Help wanted at the Nest (Marta)

It was a chaotic weekend. A group had booked out the entirety of the Bistro pub known as the Nest for some sort of function, a stag night apparently, and as such the establishment had taken on some part time help. Said part time help was supposed to have been here half an hour ago! Melina was frustrated with the fact she had to handle this entire bar scene with a skeleton crew! Three people were not able to handle all the drinks, bring the food out and keep the place clean!

"Damn it when that hired help shows up I'm going to chew them out..." She grumbled beneath her breath, topping off another round of five pints before placing them on a rounded tray. She briskly lifted the tray up and carried it out from behind the bar, writhing through the crowds in a serpentine manner serving it to the guests. Despite just how frustrated she was Melina smiled, striving to be friendly as that was simply the nature of being a server.

"Enjoy your drinks." And with that she returned to the bar, taking down another order for food and generally returning to her duties. That damn hired help better show up soon. The kitchen was starting to get backed up with orders as there was not enough people to do everything! At this rate the customers were going to get impatient and leave. A few tables were already complaining about their food taking too long to come out. Melina wondered why she worked here sometimes but hopefully her paycheck would make it all worthwhile.

On a normal day, Marta would have been on time. Today was not a normal day. Marta made the very poor decision of taking the bus, which had unfortunately taken a wrong turn on the way to his destination, spun out of control, and crashed into a light-post.

For his part, Marta was mostly unharmed, with the exception of a new cut on his face from broken glass. He had to stick around to help answer a few questions, but he figured it wasn't worth sticking around any later. He figured he wasn't going to miss work for any reason. Jobs at restaurants were always the best. He hadn't eaten....in a very long time. And restaurants often always had an incredible amount of food waste and leftovers that he could casually pick at throughout the night, filling himself up with a ludicrous amount of food without actually revealing his less-than-ideal personal situation.

Fortunately, Marta's cut, although having bled somewhat over his face and collar, was at least no longer bleeding. He figured he could wash up after he got to work and presumably switched into some sort of uniform. He eventually showed up to the Nest, gingerly opening the door before he started looking for the boss.

As Marta walked into the store they would find it was immensely busy. The sounds of eating, talking and drinking echoed throughout the Gastro Pub. Melina looked up from cleaning up a spillage over the bar's surface, noticing Marta in the mean time. She raised an eyebrow, quirking it upwards in curiosity at seeing somebody so young looking arriving by themselves unless...

She walked out from behind the bar, shoving the towel into her uniform's apron making a beeline towards Marta a slightly annoyed scowl on your face. The scowl was not only because Marta was late...but also due to the blood staining their clothes and face? That was just unhygienic and get frankly pretty unacceptable for when you were showing up to work.

"I take it you're the part timer? Right okay. We're really busy so I'm going to give you a quick down. I need you to keep tables clean, take orders from the kitchen to their respective tables and just generally keep the place tidy. Don't worry about serving drinks." It was curt and direct to the point almost as curt as when Melina walked into the kitchen, gesturing for Marta to follow them.

"In there is a spare uniform. The door has a lock on it if you want some privacy. Make sure you clean that blood off your face. I'm not going to ask about it." Melina gestured at a nearby unisex single person bathroom. Inside was in fact a uniform hanging neatly on a wall mounted hook. It consisted of black trousers, a black shirt and a black apron all of which were freshly clean.

Marta gave a polite bow. The woman seemed remarkably unfriendly, but Marta didn't particularly mind. He wasn't really looking for friends in life and most importantly, he didn't really expect any friends in life. The world was not so kind as to be a place where people actually enjoyed the presence of others or would do things for them without an ulterior motives. He lived in the real world, not some morality play. "Understood."

He quickly washed his face and changed into the clothes. He also spent a little time taking advantage of their soap to get all of the blood off of the collar of his old clothes before folding it up and putting it where the spare uniform was. He wasn't sure he liked the uniform of this place. It was a little too...black. Black was a good color, but a black top combined with black pants was simply too much black. But he supposed it didn't really matter.

He quickly came out of the bathroom again, seeing if the woman was around to give any more orders or if he should just vaguely to tend to any customers that seemed to be requesting his presence.

"Okay I need you to take this order to table 15. There'll be a flag like thing on the table with the number. Take that and come back. This is the order ticket and the food is over there in the window. You want the giant Yorkshire pudding filled with with the gravy, the halibut and the burger. If you need any help let me know." She handed Marta the slip of paper and walked back out front but stopped, turning back to face the help.

"Oh right. I'm Melina. Pleasure to meet ya." With that she walked out of the kitchen and headed back to the bar. It was a fact of reality that customers would have piled up around the bar in Melina's absence. Walking out she was proven..correct. The other waiting stuff were immensely busy. With that the evening went as planned. Plates were cleaned, drinks poured, customers served and tables neatened up.

Marta nodded wordlessly. The job was simple and he was neither an idiot nor lazy. They weren't giving a temporary employee anything remarkably complicated anyways. As a result, Marta did the work competently. The only problem was that his politeness was rather too standoffish for a bar - better suited for a high-class restaurant. Ironically, the kind that Marta himself didn't like. He would have politely introduced himself to Melina, but he was gone before he could reply.

He of course, was a little slower than he did due his tendency of taking a few bites out of plates that people didn't finish and decided not to take back home with them. He tried to not be too obvious about it. But he really hadn't eaten in practically a week. He decided to sate the temptation lest he go overboard. Otherwise, the time passed normally.

Boy had that been a stressful evening shift. Melina flopped onto a chair and, in a manner of mere moments, downed an entire glass of water. The heat generated by a room of people, physically exerting herself all evening AND her exposure to the kitchen's heat had dried out her like an African Savannah during the dry season.

"Boy was that a stressful night shift..." Having finished her drink, the Shadow stood up and stretched her arms out before walking up behind Marta. The next thing the hired help would know, unless they got out of the way of course, would be a firm hand ruffling their hair up.

"Thanks kid. The boss left some money in the back for ya. Help us clear up and I'll give it to ya." Of course, most of the work had already been done so perhaps this would be a good chance to take things slow and get to know the other employees a bit? This place might be a good source of work in the future.

Marta seemed utterly unfazed by the night. Then again, he wasn't exactly running around the entire store in a frantic rush. His movements were generally very deliberate, though perhaps that meant he was a little slower than would be ideal.

All of the customers were pleasant. If there was any karma, maybe this was a result of Marta being consistently to the waitstaff at every establishment he had ever visited. Contrasted strongly with his sort-of-spouse, who was infamously short-tempered with waitstaff.

He was about to inquire about his pay before a giant woman started rustling his hair from behind him. Marta practically jumped from a person being FAR more intimate with another person than was conventional. Goosebumps stood up on the back of his neck, not from discomfort, but just from surprise. People usually kept their distance from him.

He spun around and listened to the woman, "Ah-ah. I understand. Thank you. I will do." As he realized they were entering a lull, he decided to pop the fated question, "So...I suppose as we're cleaning up, do you think there are any extra meals lying around?" This was a common occurrence at restaurants as they closed. Things they've cooked that they really can't store either get thrown out or eaten by staff. And this was what he was waiting for. Snacking a little only made him much hungrier. In many ways, it was a mistake. But that was the situation he was in now.

A soft chuckle escaped Melina's lips at the sight of Marta almost jumping through the ceiling. Why where the people in this city so on edge? God, it's not like Melina was dangerous or anything. On the other hand, it was entirely possible the reason why the citizens of this city were so jumpy was down to the whole demon thing. Or perhaps Melina's experiences were the issue. After all, she had only met Cecil and most of that experience was her screwing with Cecil.

"What? I don't bite." Standing up straight she quirked her hips, a hand resting on her thighs yet as she heard Marta's help she was a little confused.

"Eh? Maybe? You'd have to ask the kitchen." In all honesty it was rather unlikely. Most of the food here was made to order but it was entirely possible.

"Although....that makes me wonder...Were you not able to get lunch or anything?" Melina was actually curious about the possibility that Marta wasn't able to afford food which would probably explain why he took this job up on such short notice.

Marta gave off a polite smile, "Oh, even that's not a terrible problem. Was just a little surprised, that's all." It wasn't the closeness that surprised him - it was literally just the surprise of someone coming up from behind him.

He nodded at her answer, "Oh, yes, I might just pick up a returned dish or something. I suppose I technically didn't have lunch, but I don't really believe in the conventional wisdom of having three meals a day. It probably works for growing children, but I doubt its necessary once you get older and your metabolism slows."

Although it was entirely true that Marta through some definition of the word couldn't afford food, he didn't really show the part. He actually showed up to the restaurant wearing quite expensive-looking clothes, which just made it even stranger as to why he was working part-time at a pub.

He frowned a little, "In fact, possibly counter-productive and grotesque considering what has rapidly become the 'normal' waistline in the public eye. But I digress. Marta shrugged. He started putting away utensils, although he was entirely within conversational distance of the woman, and hardly doing anything complex, as if he expected the woman to continue speaking to him.

Melina shrugged. She supposed it was fair enough only having two meals a day given how Melina herself rarely woke up early enough to have a decent breakfast. She often had to get up, get dressed, grab something quickly and dash to work eating it on the way. Melina was starting to wonder if her initial assumption of Marta being broke and having to skip lunch because of it was true. He had shown up wearing rather fancy, and expensive, looking clothing after all.

"Hmmm....well. We're often in need of temporary and part time staff to fill in for when staff is sick or other...unfortunate events happen." One of those unfortunate events was the entire reason Melina even managed to get this job. One of the bar's staff had been caught out late at night and was never seen up again. God knows what kind of person, be it demon or otherwise, managed to get their claws into them. Humming to herself Melina returned to washing down the counter.

"So yeah. Give me your number and I can pass it along to the boss when they're back in. That is if the idea of future work here isn't a problem." Marta did have a point in that their was a fair amount of people with, how shall we say, weight issues present in the city but honestly? Melina didn't know that was a problem nor did she care. If humans wanted to eat themselves to death then that was their prerogative. It just meant more food for the Shadow to sink her teeth into.

Marta didn't quite catch the implication of the lost staff member,"Ah. I see. Of course. That is certainly the most convenient way to reach me." Marta rattled off his phone number to the woman without any hesitation. Nobody called him anyways, so he was actually quite unguarded about his contact details.

Something tickled the back of his head, "Ah yes, if you need to put the number under a name, it would be Marta Po. I suppose it's rather late for proper introductions, but it's nice to properly meet you. He gave a polite bow to the woman.

Taking a pen out from the pot stored by the cash register Melina swiftly wrote down Mart'a number, scribbling their name down as well. The hand writing was oddly elaborate and a lot more fanciful than one would expect from a individual who was just a bartender. Pocketing the number Melina did plan to pass it along to her boss later; after all it never hurt having some help within reach.

"Hmmm...hey you want to get some food? We're pretty much finished up here. Oh right you want your payment...I'll be right back." Melina walked off and returned a good five minutes later, sliding a fair amount of money towards Marta winking.

"I've not actually had dinner myself so what say we blow this joint? The dining room's pretty much spotless and I could do with a bite to eat myself." It wasn't that out of the ordinary for co-workers to go out to get a meal together after work was over.

Marta nodded, "Sure. Do-" And she was gone to get his money. He was rather surprised when he got the stack back. It was considerably more than he expected. He opened his wallet, which although quite expensive, was more or less mostly empty.

He nodded again at her suggestion, "I think that's a perfectly fine idea. Do you have any recommendations? I suppose you're most likely considerably more familiar with this locale far better than I do. So thanks for the...initiative."

Marta probably was going to actually skip dinner today and bank on a future buffet, but he had a tendency...of going along with the flow. Chief among of his personality traits was an almost pathological inability to ever say no to any concrete plans or suggestions by other people.

"Hmmm...well it's nothing fancy but there's a pretty neat fast food joint across the street?" Boy did Melina love fast food. Now that she was free of her father dictating what she could and couldn't eat, fast food had swiftly become one of her favourite things to eat if only to piss her father off. Another factor behind Melina's enjoyment of fast food was honestly to do with the affordability. She didn't really earn boat loads of money working here.