DISCLAIMER: Not my characters, not my 'verse, etc. etc.

“I’d like another one,” the man said, and then added, “sir.”

He had to be one of the last ones at the bar, though you couldn’t really tell. The place was dark and laden with smoke and had a peculiar smell to it. Mold? It didn’t matter.

What did matter was that this wasn’t his usual dive. A proper dandy, he had been labeled, but this place was for ruffians and local filth. Of course no high society gentleman’s club would accept him, and that was a long story.

…As it was also the impetus for his binge drinking. Well much of his problems resulted from his lost prestige.

It was late, and bags were beginning to form under his eyes. He stole a glance at a mirror lying behind the bar. He was ragged, a little more than a five-o-clock shadow on his face. His once crisp and clean white shirt was wrinkled, ruffled, and began to resemble a forlorn shade of cream.

“Merciful Buddha, I’m a wreck,” he muttered.

He quickly took another swig and downed the shot glass.

An old brass bell clattered as he set his glass to the bar. The bell was a crude way of announcing the arrival or departure of a patron, but nonetheless effective and very annoying.

This time it was an arrival. A woman, almost his height, with strawberry blond to red hair that looked more than a bit disheveled. Her jacket was in state of disrepair, torn, stained….very stained. Most remarkable, was her expression. It was discernable, but not, in a way: angry and forlorn, depressed and defeated, all at once while being flat, not giving way to any one of those emotions in particular.

She made her way to the bar and released a large sigh as he sat down. The bartender ambled over, drying a glass in his hand.

“Give me the hardest thing you got,” she said flatly and the bartender departed with a hairy eyeball at the seemingly dainty woman.

“And me too,” the man added impulsively. The bartender rolled his eyes and ducked under the bar to find a bottle of some