Fangs

by Sapphic

Unexpected Visitors

"Well, not really." Vinyl said, shrugging her shoulders and tilting her head slightly.

We were walking down the road, just now coming back from our trip down to the bar to check up on Shakes and her Sister. We decided to wait out the sun, both wanting to enjoy each others company with a nice walk home. She was the only one who admitted that, and I couldn't really so no to that. One reason being she was the only one that could get us home, using magic, another reason being that I actually wanted to walk with her. Of course, I didn't admit that aloud, I played it off with "That sounds lovely."

We passed most of the time with idle conversation, with the occasional food and drink from Vinyl, who knew the layout of the building like the back of her hoof, until the sun was far enough behind the buildings for us to get by unharmed.

We were about half way home, just chatting and enjoying each others company, when I decided to bring up the still very vague topic of vampires.

"We don't need blood, it's not like it's our only food source. Think of it like a good snack." She said, sounding confused herself. I had asked her if Vampires needed blood to survive.

"I mean, I've went for months without it, but that came with a few side effects." She said, more confident in that since it was a fact.

"Like?" I pressed onwards.

"Head aches, basic stuff like that." She said with a smile.

It was interesting really, the myths and legends certainly did mislead us when it came to a description of how Vampires act, what they eat and that sort of thing. They portrayed them as something like a beast who eats others, draining their blood and such. When I brought this up with Vinyl, she gave me a shockingly simply and valid response.

"We might have urges, but we still have common sense." She was rather amused at my interest in Vampires, I could tell by the look on her face when I would ask a question about them, what they do, and even how they did it.

The conversations and questions went of for the rest of the trip home and I still had a lot of other questions when we finally got back to my house. The trip seemed to be a lot shorter than I remember it being, but I decided to give it a rest for the night, I would have plenty of time to ask her later. Though I still pressed her for information all the way up to the front of my door, and that's when I decided to stop.

Vinyl went straight to the couch plopping down violently enough for her glasses to fall off and onto the floor. She had a big smile on her face too, big enough to make me smile too.

"You really want to sleep on that old thing?" I asked with a smile and a raised brow.

A scarlet eye popped open, looking at me.

"Unless you got somewhere else in mind, It's really my only option." She said with a shrug, closing her eye again. And the idea popped into my head again, and a blush lit across my cheeks.

She really didn't remember sleeping in my bed from before.

"Well...there is another place you could sleep." I said, scuffing my hoof idly across the floor as I looked down, not willing to meet her gaze if she looked up again.

Once again, she popped another eye open, this time with a raised brow of her own.

"Where?" She asked, clueless to my implication.

"How about you take a shower," I suggested. I had noticed on our walk home that she was practically covered from horn to hoof in dirt and grim, a variety of twigs in the occasional clump of hair.

"Then come and talk to me in my room." I felt my cheeks burn from embarrassment of the situation, but as I've said before, that couch is dreadfully uncomfortable. I have yet to understand how she is able to sleep on it.

I saw her hesitate, a bit shocked by my invitation, but that quickly turned to a quick and eager nod.

"Yeah...Yeah!" She said, trotting eagerly into the bathroom while all I could do was smile.

I had finally gotten back to the city, leaving the second the sun was bearable and running as fast as my hooves could carry me. For the most part, I had made astounding timing, arriving in almost an hour thanks to the perks of my species, that's not to say that fatigue didn't affect my kind though. I was panting hard, I had never pushed myself to that limit, and I aim to never do it again unless it is absolutely necessary.

I was in the city, lying on the ground panting, but in the city none the less and I still didn't know where to go to find Vinyl, but I did have an idea.

Basically, my idea was that, somehow, Vinyl had been broken out of whatever state she was in, or else she probably would have came back to the forest by now.

How she was broken out of it, I had another idea.

That other idea, was that that little group of friends of hers, those two sisters and that gray mare, had somehow shaken her from it.

From what I could tell, she seemed to be rather fond of that gray mare named Octavia, and thanks to a bit of digging around in the scouts department of the castle, I knew where she was living. I knew that Vinyl didn't have a permanent resident, or if she did she was extremely good at covering it up from everyone, from my job as her bouncer.

So, putting two and two together, I decided that there was a pretty good possibility that Vinyl was at the gray mares place, and if she wasn't, the gray one would probably know where she was. I was pretty good at negotiating, but thanks to our previous 'encounters', I had a feeling that she is probably going to be difficult.

"At least...it's something..." I said to myself in between pants, falling to the ground in an attempt to rest a little before heading out to Octavia's apartment complex.

While my body rested, my mind went to work, coming up with a way to get into the gray mare's apartment. I figured a classical "Through the window" approach with an, at first, reasonable approach and if things got bad, I could 'talk' some sense into her. If Vinyl was already there, then I could just skip that step all together and try talking to Vinyl; assuming she had been broken from that state of control.

The plan and assumptions were very "iffy", but it was really the only plan I had.

I picked myself up, the fatigue somewhat lifted from my body as I raised myself up onto my now sore hooves, and turned to a direction, not even sure if it was the right one, and set out in search of some form of way to tell my location. My first, and only, idea was to find a street sign somewhere in the night.

I had found a street sign, though it didn't really do anything for me. I ended up giving up on the street sign thing and asked a younger stallion stumbling along the street for some directions. He was quite the talkative one, whether that was his actual personality or the smell of liquor on his breath, I didn't know, nor care.

The directions he gave me checked out, I knew that when I found myself outside of the apartment building that matched the description, name, and address of the building the scouts department gave me.

"Well...I never would have guess that someone with Octavia's parents would be living in a modest apartment building." I said to myself, scanning the building up and down and finding the room on the floor that the department gave me. It was pretty high up, but some surrounding building would make getting there pretty easy.

I put on a small smile, picking the building that I would use to climb and get to the window.

I was sitting in my room, reading over a couple of old musical compositions while I listened to the running water that came from the bathroom. It was an old piece that I had been revising until I decided to take a break to try and get some more inspiration to continue.

I sudden sound shook me from my reviewing.

It sounded like it came from outside, but I wasn't sure. It could have been Vinyl showering, I had heard a few 'unusual' sounds from the shower while she was in there.

I brushed it off as nothing, returning to my music and looking over it; playing out the melody in my head over and over and making a few adjustments that I would have to add in later. It seemed to be coming along nicely for the most part, it was already pretty good anyways, but I figured this was a good way to pass the time while I waited for Vinyl to finish her shower.

The fact that I had tried inviting her to sleep with me so awkwardly was still lingering in my head, but she seemed not to notice it. Though that might be because she seemed to do nothing but like the idea, judging from that smile on her face when I invited her.

On the other hoof, I was quite proud at my reach outwards to bond with her, I didn't even think I would do it. In all honesty, once it was out and she was hesitating was the worst part, I thought that I had maybe took things too quickly, but she seemed to love it.

The sound came around once again, this time a bit louder than the first time. It was enough to make me put the paper I was reviewing down and go into the hallway and knock on the bathroom door.

"Is everything okay in there Vinyl?" I asked, a bit concerned from the sounds that I heard and still had no clue where they were coming from.

"Yeah?" She sounded awfully confused, so much so that I could here it through the running water.

"O-okay." I stuttered, walking away from the bathroom door and over to the kitchen, a bit embarrassed at my nosiness.

'Maybe some water will get my head thinking clearly...' I thought to myself, although, I was certain I wasn't imagining those sounds. I mean, I had heard them twice, so that had to count for something.

I got up on my hind legs to get a glass from the upper cabinet and filled it with some water from the sink. The water was refreshing, but I still had my thoughts about those 'sounds' that I had heard, but I figured I would let them go for now. For all I knew it could have just been a bird or something.

On my way back to my room, I heard another sound, a bit different and quieter than the other two and I could even tell it sounded like a click, but this time I could definitely tell where the sound was coming from.

My room.

I quickened my pace, thinking it might have been Vinyl, but once my ears picked up the sound of the still running water coming from the shower, I slowed down to a cold stop.

'If it wasn't Vinyl...Who was it?' I thought to myself, resuming a cautious walking pace.

I reached the door, the closed door.

I didn't close the door, I didn't even touch it when I left my room, which either means that something, or someone, else had closed it within the short time I had used to get a glass of water.

Something was wrong here.

I put an ear up to the door, listening for any sort of sound from the other side of the door, but I heard nothing. I was still suspicious about this, so I was cautious when I reach up to the door to give it a twist to see if it was unlocked.

It was.

I pushed the door open just enough so I could take a look at the edge of the room, which looked empty as it should be. I pushed it open slowly, scanning over the rest of the room slowly and matching it up to what I remembered it looking like when I had left. It was completely the same, except for a window, which was lifted up slightly, leaving a crack between the bottom of it and the window seal.

I raised a brow at it, my curiosity overtaking my caution as I moved forward to investigate it.

As I neared the cracked window, I heard the distinct sound of the door behind me shut.

My head swiveled around to see the sight of a familiar stallion. One that made my heart both sink, rage, and cringe all it once. It was that bouncer, Bigs.

*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*

My mouth opened to let out a scream, but he had already put his hoof over my mouth before it even began, turning my scream into a muffled sound. I punched him uselessly in an attempt to get him off of me, but he simply let them hit while he looked me in the eyes; a surprisingly calm and annoyed look in his eyes.

After about a minute, I had tired myself out.

"Done yet?" He asked, clearly annoyed.

I shot him a glare.

"Whoa, careful where you point that thing." He said in a sarcastic mock of my glare, accenting it with a big roll of the eyes.

"Look, I'm not interested in you, I'm here to find that mare you're so fond of." He said, taking on a more serious tone.

My eyes widened at that statement, but it wasn't because it was his goal to find her, but it was because she was so close; literally a few steps away.

"I'm assuming by that look in your face you know where she is?." He said with a sly smile.

I cringed in anger, but during that cringe, an idea popped into my head that turned that same cringe into a devious smile that was hidden under his hoof.

I opened my mouth, bringing it back down right on the skin of his hoof, causing him to back lash his hoof in what I assumed to be more surprise rather than pain, but it was all I needed. I'll give him credit though, he managed to only grunt at my bite that drew blood.

"Vin-" Was all I managed to yell before he quickly smacked his hoof back into my face and over my mouth, dazing me a bit.

All fell silent after that, Bigs's ears perking up, along with mine, to listen if anyone was coming. I heard the faint sound of the still running water, and my heart sank further.

She didn't hear me.

Bigs must have not realized it, maybe because he came into my room with the sound of lightly running water already present, but I did.

I heard something else after that, or rather the sound of something stopping.

My ears perked up at the sound of silence that now filled the hallway. The water had stopped.

This time, Bigs realized it, turning his head and staring at the doorway with a look of curiosity in his eye. He thought on it for a second, before a small smile curling up on the edges of his mouth.

"Hmm..." He lingered on the sound, as if he were thinking it over and deciding what to make of it.

"Looks like I've found who I was looking for." He finally said, coming to the correct conclusion, and turning back to me and giving me a good look at his smile. His lovely, twisted, cringe inducing smile.

"I suppose I should thank you..." He said as I continued to listen for anything outside. I heard light and slow hoof steps, not as like they were trying to be sneaky, but as if they were taking there time and nothing was wrong.

"Though you really didn't do anything," He continued, but my focus remained on the sound of the hoof steps drew closer and closer.

"but what does that matter anyway..." He continued to babble as I saw the door knob behind him begin to twist, his own voice drowning out the sound.

I finally saw her in the door way, well, half of her at least. The other half of her was blocked out by Bigs. She stood there with a towel over her head and two hooves working feverishly as she scrubbed her mane dry. The towel, and the pace she was rubbing at, also worked as an effective way to mute out Bigs's stupid babbling.

Lucky for her.

Bigs finally managed to shut up and turn to the doorway, thanks to the sound of the door lightly hitting the wall being loud enough to catch his attention. Now he was dead silent, as opposed to his cocky, near nonstop, talking just a few seconds ago. He seemed to be shocked, though I wasn't sure why.

Vinyl finally stopped ruffling her mane, letting the towel drop and hang loosely around her neck. She had her eyes closed, probably from the drying, but opened them up with a smile.

Thought the smile quickly faded at the sight of the bouncer, turning into more of a surprised look followed by two blinks and a double take. It was then that she seemed to understand the situation, me on the ground and Bigs on top of me with his hood over my mouth, and her expression turned to a frown, and then to a grimace of pure disgust.

"Nice to see you Vinyl." Bigs said, sounding surprisingly sincere, but I knew that must have been part of his cocky attitude.

"Get out." She said, using a sturdy voice, clearly not joking.

"Look, you need to come back to the cas-" He began in a calm tone, but was cut off quickly and rudely by the mare in the door way.

"No." She said curtly reminding me of the voice and tone she had used in the bar just a few hours ago. It gave my lips a curl of a smile.

'Guess she wasn't joking about that.' I thought to myself.

"I'm not doing this because I want t-" He began, before getting interrupted once more.

"I'm only gonna say it one more time." She said, a tone turning dangerously edgy.

"Get out." It was sinister sounding, backed by a brick wall of determination and a gaze that meant business.

Bigs lowered his head, shaking it with looked like dismay, maybe even some pity.

"You don't understand, my master wil-" He began before getting interrupted by a glow of blue forming between him and me.

He raised a brow at the look of the magic before realizing what was happening, but it was too late.

The blue pulsed, pushing me harshly, knocking my head and body back into the ground with an outstanding force, leaving me dazed, but unharmed for the most part. Bigs wasn't so lucky. The pulse of magic had sent him flying away from me and right too Vinyl, who's horn was now glowing with a bright blue.

The blue wrapped around Bigs, stopping him in mid fly and holding him above the ground helplessly.

She took her time walking up to him and staring him in the eyes before speaking.

"Come back again, see what happens." The tone was threatening and filled with a venomous hatred.

She lifted her head up high, raising Bigs off the ground even further, before dropping her head quickly and sending Bigs crashing down head first into the ground as well. The impact was enough to shake the floor I was lying on, and even knock a few things off my shelves.

I visibly cringed as his body stiffened up upon impact. The sight looked truly painful.

The grasp of Vinyl's magical aura faded slowly, leaving Bigs's body stuck stock still in the same position as he lay there.

Vinyl walked over to him once more, standing tall over him as her horn lit once more.

She bent over, gently placing her horn on him and holding it there as it increased in its brightness. It eventually became to much for my eyes to bare, causing them to clench reflexively.

When I reopened my eyes, Vinyl was still there, but Bigs was no where to be found.

Vinyl lifted herself back up, stumbling a bit as she reached her normal standing height, but stood tall none the less. After that, she turned her head my way before walking over to me and bending over.

"You okay?" She asked, her tone now sincere and kind, a big difference from her previous tone with Bigs.

I smiled in my head rocked state, slowly raising a hoof and placing it on her side.

"I am now." I said happily. It might have been the smack from Bigs that had me so dazed and comfortable, but whatever it was it was having an affect on how I was thinking.

Vinyl smiled though, just before picking me up and carrying me over to my bed and dropping me gently, even pulling the covers up.

I smiled at the gesture, but it turned to a frown when she only sat at the side of the bed, a hoof resting on my body as she watched the window with caution. Shame, when I wanted her to sleep in the bed with me, I actually wanted her in the bed, not sitting in it beside me like a babysitter.

"Are you going to sleep?" I asked after a good few minutes of getting comfortable.

"Yeah...just...gimme a second." She said, remaining ever vigilant on her quest of watching the window.

I gave her a second, a half an hour in fact, but she remained right next to me, her hoof now circling my body lightly as she stared at the window. I gave up after that, accepting her decision, but making the best of it.

I curled into her, resting closely at her side as she watched over me.

I have to admit, I felt safe and comfortable as I could be, and that was apparently enough for my body to agree that I was due for a good nights rest. My eyes closed, fading into a dark and comforting sleep, the last sight being Vinyl's eyes glancing down to me quickly before looking back up to the window, a small smile forming on her face afterwards.

I woke up, the darkness of the windows, that now had curtains covering them, told me that it was still night-time, but there were two things that were different with my room in this darkness.

One, of course, was the darkness that now filled the room, the artificial light that had previously lit the place was now absent, leaving a darkness that was easy on the eyes enveloping the room. Not only that, but it was a rather comfortable darkness.

The other was my new position in bed; I was no longer in a curled up spot, resting in Vinyl's side, but I was actually the one getting curled into. Vinyl was now curled into my own stomach, snoring lightly with her hooves pushed together, lightly resting in front of her neck. It was truly adorable.

I smiled at the sight, I couldn't help it.

'Never would have thought a vampire would look like this.' I thought to myself, admiring her occasional scrunch of the nose and twitch of the ear.

I dug in closer, the soft heat radiating off her body supplying all the warmth I needed to get back to sleep. I closed my eyes once more, the smile still gracing my face as I drifted back off into sleep.

When I woke up for the second time, the light was shining brightly behind the curtains, but didn't manage to make it into my bedroom. Fortunately too since the warmth from last night was still there, curled into my stomach. I smiled at the sight, letting out a content sigh as I relaxed back into the bed.

I sat there for minutes on end, enjoying the softness of the one sharing my bed until she began to stir. She let out a big yawn, and after hoisting her upper body up with her front hooves, blinked her eyes groggily a few times before turning to me and smiling.

"Mornin." She said lazily.

"Good morning to you Vinyl." I said with a smile, adjusting myself to sit more upright. I felt Vinyl put a hoof on my shoulder, getting my attention and causing me to turn to her.

"You okay from last night? You're sure Bigs didn't hurt you?" She said, dropping her tone to one with more concern. I only giggled at her caring attitude.

"Yes Vinyl, I'm fine, he didn't do anything." I said with a sarcastic, but friendly, roll of the eyes.

She was clearly relieved at hearing this, but that look of relief soon became a bored look of annoyance, followed by her plopping back down onto the bed, head to the sky and letting out a sigh that blew some of her hair up and out of her face.

"I swear, he doesn't know when to stop." She said.

"You seemed to deal with it well." I noted.

"Yeah, but what if I can't next time? What if he hurts you next time?" She said, making a good point that I couldn't deny, defend, or brush off.

We sat there, in an idle silence, both thinking about the possibility of that situation, the situation where I might be hurt. It went on for minutes on end, the silence was beginning to overwhelm me, but that's when Vinyl spoke up.

"We've gotta put an end to this." She said, still looking idly up to the ceiling.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've gotta find that old man, it seems like he's the kingpin in this whole situation." This got my attention.

"You mean the one that turned you against me, Shakes, and Sweeps?" I asked rhetorically.

"Yeah, that one." She said.

The conversation once again died back down into silence, both of us thinking still, but this time around, it was me that broke the silence.

The thought of her going back, of losing her again, it was unacceptable. Going back to that horrid forest alone, no way, not on my watch.

"Well, you're not going alone. That's for sure." I said, determined in not losing her again.

She turned her head, even lifting herself up off the bed with her front hooves again, and looked at me.

"Tavi, I really don-" I interrupted.

"No, you're not going alone, that's final." I said, sturdy.

"Octavia," She began, using my first name to show that she was serious. "Please, I couldn't stand it if you went along and something happened to you. I mean, if you got hurt, or ki-" She began, but I interrupted her again. How rude of me.

"No." I said firmly, my throat beginning to swell.

"I'm not losing you again, I couldn't handle that." I said, clenching my eyes shut tight and pointing my head downward.

"I can't handle it when you're gone, from the second you spent you're time here in my house, it's felt alive, but most of all, it doesn't feel empty." I began, the tears beginning to well up in my eyes.

"Every time you leave, my thoughts; They will always drift onto you, some way or another, and it's unbearable. My head, and my body, they can't take anymore of it." I said, finally telling her about how the times went by when she was away, something I never though I would do.

"So no Vinyl," I said, looking up to her with teary eyes. "I'm not staying behind if you go; I'm coming along."

She sat there, staring at me eyes wide, probably from the revelation. Her mouth was open, as if to protest more, but she slowly turned her head back down and shut it, a look of heavy though drifting in her eyes.

It wasn't too awfully long before she responded, but she did.

"A-alright." She finally said in a soft voice that sounded foreign to her normally lively voice. I looked over to her, she had a tiny smile on her face, and if my eyes weren't deceiving me, a blush across her face.

"We'll do this...together." She said slowly in the same soft spoken voice

I smiled at her decision.