Staying Out of Trouble

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm spent the past month or so keeping to herself, enjoying the newfound privacy of her own room and one of the family rooms during the day while Damien slept.   She kept her distance and only interacted with him when she needed to and when he addressed her.  The kitten, which she had fondly decided to name Lestat, kept her company enough, providing entertainment whenever he decided to chase the dog around the house. Her shelves full of books kept her occupied, not to mention awake as long as she could.  She tore through Anne Rice’s vampire books quickly, pages filled with romance, blood, and immortality taking up most, if not all of her days and nights.  When the girl had finished the last book she was disappointed that the previous owner’s collection lacked anything else by the same author.  

Tonight she was settled in the family room with Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, reading slowly since the language was a little more difficult.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could remember having this book assigned to her in High School—not that she ever picked it up then because she had other things to worry about.  Lately she didn’t have much else to do except read,  not that she was complaining.  It kept her quiet, out of Damien’s way, and relatively awake.  She had taken to sleeping every three days or so, for only about four hours each time.  Sometimes she could go on for four days, but she was forced to sleep longer until her body recovered, trapped in nightmares until she awoke with a start.

Other than the necessary sleep, the month had been relatively peaceful.  There hadn’t been any signs of Laurent aside the vivid dreams the girl did not explain to Damien.  And since the teapot incident, Storm had managed to keep herself out of trouble.  Well, except for that one time that she tried doing the laundry herself to help Damien out—and she still couldn\'t figure out exactly what she did wrong.  The two had by some miracle managed to avoid any major arguments, probably because of the space the new house offered.  Not to mention the fact that most of the time she was reading or playing with the cat.  Despite everything that bothered her about the situation, having to remain under Damien’s protection, having to stay in the house all the time, and having to be babysat, Storm was content.  It was a nice switch.

Lestat, the kitten, was curled up at the end of the couch near her feet by the time Damien came downstairs after sunset.  And it was Lestat, not Storm, who noticed the vampire first as he walked in.  The kitten didn’t stretch before he leapt off the couch to hiss—as usual, alerting Storm to the presence of that Bad Man.  She smiled, patting the cat gently on the head and turning to Damien with a soft “Hey” before returning her attention to the book.

Last night Damien had mentioned something about a meeting to her, one that she did not have to be necessarily present for.  People she hadn’t exactly met before were coming over, sometime around midnight.  And Pierre.  Storm hadn’t seen Pierre since before he was injured, and she missed him.  When Damien mentioned the fact that he was going to be coming over, the girl brightened immediately, fighting a blush but still excited.  He would still be in pain, of course, but he was still coming over.   It was only about ten and she still hadn’t changed from her comfortable shorts-and-tee-shirt pajamas; and despite the fact that Pierre was coming over she didn’t have any intention of getting dressed until about eleven.  Besides, she was still reading.

[Saiketsu]

He was dressed and ready for the meeting that would take place by the time the sun set. The only thing that kept him in his room until the house had grown dark were the windows of the sun room that allowed dwindling daylight to light the house, preventing the vampire from descending the stairs. It was something that needed to be fixed as soon as possible, but something that was only a hinderance to him at that exact moment. So he waited until the sun had passed far beneath the horizon of the trees before attempting the journey downstairs.

Damien took the stairs at a human\'s pace, making sure to slide his feet so as not to startle his young human guest again, like he usually did. Her heartbeat was steady as usual and he found her reading in the family room again, they cat hissing at him as he entered, her pages flipping by as they exchanged casual greetings. Delilah clopped down the hardwood stairs before deciding to follow him all throughout the house. The dog woofed at him lowly, reminding him to give her food. The vampire squatted down in the kitchen to pet and play with the dog as he addressed his ward.

"You remember that I have that meeting in a few hours, yes? At midnight? I\'ll have about seven or eight fledglings in the house. Pierre will be spending the next week or so over here." He said nonchalantly, not thinking about any consequences which could and most likely would arise from mentioning it.

[The Cedar Witch]

Parting from the book for a moment, she picked up the cat and placed him in her lap as Damien spoke.  Yes, she knew that people would be coming over soon, she wasn\'t that forgetful.  But before she could interject something sarcastic, the vampire brought up Pierre.  Now he decided to tell her that he was staying over?  In the spare room that was almost connected to her room?  Charming, attractive Pierre was staying over for more than one day, right across from her room?  What the hell was she going to wear tonight, again?  Storm could feel her face color as she caught her breath in her throat.

She almost buried her nose in her book again as though it would block her reaction from Damien, even though he was in the other room.  After taking a few moments to control herself, attempting to slow her heartbeat in vain, she managed to speak up.  

"Oh, that\'s cool."  the girl smiled awkwardly, face still hot as she glanced up, hoping that Damien wasn\'t looking at her.  Her eyes darted back to the book, as though she were trying to appear more interested in Mr. Darcy than the gorgeous Pierre.  

[Saiketsu]

Of course Damien caught the scent of her blush. It damn near hit him in the face. He half expected Delilah to smell it as well. The vampire looked over the counter at her, his stomach tightening at the thought of her excitement over his injured son. Damien sighed under his breath. Another woman had fallen for Pierre, and he hated that it was Storm.

Damien stood, his once good mood replaced with something a bit more bitter. They had been over this before, Storm\'s (What was the word?) crush on Pierre, and Storm knew that he disapproved of it from the start. Her mind had to be on other things, not fantasizing about his son. Her mind should have been on searching the city for Laurent. In his opinion, she should keep her mind focused on people closer to herself, not someone like Pierre. It irritated him that out of all of the people in the city, Pierre was the one that Storm spent even moments of her time fanticizing about.

"You still have feelings for him, don\'t you?" His voice was a bit cooler than he meant it to be, his muscles a bit too tense. "Another one down," he snickered to himself, just loud enough for her to hear. "You know you have other things to be focused on at the moment, Storm."

[The Cedar Witch]

What the fuck?  Didn\'t they already talk about this months ago?  Granted, it was basically an unresolved conversation, ending because of a changed subject, but that wasn\'t the point.  She wasn\'t going to stop liking someone just because Damien didn\'t approve.  And he was bringing it up, yet again.  What the hell, she wasn\'t twelve.  It\'s not like anything was going to change just because she had a little crush.

"What?"  She looked up from her book, forcing herself to sound anything other than flustered.  "What are you talking about?"  Storm gripped the book tighter than need be, focusing her glare in his direction.  Did he seriously think that she was obsessing over Pierre all the time?  If he did, he couldn\'t be more wrong.  Besides, what difference did it make?  It wasn\'t like anything was happening right now, they weren\'t doing anything.  If he was talking about focusing on trying to figure out how to find a way out of the Laurent situation, she already did enough of that.

Storm said nothing more, feeling herself becoming rapidly defensive.  It wasn\'t fair.  He had no right to control her like that.  It was just like being in the same situation all over again.  It was like he was telling her that she shouldn\'t be reading so much because she had to focus on other things.  It didn\'t make any sense.  Lestat began to hiss again.

[Saiketsu]

"You heard me," he said under his breath as he coolly turned to feed Delilah who stood wagging her tail happily. He couldn\'t understand why he didn\'t want her thinking about Pierre, or blushing at his name. He didn\'t want her to have feelings for him when they all knew that Pierre was too... charming for his own good. It made him uncomfortable to think that Pierre had been able to manipulate another woman, this time the incarnation of Lucretia herself! The thought was ridiculous!

He moved around the kitchen anxiously, placing the bowl of dog food before Delilah. Damien knew how unlikely it was that anything would become of this little... crush, especially knowing that Pierre had no interest in the girl whatsoever. It was just hard for Damien to understand that it was even possible for the incarnation of his Sire to have any kind of feelings for anyone else except for the motherly feelings for her regime that he was used to. And, well, feelings for him...

But that wasn\'t what he wanted. He didn\'t want Storm. He wanted his Sire back, the comfort of familiarity. If it were up to him, he would just let Storm go, but at the present moment that wasn\'t possible. Not until he knew exactly what he was supposed to do with her. Not until Laurent was killed off.

Damien took to fiddling around in the kitchen and adjoining rooms, checking to see that the doors to the garage and upstairs were locked tightly. He could feel her angry blush of color as he passed by her as he walked through the house. It was not how he wanted to begin the night.

"I don\'t think I need to reiterate my feelings towards the situation. People will start arriving in a few hours. I expect you to either get dressed into regular clothings or to stay in your room, please." He said it gently and calmly, but with a stern edge to his voice, one that demanded no backtalk.

[The Cedar Witch]

She glared outright at him as he passed by her, and even more so when he finished talking.  It felt like she were being scolded by a parent--not even--more like by some bratty kid that was a year younger and thought he knew everything.  Fighting tonight was not what she had in mind.  Not when she was in such a pleasant mood to begin with.  Not when there were people coming over.  Not when Pierre was going to be here soon.  So instead of saying "Well fucking obviously I\'m getting dressed, but I\'ll stay in my room since you think I\'m so in the way"  like she really wanted to, Storm bit her tongue and rigidly stroked the cat.

Storm forced herself to calm down, directing her thoughts toward the book without making a move to do much of anything.  Everything about her body language screamed "I hate you right now" but she was silent.  No, arguing this point now would be childish, not to mention pointless.  She stood firmly on her side of the discussion.  There was no reason for him to be acting this way just because he wasn\'t giving her permission to like or not like someone.  He had absolutely no right.  Yet, as she should have expected, when her feelings clashed with what he wanted, Damien was angry.  But Storm could be just as stubborn as him.  Nothing he could say or do would change the way she felt about anyone, and he shouldn\'t expect that kind of a thing from her.  That was just stupid.  As much as she was accustomed to physically following orders, she refused to be brainwashed.

The mortal breathed a heavy, frustrated sigh as she continued to read.  She still had a few hours to kill, and it wasn\'t like it was going to take her more than five minutes to get dressed.  And she doubted that anyone--or Pierre--would be arriving before 11:30.  Despite anything that Damien said, she remained seated at the couch, guarded by the kitten and absorbed in her anger.  It was going to be a long night, and she could only look forward to Pierre lightening the situation like he always did.  Why the fuck wouldn\'t she be attracted to that?  Especially with someone like Damien constantly bringing a gloomy mood into the room.

[Saiketsu]

He walked rigidly up the stairs towards his bedroom, feeling more flustered than he knew he ought to. He needed a professional face, a serious, down-to-the-matter mood in order to hold this meeting. He couldn\'t simply let Storm and her feelings distract anyone from the seriousness that was his regime. What she didn\'t realize was that if she remained in the room blushing and thinking about Pierre while he and all the rest of them were over, no one would concentrate on what needed to be discussed. They, including himself and Pierre, would all be focused on Storm\'s blushing cheeks. He needed her to be serious about this, to keep her thoughts and the distribution of her blood to herself. Not to mention Damien needed all of Pierre\'s focus.

Damien closed himself in his room and laid flat on the bed, giving a large exhale as his body settled easily into the mattress. Why did everything that happened between them have to be so difficult and awkward and wrong? He could feel her anger from his room and it did nothing to him but make him put his arm over his eyes and wish to go back to sleep. He never intended for things to happen this way. He shouldn\'t have even said anything and just let things go.

He just couldn\'t. Some part of him needed her to be reading her book like Pierre wasn\'t in the house. He needed her to pay attention to the things she was supposed to pay attention to. He hated the idea of her losing focus and looking at his son the entire night. Any parent would, right?

-----

There was a knock at the door, he knew, but Damien was too busy chasing something. Gold hair. Black hair. Gold hair. Black hair. A growl. A laugh. A snarl. A smile.

A knock.

Damien bolt upright before he even realized he was awake, on his feet and gazing about before his eyes even adjusted to the room around him. The vampire could feel Jenella and Pierre\'s presenses outside of his ffront door, could hear the shuffle of the books pages as Storm got up to look who it was.

"Check to make sure it\'s them first, ok?" he said telepathically to her with a very tired and very polite effort, forgetting their previous fight for a moment in his haze. He knew it was, but why he said it, he couldn\'t really figure out.

He steadied himself finally, straightening his hair in his mirror doors, adjusting his twisted clothing. Before heading downstairs to greet his family.

[The Cedar Witch]

The knock scared her, and she jumped from her place on the couch.  She had totally forgotten about keeping track of time, forgotten the fight she had just had with Damien about Pierre, forgotten that she needed to get dressed before anyone came over.  Lestat jumped off of her lap as she closed the book and placed it onto the coffee table.  

Fuck, she sighed and stood, making her way toward the door and trying to feel out who it was.  The girl was extremely relieved that it was just Pierre and Jenella who had arrived a little early, and not someone she hadn\'t met yet.  Both who she had already been around while she wasn\'t exactly dressed to go out.  If it wasn\'t them, she would have bolted upstairs and told Damien to answer it.

His words in her mind were met with an automatic recoil of still smoldering anger, but it faded almost instantly.   After all, Pierre was at the door.  She couldn\'t possibly stay angry.  Lestat followed her to the doorway as she peaked out the window first out of pure habit.  It was Pierre--and Jenella.  Her face only colored slightly, trying to think more about how hurt he was and less about how attractive he was despite the grimace.  With a smile that was more awkward than she intended, the girl opened the door to the two vampires.  Greeting Jenella first with a smile and her usual shyness, she turned her attention to Pierre next.

"Hey!  How have you been?"  Her face was a mixture of concern and guilt as she hugged him--the greeting more gentle than it would have been if not for the burn.  She pulled away quickly, forcing her mind not to dwell on things that would make her blush, and looked at him as though she had been the direct cause of his suffering.

[Saiketsu]

Getting out of the apartment had been a relief. It was the first time he was actually permitted to leave his own condo since he was burned and Pierre was going to take every opportunity he had to absorb the night air. The two had driven around for a while, letting the air fill the car through open windows -- the effort of getting out of the car was too much for the elder vampire -- before taking the drive over to Damien\'s. And even though he knew that it was out of one house and into another, he couldn\'t help but be appreciative to Damien and Jenella for the change of scenery.

Jenella had made sure to be the first one to the house for Pierre\'s comfort. She helped him out of the car, trying to be aware of the large burn in his abdomen from Laurent\'s attack nearly a month ago. He groaned and as she helped him move, the staggering agony of the burn still fresh on his skin. She spoke to him lowly, assuring him that his comfort would come soon, once he was standing on his own.

The blonde stood up on his own finally, straightening himself painfully. Jenella, that sweetheart of a fledgling, took his arm gracefully and allowed him to put some weight on her. Together, arm and arm, they walked to the front door.

To his surprise, Storm opened the door, not Damien. He blinked at the girl, an odd smile rising to his lips as her greeting passed onto him with a hug. "Hey, kiddo. How are you?" She smelled like blood, her face flushing the moment he embrassed her carefully. She was blushing. How cute, he thought to himself. "I\'m alright for right now, now that I\'m out of the car. Sitting is going to be another thing," he laughed weakly.

"I wish you would have told me that that fuck could turn into fire, though. Would have saved me a lot of time and energy." He spoke to her with a friendly tone as she tried to fuss over him. She was so cute.

"Damien?"

"Right here," his Sire said as he came down the stairs and into view, greeting Jenella with a handshake and a friendly kiss on the cheek. The air soured as Storm caught sight of him and walked away slowly, trying to hide her true feelings for Damien. They\'ve been fighting again. Pierre sighed.

The four walked into the house deeper and Pierre laid his eyes on the house that he helped pick out for the first time since it had been purchased. It looked better with Jenella\'s touch of design than it had covered in drape clothes and spiderwebs. His eyes wandered as he made his way slowly through the house. He could smell fur and dander, blood and the normal scents of human life, and admired how quickly the couple had made it their home.

Jenella and Damien spoke together as they climbed the stairs to put him in the room next to Storm\'s. He made his way slowly around, admiring the house that was finally home to his nomadic Sire, before parking himself next to Storm on the couch.

"So what else do I need to know about this guy?" He smiled slightly at her.

[The Cedar Witch]

She was completely fine until Damien entered the picture, and predictably the kitten nearby began to hiss.  The girl knew she was being obvious in her anger, but frankly she didn\'t care.  It wasn\'t like she was going to be able to hide anything from anyone--especially not vampires.  Her glare this time, though, was muted, and she faded behind the three as Damien and Janella went upstairs.  Besides, she didn\'t want to be near him anymore than they had to.  Storm chose to linger behind and settle on the couch in the Family Room, and Lestat followed her.

As she sat alone for a moment on the couch, Storm revisited the fight she had with Damien before.  Her eyes were bitter as she scratched the back of one of the cat\'s ears.  She couldn\'t understand what the hell Damien\'s problem was.  Was she really getting that much in the way of him?  Fuck, if that was how he felt she could just stay in her room all the time and out of his goddamned hair.  

The girl sighed, looking up as the cat left her lap and trotted over to Pierre who had just entered the room.  Predictably, the girl blushed faintly, though her expression didn\'t change much.  She watched the cat silently for a minute as he brushed against Pierre\'s leg, smiling as her blush deepened.  And then he brought up Laurent.

"Um," she began, unable to be really all that uncomfortable talking about anything with Pierre.  What a switch from talking to Damien about anything.  She couldn\'t remember ever seeing Pierre angry.

"Think of the shittiest, worst possible thing someone could do during a fight,"  she paused, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.  "That\'s what you should expect from him."

[Saiketsu]

Pierre pondered this for a moment before responding. Of course he had fought in unfair fights before, but, all things considered, he was usually the one with the advantage. He had never been defeated by a mortal before, even when he was human and this Laurent came damn near close to winning. Just when Pierre had thought he was going to win, the little fucker pushed an ace out his sleeve and transformed into fire as Pierre attacked, leaving the vampire with a sizely mark which wouldn\'t heal for years. He was caught completely unaware, and had Jenella and Finny not been getting out of the car to check on the apartment when they did, Pierre would have been burned to a crisp.

"I guess so. This guy doesn\'t fuck around, does he? Had Finny and Jenella waited any longer, I would have been toast. Literally.

"We\'d probably need two or three of us to take him down, just because of the way he fights." The thought was crazy. To think that a mortal had to be taken out by three vampires who were hundreds of years old was insane, unheard of. "I underestimated him when I first saw him. I figured, hell I\'m over six hundred, how difficult could it be to kill this guy. Appearantly it\'s a lot harder than I thought. I was just about to kill him, too. Who would have ever thought that a mortal could do something like that.

"He is completely mortal, right? Because he was doing shit that I\'ve never seen before."

[The Cedar Witch]

Her sigh came tight and heavy as she averted her eyes.  Yes, he was mortal.  He could still bleed and she saw that firsthand.  He fought with an "ends justify the means" attitude and literally didn\'t know when to stop.  He never stopped, not until he got exactly what he wanted.  And right now, that was her.  

"Well, yeah,"  her eyes moved his face again.  Guilt began to tug at the base of her stomach, reminding her that the only reason Pierre was burned was because Laurent was after her.  Reminding her that Pierre could have been hurt worse, because of her.  Surely then Damien would kick her out, surrender her to Laurent.  She wasn\'t worth Pierre\'s life.  Her expression fell.

"He isn\'t exactly invincible though.  Turning into fire would have damaged him, too, and the fact that he even tried doing that in the first place is a sign that you were close to killing him."  Her voice was timid.  She knew exactly how Laurent fought, what he did when he felt that he didn\'t have the upper-hand.  He always made sure to come out on top in a fight.  

"It\'s draining for him, and he gets burned too.  It probably took him a few weeks to even move depending on how much of him he tried to transform."

[Saiketsu]

"Yeah. Well it was only his legs that seemed to transform. And from what Finny and Jenella tell me, he was running pretty fast away from them. Finny says he shot him somewhere, he said he could smell the blood. Half the time, he was a large cat of some kind, though. He can transform into anything?"

[The Cedar Witch]

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, pretty much.  Anything within reason.  His eyes always stay the same and he couldn\'t transform into an inanimate object or anything like that."  Storm leaned forward to pick up the cat and held him to her chest as she thought.  The only things she saw him transforming into were that big black cat, the crow, and other people.  She looked out at the floor in front of her thoughtfully.

"He wouldn\'t have been able to transform into fire more than once.  But now that he knows that fire is your weakness that makes him that much more dangerous."  Storm spoke slowly, scratching Lestat behind the ear.  She had seen him fight so many times she could practically predict what he would do in any given situation if she were watching on the sidelines.  But knowing Laurent, if she were anywhere nearby, he wouldn\'t waste his time fighting and just run off with her.  The thought made her noticeably uneasy.

"He doesn\'t think as clearly when he is angry, when he\'s in the middle of a fight.  But if you push him too much he\'ll do anything to gain the upper-hand, even if that means he\'s crippled for weeks afterward."