Krave, Echo Bay, California, Saturday Night

[napking]

Krave was a warehouse in an industrial area, seemingly innocuous except for the parking lot full of cars in the middle of a Saturday night.

And the bass you could hear thumping through the walls as you approached the building. Also that.

A bouncer greeted the brothers as they approached, and then eyed Arden. "She human?"

"She's my friend," Gray said, which got him a narrow-eyed, suspicious look at the non-answer.

"Is she old enough to be here?"

"I dunno, man," Raiden told him. "You know we don't know that human age shit. She's in college?"

The guy thought about it for a moment, then said, "Eh, close enough. 21 is a stupid number, anyway. All right, Gray's friend, here are the rules. No fighting. Anyone in a fight will be made to leave. If you get in over your head, someone's hassling you, they won't back off, tell an employee."

"But first tell 'em you're with us," Raiden put in.

"Yeah, that works, too." He paused, then said, "There are no other rules. Have a nice night." He stepped aside and opened the door in one motion, gesturing them into the club.

At first glance, it might seem like any other nightclub. Music with bass that rattled your bones, green, blue, and purple lights flitting across the packed dance floor, bar stations along the walls, a sweet and smoky smell like incense hanging in the air. But when one looked closer, it was...different.

On a couch to the right, a woman exposed her slender neck as a man sunk his teeth into her throat, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Another man bit the opposite side of her neck, and her blissed-out expression said she wasn't having a bad time here. Another woman flitted around the room at an impossible speed, and when she stopped for a moment to talk to a group of people, small translucent wings trailing a glittery substance were visible on her back. In the corner, two men were making out, and when one slapped the wall clawlike fingernails were visible, protruding from his skin.

There were beings with blue skin and some with green. Some had small horns jutting from their heads, while others had tails. Men danced on raised platforms in various shades of undress. Gray gestured to one of them, a slender, gorgeous Nephilim with bronzed skin and dark hair, just as the dancer released his wings, shades of green mingling with the black feathers. "That's Daman." So Arden had sort of kind of met all seven brothers after all! Gray turned and grinned at her. "Welcome to Krave."

(For that totally-a-human-she-swears. NFB due to distance. Part of this post adapted from book one of my dumb Nephilim books, Galen.)

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[afraid_of_marshmallows]

And on the dance floor, everything was, well, golden. The first hurricane - drunk much too quickly - made her forget to be nervous. The second helped her forget her feet hurt in these stupid (but so pretty) heels. The third pushed her to the last fringes of tipsy.

The dancing. Oh, the dancing was so good. She was surrounded by very pretty people who were all interested in getting to know (or, at least, 'know') Gray's new friend, a human who'd come into Krave. Lights were flashing, the bass was pounding, bodies were moving...it was like getting swept away, but in the very best way. No thinking, no worrying--head empty, no thoughts, just rhythm and music.

A waiter brought her a fourth hurricane, compliments of a very pretty vampire at the bar. Arden took it, waving her thanks and offering them a wink, before drinking half of it in one go. She was so hot and dehydrated that the cool drink tasted heavenly.

That fourth drink pushed her over the edge from tipsy to drunk. And chaos rose.

And twisted.

[napking]

Okay, it wasn't Gray's fault that he'd gotten distracted! A lot of tops guys were excited to see him after he'd been away for so long! And Arden had seemed okay? Every time he'd checked in on her she'd been drinking a hurricane and dancing, and how the heck was he supposed to know how many of those things she'd had?

But now... "Uh, Arden?"

Bellamy demanded to know, "What is going on out there??"

"I don't know!"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden was in the middle of a knot of people that seemed to just keep growing. She'd never been so popular before! When she made eye contact with Gray, her eyes were a brilliant gold once more.

"Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" she called with a happy grin, her North Carolina drawl in full force and made thicker by alcohol. She tried to push through the throng, but found it harder going than expected. Maybe the hurricanes? Everything was a bit...hmm. Blurry? "Hey, 'scuse me. Lemme through? Tryna get to my friend. Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Hi! Come to dance - hey, 'scuse me, that's my leg not yours - with us?" She beckoned him and then turned to frown at someone. "DON'T TOUCH MY HAIR!"

Goddess, she hated it when people touched her hair without permission. And for once, she felt no hesitation in calling someone out for it.

"Graaaaay! Graaaay, we're dancin'!" Wow, when had so many people gotten on the floor? She was starting to feel a little claustrophobic with all the bodies packed around her and it was getting harder to see Gray through the throng. She waved an arm at him, before someone - oh, the vampire from the bar! - snagged it and dragged their fangs over her skin. Not a bite, but a flirtatious precursor to one, it felt like.

"Gray?"

[napking]

"Ray, I might need some help over here," Gray requested as he started trying to peel people out of the group around Arden so he could actually get to her.

"Uh, hey, Arden? I think maybe we should go sit down for a--hey! You know the rules! No biting!" Okay, she wasn't biting yet but Gray didn't trust her as far as he could throw her.

Granted, he could throw her a pretty good ways if he got in the mood.

Gray resumed his appeal to Arden, "Don't you think we should go take a break?" He couldn't make her sleepy--well, actually he could, if it worked on her (unknown) and if he could get to her to touch her (presenting difficulties)--but he could appeal to sympathy, maybe?

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Yeah," Arden said, eyes still a burnished gold like old coins. "I think I'm tired of--hey, leggo! Let me--" Pushing through the crowd felt like she was trying to swim upstream, a lot of effort for very little gain. People were pulling at her now, hands tugging on her dress, her arms, her shoulders, tangling in her hair again. She could feel mouths on her, too, pressing kisses, flicking tongues, nipping at her skin, though no one had broken through yet. "I'm with him!" she yelled, pointing to Gray. "I'm with the Nephilim!"

Funny. She thought that would work better. It gained her maybe a foot as common sense warred with whatever was wrong with people, but soon hands were grasping once more. "Stop it!"

Fear was fighting the alcohol in her blood and burning away the haze in her brain, but it was far too late for that. Chaos - literally - reigned.

[carbsliftthespirit]

Hey, you know what this situation needed? 6'7" of muscle that could not even conceive of being attracted to Arden (though he was sure that she was perfectly nice for a female). "Okay, nope!" Raiden declared as he shoved through the throng to reach Arden. "We are not doing whatever the hell this is today! Sylvie, what the fuck, you know the rules!"

"Hi," he said to Arden, and then bent to scoop her up in his arms so they could exit this mess. "MAKE A HOLE!" he demanded in a shout designed to carry across a battlefield.

Daman had winged down from his suspended dancing platform and landed beside Gray, ready to provide backup if anyone decided to not cooperate with making a hole.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

In this moment, Raiden was her very favorite person in the whole world. She clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder, trying to make herself as small as possible while people still tried to grab for her.

Again, there was a waver through the crowd, torn between trying to keep her and listening to the very big Nephilim and for a moment it seemed like Gray and Daman would need to interceded anyway, but even Chaos couldn't completely trump self-preservation, and people fell back. They kept watching, however, and as Raiden moved, they followed, albeit at a slight remove.

"What. Is. Happening?" Arden whispered. "Why are they like this?"

[napking]

"You think I know?" Gray asked as he fell into step with Raiden, Daman falling back to dissuade pursuit.

Konnar met them on the edge of the dance floor, looking, shall we say, much less friendly than he had previously. "Follow me, please," he said, and led them to an elegantly appointed private lounge with its own bar and sitting area, where Alastair was waiting, sipping a glass of red wine and looking completely unruffled as if he'd been certain all along that they had everything completely under control.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden cringed against Raiden slightly at Konnar's expression but followed along. Not that she really had much of a choice. Not even considering that any of them could probably trivially grab her before she got a few steps in any direction, she didn't want to go back out to where the crowd was.

It had felt like she'd been in a zombie movie. She was okay with never feeling that way again.

When Raiden set her down in the lounge, she stayed put, looked around with amber eyes, noting how people arranged themselves, especially Gray and Raiden. Did they stay by her, did they stand closer to Konnar and Alastair, or did they range themselves away, curious but neutral?

[napking]

"You bring such interesting people to my club," Konnar said as he moved toward the bar, at the same time as Alastair said mind-to-mind to Gray,

"Completely ordinary human, huh?" He didn't have to sound so amused about it, even if you'd never guess it from his face.

Gray tugged Arden with him to sit on the couch across from Alastair, because hi, if they were at the principal's office here obviously they were at the principal's office together, and Raiden got immediately distracted by the dish of chocolates on the coffee table.

"Okay, I didn't know that was gonna happen!" Gray protested, and Raiden shoved the dish at Arden.

"Want one?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Sorry, Raiden, you had once more been replaced by Gray in her affections. Not having to face this alone made her pathetically grateful and her eyes nearly welled up because of it. She sat, one hand reaching for Gray's before it fell, joining the other as it bunched in the short skirt of her dress. And then shook her head at Raiden. "No thank you," she whispered, her stomach in knots. "But if it would be okay, umm, water?"

There was still a lot of hurricane left in her system.

"Excuse me, but, um. I still don't know what happened?"

[carbsliftthespirit]

Raiden jiggled the dish at her and asked, "You sure?"

Konnar came back from the bar, or rather the minifridge behind said bar, with a bottle of water, which he handed to Arden before taking his customary seat in the chair at one end of the seating arrangement. "That makes all of us," he said. "Nothing quite like that has ever happened in my club before, and there was only one new variable tonight, Miss Finch."

"It's something that could have happened to Bellamy," Alastair put in. "Before he got his power under control. However, he was having a threesome in his room...and still is, I believe."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"I might throw up," she admitted to Raiden, which would just be the perfect fucking cap on the evening. "But thank you."

And Konnar got another murmured, "Thank you," as she took the bottle, cracking the cap and taking the smallest sip before closing it again.

"I'm not an Avatar of Lust, though," Arden said, shaking her head. "I'm not an Avatar of anything. I'm just...just...me."

She looked around, giving Gray an agonized expression for a second before she forced out the next words, feeling like each one was fighting her the whole time.

"Just a sylph."

[thecursedsons]

"And what exactly is that?" Konnar asked, glancing at Alastair, who shook his head minutely.

"Fiction," he said. "In this universe, at least. Air spirits from the work of Paracelsus. Sixteenth century."

Raiden had sat down on the couch on Arden's other side and was now steadily making his way through the chocolates. You'd had your chance, Arden.

[napking]

Gray shot Arden a 'Do you want me to take this?' look.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Have them with her blessing, Raiden. Hell, if she got back to the island unscathed, she might be sending you more.

Arden again gave Gray a mutely grateful look, but shook her head slightly. She'd already gotten him in enough trouble tonight, even if technically this one wasn't on her. "And in my universe, we're uh. I'm not sure. I think some kind of genetic aberration or something? My mother was a djinn, and my father was human, and I'm not either. Or even half of either? I'm a completely different thing. An elemental." She nodded to Alastair. "An air elemental. I do stuff with, um. Air. And wind. Which, um, is also air, I guess..."

Brilliantly put, Arden.

[napking]

"And with my patrons," Konnar observed mildly.

Gray was just going to step in here in his friend's defense. "Arden was orphaned at a young age, and she doesn't know any other sylphs. Apparently they all got murdered where she's from. Her home universe is really murder happy."

"Ah," Alastair said, and that was all. Just 'ah.'

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden quavered with the desire to not yell that she had not affected anyone.

She took another drink of her water. "I don't know why, but the first law of the Otherside - the name of supernaturals in my universe - is that elementals are to be exterminated on sight," she said, miserable. "I don't know if...I think I might be the only one left? I don't know. And most of my training was devoted to locking all my power down and burying myself so far under shields that nobody could tell I was anything other than human. Because pretending to be human is the only way to keep me from getting found by the Duskwatch and getting killed outright or, uh. Being given to a vampire for a blood pet, though, uh. My dead body has to be produced in three days...nobody needed that much detail, oh goddess, I'm so sorry, I'm just rambling and more than a little drunk, but I really don't think that was me! I've never done anything like that before and I wouldn't even know how. Or what!"

[thecursedsons]

...wow. Hey, Arden. Arden, come here. Come here. What in the actual fuck?

"She's telling the truth," Alastair told Konnar. "She didn't know that was going to happen." And also, transparently, Gray was telling the truth about Arden's home universe being murder happy.

"Hm," Konnar said. "Very well then, Miss Finch, you are not heretofore banned from Krave. But perhaps stick to mocktails from now on."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden opened her mouth to protest again that it wasn't her, that her powers didn't work that way, but...she'd spent awhile tonight bemoaning how much she didn't know about herself and what she could do.

"I...I...that was really me?" More tears stood in her eyes and she looked to Gray to see if he agreed with that. "Because I never--I wouldn't ever--" She was still only partially aware of what had happened.

How was she so bad at drinking that she started some kind of sexy riot?

[napking]

Some people would argue that you had to be really good at drinking to start a sexy riot. Bellamy, for instance. Probably Castor. Raiden, sure, but he had his mouth full of chocolate.

"Well," Gray said, "now you know that you have a weird reaction to alcohol? And possibly also ambrosia."

"You gave her ambrosia?" Alastair asked, sitting up even straighter, which seemed like it shouldn't have even been possible. "Gray."

"It was just a little bit! And it's better that it happened here than in whatthefuck murderworld!"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden didn't know if they even had ambrosia in her world, but that seemed like maybe something that needed to be said.

"Mocktails," Arden said fervently. "Definitely sticking to mocktails."

[thecursedsons]

Alastair set his wine glass down and declared, "I'm taking the two of you home," and then clarified, "Back to our house," lest Arden think he was threatening her or something.

And he'd thought the situation of the Nephilim was bad.

Gray wilted a little, because it looked like he wouldn't be getting laid this month, either, and Alastair gave him A Look. "Don't you even start."

"You didn't really think she was human, did you?

"Of course not, but that's not the point."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Arden also wilted, but she was looking Gray a little apologetically. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to cut your evening short." She looked at Konnar. "Or cause you any trouble. I honestly had no idea."

And then to Raiden and Alastair. "And for lying. And, uh. Asking Gray to lie to you, too."

[thecursedsons]

"I must admit to being unclear on why you insisted my brother lie to me," Alastair told her. "Sylphs are entirely fictional here. You are in no danger, and knowing ahead of time that you are not human but do not know your own powers would have helped us be more prepared to host you."

"I thought you just turned into a cloud of smoke like that lady Bells banged and I didn't get why Gray was being so cagey about it," Raiden admitted. Oh, look, all the candy was gone now.

"Gray and I are going to be having a conversation about need-to-know information," Alastair declared as he stood up, and if Gray looked extremely miserable about that, the good news was that it wasn't Arden's fault. The bad news was that he couldn't exactly explain that to Arden at present.