Dreamwidth Vamptober writing prompt: @meli_writes — Vampire whose partner has to keep them in the closet — literally, the werewolf pack is over
“Well,” Red says in that kind-yet-ominous-yet-dismissive way, “you know what happens to vampires who get caught in a wolfpack.”
And Shammy has the terrible urge to throw a little tantrum about it. No! she’d yell. I don’t fucking know! I’ve been a vampire for all of two years and nobody tells me anything, it doesn’t come with a handbook, the closest thing I have to anyone who knows anything is you, and you keep me in the dark and lie to me all the time because you’re a toxic controlling shithead!
“I just mean,” she mumbles instead, shrunk inside her three-sizes-too-large sweatshirt, hands retreated up ragged-cuffed sleeves so her balled fists won’t show and get her into trouble, eyes meekly down, “if I’m gonna be in the way I can just go out—”
“You’re not gonna be in the way,” Red says. “And there’s gonna be other werewolves roaming the neighbourhood, yeah? And they won’t all know you. They won’t all know you’re mine. This is to keep you out of trouble, Shammy.” She softens. “I know it sucks,” she says. “I know it doesn’t feel like I’m looking out for you. But it’s like — you know when people get a new animal, and they have to introduce it to one they already have? Very carefully? I’ve got you, and I’ve got the pack, and I need them to get your smell and associate it with me before they meet you.”
That sounds kind of true, in the way that a lot of things Red says are kind of true: kind of not, but carefully pitched.
“You want to shut me in the closet,” Shammy says. “All night.”
“Hosting is an obligation,” Red says. “It’s my turn. I want you somewhere I know I can get to you if you need it, somewhere they can get used to the scent of you around. Somewhere nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“I could just stay in the bedroom,” Shammy bargains, but she already knows the answer’s no.
“It’s a werewolf party,” Red says. “People are gonna get drunk, and people are gonna fuck. They’re gonna use the bedroom. They’re gonna use it whether I like it or not.”
Shammy can see how drunk horny werewolves being surprised at finding a vampire in a confined space with them is likely to be a bad time.
“You want to shut me in the closet,” she repeats, quieter, mostly to herself, in a way that’s not so much confirming or even asking, but resigning herself.
“Nobody’s gonna try to fuck in the closet,” Red says, and pats her cheek.
Not the point! Shammy doesn’t rage at her.
For somewhere too small to have nowhere but the closet to safely stash Shammy for the evening, you can fit a lot of werewolves. Like a clown car, Shammy thinks, and thinks she’d better not ever say that aloud to Red. They’re loud and drunk and the air tastes thick with fur and forest and fucking. Shammy’s almost glad to be in here; a small dark space with nobody but her, despite the noise that’s barely dulled by the door. She sits on the pile of winter coats on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, and rests her head against the wall. She falls into a slow state of not-thinking, breathing, imagining the smell of her pulsing off her in waves as she exhales, mingling into the air to inoculate the pack. Mark her, eventually, as tolerable.
Somebody eventually, abruptly, pulls the door open. She blinks up at them, jolted out of not-quite-sleeping. It’s hard to say who’s more startled.
“What are you doing down there,” says a bemused werewolf with a side shave and a silver stud in her nose, some labyrinthine design inked into the side of her head.
“Red said—”
Red said that everyone knows what happens to vampires who get caught in a wolfpack, only, judging by the look aimed down at her, with no more than brow-wrinkled mild concern in it, apparently nobody clued in the wolves, meaning she just fucking lied, and the only reason Shammy’s been shut in a closet all night is for Red’s amusement.
“Oh, honey,” the werewolf says, watching the series of expressions Shammy morphs through.
