Diluted ☻ FRERARD ONE-SHOTS

Double Vodka Fire Alarm

Gerard's a borderline-alcoholic and Frank is the cute bartender who serves him vodka in his favourite club. Frank is not having a good time at his minimum-wage gig but his favourite customer is out to make him smile even on the worst Friday nights.

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"Control to CC?"

Damn it. I slide the loose change across the bench to my customer who pockets it clumsily, swiping his coat check ticket from my hand. His jacket is soaking from the rain outside. I fumble with the mic attached to my lanyard, cupping it behind one hand. "Go ahead."

"Got a spare body to send to the top floor?"

I take one look at the monumental queue of drunk partiers who have come to put their jackets in the cloakroom - of which I am in charge. I hate being in charge. I don't know why I applied for this ridiculously impossible manager position and didn't even get a pay rise for it. "Yeah, I'll send Ray," I grumble in response, adjusting my ear piece.

Ray cocks his head at me to my left, unaware of the conversation going on in my earpiece. He doesn't have a radio so he doesn't get to listen in on all the orders and nonsense that gets exchanged on an average night.

"Thanks, Frank," my boss Brian replies. I release the mic and let it fall down my neck.

"You're needed upstairs," I tell Ray begrudgingly, not wishing to be left alone when it's so busy. I mean, it's always busy - the club has a capacity of five thousand people (and it regularly reaches three quarters of that) - but I enjoy company, especially Ray's. He's grown to be one of my favourite coworkers since I started working here.

"Mikey asked?" Ray presumes, swallowing heavily at the thought of how busy the upstairs bar is going to be.

"I assume so. We're so understaffed tonight." I start hanging up the last guy's jacket and place it on the overflowing rail behind me. Their coats are never going to dry bunched up together like that but I'm beyond caring. I can't remember the last time I even had a sip of water, it's so busy. "Just print me some more tickets before you go, yeah?"

"Sure, how many?" he asks after briefly apologising to the next girl in line, explaining that he isn't serving customers anymore.

Another look at the queue. "A hundred will be good for now, I'll manage the rest later. Thanks, man."

Ray accepts my gratitude and goes to print the coat check tickets from the machine. This is how it goes: a customer pays five dollars to hang up their jacket (which in my opinion is a laughably extortionate amount), they try to keep a hold of their ticket the whole night (the reference number tells us which coat is which), but most of the time they lose it in their drunken stupor. So then I have to take descriptions of what their unoriginal black leather jacket looks like, and they have to fill in an insurance form because it's 'policy' and they complain the whole way home.

I hate my job. I hate the hours, the pay, the stress, the fact that it's ruined the whole going-out experience I used to love as a rebellious teenager with a fake ID. If I never had another gin and cheap tonic again, it would be too soon.

"Hey, that'll be five dollars," I drone on monotonously to the next drunk (and clearly underage) girl that stumbles to the bench. She makes a face at the price but pays the fee, and I give her a ticket, remind her about the lost property policy and hang up her jacket.