After Hours [Open]

I recognize the look in his eyes, the way he's reflecting my belittled opinion of him right back at me. It's fun, seeing through to his obvious mind and I've made this so easy for him, whiskey in hand and the words LOW CLASS practically tattooed across my forehead. There were days, years even, when I hated the parts of my life people can see just by glancing at me, but whoring myself out to a rich sadist and my stint with the Moreno family has stripped that idiot greed from me. Almost completely. I used to want money and some backwards concept of status more than my own family, friends, and self-respect. Once upon a time I might even have secretly swooned a little for that white uniform of his for exactly that reason.

Of course, then I killed a guy, became a fugitive, seduced myself a heartbreaking stalker, went all Bonnie-without-Clyde and ransacked a Capitol train, wound up a lab rat in the world's most fucked up medical study experiment, was thrown into a Community Home after serving time in the Detention Center, got adopted by the Morenos who wanted me to practice my murder skills on my cutthroat new siblings, was Reaped, let Kiera Dempsey volunteer to die in my place, which started a gang war of raging Morenos versus my streetrat army of childhood friends, and somewhere along the way I stopped romanticizing the people who think I'm worth less than the contents of their trashcans and remembered that I am Queen of the Slums and fuck you all, because I've got more swag in my tin can crown than money could ever buy.

And those are just a few of the highlights.

He attempts to insult me and fails. I'm not entirely certain if it's because we're both in too good of a mood for genuine malice or if he's just mostly harmless in general, but either way my smile doesn't falter for even a moment. "Good. Underestimate me, please. I get off on destroying expectations —" A lewd hand gesture accompanies my smart-mouthed retort, because what's the use of drinking whiskey where everyone can see me if I'm not going to take advantage of the way assumptions of drunkenness somehow make it acceptable for me to do just about anything I want. "— and some people get off on the idea of being under me, so it works out pretty well for everyone, don't you think? And that," Despite the implications of my words, enough of my earlier sarcasm lingers in my voice to keep the edges soft and joking, a dimple flickering within one of the creases that halo my smile, "that's why we're all winners here."

Holding the whiskey bottle out to him, a fleeting kind of curiosity wonders how many people in this world have looked me right in the eye like this and seen past the obvious. "Would you and your fancy suit like to take a victory shot?" That same curiosity also finds itself wondering how many of those people, just like him, I've looked back at and witnessed depth within.

Nearly no one, I think, but at least nearly isn't nothing.