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Vampire wakes up to something vibrating against his shoulder. He almost convinces himself to ignore it, but it’s bothersome enough that he fishes his phone out from underneath himself to check who the caller is before declining.
When he sees the name, he throws away the thought of declining the call. He hits accept as soon as he processes who it is.
“Hello?” he answers groggily.
“Vampire?” Sparkling’s familiar voice sounds through the phone. “Did I wake you?”
“Yeah,” he admits, and a peek out his slightly ajar window displays speckles of white against an almost black background; it was snowing. “Did’ja need something…?”
A pause. “You invited me to come over.”
Ah. “Right, sorry. I forgot.” At that, Sparkling lets out a gentle laugh.
“It’s alright. Could you open the door for me?”
Vampire’s already up on his feet by the time he asks. He doesn’t bother to put on shoes, and floats along to make his way to the door. “Yeah, I’m on it,” he says, and ends the call. Snow was starting to pile up on the sills of the windows throughout the house, and when he arrives at the door and unlocks it, it’s just a little harder to push open the large wooden doors than usual.
He peeks out the gap he was able to make and gets hit in the face with a blast of cold air. The cold never bothered him personally and he hated the heat, but the same could not be said about Sparkling, who was standing to the side, bundled up in warm winter clothing, but still rubbing at his arms. His coat is covered in snow, but he smiles at Vampire when they meet eyes. He looks red from the cold. Vampire raises a brow back at him.
“How long have you been standing there? You look like a popsicle.”
“A while. You didn’t pick up the first few times,” Sparkling admits, a cloud forming from his breath. Vampire never realized his phone had been ringing for a while. He didn’t check his other notifications either.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you.” He steps out of the way to make room through the door, and when Sparkling steps in after brushing the snow from his shoulders, he pulls the door closed again. Despite being inside, the blond bunches into his scarf.
“We can go somewhere warmer if you’re cold.”
Sparkling perks up. “That’d be nice. It started snowing a little before I left the house… I’m a little cold.”
“You could have stayed home if it was already snowing.”
“A little snow doesn’t hurt..” Sparkling says, but the way he shoves his hands into his pockets says otherwise. “The hike up here was more taxing than anything else.”
“Sorry ‘bout that. We can get a fire started so you don’t freeze to death inside my house. I don’t think my blankets will do you any good.” Vampire leads Sparkling through straight, boring halls lit up by candles his sister placed when she realized it was winter.
“I’ve never been to this part of your castle,” Sparkling says, following behind.
“‘Cuz it’s not important. It’s all empty rooms.”
Sparkling hums in acknowledgement, and stops when he notices Vampire stop in front of an open lounge. The furniture is dusty and covered in cobwebs, but it doesn’t deter the redhead from floating straight in and beckoning Sparkling over.
“This place looks… unused,” the blond says. “There’s still wood in the fireplace.”
“My sister and I only ever come here sometimes during the winter. I don’t like getting out of bed, and she’s usually too busy being cooped up in her room working to bother either. It’s probably been a year or two.” When he hits the sofa, a cloud of dust forms, and the springs squeak. “You don’t mind that the couch is a little dirty, do you?” he asks with a lopsided grin.
“...It’s fine,” Sparkling says, probably a lie, because he follows up; “Maybe I should clean your house for the new year.”
“No way,” Vampire says, “you’ll die trying. It’s too big.”
“At least the rooms you plan on using,” the blond says, and he slowly takes a seat on the couch. Sparkling scrunches his nose at the dust and holds his hands in his lap and rubs them together. The tips of his fingers are red.
“Don’t bother. This place will be depressing no matter how hard you try, Mr. Sparkling.” Vampire ignores the blank look Sparkling gives him at the honorific and occupies himself with digging through a drawer for a pack of matches.
“Aha, cool.” He grins when he pulls out a box with two matches left. He lifts the screen of the fireplace and lights one of the matches.
“Shouldn’t you check the chimney and the wood if they’re ok?” Sparkling inquires with a worried little dip in his brow. Vampire shrugs.
“Animals don’t come here. They’re scared of me. They don’t like the explosions from Alchemist’s lab, either.” With that, he throws the match into the fireplace without a second thought. “And wood is wood.”
“Huh…” Sparkling sounds like he has a lot more to say, but he keeps his mouth shut. “If you say so…” He closes his eyes with a sigh and takes off his scarf and coat, which were already starting to get wet from the snow.
Vampire lazily takes a seat beside Sparkling and flashes him a cheeky smile. “Need someone to warm you up?”
“The fire is doing its job way better than you could, ‘Mr. Vampire’.”
“Ouch,” he says, all in good fun, “you’re hurting my feelings.” He leans down, holds his cloak out in his arms, and only gives a short second for Sparkling to prepare before he falls down on top of him and wraps him in his cloak. The blond makes a sound of dismay that’s almost lost in the sound of the old springs of the couch.
“If you don’t let me sit up, I’ll fall asleep,” Sparkling says, but Vampire stands his ground.
“It’s not like I didn’t invite you over to sleep with me,” Vampire smiles down at him, admiring the way the light of the fire illuminates his face, “sleeping is also a way of hanging out, right? Like, sleepovers?”
“That’s a horrible way to say it. Also, most people don’t actually sleep at sleepovers.”
Vampire pouts. “You’re no fun.”
“Then why did you invite me over for drinks?”
“You’re funny when you’re drunk.” Vampire hugs Sparkling tighter, and finds himself relieved by the fact that Sparkling’s face seems less red than before.
“That’s all?” he asks, with vain attempts to wiggle out of Vampire’s hold. It would be fun to wrap him up completely in the cloak like a burrito, Vampire thinks to himself.
Vampire laughs. “If I said it how you say it, it would be ‘I enjoy your company’. Learn to relax, sweet prince of mine. I’m just tryna warm you up. You know, make up for the fact that I fell asleep and ignored all your calls, hm?”
“Right…” Green eyes avert his gaze and latch onto the fireplace. “You know, you’re supposed to close the screen after the fire catches.”
“Oh.” Vampire sits up. “Hm… I don’t want to close it. But I don’t want the smoke to gas up my house… Fine, I guess.” He pulls himself up from the couch and leaves his cloak on top of Sparkling as a blanket and closes the screen. Sparkling sits up and gets on his feet.
“Hey hey hey, where are you going? Why are you getting up?” Vampire stands in front of the blond. He gets a smile in return.
“I’m going to go get you a drink. I think I know how to get to your wine cellar,” he explains, but he doesn’t resist when Vampire pushes him back down on the couch.
“What are you, my slave? Just relax. We can drink later.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say ‘later’ and ‘drink’ in the same sentence.” Sparkling scoots over to the other side of the couch so he can try and move past the redhead, but to no avail. Vampire wraps his cloak around Sparkling (like a burrito, he thinks to himself again) and pushes him down onto the couch.
“I can’t move like this, you know.”
“That’s the point. Do you realize how much effort it's gonna take to find you if you get lost?”
Sparkling raises a brow at him. “Then why don’t you come with me?”
“No way. Later. Let’s stay here where it’s nice and toasty.” He falls onto Sparkling with a grunt and nuzzles the blond’s neck. Sparkling laughs.
“That’s quite the persuasive argument… and I guess I have no choice in the matter, given my current situation.”
“Exactly. So let me warm you up here so that we can go have drinks without you collapsing.”
“I won’t collapse from the cold…” Sparkling replies, but he had already accepted his fate. He lays limp on the couch and closes his eyes as Vampire nuzzles the crook of his neck. Sparkling smells like expensive champagne. “Are you going to keep me here forever, rolled up in your cloak?”
“Maybe just until your hands are warm,” Vampire admits honestly, “unless I fall asleep. Then we can drink tomorrow.”
Sparkling chuckles. “Alright. If you say so.”
The two of them wake up completely sober, with Sparkling still stuck inside Vampire’s cloak and between him and the couch. They laugh it off despite the inconvenience, and Sparkling’s cheeks were red and warm, instead of cold. For once, Vampire didn’t mind the warmth too much.