After a dinner of lasagna - which, on their new night-shifted schedule was actually more of a lunch - Verity had come up to brood for a bit. Recognizing that her death stalked the streets of Baltimore in the guise of her third cousin had her looking at the future a little more closely. She'd came to Baltimore to prove that she could make it as a professional ballroom dancer. Only things hadn't exactly worked out that way. She hadn't managed to win a single major competition; the times she'd placed, it had always been local, and the prize money she'd received barely paid for the cost of her registration. It didn't touch her costumes, or the hours of studio time she had to beg, borrow, and steal whenever she could. Most people in her tier of the profession supplemented their income teaching classes, but she couldn't even do that anymore. Trying to be a bartender and a choreographer for Kitty and a cryptozoologist took up too much time. Quit bussing tables and she couldn't afford to eat. ( Quit taking care of cryptids… )
[You know the drill! Adapted from Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire. Preplayed and coded by firstofitskind]

Fireworks for the Fourth lit up the night sky, but neither Verity nor Liam were in a mood to celebrate. "Well, this is going to be a whole lot of not fun," Verity sighed, standing outside of Dave's Fish and Strips, an unimposing building that was surprisingly hard to find unless you knew exactly where to look for it. It was a 'gentleman's club' that included live dancers who got down to absolutely nothing on the front stage. That didn't make it special; any city of size included at least a few of the same kinds of places. But Dave's was the only one that Verity knew of (in Baltimore anyway), that catered specifically to the cryptid set. Both the staff and the patrons were majority cryptid, if not exclusively so.

But hey, everybody had to make a living. In another life, Verity could easily see herself waitressing here. Just waitressing--( she hadn't been kidding about her grandma's reaction. )

[Adapted from Chapter 7 of Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire and preplayed with (and coded by) the resplendent firstofitskind. Next post is here! Part one, two, three. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]