Numbers are Sexy (Dom)

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   Oh bugger, she seemed to have struck a nerve. The boys demeanour changed enough for Billie to pick out that something was wrong and she was immediately trying to repair any damage. What did this kid like so much about vampires anyway? Maybe his sister was one or something.   “No, I mean like, if I met one at a party or something I’d be cool with it cause you got the ability to ration over your fear, but like, think of it this way: Organisms are biologically engineered to want to avoid things that might hurt it. That’s the whole reason anything has survived this far, else you’d get like frogs jumping into fire because it looks cool and like gazelle calves trying to cuddle next to lions because they look warm. Every species on earth would die out.   “Oh, and for the record? Lemmings don’t jump off cliffs. That is total and utter BS I can’t believe anyone takes seriously.   “But anyway, humans are the natural prey of vampires. Wizards included. It’s not our fault they freak us out because we can’t help it. Same reason you won’t find minnows and scorpion fish playing figure eights any time soon. I mean, they’re both fish, but if that minnow isn’t paying attention there’s a risk that scorpion is going to get peckish. Get what I’m saying?   “As I said. Depends on the situation. Big difference between meeting one in a room full of people and a dark alley late at night. But I mean like, people tend to be just as scared over what other people might do to them, let alone vampires. You can’t expect them to just accept a bunch of guys whose sole niche in the world is to predate our population when they don’t even trust their own neighbour. Some folks are better than others and I don’t like to tell people to piss off just cause of who they are and not what they’ve done but like – there’s a stigma to get past, you get what I’m saying? You get over it with time but it’s not like I’ve had a shot to talk to many vampires,” she laughed humourlessly, immediately having another shot at the butterbeer to try and disguise the slight amount of awkwardness she was feeling. For all she knew she might have just made it worse.

[Dominic Spencer]

What a way to kill the friendly atmosphere and put poor Billie on the back foot. Suddenly Dom felt silly for sticking up for vampires, he shouldn’t have got so defensive over a topic that he hated to discuss at the best of times. Just because he was a creature of the night didn’t mean he liked them so defending his kind in general seemed rather redundant to the boy now. Though technically he had been defending himself because he didn’t lurk outside windows or anything like that; all his meals were consensual, sort of, maybe they were more like semi-consensual.

”So if you met one in a bar and it was being friendly like this you wouldn’t freak?” Dom risked, hoping she would only see the question in a hypothetical sense. It was tempting to show Billie what he was but there was an inbuilt apprehension and a sense that she would bolt if she found out too soon. No, best to ease her into revelations later on. ”What you’re saying makes sense, it’s only natural for people to be afraid of what can hurt them; like all creatures really,” the blond vampire nodded thoughtfully.

”It’s the natural way of things, of course prey is going to be afraid of the predator no matter how charming or friendly the predator is,” underneath the thoughtfulness there was a hint of sadness to Dominic’s voice. Of course he had realised the fact long ago that humans, the people he so longed to be with, would always fear him. Friends would always run and cower as soon as they knew what he was. Being a vampire that longed to be a human was a lonely existence times. Dom had no human friends, no vampire friends, no family, and no coven to belong to (not that he wanted one). It was partly his fault though, his exile from vampire and parts of human society was self-imposed

Trying to drag himself out of depressing thoughts the boy smiled at Billie and focused more on what she was saying. ”Yeah, that’s all fair enough,” the vampire agreed when she had finished. In his ears he heard the girl’s pulse flutter in a way that told Dom she was feeling more than a little awkward, oops. He cleared his throat and quickly thought of a new topic to talk about. ”You mentioned something about winged horses before; do you, uhh, work with them or breed them? I like horses, used to ride a long time ago but I can’t say I’ve ever seen one with wings apart from in books and stuff like that.”

[Billie Ackerman]

  “So if you met one in a bar and it was being friendly like this you wouldn’t freak?” Dom tried to clarify and Billie gave a noncommittal shrug.

  “Well, it depends. I mean like, if it was a situation like now, then nah, cause what are they gunna do? Pick me up and run off with me in the middle of a crowded pub? But if it was like some seedy backwater tittybar and he was acting like a real creeper, then yeah. Not that I’d be somewhere like that anyway, and it’d still be creepy even if it was a regular dude anyway,” she explained, feeling a little prick of optimism that things were on the right path again.

  And then, after agreeing with her, Dom had to go and do the stupidest thing possible.

  The one thing every 7th year in Hogwarts had learned years ago never to do for fear of having their eardrums waste away.

  He asked her about horses.

  Oh good Lord was Dom going to regret that one.

  Billie was completely oblivious to the storm she was about to unleash. Instead she just perked up visibly, the massive toothy grin returning to her face as her senses seemed to hone in on a topic she knew she loved to talk about.

  “Oh yeah, my parents raise Aethonans. They’re like big chestnut winged horses. We’ve been doing that since before I was born and I...”

  It didn’t stop for five minutes. Or ten. Getting dangerously close to fifteen. She bounced from personal anecdotes to random facts about horses – winged or regular – to vicious rants about what she considered poor horsemanship and Billie was still showing no signs of slowing unless someone intended to interrupt – loudly.

[Dominic Spencer]

There we go, he was smooth it was official. Dominic Spencer; able to correct awkward situations with a single sentence. As he inwardly congratulated himself a smug smile played on his lips and it only got bigger as he listened to Billie talk again. Definitely no traces of discomfiture in her voice now. Like he had been doing all night he nodded, said ‘yes’, ‘understandable’ and ‘hmm’ in all the right places of her musings on meeting vampires in nice bars and ‘titty bars’ as she had put it. ”No vampire would be silly enough to kidnap someone with all these people around.”

The boy noticed the sudden beaming smile the blue haired girl had on her face and in all honesty it had the vampire a little worried. For a moment he wondered what he’d said to get her all worked up like she was but it became painfully clear soon enough. Horses, he’d gone and asked her about her horses; a topic he deduced she loved to talk about. It was hard not to come to that conclusion as five minutes of her chattering away passed.

As much as Dom wanted to stay focused on what Billie was saying; at the seven minute mark the boy found his attention wandering all over the place. He still said ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘hmm’ in all the right places but it lacked the conviction from before. This time his eyes wandered to the ass of a waitress, back to Billie chattering away, to the window, some screaming kid in the pub with his family and then back to Billie. At the twelve minute mark Dom found a paperclip hidden under the table number and began to fiddle with that, all the while still nodding like he was listening.

”Wow by the sound of it you really know your stuff when it comes to horses, both winged and normal,” the flaxen-haired boy interjected at the fifteen minute mark a little louder than was necessary. ”I think it’s awesome when people are as passionate about something as you are with horses, except if it was destroying the world, enslaving mankind and so on,” Dom joked lightly with a warm smile. God he hoped this girl was worth it after enduring fifteen minutes of horsey talk he hadn’t heard the likes of since one of his sisters back when he was human.

"So... do you want a top up?" he asked, gesturing to her mug of butterbeer before she could keep talking. "Oh and have you heard the rumours that there are vampires and werewolves lurking around the village?"

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   Enslaving mankind huh?   “You’ll have to talk to the Ministry of Magic about that one. They’re doing a brilliant job doing that to the goblins,” Billie griped. “It’s a bit better now since Hermione Granger got her two cents in, but it’s still not perfect,” she added, breaking off from rambling about hoofcare and evidently taking the change of subject in stride. “All the magical creature laws are wankerous anyway.”   Dom was apparently offering a topup and Billie glanced down at the flagon of butterbeer she was already holding. Huh. Since when did it get so low? Dom was right – that was definitely going to need fixing. “Yanno, I think I’ll take you up on that,” she agreed, signalling the waitress over again. “Cheers buddy.”   "Oh and have you heard the rumours that there are vampires and werewolves lurking around the village?" the boy asked.   “Wow, you really love vampires huh?” Billie commented, perhaps a little hypocritically considering she’d been talking about horses for God only knew how long. “There was one in the Forbidden Forest a while ago, I know that much. Vampire I mean. They put a warning up and everything after it got hold of one of the teachers. I dunno, she got all scared and left after that. I mean, I would too. Apparently one of the other teachers – the Defence Against the Dark Arts guy – had to go in and rescue her from it. They really put guards up around the forest after that. Had to have been... err... about three months ago now? Few other kids got bit too, or almost bit.”   Billie paused to think about it. “I think only one kid ever really saw him. The vampires have the memory thing in the saliva and stuff so no one remembers much. But this Gryffindor chick called Lovely – yeah, I know – almost got bitten by it and some thestral beat it away. She went and told everyone o’course, Gryffindorks are total famewhores like that.” She stopped and pointed at Dominic accusingly. “Don’t quote me on that though. Two of my besties are Gyffs and I love ‘em to death, they’re just a bit silly sometimes. I mean, who goes into a forest at night to look for a cat? But yeah, anyway. He was like 5’10 with longish hair and some sort of coat according to her, that’s all I can tellya.”

[Dominic Spencer]

Gah even the change of topic to random things got her going on about something. Now it wasn’t horses it was goblin rights and something about how wizards had enslaved them or something along those lines. Jeez, when Dom had mentioned enslaving things he’d only been joking. It was a situation that called for more nodding and looking like she knew what the hell the girl was going on about. Until about thirty seconds ago the boy had had no idea that goblins existed so he couldn’t really offer any opinions even if he wanted to aside from a generic comment of, ”Slavery is wrong, damn magical governments.”

Dom practically jumped at the chance to get the girl a refill, once again hoping the girl would be worth it as he wandered to the bar. If it had been anyone else they probably would have gotten sick of Billie and her persistent banter but not him, he liked a challenge. Challenges were what broke the monotony of immortal life and kept him on his toes figuratively speaking. ”More of what she’s having please,” the vampire ordered, gesturing to where the blue haired girl was sitting.

”Here you go,” Dom placed the full pitcher in front of the girl with a triumphant look on his face. It quickly faded when his apparent love for vampires was brought up, replaced instead with an almost pained smirk. ”No I don’t love them,” he said quickly, shaking his head, ”they’re scary and dangerous but they were also humans once so I find them interesting is all.” There was also the fact he was one but Billie didn’t need to know that just yet. Yet again his attention was fully focused on the revelation that there had been a vampire in the nearby forest, interesting.

In the least he didn’t have to pursue the matter further since Billie was already automatically telling him all she knew. Already the boy’s mind jumped to the conclusion of Dacian but only because he was the only vampire Dom knew of that had been to Hogsmeade. Holy crap his first instinct had been right. The description Billy had given him had been near identical to the one he’d gotten from Silas. Dacian had been busy in the village it seemed.

The seriousness that had suddenly crossed the flaxen-haired vampire’s face evaporated as quickly as it had set on. ”Don’t worry, the secret what you think of ‘Gryffindorks’ is safe with me. Promise.” with that he winked with a sly smile to match.

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   Billie leaned back in her seat again, picking up the new pitcher contentedly. She was regarding Dom almost thoughtfully now, a move that only stood out because until this point Billie had clearly never once stopped to think between delivering her countless speeches.   “Damn, you’ve set me back to square one now. I’ve been trying to work out what you are all evening!” Billie whined, looking at Dom quickly up and down as though checking him out. In all actuality she was just hoping his appearance would reveal some new bit of information she could use. “I coulda sworn you were a Gryff but now I’m not sure any more. You sounded like one from your arithmancy reading so—”   Billie cut herself off in horror. “Aaaah sh-” she almost swore before snatching her sheets off the table behind her. “I should have been onto explaining Gamps theories by now! Damnit, I didn’t think I’d get this side-tracked!” she exclaimed before glancing at her watch then back to the parchment. Apparently she seemed to decide it was a lost cause, because she eventually put them down again. “Ergh, I’ll just put in more work tomorrow morning. Damnit.   “Oh well, you could at least help me out here. What are you? Or were, whatever. Raven, lion, badger or snake?”

[Dominic Spencer]

Billie’s sudden silence, in all honesty, was actually quite unnerving. It left the vampire struggling for a moment as to what to say as the girl had been the one doing most of the talking all night. There was also the fact that she was under the impression that Dominic was or had been a student of the magical school. Now he had no problems with lying but even he knew playing a wizard would be fruitless because of that little problem of not being able to do magic, at all. Oh and not to mention he knew nothing about it or the magical world; he’d only just figured out the money system through trial and error.

”Maybe I just like holding it over you, gives an air of mystery don’t you think?” the blond answered smugly, pursing his lips together to show he wasn’t about to divulge what he thought was a tremendous secret. ”I might be a Gryff,” Dom hinted, ”but I might not be.” He wasn’t a member of any house; the house he’d been in at school had been called something along the lines of George after the king but that was a fact Billie didn’t need to know. For now the boy was happy to be cryptic and let her think what she wanted to.

When Billie checked her watched and moaned about the time past that was a signal to Dom that this night was over between them. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep trying with her however. Again Billie was providing a challenge and if part of that challenge was building a relationship with her then so be it. Sure he was only using her for one thing but the boy had no troubles with that, just as long as he didn’t fall for her it would be fine. Falling for someone hurt when vampirism was involved and he knew that from firsthand past experiences.

”Okay, how about this? I might tell you if you promise to see me again but only once you’ve done your work; I don’t want to cause you to fail.”

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   Billie frowned and pointed her finger at Dom again. “Ohhh, you are so a Gryffindork,” she replied smugly, sounding much like she’d already made up her own mind anyway. “Ravenclaw is the genius house and you’re not one of those – no offence, academically I mean – but we’re fucking awesome. Huffles are the happy friendly house and I don’t know, you don’t give off the vibe. The thing says you like to wander around the place and Huffles tend to be more grounded than that. Slytherin’s, let’s say you don’t give off many pureblood vibes,” she said, glancing down at Dom’s jeans. “So that leaves Gryff, the cocky attentionwhore house which sorry to say, you got written all over you.”   Taking note of the fact she’d been dismissed for the night, Billie took a look at the butterbeer and decided she might as well leave what was left to Dom. “You know what? I’d even put four galleons on it,” she challenged as she started packing up her stuff. “But don’t tell me anything now. Wait till next time,” she added, shoving her inkpot somewhat roughly into the corner of her overstuffed bag. “Congrats champ, you’ve earned yourself a date,” she laughed, slinging it over her shoulder and standing up.   “See you around yeah? Where and when’d you want to meet up? Oh, and where’d you want any owls sent to, just your mystery common-room?” she asked.

[Dominic Spencer]

As Billie described each house, Dom couldn’t help but show his amusement. The boy chuckled at all the different descriptions; concise and to the point with just a dash of humour. ”For all you know I could be a genius, I could be faking unintelligence to be mysterious,” the blond winked with a sly smile. Being mysterious was one of the vampire’s favourite game with girls and women; thanks to movies and books over the years they swooned for tall, dark and handsome men. As far as he knew he checked of two of the three, no wait, two of the four. He was neither dark nor a man.

”Don’t worry I really am unintelligent so you cross that of the list of mysteries and as much as I hate to admit it you’re on the right track with the whole attention whore thing but not quite right,” the boy commented warmly. So if he’d been born a wizard he would have been in Gryffindor according to Billie. ”Alright, four galleons it is then.” Dom held out his hand, signifying for the girl to shake on it. He was serious about the bet not that he was overly concerned about getting the four galleons when it was over.

”My lips are sealed until next time, promise. Do you want to meet here again same time tomorrow? I’m afraid I can’t do anything during the day since I’m busy most of it; evenings are all I have free,” the vampire informed with well-practised enthusiasm. He had to act like the teen he was to keep up the charade. Dom’s smile faded slightly at the mention of owling; something he had no idea about. ”Uhh sure, just tell it to find Dom Spencer,” he could always figure out how using owls worked when the time came. ”It’s been really nice chatting with you I can’t wait to see you again Billie,” the boy beamed as the girl got up and moved to leave.