It made her feel good that Victoria could make Kait laugh. She liked the sound of it. Though she didn’t mean to make the other girl spill her drink while filling her glass.

Kait’s questions directed to the silly word Victoria used made her blush badly. She almost felt embarrassed that she even said it. “I don’t know. I just thought…it sounded like a silly word fancy people would say?”

Red eyes looked down to the sandwich in her hand and fiddled with it nervously.

The redhead finished her first bite, then put on her best high society fancypants voice: “I say, so it does!” She smiled. “Harumph!”

Holding her pinky out, she made a show of swirling the fizzy grape juice in her wine glass, then sniffing it, before taking her first sip. She kept the fancypants voice going: “Two thousand twelve was an excellent vintage for bubbly grape juice. Wouldn’t you agree, my dear?”

Hearing Kait’s altered voice made Victoria look up at the girl. She couldn’t help but snicker before busting into a laugh. She felt suddenly better and the nervousness dissipated.

Picking up her own glass and giving it a little sniff Victoria put out her pinky again. Her voice also turning to the fake fancy tone. “Why yes! I do agree. It goes fantastically well with this delightful finger food.” Taking a sip of her drink she suddenly found all of this incredibly funny and nearly shot fizzy grape juice through her nose, but managed to keep it down.

Kaitlyn’s laughter subsided into a warm smile.

After a few moments of silent eating, she cleared her throat. “So, uh… I know Serena helps you with the blood thing now, but…” She reached into the basket, taking out a full pack of blood, and another clean glass. “I thought you might want to have this too. Unless it would be weird.” Kaitlyn was ambivalent about bringing the blood pack. Victoria had made a big deal out of keeping her craving secret; she might be ashamed of it, or it might make her uncomfortable to feed in front of others.

On the other hand, it seemed like a nice gesture. And Victoria could drink it out of a wine glass. It would look kind of like red wine, too, which would make it classy.

Red eyes looked up from the picnic setting to meet Kait’s own hazel eyes. The topic didn’t really make Victoria uncomfortable herself. If anything she was more worried how Kait felt about Serena being a source of nourishment now.

Seeing the blood pack was almost hypnotic as the blonde vampire watched it. Kait’s voice became slightly muffled, but Victoria could still tell what her friend was saying. A slight awkwardness ran through the girl for a moment, but only a moment as the pack’s contents were poured into another glass. She didn’t want to feed from the pack in front of Kait. Victoria almost thought of it as savage like if a wild animal were tearing into it’s prey. She didn’t want to appear that way to Kait. So when the crimson liquid was in the glass she smiled and politely reached for it.

Raising the blood filled glass in a proposed toast to her dearest friend Victoria smiled softly as if warmth was flowing through her. “It’s not weird, at least not with it in a fancy glass. It actually makes it less weird for me. Aitah Kait.!”

A decent sized sip from her glass to savor the taste and red irises began to glow. “You keep surprising me Kait. I want to do something special for you now.”

Setting down her glass Victoria began to sing to Kait. She only sang a few songs she knew from singing with her mother but she wanted to sing for her friend. Singing was something special she could do and she wanted to share it.

Kaitlyn definitely didn’t expect Victoria to start singing. Nor did she expect Victoria to be so good at singing. Even though Kaitlyn didn’t understand a single word Victoria was singing, she was entranced by the sound of her voice, hypnotized by the faint red glow of her eyes. She was so preoccupied with Victoria’s singing that she temporarily forgot that she was hungry, and that she could fix this by eating the sandwich in her hand.

When the song was over (or, at least, Victoria paused in such a way that made Kaitlyn assume the song was over,) she let out a burst of applause. “You have a great singing voice! I didn’t think --”

Crap. “Uh…” where was she going with that sentence? Kaitlyn was the one saying it, and she didn’t even know anymore. An awkward silence fell over them, during which Kaitlyn scrambled for the right words to say, her face rapidly turning pinker.

“…I mean, I liked it a lot."

A very happy and warm feeling swam through Victoria when Kait clapped and complimented her singing. She felt so good that what she shared with her dearest friend went over so well. It was also nice to hear such praises from someone other than her mother.

Victoria noticed the slightly confused expression as Kait didn’t know what was being sung. “Aitah! I’m sorry though. I’ll sing something you might of heard and you can understand better. I can sing in English and I can play some musical instruments too!” Wait here I’ll be right back!”

Quickly getting to her feet the small vampire ran inside the mansion to the music room and grabbed an acoustic guitar. Running back to Kait and their special picnic Victoria waited until her breathing calmed down before singing another song.

When she had finished still glowing red eyes looked to her companion hoping that was a better song. Nervous anticipation started rising up within.

She held her hands over her mouth when she saw the guitar. Gasp, big smile, suppressed giggles, bright blush. While Victoria was gone, Kaitlyn had figured out that she would come back with an instrument, and it would have to be something Victoria could carry back, like a guitar. But the expectation did little to dampen her excitement.

And just when Kaitlyn thought she couldn’t be any more impressed, Victoria actually started to play music. Those lyrics spoke to her. That voice hypnotized her. Those eyes stared into her soul. On top of that, Victoria was playing the acoustic guitar. Acoustic guitars make everything better.

By the time the song was over, Kaitlyn was swooning so hard her eyes were watering. “That was awesome!” Beyond that, words failed her, so she started clapping.

“Did you…” No, Victoria did not write that song. Victoria mentioned that Kaitlyn might have heard it before, meaning some famous person or another must have come up with it. “… I mean, what was that song called?”

The extremely visual excitement from Kait made getting the guitar all the more worthwhile. Victoria smiled and giggled back. Her own expressions coming from the joy Kait was showing. It felt good that someone liked her musical talents.

Plucking lightly at the strings on the guitar Victoria let her fingers remember how to play, but she kept the tones soft so she could talk with her dearest friend. Another giggle. “It’s called Imagine but I didn’t write it. It’s from a person named Jon Lemon. I just liked it so I wanted to sing it.” Taking a quick sip of crimson refreshment the blonde smiled again with another soft giggle. “I’m really glad you like my singing Kait!”

“I’m glad you sang for me,” Kaitlyn smiled.

Finishing her glass of fizzy grape juice, she sighed. “I wish we could live in a world like that, like in the song. Instead of the one we live in.” She wished that thought hadn’t occurred to her. Leaning back on her towel, she stared at the inky black void of New York City’s night sky. It was one of the first moments all night when she wasn’t smiling, not even a little.

“Did I ever tell you about—“ The redhead fell silent, instantly regretting that she said anything. She didn’t want to bring up bad memories, but it would feel even more uncomfortable to leave it at that and stop talking.

“…about the time I had to kill someone?” Those last words came out a little hoarse. She looked at Victoria, anxious to read her reaction.

Wouldn’t Victoria understand, though? She’d have to, with the stuff she had to do for blood to stay alive. Kaitlyn desperately hoped she was right about that, that she wasn’t about to destroy one of the best friendships she’d ever had.

A soft giggle escaped Victoria’s throat. I’m glad you liked me singing for you!

She listened to Kait while drinking the rest of her own refreshment. The tone of Kait’s voice sounded a bit sad, but the little vampire had a feeling it had something to do with more than how the weather was. She could guess with certainty it had to do with mutants in the world. “I liked that song because it made me dream of being able to be like other people if everyone was the same.”

Finishing her glass of blood she almost chocked for a moment. Kait had to kill someone? It must’ve been to protect herself. That made perfect sense so Victoria did her best to appear understanding. “No, you didn’t tell me. What happened?”

Kaitlyn sighed. Why did she have to go and bring this up? They were having such a nice time together, too.

“It was about a year ago. I was part of a… ugh.” She groaned, setting her glass on the floor and burying her face in her hands for a moment before she turned to look at Victoria. “I don’t even know what we were. I mean, there was this guy who could tell the future – he lead the whole thing – and another guy who could make you get addicted to just being around him, so we couldn’t make ourselves leave. And they kept telling us that we were trying to stop the apocalypse, but that was probably BS. And –“ she stopped.

She could keep rambling on about this all night, but she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to get this explanation over with as fast as possible.

“He made someone go crazy and try to kill this one group of people, just so they could watch me kill him first and get all impressed. So it was all part of some big, stupid show he tricked me into putting on.” Kaitlyn gave Victoria a pleading look, her eyes a lot more wet than she would have been willing to admit.

The story Kait told was a little confusing as Victoria wasn’t sure who the other people were, but what she did know was that they set Kait up into killing someone. That actually brought a frown to her pink lips. She felt so bad for Kait being forced into something like that.

Setting her drink down the vampire girl moved closer to her friend until they were close enough for Victoria to wrap her arms around Kait and pull the red head to her chest. Stroking her hand through soft red hair and gently resting her head against Kait’s. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I promise I won’t ever let anything happen to you again. I’ll protect you.”

Leaning back a bit to look down into Kait's eyes Victoria smiled cheerfully. "And if you're ever sad I'll sing you a song. Okay?!" A gentle giggle followed.

When their eyes met again, a teardrop was rolling down one of Kaitlyn’s freckled cheeks. She was wearing an uneasy smile, which turned slightly more sincere the longer they held eye contact.

As nice as it was to imagine Victoria keeping her safe, she knew it couldn’t work like that. What did she count as, again? A junior Order member? “Safe” couldn’t apply to people like her, especially not when they grew up. There were too many important, dangerous things that she felt like she was duty-bound to do, and too few alternatives she could imagine for herself in the future.

None of that made the gesture any less touching. For a terrified moment, after Kaitlyn was done with her story, she thought that she had made a huge mistake, that opening up to Victoria like that would scare her away. Instead, it gave Victoria the chance to show Kaitlyn how much she cared.

After a few moments of just staring into each other’s eyes, Kaitlyn took a deep, shaky breath. “Thanks.” She rested a hand on one of Victoria’s.

Had anyone been passing by they might’ve thought the girls were having a childish staring contest, but in reality they were looking into each others souls. Victoria held a soft yet reassuring smile for Kait the entire time. So when the ‘thanks’ came it was replied to with a bigger smile and a nod. "You're welcome Kait." Victoria carefully wiped away any tears from Kait’s face. The whole thing was a very touching moment.