Serum

-Three-

“You don’t believe me do you?” Conner sighed. “Fine, just let me finish your feet and I’ll prove it to you. At least let me do that before you try to run from me or something, I just thought you were above all that. You seemed so open minded.” That stung mentally, so I returned my feet to him. I had always considered myself very open-minded and willing to believe anything provable within reason. Conner gently finished with the iodine and bandages, then got to his feet with a sigh.

“I thought I knew you pretty well. Just... I would hate everything I thought I knew about you to be wrong... because you’re..” I took a breath “crazy...” I gulped. “Please don’t think that I’m not open-minded, I just need something…” I considered what I would do if I needed to run, with my foot bleeding, it wasn't likely to turn out very well.

“I understand” Conner’s voice barely reached me, but when I looked up, he was sitting right beside me. “Will this do?” Conner stretched his lips away from his teeth. For a dizzying moment I didn’t notice anything different other than his bite didn’t seem quite right, then suddenly everything became clear. Conner’s upper canines were longer than what should have been allowed, stretching below the straight line of his other teeth to overlap his lower teeth, almost stretching to the gum-line. Not that they were too very long, but just long enough to where if you inspected it, you could tell. Also, his lower lip, which he had pulled down, had two indentations on the inside, “pockets” so to speak where the canines would easily fit without causing any harm to the inside of his own mouth.

“Is that proof enough?” Conner asked after releasing his upper and lower lips. I gently shook my head, a bit skeptical.

“People can have surgeries and things done now..” I stated hesitantly.

“Ok, how about this.” Conner's body blurred out of my sight like a paint smudging. “I’m over here.” He said from the doorway across the room. The iodine bottle and bandages were missing. Uncertainly, I got up and hobbled my way towards the door, looking for a trick or trapdoor. Again a blurring, and gentle hands lifted me into the air and the room blurred this time, making me dizzy, and a little sick to my stomach. Then we were inside the small room that had been remade into a kitchen.

“Better?” Conner’s voice said from behind me. Dazed, I shook my head a bit to clear it.

“Well you’re something I give you that.” I joked weakly. “A magician, at the very least, but how come…” Conner shook his head, cutting me off.

“We don’t have time for that right now. I need you to help me with something. We’ve got to do something about masking your scent so my sister can’t find you. You see, though you can’t smell it, and your feet have stopped bleeding, the smell of your blood is potent even to me all the way across a room. I could easily track you down, know where you’ve been and follow you wherever you go. The sooner we get the smell off of you and out of here, the better.” Conner explained then blurred out of sight once more. I limped out of the kitchen area into the main room. Conner’s voice floated from the front.

“I have clean clothes for you, and we're going to have to do something about your scent. I’ll take your PJ’s far away to try to distract Lana. I’ll leave the room while you change.” He called. I changed quickly, using the old trick of pulling the dirty shirt out from under the clean one while changing, just in case. I called to Conner when I was done and he raced away with the bloody pajamas. When he returned, he looked sheepish.

“I'm sorry I have to do this, but it's the quickest way...” Conner mumbled, and then wrapped me in his arms, rubbing all over me like a cat.

“What?!” I exclaimed, trying to push him back. “What are you doing?” He stepped back voluntarily, there's no way I could have moved him.

“I'm covering your scent with my own. And um.. sorry for this too..” He spit on his hand and rubbed around my neck, then disappeared to reappear with a hat, tucking my hair up into it before before making me sit and rubbing his hands up and down my legs. I was blushing hard before he made it to my knees. At least I could say he smelled nice, it was really a very subtle scent, barely detectable by my own nose.

“I have a question, while you’re not “blurring” around.” I said to distract myself.

“Ok, shoot.” Conner responded lightly.

“So I suppose it’s not true that vampires are afraid of crosses.” I offered.

“Are you kidding, I’m terrified out of my wits.” Conner joked. I gave a nervous giggle, made worse as he worked his way up my thigh.

“I never would have thought…” I trailed off.

“Yeah, I know.” Conner told me. “Ok, I think that about does it, now help me descent the room. I’ll tell you where you need to rub.” Conner left the room and returned with a couple of towels he rubbed vigorously through his own hair. He pointed out everything I’d sat on, touched or stepped on. Conner finishing everything about ten times faster than me, and while we worked we talked somewhat nervously, not sure how to treat each other in light of the new situations. Personally, I was more concerned that he'd just basically rubbed himself all over my body and I was definitely feeling a little bit distracted about it. And I really should be trying to figure out if he was a crazy person or not, because everything he'd done was a little nuts. Though I would like to have him rubbing my skin again, maybe a little higher between my thighs next time... I shook my head and squeezed my thighs together.

“I’m going to go outside to help obliterate some of the scent trail, I’ll be back as quickly as possible.” Conner stated. “Just keep quiet and be very wary.” He said somewhat hesitantly.

 I hunkered behind a pew, hiding uneasily while I waited for Conner to return. I didn’t even notice my feet throbbing anymore as I debated with myself about what to think. One: I definitely thought Conner was sexy, a little too much now that he'd touched nearly every part of my body pretty intimately. I shifted, squeezing my thighs together again, trying to stop imaging his hands on me, breathing deeply and quietly. But, and point two: he stated he was a vampire. Did I believe him? He was unbelievably fast, that's true, but the teeth thing could be dental work/surgeries. I'd never actually seen him drink blood. I didn't know how else to test him. Throw garlic at him? What if he was nuts? Three, and probably most importantly Conner had been gone for a long time, and this place was getting a little spooky. Or maybe I was just getting a little spooked. I took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. The church doors swung opened and I saw Conner. Unthinkingly, I jumped up and ran as quickly as possible towards him, ignoring the pain my feet were trying to get me to notice. I was so worked up that I just wanted to be next to the one familiar face in the room. A sudden blur off to my right momentarily distracted me, and when I turned back towards Conner, his expression had changed to one of intense apprehension. Time suddenly slowed as Conner shouted something incomprehensible. There was a sharp jab at the base of my skull and the world disappeared.