Blood in the Canals (Venice and Vampires)

[Purple]

Despite how much she really needed blood, as was obvious in the red of her eyes and the extended position of her fangs, Raven's movements were careful, controlled. She scooted herself a little bit closer to the other vampire before leaning in close to his neck. She took in a deep breath, the smell of his blood rolling over her in a wave. Quickly, before she could lose the nerve, she bit down on the main artery, the warm, rich blood flowing into her mouth immediately. She closed her eyes, trying to pretend she was just drinking from a human as usual, though that was near impossible. Vezio even tasted different from a human, something she wasn't sure whether to attribute to him being a vampire or him as a person. She drew in mouthful after mouthful of his delicious blood until she felt revived. She wouldn't take enough to feel completely full--that would be far too much--but she needed to at least get her energy back. Finally she pulled away from his neck, licking the wounds to seal them quickly.

"You okay?" she asked as she sat back, wiping her mouth.

[Kage]

Vezio jerked the slightest bit at the nostalgic feeling of fangs setting into his skin. Throughout the whole ordeal he kept quiet, his mouth open the slightest bit as he stared to the side. Every now and then his fingers gave a hesitant twitch, curling against the seat of the boat. When the girl's tongue ran against his neck he became even more stiff, had it been possible, and merely continued to stare off to the side. Raven's words only reach him about two minutes after they were spoken to him.

"....Am I... what?" He murmured, his voice somewhat slow as he lolled his head slightly to the side. "What...?"

[Purple]

"Note to self, vampire venom affects other vampires," Raven muttered, watching the loopy Vezio with cautious eyes, as if expecting him to fall over at any second. She only shook her head, shifting him in the seat slightly so that he was in a more stable position. She wrapped the scarf back around the boy's neck before turning back to the wheel of the boat. Raven went over her rough mental plan as she started the craft and sped them forwards once more. She had all the steps planned out up to a certain point, which there was no guarantee they would even get to, so there was no sense worrying about it.

"How are you feeling?" she asked several minutes later, when she imagined the venom would have worn off for the most part. A human might have taken much longer, but if vampires healed faster, it was safe to assume they would work out poisons just as fast.

[Kage]

--Timeskip--

Eventually Vezio regained his senses and was able to take in the scenery of where they were headed. They'd switched who was driving every now and then, him taking directions from her and then sitting quietly off to the side, drinking wine, when she drove the boat. It seemed like about two hours before they actually reached the girl's lake/ocean house, but that might have just been Vezio zoning out during the times he was just sitting down, not driving.

"I'm gonna go check it out... Maybe we'll be lucky and there'll be a family of bunnies in there." The Korean vampire lifted his eyebrows twice and stuck out his tongue playfully before turning on his heel and starting for the house. Once inside he closed the door slightly behind himself, leaving it a crack open for when Raven did come in, and then began to walk around slowly, taking in every little thing. It was a tad dusty, which meant it probably wasn't used as often as it had been expected to be; however, it was generally clean and tidy.

One of the first things that caught Vezio's attention was the somewhat faded scent of something strange in the living room. It made his skin prickle with goosebumps and his muscles flex under his shirt. This didn't go ignored and he found himself crouching very slightly and taking cautious steps towards what he assumed was a bedroom or office of some sort. His muscles began to lock tighter the closer he got to the cracked door and he immediately stopped outside of it, hearing light breathing. After a few short seconds of no thinking and pure instincts, Vezio used the very tips of his black-painted fingernails to push the door open, only to find a sleeping man on a bed.

The sight of the man and the rush of the stink of Slayer was enough to tear a threatening hiss up the vampire's throat, long fangs bared as he stood stock still, his right foot halfway through the door.

[Purple]

The soft hiss was enough to wake Ben from his slumber. He was naturally a very heavy sleeper, but years of constantly being on high alert for approaching vampires had more than cured him of that. The man opened his eyes a tiny bit, expecting at first to find nothing more than the empty old house around him. One whiff of the scent now filling his room, however, and he was on his feet, his hand reaching into his back pocket for the long knife he always kept there, his eyes never leaving the monster in front of him. He had a fairly small build, but for a vampire that meant nothing. Even for a slayer, his own bulky build meant nothing. He guessed the vampire to be fairly young, which meant he would be strong, if not the most skilled.

"I don't know how the hell you got in," Ben growled, "but I know how you're going out."

Meanwhile, Raven tied off the boat at the small dock and made sure it was ready to leave again at a moment's notice, just in case. She walked up the stone pathway to the house slowly, looking around at the familiar scenery. It seemed as if nothing had changed since she was younger, but of course everything had. Now it was a hideout rather than a getaway, a place to avoid family rather than spend time with them. When she entered the house she got a feeling like a sudden chill, nothing surprising considering the temperature outside, but still, there was something different about it. It was the same sort of feeling as when she came across another of her own kind, but still different.

"Oh, fuck," she muttered a moment later, realizing what it was. Slayers also had an innate ability to sense when their own kind, and it was apparently something that couldn't be erased by the change. Raven raced through the house, following Vezio's scent to the bedroom. Ben's old bedroom. Double fuck.

[Kage]

The two were suddenly thrashing and tumbling around the boy's room. Vezio was very much aware of the knife in the boy's hand, but he was also aware of the gun nearly burning a hole in his back pocket. The vampire made to reach for it, however, was baffled to find that it wasn't there. He took a split second to look around the room and saw that it was across the room, where it must have fallen when he'd been rammed into the wall not that long ago.

The vampire hissed loudly, his fangs glistening dangerously as he snapped them at the other, aiming for vitals. "Brat- what are you doing in here?!" Vezio snarled, unaware of the relationship the boy held with Raven at all. He didn't have time to notice the little things that he would have normally picked out that the two siblings would have in common- of course, would any vampire being attacked by a Slayer with a freaking knife have time to look at little details? He didn't think so...

[Purple]

"It's my house you fucking bitch," Ben growled as the two tumbled about, not worrying that he was using the wrong gender in his insults. The slayer lashed out with his knife hand, aiming for the neck but hitting Vezio's collarbone instead. Frustrated, he pushed the vampire away from him, rolling backwards and into a standing position. He was about to lunge once more with the knife when someone called his name, the voice familiar but hard to place. He turned slowly towards the door, fists clenching when he saw who was standing there.

"Should've known you'd fuck this place up by bringing all your goddamn monster friends here," he spat.

"Should've known you'd be enough of an ass to hold a grudge for ten plus years," Raven snapped in response, her jaw hard. She hadn't seen her brother since just after she became a vampire, when he'd tried to kill her. It had been a long time, and she would admit, if only to herself, that it hurt just a little to find him still so hostile. He was her brother, but he was still a slayer and she was still a vampire.

"You ruined our family," he growled, holding that knife of his in front of him. Strangely enough, he was still the brother she'd always known, still just a little boy trying to hold his family together and blaming the wrong people when he wasn't strong enough.

"What family, Ben?" she asked. His glare only intensified.

"I'll fuckin kill you."

"Don't think you'll get the chance."

Brother or not, now was no time to get sentimental. If she wouldn't fight him, there was a chance he'd kill both her and Vezio, and she wasn't having that. Brother or not, he was going down.

[Kage]

Two shots rang out, Vezio on the other side of the room clutching his left hand to his bleeding collarbone as the blood he needed to live leaked from the wound as it tried to mend. One bullet caught Raven's younger brother in the shoulder, the other right at his ribs. He wouldn't have missed the boy's heart at the second shot had it not been for him tripping, in the frenzied stupor of his locking and unlocking muscles, and shifting his hand lower.

"This is your little brother!?" Vezio snarled, staring at the blood dripping from his hand where he'd had it against his chest. Man! There when his white shirt! Freaking Slayers and their rash actions! "Bitch." The vampire spat at the boy, hissing harshly.

[Purple]

"Yeah, not that he'd claim me," Raven said, skirting around the fallen Ben to stand by Vezio. She pulled his hand away from the cut at his collarbone and quickly ran her tongue along the length of it, sealing the wound and keeping him from losing any more blood. When she looked back at Ben he was lurking to his feet as if to come at them again, despite the gun pointed in his direction. She promptly pulled the gun from her waistband and pointed it in his direction, not even bothering to fire a shot.

The mere presence of a second gun sent Ben running out into the living room. For all his cockiness, the boy was a real coward when outmatched. Slayers generally fought in little packs, only the really good ones daring to take on a vampire on their own. Even then it was generally one on one, since vampires hardly ever worked together. With the odds against them, she couldn't think of a single slayer alive who wouldn't flee or at the very least try to get to more favorable ground.

[Kage]

Vezio's gun was in his back pocket in a split second, the vampire somehow being pulled away from the bedroom and forced into chasing after the Slayer. It must have been instinct to get the boy out of the house, or get him killed- either way, it was a nagging, almost sickening feeling in his stomach that made Vezio round about and follow Ben.

The orange-haired vamp managed to throw Raven's brother out the back door and then proceed to stumble over the threshold on his rushed way out. Vezio quickly corrected himself and darted towards Ben once more- fangs considerably dry as compared to earlier when they'd been dripping with venom. Now Vezio pummeled the Slayer to the ground, the both of them tumbling around a few times before Vezio sharply bit into Ben's neck, making sure to sink all of his teeth into the boy's throat as deep as he could get. Of course his venom wasn't in use, and therefore the pain would be present, but at least he wouldn't be changing the Slayer into a vampire like what had happened to his sister.

[The Muse]

Ben cried out in pain before pushing the vampire away from him with a fist to the chest. He held a hand to his bleeding neck, eyes going wide as he realized what had just happened. He'd never been bitten by a vampire before. Never. And in his already frenzied state all he could think about was the possibility of turning into one of the monsters. Then he would be like Raven, a traitor to his own kind. No.

The slayer turned and ran then, wanting to get away from the vampires as fast as possible. He raced down the lawn to the back dock and climbed into his boat, cutting the rope rather than taking the time to untie it. Ben revved up the engine and sped away, bumping the dock in his hurry to get away.

"So long, little brother," Raven said as she reached the back door in time to watch him drive off. She walked across the grass and sat down next to Vezio. "Are you okay?" she asked, but her eyes were still on the shrinking boat.

[Kage]

"Fine." Vezio muttered, his whole mouth dripping with blood, trailing down his throat and at his collarbone where the new scar was placed. He licked his lips and index finger, using his hand to swipe the blood closer to his mouth so that he could lick it up. "Tasty little brute, I'll give him that." Vez chuckled hoarsely, finishing the blood on his face and ignoring the large red stain along his white shirt and creeping behind his brown vest.

"M'tired...." The vampire muttered, letting his head lean to the side against the older girl's shoulder, orange hair touching her jaw and the side of her neck. "Now it smells like Slayer in there...." He murmured into the fabric of her shirt, ignoring the sound of the boat far off.

[Purple]

"It's okay, sweetie," Raven said softly, gently laying the boy back onto the grass. She stood up and ran into the house, grabbing a blanket from one of the upstairs bedrooms where the smell wouldn't have quite permeated yet. She paused by Ben's room on the way back but made herself keep going. She wouldn't think about her brother now, not after what had just happened. She had learned that it was best to only let yourself think about difficult things a few days after they'd happened. By that point it was much less real, much easier to deal with.

Raven laid down next to Vezio and pulled the blanket over them, using her arm as a pillow. Yes, sleeping was a good idea. Definitely a good idea. It was terribly hard to think when you were sleeping, and she was certainly tired enough that it wasn't hard to fall asleep. A moment later her breathing had steadied and she'd drifted into dreams of boats and guns.