Nicholas: This is my first Blade fic...to tell you the truth, I can guarantee you, oh my reader, that Blade and Scud are terribly out of character by the end of this. I would blame it on the fact that I'm up really late and I'm really tired, but that's not quite it. I just haven't found it yet...you know that one quality that makes them completely and utterly slashable. It's hard! So, there is light slash in this. It might eve be considered angsty fluff (that's like an oxy-moron). This is sort of alternate universe because with Scud described how he got those scars and how he met Blade he said he'd been backpacking and I just basically said "fuck backpacking" and wrote my own little shitty twist. So...fuck backpacking, I don't find it sexy in the least. ScudBlade
Disclaimer: I don't own Blade...if I were that creative, I would make you pay for my stories..."get in line, biotch!" Like I said, I'm dead tired at the moment.
Rating: T...language (Scud's filthy mouth)...sexual suggestiveness (not slash, sorry to say)...torture (of poor Scud).
"What's your name, good-lookin'?" Scud looked up from his lighter as soon as the tip of his cigarette was lit red. A girl was sitting on the barstool to his left. Her eerie gray eyes were locked straight on his face, leaving no question that she was, in fact, talking to him. Scud found himself slightly distracted by her extreme features. She was almost abnormally thin, and he skin was a perfectly pale, creamy color. Her clothes consisted of black pants and a black, sleeveless top that was stretched so tight on her frame that it made her breasts look about twice as big as they probably were. "You sleepin' with your eyes open, or somethin'?" The crisp, sharpness of her Boston accent easily pierced his preoccupied thoughts.
"Huh? Oh! I'm Josh," he managed to say. "Well…people call me Scud."
A confident smirk stretched delicately across her face as she giggled at the peculiar nickname. "I'm Janet," she said. She reached out and touched his headband curiously. "What's this, to keep your hair back?"
"Nah, I wear it when I work." He removed the well-worn, oil-stained cloth from his forehead and stuffed it in the right pocket of his leather jacket. "I'm a mechanic." When he reached for the shot glass on the bar counter before him, he noticed that there was another hand wrapped around it already. Turning, he saw another girl sitting on the stool to his right. As suspicious as the sudden attention he was getting should have been, he was either too drunk or too high to care.
"Hey sweetie, I'm Chrissy," she stated. Her eyes were strangely similar—no, exactly the same—as Janet's. In contrast, Chrissy was wearing a loose-fitting white blouse over her slightly larger frame. "So you're a mechanic? You must work a lot with your hands." She had no distinct accent, but there was a ringing quality that clung to her words long after she'd said them that was enough to make Scud's mind go numb quicker than any drug he'd ever tried.
"Yeah, but that's not all my hands are good for." He sported a slightly arrogant smirk. At the moment, the only thoughts on his mind were "cigarette smoke" and "bare legs." While Janet's pants were long, Scud immediately noticed that Chrissy's black skirt was hardly long enough to be considered clothing. He was just fine with that, as long as she let him look. Her skin was cream colored just like Janet's. Were they twins, or something?
"Chrissy and I have a cab waitin'. Want to come?"
"We're having a little party for three back at our hotel room. It won't be as fun with just us two."
Scud raised his eyebrows and took a long drag from his cigarette. A hand traveled across his chest and slipped into his open jacket. From the other side, he felt Janet running her fingers through his dark, messy hair. For a moment he was confused as to whom he should react to. The indecision was short-lived, when the two women practically hoisted him up and dragged him out of the bar.
---
All three were equally impatient on the cab ride to the hotel. The girls took turns making out with him and feeling him up—basically taking advantage of his slow and drunken state to fondle him in any way they chose. As he was distracted with Janet's blood-red lips, Chrissy stole his cigarette to finish it off and stuff it between the seats. She listened to the gentle moans of the two and dragged Scud's jacket down his shoulders. Subtly, she moved the collar of his shirt away from his neck and stroked the pale flesh with her fingertips.
Scud flinched slightly and brought his shoulder up indicating the he was ticklish there, so Chrissy leaned against him and licked the exact spot. It was a bit of playful torment. Both girls subjected him to it, even while in the elevator. Chrissy pressed him up against the wall and played like she was going to kiss him, but she pulled back just before their lips met. Janet pulled his jacket all the way off and groped his chest beneath his shirt.
Not even aware of when he'd entered the hotel room, Scud hit the bed with a resounding thump and ruffle of bedclothes. Almost immediately, Chrissy was on top of him once more, gripping his wrists and sucking his lips. She was quite a bit stronger than Scud had expected and was able to keep his hands above his head with ease. Another set of hands—undoubtedly Janet's—were undoing his shirt clasps, slowly, one by one. Everything was a pleasant rush until Scud felt something close around his wrist that he knew—from personal experience—was a handcuff.
"Hey, wait a minute," he said breaking his head away from Chrissy. "I don't do this bondage shit."
Janet gripped his hair tightly just as his other wrist was bound as well. "Shh!" she hissed sternly. "Tough lovin', Sweetheart." She yanked his head roughly to the side and bared his neck. "Now behave, like a good little boy."
"Ow!" Scud pulled at the handcuffs, but they were hooked around the headboard of the bed. He felt Chrissy get off of him and he automatically tried to roll to the side. Janet held him down, digging her sharp nails into his shoulders. His mind was quickly clearing of intoxication. "Get off me, bitch!"
"I'm not the bitch tied to the bed, now am I?" Janet dug her nails into the skin on Scud's bare stomach. "Or with a stupid name. Scud sounds like spud, or scum." She laughed lightly at Scud's glare and pushed her nails deeper into his pale flesh. "Tell me if this hurts." Two inches…Janet dragged her nails just two inches along his abdomen before the skin broke and blood oozed up from the wound.
Scud wanted to scream, tried to scream, but Chrissy returned with his headband, shoved it between his teeth and tied it behind his head. His knees locked and his fists clenched as he felt Janet's long, sharp nails twist in his skin. "Be quiet now, Lovely," Chrissy cooed, kissing his gagged mouth.
Janet suddenly tore her hand back, covered in blood. She licked the red liquid from her fingers with an almost sensual expression that positively horrified Scud. Mix up equal measures of nausea, disgust, complete agony, fatigue and terror in a large bowl, bake at a temperature of 300 degrees of torture and you'll have about what was on Scud's mind at the time. As much as he may have wanted to, he couldn't actually bring himself to look away when Chrissy gently grabbed hold of Janet's arm and began lapping up his blood as well.
Once again, Scud felt some one's nails tear his flesh, sending knew daggers of pain and burning hellfire through his body. He did his best to scream, but it sounded more like a cry or a whimper. "Oh, fuck!" were the only intelligible syllables that he could choke out as his body tried to contract into a tiny ball and hide in a corner somewhere. Both Chrissy and Janet held him out flat, making that venture impossible.
I'm going to die, Scud thought, but it drowned quickly amongst the mental screams and loud ringing in his ears. He could feel the blood pool on the comforter beneath him. His blood. Before he managed to squeeze his eyes shut, he caught a glimpse of Chrissy smearing blood on Janet's lips, just to lick it of and begin a total lesbian make out scene above their tortured captive. His thoughts were suddenly stuck on one thing. He'd seen, in Chrissy's mouth, a shiny set of razor sharp, unbelievably real vampire fangs. No-fucking-way!
Just as the excruciating pain was getting to be too much to bear, there was a knock at the door. Scud's eyes shot open and a hopeful sound of some sort squeaked from his throat. A bloody hand he identified as Janet's instantly clamped down over his mouth—completely ignoring the fact that he was already gagged—as Chrissy got up from the bed warily. There was a little peephole on the top of the door, so Chrissy hesitantly looked through that first.
Scud didn't register the sound as a gunshot until after he had witnessed something outrageously science-fiction. As Chrissy screamed and moved away from the door, her body started to burn from the inside out—just about the way Scud was feeling right then. The door was kicked open and a man stood with a gun aimed at Janet's head. A single gunshot and Janet was a pile of ash before she could react—or even blink twice.
The man strode into the room quickly, his cliché, black cloak/cape flowing dramatically behind him. This guy was carrying an entire arsenal of heavy artillery on his chest and belt. Apparently that seemed less out of the ordinary to Scud when compared to the fact that the guy was black. The mind seems to twist things at moments like these. As the guy approached the bed, Scud could just barely see—being that now he was looking for it—that he also had fangs tucked away in his scowl. The mere knowledge of this made the poor kid cower away from him.
"Calm down," he demanded gruffly. He grabbed Scud's jaw and turned his head to one side, then the other, examining his neck. Then the strange, black man carefully undid the gag and removed it. "Did they bite you?"
"No, but who the fuck are you?" Scud hadn't yet lost enough blood to make him calm down. Not to say that loss of blood would clean up his language.
"Blade," the guy replied. At first Scud wasn't sure whether he meant that that was his name or that he was stating that he had a knife on him. He reached over his shoulder and pulled a katana from the back of his coat—chock full of surprises, wasn't he? With one swift movement, Blade put the tip of the sword in a link in the handcuff chain and snapped it in half.
---
Scud woke up with a nauseous feeling in his stomach, like he always got when he had that particular dream. "Stupid…" he meant to add some name or profanity generalizing the entirety of the human and vampire races combined, but his mind was still waking up. It had been a year and a half since his horrific run in with vampires and he was still suffering the aftershock. He wouldn't let Blade know, though, he had too much pride for that.
Getting up, Scud ran his hand over the scars on his stomach gently and sighed. It would never go away. He adjusted his boxers indifferently and slipped on his shoes. He didn't know what time it was—nor did he care being that the place might as well have been underground it was so dark. Stumbling out of his small—tiny—bedroom, he felt his way towards the large garage/workshop/living room/kitchen/whatever else a house needed to get a glass of water.
As he held the cup, he noticed his hand was shaking. "Shit," he muttered quietly. He set the empty glass on the filthy counter and ran his fingers through his hair as though it would help the unconscious nervousness. Scud never liked admitting that he was afraid. Back at the orphanage, when he was what he now considered tiny, he was the brave one. He was the one who would scare the monsters out of closets for the littler children.
It was much easier to get rid of monsters that he didn't believe were real. These monsters that tormented him now were real—oh how real they were!—and he hated them and feared them. He felt a shiver snake its way up his spine and he thought he was being watched. It took him a few minutes to remind himself that Blade had gone out and thus was not there. Blade was hardly ever there. He was always off looking for that old man, Abraham Whistler.
Forfeiting the idea of water, Scud went to the fridge. This particular fridge did not have food. The contents were Blade's serum that he shot up almost every other day and Scud's serum (AKA liquor of any sort). With a bottle of whiskey in hand, Scud pushed himself up and sat on the counter before filling his glass and knocking it back almost immediately. A groan escaped his throat against the painful burn and welcome sensations of Scud's favorite drink. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall behind him.
"You trying to drink yourself back to sleep?"
To say the voice had scared the kid shitless is an understatement of cosmic proportions. "Jesus, fucking, Christ! Blade, you almost gave me a heart attack!" Scud had actually almost fallen off of the counter at the sudden appearance of the "dark knight."
"There a reason you're sitting there in just your boxers?" He had a slightly amused, slightly pissed off face that only worked on the vampire hunter.
"You find the old man?" Trust Scud to change the subject. Avoid revealing your fears and weaknesses at all costs. "Or was it another wild goose chase like I told you it would be? The suckheads aren't making this easy at all, so why the hell do you keep trying?"
Blade's amusement just went out the window. That glare was enough to make Scud he was back in that hotel room with the lesbian vampires. "Because he's my friend, Scud. Maybe you don't get it, but friends look out for each other." Ow, that was a bullet to the heart. Blade didn't say anything else. He just sort of stood there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
Scud couldn't hold his gaze. He looked at his feet after a few moments of trying. Why was it that he always managed to fuck up a situation? The best thing to do, he decided, was to just shut up and wait for Blade to stop glaring at him. A few beats of cold quiet passed before Scud couldn't stand it anymore. "I'm sorry, B. I didn't mean—"
"Yeah, I know." For a moment, the dark one seemed forgiving and not so relentless. It was a rare thing to melt a monster's heart, and Blade thought himself a monster. Talk about low self-esteem. He let the silence fall for a few moments before he spoke again. "It's about five in the morning. Are you planning on going back to sleep or drowning yourself in alcohol this early?"
To tell the honest to god truth, Scud was dead tired. He was so tired—despite his fear of his dream—that he had actually fallen asleep on the counter during the silence. Once Blade made this realization, he smiled and shook his head at the hopeless human sitting in his boxers on the kitchen counter still clutching a bottle of whiskey. With a steady, gentle hand, Blade took the bottle and pulled Scud off the counter. The kid didn't even wake up when he was slung over the vampire hunter's shoulder.
The bed that Scud chose to sleep in was more akin to a hammock-like cot with sheets. When Blade laid him down, Scud immediately, but unconsciously, grabbed the nearest soft thing to him. It looked like at one point it might have been something similar to a teddy bear. Here, right before Blade's eyes was a side of Scud probably no one has ever seen, and in all honesty, Blade wanted to walk out of the room and pretend he hadn't seen it. He knew at that moment that the kid wouldn't appreciate being thought of as anything less than strong. Not saying that Scud was weak, but Blade did notice Scud's dependence on his image. So Blade ignored the little stuffed toy and turned to leave.
Something snagged on his cloak so that he couldn't get more than two steps. Looking back, he saw that the kid was wide-awake again and gripping the edge of the fabric like his life depended on it. "What, Scud?"
A thoughtful silence passed in which Scud just looked at him. "Nothing," he said at length, and released the cloak. "'Night."
"Now wait just a minute, kid," Blade began, not letting Scud turn over and thus away from him, "Every time you get that look and say it's nothing it's something, now what is it?"
"Just never mind, B."
The dark one quickly reached over to Scud and yanked away the teddy bear. Harsh, but effective. Scud let out an indignant squawk and almost fell out of bed trying to reach for his beloved toy. Not funny, asshole, he thought wryly. "Give it back!"
"Tell me what it is and you can have your rag-doll back."
With a scarlet face, Scud sat back and crossed him arms in front of his face. Half of the blush was from anger and the other half embarrassment—not because of the teddy bear. He couldn't think of a good lie, but he didn't want to tell the truth. Fuck it, he said in his mind. "I'm…afraid. I'm kind of afraid of the dark and…well…can I have my bear back?"
"No, keep going." No teasing, no "sissy" hidden under his of breath. Blade actually seemed genuinely concerned.
"Ever since…ever since you saved my lousy ass, I've been having this dream…nightmare about it. It's the same ever time, and it's exactly what happened to me that night. It's like a memory, except I don't remember memories very well and this one I know perfectly. And because of it…I don't want to be alone in the dark…thus the teddy bear. Can I…?"
Blade nodded indifferently and handed him the stuffed bear. "And you're hardly ever around anyway," Scud went on, "so it's not like I'd naturally go to you with my problems, right? While you're off rescuing your friend, I sit here, talking to what used to be some kid's toy until I got my hands on it. So there, I told you, happy now?"
"One thing: you want me to keep you company?"
"In a way…I don't know, I just…don't like the thought that…darkness hides danger, right? Isn't that how you said it?"
The silence engulfed them is one fell swallow. Blade was thinking. In thinking, he came to the conclusion that Scud wasn't telling the whole story. He wanted to press further and he would have if he didn't think that Scud would just get fed up and completely ignore him for the next few months. So, Blade decided that it could wait. "Fine, Scud, I'm here now. You want me to tuck you in or something?"
"No," the kid muttered dismally, finally able to turn to face away from the dark knight. "I just…I just don't want to be alone…"
With a quiet chuckle, not mocking or harsh, Blade shrugged off his coat and hung it over the doorknob. He went to the foot of Scud's bed and awkwardly sat down, assuming a position that seemed more guardian angel than ruthless hunter.
---
Having Blade sit at the foot of Scud's bed and "guard" the kid from the boogieman started out as an occasional thing. Slowly but surely, it evolved into a more regular thing. It finally became an ever night thing when both Scud and Blade found it more comfortable to have some one to talk to at night. Blade didn't mind sleeping in the sitting position. There was hardly a position that he wouldn't sleep in. There did finally come a day however, when Blade had to voice his curiosity. Scud was almost asleep and Blade was staring off at the wall, bored out of his mind.
"Why else, Scud?" That earned a sleepy, confused look. "Why else do you want me with you at night?"
Scud didn't turn away fast enough to hide his blush from the half-vampire's nocturnal eyes. Even in the near dark of the room, Scud knew he'd seen it. "I just don't want to be alone, all right? Haven't you ever felt that? Not wanting to be alone?"
"No," Blade stated, staring at the kid with a cold, expressionless gaze.
"Maybe I'm just weird like you, but…" Scud yawned slightly, his head floating on a wave of lack of sleep. "…but you don't have to sleep at the foot of my bed every night. You can actually…if you want to…never mind." The look Blade was giving him scared him. He wasn't angry, but he wasn't exactly happy about the suggestion either. Scud quickly laid his head down and covered himself completely with the covers. After a beat, he felt the weight on the end of his bed disappear and he expected Blade to just leave like that.
There was a silence that lasted an eternity before Scud felt the blanket being pulled back from his face. He squeezed his eyes shut until he felt something poke his face gently—well, not gently but not violently either. Looking up, the kid saw Blade's dark face staring down at him. "I swear Scud, if you say 'nothing' or 'never mind' like that ever again, I'll take that bear of yours and shred it." Even with the violence the words intended, his voice held no coldness or detachment or anger.
Scud peeked up at him from his pillow trying in vain to hide his face with his arm. In a year and a half that he'd spent with Blade, he'd never known the man to be gentle or anything other than gruff, to-the-point, and anal retentive. In other words, Scud was positively astounded when Blade smiled—not a smirk, or a "you gonna die" look, but an actual smile. "Go to sleep, Scud," he said sternly.
"I don't wanna."
Blade put a hand over Scud's eyes, but the kid didn't move. "Scud…" It was a warning, but Scud just reached up, grabbed his hand and kissed his palm.
"I don't want to," he repeated quietly.
"Then don't."