"Lee already thinks I've been making you up. Well, no, that isn't it exactly. I think he's just convinced that you aren't what I've described. Even though, honestly, I'm not one to lie about these things." She wasn't one to lie about anything, but it was still the kind of thing that Ro didn't recognize as anything out of the ordinary. Like with most things, she enjoyed presuming that everything in her life was somewhat in her own control. Especially her own words. Anything else, and it would certainly send her into a dramatic tailspin that even Alexander would have a hard time replicating.
She huffed. "He's one to talk, you should've seen the last girl he brought home. Feminism and all of that, but fuck, I was trying realllyyyyyy hard not to wring her scrawny little neck." Violence came second nature to her. It was something Ro had come to learn was less about her own mother, and more about the fact that she quite literally did have a dog inside of her. One that very much enjoyed being set free.
"No, no. I see where the boy's coming from." Alexander nodded with too much earnestness. "I would find it hard to believe too if someone told me they were dating the most handsome, intelligent, charming, statuesque talent of a man in the world. Like the male Julie Newmar. He's right to be skeptical. But," Alexander raised his shoulders in lofty innocence, "it's true. It's all true."
Just as he was about to tell her he thought it was hot when she was a judgmental, angry bitch someone cut across their path so quickly that Alexander, even for all his vampiric grace, stumbled.
A flash of dark hair, the faint smell of sunburn, and suddenly he found himself alone on the sidewalk. Alexander turned around once, looked to the left and right again. Thought it was silly but looked up and down, too. "Rose?" He peered through the faces in the crowd. "Ha ha. Very funny." Waiting for the punchline, a knot formed in his throat. The crowd was loud as ever and growing louder by the second it seemed. He listened for her and heard nothing.
But somewhere near, an alley away and behind a dumpster for privacy, Liv Pendragon was finally, finally looking into the eyes of her best friend in all of the world, for all of time, knowing that to do so now after years as a ghost was an act of haunting.
"You realize a very key part of New Year's Eve that all of us mortals participate in, right?" Ro stood up on her tippy toes (an action usually below her, but she'd make an exception), and crushed Alexander's face between her hands. She liked all of his emotions splayed across his face. Every slump. Every raise of a brow, or sudden grown. The moodiness could ever bother her, because really, it was an outward expression of her own. The kind she found hard to express in anything other than harsh words when absolutely forced.
She moved in closer, the crowd of people clearly displeased that they had to continue parting for them. "You're supposed to kiss the person you want to spend the rest of the year with. The way you end the year is the way you want to start it, too. And maybe I haven't been clear, but I most definitely need you around, otherwise I'm not going to have anyone to kiss at all."
Ro would take the ups and the downs, the horrible inevitability of a relationship between someone who would live forever, and someone who wouldn't. Because, at the very least, she could say she was happy. Happy despite the wounds that never fully healed, and the scabs that she'd pick at if left to her own devices. The world wasn't perfect, but she had this.
His words came out rather less dignified than he'd intended them, as his face was crushed between her hands and his lips, comically pursed around two protruding fangs, could only part so far to speak. "No, no. I remember the tradition. But surely there's no reason I can't kiss you in front of your friends." He supposed probably it was time to meet them anyway.
Speedily, so fast it was unclear what exactly happened first, he broke free from her hold and kissed her on the lips, playfully knocking her back down on her heels. Alexander resumed their walk, this time backwards through the crowd supernaturally well, without incident. The jolly ho ho ho's of a rent-a-st-prick echoed up the tall city buildings all around them, with wide windows of black, reflective glass like obsidian. Her reflection shone back, but it was as if Alexander was not there and she spoke to the air.
"Do I look like an eggnog and mulled wine sort of girl?" She thought the answer was obvious enough already, considering the fact that those were the kind of drinks she spent her entire laugh making fun of. A part of that was her own issues with the holiday seasons, the kinds more deeply rooted in her propensity for being abandoned during them. Lee's family was great, per usual, but something always stung significantly as a child when there was nothing signed from her own mother. So why was she defending it?
Ro huffed out a laugh. "Arbor day? Christmas can fuck itself but Arbor day gets you going?" At least they could agree on New Year's Eve. It was a superior holiday, she just didn't want to give him too much agreement. "Usually my New Year's is either spent watching Lee try to pick up some poor unsuspecting girl (he did usually succeed), getting blackout drunk, and probably finding myself in some kind of fight. But this year?"
She eyed him. "Nope, probably the same thing. Do you want to volunteer for the fight part of that? Or the unsuspecting girl?"
"Hmmm..." Alexander paused sharply, causing one of the clumsy humans walking behind them to run into him rather forcefully. He met this with all the annoyance of a fly buzzing around one's head, waving it off, and went back to his business of studying her very carefully. By the stern line of his brow his concentration shown.
After some time of this, his face fell to the disappointment of indecision. "Regretfully, I really couldn't say. As a consumer of only fine beverages and company myself," —here, a flamboyant hand to his chest— "it's beyond my skill, even as an artist, to imagine what an eggnog girl might look like. You could be the very image."
Up ahead, peddlers dressed in holiday costume skipped through the streets handing out flyers to anyone who made the mistake of catching their eye or walking too slowly. "I'd love to be the unsuspecting girl," he replied, ignoring them. "You should invite him to the resort. All of them. Your friends. Free rooms, free drinks."
The more selfish part of him, of course, wanted her attention all to himself, but he could see already how that would set him up for failure — and besides, if he was hosting anything at the resort it would take some of his own attention away anyhow. He could sulk about it if he wanted, but it was for the best.
"You are so annoying," Ro exclaimed, baring down hard on his hand, not that it mattered anyway. Werewolf strength and vampire strength tended to be more of a push and pull than anything else. Just another way for species to pretend like one was better than the other. "You're not even centuries old. You're literally just some twenty-something-year-old who will eventually be able to complain about all of us mortals."
She tended to not think about the future too much. It was 1. Too terrifying to contemplate. 2. A little fucking depressing if she was being honest. The here and now was easier to control, and her own inevitable death felt a little further away. Not that she was scared. That'd be absolutely silly.
She began humming a Christmas tune. "Besides, holidays, for us lowly mortals, are really just excuses to get completely drunk and go to parties. Shouldn't that appeal?"
He was so annoying, and grinned to be reminded as much. His spirits, already high, lifted considerably.
"The worst parties," Alexander countered. "With the worst booze. Eggnog?" He turned his nose up. "Mulled wine? Don't let's turn my stomach. It's always company Christmas party hookup regrets this and handsy Santa that at those shindigs. I may just be some twenty-something, but it doesn't take a century to figure out what is—how do the kids say—lame. Now Arbor day, that's a holiday. New Year's Eve?! New Years Eve is fantastic and it's inoffensive that it happens every year for, well, rather obvious reasons."
He thought about it for half a second. "What are your New Year's plans, anyway?" It was slowly beginning to occur to him that for the first time in his short and infinite life he would be spending a holiday season with a girlfriend he did not actively wish to lose.
"Christmas again?" Alexander droned as they walked against the flow of sidewalk traffic. Each step nearer the square — where every year a giant tree was lit increasingly early in the holiday season — was a harder step to take for the thickening of the crowd desperate, for reasons Alexander could not fathom, to see the unremarkable piney Christmas phallus.
It might've been easier to get through the crowd if he dropped her hand, but easy bored him anyway. "Didn't we only just have Christmas last year? God, you mortals and your short cycles. I'll be ready for another Christmas in a decade, maybe." When Alexander complained, mostly, it was for the simple fun of it. No surer way was there to pass the time.
The energy surrounding her felt contagious, the best kind of influenza one could ever contract, and she hadn’t even had to leave the island for it. Here was ground zero for that feeling, the kind of masterstroke of luxury and art being laid out before her in a kind of frenzied need for the ideas to flow. Had she ever seen Alexander this passionate about anything? She couldn’t claim to have known him for a long period of time, but what she did know made all of this feel that much more special. Like he had somehow stumbled upon a true calling, and the immortality that stood before him seemed to shrink. Like maybe all along he was meant to create a space of his own choosing, and to allow other people into it to experience that same fleeting moment. Or maybe it didn’t need to be fleeting at all, just permanent.
Ro certainly couldn’t claim to have ever experienced this sudden shift in life. She was still searching for that piece of the puzzle to slot her perfectly into place, to become more than just a small cog in the larger mechanisms of the grander schemes that surrounded her. How many puppet strings had she unwittingly found herself on the other side of? Were her arms her own, even now? The thought struck her, but it didn’t wipe away clean the bright smile on her face. The kind that was more akin to the sun than any waning moon. Maybe this could be her calling. Even if she could never bring help to Liv, she could still offer her assistance to the people that mattered most in her life. She could be a steady hand. The sure thing. A gravitational pull that kept everything in orbit.
Her eyes traveled where his words told her to go, every piece of the old decrepit building fading away until only Alexander’s vision remained. And she felt peace with it. A kind of sanctuary. He dreamed big, and more than that, she fully believed that he’d accomplish it all, too. Not for some petty reason like the money at his disposal, but because actual care existed here. A desire for the permanent.
Ro stood behind him, arms sliding around his midsection, squeezing hard as she continued looking up. It felt good to be this close. Like maybe here, with his words stroking her mind, and possibilities feeling endless, she could believe in something far greater than what her own hands could accomplish. She took in a deep breath, his scent strong in her longs, making her feel hazy and drunk.
“It sounds beautiful, really, it does. I like seeing you like this. I like seeing you happy and motivated, and purposeful.” She squeezed even harder, as though if she let him go, he might slide away through the cracks of the floor beneath them.
Oumar’s eyebrow did raise at that new bit of information. “Oh?” he asked, rather intrigued. Not that it was uncommon for rich people to mingle with one another. It could get almost incestuous. Everyone of a certain caliber seemed to know each other. It was like a small, exclusive club, only everyone was awful and no one actually liked each other. He knew his parents certainly had their thoughts on others in their circle. Oumar usually tuned them out when they went on, though.
“Should I ask?” he pressed on anyway. “Or is it something your family is doing?”Â
Oumar followed Alexander into the building, not paying any mind to anyone else. One thing he had always been able to do was ignore other people when he needed to. For a while it had simply been a necessity, if only because his own parents and their harsh critiques might have done a number if he had let what they said get to him. Nowadays, Oumar simply didn’t care what other people thought. He shrugged at Alexander’s words. He supposed he would know it when he did come across it.Â
“Sure, but for now, I do know a really, really strong drink is what I want. Long Island,” he said, landing on the cocktail that would get him sufficiently buzzed with at least one glass.
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He felt he might have visibly recoiled at the suggestion his family was involved in his newst project. He couldn't bear to associate it with them, ruin the splendor of it. Even if, of course, it was all his father's money footing the bill.
"This one's all me," he lied through a charming smile, mostly to himself. "A passion project, if you will." He slid into an empty seat at the bar and put in his order as well. "I've bought a resort property along the beach at Lower St. Vlad's. I'm sure you can already connect the dots on to how your parents would be involved with that." Alexander chuckled.
Ro let out a peel of laughter, her heart still hammering away at the kiss. When would she grow used to that feeling? The fluttering, the catching, the moments when she was positive that none of this could actually be real at all. She had never anticipated that any kind of relationship could feel like this: free. All long she had only ever felt trapped and suffocated. Like a creature to be caught instead of a person to be loved. No matter who was at fault, it couldn’t change the way that right now felt like. Her eyes roving over Alexander like the predator they both happened to be. It shouldn’t have worked. It did.
“Only if you promise to take your shirt off, too. No construction outfit is complete with clothing still on. OSHA regulations state that your chest must be bare, otherwise you have to be escorted off of the premises.” She was already leering, fingers caught between wanting to further the destruction ahead and digging into his hips. Who knew hips on a man could actually be that fucking sexy? It was unfair, and rude, and it was a good thing no one could read her mind. They would’ve committed her to an institution already.
She hook off the thoughts that ran down a path that took them far away from home improvement. “Describe the full vision to me. The design elements. You’re the artist here. What do you think this place will look like once all of this rubble is taken away?”
.
“I think you are using my ignorance of work place practices and who or what Osha is to take advantage of me,” he accused, unable to wrangle the grin that twitched beneath his mustache. “I, for one, will stand for it. Please do go on.”Â
But rather than get swept up in her, as he so easily might’ve, Alexander stepped away and led her down the overgrown, uneven path to what once must have been a very grand entrance, but now was all crumbling stone and ripped hinges. A pillar, cracked in half, only barely held up its half of the awning and the stairs had to be taken two at a time to avoid caving in the less sturdy among them.
“I want a fountain here,” he told her, and with vampire speed walked a massive circle. “Four lesser statues and a grand piece in the center. Those I’ll do myself. Hidden walkways through the greenery here,” he indicated, “and here. Shaded paths all around, always some corner of privacy or strange amusement to find.” He looked at her, just shy of provoking. “A bed of roses, maybe. A grotto. Something unexpected. Mystery.” No, that wasn’t quite right. “Wonder.”
He stretched his hands wide, framed the building’s facade in them. “Golds and oranges and yellows everywhere. Red.” He turned around and looked behind them, towards the beach from which they’d come. “Like a mirror to the sun when it reaches right... about... there. Late in the evening.” He closed his eyes, and could almost hear it. The buzzing of the insects around the flower pedals, the waves crashing against the shore and racing back out again, laughter. Distant and genuine laughter. When he opened them again, he was smiling.Â
“But that’s only the beginning. Come inside.” In a flash he was at the top of the stairs. He held a hand out to her, like a butler at the door of a carriage. “Allow me, ma’am. May I take your bags? A flute of champagne, perhaps?” Pretending, he held an imaginary tray out to her. “No?” He snatched it back, produced another from behind his back. “Certainly then some fresh fruit from our very own gardens!”Â
Full of excitement he hopped through the busted down doors, which in his mind were massive and painted a bright yellow, ornamented in gold. He looked up. In many places you could see the level above, but not intentionally. “A tall ceiling. Fractal mirrors and chandeliers. And maybe...” It was hard to tell what the floor looked like, beneath all the dust that had settled there. “Blue and white floors. When you look up, I want you to see the sky.” Alexander reached toward it, grabbing for something that was not there.
“You’re so full of shit,” Ro replied back too fondly for her own liking, but it was about time she accepted the fact that every stupid thing he did only made her like him that much more. He was dramatic, and ridiculous, and best of all, he made her laugh. Like just seeing him was enough to put an immediate smile on her face, brushing away all of the brutishness that she usually possessed. He chipped away at her armor, and all that was left now was delicate skin. Open for a wound. Open for a kiss, too. Ro rarely felt so vulnerable, and despite the easily accessible weapon next to her, she hadn’t put up a fight.Â
Some things in life were too pressure to be ignored. There was a time when she might’ve turned away from the light of his quick smile and run off to something that felt safer. Cowardice hadn’t suited her, but self-preservation rarely took the back seat. Today? Today she was different. She was stronger, and bolder, and much happier than she could ever recall being before. And while it wasn’t only to do with Alexander, Ro only hoped that she was giving back just as much as she was taking.
Ro’s eyes roamed, immediately spying a stained glass window that seemed oddly out of place with the rest of the building. That would stay. But wall in front of her blocking more light from shining through? She didn’t need any further instruction. With a quickness of feat, and the kind of power that only supernatural beings held, Ro knocked down the wall without breaking a sweat. “Which one of us is going to wear one of those tool belts and a construction hat? I swear, I think some construction workers are sexier than actual models on magazines.”
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Mesmerized by her strength and the destruction it could command, he watched the wall begin to crumble and felt an acute awareness that what he was creating was a monument to memory, a place to make and house nostalgia for anyone who, over the years to come, might visit. And this, right here, was being written into the very walls of the place as the first of those memories. He had the desire to sweeten it, kiss her, and because now that was a desire he could indulge at whim rather than sit tortured in, that was precisely what he did.Â
“You know, I was happy to laugh in the face of safety protocol on account of being tied to immortal life and in very little serious danger.” Though he supposed if a wooden beam came crashing down and somehow caught him straight through the heart... “But now that I know your feelings on the matter. Well, fuck you and be grateful you have the sledge hammer, the toolbelt and hat are all for me.” There were plenty to go around.Â
He pulled out the sad beginnings of a palm tree from the middle of a cracked, eroding pavement that no doubt the tree had a hand in exacerbating, and tossed it to the side along the perimeter of the property, which was massive. Most of the real work would be done by teams and teams and teams of employees and contractors, but this was foremost his masterpiece. He wanted to put his hands on it, even if the dent they made today was practically invisible to the passerby’s eye.Â
Oumar grinned at the pack that was readily presented to him. He helped himself to one of the cigarettes. He took out a lighter and held the flame to the end of the cigarette, until it burned bright orange, breathing in deeply as the smoke moved from the tip. He exhaled, the smoke now leaving his nostrils and lips and feeling a sort of relief in his lungs.Â
Oumar grinned as he began to follow his friend towards the direction he had indicated. “No, though if you ask my parents, I’m sure they’d basically imply that I’m dead.” He knew for his mother and father that he was as good as dead. The only reason they might not proclaim it so ostensibly is due to the fact that their circle of friends would no doubt assume a lavish funeral to be held and they’d promptly be sent gifts to compensate for their loss that they surely didn’t deserve. Oumar’s parents never took more than they thought they should get. They were ruthless, but honest.Â
“Nah, I just decided to go out on my own. Set my own course. I don’t want to be in real estate and waste my time doing something that I hate when I could be doing… something else.” Oumar still didn’t know what that something else actually was, but the point still stood that he didn’t want to follow in his parents footsteps.
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“Good to know,” Alexander replied, meaning it. He went on to jest, “Hearing you say it makes me glad I didn’t mention you when I met with them last week. But I won’t bore you with the details of my brief and boring tryst with the very profession you have narrowly escaped.” Alexander was surprised to find that actually, he didn’t find it boring. He was beginning to feel, of all things, passion about the entire project. Even the things as dull as paperwork and escrow, whatever that was.Â
When they reached the many windowed skyscraper, a doorman greeted them both with a nod and an open door though Alexander did not miss the degree of suspicion with which Oumar’s ensemble was eyed. The same was said for the hostess at her stand and the elevator operator at his station.Â
Alexander spoke over the deafening stares. “I’ve always known you to be a man with good instincts. Whatever it is,” that something else Oumar spoke of, “you’ll know when you see it.” The last time they had been face to face, perhaps years ago now, Alexander couldn’t have said something like that. But then Rose had happened, and now the resort. Things he could not have imagined wanting before they crossed his path unexpectedly.Â
The elevator doors opened to a bustling, chatty lounge in the sky. “But in the meantime, we drink. What’s your preference, Oumar? I’ll be having an excess of O Negative, personally. But I don’t think that’s quite your taste.” Lightly, he chuckled.Â
Ro flipped him off, an act that, after having done it so many times before, was starting to a lose a little of its potency. “You need to get your ears checked. Aren’t you supposed to have the best hearing out of everyone? You only get a compliment out of me when you’ve earned one.” The whole act might’ve seemed more stern if she didn’t feel so gooey on the inside, doing her best to keep a straight face to not encourage the worst behavior imaginable. If she gave him an inch, he’d take a mile.
The blank stare on her face said it all. Reality television had yet to surface in Ro’s world, which meant that anything he said regarding the subject would be as much gibberish as another species language. “The fact that I just accidentally created the plot of a television show that’s currently airing right now is enough to tell me that the show has to be absolute trash.” Which wasn’t saying much, since Ro wasn’t great with keeping up with pop culture things these days.
A small change in tone, and Ro’s face softened with it. How easy it was to see things through his eyes now, muscles slack as she took in the space, attempting to become a visionary. It wasn’t necessarily the potential that held her captive. It was Alexander. There was a passion there, or maybe a direction, and who was she to try to stomp down onto it for no reason at all? That wasn’t how they functioned. They plated the tit for tat game, but in the moments that counted, she wasn’t about to spit in his face.
“I think that I might need another sledgehammer, one for the other hand, too.” If this was what he wanted, then she wouldn’t just be lending one hand. The future was built off of sweat and blood, and Ro was ready to pay the price, not just for herself, but for him, too.
.
The warm reception was all he needed, and the last of Alexander’s reservations lifted from him if indeed he had ever had any to begin with. Nothing about the past few months had felt real to him, but this did. He smiled, the sincerity in it lasting only as long as it would take for a star to shoot out of view. Beautiful, and so quickly it might have only been imagined.Â
“With a second sledge hammer how would you hold my hand? Look at the place,” he gestured around, putting on the mask of drama. “Terrifying. Not to you, maybe. But,” Alexander touched his fingertips to his chest, “pour moi?” From hair to foot he heaved a shudder.Â
Then, stepping over brush and barb, he pushed open the gates on their protesting, salt-rusted hinges. They were full of resistance. “Welcome to paradise.” His hand urged her forward with a flourish, and then he kicked the gates down behind her. Admittedly, it felt good to watch them crash to the ground. “Leave what speaks to you,” he shrugged, not really caring what of the hotel’s skeleton remained at the end of the day. “Make dust of the rest of it.”
“Firstly, divine essence? Really? Secondly, bad at guessing? I’m an excellent guesser, it’s not my fault you thrive off of being both amazingly open and extraordinarily cryptic. It’s a fucking super power at this point. One day you’re out there trying to get your pockets picked, and the next you’re sending sledgehammers to my door and showing me a dilapidated building that looks more like a place where you’d want to murder someone. And since there’s no way in hell you could ever murder me—”
She stood there, dropping the sledgehammer to her side as her right hand was now propped on her popped out hip. In many ways she looked more like a mostly annoyed construction manager who was deciding on whether or not to let an employee go than a curious girlfriend who wanted to know what the fucking was going on. But she did want to know what was going on, because she missed him, and she liked this, and it made her feel as excited as it did oddly nervous. Very few people could ever manage to squeeze that anxious energy out of her.
Ro blinked at him before adding in one last guess, if only to reluctantly prove his point. “This is where you’re going to be keeping your army of werewolf girlfriends. Taking over the world will never have been easier than when you slowly lure us all here with the promise of manual labor.”
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“All I hear is that you think I’m both amazing and extroidinary.” He wore the look of a man who knew he was actually being both infuriating and adorable, and who did not mind being either. “Bit of overkill really. Careful, or I’ll start to think you have a crush on me.”
Her guess was far from accurate, but it brought a laugh to him that felt rustier than it sounded. “So close. I’m a lover, Rose. Not a fighter. I have no desire to build an army; however, there is this show called The Bachelor, you may be familiar with?” He hadn’t been, until weeks and weeks of hospital daytime television made him so, largely against his will.Â
“No, no. What can I say, I’ve taken all the wisdom and skill you’ve taught me when it comes to the art of picking a pocket and I’ve decided to apply it largescale. Tourists are always an easy mark, right?” He smiled then, looking at the wreck before them and seeing not what was there but what would be, the same way he looked at an unchiseled slab of stone and saw art. Pretense fell wayside, he asked in a voice much more in accord with the one in his heart: “What do you think?” It mattered to him. So much. “A resort. My resort.”Â
One might assume Oumar would be more aware of his surroundings given his short time on the streets. One might even assume that Oumar might have a better sense of someone creeping up on him given his heightened senses thanks to his werewolf abilities. However, living on the streets meant there was a constant bombardment on the senses, whether it was the distinct smell of urine or loud noises mixed with people chattering, it was a constant assault on the senses. This meant that Oumar had no idea anyone was nearby until he revealed himself.
It was a familiar face and he grinned as he was greeted by the other man. “Alexander,” he said, a grin on his face. It was rare to see someone he knew nowadays and the familiarity was comforting. Not only that, but the familiarity of someone who, despite being part of the world he left behind, fit in just as well as he always had. “Oh shit, haven’t seen you in ages. I hope you’re paying. Don’t exactly have loads of cash to spare nowadays.” In fact, Oumar had found a few coins earlier, which amounted to all of the money to his name currently. But, hey, if he saved for long enough, he might be able to afford a nice meal one day. “But I’ll never say no to a free drink. Or two.”
“Hey, you got any cigarettes on you?” he asked. Oumar could really use one. “Preferably of the ethereum variety.”
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Alexander liked that about Oumar, that he asked for things. That he took what was offered gratefully and then wasn’t ashamed to ask for more. Of course Alexander had laced cigs, of course he had two rounds to give. Three. Four. It might have been the nature of a vampire to bleed a thing for whatever it had, but you didn’t take all of that in without needing to pour it back out somehow.Â
It was a fresh box, the cellophane crinkled and he smacked it upside down against his palm several times to pack the cigarettes. With a thumb he flipped the lid back, turning the eighteenth cigarette over filter-side up. He took one for himself and offered the open pack to Oumar wordlessly.Â
If the hospital was short on blood, most of the bars along this strip would be too, even if the glowing red signs in the windows advertised otherwise. Money could buy anything though. He overlooked the bars below for rooftop lounges above, always well stocked for the vampires who prefered to flaunt their wealth by laughing in the face of the sun. “That’s where we’re headed,” he decided, pointing to a tall glass building two or three streets up. With the promise of blood on the horizon he felt the temptation to rip into his old friend’s throat far less, even if he did smell amazing.Â
“No offense, but I thought you might have died,” he joked, and it wasn’t about how close he had come to killing Oumar himself. “What the fuck have you been up to?”
She had to admit, carrying around a sledgehammer felt right. It was funny that, until now, Ro had never once considered a career in construction. but as soon as she opened the suspicious package, something clicked. All of her power and anger going into walls instead of people? There should’ve been a reason why that never crossed her mind before, but the likeliest of answers was that she loved fighting too much to ever give it up. In many ways, being in the ring was like really good sex. The foreplay. The mirroring. Waiting for the next move. It was a dance, and she was addicted, but the sledgehammer was a delightful kind of weight that she would rather die than part with. She even morbidly wondered what it might be like to swing it into someone’s head.
When Ro walked up, it was with the sledgehammer draped behind her neck, both of her arms curled over the handle. “I’m going to go ahead and assume that this isn’t where you grew up.” Her voice rang loud and clear with only the waves to fight her. She couldn’t lie, the view might have been impressive, but the building itself looked hazardous at best, and like a death trap at worst. It meant she loved it immediately.
The sledgehammer moved, now being used as a pointer, because clearly it was a multifunctional tool. “If you’re telling me that we’re able to go in there and try to fix this thing, then you had better tell me that we’ve been given a television sign on for one of those flip it or fix it shows. Whatever they’re called.” She considered what it might be called. “Supernatural Fixers. Selling Sunshine.”
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“Selling Sunshine.” His brows jumped. “Very clever.” And not a bad idea, he’d probably be much better suited to television than he was to running a business, but as fate would have it Alexander couldn’t be captured on film. Perhaps for the best. Fame would have gone to his head, the way most things did.Â
“Unfortunately for the world, there is no camera made to date that can capture my beauty, my divine essence. So that’s a no on hidden cameras or scripted reality.”
For a long moment he stood back and considered all of it. Silence felt like it came easier to him recently. It wasn’t where he grew up, but looking at its potential he thought that it might be where he would grow up. It was too soon to say.Â
“Do you want to try a third guess, or should I tell you?” The edge of his lips quirked. “I’ve noticed you’re not very good at guessing.” The words came out a little like what he’d meant to say was: I love you. “But you are very good at wielding that hammer. I personally would have liked to see you with one of those ages ago.”
WHEN: June 16, 2023
WHERE: Obsidian City, near St. AsclepiusÂ
WHO: @whatisbloodworth​
Alexander was achingly thirsty after spending the better part of an afternoon and evening in the hospital with all its open veins and transfusions. Shortages in supply kept the cafeteria from selling blood to visitors at the moment, but the sign-in process to gain access into the private wing his mother was isolated in---an obstacle no double intentionally placed by his father to deter Alexander visiting---meant he neglected day after day to drag himself away and to the blood bank even when the pains of hunger set in.Â
The night air, salty and damp, was doing him good from the sidewalk he stalked until a gust of wind pushed a rich scent his way, tickling his nose and all the way down the back of his throat where it lingered.Â
Before he thought about moving he was already behind the man, fangs bared. It was late night, the streets were scarce of eyes and it would be over before the stranger even knew it began. Only it wasn’t a stranger. Alexander recognized Oumar just in time.Â
Politely, he put his fangs safely away behind a closed-lip smile. “Oumar!” he exclaimed, stepping out in front of the man. “Is that you? My God, I hardly recognized you.” It had been some time, he supposed. “It’s good to see you. I’m desperate for a drink. Join me!” He winked. “I’m paying.” It was the least he could do for almost ripping his neck open in the middle of the city.
WHEN: June 18, 2023
WHERE: Beachfront at Lower St. Vlad’sÂ
WHO: @rohawkins​
He could have been normal, but he wasn’t. So rather than tell Rose he spent a small fortune on a resort that hadn’t seen life in half a century he sent a gift wrapped box to her doorstep with an address attached to the notecard and little else. It wasn’t a dress as she may have become accustomed to, nor flowers, chocolates, perfumes or any of the other thoughtful things a heinously wealthy man might send a woman he was infatuated with.Â
Alexander sent a sledgehammer.Â
He thought she’d appreciate that more, anyway. And then, as he had every day for the last week, he lit a cigarette at the crack of dawn, extracted himself from his bedsheets, and hot girl walked himself from one end of St. Vladimir’s to the other until the Ives’ grounds were a memory and his demolition tower of dreams eclipsed the pain he still felt knowing his mother had been in St. Asclepius for some time and would remain there for some time more. Perhaps because of him. He didn’t want to think like that though. He had to believe it was an accident.
And then, he waited. The beaches along Lower St. Vlad’s were always quiet; what vampire who couldn’t afford the ethereum liked to spend time in the sun? It was shit real estate, truth be told. And it was Sunday, so the construction crews were all gone. He stood alone against his castle in the sand.Â
Francisco didn’t need to say anything. His presence blocking the aircraft door was enough. Alexander knew better and opened his mouth anyway, but waited until the taillights on his car were no longer visible and Rose was gone beyond a shadow of a doubt. “You said it wouldn’t be a problem if I took the jet.”Â
Francisco massaged the crease from between his eyes. “Are you joking with me, Alexander?”Â
Alexander swallowed, but his throat was dry and raw. “The cleaning team is already on the way. The other night at dinner you said—“ The back of Francisco’s hand knocked the rest of Alexander’s sentence from his mouth. A thick metal ring split the skin of his lip wide open.
“DO YOU THINK I NEED AN INSIPID BRAT LIKE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT I SAID?” Spit flew across the jet, its walls shook from the force of Francisco’s voice alone.Â
Alexander’s shoe scuffed against the floor as he took a step back, and Francisco advanced in perfect synchronization. “Dad, no, I don’t think—“
“That’s right, you don’t fucking think. You don’t fucking do anything, do you? Where did you go, Alexander? What have you done today but waste space? While I have worked to give you a good life. You’ve done nothing. Fucked whores. Embarrassed me in the tabloids. Sunk your trust fund in the casino, snorted it up your nose?” He sneered down his nose at the boy. “Crashed your car for attention? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF AND STOP FUCKING AROUND, BOY? I have given you EVERYTHING, and you are nothing. A leech. More more more,” he mimicked a horrible whine. Francisco’s eyes rolled, then narrowed. Nothing in them could be mistaken for love.Â
Age only aided a vampire’s strength and speed, Alexander was thrown back against the wall so hard the metal dented but he’d seen that coming and braced himself.Â
“You mope, and you whine, and you cry that your privileged life is unfair. You are weak, the way your weak mother raised you. I should kill you and make another son more in my image.” Francisco hissed the words up against his son’s face, baring his teeth at Alexander.Â
Alexander stared blankly out the door. A bird plucked bugs from the patch of grass opposite. His father went on, until suddenly—
“LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU.” He heard the snap of his own neck, felt his jaw dangle unhinged from the force of his father’s blow, and then met the hard embrace of the jet floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.Â
“You’re going to make something of yourself and make something on this island I can be proud of,” his father demanded from above. Alexander heard him straightening his cufflinks. “Or I will burn those fucking cigarettes of yours and tie you to the weathervane at sunrise.” He spat on the floor next to his son’s face.Â
A very, very long silence followed, and then at last Francisco sighed. “You are the greatest disappointment of my life, and my only failure.” He stepped over Alexander and paused at the door, as if in afterthought. “Make yourself presentable. You’re expected at St. Asclepius. Your mother’s had an accident, Alexander.”
June 7, 2023
April and May had come and gone before he realized it. He spent the time carelessly. Squandered it. Pitied himself. Pitied his mother, still in the hospital’s care. Planted anger, grew cold, burnt it up, fell defeated into his coffin. Slept. Slept. Slept. He reached out to Rose and felt like he did so with the hands of a ghost. Transparent. Without grasp, without feeling. He searched for warmth and found none though he stood in the center of her fire. It neither hurt nor healed him, it was all nothing.Â
And then came June, hot and fast through the budding greenery of the island and some life finally touched him. One day toward the beginning of the month he opened a pack of ethereum laced cigarettes and found them stale from disuse. He smoked two anyway, and strolled through the cobbled streets of St. Vlad’s through the fashion district and past the subterranean housing clear to the beachfront where stood a hotel loved to ruin by time and the capricious island weather.Â
Alexander might have stood there for an hour staring at its haunted facade, or he might have stood there for days. Time had once meant nothing to him and now it meant even less. He began to imagine what it had looked like fifty years ago when it was probably built. Glass doors swinging open to the balconies, a thousand happy people staring out of their rooms to the sea beyond. Staff bustling around on every floor, at every hour of the day or night. Laughter and drinking and storytelling, fireworks and dancing. He could escape in a place like that. A place full of happy memories, so unlike the one he begged to leave behind before it killed him.Â
He closed a deal on the property a week later. Construction began immediately. He had no idea what he was doing and enough money that it didn’t really matter. If it was insanity it hardly mattered, he was no stranger to it and preferred it to depression, at any rate.
