingers along the muscles she could feel there with a delighted hum, the weeks of potion usage having done wonders to restore Leo back to his peak and allowing him to grow beyond. “I thought you were trying to be frugal with the liquor supplies.”

He shivered for a second at the cold temperature of her hands but made no move to stop her as he went back to focusing on his work. “Azazel came through the other day with his shipment, so I’ve had a lot of bottles to play with. I want to make official pairings for the potions before I put them back on sale.”

“You still haven’t sold anything since new year’s?” Em asked incredulously. He had explained how ravenous the demand was that night, and if he hadn’t sold any more potions in the week since, the demand must have shot through the roof.

Leo confirmed her guess with a tired sigh. “I got dozens of requests every night, but I had to turn them down. I’ve been trying to build up a stock.”

“How long does it take to brew a potion?”

“About twelve hours per batch, and I’ve only got two burners to use, so at worst I can make thirty two vials a day, or forty eight at best, if I don’t sleep or otherwise leave the bar. I can’t really do that every day, plus I have a few other priorities on my time.” He said with a meaningful look at Em who flushed happily before finishing. “So I needed time to build up a stock.”

Em hummed and kissed his cheek in appreciation. “I guess I should be glad you’re not rushing to make money then.”

“You should.” Leo replied with a chuckle and went back to messing with the mixing glasses. “Although, you could help me taste test if you’re feeling particularly apologetic.”

A melodic laugh rang in his ears as Em kissed his neck before coming around his side to stand next to him. “Sure, why not? I’ve never been one to turn down your concoctions, but no feeding me strange potions without warnings mister.”

Leo’s answering smirk said it all as he shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Say’s the guy who drugged my drink the first time we met.”

“That was like 2 weeks ago. And I did it so you wouldn’t eat me.”

“Oh but baby, that hasn’t stopped me so far.”

The seductive look she sent him sent a pleasurable heat southward and Leo had to physically tear his eyes away from the sinfully attractive woman to regain control of himself.

Em knew exactly what she did and took great pleasure in getting a rise out of him. She giggled behind a hand and nudged him. “So, what did you want me to try? I can’t tell what’s what in this chaos.”

Leo cleared his throat and put a shot glass of murky brown liquid before her. “Try this one first, I’m thinking of calling it ‘Wake Up Punch’ ‘Pack-A-Punch’ ‘Rise-And-Shine’ ‘Other’.”

Em raised a delicate eyebrow as she observed it. “What’s in it?”

“Drink it and I’ll tell you.”

“What did I just say about surprises?”

“Trust me.”

The two matched eyes behind Em’s glasses as she measured him for a moment before raising the glass to her lips. “Putting me on the spot much?”

“I’m good at finding the right spot.” He responded while lighting a cigarette between his lips.

Em snorted in humor and downed the shot before her eyes flew wide open beneath her protective cover.

A mix of exquisitely roasted coffee beans, smooth Irish whiskey, and a tart nutmeg like flavor she couldn’t place mixed together to give her a shot of pure energy straight to her system like static electricity to her nerves. “Holy shit! What was in that?” She held a hand to her lips and shivered at the energy coursing through her as Leo chuckled and ashed his cigarette in a tray to the side.

“Irish whiskey, freshly roasted coffee beans poured over a frozen metal ball and strained, and an eighth of an Invigoration potion. Gives a drinker a shot of pure energy to wake them up without going too far. I wanted to make a dedicated drink for the potion, but even drinking half of it will give people too much energy to sit in a bar, and it has an annoying side effect of making the drinker crash when it wears off. So, I decided to do shots. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” Em