I'd like to think I've grown from when I originally posted this story a year ago. So I've posted a grown story. You'll be hearing more of me.
Wish me luck!
I clearly do not own The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod or its characters.
I give you Promiscuous
Vlad was apparently not as understanding under these circumstances. At all. Although he still couldn't understand why this man needed to press on his grossly essential personal space everyday he walked down the street.
Today, for example, Vlad had innocently and most importantly, ignorantly, been strolling down the sidewalk and avoiding cracks between the slabs of concrete, when he was jumped.
He was pulled, kicking and biting and hissing like a cat, into an alleyway which smelled exactly like a toilet and had the texture of an unflushed one. If that made sense.
The only thing that was possibly worse than getting dragged into an alleyway by a larger, obviously more ill-intentioned body, would be if you knew said ill-intentioned body. Vlad was pretty sure that he had once heard a gaggle of gossiping girls admit to a fellow female, that their boyfriends, ironically all of them, enjoyed pouncing on them every once-in-a-while, and that it was fine to just play along because they meant no real harm.
However, due to Vladimir's lacking social life, because he really only had his best friend Henry and Nelly, and no boyfriend (or girlfriend for that matter), he did not play along, and promptly twisted his body so he could smash his elbow into the offender's face with a satisfying crack.
It doesn't matter that I recognize the face, what really matters is that I don't know the name.
Because in Vlad's book, at least knowing the man's name would dim the flashing warning sirens of "STRANGER DANGER!" every time he was forced to see him again.
And would also stop Vlad from elbowing him in the face so hard next time, because as much as Vladimir wished the blow to his thick skull had killed him, or at least given off the faintest of Vlad's true feelings towards the complete jerk he was, there was always a next time. Always.
"Ow," the man said into Vladimir's shoulder, as if he couldn't believe Vladimir had just hurt him on purpose, despite the fact that every time he forced his presence on Vlad, he was punched, kicked, bitten, pinched, scratched, kneed, slapped, hit, jabbed, thrown, tripped, headbutted, choked, or stabbed with something (anything) handy, like a dull pencil or a CD or even that one time when the only thing within reach was a gift card (yes.) that came with the purchase of his least favorite jacket; all-in-all, everything short of decapitation.
The whole affair of it had left Vlad with the exasperated thought of, "He should just quit while he's ahead." After roughly a month of the this, the thought changed to, "Why won't he just quit before I kill him?!"
Of course at first, he had always been left with a slightly guilty feeling that he had possibly just punched, kicked, bitten, etc... a man to death.
But the thing was, the guy didn't let that stop him.
At first Vladimir's small but angular knuckles in the form of the fist of justice was met with a surprise everytime, but he always shook it off a little too breezily, and within a day, only one day everytime, the massive bruise that resembled the coloring of some exotic fish was back to the man's "healthy" pale skin color, like the opposite of a burnt cookie, or perhaps in a phrase that actually made some kind of illusion of sense, like he skipped the healing process altogether and went straight to just being plain old 100%.
Or maybe back to his normal, which was, mentally, hovering somewhere below '35%'.
But see? Not only did this creep take Vladimir's very brain out of his head so he could just mess with it, break it like a child's toys, but he also took the very laws of the human body and wiped the floor with them like they were no more important than a dingy gas station rag stained with oil from three different make & models. The jerk.
"Vladimir," he said, leaning back against the filthy wall of the alley and wiping away some blood where the skin on his forehead had broken. Damn him, Vlad thought, because already the massive bruise that should've caused nothing short of brain damage was something he could walk away from, and had done more damage on his own elbow than on his target. "How are you today?"
He quickly hissed, "I don't have time for this right now. Just tell me what you want and leave me alone." Honestly, blunt and scathing comments were the only way to make the insufferable man understand, but due to his disturbing habit of not being able to read the mood or Vlad's hatred, which by itself was palpable and over-bearing, it normally was ineffective.
But the day it worked, Vlad would be there.
"I dunno," he replied smoothly, tossing some copper hair away from his eyes. "I just noticed you walking by, just thought it would be polite to say something, like 'hi' or 'how are you'. You know, just basic manners and civilian decency."
"Oh." Vlad scratched his nose sheepishly at his overreaction and pushed his hands into his jacket pockets. "Well, hi. Doing just great. I mean just swell, really. If you'll please excuse me, I was on my way somewhere important, and I really should-"
"So I was wondering something," the man interrupted, as he clearly was not one for aimless chit-chat. He pushed off the wall and made his way out of the alley, and Vlad dutifully followed, because he was heading that way anyways. "You know about that assault just outside of town? Next to that peach stand?"
Vlad thought about it as he absentmindedly hopped over cracks in the sidewalk, cringing mentally every time the man's combat boots softly and soundlessly slid over a break in the concrete.
The story was that some woman, an old college pal of Nelly's, pulled over to pick up a hitchhiker, and was nearly killed when the man or woman she had picked up attacked her.
She was in the hospital now, sputtering out prayers and hymns from the good book, and Vlad was left wondering how something so serious happened in the sleepy town at all. It was bound to happen somehow, sometime to be honest, but Vlad still felt a shudder when reminded that whoever had mauled this woman had gotten away, and so by examination was either still close by or long gone by now; and the knowledge that when Nelly had taken Vlad to see the victim years before the entire incident, the woman was the farthest from religious as a person could get.
Vlad hummed a, "It was all over the news."
"Yeah, well, it shouldn't have blown over so soon. Thought while I had you here I would keep an eye on you, discourage murderers and such. It feels like... it's just getting started. And I want to keep at least of few of my pals safe, I suppose." He slyly glanced at Vladimir from the corner of his eyes, but kept his head forward. "Just in case you were wondering what I was doing."
Vlad really wasn't, but now that he brought it up: "Why were you in that alleyway?" He wasn't expecting an answer, or at least a straight answer, but the man's response of "I had to get a bad smell out of my head, and it seemed like the best stink hole for the job" was oddly sincere. It still had the unusual wording of an excuse though.
But it really didn't matter anyways, so Vlad let it go.
"You know," he said a matter-of-factly, feeling electricity from the thought that he was closing the trap, "I don't think we could be considered 'pals', when I don't even know your name."
"Ahh, I don't know how you can say that when I don't know your name either," the familiar stranger voiced wryly.
He seriously didn't go there! "You call me by my name every single time I see you!"
"Oh really?" he hummed obnoxiously, "Your name is actually Vladimir? Lucky guess..."
And wow, did Vlad hate this man. He just completely dismissed Vlad's trap, which he had put more hope in than he would care to admit, and just carried on happily as That-Nameless-Psycho-Vlad-Had-The-Unfortunate-Fate -Of-Meeting.
"Anyways," he continued, shaking off the argument with the same atmosphere he took on when he shook Vlad's punches off, "I was hoping if I could walk you home, seeing as how somewhere out there, there's a murderer."
You're a murderer, Vlad was thinking. A murderer of all my hopes and dreams. "No. Go away."
He laughed, a wide smile he used to show just how much amusement his new toy, aka Vlad's mind, was and how much fun it was to play with it. But then he just stopped, right as Vlad almost tripped when he noticed how white his teeth were, right next to the sign that pointed down the road where Vlad lived, and shook his head with a frown, as if he was disappointed in Vlad.
Vlad could just feel the displeasure rolling off the man in waves, and it made him feel incredibly uneasy. In all the time of knowing the man's face but not his name, he never saw him become so on-edge from what Vlad saw as absolutely nothing.
In fact, on just the tip of Vlad's tongue was the phrase, "What's wrong," but he only succeeded in pronouncing half of it before the man mumbled a loud, sultry, "See you around, Vladimir," and turned back to walk away.
Vlad stared as he walked back into the heart of town, probably to go back into his alley and catch again Vlad tomorrow with his ridiculous sense of humor and justice, along with the same excuse as today. "Protection" and what not.
Vlad unlocked the front door of his old house and slunk in, trying to close the door softly behind him. "Hello Vlad," Otis greeted from his spot at the table, "It's good to see you again."
Vlad gave him a soft smile, and replied, "Yeah, it's been awhile. Hopefully you won't leave so soon again, because last time you left early Nelly kept making food for three for at least a full week. And she kept giving your share to me." Otis laughed good-naturally as Vlad finished by whispering, "I couldn't fit in my pants for a whole month."
"Well Vladimir, I hardly think skinny jeans count as actual pants. More like Halloween attire." He chuckled at the face Vlad made as he set his bag on the floor.
Nelly made her entrance, going back into the kitchen, but stopping along the way to scoff and say, "Don't look at me like that Vlad! You needed the weight!" She gave him a brief hug and said her, "Welcome home." She kissed Otis on the forehead because she could, and went back to making spaghetti in the kitchen.
Vlad turned back to Otis and jumped a bit, because Otis's nose was crinkled in an oddly Nameless Man gesture, and saying in a concerned tone, "My, you smell strong Vladimir! Were you pushed into a garbage can? It smells like you got into a fight."
Vlad picked up his bag and went up the stairs to his room, groaning about the experience behind the smell. "It was really nothing, Uncle Otis. One of my pals had a stupid idea of getting a bad smell out of his head by masking it with a worse smell, or something. He's kind of... not right. In the head." That's the truth.
If Vlad didn't know any better, he would think all the brain damage was from his fist of justice, but honestly, that sounded like it was more of an excuse these days, and had as suspicious a scent as that dumb alleyway had. He would like to say Nameless's brain absorbed the blows, but it was clear even that wasn't true.
Because nothing could get through his thick skull.
Believe me, I've tried to get this one simple concept that I don't want to see him ever again into his mind for so long now, but apparently he can't process simple crap like that.
"Vladimir," Otis was saying carefully, as if Vlad was a bunny which would flee if he spoke too loudly or too quickly. "Who is this friend of yours?"
"Nobody really. He's not close."
"Who is he?"
It crossed Vlad's mind that maybe Otis really wanted to know this, and was not just being polite about the question, like, "How was your day" or, "Did anything interesting happen today", mainly due to the almost desperate undertone in his persistence.
It made Vlad feel like he did something wrong, despite the fact that he very clearly did not.
Do anything wrong, that is.
Although despite Otis's persistence, Nameless Guy's persistence was really what Vladimir could barely handle. He could feel it slipping even now, because really the only thing worse than being asked for something he didn't want to give was not knowing what was actually being asked of him: out of every time he saw the man, he never really asked for something from Vladimir. In fact, he didn't even seem to ask for his presence. He didn't physically seek it out and he just didn't pass it up. He took advantage of it in ways that even Vlad couldn't see the benefit from.
This one time three months ago, he was sitting on a bench outside of a popular club to get some air, when the Nameless Dude staggered over in a tired haze and sat next to him. He lit up a cigarette, which, as far as Vlad knew he had never smoked before and had never smoked since, and grunted a soft greeting. They both sat in comfortable silence for an half hour, after which Nameless excused himself, presumably to his alley, and Vlad waited for two more minutes for his ride to show up.
I mean, what's the point of that? Vlad thought, then realized darkly, I hope he didn't know I was there before he arrived.
"It's one of Henry's friends. Some football player." Imagining Nameless, lithe but still twig-like, playing football made him laugh, so at Otis's relived nod of dismissal and a quick mental praise of his lying skills, he turned to go.
Behind him, he heard Otis ask suspiciously, "You aren't lying to me, are you Vladimir?"
This made Vladimir stop and turn around to give a careful look at his uncle. Otis was frowning, another gesture that reminded Vlad of someone else before he could stop the thought, and was returning Vlad's gaze a little angrily.
Of course not.
"Of course not, Uncle," Vlad said, a little hurt by the uncharacteristic dip of faith, but his uncle smiled and he forgot about it.
"I'm sorry, Vladimir. I don't know what came over me. I suppose I'm still a little ruffled from the long flight in." His uncle's smile was so trusting. "I'll call you when dinner's ready. You have some packing to do."
Vlad smiled back and went into his room, closing the door behind him. What had Nameless said? (Vlad really needed to get his name; he was hating calling him "Nameless").
Didn't he say something about this just getting started? Vlad really needed to see Nelly's friend in the hospital. If things were just getting started, then it was her near-death that would've marked the start of this fine mess. Or, some nagging, gut feeling in Vlad that suggested that her near-death was actually what started everything.
He felt drained. Mostly emotionally, but it took its toll physically.
Vlad slid down the black wallpaper, and landed with a bounce on his bed. He didn't want to think of anything, like packing his possessions in this room only to move them to another, or punching things with his fist of justice, or Uncle Otis's eventual gullibility.
What a fine mess.
Not surprisingly, Vlad was whisked away into the long, dark alleyway by the big bad man again the same day.
Sometimes Vlad couldn't sleep, so when he was sure Nelly and Otis were asleep, tucked away, and safe without his protective, insomniac gaze watching over them, he would slither quietly from the dead house into the dead street where all the dead silence permeated into a dull fog and walk up and down the streets like an aimless soul, contemplating useless things.
Mainly girls. Or homework.
See? Useless.
So Vladimir was drifting, directionless, in and out of the center of town, across empty streets, when the solid, but familiar weight clamped down on his hip and pulled him mercilessly into the alley again.
Technically though, it didn't happen the same day, Vlad thought to himself as he prepared a kick in a flimsy attempt to discourage Nameless Guy's advances. It was only very very early in the morning. There's no way that Vladimir was awake. Or Nameless was as desperate as that. Just don't worry about it.
Before Vlad's kick of truth could make contact with any point of Nameless's body, the astounding happened.
It was pushed away.
Nameless grabbed his leg, and just held it. It wasn't uncomfortable, just shocking. The familiar stranger had never deflected or caught any of Vlad's violent advances. Ever. But soon it wasn't the first thing on his mind.
Not when he was slammed face-first against the filthy wall by an imposing body and pinned there heavily, the man's heated breath puffing against his bare neck and sending platoons of goosebumps across Vlad's body. "Who are you?" he gasped. This couldn't be-
"Vladimir," the man purred behind him. "Joining the nocturnal?"
-no, it was. "What the hell, man? What are you doing?"
"Ahh," Nameless breathed out, and the moon flashed its flashlight on them so Vlad could twist his neck around and catch sight of the man's flushed face. "Well you see, Vlad, I am slightly inebriated tonight. You know what they say about that, less boundaries, less barriers, doing what one always wanted to without inhibitions, or whatever."
Vlad's words were slightly mangled from the angle of his neck. "Umm, are you alright? Nameless Guy?" That was clearly a trick question. This man was the farthest from okay any one person could possibly get. It wouldn't be Vlad's problem in any normal circumstance, but it would seem any circumstance with this man would never be normal.
Why couldn't he do one uncomplicated act? The AHA! moment when everything was plain but simplistic, and was something Vlad could latch onto, pick apart, at least follow with his average, ordinary thought process.
Vlad was flipped around to face him, his head then cradled gently despite the man's harsh, bleary-eyed demeanor. His leg, which was grabbed again by the thigh, was pulled around the man's waist, shocking Vlad at the sudden closeness of their naughty parts. Then he kissed him.
There it was! It hit Vladimir in the face at such a fast speed, it was like rolling down the window on the highway and swallowing a bug. That perfectly simple, plain, uncomplicated act that forced everything Vlad had come to know in the past time about the man to be true.
It was the truth and it made sense.
But then the man pulled away, mumbled something that sounded like, "Just call me Dorian," and went back to kissing him.
The truth shattered into a million pieces and somewhere deep inside him, in the place where he had meticulously sorted each piece and set them in their correct places to make his stain-glass perceptions, he thought, "Fuck it."
It could have been that right place right time crap, but frankly, Vlad had a feeling Dorian would wait in his alley all day long for him to walk by.
"Why are your nails so long?" Dorian sighed as he pressed his drunk shoulder against the sober wall drunkenly. He was holding a hand to his face, looking slightly like a bored teenager who would steady their dozing head on one hand.
Vlad was actually very surprised to see blood threading out from the scratch marks he left engraved in Dorian's cheeks: a memento of their glorious moment in the filthy alleyway where Vlad refused to lose his virginity in. And contrary to what, no doubt, Dorian was thinking, Vladimir did not rake his fingers down Dorian's cheeks from the pleasure of his pointed snake tongue painting the inside of Vlad's mouth. It was more from the realization from said snake tongue sensations that he came to his senses and acted with the nonsensical shock that he was slobbering over a snake. He refused to even think about it.
Disgusted, Dorian groaned, mumbling a, "These just will not heal!" Vladimir turned to him and held back a chuckle at how upset he looked, pinching his cheeks and pouting like a... silly person.
"Dorian, that won't help them heal."
"You won't help them heal," Dorian grumbled sarcastically under his breath, coming off like a petulant child.
"What was that?"
"You know, despite the fact you scarred my body, I'm kind of amused at how creative you were about it. Ahh!" he gasped, puffing his cheeks when Vlad pulled his hands away from infecting his blood stream (which led to his already infected brain), "It stings!"
"..." Vlad wanted to voice his disappointment, he really did. He would have, if it wouldn't have been the definition a waste of his breath.
Dorian pleaded him with a "Kiss it and make it better?"
Vlad saw no problem with this. He leaned forward and pecked both of Dorian's cheeks, feeling very much like an idiot. When he pulled away Dorian immediately held his chin and swiped his thumb over his lips, brushing off some of the blood which had stuck to Vlad. Even Dorian's blood liked Vlad more than Dorian, Vladimir thought childishly. It had left Dorian's body for his. For his lips. Even his blood wanted to... kiss him...
That thought made Vladimir disappointed in himself.
When someone asked Vlad why he let Dorian intrude on his personal life, he was almost positive he would tell that person they were dead wrong, living in denial, and was a stupidty stupid poop brain, that Dorian didn't exist, that Dorian wasn't anywhere close to his heart. But nobody would ever ask.
Except Otis, apparently.
The second Vlad fell out of bed, Otis was standing above him, looking upset and fretful, wringing his hands together. "Vladimir," he announced, and it was already way too early on a Saturday for this business like matter. "Where did you go last night?"
Go? To heaven and back. Instead of questioning how Otis knew he had left last night, like any tactful teenager would never fail to mention, Vladimir went back to sleep on the floor.
Dorian kissed him again, except this time it was in a dream.
Vlad was unsure if that was a preferred way of kissing, but it seemed pretty selfish of Dorian to kiss people in their subconscious. When Dorian pulled away with his cheeks still scarred like a jack o' lantern, Vlad thought he looked like a backwards-cat who for some reason thought that whiskers grew up-and-down and not horizontally.
Then he fell out of bed.
"You do worry me so much Vladimir, you smell, uh, seem off this morning."
Vlad grabbed the milk carton and poured some of the contents on the tabletop, only successfully getting a small splash in his cereal bowl. You smell off too, he thought in a mocking tone.
"I'm fine, Uncle."
"Where did you go last night? Why won't you tell me?"
"Uhh," honestly, the only phrase that went through Vlad's mind and wouldn't leave was booty call, and he was positive Otis would not appreciate the humor of it, especially when even Vlad himself didn't.
"Don't you trust me?"
"Yes. No. Yes." Vlad rubbed his eyes. "It's less complicated than I'm making it, and seriously, I'm not even thinking about it enough to make it so complicated. It's just... complicated."
Otis blinked. "But you just said-"
Vladimir gazed at him from across the table solemnly. "I know what I said." He scratched a spot on his head where he was certain a piece of hair was sticking out in a funny fashion only to have a shoelace fall out at his touch and sighed in defeat. "I wouldn't worry about it. If I'm not worried about it, I don't see why you should. Especially when it's my own dilemma."
"Could I help?"
"No one could help me now." Someone save me.
"When I grow up, I wanna be just like you," Vlad offhandedly mumbled, letting his mouth dish out interesting topics of discussion while his brain took a rest. He pressed his temple further into Dorian's borrowed shirt.
"When you grow up, you shall be my wife. Why would I marry someone just like myself?"
"Bastard. You'd love it."
Dorian was merciless, and his smile reminded Vlad of a shark's, his dilated pupils too, as he sniffed the air and leaned in, squeezing his nose into Vlad's neck. "Stay the way you are, and in no time soon, you shall be giving the dogs their heartworm pills, drawing my baths and leaning over the stove tops." He swiped their linked hands up to kiss Vlad's knuckles, and because Vlad could, he wrenched his hand away and punched Dorian as hard as he could in the stomach.
The second Vlad's fist hit Dorian's solid stomach, he had a brief flashback of a past summer spent at the community pool, when he could hold his breath for 21 whole seconds in the muddy water. Clearly, in his young mind, he was powerful and mighty. Meeting Dorian's abdomen with his fist of justice was almost too similar to that summer, when he thought he was strong enough to shatter a brick wall with a punch and instead successfully broke his hand. Which was a random thought.
Dorian grabbed his hand and kissed Vlad's now bruised knuckles, less of an apology and more of a 'stop doing that, you'll only hurt yourself.' "Wanna make out?" he asked cheekily.
Vlad wanted to punch him again, despite the fact it caused his pride more harm than Dorian's ego.
"Bastard."
Vlad had just been boredly perched on his bench outside the roaring club, halfway hoping for Dorian's uncanny sense to lead him through the twisted back alleys of his domain to Vladimir's side. Again. Just like... last time.
Maybe bored was a harsh word. Slightly buzzed, like, 1/10 of a full buzz. And craving pancakes and Dorian. And just about ready to leave. And feeling kind of eager for something. Those sounded better.
Maybe a little bored.
And lo and behold, the next shadowy figure that passed by Vladimir's hunched back was his own sole suitor, the one he didn't mind as much as it should matter. Dorian. That bastard.
Uninebriated and clean for once, his face and manner of speaking crisp tonight, giving Vlad the feeling of hyperness in their impending conversation. He felt like he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, excited to see Dorian had answered his mental call, and resolving to be especially kind to Dorian tonight, as his reward.
He deserves it.
It was odd. Dorian was such a mysterious, other worldly being. The brief flash of that murder, near murder, stepped into the spotlight of his mind, stepping back after its moment of glory. Yes, for some reason, Dorian reminded Vlad of that; the near murder close to the border of town. What a dark thought.
Anyways, having some great beast like Dorian hanging around, choosing to prey on Vlad and shower him with his only slightly unwanted attentions, made Vlad feel a sense of pride. This beast is mine. See his tolerance? His collar? He follows me down the street to school, and growls at anyone else who approaches.
I'll growl at anyone who approaches him too.
"How are you doing, young man?"
"I'm fine." Vlad didn't comment on the 'young man'. Coming from Dorian, it was probably some form of compliment instead of a poke at their age difference.
"You came to this club again? Why do you come when you only sit out on the bench?"
Vlad rubbed the bangs from his eyes to peer at Dorian, sigh a bit, observe his monster.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Why not?"
"Shush." He looked away. A sober Dorian was a Dorian Vlad wanted to see more of; Vlad kept his gaze trained on the back of his head. Dorian looked back, shark eyes, dog eyes, his beast eyes immediately lining up with Vlad's. "That feeling that you're giving me is already driving me crazy."
Vlad stared a moment, then cracked a happy grin. "Your place or mine?" he asked, giddy. Pleased. Dorian knew the right words to say tonight.
"Is your residence empty?" Vladimir laughed out loud at Dorian's obnoxious question, the air light against his chest, against his mind. His house was empty, and so was his conscious.
"Yeah, my Uncle and Aunt wanted to spend their last night in the luxury of not-our-house. You know how it is." Vlad's smile was as infectious as the flu, spreading and infecting an innocent, young looking Dorian. He must have shaved last night, with his clean, glowing face.
"Alright then," Dorian groaned, standing up and bending over backwards to pop his back. "Let's go make out at your house."
When Vlad woke up, he expected many things.
An irate Dorian, somehow drunk again.
An irate pillow, empty and squashed from last night's somewhat regrettable visitor. It was regrettable alright, Vlad just needed to collect his wits and gather his reasons together and find out how it was regrettable.
He woke up to both. The pillow beside his was very empty and sad, but his own made up for it, Dorian face pressed against his face, unfortunately thrilling him for a brief moment of unsupervised emotion which was surprisingly feminine. Despite his sweet act of rolling in the middle of their rest on Vlad's pillow, Dorian certainly looked drunk, with the dopey grin on his face that split his head in two when he saw Vlad open his eyes.
"I suppose I should put my pants back on." he murmured, sliding his tongue down a plane of Vlad's body quickly, before he could be chastised.
Vlad wrapped his arms around Dorian and lay still. If I pretend to be unconscious, he'll just let me enjoy this brief moment of functionality.
"You are being surprisingly lenient tonight, Vladimir." he purred close to his ear with his forked tongue tasting the skin there, "I enjoy a compliant wife."
Using the arms wrapped around Dorian's neck, Vlad held him still as he kneed him, mentally cackling like a crazy person.
Of course Dorian felt nothing. Not Vlad's game winning kick to the goal, only his fingertips on the back of his neck, gentle and tugging.
He mumbled something that made Vlad blush into his neck, before Vlad pushed him off his bed. "Now put your pants back on, Dorian. I honestly don't know why you took them off in the first place."
"I wanted to be ready." He complained, mostly to himself, and ahhh, Vlad thought with relief: there it is. The usual feeling of reluctant resignation that followed Dorian like the plague, instead of this light, airy feeling of a washed comforter hanging outside on the balcony, blowing in the frigid, Bathory air.
"Ready for what?"
He was clearly waiting for that, Vlad felt his body stiffen as Dorian gave him a wry smile and slow wink, and the growled word of "Love." breaking the atmosphere, which was unreadable as per usual. Why can't this stuff ever be simple and understandable?
Why can't Dorian try harder at making this simple? He should stop me from complicating it every time.
"Do your part for once."
"Huh?" Vladimir snapped his attention back to Dorian, who just spoke out of the great blue of the heavens in a fully Dorian-like fashion.
"Do your own part for once, and kiss me," he explained like a schoolteacher. One plus five is six, class. Two times four is eight, students. "Do your part and kiss me, I want you to come to me and kiss me like a boyfriend." Vlad couldn't help but add a "students," to the end as the phrase processed through his mind.
"Isn't it cheating to tell me what you want?" No teacher, stop giving me the test answers. I could've passed on my own. Vlad smiled at that.
Dorian shrugged after deftly hiking up his pants, leaving them unzipped and exposing his unnaturally thin hips, unnaturally pale skin that shone like a beacon. "Just trying to... uncomplicate it, I suppose. Is it a wasted effort, are you not impressed?"
Vlad eyed the inch of skin above Dorian's hips that neither his shirt nor pants covered. Impressed... He took a few shuffling steps to Dorian just to wipe the smile from his face with his lips, and stood on his tip-toes to wipe any expression off of both their faces.
Dorian groaned and Vladimir felt giddy, like he had all last night, and even though it was still technically last night, or tonight, with the moon flashing them and the black sky covering the outside of Vlad's bedroom window like a curtain, Vlad felt like Dorian was setting the stage for his own mouth for tomorrow, with all the perfect words he was saying.
Dorian took his pants off again, and to make sure he didn't feel quite so lonely in his boxers, he pulled Vladimir on top of him and pulled his pants off too.
If admitting he shared a bed and his tongue with someone who was probably a homeless person last night was any hint to Otis as he searched Vlad's room, then it was the worst hint ever. Apparently.
Otis was a machine, sifting through Vlad's bed sheets. Snuffling around his pillows. Ordering him to take off his pants so he could inspect them.
When Otis first burst in the room, upset and fretting, Vlad was worried, nay, scared.
When he insisted Vlad admit to him what happened last night, Vlad stopped worrying.
When Otis had stalked up and down and across his room, smelling everything Dorian had come in contact with last night, whether it had been a brush of his fingertips over the windowsill at about three am, or Vlad's own crotch at around too soon for Vlad which had resulted in a swift punch of justice to the wall beside Dorian's head as a warning, Vladimir had taken to sitting at the head of his bed, watching objectively as his room was torn at the corners, searching for an unknown source.
Then everything froze, Otis, the wind outside, the sounds from the kitchen, and in response, Vlad.
Otis had succeeded in peeling away the huge potted plant in the corner of Vlad's room from its roost, the one Nelly insisted on watering at the most inconvenient of times. He was bent over, pressing his face into the corner where the walls met in their mutual agreement that Vlad felt jealousy over.
"Vladimir," he began, and Vlad braced himself for a brief moment for something completely uncalled for, some question that only made sense to Otis. "Did you pee in this corner?"
Of course. I pee in each of the four corners of my room every other day. Monday is the farthermost corner, the one which has always needed the most attention, Wednesday, I began the counterclockwise journey around the room...
"NO. Why would I do that? Pee? In my own room? I know you think teenagers have possessiveness issues with our rooms, but I don't mark my own territory. Ask-"
Holy *beep*. Dorian.
Didn't he go to sleep with Vlad with pants... and wake up without them? Eleven o' clock, pants. Two o' clock. No pants.
"Ask who? Vladimir, this is important to your safety."
"My safety?" he snapped, raising his voice which was normally hardly above a level 36 on his scale. "Why are you pulling that on me now? You do realize how freaky you've been acting the past few days, right? Otis, I've known you my whole life, why would a little cat pee make you snap like this?" A cat! A big furry feline: so Dorian. "Since when has smell meant so much to you? And why would this all freak you out so much?"
"Cat pee? Cat pee? This is no cat pee, Vladimir, I can smell it like a-" his jaw dropped. His eyes narrowed. He shook his head and left the room, apologizing as he passed Vlad. "I wish I could take back my words Vladimir, but it was already too late. I'll be downstairs with Nelly, I have decided to stay longer than usual this time."
"What about your-"
"It was cancelled. I will call you for lunch when it is ready." He turned to stare deeply at me. "Don't leave the house today, a storm is expected in any moment."
*beep* yeah one was. Fucking *beep*.
When Vladimir last saw Dorian, a week ago, he was slithering out of his bedroom window to escape Otis from catching them enjoying each other's company. Oh yes, they were doing scandalous things: like rock-paper-scissors, and butterfly kisses, and discussing the house Vlad was going to move into and the murder.
But that was old news. Already dumped into the garbage outside on the curb, ready for pickup. Flies swarmed Vlad's head.
When Vlad sat down on a park bench (that happened to face multiple alleyway mouths. No correlation to anything that ever happened in the past week with anyone ever, he assured himself. Definitely not keeping an eye out for anyone, except myself. Nope, totally not looking for Dorian, who not only lives in an alleyway but travels by them), something in his back pocket cracked under his butt.
He pulled the wrapped, hard candy disk out of from between the bench and his bottom and fixed it with a blank stare. How did that get there. Gee, that's odd. Why is that in my pocket.
Wait.
Dorian! Dorian slipped it in there before he left! Vlad felt elated and popped it in his mouth, feeling like where ever Dorian was, at least he was thinking of him. And why wouldn't he? Vlad was his younger boyfriend that still refused sex, and who Dorian only slightly spoiled.
Personally, Vlad figured something was just a little too sweet about the butterscotch. Butterscotch, sure, it could be plausible after a hearty lunch, or when a bad day lashed out of the sky like a bolt of lightning to strike you down.
Vlad spit the butterscotch out, tired of lying to his wrinkled brain of gray mush. That was exactly the problem.
He was having a bad day, which had nothing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with how Dorian hadn't peeked his head back into Vladimir's life since last week or since Otis began handling Vlad with the kid gloves. Although the situation of Otis hiding something seemed so familiar, and yet, was settled at the back of his mind when he remembered Dorian and his bachelor pad of an alleyway.
Honestly, Dorian could be anywhere, doing anything. He was so unreadable, unpredictable, unnatural.
Maybe my leash has snapped... Poor four-pawed Dorian ran away to wreak havoc on another universe?
Vlad wasn't worried about Dorian latching himself firmly onto his life or if he would ever come back. He was more concerned for Dorian's well being. How would Dorian still be snooty if someone tore his mouth off in anger? When Vlad first met Dorian, that's the first thing he had wanted to do.
It's truly the art of being worried without being worried, Vlad thought dismally.
The sound of Vlad's depression being crushed underfoot was an interesting one.
It sounded like a sharp squeak, which was exactly the sound he made when Dorian jumped out of nowhere, flung the suddenly catatonic Vlad over his shoulder, and sprinted amazingly fast to what was probably a new alley he had moved into.
(Vlad had checked Dorian's bachelor pad in the week he was gone, and there was no sign of him. But then... there had never been any sign of Dorian, or anyone living in the crappiest crap-hole of an abode, just a little less crappy than a clogged toilet, in any of the times Vlad had *ahem* met Dorian in there. Not to do anything as scandalous as sexxx. No, it was mainly thumb wrestling, or quick pecks on the cheek, but mainly Vlad trying his freaking hardest to quell his urge to rip Dorian's handsome face off his ivory skull, away from his positively ignorant brain.
Anyways, it must be a new alleyway. Like a hermit crab moving to a new shell, Dorian the homeless man must have moved to a new alley, as all homeless must do at some point in their life.)
Dorian dumped Vlad on a bed, the bounce and texture freakishly familiar to a excited Vladimir. Oh wait. It was his own.
"Dorian, where have you been?" Vlad tried to ask, even as Dorian wrapped himself around his body like the best, most welcome blanket in the world.
Dorian softly plucked Vlad's chin up, smothering his lips in a gentle kiss, busying himself with it. Once he released a pleased Vladimir, Vlad tried again: "Seriously, where were you?"
"Why?" he purred. Dorian always purred. People with a voice like Dorian's just seemed to purr all the time. "Miss me?"
Vlad gasped out when Dorian slid his warm hands under his t-shirt. And to think, he had just picked this t-shirt with no special thought to it, not knowing Dorian would rub his warm, broad, angular hands under it like he was trying to keep Vlad warm: how ignorant he had been. He gasped again when Dorian brushed against a certain point, but it quickly drew out into a shameless moan.
He tried once more, panting, "Where were you?"
Dorian growled into Vlad's neck, deep into his jugular where he usually refrained from placing it, despite being an avid cuddler. "I had to shake someone off my tail. I couldn't come back until I did."
Immediately, Vlad thought another woman. But honestly, what woman (or man) would look past Dorian's status of "homeless" to... do whatever it was that Vladimir was doing with him. And he seriously doubted Dorian would just drop Vlad like that, after all Vlad's attempts to escape Dorian's eclectic, clingy nature. He was overly friendly to Vladimir, and honestly, that was probably it. Vlad may be the only person he knew.
"Was it the police?" Vlad moaned out as Dorian pushed his shirt further up his chest. The feeling out being so intimate was electric.
"Why are you trying to keep me from doing this?" Dorian rumbled, and with a flash of speed, slammed his hands on either side of Vladimir's head. If Vlad had been lying on concrete, or titanium, he felt there would be no doubt that Dorian's strength would've ripped through it. Not with the way the bed, a fluffy, if not lumpy mattress on a brass frame, shook and wavered with the force of Dorian's agitated aftershocks.
Suddenly, Dorian's hand was where it shouldn't be (or where it really would be the most useful at that exact moment: the way the lines of his face cut the sunlight shattering in through the blinds; his sneered lips, revealing a flash of very very long, pointed canines; his eyes, wide, focused only on Vlad. Dorian's eyes, drinking him in. His beautiful, dark eyes. His hand really was needed there...) and Vlad felt, in the back of his mind, where he also placed Otis's suspicions not too long ago, that the entire act, starting from Dorian slinging him over his bony shoulder to the present, was all rushed. Desperate and rushed and just as suspicious as Vlad's suspicions on Otis's suspicions.
He placed his hands on Dorian's narrow, lithe, hot shoulders, trying his hardest to be caring and concerned, but it was so difficult when Dorian was staring at him like he was the only thing that mattered. His palms seemed to heat up as he tried to soothingly run them across a scattered Dorian's skin, and quickly they caught on fire with the heat of Dorian's desire.
He held down his own urges, figuring he would have to be the responsible one, the rock for Dorian. Vlad didn't think sex would fix Dorian's deprived, desperate stare anyways.
"What's wrong?" his voice nearly cracked from all his high-pitched moaning, and since he figured his voice couldn't clearly convey how concerned and alarmed he was, he stared up at Dorian's hard face, with his set jaw like a final judgement, and he widened his eyes, pumping every fiber of (dare he think it) love and good feelings, hell, even the bad feelings, into his gaze. Dorian almost audibly cracked, his face falling into a puddle of shame and sadness, but remained silent and heavy on Vlad.
"Dorian?"
Then suddenly they were kissing again, and it was rough and questioning, like Dorian was begging something of him. Vladimir nearly forgot what ever happened. He nearly forgot all his worries. He nearly forgot his name.
Dorian's body was all over him, caressing caringly, sending wicked shivers to staple themselves down Vladimir's spine.
Vlad felt his face flush as he was groped again, and let out an animalistic noise, low and needy and keening. His eyes cracked open into slits, but quickly widened at the view: Dorian hovering over him, grim, angry-looking, his mouth open in a pant, pointed tongue lolling, growling low and threatening in his throat with his incredibly long canines and giving Vlad an almost furious look with flashing iridescent blue eyes.
He looked like an animal, and never before, despite the pet names in Vlad's mind, had he looked more like a...
"You..."
What could he say? It makes sense now. Dorian's dark brown eyes, his normal length teeth, everything about him wasn't even him. He wasn't Dorian the hobo, Dorian the homeless, Was he even Dorian, Vlad's boyfriend? The truth was, the man before Vlad, spreading Vlad's legs to push between them on Vlad's own bed, watching him with his animal-eyes. Those stupid, burrowing animal-eyes that could only understand thrusts and pleasure, were not Dorian's. Dorian would never scare Vlad on purpose. And god was Vlad scared.
He couldn't stop the word from slipping out of his shocked mouth; a quiet whisper of awe and disbelief, like he was staring and pointing with mouth agape, staring dumbly, caught in his gaze.
"...monster."
"Who the hell are you?" Vlad yelled. "What are you? Let me go!"
"No," the creature insisted, wrapping his arms around Vlad's stomach to hold him to his body. "Vlad, just listen."
"NOOO!" Vlad shrieked, clawing at the air, at his bed frame, at his captor, his desperate hands following his begging mind. But the thing wouldn't let go, and Vlad's struggles were in vain. "Put me down! Let me go! I want to live!"
"Stop!" it shouted back at him, lifting Vladimir higher and shaking him like a misbehaving child. "Vladimir, listen to me! Calm down!"
Vladimir took a long shaky breath, and then let out the longest, loudest scream he could hold without passing out. In the middle of his call for help, the door burst open but he continued to scream, letting the frantic tears roll down his face as he was dragged across his room to the window.
Cold air flooded the room as the window was nearly smashed open, and Vlad could feel the monster try to escape through the wall, refusing to let go of him. When his body passed by, Vlad lashed out and latched onto the frame, ignoring the sweat that made his hands slippery.
Another set of hands grabbed Vlad's wrists, trying to pull him back into the safety of his warm room.
Vlad felt like he was being ripped apart; the strength of Otis as he tried to drag him back inside and the strength of Dorian as he tried to take his bounty with him were impossibly powerful. One would have to give.
And it was Vlad. Vlad's fingers scrabbled at the pane, and his fingernails dug deeply into the wood, but Dorian was nothing if not determined to leave this place with his almost-mate. So Vlad was spirited away in the dead of night with the long clawed, homeless demon, hearing the far-off calls and yowls of a heartbroken Otis.
"You had something to do with that murder," Vladimir sobbed, letting his wishy-washy tears wash their path down his cold cheeks and dribble on Dorian's back as he was carried. "The lady who picked up the hitchhiker. You were gone for so long. You were going to eat me while we had sex." It all seemed so ridiculous now; how could Vlad have been so stupid? Whatever happened to stranger-danger, to the warning sirens in his head every time Dorian forcibly dragged him into that stupid bachelor pad alleyway?
Dorian was hissing and spitting in frustration, frog walking and stomping his way away from Vladimir's hometown. Vlad just ignored him.
"And Otis was so close! If only I held on to the window tighter..."
He was flung and dropped onto the hard ground, bruising his dainty butt, feeling pale and weak with the demonic Dorian growling above him. Dorian spent maybe a full minute letting his frustration fume and boil off of him before collapsing beside Vlad on the ground.
The moon was low, brushing the treetops of the evergreens that embraced the roadside they lay at. In an instant Vlad felt incredibly drained and tired, like he had been through the wash cycle twice.
"Dorian?" he asked softly and wearily. He received a quiet grunt from his partner-in-crime and he continued. "Why didn't you eat me when we first met?"
"Imagine meeting a cow," Dorian followed with immediately. "A cow you know will make a fantastic burger, all greasy and whatnot, y'know, the heart-clogging stuff humans really like. But then you watch the cow and meet the cow and it turns out, that cow is really fucking awesome and pretty and if that cow was human like you, you would mate with him and parade him around the other humans, normal human stuff, right?"
Vlad watched his faint exhale in the cool light of the moon.
"Never mind the fact that he used to be a cow, or he is the same gender as you because he loves you and you know it and you love him back."
Vlad choked on the air he was inhaling at that.
"But," Dorian continued doggedly, "That cow loves you as a cow. It thinks you're a cow too, but you're a human. You're a grimy, homeless cow that has to live in a smelly alleyway so that humans can't find him and smell him. And you have duties as a human, at the Human Court, and you can't let the other humans know what's going on."
Vlad gave a look to Dorian, who sat hunched over and tired at his right. "Plus you have to eat... other cows..."
Dorian slowly slid his eyes to Vlad, locking them together in a hot stare that had Vlad turning away shyly. "Plus I have to eat other cows..." He mumbled in agreement.
"And by saying 'cows', you mean humans?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dorian bob his head in a nod.
"And so by saying 'humans', you mean...?"
"Vampires. Vampires eating a nice human burger." Dorian gave a little wiggle, so he could fully face Vlad. When Vlad wouldn't willingly turn to meet his dead gaze, Dorian softly turned his head over with a press of cool fingers on his cheek. "Vladimir. You know I love you, don't you?" he cooed. He ran his thin finger along Vlad's cheeks, over his closed eyelids, sweeping over the dampness echoing out of his eyes that stained the ground beneath them. Vlad nodded softly, feeling a might bit like the puppet master's favorite puppet. "Vlad, become a vampire with me. Mate with me. Let me protect you from this harsh world, and keep your beauty for myself."
Vlad loosened a few more tears from the vessel of his eyes, letting them join their brothers and sisters on the floor before stuttering out a, "That's pretty selfish."
Dorian cooed again, finding the image a tear soaked Vladimir, with his doll lips and long eyelashes, one he appreciated. He wasn't worried, he would never let Vlad go, he would never let Vlad say no. "I'm a vampire, Vladimir. I've been alive for a long time. I can do things like that." He curled his hand against Vladimir's warm neck, basking in the pulse he unearthed there.
Vlad tapped Dorian's shoulder softly. "Dorian, would I have to eat 'cows' too?"
Dorian clucked his tongue and began the gentle process of lapping up his future-mate's tears now that his choice was clear. "Yes," he hissed. "And the first task to do as a 'human' is to sever any bonds that tie you to the world you are leaving behind."
Vlad gasped as Dorian slid his pointed tongue to his mouth, inside his mouth, mapping the interior hotly before pulling away. "You mean, Otis and Nelly and Henry?" Vlad asked breathlessly.
"Yesss..." Dorian bent forward to take Vlad's bottom lip between his teeth, eager to call his promiscuous wife, who used to dapple and droll on in the affairs of fat ugly humans (cows), only his, and his alone. He would share this treasure with no one else, and he and Vladimir Tod could immerse themselves into each other indefinably. Vladimir would be promiscuous no more, as would he.