houseofcards_rp | [ota] sleeping under strange skies

He's ready for this. Of course he's ready for this.

He wouldn't be here if he weren't ready. Holló wouldn't have sent him through without being prepared. This isn't, after all, the sort of place a person gets sent without it being purposeful. Even the people who wander here 'by chance' are the people who need to be here, he's been told.

So it's the right time for Aleksei Volkov to be stepping out into the cold sunlight barely warming the walls of the Castle Spades, newly minted and processed and told he'll have to start working his way up from Two now.

The few things he'd brought with him have been settled into the cramped quarters he'll be sharing with a few other recent arrivals. What's stuck from his grandmother means he'll be starting off under the apparently quite severe Spade kitchen staff.

Hopefully it isn't the end of the world that he needs to pause when he's sent out to Town to pick up a few extra bottles of truffle oil and vanilla extract. Hopefully being 'ready for this' doesn't mean he can't take a moment--take a deep breath--as he lets settle into his bones the fact that he's here.

{ooc; He can be bumped into at the castle or being lost in Town. Also tag plz?}

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"Yeah, I figured. Only the Chiveses have that anal retentive handwriting." Well, there weren't any around here to throw stones at him. He took a sip of his drink before offering his free hand.

"Michael. Usually in the Spades' batcave. Don't you drink?"

He had only been on Deck since the morning, it was true, but his head already snapped up slightly to glance over his shoulders when the Chives name was mentioned. It came quickly, apparently.

It took a second to realize he should juggle the glass into one hand and reach for a slightly nervous shaking. "Not-- really, no. It has only been half a year, yes?"

"Half a year of what?" he asked with a headtilt as he leaned back against the bar counter, looking slightly confused. Hopefully he didn't mean he'd already been here for half a year. Michael hadn't encountered him so far, and half a year in the Chiveses' grasp would drive anyone insane.

"Since I-- started."

He lifted the glass with the tiniest bit of a grin. It would be best, he knew even now, to learn to hold things in--to play them close to the chest. For now? There's still no real stopping the little smile.

"To be allowed into bars, back-- home."

Michael laughed and waved a hand. He wasn't about to start taking up the mantle of the Fun Police.

"Yeah, and you've not touched a single drop until you were legally allowed to, right?" he said with a few knowing nods.

"Maybe that's a bit strong for you, then. What are you doing for the rest of the day?"

That earned a tiny bit of a snort and duck of his head. "Not-- without grandmother watching."

And for all he was now sixteen, he was clearly still feeling a bit of that loss. It seemed a good a time as any to attempt a sip of the drink. To cough slightly around the bourbon as well, clearly.

"Back to the kitchen, I think. It doesn't-- seem they like to allow us time off?"

"I see." He didn't ask about whether grandmother was here, or how she was doing. Those were questions to be saved for their next encounter.

"Do you like working in the kitchen?" he queried in his casual, lighthearted tone. He could probably save the boy from the Chiveses' evil clutches and sentence himself to another hundred years of Iollan's contemptuous glare.

Another sip was cautiously taken. This one went down just a bit more smoothly, although not without another bit of a cough.

"It... is a traditional start here, isn't it?" And that couldn't be a bad thing, not if so many Spades had come up that way. "I've spoken to--"

And there's the tiniest bit of a pause. Jordan had said not to call him 'Mister,' and Michael didn't seem like a Spade to demand it. It still didn't yet feel right not to use an honourific.

"--to Mister Novak, about possibly moving to filing instead."

"We don't always subject everyone to the Chiveses." There wouldn't be many Spades left if that were the case. Most wilted under the tall blond army's exacting standards, and didn't perceive them to be strict but fair in their demands.

"If Jordan doesn't come through, I have a job open for you in about two weeks. We need a new intern down in accounts. Even if you decide that isn't what you want for the long-term, we'll send you on some courses so you'll have some transferable skills to go where you want to be." It was indeed possible that for every ten Chiveses there was one nice Spade - if you knew where to look. Though, granted, you probably wouldn't find the bulk of them in a Clubs-owned restaurant.

It was reassuring that he didn't need to stick to the kitchens. It was doubly reassuring that two of the Spades he'd met so far had offered him outs to escape into clerical work almost right off the bat. Clearly survival here wouldn't be as completely desperate as everyone had made it out to be.

It certainly had something almost like a smile cracking at the corners of Aleksei's lips as he shrugged. "Maybe I'll be just as bad at the accounts as at picking out the right cinnamon."

"You'll be fine," Michael reassured as he replaced the glass down onto the counter behind him. If the waiter fumbling by the kitchen door before heading over towards them was anything to go by, the oils had been bottled and were ready to go.

"Try to hang in there in the meantime, young man."

It would be best to properly finish off his own drink before leaving. It was also obviously not happening, because the attempt to chug absolutely came with another bout of coughing around the alcohol.

"It is all that can be done." The glass was set down carefully on the counter to make proper carrying space in his arms for the oils. "And-- thank you, Mister Michael."

Erring on the side of caution, Jordan had said.

[ota] sleeping under strange skies

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