OOC:  08:27, Today: Shawn rolled 4 successes using 7d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 7,9,8,4,8,8,4.  Manipulation + Socialize + Striking Looks.

"Hmmmph." Chris grunted and then paused. "Well come on, keep up." And he marched towards the house.

Shawn followed after Chris, getting the sense that he was still on thin ice, and not wanting to rock the boat any further.

Chris opened the back door and...

The sound of the music rushed outside and smacked Shawn right in the face, as he could literally feel the vibrations of the shouting, singing and the base of the music playing. There were party revelers everywhere---adults really--but it was impossible to say who they were. Every man was dressed in what seemed like a tuxedo but with a Venetian style masque. One man had a moon sign on his mask, accompanied by another man with a sun mask. There were women in dresses--some scantily clad Shawn noticed--also wearing similar style masks. One women passed Shawn wearing a red dress and a mask that had a star shape, points of the star nearly poking Shawn's eye out as she bent down to take off her high heels.

Shawn ducked out of the way of the star point that almost jabbed him, thrown thoroughly off balance by the party. It was unlike any Halloween party he'd been to, with the masques giving it an incredibly surreal air. He tried to stay close to Chris - with the noise and the chaos, he'd need help to figure out what exactly was expected of him in a place like this.

Chris moved forward, dodging in between adults in tuxedos and dresses as Shawn struggled to keep up with him, the music blaring Michael Jackon's Thriller. Just what seemed like a moment ago, the room had been a quiet, peaceful and luxurious. Now it was loud, raucous and unpredictable.

Chris ducked behind a woman holding a tray of martini glasses filled with green liquid, orange crests decorating the edges of the glasses. She arched her back and laughed through her mask which was adorned with planets, as moved to one side to get out of the way from Chris.

"Come on. Keep up." Chris said, staring back at Shawn for an instant before making his way to the kitchen.

With the party looking and sounding increasingly detached from reality, Chris was practically a bastion of normalcy by comparison, and Shawn made sure to always keep him in sight. He tailed after him, heading for the kitchen. It was hard to believe this was the same house he'd been in not long ago.

Chris moved in between the crowds en route to the kitchen, Shawn trailing behind him, hearing the laughter and drunken revelry of the guests. A tuxedo-clad man with a pig snout was laughing as a women extended her arms out to him holding a Pomeranian dog that was barking 'Yip! Yip! Yip!'

Everywhere there were waiters and waitress faces covered in Venetian-style glittering masks carrying around trays of fancy yet somehow unappetizing horderves of shrimp, meats and some dishes Shawn had never seen.

Up a step and into the kitchen where Chris stopped to catch his breath, the waiters and waitresses swarming around Shawn like a sharks around a caged diver.

"Shrimp?" One asked, bending down slightly to tilt the tray towards Shawn, golden mask with a lion emblem on it covering his face.

On some objective level, it might have been a fun party, but with everyone's expressions being obscured by masks, it was a little unnerving hearing everyone laugh and shout. Shawn just concentrated on staying near Chris.

Fortunately, while Shawn didn't want any shrimp, interacting politely with strange adults was something he had a fair bit of practice. He shook his head at the waiter. "No thank you." He gave him a polite smile.

"That one's OK." Chris said, snagging some shrimp off the silver tray. Another man walked by with a tray filled with with chicken medallions, oval shaped with red berries in the center.

"That one no. It's gross." Chris said, arching his head back in disgust away from the tray.

As the song Thriller wound down, a man with a Venetian mask of a shooting star walked towards Chris and Shawn, two women wearing their own masks, a moon and a sun both hanging on either side of him.

"Great time Chris!" Shooting star said, while Moon pulled at his tie and Sun caressed his chest with her satin, red gloves. "Where's your costume?"

"Ehh, its upstairs Mr. Hughes" Chris said, seeming to recognize the man, though Shawn couldn't say how.

"Oh! They're so cute! Like little men!" Sun said, clasping her hands together.

"What's your name?" Moon asked Shawn.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:00, Fri 04 Feb 2022.

Shawn didn't know anyone here, though he felt a little reassured that Chris at least recognized some of them. "I'm Shawn. Chris is showing me around." He gave Moon a smile as he implicitly cast Chris as a mature, benevolent kid who would help someone in need.

Moon nodded in agreement, and then she went back to caressing Shooting Star's shoulders, delicate fingers brushing the side of his cheek sticking out from under his mask.

"How long is he going to be staying with you?" Shooting Star asked Chris, a hint of knowing in his voice.

Chris turned to Shawn with an apologetic look that seemed to say "No offense, but this is just how it is."

Then he turned back to Shooting Star. "Not long, about as long as the last one. Or just about as long as Dad's interest lasts, you know?"

Shawn was still really vague on the how and why of him living in this huge house, and despite his Mom's assurances, he hadn't really believed it was forever. Chris and Shooting Star's attitudes certainly didn't contradict his opinion, but either way, there wasn't much point in questioning or complaining about it. "Well, we'll have fun while it lasts, right?" He gave Chris his best cheerful smile.

Chris shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head in agreement, smiling at the man and the two scantily clad women the way Shawn might smile at an adult he was trying to impress or at least leave a good impression.

The man wasn't even paying attention anymore. He glided away with both women on his arms as the Prince song 1999 began to play. And just like that, the house seemed to come alive with renewed, more intense energy. Everyone sitting at the kitchen table got up and one man in a mask with a rose on it shouted 'This is my song!'

"~~~~~~~" Chris said, the sound of what he was saying drowned out by the loud music and the people shouting. Chris made a gesture that indicated that Shawn should follow him.

Shawn winced a little as suddenly the volume increased, but he saw Chris gesturing at him even if he couldn't make out the words. Once again, he trailed after his host.

Down the stairs into the basement, the sound of Prince singing and the loud music fading into the background as Chris shut the door.

"There, that's better. I hate when they do this." Chris said, clearly annoyed at the party. "The adults." he clarified, walking down the stairs.

The basement was dark and had a sweet and somehow sour smell to it. Like sweat. There were lights, dimly lit and the sound whispers and grunts.

Heading down to the bottom of the stairs, Shawn could see several purple couches and a large glass coffee table. A waiter with a golden mask dressed in a tuxedo was holding a tray of white sugar while a man and a women wrestled with each other on the couch, the man pinning her down underneath his body. They were wrestling, right?

Chris sat down on the couch furthermost from the couple on the couch. "You see? Even here you can't get away."

Chris cleared his throat. "I feel weird about you. On the one hand, I really hate you because you're the next one. The one that's just going to be here for a bit and then move on. You'll play with my toys, wear my clothes and just mess everything up and then you'll be gone." Chris said, speaking frankly to Shawn in a direct, and somehow aggressive in his tone.

"On the other hand, you aren't so bad to hang out with. It's not like you've done anything." Chris reasoned. "It's not your fault your Mom is just like....what do they call it when a women just like tries to marry a man for money. I don't mean like a street women like in Pretty Women. You've seen that movie? I mean more like if the guy on the Monopoly, you know, the funny guy with the mustache? The rich guy. If a poor woman tried to be with him so she could, I dunno get Park Place or Boardwalk. Or land on the spot that gives you the money."

"Free Parking." Chris finished in disgust.

Shawn breathed a little sigh of relief as the music faded and it was quiet enough to think, and he followed Chris to the more distant seat. He did his absolute best to ignore the wrestlers on the couch. He listened to Chris' somewhat back and forth speech about himself, worried he was being blamed for doing something wrong but relieved that Chris seemed to mainly blame the circumstances.

He didn't know the phrase Chris was looking for to describe his Mom, but he understood the sentiment anyway, so he just nodded vaguely in agreement as he tried to figure out how to respond. "You seem pretty cool - I think we maybe could've been normal friends if I didn't just suddenly have to live with you? But I dunno, I worked all the time before, so I haven't made normal friends in a while. I just had to go places, and be nice to whoever's there, and maybe they'd be my friends for a while but then they'd go away and I wouldn't see them for months or ever again." He'd been intending to just say something nice to Chris, but ended up putting a little more of his true feelings into it than he'd intended.

He tried to tone it down a bit, so Chris didn't think he was whiny. "So, I guess what I mean is, it's fine if you feel weird about me, because it won't last forever, right? It's not our faults, so I don't think we should feel bad about it. Let's just be whatever we wanna be to each other, right?" He gave Chris a cheerful smile.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:09, Fri 11 Feb 2022.

"I know how it is" Chris said, the two adults now wrestling fiercely on the couch as if they were fighting for some WWF title.

"You start out all excited, in a new place and with new people. And its kind of like there's a whole bunch of new and exciting opportunities." The man pinned the woman down against one of the plush pillows, their masked faces breathing heavy gasps as Chris spoke.

"Still, who knows how long you'll be here. So we might as well make as much headway on what's going on." Chris decided, the two on the couch continuing to squirm, the room filling with hot air.

Shawn was increasingly leaning away from the couple on the couch and towards Chris, trying to block out what was going on and focus on their conversation. "Exactly! I'd never have gotten to visit the tree house or learned about the book downtown at the library if I hadn't come here. So maybe it was all for a reason."

The women let out a muffled shout, as if she didn't want to wrestle anymore. It reminded Shawn of when Randy "Macho Man" Savage defeated Eric Cooper to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship and how Cooper looked like he didn't want to wrestle anymore. But this time it was a women, and somehow what was going on didn't seem like a WWF show or maybe just didn't feel like it.

"Well" Chris started, not paying the man's fierce grunts any attention "I'm glad to help out, even though you won't be here very long. The reason is pretty simple. We've got to act quick and fast."

The man was now moving rapidly with quick, short, wrestling motions that were seeming to reach a crescendo.

"But you can't go be friends with that Main Street club on the other side of the fence in your old neighborhood." Chris warned. "They aren't like us. And especially Edith. If you're really hanging out with them to be friends I'll be so mad. So mad, that I'll...."

The woman let out a sudden cry as the man stopped wrestling all together and slumped over to the side of the coach. Shawn could here her sobbing as he got up and tucked his shirt in, mask still on as he walked out.

"I dunno." Chris said "I'll be mad."