It didn't take a detective to realize that the staff at the bar wanted him to leave- or rather, just the bartender, since by this time of night a place like this hardly needed more than one person there. Not that they needed anyone else earlier, either, but by now it was deserted not just in here but out on the street as well, well approaching the time when everyone should be at home- theirs or someone else's. The only thing that might do them some good was some security, since this place was far from the usual dive bars the guys on the force usually frequented. Those places were about as shitty as this but also well-protected, which was, once upon a time, a real draw for Sebastian and the people he worked with. Even detectives didn't make a lot of money, and uniforms sure as hell didn't; shitty was always all he could really afford to be wasting his money on. And then when he'd had a little more money, there were other... things to be spending it on.
He'd stopped going to those places near the station, started turning down invites after all but the most difficult shifts and the occasional celebration once he'd hit his late twenties, officially feeling like he was getting too old for that shit. The mind might be perfectly willing to drink until three in the morning on a Tuesday (if everyone else was doing it) but the body sure as hell didn't get the memo come Wednesday morning.
Turns out, though, if you really put your mind to it, you could drag your ass through Wednesday morning whether it liked it or not, even well past the thirty-year mark. But you had to be really dedicated. He always was, though; Sebastian never half-assed things.
And really, the only reason he was thinking about the next morning at all was the bartender's repeated but purposefully neutral glances in his direction were starting to irritate him enough to draw him out of the drunken more-or-less stupor he'd worked so hard on achieving. Passive aggressive looks aren't his style, and this guy had apparently mastered the art. Honestly- either tell him to get out or leave him alone, that's the job, how hard could it fucking be? To be fair, Sebastian slowly decided, it was probably the badge- he hadn't left it visible, but places like this, people develop a sense for how to pick out a cop. Made them nervous, he figured, since Sebastian had gone out of his way to avoid running into anyone he might know. So far, so good. All he'd run into was a couple he probably should've arrested for public indecency who'd left... sometime... ago, and this guy.
"Listen," Sebastian heard himself start speaking before the words were even fully formed in his mind. Which he had been told, admittedly, was something of a habit even pre-spending the evening in the sort of place where you can hear the sticky snap of your shoes detaching from the floor every time you try to take a step, drinking vodka he was pretty sure somehow came from below the bottom shelf. "If you have something to say, just say it so we can both get on with our lives."
