A Bar, Boston, Tuesday

[smilestopscars]

In the end, Ezra had decided to drag Dante out to a bar. Not one of the Coterie ones, but still one that he'd frequented sometimes, looking to have a good time. It wasn't as high-end as, say, something within the Purgatory complex, but it was still several steps up from something like that dive he'd found Dante performing at earlier this year.

Funnily enough, this one seemed to have an open mic night going on. Or, would have - there was a flier advertising it at the door, but they were a little early. Those proceedings had not started yet as they walked in.

"It's not a bunny party," Ezra noted, glancing back at Dante with a little smirk, "but I think it works."

[ooc: NFB, for the guy.]

Comments

[smilestopscars]

"We'll see how masterful it was later on." Well, hadn't made him play guitar in public yet, but there was time.

Ezra held the the door open for him. "Not every plan succeeds fully, I'm sad to say."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante stuck his hands into his pockets as he stepped into the Boston air. He sucked in two lungs full of it. "I did miss this part of the country," he said.

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"It's all right," Ezra said, halfway in agreement, as his hands found his own pockets. "The climate's always agreed with me."

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"Kinda part of why I wanted to move back up north," Dante admitted. "Maryland summers, man."

[smilestopscars]

"I never minded them." He was very adaptable. As much as he liked to complain about any and every perceived hardship that happened to cross his path. "But here's more what I'm used to."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Well, you did grow up around here," Dante said. He shrugged easily. "Temperature doesn't actually matter much to me one way or another, I just like the vibe better, I guess."

[smilestopscars]

"My 'around here' is perhaps a little too broad and vague to really count for that," Ezra mused idly. His childhood hadn't really been what you might call stationary. "Point still stands, though."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Fair," Dante said, and zipped up his coat, even though he didn't really need to.

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Ezra was quiet for a moment. Just walking along. Letting the air cool him down.

Then he said, "I'm not even sure which of these states I was born in, you know."

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"No?" Dante asked.

He didn't trust himself to say much else; he didn't want to stumble over something that would inadvertently cause Ezra to clam up.

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"No." His hand slid out of his pocket, and he pushed his hair back with it. It only stayed there for a moment, but it wasn't really about the staying, anyway. "My mom says it was a more mobile time," he added. "She likes to put it that they were still looking for a place for a more permanent nest. "

He shrugged, vaguely. Half-smiled, mostly to himself.

"I don't know if that's the whole of the truth, but it makes for a nice story."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Better than mine, anyway," Dante said, thinking of blood and Mundus and death and choosing not to say a word about that, either. "Ezra, roving fox of New England."

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Ezra snorted, softly. "Pretty much," he said. "We didn't really settle down before my little sisters showed up. They haven't roved as much."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Think it makes a difference?" Dante asked.

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"Definitely." The little sigh was just your imagination, Dante. "I didn't put down roots around Boston before the Coterie and before they stuck me with Lock, and then Ava later on. Until then, I was ready to move whenever, because I still remembered what it was like to arrive somewhere new, over and over again. They don't remember that."

He paused.

"For them, home has always been a place."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Is it Lock and Ava for you now?" Dante asked. "Or still everywhere and nowhere all at once?"

He didn't know how long Ezra had lived like that. He sure as hell didn't know how deep it laid in Ezra's system.

[smilestopscars]

"For me it's always been people," Ezra said, glancing over. "It's Lock and Aves, and it's my mom and my sisters."

Whether that counted as 'everywhere and nowhere' wasn't up to him to judge, he didn't think.

[rebelseekspizza]

It was pretty much irrelevant, in Dante's book. He got people as home. He got it very well.

"Makes sense," he said thoughtfully. "Not a bad way to be."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra shrugged again. "And I don't seem that different from my sisters anymore, anyway," he said. "It looks like I'm stuck in Maine for the forseeable future."

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'd crack a joke, but... I don't actually know that much about Maine," Dante admitted. "Think there's fish."

[smilestopscars]

"'Maine has four seasons'," Ezra recited, "'Winter, Still Winter, Almost Winter and Construction.'"

He smirked. Just a little.

"We do also have a lot of lobsters."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Lobsters and winter," Dante repeated, infusing his voice with a little more cheer than before. "Yeah, those are definitely the first two things I think about when it comes to you..."

[smilestopscars]

"There's also a saying about how you know you're in Maine by how appliance stores advertise their freezers with how many deer you can fit in them," Ezra added, lightly. "I think deer might be slightly more on-brand for me."

Well, for being a woodland predator, anyway.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Are the deer in Maine better than anywhere else?" Dante asked. "Inquiring minds want to know."

[smilestopscars]

"They're more fun than the ones in Fandom, at least."

The teal ones were too smart for anyone's good.