Victor slid down the banister into the front foyer, humming to himself. He had yet another tune stuck in his head - and he wasn't quite sure from where. Skidding to a halt in front of the hallway mirror and looked at himself, and flashed his award-winning smile. He straightened the collar of his dark green button-down silk shirt, twisting to give the rest of his reflection the once-over. Just another day in the ‘life’ for him.

“Don’t worry, your ass looks smashing in those pants.” Muse appeared, leaning against the wall by the stairs. “But, really, vinyl? I thought that went out of style with my generation.”

“Gah!” Victor yelped. “Man, girl, seriously - you really - really gotta stop doing that." He wondered if he could suffer a heart attack as a vampire. Probably not, but he wasn't looking forward to testing the theory.

“Sorry, you think you’d get used to it.” Amusement glittered in her eyes. He suspected she really actually enjoyed scaring the crap out of him. He didn't totally blame her, he spent his time getting his jollies doing weirder things.

Victor shrugged - the momentary frustration vanishing as quickly as it came. He tended not to hold grudges. “Yeah, you think I would. Hey, it’s good to see you finally come downstairs! Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been sulking.”

“Why?” Victor blinked.

“The whole... weirdness with Aaron. Hey, Vic? I have a favor to ask.” He watched as she started nervously fidgeting with her necklaces, twisting the chain around in her fingers. Victor frowned slightly. Whatever she was going to ask, she didn’t want to.

“Anything for you, babe.”

“Don’t tell Aaron I’m dead.”

Victor slapped a hand over his face and let out a low sigh, running his hand back over his hair. Great. That’s all they needed. Aaron was a big, creepy freak with a very, very short fuse. If he found out that Muse was lying to him, all unholy hell would break loose. Literally.

“Why haven’t you told him? How hard is it to say - ‘Hey, watch this’ and go through a table?”

“It’s... complicated.” She slouched, staring at the floor. Victor wasn’t exactly the brightest one in the building, but he knew she was hiding something. He’d pry it out of her, but the girl looked upset enough as it was.

“Fine... fine... I won’t tell him.” Victor reached out and placed his palms on either side of her face and tipped it up to look at him. She felt warm against his hands, even though he knew better than to think it was real. Trying to look as serious as he physically capable of doing, he met her blue eyes. “But you know he’ll find out eventually.”

He let go of her head as she lowered it again, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I know. And trust me, you’ll know when I do.” Christ, she was cute.

“Awww, c’mere...” Victor reached out and pulled her into a hug, resting his cheek against the top of her head. She really was warm. That was odd. He wondered how that was. But enough of this moody shit. He was in a good mood, and he knew exactly what would fix hers. Victor jumped back and turned to the side, grinning wide at her. “Hey, do you think these pants are okay or should have I gone with leather?” Victor said, turning again to look at his reflection. He flicked at his shirt, brushing off a piece of lint.

Muse laughed, the smile lingering. His pride puffed up as he successfully cheered her up, if even just a little. “Leather pants and a silk shirt? Ew. No. Those pants are fine.” She made a face. “So you’ve got a hot date?”

“Nah, going clubbing." Victor picked at one of his teeth. He knew he was attractive. He had always known he was attractive. It was more of a game to him than anything else, truth be told. He wondered if Muse thought he was a complete egotistical prick and found himself truly hoping she didn’t.

"Again?” Muse gestured for him to turn around. Smiling, he did so.

Taking hold of his shirt, he watched her reflection as she began straightening it out in the back. He stood there with his arms out slightly as she tucked his shirt in. He relished in the attention.

“What club?”

“Oh, some silly vampire club. It’s fun. Little cliquey, but, whatever. Free food.” Victor flashed his fangs. He finally asked what he had been wanting to ask for a while. “Hey, Muse, you oughta come!”

“To a vampire bar?" She looked unsure, scrunching her nose up in an expression he couldn't help but find adorable.

“Yeah!”

“I’m not a vampire. And I don’t think I’d make a good... uh.. ‘party favor’ either...”

He snorted and shook his head, and hopped up and down on his feet. “It’ll be fine, you should come! The music is totally right up your alley,” he said with another broad grin.

“Vampires listening to Depeche Mode and The Cure. Yeah... we’ve come a long way." Muse shook her head, her blue bangs falling in front of her face. "Rain check, next time."

“Awwww, Muuuuse,” Victor whined and kept swaying from one foot to the other, looking down at her with his best pitiful puppy dog expression.

“No, I promised I’d play poker with Eric and Mal."

“But Poker’s laaaaaaaaame,” Victor whined again, pouting.

Muse winced at the note that he reached with his whine and punched him in the arm. Victor grumped and reached out, and tousled her hair with both hands. He loved to get into these kinds of matches, and it was a rare thing to find a girl who would play along. “Aughk! Hey!” Muse squeaked and went for retaliation, only to have Victor jump back, both hands in the air.

“Hey, hey, now, don’t muss the shirt. I’ve reached a level of perfection here, y’know. It’s hard work.”

Muse snorted and ran her hands through her hair. “Yeah, yeah, well, I’m still not going.”

“Friday.” Victor pointed at her.

“Deal. Friday.” Muse smirked and folded her arms. “I’ll try not to get you beat up.”

Victor laughed and checked his reflection again in the mirror before heading out the door. “Oh!” he called, and fished a pair of car keys out of his pocket, jingling them as he poked his head back in. “Tell Eric I borrowed his car. Bye!” Before Muse could respond, he shut the door.

“Oh God," he heard her muffled groan, and it just made his grin all the wider.

Muse walked up the stairs, an action she still wasn’t used to. Walking up stairs was far more annoying when you had the choice to just drift through them. But, she didn’t want to take any chances floating through random parts of the house like she was accustomed to doing, in case she happened across Aaron at the wrong moment. She wound up on the second floor to Isaac's study. She examined the wood, trying to decide whether or not this was a smart idea. Grunting once, she finally knocked quietly on the door.

“Come in," came his simple reply.

Walking in, she quietly shut the door behind her. She found Isaac standing in front of one of his bookcases, thumbing through a book. By the narrowed expression on his face, he wasn’t finding what he was looking for. Abruptly snapping the book shut, the sound startled her. She laughed at herself silently for being so wound up. Isaac slipped the book back onto a vacant slot between two other volumes.

Muse watched, really not sure how she was going to start this conversation. He broke the silence first as he searchingly ran his fingers along the leather spines.

“Yes?” he said without looking.

“I, uh, I have a weird favor to ask."

“Oh, hello Muse.” Isaac turned his head briefly towards her, then went back to what he was doing. “I didn’t realize it was you. You don’t knock, and I’ve never known you to use a door. What’s troubling you?”

It took her a moment to work up the nerve to ask, but her resolve failed halfway through her sentence. “I was hoping if you, well…”

“Wouldn’t tell Aaron that you are not of the living?” Isaac finished.

“How’d you guess?”

“It was easy to tell that you hadn’t told him. I can understand why - what with it raising uncomfortable questions about what caused the unusual happenings in the house. And because it means that you were lying to him.” Isaac put the book back on the shelf. He tapped his chin lightly as he thought.

“Not by choice - and I haven’t lied,” Muse said shortly. “I just haven’t told him the whole truth, is all.”

“So soon she learns." He sounded amused.

“Oh, oh no - don’t put me in the same boat as you, Sparky."

“Sparky?” That caught his attention. Isaac blinked and turned to face her, a quizzical look on his sharp features. “Did you just call me Sparky?”

“Yep. Sparky.”

“First ‘Champ’ and now ‘Sparky.’ Mm... hmm.” That seemed to catch him for a long moment. “You still at times escape my logic.” Isaac shook his head, walked to his wooden chair and sat down, swiveling it about to face the desk. Muse could almost see the light bulb switch on over his head as Isaac started to shuffle through the papers with renewed interest. Finding what he was looking for, he picked up his pen and began to write on another piece of paper. The conversation was clearly over.

Muse walked to the door, finding that she was smiling in spite of herself. He was a quirky s.o.b, that was sure. She was starting to get used to Isaac, and it was getting harder to hate him. She didn't like him, but she found herself not despising the thought of him - even if it was ‘his way or no way’ at all times. She shrugged it off and headed to the door. “‘Night,” she said as she walked out. Isaac merely grunted quietly in reply as she shut the door.

Muse started walking toward the attic. She looked around down the stairs for anyone, and then opened the door to the attic stairs with a loud creak. The noise startled her - she hadn't ever heard the door before, what with her never having actually used it.

“Muse?”

She turned around quickly to see Aaron standing at the end of the hallway. His huge form filled the end of the hallway - she wondered if he had borrowed a shirt from Mal, as the simple black shirt was a size too large for him. “Where’re you going?”

“Oh. Uhn. The attic,” Muse said with a weak smile.

“Why?”

“I... hang out up there.”

“Again, why?” Aaron said, a small chuckle in his voice.

“Keeps me out of foot traffic,” she said without thinking. He blinked at her and she quickly stammered. “I mean, it’s a quiet place. Lots of neat books. Records. Comic books. It’s my little tree house.”

Aaron nodded after a second. “I understand. ... I used to try to hide from Isaac too." His scarred features perked up slightly as he processed what she said. "Comic books?”

“Yeah, you want some?” She motioned for him to follow her up the narrow wooden staircase. She climbed up and heard his heavy footfalls as he followed her.

Aaron climbed up through the floor, brushing his long curly brown hair back away from his face as he climbed to the top. She had put out a table that she had found out to one side, a few books laying stacked atop it. She had hung up a few of the more interesting paintings, placed a few sculptures of long-dead little-known historians, poets or musicians about.

Muse had even pulled a sofa up the stairs weeks prior - much to Eric’s dismay, who happened across a floating sofa at two in the morning - and it sat against one wall. An old vinyl record player sat on top of a stack of boxes, next to a bookshelf that she had placed various records, stacks of music scores, books, and other strange things she had taken a liking to.

“Do you sleep up here?” Aaron asked, walking across the floor, ducking his head under a wooden beam.

“Eh... no," Muse lied. "I spend most of my time here, though." Muse flopped down on the sofa. She still didn’t understand exactly why she rearranged the room – she guessed it was out of a need to feel some sort of connection to the place. It was nice to feel like she 'owned' something, even if nothing up here was actually hers.

Aaron nodded once, turning over in his head what was going on. He began asking her a question, but looking down at a box sitting beside the table, his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by what he saw. “Hey!” With a laugh he reached down, pulling out a stack of comic books. “I haven’t seen these in, hell, years.” He started to flip through them, a broad smile across his face.

Muse watched the joy cross his features as he searched through them. He seemed so childlike sometimes. “How’re you doing?” Muse asked after a few moments.

Aaron settled down onto the sofa, taking in the faded color of the old comics in his lap. His hair was hanging down, half obscuring his face. As he curled himself over slightly, he seemed to almost shrink. She wondered how someone so big could make himself seem so small. It took him a long time to respond. “The same as you are, I imagine... stuck here. Because of Isaac. I'm not... I’m not happy about it.”

“Yeah...” She leaned over his shoulder as he settled on an old installment of 'The Flash.' She wanted to change the subject quickly - she saw what Aaron had done in the hospital - something she desperately wanted to ask him about. You can’t ask him for the truth when you’re lying, she reprimanded herself as she found another topic. “I’m more of an X-men girl myself.”

“What? Oh.” Aaron laughed. Muse seemed to be able to pull him out of his funk. “I have a bunch of those around here somewhere. I’m surprised Isaac kept them.”

“I don’t think he really knows what’s up here,” Muse shrugged. “Better for me, keeps me occupied. I like to dig through the boxes up here and see what I can find. Found some neat books, old VHS tapes. I'm kind of afraid to find out what's on them."

“Mm.” Aaron leaned back on the sofa and it creaked lightly. “I don’t understand why you’re here, Muse.”

“I like the quiet.”

“No, not the attic... I mean... here... with all of them.”

“Isaac has something of mine,” Muse said after a moment of debating the best way to phrase it.

“No, I mean, why... why does he care?”

“Care is a poor choice of words.”

“Yeah, but, why you? Why’d he pick you? What's so special about you?”

Crap... She had absolutely no way of answering that. She sat there unable to answer, staring at Aaron uselessly as thoughts flew through her mind, but none of them were any good. She opened her mouth to stammer out a lame reply when she heard the latch to the attic door swing open. They both looked over as Isaac climbed to the top of the narrow stairs. "Speak of the devil," Muse said with an ironic smile, although in truth she was relieved - she didn’t think she’d ever be happy to see that man.

Isaac looked surprised to see Aaron sitting there. “Oh. Hello, Aaron. Hm. I like what you’ve done with your room, Muse.”

“So… this is your room,” Aaron said to her, his eyes narrowed.

She stammered uselessly for a moment. “I… okay, fine..”

“You lied.”

“I’m in an attic. It’s embarrassing.”

Muse had never thought she would have been happy for Isaac’s constant orders, but she felt relief flood her as Isaac cut off the conversation abruptly. “Come, it’s time for us to go.”

"Us?" Muse asked curiously.

"I have just discovered the location of something that is of importance to me. I am sorry I did not mention this to you when we just spoke. We're going to go fetch it. Now," Isaac finished.

"Right now."

"Yes," Isaac pushed his glasses up his nose slightly with a shove of his ring finger. "In this particular matter, I am impatient. Aaron, you are coming along."

"No," Aaron growled, standing up, dropping the comics next to him. "I don't work for you. You can't order me around."

Isaac shut his eyes, taking a moment, and then reopened them. "I do not have time to argue this. Very well. You may stay," he said bitingly.

Muse watched the muscles in Aaron’s neck spasm as he clenched his jaw tight. He grunted, forcing himself to relax and restrain the obvious temptation of pounding Isaac's head into the wall. She knew the feeling.

"Come along, Muse."

Muse got up off the couch. “Sorry, big guy..." Muse turned and headed for the stairs, almost too excited to get out of the room and away from the conversation. She ducked under Isaac’s arm as he lifted it in surprise to get out of the way of her speedy exit. Isaac turned to leave, turning his attention from her back to the other man.

“You do not know who you’re ‘friends’ with, Aaron.” Isaac climbed down the stairs and left Aaron sitting in the attic, alone.