swerved | (no subject)

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alex stern

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She's not working today, which is a nice sort of respite. Kat loves what she does, feels like she has a purpose for the first time since accident that first took her dancing aspirations away from her, but it's also sometimes a lot. Especially lately, it's started to seem like there's always something going on. Of course, that's not strictly a work-related thing — they're all still recovering, in their own ways, from Marcus's possession — but it's definitely a contributing factor, and she could use a breather.

She could also use a drink. Going out and getting wasted isn't really her thing, but she's pacing herself, sitting at the bar a few sips into her second drink, her cane propped up against her barstool. It's nice, just getting to sit like this, to unwind for a little while and breathe. Around here, there's no telling how long any peace will last, anyway, and she has a feeling that something else is bound to be right around the corner.

That peace tends to be even shorter-lived than she expected, though at least in a small way. This bar isn't a terrible one, not so upscale that the drinks will cost a fortune but not too seedy, but nowhere is free from drunk assholes; from a table close behind her, a couple people abruptly let out a shout, probably at the sports game playing on TV, and Kat, mid-sip, is so startled that she spills whiskey on her sweater.

"Goddamn it," she says to herself, though it's a lighthearted swear. There are worse things. Peeling off her sweater, she glances amiably over at the girl nearby and, thinking out loud, adds, "Guess there's always got to be at least one table like that, right?"

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Alex lifts the tequila that she's sipping in a lazy toast.

"I bet they tip like shit, too," she says, lifting her glass to her lips and taking a sip of the liquor inside. "Assholes like that wouldn't know a good tip if it bit them in the ass."

"God, definitely not," Kat agrees, letting out a short laugh. She won't be surprised if they're too drunk to think of tipping at all. Though she's never tended bar or waited tables, and doesn't think it would be a very good fit for her now, she can only respect the people who do and have to deal with that sort of bullshit.

"There're way worse things than a sweater that smells like whiskey, at least, but ugh."

"Could definitely be worse," says Alex with a lopsided grin, taking another sip of her tequila. After a pause, she slips off the stool that she's sitting on, moving a little closer to the other girl before she sits down again. "It's a cute sweater, too. It'll come out in the laundry."

"Yeah, I think it'll be fine," Kat says, eyeing the damp fabric before offering the other girl a smile. The spilled drink is a minor annoyance, but not really anything more than that. She's mostly just glad she didn't spill anything that might really stain, and that she wore layers when she went out today.

Figuring she might as well, since they're both here, she adds, "I'm Kat."

Alex tries to make it obvious, but she definitely glances at the other girl's tits before she looks up. In her defense, her eyes are very much being directed there. She raises her glass again.

"Alex." She knocks back the rest of her drink. "Can I get you another?"

"I could do with another," Kat says with a slight nod, "seeing as, you know, I lost, like, half of this." She came here to unwind a little, anyway, so really, she might as well, especially now that she's got some company. For the moment, there's nowhere else to be and nothing she needs to be worrying about. It's a nice feeling.

"Thanks."

Alex leans on the bar, shamelessly flashing a little bit of cleavage to catch the bartender's attention and then orders two of the same. She flashes Kat a smile.

"You're welcome. Last night's crowd were big spenders so I'm feeling flush."

"Yeah?" Kat asks, made curious by that description, grinning at the way Alex gets the bartender's attention. She's pretty sure every girl, or at least the vast majority of them, has to resort to that trick on occasion, but hell, at least it tends to be reliably effective.

"What do you do?"

"I dance at the club on Paper," says Alex. She waits to see if that rings a bell for Kat or not. Sometimes she has to explain herself but, most of the time, people hear that and figure out Stripper.

Kat's never been there, but the phrasing makes it easy enough to piece together what that probably means. Dancing at a club where people are big spenders — well, there are probably other options, but it's close enough to self-explanatory. She's not one to judge. The only dancing she's ever been interested in is of a vastly different sort, but to each their own, and hell, it seems to be lucrative.

"Never been," she says with a shrug. "D'you like it there?"

Alex gives the question the thought that it deserves, smiling her thanks when the bartender sets fresh drinks down in front of her and Kat. "Yeah," she says, finally, "I do. I've worked at some pretty shitty places, but this club...It's better."

"That's good," Kat says. It's not really her business regardless, and she wouldn't judge, but as far as she can tell, that's the most important part. Reaching for her glass, she lifts it a bit in Alex's direction.

"Thanks for this."

"You're welcome," says Alex, raising her own drink in answer. "Just...trying out not being an asshole all the time for size. Seeing if it suits me."

"I'd say it seems to be working out, but I did just get a drink out of it, so," Kat says with a shrug, clearly teasing. She worries for just a moment if it might be too much for someone with whom she's barely acquainted, but drink aside, she likes Alex instinctively, at least so far. "And hey, this is a good place for trying new shit. The city, not the bar, but I guess there's no reason that couldn't be, too."

"Start small and work your way up, right?" says Alex. So far, Darrow Alex feels like a better fit than New Haven Alex. It doesn't feel as much like she's desperately trying to keep her chin above water the whole time. "So what do you do for fun, Kat?"

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Kat says, smiling. "For fun? Hang out with friends, mostly. Movie nights with my roommate, that sort of thing. And my job tends to keep me pretty busy, but at least it's one I actually like." It took her a while to find that, something she actually had a drive for other than dance. She feels pretty lucky that she did.

"Sounds good to me," says Alex. An ordinary life. Maybe that was exactly what Darrow Alex could hope for? Room to be normal. "I'm still figuring out out here, but...yeah. I do a lot of that too."

"Are you new? Or... newish?" Kat asks. She doesn't want to assume one way or the other, but it sounds like that might be the case if Alex is still figuring out what she wants to do for fun here. That sort of thing can take a while, or at least it did in her case. It was ages before she had a real, steady social life in this place. "Sorry, that always sounds weird."

"I've been here for a couple of months, nearly," says Alex. She doesn't want to explain to this girl that she's still figuring out what version of herself she wants to be now that she's here, so she doesn't. "But I've got this friend from home and everything is...super shitty right now, so it's throwing me off balance."

"Shit, that sucks," Kat says sympathetically, frowning a little. It was weird for her when she got here, having her recently possessed mother and someone she'd once gotten arrested here, but that hadn't lasted long, at least. Though she doesn't know what the story here is, it sounds like it's probably messy. "If you want to talk it out with someone you just met, you're welcome to, and if not, I promise I won't pry."

"There's not much to talk about," says Alex, ruefully, sipping her tequila then setting the glass down again. "He's basically the most WASP-Y New Englander to ever WASP -- he's got a massive stick up his ass -- and he thinks I'm a whore. So."

"Oh, fuck that," Kat says, shaking her head. Given that Alex first described him as a friend, she's hesitant to go off too much, but it sounds like bullshit to her. Predictable bullshit, but she doubts that makes it any easier to be on the receiving end of it.

"No wonder it's got you thrown off-balance."

"Yeah," she says, swirling what's left of her tequila around in her glass. "And we...kind of made some awesome at the time but probably very ill-advised choices at New Year, and now..." She makes a soft sound, miming an explosion with one hand. "Fucked."

Kat winces sympathetically, pretty sure she knows what those awesome but ill-advised choices probably entailed. That definitely seems like it would complicate things to say the least. She's not really sure what to do with a situation like that, not least because she barely knows Alex so far and hasn't met the guy in question, but she can at least offer moral support or whatever.

"That sucks," she says. "I mean, something like that's got to be hard enough to hear anyway, but add that to it..."

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