Presents (Dom)

[Silas Rosier]

  Whether it was early or late was a matter of personal opinion. For a human, yeah, it was probably far too late for an impromptu social visit. The sun had already gone down and the sky was beginning to steadily darken. If you were a vampire though? It was painfully, stupidly, ludicrously early in the evening and who in the hell felt the need to wake someone up at ridiculous o’fucking-clock?

  Well, there was always someone you could consistently rely on to fuck up a vampire’s day. Or night, as it were.

  Silas was late. Not to visit Dom, but to get back to work. It wasn’t a particularly unusual occurrence in itself but for the first time in his life it was agitating him. There were people he needed to see – certain people; or one certain person anyway – and work to be done, err, somewhere. If he looked really hard for something to do. Look, there was booze there too, who cared. The point wasn’t why he was impatient to get back, (it was Jac), just the fact that he wanted to get there.

  The sharp CRACK like a bullwhip usually reserved for scaring the bajeesus out of Ed rang out loudly when he materialised on one side of Dominic’s hotel room. And for once, this time, that hadn’t been intentional either. Silas’s winced as the sound nailed into his ears. The neighbours would have heard that one. That’s what he got for not paying enough attention to what he was doing. Seemed like a day of firsts all around.

  Whatever. Fine, it didn’t matter.

  The grouchiness didn’t seem to last. “Rise and shine, sweet cheeks,” Silas greeted cheerily, slapping a look of good-will onto his face so quickly anyone watching would have just gotten mood-whiplash. It was hardly genuine display of emotion, but the important thing was that it looked enough like it to pass with flying colours.

  The sound of his footfalls crossed to Dominic’s bedside table the same as they had the night before. He began rummaging through the cardboard box still on Dominic’s bedside table, and from his manner you’d think he owned the fucking place. Well, hell, he’d paid for it and supplied the box, so perhaps he did.

  “I’m just in here for a quick visit,” he informed lightly, picking one of the clear plastic blood-bags out of the box to see what else was still in there. Seemed like Dom had successfully gnawed his way through half of his food rations. The amount of plastic on the floor should have told him as such anyway. It was obvious the kids supply wouldn’t last until tomorrow, which put another fucking thing on his to-do list. Fucking brilliant.

  “I’ll get you some more blood tonight,” Silas promised offhandedly, flicking his wand at the mess on the ground. It vanished immediately, and while he was at it he got rid of another bloodstain on Dom’s pillow. “If you want to put in any requests for blood-type, now’s your chance, then listen up. I’ve got something important for you before I go.”

[Dominic Spencer]

In the depths of sleep Dom was finally comfortable. It wasn’t a very restful sleep, quite the opposite in fact, but with it came relief from the incredible pain several broken limbs caused. Well it was relief from the pains of being awake until he tried to subconsciously roll over; then he would jerk awake and after numerous times of it the boy was starting to get a headache. The drugs Silas had provided him numbed all the aches but they wore off far too quickly as Dom’s system worked in over time to repair and heal the major damage.

Breathing had become much easier the vampire had found one of the many times he’d been woken by leaning the wrong. Being able to take in full breaths again had helped him to sleep a little better and he’d finally sunk into a deep sleep when a sound like gunpowder being set alight echoed through the room. Instinctively Dom jumped awake; big mistake. Absolute agony tore through his body, rippling out from his broken legs. ”Fuck,” the blond swore through gritted teeth, curling his one good hand into a fist as the flare of pain subsided into a dull throb.

Breathing sharply, the vampire turned his head to investigate the source of the noise through bleary eyes. He should have known. There was Silas standing sounding rather cheery, a fact Dom did not appreciate at what he guessed was just after sunset. His head pounded from lack of a proper sleep, more blood and drugs were needed. Through the night, or day rather, Dom had drunk almost half his rations and it had helped but the going was slow. What was really needed for fast healing was fresh blood, a thought that made the boy lick his one fang hungrily.

”It’s nice to see you and everything but could you at least appear outside the door, knock and then come in? You scared the living day lights out of me,” the vampire yawned grumpily. Really, he did appreciate what Silas was doing for him but being woken up so early after only just nodding off into a proper sleep he did not appreciate. ”Can I have some A- please? Though, if it’s possible can you get me something live and willing? Would one of your stripers be willing? I’m not looking to get off or anything; fresh blood will get me out of here quicker is all. I promise I won’t kill anyone,” Dom said hopefully, looking at Silas almost pleadingly, ”And when can you get the other stuff? I know I sound needy but I can’t get it myself unfortunately.”

He was about to try and go back to sleep when the man mentioned that he had something for him. Naturally curious, Silas almost at once had the boy’s full attention. Maybe it was a source of fresh blood? A stripper? Or a mirror to see how much his hair had grown? Already he could feel the tell-tale stubble healing brought with it. ”I’m listening, what is it?” he asked eagerly, most definitely completely awake now.

[Silas Rosier]

  “Could you at least appear outside the door, knock and then come in?” Dominic grumbled.

  Silas shook his head. “‘Fraid not,” he apologised with a contrite little quirk of his head. “What do you think would happen if someone saw me pop out of thin air right in front of them? I don’t need any trouble from the Ministry for breaking the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. I’ll keep the noise to a minimum though, if it helps.”

  When Dominic made his blood order Silas nodded again once to confirm he’d heard. Negative blood types were a lot rarer than Positive, so it wasn’t as simple a request as it sounded. It was something like less than ten percent of all the stock coming in A-, so even if he could find it it wasn’t going to come cheap. “You might need to settle for A+, but I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Would one of your strippers be willing?” the vampire asked, and Silas was about to reply when Dom sharply added “I’m not looking to get off or anything.”

  Silas couldn’t help but laugh there. Well if that wasn’t a suspiciously specific denial he didn’t know what was.

  “I’ll ask around and let you know if anything comes up,” he promised. “Mind, they’ll probably ask for money. Why donate to you for free when they can donate to the places that make these-” he dropped the bag of blood noticeably back into the box, “-and get about a full days salary for it? Run me through the rest of the stuff again in a sec.”

  His expression turned serious again. “I'm here for a reason. I wanted to give you this.”

  Silas reached around the back of his navy blazer and retrieved some sort of metallic weaspon from the waistband. The light from the roof glinted off the on the barrel, revealing what looked to be a completely nickel-plated firearm. Silas was apparently not too familiar with standard weapons safety procedure because his finger had found its way to the trigger.

  “M1911A1 with one 9mm jacketed hollow point in the bottom of the magazine. It’s charmed to auto replicate, meaning no need to reload and each one is filled with holy water. Bullet impacts the target, mushrooms, the water spills, and the bullet affects the vampire same as a regular human,” he explained. He sounded confident when he talked, but all he was really doing was parroting the information he’d received earlier. The most he knew about guns was point and shoot with a few bits of terminology here and there picked up from Edward and that stupid shotgun of his, but Dom didn’t need to know that. Silas hated coming across as uninformed about anything. Hell if he even knew what a 9mm jacketed hollow point or a magazine even was.

  “Don’t get any ideas though, if you fire at anything but a vampire the mechanism locks up. It’s a hunter’s weapon I got from the man I talked to you about the first time we met. Security measure to stop their own weapons being used on them.

  “This is yours. Free. On one condition. I saved your life and gave you the means to defend yourself from Dacian should he come for you again. All I ask is if I ever call for you you complete whatever I ask the best of your ability; no questions; no complaints. Hell, for all you know I might never even need to call you up on that. Are we understood?”

[Dominic Spencer]

Okay, he got it; Silas couldn’t appear out of nowhere outside the door. There was no need for the man to launch into a very technical sounding explanation off all the reasons he couldn’t. Dom tried to nod his head with an understanding look on his face but it was hard when you didn’t understand. Still, ‘noise to a minimum’ he did get. ”Does that mean no more outrageously loud cracking noises? If so I’ll take that,” the vampire said hopefully. ”I’ll take A Positive, really it doesn’t matter all that much. Blood is blood and I’m happy to be getting any.” It was disappointing that Negative donors were so rare but Dom knew he was in no position to be fussy.

”I do have money but no on me,” the boy sighed, looking positively crestfallen. Oh well, as soon as he could move and get the money he’d managed to scrabble together he’d head to Scores. That would be first on his to do list, for now packet blood was what he’d have to make do with. ”It’s a pity no one will do it for free, oh well. I’m sure I’ll get over it,” he shrugged, turning his attention back to what Silas had brought for him.

His entire life, Dom had loved presents. Even when he was a child as he’d grown older the excitement Christmas and Birthdays had brought with them had never faded. Now of course those holidays meant little to the blond, no one gave him things any more. It meant, though, that the rare occasions he was given a present he fully appreciated it. And what Silas presented him with just made him appreciate the gift all the more.

Blue eyes visibly widened underneath the slight swelling as a gun was revealed from the human’s clothing. The nickel plating glinted and shone in the hotel room’s light. He was bit wary, however, when Silas’ finger drifted to the trigger. Was that his present? Was the man going to shoot him? Luckily, as he spoke the vampire’s caution eased with eagerness taking its place. Dom was no stranger to guns; his father had taught him about them and after sneaking off to several wars he’d had a bit of experience handling them.

To a vampire a normal bullet felt like something along the lines of a bee sting; a holy water round would be much worse. Like Silas said, it would affect whatever vampire Dom shot just like a normal bullet to a human. The flaxen-haired boy couldn’t help but smile deviously, baring his one fang. Thoughts of vengeance were rife through his mind but he reminded himself he had to be careful and not shoot himself. ”Shooting humans wasn’t my intent, shooting Dacian is another matter entirely,” the vampire assured.

Without saying a word, Dom listened to Silas’ terms. He’d known they’d been coming, just hadn’t known what they would be. What he asked of him was reasonable and, although he didn’t want to become Silas’ blood hound, he knew he had no choice. ”I’ll do it, if and when you need to call on me I’ll be there. I owe you that much,” the boy answered quietly. He hated working for anyone but this whole situation had forced him into a corner. Who knew, maybe through Silas and his hunter friend he could get a shot at Dacian.

[Silas Rosier]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Silas/Scripts/sigpostscript_bg.png,true][atrb=valign,top]	[rs=2][bg=ffffff][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Silas/Scripts/sigpostscript_mainbg.png][atrb=style,background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   “Excellent. So we’re in agreement.”   Silas swapped the gun to his other hand, holding it by the barrel this time in order to rest it grip-first by Dominic’s pillow should he feel the need to examine it.   “I hope you know how to use that,” he added in a tone that sounded halfway suspicious that Dom might shoot himself in the hand by accident. Never assume competence over ignorance. The vampires he knew (specifically: one) had a major hard-on for medieval weaponry and he was unsure how widely that preference dominated. Hell, he didn’t even know how old the creature in front of him was, or even his name for that matter.  ... Yeeeah, that was going to need rectifying.   “Run me through that list you need again, would you?” he asked, straightening up and tapping his fingers in a steady rhythm on the bedside table. He could remember a... towel or cloth, mirror, razor, and a bowl of some sort, but that was the extent of it. He could of sworn there was more. “And a name might help. From what I gather you’ve been handing them out like candy at Halloween to anyone who asks. I don’t know who it is you’re hiding from but trust me on this one, I’m the least of your worries right now.”	[atrb=valign,top]
[atrb=valign,bottom]	[atrb=valign,bottom]

[Dominic Spencer]

Yes the two were in agreement but whether it was excellent or not remained to be seen. Even if he wanted to, there would be no leaving London or Hogsmeade for Dominic now. He was bound to Silas and God he already hated it. Hell the vampire hated commitment of any kind, freedom was reduced greatly by it. Lucky for the man, the blond still had business in the area so he wouldn’t skip out on their arrangement any time in the near future.

He eyed the way the human handled the gun warily. Dom knew how to handle a gun and then some, after being in a muggle environment for awhile he’d has some practice. ”I know how to handle it just fine, you on the other hand are a different story,” the boy pointed out dully, eyes wandering to the trigger Silas’ fingers kept hovering over. He picked the gun up as soon as Silas laid against his pillow and examined it, putting the safety on first of course. The nickel plating glittered and shone in the room’s low light and Dom nodded in approval at both it and the pearl handgrip. It was a well built weapon and would do well against a certain older vampire.

”Uhh the list was some more clothes, a sponge, a basin, some warm water, a razor and some scissors please,” the young vampire said slowly as he remembered and added things onto it. The question over his name put Dominic on edge at once. ”My first name is Dominic, the last name I told you the other night is my true one,” he answered. His first name was all he was willing to give up just yet. Just because Silas had helped him didn’t mean that he had the vampire’s full trust just yet. Dom was an idiot at times but he wasn’t stupid.

[Silas Rosier]

  “My first name is Dominic—”

Dominic huh? A bell rang of recognition somewhere in the recesses of Silas’s memory. That was the name he’d given to Seph right? So had he actually told her the truth or just gotten lucky picking the same lie twice?

  “—the last name I told you the other night is my true one.”

  Well that helped about as much as scotch spiked with laxatives. He couldn’t remember the vampire giving him a name the night before and if he meant the one he’d told him the day they’d met, well, shit, because he couldn’t remember that one either. How long had it been? A week? Two? He’d written it down specifically not to forget but that was probably buried under a pile of sheets by now.

  He really needed to clean his desk one of these days.

  Silas snapped his fingers once in irritation. “Err, sorry. Seems to’ve slipped my mind.”

  “Fletcher,” the boy helped.

  Fletcher. Dom—that’s right, ‘Tom’. Something starting with H was dancing on the edge of his recollection. Then suddenly there was a list of stuff not to forget, and argh... this was going to give him a headache. Officially. And he was running late enough as it was for Christ’s sake.

  “See you in a sec,” Silas grumbled, and in a blink he was gone.

  It was a solid number of minutes before he reappeared again, the nicely-decorated bowl Dom had requested tucked under one arm. He mumbled some sort of friendlyish sounding greeting that was lost under his breath then made his way towards the bedside table again. After lifting the box of blood to the floor next to the bed, he put the bowl down on the cleared space.

  “Still can’t help you with clothes I’m afraid,” Silas explained, picking some items up from the bowl and setting up individually on the bedside table. “Don’t have anything in your size lying around.” Dom’d better not even be thinking about asking him to go clothes shopping. As he spoke he laid out a purple sponge, a ridiculously shiny pair of sharp scissors, a small black hand towel, soap, some shaving cream and a shaving brush.

  The last item was a gleaming straight-razor with a handle that looked like twisted ivory with pearl filigree. On closer inspection it wasn’t ivory, but some sort of unusually smooth bone that didn’t near match up with any of the traditional animals used for crafting. Manticore – although Silas found it unlikely Dom would recognise it as such. Instead he just held it up so Dom could see it, revealing enough of the blade to expose the Rosier crest near the top and quickly warning “Watch it with this, they’re worth more than you are,” before laying it down on the table next to everything else. His look was more than enough to communicate that Dom was going to be in the deepest shit imaginable if anything happened to it.

  “I’ll be back for it all later,” he added, poking the side of the bowl with his wand. From where Dom was lying it looked like nothing had happened, at least until he moved his wand over it again and steam started emerging from the newly heated water. “Was that all? I have places to be.”

[Dominic Spencer]

”Thanks for all this, it’s been awhile in between reasonably friendly faces,” Dom said earnestly as he tucked the gun underneath his pillow. Wasn’t that the truth, most people he’d met lately wanted nothing to do with him or wanted to kill him, though the killing part was mostly his fault. Thinking on his encounter with Dacian the blond really wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He answered Silas’ question about his last name quickly with the same name he’d used at their first meeting, thankful for the distraction from his own idiocy.

”See-“ even before the vampire could start his sentence the human had gone, disappeared into thin air, ”-you.” No matter how many times he watched Silas disappear and reappear each time it startled Dom and being startled in his present state was rather painful. As the boy waited for Silas all he could do was sit where he was and whistle an old song that had suddenly popped into his head. God this stay was going to be boring, with no one to talk to most of the time. Wondering whether there was a tv about, the vampire almost fell off the bed in shock when the man reappeared.

”Jesus,” he went to groan through gritted teeth but as his teeth were also very sore it came out as a gasp as pain shuddered through the flaxen-haired boy’s body. When it passed Dom’s eyes lit up at once when he saw that Silas had come back bearing gifts. At last he could wash himself and manage the hair growth that he was in for as he healed. ”The clothes aren’t that essential I guess, the rags I got on will do for now,” the vampire shrugged with his one good shoulder. The razor that he was shown made him wrinkle his nose; it was made of bone, the vampire could tell from the smell of it. No matter how many times it was treated, cleaned and carved it still smelt like carrion to him.

From the look on Silas’ face, the sound of his voice and the intricacy of the detail carved into the razor it was an expensive piece of animal. ”Don’t be a bunny, I’m not going to anything with the razor other than shave with it,” the boy sighed, busying himself by examining the incredibly clean and sharp looking scissors and dipping the purple sponge in the warm water. ”No there’s nothing else, thanks again,” Dom smiled at the man before turning his attention to gingerly peeling of his clothes. ”You can take it on the heel and toe now, I mean leave, especially if you have places to be. Don’t let me keep you from them.”