Warning: While there is nothing explicit in this chapter, there is mention of violent/sexual encounters hat some individuals may find triggering.
The driveway had never seemed longer, thanks to the painful torture devices Ari and Audrey had insisted she wear. While she lived in heels, it was never ones as needlessly excruciating as these were. Clutching Seven's arm, she made her way from the curb, up her crowded driveway and to her house. The front door was open and she noted that Harper's car was already there. She didn't realise they had taken so long to get there, but Ian had driven halfway to his house out of habit, so she supposed it made sense.
The group had scattered upon entering her house in search of food and drinks. Cherish with two trays of wings in hand flopped heavily onto the partially unoccupied couch beside a scantily dressed harem girl.
"Fetch me some drinks, Slave!" she commanded and the girl looked at her appalled. Cherish scowled, "Not you! I don't even know you!"
"Cherish, I'm stuck to you, you'll have to find another slave for your drink fetching."
"I wasn't aware you considered yourself a slave, Lord Severin of the Underworld!"
"Then who were you talking to?" the harem girl asked in confusion seeing no one else around. Flushing, Cherish pointed at random, and to her luck it was at the Batman who had asked her to dance earlier in the night. Oh well, too late to turn back now, "You! Slave-man, fetch me some drinks!"
Seven laughed as the confused boy gave her a strange look and took off. As he settled into the couch beside Cherish, Ian, armed with a giant sized roll of paper towels and a plate of wings, landed on the floor in front of him. Seconds later, Juss and Harper appeared with Allie and a tray of plastic party beer mugs in tow. With one look at the amount of food Seven and Cherish had stocked up on, they broke down in laughter. "Got enough food there?"
Shrugging, Cherish took the roll of paper towel from Ian offered it and the tray of wings to the harem girl she'd effectively stolen the couch from. The poor girl looked uncomfortable at being squished amongst them. "Oh look, I see my boyfriend!" she exclaimed and scurried away without a backward glance.
"You'd think my wings were poisoned or something," Cherish frowned. "Oh well, more for me!"
It felt good to be eating, after being offered nothing but the tiniest of finger foods as dinner at the Ball. Stupid 'gourmet' cooking and the freaking small portions of food they thought suitable. Cherish hadn't had an honest to goodness pig out party since way before she had left Montreal. All that was missing was the ice cream, chocolate syrup and strawberries. Oh she wished desperately that she could have an ice cream sundae! But as it was, she resembled a table cloth, covered in as many paper towels as she was, and had to eat carefully so her dress would come out unscathed. Ice cream sundaes would only complicate that.
"Um, Cherish? Here's the drinks you asked for."
There stood Batman, two plastic cups of beer in hand; Cherish could only blink at him in confusion. After a moment of recognition, she grinned, "Right! Very good, Slave-man, you can have a treat!" As she took the drinks from him and waved him away, Seven was the only one who didn't look at her like she was completely mad. Ignoring her friends, she handed Seven one cup and drained the contents of hers in a series of large sloppy gulps.
"O Em Geeeee!" she squealed imitating several of Ari's friends. "That was so nummy!!"
"She looks like Cherish... she sounds like Cherish... the only explanation I can think of is government cloning."
"Who's Cherish?" she looked at them all with an equally blank stare. "And why is she impersonating me?" As Ian hit her with what remained of the roll of paper towels, Cherish's demeanor cracked, and she cackled, "How dare you assault Lady Malice! Exile him, Lord Severin!"
"You're gonna have no court left if you exile them all, Your Fruity Highness," it was Delia's turn to be on the receiving end of the blank stares. "What? Her name's Cherry."
"Heh... Cherry... heh... Fruity... heh."
Cherish blinked up at the Batman again, hadn't she waved him away? And who the heck was he? Even her friends seemed confused, as was evident by Harper's, "Who...?"
Seven glared at the boy, in much the same way he had done earlier, while his hand inched its way around Cherish to rest on the outside of her hip. "Run along," he said threateningly as he pulled her into his side all too easily.
The boy matched Seven's glare, "I'm sure if she wanted me to leave, she'd ask me to... since she's free to speak for herself."
What? Since when hadn't she been free to speak for herself? Seven pursed his lips and set his jaw, his fingers tightening his grip on her waist. She glanced at him for a fleeting moment before remembering what he'd said in the parking lot and she flushed red; he looked quite angry. Nodding his head at Cherish leaning into the crook of his arm, Seven raised a brow, "And you would know this how?"
"Ari."
Cherish felt the light bulb going on in her head; he was one of Ari's friends, and it appeared Seven had already known that. That explained the angry that Seven was throwing like knives at the boy. It also explained how Batman knew, despite all current appearances, that she was free to speak for herself.
"Well she was wrong, no?"
Seven's friends watched him in curious silence as he challenged the boy in the Batman suit with his harsh tone and angry stare. Cherish could see Juss preparing himself to join Seven in a fight if necessary, though he was clearly confused as to what the fight was about. Chancing another glance at Seven, Cherish saw the dangerous expression he wore, his smooth jaw clenching and un-clenching with more than just anger.
"I don't think so," Batman said and Cherish knew he was being awfully daring by the way Ian tensed up beside her. Really, he didn't seem like that bad of a guy; he'd been nervous when asking her to dance and he'd actually bought her the drinks she'd so rudely commanded of him. He was also right to assume that if she were in fact dating Seven, as Seven was so willing to let him think, Ari would know about it. But in all honesty, what would a boy like that have in common with her? And he'd gone and said something stupid like "I don't think so" and almost dare Seven to smash his face in; he was quite a dim-witted boy.
She furrowed her brow and then looked at him, "No. No, he's right. Ari's quite wrong about that matter."
For split second, Batman wore a surprised expression, and then he returned to being annoyed. Since she wasn't looking at Seven, she could only assume he was making some sort of smug face at the batboy. Sure enough, he squeezed her side once again, this time with a slight affection, "Run along now."
Batman didn't move, but continued to glare at Seven. Cherish found herself fighting the urge to shoo him away with the roll of paper towels like she would a fly. What was he doing down here anyways? All Ari's friends were hanging out upstairs where they could listen to music that didn't 'make their ears bleed'.
There were more than a few other party-goers down in the basement, but none of them were actually in Ari's group of friends. Most of them were other friends of Harper, or Delia, even some that she'd seen hanging out with with Ian, Juss and Seven on occasion. Ari's friends only passed through for drinks and then ran back upstairs to escape the weirdness of the basement.
Cherish realised her friends were regarding her with amused looks, "What?"
"You said that out loud, Pumpkin," Seven said softly to her, his breath warm on her ear and she felt herself flush again.
"Why is he here anyways? Wow, there's a lot of people down here," Juss mocked her with a grin and a high pitched tone that sounded nothing like her.
"Oh. Oops." she looked at Batman apologetically. She hadn't meant to sound so bitchy, she hadn't meant to say anything, really. In any case, if he was smart, he'd leave and not stand there like an idiot gaping at her and glaring at Seven.
"Well, why are you down here?" Delia asked with a goodnatured smile.
While Batman began formulating an answer, finally managing to look a little humiliated, Ari popped around the corner. "There you are, Dan! Did you get lost getting drinks?"
"Yeah, we sent you down here, like, forever ago!" Darla sidled up to him, looping an arm through his. Dan? Batman was Dan? Daniel Shrift. Clean cut, stereotypically jock, uber normal Dan. How was it possible he liked Cherish?
He flushed and looked at Ari, "Sorry, I forgot."
"Yeah. You forgot, huh?"
There was no way Cherish, or any of the rest of them, could have missed the bitterness in Darla's tone. Dan shrugged and finally turned away, heading in the direction of the bar, Darla flouncing after him.
"You know, I'm glad everyone's getting along," Ari mused. "I thought it might be kinda weird having your friends and my friends here at the same time."
"Not weird at all," Cherish muttered dryly.
"Actually, Dan's brother is into the same stuff as you guys. I asked him to come tonight, but I guess he didn't feel like it."
"Dan has a brother?"
Cherish had known before the question was out of Harper's mouth that it was a bad idea. The way Seven had tensed at Ari's words had alerted her.
"Yeah. He graduated last year... Nathaniel Shrift."
At this, Cherish's other two stooges snapped their heads up, instantly stiffening as Seven scowled.
"Fucker."
"Wha-?"
"You don't want to know," Allie answered Ari's question before she asked it. "Trust me."
"If I ever get my hands on him, I swear to God, his limbs are coming off one by one," Seven growled, absently tightening his arm around Cherish again.
She was afraid to move, even to look at Allie as she calmly spoke, "You already butchered him once."
"And we can do it again," even Juss was on edge. Cherish didn't know if she wanted to know why they hated Nathaniel Shrift.
"Oh-kay!" Ari gave them all a look equivalent to the kind one would give a drama queen, and made a hasty retreat back upstairs.
Ian's voice scared Cherish, seeming so very unlike him, "Still won't be enough. He should be castrated."
"What the heck could he have done that was so bad?" Harper demanded with an exasperated sigh. If Cherish could have kicked Harper, she would have; why was he so oblivious? Even Delia, who was perpetually jabbering when she needed to be quiet knew not to open her mouth. It was clearly something none of them wanted to talk about.
She could not have been less prepared for what came next, "He's the idiot who forced himself on Cherish when she was drunk."
After letting the words sink in, she was strangely calm. She hadn't really remembered it happening, but with the way she'd woken up, she'd almost assumed something had happened. With her reckless behaviour that night- hottub-ing with guys she didn't know, drinking with guys she didn't know, swapping shirts with guys she didn't know- she was sure that more than one guy had had the idea. She just hadn't realised anyone had actually acted on it; or perhaps she'd blocked it from her mind.
Come to think of it, Seven had mentioned that some guy was all over her and that Ian had tried to fight him. She hadn't thought on it much, especially not after embarrassingly passing out at her own surprise birthday party and being hauled off to the hospital for "dehydration".
"If Seven hadn't kicked his ass..." Juss trailed off.
"Fucker," Ian said again.
"So Liz wasn't kidding when she said she heard some guy was all over me that night."
"No."
"Rish, you okay?" Allie asked gently.
"Hope you kicked his ass good," Cherish smiled as she addressed Seven, hoping to show them all she was alright.
Juss grinned proudly as he answered for his friend, nodding exaggeratedly to emphasize how good of an ass kicking he'd handed out.
"It took three other guys to pull him off Nate. I've never seen Sev even close to that mad before. He started rambling in French- I think the only thing I understood was "never touch her again" and I was still halfway across the room then. By the time I got there, they were dragging Nate out and the Walker twins and some other guy were holding Seven back from going after him again. Seriously, Rish, I've never seen Seven that pissed."
With a nod, Cherish slumped back into the couch, squirming uncomfortably; she didn't know what to think of this information. For one thing, it threatened to bring up a whole slew of distressing emotions she had no desire to deal with right then. Or ever, to be frank.
Then, there was the idea that Seven had beaten the snot out of this guy for her, when he supposedly hated her. She shoved the thoughts from her mind deliberately, determined not to dwell on anything she'd just heard.
"I want ice cream," she declared suddenly, "and the stupid bow on this dress is digging into my ass."
*Title song by Teenage Head