If he had a working clock in his apartment, Allen suspected that he'd be plagued by it right about now. Entranced and distracted by that steady tik-tok tik-tok counting down the moments he had left to live. As it was, Allen was instead focused on the steady snoring of Timcanpy curled on top of his feet, causing them to go numb and tingly.

Heenn...nggh….Henn...nghh.

It was 5:47 in the morning, and he still had yet to fall asleep. He should have been out cold. Exhausted from a long and hectic shift at the Black Order, frazzled by the stiff drinks in his system, overcome by the nightmarish turn of events at his boss's mafia den.

Instead he was shuffling a deck of cards one-handed. The cardstock was worn and creased from use and it slipped easily across his fingers. His lucky deck. The illustrations on each card displayed wide jester grins.

How did they find out? How did they know I played cards?

He'd been so careful. He'd maybe played once since his employ to the Black Order. Had they known about his cheating?

Maybe this whole thing was an elaborate scheme to penalize him for his crimes around the various poker dens of the city. Maybe Cross owned some of those dens. But then why have him play those two people in a private game? Why entrench him even further in Cross's criminal web?

A criminal web that Allen now knew included Lavi, Kanda, and Noise. He swallowed a lump in his throat. Lavi had shown up at his apartment. He'd known where he lived. And like an idiot, Allen had gone right along with him when he showed up at four in the morning after spending all night getting him drunk. You just traipsed along after him without a second thought. He didn't even touch his gun, let alone threaten you with it.

He groaned and rolled on to his side, cards still flickering in his hand. First he shuffled it so that all the aces were at the top of the deck. Then until the top hand formed a Royal Flush. Then until all the cards were in sequential order. All without ever glancing at the cards in his grasp.

Without sleeves to hide choice cards, Allen thought, he would need to rely on shuffling to bend the game to his will. Sure he could just play the game sans cheating; he was a decent poker player when all was said and done. But with his life and livelihood on the line, Allen couldn't risk playing a straight game. Not against those people. Tyki Mikk and Road Camelot were sure to cheat. It was probably how Cross had lost his money in the first place.

Shuffling would require, however, being able to touch the game deck. In a private game, there would most certainly be a separate dealer. And in a game of revenge and reprisal like this one, there would be even more scrutiny on each player. Cheating would be almost impossible.

No sleeves. Limited shuffling. An unfamiliar deck. Allen narrowed his eyes in the dim light of the encroaching dawn. It was possible that he might be able to pull it off using only sleight of hand and misdirection. But that would require enthralling the attention of not only his two opponents, but the dealer and all observers. An incredible feat of gregariousness, palpable charm. Distraction.

Allen grimaced. Maybe he should wear his skirt.

A series of vibrations from his phone resting on the nightstand had Allen sprawling over the side of the bed with a groan. He couldn't tell if he was still buzzed or if he was in steady hangover territory. Either way, it was with bleary vision and a pounding head that Allen read the messages he received, hand still blindly shuffling.

He had two text messages. One was from an unrecognized number.

Come back to tonight's location after the bar closes at 2. Feel free to bring whatever the hell you want, but be aware that you'll be thoroughly searched. Oh, and don't dress like you're fucking homeless. I'm running a business here.

The other was from Komui.

Walker. Krory called in sick, and I need you to pick up his shift. You'll be compensated for OT. I need you at 8AM on the dot. Clock in with Lenalee when you get there.

His phone's main screen displayed the current time: 6:17 AM.

"Timcanpy," he murmured, jostling the cat with a numb foot. "Please, just curl up on my face and smother me now."

"Allen, darling."

Allen unstuck his forehead from the bar counter. Lenalee was giving him a look. A colorful look. One that said, Poor baby, and, If you don't get back to work I will give you an appendectomy with my clipboard, and, You look like shit, and, I want you to bend me over in the back room and show me just how much you like my pigtails-

Okay, maybe that last one was wishful thinking on his part.

"Sorry, Lenalee," he said, picking up the paring knife he'd dropped when he rested his head on the counter, and resumed slicing limes. He had five done, and about four point three billion left to go.

"Rough night? Was Lavi too generous with his pours last night?"

Allen cut a bit too harshly into his lime, gouging a deep groove into the cutting board beneath. He didn't care. All he cared about was murder.

"Lavi," he seethed. "Is too generous with his entire body." Then, he winced.

Ah shit. At Lenalee's raised and waggled eyebrow, Allen groaned and stifled the urge to plop his forehead right back onto the counter. He had not meant it like that.

He'd meant to express his disgust with Lavi's insertion of his giant, unwarranted nose into his life, for blabbing about Allen's poker prowess, for the stalking that most likely occurred in order to provide aforementioned information, and for ensnaring him hopelessly in the affairs of the mafia. But no. Instead, he had insinuated to the person who was effectively his manager that the reason he was currently slumped over the bar counter, floundering at his lime-cutting duties, was because he'd spent the night in a haze of wild passion with the Black Order's resident playboy-bartender. Wonderful. Allen blamed his pounding headache, slight nausea, and the two-ish hours of sleep he'd managed to get before being called in for his extra early shift for his bout of idiocy. At least, for this current bout of idiocy.

"Uh, that came out wrong." Allen fumbled for a way to salvage the situation. He couldn't afford to lose this job. It was the best paying job that he'd managed to keep, and he was also pretty sure that getting fired would be going against Cross's orders, and then the mob boss would probably have him killed. But how to tell Lenalee that she happened to work for a satanic mafia kingpin and that at least one of her coworkers was probably a hitman in addition to being a bartender? "I'm...ah...a little hungover, I guess. Or maybe really hungover."

Lenalee looked like she didn't contest this explanation, at least. "Here, doll. Finish up those two dozen limes, give all the tables a wipe-down, and then I'll make you a nice cup of coffee. I'll even use Komui's special blend," she added with an endearing wink.

It was hard to stay grumpy in the wake of that prospect, especially when Lenalee Lee was winking at him. He dove into slicing the limes with renewed gusto. He'd just have to remember to yell at Lavi later, when he showed up for his shift...seven hours from now. Or, after said shift, when he'd have to play poker against gangsters to save his skin from other gangsters. God, sometimes Allen hated working at the Black Order.

"Hey, aren't you usually the hostess?"

Allen paused on his way from the bar to the basement, shrugging the empty but still dripping crate higher up on his shoulder. It was the fifth ice run he'd had to do, given the day's unusually muggy temperature. Sweat pooled at the hollow of his throat, at his shoulder blades, in the center of his chest. At this point in the day, he was just trying not to stagger and not appear as drunk as he wished he could be right now.

The person who addressed him wasn't one of the Black Order's regulars, he could tell, but a customer nonetheless. He pasted a customer-friendly smile on his dripping face.

"Actually, I'm usually the bar-back. The hostessing is the side-act." Allen scraped the damp hair off his forehead. "I've also been known to dabble in kitchen expo-ing." God, he was rambling.

The customer giggled. She was petite, even shorter than Fou, with a tumble of blond hair that went to her waist. Her features, almost doll-like in their perfection, crinkled in amusement at his verbal bumbling. "I've never seen a guy pull off a skirt so well. Actually, I've never seen a girl pull off a skirt so well."

Allen waited for the leer. The saucy wink. But this girl merely tossed him a teasing grin. Maybe he was delirious - actually, Allen was certain he was delirious at this point in his overhaul of a shift - but was this (adorable) chick flirting with him?

"Uh…" One could always count on him for intelligent and appropriate responses. He was a credit to the service industry.

The girl only laughed, in a good-natured way, as if Allen's incoherent babbling and sweat-drenched appearance was somehow appealing. "I know this is strange, but I saw you the other night, and, well, I guess I just couldn't pass up on the opportunity." She held out a folded square of paper. Allen took it automatically. "I'm Lala, by the way." And then she walked right out of the bar, hair swishing behind her and leaving Allen with the paper still pinched between his fingers and a dumb look on his face.

"That was real smooth, Walker." Fou's scathing drawl floated easily over the din of the bar. She and Lenalee were cackling behind the counter.

Allen glanced down at the piece of paper in his hands. Unfolded it.

Hey, I noticed you for the first time the other night, and I think you're gorgeous. If you're interested at all, please call me. 773-462-9871.

"Beansprout!" That outraged bark would be from Kanda. "I asked for that ice ten minutes ago!"

"Allen! How's my favorite coworker? Haven't seen you in ages!" That would be Lavi, showing up for his shift fifteen minutes behind schedule.

"WALKER-" Komui's shriek was clearly audible even from behind the closed door of his office. "-DID YOU DRINK COFFEE OUT OF MY RABBIT MUG. MY PERSONAL BLEND?!"

"Hey," And now another customer was approaching him. A lean guy wearing a baseball cap sideways. "Aren't you the guy who wears that bangin' skirt on the weekends?"

"Pardon me," he said, ever-polite, And, ever the master at appropriate responses, he continued: "I think I'm about to throw up."

And then he fled to his tried-and-true sanctuary, a safe-haven in times good and bad: the kitchen.

"I'm going to be sick…" Allen choked back a dry heave as he bent over the metal sink in the back kitchen.

"Not in my sink, honey." Jerry hooked a ladle over his shoulder and turned him away from the giant metal sink. The cook observed with an alarmed expression as Allen swayed on his feet. "Oh lord, are you hungover again, sweetie? Maybe I should have a talk with Lavi about all the drinks he's making you…"

Maybe you should have a talk with Lavi about the criminal organization he's gang-pressed me into. Christ, what if Jerry's in on it? Allen gave the ladle in Jerry's hand a wary look. "S'not the alcohol," Allen wheezed, suddenly sensitive about his reputation for being consistently hungover and also a lightweight. He was underage for chrissakes. "Just, um, a little anxious about something after my shift."

The dark-skinned cook narrowed his eyes for a moment - out of suspicion? concern? - and then steered him by the shoulders towards the door. "Go to the back room, sweetie. I'll see if I can't have one of the dears behind the bar fix you up with a little something. Put a little pep in your step. Go on," he said as he ushered Allen out of his kitchen. Allen went without resistance. Even if the cook was in on the whole mafia debacle, Allen didn't think Jerry had it out for him. The man always doted on him and gave him free food. As far as Allen was concerned, giving out free food was the first step to enlightenment and angel wings and all that.

In the back room Allen tried to regulate his breathing. It was true that he was most definitely hungover, but the nausea was more a product of the giant metaphorical gun to his forehead that could, if he messed up in any way, turn into a very literal gun to his forehead. There's no desert to be buried in out here so they'll probably dissolve my body in acid. Or maybe they'll make it look like suicide. 'Oh yeah, Allen couldn't handle wearing a skirt for money so he just blew his brains out Monday morning. Tragic, huh?' Okay, now he was hyperventilating…

The door cracked open, and Allen hoped it was whichever wonderful person Jerry sent. So, of course, Kanda walked in.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Trying not to die. "What the hell do you want, Bakanda?"

The stoic bartender only sniffed at him. Derisive as always. "Someone is jumpy today."

Was he trying to make Allen blow his cover? Sure it was only the two of them in the storeroom, but who knew how many listening devices Komui had tucked up in there. And Kanda was blatantly feigning ignorance when they both very well knew what was making him jumpy, and for all Allen knew it was Kanda himself who would pull the trigger if Allen broke Cross's orders. It was all starting to feel like one bloody test.

"Oh, it's nothing," Allen hissed with all the irony he could inject. "Just had a little too much coffee." Which was true. In the back of his mind, Allen congratulated himself for at least remaining a halfway honest and decent person in this kind of situation.

Something strange flickered in Kanda's eyes. "You had caffeine? After a hangover?"

"Technically it's during a hangover. Why do you care?"

"You're not supposed to drink caffeine with a hangover."

"Well we can't all be rippling pillars of health like you."

Kanda's eyebrow twitched.

Rippling? Damn. Had he really just said that out loud?

"Tch," Kanda swiped the moment of awkwardness away like it was a pesky fly. "Just take this."

Allen was so busy avoiding Kanda's gaze that he didn't notice the object in question until it was practically up his nose. There was an immediate and involuntary whuff of spice and Allen's eyes watered. "What the hell..?"

Kanda was holding a lowball tumbler up to his face and Allen took a step back to glimpse its contents.

A glistening raw egg yolk bobbed at the surface of the drink, submerged in about two inches of clear liquid, with lashes of red and dots of spices overlaying it. It smelled acidic and pungent with spice, like really bad chinese food.

"I'm not drinking that," Allen said, taking another step back.

"Prairie Oyster," Kanda announced, as if Allen had fucking asked what this infernal concoction's name was. Another step back and Allen was trapped by the shelving unit behind him. The taller man stepped forward, holding out the drink like a horror-movie doctor might hold out a syringe.

"Is that supposed to be my hangover cure?" Allen didn't try to reign in his sarcasm. He couldn't help but feel betrayed by Jerry. Had there really been no one else working the bar?

"Prairie Oyster," Kanda said again, like an automaton, eyes curiously dead. "Drink it."

Allen scowled. "Isn't that from a shitty anime or something? I don't think it actually works-"

Ire lit Kanda's expression suddenly. "Cowboy Bebop is not a shitty anime, and there's no alcohol in this, it's a carefully balanced mixture of essential protein, fatty acids, and minerals to replenish your sorely thrashed vitals with enough of a spice kick to get you sweating out any remaining toxins, and I didn't make it with actual fresh-shucked oyster liquid for you to turn your nose up at it like some pampered poodle, so just fucking drink it."

"Okay, Jesus," Allen capitulated, lest Kanda prise his lips apart and pour the drink down his throat himself. "No need to get all mad scientist on me." He took the glass in hand. It was lukewarm. Actually, it was just warm.

Allen was debating the odds of Kanda having also spit in his drink and was deciding that the bartender's spit was certainly not the most atrocious thing in that glass when Kanda made an almost petulant sound, snatched the lowball from his hand, and knocked back the drink himself in one fluid shot.

"Hey! What the-"

Kanda shot him a venomous look, one that seemed to say, Oh, NOW you want the drink?, and then abruptly shoved against Allen's chest, sending him crashing into the shelves behind him.

Allen sputtered and almost gave into the impulse to knee Kanda in the balls, but just then Kanda's hand grabbed his jaw and then the bartender's lips were against his own.

What...?

The kiss was rough and wet, but the hand gripping his jaw was subdued-merely angling his head upwards rather than keeping him in place. Rigid muscles were pressing into his chest, against his shoulders, and those hips...those hard, angular, bare-skinned hips were pressing into his own like some kind of wet-dream fantasy come to life. Allen parted his lips in a quick, open-mouthed groan, and then Kanda slid his tongue past his teeth and something else, something creamy and viscous, went into Allen's mouth and then Allen was swallowing every last drop of Kanda's cocktail before he was able to rip his mouth away.

Allen shoved hard against that muscular chest, breaking the kiss. The delicate egg yolk burst in Allen's mouth and he had no choice but to gulp it all down, wincing when the heat from the spices hit his tongue and throat.

He coughed and choked as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Leveling his most murderous glare at Kanda, Allen observed that Kanda's smirk held an extra smug quality in it.

"You're supposed to swallow it whole," he drawled. His voice was a little too vindictive to convey the innuendo properly, but Allen heard it all the same.

"You're insane," Allen hissed in reply. It must have been a placebo effect or maybe all the goddamn rage he was suddenly feeling, but Allen's head actually felt a little clearer. Much clearer.

Kanda was already turning around to head back to the bar, as if he hadn't just committed violent mouth-to-mouth in a storage room with someone he appeared to hate. "I'm not the one who's tripping around like a loser, freaking out over customers giving you attention. Get your head in the game." He looked over his shoulder and glared at Allen with one dark blue eye. "You need to keep your concentration. For tonight." Then he was gone.

Maybe Allen was insane, because just now, it had sounded an awful lot like Kanda had cared whether or not Allen would win his poker game tonight, and about his well-being in general.

Allen sighed. "Why didn't I just work in a nice, quiet coffee shop like everyone else?"

...

A/N: Nothing against coffee shop AUs, by the way. But come on, a bar setting is just so much more dramatic and grittier! At least in my experience.

Sorry if Allen seemed a bit bitchy and loopy in this. Take pity. He's had a rough 24 hours. And his evening hasn't even begun. More to come! Please leave a review - it's the nicest gift an author can receive. Thanks!