Son of a... [Every]

[Jesse Fforde]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

<Jesse Fforde> The Eyrie is a place Jesse visits at least once a night. Although he had decided, inwardly, that he'll take a step back as far as speaking is concerned, that doesn't mean that his level of care for the faction has declined any. His decision is only to speak when spoken to, when he feels he should. To keep his posts on Crownet only to the informative, to the strictly required. And, especially in hunts and meetings, to communicate only insofar as it informs the others of what he is doing, and to ask any of the pertinent questions he might have. He'd missed the last hunt mainly because Grey had asked him not to leave her side - he had thought that something might be wrong, and so had stayed. And had become so preoccupied by her that he had mislaid his phone. At the same time, however, he thought that perhaps a hunt without him would be for the better. Just the one. At the Eyrie, he unloads some of his loot into the lockboxes in his hut, before descending to the second floor, where he would head to the shop to sell the rest. After he's sold his goods and banked the cash, he shoves his hands into his pockets and wanders over to a bench. He'd sent a mass message out to all of his lineage earlier, and is checking for any response.

<Every> Running away. It was something that Every had become accustomed to since the murders in Santa Monica that left her an orphan, that left her with blood on her hands before she had even stepped foot into Harper Rock and became a vampire. She hadn’t stayed in places long in the least because she hadn’t felt comfortable enough to do so... and yet, she had passed her two year mark at the end of June. She hid her emotions behind other emotions, or had shown them not much at all if she could avoid it before settling in the place where her life had come to an end, and as she sat on one of the branches on the second floor of the Eyrie, she could feel the urge to run return. She hated conflict. She chose to ignore it, but the conversations that had begun to overwhelm her turned relentlessly in her mind while hazel eyes noticed movement beneath her and she watched Jesse wander nearby. Family. It was another word that caused her to tilt her head back quickly, not realizing how close it had been to the bark as it connected hard against the wood. “Son of a *****.” She grumped from her spot, setting her hand over the offended area and closed her eyes while her nose crinkled.


<Jesse Fforde> There are no messages. Of course there aren't - and Jesse doesn't know whether to worry. But it's only been half an hour. They could be busy. He wants to curse himself for being so ******* girly about it, clingy, even, but he won't show it. He won't even dare. If they don't reply, maybe he'll follow up by asking a telepath to appraise them. But if they are alive and healthy then what else could he do? Nothing. His thoughts aren't given time to turn morbid as someone curses. Where? He glances left and right before ascertaining that, no - the sound had come from above. His gaze flicks sharply upward, where he notices Every sitting in the branches of the trees. He swallows, pushing before canting his head to the side, brow arched inquisitively. "My mother was a *****. Thank you for observing," he says with a smirk. At least, in this context, his words can't be mistaken for snark.


<Every> Hearing the male speak, she cracked open one eye and looked down at Jesse with a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. "I was actually referring to the tree I had just smacked myself in the head with." She muttered and rubbed at the spot once more before she huffed and opened her eyes as she turned her gaze down to him entirely. Although she'd known him for quite some time, she could only recall a few conversations with her faction mate and adopted sibling. "Hi." She said cautiously, remembering that she'd been suggested to be more social and pressed her lips into a thin line. She'd reverted to being reclusive again and Helena had to usually summon her out of places to hang out. It wasn't something she was really proud of, either. The shadow liked being alone.


<Jesse Fforde> Every says hello. Hi, to be precise, but Jesse doesn't reply. He doesn't offer his own greeting. It's an unneeded word, really. They'd seen each other. They were in each other's company. What does a greeting actually achieve, in the grand scheme of things? No, instead, Jesse's looking for a way up - as soon as he finds one he strides toward it, then scampers up the tree, balancing expertly as he tip-toes along the branch until he can drop down beside Every. He's seen the interaction with her progeny on the Crownet. Somehow, Every never did strike him as the ignorant kind. He doesn't know quite what to say, however, and so just sits, legs swinging, gazing down at the floor below. He's never seen it from this angle before.


<Every> As Jesse started to climb up, Every adjusted carefully so that he'd be able to move around without her being in the way before she reclined back carefully into her spot. Running her tongue along her back molars, she tried to figure out what to say to the man to start a conversation. It wasn't that Every was socially awkward, or even uneducated in conversation, either. She was considerably well spoken, but she liked to keep distance and it was something she had to work on. "Got my *** kicked by a fadebeast today, haven't had that happen in a long while." It was a starter of some sort, right? She pulled one knee to her chest and draped her bare arms around it, the slightest sound of jingling dogtags resting behind her tank top being heard as she let the other leg dangle as he did.


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse isn't particularly one for heights, though he has got better. He figures, now, that if he took a dive off the third floor of the Eyrie and lived to tell the tale, then there's not much harm that can come from falling. Besides which, the reasons he feared heights have been thoroughly explored, now, and dealt with. Still, it feels odd to be sitting up in the branches, even if they're not so very high. He nods, as Every tells him about her encounter with a fadebeast. He himself is hit and miss with the creatures. He hasn't got much to say about the fadebeast itself. There are other things to say, however. He clears his throat. "But you tried. And I bet you wished it were someone else. Or a couple of other someones," he says, turning a sharply curious glance in Every's direction. He might not come right out and say How are you?, but he can indicate that he's a good solid wall to rant against, if required. Because, sometimes he does actually give a ****. It's rare, but it happens.


<Every> Heights, Every had learned over the course of her life, were something that did not bother her as much as it did a sudden change of height. Elevators, plummeting off of something, or even just being picked up when she wasn't expecting it could freak out the brunette. She liked stability and stairs, and yet, there she was, sitting in branches in a large tree as she did regularly. Her lips pressed back into their thin line at his statement and she looked down at her phone which she had discarded in pieces on the floor earlier on in the evening. She had multiple ones up in her hut and a soft sigh escaped past her lips. Hazel eyes flashed in frustration before she turned her head to bite down idly on her bottom lip. "I've spoken with them both. Szabina has given me a second chance. Aysel, I have no idea what I'm going to do with her. She doesn't remember me being her 'north star' or anything and yet she remembered my sire and Velveteen. I suppose it's resentment that keeps me distant from her, but as she told me in her message that if I'm not going to message her first, she won't message me either because it's a considerable waste of time. What am I supposed to say, anyway? I'm sorry that you lost your memory, but attach to others in the family easily?" She frowned.


<Jesse Fforde> As if on queue, Every picks up exactly what Jesse thought she might. She doesn't frown at him and ask him what he means. She doesn't deny that she imagined the fadebeast to be anything other than what it was. No, that doesn't mean that she imagined she was slaughtering her own progeny, but it does mean that she's got a lot on her mind. The very fact that she is able to immediately tell Jesse what's wrong is proof enough that she does, in fact, care. He rolls his shoulders. A bone cracks in his neck. He licks his lips. The first response that comes to mind is **** them. Second chances? What's with that? From what he'd seen of Szabina on the Crownet, he isn't sure why Every would want to spend any time with her. But, he can't judge. He won't. Instead, the corners of his lips curl into a frown, as his blue eyes slip away from Every, focusing on nothing in particular in the distance. "I know what it's like," he says. "Wanting them to care, too. It's almost as if ... because we're the sires, we're the ones who are expected to care first," he says, pondering.


<Every> She always had the weirdest interactions with Jesse, she noted as she listened to him speak and then folded her arms in front of her chest while she straightened out her leg in front of her, bringing the other to rest beside it. Her balance wasn't perfect, but when she swayed, Every held no danger of falling. She had sat on thinner pieces of wood than the branch and after training for so long, she'd be damned if she would let herself fall out of a tree. "It isn't the first time I've had issues with childer and I doubt it'll be the last." She could remember placing her blade against Hadrian's throat, slitting it and getting ready to attack again before Micah had ordered her to stop. She remembered telling him to **** off and she remembered the pain of disowning Zoe after the woman had killed twenty cops, two of which had been in front of her. "I'll figure out something, I suppose. I always do." It wasn't something that she sounded too pleased about, either. This time when Every smacked the back of her head against the tree, she did it on purpose. "It's difficult for me. Going up to others." He could probably count on one hand the amount of times she'd ever texted him first, or even started a conversation with him.


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse doesn't shift or fidget. He stays right where he is, hands planted on either side of his thighs, legs dangling over the edge. He doesn't have to be facing Every to converse with her. Jesse snorts. He can't say that he's had the same kind of trouble with his own childer. None of them have accused him of being lax, though they might have good reason to do so. If he's expected to coddle, to constantly check in on them - if Szabina and Aysel were his progeny - then yes, he'd have been accused of the exact same thing as Every. Instead, it's Jesse himself who feels as if they've run from him. They don't bother to call him out on his behaviour - they instead just go their own ways and leave him behind. He doesn't like that it affects him like it does, and so he doesn't voice it. "I wasn't parented properly. I've never been a parent. I've never really had much of a family - if I could give you advice, I would. But I can't," he admits with a shrug. "In the end, it is a two way street, I think. That much I can say - you should not be expected to be the only one doing the approaching," he says.

[Every]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

<Every> "Amusing bit is, Jesse, I wasn't parented properly either." She sighed and crinkled her nose as she considered her biological family, "I mean, I was raised well, but... I have to trust someone before I get attached to them and when things fall apart, I don't reconnect because I never experienced it well." The brunette stared up at the leaves in the tree as she debated on telling him. In the end, "My stepfather murdered my father when I was a kid. My mother became an alcoholic and would feign ignorance when he would hit us." She fidgeted a lot from habit, not liking to sit still. "After their bodies were in the ground and I was no longer a suspect, I didn't stay in places for too long because I didn't get comfortable. I didn't let people get close. Other than Lia, I had nobody for years before she convinced me to come here. Andras was the first family, the first home I've had trust in people in since Michael died. Micah's the only father figure that I can really remember and I'm not about to get close to Enver."


<Jesse Fforde> A frown creases Jesse's brow. Every's childhood sounds worse than his was. They both suffered death, however, of one family member by another - if she considered her stepfather family. Both had murdered the culprit - though Jesse's mother is still around, somewhere. There was abuse, too - Uncle Tommy was a ********, but he left Jesse's mother not long after Jordan's death. Jesse's mother was only abusive if ignorance and lack of care could be considered abuse. He was left to his own devices. Was home by himself more often than not, sometimes for days at a time. He laughs, even if the topic isn't funny. "You don't get close because you find it hard to trust. I don't get close, because I don't want that kind of vulnerability. We're kind of two of a kind, in a way, with our subtle differences," he says with a sideways smirk.


<Every> "That and I don't entirely trust myself not to lose my sanity again." She lifted her hand as if she were inspecting her nails for bits of the blood that had coated them at some point. In the back of her mind, she could hear the breaking of bones beneath a fire extinguisher and she shook her head briefly to get rid of the sound. "A lot of the time, it's fear that keeps me away from many. I don't like to be a bother. I don't like to feel useless." Looking at Jesse, Every parted her lips to start to ask him to keep what she had said to herself until he said they were two of a kind and she closed her mouth. She knew she didn't have to say anything to him after that. If she wasn't comfortable admitting somethings, she doubted he was. "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, I guess." She returned his smirk with a small one of her own. "Their screams rarely leave."


<Jesse Fforde> Loss of sanity. Yet another thing that Jesse could claim to have in common with Every, even though he doesn't know the direct circumstances of her loss. All he knows is that his drove him to several attempts at suicide. And he has a fear that, although the problem was solved, it's never actually going to go away. He feels committed to progeny who don't stick around, but in order to keep his sanity he has to continue to sire more, or so he's beginning to assume. It's a vicious circle. All he knows is that he would be dead, now, if it weren't for Velveteen and Micah's persistence. He swallows, and cants his head to the side curiously. "You know, I think - a good sire is one who doesn't give up on you. One who won't let you push them away. But, that kind of persistence in the face of a problem is being told of the problem to begin with - or being aware of it," he says with a shrug. He shakes his head. He's talking more to himself, now, than he is to Every - his thoughts clambering over his tongue uncharacteristically. "I don't think there's an answer. We just have to... do our best, even if we don't what best is," he then turns his sharp eyes on Every, frown still a crease. Her last words come back to him. "Whose screams?"


<Every> Her hazel eyes moved to Jesse as he spoke, and then she gave a soft nod of her head in agreement. "I may not always be the most sociable creature with my childer, but I've always told them they don't have to hesitate to contact me for help." She shrugged. At the last bit, she paused and ran her tongue over her usually retracted fangs. "Stepdad, mom, siblings but one." After that, her gaze shifted to the ground and she adjusted slightly once more, "I'm... haunted." She motioned to the area around her, "I can hear my eldest brother from time to time, accompanied by various sounds of things. Clanging of metal against flesh and bone. At first I thought I was just imagining it, but I've since accepted it's just something I have to deal with until those demons pass." A slight concerned expression faded over her features as she realized she hadn't told any one that before, let alone actually admit it to herself out loud. "Basically, one day I was pushed over the edge... and I snapped like a rubber band."


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse arches a brow. His own brother came back, too. At first Jesse thought it was a haunting, but Jordan only wanted to help. And Jordan did help. And now Jordan's gone - and the only demons Jesse has to deal with are the ones that he welcomes; the ones that he puts on a leash, because he doesn't quite want to let them go. He'd have told Every that some people are too stubborn to ask for help. Jesse knows this by experience. All the help that he has received has been forced upon him - he is grateful, of course, but he never did ask for it. Wouldn't dare show that kind of weakness. He is too preoccupied by Every's latest revelation, however. "Well, that's unfortunate," he says.


<Every> Her eyebrows lifted as if to say yep before they fell once more as she let her expression slip back into it's usual one. She twitched her nose faintly and knew that at some point, she would ask Micah or Vel about it. She always did ask for her sire's help once things got too rough and despite the fact she did consider Vel to be close, it dawned on her briefly that she had actually never really had a long discussion with the woman. She immediately felt regret and made a mental note that yes, she'd likely go to Vel this time. She had other things that she wanted to talk to her sire about at some point anyway. "Things happen. We can only choose our way of handling it, mine is to ignore it until it goes away or gets to the point I had to shut down."


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse grins. "You may have noticed the way I handle things when they get to be too much," he says. He lashes out. He gets aggressive, and violent, and bites people's heads off for no reason. He gets irritable and, to an extent, depressed and suicidal - gets the **** beaten out of himself at family gatherings and throws himself from great heights. Gets his eyes stabbed out, so he is forced to be locked away. For his own safety. There's a lot of people who only caught bits and pieces of Jesse's breakdown. A lot of people who don't know anything about it - and, he realises, this is no doubt the reason why people take him too seriously. They assume he is a serious person. Whatever - it'll pass. It always does.


<Every> She felt her lips twitch in slight amusement, "Yeah, I've seen how you handle some things. Despite the fact I'll admit, I might come off otherwise, I don't like conflict with those I care for. I can argue just fine, I just rather perfer things be kept relaxed without hell breaking loose." She lifted a shoulder as she studied him briefly and then gave a soft smirk as she chuckled. "All else fails... when **** hits the fan and I can't handle it, I run for it."


<Jesse Fforde> There are things Jesse could say to clarify; that his violence was never directed at anyone else but himself. That, everything he'd done was in order to push people away, to get them out of his sights, due to a belief that he no longer held. Next time, should he succumb to the same kind of darkness, it'll have to be stronger to drag him under. He has too many anchors, now. Too many people who, if he killed himself, would kill him again after he came back for being so ******* selfish. The smirk remained on his lips, until Every says what she says. It's the same thing, really. In a way. Removing oneself from the equation, whether by death or by running away. "You know that's not a good idea," he says. It's not a question. It's a statement. He wants to believe that Every would be smarter than that. "You've got two progeny ripping you a new one, but you have others. Yes? How do you think they will feel if you run from them? And what about Micah, Velveteen? They won't be pleased. Trust me," he says.


<Every> Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I tried." She muttered as she thought about her sire and the last time she had fled to California. It had been after Zoe's death when her anxiety had been growing severely and before she had learned to cut her emotions out. "At the time, Nishaa had been dead. Kirill does what Kirill does. I hadn't been thinking about Aysel." She then pursed her lips when he mentioned Micah and Velveteen. "Oh, I already know how they can be." Micah was the reason she was still in Harper Rock and Velveteen had verbally smacked sense into her last August.


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse isn't sure what it is Every's talking about. The time that she snapped? That's not what he's referring to. He's only referring to the here and now, and her current predicament. **** has hit the fan and she she admitted to running, if she couldn't handle it. Jesse doesn't know how close she is to that point - he's just pointing out that if she tries, now, it won't be greeted with happiness. "I'm just sayin', those two aren't the only one's who'll think badly of you if you run. You're afraid of being useless? That's the worst kind of uselessness, running away," he says, blunt, as per usual.


<Every> He was right and she knew it, and the brunette simply responded by giving him a look. "I get it, Jesse." She sighed and ran her hand through her hair before she brought her knee back up to her chest. She rolled her shoulders and she closed her eyes while she listened to the sounds of the woods around The Eyrie.


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse nods. Yes, he supposes this is the kind of tone people dislike. The kind that holds no sympathy. Having used it more than once in public, Jesse assumes it's the kind of tone people read when they see him post online. Which is why he hasn't done that so much, recently. This time, however, he thinks it's required. Hopefully it'll be remembered, if Every ever gets it into her head to run. He feels as if he has said his piece - he feels that, given the harshness of his tone, he'd best leave Every to her thoughts. He leans forward on the branch. It's not so far down. His feet swing and he pushes off - he lands on the wooden floor below with a barely discernible thud. He glances back up at Every. "You'll be fine," he says. He doesn't shout. He knows she will hear him. He doesn't say goodbye. He just salutes, and saunters off to the elevator - pulling out his phone. Still no responses. But he has the urge to go home to Grey - and so that's where he will go.


<Every> After a few minutes as he moved to drop off, Every paused before she pressed her lips together. She hadn't really talked to anyone about her thoughts and her issues for a little while and as she watched Jesse push off the tree, she waved in his direction with two fingers. A small goodbye that he wouldn't be able to see. "Thank you." She said the words as he sauntered off, not caring if he heard her or not, but she felt they needed to be said regardless. Leaning back in the tree briefly, she checked her watch before adjusting to slip off the branch and landing in a light crouch as she sighed once he was inside and out of sight. He'd helped her quite a bit and the urge to flee was lessened, but there was still the task of bringing it up to the people she trusted the most in Harper Rock. That wouldn't be a comfortable discussion in the least.