Closed and I want a raise!

[Felix Styx]

Felix was officially back in New Zealand and he was here to stay, not that he'd really been anywhere other than New Zealand except for the times he'd been in Australia or doing work for the Scitorari. That was half of the problem though, he'd never really known when he was going to be away and he'd had to spend so much time away just to make sure he didn't start tracing things back to him. He had been a little worried for a while there that someone close to him would start to pick up on certain elements, but the fear had subsided when those people had left the service of the Auror staff. He wasn't game enough to start really thinking about what the might mean of course, on the off chance that it wasn't as stable as he hoped, but it did mean he felt more comfortable to start living his life again. Not to mention that he and Lanithro had started cashing in certain favours with his sister, and with Skye, and they were looking at completing their family completely - it also meant that Felix needed to look for a more suitable job. Perhaps one that wouldn't require him to spend so much time away from his family.

The fighting he could still do on the side, because it had never really been a problem before and he was a lot better at it now, so he didn't even need to sneak around as much. What Lanithro didn't know didn't hurt him after all. It was just a little lie. He didn't even bother knocking on the door and instead just walked in as he always had, not immediately finding Keye where he thought she might be, looking around he noticed that actually the bar isn't even open and he snorted as he realised it was actually super late. "Whoops," he said to himself, shaking his head as he continued down and to the one place he was pretty sure she would be at this time of night. He leaned against the door, listening in as he heard her moving slowly about in his office (because regardless, he still thought of it as his) and opened the door. "If you wanted my job so badly, you should have just told me," he said, grinning. "How you doing babe?"

@Keye Hayes ​

 

[Keye Hayes]

Keye hated paperwork. Or at least, she hated dealing with the pub's paperwork. In the early days of the pub, she had already figured out that she didn't like dealing with all the legalities that needed to be sorted out, balancing the books, or figuring out inventory. It took too much of her time and energy to both work in the pub as a server or bartender and to take care of everything in the back end. This was why she'd taken the first opportunity to promote Felix to manager, and eventually, they'd developed their own system of running the pub that was efficient for the both of them. When Felix left, Keye had been out of sorts. She and Felix had worked together for years, and she hadn't been willing to replace him. He visited now and then and helped her deal with some of the things, but never as extensively as it had been when he worked there.

It wasn't surprising anyway that she never replaced Felix when he left; she'd always had a problem with letting go, and so she took on the job herself. It wasn't like she had anything better to do anyway with Joshua off at school and now out in the world as an adult. The only thing was that she tended to do the paperwork after she'd closed down the pub, so it was only her in the building, and she easily got lost in the tediousness of the work. Which was why she hadn't noticed that someone was in the building until they'd entered the office and she'd practically jumped in surprise. It was easy to calm down when she realized who it was, and she could only grin as she stood from behind his desk to run up and hug him. "Felix! You scared me!" she said laughing because she hadn't seen him in a while. Weeks? Months? She could barely tell time these days. "I still hate your job and you know that," she says just as she wraps her arms around his neck.​

 

[Felix Styx]

He pulls her easily into the hug, grinning. He was glad she was at least happy to see him. He was never sure how greetings would go with people in his life, which was mostly because he frequently forgot what emotions he'd left the last encounter on. He couldn't count on two hands how many people he'd run into from various times in his life he'd assumed he had a friendly relationship with only to be swiftly divested of that assumption. There were people in his life he even assumed disliked him who seemed to not dislike him, it seemed to come down to how he read things generally and apparently he wasn't very good at it, though that was certainly news to him. And annoying news at that. He liked it when things were easy. "Well, maybe I can make myself something of a permanent fixture, I need a job and I was hoping you wouldn't mind re-establishing me in my old one," the fact she was doing it now told him she hadn't bothered looking for a replacement, and if she had she couldn't find a replacement for him, which seemed to be yet another sentiment shared amongst people who knew him. So that was three schools of thought on Felix. Those that adored him, those that would have preferred he dropped dead and those who felt like he was the only person capable of filling whatever role in their life they sought him out for. After all, when he was present he was a very good friend. He was just a sh!tty one when he wasn't mentally focused. "Sorry for scaring you though, but surely you must have known it was me."​

 

[Keye Hayes]

Keye had missed her friend. Felix had been a near permanent fixture in her life until he was not. He had seen her in a lot of low points in her life and had gotten her through them. Their friendship had been weird at first, starting with him as her employee. She’d promoted him to manager on half a whim, and since he was managing a pub that she owned, it had been unavoidable for them to talk. Next thing she knew, he had become her confidant. And her friend. They’d had to sort out a few issues between them because Keye didn’t want a friend. She didn’t want anyone. But without her noticing, she had gained people. Things were still far from fixed, but Felix had gotten her into a better place than when they’d found each other. Felix leaving had been hard and she tried not to take it personally, but she did at first. She didn’t get mad at him though, she turned all that ugly onto herself as she usually did until Felix’s absence didn’t chafe anymore. It helped that he visited. And now he was asking to come back and Keye realized that she’s been craving his presence like a phantom limb. “Yes, but you’re starting now because this is killing me,” she says, pulling away from the hug and stretching her arms skyward. She looks at him weirdly for him saying that she should have known that it was him, then realized that, before, it really was only him that would go to the pub this late. That wasn’t exactly true now. “Yes?” she said because what else was she going to say.​

 

[Felix Styx]

Felix shook his head, glancing over her shoulder at the books she was looking at before picking her up and dumping her out of the way so he could take a proper look at them. They weren't as bad as when he'd first gotten his hands on them, when he'd had to reorganise everything and work out the best system to utilise that would mean she was able to get everything she needed in one go, but once that had worked, he'd been able to spend a lot less time on it. It seemed that she was still sort of using his system, but it had fallen off and been overly complicated at some point - making it harder to understand than it needed to be. All he did was move one third of the numbers to a third column, and suddenly the cashflow lined up exactly where it had to. He turned to her and grinned. "You mean like that?" he asked, pushing the book towards her so that she can see. He wasn't showing off - okay he was kind of showing off but what else was he supposed to do in this moment? "Does this mean I have the job?"​