The Morning After [House Party cont]

[Ashton]

A pair of girls came up to him, one wrapped him in her hands and she looked disappointed. He cocked his head to the side and looked at her with a curious look. There was something different there, almost a feeling.

Ashton put his hand on top of hers and smiled softly. "Do I know you?" it wasn't said with malice more curiosity than anything. His voice a half sing song of emotion. He didn't know here, but he she felt familiar.

The girl who stood behind her gave him that curious smile. "Sing for us." she asked.

Ashton's eyes went wide. What did they know? He looked towards Nox who was dancing with Lily. "I can't sing. He won't like it." His eyes never left his host who was dancing with the baby. "I don't want to lose my home for the second time in as many days."

[Nox]

Nox was content to be left alone with Lily and the music. Everyone focused on Jaxen and other things and he just let the world flow around him. Social was not something he wanted to be. This was his home and he didn't have to be social. The horde was starting to scratch at the anxiety. The hunger had barely been fed, maybe he should find Oriena in the mass -- was she even there?

Nox looked up and saw Hayden watching him -- and everyone but mostly him. He mouthed, I'm fine.

Hayden smirked but he stayed on the other side of the room and watched. Nox moved back into the kitchen with Lily and grabbed a few slices of bacon and rummaged through his cabinets to see what other protein might be available to stave off the horde. They grew insistent, so many people. They wanted more. Nox drew deeper upon the power and used more than he had been to hold Lily to himself and make the lights shimmer around his place. It distracted him, and the horde fled deep into his mind afraid of his light. The blue and green lights shimmered and shifted across the ceiling in no particular pattern as he grabbed a bag of jerky and tore it open to grab a handful. Sage was through if nothing else.

[Sage]

As Sage started digging into everything, he also realized no one had answered Seven's question.

"Jaxen is a friend who's seen things. He's a rich jack of all trades who does what he wants and hardly gets caught." Though he was more than that. He was a channeler, a theif, a conman, a hacker and so many other things. Sage didn't dig too far into his past, he was a friend and fellow hacker, there were some lines that he didn't cross.

"He's gotten himself mixed up with a bad group, hopefully it doesn't end poorly for him." Or himself, they fucking knew his secret!

[Gideon]

Gideon’s gaze sparked, clearly enjoying the banter with Hayden. ”Darling, I know you for some sort of man whore.” He grinned, looking slyly between Nox and Seven. It wasn’t subtle, but it wasn’t mean either. Seemed Hayden really was part of the family after all; the apple hadn’t fallen very far from their mother’s tree. “What a tangled little love affair! Add this Jay to your hand and you’re well on your way to a straight flush.” He chuckled into his coffee. “Well, you know, not straight.”

Seemed like no one was too keen to invoke a certain name and it was computer boy who chimed in to the question left hanging.

“Jaxen," Gideon added loudly, "is a little shit.” He laughed, and then said to Seven. “You didn’t hear about Ass-Candy? Custody shut that shit right down afterwards. Fuck knows what happened to the old coot Boda, but his theatre is gone now. Jaxen’s little twinkle-toes waltzed right away untouched of course, but that’s having a rich daddy for you.”

[Hayden]

Hayden chuckled after finishing the last of his pancakes. "Who said anything about love?" Hayden looked over at Nox and Seven with a playful grin. They both knew the stakes. "No offense boys. And if this Jay is hot, I might. Never know."

Computer boy next to him looked at Hayden and frowned. "What? A little fun never hurt no one. And what better way to get to know someone than to find out their deepest darkest desires in the bedroom." His father didn't exactly like all of his methods, but he couldn't fault them either.

Computer boy looked at him and shrugged and said with a shisper "He's your brother."

[Esper]

Esper didn’t usually touch strangers, not unless it was part of the games she played with Roza. And she certainly preferred to avoid touch in return. The boy stilled her wandering fingers with a hand over hers, holding it to his cheek, and she did not recoil. Her senses dived deeply beneath his skin, and she was filled with his curiosity, caught in the reverberation of the moment even if it wasn’t quite what she had imagined it would be.

She didn’t answer the question. Despite the open disappointment of her slashed brows, Esper was standing inappropriately close. But at the sound of his voice interest sparked anew in her eyes, a sudden look of hunger, like she might just lean in and lick his face.

Roza’s sweet suggestion sounded from behind her shoulder, and for a moment Esper’s gaze dipped to his lips in anticipation.

But his answer didn’t please her.

I will kill him if he doesn’t like it. You are mine and I am your home. Her thoughts spiked, a possessive jealousy, but none of the words escaped. His attention had moved, eyes over her head. She knew to whom he was looking – the one whose emotions were so loud. Her touch, pinned still under his hand, urged his eyes to return down to her.

“What have you promised him?” she demanded.

[Ashton]

She was new, strange and lovely. She was captivating and his heart beat fast in his chest. "That I would not influence anyone with my voice while under his roof."

His eyes hadn't left Nox as he spoke again, something else compelling him "I kidnapped him and fed him to monsters and he doesn't trust me. I don't want him to put me out." He looked down at the lovely girl, meeting her gaze and her impossible closeness. "I don't want to leave my family."

He took her hands in his and held it to his heart and leaned in to whisper a sweet song in her ear. I would sing for you anytime, but not here, not in my home. Who are you?"

[Esper]

Esper’s eyes slitted like she didn’t find the promise agreeable. “Why would you want to stay if he does not accept who you are? Why shouldn’t you sing as you please? It is not his choice.”

Yet she knew without asking that he would defend his keeper – and that if he did, it would coil the bitterness inside like a spring. She did not like the way he looked at that man, like something was owed. Monsters must eat too. For a moment she thought about using the push, breaking whatever guilt and connection remained, but in that consideration remembered her own promise to Roza. People did not like it when you made them feel things, even if it was to free them. And he distracted her anyway, moving her hand and whispering in her ear.

Honestly, she was not sure it mattered what he said; it was the dips and cadences pouring like nectar that held her. Did Roza hear how sweet it sounded?

“But you have made the promise now. And promises should be kept.” She sounded grudging to accept it. And she was. But she wouldn’t try to talk him out of it either, nor use the push to encourage him to her bidding – not in a way that would jeopardise his place here at least. Which did not mean she would not seek to change his mind about what home was. Or family.

She could feel his heart beating inside. His skin was warm through his shirt. “My name is Esper,” she added. The edges of her lips tilted up, just the bare essence of a smile. Her eyes remained unnervingly intense. But though she did not extricate her hand, nor move away from how close she was standing, she did turn to rest her chin back on her shoulder, and said to Roza. “I do not wish to stay under this roof.”

[Roza Vas]

Roza heard the plea and she wondered what he'd said, she'd heard the rule and the promise and she wasn't sure what to make of this place. "Then we can go. Come with us." She beckoned their singing boy.

He looked at her a little like he might be high too, caught in Espers web. Though she hoped she'd not forced the boy. That could end badly, specially with the rules already in place. "I'll walk you home." He said galantly.

Roza giggled. They had no home. She wrapped her arm around Esper's waste. "To Zekes? or the Vegas?" Spending the night at Zekes didn't sound fun, the church wasn't comfortable, and she wasn't sure where else Zeke might put them up. They weren't homeless and Roza had slept on worse, but if it were between the rich and fancy or the cold hard ground she knew what she would choose.

The boy-man dancing with the baby overheard the conversation and his voice was deliberate over the music to be heard by them. "Ashton if you are going to the Vegas with them, perhaps you can call Victoria and get her there too, she shouldn't be wondering around anymore than the lot of you."

Roza wondered who this Victoria was. And why he cared about any of them. He was a dictator of some sort and she didn't like him much. And how did he know the Vega's and why would he assume they were the same? What did he know?

He added with a distracted look. "If any of the Blackthorn fosters want a place that's fancier than here, Ana and Christan can put you up till we find someplace else."

Their singing boy shook his head. "No this is good, we aren't spoiled like Vic. Were are good here. I'll be back. But I'll call her, see if she needs a place to stay." His voice sounded very much like a promise -- a promise that Esper was likely not to like.

[[ ooc: Sage would have seen the girls with Cruz, he'd have told Nox, just as an FYI of how the info gets passed around. ]]

[Esper]

She did not like that the man with the baby overheard them and interrupted, or that he seemed to know more than he should about their lives and circumstance. His casual mention of some other woman who should also be taken to the Vegas made it sound like an order, and not one Esper was keen to obey. But Roza's arms around her waist placated all the sudden volatility inside, and whatever urge she'd felt to confront the man who'd stolen what was hers was soothed. At least a little.

Esper’s desires had only ever been a mirror before, usually reflections of Roza's whims, but sometimes just absorbed from the clubs they visited, like Devil's Lair. It had never sparked of its own volition, like it did now in the memory of Roza’s hands, her mouth, her sighs. She did not care where they were, so long as they were together.

"We can have a real bed at the Vegas," she said. Though she wondered if there would be rules there too. Having fled one set of expectations, she was not keen to find them both beholden to new restrictions on their freedoms.

Her smile had disappeared, though such intense solemnity was not unusual for Esper. She was looking at the singing boy again, thinking. She could feel his intrigue. But she did not like how easily he promised to return here. She pulled her hand down, slipping free of his, though her fingers brushed all the way along his stomach before she retracted. She knew he would follow.