Let\'s Not And Say We Did

[Deven_Blackthorn]

For the first time in his life, Jaden entered a vampire bar as a vampire. In the past, when he was a human, he would go for the rush of it all. The rush of the possibility of being killed. Thinking back, it was a stupid rush. He could have gotten the same kind of rush racing cars or skateboarding. But no he got his rush by vampires.

Now he entered the bar "Risk." Loud rock music entered his ears. He smiled at the sound. When he was growing up his parents allowed for such music in their house. But that was six years ago. Before he met his soon to be sire. His sire wasn\'t into keeping up with new things. In his point of view why bother when it will just pass. Will loud rock music pass? Jaden thought as he scanned the room with his pale blue eyes. He could tell that most of the attendants in the room, at the moment, where vampire. "Crap on a stick... " he muttered to himself are he ran his pale fingers over his black-silk shirt. Humans he could stand. He could blend in with any human. Feel as if he belonged with humans. Vampires were another story.

Its ok you can just leave, a voice in Jaden\'s head said. Jaden wasn\'t crazy he just thought in his head almost all the time that the voices popped up without him wanting them to. No one saw you, just leave. He turned around to the face the door. His hand on the knob. He was about to pull it open when he let go of the door knob. Jaden was a vampire now. A vampire. Meaning, if he wasn\'t killed and if he minded sunlight, he would live forever. Forever was a long time to have this fear about his own kind. About himself.

Today, right now, he would try to break that fear. After all, vampires should feel no fear.

Jaden turned around and scanned the room again, this time for a place to sit. He spotted the bar and started to make his way to it. Look at the ground, the voice in his head stated, so Jaden lowered his head. The front part of his hair, which was longer, pointed to the ground like one huge arrow of black.

As he walked he noticed a pattern in the way he walked. Left foot, right foot cross, left foot, right foot cross. He got so caught up in the movement of his combat boots that he forgot just how far he was from the bar.

Bang.

Jaden looked up to see that not only was he now at the bar but also he\'d knocked down a bar stool. Pick it up quickly!!the voice said. Jaden reached down and picked up the bar stool and set it back up. He then sat on top of it, one leg on the top railing the other dangling. He laid his head on the bar top and closed his eyes. We could always go back, the voice said. Jaden smirked. "Let\'s not and say we did..."


((Yeah first post ever.. RARW))

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr had been sitting quietly at the bar, nursing his glass of warm blood and staring thoughtfully into its red depths when a bang that managed to override the thumping music - no doubt due to its proximity - startled him.  He looked to his left and watched an awkward young kindred attack... well, it sort of looked like he attacked the stool right beside him (even though that made no sense) and then sat upon it.

The vampire chuckled with amusement as the newcomer laid his head upon the bar and muttered about not doing something.  Kerr figured he had to be talking about the stool - even though he could easily have sated his curiosity and simply scanned the fledgling\'s mind for clues.  It was not his habit to blithely peruse the thoughts of others.

The youth was all pierced up and looking fashionably messy - nothing like he, in his expensive black Italian suit, shiny dress shoes, cobalt blue business shirt and multicoloured tie - and, in the older vampire\'s opinion, should have had the attitude that seemed to go hand in hand with such a presentation.

Yet there he sat, muttering demurely to the bar and not even managing to look apathetically around (which was the normal reaction of young people these days).  Deciding that embarrassment was an uncouth victor in such a scene, Kerr attmpted to make the boy feel better.  "Well, now that you\'ve made your entrance, I can\'t wait to see what you have up your sleeve for your next trick," he said amiably in his gentle Irish brogue, smiling at the back of the lowered head just near his elbow.  Frankly, he was pleased for the opportunity at a little brevity.

[Deven_Blackthorn]

A voice broke Jaden\'s train of thought. At first Jaden wasn\'t sure if the voice was real or just one that was already in his head. But then reality hit. The only voice that was in Jaden\'s head was his own. He wasn\'t crazy yet. He had forever to drive himself nuts.

Jaden lifted his head and looked at the man from which the voice had come. The man was in a nice looking suit. He stopped himself from laughing. The people who he hung out with never would wear a suit. At less not in public.
They would wear them for a job, wedding or a funeral. But this wasn\'t ether of those. To stop him from laughing he bit into the side of his mouth. Not hard enough to make it bleed. But it did send a small jolt of pain to his brain. If he wouldn\'t have done so he would have busted out laughing. Jaden didn\'t know what kind of vampire this man was or how he would react. Best not to find out. Best not to piss off an elder.

On further examination Jaden noticed the cup held in the other vampire\'s hand. The liquid inside was red. Not just red but a darker hue. Was it wine? No. Jaden knew better then think that. Of course it was blood. Maybe human blood? Jaden wasn\'t sure but he didn\'t ask. The answer wasn\'t important.

"What you saw that." he replied to the mans statement done sizing up the guy. He smiled but didn\'t allow is fangs to show. He learned not to do so when he was first change and it became a habit of sorts. "No new tricks. Sorry." He let out a sigh. "It\'s can of sad I can\'t walk into a bar with out drawing attention to my self."

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr chuckled.  "Mmm.  Sort of puts paid to the whole \'preternatural stealth\' notion, I have to admit," he agreed, impressed that the youth could at least laugh at himself - and recognise his downfalls for what they were.  He supposed the boy could be very freshly made and stumbling... but it was more likely he\'d simply tripped.
 
"How about I buy you a drink?" Kerr offered blandly, his long fingers habitually circling the rim of his own glass as he gestured for the barkeep\'s attention with raised eyebrows.  As the man approached, he turned back to his companion, having not waited for an affirmation or its opposite before acting.  What vampire came to a bar such as Risk and didn\'t drink?  "Do you have a favourite bloode type yet?" he enquired, implying that he realised that the youth was not a particularly aged kindred, as well as asking what to order for him.

[Deven_Blackthorn]

How about I buy you a drink? The question rang in Jaden\'s ears. He\'d hoped to God no one would ask him if he wanted a drink. But knowing his luck someone did. "Uhh... " he rubbed the back of his neck trying to think of an answer. He had tried to feed in hunger by draining most of the rat he found in the alleyways on the way here, but his thirst was not all the way fulfilled. One glass wouldn\'t hurt. He thought to himself. "That would be fine?"

"Uhh...B negative," he said after thinking awhile. "B negative was the blood type of my first victim," he continued as he looked away. His eyes got dark as he thought of it. The taste. The rush. The dead body with dead eyes asking why. But the darkness only lasted for a moment. Jaden wouldn\'t will it to go on any longer. "I\'ve just never gotten over the taste...." He looked up and smiled still not letting his fangs show. "Oh and by the way my name is Jaden." The boy shifted his weight on the bar stool. "And you are?" He paused. "If you don\'t mind me asking..."

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr took the time to place the order for a glass of B negative - including paying for it - before he answered the prompt for his name.  He turned to face the other vampire more fully, swivelling on his stool and holding out a hand to be shaken.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jaden," he said with a smile, "And no, I don\'t mind you asking at all.  I\'m Kerr."  It was pronounced very much like care.  "And don\'t worry; you\'ll find that the glass will be a nice appetiser, should you still wish to partake in one of the local offerings," he assured the youngster, nodding beyond him at the dance floor.

A teeming mass of bodies was spread throughout the club, mortals and supernaturals of many shapes and forms, some with the protected donor tattoo that the club was famous for - in the right circles, of course - most without it.  Kerr had found himself more willing to indulge his hunger in living, breathing humans of late, feeling somehow stifled by - yet removed from - the mortal race at large.  He didn\'t know what he wanted, what he might get out of his existence, but he\'d come to the conclusion there had to be more to it than he\'d attempted to grasp in the past four centuries.  He had, therefore, begun to emerge somewhat from his sheltered state.

He still had his standards, though, and tonight there hadn\'t been a whole lot of clean-living talent on display.  Well, so far, anyway.  He still held some hope of pressing something warm and unyielding against his chest while he drained a share of it\'s life source, but had conceded part of the potential pleasure by buying his own glass a few minutes before Jaden\'s entrance.  He wouldn\'t go home hungry either way, just... dissatisfied.

"Just make sure you don\'t kill them," he added almost jovially, half serious in his advice.  It was common for fledglings not to understand how much blood they could take without leaving a victim, rather than a sated donor, in their wake.

[Deven_Blackthorn]

Jaden watched as Kerr ordered the drink and paid for it. He hated when anyone paid for things for him, it made him feel like he was using the person who paid. He\'d hated it when he was human and he hated it now. Some things don\'t change after all, Jaden thought. It\'s not like he didn\'t carry any money on him. He had exactly fifty-two dollars and ninety-eight cents in the faded leather wallet that was housed in his left back pocket. The wallet was about the same age as Jaden (his vampire age). The only thing his sire hadn\'t taken off him and the only link to his past life. In the wallet lived a normal family, with a father, mother, brother and a son. But like the wallet, that too had faded.
 
Kerr\'s hand went out as a greeting and Jaden extended his, but stopped as the other continued to speak. Kerr pointed out that in this hang out there were willing victims. Jaden looked around the room and noticed that some of them were human. At least they looked human to Jaden\'s untrained eye. A chill ran up his spine. If he hadn\'t been taken away from his mother and father he knew that this is where he would have ended up - just a feeding source for vampires. Just cattle. But no, now he was the vampire using the cattle.

The more he looked at the willing blood banks the more he became angry. He wanted to get up and yell at the top of his lungs that they should run away, run as fast as they could. Save their own lives. This urge came and went, though, the anger calmed and then he just looked at them as himself. He, too, had hung out a so-called \'Vampire\' hang outs and look where it got him; a life forever in the shadows. Hiding from the light like... like a bug when you expose them from their hiding place.

When Kerr added "Just make sure you don\'t kill them," Jaden looked back at the other. "Just make sure you don\'t kill them?" he repeated, but changed the statement into a question. "I don\'t think I\'ve mastered that skill either." He smiled, hoping that by trying to make it into a joke he would reveal just how un-skilled he was. "Plus," Jaden added after a brief pause, "I try not to drink from living things. Except for animals that is.. That\'s not saying I don\'t drink human blood now and again. I just don\'t like to." He let out a small sigh, looked at the bar table and tried to burn a hole in it with is eyes. Not really trying to burn a hole but trying to push away the embarrassment. Most vampires that learned this about him called Jaden \'a waste of life\'. So to stop it from happening again he ignored his surroundings. He ignored Kerr\'s hand.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr blinked when his hand wasn\'t shaken, raising his eyebrows in a manner that made it obvious he was a little miffed by the rejection.  The revelation that his young companion didn\'t drink human blood was also something of a surprise, but he was pleased that the man could stick to his beliefs enough to resist temptation.  Awkwardly, Kerr withdrew his hand, wrapping it around his drink and watching the bartender place an identical glass of warm blood before Jaden.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat as though he wasn\'t quite sure how to continue the conversation now.  "I do hope that this glass doesn\'t... uh... go against any morals or feelings that you have on the subject.  I\'ll finish it, if so; I wouldn\'t want you to betray yourself."  For something to do, he took a large gulp of his own beverage, unable to understand how Jaden could resist the beauty of human blood seeping into him, enlivening him.

It occurred to him then that he hadn\'t explained the Risk rules at any greater length and he clung to that, as a subject he could talk about with more conviction.  "And no, you\'re not permitted to kill any of the humans in here that bear the Risk protection tattoo.  They provide themselves willingly and in return, are offered a degree of safety when feeding vampires.  For whatever that\'s worth," he mused, a wry twist taking hold of his lips.

[Deven_Blackthorn]

The glass of blood was placed on the bar top where Jaden was trying to burn a hole through it. Jaden nodded a thank you at the bartender and focused his eyes upon the glass. The liquid inside was this dark red color that reminding Jaden of a dying rose. Though growing up as a child he wasn\'t very fond of the color red but now the color gave him this odd sense of pleasure.

Jaden sat quietly as Kerr spoke. Jaden\'s face grew a grin as Kerr offered to drink the glass of blood that he had bought for Jaden if it was agent his morals. Kerr was the one to buy the glass so he could take it anytime he wanted. But still, Jaden found Kerr\'s voice calming. Though Kerr didn\'t look much older the himself, his voice reminded Jaden of his grandpa.

When Jaden was growing up his grandpa would come over and tell stories about the war and growing up back when they had no TVs. The stories are long forgotten now. But the voice remains. The voice that had wisdom and power behind every word. His grandfather had it, his sire had it and know Kerr has it. Not that they all sound or speak the same. They all just have this thing behind their voices. This calming thing that drained out any thing else that was is Jaden\'s head.

When Kerr stopped and took a gulp of his drink Jaden remand quiet. He was not sure if the other one was done speaking and if Kerr wasn\'t Jaden didn\'t want to seem rude. So he waited. Kerr continued this time explaining the rules of the bar/club. About how it was agent those rules to kill a person with the club\'s tattoo. As for those with out Jaden knew with out anyone saying so that if they choose to be a willing victim they might not live to see another day.

Kerr paused again and again Jaden waited. A few moments of silent passed by telling Jaden he was free to reply. "I don\'t know what my morals would say about this glass of blood." He said softly as a pale finger traced around the rim of the glass.  " I don\'t know how the blood was collected. I don\'t know if the owner of the blood was killed or not. So I have no way of telling if this is agents my values or not." He paused and looked up at Kerr. " All I know is that it\'s B-negative, you paid for it and that it is here at the moment." He paused again as he grabbed the glass and held it in his hand. He held it up to the light and smiled as the light made the dark red color glow. He brought it back down then added. "For all I know there could be willing humans or what ever in the back cutting themselves with razors to get the blood. Or a blood bank of sorts. So sense I have no way of knowing way waste it." He smiled. But this time he let his fangs show with out realizing he did. Then brought the glass to his lips and took a small sip. He then set the glass back down as a chill ran down is spin.

[Existentially Odd]

The elder vampire smiled indulgently.  "I think it\'s more likely they get supplies from the actual blood bank - I know I do - but I wouldn\'t rule out some form of donating going on here.  That would make sense," he shrugged, watching the fledgling drink.  He couldn\'t help but notice the rings through his lips, especially since they clinked so obviously on the glass.

"Do those... lip rings... not get in the way of you feeding?" he asked curiously, aware that by Jaden\'s own admission he didn\'t always feed from humans, but surely animals would be just as difficult to pierce (if not more so) with two large rings of metal through his lower lip?  Kerr had nothing against piercings, of course - given that he\'d had his tongue done for centuries now - he just wondered if they proved a detriment.

[Deven_Blackthorn]

"See then it\'s not against my morals." Jaden said refereeing on the whole blood thing. "As for the lip rings.." Jaden paused and thought of an answer. No one had ever asked him if it was hard to feed with snakebites. No one really seemed the need to; given the fact that most of the people that saw Jaden on a dally basis were humans and didn\'t know Jaden was a vampire. So the only thing they asked was Is it hard to make out with snake bites? "When I first got them done it was hard as hell. Couldn\'t get my fangs in the right place. Now it\'s simple. On animals. I haven\'t tried with any others." By others he meant non-animal. " I only had these in for a few months." He said pushing is tongue against his bottom lip making the piercings stand out.

He took another sip of the blood but made sure that his silver lip rings didn\'t click against the glass. He then set the glass back down softly then looked at Kerr.  He tapped his finger on the bar top then asked after a while. "When it comes to feeding what are your morals?" he paused then smiled. "I\'m just asking because I shared mine so.."

(((shortness x.X))

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr\'s lips twisted into a wry grin and he gave some thought to his answer, deciding first how he should phrase himself, so as not to give the wrong impression.  In the end, he decided that he might as well just... explain himself and see what conclusions the other man drew from his tale.  His long, pale fingers brushed the base of the glass as he spoke in his measured, cultured tones.
 
"I prefer not to kill - but it has happened.  Especially when I was young or when my sire chose to share my... to share with me.  I don\'t feed off animals by preference, have only ever done so in desperate times - when travelling and not wanting to draw attention to myself, for instance.  These days, I have a supply at home, but I choose to seek out willing donors above that.  I don\'t need to feed as often as you, but must admit that there\'s nothing as satisfying as holding someone warm and giving while they bleed into you.  The trouble, of course, is that I... " his voice trailed off slightly as his gaze wandered over the crowd, then he continued speaking, obviously putting a great deal of thought into his words as he stared ino Jaden\'s eyes.
 
"Well, I\'m picky, quite frankly.  I don\'t particularly enjoy imbibing a system full of alcohol or carcenogenics with my meals so... I don\'t feed as regularly off the populace as I might like," he imparted, with a cheeky smile.  "Not here at Risk, anyway.  I haven\'t... hunted... in a long time, though my sire does so, regularly," he said, something primitive and ferocious flaring in his dark brown eyes.  His fingers were still touching his glass and he was aware that the liquid within was cooling rapidly, but still he spoke.  "What brings you here, if you don\'t wish to hunt?"

[Deven_Blackthorn]

Jaden traced his finger around the rim of the glass contemplating his answer.He really had not answers, to him, that seemed to give good enough reasons."Um .. Lets just put it this way." he began as his pale finger stopped tracking the rim and laid, almost lifeless, on his lap. "My mast.." he stoped himself  from saying master thought that what his sire was before he was a sire. "uh.. My sire ,in my first two year of this life, locked me in a room and never let me out. And even before that I was his..umm.... Blood slave is how he put it.  So basicly four years of seeing only his face." Jaden stopped and wonder if he should contiune. He knew that someplaces killing a vampire was not a big deal. But he also knew that other places that killing a vampire lead to serious ramifications.


"I\'ve been out of his power for two years." Jaden contained. He decided that maybe it was best to not include how he managed to get away from his prier master. "He basically took four years of my life away and now that I can live for ever why not make those years back." He smiled shyly not sure of any of what he was saying was making since. Jaden looked away after a while. His pale hand ran over the jean mattiral of his pants as if he was trying to whip something off his hands. This to was a moral habit of his that he hasn\'t lost yet. When ever he would think his hands always had to keep busy. Ether fiddiling with his hair, rubbing agenst his pants or tracking the rim of a cup full of glass.

"There is that reason. And there is also this one." He looked back at Kerr his eyes seemed darker and sadder. "The last place I called my home had a population of about 1,000,000. All of which , to my knowlage, mortal." he paused thinking of the next word to say. "Mortal can only last you one-hundred years. And then all they are is a hole in the ground. And in that same time frame everyone on this earth who is not like us will be dead and long gone. The thought of that was beginning to drive me nuts so I moved here. Where the vampire population is greater. Explaining in some way why I am here at the moment." He smiled weakly. Yes that was the truth of it all. He came here so he would be lonly. At less not al this very moment.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr was horrified by Jaden\'s tale, being able to relate to it so personally because his and Sawyl\'s beginnings were much the same.  It was a sick and depressing thought, that two such tales of woe should run parallel and end with he same dismal results; tormented vampires with pasts they\'d never be able to escape.  It didn\'t surprise him that Jaden had only been a vampire for four years, though he realised he\'d have to change his opinion of the boy as a fledgling and acknowledge that he was, in fact, a neophyte.

He nodded as the other factor in Jaden\'s presence here in the bar - though it was a far more encompassing reason, as it turned out, for being in the city as well - was explained.  He was impressed that the rough-looking youth was able to admit openly his feelings of displacement and hint as his rather philosophical thoughts on his existence.  As far as Kerr knew, he was having them a great deal sooner than most vampires did - but that could have a lot to do with his traumatic beginnings.  Such horrors aged a soul.

"I killed my other sire," he interjected conversationally, pausing to drain his glass in a few long swallows and then swivelling back to face Jaden, his eyes bright with the feeling of the blood working into his system... and the thoughts that he hadn\'t contemplated in a very long time.  "He\'d kidnapped, tortured, raped and twisted my main sire by that stage, and then they chose me to join them and Sawyl... well, we killed Angus.  Fucker was Ancient, too," the Irishman stated with a shrug, indifferent to whatever he should be feeling about this tale.

The only abiding passion he held was for Sawyl; anything he\'d ever felt towards Angus Sully had long since faded as he\'d helped Wyl deal with his grief and find his own, unique place in the world, over the past four hundred years.  He wouldn\'t be sorry for what he did and certainly had no regrets about it.

"You should consider killing yours, if you think it would make you feel better.  Then you might stop mourning the future like you\'re mortal, simply because it\'s hit you that they\'ll pass on and you won\'t," he advised, then pressed his lips together beneath his stylised moustache.  He\'d probably said too much and fuck, he certainly had no leg to stand on when it came to mortals, but he knew a thing or two about the trials of being undead and watching the world around you complete and renew itself in cycles you could never be part of again.

[Deven_Blackthorn]

Jaden listened as Kerr spoke. Upon hearing about how Kerr killed on of his sires his eyes widen just slightly. He always thought that sires and their fledgling where to like together forever. He based this theory of the little he could remember of an Anne Rice\'s book. It was silly for Jaden to pretend that\'s how it should be when the truth was far from what was written in one silly novel. If was also comforting to know that he wasn\'t the only person walking around with a slight hatred for the one whom changed them. But that comfort went away as soon as Kerr suggested killing his sire. Jaden almost gagged when he heard the words. Was it written on his face that he killed is sire or something?


Jaden open his mouth to speak. Nothing came out except for a small clicking sound made by his throat. He then shut his mouth picked up the glass and drank what was remained. This gave him time to think of what he would say next. He was glad that when he opened his mouth to speak only a clicking sound came out.  Chills ran Jadens spin as the blood rushed in his body.  Ablie to speak. Jaden looked back at Kerr. "I umm... I think I already did that..The uhh killing the sire thing.... I\'m not so sure if...If it worked. That\'s another reason that I moved. If it didn\'t I want to make it hard for him to find me."

He paused for a moment. "I never what to go throught that again." he said softly. Meaning two things. One being with his sire and the 2nd killing his sire again.

"And I don\'t mourn the future like a mortal." he said in a tone that was slightly aggressive. "I mourn change... Change in the past, changes now and changes that are soon to come." he paused and looked at the floor again. "Sad I know. But I can\'t help it...Sooner or later I\'ll be like you and other of my kind and not care. But for today someone has too." He smiled faintly at the ground then looked back up at Kerr. "Why not mourn when all of the ones you love die? I always thought vampire blood only stopped you heart not take it away for good."

((edit and short.-___-))