The fictional thing had never been a problem for Pike. Truth told, he didn't much care if some cosmic power in some other dimension said he was fake. It wasn't true. Maybe in some other dimension, people thought he was nothing but some movie-and-comic character. What the fuck did he care? He still had his memories, and every second of every day, they reminded him that he was real like a knife in the gut. Fictional? Just the fantastical whim of some feverish creator? God, he wished! It would mean he would have someone else to blame for failing Benny, for leaving Buffy for good intentions and bullshit reasons, and most importantly for all that blood on his hands.
Didn't mean he enjoyed putting himself through that abhorrent movie. It was horrible from an entertainment perspective, and on top of that, he got to relive one of the worst times of his life. Contrary to what he'd told Claire, he hadn't gotten drunk while watching it. Oh, he'd thought about it, but what right did he have to hide from his failures? What right did he have to hide from pain when he'd inflicted so much of it on others? So he'd watched it all stone sober. And while he hadn't cried, hell had dried up all his tears, for the first time in a long time he'd wanted to.
But he put on his usual inscrutable, intense face for the outside world. He deserved to be right where he was, but it would be criminal to burden others with it. It helped that people had this tendency not to look too deeply at the dangerous-looking guy with the big scar on his face. All he had to do was pretend that things were okay, and for all anyone else knew, they were. Maybe someday, it would even be true. Maybe he'd even manage to find a modicum of peace.
Maybe the day he died.
The bar was as good a place as any other. Pike used to like the bars. Oh, sure, clubs could be fun too, on occasion. But by and large, bars were more his style. These days, it didn't really matter. A building was a building, and any place was as good as any other, as long as it served nice big bottles of false absolution. To that end, the Buffet might as well have been any other place, and as Pike entered, pushing some of his long black hair out of his face with one hand, his eyes swept the place with a dispassionate, indifferent gaze. He looked a little less out of place here than at the Ice Room. A scarred biker in dark leather, ratty jeans, and motorcycle boots seemed to go more with the decor here than at the club.
He spotted Claire at the bar. Or it would be more accurate to say that he spotted the red hair that he recognized from the little pictures on the network, and since there was only one redhead here, he was fairly sure it was her. He approached slowly, and from the side rather than from behind. You didn't sneak up on someone you didn't know, because who knew what kinds of instincts they had developed about that? He knew his, and hoped nobody here tried it. "Hey," he greeted, dropping onto a stool next to her. "Started without me, huh?" He didn't sound upset. He pretty much sounded his usual just-slightly-above-bleak, but surprisingly, this is what passed for teasing from him.