stupid vampire story

Dunno why the feed's been spazzing- I may take the feed offline for a while, but I'll give the two of you who read this on a semi-regular basis a heads up before I do that.

And now, a stupid vampire fragment.
-----------------
The Frost and Monthly Building was quiet at this time of night- it was too early for any of the real clients to be up and about, and too late for any of the daytime stragglers to be around. Toby was probably the only person on the ground floor, and he was stuck behind the reception desk until midnight.

He tilted his chair back as far as it would go and propped his bare feet up on the desk. Evening secretary duty sucked, and he'd be damned if he stuck to dress code at this time of night. He was wearing jeans with holes in the knees and an eye searing Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned, over a black t-shirt.

At least he had a chance to catch up on his Tetris playing; Martin had beaten his high score last week. The tinny music of his gameboy drowned out the soft sounds of the lobby fountain and covered up the faint noise of the doors hissing open.

Someone cleared their throat. Toby very deliberately paused his game and set it down on the desk before looking up. A man in a finely tailored suit stood at the desk, holding a briefcase in front of him.

Toby raised an eyebrow at him. "Well aren't you exceptionally well dressed." He swung his feet off the desk and sat up in his chair. "What can Frost and Monthly do for you today?"

"I have an appointment with Mr. Frost." His voice buzzed pleasantly in Toby's ear, somewhere between a growl and a purr.

Toby pulled flipped through the datebook. "Yeah? Which one? No- just tell me your name, that'll be easier."

"Prufrock. Owen Prufrock, representing J. Prufrock and Sons, attourneys at law." He pulled a business card out of his jacket and placed it carefully on the desk, then settled back with both hands clasped around the handle of his briefcase.

"Prufrock? No wonder you're well dressed." Toby grinned, baring his fangs. "Says here you're meeting with Noah- third floor, office on the right. He'll be expecting you."

"Ah." Owen tilted his head slightly. "And you are?"

His grin widened, and his pupils lengthened into slits. "No one important, really. You can call me Toby." He settled back in his chair and put his feet up again. "Better hurry along. Mr. Frost doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Owen kept his expression controlled, but Toby could hear his heartrate skyrocket. "Of course. Thank you for your assistance."

"Pleasure's all mine." Toby waited until the man was on the elevator to snicker madly into his Gameboy. Sometimes evening secretary duty was awesome. Prufrock hadn't made a move on them in years- and if this was their opening gambit, things were bound to get interesting around the office again.

It was almost midnight when the elevator doors opened again; Owen Prufrock strode out, with his tie slightly askew. He made eye contact with Toby as he wound his way through the night shift crowds in the lobby, and smiled.

Toby smiled back. He couldn't wait to hear all about this one from Noah; life around the office had been so very boring lately.

--------------------------

The Frost siblings:
January (Jane)
February (Aubrey)
March (Martin)
April
May
June
July (Jules)
August (Gus)
September (Beryl)
October (Toby)
November (Noah)
December (Daisy)

The Frost Family is a bunch of eccentric vampires and demonologists; the Prufrock family is mostly vampires and supplicants. (The natural state of a Frost sibling is human but weird- Toby's an anomaly; the natural state of a Prufrock child is vampire and bitchy.)

Toby was an accidental vampire in the Boffo universe, and Dei's roommate for a little while. Then he picked up eleven siblings and became Anya and Leto's genius programmer friend in DDD. Now he's insisting on staying a vampire and going to law school- only he's dragged his whole family into the mess too. And since I've been introduced to Angel, I seem to have acquired a bunch of warring vampire lawyer clans in my head.

Toby is also an adorable, twinky redhead with freckles and a lot of eyebrow piercings. I think he thinks he's punk, or something, but really, he isn't. He's mostly just cute and twinky and ambiguously gay.

Owen is the guy my iPod is named after. And as far as I can tell, he isn't a vampire, yet- it's possible he's still just a paralegal, and hasn't been promoted in the family yet. Solneki also seems to think they're related- distant cousins of some sort. My opinion on this is that not only does Solneki not need a last name, but he also doesn't need to invade every single bloody universe in my head.

Naturally, he and Mordant disagree. *sigh*

These guys may exist in their own universe; Boffo's vampires are all solitary creatures, not prone to developing clans or families. If I put them in Song of Shadows, there's a chance Von, Cata, and Ari'i would run into them in court, and as hilarious as that would be, it probably wouldn't end well- Ari'i would have to explain to Von, patiently, patronizingly, that they don't automatically win the case if they stake the prosecution.

Eh. We'll see; I doubt I'll do anything with them, regardless. I need a vampire story like I need a pencil through the eye, so they con consider themselves on permanent hiatus.

Dear Torchwood:
OMG WHAT WHAT WHAT CAPTAIN JACK OMG ROSE MADE IT STICK WHAT THE FUCK SHE MADE IT STICK AAAAAAHHHHHHH OMG THE RIGHT KIND OF DOCTOR OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG EEEEEE.

Also: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECAPTAINJACK.
Also also: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKISSYBOYS.
Also also also: SUSPENDERS. GUH.

*breathes* I remain utterly in love with John Barrowman and his amazing gray greatcoat and his incredibly, incredibly sexy suspenders with shirtsleeves. (My biggest weakness? Lonely men in shirtsleeves leaning out of windows with suspenders, and the sleeves rolled up and possibly also fedoras. Alternately, women in rolled up shirtsleeves, suspenders, and fedoras. Or wifebeaters. Women in wifebeaters and suspenders. Basically, suspenders. Mmm, suspenders.)

In conclusion, Doctor Who is hot- but Torchwood is on fiyah.

And, in other squee-tastic news, Ultimate-verse Cable is apparently Wolverine. Only older, more jaded and bitter, and with a hell of a lot more toys. Mmmmguh.

song call- Under the Influence of Giants, "Beautiful"

But I thought we were close,
'Cause I saw the Holy Ghost,
And he...
And I'm just digging,
Well I'm digging deeper for your grave, grave.

I want you to know that I'm beautiful,
I'm taking my time to perfect dying alone,
Come on.

I've been hanging on,
It feels right moving along,
You left me with my lust,
I'm digging deeper,
Well I'm digging deeper for your grave, grave.

I want you to know that I'm beautiful,
I'm taking my time to perfect dying alone,
I'm cutting the string that binds me to you,
I'm writing a book on what not to do.

I'll cut you up,
I'm the Holy Ghost.
I'll cut you up,
I'm the Holy Ghost.
I'll cut you up,
I'm the Holy Ghost.

I want you to know that I'm beautiful,
I'm taking my time to perfect dying alone,
I'm cutting the string that binds me to you,
I'm writing a book on what not to do.

I want you to know that I'm beautiful,
I'm taking my time to perfect dying alone.
-Under the Influence of Giants, "Beautiful"

Dear Silverlock:
Stop that. With the pathological dependence and the bitchiness and- just quit being a pussy it.

I'm sorry, did I say I liked writing healthy relationships? I WAS FULL OF LIES.

---------------

"I would have liked to watch you grow old," he said softly. It wasn't often that he left the chair by the bedside these days; occasionally Foxbird came to chase him off to sleep, but that happened with dwindling frequency.

"That's because you've always put too much stock in bad romance novels." Blaine grimaced. "Much as it might distress you to know, we've hardly been living the romantic ideal."

"I'm aware. The fact remains: I don't want you to die." He was gripped with a terrible sort of helplessness. "Who am I going to annoy, with you gone?"

"You'll find someone else to irritate, I'm sure." Blaine closed his eyes, dismissive.

It was unfair, that this fragile man could hold so much power over him. "Tell me how much I mean to you." It was like a living thing, gnawing at his insides. The helplessness, the rage, the desperation- he was accustomed to instilling these emotions in others, not feeling them himself.

"Stop playing this game."

"Tell me." Or possibly it was like a scab or a scar, something that itched so terribly he couldn't stop picking at it. "Tell me you love me less than your daughter and less than your god, so I can tell you I would die for you if you asked it, because your happiness is the only thing in this universe against which my own life feels insignificant. Tell me exactly how much you're looking forward to dying, to leaving-"

"Shut up." Blaine's hands clenched into aching fists on the coverlet, every joint highlighted in bright waves of pain. "Shut up, and get out of here. Indulge in self pity on your own time; I have more important things to deal with now."

He bowed mockingly, swallowing his lover's pain along with his own. "Of course. Anything you want. Anything. You know that."

"Out." Fury brought some small amount of color back to Blaine's face; his eyes were bright.

Silverlock shut the door behind himself and leaned against it with one trembling hand pressed against his eyelids. After a moment, he took a deep breath, steadying himself, and walked away.

---------------

AUGH.

Toggle: physical characteristics

S'funny, while GMing Dead Inside, how important the physical appearances of all my characters become. I left out a lot of them (and I should have had Bren be more helpful, but as a ghost, all he does is keep Stella steady and think about how much he misses Theron). But I've developed very clear ideas of what most of my people look like, in my head.

Silverlock is shortish- 5'4" in bare feet, and he does actually go unshod a fair amount of the time, especially when on a job. Built like a wrestler, not a dancer- very muscular, very compact. (I want to write about his childhood at the Tree so so badly, about his family before Gannet and before the Guild, and about Aya and Dekar and the origin of his names and and and- augh.)

His ears are slightly pointed, but they aren't any longer than standard human ears, and he can't move or rotate them independently the way elves can. He looks half Asian, under the tattoos. Slanted eyes, no eyelashes to speak of. Before Blaine dies, the word on his neck is "Rien," which means "nothing." After Blaine's death, he changes it to "Anzani," which means, roughly, "everything, and nothing more." He sees it as a different aspect of the same concept.

The tattoos cover him completely, including his scalp, the soles of his feet, and his genitals. Many of them are purely decorative, and range from abstract tribal designs to complex cityscapes; the rest are magical in nature and act as set spells. He has the following ear piercings: a row of helix and lobe piercings in each ear; two rook, daith, and anti-tragus piercings; and an orbital and tragus piercing in his right ear. He has the following non-ear piercings: a row in each eyebrow; septum; both nostrils; horizontal and vertical bridges; labret; front and back of his tongue; both nipples; three pairs of hafada piercings; an apadravya. He also occasionally wears dermal anchors under his collar bones, in his neck, and on his hands. He likes wearing chains and bells and things that jingle to connect his ear and facial piercings.

Underneath the facial tattoos and piercings, he has a jagged, poorly healed scar on the right side of his face, where his face was literally ripped open. It's shaped roughly like a downward facing crescent. Most of his other scars are decorative, to highlight the tattoos; it isn't that he doesn't get hurt (because he does, frequently), but he has all of his injuries healed professionally.

He wears his hair in a single braid or simple knot most of the time, wears it loose very rarely, and wears it in a complicated architectural construction when he's being paid to impress someone. He only wears it in small braids when he's in mourning for something or someone, or for certain ceremonial magicks. (His hair is in mourning coiffure in Dead Inside for reasons he won't reveal; he's probably just sulking over Blaine, but it's possible there's more to it than that.)

He wears elaborate mage robes when he wants to impress or offend people; he wears nothing at all when he wants to fuck with people (sometimes they notice he's naked, sometimes they don't); when he goes out topside, he wears expensive and extravagant clothing, but nothing that would be out of the ordinary for a particularly wealthy minor noble. (This usually means a high collared coat and a pimp cane.)

Blaine is 5'10" or thereabouts, perfectly ordinary looking. Brown hair, hazel-brown eyes, medium-dark skin, average build- not overly muscular, but clearly fit. More wirey than anything else. He looks Meditteranean, vaguely, which is why his last name entertains me so very much. When he's a kid, he looks very long and bony; as an adult, he feeds himself better and looks less bony, but is still fairly lean.

The scars on his face are mostly from broken glass; the ones across his mouth and nose were done deliberately, with a razor. The burns on his neck and chest were made with a branding iron. He has very bony knuckles, and his nose is slightly crooked; both were broken and healed incorrectly.

He has a stylized sleeping cat tattooed over one hip bone, and a coiled snake on the other. After he eats Mandhatri's heart and headjewel, he occasionally manifests scaly patterns on his arms, hands, and face when working magic. He usually needs a haircut; when his hair is long enough, he pulls it into a ponytail.

As a healer, he wears the standard nondescript gray uniform tunic and pants; there are numerous loops and pockets for holding various medicinal paraphernalia, and the sleeves of the tunic tear off and separate into strips easily for emergency bandages. For a few years after being mutilated, he wears a veiled robe to hide his scars, but he gets over that after Greymalkin tries to kill him.

As a priest, he wears the standard casual uniform for an apostle- a sleeveless tunic and baggy pants with heavy embroidery around the collar and hems. He had a set of gem studded gold armbands that were also part of his official priestly uniform, but he left them at the temple when Nagendra kicked him out. For high holy days and ceremonies, apostles are shirtless and wear even more heavily embroidered pants, as well as very heavy and intricate gold pectorals. They also have to wear elaborate henna designs on their face, hands, feet, and torso- Blaine hates wandering around shirtless and he hates henna, so he avoids temple functions as often as possible.

All of his non-uniform clothes were gifts from Silverlock, who refuses to go out in public with anyone who isn't at least as well dressed as he is.

Theron is 5'8"/9" with dark hair, dark eyes, and very fine, clear, medium-dark skin. He could, actually, pass as Blaine's very pretty younger brother, which is only part of the reason Silverlock takes as much interest in him as he does, I swear. Theron doesn't eat much because everything tastes like magic to him, and magic tastes like sickly-sweet lemons. He is thin, bordering on sickly at times.

He is sickly; he spent much of his childhood immobile with terrible respiratory infections.

He has a largely unhealed burn scar on his chest from being Blackmarked, and he's missing three fingers (right pinky, left ring, and left middle, which he chewed off). He has terrible handwriting because of this (he was left-handed). He also has other incidental scars, leftover from a childhood spent dodging rocks. He doesn't bruise easily, but when he does, he does so spectacularly.

He's fairly vain but in a quiet way; his clothes and hair are always neat and conservative. After Stella Matin, he becomes more of an androgyne than anything else, when he realizes exactly how uncomfortable he is with being gendered. He still defaults as masculine for the sake of convenience, however, and knows better than to try to insist on non-gendered pronouns. (This is another one of the many, many reasons he and Silverlock are never ever going to have sex.)

Bren is tall and freckly and strawberry blond and built like an ox. He's about six feet tall, maybe a bit less- but he's broad shouldered and looks like he'd be more at home behind a plow than in front of a loom. His fingertips are calloused from weaving, though, and he has very gentle hands- small children and animals love him. He exudes "nice guy," but he has a history of being a horrible prankster, and something of a brat. He's also a lot more aware of things than he lets on most of the time, which disconcerts Theron and Stella to no end.

Bren usually, inexplicably, has leaves in his hair, and his pants are perpetually grass stained.

Walker looks like Bren, only with black hair and shiny, dark gray skin. No freckles. He can stand in a corner and pass as a shadow or a statue most of the time- but Bren's body gets healed after the destruction of the Voyancy, so most of the time Walker just looks like Bren. His posture tends more towards looming, and he doesn't smile, ever. But otherwise, you can't tell them apart- though Stella and Theron always know the difference, and Mordant and Solneki can see it nine times out of ten.

The specifics of Stella's appearance keep fluctuating in my head, but the basics are always the same: dark hair, white eyes, freckles. She isn't as pale as Bren, but the freckles do come from his side of the family. (Dead Inside has also reinforced how bizarre and utterly fucked up the familial relationships in this universe are, mostly because of how skeeved out the players keep getting when they learn more about my people.) I'm not sure about her weight and build- sometimes in my head she's very sharp and angular, with pointed features. The rest of the time she's curvy but not voluptuous, almost bordering on chubby, with rounded features. I think I'd prefer her to be on the slightly heavier side, given how many underfed characters I have- but I really like her with well defined cheekbones and a long, pointy nose.

Her usual sunglasses are nondescript oval lenses in black frames, but Mordant bought her a pair of cat's eye sunglasses with rhinestone studded frames that she brings out for special occasions. She wears woven ponchos over t-shirts and long broomstick skirts with ridiculous patterns and textures. She likes bright autumnal colors- deep reds and golds, maroons and oranges. Usually in combinations that make everyone around her cringe but hey, what does she care? She can't see a thing.