Milk and Sins

THE COMMENT MAKES A LAUGH ESCAPE JESSIE, hearty, head tilted back a bit as if she said the funniest thing in the world. "Afraid?" It's sputtered out, a dismissive hand waving before tucking a few strands of fallen orange locks behind her ear. "Darlin', nothin' scares me 'bout myself, and if you think I'm the scariest thing t'come outta bein' underneath Adam, you're painfully mistaken, which you should remember by th'way you got kinda ruffed up last time I saw you." That role of intimidator has already been taken in bright shining colors. The words 'I might as well be a teddy bear compared to Rachelle' sits heavy on her tongue but Jessie doesn't think they're fully needed.

There's a step closer to Eden, the smile dropping within seconds.

"Don't act like you know who I am when you're one'v the reasons I'm like this, Eden." a beat. "You don't know anythin' but how to protect you and your own ass, you don't know a damn thing 'bout me so stop projectin'."

"And you don't know anything about me." Eden pushed back, forehead wrinkling as she stared at Jessie.

There was guilt in Eden's eyes, sure. Eden wasn't stupid enough to try to pretend there wasn't. She knows she didn't save Jessie. She didn't save a lot of people. Back then, Eden was nothing more than a lost lamb with blood on her mouth and Adam's words ringing in her ears like scripture. She believed him at first, like everyone did. Thought he had the key to salvation, even with all of them damned to eternity as vampires.

That was on her.

But Jessie didn't get to stand there and act like she had Eden all figured out either.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips, before he plastered on his signature grin. Shaking his head in amusement. "Yes, it's very illegal." Marcel admitted, standing to walk closer to her. Arms crossing loosely, as he leaned against the closest wall. Watching her. "Don't tell me you haven't done anything illegal? Are you trying to say that you haven't lived life on the edge at all? Never broken a law?" A small shrug of his shoulders, before he stood up straight once more.

"I've done plenty of illegal shit." Her eyes held his for as long as she could manage before she finally looked away, her stare dropping over the balcony and down to the sea of people moving in the New Orleans streets below.

She weighed her options as she took a steady inhale, but her palms were growing sweaty at the thought of breaking the careful rules she has been living by all this time.

Eden has been trying to turn over a new leaf. Trying to right the wrongs she’s done in her life and find her way back to the girl she used to be. But sometimes....she missed the fun. The rush of it all. The part of herself that didn’t overthink every bad decision.

“Aww, if you're gonna be so upset about it, I won't banish you. Might not be so bad being haunted by a pretty face... as long as you're the nice kind of ghost, like a guardian ghost who scares away bad people.” There it was again, a second compliment offered without prompting or flirtatious intent. Mati said it without thinking it would have any lasting impression; surely she'd been called it before, it was fairly objective, he'd think.

With some level of interest, he watches as Eden goes about making her decision. No input from him, he didn't want to try persuading her one way or the other. If she chose to go home, then that's what would happen. He'd take her back and come again on his own or with someone else interested in this side quest of his.

Actually, he was pleasantly surprised when she chose to forge ahead. Laughing when she playfully called him out as he went into a light jog to catch up to her. “Funny, because for a second there I was sure you'd bow out. Then you'd be the scaredy-cat, though, as promised, I wouldn't have said a word about it.”

“A what?” Eden blinked at him, the toe of her shoe dragging in the dirt as she slowed her pep for half a second.

“There are a few things I don’t like to fuck with,” she started with a purse to her lips and a shake of her head again. “And occultist witch women are pretty high on that list.” Her voice was playful enough to make it sound like a joke, but her heart was really going to town in her chest.

She wasn’t a scaredy-cat. Not really. She just had a very basic and very reasonable desire to not see a demon, get possessed by a demon, or have a demon attach itself to her like some fucked up spiritual parasite.

All reasonable things to not want.

“I swear, Teo, if some demon latches onto me and kills me, I will become your personal demon.” She bumped her elbow into him on purpose, shooting him a look. “Not even a guardian ghost. A nightmare one. Like moving your stuff around, whispering your name at 3am, standing in the corner of your room when you wake up. Full movie show production.”

Then she slowed down, turning fully to look at him with an expression that was only half joking.

Yes they were going to meet at their usual table, and they'd probably bombard her with questions.. Maybe it was worth it.

What she wasn't expecting was Nora. Max had watched her from afar. Admired the way she carried herself. Something that max wished she could do. Something she pretended to do, fooling just enough people.

“Oh yeah?” Nora asked without a care, biting into one of the fries she got from the cafeteria. “That tall one is kind of cute. Isn’t his name like… Bill or something?”

She paused like she was actually trying to remember, eyes narrowing for a second before she shrugged and reached for another fry.

“Anyway, I’m not really worried about my reputation.” Nora leaned to the side a little bit, perfectly comfortable despite the warning. “You hang out with them and you’re still sort of cool, so I think I’ll survive the social damage.”

Her mouth curved around another fry before she glanced Max over, not in a mean way, but like she was putting pieces together. Max was a little different than Nora expected. She half thought Max was a fire cracker like her or just a little bit more... loud. Max wasn't boring though, she just seemed like she had more going on lately than just school drama and home life bullshit.

“Especially when you first got here and skated around all the time,” Nora added, pointing the fry at her like that proved her whole argument. “You totally started a trend with that. Half the girls here started to steal their brother's skateboards and walked around with them even if they had no idea what they were doing.”

She turned more in her seat to face Max, one knee bumping lightly against the table leg as she tilted her head.