dualislogs | Aleifr Becomes A Bouncer

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Aleifr Becomes A Bouncer

WHO: Aleifr and YOU
WHAT: His first night working as a bouncer
WHERE: Scintillation!
WHEN: Middle of July
WARNINGS: Well, this takes place in a strip club, so ... y'know. Nudity and drinking.

Aleifr’s first trip to Scintillation had been an accident. He’d been looking for a bar, and the neon-lit ‘strip club’ sign proclaiming that there were ‘Live Nude Girls’ inside had drawn his attention -- partially because of the nudity, but more out of curiosity as to what the hell the place was, and concern as to why they needed to specify that the girls were alive.

Turns out, exactly what it said on the tin.

It was a bit strange to him, conceptually. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy seeing beautiful women without their clothes - he enjoyed that sight as much as anyone else who was attracted to women did - it’s just that what followed a woman getting naked in front of him was usually the more enjoyable part. The crowd inside the bar seemed to be having a grand time of it, but Aleifr didn't really get the appeal. The drinks were cheap, though, so he decided to stay and drink his fill -- carefully, considering how quickly the whiskey had crept up on him when he and Mira had wandered into that hole-in-the-wall pub.

He was there for a little while before one of the girls, Crystal, offered him a private dance, which he’d declined. She stuck around, though, and they wound up talking for a while. He told her about himself, she told him about herself. She was studying to become a neurologist. He didn’t know what that was, but it sounded clever. He hoped she did well at it.

He wound up coming back the next night, hoping to talk to her again, but this time the owner of the place came to speak with him. He had a job for Aleifr, he’d said. He told Aleifr that most of the crowd here were decent enough folk, but sometimes, when someone was far enough in their cups, they’d cause trouble. It didn’t happen often, but occasionally someone would start a fight or hassle one of the girls and he needed someone to deal with it when those situations did arise -- a bouncer, he’d called it. He was hoping Aleifr would do it, and was delighted when Aleifr accepted.

Why not, after all? All the normal things he did in the course of his day back on Fenris weren’t necessary in this place, and he didn’t know enough about Dualis to find alternatives to fill his time. The few things he had found cost money, and this seemed like a decent enough way to find some.

So he came back again the next night and the owner showed him the spot by the door where he was to sit. It was his job to check the little identification cards of everyone who wanted to come in, and to keep out anyone younger than eighteen -- something that confused Aleifr a good bit since nobody in the club aside from the owner looked like they could be anywhere close to eighteen great years old, but he very quickly decided that they dated things differently here.

The night was easy at first. People began to trickle in as the sun went down, with the groups becoming larger and more frequent the later it got. People sidled up to the bar for drinks, then crowded around the stage whenever the owner announced that one of the girls was about to come out and dance. They whooped for Misty, they cheered for Charlotte, and the atmosphere slowly but steadily grew more raucous as the night went on.

Eventually, though, one of the patrons went too far. With all the sense in his head drowned by liquor, when Crystal’s dance brings her near him, he reaches out and gives her ass a firm slap. She plays it off well enough, quickly spinning out of reach and back to the center of the stage, but the startled jump at the unexpected contact and the abruptness of the turn makes it clear it wasn’t appreciated or welcome.

The patron laughs and opens his mouth to spit out some jeer, but he’s interrupted when a hand clamps down on his shoulder and a deep, growling voice snarls from behind him. “You need to leave.”

“Get your fucking hands off me, asshole.” The patron snaps, continuing his pattern of very poor choices. He tries to shake the hand off his shoulder, but it’s gripped onto him like a vice. He rises to his feet, spins around … and finally realizes the trouble he’s in when he’s suddenly face-to-chest with Aleifr. Whatever insults he’d intended to hurl, whatever punches he might have intended to throw, all of it rushes out of his mind. All he does is stand there, staring dumbly at the scowling, heavily-tattooed giant in front of him until Aleifr grabs him by the collar and yanks him forward.

Aleifr leans down until they’re nearly nose-to-nose. “Fuck. Off.”

Aleifr drags the man away from the stage and sends him tumbling to the ground with a hard shove. Patrons yelp and dive out of the way, and suddenly every eye in the room is locked on him. He takes a step forward, toward the downed drunkard who can’t quite get his legs under him, and briefly looks back towards the stage. Crystal’s standing there, watching the new bouncer with wide eyes, but she picks up the unspoken question he’s asking: Are you alright?.

She responds with a small smile and a nod, and Aleifr’s attention returns to the drunk fool fumbling around on the floor. He grabs the man by the shirt and hauls him to the door, sending him out onto the street with throw that looked almost distressingly effortless considering the recipient was a full-grown man. Then, he returns to his spot by the door without another word. What else does he need to say, really?

Eventually, the usual business of the club resumes. Crystal gets the crowd’s attention again, the drinks start flowing … but nobody’s causing any more trouble that night.

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Unfortunately, not too much entertainment to be had that night -- at least in that regard. The drunken idiot putting his hands on one of the dancers is about the long and short of it, because none of the clientele seems particularly keen on being on the receiving end of a similar manhandling by the bouncer. They keep themselves to themselves, probably throw out slightly more generous than usual tips, and everyone has a grand ol' time.

Whenever Steph goes up to the bar to order her first drink, though, the bartender won't accept her credits. She still gives Steph her drink, but whenever Steph tries to pay she just holds up a hand to stop her.

"The big guy said that one's on his tab." She says, pointing over towards Aleifr, who's currently busy checking the ID's of a few newcomers.

Steph picks up her drink to take back to the one clean-looking table in the place, but turns to raise an eyebrow at Aleifr first. She's not surprised he remembers her, but buying a girl a drink can mean a lot of different things, especially in a strip club.

She finishes off her fries before wandering over to the door. She wouldn't want them to clean her table, not when the fries are surprisingly good. Just inside the door she leans against the wall and sips cautiously at her drink.

"Somehow this isn't where I would have pictured you. You do have the perfect shape for a bouncer, though."

"Big?" He asks, the beginnings of a wry smile playing about his lips as he waves the party at the door through.

His work done for the moment, he turns to face her. "You're right, though. Wasn't looking for this sort of place, just kind of stumbled across it."

"Wall-like," she agrees with a grin. She's glad he has a sense of humor, even if he can be a bit irritable.

"You gotta be careful wandering these parts of town, you know. You're gonna get the totally wrong idea about modern society."

"Not all flashing lights and pretty girls, then?"

He's only being half sarcastic. He expects that there's a good deal more to this place that he hasn't even imagined, much less seen, even though the obnoxiously bright lights seem to be a constant.

Humor aside, though ... he's curious.

"Not by a long shot. Although bright lights have gotten pretty universal, yeah." She shrugs. Some things really are that easy to pinpoint.

"It's not all about the money, either. There's at least a small portion of world culture that isn't run entirely by money." She holds up her fingers to indicate a very small size.

"A little bit."

Aleifr snorts.

"Probably like that part better." He admits with a nod. "Seems like it'd be ... simpler."

"It is! But that's mostly because there isn't any money, so everything kinda sucks."

Another brief snort of laughter.

"Fair enough. Might be more familiar, though."

He pauses, picking up the bottle of whiskey on the table next to him and taking a long pull.

"No money where I come from. Everyone just looks after each other."

"I kill a carynx, I give you some of the meat and you tan the hide for me." He says, gesturing between the two of them. "We both have food, we both have leather."

Simple as that. Neat and tidy.

"Don't imagine things work like that here, though." He grunts. "Seems like everything costs money."

Steph's face wrinkles in disgust.

"Ew. A guy tried to teach me to skin a rabbit once, it did not go well." She ended up punching him in the face. It all worked out well enough, though. He was a pretty weird guy.

"Nah, people here are much less trusting, and much less trustworthy a lot of the time. But I imagine you're learning that pretty fast, working at a place like this."

He seems a bit perplexed by her disgust, until he remembers that she always lived in a place like this. The lesson she's describing is probably the first time she ever had to skin anything, and he hadn't exactly enjoyed his first time either. He got used to it over time, but that's neither here nor there.

In response to her comment about people's trustworthiness, though ... He doesn't say anything. He just smiles wryly and reaches over to the table next to him and picks something up off of it.

Four ID cards he'd confiscated over the course of the night. All with little mistakes that gave them away as fake.

You could say he's got some idea by now, yes.

She shrugs sheepishly. There were extenuating circumstances that made it especially unpleasant.

She looks over the IDs with a critical eye. They're pretty typical amateur work, and she's not remotely surprised to find that there's more than one purveyor in town.

"These are just sad. Then again, I've never really gotten the appeal of strip clubs to start with. Guys are weird."

Aleifr shrugs and takes another swig of his whiskey.

"Honestly, I don't get it either."

Evidently, he doesn't see the irony of saying that while working at one.

And Steph chooses to ignore the irony of saying the same while in one.

"Do you at least get free drinks?"

"'Within reason.'"

Whatever that means. Evidently the bottle of whiskey he's nursing fits into that category, so he's content for now.

Though he does have a question.

"What brought you here, then? Since it wasn't the show."

"Nice."

She shoots him a grin before taking a healthy sip of her drink. Paid for or not, it's all free to her.

"I saw you manning the door and had to be sure I wasn't hallucinating," she admits. "And I do love to watch jerks get the crap beaten out of them."

Aleifr chuckles, silently nodding his agreement.

"Stick around, then." He says. "The fool from before might not be the last."

He pauses for another another swig of whiskey before adding, "Hopefully he will be, but ..." He gestures vaguely in the general direction of the bar. Hard to tell how things will go when people are off in their cups.

"Either way, I wanna be here for it." She doesn't necessarily want to get involved, at least not tonight. Sometimes it's nice to watch somebody else do the work for you.

Sometimes. Hasn't gotten old for him just yet, though, even if none of the drunken sods he's dealt with have provided him with anything resembling a challenge.

Ah, well. He's got something to drink, at least. Though, speaking of drinks ...

"What are you drinking, by the way?" He asks, nodding to the glass in her hand.

"Hmm? Oh." She'd actually forgotten about it for a moment, even as she was actively drinking it.

"It's called a Fuzzy Navel. Peach schnapps and orange juice. I'm not really a fan of straight liquor," she adds, gesturing at his bottle with her glass.

"'Fuzzy navel'?" His nose crinkles involuntarily. "Why the hell is it called that?"

He's not sure why in the fuck you'd want to make someone think of a hairy, lint-ridden belly button every time they mentioned your drink.

"Dunno. But it's delicious." As a rule she doesn't question weird drink names. The answer is usually found somewhere gross and/or several decades in the past.

"Mixed drinks always have weird, silly names. This is just one of the universal ones. Most places make up their own drink names."

It still seems strange to him, judging by his expression, but he concedes it with a shrug. Maybe one day he'll grow accustomed enough to this place that he won't question things like that anymore, but today isn't that day.

"Can I try it?"

She considers saying no on the principle of not sharing germs, but ultimately decides that it probably won't kill her.

"Sure. Here." She offers him the glass.

He wouldn't have been offended if she did. More curiosity than anything.

He accepts the glass with a small nod of thanks and takes a measured sip, brow creasing at the unfamiliar taste.

"Good." He decides after some brief deliberation. "Sweet, but I like it."

Probably not the reaction one would expect someone that looks like him to have to a traditionally 'girly' drink, but he seems satisfied with it as he hands Steph's glass back to her. Might even get one for himself, later.

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