A/N: SOOOOO….. I'm sorry! I have a lot to get done and I've just been ignoring this. I really have been trying to get it up. Oh, on another note, this is no longer a prequel to Yellowfur's story. It shares some of the same characteristics, but it is my own timeline now. K.J. Callaham has once again chosen the lyrics.
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"No doors exist on my fortress
The only entrance is the one I bear
You're nothing more than a temptress
I fell victim to a heartless snare"
-"I'd Rather Drown", Set It Off
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The sunrise had barely started when I walked back into our small two-story townhouse. Di was passed out on the chair, curled up with her head on her knees, and Donnie and Braeden were so entangled it was hard to tell who was who. I got out a plaid fleece blanket and spread across the two boys, grabbing a smaller quilt made with all pink scraps of fabric to cover up Di with before stumbling upstairs.
My breath smelled like tea so I stopped by in the bathroom and brushed thoroughly, feeling slightly more awake (unfortunately) after spitting out the minty toothpaste that left my mouth feeling completely refreshed. It was hard to drag myself out of the bathroom and close the curtains tight against the golden sun, but I managed it before falling into bed and getting a very strange and rather forgettable dream.
Suffice to say that I woke up with a strange feeling in my gut and a very dry throat that I needed to quench immediately. Since I was still tired, I lay in bed for another ten minutes waking myself up before going downstairs and getting the orange juice out of the refrigerator. There was a hustle and bustle in the dining room, and I could hear the sounds of silverware clacking together and drinks being put down on the wooden table with a queer kind of clank. The sun was very high up in the sky and actually kind of blinded me where it reflected off the wooden planks.
I put up my hand to block it, walking into the dining room, where the others were having pancakes. There were still plenty on the plate in the middle of the table, so I knew that they had just been put out. There was absolutely now way Di would've been able to keep enough for everyone to have seconds and for me to eat too just by telling Braeden and Donnie that it needed to happen that way. I sat down, putting two of the smaller pancakes on my plate and took the butter and began spreading.
"Good morning." I greeted them pleasantly.
"Good afternoon." Di corrected. "You were passed out upstairs earlier. How did shopping wear you out so much?"
"You were sleep-walking last night." Donnie managed to remain legible around a mouthful of syrup and pancake. "You got all of us out of bed and into the living room. Braeden was afraid you were going to murder us."
"Hey!" Braeden threw a clementine and knocked Donnie's glasses askew. "You were, too!"
"Fair enough." Donnie straightened his glasses and picked up the fruit, using his jagged and dirty fingernails to peel it before taking a slice and offering it to Di, who declined and opened her fruit the same way I did: taking a serrated knife and making a x at one end then sticking the knife right underneath the skin and forcing it upwards. She then took hold of the edge of the peel and pulled it off.
Di offered me half and I took it, thanking her. The orange fruit was some of my favorite in the whole world and if Di was willing to give me half of hers and I got another whole one all to myself, I was going to take it.
"So… you were scared of me?" I asked teasingly, popping a whole clementine slice in my mouth.
"Hell, yes." Braeden stopped in the middle of spreading peanut butter on his second helping of pancakes to point the peanut-covered knife at me. "I thought we'd already gone over this. You're a psychopath who's going to kill us all in our sleep at some point."
"No, she's going to tie us down and remove all our non-vital organs and make us eat them. Then she'll kill us. In a fire." Donnie amended, grinning at us as Di shuddered and I tapped my chin thoughtfully.
"I was maybe thinking of listing the help of a bunch of little kids to beat you to death, but I like Donnie's idea better."
"Kids are freaking terrifying." Di announced. "Believe me, having three younger sisters and one little brother really teach you about nightmarish situations. The worst being when they're hyped on caffeine and then get angry at you for not letting them watch My Little Pony."
"I'm assuming this was before Jeff turned you into a pegasister?" I confirmed.
"Wait. You were a pegasister?" Cat looked up from his engrossing task of cutting his stack of three pancakes as Donnie snorted into his orange juice (which he had poured after I had grabbed the jug for the table).
"Uh, yeah." Di was giving him the 'you're stupid' vibe (not to mention her arms were crossed in a defensive stance) very clearly, especially with her tone of voice. "Jeff and I used to watch My Little Pony together. It was a really cute show."
"And this is why we stopped hanging out." I set down the syrup bottle with finality.
. . . . . . . . . . .
I was upstairs later in the afternoon after a good, long nap. I had even snuck a Coke out of the refrigerator so that I wouldn't fall asleep on Brendon that evening. But nobody should ever underestimate the perception of Di West. She came in and tackled me onto the bed (which had been made; we both had one rule and that was the bed was always made when we got up).
I was on the bottom and her long red hair was trailing all over my face and making me struggle and shake my head back and forth trying to get it away. She giggled as I struggled, her hands holding onto my wrists and she was straddling me, making any dirty fighting I wanted to try with my legs impossible. Not even pulling my legs up, crossing them across her neck and locking my ankles behind her head, then forcing her head backwards would work. She was too tall and too far forward on my stomach for me to reach.
It was disconcerting how ticklish her hair was, but then I got an idea. I bit down on it, using my tongue to work more and more of it into my mouth. When it was nice and tight, I threw my head backward, pulling her hair with my teeth as hard as possible.
"Ouch!" Di screeched, one hand letting go of my wrist to alleviate the tension in her hair. I spat out the mouthful of red hair and used my one free hand to push her off of me. We spent a good fifteen minutes after that trying to pin one another down on the bed, but neither of us succeeded. Eventually we called a truce and sat there, panting and laughing between breaths.
"So, where are you going later?" Di asked.
Now, I hadn't felt like letting the boys know that I was going out with a vampire to a vampire's palace (boys seem to always overreact on those types of things), and left them thinking I had just been sleep-walking. But Di would understand, or at least would support me (I hoped).
"Um, I'm going out tonight with a vampire. We're going to go and see the gardens." I deliberately left out where the gardens were, as that might freak her out just a little too much. Of course, she gave me a worried look. Even after I explained more fully, she sat back on her heels and gave me skeptical glance.
"Don't say that!" I complained. "I'm not dating him! He's really nice, really."
"I know that you know better than me about when to get out of a relationship, Q." Di laid a reassuring hand on my shoulder, then slid it until her arm draped across my shoulders. I leaned into it, laughing to myself at how very much we looked like lesbians as we were. Thankfully, nobody was around to see it, so it didn't matter.
"But…. Just be careful. Okay?" I nodded and gave her a hug. Di was always on my side.
. . . . . . . . . . .
There was no way that Brendon had anticipated the gorgeous sky. If he had, it would have been that much more impressive.
It was a dark blue high in the sky and a slight greenish tint around the horizon as if the atmosphere was fraying at the ends. The constellations were bright against the sky and they twinkled like diamonds in the sky, and I'm not just using that metaphor, I mean it. Imagine picking up a bunch of teeny tiny diamonds and holding them up to the light, each one catching it in a different way and ebbing and flowing when you move and shift the pile in your palm. Maybe it's easier to imagine it with sequins or rhinestones, but the stars were way too pretty to be compared to such common objects.
The trees stood out on the horizon away from the city, where they bristled like a brush far away and scraped against the frayed threads of the sky. To the opposite of the trees, the city's black blocks with smoke holding the light from below in the midst of the town as it rose to dissipate in the sky, a brownish gray mass of despair.
There was definitely some kind of war going on within the city limits; even from here I could hear the cries and snarls of the vampires. I was glad that we weren't going there tonight, though I felt safer around Brendon for certain and probably would've been fine going in if Brendon and whoever was driving us (I think his name was Spencer) stayed close at all times.
I didn't exactly know when Brendon was supposed to arrive, so I splayed myself out on the dry grass on the lawn, already parched in the harsh Californian sun and still warm from the heat of the day. My hair was prickling underneath my neck, so I pushed it out and made a halo of blue hair for myself on the ground.
For how casual this was supposed to be, I was really dressed up. I was wearing black lace-up boots that reached to my knees and were skintight (I couldn't have tucked in jeans even if I tried) with blue tights that were a strange color of blue about the same as faded denim, but it was solid and dull. Think of a doctor's office and what kind of dark blue they would use in there and imagine it still in the bucket, no chipped spots and no weird pockmarks in the walls showing.
I was wearing a thigh-length skirt that was maroon corduroy and had designs on it like a Victorian-era chair or like in an old house what the wallpaper would be like. The denim button up shirt I was also sporting had ends akin to a baseball jersey (short on the sides, long in the front and back) and was un-tucked over the skirt. I was wearing a Batman t-shirt with the symbol for him in black and gold faux-sequin appliques on underneath the button-up. The final thing I was wearing was my special tribal necklace (the one I mentioned previously).
Thankfully, everything was easily washable in our community washer and dryer, so I wasn't worried about them getting spoiled. Another thing about me: I hate getting dressed up. I wish I did, but I don't. I like the idea, but once I'm actually dressed all I want is out.
When I was fifteen (you remember fondly your last teenage year before the apocalypse), my friend had a masquerade party for her birthday, because she loved Phantom of the Opera. I made my own mask (which was a ton of fun) and my mom let me use her old prom dress, which was pink and frilly and currently hanging up with the mask inside my closet inside the house. Anyway, I wore that dress with scuffed and worn 90's Skechers that were completely oval. The bases were flat and the shoe did not have any fancy curves in it or anything. Think of the difference between an old Buggy and a Jaguar. The Buggy is those shoes, with solid lines and very block-like structure, and the Jaguar are my pink running shoes, with melded shapes like a stroke of paint. My mom said I was going all Sixteen Candles, after a movie from before I was born (I've never seen it, but she said it was good), and I told everyone about it because I thought it was funny.
I had a great time at that party, but thankfully I could get home and out of that dress before midnight. I think I never had a Princess themed birthday in my life! My fourteenth birthday party we had in October (my birthday's actually in late August), and my neighbors, Di, Braeden and Bear all showed up and we just played Frisbee all afternoon in our jeans and t-shirts. That's just me in general – I'd rather have a casual day than a fancy ball any day.
There was a slight rumbling in the distance, more reverberating against my head than through the airwaves. I sat up, my hair flying everywhere as I scrambled to be standing at the edge of the driveway when Brendon and Spencer pulled up. They quickly turned the corner onto my street and Brendon pushed open the door before they had even stopped. I was in and pulling the door closed before Spencer even stepped on the brakes and we were off, Brendon and I laughing and talking about music and stuff…. Mostly music, though. I tried to get Spencer's opinion, but the driver merely gave me one word answers and I gave up.
Spencer was cute, in a teddy bear kind of way. He was shorter than Brendon and stockier than even Donnie (actually, they were about even; Spencer was just taller, so it was more spread out) with combed and carefully styled hair. He had a small beard that gave me the impression he was older than either Brendon or myself. Even so, Brendon seemed to know him well and made sure to talk and ask questions, though mostly he focused on me.
Brendon was wearing what looked like a more casual version of what he wore yesterday night. A loose white shirt with tight cuffs around his wrists that made it look like his hands were the inside of a flower and the shirt was the petals. It was a V-necked shirt with laces back and forth across it till just below his solar plexus. He was also wearing some sort of black material for pants and thick-soled black boots.
He looked like a pirate and I told him so. Brendon threw back his head and laughed. I started giggling, too. I sounded like a shallow girl in a romantic comedy where everything makes me wonder or dissolve into laughter. But thing was, well… I wasn't in love with Brendon. Shocker, right? I met him a day ago and really liked his personality and sense of humor, but I wasn't in love with him! I've never been in love before, and I wasn't about to start now. As I once said to Eliza: "My heart isn't an open cage waiting for someone, nor is it on my sleeve. It's in a gun vault that someone lost the key to." She laughed and agreed.
"I guess I do, don't I?" He looked down at himself and then pulled out a staff that had been standing next to him. It was black with a white tip on the walking end and a fancily curved silver handle. He poked the white end at me and growled, "Arrgh! I'm taking captive the Lady Quinn! I shall take her to my garden island until someone pays ransom. Otherwise, she walks the plank." He poked me in the ribs and it tickled so much that I jumped sideways, hitting my head on the side of the car with a crack.
Now we were both laughing and I was holding my head and trying to stay straight-faced as I imagined what it must have looked like. I failed, bursting into laughter.
"Are you okay?" Brendon managed to get out around his laughter.
I nodded, feeling gently at the tender place, the pain already fading. "I'm fine." There was really nothing else to say, and we spent the rest of the short ride taking turns trying to sober our faces, but then catching each other's gazes and uncontrollably bursting out in laughter again.
I wasn't sure, but I'm pretty sure I caught the quiet vampire Spencer smiling and maybe even a laugh escaping from his mask when I hit my head.
When we stopped around the back of the mansion, Brendon opened the door and ran around to open my door before I could even put my hand on the handle after unbuckling. He offered me a white-gloved hand and I took it, stepping out of the car and catching my breath.
The garden entrance was definitely grand: it was a white arbor with vines growing all around it, but there were all kinds of different plants on the arbor. I saw some morning glories with delicate petunia-shaped petals and blue, purple, or bluish purple with white stripes (about three broad bands a flower) radiating out from the center of the flower. There were grape vines full with so many ripe and picture perfect grapes I almost asked if they were fake before Brendon plucked off a couple and gave me one, puncturing two on his fangs, the juice spurting everywhere.
There were more flowers I didn't know, but oh, gosh! There were lanterns set up everywhere, burning bright and fervent in the still night air. They swung from the mouths of sitting lions about twenty feet apart and threw light flickering across the white pebbles that I kicked along as we walked, talking.
I don't normally like gardens, but the Baron definitely knew what he was doing. There was a pond right in the middle filled with crystal clear water and you could barely see in the bottom a bunch of Roman tiles like what you would find in Pompeii. A bunch of different pathways led to other parts of the garden, but Brendon and I walked around the pool, talking and admiring the way that the firelight from the extremely huge lions' lanterns reflected off the lake.
I eventually had to sit down because my feet were starting to hurt and Brendon sat down across from me as I removed my boots and, after a moment of hesitation, rolled my tights down my legs and placed them inside the shoes. I curled my legs up on the cold stone bench to my right side (the same flank that Brendon sat on).
"You seem very comfortable around me, don't you?" He asked; it definitely wasn't a statement.
"Well, yeah." I used a tone and gave him a look that said 'duh'. "You're not a zombie. I don't think you're about to lose control after how calm you were when I let you into my house and everyone was sleepy and just about helpless."
"What do you mean, I'm not a zombie?" He gave me this quizzical look like he couldn't make the connection.
"I mean that you're still in control of yourself. You're still the same person that you were when you were alive. Trust me; I'd know if being undead changed your personality."
"Ah. And zombies aren't."
"That's right. They're just kind of shuffling shells. The person they used to be is gone – they don't have any self-control or anything."
"Yeah." Brendon looked up at the sky and then his eyes roamed around in the constellations before looking back at me. He gave me this huge grin that immediately made me wary.
"Do you want to dance?" He asked.
It was even worse than I thought (which was jumping in the pond). I had never taken dancing lessons and I had never been to a dance in my life. "Uh, no thank you. I can't."
"Come on. I'll lead." Even my protests didn't stop him from grasping my wrists and pulling me up. He positioned my hand around one of his massive mitts around my waist and held the other one out in front of us.
"There's no music!" I cried. I should have known he'd find a way around that, but hey, I was blushing horribly and was trying to untangle myself from him. But one, he was much bigger than me and two, he was a vampire. All those combined meant that I wasn't going anywhere. Not that he was hurting me or anything; he just wasn't about to let me sit down.
I knew my cheeks were flushed and I was embarrassed more about the fact that everyone could see us than by how close in proximity we were.
"Who said that?" Brendon grinned a smile that showed his fangs, flashing gold in the candlelight. He began humming a song that I recognized but couldn't place. Then he began waltzing, a very easy dance that rather than being dragged along, I stepped along in time with him. It was terrifying at first, and I resolutely looked down at my feet rather than into his brown eyes.
Brendon began humming louder, spinning me into a dip that I (pathetically) melted into and flung my head back until my hair dragged on the tiles surrounding the main plaza and pond. As he pulled me up and into another spin I stood up on tip-toe and did a pirouette like a ballerina – something I'd never been and probably executed horribly. The hard tile hurt my feet slightly, but Brendon's excitement was making me excited and I started to throw myself more and more into the dance.
We ended on top of the rim surrounding the pond with him pulling me into another dip that dragged my hair through the water. He pulled me up and jumped down, then offered me a hand which I took and hopped down.
"See, that wasn't so bad." He wasn't breathing hard, but I certainly was. The dance had gotten faster and his song even more crazy and erratic as we'd gone on and I was feeling completely content, like all my nervous energy had been drained out and replaced with a calmness and happy feeling that spread down even into my cold toes.
"And you performed magnificently." A voice from behind us said. I turned to see a figure outlined in the arbor.
