black eyes, brown eyes, green eyes

Who: Evelyn and Jackson
Where: The Drake Hotel - back of restaurant
When: Late-ish Evening

Jackson was in the mood for heavy drinking, and had been all day. Had been since getting beat up on the night he met Eris, actually, but there just hadn't been the time. Upon leaving Jenny's place, he had gone back home, removed his tie (why the hell were ties a thing, anyway? They just got in the way) and plundered the half-bottle of scotch in his cupboard. He took two shots, filled a hip flask, and went walking.

Where he ended up walking to, was the Drake Hotel. Then he walked inside, pulled himself into a fairly secluded table away from the flashy brightness of the gambling (he disapproved highly of gambling) and waited for a waitress, and lord help her if she wasn't pretty. He wanted to get as drunk as he possibly could and not have to think about anything even close to serious. Not Brett, not Danny, not Hollis - none of it. Just for one fucking night.

Evelyn was not having a good day. And she thought yesterday’s shift had been bad. The actual work wasn’t the problem. It was the people. And their questions. And their speculations. Yesterday had at least been busy enough to prevent anyone from getting invasive. But today had given them plenty of idle time to form opinions about her and Ian Sullivan and harass her about it. And the clever avoidance techniques she usually employed were backfiring. At best, it just fostered more curious pestering from the relative harmless. But her more vindictive co-workers had concluded she was only hired as a pretty face. Assuming she had been flirting with the manager for special treatment, they seemed determined to counteract with ‘fair’ treatment of their own.

It vexed her, but she was determined not to show it. Even when a ‘mistake’ had unfortunately assigned her to the least busy – and least profitable – area of the restaurant, she refused to let her demeanor crack. She had been organizing menus and other things by a little doorway towards the back, giving herself something to do while she kept an eye on her section. When she saw a man seat himself at one of her tables. He didn’t look at all like her usual clientele – she could see from where she was that he didn’t even have a tie. Grabbing both regular and drink menus, she approached him and noticed, yeah, he definitely wasn’t her typical customer.

“Good evening, sir. What can I get for you, today?” She kept her face stoic as she took in the bruise and general state of distress. It was the second black eye she’d encountered within two days. She hoped this wasn’t some sort of trend.

Good, she was pretty - he'd figured as much. Classy places like the Drake didn't have the usual bar tending stock of he and Danny's local (fat, balding, wrong chromosomes) and they didn't contain Danny either - which had been a massive part of the point. What they did have, was slim, attractive girls and a plethora of expensive liquors.

"Hello sweetheart, Scotch, neat, double, and somethin' for yourself. Keep my tab as wide open as they go, and maybe crack me a smile, how does that sound?" he rattled at her, leaning back and giving her his best flirtatious grin. He wasn't looking for female company tonight, but where the hell was the fun in drinking yourself stupid if you didn't have yourself a pretty girl to drool on while you did it?

Evelyn flashed him a brilliant smile as she placed the drink menu before him, keeping the regular one in her hand. He wanted to get drunk. That wasn’t uncommon for her. But his clothes and appearance suggested that the Drake wasn’t really his kind of place to get drunk in. Well, unless…

Every once in a while she had customers that were… less refined. Occasionally, the private dining rooms were used by some of the hotel’s most prominent patrons, and every now and then they were attended by some rougher looking types. Evelyn was smart enough to know to not stare or ask any questions during those dinners, just be friendly and serve them their drink and food and get out.

“I’ll go take care of that,” she replied, playfully tapping his shoulder with the menu before turning away with a little sway in her step. She wasn’t above flirting for a better tip – especially since he was only her third table of the last hour. She figured she’d just flirt, serve him drinks, have him pay, and watch him leave – no need to get anyone upset or cause a scene.

"Good girl," he replied appreciatively, waiting until her back was turned before he pressed his face into his hands, knuckles rubbing at his eye sockets. This caused him a little hiss of discomfort because all though his eye was no longer swollen it was still a tender little bitch. But still. He ought to have gone to Eris' place. She was playing a game, she had to be, but he wanted O'Malley blood and the information he'd given her... well god damn it.

And this, this train of thought had not been the point of tonight. Where the hell was his alcohol? He needed his brain to be numb. He pushed his hands up from his face and through his hair, as was his habit - it was getting long, too - and sighed loud. "Jackson, you are the biggest fuckin' dumbass on the force..." he said to himself quietly, and waited for his drink. Felt like she was taking forever even though it had only been a minute. Wasn't like it was busy.

“Are you working on that scotch yet?” Evelyn waited by the bar, her tray empty.

The bartender shrugged as he shook up another martini. “Just because your section’s dead doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t busy.”

She did not have time for this passive-aggressive nonsense. She made sure to keep her voice even, almost friendly. “You should’ve told me sooner, I’ll give you a hand.” She casually walked behind the bar and grabbed a scotch off the shelf, then reached beneath the counter and pulled up a tumbler. It looked like she would be fixing her own drinks, tonight. Fine. When she was done she placed the scotch onto her tray, and made her way back to Mr. Black Eye.

“Missed me?” She broadcasted another warm smile as she placed the drink before him. “Enjoy.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and slugged down the drink in two gulps before he responded. "Missed you somethin' dreadful. Sorry to keeep you runnin' around for me - you know what you oughtta do to save your pretty legs? Fetch the bottle and sit yourself down with me. It don't look like you're busy and I got a hankerin' for drink with a nice girl," he said, winking. Actually, he didn't. He kind of wanted to sit and drink all alone, but he knew it was a terrible idea and would lead to nothing but wallowing in sorrows, and Jackson didn't have the patience for becoming angsty. He could focus his attention on her and be a damn sight happier for it. Men didn't sit and drink alone in a place like this, anyway. It was suspicious, especially as he wasn't playing a table.

Evelyn wasn’t too keen on sitting with him, either. The last thing she wanted was to get too chummy with a guy who, for her best guess, probably had not-so-legitimate ties with the DiGiovannis. But the one thing she wanted to do even less was offend him – especially since she was most definitely not busy. She didn’t let her smile falter as she nodded her head. “All right.”

Strolling back behind the bar, she grabbed the bottle and, after a moment’s thought, an extra tumbler. She had no intention of drinking – only of pouring some in her glass and playing with it while he drank his. As she returned, she slid next to him at the booth. Although she worked to keep her demeanor friendly, she made sure not to sit close. If he had a “hankerin’” for a drink with her, fine. But busy or no, she was still at work. And she wasn’t his date. And she needed to make it clear that sitting and drinking next to her should be the only “hankerin’” he should be doing.

She poured the scotch into the empty tumblers, filling up his considerably more so than her own. She then placed the bottle on the table and slid him his glass with another smile, “Rough day?”

"Rough everything," he said, drinking the Scotch a little slower than he had the last glass, glad of how liberally she had poured. He then spotted that she had brought herself a drink, too, and he shot her a wink - glad that she had caught his meaning about sitting with him. Drinking with the waitress looked less shady and pathetic than drinking on your ownsome. He was starting to feel the affects of the nips he had taken before leaving the house and he wasn't shy about leaning in slightly closer to the cute brunette, slipping his gaze over her figure in a less than angelic fashion "But I don't wanna talk about me. Let's talk about you. What's your name, brown-eyes?"

Evelyn kept still, a slight crack in her easy-going demeanor, as he leaned close. No, her green eyes were not brown. They never had been. But he wasn’t looking.

She leaned a bit back, restoring some space between them, before cocking an eyebrow at him. “Black eyes make people colorblind, now?” She brought the drink to her mouth, lips partly open, but she didn’t actually drink any of it, although she did swallow as if she had. Putting the drink down, she answered his question. “Amelia. Yours? Or is that part of ‘let’s not talk about you’?”

She was fine about not talking about him – she probably didn’t want to know what he did for living. But she always had a tendency to deflect questions about herself when at work.

Jackson gave a smile of a naughty schoolboy who had been caught eating in class, and finally looked her in the eye, "I'm sorry, Amelia green-eyes, I was just so dazzled by your beauty," he spoke in a tone that was cheeky and self-mocking enough to not be sleazy - but the drink was starting to affect him and slight sleaziness was to be expected. The type of girl Jackson usually hit on was probably a lot less well-refined than this Amelia girl and so took a lot more kindly to his advances, but fuck, whatever, it's not like he expected to get lucky - it was just a bit of fun, "I got confused as to the colours of the rainbow. I'm Jackson, and it's a pleasure to meet you, sweetheart." He tipped his glass to her in mock salute, his eyes gleaming, and downed the rest of his drink.

Evelyn didn’t blush, but she gave him a little show of being flattered. Being flirted with by the male customers was just part of her job at the restaurant. While suggestive, he hadn’t crossed the line of crudeness quite yet. But she could see it would probably be on the way. It didn’t bother her. She could hold her own. She would keep her hands on her lap, or on the table, or on the bottle for a refill; and she would help him keep his hands to himself. If he wanted pretty girls to get touchy with, there were other places he could go to for that.

She kept her face relaxed and pleasant as she poured him another drink, until a funny thought unexpectedly broke it into a small grin. “I wasn’t even aware brown was a color of the rainbow.”

"Well sweetie, in your eyes, it could be," said Jackson, winking, and again missing that he was fucking up the whole eye-colour thing. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass and leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes fixed on Amelia. She was cute, definitely, nice smile, good skin, all those pretty girl things a fella like to admire. She was distant though - obviously a case of 'just doing her job'. That was fine. He found himself wondering if she was a biter, and kicked himself mentally for it - because that led his thought back to Brett and the fucking O'Malley's and how much he wanted to take them all out.

"Anyway, Amelia. How'd you end up working in a place like this? Real classy joint. I normally wouldn't touch these haughty society places with a ten-foot pole but my reg'lar haunt is full of people I don't have the energy to deal with, and frankly the staff are a lot cuter when you go high end. Wall-Eyed Joey can't hold a candle to you."

Huh, not the sharpest tool in the box, was he? But Evelyn didn’t bother correcting him on her eyes, again.

The smile never wavered as he asked her about her job. How’d she end up working here? She briefly pictured telling him the real story: That she had moved across the city originally for a clerk job at Andros Kowalski’s law office, only to discover the lawyer was more interested getting her to sleep with him – first by offering money and then later by withholding it; that she had been desperate nearly any other employment when she first arrived at the hotel. But , instead, she only grinned wider as she answered, “Planes.”

Jackson blinked. Either he was drunker than he thought, or what she just said didn't make a jot of sense. Or both. Probably both. "Planes? You lost me. Flew right over my head," he said, giving a sparkly smile at the terrible pun and taking a large sip of Scotch. He'd got to that point of inebriation where he didn't even wince at the burn of the alcohol, just knocked it back like particularly flavourful water. The dangerous point.

The pun caught her off guard enough to laugh. But she regained her composure just before explaining. “I like planes.” She glanced at him before continuing, “Never been in one but I always thought they were fascinating. I was at a newsstand looking through an aviation magazine when I overheard somebody talk an opening here. And since I was looking for a job…” she leaned back, and motioned around the restaurant. “Well, here I am.”

It was easier to smile as she thought about the story, because, well, it was actually true. Not the whole truth certainly, but true.

"Planes. I dunno. I don't figure it can be good for a body to hurtle through the air like that. Don't seem safe to me. But if they help win wars, I ain't gonna complain," Jackson didn't ever think much about the War that was going on - it all seemed too hazy and far away, and he was surprised that he had even brought it up, "But if you wanna go soaring, honey well...what time d'you get off?" he nudged her slightly and chuckled mischievously.

“Flying through the air… You know, I think you’d be surprised at what a human being can handle. Or what we can do. I mean – just the fact that we can invent something that like that—” but she caught herself. Because she remembered that she wasn’t here as herself, she was here as Amelia. She was here to help him get drunk and spend his money. Though his comment about not often coming to places like the Drake opened up the possibility that he wasn’t connected the DiGiovanni’s… he was still obviously a guy who got into some trouble, regardless.

She sat up straight, and smiled. “I get off when my shift ends,” she replied noncommittally, pouring more scotch into his glass.

Jackson laughed slightly at her obvious rebuttal of his advances, "Okay, I get it, I bet you're married. Nice girl like you oughtta be married, and me? Not the marrying type. My job don't allow for it," So it seemed Jackson was physically incapable of not bringing his job up. Idiot. His lips were lubricated with Scotch, though, and you could tell by the slight slur. The problem with drinking away his troubles was that they seemed to be exactly the the thing Jackson wanted to discuss when the alcohol started to work it's magic.

Evelyn couldn’t hide the bemusement in her smile as he mentioned her getting married. Heh, he was betting she was married? Her? It was a funny thought, seeing as how she had trouble maintaining a decent relationship – something her brother and she both had in common. She didn’t balk at the idea of marriage – her own parents had been an example of the strength of that partnership; and she had hopes for it in her future. There was just… always something else going on her life that prevented her from investing too much in the guys she dated – even the ones she had cared significantly for. In fact, now that she thought about, those relationships had been the hardest to maintain.

“Well, I’m not married - a girl can still be nice and single, nowadays,” she replied, briefly displaying her empty ring finger. “And the only jobs not allowing marriage I can think of involve the Church. And I must say, Father, you’re behaving rather badly for a priest.”

Jackson snorted, almost spitting out the Scotch he was downing. "A priest? Oh, fuck, no. I'm offended as a... really offended guy. I'm as offended as a priest!" He decided, laughing a little too loudly, "I look old and dusty to you? Hell no. I'm a Cop. Although if you wanna play Naughty Nun I ain't gonna complain..." he trailed off, the wickedness of his grin making it clear that he was mostly joking.

He reached over to the bottle of Scotch to pour himself another glass before she got the chance, although he was feeling kind of woozy headed and warm. He poured a splash more of the drink into Amelia's untouched glass and shook his finger at her in a display of mock annoyance "Also, you ain't drinkin', which I object to. Get that down your throat, girl. Thou shalt not waste good booze."

Evelyn’s back stiffened slightly as he mentioned he was a cop. Although she had never done anything illegal, she was incredibly wary of the Boys in Blue. She had never really appreciated them coming to arrest her brother during her seven-year-old birthday dinner. Even though she was now aware that her brother might’ve given them good reason to do it, more than enough shady officers had passed through her neighborhood to justify her distrust.

“You must understand I’m on duty, Officer," a teasing smile curled up her lips. "And I don’t drink on duty – nor do I play ‘Naughty Nun’ with the men I meet on duty.” She put enough suggestion in her voice to say that, in another time or place... who knows? But Evelyn didn’t mix work and play (Ian Sullivan be damned!). “The glass and I are here to make you look good.”

She paused, swirling the glass absently in her hand. “Y’know – I didn’t know cops couldn’t get married, nowadays.” She kept her tone jokingly light, although the distant quality of it had now returned. Although the Drake Hotel was a very distinguished establishment, it wouldn’t do her any good to be seen getting chummy with a cop.

"Lemme tell you a thing or two about being a cop," said Jackson, not really getting the slightly chillier vibe she was putting forward, and leaning back over the table at her, "People who do it because they want some kind of glory are either naive, or dirty. You do it to help, 'cause you gotta have some semblance of making this city a safe place to live for your family, so they don't get mugged or beat on or turned into drug pushers with every god-damned step," he paused for a moment, swirling his drink - he was wasting time getting hammered here when what he should've been doing was paying some close attention to the O'Malleys. This was the wrong bar for that, no matter how easy the staff were on the eyes, "And you can't let people get in the way of your morals, at all, and combine all that? Sugar, I do not have the time to be pickin' out rings."

Evelyn eyed him curiously for a long moment. Until now, her interest in their exchange had been largely feigned – save for when she got caught up talking about herself. But after his little speech, she was really looking at him, full attention, trying to determine if he was serious. She was pretty good at picking out the bullshitters, and he had downed enough glasses that lying convincingly would have been a miracle. But she had equated “police” with “corrupt bastards” for so long, that it took her a moment to accept his earnestness.

Well, if morally upright was what he was after then he was barking up the wrong tree in the wrong forest. Although nobody had been careless enough to blatantly discuss their business in front of her, she had seen and heard enough while serving certain parties in the private dining rooms to bother her. But she hadn’t done anything more than kept her face unresponsive, her head down, and her mouth shut. Unfortunately, it seemed that the patrons had noted her behavior; and to show their appreciation, she found herself catering more and more to the private gatherings.

Sitting next to him made her realize how… morally compromised she was in comparison. Although she would be lying if she said it didn’t bother her, and would like to do the right thing, she wasn’t idiotic enough to mention it to the cop.

“A shame,” she murmured. And she meant it. Maybe the world would be a better place if he got married and raised a morally upright generation of his own. But, in this city, he would probably just get himself killed. “I guess with all that on the shoulders, a man’s got a lot to drink about.” She paused, casting him a steady glance. “But if the papers are telling it correctly, I would have thought you boys in blue would be celebrating right now.”

"Papers lie, papers don't know full stories. Everyone's got something they're hiding. Everyone, and papers don't cover that unless it suits em," said Jackson, sounding gruffer than he had previously. His name was splashed in that fucking paper for all the wrong reasons. He abandoned his empty glass on the table and began to dig into his pockets for his wallet. Drinking wasn't making him feel better, it was making him feel even guiltier for wasting time, and the buzz of alcohol in his head was magnifying his urge to be reckless. He looked at Amelia with a set jaw, weighing up his options. He could be reckless with her, maybe, she seemed like she was playing harder to get than she really would be - and it had been a long ass time. But no. His recklessness was needed elsewhere. What was the good in waxing lyrical if you weren't gonna follow it up? He hated hypocrisy.

Evelyn took in his change in tone as he mentioned the newspaper, and the wheels in her head started turning. Funny, from the moment he walked in, she had had every intention of just forgetting his name after he left the table – the way she had with most of the flirty male customers who sat at her tables. But now he had her wondering if there were more than one Jackson at the police office – she vaguely recalled the article mentioning the name. And she was curious enough to scan the article again when she had the chance – just to see if she could figure out if he was the same Jackson mentioned.

She watched him fumble around in his pockets, and a frown twitched at her mouth. He had drunk a considerable quantity of scotch – and she had no idea what he had had before arriving. And the gruffness and earnestness of his rants had revealed that something was churning within him – although she had no idea what. Some men quieted down with alcohol, but it had served to animate him. She didn’t need half her brain to know that the combination of churning emotions, animated behavior, and alcohol rarely ended well.

“Leaving so soon?” Her voice was touched with a bit of concern, and she worked to put some flirtatious disappointment into it. She didn’t intend on sleeping with him. But that didn’t mean she was apathetic to him getting himself hurt. If convincing him to stay and drink ‘til he was too inebriated to go out and do something even more stupid… she could hint at anything.

He smiled to himself at her comment as he pulled out his wallet. Nice girl, but pretty bad at being subtle about fishing for tips, "I'll pay for the whole bottle, and your time, don't you worry brown-eyes. Thanks for listenin' to a man ramble - but there's better ways I gotta spend my time tonight," he slid several bills towards her, and the tip was generous, "Not that you ain't shockingly beautiful. You want a card? You can call me sometime if you ain't working at you're lonesome - but keep in mind what I said about the rings." he laughed and gave her a saucy expression, flicking one of his business cards at her so it hit her forehead. Schoolboy flirting technique, still worked most of the time.

Unfortunately, paper cuts were not really the way to a girl’s heart. But she accepted his card, and scanned the name: Jackson Haas. That definitely rang a bell – he was the same guy from the article. She looked up at him. “Don’t get yourself hurt,” she was her simple, unmasked reply. For a moment she dropped the hostess pretense and didn’t hide her concern – because she couldn’t help feeling that she might as well have been saying the same thing to her brother. And she suspected the advice would be just as ill-followed in this case.

But the moment passed and she slipped back into character, curving up her mouth into a mischievous smirk. “Go save the world when you have better aim, Black Eye.” She waved the card, in case he had any doubt what she was referring to when she said ‘aim’. “If you get another shiner like that – I’ll have to call you Panda.” Not that she actually expected to see him again; but it wouldn’t hurt to hold onto the card of one of the few – seemingly – legit cops in town.

He laughed a little too loudly as he stumbled away from her, giving her a loose wave and poking his tongue out over his shoulder. Jackson got dumb when he was drunk. That much was obvious considering he was now staggering away to visit Rock Bottom, head spinning, not even waiting until he was clear of the hotel security before he took a swig of his hip-flask.

Evelyn let out a heavy sigh as she watched him stagger away. She hadn’t caught him sip from the hip flask, but she didn’t need that to know he was on his way to a rougher night. At least when her brother walked off into trouble, she at least knew he was smart enough to keep his wits about him and get out of it again. But she didn’t know the cop well enough to get the same assurances. And her preliminary assessment was that those assurances wouldn’t come if she got to know him better – which she wouldn’t. So there was really nothing to left to do other than clear the table and go about the rest of her shift.

She noted the tip, and wasn’t out of spirits enough not to appreciate it. She smiled to herself as she grabbed the glasses, the bottle, and her tray and made her way back to the bar.

The bartender flashed her a sideways glance. “Looks like you were nice and cozy over there,” he muttered.

But the tip had left Evelyn in a better mood than previously, and she didn’t acknowledge his tone. “What can I say? I enjoy working hard,” her dismissive tone suggested she had stayed only for the money – and even now it still rang mostly true. Because she couldn’t help flashing a triumphant grin – with more than a touch of ‘in your face!’ – as she casually pulled out her tip and counted out the bills.

Then, just because the cop’s generosity had inspired just a touch of generosity of her own, she even pulled out two bills and handed them to the bartender. “Here you go, since you guys were so busy and all.” She put on a saccharine smile as she referenced his comment to her earlier. “I’m going to go back to organizing the menus.”