savetheearth | open action // she works hard for the money

[ooc; This is obviously open to any characters over 21 who might go to unnamed bars where mostly-unassuming girls might work the 9pm-3am shift. Feel free to assume prior knowledge if your character might be a regular, or assume they've never been to the nameless bar in question. If your character has been there more than once, though, they will probably recognize Kay, though she may have kept to herself enough to not have actually formally met your character. If you have any questions/etc, please don't hesitate to PM me or IM me on AIM at i am your crisis. Thanks!]

[Forums or not, weird art shows or not, Kay continues her life as normal (even if she feels like nothing will be normal again). 11am to 7pm is the office job, and then 9pm to 3am is the bar job, and no amount of intense weirdness is going to throw that off. So now, at about midnight, she's got her apron tied around her waist and is hefting a tray of glasses and pitchers about the size of her head overhead as she navigates the crowd, four years of experience handling most of the muscle memory for her.

Her mind, however, is mostly on tabs and orders; there's a small part of her troubled at the strange events of the past week, but even so, her attitude is... well, 'pleasant' is maybe pushing it a little. But she's friendly enough, even if she's eyeing the old barflies with a mixture of contempt and nerves. She shrugs off groping hands with little-to-no reaction beyond annoyance, she seems to speak 'drunken slur' as a second language, and generally seems like an old hand at this-- probably because she is.

But normal night or not, she could use a (legally-required, non-paid thirty minute) break... if she can be distracted into taking one, that is. And there's a particularly belligerent middle-aged man who's starting to get a little worked up that she's refusing to overserve him. And really, why doesn't this place have a bouncer?

[ooc; Please feel free to make up your own interactions with her if you like, if the above don't strike your fancy. I'm flexible!]

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[That's what happens when you go on an obscure bar trawl with eccentric acquaintances. You end up sitting alone god-knows-where and debating if it's even worth it to check if the bar has any good drinks. He eventually decides that what he really wants is a damn cigarette, and so he slinks through the crowd and out into the cool night air. For a moment he fumbles with his lighter, swearing quietly to himself, before he approaches the other person there. He's pretty sure that he saw her serving drinks inside, and the apron certainly suggests that she works there and is on a break, but it might be worth a shot anyway.]

Excuse me, sugar, my durn lighter all up and died on me. You don't happen to have a light?

[She's not a habitual smoker; the idea of it had once appealed to her-- especially towards the end of her fourth year-- and she did so socially, never managing to get hooked, but in the end she'd never picked it up seriously. Sometimes, on stressful, busy nights like this the urge grew overwhelming. But she could only work at a bar so long before she started carrying around a lighter for just these moments, and she fishes around in the pocket of her apron and produces a small silver flip-top lighter and beckons him over, opening the top and illuminating her face in the darkness of the night.]

You're in luck. I forget this thing inside pretty often. I keep some fluid in the register if yours needs a refill, too.

[But somehow she doubts many people bother with anything but the plastic wheel-strike lighters anymore. The only reason she had hers was because of an old boyfriend and his somewhat skewed idea of 'appropriate anniversary gifts'; the Zippo had been the last one he'd ever had to give her.]

[He makes a relieved little sound as the flame blossoms to life, extending his hand toward it to catch it on the end of his cigarette.]

That's awful nice of you, honey. Ain't many places where you can refill this old thing.

[He holds up a lighter that is clearly old as dirt and monogrammed in JF for Joshua Forster, his great grandfather. His father had given it to him when he'd taught him to light a fire, as if that was some great accomplishment. Not for lighting cigarettes outside bars, but Fay held onto it as some small sign of where he came from still.]

Nice to get out of the press for a while, huh? It's back-breaking work.

Don't worry about it. I barely use mine, so it's not like I'm burning through fuel.

[She closes the lighter with a metallic click and pockets it again.]

Yeah, it's nice. It's a rough job sometimes, but it pays the bills and lets me keep my schedule at my other job. [But for all the harsh words, there's humor and an odd sort of fondness in her grey eyes. It's not a job she enjoys all the time, no, but it's home now.] Plus, you know, four years at a place and you get settled in pretty well.

You also get to know the clientele. I can't say I recognize you, though-- you came in with that group earlier, right? It your first time here?

[He nods in agreement with her words, taking a drag at his cigarette and letting smoke trail softly from his lips.]

It's good for keeping another job, though it kinda sucks in the mornings.

[Though in his case the cafe job was more the job on the side. He smiles a bit at her question, eyes following the dim light of an airplane across the sky.]

And yeah, can't say I've been in this part of town much. I work down at Cock of the Walk, so that's where I usually hang out.

[She leans back against the brick of the building, running a hand through her wild curls to push them out of her eyes.] It works. After college, I've almost managed to rid myself of the need for sleep entirely. Almost.

But Cock of the Walk, huh? [She knows the place-- well, mostly by reputation. She tends to stick near her own neighborhood, and doesn't go drinking basically at all, but she pays close attention to where other people go, mostly out of curiosity.]

You're a little far from home, aren't you? What brings you to our dingy little corner of Locke City? It's no major holiday, and I didn't get the 'bachelor party' feeling from your group. [Because if she saw any gatherings at the little dive they were at, it was one of those two things.]

Mmm, dancer and bar staff. [He shrugs a bit, used to most people knowing about it by name if nothing else. The place had become a bit infamous locally a couple of years ago because of the name, newspaper voices condemning it as outrageous, but in the end it had stayed.]

[As she asks about his home he laughs, pushing a hand through his hair and dislodging a small cloud of glitter - he never seemed to get rid of the stuff after work, not even by showering, so instead he usually just added to it. And the smell of hairspray, silly as it is, is a little bit of home too.]

It's been a while since I was back south, you know. I've lived here for seven years already - shit, that's pretty much, thinking about it. I just can't seem to be shaking the ole drawl. Lots of people come here to start a new life, don't they?

[Mostly she'd been referring to the side of the city Cock of the Walk was at, but she'll roll with it. Her expression even gentles from a little distant and polite to something more akin to amused when she watched the glitter sparkle as it drifted to the concrete. She was so glad glitter wasn't a thing that happened here very often-- except for the occasional bachelorette party, but they always put the male servers on those tables anyway.]

I guess they do. I wouldn't know much about new lives, though. [Siiiiigh.] I've lived in this area of Locke City my whole life. The only time I've actually been out of the city proper was a school trip to New York in high school. I bet it'd be nice, though-- to get out of this place, find a new life to live.

Did you choose Locke City? [She regards him with wide, curious gray eyes.] Why?

open action // she works hard for the money

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