There weren't many places in the world that Gideon liked, and Belgium was definitely not one of them. He could have blamed bad memories from the Forties. He could have blamed the fact that foreign languages gave him a headache. He could have blamed it's stupid tiny buildings with their short narrow doors and their floors that creaked and groaned in protest of his presence.

But he didn't.

He didn't blame anything, or anyone, because the heart of stone beating in his chest didn't bother with such things. No blame, no guilt, no gratitude, no joy; just a stony disassociated disconnection with the human race, everyone in it, and anything they had ever built.

He made it through the stupid mailbox door sideways; there was a scrape as his shoulder grazed the woodwork of the frame. Everyone turned and looked; stared, same as they always did. Fuck 'em, he thought, plus sized boots clomping against the wooden floor as he strode towards the bar. What's the matter, y' never seen a golem before?

The barman regarded him with a strange blend of emotions: fear and alarm mostly, but glossed over with a veneer of mercenary greed. That was the only redeeming feature about humanity, as far as Gideon was concerned: they could learn to tolerate anyone or anything if you gave them enough shit to make up for it, and right now the barman seemed more interested in the fact that Gideon was a potential paying customer than anything else.

He grabbed two stools, one for each cheek to spread the weight, and heaved himself into position at the bar. A collective intake of breath swept across the other patrons, no doubt waiting for the bar stool to buckle and break beneath him. They were in for a disappointment: a mix of basic engineering and decades of practice had taught Gideon exactly what he was capable of getting away with, no matter bullshit what Hollywood special effects fed to the general public.

"Three pints," he grunted, his voice exactly as gravelly as you'd expect it to be. He didn't even bother with a native language; if you own a bar in a tourist town and don't speak enough English lingo to work with lazy inconsiderate Yanks on vacation, then you deserved to go out of business. "I don't care what of."

The barman obliged in silence; Gideon noted with casual disinterest that he'd beelined straight for the most expensive beer on tap. That'd have earned a smile of mild approval, if Gideon could be bothered to make his facial muscles drag his clay-like skin into the right shapes. He couldn't be though, and instead maintained the same scowl as ever, downing the beers like shots when they arrived. He could barely taste it, and with his constitution he barely felt it; but when you barely felt anything, then barely feeling buzzed was better than nothing.

He dug into the pocket of the tent-like trenchcoat he wore mainly for the benefit of others rather than his own modesty, and pulled out a fat roll of banknotes. "Same again," he grunted, tossing the Euros onto the bar. "And you're gonna want to keep hold of that: we're gonna be here a while."

A little more of the alarm crept into the barman's expression, and he mustered his first word of the day. "We?"