Your Love Is a Razor Blade Kiss

"Dude, you okay?" I heard Joni's voice, smelled his sugary scent, and felt the fence dip as his weight leaned into it beside me.

"Yeah," I answered noncommittally. I just kept my head down, unsure if I was more ashamed of what happened with Ricky or merely the fact that I felt ashamed at all.

He waited a few moments to gather his thoughts. Joni seemed uncharacteristically apprehensive. It was a strange thought to contribute 'nervous' to his person. I should have been asking him how he was doing, but my mind was a mess.

"I really wanna go..." He eventually spat out.

"Okay," I had no reason to deny him.

Besides, you know, Ricky, but we don't talk about that. Weakness is for the dead.

You might as well be dead.

My body went rigid, and I pulled up my shoulders. It was not the time for that. Not now. I did not have the energy to deal with it.

You're going to go home and drink until you pass out – just like you always do.

Probably...

"Mike's being weird," Joni confided, probably because of my hesitation.

"Motherfucker's weird," I still managed to find room to be snide.

"He's freaking me out..."

"He's..." I paused, "... He's a dom. They do strange things."

"He acts like he cares, and it makes me sort of start to like him a little, and then he pulls some dumb shit that makes me remember why we said no doms." Joni's confession distracted me from my own personal turmoil and had me worrying about the 'dumb shit' that motherfucker was pulling.

"Like what?" I pushed down the obvious insult to my friend's ability to pick men.

"Like taking me all the way to a fucking hotel to talk to me for five minutes instead of his bus."

I could not even comprehend the... I could not think of a good word for it. Nothing defined the idiocy justly. It was simply stupefying.

"Is he fucking obsessed?" I did not fully recognize the tone in my voice, so I did not question it when Joni hesitated.

"I don't know..."

“Goddamn it!” I swore, “if that motherfucker’s obsessed with you…”

“He’s…” Joni interjected almost pointedly.

Is he trying to defend him?

I would have flipped shit if he had finished that sentence.

“He’s what? Crazy? Because that better be what you were about to say!” Maybe I was a little too harsh for a fertile, maybe too protective, too mean.

Joni did not say anything more, though. His dark brows were knit loosely to show his annoyance, but the tightness in his jawline revealed something deeper.

He was ashamed, embarrassed as well. He did not want to speak those words for that would entail admittance on his part. I could not even admit it for him. I could not rightly stand by and think about it. I could not stand the idea of him loving that motherfucker.

He doesn’t love him. I told myself. No, he does not love Mike, but he was on the road to it.

You shouldn’t be so coy.

I pushed off the gate with a frazzled huff. That was not what I needed. Not now.

Just go home and drink yourself to sleep. You don’t deserve the luxury of death or the comfort of his arms.

I stopped dead.

What?

I shook my head of the voices. I did not fucking need this.

“Let’s go,” I lifted myself over the fence and waited for Joni.

He moved sluggishly. I guessed I was not the only one with something heavy weighing on the mind. We had a bit of a walk back to the apartment building and a stop to make at the liquor store. Joni would distract the clerk, I would take the booze. Security cameras were not a big deal when you were faceless.



Joni and I said nothing to each other on the way back. Instead, we chose silence to be our mediator and let sleeping dogs lie. What the other did not know could not hurt him. I assumed so, anyway.

I did not even want to listen to my intuition tonight. I was so fed up with everything. I just wanted to drown the relentless thoughts circulating in my skull. The less I could hear them, the better. I sat my ass down on the old, filthy couch and sank my fangs into the cork, ripping it out with a nerve-soothing pop as the scent of the scotch hit me. I spit the cork out across the floor and lifted the bottle.

A calming breath and a swig later, I looked over at Joni, who had taken a seat on the windowsill. He seemed more than a little pensive, but I could not be bothered. No, I did not want to bother him. He was safer excluded from my issues. He was used to it by now.

I was a drunk. He knew that better than anyone.

Purebred and raised… I thought bitterly, swallowing more burning, golden liquid with a frown.

What else was I supposed to do? I was abandoned, unwanted from the start. The humans did not understand. Honestly, I did not either growing up. I thought I was one of them. I did not know better. They raised me to be ignorant. Daddy drank, Mommy yelled, and the strange baby from off the streets was left malnourished and neglected. There were moments that I felt they almost loved me, but I was not theirs. I was just their fucking charity.

I had no one. I had booze, but alcohol only kept you warm for so long. I was not worth anyone’s time. Why would I be? I was just the fucked up fertile that missed that ‘cute and happy’ memo. I could not even tell you why I was so aggressive. Maybe it was the lack of proper nourishment as a child? Or maybe I was destined to be a fuck up? It was probable, what with the humans and their Almighty and the vampires and their Kings. Someone had to script in my catastrophe. I did not think nature could mess up this bad. Religion was fucked up enough to be a possibility.

Maybe that was just the whiskey talking. I had a sad habit to ponder my existence and the gods while drunk. And the deeper I thought about it, the less faith I put in it.

Halfway through the fiery gold, I was nearly melting into the sofa. It did not even affect me to the point of passing out anymore. I had a natural resistance as a vampire, but it would take all three of the bottles I had taken to do me in. Three bottles of 80 proof whiskey to drown out the noise.

There was one brand in particular I liked that technically exceeded 100 proof. Now, that shit was potent! Too bad Everclear was illegal in this state.

I don’t know, Ricky’s pretty potent, too. A smile grazed my lips. Ricky was like Everclear. He got me love drunk on the first taste – 250 proof. He should be illegal.

The turn my thoughts took amused me greatly. Only a drunk in his drunken mind could compare someone to alcohol.

Fuck me… I tipped my head back to let the rest of the scotch burn its way down my throat. Two bottles to go…

BANG! The door to our little hide-away was kicked in straight off its hinges. It smacked the ground as a far too familiar motherfucker walked in with a completely unfamiliar dom.

“What…?” I felt the hair on my neck rise as I sat up.

“Mike?” Joni, who had leapt to his feet when the door fell, squeaked in dismay.

“Hi!” The unfamiliar dom peeked around the motherfucker with a cheeky smile.

“Who the fuck are you?” I snarled, gripping the neck of the empty bottle tightly.

“I’m Vic,” he answered innocently.

“Joni, you’re going with me,” the motherfucker made his intentions clear.

“Had to bring back up to a party of fertiles, huh?” I rose, squaring my shoulders and glowering.

“Consider yourself relieved of duty; I’ll look after him now,” the motherfucker retorted with a malicious smirk.

“Bullshit!” He really fucking rattled my cage.

“You weren’t kidding,” Vic spoke calmly. “That one’s aggressive…”

“Don’t make me go through you, puppet,” the motherfucker pushed his luck.

“What!?” I growled deeply, making a sound similar to a dom’s warning.

“Aw, he’s almost scary!” Vic gushed with a deceptively clueless smile.

Something about him frightened me on an internally primal level.

The motherfucker kept a guarded eye on me as he stalked towards my friend. I let out a foreign snarl and lashed out to protect the one person who even pretended to give a damn about me. I launched the bottle at Mike’s head with intent on serious damage.

I did not even see him coming. Vic closed in on me like a wolf and jumped me like a tiger. I did not realize his movement until I was already pinned to the floor with his hands around my neck.

“I’m gonna have to ask you to refrain from hurting my brother,” that innocent pitch darkened into a venomous tone as his eyes were filled with a crimson glow.

I heard the glass shatter on the opposite wall.

“Let go of me!” Joni let out a defensive growl.

I dug my nails into Vic’s wrists, trying to make him loosen his grip on my throat. I could hear the almost crazed rumbles of Mike’s laughter from beyond the couch.

“Taking pointers from the little worm?” He mocked, “I’d watch your mouth-”

There was a grunt and a smack, and Joni’s form sped out into the hall and out of sight. Vic peered over the sofa with concern. I kicked out beneath him in an attempt to free myself, but his fingers were wrapped solidly around my neck as he sat on my stomach. Another small dom.

The smaller, the deadlier, it seemed.

“Take care of him,” Mike demanded and hurried after Joni.

Vic turned to me, perfectly calm ruby eyes reflecting the panicked magenta light in my own. His grip tightened, cutting off my air. He said nothing to me but left me entranced by the unfazed look of his gaze. People say black is the color of death, but when it came to vampires…

The last color you would ever see was red.

My lungs ached and burned from the lack of oxygen. I clawed at the dom’s arms in a vain attempt to not even free myself, but to just make him flinch. I could not fight him like this. His control over me was overwhelming. I had to break his gaze. I could not let him just kill me like this.

Why not?

Not now…

You were just going to do it yourself anyway. This will give purpose to your death.

My hold on his wrists began to loosen, the pounding in my head swelled. A weight fell on my eyelids.

Just sleep. Sleep forever.

”I-I’m Joni…”

“I guess I can let you crash with me for a little while…”

“I wasn’t born a vampire, but I kind of get it. Humans are rash. You have a right to be angry.”

“I… Thank you… I di-didn’t expect him to… Thank you…”

“Damn it, kid… You need to learn how to take care of yourself.”

“I mean- ha ha! I wouldn’t know what to do if you hadn’t, you know, helped me.”

“You don’t mind the drinking?”

“Well, you could try to cut back a little…”

“I trust you, Joni. I’ve never had anyone there for me before…”

“Hey, I owe you a lifetime, then. You saved mine, after all.”

I narrowed my eyes and, in the next instant, I struck out like a provoked cobra. I brought my nails across Vic’s cheek, breaking his stare. He recoiled and I brought my knee up, jamming it into his spine. He let out a startled snarl.

I punched him square in the face, his fingers losing their grip on my neck. I allowed myself a painstaking breath and hit him again while he was stunned. It gave me the opportunity to push him off and splutter for a moment as the air began to circulate again. I felt a rough hand grab my nape and thrust my face into the carpet.

“You’re pissing me off now, puppet!” He growled lowly.

I threw my elbow back into his ribs, successfully catching him off guard. Fertiles were not supposed to fight. I laughed inwardly.

I aimed for his face next, prepared to break his nose or something, but he took ahold of my arm. Heaving me up, he tossed me across the room into the wall. He had me by the collar before I could catch my breath, and he slammed me against the wall with enough force to make me see stars. He bashed me into it a few more times that I could not count properly before lifting me off the floor completely. He started walking.

I realized too late of his intent, only grasping the gravity of the situation when I was suddenly fighting it.

The sound of the shattering glass struck me first, small shards slicing my skin as I crashed through them. Then, I was falling. I heard cars, a symphony of crickets drowned out by the comprehension of my fate.

Thrown out a window into traffic. Not what you usually see happening to a fertile, but I was not exactly in any position to argue or complain. The gemstone glow of Vic’s eyes haunted my descent, but they were not the last ones on my mind as I hit the pavement.

I was granted the wretched sound of screeching tires before exiting consciousness.