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 [right][b]Interactions:[/b] Leon [@AtomicEmperor]
[code]Toga Party. Halloween Festival. [/code][/right][hr]

Vashti licked her lips hungrily as Linqian was tossed her way like a chicken off the side of a dock in a bayou. That look Linqian gave Vashti melted her, heating the wrist that had been nearly frostbitten by Linqian earlier with a warm sensation that was as painful as it was pleasant. Vashti returned the look with one of dark and even dangerous curiosity. It wasn’t just suggestive, it was a spoiler, a teaser trailer for what was to come once Vashti got her hands on Linqian. The way they could ruin one another would be an absolutely beautiful catastrophe. Vashti was able to squeeze part of herself free from her Drake and Leon sandwich and reach out to Linqian. The tips of their fingers nearly caressed, nothing but a few millimeters of air and one incredible and violently unstable spark between them. Vashti parted her lips.

And Linqian was snapped away, signing [i]Call me[/i] as she was abducted.

[color=darkcyan][i]No![/i][/color]

Fuck. That. Vashti wasn’t going to wait for what she wanted. With a sudden surge of strength that flowed into Vashti from her libido, she was able to wedge enough room between herself and Drake to give chase to Linqian.  She was stopped by Leon wrapping his hands around her waist,[color=darkcyan][i]No![/i][/color], her eyes fluttering as she felt his muscles tightened and his body pressed against hers, [color=darkcyan][i]Yes![/i][/color]. Her mind blanked and a wicked smile carved its way onto her face.  Her hands slipped down over his, trying to guide them just a little lower. Her head soared and her heart raced as she was hefted up by Leon with ease, [color=darkcyan][i]Yes! Yes! Drive me into the ground and devour me like a snack![/i][/color] 

The situation hit a slight hiccup as she was placed on his shoulders instead of being buried face first into the dirt, but the disappointment shifted as Vashti caught Leon’s eye. In unison with him she raised both of her fists into the air. 

[h1][color=darkcyan][b][i]“DOUBLE DECKER TOGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”[/i][/b][/color][/h1]

She felt high, both figuratively and literally. This was how her life always should be: surrounded by drunken debauchery and half-naked hot people that were all beneath her, with the head of a powerful man pressed between her thighs. Vashti drained the contents of the Chalice as it was passed back to her as Sully stumbled away from the toga line, dropping it to Emily behind her. She leaned forward, pressing her chest against the back of Leon’s hair, her curly hair draping over his face, her eyes drunk with lust, as she slid a hand beneath his chin to guide his focus back up to her. Only her. A finger traced down to feel the pulse in his jugular. She smiled down at him, a warm invitation, the scent of sweet wine on her hot breath. 

Her desire to be with Leon was now matched only by one other deeper, darker desire that lurked hidden in the depths of all people, kept locked away until that person was presented with a key. Years ago Britney had been the one to give her the key, much like Lady Lelou had with Leon. Leon looked hot now, but he would’ve looked even hotter on his knees, hands wrapped around his throat, a crimson necktie unfurling over his toga. Her breathing quickened with heated anticipation as she locked eyes with Leon, her finger making a few practice runs across his neck. It might not actually be enough to kill Leon if what she heard was true. That was even more exciting. The two of them locked together in a deadly tango, surrounded by stacks of bloodied sheets of the remnants of the toga party, clawing and biting and ripping and tearing one another apart until the break of dawn. 

She let go of his chin. She arched her back, pulling her face away from Leon, and rolled her head as she released a steamy sigh. She watched the moon, the fingers on her left hand working their way through Leon’s hair. She closed her eyes and was greeted to a not entirely unpleasant visual of it being Linqian, not Leon, beneath her. Her eyes snapped open, a clear expression of [i]what the fuck[/i] on her face accompanied by suddenly much sharper eyes that scanned the immediate area for her missing gold prize. She didn’t see Linqian. Instead, she only saw Emily scampering away with the Chalice in her hand. Leon would feel Vashti’s entire body tense as she silently swore up a storm at her back, just as surely he would’ve felt Emily let go of him and perhaps take a look at the woman stealing their party favor. 

Vashti couldn’t let that happen. 

She put her hand beneath Leon’s chin again and jerked it up again, aggression stabbing the previously felt sensuality in the kidneys and leaving it to die on the streets. The lustful desire in her eyes was replaced by a different deadly sin as she moved in for the kill, her jaws darting forward with a sudden snap. She pulled Leon’s attention away with a long and deep kiss. It was passionate, although not in the way it was with new lovers still discovering the mystery of their partner’s body. It was much more like the way that someone stabbing their spouse sixty-seven times in the stomach was considered passionate, delivered in the form of little tiny bites on his lip between bouts of their tongues trying to pin the other to assert their dominance. 

Vashti peaked an eye open and only pulled away for oxygen once, from her vantage point, she saw that Emily had moved far enough away to be blocked by the crowd. Her face was flushed and her chest heaved as she looked down at Leon with a wolfish smile, a smile that narrowed as she looked back towards Emily and caught sight of Greenwood and a fucking Batman making a move after her. Her fingers scritched the bottom of Leon’s chin as if to say good boy as she threw her head back and screamed in silence. [i]Always such a fucking cockblock![/i] A dark cloud rolled in front of the moon as she leaned back down and peppered Leon with a line of kisses from his mouth to his ear. She dropped from his shoulders with an acrobatic twist, her hand still wrapped around his hair like a leash so that he’d stoop down so she could whisper in his ear.

[color=darkcyan]“Sorry, fido. Hate to be a tease, but we’ll have to take a raincheck,”[/color] said Vashti, her warm breath on his ear as the sky rumbled. She stroked his face one last time as her pupils briefly narrowed like those of a lizard before becoming two dark, focused pinpoints, and patted his cheek. She grinned diabolically as she moved to trail Emily. [color=darkcyan]“I’ve gotta go kill someone.”[/color]

It began to rain. 

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 [right][b]Interactions:[/b]  Jack [@Blizz] & Anya (via Pin Drop) [@Fernstone]
[code]The Halloween Festival[/code][/right][hr]

Why wouldn’t Jack just leave her alone? The corner of Sloane’s left eye began to spasm. Her mouth tightened until her lips all but disappeared, her teeth clenched together so tightly that they threatened to poof into dust. She inhaled deeply and lifted her head to the sky, a droplet of rain splashing upon her forehead which she wiped away with a hand that had balled itself up into a tiny, shaking fist. She closed her eyes tight until she started to see spots.  [I][color=6644ff]I worry for you.[/color][/i] What a stupid thing to say.  She said she was good which translated to she didn’t want to talk to anyone. Everybody should just know that.

Her phone buzzed as she got a message from Anya. Anya would understand. If she were here she would’ve grabbed Jack by the shoulders and steer him away. Sloane dropped her a pin with their location.

[color=silver]“You’re just not going to stop, are you?”[/color] spat Sloane, glaring at Jack as she wobbled ever so slightly.

Normally she would’ve gone on a full lockdown when someone pushed her so hard to divulge anything about herself, but someone must’ve spilled their drink on the control panel because none of the usual buttons she pressed were able to completely shut Jack out. It wasn’t that she believed that her wants and feelings didn’t matter, even though in the grand scheme of everything they didn’t matter—hell, she didn’t even matter. She just didn’t like sharing them because sharing them made them real and once they were real they were oh so much harder to push down and ignore. 

[color=silver]“You know what, fine. Something is on my mind. Actually a lot of things are.  All the time. It’s a lot like you in that regard,”[/color] said Sloane, her words dragged down by the alcohol. She sneered and elaborated, [color=silver]“It just won’t shut the fuck up and leave me alone.”[/color]

It was getting annoying to stand. Her legs felt weak and the stupid world kept rocking back and forth. It was probably drunk too. She inelegantly plopped down in the dying grass, dangerously close to the puddle of paint that she had stripped from Jasper’s artwork. She watched the raindrops create patterns of their own in the paint as the colors spread, mixed, and thinned. Individually, each little droplet did almost nothing to the spilled paint. However, when it all accumulated together it was able to blend everything together into one big muddy mess. For a moment it seemed like Sloane had completely gone away, or that the lockdown sequence had been initiated after all. 

Then she finally broke her silence. 

[color=silver]“My best friend is dead and I’ll never get to talk to her again, and now her husband hates me and will never talk to me again. My other best friend probably only spends time with me out of pity because she probably realizes what a mess I’d be without her. It’s so unfair to put that on her. I just weigh her down. My dad’s trying to work his way back into my life, which means he’s either working an angle or, worse, he actually just cares about me and I can’t do the same for him. I finally worked up the courage to ask the boy I liked out for a dinner date after ten years and he was murdered before I had the chance to do it. Now I can only think about how much I respected and idolized him growing up, and how much time I wasted fearing rejection, and how he’s now stashed in, in, I don’t know, in some shoebox or something in his sister’s linen closet, and I just can’t even bear to think about th—”[/color] 

Her voice swelled with emotion and broke. When she found her words again, she was back to her typical text-to-speech narration.

[color=silver]“While you and Anya kept everyone safe last week, I managed to get myself jerked around by 8th street and accomplished nothing. I’m starting to realize that accomplishing nothing is probably the best for everyone, because I destroy everything I touch,”[/color] she said, staring at the blank canvas with an expression just as empty. [color=silver]“I lost a bunch of artifacts, including a bunch of knockoffs that I made that could absolutely devastate communities if not entire countries, and I can’t even do anything about it because I’m scared. I’m scared. I don’t know why nobody else acts like it, but I’m so [i]fucking[/i] scared that I’m going to die like everybody I ever cared about or continue be a disappointment like everyone else.”[/color]

The rain was cold, but it wasn’t the reason why her body began to shiver and quake.

[color=silver]“It’s not just Jasper. Everybody hates me. I don’t even get it. They just hate me. They found the first excuse they could use and kicked me out as quickly as they could. Seriously, like, how did Britney, who robbed so many people of their future, who used innocents as sacrificial pawns, who, for all intents and purposes, was a war criminal, stay in longer than me? Gets welcomed back and immediately forgiven while I’m still looked at with suspicion and disdain? Is allowed to sneak behind people’s backs and make calls she has no right to make that put people’s lives in danger and not get called out for it? It’s unfair. It’s just so unfair. Not a single thing has changed. It’s all just another popularity contest. Fine. Let them hate me. I hate them all, too.”[/color]

[color=silver]“And that includes you,”[/color] said Sloane, glaring daggers at Jack. [color=silver]“Stop pretending like you know me. Stop pretending that you care about me. I don’t know if you just feel guilty for abandoning us that you have to constantly hovering around like a helicopter parent, or if you’re actually just secretly a good guy, but please just stop. Hate me like everyone else. It’ll be so much easier for you. Don’t do what Anya did to herself. I don’t want to have to carry the weight of being the reason another person is made into a social pariah. I’m a curse given human form. That's just the way it is.”[/color]

[color=silver]“So [i]please[/i],”[/color] said Sloane, the harsh look in her eyes breaking as genuine concern slipped through regarding Jack’s status as an outcast. [color=silver]“Fuck off.”[/color]