Work Text:
The light shone through the big glass windows, bathing the room in golden light. It would've been beautiful, if it wouldn't have been burning his skin to a crisp. Scott quickly closed the blinds. He squinted and began reading:
"Florida man digs a 300 feet deep tunnel under a pavement, gets wildlife control called on him, physically assaults a member of the wildlife control, believes himself to be from hell and claimes to be named 'Orange Juice'"
He looked at his computer in disbelief, before laughing. People in Florida were up to some interesting stuff for sure. Shelby had claimed that Florida wasn't more crazy than anywhere else, the public record laws were just looser than anywhere else. He deliberatley choose to not accept that explanation and rather thought of Florida as the place people get sent to once they become too crazy for the rest of the world. Drift on the other hand had commented on how looking at public records and news for hours was a tad bit odd, but it was simply natural to start picking up some weird hobbies after being alive for over a thousand years. She'd understand once she'd be his age.
Scott rubbed his eyes and just when he was about to make some blood infused coffee, he froze. Staring at the monitor, the vampire skimmed the article again, as the realization dawned on him.
"On March 15th 2026, a Florida man was found breaking through the pavement of Citrus Boulevard from an underground tunnel. Due to an unkown reason, a passerby believed that he was a diseased bat and called wildlife control. Witnesses describe the Florida man asking if the place he landed at was the tenth circle of hell. After being told that he was in America, he got confused and asked what America was. The wildlife control realized that he was human and called the police. He hissed and attacked a member of the wildlife control, who sustained servere injuries. Reportedly, the arrival of police annoyed him and when asked for his name and age, he told a police officer that he was 425 years old and named 'Owenge juice', firmly insisting on the spelling.
Specialists have analysed the hole under the pavement and come to the conclusion that it couldn't have been dug without power tools, contrary to the claims of the Florida man. The repairs will approximately cost 3000 dollars.
The man is being held in custody for counts of destruction of public property and aggravated assault. He is currenly being tested for rabies."
"HOLY FUCK.", he exclaimed far too loudly.
Shelby came running down the stairs hurriedly: "Are u okay?? What happened? Did someone come here to kill-"
They stopped in their tracks once they realized that all of the vampires limbs were still fully attached and there were no intruders.
She furrowed her brows.
Scott turned around and lowered his voice, as if speaking about a forbidden topic: "Owen is alive."
"What?!"
She took a few steps forward to look at the article and began giggling loudly when she finished reading it.
He was nervously tapping on the table before, but Shelby's infectious laughter calmed him down.
"You're right, it's indeed quite funny.", he smiled.
"Should we", she burst out in laughter again, "visit him?"
The vampire looked at the clock tentatively.
"Visit him? I have important things to attend to today!", he claimed in an exaggerated voice.
"Like reading through public criminal records and laying in your coffin while crying about Avid?", she teased.
"You know about that?!"
"Scott, we live in a New York apartement with paper thin walls. I'm pretty sure the whole house knows by now."
The vampire felt a wave of embarassment crash over him.
"Goddamnit.", a few seconds of silence followed before he sighed, "But wouldn't you act the same if Drift died?", it was odd hearing himself speak those words aloud. Since when was he so open about emotions?
"Sure I would", their tone was getting a bit more serious now, "But atleast I'd go to therapy about it..."
He rolled his eyes. Not again.
"Oh come on now, how many times do we have to discuss this! I am not going to therapy! What would I even say? 'Hi hello I'm Scott, I'm an immortal vampire who still hasn't gotten over his boyfriend's death, he died over 200 years ago.' That sounds stupid! And also they'd put me into a psych ward immediatley."
"Hmm.., you got a point there.", she admitted before changing the topic, "Are we going to visit him now?"
"You can. I won't spend my precious time on the man who participated in killing Avid... Can't you go alone? Or with Drift?"
He turned back to the computer to close the tab.
"I can't go with Drift, she's working on an important case right now. And what's the fun of going alone?"
Shelby tilted her head, thinking: "What if I promise to drop the subject of therapy, if we visit him?"
"Seriously?"
She smiled.
"Yeah. Pinky promise."
He shook his head theatrically: "If that's what what it takes..."
***
Owen sat in a small white room. He guessed that it was a jail cell. The air was stuffy, it smelled of sweat and he still wasn't sure if maybe this was actually the tenth circle of hell. Had there been circles in hell at all? It was all a blur.
He still remembered Louis reading parts of 'Dante's Inferno' with him and there had only been nine circles, but maybe he misremembered. Oh sweet, kind, helpful Louis. He was probably watching from above.
Whatever this place was, it was better than whatever parts of hell he had been in before. Despite starving, not constantly burning was quite pleasant.
He was too weak to bat or go invisible. Every time he had mentioned wanting blood or biting someone, the humans whispered something about 'pleading for insanity'. His ears were assaulted by quite a lot of various legal jargon.
The realization that he had crawled out of literal hell through sheer will and determenation hadn't completly set in yet.
Suddenly, two very familiar faces appeared in front if him. They were on the other side of the bars, keeping their distance. He chose not to question how they got in.
"You're alive?!", Owen exclaimed.
"That was my exact reaction when I saw the news today.", the older vampire replied.
"I was on the news?"
"Not just that, you oficially became one of those Florida man cases!"
Shelby seemed oddly excited about this fact, whatever it meant.
"What's Floirda?"
She sighed.
"Nevermind."
Owen hadn't expected Shelby to not immeadiatly rip his throat out. Though, she had never seemed like the type to seek revenge. Scott on the other hand...
Both parties eyed eachother varily before he broke the silence: "So why are you here?"
"To free you!", Shelby exclaimed.
Scott stared at her with a tormented expression before nudging her: "Sorry, I think we might need to have a little private chat."
They both turned around and started whispering. Owen pretended to not hear what they were saying, he was too goddamn tired for this.
"Are u serious??"
"You gotta trust me on this, I have a plan. I like him as little as you do."
"Maybe it would've been beneficial if you would've explained this plan of yours BEFOREHAND."
"Please?"
"Fine, but only because it's you."
They were facing him again.
Scott cleared his throat: "Yeaaah, what Shelby said."
The younger vampire pulled out a key from her pocket. He opened his mouth to question where she had gotten it, but then decided it was best to not complicate things.
"Have you heard about the orange man?", she questioned.
"No? I'm the most orange, obiously."
"Well there's this guy called Donald Trump, people are calling him the most orange.", they explained.
Owen felt his blood boil. He had to defend his title.
"Then he must die.", he replied bluntly.
"Yes exactly", Scott chimed in, dragging out the 'a'.
Maybe hell hadn't been too bad, atleast he hadn't had to listen to this terribly annoying scottish blue haired snob.
Oddly enough, when Shelby opened the door and he was free to go, he felt a sense of gratitude: "Well thanks. I'll kill that one guy, but aside that... I promise I'll be good."
"I'm sure that you said that to Legundo too.", Scott joked. Shelby snorted, trying not to laugh.
He rolled his eyes in annoyance.
That time he had homoerotically drunken blood from Legundo didn't matter. And he didn't care about him. Nope. Not at all.
***
He had been surving in his bat form for a while now, not doing much aside from drinking animal blood. It hadn't been particularly hard to figure out that Donald Trump was the president of America, which was a new country. Well, new to him atleast.
He still hadn't completly found out what a president was, but it seemed to something similar to a monarch. In this case atleast.
Owen had been slowly making his way to the white house for a few days, which was north from where he had crawled out of the ground. It was nice seeing the night sky without any red and feeling the cold wind brush his wings.
A big, white building came in sight.
It was time to reclaim his title.
To make that man pay for how he defaced his honor.
There weren't many people around, it was the middle of the night afterall. The street lamps were illuminating the surounding area, insects were flying and buzzing around them.
The vampire turned into his 'human' form and quickly made himself invisible. He managed to slip past the guards easily.
Humans were pathetic. They always tried to hide from their fate. Through guards, walls, the police, weapons, armies. None of that mattered to Owen.
There hadn't been a single one that had escaped him.
He found himself in a great hall, with a red carpet and soft music. And there he was: Donald Trump and another man he didn't recognize-
Dancing.
Together.
Owen stood there, utterly flabbergasted, watching the men rhytmically move to the music. Surely they were not romantically involved. Surley.
Before the vampire could complete debating if the two men were together or not, Trump spun the other man around in a gracefull motion and kissed him on the mouth.
What year was it? 2025? 2026? He wasn't quite sure. He hadn't even considered that sociatal views would change, but it made him happy to know in the year 2025 or 2026 it was acceptable for someone to like the same gender. Maybe if Louis-
No. He was here to finish a job and he really didn't want to wait till things got more 'extreme' between the two men infront of him.
The vampire stepped closer and stabbed them with his claws. They let out a small scream before falling to the ground, their bodies lifeless, eyes hollow.
Owen licked his claws clean. His title of 'the most orange' was reclaimed and he had really missed the taste of bittersweet human blood.
He turned into a swarm of bats and flew of into the dark, cold night.