Fayna is kind of terrified—it’s not like she’s never been in a bar before, but she’s pretty sure her coworkers are trying to scare her at least a little, since she said she wanted something new—but Nashay insisted that this place was nice and fun, even if it’s a bit different, and she can already hear the teasing at work tomorrow if she lets on her nervousness.

Come on, Fayna. You were the one who committed to try more new things. This is a new thing. Stop being silly. You’re free now, and that means you’re safe. It’s time for you to start believing that.

She takes a deep breath as she sits at the bar with the group. She gives a small wave to get the attention of the nearest bartender. “Hey, what would you recommend here?” She’s speaking in a very thick purple accent. 

And that'd be the new face. "My favorite's the honey beer, but our most popular's the green cherry — I don't know why they call it that, the drink is blue." He's been trying to speak more neutrally, lately, but his accent is also obviously purple. 

Oh no he’s cute

Oh no his hair isn’t just dark, it’s black

“...I’ll take the honey beer. Thanks.”

It sure is!

Honey beer comes in a bottle and requires zero mixing, which is great. He pours it with kind of excessive flourish and gives the new face his very best "hope you like it!" smile before he turns back to the grey at the other end of the counter. 

She sips the honey beer. It’s nice. 

She watches him and the gray talk for a bit, panic building in her stomach, when she waves the bartender over again. “I’m sorry to be using up so much of your time, especially since I’m not a regular or anything, but— I was just curious about the hair. Are you doing a cosplay or something?”

Marlo's sweet, has been all three times he's come in. Sasha likes him a lot, could like him a lot more; couple more nights like these and he might have a shot at getting taken home. 

The new face waves him over; he goes obligingly, smiles again at Marlo when he leaves. 

"Not a problem! I'm not cosplaying, just weird." 

“...Oh. Okay.

Um, thanks for the recommendation. The honey beer is great. So is this place, actually. It’s. Really nice. Sorry, I know you’re working right now, I just—get rambly like this sometimes—”

"You are not even the third rambliest person I have talked to today. What's your name, can I get you anything? My name's Asashani but everyone calls me Sasha." 

“I’m Fayna! It’s nice to meet you, Sasha. Um, maybe another of the honey beers?” She taps her nearly-empty glass. “Unless there’s anything else this good here that you’ve been hiding from me.”

He pours her another glass with the same excessive flourish. "They're my favorite for a reason!" 

(At the other end of the bar: Marlo stands up, smiles and nods to Sasha, leaves the bar entirely. Sasha smiles and waves back, and if he flutters his eyelashes a little more than is strictly necessary for blinking, well, that's his business.) 

Fayna smiles and giggles a little at the thoroughly unnecessary dramatic flourish before looking at the closing door. “He a regular here?”

"He's come in a few times, but not really." 

“Mm.” Fayna takes a drink. “What’s it like working here? I don’t think I could ever do customer service, I’m—I’d either die of embarrassment or get into a screaming match by, like, day three. You seem really good at it though.”

"This job is good, I don't know about other customer service — if I had to be a cashier I might actually die — you meet a lot of people, the nice thing about bartending is you get to talk to some of them." And convince them to take you home at the end of the night so you've got somewhere to sleep! Sasha does not tell her that. "This bar specifically is nice because if someone walks through the door you already know they're okay wth people being a little weird, it's the kind of place that's fine with my dye job," and he gestures vaguely towards his hair. 

...Right. Okay. Fayna will not say anything about his dye job, then. “I’m glad you like the talking to people part, then. That’s the part I’d have problems with, I think? I’m getting better, though. You should’ve seen me a couple seasons ago. My coworkers have been trying to get me to come with them here since they started coming and this is my first time, if that gives you an idea—then again, you probably already knew that.” When she smiles again, it’s a bit more strained. 

"I did, I don't usually forget a face. You doing okay?" 

“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m fine. Like I said, would not be good at customer service. I do like you hanging around chatting as long as you’re not too busy, even if it might not seem like it? I just get freaked out easy.”

"Okay! Let me know if I can get you anything, Fayna," he says, and then, "so what do you do, do you like it?" 

“I’m an assembler. I help make pocket everythings. It’s okay. I don’t love it or anything but I don’t mind it either and it pays the bills, you know?”

He does know. "So you're here with your coworkers, you said?"

(At this point he's largely making small talk because he can, he's not really expecting this to go anywhere.) 

"Yeah. They come here... I don't know how often, actually, now that I think about it? You would know better than I would, I guess." She shrugs. "They're cool. Specially Nashay, she's the one that dragged me here. Said I needed to get out more, try new things."

"They come in around once, twice a week. How are you liking this new thing?" She gets a very genuine smile. 

Then he will get a very genuine smile back!

“I’m liking it, I think. It’s definitely different from what I usually do but... in a good way.”

"Wonderful!" 

There are other people at the bar now he should probably focus on people who are not Fayna, but if she's paying attention she'll notice that he keeps gravitating back towards talking to her, she's sweet in a way that a lot of people aren't. 

Fayna doesn't wave him down again, she's calmed down enough that she's fine just chatting with her coworkers (plus the gray Sasha was looking at earlier is gone), but every time Sasha comes over on his own to talk to her she does a lot of smiling and generally being sweet!

Awesome! 

At some point it will get very very late. 

At some point Fayna will go home, then. She'll leave a mildly ridiculous tip, though, and write on the receipt: "get yourself something nice! you deserve it =)"

Awww. 

He keeps working until the end of his shift, at which point the bar is closing and he actually can't take another shift, so he pockets Fayna's mildly ridiculous tip and goes home with a cute orange guy. 

And a week later she will be back!

So she will! 

Marlo's not here tonight; Sasha's making eyes at a pretty green when Fayna walks in, but he turns to wave at her. 

Fayna waves back. "Hello again! I'll try the green-but-technically-blue cherry this time."

Sasha was really not kidding when he said this drink was blue. 

It is sweet in a way that you wouldn't usually expect from something cherry-flavored and very very good. 

"...Wow, that sure is very blue, huh. I wonder why they call it green cherry." She takes a sip. "It's good, though!"

"I've never been able to tell, everyone you ask has a different answer - my personal favorite is that the person who named it was blind but who knows, really." 

"Huh, weird." Fayna sounds genuinely fascinated.

The green he was making eyes with grins sideways at Sasha from a few feet away and says, "I heard she was synesthetic and thought it tasted green." Sasha laughs and turns back to Fayna. 

"...I think I like the blind story better." Fayna shifts uncomfortably in her seat and takes a big gulp of not-actually-green cherry.

"There's dozens of them, you'll hear a few more if you keep asking. You doing okay?" 

"Yeah, I'm. Fine, yeah." She bites her lip and pushes her drink away. "Can I have some of the honey beer after all? I think I liked it a bit better." She didn't, actually. It's just the first distraction that pops into her mind.

"Yeah, sure." Lanhi opens his mouth to apologize; Sasha's pretty sure that wouldn't help so he makes an abortive gesture with his hand. Lanhi says nothing.

Sasha pours Fayna a honey beer. 

"...Thanks," Fayna says, and takes a drink of it. Her mouth still tastes like green cherry, so the honey beer tastes a little weird, but it's still good. "Sorry."

"It's not a problem." 

Fayna shrugs and gives a small, tentative smile. "Well, I appreciate it anyway."

He smiles at Fayna as reassuringly as he can manage and turns to other customers. 

Lanhi is his best bet to take him home, of course — they have an arrangement one or two nights a week — but he pays attention to everyone.

Eventually it will be time for Fayna to go!

Once again, she leaves an exorbitant tip. This time, there’s something scribbled on the back of the receipt: her name and the contact number for her pocket everything. Below it, in smaller letters, it says:  

please don’t feel pressured or anything, you just seemed cool so i thought i’d give you my info. feel free to hit me up if you ever need anything :) 

Aww. 

He pockets the exorbitant tip and puts her number into his everything. (He doesn't usually go home with girls but hey, an option is an option.) 

(At the end of the night Lanhi takes him home, as expected, and Sasha loves him up and then falls asleep in his really very nice bed and leaves wordlessly in the morning, as always.) 

If he doesn’t send her a message first, she’ll be back in a week. She’s starting to get used to the routine. 

Marlo's in again; he's leaving around when Fayna walks in. She's just in time to hear him say "Your shift ends at midnight again, right?" 

Sasha nods and smiles. "Am I gonna see you then?" 

"Sure are," Marlo says, and smiles back before he ducks out the door. 

Fayna immediately resolved to stay until midnight. She’s not sure what else she can do to help—if she can even do anything—but she can do that much. 

She sits at the bar and gives an almost-entirely-genuine smile. “Hello again! Honey beer please?”

He doesn't know her well enough to tell the difference between almost genuine and actually genuine. "Hello!" 

Fayna gets a honey beer. 

She takes a sip of honey beer. “Delicious as always! How’s your shift going?”

"It's going well!" (This is true, and not just because he already has a place to sleep lined up for tonight.)

“That’s really good! I’m glad.”

"How's your week been, anything interesting happen at work?" He's keeping half an eye on the rest of the bar, but Fayna's close enough to a regular that it's not that weird to be focusing on her. 

“Mm, no, nothing interesting, really. My work’s not quite as conducive to interesting stories as yours is—fewer people, more eyeglass screws. It was a good week, though! How was yours?”

"It was fine. A few days ago three different people decided to hold parties here and it was packed with new faces, I haven't gotten that many weird looks in a single shift since I started working here, that was a time." He's smiling. 

“Yeah, I can imagine. I’m sure I gave you a weird look the first time I saw you, too. It’s good you can smile about it.”

"If you did you were subtle about it. It was mostly just funny, honestly, somepurple asked me if I was cosplaying or being political and it looked like he'd put money on it, the look on his face when I said I was just weird was great." 

Oh good at least it’s not a political statement. “I wish I had seen it! I bet it was priceless.”

"It was! Of course I didn't get pictures but I almost wish I had, you'd laugh. Beats the girl two weeks ago who started talking about caste abolition out of nowhere because she looked at my hair and thought it'd be small talk any day."

As soon as he says it he really hopes she's not an abolitionist, but the way she'd asked if the dye was for a cosplay makes him think that probably she isn't. 

“Yeah, I can imagine it would! I went through an abolitionist phase when I was two, but even then I don’t think I would’ve started talking about it out of nowhere like that. Having worse social skills than a two-year-old has got to be, like, an achievement.”

"In her defense this was after two of those frothy fruit drinks, and her friends were very apologetic about it, but you sure would think!" (His accent is coming through more strongly than usual, he's trying to correct for it but not getting all the way there.) 

Fayna giggles. “Well, I hope most of the people here treat you better than that, frothy fruit drinks or no.” Her voice is casual but very sincere.

"It wouldn't be so memorable if they didn't, it's one of the things I like best about this bar." He's looking her directly in the eye; he sounds just as sincere as she did. 

She breaks the gaze before he does. “Well. As long as you like it.” And then she smiles and looks at him again, as though the entire exchange hadn’t happened. “—um, what’s the best story you have of that kind of thing, then?” 

"Oh, gosh. Um, this was before I was working here, but about six months ago someone came up to me and wanted to know why I'd dyed my hair. And I gave the standard spiel about how I'm kind of weird and want to look like it, and she goes, I kid you not, 'why are you denying your purple identity?'" 

His accent has gotten noticeably thicker as he's been talking. 

"And I stopped and kinda looked at her for a moment because what the hell do you say to that, and she goes 'well, why are you?' 

And I don't remember if I said anything and I definitely don't remember what I said, I just remember that five minutes later she was still glaring at my hair and my coworkers thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen." 

"She said that to a stranger? Wow. I'm glad you like your job but, man, I am so glad my job doesn't involve talking to people." She laughs, a bit self-consciously, and takes a drink of her honey beer.

"It has its benefits! Meeting people is fun, and the vast majority of people don't do that, and the percentage of people I meet who get offended about my hair here is lower than it would be if I were working just about anywhere else." 

She finishes her drink! "Um, can I have another honey beer please?"

She can! He is capable of recognizing when it is time to shut up. 

Then she will drink her newly obtained honey beer! 

At around 11:30, he gets a text and ignores it. 

At midnight, when his shift ends, he checks his phone and very quietly swears. 

Fayna waves him over! “What’s up?”

"Guy I was going to go home with has a work emergency. It's not a big deal, just." He tries very hard to make his tone convey that it is not in fact a big deal, but is thwarted by the fact that it's late fall and therefore it's cold enough outside that not having a place to go tonight is kind of a big deal. 

“Oh. 

...You could, uh? Come home with me?” She tries to go for the right blend of sad and casual but is also thwarted, mostly by her own poor emotional concealment skills; it’s pretty obvious she’s closer to “hopeful but really nervous”.

He has a policy about dating purples and that policy is "don't," but it's cold and he doesn't have anywhere else to go and she's seemed nice —

"Thank you." 

He hopes he doesn't sound too intense about it. 

Fayna's face lights up when she grins. "Of course."

Oh thank fuck. 

He takes his bag from under the counter (it's weirdly full, Fayna might notice) and goes with her. 

Fayna definitely notices, but doesn't give any indication of having done so. 

Her apartment is kind of small but fairly nice. There's a couch, but Fayna goes to sit on the bed instead. "Well, this is where I live! Hopefully it's not too shabby for you," she says, laughing a little. Her accent was strong before, but it's even stronger now.

"It's great." He means it. 

Aaaand she's grinning again. She's got a bit of a blush going this time, too. "I was--just teasing. But. Thanks."

you know he's on our side though can't turn your own people out we'll handle it internally can't trust the police they wouldn't treat him fair you know they wouldn't why not just keep quiet

He smiles back and tries (not very successfully) to hide his nerves. 

...the smile disappears. “Are you okay?”

"I'm fine, just — I get nervous. Work's a performance art." All of this is true. Well, mostly true. 

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fair. I get nervous too, but I’m definitely not as good a performer as you are. Anything I can do?”

…if he wants a hug and doesn't get one because Fayna is purple, that's still kind of letting him win. 

He sits down next to her, gauges her reaction to the proximity. "I'll get over it, it's fine." 

“Alright.” Her reaction to the proximity is definitely positive; she relaxes a little. 

Good. That's — that's good. 

He leans against her, puts his head on her shoulder.  

--oh good she didn't ruin it! She smiles and relaxes the rest of the way.

Indeed she didn't! 

He relaxes into her further. He...kind of really needs the hug, wow, a lot of the people he goes home with are nice enough and some are even gentle about it before and after, but it's not exactly a hugs-and-cuddling kind of relationship. 

Then they can hug!!! She’s a pretty good hugger and she realizes halfway through that she kind of needs it too, which is nice. 

Good. Good good good. 

If Fayna presses down on the parts of his back that are bruised, he might hiss a little, but he won't let go. 

She notices. She doesn’t let go either, but she loosens a little to ask: “You okay?”

"I'm fine. Nothing I didn't ask nicely for." 

On the one hand, that bag really was very large. On the other hand, it didn’t sound like altogether a bad hiss, and it’s really none of her business. “Alright.” She goes back to hugging with her full strength. 

He has a policy about dating purples and that policy is "don't," but Fayna. Is really good at hugs. 

(why not just keep quiet.)

Asashani is good at hugs too! It might take her a while to stop hugging, on the basis of such reasons as “wow hugs are pretty great” and “Fayna is pretty sure this boy is on a serious hug deficit, which is a tragedy that should be fixed ASAP.”

He is indeed definitely for sure on a serious hug deficit. 

"Is it okay if. I maybe come back here some nights?" 

“Yesofcourse.” ...now that she’s thinking about it, that probably should have been multiple words and a bit less excited and relieved? Oh well, she’s already gone and said it. 

A shaky sigh. "Oh thank stars." 

He is maybe a little bit too relieved. 

She is rather too busy with her own relief to notice! Also, she seems to think this is an occasion for more hugs. 

This is definitely an occasion for more hugs. He pulls his legs up onto the bed, angles his whole body for maximum hug. 

Yes, good. Fayna is on board with this plan. She adjusts her body to match Asashani’s until she is pretty confident that she’s reached Maximum Hug. It’s very comforting! It hasn’t caused her to forget that the current plan is probably going to end up being a bad decision for her in the future, but it definitely means she doesn’t particularly care. Hugs: so good. 

He should. Probably address the fact that they are on Fayna's bed. He has that rule about dating purples but it's whatever, he's done some less-than-ideal things for the sake of the bed he did them in. 

"I am super down to just cuddle with you all night," he says, very quietly into Fayna's shoulder, "but usually when I get taken home people want more than that and I'm okay with that too?" 

...Right. Yes. 

Okay. Smile, Fayna, you’ve got this. “I’m happy with whatever you want to do,” and then—tentatively, slowly—she leans over to kiss him. 

Okay. Kissing. He can do kissing. He can like kissing, even, Fayna is — soft. 

He doesn't move them further. It's almost more like cuddling-but-more-so than like kissing in the way he usually does. 

Okay. Good. She can do kissing just fine, too. This is definitely doable. Asashani is pretty and a good hugger and purple. It’s... really nice, actually, as long as she remembers to take deep breaths. Reminds her more of her first boyfriend than anything.

That said, if Sasha’s not moving them further, she’s definitely not going to be the one to do it. 

Yeah he's not. 

(you know he's on our side though he was always good to me we'll handle it internally why don't you just keep quiet —)

He keeps careful track of Fayna's reactions — if this is going to be long-standing he needs to be good — 

She's reacting pretty happily to the kisses but she also seems to have no real interest in escalating past that! She also seems to be paying pretty careful attention to what is making him happy, though she's not as astute about it as he is.

Alright! Just kissing, that's really nice actually. 

It is!

...Eventually she is going to take a break from all the kissing. “Do you want—more, less, just more of this...?”

"This is nice," he says quietly. If he looks past the hair — and the accent — and the — "...you're soft." 

“...Thank you. That’s a really nice compliment, actually.” She rests her head on him, leaning just a little. “You’re good at that stuff.”

He puts an arm around her shoulders, puts a hand on her

(purple 

purple 

purple)

hair. "Thank you." 

“Mhm.” —oh, right, Asashani had said more of this. Back to kissing it is. He’s warm and pretty and good with words, it’s not exactly a great hardship. She tangles her fingers in his hair just enough to pull it back just a little, out of his face, so she doesn’t have to worry about freaking out over any stray bits that aren’t purple. 

"You can pull if you want," he murmurs into Fayna's mouth. His eyes are closed.