Chapter Text
Douxie walked through the streets of England. As he walked, he looked at every door and window, desperate to see a sign that said they needed someone to work there, desperate for money so he could at least eat.
He missed Archie. His familiar had insisted on staying in France. Douxie wanted to settle down for at least a century, but Archie wanted to see more of the world, so they agreed that they would meet in the beginning of the next century at the same place they had parted ways.
He finally found a place that was hiring, it wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but he really needed the money.
He walked in and was instantly hit by the smell of alcohol and sweat, the sound of forced laughter and faint sounds of something he didn't quite want to think about.
He walked up to the counter where a woman looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Aren't you young to be here, lad?" She asked with an accent Douxie couldn't quite say where it was from.
"I saw you needed someone to serve drinks," he answered and she immediately smiled.
"Yes!" She exclaimed, straightening her back and walking around the counter so she could stand right in front of the boy. "But I must ask, how old are you?"
"I'm nineteen." It was a lie, he was a few centuries older, but he stopped aging at nineteen.
"Well, you're old enough, come on," she told him with a small shrug.
She gestured for him to follow, and so he did. They came into the main room and she led him to the bar.
He looked around and saw how there were girls, wearing barely more than a corset, everywhere, and men with loose ties and messy hair couldn't take their eyes off of those girls. Not the environment Douxie had aimed for, but he didn't really care, and there was a positive side to this, most of these establishments offered a room, but he wasn't sure if it was just for the girls or if it was for everyone.
"Okay, this is Carlos, his english is not the best, but he knows enough to tell you what to do," the owner of this place said. She seemed to remember something, and so she added, "oh, sometimes some men with... unusual tastes will stare at you or even try and grab you, but you won't take them into your room unless they offer a large amount of money and give it to you beforehand, this might even never happen, but just in case it does, you're warned, and afterwards, you will give me half of the money and you can do whatever you want with the rest."
"So I will be given a room?" He asked, trying to ignore the possibility of being chosen as if he were one of those girls.
"Well, unless you already live somewhere, yes, you'll have your own bedroom here," she explained, as if she was tired of explaining that, "I will leave you to it, Carlos can teach you everything you need to know. Oh, and here is the key to your room, it's upstairs the last door to the left." Without time for even a breath, she dropped the key in his hand and left.
Douxie walked up to the man he assumed was Carlos, since he was the only one standing behind the bar.
"Hi, are you Carlos?" Douxie asked as he walked up to the man.
"Mhm," he replied simply as he poured another drink and pushed it in the direction of one of the girls who was sitting in front of him.
Carlos had dark brown hair and eyes that matched. He was what could only be descrived as compact, he was kind of chubby and quite short. He looked like your tipical portuguese guy, and since his name was Carlos, Douxie assumed he was indeed portuguese.
"The lady at the entrance said you'd tell me what to do," Douxie told him, and so the man turned to him and sighed, along with his sigh, something thqt was probably a curse word came out of his mouth, but Douxie didn't quite understand it.
"So, I pour the glasses, you take them into the tray and you distribute them, if someone wants a specific drink, they come to me, you just need to walk around," he explained with a thick accent, but Douxie nodded.
Carlos handed him the tray and started putting drinks there.
"Okay this one is whiskey, this champagne, this rum, and this is..." he furrowed his eyebrows, probably forgot what it was called, "foda-se como é que se diz vinho." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You understand what vinho is?"
"It's wine, isn't it?" Douxie asked back, just to confirm, and when the other nodded he nodded back.
"Okay, you're ready then. But just one more thing. Come a bit closer," he said, looking around with a concerned look, so Douxie cautiously took a step towards Carlos, who put a hand on his shoulder. "You're good looking, if someone, let's say different, comes by, don't make eye contact and don't speak near them, only talk when they ask you something that can't be answered by anyone else."
"How will I know if they're different?" Douxie asked, a bit more nervous than when he came in.
"They don't hide it here, they will stare and you will know," Carlos answered before he went back to serving drinks and gesturing for Douxie to go do his job too.
He grabbed the tray and started walking around the room. He didn't really care about the half naked girls, he had lived so many centuries that even if they were completely it wouldn't quite bother him, besides, he was one of those different people that Carlos had mentioned, but he did try to hide it, he knew it wasn't well seen in these days.
He hadn't felt anyone staring at him and he had been walking around for about an hour. His feet were starting to hurt.
He went back to fill his tray again and Carlos just put lots of drinks there and nodded to him.
He was back to walking around.
As he served drinks to an older man and his friends, the door opened, and he felt eyes on him.
Shit.
He went to the other side of the room, trying to get away from whoever was looking at him, but the man just kept getting closer, and now Douxie had cornered himself.
He looked at the ground as the man grabbed a drink. He didn't look at the man's face, but his hand was hairy and he had sausage fingers with dirt underneath his nails, at least Douxie hoped it was dirt.
The man had been about to ask Douxie something when Carlos approached, with a wet rag in his hands.
"You're not allowed to be here," Carlos said simply, and the man turned.
"Oh, come on, I just want some fun," the man answered, getting closer to Douxie, cornering himself even further.
"If your idea of fun is almost killing every drink boy we hire, then you most definitely can't be here," Carlos said, starting to twist the wet rag.
"It only happened once," the man tried to argue, but Carlos hit him with the rag.
"And once is enough, andor, vá," he replied, switching to portuguese as he hit the man with the rag again. (Go, go on)
The man reluctantly left, still glancing at Douxie.
"Pára de olhar para ele, senão levas com outro trapo encharcado nas ventas, cabrão!" Carlos yelled and the man just threw him a middle finger before he finally left. (Stop looking at him or I'll hit you with the rag in the face, motherfucker)
"He almost killed someone?" Douxie asked as Carlos turned around to check he was okay.
"Yeah, he gets violent." And without even another glance, Carlos was going back to the bar.
And so Douxie kept walking around.
A few more hours went by and people started leaving, but there was a pair of eyes that wouldn't leave Douxie.
The owner of that pair of eyes was a good looking man, he was blonde and had grey eyes. He couldn't be older than twenty five.
But he didn't try to approach Douxie, when he saw the boy looking at him, the man got up and left, but not before sending Douxie a small smile.
He still felt eyes on him. He ignored the feeling and kept walking.
As he passed by a group of young men who had already gone past what they should've been drinking, one of them grabbed his arm and before Douxie could react, he was sitting on that young men's lap with arms around his waist.
"You know," he said, his voice slurred, "my friends and I have this bet, we said that if one of us can get you into a bed, it would be me," he said and he moved his mouth closer to Douxie's ear, but Douxie tried to act as if he was calm, he was told this was part of the job. The young man spoke again, "what if we went upstairs and you let me win this bet?"
"Do you have the money?" Douxie asked softly, doing his best to make his voice come out that way instead of shaky.
"Well, no, I'll have it after the bet, but my friends have it," he answered and Douxie attempted to get up, but the other's hand around his wouldn't budge.
"How much was that bet?" He asked.
"Around three shillings," one of the friends answered.
"I'm sorry, but I can't accept that," he replied and tried to get up again, but the arms wouldn't budge.
"Oh, come on, I never win bets, let me have just this one. And you'll like it, I swear, I've been told I'm quite talented," the man insisted.
"And I've told you no." he tried to get up once again, and once again he couldn't. He had sworn he wouldn't use magic, but he couldn't help it when his hands started to heat up to the point where they burned and the man finally took his arms away from Douxie.
He got up and straightened his clothes before he started to walk again, but he still caught the insult thrown at him, "whore!" The man had exclaimed, but Douxie just kept walking.
And for the rest of the night, he felt no more eyes on him as he served the drinks.
When everyone had left, he helped Carlos tidy up the bar as the girls who had been left downstairs cleaned up the rest of the room.
He was about to go upstairs to sleep, when the lady from the entrance walked up to him.
"So, will you be staying?" She asked hopeful.
"I think I will," he replied with a polite smile and the woman couldn't help herself and hugged him lightly, she barely touched him, but it was a hug nonetheless.
He hadn't quite liked the job, it was a bit intense to be in that room, but he needed the money, and he was hoping to see that blonde man again, he had seemed different from the others, he had seemed caring, but most of all, he had seemed mysterious.
"Oh, I'm happy to hear that," she told him, still with a smile. "You can go rest, I'll help Carlos."
He thanked her and went upstairs. Last room at the left.
As he stepped inside the room, he noticed it had a bed, big enough for two people, with floral sheets. He didn't think about what might've been done in that bed, he just layed down and let himself drift off into a peaceful sleep.