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Post by Vivian Nazarova on Feb 21, 2009 0:31:32 GMT 1
Woo, feeding day. Imagine that last sentence in the most deadpan delivery possible. That was how much Vivian was looking forward to her little ‘dinner date’ with Dacian. Sure, she felt half starved and she’d gone through at least seven blood flavoured lollypops to keep her head together, but, you know, the blood sucking thing. Yuck. Not to say she wasn’t getting used to it, but it had to be remembered that a few weeks ago she had once been human. At least with the lollypops she could sit in the main part of the Hog without mauling everyone, it drowned out the heartbeats and calmed her down. Best, lollies, ever.
There was a soft series of knocks on the back door and Vivian inwardly groaned. Time to repeat the same pointless exercise again where Dacian tried to show her how to feed properly and she made a token effort to ask why she couldn’t just get medical blood instead. Dacian, being traditional or something, always looked vaguely insulted at the suggestion. Even though she’d been waiting near the door for fifteen minutes she didn’t want to budge and dallied another five before picking herself up to answer it.
A blast of cold air hit as the door opened. Stupid snow. Vivian was quite frustrated to note that she wasn’t registering sudden temperature changes as acutely as she used to. True, it wasn’t necessarily the best sensation, but it wasn’t something she wanted to lose either. The scowl on her face when she saw Dacian was more automatic in response to what was coming than anything. He was actually quite nice when he wasn’t being forceful, demanding, insulting, or intentionally annoying.
”Still no hospital blood?” she asked, sucking resolutely on one of the blood-pops.
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Dacian
Vampire (A)
Creature of the Night
Posts: 330
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Post by Dacian on Feb 21, 2009 1:26:50 GMT 1
Dacian had been waking up after sunset for the last week. It was somewhat disorientating as usually he woke up a good few hours before. His body clock was getting out of sync, and he was late leaving the Three Broomsticks. Various staff gave him nods of recognition as he passed but he ignored them resolutely. When people you didn’t know started to recognise you, you had been on one place for far too long.
The Three Broomsticks was not a comfortable place to be, but the presence of Cassie made it that much more bearable. Cassie could probably make anywhere bearable. He could of stayed elsewhere, but staying with Cassie had a detrimental affect on his mood. Segregated from Vivian by a boy not much older than her would have had him in fits of fury by now, but Cassie had a calming influence on him. He woke each evening, pleased for once that there was someone nearby to talk to. He would never admit it, but eternity was lonely.
He woke that evening as usual, expecting Cassie to be bustling around. He’d opened his eyes with a start when he’d realised he couldn’t hear her familiar heartbeat. She had been gone once before, shopping in the village. She had returned shortly after sunset, so he wasn’t too concerned now. After a brief visit to the bathroom to wash his hair in the sink, he towel-dried it and tied it back in a plait. Cassie was still not back, so he sat down on the only chair in the place and practiced moving his fingers.
They had started to regain some mobility the night before and he was impatient to be able to use the arm. The rest of it was still charred and blistered, but the redness was fading and the cross-shaped scar, now charring to black, was not quite as painful. After a few painful minutes, he had been able to move the index and middle fingers a centimetre. Not exactly a full recovery, but they were getting there. Another week and he might be able to hold something. Preferably Cassie.
Impatient to see her now but acutely aware that he also needed to visit Vivian, the vampire stood and donned his hat, tucking the plait up under it and carefully shrugged on his leather duster. He had all his effects back from Edward, including the long sword with leaned in the corner of the room. He left it there, finding it difficult to manage the dexterity it would take to loop it on his belt.
The walk to the Hogs Head in the icy slush had him in a ferocious mood by the time he reached the back door. Cassie had not been in town. Her scent, a few hours old, had escorted him all the way to Edward’s pub. She was here. She had returned to Edward. Permanently or not, the jealousy welling up was murderous. With restraint, he knocked on the door in soft repetitions. Vivian needed feeding, but then he was finding somewhere else to sleep. It had been idiocy to fraternise with the mortal. He should have realised her fickle nature would have her back in Edward’s bed before he could recover enough to make good on that promise.
Just one more week. Couldn’t she keep her legs crossed until then?
He had thought Cassie different than that. He had thought her care and affection had been something real, something worth expending effort to maintain. He should have known, should have seen it coming. Why else would she build his hopes up? To watch them crumble. Cassie and Edward’s sadistic idea of fun no doubt. Dacian resisted the urge to punch the wall in frustration. What was taking Vivian so long?
It was unfair of him to jump to conclusions. Cassie was not like Edward, she was not bedding every man in the vicinity. Albeit he had been keeping her busy for the last week, and she had been with Edward before that, but he had smelt at least one woman on Edward in the last week. As much as he wanted to blame it on her, he knew she wasn’t so heartless. Whatever reason she had for coming back to Edward, it was more than likely his own failures that had driven her away. Edward was someone familiar, not some night-dwelling, soulless, immoral blood-drinker that had almost died in front of her and sequentially tried to eat her and then bed her. He wasn’t exactly the most stable of company.
Vivian finally opened the door and he could take a reprieve from the turmoil of emotions. “No.” He replied, hushed and harsh. “I’ve told you before, you have to learn.” He grumbled at the sight of the lollypop but made no effort to deprive her of it. Until he had succumbed to the flavoursome smell of it and tried one himself, he had tried to take the things away from her. They did in fact taste quite nice, and they curbed her hunger when he wasn’t there to feed her. Of course he hadn’t admitted to Vivian of trying one of the sweets, bur Cassie had caught him with one and found it ‘adorable’. He’d grumbled at that but had finished it anyway, promptly dragging her to the bed afterward to show her just how adorable he was. Another round of anything they could get away with without removing any clothes ensued. The removal of clothes always made it infinitely harder to stop.
Dacian growled and put his good hand between Vivian’s shoulder blades, impatiently propelling her at a brisk walk down toward the village centre. One of these nights he was going to get his way and Vivian would learn to feed properly. Tonight seemed as good a time as any. From the ridged set of all his muscles except the ones he was using for walking, he wasn’t going to take much resistance tonight.
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Post by Cassie Vimes on Feb 21, 2009 11:09:39 GMT 1
Cassie woke slowly, snuggled into the side of a man. She shifted closer, Dacian was unusually warm this evening, not that she was going to complain. Then she realised the chest under her hand was rising and falling in slow, steady breaths and that he smelt like Ed and sex. Cassie smiled, her grin only getting wider as their reunion came back to her in blissful detail. She sat up slowly, still groggy, and watched him for a moment, feeling like the cat that got the cream.
She could think of several delightful ways to wake him up, most of them revolving around her mouth on places other than his lips, but in the end she’d decided to let him sleep. Placing a soft kiss on his cheek Cassie slipped from the bed, collecting up her scattered clothes as she went and putting them on one item at a time. She should be going anyway, Dacian would be up soon. Retrieving her watch from under Ed’s discarded jeans she did a quick mental recalculation. Dacian would have been up for a while already.
Cassie had to tell him what had happened. Every time she thought about Ed her heart beat a little faster and a big soppy grin quirked her lips, but she owed it to Dacian to be honest. He was doing his best not to lie to her and she wanted to do the same for him. Besides she just had to tell somebody and while Dacian might not be the most appropriate person to talk to about it he was the one she felt closest with at the moment. It would have been pretty hard living in each others pockets for a week otherwise.
Slipping downstairs Cassie made her way towards the bar. She’d left her coat in there when Ed had rather hastily shut up shop. Before she could get very far though she spotted Viv by the back door and glimpse of a man that could only be Dacian. Great, he was already here, she could catch him before he took Viv to feed. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with intruding on the young vampire’s feeding time, but talking to Dacian wouldn’t take long.
Cassie clattered down the last few stair, heading out the back door and into the cold. It was bloody freezing out here! And her coat, scarf and gloves were still in the bar. Damn it! Vampires could walk fast when they wanted to, she practically had to jog to keep up. Cassie cast a longing glance back at The Hog’s Head, it was warm in there and she could easily wait for the two of them to return. She shook her head, stubbornly refusing to give up that easily.
She was outside now, what difference was a little longer in the cold going to make? The answer: A lot. Cassie shivered, rubbing her hands over her bare arms repeatedly, her breath puffing out in front of her in a white cloud. Who had designed snow anyway? It was cold and icy and wet, all the things Cassie hated. ”Dacian!” She called, finally giving in and breaking into a run to try and catch up. ”Viv! Wait up.” [/font]
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Post by Vivian Nazarova on Feb 21, 2009 11:54:36 GMT 1
Yep, that was the Dacian she knew. No questions or offers, just shoving. At first she would have batted his hands away but she was somewhat used to this treatment now. Walking along quietly with her hands shoved habitually into her pockets Vivian found herself nervously lightly chewing on the hard lolly with her molars. These excursions were rarely pleasant, but Vivian accepted them as necessary and today she was complaining less because she was practically half-starved. He’d gotten her feeding from the wrists just fine but Vivian was exceptionally easily squicked when it came for going for the jugular. The physical closeness was nerve-wracking, and, you know, the whole ‘bloodsucking being long used as a metaphor for illicit sex’ thing. Wrists suited her fine for the time being. Besides, Dacian had given no hint that he had anything different planned for tonight.
The excursion was quickly cut short before it even begun in the form of Cassie. Vivian immediately pulled up and turned around to wait. They’d talked once or twice, and she was nice, and funny. Quite a good person for Ed actually. Well, she had to be, Vivian guessed, due to the way Ed always moped about her. She’d taken to gently teasing Ed about it in a friendly manner and he always got a laugh out of being called a hopeless romantic. Of course, Vivian had no idea about the whole Dacian-Ed-Cassie triangle because no one ever bloody told her anything. She noticed Cassie smelled extremely strongly of Ed today, more than usual. Must have slept in the same bed, she guessed, her inexperience in the bedroom and the fact she had the misfortune of dying a virgin not giving her the inside clues to guess anything more than that had happened.
”Hello!” she responded cheerfully, but half worried. Clearly Cassie couldn’t exactly tag along. ”Did anysing happen?”
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Dacian
Vampire (A)
Creature of the Night
Posts: 330
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Post by Dacian on Feb 21, 2009 12:31:39 GMT 1
The sound of footsteps on snow did not escape Dacian’s attention. He had listened to Cassie extensively over the last week, and he knew the rhythm of her walk as well as her elevated heart. Instead of slowing, he did the opposite, walking as fast as the icy ground would allow. Ice however was a common enemy of man and immortal alike and Dacian could no easier keep his balance than Cassie. Unable to escape, he was forced to stop as Cassie called out and Vivian stopped to greet her.
Dacian lurked behind his adopted daughter, cringing inwardly at that particular reference. He wanted to stamp all reminders of Cassie from his system, yet it was impossible when she stood large as life before him. Instead of the usual soft expression that usually accompanied laying eyes on Cassie, Dacian was somewhat less than pleased to see her. is mouth was set in a hard line, and his hands were clenched (his right was clenched, his left could only manage a slight crescent).
Glaring at Cassie from behind Vivian, he kept a hand on the girl’s shoulder, ready to drag her back on course. Whatever Cassie wanted, Dacian did not want to hear it. The smell of her an Edward polluted the air and his nose flared and wrinkled at it, his expression turning from one of a firm stare to almost loathing. He could taste it; it cloyed in the back of his mouth and threatened to nauseate him. Vivian was oblivious, and that only served to anger him more. Vivian had no part in this, and he wished Cassie would turn and go back to her lover and leave him in peace.
“No, nothing happened.” Dacian fairly snarled, not revoking the hard glare he had fixated on Cassie’s pale eyes. “Come, Vivian, we’re going.” Taking a firm grim on the girl’s upper arm, he proceeded to rip his gaze from Cassie's face and drag Vivian a few steps before her token resistance unbalanced him on the slippery ground and he had to release her. He continued to walk, his cold shoulder technique practically glacial.
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Post by Cassie Vimes on Feb 21, 2009 13:30:14 GMT 1
Cassie skidded to a halt, almost stumbling as her boots slipped on the treacherous ice. She was slightly out of breath, the cold air making it harder to breathe. ”Hi,” She said, grinning in return. Now that she wasn’t moving she felt even colder. Cassie hadn’t had much chance to talk to Vivian, what with avoiding Ed like the plague for the past week, but she liked her. She was dealing with being a vampire admirably well in Cassie’s opinion. If it had been her tears and tantrums would have been on the menu far more.
She felt a slight blush rising on her cheeks as Viv asked if something had happened. Cassie wasn’t sure that discussing her sex life in front of a fifteen year old was a good idea. Not that at fifteen she’d been exactly innocent, but it still felt wrong somehow. Would Vivian be able to smell it anyway? She knew Dacian had a stronger sense of smell than the average human, but did the same apply to a young vampire?
Her eyes flicked to Dacian, hoping for some kind clue about what would be appropriate. He was her guardian after all. What she saw made her breath catch, she’d never seen him looking so angry. What was wrong? Had she done something wrong by following them? Perhaps Dacian didn’t want her intruding on the rather private affair of feeding Vivian. She was speechless as Dacian answered Vivian’s question, still reeling from the force of the glare he was sending in her direction.
Cassie managed to find her voice as Dacian began to walk away from her, feeling desperation slipping into her tone but not really caring. ”Wait!” She said, taking a few steps after the vampire. ”I don’t understand. What’s wrong?” The good mood that being with Ed had out her in was evaporating rapidly. It wasn’t fair, was there no point when she could just be happy with both of them. She’d already had one emotionally draining conversation, but this time she didn’t even know what she’d done wrong. ”Dacian please!” [/font]
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Post by Vivian Nazarova on Feb 22, 2009 1:25:53 GMT 1
Well, when she had asked ‘what happened’ Vivian hadn’t exactly meant ‘did you fuck Edward’. Her mind was more along the train of thought of ‘do you want us to buy milk while we’re out’. So, Dacian’s sudden and anger and Cassie’s expression of embarrassment was a rather confusing reaction. What? Was it something she said? Before she could ask ‘wait, what’ Dacian had suddenly snatched her upper arm and was attempting to drag her off after forcibly answering the question for her.
Okay, pushing she was used to. Pulling, no. ”Hey!” Vivian protested, trying to dig her heels into the ice and pry his fingers off her arm. What the heck had gotten into him so quickly? The snow was the only thing that made Dacian finally release her. She’d barely gotten loose when Cassie went rushing past her to catch up with Dacian looking like she was almost in tears. Oh come on, what was going on here? She wanted to interrupt and ask but the two of them looked rather preoccupied, so Vivian was just left standing off to the side staring in confusion. Oh how she hated being out of the loop, and to make it worse she was running out of lolly.
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Dacian
Vampire (A)
Creature of the Night
Posts: 330
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Post by Dacian on Feb 22, 2009 2:08:43 GMT 1
Dacian spun a little too fast due to the ice underfoot with a ludicrous expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” He stalked back a few paces, coming to stand beside Vivian. “Oh come now, Cassie, I know you’re not really this vacuous.” He leered, his jaw stiff with tension. “You know exactly what is wrong so please just turn around and go back to him.” The vampire responded with a sneer.
He covered his inner turmoil well. All he could think about was how he and Cassie would smell after being together like that. How their scents would linger on each other’s skin as if they had laid claim to each other. Edward had claimed Cassie, and Dacian had lost yet another fight. The trend was not sitting well with the vampire, and he covered his dismay with a harsh and biting exterior. It was a wonder the man hadn’t snapped anf gone after Edward already. A sneaking suspicion he was quick to stamp down on suggested that he didn’t kill Edward because of Cassie.
Just looking as Cassie so imploring and utterly clueless, Dacian wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Now if you don’t mind, Vivian and I are busy. I’m sure you and Edward can find something enjoyable to do. Just go with the first thing that comes to mind. Nothing new there.”
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Post by Cassie Vimes on Feb 22, 2009 2:16:39 GMT 1
Cassie wanted to step back again as he turned, but she held her ground, worried that if she retreated he would take that as defeat and just walk away. He looked furious and every moment she looked at that unforgiving expression she lost a little more of her stubborn belief that Dacian was a kind, charming gentleman despite all the warnings Ed had tried to give her. Right now he looked cold, tense, more like a vampire and less... human.
So he knew and he was reacting worse than she could ever have imagined. Dread sat heavy in Cassie's stomach. Suddenly it felt more like a betrayal. Two weeks he'd told her and she hadn't even lasted one. ”I don't want to.” She said stubbornly, feeling her lip begin to tremble through the mask of defiance. ”I want to talk to you. Would you please just listen?” It was all very well and good asking for him to listen, but if he said yes she wasn't sure what to say. Was there anything she could say to make sleeping with another man okay? Doubtful.
”I'm sorry!” Cassie tried, crossing her arms as though that would protect her from the sting of his words. ”I didn't mean to. It just happened.” She couldn't sound any more lame if she tried. It just happened? Like she couldn't have said no, couldn't have stopped herself from kissing Edward again. ”I only wanted to talk to him, I missed him.” Cassie wasn't used to being so painfully honest, but Dacian must have known she would want to see Ed again. [/font]
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Dacian
Vampire (A)
Creature of the Night
Posts: 330
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Post by Dacian on Feb 22, 2009 2:20:33 GMT 1
Dacian had been intending to take Vivian and go. Cassie wouldn’t follow too far in the snow. She hated the cold. But with everything she said, the harder it was to leave. He felt himself take another step forward, wishing he was taller than the blond so he could at least look down at her. On an eye-to-eye level, it was so much more difficult to lie. He couldn’t look her full in the face and be as cruel as he wanted to be.
Steeling himself, he took another step up, baring his teeth to full effect as he spoke. “You’re sorry? You didn’t mean to? It might work on him, but you cannot lie to me like that. Your definition of ‘just talking’ includes climbing into his bed does it? You couldn’t wait for me so you wrapped your lies and legs around Edward instead?” He glared out from under the rim of his hat, feeling her betrayal feed his angry words. “I know exactly which parts of him you missed. Did you forget? My sense of smell is impeccable.”
Vivian forgotten, he crossed the gap between him and Cassie, trying stubbornly not to let that trembling bottom lip of hers steal away his carefully built resolve. All the horrid things that came to mind that he wanted to shout at her were fighting with what was left of his sympathy. Part of him wanted to believe her, forgive her, but the other much louder part was screaming at the rejection. How dare she do this to him? How dare she evoke such debilitating emotion?
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