InsaneJournal

EKATERINA: The younger Helsing twin had been putting on winning smiles all night, milling back and forth between steadily more-interesting guests at Heather's party. And for a generous portion of the evening, Erik Harris had merited most of that time -- granted, his shoulder injury lent itself well towards flattering, sympathetic female attention. When she finally caught up with her sister a couple hours later, Kate was already well and cheerfully flushed with alcohol. What she'd intended to be a friendly catchup between drinks, however, rapidly turned into something else entirely once Elena shrugged off her sister's arm, abruptly pulling her own limb away.

Taking the violent rejection to be an accident -- a mere jostling in the crowd of people around them -- Kate shrugged and peered into her drink, trying to find the remains of the maraschino cherry. When she glanced up, however, the sour expression on Ellie's face hadn't changed.

"... What?"

ELENA: What had started out a fairly exciting and cheerful event went rapidly down the toilet like the head of one of Nardo's swirly victims, as Ellie caught word of her friends' and sister's involvements in the attack of a certain Gothics student, whom Ellie had begrudgingly become somewhat fond of. Even so, Elena van Helsing's current state of agitation was more the result of the growing rift she sensed between herself and her twin sister. They had embroiled themselves in more sisterly squabbles and personal differences of opinion than ever before; their common interests were becoming fewer; and to add further insult to inintended injury, Ellie could not help but feel angry at the deliberate exclusion of herself in that Thursday's violent events--even though she knew she would have turned away the opportunity and been a general wet blanket over the whole affair.

It was purely the principle of the thing; she wanted to be included. She wanted to be asked.

So it was in such a mindset that Ellie found herself shaking her head at her sister, with the currently curled lip that distorted her usually cheerful features.

"Nothing!" she hissed over her fruity cocktail.

EKATERINA: Kate couldn't help a distinctly unladylike snort over her drink, immediately scoffing at the suggestion. "Are you joking me, Ellie? That is exactly the same tone of voice you used when I stole your dress for the Olympia prom, and is the tone of voice I used when you showed up there with The Ice-Bomber-- so don't you even dare lie to me. What's got your panties in a twist, darling?"

Another snort -- Kate's gaze slipped out across the room, distracted, recognising faces and friends wherever it went.

ELENA: Darling? Kate dared to whip out the patronization, when she could evidently sense that Ellie was in one of her rare but ever-tempestuous furies? Ellie's agitation, whatever it might have been mere moments before, was aggravated ten-fold by the tone in which her little sister chose to speak to her. And those unlady-like snorts! In lieu of any verbal response, Ellie began shaking. Her eyes looked anywhere but at her sister, whose face she really wanted to slap.

EKATERINA: She rolled her eyes, and almost considered disappearing back into the crowd -- the music was getting louder, and there were far more interesting people around who wouldn't get all huffy and snippy for no. apparent. reason. Draining the rest of her cocktail in one go, Kate started absentmindedly glancing around for a place to leave the empty glass.

"Look, if you're not going to tell me what I've gone and done this time--" Her tone was exasperated, almost blithe and carefree. The girl's syllables drawled a little; the alcohol was, indeed, making her flippant and rather uncaring about the whole thing. Whatever it was, her sister would get over it in the morning!

ELENA: Ellie had had enough. Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits and her lips pressed into a firm line. With a sudden movement, Ellie lurched toward her sister with the booze-filled cup clasped not-so-tightly in her hand. Even someone without precognitive abilities could see what was going to happen next, and it surprised absolutely no one as Ellie, seemingly tripping from some invisible force, emptied the contents of her cup down the front of her sister's shirt, a leatherlace corset combination that accentuated her chesty assets to their fullest potential. A top which Ellie had told her was inappropriate for an occasion designed to celebrate someone other than Kate.

"Oops." Her voice was emotionless, and one perfectly-groomed eyebrow was raised as she regarded her sister with a cold glare.

EKATERINA: And just like that, a sudden shrieking rage filled Kate up from toes to fingertips to scalp as she stared down at her drenched front, the leather turning sticky and water-logged. Before she'd even noticed it, the Rage had transmuted itself into a wailing banshee cry, which eventually morphed into: "WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM, ELENA?!"

ELENA: "ME?! MY PROBLEM!?" Ellie shrieked at her sister, not any less loudly. She disregarded all the stares and attention she and Kate were acquiring from the others in the immediate vicinity, as well as the immediate hush that came across the room. All she could see was her sister, of whom she was unequivocally jealous. And so it was that Ellie began clawing at her sister, tugging and pulling whatever she could get her hands on. "You're my fucking problem, Ekaterina!"

EKATERINA: She fell backwards with the initial shock of it, but was briefly cushioned by another startled party-goer, surprised to find themselves suddenly carrying a flustered, enraged slayer in their arms. The nameless face soon flung her back into the fray, and Kate tried grabbing at her sister's arms, taking a solid strike at her solar plexus.

"HAVE YOU GONE INSANE? I haven't done anything to you lately!" Kate's face was turning a rather unflattering shade of Tomato Red (TM) -- goddamn her pale European skin, it looked good in black but it sunburned awfully and went practically crimson when she flushed--

"The hell!!"

ELENA: Ellie paused in her advances to recover from the blow to her stomach and regarded her sister with what one would usually call a stink eye. Under better circumstances, she might have managed to make it look adorable. It took her a few seconds to recover her breath, which had been knocked out of her from the unforeseen hit.

"Time out!" She wheezed. It wasn't attractive. At all. She groaned, and brushed the long hair--which was now an official casualty to the sudden physical attack--from her eyes. "You bitch," she gasped aloud.

"You leave me out of everything!" Another deep breath. "We're supposed to do things together, Katie! Ugh," she groaned, and, now standing straight, brushed the long hair from her eyes.

EKATERINA: And for a moment, the other sister paused in her inexorable advance, closing in through the space created by the absorbed and cheering onlookers. She looked, briefly, confused. "What the hell are you talking about? We have movie nights all the time, we go on hunts during the stupid full moon all the time, we're always training with stupid Fergus---in fact, just about the ONLY free time I have to breathe by myself is in Epic Arcane Literature and hand-to-hand combat and when I hang out with Erik! AND you get the HOT teacher for your literature class but I just get the creepy unfriendly one!!"

She stomped her foot, words mangling into one incoherent and impotent scream.

"AAAUGRH and the afterparties are always in your room because of course you got the big amazing single room because of course they picked you for R.A. and--"

There was an increasingly shrill, hurt note in her voice now--a rising yelp of hysteria.

ELENA: Ellie likewise stamped her foot on the floor, the most obvious of signs that she was running as far away from rational thought and moving right into childish antics. The two were a ridiculous pair, indeed. "Don't you try to twist this around!" she shrieked. Katie always did these sort of things, she always made it about herself! "It's, like, totally not my fault, I didn't even want to be R.A., I thought we were, like, going to be roommates together and besties, and it's just not how I thought it would be--at all!" She let out a sob. "And then I had to hear that you and Rikki and Erik went off without me, and you attacked Knuckles? He's totally not that bad!"

Ellie paused a moment to take a deep breath, and trudged forward with what she'd been thinking for so many days, but did not have the nerve to say. Until now. "You shouldn't have done it, Ekaterina. We're supposed to, like, get along with these people, and stuff."

EKATERINA: There was a chilly hush from the other van Helsing girl; her face had taken on an almost vampiric pale pallour, as a muscle worked in her jaw and her eyes narrowed. Quivering by her sides, both her fists tightened, and she suddenly realised she didn't care about the drink down her shirt or the fact that people were staring.

"You did not just say that, Elena. If our uncle could hear you now--" There was blood rushing in Kate's ears. "We're not supposed to get along with them, we're supposed to learn how to KILL them! Why else are we at this school! Why else are we trying to become hunters!"

Her voice broke at the end of that sentence, the words sounding ridiculous to herself even as she said them out loud. Doubts and questions were going decidedly unvoiced, and suddenly, there were tears in her eyes -- and like the manliest soldier on the fiercest battlefield, Kate tried not to let them show.

ELENA: Elena could see her sister was distressed, nor did those crocodile tears escape unnoticed. "Please don't cry, Katie," the older van Helsing girl approached her sister, hoping to lend a comforting hand. Elena might be angry at Ekaterina but she couldn't bear to disappoint her. Or anyone, really. The last thing she wanted to think about was how disappointed her uncle and the entirety of the van Helsing clan would be if they knew what she had just said. It would kill Dyadya. Or at the very least, make him burn down a village of were-things. She longed to be accepted by all, to be loved by all. Elena knew it was against her upbringing, and all her family stood for, to want to befriend the very people she was supposed to kill; she was disappointed to discover that it was never as black-and-white as her family had always led her to believe. It was easier to stake a vamp you hadn't grown up with, or to throw holy water in the face of a creature whose name you didn't even know.

"But Katie--they're, like, so nice, sometimes! Like, your roommate is a werewolf, and she's totally a sweetie! And, y'know, Leticia wasn't always a vampire! How can I kill someone who used to be a normal girl?" Ellie looked at her sister expectantly, as if maybe Kate would give her the answer she sought.

"I hate that, like, everyone is suspicious of me just because I'm a van Helsing! The Gothics asks me if I'm just using, like, slayer tricks!" Ellie's earrings bobbled as she shook her head from side to side in protest. She wasn't delusional: she could never be that clever or that patient! She waved her arms in a motion of defeat. "Why can't I just be, like, nice to people? Isn't that easier?"

EKATERINA: She seemed to bristle instinctively when approached, a sudden and almost-tangible wall of physical space erecting itself between the sisters. Kate withdrew; Kate fell back. "My roommate's a bitch, not a sweetie," she managed to mumble, her tone heavy and unhappy -- they could argue all they liked over details and minutiae, but something jagged was starting to stir deep in her chest, and she didn't like the feeling. It was the distinctly rancid taste of betrayal. And betrayal for what, over whom? Werewolves. Vampires. Stupid sea beasties. Asshole demons and creepy vampires. In Kate's alcohol-blinded, rage-myopic state, all she could see was the undisputed fact that her sister was not siding with her -- and instead with people who, yes, actually seemed quite normal and kinda decent and almost-likable now that she'd started talking to them regularly, but she didn't like thinking about that.

There was an uncommunicative gap between them and her sudden silence -- muscles winding up tighter and tighter -- seemed to indicate that. So Kate settled for the only other option which would make her feel better. She punched Ellie in the face.

ELENA: Immediately, Ellie let loose a string of violent swears which others would take care to notice would not usually pass from her lips unless she were extremely angry. And boy, was she angry. "YOU FUCKING SLUTWHORE BITCH," she shrieked, all the while clutching a hand to her face. "You punched me! You actually punched me!"

With her free hand, she slapped angrily in her sister's direction, without taking care to ensure that she might actually hit her. Ellie drew her hand away from her face. "Omigod, am I bleeding? You bitch!" And without caring that she was getting blood all down the front of her dry-clean only top, Ellie threw herself at her sister once more, with nails aimed to scratch and hands prepared to slap as hard as possible.

EKATERINA: And like two squabbling cats, they soon turned into a screaming hissing clawing pile of nails and flying hair and raked flesh, rolling over each other on the ground. Combat finesse and technique flew right out of the window, somewhere between Kate pinning her sister and tugging her hair, and Ellie knocking her sister back against one of the tables of punch. They were so absorbed in the fight, they... never even noticed when the cell phones came out and started recording.