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damned_lounge2010-10-29 04:41 pm
Oktoberfest '10: Sleepover
Author: Hannah.
Beta: LOL LIKE I'D ASK ANYONE TO READ THIS CRAP.
Rating: PG.
Character(s): Sora, Edward Cullen, Venom. A mention of The Trickster. Can you tell I'm kind of terrified of playing other people's characters? B|
Pairing(s): ... gross.
Summary: Trapped by one of Landel's creations, the three carry on a rather normal conversation.
Notes: I like introspection and dialogue... which is why this is what it is.
The lighter rolled between his fingers, warm and comforting. After the debacle several nights ago, he supposed he should have turned into Boris Karloff’s monster, flinching away from every flame and biting back a moan of remembered pain. He was stronger than he had given himself credit for, which was always a nice thought; nice enough to almost turn him into an optimist. This flame, however, was under his control, small and warm and just enough to get through the night. If he wanted to be honest, he hadn’t gotten it for himself. Warmth was not something he required. It was pleasurable, yes, but not necessary. He had long forgone the idea of luxuries by this point.
Venom lifted his head where it had been placed on his knee, watching (Edward could only assume) the movement of the small metallic rectangle. His hair had been thinned out in the front, cut shorter, but only enough to see his mouth. On others that might have been enough, but Venom’s did not quirk or turn up or turn down. It was always impassive. If Edward was the type of person who relied on looking at faces, it might have unnerved him. As Edward tried to decide if the man knew a lighter on sight or not, he sifted through the silence. If there hadn’t been a third party present, the vampire would have congratulated the assassin on his mental improvements. They hadn’t really spoken of the incident involving his admittance of his unnatural telepathic ability, but Venom had already begun working at maintaining a silent mind. It didn’t stay that way most of the time – not even half of the time, really – but it was certainly an improvement, despite the fact it was too late to really save his revealing of his secrets.
Edward didn’t blame him for trying. He wouldn’t invade the man’s very private mind if he could help it. It was really a wonder Venom agreed to continue to work with him at all, even if the benefit had been mutual. In theory. He wasn’t so sure he was giving to Venom what he got, and that thought was troubling. Debts. It had always been a circular relationship between them. Give, take. No acceptances. Just repaying past debts. No equivalence. Neither of them liked owing the other anything outside of gratitude, and even that was pushing it.
He thought: what had he really given? A few negative answers that, on their own, didn’t really prove anything. So a randomly assorted handful of patients had nothing unusual in their bloodstream. It had been random, but not empirical. There was always a chance that drugs were being slipped in, somehow, and Edward didn’t even know if anyone whose blood he had tasted had been picked for the “special counseling”. He might have thought of finding that girl from his first night, the only victim of the counseling he had encountered, but he wasn’t sure what he would find in a girl who could shoot missiles. Probably not blood. Oil?
Flicking the lighter open, a small flame lit up his fingers. Snapping the lid closed, the flame was cut off from life.
“Where did you get that?” Venom finally broke the silence, shifting in his position on the ground so that his legs were crossed, the cue he carried with him laid on top of his knees.
“I traded it,” Edward answered, the statement making him feel all the more like the prisoner he really was. The only difference was that it hadn’t been a trade made with cigarettes. In fact, he can’t believe the trade had happened at all, “for a cupcake.”
Venom watched him with what (he imagined) was a level gaze. “A what.”
“A cupcake. It’s a little cake in –“
“I know what it is. Why was that worth the exchange?”
“Maybe the other was a baker and wanted to be reminded of home?” Sora finally quipped, having grown bored of inspecting the inside of the shed. There still wasn’t anything of interest, though he’d hoped to find Venom something a little more useful than that stick thing. It looked like it could break if he hit something with it hard enough! After inspecting all the shelves – sports equipment, nets, bats; he’d even laughed and put on one of the helmets (“Football,” Edward had said) and asked how it looked (Edward had chuckled, but Venom had said something about how it would impede vision and it would weigh down his head). It smelled kind of sweaty though, so he’d taken it off and tossed it against a wall after the brief moment of easiness.
The walls of the shed had shook for a moment, quivering down to the foundation, before ceasing.
“He said he had a sweet tooth,” Edward finished, an unsatisfactory conclusion. He didn’t really want to talk about it – the small glimpse he’d had into the man’s mind wasn’t somewhere he wanted to venture again. There were too many blondes and not enough clothing.
Venom said nothing, but had become busy churning out ideas as to why another patient would trade something so useful for something completely… not. Everything was too good to be true. Nothing came free -
In an attempt to ignore the voice at the back of his mind, Edward turned to Sora. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
Sora shrugged, amazingly nonchalant for his age. Edward was aware that children didn’t like being told that, so he hadn’t ever mentioned the boy’s age. Besides, he himself only looked two or three years older. Ever since coming to Landel’s, he tended to forget what he looked like to others. Many never even thought it was strange, and some had no thoughts at all. “I’m not surprised, though. Things change here all the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“The building for one. It used to look completely different. When it changed, everyone had to make new maps.”
“You’ve been here a while?”
Sora nodded. “Over a month.” At Edward’s shocked expression, he grinned, lifting both hands and crossing them on the back of his head. “It’s been a trip, but I’ve done pretty well, I think. I even run the Arts and Crafts Club now – hey, you want to join?”
“I don’t work very well in a group,” Edward said honestly.
Sora narrowed his eyes in suspicion, his thoughts explaining why: he wasn’t sure if Edward meant it or was just saying that to get out of saying no.
“You run it alone?” Venom asked, a quiet undertone of concern added to his words. Perhaps it was only a product of his thoughts, once again changing course quickly and to a completely different track. When Sora answered, Edward was sure he hadn’t heard it. He was a tough kid, and probably hated to have anyone show concern over him.
Rather like Venom, actually.
“Well, yeah! Someone had to pick it up and reorganize it after the last leader… well, they’re not here anymore.” His eyes tightened, though whether from memory of that leader or by the walls shaking again was unclear.
“This is ridiculous,” Venom twirled the cue in his hands, agitation instead of nervousness, “we cannot hide here forever.”
“We’ll wake up in bed before forever hits,” Edward said. Venom didn’t look at him, but suggested in a not so gentle manner that shutting his mouth would be a good idea. He began to extrapolate on how much he loathed getting nothing accomplished, but Edward interrupted: “Please stop.”
Sora cocked his head. “Huh?”
The vampire eyes flicked to the side before settling on the boy’s face. “He breathes loudly.”
You’re an imbecile. You accuse me of being a terrible liar?
He should have known to keep his mouth shut about his ability. It had helped get the three of them safely tucked into the shed, perhaps – only Venom had gotten injured, using his thoughts to aid Edward in distracting while getting in the shed himself, pushing Sora ahead of him all the while. A small streak of blood had been flowing freely out of his leg – the meat of his calf snagged by claws before Edward had unloaded a shotgun shell into the thing’s arm – foot, maybe? Leg? – which was torn apart by the pellets, barely hanging on by a few sweetly smelling sinews. The sound of bone shattering had been cut short by the door slamming behind them. Edward and Sora had set immediately to bandaging the injury, though a avalanche of angry thoughts had eventually made Edward relent to letting Sora complete the dressing with some advice from himself. That had led to Sora inquiring into the source of Edward’s medical knowledge and had ended with the boy being more inquisitive than impressed. Edward gave him a few tips on the proper care of animal-created wounds before he noticed the two humans shivering.
That was how he’d remembered the lighter, jammed deeply into the pocket of his coat – not that the thing could be called a proper coat. It was more like a bathroom robe. Having the two others sit near the middle of the shed, he’d collected some soiled old jerseys and set them alight. It hadn’t lasted terribly long and they all had to keep sharp eyes on the fire, but it heated the small room fairly well as long as they stayed close. It had taken a good twenty minutes for Venom’s thoughts to travel away from how awkwardly close the three of them were seated together, but he eventually had other things to worry over. The nightshifts had turned threateningly chilly lately, though no one seemed to know what month it was. There was a general consensus of it being the tail end of autumn, right before the first days of winter – all American seasons, of course. Edward had even asked Sora if he thought it was closer to November than October, and the boy honestly had no clue, only mentioning how it had gotten colder much faster than he was used to.
“I never noticed,” Sora said regarding Venom’s breathing habits, his thoughts briefly touching on whether he believed Edward or not. He couldn’t see a reason why he’d lie, though. He turned to Venom, wrapping his arms tightly around his knees. “Is your leg okay?”
“Fine.” If you asked Edward, he seemed to be deliberately sitting in a way that would make the wound hurt. Sora thought so as well, but apparently he knew the assassin well enough to not worry about it more than once.
Edward admitted that Sora was more astute than he was. Or at least a little less stubborn.
“You did a good job of dressing it,” Venom added after a moment of silence. Edward tried not to laugh; the effort turned into a snickering sort of sound muffled by his sleeve.
Sora grinned again, thrilled by the compliment. “Thanks! I’ve been trying to get out and find that first aid society, but arts and crafts projects have been keeping me busy.”
“An aid society, hmm?” Edward was somewhat intrigued, though the thought of a large group of injured humans being corralled into one area was a bit overwhelming for him. Even now the scent of Venom’s blood had invaded all the cool nooks of the shed, but luckily he’d had a long draught of some of the chapel’s bottled blood before leaving his room. He was often thankful that much of the institute’s population was strange-looking; even though Sora had been spending a good portion of the night staring into his red irises, not even a question of the color had been brought to his mind.
Edward quite liked being in Sora’s mind, if he had to choose which ones he was privy too. It was, of course, a gross invasion of privacy – even Venom had had thoughts about how he didn’t like Edward’s playing into the boy’s mind – but Sora was, to put it rather theatrically, pure. After spending more than one night tucked into Venom’s dark, stormy thoughts, Sora was a tranquil, relieving dose of optimism. Even now, he wasn’t particularly concerned about their predicament. In a way, he was often akin to Venom in that respect – he was disappointed that they had wasted so much time tucked into the shed instead of out there, exploring and finding things that could help everyone else.
There was a groan outside, followed by a thump that ended abruptly with the crushing of grass. The three looked up, to each other, then all assembled themselves on their feet. Edward put out the fire with a spare jersey, choking it into submissive glowing embers. He offered to peek his head out the door first, but Venom had limped his way to the door, silently sticking his curtained face out to meet the cold night air.
“It’s clear. It’s dead,” he said lowly.
“Back to our previous adventure, then?” Edward said with a small laugh.
“About time!” Sora said, nearly leaping out of the shed with impatient grace.
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Seriously, all that in two hours? Goddamn, gurl.
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Nice work!
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I want to hug Sora forever. Also love the Trickster's mention there. So many naked blonds. Edward you need to stop being such a prude okay.
♥ THANK YOU HANNAH THIS FIC IS JAWSOME.
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Anyway, this was really nice. :3 Reading stuff from Edward's POV is great because of the whole telepathy; I know you say that it's a pain in the ass, but it is really nice for a fic especially.
I love how Edward seems to like Sora so much. ♥ Makes me want to thread them again! And also, the little comparisons he made between Sora and Venom, not to mention the comment about how Venom is all 8| at the idea of Edward invading Sora's thoughts. ;A; So protective and cute, daddy Venom!
So yeah. This was great. :3