Damian writing tip: If you're writing him, are going for a more canon approach and he's older than twelve, he won't say he's the "blood son" anymore (aside from the fact that by 13 Bruce starts royally fucking up with him but if we're ignoring THAT mess...) since he already went through the Year of Redemption and called Maya, someone he's not related by blood, his sister. Not to mention that he's very attached to Dick and has seen him as a mix of older brother and parental figure ever since the later part of Dick's time as Batman. So he already knows the "family isn't always by blood" lesson.
tw: reluctant teenage vampire donors, general ick surrounding teenagers being fed upon, & blood.
spring before Cass goes to Hogwarts, Verlie (16) Cass (10)
Verlie laid herself down beside Cass, careful not to pant into his ear even as her limbs shook and quaked under her weight. The girl let herself settle into the blankets, curling up tight around herself, breathing out through her nose in order to stop her head from spinning.
The party had been raging, and Verlie had lost track of the laps she'd been transferred to, the arms wound around her, the tune's she'd been swayed to.
Worse still there was blood drying on her neck, soaking into the thin collar of her dress, flaking off the back of her ear, and dribbling from punctures in her cheeks.
The teenager sighed, willing the world to halt for just a moment. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd ended up at the Halestorms, only that she'd been deposited outside of Cass's door and been pushed inside. The ten-year-old was fast asleep, curled around a blanket and snoring.
Verliad lay awake, the adrenaline of the Feeding still thrumming through her used body, watching the sun slowly rise in the sliver of the blackout curtains when Cass began to wake, blinking blearily at her, rubbing away the sleep from his eyes.
He was taller, growing every week they were apart. No longer just the little boy who toddled after her and licked the blood from her forever-healing puncture wounds.
"V?" Cass's voice had the cadence of a child, and the teenager roped an arm around him, tucking his head against her neck. He could smell the blood, feel the thin dress she'd laid down in, his little fingers finding the holes and ripping, the edges stained in brown blood. It'd be thrown away by afternoon, a new one presented, a blood-replenishing potion poured down her throat as she was sent away for bathing and pampering before that night's event.
But at this moment Verlie hummed, sliding her fingers through Cass's dense curls. She didn't want to think about the party tonight, or the waltzes she'd do, the hands on her neck and opening her veins for a little taste.
She let her fingers strum notes on Cass's skull, dancing between the curls and locks, lulling him into a state of half-sleep.
"Want me to play you a song? It's too early for you to be awake." Cass nodded, still mute in the grey morning and Verlie rose from the bed, leaving stains behind as if she'd gotten her monthlies. Her bags were left outside the door, the wooden case holding a violin she'd been told to use that night though she preferred her cello or the piano.
"I went to a muggle theater last week," Verlie whispered, "and they were playing this wonderful cartoon from Japan," she settled on the edge of Cass's bed, the boy sitting up, tucking his scrawny knees to his chest, "it was about this girl who was spirited away to another world and her adventures working as an indentured slave."
The boy's eyes were wide like galleons, sparkling as she lifted the violin to her neck, testing the strings with a slide of her bow.
"I spent hours trying to find this song on that blasted Interwebs the Muggles used... but I loved the tune..." lifting the violin to her neck Verlie closed her eyes, "I think you'd love the film, Cass, there was even a train there, like the one that takes you to Hogwarts."
It'd been all he was talking about, week in and week out, Hogwarts-Hogwarts-Hogwarts. So close and yet so far, it was probably going to be the last Spring she spent with Cass
"Don't make fun of me, okay, I've only played it twice..." Verlie set her fingers on the frets and began to play.
autumn 2020
Verlie looked over the piano, it stood grand in the manor, covered in a light layer of dust. Unplayed though, as Verlie peeked into the insides, not out of tune. Verlie settled herself onto the velvet seat and opened up the keyboard, letting her fingers dance over the keys, but not touching them.
"You auditioning for the band?" Cass lounged over the edge of the stairs, swathed in a silk robe Verlie had brought him from Japan, all cherry blossoms and swirling leaves.
"As if I'd join your subpar teen bitchfest," Verlie retorted, but let her fingertips stroke the ivories, had she been human a sneeze would build in her nose. But an impermanent death meant a lack of bodily functions like breathing, though thankfully arousal still existed, the evidence of such lying a floor above her head swaddled in silk and velvet, snoozing the night away. Verlie had left the girl with bites and rope burns, but kissed away each hurt and slathered them with healing lotions, tucking her safety to bed and with assurances of her good work.
Verlie couldn't admit to loving, but she took care of her pets, and the one above her head deserved a diamond collar and nothing less than her weight in platinum.
Cass sat beside her, the arch of his back so lovely a painter might've asked for a posing shot. Each of his curls sticking out of place, his skin beset with acne from a previous binge of ice cream, but it didn't do much but highlight the excellent bone structure and how pretty his skin would be once he used the face creams she'd brought him from Paris.
"What are you going to play?" he ventured, tilting her head to her fingers still ghost dancing over the keys.
"I don't play much piano anymore."
"Doesn't mean you should not play, you sat here didn't you?"
Verlie did, and with a breath she tapped on a set of keys, the tone clear and high, ringing through the room. Carefully she picked her way through the song, the musical notes playing like a record in the back of her head, she let her eyes close, touching the ivory keys with a gentleness she'd forgotten she was able to give.
Cass let out a punch of air from his chest.
"I know this song--" Verlie shushed him, but he persisted, "You played me this, with a violin, when I was still a kid..."
So long ago, when the days blurred and time nonexistent. Verlie played through, keeping her eyes closed. The song used to play during the Feedings and dances, through the opened doors and closed blackout curtains, it sang in her brain as she was laid out on couches opening herself open with a little knife. It had rung when Cass left for Hogwarts, on a train far away, and Verlie while he'd been getting sorted was at a mixer, sitting on a stool auctioning away a bottle of her finest red, finally mature, made 5 years previously.
"It's from a film," Verlie said, "it's the Disney of Japan," she opened her eyes as the last of the notes fell off her fingertips, "I watched it a dozen times when I stayed in Tokyo, maybe a hundred." She let out a rattled breath, still instinct. "We should watch it, make it a double date?" She offered Cass a grin who stood disgusted and shaking his mane of curls.
"Oh fuck off about a date--”
Verlie snapped, "We treat our Doners well Cass, that's what makes us better. So we’ll take them on a movie date, it’s cliche, but they deserve it a bit don’t they?" Didn’t they deserve it, a touch of softness, a shred of something beyond base primal instinct to rut, orgasm and lie gasping. Beyond their own sustenance. Verlie closed the piano, dust flying up, "Go check movie times for Spirited Away, I'll charter us a jet if I have to." That bottle she'd sold at 16 cemented her promise as luxury donor, and the payouts still came, if reluctantly from the Redlocke's accounts into her own. Her blood by the barrelful, poured all over the world, the gold lining her pockets, made even more expensive by her permenant removal from the Redlocke rotation.
"I'll wake my pet, go wake your toy, we're going out."
The morning sun peaked through the windows, and Verlie tugged the blackout curtains closed with a snap.
To say Franklyn was experienced in the baking field would be a lie. Sure, he’s made his fair share of cakes and cookies. But actually making something from scratch, now that’s something he’s never really tried to do. But, it was Cassidy’s birthday, and she did ask for his help, so he figured this would be a good idea. Franklyn checked the fridge and cupboard for all the ingredients they’ll need, and luckily, they had everything already. “Ok, so first what we need to do, according to this website, is preheat the oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.” Franklyn did so easily, then looked down at the instructions again. “Next, we have to get the butter and sugar into a bowl and cream it.”
