Disclaimer: nope.
INVALID"What is this shit?" King demanded.
"Captain Planet and don't call it shit, you uneducated swine," Iaz retorted. They had stopped fighting long enough to settle into a comfortable position on the lounge. Iaz had her legs thrown of the side and her back was resting against Kings shoulder. They had set aside their differences for the common goal of being comfortable.
Zoe had wandered in and was seated at their feet, completely enthralled by the television program in front of them.
"It looks like crap. It's all about saving the environment with a green guy in tights," King decided.
"Ok firstly, it's not crap and neither is the idea of saving the environment. And secondly he's bluish and tights are hot," Iaz said.
"Tights aren't hot on anybody," King argued.
"You are so wrong. Rocky Horror Picture Show," Iaz sighed.
"What's that?" Zoe piped up.
"It's too old for you," King answered without looking at the young girl.
"I was probably her age when I got introduced to it," Iaz protested.
King raised and eyebrow and Iaz shook her head, 'Nope sorry I'm lying."
The show finished.
"What's on now?" King asked.
"Probably Bold and the Beautiful or Passions."
"Now that is shit."
"For once I agree," Iaz nodded.
"So are you changing the channel or something?"
"No way! It's going to be the best laugh I had in a year or five." Iaz smiled.
Come on find something else to watch," King pleaded.
"No. You don't have to watch it."
King poked her in the side, trying to persuade her. She jumped and Zoe giggled.
Zoe liked Iaz and King. They were fun to be around, almost like bigger kids. Ageon was nice and Abby was like her mummy now but sometimes Zoe felt lonely. Blade was too cranky all the time to be her friend but King and Iaz acted like children half the time.
Iaz poked him back. She couldn't believe they were actually having one of these ridiculous hitting wars. He started tickling her. Which made her gasp and turn trying to escape.
"So you're ticklish then?" King said with a grin. "Zoe would you come and help me?"
Zoe abandoned the TV.
"Zoe don't," Iaz gasped.
"Come on Zoe I'll hole her down and you can tickle her feet," King sniggered.
"Not the feet, not the feet, not the feet." Iaz was kicking so King was basically sitting on her so she couldn't hit anybody. Zoe hesitantly tickled the older girls ribs. She was rewarded by a shriek and more begging to stop.
"I'm sick," Iaz cried in between short bursts of laughter.
"We have no mercy,' King decreed in a dramatic voice. Zoe, encouraged by Iaz's reactions, continued. Iaz kept wiggling, trying to avoid the girl's fingers but King was to heavy to budge and she was too weak to do anything really effective.
"I'll give you lollies if you back to reading Zoe," Iaz bribed the girl. Zoe looked from Iaz to King, who was shaking his head. Zoe shrugged and ran for the bookcase.
"Traitor," King called after her.
Iaz shrugged and tilted her head so she could death stare King who was still making ridiculous gestures after Zoe.
"You're sitting on me," Iaz observed.
"Well it is quiet comfortable," King joked and made a show of settling down. Iaz watched him. She was struggling to keep a straight face. When King and her weren't fighting it seemed like they might actually get along. That and she was beginning to notice how good-looking he was. The beard made him look older and more mature than he might have otherwise appeared.
King was thinking the same thing. Not about the beard because that would be stupid but that she was more attractive the less they fought. She was not the stunning hot thing that Abby was but he had slept with uglier girls. Not that he was going to hit on Iaz. That girl was one hundred percent off limits.
Except that laying underneath him in just her pj's, the same one's she had been wearing since she had almost died, he couldn't help feeling very attracted to her. Abby would have kicked him the groin if he had tried to tickle her but Iaz had been a fairly good sport about it.
Then she had a coughing fit and ruined the moment.
"I told you I was sick," she rasped as he got off her.
"I just didn't care," King replied. She slapped his shoulder but not hard.
"Bastard." She paused then said, 'I could have died."
King snorted, "You're so full of it."
"I wish you had gone to see Father Thomas with the others now," She mock pouted.
King opened his mouth to say something but then stopped confused. "They didn't go see father Thomas."
"What? Ageon told me that they wanted more information…" Iaz trailed off. "Where did they go?"
"Some rich dude's place. Mack something."
"Mackeroy?" Iaz asked quietly.
"That's the dude. Something about more money."
Iaz stood up suddenly and yelled wordlessly. She started walking towards the door.
She muttered all the way. "He promised he would never go back to him. We promised! Not after last time."
"Whoa there little lady. What happened last time?" King had bounded over to grasp her shoulders.
"Money for one night 'with the pretty blond.'" She spat the words out.
"You… spent the night with him?" King felt a rush of anger and a bit of jealousy flutter through his stomach.
"Not me. Ageon." There were hot tears in her eyes.
"Oh… oh fuck!" King murmured. He let go of her and ran a hand through his hair.
"Fuck," he repeated.
"Yeah. Fuck!" Iaz decided. She hung her head and resisted the tears. She hadn't been able to protect him last time. She had allowed him to spend that night with the disgusting businessman. And now he had gone back with out telling her. Did he think she was so weak that she could not handle the truth? Or that she wouldn't find out?
Deep down Iaz knew it was because she would stop it from happening. She would gouge his eyes out before she let Ageon go back into his clutches. And she was going to stop it.
She started striding towards the door. Already there was a tiredness tugging on her limbs, as this was the most active she had been in the longest time. King hurried after not sure what to do.
He was still reeling from this new information. He had once made a crack to Blade about dating older men but he now he was confronted with the real life situation. Except Ageon wasn't dating older men he was just getting used and treated like shit.
Iaz was trying to hide her tears but King could hear sniffing and could see her raise an agitated hand to furiously swipe them away. She put her hand on the door and paused. She was exhausted and she wasn't able to hold back the tears. They flowed quietly as she rested her head against the door.
King reacted instinctively. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she leaned back into him. Her head leant on his shoulder and he held her as she cried. He felt awkward holding her, he didn't know her well enough to see her most anguished moments but he would be damned if he watched another human being cry and not help them.
Abby had told him what happened when she had found Summerfield, dead and brutalised. She had sat on the floor and sobbed and Blade had just watching, repeating 'use it.' He was trying to make her stronger but Abby had confessed how much it had pissed her off.
Her best friend had been killed and all she wanted was to wallow in grief for a minute. Feel sorrow for Zoe who had just lost a mother, feel sorrow for herself. But Blade hadn't given her that. He kept demanding she be stronger, that she be colder. He kept saying it till finally she screamed in frustration, fury and hate. King was not Blade. He would have let Abby cry as long and as hard as she wanted. He felt guilty for not being there for her then.
So he was here for Iaz now and he let her cry. She was a woman but barely and she had suffered more than most. Her mother had been snatched away from her and so had her life and now she had to stand by helpless as her twin brother pimped himself out. To help us, King thought, to help the cause.
"I hate vamps," Iaz breathed as her body ceased to be racked by sobs.
"So do I," King agreed.
Iaz sighed. Kings body was warm at her back and she realised how nice it was to have human contact. Sometimes she missed her mother. Iaz liked feeling people there. It was not insecurity but some raw need. Ageon was not a touchy person and he never reached out for her. He couldn't offer her a physical family support.
Kings arms kept her standing and Iaz was relaxed in a relative strangers arms. She realised how touch starved she had been. She hadn't even taken lovers since two years ago. They only contact she had was when she killed people.
"Sometimes I walk along the streets at peak hour," She began quietly. "Just so I can feel them as they brush against me. Feel their warmth and their life. Ageon was always alone and he likes it that way. But I'm lonely."
It felt better confessing this. "You had all those people, who were your family and Blades sort of like Ageon. But I'm not. I'm not a warrior. I'm angry. I'm angry and I'm alone and I hate it."
King tightened his arms around Iaz, slipping them down to her waist so he could tuck her head under his chin comfortably.
"I wanted to protect him, just that once, like he had always done for me. But when it truly mattered I couldn't do it. I should have found another way or maybe I should have killed him after but I couldn't."
King felt tears fall onto his arm and did what she needed. Held onto her and let her clutch his arms like he was the only solid thing in the world. The Death Twins weren't alone now. They had the Night Stalkers and Blade.
MD666