Yeah, I screwed up with the labels and stuff. You can stop laughing now.
Here's Chapter 2, as in, the actual second chapter.
In which there is some Backstory and Exposition (shock horror!).
I sincerely hope that it's not too boring, because I tried to make it as non-boring as I possibly could, while still putting in some things that needed to be, well, put in there.
If, however, you found it boring - tell me straight up in a review.
I won't bite.
I won't break your wrist, either.;-)
Chapter 2: Under The Surface
There were three of them.
Just three.
Their coven didn't have a formal, official name; only a handful of tongue-in-the-cheek title. Laurent called the "The Three Amigo's" or the "Unholy Triumvirate", Victoria called the "The Track Pack" or "The Heme-Hikers" and James, who had a hidden flair for the dramatic, usually referred to them as "The Lost Children of the Damned".
James and Victoria had been together for thirty-five years by the time Laurent met up with them in 1980. He joined forces with them, became friends with them; and soon the trio were drifting around throughout the US, never staying in one place for very long, always moving out and moving on. They cut a bloody swath through the eighties, the nineties and the noughties – enjoying everything immortal life had to offer.
James never actively tried to seize the leader-position: it just seemed to jump into his hands all by itself. He was calculating, analytical, methodical to an almost compulsive degree. He was a dreamer, a thinker, a planner.
In most ways, Victoria was his polar opposite. Brash, impulsive, spontaneous Victoria… she of the sharp tongue, she of the ferociously volatile temper. Where James was patient and careful, Victoria was the type to wear her heart on her sleeve (usually studded with swearwords and embroidered with exclamation marks).
As result of this, there were times when they didn't exactly see eye to eye – and other times when they completely and vehemently disagreed with each other.
And then there was Laurent; the middle ground, the balancing factor. He was usually calm and collected, although he could get worked up rather unexpectedly as well. His age and experience made him a valuable addition to the team, and his adaptability almost rivaled that of the other two.
His moods varied according to the atmosphere, especially whatever James and Victoria were up to. Sometimes, when they were being loud or silly, he would be the angry old man; telling them to calm down and shut up. When the other two were having a fight, he would – strangely enough – not play the role of the gentle pacifist or the sensitive psychologist or the neutralizing marriage counselor with an attitude of "why can't we all just get along?"
James and Victoria wished he would do that, though.
Some of their fights became rather vicious. A simple misunderstanding, or a small disagreement, could easily degenerate into a full-blown shouting match. Soon the air would be thick with bristling anger and seething indignation as they hurled insults and accusations at each other like a never-ending supply of Molotov cocktails.
Laurent didn't try to calm them down, didn't tell them off, didn't step in between them and shout at them to stop. He never said anything about how they should apply proper conflict management skills, how they should attack the problem instead of each other, how they shouldn't speak before thinking and end up saying something they'll regret later on because it hurt the other one badly and he knew; he knew how much they loved each other, which was why they weren't supposed to let this come between them, they weren't supposed to fight like this... and also, they were giving him a headache, the little bitches.
Oh no.
Laurent never did that. He never said anything when James and Victoria were fighting.
Instead, he started singing. And not just any song, either: "Don't worry/About a thing/Cause every little thing/Is gonna be all right. I said don't worry/about a thing—"
He didn't need to go much further than two or three lines, because it worked like a charm. The two of them immediately stopped fighting and started working together to get him to stop – after which they apologized to each other, sorted out the problem in a peaceful and mature way and spent the next couple of hours cuddling and joking and discussing things like the accuracy of Alan Turing's predictions, the effect the Beatles had on mainstream music or the enormous amount of double entendres in Romeo and Juliet.
The reason it worked was not just because Laurent couldn't sing to save his life, or because it's really annoying when you're trying to have a marital dispute and someone starts singing so loudly that you can't hear yourself shouting.
No; it worked because the specific song he picked was so stereotypical. And if there was one thing the Three Amigo's could agree on, it was their hatred of stereotypes.
James didn't go around wearing tuxedos and speaking in an overblown, phony Transylvanian accent just because he happened to be a vampire. Victoria didn't dye her hair black and dress like a gothic dominatrix just because she was a female vampire. And Laurent didn't smoke weed and listen to Bob Marley over and over again just because he was a "black dude with dreadlocks".
They didn't flaunt their vampirism when among humans. When they weren't in a position to stick to the shadows, they disappeared in plain sight by blending in, by looking and sounding and acting human.
They used human overconfidence and inattentiveness to their advantage, especially whenever superspeed was out of the question. Like many predators in the animal kingdom, they made use of camouflage.
Because the best type of hunter is the one who can use the element of surprise.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"You are the worst hunter I have ever seen!"
"But Father—"
"I'm not finished, James!" His father silenced him with a wave of his hand. "You should be ashamed of yourself. You are a Witherdale; our family has brought forth generations of the finest big game hunters this country has ever seen! Your grandfather bagged thousands of bison. But you – you're nothing but an utter disappointment."
"But Father, I don't want to be a hunter," he protested weakly. "I want to become a mathematician,"
Shock passed over his father's face like a dark cloud, but it was quickly replaced by anger that made him look nothing short of monstrous.
"A mathematician? Oh ho!" he coughed with bitter laughter. "No son of mine will go dilly-dallying with all those soft-handed academic sorts! I'll never allow it! I'll make you a proper hunter if it's the last thing I do!"
He breathed heavily, leaning on the table to compose himself.
"John," James' mother said gently. "Maybe you should let him choose his own path in life,"
"His path is that of a hunter, Mary," his father said gruffly as he fished in his waistcoat's pockets for matches and pipeweed. "Hunting is in his blood, and sooner or later he will have to make peace with that fact,"
Please review guys!
Even if it sucked.
*looks up at previous line*
Oh dear... just what IS it with me and lame puns?