<Xylia> A couple of hours later Xy stirred from her cursed slumber and sat up to find Ad’s hand grasping her forearm lightly. Gently moving his hand away from hers, she disappeared from the bed and reappeared by the bedside a minute later, medical supplies in hand with a perplexed expression. Had she not fallen asleep on the couch? Shrugging she proceeded to deal with Ad’s wound.
With a quick motion, she rid Ad of the blood stained sweat pants (she would be teasing Ad about this when he was better, “Are you sure you’re not transgender?”) and covered his not to be seen areas with the covers careful not to let it touch the wound. She started off by cleaning his wound before sewing it meticulously and bandaging it. The wound did not bother her as it should to a normal being with emotions. This was all due to the fact that she had seen and dealt with many, even had one herself. So to Xylia, this was just another bad wound.
Once done, the shadow vamp left the bedroom to clean herself up, sure Ad wouldn’t mind if she used his things. She had went through his closet and picked out a t-shirt for herself and threw a pair of boxers to the unconscious Necromancer, just in case he felt the need to walk around.
<Adley Reed> The Shadow Realm had been one very long nightmare, but it was a nightmare that Adley now knew that he had been awake for. Sleep took him like a hefty knock to the head, with a large dosage of anesthetic on top. For quite a few hours he saw nothing but darkness; he could have been truly dead, for all that was going on in his head.
As Zaleski cleaned him up, however, he would have twitched. If he were human, he would have been sweating. His lips were parted and where he hadn’t been breathing all night, his lungs would draw sharp breaths. The pain of the stitches reminded Adley of the pain he had suffered before he’d gone down; his body had been riddled with pain in those last hours of life. It was those hours that he remembered; it was when he saw the arch of the sword as it came for his last moment that he startled awake, eyes wide. His fingers curled around the blankets of his bed, his lungs now filling with air only to assure himself he hadn’t died. Again.
He tried to move and was reminded of his leg; of the wound he hoped might heal overnight. Glancing down, he saw that it had been cleaned. He saw that it had been stitched. He also saw that he wasn’t wearing any pants - as he’d rolled over, the bedsheets and fallen off. He groaned as he rubbed at his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Zaleski?” he called, then coughed, slowly easing to the edge of the bed where he could pull on the boxer shorts she’d so kindly left for him. “... are you still here?”
<Xylia> While in the shower, Xylia took the time to plan her day. She wanted to go to pandemonium, to see if they had somehow received news of Ad yet. No they were not unreasonable people, they only got those on the hit list, but she wanted to make sure. Probing the area Ad had bitten her, her fingers found two small punctures there. Well, it had not exactly been a day since he bit her. With the wounds she had received, she took note of the amount of time they took to heal. A minor one took about 24 hours while gun wounds or stab wounds took about 72 hours for her to recover from while fatal wounds could last for over a week. Looks like her trip to Pandemonium is postponed. It wouldn’t be a good idea to enter a room full of the supernatural with an open wound.
Rather than do that, she should check up on that human guy. Wonder what he was doing. Still at the graveyard perhaps? It had been quite a while since she last saw him. During her first day out in public as a vamp, he had helped her (no he did not know what she was) and even gave her a place to stay. Safe to say, Xylia was grateful to the mortal. Prior to heading there, she should feed to curb her hunger. She did not want to feed on the kind soul of a guy. Kind was probably not how one should describe him but she shall describe him as that to the confinements of her mind.
Just as she was dressing up, she heard Ad call out to her. Almost immediately, the female vamp was dressed in Ad’s t-shirt with the same bottom she had worn the previous day and walking out of the bathroom with a spare towel she had found in hand.
“Miss me already?” She asked, her tone teasing in spite of her expressionless face. Though if one knew where to read the signs, they would know she was being playful.
<Adley Reed> Zaleski walked out of the bathroom as if she owned the place. Wearing one of Adley’s t-shirts, as if she were a girlfriend rather than just a friend. Though, she had never given him that kind of vibe. Even though he prodded and teased. Sometimes he wondered if she was asexual.
Here was a girl who’d brought him home and who had provided for him the modicum of comfort that he required in order to feel alive, and safe. And yet it was not something he wanted to thank her for. He didn’t want to admit that he had needed it. Even now, knowing that she had cleaned his wound and, in the process, had had very good opportunity to admire the wares - he did not break. Although he felt as if shock were still thrumming through his limbs, he couldn’t let her see it. Although he felt like he could just start shuddering at any moment, he knew he couldn’t. If anything, her presence kept him aloof. All that time in the Shadow Realm, and he felt like he had died ten minutes ago. Five minutes. Less, given the dream he had just had.
There were too many things that he hadn’t taken seriously. Vamprism had been a walk in the park. A playground. But now it was something more. Something different. Something a whole lot more serious. And he didn’t have a sire. He didn’t have anyone. He had to try to figure out what to do with himself - and the sooner, the better.
But he could not, for the sake of everything, let Zaleski know how lost he felt.
“Oh, no,” he said, summoning his usual gleaming grin. “I just thought I’d let you know that if you wanted to take advantage of me, I’m far more entertaining when I’m awake,” he said with a wink, standing to stretch his arms over his head. To feel the bones and the muscles stretch and pop. His own body felt strange. He figured it might take some time to acclimatise.
<Xylia> Upon observing him, Xylia sensed that something wasn’t too right with him, but decided to let him be. If he wanted to tell her he would, but right now he probably just needed her to be her normal self. So with a raised brow, she said.
“Take advantage of you? Don’t kid yourself. I’ve seen more impressive ones.” She smirked, turning her back on him as she headed for the window.
She was not lying about having seen the opposite sex’s ‘wares’. Living with her brother and his friends since young had ensured her a full view of the male anatomy. For some reason they just loved prancing around in their birthday suit despite her just sitting there. Maybe they found some sick pleasure in taking her eyes and mind’s virginity. Who knew what went through those retards’ heads. Memories of them brought a forlorn smile to her lips. Despite being retards they had taken care of her way more than her own blood brother had.
Peeking out through the tiny gaps in the wooden boards to see what time of day it was, she found it to be early evening. If she were to leave Ad’s apartment now, she would probably be able to feed and reach Ash’s house by mid evening. She’d give herself at the very least a few hours there seeing how much she liked the design of his house before returning to Ad’s again.
“Would you be ok by yourself? I need to leave for a while, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” Xylia asked from her position at the window.
<Adley Reed> Adley snorted. It was easy to fall into a pattern with Zaleski. It was easy to forget the lingering nightmares if he just focused on the teasing that they liked to poke each other with. He had wandered over to his dresser to pick out some pants; this was his usual routine. He never did stay at home. He would go out. He would sit in his car and eat junk food while waiting for the police scanner to tell him of some crime, or some crash, or some bloody and gory thing that he could photograph.
These days, there was no junk food, but it was basically all the same. He would go out. And he would find the things to photograph. He would work. And if he didn’t feel like working, he would play. The pubs and clubs and casinos were his playgrounds. And it would be no different tonight, even if the world still felt wrong. Off its axis, somehow. It would come back to him, his usual swagger. It had to.
His mouth had opened to retort with one of the many quips that had come to mind, but Zaleski cut him off. Without meaning to, he slammed the drawer from which he had retrieved a fresh pair of socks.
“I’m not staying here. I’ll be perfectly fine. I’m a big boy,” he said. He grinned at her. Even winked. It was also a stone’s throw away from their teasing.
Big. He believed he was a big boy. It was cold out, and she hadn’t witnessed him at his best. He even laughed as he pulled off the shirt that wasn’t his, in favour of something more familiar.
“But you can still come back later. I know you want me to prove you wrong…” he said. There was that quip. He couldn’t let her have the last word.
<Xylia> Xylia jumped at the sudden bang of wood and huffed after realizing it was just Ad. She rolled her eyes at Ad’s last statement, not caring that he wasn’t going to be able to see it as she was facing the window.
“I’ll be back, though not for the purpose of you trying to prove me wrong, cause I know my anatomies well. But cause (I don’t trust you to take care of yourself as you should.) I don’t have a place of my own yet.” She told him glumly saying the other part in her head. If she failed to return though, she’d probably crashed at a mortal’s place again cause vamp’s homes were troublesome to enter unnoticed.
After a while more of aimless staring, Xylia turned from the boarded up window and searched the apartment for her coat in a lazy manner. Where on earth did she put it? For the love of her, she could not even remember when she had taken it off.
“Have you seen my coat Ad?” She called out, a little amused at herself.
This was not the first time she lost an article of clothing after waking up from her cursed sleep. She almost felt like a drunk person with no recollection of what had occurred, or in her case what had happened to her missing piece of clothing. Oh well, she could easily get another. Sadly that had been her favourite coat so far out of all the others she had picked out of people’s closets.
<Adley Reed> Adley didn’t believe Xylia. It was his turn to roll his eyes; she wasn’t returning because she didn’t have a place, otherwise she’d have seen his before now. She’d have asked to crash on his couch, or if he had a spare bed. Surely, she had places to go otherwise he’d have heard about it, right? A friend would tell another friend that they were homeless, or so one would hope.
As soon as Adley himself was dressed in his own casual attire, he turned around to see Xylia’s coat at the foot of the bed. He scooped it up as he made his way out to her - he kept trying to walk as if there was nothing wrong, but his leg still hurt like a ***********.
“I don’t believe you,” he said as he tossed Zaleski her coat.
“You realise that it’s cold out, right? That a penis is a different size when it’s… well, excited?” he said with a wink. Clearly, he wasn’t taking Zaleski’s teasing seriously. Clearly, he had way too much confidence in himself and his own size. He’d had no complaints in the past; he had women who often came back. Besides which, the media liked to make everyone think that the bigger the better, but it wasn’t the case. Sometimes, too big was too much. No, Adley wasn’t hoping for the biggest. He knew he was just right.
After he had given Zaleski back her coat, Adley reached for the camera that he’d put down on the coffee table the morning before. He tossed from hand to hand; he stood there, unmoving. He wouldn’t look at it. He’d wait until Zaleski had gone. He had no idea how he would react - and it wasn’t something he wanted her to see.
<Xylia> She caught the coat and mumbled out a thanks as she got to wearing it.
“I know. We learned that in… whatever grade that was. In any case, let's spare the science lesson for another day. See yea!” She told him, zipping up her black combat boots and heading out the door, looking like nothing had ever happened to Ad. Like he had not came out from the shadow realm less than 24 hours ago. Like he had just always been there.
When the door of her old friend’s apartment closed behind her, Xylia glanced back, worry nagging in the back of her mind. She soon shook it off though. Ad would be fine. He would be fine as long as she kept her distance from him. He’d be safer at the very least. Ultimately, he was a ‘big’ boy like he’d implied.
A lonely smile made its way to her lips as she walked off into the shadows of the alleyways.
‘Where shall I feed today?’ She asked herself absentmindedly, not truly paying attention to her need to feed at all. A faraway look to her smoky blue hues just as if her mind were preoccupied with something else.
Paranoia.
<Adley Reed> It didn’t bother Adley that Zaleski acted as if this were any other night. It didn’t matter if she did or if she didn’t; if she’d started asking questions about his wellbeing, he’d have lied. If she’d asked if he was okay, he would have laughed and told her to **** off. Although Adley
knew that he needed help, it would take a huge ******* effort for him to ask for it.
Beyond what he had already asked for, that was. But that had been a necessity. And it was Zaleski. He could trust her. He had to be able to trust her.
As soon as the door shut behind her, however, Adley didn’t go anywhere. His legs collapsed beneath him and he landed heavily on the couch. A hiss cracked his lips, but the camera was immediately turned on. He expected the last thing in the gallery to be what he had captured the night of his death; instead, he saw… wildlife. Photographs that were not his own. Zaleski had been using his camera; if his face could blanch anymore than it already was, it did. Had she deleted it?! Had she erased everything?!
Frantically, he flicked through all the new pictures before he found it. And it wasn’t just pictures he’d taken, either, but a video. The attack was sudden, but it was drawn out - he’d had time to turn the camera on. To film discreetly. It was shaky, but it was there. He watched it at least ten times before he forced himself to turn the camera off, to put it aside. Why had he filmed it? Why, now, had he forced himself to sear those faces into his memory? He stood and took the camera with him; he took it to his desk, where his laptop sat.
Why, now, was he making copies? He didn’t know. What could he do with this information, this evidence? How could he use it? Surely, this kind of thing wasn’t
accepted, was it?
It was only after he’d finished making the copies and securing them in different places that he finally finished getting dressed and left the apartment. The camera stayed behind. He didn’t feel like working, though the first place he intended to go was to Harper Rock News. He was on his way to ransack Abelle’s office.
<Xylia> Perhaps she should have deleted the evidence. Then again, she had no right. Ad deserved to know what he was up against. Maybe he’d then realize that being a creature of the night was no walk in the park. Or he could want revenge against them… which she dearly hoped was not the case. It was a battle with a foreseeable outcome. One she did not think Ad would be able to bear, again. The friend she knew would be replaced with a crazed being that in due course, be banished for good.
Once more in the apartment of a mortal, smoky blue hues glowed silver whilst pleasure pulsed through her veins as she fed off the warm neck of a male. After some experimental feeding, Xylia had come to realize that Harper Rock’s streets, with all their security cameras and other vexatious hindrances, was not a good place to feed if she did not feel like competing against time. Every time she was caught feeding would mean time wasted on having to track down the nuisance and hack it out or shut the mortal’s trap before anyone got to them. Thrilling as it was, today she did not feel up to it. Today, she was a vamp with plans.
With her hunger settled, she cleaned up all evidence of her being there and left the apartment at a brisk pace. Now, she would head to the graveyard keeper’s place and hopefully find him there.
Few hours later…
The graveyard keeper had not been there. Which was weird. She had waited, and searched the surrounding wilderness for him before returning to his abode to wait again. An hour of waiting later, she went out into town to search for him. Still, no signs of him. She even went down into the sewers to search for him, killing some soldiers and paladins as she went on in her search for the mortal. Where could he have gone? Had he gone on a vacation or something? Either way, she had wasted enough time here and would be heading back to Ad’s.
<Adley Reed> Those that were employed at Harper Rock news knew Adley by now. Not only had he sold his pictures to the paper before he’d met Abelle, but afterwards he’d spent more time there than usual, as both a blood thief and as a vampire - at least for the first week. He had come back to sell his pictures - the paper still ran even though its boss was M.I.A - but he’d stopped coming as often as he used to. As soon as he concluded that his sire wasn’t coming back any time soon, he stopped checking.
It made it easy for him to flash a smile to the secretary and the few reporters still hanging around. They didn’t question him, as he made his way down the hallway - and he made sure none of them were watching as he slipped into his sire’s office.
Abelle had mentioned Zodiac. Zodiac had sired Abelle - but Adley had no contact information. That was what he was searching for. Something, anything, to help him get in contact with someone who might know more, and who might be able to offer him a more thorough education than he had been given.
It took him a good hour to go through every drawer, and every nook. Finally, he found a card; he found it on the second sweep, its corner stuck in the lining of a drawer. It had Zodiac’s email - and place of work. Adley sat down at the computer to compose his email; something he sweated over, but finally just admitted the truth. He knew nothing, and he needed help.
He tucked the card into his pocket before heading out again - he had to find shops that were open. He needed a new phone, and to find a locksmith who could come around to his apartment to cut him some new keys; when he’d left, he’d left the door unlocked. It wasn’t safe. But he, irresponsibly, only had the one set, and now they were gone. Maybe he’d get some new locks put in while he was at it.
When he was done, and he’s set up his new phone with the same number, he went home. It wasn’t often that he went home, but he hadn’t showered yet, and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that death clung to him like a bad smell. He had to try to get rid of it. By the time Xylia came back, he was showered, a crisp white dressing covering the wound that would not heal. Rather than try to feed, he used his ability to boost his own blood to banish the thirst.
He sat on the couch, phone in hand, waiting for a notification of an email. He was comfortable, now, in loose pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt, all black. The TV was on - something on the True Crime channel - but he wasn’t really watching it. He was just staring into space, thinking about nothing, and everything.
<Xylia> The night had been a favourable one for Xylia. She had made it back to Ad’s apartment with a couple of hours to spare prior to sunrise. Upon arriving at the doorstep of Ad’s apartment, Xylia knew Ad was already back from his own outing. Smoky blue hues gleamed with mischief as an idea came to mind.Appearing behind her friend whom she reckoned was staring off into space, bent over and whispered in his ear.
“I’m home bae.”
Whatever reaction Ad made, Xy did not notice as she was already making her way into his bathroom with clothes she had picked out from someone’s closet yet again. It was not that she had no money. She simply hated shopping. In return for the clothes, Xylia would usually leave money in replacement of the missing clothes (if she liked it) or return said clothes ( borrowed without consent as she likes to call it) after having the clothes dry cleaned.
She took her time in the shower, it was the one thing she tried not to rush for it helped her piece her thoughts together, calmed her, and plan her next form of action if she felt there was a need. Her longest record so far in the bath had been one and a half hour. The pros of it? It kept her clean longer, soothes any muscle aches she might have and it was good for her mental health or so she heard. Cons of it? It meant more water bills, might even use up the hot water at some point, thus more electricity bills too.
Tonight, Xylia was pondering on how to approach Ad on the subject of his killers. She questioned herself whether to bring it up at all, or wait until he approached her. The thing with her was, she was good at fighting and reading people, but treating their mental health was like a whole different world to her. At most she’d ask them to take a shower and if they ever asked why, her answer would be “cause it helped me.” After a half hour under running water, Xylia extracted herself from the shower. Her mind blank with not a single hint on how she would bring the topic up with Ad. In the end, she decided to forgo it and wait for Ad to bring it up, lest she make things worse.
Coming out of the shower in a simple baggy sweater and tight-fitted running shorts, Xy crossed the space between the shower and the living room with hair dripping wet and plopped down on the comfy leather sofa by the television.
“Sold any pictures?”
<Adley Reed> Adley simply smirked. He might have responded with some tart remark about how he’d make an awful ‘bae’; maybe something about making him a sandwhich. Before the right remark could be uttered, however, Zaleski was gone. The shower started. And Adley just sighed and focused on the TV. He followed along for a little while, learning about the intricacies of this particular murder case, but he eventually tuned out again. He paid no mind to how long Zaleski was in the shower, or what it might do to his water bill. These were things they still had to worry about as vampires - bills. How much had life really changed, beyond sleeping patterns and food?
Oh, and coming back from the dead.
When Zaleski entered Adley’s line of vision, he turned to watch her. He watched as she dropped down onto the couch nearby; if he reached out just a little, he’d be able to touch her leg. But he didn’t. He arched a brow and shook his head.
