alternativewriting | (no subject)

Entry tags:

alec,
meyer

(no subject)

It was quiet. The bar wasn't quite yet open. It had another hour or so. So, Alec was setting up the bar for when it did open, making sure the stock that was there actually had something in the bottles, there were clean glasses... sweeping. Things like that. The black eye really turned out nicely. Black make up couldn't have done any better.

The rest of him was feeling only a little bit better than the eye looked, which was not much at all.

This is possibly why he jumps when the door opens.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"As far as I know, the alligators in the sewer stories are just that: stories. Here, on the other hand, I could easily believe they have alligators in the sewers. And just about anywhere else."

At least he can get a decent cup of coffee and a decent drink, but you wouldn't catch him living here. Not in a million years.

(At this, his writer teehees knowingly, because irony)

"I could too. However I try not to think about that." Alec's room is not on the first floor for such reasons.

Decent coffee is highly important. Alec doesn't know what he'd do without decent coffee.

"Well, I highly doubt they're going to come inside."

At least, he hopes not. When alligators learn to open doors, the world is doomed.

"Unless someone was stupid enough to leave the door open."

And there's always someone stupid enough to leave the door open.

"Wonderful. Another thing to worry about."

As if potentially getting murdered by Sally isn't enough to worry about, now he has to worry about her alligators too.

"Sorry? I've not seen it happen yet?"

"I'm sure you've seen other bizarre things happen, though."

Yes, he is prying a little for information about what goes on around here, but politely.

"I don't know about bizarre but a lot of people here certainly don't know the concept of hygiene," Alec says.

It seems like an okay thing to say around Meyer who, like Alec, seems to understand this concept.

"That certainly does seem to be the case. Are those people as combative as their poor hygiene suggests?"

Apparently poor hygiene seems equivalent to liable to pick fights, in his experience.

Absently, Alec touches his black eye. "Yes. Unfortunately. It also seems to indicate their intelligence."

Is he sounding like a highborn snot right now? Yup.

Wow, yes, he absolutely is sounding like a highborn snot, but Meyer keeps any trace of judgement for it carefully out of his expression.

"I see. And you, apparently, had a not particularly positive run-in with one of them."

Sally's been trying to get him to stop that. It's being slow to take.

"Several of them," he admits. "I was just able to run faster than they could."

"Being able to run quickly is a vitally important skill. I'm sure it's proved useful for plenty of guys like you."

Rich kids. Snobby kids. Boston kids. Whatever.

Alec narrows his eyes briefly, trying to decided if Meyer's making fun of him or not. Probably. He clutches the broom tightly for a moment.

"It's a useful skill in general," he says carefully, wondering when Sally was getting back.

"I don't disagree."

His tone, at least, isn't mocking.

"I've found it to be very useful myself, many times. Although one might be rather hard-pressed to run away quickly enough from your boss if she were to get her shotgun out."

That's good. Not that Alec could do about it. He doesn't think Sally would appreciate him attacking this guy, especially if they have business. Also, he knows he'd come up on the losing end.

Sigh.

"Thankfully, I haven't seen that happen yet."

"I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you do. She seems very... adept with it."

He hasn't actually seen her shoot someone, but he's seen her brandish the weapon, and she'd been awfully comfortable with it. He has no doubt that if he were to offend her, she wouldn't hesitate to shoot him.

Alec gets an odd look on his face as if he's not really sure how he feels about that. It really doesn't help that Meyer is so casual about it.

"I'm sorry, that may have been overstepping my boundaries a bit."

He doesn't really think it is. Surely Alec knows his boss kicks a considerable amount of ass. Meyer barely knows the woman, and he's already aware of it.

"No. It's all right. It's not something I generally," he hesitates here, trying to pick the right words here. He remembers Sally's constant berating of him that propriety doesn't matter here. And that he should stop thinking of girls as being incapable of taking care of themselves.

Meyer is a business associate of Sally's so he probably feels the same way.

"I generally think about," he finishes.

Meyer cares about propriety, but perhaps not in the sense that Alec does. He respects manners and good sense, but a woman with a shotgun is just as dangerous as a man with a shotgun, and it doesn't seem at all improper to him to face one down -- he's more concerned about getting shot than he is about worrying where and why a woman learned to use a gun so well.

"That's reasonable. One doesn't often like to think of their bosses shooting people."

He sure doesn't.

One day Alec will realize this. Alas, today is not that day.

"I don't like to think of anyone shooting anyone," Alec says and represses a shudder.

This gets a slowly raised eyebrow. He'd been operating under the assumption that, if Alec were working for Sally, he was involved in crime somehow, at least indirectly, but that doesn't sound like the kind of statement a mobster would be likely to make, unless he was simply playing innocent.

"I don't think most people like to think about it, but it is a fact of life."

The only way Alec is involved in crime is by working for Sally and probably his father doing some shady stuff he doesn't know about.

He gives Meyer a blanks sort of 'what' look in regards to the eyebrow.

"For some people, I guess."

"Certainly around here, at the very least."

Surely Alec isn't completely unaware that crime basically runs this part of Florida. And, well, basically runs all of America, at this point.