26He didn't even want to go in at first, not really. It wasn't his scene - most bars weren't - and it was dark, the gold lighting dim in some areas and neon bright with buzzing colors of violet and blue in others. Cigarette smoke furled in the air. Mike Wheeler knew he'd be stinking like an ashtray until he went home, stripped, burned his clothes and showered in boiling bleach.
But he needed a drink. Soon. Preferably now, and he wasn't in the mood to be particularly picky. A bar titled Doomsday's seemed to do it.
Music clamored from the jukebox in the corner with raspy rock n' roll, someone singing something about the AAAAACE OF SPAAAAAAADES and other things he couldn't make out. There wasn't much of a crowd, and while stuck out like a sore thumb (tall, slender, broad-shouldered and wearing a fucking turtleneckunderneath a dress blazer) among grizzled, the bearded and the leather-clad, he was ignored.
Which was fine, anyway. Story of his uneventful life.
There was a lonely, empty seat at the corner of the bar-top calling his name. His shuffle to it was awkward, the distinct feeling of out of place crawling into the consciousness of his mind. Other patrons were seated, scattered and in the company of empty shot glasses. A lanky man with a spiked choker and a mohawk higher than the Sears Tower was tending to them, sticking to one side of the bar.
And on his end, mostly bare and kind of sad, was a short-haired brunette. All he could see was her backside - er , not that he was looking at that specifically but it was a nice one anyway, if he were to have an opinion - as she wiped bottles clean from sticky residue. Something black or leather or, hell, both seemed like the unspoken dress code because that's what she fashioned, too. A sleeveless leather vest, fitted for a lady, worn as a shirt.
"Excuse me," he cleared his throat. "Ma'am?"
"Ma'am?"
Why do I make polite sound so fucking awkward all the time?
She turned, eyebrow quirked in offense, and the first thing he thought was pixie. Her features were cute - pretty, actually - with a little mischief, and she was button-nosed with round eyes that with a slight slant at the end. There was a shimmer of color around them too, bright blue like sapphires, that seemed to match the twisted bracelet on her wrist.
The next thing he thought was, don't I know you?
Knee-jerk reaction that made fuck all sense, he rationalized.
"Sorry? I was just trying to be -"
"Do I look old enough to you to be called ma'am?"
"What? No!" Jesus christ, he ought to abort mission now. "I mean, you look - you look my age?"
"Uh-huh. ID, please."
Maybe I should just leave, Mike mentally grouched to himself, taking out his wallet and pulling out identification. Before she puts rat poison in my drink.
The bartender took it, somehow being able to inspect it despite shit lighting. It'd only take a second to verify that, yes, he was indeed over the drinking age (twenty-three ), but it seemed like her gaze was lingering on every fine detail and it made him uncomfortable.
(Also because who the hell takes flattering license photos? He sure as hell didn't, please stop judging the terrible mandatory photo op.)
"Michael Theodore Wheeler," she read, each syllable pronounced with such careful precision.
"Yep, that's me."
Sadly.
"We're the same age."
"Surprise, surprise."
"Indiana?"
Uh. His license was an Illinois one, so he hadn't a clue where she pulled that fact from. "How'd you - ?" Mike took it back from her. "Have we met?"
Instead of answering the question with an answer - like most interactions with inquiries occurred - she countered with a question of her own, gesturing to the wide selection of liquid courage in bottles. "What can I get you?"
"A beer, I guess." How adventurous of me.
"We have a lot of beer, Mike," she deadpanned, his name rolling off her tongue with such jarring familiarity that it, officially, caused him to brand the night asweird. "Pick one."
"Right, sorry. Um." He scratched his nape, squinting at the labels before he settled. "Heineken. Bottle's fine."
Pop! went the cap. The glass bottle was set before him, a cool mist blowing from the top. Mike took a tentative sip, and then opted to ask another question in hopes of an actual answer. "What's your name?"
Without skipping a beat, she answered. "Eleven."
"That's your name?"
"Are you usually this condescending?"
"No!" he shot back, flustered, before realizing she was actually kind of grinning at him in a shit-eating way so he should probably, uh, chill. "Do you usually like putting your customers in awkward spots or am I just lucky?"
This Eleven smiled, almost like she knew a secret he didn't. "Mmhm, don't know about lucky. You're definitely easy, though."
"Thanks," Mike grumbled sardonically.
"What brings someone like you in here, anyway?"
"Are you usually this condescending?"
"Only to people who wear turtlenecks at a dive bar."
Alright, he thought. Fair point.
She was still smiling, and he almost didn't realize he was too. A little.
"It's a lame story," he waved off. "I'll bore you."
"I'm a bartender, Mike," Eleven snorted, leaning into the bartop with her forearms rested on it. There was a sight of cleavage there, the biker-shirt-vest-thing having such a low dip and, well, he did his best to maintain direct eye contact. "I'm cheap therapy. I listen to woes, prescribe you alcohol, and hopefully I'll make you feel better about yourself that you'll tip me generously and come back. Go ahead. I'm sure it's more riveting than the last one who poured out his heart out."
"What was his deal? So I can gauge how entertaining my tale's going to be."
"How costly veterinary bills were going to be and his cat's prescription anal cream."
He almost choked.
"It almost sounds funny, but," she shook her head. "It definitely wasn't."
Mike pounded his chest a couple times, just to make sure his airways were properly cleared and he wouldn't die with the thoughts of feline anal cream seared into his mind.
"You should probably breathe. It helps."
"Your sage words are much appreciated, I don't what I'd do without them."
"Sage words are mandatory for this position," Eleven chuckled with her chin sitting into her palm, and her stare was both expectant and amused. All he could think about was he'd seen that look before; impish, with that very same dimpled cheek, and he couldn't fathom the where or when or who. "C'mon. I'll pretend not to judge you too harshly."
Mike fought a groan and lost. "Fine. Okay, fine. I was on a date a couple blocks away from here. A really crappy one. That's it."
"Juicy already," she commented, officially intrigued. "Blind date?"
"Nah, just someone I was seeing."
"Girlfriend?"
"Like hell did I let it get that serious."
"Commitment phobe?"
"Who, me?"
"Who else am I talking to?"
"She wasn't my type," he huffed, right before polishing off the rest of his beer and requesting another one. Like the heavenly booze angel of snark she was, she swiftly retrieved, uncapped, and passed it over for his consumption. "I gave it a try. Didn't work out, so I went to end it politely -"
"Did you call her 'ma'am,' too?"
" - no, I didn't. Let me finish. Anyway, my dad comes to work at the branch out here sometimes and works with her dad, so that's how we got set up in the first place but it turns out she did it as a favor and, um, kind of out of pity. Which, hey, we didn't like each other, the feeling was mutual, cool, but fucking pity dating? How is that even a thing? I get that my nickname growing up was frogface but I didn't think I was that awful, god."
Her brows crinkled together, frowning. "You're not awful."
"You're supposed to say that. Being nice is how you get good tips."
"Have I really been all that nice to you since you came in, though?"
Alright, Mike considered. Fair point again.
Eleven pulled away and picked up a bottle of whiskey by the neck, mouthing the numbers one, two, three, four as she poured it into a glass from the spout. "Why bother with how she sees you when she when it sounds like she never cared in the first place?"
He eyed the drink, then her. "I guess."
"What is your type?"
"Why, you interested?" He was never that bold, ever, and the second beer he just finished downing wasn't even enough to glean a buzz worthy of an excuse to explain that strangely confident word vomit.
Maybe talking to her was really that easy. Maybe she was entertaining him because she felt pity, too.
Maybe he was a moron and needed to shut up.
"Depends," she clucked her tongue and cocked her hip, thinking. "Do application fees apply?"
"I'll think about waiving them, maybe. Also," Mike blinked at the glass slid in his direction. "I didn't order that."
"It's on me."
He was hesitant. She nudged it closer.
"Promise."
"Are you trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me?"
"Yes," was her composed answer, straight-faced and blase.
Five seconds later, as if on cue, they both laughed.
Mike hadn't come by Doomsday's the next day, nor the one after. He was a graduate student at Illinois Tech; the load of school work was intense and often grueling, class hours ran long, the work study program was demanding and he had deadlines to meet. Coffee had been his mistress instead of whiskey and beer, but the two latter options would have been fun options too.
Five nights passed (she wasn't counting, honest) before she saw the glimpse of shaggy black mop on top of a head and a knitted sweater vest over a button shirt, the glowing nerd beacon of help me, I don't belong. Eleven could see him plain as day across the room even through the cigarette smog. He spotted her too, right where he saw her last. Behind the bar, with a towel in her hand.
Her short hair was slicked back, all away from her face and into a bob of a ponytail. Shimmery eye shadow again, this time a vibrant magenta, and she wore a dark crop-top shirt that exposed her flat stomach.
"You know I can't get you a free drink every time, right?"
"Well, damn," he made a face, biting back a sarcastic sigh. "That was kind of the whole point of coming here."
"Obviously. These people aren't your crowd."
"No, and it's really hard to get the stench of smoke out of my clothes," Mike mused, sitting directly across from her. "But I'm here. I might as well buy at least one drink."
"At least one," Eleven smirked. "Beer, whiskey, or…"
"Or?"
"Cherry bombs," she finished. There was a mini-fridge right under the bar he couldn't see, because she had bent down and opened it to pull out a cold mason jar of little red delicacies soaked in something he assumed had a high alcohol percentage. "Technically not a drink, but it can be a snack to go with your drink."
"Can I - ?" He motioned to see the jar. Curious, he unscrewed the lid and took whiff. "Jesus. What are they soaked in?"
"Everclear."
"You're really working hard on getting me shitfaced, aren't you."
"I didn't take advantage of you last time."
Mike grinned and passed the container back. "I wasn't drunk last time, El. Maybe buzzed, but definitely not drunk."
There was a second where she stared at him, blankly, and he wondered if he had somehow fucked up in the last two seconds of their interaction.
"Did you make a nickname out of my nickname?"
Oh.
He did, didn't he?
"It's not like I can make a nickname out of your real name," he protested. "Which I don't know yet, by the way."
Eleven plucked a cherry from the jar and pulled it free from the stem with her teeth, and Mike wanted to know how the fuck she made that look so attractive. "I'm aware."
Thought so. There was no way a number could be her name, but now that he was looking at her a second time - was it weird to say she looked like an 'El'? "Are you going to tell me?"
The time it took her deliberate about it didn't inspire much confidence. "You're smart. You'll figure it out one day."
Mike wasn't satisfied. His eyes tightened, looking at her - really looking at her - trying to match every little detail of her to some old memory buried in his head, desperate to spring free and smack him in the face with the greatest epiphany of all time. The curve of her button nose, the dimples, her glossy pink mouth. There was something there, something about how shiny her lips looked that nagged at him but in the end, nothing. Nothing came.
As a peace offering, she extended him a vodka-infused cherry. "Patience you must have, my young padawan."
"Did you really just quote Star Wars to me?"
"It's getting you hot and bothered, huh?"
He wiped a hand over his face like it'd do something to hide the frustration. "That's it. You really must know me from somewhere and I'm clearly the idiot that can't remember. Or you're stalking me. Are you stalking me?"
"Nah."
"How are you so sure that I'll figure it out someday, then?"
"You just will," El shrugged, picking up another cherry for herself. "It's going to bug you too much to not figure it out."
She was right. Not knowing was bothering the shit out of him.
Someday was definitely not the third time he saw her. Not even the fourth or fifth. Sixth time she wasn't around. Contrary to popular belief, she didn't live there and was entitled to nights off. He expressed his utmost disappointment about it the seventh time he saw her.
They talked. A lot. He was an open book. She was a little more guarded, so he tread carefully. Sometimes over a week would pass before he could drop by for a drink, and other times she was so busy her attention was split. But that was okay, he thought, because whatever words they managed to squeeze in during high-busy times were worth it.
Mike never drank too much. He ordered the same amount of the same kind of beer every time. Her tip always matched the bill, nothing less. And after those nights, he'd come back to his apartment stinking like an ashtray.
He learned not to mind it so much.
A/N: this will hopefully be a fluffy and short AU, 2-3 chapters max!