He dispensed them both, sent them someplace quieter indeed,& then wiped his mouth, warm & content. Someplace where he'd never have to hear their calculating mental chatter again. It was damned hard for him to understand or adhere to the rules the others had given him. It was true, this was all new, and until it had happened he'd never given belief in vampires much thought. He certainly hadn't asked for this. But from the very first, the actual first time he had hunted, the killing & the drinking of blood had come natural to him. As he'd told Kurt (ok, Kirke now, if that's how he wants it) he enjoyed surviving, and the fact is he enjoyed the rush of this the most vibrant sustenance he had ever taken. Who would even WANT to go back to eating cooked foods, drinking flat liquids? And he could hear them, smell their bad intentions, their shitty little thoughts. How could Kirke NOT want to take these lowlifes down? Why DID he have moral misgivings when they were so asking for it, most of them? It puzzled Dave. In spite of his recent conversion from ordinary guy to bloodthirsty predator, Dave was ok with himself & his new way of life. He actually thought of himself as one of the good guys, & his sleep was untroubled by day.
It had been hard for him to deal with Courtney as he had. His instinct now was as Kasi's, he'd looked at the woman and he thought of all the fucked up things she had done and said in the past. And all he could think of was blood. all he could see was red.
He lowered himself to the ground and cradled Kirke, lifting his head off the concrete & resting it on his knee. It was only his realization how important this woman WAS to Kirke that stayed his hand. Kirke himself was in no shape one way or the other to make a decision & yet Dave knew the decision he would've made.
Dave's eyes glowed so brightly his head hurt with the effort of it, trying to pull off the trick he'd seen Kirke use, trying to make Courtney think as he wanted her to. "Go away, Courtney, you haven't seen shit." he said menacingly.
But he was only a new vampire, & she the most willful tough bitch he'd ever had to lock horns with. She had come having heard Taylor's cry, yeh, but she'd been out there, somewhere, all along. She'd wanted to hear, & to find them.
Ever since she'd heard Dave had disappeared she'd been curious. Oh, it was true, they didn't like one another. She hadn't liked him for a while now, & the rift they already had had was blown wide open when Kirke had died. killed himself. been murdered. whatever had happened that fateful day in April 94.
But Courtney'd never been the kind of grrl to let things alone, & when she'd heard that Dave had just weirdly and inexplicably vanished, she wanted to know where he'd dropped out to.
A million phone calls later, wheedling, hounding & intimidating just the right sources, & she had a good idea where to start looking. An insider slipped her the info that Taylor Hawkins had received a bizarre late night phone call & hightailed it to Paris, and this more or less confirmed what Courtney'd already figured.
So there she'd been, in that alley, and Dave really felt he had to pat himself on the back that he'd handled it so well. It had seemed to him for a few minutes Courtney was NOT going to back down. She was just staring at Dave, him with Kirke lying beside him, her ex-husband, her veritable love slave, who she hadn't seen for 6 years now.
And would she have been bad for Kirke if he'd shook off his torpor & acknowledged her? Dave was sure of it. Oh, he'd never believed all the outrageous conspiracies that she'd KILLED Kirke, no, but he wouldn't half doubt she drove him to it. Or knew the one who had murdered him, if murder it was. No, Dave didn't like Courtney, & right then his every instinct screamed, Kill her. He didn't even WANT to eat her, blood like that was only for spilling.
But he knew Kirke wouldn't want this.
"Get out of here, Courtney," Dave reiterated,"nothing. There's nothing here for you to see. You're in an empty alley, & you're getting sewer shit on your nice new shoes."
Finally, slowly, she'd turned and gone. And Dave was able to turn his attention to the things he really wanted to tend to.
Kirke, for one thing. But Taylor had come to, & was beginning to freak out. No one was paying him any mind, keeping him in check. He was seeing, experiencing all of it, & it was traumatizing him.
Kasi, meanwhile, had dealt with the ambulance driver. And if she'd been proud of Dave for his fast-acting, his maturity, his good use of his powers, well, she never bothered to tell him. She'd been too busy trying to figure out the ambulance, & if she could get away with stealing it. Dave reluctantly left Kirke where he waslying & went to calm Taylor.
Taylor had, of course, been bitten by the rogue who'd caught him. He was feverish from bloodloss & in pain. Dave sighed. He couldn't just dismiss Taylor in this state. He would have to keep him, for awhile anyway, in spite of the others' protests.
"Can you get up?"
Taylor had nodded, slowly struggled to hsi feet with Dave's aid, crying softly, like a lost child. "Listen," Dave said carefully, "you're gonna help me move him. Alright?"
Taylor followed Dave's gaze to the prone body of Kirke, lying curled over on his side now. Taylor's eyes widened. "K-k-k," he stammered, unable to spit the word out,"that's Kurt. Holy shit!"
Dave wanted to kick himself for not realizing Taylor's reaction. Moreso, he wanted to kick Taylor. "look," he reiterated slowly," this is not about Kurt Cobain. Got me? no. this is about YOU. This is about me. This is about US,picking that guy up & moving him someplace safe. Ok? ok."
It had not been ok, tho. In spite of his fast thinking in response to Courtney, no one was happy with Dave's other choices. Least of all not Cronus. When Kirke was deposited at home a shivering, catatonic mess, Cronus had wanted to kill Dave and Taylor both- had come quite close to killing Dave, actually.
Kirke was in no shape to intervene on Dave's behalf- the glimpse of his ex-wife, seeing him there at his worst, had simply been too much for him. He was closed up like a telescope, shuttered up in his own mind, & not opening the door.
Kasi wasn't there to vouch for Dave either.
And for once, Dave got a healthy taste of fear- for it was he Cronus blamed, he who got the brunt of Cronus's anger.
Dave had simply assumed he'd be stronger than the obviously older & more slightly built Cronus- imagine his shock when he found himself effortlessly picked up by the back of his neck & shook like a kitten, so hard his teeth rattled.Cronus roared at him & probably would have slammed him headfirst into a wall or flung him into the fireplace.
But it was Taylor who intervened.
"please, nooooo!" the mortal was sobbing,on his knees.Dave was his boss. Dave was kind of his pal. And Taylor was just freaked, none of this was making any sense to him, except that he did NOT want to see Dave die like this.
Cronus depostied Dave unceremoniously on the carpet, & spoke quietly for some time to Taylor. The mortal musician was wide-eyed, shaking, & Dave wished he could hear the exchange between them but everytime he so much as looked in that direction, Cronus would GLARE at him, eyes glowing with a furiousness brighter & more painful to Dave than sunlight.
He stayed where he was, next to Kirke, crawling around the carpet like a bad dog.
Finally, Cronus had deigned to come speak to him. Not until Taylor was secured tho, calmed & even laughing lightly, wrapped in a warm smoking jacket & drinking brandies like a fish.
"You are only useful insofar as Kurt needs you. You will remember this. And you will revive him. Is this understood?"
It was. and tonight, Dave hoped, as he walked away from his dinner of nefarious barhoppers and back towards Cronus's huge house, tonight would be the night he woke Kirke from his torpor and figured out what to do with poor Taylor. Tonight.
He hoped....