By gosh, by golly, I'm back!

This was long delayed. I know, I know. I'd love to go into detail and explain the events that led me to not post, but you're here for Taschi, not for moi. But I love you guys. Special thanks to my newest reader-- spoonring, as well as my old literature buddy Dellarose for kicking my butt into posting again. Your ode made me see sense.

So, seeing that I'm getting this question quite a bit: Yes, the Master of the City portion is happening. But it's one of those things that will happen later. This is a long narrative, and I promise I'll get there.

Also? I got a private message that said this: "Taschi and Cyrille need to get horizontal and sweaty. Stat." Hilarious? I sure as hell thought so. While the plot and character development would be delicious, it's not gonna happen. Sorry.

Love again!

Aries

The walk back to the apartment was kind of a bitch.

It wouldn’t have been more than five minutes back on any other day, but with my assorted and sundry injuries, it was close to an hour. I was pulp. Most of the damage wasn’t to my face this time; bits of my…uh, thorax were protesting in ways I wasn’t necessarily used to yet.

…I actually have no idea why I said thorax.

I’m pretty sure I dislocated my ankle too, because I was limping rather admirably from the alley to the apartment. I didn’t want to deal with the twenty questions, I really didn’t. So, I guess a little irrationally—Hey, it made sense at the time—I climbed the fire escape instead of taking the side door and alerting all of them to my entrance.

The first flight past the bastard of a ladder wasn’t so bad, especially with pushing the guitar up before me. I could support my ankle by putting all my weight on the hand rail, which sucked in the abdomen department, but didn’t involve me swinging around my limbs in such a way that I looked like an idiot.

Speaking of which, do you notice, when you hurt yourself in a ridiculous way, let’s say stepping on your shoelace and doing that awesome trying-not-to-fall-while-falling dance and landing, everyone does one of two things? They either A) pretend their slip-up never occurred or B) check to see if anyone saw them before expressing any pain. Because heaven forbid you offend anyone by looking like a tard.

‘Oh, haha, look at me, did I do that? So you’re right, I do have a compound fracture! Oh no, no worries, I’m totally fine. Just allow me to shove my tibia back in. Hahaha.’

Everyone does it.

Man, I got pretty off-topic there for a moment. Moving on.

By halfway up the second flight, unfortunately, my ribs started to kick in, if you ignore that awful pun, and I was left a swearing mass of blood and bruising on the staircase. When I coughed, I tasted blood, and that was some seriously suckage. I knew that cued broken ribs, but hey, I couldn’t do anything much about it. I’m turning over a new leaf, ladies and gents, so tell me how well it works out—I’m trying to not be a whiny whimp. I know, it’s a far cry from what I was on those stairs, but it was really worth a try.

That being said, I swallowed the mouthful of blood that had been pooling under my tongue and crawled on my hands and knees the last five flights. I shoved the window up with my shoulder; having left it unlocked against Riin’s wishes, and fell face-first on to the floor, with the sound of flat and breaking strings and dead weight.

It took me a few minutes to remember to pull the rest of my body inside, but by that time, I realized I had made quite the racket. Riin was in the room in five seconds flat.

His first reaction was something along the lines of, “HolyfuckingGodwhathappenedareyouokayandmyGUITAR.”

My response to which was, “’Sorry.” I swallowed another mouthful of blood.

“Jesus Christ, can you go nowhere without getting the shit kicked out of you? What the fuck?” He didn’t sound angry, per se, just… frantic. I had drawn and quartered his instrument.

“’Guess not.” I knew his question was rhetorical, but I couldn’t stop myself from answering. He tried to pull me to my feet, but I yelped involuntarily.

“Sorry!” He dropped me again, and he swiveled his head back to the door so fast his braid hit me in the face. Stupid long hair, “Eve! I need you to call Kilik and get him over here!”

I heard no answer, but her response must’ve been punching in his number on the phone, ‘cause I did hear those.

Riin turned his attention back to me, “Listen, Tasch. I can’t give you any more blood. It’ll mess with your body. I don’t need it killing you or turning you into a mosquito too. This is going to fucking hurt, because it sounds like you have a punctured lung, but I need you to take a deep breath for me.”

Punctured lung? Really? Oh. That sounded kind of bad.

I took a deep breath, like he told me to.

Fuck. Fuck.

I exhaled quickly, which made the pain double. Blood splattered across my jeans and the floor. I heard Riin swear loudly.

“Okay, we can’t wait for Kilik.” He sat down behind me, so I was leaning against him and not straining my ribs. I felt blood drip on to my face before he pressed his bitten wrist to my mouth.

Drinking blood is always a really nasty experience, and it was just as bad as I remembered it. I heard his heartbeat again, and then the world started tilting left and right like I was in the belly of a ship during a storm. It isn’t magical or beautiful they way they make it out to be in books and movies. It tastes like metal, and it’s hard to drink something your body is naturally trying to keep from imbibing. The muscles in your throat tense and you’re on that uncomfortable cusp of almost gagging or throwing up. Yuck.

There was a swell of pain in my chest, and I heard a sudden snap as the broken ribs repaired themselves, pushing back into their proper location.

Quite suddenly, Riin yanked his wrist away. My ankle was making these bizarre splintering sounds as it morphed once again to solid bone. I felt the back of my skull, which had until that time been fissured, do the same. After what felt like hours of this weird mix of hurt and relief, I opened my eyes. My neck was arched back, and I was staring up at Riin’s face. He seemed concerned, until he concluded that I was alright, at which point he gave me a goofy lopsided grin.

“There’s lots of togetherness right now. I didn’t know you were the cuddling type, Taschi.”

Normally, I would have blushed, or sputtered, or something. But I only shrugged, “When the situation calls for it.”

Riin laughed, clapped me on the shoulder, and pushed me off him. I landed on my side, and stretched, hearing several pops as bones moved in their respective joints. I laid there, spread-eagle, until Riin grew impatient and hauled me to my feet. I hadn’t completely healed, and the trip upwards was uncomfortable. Really, really uncomfortable.

“How does that work anyway?”

“Huh?”

Some things just don’t change.

“Other than contracting horrible blood-borne pathogens like HIV, drinking blood shouldn’t really do stuff to you physically.” I explained, and Riin got that look of thought what made his brow furrow.

“Well, it can make you throw up. And hey! I don’t have AIDS.”

He was completely not getting the point, “That good to know. What I mean is, how does your blood do that crazy stuff like magic?”

“It definitely ain’t magic, Tasch.”

Again, Riin totally missed the point I was making, “Nono. I know that. How does it do it, though?” I watched him go to the window and pull it closed.

“Tell you what,” He turned to look at him with that impatient, unimpressed look he always got when I asked too many questions, “You study nuclear particle physics and the theory of particle acceleration, and I promise you it’ll make perfect sense. The whole vampire thing was created during the Godchild tests, it’s scientific not supernatur—wow, I’ve said way too much. You probably didn’t understand any of that anyway. Excuse me while I leave.” Which he promptly did.

Godchild tests? Okay. I knew what that meant. Riin must’ve had no idea I did know. It was quite clear to me that I should just quietly mull over this new set of information, file it away and come back to it later when I had more facts to compare.

Pfft, but who the hell do you think I am?

I went right after Riin, who had retreated to the kitchen. I moved past Eve, and stalked the vampire to the fridge, where he was pulling out a litre packet of blood and poked a straw in it as if it was a massive juice pouch. He sucked on the straw, and glared up at me.

“I know what the Godchild tests are. How did they create vampires?”

He stopped gulping the blood down madly, “They didn’t, not really. It’s a mutation. And also none of your business.”

“How did it—“

“Nonono,” Riin held up his hand for silence, “Shut up a second. There’s some things that are better off not known, you moron. This shit is too deep for you, got it?” Once he saw that I couldn’t quickly formulate a response, he continued, “This isn’t some fantastic adventure that you can be involved in, Taschi. This is life, as fucked up as the situation is. Government bullshit is not something you need to be wrapped up in. So take my advice, and fucking drop it.”

And I wouldn’t have dropped it, oh no, but at that time, I couldn’t figure out a biting remark to deliver in retort. That was the kind of stuff that Riin was good at, not me. But the five second bracket in time in which one can deliver a witty comment quickly came and went, and anything I would say after it would have sounded lame. So I stayed quiet.

Riin took my silence as me backing down, and went back to drinking his pouch of blood, the uncharacteristically hard expression on his face melted back into serenity, “Kilik should be here soon to check you over. If you get any weird pain; a stomachache, a headache, dizziness… tell me. It could equal something real bad. Now, if you’d excuse me, you broke my only electric guitar that could possibly function for the show tonight, and I need to run around like a maniac and get another one.” He finished gulping the rest of the litre and tossed the bag in the trash, leaving me to feel profoundly guilty as he gallivanted off in his diva-like manner.

Of course, I couldn’t very well explain what happened in the alley to him, so I let him think I was an idiot and went to alphabetize the pantry once more. I knew there was a pretty slim chance of me getting to leave the apartment again for a while, so I lapsed into sullen silence as I sat on the ceramic tile, somewhere between Grain Disks and Guava Juice.

And then I saw metal gleaming coldly from behind a few boxes, and I pulled out the hand gun that Cyrille had tossed to me in the alley. My pulse quickened.

I had left it on the pavement. Didn’t this fucker have better things to do then leave firearms stashed behind cereal? Jesus Christ.

As soon as I had picked it up and thought about it, which couldn’t have lasted more than a second, the gun disappeared. I don’t mean melted into darkness, fog or smoke the way it does in the movies. Instead, it did the same thing that Cyrille always did with his hasty exits. It was just gone, as if it wasn’t ever there in the first place. The cold metal, the weight, everything.

It was this kind of shit I would never get used to.

Seriously though, it was behind cereal. The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous and less scary it became. I think Cyrille probably knew that. The silly fucker had a weird sense of humour. I relaxed and let my hand fall out of the pose I had held while holding the firearm and went back to sorting.

Riin didn’t talk to me for exactly eight days, four hours and seventeen minutes. Not that I was counting or anything. Basically, everything remained pretty normal. Though instead, Riin wouldn’t talk directly to me. On the eighth day, dinner became interesting.

We had always eaten at the table. When I had originally told Eve that I never ate at the table back home, she acted completely scandalized, and grilled me about how dinner time was a way to keep a family tightly knit, and therefore there wouldn’t be a time that we didn’t eat at the table together, thank you very much. It was actually pretty hilarious, but at the time I made sure to keep as serious an expression as humanly possible.

So, here we were on the eighth moonrise of the Era of Cold Shoulder when everything went from awkwardly strained to intensely awkward.

We were eating curry and roti when Riin broke the silence that had settled over the room.

“Horus, tell Taschi to pass me the salt.”

Horus bit his lip, looking to me in this perplexed ‘you figure it out’ kind of way.

I sighed into my glass of milk, “Riin, the salt is as far away from me as it is from you.”

“Horus, tell Taschi he has the monkey arms in the house, so he and his freakishly long limbs can do something useful for a change and pass me the fucking salt.”

I ground my teeth hard. Horus stayed silent.

“Dariin, get your own salt.”

But yet again, Riin was being a third-grader and turned to still-mute Horus, “Horus, tell Taschi to stop being a douchebag.”

“You’re being the freakin’ douchebag, douchebag. You can get your own salt.” Was this seriously actually happening? Damn, we’re dumb.

“You broke my guitar!”

“I broke me too! And it was a freakin’ accident.”

Riin was silent for a long moment, his eyes scarily blue behind his black hair, “I want the salt.”

“That’s fucking nice! Sometimes you don’t always get what you want.”

“Yeah! I guess you learn that lesson all the time with chicks!” Riin shot back, flailing for an attack, “At least I don’t get all weak in the knees for women like Eve who are way out of my goddamn league and gay!” Once he had said it though, I think he remembered that he broke the first rule of teenaged unrequited affection—don’t fucking talk about it in front of that person.

I felt a surge of heat into my face, and Eve had become very still out of my peripheral vision. I could tell she was staring at me.

Oh my. Well… well, this… this was awkward. Not the most awkward moment in my life, but kind of up there. The air had suddenly become very thick, and I leaned forward, snatching up the salt. I stood up, or must’ve, I don’t really remember doing it, and placed the container directly in front of Riin, walking out of the kitchen and sulked to my room.

Yeah, sulking would be a good word for it. I wasn’t particularly upset by this; pissed off that Riin had said anything in front of Eve, but more so because I knew he was right. My fragile male ego had taken a beating, but I had kind of walked into that one. I found a sliver of amusement in listening to Eve tear a strip off of Riin outside in the kitchen, and after a few minutes of hearing raised voices, Horus slipped into my room.

“Mind if I come in? There’s a lot of uncomfortable being thrown around outside.”

It was kind of nice to have Horus around, and I totally understood where he was coming from, so I gestured to the half of the bed I wasn’t occupying, seeing that there wasn’t any other seating in the room, “Be my guest.”

He flashed me a brief smile, taking a seat where I had motioned to. But he said nothing for a long time.

“I, uh…” I started mechanically, just to break the silence. I actually had nothing to say, so I just let the sentence die before I completed it. But Horus had started talking at the same moment, and immediately clammed up as he heard me say something too. So, because I had nothing worthwhile to continue with, I said, “Go ahead.”

He frowned self-consciously, and took a moment to reply, “If it’s any consolation… Um. I had a thing for Eve too for a long time. It’s understandable, she’s very cool.”

I still felt like sulking though, “Yeah, well… her girlfriend’s hotter than me.”

This seemed to catch Horus by surprise, but he pulled out a cigarette from his silver case and handed to me along with a lighter. Weirdest non-smoker ever, “I don’t think it really matters if you were Adonis, Taschi. It’s nothing you did or didn’t do. It’s just Eve.”

Which was probably the nicest wake-up call anyone’s ever tried to give me. I was being a chick in my way of dealing with this. It wasn’t an epiphany moment or anything—nothing close to that. Just because you know someone’s right doesn’t make you feel any better.

I was about to answer him when I heard something that made me freeze. It was Riin’s raised voice.

“I don’t have to keep him around anymore, you know. I can fucking make him leave. I only had to watch him until he got over his goddamn frostbite.”

My heart felt like it had plummeted into the pit of my stomach. Horus’ eye went wide too.

I had to leave?

But Eve answered after a long moment, “You’re a fucking spoiled child, Forsythe. Is this all because he broke your very replaceable guitar?”

Riin didn’t answer, or more correctly, Eve didn’t let him. He started off with, “It’s not ju—“

“He did you a favour when he picked up that instrument for you. And he came back in really rough shape. You didn’t even ask what happened. Ever think for a moment that he probably didn’t want to get that thing crushed, along with his ribcage?”

“Well—“

“And it’s not like you’ve been terribly helpful, Dariin. You’ve been so obsessed over your fucking gigs that I’ve had to make dinner and clean the house every night after coming home from work. You’re leaving all the work for the rest of us, even though you’re home all day hiding from the sun.”

Goddamn, that woman could guilt trip. They weren’t even talking about the same thing anymore. It was hilarious and dreadfully impressive.

“And Taschi’s a teenager, Riin. Maybe he’ll be less likely to get his ass kicked when he has something constructive to do that will help him with the rest of his life. Maybe school, you knob.”

“He doesn’t have any I.D. and he’s an illegal alien. He won’t be able to—“

“How the hell does that stop anyone in this goddamn place? There’s people who can make anything and make it look legal. So get. It. Done. And I don’t want to hear another goddamn word about you kicking him out. Over a guitar. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I felt a swell of gratitude, but also felt the bed shaking slightly. I looked over to Horus, who was in silent hysterics, laughing mutely while his face was turning red. He finally managed to take in a gasp of air, grinning, “That was awesome.”

That it was.

After this, we dissolved into silence again, but it was more at ease than the last batch. I quietly smoked the cigarette, the window cracked so the smoke wouldn’t linger. It was only when Horus got me interested in Dante’s Divine Comedy and had me read a few lines that Riin came into the room, which was starting to get chilly from the breeze. I closed it once I was disturbed from the book and actually noticed.

He glanced over to Horus, and gave him a nod towards the door behind him that said wordlessly, ‘Get the hell out.’

Which the blond did, leaving me to feel awkward and murderous by myself with the vampire. I stared at him for a long time, waiting for an explanation, but he only looked away.

“So, should I be packing my bags? I’ll remember to pass the salt to the next person who asks.” Not that I really had anything to pack.

“Just—“ Riin sighed, holding up his hands and looking back at me, “Call it a truce for a moment, eh? I want to say something.”

I waited expectantly.

“I was being a douchebag and was out of line. I’ve been too bitchy lately, and it hasn’t been because of anything you’ve done. I wanted a reason to get mad and found anything I could, which happened to have to be you. It was uncalled for, and I’m sorry.”

Well… damn. That was a fucking good apology. I felt my anger immediately melt away.

“Thanks, Riin. And… I’m sorry about your guitar.”

“Oh, whatever, it’s not even a big deal. They had another of the same one in stock, and this one had more stuff on it than the other anyway, it just means I’m out of cash for this month’s rent.” He grinned, “The landlady thinks I’m hot. I can swing something and get an extension.”

If anyone could, it would be Riin. I felt myself smile, in spite of my trial at a poker face.

“Plus,” He continued, “Eve brought up a good point. You need to graduate high school. So, tomorrow, I’m taking you out to get a fake profile made. Then we’ll be in business.”

I stared at him blankly, my smile falling away from surprise. He shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, “…You’re shoving me in school?”

“Shoving?” He snorted, smirking, “Okay, I hated school too, and I can’t exactly say it helped me get anywhere. But you’re a smart guy, and maybe you need something to pass the time, ya know? I don’t want to make you pay rent, but I’d like you to go to school.”

I was about to protest before I realized this was exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to be some loser without even a high school diploma under his belt.

“And,” He continued after a moment, and I jumped when he yanked my from my thoughts, “You’ll be going to school with Horus. At least you’ll know someone.”

That was a huge effin’ bonus. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be in this city and know no one in a fucked up location like a high school.

Really, think of high school in a completely objective way and tell me it isn’t messed. You’ve got all these people, some of which have nothing in common and will never have anything in common, and you’re sticking them in a sterile and cheerless building for six hours a day for the four most influential years of their lives. No wonder there’s so much angst.

That next evening, I was introduced to some of the shadiest dealings I had seen yet in Gwenth.

Okay, yeah, I had dealt with the main mob boss of what everyone seemed to refer to as ‘The Underdark’, but those situations stuck out more as frustrating and quiet and didn’t involve the interpersonal minutiae that this night had.

…I can’t believe I just said ‘minutiae’. What the hell is with me lately?

As I was saying, this night was something different. Riin and I played chess in the living room until sundown (where I discovered that Riin really blew at chess even though I’m certain he secretly wanted to dominate the globe) when the vampire stood and hastily instructed me to get my coat and to meet him by the side door. Obviously I did what I was told, waiting out by the caged entrance of the building while the howling wind-tunnel effect froze off my ears. It was after about two minutes that Riin came out and shut the door, looking intense and silent. It was a weird look for him.

“…You okay?” I asked when he directed me towards the parking building.

“Mm. Fine.”

…Well, that quite successfully killed all conversation. I left him alone and got into his tiny, dark coup. It was a rather decent car.

Sinking into the leather interior, I couldn’t help but ask another question.

“Hey, Riin?”

“Mm.”

“When you’ve got a nice car like this, why are you living in the Crow District?”

“’Rent’s cheap and the people aren’t faceless assholes that rat you out to the bigwigs in the monolith when you keep human blood in your fridge.”

Oh. Well, that made sense… I guess. But again, the conversation tripped and fell on its face.

We said nothing for the rest of the trip, and I didn’t ask why that was the case. Riin was still concentrating hard—not necessarily being sullen, just… severe. He drove too fast, but once we started out of the Crow District and into the main regions of the city, he stuck to the speed limit and chose less-frequented streets.

It took an hour and a half to reach a sketchy alleyway that was on the far end of the city, set back right into the ghettos. A harsh and salty breeze blew in from the Channel right beside us at the docks, and the skeletons of oily machinery loomed over the both of us and I felt an intense pulse of anxiety and something uncomfortably akin to nausea—I was used to doing some illicit things, yeah, but a shady fake I.D. thing was something I wasn’t yet familiar with.

Riin led me down a narrow cut-off from the main alley, and we both had to walk sideways to fit. Looking up only gave me a clear view of the bleak, pewter sky that spat down the occasional drop of acid rain in a way that felt more like an insult than anything else. Around us, crumbling cement walls towered, threatening to close in at any moment.

At the end of the long, foreboding crawl was a small, rusted steel door that would only fit maybe if I crawled through it on my belly. Riin kicked it once with his shoe, glancing back at me to give me this silly grin that told me he was enjoying this maybe a bit too much. The sudden change in character shocked me a little.

And really, looking back on this day, if I knew what I know now—that I would be meeting the person who would change my life so completely, who would redefine me as the guy I am now—maybe, just maybe, I would have done things a little differently. I would have asked more questions.

This was the day I met Caine.