[ ] Pathetic [ ] Off no consequence [X] Intriguing [ ] Frightening [ ] Unsettling [ ] Annoying [ ] Infuriating [X] Pleasant company [X] Comforting [X] Unable to be lived without [X] Trustworthy
“Of course I’m hungry,” Anita responded after a while. She was stuck there, even as his hand- warm and solid to the touch, almost reminding her of stone baked in the sun and the touch of it was comforting. He was comforting. From the harsh cold of the city and of the life that she had called her own, but she had left it by the doorstep, and inside she was… normal?
Although when she found herself in the deepest of thoughts even this wasn’t normal. Anita was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Happiness and comfort, dreams and loves never came without a backfire, without consequences that had always ended in some form of heartbreak. There were times when the animator believed that somehow she didn’t deserve the happy ending. Not in her line of work.
“Please tell me you believe in bacon,” she grunted and walked around him, heading towards the kitchen. “Because I don’t think I’ve had a decent piece in months and for some reason I’m craving it.”
Axel laughed and smiled as she said she was hungry, he finished his tea and followed her into the kitchen, putting his hand lightly on her hip. It was a just a comfort thing for him. “Of course I have bacon. What do you thin the pigs in the yard were for?” He asked as he opened the fridge and pulled out a packet of bacon that he had gotten from one of his pigs.
“Anything else? Fresh eggs? What about toast?” Axel asked as he turned the gas on and placed a pan over the flame letting it heat up. “How have you not had a decent piece in months? Cant be that hard to come by at the supermarket.” He teased as he made himself another cup of tea.
There was no hidden agenda in her stare as she clenched and unclenched her sparking palms as the vampire walked nearer. Confusion had nestled its way into her brows, set up shop and halted her own movements. She stood there plainly, lips slightly parted and doe eyed to the prospect of understanding what exactly was going on and what exactly was swimming in his patient stare.
Oddly enough, she felt like prey. Not in the sense of being hunted but rather like a lost squirrel being followed by a curious child, stepping lightly and gently just so it would not scare the small creature from escaping. She was both mesmerized and haunted in her petrified state. A few voices in her head begged her to make some action, move, run, escape, attack, lunge, accept, care, hold. And while they all screamed against her silent resolve she could only blink slowly at him and wonder in what world had she stepped into.
Anita wasn’t privy to the traditional holiday of Christmas, if she were to be honest she didn’t particularly experience any of them. There were two times that she could remember of a celebration and each of those seemed to bring up her fear of both rejection and abandonment. One, being as a child her last Christmas with her mom before she passed and the other where she was proposed to by her fiance and later rejected as a suitable companion. In this case, while she enjoyed stepping into this strangers world of celebration, joy, and warmth there too rested the haunted question of when the other shoe would drop.
No.
If they stepped into that phase things would not become clearer to her. It would get muddier. What would that make of the St. Louis community? Would there have to be a special battle to the end for both older vampires? How long would this last if Axel was still planning to leave? Why did he want her? But the worst question of them all still stung in her mind.
Did she she him to kiss her?
Yes.
“Did you know that in Norse mythology Mistletoe killed a god? Odin and Frigg had a child named Baldr, he had a dream of his death and his mother was worried so she made everything in the world vow not to hurt Baldr except Mistletoe because she felt that it was too young to take upon such a vow, the god Loki heard of this and tricked Baldr’s Brother Höðr who was blind into killing his brother.” He told her with a smile as he noticed her and what seemed to be a battle brewing in her mind.
Axel stood next to her now and just smiled, he knew that her mind was probably full of thoughts and doubts, of what might happen should anything more come from them spending time together and what it would entail for her city. He reached out and lightly touched her cheek, his hand warm to the touch as he had feed this morning. “Mistletoe used to play more of part with druids than Christmas..And it was associated with fertility and vitality through the Middle Ages, in the 18th century was when people began to associate it with Christmas.” He rambled, these things were probably not fascinating to her but he had lived through the changes of the plant.
He leaned down and lightly kissed her cheek, it was still a kiss but it did not change their relationship, he didnt want her running for the hills over one kiss on Christmas morning. "Hungry?“ Axel asked as he picked up the cup of tea he had on the small table.
She didn’t mean to spend the night, although at this point in their odd timeline of a companionship it was almost as if she had halfway moved in. And that thought itself was enough to cause an ache in the back of her head like no ones business. She’d ignored the phone calls, the texts, the flowers, the midnight drives as Jean-Claude seemed to want to woo her back into his not so loving embraces. It was as if she had built a home away from home in the recesses of the forest, like she was living a different life where she was neither an animator or a hunter. Just, normal.
But how odd was that to think as she murmured her way out of bed, glancing down at the small kitten who had decided to take over the other side, its frowning mug staring back up at the frowning human it had decided to accept. And yet Anita felt alone. Although, if she were to be honest, she had always been alone, but there was something about Axel that made her feel… not so.
As the gentleman that he was, Axel had let her sleep in a spare room, how many of those did he have? She would never ask, but as she tossed on a robe over her baggy t-shirt and some loose fitting jeans Anita stepped out quietly into the hallway and heard the echoes of some whistling and the sweet scent of food filling the air. Drinking it in, she walked down the mostly dark hallway and could feel the pull of the sun from beyond the tinted windows but something else smelled very much alive and green and it was coming from inside the house.
Turning the corner she was stunted. Gasping. The whole living room was strung in Christmas lights and decorations. Real cuts of pine spread throughout the home leading up to a large Christmas tree, its body sparing no bare limb. She would’ve had more time to truly appreciate the whole vision as she kept spinning around to the leading lights and spread when she felt the cold whisper that Anita had begun to recognize as Axel. The apron clad man stalking towards her with a chuckling grin on his face that almost made her worry.
Another heavenly thanks that he was fully clothed under the apron, but it did enough to cause warmth to spread up to her cheeks. “Wow… Santa was busy.”
Anita laughed but the sound was almost weak, nervous even like one half wanted to run away while the other wanted to meet him. But as she watched him walk towards her it seemed that his gaze was more focused on what was above her… and that made her palm itch.
“….-What?”
Axel had gotten used to Anita being at his house as it seemed like she would come here to get away from the master vampire who kept trying to woo her and get her back to his side, at least that is what Axel took from the flowers that would sometimes show up here for her, not to mention the wolves that had been coming around his house now, he had made sure that all the gifts that Jean-Claude sent here for her went in the trash as she was coming out here to escape that.
He had to change his yard because of the wolves that Jean-Claude had started to send to his place to spy on him and Anita. He had ignored it for the most part seeing as he and Anita werent even sleeping in the same bed, she was in one of his guest rooms and he was in the master bedroom. Though he was at least happy that her and the kitten seemed to be getting on through mutual dislike of everything in the world. He had been even more happy that the new kitten was welcome by the other animals that shared his home with him.
Axel had made his house like he always did every Christmas, for him it was always a mix of his pagan roots as well as the Christian ones that he had adopted as well. He had spent most of the morning in the kitchen while he didnt have to eat he knew that the animator in the spare room needed too. The tree in the living room was surrounded by presents that lay under it and on the surfaces near it, they were all for her as he didn’t like the idea of her having nothing to open on this morning, though he had put the presents that a certain someone sent her in another room he would see what she wanted to do with them later.
He grinned as he saw her standing there a little wided eyed at everything he had done seeing as it wasnt there when she went to sleep last night. His eyes traveled up to the doorway she was standing under and he pointed to the mistletoe hanging there. “Mistletoe.” He told her, his voice soft as he moved a little closer to her.
the-solitary-monster 