Chapter Text
"Good morning, Oscar!" The Count sung from halfway across the street. "It looks like it's going to be a lovely day!"
"Coming to count the trash again today, are ya...?" Oscar lifted his head up slowly, until the lid of his can flew backwards. "Y'know, it's bin day so you'll have to be quick, heh heh heh."
The Count didn't even blink. "Oh, but that is stupendous! Brilliant! We'll count all the trash as quickly as we can, and then we'll count it all again when they've taken it away! Isn't that exciting?"
"Count it once they've taken it away? There'll be nothing to count, genius."
The Count touched his cheek, abashed. "You think I’m a genius?"
Oscar rolled his eyes and by way of response simply stared at him, doing his best impression of someone who was displeased with a smart alec seven-year-old. He was beyond trying to figure out whether the Count was being smarmy and had an incredible innocent grin or was actually daft.
"Anyway, but that's where you're wrong, Oscar! After all, are you really going to let the trash collectors take all of your trash? Even your favourite shoe?"
"Of course no- My favourite shoe? What're you talking about?"
The Count grinned widely, leaning closer. "I can tell that shoe over there, on top of the dusty bricks, is your fayy-vou-rite piece of trash!" His accent danced on the syllables of "favourite". Oscar hated it. Well, Oscar hated him, generally speaking. "You treat it so kindly. It is wonderful to see! And it has eight, eight rips in it!"
Oscar couldn't even think of anything cynical to say. He'd never told anyone any of that. "You- you counted the holes in my, I mean, that shoe over there?"
The Count didn't even answer. His smile stuck dumbly plastered on his face.
"So, we'll count all the trash you're going to keep, and then all the trash you're going to let them take, and when they're gone, we can recount everything to be sure they didn't take anything you still need!"
Oscar's mind hung on the words, still need.
No one else had ever been so generous in describing Oscar's things. Really, the Count had been the only person he knew who had cared about Oscar's trash can and everything within it in a way that somewhat approached the way Oscar himself did.
It was for a stupid reason. But still.
"Whatever. If you really want to."
"Oscar, I am going to let you in on a little secret, okay?" The Count tilted his head and leaned in like a little girl. He was so unabashedly... like that. Oscar could swear it made him physically ill. "Do you know addition?"
"Uhm." It was something he knew he was meant to know. "Sure I do."
"Now, I personally avoid it where I can," the Count waved an arm, "I don't see why anyone would want to speed up counting when they can just recount from the beginning. But if you and I count just the trash you got since last time you and I saw each other, we can simply add that total to the previous count, and then we'll definitely be done before the collectors arrive!"
Oscar scratched his head. He could probably pretend to understand what he meant, and it was probably best for him to do so, if only because he did not want to hear the Count talking about it. The way his voice cracked with glee when he had an opportunity to talk about counting was... embarrassing.
So naturally Oscar replied, "can you explain what you mean?"
The Count lit up "But of course! Ah ah ah! You see, you can count to three. You had three banana peels yesterday, right?"
How did he remember that? "Yeah?"
"Well, between yesterday and today you got two, two more terr-ific banana peels! Is that not so?"
Oscar glanced at the freshly dumped arrivals he had lined up on the wall, struggling a little. The Count's smile was sort of distracting. "Yeah, duh."
“So,” the Count tilted forward on his tiptoes, leveling his eyes with Oscar’s, “there’s no need to count one, two, three and so on. If you start at three, and add two – and you have five all together, without needing to waste time!”
Oscar groaned. He didn’t get it.
“Try it like this,” the Count took Oscar’s hand which had until that moment clamped lazily onto the metal edge of his can. “Start with three fingers. See, like this” - he laid his own palm over the top of Oscar’s hand, and pushed a thumb down – “and then put two extra fingers up” – he lifted his thumb off Oscar’s, and it naturally lifted, as the Count reached for his other hand and pinched his thumb softly, lifting it as well – “how many fingers do you have up now?”
Oscar nearly sunk right back into his can there and then, because who did this guy think he was? But he stubbornly snapped, “five,” only to prove that he was, in fact, capable of adding things after all. In fact, Oscar got the whole idea now, but he didn’t want to grant the Count the triumph of knowing he’d taught him something. Why, next he’d start bear-hugging him to teach him how fractions worked. His heart pounded at the thought, which truly went to show how grouchy he was that morning from having to see this man.
“Yes! You got it! Well done, Oscar! Now we can do that for all your new trash!”
The way the Count clamped his two hands around Oscar's and beamed, how he always did, like he enjoyed every single breath he took, and the way he squeezed Oscar with excitement when he said, "Oh, I just love this, don't you?", it was all so revolting that Oscar's disgust was unlike anything he was used to. His heart pounded and his stomach turned, his mouth felt sandy. He wanted to make the Count shut up personally, that was how much he hated him.
"Oscar, I want you to know that I truly enjoy the fun we have counting your trash together. I really could sit here and count with you all day."
Oscar scowled. "Well, you just invite yourself in. I've told you to scram before."
The Count tilted his head, stupefied. "You have?"
Oscar, in fact, had not. Maybe once or twice, but by now he - oh, God - sort of looked forward to the Count coming to visit every morning. Was there some sort of secret spell vampires knew to trick him into anticipating their arrival? He’d have to look into that.
"Well, sure, probably."
The Count hummed, like he knew something Oscar didn’t. "Let us just say, then, that I am not one to enter someone's home uninvited. So maybe,” he smiled, not unkindly, “you're forgetting to say so?"
It was upon finishing this sentence that the Count was unable to stop himself from flashing his excited, open-mouthed smile. It seemed like he was physically incapable of frowning, sometimes, which was nothing short of extraordinary, when Oscar really stopped to think about it. He had, as it were, stopped to think about it quite a bit, and had come to the conclusion that it probably couldn't be done. Even when he was standing in the rain wailing in misery about something that didn't matter at all - yes, Oscar had spied on him then, but could he be blamed? - there was always some sort of merry undert-
Hold on. "What do you mean, you don't enter someone's home uninvited?"
The Count blinked. "Well, you know I can't do that, my dear Oscar, I'm a numbers vampire, after all!"
"Huh?"
"Well," the Count stroked his beard, "I've never actually tried it, because I never would do that, even if given the choice. But that's a known thing, you know. We can't go into people's houses unless they give permission. It's why I always call to you from across the Street, and when you say hello back, and say I can count your trash..."
Oh no. Oh no, Oscar physically couldn't get out of this one. He'd entirely forgotten. How could he deny that he'd wanted the Count to be here if, had that not been the case, the Count would have been... repelled by some... force... or something.
Oh, oh no, no, no, no. It wasn't just being unwanted. It was about being invited. Oscar had been inviting him.
"Er, well, I was just being polite, okay!?"
Oscar knew the moment he blurted that out that it was yet another swing and a miss. And the Count knew it too, cackling. "Ah, ha ha ha! You!? You're polite now!?"
Oscar squirmed. "No, I. Look, it's because - I just like having some idiot keeping track of my trash, okay? It gives me more time to sit here and be grouchy! Now scram! Seriously!"
Nothing happened.
"Didn't you hear that? I said scram! You are uninvited!"
Silence.
"Oscar," the Count pressed, softly, "are you telling the truth? Do you actually want me to leave?"
"Yes, of course I'm telling the truth!"
"You can't be. I'd have been forced to leave if you had uninvited me. Why are you telling me to leave, if you... well, forgive me for assuming, but you... want me to stay?"
Oh, for goodness' sake.
"I wish you'd shut up, y'know that, Count?"
"That's two, isn't it? Two lies! Ah hahahaha!" Crack. "Am I right? Did I catch you? That was a lie, was it not?"
Where did he get off? Did he think he was funny? Did he think just because he was charming, he got to go around making Oscar miserable? "Count, look at me."
The Count complied, holding in a giggle.
"Uhm." Everything Oscar was about to say was wiped from his mind when he locked eyes with the Count. What was he even going to say? It couldn't have been anything like "scram". That was, somehow, the last thing he wanted to say. You're annoying? Yes, that would work. "So, uhm, I think I want to kiss you now."
Oh, just great. That wasn't what he had meant to say.
The Count blinked, leaning back for the first time since he’d been here.
You have to understand; the Count, being the Count, had a way of doing these things. There was the added layer of difficulty that, unlike his past experiences in romance, he knew Oscar would loathe being wooed like an aristocrat. But the fact that it was just the done thing – even if absolutely everything about this was unprecedented for the Count – stopped the Count from trying anything else, resulting in a mortifying impasse where nothing happened.
What the Count hadn’t banked on was Oscar just… saying something like that. There wasn’t any script in any higher society education for responding to “I think I want to kiss you now”.
"Oh? You do? That's so, ah..." what on Earth was he saying? Get it together, Count! "I thought you'd never ask!"
Not awfully elegant, but it would have to do.
"Yeah," Oscar replied, bluntly. "So."
The Count reached out, slowly. It was times like these he was grateful he didn't have to deal with the less convenient aspects of being fully alive, no racing heart or flushed face. "That would be wonderful!"
Oscar didn't move, and his face reminded the Count ever so briefly of his days as an academic, asking a particularly challenging question to the lecture theatre. The Count always wondered how Oscar's fur would feel. It was grungy and tangled, and it was so tantalising, it was as though he was teasing him. So, he started with that, touching what could generously be referred to his cheek. “It’s very… knotty.”
Oscar grinned. “Yeah?”
“Yes, it’s different to mine, I’ve never tried just leaving my hair alone, but I think it suits you, you know,” the Count, for the first time in millions of years, wanted the ground to swallow him whole. He couldn’t be this awkward the moment he had to try something new. Unless – “look, you’re smiling!”
Oscar rolled his eyes, still grinning, with some apprehension. “I wish you’d shut up.”
The Count tilted his head. “Is that so? Or are you lying again, hm?”
“No, I do actually want you to shut up this time.” And then Oscar kissed him.
Oscar could feel the smile beneath his lips the moment he made contact. Even now, little miss sunshine couldn’t be serious for just a few seconds, it would seem.
The next thing he noticed was the Count immediately grabbing Oscar’s face to kiss him back excitedly. Which, in turn made Oscar realise that in his own bewilderment at his own boldness, he’s entirely forgotten to actually kiss the Count rather than put his face in the right place, standing there like a petrified doll.
He clumsily leaned further into the Count, subconsciously wrappings his hands around his body as though it would break a fall. He was suddenly very aware of a certain coldness in the Count’s lips ebbing away as he pulled Oscar’s face closer and, oh no, Oscar could get used to this.
Oscar, needless to say, had always been cynical about any lovey-dovey crap like kissing someone. For the most part, it mostly sounded excessive, and wet. And all the things he saw in those terrible books people threw out once their airplane landed were, in the most literal sense of the word, incredible. Oscar refused to believe that kissing someone would feel “electric” or like “fireworks”.
As it happened, Oscar was right. Kissing the Count was more like an exhale after a long day. The anticipation didn’t explode, it… released. Every little content half-giggle he heard as he kissed him was like a screw unturning in Oscar’s mind.
In fact, it was so much like a heaving sigh that Oscar almost forgot to breathe for real.
“Wait-“ He mumbled, and the Count’s hands ungripped his head before Oscar could even blink.
“Everything okay?”
Oscar stroked the Count’s hair loosely with one hand as he said, “Yes, yes, it’s just… I need to breathe and I forgot, and…” Oscar wondered vaguely if anybody else in the history of this dump had ever been as unimpressive in front of someone as he had today. “Actually, what about you?!”
“I told you, my window-shutter, I-“
Oscar coughed. “Sorry. Your what?”
“Oh, I don’t quite know what it means either, I read it somewhere. But it sounds nice, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, I told you this already. Being a vampire and all, I don’t exactly need to, well, breathe.”
“Seriously.”
“Yes! By the way, that makes one.”
“One…?”
“One kiss! So, can you count to a hundred?”
Oscar wanted to grab the Count by the face and scream that he was so hilariously perfect he made Oscar dizzy.
“You’re so weird.” Was all he managed to say.
The Count began with “ah,” clearly signalling that he was about to force Oscar into some sort of educational lecture, so Oscar quickly pressed his lips against the Count’s again, a certain craving in it now, a need to imprint exactly how the Count felt into Oscar’s memory.
He couldn’t count to a hundred, not reliably, not right now. He let the Count keep track.
-
“Your trash!” The Count yelled, abruptly. “Quick! When do the garbage people get here?”
Oscar was heaved off from on top of the Count with what was an… unexpected amount of effortlessness. “Uhm,” he rubbed the side of his head, “soon, I guess.”
“Oh, I got so carried away counting kisses that I forgot I came here to count your trash! Please forgive me, Oscar! We’re going to need to count by twos, just so they don't take it before we're finished, okay?" He practically flew over to the small, fresh pile of trash amassed from the night before. "You put all the new things you're going to keep in one pile and the things you're going to let them take in another."
Oscar was not as inclined to suddenly shift gears like the Count evidently was. "It's, uhm, whatever. I'm going to keep it all, probably, so, er." A beat. "Count, you just kissed me a hundred times."
"Yes! It was a hundred! It truly was magnificent, wasn't it? Okay. That's two banana peels, two, four, six, seven milk cartons..."
"Count! Are you not going to say something?"
The Count turned back and smiled slightly. "We have all the time in the world for that. Shall we count your trash now or not?"
"All the time in the world?"
"And then some," he grinned wider, now. Oscar wondered, not un-grouchily, if the heat from his face would be felt by the Count from here. "I can even count the seconds, if you would like. Would you like that?"
"You are so weird," Oscar sighed, this time unable to hold back his laughter, and he lifted himself up to count his trash with him. "You are so, so weird."