A Not So Romantic Night Out

Jake was about to give a sharp retort, when Jerkface spoke. The smooth way he spoke irked Jake even more. And Prettyboy was insisting on continuing the freakin' dance. Right in front of him.

So Jake decided to clean the jerk's clock.

With a rather impressive right cross and every angry and frustrated ounce of strength that came from years of training with a sword and a hammer.

"You're done now." He growled, naturally assuming a more square stance. He didn't assume such a stance often outside of pitched battle. The effect was that he showed off his real build much more effectively, as well as the fierceness that he was really capable of.


If he had noticed how grabby Jerkface was getting, he would have hit him twice.

Daquiri almost gave an uncharacteristic yelp of surprise when Jake suddenly decked Jasper in the jaw. A few people had taken notice of the argument, but now crowds of other heads turned to watch the spectacle. A few people moved up to get a better look, including several guys that the red-head thought looked strangely familiar.

  Upon Jake's assault to Jasper's face, the black-haired boy let go of Daquiri's hand out of surprise--and so that he could hold his jaw. Daquiri whipped her head to look at her boyfriend. "What the h***, Jake?" she snapped, half out of shock, half furious with his sudden aggression. Turning back to Jasper, she started to ask if he was alright, but to her surprise the boy looked fine. There wasn't a mark on his face or anything. She knew Jake's strength, and that punch should have dislocated his jaw, if not broken it.

  "Jasper, what--" she began to ask, thoroughly confused, when the black-haired boy flashed her another toothy grin. But this one was different than all the others. There was something positively evil about this one, the way that the ends of his mouth curved up and the way his eyes were--holy crap, his teeth were fangs. Daquiri's hand flew to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She started to take a step back towards Jake, but this time the boy grabbed both her wrists and pulled her towards him. "I said I wasn't done, little dove," he hissed maliciously, a tongue sliding out to lick his lips. Daquiri would have thought that was extremely off-putting if she wasn't concentrating on the fact that the guy's tongue was long and forked.

  And that it felt like her wrist bones were being crushed.

Jake blinked in surprise as the guy recovered unusually fast from getting a swift crack to the jaw. He didn't take his eyes off of Jerkface, being so hot-blooded and all. However, the sudden speed was unexpected. Jerkface had grabbed Ri, as far as he could tell. He acted mostly on instinct with the movement.

Jake grabbed the collar of Jerkface's tux and jerked it towards him, thrusting a strong arm under Jerkface's chin and grabbing him as securely as he could manage. He wrestled the guy towards him and backwards, away from Ri, and threw his weight downwards to slam the jerk to the ground.

Now people were really making a commotion around him. He had gotten used to tuning things like running and screaming out-- between battlefields and mayhem that often resulted in the wreckage of buildings, so he mostly ignored it. The thing that was a bit harder to ignore was how the snake suddenly was looking much, much more like an actual snake.

So he jammed his knee into Jerkface's stomach.

He tried not to enjoy it too much.

Daquiri gasped when she was knocked back out of Jasper's--or whatever it was--hands just as quickly as she had been grabbed by them. She fell to one knee for a moment to catch her breath from the pain that shot up her arms as the pressure on her wrists was suddenly released. Gods, that had hurt.

  Snapping her head back up at the sound of continued fighting, the red-head rolled out of the way just in time to avoid getting landed on by Jake and Jasper. The black-haired boy had started to change when she was in his grasp, but now he had almost completely morphed. His legs had ripped out of his slacks to form into one, thick trunk of a scaly, reptilian tail, the rattler hissing at the end of it identifying it as a snake tail. The nails on his hands had elongated into sharp talons to match his fangs, which were now dripping with venom. A bite from those things wouldn't be pretty. Perhaps the most horrific thing, however, was the greenish-black scales covering the creature's skin all the way up to his face--which was now a twisted, distorted face that of a human mixed with the ugliest snake-like creature Daquiri had ever seen.

  Jumping back up onto her feet, Daquiri lifted her skirt up to expose her thigh where her dagger sheath was strapped. Grabbing it, she was about to jump in to help Jake when something else bowled her over. She only managed to twist around onto her back before another creature was on top of her. She swore vehemently when she saw that it was another snake creep--and then swore yet again when she realized why several of the people in the crowd had looked so familiar.

  They all looked like Jasper. And that meant there was more than just two of them.

  Ugh. She hoped all of the mortals had the sense to run away. She didn't even want to think what they were seeing right now, what with this snake dude practically straddling her. Well, as much as a snake could straddle someone with only one limb. The snake face bared its fangs at her and started to lunge downward, but Daquiri stabbed Blood Beauty into it's scaly tail. The creature hissed in fury and recoiled at the hit. Unfortunately, it didn't hit a crucial enough spot to make it explode into monster dust.


  Back at Jake and his own monster, the snake creature hissed angrily at the blow to its stomach. Snapping its jaws, it flipped over on its tail so that it was upright again and towered over Jake menacingly. Quicker than lightning, it circled its tail around the blond-haired son of Hephaestus to hold him in place before lunging in for the kill.

Jake let out a noise that was half grunt and half snarl as the two ended up flipped over. So, now Jerkface ended up above him, more upright, and in a much better position overall than he was. The thing was fast. And heavy. Seriously, Jerkface could stand to lose a few pounds.
More pressingly, Jerkface wasn't wasting time gloating. Seriously, he clearly should have taken a moment to gloat right there, it was a perfect moment. Tsk. Some people.

Jake flicked out his trusty pocket watch, not in much of a position to properly wield it, he had a better idea. He just threw it at Jerkface's face, making sure to trip the activation button on the delivery. As he suspected, it was hard to bite someone's head off when you've got a face full of shield. And it wasn't a light shield either.

Jake didn't waste any time grabbing his second bit of equipment, his knife. He tried not to grumble about how he hadn't gotten around to giving himself a proper sword to carry around. Instead, he took advantage of having an arm under the fat tail and he stabbed the knife in all the way up to the hilt. He twisted the blade and drew it across in a straight, wide cut. That'll leave a mark. And it gave him enough room to manage a bit better.

Now if he had a sword he might have done more damage.

((Lawl, my villains don't gloat until they've got their victims in chains or inside of them. MY FIGHTS ARE CHALLENGING. And I dunno if that gigantical slash was supposed to kill Jerkface or not, but I'll just do this to make it easier. What actually kills them shall be revealed in my next post.))

With snake-dude slightly distracted, Daquiri was able to wiggle out from under him and spring back onto her feet into a fighting stance. D*** this dress. It did not make for good fighting movement. However, she couldn't dwell on it once she saw the snake turn back to face her.

"What are you guys?" she said, her voice slightly raspy now from the sudden exertion. At least, she thought it was--until she heard the snake creature's voice.

"You ssstupid half-bloodsss never know who we are," the snake rasp-hissed, sounding rather whiny. "We are the lamiae, devourersss of children, descendantsss of Hecate!"

Daquiri blinked. Um, ew. They devoured children? Was he trying to call her a child? Because that was so uncalled for. But wait a second--she thought she remembered something about the monster Lamia from mythology class back at camp. "Hold on," Daquiri said, suddenly straightening herself. "Wasn't Lamia an evil snake lady that pissed Hera off?" Like every other monster woman in Greek mythology seems to be? she added silently.

If snakes could roll eyes, this one definitely did. "Why do people alwaysss think she wasss the only one?" he asked grumpily. "Lamia isss our mother. She may have lossst her mortal children to the Queen of the Godsss, but at least she had usss!" The lamia laughed--a horrible sound that sounded something akin to a broken steam engine trying to gargle kittens.

The red-head's mind raced as she tried to remember the monsters' weakness from what Chiron had taught. She remembered that Lamia had been a mistress of Zeus--big surprise there--and so Hera had stolen all of her children. And then of course, that made her go mad, blah blah blah, she started eating other people's children out of envy and turned into a monster. Pretty standard stuff.

But hadn't there been some kind of curse mixed in there...?

The lamia, however, being the jerk he was, didn't give her time to remember. "Enough talk," it hissed, its human-ish head starting to weave back and forth. It bared its fangs. "Your pretty face will make a nice snack." And then it lunged again.



Jasper-snake-dude-thing let out a gurgling hiss of pain-induced rage when Jake's knife cut into its flesh. Steaming yellow goo dripped out of the wound and onto the floor as Jasper's snake body writhed around, loosening his grip on Jake in the process. Steaming flecks of acidic blood-goo also managed to find their way onto Jake's pant leg, however.

"Fool!" Jasper hissed. "A simple flesh wound cannot kill me!" Jasper's now-yellow eyes glinted with cruel, reptilian glee and he bared his venomous fangs. This time, he came at Jake with his thin, taloned hands, taking a swipe at the exposed skin of Jake's face. His tail rattler kept a sinister ambiance playing in the background.

((Gah, that post didn't take me forever and a day or anything... *is still trying to figure out where all the mortals went* Holy crap, mythology lessons take forever to write.))

(Phew. When I read your intro, I was worried I actually killed him with that. I didn't expect it to, just to make Jerkface loosen its grip. And besides, I really wanted to do what I do in this post.)
(lol, stupid genre-savvy villains. You got your guys monologuing, though. So I guess Jake got lucky.)
(All the mortals ditched a while ago, I'd assume. It's a wonder that the swat team hasn't come in by now, though, lol.)


Jake smirked at Jerkface. Come on, couldn't the guy give him a bit of credit. He knew very well that his knife was pathetic. He swiped his currently empty hand quickly in front of his face, summoning a intense streak of fire in between his face and the incoming claws. He liked his face the way it was, thank you.

With the moment he bought himself, Jake kicked himself loose, and rolled to the side. He dropped his knife and grabbed his shield with both hands on the edges. In the same motion, he gave a mighty swing at Jerkface's head. The shield made an interesting 'gunk' noise. Flames sparked from where the shield made contact. Then he pulled back and did it again. And again. And again. It was surprisingly cathartic.


(And... well... I guess that's it. It feels very short. I just wanted to bludgeon him.)

((Sorry this took me so long to finish... got busy >.< Hopefully the length makes up for it? But lol, bludgeoning FTW. And no worries, Ri shall find out what you have to do to kill them in this post. xP))

  Daquiri's dagger came up just in time to block the lamia's fangs. She got the distinct feeling that those things weren't just for killing. However, her dagger didn't stop its claws from ripping into her dress. The red-head winced when they grazed her arm, but luckily the folds of the dress padded most of the blow.

  Well, lucky for everything but the dress.

  Her left shoulder now exposed by her torn sleeve, Daquiri blocked several more blows from the snake creature, but it was hard to guard herself everywhere when the lamia’s clawed hands and fangs all acted as their own separate weapons. Besides the cut on her arm, she was now bleeding from a gash on her shoulder, her hip and one above her left eyebrow. They were all rather minor and only stung at the most, but Daquiri knew she needed to figure out how to kill this thing before anything worse happened. Such as the heel of her shoe snapping in half.

     “Getting tired, yet?” the lamia rasped, the ooze from the various wounds she’d made on him still steaming against the air. Daquiri didn’t really want to think about what kind of blood did that. “My brethren will not wait for me to finish you off forever,” the creature added. It sounded more like he was complaining now—like he found it extremely inconvenient that she had the audacity to stay alive.

  “Well, they’ll have to wait a little longer,” she muttered. She took a quick step back to dodge a claw strike from the lamia. And then in a happenstance of unfortunate and random chance, Daquiri’s right heel decided to take that moment to go ahead and break off.

  Daquiri swore as the sudden loss of support made her stumble and fall. She put a hand out involuntarily to break her fall and she winced when she fell on it a little too hard. Of course, the lamia was on her in a second. Daquiri screeched insults at it as it tried to bite at her throat with its dripping fangs.

  They are vampiric beings. You must watch them closely.

  All of a sudden, Chiron’s words came back to her. She elbowed the lamia, trying to give herself more arm room to use her dagger. Come on, Chiron, what else did you say? Daquiri prodded her mind, trying to remember. Think, think… what had he said was their weakest point?

  And so Hera cursed her… the Queen forced Lamia to look upon her dead children forever, and all the children she would come to kill in millennia to come…

  Forced Lamia to look upon them forever… Daquiri stabbed at the lamia again, causing it to throw back its head with a howl, but it only came back hissing for another attack. Look upon them forever… And then it hit her. The eyes! They couldn’t blink their eyes!

  As the creature lunged once again for her throat, so fast that she wouldn’t have been able to stop him otherwise, the red-head brought up her dagger in front of her face and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping she would hit her mark. She felt teeth hit her neck and she started to scream, but she abruptly cut it off when the weight suddenly vanished off of her body. Opening her eyes, she found herself covered in yellow monster dust—and a little bit of green ooze, starting to make yet another hole in her dress.

  Ugh. Monsters.



  Jerkface’s screech of outrage (lol, Jake) echoed through the ballroom as Jake hit him over and over again with the heavy round shield. “I…will…kill you…for thissss!” the creature half hissed, half screamed at the blond boy. The few mortals that were still running around in panicked chaos on the side lines looked on the spectacle in horror—not really sure what they were seeing, but certainly it was something along the lines of a terrorist attack on a poor, innocent boy. Perhaps it was the president’s son. That boy always had been mysteriously absent from the tabloids.

  Before Jake could hit him again, Jerkface whipped his thick tail around and kicked the boy’s legs out from under him. The creature was back on him in seconds, dealing out Hell with a determined, crazy glint in his eyes.



((So…freaking…long… Heh. Daquiri will scream at Jake what kills them in the next post, so HE won’t die…))

(lol, I like how you're addressing him as Jerkface too)

Well, it wasn't often that Jake was seen as the victim in these sort of situations, but it certainly was a nice change not to be wrongfully seen as the aggressor... which he kind of actually was in this case. Either way, he was feeling a bit more like the victim right now with the way this fight was going.

Jake let out an 'oof' as his back hit the ground. Once again, the snake was ontop of him. However, this time, he had his shield. He deflected the frenzied attacks, gritting his teeth with the repeated force bearing down on him. He hated fights where he was on the ground for half the time. They didn't usually go very well. He didn't call up any more fire, since that would use up a lot of his energy. Right now, he was relying on adrenaline as it was. Jake occasionally kicked or shoved when a moment presented itself in a bit of an attempt to get up. It wasn't really helping. He just kept blocking attacks, mostly by holding his shield over the critical areas. Right now, he was buying some time until he could think of a proper plan.

Gasping in relief, Daquiri forced herself to quickly get back to her feet, trying to brush off as much of the monster dust as she could. Before she got attacked again, she kicked her shoes off and took her long skirt in her hands—and promptly proceeded to rip through it with her knife. She shortened it to hang at mid-thigh—actually giving her room to move her legs now. Looking up from her handy work, she saw the other lamiae had started to circle her. Well, great.

Realizing Jake was probably still fighting Jasper, Daquiri whipped her gaze around to pinpoint where they were. It wasn't too hard to spot them, with Jasper-turned-snake-freak screaming up a storm. Daquiri's heart fluttered a little when she saw Jake was fighting madly underneath Jasper, with only a shield to defend himself. She told her heart to shut up before it made her do something stupid.

She started to run over to help, but then another lamia came at her. Cursing, Daquiri made a jab for one of it's eyes, but it dodged her deftly and swiped at her with its claws. These ones were obviously fresh for the fight, rather than worn down like the previous one she'd killed after she'd stabbed it a few 50 times. Her feet instantly switching between the different positions she'd learned in sword practice, the red-head kept the lamia's claws and teeth at bay as she tried to simultaneously call over her shoulder as loud as she could.

"Jake!" she yelled, "Go for the eyes!" That was all she had time to say before another lamia joined its brother in fighting her.



*Commence Jerkface doing some epicly awesome moves because he's still quite strong and not very tired, and so Jake is now at a near-death point. Again.*


((...yeaaaaah, I got lazy...))

(Okay, so two dropped, two fighting Ri right now.)

Jake was growling with the effort from under his shield when he heard Ri shout something. It sounded like she said 'eyes'. He grunted as the shield was hit again. Now how the heck was he supposed to do something productive with his knife over... somewhere that wasn't in his hand or in his pocket.

Jake timed the hits from Jerkface and whacked upwards with his shield as the snake's claws came down. The strike made Jerkface recoil enough for Jake to shoot up his hand and aim a focused burst of fire at its eyes. Jerkface jerked back, shriking in agony as its eyes were literally burning. Its weight rose off of Jake as it did so, and he scrambled out from under. He also found his knife. He snatched it up, holding it slasher-style and lunged for the writhing monster. He jammed the knife into the closest eye, then jumped back. He wasn't fast enough to completely dodge the claws as he did so, and they tore through his shirt and vest and left a couple gashes in his arm.

Then it dropped into golden monster dust.

Jake swung around to the sound of more fighting, completely in battle mode. No time to stop and catch his breath. Every second counted while there was still a fight going on.

He quickly shoved his shield onto his arm. It was much more useful there. Especially when just bludgeoning opponents wasn't a practical option. He flipped the knife in his hand into a position he was more used to fighting with, then charged forward to help Ri.

From the corner of his eye another snake-man lunged at him. Jake ducked and spun on his heel, whacking the snake with his shield as it went barreling past him. It whirled around to face him, but Jake jumped behind it, over its lashing tail. As they danced around each other's attacks, Jake quickly realized he couldn't play that game as long as it could. He'd need to rush in and go for the quick kill.

Fighting two venomous snake monsters that were about a foot and a half taller than her with only one dagger was proving to be a challenge. Even without her heels or cumbersome princess dress--thank Artemis that thing was gone--Daquiri was having difficulty avoiding four sets of claws and two pairs of jaws while at the same time trying to actually hit them. The fact that the creatures were so much taller than her wasn't making stabbing them in the eyes any easier.

  "You two don't want to fight me," she said between breaths as she blocked another pair of talons. "Fight with each other." The two lamiae paused for a moment, seeming to consider her words, but she was getting too tired to put much power into her charmspeak--and she didn't have the advantage of putting on a sultry, listen-to-me-darlings tone to her voice. Her out-of-breath words were all that she had. And the moment she got a good stab into both the lamiae's scale-covered hides, they broke from their moment's hesitation and went back to hissing at her.

  Blocking these guys isn't getting me anywhere, she grumbled to herself. She needed to try to get in a good enough hit on one of them, despite the consequences leaving herself unguarded could lead to. Taking a quick step back to give her some space, she took a quick deep breath and then plunged herself back into the fight, using her momentum to thrust her dagger deep into the side of one of the lamia. However, as she had suspected, that left her extremely vulnerable.

  While the lamia she attacked screamed from the gash she was ripping in its side, the other one made a hiss-snarl and raked its claws down her bare arm. Daquiri couldn't help the cry of pain that tore itself from her throat, her arm now feeling like it was on fire. She let slip a swearword that was much worse than her usual ones, hoping it might relieve the pain a little, but her arm continued to throb painfully anyway. The red-head wrenched her dagger out of the lamia to block another swipe from its brother. She had succeeded in majorly wounding the one creature, but now one of her arms was incapacitated. She hoped Jake would overcome his own opponent soon.

  However, not even Jake could have stopped the next obstacle the universe decided to chuck at her.

  Daquiri's attention was diverted when she heard more hissing next to her. Turning her head for a moment, she saw that, to her dismay, the last lamia had decided to come and join the party of Let's-Try-To-Kill-The-Pretty-Demigod. Her eyes widened in alarm when she realized she would have to fight all three of them now. Of course, in the short moment she was distracted by the third monster, one of the other two took the chance to dive at her.

  Daquiri let out a strangled gasp as the air was knocked out of her and she was pinned down by a creature that weighed twice her size. Struggling madly under the hideous snake-boy, Daquiri managed to get her good arm free and raised it to stab down into the lamia's side. But then her body went rigid as she felt teeth in her neck. Her throat convulsed in shock and she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

  The freaking thing was sucking her blood.

Jake leapt at the snake-dude, bearing his shield forward to protect himself against claws and fangs, he stabbed down at the lamia's eyes with the full force of his drop. He bounced back up, and the thing dissolved into dust.

He had caught the sound of an uncharacteristic cry from Ri, which only aroused his protective instincts more.

He whipped around to join the next fight and help Ri, to see her being overrun by three lamae. With a roaring battle cry, he charged forward and jumped onto the snake's back that had her pinned. He grabbed it tightly, and stabbed it in the first place he could reach. The snake ended up with a knife wound in its throat. It hissed in pain and writhed backwards, trying to get to the demigod on its back. Jake stabbed it several times more, this time in the eyes. It disappeared into dust, sending him tumbling on the ground. He rolled to his knees, slamming his shield into a snake that thought it had a chance to attack him with a backhanded swing. The hit knocked its head to the side, and he lunged forward to stab it in the eyes, once again using his shield to get in close without being scratched. He jerked it back out again and stabbed again as it dissolved into dust, mostly out of battlelust.

He whirled around to the next one in the next motion, only to find it fleeing as fast as its dorky tail could take it, shrieking something about vengeance or some other thing fleeing enemies normally shout about.

Jake stood there glaring it down as he left, his breaths coming out somewhere between a pant and a growl.

Daquiri thought she might explode when she felt more weight added to the one already on top of her. Her thought process was rather hazy at the moment, her brain not willing to grasp the concept of what was happening right then. However, she was aware of enough that she was fairly sure her chest would cave in if something wasn't done soon. Her vision began to swim so she couldn't tell what was happening, but suddenly the weight on top of her vanished.

  The red-head immediately began to cough when she felt the incisors slide out of her throat. She gagged at the taste of blood in her mouth, rolling over onto her side when her throat convulsed. She resisted the urge to throw up, but her body almost didn't let her. Shivering, Daquiri pressed a hand to her neck, wincing when she felt two puncture marks in the soft skin. Her fingers came away wet and sticky; she could tell the wound was bleeding a lot.

  Trying to take slow, steady breaths, Daquiri blinked a couple times to clear her vision. She was covered in a mixture of blood, monster dust, and lamia goo. The red-head could feel that she hadn't been too critically injured, but she still felt a little light-headed from the loss of blood, along with the blur of events that had just occurred. Looking around groggily, she caught sight of a figure standing a few feet away, its attention seeming to be elsewhere. After blinking a few more times, Daquiri realized it was her boyfriend.

  Coughing again, Daquiri tried to sit up a little, but the most she could do was get to a propped-up position on her elbows. Ugh, she hated not being able to function correctly. Swallowing down another metallic-tasting gulp, she tried to make her voice sound as strong and clear as it usually did. But of course, the only thing that came out was a quiet rasp.

  "Jake?"

Jake's head whipped around when he heard Ri.

He scrambled over to her and knelt down in front of her. "Are you alright?" He asked, "You're bleeding a lot." He said, his voice pitched a bit. Jake fumbled in his vest pocket and pulled out a hanky. His shield gave a thunk as he brought his arm back. He pressed the hanky against her neck. "Hold this there." He instructed. Jake thought for a moment.

"I think I have some ambrosia somewhere." The shield thunked again as he brought his arm back to search his pockets.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious, I hadn't noticed," Daquiri rasped at Jake's comment about how much she was bleeding. Just because a creepy snake creature had just made out with her jugular vein didn't mean she wasn't capable of judging her own blood capacity.
...okay, so maybe most people might've been a little too freaked out to be thinking of such things, but come on. She was a demigod. Blood loss was pretty much an Olympic sport for them.

The red-head winced when Jake pressed the handkerchief to her throat to stop the bleeding, but she held it against the wound firmly like he told her to, ignoring the pain. She found it a little strange that Jake was conveniently carrying a hanky around. Had he always carried those?

However, she was distracted when Jake continued to fuss over her. "Jake," she interrupted him, "I'm fine." To prove her point, she started to get up off the ground. Or, uh, tried to. She didn't get much farther than sitting up all the way before pain ratcheted through multiple parts of her body. Falling back onto her butt, she put a hand to her head at the sudden dizzy spell that had washed over her. "Ow." Oh-kay, maybe notentirely okay.

((Yeah, the last post was as much damsel in distress we're really going to see out of Ri >.<))

"That's adrenaline talking." He said with a bit of a smile. Well, since she was giving him a hard time, that meant nothing was seriously wrong. He managed to fish out a ziplock bag of ambrosia out of one of his pockets and he handed it to her. "At least take a little." He said gently. It wasn't recommended to take a lot in any case, but he still would rather she had some. She looked like she got a bit beat up. Not that he'd say that to her. She'd beat him up for even hinting she needed help.

Though he probably wasn't doing great himself. He was aware of a warm burning sensation growing in a few different spots. Once adrenaline stopped talking, he would probably be hurting quite a bit.

Rolling her eyes, Daquiri gave in and reached out to take some of the crumbly cake-looking stuff that the gods held in such high esteem. However, mid-grab she stopped when she saw the hand Jake was using to hold the ambrosia. "Jake!" she snapped. "Talk about adrenaline speaking for you--your hand!" Ugh, why Jake have to ignore himself for her when he wasn't in any better shape?

...well, okay, she might've won on the whole blood-sucking thing, but still.

Jake looked down at his hand. There was a good deal of the acid-blood all over it, probably because of all the close range stabbing. He just raised his brows at it.
"That would explain the burning feeling." He said, his voice cracking a bit as he really started noticing the pain of it. He quickly passed off the ambrosia and quickly wiped it off on his vest as best as he could. He fiddled with the vest a bit to take it off, and tossed it aside and frowned at it as as the acid burned more holes in it.

He gave Ri a wry smile. "I don't think we're getting the return back on these costumes." He said with a laugh.

Breaking off a piece of the ambrosia Jake shoved at her, Daquiri mini-chucked it back at Jake's face, implying that he needed to take some, too. When he joked about their costumes, Daquiri looked down at her own in mock indignation. "What? You don't think they would like the alterations I gave it?" she mused, picking up the skirt she had mercilessly shredded. In her opinion, she thought it looked a lot better this way.

  Looking up at Jake laughing, his expression easy-going as ever even though they'd both almost died at a community ballroom dance, Daquiri's insides warmed. She would never admit it to anyone, but Jake was the only person who'd ever managed to make Daquiri break her pattern. Her entire life, she had never made allowances for anyone--and then this idiot came along and had to go and act like a gentleman for the likes of her. She still didn't pretend to understand how her constant insults and pushing him away hadn't gotten rid of him. He was a persistent b*****d if there ever was one. Well, either that, or just completely and utterly oblivious.

  Probably both.

  Sitting up onto her knees, Daquiri patted the spot on the floor next to her. "C'mere, idiot."

Jake laughed as she threw the rest of the ambrosia at him, and he caught it. He broke off a small chunk and ate it. The taste was as wonderful as always, and it gave him a warm feeling, but he put the rest away. He was extra careful now not to eat much of it. He was fairly certain that the amount he's eaten a few years back took several years off of his life.

When she beckoned him to sit beside her, he gave her a lopsided grin and did so.
He took off his shield and put the rest of the ambrosia away as he moved over. He settled into place and looked around at the  ballroom. By now it had been emptied of both muggles and monsters, and the abandoned dj stand droned on a bit of a tune.

Well, this didn't turn out anything like I expected.He thought with a bit of scoff and a crooked smile. He shook his head. They came for a dance, and they ended up fighting for their lives. At least the building was still standing. He dropped his head again to see if he could do something proactive about the stinging in his hand. Jake shoved his watch in his pocket and felt around to see if there was anything else he could use to at least wrap it up.

Daquiri snorted when Jake immediately began to busy himself with something or other upon moving over next to her. Putting a hand over his pocketed one to still its motion, the red-head leaned forward and tilted his chin back up to look at her. "Worst. Date. Ever." And then she pressed her lips into his.

Jake blinked as Ri suddenly kissed him, but he got over the initial surprise rather quickly. He kissed her back.
When they pulled away for a breath, he tilted his head.
"If that was the worse date ever, why'd you kiss me?" His tone was light and mischievous, and he wore his wry grin, but it was still a genuine question. He completely agreed that the date had gone terribly. Just about everything had gone wrong, and they hadn't even gotten to dance with each other.

Smirking, Daquiri slid side-saddle into his cross-legged lap and loosely wrapped her slender arms around his waist. In a rare show of genuine affection, she leaned her head onto his broad shoulder and sighed, breathing in his usual scent of smoke and campfire wood. The smells of fire.

Looking back up at him from her skewed vantage point, she spoke softly into his neck. "Because I'm not going out with you for your horrible dating competence, stupid."

Jake shifted so she could sit more comfortably. His heart skipped a beat as she leaned in close. He looked down at her, his own view rather skewed from how they were sitting.
"Really?" He said with a laugh. It came out a bit choked, between having her this close to him and the bit of relief that she wasn't upset over this disaster of a night. "Well that's good," He joked. "Because so far it's all been an absolute disaster."