Welcome to Gaia! ::

He grabbed her chin, before she could do anything to stop him, and Jada struck out with her palm, trying to slap his hand away. "Don't you grab me like that," she hissed to him. "No, Elzo. We're not-" and then he said his name and her eyes flared bright with a momentary pain before she tried to tug away again. Elzo Xanis had no right to grab her like this, but she was in no position to conveniently pull away, so she had to just deal with it, trying to look angry as she could manage.

Pretty sure that whatever is hurting you is his fault. Maybe, but not in the way that either of the brothers would expect from her. "I did my time trying to keep in touch with him, Elzo." Still not his name, though it lurked now, there between them. "I tried more than once, too. Whatever and whyever your brother elected not to keep in touch with me, he doesn't get to play guilt-stricken martyr to my decisions."

He turned away, and her hand rose to her jaw, fingers caressing the smooth skin, feeling for tenderness and to rub away the rough feel of his hand grasping at her. "I have no intention of letting anyone stuff me full of drugs ever again," she assured him shortly, "I'm not that far gone."She never would be- she'd be more inclined to that death wish.

"I can train with lots of people," she countered, "Who I trust not to try and have their shadow drop in as a surprise tagalong." and as for her deathwish, Jada doubted Elzo would find it relaxing that she was fairly confident she'd take her killer with her when she went.

"Is it so wrong to want both vice and escape? Some people have cigars, and yachts. Chocolate and Coffee are overdone and not distracting for long, and I can only indulge in so many pairs of shoes and spa days." Jada looked away from him, staring at the mirror, at the girl within. So much more mature than the voluptuous girl who had decided to be a model- she didn't look as weathered as she felt. Her hair, cut off in mourning and to help grow her career, long again, thick waves of ebon curl. But with the slimmer face, the lack of child-fat that plumped her curves and fattened her, had come a heaviness, a pain that screamed at her from behind her own eyes.

And in her ears, she could hear the Wraith. She could hear Ares. She could hear little cries, and whispering doubts. The haunting.

He grabbed her wrist and squeezed it, and sheer fury lit and burned low in her bright eyes- "How dare you." she was hissing it even as he dropped the wrist that burned him, practically spitting with fury. "That was your one freebie, Xanis- don't you ever grab me like that again, or we are going to have a real problem on our hands- not having to do with any liquor either." His expression did little to assuage her fury- shame, guilt, but he'd just- ugh. Of all the things he could have done right now to make the conversation worse...

He would more than likely see her thoughts written clear across her face- the fact that he had grabbed her, and she could only think about Giulia and Aidan, and the multitude of ways she would destroy him if she even suspected he was touching her children like that. Jada's face was set to mulish stubbornness as she very carefully enunciated it. "And in case that wasn't clear, if you ever touch my children the way you just touched me, you will not have a hand to touch anyone ever again."

But there was more she had issue with. This reminded her, perhaps, why she had always run away from so much to do with his family--

Until Giulia. Until Aidan. Until Hope.

The fact Elzo had seemingly lowered the cause of her emotions and her issues to being wrapped up around cowardice and Marlo was disgusting. If the older man was doing it to piss her off, it had worked- and if he was trying to get her to open up, it had backfired. "Don't you white knight for your brother, Xanis. And don't try to explain what he thought he was doing, because guess what, Elzo, your creepy father has wanted more than just his hands on me a lot longer than he's wanted his grubby hands on the twins. Did the two of you honestly think his little ploy would work when I was the one being evasive? You might have done better to come out with 'Oh, Marlo wanted to get better. Oh Marlo wanted to heal. Oh Marlo wanted'- and not a goddamn thing about what the other person involved in any of that ******** wanted or needed; so you're not actually helping, big brother."

But that wasn't the point, and her chin tilted up. "When I choose to drink, I drink for a lot more than just one stubborn Italian, Elzo; so either you take your invisible high horse and get out of my house, or you calm your threats and needling right the ******** down. This entire line of conversation is now over." If he thought, after everything, that she would make a scene that would risk the children being able to be taken by their father, he didn't know her at all, and his opinion was insultingly low. He might have had a crown a thousand years ago, but here he had no such thing. Only a bit of extra magic and a lot of people who resented him for it. When it came to the twins, he had what she had given him to be her ally; and if he thought-

No.

Elzo wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know, and his pot shots and jerking off on his glass high horse was just too much. Jada was increasingly tired of people thinking they knew what was best for her and for others; tired of people thinking they were her parents, or that they were in any position to dictate her personal choices; tired of people thinking they knew her mind when they hardly knew her at all; tired of people judging things they didn't understand from a position of their own internalized superiority. The conversation was over, and her own face was cold as stone, unflinching. It wasn't Elzo's place to decide what she could and couldn't do. He was her friend, and the twins' brother- and his investment would end there.

At the very least, we won't have to ever worry about you being an alcoholic parent to your own children now won't we?

Her laugh was hysterical and almost manic, violet eyes flying wide at his words. God, Elzo didn't know the half of it. If he did- if he did, he still would have used it as a weapon.

"You won't have to worry about abusing your own daughter either, so I'd say we're even.."

Her laughter chased him from the office, lasting long after she'd crumpled to the ground between her desk and the open window. Long after she had closed her eyes, tried to ball herself up away from the world- until the laughter turned to sobbing, and there was only the sound of the wraith in her ears asking for destruction, and the fading memory of Hope's soggy, downy curls.

Son of a b***h.