Donnie groaned as his alarm brought him back to the land of the living, alerting him to the fact that he had an hour to get ready and get to work. Despite the time that the club opened, Donnie had only just fallen asleep an hour previous; his damnable neighbors had been playing music all night and fighting all morning. Not only had he heard them through the paper-thin apartment wall he shared with them, but the rage the two had been projecting had his head throbbing and his temper shortening. He wasn't close enough to leave any emotional suggestions that would get them to calm down, so he had had to settle with blocking out their thoughts for the slightest bit of relief. They had finally ended it with one of them storming out of the apartment and he'd taken the chance to get a precious hour of sleep before his shift.

His head was still throbbing as he made his way into Club Codename and behind the bar to make sure everything was stocked, clean, and ready for opening. The coffee cup in his hand was already empty and he found himself tipping it back in the pathetic hope of getting even one more drop out of it; his neighbors' emotions may have been out of his system, but he was still nursing the normal headache from their raised voices and the music before that. He sighed when his frown reflected back at him from where he scrubbed a little too hard at the spotless bar.

"God, I really need to move out of that hell hole," Donnie muttered to his own reflection, taking note of the dark spots under his eyes. He had been planning to move out for a while, given that it was the same apartment he'd lived in ever since he got out of prison. He knew that it would be better to get out of the slums and find somewhere closer to his job, but he just didn't know how to look for a nice apartment. Growing up he'd gone from an orphanage to the gang's hideout, then to prison and his shitty little apartment; he wasn't sure he'd even know a good living space if he saw it. 

Donnie looked away from the bar top and took a few deep breaths to try and shake off his mood, knowing that if he wasn't in control come opening time it would negatively affect the customers he interacted with. He's always made sure not to let his sour moods leak out, but better safe than sorry; he already saw Mr. Clark with a trainee, and while the man seemed rather immune due to the similarities in their powers, he wasn't sure about the girl, and didn't want to take any risks in finding out. He slowly reeled himself in before putting off a feeling of calm in hopes that it would not only help him truly feel it himself, but also that it would keep any customers around him from getting too rowdy tonight. He was in no shape to deal with anything of the sort, the sleep deprivation chipping away at his usually strong mental walls.

"[i]Really[/i] need to move out," he repeated to himself, shaking his head and doing another pointless wipe down of the bar.