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It had been a relatively slow evening, the comfort of the small pub making everything feel very casual.
It was nice, and Bruce had even gotten a chance to chat with the elderly couple who always sat in the worn booth seats.
Per usual, they had left him a nice tip.
He had been washing a glass when the door had burst open, and in stepped a crowd of hulking figures, led by a burly man with an intense presence.
The man smelled of motor oil and burning cigarettes, skimming over the entire bar, Bruce included, with a cocky grin.
His eyes, Bruce noticed with a start, were black as night and seemed to shine with a molten light.
They never seemed to stay on anyone long enough for them to form an idea of who he was, which, if it was consciously, seemed smart in Bruce’s book.
He was a big man, and the way that the bar had fallen silent, tension forming in the air like a volcano waiting to erupt showed him that the man meant business.
Bruce had just started here, maybe he was a regular that his superiors hadn’t warned him about? Or some biker who came in to cause trouble whenever he felt like it.
At his own thoughts, worry bubbled up in his gut, and he clutched the glass in his hand, which thankfully didn’t break in his airtight grip.
The trailing cronies, all seemingly a fraction or so shorter than the man, hovered at his shoulders like daemons, only adding to his fiery presence, their odd jewel toned hair and sharp angles dimming in the odd man’s presence.
Bruce broke out of his own thoughts as the footsteps started once more, catching him off guard..
The man stalked directly in Bruce’s direction, and like a western, his footsteps seemed to reverberate through the room, shaking the very strings of Bruce’s heart.
Why was he surprised? He was the barkeep here, he reminded himself dully. It was his job.
Instinctively, Bruce squared his shoulders, attempting to brush off his simmering anxiety as the man approached. Gears turned and clicked in his head as he tried to maintain an indifferent countenance.
The pairs of steel plated combat boots stopped at the foot of Bruce’s Bar, and they were fucking dirty, tracking massive muddy footprints across Bruce’s freshly cleaned floor as they invaded his space.
Something in him, reinforced by frustration, curled in revulsion at the man’s fiery presence.
Carefully, Bruce held tense eye contact, jaw clenched as he tried not to shy away.
Up close, the man’s eyes were truly astounding, near animalistic with their depth, yet they glimmered with intelligence.
Something deep in them, something he wanted to pursue tempted him, dark and delicious as sin. It danced like flames, flickering and teasing at his insides, and he felt his pulse quicken.
He half wondered if the man’s followers had the same searing desire as he did to unveil the functions behind those eyes, to see how he thought and why, to understand the volcanic intensity down to its root.
”Can I help you?” He finally asked, a touch too cold, but thankfully steady.
The man’s grin seemed to split like shards of glass, sharp and pretty as knives with a touch of countering cruelty to it. “Yes, if you can tell us if you’ve served anyone who has gone by the name Eve Nordman in the last… seven days?”
He seemed almost unsure, but something about his tone of voice suggested that Eve would be in for some sort of punishment. Bruce had to take a moment to choose his response carefully, weighting his options and racking his brain.
Had he met a Eve Nordman? Most of his patrons didn’t give their names. He would go with that. “Most of my patrons don’t give me their names.”
The man’s grin dipped in displeasure, quick as dousing a smoldering campfire with water.
He let out a low sigh that was more of a hiss as paused dramatically to supposedly backpedal and rephrase his sentence, before trying again.
“Have you met a brunette woman in the last few days? About this high—“ He gestured to just below his bicep, forcing my attention. It was the height of a petite woman, or a taller teenager. “—Matching light brown eyes, on the paler side? She may or may not have been in a black leather jacket.”
Bruce’s eyes snapped to the man’s outfit, and coincidently, he was wearing a jacket that matched the description. Maybe Eve was some sort of member they were looking for?
His gaze wandered to the man’s hands, one of which was absentmindedly tracing the hilt of a gun strapped to his thigh, practically radiating death, and he could see in his mind’s eye the trail of smoke after a bullet had been fired. The image swirled around the man, painting him in a cruel cloud of ash.
He swallowed, a shiver running down his spine. A member they wanted dead.
The word was hard to swallow, dead. But it made him realize the gravity of the situation.
Bruce recalled seeing someone who matched that description, but for the safety of the perso— Eve, would it be for the best to tell the man?
He allowed his expression to melt into one of thoughtfulness, as the man held his gaze, searching Bruce’s expression for any fault.
It felt quite like a high-stakes game of chess, speaking to this mysterious man, and once the fear had left him, Bruce found himself enjoying it.
”I haven’t, sorry.” He decided on saying, shutting him down. “People come and go too often. Good luck finding her.”
The man let out another hissing sigh of disappointment, as if giving him a chance to correct his mistake, quite like a disappointed parent.
Behind him, his followers exchanged looks, ranging from tense to pissed.
He held Bruce’s gaze a few seconds longer, and Bruce kept his jaw firmly locked, holding his ground.
The man’s eyes seemed to pour into his, like liquid iron, just as hot and molten, with a glow straight out of a smithery, full of quiet distrust.
”Fine.” He spat, turning sharply, and Bruce found himself missing the warm presence the man brought, however hellish speaking to him had been.
As the man left and the bar erupted into murmurs as the magmatic tension cooled, he managed to hear one of the cronies, with a shimmer of diamond blue hair whisper to the man. “Now what, Hades?”
The man’s reply, if he had even replied, was too soft for him to make out as the door swung shut.
Hades.
It made sense actually, and Bruce wanted to laugh in disbelief.
They called him Hades.