As Veran passes their eyes over the room once again, a soft but noticeable smile creeps up on their face. They see familiar faces laughing; new ones showing delight after their first sip, friends spilling whatever hot gossip they could find to one another. The music in the room is at just the right level, so you can hear those close to you but loud enough to both block out the conversations of others, but also fill the gaps between every guest's words as if their pauses were part of the rhythm itself.

  The lighting was dark and sombre but the gentle rays of light coming off the candles on the table, with each flicker showed the joy that this place held.

  Veran’s eyes catch their own reflection for a moment, their Jet black hair blending into the shadows almost as if part of their silhouette, their dark brown eyes almost like wells of darkness that would make their copper like complexion almost seem light and warm if it wasn't for their looming stocky stature

  “Drinks up!” Veran hears the familiar call and snaps their whole body in the direction and starts moving towards the bar before they can even process what they had heard

  As Veran gets to the bar, they see Jonesie placing the ticket on to the tray, Jonesie’s blue eyes make contact with Veran's, however their lanky spider arms were already moving on to the next ticket

  Jonesie fires off words just as Veran gets to the pass “Table 6, 2 Marg’s, 1 Daq, 1 sleeping with my ex and 2 double vodka soda limes” Veran who looked at Jonesie just long enough to process his slightly longer face, pale complexion and scruffy beard that hid a naturally sharp jaw line, smiled back and replied “You know I can read right?”

  Jonesie let a goofy grin take over his face and said “Sorry boss, you aren't wearing your glasses, wouldn't wanna have a mistake happen, like that time you kissed the wrong sister”

  Veran's hands fly towards the caddy to grab a straw to throw at Jonesie “Oi don't bring that up on shift, what if a guest hears? that would be embarrassing”

  A voice flies across from another bar station “can you two stop flirting, Veran run those drinks” “This is why I love you Tati, you're always making sure I stay on task and look good” says Veran as they slide the tray onto their left hand and begin to fly across the bar to table 6

  Tati, Leans up against her station to carry on her conversation with a guest, their short body having to slightly tip toe to properly lean across the station “sorry about that Thomas, you know how those two are, what can I get you?”

  “It's no problem at all, it's part of why I love this place, my students today gave me an extra strong headache, can I get two of my usual?” said the older gentleman with salt and pepper grey hair as they adjusted his thick round framed glasses

  “two corpse revivor no.2 coming right up” As that conversation came to a close, Veran had arrived at table 6.

  Their service smile plastered on their face “Special Delivery, I believe these are for all of you, so who here is having a Margarita?” Veran begins to gracefully place each drink on a coaster for each guest. As they are about to place their hand on the last drink, Veran pauses to say one of their many canned jokes “so I'm assuming you're the one sleeping with my ex?”

  Just as the one girl on the table who didn't have a drink processes the joke and begins to laugh, a larger gentleman who seemed to be a little bit over the social limit steps back and bumps into Veran causing their hand to Jerk and the drink begins to fly off the tray.

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  The girls eyes flash with shock and fear however before the drink could even make it a centimetre off the tray, a sticky darkness leapt up from the shadow the drink was casting on the tray and sucked the glass back onto the tray, making it seem as if Veran had swiftly used the tray to catch the drink

  The girl immediately calms down and smiles “Nice catch, so you're funny and good with your hands?” the girl who had gone from laughter to a moment of fear to a now sultry smile leaned forward to get a better look at Veran, her eyes gliding across their body as if dissecting prey

  “luckily” Veran smiles as they place the girls drink on a coaster in front of her ignoring the obvious advances. they then swiftly turned and faced the gentleman who bumped into them, and who still either hadn't noticed or did and hadn't apologised.

  “Excuse me sir, just in case you hadn't noticed, you bumped into me, please be careful as we wouldn't want you to accidentally bump into another guest”

  Says Veran with a polite but firm service tone

  The Portly gentleman turns around, the grease on his skin almost making him glisten even in this soft candle lit bar “and what if I do? not like you can do anything about it, you're just bar staff, I pay your bills”

  Veran looks at the swine-like gentleman, their service smile still on their face ‘well, i was going to let it slide until they mentioned bar staff, you can be rude about me, but not about my staff or anyone else in the industry’ just as they finish that thought

  The ‘Pig in a suit’ and no one else noticed that Veran's dark brown eyes had become filled with darkness, a sickening, overwhelming and suffocating darkness.

  The Pig was frozen in place unable to even let out a whimper, they felt as if a million ants were crawling across their body, with each second it felt like it was losing something precious to its existence and just as their existence was about to crumble it all vanished.

  Just as it was before, the Gentleman could move, could breathe and could even utter words but chose not to as he looked at Veran's brown eyes and pristine service smile.

  “Sir, I think it's time for you to leave, you can either choose to leave yourself or my security and I can escort you out” Veran used his spare hand to gesture softly towards the door.

  The Gentleman quickly downed his pint, grabbed his jacket and swiftly made his way to the door without saying a word.

  Veran pressed the button on his earpiece and waited half a beat before speaking “Rica, 1 86 coming out, IC1, no re entries”

  half a second later Veran hears “copy that” from a thick Italian accent over his earpiece

  Veran began to move around the bar, collecting glasses, talking with guests and just like that time swiftly passed to 2am

  Lights were up, guests were making their way out and the bar was beginning to close.

  As soon as the last guest was out, Ricardo stepped inside and locked the door. The tall, skinny but built older man, took off his top cap, revealing a balding head and released a gentle sigh before saying “Veran can I grab a beer?”

  “of course you can” Veran replied as they slumped onto a bar stool “let's all pause and have a quick drink before we start properly closing, we deserve it”

  Jonesie chimes up immediately “35?”

  “35” Veran mumbles back, as Jonesie begins to line up shot Veran slowly comes back to life and begins to say “where's Lillian? Is she still bar backing? Lillian! Come take a break!”

  A 5ft6 blonde girl steps out of the side room next to the bar “oh it's lights up already?” and comes to sit on a bar stool like Veran “so did anything fun happen while I was in the hideaway?”

  Jonesie starts handing out the shots to Veran, Tati, Ricardo and Lillian before looking at Veran “so are you gonna tell us about that girl who made sure you left with her pixstagram?”

  “Jonesie shush, you all know I'm not in a place for a relationship after Mel moved away but her names Linda, seems nice but again, I'm not in the right place for a relationship” Veran lifts their shot glass “Chi no poja no foja” they then tap their shot glass on the bar top in sync with everyone else and say “kanpai” while the others in the room say “saluti” “saúde” “cheers” “I sveikata” and in unison all slam back their shots

  as if rehearsed they all release a deep sigh of relief that would have been a both warming and comical scene if it wasn't punctuated by a series of knocks at the door.

  Ricardo gets up and walks to the door, unlocks it and opens it ajar, there's an ominous pause of silence before Ricardo chimes back and says “Veran, it's one of yours, you have a consult”

  Veran looks towards Tati “Desculpa T, you're gonna have to cash out etc tonight, I'll be in my office if anything you can't handle comes up”

  “I already thought I was going to anyway, what kind of General Manager closes on a Saturday, go do what you need to do” She replies

  As she finishes talking a figure covered head to toe in thick layers walks into the bar, the only exposed area of the clothing seemed to be a small slit that barely allowed you see some Fiery red irises

  Veran stands up and just says a swift “follow me” before they begin to walk across the bar and through a door labelled -staff only-

  The figure follows, Ricardo locks the door and sits back at the bar “can I get that beer now?”