Author note: Heh, I love ice cream in the morning. However, what I love more? Popping up to update and seeing so many lovely, supportive reviews! You know what you guys? You all rock! Thanks so much for sticking with this so long.
Disclaimer: I own my OC's but make no profit from this story, except the profit of amusement and satisfaction!
Chapter start
Dealing with Lucy wasn't too difficult and really, the boys should have been thanking him for that. It was because of his persona as a gentleman that this hadn't totally blown up in their faces. Though maybe he needed to let it blow up in his boys' faces and they would fall in line. He would have let it if he did not want Lucy, and getting Lucy meant getting her precious children and niece into the fold as well.
Which meant Max was very vexed with Marko for showing the girl the truth of his vampiric nature. He was vexed with his errant first daughter Star for ruining a flawless chain of events with one simple flick of her mortal, beating hearts sympathy. He was vexed with David for not controlling them all better.
He looked at them all, Thorn present by his side growling, with his ears flattened to his white furred head, wary of even his master's children. The boys looked very out of place in his home with their leather and vagrant personas. He would be more than glad to see the horribly annoying eighties go down the tubes and prayed that with it came a better style for his sons to emulate.
"Well," he said grandly, placing the phone back on the receiver after confirming his next dinner date with Lucy, "One string has been snipped effectively. Now for the main thread. What do you intend to do with Celia now?"
"Play with her," Paul suggested.
"Kill her," David said.
"Force her to turn." Dwayne shrugged.
All three answers came simultaneously and the three glanced at each other after the words escaped to mingle and fall over each other in the air. Only Marko did not voice an opinion, stonily silent and uncharacteristically brooding, his brows furrowed and lip frowning as though there was an irksome fly hovering near him.
Max sighed. "Out of all the responses only Dwayne's is valid. David, you know why I cannot have her killed, and Paul, you have given me enough messes. Having to clean up all the humans that you've 'played' right into insane asylums does get tedious after awhile."
Paul grinned without any repentance. David shrugged as he collapsed into the couch. Marko sat next to him and began curling his hair around his finger.
Max clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "And yet," he muttered, "surely this situation can be salvaged. The human heart is a very fickle, yet adaptable mechanism. After the initial jolt of fear they are very easily led into adoring, even loving a vampire."
David did not like where Max was going but Paul was the one who answered. "Or we could just shove the bottle into her mouth and make her swallow."
Max shook his head, waved his hand a little dismissively. "We'd only be creating another problem. This reminds me that something must be done with Star. This really is all her fault after all." The boys all grinned at this. "No, we cannot force Celia unless as a last resort. If we did then she might have as much of a grudge as Star and it would be best not to give her any allies in that quarter."
"You could just let us kill Star off," Marko said with some hope in his voice. David frowned. Star must have done something to Marko recently that had set the little guy off about her. Marko was cruel and just as calculating as David was but he usually didn't mess with his Halfling burdens except as occasional toys. Nor did he actively gun for their extermination.
"Now, now, Marko, that isn't any way to talk about your sister," Max admonished him with a light fatherly scolding to his tone. Marko huffed but didn't rise up to challenge. "No, I'll have to speak with David and decide…"
Max chuckled, shifting the topic to one more important again. "Sadly you can't keep her locked up forever until she wilts to our will either. I would suggest you keep her for a while at least, soften her up again, before letting her go."
David leapt to his feet. "Let her go?" Max nodded and even Paul stopped looking amused. "You can't be serious."
"Surely I taught each of you well enough to know how to lure a simple human girl. If not then at the least I know you, David, and at least Dwayne as well, are capable of forcing her silence through your talents." His tone brooked no argument. "Now then, Lucy believes she is spending the weekend with Maria. As it stands you have two nights now to soften Celia into, at the least, accepting you all as vampires, or of silencing her. Have fun."
The boys were all grumbling when they left. "Oh and Marko, as you were the one she grew closest to, you should probably be the one doing all the persuading." Marko growled at the order from his sire.
Paul thumped his shoulder in mild sympathy. "Ah, well, buddy. At least it'll be a fun game for you right?"
Not really. Marko was getting more than a little tired of playing at being a simple and playful human to her naïve heart. It was always fun to pretend but eventually a person's true nature just had to be allowed to shine through. His finally had and the terror in Celia's body had been thrilling. No, Marko had been sick of the game before and he wasn't willing to retreat back to calm her.
When he said it all to David, demanding why they couldn't force her, his leader sent on Dwayne and Paul. Marko followed his brother to the lighthouse, landing neatly on the rail, gazing out at the angrily lapping waves and listening to the resounding crash of it against the cliffs and the lighthouse stones.
David took his time, surveying his brother carefully before lighting a cigarette. He offered one to Marko who took it and inhaled the nicotine heavily after he lit it.
This was a point all vampires came to eventually, some sooner rather than later. Just as humans had the milestones of graduating from school, turning twenty-one, having a family of their own, perhaps, so too did vampires have their own milestones.
The moment they took that first human life and violated the flow of time, their own milestones changed. It could be argued that the challenges vampires faced were destined to be darker and heavier. David didn't think so but it had been a long time since he'd dealt with them. Luckily, the passage of unending years filled with partying and doing whatever they felt like did ease the bite, if only a little.
Marko was looking at him as if he had all the answers for his frustration to be settled. "Free will," David said with an unusually solemn look, not too thrilled to be teaching this lesson so soon.
Marko crossed his arms and waited.
"It's the reason why we can't force Celia to change without being willing to face the consequences of that action. It would be deliberately violating the basic ability for her to act and think on her own."
"That doesn't matter to me at all," Marko snapped. "Why should we care about what she wants?"
"You're still young Marko," David said with a tired sigh. "You haven't had the time to realize that you, your existence, all our existences, are a direct violation of so much. If you did force her, if she did turn, and it was not by her own choice, then she would end up hating us all. That might not be so bad but eventually the blood would drive her insane. It's the path already marked out for Star. Laddie too, if we aren't careful about keeping him a Halfling for as long as possible."
"Then how do you explain them? How do you explain Michael? He didn't know what it was to drink the wine and neither did Star or Laddie. They were forced."
"I made a mistake with Star; I didn't force her to drink the wine, didn't want her to at all, if you'll recall. And I wouldn't be keeping her around if not for Max. However, I will force her to kill a human one day, knowing that in the end she will become a mindless killer worse than all of us combined. Laddie was turned to bind Star, to force her. He'll never grow up Marko, not past sixteen. He gets to live knowing his time will freeze. It's enough to drive any human insane." David tilted his head. "Max and I chose a child because if they are raised to know what will happen, maybe they won't go insane."
"As for Michael… well, again we didn't force him to drink the wine. We just set it up, as we would have with Celia, and there is a chance he won't accept his new fate. I'm aware of it all Marko, and you'll know it too one day, but vampires violate the free will of humans easily, every time we kill them, for whatever the reason. It's natural not to give a damn about that. However, it should be different for the ones we intend as family. Trickery to get what we want, yes, but never should we violate our family when they are aware of it."
Marko looked at him, crossing his arms and looking David over. "I don't get it," he said after a moment.
David rolled his eyes, flicking the butt of his smoke into the waves below. "Celia knows what we are. We can't trick her into drinking the blood now but we can still lure her into it, we can still foster a familial tie to her. As long as the moment she drinks the wine is her own choice, as long as she makes her first kill on her own, as long as the moment her time stops is one of her own choosing we should all be fine."
Marko growled a little, annoyed that he understood a little. If they did force her to be a vampire they would essentially be creating a future enemy.
David left him alone to sort through it all and Marko wondered, when had David realized all this, and how much more did the older vampire understand that Marko, still a baby in vampire years, couldn't even scratch the surface of?
Every time Marko took a life, he was violating that human's right to live. Marko understood that, he didn't really care much, and David didn't either even though he was aware of it fully. Maybe he would one day. It was an old human trait he held distaste for, but he tried to place himself in Celia's position.
She had essentially cheated on her precious boyfriend while under the influence of Paul's saliva, so that would be in his way, whatever he decided to do, however he decided to approach her. Star had gotten to her at the worst time, after she had tasted the thick texture of the warm blood, had filled her with revulsion at it, herself, and all of them.
She wouldn't know what the blood would have done to her had she swallowed but even then, a human mind came up with the stupidest things sometimes. She had seen his true face, probably thought he wanted to drain her, true at that moment, but not now that he had calmed down and could again think logically.
What would she be thinking? What would she be feeling?
Marko hadn't been forced in any way. He had drank the wine eagerly, had fed on his human family merrily, and had known what it would make him, had known what he was doing from the start. David and Dwayne had been the only ones to care about him and Marko returned that loyalty because he wanted to, not because they had made him.
It was the same for Paul. A simple meal Marko had planned in indulging that had ended up being so amusing, and had pulled at half forgotten, long buried strands of caring for something outside his coven to the front of his mind. Marko had wanted him as a brother and had maneuvered him into becoming one of them, but he hadn't ever forced Paul into drinking the wine or killing his first victim.
They had become monsters of their own free will. He supposed, chewing his lip, that Celia, now aware of what they were, deserved that too. In the end though he knew Max wasn't going to be thwarted in his desired family, so she had better hurry up and decide to join them. Otherwise, Max would be putting them all in the paths of a very deliberate, very final death.
Dwayne dropped into the cave, waiting patiently for his leader and Marko. Paul wandered to the couch to pick up the near empty wine bottle, grimacing down at it as he lapped at the opening, savoring the small taste.
Dwayne went to stare down at the three entwined beings. Dawn wouldn't come around for another good hour or so, yet Star and Laddie were fast asleep. The girl had her arms wrapped around Celia's waist, pulling her back into her absently; Laddie was practically on top of Celia, clinging with childish possessiveness. There were tearstains on his still puffy cheeks.
Dwayne carefully reached out and wiped against them, leaving the skin smooth again but still red. His fingers drifted into Laddie's hair a moment before he pulled a blanket around his shoulders.
He didn't care about Celia. She amused him, sure, yet most humans did. He wasn't invested in her, as he was Laddie. He did know though that if they couldn't get Celia into the fold now Laddie would be hurt, and so would his coven.
Free will… Dwayne knew the conversation his leader would be having with Marko and eventually with Paul. There would be more than this particular one before the two vampires reached a hundred years. Conversations about just how cruel their natures drove them to be, at how much time they stole from living beings without much thought, that would all hit them at once in random bursts throughout the years.
Eventually they would all know just how it felt to be David. To have the responsibility of keeping them all together and safe, mentally and physically. At the very least, none of them had fallen in love with a human without the intention of turning them. That would have been something David and Dwayne could not have helped with.
David came back without Marko. He too looked over the sleeping group. He exchanged a glance with Dwayne before he stalked off. When Marko finally came back, it was minutes until sunrise.
Marko waved his brothers off, lastly Paul who looked him over, his gaze shifting between Marko and the bed.
"This is really fucked up shit isn't it," Paul heard himself ask. It was without any of his usual joking demeanor. Marko was just as blank, vampires in their natural environment, realizing that being undead wasn't all fun and games.
"You don't have to say something so obvious."
End chapter
Author note: David was probably OC but in this case, I don't 100% mind. I'm really big on the concept of free will and of living the best life you can and I often have thoughts about people dying and the why and how of it all. Like are we reincarnated or is it really over?
The idea of a vampire to me is a violation of that basic thing that everyone goes through. Their time is stopped while the rest of time flows on but then they continue to hinder it by stopping other people's time prematurely. It's something I can't fully explain, but I do love the idea of vampires so I'm not hating on them.
The basic thing David is trying to get across to Marko, I'll let you decide for now, and if anyone is curious you can ask me a direct question and I'll answer, or PM me, or if I remember, I'll put it on my final Author note.
I also wanted to show that being a vampire isn't all fun and games like the movies depict, though wouldn't that be kick-ass. Of course, killing and even the idea of forcing someone to do it too might cause some internal strife. I get that they are vampires and it's in their natures to be killers but I also want to show that they were human once, so maybe buried somewhere they can still be swayed by lingering human mannerisms.
Still though I am also trying to show that the boys are killers. They aren't good guys. A mild twinge of humanity doesn't excuse them from being murderers, and they honestly enjoy killing 99.9 percent of the time in this story.
Any who, I think this is the longest note I have on this story! I hope it doesn't damage any of your faiths in this story. Leave some lovely reviews and I will see you all next time!