Life and what remained of it had changed. If recovering from a fatal wound - by drinking blood and becoming a half-vampire – was any indication of it. The earthquake that had dropped the Riolta into the ground had injured more than just him. He was sure that many people were dead, but there was only one other person who was in the same shape as him.
He and David had decided that they might as well become friendly enough if they were going to be stuck together. So they had started exchanging stories, and talking about their lives. They didn't know if they would be able to go back to their lives as they had been prior to the quake-but, as Dwayne told David, he had "There's nothing worth going back to."
Despite his refusal to tell them anything beyond the basics of their new abilities, Max did take good care of them while they recovered, and they remained comfortable. The beds were warm and soft, and since the clothes they had come in were dirty and torn, Max had redressed them in his pyjamas. Despite being too big, they were luxurious to lounge in.
David had already told Dwayne his story, about his father being a jeweller in town to buy a plot of land to build another store. He and his mother had accompanied him. And now it was Dwayne's turn to tell David about his life.
"My family is dead. It's just me."
He found it almost painful to think about Isabelle. He had already wondered what would have happened if she found out what he was now.
"My mother died in a fire when I was a kid and my sister and father died a few months ago in another fire. The end."
David seemed to contemplate his words and didn't reply. Annoyed at the quiet, Dwayne took the chance to peer into David's thoughts; something both of them had been learning to do. David was much more skilled at it; to the point where Dwayne was never quite sure if David was scanning his mind until the latter commented on his thoughts. But the blonde could usually tell when Dwayne was looking, as he was still unused to probing thoughts. David was new to it as well, but he seemed to have a natural skill.
David was marvelling at how different their lives had been, despite the fact that they were now both turned into half-vampires at the same time. Their stations had been different-he had had wealth, while Dwayne was living in near poverty. Dwayne withdrew his feeble probe after just a moment, so that David couldn't detect it.
Leaving David to contemplate their situation, Dwayne's thoughts wandered to Isabelle, in the last few days before he left for Santa Carla.
There was a tapping at his door. "Come in," Dwayne called out, lifting his head from his drawers. He had been in the process of packing his clothes when Isabelle opened the door.
Her hands were clutched in front of her, her shoulders hunched. She was biting her lip and never let her eyes drift from her older sibling. "What are you doing?" she asked.
Dwayne cocked an eyebrow. "I think you know exactly what I'm doing."
"Yes, but I can still have a conversation with you, right?" She sat on the edge of his bed and continued to study him. "When are you leaving?"
"You know that, too. I leave the day after tomorrow." Dwayne closed the drawer he had been unpacking and sat beside her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I just-" Isabelle looked down at her hands. "Just-why do you have to go, Dwayne?"
Dwayne put a protective arm around her and held her close to him. She snuggled in, her hand curled on his chest. Isabelle's head was tipped back to look up at him. "You also know why I have to go," he said softly. "I can't keep living here with our father anymore. He's still so hung up on mother and if I don't work, then we won't have anything for us."
"But I can't go; why leave me here alone with him?"
"Because…maybe I can save up enough money to send for you. You could get a job and live with me until you get married." Isabelle dipped her head, and they both looked at the wall for several minutes. Then, Dwayne said, "Isabelle, I know it's not ideal, and I want you to come with me, but you can't and I can't live in the same house as him any longer."
Isabelle slipped from under his arm and tilted her head to one side. "Maybe so, but-you will manage to get me to Santa Carla, right?"
"I promise."
"Then I will wait until you do. Don't you dare forget."
Two days later she had seen him off on the train. Six months later, she was dead, and he had never had the chance to save her from their father. His unfulfilled promise was heavy in his mind.
"Pretty girl. Did you have sex with her or something?"
"WHAT?!"
He had been upset at Isabelle's death before. But to hear David comment on her – having taken a secret look into his thoughts and seen an intimate moment with Isabelle – and then to ask him if he had had sex with her-that made him angrier than he had been in his life.
Dwayne forced David out his mind before catapulting himself into the blonde's mind. He wanted to drive David insane, to the point where he wouldn't be able to see his memories of Isabelle again, and relentlessly he racked through David's thoughts and memories, getting the briefest flashes as he tore through. At some point, he could hear David cry out with pain. Finally he drew himself out and returned to his own mind, the connection between their minds was full of pain - which Dwayne had caused David to feel.
Breathing hard was not helping the injury in his chest, so he slowly calmed his breathing until it was shallow and painless. David's breathing, on the other hand, was ragged.
"What did you do?" David asked. "If I didn't wanna know, I would make you yell too."
"Don't ever repeat that about my sister," Dwayne threatened. There was a rumble low in his throat, and if there had been any more air in there, it would have been audible. "Or I'll do it again."
"Okay, okay. Sorry."
More than a week passed before David got up from his bed and began to walk around the room. His legs were still a little weak, so even though he usually just stood up from his bed and sat on Dwayne's, he commented that it was quite nice to do even that. And Dwayne found the dip in his bed from David's weight comforting, as a physical sign that he wasn't becoming a vampire alone.
Nights seemed to pass quickly and telling one night from the next was sometimes difficult. Each had the same routine of drinking Max's from the bottle, talking about themselves or vampirism and reading Dracula or Carmilla or whatever else Max had for them that night.
It was becoming familiar, and although he couldn't forget Isabelle's mouldering corpse, most things, like his old life, working in the hotel and struggling to get by, was becoming more and more like an unpleasant dream, the details fogging. He couldn't complain about it, since it was one less thing to contemplate and more time to feel his body transform and heal.
Although Max had told him a few days after he woke up that there had been fluid seeping from his eyes when he was fed the blood, Dwayne didn't feel like a blind man. His eyes had tingled for almost a week and then stopped. When they did, the blindfold over his eyes almost felt tighter, like his eyes were done leaking fluid and had refilled themselves with the lost substance. Besides, he had been able to see even seconds before the earthquake, and since there had been no time for him to realize that he was blind, he doubted that it was possible.
So the night came when he told David he was taking the blindfold off.
He felt David watching him as his hands rose to first untangle the knotted blindfold from his hair-which had already grown several inches longer than it was before-and then as he untied the knot and pulled the cloth down, opening his eyes for the first time in several weeks.
The simple beauty of the room captured his attention instantly. He felt his eyes drawn to the intricacy of the patterned designs of the wallpaper, the small bumps and dents of the walls seeming huge in to him, the softness of the carpet under their beds. The bedspread covering him was solid navy blue, but he could see the shadows on it easily and the threads weaving through the material were better than any puzzle he had seen. David laughed at him staring holes into the bedspread and Dwayne turned to look at the half vampire.
David was more interesting than anything else. Now he recognized the man from the hotel and noted that his skin was several shades paler than it had been before. His hair was still pale blond, but looked like there was more life and shine to it. The pyjamas on his lean frame were too big and pooled on the bed underneath him, exposing several inches of the chest. Dwayne could focus in and count the fine blonde hairs on David's chest. But the blue eyes made him pause. They were cool and carried a slyness to them that he couldn't place, nor could he look away from the darker fleck of blue scattered across their surface. There was a satisfied smirk on his face, one side of his mouth raised higher than the other.
"Well?" David asked, watching Dwayne continue to scan the room. "How is it?"
Though his lips were parted, Dwayne still didn't speak. His chest still hurt too much to do so, though he tried on occasion. "It's amazing. Imagine being blind and then…seeing things as you couldn't see them before." He replied, his gaze now on Dracula. If this incredible vision-better than his sight had been as a full mortal-was a side effect of the vampirism, then he would be satisfied with becoming a vampire only to see the world.
David picked up the wine bottle from the nightstand between their beds, and Dwayne got his first look at the substance that had saved his life.
The bottle glass was clear, but it was covered with gold in bands around the middle and base. Large, almost gaudy rubies and olive coloured stones had been encrusted on the gold, whereas there was a band of square topaz around the base. The bottle nearly shone with all the precious stones and the gold on it. The liquid inside the wine bottle was more interesting to him than the bottle exterior, though. It was transparent and a deep crimson. The light bounced off the surface and Dwayne could smell it from his bed; a deep, metallic scent-but one oh so desirable. His mouth watered at it.
David took a drink from the bottle and reached to pass it to Dwayne. "Drink up."
Dwayne was able to see his hand as he took the bottle from David and raised it to his mouth. It was nice to not have someone put it to his lips to drink, but to just lift it himself. As he drank what he now recognized as blood, he watched it as it ran down the neck of the bottle and onto his waiting tongue. His vision swam as he felt the blood strengthen him and he blinked until it cleared, removing the bottle from his mouth and lifting it to look at it.
"It's beautiful."
"Max's blood?" David asked as Dwayne returned the bottle to the nightstand. "It's-not good, better-but it's only beautiful when it's in my mouth."
A smirk twitched Dwayne's lips. "True. Speaking of Max, let's not tell him that I can see yet."
Dwayne was sick of Max only telling them half of their questions. If they asked him whether their powers were the same as Count Dracula, Max would only grin and tell them that some were and some weren't. Which ones, though, he would "leave them to discover for their own good." As far as sires went (Though they didn't know how he compared to others), he didn't seem to be a good one. So why not withhold information from him?
Despite his delight in seeing the world through his improved eyes, the dim light of the room was beginning to sting a little, making him squint. Dwayne covered his eyes with his hand. "I'm going to put the blindfold back on. The light hurts." Maybe his sight wasn't yet fully healed. There was just a tiny bit of fluid pooling in the inner corners of his eyes and he could feel it when he blinked.
"Want a hand?" David asked, but Dwayne shook his head.
"I can manage."
Dwayne picked up the strip of cloth-which, he noted for the first time, was saturated with dried, browned blood that was already flaking off when it moved-and lifted it to his eyes, closing them as he tied it securely over behind his head. After the sights in the room, being plunged back into darkness felt heavy on his heart.
He couldn't wait until he could permanently remove the blindfold.
