Ainsley laughed as he finished sweeping up around the bar, Mason smiling at him with that proud little smirk the young always got when they'd managed to out-clever an elder or a slightly elevated peer. The topic at the moment wasn't anything heavy --- no morality discussions, no weighted talk of a rivalry that stretched back eras. The current conversation centered heavily around the patrons on the dance floor, and the desperation leaking out of some of them, as evidenced by their wardrobe choices and dancing partners.
Mason had come to the club quite a bit after that first night. There seemed to be no pattern to his visits, not one that Ainsley could yet discern, but a total of five or six nights over the course of the last fifteen days. And though Ainsley wasn't always available to talk to the kid, depending on his duties, he usually found a few moments here and there to make contact. To check in.
He found himself unexpectedly quite fond of the kid, and while he hadn't been looking to shape a young mind away from the fears and prejudices their kinds had against one another, he found himself rather doing exactly that, on the nights extended conversations could take place.
Ainsley deftly swept a straw from the sticky floor to his long-handled dust pan, and looked across to the dance floor once more. "I don't know, mate. Seems to me like she's the one---"
"McDeere," called one of the bartenders. "Bloody hell, flirt later. Joshua's looking."
Ainsley didn't look for the manager, but he stretched his senses as he swept up a few more times, needlessly. And yes, he could pick out the man's heartbeat among the din, on the other side of the bar. "Gotta go," he said quietly to Mason. "Maybe they'll put me on bar duty in an hour, if it picks up."