rondezview | I see now, clear and free

Sounds good to me. Pleasure doing business with you, Azul.

[She'll hold out her hand to shake, even. Everyone knows what they've agreed on and is comfortable with it, and surely this won't get weird at all later for unforeseen reasons.]

[Azul reaches a hand out to accept the offered handshake--before, he might have even insisted on drafting up something like this in writing, but... he's trying to be better about verbal agreements instead of going solely off written ones these days.

And it's at this moment that Jade and Floyd suddenly turn up again.]

"Here is your order, Anglerfishie!"

[Floyd has her drink and pizza put down in front of her--although, normally the drink should have came out sometime before the meal, but given the coincidence of both twins showing up, it is entirely likely that they saw Evangeline and Azul talking and waited a moment before finding the right time to interrupt.

They've likely caught on that Evangeline will need a point card as well, as Jade will next set one down for her to use with keeping track of her points, as well as how many she currently has from this order thus far.]

[Good on them for letting Azul and Evangeline chat - she'll be certain to tip generously.

True to her word, Evangeline has every dinner at the Mostro Lounge from then on. She'll greet Azul with a smile and ask him how classes were or how business is going. If Floyd or Jade asks, she has some stories about Lobotomy Corporation - Floyd's favorites are the gory ones, she's quickly realizing. Luckily, she's not short on those.

Today, she takes her usual seat and sighs heavily when she sees Azul.]

I'll double my tip tonight if you can get me something alcoholic.

[It's been... surprisingly nice, despite his initial first impression of Evangeline being someone that was maybe a little too thirsty for his liking. She treats him with respect in a manner that doesn't make him feel like he needs to compete for it, necessarily, like he does with the other teachers at school. And she's able to keep up in conversations with Floyd and Jade for the most part, keeping them from getting bored. A valuable skill to have, really, given those two and Floyd's mood-swings in particular.

At her request, Azul raises an eyebrow at the change in order.]

I can certainly accommodate. [He says, with a slight jerk of his chin that gets one of the twins drifting away immediately to go check the contents of their secret liquor stash.] However, I'm curious to know what happened for you to be seeking it out tonight.

[She is, admittedly, very thirsty, but she also knows how to back off and hasn't really brought it up since that first day aside from sometimes describing the monster in whatever story she's telling as 'cute'.]

Does Vargas flex in front of everyone or just me? Because he kept really obviously checking my reaction to it today and I'm not interested, but I want to keep a good relationship with the faculty here and if I tell him that straight out it might go badly...

[Siiiiigh.]

[Oh, woof. At the mention of Vargas, Azul grimaces in distaste.]

He does flex in front of everyone, but typically it's accompanied by telling the rest of us how we should be trying to get buff like him. Classes with him are a nightmare, especially with all the laps he insists on having me run sometimes...

[Or maybe that's just an Azul problem because let's be real, he does not look like a guy who wants or spends any amount of time "running" if he can help it. Still...]

But in your case, it does sound like he's... erm, flirting with you since it doesn't sound like he's given you an accompanying lecture about your own muscles along with the flexing...

[Sympathetically:] Isn't that unfair? Running is hard enough for people who have always had legs. Exercise is important, but you should be allowed to swim or something.

[Like, that sounds like speciesism to her?]

Honestly, I'm this close to challenging him to a spar so I can kick his ass. That'd be a great stress reliever for me.

That's what I said! But apparently that's considered unfair to the rest of the student body who already take swim classes as well. Apparently they want everyone to take part in all forms of physical activity, unless you've got a disability that isn't just "still getting used to having human legs"...

[At the mention of sparring, however, Azul lights up.]

Honestly, that sounds like it would be enjoyable to watch. I'd even sell tickets for it, as I'm sure there are plenty of students who would want to see someone fight Vargas.

Oh, well in that case I definitely have to challenge him. I'll save you the best seat in the house to watch him get his ass handed to him.

[Solidarity of Fuck That Guy In Particular.]

I guess this is kind of a late question, but are you technically allowed to sell alcohol here? Obviously I'm not going to tell on you, I just don't want you to get in trouble for me.

Yes, we do have a liquor license. We're allowed to sell alcohol at the Lounge.

[...]

Provided that we are not selling it to any students, especially not any first years.

[So, just the teachers... and Leona maybe, are the only ones who usually try to take Mostro Lounge up on it.]

Oh, good. I'm not usually much of a drinker - my boss used to spend as much time as possible drunk off the liquid form of overblot stones and I kind of just felt bad for him? - but it's good stress relief now and then.

... I'm sorry, he did what now?

Oh, right, so, how my studies are going! It actually took a while to figure this out but as soon as I heard about the effects of those stones on Grim it clicked right away - the energy that Lobotomy Corporation extracted from monsters and the stones left over from overblot are the same thing, just in different forms. If you melted those down you could use them as an incredibly powerful fuel source, and ingested they'll get you super buzzed.

[She talks more animatedly than usual - it's always exciting when she figures something out.]

Oh, I see...

[There's a pause, before he then frowns.]

That probably means we should be more forceful in telling Yuu not to let Grim try to eat those anymore.

Yeah, that's probably for the best. They're addictive. Not the worst drug we had at work - that would probably go to the monster whose spines got people high until their heads literally exploded - but it was definitely a known problem.

Have you told Floyd that story yet?

[Because that sounds like a story Floyd would want to hear about...]

In the meantime, I'll make a note to try talking to Yuu about it the next time I see them, if you haven't tried talking to them already about this.

Not yet, but it was coming up on my list of stories he might like.

[Yes, she has a mental list of things she should tell Floyd specifically about. She always feels good when he enjoys her stories.]

I did give them a warning. Grim is really awkward talking to me for some reason so we haven't spoken much, but Yuu promised to tell him.

I... think that may have to do with what happened the first day you were here, during the lecture.

[As in, the question someone threw out about whether or not Grim was considered "fuckable" on Evangeline's scale for monster fucking.]

...That's fair. I guess most guys don't like it when you call them small, huh.

I'm afraid not.

[... Even if it is true. Sorry Grim.]

That said, Yuu is, for the most part, the reliable sort when it matters. I'm sure that they will at least try to talk to Grim about it and get them to not eat those stones anymore.

[Hopefully...]

I appreciate it, thank you. Ideally we wouldn't have any more overblots and that would solve that problem, but that's more difficult than just not eating them.

Indeed. [At this point, the tweels have returned with a list of alcohol for Evangeline to choose from as desired, as Azul taps his arm thoughtfully from where he has them folded across his chest.]

I wasn't there when Riddle and Leona had their incidents, so I can't really say anything about what it was like when they had succumb to overblot. [And his own incident... the less he has to remember about it, the better, he thinks.] The one connection I've been able to determine with all of the incidents so far is that it has been happening to the dorm leaders so far, as opposed to just any student at random here.

[As such, it might be worth looking the dorms that have not had any notable overblot incidents just yet, such as Scarabia, Pomefiore, Ignihyde, and Diasomnia...]

[Evangeline orders the heaviest drink on the menu. Go big or go home.]

The dorm leaders... Well, that makes sense. It's related to heavy stress, so I'd expect the people with the most responsibilities to suffer it first. The biggest indicator of an upcoming overblot would be someone acting strangely or suffering intense distress, but I don't know the students here well enough to really identify that. I've recommended to the headmaster that he hire a counselor, for what it's worth.

[Azul can't help but scoff a little.]

As useful as a counselor would be here, I wish them luck in getting anyone here to actually agree to seeing one.

[That includes himself, because there is no way in hell he wants to confide his anxieties to a stranger.]

...Yeah, that could be rough. Regular mental health checks were mandatory in LobCorp, but I kind of don't want to enforce that in the same way they did?

[They would literally just kill you for not submitting to them. No thank you.]

The situation's not quite as serious here, at least. It still sucks, but nobody's been stuck like that so far.

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