Again and Again {OPEN}

[ESCA ♥ BRIGANTES]

Everything had changed. A year ago, on this very spot, people bustled and hustled their
way onto rushing square looking for the next great hook up. Teachers stood idle around the
perimeters, some joining in on the fun and others watching and waiting for an out of hand
student to drag away. Staff were trying hard to keep up with the hot rhythm of the plaza
hoping that no one damaged property and watching the consumption of alcohol in case it
was getting passed along to minors. There were plenty of teenagers holding hands, kissing
and making or breaking their lives with each step.

It was a busy place, a popular place. The night was special and young. They called it the
solstice ball. Every year when fall hit the right time and touched hands with winter the
ball took place in rushing square. The ball had always been in some fancy ballroom within
school walls, but the fraternities and sororities of St. Gabriel wanted their shot of making a
memory that would last a lifetime. He wanted a shot at making the memory of a lifetime…

Without a hitch the solstice masquerade took over the plaza and the place was alight with
winter wonder. While it was cold, there were a few of those elementals who worked their
magic to keep it warm. Lights were strung up and big white decorations hung above the
plaza’s main square. Everyone had decked themselves out in something beautiful and
extravagant in hopes that they’d stand out for this one magnificent night. Sadly for them,
there was only one girl who could be the Belle of the Ball.

Her name was Katie Collins and the moment she walked out onto the floor was the moment
that made a lifetime. Now a year later, on this very spot, Esca stood staring at the point in
time which he had knelt down and surrendered his entire life for one woman. There wasn’t
a second that he regretted it. That was the woman he would have spent his life with, but
everything had changed.

A lifetime had passed since that day and while it had only been a year to the world, Esca
felt the full toll of time on his life. The anniversary of the ball had come and although the
school stopped having it after the murders and deaths of a few students, he was still there to
recognize the moment in time which changed him forever. With tenderness he left a blood
red rose on the very point which he knelt. It was there that he looked up into her eyes and
saw an entire legacy with her. Only now did he realize how futile those hopes were and how
hazy the future had become. The smell of whiskey was sharp in the air as he whipped out a
flask and took a swig from it. That’s what life had resorted to. His bitterness had resolved
into a bit of a drinking habit, but his brotherhood saw it as fighting flavor in the house of
the noble and courageous.

Walking back to the brothers who had been there since his arrival at the academy, Esca
took one look back at the rose. For a moment, a blissfully painful moment he swore he saw
her. Squatting down to pick up the rose, her cream colored hand and pretty pale hair
blowing in the wind. She was smiling sadly and with a blink of her blue eyes and blink of
his she was gone. Another swig and he was back to whatever work he had distracted
himself with.

The letters lay idly on their makeshift stands in the grass already coated once with the
shade of blue that signified sigma nu zeta and awaiting a newer coat that would stand the
test of weather. The reverberated with the sound of rattling as he shook up the can,
staring at the letters blankly, consumed by the mechanized functions of his work. Leaning
down he began spraying keeping the paint in the wind and off of his clothes. With each
spritz he was lost in another memory. Smelling her perfume again. Seeing her smile again.
Kissing her again. Again and Again and Again, because the lifetime of pain never ended,
because the sorrow never left and because somewhere out there the bastard that took her
life was still alive and Esca wanted nothing more than to shove a stake through his heart
himself.

[MARGO ♥ REINHART]

Walking down the streets, Margo wasn't sure if she was awake or not. Dominated by a feeling where Margo thought she was drunk, but had never taken a sip in her life, Margo walked with her hands shoved in her sweater pockets and tucking her face into her scarf. It had been colder than usual today and finding herself still an awkward stick in the sand that was the island, Margo forced herself out of her room to take an actual look at the town.

It was very much like a movie, a bunch of super imposed pictures with a soundtrack. Her earphones sang to her silent Carpenter songs and the more she walked, the more she looked around but never saw. She was failing in her attempt to actually see the island. Instead of looking and remembering places with her eyes, Margo let the music take control of her thoughts. The song she was currently listening to made her smile just a bit. Goodbye to Love. Margo was never the romantic time so not having a boyfriend didn't bother her, but her parents were worried and just to play around with them Margo would walk around the house singing the song and send her mother and father into a frenzy.

"If you even think about buying a cat, call me and I'll schedule a date for you." Her mother had told her, with a funny little twinkle in her that said she was joking but the joke was allowed to be taken seriously if necessary.

Smiling as she shoved her face deeper into her scarf, Margo tried her best not to drop into the well of depression she had just recently gotten out of. Enrolling into St. Gabriel was supposed to be a place of comfort, a place where Margo would not focus so much on the dark thoughts about the death of her parents.

Taking out her earphones with a sigh that said "that's enough" Margo stopped walking and finally began to look at the town. Her eyebrows arched in surprise when her eyes landed on a rose on the floor. Looking around to find not a single rose bush in sight, Margo walked up to the rose and leaned down to inspect it. Walking around in a daze, not really noticing her surrounding it was strange that the very first thing that caught her eye was something that was on the floor.

It's pretty. She told herself as she reached out to touch it, but before she could her ear caught a familiar and annoying sound. Standing up with a sigh, leaving the rose alone, Margo turned towards the sound and found a man shaking a can of spray can. Seriously?

"What are you doing?" She asked with annoyed curiosity. She wasn't able to see what the man was using the spray paint for, but after all vandalism was vandalism. "Vandalism is a crime you know." After she said it, Margo realized that spray paint didn't always involve vandalism. For all she knew, he could have been spraying something saintly for his church.

[ESCA ♥ BRIGANTES]

It wasn’t a busy day; it never was a busy day at Sigma Nu. There were numerous things that Esca
could have done instead of work on some rickety details on the new house. Sigma Nu Zeta had
inherited the centuries old headmistress’s house which was well kept for and a bit grandiose for his
taste, however as Vice President he really couldn’t complain. It was a large space for the small
amount of members that they had and in his position he didn’t really handle a lot of the work that
the president or the treasurer did. He wasn’t riddled with the annoyance of recruiting nor did he
have to struggle with controlling the finances. He, in his own right, could have done whatever
pleased him. Still the house’s Greek letters weren’t handling the weather very well and a few dry
mornings and a couple overheated nights had led to the chipping of the paint. So Esca did the right
thing and replaced the letters with newly crafted ones ready to be coated with the next layer.

Before he was halfway finished a voice interrupted his thoughts. The spraying stopped and he
turned around to peer curiously at his intruder. The look on his face was interpretable. It was
anything from sheer annoyance to the typical incredulous gaze he gave anyone. He gestured
behind him with the can pointing at the half painted letters, the first coat had already been laid
and luckily he wouldn’t have to continue right away to keep it all even. “Well first of all, I wouldn’t
vandalize my own property, seeing as I live here.” He capped the can before crossing his arms. The
slight haze of spray had speckled some of the paint onto his hands and arms, dabbling at his clothes
in the process. It wasn’t much and to Esca it wasn’t anything, the clothes he wore were simple and
saw some good line of work. The cuffed and faded faux denim button up was nearly white with wear
in and his slim fit jeans were dabbled with the stains of grease and grime from dock working. The
addition of the fair blue paint, crisp as the color of his own eyes, was not an inconvenience as one
would conceive.

“I’m going to assume you’re not blind.” He said with a taunting smirk and a shake of his head. Esca
was always one for the blunt and obvious. If anyone had the nerve to confront him about the way he
did his work and march up to assume some ridiculous notion, he wasn’t going to take them seriously.
“I’m also going to assume you’re fairly educated. These are Greek letters and as you can see we’re the
only house on Greek row that doesn’t have them up.” With a span of his arm he gestured down the row
which contained an array of different houses. From the Alpha Phi Gamma sisterhood to the Sigma
Phi Epsilon brotherhood, all of them were there. As he had stated each house on the front carried
their Greek letters in their respected colors. Whether they were posted above the columns or on
their front doors, the houses had them.

Except for, as he said, Sigma Phi Epsilon house. Instead above the columns where they should have
been, a faint outline of the letters was present. It was a little spot devoid of dirt and sun bleaching
and hinted that something had been there before. “Just because I’m a guy and I’m spray painting
doesn’t mean I’m vandalizing anything, you should really put a check on those assumptions before
you offend somebody.” Uncapping the canister, Esca uncrossed his arms and turned his back to her. With a quick intake of breath and a raise of his brows, he deduced to himself that she must have been
one of those uppity girls on campus who was a doozy in their own rights. He went back to work
spraying down the letters to finish the second coat, once that coat was dry he’d start on a third and
then coat it with a nice weather seal. “If you took one minute to look by the way, it would have saved
you the accusatory breath.”

“The letters are on stands and it’s not touching the building. I hardly see how that could have been
mistaken for vandalism.” The Boston Faery was almost done with the zeta and if he was lucky he’d
be able to get the letters up where they belonged before nightfall. Assuming everything dried the
way it was supposed to, Esca would get them up there.

[MARGO ♥ REINHART]

From the moment the man turned around to give her a questionable look, Margo noticed what he was spraying behind him. Margo dug her face deeper into her scarf and breathed in shame as she mentally scorned himself. Figures, She said, staring at the Greek letters that were being kindly reconstructed behind the man. He is doing something saintly.

She moved to apologize, but stopped short when the man began talking. The more he spoke, the more surprised she was. She expected her eyebrows to be skyrocketing up and down with each comment he had on her. He insulted in almost every way possibly, casually and nonchalantly. Still, she couldn't help but smile at the insults that she was so immune to. Margo had been insulted before, but this was different. Amusing, even. It took all her self control to keep quiet without adding in a comment on her own, but in the end she stayed silent without even of breath of comments to interrupt his own.

When he finally finished, she nodded, lifting her face from inside the scarf and stared at him with her chin pointed slightly up. "Wow." She smiled, almost a smirk. "You are a feisty one." It felt strange to say all of this, mostly because it was something people had always told her. It was a bit refreshing to be on the opposite side of the fence.

"You would be wrong about being blind." She said, not in a literal way of course. "I am ever so horrible at paying attention enough that I could be called blind in some cases."

"But you're completely right." She admitted, still holding some pride in herself. "If I had paid more attention maybe I could have seen what you were doing." She used all her strength to say that it was his big head from seeing, but that wouldn't help her case at all.

"I have a bad habit of jumping in at the slightest clue without even knowing if its correct." That much was true. It was the reason Margo seemed to be a magnet for trouble."Next time I'll make sure me and my fairly educated self stop and observe."

She smiled again and lowered her face into her scarf again to warm herself up. Her cheeks burned red from the chilliness in air and she hoped and prayed he didn't see it as embarrassment.

"Normally, I would pay you back for your insults with my own, but you have SUCH a way of talking to a girl, I just had to agree with you." She said, her words practically dripping with sarcasm. "If there is any way I can get you forgive me for my quick-to-judge tongue, anything at all, just say so." She finally frowned, showing her slight annoyance for all of his insults. He had spoken down to her and although it had been amusing at his, it was something that bothered Margo to the extreme."Your majesty."

[ESCA ♥ BRIGANTES]

It was already a tender day for Esca. Laying down the rose was hard enough and
his feelings were still a bit raw from the remembrance of Katie. All in all, he was
still angry feeling the repercussions of the lost love and the bitterness from
knowing it was his fault that she was murdered. After he’d taken a few moments
to vent his frustration out over the intrusion, he half expected her to leave. Of
course when she hadn’t he wasn’t surprised either. It didn’t seem that women,
had it in their repertoire to keep their comments to themselves, they always had
to end up being the last one with the last say. He’d never understand it, but he
accepted that she wasn’t going to leave and that of course she was going to make
some sly and delightful comments in return.

“This is the house for those with fighting spirits.” He remarked in return rolling
his eyes with the full knowledge that she couldn’t see him. Esca was normally a
friendly person, but with only two semesters ahead of him he was getting anxious
to get away from the younger generations of St. Gabriel. He sprayed the third coat
of the blue pain onto the letters, careful not to get too much on the back edges. The
sooner he could get the letters up on the house the better and if he could finish this
job sooner that meant less time for him to contemplate spraying the girl just for
giggles.

Before the thought could become serious Esca put a cap on the blue spray paint and
tossed it back into the maintenance box which carried most of the paints and such
for the maintenance of the house. There was still some down time before the third
coat would be fully dry and unfortunately he’d have to face the ‘do-gooder’ if he was
going to at least seem civilized. It had gotten a little chilly and with a quick look at
his watch he didn’t see the point in rushing with the letters. “Well there’s no use in
us bickering out here, just wasting warmth.”

He gave her a quick look over as if torn on the decision he was about to make, but
with a half-in, half-out look he figured it really wouldn’t kill him to be nice. “The
mainfrontroom is for guests anyway and we’ve got a fireplace. I’m Esca, Vice President
of Sigma Nu Zeta House. If you’d like to come in, be my guest, but I’m sure you’re big
fuzzy scarf and all that hot air you’re letting out will keep you warm either way.” Esca
could have argued all day long, but like most people he had better things to do than sit
around and bicker in the cold.

With a swoop he took up the box of supplies he had tossed the paint into and made a
mental note that he’d have to come back outside later to paint on the thin coat of
enamel. He didn’t wait for her to find her legs and was quickly to the front door
which he propped open with a nudge of his shoulder. He set down the box next to the
door and checked the thermostat for the house. It was as warm as he hoped and most
of the occupants were either still snoozing or off doing their daily routine. He’d leave
the door open for another second more and then he’d shut it.

[MARGO ♥ REINHART]

By this time, embarrassment with a dash of annoyance had already melted and left Margo to being just herself again. Her shoulders relaxed and her breathing came back from unconsciously being held in. "Fighting spirit fits you." She said in a completely dull voice, as if all the bickering had come to end and she was just bluntly telling him the truth--which she was. He had been a weird kind of fighting spirit, but he was still a fighting spirit.

After that she had stayed silent, watching him as she dug her face further into her scarf. Watching him, she wondered what kind of person he was. He was out in the cold doing his saintly deed but he seemed a little tired, not from the painting but from something. Margo would argue that it was because of her, but even before she started talking to him he looked upset. It was one of the reasons she thought he had been vandalizing, from the shallowness of the pool.

At the sound of his voice her head popped out of her scarf, as if she had been caught invading someone's privacy. She just nodded at him, finding it odd that she didn't have anything to say. She was a little annoyed at the fact that she didn't talk to people unless it had been a sharp tongue in an argument or trying to scare someone off. She had only hoped that one day she would be able to engage in a normal conversation.

She was surprised when he offered a place to warm herself up. He backed it up with a comment about being full of hot air but she didn't mind that. It made her smile again. She didn't answer him though, seeing as though it didn't seem right. She watched him gather his things and begin to walk off towards the building. She stood where she was for a moment, glued to the ground. Her eyes flew to the fresh paint on the wall, but then moved to the first thing that had caught her interest.

The rose.

Turning to see if it was still there, she felt a ping of happiness when she found that it still was. It had been so perfectly cut and had been laying there so gently that she felt that it had been there for a reason. She almost wanted to stand there and watch it, become its personal bodyguard and make sure no one stepped on it. The lonely beauty.

Hearing the door of the building open, she looked to the man named Esca, to the rose, and surprisingly enough she quickly jogged over to the building for a reason unknown even to herself. She would just convince herself later that it was because she was cold.

Running inside, Margo nearly found tears in her eyes from the warmth. She hugged her arms and let the heat sink in for a moment before she unwrapped the scarf around her neck and just let it hang from her shoulders. "I didn't expect you to invite me in Esca, Vice President
of Sigma Nu Zeta House." She said, her eyes running up and down the house. She had liked seeing new things, even if it was just a new building or room. "I'm Margo. Full of hot air and I'm afraid doesn't hold any title but cashier."

"If I was rude to you, sorry." She added quickly, not used to apologizing unless it was sarcastically. "Also, for calling you a criminal when you clearly aren't." She smiled trailing her eyes over the fire place. "Unless you turn out to be a psychopath who looks completely normal. Like those movies where the harmless and nice neighbor ends up being the murderer." She joked of course, in high hopes of not making the man more annoyed than he already was. She would leave soon, for some reason she just didn't want to leave now.