Apologies for the delay in getting this up. Also taking the chance to warn you, it might be a while before another. Leo finally left me alone, to the point where I'm out of ideas for the rest of the next chapter. Meanwhile, my head's been buried in Strangetown, where certain residents have been using my brain as a football :smt120 Translation: If I'm feeling brave enough, you'll see another story popping up here pretty soon... :angel:
Anyway, on to the chapter. Improvising abound this time sadly, you'll have to bear with me on the pictures, but overall they could be worse
*****
Chapter Twelve – Change of Heart
I cling to him as though it’s our last time together, for it may well be. At any rate, I start to wonder if it’s worth wearing eyeliner as again I become aware of it smudging.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I tell him, speaking into his ear as I feel the warmth I’ve missed for so long.
“I’ve missed you too,” he says, pecking my cheek, before we indulge in a lingering kiss.
It is only Dad’s voice that interrupts our reunion, and it’s not even aimed at us, but at Alec’s Mum.
“What more do you need?” he asks, “Why do so many adults think we can’t feel real love?!”
“You’ve barely lived!” she claims, “You fall too fast, you get your heart broken…”
“That happened with Dad,” Alec explains glumly, “We moved here after they broke up.”
“I see,” Dad nods, before looking back at her. “My parents broke up too, and they’d been together for over thirty years. It’s not something you can foresee or prevent you know.”
“I know that,” she relents briefly, before deciding we may as well sit down if we’re going to talk properly. “Look, he’s thought he’s loved before…”
“That was different Mum,” he chips in, before clutching my hand. “
This is different. I’ve really never felt this way before…”
Dad leans forward, knowing full well I’ll hear all he says, but he continues unmoved. “Leo’s a good kid,” he says, “Okay, he can be a cocky little… twerp when he wants to be, but still… he loves your son, he won’t hurt him.”
I snigger at the predicted put-down, but decide against lightening the mood before it’s ready to be lifted. Instead I remain silent, gripping Alec’s hand as I eye his Mum intently.
“I have been around a lot longer than all of you put together,” Mum tells her, “I know well the difference between infatuation and real love. I too have thought I loved, but only with Evan has that really been the case.” Emphasising her point, as she clutches Dad’s hand, she indicates her wedding ring. “Is this not a sign of our feelings for each other?” she tests, “We have been where these two are now, despite having three children and our own dwellings. We have had bother of our own to deal with, and now we have witnessed it once more.”
“Not that this is the time to ponder her use of language,” Dad remarks dryly, maybe answering her thoughts, “but Emily’s nearly two hundred years old. That’s why she talks differently.”
“Wow,” is all his Mum can reply with. I suspect her head’s still spinning from little things like Dad’s unprecedented lion’s roar earlier.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too when he told us,” Alec chips in. “It took some convincing before Kii would let him invite them to our party, but they’re nice guys.”
“Look,” Dad suggests, perhaps in a peace offering, “You can come round ours if you like, meet the rest of the brood…”
“Well,” she shrugs, “We were half-way through dinner…”
“So were we,” he replies, “There’s plenty to go round though. We may be kids, but we know how to run a home.”
“You don’t need to prove anything you know.”
“That’s not why I’m offering,” Dad says, but I suspect he’s lying. “Just a chance for us to know each other better, you know? Since these two care so much for each other…”
She looks between us while the grip on our hands remains firm. Eventually she smiles, rising from her seat as she accepts.
We get back home, and come to the mirror in the hallway. Now a lot happier, and with the mood much lighter, I notice Dad give a cheery wave at the reflections in the glass. I chuckle as my left hand lifts and knocks against what the mirror sees as an invisible wall, but looking back I know it to be his chest. He giggles as he clutches my fingers and pulls my hand about, both of us looking back at the mirror where it seems as though I’m playing tug-of-war with an unseen force.
Crack!“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!”
“Oh Leo,” he whimpers, “I’m so sorry!”
Emily tries to get to his hand, which he now keeps pinned under his good arm. Meanwhile, not surprisingly, his screams had alerted his siblings, who slowly advance.
“What the hell…?” Jo asks.
All I can give is a clueless shrug, my attention focused on Leo and on trying to uncover his hand.
“We were just playing,” Evan utters, “I think I broke something…”
“Can someone retrieve the first-aid kit please?” Emily asks, still trying to get a look at his hand.
“Come on sweetie,” I coax him, “She’s trying to help, she can’t do that if you don’t show us your hand.”
Slowly but surely, as Luca arrives with the kit, Emily and I manage to pull his hand into view, although I’m starting to wish he’d kept it out of sight.
“Good Lord,” she breathes, gently examining his fingers and prompting a series of yelps as she does so.
All four of his fingers look as though they’d been caught in a hydraulic press. Misshapen, bruised, even bleeding from where I can see fragments of bone piercing the skin, and they’re already beginning to increase in size. For Evan to say he’d broken something is a gross understatement.
Luca approaches with the open box, and he also cringes on seeing his brother’s hand. I notice their Dad slowly walk away to what looks like their front room, with Jo going after him while their Mum treats Leo, who cries out intermittently at the slightest touch.
“We’d better get him to hospital,” Mum states, rummaging in her purse and producing her car keys. “Come on.”
“Oh, thank you,” Emily smiles gratefully as she accepts. Between us both, we get Leo into Mum’s car and we head off.
Evan doesn’t look upwards to face his daughter, but instead mutters his reply while continuing to direct his distress into his fingers, fumbling as he speaks.
“We were just playing,” he explains, “I grabbed his fingers, pulling them about.” At this point, he demonstrates with his own hands. “All of a sudden I felt something give, and there was this horrible cracking sound even the humans could hear…”
“Ouch,” she winces.
“That’s not quite what he said.”
“So I heard!”
Evan leans forward, his hands pressed to his lips before he speaks again.
“I forgot my strength,” he utters, his mind reeling.
“It happens Dad…”
“Yeah, that’s what scares me.”
He then looks up at Jo, coming to a decision, both of them unaware at first of Luca’s presence, but neither alarmed when they notice.
Jo and Luca exchange hesitant looks, but it’s him who speaks.
“You’ve always loved being able to do all this stuff,” Luca points out.
“Oh sure, at what price?” comes the reply, “I mangled your brother’s fingers tonight, in play! What’s gonna be next, your neck?!”
Luca lowers his head, uncertain of how to respond. Evan reaches into his back pocket and pulls a note from his wallet.
“That should be enough,” he remarks, looking between his children, “Can one of you promise you’ll get me one in the morning please?”
All they can do in reply is nod, quickly burying their relief on hearing his choice.
My left hand throbs like crazy. No longer the shooting, excruciating pain I felt earlier, but enough to keep my face scrunched into an expression of discomfort. We all sit in an awkward silence while awaiting a free doctor, which happens sooner than we anticipate. A tanned male doctor with brown hair glances in our direction, and engages in what becomes a heated discussion with the receptionist before turning to face us.
“Leo Sedoni?”
I rise expectantly, as does Alec. We both follow him into an examination room, but as we all sit down and we see him close-up, neither of us can help the bewildered frown that plays upon our faces for a moment.
“So, what happened here?” he asks, a question I have to keep from aiming at him as I remember we’re here for a reason.
“Oh, well, both my parents are vampires,” I begin, more to explain the situation.
“Right,” he acknowledges, unmoved. He looks familiar too, another reason for me to not be surprised at his indifference.
“I was messing about with Dad in front of the mirror,” I continue, “He grabbed my fingers, just in play…”
“Me, and probably Mum too, heard this crack,” Alec supplies, “Evan thinks he “broke something”, I’d say crushed would be more accurate…”
“Evan?” the doctor checks.
I nod in reply, waiting for him to finish his notes as I sense there’s more to come.
“Evan’s your Dad I take it?”
Again I nod, wondering if this is going anywhere.
“I remember Evan,” he muses, “We went to the same school. My brother Rowan’s engaged to his twin sister.”
“Oh right,” I acknowledge, holding out my hand as directed before pondering aloud. “He mentioned Aunt Amy…”
“Mm,” he muses as he unravels Mum’s handiwork, “So he’s still a vampire, huh?”
The pressure on my damaged hand causes me to wince. Once the dressing’s removed, I see for the first time, the true extent of the damage Dad unwittingly inflicted, a sight that causes even the doctor to flinch.
“Damn, he made a good job of it, too,” he observes, laying out my hand to investigate further. Testing the movement of my fingers does nothing more than trigger a pained yelp, the nerves in my hand reacting badly to the sharp pain registered by a routine exam.
“We’ll have to get this X rayed,” he deduces, glancing at Alec, and perhaps noting the way he’s been caressing my shoulder the whole time as he speaks again. “When your boyfriend said crushed, he plainly wasn’t kidding.”
He applies a temporary splint to keep my fingers still, but as he does so I take the chance to ask a question of my own.
“What happened to your eye?”
He gives a sad smile as he works, disdain showing through in his voice as he explains.
“I happen to like guys too,” he begins casually, almost indignantly, “I’m not the only gay doctor here, and I’m not the first to feel it, but I was in the closet for a reason…”
“Oh boy,” I groan, already guessing what’s happened. He gives a knowing sideways glance as he finishes applying the dressing.
“This guy happened to be one of the guys I used to go to school with, one of them who outed me too. Thought I was feeling him up while treating an injury, gave me a nice reminder why I never make the first move.”
“Thought it might be something like that,” I growl, not hiding the anger bubbling inside.
He raises an eyebrow accompanied by a wry smile, before applying an elevation sling.
“Yes,” he muses, “My boss advised me to take the rest of the night off to simmer down, but… what with seeing you two in each other’s arms earlier, it was like a tonic I guess.”
“Know what you mean,” Alec says, “You know you’re not the only one, yet it always feels that way.”
“Keep that raised,” he advises in a change of subject, and decides to lead us to the X ray department. “I need to grab an ice-pack, there’s one on the way.” So saying, he allows himself a mild wince as he clutches at his eye. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
“Poor bloke,” Alec mutters as we watch him go.
“Yeah,” I agree as we enter the room, my mood dropping through the floor as I crash into the waiting seat.
“Great,” I mutter in dismay, wincing as I feel another painful twinge in my injured joints.
“Has this never happened before?” Alec asks.
I silently shake my head in reply. “Nope,” I add, “I’d never even seen him roar like that before. A playful snarl here and there…”
“He just wanted to tell Mum his kind exist,” he smiles reassuringly.
“Oh, I know,” I agree, “It just spooked me a little.”
“Hold on, roar?” he checks, “That was him?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I thought we had a wild cat loose or something!” he chuckles.
I snigger in reply. “You think that’s bad,” I tell him, “Better stay indoors on a full moon.”
“Werewolves too?” he groans.
“’Fraid so,” I reply, “If you haven’t seen or heard any yet, well…”
“Leo?”
My head turns at the doctor’s voice, and I begin to rise from my seat.
“Better get back to the others,” I tell Alec, before pecking his lips. “See you in a bit.”
The X ray doesn’t take long, and before I know it I’m back in the waiting room with the rest of them.
“Everything alright?” his Mum asks.
“I hope so,” I tell her, “The look on that doctor’s face when he saw them though…”
“Yeah, so Alec said,” she replies. Mum remains quiet, as though lost in thought. I decide after a while to either interrupt or add to whatever’s being chewed over in her mind.
“That guy knows Dad,” I remark idly, “Went to school with him. So did the lady who made me over, funnily enough.”
“Oh, really?” Alec quizzes with interest.
“Yeah,” I reply, “Emilia, her name is. Mentioned that I’d end up older than my parents – I gather a lot of these guys have been nagging or hoping for him to take a cure.”
“Huh,” he muses, “Got that impression from Doctor Staropoli too, just from the way he was talking.”
I peer at him, intrigued. “Where’d you find out his name?” I ask.
“From his name badge,” he shrugs innocently in reply.
“You’re more observant than me,” I smile, before pondering his appearance. “Come to think of it, he looks familiar.”
“He attended our weddings,” Mum pipes up, “It was part of a double ceremony, the other being his older brother and Evan’s mother.”
“Marco!” I recall happily, “That’s why he looks familiar – they look so damned alike!”
“So it was a double wedding?” Alec’s Mum asks, I suspect more to make conversation while we wait.
“That is correct,” Mum replies, “We are not a wealthy family, even less so then. Those two are, and when they heard of our engagement they invited us to join them.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, “Marco’s the guy who got me dressing up in that fancy white suit.” So saying, I give a theatrical shudder while Alec laughs.
“Aw, you poor thing,” comes his teasing reply as he strokes my hair. “You look good in a suit!”
I wear a grin as I look back at him, my good hand upon his face.
“You look better,” I tell him, my smile taking on a mischievous air as my eyes light up. “Suits you!”
The Aussies groan, while Mum and I giggle.
“That was awful!” he complains. I’m on a roll however, as much as I can be given my predicament.
“No it wasn’t!” I counter, “That was… almost bad. I can do worse!”
“I know!”
I look back in mock offense. “You’re not meant to agree!” I protest, prompting another fit of giggles. I have to stop though, when my fingers tell me off for jerking them about in my merriment. Doctor Staropoli approaches with a tell-tale large envelope to beckon us to another room, and this time all four of us follow as the mood becomes sombre once more.
