Blood/Hound

[Existentially Odd]

The vampire squatted on the wooden jetty, his arms folded across his knees and his chin atop his arms as he glowered across the moonlit water.  The setting was picturesque, the air turning crisp as summer waned over the small lake and the surrounding forest of trees was standing calmly in the wake of another Swiss night sighing its way into being.

He was not calm and he was tired of waiting.

Fair enough Reed had kept his distance for the first few days - Tom had been alright with that, having still been adjusting to the whole \'accidental fuck\' thing himself.  That was fine and swell.  But it seemed that the awkwardness hadn\'t got any better - it had fricking grown, if anything.  There had been multiple excuses and perfectly legitimate reasons for Reed to spend some time diving with him at night but very little else; suddenly he was the life of the group\'s party and he spent most of his waking moments with them.  It wasn\'t anything obvious enough to make the gang sit up and take notice (the mortal wasn\'t that stupid, frankly), but Tom had noticed.

Funny thing, that saying that you didn\'t know what you had \'til it was gone.  Reed was definitely \'gone\' lately, and it made the vampire aware of just how much he\'d come to rely on his company, how good a time they had doing crazy shit together.  How he\'d taken his proximity and familiarity for granted.  He barely even looked him in the eye any more and that fucking pissed Tom off!

He didn\'t want to be craving Reed\'s company, he didn\'t want to be a slave to needing his blood and hounding him for it, but three weeks had passed and he was sick of biding his time.  He wanted to drink from Reed more than he\'d wanted anything in his unlife and he hadn\'t indulged in any of the partying the boys all had - bringing some of the locals back to their cabins for a bit of recreational fun - purely out of respect.  The only blood he was interested in was Reed\'s and the vampire had tried his ass off to let the guy know this flattering fact... to no avail.  Either Reed didn\'t care to look and listen, or he wasn\'t aware of the sacrifices Tom had been making.

And so the night found him crouched on the jetty in his boots, a pair of jeans and a woollen pullover jumper, waiting for Reed to surface from being the last diver in the water.  It was time he stopped expecting the mortal to come to him, because it was clearly not going to happen; time he figured out what the fuck was going on in the idiot\'s head and sorted out exactly how he\'d wrangle a feed.  His need had grown to desperate proportions.

[Trillian]

Reed broke the calm surface near the jetty\'s edge, a soft sound of expelled breath as he blew water out of his snorkel.  Free diving was a great deal more interesting than scuba diving, and the tank had been left behind for tonight.  He swam the short distance to the jetty\'s edge with the whispery splash of breaststroke, not disturbing the sounds of the night because that was fairly calm - but the thumping of his heart in his ears was drowning out most other sounds.  He\'d been pushing the limits on keeping his breath held - diving just a little bit further each time so that his lungs screamed hot for air.
 
Placing both hands on the wooden edge of the structure, Reed hauled himself up with strong arms that felt a little shakier than usual (who knew breath-holding could make him feel so weak?) and got to his feet on the far edge of the jetty.  He saw there was a presence already with him and pulled off his mask and attached snorkel to get a better look although he didn\'t really need it.  He knew there would only be one person here waiting for him, and he\'d expected something like this.  Tom had been pretty obvious about dropping him hints during this trip, so much so that Reed had buried himself in his usual adrenalin-junkie lifestyle, ignoring what was nobody else\'s business.
 
He was wearing diving shorts and nothing else, the cold temperatures of the lake yet another challenge to face.  He could\'ve put on a wetsuit to stay warm, but that would\'ve lowered his risks.  He imagined, as he looked at Tom dressed warmly, that he was about as cold as the vampire.  He didn\'t feel cold for his bodyheat had adjusted to the chill waters of the lake, but he was sure that even a tepid shower would feel hot on his skin.  He loved hot showers the most after snow or icy cold water.
 
"You\'re being obvious," Reed said in conversational tones.

[Existentially Odd]

The vampire gave a scornful look and an upward flick of his head. He had his own opinions about \'obvious\' and he didn\'t believe he was the one that was indulging in that particular show. He couldn\'t even figure out why Reed had been avoiding him so fervently; as far as Tom was concerned, he wasn\'t acting any differently towards his friend than before. None of the guys had commented - and that was all that counted, surely?
 
"Obvious about what?" he sneered. He unfolded from his huddled position and sauntered languidly towards Reed, part of him wondering if the mortal would fucking jump off the edge of the dock and swim farther down towards where the cabins were, just to get away from him. There was a challenge in that thought and so he stepped closer, provoking. The other three men (one had headed home because his mother got sick) were all back near their fires, discussing whether they\'d go into town to drink or just hang about, and if they thought the recent stunt of parachuting out of a helicopter onto a building and then B.A.S.E. jumping off the building was worth replicating.
 
Tom was confident he had Reed to himself at last; the question was whether Reed would allow that to happen. "Obvious that I\'m hungry and want to drink from you? I don\'t fucking think so," he argued snidely as his boots clicked along satisfyingly, wood striking wood in a friendly sound of acknowledgement. "They have no idea how good you taste or that I want a piece; all they\'d see is you avoiding me."

[Trillian]

Reed knew what a challenge looked like when he saw one, and though he stood his ground glaring at Tom, he wondered if it was the whole reverse psychology game the vampire was playing. Reed often found himself wondering if people were doing that to him. The one thing he hated more than people telling him he should leave behind the \'immature\' lifestyle he had, was playing into people\'s hands when they were tricking him.  His knuckles whitened on his hold of the snorkel and mask.
 
Tom\'s accusatory words that could mean nothing other than sounding as sexually provoking as it was caught Reed glancing over the lake towards the cabins and then looking back at his mate with yet another glare. "Sound carries, you fuckwit. You don\'t have to be what you are to hear voices on the wind," he said without sneering but certainly not without stressing what he wanted to stress. "I\'m not avoiding you any more than I usually do. The only difference is that this time you\'re noticing I don\'t look your way when I\'m with them. I don\'t like holding up a sign when they use words like faggot."
 
He didn\'t think the group would suddenly turn around and taunt him if they knew of his preference, but he wasn\'t happy about the idea of being made fun of when he wasn\'t around. No doubt quite a few jokes would be made at his expense and that would piss him off.

[Existentially Odd]

"No need to get hysterical, Nancy," Tom scoffed, coming to a stop in front of Reed and thrusting his right leg out as he hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets.  "They\'re in Dex\'s cabin sorting their shit out and generally making with more noise than if I yelled.  Calm the fuck down, what has got into you lately?" he demanded, pulling a genuinely baffled face at his shorter friend.  "You think they\'re gonna\' go you just because you\'re gay?  That\'s it?  That\'s why you\'re not coming near me?"

Because I fucked you?

He couldn\'t bring himself to voice it, as tough and belligerent as he was at this moment.  Some things didn\'t need voice.  He hadn\'t figured Reed would be the one to get his panties in a bunch about it, though.  If anyone ought to be upset or questioning his sexuality, surely it was him and not the one that invited that sort of contact?  That sounded like grade A bullshit, served on a silver platter.  Reed had always been gay and never been comfortable with the group bagging homos (they bagged women and other cultures and poor people and junkies and just about every other fucking clique on the planet, mind), why was he so het up about it now?

[Trillian]

He was het up about it now because he felt damn obvious now, but Tom hadn\'t voiced his confusion in such a way and so Reed didn\'t even have this thought - rather it was apparent as a feeling.
 
Reed listened to Tom\'s argument and had so much to say in reply that he ended up saying as little as he could.  "You\'re unpredictable."
 
It was most certainly the biggest truth in the matter, for Reed was worried that Tom\'s sefl confidence was something that would betray what had happened.  Tom also seemed to be wanting to be near him more often than usual, for Reed felt more conscious about not looking Tom\'s way and the vampire was giving him lots of opportunities to look around at the scenery.
 
The dumb thing was, Reed\'s head was telling him that Tom could keep a secret (after all, the vampirism thing was a bigger secret than Reed\'s sexuality), but his fear of being outed was getting in the way of his better judgement.  He wouldn\'t have worried about it if they hadn\'t fucked, but now he felt like it was something the group would be able to sense.

[Existentially Odd]

Tom set his jaw, glaring at his friend. "Right. I\'m so fucking unpredictable I might just accidentally slip it in your ass again, huh?" he spat, offended by the implication that it was him making a big deal out of the situation and using that emotion as a vehicle to be able to voice what was suddenly between them.
 
His hands raised and waved about the air as he adopted mocking tones to describe an imaginary conversation. He became angrier with every word he spoke, his movements growing more gregarious as he threw his whole body into his little play. "Whoops, sorry about that guys! Didn\'t mean to give it to Reed in front of y\'all but hey, while we\'re at it, I guess it\'s time you knew he was a homo and oh, I\'m not, but I don\'t mind banging it in while I drink his blood. Oh hell yeah, didn\'t y\'all know I was a vampire? Fuck yes, we exist, that\'s why I like the night shit so much - I\'d get kinda toasty during the day, see. So there you have it boys; our secrets, because I don\'t have the willpower to keep it in any longer!"
 
His overly-bright tones disappeared instantly and he leaned his face down into Reed\'s, nose against nose, and stabbed his slick chest with an accusatory finger. "Fuck you I\'m unpredictable," he ground out through gritted teeth, highly insulted and ready for the mortal to take a swing. He would welcome such a battering over the one he\'d just taken to his character; Reed was acting like a fucking imbecile to be saying he was that stupid.

[Trillian]

Reed watched Tom get more aggravated with each passing second, spurred on by the power of his own words.  He didn\'t react as the other had his say, holding onto the snorkel and mask with one hand, his other loose at his side, his head slightly tilted as Tom made a dramatic show about how ridiculous Reed was apparently being.
 
He blinked and flinched his head back ever so slightly when Tom was suddenly in his face, seething.  It was one thing to see his friend swinging his arms around madly to punctuate his words, but it was another to get that angry face right up against his own.
 
His reaction surprised even him, to a degree, but he couldn\'t control it.  He smirked, then it grew into a grin before a few chuckles bubbled out of him and then he stepped back to properly laugh, bending over slightly and his free hand lifting to drape across his stomach.
 
"You\'d get... you\'d get kinda toasty during the day," Reed repeated with laughter, the main phrase of what had struck him the funniest was the one he\'d repeated - but really it was the speech in its entirety.  He\'d seen Tom rant before but this had been fucking hysterical.

[Existentially Odd]

Tom\'s set jaw jagged to the side and he raised an imperious eyebrow at his cackling friend.  He told himself that Reed was making fun of him and he had not meant to be funny but... as had happened a few weeks back when Reed was furious with him for not wanting to leave the supernatural city and he\'d been dumped into the pool laughing, the vampire was sort of seeing some humour in the situation.  Even though his aim had been to mock the hell out of Reed\'s stupid ideas.

His hands found his hips and he maintained his haughty stare, biting down the urge to join in and nurturing his indignant anger.  Fuck Reed and his ability to twist shit around.  Tom\'s brow dropped and his eyes narrowed as he thought of something to say that should wipe the mortal\'s bemusement away.  "I fucking let you go when you told me to, and gave you what you wanted when you asked for it.  Me being unpredictable\'s not the problem, asshole; you wanting more is," he hissed derisively, doing his best to make Reed feel about two feet tall for having a weakness.  Like him.  Like he felt, watching the cunt laugh at him and play coy.  "You wanting me is the fucking issue.  And you don\'t want them seeing how you liked it."

[Trillian]

When Tom started talking, Reed was still laughing, letting it die down as he listened to what was being said, the desire to laugh ebbing away completely at the last sentence, which had taken away every shred of his mirth.
 
He was pissed. He\'d laughed instead of got angry, which was somewhere he knew he could\'ve just as easily gone, depending on his current mood. As soon as he\'d seen the funny side he\'d sprinted down the path of it, not wanting to get into some form of relationship tug-of-war with Tom.
 
"Fuck you, bitch," he sneered. "I\'m not doing this shit with you. It was one time and maybe I need my space, what\'s the big deal? You\'re acting like I gave you some sort of commitment."
 
He purposefully failed to address the gay thing.

[Existentially Odd]

"Fine," the vampire sneered back, "I could give a shit about the sex anyway," he dismissed crankily.  "But if you\'re over it and I\'m not fazed, why the fuck won\'t you come near me?  That\'s not what I\'m after and you fucking know it."

He glowered at the mortal, shoving his hands in his pockets.  He wanted desperately to sink his teeth into Reed - here and now if at all possible - and was thoroughly annoyed to realise that if the brunette was speaking the truth, no offer of sexual gratification he could make would tempt Reed into complying.

Which left... asking nicely?

Asking someone who wouldn\'t give him the time of night - nicely - if he could please drink some of his blood would likely not have an agreeable outcome.  And inferring that that was what he was after from Reed was as close as he was willing to get at this point.  Frankly, he wondered what had happened to the easy sparring and sharing of bullshit between them, too, but it all seemed connected, at this point.   The mortal was an obstinate mule and Tom was fucked if he was going to humiliate himself by begging for any more answers - or feeding relief - if they weren\'t going to come without a Houston two-step and a whole lot of \'space\'.

Space.  And he called Tom the bitch?

[Trillian]

Well, fuck.  Tom\'s response was not what Reed had been trying for, but it was hard to know what he wanted from Tom anyway.  No, he was kidding himself, he knew exactly what he wanted from Tom.
 
Blood donating which led to sex during any time they were alone to enjoy it without the threat of being exposed.  Basically, whenever Reed was happy to give himself over, not when Tom was craving it.  Was Reed playing a power game with his best friend?  It seemed so.  He mentally shrugged it off with an \'oh well, so be it\'.
 
"I know what you\'re after," he said quietly, and wondered if Tom was going to try and take it from him, here and now.

[Existentially Odd]

His foul expression not abating, Tom ran a frustrated hand through his short hair, agitating the follicles instead of punching something.

"Then tell me; have I got any hope of getting it?  \'Cos I\'m kind of attached to fucking living and I figure if you\'re over it, then I\'m over this and I\'ll just head back and buy myself a little house and make do."

He gestured over his shoulder, like the little cottage he was wanting to invest in was just behind him in the woods, but in reality he meant the city.  The supernatural city.  The longer he was away from it and getting nothing interesting to brighten his nights, the more he craved it.  Reed would be unlikely to want to come back with him, he knew that, and if he wasn\'t interested in being friendly with him any more - and it was about the friendship, not just the blood or the sex - then he was probably best to cut his ties now.  Six years was a pretty damn good run, maybe it was time to enter a new phase after all.

He tried to feel positive about such thoughts, not saddened.  He didn\'t do sad.

[Trillian]

Reed could see it was up to him.  His decision now would shape them and their lives.  He saw he could be done with Tom here and now and inside he was alarmed.  He liked Tom, too much in fact, that\'s why all this shit was going on.  He liked Tom and Tom was straight and he was trying to play it cool and Tom was asking him straight out.  Tom didn\'t play cool, he was cool, and Reed felt like a fuckwit.
 
"Yes," he said, lifting his head slightly and making it seem important without it being a big deal.  After a moment, he raised his eyebrows at the vampire as though challenging him for his next move.  He figured he knew what it would be, for Tom didn\'t muck around.  There would be no sex, not this time, maybe even no teasing, and Reed wasn\'t sure how he would feel about that.  He\'d always found it bittersweet - how would he find nothing at all?

[Existentially Odd]

Well, alright then.

The vampire grinned, feeling relieved that he wouldn\'t have to sever the friendship just because he\'d developed the wrong kind of infatuation for his friend.  His hand left his head and went back to his pocket, his body visibly relaxing as it became apparent there was a way clear to getting what he wanted after all.  One that didn\'t have dire consequences for his relationship with Reed.

He just... well, he wished he knew when.  The word was on the tip of his tongue, the demand thrumming through him... but he just nodded, realising that it would have to be enough to know that he wasn\'t going to be forced to wait forever.  Reed was possibly still in his \'space\' mode, so Tom would take that one word as a promise and resist the urge to prostrate himself before the mortal in gratitude.

The knowledge that he would get a taste of Reed sometime soon was already enough to leave him jittery with excitement.  Unable to completely quell his excitement, he decided he needed to meet Reed\'s solid move with one of his own, giving his friend anything he wanted.  Anything for the blood; anything for the friendship.  If that anything was some more space, then that was the sacrifice he would have to continue to make.  Bide his time and wait \'til the arrogant little shit decided he was ready.

The vampire nodded again - not trusting himself to speak with his emotions running as high as they currently were - and, with a click of his boot heels on the jetty, he spun and headed for the cabins.  He half hoped that the boys had decided they would head for the town tonight, so Reed might consider the option of hanging with him, but he didn\'t dare hope too hard.  He also wouldn\'t press his luck by attempting to influence his buddy if that was the case; him forcing the issue would undermine the dignity of Reed\'s decision.  He respected him too much to press it any further, so back to Dex\'s lodge he went.