Fortuna Casino's Main Floor West bartender is off sick tonight, and the management had been forced to call in a replacement.

No one's really sure where they got him from-- he's an odd one, certainly, and not one they've had working before. Tall and thin, he looks like he ought to be ungainly, but moves with an elegant grace, like an old man with years of practice, except sped up. He's pale, too, his white skin oddly close to the starched white shirt that's a part of his bartending uniform. His hair is white as well, gelled up in loose milky waves.

In fact, his eyes are white, too. Contacts, obviously.

But all the drinks he serves are ice-cold, so there have been no complaints thus far.

This was a father son’s night out. Tim and Cyris Jones got dressed up (or as much as he could get the nineteen year old to dress up) and go to the casino when Cyris would rather be in the park or at a club instead, or studying. Then his father met a few guys he was on a ship with when Cyris was only knee high. Cyris ended up at the bar doing nothing but being unproductive.

He was sitting at the bar with his hand laying flat on the bar top with a can of coke sitting snuggly between his index finger and thumb, a squeezed lime laying on a napkin beside this.

His hair lay like dark brown silk and reached to his shoulders in the back, fell over his face in layers and brushed at a strong jaw, tip of his nose, his chin, his lips. His face was strong and relaxed, corners and lines.

The clothes that he called dressed up looked as if they'd been made for his body but fell very short of dressed up. His faded jeans had holes in the knees and several other places, showing a lot of smooth flesh, an uneven pale decorating it. His shirt was merely a black tee shirt with a duster-length black jacket worn over it.

His eyes have stopped following his father in that not-quite-resentful but defiantly not thrilled way and took up following the bartender around. He would tell you he wasn’t staring but he might be. But the man was so shocking to Cyris’ eyes that he couldn’t help follow him. All of the white and pale, the grace, interested him. It made him suspicious and curious.

OOC: My internet failed and I lost my first attempt!

A scent on the breeze, a familiarity--

Necromancer.

They're almost like worshippers, without all the fussy black robes, athames, and devotion. In this one, very like, actually. Almost like a little tiny piece of his being, all tucked away inside warm flesh and mind and soul and other impermanent mortal things.

How sweet.

So with a breath of ice and a smile he slides a house martini down the line into a lady's waiting hands and step-slides in front of the so-ninties dissatisfied youth young man, all smiles and service and paleness.

One wonders what the eyes are windows to on a god.

"Need a refresher? Maybe something a little stronger?"

To forever maybe?

Cyris doesn't worship anything. You'd be hard pressed for him to believe in Gods. Let alone a God.

He diverted his eyes when Whity started to slide in his direction, wondering why people did that. If they've come in your direction, apparently they've already noticed you're staring. Cyris shrugged.

"I'm driving." But with a glance around he's begining to wonder if he's been ditched by a fifty year old. "At least I think I am. Coke please." He pushed away the empty can.

There aren't a whole lot of worshippers nowadays, unfortunately. Of course, unconscious worship is good enough. Every funeral's a wonderful thing.

But that's another matter. He just smiles, and plucks the empty coke can out of the young man's hand, tossing it over his shoulder. It ricochets off the shelf there and into the ecycling bin below.

Gods tend to be constantly impressed with their own coolness. Big-headedness is a hazard one has to expect from being a sentient incarnation of magic and belief.

He's grinning.

"Coke, or coke and lime? I can also offer any number of virgin drinks, if you're in the mood to defile one."

He watched the can ricochet around behind the bar and blinks twice in response. It's cool. That was the point right?

"Coke and lime." He really doesn't do virgin alcoholic drinks. It's beer or coke, because he's lame and simple and he's not trying to impress anyone. Besides, if his father found him drinking anything that resembled alcoholic he'd 'shoot first and ask questions later'. Cyris likes being alive.

Ah, poor boy-- legal drinking age and not allowed to drink.

Azrael decides to do him a favour. He sets a can of coke, a slice of lime and a glass of ice down in front of Cyris and, with a grin, gives the can a tap.

Tap! It's still closed, but it's suddenly a rum and coke.

Water into wine has nothing in Azzie.

Not that he obeys that household rule. But one must be careful when one's father is Hell only knows where.

"Thank you." Cyris picked up the lime and squeezed it over the opening in the can, then picked up the can. He doesn't like ice, it makes the drink watery. He wiped the lip with a napkin and took a drink. Comence the frown and an empty blink at the can. He held it up and eyed the can as if this would shed some light on his confusion. He tipped the can and took another drink, blinked again. Eyes on Whity.

"It tastes..." like rum. "off." Because that's impossible. He watched the tender open the can.

Azrael looks completely innocent.

"Can't be. I just opened the can. Maybe the lime is interfering with the flavour?"

Sure that's it.

"I'll be right back to you, got another customer." And he does, down at the other end of the bar. His long leg let him take it in four strides.

Cyris remained frowning.

"I don't...think so." He had lime in the last coke, after all. "yeah, yeah," he murmured when the other excused himself. He continued to frown at the can, took another sip, glanced around for his father, and then followed the other with suspicious eyes.

"How did you do that, you son of a bitch," he mumbled the words softly.

And, oops, he's back, sliding in on long legs and grins that possibly aren't as helpful as they might appear.

"Did you say something, sir?"

He maintains the innocent expression.

"Would you like a different can?"

Another frown. He seems to be doing a lot of that today.

"No," he replied, giving his head a slight shake, but he was sure whity couldn't have heard him. But then, he'd been sure rum couldn't mix itself with coke before the top was popped either.

Is it possible to re-sill a pop top?

Did he want a different can? He actually had to think about this one. Rum and coke is always nice, and his dad is...somewhere, probably forgot he was around, and maybe he wouldn't have to drive. Besides, its one drink, not like he's getting drunk.

"Nah, it's alright. Thanks. Did you..." He paused and shook his head. Of course he didn't put rum in it. "Nevermind." ....Right? Right?

Whitey gives the boy a quick wink before lipping down to the othe end of the bar, serving a few other customers.

Okay. Was that a yes? A no? It was definitely something.

Maybe he just thinks Cyris is hot.

What? Could this possibly get stranger, he wonders, tipping the can and peering into the darkness. And despite the fact that he does not like ice, he tipped the content into the glass and scowls. There was run in that.

You see, rum and coke has a more golden look to it's color then coke by itself, and when you pour it, it looks thicker then just the syrup in the coke produces. He stopped pouring, followed the man with his eyes. That wink meant something, he's inclined to think it's a yes to an unfinished answer. Maybe he guessed what Cyris was asking. He leaned forward over the bar slightly.

"How'd you do that?"

The bartender holds up a hand, indicating Cyris should wait for a moment. he finished serving a young couple at one end of the bar, then comes back down to Crys.

And smiles sweetly.

"Do what?"

He doesn't really intend, here, to be secretive-- just annoying. Gods don't much care about innish/unnish.

Still frowning, he pushed the glass with the few ounces he'd poured into it to the edge of the bar. "That." Don't play games with me. "I swear it's rum and coke."

Again, is a can re-sealable? Even so, why would a bartender put rum in coke and only call it coke. That looses money doesn't it?

"Goodness me, I'm sorry. I must have gotten mixed up."

He taps the glass, leaving a little frosted finerprint. As soon as his tap reverberates through the glass, though, the gold of the rum fades, leaving dark, fizzy, simple coca cola.

And yes... he's grinning.

Cyris just stares at him.

A fae?

God?

Because who else would waste time being utterly confusing and do that? "What are you?" This was asked in a tone just closer to a whisper. He tipped the can to see if changing the liquid in the glass had done the same for the coke in the can.

No-- the can is still rum and coke.

Sweetly, Azrael leans forwards, his eyelashes falling like thin curtains over his pale eyes.

"Thanatos," he says, then straightens and nods to a customer calling for his ttention, leaving Cyris with just that word.

He picked up the can and sipped from it, put it down and sipped from the glass. Damnit!

Thana...?

Wha?

He watched the other slink away and then his eyes widened slightly and his wouth dropped open. Cyris is a history gubber. Leter he'll be disappointed that it took him that long to figure that out. "Shit." This time, it was only a whisper. "Shit." Just for good meassures.

Look at him over there, just a couple meters away, conversing with a couple elderly tourists. His voice, odd as it is, is pulled into absolutely casual convolutions as he plays the part of casino bartender, all the while as pale as something that lives in the bottom of a cave's lake, and frosting glasses with his touch when the customers aren't looking.

Look at him over there...

Well, it answers the question for Cyris. The later eras were correct. Thanatos was a beautiful face, not a shaggy bearded beast. Then he frowned, wondering if he could be a shaggy bearded beast as well. He is, after all, a God right? Suddenly Cyris' head hurt and he put his forehead on both hands. How were you suposed to react to this sort of thing?

He blinked at the coke can again. Maybe he's just punch drunk? After three or four drinks.

Don't look up now, but he's back.

"Something wrong?" he asks, his voice thing that doesn't belong.

Of course he knows what the problem is. He just--

well, he likes being an asshole. That's simply the best way to put it.

"No." He said that too quickly, looking up, staring harder now and only all too aware that he is staring. But tomorrow, he wants to remember this face...and go through a few history books looking for some poorly drawn picture that would vaguely resemble it.

"Can...you make this a coke?" He pushed the can to him. Rum has got to be having a bad effect on him or something.

The eyes. Remember the eyes.

They're watching him like a boy watches a spider he's just puled a few legs off, and are so white, so unblinking. Black pupils, black ring around the iris, but white iris.

"Sure thing, Cy." He taps the can again, leaving a little shock of frost on it, and wanders off as though this were perfectly normal, smiling at a new customer.

The eyes, that's right. They're enough to leave a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach and a tingling place behind his naval. He does not like feeling like the victum of a cruel child with nothing better to do with his time then pick off fly wings or the glowy ends of fireflies and making braclets out of them.

"Gee, thanks." He closed his eyes when it went away, taking the look with it. This was not cool at all. Maybe he should just leave. The historian is keeping him glued to the bar stool. What about other gods? If Thanatos is real, does he work for Hades? Is Hypnos real too?

((Love you forever for bringing the greek thing into it.))

Walks by one way, walks by the other. He seems to be ignoring Cyris, now-- passing by him without so much a glance or a nod, as though he were just another customer.

OOC: ^_^ Cryis' only reason for being a history goober is because I am.

IC: He is just another customer. Right?

He drank the coke silently and let Whi...Thanatos go about his business, happy to be forgotten for once in his life. He needed to sort this out in his mind. When he finished the coke, he made a point of not asking for another and looked around for his father. The drunk sod left him. He'll regret it when he gets home and his mother asks where her son is.