Thumb Rings and Ballet Slippers
Victoria smiled at the infuriating couple as she gave them their order, they ignored her and persisted to stare intensely into each other's eyes. She placed the cups of some obscure coffee on the table and walked away, thanking them again for their purchase and all the while trying to keep cool on the surface.
Waitressing wasn't a difficult job and there were some parts of it that she really enjoyed; she liked the pay, she liked the flexible hours and to some extent she liked the people she'd met on the job. She had a few regulars that she'd learned the name of, like Alonzo the Flirt who ordered a coffee to go every morning and found a different compliment or Coricopat and Tantomille the Twins who were friends of her brother and came in to order identical black coffees and pasta salads. Victoria liked most people, she really tried to be as patient as she could but she found it being worn away slowly by some of the customers. Sometimes she looked around at the people sat eating and drinking and inwardly cringed about how overwhelmingly 'quirky' they looked. She was all for people expressing themselves in whatever way they saw fit, but she'd seen enough tie-dye shirts and rockabilly dresses to last her for a life time.
She walked back behind the kitchen and rolled her eyes at Rumpleteazer, a fellow waitress who had proved to be a good friend over the past few weeks, who gave her a mock thumbs up before darting off to deal with a guy who looked like he hadn't washed for a good fortnight that was complaining very loudly. She watched the ginger's fleeting figure and grinned shamelessly at the look of forced concern on her colleague's face. Rumpleteazer had been another life saver, she was some relation of Jemima's and she'd been visiting them in their cupboard basement with her twin brother and within and hour of knowing Victoria she insisted that the dancer take up an open position at the cafe she worked at.
Rumpleteazer and her brother, Mungojerrie, had taken Victoria by surprise. They couldn't just walk into a room normally like everyone else, they had to make as much noise as possible while doing so. She had been expecting delicate and sweet but they were quite the opposite. Both of them were quite tall and lean, with vibrant orange hair, striking honey-coloured eyes and white skin. They spoke with harsh cockney accents, waving their arms in the air as they did and Mungojerrie's first words to his cousin that he hadn't seen since last Christmas were a demand for a cup of tea. When the topic of discussion became Victoria's unemployment, Rumpleteazer became very intrigued.
"Waitressing experience? My little shit hole of a cafe could do with a few more waitresses."
"Oh I couldn't just waltz in and demand a job," Victoria had said, her cheeks pinkening.
Rumpleteazer had snorted and rolled her eyes, "Love, we need the extra hands. Bloody manager's an idiot and underestimated the amount of struggling artists in London who need cheap coffee and pretentious sounding pasta dishes. You come with me on Monday and we'll see about you getting a job, alright?"
So Victoria had went with her on Monday and got herself a job. Whilst trying to look like she was doing something productive, the blonde watched as her life saver charmed the angry customer with her biting wit and wavering smile. After the customer settled for another discounted coffee, Rumpleteazer made her way over, pulling a face that made Victoria snigger.
"You can laugh, blondie," came a cockney reply as the ginger girl bumped the other with her hip, "Looks like the happy couple are about to start flinging sugar around and you're their 'server for today'."
Victoria looked over at the couple she'd served earlier, the ones that hadn't acknowledged her when she gave them their food. The girl was yelling obscenities at him, her purple hair bobbing up and down as she shook her head, and the guy telling her to be reasonable while yelling back at her. She groaned and looked to the elder girl for comfort, her lips pursed in a pout and her eyebrows knitted together.
"It's going to be another hot coffee fight, isn't it?" she whined, much to the ginger girl's glee.
"Oh I hope so."
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Jemima was a patient person. She gave people the benefit of the doubt, she strove to ensure she saw the best in everyone and anything, she was a patient person. However, when her singing teacher was giving her that damn condescending look all the way through her duet she found it very hard not to feel annoyance creep up her back and push down on her shoulders, forcing her to feel uncomfortable and tense.
"Excuse me," she thought as she sang the last verse, "I'm trying to be Lakme, please stop."
Griddlebone, her vocal trainer, had the experience and the talent to be strict with her students but there was something about the way she stared Jemima down with her icy blue eyes and her lips stuck in a rigid pout that made her irritable. As the piano player stopped, Jemima looked over at her partner, an older girl with perfect curls and a pretty face, who smiled at her encouragingly. The small class clapped, as they always did after a performance, and Griddlebone joined in though it seemed strained.
"Breath control was good, beautiful harmonies. Silla, you were fantastic and really held your own there, I know it can be hard to do that when there's someone singing a higher part over you," Griddlebone was smiling but her voice was monotone, Jemima blinked at her and felt uncertain as to what she should expect for feedback. Her mentor didn't act horrifically against her or even treat her differently but Jemima knew that Griddlebone didn't like her being there, perhaps it was because she knew that Jemima really wasn't as interested as everyone else, maybe it was because she was the youngest in the class and hence an easy target.
"Jemima, a great Jemima performance."
"Um, thank you?"
"It's not a bad thing, you have an exceptional voice," Griddlebone said flatly, "But this... sweetness will only carry you so far. You're a strong soprano, but you have this ingenue-like quality to your voice that I'm worried about. I don't want it to limit you."
Jemima nodded her head and apologised, her tutor told her not to apologise but she didn't take it back anyway because she was Jemima and she apologised for everything. She took her seat as the next performers went on. As the piano player adjusted his music, she looked at Griddlebone. She really did have a strong resemblance to Victoria, with her milky skin and her platinum curls, so she felt unnerved by the iciness of her mentor. Griddlebone didn't get too attached or excited about her students, she was still a pretty sucessful singer and didn't really need to be there teaching them so Jemima found it weird that here was was, doing a job she obviously didn't really care much about. Though, then again, Jemima was wasting her time there too, studying an art she didn't really care much about.
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"I thought this was an alcohol optional, sit down, chilled out affair."
Tugger smiled, slightly guilty, as he carried a crate of gross beer on his shoulder and a bottle of wine in his free hand. He'd been on the balls of feet all day, bouncing with excitement about his little get together. He'd slummed it through his job of breakfast television, managed to sit on the couch opposite his co-workers and talk about celebrity rumours and then hung around with the researchers to make it look like he was really interested in their notes, before running to the shops and buying the evening's necessities. He should have known that Quaxo wouldn't have seen them as necessary as he did but then again his house mate didn't seem as annoyed as he usually did. The little magician stared at him with a quirked brow but there was a smile that was threatening to spead across his face.
"I thought I'd bring in extra provisions, given the circumstances of this certain affair," Tugger said, placing the crate and wine on the kitchen counter before scratching the back of his head and ruffling his fluffy hair as a result.
"Given that my little sister is coming tonight? Oh what a comforting thought," Quaxo said but he was grinning now.
The younger man was stood in his socks, his tie had been taken off, his shirt was loosened around the neck and his hair was a little unruly. He'd just come back from an early morning meeting with some studio heads, just in time to catch Tugger unpacking the result of his earlier shopping trip. Tugger liked him like this, liked him a bit messy. It reminded him that Quaxo was still the nerdy kid that played with cards instead of the big illusionist extroadinare. It reminded him that he was the dark-haired boys first London kiss, his first kiss with a guy to be fair, it reminded him why he liked Quaxo so much even if they weren't everything perhaps they could have or should have been.
"Well if that catholic school virgin look runs in the family then maybe they'll be of great importance," Quaxo rolled his eyes and cringed at the joke.
"Don't talk about my sister like that," when Tugger began to laugh the smaller boy hit him feebly, "Seriously because I might be small but I can kick your ass with magic, you know I can."
Quaxo walked past him and to the kettle, flicking it on and leaning against the counter as he tried to forget the mental image his house mate had painted in his head. Just as he went to reach for a mug from the overhead cupboards, he felt two arms wind around his waist and stubble burrow into the nook of his neck.
"Can I help you?" the magician challenged, a smile already playing at his lips.
"You can help me not make a dick out of myself tonight," Quaxo turned so he was looking his friend in the face and he raised a brow.
"How? You do it so well."
Tugger returned his face to Quaxo's neck and let his lips brush against the skin gently, he knew that Quaxo was rolling his eyes right now even if he couldn't see it. While a mere outsider would assume that the two had a sweet, loving relationship, that they were boyfriends, it was so far from the truth. They had an agreement based off mutual convenience. Quaxo had a fleeting interest in guys, Tugger was interested in everything but both were too busy with their careers in the media to pursue any real relationships, not that Tugger would want to anyway. So, instead of trying to find comfort at seedy bars with whoever was interested, they did all the typical 'couple' things together. It was rarely ever sexual, Tugger liked having someone to perch on his lap and eat bad food with him, Quaxo liked watching bad television while being perched on someone's lap, it was a great match.
"You know who's coming," Tugger's face was hidden but Quaxo knew his brow was furrowed with concern, "I want to prove that I've been a big grown up. That I'm not a complete idiot."
"You're not a complete idiot," the smaller man said gently, "Are you really that scared that he's coming?"
Tugger grumbled in reply.
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"Here we are."
It was unnervingly quiet. The blonde girl held her jacket close to her and looked at her brother's house that stood proudly in the street, the lights were on and there was the faint buzz of people talking but they were the only indications that there was a party going on. Victoria didn't know what she was expecting, perhaps she wanted people to be falling out of windows and drunken girls outside scrapping so a normal house in a normal London neighbourhood was pretty anti climatic.
"Ready?" her room mate prompted, her lips turned up into a little smile.
((A/N: Ew. This wasn't meant to be a cliffhanger but it kind of turned into one ^^' I'm really enjoying writing the characters like this! I hope it's not too cheesy and as always if you have any notes then please feel free to tell me them c: ))