dwaroxxx:kernezelda:dwaroxxx:Van Howlett vs Count Xavier and his charming SistersWell, someone’s in
dwaroxxx:kernezelda:dwaroxxx:Van Howlett vs Count Xavier and his charming SistersWell, someone’s in trouble *,..,*He found the Count in the crib room, bouncing lightly on his feet and cooing at the smallest of the lot as he held it to his chest and tipped a bottle of milk into its mouth. The baby gurgled and shot out a tiny hand to grab the Count’s finger. It was an incongruous sight, the bright tapestries over grey stone walls, the amber wood of the cribs, the warm pink of babies in their white or cream gowns–and the vampire in his tailored garments, silver-picked dark blue that highlighted his dancing sky-blue eyes.Logan watched, bemusement shading his constant suspicion, because of course, a predator like a vampire would want to bewitch a Hunter’s senses, hide their true nature until it was too late. Too many Hunters in the League had fallen to such tactics, although Logan didn’t recall any stories of quite so elaborate a screen. The cribs, the nursery, the little classroom and the wing of rooms given over to the children of varying ages housed in the castle - all of them appeared no more sinister than any other wealthy patron’s local charity effort.But Count Xavier was a vampire, which made any and all of his words or deeds suspect. No matter how charming he was, how kind he appeared over the past week–the staff members seemed fond of him, no sign of fear or coercion; the horses in the stables came eagerly for carrots and apples from his small hands. Even the hunting dogs in the kennels surged forward when let loose to swirl around his legs. It was a sight as charming as it was bizarre, for animals inevitably sensed and feared vampires, and would flee or attack the unnatural creatures.Humans could be fooled too easily, and a vampire with Xavier’s evident skills had no reason to play the charitable lord; he could take what he needed from any human with no one the wiser. The most likely explanation was that he was raising his own blood supply, a generation of loyal, obedient slaves who’d slit their own wrists on demand.With four vampires–the Count and his ‘sisters’–in the nest, they’d need a lot of human blood–How dare you!Logan startled, claws popping out before his conscious mind processed what he was seeing: the tiny Count clutching the baby to his chest protectively, brilliant blue eyes blazing with outrage. How dare you! he sent again, and the telepathic bolt jangled in Logan’s head with the echoing remnants of the first.“These are my wards,” Xavier hissed, and Logan cursed his own susceptibility to spitfires; because the Count with his small frame and fierce expression and bright blue eyes met every requirement–save for the fact of his being a corpse long past its expiration date, and a murderous damned soul–and his little fangs were not in the least attractive as they extended in his anger. “They are here because their own families rejected them, and I won’t stand for it, do you hear? As long as I’m here, no child in Transylvania shall ever be abandoned or afraid.”The baby’s little face scrunched up at Xavier’s angry lecture. At its first deep draw of breath, preparing for what would probably have been a piercing cry, the vampire tore its gaze from Logan and gazed down at it, and started bouncing again, cooing, and turned his back to Logan as if dismissing him completely.A vampire, turning his back to a Hunter with weapons drawn.Logan calmed his own reactionary pulse, and took a step back. Xavier didn’t turn round. The babies in their cribs shifted here and there, some staring up at gently rotating mobiles hanging overhead, others sucking on pacifiers, a few sleeping quietly. Bright sunlight filtered through gauze curtains to warm the far side of the room with its row of cribs, although the near side remained in shadow, allowing Xavier’s presence.Logan refused to apologize. It could still all be an act. He shouldn’t leave a vampire anywhere near infants; the thought of the potential slaughter made him sick. It wasn’t he who was the strange one here, with his fears and suspicions. It was Xavier, as atypical and inexplicable a creature as Logan had ever seen.Xavier, and his ‘sisters’ three, Raven, Emma and Angel, who seemed to neither fear nor hate Logan for what he was–a Hunter bent upon their destruction.If they’d been the monsters he’d come for. If he’d found a hint of deception. If he’d seen fear in the eyes of their servants, or found their coffins before becoming entangled in their lives–their unlives–their cursed existence.Unfortunately for his mission, he’d found nothing. The League of Hunters kept track of unusual occurrences, of odd details, and over generations, could build frameworks of understanding, send agents to investigate potential dangers to humanity. Logan had been assigned to the Xavier case for precisely such a long-term build-up of clues.Over the past two hundred years, scores of young Transylvanian women and men had emigrated to England, to France, to Germany and Belgium, indeed, across the Continent and abroad. They matriculated at universities while living on Xavier stipends; they married, lived and died apparently unremarkably. But of those later generations interviewed by the League, or their parents or grandparents if still alive, all claimed to have been raised by the Count as his wards, and all described the same man, which was impossible. That was almost as long as Logan had lived himself. While the hope that he might have found a fellow immortal lent its weight to his mission–the most likely explanation was the simplest–Xavier was a vampire, seeding his evil purpose into the world.Said purpose had not yet been discovered, hence Logan’s mission.*Xavier’s sisters found Logan in the kitchen after he’d retreated from the nursery. For creatures who subsisted solely on human blood, they kept a well-stocked larder. The local beer was dark and rich, and the bread thick with grain and olives, warm and moist with melting butter where Logan was toasting it with goat’s cheese over the surprisingly newfangled stove (big, too, enough to feed the horde of children roaming the grounds when they weren’t asleep or settled into their classroom with their tutors [also housed in the castle]).The women settled into chairs at the table and watched him with unnervingly direct gazes: mahogany brown, ice blue, lush chocolate eyes piercing the layer of annoyed indifference that served to ward off most curiosity. Logan deliberately ignored them while he settled his warmed bread onto a plate, sliced open a thick sausage and–grinning mirthlessly as the ‘sisters’ gave him disapproving looks–a half dozen roasted garlic cloves. He smeared them over the bread, made a sandwich, grinned at his watchers and chomped down.Emma sniffed, Angel grinned back, disturbingly, and Raven frowned. “You’ll never get into Charles’ bedroom if you keep this up,” she said.Logan choked, coughed, hacked and stabbed his sandwich.Emma laughed, Angel giggled behind her hands, and Raven smirked. “I mean, you do want to find out where he sleeps, right? So you can stake him with your big wooden rod?”Logan tried not to strangle as his food attempted to go down the wrong way.Of course, it was then that Xavier came in, his accent distinct from any of the women, more pleasing to the ear than it had any right to be. Bloodsucker, Logan thought, quellingly, and drove down the image of the man’s–the creature’s–lushly wine-red lips (fed by blood, a murderer) sucking another extremity entirely, riveting blue eyes staring up…“Ahem,” Xavier said from the doorway, blushing as beautifully as any virgin (did he bathe in their blood?). Logan sucked in a breath or two, his face flushed from choking, and left his mind open for the reading, watching Xavier to see if he reacted. But the vampire only frowned, his hands behind his back and his spine straight. “I must apologize for Raven. While we do not bow to the strictures of ordinary society here, I hope you are not offended by her implication.”Logan pushed his plate and shambled sandwich aside. He rose easily, stalked across the kitchen, loomed as he reached Xavier–a creature shaped like a man, who once was a man, a man so very pleasing to the eye and ear, and whose being struck no dangerous resonance in Logan, beast to beast, Hunter to predator. Oh, Xavier was a vampire all right, a menace and palpable threat for what he was–but as to who he was–He could stop Logan with a word. With a thought. Logan could stop himself. Logan could stab Xavier in the heart or brain if he angled his hand the right way.Xavier didn’t move as Logan closed in. Logan splayed a broad palm over Xavier’s still chest, his unbeating heart. Xavier’s skin was cool but not cold, his color lively, not pale as death. He’d fed, but Logan smelled no human blood on his lips.Xavier’s eyes mesmerized without deliberate compulsion. Logan leaned in, leaned down, pressed his warm lips to lips soft and cool and opening in welcome.“Oh,” Xavier said, drawing back. His nose wrinkled. “Garlic?” He squinted up at Logan. “Really?”“Protection,” Logan said. “From vampires.” He raised his eyebrows.Xavier frowned at him, slipped away and returned with the stein of beer. “Protection,” he parroted, raising one eyebrow. “From bad breath.”He smiled up at Logan then, as sunny an expression as the cloudless day outside. “Brush your teeth,” he advised. “If you’re still inclined afterward to fraternize with the enemy, I’ll be in the third floor library.”Logan watched him leave, trim and lovely and deceptively human, The dark beer tasted of autumn, of anticipation. He headed for his bedroom and his gear, not hurrying but not dawdling, either.As a Hunter, after all, he had a duty to thoroughly examine his prey.Lmaaaao Maaan, I love Raven so much xDDD Brb, gonna laugh at Logan and his stupid sandwich for the next 15000000 years xDDD Zelda, you just made my day like woah, love ya <3 -- source link