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"I'm absolutely convinced that if I moved out, and someone else moved in, my idiot of a roommate not only wouldn't notice, but he would carry on and still call whomever has the misfortune of following me, Alan." I say to Grant.
"Come on, he can't be that bad," he snorts derisively back.
"I'm serious. He's always going on about whatever it is that he does!" I grab a blood bag from the counter where the nurse placed it. She holds out her hand for money, and I grumble as I hand her more than I want to pay.
"I mean. If you get caught it isn't my problem." Grant stalks off in the direction of his own flat.
When I arrive home, the living room is an absolute mess.
"Human! What is the meaning of this," I shout up the stairs.
There's a loud thud and the sound of a door opening.
"ALAN! Welcome back! So I've had a marvelou- ACK," He makes it about two steps down the stairs before he trips and falls the rest of the way down, coming to a stop at my feet.
"Are you all right?" I ask, trying to sound concerned.
He pops up with a large grin.
"Yes my dear friend-" he starts
"We aren't friends."
"- as I was saying I've had a marvelous idea. So there's this…" He continues, not even acknowledging that I said anything. I look around the room and I see… is that jewelry?
"... Anyway, so what do you think?" He suddenly addresses me, shaking me out of my inspection of the astounding amount of trinkets in the living area.
"What do I think of what?" I blink almost owlishly at him.
"My master plan!" He says, explaining nothing.
"I think it sounds great." I say. I'm lying through my fangs at this point.
"I knew you'd love it!" He says giddy, and squealing as he does when he's excited.
"Now, what is all this stuff all over the living room?"
"Uh. Well. Those are… things that I've borrowed…" He stumbles over his words.
"Borrowed?" I query, my voice as flat as ever.
"... without permission," he finishes quietly.
"That's… that's stealing, mortal."
"That's kinda what I do? I'm a thief by trade!" He exclaims.
"Is that how you afford this flat?" I ask him, incredulous.
"How else am I supposed to afford this? You think I make enough as a teller at the bank for this place?" He's frustrated now. He's a teller at a bank? What?
"Quite honestly I didn't know what you did!" I'm shouting now.
He goes to retort and we hear a loud banging from the wall.
"LEAVE THE LOVERS SPAT FOR WHEN ITS DAYLIGHT"
We both cringe at our neighbor. And just look at each other.
"Sorry." He says quietly.
"It's all right.," I heave out with a sigh.
"It's been a long night. I'll clean this all up in the morning before work." He gestures to the stolen bits and bobs across the living room
"What do you do with all of it?" I ask.
"Don't worry about it," he says with a smirk.
"Goodnight, Thief." I say to a closing door.
A week later
"Welcome home, mortal." I say as I hear the door close.
"Hello my darling!" Thief's voice rings out. He's in a chipper mood, and I haven't had my blood packet yet, ugh.
"Oh, there's someone outside, says they're here to see you. Shall I invite them in?" Alan is suddenly in the living room with me. And I can feel tendrils of ice gripping my non-beating heart.
"Y-yeah. Go ahead," to refuse one of my kind would surely make me a target. And by extension…
I'm relieved to see Grant for a moment, but then I'm worried because I never told him where I lived.
"Alan! I thought I saw you come in here the other day! I've been meaning to invite you out for drinks!" He says cheerily, though I know the connotation behind 'drinks,' and I'm not interested in anything living.
"Thank you, Grant." Thief has disappeared into his room. "Now, what are you really doing here," I whisper.
"The coven has been asking after you, says you haven't been to any of the meetings." He responds just as quietly.
"And they sent you?? Ha. I introduced myself when I moved into the area out of respect. I don't partake of live drinks so I don't see the need to go to the meetings." I huff out.
"Look man, what Vlad orders has to be done." He shrugs
"Don't let him hear you call him that." I snort back.
We fall into less serious conversations and time passes. As he leaves I hear shuffling at Thief's door.
"You know he's a vampire, right?" Thief asks me as he walks down the stairs.
I struggle to contain the frustrated scream that bubbles into my chest, and I manage a shaky nod as I make my way to my room.
~~Several months later~~
Alan hasn't been home in about 3 days. His job called today, asking if he was alright, cause it wasn't like him to no-call, no-show.
I know who can help me find my missing roommate.
When I enter the coven headquarters, I have to tamp down the sneer of disgust that arises from smelling the stale air here.
"Now, now, now, now I didn't come looking for any trouble." The nervous trill to what is most definitely my roommates voice is alarming. I've never heard him as anything but confident.
This isn't what I meant when I came here to ask for help finding him.
"You're interrupting, Alan." Vladimir's grating voice assaults my ears.
"We'll, you see, I actually came to ask for some help with locating someone. But it seems you've already found them." I bite my tongue against the curses that threaten to spill out at the coven leader..
"This…" He regards my roommate with disgust. "... thief, is yours?"
"In a sense, yes." I respond, trying to signal to Thief to go along with it.
"Then what was it doing in MY treasury" Thief may have dug himself too deep for me to get him out.
"He must have gotten lost. I'm assuming you already patted him down for any valuables?" I try to keep my voice calm.
Vladimir, curls his lip at me.
"Of course we did." His eyes are narrowed.
"Then I must ask that you allow me to apologize for him, and to vouch for him to be released back to me." And, much to my chagrin, I bow as respectfully deeply as I can.
Vladimir has the gall to laugh. His laugh sounds like a cross between a dog barking and a parrot who smokes squawking. Thief's eyes are about as big as saucers, I can see them following the elongated canines in Vladimirs mouth.
"I think, Alan, that this is the first time you've shown any respect. Take your pitiful human. And train him better." He snaps his fingers and one of his thralls comes and unbinds Thief, who staggers over to me.
I grab him roughly by the arm, mostly for show, and lead him out.
When get into my car and once it's started up and we are leaving the god-forsaken, heh, coven headquarters I round on him.
"WHAT were you thinking?! Oh this place has people who only go to and from at night. Maybe I'll just break in and steal a little of their stuff. IDIOT."
He just kind of sinks down into his seat.
"Put on your seat belt. But seriously! What would you have done I'd I wasn't there to save your skin?" He opens his mouth in response. "–don't answer that, you would've been turned into a glorified blood bag."
Silence fills the car as we continue our drive back into town. The warehouse we are coming from is situated on the south side of the east end, and we have about an hour before we reach our flat still.
"Why did he release me to you?" His voice is quiet, subdued, and not at all like himself. And yet, I struggle to fight the groan that threatens to erupt.
"Because I'm a vampire."
"You're actually serious? I thought that was a joke!"
"Of- of course it isn't a joke! You've seen me drink from bloodbags!"
"I thought you just liked eating your tomato juice like that!"
"It looks NOTHING like tomato juice!"
"Or maybe you just really like that Halloween fake blood! They make it cherry flavor!"
"I drink it every day!"
"Who am I to judge?!"
"I'm pale as heck! I never let you take pics of me!"
"You asked me not to! I'm not going to cross the boundaries you set!"
I groan in frustration as we stop at the red light.
"You go out during the day! You don't care when I make pasta." He's gesturing wildly with his arms
"I'm sorry. No amount of burning in my mouth will EVER stop me from enjoying good pasta." I snarl at him.
"You… you're allergic to garlic." I can hear the smirk in his voice.
"I'm a VAMPIRE." I turn and glare at him as hard and angrily as I can.
I can see his mouth twitching, and I feel myself struggling to school my own expression. He obviously notices because he begins laughing, and soon, we are two grown men laughing like maniacs at 2am on some random side street.
"Alright, Thief, how much do you still have from the treasury tucked away?" I ask as the giggles die down.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He's making aggressive eye contact.
"Don't lie to me. I'm not going to rat you out." I sigh. "I went through this much trouble to keep you alive, I'm gonna help you get rid of the vampire goods, and make some money off of them too."
He smirks and pulls out a necklace. A very important necklace. I feel myself smile wickedly at him. Sweet, sweet revenge, tastes so much better than blood.
"I like the way you think, Alan."
"I like your sticky fingers when they're not putting you in danger, Thief."
"I have a name."
"I'm sure you do. You never told me."
"Of course I–" He cuts himself off and he focuses on the dashboard. I let him think to himself as I continue our drive home.
"I never told you my name." He says eventually.
"Nope."
"Oh my gosh. I'm the worst roommate."
"I'm not disagreeing with that."
He sticks his tongue out at me.
"Mature."
"My name's Reuben Crisp." He says.
"You're a lunch plate? No that can't be your name." I cough out between breaths.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing I haven't heard before." He says, sounding much more sad than he's acting.
"Sorry. I just wasn't expecting it. Nice to meet you Reuben. I'm Alan, your vampire roommate. And now your apparent partner in crime."
The beaming smile that's angled at me from the passenger seat is blinding. And I find myself smiling as well as we finally pull into our parking space.
"Alright my vampire friend, we've made it back safely."
"Now all you have to do is explain to work what happened to you yesterday." I say as I walk in.
The string of curses is worth it.