SNAKE EYES: To Growing Up and Growing Old
Aluka has a small house- it's made for tall, skinny people, with narrow doors and high ceilings.
Before Ben moves in, it's mostly empty. Everything is clean, and the rooms smell of the sharp pine soap Aluka used to scrub out the mould when he's first moved in. It's not dirty, but it feels like a museum, hushed and empty.
Aluka isn't precisely *lonely*, but he's always enjoyed the company of others, and he misses having humans to look after.
Ben needs a lot of looking after.
Ben fits that hole, and when Aluka first invites the ten year old back to his house, and Kira makes the hallway stink of wet dog and dirty water, and Ben is cold enough to drink hot chocolate, and the house is filled with cooking smells and laughter and *life*.
It doesn't smell like pine scent for almost a week, lingering chocolate and cheap teenage boy deodorant lurking in the hall.
When the storm eases enough for Ben to put on the anorak he'd bought with money Aluka gave him, and he watches the boy leave, he feels that ache in his stomach resurface. Ben hadn't just filled the hole- when he'd left, he ripped it wider.
Aluka is lonely at home, but never at work. The twin waiters who work for him, a pair of identical twins- dragon demons with elaborate red and purple patterns that get them a lot of admiring looks- called Jared and Max, are playful and welcoming, and Ben has taken to his job in the kitchen very quickly.
Aluka mans the register and works the machines, pumping out cappuccinos and coffees as fast the Maxwell brothers can whisk them away.
It's a busy morning, but as one PM, Aluka retreats to the kitchen with a bag of blood to microwave. Ben is washing up, his too big jacket rolled up to his elbows as he scrubs. Kira lounges at the base of the small stove used to heat staff meals, enjoying the warmth left from the twins' baked beans on toast lunch.
As Aluka opens the door, he's hit by a wall of sound- Ben has the radio up at an ear deafening screech, and he's dancing on the spot, swaying his hips to the beat of Oasis' latest hit.
Aluka has always loved music- he's been to Mozart's first performance, was at Woodstock when Hendrix burnt his guitar, and is now a rabid fan of British rock bands and the screech of metal stringed guitar.
However, he also likes his ears intact.
Aluka pads over the stereo, though he could stomp as hard as he could and Ben still wouldn't hear him over Liam Gallagher's bellowing, and spins down the volume with a decisive forefinger.
It doesn't register on Ben for a second, and by the time he spins around, protest on his lips, Aluka is humming the bass line absentmindedly and squeezing his O Negative into his favourite mug, getting ready to nuke it.
"Hey, I love that song!"
"I love my eardrums more." Aluka replies, tapping his fingers on the counter.
"Oh, didn't realise it was you." Ben laughed nervously and ran a hand through his wild hair and Aluka's lips pursed slightly.
"Yes, even you're not forthright enough to tell off your boss on your second day."
Ben grinned widely, and Aluka twitched a smile back. The microwave alarm went off, and he retrieved his lunch.
"How are your living arrangements?"
"Eh, Joey's pulled the stick out of his ass, so we're getting on just fine," Ben shrugs, and Aluka's heart sinks ever so slightly.
He'd been hoping, with just a tinge of scheudenfroide, that the argument between Ben and his latest roommate, a twitchy elementalist who hadn't mastered any of his elements, despite being in his late twenties, would escalate until Ben needed to find a new place to stay.
His house was still too empty.
"Well, if things ever return to such a state, know that I have a spare bedroom, and unlike Joseph, I have no problems with Kira." Aluka took a sip from his mug, and received an affectionate head butt from Kira for the comment, while Ben's grin widened to an almost inhuman degree.
"You're awesome, man!" Ben gave him a soapy, wet hug, and Aluka knew that if he still had blood in his veins, it would have flooded his face, turning him the same colour as Ben's crimson jacket.
That week, at the meeting Aluka insisted on every Wednesday morning, tempting his employees in with free espressos and muffins, Ben brought up The Question.
"So, what is this place actually called?"
Aluka blinked.
Jared and Max shrugged, "We don't know. We've just been calling it Aluka's cafe."
"Really?" Aluka frowned, "That doesn't exactly sound good."
"Seriously, what's it called?"
Another round of shrugs was forthcoming, and Ben looked taken aback. "Well, what's written on the menu?"
Aluka picked one up, and read off, "Menu."
"On the sign?"
"We don't have a sign," Aluka told him, and shoved another muffin in Ben's direction. The kid was too skinny.
"Aprons?"
"They're blank."
"You mean you've been running a pretty successful cafe for over a year without giving it a name?"
Aluka shrugged, "Does it need one?"
"Well, yeah," Ben replied, chomping down on the muffin. Aluka watched closely as he took another look at the muffin before digging in enthusiastically. Although he'd never tell his staff, Aluka used these meetings to test out new recipes- he couldn't do it himself, as his taste buds were more or less non-existent, his tongue smooth, without the rasping of a human's. Vampires couldn't, didn't, taste.
"What would you suggest?" he asked, and it was Ben's turn to shrug.
"I don't know."
"How very helpful," Aluka said, and turned to the twins.
"Aluka's cafe?"
"The Cafe?" They suggested in unison, and Aluka wrinkled his nose.
"Leave it for now. We'll think of something later." Aluka stood up, picking up the platter of baked goods as a symbol that the discussion was over, and began the business of getting his unnamed cafe up and ready for work.
Two weeks later, he came in to see the arrival of a large, driftwood sign above the door, "Cafe, The" carved amateurly on it. A hanging sign with the same painted on it hung above the register, and new menus had been printed. When he took his apron out, "Cafe, The" had been painted across the chest.
He turned to Ben, who hovered anxiously next to him, waiting for some kind of sign.
"I like it."
The naming of 'Cafe, The' seemed to symbolise a change in Aluka's life. HE spent his lunch break actually taking a break, leaning against the counter in the kitchen amiably chatting with Ben and scratching Kira behind the ears. Evenings weren't so lonely anymore, as Ben seemed to have decided that he would live in Aluka's house without actually living there, leaving only to sleep, and even then only when he remembered too.
Almost two years later, Ben called in sick for the first time ever. Aluka was naturally worried, and stopped by at Ben's flat after work, not bothering to do anything other than pull off his green work apron, leaving him in an AC/DC tee-shirt with coffee stains on the sleeves and a pair of ratty old jeans.
He knocked three times smartly, on the cheap wood composite of Ben's door, frowning at the peeling paint and dirty surroundings.
"Ben?"
"Go away!"
Aluka's frown deepened exponentially. Ben's voice was too deep, a little hoarse, and definitely miserable.
"Let me in!"
"No!"
Aluka pulled an elastic out of his pocket and tied his hair back, straightening the sleeves of his white undershirt.
"If you don't let me in, I'll let myself in."
"I never gave you a key."
"I have supernaturally enhanced strength. What makes you think I *need* a key?"
There was a sulky silence, and Aluka rolled up his sleeves a little bit, pulling back his weight to deliver a kick that would fling the cheap door the length of Ben's apartment. Although he didn't know it, his eyes had begun to glow faintly, and his teeth and nails had lengthened.
"Fine."
Aluka smiled pleasantly as the door opened, and pushed his way into the flat. A twenty year old man sat on the small, brown and orange striped couch, wrapped in Ben's quilt and nothing else.
He looked like a tired version of the vampire's young friend, eight years in the future. He had the same dark, spiky hair, although it hung long, chest length, and the same caramel-coffee skin stretched over a well muscled chest and six pack. His eyes were the same toffee brown colour, and even the empty piercings on his ears were the same, three in his left arch and one in the right lobe, although there were no ornaments in them.
"Ben? Where are you?" Aluka kept a close eye on the stranger, nostrils flaring as he tried to catch Ben's scent in the air.
The stranger seemed to shrink on himself even further, forehead wrinkling depressingly.
"Here."
"What?" Aluka tilted his head on one side, and supposedly-Ben leaned his head on his hands.
"So it turns out you were totally right. Joey was a total asshole, and was friends with some people who were willing to give him a hand in screwing up the kid who was showing up their mate." He swallowed, almost painfully, "Most notably, a witch who happens to specialise in the more painful aging curses."
"Ben?" This time, Aluka sounded a little less disbelieving.
"Yeah." Ben clutched his quilt tighter, and Aluka leaned in, until there was only about an inch of space between their faces.
"Uh, yeah, hello to you too, Aluka." Ben said, obviously unnerved.
"Hmm." He breathed in deeply, and frowned again.
"Yeah, I'm usually not the one saying this, but, uh, personal space?"
Aluka licked him.
"What the hell?!" He flailed off the couch, falling onto the linoleum floor in a tangle of sheets.
"Wait here," Aluka gave him an appraising look, "I'll be back with clothes," he shook his head disbelievingly, "Ben."
With that, he swept out of the flat, every inch the European prince, and headed towards the nearest clothes shop.
He was fast, as efficient as ever, and within fifteen minutes, Ben stood in front of him, shifting uncomfortably as Aluka inspected him.
"So, what was with the, uh, the sniffing, and the, uhm, the licking?"
Aluka pursed his lips, straightening the fit of the army style jacket on Ben's ridiculously broad shoulders.
If anybody had told the vampire that the weedy little thirteen year old who washed dishes in his cafe was going to grow up to be over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, muscled arms and incredibly long legs, he would have had to smother a smile. But no, Ben looked like he could probably carry Aluka the length of a football field and come out smelling fresh as a daisy.
"Just checking if you were you."
"Your scent." Aluka explained, before taking Ben's hand and dropping a pile of piercings into it.
"Huh?"
"Go pack what you want to keep. And put in your piercings. You look naked without them." Aluka ordered, crossing his arms.
"But-"
"Go!"
Ben fled.
"And don't think we aren't going to talk about that tattoo on your back, Ben!"
"I'm not thirteen anymore, Aluka! I can get any tattoos I like!"
Once Ben had loaded up what he wanted, Aluka hustled him into the back of his car, and pulled into the traffic.
"You know, I never really realised how small this car is," Ben mused, knees around his ears.
"You'll live."
"Yes, but will I ever unfold?"
"You're moving in with me," Aluka declared, and Ben blinked.
"What?"
"You obviously can't be trusted to look after yourself." Aluka explained, "I have a spare room. You're moving in."
"And if I don't want to?"
Aluka shot him a rather unnerving smile.
"Great! Moving in, huh? So, uh, which bedroom do I get?"
"I'm feeling magnanimous. You can pick." Aluka tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
"Now, tell me more about this degenerate fire starter room mate of yours, and his 'friends', Ben."
"Wait, are you going to kill them?"
Aluka was silent.
"Oh come on, man. I'm fine. Just, taller, is all."
"Joseph's last name is Wards, correct?"
Ben nodded.
"I will make some inquiries."
"But you're not going to kill anybody, are you?"
"I will attempt to restrain myself," Aluka lied, and Ben smiled faintly, "in the mean time, I will leave you to get settled. There is enough money in the kitchen for you to re-establish a wardrobe and get some human food in the house. I should be back in a few hours." Aluka pulled into a park ridiculously quickly, screeching to a stop right in front of his front door.
"Ah, okay. Clothes, food." Ben nodded.
Aluka tossed him a copy of his front door key.
"This is for you. Don’t expect me back until dawn. I expect you to be asleep by then."
"What? Dude, I'm twenty!"
"And I am over a thousand. Is your age relevant?" Aluka raised an eyebrow, "Have fun."
Before Ben moves in, it's mostly empty. Everything is clean, and the rooms smell of the sharp pine soap Aluka used to scrub out the mould when he's first moved in. It's not dirty, but it feels like a museum, hushed and empty.
Aluka isn't precisely *lonely*, but he's always enjoyed the company of others, and he misses having humans to look after.
Ben needs a lot of looking after.
Ben fits that hole, and when Aluka first invites the ten year old back to his house, and Kira makes the hallway stink of wet dog and dirty water, and Ben is cold enough to drink hot chocolate, and the house is filled with cooking smells and laughter and *life*.
It doesn't smell like pine scent for almost a week, lingering chocolate and cheap teenage boy deodorant lurking in the hall.
When the storm eases enough for Ben to put on the anorak he'd bought with money Aluka gave him, and he watches the boy leave, he feels that ache in his stomach resurface. Ben hadn't just filled the hole- when he'd left, he ripped it wider.
Aluka is lonely at home, but never at work. The twin waiters who work for him, a pair of identical twins- dragon demons with elaborate red and purple patterns that get them a lot of admiring looks- called Jared and Max, are playful and welcoming, and Ben has taken to his job in the kitchen very quickly.
Aluka mans the register and works the machines, pumping out cappuccinos and coffees as fast the Maxwell brothers can whisk them away.
It's a busy morning, but as one PM, Aluka retreats to the kitchen with a bag of blood to microwave. Ben is washing up, his too big jacket rolled up to his elbows as he scrubs. Kira lounges at the base of the small stove used to heat staff meals, enjoying the warmth left from the twins' baked beans on toast lunch.
As Aluka opens the door, he's hit by a wall of sound- Ben has the radio up at an ear deafening screech, and he's dancing on the spot, swaying his hips to the beat of Oasis' latest hit.
Aluka has always loved music- he's been to Mozart's first performance, was at Woodstock when Hendrix burnt his guitar, and is now a rabid fan of British rock bands and the screech of metal stringed guitar.
However, he also likes his ears intact.
Aluka pads over the stereo, though he could stomp as hard as he could and Ben still wouldn't hear him over Liam Gallagher's bellowing, and spins down the volume with a decisive forefinger.
It doesn't register on Ben for a second, and by the time he spins around, protest on his lips, Aluka is humming the bass line absentmindedly and squeezing his O Negative into his favourite mug, getting ready to nuke it.
"Hey, I love that song!"
"I love my eardrums more." Aluka replies, tapping his fingers on the counter.
"Oh, didn't realise it was you." Ben laughed nervously and ran a hand through his wild hair and Aluka's lips pursed slightly.
"Yes, even you're not forthright enough to tell off your boss on your second day."
Ben grinned widely, and Aluka twitched a smile back. The microwave alarm went off, and he retrieved his lunch.
"How are your living arrangements?"
"Eh, Joey's pulled the stick out of his ass, so we're getting on just fine," Ben shrugs, and Aluka's heart sinks ever so slightly.
He'd been hoping, with just a tinge of scheudenfroide, that the argument between Ben and his latest roommate, a twitchy elementalist who hadn't mastered any of his elements, despite being in his late twenties, would escalate until Ben needed to find a new place to stay.
His house was still too empty.
"Well, if things ever return to such a state, know that I have a spare bedroom, and unlike Joseph, I have no problems with Kira." Aluka took a sip from his mug, and received an affectionate head butt from Kira for the comment, while Ben's grin widened to an almost inhuman degree.
"You're awesome, man!" Ben gave him a soapy, wet hug, and Aluka knew that if he still had blood in his veins, it would have flooded his face, turning him the same colour as Ben's crimson jacket.
That week, at the meeting Aluka insisted on every Wednesday morning, tempting his employees in with free espressos and muffins, Ben brought up The Question.
"So, what is this place actually called?"
Aluka blinked.
Jared and Max shrugged, "We don't know. We've just been calling it Aluka's cafe."
"Really?" Aluka frowned, "That doesn't exactly sound good."
"Seriously, what's it called?"
Another round of shrugs was forthcoming, and Ben looked taken aback. "Well, what's written on the menu?"
Aluka picked one up, and read off, "Menu."
"On the sign?"
"We don't have a sign," Aluka told him, and shoved another muffin in Ben's direction. The kid was too skinny.
"Aprons?"
"They're blank."
"You mean you've been running a pretty successful cafe for over a year without giving it a name?"
Aluka shrugged, "Does it need one?"
"Well, yeah," Ben replied, chomping down on the muffin. Aluka watched closely as he took another look at the muffin before digging in enthusiastically. Although he'd never tell his staff, Aluka used these meetings to test out new recipes- he couldn't do it himself, as his taste buds were more or less non-existent, his tongue smooth, without the rasping of a human's. Vampires couldn't, didn't, taste.
"What would you suggest?" he asked, and it was Ben's turn to shrug.
"I don't know."
"How very helpful," Aluka said, and turned to the twins.
"Aluka's cafe?"
"The Cafe?" They suggested in unison, and Aluka wrinkled his nose.
"Leave it for now. We'll think of something later." Aluka stood up, picking up the platter of baked goods as a symbol that the discussion was over, and began the business of getting his unnamed cafe up and ready for work.
Two weeks later, he came in to see the arrival of a large, driftwood sign above the door, "Cafe, The" carved amateurly on it. A hanging sign with the same painted on it hung above the register, and new menus had been printed. When he took his apron out, "Cafe, The" had been painted across the chest.
He turned to Ben, who hovered anxiously next to him, waiting for some kind of sign.
"I like it."
The naming of 'Cafe, The' seemed to symbolise a change in Aluka's life. HE spent his lunch break actually taking a break, leaning against the counter in the kitchen amiably chatting with Ben and scratching Kira behind the ears. Evenings weren't so lonely anymore, as Ben seemed to have decided that he would live in Aluka's house without actually living there, leaving only to sleep, and even then only when he remembered too.
Almost two years later, Ben called in sick for the first time ever. Aluka was naturally worried, and stopped by at Ben's flat after work, not bothering to do anything other than pull off his green work apron, leaving him in an AC/DC tee-shirt with coffee stains on the sleeves and a pair of ratty old jeans.
He knocked three times smartly, on the cheap wood composite of Ben's door, frowning at the peeling paint and dirty surroundings.
"Ben?"
"Go away!"
Aluka's frown deepened exponentially. Ben's voice was too deep, a little hoarse, and definitely miserable.
"Let me in!"
"No!"
Aluka pulled an elastic out of his pocket and tied his hair back, straightening the sleeves of his white undershirt.
"If you don't let me in, I'll let myself in."
"I never gave you a key."
"I have supernaturally enhanced strength. What makes you think I *need* a key?"
There was a sulky silence, and Aluka rolled up his sleeves a little bit, pulling back his weight to deliver a kick that would fling the cheap door the length of Ben's apartment. Although he didn't know it, his eyes had begun to glow faintly, and his teeth and nails had lengthened.
"Fine."
Aluka smiled pleasantly as the door opened, and pushed his way into the flat. A twenty year old man sat on the small, brown and orange striped couch, wrapped in Ben's quilt and nothing else.
He looked like a tired version of the vampire's young friend, eight years in the future. He had the same dark, spiky hair, although it hung long, chest length, and the same caramel-coffee skin stretched over a well muscled chest and six pack. His eyes were the same toffee brown colour, and even the empty piercings on his ears were the same, three in his left arch and one in the right lobe, although there were no ornaments in them.
"Ben? Where are you?" Aluka kept a close eye on the stranger, nostrils flaring as he tried to catch Ben's scent in the air.
The stranger seemed to shrink on himself even further, forehead wrinkling depressingly.
"Here."
"What?" Aluka tilted his head on one side, and supposedly-Ben leaned his head on his hands.
"So it turns out you were totally right. Joey was a total asshole, and was friends with some people who were willing to give him a hand in screwing up the kid who was showing up their mate." He swallowed, almost painfully, "Most notably, a witch who happens to specialise in the more painful aging curses."
"Ben?" This time, Aluka sounded a little less disbelieving.
"Yeah." Ben clutched his quilt tighter, and Aluka leaned in, until there was only about an inch of space between their faces.
"Uh, yeah, hello to you too, Aluka." Ben said, obviously unnerved.
"Hmm." He breathed in deeply, and frowned again.
"Yeah, I'm usually not the one saying this, but, uh, personal space?"
Aluka licked him.
"What the hell?!" He flailed off the couch, falling onto the linoleum floor in a tangle of sheets.
"Wait here," Aluka gave him an appraising look, "I'll be back with clothes," he shook his head disbelievingly, "Ben."
With that, he swept out of the flat, every inch the European prince, and headed towards the nearest clothes shop.
He was fast, as efficient as ever, and within fifteen minutes, Ben stood in front of him, shifting uncomfortably as Aluka inspected him.
"So, what was with the, uh, the sniffing, and the, uhm, the licking?"
Aluka pursed his lips, straightening the fit of the army style jacket on Ben's ridiculously broad shoulders.
If anybody had told the vampire that the weedy little thirteen year old who washed dishes in his cafe was going to grow up to be over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, muscled arms and incredibly long legs, he would have had to smother a smile. But no, Ben looked like he could probably carry Aluka the length of a football field and come out smelling fresh as a daisy.
"Just checking if you were you."
"Your scent." Aluka explained, before taking Ben's hand and dropping a pile of piercings into it.
"Huh?"
"Go pack what you want to keep. And put in your piercings. You look naked without them." Aluka ordered, crossing his arms.
"But-"
"Go!"
Ben fled.
"And don't think we aren't going to talk about that tattoo on your back, Ben!"
"I'm not thirteen anymore, Aluka! I can get any tattoos I like!"
Once Ben had loaded up what he wanted, Aluka hustled him into the back of his car, and pulled into the traffic.
"You know, I never really realised how small this car is," Ben mused, knees around his ears.
"You'll live."
"Yes, but will I ever unfold?"
"You're moving in with me," Aluka declared, and Ben blinked.
"What?"
"You obviously can't be trusted to look after yourself." Aluka explained, "I have a spare room. You're moving in."
"And if I don't want to?"
Aluka shot him a rather unnerving smile.
"Great! Moving in, huh? So, uh, which bedroom do I get?"
"I'm feeling magnanimous. You can pick." Aluka tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
"Now, tell me more about this degenerate fire starter room mate of yours, and his 'friends', Ben."
"Wait, are you going to kill them?"
Aluka was silent.
"Oh come on, man. I'm fine. Just, taller, is all."
"Joseph's last name is Wards, correct?"
Ben nodded.
"I will make some inquiries."
"But you're not going to kill anybody, are you?"
"I will attempt to restrain myself," Aluka lied, and Ben smiled faintly, "in the mean time, I will leave you to get settled. There is enough money in the kitchen for you to re-establish a wardrobe and get some human food in the house. I should be back in a few hours." Aluka pulled into a park ridiculously quickly, screeching to a stop right in front of his front door.
"Ah, okay. Clothes, food." Ben nodded.
Aluka tossed him a copy of his front door key.
"This is for you. Don’t expect me back until dawn. I expect you to be asleep by then."
"What? Dude, I'm twenty!"
"And I am over a thousand. Is your age relevant?" Aluka raised an eyebrow, "Have fun."