"I don't think he means any harm," Sobki said, "but he's only here for a day or two, then disappears for weeks, so I don't know much beyond surface level."

He took an awkward sip of his punch.

"I don't 'hang out' with him so much as I try to keep him out of too much trouble, but that...didn't work out this time."

Lock's glare softened more into amusement when Chad turned his focus to Carmilla.

"Actually," he corrected, "I picked them for talent. If I wanted eye candy, I would've recruited Agatha."

He nuzzled against Lillith again and directed her away so they could dance - and to get out of range of his older sister.

"Oh," Shock said with feigned ignorance. "I must have [i]misheard[/i]."

Much to her dismay, he chugged the rest of his beer before she could spike it. However, another opportunity presented itself.

"Then I'll get you another drink so you can try one, then," she said sweetly, "because Barrel worked [i]so hard[/i] on them."

This, actually, would work better.

Lock's tail pointed towards a trash can by one of the couches.

"Over there," he said.

Shock waited for Chad to turn to toss the beer can so he wouldn't see what she held when she turned away. She observed the snack table and located the Bludlite box. No way in hell was she gonna waste the [i]good[/i] stuff for this. Shock set her glass on the snack table, then knelt down to open the box, crack open a can, and put a drop of adder pepper juice into it. She then closed the bottle and hid it in her pocket, before she grabbed the Bludlite can, retrieved her drink, and headed right back to Chad to hand it to him. Shock sipped her own drink, before she picked up the prior conversation.

"It's a [i]shame[/i] you want a guy singing," she said, "because [i]I[/i] did the voicework."