A short, rather pointless one-shot that actually manages to have a moral. The translation of the title is the very last line of the fic, but don't read it until you've read the whole thing, or else it kind of ruins the story, I think. I wasn't sure what to put this under, so, meh.
Warnings: implied language, sarcasm, some mentioning of blood, Creepers, random capitalization, excessive use of italics and bold, and un-edited-ness, though I'm pretty good when it comes to grammar and I actually know how to spell, so it shouldn't be too bad.
Enjoy, I suppose.
Nunquam Lamiae Morde me Dice
You would think that, working at a bakery that closes at six pm, one would get home early, you know, before it gets dark and creepy.
Yeah, well, you would think wrong.
I work at a bakery, it's called Sweet Sweets (creative, huh?), and we sell everything from Apple Turnovers, to Zucchini Raisin Muffins. We're a very popular bakery, so the place is always packed, and we're always ringing up orders, packaging sweets, wrapping gift baskets, etc. It's a lot of work, and it's not small by any means like the average bakery tends to be.
It's freaking huge. So, that means that whoever has to close the bakery, gets to stay behind until the place is completely swept up, wiped down, all the leftover sweets are packaged for delivery to homeless shelters, etc., all the earnings for the day are accounted for, everything in the customer area is presentable, the dishes are all washed and the sinks cleaned to sparkly perfection, the ovens are off, and many, many more things.
My point is, that all that work equates to a pretty late night.
We're usually at the bakery, cleaning, until ten, eleven, sometimes even midnight. Normally, my friend and fellow closer, Klark, walks home with me, since he's a super big and strong man who works out in his off hours, and I'm a super short, weak woman who sleeps in her off hours. Well, I do know how to kick serious butt, since I did dabble in the art of Judo for quite a while in my childhood, but that's beside the point.
Tonight, Klark is not with me, since, for some reason unknown to me and my other fellow closers, he was given the night off. So not fair. I haven't been given a day off in over a month!
Anyway, because Klark is not with me, this means that I'm being forced to walk to my house ten blocks away…alone. Alone on a quiet, poorly-lit street through a not-so-safe neighborhood. A not-so-safe neighborhood filled with an excess amount of Creepers. Yes, a Creeper is an actual species, so their name must be capitalized.
So, here I am, a little ol' 5"6', 115-pound nineteen year-old with a couple years of Judo under her belt, walking down a Creeper-filled, dimly-lit, eerily silent street at the stroke of midnight.
Perfectly safe, right?
I'm actually not one who scares easily. In fact, most people would say that it's very, very, very, very, difficult to scare me, and if you do somehow manage to frighten me a little bit, well, my years of training have fine-tuned my reflexes to cat-like, and I automatically go on the defensive, or, in some cases, offensive. As of yet, I have only had to 'defend' myself against incredibly annoying friends who think of scaring me as a challenge.
Only one friend has actually managed to succeed in scaring me, and he got a broken wrist and thirty bucks for his accomplishment.
Yes, I am aware that my friends are idiots, but that's why I'm friends with them. They're fantastically entertaining.
Now, let me warn you, do not, and I repeat, do not get lost in thought while walking down dangerous streets. The zoned-out look on a person-in-thought's face is like honey to bees, a bug zapper to bugs, peanut butter to dogs, birds to cats, blood to sharks, mice and bunnies to snakes, sex to-
Okay, I think you get it. Basically, by zoning out, you're making turning yourself into easy prey, and when a hunter sees easy prey, well, let's just say that they won't hesitate to hunt.
With big, strong, manly Klark, I don't have to worry about zoning out, since he either keeps me talking, or his intimidating presence just keeps the Creepers away. Tonight, however, there is no one to keep me from getting lost in thought, so, when I walk straight into an oddly icy-cold wall, I understandably fall to the ground in an undignified, totally not graceful, lump.
After I shake myself out of my thoughts, I look up, confused as to why I ran into a wall, of all things, when I was supposed to be walking on the sidewalk, which, in normal circumstances, has no walls in the way. When I see what, exactly, I really did run in to, I'm even more confused, since I could have sworn that the thing I hit was cold.
But, yes, the object of my running-into is none other than a man. Now, mind you, he's a very handsome man, if the dull lighting is anything to go by (but I wouldn't trust dull lights when it comes to a person's looks. Everyone looks better in the dark. It's impossible not to).
"Are you alright?" He asks me, his voice a deep and raspy, and oh-so-sexy rumble with a very slight Irish lilt to it. Boy, does Irish sound sexy.
Despite my thoughts on his sexy voice, however, my face, thankfully, remains blank, and I grunt in a completely non-sexy way as I shift on the ground, checking to make sure my butt isn't too damaged. What? I sit on that thing.
"Just peachy, thanks." I finally mumble, after my butt-check tells me that my shapely behind is perfectly sit-on-able.
"Here," he says, sticking a finely manicured – crap, is he gay? – hand in my face, "let me help you up."
I'm hesitant at first, seeing as this is the Creeper street, but he looks decent enough, and if he really is gay, then I don't have to worry about getting raped by him. So, in an Epic Moment of Stupidity, I grab his hand – oh, my God, his hand is cold! – and allow him to pull me up to my feet. Once I'm standing, I realize that Mystery Gay Man is really tall, really skinny, and his eyes are freaking glowing.
In another Epic Moment of Stupidity, I pass the glowing off as an effect of the dim street light. "Sorry 'bout that, I was kind of out of it."
He shakes his head, soft, black-looking hair falling into his glow-in-the-dark eyes. "No, it was my fault. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
"No, no," I say, staring up at him meaningfully, "you're so freaking tall that you'd definitely not see a midget like me, so, really, it wasn't your fault. So I'm sorry."
He laughs softly, and the sound creates a fluttery feeling in my chest. "How about, instead of playing the blame game, we settle this by buying one another breakfast?"
The fluttery feeling turns heavy and hot, and drops to my stomach. "Come again?"
"Would you like to go out to breakfast with me?" He asks again, a soft smile adorning his handsome face.
I squint up at him, trying to see if he's just screwing with me, but the low lighting makes it difficult to make out anything but the glowing of his eyes, and the turned-up shape of his mouth. "You…do realize it's, like, after midnight, so nothing will be open except bars, and they only sell booze and the occasional dinner-like meal, right?"
His smile turns to a frown, and I can see his eyebrows pull together in what I can only assume is a confused expression. After a minute of silence, something seems to click for him, and he snaps his manicured fingers. "Ah, that's right! I forgot."
Now it's my turn to frown in confusion. He 'forgot?' Who forgets about that sort of thing? "You forgot what, exactly?"
"Nothing, nothing," he says, waving the question away, "a bar, then? Or, how about a club?"
"No, thank you," I tell him, no longer attracted to his sexy voice. The Average Joe wouldn't ask the Average Jane out after bumping into on the street, would he? No, I didn't think so, either. "I have work tomorrow, so I can't afford to stay out too late."
"You're out late, already." He points out.
"I just got off of work." I retort, tapping my foot impatiently.
"What time do you go to work, tomorrow?" He asks, ignoring the soft tap tap of my shoe.
"It doesn't matter what time I go in. The point is, I need a lot of sleep since I am forced to stay out this late." I respond, sticking my hand in my hoodie pocket where I keep my handy dandy pocket knife. Hey, I never said I wasn't prepared.
"You ran into me." He states, his voice annoying calm, "You owe me at least this."
"But I apologized to you, and I was the one who fell on her butt, so I think you should drop it, and let me go home so I can sleep." I'm starting to get angry, and angering me is even worse than scaring me, since when you scare someone, they just react based on animalistic instincts, but when you anger someone, they react with a haze of red, and attack and attack with a brutality one can only see in someone truly pissed, until whoever they're attacking gives up.
"What have you got against going to a bar or club with me?" He asks, his insistence only fueling my anger.
I sigh in frustration and grind my teeth, trying to keep myself from snapping at him. "It's nothing against you, personally, I just have no desire to go anywhere with you, okay? I'm tired, I just worked a long shift at work, and I just want to go home. Now, I'm truly sorry about running into you, will you please move aside so I may go home?"
He growls in annoyance, and it isn't until my vision's blacked from the pain of having my head slammed up against an alley wall, that I realize his growl sounded more animalistic than human.
"You should have just gone with me. This would have been far easier for both you and me if you had." I hisses, his glowing eyes glaring angrily down at me.
"Bite me." I spit, trying to twist away from his grip, but his arm is like a steel band across my chest – hard, unforgiving, and cold. I can't move.
"With pleasure." He purrs, before leaning in towards my neck. I feel his warm, moist breath against the skin of neck, and I stiffen, confused. It isn't until I feel two sharp points touch my skin that I realize he's actually going to bite me.
"What are you, some kind of freak?" I growl, trying even harder to get away from him. "I wasn't serious, you fu-"
I'm cut off when something pierces the skin of my neck and presses in deep. It burns, stings, and hurts like nothing I've ever felt before. There's none of the pleasure you get from a hickey, just pure, unadulterated pain. I hear a quiet slurping sound, and it feels like something's being taken from my body, and that's when I notice that he's sucking my freaking blood!
I open my mouth to scream, to scream bloody murder and hope to God that someone saves me, but nothing comes out but a strangled choking sound.
Why can't I scream?!
My silent scream continues as my assailant keeps sucking the blood out of my body. After a while, my vision starts to become blurry, and I begin to feel fuzzy and lightheaded.
It's as my vision goes completely black, and my body goes limp that I think the last thought I'll ever think…
'Never say 'bite me' to a Vampire.'
And there you have it. Your lesson for the day. I hope the grammar and spelling weren't too bad, and hopefully you enjoyed it.
Tell me if you did, seriously, or tell me if you hated it. Constructive criticism truly does help a potential author, okay? I'm fine with flames, so long as you're nice about it, which, yes, I am aware that nice flames are an oxymoron, but just work with me here, okay? So, uhm, review, please.
And remember, " !-- /* Font Definitions */ font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ , , {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} 1 {page:Section1;} -- Nunquam Lamiae Morde me Dice" or, "Never say 'bite me' to a Vampire."
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