It's my Party and I'll Die if I want too

[Simplicity]

Simplicity hoped up onto the barstool with a content smile. Looking over her shoulder she couldn’t help by laugh at her friends in their various stages of intoxication. Trevor and Scott were getting there asses handed to them at pool, Alex was trying to flirt with a biker looking woman who had a face full of amusement and pity, and the designated driver was just giggling like an idiot. Shaking her head she reminded herself to check and see if they had enough for a cab.

They all did love a good chance to go out and have a party. Her birthday had just made a kickin excuse in their books and the fact that it was on Halloween made it even more so. Personally Simplicity had gotten over the Halloween thing around her fourteenth. It still tickled her, but it wasn’t her all defining truth. In an effort to keep the day mostly about her, the crew had found a local band playing at another dive. The band was better than good but everyone was shuffled out before any serious chaos could occur. That in turn led to them finding one of the few bars in town that wasn’t full.

“More shots?” The bartender asked.

She smiled and held up a hand, “No thanks, just a rum ‘n coke.”

He nodded and Simplicity chuckled at his relief. Gale and Chloe had already done enough property damage to the man’s business. She added leaving a good tip to the list of things to make sure they had money for. As he got her drink ready Simplicity looked in the large mirror and tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

[adrian]

"You look fantastic, you don't need to work at it," Adrian said as he walked up behind the cute girl at the bar, a pool stick in one hand and an empty beer bottle in the other. He smiled at her in a way that had earned him a night's company more than once in the past without needing to do anything more.

He put the bottle down on the bar and dug a bill out of his pocket and put it down next to the empty bottle. "Can I get another," he asked the bartender, "and I'll pay for whatever the lady is having as well," he added. "Hey," he said turning to the girl, "my name's Adrian and your friend over there," he said motioning, "claims that you can win his money back for him. Is it just a boast or are you the pool goddess he claims you are?"

[Simplicity]

Simplicity pulled her hand way from her head and spun around on the stool. Leaning against the bar with one elbow, she looked at him from toe to tip with a neutral face. Once she was done she looked him in the eyes and gave him playful grin.

“Well,” she placed both hands on her knees, “don’t you say the nicest things.” She twisted back around as he ordered another and elected to cover her drink. For a second she considered re-ordering, but decided to be nice, and if he was still up for it later then she’d get a shot of blue label. Smiling she rested her chin on the back of her hand, “Got a special reason for doing that or just being polite?” While she was pretty sure she knew the answer, it was fun to see if he’d answer.

“Simplicity Kennedy,” she held out a hand for him to take, “and as for my friend, what incentive could I possibly have to win him his money back?”

[adrian]

Adrian smiled and shrugged. "I've found that buying people drinks normally at least gets you a nice conversation. Otherwise people in bars are too tempted to ignore you. Seems like everyone comes here to get away from the stress of their lives and to maybe have a little fun with some strangers and then don't actually talk to any body." The bartender came back with their drinks and he held his up in a toast to her before taking a swig of the beer.

"If you don't want to win your friend's money back Simplicity Kennedy that's fine with me. I get to keep it. That poor soul was just convinced you'd defend his honor." Adrian shook his head, smiling. "So what are you guy's celebrating tonight and how come you're the only one over here when all your friend's are over there?"

[Simplicity]

Nodding Simplicity raised her glass saying, “A better answer then most good sir.”

“Well,” she gave an over dramatic sigh, “If I don’t try I’ll probably have him complaining the whole ride back.” She hopped off the stool and straightened the skirt before pointing to his cue, “You gonna hand me that or I am going to have to find my own stick?”

She laughed at his questions as she started toward the pool tables, “As it would be, it’s my birthday. And honey even the crazies need a break from the insanity.”

Trevor looked at her from his seat next to the table with embarrassment and a wounded ego. Simplicity held up a finger and make a “tsk” sound. So he had lost his money, whether or not he called upon her to be his hero was still up to debate but not the fact he need one.

Simplicity set her drink on the edge of the table, “You gonna rack ‘em up or not?”

[adrian]

"So many sexual innuendos I must forgo in order to be considered a polite, open minded and sensitive 21st century male," Adrian said with mock regret as he handed her his stick. "It's a shame how sensitive our society has become." He took continued to drink his beer as he watched her friends begin laughing and laying bets on the game. He'd been beating the lot of them for the past hour and so had won a bit of infamous acceptance among them. It would only help him if he actually took the girl home.

"So your buddy lost $50 bucks," he continued as he began to rack up the balls, "I'll give it back to him if you beat me in a one on one game. I take it you want to break?" He asked as he finished racking the balls and he took the triangle away and put it back below the pool table. A good song came on the sound system and he nodded along a little, before taking a precarious seat on one of the stools surrounding the pool table.

Adrian liked this girl and she was his best prospect of the night.

[Simplicity]

“Funny,” she said taking the stick, “I’ve never met such a man.”

Simplicity set the base of the stick on the ground and idly rested her hands on top. She watched with small smile as he set the table. Listening to her friends bicker about the odds, she picked up on the fact he was actually a good player instead of just a player who could bet a couple drunks.

“Is that one game straight up or in general?” Simplicity asked innocently, “and it’s solids and stripes right?”

“After a few short minutes you already know me so well,” she laughed picking up the stick. In a few short steps she was next to the table. Leaning over she took her time to line up the shot and hit the ball with a quick jab. She smirked at the satisfying sound or the break and moved out of the way as the multicolored balls moved around the table.

“Your turn,” she said, moving back from the table.

[adrian]

"You just haven't been in the right bars obviously and I try to listen when people speak to me," Adrian said with a smile, putting down his beer and taking the stick from her, his eyes on the layout of the balls on the table. For a moment he blocked out the conversation around him. He had never found that letting girls win helped him get them into bed. Maybe boys, but it never worked with girls. If a girl had enough confidence to play him in pool she wouldn't take kindly to being coddled.

He walked around the opposite side of the table and carefully lined up his shot. He set up, his hands deft on the stick after so many years of practice, and he hit the cue ball with an easy tap that sent it across the green felt of the table where it collided with the 2 ball with a sharp tap. The 2 ball went neatly into the side pocket and Adrian began looking for his next shot. "Looks like I have stripes."

[Simplicity]

“You could've been in the wrong ones,” Simplicity handed over the pool stick.

She crossed her arms as Adrian lined up his shot. The guy seemed to know what he was doing and she liked that, but he still had some proving ground to cover. As he sank the ball she undid her arms and clapped at his success. Folding her arms again she waited to see if he’d repeat his success.

As he went about whatever he was doing, the door to the bar hit the wall and swung on it’s hinges. Simplicity looked over out of reflex in time to see three men walk in, seemingly carrying each other in a drunken pack. She couldn’t tell how old they were, could have been late twenties to late thirties. Narrowing her eyes she forced herself to look back at the game at hand despite the uneasy feeling the group gave her.

“So,” she asked Adrian, “What are you in town for?”

[adrian]

"Working," Adrian said as he lined up another shot. "I live here." He took the shot and the cue ball hit the ball he was aiming at easily but it bounced off the corner of the pocket he'd wanted. He made a snitch sound in disappointment as he straightened up and handed the stick to Simplicity. The bar used to have four sticks but they'd all been broken in various bar fights. Logan, the guy who owned the bar, refused to buy anymore.

"For now anyway," he said looking at her and then spotting the three menacing guys walking in their direction. He slipped around Simplicity, putting himself between her and them. Most women this day and age did not like to be coddled. Independence and all that. Hey, he was the first to own that a girl could beat him if she was good at fighting or had the opportunity to manipulate the situation to her advantage, and most people could if they were reasonably intelligent. But in a straight up fist fight boy still won. Just facts of nature. Of course try telling one of them that.

So he didn't try to look like he was watching her back and tried to watch her back at the same time, keeping an eye on the three as they made their way to the bar before giving everyone in the joint a look. He didn't like that look. It was like they were sizing everyone up and wondering if they could handle the trouble.

"What are you in town for?" he asked, distracted. "And how old do you turn today? I don't think I asked."

[Simplicity]

Nodding at his answer, she took the stick and looked around the table for her next shot. She smiled softly when Adrian got in between her and the men, even though they were across the room. Nice to see chivalry was not dead yet, he also earned himself major brownie points. Not many guys she’d met in bars would have noticed the new arrivals, let alone do something as like Adrian had. So yeah, he had potential.

“Well I’m staying with a friend in Hays County, we drove in for a show and ended up here,” she tapped a finger against the edge of the table as the bartender started arguing with the three men. Simplicity was worried about them but Adrian was proving to be a pleasant distraction, “I’m twenty-three today.”

She took a sip of her drink before leaning over and lining up the shot. Right as she was about to hit the cue ball a sickening snap made her scratch and look in the direction of the noise. As she did, Simplicity saw the bartender slump to the ground with his head twisted at an unnatural angle and the three men started whooping and hollowering in delight. On instinct she reached out and grabbed a hold of the nearest person, not bothering to see who it was or even ask if they minded the sudden death grip on their arm.

“Oh my god,” she whispered in horror.

[adrian]

Adrian, who had been leaning nonchalantly against one of the many tables set up around the pool table, had been keeping an eye on the bar's unwelcome patrons and he was caught in the middle of making a grimace of distaste as one of them reached out to caress the bartender in, what was obviously, an unwanted way when there was a distinct cracking sound not unlike the sound of pool ball hitting another and the bartender slumped over the bar he'd been tending. Adrian's face froze out of shock and then dropped the unpleasant expression when he realized he was making it. He grabbed one of Simplicity's much too drunk friends has he stumbled off of his stool. He didn't know what the lad intended but he wasn't going to let himself get killed, which all of a sudden seemed a very real possibility. He had been living soft too long or not living hard long enough. It shocked him and it threw his mind into a panicked and unhelpful uproar. He wasn't used to people dying around him on a day to day basis.

"Hey. What the-What the fuck man?" A guy closer to the commotion, someone who had been getting a second drink, looked between the bartender and the murderers in shock. "What the fuck." He said again though there seemed no question in it this time. He was unconsciously digging into a pocket and Adrian saw him pull out a cell phone and begin to dial 911.

Seeing someone else make some sort of action that was actually productive and purposeful helped snap him out of his own paralysis. He looked around and saw Simplicity standing close by, a death grip on another friend of hers. He didn't know how many of them were in the bar, he'd only met 3 or 4, including Simplicity. He hoped that was it because he had a feeling that the type of person that would murder someone in front of a bar full of witnesses wouldn't hesitate to kill again. They had to get out of here.

"We gotta go," he said to her since she seemed the least drunk of the lot and they'd listen to her before they'd listen to him.

[Simplicity]

Simplicity could feel herself trembling and Andrew’s pulse, she was coming back to herself enough to know that, thumping beneath her fingers. She watched as one of the men hopped behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey in triumph. For a second she thought she was going to be sick.

“Yeah,” she said to Adrian, “good idea.”

Forcing herself to move, because Andrew certainly wasn’t going to start doing so on his own, she gestured to the friends that didn’t have their eyes locked to move. She was going to voice the instruction when she stopped mid-step to a heavy thud. Scott, who was calling the police, laid on the ground struggling for air. Probably crushed his larynx Simplicity thought grimly as his attacker snapped his phone in half.

“Why ya going,” the one behind the bar laughed, “we’re just getting started!”

Simplicity took one second to look at him, then glanced back at the man who had attacked Scott and found the spot empty. She quickly looked around until she saw him standing by the entrance. He either could move faster or Simplicity was worse off than she thought. If it was one thing given the situation, Simplicity wasn’t going to be generous about her current mental condition. The logical part of her looked to the opposite side of the bar for another escape route. There was one, lit up with a bright red exit sign. Of course the other man was already standing directly under it.

The old cliché saying, trapped like rats, came to mind. Simplicity sent Adrian a tight glance, then looked back at the murder behind the bar as he chugged down the bottle of whiskey.

“Shit,” she breathed out scared.

[adrian]

Adrian hissed between his teeth as the young man fell to the ground choking and the guy who did it moved faster than humanly possible. Since he'd become a hunter supernatural bullshit seemed to pop out of the walls. He didn't know if it had always been here and he just hadn't noticed and he was noticing now because he was paying attention, or if there was just more of it around him now but he didn't like it. He had wanted the night off. He'd wanted to live his old life for just one night. Get stinking drunk or take a girl home, definitely take a girl home. He'd been determined not to crawl back to the hotel unless he had a girl with him or the sun came up. But no, fucking monsters had to walk into this bar and ruin his good time.

"New plan," Adrian said shortly. "Kill the beast." He pulled out his gun from the small of his back and held it in a two handed grip to steady his aim. He always carried a few weapons with him now and just hoped he didn't get picked up because he certainly didn't have a license for the gun and he didn't want to explain why it had silver bullets in it. Silver didn't work against everything, but it worked against most things that went bump in the night, and if it didn't kill them it would hurt like hell. Still, he'd wished he'd paid more attention when Jeff had been trying to teach him how to kill various baddies. Right now he was going off of Buffy knowledge.

He pulled out a knife from his boot and held it out to Simplicity and looked around at her friends. "Break bottles or something unless you want to die."

He pointed the gun at the vampire that was standing behind the bar. He seemed to be the leader and there was a shotgun behind his head that Adrian wouldn't mind getting his hands on. "Yo, fang boy, we were all trying to enjoy our evening, how about you and your friends find some other bar to attack tonight huh?" He motioned to the front door where the other guy was standing.

The vampire grinned at him, showing a mouth full of pointed teeth. If the words 'unholy glee' ever applied to anything it applied to the vamp's face. "You think a gun is going to stop me red neck?" Before Adrian could move the vampire was over the bar and standing right in front of him, the muzzle of Adrian's gun digging into his chest, completely unafraid. "Take your best shot," he said, blood and alcohol on his breath, a cocky light in his eyes as he looked at Adrian.

Adrian shrugged. "You asked," he said before pulling the trigger. The gun kicked in his hand, even harder because of the short distance, and the sound of the shot was muffled as the bullet dug through the creature's body and exited out the other side, breaking a glass on the bar.

The vampire fell to his knees in shock, a small hole in his chest, a look of disbelief and dawning horror on his face. Adrian didn't know if the shot would kill him but he didn't stop to find out either. Before the other two could react properly he aimed at the one standing in front of the door and squeezed the trigger. He swung to aim at the third and a hand gripped his lower leg hard enough to bruise and pulled it out from under him, wrenching the knee painfully.

Adrian hit the ground flat on his back, the impact driving the air from his lungs and the hit to his head momentarily stunning him. He looked up, still dazed and saw the vampire he'd shot looking weaker and much less cocky and pissed about both. "Hunter," he hissed, hatred in his voice.

"Damn," Adrian said weakly, disappointed that the gun hadn't killed the bastard.

[Simplicity]

Sim had to give him credit, Adrian seemed to know what he was doing, and trying his best to get them out in one piece. That and the fact he was armed and looked like he actually knew how to hand the gun instead of just being some stupid moron who “saw it on Tv” probably would have been a turn on if she wasn’t, you know, in fear for her life. Nodding she took the knife and held it the way her ex-Marine uncle had taught her all those years ago. As she glanced between the three she heard bottles breaking around her.

She couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at some of the comments being thrown back and forth. Fang boy? Well the dude did suddenly have a sharp mouth. Yeah, not normal. When Adrian shot the man Simplicity couldn’t tell if she was more horrified or hopeful but when the man got back up her heart dropped into her stomach. Not human either. Simplicity replayed the last few minutes (seconds maybe?) in her head and felt insane, mostly because she was starting to think that they were trapped in by vampires. Not the kind from Grace’s books or even the old school stories. They hadn’t needed invited in and one had a cross earring. Probably found it ironic, the pretentious asshole.

Half tempted to try and help Adrian, even though it would probably end with her on the floor like Scott and the bartender, she took a step toward him. She was distracted by the battle cry from a man she didn’t know trying to stab the last one. Took about two seconds for the monster to grab him, and another two for her to decide what to do.

“Why are you doing this?!” She screamed and fell next to Scott’s dead body. The distraction, or she hoped it would be one could get the attention off of the boys. One that knew what he was doing could go about being hero and the idiot would live to do something else stupid tomorrow. Simplicity wrapped her free hand around Scott’s wrist hoping it wasn’t obvious she was checking for a pulse. She had no clue what was going on and she wasn’t even sure her hair brained vamp theory was even possible. Adrian looked like he got a heart shot in but he was still kicking. Since she had nothing better to go on, she was going to go off what little knowledge, most of which was probably wrong, she had about vampires. Biting her lip she silently prayed Anne Rice had gotten at least one thing right and glanced down at Scott’s dead body.