The Loners

Just a quick note to quiverclaw for the comment on the blood bank. I took the moment to address it here for future reference and for a laugh.

*****

Alan yawned as he awoke. He felt someone pressed against him, and turned to see Rachel's beautiful face in a very peaceful sleep. He smiled at the sight. She truly was alluring. However, this did not make him forget the events of last night, or his dreams, and Alan's smile vanished.

Who would have thought such an innocent, and cute face would be one who kills? He imagined those cold and ruthless eyes he saw when he first met her, staring down her next victim as she killed once again.

He slowly peeled himself off of Rachel, careful not to wake her as he did so. Thankfully, she was in a deep sleep, and though she shifted, she did not wake up. Alan's stomach grumbled, indicating that he should eat first before anything else.

Alan quietly walked out of his room and lightly closed the door behind him, and found that both Dave and Ashley were up and in the kitchen, in the middle of breakfast themselves.

"Mornin." Alan greeted the two.

"Morning." Both of them responded, much more lively than Alan.

Alan decided to make himself an egg and cheese sandwich. As he did, Ashley spoke up.

"So, Alan. Dave told me you went out drinking Friday night. What's up with that?" Ashley asked.

"It's like I told Dave, I just felt like breaking my routine. Jeez, the way you guys act, you'd think it was the end of the world."

"No offense Alan, but for us it kind of is. You haven't drink in what, over a year now? Dave and I are just both worried, those days weren't exactly your best."

"Thanks, but you don't need to worry. I don't plan on repeating anytime soon. My killer hangover yesterday reminded me of why I don't drink."

Alan finished making his sandwich, sat down, and began to eat.

"Are you sure? I can't imagine that you went out for no reason at all. If there's something going on, you can tell us."

"Yeah man. If there's something wrong, we're here. It's hard because you hardly tell us what goes on in that head of yours."

Alan shrugged. "Everything is fine, seriously."

Alan's bedroom door opened, stopping their conversation. Rachel then emerged, having a small case of bed hair, and barely looked awake. She was also wearing one of Alan's larger shirts that stretched to her thighs, and nothing else.

Both Dave and Ashley stared in awe as Alan smiled. "Morning Rachel."

Rachel grunted and waved in response.

"And here I thought you were a morning person."

Rachel yawned. "Normally I am, but I had a late night last night."

The shock on Dave and Ashley's face could not be hidden as they watched Alan have such a casual conversation with this insanely gorgeous woman wearing one of his shirts.

"Care for some breakfast?" Alan asked, currently ignorant of the shocked stares he was receiving.

"Eh, just something small and simple."

"How about a Pop-Tart?"

"That'll do."

"Okay, here, have a seat, I'll get it." Alan said, getting up, gesturing to an empty chair next to him.

Rachel sat down as Alan got her a Pop-Tart, and it was here that she noticed the two who were staring at her.

"Oh, hi. Sorry, we haven't met yet have we? I'm Rachel." Rachel greeted as Alan sat down.

"That's right, you guys haven't met yet. Rachel, this is Dave and Ashley. Guys, this is Rachel." Alan said as he gave Rachel her Pop-Tart.

It was here that both Dave and Ashley shook off their stupefied expressions. "Nice to meet you Rachel." Ashley responded first.

"Yeah, uh, nice to meet you." Dave responded.

Ashley then turned to Alan accusingly. "And when did you plan on telling us about her?"

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to hide her or anything." Alan said, somewhat defensively.

"I also see that one, she's wearing one of your shirts, and two, she came from your bedroom. Does that mean what I think it means?" Ashley asked.

Alan blushed slightly, giving Ashley her answer. She smiled brightly.

"Good for you!" She said cheerily to Alan, then turned to Rachel.

"And I must say, you're a very pretty woman, Rachel."

Rachel smiled. "Thank you."

"So, when did this happen? Wait, it was Friday night wasn't it?" Ashley asked.

Alan nodded. "Yeah, we met at the bar."

Ashley then turned to Alan. "Wow. It must have been fate."

"Oh, come on, you know I don't believe in that."

"Then how do you explain this?"

'What you don't know is that she actually was planning on killing me when we first met.' Alan thought to himself.

"Coincidence?"

"Coincidence? Coincidence that you just randomly decide to go out and drink after you quit drinking, and happen to find this lovely woman?" Ashley replied with a smirk.

Alan rolled his eyes. "You're thinking too much into it. It's the same with winning the lottery. Out of the millions who try for it, by some random chance, someone's bound to win. That doesn't make it 'divine'. Some people just happen to be at the right place at the right time."

Rachel turned to Alan. "I'm curious, are you an atheist?" Rachel asked.

Alan nodded. "Yes, and you?"

Rachel shrugged. "I try not to make assumptions. There's a lot that we don't know or are possibly just blind to."

'Well, that's true. Up until I met you, I thought there was no such things as vampires or the supernatural.' Alan thought to himself.

Rachel then turned to Ashley. "And what are your beliefs?"

"Christian. Don't worry, I'm not a fanatic. I just like poking fun at Alan. If anything, he's the fanatic. Notice how he got started as soon as I said 'fate'."

Rachel then turned to Dave. "You've been quiet, what about you?"

Dave shrugged. "I'm an atheist too, but I just keep to myself on that. People will just believe what they want to."

Ashley turned to Rachel. "I'm sorry, I kind of got carried away, why don't you tell us a little about yourself?"

Rachel shrugged. "There isn't much that I'd like to say. I was actually running away from my home and came here in the hopes of starting a new life. That's when I met Alan."

She smiled and pulled Alan close to her and kissed his cheek. "And I'm glad I did. It almost makes everything I went through worth it."

"Aww, you're so cute together!" Ashley said. "Well, I'm glad for the both of you. Poor Alan hasn't been lucky in his love life."

"I know, he told me all about it, so I'm glad I helped him as much as he helped me." Rachel replied with a smile, releasing Alan, who was again blushing slightly.

"So, what do you guys want to do?" Rachel asked, as Alan noticed how she managed to easily divert everyone's attention from her history.

"Well, we were about to sit down and watch The Dark Knight." Dave answered.

"The Dark Knight? I haven't seen that." Rachel said. Three heads then stared at her, open mouthed.

"What?"

"You haven't seen one of the greatest movies ever!?"

"Well, I've heard about it, but I was never a fan of Batman movies aside from the original. After Batman Returns, I really didn't pay attention. Did Heath Ledger deserve all of the attention he got?"

"Uh...you know what, let's just go watch it. The greatness of this movie and Heath Ledger's performance cannot be expressed with mere words."

With that, they went to clean themselves up, and prepared themselves for movie time. Like before, Dave and Ashley took the couch while Alan sat in the chair and Rachel sat in his lap. This time, though, everyone could see Rachel, for one. And two, as the movie started and Alan began to feel his stirrings, instead of trying to fight it, he instead subtly nudged his hardness into Rachel's butt.

Rachel wiggled her butt in response, acknowledging Alan's arousal, and adjusted herself until he was snugly fit in her crack of her cheeks. This went unnoticed by both Ashley and Dave since the movie was already starting as this happened.

When the movie ended, Rachel was stunned, and her mouth was agape. "Wow...that was....fucking awesome!"

Alan smiled. "What did I tell you?"

"You told me allright. Now I know why everyone was all about Heath Ledger, he was terrific! No, he was unbelievable! He completely blew Jack Nicholson out of the water, and I thought he was a pretty good Joker." Rachel exclaimed. "Not only that, but that final Joker scene is probably one of the best monologues I've ever seen."

"Like I said, one of the greatest films ever made."

"First the anime, now this movie, geez, I wonder what kind of music you listen to?" Rachel asked, turning to Alan.

"The Beatles." Dave answered for him, annoyance in his voice.

"Oh my God! I love The Beatles!" Rachel said.

"I know, they're a really good band." Alan said in agreement.

"Great, another Beatles fan." Dave said, rolling his eyes.

Alan rolled his eyes as well as Rachel turned to Dave. "What's wrong with The Beatles!?"

"They're overrated."

"Over-overrated!? I...I can't even talk to you right now. Overrated! Most music as we know today was established by The Beatles! Overrated my ass!"

"Don't bother, I've tried this with him already, he just doesn't know what good music is." Alan said.

"Okay, what do you listen to? Don't tell me you're a Bieber fan, if anyone is overrated, it's him."

"God no. No, I listen to rap."

"I guess that's somewhat acceptable, but that also depends on who and when."

"Mostly stuff from the 90s, early Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Eminem."

"Fine, I'll give you that, some of their stuff is okay, but I still curse you for your blasphemy! The Beatles overrated, what a retarded ass thing to say." Rachel said, then turned to Alan.

"So, aside from one of the greatest bands of all time, what else do you listen to?"

Alan shrugged. "Kind of a little bit of everything. I like the Rolling Stones, and I like the rap that Dave mentioned. I'm kind of picky, I won't say I like bands in particular, but I do enjoy some of the singles they have. For example, the only two songs I really know from the Rolling Stones is Paint it Black which I learned from Full Metal Jacket, and You Can't Always Get What You Want from House."

Rachel tilted her head slightly. "House?"

Alan smiled. "Another great show I'm going to have to show you sometime."

Rachel nodded. "But I certainly agree with you about those two songs you mentioned. They are excellent."

"What about you Ashley? What do you listen to?" Rachel asked, turning to Ashley.

"Me? I listen to Rihanna, the Pussycat Dolls, and Mariah Carey, to name a few."

Rachel then turned to Alan. "I want to know more about your so called 'picky' tastes, what else you've got."

"What about you? All we got out of you so far is The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones apparently."

"Fine. I'm more of an oldies person. You can add The Who to my list, let's see...oh! Led Zeppelin as well. Hmm...that's all I can think of at the moment." Rachel finished.

"Now, what else you got?" Rachel asked Alan.

"Well, I do enjoy The Who and Led Zeppelin. It's almost creepy, we seem to enjoy the same music."

"Hey, hey! No dodging."

"Allright, allright, I'm just thinking...oh yeah, I forgot about Disturbed."

"Disturbed?"

"Heavy metal band."

"Heavy metal? That's quite a switch."

"Lot's of guys I know from the Corp used to play Rock Band, so I learned quite a few songs from them that just stuck, Disturbed songs is one of them."

"What else?"

"Well...I also happen to be a fan of both video game and anime music."

Rachel tilted her head. "Video game and anime music?"

Alan nodded. "You'd be surprised, there's a lot of good music in these categories. For example, the first ten Final Fantasy albums were all composed by a Mr. Nobuo Uematsu, whom I consider one of the greatest composers I've ever listened to. Though his music could be classified as 'orchestra', it's still great music."

"A few others include singles from various games. 'Eyes on Me' which comes from Final Fantasy 8 is a great song. I am the Wind from Castlevania, Symphony of the Night is another. Simple and Clean from Kingdom Hearts and Sanctuary from Kingdom Hearts 2 are awesome as well. And that's all from video games that I can think of for now."

"As for anime music, I enjoy the Bleach and Naruto soundtracks. Deep Forest and Every Heart which comes from Inuyasha are really good songs. And the Death Note soundtrack, I enjoy most of those songs as well." Alan finally finished.

"Wow...that's a lot. I've never given those much thought. I really didn't get into video games until much later, and I only played some mainstream stuff like Call of Duty, but that's it. As for anime, well, I never really considered that until you started showing me some of it." Rachel said.

"Actually, if you like, I have most of those on my computer, care to listen to a few?" Alan offered.

"Sure."

"Allright, you guys have fun, I've gotta go to work." Dave said as both Alan and Rachel got up. They turned to him. Both he and Ashley were standing. "Bye guys, and it was nice to meet you, Rachel."

Rachel smiled and waved. "It was nice meeting you guys, see you later."

"Later." Alan said. As they went into the bedroom, Ashley gave Dave a good-bye kiss as Dave went to his bedroom to change.

"Those two were cool, aside from Dave thinking that The Beatles are overrated. I don't think I'll ever get over that." Rachel said.

"I know, I've tried to convince him otherwise, but he won't listen." Alan agreed.

"So, what do you want to listen to first?" Alan asked.

"Hmm." Rachel thought for a moment. "Actually, I'm curious about that orchestra music you were talking about."

"Allright, we'll start with one of the most well known pieces that Uematsu composed, called One Winged Angel."

"That's Latin, isn't it?" Rachel asked partway through the song.

Alan nodded. "Yeah, why, you know what it means?"

Rachel shook her head. "No, but I've been exposed to Latin, so I kind of recognized it, I was guessing, actually. But what is Sephiroth? I'm guessing it's important because it's so distinctive as they chant."

Alan raised an eyebrow, almost forgetting that she hadn't really played video games in the earlier days. "Sephiroth is the main villain of Final Fantasy 7, and one of the most well known villains of video game history, though whether he's the best or not is debatable."

"Really? Why is he so great?" Rachel asked, curious.

"To put it bluntly, in my opinion, he's just badass, that's it. But more to the point, the first time I played Final Fantasy 7, I had quite the personal grudge against him for making me cry."

Rachel held back a laugh. "Made you cry?"

"I'm serious! I bet you cried at movies didn't you? It was almost the same thing for me. At first he was just some cold and cruel bad guy I was chasing after, but then...that bastard killed Aerith."

"Aerith?"

Alan nodded. "A main character. I was crying so much, I couldn't even fight the boss you had to fight after she died, so I had to watch the entire sequence again. And then, to make it worse, you bury her after the fight, and I cried even more. It was really sad. After that, I made it a personal grudge and vowed to kill him no matter what. Maybe a bit overboard, but that's what made him so great in my eyes. He was more than just another bad guy in a video game to me. He became a personal ambition of mine after that."

"Sounds like this Final Fantasy 7 was quite the game." Rachel commented.

"You have no idea. All of the Final Fantasies were excellent, except for some of the latest ones. Pretty much, anything beyond 10 wasn't good, except for 13, 13 was tolerable at best."

"Wow. Hard to believe that games were that good or interesting, I really don't see that in most games nowadays."

"Kind of. Good games manage to sneak their way out every now and again, but the late 90's and early 2000's were probably the best days for video games. For example, two recent games I've come to love is Dead Space and Dead Space 2. Both were really good games."

"Dead Space?"

"Another thing I'll have to show you. I admit, it's hard to find some of these things unless you look for them, or know someone who does. Dead Space, for example, was introduced to me recently, even though it's been out for a few years now. Same thing with Final Fantasy. Someone told me to get 7 and I did, and became a fan ever since. I even went back to play the classics, all of which were awesome."

They then heard Dave's car pull off, signaling that he was going to work. Rachel held a solemn look on her face.

"Rachel? Something wrong?" Alan asked, noticing the change.

Rachel turned to Alan. "Alan...I didn't want to bring it up since Dave and Ashley were both here, but, we never got a chance to talk about last night."

As she said it, the memories returned to Alan.

"I'm sorry, I know I just ruined the good mood we had, but, I've been thinking about it all day. I know to some extent it bothers you, so, I wanted to talk about it more." Rachel said, her voice now serious.

Alan sighed. To be honest, he didn't want to bring this up. But, she was right. It could only get worse if they didn't bring it up, and sooner or later, they would have to confront this issue.

"I said it last night, didn't I? You do what you have to do. I'll deal with it."

"No! That's not a real answer. Please Alan, tell me what you feel about it."

Alan turned away from Rachel's glare. Both remained silent until Alan spoke up.

"Look, Rachel. I...I admit, I don't like it at all. The thought of you sneaking around at night looking like how I saw you when we first met, that bothers me. But then, I'd kind of be a hypocrite. We humans kill and feed on animals to survive, and you, a vampire, kill and feed on humans to survive. I know that that's quite the stretch, but, from your perspective, a vampire, it's almost the same thing."

Alan then met Rachel's eyes. "I'll be clear on one thing, though. I said I loved you, and I mean it. I don't want to push you away, and I don't want you to starve yourself to death just to satisfy me. I've dedicated myself to you, and nothing will change that."

Rachel softened. "Oh Alan..."

"I know that it means that more people will die, and I feel guilty for accepting it. But, even though it may seem selfish of me, that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that we stay together."

Rachel clearly saw the determination in his eyes. He meant it. He would stay by her side even if she told him she was going to destroy the world. She smiled, a tear forming in her eyes, and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

"Thank you Alan, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Rachel began to sob into Alan's shoulders, who brought his arms around her.

"There's no need to be sorry. You are what you are, and neither you nor I can change that. The only thing we can do is deal with it together." Alan said as he pet her.

Alan then suddenly had a thought. "Hey, Rachel? Couldn't you go to a blood bank or something to feed?"

Rachel lifted her head and stared at Alan. "Sure, why not? I'll just go ahead and break into some hospital and randomly steal blood, I'm sure that'll work out just dandy." She replied, laughing a little.

"Sorry, it sounded like a good idea."

"Well, it is true that Vampire Lords actually have private blood banks to feed their clan if necessary to avoid attracting too much attention due to feeding, but, obviously in my case..." Rachel trailed off, her eyes drifting into thought.

Rachel then raised her eyes back to Alan. "Alan, again you should know. If Caleb or any other vampire find me, we'll both be in danger. Are you sure you want that as well?"

Alan smiled. "Please don't make me repeat myself."

They embraced one another once more. "Alan...I love you...I love you so much!" Rachel sobbed into Alan's shoulder. They held one another for several moments, as Rachel continued to cry into Alan's shoulder.