[hider=Himemonogatari Gold] What a cozy little hell I'd woken up in. This Pressman woman, the same bizarre exhibitionist that had spent the past two nights talking endlessly about my adoptive mother and making coy hints to me about my birth mother, definitely had a knack for this sort of thing, I had to give her that. This apartment was Feng shui as hell. The couch was neatly arranged on a wall to the right of the entrance, so that if you were skilled enough at belly flopping, you might even have been able to land face down into the worn old leather that had no doubt played host to its share of family movie nights. The curtains were all open, and there were a surprising amount of windows in the apartment, so the sheer amount of sunlight must have saved them a lot on the electricity bill around this time of year. There was music playing from somewhere in the house; someone'd left a radio on. It was a...it was Top 40. Ellie Goulding. It must have been coming from the bathroom. Luke might have left it on when he showered-- Luke. "Aaaagh!" I'd tried sitting up too quickly. "Luke..." I felt like I'd been torn in half. "Bright? Giada?" I felt so crudely reassembled. "Gigi?" At least I knew my memory was intact. I could remember a faces, names, maybe even muster up the ability to cobble together some timeline of events of the past few nights if I tried hard enough. But I wasn't interested in trying that hard. My head hurt too damn bad. I need to test little things. I need to [i]really[/i] test my memory. "Heinrich Jericho Noah Solomon. Ferris Jericho Andromeda Charon. Vega Gratia Geni Beryl. Bianca Celestia Nuit. Babylon Paris Piper. Rebekah Mole Piper. Cecelia Catherine Gault. April always falls asleep during Round 4. Dawn was wearing a pixie cut this springtime. 39:28, 36:41. I know there's nothing that I can do to make you staaaa~aaaaaa~aaaaay, one thing I know that'll always remain, and that's the aftertaaaaa~aaaaaa~aaaaaste." Names, teams, times, personality quirks, snapshots, times. I can sing along to the song in the bathroom. I certainly felt alive. I certainly felt like me. Whoever the hell that was these days... I tried sitting up a little more gingerly this time, and found that my caution was already leaving me better off physically. I was recovering every second I was conscious. I didn't remember Luke's blood having that kind of painkiller effect, but-- Vampire blood. I'd consumed a lot of it the last few days. Some of it was [i]our[/i] gorgeous Mistralian vampire's... [s][i]BITCH SLAP OH SNAP PUNK MOTHERFUCKER AIN'T WORTH THE CAP PREY EVIL TASTE WRONG BRIGHT B R I GH T[/i][/s] ...Eugh. And a lot of it wasn't. That was probably what had me feeling peppier by the second. I was dosed on something. I looked down to my left tricep and saw that the bandages around my upper arm had darkened with blood, nearly to a thick, viscous black. Whoever had fixed me up and dressed my wounds - be it Luke, Giada, or that love witch in the wool sweater - had left it unattended. I appreciated that. Had I been on this couch all night? Where was my Scroll, I needed to check for a date-- In my haste, I nearly knocked over the large stool that had been repurposed as a refreshments table to the right side of the couch, between the sofa and Julia Pressman's esoteric bookcase. There were a couple items there, all of them wearing a sheer layer of loose leaf over them with helpful notes, most of them in Bright's handwriting. [i]DRINK ME[/i]: A bottle of Valic whiskey, probably not from this household. A double shot was already poured for me in a small glass, the ice having long melted in it. Normally I liked it neat, but I guess Bright thought I was like a child with a headache. Widdle Jewicho need ice cold dwink. Go to hell, Bright. Can't believe I saved your ass. ...And that your cereal-shunning, shades-wearing, bitch-slapping dumb ass saved mine. [i]WEAR ME:[/i] A black v-neck in a uniquely shmedium size, no doubt so that whoever else was in the house could enjoy me in tight clothes. Thanks a lot, buddy. We'll have words on that once I find you. [i]AVOID ME:[/i] A-- I stopped, looked at the note again, and studied the handwriting. [i]AVOID ME:[/i] Underneath a scrap of paper that had been blessed by Giada Fiordilatte's scrawl lay a little plastic pair of fangs, the kind that even dollar stores only had the sack to charge you a quarter for. It was enough to make me wish I could smile. "Giada?" I tried again. The girl had spent over two months in my shadow at one point between her escape from custody and the time when I finally set her free, and she'd seen me at my lowest points; it wasn't impossible that she was loitering around in here somewhere, avoiding the sunlight that had swallowed up the room. Another clever ploy by the Pressman woman. How she was so good at this was beyond me. I don't believe in any of this occult crap, or I didn't before now. But she seems to have patterned her life around it. Weird way to live, if you asked me. ...Me, the guy who joined the chivalric order at seventeen years of age. No use thinking about that any further for right now, at least until I figured out where everyone was. I lifted up the drink glass and got part of my answer: [i]SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY[/i] in Bright's hand. It wasn't a surprise to me that he'd left. He was like me that way; as soon as he was able to stand up on his own two feet, he would be using them to shuffle somewhere or other in order to stay busy. Nicole being gone, on the other hand, surprised me. The girl was devoted to all of us, and me especially. I guess she's been reporting to my dad about me all these years, so she needs to keep a close eye out. It seemed pretty counterintuitive to not report on how my recovery was going, though. Maybe Dad wasn't interested. Or, if she wasn't reporting to him about it... Bleh. God knows what went on inside that girl's head. Secrets on secrets, even to a guy like me. To hell with that. I needed sustenance. The last thing I'd had to eat was...vampire blood. And before that... A... A finger, right? Maybe a palm. Like being gagged could stop Judgment. Ha. ...Bleeeeeh. That was a thought worth drinking over. I tilted my head back and managed to get the whole glass of whiskey down, even though with a sore throat that still tasted like blood and an empty stomach that was rumbling louder by the second, the stuff just made me want to gag. I rolled the empty glass around in my hand, watching a spare drop or two of alcohol roll around in circles around through its translucent bottom before setting it back on the table. One glass was all I needed. ... I wouldn't touch the glass again. ... I wouldn't touch the [i]glass[/i] again. Sighing, I reached for the pair of fangs Giada had bought me and shrank back into a horizontal position on the couch. The fangs spun around my finger once. Twice. Stopped and reversed course for one spin, two. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bra_jlITzmI]The song was changing in the other room.[/url] With a flick, the fangs flew up in the air-- [hider=A Liquid Breakfast (IGNORE THIS.)][/hider] --and, as the knob on the front door turned, the fangs landed in my hand again. I quickly popped them into my mouth; my head tilted slightly to the right, though the couch was lined up so that I didn't have to do any acrobatics with my neck in order to see who was arriving. Just Luke; neither of the Pressmans were with him, but he was car-- "YOU [i]MONGREL![/i]" . ................................ "BRINGING ME TO THIS DEN OF INIQUITY AND ESOTERIC NONSENSE, FOR NEFARIOUS PURPOSES I KNOW NOT OF, I WILL HAVE YOU--M-My knight!" ...................................................... "Celia?" "Tch, hey, man, it's good to see you awake. There, he's alive like I promised. Could you stop kicking me [i]now?[/i]" Luke asked. He seemed grouchy, but for once, it was easy for me to understand why. The girl that was bound up over his shoulders (but, noticeably, not gagged) was someone that required a built-up tolerance for most people, unlike his two precocious sisters. Not for me, but for most people. Cecelia Catherine Gault. Fifteen. Birthday, March 3rd. I'd bought her a... A jacket. Leather with Gold Stripes regalia. Every Gold Stripe, in addition to the distinctive uniform we wore to classes and around the academy to denote our elite standing, also got a series of jackets for casual wear, to advertise our accomplishments in any weather. The people at Atlas hadn't had time to really make her any yet, as her appointment to the Stripes had been [i]very[/i] last minute, so I'd had one made for her myself through third party. She wasn't wearing it today, but that was understandable for a number of reasons; it was a summer morning, after all, and as far as I knew Cecelia was supposed to be on holiday up north with Rich and the folks. Anything that had brought her here... No, any[i]one[/i] who had brought her here... Would likely be someone that didn't want their status as an operative compromised. She had traveled halfway across the world for a purpose. H-Had Rich? Crap. Crap, this is what I wanted to avoid. ... Although, there were possibilities here. "Celia..." I muttered quietly, careful to keep my eyes downcast and shrinking away from as much of the sunlight on the sofa as I could. It was easy enough to manage, even if I wound up mostly lying atop the back of the piece of furniture, ceding most of the cushions. "Luke, keep her away. I think...I think I came back wrong." Oh, God, I nearly had to use my Semblance to keep the impression of a straight face here. "Do I look alright?" I smiled - only a small smile, though, and nothing as crass as manipulating my Semblance to give the appearance of a glint of light along a sharpened canine. That would be out of character for me. Luke must have been there to see someone plant the plastic fangs in the first place, so after an initial flinch on his part the Shiroyaman seemed to instinctively relax. But Cecelia [i]screamed.[/i] And then, still struggling against her own weapon and Semblance, kicking her feet into Luke's back with the miniscule amount of force she could muster from her trussed up position, I saw the bratty princess seal her eyes shut and duck her chin towards her chest. The classic "of course I'm not crying" defense mechanism. Aw, Christ. "Hey..." "Y-You idiot! Stupid knight, your heedless courage and your militant death wish have finally gone too far! And you, you mountain mongrel, he would never have found his way to this backwater were it not for you and your--you--dummies, dummies, dummies--!" "Celia." The fangs beaned the Gault heir apparent directly in the nose, one plastic tooth bouncing off the little tip, underneath the bridge, and landing on the carpet. For about two seconds she actually looked shocked, looking at me balefully to determine whether or not I stll had a beating heart and a taste for cooked meat. Then she tried passing off an attempt to grab the fangs off the floor, for whatever reason. It wasn't like I was gonna be fooled now that I'd used the trick against her. "I-Idiot..." "Yeah," I admitted. "Now c'mere." I expanded one arm and gestured for her to approach. The intensity of the panicked stare she gave Luke would have been enough to melt any handcuffs that the Beacon student had used to hold her, but there was no way that even Celia was getting free of her weapon without Luke there to give the first inch. Even with her kicking frantically in the air and waving her head back and forth in an attempt to tip herself free of his lumberjack carry, it may have taken her hours to go anywhere. "Lemmefreelemmefreelemmefreelemmefreelemeefreelemmefreelemmefree--" The questioning look that Luke returned fire with was aimed straight at me. "It's alright, man." "Tch, yeah...fine. Heave ho, kid..." There it was; he tugged on the bindings towards their point of first contact, down towards her ankles. With even a hint of slack, she was free in seconds, and landed onto her palms on the carpet with considerably more grace than you would expect from a girl who had found herself rolled up into a bundle like kindling by Luke Schwarz, of all people. She let the rest of her body land backwards, pushing herself up off her hands and touching the floor with her own feet again-- "MY KNIGHT!" [i]--YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH[/i] AND THROWING HERSELF RIGHT INTO THE GODDAMN CLINCH WITH THE HUG OF THE CENTURY! MY RIB! MY RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIB! Cecelia, meanwhile, sounded...well, if you'd ever heard Bekah snacking on a dozen kreme donuts, or Bianca during leather jacket and beanie season, you'd know the sound of utter content that was currently squeaking out of the face smushed into my taped-together sternum. "I came halfway across the world for you!" I noticed. "Yeah, seems like that's an Atlesian virtue these days..." Gingerly, I closed the embrace, wrapping my open arm around her back and running my hand through her hair with my other one briefly. Credit to Cecelia Gault - she was one of the only people who had never once flinched at Judgment's touch. "Virtue, you say...Brother would probably call it folly." Your brother would do it for either of us. And you shouldn't judge based on Heinrich "I saw you walking with that owl, time to break in my new towel" Gault's twised idea of affection. Wow, those were easy. I see why Luke and Speer like them. Heinrich "I'm afraid that to claim this guy, I must let the linens fly" Gault. Heinrich "Speer can stick to cyber world, I have my own cute fascist girl" Gault. Heinrich "Mongrel please, I know these things, it's only gay if [i]you[/i] fuck the ki--"[/hider] Fuck it, too sick and too busy to finish this up right now. 2500 words or so is as much as I'm gonna get done.