Original -- The Bridegroom: Episode 3
Title: The Bridegroom: Episode 3 - 'Til Re-Death Do Us Part
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,000
Warnings: reasonably foul language; mild ick/violence; crackstorms with occasional crackshowers
Prompts: Eyes which are an unusual colour, and have some sort of power or offer insight into their character and Getting snowed-in with the object of your affection/someone you hate
Summary: Belial has never been gladder that he invented reality television; Vincent's patience and sanity are both wearing perilously thin; and Maion is quickly discovering some unexpected pitfalls of being biologically female. Let the shenanigans commence.
Author's Note: Ohhhh, dear, an anti-Mary Sue challenge at pulped_fictions. XD This little ditty is a piece of the Bridegroom sub-'verse inhabited by Vincent & Co. - it fits in with the other two, but I've tried to write it so that you can just pick up and go. :D Basically all you need to know is that it's a slightly madcap parody of "The Bachelor" - the only thing that might be confusing is Maion: he's a seraph/Vincent's best frenemy who usually manifests as male; in this 'verse, he's gone undercover as a chick ("Maia"), but he still refers to himself by male pronouns. XD
THE BRIDEGROOM: EPISODE 3 - 'TIL RE-DEATH DO US PART
The door to the editing room opens.
“I quit,” Vincent says. “I’m done.”
Belial looks up from watching a talented woman painting Olivia as a nihilistic party girl after the way she puked in the punch bowl yesterday. The victim of his best soul-trade/blackmail/manipulation job in centuries is glaring at him as though producing a hilarious dating reality show with a sarcastic, nocturnal millionaire as the star/prize/blackmailee is easy, as well as insanely fun.
“No, you’re not,” Belial says.
Vincent’s face darkens, and his fingers curl into fists, as if they’d be any use to him against a Knight of Hell, whether or not the Knight of Hell in question would be making sure not to damage his favorite Armani jacket in the rather one-sided hypothetical fight.
“My employees grow ever-more incompetent,” the vampire bites out-oh, yes, that’s beautiful; Belial’s totally going to use that on the show; “my stock is wavering, I’m routinely trotted out to mingle with your handpicked group of overexposed gold-diggers, hearing the phrase ‘Can I steal you’ is like getting stabbed in the ear, and the crazy blonde just told me that one of them is trying to stake me. Then she ran around the spelunking cave trying to pet the bats. By all means, explain to me why I’m not going to quit.”
Ah, yes. Maion works fast and then acts like a four-year-old; disguising himself as a woman clearly hasn’t changed Belial’s least-un-favorite seraph one bit.
He grins, bringing out some nice new incisors for the occasion, glances back to watch Olivia vomiting in slow-motion for a moment, and then turns bright brown eyes that flare red upon his quarry.
“Vincent, my dear young man,” he says. This makes a vein in the two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire’s temple twitch. “This silly little jaunt isn’t nearly enough to faze the likes of you. Think about it-you survived being bitten by the most powerful vampire in France at the time, despite the fact that you were dying in the gutter when she nipped on by.” Damn, he’s on today. “That done, you side-stepped the Revolution, evaded Napoleon’s sticky fingers, and built a Fortune 500 business here in the States from scratch, even though you hadn’t yet had a lick of formal education.”
Vincent is frowning. Usually appealing to vanity works like black magic on powerful businessmen, but Belial’s quite undeterred; he went into this project well-aware that Vincent is not the average plaything.
“This,” Belial says, “is barely a blip on the Afterlife Achievement Radar compared to all of that.” The vampire’s face remains stony-and much less greenish than it is in the vomiting sequence. “It’s only six more weeks,” Belial coaxes. “You’re still young, but that’s not long even for you. Cherish this time while it lasts, before the heart-pounding romance slips away.”
For all of Vincent’s constant bitching, Belial chose the right target for this scheme-he watches the vampire’s mood shift from simmering fury to resigned contemplation, and the dark blue eyes deepen to the color of a midnight sky. Vincent Duval looks equal parts dashing and tormented, and Belial would slit the throats of several puppies to have this moment on film.
“After this,” Vincent says quietly, “when my soul is clean, I’m going to start making deals with the other side. And I am going to ensure that they smite you so hard that you wish I’d disemboweled you and hanged you with your own entrails.”
As he heads for the door, Belial blows him a kiss.
Vincent stares at his laptop screen, the budget spreadsheet making his eyes burn. It’s difficult to make sense of numbers when one has spent the evening with fifteen obnoxious women hounding one, flirting with one poorly, and chasing one indefatigably around the pool despite the very unambiguous “NO RUNNING” signs.
But he has to finish it, impending sunrise or no. Thompson keeps sending faintly anxious emails about the state of things around the deal with Bad Poet Girl’s father’s company, and he wasn’t exaggerating earlier; the stock is teetering.
There’s also the small detail that apparently one of the candidates to become his contractually-obligated future wife has made it her mission to end him-deliberately, whereas the rest are just gradually driving him insane, pushing him towards the point where he chugs a liter of garlic-infused holy water and lies down in a sunbeam to expire.
The one and perhaps only silver lining is that he’s been allowed to hole up in a small private cottage a few miles from the Bridegroom mansion, and he’s already equipped his modest sanctuary with an immodestly high-end security system. Hopefully that will deter any competitors that get it into their over-coiffed heads to come and try to kill him-or, worse, to come and try to climb into his bed.
Six weeks-no, five and a half; they’re days away from the next elimination. He can do this. He can wait this out. He’s a hunter; he knows how to wait.
Except that this isn’t a hunt-this is hide-and-seek. For the first time in several hundred years, he’s prey, and the predator won’t be satisfied with just a taste.
Mornings are often the worst, because Maion wakes up from human sleep feeling slightly refreshed… and then remembers the utter shitsto-um, disaster-into which he’s flung himself. Things have improved since Greta took charge and rearranged the bedrooms, so that everyone is sharing with people they like-or-at-least-don’t-hate-yet, but Maion went to sleep feeling borderline miserable last night. Most of the girls gave him the cold shoulder when he returned from his one-on-one date with Vincent-and he couldn’t exactly say “I’m actually a seraph trying to protect him from whichever one of you is a murderous two-timer, and I have not even the remotest interest in getting in his pants,” so he’d just suffered in silence and been weakly grateful when Kylie brought him double-fudge ice cream. He went to sleep expecting this morning to look at least a little better than the bleak Everyone’s being mean to me, Kylie, and it hurts my feelings/Well, that’s because they’re a bunch of bitches; just ignore them of the night before.
Then he awakens in agonizing pain.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m dying,” he says.
Kylie’s dark head pops up from the bed next to him. “Wh…”
Maion curls up like a potato bug around the throbbing fury in his abdomen. “Is it appendicitis? No, I didn’t bother with one of those. Ohhh, it’s like hellfire, although at least it doesn’t smell like sulfur; I don’t think I could handle-”
Kylie sits up and rubs her eyes. “Are you PMSing?”
Maion stops writhing long enough to stare at her. “What?”
“It sounds like cramps,” Kylie says. She yawns and leans over to sort through her toiletries. “I’ve got, like, seven kinds of painkillers; you can take your pick.”
Maion has a celestial consciousness-which, in human terms, means that his IQ is technically off the charts, whether or not his lackluster observational powers tend to undermine his intellect. He blinks at Kylie, wracked with pain and pining for more sleep.
“You mean this is normal?” he says. “How do you people survive?”
Kylie pauses in collecting the little bottles. “Wait, ‘you people’? I really didn’t take you for a racist, Maia. What the hell do you mean?”
Oh… darn. Darn, darn, darn, crap.
Maion swallows hard. “I need to know that I can trust you,” he says. “Can I do something kind of weird?”
Kylie’s eyebrows rise. “Weirder than being a chick who doesn’t know what cramps are and talking like you’re an alien? Try me.”
Maion slides off of the bed, clutching his (rather interestingly curved) side, collapses to the floor, drags himself to his feet, and perches on the edge of Kylie’s bed.
“Just look at me,” he says softly, summoning the energy for just a tinge of persuasion. “Just… relax.”
Kylie starts to frown, but then her almond-shaped brown eyes soften and glaze over. Maion peers into them and gently sorts through the recent memories stored in flashes, images, and partial thoughts.
Kylie was nervous at the party the first night-Jamaica looked mixed, half-black, probably; but other than that, she was the only ethnic girl they’d brought onto the entire show. What was she supposed to do with that? Fortunately or unfortunately, she fits the Asian-American stereotype in a lot of ways, but she doesn’t want to pretend to be a different person just to change people’s minds. Math kicks ass, and anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss hers.
Before that, receiving her acceptance onto the show-she jumped up and down for ten minutes straight (and then had to lie down on the couch). The vampire guy was fine, whatever; mostly she was looking forward to an all-expenses-paid vacation from her crap job and her mother’s increasingly shrill reminders about the cost of her education.
Her favorite color is red-lucky.
Her favorite number is four, because her Japanese friends avoided it, and she thought it must be lonely. Plus it’s a perfect square; come on.
She believes that all things have a spirit, if not necessarily a soul, and that all spirits should be respected equally, unless they belong to cockroaches.
Maion draws back, releasing a deep breath.
Kylie blinks hard and then shivers. “What are you?” she manages.
Hesitantly, Maion smiles.
Belial isn’t particularly fond of snow, but he’s carrying on a long-term love affair with schadenfreude, and he will follow wherever she leads.
“Welcome, ladies and mosquito,” he says, “to the extremely romantic Rocky Mountains. They’re also extremely aptly-named, as you can tell by the mountains and the rocks.”
No one laughs, probably because the vast majority of the women have unzipped their snowsuits a bit to display cleavage, and their exposed skin is starting to turn a painful pink in the cold. Maia is bouncing around the cluster of freezing fashionistas attempting to get them to take her Avoiding Frostbite pamphlets.
“Try to contain your enthusiasm,” Belial says. “Anyway, each of you is going to take a charming gondola ride with Vincent. There’s a camera in the carriage, so go wild; meantime, there’s low-calorie hot chocolate at the lodge while you wait your turn. Capiche, bitches?”
Maia stops bouncing long enough to scowl at him. “That’s not a nice word.”
“I’m not a nice guy,” Belial says. “You’re all going to want to make good impressions so you get through the elimination round, because we’re going to fucking Hawaii next week; snow is disgusting.”
There are a few murmurs of interest at that, which Belial ignores in favor of dragging the cameraman into the lodge by his ear.
There’s a line in the contract (page ninety-nine, section four, clause twelve; Vincent hasn’t slept, and he’s got thirty pages left to go) explaining that all specified date activities are mandatory, or Vincent’s soul will writhe eternally in hellish torment.
He clears his throat. “So-”
“Me first!” Maia cries, jamming the extra pamphlets-that is, all of them except the two that Kylie and Rosalie took to be nice-into her pocket, grabbing his arm, and towing him towards the gondola.
To be more honest than he usually likes, Vincent’s almost relieved. Maia is mildly batshit, but she’s still among the least of the fifteen evils.
With slightly surprising force, Maia tosses him onto one leather bench-seat and plops down on the other. A gust of wind slams the door shut before he can reach for it, and then the surly-looking operator starts pressing buttons. With a jerk and then a swinging that makes Vincent sympathize with pendulums, they’re off.
Maia is wearing a light blue knit hat topped with a giant white pom-pom and decked with earflaps that tie beneath the chin. She cups her hands against the window and peers out.
“I think we’re heading towards a storm,” she says.
“Forgive my waxing metaphorical,” Vincent replies, “but I believe we’re already in the middle of one.”
“We’re going way up,” Maia says. Then she shakes herself and shifts, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged on her bench. “Right. I’ve been trying to gather information, but it’s… challenging. I know you can trust Kylie,” she says, encountering some difficulty tallying on her thickly-gloved fingers. “And I think you can trust Rosalie, except-well, I’m not sure; I-” Her big turquoise eyes glisten a little, her button nose wrinkles, and she buries her face in both hands. “Oh, I hate this! I’m the worst secret agent ever!”
Vincent crosses his legs and glances idly out the window. “Have you seen Mr. Bean?”
Maia raises her head to blink at him.
“Never mind,” he says.
“Is he made of beans?” Maia asks, sounding slightly awed. “I imagine that would be an impediment to one’s efforts at espionage.”
It’s Vincent’s turn to stare. At least they’ve established a division of labor.
“I… have a confession to make,” Maia says in a small voice.
For the love of hemoglobin- “What?”
“I-I may… be… high on painkillers.”
It takes Vincent the better part of fifteen seconds to find his voice, which is wisely hiding from this whole nightmare. “You don’t know?”
Over the rush of wind-borne snow buffeting the gondola, there’s a huge snap, something heavy whips against the roof, and they drop six inches.
“Don’t worry,” Maia says, although the way she’s tugging at her hair belies her confidence. “There are six cables of varying sizes to support the cage; I che-”
Distantly, Vincent hears another metallic ping, and then a whistling as they lurch down three full feet this time.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. For anything’s sake; he’s not picky these days.
The remaining cables creak audibly as he grabs Maia’s hand, hauls her off her seat, stacks the cushions from both benches on the floor, situates himself on top of them, and yanks her into his lap. He finds it incomprehensibly strange that he notices the way her hat tickles his cheek.
“Do you know how to kill a demon?” he asks.
A series of shrill, terrible rendings of metal-in sequence like machinegun fire-makes him curl around her.
They plunge.
Maion opens his eyes, which don’t cooperate at first. When he’s coaxed them into focusing, he sees that he’s sprawled on the floor of the gondola, Avoiding Frostbite pamphlets strewn everywhere. What in the name of blueberry pancakes…?
Vincent.
Maion scrambles up. One of his dainty ankles twinges horribly and almost sends him toppling to the floor again, but he can worry about that later; Vincent lies unmoving with one arm folded under him, the other bent back at an unnatural angle. Thick black ichor oozes from a gash on his forehead, the surrounding skin bruising gray.
Maion dives on him and shakes his shoulder-wincing as he does; what if that arm’s fractured, and he’s making it worse?
“Wake up,” he says. No response, though Vincent’s breath mists faintly; he’s as undead as ever. “Vincent, you bastard, please!”
“Such coarse language from a lady,” Vincent mumbles. “C’est un scandal.” His eyes open just a little, two slits of dark blue. “You smell like blood.”
Maion’s face is definitely the warmest thing in this gondola. “I beg your pardon; my feminine problems are absolutely none of your-”
“I can’t feel my legs,” Vincent says.
Maion reaches for one of the ubiquitous pamphlets.
“No,” he says. “I think my spine is broken.”
Maion swallows hard. “But-but you can heal, right? You heal much faster than human beings; vampires are almost like super-humans, aren’t they? So you can-”
Vincent’s eyes slide closed. “I haven’t fed in a week. Too busy dodging inappropriate advances and trying to save my soul and whatnot.”
There’s a long silence except for the howling of the wind that piles ever more snow on their glass-walled prison.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Maion whispers.
“Earning your forgiveness is low on my to-do list,” Vincent says.
Maion hadn’t thought it would feature at all.
The wind outside could carry his caution miles away in moments, so he imagines hurling it through the window. Then he leans down to settle his flaming cheek against Vincent’s cool one, cradling the vampire’s head in his arms. Vincent hisses softly through his teeth as his back shifts, but then he settles his damp mouth against Maion’s neck and sinks his fangs into the skin.
It hurts even more than Maion expects.
And then the heat.
This is one of those moments where Maion thinks his existence would benefit greatly from a soundtrack-off-kilter jazz, perhaps; or something sultry and a little dangerous from a cabaret; maybe even a soaring operatic lament of violation and taboo. Anything but the screaming wind and his catching breath and the soft schlupschlup of his blood being drawn into Vincent’s wet, pressing mouth.
Except that then the sensation… changes. Then it’s not just siphoning the warm life in his veins; it’s extracting the manic energy he projects (usually into a void); it’s easing the fear and the anxiety and the urgency out of his white-knuckled grip and letting them dwindle away. It’s… pleasant. Very pleasant.
“Oh,” Maion breathes. “Oh, my.”
The sharp intrusions retract, an even-wetter tongue laps at the small wounds, and then Vincent scoots back. There is an unspeakably terrible, gut-wrenching crack and he settles a hand on either hip and realigns his own spine.
“Never doing that again,” he says. “Where the fuck is my phone?” He glances up at the creature who, to him, looks like a staggered, dazed, and possibly intoxicated young woman. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Maion says.
He’s always hated lying the most.
[Episode 3.5]
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,000
Warnings: reasonably foul language; mild ick/violence; crackstorms with occasional crackshowers
Prompts: Eyes which are an unusual colour, and have some sort of power or offer insight into their character and Getting snowed-in with the object of your affection/someone you hate
Summary: Belial has never been gladder that he invented reality television; Vincent's patience and sanity are both wearing perilously thin; and Maion is quickly discovering some unexpected pitfalls of being biologically female. Let the shenanigans commence.
Author's Note: Ohhhh, dear, an anti-Mary Sue challenge at pulped_fictions. XD This little ditty is a piece of the Bridegroom sub-'verse inhabited by Vincent & Co. - it fits in with the other two, but I've tried to write it so that you can just pick up and go. :D Basically all you need to know is that it's a slightly madcap parody of "The Bachelor" - the only thing that might be confusing is Maion: he's a seraph/Vincent's best frenemy who usually manifests as male; in this 'verse, he's gone undercover as a chick ("Maia"), but he still refers to himself by male pronouns. XD
THE BRIDEGROOM: EPISODE 3 - 'TIL RE-DEATH DO US PART
The door to the editing room opens.
“I quit,” Vincent says. “I’m done.”
Belial looks up from watching a talented woman painting Olivia as a nihilistic party girl after the way she puked in the punch bowl yesterday. The victim of his best soul-trade/blackmail/manipulation job in centuries is glaring at him as though producing a hilarious dating reality show with a sarcastic, nocturnal millionaire as the star/prize/blackmailee is easy, as well as insanely fun.
“No, you’re not,” Belial says.
Vincent’s face darkens, and his fingers curl into fists, as if they’d be any use to him against a Knight of Hell, whether or not the Knight of Hell in question would be making sure not to damage his favorite Armani jacket in the rather one-sided hypothetical fight.
“My employees grow ever-more incompetent,” the vampire bites out-oh, yes, that’s beautiful; Belial’s totally going to use that on the show; “my stock is wavering, I’m routinely trotted out to mingle with your handpicked group of overexposed gold-diggers, hearing the phrase ‘Can I steal you’ is like getting stabbed in the ear, and the crazy blonde just told me that one of them is trying to stake me. Then she ran around the spelunking cave trying to pet the bats. By all means, explain to me why I’m not going to quit.”
Ah, yes. Maion works fast and then acts like a four-year-old; disguising himself as a woman clearly hasn’t changed Belial’s least-un-favorite seraph one bit.
He grins, bringing out some nice new incisors for the occasion, glances back to watch Olivia vomiting in slow-motion for a moment, and then turns bright brown eyes that flare red upon his quarry.
“Vincent, my dear young man,” he says. This makes a vein in the two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire’s temple twitch. “This silly little jaunt isn’t nearly enough to faze the likes of you. Think about it-you survived being bitten by the most powerful vampire in France at the time, despite the fact that you were dying in the gutter when she nipped on by.” Damn, he’s on today. “That done, you side-stepped the Revolution, evaded Napoleon’s sticky fingers, and built a Fortune 500 business here in the States from scratch, even though you hadn’t yet had a lick of formal education.”
Vincent is frowning. Usually appealing to vanity works like black magic on powerful businessmen, but Belial’s quite undeterred; he went into this project well-aware that Vincent is not the average plaything.
“This,” Belial says, “is barely a blip on the Afterlife Achievement Radar compared to all of that.” The vampire’s face remains stony-and much less greenish than it is in the vomiting sequence. “It’s only six more weeks,” Belial coaxes. “You’re still young, but that’s not long even for you. Cherish this time while it lasts, before the heart-pounding romance slips away.”
For all of Vincent’s constant bitching, Belial chose the right target for this scheme-he watches the vampire’s mood shift from simmering fury to resigned contemplation, and the dark blue eyes deepen to the color of a midnight sky. Vincent Duval looks equal parts dashing and tormented, and Belial would slit the throats of several puppies to have this moment on film.
“After this,” Vincent says quietly, “when my soul is clean, I’m going to start making deals with the other side. And I am going to ensure that they smite you so hard that you wish I’d disemboweled you and hanged you with your own entrails.”
As he heads for the door, Belial blows him a kiss.
Vincent stares at his laptop screen, the budget spreadsheet making his eyes burn. It’s difficult to make sense of numbers when one has spent the evening with fifteen obnoxious women hounding one, flirting with one poorly, and chasing one indefatigably around the pool despite the very unambiguous “NO RUNNING” signs.
But he has to finish it, impending sunrise or no. Thompson keeps sending faintly anxious emails about the state of things around the deal with Bad Poet Girl’s father’s company, and he wasn’t exaggerating earlier; the stock is teetering.
There’s also the small detail that apparently one of the candidates to become his contractually-obligated future wife has made it her mission to end him-deliberately, whereas the rest are just gradually driving him insane, pushing him towards the point where he chugs a liter of garlic-infused holy water and lies down in a sunbeam to expire.
The one and perhaps only silver lining is that he’s been allowed to hole up in a small private cottage a few miles from the Bridegroom mansion, and he’s already equipped his modest sanctuary with an immodestly high-end security system. Hopefully that will deter any competitors that get it into their over-coiffed heads to come and try to kill him-or, worse, to come and try to climb into his bed.
Six weeks-no, five and a half; they’re days away from the next elimination. He can do this. He can wait this out. He’s a hunter; he knows how to wait.
Except that this isn’t a hunt-this is hide-and-seek. For the first time in several hundred years, he’s prey, and the predator won’t be satisfied with just a taste.
Mornings are often the worst, because Maion wakes up from human sleep feeling slightly refreshed… and then remembers the utter shitsto-um, disaster-into which he’s flung himself. Things have improved since Greta took charge and rearranged the bedrooms, so that everyone is sharing with people they like-or-at-least-don’t-hate-yet, but Maion went to sleep feeling borderline miserable last night. Most of the girls gave him the cold shoulder when he returned from his one-on-one date with Vincent-and he couldn’t exactly say “I’m actually a seraph trying to protect him from whichever one of you is a murderous two-timer, and I have not even the remotest interest in getting in his pants,” so he’d just suffered in silence and been weakly grateful when Kylie brought him double-fudge ice cream. He went to sleep expecting this morning to look at least a little better than the bleak Everyone’s being mean to me, Kylie, and it hurts my feelings/Well, that’s because they’re a bunch of bitches; just ignore them of the night before.
Then he awakens in agonizing pain.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m dying,” he says.
Kylie’s dark head pops up from the bed next to him. “Wh…”
Maion curls up like a potato bug around the throbbing fury in his abdomen. “Is it appendicitis? No, I didn’t bother with one of those. Ohhh, it’s like hellfire, although at least it doesn’t smell like sulfur; I don’t think I could handle-”
Kylie sits up and rubs her eyes. “Are you PMSing?”
Maion stops writhing long enough to stare at her. “What?”
“It sounds like cramps,” Kylie says. She yawns and leans over to sort through her toiletries. “I’ve got, like, seven kinds of painkillers; you can take your pick.”
Maion has a celestial consciousness-which, in human terms, means that his IQ is technically off the charts, whether or not his lackluster observational powers tend to undermine his intellect. He blinks at Kylie, wracked with pain and pining for more sleep.
“You mean this is normal?” he says. “How do you people survive?”
Kylie pauses in collecting the little bottles. “Wait, ‘you people’? I really didn’t take you for a racist, Maia. What the hell do you mean?”
Oh… darn. Darn, darn, darn, crap.
Maion swallows hard. “I need to know that I can trust you,” he says. “Can I do something kind of weird?”
Kylie’s eyebrows rise. “Weirder than being a chick who doesn’t know what cramps are and talking like you’re an alien? Try me.”
Maion slides off of the bed, clutching his (rather interestingly curved) side, collapses to the floor, drags himself to his feet, and perches on the edge of Kylie’s bed.
“Just look at me,” he says softly, summoning the energy for just a tinge of persuasion. “Just… relax.”
Kylie starts to frown, but then her almond-shaped brown eyes soften and glaze over. Maion peers into them and gently sorts through the recent memories stored in flashes, images, and partial thoughts.
Kylie was nervous at the party the first night-Jamaica looked mixed, half-black, probably; but other than that, she was the only ethnic girl they’d brought onto the entire show. What was she supposed to do with that? Fortunately or unfortunately, she fits the Asian-American stereotype in a lot of ways, but she doesn’t want to pretend to be a different person just to change people’s minds. Math kicks ass, and anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss hers.
Before that, receiving her acceptance onto the show-she jumped up and down for ten minutes straight (and then had to lie down on the couch). The vampire guy was fine, whatever; mostly she was looking forward to an all-expenses-paid vacation from her crap job and her mother’s increasingly shrill reminders about the cost of her education.
Her favorite color is red-lucky.
Her favorite number is four, because her Japanese friends avoided it, and she thought it must be lonely. Plus it’s a perfect square; come on.
She believes that all things have a spirit, if not necessarily a soul, and that all spirits should be respected equally, unless they belong to cockroaches.
Maion draws back, releasing a deep breath.
Kylie blinks hard and then shivers. “What are you?” she manages.
Hesitantly, Maion smiles.
Belial isn’t particularly fond of snow, but he’s carrying on a long-term love affair with schadenfreude, and he will follow wherever she leads.
“Welcome, ladies and mosquito,” he says, “to the extremely romantic Rocky Mountains. They’re also extremely aptly-named, as you can tell by the mountains and the rocks.”
No one laughs, probably because the vast majority of the women have unzipped their snowsuits a bit to display cleavage, and their exposed skin is starting to turn a painful pink in the cold. Maia is bouncing around the cluster of freezing fashionistas attempting to get them to take her Avoiding Frostbite pamphlets.
“Try to contain your enthusiasm,” Belial says. “Anyway, each of you is going to take a charming gondola ride with Vincent. There’s a camera in the carriage, so go wild; meantime, there’s low-calorie hot chocolate at the lodge while you wait your turn. Capiche, bitches?”
Maia stops bouncing long enough to scowl at him. “That’s not a nice word.”
“I’m not a nice guy,” Belial says. “You’re all going to want to make good impressions so you get through the elimination round, because we’re going to fucking Hawaii next week; snow is disgusting.”
There are a few murmurs of interest at that, which Belial ignores in favor of dragging the cameraman into the lodge by his ear.
There’s a line in the contract (page ninety-nine, section four, clause twelve; Vincent hasn’t slept, and he’s got thirty pages left to go) explaining that all specified date activities are mandatory, or Vincent’s soul will writhe eternally in hellish torment.
He clears his throat. “So-”
“Me first!” Maia cries, jamming the extra pamphlets-that is, all of them except the two that Kylie and Rosalie took to be nice-into her pocket, grabbing his arm, and towing him towards the gondola.
To be more honest than he usually likes, Vincent’s almost relieved. Maia is mildly batshit, but she’s still among the least of the fifteen evils.
With slightly surprising force, Maia tosses him onto one leather bench-seat and plops down on the other. A gust of wind slams the door shut before he can reach for it, and then the surly-looking operator starts pressing buttons. With a jerk and then a swinging that makes Vincent sympathize with pendulums, they’re off.
Maia is wearing a light blue knit hat topped with a giant white pom-pom and decked with earflaps that tie beneath the chin. She cups her hands against the window and peers out.
“I think we’re heading towards a storm,” she says.
“Forgive my waxing metaphorical,” Vincent replies, “but I believe we’re already in the middle of one.”
“We’re going way up,” Maia says. Then she shakes herself and shifts, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged on her bench. “Right. I’ve been trying to gather information, but it’s… challenging. I know you can trust Kylie,” she says, encountering some difficulty tallying on her thickly-gloved fingers. “And I think you can trust Rosalie, except-well, I’m not sure; I-” Her big turquoise eyes glisten a little, her button nose wrinkles, and she buries her face in both hands. “Oh, I hate this! I’m the worst secret agent ever!”
Vincent crosses his legs and glances idly out the window. “Have you seen Mr. Bean?”
Maia raises her head to blink at him.
“Never mind,” he says.
“Is he made of beans?” Maia asks, sounding slightly awed. “I imagine that would be an impediment to one’s efforts at espionage.”
It’s Vincent’s turn to stare. At least they’ve established a division of labor.
“I… have a confession to make,” Maia says in a small voice.
For the love of hemoglobin- “What?”
“I-I may… be… high on painkillers.”
It takes Vincent the better part of fifteen seconds to find his voice, which is wisely hiding from this whole nightmare. “You don’t know?”
Over the rush of wind-borne snow buffeting the gondola, there’s a huge snap, something heavy whips against the roof, and they drop six inches.
“Don’t worry,” Maia says, although the way she’s tugging at her hair belies her confidence. “There are six cables of varying sizes to support the cage; I che-”
Distantly, Vincent hears another metallic ping, and then a whistling as they lurch down three full feet this time.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. For anything’s sake; he’s not picky these days.
The remaining cables creak audibly as he grabs Maia’s hand, hauls her off her seat, stacks the cushions from both benches on the floor, situates himself on top of them, and yanks her into his lap. He finds it incomprehensibly strange that he notices the way her hat tickles his cheek.
“Do you know how to kill a demon?” he asks.
A series of shrill, terrible rendings of metal-in sequence like machinegun fire-makes him curl around her.
They plunge.
Maion opens his eyes, which don’t cooperate at first. When he’s coaxed them into focusing, he sees that he’s sprawled on the floor of the gondola, Avoiding Frostbite pamphlets strewn everywhere. What in the name of blueberry pancakes…?
Vincent.
Maion scrambles up. One of his dainty ankles twinges horribly and almost sends him toppling to the floor again, but he can worry about that later; Vincent lies unmoving with one arm folded under him, the other bent back at an unnatural angle. Thick black ichor oozes from a gash on his forehead, the surrounding skin bruising gray.
Maion dives on him and shakes his shoulder-wincing as he does; what if that arm’s fractured, and he’s making it worse?
“Wake up,” he says. No response, though Vincent’s breath mists faintly; he’s as undead as ever. “Vincent, you bastard, please!”
“Such coarse language from a lady,” Vincent mumbles. “C’est un scandal.” His eyes open just a little, two slits of dark blue. “You smell like blood.”
Maion’s face is definitely the warmest thing in this gondola. “I beg your pardon; my feminine problems are absolutely none of your-”
“I can’t feel my legs,” Vincent says.
Maion reaches for one of the ubiquitous pamphlets.
“No,” he says. “I think my spine is broken.”
Maion swallows hard. “But-but you can heal, right? You heal much faster than human beings; vampires are almost like super-humans, aren’t they? So you can-”
Vincent’s eyes slide closed. “I haven’t fed in a week. Too busy dodging inappropriate advances and trying to save my soul and whatnot.”
There’s a long silence except for the howling of the wind that piles ever more snow on their glass-walled prison.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Maion whispers.
“Earning your forgiveness is low on my to-do list,” Vincent says.
Maion hadn’t thought it would feature at all.
The wind outside could carry his caution miles away in moments, so he imagines hurling it through the window. Then he leans down to settle his flaming cheek against Vincent’s cool one, cradling the vampire’s head in his arms. Vincent hisses softly through his teeth as his back shifts, but then he settles his damp mouth against Maion’s neck and sinks his fangs into the skin.
It hurts even more than Maion expects.
And then the heat.
This is one of those moments where Maion thinks his existence would benefit greatly from a soundtrack-off-kilter jazz, perhaps; or something sultry and a little dangerous from a cabaret; maybe even a soaring operatic lament of violation and taboo. Anything but the screaming wind and his catching breath and the soft schlupschlup of his blood being drawn into Vincent’s wet, pressing mouth.
Except that then the sensation… changes. Then it’s not just siphoning the warm life in his veins; it’s extracting the manic energy he projects (usually into a void); it’s easing the fear and the anxiety and the urgency out of his white-knuckled grip and letting them dwindle away. It’s… pleasant. Very pleasant.
“Oh,” Maion breathes. “Oh, my.”
The sharp intrusions retract, an even-wetter tongue laps at the small wounds, and then Vincent scoots back. There is an unspeakably terrible, gut-wrenching crack and he settles a hand on either hip and realigns his own spine.
“Never doing that again,” he says. “Where the fuck is my phone?” He glances up at the creature who, to him, looks like a staggered, dazed, and possibly intoxicated young woman. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Maion says.
He’s always hated lying the most.
[Episode 3.5]