smilestopscars | The Inferno, Boston, Tuesday Evening

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The Inferno, Boston, Tuesday Evening

The bold neon-red sign saying INFERNO was blazing on the side of the building. It was the middle of the week, add yet there was still something of a line outside. Not around the building, like on the weekend, but there was still a brief wait until hopefuls (many of them couples on Valentine's Day dates) got to join the crowd inside, taking cover from the crisp chill of the weather outside.

Well, crowds, plural. The Inferno operated on three levels, with VIP-only Heaven upstairs and Hell down below, and the open-to-all restaurant/bar combo Purgatory on the ground floor.

As Ava had once put it, Purgatory was high-end without being snooty. There was a maître d' at the door, ready to seat people at tables (or at the bar, as they case might have been), but you could still waltz in with sneakers and a hoodie on. There was a nice, dimly-lit atmosphere, and candles on tables all over. Many of them were red or pink tonight, to mark the occasion

And behind the bar – smallest of the many at the Inferno – in his black shirt with Purgatory printed in surprisingly tasteful fashion on the back, was Ezra, serving up drinks, alongside one of his collegues. Wasn't really a one-person job tonight. Pretty busy.

And Ezra loved it. What was a better way of keeping himself distracted than by slinging drinks and flirting shamelessly at everyone who came up for drinks? Hey, maybe he'd come across a couple who'd want him to join in on their celebration of love!

A fox could hope.

[ooc: NFB, and for she who knows who she is!]

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Kathy glanced down at her empty shot glasses and blushed. "I thought I was doing better than this," she mumbled. "But then things kind of..."

It wasn't that she'd been doing better, it was just that she'd been better at willfully ignoring everything that was wrong and had finally run out of bullshit to hide behind. And that coping mechanism having failed, she'd moved on to the next.

Which was more self-destructive? WHO COULD SAY? Wheee!

"It's not easy to --"

Suddenly, Ezra's awareness of their surroundings kicked back in. The thing he'd been about to say? Was not a thing he should be saying here. Not in front of regular patrons or Coterie staff. He looked over at the other bartender. "Jesse, my little crabcake, I'm going to need to take five."

It was going to be longer than five and they both knew it. Oh well. Jesse resigned to a nod, anyway.

Kathy gave Jesse an apologetic smile, forking over enough money to cover all nine shots and a decent tip as well. Maybe that would help make up for being abandoned on Valentine's Day?

"I don't want to interfere with your night..." Kathy protested, but she was already sliding off her stool to follow him. Her first step or two was an unsteady wobble, but seconds later her balance compensated for the amount of alcohol she'd already ingested and her walk smoothed back out to the elegant stride of before.

Ezra stepped out from behind the bar to lead her away. (Getting her some displeased glances on the way, since that was the fate of anyone who stole Ezra's attention and presence.) There were back rooms and other spaces that were closed off to the public and would be quiet.

As much as he didn't actually want to be anywhere quiet with her. Talking wasn't really his strong suit.

"Come on, I'll find a place."

Kathy didn't notice the jealous glares and would have rolled her eyes at any she'd caught even if she had. For whatever they'd been to one another, once upon a time, she didn't really expect this to lead to anywhere close to the kind of activity they were all assuming.

Pity. Ezra was well-versed in shutting off Kathy's brain and that's exactly what she'd come here to do. But that had been back when she'd assumed she'd be unknown and anonymous here.

"Probably a good idea," Kathy said, following his lead. "This doesn't strike me as a conversation best had in front of strangers." Whatever kind of conversation 'this' was going to be.

"And not here." Honestly, she was lucky he didn't just usher her out the door as soon as he spotted her. Recently resurrected or not, this was no place for someone with her powers. But the newly resurrected bit had his brain scrambled.

His priorities were a mess.

He led her out of the restaurant and down through a couple of hallways until they got to a storage space. Shelves lined the walls, filled with cardboard boxes.

"People don't tend to come here too often. This should be fine."

That probably would have been the wisest thing to do. Even at her most careful, there was something a bit too-fast and too-fluid about her movements. And four shots of tequila in did not qualify as a time when she was 'most careful.' Hell, that she could down that many and not stagger out clinging to Ezra as she went was probably proof enough that she was more than what she seemed.

Oops.

Kathy nodded, taking a seat on a cardboard box filled with napkins, and looked over at him, trying to figure out what to say. Normally, she'd fake a smile and hope some surface enthusiasm would do the trick, but she was emotionally exhausted and didn't have the energy to fake much of anything at all. Besides, she couldn't bullshit a bullshitter; he had way more experience at it than she did.

"Look, I know we didn't exactly part on the best terms..." she said, then trailed off as she realized she had no idea how to finish that.

Ezra didn't sit down. He didn't pace, either, although he felt the faintest traces of the urge to do that. He just stood there with his arms loosely folded, in his all-black work uniform.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "You weren't coming back."

"And yet here I am," Kathy said with a bit more of a sardonic edge than she meant. To show, at least. "Living, breathing, and in your fucking bar of all places."

Seriously, karma, what had she ever done to you?

"How the hell did that happen?"

He meant the latter. His tone remained even. Yes, even though the whole thing was absurd.

"Coming to Purgatory?" She figured Dante had probably filled Ezra in on all the relevant details of her resurrection. "I bailed on the island and wanted to go somewhere I'd never been. Portalocity suggested Boston."

Because what better way to lose yourself than somewhere you had no attachments to?

"And I wanted to go out and have fun tonight--" Understatement. "--and going to a bar named for the afterlife was just the kind of bitter irony I was in the mood for." She spread her hands. "So here I am."

Some of the relevant details, anyway. He wasn't asking for more of those.

Even if he was still subconsciously checking her for signs of necromancy.

"Here you are." It was the one thing they could most certainly agree on. Ezra wasn't necessarily forseeing many other things of that kind. "This wasn't a very good choice for fun, dumpling."

Did the endearment help any when his tone was still so flat and neutral?

Not really. It only made the contrast that much more obvious.

"Because you work here?" she asked, hand falling to play nervously with the silver loops of her decorative hip chain.

"Because this is not a safe place."

Safer now than when Venus ran the place, but still Coterie.

"Tons of people come in here all the time," Kathy said, confused. "Did you see the lines outside? It wouldn't have a ridiculous Yelp rating if people were prone to go missing or whatever, would it?"

You know, Ezra really hoped she would've figured this out on her own so he wouldn't have had to say it.

But you couldn't always get what you wanted.

"This is a Coterie business, Kathy," he said, shaking his head. "Not only that, this is the Coterie business."

Kathy was not at her most brilliant after four shots of tequila on top of, well, everything else today. And the weekend. And--oh, pretty much everything else today.

"Well fuck me," Kathy said, closing her eyes and leaning back against the wall. "Of course it is. Why else would you be working here?"

God dammit.

"Still, why would they look at me twice? I'm nothing special, especially among the powered set." She was a Saturday morning cartoon. "And I doubt I'm the only pretty girl you've escorted into a closet." Probably the only one he just wanted to talk to, though.

Ezra huffed a breath out through his nose, allowing himself that tiny slip of frustration bleeding through.

He stepped closer to her.

"Because every person with powers is a potential asset," he said. "And while the whole show has changed hands, I don't think they've gotten any less overenthused about recruiting everyone they think could be of value. And if you think they don't notice you knocking back four shots of tequila and still walking without a wobble?"

He shook his head again.

"Kathy, you are not dumb enough for that."

Oh but she wanted to be. She wanted to be young, dumb, irresponsible, and spend a night not thinking about what she'd done or Raven had done or had been done to her. Why was that so fucking much to ask for?

"Yeah, well, good luck to them," she snorted, closing her eyes. "My heroing days are done, so I'm going to have to say no thanks to their recruitment deal." She sighed. "And, yes, before you say a damn thing, I already know that anything they want me for isn't likely to be heroic or involve asking."

Even as willfully blind as she was trying to be, she couldn't go that far. Opening one dark eye, she asked, "How'd they get their hooks in you anyway?" The last time she'd asked about the Coterie, he'd seduced her into dropping the topic. That seemed a lot less likely to happen now. "You're way too smooth to let that happen otherwise."

"My life for my sisters," Ezra replied bluntly. "I'm Coterie so they can lead normal lives."

Which they were doing, so at least it was working.

He wasn't used to being this open about his life, but when there were so many different kinds of pressure happening, something had to give.

"Oh fuck." Kathy wasn't even sure she'd known that Ezra had siblings. And she definitely wouldn't have guessed that he'd joined the Coterie to protect them. That put him in a new light; how much of his refusal to get close to people stemmed from not wanting the Coterie to have yet more leverage over him?

Not that she'd ask. And not that she'd assume he'd answer truthfully even if she did.

"That won't work for me," she said. "I have no family for them to use. Raven saw to that."

"This is not a negotiation on what works or doesn't, Kathy," Ezra snapped. Ish. Kind of. It was a lot more sudden than he'd meant it to be, and he was also now closer to her and the box she was sitting on than he'd expected to be. He hadn't meant to surge forward. "You shouldn't even be here."

"You're right," she said tightly, not backing down an inch with his sudden intrusion into her personal space. How far she'd come from the girl afraid to take off her pants. "By rights, I should be dead. And yet here I am."

"And that is no reason to step on my turf."

In fact, it was exactly the opposite.

"I didn't come in here to step on your turf, Ezra!" Kathy snapped. She hopped up from her box and stood toe-to-toe with him. "I didn't know you were even here! If I had, I'd've gone literally anywhere else to drink! I came here because I didn't want to think about any of my goddamn problems, not rub my face in them! I came here because this bar was a bad fucking joke!"

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