Step City

Velina
The alley door to the Court Luxe opened with Vel’s hip, her hands full of a grubby box she’d fished out of the alley. Whatever was inside of it seemed a bit unwieldy, but she managed down the hall and out into the club itself.

The Luxe wasn’t open, currently, some of the few hours in the day they had for logistics like cleaning and practicing and making drugs in the basement and bookkeeping. Or sleeping. Vel should actually be sleeping, but instead she’d thrown on some old jeans and a hoodie to drag her ass out to Jacklyn’s coffee shop for a distressing amount of espresso and syrup in a single cup as a little treat. And then found her "surprise" on the way back home.

Without much more than a chirped “Hi!” to anyone on the floor, and without acknowledging she was doing anything suspicious at all, she slipped behind the bar. After the (dirty) box set on the counter, she fumbled around for one of the hopefully clean towels they kept back there, humming lightly to herself.

The box wasn’t closed, though nothing was visible just from the edge of it without peering over.

Dwight
It wasn't very long before Dwight made it to the bar; he had come a bit earlier to the Luxe, and had been mopping the floor ever since. As he cleaned the floors he hummed to himself, only offering a grunt at Vel's chirp in greeting. He had things to do and stuff to clean, after all, and only looked up when he saw movement behind the bar. He quickly spotted the disgusting box on the counter, and stopped mopping to come have a closer look.

And have a closer look at the box he did, peering over its edge, before turning to stare at Vel with one of his fixed smiles that clearly meant he wasn't in a smiling mood.

That, and his nose had wrinkled in disgust. Still, the bartender took a deep breath, keeping his cool.

"Hey, Vel, buddy, pal, dear," Dwight asked in his sweetest tone, smiling brightly, "not to be judgmental or anything, but what in the fresh ✨𝒻𝓊𝒸𝓀✨ am I looking at here?"

Noir
Noir hadn't been home that day. Nor had he slept. After they closed in the wee hours of the morning he'd spent hours cooking books and making phone calls. Eventually, he emerged from the office like a clawed cryptid with messy hair and bags under his eyes that made them look droopier than usual.

"What's going on here?" he asked, noticing whatever was in the box put Dwight on edge. Without skipping a beat, he moved behind the bar to make himself a regular cup of coffee. That's when he noticed la creatura in the box.

"I think that's a dog," Noir drawled. "What I want to know is why it's on my bar? We're gonna have to wipe this all down again."

The animal was kinda cute in scraggly kind of way. He looked to Vel, arching a brow.

Velina
"Dwight, honey, sweetie, listen to Noir. He's a dog." Vel stuck her tongue out at Dwight. She liked the old man well enough; he was awkward but helpful. He just had a bad attitude.

"I, like, found him outside," she continued, gently pulling the animal from the box. It was some kind of black chihuahua, though so old its muzzle had gone white, and gray peppered most of its fur. The animal stared straight ahead with milky white eyes, unseeing, while its legs dangled straight down. The tail did flick a little. "Look at this poor old man. Someone had to have left him! So, I was thinking..."

And she offered the creature for inspection, though tightly held against her chest for added approval points. "What if we had, like, a bar dog?"

Dwight
Dwight's eyebrow quirked when the clawed cryptid he had for a boss appeared seemingly out of nowhere; Noir looked much messier and bedraggled than usual, which meant he hadn't gotten any sleep last night. At Noir's question, the bartender gestured at the box's direction, and as the boss started to prepare his coffee he wordlessly slid a clean mug for him to use.

"I know it's a dog, even if it looks a lot more like a rat," Dwight retorted, sticking his tongue out right back at Vel. If he'd known she thought of him as an old man he would be the first to point out that Noir was older than him. And his attitude was fine. "And yeah, I had just wiped that."

Still, his scowl softened when the young woman pulled out the old chihuahua from its box, the blind old thing tugging at his hearstrings...

Until the words 'bar dog' jolted him out of his moment of compassion, snapping to look at Vel like she had spontaneously grown a second head. "What?! No! What if it's got fleas, or worms, or--or if it bites a patron? And who's going to be looking after it, anyway?"

He turned to look at Noir, tapping his fingers on the counter impatiently. "I am not going to be looking after it, at least!"

Noir
The only thing Noir could focus on at the moment was making himself some coffee. He fumbled with the machine until Dwight slid over a clean mug. Turning his head, he sneered at the bartender, shoved the mug into the machine, then turned it on. Soon, the comforting aroma of brewing coffee filled the air. The moment Noir took a sip, he could feel life returning to his body.

"Hm, a fine idea, Vel. We can place a tip jar next to him. People can't resist cute little animals," Noir agreed, giving the dog a pat on the head, then looked to Dwight. Shitty attitude, as always.

"You're the bartender, so you take care of the dog while its on the bar. What is so hard about that for you to understand?" Noir asked, narrowing his eyes at Dwight over the rim of his mug. "But before we do anything we need to take him to the vet. I'm not putting him on the bar if he's diseased."

Noir leaned on the bar as he sipped his coffee. It was already starting to get cold. What a shame. He looked to Vel then with a questioning glance.

"Have you thought of a name yet?"

Velina
The dog reacted to the pat with some more tiny little tail wiggles and an extended tongue. With no idea where to lick, though, it waved about erratically instead.

"He's not going to be, like, any trouble," Vel reassured Dwight with more confidence than someone who had had a strange dog all of twenty minutes deserved to have. "Look at him. He's not got a single thought in his head."

At the mention of the vet, Veronica nodded. Reasonable! She could be reasonable about this! "I mean, like, he smells like a grandma's perfume. Someone probably just dumped him, poor thing, I don't think he could last even, like, a day on his own. But I'll take him into Gemini's and let them take a look! I just wanted to get a towel to wrap him up in. It's cold out."

At the mention of a name, though, she brightened. Even at Dwight, who was not giving her what she wanted at the moment (which was her way). "I thought we could name him together!"

Dwight
At Noir's sneer over being given a mug, Dwight managed to bite back a you're welcome. It was still too early to begin snarking at his boss. Still, his eyes narrowed right back at him, and returning the sneer. Of course, if the dog was on the bar then he would tend to the dog on the bar. Of course. "Right, I forgot dogsitting was part of my job. My bad, boss."

Welp. So much for being cordial this early.

Dwight crossed his arms, his sneer softening as the dog wiggled excitedly at being patted. Okay, the thing was...cute. Sorta. It didn't have a single thought in its cute little head, like Vel had said, and at least she was going to take it to get it checked.

"Alright, fine," Dwight finally replied with a scowl (admittedly one of the less intense scowls he'd ever shot at anyone in the room), before fishing out the plushiest towel he had on hand from a drawer and handing it to Vel. "But I'm only taking care of it when I'm at the bar, okay? And I can't take it during the day, I work elsewhere."

At the mention of a name--or rather, at the mention of naming him together--it was his turn to perk up.

"Pluto?" Dwight blurted out. "Or, uh, Rufus?"

Not that he wanted to have a part in any of this, nor that the dog was even remotely cute. He tentatively extended the back of his hand for the dog to sniff at.

Noir
"We never asked you to take care of it all the time. You're at the bar, just keep an eye on the dog when you're there. Is that so hard?" Noir asked, his voice taking on an air of faux sweetness.

Humming, Noir tapped his claw against his lips as he thought of a name for the dog. It could be called trash heap for all he cared. Since Vel wanted them all to contribute, though, he figured he could toss out some ideas.

"Merlin, perhaps? He does look like an old wizard."

Velina
"Oh, don't worry, this baby is going to stay with me whenever possible. If you don't, like, get too attached to him." If they ended up fighting over the dog, it would just be another little argument in their strange dysfunctional family.

Vel took the towel from Dwight with a warm, "Thanks," before spreading it out on the bar and slowly lowering the chihuahua onto it. The creature stood directly on it, staring straight ahead, while Vel coaxed his legs to fold and settle so she could start swaddling it like a strange baby.

"Those are all, like, really cute..." Vel mumbled, thinking on it. "Maybe you two pick your favorite, and then we can set out little voting tip jars. Whichever one makes the most money is the dog's name?"

She winked grinned at Dwight. "And, don't worry, we'll make sure the dog tips you out."

Dwight
Dwight forced out a smile, his tone becoming as saccharine as Noir's. "Just making sure we're all on the same page, buddy," he said, before looking at Vel in the eye, flashing her a wry (albeit less forced) little smile. "And thanks. But not gonna happen, I'm not a dog person."

He was probably more of a 'no pets in the building' person, actually,even if he'd leave out food for the stray cats, sometimes, and even if the chihuahua was kind of endearing as it was being swaddled. But Vel nor Noir needed to know that. At Velina's suggestion of the voting tip jars, he couldn't help a smile. "Letting the patrons decide, huh? That could work..."

He did have a good-hearted snort at her joke, even. "It'll tip us all out, I bet. Not even Noir's routine'll rack more than the dog."

Noir
Noir rolled his eyes at Dwight. He'd throttle his ass for that attitude if he wasn't so exhausted. Claws to his neck, forced up against the bar. Actually, he might enjoy that too much.

"Of course. There's no way anyone can compete with a cute animal," Noir groaned. And this particular animal was adorable, all wrapped up in the towel with those wide, watery eyes.

Bending down, he pulled two empty jars from underneath the bar. Then, he grabbed some masking tape and stuck a strip on each one. Using a pen, he wrote "Merlin" in flowery script on one of the jars, then glanced over to Dwight.

"Which name do you want me to put on your jar?" he asked, twirling the pen in his hand.

Dwight
Dwight smiled sweetly, none the wiser about what Noir would do about his attitude if he weren't so exhausted.
(And his attitude was fine.)

"Except maybe a cute dancing animal," he added cheekily. Dwight cast a quick glance at the swaddled dog in Vel's arms, finding himself opening and closing his hands tightly lest he'd squeeze the little critter.

The bartender saw his boss take out the jars and begin labelling them, and he too started to scribble on a piece of cardboard that he pulled from under the bar.

At Noir's question he hummed pensively. "Pluto," Dwight finally said, deciding to omit that just like the dwarf planet the poor dog was tiny and old.

In his best manuscript Dwight wrote on the cardboard:

Help us figure out a name for our new dog!

There. Good enough. Straight to the point.

"Sure you don't wanna add a name to the poll?" Dwight turned to Vel with a raised eyebrow.

Velina
"Hmm?" Vel peered at his sign and the jars and gave a little shrug along with a bright grin. "I mean, I like your ideas.

"Besides, I know I'm going to use the name, like, maybe a third of the time. The rest of it is going to be, like, 'baby' and 'bubby' and 'pupper' and 'little man' and 'baby boy'...you know. The classics."

She shifted the towel so he rested easier in her arms. "I'll get him a little bed for the bar top. I'm willing to bet once he's lying down he won't move until he has to."

She beamed at them both. "Thanks for being on board. Are you going to come to see Gemini with me?"

Noir
"Have fun without me. I need to take care of some things here," Noir told Vel.

His lips twitched as he gave the little doggo a pat on the head. He didn't feel like walking over there, and he figured he'd be moral support only.

He looked at Dwight, sneering over his half-empty cup of coffee. Oh, he hoped that asshole decided to stay. He wanted to wipe the bar with that mustache of his.

Dwight
"Alright then," Dwight shrugged and smiled lightly back at Vel's reply. She was definitely going to be calling the dog by a litany of nicknames.

As Vel shifted the pup in her arms and Noir pet it, Dwight picked up the dirty old box and tossed it in the trash. They wouldn't need this anymore. He shrugged at her beaming; it was the Boss' decision, not his, to keep the dog. "I think I'll pass, I need to finish with some of the prep work here."

He looked back at Noir, returning the sneer. Oh, one of these days he'd gather the nerve and wipe the floor with that asshole's face.

Or maybe not, but a man could dream.

Velina
Vel looked between the two men. She could recognize the energy building there, and she did not want to be in the middle of it, especially not with a blind and confused animal in her arms.

“Cool! I’m gonna, like, go, then. Be back in a bit.” She stepped out from behind the bar in one fluid movement and made for the door before she could be privy to their aggro antics.

She hoped the Luxe hadn’t burned down by the time she got back.

----

“Clean bill of health!” This was how Vel announced herself, pushing into the club with her hands full of bags. She was wearing a fancy new dog sling, Pluto-or-Merlin snuggled against her chest, staring blankly out into the world from the safety of plush pink cloth.

The Luxe had not burned down, but there was a slight, yet distinct, smell of burnt wood and plastic. Vel could immediately pinpoint the level of ‘disheveled’ between her boss and coworker had changed drastically, from Noir’s hair partly on the wrong side to how Dwight looked like he’d run a marathon, buttons in his rumpled shirt now done all the way up to his neck. Were those scorch marks on the bar?

A beat passed between them. Then Vel continued as if she didn’t see a damn thing, setting her bags on the barstools to not muss the ‘clean’ bartop again.

“We got all our vaccinations, and we don’t have any, like, awful little parasites. Nails clipped, teeth cleaned—some of those are going to have to come out, but, like, later—and I got him everything he needs.” A soft round bed for the bartop, another for her room (this one pink), a sparkly silver collar, dog food, metal bowls, an incredible amount of treats, several blankets, and even more were in her bags.

She had, in fact, spent most of her month’s tips in the nearest Vendy with dog supplies.

Noir
"Be safe out there, Vel. Goodbye," Noir said as Vel made her exit with their new son. If he cleared his health checks, he would be such a wonderful addition to their little found family.

And like some families, some members didn't see eye to eye.

As soon as Vel left the room, Noir turned on Dwight, his arm raised with one claw pointing menacingly in the barman's direction.

"You."

---

Noir took a long exhale from his nose as Vel entered the bar again. Cigarette smoke rose toward the ceiling in a long plume, then dispersed. He was flushed and trying to control his breathing as he leaned against the bar. Nearby, the bar had melted indents in the shape of hands.

"Good news, when can he start?" Noir joked, huffing out a little dry chuckle.

Then he moved to the bottles, giving Dwight a wide berth. He grabbed the whiskey and poured a healthy amount into his coffee cup.

Dwight
"Call if anything comes up, 'kay?" Dwight called as Vel left with the dog, a faint smile on his face...

Which fell as soon as she was gone, and he immediately bristled as Noir pointed at him, his own hands balling into fists.

"Me."

----

When Vel opened the door and came back Dwight was wiping the bar with a lot more apparent diligence than necessary. He was breathing absolutely not too heavily through his nose, his legs definitely did not have a slight tremor, and he was totally not flushed still.

And no, he always buttoned his shirt all the way up to his neck, and those scorch marks had always been there. They were definitely not hand-shaped either, nor were there odd lighting-shaped fractals on the bar's wood either, nor were there going to be bruises on the bartender's back or neck tomorrow.

Not at all.

(Okay, maybe a little, but that was nobody's business but his own, and arguably Noir's.)

"Hm?" Dwight looked up, looking a tad distracted. "Oh, that's good."

Without thinking much, he reached over the bar and pulled on the bags, placing them on the countertop. This spot was clean, already.

Deciding that he'd done a good enough job with the countertop, Dwight ignored the berth Noir was giving him to grab the whiskey as well, pouring himself a glass.

Despite his best efforts, Dwight looked a tad sheepish as he walked back to inspect Vel's loot.

"So now we just let the patrons pick his name, right?" Dwight asked, before taking a sip of his drink.

Velina
The handprints and electrical scarring were not going to come off the bar, but that was not a Velina problem. Her focus was on getting her little old pup’s bed in place at the corner of the bar (she’d gotten one with sides so he could only exit one way on purpose), next to the prepared jars and signage. Once the plush mattress was set up, she scooped him from the sling around her front and settled him onto it.

True to her prediction, he stood still a moment, then carefully circled three times, and curled up quietly. His glassy orbs shut in what was probably exhaustion from all the excitement of his day, and he went right to sleep.

“I think he can start right away! We’ll see how much he takes in as people try to name him.” Carefully, she lifted his head and secured a pink collar around his neck, the shiny heart-shaped tag blank except for her phone number. She’d have to get it engraved again once the results were in.

“Isn’t this great? Can’t wait until, like, Renard meets him.” She slid onto a stool, leaned her cheek onto her arm, and carefully ruffled the sleeping little dog’s ears. He let out a soft snort, but didn’t wake.

She hadn’t really doubted they’d keep the dog. Noir took her in, after all, and she wasn’t half as cute and pathetic. “Thanks, you two. He wouldn’t have made it without us.”