Life's Little Adventures (Esme)

[Judas]

He smiled for the first time since this long conversation began. More drink was exactly what he needed, not that it helped a damn bit but he would feel better knowing the flask was full. Maybe if he drank enough he could pretend to be drunk and excuse himself.

The smile vanished and he stared down at her as she linked her arm through his and began to walk off with a suspicious spring in her step. It was suspicious this change in mood, to sudden and the girl seemed all together to pleased with herself over something...

It didn't take long for his suspicions to be confirmed when she spouted out his name. He wanted nothing more than to wipe that triumphant smile off her face. Damn her for being clever, and damn Vlad for no doubt getting her started on all this! If he wanted his secrets then he could have them after all he'd been through. It wasn't enough that he was in constant agony, the entire world had to know about his sins too. No privacy and constant reminders of his past and now nosy witches to top the whole thing off!

There was no use denying it, she knew, it was written all over her face. "Bet you think you're clever, eh? Figuring it all out, bet that makes you feel real smart. Come on, looks like I'll need that drink more than I thought." He was certain she'd be giving him a headache with all of her question before to long. He continued to walk, pulling her along with him, not roughly or violently but firmly. He was determined to get to a public place where she couldn't ask all the questions she wanted to.

[Esme M. Lolland]

His anger startled Esme, she had been so happy at first, like a child in a candy store. But the fear that his anger instilled in her, nothing like the fear she had felt the day that Vlad had threatened her life, but a different form. She felt like a child who had just been told they had done something wrong when they thought they had done everything right. Like a child who had been told their parents didn't love them, that their lives were a lie.

She followed, defenselessly, as Judas pulled her along behind him. As he headed in the same direction she had been headed, but much more determined than she had been. She had originally just planned a way to spend more time with him, he on the other hand was irritated with her deduction. She felt as if she could do nothing right.

She fought back at the lump in her throat and fought at the tears that threatened to cascade down her cheeks. She truly was like a child. Concerned only with the meaningless. She decided that she would stay silent from now on. Opening her large mouth had been no good today, she irritated Judas. She had angered Vlad before with her fear, her knowledge angered Judas... it was only a matter of time before she angered Morgan as well. She felt that her point in life was to please the Council at that point, how could she do that if she continued to anger them? How?

[Judas]

Memories flooded back to him, ones that he didn’t want and wished he didn’t have. The eyes of the man he’d betrayed. His death and his time in hell. The first time he’d felt the agony of his burning soul. All the souls he’d collected over the countless years. The pain and the drinking that didn’t do a damn thing for it.

It took him a long while to realize that he had no idea where they were headed. The girl’s revelation had upset him to the point where all he wanted to do was get into a public place where he could hide behind his human mask again, at least as far as the ignorant humans that filled the place were concerned.

Judas spun around, intending to tell the girl to lead the way. Her face was crumpled and he could tell she was fighting back tears. Ah! Why was everything so complicated with her? Why couldn’t she have just gotten pissed at him and taken off on her own? That would have been easier. Then they both could have gone about the rest of their lives and he could go back to pretending. The sight of her emotion filled face was enough to cool his anger for a moment. He hadn’t wanted to upset her, it wasn’t her he was angry with. But then how could she possibly know that? How could he possibly expect her to figure out that it was his own fear and self loathing that had caused his reaction rather than her figuring it out, clever as she was?

He stopped and ran a hand through his hair. He reached automatically for his flask and was immediately reminded that it was empty. Judas threw the flask to the ground with a bitter scoff. “Of course.” He mumbled and only then seemed to remember that Esme was there at all.

“Look, kid…I’m not mad at YOU. Ok?” He forced his facial features to soften and took a deep breath. The pain was still present in his eyes but the anger had faded from view. “Let’s just leave it at I’m not too proud of the past and I get through the day by pretending it didn’t happen.” He picked up the empty flask and clutched it in his hand until his knuckles turned white.

[Esme M. Lolland]

Esme's lip began to quiver, he had assured her that he wasn't mad at her, but even so. A tear fell down her cheek, but she ignored it. She knew how Judas felt, trying to ignore his past, trying to ignore the things he had done, what he had become. It was Esme's need to hide her pain, her past, her faults that had made her into the cheerfully curious person she is now.

She smiled a slightly broken smile, a smile that showed the pain in the emotions she shared with him. She nodded when he asked her to show that she was aware that he wasn't mad at her.

"I'm sorry I even brought it up. How about we start over again," She offered. She noticed he was still clutching his flask in his hand and grabbed his free hand. She began to pull him to the shop on corner.

She pulled him inside and sat him down at a table, the pub was dimly lit and filled with people. All of them seemed to be middle-aged futbol fans, but Esme didn't care. She assumed that at this point Judas would want to be in the company of as many people as possible, and this was how she'd make up for her mistake earlier. Moments later she returned with two pints of beer and sat down, waiting for Judas to say something... anything.

[Judas]

He watched the tear fall all the way to the ground. His first instinct had been to wipe it away but he wasn’t sure how she would react if he touched her now that he was more than a demon to her, as if a demon hadn’t been enough. The broken smile made him feel like the lowest creature on earth because he’d put it on the sweet girl’s face. He saw the nod and wasn’t sure she believed he wasn’t angry with her.

Judas stared incredulously at her for a moment when she apologized and then offered to start over like he hadn’t done anything wrong, like it was all her fault and then she had hold of his hand and was pulling him towards a small shop on the corner. The fact that she was touching him was comforting and he distrusted it almost immediately. She was taking this all to well for a human, it wasn’t natural.

Esme sat him down at a table and then disappeared. He looked around. Everyone in there was half through their life already and to intently focused on the television to notice him at all. Perfect, it was perfect. The girl returned with two pints of beer and he took his gratefully, taking a long swig from the glass.

An uncomfortable silence was beginning to hover over them and he wasn’t about to upset the girl again. He racked his brain for something to say and then gestured to her pint with one hand. “You know, it’s early to be drinking.”

[Esme M. Lolland]

Esme watched as Judas racked his brain for a piece of conversation. What exactly was he going to come up with? Esme quietly sipped from her pint and payed attention slightly to the futbol game playing the background. The men all cheered as their team got that much closer to making a goal.

He had turned her own question back on her, "I suppose it is. But seeing as how yesterday I drank almost two whole bottles of wine, woke up with a wicked hangover just to drink more only 2 hours after awakening. I assume that after all of that drinking, and the disappointment of being abandoned by my parents for about the third time in the past two days, I'm allowed a drink or two more. But what's your excuse? It's still quite early for you."

Esme was happy, it was just like they had started over again. They had the awkward opener to try and open up to one another, perhaps they should even joke that they didn't know each other's names, but of course that could get pretty awkward.

[Judas]

The place was loud enough to make their conversation a little less awkward than it would have been with just the two of them. It was good to see people carrying on with their lives like normal folks did. It was always a helpful reminder that the world didn’t stop just because he felt like shit. It was comforting to see that he wasn’t important, he was just another damned soul. He found peace in crowds, he liked being ignored.

Judas nodded when the girl justified her drinking. He hadn’t actually been criticizing her, it had been more of a joke but then he’d never been very good at jokes. It wasn’t a surprise that the girl hadn’t picked up on it. Her question caught him off guard but it amused him to see that her curiosity truly did know no bounds. Even after his little episode on the street, she was still asking questions. He didn’t want to talk about himself anymore but he didn’t want to make her cry again.

“It’s not early, or late. It’s just now.” There, he’d kept the conversation going without bringing any unpleasant memories to the surface. He’d started drinking because of the pain and when that hadn’t helped, he’d kept drinking because he found it kept people away. It also have him something to hide behind, something people could criticize him for that didn’t involve his past, because people would find something…it was human nature to pick at each other.

He was more closed now, more careful. She wouldn’t figure out anything more about his past, he’d make sure of it. “How old are you?” He would grill her with questions if that’s what it took to keep the conversation on her and away from him.

[Esme M. Lolland]

Judas brushed off Esme's question as easily as he had asked it earlier. Esme took yet another sip of her beer, thinking. How intriguing this man was. He was so very interesting but hated having attention on himself. It was as if he was at odds with being alive, with being the center of attention.

Because of that reason he was attempting to turn the conversation towards Esme. She was so curious about this man. She wanted to know more about this man, as much as possible. But she realized that she may not get that chance any longer, she'd have to figure him out by his questions alone.

But why had he gotten so upset with her knowing his name? It wasn't like he had done anything wrong. He most definitely wasn't the Judas of the Bible, he had died long ago. This Judas was someone entirely different, and someone very sensitive about his life.

"I'm 20 years old," Esme replied, almost automatically. She would have returned the question, but she kind of feared what his answer may be. She knew she was surprised when she learned the Vlad was much older than she though he was. So, asking Judas would be one of the last things she ever did.

[Judas]

He sighed. Twenty, it was so young. Far too young to be caught up in the sorts of things that the council dealt with on a daily basis. The girl’s encounter with the king of demons was solid proof of that. She attracted attention and in his world, attention meant you also attracted trouble. Vlad should never have told her so much, the vampire had been wrong in that.

Twenty and innocent. Judas tried to think back to a time when he’d been young and carefree but failed. He would be lying if he didn’t admit to being a little envious of Esme for having what he had never had. Young, yes he’d been young but not innocent and most definitely not carefree. What was more, the girl had answered without a seconds thought. If you had asked him the same question he wasn’t sure he could have given an exact age, a close estimate but he’d lost track of the countless years. And what was age to someone who would never die?

“And what was your childhood like? Let’s say from as far back as you can remember to graduating from high school.” He could see Esme being one of the more popular children in school and her parents were lawyers so she hadn’t wanted for money. He took another drink from his pint while he waited to see if his hypothesis was correct.

It was beginning to feel more like a game of twenty questions than an actual conversation but he didn’t care. They were talking and no one was upset, it was more than he could say for a majority of the conversations he’d had in the past. He did wonder though, how long the girl would play along before her curiosity kicked in again.

[Esme M. Lolland]

Esme looked Judas in they eyes as she started explaining her childhood, her hands cupping the pint in front of her. "Well, coming from a long line of lawyers, it sort of obvious that I grew up in the lap of luxury. My father actually claims that he was somewhere near the front of the line for the British throne, so we have a small mansion just outside of the main city of Leeds that we live in."

She quietly started to run her fingers around the mouth of the pint. She continued, "Um, I pretty much had all that I ever wanted. I had all of the best toys, I had amazing parents, a great older brother, my life was perfect. But I do remember going to primary school for the first time. At first my parents sent me to a school near my house, one that my brother had attended when he was primary school age. But that school was a bad idea, all of the kids either hated me because I was brought up like a princess or they only wanted to be my friend because I was rich."

Esme's eyes slowly drifted away from Judas's face and began to search the room as she told her story. "Later they sent me to my brother's school and there he and I were like superstars. That school catered to primary and secondary schooling and was one of the hardest schools to get into. There were plenty of royals who went there, and my brother and I happened to fall into the list with the royals because of our money and the firm's fame in the city of Leeds.

"We were actually even popular among the royals, our charisma and personalities were nothing like any of them had ever been around before and so they decided to spend as much time with us as possible. My brother had dated one woman who's line could be directly traced back to the last King of France, while I had ended up dating none other than Prince Phillippos of Greece and Denmark. We were all too happy.

"But one thing that ended up happening had changed me drastically, the day I found out I had magic. That was the same day my dad had said he'd disown my brother if he went into Habitat for Humanity International, rather than taking over the family firm. That was the same day my brother threw all of his things into a bag and got into a taxi. And that was the day that I found out something was wrong with me.

"After that day I became more and more distant from everyone else. The only one who truly stayed by my side was Phillippos, but everyone had said that I was getting scarier, I started doing odd things. And they all thought it was because of all of the forced expectations my parents had placed on me and because I no longer had my best friend and my protector.

"I guess that changed continued until I graduated. Don't get me wrong, I still had a ton of friends because I was rich and dating a prince, I was just different from who I had once been. But the breaking point that made me leave Leeds was when Phillippos broke up with me because his parents threatened him and forced him to go to Georgetown University in America. I came to London to start anew, and to learn more about magic."

Esme finished her story, she hated reliving her childhood, it was perfect and so terrible at the same time. She wished she could ask Judas the same question but she highly doubted he would remember and if he did he wouldn't be happy if she asked that of him.