Envision The Magic [Frerard] [By innocent_wolves on LJ]

Prologue

Envision it. Now live it.

That slogan had been floating in and out of Frank's mind for days, up to the point where it became annoying. Seeing the monstrous ship for the first time he'd almost broken his neck staring up at it, squinting to read the words printed beneath the name. Envision it. Now live it, the writing said. Since then it had been on his lips and in his thoughts twenty-four seven, refusing to let go. And that wasn't the only thing. He could recite just about everything in the brochures by heart, having leafed through them again and again until he became bleary eyed.

Envision was a pretty new, up and coming company with a medium-sized army of cruise liners. All of these ships and their respective destinations were divided into three main groups: Culture, Adventure and Splendor. The Culture class, with liners such as Continental and Ice, mostly drew the weird combination of elderly retirees and rich students, offering a trip that would teach them something, while at the same time giving them scenery that would look good in their photo albums or Facebook pages. Culture's complete opposite was Adventure. Adventure was a class with smaller ships, however with cool names to weigh up for their size. Inspired by pirates and the like, people always got curious over names like Invasion and Conquest. Their travels offered a great amount of excursions, with a ship looking more like a theme park than a cruise. It didn't take a genius to figure out that families with small children opted for the Adventure class. And last, but nowhere near least, there was Splendor, Envision's flagship class. Their liners were undoubtedly the biggest. Traveling with one of them would also, most likely, prove to become one of your most expensive vacations, ever. Just like the interior and the guests, even the ship names set a certain standard. Names such as Paradise and Glory were mirrored in the waters where these liners roamed.

Envision offered luxury travels to all the exciting parts of the world, which was also more or less their main key to success; they knew what destinations were most likely to be on the to-do lists ofwealthy people, and so they made their ships head in these directions, at the same time combining traveling with bucket loads of comfort. That's not how it was said in the brochures, but it was usually the common interpretation.

Envision it. Now live it…given that you have the money.

But then again, Frank was not the one to badmouth his employer. They were the ones who, after all, had given him a job he appreciated greatly. Frank had landed a job in the flagship class, right on the jewel of all the Splendor ships, the newest, the biggest and the best: the Envision Destiny. Thanks to sheer luck. He could hardly believe it himself. Not only was he ten minutes late for the interview, but he'd also forgotten all about taking out his piercings. In addition to this, the bar manager noticed the full sleeve tattoo on his left arm. Who was the one less likely to become Envision material, right there and then? Well, that was Frank Iero.

"Look, kid – I don't care how much metal you wear on your face," the manager had shrugged, surprisingly, when Frank nervously apologized, "as long as you remove them during work hours. Personally, I don't mind them, but you can probably imagine how some of our guests would react. I can see that your hands and knuckles are completely free of tattoos; your uniform will cover the rest. It's not like you're gonna stroll around the ship half naked."

And with that, Frank became 'bar staff', which was the vague title of the job. However, he quickly learned what he was up against. His job was to clean the counter, stack the snack foods, mop the floors… It was just the daily, boring maintenance that was below the actual bartenders. On top of everything he was also surrounded by a great amount of booze he couldn't have any of. But it was still a job. It was a job that would let him travel to places he'd never been, and meet people he probably wouldn't have to deal with for more than a week, tops, and he'd get paid for it. This was a big deal to him, being used to always having problems around to keep him awake at night.

So if the question was, did he want to be bar staff or not, his answer was most definitely a very quick "Yes, please".