The (After) Life of the Party

[Saiketsu]

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.

[Harlequin]

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.

[Saiketsu]

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.

[The Cedar Witch]

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...

[Harlequin]

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.

[Saiketsu]

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."

[The Cedar Witch]

"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.

[Harlequin]

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.

[Saiketsu]

"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.

[The Cedar Witch]

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.

[Harlequin]

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.

[Saiketsu]

"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.

[The Cedar Witch]

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. 

[Harlequin]

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."

[Saiketsu]

"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."