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Jason wasn’t technically drunk.
Sure, he’d thrown back four shots of whiskey, a double rum, and something on fire that tasted like blue raspberry battery acid. But his metabolism refused to let him feel it properly. All he’d managed was a mild buzz and a rising irritation that no amount of alcohol could dull.
He wasn’t on a mission. Wasn’t wired in. Just him, his guns, and a bar stool in one of the only joints left in Crime Alley where no one bothers him.
Or so he hoped.
“Look, I’m just saying,” slurred the man two stools over, leaning a little too far toward Jason with a half-empty beer in hand, “you can’t blame Penguin for the economy. That’s, like. That’s capitalism, bro.”
Jason blinked. Slowly. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“Guy’s just trying to do his best, man! He owns a club! He creates jobs!”
Jason squinted. “He sells illegal weapons and feeds snitches to carnivorous birds.”
“Okay,” the man said, waving his beer. “But ethically.”
Jason stared at him. “What does that even mean?”
The guy leaned back—barely missing falling off his stool—and gestured vaguely. “It means that, like… look. Every job has some risk, right? You get in a car, you could die. You go to work for Penguin, yeah, maybe you get eaten by a giant feathered hellbeast. But you also get dental!”
“You do not get dental,” Jason muttered.
“Okay but like. Vision?”
“Not unless you count having it removed.”
The man laughed way too loud. “Ha! Yeah, yeah okay, that happened once—”
Jason dropped his head onto the bar with a dull thunk.
Why.
Why did people always talk to him in bars?
“You know,” Jason muttered to no one in particular, “this would be easier to endure if I could get drunk.”
“Y’know what I think?” the man said, undeterred. “You need to relax. Seriously. You look like you’re gonna shoot the next person who breathes too loud.”
Jason slowly raised his head. “I am going to shoot the next person who breathes too loud.”
“Man, you’re intense,” the guy said, whistling. “Like… you’ve definitely stabbed someone over a parking spot.”
Jason gave him a sideways look. “Why would I stab someone over a parking spot? I ride a bike.”
“Exactly,” the man said, wagging a finger. “Even fewer spots. That’s extra rage.”
Jason sighed. “Do you ever stop talking?”
“Not when I’m drunk.”
“You’re on your third beer.”
“...Not when I think I’m drunk.”
Jason scrubbed a hand down his face. “Gotham is cursed.”
The guy nodded solemnly. “That’s true. I once saw a guy walking a pig on a leash, and no one even blinked.”
“Was it a cop?”
“What? No—wait. Actually maybe.”
Jason groaned and waved for another drink.
The bartender—same one who’d been quietly working the whole time—slid him a fresh shot. Jason didn’t really look at him. Just downed it and prayed for even a moment of blessed silence.
No such luck.
“So like,” the guy continued, “what do you do?”
Jason didn’t answer.
“No, wait. Let me guess,” the man said, squinting at him. “Ex-military? No, too angry. Bouncer? Nah, too murdery. MMA fighter? Like, I bet you’ve seen some shit. You ever done, like, an autopsy?”
Jason arched a brow. “Are you… asking if I’m a coroner?”
“No! No, I just mean—like, on the field. Y’know. For intel. Or revenge.”
Jason blinked. “That is not the same thing.”
“I dunno, man, seems pretty similar to me,” the guy said with a shrug. “You cut a guy open, you learn stuff either way.”
Jason opened his mouth to correct him—and that’s when the bartender spoke.
Quiet. Calm. Clinical.
“You’re confusing autopsies with live dissection.”
Jason’s head turned.
The bartender was standing there like he’d always been, wiping down a glass, voice level and detached.
“An autopsy is postmortem,” he continued, tone completely at odds with the words coming out of his mouth. “You’re trying to determine cause of death. Internal trauma, tox screens, organ inspection. Neat incisions. Clean data. No suffering.”
Jason narrowed his eyes.
The guy beside him blinked. “And… and dissection is…?”
The bartender’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile
“Dissection is anatomy in motion. Vivisection if you keep them alive—awake, ideally—so you can see what each part does, or for torture i guess. You pin the subject down, sometimes with straps, sometimes with screws. You cut deep enough to open, not damage. You find the nerves and stimulate them, make note of what twitches. See how long it takes for the vocal cords to give out. Check how the blood pools when they panic. Whether the heart rate spikes or flatlines when you remove an organ without warning.”
The man gagged, slapping a hand to his mouth.
Jason didn’t move. His hand did twitch near his holster, though.
“And the tendons,” the bartender added thoughtfully, now setting the glass down and drying his hands. “God, those are tricky. If you’re not careful, you cut the wrong place and the limb won’t move anymore. You lose your data. Better to peel the skin back slow—scalpels or claws both work, but claws take practice—and isolate the muscle groups while they’re still fighting.”
The drunk guy stood up. “Nope. Nope nope nope. I need therapy. I need a priest. I need a whole exorcist squad.”
He practically sprinted toward the exit.
Jason didn’t even flinch. He was too busy locking eyes with the bartender.
He wasn’t exactly sure when the bar had turned into a horror movie, but here they were.
Jason finally spoke, voice low and careful. “...You a doctor?”
The bartender tilted his head. “Nope.”
“Ex-doctor?”
“Nope.”
Jason’s hand flexed over his holster. “Then what the hell are you?”
“Dead,” the bartender said simply, tone flat as the glass he was polishing.
Jason’s fingers flexed against the edge of his glass. He wasn’t sure if he should reach for his gun, or his phone, or maybe just set the entire bar on fire and walk away.
He downed the glass. “So.”
The bartender tilted his head just slightly.
Jason leaned forward. “That your idea of small talk, or are you trying to tell me something?”
The bartender’s mouth curled—not a smile, not exactly. More like the memory of one. “Depends. Do you want the real answer or the polite one?”
Jason’s hand twitched closer to his holster.
He really wished he was drunk right now.
Jason leaned back slowly, scanning the bartender like he might sprout fangs or dissolve into mist at any second.
“Real one,” Jason said finally, voice rough. “I don’t do polite.”
The bartender’s eyes gleamed faintly in the dim light—too faint for a trick of the bulbs, too sharp to be casual.
“Then I’ll tell you,” he said, setting the glass down with deliberate care.
Jason’s fingers were on the butt of his gun before the last word landed. He didn’t draw, but the weight was familiar, grounding.
The bartender watched his movement, then leaned across the bar until their faces were close enough Jason could smell mint and ozone, sharp as a lightning strike.
“Don’t you worry,” he murmured, voice low and edged like a blade against silk. “I like you. I find you… cute. A little rough, but… cute.”
Jason froze. Cute.
“Cute,”
The bartender’s face didn’t move much, but his eyes—God, his eyes—gleamed brighter in that dim light, like he wasn’t even pretending to be human anymore.
Jason’s pulse kicked, steady but hard, like gearing up for a fight. “…You just said I’m cute?” he repeated flatly.
The bartender—no, the thing behind the bar—tilted his head just so. Birdlike. Predatory. “Mm. Don’t pout. You’ll ruin it.”
Jason’s grip on his gun tightened. “You’re flirting with me?”
That ghost-smile tugged wider, the faintest glimmer of teeth behind it. “If you want to call it that.”
Jason was not drunk enough for this.
“People don’t usually flirt by describing live dissections.”
“Don’t they?” the bartender asked, all innocence that somehow didn’t disguise the sharp edges. “I wouldn’t know. Been a while since I’ve been…people.”
Jason’s heart gave a sharp kick. “You mean alive.”
The glass cloth twisted between pale fingers. The bartender didn’t deny it. “Semantics.”
Jason leaned back, muscles coiled. “Alright, Dead guy. What’s your game?”
“No game,” the bartender said, stepping closer, bracing one hand on the bar like he might vault over it. He wasn’t looking at Jason like prey, though. Not exactly. More like… curiosity. Interest. Amusement.
“You walked into my haunt, sat down, and radiated enough death to drown out the jukebox. I like that. It’s comforting. Familiar.”
Jason’s mouth went dry. “You like that I've died.”
“Don’t you?” the bartender asked, tone dipping into a grin.
Jason didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because the guy was right—there was something about this, about the air, about him—that felt familiar in a way Jason didn’t want to unpack.
And then, with absolutely no shame, the bartender leaned even closer, whisper-soft: “You really are cute when you’re debating whether to shoot me or kiss me.”
Jason’s hand tightened on his gun.
He really, really wished he was drunk.
His hand stayed on the gun. His brain screamed threat, threat, threat—but something lower in his chest hummed with the same static as the air, sharp and crackling.
“Yeah,” Jason said finally, voice gravel. “Guess I’ll go with shoot you.”
The bartender’s grin flashed, sharp and delighted, like Jason had just passed some sort of test. “Mmm. Good choice. Try not to miss.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “You sound real confident about that.”
The guy—thing—shrugged, casual as flipping a coin. “You’re not the first to aim a weapon at me.” His gaze slid down Jason’s arm to where his fingers curled around the grip. “Won’t be the last. People panic when they feel the wrongness. They think bullets will fix it.”
Jason’s finger twitched against the holster. “And?”
“And they don’t.”
Jason stared. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t know if he wanted to laugh, shoot, or walk out the door and never come back.
“…What’s your name?” Jason finally asked, because something had to give.
The bartender’s grin softened, just a fraction. “Danny.”
Jason blinked.
Danny. Danny.
And somehow, that was the most unsettling part of all.