DISCLAIMER: Not my characters, not my 'verse, etc. etc.

“I’d like another one,” the man said, and then added, “sir.”

He had to be one of the last ones at the bar, though you couldn’t really tell. The place was dark and laden with smoke and had a peculiar smell to it. Mold? It didn’t matter. What did matter was that this wasn’t his usual dive. A proper dandy, he had been labeled, but this place was for ruffians and local filth. Of course no high society gentleman’s club would accept him, and that was a long story. …As it was also the impetus for his binge drinking. Well much of his problems resulted from his lost prestige. It was late, and bags were beginning to form under his eyes. He stole a glance at a mirror lying behind the bar. He was ragged, a little more than a five-o-clock shadow on his face. His once crisp and clean white shirt was wrinkled, ruffled, and began to resemble a forlorn shade of cream.

“Merciful Buddha, I’m a wreck,” he muttered.

He quickly took another swig and downed the shot glass.

An old brass bell clattered as he set his glass to the bar. The bell was a crude way of announcing the arrival or departure of a patron, but nonetheless effective and very annoying.

This time it was an arrival. A woman, almost his height, with strawberry blond to red hair that looked more than a bit disheveled. Her jacket was in state of disrepair, torn, stained….very stained. Most remarkable, was her expression. It was discernable, but not, in a way: angry and forlorn, depressed and defeated, all at once while being flat, not giving way to any one of those emotions in particular.

She made her way to the bar and released a large sigh as he sat down. The bartender ambled over, drying a glass in his hand.

“Give me the hardest thing you got,” she said flatly and the bartender departed with a hairy eyeball at the seemingly dainty woman.

“And me too,” the man added impulsively. The bartender rolled his eyes and ducked under the bar to find a bottle of some god-forsaken liquid. When he swung back up, bottle in hand, the man spoke again. “Put it on my tab…I mean hers too.”

The woman shifted a little. “Thank you.” “Not a problem,” the man smiled. “I can tell we’re in the same boat.”

The woman smirked in response. “And what boat is that?” “The sunk one.”

“Very perceptive.”

“Not really,” the man answered. “I came in looking much the same way, minus the stained jacket and…the smell of garbage.”

“It’s been a long day,” the woman admonished. She got up and slid to the seat adjacent to his. The bartender finally sat their drinks down but neither touched them.

“How about you,” the woman asked. “Long day?”

“Long several weeks,” the man corrected. “It’s been a steady downhill fall back…well since Persephone.”

“Persephone,” the woman said raising an eyebrow. “That where you from?”

The man nodded. “That’s a long way from here on Bellerophon.”

He nodded again, ruefully this time.

“As I recall, Persephone has only two types of people on it,” the woman mused, “the very rich and the very poor. And clearly, you’re not the latter, so what are you doing here?” She punctuated her sentence by eyeing a pair of burly bearded men in the corner playing pool. “It’s a long story.”

“That why you’re drinking?”

The man nodded, still eyeing the suspiciously colored drink before him. The woman batted her eyes, but only ever so minutely, and inched her hand closer to his. “Well then, let’s hear it.”

The man took a deep breath as if bracing himself. “Back on Persephone, I was quite the respected individual. High society elite, if you will. But, that all changed. I honestly have forgotten how long ago it was, but the point is it began at this party, the social event of the year. Long story short, I was humiliated, destroyed, by this transport ship captain.”

The woman’s eyes disconcertedly shot to the ground in a moment of consideration as she echoed “…captain.”

“I was ruined,” the man said, not noticing the woman’s reaction. “The humiliation, the loss of societal rank. I was dropped from nearly every social ring I participated, so I fled. Here. I had some property here and I figured I would at least be safe from the social persecution here, but I guess interplanetary gossip travels…. well faster than I had every anticipated. By the time I got here, it was the same story. It couldn’t even show my face in the local gentleman’s club!”

The man gulped. He realized that perhaps he became a bit overzealous around a stranger. “Yes, yes, cry for the rich boy,” the man spat sarcastically. The woman’s eyes narrowed as she placed a hand on the man’s hand. “What happened to you …the… ostracism it is not an easy thing to bear, especially in the face of humiliation.”

The man averted her gaze momentarily. She had this penetrating glance which honestly was a little more than arousing, but inappropriate. Besides, he hadn’t come to this bar to pick up women.

He decided to quickly change the subject. “How about you,” he asked levelly.

The woman retracted her hand and let her eyes fall from the man. “Well to be perfectly honest, I’m a dishonest woman.”

The man blinked once or twice at her paradoxical statement.

“That’s why I’m here,” she continued. “Surely by now you’ve heard of the theft at the Haymer estate.”

The man nodded, vaguely remembering a news report on it.

“That was me,” she said. “Well, not only me. I had certain…idiots to help me. Turns out that Malcolm Reynolds and his wan tun bu crew—“

“What was that,” the man suddenly interjected.

“Excuse me,” the woman said slowly.

“That name, that man, what did you say that man’s name was?”

“Malcolm Reynolds,” she answered disdainfully.

The man had a moment of horror flicker across his face, “That’s him, the hun dan.” The woman blinked a moment. “You were humiliated by Malcolm Reynolds.”

The man nodded. “Captains a midbulk class transport…Firefly I think.”

“That’s him,” she said. “Er zi mu gou!”

There was a moment of silence, both people seething in anger.

“Who are you anyway,” the woman at last asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he extended a hand. “Atherton Wing.”

“I have many names, too many to be exact. Malcolm Reynolds knows me as Saffron,” she said. She leaned in close, her lips less than inches from his ear. “But you can call me Delilah,” she whispered.

Remaining close to his face, she grabbed her glass of suspicious liquid and lifted up, gesturing a toast.

“To Malcolm Reynolds,” she said, “may he never meet us again. For if he will," she stopped momentarily before salaciously adding, “we will skewer him.”

Atherton raised his glass as well. “I believe this is the beginning of a bright new relationship, Delilah.”

They clinked their glasses and guzzled the drinks, both already thinking of the many ways they would enjoy jointly exacting their revenge on the man who was the center of their common hate.