Chapter Text
They were hungry.
Hungrier than they had ever been before.
Vee sat in the back of the class, their grip on the sides of their desk tightening as they glanced around the room, their deep green eyes being glazed over and animalistic looking, but no one seemed to notice. It was usual for them to be overlooked, being seen as that weird goth kid that almost never spoke. It didn’t really bother Vee, seeing that the way they were looked at and perceived was only half of the full truth. Yes, they did like wearing goth-style clothing, but they had their reasons, but they mostly wore it out of their own wants.
They sighed, biting the inside of their cheek as they struggled against the deep twisting feeling of their hungry stomach. It hurt, like it usually did, but this time it was way worse. It felt like if they didn’t feed, at any second they would go wild, which was the opposite of what they wanted. They started to tap their fingers on the sides of their desk, glancing up at the clock as they willed the bell to ring.
Their attention started to slip elsewhere as their ears started to pick up the whisperings of the more popular kids in the class. It was hard to make out at first, but it slowly became louder as they stopped focusing on their hunger and focused more on their voices. They were whispering about one of the most hated kids in the school, none other than Lloyd Garmadon himself, the son of the ‘Monstrous’ Lord Garmadon.
Vee found it funny that the more popular kids could bring themselves to hate someone who had no relation to their very evil father. Just because someone was related to a monster doesn’t mean that they were or are a monster too, or at least that's the way that Vee saw it. They always took pity on Lloyd, being that they were both in similar situations of outcast, although in Vee’s mind, theirs was more deserved. They were a monster, a creature, a vampire.
They glanced over to Lloyd, seeing how he had an emotional look in his eyes, but was trying to cover it up by burying his face in a book. Vee turned their head to the side a small bit, the feeling of hunger in their gut slowly growing as they continued to stare at Lloyd with no regard to how creepy or weird it might look to an outsider. Their mind started to wander, wondering how he would taste if they were to bite, the feeling of his flesh against their teeth as his fresh blood dripped into their mouth. How wonderful, it would be to feed on someone like him, someone who looked so pathetic in that green hoodie of his.
Eventually, they snapped out of those thoughts, returning to the matter at hand of trying to think of a solution to their hunger that didn’t involve drinking the blood of another. They knew that their thoughts were wrong to think, but it was still enticing to a monster like them.
“Ah, no, focus.” They mumbled to themselves, letting out a huff before running their fingers through their long, curly brown hair to try to distract themselves from their very strange thoughts. They started to fiddle with their hands, trying not to take any glances of Lloyd as their hunger grew stronger. Soon, the bell rang, and Vee quickly got to their feet as they slung their backpack over their shoulder before taking another glance at Lloyd, who still had that emotional look in his eyes. They could feel a pang in their heart as they saw that look, a look of someone just trying their best to keep themselves together.
They couldn’t help themselves but follow behind Lloyd as he left the class, heading to his next one, which the two didn’t share, nor did they share any other classes in the rest of the day. They had to take this chance, even though it was wrong, oh-so wrong, it felt so right.
As quick as lightning, once the two walked into a secluded hallway, Vee rushed in from behind and wrapped their arms around Lloyd in a tight, constricting embrace, with one of their hands quickly going to his mouth to muffle any sounds. Lloyd of course immediately started to thrash around, being surprisingly stronger than Vee originally thought, but it was nothing that they couldn’t deal with as they slowly dragged him into a janitor's closet.
Lloyd let out a few muffled shouts, but they all fell upon deaf ears as Vee brought Lloyd into the closet, their breath coming out in short huffs as they fought back the urge to rip into his flesh. The grip over Lloyd’s mouth tightened, causing Lloyd to let out a small pained noise. The noise only seemed to further the want to feed, which was shown in Vee slowly moving their face to Lloyd’s neck, bearing their fangs as they continued to huff.
“...Sorry about this.” They muttered under their breath, and a small noise of confusion could be heard from Lloyd before it was replaced with pain and fear as Vee suddenly bit into his neck, causing Lloyd’s body to jolt as he thrashed more before starting to go limp, his eyelids fluttering slightly as he became pale, and small noises of pain could be heard from his muffled mouth.
Vee, on the other hand, was feeling the opposite of what Lloyd was. Pure bliss started to emanate through their body as his blood slowly and sweetly dripped into their mouth, the taste being better than any other blood they had tasted before. It still had that coppery taste, but with a stronger hint of what felt like something sour, but it was still surprisingly good. Perhaps too good.
Vee let out a small, hungry growl as they bit in deeper into Lloyd’s neck, causing him to let out a pained whine as a few tears slipped from his eyes as they fluttered closed. More of that inhumane taste filled their mouth, the feeling slowly started to melt into what felt like heaven on earth, perfect bliss that they had never thought they would achieve this easy. The taste was perfect… no, Lloyd was perfect, as perfect as a human could be.
Soon, Lloyd became fully limp, his head falling forward as he fainted, bringing Vee back to reality as they realized what they had just done. They gaped slightly, licking up some of the blood that was still on their lip as they silently and gently laid the fully passed-out Lloyd on his back, using one of their hands to grip onto Lloyd’s still bleeding neck to try to apply pressure to stop the flow, which seemed to at least partially work as they glanced around the janitor’s closet for any sort of medical kit.
A horrible feeling of guilt slowly started to overcome Vee as they looked down to Lloyd, the poor boy they had drained blood from. Lloyd was already suffering, being the son of an evil man, and Vee just made it worse. Vee continued to look around the room for a bit before getting up and grabbing an almost hidden medical kit, bringing it over to Lloyd and starting to clean the bite wound as well as put a bandage over so he wouldn’t die from blood loss.
Vee licked the blood from their fingers, looking down at their handiwork of the bandage covering Lloyd’s neck. They sighed to themselves, moving forward and placing a frigid hand on Lloyd’s forehead, feeling his warmth and feeling his body react to the cold. Vee’s body, being that of a vampire, was naturally cold, although it didn’t bother them. Their skin was also pale, a greyish-white color that seemed more fitting for a dead, cold body. They also checked Lloyd’s pulse, as a just-in case to make sure he wasn’t dying, which he wasn’t. His pulse was constant, which was a good thing.
They soon noticed Lloyd’s discarded backpack, being thrown to the side. Vee somehow didn’t remember taking it off of him, but it didn’t matter. Vee moved over to the bag, picking it up in their hands and looking at it, feeling the weight against their hands as they brought it over to Lloyd. They thought for a moment before opening the bag, snooping through Lloyd’s stuff with little regard to Lloyd’s privacy. Inside the bag, there were several different types of books from classes and collections of papers, mostly assignments. Vee hummed to themselves, feeling a bit disappointed that there was barely anything noteworthy in this bag. They continued to ruffle around in the bag until their hand came across something rather odd, a soft, silky cloth at the very bottom, which was in contrast with the material the bag was made out of.
They pulled the cloth out of the bag, their eyes widening as they saw the beautifully crafted masked hood. It was a nice green color, with a pendant on top of the head of a dragon colored in gold. The mask, which they had only seen once before covering the face of an unknown person calling themself the ‘Green Ninja’. Vee had heard stories of the Ninjas, mysterious protectors of the city of Ninjago, who had set their sights against Lord Garmadon, Lloyd’s father.
Was Lloyd the Green Ninja?
Vee hummed to themselves, partially surprised although they didn’t really care that much about the Ninjas in the first place. Their fight was against someone who didn’t matter to Vee or their kind. If anything, the attacks allowed Vee’s kind to hunt more freely without the worry of being caught since of the chaos in the city whenever the attacks happened. But, it was interesting if Lloyd was one of the people going against his father. It also made sense of why Lloyd was stronger than he looked when Vee originally brought him to this dark room.
Vee glanced back down to the mask before bringing it up to their face and inhaling the scent, a curious noise coming out of the back of their throat. The smell was faintly of old hair grease and more of mint shampoo. It was an interesting smell, but not one that Vee was completely put off by. They glanced over to Lloyd before carefully slipping the mask back into the backpack, making sure to cover it back up with all the books once again before zipping the bag back up and putting it next to Lloyd.
Lloyd slowly started to wake, his eyelids fluttering slightly as he let out a pained groan and sat up a bit, rubbing his bandaged neck. His bright green eyes glanced up to meet Vee's. A confused look started to appear on his face as he rubbed his forehead, letting out a light groan.
“What happened…?” He mumbled, blinking slightly as he sat up more, continuing to rub his bandaged neck as he slowly regained his memory. He looked at Vee, glancing around at all their features. Their pale skin, their dark-colored clothes, their fangs… wait… “You- you bit me, didn’t you? You’re a vampire!” Lloyd spoke, fear appearing on his face as he started to immediately scoot away from Vee clumsily due to how much blood he had lost.
“My my, aren’t we a smart one!” Vee teased, getting to their feet and basically towering over Lloyd as they watched him panic. They let out a slight snicker as they walked forward a small bit, leaning down with a grin. “Yes, I am a vampire, and you my friend are a lowly human. A quite delectable one at that~”
“Who are you?” Lloyd huffed, his face turning a bit pink at Vee’s teasing, since he had never encountered something of the sort before. Vee giggled a bit at the color slowly appearing on Lloyd’s face, and decided to move right next to him and crouch down so that they were now eye level.
“I am Vee, I’m quite surprised you don’t recognise me since I am one of your classmates.” They spoke with a feigned offended tone, a slight angry pout appearing on their face for a moment before they let out a short bark of laughter, shaking their head.
“I mean I did kind of recognise you, I just never got your name…” Lloyd mumbled sheepishly to himself before letting out a sigh as a more concerned look appeared on his face. “You’re not gonna hurt me or anything, right?” Lloyd spoke slowly, with concern behind every letter.
“Of course not… unless…” Vee trailed off, a psychotic smile slowly dawning on their lips, which only caused Lloyd to panic further before Vee let out another laugh, indicating that they were joking. Lloyd let out an annoyed sigh, closing his eyes and shaking his head.
“You’re an ass.” He grumbled, which made Vee laugh more, letting out a few choaked coughs in the process. It took a bit for them to finally calm down from their laughing fit, but when they did they wiped a tear out of their eye, letting out deep breaths as they regained their composure.
“Oh- oh man I’ve never gotten that response before! Well, then again most of the people I bite I never talk to afterwards.” Vee sighed, looking back at Lloyd who had started to regain some of his energy back, and was looking less-than thrilled to be stuck in the same room with a vampire, the same vampire who bit him not too long ago.
“Why are you keeping me here anyways? Just to torment me?” Lloyd grumbled, starting to stand up as he reached out for his backpack. Vee stood up too, quickly grabbing onto Lloyd’s wrist and pulling him closer to them. Lloyd gasped slightly, his eyes widening as he was brought closer to Vee.
“Maybe, but in all actuality, I want to make a deal with you.” Vee smiled down at Lloyd, their grip on his wrist tightening ever so slowly. Lloyd scoffed, trying to pull his hand out of Vee’s grip.
“A deal? What kind of person do you think I am?” Lloyd huffed, gritting his teeth.
“I know what kind of person you are, actually. You’re the type of person who’d risk their own well-being to protect others, correct?” Vee whispered, a smile slowly dawning on their face as a look of horror mixed with surprise dawned on Lloyd’s. “Looks like I am, hm?”
“What do you want?” Lloyd spat, his gaze cold as he glared at Vee, who chuckled knowing they had him where they wanted.
“Well, with you being the heroic type, and me being a psychotic vampire who would stop at nothing to drain the people around them, I want to make a deal. I get a meal out of your blood every time I’m hungry enough, and I don’t hurt anyone else. Oh, and if that’s not good enough for your taste, I’ll also ward off any of your little bullies if you need.” Vee hummed, watching Lloyd’s expression as he thought it over, biting the inside of his cheek. He thought to himself for a moment, getting his blood drained sounded awful, but if it protected others… and if he got a free bodyguard out of it…
“I-...” He mumbled, glancing around the room. “Fine, sure… But you have to promise that you won’t go too far. I don’t want to die an early death.” Lloyd huffed, letting out a sigh as Vee grinned, showing their sharp fangs as they nodded, letting go of Lloyd’s wrist and shaking his hand, watching his expression hungrily.
“Deal!” Vee nodded, going over to Lloyd’s backpack and picking it up, handing it to him. Lloyd paused, a very confused look appearing on his face as Vee’s once hostile nature turned back into the more sweet and caring person that they had seemed back whenever they were in class. Lloyd remembered a time that Vee had let him keep a pencil since he had forgotten his. A small act of kindness that he hadn’t received much of. It was in stark contrast to how Vee acted now, basically blackmailing Lloyd into being their walking blood bank. Maybe all that kindness was just so that they could get close enough to bite.
“How did you know that I like to protect people?” Lloyd asked, causing Vee to raise their eyebrows a bit before letting out a small, sheepish but mostly non-concerned laugh as they waved their hand, turning their head to the side as they grinned slightly.
“I ah, ruffled through your bag… That mask you have is nice.” Vee mumbled, glancing away as Lloyd’s jaw dropped open. They looked through his bag and saw his Ninja mask. Great… just great.
“You- saw the mask…” Lloyd whispered, a panicked look appeared on his face. “Please don’t tell anyone! If my dad were to find out he’d probably-”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on telling anyone your little secret as long as you don’t tell anyone mine, alright?” Vee put out their hand, watching as Lloyd paused before carefully grasping Vee’s hand, realizing for one of the first times that Vee’s skin was freezing cold. He jolted slightly before trying to pretend that he didn’t. Vee chuckled slightly, turning their head to the side as they sighed. “Sorry, I’m a bit cold…” Vee sighed.
“You don’t seem the type to apologize, but it’s fine.” Lloyd hummed, slinging his bag over his shoulder before glancing at the door of the janitor’s closet. “We should probably go before too long, I don’t wanna get caught…” Lloyd sighed, his shoulders slouching as he glanced over to Vee as they nodded too, starting to walk over to the door and glancing back as Lloyd started to follow.
“So… you’re not hungry anymore, right?” Lloyd spoke slowly and cautiously, looking back at Vee with a worried look. Vee nodded, a sigh escaping their lips as they walked next to Lloyd, rubbing the side of their neck. The same side that Lloyd had gotten bitten. “I’m not gonna turn into a vampire, right?”
“No, you’re not. Vampirism only happens under different circumstances.” Vee glanced over at Lloyd, who let out a sigh of relief. Vee chuckled dryly, shaking their head. “If you were turning into a vampire, you’d feel like shit, or at least I think you would from what I’ve heard.” Vee spoke softly, watching as Lloyd gained a surprised expression on his face, mixed with confusion.
“You weren't turned into a vampire?” Lloyd questioned, raising one of his eyebrows as he spoke.
“No, I was born one.” Vee said, watching as Lloyd’s expression became even more surprised, with his mouth falling open slightly as he thought to himself, trying to gather his thoughts so he wouldn’t blurt something out. After a bit, Lloyd finally spoke, disbelief obvious in his voice, as well as shock.
“A natural born vampire? Sorry if this is rude but I’ve never heard of that before!” Lloyd said, causing Vee to giggle slightly as they nodded, waving their hand. Lloyd let out an embarrassed sigh, rubbing the back of his neck slightly.
“No no it’s fine, I get it, vampires aren’t that well-known or documented.” Vee hummed, placing a hand on his shoulder as the two of them continued to walk until reaching Lloyd’s next class, to which Vee stopped walking, leaning against the concrete wall as they looked at Lloyd, who was making sure he was presentable and didn’t look like a total mess. “Well,” Vee spoke softly, a small smile stretching over their face, “looks like this is where we part ways, I’ll see you sometime soon.” They nodded their head lightly, watching as Lloyd smiled slightly back before looking forward, reaching his hand out to knock lightly at the door.
“See you later, Vee.” Lloyd said back as he glanced back up at Vee, who smiled brightly as the door opened, and to which the two parted ways.