-- AIN'T YOUR CUTE LITTLE SEX TOY && [hunter]

Stranger danger was not something that Annabel was incredibly paranoid about. She understood the common sense stuff about parties like not drinking anything that was left unattended and uncovered, that it was always best to avoid drinking anything you didn't bring yourself, but she convinced herself that the other people at the party were not bad. Alright, some of them looked incredibly shifty and others were smoking weed in one corner and laughing at things she wouldn't understand but not everyone was bad. After all, her friends were here. Emily and Jennifer were the two she knew best out of the group so far and they weren't bad people. So when Hunter approached her out of nowhere, drink in hand, the thirteen year old girl was completely unperturbed by his presence. She gave him a friendly and welcoming smile, approachable as always, and seemed briefly confused by the question. "I'm fine!" She might have been a little uncomfortable and out of place but her mood was as high as ever. It was hard to really bring the Water girl down. Probably why she was Water and not Fire. "Why? Do I look like I'm not?" She wasn't hostile in the least. On the contrary, Annabel sounded a bit puzzled. Had she looked too uncertain or something? Oops! She hadn't meant to display her doubtful thoughts on the surface but Annabel was pretty bad at hiding things. Her brother was a solid façade but her shield was poked full of holes. Like Swiss cheese or something else holy. An old sock or something.

Annabel had absolutely no idea what Hunter was up to. The girl was trusting and a tad naive at that, having never met someone with as ill intentions as his. He sounded considerate and so she was going to believe that he was until he proved her wrong. Her brother's warnings about guys like these did not cross her mind as she continued to smile, relaxed and nonchalant. The other boy had a drink but the smell of alcohol clung to the entire house so she didn't give much thought to how drunk he was or why he'd come to talk to the lonely girl on the couch. "I'm just waiting for my friend to get back, she probably got lost or something." Annabel rolled her eyes. Emily was a bit of a scatterbrain, apparently. It was foreign territory, though, this house. She guessed it made sense to be a little misplaced. "What about you? What are you doing over here?" She was innocently curious as she blinked at him and asked the question. The absolute lack of accusation in her tone and the friendliness that did lace it suggested that she was still unaware of his type. He looked scary and all but with a brother who was six foot three and scowling, Annabel had learned not to judge people on first impressions. There was a guy that worked at the tattoo parlour downtown with loads of piercings that had still seemed really pleasant when she'd met him once. Never judge a book by it's cover and all that. Maybe she should have at least looked deeper than the cover, though, to see that Hunter was not as genuine as he appeared.

[Your posts are fine as ever <3]

Annabel laughed, the sound soft as it left her lips. Was she doing something out of the ordinary, then? She felt self-conscious for a moment and shifted slightly but got over it quite quickly. She could do what she wanted, right? It wasn't like a bolt of karma lightning was going to strike her down because she sat on a couch at a party. Annabel was stubborn and it helped her to quickly accept that she was allowed to make her own way around the place. She was still regretting her choices, though, because she really, really felt out of place here. Everyone was doing things that she didn't do. She'd always been the sweet one, the innocent one. Sheltered, one could call it. Now was no different. "Guess I'm just a rebel, then," she joked. Her discomfort wasn't all that evident because it wasn't prominent. She was an adaptable person and tended to quickly adjust to awkward situations. It was what made Belle so good at socializing. She could turn an awkward moment into a good laugh and move on with her life. "Thanks." It was nice to know someone cared. Well, it was nice to think someone cared, which was exactly what Annabel was doing. She didn't realise that Hunter's intentions were negative. Not even when he offered her alcohol, to which she shook her head. "I'm good. Thanks for offering, though!" Genuine as ever, she'd just thanked the guy for trying to give her alcohol and get her drunk. Oh boy.

Would Emily really mind if Annabel got up and had some fun with other people? She frowned at the thought, considering this. The Earth elemental had seemed pretty adamant when she'd begged Belle not to go anywhere, apparently wanting to come back to someone familiar and stable, but she didn't know Em well. Maybe the girl had found some fun of her own. Maybe it would be alright. "I mean, I guess." The doubt was obvious because she still hadn't entirely made up her mind. "Not gonna lie, sitting around on my ass all day isn't very fun. I don't think that's what you're meant to do at parties, eh?" She laughed again, smiling. Parties were about partying, having fun with other people. Unfortunately, the other people she'd come here with the intention of having fun with had gone and left her all alone, a fish on a sandy shore. "But then what could I really do instead? There doesn't really look like much." Annabel shrugged, being honest. Maybe if she were drunk the party would have seemed way more stellar but she was kind of bored with it already. She liked video games but the television screen was dark. Apparently people were too busy shagging, drinking or drugging it up to busy with the games the place had to offer. Perhaps it didn't have any at all. That was kind of lame, if it were the case.

Annabel blinking at him, swallowing his words like the stupid and gullible fish swallows the worm on the hook. She still hadn't caught on to the fact that something else was at play yet. She probably wouldn't catch on until he did something obvious, because Belle had never been in a situation like this one before. Innocent and easy to trust in the good intentions of others. "Guess I wasn't," she admitted. Annabel wasn't in a bad mood but she would have been lying if she claimed that she was enjoying herself. She thought about his question and looked contemplative. "Well I dunno. What do you usually do at parties?" It might have sounded like a stupid question but really, this was all new to her. She knew what most people were doing but none of it was anything she wanted to do. Annabel wasn't blind or anything like that but this didn't look like a fun time. "I got dragged her by a bunch of friends but they all kinda split up and stuff." Stupid friends. She liked Jennifer and the gang well enough but she kind of wished they hadn't left her alone. Oh well. At least she had this guy now, and it was then she came to the realisation that she didn't know his name. "Oh, I'm Annabel. Who're you?" She tilted her head slightly at the question, a strand of hair falling out from behind her ear. She tucked it back behind with a smile.

[She's so naive and genuine I can't xD]

Hunter seemed like a pretty nice guy and so Annabel had no problem sitting and talking to him. If there were people like this at parties to meet and hang around with she supposed that they might not be so bad in moderation. She couldn't drink but she could socialize like a champion, right? He brother used to always tell her that her willingness to make new friends astounded him. That was flattering, she supposed, even if it was simply because he was so unapproachable. To hear that Hunter also liked meeting people made her blue eyes light up with a sort of satisfaction. Ooh, common ground! Annabel was far too fond of having a common interest with another person. It made talking so much easier. "Hey, me too!" she said with cheerful enthusiasm. "And hey, adventures are awesome. Never a dull moment!" It was actually one of her favourite things to do. Anything could be an adventure if you made it into one. Trying new things excited her. Alcohol didn't count, unfortunately for Hunter. She'd already tried that and she hadn't liked it very much. Too much burn and not enough good taste. She couldn't handle it well. "Parties seem like okay places for that I guess. There are definitely a lot of people around." She would have gone up and started conversations herself if most of them weren't standing around in groups and doing things that she was uncomfortable joining in on. Like drugs. Annabel was the type of girl that would approach the person sitting in the lonely corner of the room and try to make them feel better about themselves.

He asked her what she did for fun and she thought about that for a moment, thought about the things she liked. Two things came to mind immediately. "Well I like video games," she told him, for that was the default answer that she always adhered to. "Swimming, too." Right now she was a fish out of water but in the water she was like a fish, good at swimming as she was. Sometimes she fantasized about trying to swim for Olympic teams but she wasn't sure if she had the drive for that kind of thing. It wasn't like she'd made swimming competitions her life or anything like that, it was just a hobby of which she was fond. "Usually not this. Probably why my friends ditched." She laughed, shrugging. She tried not to allow things to bother her. Annabel didn't like being sensitive because it made her vulnerable and she hated that feeling. Vulnerability. Hunter apologised for her friends' behaviour and she smiled at him in thanks. "Your company is definitely nice," she assured him. "Way better than sitting alone and moping, y'know?" She hadn't been moping too much but she figured it was safe to use the word in conversation nevertheless. She glanced around to see if Emily was nearby, turning her attention back to the boy when she did not see her friend. Her loss. She wasn't too bothered because she'd found something to pass the time until her friend finally made her way back to the area anyway. "Your name is bad ass," she said, blue eyes glowing with some sort of admiration. It sounded cool. "And it's nice to meet you too!" Ah, if only she knew.

Hunter's assurance was confident but Annabel did not mind so much. If the guy thought he was cool then that was fine with her, she'd offer no argument at this point in time. He hadn't been half bad so far so maybe he was just speaking the truth. Annabel thought she was pretty awesome as well and so she could hardly contest his words without seeming like a huge hypocrite. "I guess we'll see about that, huh?" Her words were teasing as she smirked. They were not meant to offend but Annabel never assured anyone that she was only kidding around. If they couldn't tell that on their own with the Water girl smiling and looking cheerful then they needed to get their shit together and learn basic social cues. Her eyes lit up at the compliment, swallowing the bait with ease. She liked herself enough that she was willing to believe any sort of praise that people gave to her. She was not so self-absorbed that she would put herself on a pedestal above others or anything like that but if people complimented her of their own accord she was more than willing to believe them. "Hey, thanks. I try." She grinned on the last words, kidding. She didn't try too hard to be well-liked, it was more of a natural thing. Unfortunately for Annabel she sometimes attracted the wrong people to her. Sometimes, like in Hunter's case, it was also a different kind of attraction. The kind she did not want. Not a good thing, never a good thing. The girl's cheeks flushed pink when he called her pretty, not having expected that. She wasn't sure what to say to it, actually. She'd had people call her pretty before but it was usually her friends and family. "Oh, uh, thanks!" She sounded a tad flustered but still sort of grateful. It was nice to know that people thought you looked good, right?

Asking to play against her in a video game was a step in the right direction but it would require nothing short of a chasm-wide leap for the Fire elemental to get what he wanted. Annabel was still ignorant to what that want was, however, and so was not yet sensing that there was anything wrong. It probably would have been a good idea to get out of there as soon as possible but she was thinking about video games, not her own safety and security. "Oh, hell yeah!" she enthused. "They probably have something, I mean it's a pretty big house..." And she was already off the couch with those words and kneeling on the floor by the entertainment centre, looking in the space underneath the television for any sort of gaming system. Bingo! There was a 360 with three controllers simply begging to be put to use and when she opened one of the cabinets next to the system she found a multitude of games, from Call of Duty, Halo and Left 4 Dead 2 to a bunch of lesser known games of different genres and the like. Annabel's favourite games were first-person shooters anyway and so she looked at Hunter with a smirk. "I could probably kick your ass in any of these," she boasted, not short on confidence. "Sure you want to take me on?" She didn't notice the change in his expression, nor did she pick up on the fact that he didn't like his own name as much as she liked it. She liked her own, though, even though people had a bad habit of spelling it wrong. A lot. Oh well, she got over it after a couple of years in school and had adapted to telling people how to spell it when they had to write it down anywhere.

Challenging Annabel was usually met with the small blonde taking said challenge very seriously. She was competitive by nature and couldn't help herself from trying to beat everyone at everything and so on. She could do simple tasks with another person without feeling like it had to be a race but the moment some sort of verbal challenge was issues, she got serious. Blonde brows raised for a moment and she smirked at Hunter, clearly confident in herself. "Better watch how much you're bragging, then, 'cause I'll bet I can." She had a high horse of her very own and she wouldn't jump down until he did. She wasn't going to give up or give in until this challenge was over. If only she realised what Hunter's ultimate goal would be, she would have got up and left a long time ago. The pet name threw her off for a moment, made her uncertain, but she didn't show it and was able to brush it to the side after he didn't say anything else too out of the ordinary. He's just being nice. She hoped, anyway. She wasn't completely oblivious and so that had set off an alarm for a moment but she was also gullible and trusting enough that she could fall for the better intentions if she thought they were there. She was digging her own grave, really, and was completely oblivious to that fact as she got down by the video games and started to look through their titles to see what sort of games that they had.

Hunter sounded cocky and she wondered if he had much of a reason to be. Not as much as me, I bet. She was over-confident herself at times but Annabel was someone that could definitely be considered a gamer in the sense of the word that would be taken seriously. She would play games for a living if she could figure out a way to do such a thing. She played online among the really good players and managed to keep up through hours of practice and play. She felt she had a reason to be cocky about it. "I really think so. I own all these games, I play a lot." When you lived in a mansion with a huge television, multiple game systems and a huge collection of game titles, it was safe to assume you played quite a lot of video games or were otherwise a very wasteful person. Like her brother and his books, games tended to be what people defaulted to when buying her gifts. She wasn't complaining. "Hm. Well I don't know what I'd want you to do," she said thoughtfully, giving a grin that showed some tooth. "I mean, I'm the one who's gonna be winning the majority of the time, so." Definitely not short on confident. Definitely not. She wasn't very good at coming up with creative things. Again it was a challenge, though. "But hey, you can have your fun," she crowed. "If you do manage to beat me, we'll see what happens." She lifted her shoulders and dropped them in a shrug. She was very good at games and so she doubted she had much to worry about.

He was challenging her. With each word that he spoke, her conviction grew. She was going to best him if it was the last thing she did, at least she hoped. Only with Annabel, it was not hope. Not in her own mind. It was determination. If you went into something believing that you would lose, it was happening. If you went in with the self-assurance needed to win, you had a better chance of it. "I guess we will," she smirked, lifting her chin a little. She could keep up with him. She knew she could. In video games there was barely even a question and in all other areas she thought she was good and set as well. Childish naivete and a stubborn pride fuelled her. "Course I think highly of myself, I'm awesome," the girl crowed. She wasn't hesitant to brag if she thought it was a good time for it. She was cocky about her abilities. She didn't have the arrogance to hold it over the heads of people in a rude manner, per say, but she definitely didn't shy away from pointing out how great she thought she was. "'Sides, you're one to talk." Annabel smirked at him, amusement glimmering in her blue eyes. It wasn't an insult, she was just reminding him of the fact that he'd been bragging about himself earlier and she had not forgotten that. Ah, two people that thought they were the next best thing sitting in a room together and wanting drastically different things. It would have been helpful if she'd had psychic powers so she could see how it was all going to pan out before she got herself too far into things but the only powers she had were elemental.

Hunter handed her a controller and her expression shifted from serious and grinning to intense concentration, a glint in her eyes as she fixed them on the screen. "I'm always ready." All the bragging and boasting helped her to feel good about herself, to boost her confidence. Not that she was an insecure person by any means but she went from confident to over-confident this way. It seemed she had a reason to be confident after the first round, for she took Hunter down without too much of an effort. "Told you I was good," she said, nodding to back this up. And so it went for the next few rounds, Annabel gaining confidence a little too rapidly. Her own ego was her downfall for she stopped focusing so intently and lost rather spectacularly after that. "Well fuck." Thirteen (almost fourteen, as she told anyone who would listen) years old she may have been but like a lot of teenagers she had a mouth on her. She gamed a lot and all of her online friends cussed to make themselves sound cool at times so she'd fallen into the habit of parroting the curses they used. She wasn't ashamed of it. Looking at Hunter with reluctant acknowledgement, she admitted, "Okay, okay, ya got me. Your move." She didn't know what he was planning, viewed this more like a game of truth or dare than anything else, so she was not wary in the least. Instead she was just frustrated and exasperated by her loss.

[Moved it along so you had stuff to work off <33]