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Somehow, after everything, Alexander still had a job and the zomboil was still able to find time to work. It wasn't much, just a shift here and there when they needed the extra help, but it was better then nothing at all. His mom still refused to send him any money, and since he had not bothered to tell her that he and Yin had gotten back together (it was none of her business, simple as that), she had not sent any to the weremantis for him to pay out to the Alex on occasion like an allowance.

And so, here he was. Working at the only job he'd ever had and still hating every moment of it. The hostess ghoul had wandered over to tap him on the shoulder and tell him that table five, which was in his section, had a new customer seated at it. He glanced over to see a boil, perhaps one that was around his own age though it was hard to tell in Halloween, sitting with a menu in his hands.

"Right, got it." He grinned, letting that false cheerfulness that he pasted on for each and every shift shine through before he grabbed for a pad of paper and shoved it into the front of his serving apron with a pen and shuffled his way over with his usual slow and shambling gait to the table.

"Hello there, sir." The words were automatic now, said without thought or hesitation. "My name is Alexander, and I'll be your server today. Our special is spaghetti and eyeballs, served in a rich blood sauce with a seizure salad to start for only ten silver seeds." He continued to smile, his voice overly friendly as he went through his routine spiel. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

This was his personal hell.

When he realized the boil was actually ready to order his meal as well and not just a drink, Alexander reached down to make a grab for his notepad and pen, flipping the former out and open with practiced ease as he glanced at the menu to where the demon was pointing. "Excellent choice." He replied with plastered on smile. "Would you like some scarlic bread to go with that?" Of course, he didn't find it all that excellent, seeing no point in consuming any food that wasn't at least ninety-five percent meat based himself.

And a fruity drink? Gross! But he kept up the facade of good cheer. "I'll see what I can come up with." He might have added a wink, but considering he only had one eye, his empty eye socket hidden beneath a mop of hair, it would have been rather pointless, and possibly misleading, though he was fairly oblivious to any advances or flirting most of the time.

Before he could have a chance to turn and leave to ring in the boil's order, he was being asked a question, and it was not one he heard often from a customer. He tensed up for a moment, but then relaxed, turning and gifting the demon with another slightly less forced smile, already prepared to lie and let him know just how great his day had been going. Of course, then he had to continue on about being genuinely interested and the zomboil hesitated, his smile becoming more amused now as he tapped his pen against his small pad of paper.

"I would be happier if I wasn't here." He admitted with a small shrug, keeping his voice down so that other customers or co-workers couldn't hear. Happier if he could have spent the day at the school with his friends or boilfriend. Happier even if he could have spent the day studying in the library.

He took this small moment to study the demon boil a little more thoroughly now. He really did look like he was at least close to Alex's age, appearance wise. But if he went to Amityville, Alexander had yet to run into him or see him wandering the halls.

"You from around here?" He asked, fishing a little bit for more info, or perhaps just stalling so that he didn't have to go back to work just yet.

"For now, yes." He was visibly relaxing more and more by the second, finding it nice to just be able to talk, though he had a feeling it would be very short lived, especially if one of his managers caught sight of him not working.

"Ohhh, so you're a new student." His smile turned into more of a grin, the fingers of one hand moving to brush his two toned hair out of his eye. "I go to Amityville as well, though I'm a hob, a third year." He explained, glancing behind him quickly to make sure he wasn't being scrutinized by anybody of authority yet and idly pulling a damp cloth from yet another front pocket of his apron to wipe at the table and at least make it look like he was keeping busy.

At the boils question he paused in his movements, looking up at him from his bent over position through the fringe of hair that had fallen across his forehead and over his eye once more. "I--I guess so. Maybe.." He straightened up and glanced at a clock on one of the walls, calculating how long he'd been on shift and whether or not he was due for a break just yet. "Ya, ya I think I could do that." He frowned a little as though in thought, though really he was wondering just what the boil had meant when he'd said it might benefit both of their needs. What needs was he referring to?

"Let me get your order in first and then I'll be back with your drink. Did you say whether you wanted scarlic toast or not?" He was feeling slightly flustered for some reason, not used to this sort of situation happening.

Alexander nodded, and turned to shuffle away, everything he had taken out of his apron hastily shoved back in and one hand reaching up to run fingers through his hair as he made his way over to the area where he needed to drop his order off. He then went and asked one of the ghoul servers to make some kind of fruity beverage, knowing nothing about that kind of stuff and what would taste good together since it all pretty much tasted awful to him. While he waited for that he decided to approach the manager, asking if it might be possible to take his full half hour break now.

He was just lucky that it wasn't very busy right now, so was given a bit of slack and told to go.

Taking off his apron and hanging it on a peg in the back room, he shuffled back to the drink station and retrieved the very orange and pink and ghouly looking beverage before shuffling back over towards the table, setting it down in front of Etzer, and easing himself into the seat across from him with a small smile.

"Somebody else will bring your food out in a few more minutes." He explained the lack of a meal as he sat, resting his elbows on the table and clasping a hand around one fist as he openly studied the other boil, faintly curious as to why he would invite him to sit, but assuming it was just to chat, that the other boil was perhaps feeling a bit lonely having just started at Amityville. Alexander could understand that, having come from a large family horde himself and having struggled a bit at first arrival with being alone for the first time in his unlife. Friends filled that emptiness inside of him, made him feel more comfortable. He was laid back and easy going enough that he was willing to accept this as nothing more then an opportunity to possibly make a new friend.

Finally he spoke. "So, Etzer." he grinned. "I'm Alexander, but I guess...I probably already said that." He closed his eyelids and shook his head a little. It was hard to remember since he had gone through his entire usual spiel to begin with, but he always started by saying his name. It was some stupid restaurant policy, which he found silly considering they wore name tags.

"Did you uh...have anything in particular you wanted to talk with me about?"

Well, at least he seemed to be enjoying his drink. The zomboil moved his hands to idly tap the top of the table with a single index finger, staring at the boil as he did so, waiting to hear his response. Though on the exterior he appeared calm and relaxed, inwardly was another story entirely, though he managed to reign in any feelings that generated towards suspicion or paranoia. If the boil was a hunter in golem form, what in the name of Halloween would he be doing here? No, he was fairly certain that the demon was sincere, though it wasn't as though Alexander was a brilliant judge of character or anything.

He smiled in return. "Of course I would be only too glad to help you find your way around." He had been new once, he knew how hard it could be to find things for the first little while at least.

His smile turned into a grin. "Informants?" He sounded amused, but nodded, appreciating the other boils honesty. He was normally a little more wary around demons, though most of the ones he had met at the Academy had been fairly decent. Jack, Danny, Xiu, Michi, yes he would consider any of them to be his friend. But then you had demons like TG that did not bother to hide his disdain for the undead, treating them like nothing more then garbage, fit only to serve as footstools for the ignorant little imp. He tried not to dwell too much on that one, though. Clearly not all should be judged by one bad egg alone.

He simply shrugged, then leaned back in his seat, relaxing as he crossed his arms over his chest and continued to smile. "Always nice to have more friends, as long as you don't mind associating yourself with a zombie."

Good answer, Etzer. Goooood answer. Alexander was used to the discrimination that came along with being what was pretty much the bottom of the social hierarchy, but that didn't mean that he liked it or took very kindly to those who treated him like minipet poop just for what he was. Stupid, slow, disgustingly smelly, these were the stereotypes given to him without anybody even knowing him.

...Okay so maybe only the first one was actually untrue. But not all zombies were the same!

He ignored what might have been considered an insult, dismissing it with a smile that never left his face and a small shrug of his shoulders.

"I helped to clear out those hot springs." He grinned, remembering just how dangerous yet eerily exciting that class with Moira as their instructor had been. "It was completely infested with giant mutant mole rats. We had to go in and hit them on the nose with taming sticks...though occasionally it did backfire a little." A little meaning that the mole rats had sometimes ended up exploding in a glorious spray of guts and blood. "But I'm not a big fan of water, really." He admitted. Personal hygiene had just never been something he really cared about, unless he was going out of his way to impress somebody.

He wasn't sure what to make of the eyebrow waggling, really.

He nodded as Etzer continued to describe the places he had been to in the school, eyebrows raising and smile spreading when the boil described a beautiful ghoul that loved to cook. "Oh really?" He could feel his pension for teasing others beginning to rise, but he somehow managed to stifle it, though he still couldn't help but think that the demon's light blush was just precious. He was genuinely curious about who the boil might be describing, however, but he decided to not be nosy and bit his tongue against asking for a name.

Etzer really was offering up a lot of information about himself, and the zomboil actually found it rather nice to be in the company of somebody who seemed to be very upfront. When the boil finished, he uncrossed his arms and set his hands back down on the table top, eye darting to the side to see that the other boil's food was arriving as one of the waitresses set it down in front of him, gave Etzer a smile full of razor sharp teeth, and then turned to stride away with a bounce in her step, but not before giving Alex a raised eyebrow and a curious look.

He had no idea what that was about and supposed he would have to ask her later.

"I was the only one in my family to ever attend Amityville." He finally said, deciding that if they were going to share stories about their home life he might as well dive right in. " Out of all of my siblings, and cousins, my parents, everyone! We were all home schooled. My family, my horde like to stay close together. Safety and strength in numbers, right?" He smiled, a warm feeling building up inside of him just at the thought of the others. "But I guess I was always a bit different. I spent more time holed up in my room reading, dreamed of something bigger, of a place where I could expand my learning and break away from the norm. I miss my family, I do, but I believe I made the right decision. And since then, two of my sisters have gone to an all ghoul school." For troubled teens, but he wasn't about to get into that. "And now my adopted sister is attending Amityville as well. I know that someday they'll expect me to return, to help run the family business, but I just don't know if that future is even on my radar anymore." He admitted, with a small frown. This was not something that he thought about often, though it had crossed his mind on a couple of occasions.

"Hows the food?" He asked, changing the subject and falling back on months of serving instinct of making sure that the customer was happy.

He had to think about that one for a moment. How big had they been? Certainly they were a lot bigger then just your standard minipet. "They were..." He paused, tilting his head slightly to one side, which made his hair fall into his only visible eye. "Four feet tall? They had these massively long and sharp teeth." He held his hands apart at a ridiculously exaggerated level. "I managed to get bit at least a few times. Not so nice being on the receiving end of somebody else's teeth for a change." He grinned, his own teeth flashing mischievously.

The zomboil continued to smile, leaning back in the booth and tilting his head back before rolling it to the side to have a glance at the clock on the wall, marking off how much time he had left.

At the question about his family business, he rolled his head back towards the other boil to face him once more, an eyebrow rising as his smile changed into a smirk. Trust a demon to be interested in business.

"Real estate, mostly. Buying, selling, leasing, renting, property management." There was more the just that as well. Zombies made for great laborers, being stronger then average, and never needing to sleep. His family often did a lot of building and renovating as well. It was a large enterprise, but with a horde as large as his own, there was really not much of an issue getting done everything that needed doing.

At the mention of the food being delicious, the zomboil continued to smile.

When Etzer suggested that the company was delicious to his smile faltered, and a slight frown creased his features.

Wait. Wait what? Was he....was he flirting with Alex???

He didn't even know how to deal with that, so he just gave a light, albeit nervous, chuckle in response.

"Um. T-thank you." He lifted a hand to rub against his opposite arm, then reached up to run fingers through his hair in a very standard gesture of nervousness, revealing his empty eye socket before his momentarily spiked hair settled back into it's usual somehow stylized dishevelment. "You are very uh...Kind."