This Ain't A Scene

She glanced over at the boy, and gave a muted smirk at the beginnings of worry she could see growing in amongst the pity she didn't want, so chose to ignore.

"Don't worry, can't see why they'd care much about you or whatever your girl's name is," she clapped the boy on the back. "You're just a low rung on the totem pole - and she's not even on their radar."

Working her hand through her long hair, she let her eyes scan over the mass of bodies, almost as if she was searching for him, but that was a ridiculous thing to waste her time doing.

"No, Angel was never mine, not even before I knew him. He was supposed to marry Popov, not that she was any happier about it either. We were foolish to think we could change anything. Should have listened to my father... if I'd just stayed away, wouldn't be standing here now, bitching about my shit love life."

He couldn't help it. He let out a small sigh of relief at her words. Being a low rung on the totem pole was nothing to him. He'd been there his whole life. Finding himself there in the mafia was nothing unusual for him.

"That's good," he murmured, smiling. But it faded as he looked back at Ashleen, beginning to feel bad for feeling happy when she couldn't be.

Popov...Popov. He felt that the name should mean something to him, but he couldn't connect the name to a face. Rubbing at the side of his head for a moment, he frowned before shrugging it off. "You can't choose who you fall in love with." Afonka said softly, tilting his head up at the older girl. "You can't blame yourself."

"Oh but how I tried," she smiled slightly, thinking back to the past. It was true though. She realized it now - every moment that she could see herself falling, every moment in her past when she realized she was doing exactly what she suspected her father always feared - why he always hated Tre so much - she could see how she attempted to stop herself.

When that failed, she had merely avoided the truth.

"I neglected saying I love him for so long, because I was sure it would make it hurts so much more when the time came. If I didn't say it, then we could pretend it never happened, and I could pretend I wasn't dying on the inside every time he was with anyone else."

The crowd moved before her eyes, though she wasn't really seeing them. She wasn't completely aware that Afonka was there either. She was in her head.

"But I said it. And now he's... and it hurts just as much as I thought it would."

Afonka simply listened to the older girl, chewing absentmindedly on the inside of his cheek. He felt for her. He really did. Being in love with someone and never ever being able to be with them...

He didn't know what he'd do in her position.

Patting her shoulder for a moment, he changed his mind, pulling the older girl into a hug. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I know that doesn't change anything, but I'm sorry."

The world almost seemed to shift on the girl. At one moment she was trapped in her head, aware on some level that Afonka was still there, but her pity, pain, and selfishness were her focus.

Only, that wasn't the focus any more, that wasn't because there was something new for her mind to deal with, something she had certainly not been expecting, and perhaps did not know what to do with. Ashleen's bright blue eyes, always shinning like the prized gem in a crown, slowly dragged towards the younger boy, confusion, surprise and maybe even a little something else were dancing through.

"Oh." Nothing more than a gasp of surprise, a breath, a whisper on the wind. It was certainly buried beneath the deep constant droning of the club's base. A reaction, without even realize she was giving a reaction.

Sympathy, pity... comfort? What was she supposed to do with these emotions being directed towards her, from other people. Was she supposed to feel these emotions too? Was that not what she was already doing... perhaps even begging for other people to give her. Ashleen slowly began to wonder if this was what she had always wanted. Someone to recognize her pain, recognize it, and not just tell her "this was the way it had to be" or "You knew this day would come". She had blacked the memory of her father's "words of comfort" out. Maybe this was indeed what she had desired.

And yet she couldn't take it, didn't know how to receive it.

Her head, tired of doing its own work, seemed to lean upon the other's shoulder of its own will. It was almost with pain, the movements of one old and fraught with arthritis, that she managed to pull her arms up to recipricate the action.

"Oh," she repeated again, this time slightly louder, more than just a vibration of her throat. "Uh, well.. thank-thank you."

She was scaring him. The way she seemed so lost in the crowd, they way it took her moments to finally respond to him, to realize he was even there, though he'd hardly moved since she'd returned. Meeting her blue gaze, concern for the older girl shone in his brown eyes.

He barely heard her. And even though he was close to her, Afonka had to strain to catch the one syllable she'd spoken. And it wasn't much of a comfort. Oh. What did that even mean?

A small frown working its way onto his face, the Hrabrost opened his mouth, about to ask her if she was alright, when she began to reciprocate the hug.

"You're welcome," he murmured softly into her ear.

Ashleen could feel her resolve shaking. The walls she kept up to keep from falling apart were beginning to become unstable. Her hold on the other boy tightened without her even realizing it. The focus more internal than external. She couldn't lose it, not in here, not in front of everyone.

Not at all. If she lost it once she wasn't sure she could ever get it back. And then where would she be? Here or in America it didn't even matter if she had already lost.

She pulled away suddenly, eyes almost wild.

"S-sorry. I need to-need to," she bit her her lip to keep from crying out at random. She could feel hysteria threatening her. "I'll see you around, yeah? School or-or something. Look for me, and we'll-we'll cause some trouble... or something."

She had been slowly stepping away from him with each word. Bumping into a stranger, the girl jumped, eyes wild once more. Not even bothering to mumble an apology she sent one scattered wave to the boy and ran for the exit.

If her response to his hug had been supposed to make him feel better, it had failed at its job. If anything, he was feeling even more scared. Biting at his lip, he struggled not to flinch at the sudden tightening of her hold, but his grip on her tightened in response.

And then she'd pulled away. Blinking at the older girl, his brow creased at her words. Her sudden shift in tone, the wild look in her eyes...

It was his fault, wasn't it? For bringing up Tre? "Ash," Afonka said softly, stepping towards her even as she moved away, holding out an arm towards the blonde, "I'm -"

And then she was gone and he was propelling himself after before her before he even knew what he was doing. "Ashleen," he called out, voice frantic as he pushed people aside, muttering apologies as he hurried after the Hitrost.

She cleared the dance floor and was out the door without even noticing that he had been following her. It wasn't about the other people now, it was about keeping some bits of her control, not turning into a broken sobbing mess inside the club.

Ashleen had been there to get away from life hadn't she? Why had life needed to follow her. The cold air outside the club startling her a bit, she leaned against the wall under a street light. Especially in her current state, she couldn't bring herself to hid in the dingy alley beside them. It was too much like other alley's in other places of her memory.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she took deep breaths attempting to reign in what she had thought she had been doing a good job of hiding.

Squeezing his way through the dancing people, Afonka gave up with apologizing and being nice. If he lost track of that blonde head of hair, then all of this would be in vain. Simply pushing through the crowd, he finally emerged outside the club, taking deep breaths of the cold air, his brown eyes flicking around him. Finding her under the streetlight, he hurried towards her.

"Um, hi," Afonka bit his lip, rocking back and forth on his heels awkwardly. "I wasn't going to just let you run out of there, so here I am." Nodding decisively, he rubbed the back of his neck. He'd never realized just how bad he was with words until now.

Lowering her hand slowly, her gaze was blank, expression muted as she stared after the boy. What she wanted to do was ask why he had followed her, another part of her wanted to burst out in irrational anger, ask why nobody could just ever leave her alone.

Instead she just let that hand fall to her side limply and sat there in silence. He must have wanted to say something; was that not why people followed you? And yet as she stood there the silence dragged on.

"Here you are." She repeated dully, again lapsing into silence. She raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to do something now? Or was coming outside just enough to make you feel as if you'd played the hero?"

He really hadn't thought this through, had he?

What had he expected to happen? That they'd both sit down and tell each other their deep dark secrets? Fiddling with the hem of his sleeve, he shuffled his feet awkwardly, nibbling on his bottom lip as the silence stretched out between them.

"I've never felt like a hero," the Hrabrost said softly, raising his gaze to meet her. He offered a small shrug, "I just - I don't know. I wasn't about to just let you run off. And chasing after you seemed to be the best way to do that."

She continued to stare at him, his words not really offering her any other options. Ashleen just wanted to be left alone. If she had to be left alone by the one person she wanted, always, than why couldn't she just be left alone by everybody else.

However, Afonka seemed to be a good kid, who for some deranged reason was actually concerned about her. Even in her anger she decided she might as well throw him a bone.

"Well then you can be a gentleman. Walk me home."

"A gentleman's easier to be than a hero," Afonka murmured, running fingers through his hair absentmindedly. At least, throughout everything, he'd managed to not change who he was. Being kind had always been second nature to him.

Nodding, he glanced back at Ashleen, "To the mansion? Unless your house is around here..." the boy trailed off with a tiny shrug.

Ashleen shrugged no committally and pushed herself off the wall, "To the mansion, to my grave, to the fiery pits of hell. Who really cares anyway. All the damn same in the end."

She was being self pitying and part of her hated that, but the problem was the rest of her didn't know how to stop. She supposed she should correct him, but really, non of the safe houses were that in the open. She needed a fire grate to floo powder home anyways, so the mansion's would work as well as anybody else's.

"You coming, or not brown eyes?"

He blinked at her, wanting to argue with her words. There was a rather large difference between the three. The last two were rather morbid, at least in his opinion. But it was Ashleen he was talking about. He highly doubted it was possible to get her to change her mind.

Momentarily distracted by a giggling group of witches and wizards exciting the club, he only pulled his gaze away at the sound of the familiar nickname. Looking back at the blonde, Afonka nodded. "Yeah, of course."

And with that, he lead the way to the mafia mansion.