CALCIFER XU, DISTRICT NINE

✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Graphics 5,831 POSTS Pronouns: they/them last seen Apr 17, 2024 14:37:45 GMT -5 “And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck	CALCIFER XU, DISTRICT NINE Nov 6, 2014 0:26:52 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Nov 6, 2014 0:26:52 GMT -5 CALCIFER XU SEVENTEEN MALE BARTENDER
	Last Edit: Nov 10, 2014 2:03:57 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ compendium / avriel clown car / pietro 2022 tracker / 2023 tracker / 2024 tracker

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“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

CALCIFER XU, DISTRICT NINE Nov 6, 2014 3:29:15 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Nov 6, 2014 3:29:15 GMT -5

Mom never asked me to get a part time job. I got one because she had wanted to keep me comfortable and happy so badly that I found out just how in debt we were when I came home one day to a kitchen table covered in I.O.U's and messages asking for payment from near everyone in the goddamn district.

I knew that times had gotten tough without Dad around but she hadn't ever really let on just how tough. She kept it hidden for a long ass time anyway, it's been nearly five years now since they took him away. I always measure it by Teddy's birthday. They took Dad away about a month after his tenth and the kid's just turned fifteen. A couple weeks from now it'll be the fifth year anniversary of the night that they dragged my father out onto the front lawn and tore his tongue out, no trial, no reason, nothing. Mom and I didn't know what had hit us but it felt a hell of a lot like a train. I was twelve.

Mom had wanted me to stay in school. Sixth grade didn't really seem all that important anymore but she'd worked hard to make sure I stayed there and so I went. A week after they took Dad I was back in class, in my usual desk, wearing my usual clothing, chewing on the end of my usual pencil. The triplets were making even more of a fuss than regular. They knew about Dad- of course they did, the whole damned District did. They tried to cheer me up. I smiled for their sake, so they wouldn't worry.

Mom said that Dad was still alive, so I could shut my eyes at night and think of him and he could do the same. When I was younger I thought that was a good thing. Now that I'm older I know that it's worse. My Dad is a slave in the Capitol, if he's even still alive, and there isn't anything I can do to save him, not if I want to keep Mom safe too. When I was thirteen I wanted to get myself Avoxed too so that I could find Dad and bring him home. I'd tell Mom I was going to go hang out with the triplets but instead I'd look for ways to get into trouble. It didn't last long. I lacked conviction and they shot Mrs. Seraphim a month or two after I'd reached my decision to find Dad. I couldn't leave nine after that, not if I'd even wanted to. Everyone around me was sad and grieving.

My father would be better off dead too instead of being stuck in hell.

Tate, Tripp and Teva stopped coming to school after their mom died. I was thirteen years old and sitting in my eight grade classroom, wishing I could join them but knowing that my mom wanted me in school. I had to do my best because that was what she wanted. It made me angry. With no one to knock me out of my moods anymore, I fell into them quickly and for long periods of time. If I wanted to have someone around to make me laugh I had to go seek out Teddy, who Tate refused to let drop out too. He wasn't in the mood for much smiling either. We'd eat lunch together in silence most times. I'd ask about the triplets. He'd ask about my mom. Once I fell into such a rhythm that I almost asked after his. I bit my tongue so hard that I started bleeding.

I did better in class without the triplets around to distract me and goof off. My teacher was surprised at just how intelligent I actually was after a childhood spent slacking off. She decided to make a special case out of me and kept giving me harder assignments than the rest of the kids so I could 'make up for lost time'. I didn't have much else to do, the triplets were always busy those days, working to keep them in house and home I guess. So I just did whatever she threw at me. I liked the work. It helped me focus on more than the lack of warmth in my house and the silence that invaded when my mom was at one of her jobs.

In the winter it became too cold to not wear gloves inside the house too so I'd take my stuff over to the Seraphims and work on my essays there. It was often difficult to get work done despite it being always warm. I suppose they made sure it was never cold for Teddy and his heart. There'd always be at least one of the triplets around. If it was just one of them I could work and hold a conversation. Two or more and our conversations became heated debates that often ended up with us in a pile on the kitchen floor, wrestling.

Times like these stopped when I turned fourteen and found all those bills on the table. I didn't really have time to see the triplets and Teddy anymore. Not if I wanted to keep mom and I in house and home. I had to get a job but I had to stay in school to keep mom happy. She was adamant that I stay in class, she wanted to me to do great things one day. (I tried telling her that nobody from nine is ever going to make it far, not guys like me who come crawling out of shit holes everyday.)

It was that year that I decided to give up on ever seeing dad again too. In my heart, he's dead. I can't do anything to save him and he's stuck where he is too. We're never going to see each other again so I stopped hoping for it. I made a wooden cross and stuck it in the grave yard beside Grandad and Grandmom's. There's no body but it brought some sort of closure. Mom doesn't like it. She says he's still alive. I just don't want my dad going graveless.

I started out at the plastic factory down the street from my home. We'd get all kinds of things coming in to melt down and turn into luxury items for the capitol. A lot of the time it was just scraps of junk but every now and then wed get personal items. I used to think it was just other people's trash but I learned better when one of the items that came in was a bloodstained bracelet made with those plastic letter beads. What we were getting was items taken off of those that have been arrested and killed or avoxed.

My dad had been gone for two years, I wasn't expecting to see the bit of plastic that had been stamped with grandad's name on the conveyor belt. Dad had worn it around his neck because he'd loved his father and the plastic item was precious. It was still on the string that he'd worn it on. I didn't know what it meant. If they had simply avoxed him then, or if he'd died in prison, I didn't know. I still don't know. I took the necklace though and I quit that afternoon. I didn't want to look at the things left behind by the dead anymore.

I got another job. I was sixteen but it didn't matter for the establishment that I was applying for because I knew my looks would get me through. I've always had pretty looks. When I was little I hated it. People used to say that I took after my mother and would never even mention my dad. I've got his eyes though. Cold and sharp, they say. Whatever. My mom's features came in handy. They hired me at the nightclub as a dancer quickly enough, despite the fact that I'd never danced in my life. The owner liked my pretty features, said a lot of men go for that.

A lot of people think that all sex workers are female but that's because they're stupid. All you really need is a mouth and a body to work the trade. It wasn't a last resort either, that's a myth too. I needed a job that would allow me to still go to school and it turns out that 'working the pole and other odd jobs' is really good for that. The tips aren't bad either. It's only every other night too. I alternate between dancing and serving drinks. It doesn't mean I'm safe though, serving brings you very close to the customers. Once they've seen you sweating and half naked on stage once it doesn't take a lot for them to imagine it.

I guess it should bother me.

I like seeing my mom happy though. She's been able to drop one of her jobs because of the money I get. She thinks I'm working a night job in the warehouse, that the manager is a kind old guy that lets me work on homework in the long quiet hours of the night. It's true that my manager is a nice guy that lets me do homework during slow times, but it's a different job. I don't really see any reason to be ashamed but I've also kept it a secret so I guess I am.

There are benefits other than the cash too.

I've gotten pretty muscular from dancing. People don't believe that dancing takes all that much effort but it does. Pole dancing in particular is a work out and a half. I've really gotten fit since I started. It's not like I didn't have looks before I started but instead of being a half starved stick, I have muscle. I'm not as soft as I used to be.

Finding the time to sleep has gotten more difficult. I don't get home from the club until five some days and I have to be at school for eight fourty-five. School ends at three and I have to be at work for nine. That doesn't leave much time to do homework or to sleep. I've gotten good at sleeping nearly anywhere now. Class is a good place for it. The teachers leave me alone as long as I have my work done, they don't seem to mind me napping.

I can almost sleep while standing up too now. One time I came across Teva in town because I was picking up milk before going home for mom and I was standing there, in front of the stall, waiting for the glass jug when he suddenly appeared beside me and insisted that he'd been calling my name for five minutes. I told him that he was exaggerating and he agreed. Teva agrees and concedes a lot when we talk but I've seen him argue with Tate for hours and hours at a time. I don't understand why this is but I bet it's because he's closer to Tate.

I was thinking it'd be nice to have brothers or even a sister when I was little but now I'm glad I don't because even me is too much for my mom to take care of alone. It's okay though now, I can help her.

I've been at the club for a good year and a half. I work less on the floor, more on the stage and behind the bar. I have to pay a percentage of the tips I make back to the establishment but it's okay, we're still rolling in money. I only need what I need anyway, my manager knows this. Sometimes he'll slip me a bit extra so that I can take a few days off, or get something nice for mom. I like to surprise her every now and then with a piece of chocolate or a few extra bucks for dinner. I know that she's starting to question where the money is coming from really but she hasn't asked yet.

It's like how she never asked dad where he made his money.

I don't ask the triplets where they get money.

Nobody asks anything and that's the way it works. It's good this way because I don't feel like I'm keeping secrets. Everyone has to do despicable things to make it in this world and I'm only doing what I have to do to get by. I don't care. Much.

Sometimes it gets hard when you're not in the mood. People think that teenage boys are sex machines anyway but not all the time. You get tired of it when you see too many different faces or when you begin to remember the way that people like it. It makes for better tips but somehow it kills you a little bit inside.

I miss the days when Dad was here and I didn't have to worry about anything but school. Keeping my grades up has been hard. I'm mostly exhausted these days and I feel mindless now, empty headed. I'm a machine. Go to school, do work, go home, sleep for a few hours, get changed, go to work, go into the dressing room, apply make-up, open shirt, perform, serve drinks, go into a back room, do business, perform, serve drinks, go into a back room, do business, perform, go home, sleep, wake up, go to school, repeat.

I tried to see the Seraphims at least once or twice every week but even when I did go over there I mostly just fell asleep and I felt like a nuisance. So now I've cut it down to once every two weeks and I work really hard to stay awake, to appear normal. I never told them that I picked up a job. For all they know, I'm the lucky bastard who still has a mom and gets to go to school. They think I'm innocent, and I'll catch them whispering about things, thinking I don't notice it. I don't pry. We all have our secrets.

I know that.

Last Edit: Nov 10, 2014 1:54:57 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

compendium / avriel
clown car / pietro
2022 tracker / 2023 tracker / 2024 tracker

✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Graphics 5,831 POSTS Pronouns: they/them last seen Apr 17, 2024 14:37:45 GMT -5 “And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck	CALCIFER XU, DISTRICT NINE Nov 10, 2014 2:04:24 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Nov 10, 2014 2:04:24 GMT -5 done! claudia has the dibs uwu
	compendium / avriel clown car / pietro 2022 tracker / 2023 tracker / 2024 tracker

Python Head Librarian 4,515 POSTS Pronouns: She/Her last seen Apr 17, 2024 23:53:55 GMT -5	CALCIFER XU, DISTRICT NINE Nov 10, 2014 10:33:15 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Python on Nov 10, 2014 10:33:15 GMT -5 -teva intensifies-