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

[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."

[smilestopscars]

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.

[smilestopscars]

"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.

[rebelseekspizza]

"The ones in Fandom don't count," Dante said, hoping this was good banter, and not him kidnapping the conversation. "They're just fucking weird."

[smilestopscars]

Judging by the theatricality of Ezra's frown, it was the former. "Excuse you, which of us is the expert on forest fauna and whether they count? The fox or you?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"You're saying the teal deer aren't weird?" Dante asked, laughing.

[smilestopscars]

"I'm saying they're weird, yes, but they still count." Yeah. "From a fox's eye view level, they're all the same regardless of color and weirdness."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You ever eat one?" Dante wondered.

[smilestopscars]

"Of the teal ones?" Ezra checked, before shaking his head. "No. They're just a little too smart. That's what makes them less fun than the ones in Maine."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Rather not have the challenge, huh?" Dante said, making an amused noise.

[smilestopscars]

"I didn't say I didn't try," Ezra pointed out with a crooked smirk. "Just that I didn't eat one."

Because being unsuccessful was a thing, even if she wasn't usually so free with admitting it.

"Anyway, deer aren't really my preferred prey. Too big. They're fun to spook and chase around, though."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante made a soft noise, almost a laugh, as they walked down the block. "So what is?" he said. "Your preferred prey, I mean."

[smilestopscars]

"Apart from the irresistably attractive people everywhere?" Ezra replied with a small but decidedly vulpine smirk, managing to hit a certain normal level of Ezra-ness at least once during this conversation.

Then he shrugged. "Wild geese. They're fox-appropriate in size, and feisty enough to keep things interesting."

[rebelseekspizza]

This time, the laugh was big and genuine. "Aw," Dante said, "Bet you were a fuckin' neighborhood favorite, Ezra, bane of asshole birds."