[ENG.] Azazel - Lucifer's Son

5. Two Martinis, no salt.

That evening promised to be a busy one from the moment I stepped out of the locker room, with Sebastian following behind me, fumbling clumsily with his black bow tie. The fabric seemed to have a life of its own between his fingers, making him curse under his breath in Romanian — a habit he only pulled out when he was truly at his wit's end — while he shot me a look that was begging for help without wanting to admit it.

The strobe lights pulsed to the beat of the music, painting the walls of the club with flashes of intermittent color. The sweaty bodies writhing on the dance floor became spectral silhouettes, faceless figures moving as if inside a feverish dream. Artificial fog drifted low, almost crawling along the floor, making it hard to tell apart the figures crowded around the bar, where glass tumblers caught the electric blue reflections like tiny stars in a lopsided, deafening universe.

I did a quick check of my black vest — perfectly aligned — and patted my pocket to make sure I had my order pad. Seb was beside me, finally victorious over the bow tie, though he couldn't resist complaining.

"Why do they make us wear these suffocating things?" he muttered, shooting an exasperated glance at the bartender, who was already working the bottles like a sorcerer over a grimoire.

"Maybe because, unlike you, some people actually care about looking sharp," I replied, laughing as I reached over to tug his collar straight. "And come on — admit it. It doesn't even look that bad on you."

"Oh, thank you so much, Miss Perfection," he shot back with a grimace, snapping his fingers like a conductor in front of a nonexistent orchestra before diving headfirst into the chaos of the tables.

The first few hours flew by in a whirlwind of orders shouted over deafening music, glasses clinking against lacquered surfaces, customers waving their hands to get attention as if they were drowning. The crowd kept growing — a living, chaotic organism — and the noise of a thousand overlapping conversations became a constant hum under which it was nearly impossible to think. The narrow aisles between the booths had tightened into something like tunnels, and more than once I barely grazed someone with my tray, holding my breath.

Between laughs exchanged on the go with Sebastian and sprints back to the bar, I managed to carve out a moment to lean against the edge of the counter and catch my breath. I closed my eyes for three seconds. Just three.

"You okay, Jo?" Seb's voice made me flinch. He'd appeared behind me without me noticing, still slightly out of breath, a thin line of sweat glinting on his forehead. He had the look of someone who had fought a war and come out alive purely by chance.

"Dead tired, and we're only halfway through the night," I replied, resting my chin in my palm and staring at the dance floor with the eyes of someone looking without actually seeing. "What about you? How are the tips so far?"

"Terrible, dragă. This is not my lucky night," he sighed, rolling his shoulders in a futile attempt to shake off the tension.

"Mine either." I gave a half smile.

"Come on, let's get back out there. With any luck, someone out there will be drunk enough to leave us something decent."

He gave me a look loaded with that quiet, wordless understanding we'd built through years of shared shifts, then vanished back into the crowd like a ghost. I got moving again too, doing my best to ignore the exhaustion creeping up through my calves.

It was right as I was approaching a new group of customers that I froze.

I recognized him instantly — there was no way I couldn't have. Sitting at a corner table, separated from the surrounding chaos by a stillness that seemed to radiate from him like a magnetic field. One hand rested on the table, fingers curled slightly around an almost-empty glass, and those sage-green eyes were already lifted toward me — as if he had known exactly when I would arrive.

My heart skipped a beat. Maybe two.

"Good evening. Are you ready to order?" I asked, banking everything on a professional tone I hoped would hold up under pressure.

Dimithryus Stan slowly raised one eyebrow. A hint of a smile barely curved his lips — not quite enough to be a real smile, but more than enough to make things worse.

"Miss Vladă," he said, and my last name in his voice sounded different, like a word from a language I hadn't learned yet. "Correct?"

"Yes. Good evening, Professor Stan," I replied with a nod, trying to appear composed and suspecting I was failing miserably.

"Dimithryus," he corrected, tilting his head just slightly. "Outside of class, I prefer my name." His tone was light, almost friendly — but those eyes held a subtle undertone of challenge, the kind that enjoys itself without needing an audience.

Before I could respond — and I still had no idea what I would have said — the woman sitting beside him cut through the moment like a blade. She was a sculpted kind of beautiful: dark hair pinned back with surgical precision, a red dress so form-fitting it looked painted directly onto her skin. She looked at me with eyes as sharp as shards of glass.

"Two Martinis, no salt," she said flatly, in the tone of someone who is not used to repeating herself.

"Hannette," he cut in with a faint, almost bored sigh. "Don't be rude."

She didn't respond. She kept staring at me as if waiting for me to disappear.

Dimithryus turned his gaze back to me with that deliberate slowness of his, as if he had all the time in the world.

"Two Martinis, no salt," he repeated, his voice almost amused, as though he were savoring the discomfort of the moment.

It was then that I realized how long I'd been looking at him.

Crossing my arms over my chest was an automatic, almost defensive gesture — I suddenly felt exposed, as if that gaze could see straight through the black vest and reach something I had no intention of showing. Those sage-green eyes were the same shade as the Sheffield sky during winter storms — those days when the wind moved the clouds so fast it looked like the sky itself was breathing, and I used to stand at the window for hours watching that quiet violence with something that felt a lot like envy.

I cleared my throat. I nodded — too quickly, nearly giving myself whiplash — and walked away at a brisk pace, feeling my heartbeat hammering in my ears at a rhythm I did not like one bit.

He knew. He had figured out the effect he had on me, and I could have sworn he liked it. That awareness irritated me more than anything else. Not because it was wrong — but because, in a masochistic and entirely irrational way, part of me was almost okay with it. Let him know about my skepticism. Let him be aware of my doubts. I had questions about him that I would get answered, sooner or later — but not like this, not this way. There is no worse move than showing yourself to the enemy before you truly know them. I needed to be more careful. A lot more careful.

I stopped at the bar for a moment, letting out a long sigh that resolved nothing.

I waved Sebastian over, handed off Dimithryus's table to him without explanation — which he, wisely, didn't ask for. He took my order pad with the same ease he would have picked up something off the floor, gave me a look that said we'll talk later, and disappeared.

I took over his tables. Got back to work.

But that feeling — that off-key note, that wrong chord — stayed stuck to me for the rest of the night.