Last Call My A$S ( Paaaanda! )

[Ever Goodman]

There were a lot of things Ever was discovering that he very much enjoyed.
Being an amnesiac with no recollection of the stuff he liked or disliked made things a little bit more interesting; really. The simplest of things were a mystery. What did sushi taste like? Did he enjoy the sound of bluegrass music? What would happen if he stuck his tongue to the white frozen part of the freezer?
Oh…no…that wasn’t the best idea.

Anyways. Ever was sure he had tons of favorites before the head injury that left him with no memory, but discovering them all over again was quite amazing, actually.

Such was the case now as he sat in a smoky bar full of beer bellied biker sorts and sipped on the pint of Guinness that had been placed before him. Honestly he didn’t get out that often, and hardly ever to the ‘bar scene’ but it was payday and he had gotten bored to tears holed up in his hotel room and this place, though pretty intimidating what with all the motorcycles and men (and women) in leather, had drawn him in like the proverbial moth to the flame.
The dark-haired man had asked the plaid-clad bartender what she suggested, and smirking like she was about to show Ever the ‘light’, the woman had placed two glasses in front of him on the smooth cool mahogany counter top. Both were filled with a dark chocolate colored foamy beer; one pint full, the other half. Before Ever could ask what she was doing the tender had filled a little shot glass with a mixture of Bailey's Irish cream and Jameson Irish whiskey. She dropped it into the half filled pint of Guinness and immediately the stout beer starting foaming. The woman was grinning from ear to ear and ordered him to chug it down before it made a mess on her bar.

And so he did.

A few more Irish Car Bombs and a couple pints later Ever was sitting there with a nice whir in his head and a somewhat goofy smile on his face. He palmed his half drank Guinness and slid off the stool, wandering over to where a group of patrons were playing darts.
Feeling more like a brave stranger than quiet Ever, the young man nudged one of the beefier players and plastered on what he hoped was a serious grin.

“Hey…I play darts professionally…” He told them, interrupting another man that was just about to toss the little arrow. “Yeah…I’m on the…I’m on the circuit.”
The group of men eyed him like he had just called one of their mother’s a bitch, but a slender woman who was involved in the game stepped forward.

“Is that right? Well…I’ve got a fist full of twenties says you can’t beat my baby.” And with that she pat the arm of the man who had just been about to throw and now looked like he was ready to bite Ever’s head off.

Ever snorted, dragged his tongue across his bottom lip and pulled out a fist full of tens. His paycheck…newly cashed and burning a hole in the pocket of his blue jeans.
“Sure.” He said, and hiccupped, laying the wad of money on the edge of the bar table and moving over to pluck three darts from the black and red bulls eyes “You just stand back.”

He grinned, closed one dark chocolate eye to aim, pulled his arm back and tossed…landing it into the bicep of another patron; this one meaner looking that the group surrounding him. “Oh…snap.”

[wickham]

It would have been difficult for Bryson to pinpoint exactly what it was she hated about bars. In truth, there were just far too many reasons and not enough words in the English dictionary that adequately described the full extent of her loathing for such amoral, downright filthy, establishments. Like so many children whose fathers choose their addiction to alcohol over their parental obligations, Bryson had grown up blaming and hating the source of her father's bad decisions just as passionately as she did him for making them. The scent, consistency, taste, and stupidity that accompanied beer could provoke nothing in her but disgust and an unpleasant churning in her stomach.

All things considered, it must have been fate's grandest joke that she should find herself frequenting bars as often as she did. As much as she would have liked to steer clear altogether of what she considered to be one of the very worst places for anyone to spend their free time, it was quite impossible for her to do so. Hunters relied heavily on information, led from place to place by word of mouth. Knowledge was a weapon in itself when exploited wisely. Simply by sitting in the vicinity of those in the know, hunters like herself, Bryson had learned quite early on in her search that much could be gained from eavesdropping in places where liquor was served in heavy enough doses to loosen the tongues of men and women who ordinarily knew the value of the phrase 'Mum's the word.'

Bryson's youthful face and tame taste in clothes earned her some skepticism from the bouncer positioned just by the entrance of the bar; however, she quickly silenced him with a valid form of identification to squint at and scrutinize before grudgingly allowing her in with a slight flaring of his nostrils and a dismissive nod of his large bald head. With a smug, self-righteous little smile, she moved past him with her chin at a noticeable upward tilt and a haughty look in her eye that expressed more confidence than she really possessed. Had it not been for a sticky spot on the floor that caused her to stumble forward a few steps in an awkward display of natural clumsiness, she might have come off quite well. Instead she was forced to grab the nearest chair and steady herself before continuing onward to an empty table. Realizing its proximity to a group playing darts, Bryson got up and moved to the next one over.

Asked for her order, she stated that she wanted a Coke. No, she insisted sternly when the waitress inquired if she wanted it with Gin or Rum, she wanted a plain - clean - glass of soda. She'd not pay for it she was brought anything else. The woman gave her a funny look but did as she was practically told. They couldn't pay her enough to argue with strange little girls who lugged backpacks around with them instead of purses. And what was with that hoity-toity little accent? Had she just returned from wizard school? Somewhat self-conscious at what she was able to overhear about herself, Bryson kicked her bag further beneath the table and began to observe her surroundings carefully. The task proved to be a pretty good distraction.

Sudden movement of an arm, the flight of something small and pointy, caught her attention. The collision of it with the flesh of a man rather than what she presumed had been its intended destination caused her mouth to fall open and her large brown eyes to widen. That was just so...so...so.... "So unsanitary." She murmured, her soft voice trembling. It made her skin crawl simply imagining the possible dangers associated with having the tip of an object that so many people had touched inserted into the skin. Bryson squirmed in her seat but held her tongue. Her gaze slid quickly from the unfortunate victim to the person she felt would be the only one to suffer more from the blunder. After fixing Ever with a barely concealed look of condemnation for the health threat he posed with his abominable aim, Bryson picked up her glass of soda and sucked at the straw.

[ status: tagged by the Miz! ; outfit: clicketh! ; notes: hopefully this is not-suck! ]

[Ever Goodman]

It definitely did not pay to be adventurous, out-going Ever. He really should have stuck with quiet, mind-his-own-bees wax Ever, because it would have saved him from the black eye and the broken sniffer. But that’ll come in a minute…

“Hey, hey..heeeeeeyyy...” Ever held his hands up in surrender; taking a step back from the man that was peering at him as he pulled the shiny metal from his bicep. Oh, fuck…did he just growl?
“I wasn’t wearing my glasses, really…REALLY shouldn’t have done that, huh? Without the glasses…or at all…” He was blubbering, and suddenly more sober than before he’d even set foot in the hunter bar. The dude that had taken a dart to the gun tossed the weapon down and lunged for Ever, grabbing him by the collar.

“You don’t belong here son. You oughta’ take your little fire cracker girlfriend and get out of here before I show you what we do to outsiders.”
Man, these old hunters really did take their territories and stuff serious, didn’t they? Not that Ever had any idea that he was actually one of their -kind- after all.
The hunter shook the young man around a little and Ever reached up with his fingers to pry the hands off his shirt. He didn’t really feel like getting his ass beat tonight but this was probably the nicest shirt he owned and he didn’t want it ruined with blood stains. Or…yeah, he could seriously deal without the fist to the face too.

Wait, what? Fire cracker girl friend?

Ever stumbled backwards and finally wrenched the hands out of his collar. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the same time as he staggered into the table; his dark chocolate eyes falling into wide crystalline ones set into a striking porcelain face he didn’t recognize. “Oh…no…you got it all wrong, man…THAT’S my girlfriend.” And he pointed behind the dude, right at the big-chested blonde that had been wrapped around him a second before the thrown dart. And he had no CLUE why he’d just done that. Maybe because he was a glutton for punishment. Maybe because he really wasn’t sober after all.

The dude definitely growled, much louder this time, and lunged once more for Ever. The amnesiac ducked, fell deeper into the table and knocked a bar stool to the ground. Instinct had him bounding right back up, hands balling into fists and ready to swing at whatever was right in front of him. Guiness, Irish Whiskey, and Irish Cream had done a number on his reflexes, even the ones that were instinctual in him due to hunting with his family since childhood.
The last thing before he saw stars was the big ham headed for the middle of his face. And then he heard a crack; a LOUD crack he could have sworn echoed around the room before he felt the fire erupt where the fist had been headed. His hand went up to the nose and came away covered in blood. “You… broke my nose?” Ever said in a tone that was purely amazed. As if he couldn’t imagine why in the world he was getting pummeled on. “How can you hit a guy with glasses?”

He lurched forward and balled his fists, but on a second thought gave his attention back to the red headed pixie sat at the table and -way- too close to the little conflict. “You may want to move over a table or…two…”

And he ducked, missing another flying fist but coming up to connect his own with the guy’s iron belly. “Ah….shit.” Ever shook out his hand. “You broke my fist -and- my hand…?”

[wickham]

The problem with being so used to going unnoticed is, on the off chance someone actually does pay you any attention, you don't quite know how to immediately manage it. Now it was no skin off of Bryson's nose if the young man whose aim was supposedly better than his judgment when he was wearing glasses got pummeled to a fine pulp. In her mind, she felt that simply by making so much noise and spectacle of himself he probably deserved every inch of punishment he received. However, it was quite a different matter to be mistakenly drawn into things by the enormous, hulking lunatic who'd somehow come to the unimaginable conclusion that she was somehow 'attached' in any way, shape, or form to the smaller moron/aspiring smudge of human remains. Not quite believing the assertion at first that she was, as bizarro world biker Andre the Giant had put it: the 'fire cracker girl', she could do nothing but stare stupidly on with a wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights expression while her mouth hung slightly agape.

After a moment, denial guided her gaze to jump from woman to woman, hurriedly searching for whom the large hunter could possibly be referring to instead. He couldn't really mean her, could he? Anyone else, she thought, should make perfect sense. She was only supposed to be a piece of furniture, after all. Her intentions were always to appear to others as no more noticeable or exciting than a barstool or an empty bottle of beer. An abrupt disturbance of her table brought Bryson's attention once more to the two fighters. The corners of her mouth twitched, conveying her extreme discomfort beneath Ever's fleeting observation. Her body involuntarily slid backward, pausing only as it met the resistance of the chair while she avoided eye contact and instead allowed her line of sight to stray and settle on the man he'd angered.

The expression on his face after Ever added insult to injury made her want to break out a shovel and try for China, yet the most she could do was scoot over a foot to her left in order to avoid the charge of the man-bull. In her haste, she dropped the contents of her glass into her lap and squeaked out in protest at the sudden cold. Ice cubes and soda were either immediately absorbed into the denim or slid sideways off her thighs or down over her kneecaps. While the poor, senseless, man nearby was being dealt far worse blows, it was all Bryson could do not to jump to her feet and run out of the bar at top speed in search of the nearest Laundromat. Ever's considerate warning didn't do much in the way of helping. Utterly distraught, she could only look up at him as if he'd just mowed down her puppy with his car. This was all his fault, whoever he was! Her jaw set, obstinate at first to any suggestion he had to offer, but for her own sake she did what he suggested.

Swooping up her bag, Bry leapt to her feet and began to back up until she felt her shoulder blades slam hard against a man's chest. She peeked over her shoulder timidly to find a very tall and solidly built wall of a gentleman blocking her path from retreating from the circle that had formed around them. She swallowed hard, and turned back to see how her 'boyfriend' was faring. His state could hardly encourage much hope. Judging by what he had to say, she was sure she could check that off as a 'not so great'. Bryson took a step forward and dropped to her knee. She began to dig around in her backpack. "Band-aids!" She explained breathlessly, waving her activities off with a harmless little laugh. "He's going to need them, correct? Oooh, he's always doing this to me! My mother warned me about him, you know." As if she knew! Well, he seemed like he would have. It seemed to her to be a fairly good guess.

Where is it?! Her hands dug around desperately for something she was sure she ought to always have handy. Gun, gun, Chapstick, keys, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, wallet, more hand sanitizer. She bit her lip and tried not to draw any more attention to herself while she unzipped the other pocket. Finding what she thought might be it, she slipped the item into the back pocket of her jeans and sprang once more to her feet. Against her better judgment, she ran up to the two men and attempted to appeal to their better natures, assuming they remembered they might have them. "S-sir, I really think it might be best-" Finding her voice was lost, she cleared her throat and attempted to carefully shuffle around the two so that she was just barely out of arm's reach. She lifted her finger, thinking it might call them to order, but thought better of it and turned awkwardly silent for a beat or two. "There isn't any reason to-" Again, what might have been prevailing reason was eclipsed by the excitement of those who swarmed around them, drawn to the undignified theatrics like trashy moths to an even raunchier flame. What's the point? She thought with a huff, and began to slink backwards.

[ status: tagged by the Miz! ; outfit: clicketh! ; notes: Agh! I'm sorry this reply has been so delayed. Internet issues and just a whole bunch of stuff to deal with this past week. -.-; ]

[Ever Goodman]

It seemed that the hunters had just been waiting for a fight. Maybe it was lack of supernatural activity around town that had them bored and itching for some action or maybe it was just natural for the otherworldly investigators and exterminators to want to reject the kind of people they felt didn’t belong. Either way Ever felt the air around them grow noticeably heavier as suddenly he and the guiltless redhead were surrounded by the hunters buds; all of which were just as intimidating if not more so that the one that had taken a dart to the arm.

Still shaking out the aching hand, Ever quirked a brow when the firecracker dropped to the ground and began mumbling about band-aids and mothers; unable to keep the grin from twisting his lip up at one corner and a throaty chuckle from escaping his throat.
So what if he was in big trouble in little china, she was a funny little thing, wasn’t she?

Turning his attention once more to the angry male before him, Ever held his hands up in surrender. He had brought this bar brawl on himself but there was no way he was gonna’ let the pixie get dragged into the middle of it. “Hey…look…I shouldn’t have said that about your old lady.” He slurred, trying his best to keep the cocky grin from creeping back over his face. “She’s really not my type.” He lifted a finger to gesture to her over inflated breasts and shook his head. “For one thing the left one is a little bigger than the right. Too bad the nipples are pointed in different directions too…”

What drove the young man to be so impertinent was beyond him. Probably part of it was the Guinness and the Irish Car bombs, but most likely the hunter within the quiet amnesiac was just trying to get a little air. Regardless of the reason, his smart mouth had the men behind them moving in closer and the growling bull dove at him again; pounding his face with the brutality of a wild animal.

Pain exploded as the iron fist connected with his cheek and then his jaw; momentarily stunning the man into limpness, but it didn’t take Ever long to recover, grabbing the brawlers fist as it swung toward him again and twisting it until he heard a satisfying crack from the wrist to which it was connected.
The hunter immediately fell to his knees groaning but another was right there to take his place, snatching the amnesiac by the back of his collared button-down. The flimsy white cotton tore and fell open at this chest but he was able to twist out of the grip, spinning around to catch the male’s thick throat to toss him backwards.

Chaos had erupted all over the dingy bar; the scrapping not just limited to their little group but amidst other intoxicated and fight itchy hunters. Bottles flew and bodies were slammed into tables and cursing became the establishment music instead of the tunes previously playing from the jukebox.

It made ever feel….alive. It felt familiar. How sick was that?!

While the group was distracted by a cat fight that had broken out two tables behind them Ever took the opportunity to steal around the bloated muscle heads to grab the pixie’s hand, ducking a bottle flying over head and escaping through the front door.
He wasn’t usually so forward with people, but to the unaware observer (him) she looked more fragile and out of place in there than a flower painted teapot with bone china cups. And she wouldn’t have been in the middle of it if it hadn’t been for his snarky lip and her blameless proximity.

Panting and laughing at the same time, Ever released her hand once they were outside, leaning against the brick building to catch his breath and wipe a drip of crimson before it could fall into his eye.

“Hey…sorry about that…I didn’t mean to…” Ever really stank at apologizing, and shook his head and laughed again instead. “Did you see the look on that guys face?! Fuck. I gotta’ remember to stay the hell away from this kind of place. Outsiders…like…like you can’t go in there unless you’re covered in tats and drive a Harley.

[wickham]

Even if Ever had been a professional apologist in his past life and had miraculously managed to carry that skill over into whatever sort of existence he currently led, it wouldn't have made so much as a dent in the amount of dislike Bryson felt towards him for being the cause of so much trouble. Seriously, how could someone manage to say exactly the worst possible thing at every single opportunity? If it weren't such a terrible gift, and really more like a curse anyway, she'd have felt inclined to compliment him on at least being the most consistent person that she'd met in awhile. Instead, all she could do was stare down in quiet disgust at her hand and then back up at him in disbelief as he actually seemed to find humor in what had happened. Either that, or he was completely nuts. She narrowed her eyes and waited with clenched jaw for him to explain himself, but there was little reason to be found in what he had to say aside from the spot-on observation that he ought to stay away from such places in the future.

Bry nodded her head, finding it impossible to disagree with that sentiment. However, the up and down movement in her neck came to a dead halt at his suggesting that she should take the same advice. "Funny." She replied, although her tone carried no humor whatsoever. "Because I never encountered so much trouble at bars like this until this very evening, till I had the bad luck of being mistakenly attached to you." And where was she now? Stranded outside a bar with a complete lunatic who couldn't seem to decide how he felt about what had just transpired. Sure, he had apologized...technically...but she couldn't quite trust the sincerity of his words. "Are you insane?" She asked bluntly, lifting an eyebrow and taking a step towards him. Her eyes moved from his face, marked where he had wiped away the blood, and down to his exposed chest where her eyes couldn't help but widen. No, she wasn't ogling him or anything. That really was never the first thing to occur to her anyway. It was what was tattooed onto his chest that demanded her study.

More intrigued than frightened of what he might think, she approached him and lifted one part of his ripped shirt to the side so that it was no longer partially concealing the possession tattoo. "You have this and you've still no idea how to interact with them?" Bry released the collar and stared suspiciously at Ever. What he said and what he had on his person weren't adding up at all. How was it possible for him to have that kind of symbol etched onto his skin with needle and ink and yet behave around other hunters with no sense of what was likely to set them off? He seemed to possess no empathy for them at all. It was a dangerous, frustrating line of work; at the end of the day, if you survived, you really didn't want to deal with someone who behaved like how Ever had. For the most part, you just wanted to do whatever relaxed you and call it a day. Assuming you were lucky and/or skilled, you might get the chance to repeat that sad routine the next.

"You have gone 'round the bend, haven't you?" She stated more than asked. Taking note of the strong scent of beer and whiskey coming off of him like toxic fumes, Bry's nose crinkled slightly. Alcohol made her skin crawl and her initial reaction to anyone who smelled as if they'd just bathed in it was to remind herself of where she kept her pepper spray. Speaking of which... Reaching suddenly into her back pocket, Bry removed her keys. Attached like a keychain was a small black spray bottle that she raised to Ever's eyes. It didn't matter to her how brown they were or how well they complimented his hair, she'd hit them with it just as sure as she would any of those brutes back in that bar. "Tell me what you really are." She ordered coldly, indifferent to whatever ingratitude he might believe her guilty of, and took a few steps back so that she was out of his immediate swing-range. "I hate liars, especially ones that can't even keep their stories straight." Her thumb hovered dangerously over the little red button. Maybe it was pathetic of someone like her to even try to order him around, but she had a feeling that she was capable of doing more damage to him than he could expect.

[ status: tagged by the Miz! ; outfit: clicketh! ; notes: she's such a jerk, i'm sorry. -.- ]

[Ever Goodman]

If the fist to his nose had taken him by surprise it was nothing compared to what Ever felt when the fire-headed pixie challenged his innocence and then fairly spat at the idea of being connected to him in the way those muscle heads back there had. Okay, sure…he really shouldn’t have tried to be part of their little group of…big bad dart players. If he’d had all of his wits the amnesiac would have done as usual; remaining blithely detached no matter how bad the pang in his chest got. Who needed them? Not him, that was for damn sure. The fact that he had acted so out of character might have been the result of his actual personality coming through unbidden, because as far as -he- was concerned the new Ever…the one that was unconcerned and calm and not really much of a conversationalist, he was just fine and dandy. Saved him from things like broken noses and shirts being ripped open and ruined because fuck he didn’t have the money to go on a shopping spree.

When she inquired as to his sanity Ever snorted behind the hand he had brought up to his sniffer. He could tell it was broken simply by the angle, if not for the spasms of pain each time he inhaled through his nostrils. The noisy exhale caused a whole new wave of tenderness which drew an absent moan out of him, and he popped the cartilage back into place with a muttered curse at the same moment the pixie took a step toward him.
Ever blinked his coffee colored eyes in surprise and rolled back on his heels at her impulsive approach; dropping his gaze to his chest in bemusement at her unexpected exchange.
His orbs found the blue-black ink etched into the skin there, and his brow pinched in contemplation; the drink induced haze making it difficult to put together what she was asking having anything to do with a meaningless tattoo.
Unless it wasn’t meaningless?

Ever was still staring dumbfounded at his exposed chest when Bry came forward with the pepper spray (?) aimed at his face, and the bewildered expression on his visage remained for a moment as his dark eyes shifted back and forth within her russet orbs; an orange light from a neon sign hung in a window nearby reflecting within them as if the fire of her annoyance sparked around her pupil.
She had demanded the truth of him; confessed that she loathed liars, and for once, the young man decided to admit the reality of his fucked up circumstances to himself as much as to the stranger.

Ever lifted his hands in surrender, and then thought better of it, using them both to push back the hair that was hanging in his eyes. “You want to know what I really am?” He asked in a husky tone that was more distant that directed at the spritely woman. “I’d like to know that same fucking thing.”
He left the hands linked on top of his head in a show of submission to the petite female, proving that he was no threat to her. “Go ahead and do it if you want to. I deserve it. And…I’m a liar so there goes any chance at making this first impression go any better.”

He snorted mirthlessly once more and dropped the hands back down to his pockets, half smirking because honestly, it was so fucking pathetic it was funny. “I work construction. I’ve had too much to drink tonight, true. I don’t know who I am and I'ma big fat liar. So…there. That’s what I am.”