The First Few Steps ((Lucien Davis)) [PG-13]

Why was he doing this?  Why was he doing this?  It wasn't like Rhodri didn't have hundreds of degrees at this point...the past 500 years had offered many types of schools throughout Europe and America, and things were getting more and more frustrating.  Once upon a time, the boy was able to go to colleges and universities, a thing more difficult as the entrance ages went up and Rhodri still looked young.  "Bloody immortality," the boy mumbled.  As much as he questioned himself, the vampire knew why he was doing this.  The loneliness.  It followed him everywhere, no matter how much he traveled and slipped by age issues with the many excuses he had learned to work with over the years.  In the end, Merfyn was gone...as was Engel.  Anyone that the vampire had cared for was gone, and as much as he could deal with such things, Rhodri still had those spikes of loneliness...the times he ended up finding a school to attend.  Even if he couldn't stay at them too long, they provided company for a bit.  Usually enough to last for awhile after.  Ever since arriving in America a couple decades back, Rhodri had traveled the continent.  It was nice enough, though there were times he missed his time traveling Europe...and occasionally, his tiny village of home that no longer existed.  There were some good schools in America, though, especially a seemingly unending supply of strange boarding schools catering in secrets and shadows.

Secrets and shadows...things that Rhodri knew well.  It had been so long that he had been dealing in such things.  Tiny vestiges of his mortal or comfortable life remained; the stuff of legends had he managed to be a legend.  But he wasn't...he was a child from a tiny village in Wales...he just happened to have been born over 500 years in the past.  There was so little left of that child from Wales; the looks, the language, and a slight Welsh accent no matter how many other European languages he spoke.  American English brought out his obvious lack of understanding of slang, though.  What did it matter, of course, in such a diverse country as America?  Many people had accents there, and many didn't completely understand slang either.  What did they call this country, again?  The melting pot?  Something like that, something that Rhodri couldn't really pretend to understand.  Maybe it was time to go back to Europe.  After a few years at Masquerade, as the boy was already here.  Who knew...secrets and shadows felt a bit more intense.

As Rhodri entered the building, he closed the umbrella he had been handling carefully and pulled off his sunglasses, blue eyes darting around the hall.  He had made sure to arrive at dusk where the sun was considerably less of a threat and he could appear like he had just come off of a long flight.  The umbrella was much harder to explain, but hopefully no one had seen it anyway.  The hall seemed empty, though Rhodri heard music blasting from nearby.  His eyes settled on an office with an open door.  Another One Bites the Dust seemed like an odd choice of music for a secretary, not very reassuring and all.  At least that just meant there was a Queen fan in the building, although the boy knew he had to be very careful about connecting with adults rather than his "peers".  Not that supernatural things were common beliefs in modern society.  Not like they had been once upon a time, at least.  Even modern vampire literature repulsed Rhodri.  Thinking about it made him grateful run his tongue over his fangs.  Some modern vampire literature would rob him of that, his most basic identifiers of a vampire.

Just another thing to keep secret, of course.  Slowly approaching the office, Rhodri tried to properly compose himself.  He saw his bags sitting right outside the office...sent ahead of time, and hopefully not searched.  Some very strange things would turn up if a search had happened.  Glancing at his cell phone, a necessary adaption to the modern world, there were no messages or indicators that hundreds of degrees or a strange silver goblet or anything odd in his bags had been found.  Placing his umbrella next to his bags and his sunglasses in his pocket, Rhodri looked around one last time.  Sniffing the air, the vampire sighed in relief...he had fed only the day before, which would make the beginning in a new place much easier.  Though one could hope there were no mirrors in the open office.  Walking in, Rhodri's eyes fell on a boy who didn't look much older than Rhodri's appearance of an age at sixteen.  Which seemed a bit odd for a receptionist.  "Is this one of those school jobs?" he wondered aloud, walking into the office as soon as he didn't see any mirrors.  His accent was coming through.  "Rhodri Yates.  I'm meant to register when I arrive."

If nothing else, Masquerade was in a beautiful building.  And from what Rhodri understood, it would be pretty safe for him...he wouldn't have to move through buildings during the days for classes.  That was one of the reasons he had chosen this school...it was under the radar and easy to get around.  Moving between buildings in the days had always been a difficulty for the vampire, of course.  He had certainly come to rely on his umbrella, always making excuses as to why he had to use it.  Skin diseases, eye diseases, anything that worked.  And of course, sitting away from windows and streams of sunlight.  It was something Rhodri missed, sunlight.  Because there was nothing else like it...when he tried, the boy could bring up memories of what it was like...on his skin, the heat of the sun and bright light.  Being a vampire came with a certain sense of cold...it was something that was difficult to shake, and no way to really fix it.  Sure, a good feeding could make it more bearable, but vampires were creatures of the night.  Just like the cold of night in the middle of the winter, Rhodri had always felt a chill with what he was.  Creatures of the night never had it easy.  It was something the boy had come to accept with time.  He could remember secretly laying in bed with Engel, his lover posing the question...if you had the choice again...?  Would Rhodri change anything?  Stayed a mortal and be nothing but dust by now?  Engel had come into the vampire's life around 350 years after Rhodri's transformation...which still meant dust.  Back then, when Engel was going to stay in his life, the boy wouldn't change anything.  Now he wasn't so sure.

It was too much to think of.  Now was not the time, nor the place.  Walking into the office, Rhodri caught some of the worker's words...leech and sheep.  The absolute last thing the boy needed was some idiot student knowing what he was and have that information to hold over his head.  "For God's sake, have some dignity," Rhodri snapped at the boy.  And what was he facing if all the students here were like this?  The vampire missed universities...students were more mature and less thickheaded.  Most of them were, anyway.  But Rhodri knew his days of posing as a university student were gone.  He looked too young...he looked too young in general.  Sixteen was much different once upon a time.  And it all meant that the boy was starting to run out of options.  If he wasn't at a high school, people wondered.  And a vampire always had to keep a low profile, no matter how that meant in society.

Idiots.  Idiots, idiots, idiots.  Rhodri was already ready to turn around.  Grab his bags and leave everything here behind.  But things were already in place here, and the boy sort of just had to suck it up.  Obviously there was information about him in everything he had filled out and sent in.  And he had done plenty of research...he had found a place to live and function as who he was.  It was a lot to ask from anywhere, but some places could definitely cater to his needs.  The shadowy ones in charge had already prepared things for him...blood banks donating blood, the ability to avoid dangerous daytime activity...Rhodri was quite lucky, really.  As lucky as a vampire could get, anyway.

Rhodri hadn't even noticed the boy at the desk was smoking a cigarette.  He was just so distracted.  But the acrid scent had started itching his nose, making him sniff a bit before sneezing.  Heightened senses weren't as great in cases like this.  Over time, the boy had gotten used to things like pipe smoke, but cigarettes were one of the worst things to come out of a changing society.  The boy thoroughly disapproved.  "Punishment all around, then," Rhodri said coldly, eyeing the cigarette.  He was definitely less than thrilled at the moment, already wanting to rip this boy's throat out.  But there had been warnings about that, and the consequences were too severe, even for the vampire.  And it wasn't like Rhodri had never dealt with the more predatory side of what he was.  There had been plenty of angry urges to rip out throats or other dangerous things.

When the boy at the desk called him Welshy, Rhodri's nostrils flared.  Even with his clearly Welsh accent, he didn't want that kind of attitude.  For now, he would just let it go, and keep up his stony mask.  The last thing the vampire needed was to make it seem like some idiot child bothered him.  He couldn't allow that.  "You may know what I am, but don't act like you know who I am.  There's a big difference, especially when it comes to why you're not bleeding out your neck," Rhodri's nose wrinkled in distaste.  He hadn't meant to say most of that...but humans never ceased to disgust him.

The more he was in the presence of this punished student worker, Rhodri was starting to question his decision to join the world of mortals again.  Maybe he should have laid low for another decade or two...he could find other ways to deal with the loneliness...though being in a high school increased his likelihood of getting his sexual needs met.  Early accounts of vampires' sensuality were definitely partially correct.  Forever, and the maturing of a person, meant a need for intimacy...no matter how old a vampire appeared.  Shaking out his head, Rhodri tried to block those thoughts quickly.  The student receptionist wasn't too shabby looking, but those thoughts weren't going to get him anywhere.  Besides, the boy was already driving the vampire up a wall...making him question his move to attend Masquerade.  That should have been a major turn off from the start...there were far too many times Rhodri spent dealing with mixed emotions, and starting a new school presented too many challenges anyway.  Having to be careful and not kill anyone...at the very least.

Rhodri had already been promised regular feedings of human blood from human donors.  Just to make sure he didn't harm anyone at the school or have to kill anyone on the island or mainland.  That sort of thing raised too many alarms.

That part was nice, at the very least.  Despite the fact that Rhodri knew how to keep things under the radar, modern society was getting more and more sharp when it came to homicide.  The centuries old vampire was careful, but things could always take a turn for the worst.  At Masquerade, the boy was promised proper feedings all the time.  Knowing he would never go hungry was a really nice thing for Rhodri.  Knowing he would have a definite next meal at all would be was even better.  Hopefully he didn't have to go to the front office and deal with this asshole every time he needed food.  Where did he go, anyway?  An office?  The kitchens?  That was probably something the vampire should figure out.  And he didn't want to ask this student worker, even though the boy seemed to know what he was.  In all fairness, he might have to...it wasn't like Rhodri could just show up at a teacher's office and ask.  Staring at the other boy, the vampire felt a wave of hatred.  This was not a good way to start at a new place.

At this point, all Rhodri wanted was to get checked in, go to his room, and make sure everything was set for him to relax the rest of the night.  Too much traveling was exhausting, even for a vampire.  As was dealing with someone like this.  "I can't tell if you're being selfish or completely idiotic," the vampire rolled his eyes.  "Or both, I suppose.  And I don't like the smell," Rhodri narrowed his eyes.  He was ready for the bloodbath already.  "Heightened senses lead to some degree of discomfort with that sort of thing," despite the fact that he had fed just the day before, the vampire wanted more and more to act rashly.  The other was driving him completely insane...it was just a matter of getting through the registration and all without losing it.  Then Rhodri could escape to his dorm room, make sure there were heavy curtains over his windows and take some time to breathe.

Was it unfair that all Rhodri wanted was an easy adjustment?  It had been so long since he had been a part of the mortal world...and when it reached a point where human company was so romanticized, it was easy to forget all the bad along with remembering all the good.  Trying to take deep breaths, Rhodri kept going over in his head why he was doing this.  How he needed to be a part of things, how he couldn't be alone anymore...at least for awhile.  The vampire would spend a few years at Masquerade and go back into hiding.  That was how he lived his life.  That was the only way he could live his life...safely, anyway.  There were only so many covert deaths Rhodri could go for...only so many safe years at a time.

And then the boy felt his animalistic nature stab him in the worst possibly way...an invitation to harm.  Anyone who wanted it that badly was just pushing Rhodri too far.  He couldn't hold it back any longer.  Hopping over the desk in a flash too fast to be properly perceived by the human eye, the vampire shoved the boy against the wall, far more harshly than he had planned.  He felt and heard a number of the boy's ribs fracture under his above average strength movements, and felt a pop that had to be caused by a punctured lung.  "You shut your mouth," Rhodri snapped, his Welsh accent much thicker as it tended to get with high stakes emotion.  Holding the other boy by his shirt collar, the vampire glowered at him, his hand on the boy's chest cracking another rib or two.  "Just get me registered and never cross me again," it was enough to keep a mortal on their back for weeks...and hopefully off Rhodri's back for longer.

Five-hundred years was a long time.  A very long time...and in his long years, Rhodri had met plenty of people who infuriated him.  In all fairness, creatures of the night like that weren't even worth his time, and mortals like that usually ended up dead...as a food source, of course.  There was no way that the vampire could declare himself some sort of angel...he had murdered thousands of normal human beings over time...of course, how else was he supposed to eat?  Rhodri had always kept up on vampire related things in fiction, and in more recent times, films and TV and all of it.  Some of it was completely insulting to vampires, and gave a lot of people very wrong ideas.  Running his tongue over his fangs, the boy thought of so much pop culture that would have him robbed of everything that made him up.  The bloodlust, though...Rhodri's eyes zeroed in on Lucien's jugular.  The steady pulse there nearly made his mouth water, and he had to tear his gaze away.

It wasn't helping, though.  Even without looking, Rhodri could feel the rushing blood.  He could smell the other boy...and Lucien smelled pretty damn good.  It wasn't exactly something he'd admit to quickly, but the boy could keep it in his mind.  As long as he kept it inside and didn't let things get out of hand...but things were about to get out of hand.  Rhodri could taste it in the air, a certain ability developed through heightened senses and being around people for far too long.  A vampire had to be able to sense danger.  It was all a part of how they were able to survive for so long.  In some ways, vampires were much more evolved than mortals.  Sure, there were some hindrances, but there were also things that put them much higher up on the evolutionary scale.  It was something Rhodri had learned long ago...and he had seen evolution theories from the start.

But vampires were predators, no matter how higher up they were from mortals.  And Lucien had such nice blood pulsing through him...even as Rhodri attacked him, he had to hold back the desire to snap his neck and drink him dry.  And holding the other boy against the wall pushed the vampire to breaking point.  He had to remind himself that he couldn't bite Lucien.  Masquerade still had their terms about Rhodri drinking from his fellow students, and there was too much on the line if the vampire broke those terms.  So he held the other boy against the wall, sickeningly happy with the sounds the other's body made as Rhodri held him.  It wasn't murder and blood drinking...it was an attack, but nothing Lucien wouldn't be able to heal from in time.

And then something completely surprising happened.  Rhodri was hit in the chest with a burst of wind, knocking his hold and sending him down the hallway.  Skidding back on his heels, the vampire came to a graceful stop on his feet, crouched and snarling.  What sort of creature was Lucien with these abilities?  Now it was quite clear that he wasn't a normal mortal.  Gaining his balance on two feet, Rhodri's eyes narrowed.  "What is this?" he wondered allowed, taking a few cat-like strides down the hall in time to see Lucien's body healing...it was something the vampire had seen once before.  "Shite," he snapped.  "A fucking immortal."

The smell of Lucien's blood when he spat it out brought out the true vampire side of Rhodri.  "I want none of your blood, immortal," he snarled.  And he didn't, as tempting as it was.  Five-hundred years had taught him that blood should never be taken like some wild animal.  He wasn't going to get on the floor for it.  And wings...goddamn wings!  This was all far too much...Rhodri had only arrived half an hour ago...at most!

"Wings, as if you're some fucked up fallen angel.  How sickening," Rhodri wrinkled his nose, wiping his mouth along his sleeve.  "Of course not everyone here is human.  I'm not an idiot...if I can be accepted here, obviously I'm not the only dark being," he eyed the fireball.  For a moment, he stared, before his lip curled in a smirk.  Tossing his head back, Rhodri let out a laugh.  "You can say and do what you think.  I'm a tired creature, Lucien.  I'll happily go for your neck next time," he continued to laugh like a serial killer, enjoying every second of the insanity.

This whole thing was beginning to seem more and more hilarious to Rhodri.  The situation had been a laugh to begin with, but dealing with an arrogant immortal as soon as the vampire set foot in the building?  Too funny to deal with in ways other than hysterical laughter.  There were definitely times where Rhodri became nothing short of a sociopath, and this was definitely one of those times.  Immortal or not, Lucien was no better than other dark creatures the vampire had met on his travels.  Maybe worse, since he seemed so ridiculously conceited.  There was very little worse than dealing with a creature with that large an ego.  It happened a lot, much more than the boy cared to see.  There was definitely a fine line between a very long life and a very long life as an asshole.  Vampires, Fae, werewolves...especially coming from Rhodri's original neck of the woods.  There were a stupid amount of magical creatures in western Europe, and the boy had dealt with many different types of them.  There had been a decade or two where a faerie in Ireland hadn't left him alone.  And it was one of those times where the boy had a conscious and hadn't been able to shake her off.  Creatures were Hell to deal with sometimes.

Immortals, though...Rhodri had come across one before.  She hadn't been nearly as awful as the one he was staring at now.  "I really have no need to," the boy said smoothly, not even bothering to worry about getting on Lucien's bad side.  "There's a big difference between wanting blood and wanting your blood," of course, blood was blood, and he could smell it on the ground.  And it did smell good...if Rhodri hadn't fed just the day before, he probably would be licking it off the ground.  But Lucien didn't need to know that.  "I have no desire for your blood, Lucien.  Hubris makes for a rather disgusting taste.

The immortal was disgusting.  Rhodri had much better ways to spend his time.  Unfortunately, he did have to take care of registration, and he'd rather do that here and now than waiting until the day.  That was going to be bad enough, as the vampire still preferred to sleep during the days.  The switch of sleeping schedule was going to be a difficult adjustment to begin with...although that wasn't exactly something the boy wanted to reveal to the immortal.  Any weaknesses could be easily exploited, and Rhodri knew better than to put himself in that position.  As it was, the adjustment was getting the best of him...hence a need to feed more often and still being very sensitive to blood.  Traveling across the country to get to Masquerade had been exhausting enough.  But it was getting dark out...time to relax before starting classes.  "Superior is all a state of mind.  Being an asshole is harder to shake, though."

Tugging on the end of his curls, Rhodri tried to hold himself together.  It had already been proven that he couldn't do much physically to Lucien.  "No," the vampire had seen too many creatures to think any might have a shred of good or sanity.  "Fate has made us all dark creatures," he said seriously.  "You'll see in time that no creature doesn't harbor such hatred...so many questions," Rhodri gave a twisted smile.  The animosity of a creature...especially one who had been around too long, was rather unparalleled.  None of them had too easy of a life.  It was a realization they all come into sooner or later.  The hysterical laughter that continued to come from Rhodri as the immortal magicked a stone shield around himself was terrifying.  It was a laugh that had seen too much...a laugh that proved he had nothing left to offer, that death would bring a fair amount of peace to the boy.  Though he wasn't necessarily ready to die...it was the laughter of an insane man.

"Oh, immortal," Rhodri continued to laugh the laugh of a madman.  "So sure that I even want your blood...some twisted belief that everyone wants a part of you some way.  I have no desire for your blood," the vampire grinned, aware he was probably already coming off as crazy.  His Welsh accent was at it's worst, now...English probably wasn't too well understood.  "No desire for your blood, no need to attack.  Who is truly the monster here?"

Some things in life weren't worth bothering oneself over...this was something Rhodri had learned in his life- both human and vampire.  It was pretty much how the boy had survived this long.  At this point, he was pretty good at figuring things out.  Of course, right now he was tired, both physically and emotionally.  It wasn't a pretty combination.  He had traveled a long way, and wasn't terribly thrilled with his reception.  The immortal before him was infuriating, and Rhodri was mostly done with the nonsense going on.  It briefly made him think back to his time as a human so long ago.  If any child or young adult acted the way Lucien did, they would be in serious trouble.  The lack of respect and attitude...immortal or not, the boy still looked young.  Young enough that a village elder would not let him behave that way.  But Rhodri had been born in a harsher time.  Children were getting worse and worse as time progressed, with fewer and fewer consequences.  Mind whirring in Welsh, the vampire just wanted to sit down.  It was never a good thing when his thoughts started going in his native tongue.

Rhodri chuckled at Lucien's next statement, the hysterical laughter dying down.  "Oh, I would never claim to not be an asshole.  It's partially how one survives in this world with a life like yours or mine," Rhodri had no need for emotional ties or kindness anymore.  He had had too much taken away from him when he did.  Merfyn, Engel...people he had loved.  The most the vampire could hope for was to see them again someday.

And despite what Lucien had to say on the matter, Rhodri believed most creatures harbored a bitter resentment at their cards...enough for even the smallest bit of darkness.  Most that the vampire had met did a good job concealing it, any many didn't even know it was there, but it still surrounded their hearts.  However, Rhodri didn't especially want to get into this one with Lucien.  "The darkness is already there.  I've seen too much to believe the contrary," the vampire said with finality.  Philosophy was too much to handle at the moment.  And the immortal didn't really seem to want to go on anyway.  It was probably best to let that one be.

Of course, there were other places that Rhodri didn't want to go that Lucien seemed determined to bring up.  The idea of intimate wanting...a feeling that the vampire knew all too well himself.  He had to keep back a snort and roll of his eyes at the immortal's words.  As if he was some sort of legendary Casanova.  "Meaningless sex is pretty much required in lives like ours," he said in a bored tone of voice, though he felt a painful pang in the pit of his stomach.  It was a familiar feeling...talking about his own sexual escapades when the only boy he had ever loved was gone forever.  It was partially because of Rhodri's loss of Engel that had set him down that path.  After Engel was taken away from the vampire, he had left a trail of wanting young men in his wake.  It was a requirement in some ways.  Even those who lived forever, or were near impossible to kill like the vampire, needed their sexual needs sated.

God, this immortal was a lunatic.  Rhodri was completely through with this whole meeting.  "I chose this life," the vampire snarled.  Which was partially true...Merfyn hadn't given express details on the deal he had offered the boy to escape, but Rhodri figured there were plenty of ways he could have escaped...and the fact that he had been living this way for 500 years spoke volumes.  In a changing world and all...he could easily kill himself like his mentor had, but the vampire was too fascinated by the world.  He wanted to keep learning.  Monster or not, this was his life.  And in the end, he wasn't ashamed of it.  "A truce..." Rhodri glared at Lucien another moment before slipping on his sunglasses and grabbing his bags.  The death threat was a bit too much for the vampire to stomach.  He grabbed the papers of the desk with most of his information, including his room.  Deciding he'd rather come back the next day to register, the vampire stormed out the door.

Pausing, Rhodri peeked around the doorframe to look at the immortal.  "I may be a monster, but at least I don't threaten to murder people for the hell of it.  Take a look in the mirror for me," and with that, the vampire stomped off, praying his night got easier and he could relax.