Jones Christmas Party (No Hunters Allowed)

[outcast]

The sky couldn't have been anymore beautiful even if it had been lined with diamonds and satian. The last rays of sun melted the many hues of the sky into the most beautiful sight that brought tears to a person's eyes. The last of the gold left the sky as people began to arrive at the Jones Plantation.

Every inch of the house was covered with red, gold, silver and green. A giant christmas tree was set in the living room and the table in the dinning room set for over 3 dozen guests. In the ball room was another smaller tree covered in sparling satian. It was a vision of beauty and magic.

The place was fully stocked complete with vallet service, caterer who cooks on request, open bar, and even a ball room with an orchestra to match. There where activites to do for children as well that included a snowball fight, ginger bread house decorating, ice skating on the pond, and a secret santa. There was even a gift for every guest that for the adults included a bottle of vintage wine and for the children a ornament. The night would also conclude with a fireworks display shot off at the end of the evening.

The evening was planed for a magical christmas expreience. supposed to be the part of the year and much better than last year. This is the only time that the werewolfs and vampires quit bickering long enough to come to a dear friends of both sides. Everyone was invited and welcomed.

[outcast]

Adrian stood in his old room as he put on his new tux. He had grown out of his last one and his parents lovingly got him a new one. It was slick and looked like the one that Leonardo Dicaprio wore in the movie Titanic and it probly was the only reson why his adopted mother got it for him. Since it was a new moon he could relax into it and not worry about messing it up through changing. His messy hair was slicked back and down as best as he could when his adopted mother came in the room. "You look stunning", she said turning him around and tieing hie white bow tie around his neck.

His face flushed a little as she looked at him. She was wearing a deep blue dress that sparkled a little in the light. Even though she was well above 50, she still looked wonderful. "Not as good as you mother," he told her kissing her on her cheek.

She in turn blushed as she looked at the small present on his bed and sighed. "Still think she is gonna be here?," she asked looking at him with a worried look on her face.

He stiffened as he stood his own height. Towering over her, he looked at her. He had only come back becasue she had asked to see him. He knew he owed it to her for disappearing so suddenly and worring her. Coming here was almost a bitter memory for it was one of the few places he felt at home and peace with his darling Esa. He choked back his pain, put the box in a coat pocket, and gave his mother a half smile. "I'll be ok mother," he told her," Now lets go down stairs and greet some guests."

They walked down together arm and arm. He had opened up to the family and even his adopted brother was now a protettore because of him. Josh, his brother, was going to be his best man, once he found her. He was even waiting at the bottom of the stairs with Mr. Jones and 5 other foster children. Adrian put on a smile and handed his mother over to his father and looked at his family with love in his heart. For the first time in a year, he felt almost human.

Then people started comign in. after meeting about a dozen people, he left with a knod of his mother and went to the back yard where the noise of the orchestra and the seemingly endless amount of people's chatter didn't seem as loud to his sensitive ears. He looked over the frost cover garden at the stars and longed for her to be here.

[jack]

The air outside was crisp and cool, and the hustle and bustle of the outdoors was all but ringing as people rushed here and there going to Christmas parties and enjoying themselves. Jack Hearthacker walked arm in arm with Esa carefully leading her towards the party. He wore a black suit with a white undershirt, and a deep red tie. he had debated on drag for a good three days but had finally decided against it in the case and place that there were questions as to how Esa got there and why she was with him when he was dressed in that manner.

Over the past few weeks, he had been trying to calm her bloodlust that had raged since her starvation thanks to Lilith. Jack now felt spiteful towards his 'mother' and was now starting to find dark thoughts at the back of his mind once more. For a long while, he had managed to shove them away, yet they were there again.... He'd make the vampire queen pay one way or another. However, that wasn't the time to be thinking on that subject. Jack knew that he had to be light and positive for the time being. Yes that was what he had to do.

"Are you alright?" Jack asked lightly towards Esa as he continued to walk.

[xavy]

Xavier was almost frowning in the suit he was wearing, it was so ugly but of course he had lost a bet with one of the girls in his pack and ended up having to wear what she decided looked nice. Apparently a dark green suit and a black undershirt was nice. In his opinion it was ugly and the worst thing he had ever seen but he had just been told he had no fashion sense and he'd had trouble not growling at the girl for that comment. He kept his head down as he walked up to the house where the christmas party was being held. He wasn't exactly sure why he was here because he had never celebrated christmas properly and always thought of it as a bit stupid.

He made himself smile as he walked into the house, he was welcomed and then he leaned against a wall and sniffed. He wanted to know if there was anyone he knew there. Adrian was but he had known that and Jack. He blinked because he hadn't exactly expected that but then he had, he hadn't really admitted to himself that he had been hoping for Jack to be there but he really had and that was probably the only reason he had came. He hadn't actually seen Jack that much, they always seemed to be in different places. He blushed a light pink and wondered if he should find Jack or just try to make some new friends. He decided to make new friends and if he ran into Jack then that would be cool.

He walked up to a random girl and started talking, introducing himself and just joking around with her like he did with a couple of the girls in his pack. He did that because he didn't like people to know that he really liked a guy because he knew a lot of people would judge him for that so he talked and flirted with girls to make himself look straight. He had liked girls before and it wasn't like he wasn't attracted to them but at this stage the person he liked was a guy and he was a vampire too which just seemed to make things worse. How it would be a disaster if his pack found out. He shook that thought from his head as the girl said she had to go and walked away from him.

He looked around and saw the Jack wasn't too far away and he didn't know if he should go up and say hi or if he should walk away from the vampire because of the fact that he was with a girl. Xavier frowned and just leaned against the wall again, not sure what to do because he didn't think he should go up and say hi to Jack and he couldn't see how there was anything fun to do at the party. He sighed and just looked around at everyone that was smiling and laughing and having fun and everything he saw had no interest for him.

He wondered why he was so shy around Jack. He had met the guy five years ago and he had seen him a few times, less than he would have liked but then he had spent a good amount of time with the guy but every time he saw him after spending a lot of time with his pack he felt shy again around the guy he liked. He felt so stupid that he was even thinking over this so much, he was really wasting his time even being at the party, he should be with his pack or watching the pack boundary for danger. "Ugh, I should just go." he mumbled to himself.

[palesa]

Palesa smoothed her hand over her blue dress that Jack had bought for her, and that she had agreed to wear. She could still feel the boiling need for blood in the center of her body, but she still put a smile on her face when she looked up at her adoptive father. "I'm okay. Thanks for dressing me up Jack, not up to date in my fashion," she joked as she messed with her outfit and glanced around.

Jack hadn't really let her outside while he taught her what Gabriel had once taught her long ago, and now, after being locked into a house, albeit a large one, made her paranoid and uncomfortable. The only thing that he had been able to say to her that convinced her to depend on herself to not go berserk was that Adrian would probably be at the party. And after over a year, she couldn't have said no if she had wanted to (which she did, obviously).

As they reached the house, memories started to play again in her head; the fight with the werewolf, the speech made by Adrian's foster father, and their first kiss. That as the most perfect christmas party that she had ever attended, and she could only hope that this one would be more exceptional then that party of five years ago.

She sniffed at the air to try to catch any kind of scent that would lead her to a conclusion of Adrian's attendance, but all she could smell was a half-familiar scent of a different wolf. "Jack, Xavier is here. I'm going to go get a drink while you go find him," Esa said as she slid her arm from his. She knew he wouldn't like leave her to her own devices, but she wanted to find Adrian.

[outcast]

Adrian slid back into the house to hear and smell dozens of people. There where children running around playing with the toys, Vampires talkign with stiff lips to werewolves and many other just normal humans. The senses overload was almost over bearing to him as he forced a smile. He was spotted by a few teenage girls who looked his way and giggled. After giving them a half smile he quickly made it into the kitchen where he took a blast of noise and smells that he had to cover his ears to endure. I have to get to a quiet place, he thought to himself as he headed back outside.

When he got through the back doors, the sound was there but muted to a certain extent as poeple took advantage of the iced over pond. He found a spot in the garden where a fountain lay in a frozen icy statuis state surrounded by roses. He plucked a rose and held it to his nose and inhaled deeply. Oh how it smelled like her and how he longed for her to be there. He looked again at the moonless night and as the stars shone brightly the snow bagan to fall lightly on his shoulders.

[jack]

Jack was left oddly reproachful as Esa left but finally decided that it was simply stress of everything and backed up and managed a smile. His eyes seemed to scale the room and looked around it carefully for a moment before dropping his gaze again and starting to zoom around the room. Different faces and different people in general. The world had changed in five years, and all Jack could do was walk through it. As he started to move through the room, Jack picked up a cup from a table and drained it. The water burned the back of his throat somewhat due to the fact it was so diluted with.... water... bleh... he couldn't make a genuine comparison between blood and water being that water was a part of blood. Setting down the cup, Jack started to walk through the crowd of people.

[xavy]

Xavier was watching Jack and it would probably look a bit creepy to anyone else. The girl that was with him was a vampire but she didn't look very happy, she actually seemed a bit... nervous? Worried? Something like that. He couldn't work out exactly what the emtoion was but it was obvious that she wasn't the happiest person at the party but then neither was Xavier. He leaned against the wall, watching Jack and occassionally looking around at the others that were at the party and he almost felt bad for the ones he knew had no idea about the creatures they were socializing with. He shook his head and looked back at Jack, smiling as he saw the vampire girl walk away.

Not long after Jack walked away too and he stopped a table to pick up a drink, Xavier could see from there that it was water but he couldn't see Jack's reaction to drinking it. He didn't know that much about vampires and he really didn't know if vampires usually drunk water, he had thought that they only drank blood. When Jack put down the cup he began to walk again and he was coming in the direction of Xavier. He probably didn't even know but he would soon enough and Xavier couldn't help but smile at the thought of talking to Jack.

He ran his hand through his messy brown hair, wishing that it wasn't so messy but at least it was clean. He would need to get a haircut but then he never could be bothered getting one, he never put it on the top of his to do list. He stood up properly and began to walk forward towards Jack. Xavier kept his arms at his sides when he stopped walking and stood in front of Jack. He wanted to hug him but then he didn't because of the people around so he smiled instead. "Hey Jack," he simply said with a bit of a laugh.

[palesa]

Palesa had stopped to watch Jack, frowning as he drank water from the table of refreshments. She had come away from it moments before with a wine glass full of "red wine", which she was slowly sipped at and watched the party. She sniffed again, but only caught smells of alcohol, humans, vampires, and werewolves. None of the smells were something that were familiar to her, and so she sighed, and turned away from the scene.

She spotted Adrian's adoptive family, and waved at them as she gave them a weak smile, and passed one. She knew that they probably did a double take at the sight of her, but she didn't know if they could tell Adrian right at that moment, and just moved on through a side door, and went out into the growing snow level. Her dark hair splayed across her bare shoulders as she looked up at the moonless sky, and sighed. The blue dress slithered across her legs as she stepped further into the yard.

[outcast]

Adrian took a deep breath as he continued to watch the people skate on the frozen pond. They laughed as they fell on the ice and slid running into each other. A smile grew on his face as he saw a little boy and a little girl hand in hand trying with all their might not to fall as they leaned on eachother. His bark like luagh escaped his lips as they fell and started an arguement. They reached the edge and began to throw snowballs at each other as Adrian inhaled again only to find a different scent lingering on the air.

His whole body froze as he sniffed the air again. The smell of vampire hit him like a sledgehammer as he began to look around. This was her smell, no other vampire smelled like her. He began to walk around and frantically look until at long last after one long painful agonizing year, he saw her glowing face looking up at the stars.

His whole world stopped. He looked at her in awe as tears filled his eyes. After months of searching, worring, waiting, and hoping his angel was back in his life. He trembled as he stood there wanting to move but not being able to. His heart ached as he slowly willed his feet to walk. As he stood there, snow fell on his face and mixed with his tears. Releif flooded over him as he called out to his love,"ESSA!"

[jack]

Jack's eyes seemed to grow and shrink as he caught sight of Xavier walking up. He hadn't seen the other man in quite some time especially since Jack himself had been hiding out getting Esa ready for everything. However, one look at Xavy made Jack suddenly break into a grin, and in a half second, the vampire quickly jumped up and hugged his friend around the neck promptly startling a few people that had been looking in the general direction as well. For a good few seconds, Jack hugged Xavier and managed to resist the squeal that was working up in him. However, after this moment subsided, and Jack backed up and forced a smile before rubbing the back of his head and grinning sheepishly. He hadn't meant any harm but could already feel confused eyes on his back. Despite this, Jack Hearthacker didn't break the light visage that he was wearing at that moment. "Well hi," he finally stated with a grin on his face like no other. "How have you been Xavy?" Jack asked lightly.

[xavy]

Xavier should have expected the hug, it was such an expected thing from Jack but it was a nice thing. He didn't hug back but he didn't pull away either, he waited until Jack decided to back away and he stopped himself from laughing. The only thing that was kind of bugging him was the stares that they were now getting, he hated this type of attention and he hated knowing that people would now be judging him. He probably needed to get used to that because it was impossible to hide the fact he liked guys when Jack was around. "I've been, er... kinda stressed." he admitted, which was true, he had been getting a little overstressed because of one of his pack members saying they saw a orange wolf or something like that. He hated it when the youngers members found it funny to tell tall tales. "I think it wasn't smart to kill the last alpha... the job is annoyng at times." He shrugged and smiled again, "What about you?"

[palesa]

Esa could hear the laughter of those on the frozen pond, and knew that most were probably human. Her lips turned into a tiny frown as she fought at the shadow of bloodlust that passed through her, but it passed quickly as a new smell filled her head, and all of her senses. This wasn't any kind of old scent, it was fresh.

As she heard her name be called by the all too familiar voice of her love, she whirled around, causing her curled hair to drape in front of her eyes. Her face grew into a huge grin, one that she hadn't smiled since Jack found her. "ADRIAN!" Her voice rang out through all of the noises, and to her ears, they seemed to stay silent.

Running to him, she collapsed into his arms and sobbed, speaking incomprehensible words about Lilith and missing him and anything else that just fell from her mouth. The bloodlust was gone. At least, for now.

[outcast]

Adrian cried into her hair as he held her tightly. It was better than he had ever remembered; her wonderful smell, her refreashing cool skin, her beautiful eyes, her soft hair. All of her just seemed to fit with him. Snow fell on the couple as Adrian kept her locked in his embrace, unwilling to let go. He lifted her up to his face and kissed his love for the first time in months. His firey lips pressed agenst her cold ones as he spun them around.

By the time her feet touched the ground again, a smile spread across his face. He kissed her deeply and wispered in her ear in his rich italian voice,"Il mio amore, come la mia luna splende di nuovo con voi nella mia vita." (my love, how my moon shines again with you back in my life) He kissed her agian and held her close.

[jack]

Jack seemed to frown considerably when Xavier talked about being stressed. That was never good. Jack knew it all too well when he had been on the hunt for Esa. Stress only caused tension which only caused more stress and the cycle was just plain dramatic and annoying. However, the vampire wouldn't get into that at the moment no how no way. Instead, he preferred to put up a light smile on his face. "Ah... well I hope things get better soon~!" he finally answered back more or less kicking himself for not being able to find the words to explain what he really meant on the situation. It was then that Jack realized that the reason he couldn't find the words for it was the fact that he was trying to put up the happy facade.

After a moment of scanning the room and finding that those in question who had been watching before had gone back to their previous tasks, Jack finally looked back at Xavier and allowed the weariness to take onto his face. "I know being stressed," he finally sighed looking a lot older than he normally did. "I have been searching for Esa, and when I found her, I found that Mother had well... been unkind is an understatement here...." Jack was all but whispering now as though he were afraid that speaking too loudly would bring Lilith there somehow.