#horrorthrives

They’re both adults. This doesn’t have to be weird. It was a one-night stand, unless they turn this into more of a fling. Robby had a good time but he’s not going to make things awkward or pressure Doug into doing this all over again. They can go back to working together like this didn’t just happen, if that’s what Doug wants to do. It would not be the first time Robby has been in a situation like this with a co-worker. 

It takes everything inside of Robby not to roll his eyes at the ominous slow way he pulls up to the street like something out of a goddamn horror film. He’s too tired to care much about it, far too drunk to make a comment on it as he clumsily climbs into the passenger seat of the car.

Ugh. Does he have to say his name like that? It makes him feel like he’s in trouble. Should have just called for an Uber. If they hadn’t taken his damn keys, he would have just drove home but they did. A part of him is worried about leaving his bike behind. It’s not like this is a seedy part of town but it’s a nice bike and he doesn’t trust some drunken idiot not to try and steal it from the parking lot. But what other choice does he have, really?

He glances out the window as he heaves a sigh and then turns his attention back to Doug with a narrow of his eyes, like he wants to challenge him. Robby thinks better of it, he really doesn’t want to have to explain anything, so he grabs the seatbelt to buckle up. It takes a couple of tries, his coordination is shit right now, but he manages to click the seatbelt into place after a few failed tries.

“There. Happy?” Robby realizes after a moment just how petulant he sounds and sighs softly. “Sorry. Thank you for picking me up. They took my keys.” And no one else was answering, he wants to say, but he doesn’t.

He’s drunk, not honest to the point where it might sound cruel. He leans his head back against the headrest. Honestly, he could probably fall asleep just like this. He won’t because he needs to tell Doug where he lives but still, he could. If he wasn’t so drunk his vision is starting to blur he’d just plug it into Doug’s phone.

“ You look so biteable today. ” from eric

"Jesus Christ, do you have to sneak up on me like that??"

The doctor is busy checking on his newest patient when Eric does that thing where he just appears beside him and it makes Frank jump. His patient is someone that one of Fangtasia's patrons had gotten a bit excessive with in the back rooms. Frank's just glad he was able to get to her before she bled out, and he hopes Eric just lets him continue on taking care of her. She's already got color in her cheeks, so she probably doesn't need any more blood, but she's still showing signs of dehydration.

Sighing, he uses the opportunity to slink away from beneath Eric's all-too-close and towering presence. Frank isn't entirely used to being the shortest one, and it's a bit unnerving; just like everything that has happened to him since moving to Bon Tamps. And here he thought moving to a small Louisiana town would bring him some peace of mind.

Instead, he finds himself the personal physician to a vampire Sherriff -- which is not a sentence he ever thought would apply to his life -- treating the humans he and his clan or whatever they want to call themselves feed on.

"You know, you gotta tell your guys they need to go easy..." Frank says, once he's satisfied with the distance between them as he walks around the patient's bed to the medical fridge and pulls out a bag of saline.

“Where have you been?”

It’s not like he owed her an explanation. She doesn’t have any claim over his life. Unspoken attachment or not, in all their years of circling, nothing had ever been defined. Not the want, or the ache, or the nights they couldn’t take back.

Fuck, it was good to see him, and she hated that. Hated that she was so ready and willing to forget that he’d been gone for months. That she thought for once maybe she was on her own. That all she wanted to do now was grab for him and dig her fingers in, and inspect him piece by piece just to see if he was okay.

Of course he was okay. And of course he absolutely wasn’t. It wasn’t like she was doing any better. Maybe she could admit she was worse off at the moment, considering she was the one tangled up with an IV in a hospital bed.

She couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten here. Or why she’d have gone out with only John’s business card in her pocket and not her ID. Or wallet. Or what had happened in the three days since she’d remembered leaving home. It felt a little like bait, now that things were coming into focus.

God, why had he even come here when they’d called.

“Okay, see — next time you decide to stage the worlds most dramatic breakup, you should do it at a normal time and not one am.”

Liv scrubs at her face as she holds back a yawn, rubbing roughly at her eyes in an attempt to look less exhausted. She hadn’t been close to sleep, really. She never slept all that well to begin with. But she had been three-fourths of the way through a bottle of moscato, and that always made her drowsy. Half-heartedly offering him a sip, she tilts the slowly warming bottle towards him.

“I’ve got beer too, if you want something else.” She nods towards her fridge, setting the wine bottle aside as she moves to root through the closet for extra blankets. It wasn’t like this was the first time this had happened. He’d used her phone before when he’d locked himself out, but usually it was when management was awake. Ready to respond.

Now, well …. Now the options were limited.

“First stay on the couch is free, but after this I start charging.” She winks, tossing a blanket at him. It occurred to her, briefly, that she was still just in her oversized tee shirt. Pants, maybe, were definitely in order. She couldn’t just put herself to bed. She hadn’t even slept in the bed in months, too tense to sleep anywhere that felt so open, even in her own apartment.

She loves him.

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him, in that kind of stupid ‘call home to your mother and gush, pick petals off flowers and sigh wistfully’ sort of way. He made her feel tingly, and light headed, and flushed all at once. Giddy, maybe, was the right word.

“Do you want dinner? We can order dinner….” She should have thought about this, had something ordered before he’d even come over, given how late his shift has already been. But she’d been busy cleaning, distracted, and focused on scrubbing any blood stains off her table. Her apartment was ramshackle enough, he didn’t need to come face first with the evidence of how weird her life really was.

She’d forgotten dinner altogether again once he’d come through the front door, she was in his lap with her lips on his the moment she’d gotten him to the couch. “I might still have leftover pizza. Definitely instant ramen.” None with seemed like good options. She tries to make it up to him with another kiss, fingers curling through his hair.

“Don’t tease me like that —“

Her jaw clenches as she stiffens awkwardly, idly finding an object in his dark, dusty crypt of choice to fiddle with so she doesn’t have to look at him. “It’s bad enough when I get it from John, okay?”

And it was. It stung in a way she couldn’t quite verbalize. And made because it wasn’t like it would ever make her leave. She didn’t have enough of a backbone for that. It was the price she paid, maybe, for wearing too many of her emotions on her sleeve.

“I know I seem innocent, and stupid, but I actually like you, so you can’t just — dangle affection in front of me like that. Like it hurts my feelings, Spike —“

Shit.

She scrubs at her face, huffing as she finds something else to fiddle with, some kind of stone to scrape at with her nails. Because suddenly anything was better than looking at him. And maybe this particular rush of anger was better pointed at John, but she couldn’t take it from Spike.

Not when he was the one she trusted. With her feelings, and her life, and her stupid, little day to day problems.

Maybe it was her own fault for harboring a crush so visibly.

“Sorry —“ God damn it. The last thing she needed were tears, and she didn’t her best to hide them. But it was exhausting, frankly, being dragged along like a love sick puppy on a chain. Having her affection cashed in when it suited other people, but never held on to in return.