This is for Anayuki, who was the first to review on both of my previous stories. Thanks for believing in my writing!
Flipping from static filled station to static filled station, Lovino Vargas thumbed at the dial on the radio, his dark chocolate bangs covering his hazel eyes as he lay sprawled on his mattress. Sulkily, he rolled over onto his side and curled up into the fetal position. He hated everything. The young Italian wouldn't-couldn't-cry. He was a Vargas, and the Vargas family was stronger than that-stronger than him.
It was the gloaming hour and Lovino had just awoken. But none of that from a coffin shit. Nope, not even that stupid Dracula had slept in a coffin. A lot of the stuff you heard about vampires was total nonsense, actually.
For example, they aren't the walking dead, that's a zombie. They're called the Leeches for a reason. And since they aren't strictly dead, they can reproduce the same as a human. You can also turn a human, but they become Underlings.
So to break it down, there are two types of vampires: the Leeches and the Underlings. Becoming a Leech is a tad tricky. Suicide sometimes cuts it. Denying your god or committing some other sort of sacrilege sometimes works too. Truth is there isn't one true way to become a Leech unless you're born into it.
Lovino was born into it, and it's his theory that you can only become a Leech if you are to heinous to go to hell or whatever it is people believe in these days; because to Lovino, there could be no hell more terrible than his existence.
It's been forever since Lovino fed. Or rather, Lovino's never fed. He can't or won't bring himself to steal the life force or soul or whatever it is he sucks out along with the blood. The elder Leeches can simply steal blood but they won't explain how, because that's how Underlings are made. Besides, it's extraordinarily traditional event for a young Vargas to feed for the first time when they reach the human age of eighteen and stop aging.
Lovino is twenty-two in human years. Feliciano, his younger brother, fed on his eighteenth birthday two years ago like a good Vargas and has since made two underlings, Kiku and Ludwig, though Ludwig is obviously favored.
Pretty soon, Grandpa Romulus will send Feliciano to accompany Lovino to the council chamber, to discuss his 'failure'. Well Lovino Vargas is a lot of things but he's not a masochist-outside of the bedroom-so he did the only logical thing and ran away to America.
It's been a few months since Lovino ran away and so far he's doing okay. He's gotten a job, a graveyard shift at a fast food restaurant. The smell of fat and grease disguises the scent of blood and souls, so he hasn't broken his vow of fasting yet. There's also another perk to his job: Antonio.
Antonio is Lovino's Spanish boss. He speaks that casually gorgeous mixture of English and Spanish known as Spanglish. He has curly brown hair and grassy green eyes. He is always cheerful and hugs Lovino every time the vampire comes in for work. Lovino curses and threatens to sue for sexual harassment; he never does.
Lovino is terrified of the moments when Antonio is close to him, when Antonio asks him out, when Antonio flirts with him. It makes is normally sluggish heartbeat race and excites his normally apathetic personality. It makes him…happy. Lovino's been a lot of things but never happy before.
So even though Antonio annoys him sometimes, he keeps the job. Besides he needs the money to buy human food to keep him alive. He's found a lot of things to enjoy here in America. Though the food will never be as good as back in Italy, he enjoys American music a lot and clubbing and the loose people who go clubbing.
But whenever he's with one of those loose club people, for some inexplicable reason, he sees Antonio. He's not sure what this means, but he felt the same way about a Belgian Underling once, only not as strong the first time. Humans have an emotion they call love, and Lovino's suspicious that that's what's affecting him.
Also, the hunger's been getting to him. Really, really getting to him. He needs to feed, but he won't feed on a human, they're good beings, he believes.
It's been a few more months and something's definitely wrong with Antonio. He no longer harasses Lovino to go out with him, he no longer pulls on Lovino's 'special' curl, he no longer calls Lovino by the special pet name of Lovi. And it sucks, majorly sucks.
Lovino needs to know what's happened to his tormentor-crush-boss-person. So he decides to trail the older Spaniard, and he buys some spy music on ITunes to listen to while he does it.
It's a risky mission because it involves going out in the day. Not that the day hurts him or anything, he just really doesn't want to be recognized by any of the loose club people. Plus he's nocturnal.
He wears an Armani suit that he brought with him from Italy because he wisely thinks that no one will recognize grubby little fast food Lovino when he's dressed as high society vampire Lovino. And luckily, no one does.
Antonio's first stop is an adult entertainment store which doesn't surprise Lovino because he knows that Antonio knows exactly what that curl does to him. Pervert…. Anyways, the second stop is the grocery store, where Antonio picks up a dubious quantity of wine, which doesn't surprise Lovino because his boss has come to work more than a little drunk more than once. Alcoholic….
It's the third stop that worries Lovino. It's an apartment building. It's not Antonio's. He's following Antonio inside when the Spaniard spins around and simply laughs. "Oh Lovi, how can you not know that boss sees you?" he giggles as he flings himself at Lovino.
Lovino is of course very flustered and denies everything but Antonio knows the truth. His Lovi had come searching for what was upsetting his boss. "How cute," Antonio squeals, completely forgetting the shady reasons behind why he's here.
But the person he's here to see doesn't forget. So down the rickety elevator came Antonio's current abusive boyfriend.
Things go downhill very quickly for you when you've been spotted hugging the boyfriend of someone like Antonio's current boyfriend. That's what Lovino learnt anyways. It started as a lot of cursing and yelling. Then the jerk grabbed Antonio and bitch slapped him. Hard.
This made Lovino angrier than anything ever had before. Antonio was a human being, with thoughts and feelings and a hot body and-anyways, Antonio did not deserve to be hit. So Lovino lunged, hissing as he came. He punched the boyfriend right in the jaw and the man flew backwards. Lovino kept punching until the pig under him was a bloody mess. Then, the hunger overcame him.
When he was done soul sucking or whatever, Lovino stood and turned, expecting Antonio to be long gone. He wasn't. He was standing there, happier than ever. Turns out that not only was he a huge Lovino fan, he was also a huge vampire fan.
When they kissed for the first time, the still rampant hunger overcame him again, yet it was different this time. Lovino had finally figured out how to make an Underling: you just needed to not want to steal the life force or whatever and you didn't. This pissed Lovino off; if he'd known that you didn't have to destroy a human when you fed on them he wouldn't have run away in the first place. Except then he would've never met Antonio, so he guessed he was glad.
But Lovino had realized an important truth. Not all humans were good. There were some who he was pretty sure were eviler than any Leech he'd ever met. So he made a choice, and from that day on he only fed on humans that deserved to lose their soul or whatever. And he never made another Underling because that would've really, really pissed Antonio off.
Lovino brought Antonio home with him and they were both received with open arms. Feliciano had taken over as head of the family after Romulus had disappeared and he couldn't have liked Antonio more. Antonio liked Feliciano too…a little too much, but Lovino set him straight later that night.
So, in the end, it all worked out okay. Lovino and Antonio spent forever mock arguing and just being happy together, Feliciano and Ludwig finally came out of the damn closet, and they all lived happily ever after. Literally. Because they're vampires.
The End