Creep (Re-Upload)

Makes me wanna stay
What they said was real
Makes me wanna steal

Livin' under house
Guess I'm livin', I'm a mouse
All's I got is time
Got no meanin', just a rhyme…


Stone Temple Pilots’ “Creep” played at a deafening level through the portable mini speakers on the hotel dresser with the iPod stand in between. The Jack Daniels still had that pleasant burn as she poured it down her throat. Most of her other senses were numbed from the effects of having emptied a full bottle before this one. Adrianna Salvatore lowered the bottle and brought her other hand up to her lips with a cigarette burning in it. It wasn’t a smoking room but right now, she didn’t care.

What time was it, even? She picked up her phone to check the clock. Oh wait, she’d turned it off a while ago because between Ethan Skinner and her brother, the damn thing wouldn’t stop going off. So she’d shut it off and chucked it across the room. At least it had a protective case on it. Why did they give a damn, anyway?

Adrianna took another pull from the Jack bottle and lowered it beside her. To say she was heavily intoxicated was far from an understatement. She’d drunk herself to sleep the previous night when she first started ignoring calls. Then she’d woken up and went right back to drinking. She had enough spirits to keep her going for awhile. A trip to the liquor store as soon as she got into Jackson, Mississippi took care of that. She wasn’t sharing a room with Angel, this time. She knew the woman would do everything in her power to try and stop her from trying to wash the hurt away. In her own room, she could do whatever she wanted. Who gave a shit? Her brother didn’t. He was too goddamn busy trying to be Lara Blackheart’s dick to ride. Her father didn’t seem to. He didn’t do anything to dissuade Lara from putting Mia in the hospital because ‘he owed his life to the Dominion.’ Fuck the Dominion…. Adrianna thought in her drunken haze. Fuck it all…. She snuffed out her cigarette butt and brought the bottle up for another swig.

The door opens slowly, and Ethan steps in between the manager and the room, because well, he has left a room in shambles recently and she is like him, passionate. Softly closing the door, he stands there and waits for her attention to fall to him for a few minutes, Seeing she is in a haze, he speaks up “Heya chica, next time invite me to the party.” with a chuckle.

Adrianna heard the voice and slowly lifted her head. Here, it was clear that she’d been crying her eyes out at some point earlier. There were no tears at the moment, but her eyes were that bloodshot red with circles around them. She shifted in her position on the floor, frowning slightly. “What’re you….” She could barely even get the words out as she reached for her pack of cigarettes and ended up knocking the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels over. “Fffffucking….” She slurred and did her best to stand the bottle upright again before fumbling with her pack and managing to get a filter end up in her mouth. Adrianna struggled to light her cigarette but managed it before looking up at Ethan with squinted eyes. “What’dyouwant…?” She slurred out once more, almost as if the four words were one messy jumble.

Walking over to her, taking the smoke out of her mouth, lighting his own clove and putting it back in her mouth and then sitting down on a bed “To quote Eric Draven, these will kill you” with another soft chuckle. “I came because I was worried.. I have seen people end their lives, in front of me and if a friend was going out that way, I want to be there to do something gruesome with their blood afterwards from now on. Now, let's talk this out or we can hug this out, besides I got news for you. Of a personal nature. I need you sober for the conversation though.” Waiting to see how she takes the news of well, everything, he just said, he smiles at her and takes a drag off his clove cigarette.

He needed her sober? Adrianna’s hazy eyes widened in slight surprise. “Welp...thataintgonna...happen...anytime shoon….” She slurred as she held up the bottle as a way to show Ethan exactly what she meant before bringing it to her lips again for a long swig. She grimaced as the liquid burned down her throat, all the way to her stomach and pointed her cigarette hand at him, addressing the previous matter about talking or hugging. “An’duntouchme….don’t...touch….” She trailed off, taking a drag from her Marlboro Smooth and shook her head. “Mm-mm...no you...you’renother….” She laid her head back against the wall, closing her eyes to try and stop the room from spinning. “She’s not here...thanks to your friend….” This came out, still slurred, but a lot more clearer than the rest as Adrianna sat there, not opening her eyes. Something started pounding in her head, then. A banging on the door? No. It wasn’t close enough. But it was getting there. Foot steps. Adrianna heard the door fly open. Ethan must have not have latched it all the way. She winced from the pounding in her head and opened her eyes to see a familiar face standing in the doorway.

Clad in all black leather with her platinum blonde hair tied back into a ponytail, Angel Kusanagi’s piercing gaze fell on the scene before her. Her high heel boots made no sound as she stepped deeper into the room and bent down to pick up an empty Captain Morgan bottle. She lifted her eyes, staring coldly at Adrianna. Her gaze briefly jumped to Ethan before going back to her stable mate. Her friend. “Kuso….” She hissed low in Japanese. “Baka yarou!” She said louder, sharper and threw the Captain bottle against the wall with a hard thud, cracking the thick glass. Angel walked over and reached down, snatching up the half empty Jack Daniels bottle. Adrianna grasped at it in a futile effort to hang on as Angel stepped back and set it on the dresser, out of her reach. She then looked at Ethan, suspiciously. “Oi.” Was all she said as she gave a slight thrust of her chin at him, as if to ask what he wanted? Why was he here?

“She is my friend too, I wanted to make sure she was good, her brother and I were worried, I just beat him here. I didn’t buy her shit, she purchased all of that herself” he responded. “I do have this under control though, so if you want to watch and make sure everything is above board, I accept. I will do what I came to do though, and no one, not even you are gonna stop me.”

Before Ethan even began speaking, Angel had her phone out and was holding it out towards him. As he spoke, a little blip on her screen moved as if it were reacting to his voice. Once he finished, Angel brought the phone back to her and tapped a button. A robotic woman’s voice spoke back to Angel, translating Ethan’s words to her in Japanese. Angel’s face lifted back up at Ethan, not amused or even weary of the idea of him doing anything if she did try to stop him. She didn’t, though. She just reached down and stole a cigarette from Adrianna’s pack and lit it up as she leaned back against the wall.

Adrianna, meanwhile, looked up and in between the two. This was...kind of embarrassing. And annoying. “Willyouboth...fffuckin quit?” She groaned, starting to try and pull herself to her feet, using her hands on the wall for support. “I’m...fffine. I’m not...even…” She stepped forward and wobbled. “Whoa….” She swayed. Angel stepped forward and shoved Adrianna backwards onto the bed beside Ethan so that she didn’t end up falling over and hitting her head or worse.

“Koko niiro!” Angel snapped in Japanese, pointing at Adrianna with her finger to make sure she didn’t try and get up.

Ethan finishes his clove and lets Angel finish. Using words in Japanese so Angel doesn’t get the wrong idea “Koko de ya,-jō e ya” basically "Here ya go, up ya get” in English, raising Adrianna up to her feet and he just hugs her, telling her it will be alright, over and over again, not letting her push him away, call it hug therapy. Strange coming from a man who is fond of death matches, but this is also the same man who has a pink kitten calendar on the tour bus he marks days off on, while on the road. He is hoping she will cry it all out, because she needs too, he knows. He might be the only person who does know, but he knows. Especially with the ritual, done just last night, he owes it to himself to at least try, because he made a promise to himself to get all three Salvatore on the same side. He waits for the flood gates to open.

Adrianna certainly wasn’t having it from the beginning. As soon as she realized Ethan was trying to play the soothing friend role, she started with the struggling - even as weak as it was, given how damn drunk she was. “Lemme go, Ethan. Ffffuckin...geddoff me!” She slurred angrily, tugging and shoving as best as she could.

Angel saw exactly what Ethan was trying to do and even if she didn’t particularly trust the man, she simply stood back and let him do his thing. Watching with a stoic expression as she dragged on her cigarette. Outside, she looked stoic. Inside...Angel was heartbroken. Here was the strongest of their group, The Unwanted. Here she was looking as weak and feeble as an upset teenager. A woman who had deep seeded issues that she had kept buried for so long.

“Ffffucking...ssssstoppit!!!” Adrianna snapped hazily before her energy gave out and the flood gates finally opened. She slumped against Ethan. The man behind enemy lines in a sense. Yes, he was a friend to an extent. But he was family to Lara. Family to the one that Adrianna’s rage was directed at. The one she wanted to take all of her frustrations out. “Why…?” Adrianna asked while sobbing heavily. Her legs gave out and she started slumping to the floor, again. “Why do you even give a shit? You’re on her side…. You’re on Her. Fucking. Side!” Adrianna said in a louder tone, weakly beating a fist on Ethan’s shoulder.

Setting her down on the bed, not the floor, because it is less far down that way, he smiles at her. “Oh dearheart, I am on the Dominion’s side, Lara is just the leader of it. But to be even more clear, I am on my side. I have been given leave to try and fix issues between the two of you. You and Lara, because of the Salvatore family. One you are a part of, one you were a part of before you started claiming a new family in The Unwanted. I owe to this to Matteo Salvatore. I owe this to Nico Salvatore. Most importantly, I owe this to Adrianna. Fucking. Salvatore. You want to annihilate her for what she did to Mia, she wants to annihilate you both for what you did to her dead father's memory. It is either that or she kills herself just to be with him. There will be zero annihilating if you're dead and gone. Now get the fuck up, dust yourself off and take a fucking shower, you smell as bad as I did a few weeks ago, without the stench of dried sperm and cunny juice. You have a tag team to decimate, and you can’t do that, like this.”

He gestures to “all of her”. "Angel, want to take her and get her showered? I’ll wait till she is done, she has a few things to think about.”

Adrianna suddenly let out a loud laugh. A short one as if something Ethan said were the funniest joke she’d ever heard. She fell back, laying on the bed, bringing up an uncoordinated hand over her mouth as if she were afraid of laughing too loud. She looked up at Ethan and laughed into her hand. “Y-you...you think I’m doing all of this to kill myself?” She giggled drunkenly, pushing herself back into sitting up on the bed. She braced herself on Ethan’s shoulder for support with a forearm. “...I don’t wanna die, Ethan. Not yet. Not until I make sure that little bitch...feels the pain that I did. Not until she pays.”

“Stop right there because you have not heard a damn word I said, she has A, she has felt that pain. Look me in my eyes “ he tilts her head up t so she can see into his “She even flat out said she regrets some of the things she has said about Mia. Granted the things you both said about her father make that even. You keep seeking justice for past slights, will keep this cycle going, and going, and going. Now get your ass in the shower, we need to get coffee into you.“

He looks at Angel, hoping she could make out his english when he asked her to get A to the shower. Pleading with Angel with his eyes. “Shower, please.”

Angel didn’t need to understand the English. She had her little phone app, for that. This entire time, Angel had been recording the conversation and having it translated back to her in Japanese. When it came to Ethan looking back at her, she tucked her phone away and stepped forward, grabbing one of Adrianna’s arms and hanging it over her shoulder. “Oi. Tate...yuki kou!” She said, pulling Adrianna to her feet and guiding her towards the bathroom.

[LATER]

Maybe an hour or so had passed before Adrianna was anywhere near ready to resume the conversation. It was like washing an oversized infant with how sluggish and limp she had been in the tub when Angel hosed her down and scrubbed the stench off of her.

The Japanese woman stood out on the back balcony of the hotel room with the door propped open with a chair, smoking one of her own cigarettes that she had brought in her jacket.

Adrianna sat on the end of the bed she’d been using, changed into her sweat pants and a Sepultura t-shirt. Her wet hair hung over her shoulder as she held a steaming paper cup of black coffee in her hand, staring down at the dark, reflective liquid. “I don’t care if she takes back the things she said, Ethan.” Adrianna said, sipping from the cup, turning her tired eyes to the man. “It doesn’t change what she did.”

“Doesn’t change what you did either. Yeah? You both went and summoned up a Demon, and now you got to deal with that. My only concern, and it has been my only concern from the beginning, was do this professionally. Something all three of you have failed to do. I have spoken to her about this a few times now, and her and I have found our peace. Like I said before, I mean to reunite the Salvatore family, unless you don’t want that. You tell me right here, right now, that you never want to work with your brother and father and I’ll walk out, and not come back."

“What I did?” Adrianna straightened, pointing to herself with an amused look of disbelief. Was Ethan seriously putting all of it on her and Mia? “No, Ethan. No.” She held out that same arm with her index finger pointed upward towards the ceiling. “I didn’t do shit. You’re talking about her mother? That was Abaddon. That was Keith! You wanna know the full story? We went out there to speak. We went out there to send a message. Yeah, we knew her mom was out there. We knew she was sitting front row. I didn’t expect her to jump the railing when we went off. More specifically, when Keith went off. And I damnsure didn’t expect him to knock her out in front of over ten thousand people in the arena!” She brought her hand back down and sipped her coffee. “So, if Lara wants to talk about being even? She went way too goddamn far when her and that fucking slut she’s burying her face in now, cracked her head open! Lara got her goddamn revenge last year when she beat Mia bloody in a match!”

“Stop. Stop right there. You have missed my entire point of being here. I have flat out said i don’t care if you two end each other’s careers, would prefer if you don’t because that makes me break a promise to an old man who gave up his fucking wedding ring, let it burn in a ritual, because he thinks he is just a monster with zero redeeming qualities. You can change his mind girl, if you tried. I refuse to be that man, but I will be damned if you refuse to stop taking this personally and start thinking professionally. Get it through your thick Italian skull, your father and your brother want you to come home, and your being too god damn stubborn to see that. To see that your father doesn’t have many more years in him, and all he wants is to see you do good for yourself, and if you were by his side, that would be wonderful. Stop thinking so simple minded, think bigger fucking picture for once. Now do I have your attention?” Ethan looks exasperated.

“Stop stop stop!” Adrianna said, at that point. “Stop!” She held up a hand, looking at Ethan with shock and disbelief on her face. What did he just say? “You said my dad…burned...his wedding ring?! Why the fuck did he…?” She stopped, looking ahead of her at nothing in particular until it seemed to hit her. Ethan had been going on and on over social media about wanting a destruction ritual. Adrianna didn’t practice the religion herself but she knew all too well what some of it’s practices entailed. She put a hand over her eyes and groaned in frustration. “Stupid...goddamn...motherfucking….” She suddenly shot up and flung the coffee against the wall with a primal shriek before looking at Ethan with rage in her eyes. “So because of the Dominion’s goddamn practices...my father burned the only fucking thing he had to remind him of my mother?! My mother that he held in his arms, begging for her to wake up while the ambulance came?!”

“Not because of us… because of you.“ Ethan said simply, taking a page out of Judas’s book. “You keep wanting revenge, so he has nothing left but to think he is just a monster, because you turned your back on him. Do you see what your actions has done. Do you see the pain they have wrought? This monster now, is of your creation. I suggest you think on that, and if your soul is ok with that, than continue with the family you have here, if your not, see to make things right by your father, the monster is of your creation, so only you can kill it, with the love of a daughter.”

Because of her? Is that what he just said? Adrianna’s eyes filled with a burning anger. A hatred for what she was being told. She slowly shook her head, speaking through her teeth as her bottom lip quivered. She was either going to cry again...or explode with rage. “Get out. Now. Do you hear me? Get! Out!”

Adrianna’s raised tone brought Angel back into the room from the back balcony. The woman stood in the back doorway, watching with a tension in her posture as Adrianna glared at Ethan and pointed towards the main door to the room. “You’re gonna sit there and accuse me of being at fault for something like that? GET OUT!! NOW!!”

“Think on what I said, and call me when you realize I am right.” He gets up and heads to the door to the hotel room and leaves.

Adrianna walked up behind him, hot on his heels and slammed the door behind him so it latched shut. She turned right back around and stormed over to her bedside table. She grabbed her phone and her cigarettes.

“Daijoo desuka?” Angel asked softly as Adrianna brushed passed her and went to stand out on the balcony. The tattooed woman stuck a cigarette into her lips and lit the end of it while she tapped away on her screen to open up Twitter. She pulled the cigarette out from between her lips. The smoke flowed from her mouth as she said out loud. “You sons of bitches. All of you….” She tapped away at her screen, furiously typing out a Tweet and hit the button to Send it. Adrianna shoved the phone into her pocket, leaning on the railing, staring off into the distance.

Beside her, Angel walked up beside her, looking down at her phone. Out of her peripheral, Adrianna saw her friend turn to her. “Oi...A-chan.” Angel said, turning and leaning back against the railing as she dragged on her own cigarette, raising a platinum blonde eyebrow. “We go...to war?”

Adrianna snorted, dragging on her cigarette and nodded to the woman. “...Hai….” She said back in what little Japanese she knew. “...You’re goddamn fucking right we are….”