Vampire Friends

Originally posted here April 23, 2019:

writing-prompt-s:

Explain how you try to calm down a newly turned vampire who was beyond pissed and ready to throw down at the vampire who turned them into a vampire because now they can’t eat their precious garlic bread anymore.

Here’s a mental image- me, fully human, kind of fragile woman between two fucking creatures of the night, trying to keep one of them from writing a check they can’t cash. 

I know Jay is not trying that hard, because he kicked the coffee table into splinters, so he could throw me through the wall, but he’s letting me step in. There’s been a lot of yelling for, like, an hour.

“But you won’t get sick ever again!”

“Garlic bread! Garlic-”

“Listen, your back problems, your skin problems- I’m helping you man.”

“Do you know how much garlic I eat in a week?”

“In a week you won’t care about garlic.”

Here’s the thing: it’s not about garlic bread. It’s never about the petty shit, that just ain’t how the world works. The petty shit is the excuse, it’s the brush to paint over the actual reason because the actual reason hurts too much to think about.

(Though, I will admit, Jay does eat a lot of garlic.)

It’s honestly gotten somewhat incoherent and repetitive.

Here’s the story, from what I can tell. Our other friend, Kevin, got turned into a vampire by his ex, possibly by accident. Kevin has been testing his abilities for weeks (I knew about it, Jay did not, because I was sworn to silence) and then turned Jay without his nay, say, or maybe about it. 

Which is, I suspect, the meat of the issue. 

Anyway, this fight has been going on a while, and the whole time Jay has been getting more… vampirish. Skin draining of color, fangs. I thought his eyes were darkening, but it was just the expansion of his pupils. It’s less noticeable in Kevin because he started out with pretty dark eyes, I guess. 

“Sarah, just let him hit me,” Kevin said eventually. 

“What?”

“We need to get it over with.”

“Not-” I stopped. There was an edgy note to it. Like he was worried about something. We’ve been friends for a while, you learn to pick up shit like that. He was nervous about-

I glanced at Jay, and saw it. The way he was looking at me.

“Not in the house,” I said, trying to hide how dry my mouth had suddenly gotten. “There’s a field out west of here, go out there and throw hands if that’s what you need to do.” I stepped away from Jay, but he stopped me, a hand on my shoulder. The sudden strength in it was terrifying. “Jay,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

He shook his head, his whole body, and then glared at Kevin again.

“The field, take it to the-” and they were both gone, the door slamming shut so hard it bounced open again. I caught it and shut it more gently. 

I sat on the couch, for a moment. Just a moment, just to breathe and think for a second. Then I got up, and put the electric kettle on. I’d already laid in supplies of dried blood. Typically it’s used in sausage making, but Kevin is getting by fine on it. 

Then I started to sweep up the remains of the coffee table. All I can do is clean up and hope nobody dies, I guess.