Chapter Text
The sun glares down upon the world, and Scaramouche’s shirt clings against him in fright. Or because of the sweat, that works too.
Scaramouche couldn’t care less. He’s halfway through a long road trip, not able to do anything to occupy himself while driving besides listening to the radio playing shitty country music or feeling the air conditioner desperately try to bring down the temperature of the car. Clearly, it isn’t working well enough. Once he passes the millionth dead bush in the dry fucking desert he’s zooming through, he decides for the billionth time that he should find a gas station and take a break or something of the sort. The only thing stopping him is that there is nothing for miles.
Road trips fucking suck.
Scaramouche takes his hands off the wheel and cracks his knuckles. There isn’t much point in steering if the road is infinitely straight. And while he’s at it, he takes a good swig out of his rapidly draining water bottle. If Scaramouche were to get into a car crash right now, he would be very pleased. It would be far more interesting than looking at the same desert he feels like he’s spent lifetimes in.
One new thing catches his eye. And no, it’s not another rock that’s shaped weird. It’s a sign. Or a mirage, but hopefully a sign. And this beautiful decrepit sign is telling him he’s approaching a gas station. He can bear a few more songs about tractors knowing he can move his limbs soon.
Soon enough, Scaramouche passes the mountains that were hiding his precious gas station away from him. He could almost shed a tear. Or maybe the dust that seeped into his car had gotten into his eye. He pulls into the gas station and parks next to a pump.
“Fuck yeah.” He whispers to himself. He picks up his phone to check the map. His phone says there’s only half an hour left until he reaches his destination. Half an hour until he’s home. Except he can’t relax then, oh gosh, of course not! Because he has to unpack. He isn’t returning to his old house, but a new one. Which means a new room, and also a new roommate. Scaramouche definitely is not in the mood to deal with people, so hopefully his roommate is quiet.
Scaramouche sighs, sluggishly opening the door and swinging his feet onto the concrete floor. His body feels so stiff, and his muscles don’t want to comply as he moves to fill his car with gas. He closes his car door with a fling of his arm, and plods towards the little gas station shop. His flimsy ol’ baseball cap does nothing to fend away the sun as he makes his way into the next shelter from the star that has no concept of personal space.
When the doors slide open, Scaramouche is met with the instant gratification of being in a chilled room. He could melt on the spot if he didn’t have bones, but that’s probably what most boneless humans do. Anyways, he took his time walking to the refrigerated section at the back of the shop, twisting his torso left and right to rid his back of its aching stiffness. If he was actually as stiff and wooden as he felt, he’d be breaking into many tiny pieces and giving people splinters.
He feels the chill radiating from the fridge door, and when he opens it he is met with pure bliss. And maybe he stood there in the cold for longer than it takes to grab a water bottle, but he has to savor every second he spends away from that sunny hell. He walks up to the register, ignoring the cashier’s weird stare as he pays for his drink, and bravely enters the living nightmare once more. He paces quickly back to his car and into the shade to remove the gas pump from the tank, then hops back into his cage on wheels.
Scaramouche turns his key and gets back on the road, but this time it’s not an infinite stretch of sand. There are some buildings around, and he can roughly make out homes scattered in the distance. Sunset draws nearer, and the sun is somehow brighter than before, making Scaramouche wish he’d brought sunglasses with him.
Growing bored of listening to only the struggling air conditioner, Scaramouche turns on the radio, hoping for something other than shitty country music. He hears people conversing, meaning it’s probably some sort of dumb trivia or the news. Weird, why are they talking about vampires? Who even cares about them anymore? They probably stopped being cool years ago. Scaramouche tunes in to the channel for a laugh, though. It’s something different at least.
The way they describe the situation makes it almost seem real. They talk about incidents of vampire attacks, even including statistics from real cities. It’s kind of boring though, they make it too serious. Scaramouche switches to another station, but alas, it’s more dumb vampire talk. He receives a text, and responsibly checks his phone while driving, leaving the vampire rambles to play on in the background.
Kazushart 5:16 PM
hey r u getting this vampire stuff too?
Scaramouche 5:16 PM
call
Soon after his text sent, his phone begins to ring. Scaramouche turns the radio off and accepts the call, turning it to speaker mode upon answering.
“Scara, are you hearing about vampires too? Is this real?”
“Hey, are you high again? There’s no way. The entire concept was probably made up by a middle-schooler, so there’s no way vampires would exist in real life. It’s made up. ”
“Uh, Scara?”
“What?”
“Every official news channel is covering this. I think it’s real.”
Scaramouche coughs out a dry laugh. “It’s probably just some weird internet trend. Don’t sweat it.”
“If I get killed by a vampire, don’t show up to my funeral.”
Scaramouche rolls his eyes and hangs up. Vampires my ass. Now this nonsense is going to linger on his mind when he’s supposed to be relaxing when he gets to his new home. Speaking of which, he’s nearly there. A nice town with colorful shops and buildings pressing against each other, and a neighborhood full of nearly identical houses.
He follows the instructions his phone spits at him, turning right and left and going straight whenever commanded. And eventually, he finds himself parked in front of the building he’s seen many times, but only in photos. It has several houses packed tightly together, and a weird looking ginger sitting against a wall. He wasn’t hoping for a complimentary ginger to come with his house, but he got one anyways.
Scaramouche opens his car door, sliding out of his seat and exposing himself to air that finally doesn’t taste like a mouthful of dust bunnies. The breeze rushes around him gently, and he slams his door shut and opens the trunk to pull out his backpack. Most of his belongings were already at the house, thanks to his mother. He swings the backpack onto his shoulder, then closes the trunk with a clicking sound.
His steps echo in the empty air as he walks to his house. He’s not in the desert anymore, yet it still feels pretty deserted. Scaramouche isn’t sure he’s seen a single person outside today. There was some movement within houses and shops, but nobody outside to take walks or go shopping. The only person he’s found today is this weird ginger by his front door, and Scaramouche decides to avoid him. I don’t want to catch gingeritis.
His shoes clang against the rusty stairs that creak with his every step, and he makes his way to his front door, keeping a prominent distance between him and the curled up being. When his hand finally lands on the doorknob, a voice calls out to him before he can twist it.
“I don’t recommend that.”
Scaramouche whips his head around and sees the ginger staring right at him. He closes his eyes to gather his last bit of patience. “Why not?” He asks, crossing his arms.
“The AC is broken. It’s hotter inside than outside right now.”
Scaramouche laughs. Not happy laughter, it’s angry laughter. He dejectedly sat again, this time against the door next to the lanky man. “So you’re my roommate, right?”
“Yup, my name’s Childe. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, great.”
Silence grows between them as they stare at the only thing of interest, which is the slowly setting sun. And of course, Scaramouche’s mind wanders to the vampires.
How long has this been happening? I mean, if it’s real, of course. They’ve probably been hiding for a while before this, right? Why the outbreak now? And, since there are so many, I wonder if there are any around me? I probably passed one of those fuckwads on the drive here. Maybe I should’ve crashed the car. Actually, would that even kill it? Are they even the tiniest bit human? Don’t they turn into bats and shit? I don’t think vampires are human. No way our species would evolve that way. The biggest thing we’re doing is starting to stop growing wisdom teeth, so wh-
Scaramouche’s train of thought is broken by feeling something liquid splat on his arm. When he looks at his arm, he sees a bright red substance spreading over his skin. He shakes his arm with annoyance, hoping to fling it off, but his efforts are in vain. When his arm stops moving, the ginger swoops in and licks it off. Scaramouche freezes at the feeling.
“Hey, what the fuck? That’s gross.”
“Oh. Sorry, my popsicle melted, so I just…”
Scaramouche heaves out a sigh. He’s too tired to complain, so he simply watches Childe flash him a sharp grin. His teeth are a little sharper than they should be. And with those teeth, he continues to gnaw on his popsicle. No normal person bites popsicles.
This bitch is weird as hell. What if he’s a vampire?!
All freaky bitches are vampires.