Brennan sat with ease on his bar stool as though he actually made it look comfortable. He leaned forward slightly so that an elbow was placed on the rich mahogany stained wood of the bar countertop. So many marring gashes and gouges on that surface, so many stories that could be told within the unpolished, murky surface. Perhaps he could have said the same of himself, the scars that littered his body, inflicted by some savage beast that most average creature would never encounter while they lived and yet it hardly meant a thing that each scar told a foul tale. No, his heart was the most wounded of all, the one that still ached the most. As cliché as it sounded it was true, how many times could that dark heart be slashed and healed slashed and healed? Even he knew he was not unkillable. A scar tissue grew upon it so thick and callused he was wondering if it would ever work again. Disappointment, for the man who claimed he would never love had loved and lost not once but twice. He was not an easy man to love either, he could not be bridled and tamed like a well trained gelding. Yet love found him and fucked him up more than any night on the town, downing bottle after bottle of that amber liquid that might as well flowed through his very veins. His blood was poisoned with it. If it were not for the magical blood that flowed through him, he was sure it would have killed him.

Yet tonight, was another example of the shambles he was left in. His peculiar silvery blue eyes distant in thought, Dorian's words replaying in his head like a mocking school kid. He didn't mean anything by it, he wasn't intending to wound him or cause him strife if anything he was only trying to help. Not your soulmate, it seemed to echo and bounce off the walls of his mind, bounding with more momentum each time it collided with another bitter memory. Soulmate, the word was a joke. There was no one light that was destined to be your all in a sea of dark. No beacon of hope to help lost sailors. No, women were fickle and came and went like on a whim of a temporary breeze. So the roguish man did what he did best and drown out the noise in his head. To drink away the reality of his lonely, pitiful life now until it no longer mattered. A life, was that it? A life it hardly seemed to him. His soul might as well be tattered, used up trash.

The only thing that had welcomed his bed sheets were books, countless books. Books did not keep your bed warm, books did not chase away the demons. Of course, the knowledge inside them might have, if they weren't so useless, fruitless pulp. His one hope seemed to rest in the hands of the fae man he had helped, a random encounter within the dimly lit tavern of another bar much like this one, only much better maintained.

So when the stranger plopped next to him, he couldn't help but notice that look, that look that said he obviously needed a drink. That look mirrored in his own strange hued eyes, the warlock utterly parched and far too lucid to chase back creeping, annoying memories. One thing for certain, when he placed his order that he wasn't going to get the kick he needed from that beverage alone, from experience he knew they had watered down the inexpensive bottles to make money on barely alcoholic piss water. You needed to drink twice as much to even notice a buzz. Anyone with trained taste buds would have known that. Those words fall easily from his lips, he had been there before so that was exactly why he decided to warn the man of the piss poor amber liquid they dared call alcohol.

The man beside it grew irate with that knowledge and rightfully so. How fucking hard was it to get a decent drink? "Harder than you realize, mate, but you stick with this, you will be fine." If not, he had a trick or two up his proverbial sleeve. He almost wanted to conjure his own booze, simply because he could but he had chosen to come to a bar for a fitting distraction. Such disdain infused in that one singular word and yet perhaps in this, he could understand more than he even realized. Women.

"There is not enough liquor in this bar to deal with that." He scoffed, he looked up as if he could find the answers there. But he would never find answers by looking up. He had always had to look upon his own battle-worn hands to find the answers he would seek. Rely on no one. Was once his motto before he fell too deep.
"How can something so pretty cause so much havoc in their wake?" He searched for the word but in all honesty, they exacerbated him. With their alluring curves and sparkling smiles, the musical lyrics to their voices. They were like sirens upon rocky shores, wanting to lure you to your demise. "It would seem you have quite the fan club." He looked toward the girls who were inching closer and closer to the duo. His lips tugged into an up to no good grin, raising a brow. "Eager little things.." He mused with that Irish brogue. But that was all apart of the game, at least at first, was it not? There was no interest for he was not interested in those games, not tonight.

Big surprise there. It was a tale old as time itself. As history did what it does, it was doomed to repeat itself.

Brennan O'Connell