Chapter 1: The Tickle
I remember. We were sitting at one of those dark wooden tables, with the lamps on them. You weren't sitting some chairs away from me, like usually, at some other table, but with me and opposite to me. I don't know, when you had started with that, but I didn't mind. Not at all. I liked you near me and I had always found it weird that you kept so much distance to me. During the past few days I had realized that I even needed your closeness. It wasn't that I needed it to survive, like air to breathe, but sometimes it felt a little like it. You were leaned back in your chair and appeared relaxed and calm even. Your eyes were resting on me, as they always seemed to be, apart from when you closed them. Mine were pointed at a book about vampires. God, I love vampires. I don't know what it is, but something about them fascinates me. I'll admit, I'm kind of obsessed with them and with hunting them. It always starts tickling inside me, like when you take a very cold or very hot shower and the water hits you for the first time, or when the temperature turns from hot to extremely cold within a second, like when a ghost appears. Or like when you're inside an elevator and it starts going down. It's a nervous, uneasy, arousing tickle that feels somehow amazing and satisfying in a strange way, whenever I get to chop off one of their heads. First comes slowly, but then all at once.
My eyes slid over the pages of glorious information, but every now and then I couldn't help but get distracted by the sudden urge to look and see if you were still there, and smiling when I discovered that you were. I didn't know what we were or where we were going, but we definitely had something. I can't put it in words, but I could feel it. In everything, the air around us, the tables we were sitting at, the Scotch we drank together every single night, and in your eyes. It was there, but I couldn't really grasp it yet, for I didn't really understand it. But everything we did and everything we said and everything we felt even seemed to have shifted, changed, into something new. I didn't need further evidence for it to be real. As a hunter I can't afford not to be open-minded about things, like when we had to deal with something we hadn't dealt with before; just because I hadn't seen it before, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And likewise I didn't have had to experience love before to know what it is and how it feels.
My phone rang and startled me out of wherever I had been. My attention was on the phone and the call coming in. For a moment I only stared at it, unsure whether to take or ignore it, but then I decided to answer. The voice on the phone was Rick's, a hunter friend of mine. I've known him for several years, every once in a while we worked together on a case and somewhere along the way, despite his headstrong and lone-wolfish nature, he had become a dear friend. He was just telling me about a job involving fangs, as I turned my eyes back at you and couldn't help a smile spreading in my face. Admittedly it wasn't really directed at you and your own one, but at what Rick was saying. I hung up and there it was. The tickle inside me, rising from deep down quietly but heard and making me nervous with excitement. Like a bushfire burning it all down and destroying everything I ever thought of, so that I could only think of vampires now.
"What is it?" you asked.
"We have a job," I announced so cheerfully, it was almost as if I was talking about something nice, but really, it actually was for me.
"That was Rick," I said after a brief pause, not caring that you didn't know him, "he told me about a vampire nest outside Wisconsin a couple of days ago already. We're in."
I closed the book and almost ran out of the room towards Sammy's, because I just had to tell him. In that moment I didn't really care that I left you alone in that room, then again, you weren't a child I had to watch. You were a grown man, who could handle himself for a minute, and I was way too happy and excited about getting the chance to chop off some vampires' heads to stop and make sure everyone was okay with that. Maybe a little selfish, but I didn't mean to.
I was so blind. Had I paused for just a split second and looked at you, really looked at you, I might have discovered that there was something off about you. I would have seen the doubts and fears and uneasiness in your face and eyes and would have understood that you weren't as excited as I was, that some idea or bad thought was developing inside your angelic head. I could have prevented us from getting weird around each other later. But like I said, I was blind.