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“I don't even want to bite him, not really!”
“Answer’s still no.”
“But I am so hungry, and Arthur said not to go out without him tonight-”
“Nobody cares what Arthur says, go out if you want to go out.”
“I care! He is, however temporarily, our mentor...sire... thing. And that means we must listen to his warnings and to his rules!”
Instead of replying, and refuting the same request for the tenth time, Emizel turns and walks in the opposite direction. He has a capri sun in one hand, and ignores his royal doppleganger as he strips the straw open and pierces the aluminum.
“Please, Emizel?”
A shudder runs down his back, and Emizel almost crushes the juice pouch when he turns around, and then Shilo almost crushes it when he runs into Emizel.
“Stop using that brain fuckery on me! I can feel it, and it's weird!” He snaps, sharkish teeth clicking together in a threatening display.
Shilo immediately steps back, flinching, eyes closed tight, and Emizel barely has enough time to roll his eyes before Grefgore is suddenly between them.
The knight-? Guard? Knight. The stupid tall idiot wearing armor in the living room. Griffin? Grif- Greg-- Grefgore! That's the bitch.
“I will always defend you, my prince.” Grefgore is saying, and then Emizel has a hand on his arm, getting his attention with a huff.
“Hey. Gaygore. Hello? Also your prince? Go fucking sit and relax or something. Play a video game. Everyone is safe here, even if I'm not in the mood to fuck around.”
Grefgore looks nervously between Emizel and Shilo, and when Shilo looks as lost as he is, the knight finally bows his head. “Yes, my prince.” He says quietly.
Emizel turns away and is ready to head to his room down the hall, but Shilo is in his way again.
Ugh.
It's only midnight, barely a few minutes past. There's a few more hours until sunrise, and Arthur promised to be home by then. In his absence, Shilo and Emizel, and Grefgore, are “Not permitted a single step out of the house.” Said, of course, in a very low and very serious voice, that Emizel might have often misheard or missed entirely if he were not a vampire with fancy vampire hearing. Pay attention? Couldn't be him.
“Just fucking wait!” He snaps, but Shilo hasn't started complaining yet. In fact, he's not even looking at Emizel. Fucking rude of him, actually.
Emizel leans into his line of sight, squinting, and then follows his gaze to the front door. Seconds later, if that, there's a rapid series of knocks. Ah. That's for him.
Grefgore has his sword drawn again, but Emizel waves him off as he approaches. He unlocks three separate locks, and then there's a taller boy throwing his arms around him. Anyone else would get a punch to the abdomen at least. As a greeting, even. But not Soda. Never Soda.
Soda gets a half hug and a pat on the back, and a pouch of almost-crushed capri sun pressed into his hand.
“Aw, hell yeah! Thanks, man!” Soda grins at him even as he pulls away, and closes the door behind him, not bothering with the locks before stepping further into the home. “Wow, nice digs, Emizel! Wi-Fi password?”
“Cowboys eight, no spaces or capital letters.” Emizel smiles as he leads Soda out of the entryway and brings him to the living room. Grefgore seems alarmed at first, but Emizel waves a hand. “It's cool, he gets it.” Is all he says, and the knight sits back in the recliner with a hesitant nod.
He clearly hadn't expected a human to come by, but with the way Soda and Emizel sit on the couch pressed so close together, it's pretty obvious that Emizel expects them both to shut the fuck up about it.
Arthur is a dork ass loser who doesn't know what a cool video game is, so instead of Smash, Emizel and Soda play wii sports resort, like poor people. The remote can't keep up with the force of Emizel's swings, and he keeps striking out, so Soda wins a total of six games before he takes pity on Emizel and switches to tennis. It only helps a little.
They're neck in neck, both standing before the tv and gripping their remotes tight, when Emizel accidentally smacks Soda with the wii remote with a plastic THWACK!- and then bursts into laughter at the yelp and the affronted look on Soda's face. “Holy fuck, I'm sorry- haha, I'm so sorry--”
“What the fuck, man!” Soda pushes Emizel's shoulder, and his best friend staggers a little, still laughing. “Concuss me, why don't you. Go get me some ice, jerk.” He huffs, and Emizel nods.
“Yeah, yeah- I'll be right back. Seriously, I didn't mean to.” Emizel is still grinning, sharp teeth on display.
“Whatever man,” Soda smiles back and then sits back down as Emizel leaves the room.
His head really does hurt, even though he can tell it would hurt way worse if he and Emizel hadn't done that blood thing the other night. Perks of the job or something.
He reaches up with one hand to feel for a wound on the side of his head, and while he's a little tender, and his fingers do come away with a bit of red, he's not bleeding out, and therefore doesn't worry about it.
It seems Soda is the only one who's not worried, actually. He freezes, halfway through wiping his fingertips off on his bandana, and makes direct eye contact with- uh, Shilo. The guy from the jail, right. Soda remembers the first time they met decently fondly, even though Shilo had scrambled his beverage taste like eggs in a pan. It had been a fight to get him fixed, and Soda was almost permanently off carbonation recently, but they've found a common ground to sort of start over with.
Now, though, instead of that deep need for approval, Shilo's eyes are full of hunger. He even shifts a little closer on the couch.
“Hello, Soda. How are you?” He says slowly, and there's a glint in his eye that sets Soda's teeth on edge.
“Hey, man. I, uh- I'm good. I'm all good. Been a while, huh? What, almost twenty-four hours now?” He lets out a laugh that sounds nervous even to himself. “You haven't aged a day.”
“How nice of you to notice.” Shilo shifts a little closer.
“Yeah....uh, anyway. I should go check on Emizel-”
“No!” Shilo interrupts, and catches Soda's hand as he moves to get up. “I mean, no. That's okay. You can sit and talk with me, right? We're friends.”
Soda blinks. “Well sure, yeah, man. You're Emizel's brother, he says you're cool, so you're cool.” He very carefully puts his free hand over Shilo's and gently tries to pry his fingers off, but his grip is iron. “Look man, I don't want to be rude, but you're too in my space, okay? Back it up.”
Shilo smiles, and his eyes almost seem to light up. “I don't think I need to. This is completely normal, since we're friends. You know, you can share some of your blood with me.”
A shiver runs down Soda's spine and he blinks, eyes wide. He gets a very uncomfortable feeling suddenly, like the first time he helped Emizel kill someone for their blood. He feels a little queasy, and like he needs to get out of this situation right this second, or something terrible is going to happen. “Uh, no. No, thanks.”
Shilo's draw drops, eyebrows shooting up, and Soda takes advantage of the distraction to jerk his hands away and stagger to his feet.
“What the hell, that was six successes!” Shilo looks to Grefgore, incredulous, and Soda quickly hops the back of the couch to flee the living room. Shilo's inhuman speed lets him cut off the exit, seemingly effortlessly, and he glares into Soda's eyes. “You will let me drink some of your blood.” He says, and his voice rings in Soda's head.
Soda laughs once, humorless. “No way, man.”
“Grefgore!” Shilo snaps again, throwing his hands up. “My power isn't working!”
Grefgore is at his side in an instant, looking over the shorter vampire with concern. “It seems so, my prince. Nothing a little blood won't fix, I'm sure. Allow me to fill you a glass.” Grefgore turns to Soda, offering a hand out, and starts to speak. He doesn't have any disciplines that let him dominate minds, but he does have a very earnest smile, and a dedication to his prince that could level a mountain.
He also takes a frying pan to the back of the head like a fucking champ, and staggers a few steps to the side to reveal Emizel in the doorway, looking furious. He fakes a lunge towards Shilo and his twin scrambles back behind his dazed guard.
“What the fuck, Shilo!” He snaps. “I told you to fuck off with the mind stuff, you know that includes Soda!”
“In my defense,” Shilo peeks around Grefgore and gestures to Soda with one hand, “it didn't even work! He is immune, or I am too weak to use it because I am starving!”
“It's neither of those.”
Arthur's sudden addition to the conversation makes everyone jump, and a shadowy black tendril snatches the pan out of Emizel's hands before he can swing it again out of instinct. He walks further into the house and closes the door behind him, and locks it soundly. “Boy,” he looks at Emizel, “you blood bonded your friend, remember. The bond for a human is incredibly strong, even at the first stage.”
Arthur slips a small vial of blood from his coat and passes one to Shilo, and offers the other to Grefgore, who bows politely. “Another vampire trying to...move in on your territory, shall we say, will cause upset in you and your human.”
Emizel rubs his chest. “...huh. I was wondering how I knew...I just thought it was like a weird twin thing.”
Arthur looks amused for a split second, before smoothing his expression into his usual detached airs. “Not quite. You share a bond, and can feel when it gets intruded upon.”
Soda perks up. “So I'm immune to Shilo's mind powers because Emizel and I are in love?”
“....Basically.”
Emizel's blood no longer moves as it once did, but his cheeks still turn a dark pink as he grabs Soda's hand and pulls him out of the room, grumbling.
“Boy,” Arthur calls, making no move to follow. “I have blood for you too, if you want it.”
“No thanks!” Soda waves at him from down the hall. “I’ve got plenty!”