"Bless You!" Sighed Gia, As She Inhaled Deeply. She Didn't Smoke Frequently, Especially Now That She

"Bless you!" sighed Gia, as she inhaled deeply. She didn't smoke frequently, especially now that she had a sort-of daughter, but when she did, she relished it. Leaning her head against the bricks, she took a moment to enjoy it, before grinning in his direction. It always felt nice to breathe out and just be for a moment. Irresponsible or not, Gia had always liked Toby. In a way, she thought they were actually a lot alike - loving completely and putting that before any real kind of thought process, essentially...the whole werewolf thing being a given. When he identified her as the lady he wanted to see, Gia laughed brightly. "Missed me?" she joshed, grinning, but the truth was she completely understood the look in his eyes. She felt it, frequently, herself. With more vampires crowding in (the whole issue of the 'vampire revelation' and what it meant for the wolves as a species, aside) and their Queen "renegotiating" with Everett, there were reasons to stress everyday without even considering the more personally pressuring weights. Gia's expression softened, brow contorting. "How's your mom?" she asked. She knew it was probably the last thing he wanted to think or certainly talk about, and she felt guilty bringing it up, but she couldn't bear to think that it could be getting worse and he wouldn't feel he could vent to her, if he needed to. "If you want to talk about it," she shook her head. "Believe me, no pressure if you don't." When he proposed to get the second, she nodded decisively. "Deal," she added, brightly, brushing unruly strands away from her face, impatiently, as he asked how she'd been. "Oh, you know," she shrugged. "The usual. Trying to get Devon to not roll around naked in my neighbor's yard, mostly," she laughed. "Other than that, unsuccessful job search and lots of bars, so I'm not complaining," she added with a bright grin. Gia shook her head. She often considered her life to be rather ridiculous, but in a way that was part of what she loved about it. "You?"

Dammit Moon Moon | Gia & Toby (closed)

With tensions as high as they seemed to be growing in the community of Oxford, Toby almost welcomed the weekends with open arms — not that he usually didn’t. With all the youth left in him he knew that the Twin Moons would be his place of choice for a drink and good company up until he died — and he wasn’t planning on doing that anytime soon. He approached the bar, a slow and steady smirk already creeping onto his cheeks as he saw Gia standing outside the joint, reaching into his back pocket to grab her his old zippo before she could even finish her question. "Desstrin," he responded warmly, flicking the lighter open and holding the flame to the cigarette between her lips. "Just the lady I wanted to see," Toby grinned, snapping the top shut and shoving the lighter back into his back pocket. It really hadn’t been an understatement, wither. With the week he’d been having — between work and his mother and just life in general getting more and more complicated — nothing sounded better than a Saturday night at the tavern. Honestly? Getting plastered. "First round on you, second on me?" he offered with a small nudge, moving to lean against the building as he stood beside her. "How have you been?"

Remember, we talked about this? Rules of the wild kingdom don’t apply to friends. 

It was a relatively ordinary night for Gia Desstrin: tramping around town trying to decide the best time, place, and method of getting totally plastered. Gia wasn't exactly the model citizen, but she loved her quiet little town, notwithstanding. It was home and, she'd realized being here, that that was something she had never truly had, before. She'd decided, for once, on a quiet night in. This week had been exhausting and, while Gia didn't generally enjoy being alone, tonight she had a hot date with her DVR. She was going to drink wine and fall asleep on her couch and she was going to enjoy every minute of it. That is, until she stepped out into the parking lot. Werewolf was in the air, but not one she knew. Afterall, Gia was perfectly familiar with the individual scents of each of her Pack members. Eyes narrowing, Gia glanced around herself. She'd scented hints of it softly in the liquor store, but Gia had written that off. It hadn't been that fresh and she'd told herself that it was merely residual from Weres wandering in and out all day. Now, however, the strangeness of it could not be ignored. Stepping off the sidewalk, Gia followed it into the parking lot and up to a Ford pickup. She waited where she was, brown paper bag under one arm, listening as someone shuffled around inside, until a female suddenly emerged into the bed and told her to leave. Gia arched her brows before smirking. "Hold up," she responded. "You looking for the Pack?" she inquired. Gia naturally assumed her words would make sense to the other Were, but she ought to have known better. There had been a time when she, herself, had wandered into town forlorn and assuming she was alone. "Because you're looking at it." Her blue-green eyes glittered in the the electric lights of the parking lot. "And I come bearing gifts," she added, holding out the bag. "It's just cheap wine but," she shrugged. "Gets you just as drunk as the good stuff."

ol' twitchy nose: gia & bunnie (closed)

Bunnie was too broke to go to a real bar. She made her own wherever she went with a six pack from a gas station and the light from the moon. Tonight was no exception. After a long, grueling day of scowling and picking dirt out of her fingernails with a switchblade, she’d cozied up beneath a tree in the front yard of someone with bad taste in window dressings. Thus far, Bunnie had been living in her car until she worked up enough to buy a motel room for a few nights. Where was she miraculously going to come up with this cash? She needed to scope out the town’s weak spots first. Bunnie was good at scoping; it involved sitting still, blending in, and talking to no one for hours on end. Sometimes she dreamed about being a brick wall. 

Thus far she was proving her skills until the owner of the ugly house pulled into their driveway. Needless to say, they did not welcome Bunnie, her six pack, and her pocket knife to stay in their front lawn getting drunk and eventually sleeping over. Heated words were exchanged, Bunnie threw up the bird and shared a couple obscenities, but in the end she packed up her two possessions and drove off. 

She told herself it was good timing anyways… she needed to restock her shelf soon being that she only had one bottle. So Bunnie found her way into the parking lot of a cheap liquor store and climbed out through the back window of her shitty pick up to made camp in the bed of her Ford. When she popped out in her shorts and tank top, newly opened bottle in hand, she met eyes with a woman dressed mostly in black. Although Bunnie had never met her, a twitching in her nose recalled nostalgic memories… like she knew her or knew something about her. She’d never felt this way about anyone. Despite this, she acted as herself:

"Move along."

When Gia got his text, it took everything in her not to shoot back with a thousand worried texts. She had known, of course, that he was meeting with the vampire queen. Why, she could not say, but the knowledge alone had been cause of anxiety enough - his text only served to heighten it. Yet, he said he was coming over. This was clearly a face-to-face matter so Gia (just barely) managed to restrain herself and instead merely replied, I’ll be here. She heard his truck when he was still a little ways away and headed to her bar in the kitchen to make him (and herself) a stiff drink. She had a feeling they’d need it. As he pulled up to her house, Gia went to the window peering down below. She watched him talk to Devon and then she watched him walk away, Devon’s eyes following. Gia bit her lip in concern and went to meet him. It was the urgency in his eyes that made her chest constrict, placing the drinks hurriedly on the nearest surface, she was enveloped gratefully in his arms. He pulled her close and she wrapped her limbs around him, resting her head on his shoulder. She breathed him in - a fresh cacophony of musk and death and anxiety. So, it was the vampire queen. Gia pressed a kiss to his shoulder before pulling back ever so slightly to look at him when he spoke. Her lips parted ever so slightly. It felt as though her lungs were burning, seared from the inside out, to see him so tortured. She reached up to touch his face, shaking her head. “I already know you did what you had to,” she said softly, brushing back his hair lovingly. Uncharacteristic anger sparked in her chest and ignited her heart as she watched his tormented eyes. Gia wanted to drive away the pain but there was a part of her that wished to see whoever had done this repent of ever having hurt him, too. Everett had enough to deal with without some vampire forcing his hand towards something he so clearly did not appreciate. “What did that bitch want?”

Aftermath || Gia & Everett (closed)

After seeing and speaking with Ariella, Everett didn’t know if he’d done the right thing or not. He’d always done what he thought was right and what was best for the pack, but sometimes he couldn’t help but doubt whether he deserved to be in his position. Was he good enough for the pack? Did they deserve better? Times like this, it certainly seemed so. All he wanted was peace; but with vampires around, that seemed near impossible.

He pulled out his phone and texted Gia, Hey, I need to talk. I’ll be at your house in a few. He tucked his phone away in the pocket of his jeans as he dropped into his truck. And as he drove, he mentally kicked himself. What the hell had he agreed to? He sighed. He’d known that taking hold of the pack and cleansing it of the V problem would be hard, but he’d never even imagined that it would come to this.

As he pulled up to Gia’s home, he put his truck in park and smiled as Devon came running to the car from her place on the grass in the lawn. He climbed out of the car and hugged Devon tightly. “Hey, baby girl,” he kissed the top of her head and combed his fingers through her hair. “I need to talk to Momma, ‘kay? Stay out here, but only in your lawn. You hear me?”

Devon groaned a bit before nodding and trudging off and dropping back into the grass. He smiled. He’d never had a child of his own; and at this rate doubted he ever would. But that girl was a daughter to him. He didn’t care how odd it might be to others.

He made his way into Gia’s house, closing the door behind him. It didn’t take long for him to find the brunette, and he practically ran to her, gathering her up in his arms and holding her close to him. He let out a breath into her hair. “I think I just made the worst mistake of my life, Momma,” he sighed into her hair. Even with how shitty he’d felt before… Just having Gia in his arms made him feel so much better.

Malia Tate in Muted

Gia cracked a soft smile. "Ehh, don't worry about it. I can get over my disappointment. I'm just glad there's progress! I don't know, I just feel like this can lead to beautiful places and you're on the cusp of it. I think that complications are just barriers to break down, to see how much it's really worth to you. And I think you'll get around them. I'm glad you're at least friends because what's worse than not seeing someone you care about, is loosing them completely. You haven't lost Lill and you have a chance here and I can't think of anything more hopeful than a second chance." Despite her earlier outburst, Gia's expression softened at his words. Reaching across the table, she rested a hand on his. If anyone could understand the full horror of abandonment, it was Gia. "If I hear or suspect anything," she promised. "I will tell you straight away. What I want, Blaize, is to see you happy and I've never seen you happier than you were with Lill. But no one deserves to have their heart trampled and especially not repeatedly. I would never knowingly let that happen to you, not again." Sitting back, she smiled softly. "That being said, I fully believe that, this time, she's here to stay." Gia's brows knit in consideration. "I don't know exactly what she did or what happened while she was away, but I think sometimes when you're separated from something, you begin to realize just how precious it really was to you, in the first place. I don't know but...I think it opened her eyes to that, if anything."

Won't Say I'm In Love || Gia & Blaize (closed)