i won't worry

Freya looked up at the young man speaking and she offered him hopeless smile as she shrugged her shoulders, the booze was certainly doing its trick. “It all makes sense now.” She drawled as she picked up another one. “I don’t know how people do this all the time.” She said shaking her head, the sheer smell an indication of the awful taste to come. 

Ezra watched her, shaking his head. “I don’t, either,” he said. “I don’t do it, actually. I’m not really that much of a drinker, and definitely not straight -- what is that? Tequila? I can smell it from here, it’s like paint thinner.”

It was easy for the witch to shrug off his abilities, but at this point, Alastair assumed to him they were the same as Alastair’s own above average strength, or speed. Still, he couldn’t help but think that being able to do that would be useful.

Alastair’s lips twitched upwards. “You’re welcome,” he said as the bartender gave them their drinks. “I probably don’t have much longer to be generous in, and I did always want to know how it felt.”

Ezra gave a brief smile and took a sip of the drink the man had ordered from him. “We’ve fought back before,” he said. “I just wish we didn’t keep having to do it.”

“You’ve- you’ve got to be kidding me,” she spoke in disbelief. She’d fought her whole life to gain control of who she was and the freedom came with it. How do keep fighting for that when the whole world is against you? “They can’t do this. Those- we’re innocent people…most of us anyway. That’s like taking out a whole race…a whole religion. Its murder. Are they coming for us next?”“

Ezra gave a sigh and shook his head. “I wish I was,” he said. “It’s horrible.” He shook his head again, biting at his lip. “Even if not all of us are innocent, we don’t deserve that. Does anyone deserve that? It’s murder, you’re right.” He gave a little shrug. “I don’t know, I don’t think anybody knows what’s going on right now.”

If only Leo could’ve bit his tongue, watched his words. One look to the baby as she peered those brilliant blue eyes at him before turning back over in her slumber. “Because of Summerdale?” He asked, though it felt as he made a statement more than anything else. “I don’t blame them. I'm—tense too.” His grip never left nearest the infant, as he nodded. “I would hope so. There is very few I recognize. It’s been so long since I’ve been back here.”

Ezra stuck his tongue out at the little girl as she peeped up at him. He looked up at the man with a soft sigh. “Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. “It’s pretty awful. I think we can all get through it, though. I’m just afraid of us turning on each other before they can get to us.” He smiled a little. “I haven’t been here that long.”

Leo reached forward after shaking his hand, as he gripped the small paper. The few names that might be able to help him for the present being. He hoped so, anyways. “Thank you, Ezra.” The small etching of a smile appeared on his expression, the first one in almost a week. “This is a great help. It’s the opposite of what I’ve found in town thus far.”

Ezra smiled at the man again. “No problem at all,” he said. His smile faded a little. “Yeah, people are a little...tense, right now, unsurprisingly,” he said softly. “People are pretty nice around here, once you get to know them, though.”

Dom didn’t have much in the way of family. There was her child’s father but beyond that it was her and Dani ad she knew she was lucky in some respect for that. It meant not having to be biting her nails wondering if they were okay. She looked over at Ezra with sympathy on her face, knowing he had to be worried. “ Have you heard anything yet?”

Ezra offered the woman a little smile. “I mean, they don’t live there or anything, thank god,” he said. “But, I mean, I’m sure they’re just as scared and worried as we are. I’m sure they’re fine -- physically, anyway, I would just...feel better if I heard from them.”

“Convenient trick, that,” Alastair remarked, taking a deep breath and rolling his shoulders at the other’s voice. He didn’t like losing control, usually didn’t bother caring about things enough to lose control. But this–Alastair had had enough of war. He had fought in enough of them. He knew that there was no point being surprised by this and yet, it had come as a shock. The stupid humans had no idea what they had just done, what they had just unleashed. 

“And I want a hell of a lot more than one more drink,” he said tiredly, angrily. He raised his hand, getting the bartender’s attention for another. He ordered one for the boy too. 

Ezra cleared his throat and gave a little shrug. He’d had this power for as long as he could remember, and in any case, he didn’t think the guy actually cared that much. Not that he could blame him -- obviously, there were way more important things going on. “Thanks,” he said, automatically trying to be polite.

He bit his lip, with a little sigh and a nod. “Me too,” he said, pulling out his phone to text his mother again, to see how she was. When the drink was placed in front of him, he offered the vampire a thin smile. “Thanks,” he repeated.

“Bit of everything,” Veronica replied “Never really had a job-job before this, I just sort of bounced around and did a lot of temporary and under the table work. Mostly carpentry and moving stuff, but a bit of ranch work in there too.” She gave a slight laugh at his joke “Sure, why not. Buy something and I’ll put your picture up on the wall for our first purchase.”

“Ranch work?” Ezra asked with genuine interest. “Like, horses and stuff? That’s pretty cool.” He laughed as she spoke, going back to flipping through records. “You could start a wall. It would be interesting to see what kinds of music people around here like.”

“Oh, god, Ezra. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she admitted with a light smile, happy to see a familiar face. The smile only faltered as the grim look on everyone else’s face reflected on Ezra’s. Lorelei was about to speak, about to react to the news that she had just heard, but she couldn’t. Her voice was rendered useless as she tried to comprehend what he had just told her. “No…No. How- Who attacked them?”

Ezra offered her a brief smile, although it wasn’t like his smiles usually were. “It’s okay,” he said. He swallowed and shook his head. He gave a dry, sad little laugh. “Who didn’t? It’s everyone against us, just like it always has been. The US and other ‘world powers’, or whatever.”

Leo nodded slowly. Truthfully, he was jaded at the thought of leaving Annabeth with a stranger. References, sure. But by hell itself, was he terrified. She was young, and virtually alone. Her mother gone, her father was non-existent. To see someone near her, it made the immortal man a tad.. uneasy. “I’d appreciate seeing your references. I’m a bit over protective of her, so I’d like to know who I’m leaving her with.” A hand out, extended. “Leo Fuller.”

Ezra smiled again. “Oh, yeah, of course,” he said. He was using a scrap of paper as a bookmark, and he tore it in half. “I still have them in my phone, actually. We talk all the time.” He scrolled through his contacts and wrote down a handful of numbers, with their owners’ names beside them. He handed it over, and then shook the man’s hand. “Ezra Gillies, nice to meet you.”

With everything going as of late and the recent development of the supernatural’s exposure to the world once more, Freya was having a hard time. While she wasn’t typically one to turn to drinking, a seat at the bar and a bottle of tequila was proving to be a good distraction and people did it in the movies all the time. Twenty years in Hollywood had left her with a warped sense of reality. After several drinks she was feeling warm and fuzzy. Taking a shot she groaned. “It tastes to good and so bad all at the same time. How is that even possible?” She said scrunching up her nose as she felt the burn at the back of her throat. 

Ezra made a slight face as he watched the girl take the shot. He wasn’t much of a drinker -- at least, not at home. Sometimes he went out and drank at a bar, like tonight, but even then, he almost never had more than three drinks. Tonight wasn’t an exception -- he was still nursing a second drink as the girl tossed back whatever number shot she was on. “Cause it’s not about the taste,” he said. “It’s about getting drunk.”

Lorelei had just finished up a very long shift at the hospital.  With her phone being dead and patients flying into the hospital, she hadn’t had time to sit down, let alone look at the news. Lor could tell something felt off about the town as she walked through the square. There was a sadness to the air that she could feel in the pit of her stomach. Her curiosity eventually got the best of her as tapped the shoulder of the nearest person, “What’s going on here? It looks like everyone’s seen a ghost..?”

Ezra had chewed on his lip the the point where there was a raw, bleeding spot on his lower lip. He jumped slightly as he felt Lorelai’s finger tap his shoulder, and he turned to face her. “Uh, S-Summerdale was destroyed,” he said, his voice cracked from disuse and nerves, as he hadn’t spoken since he’d heard the news. “People attacked them.”

If Alastair had any blood pressure left, it would have sky-rocketed at this news. He wasn’t an overly emotional man, didn’t get invested, preferred to avoid drama. He was selfish, and pleasure seeking, and a self-proclaimed grouch. But it angered him to hear the news about Summerdale. It seemed that humans learned nothing from the past. They made the same mistakes time and time again. The only thing they learned how to do better as the years passed was kill. 

Alastair remembered other bombs being dropped in times past. This was Nagasaki and Hiroshima all over again, occurrences that were already admitted to have been horrible and unforgivable uses of force. Once again, the world was divided into Us vs Them. The last war with the supernaturals had not been enough. Now, they were not powerful races, but vermin come crawling back from the dead to be exterminated. Alastair wanted to take the big red button that some asshole in some office had decided to push and show him exactly where he could shove it. 

He had at least finished his drink by the time this bulletin flashed across the screen. So no liquid was wasted when he slammed his glass down on the bar counter, causing it to break both from the force of it against the counter, and the force of his grip. 

“Fuck!” 

Ezra winced as the glass smashed and the shards flew everywhere. He brought his hand up automatically, his powers causing the broken pieces to float harmlessly in the air before settling with a soft tinkling noise. “Uh--” he said weakly. “Do you want another drink?”