One of Those Nights [pg 13]

[ωΘĿƒ]

Nights started out slow. At first, people assumed the worst of a literal dead village and refused to come anywhere near the waking, yawning residents. Those who took the graveyard shift - in this case the daylight hours - went to bed feeling like they haven't slept in a week and the fresh crew of the town woke up with the knowledge that they would not be sleeping for a very long time too. They were the new graveyard shift.

But what could you expect? From the mortals, of course. They waited warily as the shifts changed and just as soon as everyone had been settled into the village shops they poured in, suddenly very happy that they could go about buying things, as if the new shift would be any less likely to nip them than the shift before.

But once again, what did you expect from mortals? They did not exactly get it. Not that he would ever teach them, but it did seem fair for them to be reasonable with this thinking thing, right? What would happen if a cranky vampire were hypothetically to take a swing at a student from the almighty Crane's magical school of freaks? Not much at first. The kid would scamper off scared and whine to the higher ups, and then there would be long boring lectures on how "you shouldn't be letting your children loose," "you should remember the deal we had," "you should know what happens if you break that deal, White."

And yes, he knew exactly what would happen. Oh doom and gloom upon him. Sure, that fun stuff. He'd been there before, so he was smart enough not to get caught doing anything "bad."

They should know this, but of course they don't. Nothing you could do about it. There was always that familiar tension between the kids and his children. It would always be there, and there really was no cure.

Because he was evil, and he couldn't be trusted. Yeah, got that part.

"I need you to understand this, White."

White nodded, boredly, his teeth grinding into the cigar butt as he tried not to yawn.

"Got it. No playing with the bad kids anymore. I'll be good from now on, mommy."

Crane never flinched, no matter how hard White tried to rattle him. He got all depressed and stuff, or all weird and thinky; but never had White seen him freak over something he could say.

He'd been freaked before though, and he was going to be freaked again, but that was besides the point. White moved the cigar to the side as he took a sip of brandywine - one of his favorite drinks. He decided to pull her out on the occasion that Crane would lecture him on how not to "destroy us all" and that day had finally come.

He let the taste linger, burning at the sides of his mouth before he puffed a blue smoke ring out from his cigar.

"There are precautions, White."

"I'm sure there are."

Crane gave him one of those blank, useless stares before walking out the door, leaving White to simmer in a hazy cloud of his own smoke.

Well that worked out as well as could be expected. White refilled his glass and decided to toast himself for a job well done.

Crane was catching scent, but he had no idea what that Ivan was planning. Probably best too. It was something foul and it'd put Crane in one of his depressing moods. God, the man could be a drag.

White downed the drink, hoping to forget about that for a while. It was then, after the first wave of customers had just thinned out a bit, and just as Crane had left, that a new player entered through the front door.

Oh goody. It was that dragon brat's sinister little girlfriend. White used his resting hand hanging by the bar table to reach for his flintlock pistol in case things got ugly again.

Kids... Kids and that whiny headmaster Crane... Why the hell did he move here again?

[Iƪƪia]

This was a bizarre world indeed. Aside from the fact that apparently everyone was secretly a giant cat or lizard or something, she also didn't know the names of half the stuff in her new "room". But it all seemed to be so similar, making lights flash or making clicking sounds, making images move across a flat screen. It was all so strange, and Ivy had spent the better half of her day wondering how a little, rectangular box was able to hold and play all that music. In the end she had decided it must simply be magic. Yep, magic was the answer to everything.

Once her initial curiosity was sated, she then realized something even more bizarre: she hadn't had a drink in over 100 years. The thought hit her like a ton of bricks and she immediately left her room in search of some much needed spirits. She asked around and managed to find the name of a place that served alcohol away from that campus and all of it's goddamn sober students. Luckily, one of the guys she'd gotten directions from also happened to smoke, so she was able to tie herself over until she found the cafe. Well, wasn't she lucky? For just a moment she had wondered if they even had alcohol or smokes here. However, she soon decided that thought was absurd. Every place had alcohol and smoking! Except hell, evidently.

Chewing on the cigarette in her mouth, she trotted into the cafe, looking around a bit. This place wasn't so bad... Kinda reminded her of the bars back in her own world. Ooh, maybe they had a gambling ring here too. She could use some more money, seeing as how the bills she'd lifted from the guy with the smokes didn't look like it would buy her too much.

She pushed her new, horrible, much-too-long hair behind her ear, thinking about how she really needed to cut it soon, as she ambled up to the bar. Hopping into one of the stools, she gave the bar tender a once-over, smiling casually. Wasn't he a bit too old to still be working here? He should just get some big-busted floozy to work the place while he went and... Waited to die or whatever it was old people were supposed to do.

"'Sup?" She said, chucking at how that word sounded. The people here used a lot of funny words. She'd have to take care to remember them all.

Exhaling a puff of smoke, she leaned back, enjoying the atmosphere. It was so nice to be alive again... Although she supposed she wasn't really alive... But she wasn't dead either! So that was good enough for her. Besides, she once again got to partake in the loveliness that was tobacco and alcohol. What more could a girl like her ask for?

"So I reckon this is where a girl can come to get somethin' to drink?"

[ωΘĿƒ]

White looked the girl over for a long time. A very, very long time; though in reality, it was only a few seconds. It was long for him, considering he was basically psychic or the like, and should have been able to read people like a book. Not that he couldn't read her... it was more what he was reading that didn't make sense.

She had absolutely no idea who he was.

White chewed on his cigar a bit, pondering this odd occurrence. Well, she could have amnesia. She could have a twin. Or she could be someone completely different. Either way, she wasn't playing him. This girl was in no way hostile like that Illia was. Nor, it seemed, was she even exhibiting the first signs of being tense around him. Very odd indeed. She wasn't human... so she wasn't stupid.

Or was she?

Call it a hunch, but White had a crazy idea that this girl didn't have the first clue what was going on around here. Which, coincidentally, worked for him just fine.

"Only place," White grunted, tossing out a glass and filling it without asking her what she wanted to drink. It was a short, thick-rimmed shotglass, but what he filled it with hadn't been any shot.

It was the day's special. Type B+. White filled his now empty glass with the same, swirling it a bit to get the remains of the brandywine to mix with the blood, then downed that too.

Without missing a beat, he began with the normal conversation he offered most of his patrons. This time, acting on the far-spread assumption that this in fact was Illia Alucarin.

"So, where's that boyfriend of yours? I head you've been friendly with a lot of people other than the little fire-breathing cripple. Makes for an interesting relationship, no?"

[Iƪƪia]

Ivy watched with mild curiosity as he filled a glass with some weird, dark red liquid. Sure as hell didn't look like any drink she'd ever had. In fact, it almost looked like... Could it be... Was that really... Man, if her assumptions were correct, he was one sick ****. Maybe this is what everyone did here? Maybe blood was the alcohol of choice? Considering this, she removed the cigarette from her mouth, wondering what they might have used instead of tobacco.

Shrugging that thought aside, she picked up the glass, holding it inches from her face in an attempt to figure out if she was correct about its contents. Then, she tipped her head up and tossed it back, unflinching. Setting the glass back on the table, she licked her lips, trying to decide if she liked that taste or not. In the end she decided she didn't. More importantly, she had no hope of getting drunk if she just sat here drinking blood all day.

"Ugh, for ****'s sake, man! If you're gonna make me drink that nasty **** you might as well put some alcohol in it! You know what that is, right? Alcohol?"

She smiled as she spoke, showing that it was all in good fun, although she was genuinely curious by now. Maybe the people here really did get drunk off of blood. Maybe the blood affected them like alcohol affected her. Yeah, and maybe these people got high off of... Eh, best not to go there just yet.

Then her eats perked up at his next words. Crap. He knew her. Well, not her, but the old her. The girl whose body she had "borrowed". Perfect. What to do, what to do... What would she have done in this situation?.. Why the **** should she know? Yeah, Vera had neglected to tell her anything of the girl's personality. Well, what could she do but lie through her teeth and hope it worked out for the best?

"Oh, him? Yeah, no he's... Um, he's cool. Yeah, we have a good relationship like that, if you know what I mean."

She let a little, lighthearted chuckle accompany her response as she slid her glass back across the bar. Just give short, vague responses and drop a lot of innuendo like she knew what she was talking about and he would never know...

[ωΘĿƒ]

"Mhhmm," White nodded languidly, sipping at the few drops of blood left in his glass and taking it all in.

Nope. Not her. Not even close to her. This was a complete stranger, and by the looks of it, she was sitting there drinking blood and trying to cover her ass in Illia's body. Not bad. She stuck to the ambiguous stuff, but White knew before he asked the question that there was no right answer for her to give.

If she had responded at all like he thought Illia would, it would have been in anger or retort and he would have blown her head clean off right then and there. Lucky her, he had been around a while and seen a few things. This wasn't by far the most shocking thing that had walked in, sat down, and asked for a drink at his bar.

White dawdled a bit more, tapping his empty glass as he sucked on the sweet flavor of the cigar... then he decided that one laugh was enough. He wouldn't have her sit there suffering while he poured the wrong kind of beverage for her convenience. Swiping her glass, White replaced it with another question.

"Yeah, we have heard of the stuff; so what'll it be then? Something a bit less..."

For some reason, seeing the girl gulp one big fat lump of what she considered to be disgusting down continued to make him smile. He now fought with that smile nonchalantly as he continued on.

"...bloody?"

He decided it was best to nail her on the fact that she was stealing a kid's body after she'd been properly quenched. Until then, White refilled his own glass with more of the blood and took a quick sweep of the dining floor just for comfort's sake.

So... the next question was, did Crane know about this? Probably. Was he going to do anything? Damn no. Why would he care? Just let some girl be bodysnatched and move along with life as if nothing happened.

And Crane thought he was callus.

[Iƪƪia]

Ivy laughed nervously, wondering if her lie actually worked. Well, it must have, right? After all, who would think that a 100 year old alien ghost was inhabiting some dead girl's body? It wouldn't have been the first thought that came to her mind, at least. So she decided it was probably best not to worry about it as she picked at her freakishly large canine teeth, seeing if she could find any stray platelets.

Once that task was accomplished, she removed the short remains of the cigarette from the side of her mouth. Holding it several inches from her face, she stared at it, spacing out just a little, before opening her mouth and extinguishing it on her tongue. Letting it fall back into her mouth, she swallowed it whole. Still smiling coolly, she leaned forward, clasping her hands together and resting her elbows on the bar.

Aha! She knew it! They did drink alcohol here. Maybe their worlds weren't as different as she thought. Well, different setting, same plot.

"Alright, I want something hard. Something that would cause the average person to go blind," She explained, rubbing her hands together, "I want to wake up in the morning tied to a chimney on someone's roof with a squirrel chewing on my shoes and no recollection of how I got there!"

Satisfied, she leaned back, swinging her feet on top of the bar. Getting a little too comfortable, maybe, but who the hell cared? All she was interested in right now was seeing how well this new body handled the alcohol. Considering how small this girl was, she was guessing not too well. Ah well, she'd just have to train this body, then. If that meant she'd have to stop by this place every day then so be it. It was a risk she had to take.

[ωΘĿƒ]

White sat there, one elbow on the bar and the other slowly bending as he took his hand away from the pistol just beneath the countertop of the bar. Instead, he decided to swirl the contents of his glass around so the blood would not settle and coagulate.

Tricky stuff, blood was. Had to take it out real fast, then douse it with foul tasting chemicals that would preserve it and keep it from losing its color and coagulating. Then you had to either heat or cool it because god forbid you keep the stuff at room temperature and have that nasty rot set in and kill the batch. White had tried a long time to find a way to set the blood just right for storage. Took him the better part of a century, because the technology at the time was so damn limited, but eventually he did a little dabbling into science and magic and whatnot else and found a good technique to go. Even got rid of the foul taste of the chemicals after a while, and once the temperature of the human body was discovered and all that other jazz he could keep it just so, with just the right kind of environment for longevity.

Still, you can't beat fresh squeezed. It was the same with freshly opened alcohol. After that first touch of air, you're on a time limit, and you have to drink the stuff fast.

White stared at the black-red, almost milky surface of the liquid as he smiled slightly at the girl's description of drunk. She was damn funny, he'd give her that.

"I can do that," he gave her a curt nod, with some hesitation releasing his grip on his own glass and then commencing to first place out a heavy mug then a blackish bottle with some old foregn writing on it.

It wasn't really all that old, but people liked to decorate the bottles to make them look older than they were. This one though, it didn't have to be a vintage. She wanted a kick, and this was the best kick in the house.

It would kill a human; but then again, he didn't get many human patrons, so what was the point of having only human drinks?

Pouring out the remarkably clear liquid, White added only about a spoonful of another liquid, just to give it some taste and color. The liquid he poured was bright, bloody red - a lot like what was in his glass - but as soon as he threw a straw in and mixed it a bit the color of the fluid leveled out into a nice even, fiery red with streaks of dark crimson.

White finished with an olive garnish on a toothpick and slid the drink in her direction.

"That stuff's worse than motor oil for you, but it'll do the trick right well. It's a little something I like to call Dragons' Breath."

Ironic, this. But maybe not? It was hard to tell with all this body-switching nonsense. Did this girl that was inhabiting Illia's body even know about the dinky little dragon she had following her around? Nope, didn't look like it. Well, she'd find out then.

Maybe this girl would treat the little whelp better than Illia did.

Taking hold of his own glass once more, White sipped at the contents leisurely.

For someone like her, alcohol did it. He preferred blood himself. Had a kick to it that only a vampire could appreciate, like a shot of adrenaline and a shotglass of liquor at the same time, and the more exotic the better.

He found that most other vampires didn't like that Race blood much - too strong or something. Maybe too much like animal blood? But he loved it. The stronger the creature, the more kick to the blood too.

In a way, it was kind of more than coffee and liquor put together. It was probably a high too, come to think of it. Well damn, all that put together... It was paradise.

Small price to pay for clammy skin and light irritation.

[Iƪƪia]

Ivy watched with curiosity as he began to put her drink together. A lot sure went into making one glass. Well, not a lot, but more than she was used to. Hell, she was just expecting him to throw her a bottle of cheap Rum. Ah well, she'd still give this stuff a try. Gladly.

She had grabbed the glass up off of the table in mid-slide, chuckling at the cutesy olive he added. Plucking the garnish out of her drink, she swallowed it, toothpick and all, chasing it with the entire glass of liquid. It burned all the way down like any good liquor should, and it wasn't long before a warm, tingling sensation was spreading throughout her body. She slammed the glass on the table, shaking her head at the strength of the drink. It was a feisty, little beast, but she would tame it.

As the burning began to lessen a little, she realized how funny this whole situation was. She wasn't sure why or how, she just knew it was. So funny, in fact, that she just had to laugh about it. And so she did, sliding halfway down her barstool in a fit of giggles. However, before she reached the floor, she managed to catch the end of the bar and pull herself back up again.

"**** man, now that is more like it."

She nodded to herself, fondly reminiscing about life back in her own world. Ah, yes... Some of the liquor she'd tried over the years tasted like it was pure alcohol. And that was how she liked it. Really, everyone wanted to try and disguise the taste with different fruits and whatnot... What morons! Of course, you could still get pretty ****** up, you just needed to know what to ask for.

"Ya know, back where I come from there was some pretty quality ****, ya know?" She began, making a few elaborate gestures, "But it was like... The- The more expensive the drink, the less you could taste the alcohol. I mean, what a ******* waste, right? If I'm gonna pay for alcohol, I wanna taste the ******* alcohol! That is why I would stick with the cheap stuff. S'always... Oh, ****. Forgot what I was saying..."

She let her voice trail off, wondering if her train of thought would come back to her, when she caught sight of her empty glass. Her glass? Empty?! Horrified and excited at the same time, she slid the glass back to him.

"C'mon, don't keep it all to yourself!"

~Illia's 666^th post! Ebil Post! ~

[ωΘĿƒ]

White had to chuckle himself at the funny sight of the girl with her strange little habits. Habits that were obviously foreign yet so charmingly reminiscent of something. Damn, what was it...?

Home.

Yes. Looks like she reminded him of the squalor and brawl of his birthplace. Nice enough little town. Lot of fights. Lot of drunkards that never carried their own weight. Lot of disease and all that fun crap too, but damn good times for anyone who wanted real alcohol.

There was nothing like that home made taste, he remembered. And nothing like the mannerisms of the time too. Such a bunch of pigs, and crazy ******** too. They didn't know what a garnish was. Kind of like she didn't. Kind of like she swallowed a... toothpick.

Yep. She wasn't from around here, and she'd stolen a kid's body, but hell she was better than most of the self-serving little ***** that came from that school.

White decided then and there that this was not going to be another of those nights. It was going to be a good one. Might as well be. He'd pulled out the brandywine and everything. Remembering that, he threw a little of it in with his own drink, then took out that fancily labeled black bottle again.

He didn't bother with the garnish or the coloring or anything so superfluous. He just poured the mug up to the top and set the bottle down next to her.

"Yeah. I come from somewhere similar," he sighed, shifting his now very short cigar and sipping at his drink.

Then, after a bit less thought in the matter then usual, he downed the glass blood, brandywine, and all; and set himself up with some of the black bottle's contents too.

"Hell, why not," he mumbled to himself, taking this as a shot type drink too and then slamming it down on the table in a similar fashion.

After which, without so much as a few shivers in response to the fiery drink, he returned to his signature grandfatherly smile.

"So you wanna hear a funny joke? Girl walks into a bar. Bartender gets ready to smear her brains all over the walls. Except, she's come up sitting down and asking for a drink like she doesn't remember the bartender crippled her boyfriend and threatened to kill her the next time he saw her!"

White laughed hoarsely, but with a nice deep rich quality that came from years of damn good laughter.

"Well wanna hear the punchline? The bartender knows right off the bat it's not her. So tell me then. If you're not her, who the hell is sitting in front of me? Because it damn sure isn't that **** Illia."

[Iƪƪia]

Watching as he went about mixing more liquors together, Ivy specifically focused on that black bottle. When he set it down, she immediately reached for it, watching him like a child who knows she's doing something wrong. Pulling the bottle toward her, she brought it up to her lips and began to greedily gulp it down. Perhaps it was stupid to drink so much at once, but she was on a mission here! Besides, this body seemed to handle the alcohol just fine!

Her sanity draining just as quickly as the bottle's contents, she listened to him speak without really comprehending the meaning. Although she did manage to catch some of that last part, she was sure. Some of it... A few words, at least... Well, she must have gotten the gist!

"Mm?" She questioned, still guzzling the liquor. Taking the nearly-empty bottle and setting it down, she held onto the side of the table, waiting for the room to stop spinning so much, "Who, me?"

She sat back, still clutching the bar with her other hand resting atop her head. She swayed from side to side, watching him suspiciously and then bursting out laughing as if he had just told a really good joke. In actuality, it wasn't that funny. It didn't even make sense to her, however, she seemed to have lost some control of what her body was doing now. Leaning back, she made a grandiose gesture toward herself.

"Oh, th'name's Ivy. I reckon' it's short fer somethin'... But I dunno. Parents were neva 'round, neva told me much... Yeah..."

She broke off, mumbling something to herself as she stared down hard at the bar. It almost seemed as if she had forgotten where she was for a moment, but the realization quickly came back to her, and she looked back up at the bartender with another drunken laugh. She then sighed and rested her head in her hand.

Then, the inner mechanisms of her mind began to come to life, slowly turning in an effort to connect two different points. She had been told something... Something important... But what was it? She almost had it; it was on the tip of her tongue...

... Oh, ****.

Striking her forehead with the palm of her hand, she muttered a string of curses under her breath. Looking back up, she leaned halfway across the bar, pointing at him in an accusatory fashion.

"Alrigh', see... I wasn' s'posed to tell you that."

[ωΘĿƒ]

After the first wave of listless, amusing shock hit him, he simply watched as she guzzled down the black bottle and completely failed to catch his meaning.

Well hell. He couldn't be witty if she was going to get herself **** drunk. He'd have to resort to smaller words with less double meanings if she was going to do that.

Still, he couldn't help but find the smallest hint of amusement for the devotion with which she gauzzled down the chockingly strong liquid. After awhile it looked like she didn't give a damn how much it stung, but drank it like a thirsting man with a bottle of water.

He waited, still feeling a bit of the burn on his own innards, until she stopped swaying and caught hint of what he'd been saying.

Then, without much show of fear or panic, she mumbled out a half-assed response, coupled with a bit of genuine concern.

"Yup," White shrugged. He was feeling a but buzzed too, so he could appreciate the sudden spurts of hilarity she was getting. He was feeling a bit tickled himself. Enough so that he let out a small chuckle as he nodded.

"Threw me off at first, but I figured it out."

Thinking of pulling the bottle away from her so she couldn't get dangerously drunk on the stuff, White threw a hand out waveringly. Then, he seemed to decide against it, and the hand instead picked the spent cigar from his mouth and flicked it across the room.

Hell, she told him how drunk she wanted to get. Who was he to stop her?

Still, if he was going to sit here watching her drown herself, he needed something to hold him off too. Now pulling the hand towards the shelves underneath the bar table, White fished out a box full of his favorite cigars.

He usually did cigarettes, but today he was in a cigar mood for some damn reason. Looking around for one with a good taste, he eventually picked out a Cuban.

Not very original, but there was a reason they were so popular. They generally had good quality and he liked the Cuban flavor specifically because it was contraband in the US. It wasn't so much about flavor as it was about rarity; and he was a sucker for rare, expiensive things that you could smoke.

He cut it, popped it into his mouth, and lit it, letting the strong, spicy smoke out slowly through his nose. After a long moment of this, he laughed once more, just thinking to himself.

"**** I don't care. I probably should, but I never liked the little **** anyways. Illia can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned."

So saying, he raised his empty glass, looked at it a moment, then added just a bit of the black bottle's contents before raising it again.

"Do they have toasts where you come from? See, ya smack the glasses together and then ya drink. It's celebratory, and I feel like celebrating."

Well, White felt like celebrating most of the time anyways, but he guessed this was as good a time as any to actually commence with the celebrating part. Besides, wherever the girl came from, she didn't look like she was going anywhere soon. Might as well teach her the best parts of her new home sweet home.

[Iƪƪia]

Ivy fell into another fit of giggles as she, still clutching the bottle, fell to the side a bit, only to correct herself just before she fell. She just couldn't help it; the situation was just too damn funny!

She watched him pull out a box of cigars with a creepy sort of longing. Then, she took out her last cigarette, lighting it with a match that she then popped into her mouth and swallowed. It was a bizarre habit she had, to be sure, and she couldn't recall exactly when it had started. It used to be that she often did odd things like that after drinking heavily, so perhaps a habit or two carried on into her everyday life. Strange that she should recall and continue these habits after 100 years of nothing, but apparently old habits weren't easily broken.

She inhaled deeply, as she genuinely listened to him this time, getting a kick out of the metaphor he used to show how much he disliked that Illia girl. Rot in hell. Funny! After all, who here knew more about something like that? Granted, it might not be the same type of hell here, but no matter.

"Heh... Yeah, well sho don' ashully rot in hell. I mean, th' body rots, but above groun' so... Oh!" She looked down at her own - well, not her own but, you know - body, having almost forgotten that she was borrowing that girl's corpse for awhile, "Ashully, no! Not rottin' at all."

Laughing again, she took the cigarette out of her mouth for a moment. Maybe it was just the kind that kid had given her, but it seemed like the cigarettes in her world were much stronger than this, if she recalled correctly. Well, maybe she could find something else to satisfy her cravings. Back in her world, there was more than one way to meet those purple, spotted weasels, and she had high hopes for this world as well.

Seeing him raise his glass, she picked up her bottle and rose it as well.

"'Course we got toasts! Alrigh', to... To no' bein' dead, man!"

With that, she brought the bottle back down to her lips, taking several, large gulps before slamming in on the bar again.

"****. Tha's ******* awesome... Hey," She leaned across the bar, "Hey, I like you, misser. So les be friends!"

Ivy clapped her hands together childishly. Then, leaning further across the bar, she regarded him seriously. If they were friends now, what was wrong with asking a favor of a friend? Besides, it wasn't like she had anything left to hide from him. Or did she? Ah, well.

"So my frien', would ya happen ta know where I kin get somethin'... Else? Ya know, like somethin' else I could... inhale or somethin'... Tha' would make me real ****** happy?"

[ωΘĿƒ]

White gulped his glass and slammed it down just as Illia's impersonator - Ivy - had. They may come from different places, but it seemed they had a lot of damn similarities. And only the good kinds too.

White could see that now that Ivy mumbled a full-hearted drunken friendship to him, and then asked for something... stronger.

Well, well. Just his kind of girl. She wasn't afraid of the fun side of life.

With that last glass, White was feeling very... oh crap. He was just drunk now. Plain old drunk, and finding everything a lot better because of it. Still, he was one of those that held his liquor well. And besides that, he was generally exactly the same blindly drunk as he was sober.

Maybe that was because he was never completely sober...? Ah well. No point in thinking about that kind of stuff. Couldn't change it and didn't want to.

White nodded pleasantly, without words accepting this offer of friendship. Sure. Another friend. Friends were good. And if they were friends, then why not show a friend a good time and get out the stronger stuff.

"Got that too. Seems we got a lot of stuff in common," the vampire drawled, taking a deep inhale of the cigar and puffing out the smoke so that he was engulfed in a tantalizing blue haze. Sadly though, he'd have to leave that haze to accommodate her wishes.

Oh well. White took one last puff and wove around the bar counter so that he was on the cafe's main floor.

"But I don't keep it here. Gonna have to go somewhere more private. It ain't actually legal in these parts."

With that, he motioned to one of the few white faced statues posted every so often around the cafe, and whispered something as one got closer.

The other vampire nodded mutely, but he smiled a bit as he took White's position behind the counter. White only grabbed his glass, had the new bartender fill it one last time with the remainder of the brandywine, then motioned in the direction of the door, taking a sip.

"Come on."