chapter 5 (aurelian)
Nov. 11th, 2002 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieThe more he thought about his impending dinner date (date!) with a mortal (a mortal!), the more Aurelian thought it might not be a good idea. He could very easily see himself committing to a long and happy life with Sam Mackenzie the saxophone player. He could imagine himself in love with a mortal boy, seriously in love, for the first time in two hundred years.
He could also imagine that mortal boy panicking and running when he found out what Aurelian was.
He wondered if he should say something before they went any farther. Before he really was in love. It seemed only fair for Sam to know, especially sooner rather than later. Besides, it wasn't something Aurelian could easily hide. And they were going out for dinner, and he would have to eat or make up a very good (ie, plausible) excuse as to why he wasn't, and if he wasn't going to eat anything it was absurd to go on a date to a restaurant.
(Unlike Sam, Aurelian wasn't too worried about the date aspect, nor was he worried that he'd be going out with a boy. He liked boys, he always had. He liked girls too, but he'd always prefered men to women. And he didn't have a mother he'd have to explain it to.)
In his experience, mortals generally had two reactions when you told them you were of the undead: they panicked and ran and you never saw them again, or they wanted you to bite them and turn them as well. Aurelian had never turned anyone and didn't really want to start now. His own sire had abandoned him in Austria after several months, and Aurelian hadn't seen him since. For all he knew, Jan was dust by now.
He would tell Sam. He had to. He would only hope the boy didn't panic and run, and didn't beg Aurelian to turn him either. The vampire thought he could find the exception to the rule here.
Friday night he went to the symphony with Clare Castillon and another friend of theirs, a German vampire named Daniel Albrecht. Daniel had been a twenty-two-year-old stage actor and aspiring opera singer in Berlin in 1832, when he was seduced and turned by a lovely black-haired vamp from around the Baltic Sea who called herself Martika. The two of them were together for another sixteen years, gallivanting around Europe and the Middle East and North Africa, sharing lovers, breaking hearts, and confounding police, until she was killed in the Paris uprisings of 1848.
After the death of his sire, Daniel went back to Berlin, where he stayed (with the occasional jaunt around Europe) until 1936. By then Hitler had managed to scare him enough to send him to the States for good. He'd been back to Germany a number of times since then, although he refused to visit Berlin, because of the Wall.
"They sundered my city in twain," he would exclaim dramatically. "They may as well have sundered my heart as well."
(Daniel always did have a flair for the dramatic.)
In the past sixty years he'd founded and broken up three theater companies, one opera company, and a number of short-term relationships. He and Aurelian had been on and off lovers in the 60's and again in the 80's, but neither was interested in the other as a long-term partner. (They were what Sam would have called fuckbuddies.) Now he was the kept man of a wealthy society lady, a women almost old enough to be his mother, who apparently knew he was a vampire.
"I told her," he told Clare and Aurelian after the symphony. They had gone to the Fledermaus for a drink. "I expected her to shriek and throw me out, but she simply looked at me and said 'Daniel, my beautiful boy, why do you think I pursued you?'" He smiled, pleased with himself for netting a rich woman who wanted a bloodsucker, and sipped his vodka-and-blood.
"She said no such thing," Clare said, laughing. "She probably shrugged and said she knew, she didn't care, as long as you didn't bite too hard and didn't get blood on her carpets, her sofa, or her expensive Egyptian cotton sheets." Now it was her turn to smile and look pleased.
"What made you tell her?" Aurelian asked Daniel, who shrugged and chewed a piece of celery.
"She said I was looking especially pale," he said.
Daniel was, in fact, very pale, even for a vampire. He was classically Aryan, blond and blue eyed, a poster child for Hitler's great race, a fact that he always mentioned with great irony. He'd been fair-skinned as a mortal, and dying had leached what color he had right out of his skin.
They made a very pretty picture at their round table - blond Daniel, Clare with her auburn curls, and Aurelian's long dark ponytail. They were all of them beautiful people, especially dressed for the symphony in their good see-and-be-seen clothes.
"And that was all it took?" Aurelian persisted. "Were you not afraid she would kick you out?"
"Didn't I say I was?" Daniel looked at him quizzically. "I said I expected her to shriek and kick me to the curb."
Clare giggled at that last phrase, hiding it in her glass. Such a modern slangy phrase as "kick me to the curb" sounded incongruous in Daniel's plummy British accent. The accent was fake, studiously learned in order to impress wealthy society ladies. When you caught him in a lie or hiding behind some mask or playing a persona, Daniel would just remind you that he'd been a stage actor in his other life, and there were some things you just did not forget.
"Did I say something amusing?" he asked Clare, who just smiled demurely and shook her head.
"Of course not," she said. "Do go on."
"I thought I was finished with my story. Aurelian, did you have a point to make?"
"I think I told Clare about this saxophone player I met," he said nodding at the auburn-haired vampire.
"You did mention him in passing," she said. "You said you had gone to see him play. Have you met? Spoken to each other?"
"We went out for a drink last night."
Daniel gaped. Clare hid her reaction in her wine glass as she tipped it up and finished the drink.
"You went out on a date?" she said finally. Aurelian nodded. "So I see you have met and spoken." Now she grinned. "What is he like? Are you going to see each other again?"
"What does he look like?" Daniel asked. He'd regained his composure. (In fact, Aurelian would have guessed Daniel's shocked expression was also fake, a put-on.) "Is he pretty? Tall? Short? How old? What does he do? Have you kissed him yet?"
"Daniel!" Clare smacked him lightly on the arm. "Let him answer. Some of those are very prying questions, my dear." Then she looked at Aurelian, her eyes twinkling. "Have you kissed him?"
"Yes," he said. "Twice."
"Does he know?" she asked, her voice soft suddenly, and serious.
"No. That is the problem."
"I see."
"I need to tell him. I want to tell him. We have another... date Sunday night. At a restaurant. With food."
"Most restaurants do serve food, Aurelian," Daniel said teasingly. "Take him to Lamia's. Then you will know for certain how he feels about your.. ah... aversion to sunlight."
Lamia's was a Middle Eastern restaurant, and while not strictly a vampire place, it definitely catered to the undead and undead-friendly. Aurelian would find out for sure how Sam felt about getting involved with a vampire, if they sat next to other vampire diners, and if Aurelian ordered something off the highly-rated blood menu. But he'd really only just met the boy, and he knew there were more subtle and less uncomfortable ways to broach the subject.
"We are not going to Lamia's," he told Daniel. "He wants to go to some place called the Cattle Drive."
"That is a stupid name," Daniel said decisively. He stood up. "I told Katharine I would call her after the symphony. She said I could have drinks with my friends, but she wished I would call so she would know where I was." He sighed dramatically, sounding put-upon. "The sacrifices I make for my lifestyle...."
"You have not made a single personal sacrifice in twenty years," Clare said. "Go check in with your keeper." But she was smiling, and Daniel nodded his head briefly, taking his leave, and went off to the short hallway where the payphone and the restrooms were, to call Katharine on his cell phone somewhere he might get some privacy.
"Now then," Clare said to Aurelian, when Daniel was out of earshot. "I have known you long enough, my dear, longer than Daniel, and I think there is more to this story. Are you in love with this boy? Is that why you think it so important to tell him what you are?"
"It's only fair," Aurelian tried to explain. "If he is going to get to know me better that is one of the things he should know. Besides, I can't keep it a secret forever. He will find out."
"And when do you expect him to?"
"He kissed me, Clare. Last night, right before he went inside his apartment building. We said good night, and then he kissed me quickly on the mouth. He likes me. He is attracted to me. And yes, I may be in love with him."
Clare sat back in her chair and just looked at him thoughtfully. Aurelian felt both relieved and scared that he'd just admitted that. Once the words were out of his mouth they felt right. They felt true.
He wondered how Sam really felt about him. Was he sitting around with his friends, talking about him, getting advice? Probably not.
"I need to tell him, Clare," he repeated. "I need to know what he feels about me. I could love him so easily, I can picture the two of us living together, being together. Lovers. Partners. I want him. I want to know if he wants me."
"What is it about him that so attracts you?"
"He's human. He's warm and alive and I could hear his heart beating when I kissed him."
"How is he so different from other mortals you have loved? I have heard stories, Aurelian, I know you've been with mortals before." He didn't doubt it. Clare knew or knew of every single vampire in Eden, and along with knowing all those people came a fairly significant amount of gossip and personal history. She didn't know everything about Aurelian - no one did - but she knew some relevant details.
"I also know you're known for not taking mortal lovers," she went on. "Not since you settled here. Not for many, many years. But I do know you used to, even if for the short term."
"Always the short term." He sighed. "I was never interested in them for more than a few months, not as lovers. In the end they all wanted me to bite them, and it grew tiresome."
"How do you know your saxophone player will not turn out to be like all the others?"
"I don't. I think he might be different, but I don't know. He's open-minded enough, but he isn't pretentious and he isn't a Dracula wannabe or a Child of the Night or whatever they're calling themselves these days. He is just... himself."
"If you tell him now, and he runs," Clare mused, picking up her empty wine glass and twirling it between her fingers, "you will lose him before you know him and love him enough for it to destroy you. If he breaks now, you will recover. In a month, perhaps not."
"You are a very clever woman, Clare Castillon." She put down her glass and smiled at him.
"Of course I am, dear. Will you promise me one thing?"
"For you? Certainly."
"Will you promise to go slowly? Mortals are fragile creatures, you know. They are easily hurt. But you are no less so, and I do not want to see you hurt either. I know very well the rash things love will motivate you to do, and I want you to promise me to think about what may happen if you get an answer you do not want. Do not ask the question if you are not prepared for an answer you do not like. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Mother." Aurelian grinned. Clare rolled her eyes at him. She was old enough to be his mother, at least as vampires counted years, although she had been all of twenty-one when she was turned.
"Promise me you will not put yourself in a position that will break your heart."
"I can't promise you that. I think I already am in a position that can break my heart."
"You do love him," she said softly.
"I think I do."
"If he hurts you," she went on, in that same soft, gentle tone, "I will break his hands." Then she smiled brightly and said "Now we have that cleared up, what should we tell Daniel we discussed, when he returns from his phone call?"
"We shall tell him we decided the symphony tonight was stupendous, but not as stupendous as that conducted by Seiji Ozawa in Boston last year."
"You faker," Clare laughed. "You didn't go to Boston last year."
"Neither did you. But neither did Daniel. He was here for five months and then he was in San Francisco with his lover of the moment. He hates thinking he missed some wonderful cultural event."
"Not only are you a faker, a romantic, and possibly a very stupid man, but you are mean."
"Stupid! What do you mean, stupid?"
"You do not trust Alex to invest your money. You want to do it yourself?"
"No, I.... Ok, that was stupid."
"See?" She laughed again.
Daniel appeared over her shoulder, still talking into his cell phone, nodded at the two vamps at the table, said "Yes, yes, of course I will," into the phone, made kissing noises into it, said "I'm leaving, my love, right now I'm leaving, can't you hear me putting on my coat" into it, finally said good bye, and disconnected the call. He put the phone inside his jacket and pulled on his coat, which had been slung over the empty chair at the table.
"She wants me to come home and bring some Veuve Cliquot," he said, "so I must be off. I want to hear about your dinner, Aurelian. Your mortal boy." Daniel grinned. Aurelian nodded. "Give Alex my best regards," he said to Clare. He leaned down, took her hand, and kissed her on both cheeks. Then he kissed Aurelian on both cheeks, waved jauntily, and walked out of the bar.
"I predict she will tire of him in five months," Clare said.
"I think a year," Aurelian mused. "He can be very charming, very interesting, and very... flexible."
"I will have to take your word for it. I do wish you luck with your saxophone player, you know. I really only want you to be happy, and if it takes a mortal to make you happy, then that is what I want for you."
"I know. Are you leaving too?"
"I should get home. Alex will be missing me." She stood, picked up her coat, put it on, retrieved her evening bag from under Aurelian's coat, and came around the little table to kiss him good bye.
"Good night," he said. "Tell Alex I said hello, and I wished he were here to deflect some of Daniel during the symphony." Sometimes Daniel was very distracting, especially in dark semi-private places. Clare and Alex had a box for the symphony, and in the privacy of that mostly-enclosed space Daniel sometimes had to be restrained from what his mother would probably have called "inappropriate touches." If it had been an opera or a play, however, he would have given it his full attention. But his mind tended to wander during instrumental performances.
"Why do you think he elected not to come?" Clare grinned, patted Aurelian on the cheek, and also left the bar.
Aurelian ordered another glass of O neg and stayed for half an hour, sipping his blood and thinking about the best way to tell Sam he was a vampire. He tried to run scenarios through his mind, different things Sam might say in response and different reactions he might have, but Aurelian knew he'd never been very good at predicting the consequences of his actions, so he finally gave up. He would just have to hope Sam did not run screaming, and if he did, that he came to his senses and came back.
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He could also imagine that mortal boy panicking and running when he found out what Aurelian was.
He wondered if he should say something before they went any farther. Before he really was in love. It seemed only fair for Sam to know, especially sooner rather than later. Besides, it wasn't something Aurelian could easily hide. And they were going out for dinner, and he would have to eat or make up a very good (ie, plausible) excuse as to why he wasn't, and if he wasn't going to eat anything it was absurd to go on a date to a restaurant.
(Unlike Sam, Aurelian wasn't too worried about the date aspect, nor was he worried that he'd be going out with a boy. He liked boys, he always had. He liked girls too, but he'd always prefered men to women. And he didn't have a mother he'd have to explain it to.)
In his experience, mortals generally had two reactions when you told them you were of the undead: they panicked and ran and you never saw them again, or they wanted you to bite them and turn them as well. Aurelian had never turned anyone and didn't really want to start now. His own sire had abandoned him in Austria after several months, and Aurelian hadn't seen him since. For all he knew, Jan was dust by now.
He would tell Sam. He had to. He would only hope the boy didn't panic and run, and didn't beg Aurelian to turn him either. The vampire thought he could find the exception to the rule here.
Friday night he went to the symphony with Clare Castillon and another friend of theirs, a German vampire named Daniel Albrecht. Daniel had been a twenty-two-year-old stage actor and aspiring opera singer in Berlin in 1832, when he was seduced and turned by a lovely black-haired vamp from around the Baltic Sea who called herself Martika. The two of them were together for another sixteen years, gallivanting around Europe and the Middle East and North Africa, sharing lovers, breaking hearts, and confounding police, until she was killed in the Paris uprisings of 1848.
After the death of his sire, Daniel went back to Berlin, where he stayed (with the occasional jaunt around Europe) until 1936. By then Hitler had managed to scare him enough to send him to the States for good. He'd been back to Germany a number of times since then, although he refused to visit Berlin, because of the Wall.
"They sundered my city in twain," he would exclaim dramatically. "They may as well have sundered my heart as well."
(Daniel always did have a flair for the dramatic.)
In the past sixty years he'd founded and broken up three theater companies, one opera company, and a number of short-term relationships. He and Aurelian had been on and off lovers in the 60's and again in the 80's, but neither was interested in the other as a long-term partner. (They were what Sam would have called fuckbuddies.) Now he was the kept man of a wealthy society lady, a women almost old enough to be his mother, who apparently knew he was a vampire.
"I told her," he told Clare and Aurelian after the symphony. They had gone to the Fledermaus for a drink. "I expected her to shriek and throw me out, but she simply looked at me and said 'Daniel, my beautiful boy, why do you think I pursued you?'" He smiled, pleased with himself for netting a rich woman who wanted a bloodsucker, and sipped his vodka-and-blood.
"She said no such thing," Clare said, laughing. "She probably shrugged and said she knew, she didn't care, as long as you didn't bite too hard and didn't get blood on her carpets, her sofa, or her expensive Egyptian cotton sheets." Now it was her turn to smile and look pleased.
"What made you tell her?" Aurelian asked Daniel, who shrugged and chewed a piece of celery.
"She said I was looking especially pale," he said.
Daniel was, in fact, very pale, even for a vampire. He was classically Aryan, blond and blue eyed, a poster child for Hitler's great race, a fact that he always mentioned with great irony. He'd been fair-skinned as a mortal, and dying had leached what color he had right out of his skin.
They made a very pretty picture at their round table - blond Daniel, Clare with her auburn curls, and Aurelian's long dark ponytail. They were all of them beautiful people, especially dressed for the symphony in their good see-and-be-seen clothes.
"And that was all it took?" Aurelian persisted. "Were you not afraid she would kick you out?"
"Didn't I say I was?" Daniel looked at him quizzically. "I said I expected her to shriek and kick me to the curb."
Clare giggled at that last phrase, hiding it in her glass. Such a modern slangy phrase as "kick me to the curb" sounded incongruous in Daniel's plummy British accent. The accent was fake, studiously learned in order to impress wealthy society ladies. When you caught him in a lie or hiding behind some mask or playing a persona, Daniel would just remind you that he'd been a stage actor in his other life, and there were some things you just did not forget.
"Did I say something amusing?" he asked Clare, who just smiled demurely and shook her head.
"Of course not," she said. "Do go on."
"I thought I was finished with my story. Aurelian, did you have a point to make?"
"I think I told Clare about this saxophone player I met," he said nodding at the auburn-haired vampire.
"You did mention him in passing," she said. "You said you had gone to see him play. Have you met? Spoken to each other?"
"We went out for a drink last night."
Daniel gaped. Clare hid her reaction in her wine glass as she tipped it up and finished the drink.
"You went out on a date?" she said finally. Aurelian nodded. "So I see you have met and spoken." Now she grinned. "What is he like? Are you going to see each other again?"
"What does he look like?" Daniel asked. He'd regained his composure. (In fact, Aurelian would have guessed Daniel's shocked expression was also fake, a put-on.) "Is he pretty? Tall? Short? How old? What does he do? Have you kissed him yet?"
"Daniel!" Clare smacked him lightly on the arm. "Let him answer. Some of those are very prying questions, my dear." Then she looked at Aurelian, her eyes twinkling. "Have you kissed him?"
"Yes," he said. "Twice."
"Does he know?" she asked, her voice soft suddenly, and serious.
"No. That is the problem."
"I see."
"I need to tell him. I want to tell him. We have another... date Sunday night. At a restaurant. With food."
"Most restaurants do serve food, Aurelian," Daniel said teasingly. "Take him to Lamia's. Then you will know for certain how he feels about your.. ah... aversion to sunlight."
Lamia's was a Middle Eastern restaurant, and while not strictly a vampire place, it definitely catered to the undead and undead-friendly. Aurelian would find out for sure how Sam felt about getting involved with a vampire, if they sat next to other vampire diners, and if Aurelian ordered something off the highly-rated blood menu. But he'd really only just met the boy, and he knew there were more subtle and less uncomfortable ways to broach the subject.
"We are not going to Lamia's," he told Daniel. "He wants to go to some place called the Cattle Drive."
"That is a stupid name," Daniel said decisively. He stood up. "I told Katharine I would call her after the symphony. She said I could have drinks with my friends, but she wished I would call so she would know where I was." He sighed dramatically, sounding put-upon. "The sacrifices I make for my lifestyle...."
"You have not made a single personal sacrifice in twenty years," Clare said. "Go check in with your keeper." But she was smiling, and Daniel nodded his head briefly, taking his leave, and went off to the short hallway where the payphone and the restrooms were, to call Katharine on his cell phone somewhere he might get some privacy.
"Now then," Clare said to Aurelian, when Daniel was out of earshot. "I have known you long enough, my dear, longer than Daniel, and I think there is more to this story. Are you in love with this boy? Is that why you think it so important to tell him what you are?"
"It's only fair," Aurelian tried to explain. "If he is going to get to know me better that is one of the things he should know. Besides, I can't keep it a secret forever. He will find out."
"And when do you expect him to?"
"He kissed me, Clare. Last night, right before he went inside his apartment building. We said good night, and then he kissed me quickly on the mouth. He likes me. He is attracted to me. And yes, I may be in love with him."
Clare sat back in her chair and just looked at him thoughtfully. Aurelian felt both relieved and scared that he'd just admitted that. Once the words were out of his mouth they felt right. They felt true.
He wondered how Sam really felt about him. Was he sitting around with his friends, talking about him, getting advice? Probably not.
"I need to tell him, Clare," he repeated. "I need to know what he feels about me. I could love him so easily, I can picture the two of us living together, being together. Lovers. Partners. I want him. I want to know if he wants me."
"What is it about him that so attracts you?"
"He's human. He's warm and alive and I could hear his heart beating when I kissed him."
"How is he so different from other mortals you have loved? I have heard stories, Aurelian, I know you've been with mortals before." He didn't doubt it. Clare knew or knew of every single vampire in Eden, and along with knowing all those people came a fairly significant amount of gossip and personal history. She didn't know everything about Aurelian - no one did - but she knew some relevant details.
"I also know you're known for not taking mortal lovers," she went on. "Not since you settled here. Not for many, many years. But I do know you used to, even if for the short term."
"Always the short term." He sighed. "I was never interested in them for more than a few months, not as lovers. In the end they all wanted me to bite them, and it grew tiresome."
"How do you know your saxophone player will not turn out to be like all the others?"
"I don't. I think he might be different, but I don't know. He's open-minded enough, but he isn't pretentious and he isn't a Dracula wannabe or a Child of the Night or whatever they're calling themselves these days. He is just... himself."
"If you tell him now, and he runs," Clare mused, picking up her empty wine glass and twirling it between her fingers, "you will lose him before you know him and love him enough for it to destroy you. If he breaks now, you will recover. In a month, perhaps not."
"You are a very clever woman, Clare Castillon." She put down her glass and smiled at him.
"Of course I am, dear. Will you promise me one thing?"
"For you? Certainly."
"Will you promise to go slowly? Mortals are fragile creatures, you know. They are easily hurt. But you are no less so, and I do not want to see you hurt either. I know very well the rash things love will motivate you to do, and I want you to promise me to think about what may happen if you get an answer you do not want. Do not ask the question if you are not prepared for an answer you do not like. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Mother." Aurelian grinned. Clare rolled her eyes at him. She was old enough to be his mother, at least as vampires counted years, although she had been all of twenty-one when she was turned.
"Promise me you will not put yourself in a position that will break your heart."
"I can't promise you that. I think I already am in a position that can break my heart."
"You do love him," she said softly.
"I think I do."
"If he hurts you," she went on, in that same soft, gentle tone, "I will break his hands." Then she smiled brightly and said "Now we have that cleared up, what should we tell Daniel we discussed, when he returns from his phone call?"
"We shall tell him we decided the symphony tonight was stupendous, but not as stupendous as that conducted by Seiji Ozawa in Boston last year."
"You faker," Clare laughed. "You didn't go to Boston last year."
"Neither did you. But neither did Daniel. He was here for five months and then he was in San Francisco with his lover of the moment. He hates thinking he missed some wonderful cultural event."
"Not only are you a faker, a romantic, and possibly a very stupid man, but you are mean."
"Stupid! What do you mean, stupid?"
"You do not trust Alex to invest your money. You want to do it yourself?"
"No, I.... Ok, that was stupid."
"See?" She laughed again.
Daniel appeared over her shoulder, still talking into his cell phone, nodded at the two vamps at the table, said "Yes, yes, of course I will," into the phone, made kissing noises into it, said "I'm leaving, my love, right now I'm leaving, can't you hear me putting on my coat" into it, finally said good bye, and disconnected the call. He put the phone inside his jacket and pulled on his coat, which had been slung over the empty chair at the table.
"She wants me to come home and bring some Veuve Cliquot," he said, "so I must be off. I want to hear about your dinner, Aurelian. Your mortal boy." Daniel grinned. Aurelian nodded. "Give Alex my best regards," he said to Clare. He leaned down, took her hand, and kissed her on both cheeks. Then he kissed Aurelian on both cheeks, waved jauntily, and walked out of the bar.
"I predict she will tire of him in five months," Clare said.
"I think a year," Aurelian mused. "He can be very charming, very interesting, and very... flexible."
"I will have to take your word for it. I do wish you luck with your saxophone player, you know. I really only want you to be happy, and if it takes a mortal to make you happy, then that is what I want for you."
"I know. Are you leaving too?"
"I should get home. Alex will be missing me." She stood, picked up her coat, put it on, retrieved her evening bag from under Aurelian's coat, and came around the little table to kiss him good bye.
"Good night," he said. "Tell Alex I said hello, and I wished he were here to deflect some of Daniel during the symphony." Sometimes Daniel was very distracting, especially in dark semi-private places. Clare and Alex had a box for the symphony, and in the privacy of that mostly-enclosed space Daniel sometimes had to be restrained from what his mother would probably have called "inappropriate touches." If it had been an opera or a play, however, he would have given it his full attention. But his mind tended to wander during instrumental performances.
"Why do you think he elected not to come?" Clare grinned, patted Aurelian on the cheek, and also left the bar.
Aurelian ordered another glass of O neg and stayed for half an hour, sipping his blood and thinking about the best way to tell Sam he was a vampire. He tried to run scenarios through his mind, different things Sam might say in response and different reactions he might have, but Aurelian knew he'd never been very good at predicting the consequences of his actions, so he finally gave up. He would just have to hope Sam did not run screaming, and if he did, that he came to his senses and came back.
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total words: 22,403
