Pins and Needles [Kiyoshi]

[Ash Leone]

This was guaranteed to be the night that never ended, from the looks of things.  It was bad enough that they'd been mobbed all night and understaffed because Heather hadn't shown up, but Dani and Darren both disappeared from the scene at some point in there.  It wasn't like Ash had the time to really pay attention, jumping between the kitchen and the bar as he was, right up until he got the call from Darren letting him know what was going on.  That settled that. 

He'd barely set down the phone before he was on his way out into the bar, brushing his forearm over his forehead to wipe away sweat and taking a deep breath as he hit the open main room.  He passed behind Dave and Anthony, who'd stepped up to pick up the slack, and dropped quiet instructions to them before he took up a spot in the middle of the bar. 

"LAST CALL!  EVERYONE FINISH UP!" he shouted, his voice projecting better than most people ever seemed to think he was capable of (he wasn't exactly the biggest guy in the room, and actually looked like he could pass for Anthony's smaller brother) before he vanished to the kitchen to inform them all that it was closed, not to leave the building to do garbage, and to keep an eye on each other.  Back out in the bar, he had to field the fact that the 'last call' bit had meant that whatever they were drinking was their last.  He wanted everyone out so that he could get a handle on this situation and figure out what the hell was going on, who was unaccounted for, and try to get a word in with the guilds.  Being uninformed was going to get people killed.

They were getting people out of the place as soon as they had the bar under control, particularly anyone that seemed to be at all suspicious.  Ash was less inclined to throw out anyone who might be considered a target based on the little information he had, but once he dropped a warning to people like that, they were on their way out in double time, anyway.  Everyone had places to go and people that they were worried about, and who was he to argue?  The first person who seemed to think he was going to be insulted that his quick offer of sanctuary was refused got a look out of him that clearly said, 'are you kidding me?' before he'd been off and helping to herd others out of the building.  Anthony was easily the most aggressive in moving everyone along, which was easy to tell even from across the room because he was getting the louder complaints, but there was a reason for that.  Dave was older, more experienced and had more of a reputation, and Ash just shoved at auras if he wasn't getting his way.  He didn't mind reminding people that he could ruin their day if they refused, especially in a situation like this.  Danny and Steve, on his instructions, had left the kitchen to help out in the restaurant and bar area, while Tyler had ensured that the girls were out of harm's way. Chloe, Nicole and Jess were all on the clock, and Ash would have to tear someone apart if anything happened to them.  Being phasi, Tyler didn't mind rounding up a bunch of girls, so Ash didn't have to worry about his pride being hurt because he wasn't much of a fighter, so it was a win-win situation. 

The big problem, and the cause for the sudden rush, was that Ash had a sinking feeling that the night was just starting.  Something was coming, something big, and the sensation akin to a shockwave that shook through him was even further urging for him to move.  It was obvious that others had felt it to a smaller degree, but that was energy that shapeshifters didn't play with.  This was going to be serious, which explained why he didn't even play around when they'd cleared the place of most everyone (they'd let a few people stay).  He went for a stiff drink and a hand towel to wipe some of the sweat from his face and hair, anything to try to chill out for a few minutes before the trouble arrived.  It was a good thing he took the opportunity, because it was only a few minutes before Anthony shouted from the door about Danielle being there.

"Of course she is," he murmured from the seat he'd taken at his own bar, finishing the drink as she helped a young human male who looked like he'd been on the wrong end of a bad fight into the building.  His cold blue eyes met her stormy gray for a moment of grim understanding that this whole night was officially fucked, and then the rest of her parade followed after her.  It was like a stream of Vidas, other than the young man they'd brought in and Lance going back out for poor Heather.  By then, Ash and Anthony had hastily pulled the chairs away from some tables, offering up some makeshift place for injured folk, and Dave stepped up to help ease Heather onto one of them.  Laura and the human were hurt, that much was ridiculously obvious, but it was Heather that his eyes kept returning to.  He knew for a fact that the demi-form she was currently in was impossible, drawing plenty of questions that he didn't exactly have time to wait for answers to. 

Where do I even start? he thought, just a tad irritably just at the level of energy he was going to have to expend to deal with this, especially after the night they'd already had.  Being useless after this just wasn't an option, either.  "Dare I even ask how Heather ended up this way?" he remarked, not really expecting much of an answer.  The problem with it being unnatural was that if he was able to take care of it, it was going to be difficult.  He was tempted to take care of the other two first, but dare he attempt to help Heather on anything less?

"Heather first.  Anthony, Dave, check the other two for serious injuries, please," he told them, definitely meaning along the lines of 'life threatening'.  He didn't think either of them were going to die in the meantime, so he figured he could make it work.  He ran his hands over Heather's face, leaning closer to her to talk softly, just reassurances and promises that he was going to do everything he could, so that when he rested his palm over her forehead, she didn't think it odd.  The last thing he needed was for her to be paranoid and trying to block him, and he pressed at her white aura, offering it some extra light of his own to calm and reassure her as she cried and asked for Harvey.  "Someone call her husband."

His other hand slid to hers for a moment, squeezing as he opened up the power centers more fully, positively pouring energy into the aura that affected her shapeshifting, and though he felt a budge that drew a gasp from him and a short choke out of her, and moved their hands to rest over her chest.  That actually lined him up with three of her power centers (which he hadn't planned, just hadn't been able to get his hand out of hers), and opened him up ever further to her.  He could feel her shift threatening, like it was right there on the edge and ready to tip, but he wasn't pushing hard enough just yet.  He grit his teeth, muscles in his arms and back clenching and sweat breaking out on his face and shoulders again, and gave another mental heave.  Heather suddenly screamed, back arching and wings stretching for an instant before they suddenly just withdrew.  It was a sudden rush, done in that quick instant, and Ash knew exactly when he could let go because it felt like falling and then the painful impact.  He let go of her almost like he'd been burned, stumbling for a moment and grabbing the edge of the table to steady himself while he just focused on breathing and being in the present.  He glanced over Heather to satisfy his own metaphysical understanding that the job was done, but that was all he was bothering with for the present moment.  He needed a second to breathe before he tried anything else.

[Danielle Vida]

 As Danielle lead the pack in, Laura's arm slung over her shoulder, she made eye contact with Ash and the flicker of a half-smile appeared across her face for only a second. It was like she knew that she was worth that stiff drink that didn't even affect him anyways, like some giant cosmic inside joke the two were always on opposite ends of. She slowly let Laura down into one of the chairs Anthony had pushed over, and she caught his eyes as she ducked beneath Laura's arm, letting her cousin lean back and take slow, steady breaths on her own. She kicked another chair under her feet so Laura could relieve the pressure of her swelling-but-not ankle.

"It's like looking into a mirror, isn't it?" she asked Anthony, amused in all of this turmoil. Danielle had become less crazy than before, but still the things that came out of her mouth were somehow always inappropriate. She turned back around and motioned for Chloe, careful to keep her attention on Ash as he tried to asses the damage Heather had. "Take care of him," she said, pointing at Trevor. "Not her, though," she warned. She took her eyes off of Ash and looked squarely at the blonde. "She'll heal on her own," she said. It was unclear as to why she was warning Chloe off of Laura, but it probably had something to do with how much energy she'd spent so suddenly. She'd gone up like a match, and Danielle worried that Laura might accidentally fry any healer who put their hands on her. It wasn't that she didn't have confidence in Chloe, it was just that she knew the Vida energy was a hungry one, and it didn't always want to let go.

Speaking of hungry energy, she peeled herself from that situation just as Ash was trying to wrap up Heather's wings. She was glad she did, putting herself just behind the path of stumbling that Ash made. She put her hand out, palm against the small of his back. Her eyebrows raised as he turned to glance at her, as if to ask if he was okay, but he just brushed it off. Now was probably not the time for anyone to act like they'd just had the wind knocked out of them, and she knew that more than anyone, but it wasn't like she couldn't tell. Still, she nodded ever so slightly at him, and then looked beyond him to Dave.

"Andrew's on his way," she said, much to the chagrin of Lance, who ironically had called him in the first place, if only to get ahold of Danielle. She turned, her hand still at Ash's back, and couldn't resist sliding it up to his shoulder and resting it there as she spoke. "Lance, why don't you run into the kitchen and grab your sister and Trevor some water?" she asked. Trevor didn't look like he was in the state to drink now, but he would be in a few minutes. She glanced back at Laura, who was still mending, now having moved herself to a booth to lay down in. Trevor still looked worse for wear, but that was only because Chloe was taking her sweet time.

Danielle nodded to their direction, an indication that this was something Ash would want to see. "C'mon. You were always curious about what made Chloe set your radar off; well, now you're about to find out," she said. She took his hand gently, pulling him to where they sat. Chloe was kneeling next to Trevor, who'd made a command decision to sit on the floor and not in a chair, and was currently laid out with his head tipped back against the side of a bench. He was fading in and out of consciousness, and wasn't quite coherent. He kept talking about an angel.

"He's human?" Chloe asked, putting her hands at his temples. She looked up to Danielle, fingers massaging them gently.

"One-hundred percent," Danielle replied.

Chloe nodded. She'd been told not to heal Laura because the Witch's magic might bite her back, she understood. Trevor was all human, so he was within her boundaries -- but he'd been beat up pretty good. Chloe had never done anyone up that had this many sustained injuries. She wasn't sure she could.

From a questioning, tired glance on Ash's end, Chloe's gaze returned back down at Trevor, and she lowered her head. At once, Trevor's injuries began disappearing. They seemed to 'fade' off of him, as though they were being rewound. Large cuts and bruises closed back up or turned back to normal colour; the few large, gaping wounds he had fixed themselves up, too, but were more slow about it. Meanwhile, Chloe's body reflected the injuries for brief intervals before they too, faded away. Chloe felt severe and intense pain in her head, but she held on because she had too much pride to let go, and when she finally withdrew, Trevor would still be sore, but healed, and she'd have a thin line of blood running down her nose, something that caused Danielle to hand her a napkin absently.

"Thanks," Chloe said, dabbing at her nose. Her face was so serene; it seemed more like she'd just done some common menial task rather than save someone's life. She sat down with a little thunk in a chair instantly after she'd finished wiping her bloody nose, though, and felt lightheaded.

Danielle, meanwhile, was trying to explain in as much detail everything that she knew to Ash. It still had holes, though. After she was done, she motioned for Lance to come and sit by Laura. "I think she can give us a better version, but she's going to need a few moments. How do you feel?" she asked, taking a step back from Ash to assess his damage more objectively. Dave had been assigned the dubious task of calling Harvey on Heather's behalf, something that she did not envy at all, and eventually he emerged from the back with his phone stuck to his ear.

[Ash Leone]

He most certainly didn't verbalize that he was grateful for the solid support of Dani's hand against his back when he stumbled, but that wasn't exactly the kind of thing that was necessary with them.  They communicated more through glances and simple eye contact than anyone gave them credit for, so he just shrugged off the concern that she was putting off and put his focus into standing straight and not looking too haggard.  It was easy enough, considering she offered him the distraction of watching Chloe with Trevor just an instant later.

Just looking at the human and Laura Vida had him prioritizing Trevor before Laura in his head.  Laura was healing on her own, however miserable that had to be, but the human was in pretty bad shape and would be needing his attention.  It was why he sighed as he took it in, giving Chloe a curious look as she asked if Trevor was human with her fingers massaging at his temples like she was.  What was she doing?  If he hadn't made a rule about reading the minds of people close to him without permission, he'd have been far more in the know about little miss Chloe, but he couldn't actually be anything other than grateful at that exact moment.  That was one less person he had to worry about, and he could discuss this whole thing with Chloe later.  In fact, it was pretty clear in his expression when he stepped up in front of her where she'd sat down that they would be having that conversation sometime soon, despite the fact that all he cared about currently was making sure that she was okay.  Other than a drain on her energy, he didn't sense anything else unpleasant, so he had no choice but to be satisfied.  He couldn't deny that Trevor looked as healthy as he did, either.  So, he'd had some kind of healer under his nose all this time?  It wasn't any kind of healer he'd ever seen, not with the way the injuries had manifested on her own body while she worked, but that would be part of that later conversation.  For now, he held his feet and let Danielle explain things.

She shed much more light on the situation at hand than they'd had, but he could certainly agree with her that Laura was going to need to explain what had actually happened with Heather.  He might have even tried questioning Trevor, but he wasn't sure if the human was quiet up to it, yet.  Besides, Ash wasn't exactly in any hurry to exert himself, either questioning the human or anything else, until he'd had a moment.  The alcohol he'd had before didn't exactly do him any good, but eating something would.  Tristes, as immortal as they were, still needed to eat physical food almost as much as they needed to feed on energy.  Since he didn't have anyone in the area that he could get energy from, food was going to have to do the trick to try to get some of his strength back up. 

There was no sense in lying to Dani, especially with the way she was looking at him as she backed up to take him in fully, though he took the distraction that was Dave talking on the phone to Heather's husband for that moment of thought that it offered.  He didn't envy his best friend that task. 

"I'm drained, honestly," he started, shrugging and leaning back against the nearest table.  "I look forward to hearing who did that to her, because it's not supposed to be possible.  That was why she couldn't fix it herself, and why it took so much for me to do it.  If this is going to be a habit of theirs, I'm going to have to start feeding more completely more often."

Did he like admitting that it took that much out of him to fix whatever that vampire had done?  No, not at all, but this was Dani.  She was one of the few people that he would admit it to, and even if he hadn't, she'd have guessed on her own.  It wasn't like she (or anyone else) usually saw him hungry, and that was because he didn't play around with it.  They never saw him utterly sated because he typically took tastes that wouldn't be noticed from various people he was in contact with throughout the day instead of taking large amounts from any one person, and he supplemented it with regular meals consisting of 'real' food.  His power wouldn't be at full strength and didn't grow the way he'd have liked, but it meant that he avoided issues that he didn't prefer to deal with.  Tonight, he wished he didn't stick to that plan.

Actually, he was betting that he wasn't the only one that could use something to eat.  He didn't know how Chloe's abilities worked, but she and Laura were likely to be low on energy after all this, as well.  It was why he flagged Steve, his head cook, over.  "Is the stew we made earlier still hot?"

"Yeah, it should be.  When you said close the kitchen, we didn't get too far before coming out to help here.  Do you want some?"

"Yes, three bowls, make sure Chloe and Laura get some.  Anyone else is welcome, as well."

"You got it," Steve agreed, glancing at Danielle worriedly before disappearing to do as his boss had said.  Ash would be making sure that he played up his strength after he ate, if only to avoid those looks. 

"We're going to have to contact the guilds.  If we can help, I'm going to," he told Dani firmly.  For all of the neutrality he enforced in his establishment, this was murder and mayhem.  Targeting families was stepping over a line.

[Anthony Kimball]

Right up until injured people started rolling in, Anthony was pretty damn pissed.  He liked Heather, but he didn't appreciate her not showing up without even a call to say she was sick or something, and he liked Darren, but disappearing like he had was just bullshit.  On any other night, it might not have even been a huge deal, but they were slammed and there was no reason that Ash should have to be jumping between the kitchen and bar like he was, or for his Dad to be running around like a maniac.  It was just stupid all around, and he'd been fully prepared to hold a serious grudge until he could take his anger out on the offending parties (especially Darren, because Heather was a girl).  He was going to stuff that cat into the dumpster out back, then maybe smack the dumpster itself with a broom handle a few times, just to hear him yowl.  That would teach him not to be an asshole.

Naturally, when Heather came in with the other abused parties, Anthony's anger at her dissipated, and he'd gotten the idea that Darren had called to tell Ash what was going on, so maybe he wouldn't hit the dumpster with the broom handle when he got his hands on the leopard.  He'd still want to stuff him in.  Heather was off the hook, but then, maybe Chloe was suddenly on it.  Anthony had no problem following instructions and checking over the human man that had come in with Danielle and her blonde party (god, wouldn't Stefan love this entire room right then?), but he did have a problem with the fact that Danielle totally gave Chloe the okay to tend to Trevor (fortunately, the guy wasn't very attractive right then, regardless of how he was supposed to look) and he definitely didn't like being out of the loop when she suddenly started doing something that she shouldn't have been able to do. 

Not only was she healing that guy right before his eyes, but she was showing signs of his injuries on herself as she healed him, which Anthony wasn't okay with.  It was one of his goals in life to make sure that she was never hurt, and here she was absorbing them off of someone else?  Definitely not cool, at all.  He tried to tell himself right then that the reason he was unhappy was because he didn't know about it, and that was absolutely true, but having Chloe put out that effort for another guy (then finding out that the dude was pretty underneath the beating he'd taken) was playing a pretty good part in his irritation over it all.  He'd never claimed that he wasn't jealous, but he also hadn't exactly admitted that he was as into Chloe as he was.  They hadn't actually gotten anywhere, and Anthony hadn't actually laid any official claim.  He'd just been protective and territorial, which this new, suddenly not very injured, guy didn't know.  Anthony was going to have to watch him, in case he took a shine to his 'savior'. 

As if the situation wasn't bad enough, Anthony hadn't missed the way Ash had stumbled after dealing with Heather's wings, and he'd elbowed his Dad to make sure that Dave noticed, too.  That didn't mean that he wasn't focused on Chloe for her ordeal or that his father didn't go call Heather's husband, but they were both also watching Ash for further signs of weakness.  Danielle seemed to be on the same page, though she was more actively dealing with it.  That was a good thing, in his opinion.  Ash seemed to listen to her almost as well as Dave when she had something to say.  Anthony just hoped her advice was as good as his dad's. 

Finally, after only a few minutes but what seemed like ages of staring at Chloe with an expression that couldn't decide if it was pissed, concerned or amazed, Anthony went over to squat in front of the chair she was in and take a look at her bloody nose.  He still wasn't happy, but concern had weighed out because he really did care about her, so he reached up to take the napkin away to see if it was still bleeding.  It was, so he tilted her head back with a finger on her chin, standing so that he could still watch her.  "Are you okay?"

[Chloe Springfield]

Chloe did precisely as Danielle requested, because of two reasons. The first, obviously, was because the situation had turned for the worse, especially with Darren's phonecall, which Chloe did not understand the details of but knew enough from the tension in the bar to know that she didn't need to cause any trouble over it. She also knew that Danielle was the only person there currently besides her uncle Luke (who'd been around her more often now that he knew she existed, which was an entirely different ball game) who knew what she was capable of. She knew that if Danielle asked her to use her ability, it was for a good reason. When they'd brought her to Laura and Trevor though, she'd hesitated for a second.

Looking at Laura was like looking into a funhouse mirror. Chloe didn't look exactly like her, but Danielle - Danielle could have been her older sister. Trevor even bared a small resemblance as well - it was his cheekbones, probably - or it could have been the multitude of bruising. She looked from the wounded duo to Danielle and the boy with her, who could have been Laura's twin, easily. She wordlessly tended to Trevor, though, ignoring the compression that her skull began to experience. She could feel the hemorrhaging, but it went away as her nose began to gush blood. She felt nauseous for a few seconds as she stood up and stepped away, but Anthony was there to help her to a chair, where she sat down away from the rest of them.

She managed to lean away from him as he tried to "help" her nosebleed. "Don't," she said, taking the tissue back. "It runs down the back of my throat and it'll make me yak," she explained, leaning forward again. Her hair was a little sweaty, but it wasn't nearly as bad as one would have expected. All in all, Chloe was free except for a few cuts and bruises that had been healing over from larger wounds. She looked up at him. "Sorry," she offered. "It'll heal in a little. A nosebleed is usually the end of it."

[Andrew Vida]

Danielle sat with Ash as he ate, looking at her nails with a blank expression on her face for the most part. She looked back up at him every few minutes, and then would look past at Lance and Laura and Trevor, now sitting together and replaying their fighting to eachother. Laura, with her slowly mending ribs would laugh as best she could and then look pained, and then Lance and Trevor would both reach for her. She wondered idly if that's how she and Marcus would have been, but she supposed she would never know.

"They will know, though I don't know about names. Wait until they calm down, and we'll find out." She fixed her watery gray eyes on him, leaning forward to prop her elbow on the table and put her hand in her chin. "This is a clusterfuck," she spat. She idly toyed with the ends of her long, wavy blonde hair as she spoke, trying to look less calm than she actually felt. The problem with Danielle was that nothing much got her blood moving. Sure, the prospect of Ash needing energy or rushing to the aid of her family was enough to make her wake up a little, but she really wasn't in a panic like most should have been. Of course, neither were the hunters. They were visibly bothered, sure, but nowhere near as bad as the menial people who thought they'd get caught in the crossfire.

Funny that hunters were more relaxed even after they'd gotten their faces smashed in.

Andrew came into the Hollow only a few minutes after everything had happened, going right to where Danielle and Ash sat. He would wait to yell at Lance, Trevor and Laura later. "Ash, Danielle," he said, greeting them briskly as he sat down next to them. "So I've been getting calls from Frost ever since I left my house to come and pick up my brother and sister - and they're all the same. Midnight has unleashed on the Guilds. I don't know why, but there's speculation someone tried to kill the new Master of Midnight, and they finally have had enough with the slap and tickle."

He looked at Danielle, whom he couldn't really stand at all, and grimaced. "Thank you for getting Laura and Lance. I don't know what vampire they tangled with, but she says that he had a hawk, in demi-form, save his ass. She would have gotten him with one of her knives otherwise. I'm out of the loop, but she says he was young, and she thinks that the other vampire, the one who fucked up your sparrow, was older. She described him as Japanese, and crazy. He also knows what a Vida is, but evidently the other one did not. That's all I got. I don't know who they are but I think that Therrayans might have information. Also, regrettably, I think someone might need to talk to the two people who were actually in Midnight: Rafael Ortega and Gabriel Sullivan."

Danielle looked at Ash, eyes bright. "Who do we have diplomatic enough to do that?" she asked coyly. "I'd say this could potentially fall into my territory," she volunteered. There was nothing helpful in her tone of voice.

"No, no," Andrew said quickly, exchanging a glance with Ash. They both knew that Danielle had no sense of morality, and she didn't care what the two had been through when it came to getting information. "I think I can make a few phonecalls. In the meantime - is everyone accounted for?"

[Trevor Browning]

Trevor was totally man enough to admit that he didn't exactly know what went down after he started brawling with the vampire, and he was still confused about it.  He remembered the fighting, and then Laura attacked the vampire only to have an angel drop in front of him to block her knife.  From there, it was all fuzzy right up until a moment ago, when he'd come to with that pretty blonde girl leaning over him almost the way the scruffy dude was currently leaning over her, he'd thought for a second that he'd died.  Then, he'd tried to move, and realized that he still hurt.  That definitely didn't sound like heaven to him (and wasn't nasty enough for hell), but the rest of the world swept back into focus right after she did.  He was alive somehow, and though he was disoriented and still sore, he knew he should have been in a hell of a lot more pain than he actually was. 

He was also completely out of the loop regarding these people, and that didn't make him feel much better.  He'd just gotten his ass kicked and Laura had nearly died (he didn't consider his own life or death situation to have been quite as serious as hers), so he figured being a little paranoid wasn't a fault.  Laura seemed comfortable enough here, but Trevor wasn't disoriented enough to miss the unpleasant air about Lance when Andrew appeared.  He was much more observant than people seemed to give him credit for, but it still wasn't any of his business.  There were a few things that he just couldn't keep his mouth shut about, starting with Laura's injuries (since she basically doubled over every time she laughed a little) and the fight they'd just gotten out of.  He was going to have a zillion and a half questions by the time this was done, starting with how he'd been healed, how she was healing so fast, and who all these people were (not to mention the assholes they'd just fought with), but he could wait.  Besides, trash talking the asshole vampire was more fun.

Oh, and commenting on the blondness of the room, too.  "Okay, all joking aside, are you people all related, or what?  This room has so much blond going on, and you all look alike," he finally pointed out, breaking the former line of concentration as he leaned back in the booth and glanced around.  He had no clue that there was a wolf line being represented here, a witch line, and then Ash and Chloe completely separate.  He just knew they all seemed to fit together, which left him feeling out of place.  He had no way of knowing that Chloe had thought that even he looked like the Vidas some.

[Tyler Brandt]

The joke was most certainly on Trevor when it came to demanding if everyone in the room was related. Tyler had ducked into the Hollow only moments before the group had, and had been in the back alley coughing on a cigarette. He didn't smoke, but a beautiful girl had asked for a light, and then when he'd handed her the beaten up Bic lighter he always carried (because he was such a Boyscout he thought he'd need it for something), she'd handed him a cigarette in thanks. Tyler had trouble lighting it, and so she'd bent forward and lit it for him.

"You aren't from around here, are you?" she asked, a coy smile on her full lips. She looked predatory almost, like a cat or a wolf. She shrugged her shoulders and leaned against the alley wall, ignoring anything that might have been on it that could be considered gross. Her long hair fell in dark waves around her face, and she seemed almost... ageless, somehow.

Tyler coughed again, trying to flick the ashes off of his cigarette. God, these things were gross. "Oh, no, I've only just gotten in a few days ago," he said. He didn't tell her he was looking for his brother, or anything else, because even though she was gorgeous, that... look in her eyes made him not trust her. It was probably better that he didn't, either - Purezza wasn't the sort you wanted to trust.

The door to the alley swung open suddenly and a tall, slender blonde poked her head out. She opened her mouth to say something, and the brunette flicked her cigarette into the nothingness of the night sky. "That's my cue," she said. She locked onto Tyler's eyes for a moment, and then patted him on the head as she passed by him. "Be seeing you again," she whispered.

By the time Tyler was done being blinded by the light from inside of the bar, the woman had vanished. He looked at the blonde, mouth agape, cigarette hanging loosely from his hand. She gave him a look that plainly told him that she could see right through him, and he threw it to the side, wiping his shaking hand on his jeans. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I probably shouldn't be back here, huh?"

Danielle folded her arms slowly, holding the door open with her booted foot. "Not if that's the company you're going to keep," she said cryptically. She regarded him for a long moment, and then nodded her head back towards the inside. "Come on, kid. It's freezing out here, and you are definitely not equipped to be wandering around tonight alone." She waited until he shuffled inside, and then looked around in the dark alley for another moment before closing the door.

Tyler walked back inside and sat down at a table towards the back, away from the attention. He watched the blonde walk by, and as she did, she wrapped her knuckles against his table twice, though he couldn't tell if it was a threat or if she was merely acknowledging his presence. He followed her with his eyes, up until she wrapped her arms around another blond man. That was his cue to stop staring. Then, of course, the doors burst open and all hell broke loose.

As it was now, he was currently sitting at that table still, warm beer in front of him, as he tried to listen in to the conversation that was going on in front of him. It was eventually the same blonde from before who piped up, nodding her head at his form.

"Did you need something?" she prompted.

Tyler sank into his seat as EVERYONE turned slowly to stare at him.

[Ash Leone]

Ash didn't consider himself to have any true abilities in the area of premonition, especially knowing some of the people who really did, like Chase, Luke and Aspen.  He had a strange habit of being right on time for some things, as though he'd known beforehand, and having strangely accurate 'gut instincts'.  That didn't change his opinion on the matter -- that he didn't actually have any Seer type power -- but it might have meant that he was very slowly growing into some.  Regardless, he'd been right in sending Dani out to call in the young man who'd wandered outside before everything had gotten crazier, and he wouldn't have denied knowing that it was a good idea.  He just couldn't have said why.

Actually, he didn't have an idea as to why it was the right thing to do (other than just keeping the poor kid alive), until after he'd eaten and had a moment to take in the full situation before him.  With Anthony tending to Chloe, whom he was absolutely having a word or five with later, and the Terrible Trio retelling their adventures in a booth, it was a little easier to take notice of the young man again.  He was just sitting there, seemingly trying to eavesdrop on conversations that he wasn't likely to understand in the first place, and then there was Andrew.

Glancing up to offer the man his attention for the instant before Andrew helped himself to a seat, Ash still didn't actually grant the witch his full attention.  He was listening, but at the same time...not.

"Darren called and was ushered off to the airport by the pretty jaguar who likes the aluminum foil balls, and Heather has been recovered, so I'm fairly certain that's everyone that was meant to be here," he answered, not even batting an eye at Dani's 'joke' about her going to talk to Sullivan and Ortega.  He'd actually smirked a little at it, both because he knew that Andrew would refuse and because he wouldn't have agreed, either.  Dani's methods weren't always kind, and they were rarely diplomatic, if ever.  She was into blunt force trauma, and Ash understood that, sometimes, that was necessary.

Perhaps that was why he nudged her elbow when she addressed the young man again, asking if he needed something, and then nodded in the direction of Laura, Lance and Trevor.  "What do you see, Dani?" he asked, knowing as soon as he'd nudged her that he was right.  There was something in their auras, something that matched beneath the confusion and general innocence in the one and the anger, hurt and bravado of the other.  Dani might not see what he saw, but she would see something, he was positive.

[Tyler Brandt]

Tyler was completely caught off guard by the woman's pointed question, and then she was staring at him. She looked from him to another guy in the bar, and then back to the man she was seated next to, and whispered something to him. Then she stood up, very slowly, and walked in the opposite direction. He watched her put her hands down on the table where the other three blondes were sitting, and whatever the hell she'd said made them all sit up and act right - it was like they were dogs and she'd said "SQUIRREL!"

Taking the nudge from Ash, Danielle tilted her head a little, fixing her eyes on Tyler so much that she could almost make out the faintest outlines of his aura. Maybe she'd been hanging out with Ash way too much, because when she blinked, they were gone. "Hm," she said. She turned to him, giving Andrew the opportunity to answer his ringing phone again. As the other Vida got up to leave the table, Danielle looked up at Ash from her slightly leaned position. "You can't be serious," she whispered. He just looked at her, and she sighed.

"Fine, I'll deal with it. You stay here," she said, knowing full well he had no intention of getting up. Ash's job wasn't to do things like this. Danielle was always the one to deliver strange news. She strode to the table where the two Vidas and the human were, and placed her palms down on it. She closed her gray eyes for a moment, and then opened them, focusing on Trevor.

"I think you have a visitor," she said matter-of-factly. She watched as Lance, who'd been slumped over on the table and Laura, who'd been leaning on her brother both sat up. Their heads turned left and right, but it was Trevor who was fixed directly on Danielle, as if he thought she was screwing with him.

"Turn around," she told him, voice very slow, as though she were speaking to a child.

Tyler sank further down into the booth. He was about to get his ass kicked. He could feel it - especially when the guy whose head was turned the whole time set his beer down with a pointed clank and demanded "WHAT" at the blonde. Tyler was beginning to wish he'd never come to the city. He'd been looking for his brother for three years. He'd been in New York for four days and already he'd almost gotten arrested, nearly been stabbed, tried cigarettes for the first time, and nearly gotten hit by a crazy Taxi driver. It was beginning to seem fruitless, especially when his presence in a bar seemed to make people want to bang on him.

He pulled out the picture of his brother - the only one he'd had, actually, one he'd stolen from his mother's ex-husband when he'd gone looking for Colton and Trevor, and glanced down at it. If he had to get his ass kicked, so be it. He wasn't leaving until he found his stupid brother. It wasn't like he had anywhere else he had to be, anyways.

Trevor was tired. He was amped, but he was tired, and he wanted to enjoy his beer and revel in knowing that the blonde girl with the nosebleed had just saved his ass. He was having a good time teasing them about being related and swilling his ice cold beer, and he was very familiar with the idea that this was going to be a limited relaxing time before they had to go right back out there to do more damage. He wasn't in the mood for games, and Danielle seemed keen on playing them.

When he finally turned around to see what she was pointing at, he fixed his eyes on a boy in a booth towards the back of the room. Boy was what appropriately described him, too. Kid had a baby face and a newness to him that told Trevor by a glance he couldn't have been in the city for long. He also looked scared shitless, but Trevor wasn't going to judge him for that. He furrowed his brow a little, looking at the kid as the kid looked at something in his hand, and then back up at Trevor.

"...the fuck?" Trevor finally managed. He brought his beer around to his face as best he could manage, and tipped the bottle back. Yeah, that beer was necessary right about now.

Tyler suddenly stood up from the booth, looking very sure of himself - and then he didn't look sure at all, and teetered on his feet. He almost sat back down, but the way the blonde man was staring at him - Ash, that was (so many blondes) - told him not to lose his ground. He looked back at the picture quickly, and then back to Trevor. It was a late middle school photo, because that's all he could grab before Trevor's father had actually shot at him and chased him out of the house, but still.. add about fifteen years, and it could have been Trevor. Maybe.

"Trevor.. Browning?" Tyler said, his voice shaky.

[Trevor Browning]

Trevor didn't see it, or he was being too dense to admit that he saw it, and so he was able to stare at the kid with a rather uninterested, irritated kind of expression.  What was Danielle playing at, and why were Laura and Lance looking at him like that.  Actually, they'd looked from the kid to him, then back to the kid and then to him, almost like they were comparing, which made NO sense.  He took another long swallow of his beer, suddenly getting the feeling he was going to need it, but he pulled the bottle away from his mouth as the kid stood up.  For an instant there, the kid looked like he had a plan and was GOING to follow through with it, but he faltered, looked to Ash (who was strangely focused on the situation from where he was sitting, particularly the new kid), and then he had his courage back.  He also had something in his hand, a piece of paper or something equally non-threatening.  Even so, Trevor was watching him with the slightest tinge of caution.  Something was up.

"Yeah, that's me.  Why?" he demanded, that cautious edge sharpening when the stranger spit his name out, but that was nothing.

Logically, Trevor knew that there was an actual response there, but he didn't remember hearing it.  He remembered dropping his beer bottle like it was something he'd seen on tv, distant and unimportant, and grabbing for the picture that the kid suddenly offered him with the news of who he was.  Tyler Brandt.  The photograph was of Trevor, and when he snatched it up and stared at it, then looked at Tyler, he saw what the others had seen almost immediately.  Trev was much younger in the photograph, younger even than Tyler looked now, but there was absolutely no mistaking the resemblance, especially there.  Trevor hadn't looked 'new' since he was a small child, but he'd had something of a babyface for awhile that had worked wonders for con jobs.  Tyler had the same kind of face, with the kind of sincerity that Trevor was used to seeing out of Colton and hardly wore himself.

He actually wished for a second that he was back on the floor, bleeding and unable to keep track of his surroundings, because this was just too much.  "Bullshit," he murmured, but not because he didn't believe it.  The kid spit out his mom's maiden name, Brandt, despite looking far too much like all of the Browning men not to have been Tim Browning's son.  He had the picture, and there was no arguing what was so obviously seen there.  How the hell had Tyler found him?

[Tyler Brandt]

Tyler was a full three inches shorter than Trevor, but he felt a lot smaller at the moment. When Trevor snatched the photo out of his hands, Tyler reached back for it, but the other man was stepping over the spilled beer and looking at it more closely.

"I'm Tyler. Tyler Brandt," he said, as though that could explain everything. It couldn't, obviously - shit, it didn't even scratch the surface. Tyler watched Trevor's face go from confused, to concerned, and then to disbelieving and cold. Bullshit. Tyler almost took a step back, but instead he tried to steel himself, actually imitating what he was seeing Trevor do.

"I've been looking for you for three years," he told him, trying to ignore the group of people gawking at them. "All I had to go on was some bullshit I found in - " He'd been about to say in his mom's things, but he realized that was Trevor's mom, too, and suddenly it felt weird to hate her so much. "I just found some stuff. When I turned eighteen, I was out on my own, and I didn't have much to go on. I tried to track down Tim, first. He's a mean old badger, that one," he said, a nervous laugh not helping in the slightest when Trevor just narrowed his eyes to make them even more scrutinizing than they already were.

"Anyways, uh, he didn't give me any real information." He shot at Tyler and told him to 'get the hell out', after demanding to know how he'd even found him in the first place - but why split hairs? "I grabbed this photo of you before I got out of there, and the last lead I had was an apartment in California. Damned if this ain't the furthest point from that place, though, but I will say this - Colt was good about leaving forwarding addresses. It was a PO box, and it wasn't a good address anymore, but I kind of just hoped you were still in the city."

Oh man, Tyler was trimming a lot of the details out of this. He didn't tell Trevor that Christina was dead, that she'd nearly drained his savings account dry with her alcohol habit, and that his dad had walked out a long time before that happened. He didn't tell Trevor that the money he did have left was spent tracking Tim down, only to have the man tell him to rot in hell. He wouldn't give up, though - he didn't have anyone in the world left, and he'd have hated himself for not trying. It gave him a purpose, searching.

He was quiet for a second, and then looked back up at Trevor. "I've been looking for you for three years, man. As soon as I knew you were out there, I started looking." That sort of explained a lot - Christina hadn't ever actually TOLD Tyler about Trevor and Colton. He'd found out on his own, through old medical documents and other bullshit he'd cleaned out before the trailer had been taken over by the bank. He didn't have anything to go back to, now. Three years of hotels, odd jobs, and trying to keep his head down - it had been rough, but Tyler had made it.

[Trevor Browning]

This was surreal.  Trevor didn't WANT to believe it because it was just too ridiculous on top of the bad shit already going on, but this 'brother' situation required an explanation and the alternatives were crazier than the truth that Tyler was peddling.  The kid knew too much, had the picture and Colton's brand of sincerity, which was enough to blow Trevor's mind on its own, but it truly was that sensation of staring at a younger version of himself (or a younger version of what he COULD have been) that threw him from denial into belief.  Tyler had, right in front of his eyes, essentially imitated him in the way he'd covered up his weaknesses.  The kid was scared, but he pushed forward anyway, just like Trevor had always done.  He'd even cracked a joke about Tim, which Trev didn't much appreciate at the time but still knew he'd have done if the roles were reversed.  In fact, standing there staring down at a picture of himself that he hadn't even known his dad had kept (one of the many short-lived friendships he'd made as a kid had included a mother addicted to taking photos of her kids, so Time had gotten some of his, as well), he gave into his own need to make some kind of sarcastic or amusing comment.  He had to, or the tension might break that careful facade.

"I'm surprised he didn't shoot you," he remarked, wondering exactly what his father had done.  The fact that Tyler had the photo and wasn't dead was a point in his favor with Trevor, but his father's silence on the matter said even more.  If Tim thought Tyler was lying, he'd have warned his kids that some whackjob was looking for them.  Finding out like this was tough on Trevor, who wanted to refuse the information so that he could process it first (which was what he'd have done if Dad had warned him), but had to face the fact that Tyler was really his brother, or that there was a wussier alternate universe version of himself running around.  Brother was more likely, and less damaging to his ego.

Brother.

He turned his eyes up to Tyler and kept them there this time.  Nobody could really fault him for being paranoid, but he honestly didn't know how to deal with this.  He'd been getting into the worst messes of his life since Colt had left him to his own devices to pursue his own life of school and normalcy, and right up until he started spending so much time with Laura and Lance, he'd been headed on a swift downward spiral.  He didn't much think about it, but he might have been dead in a very nasty way by now if he hadn't pulled himself out of it and focused his 'Colt attention' on Laura some.  Obviously, she already had an older brother to watch out for her and keep tabs on her, so she'd gotten a much smaller dose than Colton ever had, but even if he was just their friend, it gave him people to give a shit about and keep himself alive and functioning for.  Sadly, Trevor was one of those people that just didn't know how to live for himself, and now here was this kid, his brother, showing up in the middle of a crisis completely unprepared.  Tyler was either going to be exactly what Trevor needed (though Trev would never admit it), or he was going to get both of them killed.

Brother.

He never would have burst forward like he had if he had maintained any real awareness of his surroundings, that much was certain.  If he'd remembered Laura and Lance were there, not to mention the other people he didn't know who were witnessing an increasingly private family moment, he probably would have checked himself, but he didn't.  His attention was all on Tyler, and when he closed the distance between them and yanked the kid into a firm hug, he wasn't thinking about his ego or anything else.  All that was there in his brain at that moment was the rock-solid 'oh my fucking god' understanding that he had a younger brother that had been completely outside of his realm of awareness and protection, and suddenly that this kid was standing here in the middle of a very real crisis of epic proportions.  Trevor had just gotten him, and now there was the very realistic chance of losing him shortly after.  Not cool.

[Tyler Brandt]

Tyler was pulled into an abrupt hug by Trevor, one that went from manly and gruff to real in about as long as it took for Trevor to really let it sink in. Tyler tried not to just stand there, but to be honest he'd been so starved for attention from his mom that he didn't even know how to hug properly, so he sort of patted Trevor on the back and then stepped away as soon as he saw an opportunity to. It wasn't that Tyler didn't feel the overwhelming sense of connection to his brother, but he just couldn't translate it physically.

"To be honest, he did try," he said in reference to Tim, scratching the back of his head nervously. "And anyways, he wasn't too thrilled that I even existed to begin with. Guess there's a lot I don't know about our family," he admitted. He looked down at the ground, and then back up at his brother.

All the while, Laura had taken Lance's arm in her hand and squeezed it, watching the exchange take place. She turned to her brother, eyes wide, and made a face at him, to which Lance's expression could only be mirrored exactly. It was like the two were twins, even if they weren't.

Laura stood, very slowly - mostly because she was still in pain - and walked just behind Trevor. She nudged him a little, like a cat might. "Aren't you going to introduce me?" she asked with a small smile. It was her way of letting him know that she was behind him 100% - or her way of letting him know she was still in the room, since he seemed to have lost touch there for a second. While she did that, Lance edged out of the booth to clean up the spilled beer. Luckily the bottle hadn't shattered everywhere, which meant he could busy himself but still keep an ear on the conversation.

"Hey," Tyler said, waving shyly at Laura. She was gorgeous - even if she looked like she'd just gotten into a fist fight. He didn't want to make assumptions, and so he tried not to concentrate on the scratches and bruises she displayed. "Are you his girlfriend?" he ventured.

The laughter from Danielle was almost crowing as she strode back to Ash, her back turned but shoulders shaking as she moved. Tyler scratched his head again. Guess not.

[Trevor Browning]

It was strange how both of them had grown up with little in the way of physical affection, yet they had such different comfort levels with it.  Trevor, Colton and their dad used hugs sparingly, almost like they were precious (though they'd never thought of it that way and likely never would), whereas Tyler didn't seem to know what to do with one when he had it.  That was curious, since Trevor remembered hugs with his mother fondly before she left, but that was a conversation for another time, if at all.  There was enough to focus on for one day already (or, more than enough, honestly).

Laura helped with that, believe it or not.  Right up until she nudged him and asked for an introduction, he'd completely been in tunnel vision and forgotten about everyone around him.  Suddenly, he felt awkward, like these people had witnessed an intimate moment, but it wasn't his way to clam up about it.  Naturally, he took the clumsier approach with Danielle's laughter in the background.

"You kidding?  She doesn't like me enough for that kind of trouble.  Just the kind that gets both of our asses beat," he joked, pulling an impressively convincing smile, despite being a little sore over Danielle's laugh.  Why was the idea of Laura being his girlfriend funny?  Danielle didn't know him, so it wasn't like she knew that Trevor wouldn't know how to treat a real girlfriend and would probably fuck it up, so why was she laughing?  He could believe that Laura knew how to have a boyfriend, and he'd have bet she'd had them before.  Probably some cute kid in high school that was totally wrapped around her finger, or something.  It seemed likely.