Wolf Like Me

[wolfmarked]

Say, say, my playmate
The Jolly Roger, day or night - open

The pub's become like a second home for Skip. She buzzes between the bar, small kitchen, and tables. For the most part, she's usually pretty sociable. She moves to whatever music there is, an easy turn from one table to another with the beat and the like.

Of course, pity the poor fool who tries to cause trouble on her shift. Or anyone caught up in it who might be assumed to be guilty. There, something rather like the 'wrath of God' might descend upon them.

Part of her duties involve the backroom and its supernatural inhabitants. Not that they get away with anything more than the patrons in the proper pub. There's some leeway, yes. Vampires feed on willing victims, for one. But anyone who starts a fight? She'll shout them down the same as she would anyone else.

Lack of fear? Lack of self-preservation? Both?

But she tries to be attentive, eyes peeled for new faces, empty plates, or waiting glasses.


Mirror my melody
London streets, day - open

"Oi! Fuck you! Fucker!"

The completely useless cursing is done to the back of a bus, complete with her flipping it off. He can't hear her, no, but it makes her feel better to do it. Even if she's promptly honked at for standing in the street.

"Fuck you, too!"

The driver doesn't reply. He just keeps driving once she moves. Then, she throws herself onto the bench to wait for the next bus.

"Stupid fuckin' transportation. Fuck 'em all."

She really needs to think about getting a license and even a shitty little car before school starts. It wasn't bad when she lived a campus or had her father or brothers to drop her off. But living with an aunt working full-time? This is going to get old, fast.


Got a curse I cannot lift
London streets, night - open

Bravado. That's Skip's main battle plan. Bravado and keys. They're all car keys, collected from neighbours, friends, and family over the years. And some just found. But they protude from her closed right hand, between each finger.

She may or may not also have slightly-illegal-grade pepper spray in the messenger bag worn over her shoulder. Sure, no one ever bothered her in Waterford, but she can't be sure about London. She hasn't been in ages, and, even then, she doesn't know the neighbourhood too well.

Besides, streets at night are dangerous, even when you're just walking to your bus stop. And have to wait there. People and the supernatural have to be considered. She doesn't care about politics, but she also knows she reads as human. Which, to some, might mean 'meal.'


When the moon is round and full
The Jolly Roger - Aug 29th

The song always plays. Whenever Skip is on duty at the pub, that song will come on the jukebox. Only after it's sat unused for a bit. She never makes anyone wait for their music to indulge her. But tonight, well. Tonight it might seem more than particularly apt.

'Oh, don't go 'round tonight
For it's bound to take your life.
There's a bad moon on the rise.'

She even sings along as she weaves between the tables and checks on her pool-playing regulars. She has their bottles of beer right as they took their last drinks. They almost didn't know what to do when she moved in, took their bottles with her right hand and put a new bottle in its place with her left.

Then, she turns her attention elsewhere.

Comments

[wolfmarked]

"Oh!" She grinned and offered her hand after wiping it on her apron, just in case there was still condensation there. "I'm Skip. Only been here for about a month."

[stauncherhearted]

Hopefully, Skip hadn't been able to hear the bit about being cursed in this din. At least, Nancy could only hope.

"Skip, lovely t'meet you. Nancy Fagin." Because she had to include her last name now, she realized with a bitter sigh and a handshake.

[wolfmarked]

A curse sounded private. Plus, well, there wasn't much of a reason to remark on it. Not like she could do anything to help or the like.

"Skip Hughes," she replied. Only fair to give her last name, too. "Like I said, you need anything? Flag me down."

[stauncherhearted]

"Hughes. I'll be sure to remember that." She gave her a broad smile. "Thank you, again. I'll let you get back to work." She'd be sure to tip her well, especially if tonight was lucrative for her. Raising her chin slightly, Nancy looked around the bar for her next mark.

[wolfmarked]

Throughout the night, Skip flitted between the back room and the main pub, delivering drinks and making her rounds. She stops now and then to make small talk, but, in general, she keeps moving.

Then, she stops briefly by Nancy and says with a smile, nodding to her glass, "Need another?"

[stauncherhearted]

By now, Nancy's already been fed off of once tonight, and has returned to her spot at the bar. Not the best idea to drink when you were missing a good bit of blood, but, well. What could you do when you lived in England?

"Yes, please, if you don't mind. Ah, this time I'll go with a Jack Daniels, though." She gestures to the bottle a bit higher up.

[wolfmarked]

Skip nods and returns a few moments later with the glass, which she sets down.

"Want somethin' from the kitchen? Appetizer on the house."

It was just pub food, sure, but... Just like her boss gave her a bonus for working the back room, she felt that ought to apply to anyone. Besides, if this girl was a regular?

Well. Skip knew that taking care of regulars was how waitresses stayed around.

[stauncherhearted]

"Thank you," she said, immediately accepting the whiskey and raising it towards the bartender. But she didn't drink yet.

"Really? You're the sweetest bartender I've met here." And she'd been drinking here since she was at least fourteen. Perks of being friends with Hook, once more. "I don't know if you knew Alex, but he didn't like me working out of here." The truth gets another wince from her, and as such, she took a nice drink.

"Let's see- chips, please if you don't mind." and because she was getting an appetizer on the house... "And pour yourself whatever you want." She'd run into a customer up front who, upon Nancy's return from being fed on, happened to have a very loose purse. So it was all on her.

[wolfmarked]

"Just a waitress right now, I'm afraid," Skip said with a laugh. "But I'm hopin' to be a bartender in a month or two. The tips they make are killer."

Plus she had an inkling that the bartender was looking for something new.

After a minute, she returned, having put the order in to the kitchen. Then, she called over to the man behind the bar -- someone who just bothered watching for drink orders and sometimes chatting up people at the bar --

"Oi! Takin' my break. Gimme some Jameson. Neat."

Once he put it in front of her, she raised it to Nancy.

"To singing for your supper."

Then, just to make sure she didn't think she was mocking her, Skip followed quickly. "My da and brothers... They looked after the people in town, y'know? The ones the cops couldn't give a shit about. Got a lot of respect for you."

[stauncherhearted]

"You'll make it, trust me." She could maybe see what she could do for the girl, as well. Never hurt to try.

Nancy blinked at the toast, about to question before Skip kept speaking. She let out a small exhale, relaxing her shoulders. And, oddly enough, turned bright pink.

"You shouldn't. I'm not any good." She suddenly decided her knees were very, very interesting.

[wolfmarked]

"You're workin'."

Which she thought said it all. Was it the most 'respectable' line of work? Maybe not. But it was work. And hard work.

The day she laughed or turned her nose up at that? Was the day her family disowned her.

"More than some people do."

[stauncherhearted]

She gave her another raise of her glass, before taking another sip. "Yeah, I be sure to sit in your section from now on, I think." Seriously, Skip was just the type of person she'd needed to talk to tonight. Someone that didn't know her. That didn't care enough to ask the deep questions, just enough to sell her a drink or two and make a nice tip.

It was refreshing.

[wolfmarked]

Skip laughed a little as she took another drink.

"Hey, you're welcome any time. Probably won't be working as much once school starts. But I'll still be around."

[stauncherhearted]

That got Nancy's attention and she leaned towards her just a bit. "School? University, clearly. Where 'bouts?"

She hadn't gone to school. Ever.

[wolfmarked]

"Oh, it's..." Now, she was the one who turned pink and looked at the very interesting bottles on the back of the bar. "It's nothing big. Just an arts school."

[stauncherhearted]

"What sort of art?" That big of a reaction meant there was something there. And she'd be wrong if she said she wasn't curious.

[wolfmarked]

Skip laughed a little and grinned. "Painting."

[stauncherhearted]

"I bet you're real good, then," she says. "T'go to University for painting? Impressive!"

[wolfmarked]

"The nouveau riche like it well enough," she said, shrugging her shoulders. It was a good way to redirect the attention. "Got me out of Waterford."

[stauncherhearted]

"Well congratulations, Skip. I'd love to see 'em, one day. No rush." She gave her a good natured wink. This was good. An easy conversation, no worries about truth or lies. It was what she'd needed after this hell of a month.

"So you're from Waterford, I'll take it." Ireland. Her accent was clear. And if Nancy's own London accent didn't make it clear: "I was born and raised here." Right here. In this pub.

[wolfmarked]

"Used t' talk like I was from London proper," Skip said with a grin. "Still do when I'm at school or the like. Sounds better, y'know? Like I've got more polish. All snobbish."

It's easy to say to someone who doesn't have that kind of accent. The kind of someone who knows London-London. Not just the fancy schools. Like the one she used to attend. Or the one she is now.

[stauncherhearted]

"Did you?" She looks at Skip with a bit of glint in her eye. "Like you stepped right out of Kensington, no doubt." Nancy was an East Ender, and very rarely attempted to hide it. Some of her higher class clients, perhaps, but they were vampires. No well-to-do man wanted to sleep with a common hooker.

Older vampires knew the correlation between sex and blood that was so often there, and got what they could while they were able.

"I like your natural accent best, to tell you the truth. Always thought there was something mysterious to it."

[wolfmarked]

Skip laughed a little and flashed a grin.

"Thought I'd be a soloist in a company, an' they like 'em posh."

But that chance had disappeared, so she'd given up trying to sound like a Londoner. Still, it wasn't something she talked about, especially not with a relative stranger. Always best to keep it light.

"Don' know about mysterious, but thanks."

[stauncherhearted]

"Well, their loss," she said with a raise of her glass to Skip. But she was content to let the conversation lie where it did.

"Of course- one of my best friends is Irish." Best friends. Right, that was a good way to describe herself and Cooper... Right?

[wolfmarked]

"Really?" Skip grinned a little. "What part of Ireland is she from?"

Assuming, yes. But it would have been a guess either way.