Yeahthisneedstobebetterorganized. Case files! Chapter titles! Forgetting what sunshine looks like! What is hygeine!
(And I don't even think any of these ideas are new; this is really more a love letter to you fandom than toward the actual comic, ehah.)
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Conrad had dived under the rumple of quilts atop Hanna's futon to transform, the veined top of one bare foot poking out as he tugged his trousers on under the covers. He was tempted to just stay there in the dark and the dry warmth of an electric blanket, but the weight on the mattress startled him to peek out of the coccoon. "Mrfh," Conrad complained, shuffling upright to take the shirt Hanna was offering.
"You're welcome to crash here, ImeanIguess that goes without saying? Open invitation." Hanna turned his cheek to let Conrad dress, shrugging because man was it awkward offering so little to someone who had just lost so much. "If you need to talk, also, about like. Genie Bad-touch? Because you were kind of coerced into something I think they call an abusive situation, and -"
"Oh, jesas," Conrad scoffed. "No. To any and all of that." There is a shuffle of bedcovers.
Hanna turns to see a lump of quilts where Conrad had buried himself from sight. "Hey c'mon, guy. I shouldn't have let you go with Noah in the first place."
"Shouldn't have let me?" Conrad peers from the quilts, readjusting the crooked fall of his glasses. "Exscuse you, Mr. Cross."
"Wull," Hanna's eyes darkened, and he turned to pull a knee up on the futon with him, hands grasping his ankle. "Yeah. I coulda told you not to, then you'd have asked why not, then I woulda told you what needed telling. I just assumed -"
"I still would have gone."
Hanna deflates. "Yeah? I mean, I guess you did seem pretty steam-rolled."
Conrad growls in frustration, and buries himself again, turning his back this time. Hanna darts across the room to accept a plate of dinner from Ashleigh, then rejoins the futon to recline back against the smooth lump under the blankets. "Don't fall asleep on me," Hanna goads, chewing steamed broccoli. "You gotta call Ves and your insurance company and the police and stuff. Mostly the police." He stabs the handle of his fork gently into the blankets.
Muffled, "Fuggoff."
"Dude, it's my bed."
"Commandeered."
Hanna had nothing to argue to that, and shared a shrug with Ash, who had leaned against the wall near the door to watch, wary. "I can inform Hatch," Ash offered quietly, tilting his chin. "We might find him some relief from his worry, at least."
"No," Conrad growled, surfacing on his stomach, both arms sliding out as his thumbs typed at the screen of his phone. "I've got it. I'm telling him already. He's blistering my inbox with typos and oaths."
Hanna huffed out a chuckle, returning to his dinner, legs crossed lotus. "Don't tell him you're here. Thin walls, nosy neighbors; my lease can't survive a reunion."
Conrad grunted an affirmative, chin digging into the mattress, sighing heavily every now and again, thumbs busy. Eventually the chords of a 'Shins' playlist drifted up from the phone and Conrad flipped it atop the mattress and shrank back under the quilts with one last exasperated grumble, leaving the music on to cover the sound of Hanna's pulse, of Hanna's breathing lungs and the mechanization of a fueled human stomach. Noises were noisier, when Conrad kept up a diet of fresh human biting, and smells were smellier and colors ... he didn't want to even talk about the colors. Everything was too much when he ate regular, even he himself. He hungered for things he hadn't hungered for since he was a mopey teenager, like junk drama films and moody (whiny) rock ballads, like social approval and romantic validation and getting off discreetly but consistently.
Conrad had bitten strangers in the streets of Cairo. They were people he would never again know; tourists and shop owners and college students and curators; and they had tasted like anything in a range from pleasantly adventurous to rank with religious fear and none of them had tasted like no, but none of them had tasted like yes, and all of them had helped build up something more fitting a vampiric constitution within Conrad, which had been the point entirely.
Conrad had even, at the insistence of the toothy friends he'd met at an uptown nightclub, stared long and hard into a bar tender's eyes and convinced the woman to put three olives into the next bloke's martini instead of just two. Which was a stupid trifle but a crowing victory for someone who, on their mortal merits, couldn't even convince his houseguests to use coasters.
Adelaide's bite scar had finally faded, and too the scars Conrad had sustained during his childhood - knee, shoulder, side of foot. His right fang had even caught up with his left fang, though his left fang had grown a bit too and rather ruined the symmetry. His ears had started to sharpen at the tops and his fingernails hung just a sliver over the nailbed, despite his habitual gnawing. He'd always had the widow's peak, but his hair was a bit healthier and he'd started the need to shave regularly - tempted to culture a beard but too finicky to suffer the in-between stages of stubble and scruff (which made him look like a pedo, the Cairo vamps had agreed).
Conrad had made friends. He had them on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook, dusky smiling vampires who spoke several languages and fucked who they liked and bit who they wanted and dressed in anything from irony to honesty, sneaker pimps and muumuu monarchs. They were artsy. They told him only the artsy vampires made it past a certain age; normal brains didn't have the template to withstand eternity.
Conrad loved every one of them, even the twiggy snob who had grabbed his arse on the dance floor and mocked his prudery - because later that night Conrad had expelled his prudery with Noah and he might not have had the bravery to do such were it not for the jabbing reminder that his prudery was a ridiculous thing. Conrad had been reminded why he'd even gotten into art in the first place - craving the kinds of company that took people as they were and cultivated beauty from the harsh fucked up truths of the world. Conrad had spent too long at a corporate studio; he'd forgotten the pot smoking and the absinthe swilling and the music sharing and being part of a group what didn't try to put a label on anyone.
Yeah, the vacation had been good. More than good. He couldn't be angry at Hanna - or Noah, for that matter.
Noah could have convinced any other vampire in Cairo to hang around, but he hadn't wanted to, he'd wanted Conrad. And sure, while that had turned out scary in the middle, in the end Conrad could only feel a warmth and a pity and a vague guilt for starting something with the guy he'd had no real intention of seeing through to its conclusion. Being wanted was always good, and what kind of ridiculous fucked-up person had Conrad become, to hate the idea of being wanted? By anyone?
And, again from the wisdom of his Cairo friends, what kind of fucked-up was he, Conrad, to hate the idea of wanting? Anyone?
Conrad wrestled with all of this while he slept, mumbling and gritting his teeth under the warm dark of Hanna's electric blanket. He did consider himself rather asexual, as physical intimacy still felt like one huge awkward chore that only served to mess perfectly serviceable sheets and / or clothes, but. He still wanted, and appreciated, other people. Getting off was like, like maybe smoking; he'd need to do it often enough or to suit a craving or not at all for months or years; and that was fine, either way. And sometimes a friend could come along and need to bum a cigarette and Conrad was fine with that too as like a metaphor for the bohemian attitude toward sleeping with one's friends or -
The press of the hand was cold around his wrist and Conrad seized in surprise, inhaling sharp and tugging his arm against his chest to try and escape the chilly pull, only to find himself in the dark, under a heating blanket, torso dragged atop a fucking frigid lap of denim. Veser's other arm had clamped around Conrad's ribs, the pressure of a hug closing in through the quilts. Conrad was struck by a small but expected panic; the usual litany of tiny but intrusive thoughts marching across his sleepy subconscious. What if he bit Veser? What if he shoved him away? What if he hugged back? What if he pushed him down and kissed him, because Conrad couldn't trust his impulses, not anymore, not like this with Cairo's vibrant nightfall still beating through his head. Conrad was convinced that every outcome to every action would end in disaster, because that was how an anxiety disorder paralyzed its victims to indecision.
Conrad shrugged the blanket closer around his ears and growled, "Yes hello, I'm sleeping." Which wasn't a huge victory against his nervous condition but at least wasn't pretending to be asleep while quietly stewing in desperation. It all boiled down to grumpiness, did the panic, and that had been true since the year Conrad had left his mother's house and there was no sign of change despite Cairo. Because what else was he supposed to do? Decide on a course of action, a response, and actually follow it through? And risk rejection; embarrassment? And risk reciprocation; embarrassment?
"You're not dead," Veser croaked. "Hanna was pretty confident you weren't dead, but man, I wasn't there for the fire - you coulda come back, been inside -"
"Sorry," Conrad breathed, sleepy and muffled. He curled against the cool press of Veser's jacket front, clawing the zipper down to expose the warmth of a t-shirt. "Sorry, sorry," Conrad mumbled, knees tucking up, daytime drowsiness pulling his forehead against Veser's stomach and closing his eyes against a cool cotton ridge of denim.
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