Roleplay City
Infusco => DOMICILES => INFUSCO: Enter The Shadows => 3106 Alcott Road => Topic started by: Saiketsu on March 04, 2012, 04:13:42 PM
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After watching the display of debauchery that seemed so prevailing within the Oligarchy, Damien found himself a bit tired of holding his tongue for the sake of others. With his teeth set tightly together, he gave his polite yet tight-lipped invitation to Odessa and Nadia to return back to Damien's house for a bit of relaxation and conversation. Despite Pierre's silent protests - because Damien would not allow his son to drive back and avoid the problem of Nadia that was at hand - Nadia and Odessa had agreed, and around the same time that Kerr had made an idiot of himself in front of the entire immortal population and had decided to leave, Damien had formed the same idea in his head. This party was not the kind where he wanted to linger around for the sake of partying - Kerr had partied hard enough for the rest of the room and it was time to bid this place adieu.
If nothing else, the masquerade had solidified his ambition for office. Damien dwelled on this as he drove back with with Pierre safely in the passenger seat, the car silent except for the momentary groans of Pierre's discomfort at sitting in a position that wrinkled his burn. Upon arriving back at Damien's house - thankfully Nadia had volunteered to take an otherwise indignant Odessa so that she wouldn't suffer through sitting in the back seat of Damien's sedan - he had taken up Pierre from the passenger seat and supported him as he found his feet beneath his knees, beneath his weight. Nadia hadn't been following closely upon Damien's tail, Odessa having been to the house when he had first bought it and directing her fledgling (or whatever else the women decided to do), so he had little idea when to be expecting the two. In the meantime he entered the house with Pierre.
The night was thankfully clear and the hour still early enough for everyone to be lively - especially Delilah - upon Damien and Pierre's entrance. He greeted the dog lovingly and gave her a treat as he walked into the kitchen. He had called Jenella to remind her that he would be coming back with Pierre, and he could hear Rachel in the background of the phone. That human feeling crept annoyingly into his face again as he ended the call. Now, he could hear her in the house and that human feeling needed to be once again shoved down to the depths of his mind - something that had been getting increasingly hard to do since their talk more than two weeks ago. When he had walked in, his greeting was brief to the both of them as he played with Delilah, trying to wear her out for the time that Odessa and her fledge came over. He became very much aware of Rachel's presence in the room, though it was something that he was trying not to remember. Odessa would be coming over soon and there couldn't be any hint of the past three weeks, so he suppressed it and ignored it. He supposed that it was just one of those things that needed to get harder before it got better, so he paid it no mind. He opened the door and sent Delilah flying through the back door after her tennis ball.
There was something about the way that Jenella looked that made Pierre glad that he wasn't going to be facing Nadia and Odessa alone. Her red hair was tied up messily in an elastic which, when she heard that Odessa and Nadia were coming, she instantly took down but did nothing about the wrinkley wave that lingered. She was wearing very little make-up, like usual, and her features were lined with that easiness that he had always admired in her. His fledgling was wearing a simple black tank top beneath a dark-purple cardigan, dark gray jeans and tall leather boots. When he had entered the house, she was sitting in the Family Room with Rachel, watching television. She had greeted Damien casually and continued staring are the flashing images with a boredness that was very characteristic of his oldest living fledgling. But when her eyes had fallen on him, she stood immediately, knowing that something was wrong. She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder with a tenderness he had once received from his wife, Janine. It was still funny and strange to him that her name was so similar to hers. "I'm fine," he said immediately, lying through his teeth.
"What happened?" She said with concern, looking to Damien as well as he closed the door after throwing the ball.
"Mr. Galvin decided to make a complete ass of himself in front of the entire immortal population of the city by knocking over half of the guests at the party in a deliberate drunken state," Damien answered casually as if he were telling her about the score of the soccer game. Jenella sighed under her breath, as if she were expecting as much. "Oh, and Odessa and Nadia are on their way for a bit of unravelling and relaxation."
"If that's what you want to call it," Pierre said with a glare at his sire and a glance down at Jenella, who looked at him finally understanding the gravity of what had happened.
He and Jenella had been lovers for a long time. He had been interested in the girl when he had first met her, the firey daughter of a inn-keeper. They had met in England, almost two hundred years ago, and she had captured him from that very night. They started as lovers, but something clicked. After about a month, he told her what he was and she became enrapt in the idea of being with him forever, if not as a lover than at least as a friend. After four months of knowing her, he had claimed her while they were still lovers. It was only a year or so afterwards that they fell into a position of friends. She was the first thing that he had actually felt akinship to after Nadia had refused him. That burning spot that was spurned by Nadia was eased by Jenella, and it still was. His fledge understood the dimension of his relationship with Odessa's daughter as well, if not better than Damien did. For that he was grateful.
But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that he needed to change his bandaging immediately, to soak it now that it had faced a Luminary's foot to the stomach - just what he needed to finish off his night.
"Come with me," he said to Jenella and squeezed her hand. She nodded and the two of them went down into the blood room in the basement, a room that Pierre was becoming used to more and more.
The steel-plated basement was a sort of vampire hospital for which he was glad existed at this moment in his immortal life.
"Lie down," Jenella said to him after he had stripped himself from the waist up. His slacks were unbuttoned and pushed down to his plough of dark blonde pubic hair, something that still made Pierre self-conscious around his former lover - especially with the inability to tell what she was thinking. Despite the pain of his kicked, burned flesh, a boyish smile found his lips as his former lover attended to him with a barely-visable smirk. There was still something simple between them still.
"It looks better, anyway," she said, pulling the bandage off of him as he groaned. The burn, which had singed some of his pubic hair and ended just below the bottom-most part of his ribcage, was a blistered, bubbling thing. The first few months after the attack, he kept dreaming that his stomach had turned to ash, and that he would have to keep brushing bits of his ashened flesh away to keep it from spreading to the rest of it. Some dreams he would watch himself turn into a pile of ash. But Jenella was right, it must have looked better than that first night, thanks to all of the blood that he had been drinking since. Never before in his immortal life did he ever not want to drink blood as much as now.
Jenella turned away from him to break out a few packets of blood to pour over him and soak a cloth in. He watched her, softly, watching her move in her methodical way. Upstairs he could hear the door opening and a couple of heeled shoes click across the tiled floor.
-
Nadia had a vehicle (a black Mercedes CL, to be precise, though she didn't care to remember that much) but she vastly preferred to take hired cars. Less work and more glamour.
But this situation hardly required glamour. Oh no, it required answers. Mostly as to why had her former paramour been left in such obvious agony after that little love tap from their dear Luminary. And hired cars weren't technically allowed to go above the speed limit, so the one Nadia and her sire took dropped them off at the secure lot where Nadia's vehicle was parked, and this was what they blitzed down the highway in, Nadia's sculptural footwear heavy on the accelerator.
Both on edge, the two women spoke little on the drive, with Odessa directing her fledgling telepathically. As they drove, Nadia's tight lips softened, and her speech became less terse, though her attention remained hyperfocused on the road before them. Though the couture piece she'd sported to the ball had been lovingly placed on the back seat, her mask was firmly back in place by the time they pulled up the drive and parked.
Only Odessa would be able to feel the nervous energy that lay taut beneath that serene exterior as they approached Damien's front door. Conversation they would have. Relaxation? Not even close.
But Oddessa had quite a bit invested here, as well. So when their host greeted them, and invited them inside, Nadia deferred to her sire – letting her have the first words. It was perhaps ill-conceived to let her mother – ruffled feathers and all – set the tone for the encounter, but Nadia wouldn't dream of denying her that. If it weren't for Odessa, she had no doubt that she wouldn't have been invited at all.
-
Rachel was grateful to spend some time with Janella while Damien was gone. For the past two weeks she had been spending as much time with Janella and Pierre as they would allow. She figured that giving Damien as much space as possible (and herself as much space as possible) would help in moving things back to the way they were. Initially, she couldn't stand being alone with him because it was so fucking awkward. She didn't explain why to either Pierre or Janella - she had just told them that she wanted to get out of the house. Something about cabin fever. Which wasn't entirely a lie, it just wasn't the whole truth. As time passed it became easier for Rachel to distract herself from her own thoughts. Well. As long as she kept herself occupied. When there was nothing else to do...well, that was another story. When Damien told her about the masquerade invitation earlier in the week, she felt some kind of early relief. She was starting to feel bad for randomly asking Pierre and Janella to hang out. Now that Damien didn't want her to be left alone, she had an excuse.
After having a few long conversations with Janella, Rachel settled into a thick book while the vampire watched television. Most of the week she had spent out of the house, so it was nice to relax with pajamas for an evening - especially since Damien wasn't around. It wasn't until Janella's cellphone rang that Rachel even thought about Damien. She figured that the party was over, which was just as well since she was getting tired. As soon as Damien told her a few things about what happened at the party, she would retreat back into her room all before Janella left. She wouldn't even have to deal with him by herself.
After the vampire got off of the phone, she turned to Rachel and explained to her that Damien was planning on having an after-party gathering here. That Pierre and Odessa and Nadia were going to be here in about a half an hour to forty-five minutes.
So much for relaxing. She didn't want to be caught this under-dressed when everyone was coming back from a masquerade ball. And she needed to shower. Fuck.
With no more than an "okay, I'm going to get ready quick", she ran upstairs into her bedroom. Rachel spent the entirety of her ten-minute shower trying to think of something decent to wear. Nothing too formal, and nothing too casual. After a quick five-minute blow-dry she slithered into a button-up blouse and fluffed out her slightly-damp hair. Nearly tripping over herself, she managed to push both of her legs into a pair of dark-wash jeans. She took her time lining her eyes with dark brown eyeliner, because she knew that she would somehow manage to poke herself in the eye if she rushed. Rachel left herself just enough time to run downstairs, catch her breath (sort of) and sit back down before the door opened to Damien and Pierre.
The irritating blush filled her cheeks. She hadn't seen what Damien looked like when he left the house. She couldn't remember ever really seeing him this dressed up. Despite being a little ruffled from driving back from the party, he looked attractive. The girl forced herself to look at Pierre instead, surprised that it was difficult for her to do. Fucking-a. She smiled and greeted them both from her seat, turning back to the television after they replied. It wasn't until she noticed the concern in Janella's features that she realized that something was wrong with Pierre. She watched the two walk out of the room and turned to Damien as he threw a tennis ball out the door for the dog.
"What happened to him?"
--
Odessa was relieved that Damien invited them all over to his house after. There was certainly no reason for them to continue here, and the ancient didn't want to leave the subject of the party untouched and merely return home. No, there was so much to talk about now. She could plainly see that Damien thought the same. She knew him well enough to recognize when he wanted to let off some steam.
Sonya was silent during the ride back to Damien's, mentally guiding her daughter with her own memory of driving to Damien's. She could sense that she was distracted and tense. It was, without a doubt, about Pierre. While the ancient stayed away from mental prying for now, she could recognize well enough what was bothering her. For now Odessa was amused, waiting to see how things would play out, how long it would take for Pierre to give up. Of course, Nadia wouldn't stoop so low as to allow herself to become consumed with him, right?
She wore a tight-lipped smile, staring complacently through the window of the passenger's-side seat. There would be time to drill her with questions later. The ancient wanted to be sure that she wasn't getting herself into something entirely unnecessary. After all, they both know what happened last time. She wouldn't put it past Pierre to attempt to propose to her daughter again.
Ha! Marriage. How absurd.
As the car pulled to a stop in Damien's driveway, Odessa pulled her mask from her face and left it on the seat. Without looking back to Nadia, the ancient strolled up to the front of the house and rapped twice - and unnecessarily - on the door.
"Well, that was some party." She commented in response to his greeting, stepping inside and feeling the house.
The first thing that caught her attention was the human girl in the next room. Her heart rate was slightly above what would be normal - most likely due to her nervous disposition. Damien had said that she was shy. She made no move to walk past the foyer, allowing Damien to lead them through and introduce them to the girl. She knew that Pierre was downstairs with his fledge, and she glanced sideways at Nadia, wondering if she had noted the same.
-
"During his drunken rampage, Kerr decided to knock down half of the guests including Pierre." Damien responded as the rap on the door sounded. His leather shoes clopped across the stone tiles and he tried to sweep the loose strands of hair back but several still escaped his mass of gelled hair. "And he ended up almost taking down Odessa and I as well." He opened the door for Odessa and Nadia, suddenly aware of what his house must have looked like to the woman who was accustomed to having maids and help and the like take care of her house. Certainly the house wasn't messy by any means, but he had Delilah and Lestat living there, and then he and Rachel.
"Good evening, ladies," he said needlessly and held the door open as they entered. "I'll say," he said with a polite smirk as Odessa entered with her comment. He gave the women a brief tour of the house, listing off the rooms as he passed them by. When he had re-entered the family room, Rachel remained standing there, Jenella and Pierre having gone into the basement already. She was freshly showered and smelled clean, that human feeling filling her face and her heart beating a bit faster than usual.
"Breathe," Damien said to her silently, hoping to calm her anxiety. He knew that he sprang the idea upon her, but he knew that she was used to his varying guests entering the house. Unfortunately, these guests would be the least tolerant of any little thing going wrong. "You look fine."
That human feeling filled his face again and he could smell her blush. He once again ignored it for the sake of his guests. "May I introduce Ms. Rachel Miller, my ward. Rachel, this is Odessa Turkevich," he said and referred to Sonya, "and her fledgling, Ms. Nadia Dominik. These two ladies are a couple of my oldest and dearest friends, and share my contempt for Mr. Kerr Galvin." He allowed the women to trade any kind of greeting they deemed appropriate, and stood right next to Rachel, whom hadn't stopped blushing from the time he walked in the door. That human feeling was too distracting at a time like this.
"Pierre, as you know, is downstairs in the blood room, being treated by his fledgling. Appearantly that strike to his stomach was worse than he thought originally." He realized only then that Nadia probably had no idea what on earth Damien was referring to.
That sense of dread had groin in him as he heard the voices above, and Jenella knew it. He became more distracted and found it harder to focus on what he needed to do. "Stop figiting, Jesus!" Jenella said as she wrapped him back up. She had soaked a gauze cloth in stocked human blood and pressed it against him. The frigid coldness of the refrigerated blood hurt him and he groaned, but it was part of the normal process. She paid no mind to it all, but kept the cloth there until his burned and blistered skin absorbed all the blood - in a couple of seconds. Afterwards, he stood painfully and she wrapped the bandage around him with alternating hands. She remained in back of him the entire time and passed the bandages. At one point, while Damien spoke upstairs, he felt Jenella's cheek rest against his shoulder blade. It caught him by surprise and he smiled, despite being in obvious pain. They stood like this for a moment before she stepped away and got him his shirt.
In silence he dressed himself and returned his clothes to their proper positions. Jenella cleaned up what remained of the blood. After she was done, he looked at her with a look that seemed to say, please don't leave. She smiled at him and suggested him back up the stairs, which he climbed with a bit of discomfort which was much more managable now that the skin had gotten some blood.
Pierre opened the door and walked into the room with everyone else, nodding his greeting to the crowd of immortals and Rachel whom all looked at him as he entered. Without much of a word, he passed right by them and went to the kitchen, where Damien kept most of the blood refrigerated. He pulled out a packet and sliced it open into a glass, downing it as he stood there.
"Would anyone care for a glass? Rachel?" He said jokingly as Jenella went and stood next to Storm.
-
Nadia trailed after her host impassively, her irritation growing with every step. She could not possibly have cared less about the layout of his dwelling, but her eyes travelled over the rooms nonetheless, playing the part as she always had. There was nothing new here; nothing even remotely of interest. "You have a lovely home," she commented when the tour was finally over. The words felt hollow, even to her.
Her eyes moved blatantly over the human girl as they were introduced. Nadia knew Damien had a habit of collecting and living with his fledges and their progeny, but she'd never known him to keep a ward – especially a human one. As the girl's cheeks flushed, Nadia's nostrils flared, taking in the scent of her blood. Clean, for her age. Maybe that's what was so attractive about her. "Lovely to meet you," said the vampire by way of greeting. She let her eyes roam over the mortal again, appraising. She resisted the urge to cup the girl's chin and look at the blushing face up close.
But then talk turned to her wounded lover, and her attention was back on Damien. Treated? Treated for what? She shot a sharp glance to her sire – for he'd spoken as if they would understand fully what was being said, and Odessa appeared to – and then focused again on their host. "Care to elaborate?" she asked mildly. A quiet anger sang hot down her bloodline.
As she spoke, the object of their conversation emerged and her eyes followed him instead. Her arms folded themselves across her chest as he passed them by. In response to his offer, she said nothing – merely regarding him with that cool, impassive gaze. He would see the questions there. Her eyes weren't so shuttered to him.
-
Pierre traded a glance with Jenella and then with Damien, before he turned back to the group, leaving his empty cup there. With the taste of the coppery cold blood sticking in the back of his throat, he responded to Nadia's question himself. "It's a long story," he tried to say in order to pass the conversation along to something else. When that didn't work, he glanced at Storm and gave a little more detail. "I was more or less attacked by some kind of demon - smoke or fire, I'm not really sure which - and uh... he ended up using a fire attack against me." He really didn't deem it necessary or appropriate for the current situation to go into too much detail about how Laurent had attacked him. He was a bit of a private person when it came to his own personal injuries and he would have preferred that no one knew anything at all, that he could just suffer in silence and be done with it. Tragically, he knew that most of the members of their circle already knew that he had been injured. For Storm's sake, he wasn't about to relive anything.
"It was two years ago and I haven't healed yet. I guess Kerr ended up landing right into my stomach." He purposely avoided looking directly at anyone, especially Nadia, for the entirety of his response. Not everyone needed to know about it and the more he felt them all looking at him, the more frustrated he became.
"Which I hear was a common occurence at the ball," he continued, swinging the conversation away from him and back into the court of everyone else. "Funny, I walked around that entire party and I didn't see anyone else as drunk as he was. It's strange how that ended up happening. Who else was taken down?"
-
Sonya watched the human girl as she changed shades at their introduction. Clearly she was uncomfortable with all of the attention. At least she had gone through the effort to clean herself up before they had arrived. She would have been quite appetizing had the ancient not fed well before the party. Smiling courteously at the girl, she nodded her head in acknowledgement but otherwise said nothing to her.
She watched Nadia as Pierre spoke, wondering - but not intruding on her - what she was thinking. The human girl was emitting quite a bit of discomfort, understandable considering the topic of conversation. She most likely had no idea who in the room knew exactly what had happened.
Odessa grimaced. "He managed to run into almost everyone, knocked over that pregnant lycan." Her laugh was short and unamused.
"And to think that this is the Luminary." She crossed her arms lightly over her chest and glanced at Damien.
-
"It was a debacle," said Nadia, keeping her eyes on Pierre even though he refused to look at her, and she could feel her sire's eyes on her, as well. Pierre was lying to her, or he wasn't telling her the whole story. Maybe it was none of her business.
Laughable. When it came to Pierre, there was nothing she couldn't make her business.
But she'd let him have his silence, for now. Anyone that knew her knew she was only putting up a pretense of having dropped the issue. "And a waste of time, if you ask me. The only people worth knowing in this city are standing in this room."
Standing, being the operative word. Taking her eyes off Pierre for the first time, Nadia cast her eyes about the room for a place to sit.
-
"I'm glad you think so," Damien answered, taking a seat in the family room and gesturing for the others to do so as well. Jenella seated herself between Damien and Rachel on the couch which there was plenty of room for another person to sit as well, but Pierre continued to stand for, Damien assumed, his own comfort. There was a loveseat and another armchair in the family room at which Nadia or Odessa could sit if they chose. "In fact, I intend to schedule a meeting with Mr. Galvin as soon as I possibly can to discuss a few topics, one of which including his behavior at the ball tonight."
It was a bold move and a decision he had been trying to make for a while now, though without the proper context and vehicle to get him there. The eyes remained on Damien for a little while, as he had not announced this to anyone - including Pierre - since he had formed the idea.
"Well what do you think you'll discuss with him?" Pierre asked with a tone of sarcasm. "How wonderful his party was and follow it up with how he should step down?"
"Not exactly, no," Damien admitted. "But something to that effect, yes. I do have various other opinions to take up with him. And based on what happened at the party, I think I now have more grounds to stake some kind of claim that he is unfit as a leader of immortals, especially now that the elder portion of the immortal population now views him as a stumbling, drunken imbecile."
-
Rachel shifted uncomfortably in her seat - the same seat she was sitting in two weeks ago when...
No, stop thinking about it.
She was instantly - perhaps noticeably more comfortable when Janella took her seat between Damien and herself. She looked down at the floor and listened silently to the conversation going on around her. She tried, in vain, to think solely about what Kerr must have been like completely drunk, but her mind insisted on going back to Damien. What he wore to the party. How great he looked. It was annoying, distracting, and made her want to leave the room and go to bed.
As soon as everyone left, right before Janella would leave, the human decided she would call it an early night. Well, maybe right as Janella was leaving. She still didn't want it to seem like she wanted nothing to do with Damien at all. After all, they were friends. Just friends. Good friends. That wasn't going to change. He had made that quite clear.
Odessa laughed from somewhere across the room, at her seat in the armchair. "I can only imagine how he would respond to that. You, trying to shame him out of his office."
Rachel was only half paying attention. She glanced at Damien briefly, waiting for his response, before looking at her feet again. It was nice to feel invisible. With the introductions finished she could finally sink into the background of conversation. That awkward girl at the party that never really said anything because she didn't have any idea what the conversation was about.
One hour. Two hours tops. Then she could go back in her room without being totally rude to the guests.
-
"And why should he not be shamed out of office?" Damien rebutted evenly. "He made a disgrace out of the Oligarchy and himself at his own function. If I were the one in office, you'd be damned sure that I would have been out there for everyone else's enjoyment instead of my own. Mr. Galvin seems to be lacking the conscience understanding that this city is not his playground!
"I have no objections to anyone doing as they please, especially within their own realms," Damien continued in is fair tone, leaning forward to address Odessa. "But with that being said, I don't think that it's such a wise decision on any politicians behalf to lose oneself for any reason in a public sphere, so soon after obtaining the highest power in office. And while the entire immortal population, who is supporting Mr. Galvin's lifestyle as Luminary, sits and watches! Not to mention what had happened to Pierre and that pregnant woman. Suppose that child is born still. What does Kerr do then, as the Luminary? Continue on in office? I should think not."
"So what is it exactly that you plan to discuss?" Pierre chipped in again, his voice more curious than pressing. "If you try to shame him out of office, like Odessa says, he'd undoubtedly laugh at you. You must have something else in mind."
"Well it isn't like I'm in a position to usurp any thrones at the moment anyway," Damien said submissively. "Not with you out of commission and--"
"I'm not 'out of commission', Damien," Pierre said a bit too sharply for his own likings. Jenelle's eyes landed on her sire and Damien gazed at his son in mid-sentence for a moment before continuing.
"And with Laurent still on the run, any political movement forward wouldn't be very wise on my end." Pierre backed down reluctantly. His bout of anger was no doubt encouraged by his pressing on an inury that reached deeper in Pierre than just the flesh. Damien knew, that especially with Nadia and Jenella in the room - together - he had struck some kind of nerve in his son. But he would not back down in the present company from any outburst made by his fledgling. "I can't afford anything until Laurent is killed off and Rachel is safe." He glanced down at Rachel, whom had been looking down at her shoes until he mentioned Laurent's name. As soon as he had looked at her, however, he wished he hadn't, that awkward protective human feeling gathering in his chest. He hoped that no one had noticed it, especially Rachel herself.
-
Arranging herself into a picture of angular, long-limbed boredom in the loveseat, Nadia listened to Damien speak of his concerns – most of which she agreed with – and his plans...to do absolutely nothing. Because of this Laurent person. And this Human child who was bowing her head so demurely on the couch.
An eyebrow quirked at his outburst, Nadia's gaze flickered to Pierre. Pierre was entirely out of commission, but she chose to leave that one alone for now. She had an inkling that his injury hadn't occurred accidentally. Obviously it was simply one part of a puzzle. Everyone else seemed to understand the larger picture, and now Nadia was the odd one out. The Fool. Another glance cast toward her sire. This one lingered. Odessa had said nothing to her about any of this. Why? "You'll have to excuse my ignorance," she said, speaking to Damien, though she kept her eyes pointedly on her sire.
"But who is Laurent?" she asked finally, bluntly, turning her eyes back on Damien. She had been gone, yes, but he was her host. He had invited her, and she was not going to sit here and pretend she knew what they were talking about. If she was going to be present, she was going to get an explanation, "And what concern is this Human's safety to you?"
-
The air between the members in the room froze up with a heaping dose of inability to believe that Nadia had, once again, opened her mouth to respond as rudely as she could think of. Pierre's teeth grit together as he glanced at Rachel, whom looked only as if she wanted to disappear into the couch cushions and never be found again, and the at his sire, who was also looking a bit dumbfounded at Nadia. It was a few seconds of processing before anyone decided to speak.
"Laurent Craiton is the smoke demon I mentioned earlier," Pierre responded as evenly as he could. "He's been... pursuing Rachel here for more than two years. Damien has been keeping her safe. She's been our favorite little human since she was found us. Isn't that right, Rachel?"
He smelled the girl blush, as if any mention of her presence in the room was taboo. At the same moment, he felt the eyes of his sire bearing into him in a sort of glare yet when he looked, Damien was in a silent conversation with someone else in the room - presumedly Odessa - and his face was stoney again.
"Everything else about the situation is, unfortunately, on a need-to-know basis," Jenella said coolly as she gazed at Nadia, something he had been afraid of from the get-go of Damien's brilliant plan to gather them all here. It was the very first time that Jenella had ever come face-to-face with Nadia - another thing he had hoped he would never have to experience - and he had been afraid of this exact situation. Jenella had heard every last complaint about Nadia that Pierre had had with her over the span of her mere two hundred years, and very few of the good things. Now they were face to face, and Nadia had no idea who Jenella was, besides his fledgling. Jenella's protective nature of those she cared about sometimes overruled her ability to logically deal with situations and while it waspart of the reason that he loved her, it was like a match in a gas can in this exact context - especially with Odessa and Nadia sitting next to each other, across from them. Any spark now was just plain suicide. He was just hoping that Jenella was smart enough to leave the flint downstairs in the blood room. He found himself wishing he had the ability to tell her this without using words, but of course he was the only person in the room without the ability to communicate telepathically. Great.
"Laurent is still alive and presumably in the city," Damien cut in. "We haven't been able to find his whereabouts in two years. So for the time being, we're lying low while Pierre heals and Rachel is with us."
-
The comment Nadia made did not surprise Odessa nearly as much as the others in the room, but she did wish that she had not brought it up. Odessa had not gone out of her way to avoid telling Nadia everything, she merely hadn't told her. Besides, it had nothing to do with her. Frankly, she didn't think Nadia would care much about this situation - aside from how it affected Pierre anyway.
She turned to Damien as he mentally addressed her, comfortably maintaining eye contact with him while he requested that she not explain anything to Nadia. That it was on a need-to-know basis and that it should be discussed no further with Rachel in the room. Odessa nodded and switched her mental attention to her daughter before Janella could interject.
"Nothing personal, darling. It was not my information to disclose." She stared steadily at Nadia, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. "And Damien wishes that we avoid such touchy topics around the girl." She rolled her eyes, resting them finally on the girl sinking into the couch.
-
Great. just fucking great.
The last thing, the very last thing that Rachel wanted to deal with in this exact moment was anyone else asking about her, talking about her like she wasn't in the room. Her face felt hotter than before and she willed herself to vanish into the couch cushions. The human could scarcely hear what was going on in the room over the thumping pulse in her ears. Now she really wanted to go to bed. Whether or not she was being rude.
She peered at Damien, as if to silently ask him if she could leave the room, but he was staring steadily at Sonya.
What the fuck.
-
Either oblivious or impervious to the eyes on her, Nadia returned her sire's eye roll in kind and all was forgiven, there. Such a tight-lipped crowd. Why invite her if they were going to exclude her? Whatever. Their business was their business, and if they thought there was something worth injuring themselves over in this Human, then let them have at it.
Passing over the girl on the couch, her gaze lingered on Jenella, Pierre's fledgling, who had spoken to her in that clipped tone. Prickly, that one. The scent of plasticine blood and her lover all over that porcelain skin. There was obviously something between them. "Fair enough," she said, with a shrug of one shoulder. Reaching up, she removed a few bobby pins from her hair to let her shining auburn curls loose from their updo, and shook her head.
"But if your girl ever gets tired of playing nursemaid, I'd suggest you see the witch on Belleview, up in the old hotel," She commented, her eyes cutting from Jenella to Pierre, "She's quite well known in...certain circles."
If the redhead was looking for flint, she could find it in Nadia's half-lidded eyes. But there was something else there. Something perhaps best left buried. The vampire looked down at her hands, folded in her lace-covered lap.
-
Damien could feel the waves of discomfort radiating from her like the heat from her blush. He frowned and half wished that he had told her to go upstairs as soon as he had arrived back home. Now, with Pierre making her presence more known with his ridiculous flirtation attempts at lightening the mood, he ws very much aware of Rachel's position on the end of the couch.
He was about to mentally tell her so when Nadia had made yet another comment that put Jenella on the edge of her seat. Damien received another full-fledged wave of discomfort - this one leaning more towards rage at Pierre's old fling - from the vampire sitting next to him. He supposed that there was some secret woman-linguistics being passed between the two, seeing as Nadia was taking her hair down piece by piece her comment towards Jenella. He supposed that the best thing he could do for now was to keep ahold of Jenella before this ended up turning into a situation as filled with drama as the ball had been. Then he'd be right back to where he started. He was about to calm Jenella down when he realized that Nadia might actually be saying something actually important.
"What do you mean, the witch? What would a witch do for a vampire?" If he was guessing correctly he had heard about witch healers before, a very long time ago. Lucretia had told him about the rumors of a witch healer who could make the healing process go faster. Rumors, she said, because she had never come into contact with one in all of her long years, and that every culture - even immortal ones - needed some sense of false hopes to base their safety upon.
The nursemaid comment made his blood boil with anger, anger which he could feel up his bloodline. His gaze remained coldly on Nadia as she spoke, silently communicating his displeasure in what she was saying to his blood. His fledglings were his children, and just like a father would get angry at another parent, so he was at Nadia for trying to offend Jenella. He hadn't really listened to what she was saying after she had gone after his fledge, only watching their silent paths of communication that he had never understood, even as a mortal. He found himself wishing that he and Nadia shared a common language that Odessa and Damien couldn't understand, so he could tell her exactly what was on his mind.
The fact remained that Jenella had always been there with him, from the beginning of her after life. They may not have been in love, but there was a bond there stronger than most that he shared with his fledglings and that bond had been the only one to near the intensity in which he shared with his own sire. They never kept any secrets from each other, him and Jenella, and the things that went unspoken did not go misunderstood. Any attack on the red-head had always been an attack on him and vise versa. And last time he checked, it was Jenella who had been there to get him out of the fight with Laurent, possibly saving his life. It was Jenella who changed his bandages and did the best she could with him. It was Jenella who loved him. Not Nadia.
So he hadn't held back his small hiss when her comment was slung through the air. He ignored her obvious attempts at manipulation purposely, glaring at her with hard blue eyes as she took down her hair. While his reaction was hardly audible, no one watching would mistake who it was for. Certainly not Nadia.
-
Shifting her hair over one shoulder, Nadia shrugged again – ignoring Pierre's hard stare, the sound he made, and the anger emanating from his fledgling for now as she spoke to Damien, who was actually listening to her, "Whatever they need, If the rumors are true," she told him, "For a price."
Only now did she meet that sharp-edged stare from her former lover, her brown eyes trained on his. She didn't have to be a vampire to feel the outrage he was projecting toward her.
"Because you are out of commission, Pierre. You'll be helping no one, the state you're in." Wounded pride or not, he had to know she spoke the truth. Being buffeted by a drunken vampire at least two hundred years his junior had sent him sprawling to the floor, writhing in agony. And, as much as she hated to admit it, seeing him hurt so had caused an uncomfortable twinging in the pit of her belly.
-
There came from Pierre an indignant huff that bordered a grunt, but little else. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as if his mild discomfort was quickly turning into something sharp. Damien understood it, of course, but the action didn't make him heal any faster and neither did his blatant lack of regard for what Nadia had said. And at this point, he was willing to examine anything that would get Pierre back to functioning level.
"She's right, Pierre," Damien agreed, calling his attention away from her. "You need to be as strong as you once were before we move forward with anything. It's something we can look into - "
"I know that," his fledgling snapped back. "I just don't feel like everyone sitting around discussing my injury for me is very productive in any sense!" Despite his anger, Pierre had agreed in one way or another to what both he and Nadia were saying. Damien let it rest there for now and turned back to Nadia.
"So I assume you've never actually been there yourself?" Damien asked and thought, acknowledging anything that she may have said. "I'm just not sure if I trust a witch to heal a vampire burn. It seems... risky to me. I'll have to have someone look into it."
There was another huff from Pierre, who atthis point, turned and left the room, down the corridor, and out the front door. Neither Damien nor Jenella made any attempt to stop him, though the latter finally took her eyes out of her scowl aimed at Nadia and turned her gaze to follow Pierre out the door. After the door closed, he almost appologized for his rash behavior, but then he realized that they had all dealt with Pierre before and they all knew that this wasn't a very typical situation. He had never stormed out of an arguement in his entire immortal life. Damien sighed audibly. This night was beginning to make him feel like a babysitter - first Kerr and now Pierre. These young ones were too taxing sometimes.
-
It was nice to have the attention off of her for the moment, even if it was on Pierre. She felt bad for him, even though she didn't understand what the hell was going on. Rachel thought that Sonya was supposed to be the arrogant one. What was up with this Nadia chick and why was she being such a bitch and why was Pierre taking it so hard?
She shot Damien a questioning glance, but otherwise said nothing.
"Yes, well, where were we?" When Sonya spoke, Rachel moved her gaze to her, and then back to Damien.
Really, now, how much longer were they going to stay? Some part of her hoped that Pierre and Nadia would go at it bad enough to make this after party end prematurely.
Please, please, please...
-
It took some effort for Nadia to remain seated as Pierre stormed out, but she managed it, following him only with her eyes. Her lips tightened, showing her displeasure. He was acting like a child. He had been all night. But still, she wasn't saying what she said to hurt him, even though he seemed to be taking her comments as blows to his ego. Hadn't he been the one who'd lashed out at her, earlier?
She snorted, and shook her head in answer to Damien's question, "No, I've never had reason to. But it's worth looking into."
She raised a brow at Odessa, "Where were we when? Before you all shushed me, we were talking about Kerr being a bumbling idiot unfit for a position in management at a fast food restaurant, much less the supernatural population of a major city." She sat up straighter, and leaned forward slightly.
-
If it had been his own house, he would have slammed the door behind him. Fuck, if had been his own house, he would have shoved Nadia and her cunt of a sire out the door and then slammed the door in their faces. Yet even as he pulled out a cigarette to smoke, he knew that that wasn't at all true. If he had had his way, he would have pulled Nadia outside with him and told her what he had been trying to tell her all night.
Just before he had been so rudely toppled at the ball, he had been trying to find some time to be alone with Nadia to talk with her. Not to offend her, or criticize her, or even say anything about her fucking job which she had just blurted out in front of Damien, the only abstinent vampire in the entire fucking city, and probably the world. He had wanted a moment alone with her to apologize for being an asshole to her, to see how she was doing. When he had first seen her tonight, it was the first time in a long time he had seen her - nearly a hundred years or more. It was such a complete and utter surprise that he had every sort of emotion possible, and all of his old feelings that somehow she had managed to not only rekindle but set ablaze; the anger as well as the pleasure. He had imagined the night going on much differently than it had, with the two of them escaping from Odessa's mighty net of knowledge and Damien's over-watchful eye. He hadn't expected anything from her, only the hopes to catch up and trade numbers so that he could call upon her like he used to. He didn't nessecarily want to start fresh with her, but more to pick up where they had put everything down. While he had toyed around (and greatly enjoyed) the idea of a tryst with her, he had no intentions of starting anything again.
She had refused him once already and while he may have been a sucker, he wasn't an idiot. What hurt more than anything else was that look in her eyes that suggested things that had been, like she had been thinking about the same night they shared almost everything with each other, the same as he was. It was a look that pulled at something deep inside his gut that made him think that there was something else there besides the raw want for flesh. It was that look he hated and he both wanted to see every night of his eternity or he wanted to blind himself for so he would never have to see it in her again. But the worst part was that he wasn't sure if it was an illusion - his mind making him see what he wanted to see and not what was really there. He would only play a fool for her once, and he wasn't about to go rushing back to her on one knee and spill everything that he held back for the past few hundred years.
It was too ironic to him that as much as he had chastized Damien for still clinging to Lucretia after she had died, he was still stuck on Nadia in very much the same way. And the more she played with that, the more he hated her for it.
Scathing bitch.
The door clicked open behind him and out came his favorite red-head with a salty expression on her soft face. She ran her long fingers over his back as she came around him. By instinct he pulled her into his chest and clutched onto her, loving her. The pain in his stomach was so minute to him now and Jenella, who was there to comfort him, moved to avoid his pain instinctually. He let his cigarette burn in one hand as he held Jenella close to him, hating himself as he wished she was someone else.
He hadn't stopped Jenella as she left himself and Rachel - sitting on the same couch, he suddenly became aware of - to face Odessa and Nadia by themselves. There was an odd prickle in his skin, like he was very suddenly uncomfortable with the knowledge that Rachel was in the room. Her brown eyes were made-up and her clothes looked nice on her, despite her flowing awkward feeling. He couldn't blame her. If he didn't state it now, he might not get the chance to tell her again.
"Rachel," he said silently, caressing gently against her mind so as not to frighten her, but he assumed that the bushing response had been triggered by him nonetheless. "You can go upstairs if you'd like. I don't want you feeling uncomfortable in your own home." His eyes remained off of her and on the 'polite' conversation of the moment. All he could focus on was how he found a bit of satisfaction in Nadia's tight expression, though he couldn't figure out percisely why.
"Ah yes, I remember now. Odessa was nearly sent sprawling as well. Had Kerr been any older, he may have succeeded in knocking Odessa over! I know that I almost went for a tumble."
-
"I have to go feed Lestat anyway." She thought back to him, and cleared her throat.
"Excuse me," Rachel stood, smiling politely at both Nadia and Odessa before walking out of the room. None of this conversation applied to her. No one was even acknowledging that she was even in the room. And after Janella left the room, she sure as hell didn't want to sit awkwardly next to Damien on the couch.
That same couch....
Stop thinking about it.
She found herself in the kitchen and Lestat trotted over to her feet, mewing softly while she rummaged through the refrigerator. How long have they been here? Has it even been fifteen minutes? Ugh.
-
"I wish I could have said something to him," she sighed audibly through her nose.
"Honestly that was the last thing I would have expected to happen at that party." She laughed emptily. Mostly her mind was on the tension that had settled so heavily between Nadia and Pierre. Interesting. So very interesting.
-
She watched the Human leave, seeming almost startled that she'd spoken. She'd very nearly forgotten that the girl was there. Nadia did not say goodbye.
"What would that have accomplished?" mused Nadia, glad for the change of conversation. "'Oh, Mister Galvin, you complete moron, I see you're well and truly smashed. Lovely party, thank you so much for the invitation!'" She scoffed.
Even so, her heart wasn't in her words. Her mind was outside, with Pierre and the redheaded childe. Pressed chest to chest, his hand on the small of her back –
Her lips went tight again.
We should go she sent to her sire. Suddenly, this house felt stifling, with the weight of its secrets; things she wasn't allowed to want.
-
"Don't do that to me, Pierre." Jenella murmured against his chest and pulled herself away to look at him with a warning. The look in her eyes told him that she knew that he had done, and Pierre felt even more guilty about it. The woman sighed at him and stepped away from him angrily. "I don't deserve that."
"Jenella," he started, reaching back towards her in appology, but she took his hand to stop him.
"No," she said to him, and dropped his hand politely, like she was calmly soothing a child's tears. "Not when I've been here and she hasn't." She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, deeply inured.
He paused and didn't respond for several seconds. At first he felt angry again, hating the idea that even Jenella, his Jenella, had turned on him and was spurning him now. But the more he thought about it and waited before reacting, the more he realized that she was right. Pierre sighed and took a drag from his cigarette to prevent himself from saying anything stupid. It was a long moment before he could even respond to anything she had just said. But before he had the time to do anything about it, she responded again.
"Look," she said with a sigh, not connecting her gaze with his, though he didn't really feel bad about staring at her. "You don't need me here. You know what you need to do and I'm just in the way at the moment. Plus I'm not sure if I can take one more of her comments and still be respectful of Damien."
"Jenella," he said, trying to convince her not to do something she had already made up her mind to do. It dawned on him then that she hadn't come outside to comfort him, but to tell him that she was leaving him. "Why are you leaving me?"
"I'm not leaving you, I'm going home. I was here for Storm and now Damien's back. I'm going," she said softly to him. "You'll be fine. Call me tomorrow." She approached him and squeezed his hand and finally looked him in the eyes. She then turned away from him and went back inside. A few moments later, he heard her saying her goodbyes, and came back out, looked at him and walked to her car alone.
Pierre finished his cigarette and went inside.
-
Rachel came out of the kitchen just as Janella was saying goodbye to everyone else. She walked Janella to the door herself and gave the vampire a hug before she left. She couldn't hide her disapointment. Her original plan was definitly out now. She definitly was not going to sit out there with them now, waiting until they were finished. Rachel stood in the foyer for a little while, watching Janella drive away and trying to decide what to do. It would be easy now to escape to her room, with everyone in the family room and out of the direct line of sight.
That was it then.
Without saying anything to anyone she climbed the stairs as quietly as she could manage. The cat, of course, came bounding into her room after her, so she left the door open and settled onto her bed with a book.
Finally. Privacy.
-
Odessa nodded politely to Janella's farewell and waited until the woman had left before looking to Nadia. Now things would be interesting. She wondered how long it would take for Pierre to take Nadia aside to speak with her privately.
It was all too predictable.
Do you still wish to leave? The ancient sent back, just as Pierre was coming in from smoking his cigarette. She glanced back at Nadia.
"I doubt that he would have been sober enough to realize who he was talking to anyway." She leaned forward in her seat, picking up on the conversation from where they left off. She shot a glance at Damien, as if to suggest that he change the subject to something more engaging. Something that included just the two of them and nothing necessarily involving Nadia.
-
Likewise, Nadia was polite enough to return the fledgling's farewell with a curt nod of her own. She watched the Human leave as well, and caught her sire looking at her. Returning the glance, she raised a sculpted brow.
Why wouldn't I? she returned, eyes darting from her sire to the returning Pierre. But then Odessa was talking to Damien, turning herself toward him, shutting her fledgling out with her body language. Obviously she was out to force Nadia into some sort of interaction with Pierre, knowing her daughter was too polite (and, perhaps, dependent) to leave without her.
She could smell the redhead on Pierre, under the scent of new cigarette smoke and old, packaged blood. As if to force the scent from her nose she snorted, and looked down at her perfectly manicured fingernails. Fine. But if Odessa wanted to shut her down, she was going to have to work harder than that.
"Or overcome. It seemed like he was having some issues with the age of the crowd." It was a guess, but an educated one. Nadia herself had been experiencing some unpleasantness in that respect, though she avoided pointing that out.
-
"It would make sense; there were a lot of immortals there older than he was," Pierre offered as he reapproached the group, standing between Nadia and Damien, though he was a bit farther from one than the other. "Even I was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by it." The room was suddenly much emptier than when he had left and the present company reminded him of the nights in Paris that he didn't want to think about. Unwillingly his eyes strayed to Nadia and then back at the conversation on hand, matching both Damien and Odessa's gaze. But when he looked at Odessa he could feel something smug about her gaze, like she knew she was winning some private little game at his expense.
Fucking bitch, he thought loudly to himself, finding great amusement in her inability to pick his brain. "Kerr's more than two hundred years younger than I am, and I'm the youngest out of all of us. Just our presense must have made him nervous, what with Damien trying to take over the city and all. There were dozens of vampires there, most of which were older than me. There were even some who were older than you, Odessa."
He assumed he would feel angry at himself once he started thinking again about why Jenella had left. He assumed also that he would just want to retire to the spare bedroom upstairs - which was no doubt Damien's intention. His limbs felt heavy and his shoulders felt stiff. He couldn't sit down without pain so he wanted to lay down, regardless of how early it was, and just sleep away the numbing pain of his stomach, the sticking feeling in his heart and chest, and that lump in his throat whenever he became aware of Nadia in the room. As they spoke, he wanted to escape more and just hide upstairs like Rachel and think about things that didn't concern him and his past, or his burn, or his heart, or any of the other stupid things that this party seemed to focus on that wasn't their business. But he stayed nonetheless, feeling that it was his duty not to throw Damien to the lionesses in the room and hoping against his better intentions that he'd be able to approach Nadia and speak with her alone.
-
We have not been here for more than ten minutes. It would be rude to Damien to leave so soon. Not an obvious no, but Odessa had made up her mind for now. It would be extremely unlike her to leave so soon before having any lengthy discussion on the evening. Even if it was just gossip.
"Still, that isn't any reason for him to act like a complete imbecile." She smiled, shaking her head in some imitation of pity - though she felt none whatsoever. Kerr chose to drink himself to oblivion instead of find some other way to deal with the pressure of ancients. He should have prepared himself for it. It was idiotic for him not to. Of course there were vampires older than Odessa, she was not going to deny that. However, she had no trouble mingling in the same room. Granted, the age difference was more significant between Kerr and the others compared to Odessa and those even older than her - and she was well accustomed to older immortals. But making himself piss-drunk?
"He should have been more prepared to deal with it. Surely he knew who was attending his own party, no?" She maintained eye contact with Damien.
Come to think of it, Kerr hardly greeted half of the important individuals there, including herself. Being the host (well, essentially anyway) of the party this was plain neglect. Out of all the parties she had attended, Odessa could not recall a single one where the host neglected to greet each important person individually - piss drunk or not.
-
Nadia sniffed. Typical. Her sire was a capricious creature. The younger woman's pride shuddered at the idea of carrying on a conversation with her sire's profile. The other woman wasn't going to engage her unless she said something shocking, and Nadia was tired of those games. For this evening at least.
Since Odessa had fixed her eyes on their host like a lamprey, Nadia had no choice but to turn her gaze on her old lover. Better to get it over; rip out the sutures. The wounds should have healed by now, anyway.
"Maybe he's gotten cocky. He feels safe." She wound a curl around her finger, "Like nothing can harm him in his own house." She shook her head, "But there's no such thing as safety, is there? Not really. Not for us."
-
"Not really," Damien responded evenly. Nadia was right and the reminder remained standing between him and the woman who had brought about the understanding. When Damien looked over at her, however, he saw her and his fledgling locked in a gaze that instantly made him assume they were in a long mental conversation, communicating silently. If Pierre were anyone else, he would have guessed that this was the case. But just as quickly as he had noticed it, the connection, the rhythm of of their conversation had ended, and Pierre had looked back at him. There was a sort of look in him that he had seen plenty of times before - one that said he was anxious for something, something to do with Nadia.
"And I'm sure that after tonight that opinion of himself and his invincibility will change." Damien looked back at Odessa, at whom the statement was expressed. He had a minute smirk on his face that he felt guilty for having once he looked back at Odessa for her response. It was then that he became suddenly aware of the turning of pages upstairs in the room of the human.
He had heard what she had said and something about her words and her tone made him look at her again. Once he did, he had noticed that her eyes were on him and her fingers in her hair. A moment had passed between them with their eyes upon each other. Pierre found for the first time that night that he didn't need to have anyone get into his brain to have things rekindled that he hadn't wanted to be rekindled, but he was nonetheless comforted by the heat. The conversation that went unspoken between them started in the pit of his stomach beneath his charred flesh and moved upwards in his body, gathering in his lungs and heart before moving into the back of his throat. Damien's comments almost caught him off guard and there was a significant pause before he looked away and responded.
"One can only hope." He said rather dreamily before reacting with a stronger, more convincing tone. "But with Kerr out of office and off his throne, I think that his invincibility will catch up with him that much quicker. I personally feel like his days are numbered now. The majority of the important immortal population, the population that would much ratehr see Damien in office than Kerr now view Kerr as we do!"
Damien scoffed, taking his eyes off the ceiling. "I wouldn't go that far, Pierre. Half of the city has no idea I even exist. And at the moment, that's what I want."
"I say, as soon as you see an opening," Pierre said, shifting his weight with a touch of impatience, "take it. You might not get another one soon."
-
They were wired, the two of them, mind to mind. Heart to unbeating heart. Nadia sniffed, and dropped her eyes when Pierre did, unable to bear the weight of watching him. The normally placid lake of her mind was a maelstrom. "I think you're getting ahead of yourself," Nadia responded to Pierre's words, though the sentiment was hollow, "He may be replaced from inside. It's not as though they're going to hold elections if he steps down." She shook her head, "And what would you have Damien do? Stage a coup on the Oligarchy? It's suicide."
-
If it wouldn't have hurt so badly, Pierre would have laughed. "Don't be so dramatic," he said to Nadia in response. "We would never stage any kind of mutiny, even if the Mimic demons weren't under the control of the Oligarchy. That's just not our style."
"I think Nadia's right, Pierre," Damien said. "Either Vomas or McCloud would more likely become the Luminary over anyone else, well before I even apply for the position." There was a brief bit of laughter from the elder vampire. "He'd be a complete fool to elect McCloud above Vomas. At least Vomas is a little older than McCloud, hopefully a bit more serious about his position too."
"Don't get me wrong," Pierre said in response, "I'm not expecting that anything is going to change overnight. I'm not expecting that they're going to call up Damien and offer him a job in government. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they were afraid of us, and a coup is just what they're expecting." Damien's notoriety had been getting rather big within the city over the past few years - since they had found Rachel. While they weren't important enough, thankfully, to be abducted from the mimic demons and questioned by the Luminary for heresy and sedition, neither he nor Damien were stupid enough to think that he was escaping their radar. If they had been, they would have never gotten an invitation to the Masquerade in the first place.
"I just bet there's a nice fat little file with all of our names in it sitting in Kerr's filing cabinet. So what I'm saying is, if Mr. Galvin does decide to step out of office, you better be sure that you look into getting your foot in the door."
Damien sighed under his breath. He could remember a couple hours ago when he was dancing with Odessa, thinking of nothing but the steps of a dance that he had long since walked. It was probably the most comfortable part of the evening for him so far, though he hoped that the rest of the night wouldn't be as jarring and uncomfortable as the Masquerade had been. So far, his wish didn't seem as if it were going to be granted. Not with the awkward tension still existing between himself and Rachel, the awful attempt at civility within the current group, the worrying over Pierre's safety and wound, and of course the ever-tumultuous relationship that existed - and he feared, always would exist - between the young ex-lovers in the room. Not all of a sudden, it became too much for him to deal with calmly.
A short moment of silence had passed between the company, Pierre refusing to acknowledge Nadia's bothersome presence and Nadia acting just as she was always trained to by her sire. Damien was not so much upset by the pair as he was annoyed by their constant game-playing, each party as guilty as the other. It had been a long time since he had stopped telling Pierre what to do with the angry pieces of his broken heart that he didn't show anyone but himself and Jenella. Jean-Luc was a womanizer and he assumed that this was part of the unconscious treatment that Damien had always enforced as punishment. And yet as soon as he had felt annoyed by his son, he felt a pang of guilt because of it, though not enough to prevent him from standing and inviting Odessa - and Odessa alone - outside with him to take a better tour of the property. As he extended his hand to her and the queen took it, the suppressed look of anger in Pierre's eyes told him that his subtley was less than he expected it to be. What Damien couldn't express was that the lover's quarrel between them was only a piece of the mental stress puzzle.
-
If subtlety was what Damien was aiming for with his gesture, he was failing hideously. This crowd knew subtle, and this ploy to force Nadia and Pierre into an interaction was anything but. To what end? She had to wonder. So that they could work out their differences? The idea was laughable. At this point, their differences were completely indistinguishable from their similarities.
And Nadia wore an expression similar to Pierre's as she watched Damien escort her sire from the room. She'd expect this of Odessa, but Damien could usually be counted on to keep things civil. And Nadia seriously doubted her ability to remain civil toward her ex-love if he continued to act as he had at the masque.
She kept her eyes on the departing pair, and continued to stare in that direction even after they'd gone. Thoughtfully, after a long pause, she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and shifted on the couch, looking toward Pierre. Better to rip off the bandage than let the wound fester.
"So," she said finally, "Do we think we can be alone together without bickering like children? Or is that where we are now?"
-
The temptation to snicker at her comment was almost too strong to resist. His ability to do so should have won him a gold medal of achievement and a large sum of money. Alas, his strength went unrecognized as he controlled himself enough to dig down to the deepest part of her statement and grasp her meaning despite the bitchy sarcasm. As far as he was concerned, the only wounds that seemed to ever need bandaging were his and he was getting pretty sick of it.
"That all depends," Pierre began with an icy tone, his hard expression now landing upon Nadia, "on whether or not you’d like to put your foot in your goddamn mouth again." If she had said anything in retort to him, he either ignored it or gave her a poisonous look. It took him several more moments to remind himself that what she was saying was (more or less) what he was wondering as well. When he had been toppled by Kerr, he wasn’t making his way over to her to start a war all over again, but rather to call a peace to it all. He had been an asshole, embarrassing (or at least trying to) her like that and it wasn’t something that made him feel like a champion. He had come to talk to her. Now, that they were standing in front of each other, forced by both of their sires to come face to face, he felt that same feeling arise that had made him drift through the Masquerade after her.
After a moment of collection he said, “Look, I’m not trying to start anything. I don’t want anything out of this.” His words felt messy and he began to feel impatient with himself, something she was notorious for making him feel when he was angry at her. “Before Kerr took me down at the Ball, I was... coming over to say I was sorry. I'm sorry, ok?" He didn't know what he was expecting her to say, but something about verbalizing it made him feel better. Even if she did laugh in his face.
-
The corners of her mouth pinched downward slightly at the insult and she shook her head, disappointed. No, apparently they couldn't.
Because he was trying to start something. Otherwise why would he have done anything other than apologize? "Sorry for what? For embarassing me -- and yourself -- at the party, for no valid reason? Or for bringing it up and picking at me about it just now?" The reply was scathing, but seemed somehow automatic; like default response someone had programmed into a computer. She gave another head shake, this one impatient, and closed her eyes.
No. She was doing it wrong.
"It doesn't matter," she said, "never mind. It's...fine." And this, somehow, seemed much more difficult for her to say. Pierre knew well that forgiveness was not one of her strong suits.
-
He blew air out of his mouth in a very human-esque sigh, his lips humming quietly, unable to figure out what to say to her now that she had seemingly given up on the argument. He feared that anything that he said now would be greeted with a tight-lipped agreeing tone. One word answers. It was then that he realized that once again he had put his foot into his mouth - him, not Nadia.
Moments passed before he had even thought of anything to say. He could hear Damien talking to Sonya at the edge of his property about something that sounded nostalgic. He could hear Rachel up in her room flipping pages, the cat purring in its bed. Pierre looked at Nadia, who remained sitting with her eyes closed against him. He found himself wishing, just as he had wished centuries before, that his image was burned into the inside of her eyelids just as hers was on his. That same tension that had filled his chest when he had first seen her after she had refused his proposal filled him again in memory and made him angry. At least his eyes were kept open – at least he wasn’t running.
“Look,” he said finally, breaking the air with his Italian that sounded slightly out of place in his opinion, “I wasn’t expecting to see you there tonight. Nobody had told me that you were planning on going… So I was caught by surprise.” It was only part of what was wrong, why he acted like he did. Had she came to him and him alone wearing the dress she did, the dress she wore in front of him now, he would have found it beautiful and enticing. He would have taken her image as some sort of signal for desire. But this was something she wore for the public eye, for every immortal to see. It had angered him even though he knew it shouldn’t have, even though she wasn’t his woman and probably never would be again. Her outfit had almost made him want to turn right around and leave, to pretend that he had no idea who she was and that he hadn’t even seen her. But he kept this part of himself quiet and admired her frame in the dress as she kept her eyes closed.
“Parlez á moi,” He said without actually meaning to, his French breaking through the air between them almost inaudibly. He let his blue eyes linger on her hard face.
-
Pierre could never just leave it be. He'd apologized, and she'd said it was fine, and that should've been that. Nadia didn't need his excuses; especially not the pathetic one he offered. Her nostrils flared in annoyance, "Neither did I," she pointed out, in English "You should learn to handle surprises better." she said, voice terse. Maybe that's how he got hurt. If he let the presence of an old lover get the jump on him so badly, she hated to think how he'd react to a real ambush.
It surprised her that she really did hate to think of it.
Her eyes fluttered open as he slipped ever-so-quietly into his native tongue, and she looked up at him, straight into those ice-colored eyes. One corner of her lips quirked upward, her expression softening. Devil. "And what would you have me speak of, mon petit chouchou?"
-
Had he been human, his pale cheeks and ears would have felt hot at her playful use of his language, even if her playfulness did make him feel as if he were four again. They both knew full well that if Sonya or Damien felt like listening in, they could hear her. As it was, Pierre just continued smirking with a little more ease.
"Tell me about how you are honestly doing. Besides the simple one-word answers you give Damien and Odessa." He sat down near her on one piece of furniture adjacent to her, carefully and with a bit more pain than he was ready to choke down. His expression faltered for only a moment and he was hoping Nadia wouldn't have noticed - though knowing her she very well may have. "Talk to me about how you like the city. You've only been here for, what? Three years?"
-
She watched him as he sat, eyes impassive. The flicker of pain was noted, of course. He was hurt worse than he was letting on. But her half-smile stayed in place, betraying nothing of her desire to comfort him; hold him and help him –
dig her nails into the wound and twist –
as if he were a child.
She even laughed a bit – a small, breathy sound – body shifting toward Pierre as she spoke, "I'm doing...well, I suppose." A shrug of her slim shoulders, "Mostly here, for the past three years. I've been travelling quite a bit as well, for work." She mentioned her job idly now, as if it hadn't caused anything just hours before, "But I still haven't decided whether I like living around so many of us. On one hand, there's more to talk about, more to do. On the other...there's a lot of power, here, and that bodes ill."
-
He squeezed his tongue between his teeth with enough pressure to prevent himself from reacting when she off-handedly mentioned her job. Pierre didn't think what she was doing could have been so easily dissmissed as she had made it seem - he couldn't think about it with the same nonchalance as she could, he was happy to say. Alas, that had been a conversation they had already had many months ago, one that ended with Pierre walking away in a rage and Nadia facing him with an indifferent shrug and an aggravating little smirk. He never understood why she had gone into the line of work that she had, and he left her apartment that day assuming that he never would. At least now it was less of a shock and more of a general discomfort for the Frenchman. Conversing with her about her fetish modeling was something he could only do on a stomach full of blood and chilly indifference towards her. Tonight was not that night, so he was thankful when her glossing over of her profession was just that and not a discussion of her job.
There was a tiny tug inside his chest upon her mention of her lack of enjoyment at remaining in the city. Not that it mattered. He simply hoped that a good friend wouldn't be leaving so soon after her arrival. Pierre sat for a moment, contemplating her words. At first he was tempted to agree with her, but a small eddy of panice in his gut told him that he shouldn't just blindly agree with her displeasure in the city.
Instead, Pierre grunted with a touch of laughter that sounded to him less secure than he intended and he hoped his partner wouldn't notice. "There's a lot of pseudopolitics, here. A lot of little old men trapped in young bodies thinking the world is for them to rule and too many of them are much younger than either of us. There is an illusion of power, sure, but nothing that can't be handled if push comes to shove.
"Besides," he continued, "This is the only place that we've found in America that has this level of inter-species protection. Elsewhere, humans are still burning vampires at the stake when they find them."
-
"Any vampire stupid enough to be subdued by a mob of angry humans deserves to be burned," Nadia's voice was hard as her nails tapped on the tempered vinyl of her handbag.
The taping ceased abruptly, however, as her eyes flicked to her former love's abdomen – travelling up his chest before resting back on his face.
"Apparently it's not them we need protection from, though, is it?"
If he thought for one second that she was going to leave that alone, he was a damn fool.
-
Her comment grated against him - he had lost too many of his fledglings and siblings the day that Lucretia was burned at the stake. He said nothing of this, of course, but made a slightly awkward shift, knowing that she wasn't trying to direct any comment towards the past - or at least he would continue to think. While the subject of his lost fledglings wasn't a particularly sensitive one as it was with Damien, Pierre still had no desire to have anyone make any assumptions about the day when he had almost died as well. Instead he noticed her glance and her tone and steered the subject of the conversation the way that she obviously wanted it to go.
Why couldn't anyone just leave his god-damn burn alone?
Pierre sighed, giving into her demand. "No, it's not. Tell me more about this healer you were talking about? I was under the impression that the onthing that could effect a vampire's healing was blood and time. Are you saying that you think there's a way for me to get over this faster? Damien won't let me do a damn thing now, and he's hopeless without me.
"Besides," he added with a touch of dry humor, "it'd be really nice to be able to sit next to you without having to be in so much pain." He smiled at Nadia.
-
Nadia shrugged for perhaps the thousandth time that evening. "I don't know much about her, or what she does. Just that she helps those that need it. Or...something." She waved a dismissive hand, "She does magic. She can mark our skin permanently. IT might be worth getting a second opinion."
Something clattered shut in her hooded eyes, and she looked away.
It hurts you to be close to me anyway
As if it didn't hurt her too.
Less than a second later, she returned the smile, "That would be nice, wouldn't it?" her tone was as bland as blanched rice.
-
Pierre nodded absentmindedly at her question, agreeing though he knew she asked it for no other reason than to keep up appearances and be, well, Nadia. It annoyed him that even after everything they had been through together - the laughs, the sex, the stress, the living together, and the mutual interest in having independant sires - she still had the audacity to keep him at such a distance. As if he were some kind of new person she had just been introduced to. He took her comment and it's bland rice flavor and wanted to throw it out the door after Odessa.
There was a momentary lapse in the conversation before he smirked and looked at her, amused with himself. "So," he said, the same sly grin filling his features like it always did when he was taunting for the fun of it, "you going to give me your cell phone number or what? I think I'm done bending over backwards to be the gentleman about it here."
-
The smile turned to genuine laughter, "Of course, Pierre," she said, before relaying the desired information.
"Texting will get you better results. And if you leave me a voicemail I swear on Odessa's Manolo's I will end you."
-
He gave her a very crooked smirk as he typed her information into the phone. Honestly, he never thought that it was going to be that easy. He thought for sure there was going to be a bit more of a struggle and a lot more French-flaunting to get her digits. Perhaps things were looking up after all.
So he tried his luck yet again. "I'm going to hold you to that, don't you worry. Now how about a night out with you? Any chance I can get that from you too? Or should I keep that in text form too?" The younger looked at her with a mockingly blank face, one that was as playful as it was innocent, as if he had just asked her what the weather was like outside.
-
Was this really something she wanted to get into? It would be needlessly cruel to lead him on like that. But also, possibly, not boring. She shrugged mentally. They'd see how things played out.
"What's the point in having my number if you're just going to ask for a date?" She shook her head, looking down at her lap. "There's a natural progression to these things, chere."
And the giving-of-the-number usually signalled the end of the encounter, if memory served. Now where the fuck was her sire?