Another Story

Prompt: Free Day

Vampire. A creature of the night that feasted on blood and life.

For many people, they have been many things. And so many stories were told about them.

Of fiends and demons that ravaged and destroyed. Schemers and diplomats navigating deadly decadent courts of their own devising. A rare few woke up to justice, and fought against the worst of their kind to maintain balance. But one all too common story was that of the lover of alluring beauty and wondrous charm.

Yet the stories where a human lover of a vampire had a happy ending with them were even fewer than heroes.

Roxas had heard them all growing up, but right now he wasn't sure just what story he was in. He wasn't even sure if this was a romance, or a story of a boy getting fooled by a pretty face. All that mattered was that one late night on his way home, a dash of white caught his eyes in a nearby alleyway.

On some level, he knew this was a bad idea. Going into a strange alleyway in this city was nearly a death wish. But there was no way Roxas could leave someone to a grisly fate if he could help it. Walking into the shadow, he saw the strange white blur was in fact a white dress, worn by a blonde girl huddling behind a trash can. "Hello? Are you okay?" Walking closer, he reached out to the stranger and asked, "Do you need me to call—?"

"Don't!"

The desperate cry made him stumble back as he waved his hands, "Okay, I won't call anyone." Yet even so, he didn't want to leave this girl alone, especially since she seemed so lost. "Do you need—?"

"No! Please!" The girl frantically shook her head before clutching her hands to her stomach and murmuring, "I don't want to hurt anyone."

The sentence caused some unease to build in Roxas' gut. A warning. Something telling him that this girl could truly hurt him, impoverished as she was. But even so, her desperation was baffling. Despite his fears, he steeled himself and asked, "Why would you hurt someone?"

Shivering, the girl looked at him with teary blue eyes and whispered in a horse voice, "Because I'm so hungry."

And as she grimaced, Roxas saw the fangs in her teeth. And then it all made sense, that familiar fear. It was his instinct reacting before he had even realized the truth. Roxas took a wary step back, "You're a vampire." He tensed up, ready to run. To either try and find somewhere to hide, or something to drive her back. Whenever she stuck, he would be ready.

What Roxas wasn't ready for was for the girl to slump back against the wall. Turning away from him, she muttered, "Just leave me. It's better that I starve."

Just hearing the words made Roxas ache. He had heard too many tragic stories of newly turned vampires starving themselves rather than continuing on as monsters. Kneeling down beside the girl, even as she tried to ignore him, Roxas quietly asked, "Do you really want to die?"

She sat there in silence, before looking back to him and murmuring a plaintive, "No."

Roxas nodded in relief. Good, she at least wanted some kind of life, undead or not. Fortunately, he might have a solution back at home. "Would you be fine with raw beef?I had some I was gonna put in some spaghetti but if you're fine with it…"

The girl pondered the idea, and eventually she slowly began to smile, "That would be nice."

Standing up, he offered his hand to the vampire girl. "I'm Roxas, by the way. What's your name?"

Looking from his hand to his eyes, she took hold with a cold yet dainty hand and stood up as she said, "My name is Naminé."

That chance meeting led to Naminé staying the night, satisfied enough with the makeshift blood meal. One night became a week, just to help her get on her feet. Though as she made some money with her skill at painting, that week became a month. Apartments were hard to come by nowadays, and with the two working together to earn some money it made life easier.

Not to mention, as far as roommates went Roxas felt that Naminé was one of the best he'd had by far. She was well spoken and thoughtful. More than willing to listen to him as he talked about his day and unpacking some of his larger worries. The haunting specter of his missing family, and an unhappy past. He hadn't gotten into the details of why or his old teacher, but those weren't secrets he was really going to share with anyone, vampire or not.

Of course, he could tell that Naminé had her own pains. Pains he did his best to help soothe. Surprisingly, she wasn't a fledgeling as he first thought. She was a vampire that had already experienced a few decades of unlife. Though she was not quite willing to explain what had happened for her to run away from her sire or the respective coven. The only thing she was willing to say was that it was something 'best forgotten'.

Though Roxas had a feeling it was something that wasn't easily forgotten.

Well, at least he wasn't too afraid of getting turned into a meal anytime soon. Naminé was happy enough with raw meat to satisfy her needs. Which led to tonight. Things had been going well enough at his job, so he decided to do something nice for the both of them. Carrying the bags of groceries, Roxas opened the door and announced, "I'm back."

Naminé looked up from her notepad, and got up from the Sofa. "You're home.

"I picked up some steaks on the way back." Roxas lifted up his hand with the bag in question. "Do you want me to cut it up or put it in a blender?"

Naminé shook her head with a grin as she moved to ease Roxas' burden by grabbing a few of the bags. "I'm fine with it being solid. Besides, if the meat's too tough it might ruin the blender."

He nodded, grateful for her advice, and the two worked together to put away the groceries barring the steak. As she walked back to the living room, Roxas pulled out the chef's knife and moved to the meat on the cutting board. Though as he tried to slice, the beef refused to give way. Roxas shifted his grip on the meat to put more force into into his cut "Looks like you were right, this meat is really touOH!"

He yelped as he felt the consequences of his haste to start cooking. The knife fell away with a clatter as he let go to clutch his other hand. Naminé rushed back into the kitchen to see his hands. "Roxas?! Are you okay?!"

Roxas looked at the injury before sighing with relief "It's fine. Just a cut." It stung for sure, and there was a bit of blood, but the cut was hardly deep. He saw her hands clasp around his arm and hand, Roxas chuckled as he tried to pull back his hand. "It's alright, Naminé, I just need to wash…"

His words faltered as he felt her grip. As if his arm was held by iron bands. He looked up frantically and saw Naminé panting, with visible fangs in her mouth. After a month together, he had almost taken her vampiric power for granted. But it seemed not even someone as kind as Naminé could resist the taste of blood. She looked at him, tears beginning to form in her eyes as she pleaded, "I'm sorry, I can't stop." She quickly grabbed him by the shoulders and moved to bite his throat.

Only for him to hold his injured hand to her mouth, stopping her approach. He felt a tongue start to lick at his wound as she tried to suck what blood she could. The taste seemed to calm her and her grip loosened. Roxas tried to soothe her as he could and murmured, "It's okay. Just drink. Take the edge off. Just…"

And then everything shifted.

He saw her before a group in robes, cowering as they passed judgment.

"She's a danger to us! To consume life is one thing, but to experience memories so easily?!"

"You're missing the bigger picture! She could be most useful to our cause."

She whispered to herself, "To fight your blood wars for you?"

A monster or a pawn, none of her brethren saw anything else.

Nobody saw her.

So she ran.

She saw him before a man in red bandages, passing judgment at his angry defiance.

"Boy, sooner or later that world will come for you! Just like it did for your parents!"

"You are meant for a greater purpose than a normal life!"

He muttered to himself, "To fight your nightmares for you?"

A failure or a weapon, his teacher never saw anything else.

He never saw him.

So he ran.

As quickly as it started, it ended. Naminé stopped drinking from his hand and backed away. Her eyes widened as she pieced together the memories she saw. "You were trained to be a vampire hunter."

Roxas flinched at the recollection. He already had wanted to put that past behind him. Now with Naminé, he wished it never happened to begin with. Even so, what had happened happened, so he sighed and admitted, "Yeah, and after years of it going nowhere, I ran off."

She wrapped her arms around herself as she muttered, "I wondered why you accepted my existence so easily."

Roxas glanced down at the cut as its bleeding had slowed after Naminé's feeding. "Well, I don't think I could have guessed that," he shrugged as he settled on calling the strange experience a, "memory thing."

Naminé sighed and began to shuffle her feet. "For as long as I have been a vampire, when I drink, I see a person's life. And sometimes they see mine." A strange power to be sure, but certainly a powerful one. From what he had heard, secrets were well guarded in the world of vampires. And having a way to force them out would be a game changer in many a blood war.

Silence hung over the kitchen, as the two were forced to reckon with what the other truly was. For all his training, Roxas wasn't sure what to do or say with a real vampire in front of him. But more importantly, he wasn't sure how he could also do right by his friend. He saw Naminé standing across the room still holding herself. Her eyes drifted to his hand before she screwed them shut. Opening them, she quietly asked, "Do you want me to leave?" She shook her head as she began to walk towards the door out of the apartment. "I don't know if I'll lose control again. Not to mention one of the coven might find me here."

If his teacher were here, he'd be saying to let this be the end of it. To stop being a fool for thinking there was any good to be found in vampires, and be thankful that this one would rather die than hurt another.

Now more than ever, Roxas hated his teacher.

He ran up to Naminé's side and put a hand on her shoulder. "I know the kind of vampires that my teacher warned me about, but you're nothing like them." As she turned to face Roxas, he reached down to hold her hand. "Honestly, you're the nicest person I've met, human or vampire." He nodded as what he needed to do was finally clear. "That's why I want to help."

Naminé's eyes widened as she turned to face him, her hand slowly tightening around his. "Really? You'd do that for me?"

He chuckled and shrugged, "All that hunter training has to be good for something right?" Roxas glanced at his cut hand, the blood having stopped. "Maybe I can give you a bit of real blood if it helps."

Naminé stared at the source of blood before she shook her head, "If you give me too much, you'd either die or," her voice grew quiet as she came to the end result of such a feeding. "You'd turn. Become like me."

To change forever, to live with an inhuman hunger until death or the end of time. His teacher had bemoaned such an existence as wretched.

And yet…

"If I get to be with you, that doesn't sound too bad."

She looked up in shock at his musing, to be fair Roxas was still coming to grips with it himself. But living with Naminé had kindled something more in him. Something that ran deep to his heart. Slowly, Naminé reached for his cheek as she wondered, "Would you really follow me into a life in the darkness?"

Shaking his head, Roxas slowly smiled, "A life with you might be brighter than you think." Strange as it was, Roxas slowly began to accept the truth. He was falling in love with a vampire, and some part of him realized that feeling might be mutual. He wasn't quite sure where to really start in unpacking all of these feelings and the complications that brought to their lives. But one thing was certain.

He was still hungry, and Naminé probably wanted more than a taste of blood.

Gently moving her hand away, Roxas chuckled, "Right now, let's focus on dinner."

Naminé began to giggle, and as he walked back to the kitchen, he heard her whisper, "Thank you Roxas."

Roxas wasn't sure what kind of story he or Naminé were in. A tragedy of a love not meant to be. A thrilling story of facing an ancient conspiracy. A sweet story of a life together. There was no way of telling where things would go.

But he wanted to find the answer with her.