milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Atton's getting ready to interview somebody.

In his case, this means wearing menacing looking sunglasses as he fiddles about with mechanical parts on the table. The sunglasses are interview-related, the parts not so much.

Botherable.

[The post is for a bartending interview, but it's not plotlocked.]

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She'd gotten a note from the bar about her interview, and after a quick look around the bar she's guessing the guy with the sunglasses is probably the one she needs to talk to.

With those glasses on in here, he almost reminds her of a Turk.

With a polite smile, she wanders over. "Excuse me, but are you Atton?"

Atton considers going for something like 'there are some who call me that.'

Eventually, he just responds with: "Yes."

Well, that was simple enough.

Amused, she smiles more genuinely. "Then I'm Tifa. I hear you're my interviewer."

Atton steeples his fingers.
"Please sit, then."

"Thanks."

She pulls out the chair across from him and takes a seat in it, leaning her arms on the table.

"All right." She can't help wondering how well he can see in this lighting through the sunglasses. "Where do we start?"

"Well, I think the most important thing to ascertain at the start of these interviews is just how much cake - and other confectionary products - you would give me as a bribe." Atton says, gravely.

"Well," she starts, glancing oh-so-casually from side to side before looking back at him, "how much do you need?"

She grins.

"I'm a pretty good cook. I don't think you'd be disappointed."

"Lots. You have a lot of competitors - Mister Scarlett has offered me seven metric tonnes." Atton replies. "They don't call him the Cakemeister for nothing, after all."

It's not how she imagined her interview going, but she's happy to play along.

She raises her eyebrows skeptically.

"But is it good cake he's offering? If this Mister Scarlett of yours can deliver that much quality cake, I'll just have to one-up him."

She shrugs like she could easily bake that much. "Do you like cookies? I could throw some of them in, too."

"I suppose cookies will suffice." Atton says, airily. "Do you have much bartending experience?"

"I'll have to remember you prefer cake."

She laces her fingers together and rests her chin on top of them.

"I do. Back home I even owned my own bar for a couple of years. Seventh Heaven, we called it."

"Nice." Atton scribbles something down. "So, if your worst enemy asked for a drink, what would you do?"

"My worst enemy."

She can immediately think of a couple of people she'd be unhappy to have come up and ask her for a drink.

But Sephiroth would definitely be the worst.

"You mean here, right? In my own bar," she admits, "I'd punch him without question. But here, I guess I'd have to give him his drink. I'd just make sure security knew about him, because he's really not safe to be around."

...and she'd probably end up punching him when she's off-duty, but she bites back that thought for now.

"The Milliways bartending establishment is delighted to inform you that we encourage any contributions to the lively deadly poison trade we have in Milliways. While we cannot condone poisoning the drinks of people you dislike, we can assure you that poison can be supplied in faux-whiskey bottles to make your 'it was an accident!' defense all the more convincing."

She almost laughs out loud.

"That's good to know. If I didn't feel bad about living off the fund for the bound while I'm here, I'd have to donate to that cause."

"It is good to know. What would you do if you were woken in your sleep by the cries of a telepathic woman?"

Her eyes widen in surprise.

"Do I know the telepathic woman ahead of time?"

She... doesn't think she really gets the question at all.

"Well, whether I do or not, I'd put on my gloves and hurry to wherever she is. She's probably in trouble if her cries are waking me up in the middle of the night."

"If you were canned tuna, would you be stored in oil or water?"

She raises an eyebrow, but at this point the strangeness of the question is almost expected.

Almost.

"Definitely water."

"You don't think that water would reduce the taste?"

She tips her head to one side, seemingly taking it very seriously.

"I like the texture better, but if it does reduce the taste, you've picked the wrong brand. The bartenders here aren't paid in tuna, are they?"

"They are if they want to be. Are you, or have you ever been, either an alcoholic or dead?"

Now those, she's pretty sure, are serious questions.

After what's come already, she's not surprised he wore sunglasses for the interview.

"I'm definitely not an alcoholic." Bartenders and alcoholism aren't a good mix. "And I think the closest I've ever been to dead is a week-long coma."

Atton spends a few moments noting these down.
"Tastes great? Or less filling?"

It's another question she's not sure she gets, but she answers quickly enough. "Tastes great, of course."

She idly watches him jotting down notes, but doesn't make any attempt to actually read whatever's being written.

"If it tastes good enough, no one minds if it's filling."