"Hey, snap out of it, dude!" Marko poked Michael in the shoulder, and nodded towards Paul and David who still lay on the ground together. By now Paul seemed to have calmed down a bit, but David didn't look like he was quite ready to remove his fangs just yet.
"I think there's something wrong with Paul," Marko whispered, crossing his arms. The humor of the little scuffle seemed to have completely evaporated, and neither he nor Dwayne were laughing anymore.
"Good for him," Michael rolled his eyes and snorted. Like he gave a shit. Wasn't like it mattered to him who David stuck his fangs in. Or his dick for that matter. Better Paul than him, Michael told himself.
"Hrff shrrlfyy shmows hrs-" David mumbled through a mouthful of bloodied skin, before pausing to close his eyes and let out a snort. "He usually knows his boundaries," he spoke with his mind...realizing they wouldn't be able to understand his garbled mumbling.
Dwayne crossed the chamber and knelt beside David and Paul, gripping Paul's hair jerking his head up to gaze into his eyes. He frowned. "Those aren't Paul's eyes," his thought echoed in all of their minds. And then, surprisingly, Paul fell asleep.
"That's just like Paulie, finishing before anyone gets a chance to enjoy it," Marko smirked, breaking the mood.
Foam bubbled up around the top of his glass, and Sam licked it up before it could spill over the brim.
"It's a crime to waste a good root beer that way," his grandfather sighed, shaking his head.
"C'mon, you never add milk to your soda?" Sam asked, leaning back in his chair and licking his lips as he crossed his arms.
"No I don't. Like I said, Sam, it's a crime to waste a good root beer that way." The old man grabbed his own root beer and kept it firmly in his hand, in case his grandson got any funny ideas about doing the same thing to his drink.
"So..." Sam uncrossed his arms and put a foot against the table to push his chair and balance on the back legs before he got a warning glare and lowered himself back to the ground again. "...sorry...was there something you wanted to talk about, grandpa?" Maybe it was going to be something along the lines of the value of his own life versus the value of the priceless piece of machinery in the garage.
"I don't really want to talk to you about anything, Sam," his grandfather replied, taking a sip of his root beer and tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. "But I'm sure you're gonna want me to talk about this, sooner or later. Keepin' my mouth shut last time didn't work out too well for any of us, eh?"
Sam lowered his head and tried to act as if he were suddenly fascinated with his pajama pants. "What're you talking about, grandpa?" He frowned, because the only 'last time' situation he could think of involved vampires. And Michael. And right now he didn't really want to think of either of those two things.
"Seen your brother around at all, lately?" The old man asked him bluntly, setting his bottle down on the kitchen table with a soft 'clink'.
Sam jerked up, frowning. "What? No. No. No, I didn't see him. I didn't see him at all. I didn't see Mike, grandpa, why are you asking all of these questions all of a sudden?"
"...Sam. I asked you one thing."
"...Okay, yeah. I might have. Maybe..."
Grandpa Emerson just chuckled and shook his head. "Didn't know if you had or not, seeing as I can't read minds. You're a damned bad liar, Sam. If you'd said no once, I woulda believed you."
"...Are you gonna tell mom?" Sam nibbled on his bottom lip, even more terrified of what would happen if his mother found out about Mike than he was of the Frog brothers.
The old man shrugged and grabbed his root beer again. "I guess if he wanted to see her, he'd drop by, wouldn't he?"
They sat there quietly, for quite some time. A ticking wall clock near the stove was the only sound, for awhile. After about ten minutes, it started to drive Sam a little crazy. What was he supposed to do now, huh? What was gonna happen?
Sam squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed his glass of milk and root beer, chugging it until half of it was empty, and he was gasping for air with a foamy brown mustache on his upper lip.
"Are you gonna stake him, grandpa?" He asked quietly, rubbing at the mustache with his sleeve.
The old man shrugged. "He's family, ain't he?"
"...And...are you gonna tell mom?"
"It's not my place to say, Sam."
"...How the hell do you know all this shit?!"
"Watch your mouth, kid. I'm still your grandpa. Now go to bed." He paused. "...and I never wanna see you do that to a good root beer again, you hear me?"
Sam took another sip of his drink and stared at the old man, trying to figure out whether he was joking or not. And then they broke into smiles at the same time, and he had one of those funny moments where he thought he could almost understand his grandpa. Almost.
"Now, get your scrawny ass off to bed," the old man told him, hitching up the sash on his robe as he stood up from the table and downed the rest of his root beer.
Lucy sat her magazine on the bedside table and sighed, crossing her hands over her stomach. Maybe she should've let Sam sleep with her. Obviously something was bothering him. And Edgar and Alan didn't need him in the room with them when they slept. All boys needed space once in awhile, after all. And she remembered what it was like being a teenager, having a friend visit longer than expected. It could be really stressful.
"...Maybe I should go talk to him..." She told herself, sliding off of her bed and straightening her nightgown. Little did she know of the two teenage boys awaiting whoever stepped through Sam's bedroom door...
"Fuuuuuuck...my heaaaaad!" Paul groaned, face-down on the couch in the lobby. They'd carried him there and unceremoniously dropped him, none of the group wanting to deal with him if he suddenly decided to wake up and go nuts again.
"You drink something funny, Paulie? Cyanide? Gasoline cocktail, maybe?" Marko leaned over the back of the couch, propping his chin on his hands and batting his eyes at Paul.
"What?" Paul blinked, rubbing his eyes and leaning up. He had a massive headache. It was kind of like the hangovers he used to have, when he actually had a heartbeat. It didn't compare to being bathed in holy water, or the excruciating pain of feeling his body and flesh actually rebuild itself from the inside out...but it still felt pretty shitty.
Dwayne leaned back on the fountain, picking at his nails with a switchblade, giving Paul a meaningful glance every so often before going back to his nails and blowing on them to dislodge a bit of dirt or crusted blood. He didn't say anything. But he didn't look completely at ease either.
"What's the last thing you remember doing?" David sat calmly at his wheelchair, arms propped on his knees as he leaned forward and glared at Paul. He was still a little ticked off by the cards, but something really fucking weird was going on, and he had a feeling it was somehow related to how weird Michael had been acting the night before.
Paul rubbed his eyes and flipped over onto his back, shifting on the lumpy cushions and sighing as he tried to get comfortable. There was something cutting into his back. He scowled and dug out a nail file, then glanced around the lobby. "Mikey, this yours?" He quirked an eyebrow.
Michael shrugged, sitting at the steps of the entryway and tossing a baseball in the air. "I'd rather not gouge my fingers when I'm filing my nails."
"Why do you even bother?" Marko called out. "They're just gonna grow back tomorrow night anyway."
Michael shrugged again and tossed his baseball a little higher. "Nothing better to do."
"I can think of something better to do," David turned towards Michael with a grin. Michael just looked right back at him and stopped tossing his baseball in the air.
"...I'd rather just file my nails." He paused. "Stop looking at me like that."
Dwayne glanced quietly at Thorn, who relaxed near David's feet. When Michael and David fought the night before, Thorn had been growling. When Paul started chowing down on playing cards, Thorn had been growling. He had a sneaking suspicion they all needed to pay a little more attention to their pack protector. Or something bad was going to happen.
"The last thing I remember..." Paul stretched out, putting his hands behind his head. David jerked back towards him, breaking eye contact with Michael, who seemed more than relieved. "...kicking your ass at bullshit." He nodded. "Yep. Definitely. Kicking your ass. Then...I woke up and felt like shit. I think I'm missing something. What am I missing?" He frowned, not so sure he wanted to know.
"You started chowing down on the cards, lashed out at Davey...got pinned...that's about it," Marko explained, reaching down to poke at Paul's forehead. "Going a little crazy, Paulie? Trying to get into the mood to win your bet?" He waggled his eyebrows.
"Bet?" Michael looked over at them, frowning. "What bet?"
"Bet? What bet?" Paul repeated, looking for all the world as if he had a dirty secret he enjoyed keeping to himself. Enjoyed a bit too much...
"Who said anything about a bet? Did you, Dwayne?" Marko looked over at Dwayne with a wink.
"I didn't say anything about a bet," Dwayne shook his head and chuckled, as he belied his suspicions about the dog and the weird act Paul had put on earlier...not to mention those eyes. "You, Paul?" He asked, closing his switchblade and slipping it into his jacket pocket.
"...No, I don't think so." Paul laughed, shrugging away an odd feeling that someone was watching him. Someone other than a slightly curious David, and a more than slightly irritated Michael.
"You're gonna want in on this one," Marko whispered in David's mind with a sly smirk.
"Is Paul about to do something stupid?" David glanced over at Marko, slightly amused.
Michael looked back and forth between the two, then sighed and began tossing his baseball in the air again. They looked like they had some sort of private joke between them. He'd be better off if he didn't know about it.
"Hey, Michael, how about we go for a walk?" David suggested, standing up and casting a quick glance over at Paul. A strange look crossed his face, and Michael just knew they were talking about something.
"Do I have a choice?" He grumbled.
"Nope."