Vaughan was on the dance floor. He had come here with several friends: Michael, Peter, and Jason, all friends from the strip club two blocks down. He wasn’t dancing with anyone because he hadn’t waited for anyone to ask, the boys had bee-lined for the bar. Instead, He’d come in, stalked into the middle of the dance floor with such a strut that people actually parted to let him stalk through. Upon reaching the middle of the dance floor he’d started dancing without hesitation.

He moved like sex, he wore the perfume of lust, coming from a strip club, he even looked like sex. Vaughan wore leather pants that may was well have been painted onto his body. They clung to him as if he were wearing wet clothing. The lower portion of the legs were tucked into boots that added two inches to his short height, they had metal buckles and leather straps from ankle to knee. The pants were split down each outter leg to reveal almost two inches of flesh all the way up, held on by a thin leather string laced up the leg. The shirt was not leather but some kind of satin. He wore it like an open vest that was held to his body with straps across his chest. The sleeves didn’t extend past his shoulders. His thick curls were left loose to hang down around his shoulders like a mane. The make up artist always used his hair for inspiration and Vaughan’s eye shadow and mascara made his brown eyes look cat-like. Contacts helped form slits out of his pupils.

Rather then allowing the music to flow over him, his body poured over it. Instead of moving to the beat, somehow it seemed he moved and the beat followed. It was like his mind wasn’t working and his body is thinking for him. He was not dancing to the music, it was as though the music was dancing to him, bumping to his beat, moving with his tune. He looks younger then his age and acts older then he is.

He danced with no one in particular, or rather, he danced with everyone available. He flirted, touched, slithered, and rocked away from, and rolled against every body. His feet moved like they didn’t touch the ground, his body moved like melting ice in the sea of hot bodies, slithering in the heat, the sweat, and the music, through the ecstasy of it all. He was drunk on the music, high on exhilaration.

Chi had been at the club for almost an hour and she had watched the mortal man as he strutted and danced. She rolled her eyes and only one word popped in her mind. Amateur... He had no idea what he was getting himself into or perhaps he did, but when vampires were involved it could never be a good thing. Despite the fact that she was a vampire herself, she wasn't at all interested in the man on the dance floor. She did watch him though. It wouldn't do anything to have a violent female vampire attack him. He had already brushed up against two of them, though they had seemed to have dismissed him.

She was sitting down at the bar, her blood red dress draped on her. Her arms were bare and she had a deep v-neck line. The dress stopped right above her knees. She had matched her shoes with her hair. They were simple and silver like her hair. She sipped her drink and she knew that she was getting looks, yet she stayed calm and aloof. Some had tried to get up close and personal. She had simply glared at them.

Her eyes returned to the mortal dancing. He was going to have to be watched.

Disregarded by two other vampires. It’s funny, he was of the mind that moving in with, no, existing with a vampire would give him a little bit of insight to other vampires, that maybe he’d be able to recognize them. He had, a few nights ago in his own club. He’d gone out of his way to dance across the room and crawl up onto their, a man and a woman, table for a private little show. They’d watched intently, and then, he supposed when she believed he was no longer paying attention to their table, she told her partner that she could smell the other vampire on him.

Vaughan would be disappointed to know that he had brushed two vampires here tonight and had not recognized one for what they were. He was slowly becoming addicted to being in the company of the undead. Nothing about the undead could be very healthy for a mortal…let alone being addicted to their presence.

When the song changed this time, he did not transform his dancing with it, molding from one song to the next as he had before. Instead, when the song changed, it was as if the puppeteer had lost interest and his limbs fell into a comfortably casual position as if he had never been dancing at all. He sucked in his lower lip and chewed at a piece of dried skin as he slithered through the sweaty bodies and approached the bar. He leaned against the bar, both of his arms laying on it, crossing one in front of the other. He looked younger then he was as it was, but the position looked so first grade that it was ridiculous. A guess might have put him around fifteen. He wasn’t fifteen but he wasn’t old enough to drink just yet either. He ordered water.

The excitement, the thrill of just being here, dancing, shone in his eyes like a child on Christmas morning. The scanned the crowd for his friends but, with the attention span of a twig, forgot that he had been looking for them at all when he met her eyes. Probably only because she was giving him individual attention at all (and Vaughan is an attention hound) he moved around the bar, plastic cup of water in hand, towards her. He smiled that stage smile as he approached.

“Can I sit?” he asked when he arrived at last.

Did the smell of his own sweat and others drown out the smell of his dear Tatsumi? Did he 'reek of vampire' to her?

Chi's eyes had never left him. She was surprised that no one had jumped him yet. She paused as another smell touched her nose. She straightened her spine and she recognized the smell for what it was. He belonged to another vampire. She couldn't say that he reeked of a vampire, but the smell was there. That was perhaps why no one had touched him. Vampires were territorial and respected other vampire's territory, but of course Chi was the exception to the rule. She did what she wanted when she wanted and no one was going to stop her.

She waved to the seat next to her own, which was oddly vacant, inviting him to sit with her. Chi was curious about this one and wondered why he had a vampire smell all over him, either he was a blood donor to a vampire or had been attacked. Of course the way that he seemed ok would support the former hypothesis instead of the latter.

His smile irritated her, yet her face showed nothing. "Only smile if you are going to be honest about it. I hate stage smiles, they are fake and annoy me. You don't want me annoyed. Despite the fact that you might belong to another vampire, she won't stop me if you push me too far."

Her remark did make him smile. He didn’t so much drop the stage smile and really smile as much as the stage smile transformed into a smile. He had a pleasing smile. His stage smile was strong, confident, touched with a darkness that shouldn’t come on a face that young. His real smile wasn’t anything like that. While the confidence that remained was remarkable, he didn’t look dark at all, in fact, perhaps he looked a little bit jaded, a little bit exposed. His smile looked like the laughing kind of smile, like he’s shaking with silent laughter.

The fact that she knew he made frequent another vampire didn’t surprise him. The fact that she was a vampire and he had not realized it, also did not surprise him. What had surprised him was her choice of words. “Belong?” he asked, sounded intrigued and bemused at the same instance. “I don’t belong to anyone.” In fact, he was a remarkably free spirited young man. The fact that he didn’t believe he belonged to Tatsumi was true between Tatsumi and himself but he doesn’t understand that where another vampire is concerned, he may as well just be private property.

“I’ll try my best not to get on your nerves then,” he told her, smiling and taking the seat approved for him. He turned on the stool until he faced her directly. His eyes wandered over her hungrily, not with a passion but an intense, deep curiosity, taking all of her in. She didn’t remind him of Tatsumi, but of course he’d known already that vampires were just as various as humans.

Chi saw the change and nodded in approval. His smile was more natural and she liked it. "Now that's better, a lot friendlier." Chi was unusual and the words that she used, showed exactly that. She smiled and the smile reached her eyes. "Yes belong. You may not see it as such and neither does the vampire you serve, but vampires are territorial by nature. If a mortal is a friend with another vampire, other vampires leave that one alone, especially if the vampire seems old. It's something that is ingrained in us, we can't control it."

Chi kept her eyes on him, she knew instinctively what he was thinking. "You are curious, ask your question, young one, perhaps I can answer them." Chi wouldn't tell him everything, but he had to know some things, she thought that he had the right to know.

Vaughan laughed at her choice of words to approve of his smile. The fact that anyone had to approve of a smile was worth laughing at alone. His laughter was free, like a child’s. It rang out not quite light enough to be called ‘bell like’ and not deep enough to compare to the chest rumbling laughter of a man. It was a light, crisp, unbridled laugh. He couldn’t worry about very much in life. People who had worries couldn’t laugh like that.

“But you can still talk to me right?” he asked. “Just because I Belong to her,” he mocked the word with emphasis, “that doesn’t mean you can’t be around at all? Or what if I seek you out instead of the other way? Is it considered playing with someone else’s toys if I come to you? I mean, as long as I know what you are and I still come to you…on my own will,” he tacked that last on as an after thought. He seemed to take easily and with little offense to being related to as ‘property’ and ‘a toy.’ He also seemed to accept her offer to ask questions without hesitating. It wasn’t usual behavior really. Most people shied away or hesitated, he plunged in headfirst.

“Can you tell that she’s old when she isn’t even here?” he asked. And to Vaughan, Tatsumi was old. This didn’t mean she would be considered old to another vampire. “How old are you?” What ever happened to ‘a lady never reveals her age?’ He tossed it into the wind. “How can you tell if someone else is old? Is it my smell? That lets you know I belong to someone else I mean?” He pondered for a moment, then asked what might be a very important and was certainly a wise and considerate question: “Am I allowed to talk about Her to you and about you to her? It won’t get you in trouble if she knows that you talked to me?” He paused again, then put his cup on the bar and wiped his hand dry. He held his hand out to her casually. “I’m Vaughan, by the way.”

She’s opened a door for an interrogation, literally. The boy had questions and he would not hesitate to ask them. He was curious by nature and tended to study everything as though it were a science project. Having read about vampires since he was only ankle-bitter size, he’d asked Tatsumi everything he could in just a few days. Now he had the opportunity to ask another vampire with different opinions those same questions.

For now, though, she’d raised some new questions about the social and sharing skills between vampires in general and when regarding one of those vampire’s humans.

Chi laughed, the sound of her laughter like the sound of bells. He was so curious, he barely gave her time to answer, actually he didn't even give her time to answer. "So many questions, young one. You should give me the time to answer, I might not remember all your questions." She was amused by this one, he was worth talking to.

She frowned though as he mocked the word that she had chosen. "You said you don't want to annoy me, yet you are doing exactly that. If you want me to rip you apart, without a thought all you have to do is ask. I don't have as much patience as I used to." Well when you lived for 6000 years, there was a time where you started to have less of it.

She gave an annoyed sigh. "I'm the oldest vampire in the city, I know that, because I would have sensed one if there was an older one. I was alive long before the first country, the first empire, the first city was ever created. If you know your history, that should give you an idea of how old I am, but I am not the eldest. I had to come from somewhere."

Chi shrugged. "If you spend a lot of time with her or even a small amount of time, her scent will carry to you, it's something we vampires simply know, though perhaps it is more than a simple smell." She raised an eyebrow. "Of course you can do whatever you want, but you should see her scent on you as a sense of protection not as something bad. Some vampires aren't friendly not even close, with her scent on you, you are protected, safe. Not completely but almost." It was clear that he didn't believe her, but she would try to explain.

His smile broadened at her laughter. He could reach out and touch that laughter, just like he could with Tatsumi, he wanted to grab it and wrap it around him like a blanket, to surround himself in it. He managed a half apologetic look at bombarding her with so many questions at once but the look was forced as it nearly drowned in eagerness. He was apologetic, apologetic that she might forget some of his questions, but not at all for have so many questions, for wanting to know.

“Rip me apart…” he seemed to be tasting the word carefully, rolling it around on his tongue. “I’ll keep it in mind. Sorry,” he managed yet another half of an apology. He didn’t seem afraid of her threat, of the possibility. He seemed to have taken in the possibility and stored it for further use. There didn’t seem to be much fear in him to be found…perhaps because he’d heard the threat before? Maybe because he wasn’t afraid to die. Until recently he didn’t have anything to loose by ceasing to exist. At one point he’d wanted it.

“So you’re…” His eyes rolled towards the ceiling, a look of concentration said that he was trying to count the years. “You’re more then fifty eight hundred?” The number can in an awed tone of voice, a child shocked to silence by the most precious and coveted gift he could have ever received. “Seriously?” he asked, as if she had already confirmed that she was older then five thousand eight hundred. The fact that something could have lived for six hundred years, to exist for so long and continue on ‘living’ had rocked him backwards. This…this had stunned him to silence. His eyes were wide with amaze, his lips parted just slightly. Behind those eyes, he was considering the possibility of existing for so many years. Finally he smiled, blinking away the awe, and he said the same words he’d said to Tatsumi. “You look good for your age.” Grin.

“I live with her,” he replied. “So it’s like…like what, I took a bath in her smell?” His smile stayed at that thought but turned somehow mischievous.

“Do you know her?” He asked, restraining himself to one question at a time. “I mean…her smell?”

He had to keep the threat in mind, she may be a kinder vampire, but she was old and older vampires could get annoyed fairly easy if the right buttons were pushed. She wouldn't hesitate ripping him apart if he went too far.

A smile drew on her face as he tried to calculate how old she was and she almost laughed as he said fifty-eight hundred. "I'm older then that, by I think four hundred years. I kinda lost count after a while. What's the point of counting how old I am when I have no one to celebrate it with?" She shrugged her shoulders. "It's hard to stay alive for so long, but you find a way to manage."

Amusement glowed in her eyes. "I'm sure that I do, after all I won't age a day past sixteen. It's annoying really. Thank God for fake ID's." There were days where she hated looking young, a lot of people treated her like a kid and that bothered her. Yes she looked young and sometimes it was better to act that age, but she did wish that she was closer to a young adult age. Sometimes she unnerved people.

She shook her head. "No no, it's hard to explain, i don't quite understand it. The closest explanation would be like, actually I don't know what the closest explanation would be. I can only say that only vampires would now."

He raised his eyebrows when she added four hundred, maybe more then that, to the age that he had guessed. He wanted to shout ‘holy cow’ but he wasn’t sure how appropriate that would have been. He chewed his bottom lip, contemplating this thought all the way through. He smiled. “It isn’t hard to read about vampires being so…not young but…” he wrinkled his nose, fifteen again, “it is harder when it’s really real. You know?” Frown, twenty-two, it’s odd how his expressions changed his age. “No, I guess you wouldn’t know. You live that long it’s easy to think about…but,” shrug. “I’m eighteen and that seems like a long time to me. I couldn’t…imagine,” smile. He gave her a half bashful and half apologetic look. “Sorry,” he apologized for rambling. “It’s just hard to wrap my mind around.”

“Sixteen?” he asked. “Were you sixteen then, when it happened?” He was leaning forward slightly. The dew of sweat that had been on his face had dried, he’d forgotten his water sitting on the bar. He was focused completely on her now. He smiled when she thanked god for fake Ids. “Know what you mean,” he laughed again. It was odd to hear someone six thousand years old talking about fake Ids and the need for them.

“Where did you come from? If not from … civilization. I mean, what part of the world? Did you live with a group of people or just your family?” I believe Lewis Carol got it right with Alice when she said ‘Curious-er and curious-er.’

He had abandoned the subject of scents on his body…he could ask Tatsumi to clarify that. After all, he had every day left with her. He may only meet…this one…. “What’s your name?” once in a lifetime (his lifetime, that is).

Chi laughed. "Harder when it's real? Vampires weren't even part of our society when I was turned. I thought that I was becoming a goddess. Imagine my surprise when I understood my limitations. I was barely a goddess if even that much. There were sometimes where I resented being a vampire, I hated it. Of course I got used to it, but it was difficult at times."

She smiled at him. "I suppose you could call it community, my family and some of my parents relatives. In total there was maybe five families, I think. It was a long time ago, I can't quite remember." Where had it been? "Somewhere in present day China. I could probably pin point it on a map, but even the ground changes with time."

He was a good person and she found herself enjoying his company. "My name Is Chyou, but i prefer Chi. It's simpler."

He laughed. “I can only imagine,” he confessed. God, he couldn’t even do that. He corrected himself with a shake of his head that sent his curls falling against his face. “No, I couldn’t even begin to fathom.” But the smile on his lips grew once again. “Did anyone worship you? Did anyone believe that you were? When did you meet another? Did you know the person that...er…did it to you?”

He liked seeing her smile as much as anyone. It warmed him to know that he made people smile, even if just for a moment.

“China. So…you’d be Chinese then? I mean, obviously it wasn’t “China” back then but still, you came from that region right?” He’s feeling his way through this conversation. It’s difficult because he wants to understand but he doesn’t want to be racial, hurt her feelings somehow. Being ripped apart he isn’t worried about but hurting someone’s feelings might devastate him. Such an odd boy, really.

“Chi,” smile. “It’s pretty. Does it mean anything?” He held out his hand to her, unafraid and unhesitant, exactly as he had the upon his first discovery of vampires (of course, it had taken him a while to swallow that bite whole but he collected himself eventually). His hand was a little large for his body, indicating at least one last growth spurt. They were clean, manicured even, and very warm. “I’m Vaughan.”

Chi lifted an eyebrow and looked at him. "Was I ever worshiped? I was the Goddess on Earth. Well second to my sire. I was younger than most of the other priestesses, but my sire claimed that I had been chosen at birth to be a Goddess. My sire claimed that my silver hair was a symbol from the moon, the Earth's friend. We worshiped the Earth she was the Goddess that gave us everything."

She tilted her head in acknowledgment. "That's right. I come from that region, I believe that it's somewhere in Central China, but I could be wrong. I haven't looked at a map in a while." It was her home until the people that worshiped them claimed that they were demons. She had fled her home and had traveled west.

"My first and middle name is Chyou Feng, it means Autumn Phoenix, or that would be the closest equivalent. My parents should have thought it through more throughly, yet they found the name pleasant and i like it. I shortened it to simplify it for everyone." She paused as she looked at him. "It's a pleasure to meet you Vaughan." She placed her small hand in his.

“Do…” Frown. “You get it now, right. What you are? How long before you understood? Did anyone else ever worship you after that?” He wanted to touch her hair, now that she had drawn his attention back to it. So beautiful, he wanted to know if it felt the way it looked. “Do you still worship the earth?” he asked, pulling his eyes from her hair and back to her face. When he had first moved in with Tatsumi he had unceremoniously taken her hair down and played with it. When he had been very young, no not young, he had done it all the way through high school, he would run his fingers through his mother’s hair. Probably their hair fascinated him because it reminded him of his bonding with his mother, perhaps because their hair was straight and silk while his own was curly and easily tangled and frizzed.

“That’s cool,” he told her when she interpreted his name. “Do you want to be called Chyou?” he asked when she said she only shortened her name to make it easier. “I won’t mind.” He took her hand eagerly, wanting to feel her skin, to know if her touch was cool like Tatsumi’s. “Mine means ‘little.’ My last name is Wolf. I was named after my grandpa. ‘The little wolf’.” He smiled. “It worked when I was little…” he didn’t finish the sentence ‘not so much anymore’ since really he was small. He was short for a man his age, he was dainty, close enough to be called beautiful instead of hansom.

Chi remembered reflecting back to the Roman Empire. "If I go back to the Roman Empire, I was worshiped as the moon goddess, because of my silver hair. At that time I named myself Chandra, which means moon in Chinese. A few Romans worshiped me until one of them caught my interest. I turned him and he became my lover. I lost him about two weeks later and found him again recently."

She nodded her head. "Yes I still worship the Earth. to worship anything else is irrelevant. The Earth is real and she gives up everything we need, why worship anything else." She paused thinking. "To an extent I think I also worship the moon, she is my sun, now that I am a vampire."

chi shook her head this time. "I would prefer Chi, I often used different names, yet my nickname never changed. I was always called Chi despite where I was or what I did." She knew that he found her hair interesting. "You like my hair?"

“How long did you stay with your sire?” he asked, latching onto the word easily. Tatsumi didn’t use the word ‘sire’. Her sire had been Kyoshi, he had been her husband. She called him such, her love, her husband, but never her sire. He wondered at that. “Did you love him?” he asked, wondering if maybe there was a carefully formed bond between all child and sire or if this had been a special case.

“I don’t,” he said. “Worship the sun or the moon or the earth, I mean,” he elaborated, letting a frown crease between his eyebrows. “I fight with God…I’m not sure anymore.” He sounded a little bit confused, a boy whose lost what he believed was un-lose-able.

“Very much,” he replied, nodding, a smile tugging the edge of his lips when the mentioned her hair.

How long had she stayed with her sire? She couldn't remember. "A century maybe two, I can't quite remember." She was amused at how he thought that her sire was male. "My sire was female and I did love her. Back then homosexuality wasn't a problem, not like today. Besides we were goddesses, who would argue with us." She was bi and she had no problem with it. She loved being both, she had more choice.

She could guess where his thoughts were going, so she decided to explain. "There is a special bond between a sire and their fledgling, it doesn't always turn to love, but it can. You have to understand that the bond is more than a connection, you can feel everything the other is feeling. You can also feel when they die. It is the worst feeling in the world."

She shook her head to clear out her thoughts. She grabbed a strand of her hair. "Would you like to touch?"

“A century?” He sounded as though he were trying to fathom staying with someone for so long. And ‘maybe two’ as though she were talking about mere years. He had to remind himself that to her it was just like a year or two. “Homosexuality isn’t a problem today,” he informed her, then frowned. “Is it? I mean you’ve got your usual bubble heads who can’t accept what is different but for the most part,” he shrugged. “I mean, most of the guys I work with are gay. Not many straight guys are comfortable working there,” he sounded amused. He was a straight arrow boy but he was so comfortable in his skin that he could strip down to nothing in front of men without a second bat of his eyelash.

“I guess you’re right though. Whose gonna tell a Goddess ‘yo! You’re doing it wrong.’” He grinned.

Vaughan paid close attention while she lectured on the relationship between a sire and a child. His face transformed as if on queue to something near tragic. “You’re sire died, didn’t she?” he asked softly. He could hardly hear his own voice over the music but he knew she could hear.

He smiled, as though she’d cheered him up. “If you don’t mind,” he said. His fingers curled against his legs, as if so tempted.

She shook her head. "You misunderstand what I mean. Being a homosexual back then was considered a part of life, it was normal, today people have such a problem with it. Like the church claims that it's unnatural. I don't think so. You should be allowed to love who you want, whenever you want." Chi was at ease with her sexuality, she didn't have a problem with it.

She frowned and then shook her head again. "Oh no, my sire didn't die. She's still alive somewhere and taking good care of herself. My fledgling died and went through a rebirth process. I felt like my heart had been ripped out. I found out about a month or two ago that he was still alive. Talk about ironic."

She took a strand of hair. "Go ahead you can touch them, i don't mind." She loved having her hair played with, it helped her relax.

“I get it,” he replied. “I mean, the difference being that it isn’t as widely accepted today as it once was, it’s still around, hot and heavy. Much more then people wanna see.” He smiled. He knew a lot of big business men’s dirty little secrets.

“Rebirth?” he asked, perking up once again. “What does that mean exactly? Is that like when you sleep for a long time? Or is it something else entirely?” Rebirth sounded very Christian to him. Be washed in the blood and born again. Not that he had anything against it, he’d been Christian before he’d begun doubting and even yelling at God.

He smiled, leaning forward, and he reached out his hand towards her, as if he were going to caress her face. He by passed her face, however, and pushed his fingers into her hair, seeking the deepest place until his fingers were against her skull, weaved through her hair. He smiled and pulled his fingers through her locks until they freed, sliding easily through the silk. He wanted to rub it against his face. He did not, of course. He ran his fingers through her hair again and there was something in his touch that didn’t quite belong to a stranger. It sought comfort, it sought to comfort, it caressed and smoothed and combed, his hand moving affectionately through the silver locks. “How many do you…how many did you sire?”

She shook her head. "Listen, Christians weren't the first who thought of rebirth. All religions are recycled from others and in this case, Christianity is recycled from the many gods of Roman or Greek empires and the Jewish religion." She frowned trying to find a way to explain what she meant. "He died in a fire. Fire is lethal to vampires and I thought that he was dead, but he wasn't. I meant him recently and he is a pyrokinetic. In a way he was reborn. Can't truly explain it."

She closed her eyes as he played with her hair and she was relaxing. She let out a soft purr of happiness. She loved to have her hair played with and she wanted him to continue to do so. It felt good. "How many? Just one. I liked being alone, but with my fledgling it was so different, there was a strong connection."

Vaughan blinked rapidly. Had he said that out loud? He eyed her suspiciously now. “Can you…” His eyes were narrowed. This was a brand new field of experience for him, like all else that involved vampires. “Can you read my mind?”

He seemed to not hear anything that she had said about her ‘child’ being reborn through fire. He heard, he recorded, but at the moment it did not register. The purr brought him back, a sound that ruffled something within, stirring affection and irrational intrigue. He continued to weave his fingers through her head, watching his hands as he did this. “Were you in love with him?” he asked. He started to weave a loose braid through her silver hair.

Chi looked at him in surprise. "I'm sorry. I can read minds, but I don't usually do so. I'm sorry again, sometimes it just happens. Some of my powers are extremely strong and i usually keep them in check. Didn't mean to read your mind, but sometimes it isn't quite mind reading, it's more like plucking thoughts from the air." She tilted her head towards him. "Did you expect my powers to be non existent or minimal at my age."

She was so relaxed, that hair playing was making her relax. "Yes and I think it might be alive or more that we might be together again, but who truly knows. It might be simply nothing, but I did love him all those years ago and I still love him, but it's up to him now."

Vaughan shrugged, taking the fact that she had read (or plucked at his thoughts) his mind at an easy pace. He didn’t like her in his head, he didn’t like the idea that so many out there could apparently just pick his thoughts apart but it was one of the things that he was learning about. There was nothing he could do about it, he’d decided, so he wouldn’t make a fuss. In fact, he rather liked it when Tatsumi had breathed words into his mind, though it had shocked him.

“Don’t worry about it. Some things can’t be helped sometimes, right?” He shook his head. “No. I just knew that not all vampires could read minds. I also knew that just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re the biggest badest wolf out there. Course, it doesn’t exactly mean your not either.”

His fingers had not paused in her hair once during this exchange. He was happy to just keep combing and braiding. “Well I hope he loves you too, still,” he said. It was such a human thing to say, he realized, that he almost laughed. “What about mortals? Can’t you just love a human, you know, without making them what you are? Is that not allowed?” He held his breath waiting for the answer. The answer might very well make a life altering decision for him.

He didn't necissarily want to be a vampire really. He was happy being human. He was content with the idea of dieing one day...soon. But what if he was in love? It was a new feeling he had and he wasn't sure if it was love but what if? And what if she wasn't allowed to love him because he was human? Maybe then... His biggest battle was not a decission of human or vampire, it was of eternal life or one day dieing.

"You are right, not all vampires are telepathic, but some are. I may not be the worst vampire out, since some like to kill for no reason. I do kill, but only if it is extremely necessary." She was a kind vampire for her age, most ancients were crazy. She was crazy but the nice kind.

She frowned at the thought. "No, of course vampires can love mortals, but would want to live forever, when the one you love grew old and simply faded away? That's maybe why when a vampire falls in love with a mortal, they change the mortal. They want to live together. Of course they'll change the other, but it depends on the mortal and the vampire."

“So…” he said slowly, making sure that everything was completely correct in his mind. “What if you fell in love with, I don’t know,” he looked around and nodded to a nearby man. He was attempting to dance but the over all affect was jerky and spastic. Vaughan had an urge to go take him by the hips and help him figure out that dancing doesn’t have to be thought about. “him. And he doesn’t want to be…you know…eternal. Then what happens?”

His eyes were at her hair now, avoiding her eyes, though he knew he was not being subtle at all.

Chi frowned at his question. "Well it depends how both parties feel, it's the two people that have to discuss it. The vampire may sometimes turn the other by force, it's happened before, but rarely. It usually breeds unhappiness." She wasn't sure how to completely explain it, that was a hard question to answer. "You gave me a tough one."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Why do you ask?" He seemed uneasy about something and she simply wanted to make sure that the question wasn't irrelevant.

He was frowning with her. His fingers, one handed, unwove the braid he had woven and then began again, using both hands to braid it, then one hand to unweave it. Finally he looked up. “I dunno,” he replied. It was the most indirect thing he’d said all night, probably all week. He’s a very direct creature.

Tatsumi wouldn’t take him by force. She’d already expressed her opinions, made it carefully clear to him that she didn’t want to turn him unless it was what he wanted, that she wouldn’t turn him the night he asked, that there would be a long wait between his asking and the actual task, just to be sure he wouldn’t change his mind. She had made it clear because that had been one of Vaughan’s first hypothetical questions upon being offered to coexist with her.

“What if he wanted to be a vampire but you loved him so much because he was human? Or…what if you didn’t want to turn him and he asked. What would you do?” He wrinkled his nose. “What do you think he’d do?”

He had seemed direct all night, but something had changed. She remembered when she had turned Thefarie, her fledgling. She had done it because she had offered it to him, but he had accepted the gift willingly. She had made him understand the restrictions and it hadn't taken him long to figure out that they were vampires. He had always been a smart one.

Chi frowned as she thought about it. "Well it depends I suppose. If you love someone, you would want to be with them forever, so you would want to change them, but there are exceptions. I'm sure that there would be a reason and said man could always give a reason to be turned. Especially if there is love involved." She didn't understand why he was asking her these tough questions. It wasn't something she was particularly good at, answering questions on what ifs.

Maybe he just liked giving her tough questions. Here, try this hard question on for size…

Vaughan managed a smile. “What if…” shrug. “What if he told you he didn’t know if he loved you yet. That he wanted to be with you forever if he loved you but he didn’t want turned until he knew?” Yes, another what if. “Or say…he decides a few years later that he does love you but, well your sixteen and look at him. He’s gotta be twenty. In a few years he’ll be twice what you look. He’ll look so old.” He said the word as if it was disgusting. “And then he’ll look that old forever and you’ll look this young forever…isn’t that weird?” He sounds, now, as young as he could look. Fifteen, naive, confused.

“Or what if the reason you loved him was because he is so warm and changing and human? And then you change him and you find out that you don’t love him at all any more? It’d be like he just wasted his life.” His hands were still in her hair.

Chi was getting a little annoyed. He was asking hard questions and what ifs. "Come on, I don't know what will happen, unless it happens. I don't know all the answers and you can ask as many as you want, but it won't make the answers pop out any faster. Sometimes you have to try. Besides not all vampires are made by people being in love. Some vampires simply want the company."

She didn't answer his questions because his fingers were still in her hair soothing her. It was possible that that was keeping her from simply getting up and walking away.

Vaughan frowned and the sighed, a frustrated and immature sound that should have been coupled with a stomp of the foot and a pouting lower lip.

“How do you know when you’re in love?” Ha, there now that was not one of those hypothetical questions that he was becoming so well known for.

He started combing his fingers through her hair again, tucking it behind her ear, his fingers brushing her cheek, sliding over the back of her ear, exploring discreetly at the same time as he continued to reposition her silvery strands. There were differences between this vampire and Tatsumi but they were only difference as far of physical features went, as far as each individual human was different. He’d been curious if their skin would feel different, if one would be warmer then the other.

Chi looked at him, startled at the question. How did she know when she was in love? She found herself answering before her mind processed the question. "You simply know. There's a sense that you can't live without the person, they bring something to your life that you never thought you needed. Without them life is meaningless or almost." She remembered how she tried to rebuild her life after she had lost Thefarie. It had been very hard, but she smiled knowing that he was now here with her, well in the same town.

She felt the shift of his fingers as it caressed her cheek and she relaxed again. She wasn't warm in the least, the blood she drank from was usually a few hours if not a day old. She preferred dead blood. If she decided to drink blood from a mortal she would get warm and that was a plus, yet she didn't anymore.

edit:

He nodded, as though he understood. Did he love Tatsumi? No, not yet. But could he? The answer to that question scared him a little bit and Vaughan ran away from that subject as fast as he could, drastically changing his line of questions.

“Do different people taste different?” He means blood but he doesn’t say this with the understanding that she probably knows what he’s talking about. “And do we smell like we taste?”

He took all of her hair, gathering it into one hand and pulled it over her shoulders to hang down one side of her face and he braided it into a loose weave. “Do you know her?” he asked and guestured to himself with one hand. “You know…the one I ‘belong’ to? And if you don’t…would you know her and be able to tell that she was the one that you smelled if you met her three months later.” Frown. “Will you remember me in three months?” he asked. His question was soft this time, as if her answer might hurt him. It was another one of those moments when he seemed impossibly young. He didn’t want to be forgettable. Possibly this is the reason he does so much of what he does: the charades of confidence, the occupation as a stripper, the clothes he wore, the way he behaves, the way he danced…all of these were things that were unlike most people, all things that set him apart, things that screamed ‘remember me!’

Chi gave him a look like he was crazy. "I don't find so, but if someone has alcohol, I usually get the taste of alcohol. It doesn't make blood very tasty, it actually bothers me more than anything, but besides that to me, blood is quite the same, though the taste is intoxicating if it comes from a live source." The blood was like an aphrodisiac. It had been a while since she had drunk from a live source.

Chi shook her head. "No I don't think that I know her, but I do know one thing. I will remember you and I would know her, from the scent that I pulled from you. It would be a little harder.. You though, you I cannot forget. I rarely forget when I meet someone, especially someone like you. You are definitely a person that lives in the extreme, Vaughan and that sets you apart." She liked what he did with her hair, it was relaxing and kept her at ease.

“I haven’t had…” Frown. No.

Vaughan had been about to say, in a very lazy tone, that he was probably the only person in this bar that hadn’t had a drop of alcohol all night if she was looking for food, but he hadn’t finished the thought as it left his lips, chiding himself for that little slip up. He was Tatusmi’s and he loved the way it felt when she drank from him. … which might have been why he’d started to offer. Because he wanted to know if everyone felt that way or just his Tatsumi. He wanted to feel that again.

“If it’s alive? Can you drink…” what had she called it? He could remember her explaining it to him, that she couldn’t take it while some could, but the word eluded his mind. He waved a hand, as if to say ‘I can’t remember but I know you’ll fill it in for me.’

She would remember him. Vaughan grinned and it looked every bit the ‘lazy cat’. “What extreme?” he asked, blinking. As if hunting down vampires just to have a chat and a drink wasn’t extreme… Then his smile faltered with a thought. “You wouldn’t hurt her right?” he asked. He didn’t ask if Tatsumi would hurt Chi. He was sure that Tatsumi could hurt many, many others but Chi was so old and she felt like power. Besides, he had a hard time picturing the peaceful, calm vampire fighting back.

Chi wasn't hungry. She had already had her fill, besides if she drank from him there could be problems. She knew that she could take care of said problems, but she didn't want to risk them. She had already fed for the night and wouldn't need to feed until perhaps another two, maybe even three days. She had a high tolerance for time between feedings, it never truly bothered her.

"Dead blood? It means blood that doesn't come from a living source. A bit like the blood they take from people for transfusion. I simply keep a stash at home and when I'm hungry, I take a bottle and drink. For me it's that simple. Not all vampires can accept that alternative, unfortunately and others like the thrills of the chase." Chi had been one of those vampires a long time ago, but now she was civilized and sophisticated. She didn't take parts in such acts of barbarism.

Chi gave him a look and was so startled that she snapped her head away, dislodging his hand. "Why would I hurt her? She hasn't done anything to me and I have no need to hurt her."

Vaughan shrugged his shoulders, just the bare rise and fall that suggested the meaning. "I just wanted to be sure. I'd have to try to kill you if you hurt her and then I'd wind up being a midnight snack or laying dead in a gutter somewhere and..." another shrug, "that wouldn't really be ideal for me. If I'm going to die I want it to be with dignity if possible."

At least he was realistic. Chi could hurt Tatsumi, fact. He could hunt Chi, fact. Chi would kill him with a fingertip, fact. He's not delusional, just mildly crazy.

Vaughan turned towards the bar, letting his fingers drop from her silk hair, and lifted his glass of water to his lips again but before he took a drink he returned his gaze to her. "Do you die when the sun comes up?" Tatsumi 'died' and he found that a bit unsettling. He avoided being awake when he thought she was dead. He slept during the day almost as often as a vampire anyways.