Phoebus never really liked Clopin. And Clopin pretty much despised Phoebus. But now that he and Esmeralda were married, she wanted them to get along. " Look, I know he can be a little... off the wall sometimes, but Clopin is one of my best friends. I really wish you would get along."

Phoebus rolled his eyes and sighed. " It would be easier if he didn't hate me!"

"Oh, I don't quite think that...", she started, but Phoebus interrupted her.

"Esme, he tried to kill me? 'Member?"

Esmeralda was getting annoyed. "He was just protecting his home and friends. Look, why don't you spend some "man time" together, get to know each other? Please?"

Sigh. Phoebus could tell he wasn't getting out of this one. "Fine. But I still don't want to."

Later that night...

"Sooo, Clopin... How are you?"

Clopin replied, in an annoyed tone," Not too great, somebody tried to beat me up yesterday."

Phoebus wasn't doing well with the conversation. "Really? What happened?"

"I killed the bastard."

"Oh... Well, uh, what have you been up to?"

"Nothing that I should tell you."

This was going no where. Phoebus didn't know why he ever agreed to come to this seedy hole in the wall bar. Thinking of something, he picked up a large bottle of whiskey from the counter. "Hey, Clopin? What if I just chugged this whole thing?"

"Excuse me?"

"What if I chugged this whole freaking bottle? Do you dare me?"

Clopin was annoyed. "That would really ruin it for the next person who wanted some. Now if you excuse me, I really need to get home to puppet."

Seeing an opening to a conversation, he said, "So how does that work? The whole puppeteering thing?"

Clopin stopped, turned back around and quipped, "Really? You want me to sit here and explain the whole concept of puppetry to you?"

"Well, yeah. Look, I'm really trying here."

"Nobody asked you to try."

Phoebus lost it. "God damn it! Why don't you like me?!"

Clopin laughed a little." You really want to know? Fine. You are the absolute worst person I know. You're constantly kissing Esmeralda in front of Quasi, he used to be in love with her you insensitive jerk! What's really annoying is you go around pretending you're some deep intellectual who's better than everybody else! I'm not a super mega genius, but at least I'm honest about it. I don't go up to a stranger with a copy of the Oddesy and some fourteen year old's interpretation about how Homer was this brave captain! He wasn't, he was a fool that got lucky! And that's why you like him so much! Because he's you. God, you're pretentious! Oh but I'd better not "use the Lord's name in vain", because he's so strict about it, you walking Bible! Stop pushing your beliefs on everybody! And how dare you walk around like some great fucking soldier! Oh sure, you can get a cat out of a tree, but when somebody's getting robbed on the street, you're suddenly powerless! The worst thing about you is your textbook separatist agenda, how we should " break away from the Crown, man" and how the plague is the worst tragedy in France. I go to monasteries and entertain dying children. Never seen you there! You wanna help? Grab a puppet and work on your voice acting! And ya know what? I could forgive that, all of it Phoebus, if you weren't so annoying. That's the worst of it, Phoebus. You're just a pathetic, whiny annoyance. See you later. Thanks for the fucking wine."

Clopin walked out of the bar, leaving Phoebus to gather his thoughts. "Esmeralda's not gonna like this one..."