Author's note: This is in the same 'verse as my friend Werepuppy's YD fic series 'The Chronicles of Life and Unlife' from Chloe's POV. She's sort of on the Slayers side of things. I'm really happy that she liked it enough for it to be part of that canon (go check out the current fics in the series, she's an amazing writer), so I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing this and as much as I'm sure I'll enjoy writing for Chloe in the future. Read, review and...well...enjoy. ^__^

Nothing comes for free

"I'm really sorry about Robin." Chloe smiled apologetically, spinning spaghetti round her fork absent-mindedly, "I don't know what's got into him these days."

"It's alright." Vlad grinned, apparently unfazed by the broken nose Robin had surprisingly managed to give him, "I've had worse, and he's just being protective. I might be his best friend, but you're still his little sister."

"I'm nineteen." She murmured bitterly under her breath, "I stopped being little ages ago."

"He doesn't quite see it that way." He replied, still grinning, "You're always going to be his little sister. You just need to remind him you're growing up."

"I try. Every day." She rolled her eyes, sighing.

She considered herself to be the more level-headed one between her and her brothers, especially compared to Ian and Paul, and yet she was still here, taking a stupid risk so she could go on a date with the guy her older brother had punched. It was a good thing she had plenty of good excuses to be out that she'd stored up over the years in case of emergencies…what emergencies? She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she knew there'd been some reason to need reasons to go out that wouldn't raise any suspicion.

"So what excuse did you use this time?" He asked, almost as if she'd read her mind. He had strong intuition, one of the things she liked so much about him. That, and his eyes…eyes you could easily get yourself lost in if you weren't careful.

"Said I was going down to the uni bar with a few friends." She replied, after she registered what he'd actually said, "I have to be back home by one."

"Plenty of time." He smirked, a sort of lop-sided smirk that Chloe was certain even the most rational of people would melt at the sight of. She didn't like being hopelessly attracted to him, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't resist his charm, a charm like no other she knew.

Just at that moment, her phone rang, startling her into dropping her fork, the clatter from her clumsiness attracting some unwanted attention from a few other diners. Vlad stared them down calmly, but with an odd air of menace, and they soon returned to their own business. She looked down at the caller ID and the tiniest flicker of nerves flashed through her eyes, "It's…Robin."

"Answer it then." He smiled, "I'm sure you can put him off the trail."

She took a deep breath to calm herself and answered, "Robin, why are you calling? Did something happen?"

"Yeah." Robin sounded more serious than usual, "You lied, didn't you?"

"What're you talking about? I'm out with Sarah and Tina, like I said." She replied, keeping her tone level.

"Quiet bar, isn't it?" He replied, his annoyance and disappointment at his sister clear as day, "Would've thought it'd be louder at this time of night."

"There's been complaints about the noise recently, they're trying to keep it down tonight." She explained, hopefully as rationally as it sounded in her head.

"You're out with him, aren't you?" Robin guessed immediately, not for one minute believing his little sister. It was a good reason, extremely good. Exactly why it was so unbelievable, "Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying, have you?!"

"Robin, I'm a legal adult now, I can do what I want." She hissed, keeping her voice low so as not to attract any more attention, "I can look after myself."

"But you don't know him, he's dangerous." Robin replied, his voice getting louder and angrier as he failed to get through to her.

"Not this again." She sighed, exasperated, "What exactly makes him so much more dangerous than my last boyfriend?"

"He's a…" Robin went suddenly quiet, thinking hard before saying, "I didn't want to have to tell you this, but…he's a vampire."

"A what?" She couldn't help bursting out laughing, despite her trying to restrain herself, "I know you're obsessed with vampires, but that's just ridicu-" She stopped, her face draining as the cogs started ticking, spinning so fast that all the opened up memories flowed before her eyes in one long continuous stream, no memory showing more than a few seconds. Those two years she'd spent with Vlad years before she'd 'first met him', the sweet, determined boy he'd been and…and…her eyes darted down to stare at her suddenly intriguing spaghetti Bolognese.

"What's the matter?" Vlad looked concerned, but there was something else to it now…now she could see why she was so attracted to him, why his eyes were so inviting and his charm was so indescribable, "What did he say?"

"Um…um…" She couldn't speak, couldn't say a word.

Her grip on her phone loosened, leaving it free for Vlad to pull from her hand and press to his ear, "You said something to her to make her go quiet. What was it?"

While Vlad snarled down the phone (she couldn't quite distinguish words), everything she knew now and everything she thought she'd known before clashing together, trying to make some sort of sense of it. One couldn't quite work while the other one was true, and for a while there was a struggle for which was correct.

Vlad hung up, rolling his eyes, "Robin's so over the top sometimes." He sighed casually, "Well, I suppose since now you know one of my secrets you may as well know the other. I…" He inhaled quickly, "I don't like you. Not in that way, at least."

"W-what?" For a moment, she was silent, then quietly asked, "So you were using me…what for? Free meals? Sex?"

"Both." He smirked, "But come on, you like me like that, so what's the problem? We both got something out of it for free."

There was an awkwardly tense moment where niether Chloe nor Vlad had anything they could or would say. Then, completely without warning, Chloe raised her arm and struck Vlad across the face, leaving a red mark where her hand had made contact.

"What the fuck was that for?!" Vlad yelped, caught off guard by this sudden act of violence.

"Nothing comes for free, Vlad." Chloe replied coldly.