Knox and his parents lived in entirely too different worlds. They’d carted him off to boarding school at the first possible opportunity, far away from the little cabin they resided in a scraggly forest by his father’s beach. His mother was a nymph tethered to thin trees and sparse vegetation, and it was close enough to the ocean for his father to visit. The cabin was a new development, a shelter built entirely for their human child. He’d spent his formative years there, vague memories of tiny feet sinking into warm sand and his mother’s ever impassive face. His father wasn’t around as much, off doing whatever it was sirens did, but Knox had been scared of his pointed teeth, the hissing lilt of his broken English. Knox’s human vocal cords couldn’t produce the harsh clicking and sharp noises of siren language, and it wouldn’t have done any good to know it anyway, so they’d learned English for him.

It was later, when he was older and in the few weeks of in between, when school session had just let out and it was too soon to stick him in summer camp, when he would reside in the cabin and look at his parents who might as well have been strangers, that he found the books. They’d argued after he’d went to bed, the crescendo of his father’s rough voice and his mother’s wispy tones had woken him, and he’d stared at the painted ceiling as he’d listened, counting the flowers his mother had made in careful brushstrokes and unending time. He didn’t know what they were arguing about, never given the opportunity to learn their languages, but the sinking feeling in his gut figured it was about himself. He had no point of reference to think it would have been about anything else.

It had quietened abruptly, the voices cut off by the slam of an uncaring door behind them. He had held his breath, waiting for five seconds, ten seconds, a minute, an hour before carefully standing, pushing his blankets into a crumpled heap at the end of his bed. He ventured into the rest of the cabin on light feet, trying to remember which boards creaked from when he’d been home briefly for winter break. No one was in the cabin, and it was too dark to see their figures outside. Knox was ten, and he’d watched a horror movie with his bunk mates about a cabin in a dark secluded area just like this one. The structure settled often, groaning and creaking of the wood against the foundation, strange knocking noises that were easily rationalized as branches knocking against the walls. It was nighttime though, and there were no streetlights like there were in human towns, no other buildings on their stretch of land. Suddenly the creaking seemed more sinister, now that he was alone, images of the movie coming back to him. He shivered at the thought of the first woman who’d been killed, a blond lady who’d been gossiping on an outdated telephone, her fingers twirling through the looping wire that connected the receiver. Carefully curated shots of a looming, shadowy figure had creeped behind her, and she’d been stabbed in the back before she’d even had time to scream.

Knox had felt unreasonably scared then, alone in the darkness of his parent’s home, and he’d fled to the room his mother slept in when he was there. It was empty, save for her bioluminescent fish that cast a bluish tint across the space, and Knox crawled underneath the bed, wrought with a sudden fear of the dark and an overactive imagination. It was dusty under the bed, and his knees dug into the various buttons and paintbrushes that’d been forgotten there, but he felt marginally safer. There was a pile of books shoved into the corner, but it was too dark to read the words. He’d fallen asleep there that night and had woken to his father’s glowing green eyes and clawed hands digging into his shoulder as he dragged him out.

A couple of days later, he remembered the novels hidden beneath the bed, and he’d snuck into her room again to look at them. There he found titles about raising a human infant and English workbooks. They’d been well worn, scribbles in a different language filling the margins and sticky-note tabs of different developmental stages. Knox hadn’t known what to do with the warmth in his chest at the knowledge of the abandoned books.

“You okay?”

His head snapped up towards the voice, effectively breaking him from his reverie. August was leaning against the opposite bookshelf in the maze-like structure of the nest’s library, a ridiculously large room that’d been built into the ground, copious amounts of lighting and high ceilings keeping the place from feeling oppressive. His posture was the picture of ease, even as he eyed the section Knox had been staring at with concern. Why a group of four queer vampires would need an entire section for parenting books was beyond him. He threw a glance back at the shelves, grimacing as his eyes caught the title, There are Moms Way Worse Than You and deciding he didn’t really want to know. They probably just picked books at random, if the sheer size of the room was any indication, and he felt bad for whoever got put on cleaning duty of this place.

“Yeah.” He settled with, unwilling to offer more information. He didn’t know how long he’d been in the library, lack of windows or clocks vaguely reminiscent of that of casinos. It would be easy to get lost here, between the seemingly never ending bookshelves and steady light. Perhaps he already had, and they’d sent their youngest to retrieve him.

August looked like he wanted to ask, lips parting to speak, but he hesitated. A beat passed in silence, before he settled on, “Callum wanted me to get you.”

“They’re in charge of babysitting me tonight?”

His smile was almost apologetic, “It won’t be that bad. I know Cal can be prickly, but he’s a soft teddy bear underneath.”

Prickly was an understatement. Prickly assumed that the worst that would happen is that Knox would get pricked, but he was certain that if given the chance, Callum would slash him with their spindly thorns and leave him to bleed. According to them, the only reason they hadn’t yet was because of August’s arbitrary fondness of him. It felt like it was only a matter of time before August grew bored, and then Callum’s fangs would descend upon his trachea. Whatever cushy stuffing they were hiding was specifically meant for his nestmates, of which Knox certainly wasn’t.

“Sure.” He said amicably, taking August’s hand when he offered it. He swings their linked arms together as they weaved between bookcases. August’s hand is cold, which was expected but his heart is fluttering anyway, and he racks his brain for something to say, “They’ll want to gouge my eyes out from how boring my job is.”

“Nah, he’s old, eight hours moves in a blink for him,” August paused, then grinned sheepishly, “Don’t tell the others I said that.”

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

The chip bag crinkled as Knox aimed the barcode at the scanner. The man on the other side of the counter wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, some sleepy-eyed guy in a t-shirt and jeans. He had a strange assortment of snacks before him and the odd hour made Knox think that the man might be high, but really, it wasn’t any of Knox’s business. He rung up the canned spray cheese next, along with the various types of candies piled on the counter. He mumbled out the total, an exorbitant amount of money because it was a convenience store, and people paid for the convenience of the items. The man would’ve saved at least seven dollars if he’d made his way to the Walmart down the street, but again, it wasn’t his business.

The man inserted his card as the machine directed, but it gave him an error, making him take the piece of plastic out and reinsert it. This process repeated twice more before the machine allowed him to swipe his card. Knox paid it no mind as he bagged up the mismatched items, the card readers they had were old and it did that nearly every other transaction.

The printer spit out his receipt and Knox shoved it into his bag, thanking the customer as he handed it over. The little bell attached to the door rang as he left, and he turned his attention to the creature behind him. Callum was leaned up against the cigarettes, looking ridiculous in their designer clothing against the surgeon general’s warning signs dotted along rows of cancer sticks.

The juxtaposition was something that belonged in a photoshoot, a model showing their edgy side, complete in Louis Vuitton and carefully smeared eyeliner. The shots would be well lit, then edited with darker filters to really bring in the angst, half of them black and white.

“You’re staring.” Callum pointed out, not that they particularly cared. Their red eyes had been boring into the back of his head all night, but apparently him looking was an issue.

“I’m just in awe of your powers.” He said, throwing a cautious glance at the security camera that watched his counter. He was sure it looked like he’d been talking to himself most of the night, but he’d also set his phone on the counter, so he could just say that he was recording notes for himself. It would still look like he was staring at the cigarettes and talking to somebody, but if he was weird enough about it he was sure his managers wouldn’t bother him too much.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” Callum replied.

Another person stumbled into the store. A woman this time, and by the way that she’s swaying precariously on her way to the alcohol, she’s drunk. Knox rings her cases of beer up quickly, hardly glanced at her ID when she produced it. She’s well over twenty-one, but he still had to pretend for legality purposes. She left as well, without so much as a glance towards the vampire behind him.

“Have you ever considered a life of crime? You’d make such a good thief.” He asked, imagining the idea. He could see Callum dressed up in tech-wear, a dark ensemble with useless straps and buckles, all just for the show of it. They could walk around in whatever they wanted, since they could make humans see whatever they wanted. They’d called their power glamor, which he thought was a nice name for it. They hadn’t explained much beyond making people hallucinate.

Callum’s perfect face twisted into something like disgust, affronted, “I would never put myself into a position where I’d need to stoop to such levels.”

Knox didn’t know if it was an issue with morality or classism but considering how casual they were about the idea of his murder, he was leaning more towards classism. Knox huffed, “Hypothetically, then. How easy would it be to rob a bank?”

They sighed as if he were a child that they were humoring, “Logistically, the invention of security cameras has really dampened my power. I can deceive minds, but technology doesn’t bend to my will. I would have to employ someone to dismantle any possible footage before I could rob a bank.”

“Petty theft would be easier then.” He said and Callum’s lips twitched.

“I suppose. My glamor is best used to keep things hidden.”

Knox hummed, letting the conversation drop there. He was curious still, but he didn’t want to push too far. Another couple of hours crawled by in companionable silence, only marred by the sporadic customer. Callum hadn’t moved once from their spot against the cigarettes, an unnatural stillness that left him feeling a little unsettled. He thought about offering them the stool, but it seemed like vampires didn’t need to move much.

Eventually, Callum broke the silence, “Why do you want to keep this job?” There wasn’t anything malicious in their tone, not like they’d been before. It was more curious, maybe a little confused.

He turned to look at them, “Because it’s mine.”

“Okay.” They said, and that was the end of it.