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Elliot's temper was a fickle thing. It flared at the oddest of moments and due to the simplest of things. At first, he thought that it was Pi who'd wrapped her arms around his shoulders; when he realised it wasn't, however, he tensed. He remembered the way she'd reacted on the family board. The way that Skylar had felt, at being threatened. Elliot would prefer that it did not happen again, so he was immediately seeking his pseudo-wife, hoping she didn't fly off the handle just because Skylar had her arms draped over his shoulders.

He was distracted, however, by the question asked; his anger was the first to rise, hot and bright. That she should dare use that against him! To get what she wanted from him. But quick on the heels of anger was that guilt. That heavy remorse that constantly plagued him. It doused that fire as easily as a wave crashing over a bonfire. It fizzled and died as his face twisted, the corner of his mouth curling downward as his brows furrowed.

"What, Skylar? What do you want?" he asked.

Elliot took a deep breath and held it.

This was a trick that he'd learned. Something to do with breathing, with the lungs. It was such a human trait that could so easily get lost if one became too comfortable in their vampirism. The lack of the need to breath. If he just continued to breathe, he could continue to be himself. Emotions were a hard thing for him to wrangle sometimes and control was required. He exerted it now.

He focused on the man that Skylar pointed at. He looked like a ruffian. A scruffy looking anarchist. Really, he looked like someone who'd probably look quite comfortable on the backpacker's circuit, so Elliot shrugged. He had more money than he knew what to do with, sometimes. Skylar was standing close behind him and he could feel, via those weird atmospheric vibrations, that she just wanted this guy.

"Fine, whatever," he said, completely aware that he sounded like a sulking teenager.

"Fifty-two thousand!" He called.

And it only really just struck him how ludicrous it was, the amount of money people were spending on other people.

Elliot's voice calling out a bid elicits a brief look of surprise across Madison's face and she turns her head to search him out of the crowd. Upon seeing Skylar with her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek, an eyebrow raises into her forehead. After all the bickering back and forth on the family CrowNet between Elliot and Pi, Madison can't help but question if maybe Pi actually does have reason to worry or not. She wonders how much this new childe seems to have Elliot wrapped around her finger.

"Sixty thousand."

The bids continue to rise, and Elliot wonders whether he should wait. But as no one else seems forthcoming as yet - and he does have to wonder why Madison is bidding - he speaks up again, his voice clear as a bell and easily recognisable through the din.

"Sixty-five...!"

Pi had to wonder if the woman had a screw loose, or if she didn't understand clear English when it was spoken at her. She also wondered what Elliot would do if Doc came up to her and put his arms around her and his lips anywhere near her person and why the **** he thought it was okay his childe do the same to him?

Moving with purpose across the crowd Pi pulled in close to the childe hanging all over Elliot and grabbed her arm, yanking her in very close and very personally. Pi understood what Skylar wanted, and even celebrated the fact Elliot was going to buy the sorry male for the woman who obviously had an itch she wanted this particular man to scratch, but what she wasn't going to stand for was the chippy being too free with her hands, her lips and any other part of her weeping anatomy. She either learned the easy way, or she learned the hard way and Pi wasn't opposed to teaching her hard, if hard is how she wanted it.

Squeezing hard enough to hurt, and yanking her close enough she stood nose to nose with the other woman, Pi introduced herself for the first time to Elliot's new childe. "Bonjour mon petite" Pi hissed, "Je suis Pi. Touch him again, I'll break your arm. Put your ******* lips anywhere near him again, I'll rip them off your face."

"Merci Madison." Pi said quietly, not letting the other woman go. "Let Elliot buy the piece of meat for our new bebe... maybe if she had another man to keep her occupied, she could keep her hands off mine."

As soon as Elliot was aware of the commotion to his right, he was up on his feet like a bolt. The words that passed between the two women were fast and furious; Elliot could see that Pi's grip wasn't exactly gentle. A whole battlefield of emotion dropped like a bomb in his chest. The woman he loved had his childe in a death-like vice and it didn't bode well. Because Skylar was his childe, his progeny, and as much as he may loathe being called a father he knew that he did care for her in a way that a father would care for his daughter; in the way that a brother would care for his sister. ****, like a sire should always care for their childe.

Only moments before he'd felt Skylar's want for the man on the stage; a pining crush of a teenager, even if she isn't a teenager at all. Now, he can feel her stubborn fear, and he can feel Pi's fury. It mixed with his own. He immediately stepped up to the two women and placed a hand on Pi's shoulder - the one attached to the hand that had a grip on his childe. He squeezed hard; he was no weakling. Regardless of the fact that Pi may have been around longer, the two of them were almost evenly matched.

"Pi, lover," he said, voice gentle where his grip was not. "Be reasonable. Let her go," he said. He flashed a smile. He was trying to assuage the situation. It was the middle of someone else's auction - an auction that Pi herself had organised. This was not professional. He would have words with her. But nor here. Not in this public space. "Don't make me have to drag you away otherwise I won't be able to win this pretty man for Skylar, now will I?" he said. It was a threat. He would be none to pleased with her if she were to make this a bigger deal than it was. He deliberately did not touch Skylar, even though he wanted to reassure her. That would only make matters worse. Instead, he touched her mind with his - not telepathy, not really, but something a little like it. A mental reassurance; a psychic gentle squeeze of the shoulder.