In life, Matthias Van Aarde had been a restless soul. No doubt, he could've finished a marathon without ever setting a single foot on the pavement with the way he ran his mouth. The way things were looking though, that silver tongue would be staying in its holster. After all, it's a fine line to walk when your objective is to be invisible by merit of your own pitiable, repugnant appearance.

His ruddy, golden locks had been key to this particular penetration. He'd spent days flitting his fingers through his follicles, fastidiously fastening extensions in an effort to convincingly discolor his bangs into a grungy peanut butter chocolate cocktail, obscuring his face behind the carefully curated mop. He didn't mind saying that his efforts to disfigure his hair-do made the stylists who'd prettied him up for the billboards downtown look downright incompetent. He was pretty sure he actually saw some of them in the crowd, actually.

Dozens of perfectly posh people had sloshed through the backside of the Heritage Museum, dizzying and disgusting him, taxing his patience. He'd done little more than spinning his wheels, biding his time from the comfort of his sturdy wheelchair. Everywhere he went, the pretty people gave him a wide berth and looked away, turning up his nose as though his disability were either contagious, repugnant, or some combination thereof. That wasn't a surprise, in fact, that was the point, but never before had he so desperately wanted to see an ugly face. If he could just spot the slightest hint of Branwell's garish getup, he'd be elated.

He had no such luck.

[I]Had one of the others gotten to him first?[/I] He wondered, as he rolled up to the bar, deciding that the smell of whiskey on his breath could really sell the illusion of being an invisible, burnt out onlooker. As he approached, he noticed a young girl, just as stylish as the rest of them, choking on a shot of something. A surge of empathy flowed through him as he felt her sandpaper throat attempt to hack up the very drink that had dried it out. It was kinda gross.

He suppressed the urge to throw up himself. After all, that would draw attention. After she was recovered from her drink, her eyes took a tour of the vicinity, a portion of the room that unfortunately included him. Their eyes met.

Was the repulsion he felt visible on his face? He stiffened his cheeks just in case, pretending not-to-care even harder than usual. There would be no talk of it so [I]why would it matter?[/I] And so he finished rolling up to the bar, in sync with his rolling eyes, before tossing his hair back with a hedonistic [I]hurrah[/I] and triple-patting his palm on the bar, making his wishes known: "I'll have a rusty nail if you got one."