Possession

[Existentially Odd]

Owen had come to visit Vincent as soon as darkness had properly set in, missing him terribly even though they'd only been apart a night.  He hadn't held back when his lover had opened the door, pressing himself close and kissing him passionately, his hands sneaking beneath Vincent's clothing with obvious intent.  He'd been humoured initially (he'd thought) but then it had become reciprocal and they'd bounced their way through the house, off several different bits of furniture, losing clothing on their way to Vincent's bed.  Owen had thrown himself into it like he hadn't known Vincent's touch for a month and it had finished with as many sparks as it had begun.

After a luxuriating shower together, they'd returned to the bed to cuddle and enjoy the sensation of being together, Owen telling Vincent what his schedule was looking like being for university and how work had agreed to give him shifts accommodating those hours.  He was hinting very vaguely that his time would soon become limited - for work was keen to get their pretty model back on the roster as soon as possible and he would be starting back in a few days' time - hoping Vincent might discuss him moving in, but it didn't go that way at all, as it turned out.

[Trillian]

Vincent had been thinking about other things.  He wasn't tuning Owen out, but he wasn't listening as intently as he could.  As Owen spoke about schedules, Vincent began thinking about one of his own.  His mind was playing back to a conversation they'd had previously, about Vincent's feeding routine.  He couldn't remember if he'd explained it being a weekly thing, which meant there was no possible way Owen would be able to fulfill that need.  And it was a need, because the more he went without, the more he lost his focus and his humanity.  Everything took on a more primal, savage edge, and he had no intention of ever coming so closely to releasing that beast again.

He took advantage of a quiet moment, as Owen slipped between topics.

"I'm going to need to drink from someone very soon," he said, launching straight into the heart of the matter.  "If you're serious about wanting to watch me, then I can make a call tonight.  Otherwise we can spend tonight together and I'll catch up with a donor tomorrow."

He allowed Owen the time to process and respond.

[Existentially Odd]

Owen blinked slowly, having hardly been contemplating getting dressed again tonight, let alone going out to watch Vincent drink from someone else, but there was no way he was going to let his lover drink from them tomorrow night without him there.  His decsion made, he sat up in the bed, feeling edgy.  "I want to watch," he asserted, but then he frowned.  "You'll make a call?"

[Trillian]

Vincent looked at him, confused by Owen's question.

"I don't keep them stored under the bed," he replied.

[Existentially Odd]

"But you don't just go to that club vampires go to that you told me about here?" Owen persisted seriously.

[Trillian]

"Oh!" he declared, understanding now why Owen had been confused.  "No.  Not if I can help it," he wrinkled his nose to show his distaste for anonymous donors.  "I have a few contacts of people in the know.  It makes things easier.  I don't have to pick up, and nobody expects more than what's been arranged."

He thought Owen might feel a lot better about that; the idea that Vincent wasn't stalking prey at bite-clubs, looking for some sustenance, as it were.

He rolled over to open the bedside drawer on his side, and extracted a little black notebook.  He knew that he could use his phone for such a thing, but notebooks were easier for him.  He pushed the drawer shut with the edge of his hand, and rolled back to lie on his side beside Owen once more.  He was propped up on one arm, flipping through pages with several names written in Vincent's carefully printed handwriting, scanning it and not looking at Owen's face.

[Existentially Odd]

Owen's chest was burning with jealousy as Vincent spoke of having 'contacts', as opposed to anonymous donors.  Somehow, the idea that he met with the same people implied a relationship and that made it so much worse, to him.  He'd have preferred idiots like that guy in England, who could stake no hold on Vincent, rather than someone he met regularly, who he obviously had something more meaningful with.

His jaw dropped as Vincent rolled away and returned with a little black book to look through.  A motherfucking little black book!  For real!  Because he was sitting up, he was able to look down at the pages as his lover flipped casually through them and a mute rage grew inside him as he saw what he believed to be hundreds of names and numbers - the fucking book seemed to be teeming with them!  Vincent would no doubt pick up on his accelerated heartrate and changed breathing pattern as he clenched his fists and read things like Caroline, Fiona, Jenni and Robin.

A bitter laugh came out of him as the pages just seemed to keep fluttering by.  "What the fuck are you looking for?  The right taste?  Is one of them strawberry flavoured or something?" he snapped, unable to hold back his hatred for each and every one of those anonymous people.  He wanted to see them all and let them know, personally, that Vincent was his and watch them feed, to be sure that their filthy little seepages didn't taint his boyfriend in some way.

[Trillian]

The tone of Owen's voice brought Vincent to attention smartly, and now that he was focussed on him, he heard the accelerated heartrate and heavier breathing.  He stared at Owen for a long moment, his fingers pushing down the booklet on the letter T, where Tamara, Theresa and Travis were written.  Theresa had a pen line through her name and number, crossed out from Vincent's call-list.  It took Vincent a moment as he tried to work out why Owen was so threatened by his contact list, and even though he thought he could see why, the idea of it was so ridiculous that he had to stop himself from dismissing it.

"They're just donors," he said numbly, hoping to calm Owen down without actually telling him to (which he suspected wouldn't work).  "I'm looking for someone with a 'W' printed under their name, because it's a Wednesday night.  I have to drink roughly once a week, so I can't rely on just one person to be available for me.  I've been stuck before, and that's when places like Risk come in handy," he said, replying to Owen's questions as though they'd been asked normally instead of with a sarcastic edge.

[Existentially Odd]

"Once a week," Owen choked out, scowling at the thought of Vincent weekly meeting up with these people so he could drink from them and he'd never said a thing.  "You hook up with these donors," he said the word mockingly, "once a week to give them their thrill and you've never mentioned it to me before now?"  A logical part of him tried to tell him that his outrage was uncalled for, because he'd never had a hold on Vincent before now, they'd just been friends and there'd been a time where he hadn't seen the man for months because his own life had become too important.

But that logical part was easily shouted down by the possessive demon burning in his brain that insisted on gleefully flicking up images of these donors getting horny while Vincent drank from them and him just helping them out so he could keep their name in his little black book.  He'd never felt this way before, but he'd never been so in love with someone so supernaturally fantastic, either, and it seemed his rage was proportional to how brilliant he deemed Vincent to be.

[Trillian]

In truth Vincent wasn't just looking for a donor with a 'W', he'd instinctively begun searching for one that he knew was passive when drunk from, rather than sexually affected.  He realised now that his instinct had been right, but the emotion pouring from Owen wasn't something he'd been prepared for.  If he'd even considered the jealous beast that was spitting acid at him had been coiled around Owen's heart, he certainly wouldn't have shown him the book.  It was just that it was handy, at his bedside, so when he woke up and felt a little thirsty, he could just start making calls.

Worried that Owen would fall upon the book and shred it like a maniac, he closed the book and lay his hand over it, casually, but protectively.  It was his food source, after all.

"I was never sleeping with you before," he said, and now his consoling, gentle, pandering tone was replaced with a reasoning one.

[Existentially Odd]

Owen huffed a sigh as he was forced to turn and acknowledge that logical part of himself.  "I know," he frowned, rubbing agitatedly at his forehead with the forefingers of his right hand before he scratched at an itch on his skin that just seemed to have materialised after the rubbing.  His gaze had dropped to his lap, not really seeing his nudity but looking inwardly on himself, trying to get a grip on this irrational anger.  He couldn't find anything apologetic to say right off the top of his head - though he also logically knew he should be sorry for his behaviour - so he said the next closest thing.  "Just... make the call," he ordered begrudgingly and decided he might as well get up and get dressed while Vincent did that.

[Trillian]

Vincent watched as Owen made a reasonable sound, but didn't trust it.  Feelings like that didn't just go away.  When Owen permitted him to go ahead with it, he was caught between refusing and going ahead.  Refusing would just make things worse, after he played a few different scenarios in his head, all with dire results.  He watched as his love got up and started dressing, so he turned around and reached for the mobile on his bedside.

He'd spied Tamara's name before closing his book, and decided she would be best.  She was one of his older contacts, and not often called, but was fairly sure she would be available for him.  He opened his book again, flipped to T, gave Owen a cursory glance but the youth was still dressing and not watching, before dialling her number and waiting for her to respond.

*

They pulled into a motel carpark, where Vincent parked, killed the lights and shut off the engine.  The motel was just an anonymous Flag, single level with fourteen rooms, by the look.  The carpark was between two building blocks of seven.  Vincent hadn't seen Tamara's car in the parking lot, and concentrated on where Tamara might be.  She was already in a room.  He berated himself mentally.  Of course she wouldn't still have the same car, it had been a couple of years since he'd seen her last, and her car had needed replacing back then.  He'd forgotten that detail.

He got out, Owen following suit, and locked the car before walking towards the door with a number '11' on it, on the opposite block to where they'd parked.  At least it was close and they didn't have to walk the length of the building.  Vincent had got lucky, there.  He touched her mind to let him know he was coming, and the door opened just before the pair of them arrived.  He'd told her on the phone that he was bringing his current partner, who was curious to watch him drink, and she'd immediately agreed to it.  She was keen to see him again, and knew she wasn't on the vampire scene anymore.

Tamara was a woman in her early thirties, looking the same age as him, but he'd met her in her early twenties.  She'd been bitten by other vampires before at a club, and always felt intimidated by them enough to agree with whatever they asked from her afterward, and had been about to give up the scene when Vincent had scanned her mind.  She took a gamble on him and they were both pleased to not have to deal with the sexual nature of the bite.  He didn't have a writhing mess on his hands, and she didn't have a powerful predator on her hands who wanted more from her.  The inevitable happened, she'd found someone and got married, but they hadn't stopped seeing each other completely, though they had slowed down.  After she'd fallen pregnant two years ago, he'd stopped calling.  Feeding from a pregnant woman was just wrong, and now she was busy with her son.

"Vincent, come on in.  And Owen, hello, nice to meet you," she said, stepping back so they could enter.  She was dressed in navy stretch pants with a longish lavender paisley shirt over it.  She'd toed off her shoes, giving her a kind of hippie feel at first glance, though they could also be lounging-at-home clothes, which was what she'd been doing when Vincent had called.

"Hi, Tamara," Vincent greeted, and was a little awkward with her when she kissed him on the cheek in greeting, though near the side of his mouth, his gaze sidling to Owen.  "Did you get a babysitter at short notice?"

"Lindsay came over," she said, saying a name he wasn't familiar with so he just nodded politely as she shut the door behind them.  Vincent wondered if Owen had noticed her wedding ring.  "She's my next door neighbour.  I have covered her ass so many times," she explained, though didn't clarify how.  Obviously she was owed a few favours.

[Existentially Odd]

Owen was all eyes as he stepped into the room after Vincent, biting his tongue about the fact that they'd come to a motel of all places - like he was meeting some secret lover.  It felt seedy and repulsive, but that was possibly the jealousy burning inside him reacting, so he was doing his best to shut up about it until he saw this all unfold.  His body language was negative, his left arm running parallel with his body and his right arm folded across his body, hanging onto the opposite elbow, but he was doing his best to keep an open mind.  His gaze darted around furtively, looking for somewhere to sit.

[Trillian]

There was an armchair in the corner of the room, facing the middle of it.  There were also two dining chairs facing a small rectangular table against a wall on the other side of the double bed.  Vincent looked at Tamara for a little while longer, before he realised what it was about the woman that had also changed.

"You dyed your hair," he pointed out, for the last he'd remembered her, she'd been a dark blonde.  Now she was a brunette.  "It looks nice."

She blushed lightly and then shyly smiled at him before looking over at Owen.

"Your man's a charmer," she told him, and winked at him.  Vincent noticed her lingering look on Owen and was fairly sure she could pick up on the hostility coming from the teen.

"Did you pay for the room?" he asked, hoping she hadn't and he could just fix that up with a little mind-trickery.

"Payment in advance.  I don't mind," she said, shaking her head even when Vincent pulled out his wallet.

"You shouldn't have to pay," he said sternly, and handed her a crisp hundred dollar bill, frowning deeply when she didn't take it.

"Half," she negotiated.

"It's all I have."

"Bullshit," she laughed.

Vincent sighed and put the note back into his wallet.  After some searching, he came out with three crumpled twenties, which she took to put away in a handbag that was tucked away beside the one and only pot plant in the room - a sad looking fern.  Her bag was on top of her shoes, Vincent saw.  He moved to the bed, pointedly ignoring Owen, and sat down upon it.

"Beside you?" she asked, her gaze stealing away to Owen.

"Ignore him.  Come here," Vincent ordered, and reached out his hand to take hers.  She offered it, once again going shy, and he pulled her down to sit on his left.  He didn't give her a chance to worry about Owen any further, because he reached over with his right hand to hold her opposite shoulder, while his mouth immediately found her neck.  Her eyelids fluttered then closed, both hands curled into fists upon her lap.  Vincent was supporting himself with his left hand upon the bed, and his right hand slid off her shoulder and up to her neck opposite of where he was licking and nibbling, scraping his teeth but not breaking the skin.  He could hear soft noises and feel her holding her breath.  Once she shivered lightly, he bit.

There was a sound of pain when he did it, and Tamara's eyes opened wide before they slid shut again.  As Vincent drank, she sat still, the most noise coming from her was her steady breathing, and an almost inaudible hum.  Her fisted hands relaxed and she looked like a woman in a deep trance.  Vincent thought of it much like that, though he wasn't thinking about it now, still holding her close and drinking all that he felt he could safely take from her, and at the end of it he felt replenished.  He lifted a hand to his mouth to bite the tip of his index finger with a grimace, and smeared his healing blood over the bite marks before moving to her neck again to tidy up the few dribbles of blood that had pooled there and he'd smeared.

He sat back now, looking at her for a moment before finding Owen with his gaze and pressing his already healed index finger to his lips in a shushing gesture, though didn't make the sound to go along with it.  After a couple of minutes, Tamara made a soft noise and opened her eyes, looking dazed.

[Existentially Odd]

Owen watched the interplay about paying for the room with an internal sneer that he did his best to keep hidden, having managed the barest ghost of a smile when he'd been told how charming his man was.  Telling her her hair looked 'nice' was hardly charming, in his opinion, so it made him wonder what Vincent had previously said to her, that she was so primed into thinking him charming that 'nice' was enough to colour her cheeks.  He couldn't make any allowances for her and thought her stupid, no matter how sweetly she was acting.

The blonde moved to the armchair once Vincent had sat on the side of the bed, his mouth skewed as he gnawed on the inside of one cheek.  His elbows rested on the arms of the chair, his hands curled tightly around one another on his lap, fingers interlaced.  He'd worn jeans, sneakers and a light blue polo shirt to Vincent's and though it was a little crumpled from being on his floor a while, he still looked quite casual sitting there watching his lover drink from another person.

Her reaction caused Owen to frown, for it wasn't what he expected and didn't look anything like how it felt when it happened to him.  It aroused his suspicion further, that perhaps Vincent was doing something to her mentally so he wouldn't get upset, but he only narrowed his eyes and kept his thoughts to himself for the time being.  He already believed much was different this time, because of the way Tamara had said 'Beside you?' like she was used to sitting in his lap or straddling Vincent or something.  Typical.  But she'd been told to ignore Owen and had gone along with it, so she was obviously only interested in what she was getting from this little exchange.