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 [right][b]Interactions:[/b] Clancy [@Zombiedude101], Ken [@AtomicEmperor], Britney [@Punished GN]
[code]Kari’s House[/code][/right]
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It was Britney Williams of all people to come to Sloane’s aid, but it was ultimately Linqian that ended up deescalating everything. Linqian pulled her hand away from Sloane’s collar and slipped herself free from her grip. This had allowed Sloane to use her now free hand to cover her own mouth and pinch it shut tight. Sloane could feel her teeth tightly pressed and her jaw painfully locked up as her grip crushed her lips together. Yet the pain was worth it because it kept her from snapping off an unneeded retort at Britney about how she was the one responsible for Vashti being “crazy’. It would ultimately lead to no good for Sloane, and it was distracting from the more pressing point at hand. Even Linqian could see that and she was, despite her own claims, an idiot. 

[i]Stop it, give her a break.[/i]

Sloane looked at the ground, her eyes pulled down by a twist of guilt. She actually believed Linqian when she said that she was serious, so why had Linqian wasted their time? Other people were so frustrating to deal with. If Sloane had known it was going to go like this, she would’ve broken in by herself before the group had gotten here. Her hand over her mouth began to tremble. She quickly shoved her hands in her pocket, her expression set to its typical neutral-nothingness as she began to follow Ken and the others towards the basement.

[b]"The book Luca mentioned, have you seen it? Do you know where it is?" [/b] asked Clancy. 

[color=silver]“No,”[/color] said Sloane more sharply than she had intended, actually sounding as if she had been offended. Why would she know? Was he now accusing her of something? She paused and then reconsidered. The question could’ve just been a question. She turned to Clancy and offered him a little more. [color=silver]“But Coven naming conventions aren’t too creative. They squat in a mansion over on 8th Street.”[/color]

And then, before he got any ideas and scampered off after that supposed book without them she quickly added, [color=silver]“But you can’t just break in.”[/color]

The group reached the basement, the stench of reefer causing Sloane to wrinkle her nose. Sloane watched with mild bemusement as Kenshiro fed a coin into a dumbwaiter and unlocked some kind of dimensional vault. She felt a momentary twinge of jealousy that no beau of hers had lovingly made her a magical vault, but the feeling went away when Ken revealed that it was missing Kari’s notes. Of course while it would be strangely cathartic if there had been a break-in it was too soon to immediately jump to conclusion, despite Ken’s caterwauling. Kari could’ve just taken them out and—

 A “tch!” escaped from Sloane as Ken hypocritically punched a hole in some drywall. Sure, she made a little itsy bitsy dent and suddenly she’s public enemy number one, but he punched a hole in a goddamn wall and they were supposed to feel bad for him? Stupid. She hung her head and her shoulder shook as she tried to hold in laughter as the coins, their consolation prize for time well wasted, loudly clattered to the ground. The staggered and muffled escapes of air from strangled chuckles almost sounded like quiet sobbing. They stopped almost as soon as they were joined by Ken’s weeping, his unabashed emotions killing the humor she had found in the situation as she began to fill with unease. She jumped when he shouted.

[color=silver]“Maybe they’re…”[/color] she started quietly. No, screw this. She didn’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with Ken having a breakdown every time he crossed a threshold. Plus, the way everybody was gently trying to comfort him made her skin crawl. Sloane had to get out of here. She gave Anya a parting eyeroll to let her know that she was going to go back upstairs, but Sloane didn’t head up right away. Instead, she walked up about three steps and paused, spacing out time to allow herself to avoid going up with Amara. That’s when she overheard Britney,[color=f4eb93]”...And I'm hoping it doesn't end with us barking up 8th Street's tree.”[/color]

[color=silver]“You’re the psychopath who planted that tree!”[/color] came a parting voice from the stairs, punctuated by the slamming of a basement door. 

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 [right][b]Interactions:[/b] Tayla [@silvermist1116] Drake [@Punished GN] Luna (Shouting at, indirectly) [@Estylwen], also essentially everyone else. 
[code]Kari’s House[/code][/right]
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[color=goldenrod]“Aww, man…”[/color]

Sully didn’t know what he was more tired of: getting his jacket dirty or living other people’s memories. He guessed there was something nice about seeing Elsa and Kari again, even if it was in a weird voyeuristic fugue state. Meanwhile, there was never a brightside to grass stains. He felt a hand pat him on his back as Tayla whispered to him to keep quiet about her stalker Dean. Of course the asshole had an asshole name like Dean. He didn’t fully understand why Tayla would want the Coven to not know about Dean. He was harassing one of their own. Two, actually. Sully was essentially being stalked in Tayla’s place. Everybody should be on the lookout for the guy. Hell, he could’ve been Father Wolf. 

Sully pushed himself up. Normally he was for respecting someone’s choice, but sometimes a person needed to be told that the choice they had made was the stupid one like wearing socks with sandals or mixing a top shelf bottle of scotch with diet soda. He turned to Tayla as he struggled to untangle his backpack from his legs, his eyes watery only in part to having bounced his face off the ground.

[color=goldenrod]“Look girl I think this is one of those times were you just gotta aaaaand, okay, the headphones are on. Okay, I can take a-oH RIGHT, DRAKE!”[/color] 

Sully jumped to his feet, nearly tripping again, and then righted himself. If they got Dean now then they wouldn’t have to do any airing out of dirty laundry. He began tough-guy stomping after Drake and Stormy, crunching a pair of binoculars beneath his feet, as he pushed up his sleeves. Right. It was time for the  jock squad to take down this psycho biker. Sully rolled his shoulders and threw a few wild punches in the air that would make Stormy and Leon shake their heads at his form as he bumbled through the brush. 

He overheard Drake and Stormy already confronting the Chosen One’s newest archenemy, Dickhead Dean, his voice carrying a lot less bass in it than Sully remembered. Whatever. He had been drunk. Maybe he was misremembering. 

[color=goldenrod]“I’m here, fellas. Hope you saved some from ol’ Sully. Let’s whoop this trick…uh…”[/color]

Okay Sully had been pretty blitzed the other night but he was pretty confident that Dean was not a young, pale Japanese woman who had also helped them save the world. Sully hadn’t been around when Luna’s little game of Mafia got a little too real, so he really didn’t understand what all the shouting back and forth was about. Maybe Stormy and Drake didn’t remember Luna? Stormy had probably been hit in his head too many times since then and Drake was, well, Drake was never the brightest crayon in the toolshed. No worries. Ol’ Sully could easily patch out what was certainly just a misunderstanding. 

[color=goldenrod]“What the hell, dude!?”[/color] yelled Sully as Drake swung an electric mace at Luna. Holy shit he was trying to kill her. It had happened. Sully’s worst fear. The text message had been a warning after all.  

Drake had finally snapped!

[color=goldenrod]“Drake, stop! You’re better than this, man!”[/color] shouted Sully, hefting the Chalice in his hand as if he was readying himself to chuck it at his best bro’s head to knock some sense into him. [color=goldenrod]“Don’t just become another statistic. Stormy, what the fuck. Stop him!”[/color]

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 [right][b]Interactions:[/b] Lynn [@NoriWasHere]
[code]Kari’s House[/code][/right]
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That had been unnecessary. Sloane moved away from the basement with the hurried footsteps of a criminal leaving the scene, her hands massaging her temples in a pitiful attempt to quell a head splitting migraine. She sharply turned her head at the sight of Auri, unable to even bear to make eye contact with the woman who had put together such a sad pack of individuals—Sloane no exception herself. Sloane muttered inaudible complaints to herself about everyone and anyone. Her underarms were cold with sweat and it felt like she had swallowed a handful of sewing pins. When was the last time she had taken a breath? 

She needed to be alone. Outside, the people still on the porch would see a dark figure poke its head out and then quickly retreat inside. Sloane moved up the stairs in a failed attempt to make it seem like she was not fleeing, her shaking hand grabbing at the bannister to keep herself from tumbling down. She froze at the sight of Amara ahead of her, the sight of a drawn gun taking her doubled heartbeat and quadrupling it, and twisted to go downstairs until she heard voices. She’d take a bullet over the mob. Sloane drifted past Amara, full body bristling as she looked back, eyes darting between the gun and Amara, no effort to hide a look of “what the fuck” on Sloane’s face. Sloane slipped into a room with her eyes closed, shut the door behind her, and locked it. 

For the first time since coming out of the basement she exhaled the stagnant cellar air and breathed in the sweet tasting air of solitude. No, wait. She smacked her lips. The taste was wrong. She opened her eyes, jolted, and let out a quiet [color=silver]“fuck”[/color] as she saw Lynn sitting on the bed, staring directly at Sloane, tainting the air she had wanted to breathe. Sloane waved her hand at Lynn and tried to gauge a reaction, the glazed over look in the woman’s eye telling Sloane that Lynn was anywhere but there. Sloane sighed. It was probably the best she would get. 

Sloane sank to the floor with her back against the door, staring across the room at Lynn, and controlled her breathing: [i][b] in two three four - out two three four[/b][/i]. Better. Not good, but better. She nervously picked at a piece of the carpet, teasing out of the fabric with her fingernails. 

[color=silver]“You set a bad example. We’re supposed to be searching the house, not sitting around doing nothing. Really, I can’t believe how unhelpful you’re being. This is a group effort. You think you’d at the very least tolerate being in the same room with them. Can’t even make it through a single meeting without starting a fight,”[/color] said Sloane softly, uncertain if she was even addressing Lynn. She pulled her knees up to her chest in a cradle and rested her head on her knee. [color=silver]“You’re such an embarrassment. Why would they even invite you? If we accomplish nothing again it’s all your fault.”[/color]