New Adventures

[Roza Vas]

Roza followed with Esper on her arm, the boy singer had done something Esper didn't like and he followed in their wake.  Their coats lay discarded though Roza was glad for the food she wondered if they'd ever find their way back to the cook.  He was different but ruede. But she was loyal to Esper and her whims were her own.

They would go to the Vegas. Though Roza didn't like the idea of charming them through force. They could do whatever they wanted now. And she'd let Esper do what she did, but Roza didn't need to like it all and if she could she could get her way too.  Without making Esper force anyone.  And the boy had provided a key.

"How does he know the Vegas?" Roza asked.

[Ashton]

Ashton followed after the girls. He had pissed her off somehow, though he didn't know how. Girls were finkey creatures.

The other one asked him a question that he didn't really know but he shrugged anyway. "I don't know. He knows a lot of people. I think their son is a good friend, a fellow channeler."

Vic hadn't gotten back to him he doubted she would. He'd pissed her off too. Seemed to be something he was good at now. Ashton stole a look back at Nox's place as they left. He hoped he hadn't fucked anything up there. His family wanted to stay and he wanted to stay with them.

[Esper]

She kept her arm looped with Roza’s as they stepped back out onto the street. Ashton followed behind, and Esper mostly ignored him, though it was a lie; she felt everything he was, was excavating every emotion as he felt it. She did not see his backward glance, but she sensed it; the worry in him.

First Voxel, then the man with the baby; she decided she did not like that house and the things it tried to steal from her. The Vegas’ luxurious manor, or somewhere else, it didn’t matter to Esper where they actually ended up. But she did not like the idea of being confined. She did not like the idea of rules, after suffering them for so long. Not now Roza had set them free, anyway.

“You should stay with us. Why would you go back?” she asked.

[Ashton]

Ashton didn't particularly like being ignored. But he wanted to know what she was. He didn't much care for her girlfriend but he was pretty sure she didn't like him either.

"Why should I stay with you? At least there I have a roof over my head, food to eat and know that I'm wanted which is more than I've ever had in my life."

[Roza Vas]

Roza cuddled up to Esper and smiled. "Because we are more fun. We don't have stupid rules. We can do whatever we want."

And now that they were on their own they really could. But they needed a place to stay. Roza would trust Esper, but she didn't like not knowing what was going to happen. It was cold out here. The Vegas know him they might know what Esper was.

"We should go to Zeke. It'll be safer. If he's one of those monster hunters the Ascendancy warned everyone about, his friends could be too."

[Esper]

“I don’t think we would be in danger there, not if the Vegas love their son. But I go where you go, vita mia,” she said to Roza. Uncertainty was swirling for a future Esper didn’t worry about.

For now she stopped their pace. Her eyes turned to Ashton. In the morning light he was angelic. And so fragile.

“If you are so wanted, why are you so terrified it will all fall apart? I feel the jolting in your heart, Ashton; that you fear one day your welcome there will be revoked. That you will make a mistake he will not forgive. Even with the rules, you will always wonder if they trust you and what you can do.” She moved them both closer to him, whether she realised or not. Her fingers hovered over his chest as she spoke. Her gaze was intense. Uncompromising. “You deserve better.”

[Ashton]

She wasn't wrong. But she wasn't exactly right either. "It's been a day. Trust needs to be earned on all fronts. I don't know you. I know him better than you, I spent more time with him in a cage learning to trust him. Why don't you like him?" That was the feeling Ashton got from her. The other one curled around Esper possessively.

"I'm intrigued by you. I deserve better, but I also deserve to see where it goes. My family is there. And they want to stay." Ashton frowned. "I want to stay. It's safe there. Second chances he said. We all deserve them. Third and fourth ones too if necessary. Why do you want me to stay with you so bad? You don't even know me." Ashton was getting a little emotional and the words came out a little more sing song than he'd like and he frowned.

[Esper]

“Because he diminishes you,” she said immediately, both argumentative and protective. Ashton thought she had no right to her feelings, and by logic’s turn he was right. But Esper followed her own whims and she did not need them to make sense.

The emotion was shimmering off him by now, infecting his voice in a way that soothed her frustrations into something closer to reason. It would be easier by far to force him to love her – it would become the truth eventually, she knew it would. But she also knew Roza would not like it. That wasn’t actually enough to stop her, not unless either of them elicited a promise, but it was also true that the push never tasted as sweet as what people felt organically. Or what the singing made them feel in unison, as she had recently discovered.

She reached to lift his chin. His eyes were so big. “I saw you at the party,” she said. “It was beautiful, and I would have stayed forever. You feel like family to me.”

Inside he was a maelstrom of conflict, and Esper did not know how to unpick it – or how to understand it. She had never imagined that he would resist the connection between them, though he said he felt it too. “Why are you sad? And how do I fix it?”

[Ashton]

Ashton shook his head. "He doesn't diminish me. He gives me strength. He sees that I didn't do what I did to him because I thought it was right. He sees that I did it to survive, to live. He forgave me, so what if he put a rule. He has every right to make me earn that trust. I lured people to their deaths. Some were over sooner rather than later, some were like him, who we tortured. Who we carved and healed and carved again just so our masters could eat. We did it because we had to. Not because we wanted to. We did it to survive. And he understands that. He promised to keep me safe and he did. He killed the monsters that claimed me out of 'love' for children. He gave me a home when he could have thrown me out in the cold. You didn't even talk to him, or give him a chance. You formed your opinion on what, his rules? We all have rules." Ashton was almost angry now. The feeling of losing his family for someone who didn't understand it, yet claimed he was family.

"If I feel like family then you should understand what I feel for them. I want to know you, I want to understand this..." he waved his hand between them. "This whatever between us because i feel it. I long for it, but I won't leave my family for it." Ashton took a step back the way he came still facing the girls. "I'm going back." He held out his hands and he sang for her. He didn't compel her to come, or to follow. He just sang for the love of family. "You can come with me."

[Roza Vas]

He had a lot of words, but he didn't answer her questions not really. And there was a little bit of jealousy as she declared him like family. But she had also claimed he was theirs. But that didn't change Roza's feelings. She knew Esper could feel but hope she was too absorbed with the boy to feel her, to worry about her. It didn't mean she'd leave or anything But she couldn't help being jealous.

And then he sang. Roza could feel his love for his family. For her family. It made her look back towards where she knew the Carnival was, but then she turned to Esper and it wa more family more home than anywhere. She'd be fine with her as long as Esper was with her always.