Who: Midna & Revy What: Midna's taking responsibility over The Rear End, and Revy gives her dating advice (jfc) When: Tonight Where: The Rear End Rating/Warnings: Medium/High for terrible mentions of people doing terrible things, like phallic swordfighting Status: Complete!
In gold short-shorts, fishnets, and a corset top, with glitter cascading through waves of fiery hair, Midna didn’t look like your typical professional. But things had been getting weird at the club lately; management was kind of a tornado wreck after certain bank accounts were emptied thanks to some unfortunate drug habits. Government spook agencies were after a couple of the girls for tax evasion, one bartender recently walked out, and then of course that one asshole bouncer with a tendency to call in sick more than should be appropriate - leaving everyone else to scramble. Somehow, at her young age, Midna had become a senior dancer, that queen bee role, and one of the few actually capable of getting shit together. She hired new girls to work at the club and was in the process of interviewing bartenders - in the midst of it, she was trying to find time to dance in between it all.
Weren’t strippers supposed to like, not have any responsibility? This was a little crazy.
But whatever. Tonight she had another interview scheduled, another would-be bartender to replace the one who’d quit - and things were pretty busy, the girls working hard to earn those tips. The lights in the club didn’t really bother her (the daytime was a different story - sunlight was unforgiving) so she didn’t need her shades but she’d quickly found a pair of brown contacts to make her irises look muddy, and not so...red. Generally patrons weren’t paying attention to her eyes anyway, but for interviews, she needed to not look creepy.
There were a few minutes to spare so she went to the bar to grab herself a quick dinner - a pathetic excuse for one too. Martini olives, orange wedges, cherries, all on a napkin. But she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and she was hungry, sue her.
Oh my fuck, did that even count as food? “Don’t tell me you’re getting anorexic on me,” huffed Revy, the Bouncer on Duty. It wasn’t her main gig but sometimes she’d get called in to fill, and while she didn’t necessarily fall into the category of ‘big burly muscle’ they knew she could handle some assholes in a fight, no questions asked. Did even a better job than most, and while she didn’t really get all the girly crap that went in the routine of beautifying a pole dancer, she still was personable with the girls. They all had tits. They had to stick together.
Cigarette lit, a beer already in her hands (the rules around here were pretty lax and as long as you didn’t cross the shitfaced line, you were golden), she slipped onto the stool next to Midna. Usually she looked a bit rough, but today she wore black jeans that looked new and her typical sleeveless something for a shirt - had to show off that ink, after all. “If you’re hungry I would have gotten your lanky ass a goddam burger. The fuck are you doing anyway?”
Lanky? Oh hell, that was like so not even a compliment, was it? Still, Midna smirked, and popped a cherry into her mouth - holding the stem so it came off, which she twirled in between her fingers. She grinned, a flash of teeth in the hazy, smoky air of the club, cutting through. “Hell no, I like food too much,” she scoffed, and that was true. She usually watched what she ate for a few reasons, one of which was that the aerodynamics of being lighter were easier on a pole (and because being drooled over on stage, fantasized about, acting out the role of some big spender’s dream girl meant that she couldn’t let herself go) but generally wasn’t micromanaging about her caloric intake.
“Why, did you bring pineapple pizza again? Or are you offering burgers? Because I could go for a burger.” Midna sighed, smoothing her napkin of goodies. “After this fucking interview. When did I become important around here?”
A couple of the girls had some damn questionable ‘eating habits’ (which involved shoveling food into their mouth and then sticking their heads in the toilet), so Revy had some concern for the sanest one of them all. Still, for a shithole like this Midna had a good head on her shoulders and hadn’t been caught injecting heroin between her toes. So far, so good. “No pizza, but I’ll get you a burger later so you’re not passed out somewhere,” Revy chuckled around her cigarette, then dusted the ashes into the nearest tray.
Soreness rung through her bones - it’d been awhile since she went out, all guns blazing - and she cracked her back with a wince. “I dunno, probably since you’re one of the few that hasn’t gotten arrested for prostitution? Someone needs to be kinda sober to run this business, you seem to have the only sense for it.” A cloud of smoke came out with her sigh, and she spun around in her stool some before she leaned her back against the bar so she could face the rest of the club, eyes surveying the shenanigans. “Responsibility fucking sucks, doesn’t it?”
Running a business. That was some scary shit, wasn’t it? Midna was so unaccustomed to the idea - she practically froze like a deer in headlights at the prospect, thanks to that somewhat low self-esteem she kept locked away in a sealed vault. It had manifested when she ran away rather than face potentially shaming her family with certain situations that had really just blown up in her face. From then on, she’d worked simple jobs. Menial jobs. Jobs that were meant for expendable people who just wanted to be paid in cash, stay hidden, and not necessarily make a career out of anything.
But things were changing. She’d obviously been changing a lot, since she’d started to dream, and it was almost natural. If she didn’t stop to think about it too much.
“Yeah, it sure does,” she laughed grimly. “I’d like to say I’m not ready for this, but I don’t know. Maybe I can actually ‘be someone,’” she had to put air quotes around the words, because it sounded ridiculous. Especially to personal life coach Revy, most likely, who in her own way warned against the temptation of turning to the porn industry to pay the bills. “Who that is, beats me. What about you, edit anything interesting lately?” A bite from the orange wedge was taken, not so daintily.
Well, hey, if she could handle the responsibility - why the fuck not? Personally, Revy was more comfortable taking orders. Most of the time she needed someone to point and direct, give her a command, keep her chained when it wasn’t appropriate to let her loose. She’d be a shit boss. “You’re already someone, dipshit,” she snorted, her voice forever harsh-sounding. “You don’t need to be the brains behind a strip joint to be validated but if that’s what gets you going, then by all fucking means. Do whatever it takes to make you happy in the pants.” Some people got off being normal, others needed a bit more excitement - something raunchy, something bloody, something interesting with their lives.
So sometimes she could provide some worldly insight. Revy’s road in life was filled with landmines and rusty spikes but fuck it, she’d do it again, over and over. Even prison. At least she knew what to expect there - she’d forgotten how unpredictable the outside world was. “But nope, nothing worth noting. Just a bunch of cocks going into a bunch of assholes. I’m so sick of anal, ugh.” It was all low-budget productions, you didn’t need to have a fucking degree to splice scenes together and play with a little sound. “I don’t get paid enough, but hey - I had a really fucking funny ‘dream memory’ thing about being an S&M dancer, the winnings for that weren’t half bad. There was whipping involved.”
Not that she’d do it here, fuck that - she couldn’t stand the idea of a bunch of fuckbags making grabby hands at her tits even though there was a ‘hands off’ policy. Some shitbags didn’t know how to read, or just didn’t care.
It was true, some club patrons got handsy with the dancers too - even in the private rooms, the shows where full nudity happened in those closed off areas in the back, they thought because they shelled out the big bucks they could get a little something extra. Hell no. Midna was quick to set them straight, but goddamn, it really annoyed the fuck out of her sometimes. The whole place sort of reeked of shade too, which didn’t help. People who came in to the Rear End weren’t exactly ‘upstanding citizens.’
She had to snort a laugh at how Revy was sick of anal, however. “Cocks in assholes, yeah, I think I’ll pass,” she said, tossing the orange rind in the trash and starting in on the olives. So classy. “Pass on anything going up my ass and pass on cocks in general, thanks.” There was some appreciation but you know. Pretty much not interested. “You’ve got the right look for S&M dancer...”
A thoughtful squint at Revy, with sludgy brown eyes, dark in the dim UFO lights of the club, constantly flashing. “But I’m sure you’d wanna kill everyone in the club. God knows I have my moments here of wanting to. Swear I might just, I dunno, go back to school or something. Night school.” Midna the Book Nerd. Yeah, right. Zelda would die from shock.
Christ, was that a compliment? Revy passed the sweet sight of her middle finger to the newest boss lady of The Rear End - not like she knew what happened to the actual manager of the shithole, but if Midna was doing interviews and calling the ropes, she’d get the title of ‘boss lady’ from her. “Yeah, I’d shoot this place up like fireworks,” she promised, amber eyes narrowing at the thought. Blech. Time to smother the last of her cigarette. It hissed faintly in the ash tray.
At Midna’s interest in shit like school, that glare was blinked away and she gave Glitter Hair a suspicious glance. “School,” she deadpanned. “You fucking serious? You’ll end up tits-deep in student loans and dancing on a pole will probably get you more money than working at a fucking bank or something.” It was the questionable jobs that gleaned the most profit and Revy, as always, was very money oriented. She trusted money, she trusted guns - made the world go ‘round and ‘round. “That blonde piece of ass you make kissy faces at rubbing off on you?”
“Maybe I could get a scholarship or something?” Midna rubbed her forehead, but her tone was a little disbelieving in her ability to do that. Not unless strings were pulled, or voodoohoodoo was cast. She didn’t really have the grades before, when she was being tutored privately, home-schooled because she was too ‘famous’ to be in a public setting (ha, whatever), since she foolishly thought that everything was all hunky dory. She could just buy her way to anywhere; money really did get the good green Earth to spin. But now? Who the fuck would give her a scholarship, what respectable college?
None. That was who. A cold, hard truth to face.
At the question about the ‘blonde piece of ass,’ she nearly choked on an olive. Cough, cough cough. “Probably.” Midna made a face, going behind the bar to rummage for a bottled water - and not pay an exorbitant price for it, thanks. “She’s actually doing shit with her life. I mean, hell, she could be owning a multi-million dollar company pretty soon here. And still be dating or sometimes fucking a stripper? Yeah, right.”
It was the thought of Zelda realizing she could do better than gutter trash, fallen starlet Midna that lit a fire under her ass. Somewhat - partially her dreams too. But she was afraid, and change was a big deal.
Ohhhhhhh, yeaaaaaaaaah. Scholarships were a fucking thing, weren’t they? Revy had dropped out early, never bothered pursuing a formal education and why the fuck would she? Everything she ever needed to know about the world, the way life worked, what really made people tick (power) was learned from the filthy gutters she grew up in. A ghetto rat created by the system and shitty parenting. Go figure. It’d been the same in these ‘alternate life’ dreams but she didn’t have the nads to fucking kill her own father, so maybe she had a chance for some sort of sanity here. “Look, if you think you’re gonna be fucking dandy living it up like a college student, do what you gotta do. Just sayin’, I hear most people that end up with degrees don’t even do shit with them and end up flipping burgers anyway. Or back on the pole.”
But, hey, the attempt was at least admirable - Revy was too set in her ways to be anything else, but Midna wasn’t so deep into the cesspool. Lady Long Legs had a chance. Especially if she was nursing a serious fucking crush (judging by the near-death by olives bit). “Sounds like you’ve got a sugar mama that would pay for your schooling eventually - unless you think she’s going to get a stick up her ass and go find some Old Money jackass and bone him instead,” she smirked, tilting the beer bottle against her mouth for an unladylike chug.
Midna’s insecurity was a little easy to detect, yeah. And Revy’s view was a mixture of realism and just fucked up cynicism, depending on the subject. She’d like to tell the girl ‘yeah, go for it, do the thing’ but her gut had always screeched ‘fuck that and trust no one.’
God, the idea of Zelda paying for Midna’s schooling nearly had her choking again. It was a sweet concept and all, but she wasn’t a charity case (as she had drilled in, or tried to, over and over again) and she’d feel like she owed Z for that. For the rest of her life. “No fucking way, if I’m gonna do it - “ Midna straightened her shoulders, stubborn, she was a bull who saw that telltale flash of red, “...then I’ll figure out a way to pay for it on my own. Can’t be too hard. Maybe.”
Except that college was fucking expensive, not just the tuition. But the books and the...everything else. Even buying a whole new wardrobe because, let’s face it, nothing in her closet was appropriate for a classroom. As for her gut, ‘fuck that and trust no one’ had been what drove the wedge between her and Zelda the first time. Midna would sooner eat her own toenails than let that happen again.
“Man, relationships are lame.” Pout, pout. “I want to do something nice for her though. Like take her out for a fun night. That’s what people do for each other when someone’s kinda going through a weird time, right?”
“Well, whatever you do,” she chuckled roughly, pausing to light another cigarette between her lips. A couple puffs and the ember slowly spread up, a slow burn of white paper. “Just don’t end up on my edit screen. I’ll bend you over my knee and spank you in non-pornagraphic ways, ya got me?” Revy didn’t want to see Midna’s tits and cooch plastered all over the internet for wanking purposes, and if college helped with that then fuck it, by all means, swim in debt and develop uncontrollable anxiety over finals.
The things people do for love. Or whatever she and Goldilocks had.
The nicotine simmered in her system a bit while her head cocked, and she made a face like she swallowed something unpleasantly sour. “You’re pretty much asking me for fucking dating advice. But, uh, yeah, I guess. I hear sex makes people feel better to but if you want to add a couple flowers and a box of chocolates, go for it. I’m sure she’d probably like a night where men aren’t giving you a case of the fucking rape-eyes.”
The sad thing was, Midna was totally asking Revy for dating advice. But she really didn’t have anyone else to ask, come to think of it. Maybe a couple of her girlfriends - but Caroline had just gone through a messy breakup, and she could ask Navi but at least with Revy she’d get start, honest advice. A take on things that lacked gilded edges, which was what she was after anyway.
And the subsequent advice made her laugh, covering her mouth her hand so she didn’t accidentally spray water in a shower everywhere. “Should have known better than to drink while you were talking,” Midna chuckled. “Definitely not ruling out the sex after the date night, but yeah, flowers and chocolate...I could do that. So she doesn’t have to worry about business things or her job or whatever other fuckery there is to be concerned with.” Eh, you know. All that adult shit.
She patted Revy on the shoulder. “Your advice isn’t half bad.”
Blink. Blinkblink. Bliiiiiiiiiink. “Damn,” she breathed, suddenly very impressed with herself. “I should write my own column.” Revy couldn’t give relationship advice for shit, considering she’d never really been in one - people could argue that she was too emotionally stunted for something that involved compromise and selflessness. Not that she hated men, but her experiences were far in between - either a couple casual nights that were never to be spoken of ever again, or the kind of unfortunate encounters done by force from those in positions of authority.
Bah Humbug.
“Your cute little lovelife aside, you, uh…” A motion to Midna’s own self with a wave of her cigarette, a trail of smoke following it. “You gonna be good? With the shit that’s going on with you? What if you turn into an alien?”
Or whatever the fuck dream!Midna was. It’d be a little hard working with the public and not looking human, was what Revy was trying to so eloquently express.
Right now, Midna looked normal. But she wasn’t an idiot. She knew that the red eyes and lack of reflection, and shadow, were just the first step. Obviously, more change would come - because Orange County wasn’t that nice, to allow her to stay relatively human. “I won’t turn into an alien,” she laughed, but that was just semantics. “I’m...I don’t know what to call it exactly. The Twili are a whole other race, in a whole other world...”
She held out her arms, that light mocha color. Cafe au lait. “I bet I’m gonna turn blue at some point, no lie. And have all my tribal tattoos. So I guess I’ll have to come up with something. Shapeshifting, maybe...” If she ever got her magic here. That might be handy, instead of being a powerless freak.
Maybe not an alien, but definitely into fucking something with the path these dreams had put her in. That’s where Revy felt like she could count her lucky stars; she knew she’d stay human in her dreams, all they were about was the shady life of being someone of questionable morals. And modern day pirates. Kinda exciting aside from the severe childhood trauma, but hey, she’d take whatever.
“Tats would be pretty kickass - the blue part? Maybe weave it into your exotic dance routine. Don’t you guys have bodypainting nights or some shit?” Yes, this was Revy’s attempt at trying to be helpful and not just the rude and usual ‘sucks to be you’ routine.
And that’s when someone of interesting hair color choices - the kind where it looked like the rainbow regurgitated on her hair - and some equally interesting facial piercings approached, smacking bubblegum in that obnoxious sort of manner. The deliverer of there’s a problem. “So the biker’s are having a sword fight with their penises in the restroom and scaring off the other dudes.”
“Can’t you see we’re fucking talking here, you fucking little pony?” Revy’s glare boiled. Rainbow Brite may have cowered, a little bit. “And stop chewing your damn gum like that, you’re not a goddamn Brooklyn hairdresser.”
“I’m telling human resources about you! You’re a mean cupcake!”
Midna rolled her eyes at the cud-smacking rainbow cow who had interrupted the conversation. “Yeah, yeah, run along now,” she shooed her off - because really, those piercings were tacky and likely infected. You had to take care of them, okay. Obviously someone failed that portion, or didn’t know what soap and water actually was.
She glanced back at Revy, and flashed her an impish sort of grin. “I better get going, since my interview’s almost here - but don’t worry, I’ll send someone in to tell Road Kill to put his dick away.” Midna had some pull, at least. With the club staff and with the biker gang. They weren’t bad tippers!
“Ugh, I’ll do it,” Revy miserably volunteered, ditched the remainder of her cigarette and tossed the beer away. Time to adjust those tight-as-fuck pants and make sure her nipples weren’t showing. She was here to enforce the rules and make sure the unruly backed the fuck down, right? These biker dudes were good clientele, just acted like they were five years old sometimes but she could handle it. “Better earn my paycheck, boss lady.”
Since that’s what she was right now, technically. Revy sneered and patted Midna’s back. “Good luck. As long as you don’t hire someone like that fuckwit,” a reference to Rainbow Brite, “I think you got this.”
Now time to scold grown men in leather about waving their cocks around, jesus fucking christ.