“Ye do ramble on, don’t you?” she teased good-naturedly.
It was rather affronting to be faced with someone so candid. Charlie deemed he was either brilliant or as dumb as a sack of bricks speaking so openly about himself. Not that he’d given that much away, but she was smart enough to pen in a few of the missing pieces.
“That said, I don’t mind. Ye sound like interesting lad. I myself just work at a bar, and this conversation surpasses the majority of the ones I have day-to-day. Truth be told, I’m no accustomed to speakin much bout me self,” she paused, smiling sheepishly. For months now she’d lived with a very clear distinction in her life: Fforde and the rest. The former she trusted with her secrets, the latter… well, she’d have to begin doing so if she sought a partner, friends, anyone outside the inner circle that was Jesse’s bloodline.
“I dabble in technology. Nae, I’m good wit it. I spend most of my free time online. I reckon that’s why ye look familiar,” she cocked her head to the side, gaze scrutinising. “I used to get into some trouble meself when I first got here, but I’ve become better at cleaning messes than making them. Hard to get into much trouble when yer stuck behind a counter,” she rapped her knuckles on the countertop.
“What is it you do? Job-wise?”
Please Note — Charlie is an Allurist with Mortal Aura and Healthy Complexion
He chuckled as she did go off his joke about his rambling. It did seem to be a tendency when he wasn't trying to just get what he wanted. He still avoided directly saying he committed crimes, or certain allies of his who probably were better known then he was, for good or bad reasons. But it was still rambling.
"Ah technology, that can be enjoyable. And a whole heck of a lot safer. I only do a little with it, I haven't actually done a whole lot in awhile actually. Things have just been too crazy, not sure I'm as good at it as I used to be."he said shrugging.
"Job wise? I'm a business man, Draco Stocks and Wonder Works. Doing mostly well so far, Wonder works kind of branched into more things then I intended it. It started out as a food delivery service now it's just a ton of different stuff. Draco stocks is just sort of...stocks, and a way to track them and which are doing well." He paused licking his lips, "I do a lot of making stuff though, bits and pieces of things to make them into traps. I have way more sensor alarms then makes sense, I should probably put them on auction instead of holding onto them. But that's mostly just for the enjoyment of making and getting the pieces. Rarely use the things."
"What about you, for hobbies and just the general enjoyment of it. You said you're on the comptuer of that is that just, for the fun of it or do you make extra money that way? I'm sure working at a bar can get boring, or irritating. But, then again, I've never done so so what do I know?"
Yer nae a cannie lad are ye, she thought to herself.
The arrival of a couple behind her was well-timed. She gathered her belongings off the stool behind her and folded them across her lap. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but the allurist now doubted she’d be staying long enough for it to become a problem.
Smiling at Charles, she hummed in response to his question. Her gaze dipped to her phone, where she was composing a message to her trusted little bird friend. As handy as it was to have Bug around, somewhere, she wasn’t going to cut into whatever he was doing.
“I enjoy what I do,” she replied, setting the phone down.
Her hands relaxed across her lap.
If she’d given him the impression that she disliked her job, then she’d misspoken. Jesse didn’t chain her to the bar or force her to spend hours upon hours in the office pouring over rosters. No, it was her desire to excel at what she did that made her invest so much of herself into it. Serpentine was close to her heart; it’d still been in the process of being remodelled when she applied for the job. In a way, it was almost as much her own as it was Jesse’s. In a very small, but significant way.
“Programming is the exact opposite. It’s quiet, controlled, and a challenge. It’s a good balance to the bartending, which comes easy. I’ve been doing it for nearly eight years.”
That was as much as she was willing to say.
“What is a sensor alarm?”
Please Note — Charlie is an Allurist with Mortal Aura and Healthy Complexion
Charles cocked his head as he saw her do something on her phone, wondering what it was she was checking on or doing.
He shrugged as she said she did in fact enjoy it, "Guess you might have more patience then me when it comes to things you can enjoy." he admitted. He doubted he could totally enjoy most any job in a bar, except perhaps owning the thing, or if he found he liked an instrument, and then he might enjoy that. But otherwise the jobs were just to slow. But, to each their own.
"Eight years? Wow, you're a lot more experienced there then I am." He added with raised eyebrows, "Oh a sensor alarm, they're simple mechanical stuff. It alerts me whenever someone passes by it. Kind of like a tripwire but without the trap part. They're really easy for me to make, and I almost alway shave the parts for them, so if I'm board I just make a ton of em. They're worth some money in shops but unless you have somewhere you don't want people getting to they're utterly useless. But they're a whole lot easier then security cameras and stuff, so there is that."
He shrugged off the matter, looking at his ale in thought swirling it around in his glass before drinking a little of it, "With as much computers experience as you have, what do you use it for?" he asked curiously.
Charlie wasn’t a do-it-yourself kind of girl. Creative, yes. Keen on pursuing manual labour and precision work, no. It’d occurred to her, after their familial venture into the labyrinth, that shadowing Clover might be a wise use of her free time. It wasn’t that the allurist had a hidden affinity for gadgetry and manufacturing, but rather that the exposure to the process of making them might increase her luck at disarming traps in future. Sensor alarms didn’t sound as if they were worth a second look, so she allowed the explanation to leave out the other ear. (That said, nothing truly left her mind. Every new sliver of information, however useless, found a crevice to settle into.)
“Gaming, mostly. Cheat codes, the like,” Charlie said. It wasn’t altogether false. There was a modest business in hacking into games, but she took little to no advantage of it. Her illegal activities, the ones that had far harsher consequences, were not up for discussion with strangers. That said, she’d planted one hell of an Easter egg earlier. The allurist was beginning to wonder whether her date was immune to subtlety, however.
Her phone pinged, and she glanced down at it.
Marisol was at her disposal.
A smile spread across Charlie’s face.
Returning her attention back to Charles, she schooled her expression.
“Tell me, why didn’t you want to be a vampire, Charles?”
Please Note — Charlie is an Allurist with Mortal Aura and Healthy Complexion
He nodded to himself at gaming and cheat codes, ah well, that was a little less exciting. He still wondered about what she'd said about getting into trouble with the law earlier. However, it wasn't easy to just bring that back up into a normal conversation as it might be in-criminalizing, and attempts to dig might be seen as him trying to expose her. Which he rather wanted to avoid.
Charles thought about his next response but her phone pinged again and he shut his mouth cocking his head, she asked him a question, but whatever someone was texting her was on his mind as well.
He shrugged and held up his drink taking a gulp for a moment, "That's one. I'm not sure I could do that as a vampire, just blood right? Little bit of inconvenience there. Not to mention that losing that many hours of the day a vampire may have to stay inside somewhere would be a bit difficult for me. I tend to busy myself a lot and while I'm sure there are plenty of vampires who are not subject to that rule, I have no clue if I'd be one of them." He admitted, "It really did come down to inconvenience. And, I guess, I don't feel particularly fond of having to feed on people. But that sort of takes the sidelines because it seems a lot of vampires have found ways around that."
He flicked a finger against the table returning to a curious, and almost apologetic, expression, "Sorry to ask, but what do you keep looking to your phone for? Am I delaying something?" he asked frowning but still curious what it might be.
Charlie had served blood at Serpentine for months before she’d learned about the existence of vampires. Her explanations for the consumption of blood at the bar had ranged from fetish to denial. It’s a marketing scheme.It’s fortified wine mixed with pig’s blood. Even ~vampires~ had crossed her mind as a reason for such a product to exist, but at the time that seemed far further fetched than extremely weird fetishists looking for a hit. In hindsight, blood really wasn’t difficult to come by.
“They have, yes. The wonders of modern day medicine and refrigeration. They sell blood at this very bar,” she said, blindly thumbing her phone as she glanced towards the coolers behind the bar. From where she sat she couldn’t see whether their contents, though if they had blood for consumption here it was no doubt sourced from the same place Serpentine got theirs. “As for avoiding sunlight, it’s not as if ye get much here to begin with. Canadians, Scots, we’re all pretty pasty. I’d wager it wouldn’t be too difficult to get by.” After all, she had no complaints.
Her phone vibrated again, and she glanced away from her date to the device.
"Hm, suppose that's true. Ah well, I've already invested a lot into being human, unless for some reason I change my mind, or I'm about to die. I don't think I'll be trying to change that." He said aloud looking at the bar and his drink for a moment considering what it would be like if it were blood. It wasn't an appealing thought really but he assumed his tastes might change as a vampire. True it would be a lot less difficult as a vampire here then, say, somewhere where the days were a lot longer then the nights were. Still though, he didn't like the idea of straight up not being able to go around in daylight.
Charles attention returned to his question as she answered him on the matter of the texts. He ran his tongue around in his mouth and frowned, then shrugged, "Well, I mean, technically speaking, I guess that can be true. Certainly a lot more dangerous then normal humans. But we're not like blood thieves or paladins, so most of a sorcerer's powers aren't even combat related." he furrowed his brown, "Did they just have some sort of bad experience with a sorceror? Because of all the humans outside of pureblood to be seen as dangerous that is the weirdest one."
As much as he wanted to keep the speed dating going normally. The repeated texts were still on his mind, as well as he wanted to know if Charlie herself had any bad experiences with sorcerers' because that could also make this a lot more difficult.
