Whores are terrible (Zack+Gen)
Zack only tended to be on this job Monday to Friday, 10pm to 4am. It was a jaunting atmosphere that always petered down into a slow slump every time. Zack never stopped wishing he could die of boredom once 1am came. The drunks were either rambling nonsensically or dead on the countertop, still conscious enough to throw another few bills down for one more drink. It just wasn't interesting.
Well, it wasn't interesting until one particular person stopped by. Genesis wasn't a daily or weekly customer; they were lucky to catch him in the bar two weeks in a row. Once did he show up twice in a week. The man was eye-catching enough that even Angeal made a comment: "Don't associate with him."
"Huh? Why?"
"He'll eat your wallet."
Which didn't seem right, since Genesis paid his tab, left nice tips, and smiled with charm about it. The bar seemed to be eating Genesis's wallet rather than the other way around. But Zack listened to his manager's words and tried to stay professional whenever around him, tried to keep a boundary. It was easy to gravitate to him, however. Aside from Genesis' dashing good looks (about five steps up from any of the usual crowd), he also dressed like he was ready to hit a college party. He also tended to lounge in his chair, instead of simply sitting in it.
"Feet off the table!" Angeal once barked at him, like he wasn't a customer. But Genesis, with a smirk, complied as if he had won.
And each time Genesis found his way there, Zack found himself responding to him. Because Genesis had airs and an ungiving attitude, to the customers, to the staff, and especially the manager. Never mind the bar was favored by the blue collar working class; he stood out in more ways than one. Zack hadn't been on the day Genesis apparently got into some sort of slugger brawl (Cissnei told him about the whole thing the next day), clearly not Genesis's fault, but he got chewed out by Angeal anyway (so Angeal implied), after the instigator was tossed.
'Fags,' it seemed (as Cissnei said Genesis was called), just didn't belong in their seedy place. But Genesis still came in anyway the next time, as if nothing had happened and ordered something ugly.
"What the hell do you do?" Zack asked off-handedly, leaving Genesis to bare his teeth like a cat.
"I make money. Why, what do you do?"
Obviously I play indentured servant to drunks, Zack thought, but he grinned anyway, if only to look pleasantly stupid, and said, "I take the money you make. What a nasty cycle," before sauntering down to the other side of the bar.
At that point, Zack was beginning to piece together just why Genesis chose this bar to occasionally park in: Angeal was his 'friend'. Otherwise, how and why would Angeal have known what Zack has said to him, as Angeal was berating on how to not to talk to customers? "You're just tempting the devil," Angeal also added.
"Into what?" Zack asked sourly. "Eating my wallet?"
"Exactly."
Zack didn't get it. Sure the guy looked like a host (or a hustler), but Zack wasn't going to pay him anything, so why the warning? It wasn't like there was any particular love between them, either. And then even that relationship started rolling down hill.
"You barely seem old enough to be working here," Genesis told him one evening. "You suck Angeal's dick to get it?"
Zack bristled a little. It was a fight not to say anything, and it was a fight to come up with a comeback. He lost both. "You're too old to be wearing that shirt," he quipped weakly. "That the only way your tricks let you suck theirs?"
Genesis snorted. "Lame. Get the girl. She's cuter company."
"He better be a friend of yours," Zack grumbled later on, when Genesis had left and he minutes before punching off the clock.
"Unfortunately," Angeal confirmed. "Go home."
"Like I wanna go anywhere else. Get Cissnei home safe."
It was chilly Friday morning, his one day off from two part-time jobs, and the one day he saw as his salvation to prepare him for more bartending and cash-handling. The end of his week. Zack yawned a little, never not bleary-eyed after walking away from the dull atmosphere of the late-night lull. But getting home always woke him up just enough to get back to his apartment safely. Nothing like the cold blast of moving air on a motorcycle to get your mind moving.
Except there was a problem tonight, and Zack didn't like it at all. He usually didn't find his bike adorned with flashy accessories, but given what was sitting sideways on its seat, reading a book, there was a first time for everything. "What," he said, "are you stalking me now?"
Genesis shrugged one languid and almost bare shoulder. "I think it's more you find your way to me. I'm innocent." The book snapped shut and he got up. "It was also 'free parking'. I took liberty to park myself. Look on the bright side. The seat's warm."
Zack rolled his eyes. "Your body heat isn't that great. Move."
"How abhorrent." But Genesis did comply, slipped aside, though not far away enough for Zack's comfort. But Zack was man. If Genesis wanted to start a fight, he would give him one (then prepare for some serious begging to keep his job once be saw Angeal again). It even seemed Genesis wanted a fight, for before he could put more than a hand on his bike, Genesis was grabbing the other.
Zack stared. "What the hell do you want?"
"Would you believe me if I said, 'to make amends'?"
"You assume you're getting under my skin."
"I'm not? There's a disappointment."
щ(ﾟДﾟщ)
(屮ﾟДﾟ)屮
Zack woke up alone that afternoon, which wasn't surprising. It wasn't until the next day he realized what had gone horribly wrong with his sordid affair.
"Angeal!" He looked like he was about to cry, the next Monday. "Genesis robbed me over about 1300 gil! Everything in my wallet!"
Angeal blinked, looked confused, then scowled. "You slept with him?"
"Well...maybe. But he picked it clean!"
Facepalm. "You slept with a prostitute. Of course he would take your money."
"...Hah?"
"Dummy. He comes in here because he couldn't get anyone for the night."
"You could have warned me!"
"You make goo-eyes at Cissnei and ramble on about that other girl--"
"Aerith."
"Her. I didn't think you'd sleep with him!"
"The wallet-eating thing was still a warning!"
"He'd steal it if you got too close. That's all!"
"...You're a lousy, lousy manager."
"Go open up."
And of course, Zack did. And the only thing that wasn't ordinary through the night was Zack's mood, dour and self-berating. ...Until Genesis walked in.
"Bastard," Zack hissed, when Genesis dared to drop himself at the bar countertop, like nothing had gone wrong on Friday. "You took my cash!"
"I'm innocent," he said, though he still grinned. "Accusing me of theft. What a wretched lie. But see, I'm a generous person. Let me tip you extra while I'm here."
Click, click, click, snap. "You're using /my/ money to pay."
"If that's how you want to think of it~"
"I hate you."
"I'll believe it when I feel it."
"'To become the dew that quenches the land. To spare the sands, the seas, the skies. I offer thee this silent sacrifice'."
"Don't quote poetry."
"LOVELESS isn't poetry."
"Don't quote LOVELESS. It kills the mood."
Genesis smiled. "Maybe your mood." And he sank himself down.
Attempt #2!
"Mom's gotten a big part in a play. Top billing!" Gen announced one day, all his pride and arrogance going into the way he said it. And as always, it wasn't as impressive as he tried to make it into. At that age, the stage still wasn't the place any child dreamed to be. Television, movies, music concerts, that's where the fame was garnered as far as most children were concerned, and Genesis' playmates were the very same.
"Good for her," was all anyone said, coming from the currently channel-surfing Angeal. "You still helping her?"
"Of course!"
"What's so exciting about play stuff, anyway?" Zack asked, now six and somewhat more verbally observant, and still couldn't color fully within the lines. "Nothing goes boom."
"Idiot," Gen scorned. "Theatre is the place for the best! If an actor isn't on stage, they can't call themselves actors. A real audience isn't the same as a camera. You're on your feet and you need to know everything square--"
Here we go again, thought the collective, except for Cloud, who, at four, didn't care about what people talked about.
"--and in roles like this, you need to be on your A-game because a thousand eyes are on you and if you can't take it, you shouldn't be an actor. And--"
"Is acting really a big deal?" Koarin whispered, over the arm of Seph's chair.
"Good actors are good liars," Seph said, turning a page. "And lying is good."
"You don't lie."
"Nope." Of course he did, but admit it? To Ko? Never.
"--and Mom's playing the Whore of Cudru in Lord Avon's Plagued the Lovelorn Casted, and everyone will see it!"
Now, eleven year olds were only just getting a vested interested in the words their parents tell them not to repeat. Yes, they repeated them because adults did, but having knowledge of what they really mean before puberty was powerful. Given the way Genesis was raised, however, a single mother actress and homeschooled...he probably had no idea what a whore really was. Or so Angeal and Sephiroth believed. Koarin and Zack were just clueless (though they've heard the word before) and Cloud just didn't care.
But Gen wasn't done in his spiel on how awesome this all was. Because he did help her with her lines. He didn't understand them all, but he was her Lysander when she needed lines read, and he was always enchanted with the way his mother moved. He wound up memorizing her lines by watching her and mimicking her. Because she was the best, so to be the best, he had to be like her. Which meant he needed a victim.
Zack was perfect. A little stupid, but energetic and had moxie (whatever moxie was). "Get up, you."
"Why?" Zack asked, as he scribbled a daffodil purple.
"I wanna play. Come on." And like the spoiled brat he was, he hauled Zack out of his chair with a huff. And like a man on a mission, he marched them both to the back of the house.
"Here." Genesis lifted Zack into the white porcelain tub. "Sit."
"But it's the tub," Zack pointed out, looking at the ends on either side of him. "What does it do without water?"
"I'm about to show you. Now sit."
Zack gingerly dropped cross-legged onto the bottom, sideways. But he kept looking at the sides. "This is weird."
"Pretend it's not a tub," Gen grumbled, having started rooting through the bathroom closet. "Pretend it's a table. A counter."
"What, this?" Zack slapped the rim of the tub. "It's small."
"It doesn't need to be big." He gave up with the closet and checked under the sink for barely a second. Finally, he spotted a coffee mug on the sink, and dumped its contents flippantly into the bowl as he removed it. Clatter, clatter. "Here, a cup."
"What's it for?"
"You're a bartender. Those people behind counters that give people drinks? You've seen the movies."