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If Iouri was a regular anywhere, he was a regular at Mudville. He liked to think he enjoyed a healthy appreciation of alcohol: he was less a drunk and more someone who would sip the same one or two drinks all night. Perhaps it was an element of growing up Russian: he'd never felt particularly compelled to get drunk in college, either. So here he was at the bar, nursing the same pint of lager he'd been working on for the last half hour, watching the Yankees play, when in walked a proper dame.

(He'd been composing the next murder mystery game for part of the afternoon. It was hard to not think in Noir terms at this point.)

Iouri had seen her around. Of course he'd seen her around - she was hard to miss, bright red hair and legs a mile long. She seemed to him to be another Mudville regular.

He had forgotten all about the Yankees by the time she sat down next to him. "Good evening," he said quietly.

"Well," beamed Iouri, proud of the recognition. "I am very much alive now!" He pressed a hand to his wrist, taking his own pulse, and nodded a moment later. "Yes! Still ticking. I am glad you enjoyed our performance, I believe it was a rewarding evening for all involved." The kids had gotten community service hours, the museum had gotten publicity and a lucrative new donor.

He wiped his hands on a coaster napkin, took her fingers gently, and shook her hand. "Iouri Spekter," he supplied, withdrawing his hand a moment later and returning to his beer. "Presently of the Destiny City Earth and Space Museum - I hope you weren't too convinced by my acting at the gala, because the last thing I need to be encouraged to do is quit my job!"

It was hard enough to find a career in museum sciences even when there wasn't a recession going on, after all! Iouri chuckled easily, laugh lines crinkling around his eyes. "You work in the neighborhood?" he asked, gesturing vaguely. "I see you here sometimes, I think."

It was kind of an understatement.

"It's Russian, actually," Iouri informed her. While it was true that Destiny City was quite a melting pot, his accent had always marked him as distinctly foreign. As a high schooler he'd tried his hardest to make his Soviet pronunciations go away (the Cold War had just barely ended and his Russian attracted unwanted attention), but in college it had made girls swoon and he was glad he'd never managed to get rid of it. "I'm from St. Petersburg, originally."

It was fortunate for the murder mysteries. All the best mad scientists with former Soviet war criminals. If you could sell that to the audience, you could sell them anything.

He crinkled his brow, trying to remember the place. Iouri didn't have much need for designer clothes, let alone designer women's clothes - the fact that he was wearing a pair of Land's End khakis, a second-hand blazer, and a tee-shirt with a cartoon picture of a dog in a space suit ought to have made that fact clear enough. Still, the name sounded familiar. Iouri nodded at her. "Yes, yes, I've passed it a few times," he agreed. "Very shiny stuff."

"I feel the same way about the museum," he agreed. "I love the work..." He more than loved the work. Iouri was a full-blown workaholic. "But it is exhausting," he sighed.

Iouri cocked his head to the side at the notion of letting her dress him up. "I'm afraid I wouldn't look very good in a dress...?" He laughed nervously, drumming his fingers on his glass. Surely, she didn't mean... Oh! Iouri reached up and gently slapped himself on the forehead.

"You mean to say you sell mens clothes as well, yes?" he asked, feeling foolish. Well, how was he supposed to know that? He'd never set foot in the place. "Perhaps you need a male mannequin in your window, all dapper-like?" In that case, he supposed his blazer was quite threadbare and he could do with a new one. Even if Phina Fiona's was a bit out of his typical price range (okay, a lot out of), he did wonder if he might be able to charm his way to a discount.

Iouri shrugged as the conversation turned into a numbers game. "This may be true," he acknowledged, "But most of my customers are schoolchildren... And I have a larger building and more employees to manage. The overhead costs are higher, yes? It all evens out."

Well, perhaps not. The museum had a board of directors and a financial advisor, and they didn't pay rent since the institute had owned the building since the 1800s. Iouri admired the work done by small business owners, but he did not envy them one bit.

"The beer is certainly helping my good mood," he chuckled. "And," he gestured to Seraphina, "The company is especially nice tonight."

"My legs are far too spindly," agreed Iouri, flushing pink. He was pretty fond of wearing pants, but her compliments towards his glasses had left him feeling very warm indeed. He clinked his beer glass with her and took the opportunity to finish his drink - he'd been slowly killing it for long enough and it was time to out it out of it's misery.

Iouri gestured to the bartender for a refill and swiveled his barstool to face Seraphina. "Well," he blushed. While he found any topic other than work a bit trying, he was grateful that the topic was himself and not, say, current popular music acts. "I have a dog, Laika, who I enjoy taking jogs with?"

He also seemed to use Laika to meet women, but that was besides the point. She wasn't here now, and he would just have to trust Phina's imagination to pair him with a well-behaved imaginary dog and not some drooling brute. "I got her when I was in grad school," he explained. "I'd always wanted a dog and finally had a landlord who would allow me to have one."

He pondered if Seraohina would understand the origins of Laika's moniker. Perhaps not... That would simply be too much to ask, wouldn't it? If she did, Iouri worried he might have trouble resisting the temptation to propose on the spot.

"And what about yourself?" he added after a moment's hesitation.

Iouri smiled and shook his head, imaging what Laika might look like as a pincher. It was a disconcerting mental image, to say the least. "No," he answered. "Rat terrier. Sort of like a Jack Russell only not?" Although Laika had been mistaken for the other so many times that Iouri was beginning to wonder, breed standards aside, if there really was a difference.

He sipped his second beer thoughtfully, nodding in response to her statements about relationships and responsibility. Despite his mother's protestations, Iouri felt like he was married tomhis job, at least for the time being. The most he could hope to have was a mistress or two on the side.

"I don't think it's harsh at all," he objected, setting his beer aside. "I mean, I adore my dog- but I don't entertain any illusions of wanting to be responsible for another human being. Not now, at any rate."

Maybe later. But he was thirty-two, and while some of his college friends were now parents to tweens, Iouri liked to think he had maybe another five or eight years before he needed to give settling down any kind of serious thought. In the mean time, he had far too much work to do, and dating was a bit difficult when you found anything more than holding hands in public to be completely risqué.

"But tell me... What is a bit quieter than a dog?" It seemed to him she'd begun a thought and gotten sidetracked: she still hadn't told him what she enjoyed.

It took everything Iouri had to not frown into his lager, but he had a distinct sense that the other foot had just fallen. Here was Seraphina... Smart, charming, beautiful as all get out... And pop-culture obsessed. He would never be able to keep up! The last movie Iouri had seen was an independent documentary down at a little shoebox art house cinema - in April.

"I don't see many movies, " he admitted tacitly, hoping to move the conversation more towards things he was at least familiar with. "I do enjoy reading, though!" boy, did Iouri like to read: Popular Mechanics, Discover, scientific journals... National Geographic. His tastes skewed in a distinctly nerdy direction, and he doubted he'd have much in common with hers.

He hadn't had much in common with any woman he'd dated since breaking up with his college girlfriend.

"Ah, fun fact!" blurted Iouri, still trying to move the conversation along. "I have applied to train as an astronaut five times, and been rejected five times." He tapped the rip of his glasses, and sensed himself floundering. This was no good, no good at all.