D1 :: AK La Torre [WIP]

Fingers plucking at the hem of the other girl's shirt, AK's face blatantly pleads: Love me. Love me. Love me. Her friend scoffs despite the small smile curving her lips, all too used to the brunette angling for the entire world's attention. The La Torre girl is tired of being left behind — by a father uninterested in her existence, by a mother caught in the crush of an earthquake, by a sister she didn't even know she had until Gunner was taken away — and now her face is pure determination as she quirks an eyebrow and levels her gaze. "You look lonely when I'm not around." Her voice rasps with a calculated depth, but her fingers fidget enough to give away the tick of uncertainty shadowing her show of confidence.

Sloane snickers from behind them, undermining yet another one of AK's attempts to be smooth as fuck. Since witnessing her sister's ability to seduce with cheesy one-liners, she's been determined to prove that this is a genetic skill. Throwing the candy-haired call girl a hungry grin, she licks her lips and is promptly shot down as laughter resounds once more. The only love the La Torre girl is going to find here is the kind bought with cash and even if she had it, she wouldn't burn it for this temptation. Not for this immaculate face, not for the girl walking by them with legs that transcend time and space, and not for anyone else. She still believes love is paid for with sweetness... and maybe a pickup line or two.

Childhood was a firework binding the two of them together with beautiful promises of explosions, of stars, of a future that would light up the sky they shared. The boy next door and his cooties weren't welcome at first, but their mothers insisted they play together and so day after day they would trade homes with each other — living rooms and backyards and cooking catastrophes in kitchens — until familiarity became family. Pulling her pigtails, the girl who still wrote Astra on her school papers would scream in annoyance until one afternoon the sound bubbling out of her refused to stop and spun through the air in loop-de-loops that saw the fun in his teasing grin and giggled and giggled and giggled and never stopped. Suddenly she was chasing him back and then —

She drags him around like a beloved rag doll, both hands viced around his wrist as he shakes his head no, no, no, the answer is definitely no in response to the devilish glint in her dark eyes and insistent nodding of yes, yes, yes. This is definitely happening. This is not optional. Stumbling while walking backwards, she refuses to let him lose sight of her face because she knows he has always been a sucker for her smile and today, more than ever, she needs his help. The dramatics don't end with the paintball gun she convinces the aspiring peacekeeper to teach her how to aim, but for the moment he thinks they do. Splatters of red, yellow, blue aim for a row of empty bottles and tin cans he lined up. Every shot he takes finds its mark in a brilliant explosion of color and yet each time the La Torre girl tries her own hand she's lucky to hit the brick wall beyond the targets.

"A little to the left," he taunts when she accidentally fires the gun behind them, carefully turning her back around. They're young enough that it's difficult to tell their laughter apart, vocal chords still pitched toward the clouds, flying. The ground is coming for them, in one tomorrow or another, but for now they remain baby birds tucked into the safety of a shared nest.

The only things she knows about the world are what she has learned from him — as if this is a wise old man and not a boy barely older than her. "Teach me something else," she whines, screwing her face up in a rebellion that swears this lesson wasn't by her request. Skeptical eyebrows raise in response, knowing too well that she can't settle on one idea long enough to see it through, and she stares him down defiantly. This boy is the smartest person she knows and he can teach her everything: how to fire a gun, how to bake a cake, how to spell words she can't even pronounce, how to —

Biting her lip, her expression flickers into something truly dangerous. Eyes like these were born to promise death, but Gray hasn't realized that yet and she doesn't know why he's so easy to convince into anything because it can't be something to do with her. Astra is notoriously terrible at everything except him. "There's this guy —" She's mumbling and tripping over her words to the point that neither of them can hear sense in them. Something something Yusei something something kinda sorta maybe like something something pleeeeease something something... "— teach me how to kiss?" The last thing she's going to do is look at her friend's face, having eyes only for her shoes, and so she misses any chance at witnessing an expression that might clue her in on the actual repercussions of what she's just said.

Blood rushes to her cheeks as he fluffs her hair until it certainly looks like she knows what it's like to be ravaged. Astra La Torre has never been kissed and he knew this already because he's known her for always, but this has still become a moment of confession. If it wounds him to hear that the girl he has secretly liked for his whole life spends her time writing someone else's name in the margins of her history notes then it's hard to tell because the corners of his lips are still stitched back up by her request. She wants him to kiss her and more than anything else her confession translates as I know you're not actually my brother, Gray. The spark in her eyes has been passed to his and it doesn't matter if he knows what he's doing — if he's ever known what he's doing when it comes to the two of them — or that they're barely old enough to think about hand holding yet or —

A mussed-up curtain of hair has tumbled over her face to protect her from everything she can't believe she just said out loud and he ducks down to get around it, peering up at her for a moment that's just long enough for the both of them to consider bolting. The kiss that follows is more fleeting than the twitch of nerves that begged her feet to run away and it's over before either of them can blink. She doesn't move, convinced that even the smallest breath could break it... whatever it is.

The moment is so fragile that she might stay this still forever, protecting it, if Gray didn't give her a shove back to life, tripping her as if childishly trying to mime what he lacks the guts to say. Fall for me. Running off with a head start, Astra picks up the paintball gun and fires it after him, swearing endlessly at her terrible aim. All of her ammo is shot into the sky, missing him and hitting the stars. He makes sure not to look back at her because then she might know that he has always been a sucker for more than her smile and today, more than ever, she hasn’t misfired. Every time she pulls the trigger, it hits him in the heart.

Bette is screaming bloody murder as a wolf vaults across the room, claws leaving scratches across the floorboards and knocking a vase off a side table. It shatters, but the smash of porcelain is impossible to hear over the echoes of sudden panic. The furry beast leaps over the terror-stricken girl and goes straight for her cousin, pinning AK to the floor with its full weight, opening its jaws wide, and —

Licking her face with unabashed enthusiasm, the victim screeches — “Not again you sneaky bastard! Who let you in?! MADSEN, I’M GONNA CUT YOU!” — and tries to shove the canine off of her. “Ger’off me, Tommen! Urgh! You’re such a fattie!” It takes several pushes to free herself and although she achieves this one small success, the wolfdog takes offense at her rejection of his affections and bounds off to terrorize another room in the Sublino’s establishment. More than one crash sounds throughout the antiques store and AK resigns herself to banging her head against the floor in knowing dread before pulling herself up to her feet. Her aunt is going to kill them all.

Following the path of destruction through the shop and into the back room, she picks up the hoard of illegal firearms that have been knocked onto the floor and thanks Ripred they were unloaded before closing the open window that was clearly used to break in. Climbing the stairs to the second floor apartment, she already knows where he’s gone, having made a habit of raiding the bedroom AK shares with Bette and her sister. The trouble isn’t ever with tracking him down, but rather hauling him back to his owner. It takes at least twenty minutes of dragging him by the collar and all of her best sweet-talking to trudge him a couple blocks up the street.

Bang. Bang. Bang. She smacks her palm against Cirque’s front door, breathlessly bracing herself against the frame so her captive can’t run off again. Greeted by the La Torre girl’s smirk… and a pair of her panties proudly trapped in the wolf’s jaws, there is a notable lack of surprise at the sight casually gracing this stoop. “Getting Tommen to do your dirty work again?” This is not the first or even the second time this exact situation has occurred and by now Cirque probably has more of AK’s underwear than she does. If only it was for a better reason than this. “I’d remind you just to ask if you want something from me, but I’m gonna have to start going commando soon, so you should definitely keep that in mind.” Tommen drops the small lace trophy at his owner’s feet with a satisfied howl and she winks shamelessly before walking away, leaving it there. For thought.