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The thing that really, finally brings them all together is Stu’s birthday.
It’s a Wednesday night and Anton and Viago are walking through the aisles of a party store, chatting to each other over the tinny pop music. Anton’s basket has things in it that the pack will need, like festive paper cups, plates, and hats, and those nubbly little bouncy balls that light up when they hit something. Viago’s basket is full to bursting with just…stuff. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to it, but everything in the basket does seem to bring a sort of manic smile to his face when he first sees it, so Anton figures his heart is in the right place. That’s what parties are for, yeah? To make people happy.
“What is creepy paper?” Viago’s accent closes hard around the ‘w’ in a way Anton finds more endearing than he probably should. It’s just that when it’s paired with the way he dresses–today in black boots, maroon trousers, white flowing blouse, black cravat, deep blue overcoat–and his generally baffling way of existing in the world, the sum adds up to more charming than the parts. He turns around and holds up the roll of purple and silver tissue. “It doesn’t look very creepy. Unless you were going to make a mummy with it, but on its own it seems fine.”
“I feel like most things are less creepy when they don’t have dead bodies in them, Viago,” Anton says. At the mention of his name, Viago slides his eyes from the rainbow paper display over to Anton’s face. Anton suddenly finds a display of paper lanterns on the opposite shelf very interesting. “But no, it’s pronounced like the pancakes. Crepe paper. It’s just for hanging.”
Viago goes back to looking over the many rolls and strokes the package across his chin absentmindedly, considering this. The movement draws Anton’s eyes back to him. He doesn’t know much about how being a vampire works, but he thinks that it must be lucky Viago was clean shaven when he died. If Anton died right now his ginger facial hair would look patchy and ragged forever. Maybe he should start shaving now that they’re with the vampires more often. Just in case.
“Hanging what?” Viago asks. “It doesn’t look strong enough to hang someone with.”
Anton chuckles in spite of himself. “No, you just sort of drape it places. Snazzes a place up a bit, doesn’t it? A little pop of color.”
“Stu’s favorite color is a very calming moss green, but they don’t have that.” Viago reluctantly puts the little roll back on the shelf.
“How do you know that?”
Stu is amiable for sure, but incredibly tightlipped. It’s hard getting his breakfast order out of him, let alone personal details. On anyone else that might seem rude or stuck up, but Stu is such an incredibly lovely person that it’s hard to hold anything against him.
“Nick told us.” They move out of the shadow of the shelves and into the brightness of the end aisle. The fluorescent lights wash Viago out, reflecting off the paleness of him instead of bringing out the rich undertones of his skin like warmer lighting does. To Anton he seems less immortal this way somehow. Just as sharp in the glare as anyone. More real. “He knows everything about Stu.”
“Right. Where is Nick, anyway?”
Nick is the one meant to be planning this get together. Initially he started talking a few weeks ago about how the vampires should have a party for Stu, but as the appointed day got closer and he seemed to have gotten nothing done, Viago got anxious. Anton was invited in to help with planning on the grounds that he’s Stu’s Alpha now and as such he and Stu’s new pack should be involved and present. The more people there who liked Stu the better, Viago had said. Anton couldn’t find anything to argue with in that. Aside from the idea of spending all this planning time alone with a vampire, but they’re in public and Viago is the least objectionable of the bunch, so he’s probably not in imminent danger.
The wolf prowls under his skin, just in case.
Anton has to admit that he and Viago have similar priorities when it comes to their groups. They are both absolutely exhausted by the idea of the endless taunting and fighting. Viago because there are more interesting things to do with an immortal life and Anton because he hates having to clean up after agitated werewolves if he doesn’t have to. They tend to do a number on one’s upholstery and carpets. It’s like being at university all over again.
“I do not know,” Viago says, and twists the little key on a set of chattering vampire fangs. “I do not have a tracking pigeon following him.” When he puts the fangs down they dance across the shelf on their plastic bloody gums. His eyes light up and he looks to Anton to make sure he’s seeing it too.
It’s really becoming harder and harder not to like him. If nothing else, delight is infectious. Anton can’t tell whether he’s joking about the pigeon or not.
“Come on, mate,” Anton says. “You’re like four hundred years old, you have to have seen those before.”
“Rude, I am not yet four hundred.” He picks up the teeth and winds them again. “And of course I have. But never with the cute little fangs. They look like my teeth!”
Viago smiles wide, white teeth and fangs on full display, and makes a few playful snaps in Anton’s direction. The wolf raises its shackles, but does nothing when it realizes those fangs are not coming for him. The plastic teeth chatter themselves off the shelf and fall onto the floor with a clatter. Viago seems to forget about them the moment they’ve left his line of sight. He turns dramatically and walks further down the aisle.
Anton sighs and stops to pick them up on his way by. The things he does for his pack.
The party is going rather well, if Viago says so himself. And after the decades he’s spent with his flatmates he knows that he’ll have to. Petyr had always been very generous with his praise, but he is gone now and Vlad and Deacon are more reticent. Which is the polite word Viago uses when he means to say self-centered. What is a gentleman without his niceties, after all.
The scene is one of more or less controlled chaos, which is as good as it gets with the werewolves around. Before the party he covered every flat surface in the common areas with the little plastic and rubber baubles he’d found at the store with Anton. He’s inordinately pleased that they seem to be a hit. One of the Nathans is currently betting Deacon on who can get the little ball into the cup more times in a row. Vlad is holding court with Nick, Dion, Stu, and another Nathan about how you can use a slinky as a sex/torture device if you have a real metal one. Declan is curled up on the settee with a Rubic’s cube. All in all, good clean fun.
Viago’s eyes find Anton as he passes from the kitchen back into the living room. He looks tired and comfortably rumpled in his jeans and red jumper, which is to say that he looks like himself. Viago thinks that being an Alpha must be incredibly taxing, and he’s glad that there is no supernatural power putting him in charge of doing the chore rota and picking up after Vlad’s orgies. He does it anyway, because he can’t relinquish control of his space like that, but he can stop any time if he wants. Maybe one of these days he will, just to see what the others do. Live in their own bloody filth, probably.
He watches Anton survey the scene, keeping account of his young men. If you asked Viago six months ago if he would come to respect a werewolf he would have politely asked you to get out of his house and perhaps take a nosedive off the nearest cliff. But times change and so, it seems, must the undead. It’s just that Anton is so good at being an Alpha and all that entails, and some of what that entails now is making Viago’s life easier.
Anton’s eyes hit him before Viago can think to look away. He gives Viago a bashful smile over the lip of his beer bottle and starts toward him through the small crowd. He comes to a stop an arm’s length away and turns to watch the party.
“I think we did okay. Good job on the favors. I really thought you were just getting those things for yourself.”
“What do you think I am?” Viago tries his very best to sound aggrieved, in spite of the fact that Anton’s presence has started to make him feel weirdly calm over the last month or so. “Some sort of strange collector? A pied piper who lures children with shiny things?”
“You do eat people,” Anton says.
Viago gasps dramatically. “I would never drink from a child! There is not nearly enough blood! I would have to start collecting them just to get through my nights.”
He senses it on the air when Anton tenses up. It always tickles Viago, how easy it is to rile the Alpha in this way. Anton is much like those little chompy teeth. Not very practical to keep, but it is fun to wind him up and watch him go.
“I don’t know, man.” Anton scratches the back of his neck, which Viago has noticed he does when he’s nervous. Viago notices a lot of things about Anton. For keeping the peace purposes. “I still have some Gundam figures. Everyone’s got a thing.”
Viago lets him sit in his ill ease for just a little bit too long before laughing and poking him in the arm. “I am just pulling your leg! I collect many frivolous, non-living things. I shall have to show you my agates sometime.”
“Is that a euphemism?”
Anton swings his gaze around so that he’s looking Viago in the eyes. There’s a hint of a challenge there, as if he is daring Viago to say ‘ yes, actually, would you like to see my testicles little werewolf? ’ There would have to be a lot going wrong with Viago’s night if that was to be the outcome of it. Still, he is not one to back down from a fair challenge.
“Would you like it to be?”
Viago hears Anton’s heartbeat tick up just a notch as he flushes, which is really quite cute, in spite of the fact that he’s a foul and damnable mortal enemy to all of Viago’s kind. He takes another pull from his beer. “I don’t really have control over language, so I guess it’s gonna continue to be whether I like it or not.”
“If we were in France we could just have the Académie vote it out of fashion. English is very unwieldy and it defies editing.”
“Your face defies editing,” Anton huffs quietly. He turns his focus back on the party.
Viago opens his mouth to tell him to please at least make sense if he’s going to continue to attempt conversation. Before he can do that there is a snarl and both of them quickly hone in on where Deacon and the first Nathan are arguing over the cup and ball. They move as if of a single mind. For keeping the peace purposes.
Anton expects being alone in the vampires’ home during the daytime to be creepy, but really it’s just like being in anyone else’s home alone. He feels a little invasive and a little like he’s getting away with something he shouldn’t be doing. He can just walk around and touch everything they own if he wants, and they wouldn’t even know! He can open up all of their knickknacks and go through their fridge and look for their secrets. Although, one candy bowl full of something that suspiciously looks like small vertebrae in the idea starts to lose its luster.
He’s supposed to be waiting for someone to come and install a washer and dryer in the basement. Service windows are a nightmare at the best of times, and it’s the weekend before a public holiday, which always throws the whole world off. Stu was supposed to be here, but it turns out IT emergencies do not heed standard business hours either.
It takes him all of twenty minutes to get bored and go get acquainted with the basement, just in case the delivery men need help. He is both glad and genuinely upset that he does, because it’s a literal crime scene down there.
Aside from being in a general state of disuse, the room smells like spoiled meat in a charnel house and there is a body in the middle of the floor. The charring on and around it suggests some sort of flame has been dragged along from the stone coffin in the corner to the other side of the room and back. Reluctantly, he takes a deeper sniff of the air and notes two things that would be extremely out of place in a vampire residence: holy water and silver. A hunter.
He puts his hands on his hips and sighs down at the body with no sympathy and a heavy amount of exasperation. “Well, not only did you get what was coming to you, but you’ve left a fine bloody mess for me to boot.”
Anton rolls up his sleeves and goes looking for the cleaning supplies.
By the time the delivery men get there and start their install, apologizing for the back up all the while, it’s almost five in the evening. The basement isn’t spotless, but it is at least bodiless and smelling of bleach, which Anton likes to think isn’t too weird a state for workmen to find a basement in. They get everything in and squared away with just enough time before sundown for Anton to put everything back where he found it. Except for the body, which will stay closed up in the coffin, because it’s none of his business thank you very much.
He’s just about to make his escape out the front door when he hears a creak on the stairs.
“You are not Stu.”
Anton turns to see Viago on the landing above him. He’s barefoot, wearing a generous green robe with wide sleeves and a faint design of large flowers embroidered in it, and looking down at Anton with a tired expression that carries all the regality a man with at least five names should have. Anton is used to seeing Viago the way Viago wants other people to see him–amusing, charming, curious, the unlife of the party–and he gets the sense that right now he’s seeing a side of him that he’s not meant to. Yet another thing for him to get away with in this big, lonely house. He’s awed by the sheer gravity of him, because he honestly didn’t know Viago had it in him. He’s a little spooked.
“No,” Anton says, as soon as he gets his voice to unstick. “Sorry.”
Viago starts down the stairs, the robe catching each step behind him with a quiet shushing sound. “You do not need to be sorry for being yourself, Anton, but you should please tell me why you are here when we are vulnerable and you have not been invited.”
Right. Protection. Viago is the protector, just like he is. The vampire comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and watches him, waiting for an answer. His brown eyes are slightly hooded with leftover sleepiness, long dark lashes curling against his pale olive skin, usually coiffed hair tousled, hands gripping the crossed edge of the robe in front of his chest. He stands unnaturally still, like the world’s sleepiest murder statue, its least threatening predator. Anton idly thinks he might get a kitten and name it after him.
“Stu asked me to. He had a work thing, and he didn’t want you to have to reschedule the delivery men.”
“Delivery men?” Viago scrunches his nose, thinking. His face goes from tired and confused to excited in the time it takes Anton to blink. “Oh yes! The clothes appliances! Where are they?”
“In the basement.”
Viago speedwalks his way across to the basement door to see them and Anton jogs a little to beat him to it. “Wait, the sun wasn’t quite down yet, let me check that everything is closed up tight.”
Viago nods solemnly and lets Anton creep down the stairs alone. When he’s sure there is no light he calls back up and Viago comes rushing down, holding his robe up around his bare knees. Once he gets to the appliances he throws his arms wide and drops onto them, cheek pressed to the dryer lid. He hums happily
“Between this and the dishwasher I am going to get to spend so much time doing other things.”
“That’s what they promised housewives in the fifties, mate,” Anton jokes. “Be sure you don’t get suckered into any newly made up chores in their stead.”
Viago sighs, but there’s a note of fondness in it.
“Yes, with Vlad and Deacon there will always be more to do I’m sure. Petyr would never have–” He cuts himself off, pushes himself up, and turns to take in the room as if he’s seeing it for the first time. He blinks several times. “There is something different.”
“I’ll say, there was a whole dead hunter on your floor. And it took me forever to get up the scorch marks. They tell you bleach will handle any job, but that’s really not true.”
Viago turns his wide eyes on Anton. “You cleaned everything?”
“Not everything.” Anton looks down at his shoes and rubs the back of his neck, suddenly feeling too perceived. “I didn’t know what to do with the body, so I just put it in there.” He gestures to the coffin.
Viago follows the direction of his finger and his face shifts into something closer to what he’d looked like on the stairs, jaw working as he takes it in. When he speaks his voice is soft in the way jungle cats step softly. “You put the hunter in Petyr’s coffin?”
Anton reconsiders naming a kitten after him. Maybe if the kitten is a jaguar. “I didn’t know what else to do with him! I didn’t come over here to dispose of a body and clean for two hours. I was just supposed to like, open a door!”
“I wish you had not done that particular thing, kleiner Wolf. But I understand why you did. Thank you for all of the work you put in today.” He brings his hands back to the lapel at his chest and focuses on Anton again. “I think that perhaps you are becoming a valuable friend.”
Something warm bursts in Anton’s chest. He puts his shoulders back and stands a little taller. “Of course. That’s what friends do. If you like, I can show you how to work this.”
“I would love that,” Viago says. He is much more subdued this time when he follows Anton to the machines.
Viago is out hunting when he smells Anton. More precisely, he is standing under the dark canopy of trees on the edge of a park, fangs deep in some asshole who tried to get into his car while drunk. He pulls out just as the smell of the werewolf is approaching and yells for him.
“Slow down, kleiner Wolf ! What are you running from?”
Anton pauses in his jog, feet still going as he runs in place, and waves over at Viago. “What have you got there?”
“Just an early dinner. Didn’t want the night to get away from me.” The man lets out a weak moan and Viago pets his face and neck in slow strokes to calm him. Blood smears everywhere. “I was almost finished if you would like some company.”
Anton stops running in place and takes a step toward him. “I can’t believe you would just do that here!” he hisses. “What if someone sees you?”
“Sees what?” Viago asks. He had not meant to drink a drunk person, and he’s suddenly feeling very warm and slow out of context. “Who is not to say we are not simply two lovers, out for a late night necking?”
“Yeah, no one says necking anymore. Also, I don’t think it involves quite that much neck.”
Viago shrugs. Neither of those things are of importance in his languid state. “I will be but a moment.”
He swings the man around and goes back in to finish his meal. Before, where he could only smell the tang of blood and the ozone of the night, there is now a decidedly heavy musk coming from Anton. It’s not unpleasant, just overpowering now that he’s close, and it makes something in Viago’s gut shift to be drinking so deeply and thinking of Anton at the same time. Life is full of intimacies, an immortal life exponentially so, but there are still some he does not like to get crossed. Two of them are friend and food.
He wonders what it would be like to eat Anton up.
When he’s finished he drops the man behind a bush and pulls out a handkerchief to politely wipe his hands and mouth with. He starts to pull his gloves back on and turns to see Anton standing much closer than he was. He’s wearing one of his ubiquitous track suits and there’s a faint sheen of sweat across his pale skin. Viago can hear the blood running through him at a hectic pace, even though his breathing seems relatively normal.
“You did not answer my question,” Viago says.
Anton swallows. His Adam’s apple shifts beneath the skin of his throat. “I’m sorry, what?”
Friend. Food.
“What are you running from?”
“Oh, hah,” he laughs a little breathlessly and scratches the back of his neck. “Just myself.”
“That does not seem productive as you do not seem to have lost yourself. You must need to run very fast for that, hm?”
Anton laughs for real this time and Viago preens a bit at having elicited the sound. “Haven’t learned to run fast enough yet, it turns out. I always get this way before a full moon. Itchy, you know?”
“Hm,” Viago thinks. The memories are slow tonight. “I may have known at one time. I quite forget what it was like to truly be a young man with things to outrun.”
“I forget that sometimes.”
“Forget what?”
“That you aren’t young. Or well, as young as you look. I’m sure you’re young for a vampire. I mean, sorry. I didn’t mean to call you old. Is that rude?”
Viago watches Anton ramble and finds that he is sort of delighted by the happening of it. He so very rarely sees the Alpha on the backfoot with anything. It is almost as pleasing as having made him laugh. When Anton runs out of steam Viago grins at him. “Old is relative, yes?”
“Yes,” Anton says, looking relieved.
“Were you going anywhere in particular? I like to stroll around the park sometimes in the evening. It’s a bit like strolling through my father’s gardens. Except not at all.”
“Yeah,” Anton says. “I get that.”
“I suppose everyone has things they cannot go back to. You mustn’t run so fast. You never know what you’ll leave behind.”
Anton gives him a strange, lopsided smile that he’s never seen before.
Viago starts to walk through the trees and away from what’s left of his meal. Anton joins him. For a time they are quiet together. The city around them is teaming with life. People going out yes, but also people just living their lives quietly one at a time–going to the grocery, cooking dinner, walking their dogs, trying to get home to their families. In a tree, one leaf makes very little sound, but if the wind picks up the tree itself is a susurral symphony. Life is like that, when one can hear the things they can.
“Did you ever do anything,” Anton says after the first lap. “With the hunter?”
“Yes. Vlad took him somewhere and incinerated him. It’s not safe to simply dispose of hunters, as you know. If other hunters find them it causes an area to be crawling with the little shits. We already lost Petyr.”
He does not say, I cannot stand to lose any more of my people right now. He does not say, you are one of my people now.
Anton makes an amused noise and Viago looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
“I’m just not used to you sounding so,” he pauses. “Angry, I suppose.”
The word ‘angry’ catches Viago by surprise. He was sure Anton had been trying to figure out how to politely call him out for cursing when he’s not one of his pack. “I suppose you are just around when I am trying to be my most gentlemanly.”
“Nah, I remember you slapping my mate with your glove, that night with the cameras.”
Viago also remembers this. He remembers being more tired than angry. It had already been a long night, after all.
He has been the way he is for almost four hundred years. Words and societal norms may shift, but some things always stay the same. Remarks. Insinuations. Aggressions. And because of what? Because he is pretty and soft and likes to dress well? He was brought up to be these things. These are all things he likes about himself. And sure, he also likes men–even outside of the carnal nature of being a vampire, has since he was a small pubescent welp–but he’s not sure what one set of circumstances has to do with the other.
No, he will not feel shame for things that bring him joy. If he was going to do that for an eternity, then eternity would be worthless.
“A gentleman stands up for himself,” Viago says. “He was being very rude.
“He was,” Anton agrees easily. “I talked to them after, all of them. They know that I’m, well, they know my preferences. But I think they see them as academic, since I haven’t really been with anyone in a while. And you know how it is with lads. Get them all together and they just morph into one big idiot.”
“Like the Gundam,” Viago says, because he’d looked it up after their talk at the party and asked Stu what it was all about.
Anton laughs. “Yeah, like the Gundam.”
“Why not?”
It must be the alcohol making him pensively dwell on this, but Viago doesn’t understand why Anton would deny himself the pleasure of another person. Sure, Viago hasn’t seen anyone regularly since Katherine broke things off, but he has all the time in the world to be touched. Anton has so much less of it and Viago doesn’t understand why he’s not making the most of it.
“Why not what?”
“Why haven’t you been with anyone?”
“Whoa, that’s a bit intense for a friendly question.” They walk almost an entire lap of the park before Anton answers. “It’s just impossible,” he says finally. “There’s no way to date a human without them finding out that I’m a werewolf, and there’s no way I’d date someone from the pack, even if I wanted any of them. It feels like a grievous misuse of power.”
“Who said anything about dating? Sometimes it’s nice just to fornicate, yes? Clears the mind.”
Anton sucks in a breath and looks across at him with wide eyes. “I, um, yep. That’s probably very true. But it’s not, exactly, what I’m looking for?”
“You sound unsure.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I have had a lot of practice.” Anton chokes. Viago stops. He reaches out and rubs a small circle into Anton’s back while he regains his composure. “I am sorry, I did not mean to shock you.”
“You didn’t shock me,” Anton says. “I mean, look at you, of course you have, Jesus.”
Viago pulls away abruptly and hisses at the name.
Anton laughs around a few more coughs and throws his hands up. “Sorry, sorry! I just meant, yeah.” He gestures at Viago’s general form. “Can’t think of many people who wouldn’t want to have one off with you.”
“Not you though?” Viago says, smug and pushing at the boundaries of this friendly rapport.
Anton clears his throat and starts walking again. “I mean, yeah, maybe me, if I didn’t know you.”
“Och, fucking rude! I will slap you with my glove!”
Anton is giggling now. His shoulders shake with it. “Being mortal enemies kind of puts a damper on the whole thing, wouldn’t you say?”
“A little tension never hurts.” Viago doesn’t even know why he’s trying to stand up for himself here. He most definitely does not want to fornicate with Anton. Who is a werewolf of all things. A soft, kind, funny, disgusting little werewolf. “Vlad would say that it could only enhance the proceedings.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being on your best behavior for everyone?” Anton asks, picking up the old subject. “Don’t you ever just want to go wild?”
He grins at Viago. It’s a small, private thing, and of all the rewards he’s collected from Anton tonight this is Viago’s favorite.
“We are both wild creatures, kleiner Wolf. I can’t be anything but.”
“Nah.” Anton gives him a little push with his shoulder. “We are both creatures, but you’re rather refined.”
“Do you think so?”
“Sure. I mean, with your clothes and your manners and your agates and all.”
Viago startles himself with how hard he laughs at that and Anton joins in. His laugh is as warm as the rest of him.
“Maybe you should come out with us tomorrow night. Just tumble a bit. It’s gonna be a special one for us. I can tell you where to find us after it gets dark.”
Viago knows down in his gut that this is a terrible idea. The last time they’d had a run in with transformed wolves Stu had been accidentally almost murdered. And a couple of cameramen had been accidentally for real murdered. The wolves are wild. They cannot control who they kill like the vampires can. What if one of them wants to kill him?
Still, he is currently both physically strong enough that he thinks he could probably take at least one or two of them and not strong enough in will to deny Anton when he’s looking at him like that with street lamps and moonshine on his face and the breeze ruffling his hair. This is why Viago has stopped running from things. When you are going to be alive as long as he will be–has already been–things just find you.
“I will consider it,” Viago says, as if there is any chance he’ll make the right decision.
The eyes stare at him in the dark. The wolf accepts the challenge, desiring those–
Anton comes back to himself naked and curled into a tight ball under heavy brush. The canopy of the trees is muting the sunrise, but everything is still golden and hushed. For the moment there is only the sound of birds chirping around him and the early morning quiet, which always feels intimate to him, even when he is alone. He stretches and sits up to check himself over.
Everything seems fine. There are light scratches all across his body that are already healing away to nothing. The dirt crusted on his hands and feet and caked under his nails doesn’t have any blood in it. His mouth doesn’t even taste too much like something died in it. Overall, it must have been a successful night. He’ll have to check on the rest of the boys before he knows for sure.
Once a year the pack finds a piece of land far enough away from other people where they can just run. It’s a huge relief for everyone, but also getting harder and harder to do as the wilderness becomes ever so encroached on by the cities. The prep is more work for him, and a lot more stress for everyone, but the aftermath so far has been worth it. He loves to see his pack looking refreshed and worn out in that blissful way that comes from joyous activity. It’s so much nicer to have scrapes from roughhousing and tree branches than deep slices from chains and cuffs.
He gets up, stretches each limb until something pops, and lets out a whistle, low to high. Soon there’s a chorus of high to low whistles in return as the rest of them check in. Someone, Declan he thinks, lets out a loud yip! to let everyone know he’s near the van so they can find their way back to their clothing.
Anton starts to head off in that direction when something white catches his eye. At first he thinks it must be a sprouting of Coral Tooth mushroom–but that usually grows on hardwood, not the forest floor–and when he looks closer he sees that it’s a bit of dirty lace. He bends to pick it up.
–wide, dark eyes.
The chase. His wolf barrels through the forest after its prey, his pack nipping on his heels. There is not death at the end of this. This is frolick, this is what the wolves want to do. They don’t want to be afraid or angry or threatened. They just are most of the time. They want to be free to run and run and capture.
He reaches out his nose and nudges the hip of his prey and it tumbles to the forest floor, laughing.
Snatches of thoughts. A white shirt glowing in the moonlight. Cold hands digging into the fur of his neck. Being flipped over, like it’s easy, like it’s nothing. Viago, perched atop his belly in triumph, hands pinning his front paws to the dirt. The other wolves howling and baying and somewhere in him he knows that if he does not win this things will be altered.
Viago underneath him again. More howling. Viago running his hands through his fur, down his sides, talking to him softly in his loping accent. Leaning up and up and up to whisper in his ear, baring his long, delicate throat without a care.
His eyes are so dark–
“Hey man, are you okay?”
Anton snaps his head up. It’s Stu. Of course it’s Stu, who is polite and quiet enough to approach without being heard and always makes sure everyone has what they need, even when no one knows he’s doing it. What a good addition he’s been. What a strange bit of kismet that brought them all together.
Stu nods at his hand. “Is that Viago’s? I don’t know why he was here, but it was a lot of fun having him. Do you think he’d come again if we asked? Maybe Nick can come too.”
“Maybe,” Anton says, still running the lace through his hands. It’s Viago’s cravat, of course. He can see that now. Of course Viago had worn his usual clothing to come run through the woods. What else would he have worn? Is he capable of wearing less?
He hadn’t expected Viago to actually turn up when he’d invited him. It’s just that in that moment he’d thought he didn’t want to stop spending time with him, because the night was nice and he was such a grounding presence in Anton’s anxious state. Somewhere, in the month or so between planning Stu’s party and now he’s stopped putting his guard up around the vampire. His wolf, ever present and always sniffing out danger, has decided he doesn’t need to. Which is frankly weird, since they’re still supposed to be mortal enemies and all.
Maybe there’s a lot of things the word enemy can mean and not all of them end in certain death. Maybe they just end in this: a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach the morning after a wildly successful moon. Maybe he has a lot to think about.
“Maybe,” he says again.
Stu looks him over, head tilted, curious. “Okay,” he says. “Declan wants to know if we can stop at Macca’s, because he only drinks shitty coffee and he needs a gallon of it if he’s going to help on the drive home.”
Anton smiles and wraps the cravat around his hand. “Did he really think I wasn’t going to feed you all? It’d be a pain worse than death to have to spend hours in a van full of hangry werewolves.”
“Reckon he was just worried we’d stop somewhere too nice. Like a filling station somewhere.” Stu shrugs and turns to amble off toward the van.
Anton grips his fist around the lace in his palm and follows.
Viago stares up into the darkness of his coffin. For the fifteenth consecutive evening he wishes that he was once again somehow human so that he could go back to sleep and pick up where he left off in his dreams. He does not remember his own human dreams, but he has heard that this can happen sometimes.
As a rule, vampires do not dream. But their brains work away just as much as anything else’s and they get memories stuck in their sleeping minds. Currently Viago’s sleeping mind is only interested in one thing, his night with the wolf pack.
It had been so exhilarating, running around in the moonlight, playing chase and hide and seek and wrestling with Anton while the others watched on, rooting for them. Or at least, he assumes that’s what they were doing. Nevertheless, he’d had so much fun that it almost didn’t even sting when he came home stinking of a foreign forest and the whole pack and Vlad and Deacon mercilessly taunted him about it. They’d called him a wolf fucker and a disgrace and put him through a mini Procession of Shame until Nick had finally stepped between them and started a fight with Deacon to distract them.
“Who the fuck cares?” Nick had shouted. “Stu is a werewolf and you guys love Stu! If Stu had invited me last night I would have said fuck yes and booked it over with Viago! Just because you assholes don’t know how to make friends, it’s our fault all of a sudden?”
“Anton is not a friend, he is a disgusting animal!” Deacon spat.
“Yeah! And I have plenty of friends!” Vlad added. “Proper handsome, buxom, non-wolf friends who want to fornicate with me.” He swung his eyes to Viago. “Does Anton wish to fornicate with you?”
That question had stunned Viago into silence and then Nick started yelling at Vlad. So it went, on and on and on, until Viago gave up and left them to it.
In truth, Viago does not know if Anton wants to fornicate with him. He does not think he wants to fornicate with Anton, but the idea of it isn’t quite as repulsive to him as it had been previously. Perhaps it is that he knows him better now.
Before the two groups really started mingling, when he thought of Anton he only thought of the ways in which they are the same–both protective of their respective broods, organized, clean, a deep desire to be helpful. It’s the thing that makes them both feel most fulfilled. Anton hasn’t told Viago as much, but Viago can tell.
Now when he thinks of Anton it’s much less big picture and much more granular. He thinks of the slight dimple on his right cheek and all the different ways he can laugh. He thinks of the gentle way Anton will sometimes brush up against him in the course of their evening activities. The way the heat radiates off him when they are standing close together like he’s his own little star.
His wolf is so much warmer still. He’s a large, fur covered furnace. Twice as big as Viago in mass and with just as much sheer power. He might as well be made entirely of steel, the way he can barrel through anything in his way. When they were playing chase whole sections of the forest that Viago delicately maneuvered around ended up shattered and torn as Anton bluntly pursued him. It had made Viago feel giddy to be up against an opponent that could be a true match for him.
There is one part that replays itself to him over and over again, even in his waking mind. It’s when Anton catches him.
Even in remembering, Viago doesn’t know if Anton his friend understands his request that there be no claws or teeth used on his person when he asks it of the wolf, but the wolf respects it anyway. He tags Viago with his nose when he catches up and Viago tumbles onto his back on the forest floor, laughing. The wolf’s large yellow eyes study him for a moment before he paws at the ground several times and then sniffs at Viago’s boots. He runs his nose up the entirety of Viago’s body until his hot, wet breath is ruffling his hair. Viago lies still and lets it happen, because this is the only way for the wolf to claim his prize without breaking Viago’s one rule.
Once the wolf is satisfied with his quarry, he drops his heavy body onto Viago and pins him to the ground as he lazily licks his face. This tickles and only makes Viago laugh harder. The sound of it mixes in the air with the baying and howling of the other wolves. It’s only fair, Viago thinks, to fight back.
He digs his fingers into the fur around Anton’s transformed face first, running his nails through the thick of it and scratching up around his ears. The wolf makes a pitiable whine at this and wiggles a little above him. It’s almost enough for him to get his legs up on either side of the barrel of his body. When that doesn’t work the way he wants he runs his fingers down the wolf’s sides, digging in and wiggling them around, hoping to hell and back that wolves can be as ticklish as humans.
As it turns out, hope will still listen to Viago on occasion. The wolf yelps and half stands, which gives Viago just enough space to press his feet into Anton's belly and then push to flip him. Once their places are switched and he is straddling the panting creature he raises his fists in the air and whoops in victory. The other wolves go wild and the forest becomes a tangled chorus of howling and echoes of howling. It’s almost enough to wake the dead, if Viago weren’t already awake and present.
He senses something in the air shift. The wolves get restless and the hair on his arms stands on end. He leans over Anton, running his hands down his splayed front legs until they are resting on his paws. Anton whines. Viago boops the end of his nose with his own. A snarl goes up somewhere behind him.
Viago thinks, Shit. He thinks, I think I accidentally challenged the Alpha. He thinks, No matter how many fancy appliances Stu orders us, I do not have time to take care of a den of vampires and a pack of wolves!
Under him, the wolf squirms and paws at the air. It’s no match really, because while Viago is just as strong as the wolf, he’s still half his size. The wolf growls deep in his throat, returns the snarls of the pack, and then Viago is on his back again. This time there is a single paw weighing heavy on his chest.
For a moment he’s worried. If not for his life, then for the remaining wear life of his shirt. But the claws do not touch him, even when the wolf presses his foot down. Even in this form, this version of himself that Anton always refers to as monstrous and beastly, he is gentle. He will not hurt Viago. He will not threaten the structure of his pack to let him have a victory, but he will only give Viago the aggression he has got from him. Which is none, really.
Viago reaches up with his hands and the wolf leans forward so that he can wrap his fingers in the thick fur about his neck.
“I am sorry, Anton,” he whispers. “I did not mean to cause trouble. I wanted only to keep up the game.”
The wolf leans in and delicately bumps his nose against Viago’s.
Viago runs his hands down the wolf’s sides. He leans up so that he can put his lips to one of the wolf’s twitching ears. Hoping that none of the others hear, he uses his quietest voice to say, “We shall be equals, mein Wolf. Perhaps this can happen again when there is no audience and your claws are much less pointy, huh? It will not be a fair fight. It will merely be balanced differently. We are always finding ourselves balanced differently aren’t we, you and I?”
The wolf tilts its head back and Viago thinks that for a moment he can see a flash of hazel in the yellow sclera and black pupil of the wolf’s eye. Anton shudders above him and backs away, letting him go. It is time for another game.
Now, in his coffin, Viago does not know what possessed him to say such a thing. Adrenaline, perhaps. Adrenaline, giddiness, alcohol–these things have always made him boastful, and while he was not drunk while he was with the pack he was a bit drunk on the thrill of it. On being so instantly included when he had no business being there at all, and isn’t that always Anton’s way?
Viago is helpful because he needs to be, because there is a drive within him that selfishly wants to be in the hopes that it makes people value him. Anton though, Anton is helpful because he wants others to be happy. Even in wolf form, he wanted Viago to be happy. Because of that want, Viago was.
Just another granular difference between them.
Viago does not think he wants to fornicate with Anton, but he remembers the wolf’s strength, how the muscle and sinew felt beneath his hands. He wants to know if those things still exist when Anton is just a human, just his little wolf. He does not think he will ever find out, but it is true that hope does sometimes listen to him.
Anton is late to the vampires’ residence for the jam session/karaoke party and judging by racket he can hear while still on the porch, things are already in full swing. He’s been running late all week after that hell of a full moon night they’d had on Monday. It’s always hard going back to locks and chains after getting to run free, but for some reason every one of them, down to a wolf, had been agitated enough to thrash about the entire night, leaving deep cuts in the trees and themselves. Unfortunately, both would be slow to heal.
He has bandages along his forearms and legs even now as he goes to raise a fist to the door. As it happens, Viago throws it wide and sticks his head out before he can knock. Behind Viago, Deacon is playing an accordion while Vlad and Dion sing an incredibly off key rendition of Warrant’s Cherry Pie. Viago’s face is very close to his.
“Do you need to come in?” he says, voice a bit desperate.
“I don’t guess I have to?” Anton asks. “If no one needs me here I can go.”
“Good.” Viago slides onto the porch and slams the door behind him. Now they are even closer.
Anton takes a step back. “That good, huh?”
Viago stalks down the steps yelling and gesticulating wildly with his hands. Anton follows a few paces behind.
“I told them not to bring out the theremin! I was worried about the frequencies and your poor wolf ears and I was right! It drove some of your guys absolutely crazy! Though Stu was fine so I can’t be sure it was the frequency itself and not just Deacon’s horrible playing and their werewolf typical lack of tact. In my day you had to sit through the most god awful cat yowling violin recitals from visiting dignitaries' children and just nod politely and offer them an extra hectare of land for the joy of it! And then Nick thought it would be funny to try and play the Macarena on the trumpet. He doesn’t even know how to play the trumpet. I’m not sure he knows how the Macarena goes. He’s such a baby. What was he when that came out, negative ten??”
“Positive ten at least I think,” Anton says.
Viago hits the end of the lawn and takes a sharp left down the street in front of the house, striding off into the dark of the night. “And Deacon just can’t fucking help himself from starting fights. I used to think it was a cool guy thing, but now I’m not certain it might not be a cool guy thing and an asshole thing. At least none of your pack took the bait this time. You really must be training them well. What kind of treats do you use?”
“Positive reinforcement and beer, mostly.” Anton does a little jog to catch up so that they can be side by side. It’s probably safer.
“I’ve just been sleeping so poorly that everything gives me an awful headache. You’d think once you were done living you might not be burdened by those odd aches and pains anymore, but no! Apparently brains are the exception and vampires still have those! Not that you could tell by how Vlad is incessantly carrying on about The Beast and rubbing it in my face that people do not wish to fornicate with me.”
“That’s probably not true,” Anton says mildly, knowing very well that’s not true.
“And then one of the Nathan’s confused a Ming vase for–wait. What?”
Viago stops both his mouth and his feet so suddenly that Anton has to turn back around to face him. He is really looking at Anton for the first time since the door opened. The waxing moon is just beginning to grow again and in the low light at the end of the street the sharp edges of him bleed into shadow. He looks stark and beautiful.
Thankfully, Viago notices the bandages peeking out from the sleeves of his track jacket before he can beg Anton for further comment on the fornication. Which is handy, because Anton has just realized this second that he would like to forni-uh, fuck Viago. He shakes his head to try and reset it.
“ Mein Wolf ,” Viago says quietly. He takes Anton’s hand in his and holds his arm up to inspect it. “What has happened to you?”
“Just a bad moon,” Anton says. He runs his free hand down his face to try and wipe some of the exhaustion away. “It will be fine eventually.”
“Don’t you usually heal faster than this?”
“I am usually not so…disquieted, during the change.” It's you , he thinks. It’s different with you gone, now that we’ve had you.
“That is a wonder, it is very disquieting.”
“You weren’t even there for the least quiet part of it,” Anton says, hoping it will lighten the mood that has so suddenly pitched from fury to worry. He always hates to be the one to bring down a party.
Viago pushes up his sleeve and traces the length of the bandage on his forearm with a gentle finger. “I wish I could heal this for you.”
“That’s a kind thought, thank you, Viago.”
Viago looks up at his face and narrows his eyes, distrustful. Anton doesn’t know if Viago doesn’t trust the sentiment or just that it’s coming from one of his mortal enemies. He’s being perfectly honest on both counts. Viago is kind to those he cares about and Anton, though he’s a werewolf, believes him to be so. Anton does not dwell on when he might have become someone Viago cares about.
“How do you do that?” Viago asks.
“Do what?” Anton considers taking his hand back. Viago has been holding it for quite a long time in his cool grip and it is not helping Anton forget his recent revelation.
“You just take the aaaarrggharahg out of everyone and make it go pop.” This last sound he makes by pulling his lips apart. “Are you sure you are only a werewolf? You were not an energy vampire before you were turned?”
“I don’t think so.”
Viago nods as if his answer has corroborated some other evidence. Anton looks up into the sky, because if he keeps looking at his hand in Viago’s he will not be held accountable for his actions.
They are on a dark part of the street, but within the bounds of the city, so the sky isn’t as purely stunning as it is in the wilderness. There are still a decent amount of stars around the light pollution. He tilts his head back even farther, trying to see as much of it as he can at once. There’s a streak then, out of the corner of his eye, like a match falling through a cave.
He flings his free hand up, finger pointing at the place where he saw it. “Did you see it too?”
Anton makes a wish.
“See what?” Viago lowers his hand, but does not let go of it. Instead, he threads their fingers together. They stand in silence, palm to palm, looking up at the sky.
Anton has never had a wish come true quite that fast.
Next to him Viago gives a little yelp and jiggles their hands. “I saw one!”
“Make a wish.”
Anton leans in a little and bumps their shoulders together. The last time he used this move he was sixteen and it had worked like a charm. He’s not sure it will work on another adult, but he can’t resist it. Viago makes him feel young, and he doesn’t think it’s only because he has at least three hundred years on him.
“What should I wish for?” Viago asks, eyes still trained up at the stars.
“I can’t tell you that, your wish won’t work.”
“What did you wish for?”
Anton feels so fond his chest hurts. “I can’t tell you that, my wish won’t work.”
“Okay.” Viago scrunches up his face in thought.
After a moment he closes his eyes and Anton takes the opportunity to really stare at him. He feels like he did the evening after the appliance install, like he’s stealing something just by seeing Viago this way. The vampire has gone still. His face smooths over. He licks his lips and a fang pokes out after.
There are so many incongruities in the way he thinks about Viago now. It used to just be vampire, enemy, bad. Now it’s…so many things, really. Vampire–yes. Enemy–probably not, actually. Bad–absolutely not. Not even his wolf gets interested in Viago anymore. It stays quiet within him whenever he’s around and seems to have just accepted him as a member of Anton’s extended circle–a safe person. Safe is a ludicrous word to use with creatures like them. With the appropriate incentive, either one of them could kill the other at any point with efficient and cruel certainty. But maybe that’s part of it. They could, but they don’t want to.
Instead they protect each other from all sorts of things, big and small. At first it was for Stu, but Anton knows that, at least for him, it hasn’t been about Stu at all for months. It’s been about Viago. Confounding, beautiful, funny, weird Viago. It is at this moment, under the moon and everything, that Anton realizes that he doesn’t only want to fuck Viago. Shit.
They stand there for a good long stretch of time before Viago drops his gaze and says, “So, about the fornication.”
“Oh g-glorified mosquito! Stop saying fornicate!” Anton shoves him away and Viago titters. He drops Anton’s hand, stumbling back and dancing forward again.
“I am joking! I know people want to fuck with me. Vlad is just trying to be hurtful because I did not want to attend his latest orgy.”
“No?” Anton asks, trying to regain his composure after that onslaught of fornication.
“No. My head was too full of thoughts. It was like having the brain scramblies. Makes it all less fun.”
“That is true.”
“Also, I am missing my best cravat and it would not do to show up to an orgy looking less than my best.”
Anton remembers why he was late. He went home first to collect Viago’s cravat. He digs around in the pockets of his jacket before he finds the large handful of lace. “Here. You left it in the forest. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get it back to you. I tried to get all of the dirt out, maybe descale it a bit. I wasn’t sure how long you’d had it.”
Viago’s face crumples for a moment in confusion or uncertainty, maybe something else. For a second Anton is worried he’s going to cry. But it all slips back into his usual, placid visage before Anton can take another breath.
“Thank you, Anton. That was also kind.”
“That’s uh, what friends are for, yeah? And it was my fault it was dirty in the first place. You wouldn’t have been out rough housing in the woods if not for me.”
“This is true,” Viago says. “But I’m glad I went.” His smile is small, almost shy.
They stand there for another few minutes, listening to the sounds of far away cars and the trees and houses lining the street, before Viago slowly reaches out and recaptures Anton’s hand. He brings it up and presses a single, gentle kiss to the place where his inner wrist lays beneath the bandage. He repeats the action with the other hand.
“Do you want to do my ankles too?” Anton asks, because he’s incapable of not panicking when handsome men put their lips on him.
“Do you want me to?” And for all that Viago is always technically breathless, because vampires don’t need to breathe, it comes out just a bit more affected than Anton has ever heard him be.
Anton well and truly doesn’t know what to say. The answer is yes, it might start something. The answer is also no, it might start something. They stare at each other in the closeness of the night, Viago lightly rubbing his thumb in slow circles over Anton’s pulse point, for almost as long as they’d watched the stars.
“We should probably head back,” Anton says. “Who knows what’s happened with us gone.”
“I don’t smell smoke.” Viago gives him a lopsided grin with both of his fangs showing.
It’s absolutely insane how Anton keeps thinking about how cute this supernatural murderer is. And yet. He returns Viago’s grin and Viago nods once to himself, before turning back and tugging Anton along behind him.
Viago stands nervously outside of Anton’s flat and doesn’t knock. There is a small window next to the door where the curtain has been partially pushed aside and he watches Anton through it. The little wolf is puttering about, neatening things and then re-neatening them. It’s very much the sort of thing Viago himself does when he’s going to have company he’s nervous about. Tonight is just supposed to be the wolves and vampires, so he doesn’t know what there is to be nervous about. Though, this will be the first time they’re meeting at Anton’s home. Perhaps that is it.
It’s strange actually that no one else is here. Deacon, Vlad, and Nick had all gone hunting separately without him and told him they’d meet him here. And he’d expected at least Stu to be here already out of the werewolves. Stu is always prompt. It is one of his many excellent qualities.
Anton pauses in his anxious motion to pull his phone from his pocket and check it. He makes a face, puts it away, and then looks up toward the door. Viago can tell the moment he notices him because the worry lines on his face smooth over and he hurries to open it.
“Hey,” he says. He leans against the door frame, one hand resting on the frame opposite and one hand gripping the bit above the door, so that he’s taking up every bit of space and making it impossible to walk through. It also makes it impossible not to drink him in. His t-shirt rides up as Viago’s eyes trail down the length of him, revealing the intriguing little trail of hair from his navel down into his jeans. When Viago brings his eyes back up to his face Anton is watching him with an amused quirk to his lips. “I know you have to be invited in, but I didn’t think you had to be invited to knock.”
He looks calm now that he has someone to entertain and that feeling infects Viago, whose shoulders are relaxing in Anton’s presence. That seems to happen around Anton a lot lately. Perhaps it is some Alpha magic that is rubbing off on him.
“I was just curious because it was so quiet inside. I thought maybe you had been murdered and everyone else at the party had gone to avenge your death.”
Anton smiles wider and steps back, letting go of the door frame. “I kind of wish that’s what had happened. Come in, V.”
The nickname is a recent thing, but he finds it quite delightful. No one else has ever given him a nickname. They all just call him Viago. Or Mr. Von Dorna Schmarten Scheden Heimburg. Or sometimes things like Uptight Fucking Dandy Prick, which is almost as long as his real name and not in the spirit of nicknames at all.
Viago enters Anton’s apartment and looks around. It’s not as homey as his own house. There is too much blank, empty space on the walls and the floors. But the lighting is nice and warm and the furniture looks new and comfortable. There’s not a spot of blood to be seen anywhere.
He finds himself drawn to a cluster of small picture frames on the wall of the entryway. There are faces he knows in a few of them–other wolves mostly–and faces he doesn’t. He has the thought that he’s never really asked Anton anything about his life outside of being a werewolf. It simply hasn’t occurred to Viago, who has no life whatsoever outside of being a vampire, because of course he doesn’t. If you live long enough, all of the things that tie you to humanity seem to evaporate over time. Anton is still very young and his life is still robust and full. It’s a wonder Viago fits into it at all.
“That’s my mum,” Anton says, pointing at a ginger woman standing next to him in the center photo. “And my sister.” He points to a young woman on the other side of him who is slightly taller and has darker hair. “She takes after dad obviously.”
“Obviously,” Viago echoes. But if there’s a picture of the father on the wall, he can’t seem to find it to check. “You are so full of mysteries, mein Wolf.”
“Ha,” Anton says. “I could fit my whole life in your front coat pocket if I wanted to. There’s not really very much mystery to be had across it.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” Viago slips his hand into the very same coat pocket and pulls out a white paper bag. “I’ve brought a gift, for the home blazing.”
Anton gives him a confused look for a long moment. “You mean house warming?”
“Is that not what I said?”
Anton accepts the bag with a laugh. Once he’s opened it he laughs even harder and tips it up. The little chattering vampire fangs fall into his hand. “Ah, thank you,” he says. “I shall cherish them always.”
“They are for you to remember me by.”
“V,” Anton begins. He moves away to set the little fangs onto one of the end tables. “I don’t think I could forget you if I tried.”
“Someone could hypnotize you to.” This thought unlocks a new level of anxiety in Viago. “Vlad for instance.”
“Does Vlad want me to forget you?”
“He has not mentioned it.”
Viago does not share that Vlad and Deacon have both asked after Anton many times in the last couple of months since the run Viago took with the wolves. Those questions have been quite crude though, and he probably would not be able to raise the subject without making Anton uncomfortable. Nick is much more blaise about the whole thing, but his own best friend is a werewolf, so of course he doesn’t mind.
“That’s a relief. Here, can I take your coat too? So you can sit?” Anton comes back to his side and holds up his hands. Viago begins to shrug out of his coat and then Anton lifts it up and away. He hangs it on a rack in the hallway just beyond the entry and goes around the island into the kitchen. “Have you eaten? I had Dion bring me some bags from the blood bank in case you guys got hungry.”
“I have, but thank you.” He studies the seating options and decides to sit primly near the center bend of the sectional couch.
When Anton returns he is carrying a beer, which he places on a coaster on the coffee table. He sits on one end of the couch, leaning against the arm of it so that he’s facing Viago with his knees tucked up. Viago could reach out and touch them if he wanted to.
“I think we’ve been had, mate,” Anton says.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Stu pulled the oldest trick in the book of setting up a party with a bunch of people and then telling everyone not to come but the two people he wanted to spend time alone together.”
“That seems like a very convoluted thing to do just to get me to hang out with you. We already spend time alone together.”
“But you haven’t been round,” Anton points out.
“No, I have not been into your home. You have not invited me.” Viago’s not sure what that has to do with anything. He looks around. “It is cozy.”
“I hadn’t invited you I guess, that’s true.” Anton reaches over and picks up the beer bottle. He takes a few sips of it and then perches it on his knee as he starts to peel at the label on the outside.
“That is not my fault. You are invited into our home all of the time.”
“The pack,” Anton says, eyes trained on the bottle.
“What about them?”
“The pack is invited to your home all of the time. I come with them.”
“Are you not a package deal?”
Anton huffs and looks up at him, mouth in a thin line and eyes incredibly bright in the low light. Viago has been studying faces for over three centuries. He likes to think he is good at knowing what people are thinking. No one has ever looked at him quite the way Anton is looking at him right now. That look stretches with the silence until Anton breaks and looks down again.
Viago can hear him fiddling with the wet glue of the label. He can hear the carbonation bubbling up out of the beer and the condensation trickling down the side of it. He can hear the hitch in Anton’s breath and the way he swallows loudly when he looks away.
“No,” Anton says slowly. “I’m my own person too. I am-I’m allowed to want things that the others don’t want.”
“And what you want is me, in your flat, alone.”
There is something like hope fizzing in Viago’s chest. It feels like the carbonation in the bottle sounds. It is attached to a wish that he has very carefully not let himself make, one that he has been wishing around for months. Because this is stupid and hopeless and they are enemies. But what even is an enemy? Certainly you don’t invite your enemies over to play video games or have jam/karaoke nights. You don’t go meet them in the middle of nowhere when they are literal monsters who can rip you to shreds.
Maybe they are not enemies after all. Or maybe they had started out as enemies but time and constancy have made them something else. Something that flares bright in the night. Something one can wish on.
“I want a lot of things,” Anton says, and Viago can tell there is not hope fizzing in him. “I do want to remind you that I didn’t do this. You can blame Stu. And probably Nick. And every one of the others for ditching with, frankly, very bad last minute lies. No one needs to drop shoes off at a dry cleaners at nine pm on a Friday!”
Viago shifts on the couch and leans toward Anton.
“And I bet your lot didn’t even give reasons. They probably just fucked off, right?”
When Anton looks up at him Viago is much closer than he had been. Anton’s knees and the beer bottle are between them, but they are minor obstacles, all things considered. Nothing compared to what will happen if word of this gets out. He finds he doesn’t much mind right at this moment.
“No,” Viago says. “They did not tell me they were not coming. But they never tell me where they are and unless it is near sun up, I do not worry.”
Without looking, Anton reaches out and places the beer bottle on the edge of the coffee table. “I always worry.”
“I know, mein Wolf ,” Viago says. “You have good reason to. Your pack is much more fragile than me and my lot are. In the short term.”
“Have you been calling me that the whole time?” Anton’s human eyes are so different from the eyes of his wolf. They’re soft and hazel and unsteady in his nervousness. His gaze darts from Viago’s eyes to his lips to the space over his shoulder and then back to his face.
“Not the whole time,” Viago says. He places a hand on Anton’s knee.
Anton licks his lips and spreads his knees. He leans up and closes the distance between them.
Viago thinks, yes, this is quite nice. He thinks, up close his eyes are like stained glass. He thinks, this must be what it’s like to swallow the sun.
They are sitting at incredibly awkward angles. Anton is still scrunched up against the arm of the couch with his knees splayed open. He’s hauled Viago across his lap so that his ribs are bracketed by jean clad thighs and Viago is having to balance between his own knees on the cushion and his arms on either side of Anton’s shoulders. Viago does not notice how uncomfortable it is. He's too busy noticing Anton's fingers in his hair and along his jaw and the way Anton's breath is catching in small little sighs in his mouth.
When Anton parts his lips Viago licks his way in. He is careful at first, trying not to catch Anton on his fangs. After a bit an impatient growl slips from Anton’s throat and Viago makes the ever so informed decision of fuck it. If there is blood there is blood. They’re both quite familiar with the possibility. Unbridled, Viago all but drinks Anton down, seeking every unclaimed part of his mouth and learning all of the different noises Anton makes when he is pleased.
Viago’s brain feels like syrup. He wants nothing more than to slide over the heat of this moment forever.
Anton breaks away to breathe. "Fuck, V. If you'd told me you could kiss like that I'd have been even more certain people wanted to fornicate with you."
Viago laughs into Anton's neck and kisses his way from his ear to the neck of his t-shirt. "Swearwolf," he says.
Anton groans. "You say that in public one time! I was defending you!"
"Yes, you are always saving me from things, mein Wolf. I do wonder if you could not save me from myself a bit, hm?" He runs one of his hands down Anton's chest to play with the tail of his shirt.
Anton shifts his legs and Viago levers himself up so he can stretch them out and pull Viago flush against him. They tangle their legs together and get comfortable. Viago wastes no time in getting their lips back together and running his hands up under Anton's shirt.
"You're so warm," he says, because apparently when one’s brain is syrup one can only have very obvious thoughts.
"You're getting warmer." Anton has a very moony grin on his face as he leans his head back on the arm of the couch.
"That happens. Not even the undead are immune to the principles of physics."
Anton laughs and Viago can feel it vibrate through both of their bodies. He's running his hands up and down what he can reach of Anton's stomach and back, delighted to find the muscle he was seeking stretched across the werewolf's compact human frame. Anton is rubbing slow circles across Viago's back through his shirt with both hands. Now that this gate has been breached there are many things he would like to do with Anton, but this is nice for now.
Viago lays his head on Anton's shoulder and starts to lightly blow on Anton's neck. He shivers in Viago's arms.
"I had a thought," Viago starts.
"I hope it wasn't too taxing," Anton says.
Viago leans in and lightly bites down on Anton's throat with his teeth, fangs just digging into the skin.
"Ha," Anton breathes. His whole body shudders. Viago can feel his growing arousal against his stomach. "I was kidding, kidding!"
"I know." Viago licks and kisses over where his teeth have been and Anton squirms beneath him. "As I was saying. I had a thought some time ago that it was a shame you had no one to touch you."
Anton kisses Viago's hair. "People touch me all the time, V. You know I'm not lonely."
"I know." He lazily kisses Anton's neck, running his open lips across the smooth skin and sucking lightly. "I just mean on purpose. Like this. Your life is going to be so short and it makes me sad to think of you wasting all that time when someone could make you feel good. Special. Like you are."
Anton sighs. He runs a finger up Viago's shoulder and neck so he can hook it under his chin and tilt his face up until they’re looking at one another. "That's just about the sweetest existential crisis anyone has ever given me."
Viago’s smile is as lazy as his kisses. His face feels stretched to its limit with it. "You know what I mean."
"I do. One of the things I've been struggling with over my, my crush on you, is that all of this must seem terribly small to you. Everything must, really. I know I feel small next to you. Like I said, I can fit my life in your coat pocket."
Viago leans up so that he's hovering over Anton and takes his face in his hands. He idly runs his thumbs over Anton's flushed cheeks. "You have never looked small to me, Wolf. Liebling. Just because stars may die out and fall in front of you does not make them less bright or beautiful. It is an honor, actually, to get to be the one to touch you. To try and make you feel special."
Anton kisses him again. It's slow and careful. He bites gently at Viago's bottom lip and Viago opens his mouth and lets his tongue in. His kind like to think they have all the time in the world, but when they come together it is so often frantic. That's highly erotic, yes, but so is this, he's finding. So is caring.
Anton breaks away by pressing several short kisses to Viago’s lips and one to his nose. "That was a very romantic thing to say."
"I am a very romantic vampire."
"I'm learning that," Anton says.
"Well then." Viago brings his knees up so that he's straddling Anton's hips. He tugs Anton's shirt up and off and runs a hand down the center of his warm, pale chest, pulling lightly at the hair there. He leans in and kisses him one more time, always one more time. His next words are very careful as he drags his lips across Anton's cheek. "Let me teach you some more."
This is the worst date Viago has ever attempted to have in his life, and that’s including all of the times he’s hit the carotid artery in a victim he was trying not to kill. He has, in fact, ended up covered in just as much blood.
It had started out well enough. He’d had first date jitters, even though he and Anton have spent a lot of time together. There was just something about calling it A Date that sent him into a nervous tail spin. He’d changed outfits seven times before he realized that Deacon and Vlad were just yanking his chain when they told him repeatedly to make it sexier. Thankfully, by the time Anton got there he was back in his first pick and ready to leave.
Anton, ever the gentleman, held his door open when he got into the car, and even let Viago play with the radio buttons on the way into town. He’d brought a very soft blanket for their picnic in the park, and once he’d ordered some takeaway they were all set to cuddle down and enjoy each other’s company, maybe even neck a bit.
Viago wasn’t even halfway through his blood bag when a couple of jerks started harassing them. Sure, the homophobia had been annoying, but probably wouldn’t have ruined the entire evening. The fact that they turned out to be hunters though, had really put a damper on things.
So here Viago is, at the end of their first proper date, standing in Anton’s pristine white bathroom and trying to strip out of his blood soaked clothes in a way that doesn’t stain everything around him. He opts to drop everything in the sink, reasoning that at least it can be wiped down and bleached within an inch of its existence. Just like his shower will need to be.
Anton had taken his shoes before they came inside and was probably somewhere trying to figure out if he needed a permit to burn them, along with all of his own clothes. As it is, it is going to take Viago forever to save this cravat, if he even can. He’s really quite bummed about it.
Viago has just about washed all of the viscera out of his hair when Anton comes and sticks his head around the shower curtain. He’s stripped down to his dark blue boxer briefs and managed to scrub most of the blood off his own arms, but his face is still painted deep red.
“How are you, V?”
His voice is soft, because he actually cares, and for some reason him caring only makes Viago more angry. They were having such a lovely time! “I am really, incredibly put out,” he says. “And I wish I could kill them again.”
Anton exhales loudly, which makes Viago worry even more, because what if him being angry is making Anton angry with him? But when he manages to get his hair out of his eyes he sees that Anton is looking at him fondly.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“Yes, I mean, no.” Viago lets out a close-lipped scream of frustration. “Get in the fucking shower.”
Anton is laughing as he peels out his underwear and climbs in. Viago scoots closer to the water and passes him the shampoo.
“Thank you,” he says.
They continue to lather up to the sound of the running water, Viago seething and Anton being amused that Viago is seething.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“You know it’s okay, right?” Anton scooches past Viago so he can stand under the shower head.
“It’s so far from okay it might as well be on the moon.” Clean now, Viago pushes the shower curtain back a bit so he can sit on the edge of the tub without bringing it down. “This was our first date! It was supposed to be special!”
“I don’t know. You saved me from being murdered, so that feels pretty special.”
“Yeah, well,” Viago rests an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. He can feel his mood slip from angry to grumpy. “You saved me from being murdered first,” he grumbles.
“It’s not a race,” Anton says.
“It was quite literally a race against damnation. Being wiped off the earth forever. Never getting to kiss again! Or something.”
Anton flicks soapy water at his face and he forgets to be grumpy for a moment as he tries to wipe it away from his eyes. From this angle he’s eye level with Anton’s stomach, and watching the soapy water run down the muscular angles and curves of his body is definitely having a leavening effect on his mood.
They’ve fooled around a bit, but they haven’t been completely naked together yet, and Viago almost gets angry again thinking about how he could have had this in a romantic way. He could have slowly disrobed Anton, kissing each new part of his body as it was uncovered, claiming those parts of him in ways that would insure Anton never forgets about him, even if Vlad does try to hypnotize him. He can still do that, of course, but he wanted tonight to be special!
The thing is, he told Anton that he deserved to feel special, and he wasn’t lying when he said it. Anton works so hard for everyone else and all Viago wants to do is maybe make sure someone is putting in a little work for him. Him, he wants to be the one putting the work in. And here Anton is, taking care of him again. Cleaning his shoes and checking in on his emotions and trying to make him feel better. It’s infuriating, really.
When Anton has made sure there isn’t any blood left in any of his nooks or crannies he turns the water off and looks down at Viago.
“Do you want to get out, V, or should we sleep in here?”
“This is the only room in your apartment without a window.”
Anton hums. “I’m sorry, did I say sleep? I meant we have at least five hours until sunrise and I have just decided that means our date isn’t over yet. So, would you like to continue it in here, or?”
Viago would not. He stands and fights with the curtain for a second before he can climb out of the tub. Anton pulls a towel from the stack he’s placed on the side of the vanity. He takes Viago’s hand to raise his arm and starts to slowly run the towel down from his shoulder, drying him off. Viago whines about it. Anton does not stop drying Viago, even as he asks what the matter is.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you! You always take care of everyone else and I wanted to be something less stressful for you, not more.”
Anton stops and takes a step back. He studies Viago for a moment. “You don’t stress me out, V. Just being around you makes me feel nice. Being able to do small things for you makes me feel nice.”
“Then if you know it feels nice, let me do things for you.” He decides to change tack. “I’m selfish, you see. I’m trying to suck up all the nice for myself.”
Anton steps up to him again and drapes the towel over his head like a veil. “Fine then.” He kisses his lips. “Have it your way.” And his jaw. “Take my joy.” He wraps Viago up in his arms, towel and all, and starts to dry his hair against where the towel is draped over his shoulder.
“Stop that!” Viago says.
Anton only rubs himself against Viago harder.
“I mean it!”
Anton’s head snaps up and he stares into Viago’s eyes with an intensity he hasn’t seen from him in human form. “Make me,” he says, and snaps his teeth at Viago.
Viago does. They wrestle over the towel for a bit, but in the end they are both laughing when they fall out of the bathroom door into Anton’s bedroom and onto his bed. Viago climbs on top of him and sets about kissing Anton within an inch of his life.
“Hey,” Anton tries to say.
Viago kisses it out of his mouth.
“V-, I-mmph!” Anton shifts around, trying to keep his face away from Viago with little luck. “V I have a question!”
Viago pulls back, ready to give Anton anything he needs. “What is it, liebling ?
Anton looks up at him with red lips and red cheeks and blown pupils. “I just want to know,” he says, voice barely a whisper. “Is that your agate collection in your pocket, are you just happy to see me?”
He cackles so loudly it shakes them both. Viago is going to kill this man. Politely. Like a gentleman. With kindness. Mostly.