#alcoholism mention

[fence-time]

This man cannot stop with the potions, hashtag alcoholism 👍

[phoenixyfriend]

If you do the thing for "valid" reasons, then you can't pick it. (e.g. if you don't swear because your religion forbids it, or don't drink because of a family history of addiction, then you can't vote for that option, because you don't have the Childish reasoning that the poll is about)

Basically "is this something that someone would feel comfortable making fun of you for, without an 'excuse' on hand that would be socially unacceptable to continue mocking?"

If you can snap at them about being on meds that interact poorly, or having asthma, or not being able to afford real jewelry, it's a "valid" reason and you can't vote for that option. Also it's pretty cultural; I get a lot more shit for the cigarette avoidance in Serbia than in the US, and someone in Germany is less likely to be mocked for the spice thing than someone in Texas.

If it's more than one (very likely), then just pick the one that people feel the most entitled to be dramatic about to your face.

(I was gonna say 'over 25' but half the site is under that age. Then I was gonna say 'over 20' but then I'd have to deal with people talking about underage drinking because America. So instead here.)

[n3krotic06]

[transsongtaewon]

One thing that gets me about Yoojin is that it would have been so easy to just give up and die before the regression. The last repayment skill can help him survive in dire situations but it's also deeply traumatising to use and he still definitely had to struggle to make it out alive a lot of the time. And we hear about some of the effects of this sometimes, this all fucked him up so bad he self-medicated with alcohol to the point that he didn't even think to question people coming in his home to drag him to rehab, without which he almost definitely would have died. But he kept desperately going on and surviving. For Yoohyun.

[ineffableigh]

Fic Rec of the Day:

Holy shit I finally read it. God damn. This is a MASTERPIECE. Tread carefully and take care of yourselves if you read it - this is a very real story surrounding Crowley's trauma, therapy, and the deep social bond between him and a truly caring therapist.

[pinbones]

Filbo: ...how are things, Cromdo? honestly?

Cromdo (every inch of him snackified to Snaquiri): fucking peachy

[reanimationstation]

Can you tell me a little bit more about Sammy’s relationship with his family? What was his relationship to Riley’s parents and assuming he raised her after their deaths, how was he at it?

As soon as he was able to, he basically took off and carved his own life away from his family. They're not on bad terms per se, just distant ones. Very distant. But whether he likes it or not Sammy is notified of people passing, either through mail or someone tracking him down.

I think Riley is Sammy's cousin's kid. But most of their family either doesn't live in America or is too far away to have stepped in, so when he was contacted about his cousins deaths and their now orphaned daughter, he did not have a lot of time to process! He wasn't the closest in the world to them, but due to them living sort of nearby and probably helping him economically early on in his adult life, he held them in good regard (good for Sammy at least).

[THIS GOT LONG SO THE REST UNDER THE CUT]

I think it's sort of implied that whoever ended up taking care of Riley moved into her house? Or at least the devs just didn't want to model a new place lol. So Sammy isn't really... the happiest about moving into his dead cousins place, but it's also leagues better than the dingy little apartment he had. Though I'm not sure if I'm in love with the idea of him moving in I'll have to stew on it. EDIT: also he was pretty young when this happens?? Maybe like, early 20s. He is NOT prepared for a young kid.

He's an......alright guardian. He was and still isn't comfortably being seen as her father figure, but he's doing his best. He's marginally better at taking care of a kid than taking care of himself. Not by much. She's alive that what counts. And she likes him enough, Riley probably thinks he's weird and bit of an asshole at times but hey so is she so whatever.

They're both the eccentric artistic types, so to speak. He doesn't know how to handle her trauma and subsequent art outlet, outside of just letting her be. Which is a good and bad thing... good, because coping! Bad, because coping badly. Not to mention the implications of some sort of addiction (probably alcoholism?) later on with all the bottles strewn about the place. It seems like addiction sort of runs in the family.

When she later gets hired at JDS I think she applied behind Sammy's back. He would not want her working there. So he's not really... on her side when complaints start rolling in about her unsettling art? In his eyes it'd be better for her to work elsewhere. I don't think he ever ends up seeing the fallout of that, as I think his ink addiction and subsequent inkfection and disappearance probably happen sometime during her employment. Which isn't helping her mental state! So there's nobody to stop her from falling into GENT's clutches, because her parents are dead, and Sammy's disappeared.

ANYWAYS TLDR Sammy is a bit distant from his family and tries his best which isn't enough because they're both neurodivergent and need a lot more help than the other (or anyone) can provide.

[lotus-tower]

gintoki

[royaltercets]

sometimes i think abt the fact that ray turned to alcoholism because his alcoholic late mother didn’t love him, his father didn’t show love like he should have, and his whole friend group kept calling him a burden (a burden!!! who fucking calls their friend that!!!) instead of loving and supporting him which is all he needed, as proven by sand, to stop self harming by ways of alcohol and drugs and letting himself get fucked when drunk only so he doesn’t remember anything, and start rehab and a path to sobriety. if you can’t have an intervention for your friend and support him through hard times, are you really a friend? or are you keeping him around for, idk, the money he might have a bunch of, or something?

i honestly feel like boston was a better friend to him than mew, who kept him around as someone to give him attention and affection and refusing to set his foot down and properly reject him. he was harsh, but not constantly unkind. boston, of course, had his own issues—not the slut thing, but the later infidelity thing with nick, and also the earlier seduction of taken men (which, by the way, is entirely as much, if not more, the fault of said men (*cough* top *cough*) as it was boston’s. cheating takes two people).

i feel like people love overlooking this because…? i don’t know, they’re two characters who are framed to seem like assholes (and they are at times! they’re complex characters!), but this blatantly ignores the absolute red flags that is the rest of them; namchueam—who not only is one of the people to treat ray, who’s got probable ptsd and severe abandonment issues and like 79 other mental illnesses (okay, hyperbole, but you get the point) like absolute shit by continually calling him a burden—but also was like. fine with her brother nearly ruining boston’s life over a false rape allegation, because she disliked boston so much in the moment; mew, who as previously mentioned keeps ray around for his own gain despite thinking of him as a burden; top, who really isn’t a friend to ray but he’s part of the group by association, who’s honestly just an asshole who i guess realizes that he can’t always get what he wants without fighting for it. then there’s april, who is pretty damn spineless imo, but at least she’s not awful to ray (i might be misremembering here, though). idk what to think of her. she feels like she barely has any opinions of her own. she feels very… surface. honestly nick was a better friend to him and he wasn’t even really a friend? i like to think they get closer post-canon though.

nonetheless: the behavior that i see in these so called friends, truthfully, is what got him to attempt suicide twice. yes, twice—you don’t think a drunk person would twist the wheel so far that the car they’re driving crashes into the side wall in the other direction to the one they’re driving in by just falling asleep or losing consciousness or not being alert enough, do you? i’m pretty sure that was intentional. and, i’m pretty sure the reason he pushed away sand and refused to listen to his (albeit very important!!!!) advice about not driving drunk wasn’t because he’s Regular Self Destructive, but rather because ray wanted sand to hate him for hurting him and being stupid to make it… easier, somehow, on sand when he killed himself, or whatever. i’ve been in that situation myself, and i recognized it immediately—he knew his friends (if you can genuinely call them that) would probably hate him after that night, and he did it so that they wouldn’t miss him.

anyways, to conclude this dumb, ill-formatted, ranty post, so many OFTS watchers just… seem to look at the surface of it all. yes, they all have issues. that’s like. the point of the show. but if you consider ray an annoying burden due to his alcoholism and addiction and all of that, you have missed the main point of his arc, which really boils down to “sometimes someone going through a really hard time just needs some love and support, and if you can be that for them, they can become better and show a better side of themselves, which is invaluable to someone who truly loves and cares for them”. love isn’t only for those who don’t take to unhealthy coping mechanisms when they struggle, like nick.

to summarize: if you have a ray in your life, be their sand. not necessarily romantically, but love and care for them, genuinely. don’t be a mew or a chueam. or an april, if you can help it.

[oni-tengu]

You can't keep doing this. < do not tag as shipping >

[sailorsenshishitposter]

Dio Brando x Reader

Dio Brando

You forgive the most evil characters no matter how bad their deeds are and think you can fix them. You have a vampire kink and you prefer cats instead of dogs. There's also a 10% chance that you were that kid who would unironically yell "KONO DIO DA!" and think it was funny.

First Date

If he's human than you meet during school and bond over you're hatred of alcoholic father's whilst getting drunk on cronenburg Irish whiskey. You have a secret relationship because Dio is now fancy and can't be associated with a "loose" woman. His pullout game is strong (it has to be so he doesn't have an army of miniature Dario's running around) and you leave him once you find out that he's been sleeping with all the local prostitutes (men included).

If he's a vampire then he's kidnapped you for food. Don't expect to live as this isn't part 3 Dio. He got a mother to eat her baby and plays with mancats. At best he'll leave you to starve after asking you how many breads you've eaten in your entire life.

[mwagneto]

i keep getting the urge to drink a beer or smtg at home then stopping coz i realise that's just alcoholism

[aita-blorbos]

tw: alcoholism, bullying, child neglect

AITA for pushing someone I dont like into a lake?

So basically after a very close friend (we’ll call her M)’s death (which I wont go into) , one of my friends (M16 who we’ll call B) scribbled in his own photo album which contained pictures of M and the rest of the group, this happened about 2 years ago. Ever since I (F16) have been furious at B and me and my gang have been punishing him by humiliating him. Yesterday one member of my old friend group (M16 who we’ll call K) confronted me and my gang about bullying B. Along with K was S (M16) who hasnt left his house in 4 years. Eventually we fought and S stabbed me with a steak knife. Today I went with my gang to our hangout spot and B was there. We told B to leave and he screamt. Obviously then K and S showed up and after a long gang fight, S pepper sprayed us and my gang left. I was upset because K and S were ruining my life just when I learnt how to live without them (not to mention my mom’s alcoholism was getting worse), and after B tried to approach me I pushed him into the lake in a fit of rage. K confronted me while S jumped in to save B. Eventually H (M21) came and saved S and B and tried to talk to me but I ran away in tears. Im writing this at 2am and I cant sleep because my mom is still drinking and watching TV.

[karouvas]

for the ask game: blue or ronan and drink of choice

Ronan — well based on canon his drinking problem is referenced quite a bit but not usually a specific drink, I did some quick searching in a couple of pdfs and he’s mentioned drinking beer a couple times when it is specified but who knows if that’s his favorite or just what’s available.. then again it would be kind of on brand for Ronan who could afford more expensive alcohol to still have beer as his favorite. Or he could be choosing beer deliberately to further the self harm could see that also.

— for non alcoholic drink it’s obviously orange juice. obviously. 

Blue — I don’t think she drinks much but I could see her sampling some kombucha that her Aunts definitely brew sometime so like, jasmine kombucha or something we’ll say as her favorite alcoholic drink that sounds right.

— for regular drinks we know she’s partial to that mint tea teehee (I love the scene where Calla teases her about that.), but she strikes me as a smoothies and iced teas girl generally. In fact could see her really enjoying mixing different fruits and vegetables in home created smoothies (I also hc her as having some sensory issues so like the clothing that she makes/calibrates textures of herself could see her wanting to make these herself so she knows she’ll like the texture/taste). For flavor hmm, I feel like even though she’d make some involved combinations her actual favorite might be something pretty simple. It might even be blueberry lol.

Ty!

[release-the-mccracken]

William, reading a pamphlet on alcoholism: Gabey, do you ever drink alone? Gabe: Does the Lord count as a person? William: No. Gabe: Then yes.

[theknightmarket]

Act 1 | Scene 6 - Pick Your Poison

It felt like Wilford was intentionally staying away. You didn’t know how he found it out, but he had been vacant from a stool at your bar for long enough that it couldn’t have been a coincidence. He was somehow aware of the revelation you’d had – or, at least, he was aware of your want to talk to him – and the subject was bad enough that it stopped him from showing up altogether.

That was your theory, anyway; the last month hadn’t been normal enough for you to consider yourself fully stable, and there was a high likelihood that Wilford was just plain busy. Your paranoia was seriously causing you some issues in other parts of your life, so why wouldn’t it go all out and take over the business side too?

On the other hand, your general experience with the man told you otherwise. He had never mentioned a job, let alone anything about his life that wasn’t disguised under layers of smoke and shadows, and he was sat in front of you enough that you hoped he didn’t have to work in the morning.

You were surprised that the whole looping scenario didn’t have consequences, anyway; in your opinion, you handled the aftermath of it quickly and efficiently, and, also in your opinion, that wasn’t good. Something utterly insane like the day going in circles seven times over wasn’t supposed to be processed that easily. The human brain wasn’t built to comprehend things that messed with time and space, but yours decided that the best course of action was to make a bowl of pasta and then fall asleep for ten hours until your alarm told you to open up the bar again. You supposed bouncing from shift to shift wasn’t doing you any favors, but it wasn’t affecting your ability to complete orders. How, you had no clue. To your knowledge, your skills should have plummeted, but they stayed in tip-top shape, as proven by the dozens of people you were presently serving in quick succession. It wasn’t that you hadn’t been given the time, either, because there were definitely the slow hours that had you standing behind the bar like a mannequin in a showroom.

All in all, you were more confused by your lack of appropriate reaction than confused by the actual events in the first place. The only true problem laid in your lack of answers, which prompted you to devote every second that you weren’t actively interacting with patrons to scouring the area for the pop of pink you had become so accustomed to. Time ticked by, every second another square inch searched, until you looped the crimson walls and started back at the front doors. 

It was a tedious endeavor, that was for sure, but there was nothing else you could do with your time, and you needed something to distract you from the growing numbness of your legs. A large influx of customers had passed you through, a tidal wave that battered the cliff face once and then ducked back into the ocean, around half an hour before. All of their drinks had been served, so you were simply waiting for calls for a refill or bill. 

You didn’t tend to make conversation with the people sitting at the main bar – you only spoke to Wilford on that first night because you were young, dumb and broke. It had only been a month ago, of course, and two of those were still correct, but it was the dramatic thought that counted. Regardless of your current state, it was no less true that the only reason you took the leap with anyone else was because of that random choice to make conversation. In the more recent times, you strayed from building relationships with your patrons, the only olive branches you gave being the odd question about work to your night-shift regulars. You didn’t think you were on first-name basis with anyone who didn’t have suspiciously similar faces.

Your eyebrows furrowed and you leaned forward against the bar subconsciously as you desperately tried to remember that line. No matter how unprofessional it was, you couldn’t help but worry your cheek between your teeth. Catching the muscle on the pointier bits hurt slightly but you were too focused to actively stop yourself. The shadows of the bar seemed to engulf the edges of your vision, and the music faded out, the end of a movie’s credits that trailed into nothingness. It was absolutely killing you that the common phrase wasn’t coming to mind.

But then you made eye contact with the man who had walked through the door, and it appeared in your mind like headlights in fog.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Because, with barely a glance needed to find an empty table in relative solitude, a very familiar face made you grind your teeth.

Was one normal day too much to ask for? Just one, just 24 hours of serving drinks, taking cards, and cleaning tables, that was it. The smallest indication that you were more than a higher power’s plaything.

Such a thing didn’t come, and so, instead, you began to inspect your new patron. The face was the same, obviously, but his hair was slicked back in a fashion that reminded you more of a yellowing family photograph than an actual living person. Paired with the small sketching of a mustache above his lip, you weren’t entirely sure he wasn’t from an album in your childhood home’s attic.

You might have made more mental comparisons had you not been slapped in the face by his outfit. The sight of a crimson suit knocked the wind out of you, made you breathless in the face of worries and fears and suspicions that bubbled to the surface. You desperately tried to force them back down, but the fancifulness was already buried under your skin. The face that you had seen on half a dozen other people suddenly became a comfort to you – the ones you already knew weren’t like that, because the most likely culprit was Dark but you had long since dismissed him as an option, so this man had no real reason to be a risk, and if he was, it wouldn’t affect the relationships you had built, right? They didn’t have to be connected, not necessarily. Worst case scenario, best case scenario, okay case scenario—

You breathed in and then breathed out. You were making it a bad habit to spiral in the middle of a shift, and it didn’t help when you couldn’t even muddle through your own thoughts to find what you were really worried about.

Ignoring your thundering heart, you took your frozen body around the bar and up to the table that the man had sat himself down at.

“Good evening, sir.” The words tingled on the end of your tongue, frostbite overtaking the practiced greeting.

Not that it mattered, considering the response you got was hardly warm; a look tossed your way and then tossed the other way, followed by some vague gesture that you thought must have been in the terms and conditions for wearing a suit. 

“Pauillac de Latour, thank you,” he spoke, just as smooth as his order. You could have benefitted from a please, but a brief interaction was a merciful one, and you were barely keeping yourself from scouring every inch of that jacket for a hint of its origin.

So, after a firm nod, you marched back to the bar and searched the shelves for the wine bottle. The 1977 wasn’t one you took out often – owing to its frankly ghastly price and a name that was pronounced even worse – but it was a big buck day when you did. Hell, with that order, you could have shut down the bar the second he handed you the money, and that thought terrified you. If you were distracted by the mere image of the suit, how were you going to serve him well enough that he would want to return? It was like getting a shark to bite at your bait, but the tug of the line threatened to pull you into the waters with it. You couldn’t let him get away, your personal grievances be damned.

You placed the wine bottle in a bucket of ice and carried it as carefully as you could to the table again. The little stand you saved for very important – very intimidating – patrons went with you, too, until you situated everything just as it was meant to be. You went through the motions, asked if he wanted to taste it first, poured the glistening burgundy into the glass in front of him, and spared as much of your mind as you could to keeping your breathing steady.

But something about your act was off. You didn’t know what it was exactly, but the man noticed that the façade you put up wasn’t the normal waitstaff formality. As you drew the bottle away from the wine glass, he curled his hand around the stem and stared straight into your eyes. Searching.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

The line snapped – you were in the water now – the shark was circling you. The shark, in fact, looked you up and down, smoothly bringing his eyes along the collar against your neckline, the lapel of your vest, the few creases on your shirt that stood stark against the crispness. Had you not been so occupied with appearing calm, you might have cracked a smile at the suspicion he was regarding you with, as if you weren’t the one on the edge of losing it.

To combat some of the tension, you replied, “Yes, sir, I do.” And it wasn’t a lie; you were seeing that face – that just so happened to belong to five other people – a whole lot. You weren’t going to admit that, though, because that would cost you a customer or your freedom, depending on how crazy he thought you were.

Nevertheless, the answer seemed to quell a portion of his suspicions. Not all of it was gone by the time he nodded and waved you off again, but, whereas his vision had been entirely clouded with doubt, some of it gave way to a certain… understanding? Acceptance? A realization that it wasn’t what he thought it was, but he still didn’t know what it actually was.

That was good enough for you, and he granted you a cue to leave, so you gratefully took it. You made your way back behind the bar as quick as you could without raising more questions, just in time to take the order of the next person who walked through the front door.

You struggled through the interaction, incredibly thankful for your autopilot skills, as you made the drinks and surveyed the room. The darkening sky owed to a table or two packing up, and they arrived at the bar to pay their bills in quick succession. Pleasantries were exchanged, ‘come back soon’s and ‘have a nice night’, even a smile that you forced until the door swung shut behind the last group. Anything to keep up the image of a collected bartender while that suited man was watching you.

Back where you normally stood, you grappled for something to do, something to occupy your hands and mind with, and you found the ever-present collection of dirty glasses. It was roughly nine o’clock, but a Tuesday was never busy after the rush of after-work drinkers. Currently, the bar was draining of its occupants, with only a group at one of the booths, a couple along the wall, and the man you were trying to ignore.

Surprise, you weren’t doing a great job of it.

The biggest offender to your heart rate was his graceful scribbling. His hand covered what he was doing, but your brain lunged at the prospect of a notepad, refusing to let go until you found out what it really was. Every time he shifted, your eyes darted to him as though a gun had gone off, and you tracked the movement of his hand from his glass to his lips. When it was empty, he refilled to its capacity, a process he repeated until he placed the empty bottle upside down in the sloshes of melted ice. You were aware of each and every time this happened, and it only occurred to you to be concerned when his gaze finally drifted from you.

You were wary of him, and a less shameful person would have admitted to a touch of fear still lingering in your heart, but that didn’t mean you could have no other emotions. Worry was quickly becoming one of them, not of him but for him. This kind of behavior, it simply wasn’t healthy.

With that thought in mind, you stashed your suspicions in the back of your mind and walked out from behind the bar. You made towards him as though you were simply going to remove the bottle, and you were planning to make light conversation as you did so, but he beat you to it.

“Are you sure you recognize me?” he asked. His tone was less conspiratorial, this time, and took on more disbelief.

Although the concern was still present, it was pushed next to your suspicions; he didn’t look how you thought he had. From as far away as the bar, you supposed the dim lights might have made him seen more despairing than he actually was. It was probably some kind of media influence, going so far as to see him as a tragic, brooding soldier, reminiscing on his past through the window, instead of just a man getting lost in his thoughts.

Either way, the skepticism was more worthy of focus than your misunderstanding – and that meant you could experiment a little. After all, if Wilford wasn’t there to answer your questions, you were going to have to dig for them yourself.

“After the weeks I’ve had, I should hope so, sir,” you responded, angling for him to notice where he was. The others had taken some encouragement, too, and you hoped it would be easier this time.

Your idea seemed to be confirmed when he said, “You aren’t reacting like most people.”

Now was the time to engage in your favorite tactic: lying.

“It’s been explained to me.”

“The concept?”

His eyes narrowed, and he pushed the wine glass further away from him, the few drops of liquid still in there slipping against the wall.

“Well, I started to get suspicious after the third—” You had to keep it vague, in case you were wrong, but it seemed to be working, “—but only a few days ago was it explicitly stated.”

Surprise flashed across his face, and he sat back in his chair, crossing one leg over another. You were looking down on him, but that position gave him a control over the conversation that made you wonder why there was control to be had in the first place. He stared at you like you had just spilled the secret to a crime. Briefly, you internally celebrated your oh-so-amazing guessing skills. What you had guessed, you didn’t actually know, but you were hoping for him to loosen up and drop some clues.

And then the corners of his mouth dropped, and he asked, “What are you talking about?”

While it was nice to be on the receiving end of mental doubt, you weren’t a fan of getting caught in a lie. You were good at getting into them, but getting out? That was a whole other skill set that you did not possess. Your only option was to take a stab in the dark.

“The others, sir,” you answered slowly. “Is that not correct?”

The nervousness that crept into your voice wasn’t helping your case, and you knew that, but it was difficult to save face when he paused with his eyes locked onto yours. He was going to call you out on your blatant lie, there was no getting out of this one. You really needed to stop ruining your chances with patrons, especially with the ones who paid for one of the most expensive wines you carried. It was going to be the end of you one day.

The man’s groan pulled you out of your thoughts – spiraling, again – but you were half sure it wasn’t anything against you.

“God, no!” he spat, absolutely disgusted with whatever he took your vague reference to be. “No, no, no. I’m talking about my celebrity status, not—” His eyes slid away from you, “—just no.”

With your theory half-confirmed, you let the subject drop and, in exchange, picked up a new curiosity.

“Celebrity?”

He floated his hand around his face, but the only reference you had for that was the five other people who had that same face. Apparently, they were a touchy subject for him, though, so you were going to have to find something else to go off of.

You delved into the depths of your mind to find some recognition from earlier times – something less recent, and not tied to your patrons in any way. It was difficult considering you weren’t an avid socializer, and most of your adulthood was spent working to get the funds for your own place. You didn’t have enough spare money or time to engage with celebrity culture.

The suit wasn’t an option to give you the hint you were looking for; you weren’t up to date on the world of the rich and famous, but you trusted yourself to recognize a red suit flashier than the sun itself had you ever saw one. Unfortunately, nothing came up under that. You moved on to his hair, but that only brought up the war-era photos again. There had to be some other defining feature.

It only took a second for you to fully realize, and it came not from his physical appearance, but the overwhelming smug aura that danced around him like a perfume.

When you were thinking back to your past, you stayed in the recent five years, but, when broke through the mental barrier you had put up between the decades, you fished the memory that you were searched for from the murky waters and into the present.

You caught his comment of, “I’m surprised you didn’t confuse one of the others for me.” You also caught the unsubtle spite in his tone, but the roll of his eyes would have let you know regardless.

You had only ever seen a couple of Mark’s movies, owing to your family’s hatred of pop culture, so you were lucky to have recognized him from a short scene you just so happened to retain in the midst of unfamiliar accents and illegible subtitles.

“That French movie?” You paused to let the title come to you. “L’avernir.”

This was a moment of genuine shock for him, pure and alone. His eyes widened and he leaned back in his chair even further, adjusting his position as if to give himself time to react.

He nodded slowly, “Yes, that’s right—” Then he pursed his lips, “—but you don’t have an accent.”

“Oh, no, I’m not French, sir, I just grew up watching foreign media and then it bled into my adult life,” you explained.

“Can you speak it?”

“If I tried hard enough.” It definitely helped when you were dealing with tough customers and could curse them out without losing a tooth. You might have demonstrated the skill, but you were aware of conversations wrapping up at the group on one of the larger tables.

“I’ll have to check up on that,” Mark chuckled, a strangely velvety sound that made you wonder if it was an effect of the wine. “It’s uncommon for someone to recognize me not for my American movies.”

“You have a lot of them?”

“Of course. You don’t get where I am with a couple of knock-off Ghostbusters plots.”

You shared a smile at that, despite your cardinal sin of never having seen Ghostbusters, but you understood the sentiment.

“And where are you, for you to be in the Astral?”

Tentative with your question, you were half-expecting him to shoot up in surprise because he didn’t know where he was. It was sad, really, and the wave of relief that went through you when he didn’t was even sadder.

“I just left a shoot,” he answered, with a casual tone that you were grateful for. “God awful script, really, but I’m sure I can save it. The director wants sixty different angles for the same line, and none of them go together. I’ll go from angry to miserable to playful in the space of one ramshackle scene.”

Theatre wasn’t your forté, much less big screen acting, but he managed to make you frown from his words alone. You were suddenly glad you weren’t a devoted movie-goer if that was how the good ones went down.

“And this is something you’re passionate about?” you asked, while you checked the other couple in your peripheral.

“Not at all.” The bluntness knocked you back into focusing on him, but he didn’t wear the grimace you expected. Instead, he grinned and answered your silent question, “It’s the money.”

It was shallow – utterly and completely shallow – but you would be a hypocrite if you berated him for it. The whole ‘don’t do something just for the cash’ thing was a nice moral, but it was a fairytale one. Unrealistic at best, dangerous at worst. That ideal had rotted away on your sixteenth birthday, and you thought you were all the better for it.

You thought you were. 

You were.

“I hope it works out well for you then.”

With a respectful nod and most of your curiosity gone, you took a step back, but Mark stopped you in your tracks.

“Oh, before you go,” he trailed off, so you were left to interpret the swirl of his wine glass.

You acknowledged his request and returned to the bar, where you also took care of the larger group that had lined up to pay their bill. After they left and the door was closed behind them, it was only you, Mark, and the couple, the latter of which looked to be getting ready to leave themselves. Getting out the second bottle of wine was a quick task, made even quicker by Mark waving away your attempt to pour him another glass. Instead, he grabbed the neck of the bottle, handed you a credit card, and then adjusted the lapels of his suit. The elegant process surprised you, given he had drunk an entire bottle of wine in the space of a couple hours and, apparently, had no intention of stopping there. It also worried you; you didn’t know how he was getting home, but there was no way he was in a state to drive himself.

You kept your thoughts to yourself as you left to charge the card, though, not wanting to appear presumptuous, especially not to a patron who bought over a hundred dollars’ worth of wine. Just the idea made you balk.

Mark didn’t bat an eye at you handing it back, he just rose from his seat with the egregiously expensive bottle in hand.

“I think you’ll be seeing me more often,” he said. He smiled that same smile from before, seeming completely sober.

“I’m glad to hear that.” You joined your hands at your waist. “Thank you for coming.”

He waved over his shoulder as he started walking, and you could have sworn he was deliberately matching his footsteps to the beat of the music. He even managed to let the door swing closed on the final piano key, as if it were his own little credits song.

You huffed to yourself. With an actor like him, you were probably more right than wrong. Almost as if to support your suspicions, a white square left on the table drew your attention.

This time, you didn’t stop yourself from chuckling, because what you had thought to be a notepad for him to nefariously scribble down your every move was, in reality, one of the napkins from the holder on the table. On it, in handwriting that struggled between a talent for cursive and the unhelpful texture, was a signature.

You pocketed it – if only to have something to laugh at when you were feeling down – and then continued to clean up the table until the couple left behind were ready to pay their bill.

When that time came, you sent them on their way with a smile. The quicker they left, the more time you had to prepare for the following day. The massive paycheque from Mark meant that you could afford to deliver less than perfect customer service in exchange for focusing on your lovely disappearing act, because you were going to get your answers from Wilford even if it killed you.

Or, if the need arose, the sugar-coated magician himself.

AO3 Link - List