#christevin

If a shower was bliss, clean clothes were pure joy and a soft bed was heaven, assuming he still had a soul and assuming he could still get in, even if he'd only broken into the empty house and not sunk his fangs into any necks. Yet. He honestly didn't know how long he could keep up the "vegetarian vampire" thing, not when he was on his own and never saw the sun and had nothing and no one but rats and sewers and his own stench. Unless keeping his sanity was another superhuman ability granted to him by the change, he expected it would start to slip sooner rather than later. He was an idiot not to have thought of this before. The family was gone on vacation and the cat was keeping up a steady stream of hisses and he was sure they'd asked the neighbors to keep an eye on the house, but it was too much to resist. It had been months since he'd been inside an actual, decent home, not some gutted, rotted corpse of a house. All the clothing in the kids' rooms were too small, and the mom's too big, so he rolled up the legs of some nice dress pants from the dad's side of the closet and cinced it at the waist with the internal promise to himself that later he'd steal some pants that actually fit. Preferably from some rich, hoity-toity store like American Eagle or Abercrombie & Fitch. He'd grown up in cast-offs and hand-me-downs from Goodwill and The Salvation Army, and the little things were all he had now. The red and blue striped polo he found was too big, but it smelled so nice, like fresh soap and cotton, but also with the lingering scents of musk and cologne underneath, so old into the material that it couldn't quite be washed out. For a moment, he imaged it was a gift, or at the very least a willing loan, nose buried into the material, before he crawled into the queen-sized bed and buried himself in the soft comforter and pillows. A little noise left his mouth, like a whimper wrapped in relief, and against his better judgment, he dozed off.

There was something burning on the edge of his consciousness, beneath fogged memories, curling flame that writhed and awakened as he stared at Kevin across the vast expanse of concrete between them. See the fear in his eyes, the voice whispered, and Chris narrowed his gaze. He was changed from before, older despite his unaging nature, because it pleased the demon he served to mature him. He stood straighter than he ever had, fire in his eyes, unblinking and unwavering, poised like a cat ready to strike, lithe, every muscle coiled. He saw the fear blooming there, could see every fleck of color in Kevin's eyes, emerald and gold and blue and brown; he could see his sharp inhalation and his horror. His memories of the boy were like smoke, like someone else's memories. But something burned inside them. Once fear had been his enemy, but it was his pet now, his plaything. Once he would have wet himself in fear of Charles; now he barely took note of his presence, stare fixed on Kevin's as though it had been borne for that purpose. The air was electric, the feeling that normally came only when a vein was mere centimeters from his teeth, skin laid bare before him. There were yards and yards between them and he could taste the fire in the air. He wanted to scare him. He's already afraid. Look at him. He's thinking you're a monster. The voice was like liquid gold, and he leaned into it, subconsciously. The man beside him had eyes black like obsidian. Kevin's eyes were green like sunlight on grass. He craved the taste of him. You are the monster that murdered his friend. No, Charles did that. Look at the heart of him. You're tearing it apart. He could taste blood and fire and sudden pain, ancient from the forgotten depths of him, hot and fresh, slicing into him like the sun. He felt it, pooling up in his heart and aching under his skin like a fever. He breathed out, and air like cobwebs spilled from his lungs. He remembered a lost boy, rats and sewers, and before that, sunlight, and one teasing kiss.