[Fanfic: Weird] James/Rain crackpairing
Mar. 20th, 2007 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freosanBy request, James/Rain. Set about a month and a half after the end of Weird, and AU from there – thus, I am totally ignoring the new information we have about James in the interest of someone biting Rain.
James, Rain, B, and all other characters mentioned are from the NaNovel Weird and belong to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fullaquirkes. They are not mine. I make no money off this venture (not that the author does either).
I suspect this James is a bit more pushy (and perverted) than James actually is.
3,452 words. R (sex and m/m). All Ash-san's fault.
There is a knocking without. Rain opens the front door and is immediately drenched by a sheet of water. He must have been very, very intent on his Perkowski not to notice how heavy the thunderstorm has gotten.
The apparition on his doorstep says, “Hi. Is B around?”
It takes a minute for Rain to recognize the speaker, since his face is covered with a pattern of black lines that Rain’s trying to interpret as birthmarks. Then he refocuses and realizes that it’s actually James, B’s friend, and that the rain has plastered his hair down and smeared his ever-present eyeliner. Rain sighs, but inwardly.
“No, she isn’t.” The wind howls and James flinches. “You might as well come in.” He steps aside and James comes in, dripping water all over Rain’s carpet and shivering.
He looks like a drowned kitten Rain saw once, and sheepishly miserable. “Thanks, Rain.”
“What possessed you to come out tonight?” Rain asks, as he digs in the closet for a towel that won’t be permanently damaged by hair gel and makeup. Finding something striped that he hates anyway, he returns to his guest, who grabs the towel and scrubs at his hair before answering.
“I thought B might be here, but…” James shrugs. “Guess not.”
“No. Moonrise is in a couple of hours. Bernadette still goes to Catherine on full moon nights.” James, having gotten most of the water off of him, tosses the towel aside, and Rain catches it before it hits the ground and hangs it on the coat rack.
“I’ll get out of here, then,” James says. Then he looks out the back window as a bolt of lightning hits outside, closely followed by a crack of thunder. “If you’ll lend me an umbrella, that is.”
Rain lets his sigh be audible this time. “I’m not letting you go back out in that. If you die it’ll be on my conscience.”
“Takes more than a little rain to kill me. I’m invincible,” James proclaims, grinning just enough that Rain can see the acrylic fangs.
Rain doesn’t feel like arguing, so he shrugs, walks around James, and locks the deadbolt. “There’s a robe in the bathroom. Get changed before you sit on my couch,” Rain says, and goes back into the living room to curl up in the armchair with The Darkling.
He’s only gotten half a page read before James comes in and drapes himself artfully over the couch. The bathrobe is black. Even without his makeup, James is pale. Rain is torn between thinking it suits him and thinking he looks like a carefully posed corpse.
James hangs his head back over the arm of the couch and reads the title of Rain’s book upside-down. “A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism. So, is this what you do all day? Read old books and hide in your batcave?” James asks. Rain turns a page.
“Nineteen eighty-nine is hardly ‘old’,” he says, quietly. James shrugs for maximum effect. He’s still wearing three crosses around his neck. The jewelry shifts with his movement. Rain wonders if the boy has ever met a real vampire, and how hard said supernatural being laughed afterwards.
“Maybe not,” James says. “You should be reading the source material, though. More interesting.”
“I have read the source material. It’s always better to read more than one translation,” Rain says. James falls silent.
Rain is comfortable with silence, but he finds this one makes him worried. James is looking at him with a very intent expression.
Rain isn’t stupid, nor does he make a habit of denial. He knows he’s attractive. He just didn’t expect to be attractive to any human. But wait – James didn’t think he was human.
“If you want something to read, the library is down that hall. If you want something to drink, I can get you red wine or tomato juice,” Rain says, breaking the silence. He is mildly amused when James flushes and instinctively jerks his eyes away from Rain’s exposed wrist.
James turns over and glares at him once he recovers. “You think that’s funny? I haven’t had anything in five weeks, you bastard.” His eyes are red, and it takes Rain a minute to figure out that he should be bothered by that.
Rain raises an eyebrow. “As a vampire, you should be halfway to insane by now,” he says.
“Who says I’m not? I was thinking about biting you, for Chrissake,” James snaps back.
“No, that would be completely insane,” Rain says, and flips another page. The rain’s still coming down outside, but the lightning and thunder have spaced themselves out a bit. He can kick the boy out soon without having to worry.
“Yeah? What, are you gonna pull some kind of magic trick on me? Or did you finally let B bite you like she’s always talking about?” James says, sitting up.
Rain keeps calm without much difficulty, though he’s completely lost his place on the page. “What I do or don’t let B get away with isn’t your problem. As a vampire, you should have figured out by now why you should leave me alone.”
James stands up, pulling the robe tighter around his body. “You actually think there are real vampires,” he says, his incredulity coming through in his voice, and walks toward Rain, who looks up at him. “You read too much of that stuff and it’s warped your brain,” he says, when he’s gotten much too close. He takes the book out of Rain’s unresisting hands and looks at the page. “Vampire watermelons? You believe in that too?”
“I’ve never left a watermelon out in the full moon, so I wouldn’t know,” Rain says. He hopes the boy doesn’t try to attack him. It’d be embarrassing to recite at him.
James tosses the book aside and Rain winces. “Please. If you want vampires, we’re it. Me and people like me. Blood-sucking creatures of the night, those don’t exist.”
Rain raises an eyebrow. “One of your best friends is a werewolf. How close-minded are you?”
“Hey. I’ve seen B transform. It’s crazy, but it happens. I’ve never heard of anyone who gets burnt by a cross, and I know a lot of people who’re looking out for that kind of thing.”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Shakespeare,” Rain says, and leans over the arm of his chair to grab the book. The motion exposes his neck and his wrist, and James pulls back.
“I know Shakespeare, thanks,” James says. Rain thinks he looks more tense than he did just a minute ago.
“Smart man. You should listen to him,” Rain says. “And stop eyeing my jugular. I’d be bad for you.”
James’s shoulders drop, and he looks away. “Damn. I was kind of hoping I could get a bite, with your vampire obsession and all,” he says.
“What?” Rain half-shouts in shock. “…I do not have a vampire obsession.”
“Yeah you do. Look at you. You’re a Goth with a library full of vampire novels and movies. What would you call that?” James says. His grin is back. He still has the plastic fangs in.
Rain glares at him. “You’re Goth and wear fake fangs and red contacts. Pot, kettle, black.”
“The difference being that I actually am a vampire,” James says, in the manner of one pointing out the obvious.
“If you were a vampire, you’d never have asked me for blood,” Rain tells him.
“You keep saying that. You want me to go back out and swoop in on you from the window? Will that fulfill your Gothic rape fantasies?” James asks.
Rain chooses to ignore the last bit. “It’s not the ‘asking’, it’s the ‘me’. My blood does bad things to vampires,” Rain says. B would never forgive him, he thinks. He’s not sure if the unforgivable bit would be the driving James insane or the letting someone other than her bite him.
“Oh come on. Your blood’s just the same as anyone else’s. Plasma, cells, iron-based oxygen-carrying mechanism…”
Rain winces. “You don’t want to experiment with that.”
“What’s gonna go wrong? I know you’re interested. You haven’t said ‘no’ yet,” James points out, and Rain realizes that this is true. “Just let me have your wrist for a second… or I could go for the throat. Make it a little more fantasy-appropriate.”
At some point in the conversation James has managed to sit down on the arm of Rain’s chair. He’s looking down at Rain from a distance of about a foot, and smiling. The fangs look very, very sharp, and James’s bathrobe is slipping open again, revealing decently muscled, if skinny, shoulders and part of his chest. Rain becomes aware that certain bits of him are responding in a way he definitely didn’t give them permission for.
Rain does not have a vampire obsession, curse it.
“No,” he says. James immediately leans back on the chair and crosses his arms.
“Fang-tease,” he says, without any real malice.
“Pervert,” Rain responds.
“Nah, that’s not me,” James says, leaning over. Suddenly there’s an arm around Rain’s shoulder and lips right next to Rain’s ear. “I’m not the one getting hard ‘cause he thought he was going to get bitten,” he says, and Rain shivers.
“Is B recruiting for the sexually-harass-Rain army?” he asks. It’s supposed to come out in his usual dry tone. Instead his voice is a bit shaky.
“Nope. B wants to be your sole harasser in life. This was all my idea,” James says, and slides down the arm of the chair until he’s in Rain’s lap. Rain curses the human sex drive, his own hormones, and all attractive vampires.
“James, move,” Rain says, and James’s left hand runs down his chest to rest just above the top button on his jeans. Rain looks at him from a distance of three inches, and he grins. Rain can’t believe he walked into that.
He can see the natural brown of James’s eyes through the contacts from this distance, and the join on the fangs when he smiles. If James moves his right hand down an inch, he’ll feel Rain’s wings. Illusions weren’t meant for contact this close.
“Hold still,” James orders, and leans toward Rain’s throat. Rain lets him. Then his hand slips down, just enough to feel Rain’s wings.
They jerk back at the same time, and they stare at each other. “Holy shit, Rain,” James says, his hand still on Rain’s wing. He pulls at Rain’s shoulder, trying to see through the spell that keeps the wings invisible. Rain takes off the necklace that holds the illusion and drops it to the side of the chair.
“I hate to say I told you so, but…” Rain says, twisting a bit so that James can see the wings without breaking either of them.
“Then don’t. You didn’t tell me this,” James says, his eyes still on the wing. “Shit. What are you?”
Rain sighs. “One of the Fae,” he says.
“A faerie,” James translates. “I must be hallucinating.”
“You’re not,” Rain informs him, and twists back and away from his fingers. “Stop petting me. I get enough of that from B.”
“B knows about this? Of course she does. She didn’t think we’d like to know?” James says. His fingers still, but he doesn’t remove his hand from Rain’s shoulder.
“Grant me a little will of my own. You didn’t need to know,” Rain says. “And you wouldn’t have believed her anyway.”
“Sure I would have.” James shifts in Rain’s lap, causing his breath to catch. The bathrobe is only just barely keeping James decent now, and the way he’s sitting, with his legs on either side of Rain’s, doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Rain thinks of running his hands over James’s shoulders, his back, down his spine, all hard planes and muscle… it makes it very hard to concentrate on the conversation.
“Like you did about vampires?” he manages to ask. James snorts. “You don’t have any proof about the vampires.”
“I’ve met a few,” Rain says.
“Never been bitten, though, right?” James asks. “Faerie blood… bad for vampires, right? So if these people think they’re really vampires, they wouldn’t touch you.”
“They are really vampires, and I will really drive them insane. Get off of me,” Rain says. James slides onto the floor and takes Rain’s hand.
“So I’m not like that, right? Your blood wouldn’t hurt me,” James says, from his position at Rain’s feet. He’s grinning again and the fangs are really obvious but that’s mostly because Rain is trying not to look any lower, because the bathrobe has finally given up and slipped open.
“It wouldn’t do much for you, either.” Rain reclaims his hand. “Go sit on the couch.”
James stands up without bothering to rewrap the robe and does so. He lies on his stomach and looks at Rain, who finds it completely impossible to concentrate on boiling vampiric squash.
James’s voice, darkly amused, makes him jump. “I know you want to be bitten. It’d be easy. These fangs are sharp.” James grins. Rain’s heart rate increases. “I could sink my teeth into your shoulder and lick the blood off your neck… and chest… and wherever else it goes. I’d let you touch me. I could sit on your lap and push you down, shove my hands down your jeans and my fangs in your skin and make you think I’ll rip your throat out, and you’ll like it.” James’s voice is low and rough and curls in the pit of Rain’s stomach like molten iron. He shifts in his seat, his jeans grown much too tight, and bites his lip unconsciously.
“We could go further. I’ve bitten guys before. A lot of people get off on it.” Rain’s book falls from his fingers.
“Shut up!” he shouts, to cover the involuntary moan that’s almost escaped him. He does not moan. He has more dignity than that. He glares at James. “Do you think molesting me from across the room is going to work better?”
“Nah, but I think if I keep talking you’ll come in your pants and you’ll have to admit that you want it.” James smirks. Rain feels his face flush. It’s likely that James is right, but he’d rather not give him the satisfaction.
“So. May I?” James asks. “I won’t take too much,” he adds.
That’s only one of several worries that are currently making themselves known. “If my blood makes you insane –” he begins. James cuts him off. “You admitted that won’t happen to me,” he says.
“If B finds out about this –”
“She won’t. She doesn’t know I’m here.” James stands up and starts making his way towards Rain’s chair. Rain swallows, mouth gone dry.
“She will. She’ll smell you as soon as she walks in the door,” Rain tells him.
“Tell her I came to visit, stayed through the storm, and left. It’ll even be true.” James slides into Rain’s lap like he belongs there and puts his hands on Rain’s shoulders, his hips rolling so that Rain has to bite his lip to keep from crying out.
“I’m out of objections, aren’t I,” Rain says. James nods. “Yeah, you are.”
Rain closes his eyes and tilts his head to the left. “Fine. Do it.” He hears James’s hiss of anticipation as he pulls Rain’s collar aside.
It hurts. Of course it hurts, but Rain’s had worse and he’s doing a good job of distracting himself. The pain is over quickly, and then he feels warm blood and warm lips on his neck. James pulls him closer, his fingers digging into Rain’s shoulders. He makes little pleased noises as he licks. Rain curls into him, wrapping his arms around James’s waist and trying not to breathe too hard. It’s not working. He cants his hips up, without thinking about it, seeking pressure, and James moves his hand down between his legs, applying just enough force. Rain bites James’s shoulder in lieu of shouting when he comes.
When the stars have cleared from his head, James is just settling back, applying pressure to the cuts with the sleeve of Rain’s bathrobe. He has a drop of blood – Rain’s blood, brighter and thicker than human’s, though still mistakable for it – running down from the corner of his mouth. He’s grinning, his teeth tipped in red.
Rain feels boneless, James’s hands on his shoulders the only thing keeping him upright, and his eyes are drawn persistently to the bright red blood on James’s mouth. James wipes it off and licks it from his hand, making Rain shiver.
“See? I’m not insane. Thanks for the meal,” James says. Rain closes his eyes and doesn’t respond.
James seems perfectly content to stay where he is, sated and calm, but Rain’s getting a bit uncomfortable. He pushes James off – he slides right to the floor again – stands up, a bit shaky, and walks into the bathroom.
He could use a shower but he only has the one bathrobe, so he pulls out a washcloth and cleans himself off. The boxers are a loss, and he puts them in a sink full of water to keep the scent from spreading. He can’t remember a spell for cleaning.
He catches sight of himself in the mirror and is shocked by what he sees. He’s got a blood streak on his cheek, his eyes are dilated, and he’s still flushed. He looks like perversion on legs, which is not something he’d normally think, but this is not in any way a normal circumstance.
He’s just had sex, hasn’t he? He had not expected his first time to be with… with a teenage human with delusions of vampirism. Curse it. B will be furious, if she finds out.
She’s going to smell his blood in the morning. He’s going to have to do something about that. Later. He’s not thinking right now. B won’t be back until hours after he wakes up. Enough time.
The storm has stopped, and when Rain walks out into the living room, he can see the full moon through the window. B will have just finished her transformation, and the thought gives him a pang of guilt.
James has pulled himself into the armchair, and Rain stalks past him into his bedroom for a change of clothes. James is half asleep, and doesn’t look up when Rain goes past.
Once he’s changed, he walks out, grabs James’s mostly-dry coat, and tosses it at him. James ducks too slowly and ends up getting smacked in the face. He rips the coat away and glares at Rain.
“You’re kicking me out? That’s great, after I just –”
Rain fixes him with a flat stare. “Your clothes are dry. The storm’s over. Leave.” He sits on the couch, picks up Perkowski again, and resolutely ignores James’s sputtering. Soon enough, he stops trying to get Rain’s attention, and Rain hears him walk off to the bathroom and struggle with his jeans.
James walks out without another word, though he sends a blistering glare Rain’s way. Rain responds with an emotionless “Fare well” and doesn’t even flinch when the door slams behind him.
The next afternoon, when B comes home, the first thing she does is shriek. “Rain! Rain, what happened? What did you do?” she asks, panicked.
Rain looks out of the kitchen, where he’s started on his second pot of Earl Grey. “Good day, Bernadette, and how are you this fine morning?” he asks with no small amount of sarcasm.
She attacks him, hugging him near hard enough to crack his wings and not missing the opportunity to feel him up under the guise of checking for injuries. “Don’t start that! I can smell your blood. And…” she stops, momentarily, and steps away from him. “James! Oh no!”
Rain tries not to let his eyes widen, to keep up the illusion of normalcy. “He came by last night to visit you,” he says, and hopes his voice stays calm. “He was thirsty.”
Bernadette’s face falls. “But that means he got to bite you before I did. I’ll kill him!” she says. Then she gets the sly smile that Rain has come to know and dread. “Hey, if he got to bite you…”
“No.” Thank God. Rain’s familiar with this kind of banter.
“Oh come on, just a little bit?” she asks, batting her eyelashes at him. “You still owe me.”
“Feel free to fantasize all you want,” Rain says, magnanimously. She pouts, but is effectively distracted. So is Rain. Thank God for hyperactive werewolves.
James, Rain, B, and all other characters mentioned are from the NaNovel Weird and belong to
fullaquirkes. They are not mine. I make no money off this venture (not that the author does either).I suspect this James is a bit more pushy (and perverted) than James actually is.
3,452 words. R (sex and m/m). All Ash-san's fault.
There is a knocking without. Rain opens the front door and is immediately drenched by a sheet of water. He must have been very, very intent on his Perkowski not to notice how heavy the thunderstorm has gotten.
The apparition on his doorstep says, “Hi. Is B around?”
It takes a minute for Rain to recognize the speaker, since his face is covered with a pattern of black lines that Rain’s trying to interpret as birthmarks. Then he refocuses and realizes that it’s actually James, B’s friend, and that the rain has plastered his hair down and smeared his ever-present eyeliner. Rain sighs, but inwardly.
“No, she isn’t.” The wind howls and James flinches. “You might as well come in.” He steps aside and James comes in, dripping water all over Rain’s carpet and shivering.
He looks like a drowned kitten Rain saw once, and sheepishly miserable. “Thanks, Rain.”
“What possessed you to come out tonight?” Rain asks, as he digs in the closet for a towel that won’t be permanently damaged by hair gel and makeup. Finding something striped that he hates anyway, he returns to his guest, who grabs the towel and scrubs at his hair before answering.
“I thought B might be here, but…” James shrugs. “Guess not.”
“No. Moonrise is in a couple of hours. Bernadette still goes to Catherine on full moon nights.” James, having gotten most of the water off of him, tosses the towel aside, and Rain catches it before it hits the ground and hangs it on the coat rack.
“I’ll get out of here, then,” James says. Then he looks out the back window as a bolt of lightning hits outside, closely followed by a crack of thunder. “If you’ll lend me an umbrella, that is.”
Rain lets his sigh be audible this time. “I’m not letting you go back out in that. If you die it’ll be on my conscience.”
“Takes more than a little rain to kill me. I’m invincible,” James proclaims, grinning just enough that Rain can see the acrylic fangs.
Rain doesn’t feel like arguing, so he shrugs, walks around James, and locks the deadbolt. “There’s a robe in the bathroom. Get changed before you sit on my couch,” Rain says, and goes back into the living room to curl up in the armchair with The Darkling.
He’s only gotten half a page read before James comes in and drapes himself artfully over the couch. The bathrobe is black. Even without his makeup, James is pale. Rain is torn between thinking it suits him and thinking he looks like a carefully posed corpse.
James hangs his head back over the arm of the couch and reads the title of Rain’s book upside-down. “A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism. So, is this what you do all day? Read old books and hide in your batcave?” James asks. Rain turns a page.
“Nineteen eighty-nine is hardly ‘old’,” he says, quietly. James shrugs for maximum effect. He’s still wearing three crosses around his neck. The jewelry shifts with his movement. Rain wonders if the boy has ever met a real vampire, and how hard said supernatural being laughed afterwards.
“Maybe not,” James says. “You should be reading the source material, though. More interesting.”
“I have read the source material. It’s always better to read more than one translation,” Rain says. James falls silent.
Rain is comfortable with silence, but he finds this one makes him worried. James is looking at him with a very intent expression.
Rain isn’t stupid, nor does he make a habit of denial. He knows he’s attractive. He just didn’t expect to be attractive to any human. But wait – James didn’t think he was human.
“If you want something to read, the library is down that hall. If you want something to drink, I can get you red wine or tomato juice,” Rain says, breaking the silence. He is mildly amused when James flushes and instinctively jerks his eyes away from Rain’s exposed wrist.
James turns over and glares at him once he recovers. “You think that’s funny? I haven’t had anything in five weeks, you bastard.” His eyes are red, and it takes Rain a minute to figure out that he should be bothered by that.
Rain raises an eyebrow. “As a vampire, you should be halfway to insane by now,” he says.
“Who says I’m not? I was thinking about biting you, for Chrissake,” James snaps back.
“No, that would be completely insane,” Rain says, and flips another page. The rain’s still coming down outside, but the lightning and thunder have spaced themselves out a bit. He can kick the boy out soon without having to worry.
“Yeah? What, are you gonna pull some kind of magic trick on me? Or did you finally let B bite you like she’s always talking about?” James says, sitting up.
Rain keeps calm without much difficulty, though he’s completely lost his place on the page. “What I do or don’t let B get away with isn’t your problem. As a vampire, you should have figured out by now why you should leave me alone.”
James stands up, pulling the robe tighter around his body. “You actually think there are real vampires,” he says, his incredulity coming through in his voice, and walks toward Rain, who looks up at him. “You read too much of that stuff and it’s warped your brain,” he says, when he’s gotten much too close. He takes the book out of Rain’s unresisting hands and looks at the page. “Vampire watermelons? You believe in that too?”
“I’ve never left a watermelon out in the full moon, so I wouldn’t know,” Rain says. He hopes the boy doesn’t try to attack him. It’d be embarrassing to recite at him.
James tosses the book aside and Rain winces. “Please. If you want vampires, we’re it. Me and people like me. Blood-sucking creatures of the night, those don’t exist.”
Rain raises an eyebrow. “One of your best friends is a werewolf. How close-minded are you?”
“Hey. I’ve seen B transform. It’s crazy, but it happens. I’ve never heard of anyone who gets burnt by a cross, and I know a lot of people who’re looking out for that kind of thing.”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Shakespeare,” Rain says, and leans over the arm of his chair to grab the book. The motion exposes his neck and his wrist, and James pulls back.
“I know Shakespeare, thanks,” James says. Rain thinks he looks more tense than he did just a minute ago.
“Smart man. You should listen to him,” Rain says. “And stop eyeing my jugular. I’d be bad for you.”
James’s shoulders drop, and he looks away. “Damn. I was kind of hoping I could get a bite, with your vampire obsession and all,” he says.
“What?” Rain half-shouts in shock. “…I do not have a vampire obsession.”
“Yeah you do. Look at you. You’re a Goth with a library full of vampire novels and movies. What would you call that?” James says. His grin is back. He still has the plastic fangs in.
Rain glares at him. “You’re Goth and wear fake fangs and red contacts. Pot, kettle, black.”
“The difference being that I actually am a vampire,” James says, in the manner of one pointing out the obvious.
“If you were a vampire, you’d never have asked me for blood,” Rain tells him.
“You keep saying that. You want me to go back out and swoop in on you from the window? Will that fulfill your Gothic rape fantasies?” James asks.
Rain chooses to ignore the last bit. “It’s not the ‘asking’, it’s the ‘me’. My blood does bad things to vampires,” Rain says. B would never forgive him, he thinks. He’s not sure if the unforgivable bit would be the driving James insane or the letting someone other than her bite him.
“Oh come on. Your blood’s just the same as anyone else’s. Plasma, cells, iron-based oxygen-carrying mechanism…”
Rain winces. “You don’t want to experiment with that.”
“What’s gonna go wrong? I know you’re interested. You haven’t said ‘no’ yet,” James points out, and Rain realizes that this is true. “Just let me have your wrist for a second… or I could go for the throat. Make it a little more fantasy-appropriate.”
At some point in the conversation James has managed to sit down on the arm of Rain’s chair. He’s looking down at Rain from a distance of about a foot, and smiling. The fangs look very, very sharp, and James’s bathrobe is slipping open again, revealing decently muscled, if skinny, shoulders and part of his chest. Rain becomes aware that certain bits of him are responding in a way he definitely didn’t give them permission for.
Rain does not have a vampire obsession, curse it.
“No,” he says. James immediately leans back on the chair and crosses his arms.
“Fang-tease,” he says, without any real malice.
“Pervert,” Rain responds.
“Nah, that’s not me,” James says, leaning over. Suddenly there’s an arm around Rain’s shoulder and lips right next to Rain’s ear. “I’m not the one getting hard ‘cause he thought he was going to get bitten,” he says, and Rain shivers.
“Is B recruiting for the sexually-harass-Rain army?” he asks. It’s supposed to come out in his usual dry tone. Instead his voice is a bit shaky.
“Nope. B wants to be your sole harasser in life. This was all my idea,” James says, and slides down the arm of the chair until he’s in Rain’s lap. Rain curses the human sex drive, his own hormones, and all attractive vampires.
“James, move,” Rain says, and James’s left hand runs down his chest to rest just above the top button on his jeans. Rain looks at him from a distance of three inches, and he grins. Rain can’t believe he walked into that.
He can see the natural brown of James’s eyes through the contacts from this distance, and the join on the fangs when he smiles. If James moves his right hand down an inch, he’ll feel Rain’s wings. Illusions weren’t meant for contact this close.
“Hold still,” James orders, and leans toward Rain’s throat. Rain lets him. Then his hand slips down, just enough to feel Rain’s wings.
They jerk back at the same time, and they stare at each other. “Holy shit, Rain,” James says, his hand still on Rain’s wing. He pulls at Rain’s shoulder, trying to see through the spell that keeps the wings invisible. Rain takes off the necklace that holds the illusion and drops it to the side of the chair.
“I hate to say I told you so, but…” Rain says, twisting a bit so that James can see the wings without breaking either of them.
“Then don’t. You didn’t tell me this,” James says, his eyes still on the wing. “Shit. What are you?”
Rain sighs. “One of the Fae,” he says.
“A faerie,” James translates. “I must be hallucinating.”
“You’re not,” Rain informs him, and twists back and away from his fingers. “Stop petting me. I get enough of that from B.”
“B knows about this? Of course she does. She didn’t think we’d like to know?” James says. His fingers still, but he doesn’t remove his hand from Rain’s shoulder.
“Grant me a little will of my own. You didn’t need to know,” Rain says. “And you wouldn’t have believed her anyway.”
“Sure I would have.” James shifts in Rain’s lap, causing his breath to catch. The bathrobe is only just barely keeping James decent now, and the way he’s sitting, with his legs on either side of Rain’s, doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Rain thinks of running his hands over James’s shoulders, his back, down his spine, all hard planes and muscle… it makes it very hard to concentrate on the conversation.
“Like you did about vampires?” he manages to ask. James snorts. “You don’t have any proof about the vampires.”
“I’ve met a few,” Rain says.
“Never been bitten, though, right?” James asks. “Faerie blood… bad for vampires, right? So if these people think they’re really vampires, they wouldn’t touch you.”
“They are really vampires, and I will really drive them insane. Get off of me,” Rain says. James slides onto the floor and takes Rain’s hand.
“So I’m not like that, right? Your blood wouldn’t hurt me,” James says, from his position at Rain’s feet. He’s grinning again and the fangs are really obvious but that’s mostly because Rain is trying not to look any lower, because the bathrobe has finally given up and slipped open.
“It wouldn’t do much for you, either.” Rain reclaims his hand. “Go sit on the couch.”
James stands up without bothering to rewrap the robe and does so. He lies on his stomach and looks at Rain, who finds it completely impossible to concentrate on boiling vampiric squash.
James’s voice, darkly amused, makes him jump. “I know you want to be bitten. It’d be easy. These fangs are sharp.” James grins. Rain’s heart rate increases. “I could sink my teeth into your shoulder and lick the blood off your neck… and chest… and wherever else it goes. I’d let you touch me. I could sit on your lap and push you down, shove my hands down your jeans and my fangs in your skin and make you think I’ll rip your throat out, and you’ll like it.” James’s voice is low and rough and curls in the pit of Rain’s stomach like molten iron. He shifts in his seat, his jeans grown much too tight, and bites his lip unconsciously.
“We could go further. I’ve bitten guys before. A lot of people get off on it.” Rain’s book falls from his fingers.
“Shut up!” he shouts, to cover the involuntary moan that’s almost escaped him. He does not moan. He has more dignity than that. He glares at James. “Do you think molesting me from across the room is going to work better?”
“Nah, but I think if I keep talking you’ll come in your pants and you’ll have to admit that you want it.” James smirks. Rain feels his face flush. It’s likely that James is right, but he’d rather not give him the satisfaction.
“So. May I?” James asks. “I won’t take too much,” he adds.
That’s only one of several worries that are currently making themselves known. “If my blood makes you insane –” he begins. James cuts him off. “You admitted that won’t happen to me,” he says.
“If B finds out about this –”
“She won’t. She doesn’t know I’m here.” James stands up and starts making his way towards Rain’s chair. Rain swallows, mouth gone dry.
“She will. She’ll smell you as soon as she walks in the door,” Rain tells him.
“Tell her I came to visit, stayed through the storm, and left. It’ll even be true.” James slides into Rain’s lap like he belongs there and puts his hands on Rain’s shoulders, his hips rolling so that Rain has to bite his lip to keep from crying out.
“I’m out of objections, aren’t I,” Rain says. James nods. “Yeah, you are.”
Rain closes his eyes and tilts his head to the left. “Fine. Do it.” He hears James’s hiss of anticipation as he pulls Rain’s collar aside.
It hurts. Of course it hurts, but Rain’s had worse and he’s doing a good job of distracting himself. The pain is over quickly, and then he feels warm blood and warm lips on his neck. James pulls him closer, his fingers digging into Rain’s shoulders. He makes little pleased noises as he licks. Rain curls into him, wrapping his arms around James’s waist and trying not to breathe too hard. It’s not working. He cants his hips up, without thinking about it, seeking pressure, and James moves his hand down between his legs, applying just enough force. Rain bites James’s shoulder in lieu of shouting when he comes.
When the stars have cleared from his head, James is just settling back, applying pressure to the cuts with the sleeve of Rain’s bathrobe. He has a drop of blood – Rain’s blood, brighter and thicker than human’s, though still mistakable for it – running down from the corner of his mouth. He’s grinning, his teeth tipped in red.
Rain feels boneless, James’s hands on his shoulders the only thing keeping him upright, and his eyes are drawn persistently to the bright red blood on James’s mouth. James wipes it off and licks it from his hand, making Rain shiver.
“See? I’m not insane. Thanks for the meal,” James says. Rain closes his eyes and doesn’t respond.
James seems perfectly content to stay where he is, sated and calm, but Rain’s getting a bit uncomfortable. He pushes James off – he slides right to the floor again – stands up, a bit shaky, and walks into the bathroom.
He could use a shower but he only has the one bathrobe, so he pulls out a washcloth and cleans himself off. The boxers are a loss, and he puts them in a sink full of water to keep the scent from spreading. He can’t remember a spell for cleaning.
He catches sight of himself in the mirror and is shocked by what he sees. He’s got a blood streak on his cheek, his eyes are dilated, and he’s still flushed. He looks like perversion on legs, which is not something he’d normally think, but this is not in any way a normal circumstance.
He’s just had sex, hasn’t he? He had not expected his first time to be with… with a teenage human with delusions of vampirism. Curse it. B will be furious, if she finds out.
She’s going to smell his blood in the morning. He’s going to have to do something about that. Later. He’s not thinking right now. B won’t be back until hours after he wakes up. Enough time.
The storm has stopped, and when Rain walks out into the living room, he can see the full moon through the window. B will have just finished her transformation, and the thought gives him a pang of guilt.
James has pulled himself into the armchair, and Rain stalks past him into his bedroom for a change of clothes. James is half asleep, and doesn’t look up when Rain goes past.
Once he’s changed, he walks out, grabs James’s mostly-dry coat, and tosses it at him. James ducks too slowly and ends up getting smacked in the face. He rips the coat away and glares at Rain.
“You’re kicking me out? That’s great, after I just –”
Rain fixes him with a flat stare. “Your clothes are dry. The storm’s over. Leave.” He sits on the couch, picks up Perkowski again, and resolutely ignores James’s sputtering. Soon enough, he stops trying to get Rain’s attention, and Rain hears him walk off to the bathroom and struggle with his jeans.
James walks out without another word, though he sends a blistering glare Rain’s way. Rain responds with an emotionless “Fare well” and doesn’t even flinch when the door slams behind him.
The next afternoon, when B comes home, the first thing she does is shriek. “Rain! Rain, what happened? What did you do?” she asks, panicked.
Rain looks out of the kitchen, where he’s started on his second pot of Earl Grey. “Good day, Bernadette, and how are you this fine morning?” he asks with no small amount of sarcasm.
She attacks him, hugging him near hard enough to crack his wings and not missing the opportunity to feel him up under the guise of checking for injuries. “Don’t start that! I can smell your blood. And…” she stops, momentarily, and steps away from him. “James! Oh no!”
Rain tries not to let his eyes widen, to keep up the illusion of normalcy. “He came by last night to visit you,” he says, and hopes his voice stays calm. “He was thirsty.”
Bernadette’s face falls. “But that means he got to bite you before I did. I’ll kill him!” she says. Then she gets the sly smile that Rain has come to know and dread. “Hey, if he got to bite you…”
“No.” Thank God. Rain’s familiar with this kind of banter.
“Oh come on, just a little bit?” she asks, batting her eyelashes at him. “You still owe me.”
“Feel free to fantasize all you want,” Rain says, magnanimously. She pouts, but is effectively distracted. So is Rain. Thank God for hyperactive werewolves.