Jessica Coleman's Story

Despite how awkward he was feeling about his entire situation with Amy, Leonardo was actually feeling quite relaxed, laying here on the bed with her, his hand resting delicately on her stomach which was already beginning to support a small bump. She was right; this was going to go extremely fast. Her... situation wasn't going to be hideable for long, and they really needed to have a serious conversation about what they were going to do about it. He looked into her eyes as she turned to gaze at him, smiling down softly at her. "It is." He sighed softly, feeling Amy's hand move to rest gently on top of his. He was so confused about the situation that the two of them had been thrust into. He didn't understand what he was supposed to do, or feel right now, and he was completely out of his comfort zone.

It had been little over a week since that night in his office where their feelings for each other had come out onto the surface, and now, there was a pregnancy, and jealousy, and Leo was completely at a loss. Everything was different now, that there was a child involved, that the two of them had created a life together. Leo hadn't even been sure that he was able to father a child, due to his entire body having stopped changing or aging. But, now, his theories that he couldn't have a child had been disproved, hadn't they? His hand stayed on her stomach as he silently laid there, drifting off into his own little world of thoughts and day dreams. What was he going to be like as a father anyway? The immortal headmaster had never imagined himself as a father, throwing up a little baby into the air, smiling as he played with it, rocking it to sleep in his arms. His entire life had consisted of war, death, and doing whatever the hell he wanted to whenever he wanted to - and now everything was going to change.

"Amy..." Leo sighed, coming out of his little reverie to return her gaze, his voice little more than a whisper as he spoke, "What are we going to do? This is... so confusing, so different... I have no freaking idea what's going on, and it's terrifying me." The Spartan had always been a proud man; that was the way that he had been raised, never to admit defeat, worry or weakness. But he felt differently around Amy, and telling her everything that he was feeling was slowly becoming normality to him. She would listen to him and not judge him. Ever. That was just one of the many things that he loved about his beautiful Amy Roerig.

---

It would have been obvious to the drunkest person in the room that poor little Ashy was uncomfortable sitting around her, but Erin really wasn't in the mood to comment on that at the moment. Instead, she was rather happy with the woman's company, and almost found it cute that she was sweet enough to care about her own stupid well-being. Ashy seemed to be an extremely caring person with a maternal instinct that rivaled the lioness, and the blonde was slightly curious as to why she was wasting her time and talents on a girl like her; someone who had bullied her along side Cor for the past month and a bit. She wasn't as bad as her bitch of a best friend when it came to bullying, but she had always stuck by her side and laughed along with her jibes and jokes; it almost made her feel bad that she had been mean to someone as cute as Ashy here.

Erin snorted softly when Ashy said that Drake didn't seem like the sort of person who liked apologizing. Of course he wasn't, any idiot could see that. He was a dickhead, the biggest prick in the entire universe, but yet, he still had a pull over her heart strings. She hated it, the way that his smile made her knees melt ever so slightly, the way that his hands on her body made her never want to be with another man again. She looked up from the bottle she was gazing into when Ashy spoke again, this time about how Drake made her melt, how he made her feel like she wasn't in control over her own body, that he was her puppet master. "That's because he has a gift, Ash." She sighed, looking down at the drink that the cute little blonde had placed by her feet. Awh, cute. "He has a way to make every girl that looks into his eyes melt into his arms, fall into his trap where he keeps them. I've been there for years, so you can believe me."

The blonde moved to take the drink, putting her bottle down in the place that the orange juice had been sitting. She then took a sip of the refreshing juice, the sweet taste replacing that of the stale whiskey in her mouth. "Drake takes pride in the way that he can control women, and the way that none of them can get back into his mind in return." She sighed, putting the juice back down on to the floor. "I care about him more than I fucking should, and it makes me feel weak, and pathetic. I know he's never even going to see me as a friend, let alone someone he can actually trust, and all he sees is my body and my sex drive."

"I hate it too."

---

To: McKenna

Don't worry about it, McKenna. I needed to excuse myself from the conversation anyway. Don't worry your pretty little head about anything. x

From: Jack (:

Of course, McKenna had interrupted the conversation between himself and Lulu, but Jackson was almost glad that she had done it. He had wanted to get out of the conversation, and excusing himself in that way had seemed like the best way to do so without seeming rude or insensitive. Well, he had already been insensitive, in the way that he had told Lulu his feelings for her, but with alcohol coursing through his system, Jackson Murphy just became more and more brutally honest. It hadn't seemed like the best moment for him to tell her that, or in the best way, but he couldn't deal with her eyes gazing at Drake any more in the middle of their conversations; how she would always talk to him about how Drake made her feel, and then cuddle him and tell him that he was a great friend...

His mind went back to a time in the past, where he was walking through the woods with Lulu, back in the small town where they both had lived at one point, about a year after they had met and become friends. Everything was perfect that day, it was the middle of summer, they had both gone out into the woods and sat in a glade that they had discovered, and had shared a picnic. It really had been one of the best times that Jackson had ever had in his life, they were smiling, and joking, and holding each other as friends did. But whilst they were sitting there in the woods, Jackson felt the way he felt about Lulu change right there and then; the way that he saw her changed that day when a stream of sunlight came through the trees, illuminating her beautiful face as if she was some sort of angel, fallen from the sky, being bathed in light. He had brushed away a strand of her hair then, moving it out of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear, letting the light move onto her cheek. She looked absolutely beautiful; the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen.

But that was how far their relationship was going to go. After tucking her hair behind her ear, Jackson thought about leaning in to kiss her, to tell her how beautiful she looked, and then pressing his lips against hers, sealing his words with his actions. But he didn't. He couldn't do that to her. Jackson had never stayed in one place more than three years, which meant that he only had about one and a half left before his family would move on to another town, another army base, and another life. He cared too much about Lulu to do that to her, to show her how much he cared about her, and then to only have a limited time with her before it was all taken away. He had done that before, in a previous town, and it had broken the girl that he had left. He didn't want to see Lulu upset; that would break him. So instead, he created a plan. A plan to keep their relationship the way it was, to get rid of the small look of affection in Lulu's eyes that he had reflected in his own, to keep their feelings for each other at bay. He started dating another girl that they were friends with; Beth. Hopefully, seeing him with another girl would stop Lulu from ever developing anything more than a small crush for him. It was harsh on both of them, but he just didn't want to ever see her upset.

Jackson snapped his head up as he heard a pair of heels making their way over to him, and a soft voice hit his ears. He just looked up at her as she spoke, a sarcastic comment about making a girl walk in heels too big for her hitting his ears. Really, Jackson wasn't in the mood for sarcastic comments or complaining women, and he was again going to make his excuse and leave, heading for his bedroom. However, Jessica saved the conversation by asking him if McKenna had caused his upset. "Oh no, she's lovely. She didn't do anything. I've already text her." The usually suave and collected male tipsily held up his hand and showed her his phone, which was still open at the text he had sent McKenna. "See? All sorted. I actually ruined that conversation myself, you see. I told Lulu something I shouldn't have, and then she ran away."

Slowly, the Irish male downed the rest of his drink, and then stood up, a little wobbly on his legs. Usually, he never drank so much, but tonight... well, the alcohol had just kept on coming. He had drunk at least three more glasses of whiskey since his conversation with Lulu, and he was now beginning to feel as if he had hit his limit. Well, he had already gone past his limit, but he was determined to stop now. "I'm going to head back to my room, I think. Please, enjoy the rest of this... shindig, or... hootenanny..."

---

Bad move! Bad move! Abort mission!

Max almost shit himself when the air in his room grew colder and started to whirl around. He was definitely never going to ask Corentine Quellen about her feelings again, that was for sure. He was regretting it already; things were flying off of his shelves, a china ornament shattering into pieces on his floor, the books on his reading shelf falling off one by one. That was almost enough to get him angry - some of those were fucking first editions, hundreds of years old. He could feel the wall in Corentine's mind begin to shatter, brick by brick, and his own mind became overwhelmed with a crazy sense of anger, before that was instantly replaced with a crushing sense of hurt, pain and sadness. He had never felt emotions so strong before, especially from such a reserved person as Miss Quellen. He couldn't believe this was how she was f
eeling inside, how upset she was with whatever had happened between her and Jay. It almost made him want to care.

The first step towards him that she took made the English teacher take a step backwards, his back now pressed against the door that he had only just closed, his hand on the door knob. He was ready to run; he had been at the hands of Corentine's fury before, and he would be bat shit crazy to stand there and take it again. Corentine Quellen now had tears freely running down her cheeks, a sight that Max had never thought that he would see; he hadn't even been sure that she had human feelings at one point, but the scene in front of him was almost surreal. Within seconds, she was on her knees, collapsed into a sea of sadness, crying her eyes out. Max felt extremely uncomfortable now, but if there was something that he could do, he felt as if he had to do it. He had been the one to push that final button to make her crumble like this, and he felt as if he had to be the one to calm her down, if only a little.

The teacher was thinking the same thing as she was at this point, that he was probably the worst person in the world to even be thinking of helping her in this situation; he couldn't even help himself. But, slowly, he took a couple of steps towards the crying female, being cautious. He knew that Corentine was a volatile young woman, and he made his footsteps a little heavier, so that she would know he was coming towards her. Again, with a slow pace, he came down to her level, resting on the balls of his feet in front of her. "Erm..." was the first word out of his mouth, wondering what the hell he was supposed to say to her. He noticed on the floor that a box of tissues had been blown off of his shelf, and he reached over to take them, before placing them in front of her. "Corentine.... if he's really causing you this much pain, fuck him. I'm definitely not the best person to be giving you advice here, and I'm not even sure what went down between the two of you, but if a guy lets someone that he cares about get into this sort of state, he doesn't deserve to keep his bollocks. You care about him, I can see that, but... he doesn't deserve you."

What was wrong with Jackson? The question popped in Jessica's mind when she had approached the Irishman but when he spoke, the brunette knew that he wasn't quite right. Pissed, that much was evident. When He brandished his phone at her, showing her that the whole situation had nothing to do with Mickey, Jessica cracked a smile 'Ok, I believe you.' She told him, looking into his eyes. There was something she didn't like them. Alcohol had definatly taken it's toll on them. However, there was something deeper sitting there. Pain. What the hell had happened to Jackson?

Jessica had barely registered any of the other things that the male had said; something about saying the wrong thing to Lulu. Was that what was troubling the handsome man before her? The brunette was curious as she continously looked down at the man sitting in front of her. How could one person make another person this broken? Jess had never really been in love. She never really counted the crushes you had when you were fourteen love. How could you love someone at that age when you'd only just found out your identity? Jess had always been extremely level headed when it come to that sort of thing, concerntrating on her studies and enjoying life when it mattered rather than being tided to someone that you apparently 'loved.' In Jessica's opinion it had been the fear of being outcasted or alone that had kept those couples together in their young years rather than actually a deep rooted love for each other.

Now, however, things were changing for Jessica. She had met Greg. He had made her feel...everything; Calm, protected, carefree. The man had the ability to transport Jessica to an entirely new world and she knew she had the same effect on him. She gave a wry smile. Why the hell didn't she just tell him how she felt about him?! Why she was holding herself back from the one thing that she knew could truly make her happy? Because you don't deserve him a dark voice spoke in the back of her mind. Jessica sighed. The voice was right. She'd killed a man. Greg didn't know, nobody did. She couldn't tell them. She'd be outcast for sure.

Jessica watched as Jackson drunkenly got to his feet and announced he was going back to his room and told her to enjoy the 'shindig or hootnanny.' Jessica gave a small smile as she watched him walk away for a few moments. Least the man had a sense of humor. For some reason though, Jessica couldn't bring herself to go back to Greg. She wanted to follow Jackson, to make sure that he was ok. That was the reason... right? She sighed again 'Hootnanny' She said quietly, shaking her head ever so slightly before tottering behind the male.

'Jack,' She called out as she approached him, 'Hold still' She ordered the Irishman as she put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she took off both her shoes. 'I don't know what's going on with either of us right now, but you are in nowhere near a stable enough state to get back to your room safely. Hold these.' She said giving her set of heels to the Irishman. Her feet felt like they were in heaven now, even if she was a couple of inches shorter. 'Look's like i'm carrying you home' She told the Irishman playfully, taking his hand and leading them in the direction of the dorms.

So, Erin and Ashy were in the same boat. Well, Erin's situation was much more in depth and complicated with Drake, but the feelings felt by both of the blonde girls were almost parallel. It worried the blonde a little bit, that her feelings were as easily manipulated as the feelings of cute little Ashy, but she couldn't let that fact bother her. If it continued to stick in her mind, then she would soon come to see herself as weak and fragile, and as small to the world as Ashy was, something the girl couldn't fathom - that idea was horrifying. So, instead, she picked up the orange juice again and took another sip, seeing the please on Ashy's face when she took the first one. She liked making someone happy for once. It felt like she was actually accomplishing something. Yes, she had made Keirol happy for a while, but he had left her out to dry as easily as Drake left her after they had sex with each other. So, giving a small sense of happiness and accomplishment to Ashy, made the girl happy herself.

There was a slight hesitation in Ashy's voice as she turned to face Erin, looking her straight in the eyes. This girl had guts, that was something; it made Erin almost smile with how hard Ashy was trying to hide the fact she was wary of the feminine Hulk in front of her, to show that she wasn't afraid, and actually wanted to help her, and make her feel better in a way. Her words were soothing, actually, when they came out and hit Erin in the ears, and she was slowly turning around in her seat, facing the girl straight on. Her eyebrows furrowed together at the top of her head in an expression of confusion when Ashy said something about being able to watch people (slightly creepy, she thought), but she continued to listen on anyway. She had a point; Drake was the sort of person to not realize something right in front of his face. She knew about his strange little crush on Lulu, and she was sure that he was going to go through with it, and end up breaking her heart into a thousand little pieces.

Slowly, Erin started to nod, her drunken eyes focusing in on the caring blonde in front of her who was taking time out of her evening to make someone like her feel better. "You know what, Ashy, you're right. Drake is a dickhead, with extra dick. He's probably gone off with Lulu right now, and is kissing her, and making her believe that she will get some sort of relationship out of him, and she won't get anything but a broken heart. He's going to hurt her, and he knows it already, but he's still going for it. Better her, than me. Actually, better her, than us, Ash! What do you say? Screw Drake, screw his cock, and screw any other guys who want to fuck with our hearts." A smile actually appeared on Erin's face as she looked towards Ashy, and held up her glass of orange in a toasting position.

Suddenly, the two of them were no longer alone, and Sky was intruding on their conversation, drunkenly walking into the gazebo and falling over practically. Erin's eyes widened as she watched the male play around with a ball of fire, something probably quite dangerous in the state he was in, lucky they were sitting with the water manipulator, and then change the ball into different shapes, a heart settling in front of her. A smile again came across her face as she blew out the fire heart. "And you know I love you back Sky. However, I'm not going to stay around you as I'm holding a very flammable, very expensive bottle of whiskey that I am not risking." Erin slowly brought herself up off of the seat and before walking away, she placed her hand on the shoulder of Ashy, her new friend, perhaps. "Thanks." She smiled softly down at her, before then walking off. She didn't think she was going to be staying much longer at this party. In fact, she didn't want to stay any longer at all. There was no-one to talk to now, and she just had to find Jay and return his drink, before she would be gone.

---

Jackson liked Jessica. There was nothing fake about her, nothing there to see underneath everything else - she was just herself. It was nice and refreshing, to have someone actually look at him when she spoke to him, instead of looking off and trying to find the man that she was fantasizing about. Jack had seen Lulu run off when he had walked away, and he had quickly seen Drake follow her out of the room, and probably off to wherever she had run to. Again, with Drake. This made the male sigh, and look back up at the beautiful brunette in front of him. This was no time to be worrying about how his best friend and the love of his life was probably being violated now by a guy who was going to end up shattering her heart into a thousand tiny pieces. No, this was a time to be courteous, and smile, and let this lovely young lady help him drunkenly stumble back to his bedroom.

She had quickly caught up with him when he had turned to walk away, something which brought a smile to his face. Lulu would have probably just have said good night and walked off to find Drake in any normal circumstance. "Yes, Jessica. Hootenanny. In definition, a colloquial drinking party full of hoot with just a little bit of nanny." Jack explained to her when she was next to him once again, a smile on his face as he spoke. Then, her hand was on his shoulder, and he looked down at her with a confused expression. What was she doing? However, his mental question was soon answered when a pair of heels were thrust in his direction, and he caught the straps of both on his index finger. Right, he was carrying shoes now, was he?

Jackson wasn't the sort for being a shoe carrier. In fact, he was just the sort of person who wouldn't be a shoe carrier. But, in this moment in time, he really couldn't care less about what people thought about him. The one person that he did care about what she thought about him was up in the rooms somewhere with another man, and probably thought of him as a dickhead right now. "You've shrunk." Jack pulled himself out of his little reviere about Lulu, something which was happening an awful lot at the moment, and looked back down at the brunette. "You're carrying me home?" A small laugh came out of his mouth when Jess told him this, but he didn't complain. In fact, he wrapped his own hand around hers when she linked her fingers with his and pulled him in the direction of the dorm rooms, leading him in the direction of him bedroom.

"I'm rather good at getting myself back to my room in such a state, thank you very much. I'm Irish, you know. However, I'm not going to oo--opp--oppose the company right now. Thank you, Jess."

---

Max wasn't really sure if he was being smart or stupid right now, with trying to comfort a volatile, upset, and angry Corentine Quellen, but he felt as if he had to do something. If he didn't, he would have been a shit guidance counselor, and a shit... friend? Acquaintence? Fuck buddy? Yeah, that's the one he would go for, fuck buddy. If your fuck buddy couldn't cheer you up, who could, eh? So, he had made his move, sitting there now in front of one of the scariest girls in the entire school in her weakest moment and most fragile state, trying to make her feel even the slightest bit better with herself, and her entire situation. He saw the fury in her eyes when he had first moved towards her, and had almost backed out of his plan, and he had also seen her eyes follow his hand when he had reached over by the tissues - watching his every move, wasn't she?

Then, Corentine started to speak, and Max copied her movements of sitting flat down on his bottom instead of squatting there on his heels, rather uncomfortably. His words couldn't have been that much of a comfort to her, he knew that much - he was useless when it came to helping people, and thinking of someone other than himself for once, but it seemed to have taken her mind off of the fact that she was so upset. By the words that she was saying, it seemed that she was more focused on the hilarious fact that he was trying to help her, seeing as he had the emotional range of a wet sponge, than what had upset her in the first place.

"Of course I don't prefer this to getting laid; you know me. I love having my hands all over you... touching you... feeling you.... being inside you... but I can't have a drunken girl collapsed on my floor in tears. Looks bad, you know." A smile appeared on Max's face as he looked towards her, catching her gaze with his own drunken grey's. "You don't deserve this shit, Corentine. Yes, you're a bitch who deserves a lot of things, but having a guy treat you like this, to push you this far... it's unacceptable. And you'd be surprised, I do give a shit. You're... nice to me, understand me in a way, accept me the way I am, and don't try to change me. Just like I do you. We know what we want from each other, and that's it. So, yes, I do... kinda', care about you in my own stupid way." Max's smile on his face had faltered as he spoke, but he wanted to make her feel better.

A correlation was slowly forming in Jessica's head; the longer she spoke to Jackson, the more relaxed he seemed to be becoming. It was clear that he was using their conversation to distract himself from.. something. Whatever had caused him to walk away from Lulu and Mckenna and then walk away from her. Unlike the other two girls though, Jessica hadn't left him alone. This struck her as odd, she barely spoken to Jackson before today and now she was carrying him home. He was drunk, she reasoned, he needed the company to stop himself hurting himself. That had to be the reason... right?

The brunette gave Jack a look when he made reference to the fact she had gotten smaller, 'I'm fun sized, don't you forget it' She told the Irishman, pointing a mocking finger in his face, 'besides, I could take you on any day.' She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, before bursting out into fits of giggles. The alcohol she had cosumed tonight had definitely taken it's toll on her. She was never this confrontational, at least not in a crazy-cat-lady way. She'd never hurt anyone, least of all the beautiful Irish man walking besides her. Jessica's laughter escalated when Jackson tried to justify him being able to walk home alone with the idea that he was Irish, ' Honey. there's a reason brands have to write Ireland in brackets after their logos, to remind you what country you're in.' She smiled up at Jack. He was extremely handsome, she couldn't deny that and he had such beautiful eyes; wise eyes.

When Jack thanked her for walking with him, Jessica tore her eyes from his face and smiled, 'That's quite alright, I was going to go soon anyway. Everyone seems to have left or be leaving. Doesn't surprise me really, there's far too many slut and man whores in this place and i'm just talking about the Noctrem people.' She gave a small smile as she spoke. Jessica had never really counted herself as a Noctrem student, she had never really fitted into that crowd. Then again, with her past, she knew that Mr Marino's would never have accepted her. The brunette's face fell slightly as she remembered the scene; a man attacking her and then ending up on the floor, his eyes having been burnt out; dead. The brunette blinked and shook herself, looking back up the male walking beside her, 'besides, I wasn't having you walk home alone after the episode I saw earlier and especially not after speaking to you...' She trailed off, hesitating before asking her next question, 'Jackson, how does a beautiful man like you end up walking away from a party looking so...broken? What happened?'



Ashy could feel fear of Erin melting away as she spoke; despite the fact the blonde sitting next to her was a lot stronger than she was, it seemed that Drake did have the same effect on two of them, in a sense. Erin had been right with what she first had said though... if didn't have the time of day for a strong willed girl like her than what the hell was he was going to do to her. If he even paid her any attention again, that was. She had heard what Drake had said about Lulu, did she feel the same way about him as the two girls did? Drake obviously had a fan club. tte

She smiled when Erin took another sip of the orange juice, and then toasted it, saying that neither of them should have to deal with prick men. 'We both deserve better than that' She said quietly. Ashy was one of these people that saw the best in everyone, most of all people that allowed time to get to know to her (even if, like Erin, they were extremely drunk.) Erin might have been a complete bitch to her in the past, but eh, Ashy didn't think that this entirely her fault. She hung round with the Ice queen a lot, so she was probably influenced a little by that. Although, Ashy would never count on that and she most certainly wouldn't say that to Erin's face.

It was then that Ashleigh's thoughts were interrupted by a kiss on the cheek. How odd. She turned to see Sky and she smiled. Sky was a bad influence on her and she knew it. But he made her laugh, which was a lot more than certain other bad influences did. Sky didn't make her feel nervous or worthless like Drake did. So that to be a plus side. 'Sky, you're drunk,' She pointed out, as the male started to ramble about how much of a hot mess he was. He then sat down between the two blondes and flicked up his lighter. Was it really safe for him to be using his power when under the influence? The blonde shuffled away from slightly. As it happened it was perfectly safe, he sculpted a fish, which made the blonde smile, 'you are so cute.' She told Sky, nudging a little. She then watched as the two drunkards had a disjoined but nevertheless funny convesation before Erin got up, thanked Ashy and walked away. 'You're welcome' The blonde said quietly. She didn't know whether she needed to follow her or not, deciding it was best not to, in case the two of them bumped into Cor, Erin's best friend, yes that would be a bad move.

Ashy's thought's turned to her own best friend. Where was Zac? He had headed off in the direction of the forest quite a while ago and so far she hadn't seen him return. She was worried, so worried.

Quickly, the blonde stood up, 'Sky, I'm sorry but I need to find Zack we both know he'd hate me to be here alone with you...' She said quietly, before turning on her heal and heading for the woods. The absence of any light in the woods made an eerie and scary place to be, there was a slight part of Ashy that regretted coming here, she pushed it to the back of her mind, she had to find her friend, 'Zac' She called out, quickening her pace to almost a ran. She called out several times more, tree branches hitting her face as she did so. Finally, she heard something; something that disturbed her greatly, the sound of a man sobbing. Was that Zac? The strongest man that she knew? She followed the sound until eventually she found it's source. Her worst fears were confirmed, it was Zack, curled up in a ball, crying in pain. She placed a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off, telling her she couldn't help. The blonde then sat on the forest floor and pulled the male into her lap 'It's ok Zac it's me' She said soothingly.

Jackson almost laughed when Jess said that she could take him on any day, but instead, he held it back, and just sent her a quirky smile. "Darlin', you couldn't take me. You're the size of a leprechaun, and they're not the best fighters." He smiled, squeezing her hand lightly, a playful tone in his voice when he spoke. She was cute, that was for sure. Jack had never really noticed Jessica before; she was completely different from the blonde that he had such deep feelings for - for one, she was brunette. But, she was actually talking to him, and not letting herself drift away to think about another man. Jess seemed to enjoy just being around him, and that was nice. A nice change, definitely.

Her laugh was stunning as well, resounding throughout the empty hallway as they walked back to his room. It sounded like fairies laughing. He frowned for a moment when this thought flittered through his mind, but he let it pass - the strange things that he was thinking were a result of the whiskey running through his veins, nothing more. He was usually extremely level headed, but that was gone now. "Hey, you take that comment back, missy. I'm rather sensitive to people being racist about my Irishness." Jack's smile was once again mischievous as he joked around with the petite blonde, something he wasn't really used to doing, especially with people he didn't really know. But, Jess just seemed different. She was sweet, and nice. And liked him.

Jack just nodded as she spoke about wanting to leave anyway. He agreed with her statement, that most of the Noctrem students seemed like sluts and man whores; obviously, she was different, and so was Lulu, but most of them, he agreed with that. He slowed down for a moment, barely walking at a snail's pace when he saw Jess' eyes fade, loosing their colour, but only briefly. She was back to her normal self within a minute, and before he could ask her what was wrong, she was speaking again. Broken? He was confused. He definitely wasn't broken. Lulu didn't have that much of a hold on him; she couldn't turn him into a sniveling mess.... could she? Jackson stopped dead in his tracks and pulled his arm back into his side, bringing Jess with it. Soon, her body was pressed up against his, his face barely inches away from hers. His arm wrapped itself around her waist, bringing her even closer, close enough so that their chests brushed together with every breath. "I told the truth. That's what happened. I said something, and it backfired, and I'm over it."

And then, he lowered his head and brought his lips against hers, into a soft, yet passionate kiss.

---

Max snorted when Corentine said that she would have killed him if he had done the wrong thing, and he just shook his head. He knew that she wouldn't have killed him. She could have hurt him, or tortured him, thrown him into the wall, shouted at him, or anything like that, but she wouldn't have actually killed him. He didn't think she was capable of that, no matter how many times she threatened or ranted about wanting to kill someone, he was sure that she could never actually bring herself to do it. He had known that it was a risk, to walk up to her in such a weak state, knowing how much that she hated it, but he knew that the worst he would come out would be with a few broken bones. It would only mean a trip to Amy, anyway. Max could deal with the pain of being with Corentine; she had hurt him before, and would no doubt harm him again. But that was what you got when you got mixed up with the crazy that was Corentine Quellen.

Soon, the girl was collecting herself, and standing up, mumbling something to him about making him scream if any of this got out to the public. He followed suit, bringing himself up off of the floor and turned around, watching where she was off to. "Oh baby, please. You can make me scream in so many better ways." He smirked before the bathroom door was shut on him, and he moved to pick up some of the items that he flung off of his shelves, the ones that were still together. After putting some back in their original places, and then the others just wherever he fancied, he started picking up the broken pieces of china and glass, putting them all in a tissue that he grabbed out of the box. Nothing of much value was broken, nothing important to him either, thank goodness.

Within a couple of minutes, the bathroom door reopened and a cleaner, more composed looking Corentine emerged, a smirk on her face, which was instantly reflected on the male's face. Her emotions were once again being hidden behind a wall that seemed to be rebuilding itself slowly, her emotions under control once again after that little breakdown. That was one of the reasons that he chose to be with Corentine, rather than some of the other, more fragile girls around school, when he just wanted to quick fuck. She had no emotions, no attachments to him, nothing to distract him from his main goal of himself. It was definitely a good choice for someone like him.

Max slowly walked towards the girl, and wrapped a hand around her hair, gently pulling her face towards his when he was close enough. "Well, that's up to you. Do you feel like you need to talk shit some more?" He smirked, before then crashing his lips against hers, his hand staying knotted within her blonde curls. He wasn't sure if Corentien would be ready for intimacy, not after such a breakdown about a guy like the one she had just had, but he definitely wasn't going to refuse her if she was ready. He wanted her. He wanted to see her naked on top of him, moaning, and then he wanted to see her writhing underneath him in pleasure as he brought her to her peak. Oh yes, that was exactly what Max wanted.

Almost as soon as Ashleigh had made Zac aware of her presence, she regretted it. As soon as the reassuring words left the blondes mouth, she felt the male in her lap stiffen in response. This was so frustrating. Zac didn't want to hurt her, so he just buried his emotions inside himself whenever she came near... She wanted to help him and he was never going to let him do that properly. Ashy sighed. Men were confusing. 'Trust me not even the strangest sight I've seen tonight' She told the male, smiling down at him, reflecting back on the evening. Drakes...antics, Erin's friendliness? All of that was enough to make ones head explode. The truth was however, that with Zac, Ashy felt calm. She always had done since they met. He was a breathe of fresh air; a new perspective. Granted, they were silly together, but she had never once got angry at the male. It was true that he infuriated her when he hid things from her, but she'd learnt to live with it, as always.

'You do save me' She said quietly, resting her head on top of Zac's as he rested it on her shoulder, 'You just don't know it.' This was the truth. The thought of Zac and his disapproval of Sky had been enough to have the blonde walk away from the pyro, not just tonight, but other times before that. She ran her heads through her best friends hair, an action meant to sooth the recovering male on her shoulder; however it was equally calming for the blonde. She wboysanted to tell him about Drake, about how he made her feel inside and how much she hated it, but Ashy knew better than that. Zac had only just got out of one fit of rage; best not to start another one. Chances were, though she had never told him, Zac already knew. Ashy was rubbish at hiding things, she admitted it to herself, she doesn't feel comfortable talking about boys to a person she considered to be like a brother.

'Zac, that isn't true, you have other friends, not just me you silly donut.' Ashy stated, smiling down at Zac. She was trying to cheer him up a little, whatever Mo had said had hit him hard and she wanted to take his pain away from him; if making him laugh with crazy insults was the way forward, then so be it. 'You do i'm letting sleep alone tonight, right? Come stay at mine, we can watch crap movies, drink hot choco and reveal in the ice queens lair.' Ashy giggled to herself as she thought about her room mate. She was safe in the knowledge that Cor wouldn't be back tonight, or at least anytime soon. She was probably having sex with someone, if not several people by now, Ashy giggled again at the thought.

She jumped up, extending her hand out to Zac as he sat on floor, 'So what do you say? Gonna escort a lady home?' She asked him, a dazzling smile crossing her face.




'I also don't like people making reference to my height, didn't stop you there though, did it?' Jessica Coleman raised an eyebrow at Jackson, before bursting into more fits in giggle. Damm, What was happening to her? They had only met today and yet she didn't feel awkward or strange walking home with him. It was like the two of had known each other for years. Not to mention, the guy walking alongside her was incredibly handsome; he was well build, had incredible hair and the most amazing eyes. It wasn't even the colour that stunned Jess the most, it was the story that they told. Yep, she was defiantly tipsy.

There had been a very slight pause before Jackson had answered her question; shit. She'd ruined it, that atomspheare that she had enjoyed so much had just been shattered, all because she was too nosey. The brunette could have kicked herself. Then, Jack pulled her close. Normally, Jessica would have got out of the males grasp and asked what the fuck he thought he was doing, however now was different. She didn't feel afraid being this close to Jack, which sent alarm bells ringing in the back of the brunette's head. Before she could listen to them or respond to Jack's comment about his evening; his lips were on hers. She took a sharp intake of breath, surprised by this move. Soon enough however, she relaxed into his kiss. Her hand, which had naturally fallen onto Jack's back after he had pulled her in, were now making it's way up wards, so that it rested just behind his shoulder blades, her thumb playing with the nape of neck.

It didn't feel strange kissing a man she'd only just met; Jessica didn't know whether it was the alcohol she had consumed, but it felt.... right. For once, Jess didn't try to analyse what was happening, her mind was filled with the man who was kissing her. Jackson Murphy; nothing else, just Jackson. After a while, Jessica broke the kiss but stayed close to him, staring into the beautiful eyes of the male that had just kissed her. He looked happier now at least. Had that been her influence? [i] You couldn't make anybody happy [i] that dark voice in her stated. Jessica decided to ignore it. Instead, she shook her head slightly and smiled at Jackson, 'You are an impossible man Jackson Murphy.' She stated, before wrapping both her hands around his neck and kissing him once more.

Jackson was shocked at himself when he pulled back from kissing Jessica. That was completely unlike him, and he instantly felt himself sobering up slightly when he looked into her eyes. He almost started to babble an apology, when she started speaking, pulling him back into the moment at hand. She had liked it? The way her hands had explored the base of his neck and his back sure showed him that she had liked his move, despite how uncharacteristic of him it had been. There was an awkward air between them for a moment or two, just looking into each others eyes without speaking, before Jessica then broke the silence, smiling that beautiful smile of hers, and calling him impossible.

Seeing Jess smile made Jack smile, an experience that had never happened to him with anyone else other than Lulu, which was strange in itself. But then, she pulled gently on his neck, bringing him down to her level, this time her lips taking control, and pressing onto his, and Jackson sunk into her touch. He was enjoying this, being with someone so intimately, someone that actually seemed to like him back. Maybe this was going to be a change, someone to take his mind away from the girl he knew he would never had. He knew it was slightly bad, thinking of her as a replacement for Lulu, but it wasn't just that. He liked the way she smiled, he felt happy when he made her laugh, and he felt very small tingles running through his body when she kissed him back. But, Jackson wasn't one for public affection, and he soon had to pull away, no matter how much he was enjoying their perfect rhythm.

"Come with me." He whispered against her lips, a smile taking over his face as he pulled away, and took her hand in his once more. He then led her towards his bedroom, which luckily was only about a minute walk away. He opened the door and flicked on the light, illuminating the empty room. Jack then pulled her close again, wrapping his arm around her waist and pressing his lips to hers. Jackson was slightly uncomfortable with this sort of thing, and he wasn't sure how to go about inciting anything further. So, in his drunken stupor, with the hormones of being with a beautiful girl who was pushing her way into his heart, he just went with what was going through his mind, and what felt right to him.

Jackson gently moved backwards, pulling Jessica with him, his lips still pressed against hers in a heated kiss. His hand moved up to caress her cheek as he moved, stroking her porcelain soft skin when he felt his legs hit the base of his bed. He then sat down, bringing her onto his lap carefully, moving her body with ease, both of them stuck in the moment of heat.

"You're beautiful." Jack's voice was barely audible over heaving breaths as he spoke against her lips, his hands moving behind her, to gently pull at the zip on the back of her dress.

Nothing else could fill his head any more than Jessica Coleman was at this moment in time. She was all he wanted, and he wanted her to feel the same way, to feel the amount of desire that he was feeling.

"Jess...."

The alarm clock next to his bed, beeping in his ear, awoke the male who had been fast asleep. Both him and Amy had fallen asleep on top of the covers after their conversation the previous night, and they hadn't woken up until now. Yesterday had been an extremely trying day for the two of them; Amy had announced that she was pregnant, she was already getting a bump, they were arguing more and more, and everything was collapsing slowly when it came to his school. Students were leaving every where, and more and more seemed to be joining from nowhere. It was confusing, to say the least, having extra students and loosing some, and Leo was loosing track of who was a member of his school, and who no longer was no. He pressed the button on top of the clock to stop the insistent beeping, and he gently shifted in the bed, turning to look at his beautiful girlfriend.

Amy's bump seemed to have grown again over night; the life in there seemed to be growing at an alarming rate, and the immortal Spartan was still quietly panicking about what they were going to do about it. How long was it actually going to be before they had a child? How long before he had to admit to the Headmaster of Noctrem that he had gone against his rules? How long did they have to get everything sorted before they could even think about raising a child in this environment. Amy couldn't even go to see a normal doctor with her pregnancy, as it obviously was a supernatural one; he was terrified about her health. Surely this wasn't going to be good for her. Everything seemed to be going too fast for the male, and he just didn't like it.

"Amy?" Leo sighed softly, the hand attached to the arm that she had fallen asleep on gently stroking her shoulder. His body was aching, that was for sure, since he had slept in such an awkward position, but he wasn't going to complain. Waking up to Amy was one of his favourite things that he had ever experienced, and a little bit of aches and pains wasn't going to destroy that happy feeling of his. "Babe, we have to get up." He pressed his lips softly against her cheek, before nuzzling her gently. "We actually have to teach children today."

---

Blonde hair stuck up from all ends underneath the duvet, and a groan emitted from the body that was curled up underneath. Erin wasn't sure if her roommate Loralei was in the room or not, but she sure as hell didn't want to deal with her general perkiness right now. She was extremely hung over, felt very sick, and she just didn't want to move. Her head was pounding as she dared to poke her head out from underneath the covers, but it went straight back under again. The brightness of the room had literally destroyed her eyes, and she instantly decided then and there that she wasn't going to be getting out of bed at any time soon. Who really cared about classes today? There was probably nothing good that was going to be taught on the first day - why should she even bother?

As she lay there, Erin was alerted to the soft vibrations that buzzed on her bedside cabinet, and she reached out a shaky hand from the covers to pull her phone underneath her safe haven. The brightness of the screen caused her to squint in pain, and she quickly turned the brightness of the screen down, until it was at it's lowest. Yes, that was definitely more comfortable to look at; it wasn't as if she was looking directly into the sun any more. A message from Cor was on her screen, along with a couple of missed calls last night from her friends, probably drunken calls asking where she was, or just them calling to tell her that they loved her. She opened the message from her best friend, her eyes skimming over the blunt words that stared her in the face. Blunt words from Corentine Quellen were never good, and she groaned as she realized it had to have something to do with Jay.

To: Cor<3

Okay. You may have to give me a few days to recover from last night. Seriously, I would rather be in hell than feel like this.

From: Erin xo

Erin tapped a response back on her touch screen, before dropping the phone next to her. She was probably in hell with her best friend, if Cor had seen her sitting next to her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, or whatever he was right now, but she just didn't want to deal with it. All she wanted to do was stay curled up in bed and sleep, for about a month. Yes, that sounded good. A month of sleep. Maybe by then, she may have withered away to nothing, forgotten about whatever stupid feelings she had for a certain brother of her best friend, and this hang-over may have vanished.

But that was a long shot.

---

The previous nights events were playing through Jackson's head in a dream; the frank admittance of his feelings towards Lulu, her running off to be with Drake, and him taking solace in a beautiful brunette that seemed to smile whenever she was around him. Jackson definitely wasn't the sort of person to have a one-night hook up, and he wasn't the sort of person to drink excessively either, but that night... he felt as if he had needed it. The want to be drink his sorrows away, and then be close with someone had just been overwhelming, to the point where he had actually acted upon those wants; a rare feat when it came to the usually gentlemanly Irish man.

Slowly, the male turned over in his bed, a bare leg brushing against his as he moved. His eyes slowly opened, taking his time with them as the sunlight streaming through the slightly open curtains was almost blinding. His head wasn't as bad as he had expected it to be that morning, but it was still aching if he moved it. Something else was aching too actually, although he couldn't put his finger on it. Jack decided that he was going to have to wake up Jess, to gently shake her awake, or something. He didn't know how to wake up a naked, sleeping girl that you practically just met and slept with, so he was probably going to go about it the easiest way, with just a hand on the shoulder, and a shake.

As he went to move however, Jackson felt himself stuck. He couldn't move. He soon pinpointed where that ache had been coming from, and he dropped his head back onto the pillow as he heard the gentle rattle of a chain. A chain? He exhaled a loud sigh when he looked up towards the ceiling, between his raised arms. Somehow, last night, Jess had handcuffed him to his headboard. He pulled gently on the restraints, feeling the metal of the hand-cuffs press into his skin, causing a discomfort in his wrist. Okay, this definitely wasn't good. Jack looked to the left, noticing a shape in the other bed, and the hair of Drake poking out of the duvet. He wasn't sure what had happened between his friend and Lulu last night, but he wasn't going to ask, because he didn't want to know. Besides, he was going to have enough to talk about if Drake woke up before Jess did, and found him in this.... predicament.

"Jess." Jackson breathed, his lips practically brushing against her ear, as he shifted as close as he could towards her, without rattling the chain that kept him restrained to the bed. "Please wake up." His voice was a hushed whisper, trying to be as quiet as possible, keeping Drake asleep. "I seem to be handcuffed to the bed, Jessica." The last he had remembered, Jessica had been messing around in one of the drawers of his bedside cabinet, and he was sure that was where the handcuffs had to have come from - even though they weren't his. So, she had to have been the one that had the key.

Right?

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeep… the sound went on and on… and on. The blonde groaned quietly, wishing the damned alarm clock to everlasting hell… where it might burn for eternity. Yeah, she wasn’t in the best of moods, as one might guess. Her head was aching and so was her entire body, although to be perfectly honest, her body was aching quite nicely. She’d lost track of time and the amount of times she and Max had fucked by the time they were both spent and exhausted. At that point, Cor had crawled out of Max’s bed, tired enough to go to sleep on the damned floor, but she’d only just begun to gather her clothes – thong under the bed, dress by the door, and her shoes… well, she thought they were in the bathroom – when Max spoke to her, asking her to spend the night instead of leaving. Usually Cor always did the fuck-em-and-leave-em routine, and she knew Max was the same, so she had wondered why he suddenly wanted her to sleep over.

Not for long though, because her hazy, tired brain, didn’t really want to go back to her room with sickly sweet Ashy, and maybe part of her wanted what Max offered more than she wanted to admit to herself. In any case, Cor had been too exhausted to ponder things further and she’d gotten back into bed. Funny thing was, the two of them had been rigid as hell laying there for the first while, Max’s arm hesitant around the blonde, until they’d sort of simultaneously relaxed and then it had felt sort of nice. She was surprised to find that she had actually liked just sleeping with Max, and she couldn’t quite figure out what that meant. In any case, the damned alarm clock was killing her. She opened one eye slowly, searching lazily for the bloody thing. Locating it, she then moved her naked self, hoisting her middle above Max to reach the alarm on the nightstand on his side of the bed, her hands supporting her on the opposite side of him. His arms had still been around her when she awakened, and she hadn’t eve flinched. Weird, this knew relaxed calm around Max.

Corentine moved her hand then to push the off button, glaring at the thing when she found she couldn’t reach. That was just amazing; she had moved for absolutely nothing. Quite bothered with the thing, and in not the best of moods already, she then cast the machine a vengeful smile before wind picked up, smashing it against the wall, effectively cutting off the beeping. Noting that Max was stirring too – probably only due to her – she smiled wryly down at him. “I officially hate your alarm clock, so I’ll buy you a new one.” She told him, voice surprisingly playful as she moved back down to lie on the bed. Jay had yet to spring to mind, but then again, the blonde had only just awoken. However, her first class of the day sprung up immediately. Great, biology. Like shit wasn’t fucking awful enough, she had to start off her Tuesdays from now on, with biology class. That was simply fucking magnificent. She rolled her eyes at the thought, very seriously considering cutting, but if Max had classes during first period too, it’d feel weird staying in his bed anyway, so she merely looked over at him, a slight grin taking over her face.

“Good morning,” she finally said, noting his ruffled manliness only even more sexy in the morning, his body gorgeous as ever. Good morning, indeed, she thought to herself, her grin widening slightly before she added, “is it weird that I could really fuck you again right now?” They probably didn’t have time though, with it being 7 am, but damn, he was downright edible and Jay was starting to force his stubborn way into his head, only pushing the girl even more. Her own curls were surprisingly tame if you thought about it, lying almost perfectly atop her head. She had always been lucky like that. All that really had her looks ruffled were the activities of the previous night.

---

The young nurse was fast asleep, surprisingly comfortable, when the beeping of Leo’s alarm clock caused the male at her side to stir, and her as well. She didn’t move though, or even open her eyes. Instead, feeling blissfully at peace, the brunette remained where she was in that same position. Besides, it was Tuesday – both she and Leo had late classes. Well, she had her first one at 12:15, but there were still many hours to go there. So when Leo gently contacted her, his fingers brushing gingerly against the skin of her shoulder, his lips pressing down on her cheek, she merely smiled to herself before turning to him, a lot of her energy restored. It was amazing really, how much a good night’s sleep could do, although she was far from sporting her usual amount of power, she knew that much. The baby was still tapping her, but for the weakness last night, she had only her own idiocy to blame. She should’ve taken better care of herself, she knew that, but she couldn’t just let Chris be in pain either.

Violet eyes appeared as Amy’s eyelids fluttered open, and they settled on the handsome man now in front of her, a more vibrant smile adorning her features, the colour back in her cheeks. “I love you, Leo, but if you pull me out of bed at 7 am, in spite of the fact that I don’t have classes until 12:15, I will shave your head and glue feathers onto the skin while you sleep tonight.” She told him, her eyes glinting with humour. Of course she was kidding – she would never actually do that – but it should give him a pretty good idea of how much she did not want to leave the bed at present. In fact she had no idea why he wanted to, except to work – headmaster duties and all. Hah. Headmaster duties. Did those usually involve hiring very flirtatious, obviously still interested, ex girlfriends? And why the hell had Amy never even heard of the woman as it was? Why was she even there?

And while she was at it, what did they really need more PE teachers for? She just… didn’t get it. Was Leo still interested in her? Was Amy just being paranoid? No. No she wasn’t. She was being perfectly logical. What woman would just quietly accept this? Not her, that was for sure, and Leo was going to learn that soon enough. Gods, they were having a child together and all of this was just tearing at the seams of their already way too new and fragile relationship. Amy didn’t feel the least bit established, especially since their relationship was not public. This Katia person had no idea Leo was in a relationship, which to her would make him open game. And he wasn’t – not by a long shot. Amy would fight with teeth and claws when it came to keeping Leo. Usually she was rather mellow, but this jealousy was new to her. She felt sick even to think of the way Katia had been looking at her man, and to think of watching her flirt with him… it was almost enough to make her hurl again.

Her smile had slowly disappeared as the brunette’s thought took her down a darker trail. Some might call it pregnancy hormones and all, but though Amy was much longer ahead than she should be, it didn’t cross her mind. This whole Katia-deal bothered her more than anything, so, her mood seemingly changing in a matter of seconds, she added a biting comment; “but you’re welcome to leave, in case you have more exes to hire.” Normally this would have been so unlike Amy; she would have waited, taken her time, and spent some time chewing on how to handle it, but pregnant Amy was slightly angered, she wanted answers, and more than anything, she wanted an outlet for her irritation, preferably at the man causing it. So she didn’t care.

---

Not a big sleeper, Drake had already been awake for a while when he heard Jackson rustling with the cuffs little Miss Coleman had obviously chained him with. He grinned quietly, his back turned. Oh, this was priceless. He had put a pair of hand cuffs in Jackson’s drawer a while back – a drunken joke – and had actually forgotten all about it until now that he was actually using them, not something Drake had ever imagined would really happen. He had come in the night before, a half sleeping, drunken Lulu in his arms, immediately noticing the naked, sleeping couple in the other bed. Accustomed to much worse at Noctrem, Drake hadn’t even frowned, but had actually had to fight not to laugh out loud, waking the two, and maybe even calling Lulu back to earth. Instead, he had taken the keys from the night desk after putting Lulu in his bed and hidden them. Being drunk himself, that had seemed like the perfect idea. He was a freaking genius when he was drunk, he soon decided.

This was going to be the best morning in the history of mornings. A sleeping Lulu was currently in his arms, hidden from Jackson and Jessica with the help of a duvet and Drake’s own size. He was only wearing boxers himself, and Lulu… well… she was wearing everything but her underwear… which he had gotten rid of during a very heated make out session the night before. He had actually managed to keep himself from taking the last step; actually fucking her, because… well, he had lots of reasons. One among many, she had been drunk, and though she had been very eager, Drake had stopped. He had no clue how, thinking back on it. He had wanted her, and he had been very fucking turned on by her too, but no, the manwhore of all manwhores had actually stopped. Now, he wasn’t too sure what he thought of it, but he had to admit, just lying there with the blonde in his arms, was rather nice.

The only downside? He knew his involvement with Lulu was a thorn in Jackson’s eye, something he only considered an issue because Jackson was among the few people Drake dared calling friends. Not people he usually did things to bother – in fact, Drake tried to preserve those few friendships, but if it came to choosing between Lulu and Jackson… Lulu came first, which was why he had chosen to bring her to their room regardless of the complications. Lulu had been drunk out of her mind by the end of their stay in that common room… where he was pretty sure her underwear still was… and he hadn’t wanted to leave her, nor take her to her own room full of splinters and such nuisances. Primarily, though, he hadn’t thought much about it in his drunken state, only wanted to make sure Lulu was okay. Contrary to popular belief, Drake had real feelings for the blonde. The problem was that he couldn’t figure that out himself, because emotions were not something he was very used to.

He didn’t want to hurt her, and he had warned her, but he also wanted her, and she had chosen to disregard his warnings. Well, his and probably those of countless others. Lulu had been into him for a while; that much would have been obvious to anyone with eyes and ears – she did a piss poor job of hiding it – and he was sure her friends had talked against him, not to mention his own sister. Cor knew better herself though – Drake knew her words whispered in Lulu’s ears had been filled with anger, hurt and a wish to hurt Lulu, not the truth. On that note, he really needed to talk to his sister. Right now, though, he was enjoying this moment too much, so grinning quietly, the male waited to see what would happen.

It was pleasant outside for once. The weather in Seattle rarely cleared up but when it did the forestry looked spectacular. Clinton had always been a quaint town. Lulu had always thought that it was far more ideal than Stephenie Meyer’s pick of Forks. When it came to ideallic small town America Clinton was prettier, less inundated with logging, better managed and even though it was on the west coast of the country to a degree it had Southern charm. The kind of neighborly feeling that came with a town of 2500 where everyone knew everyone. It was beautiful and Lulu had always felt far more one with the town than her parents did. Her parents had moved there as a young couple to deal with as few normal humans as possible. The community had several families like theirs but they had always been discrete. Still, they would have meetings and today was one of those days. Lulu was seven, sitting on the front porch of their colonial style home. The Allen property was expansive – about fifty acres – and the long gravel drive way out front was a virtual parking lot. She may have been little but she knew whose car was whose. It was always the same people that her mother invited over to dinner parties and she was always sent outside or to the basement. Since it was sunny today she would play outside but with no one with her she found herself bored.

The tiny blond twiddled her thumbs before a flock of birds suddenly shot out of the tree line to her left. Lulu’s head shot up and she saw Grey emerge, his head thrown back in laughter. Four of his friends following him, carrying thick sticks and swatting at the tall grass. They were covered in mud but were clearly delighted with their antics. Lulu knew that they had likely been toying with the wildlife, Grey especially since his power worked on humans and animals alike.

It didn’t take long for Grey to spot her. At once Lulu stood and his brother pointed. She heard them all laugh and she knew what they intended. Immediately she moved to run. Mama had said not to got into the house so she darted down the porch steps as fast as she could. The boys began to pick up their pace like wolves who had spooked a deer. They weren’t about to let her out of their sight. And she knew what they wanted to do. She ran.

Lulu didn’t know where she was going. She headed straight into the woods, weaving between trees uselessly. The boys were older than her by four to five years. Much taller than her, they covered more ground. She had gone maybe five minutes when she heard them coming and then she felt it. The piercing pain in her head made her scream. It felt like someone had taken a knife to the back of her head and stabbed up from the base of her skull and up into her brain. The pain jolted throughout her arms and legs and immediately she tripped and fell to the ground. The boys quickly surrounded her and Lulu could only put her hands on her head and writh pain. Her whole body felt like it was expanding, her temples throbbing so severely. She screamed like they were killing her but only they could hear her.

“What’s wrong little human?” Grey snorted, kicking her with his muddy hiking boot. His friends laughed and watched as he circled her, his eyes locked on her and his power continuing for a minute until he began to tire. “You should kill her Grey. It’s dirty to have a normal one in your family,” one of the other boys told him. “Not today,” Grey shrugged, like he was procrastinating. “Mum says she could develop something. Maybe. I doubt it. I want her dead though. She deserves to die. Weakling.”

And it started again.

* * *

Her eyes shot open and she inhaled sharply, the nightmare fading as her eyes struggled to adjust to the dim lighting. Lulu could feel that she was sweating, a thick duvet was pulled up to her neck. It smelt different than hers. She shifted it slightly, her eyes zoning in and out on the pattern. It definitely wasn’t hers. And when she shifted to roll over her shoulders hit something hard. Solid. And she shifted to look over her shoulder to see Drake, his eyes closed but he was grinning.


"I seem to be handcuffed to the bed, Jessica…” she heard someone say. It sounded like…Jackson?

“I... appear to be extremely dominant sexually, I'm sorry,” a female replied. Lulu couldn’t tell who but she was in someone’s room and that person didn’t sound like Alli. Panic started to seize her, worse than when she was in her dream. Because even then, as a seven year old she could remember exactly what had happened. As she tried to push her memory she was hitting a wall. She had gone to the party, drank, seen Jackson…drank and then…met Drake…and then he’d carried her off on his shoulder…and then nothing. Nothing. Blank. “Oh. My. God.” She couldn't remember.

Lulu shifted slowly, rolling to face Drake, licking her lips and feeling the dry chapped swollen feeling that came with kissing someone for prolonged periods of time. She shifted, finding her legs entwined with his and his sheets. She tucked her chin and ran her hands over her shirt and skirt. So she was dressed…in her clothes. But…she was missing her bra. And her underwear. At that she turned rigid. And at that another revelation was made.

“Jackson, they're not here....”

“What’s not there?” Lulu asked. She sat up and immediately recoiled. "Jackson?" she asked aloud, startled. "Jessica?" A nearly naked Jessica was rifling through his bedside table and there was Jackson, only covered with a bed sheet and with his hands strung up to his headboard. “Oh God, no,” she said aloud, feeling the bile rise in her stomach. She brought a hand to shield her face, backing away out of habit only to throw her head into the wall. The resonating pain came with rapid onset nausea and this time it was no power hangover that had her groan. “Where am I,” she wondered aloud. “How did I get here? What did I do? You? Me? THEM…?”

Well, the first things out of Amy's mouth hadn't been what the man was expecting. A small smile cracked onto his face as she spoke, and he gently leaned down to press his lips to her forehead. "I love you too Amy, but I don't think I could pull of a feather-head, babe." He grinned, before then he thought about the rest of her words. No classes until 12:15? Then, he remembered that the schedules had recently been changed to accompany the rise in students, and he hadn't remembered that both Amy and himself that day had late classes. His only class that day was last lesson, anyway. "I'm sorry." He spoke, linking his fingers with hers apologetically, "I forgot, and my alarm was still set for yesterday's arrival. Forgive me?"

Leo felt a little bad about waking up his pregnant girlfriend so early, but he was sure that it would be forgotten soon. It wasn't that big of a deal, anyway, not at least to him, and it would soon pass. He usually woke up early anyway, Spartan training still embedded in his modern day routine, and he had a lot of things to do, things only a headmaster could do, and with the added students in his school, the pile of work on his desk was growing. The room grew quiet as neither of them spoke, and Leonardo looked down at the beautiful woman on his bed. She really was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life, and he was so lucky to have her to call his own. And now that she was pregnant too.... the fact had really sunk in to the male this morning, seeing the bump on her stomach, realizing that this was really happening; Leo was actually starting to look forward to the coming couple of months or however long her pregnancy was going to be. He had reacted badly at the beginning, when he had found out that she was carrying a child, but now... he wanted this to happen. He was excited to become a father.

Amy's expression had changed from an adorable morning smile to a face of pure anger and irritation, a looked that made Leo moved back slightly, pulling away from her. He was worried when she looked like that; it meant that she was angry. Which was never good. He sighed when she spoke, flopping back down onto his pillow, covering his face with his hands. Really? She was going to do this now? Just after he was going to tell her that he wanted to be a father, and that he was happy with everything? "Amy...." He groaned, dragging his hand down his face. This wasn't how she usually acted, and Leo was sure that it had something to do with her pregnancy. Maybe he wasn't going to enjoy these months as much as he had previously expected. "Please, you have nothing to worry about. Katia is just a friend who needed a place to stay whilst she recovers from her injury. There's nothing else to it."

---

This was getting rather awkward now. Jackson was strung up on his own bed, with a girl that he barely knew naked beside him, and the guy that had stolen the heart of his best friend and the girl that he loved asleep on the other side of the room. The male dropped his head back, as best as he could in his current position, and closed his eyes, and exasperated sigh escaping his lips. He ignored her comment about being sexually dominant, and just lay there. He just wanted to get out of this now, to forget the past evening, and go back to the way that everything was. But of course, that wasn't going to happen, was it? Jessica's words alerted Jack to the situation presenting itself, and he snapped his head back up, his eyes wide. "What? They're not here? Where else could the be, Jess?" He asked her, his eyes frantically following her around the room. He couldn't well stay here for the rest of the day, could he?

But the morning just continued to get worse. A soft, female voice that didn't belong to Jessica alarmed the Irish man, and his head snapped towards the Drake-shaped mound in his bed, the area where the sound had come from. Had he really brought Lulu back here? After everything that happened last night, everything that Drake probably knew, and he had still brought her back here? Jackson took in a deep breath and prayed, hoping that it had just been a mistake, a horrible, horrible trick of the ears. But when a blonde head popped up from behind Drake's shape, and Lulu's face registered in his mind, Jackson knew this wasn't a trick of the mind. This was real. The girl he loved was sleeping next to the man he was thinking of calling his best male friend, looking at him, who was handcuffed to the bedstead, with a girl they barely knew. This was a nightmare.

Jack moved to kick the sheet upwards, using his feet to cover more of his body than was already sheltered, bringing the cover up to the middle of his torso. It was better than nothing, he had to admit. He looked over at Jessica again who was searching for the keys to his release still, and he glanced around the room himself, hoping to see something shiny and silver. Nope. Nothing. A bang caused his head to turn to the left again, the sound coming from Lulu hitting her head. Usually, he would have rushed over and asked if she was okay, but after the previous night, he was sure he didn't have the right to ask her if she was all right any more, and he couldn't really move. Now he really wanted to just leave.

"Jessica, please. Find those god-damned keys."

---

The awkwardness between himself and Corentine seemed to disappear quickly, thank god, and Max stood there in all of his naked glory, holding out his hand for her to take. He wasn't sure what was happening to him, as he definitely wasn't the sort of person to care about what someone thought, especially a girl that he usually just used for his own pleasure, and he wasn't the sort of person to show cute gestures such as kisses on the cheek. A small shudder ran through his body when he thought about being more than just a player, more than the bastard that he had been for most of his life, and he didn't like it. It felt strange, and alien, and wrong to him. Although, it still felt, right? It wasn't as if he had a crush on her or something, or was feeling something real for her, but there was something new. Something that made him just want to care for her, every now and again, and to make sure that she was okay.

"I'm turning into a pussy, it seems." Max mumbled under his breath in answer to her comment, but he quickly pushed it aside, plastering his trade-mark smirk back onto his face, watching her stretch right there in front of him. He bit down on his bottom lip softly, appreciating the sight; she really was a Goddess of a woman, stunning even. He stayed in his position as Corentine moved to go into the bathroom and collect her phone, his eyes following her ass as she went, again, appreciating the beautiful thing in front of him. He didn't care that she was ignoring him, walking away from him; he got to see exactly what he wanted. His head titled to the side ever so slightly as he watched her pick up the phone and sigh, before walking towards her. The English teacher wasn't going to ask her what was wrong, but he was going to take her into that shower, and wash away all of the troubles that had seemed to come over her.

Max let himself be pushed into the shower, and he turned on the water with the hand that he didn't have placed on Corentine's hip. It came out cold at first, and he turned the shower-head to the side so that it wouldn't freeze either of them, before turning it back around onto them when the water warmed up. "You want to talk? But that's just not as fun." Max playfully pouted, moving around slightly so that the main stream of water was flowing onto her body. "Rebecca? Eh.... we dated for a little bit when we were kids, but it just didn't work out, I guess. Stop asking questions, and turn around." He smiled at her, picking up one of the bottles of shampoo off of the shower floor.

While Jess searched for the key, which Drake had of course conveniently hidden from her in all his drunkenness, the dark male remained unmoving, only breathing, a slight grin constant on his lips. He had his back turned, considering when to pretend to wake up, when Lulu began moving, and he opened an eye to watch her, curious to see her reaction. She seemed more than a little surprised and quite confused too. Apparently she didn’t remember much of last night; that much was obvious, not that he was startled at that particular revelation. The blonde had been drunk out of her mind, nearly passed out from alcohol when he’d finally carried her back to his and Jackson’s room. Ah, Jackson. This was going to be awkward, wasn’t it? He opened his eyes with that thought, wondering if maybe his drunken genius wasn’t all that much of a genius. This was really going to mess some things up, wasn’t it? As if the two hadn’t hit enough bumps lately. Interesting development.

He watched Lulu quietly as she whipped her head back and forth, sitting up with a jolt, the bed bouncing slightly with the movement. He made a face, silently cursing himself for not keeping her behind him, at least shielding Jackson a little bit. This was starting to really make him feel like a crappy friend. Which in itself was incredibly frustrating; Drake hardly ever felt bad about doing anything. Fucking feelings of friendship and… shit. Arcana really wasn’t going to do any good to his reputation of being a cold, heartless bastard. Too bad; he’d rather liked it, not that he cared too much about losing it either. Drake really wasn’t the type to worry about how others saw him, which was probably why he had no qualms about being a prick to Erin one moment, a nice, caring guy to Lulu the next, and feeling quilt towards Jackson in another. Or… well, to be perfectly honest, he did find it more than a little confusing.

He let events pass by then, watching Lulu as she took in everything, suddenly looking rather nauseous. Really? Well that was… rather prudish. Especially considering the fact that she was from Noctrem. Things like this were everyday experiences around there. Having been completely still the entire time, only thinking and plotting silently, it would seem rather sudden when he moved at once the second Lulu’s head hit the wall. He sat up, grabbing her and steadying her to prevent her from banging her head into the wall yet another time. “Jesus, Lulu, try to not hurt yourself for once, will you?” He sighed, looking her over as she began rambling. He couldn’t help but chuckle at her at the end there, though. Yep, she definitely couldn’t remember a thing. He put a hand on her forehead, the other flat on her mid-back, making sure she stayed upright. “Calm down,” he told her then, his voice steady and soothing as ever, with just a touch of amusement.

Then the male Quellen smiled, shaking his head, “I carried you here because you were drunk out of your mind, and your own room happens to be filled with splinters. Not the best place to put a girl in an alcohol induced coma.” His last comment had a playful touch before he moved his hands back to stroke her hair, moving to kiss her forehead then. “We’ll talk about the rest later, okay?” He was so not telling her that they hadn’t had sex though. With that, he carefully got out of bed, careful to not startle Lulu. He didn’t particularly care that he was only in boxers in front of… everyone in the room. What did he really have to be ashamed of, honestly? He turned around, not really able to suppress a grin at Jackson. “You know, I didn’t think you’d actually ever use them,” he chuckled then, not really caring that no one else probably found it funny. Jackson would laugh about it himself in… some time. Probably in a couple of years. But it would be excellent laughter at that point!

He gave Jess a look next, his eyes riding over her, evaluating, appreciating. He couldn’t say anything against Jackson’s taste in women; he had to admit that much. He sent her a smirk then, not caring that she had probably seen his particular once-over before he moved to his desk, getting the key from underneath his clothing from the night before, holding it up for Jackson to see. “Next time you probably shouldn’t leave the key out for everyone to see… and hide. Mind you, I applaud the kinkiness.” He smiled wryly then before looking at both girls, his expression changing from self-satisfied to serious as he apologetically told them, “if you don’t mind, my roommate and I probably need to talk, so…” He didn’t move to unlock Jackson, suspecting the other male would just run off considering what he had just experienced. Instead he let his words to the girls hang in the air, hoping they would grasp the fact that he was basically telling them both to get lost.

Usually Drake wouldn’t want Lulu leaving, but she could handle him throwing her out right now; he’d explain later, if she didn’t deduct it herself. Put simply, Drake had a friendship to mend and some explaining to do, and he didn’t want to do it in front of the girls. Mostly because it was none of their damned business.

---

"You want to talk? But that's just not as fun." Max said, and the words, playful yet seductive washed over the blonde, making her relax almost instantly. How the hell did that work? She brushed it off, explaining it by Max’s good looks and the fact that he completely turned her on. The man was mouthwatering, his dark hair and stubbles giving him an intriguing look, contrasting intensely with his light blue, consuming and utterly entrancing eyes, his gorgeous bone structure adding to the brooding, yet darkly seductive look of his entire face. And that wasn’t even the best part! Getting to the body, Cor could barely grasp how such a man could exist, and their electric attraction towards one another was almost her undoing. She attempted to ignore her constant sexual urges in the presence of this male, and smirked at him before speaking playfully: “Yeah well, you’re the one who won’t fuck me. I’m more than willing to cut first period.”

When the warm water fully hit her, the liquid running over her soothingly, loosening up her tense muscles, her body calmed even more than by Max’s words previously. She almost felt whole again for a brief moment there, a flutter of a real smile playing at her lips, her eyes closing momentarily as she listened to Max explaining about Miss Fields, or rather, Rebecca. Wait… Max… dating? Her eyes shot wide open and she laughed then, not quite able to contain it. “Are you telling me you actually dated? And then, of all people… the strict, uptight History teacher?” She couldn’t help it; the thought alone was simply hilarious. She doubted Rebecca had ever let a proper cock inside, or even had a drunken night out. To Cor, the blonde teacher seemed the exact opposite of Max and it was just very difficult to imagine them being together. What the hell? The two had obviously been very different when they were younger. Although Cor vaguely remembered Rebecca from when she was a student, and she was pretty sure no changed had been made since then.

She rolled her eyes when he told her to stop asking questions, and cast him a wry smile. “You’re really going to boss me around, Mr. Henderson?” She teased, her tone one of mock threatening, “because you know how I respond to orders.” In all honesty, during Sex the dominance of men was so hot. Jay, for one, was nothing if not dominant, and although she also liked to take over and rule the show once in a while, sex had a certain something with a more sexually dominant male. At all other times, bossing Corentine around would earn you nothing short of a bruise somewhere. Often worse. As he picked up the shampoo bottle from the floor, however, Cor actually turned around, eyes closed as she enjoyed the feeling of hot water running over her smooth skin, her back now turned to Max, the male who had just saved her from herself the night before. Maybe what she felt was some weird sort of… gratefulness? Could be. Although she was sort of still bothered by the fact that he’d seen her that vulnerable. Hmm.

She took a deep breath, calming herself as Jay once more invaded her sense. She had never had sex or anything inkling to it with anyone who wasn’t Jay in the shower. She had sort kept that their thing alone, part of her supposedly holding on to that memory, holding on to the fact that part of her experiences would still be his alone. Perhaps part of her had really known they would be reunited. She supposed that specific part of her had merely neglected to mention that he was going to hurt her worse than ever this time, though. A pretty big detail, if you asked the blonde. It was a pretty damned good thing she was able to conceal the majority of her emotions from Max, because she didn’t really want to start another waterfall. As it was, she was trying to think of something else, and as a result, she cleared her throat, talking to Max again… “we should do this again sometime…” She knew it was weak, but she just… needed something to distract her and obviously neither she nor Max were the types to have deep shower conversations.

The hangover was there. She could feel it the moment she tried to correct herself after banging her head into the wall. Yes, she tried to shield herself from the sight before her. Lulu didn’t want to see Jackson like this. She didn’t want to even think about what he had done. He was her childhood friend. Even when Beth was pregnant she hadn’t thought twice about what he had done to make that happen. He had had sex without protection and yes she had ribbed him for that but she had never wanted to visualize it. By then she had gotten over the heartbreak of being left behind. By then she had settled for dying alone and staying permanently in the friend zone. Here and now was something else. To see this now, after everything that he had said to her…that all was very present in her memory and that made her stomach churn twice more on top of the residual alcohol.

"Jessica, please. Find those god-damned keys,” Jackson demanded. She could hear his frustration and it was a reality that made her heart sink a little. Here she was in front of him, disheveled with just fucked hair and hickies down the length of her throat. She respected him so much to not be this girl, parading herself with another man in front of him. She was not that girl. And yet in that moment she was.

“Jesus, Lulu, try to not hurt yourself for once, will you?” Drake clucked at her. Lulu blinked twice, feeling as he took hold of her head, one hand on her forehead and the other on her lower back. His touch made her jump, a tickle running up her spine and making her squirm in his touch. “Calm down,” Drake chided her further. “Easy for you to say,” she retorted and she could hear in her head something from last night. Laughter to the point that her stomach hurt, writhing under his arms as he tickled her where she was insanely sensitive – just under her ribs. Her rant went on then, and she looked at him, watching him shake his head with a wry smile.

“I carried you here because you were drunk out of your mind, and your own room happens to be filled with splinters. Not the best place to put a girl in an alcohol induced coma,” Drake informed her. Lulu rolled her eyes, bringing a hand to rub her eyes. She bowed her head and he kissed her forehead, not even caring that Jackson was behind him. She blushed, again registering that she was in her t-shirt and skirt but without undergarments. Inhaling to speak, she turned to look at him again but he cut her off before she even started. “We’ll talk about the rest later, okay?” he told her. Lulu bit her tongue, watching at he removed himself from the bed effortlessly. Like a modern Adonis he stood, giving her a full view of his gorgeous naked back. Suddenly her mouth wasn’t so dry and she shook her head as he paused and looked over his roommate and companion. Lulu watched as Drake gave Jessica a once over. Immediately she felt a frustration creep over her. Mad jealousy took her for a spin, boiling in her stomach before taking over her hungover mind. He was giving her a once over, taking in every inch of exposed skin. Lulu almost wanted to growl and make some sort of claim. Who was she turning into? She snapped out of it quickly.

“You know, I didn’t think you’d actually ever use them,” Drake laughed, referencing the cuffs. Lulu cast a glance over at her friend then, seeing his frustration. “Drake,” she chided, trying to prevent him from rubbing in the situation. Her condoning of his behavior did nothing. Lulu doubted he even heard her. She began to pull herself from the bedding, finding her hand eye coordination somewhat faltering. Frustrated, she tore at his sheets from where they were tangled around her legs and within a minute she had herself free. She swung herself to stand, careful to keep her skirt in all the right places.

“Next time you probably shouldn’t leave the key out for everyone to see… and hide. Mind you, I applaud the kinkiness,” Drake smirked. Lulu scanned the room for anything that was hers and found only her heels from the night before, kicked off by the door – or likely taken off by Drake not that she could remember. Drake turned to her then and she looked past the man who had taken care of her last night to her best friend, looking him directly in the eye. She didn’t smile or frown, she just looked at him and felt…sorry. But it wasn’t pity because not a moment later did she look at Drake with narrowed eyes, trying to express her frustration with him. He had brought her back here knowing Jackson was his roommate. She had told him everything, that too was in her memory. Somehow it hadn’t dawned on him to be more considerate.

But then again, when was Drake Quellen ever considerate of someone other than himself? Rarely. And today was not one of those moments.

“If you don’t mind, my roommate and I probably need to talk, so…” Drake trailed. Lulu looked back over at Jackson, holding her shoes with both hands against her stomach, half wanting to cross her legs. Their room felt breezy – or maybe it was just her mind over thinking. The thud of her hangover was very present in her temples too, but she felt clarity when she looked at her friend.

“Jackson, I didn’t mean…” Lulu trailed, biting her lip as she fought for words. “I didn’t intend for you to see this.” Looking back over at Drake she smiled and flushed, eyes averting him. It was all she could say. There he was standing in front of her, chiseled body and all, and he had spent the entire night with her doing...something she couldn't remember. With that she pulled open the door. No sooner had she swung it open then she caught her bra, hanging on the outside of the knob. Raising her eyes to the ceiling, she prayed to God she hadn’t done what she was thinking she had done. Snatching it, she slipped outside into the hall. She kept the door open only so much as to squeeze through, closing it to let Jessica dress before she left…in something. It was up to them. And oddly Lulu found herself right in front of her blown off door, a makeshift curtain tacked over it in the meantime. Her room was opposite his. Again. Great. How had this happened?

Lulu knocked on the door frame before she stepped inside, immediately hissing when her left foot connected with a stray splinter of door. Her side of the room was still dominated by destruction and on top of it all was a note. Dropping her shoes and bra on the floor, she cautiously stepped over to collect it, glancing over to see her roommate sound asleep in her bed.

“I won't ask what happened here. But you're cleaning it up.

-Alli”

Wincing, Lulu tossed the note back on the bed, moving to her duffel bag still left at the foot of the bed in search of extra strength Advil.

When she had heard another female voice in the room, Jessica's head had snapped up. The site that greated her was a shocking one. It turns out that whoever shared a room with Jackson hadn't left party alone either. Lulu Allen was staring back at the brunette, looking bewildered and confused. Jess's eyes darted back to Jackson; he looked exactly how she felt. This was awkward. She had barely spoken to anyone who was in this room before and here she was, standing half naked in front of both them. This was definity a bad morning for Jessica Coleman.

'Jessica, please, find those god-dammed keys' She heard the frantic tone of Jackson's voice, but she had no sympathy for it. What did he think he was doing over here, writing a novel? 'I'm trying' she snapped, picking up one of his shoe from the floor and launching it in his direction. She understood his embarrassment; they were in the same boat. However, that was no excuse to treat her the way he was.. It took two to tango. He would do well to remember that.

Then, the male person beside Lulu stirred and she heard a voice that she recognized. Oh hell. She watched as Drake Quellen arose from the bed wearing... little more than she was. She stood up, her lips suddenly becoming a thin line on her face as she stared at the male in front of her. It made sense really, Drake was a self-confessed womanizer; the whole of Noctrem would think he was ill if he hadn't managed to pull someone last night. She watched as the male made a comment to Jackson, still handcuffed to the bed and then turned to her. She watched his eyes move up and down her briefly, 'Enjoying the view are we, Mr Quellen?' She asked acidly, not enjoying the way she was being observed like a piece of meat at market. She shifted a little as he brushed past her, lifting up his pile of clothes to reveal the blessed keys. What a complete prick. Then again, she didn't expect anyone in the room was surprised. 'And next time, don't be such a prick to your room mate, there's a good man' She replied to his comment, before striding across the room to collect her things. It was then that her eyes were caught on Jackson.

As she looked down at the man she had spent the night with, the brunette didn't have a clue what to say. She was pissed at him for treating her the way he had, but then again, she hadn't treated him amazingly well either. Plus, maybe Jackson mood was acceptable under the circumstances; she knew that Jackson was close to Lulu. To see someone violate your best friend like that? That would destroy anyone... She felt awful about what had happened. She almost wanted to say sorry to him, but reisisted, he had been willing. Simple as that. She stood up, grabbing her clothes from the night before. Then, she walked out of the boys room; running at a rate of knots back to her room.

She burst into her room, banging the door agianist the wall as she entered. She hadn't noticed a sleeping Mo in her room and frankly at this moment she didn't care. She was flustered, embarrassed and she felt like she crawling up in a ball and dying. Instead. she put her clothes in the laundry basket and strode to the bathroom, still dressed in Jackson's shirt. The brunette stared at herself in the mirror. She looked a mess, her hair falling out of the neat bun she had put it in last night and her eyes showing signs of tiredness. The brunette picked up a hair brush and started to sort out the mess last night had created. Well, the physical mess at least. That's when she noticed it. Right on her neck. A lovebite. Fantastic. Sighing, the girl exited the bathroom, not having time to shower, she stood in front of the wardrobe; deciding what to wear, preparing for the day ahead.



Ashleigh had been having the best sleep she had expierence in a long time; she always felt safer when someone was sleeping in her room with her. Besides Cor, that was. She had been slightly worried, when she had bought Zac back, that Cor was going to burst in and instantly judge her for having a male in their room. Not that she was in the best position to judge, mind you.

The two of them had been doing nothing untoward anyway, they had been watching films until what felt like the early hours of the morning, although Ashy didn't have much of a clue how the last one had ended. She must have fallen asleep. The blonde was then aware of a hand on her shoulder shaking her gently. She opened her eyes and gave a small smile, 'Mmm, good morning.' She said,looking up at the male she had shared a bed with. It sounded odd when she had said it like that, but that's how things were and it didn't feel odd for any of them.

Ashy was then aware Zac saying that he needed to go and get ready; why so soon? Something was wrong she could tell. She went to stop the male from leaving her room, but was the power of speech wasn't entirely with her this morning. She would ask him later how he was; though of course he'd say he was fine. She still hated the fact he hid his feelings from him, yet she told him everything. What was so bad that he couldn't tell her? Maybe she needed to talk to Mo and find out. She didn't want to go behind his back..but if he wasn't going to honest then so be it.

The blonde also felt the need to talk to Erin this morning at some point. She knew was going to be an impossible task with the girl probably being hungover and Cor being around, but she needed to check that she was ok, that she wasn't about to throw herself off a building generally.

Sighing, Ashy got out of bed, showered and got dressed quickly; she needed answers and she needed them now.

Mo was woken abruptly as Jessica stormed into the room. She winced as her head began to pound and her stomach twisted. "What the fuck, Jessica?" She groaned. She sat up groggily and nearly collapsed back into the bed. She felt like hell warmed up. She desperately tried to remember what happened, but she came up blank. Her headache definitely wasn't helping. Jessica came back into the room and stared at her closet. "Thanks for waking me, Jess," Mo said sarcastically as she tried to work up the strength to get out of bed. She wasn't in the mood for being nice.

She dragged her feet out of bed and put them on the floor. She managed to get to her feet. She wasn't exactly steady on them, and the fact that she nearly fell over her shoes definitely didn't help. She caught sight of herself in a mirror and realized that she was still wearing her dress. "What the freaking hell happened last night?" She muttered as she dragged herself out to the bathroom. There, she found a glass and filled it with water. Sipping it, she rested her head against the cool tiles. The last thing she could remember was... Checking her phone and ordering another drink. Everything went fuzzy after that. When her glass was empty and her head was still as bad, she found the box of paracetamol and swallowed two, before heading back into the bedroom. She didn't trust herself to stay awake or to even remain standing for a shower.

She opened her closet and stared at it blankly. Eventually she assembled an outfit and went into the bathroom to change. She dumped her dress in the laundry and ran her fingers through her hair. It was far from perfect, but she couldn't be assed to do anything with it. It would do her for today. She went back into her room and checked her timetable. Herbology first thing. Resisting the urge to collapse back into bed, she picked up her bag from the floor where it lay and took out her phone. She was almost dreading what might be on it, but there wasn't any new messages.

"Someone's very talkative in the mornings," She remarked, glancing over at Jess. Morgan sat on the bed, grabbing her iPod from her bedside locker. "Seriously, feel free to vent. My brain's not willing to take anything in this morning. I think it's gone on strike."



Alli rolled over to slap her alarm. She always liked to wake up relatively early, but it appeared she wasn't the only one. She jumped and nearly fell out of bed as she realized her roommate was in the room. Shoving herself up in the bed, she stretched. She raised an eyebrow as she saw her roommate rooting in her bag for something. "I might be stereotyping, but if you're looking for a hangover-related headache cure, there's some in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. There's some with caffeine in it, I think," She said as she climbed out of bed. She crossed the room to the bathroom and rooted briefly in the cabinet before stepping back into the room and throwing it towards her roommate. She didn't pay much attention to it. Her power meant that her aim was near perfect. "If you want the shower, you'll have to wait a few minutes," She called from the bathroom.

Alli came out of the shower a few minutes later with a towel wrapped around her. "Bathroom's free," She said simply as she turned to face her wardrobe. She pulled out an outfit and pulled it on. Dragging a brush through her hair, she turned to face her timetable where she had it pinned above her mirror. She had a free first thing. Her fingers played across her dressing table. She picked up her eyeliner, lipgloss and mascara and applied them carefully.

Make-up done, she went back to her bed and pulled out her laptop. She opened it up and waited for it to turn on. Her fingers tapped a rhythm on the keyboard. Her laptop simply wasn't complying, so she stepped into the cleanest part of the room and started her stretches. At the exact same moment as she lowered herself into the splits, her laptop decided it would be a good time to wake. She didn't bother getting up, simply reached and pulled it towards her. She rose into a standing position and went into her browser. Suddenly her screen froze. She swore at her laptop and hit it, even though her logic told her that neither would help. She hit a few keys on it and, when it still didn't respond, held the power button. It still didn't respond. Alli's morning didn't appear to be off to a good start. She had nothing to do until 9:15 other than her gymnastic routines, and even that would be a push.

Jessica sighed when she heard Mo's groggy, hungover voice from the bed opposite hers. She liked her roommate, she really did, but now was probably not the best time for the two of them to be in conversation; for fear of Jessica saying something she might regret. She turned around looking at the...extremely hungover mess that was Mo. She had got dressed. This was something that the brunette, who was still wearing Jackson Murphey's shirt, was still yet to achieve. She gave a sigh; she was going to have to give that back to him. The shame.

'Just your average morning at Noctrem,' She began sharply, 'I slept with a man I have barely spoken to, woke up with him pissed at me and then to top it all of, had a run with a basically naked Drake Quellen; isn't life just fabulous.' She finished sarcastically.

Sitting down on her bed, Jessica ran her fingers from her messy brunette. She hadn't even had time to talk to Jackson. But then again, what would she talk to him about. The incident with Drake and Lulu had, quite rightly, provoked a reaction out of him. Could she talk to him about that? Jessica remembered his reaction when she had asked him about the talk he had been having with Lulu the night before. He had been extremely closed off and that had been when he was intoxicated; what hope did anyone have of getting any sort of feeling out of him now? Jessica turned back to her roommate 'It's just one big mistake, Mo.' She muttered, before promptly getting changed into an outfit. Nothing too fancy, but to it showed that she meant buisness to anyone that questioned her; which would be everyone. God, today was going to be tough; she needed something to take her mind off of all this. She needed to have some fun. With that, the brunette promptly pulled her phone out of her pocket and start tapping a message;

To: Sky :D
We need to talk... or get drunk; whatever gets me out of this foul mood
From: Jess xxx

Smiling to herself, Jess tucked her phone back into her bag; Sky would know how to cheer her up. The two of them were extremely close and despite his apparent addiction to sex, the brunette couldn't fault the pyro. They had fun; just not too much fun.

Jess then looked back up at Mo, 'Mo, what happened to you last night?' She asked. She had remembered her having a arugment with Zac, Zac storming off and Mo being dragged away but the master mind that was Alli Jackson. It seemed to the brunette that she wasn't the only one who had experienced some drama last night.

"Adios!' Sky said as his roommate left to get some food. When he was alone, he stretched slight and entered the bathrrom to freshen up a bit. He scowled slightly as he look into the bathroom mirror and saw his reflection's bloodshot eyes. His scowl was replaced by an evil smile when he saw his messy hair, which had been pulled at furiously the night before. Sky procceded to get ready and after he had fixed his hair, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and put on some deodorant (and some Axe, just in case) he heard his phone in the other room vibrating. The pyro ran over to his bed, grabbing his phone and reading the message from Jess.

To: Sky :D
We need to talk... or get drunk; whatever gets me out of this foul mood
From: Jess xxx

A smile came to the pyro as he quickly typed a reply and sent it off to Jess.

To: Jessie <3
Alrighty! i'm cummin over in a second but no drinking haha. had a bit too much last night.

P.S. lolz i just noticed the i spelled coming cummin. do you get it? like i'm cummin? i'm not, but do you get it?
From: Sky

Sky smiled and put his phone into his the pockets of his shorts as he walked out of the room. Only moments later, he was knocking very loudly on Jess' door. "Jessie! I'm here!" he shouted. He took out his phone again (out of pure boredom) and saw that he had some new pictures in his gallery. He looked through his, his eyes widening as he saw that the pictures were of him and Eden from last night. "Holy shit." Sky said under his breath. "How did we do that?" He would have to delete these...maybe.



Kitty wiped beads of sweat from her brow as she ran, her pony tail bouncing up and down with every stride. She breathed slowly, timing her inhales and exhales with every step. That was the kind of thing Kitty had to do to keep herself entertained whilst exercising. It also help her to think about home. She slightly frowned as she thought of it. She missed her family and it was only the first day of being apart from them.

Trying to get her mind off of her homesickness, Kitty stopped running for a moment and reached for the ipod she tucked into the waistband of her sweatpants. She unwrapped the decive from it's white headphones, freeing it, before she went to her "Favorites" playlist and pressed the play button. She put the earphones in and a small grin formed on her face as she heard Kiss You by One Direction came on.

She closed her eyes and began dancing, laughing. "Let me kiss you!" she shouted, opening her eyes and taking off in a full sprint. She let out a sigh of relief. This felt great. The wind brushing against her skin, the fresh air fulling her lungs, and, best of all, the 1D running though her ears. Nothing could quite compare to this feeling. She just reached what she called the "Na na na" part of the song when she reached the peek of her speed. Her pearly white teeth were fully exposed in a smile as the song came to an abrupt end. She stopped running, taking in several deep breaths as she waited for the next song. A pout formed as she recognised the beginning of Little Things and she brought up her ipod to pause it. She loved that song, but it never failed to make her cry. "Why are they so perfect?" she asked allowed, wiping her eyes. 'God.' she thought. 'Directioners are crazy.'



Amber sighed heavily as she read from the book, slightly chewing on a strip of baccon. Maybe she'd have to stirr up alittle trouble around Arcana because she barely had any material to work with. She had no leads and it had been weeks since anyone came to her with gossip. Was her business dying? 'No, it can't be.' she thought, but with every passing moment, it seemed like she was crossing off something in her Black Book. She shook her head, obviously stressed with the lack of gossip going around school. Amber turned to a clean page and titled it POSSIBLE RUMORS. Now, all she had to do was come up with something.

“Excuse me, Miss, would you mind my keeping you company?” Amber instantly closed the Black Book as she heard an unfamiliar voice come from above her. The girl looked up, seeing the brunette boy in front of her and smiled politely. She had no clue who he was, but she had to admit, he was handsome. The greeting also got her attention. He sounded so old timey (if that was even a word) and polite. If most guys wanted to talk to Amber, they would have just taken a seat and done so. "Sure" she finally said, still smiling. "Have a seat." She picked up the Book and placed it into her bag, before looking back to the young man. Her mind began to working furiously to study the details of his face. 'Blue eyes, light brown hair, tanned skin. Most likely comes from somewhere sunny.'

She crossed her legs and extended her hand to him, smiling softly. "Hi, I'm Amber Romano. Pleased to meet you."

"Just your average morning at Noctrem. I slept with a man I have barely spoken to, woke up with him pissed at me and then to top it all of, had a run with a basically naked Drake Quellen; isn't life just fabulous?" Jess spoke with an edge to her voice that Mo vaguely recognized as sarcasm. Before Mo had decided on a smart retort, Jess was speaking again. "Mo, what happened to you last night?" Mo shrugged. "I vaguely remember orange juice. And... Oh shit. Vodka. Not a-freaking-gain." She groaned, doing a face plant into her pillow. "I never drink, so I get drunk easily. And I can never remember what I do. Shit, I could have done anything. Well, at least I woke up alone, fully dressed in my own bed." She looked helplessly at her roommate. "Were you with... Who were you with again? Were you in their room all night or can you help with my predicament?"

Just then, the full realization of what Jess had said kicked in. "Wait. You argued with Drake- naked?" She had a hard time not laughing as she got the mental image. "His roommate is Jackson, ri- Oh. That's who you were with, isn't it?" Morgan sat back, thinking it all through. She liked Jess, she genuinely did, but Jackson was like the big brother she'd never had. She knew last night had probably been nothing more than an alcohol induced fling. She knew that there was probably nothing to it, but she worried that there was something more and that Jackson would be left broken-hearted. Morgan didn't want to see that happen, and she couldn't help but think, "I'm not going to let it."

"So, anyway... What was your argument with Drake about?"" Morgan asked to fill the silence. Her natural curiosity emerged. Drake was forever flirting with Morgan, as he did with every female entered the room, but she couldn't help but like him. "And who did he bring back last night?" She pondered out loud. The gossip took her mind off of her hangover. Her stomach felt like it had been through five rounds with two champion boxers, both of which had a personal vengeance against it, and her head had begun to swim once again. She grabbed a bottle of water from her bedside table and took sips from it, trying to ease her headache. The paracetamol hadn't had much of an effect, it appeared. She rooted in her drawer for the packet she always kept there, just in case. She took another, swallowing it with her water. The water was a little stale, but it was better than nothing. Food probably would have helped, but her stomach twisted at the mere thought of food. She wanted nothing more than to just sleep away her hangover, but she also wanted to find out exactly what the hell had happened- both to herself and everyone else.



Alli heard a beep behind her and swiveled to face her laptop. It had unfrozen and was back to it's regular working pace. "Huh. That's... Lucky." She grinned at her roommate. "Thanks." Her roommate sat back and began to explain her power.

"I can manipulate probability, make things more or less likely. My parents loved it when I made them a million dollars in one weekend rigging games within the casino. But I prefer to help people, beat the odds, avoid the bullies. It comes down to understanding chance, and when and where it applies. By the way, do you know where there are couches here at Arcana? I’m trying to figure out where I was last night and I was brought somewhere…with couches?" Alli frowned and thought. "Well, there are the house common rooms, the game room and then just the general common rooms upstairs. I don't think there's anywhere else. Any of them could be likely, if I'm honest. They'd all be empty when there's a party. And your power seems... interesting, to say the least. The most impressive thing I can do with mine is this." She removed her shoes and stepped into the middle of the floor. Performing a perfect handstand, she used her feet to pick up a ball from the foot of her bed and balanced it on her feet. "Not exactly the most exciting thing in the world, but they reward it at the Olympics. My parents have been trying to persuade me to go for them since I was six, for essentially anything involving aim or balance. It doesn't help that I've got a gymnast's stature. Essentially, I'm short." As she spoke, she lowered the ball back to the floor and got to her feet.

She shoved her feet back into her boots and laced them up again. "Anyway, enough about me and my big dreams. What do you do in your spare time? Besides irritate Quellen, that is," She spoke with a teasing glint in her eye. Anyone else would have thought through their words a little more carefully, but Alli was as blunt as a bag of wet mice. She saw no point in being fancy with her words, and if she wanted to wind someone up, she wasn't going to try and hide it.



Zac put down his guitar as his phone vibrated beside his bed. He leaned over to pick it up, and a small smile crossed his lips as he saw who it was from.

want a partner in smashing those drums, buddy? my roommate thinks I'm a stalker cat
-Loren

He chuckled a little to himself as his fingers flew over the keyboard in reply.

Come on over, kitty. Meow. =^.^=
-Zac

Loren had been his friend for as long as he could remember. They had been friendly as children, but then Zac's own family drama had kicked off and they had grown apart. Finding her again at Arcana had just been... amazing. Their friendship had grown to new heights, and just over two years ago, Zac had realized that he... He was falling in love with her. And once he had realized that, he fell all the faster and all the harder. He adored all of her adorable little ways. If it was anyone else, he would hate them for being able to read his mind, but with Loren, it was just another thing to love. She was yet another person he couldn't burden with his past, but she knew something had happened to him. She knew more than a lot of people, mainly because she could get inside his head, and sometimes she read what he was thinking without him meaning to let her.

He looked around his room. It was relatively tidy, so he left it. His roommate didn't appear to be that untidy, which was a good thing. Not that Loren, or anyone else, for that matter, would care. He briefly checked his email on his phone. He then went onto YouTube and loaded Chris Kamrada's cover of "Kids" by Sleigh Bells. It was such an awesome video, and always got him in the mood for a decent drumming session. He cracked his knuckles and winced a little, shaking his hands. He then waited for Loren to arrive, tapping out a pattern on his knees.

'Ah, the old vodka hangover, I feel your pain my friend.' Jessica gave a small, sympathetic smile The Noctrem student had woken up with many a hangover, and Vodka was nasty stuff; stupid Russian people. Jessica then watched as the Mo thought out loud to herself, cottoning on to the fact that the brunette had been with Jackson last night.. She knew the two were friends, close friends by the actions of yesterday. Yet another side to this fucked up cube of her problems.... She didn't want her actions of stupidity to come between her and her roommate. 'I watched him storm out of the party last night, I was curious more than anything...' Suddenly Jessica felt a little uncomfortable around the blonde sitting next to her... ' He came onto me.' She finished pathetically, staring down at her lap.

It was then that she heard a knock at the door signalling Sky's arrival. Taking an inward sigh of relief, she walked towards the door. 'Well he had his boxers on and I had Jack's shirt on; anyway there are worse sights to look at in the morning.' She shrugged off, mentally slapping herself in the face for her last comment. If the Quellen male could hear her now. She could just see the smug grin on his face. Jessica chose to ignore her room mates questions about the content of the argument and the girl Drake had brought back. Answering the argument question would just be embarrasing and she wasn't sure poor Mo needed to know about the Irishman probably still strung up to his own bed as they spoke. Secondly, Jessica was never one for gossip or fueling it. Despite having never really spoken to anyone in that room other than Drake before this morning... she did have a small amount of respect for their dignity; espeically poor Lulu, although she still hadn't quite figured out that situation yet.

Finally, she wrenched the door open to see an extremely handsome and hyperactive Sky staring back at her. He looked reasonable this morning; despite the fact the brunette had no doubt the pyro had got into just as much trouble as she had last night. She put on a mock disapproving look, putting her hand on hip and staring at Sky. 'Why are so cheerful and dapper this morning when I know for a fact you cosumed more alcohol than me last night?' She cocked her head in a questioning look, before a smile crossed the brunette's face. 'I'm joking, if you weren't cheerful... i'd be worried' She told the pyro, hugging him tightly. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in his scent, 'You smell nice.' She told him quietly.

"Why are you crying?" Kitty's posture went rigid as she heard a male voice behind her. "I mean, why do you run so slow?" His words didn't register in her mind as her Amazon training kicked in. She quickly turned around, disconnecting her headphones from the ipod in her hand and throwing it at the unknown man behind her with deadly precision and force. She quickly followed, tackling the man to the ground, pinning his arms and legs.

Kitty's features were hard as she stared down at the man that snuck up on her, but they softened as she recognized who he was. "Oh, hey Eric." she said casually, as if she always tackled guys that snuck up on her. Maybe she did, but Eric didn't need to know. Kitty had just met him the night before, at Jackson's party and the two really hit it off. He was extremely handsome and (no one really knew this) Kitty had a thing for smart guys. Typical boys acted like animals, so when an intelligent guy cam along, she couldn't help but take notice.

The asian girl smiled down at the boy beneath her, still pinned down by her extreme strength. "So. Did you say something about me running slow?"



Sky quickly shoved his phone into his pocket when he saw Jess open the door. A grin spread across his face as he saw her feigned disappointment. 'Why are so cheerful and dapper this morning when I know for a fact you cosumed more alcohol than me last night?' The pyro laughed heartily. "Yeah. Being cheerful and dapper is my thing." He shrugged, smiling as the brunnette came in to hug him.

He licked his lips slightly behind her back, breathing in her scent. 'Wow.' he thought. She smelled really good. Apparently, she thought the same thing and whispered it to him. Sky chuckled. "That's the beauty of Axe." The pyro somewhat broke the hug, leaving one of his hands on Jessie's lower back. "Alright," the dark skinned boy started, "I was thinking we skip all our classes today and go see a movie or something. Then we can go swing by my aunt's Mexican food place for lunch." His eyes lit up as he explained his plans. "Or if you don't feel like Mexican; even though Mexicans are the best; we can go to this Italian place she won in her last divorce. Or the Chinese place she bought last week."