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Portalocity Office, Fandom Branch, Friday

Trick looked around the lounge and sighed. He had seen a fair number of bachelor parties in his day as owner of the Dal and had pretty much assumed that there couldn't be much worse than the night before an elaborate double wedding featuring a pair of Dark Fae twins.

He'd never imagined an interdimensional bachelor party for the scion of the son of a...glitter baron? A three-headed, incredibly wealthy, very thirsty son of a glitter baron and his entire three-headed entourage.

Fortunately their layover had only been about twenty minutes long. Any longer and they probably would have destroyed the entire lounge, instead of just thoroughly trashing it. Pushing up his sleeves, Trick sighed and got to work.

He was going to need more complimentary booze.

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He's around, if slightly busy.

...It doesn't normally look like this. Really.

Sleeeeeepy.

After the club fair, Jim had gotten to wondering if maybe there were some deals on for portals back home, if he booked them early. After all, spring break had to be coming up... sometime... and it wouldn't hurt to try to book now for cheaper, considering he wasn't working or anything.

He was looking thoughtfully around, mostly at the mess, as he stepped into the office, yes.

"... Uh, excuse me?"

Trick was fishing bottles out from under the table when he heard someone calling. He jerked upwards, startled, and managed to whack himself on the back of the head on the underside of the table.

He was grumbling as he backed out, and rubbing his head. "Welcome to Fandom's Portalocity Office," he said, not even attempting the Pretty Portalocity Service Smile.

Jim just... winced. A lot. Ow.

"Uh, thanks," he managed, after a moment. "Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you like that. Are you okay?"

He was already stepping forward to offer Trick a hand if he needed one.

"I'm good," Trick replied, happy to take Jim's hand up. Being crouched down the way he'd been was hard on the joints. "The last group traveling through here was a little rambunctious. The, uhh, lounge doesn't normally look like this."

Just in case Jim was curious. Or, you know, judging.

"I'll take your word for it," Jim decided as he helped Trick back to his feet. "This place is new here, so I really don't have much basis for comparison."

He looked at the mess. Oh, wow, the mess.

"Rowdy customers?"

"Bachelor party," Trick said with a heavy sigh. "Wealthy young aliens with more money--and heads--than sense."

He was glad Jim hadn't come by earlier. The bachelor party had been both rowdy and risque and Jim seemed rather young.

"Thank you," he said as he got to his feet. "So, how can I help you today," he added, belatedly realizing the boy was probably here for more than a lament about the state of Trick's lounge.

Jim looked around the office again, and then crouched down and picked up a few stray pieces of garbage that were sitting on the floor. It was a force of habit, really.

"They really did a number on this place," he decided, and then he shrugged. "This really isn't anything compared to what a half-dozen pirates can do to a ship over the course of a few months, though."

Lucky cabin boy, right here.

"I was actually wondering if you had any upcoming sales, maybe for... during spring break? I kind of want to visit my Mom around then, make sure our place didn't burn down again, but I'm kind of... strapped for cash these days."

That tended to happen when your inn burned to the ground and insurance didn't really mean a heck of a lot just yet. The handful of wealth that Silver had given him had been enough to rebuild, and then maybe a little something on the side, but he'd left it with his mother because, well, Sarah had been through hell and it was mostly his fault. She'd earned it.

"I can check..." Trick said in the resigned tones of someone who already knew the answer to that question, but was delaying giving it. "I don't suppose you tried to use a portal last month, when the realities were disappearing? I might be able to work with that a little?"

He watched Jim pick up the trash, the kid doing it for no other reason because it was there and so was he and the idea of not helping was apparently beyond him. Everything about his request tugged on Trick's heartstrings--broke kid, worried about his mom, a fire...

"Strapped for cash as in, you don't have a job or anything?"

Jim nodded a little, shrugging and turning the piece of litter over in his hands before he spotted the garbage can and made a mental note to toss this out once he was done talking.

"I wasn't anywhere that I could even try to get access to a portal from last month," Jim sighed, shrugging. "So I guess that's out. But... yeah. I had a job at Fixer-Uppers a few semesters ago. And then I got back here, and it was a completely different business. So... Probably not employed there any more, so much."

"You know," Trick mused. "Portolocity employees get discounted portals any time they travel. Can even portal for free if they're on company business--like traveling somewhere to see if there's an area suitable for an office location or something."

Did the kid see what he was getting at there? Probably. He looked pretty bright.

"The pay's not great, but it's livable."

Granted, Trick hadn't actually gotten himself an apartment yet, but that wasn't something the kid had to worry about, up at the dorms.

Jim glanced away from the garbage, looking at Trick with a kind of appraising expression on his face.

"You're offering me a job?"

It was either that, or he was rubbing it in, and he really didn't seem like that kind of guy.

He wasn't. He could be a hard-ass when he needed to, but it wouldn't ever be like that.

"If you want it," Trick said with a smile. "It's not glamorous and when it's exciting that's usually a bad thing, but it pays."

Jim took that into consideration for all of... about thirty seconds, really.

"What exactly do I have to do?"

He hadn't done enough dealings with Portalocity to fully grasp just how horrible the customer service they expected him to give was.

Trick debated telling the boy that the job description basically involved being a heartless bastard, but he wasn't doing a great job of it right now himself.

"Oh, the usual," he said vaguely. "Schedule and book portals, keep the lounge tidy, provide customer service to people on the island. There's a bit of training you can do during your first few shifts."

That horrible, soul-rending training. Maybe Trick would give him a bonus for those days.

There was a moment's pause while Jim considered that. And then he nodded and turned, tossing one of the pieces of trash in his hands at the garbage bin. It went in without a problem.

A shame they didn't have basketball on Montressor.

"I have plenty of customer service experience," he offered. "Back home, I was the busboy for my mom's inn for years. I didn't get many customers at Fixer-Uppers, but the couple I did get were pretty satisfied when they left."

This possibly had something to do with the fact that he'd managed to waterproof a mermaid's fried mp3 player, yes. Not that he knew she was a mermaid or anything.

"I'll take the job," he decided with a little smile, tossing the rest of the garbage into the can and the offering Trick a hand. "I'm Jim, by the way. Hawkins."

Edited 2012-01-22 03:36 (UTC)

"Trick Maccorieghan," he replied, taking Jim's hand and giving it a shake. "Pleasure to meet you. Do you have an idea when you'd like to start? We're open every day but Sunday, you can have your pick of shifts."

"How about... Saturdays, maybe?" Jim tilted his head a little thoughtfully as he shook Trick's hand, and then reclaimed his own. "I'm helping to run a club through the school this semester, so I really don't have any idea what weekdays are going to look like right now, you know?"

"Fair enough," Trick replied. "Saturdays and you're welcome to them!"

Though it would mean he'd have to work on getting an apartment sooner rather than later. It would hardly do to have Jim find him sleeping in the lounge or something.

"How about starting next week?" Trick offered. "It'll give me time to get the paperwork to HQ--and get this mess cleaned up, too."

Yeah, tomorrow was going to be 'Closed on Account of Glitter Barons.'

Curse those glitter barons. Curse them.

"Next week works," Jim decided. "It gives me a chance to pull together some last-minute stuff for our club before we start it up, and so on, too."

A beat.

"Would you like a hand with some of this mess before I go? I'm not in any hurry."

Trick looked around at the mess, sighed, and shook his head. "Unless you want glitter in your hair and clothes for the next week and a half, I'm probably fine," he assured Jim. "I appreciate the offer, though."

He'd feel bad having Jim help when he wasn't even working yet. And besides, he knew a brownie or two he might be able to convince to help. But not while the human was around.

Oh yeah. Because the kid who'd bunked under a Flatulan space-slug for three months was totally going to be concerned about a brownie or two. Heck, he had a ball of flying pink snot for a pet. He wouldn't blink at pretty much anything, these days.

"I guess, if you're sure..." He really didn't want to twinkle for the rest of the week, granted. "Hopefully this doesn't take you too long, but if it does, and you leave some for me next Saturday, I'll understand."

Cabin boy. Cabin boy for space pirates.

Well, maybe after they'd bonded over the stupidity of Corporate, Trick would loosen up. Until then--no mixing of Fae and humans. There were laws about it and everything.

Or did Jim want to be claimed at Trick's human?

Yeah, that's what the narration thought.

"I appreciate that," Trick said with a smile. "But I'm hoping to get it all done in the next day or so. Though if it comes to it, maybe I'll give you a call and then charge Portalocity Central an exorbitant rate for a cleaning crew."

If Jim got himself claimed as anybody's human here on the island, they'd probably have to answer to a hefty cyborg pirate captain back in his own reality if they wanted that to remain the case. And Silver was not above playing dirty when he was displeased.

It was kind of a pirate thing.

Fortunately, Jim was blissfully unaware of the exchange between the narratives. He just grinned, gave an easy shrug, and chuckled a little. "Well, whatever works."

Trick's narrative told Jim's narrative that Silver was more than welcome to bring it. Silver had height and cybernetics, Trick had over a thousand years of Fae politics.

"Well, here, leave me your number just in case, and if you don't hear from me, I'll see you next Saturday. Sound good?"

Silver probably didn't stand a chance. But it would certainly make for one hell of a thread.

"Sounds great," Jim agreed, patting down his pockets for a... for... a pen or something. He probably owned one of those somewhere, for notes at school.

As if he ever took notes at school.

Fortunately for Jim, he was in an office. Trick chuckled, shook his head, and walked over to his desk where there were pens and paper aplenty. "Here," he said, handing Jim two business cards. "One for you to keep, and another to write your number on."

Jim accepted both cards with a wry little smile, looking at them for a moment before nodding and putting one into his pocket, and then taking a pen and writing his number onto the other.

"I'm free any evening but Tuesday," he offered. "Just in case anything comes up."

"I'll keep that in mind," Trick said, taking the card and the pen back. In fact, he jotted that down on the card under Jim's phone number and tucked the card into his wallet. "But I'm pretty sure I'll be okay. I used to be a bar tender."

Which, honestly, should say enough.

"...The glitter is new, though."

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