Hey, you guys do know you can make requests, right? I'm going to revert back into the writing den after tomorrow for a bit, but if anybody wants to see anything in particular, feel free to leave a comment in the doobleedoo below. Oh, and priority request to the person who can guess which band mused this one.

Tears Don't Fall

It was really easy for someone to get lost in the library of Monster High. For a few people, that wasn't a horrible thing, but for most, it was not the good kind of nightmare.
The elf ran through the oddly spaced shelves, sky blue eyes darting back and forth along each seeking an escape route. There didn't seem to be an end in sight; once she'd run the lengths of the library, she took along the back wall and darted down around the other stacks. If she could cover this wall, she could hug the other and find the front, surely! She raced along the back wall until she saw looming, lingering shadows ahead. She darted between the stacks and turned to weave along the same path, but stopped in her tracks. A wooden chair in sea foam green sat unoccupied in the center of the isle, a book open over its seat and bag tucked beneath it as if it had just been occupied. She turned to dash away, but collided with me.

"Thanks, Whisp. Any longer and I would've thought you were holding out on me."

The dark genie appeared behind the chair and nodded, bowing to her waist with a flourish of her arm. "As you wish."

It wasn't always like that. We weren't even always like that now, all monsters carried at least a grain of humanity with them wherever they went. I don't think we were always monsters, but I couldn't say it was entirely no fault of our own that we became the red-eyed predators taking down the weaker beings with a purr. Honestly, as often as people went missing at Monster High- be it the catacombs or the tentacle creature or what have you, it was rather surprising we hadn't just taken deals with every contact we could find.

Short version: the tentacle monster found the lamp in the deep end and threw it somewhere. Apparently it was pretty traumatic. Whisp got kind of screwed and ended up hanging out in the library maze, playing games with her potential victims. We found a method that would work for both of us. Once her "finders" got wise to what she was trying to do, successfully ending her game, she ran them over to me. Then the game was really over. It wasn't always necessarily me; the way I'd heard it, at least five of my old classmates had taken up contracts with my little Bohemian demon. It definitely worked out for the best.

Her shadows dragged away what was left when I was through. I slid my bag out from beneath her dangling transparent feet as she studied my copy of Dorian Grey. "This is a mortal book," she said. I took my place that she had thankfully held and smoothed down the corner. "Yes, it is. I've had it since its publication."

She leaned back, throwing her arms over the bumps in the backing and staring at my face with open delight as I stood and slid my bag over my shoulder. "Do you have a portrait of your demons, Gory?"

I tucked my book to my side and leaned in close to tap her ice-cold, misty nose with my index finger. "I'm staring at one of them right now."

She laughed, a wicked chiming of bells, mingling with the sound of the actual bell. I withdrew. Monster High probably had one of the only remaining bells in the educational systems, most were just a prolonged beeping like an answering machine gone rogue. The embracing of everything I knew and cared for was probably why I liked this place so much...on good days.

I slipped out between the stacks and up the stairs out of the multilevel, monstrous room. The halls were crowded as usual, practically overflowing. Vampires were graced with a fluidity of movement upon their birth that remained with them, no matter the obstacle; these halls could hinder that. I managed to obtain a few glares as I forced my way through the throngs and across to the less-filled hallway I intended to reach. People at their lockers, small groups of one or two off against the classroom doors and the occasional snogging couple marked my steps in typical, teenage theatrics. If these halls were bad, the cafeteria was unbearable. Our table was situated behind the girls who had silenced the feud between Romulus's pack and our rather fractured little group, so naturally while we observed and kept to ourselves, sociological politics spewed from the other with the force of a breaking dam. It was tolerable, compared to the jocks flexing and referring to each other as "dude."

I slid in across from Bram and placed my book between us. "You'd think the capital offence would be on the part of the person bumped into, rather than the moron doing the bumping."

My boyfriend's lips twitched upward. "Want to go into the city tonight? The Carnival of Night is coming into town."

I withdrew my lunch bag and rose a brow. He reached into the inner lapel of his jacket and withdrew two pristine tickets, rimmed in purple with black, typeset printing across their stark white surfacing. I turned them over in delight to find the heavily face-painted vampire manipulating fire printed on the backside. He beamed, clearly pleased with the delight I felt crossing my features. I reached out and grasped his hand, "We're really going?"

"This tonight, something better next weekend?"

My heart practically stopped. He knew I knew and said nothing more, but I shook his sleeve and leaned in, "Did you get tickets to the Midnight Masquerade?"

His smile grew imperceptibly, but my hands flew over my mouth to stifle a scream of glee I felt rising. I shot off my seat and crossed the table to slide in beside him, peppering his cheeks in kisses. "Thank you, you are the best boyfriend in existence."

"I'm also taking you to Fear on the Pier next weekend. I got paid last night, and we're going to blow it."

I squeaked in glee. His arm wrapped around my back and pressed me closer to place a proper kiss on my lips. The autumn cold that had been seeping into my skin all day melted away. My resolve crumpled like one of our classmates' paper airplanes with the softness of his lips on mine. I drew back gently to steal a glance in either direction. Satisfied we weren't being watched, I let them descend upon mine again. The tender tug of his fangs on my lower lip caused the air to slip free from my lungs. My fingers slid up his shirt to wind in his tie, pressing him closer while the soft, adoring kiss progressed into something much less gentlemanly and refined. We pressed together, a unit again, the tip of his tongue gently teasing mine. He withdrew before I could openly vocalize my enthusiasm. Kissing him left me dazed, reduced to the stupefied grinning of the lesser females around me. Unlike them, he really was something to be reduced to a babbling mess over.

He reached over and pulled my bag and my book over to his side of the table. Everything else dragged along with it. Fantasies of dancing with him to lively, Eastern European folk-pop and the guitar heavy main association to our species danced through my mind with the freedom of a gypsy piper. I laid my head on his shoulder. Nothing could've been better.

"Why all this?" I asked while opening my lunch.

"You've been working your ass off lately. I haven't seen you need this much caffeine since we put together Vampowerment. You need a couple days off." He picked up the grease-laden thing they considered pizza and folded it at the crust, amending, "We all do, but mostly you."

"Biased," I replied. I had never been more grateful in my entire life that my parents understood the requirement for comfort food that came with high school. It was no wonder we all started getting fat by college.

"Totally in love with you," he replied and gave my cheek a greasy kiss. I physically winced. He laughed with his mouth closed, withdrawing his arm from around me to wipe his mouth. He waited until after he'd swallowed to mutter, "Sorry."

"The entire institution is cruel and unusual punishment," I teased. It was better than mortal schools. Not as fabulous as Belfry Prep, but definitely better than New Salem.

"You should've seen what they think might be chicken. Then again, it might be hobo. It might be fried rat. You never know."

I laughed under my breath. Heath walked by and I tapped his elbow. He turned a bit too quickly, almost like he anticipated an interested girl to be summoning him. I composed my most innocent smile, but he rolled his eyes knowingly and placed a finger to my tupperware and flash-heated the chicken soup inside. I ruffled his ginger head, "Thank you, hot stuff."

A goofy smile crossed his face and he pretended my compliment didn't go straight to his ego. Bram rolled his eyes as the elemental rejoined his group at the table behind us. "Please tell me I never have to worry about what you see in that guy."

"Friend material, nothing more," I replied. "Though how you'd have to worry about anyone, I have no idea."

He laughed under his breath and offered an earbud connected to his iCoffin. We could both sense Frankie Stein drawing in a breath behind us. "I downloaded new music, but if you want to really drown it out, I'm pretty sure the Night Vale coffin-cast updated."

I glanced back to him while taking a spoonful of liquid and limp pasta onto my spoon. "Tell me why you think you have to worry, and then we can listen to Night Vale."

He shrugged, barely a twitch of a shoulder as he took another bite. "There are just better guys around you now."

I laughed out loud. I think it might've drawn attention from the people not included in our private affairs, but whether they listened or not was not my concern. "Are you being completely serious, Bram? Because I don't think we're living on the same planet, here. We're talking about the people I have to inform about global issues regularly. We're talking about the morons who think flexing their 'guns,'" I gave them air quotes, "will get them girlfriends. The very same morons who think going out and smacking someone so they have to do a complete flip is more fun than doing research and creating a foolproof argument and mentally and emotionally decimating someone else. These are the people I'm terrified of getting into the government one day, because they might just be worse than the people we have in now. They might be the last viable generation with any measure of sense, but Satan will borrow my snowblower before they become anything like you."

He ate the scrap pizza in silence, a sheepish, slightly satisfied smile on his lips. I leaned in and kissed the corner of them lightly. "You mean more to me than anyone ever will, Bram. You are kind, you are gentlemanly, you may be depressive at times but you're ultimately still able to see the good in the rest of the world. I buy us matching hats, and you tolerate the gesture enough to actually wear them."

He grinned and muffled his laughter before he slipped his arm around me once again. "I get it."

"No, you don't. If you got it, I wouldn't have to tell you. I love you. It doesn't change, it evolves. We don't even have to talk six hours a day like we used to, we can just sit there in silence and function as separate individuals in the same space. This is different." I could've gone on for hours, but just the inclination to go on as long as I had put more realism to my love than I could've stated any other way.

He smiled and tenderly brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear. He propped my chin up on his fingers and gazed into my eyes. "I know. You can never take a joke."

"You shouldn't joke about those things," I murmured, kissing his knuckles. "Congratulations, you've made me incredibly weak and vulnerable toward you. Love is a horrible thing that allows for manipulation by either party."

He took my spoon gently from my fingertips and nuzzled close to me, "But I wouldn't have it any other way. I can be cruel to anyone. You have always been the sole recipient of my affection."

I stole my spoon back in blatant refusal to allow that affection to include feeding me. He kissed the side of my head and gave my waist a tender squeeze. From behind the both of us, I heard a quiet and pointed, "Hey, where's Heidi?"

My brows rose, and my cheeks must've colored because Bram burst into laughter still pressed close against me. "You are a wicked, cruel little monster, and I love you exponentially."

"It was Whisp's fault," I replied under my breath, lest it be heard. His laughter hardly drew attention, but just in case it did, I lowered my eyes in hopes my transgression would go unknown. At the very least, it was a good thing vampires didn't show up on film.