Feh, come and check out the stream, or whatever i don't care
CHAINSAW ARMS! KATANAS! MAGIC ELECTRIC GUITARS! AND A LOT OF BLOOD! Come on down tonight to check out a good old fashioned XBOX:360 Live Arcade edgelord classic, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile!
Biting a human in the early hours of the morning was a last resort, Roman knew, but he was getting desperate enough to consider it.
He’d been traversing the walls of the dorm for ages, searching for either a sleeping human or Patton with no luck. Summer break had most of the rooms empty, or humans all in a group together making noise late into the night. Those humans slept during the day, meaning that it was too risky for Roman to emerge from the walls.
Originally, he’d been much more worried about Patton- the little puffball was too trusting for his own good- but as the days passed, he was quickly coming to realize that he’d be no help to his little borrower friend if he starved to death while searching for him.
That wasn’t to say he wasn’t still incredibly worried. The borrower was the only other tiny being in the dorms, and Roman owed him his life many times over. The only reason Roman was even able to traverse these dorms in the first place was because Patton considered all of the building his abode, and had invited the vampire in without hesitation. He couldn’t even go find an animal to feed on outside now, because without Patton granting him entry he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get back into the building before the sun rose.
If it weren’t for Patton’s help in learning vital borrower skills and occasionally letting Roman feed off him, he doubted he would have survived even a day longer out in the wild with most of his innate magic stripped from him.
Now, he was perched on the nightstand next to the only human who seemed to keep a consistent sleeping schedule these days, a nerd by all measures of the word. Patton had warned him against borrowing from this bean, something about avoiding humans who were involved with the study of science. Roman hadn’t really retained much of the explanation.
Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and so Roman climbed up to the bedspread and crawled under it, hurrying over to the nearest huge arm.
He pushed the cuff of the human’s pajama sleeve up, exposing his wrist, and almost started drooling at the feeling of blood pumping beneath his undersized fingertips. Roman still hadn’t figured out the strange symbols the humans used to tell time, rather than just using the stars’ positions like smart creatures, so he had to be fast, lest the human wake before he could finish.
With that in mind, he carefully licked the side of the human’s wrist- not over the veins, that would definitely get him noticed- to numb the area. Swiping his tongue over his fangs once to coat them in the same numbing agent, he quickly bit down to break the skin.
The human’s fingers twitched slightly, but his breathing continued, steady and deep, and so Roman didn’t hesitate to quickly lap at the wound. With humans, there was so much more blood in them that he didn’t have to worry about draining them. When he drank from Patton, it was in a much more delicate and careful manner.
He had only gotten a few mouthfuls, however, when a harsh, piercing sound broke through his concentration. The muscle under him tensed, and he resisted the urge to clamp his hands over his ears in favor of clinging to the human’s wrist, tiny clawed fingers digging into the skin.
Unfortunately, the tiny pinprick sensations didn’t go unnoticed, and Roman was whisked up into the air as the human lifted his arm.
“What in the-!” Before he could even register the human’s gaze, another massive hand was swiping at him, knocking him off the wrist. He hit the bedspread hard, the air forced from his lungs.
Above him, the human had pressed something to stop the noise, and was placing a pair of glasses on his face to look at him properly. Remembering the borrower rules, he struggled to roll over to his hands and knees, crawling towards the edge of the bed with little plan but ‘get away.’
“Wait, stop-” The human tried to place a hand over him, fingers curling around to trap him, and Roman panicked. He sank his teeth into the closest finger, eliciting a yelp of pain from the human, and found himself dropped on the bedspread once more, the taste of iron sweet in his mouth.
“Grabbing an unknown specimen that has already bitten me once with my bare hands. Certainly not my proudest moment.” The human muttered to himself, before shifting off the bed to rise to his feet. His shadow loomed over Roman for a moment before heavy footsteps moved away.
Specimen? Roman felt his heart race faster, and he forced himself to scramble over the bunched up comforter as quick as he could.
Not fast enough. In the next moment, a clear plastic cup was set over him, the human’s hand acting as a weight to keep him from moving it. He pushed against it futilely anyhow.
The human crouched to be eye level with the cup, still impossibly fast in his movements, and Roman flinched away, scrambling to press his back against the farther end of the cup. The human studied him intently, and a feeling of dread manifested in the pit of his stomach.
“What exactly are you?” He mused, almost to himself.
Roman shoved at the cup again, baring his fangs. “None of your business! Let me go!”
The human’s eyes widened. “You… talk?”
The tiny vampire only had a moment to regret his hasty words before the cup was slid forward onto a textbook, forcing him to stumble along until he was trapped between the two items. The human lifted him up and walked over to his desk, gaze never leaving Roman.
“That will make things much easier.” He set the textbook and cup with Roman inside on the desk, sitting in the chair a moment later. “My name is Logan, and I have quite a few questions for you.”
A shiver worked its way down Roman’s spine, and he glanced frantically at the window where the sky was lightening, bit by bit. He swallowed, nervous.
“I’ll answer them, but only if you swear to let me go afterwards.” He bargained, straightening his back to seem taller. A pointless gesture, but it made him feel better.
The human raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “I believe you owe me some answers regardless, seeing as you seem to have bitten me and, as I’ve never seen anything like you before, I have no way of knowing what sort of effects it could have on my health and wellbeing.”
Roman bristled. He’d been living undetected in this building for half a year now, he knew how to feed on humans without harming them! “It won’t have any effects! You probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if you hadn’t woken up while I was in the middle of feeding!”
“Feeding?” Logan asked, already beginning to scrawl notes in human writing. “So you subsist off of blood, then?”
“Wait, no, nuh-uh.” Roman turned pointedly away. “I’m not telling you anything until you agree to let me go.”
There was a long stretch of silence. “Disregarding the fact that I currently hold all the power here, how are you sure that I won’t just agree to get answers and keep you captive anyways?” Logan asked, tone genuinely curious. “Are you working off an honor system, or are deals more binding in your culture? Would you classify yourself as fae?”
“Aren’t you listening? I said, I’m not answering anything else!” Roman kept his shoulders stubbornly hunched to hide his trembling. “I’m not going to be some kind of science experiment. I’d rather die.”
Logan leaned back, deep in thought, and Roman tried not to let his bluff show. He couldn’t die here, he had to go rescue Patton from whatever fate had befallen him!
“Very well.” Logan said, drawing Roman’s eyes from the brightening horizon. “I swear to release you after my curiosity has been satisfied.”
The little vampire nodded emphatically despite the odd phrasing, not yet knowing that it would take much, much longer than he anticipated to fulfill his end of the bargain.
