To be King...

Chpt.8: The Other, Other Brother

AN: Sorry about the long wait. I am absolute crap at dialogue, so I had to figure that out. It came to me at like 5am when I was trying to sleep and I wrote it out.

  Nate couldn't stay with her all evening, which wasn't shocking, just a little nerve wracking. He made his rounds to the party, argued with Seff, and played the good host to his party. While he did this Adria stuck to Becka's side as much as possible. Hoping her friend would be a buffer to the stares and whispers of the others was apparently too much to ask for, since Becka seemed more interested in getting all of the dirt on Tommy from the girl he was fighting with. She was left to deal with the whispers and shouts on her own.

She had to escape. She couldn't feign interest in conversation with a single other person and Nate was busy doing something with the jocks by the stereos. Somehow she found herself opening the door to the downstairs bathroom and paused at the sight. There was Becka, the girl who fought Tommy, and maybe two other girls, crying and puking and hugging each other. She backed out slowly hoping they would be too wrapped up in their drama to notice or, heaven forbid, try and drag her into it. She only had one other option to get away from everything, and she was hesitant to take it.

Standing near the base of the stairs, she looks up the hallway and tries to decide if it's worth it. Then the music gets louder, boys start shouting along to lyrics they don't even know, Motley Crue is screaming about Live Wires and it's just too loud, too much. She bolts.

Up the stairs, dusty memories leading her to a guest bathroom to the left and then the first door on the right. She sits on the cold tiles, back against the door and puts her head in her hands. She can still feel the barest thrums of the music, but it's so much duller. There is an actual quiet that lingers over her, a chill in the air that isn't warmed by dozens of hormonal teenage bodies. Finally, for the first time that night, she can breathe.

Her clothes feel too warm, too tight. She stands at the sink, pulling her sleeves up and running the cool water over her hands and wrists, taking deep breaths. At this point Adira hates the party. She just wants to go home and lay in her bed and sleep. It started off fun, but two hours is pushing her limits. Resolved, she turns off the water and dries her hands. She's got to take Becka home, and then she can finally have a quiet night.

Shaking off the last bits of her worry and anxiety she pulls open the door and turns the light off.

Before she even turns fully she crashes hard into a warm wall.

With a little yelp, she turns to face the person she's backed into, hoping that it was Nate coming to look for her, and not some random party goer, or even Seff.

"What are you..." she whips around, not recognizing the voice, and pauses at the boy standing in front of her.

The first thing she notices are piercing blue eyes, looking at her in confusion. Brown, almost black, bangs dust his forehead, too short to dangle in his eyes. In his hands in a large book of some sort and he smells of dust. There's only one reason he could be up here, and she feels the same intrigue as when she met Seff.

"Sorry, I was just..." she makes some blind gesture to the door she has just come out of, and he seems to nod his head in understanding. She mirrors his motion almost unconsciously, and blushes as soon as she realizes.

"Oh, uh, is there something wrong with the downstairs one?" he asks, fingers moving along the spine of the book in his hands nervously. He doesn't seem to be mad that she's in this part of the Castle, and maybe just a little too concerned about the downstairs bathroom.

"N-no, just a little... full, right now." Adira manages to get out, a blush staining her face and embarrassing anxiety swelling up in her chest.

"Oh." he says, breathing out for a beat of awkward silence.

"Yea." she mutters as the awkwardness continues. They could just be moving along, but something keeps them there, walking away just doesn't seem to come to mind.

"So, doin a little light reading?" she asks, gritting her teeth afterward. It sounded so stupid in her head and she was obviously fishing for something to say, but God it sounds worse outloud. Apparently he doesn't mind, actually giving her rueful little smirk and leaning heavily on the wall.

"Yeah, it's not like this is the 12th one I've read or anything." he sighs, hefting the book higher in his arms. The book is as thick as her palm is tall and the tops of the pages are yellowing. He sounds so exhausted and annoyed, and the slump of his shoulders makes him seem ready to fall asleep.

"Twelve? Why the hell are you reading those?" She asks, leaning against the wall herself. Talking to him doesn't seem as hard now, and the grip of anxiety lossens just enough for her to breathe comfortably.

"Just some Council bull." He tells her, obviously not very excited about whatever it is he has to read. He doesn't sound excited about the Council at all, and it makes her think. Seff is the oldest, he should be the one up here studying for the Council, not schmoozing a bunch of highschoolers. So why isn't he?

"Really? I thought Seff would be doing that." She puts voice to her confusion and he rolls his eyes with a sigh that seems to come from his soul. His shoulders droop a little as he shakes his head.

"Yeah, you'd think that." He says, and leaves it at that. There is another heavy silence between them, but it's not nearly as uncomfortable. She takes a minute to look at him, really look. His hair is a lot darker than Seff's and , eyes a shining blue that reminds her of a pool of water. The dark circles under his eyes seem to be permanently etched onto his face. All in all he looks bone tired, and she feels a stab of sympathy towards him. With Erik training her until the earliest morning hours she knows something about exhaustion. So far, he is absolutely nothing like Seff, which means she likes him. Just a little.

"Sorry. I'm Adira, by the way." She says, realizing he probably has no idea who he's talking to and if this is actually the first conversation in her life she hasn't screwed up, she'd like to take credit for it.

"I know." He's says a little quietly. He looks up at her then, straightening himself and clearing his throat. "Nathan, he used to talk about you all the time. I'm sorry for your loss." It's quiet after that, his words causing a knee jerk reaction to touch the scar near her throat. His eyes don't linger on the scarred flesh, not like so many others. He does seem to blush though, a rosy heat coming to his cheeks.

"Um, I'm Darci, but you probably knew that." he mutters, shuffling his book into his left arm and offering her his right hand.

"It's nice to finally meet you Darci." she tells him, taking his hand. It's... warmer than she thought it'd be. It's enough to put a small smile on her face and make goosebumps rise.

"You too Adira." he tells her quietly, sincerely.

"I should probably..." she gestures towards the stairs once it finally gets too quiet for too long.

"Yeah... me too." he says, just as unsure. He knows he has a lot to do, and he has no right to her time, he doesn't even know what to say, but he doesn't really want to leave.

"Maybe I'll see you around more now." because he'd always wanted to meet her, but he hadn't the chance when he was younger.

"Yeah, maybe." she agrees as she passes by him, turning to give him a final smile before descending the stairs.