tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; In the wee hours of Wednesday
Rating; PG - 13, most likely
Characters; Tony Foster

darkest0knight and Eric Northman

itextedyou
Summary; Tony takes time out of his schedule to eat a sandwich and yell at a vampire. Same old, same old.
Log; Considering that most of his time lately had been spent in bed sleeping in between periodic trips to the kitchen to clear out another section of the fridge, Tony was more than a little eager to get out of the apartment. Even if it was just to go to a kitschy vampire bar that he probably shouldn't be going to in the first place. He could only imagine what Henry would have to say about it, but then again, Henry hadn't exactly been around to say anything. Besides which, Tony wasn't going to Fangtasia to gawk at the vampires or get himself in trouble, and he wasn't going there to offer himself as a happy meal.

He was going for the free cupcakes. And he was going so that he could tell Eric not to be a douche to his friends by luring them into a vampire bar without actually mentioning that it's a vampire bar. And possibly snacking on them, Tony wasn't quite sure about that yet.

But naive and clueless as Thom was, he was still a friend and Tony had ate his food and bled all over him which, in some weird and twisted way, made him Tony's. Growing up with Henry as the main role-model meant that some of his habits rubbed off and Tony could be as possessive with his friends as any vampire. People just did not mess with what was Tony's. It's why the Shadowlord got a one way ticket off the planet for messing with Lee and Mouse and everyone else at CB Productions, and it's why he was going to eat all of Eric's food and then rant at him.

It was an excellent plan. Tony still thought so when he entered the bar an hour later, figuring that would give Eric enough time to wash his hair a billion times. Vampires were so vain.

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Eric had, in fact, finished washing his hair-- twice-- before Tony arrived, and it was still wet after a half an hour in the air conditioning of Fangtasia and against the cold skin of his scalp. He was currently sitting at his own bar, perched only slightly more reservedly than usual on a stool as he leaned back on the bartop with both elbows, keeping an eye on the patrons and employees, as he always did. His head turned when Tony walked in, picking up on him immediately. Maybe it was Tony's own history with a race like Eric's, maybe it was the witch in him. He was interesting immediately, either way, giving Eric a feeling of unusualness which tugged his attention taught, like a wire. He had no intention of letting it snap.

Instead, he stood and stalked behind the bar, immediately reaching for a large glass and setting it down with a tap in front of one of the stools, waving Tony over with a half of a wink and a crook of his fingers.

"Here I was worried you would be a no show. Your vampire friend hates me quite a lot."

Tony wandered through the crowds to where Eric stood at the bar, a little surprised to find it still busy at this hour on a weekday but hey, it was the City and there were enough people here that never needed sleep anyway.

He could tell Eric from the others without the finger crook (and truthfully, it annoyed him a little to follow it. This wasn't some Dracula reenactment and he didn't have to come when the vampire beckoned). It was something in the way the little hairs at the back of his neck stood up. Something wicked this way comes...yeah right.

Tony walked over to the bar but deliberately chose the stool next to the one Eric indicated to sit on.

"It's not you," he replied. "Henry just doesn't like other vampires in general. Anyway, I don't need his permission."

"Of course you don't."

Tony's small acts of defiance may have pissed off another creature in Eric's position, but he wasn't of that kind of temperament, not with his cold-blooded humor and his snake nature. It only made him like the kid more. He reminded Eric of her; Sookie. In a few ways. All of these together summed to something which had his full interest. Reaching under the bar, he slapped a menu down in front of Tony and offered him a broad smile of flat, even white teeth and bright blue eyes.

"Tell me what you want to eat and drink. Unless you would prefer that I pick for you-- although I warn you, the last time I consumed your kind's food, burying mutton was still in fashion."

Tony's small acts of defiance were pretty much ingrained into him after years of living with an egotistical and overprotective prince-turned-vampire. He'd learned pretty quickly that if he wanted to survive the relationship with dignity intact, vampires needed to be made aware that they couldn't always get their way.

He considered Eric's fangless grin, then the menu in front of him with interest.

If it had been three days ago, or perhaps even two days ago, Tony could have ordered everything on the menu, ate it, and still had room for seconds. Magic, especially healing magic, took a lot out of him. But it had been a few days since he got out of the hospital and he had eaten a healthy-sized dinner already.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to milk Eric for the most expensive sandwich on the menu.

"That one," he pointed to the menu. "And a beer. And why the hell would you bury mutton?"

"Steak and cheese. Ouch. With or without mushrooms and peppers?"

He rolled his shoulders in a casual shrug, moving in his way over to the draft spouts and filling the cup with Blue Moon, their best-selling. Possibly only because the customers liked to be ironic. He slid the glass accurately down the top of the bar to set in front of Tony, before scribbling his order onto a piece of paper and staring across, waiting for an answer with the same small cat's smile stretched across his lips.

"And I don't know why you would. I do not remember as much, mostly because I do not care to, frankly. Did they not feed you at all in the hospital?"

"Hold the mushrooms."

Tony rolled his eyes at the sliding mug trick and let it bump gently into his fingers. The beer was cold and not light, which was really all you could ask for in a beer, and Tony ignored the niggling voice in his head that chided him for alcohol-use after a hospital stay while in a vampire bar. It was one beer.

"I burn calories quickly," he said, taking a drink and licking foam from his lips. "They fed me through a nutrient drip for the first day, and then hospital food the rest of the time, though I got a nurse friend of mine to bring me steak."

Eric finished writing up Tony's order and then pressed his lower lip between his teeth, making a whistle that was shrill but low in volume, and did its job to attract the cook out of the kitchen. Eric tossed her the pad of paper with a wink that meant it was on the house so be extra generous, and a quick, heavily accented 'tack tack' in thanks. His attention fully on Tony again, intense in the way a cat would stare at a skittering small thing that suddenly entered the room, he leaned forward on the bar until his face was closer, attempting for a moment to form a glamour around the two of them to keep others out.

It was oddly unsuccessful. Eric blinked and shrugged it off with barely a reaction-- although he would think on that, surely.

"Because of your age? Or because of something else about you? I hope it was rare, by the way. Good for your iron levels."

There was a shimmer of...something. Tony felt it and then he didn't and it made him frown for a second.

"I can eat a lot," he said idly, distracted before he pulled his attention back to Eric's suddenly closer face. "But in this case it's because I used some magic to heal a bit. And it was medium-rare. I don't eat bloody steaks."

The food would be done in only four or five minutes-- Eric would take that time to get to know Tony. Because he did, very much, want to get to know Tony-- and knowing that it would piss his 'friend' off even more was double for his proverbial dollar. Inching even closer, he laughed, a noise much deeper than his unassuming speaking voice.

"Magic. So you are a witch of some kind. That explains quite a lot about you...to me."

"Wizard," Tony corrected. Because being compared to Harry Potter and Gandalf was marginally better than being compared to an old woman with a wart on his nose and a bunch of cats. And beside, it's what Arra had called herself, and what she said he had potential for.

"I can manipulate the energies of the universe." And didn't that just sound pretentious as fuck when he had maybe four spells he could perform with any reliability.

He paused for a secondary listen to see how far along the cook was back in the kitchen, before continuing, smirk growing as his head hovered close to Tony's. He could smell the warmth of sunlight still lingering in his dark hair, laundry detergent on his clothes-- although it was slightly stale and old, enough so that it gave him a clue about how low-maintenance Tony was.

"If wizard is the appropriate term, then wizard is the appropriate term. That is fair. And I can manipulate the minds of humans, but you know-- not yours. That puts you in a very rare category, where I come from."

It was about then that Tony started to lean back, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"You've been trying to vamp me?" Which, okay, was bad but in a way it was nice to know Eric couldn't do it to him.

Eric fumbled for the barest second with an expression which clearly denoted how much he wanted to roll his eyes right now, and he missed Pam right then, honestly, because he could have used her to make all of the jokes he wanted to but couldn't seem to form under the circumstances. Vamped? Honestly?

The food came out and Eric snatched the plate with a halfway annoyed blur of an arm, setting it down in front of Tony before resuming his position leaning lazily on the fixtures.

"I wanted our conversation to have more privacy to it. Do you have a problem with that?"

'Vamped' was what he usually called the hoodoo Henry does when he wants to make people do what he says. It wasn't like it had an actual name.

Tony shrugged and set upon the food with all the vigor of a starving boy. Eating fast was part habit from when food was scarce and you had to be quick about taking what you got or you'd go hungry, and part necessity. He was still in recovery, after all.

"I don't think anyone else is paying that much attention," he said between bites. "But go ahead if you want. I wasn't trying to stop you."

"No. It won't work on you. It only works on baseline humans. No supes-- apparently nobody who can control the energies of the universe, either."

Look, it had a word where Eric came from. Which admittedly was not much better, but hey, Eric thought it was because he comes from a supremely high-maintenance culture. Raising impressed pale eyebrows at the rate the food was going down, he reached to fill up a second glass with beer and set it by the still partially full first one.

"Take human bites. Don't choke. It is incredibly bad for my business insurance. Plus it's a waste of food."

"Oh, I never choke."

Or at least he hadn't yet. Eric hadn't seen him down the truly appalling amount of food Thom brought him that one day. Tony couldn't remember actually eating most of it, really. One second food was on his plate and the next it was gone.

At least this time he was taking actual bites. And chewing. Tony eyed the second beer as he finished the first.

"See, it takes energy to manipulate energy. And I have to use my own in order to do it. If I do it a lot, then I need to put it back somehow."

A nearby barmop was used to sop up the condensation around the glasses of beer, and Eric threw it over his shoulder before taking back his leaning place near Tony's face. At the second part of his statement, Eric allowed himself a little chuckle, before popping his fangs, not necessarily in intimidation; because he knew he didn't typically need them for that. Simply to prove a point.

"Needing to put it back somehow. I believe that I can concur with your sentiment."

Unfortunately, fear wasn't really the kind of response Tony had to fangs.

The kind of response he did have was embarrassing, and it made him squirm in his seat a little. And he knew his face had gotten red and hot. Stupid vampires.

"Guessing you already did that."

The unexpected response is noticed immediately by Eric-- for various reasons, some which Tony would no doubt find either intensely awkward or unfortunately familiar. Lucky for the kid that Eric was sangfroid, although not above holding things above people. It was a reaction that he saw with neutral interest, and a small quirk of his lips over the long canines.

"Twenty minutes ago. Let's not talk about it."

"That bad?" Tony's eyebrows rose and he discreetly tugged at his jeans before taking a calming sip...okay gulp of beer.

"Right. Not talking about it. What are we talking about?"

"Something strange came up. That is all."

He reached, sliding a stool up to rest on it on the other side of the bar-- unfortunately bringing his head even further up than leaning against it had left it. Eric stooped his shoulders to compensate, staring at Tony with clear blue eyes, questioning more than interrogating but not eagerly so.

"I presume that we are talking about what you came here to talk about. That dark-haired human? Thom? I am over a thousand years old. Give me some social credit."

Tony pursed his lips a little, annoyed that Eric had beaten him to the punch and before he'd had the chance to take his fill of cupcakes too. But he looked back into those eyes without flinching or backing down.

"He didn't know this was a vampire bar. And you didn't tell him."

"Mmm."

Had the fangs not already been out, Eric would have popped them at this, a smile that was halfway a good memory and halfway pure glee at what he had done spreading across his face, pressing them roughly against his bottom lip. There was not an ounce of shame in the expression-- although there was also no thread of malice.

"No. I did not tell him. And he provided me even payment for his dinner with my own."

So it was like Tony had suspected. He bristled visibly.

"You're a dick," he said, bluntly. "And he's a friend. I don't put up with people being dicks to my friends. Even if they're a little...new."

The obvious irritation in Tony's posture made him give a loud bark of a laugh, once again in contrast to his usual soft tones. The expression he provided in return had every air of 'oh my gosh, vampires lie!' in it.

"New as well as delicious. Although nothing particularly special-- he tasted very clean. Grassy. But you should be less coy about this-- you are telling me that he is off-limits, or that I am required to be honest before approaching your human friends?"

Tony didn't appreciate being laughed at. He jabbed a finger at Eric's chest, forgetting for a moment that this was not Henry and he couldn't do things like poke a vampire and get away with it.

"I don't want to hear about how he tastes. Vampires gotta eat. I get it." He waved a wrist in the air between them, the small shiny scars evidence of the many times he's been fed from. "But you should at least follow your own damn rules. And yeah, if you're feeding from any of my friends you should at least let them know about it. Before hand."

The finger in his chest brought the very barest rumble of a growl, before Eric quashed it. Firstly, he didn't want trouble here. Secondly, Godric's words, every last heavy one of them, were still weighing on his head. Pulling wings from dragonflies. Why should Eric be so angry at a human boy anyway. His face pulled immediately into a more serious expression, and he shrugged as if to pretend at nonchalance. The fangs slid back into his jaw with a quiet pop.

"Don't let it get around that I violate my own policy and I will make sure not to violate your policies either. Is this a fair deal for you?"

The growl prickled at Tony's nerves and had him darting back his hands but he still kept eye contact.

"I wasn't going to snitch on you anyway," he said. "It's not my business whether you allow feeding at the bar or not. But my friends are my business, so don't take advantage of them. Please."

The belated courtesy got tacked on out of reflex. He was Canadian, after all.

Eric didn't grace Tony's bold statement, or the stare straight into his eyes, with any outward reaction aside from a long, quiet stare, but a look of consideration eventually camped across the vampire's pale features, until he spoke again-- without turning his eyes away. If it was a contest Tony wanted, Eric would win it. But Eric was also game enough to give in to Tony's request. He had no reason not to, and this wasn't one of the kingdoms back at home.

"It was a very stupid move coming here to give a lecture to something like me. You may have earned your cake, human."

"I know what you are," Tony said, softly. And no, it wasn't a staring contest or anything so ridiculous. Just Tony's way of looking. I know what you are. But do you know me? "And it's Tony, not 'human'."

But then his face brightened and melded into a hopeful smile.

"I still get cake?"

"You remind me of Miss Stackhouse except less of a redneck. Have you two met?" The line is delivered straight, a combination of derision and congenial teasing, and Eric leaves to the kitchen to retrieve a small plastic-wrapped plate of five cupcakes in a quick blur, arriving again to set them down without aplomb and plop himself back into the stool.

"Businesses are kept afloat by small savings and large spendings. Are you Henry's companion?"

"You better not be calling Miss Stackhouse a redneck," Tony warned, mildly. "She looks like the type who could smack you one for giving lip."

He watched the little display of superspeed with an air of oh-boy-vampires-showing-off and gave much more interest to the cupcakes. They looked delicious. His stomach growled, even thought he'd just downed a whole sandwich and two pints of beer.

"Companion is kind of a weird way to put it," he said, nose wrinkling in confusion. "What do you mean?"

He avoided Tony's eyes for an awkward half of a second, mind sorting through the memory of Miss Stackhouse, indeed, smacking him one. And then telling him that he disgusted her. Which was becoming a pattern, at home and here. Humans. Can't fucking live with them, can't be undead without them. He stared at the cupcakes with disinterest, before focusing in on the side of Tony's neck curiously, eyes fluttering to his wrists as he pushed the plate toward Tony.

"Help yourself. All yours. Obviously. And companion-- a human companion. Some vampires at home have them. A human who is in a relationship with them, for whatever reason. Some claim love."

"Thank you," Tony mumbled before unwrapping his first cupcake and taking a nibble of the frosting. Then a bite. Then the entire cupcake was gone and Tony was left licking his fingers in contentment.

"We are. Were." Tony frowned, shaking his head. "It's complicated."

Especially considering that things had been awkward with Henry since that one night when the curse made him a little nuts.

"It always is," he muttered plainly, watching the pink tongue lick fingers with more interest than was possibly necessary. He hadn't had much to eat that night. But Tony's statement had brought up recent memories-- of a discussion he'd had with a proud, intelligent vampire, about her relationship with a human. Who had, of course, turned traitor in the end. But he was a human.

"But he loved you?"

Tony had to consider this question, so he took another cupcake and thought about it while he ate. Henry cared deeply about him, he knew that. And wanted him. But Tony always had the sneaking suspicion that he was playing replacement for Vicki, the one Henry couldn't have.

Which didn't mean that Henry didn't love him, just that maybe Tony wasn't the one he would rather be loving.

"In his way," he said, finally. "But I needed to go live my own life. Start being my own person."

The answer caused Eric to shuffle slightly in his seat, looking into the distance at the patrons enjoying their dancing on the far away floor, on the other side of the nightclub. He dragged his gaze back to Tony, still managing to put away food. It must have been well over the equivalent of thirty dollars, now. Possibly closer to fifty. Eric was admittedly impressed, although it could have been the Viking left in him.

"You can't live your own life as a human in a relationship like that. Some would suggest that it would be the same as a dog being on equal footing with his master. I can't actually say that I agree with this assessment. It is simply that if the vampire will never truly see an un-turned human as an equal. They have no future with one. They will always see them as temporary."

Let it be a lesson to Eric never to offer Tony free food.

The advice Eric was solemnly trying to impart made his brow wrinkle. He shook his head again.

"You're forgetting that it's different in my world. Vampires have no future with other vampires. They can't stay together. That's why Henry was with me and not..." He trailed off, remembering at the last moment that he wasn't supposed to talk about Vicki.

"Everyone is temporary."

"I forgot."

Eric gave a small shake of his head, as if coming out of some form of a daydream, before turning a boring look on Tony and his cupcakes, pale eyebrows knit together in the middle of his forehead.

"That it was nearly completely different where you are from. The concept is foreign to me. And not one that I can consider favorably."

"I didn't make the rules," Tony said with a sigh.

"I wish he did have someone permanent. I don't want him to be lonely."

Eric paused for a long moment, as still as a mannequin, very much literally dead on the spot. Having reached the end of his comfort zone with this conversation-- with another vampire it would have been bad enough --he grabbed a third glass and filled it for Tony, before placing it down in front of him with a click to grab his attention.

"You should cheer up. I don't want you to go home seeming like I sucked the life out of you when I was never given the opportunity. Have what you want. You can call for a ride home on Fangtasia."

Startled out of his thoughts, Tony stared at the glass blankly for a second before smiling sheepishly.

"I probably shouldn't have more," he said. "But maybe I'll find someone I want to give it to."

"I gave it to you. It is your choice what to do with it."

He dropped the towel on the countertop before heading around the bar and toward the door to the basement, where the offices and his apartment were located.

"You should go home and sleep before people start to think things about you."

"No one's thinking things about me," Tony muttered under his breath before taking up the glass and heading off to see who he could find with a friendly face who might take a drink in exchange for a dance.

Small revenges on someone who wasn't even present to see them. Tony did them anyway.

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