I'm just uploading this to see if anyone's interested in seeing more.

I wrote Red and Cursed-Cat from deviantart wrote Mike's/Vampir's side.

South Park smelt weird, he'd never really noticed it before but then his sense of smell was a lot better than it had been the last time he'd been here. A weird sort of cloying thing that wrapped, almost welcoming around him and left a sour taste in the back of his throat. The snow however was far more familiar, though he felt a slight pang of loss when the cold didn't bite quite as harshly as he remembered.

This late at night the streets were deserted, and he cursed softly to himself as he trudged through the knee deep snow. It had taken him longer to get here then he'd expected and already the night sky had the warning tint of dawn to it and he really needed to find somewhere to hole up for the day. But all the ideal places to do so that he remembered so well had changed, and half an hour into standing stock still outside of his old house had convinced him that, that too, was no longer an option.

Which left... well his current predicament really.

Cursing harder and, not for the first time, regretting the decision to stop for a quick snack earlier, he pushed on and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to ignore the aching loneliness his sire usually filled. Just as his skin was starting that first itching burn a more than welcome sight in the distance caught his eye and he grinned (but only for a moment before he caught himself, and replaced it with the small smirk he'd been practicing so hard. It was getting pretty damn good, even if he did say so himself). His back straightened and, smirk still in place he stalked towards the familiar diner.

Then gave up 7 paces in and resigned himself to a half trudge, half shuffle. All right, so it wouldn't be as dramatic an entrance but some things you just couldn't pull off in the snow, and apparently a proper stalk was one of them. At this time of the night, it wasn't like anyone would be in the damn place anyway.

The Red Goth leaned back against the seat of their booth, enjoying the warmth emitting under his fingers from his cup of coffee. So far, the day had been like every other day: unbearably painful and dull. He closed his eyes and listened to his fellow Goths chatter about their days, conformist teachers, fellow students and worst of all, family.

There was nothing he had to add to the conversation today, having said all he felt the need to say. Henrietta was the one doing the most talking, being particularly pissed at her flamboyant, arrogant, immortal brother for destroying something in her room.

Red finished off his coffee and set it back on the table, waiting for the overweight and irritated waitress to bitch about filling it up as she did so. Her patronizing tone was now a regular part of his life and there was something about the way things always were that made him feel secure… Like he had a life worth living. Sure, a day-to-day life that never changed was sort of what he was taught to hate, as a Goth, but it was comfortable. He idly wondered if the others noticed the monotony of their lives…

Probably.

He almost smiled when, as predicted, the waitress he had grown accustomed to, stomped up to their table and began her regular bitching.

"Damn it! Are you kids just going to sit around all night and drink coffee again?"

Red nodded, keeping a smile off his face as he gave a snarky remark, "You know the answer to that."

And she did. His cup was quickly filled and back warming up his hands in a matter of seconds. It was always the same, wonderful, process. That was the difference between the way the conformists went about their days and the way he went about his. His day was made of dark reflections, in notebooks and his face in his coffee as he took a sip… Conformists, like the waitress, didn't know pain and therefore couldn't properly enjoy the bitter taste as sweetly as a Goth could.

"Conformist."

"Ch, yeah."

Despite being almost empty, the sudden life and sound of the diner shocked him enough to pause, briefly, in the doorway. Then the tingling of his skin kicked him into motion again and he stalked (damn he was getting good at this stuff) to a booth at the back where it was darkest.

He slid into the seat and then with a sign lent back against the stiff plastic cushions. This wasn't an ideal place to hide out from the sun really, but it'd have to do. He just hoped he wouldn't get thrown out at any point... that would be awkward. And probably messy. A moment of almost human panic hit him and Mike lifted his hips slightly to dig through his pockets for his wallet. Stupid human concerns.

He frowned as he dug through the battered leather of the thing, it was this sort of paranoid human-ness that so annoyed his sire. He *knew* he had more than enough cash stuffed into the thing, hell he'd stocked up from his last snacks wallet. Yet he still couldn't resist the temptation to double check. From the corner of his eye he caught movement and turned just as the waitress appeared in front of his booth.

"What do you want?" She asked, her tone bored and nasally and Mike froze, floundering. He knew what he wanted to order, but somehow he didn't think the diner served blood... and he couldn't for the life of him (unlife damn it) think of what would be appropriate. The last thing he wanted to do was draw un-needed attention to himself. Desperately he cast his eyes about the diner, searching for inspiration and then the familiar shock of red and black hair caught his attention and he froze. He bit back a snarl and stared, raptly, at the group with a mixture of old hatred and, strangely, slight appreciation.
"Well?" The waitress demanded, snapping his attention back to her and after a brief pause he smirked and leant back in his seat.

"Coffee."

Quickly flipping his hair out of his face to see into his messenger bag, Red quickly pulled out his poetry book. It was nothing real special, a cheap grey notebook pulled out of the lost and found (with an amazing red scarf, which he kept well hidden from the other Goths) and scribbled over. It was amazing how much free stuff conformists at their school 'donated' to him. Perfectly good English notebooks, sketchbooks, regular books… All you needed to do was pull out a few pages, put a sticker or two on it and it was yours.

Red flipped his hair once more and began to write lyrics to a song that he was sure Curly and the rest of the band would never even look at. They would say they would…

'Tears of darkness fall, overwhelming me.
I see nothing, only suffering intimately shared with the world…
With no one.
My soul begs for release from a cruel world…
Blood pours from ever orifice.'

… Orifice?

Red shook his head, disgusted with the imagery he had given himself. He promptly scratched that out, the ink in his pen almost ripping through the page.

'Blood pours from every pore'

Pours and pore… No, that didn't work well either.

He growled and roughly slammed his pen onto the table, ready to ask for help from Georgie (the silent brat was amazing with words), but stopped when he felt himself being watched.

Looking around him proved futile, only various patrons chattering to each other and waitresses being rude as usual…

"What is it?"

Red looked up at the sound of Henrietta's voice. Did he interrupt her? He couldn't remember if she was talking or not… "N-nothing." He picked up his coffee again.

"You throw a hissy fit and nothing's wrong?"

He just shrugged, looking over his glass at the wall next to him.

The coffee was bitter and not at all palatable but Mike found himself sipping at it more for something to do then anything else. If nothing else, the heat of it was pleasant, a faint reminder of something he didn't have to worry about any longer. Absent-mindedly he took another sip of the dark liquid, eyes still locked unwaveringly on the group of Goths, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't instantly viable himself from where they were sitting.

Ah, the joys of vampire eyesight.

Old human memories were insisting he should be annoyed at the site of them, faint notions of revenge that Mike couldn't quite bring himself to get that worked up over any more. After all, they were old wounds and more importantly, dead ones. Still, the group was oddly fascinating to him, and really, it wasn't like there was anything more interesting to watch in this place. Idly he found himself studying the red-haired Goth (what was his name? He couldn't remember if he'd just never known it, or if it was just another thing he'd forgotten after the change), attention grabbed like a cat by the flash of red and black whenever he flipped his hair from his eyes.

The waitresses appeared at his side again, and he bit back a snarl at the interruption, schooling his expression into something approaching casual indifference (or at least, he hoped so) and accepting the re-fill with a stiff smile. Her snort of disdain had him clenching his teeth, fighting the urge (want, need) to lunge across the table and rip her throat off. It was pretty much only his self-preservation and a distinct desire not to find out what burning to death felt like that stopped him. He settled on glaring at her instead as she stomped off.

Another sip of coffee and Mike relaxed further back into the hard cushions of the booth, taking up his new hobby of Goth-watching again, and smiling slightly as (name, name, what is his name?) Red slammed his pen against the table. When the boy twisted round to glance about the room Mike frowned and scooted back a bit more. Then frowned and shuffled back to where he'd been, stupid human instincts to hide. The coffee was bitter on his tongue and he found himself craving something a lot sweeter, eyes settling on the soft throb Red's (Ugh, that'll have to do for now) pulse, feeling the hot pressure in his stomach starting up already, it was weird to feel it without the pressing hunger it usually came with though, and Mike lost himself to the sensations a little bit.

"Look," Evan glanced at his cellphone, checking the time. "It's late, I need to get home."

Henrietta was already packing her things and Georgie gave a single nod in agreement. Dylan finished off his coffee and sighed as the others started to leave. "Hey, I paid two days ago."

It was already too late, they had left the restaurant.

He sighed and slowly packed his pen away, along with his notebook and a few packets of the free jelly and honey they had at every table. He had tried to keep his general financial situation on the down-low, but after knowing him for so many years, he had hoped that his group would notice a bit. He usually ended up paying for their coffee times. He had considered getting a job himself, if only to pay for these trips and various clothes he needed… But he was too lazy. He knew he'd be fired within a week.

Petty thievery would just have to do until he graduated high school. Then what? Then nothing, so far. He had nothing planned, just figuring that things would happen as usual. It was thoughts like that, that helped him focus on the present. He could handle the daily challenges, as long as his group was there for him.

He slowly stood up, flinging his bag over his shoulder as he headed to the counter. When he got there, a waitress that was different from his own rolled her eyes as he approached.

"Table 7, right?" She asked in a particularly nasally voice, eyeing him up like some… slop that had just insulted her.

He shoved his free hand in his pocket, feeling around for the stray cash he had always kept there. (He's not good with keeping track of wallets…) Finding his tiny wad, he pulled out the crumply bill or two and the spare change that was sprinkled over it. "Yeah, how much?"

"Seven fifty."

He looked up at her quickly, eyes going wide. Fuck.

"You hear me?"

"Y-yeah." He didn't need to count out his money to know that he only had around four and a half dollars. Swallowing hard, he shook his head a bit. "Actually, I think I'm going to stay a bit longer." He slowly began to turn around, ignoring the woman's scoff behind him. Stupid conformist, whatever she was thinking didn't matter to him. Who cares.

Just as he was about to head back to his table, though, he felt himself being watched again. This time, however, his eyes landed right on the culprit… and it wasn't the waitress.

"… Y… You!"