#stfreds

HAVEN, MAINE. AGENT ZHAO’S HOME. 0:43 AM.

          𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐍𝐄’𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐂𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐃.   He’d know,   he’s done it frequently enough.   And they’re both good at it,   almost doesn’t want to intervene when Fred and Astoria tiptoe to where the car’s USUALLY stood ――   but it’s not there   and he knows because he’s heard the door fall shut an hour earlier.   Assumes it’s something related to work,   but as long as Moa’s absence means he gets to enjoy a drink and a CIGARETTE on the patio with no one scolding him,   he doesn’t bother to worry.   Green eyes watch his counterparts with clandestine amusement,   voice only speaking up when the absence of transportation is discovered.      “ Weren’t both of you grounded last week? ”     His grin is impish,   barely hidden behind the smoke he exhales.     “ There’s nothing going on in Haven tonight, anyway. ”

                      POMEGRANATE  SEEDS  CHOKE  BETWEEN  HIS  FINGER  TIPS,       spitting burning red poetry on otherwise coarse skin,     weathered from decades of unending warfare.        he,   too,    is weathered,    a man eroded by the dust of time immemorial;     it is under an honest and unfailing moonlight that he sits,     in the encroaching mercy of,     imploring a sky adorned in sparkling pin-pricks of stars for answers to the questions he perhaps dare not voice aloud.      for in some sense to simply speak them is to make them real,     to attend focus on the misery they speak of.      severin has been gone for years now.       as sweet as the thought of the man may once have been to him,     the red rose stem harbours an unholy secret,     and much as though the thin,    watery juice is in truth that of ripe fruit,     an insightful eye may consider it     blood,     and may consider the seeds to,   instead,    be    thorns.

an ache lingers cruelly in the base of his stomach,     though for it,     the  usurped prince  has no such appetite to speak of.      he lets the seeds spill on the earth beneath him,      limp and lifeless.      what a waste,     he will consider briefly.      though will continue to crush them,      one by one.        he may take the remainder of the white flesh and squeeze it together in the maw of one merciless,     God-fearing hand,      should the need for something more tangible arise.     bright drops of vermilion colour drip from his finger tips and stain the limestone step,     like some glorified offering to the heavens above.       this is when he feels he is no longer alone.

              “ you keep sighin’ any louder and i’m gonna think the air conditioner is on the fritz again. ” peter doesn’t look up from his newspaper, sitting at one of the tables in the bar. he licks his thumb, turning another page and looking more interested in the newspaper than he was at the redhead behind the bar. “ if you’re that upset, why don’t y’g’wan and take the night off?”

                      𝐀𝐃𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐃𝐋𝐘, 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐁𝐘 𝐏𝐈𝐓𝐘.   the feeling grows to be a familiar fiend the more you live without remembering your age by the decade  ,  but rather  ,  by the century.    the woman he sat in front of was a little more than a stranger but much lesser than an acquaintance  ,  the one commonality they had?  vampyrs.  a specific one , at that. the average   “ vampire ”   was of western descendant  ,  the famed draculas and nosferatus.  nothing like the   vampyrs   that amadeus had been trying to avoid for centuries now.  but no , life wouldn’t be that simple  —  life was unkind and unfair to those who lived for the green grass and the bright sides. 

                       he sat in an old diner with fred because she was a favorite of one of ever’s kin. anyone with his blood and lineage was bound for a pitfall , the most painful of deaths at the very hand of he who thought he was god.  chief executive officer of a pharmaceutical and wellness brand ,  before that he was head of an advertising firm , and before that he was a headmaster at a boarding school  . . .  it goes on.  his name never left the spotlight.  the pattern wasn’t difficult to pick out.  he was not the strongest vampyr in existence , but his mind played tricks like the nine-tailed spirits. 

                       but amadeus didn’t know much more than that.  well , now he knew that she was quite fond of classic american food.  he was never fond of meatloaf , the mere sound of it was revolting.  but she looked a little more comfortable than earlier  ,  a little more at peace  ( if she had any to begin with  ).    “  i have to admit ,  ”  he washed down mashed potatoes with a sip of ginger ale.   “  —  i’m still not sure what i can do for you.  ”   typical of sonni to hear of these things ,  new favorites  , strays to take in to the cabin in the forest.    “   in fact , i’ve been avoiding their kind for as long as i can remember.  ”

                       he looked up with a gentle glance  ,  the gentle laziness of the tiger never left him.  to those who knew him well , they knew he meant no harm.  but not many were comfortable with that kind of eye contact with a predator.   nevertheless ,  he looked at her with as much gentility as he could conjure.   “   how did you get mixed up with vampyres , fred?   ”