Unlikely Bedfellows

[Existentially Odd]

George grunted a negative-sounding laugh at Will.  "Nothing much around the house - it\'s a pretty shoddy housing area, that\'s about it, but that\'s why I picked it.  To blend in.  Technically, everything\'s a walk away, for us," he intoned, shooting a glance at the cabbie to see how much attention he was paying to them before he looked back at his companion.

"But I ride everywhere, \'cos it\'s more convenient.  The only thing we\'re close to is Risk, because we\'re not far from the industrial area, but it\'s still a pain to walk it.  Think you\'d be interested in getting your own transport?  There\'s room in the garage - or I\'ll make it, anyway," he offered, grinning charmingly at his new housemate.

He hadn\'t been careful about putting his gear away much lately, but if Will wanted to buy a car and have it in there, he\'d accommodate it.

[pinkroses]

“Alright,” Will said with a nod as George explained the surroundings of the house. He was content with whatever area they lived in really, if everything was a way away, so what? It wasn’t like they had a time limit on anything. There was always another night.

He responded well to George’s grin, giving him one of his own, both at the handsome face and the idea of buying a new vehicle.

“Yes, I definitely will. Either a car or a bike. It’s been… decades since I had a bike… but a car would be more useful for two of us, but then we’d both have a bike so that wouldn’t be difficult,” he said, mulling over the options out loud, happy to accept input from the redhead as he gently rubbed a hand over his smooth chin in a thoughtful pose. “Could you make room for both?” he added, focusing on George once again.

The two chatted about the possibilities for a while as the cabbie drove and it didn’t seem long before they were pulling up outside the five-star hotel Will had been staying in. It was near the park, and within easy distance of the business centre and shopping areas, clean and… well, relatively safe compared to some other areas of the city. The blonde pulled a note out of his wallet and passed it forwards to the driver before climbing out without hesitation, not bothering to wait for the change. He wandered towards the doors, which were pulled open by the doorman in preparation for his entering, but Will paused there, waiting for Tom to catch up.

“I have to say, it’ll be nice to stay in an actual house again. Although I guess you won’t make my bed for me,” Will said, giving George a playful pout, although he was usually fairly tidy and made his own bed. He gestured for George to go in ahead of him and then followed him in, giving a nod to the doorman before heading towards the lifts.

[Existentially Odd]

George cocked a playful eyebrow at Will, emboldened by their public surroundings enough to respond in his usual provocative manner (he didn\'t think it likely that the blonde would make a big deal out of anything he said in front of a doorman - beyond laugh at him, anyway).
 
"I\'ll make it whenever I\'m in it to mess it up," he quipped, amused by his blatant \'outing\' of the other vampire in front of a witness before he swaggered by the doorman and through the lobby with rolling hips and an arrogant tilt to his broad shoulders, fingertips tucked into his front jeans pockets.  He was obviously pleased with himself and the little smirk tilting the corner of his mouth didn\'t fade as he hit he up button.
 
"So what floor you staying on?" he asked idly as Will walked up beside him, casting a sidelong glance over his shoulder at the very fancy lobby and immaculately dressed staff.  It seemed his new roomie had quite a bit of money to squander and he expected to hear a number quite high up as far as the hotel floors went - not that it would mean anything detrimental if he didn\'t.  George always picked rooms with the fewest windows and those tended to be lower down, on the cheaper floors.

[pinkroses]

Will chuckled at George’s reply, not caring who heard. He recognised the doorman from when he’d been out a few times and he’d definitely seen him return with a man before. Besides, it was his job not to listen, or if he did, he wouldn’t say a thing. Will didn’t know enough people in this city to care about any sort of gossip anyway. It wasn’t like had any reputation here to speak of yet so it didn’t matter.

“Well that sounds promising. Sex and housekeeping in one,” Will retorted with a smirk on his face that matched George’s as he strolled towards the lifts, his swagger not as noticeable as the redhead’s, but with an air of confidence about him. He knew that wasn’t what George had meant with his comment, he’d probably been trying to imply that neither sex nor housekeeping would be happening in the house, but it was more fun to twist his words around.

“Twenty-eight,” he replied as they waited for the lift, “There’s thirty,” he added, guessing something along those lines would be the next question. Will had been surprised to find that this hotel did cater for vampires, on a few of the floors and with rooms of various prices. There was a penthouse which was designed to be safe during daylight hours, but Will had gone for one of the slightly smaller rooms. In a city like this he wasn’t sure where reaches travelled, perhaps a vampire in the penthouse would have attracted attention Will wasn’t keen on so he’d played it safe.

It didn’t take long for the lift doors to slide open and Will gestured for George to enter first, watching the redhead in the large mirror which took up the entire back wall of the lift, and then he followed him in, turning his back on the mirror and leaning against it.

“It shouldn’t take long to check out after I’ve packed, the service here is brilliant,” Will said, perfectly happy to make pointless small talk in the lift - or if George made more comments, he’d be happy to play with him a little more. As the lift rose he slipped the key card out of his wallet before slipping the wallet back into his jeans pocket again and twirled the card between his fingers.

[Existentially Odd]

George merely nodded, having been put firmly in his place before they\'d even got into the lift.  It bugged him, how Will was so much better at comebacks, yet it had always been him who had been able to turn the tables on people in that respect, him who had had the last laugh and even all the ones in between.  It sucked, quite frankly, to be bested by his senior - and someone he\'d invited willingly into his home.

Once they got into the hotel room he was all action, clapping his hands together and rubbing them eagerly, declaring he needed to know where to begin.  He followed Will\'s instructions to the letter, fulfilling every wish the blonde had with innate speed and enthusiasm - the sooner they had his gear back at the house, the better.

In the end, it wasn\'t quite the quick trip George had envisioned it would be - an hour of folding and tucking things into boxes or suitcases hadn\'t sounded feasible to begin with - but they got it done in fairly record time anyway.  Will checked out while George found another cab and began loading stuff into it, and then came the reverse trip across town to his shabby-looking house.  The cabbie helped them unload so George got him to leave things in the garage so he didn\'t see anything suspicious (not that he was about to go poking around the light fixtures, he supposed, but boxes over where the windows should be would give him away immediately).  He was of the opinion that the cabbie had fancied Will and he decided to say as much after the cab\'s disappearing smoke trial was blocked by the garage door closing.

"I think he was sweet on you.  Maybe you should\'ve asked him out?" the redhead queried innocently, hefting the first item that Will had nominated as needing to go into his bedroom.  It had obviously been long enough for him to forget the humiliation he\'d suffered back at the hotel, thanks to Will\'s snappy comebacks.

[pinkroses]

Will would have been content to pack whilst George kept him company, but since the redhead seemed keen to be put to work, Will did, giving him instructions to fold and pack and he was pleased to see that George actually did a decent job rather than just chucking stuff around. He didn’t have too much stuff, but he liked it to be put a certain way, and he did have other random things, like his music system and speakers, which needed to be packed properly into boxes.

It didn’t seem too long before they were back at Pandenning Court and Will was paying more attention to the suitcases being put carefully into the garage than the cabbie. He paid him and gave him a generous tip for helping out with the boxes and then disappeared back into the garage, ignoring to lingering glance the cabbie sent his way before he disappeared. Will had just slipped a rucksack onto his back and grabbed a large suitcase when George commented on the cab driver and Will glanced across at him with a smirk.

“Oh yes, I’m sure it would have been a wonderful romance,” he said, rolling his eyes as they headed towards his room. “The vampire and the cab driver, true love,” he added, shaking his head slightly. So the guy had been cute-ish. But Will liked to think he had better standards than that. A cab driver who probably flirted with most of his fares to get a better tip was not high on his list of people to go to. And he rarely went on dates either, what was the point? Forced chatting with someone you don’t really care about, when really you would probably rather be doing anything else?

“So are you dating anyone? That band girl friend of yours?” he asked as he dumped his suitcase in the corner of the room and gestured for George to put his box on the floor somewhere whilst he put his other bag by the bed. If George was, well, it wouldn’t stop Will from teasing him, but he didn’t want to really upset his new housemate, so he could, maybe, tone it down a bit when the girl was around, a little bit. He put on hand on a hip, watching George closely as they headed back towards the garage to grab another bit of luggage each.

[Existentially Odd]

The redhead snorted indelicately.  "No.  Vivi\'s a dyke, I just drink from her whenever she\'ll let me."  He gave Will a shifty look, again feeling territorial about his blissfully sweet donor, considering expanding on why he drank from her as often as he could but deciding against it.

"We... uh, it\'s a bit of a secret thing, \'cos the lead singer of the band\'s a cunt that hates me - the feeling\'s mutual, the bitch stole petrol from my bike - and since she mother-hens Vivi, we don\'t meet up all that often," he conceded, figuring that would be enough to let Will know why he was hedgy about talking about his relationship with Vivianne.  It had nothing to do with the wondrous way she made him feel whenever she was close to him - like he was a little bit in love with her - or the indescribably good way she tasted.

"I don\'t see anyone regularly," he announced in a more determined tone as he hefted something new to carry into Will\'s room.  "I just pick \'em up as the fancy strikes me, which is not as often as it used to when I was travelling around a lot - maybe once a fortnight?" he asked, tilting his head as he asked more than told, calculating whether that would be accurate or not.  With a shrug, he gave up thinking, not really caring to ponder how he amused himself.

"Well, whenever I feel like it, anyway," he finished gruffly, finding the admission of this fact just made him sound as lonely as he felt.  Fuck, he didn\'t even get laid like he used to; Reed had certainly fucked him over in all kinds of ways.  "You pick up much?" he asked Will, turning towards the bedroom now that his partner had his own load and expecting his answer to come while they walked.  He didn\'t really care if there was a different guy around here every now and then but he\'d probably get shitty if Will answered, \'Every night, man!\'.

[pinkroses]

Will gave a thoughtful “Heh,” as George tried to explain his relationship with Vivi. It sounded far more complicated that Will could be bothered with, but obviously George thought Vivi was worth it. She was either a good friend, or her blood was amazing. Maybe when she came around he would be able to witness exactly what was going on there.

He raised an eyebrow slightly as George told him how often he brought home people - noting that George didn’t specify women when he spoke about bringing people home - really he had expected it would have been more often, considering the set up of George’s home and the way he spoke. Perhaps when he had set up this house he had expected that fancy to occur more often than it did nowadays.

“Right,” he said with a small nod, watching the redhead with interest. His demeanour seemed to have changed rather abruptly. Maybe it was the mention of Vivi, or perhaps George wasn’t quite as happy as he thought. After all, he’d invited someone new into his home, perhaps he needed some change to cheer himself up. Everyone got lonely sometimes.

“Occasionally,” Will said with a small shrug as they strolled along, making quick work of carrying the boxes around into their correct places, it was definitely faster now that the cabbie wasn’t slowing them down. “If I do, they generally don’t stay the day,” he added in a brisk tone. He wouldn’t want to live with a human; he hated being out of control and being asleep whilst someone else could be awake and doing fuck knows what. That would be hellish. But George was a vampire and so he had to sleep similar hours to Will, so the blonde could handle that. Perhaps he should get a lock for his bedroom door though, if George was occasionally going to be having people staying over.

Will had found a lot of humans got offended if he chucked them out when they just wanted to curl up and sleep - that didn’t matter to him since he’d probably never see them again, but having someone getting pissed off at you could put a bit of a dampener on a good night. It was very rare that Will found someone he wanted to spend longer than a few hours with, when it came to sexual relationships anyway. So he wasn’t going to try to do more with George, not for now anyway. That didn’t count out teasing, flirting and matching George when he made those comments, but if he really went to work on him to wear him down then the redhead would know it. Of course, like he’d said before, he wouldn’t kick him out of bed if George wanted it, but Will was content with the way things were.

“So that buddy you had staying here with you before. What happened there? You said you fought?” he asked abruptly changing the subject a little as he turned to head back to the garage, guessing they would have everything moved with one last trip, or perhaps two. He was curious to find out more about George and what had happened here. It might make things a bit easier if he knew what subjects were best avoided. He wasn’t too worried about upsetting George in case he was chucked out, obviously that wasn’t going to happen, but he didn’t really want George to start to dislike him. That would just get wearing.

[Existentially Odd]

"Good.  Mine either," George responded when told that Will\'s one nighters finished before sunup.  He was certainly not in the habit of letting mortals hang around through the day, when he was vulnerable.  Fucked if he\'d die in his sleep for no good reason.

When the questions about reed came, he suddenly missed his footing (while walking down a perfectly level hall) and pressed his lips together, not saying anything while his mind raced.  Why did Will want to know about that?  Because he was being all buddy-buddy and wanting to get to know him?  Forget that shit.  He might also want to be figuring out if the guy was ever coming back to reclaim his bedroom, of course, which George did think fair enough, so that\'s how he decided to answer.

After depositing his latest package on the carpet (if he\'d been given another instruction to put it elsewhere, he\'d forgotten it and simply dropped it n the first convenient spot) he straightened up and curled his hands around his hips.  His expression was impassive.  "Yeah.  He won\'t be back, you have nothing to worry about there," he advised, his voice little more than a monotone.  He stalked out of the room after it was said, heading for the garage and trying not to think too much about Reed.

This was exactly the subject Will shouldn\'t be asking about.

[pinkroses]

Will put his box down more carefully, watching George as the redhead put on his little act. Clearly Reed was a sore spot for the vampire, although George still hadn’t told Will that it was Reed, that human friend who’d known he was a vampire, who was the friend he had fought with. It could be anyone, another vampire, human, anything. And it was fairly clear that George wasn’t going to give him any more information that he already had.

He slipped his hands in his jeans pockets as he followed George at a more sedate pace, unashamedly admiring the view from behind as he wandered along.

“Someone’s a little moody. You need to lighten up,” he said casually, “Good thing I’m here,” he added with a grin as he playfully smacked George’s shoulder, then moved to grab the last few boxes. “Tomorrow night you can start showing me the best things to do in this city which doesn’t involve ass-hole ancients throwing their weight around,” he said in a chirpy tone which may well annoy someone in a bad mood as he conveniently ignored the fact that he’d been putting George in his place earlier that night.

[Existentially Odd]

"Fuck off," he told Will mildly, glaring when his shoulder was patted and making a show of petulantly pulling away - moodily, no less.  He carried anything that was left to carry and dumped the stuff where he thought was least convenient this time - though he was kind enough to stay in the room and begin pulling the new sheets out of their packets.  It was his intention that he make the bed up while Will worked on sorting his shit out.

"Well, it\'s not all that fascinating.  I go abseiling and rock climbing a fair bit - there\'s the ocean if water\'s more your thing but he waves don\'t really ever get big enough to surf hard and ski paddle\'s a bit old.  I\'d like to see if there\'s anywhere decent to kayak at, but I\'m pretty sure white water\'s out of the question and I haven\'t got my own kayak - or a way to transport it anyway," he mused aloud, watching the fitted sheet as he flicked it out, trying to decide where the tag was so he could put it where it would annoy Will the most.

"I usually just end up going to the pool hall or Risk or the amusement park to ride the roller coasters as far as thrills go - it\'s no Tibet but it breaks up the monotony anyway.  Which side of the bed do you sleep on?" he asked Will fervently, wanting to put his best effort into sabotaging the vampire\'s sleep.

[pinkroses]

“Not really a big fan of boats, but I’d like to try out the rock climbing stuff,” Will said as he began unpacking clothes and boxes, putting things away quickly. “But want to get a good look around the city, get my bearings,” he added, then paused in his unpacking to shoot a suspicious glance at George as the redhead made his bed, asking about which side he slept on.

“The left,” he lied, grabbing another box and beginning set up his speakers. “Perhaps I should go shopping tomorrow instead - get a car, or bike, and some extra furniture,” he said thoughtfully as he shoved one box of things into a corner, planning where to put it when he had more storage space and occasionally glancing around to keep an eye on what the redhead was doing and making a mental note to check his bed before going to sleep just in case George was immature enough to play pranks. Will was, so he guessed it wouldn’t be above George.

[Existentially Odd]

"Abseiling, moron, as in jumping off cliffs, not sailing on boats!" he cried when the blonde mentioned watercraft, letting it slide completely when Will said he wanted to get his bearings in the city.  Stupidly.  As far as George was concerned, the best way to do it was travelling its extremities and working his way in; the heart of a city was pretty much always the same and deadly boring as far as adrenalin junkies believed.

"Sure, go shopping," he muttered negligently, concentrating not just on getting the tag to the side he believed Will meant - which was the right side of the bed as he stood looking down at it from the foot - but also on shortsheeting the top sheet before he quickly threw the quilt over the top of it all. "Maybe you\'ll discover some important landmarks," he suggested sarcastically, standing with his hands on his hips to admire his well-made-bed handiwork before he looked at Will.

"I\'m going to go out and play a few games, let me know if you need a hand with anything," he announced, not giving Will a chance to say he did straight up because he was already backing out of the room.

[pinkroses]

“Asshole, you were talking about kayaking. Have you forgotten already?” Will said with a chuckle, rolling his eyes as George got all defensive and ridiculous. Seriously, was he going to be like this all the time? Maybe this wasn’t such a great plan after all. Will didn’t agree to this just to get grief.

“Kid, come back here,” he said sharply as George began to head out of the room and he gestured to a spot on the floor right in front of him as he turned away from his boxes. If George didn’t return then Will would stalk after him and put a hand on his shoulder to bring him to a halt.

“Why the fuck are you being such a shitty idiot?” he asked, “Is this because you have issues with that guy you screwed? Or who screwed you, whatever. Because that isn’t my fault,” Will said with a scowl, his eyes darkening with anger.

[Existentially Odd]

Glowering, George stopped before he left the room and turned to face Will, so shocked to be called \'kid\' that he didn\'t immediately have a comeback.  The realisation that he\'d misinterpreted Will made him feel ashamed but the mention of Reed as being the cause of the problem just made him flare up in anger.  He took a step towards the blonde, just about ending up on the spot that had been indicated for him to stand on.

"It has nothing to do with Reed!  I just don\'t think of kayaks as \'boats\', alright, so I thought you\'d misheard me!  I\'m not being a \'shitty idiot\' and I\'m not a kid!" he declared indignantly, straightening up into his full height.  "I\'m like... I dunno\', two hundred or something," he blustered, never able to pin down an exact amount even when he wasn\'t distracted by being upset so having no hope now, even though he waved an imperious hand around and looked around the room as if the answer might appear for him somewhere.  He looked back at Will with narrowed eyes.  "How the hell old are you?"