Cassidy’s Morgan's

She'd arrived early out of a rare but real need to make sure she was punctual. This wasn't an arrangement she intended to keep with Ezra every single month, keen not to rely on the same vampire each time. But she did want to continue to make a decent impression, to have him one of several options in her back pocket.

And so here she was, hoodie and leggings like every day of her life, but she'd finally hit up the laundromat at least. (It was the lack of underwear that drove her to it more than an unwillingness to wear the same shirts indefinitely.) She loitered outside her car, a Dollar Tree gift bag sitting on the roof of the vehicle and sweating against the metal.

In retrospect, Grace wasn't sure exactly how they do this. She had a box cutter in her pocket, ready to scrape redbrown gunk off its blade into the open Monster she had in the car if needed. The thought was disgusting, but it was life at the bottom of the fucking supernatural food chain.

For now, she kept her hands in her pockets, leaning against the driver's side door and keeping an eye out for the familiar vampire.

Ezra did not arrive early. In fact, he was running a few minutes late. He blasted into the parking lot in the old Honda and pulled up next to Grace's car. "Sorry!" he said, popping out of the car quickly. "I was low on gas..." he huffed a sigh and trailed off. "It was a whole thing." A whole thing that neither he nor his writer would explain.

He pulled a hand through his hair and gave the smaller psychic a smile. "Anyway, uh, how are you?" Ezra wasn't sure how to exactly start this off. Like, did they just get right into it? Him bleeding into... well, he didn't really know. Was he going to squeeze some blood directly in her mouth? Was she gonna spread it on a hotdog like ketchup? He was gonna let her lead on that.

As the minutes passed, unwelcome anxiety tiptoed through her ribcage. Like. He was definitely going to be here. She had no reason to think he wouldn't be, and she was very familiar with arriving late herself.

But, like. It was hard not to feel paranoid as she tried very hard to pass herself as confident about all this shit. Like she didn't still feel shatteringly abandoned and stupid any time she wasn't actively occupied. Grief blew big dicks, not that she recognized it as that. Grief.

Ezra did arrive in the end, and he recognized the way he greeted her from her own regular brushes with unpunctuality. There was always an excuse, and like, usually it was true? Time management was just bullshit.

"S'all good," she said, waving away the apology with a hand. "I'm, like- you know."

Another hand wave, oops.

"Hanging in there. If you want we could talk in the car? Mine or yours is cool."

Hmm. So whatever had been plaguing her before seemed to still be after her. Ezra pulled a straight lip face but nodded. He glanced back towards his car.

"Let’s do yours." His was messy and he was pretty sure the AC didn’t work. And some of the windows didn’t really work.

He moved to her passenger side door and if there wasn’t any protests, would hop inside.

Ezra would look at Grace then, feeling strangely nervous about it all. "Soo, how do you want to do this? I have a little pocket knife," he said, pausing to pull said pocket knife from his pocket.

Grace's car was only technically an improvement. She kept her trash in the back to make room for Uber Eats deliveries in the passenger seat, so as long as you didn't look back, you almost wouldn't know it was a dumpster in there.

She grabbed the bag off the roof as she went in, nestling it into the floorboard (not on any pedals) as she sat. Could pass that off in a minute.

Ezra promised a little pocket knife, which was as good as Grace's box cutter, she figured. What she didn't expect even a little was the actual size of the pocket knife, which sliced through her tension like exactly the object it was.

"No fucking shit," she laughed, all teeth and entertainment. "Can I, like-"

Grabby hands explained.

"That's the tiniest knife I've ever seen." No innuendo in sight, really!

Ezra burst into a grin at her reaction. He hadn’t necessarily meant for it to be a joke; he just wanted to not show up with a big ass knife.

But he was happy to try to pull Grace out of whatever she was going through, even temporarily. So he held it out to her for her to take. "It’s still really sharp so if you open it, be careful. I’ve cut myself on it before."

The warning was not entirely wasted on Grace, who had stabbed herself on pointed objects by accident plenty of times. She took the knife into her palms with all the gentleness she might have a bird egg, admiring the pearlescent outside as she rocked it lightly.

Ezra was cool. She thought that every time, but it returned here. Ezra was cool.

"I don't really have a good way in mind. I brought a box cutter too, but this is probably sharper," she said, carefully unfolding the blade to admire it in the limited light of the parking lot. "And I'll, like."

Gross.

"Mix it with my drink." Gross. She continued as she closed the blade gingerly, handing it back to the vampire. "That's how I've done it before."

Ezra watched as she seemed to inspect the knife, his eyes on the knife to see if she was handling it in a dangerous way. But of course she wasn't. At her beginning explanation, Ezra looked back to her and nodded.

"Not that I'm expecting you to pull out measuring cups or anything, but how much do you need? Is this like a pinprick on my finger or should I make a bigger cut somewhere else?" God, this was such an awkward conversation, but he tried to keep his own reservations about it quiet. He'd already agreed to it. He wasn't going to leave Grace high and dry.

His uncertainty was almost nice. Grace didn't feel like an expert in much as of late, and while she was hardly a pro at this, she felt a comforting confidence trickle in. Like a direct response to the vampire's nerves. It both disarmed and armed her, and her smile was gentler, but just as sincere as she briefly looked him in the face before glancing back to the knife.

"Anywhere you want is cool," she said. "I know if I get a cut on my finger it's, like. A bitch for days. On your arm somewhere might be less annoying."

Grace toyed with the ends of her hair, tugging more than twirling as she thought.

"A couple drops, like. A little smear on the knife'll do it, I think," she said. It was hard to tell, given that she didn't exactly start glowing or some shit if she got dosed right. But Billy had never loaded her up with much, back when she saw it happen. "I really appreciate it. I know this is backwards as fuck."

"Yeah, okay," Ezra said with a nod. It made sense. Just a little drop. Didn't need to be a big deal. Not when she was out here sticking needles in her arm to take her own blood for vampires like him. He pulled the tiny blade up on the knife and turned his arm over to give a little cut. Make sure he didn't like accidentally get arm hair or whatever mixed in. Not close to his wrist too. Or that main vein. Though he wasn't sure if he could cut himself and actually bleed out like that. She thanked him as he was in the process of this, and he just nodded again.

He gave the smallest wince as he cut in, just a surface cut really. He looked back to Grace. She had mentioned putting it in a drink. The knife was tiny so he didn't want to just dunk it in her drink and possibly drop it. He could like squeeze the drops in. "Where's your drink?" he asked, watching as the dark, thick blood started to ooze from the cut. "I can just squeeze a few drops in." He looked at her and gave a small grin. "Like I'm a lemon in water."

It really did remind her of herself. In those early first days, learning where to pierce her arm, how to catch a vein that upsettingly wanted to wriggle and worm from her. This was mild in comparison, but his consideration, his wince, his return to humor when he got it.

Grace knew that life, and this too brought something. Kinship, maybe, when she succeeded very often as of late in making herself feel alone surrounded by people.

She made a snorty sound to his joke, nose crinkling, tongue flashing out in brief disgust. The rattling can of Monster went snatched from the cupholder, and she blatantly tugged the tab off, wanting the widest opening possible. The abandoned piece of metal fell to the floorboard, and she aimed the can toward him as best she could, trying to make it a team effort.

"I can like, sense vampires," she said, a seeming non-sequitur, but she was getting there. "Except the way I get alerted is a fucking sour taste in my mouth. So you're pretty right on."

A fucking Monster of all things. Ezra said nothing about it, but did give a little grin. He held his arm over the can, positioning the wound right above the opening and used his other hand to squeeze the wound and get a few congealed clumps to plop in.

Grace was talking about her ability to sense him, drawing back to him being a lemon. He gave a laugh. "Powers are so weird." Life was weird in general.

But the blood was now on her drink and so he put his arm down, cleaned his lil knife off on his pants for now, closed it and slipped it back in his pocket.

He’d look back to Grace then, watching with that morbid kind of curiosity to see how she’d handle the drink.

Ezra did his part, and he did it well. Dripped life providing, life ruining ooze into her drink. She swore she could smell it, though just as likely it was an expectation of what the taste would be: fucking bad. She'd always worried about hurting Billy's feelings in the early days, but slurping up rot wasn't the same as knocking back a shot. Your whole fucking body wanted you to nope on it.

She shook the can to the hiss of carbonation, trying to stir that shit up. About two-third full, she realized she now definitely had to finish this today, and likely soon, given that she was dissolving her golden ticket inside.

Swallowing back the threat of pre-emptive nausea, she knocked the can back for a fat gulp, swallowing big and audibly. Fake citrus, sharp tang, saltiness, and then, at the end, she got it. Tongue coiling rankness, and she coughed into a fist. Laughed. Coughed again.

"Yup," she croaked, shuddering near her shoulders all the way down her back. "That's what a fucking 1-up tastes like."

Ezra watched, slightly disgusted. He knew vampire blood was rank. He remembered that awful taste when he’d bloodlusted and bit Tikanni.

But she was right- it was more or less a one up for her. He gave a little snort of laughter. "Maybe we can experiment with it in different things. Figure out what maybe stops the taste of rotting garbage." Febreeze but for taste.

That was cute. And it did imply Ezra was down for doing this again. Offering, even. And she definitely wasn't opposed, but it was complicated. Relying on one vampire every time was a mistake she didn't want to make again.

"The vampire who used to be my regular- we started putting it in fucking fruit smoothies," she said, breathing her amusement. Billy's bougie blender he'd been all proud of. How the fuck was that the same person who had vanished from her life. She sipped the bubbling, bloodied beverage as if to taste the bitterness of her own feelings.

"I probably won't need this every month. But, like. Every couple, if you want to make it a thing."

Oh. Ezra had thought this would be an every month thing, but maybe she had other vampires to help her out. Save each of them from having to cut into themselves every month kind of deal. It was really nice. He hoped the other vampires were chill with her too.

But the fact that she’d mentioned her previous source- that they’d been using fruit smoothies- made him think that maybe they’d been close. Maybe had been figuring out what tasted better for Grace because they were friends.

The smile he gave her initially over it turned into a bit of a frown. Vampires could be so fickle and flighty. He’d hurt people before by leaving. And now faced with that potential sadness in person, even if it wasn’t caused by him, made him feel guilty.

"Hey, uh," he started, hesitating a bit. He didn’t know Grace that well. "the vamp who left- is that why you’ve been down?" He regretted asking now. She probably didn’t want to talk about it, which is why she’d not brought it up. But there was no taking it all back now.

She didn't know what response she'd expected, but it wasn't that one. Her initial response was to tense up, emotional guard hairs prickling. Back up, teeth bared in a smile she could wear until she could turn tail and run from the conversation.

Talking about Billy, really talking about Billy, had forever been a no-go. She brought him up to Rika, but in a dishonest sort of comparison to Rika's own... weird relationship. Never honestly, organically. And while she wasn't about to pour her heart out to Ezra, she considered this opportunity to use her words, like. Fucking some. Because Ezra was a vampire, but he wasn't one of Those Vampires.

And he wasn't anything like Billy, minus a trend toward decency.

"It's like, not-not part of it," she answered, not the best way to word it, but the best version that would actually leave her mouth. "We were, like. Good friends for a couple years. But he had to fuck off somewhere, do something. I dunno."

Grace shook her head, like it didn't deeply, deeply matter to her.

"It's life, I guess. I'll get over it."

Being really old but also spending a lot of time around 20 year olds for a really long time put Ezra in a good situation to really understand at least a bit of the true feelings here. Grace was trying to play it lowkey, but she’d been hurt by this other vampire leaving. And it was clear this other vampire left of their own choice and wasn’t just killed off.

And she was right. That was life. He regretted bringing it up even more because he didn’t have anything to say to make this better for her. There was no big vampire secret around why they left. They just did. Because they grew bored or they wanted to see something else or there was something else somewhere they needed to attend to or shit was weird and they needed to get out. There was no telling why her vampire left.

And given that there apparently was other shit being piled on top of this, since Grace had said it wasn’t not part of it, the sudden departure probably compounded everything else going on- whatever it was.

Ezra reached out to put his hand on her arm. "I don’t know if this will help, but all vampires do shitty things like that. It’s nothing you did or didn’t do."

Touch in vampire situations always inspired discomfort, though the sleeve of her hoodie went a ways to mask the cool fingers. If she could have played this interaction again, it would have been Ezra's undead paws to himself.

Still, the rest wasn't nothing. She felt a little too seen, blinking rapidly to keep her eyes from leaking. The words did help, at least to angle this more toward Billy and less toward herself. Grace wasn't healed, wouldn't go to bed smiling in new realization and peace. But it was the first and likely only reassurance she'd get about any of this, and it-

It wasn't nothing.

"S'good to know," she said, huffing a laugh-adjacent sound in an attempt to keep things light. It didn't exactly land. Grace gathered the bag from the floorboard of the driver's side to plop in her lap, a crinkly distraction. "I'm, like. A pro at suddenly peacing out, so I was due for being on the receiving end anyway."

Ezra removed his hand, for all he didn't know that it wasn't comforting. Mostly he just now felt bad that he could see tears in her eyes; especially given that this had been done for pretty selfish reasons. Grace tried to keep things light by laughing; accusing herself of doing the same thing to others. Still, he nodded. "Hey, I'm sorry I brought it up. I wasn't meaning to make you upset. But I've been around a while. I hear a lot. So, like, if you ever wanna talk about shit- I'm here. And like, no judgment on anything because I've probably heard worse."

Awh, shit, look at this motherfucker all apologies. He was so fucking nice, especially for a vampire. Grace felt almost protective over him, as if she had any ability to protect a fucking vampire from anything.

This knocked her out of her tearfulness at least. With one sniffle, she was back on track.

"You're good, man. I mean it," she said. "Might take you up on that one day when I'm less, like. A fuckin' bitch about it all still."

And she sure was. Even having talked about it had her ribs tight, like they'd accidentally crossed over each other or some shit.

"Maybe next new moon or something, when we're not stabbing you in the arm."

Ezra was glad she was alright over everything. Still felt bad about it but it’d all be okay. He gave her a little laugh at her mentioning maybe they could talk about everything later when she wasn’t being a bitch about it.

"Deep inside, we’re all little fucking bitches. No shame in that." But he got not wanting to talk about shit when it was still fresh and painful. He’d not talked to anyone about Mahnaz. It’d been going on 7 months and he’d not talked about it.

"But yeah, whenever you wanna talk. Or if you don’t ever want to, just tell me to shut the fuck up. I’ll understand." He gave her a grin.

Ezra was such a weird dude. Someone she liked, but fucking weird. This vibe of giving advice, but talking like Grace while he did it. He was a vampire, but didn't seem like one minus the obvious blood trade shit going on.

He made for good company, though someone she reminded herself to be wary of. Because she had a real habit of picking the wrong horse. Like. The horse that lost because it decided to spend its time kicking the shit out of other horses. Or the horse that ran off the racetrack into the sunset taking a shit as it went.

"Right back at you," she said, though the words felt a little hollow. Like. She didn't know what all deep shit he had in his brain, and why he'd ever pick out Grace as someone to share it with. But at least she was sincere. "Promise I won't make you a dad in the meantime."

God, she mentioned the whole dad thing again, and he laughed despite it all. He still had concerns, but he trusted that she had it all under control. She mentioned that the previous vampire she'd known for a couple years, so like, if she'd been getting blood for that long and hadn't been turned yet, she must be doing alright.

Ezra eyed the gift bag on her lap, knowing that in it was blood for him- their trade. It seemed kinda shitty. Like, it was no skin off his back to give her some of his blood. But she needed hers- for living, of course, but she also like sold it on the side. He wondered if the other vampire used to trade blood.

"Hey, uh, about the trade. It feels like I'm getting the better deal here. I don't know if trading cuts into your profits and it's cool being a poor ass vampire because I can just, you know, convince people to not make me pay bills, but you don't really get that option. So, like, you're good to keep your own blood."

Here it was. That weird vampire generosity that always showed up last minute. Not that Ezra had ever been cheap, but these transactions always seemed to end in a final extra mile that threw her off her game.

Usually, she took the extra cash. But this was different, and she found herself with the confidence to be firm about it. (Though there was no denying that he made a compelling argument. How had she never fucking considered you could just not have to pay bills, what the FUCK.)

"Treat it like a gift then," she said, lifting the bag to insist it his way. "But for me it's, like- I don't like doing this shit for free. Just feels better to trade. I appreciate you being cool as fuck though."

Ezra wouldn't argue with her; mostly because he did appreciate having psychic blood he could freeze and unthaw when it was so close to July 4th. But Ezra would still try to compromise, also feeling like shit taking her blood for just a little bit of his.

"Okay, well, maybe we can do like less blood trade for you? I'm still good to do every month or every other month- but maybe like around July 4th and the winter holidays we could trade?" That was when he liked having psychic blood anyway. Try to get through the scary holiday and the sad holiday.

"There's like other things you can do anyway," he said, nonchalantly. He expected Grace to question what he meant, but it quickly dawned on him what it sounded like, so he sputtered out what he was meaning, words barely said with any space between them: "Oh, I mean, like friend stuff. Like go to a movie with me. Or just hang out. I wasn't meaning like sexual favors."

Trading around holidays. Grace did scheduling math, deciding she could just line his up certain times of the year, even if they'd be largely clustered toward the end and one in the middle. She could work with that.

Then came a continuation that stilled her briefly, fairly sure she was picking up what he was laying down, not helped by "friend stuff." Go to a movie. Hang out. Uh huh. But the last bit got her, and barked a laugh of appreciation for the bluntness.

So Ezra was lonely as fuck too, huh. All these vampires were. Everyone wanted Grace's company, at least as long as it suited them. Friendship pimping appealed to her more than the regular kind, and yet it still didn't quite work for her.

"We can hang out," she acquiesced. "But if you ever need someone to run daytime errands or whatever, like go to some store that's not open after fucking 9pm. Let me know."

Ezra was embarrassed; flustered even. But Grace was cool about everything. She gave a laugh, which didn't make Ezra less embarrassed, but it at least provided him relief in knowing she wasn't angry or felt like he was scuzzy.

Her own suggestion was miles better than the few things he'd thrown out, and he nodded. "Yeah, that's a good one." Might be helpful to have her pick something up in a territory he wasn't allowed in too, if he ever needed something that happened to be in one. But he'd not throw that out right now. He didn't know how much information Grace had on the Local Beef and didn't know if she needed to be privy to that information.

Anyway.

"I guess I'll take this and go, before I continue to make an ass out of myself," he said with a grin, as he picked up the bag. "Thanks for being cool about everything." He opened the door to slide out. Before closing the door, he peeked back inside. "Let me know if you die." It was said with another grin, but was also something he would want to know. He knew she had backups, but if something failed, he'd still want to know.