Santana picked up the bottle of Jack Daniels with one hand studying it carefully before putting in the amount into her bar inventory app. Every other Tuesday she did inventory making sure she knew what to order and what she needed to scale back on. She puts the Jack Daniels back on the shelf and turns to make sure that the numbers look right and spots Charlie sitting at the bar reading. She was surprised how easily she had settled into this routine that they had. But more importantly Charlie seemed relatively happy to be with her. "Is that a new book already?"
Charlie blinks and then looks up at Santana and nods at her before sipping on her soda. "Mike said it was like the Bible."
Santana raised a brow as she looked at the thick book for a moment, sliding a finger under the book to take a look at what Mike had suggested. "Game of Thrones?" She scoffed at this, Mike was such a nerd. "What about Lord of the Rings?"
"Already finished."
"All three books?" When Charlie nods Santana blinks at this, they had just gotten the books last week, "Have you been staying up during the day to read them again?" She's rewarded with a guilty smile, and she sighs. "We've talked about this. You need your sleep Charlie. The books like the food aren't going anywhere. I mean yeah they are library books, but we can always get them again, or I mean you can use what I'm paying you to buy new books." Santana suggested.
Charlie made a face, "I'm not rushing because I'm afraid you'll take my books away Santana, I just want to read all of them."
Santana made a face, "These books are like fine wine Charlie, they're meant to be savored. We've talked about this, you can stay for as long as you want. I'm not going to make you leave."
Charlie doesn't say anything immediately, before she simply shrugs it off. "They'll find me eventually."
"Do you want them too?" Santana asks quietly studying Charlie carefully. She hadn't pushed, figuring that it would be best for Charlie to feel at home before she once again tried to break the Stockholm Syndrome that she had. She had already gained weight since she'd been here for the past three weeks and finally looked healthy. Now if she could only get Charlie to sleep in a real bed instead of the mat on the ground it would be perfect.
Charlie hesitated for a moment and before she answers there is a banging on the glass door that leads into the bar causing her to turn, and stare at the bald man with the funny-looking hat. She'd never seen him before and he wasn't wearing a templar uniform.
"For fucks sake Burt," Santana muttered under her breath as she moved to open the door for him. She narrows her eyes slightly as he enters with a friendly smile on his face. "I've told you a million times to go see a doctor, I dropped out of medical school."
"You have the magic touch," Burt said chuckling at his own pun before pausing and spotting Charlie who was staring at him. "New girlfriend?"
"She's like ten." Santana scoffs flicking her eyes at Charlie.
"I'm twenty-two," Charlie says with a frown. Before pausing, "Are we friends?"
Santana frowns, "Look at what you've done," Santana snaps at Burt. "Just go back to reading your book." Charlie shrugs her shoulders at the statement but puts her book down to watch her. It causes Santana to roll her eyes. "Once again you don't need me Burt, you need a nutritionist."
"I know that, but my chest has been feeling odd. I thought I'd see you before my doctor spends five minutes with me and tells me to lose some weight."
"Which you need to do," Santana sighs, and moves to one of the tables and flips over two chairs, taking a seat in one and motioning for Burt to do the same.
Burt does as he starts to unbutton his shirt. He looks up to see Charlie who was moving closer to Santana. "Are you magic-touched too?"
Charlie glances at Santana, who shrugs her shoulder. She wasn't supposed to announce it to most people, but he seemed to know that Santana was magic-touched. "Yes. Aren't you?"
Burt laughed as he finished opening his shirt, "No. I think I'd be a terrible magic-touched. Damn your hands are cold," he grumbled as Santana touched his chest.
Santana flicked her eyes to Charlie once more before shaking her head, "You have a partial blockage in one of your arteries, if you're not careful Burt you're going to have another heart attack, and I'm unsure if I'll be able to save you. Once again, go see your doctor Burt, and if they gave you any medications start taking them. Which means to stop eating greasy bar food, it's not good for your heart or your waistline. I think Kurt mentioned something about you joining Tinder last time he was in. If you're not getting any hits, I suggest dropping a few and growing some hair, it'll probably make you look younger."
Burt groaned, "You're worse than my doctors sometimes Santana. Can't you do something about it?"
"If I could I would Burt you know that. But this is beyond my skill level and I have no intention of going back to medical school either." Santana patted his shoulder. "And before you ask I am not going to start the grill for you and give you some greasy bar food."
Burt sighed and looked at Charlie, "Do you work here?"
"Charlie. No." Santana barked at her before Charlie could try and be helpful. "Do not give him food. Do not let him trick you into making him food. He needs to get healthy."
Charlie turned her attention back to Burt who laughed at this she waits until there's a lull in the conversation before asking, "Why aren't you afraid of us?"
"My wife is magic-touched—was magic-touched. She's dead," Burt said with a shrug of his shoulders. "She never hurt anyone in her life. She was kind and funny and my best friend. I thought that Kurt, my son, was going to be magic-touched but it skipped him—right?" He looks over at Santana.
"Yes Burt, it skipped him," Santana said with another roll of her eyes. If Burt wanted to tell Charlie, his story then she wasn't going to stop him. Charlie had yet to be confronted with how shitty the Templars were as a whole.
"But I thought he was going to be," Burt said. "I mean now I know he's gay, so I guess he's pretty magical in his own way."
Santana snorted at the swipe at Kurt, "Now Burt, I'm pretty sure you know that's offensive."
Burt chuckled, before turning his attention to Charlie. "I love my wife, I love my son. It's really that simple."
It takes a moment for Charlie to lose interest in the conversation and Burt turns to look at Santana, "Are you sure there's nothing you can do?"
"My Abuela was far better at this sort of thing than I was, and I wish that I had actually listened and learned what she had to teach me Burt, but I'm not that good, I can heal physical stuff, not something quite like that," Santana said with a frown.
"Your Abuela was a good woman," Burt said as he buttoned his shirt back up. "Well my lunch break is nearly over—"
"Seriously stay away from the fast food Burt," Santana interrupts, she's met with an amused smile and she knows he's not going to listen to her.
Burt pauses at the door for a moment, "Are you going to be okay? With what happened in Argentina—"
Santana immediately waves him off, "It's not the first time this has happened Burt and I doubt it will be the last."
Mike waved his hand over in front of Charlie's book, "Do you want to play tag?" He asked.
Charlie looked up at him, frowning slightly. "Tag?"
"Yeah, tag. It's good exercise." Mike said as Charlie puts her book down. "I tag you, by touching you somewhere and saying tag you're it. And then you chase me and then tag me, by saying tag you're it." Mike explained. "It's fun and I really do need to move around a bit."
Charlie tilted her head for a moment as Mike patted the bar, only then noticing that quite a few people had entered the bar even though it was a Tuesday. She tries to look for Santana who is talking to Brittany in hushed tones. It was Mike after all, she liked Mike. He was nice, "Okay."
Mike smiled at this and tapped Charlie's finger with one of his own, "Tag, you're it."
Charlie blinked as Mike suddenly disappeared from right in front of her and appeared in the kitchen and waved at her, before taking off in the opposite direction. Almost immediately she kicks the chair back and scrambles to go find him. He had probably used magic, but she'd never seen magic like that before.
Santana waits until she hears the sound of Charlie barging through the back door, and she almost felt bad for tricking her, but this meeting was long past due, and she needed to talk with the other magic-touched in the community. "I know you've all seen the news reports. It's very hard to miss everyone knows what went down in Argentina."
"What went down? Don't minimize what went on down there, 85 people are dead, and their remains needed to be burned, in fact the hole area needed to be sanctified Santana, all because some magic-touched decided to play around with forces that they don't know about," Tina Chang said speaking up. "People, regular people are scared, they're frightened Santana, and if you think they won't start turning on us—"
"It's not all of us, we can still join the military, they worship those magic-touched," Matt Rutherford spoke up causing everyone to turn to him. "Or we can sign up to one of those corporations, you know the ones that are deciding to build these magical teams to do magical clean ups? At least they pay well right?"
There's a murmur through the crowd and Santana glances at Brittany, "Well, that's a shitty existence don't you think? From the sounds of it, I have three options. Join the governments magical cold war with China and Russia, join a legal corporation that will use me for secret missions or prop me up like I'm some superhero so that the people can cheer me until I mess up and then they call for my head. I mean there is always the Templars, right? Death if we're lucky. Personally, those three options sound like shit to me, I just want to live my life, not defined by the fact that I can do magic." Santana said bluntly crossing her arms over her chest.
"You don't think that's what we all want?" Tina pressed. "But very soon we aren't going to have a choice Santana, the Templars are trying to get more power here in the States, our only saving grace is that no one wants to give a theocratic military force power in the United States. We all see how badly it goes in other countries and we don't want that."
"And public opinion isn't on our side anymore, I just read today that people are worried about the gangs and the cartels using magic touched people as weapons against law enforcement, and a joint task force between police departments and the Templars." Rory Flanagan speaks up.
"What was that? I don't speak leprechaun," Santana says dismissively. She was probably still a bit sore that Rory had opened up an Irish pub nearby. "So, what would you have us do about all of this? Do you wish to go to war? Because we'd lose. As has most—" Santana paused and turned her head her eyes widening. She knew everyone else in the room could feel it as she takes off towards the kitchen. "Shit."
Brittany immediately followed Santana, preparing her own magic to use, she hadn't quite felt a raw amount of magic like this before, and if they weren't careful it would alert every Templar in the city to their location. "Is that—"
Santana pushed open the back door, and stared at Charlie who looked positively irate, even though Mike had stopped moving and was just staring at her, he had probably stopped moving in shock. "Charlie! Stop!" She's yelling, and she doesn't really care that the other magic-touched can hear. That much raw magic was dangerous, and she could only pray that Charlie listened before she accidentally wiped Mike off the map.
Charlie turned from where she was standing balanced on the dumpster and looks at Santana, before hopping down off the dumpster. "We were playing tag," she insists immediately sensing that she was in trouble. "I just wanted to hold him down, so I can tag him," she says immediately confused as to why Santana was yelling. They were playing, and it wasn't fair that Mike was using his magic, so she couldn't touch him.
Santana cleared the space between them and immediately grabbed onto Charlie's arms tightly, "What were you thinking? Fuck. Are you okay?" Santana said as she pulls Charlie's arms to check them. But she's suddenly shoved back by Charlie. The action causes her to stumble into Brittany and she looks up at Charlie in shock. It's only then that she sees the fear in Charlie's eyes as she rubs her arms. It's not enough to get her to calm down, "What was that?"
Charlie scowls, Santana had promised she wouldn't hurt her, but her arms still felt bruised. "You said you wouldn't hurt me."
"Me? I was trying to keep you safe!" Santana snaps at Charlie who flinches at her tone, she knew it would be best to calm down and try and have this conversation in a neutral tone. But she could still feel her heart beating in her chest due to the shot of adrenaline.
Confusion crossed Charlie's face at Santana's response and turns to look at Mike. "Mike wasn't hurting me—he said it was a game. We were just playing."
"Not Mike, Charlie. You. I was talking about you! Your magic! I felt your magic!" Santana pulls away from Brittany who had an arm wrapped around her waist. "I felt your magic Charlie and that amount of power could hurt you." Santana explains in a rushed tone moving to check Charlie once again, but Charlie takes a step away from her. "Charlie."
"We were playing, I wasn't going to hurt him. I just wanted to stop him from moving, so I could tag him," Charlie insists. She turns to Mike, "Tell her."
Mike blinks suddenly realizing that there was now a crowd of people, "We were just playing. I may have made her trip over her own two feet and she got frustrated but we were just playing."
"That wasn't playing," Brittany said staring at Charlie. "You could have seriously injured Mike."
"I wasn't! I was just trying to stop him I promise," Charlie insists.
"Bullshit, everyone in the room could feel that magic, hell the Templars probably saw that magic from wherever they are," Tina said with a frown.
Santana frowned, holding her hand up. Charlie didn't lie, she wasn't sure that Charlie didn't know how to lie. She takes a breath, and pulls some magic to herself, the action causes a few people to move away from her and even Brittany turns to look at her, but Charlie doesn't seem to notice as she backs away from the throng of people. "Can you not feel that?"
Charlie turns to look at Santana, "Feel what Santana? We were just playing I wasn't going to hurt him." It's become her mantra now and she is looking for someone to believe her.
Santana allowed the magic to ebb away and her hands drop to her side, as it slowly dawns on her what was going on. "You can't feel magic." Santana said her hands dropping to her sides. The shock and horror slowly building up in the pit of her stomach. What had the Templars done to her?
"Feel magic? I don't understand," Charlie says looking around, everyone looked shocked and some even looked horrified. "What do you mean feel magic Santana? How do you feel magic?"
Santana moved to gently touch Charlie's hand, summoning just enough magic that most people would be able to feel it, but Charlie doesn't seem to notice the slight warmth, "Charlie, they did something to you. The templars, they did something to you. And I don't know if we can fix it."
"Templars?" Tina hisses. "Is she the one that the templars were looking for?"
"We were just—"
"I know, I believe you but the amount of magic that you called up was massive Charlie, and if you had hit Mike with that much magic you might have seriously hurt him," Santana explains. "You could hurt yourself if you do not know what you're doing." Without some sense of what was going on Charlie was drawing massive amounts of magical energy to herself, it was astounding that she hadn't gotten herself killed.
It takes Charlie a moment to realize what Santana was saying, "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord," Charlie murmured under her breath. Charlie pulls away from Santana fidgeting nervously as she looks at Mike, "I'm really sorry—I just wanted to play I didn't want to hurt you."
Mike blinked again, still in a state of shock even as Brittany began to fuss over him, it certainly explained why Charlie had just charged at where he'd been instead of moving to where he was going to be. "It's fine—I'm fine—"
Charlie turned to look at Santana, "I told you I'm dangerous," she says sullenly, before taking off to the apartment above the bar so she could hide in her room, before Santana can respond.
Santana makes a half-assed attempt to stop her but Charlie brushes past her. Leaving her there with an increasingly agitated mob of magic-touched. She turns to them, her annoyance evident on her face, "She's one of us, she is magic-touched, and while I know some of you wish you could have been born normal, what they did to her was unforgivable. So, go home, I'll deal with this."
"Santana she's going to bring the templars down on her head, we need to give her back to them. She's dangerous—" Tina said approaching her.
"She's one of us," Santana repeats coldly. "And we are doing no such thing as giving her back to the monsters who kept her locked in a small room for most of her adult life, who trained her to come after us. You want to give her back to them? Fuck no. She stays. I'll handle it," Santana snaps at her.
"She's too dangerous," Tina begins to protest before shutting her mouth as Santana pushes past her and heads upstairs.
