♪ Being the grown up ♪ (Closed)

[Skylar]

Yeah go with my gut. Like my brain gets a choice in that. My gut isn't always right. I know that. It knows that. I know I need to think more. Think before you act Skylar. It was the advice of pretty much everyone around me growing up. That and think before you speak. I kinda wish I could at times. I just can't seem to be able to help myself though. It's almost like my foot likes to live in my mouth. Though maybe if I'm honest I kind of like saying the wrong thing. The inappropriate thing. I maybe, kinda, sorta like the chaos I can create. Especially if it's not aimed at me. I blame mum. I do. I mean she was obsessed with the family image and how everything we say or do reflected on her. So I know at the start at least I did this to rebel. Somewhere along the line - much like my taste for bad boys - it became habit. It became me. Nature over nurture? Not always. I mean yeah i was probably born to be who I am but still. you can't say I wouldn't have turned out differently growing up in someone else's home.
Pi feels wrong. I notice this. But it's about all I notice. The annoyance and excitement of those around us is kinda messing with my mojo. I watch her for visual cues but she seems fine. At home even. Maybe. I can't help but wonder if her luck will hold.
"My gut's not all that reliable at times. I mean what i think is cool or kosher or what have you, some people don't agree with. Like with what happened at the auction."
Shut up Skylar. The woman's trying to concentrate and here I am poking the bear. Again. Unfortunately. As per usual. I don't take my own advice.
"I didn't mean nothing by it when I hugged and kissed Elliot. He's not my type and I wouldn't want to even try to get between you and him. I'm just playful. It's kinda how I say hello and thanks and stuff. I think I was saying thanks cos he was gonna buy Ric for me. Cos let's face it. Ric's more my style. You see that right?"
Yep. Blonde. I'm having one of those infamous moments. Thank god I managed to stop my prattling there. I was about to launch into a speech about how Elliot's not my type. Again. Or worse. How I actually have some instincts of self-preservation and that if I was going to hit on her man, that I'd do it behind her back. I can only imagine how that would go down. Like a lead balloon Id of though.
"Sorry. Point is. I've got no designs on your man. I'm very much lusting one of my own. One that I'm kinda, sorta already dating. Maybe. And even if I weren't. I'm a lot of things but I'm no home wrecker."
At least not on purpose. I'm pretty sure I've gone home with the wrong guy once or twice.
“Sorry. Had to put that out there.”
I say this and look a little sheepish. Probably should’ve waited a little longer before circling back to the reason we’re here.
I look to the others at the table and while a couple of them look annoyed that I’m prattling on, the rest don’t seem to be distracted by it. In fact they seem more than happy to let me babble on cos I’m distracting the competition.

[Pi dArtois]

“Hit.” Pi said again, because she needed to say something, anything that didn’t require she actually contribute to the verbal diarrhea that seemed to flow out of Skylar’s psyche and creep out of her mouth in a flow that didn’t seemed to stop at any station called ‘prudence’ or ‘caution’.

The woman was the opposite of Pi, not only in looks but in her whole demeanor. She was a sharer, an over sharer. She was someone who thought and spoke in a seamless lack of real consideration for what she was saying (or seemed to anyway). And Pi had no adequate social tools to deal with her.

“Hit again.” She said, not actually concentrating on the cards in front of her at all. Too much of her inner thoughts were directed at what the woman behind (and to the side) of her was saying.

Since she wasn’t a sharer herself there was no urge in her to explain to Skylar why social norms were alien to her. Not because she wasn’t aware of how unreasonable she acted sometimes, but also too because she couldn’t stop them. Much like, it seemed, Skylar couldn’t stop what came out of her mouth. But also like Skylar, she thought, Pi didn’t do what she did because she was an inherently bad person. She was, like she was, because she was just an inherently flawed one.

It was then Pi realised the table (dealer, players and everyone else surrounding them) had stopped to stare at her. With a quick glance down at her cards she could see why. The cards told the tale of how splintered her attention had been and why the rest were looking at her like she’d lost her damn mind.

She had reached twenty one. Two hits ago.

Pursing her lips she pushed away from the table (to the relieved sigh of the players) and stood.

“Oui, I understand.” Pi answered. And she did, theoretically. It wasn’t like this was the first time she’d heard the same refrain on the topic. It held largely the same content as the discussion she’d had with Elliot. But she rather thought it would do little good to anyone if Skylar decided to put her lips anywhere near the man Pi loved. Theory is all well and good, but practically speaking, if Pi were to see it, she’d likely just bash Skylar’s face in and then be contrite about the fall out afterwards.

Jealousy, at least the kind which resided in the mind of the French killer, was hardly rational on the topic And she’d attempt to stop herself but she wasn’t entirely sure how successful she’d be. Elliot, in more ways than was sensible, was her weakness.

“I just think…” Pi paused in an attempt pick the right words. “it would be best if you … didn’t.”

She didn’t preface it with ‘where I could see it’ or ‘where I could walk in and find you’ because her own mind balked at qualifiers to an action she was so dead set again. “I want to like you… and it would be easier to do that if I didn’t want to rip your throat out and feed it to my wolf.”

It was meant to be a joke, that last part. A rather pathetic attempt at a black self deprecating humour. “I’m not sure I can gamble anymore.”

“Lets walk home, to the Den and talk on our way. Maybe just donate the rest of this to this charity and talk as we walk?” She asked, hoping they could leave this noisy place for somewhere less.. garish.

[Skylar]

Yeah. I was about as distracted as Pi must have been because I wasn't looking at the cards either. We must look pretty stupid to the people gathered around the table. Maybe they assume we can't count for toffee. Maybe they think being blonde is catching? I think this because the guy next to me half shuffles away from me till he's almost off the edge of the seat. Maybe they were listening to our conversation. I mean it's obvious something's going on between Pi and I and what with what's being said, it's not difficult to understand we might be at odds with one another cos of a guy. I almost want to roll my eyes at how passé that fact is.
I'm half relieved she seems to understand but that relief is short lived when she pretty much threatens me. I should probably be more scared but, meh, I come back... right? I don't know what it is about me - or rather my mind - that doesn't seem to worry about self-preservation. I mean what self-respecting woman follows a guy she doesn't know through the city and allows him to get her alone in an abandoned building? Okay. So maybe Ric was different. He was... is... well... Ric. I was kinda too intrigued by him the moment I set eyes on him. I have to kinda wonder if it would have been the same, even if he wasn't the first vampire outside of my family that I'd met. Would I have been as curious about him if he was the second, or forth, or fortieth? Probably. Ric's pretty ******* cute. There's a chance I'd of followed him if I was human. But he's not the point. I've distracted myself.
"Erm..."
It's all I manage to say for a moment. I reach around Pi and grab the remaining chips from off the table as I head over to the office to cash out.
"It'd be easier for me to like you too if I didn't think you wanted me dead. You know I didn't ask for any of this right? Elliot saving me and all. Which he did. In case you're in any doubt. I mean yeah. He put that guitar in my hand, but he didn't have to do what he did. It was kinda above and beyond if you ask me but I'm sure glad he did it."
I'm smiling. I can't help it. It's strange to think about your own death and not feel even the slightest twinge of sadness, but I don't. I mean, yeah, my life was pretty good but this life... well it just seems to be getting better and better as time goes on. And it's not like I feel like he took anything from me. He gave me a gift really. Opened up a whole new world to me. I could live forever. Which is probably just about long enough to figure out how to pay Elliot back for what he's done for me.
"Just... you know... try to remember when it does happen - because it will as I never seem to be able to help myself - that there's nothing inappropriate there. I'll even hug and kiss you too if you'll allow it. I mean. I don't do that with you now cos you're kinda... prickly, truth be told. But if you're willing to suck it up. I'll show you what it's like to be on the receiving end. You never know... You might even like it."
I wink at Pi.
Yeah. Maybe I have a death wish. I think we've already established that. I honestly cannot help myself at ties. I just do what I have to do. Or what I want to do. Or just what I do - cos god knows even I don't see the logic in my own actions at times.
I go silent as the woman behind the counter starts counting out the bills. I'm watching - cos it's expected of me - but I'm not really paying that much attention to the numbers. Once she's done, she slides the money into an envelope and hands it over to me. I in turn pass it to Pi, since she's going to decide what to do with it.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi looked back on the night with Skylar as the crossroads they’d used to define how their relationship together would be. Maybe she should have been embarrassed she hadn’t been the one to instigate the meeting but she understood herself too well to expect it of herself. At heart Pi was an odd mix of emotional coward and jealous craven. As much as she would like to be different, she didn’t always find it easy to sustain emotional attachment and she suspected Skylar was of the type that thrived on it.

Maybe that is what was wrong with their little bloodline. Pi automatically assumed everyone would just put their hand up or slap her upside the head with what they needed. Silence, to Pi, was a natural state, silence being that calm culmination.

Although she understood that many weren’t of the same view, she didn’t always recognise the cues thrown her way to engage more, or to break that ‘silence’ because silence was sometimes mistaken for not caring.

For Pi, the night at the casino served as a reminder that her own craven jealousy wasn’t always a rational being and as much as she would like to lock her love away in a closet and only take him out for her own enjoyment, she couldn’t. And despite the fact her first instinct was to snap at anyone she perceived to be a threat, that way like dragons. Huge dragons with gnashing teeth with angry blood filled eyes steeped in accusation at her unreasonable expectations.
No, Pi felt better after than night. Better in the way she thought of Skylar, and how Skylar acted.

Better too because she could assure herself (and Elliot) she wasn’t one second away from blowing a hole in the backside of Skylar’s skull. (a very real possibility prior) They could work together now, laugh too, joke once in a while.