Waterfront Living On A Budget // Mikhail

[Emily Chase]

i was tossing and turning and the nightmare i had was as bad as can be IT SCARED ME OUT OF MY WITS !

It was raining. The weather had been growing cooler and cooler, and when night fell, there was the definite hint of a chill in the air. Chase and Mikhail had been living in the abandoned cathedral for almost two months now, and while it had provided suitable cover during the warm summer months, Chase was not thrilled with the prospect of living there once Autumn hit in earnest. And time was running out.

Chase ducked into the little living space that she and Mikhail had built in the farthest reaches of the church, her hair damp with chilly rain and her hands stuffed inside the sleeves of her only sweater. She went first to the tiny-but-crackling fire in the grate, warmed her hands, and then greeted her roommate.

"Didn't do too badly tonight," she said, emptying her pockets and still unsure how much of her speech Mikhail actually understood. From her pockets she pulled two leather wallets (she could sell these for a quick twenty-five bucks each tomorrow, once she'd emptied them out), a few crumpled bills, and a wadded-up poster she'd pulled from a telephone pole advertising "cheap rent, comfortable space" near the waterfront. She could just make out the phone number at the bottom.

Chase, upon realizing that the cathedral wouldn't really work as a living space once the weather cooled off, had taken to lurking in the wealthier districts of the city, sometimes begging for change, other times clipping purse straps, but always with the goal of bringing home enough money to get them a more stable spot to live. She wasn't entirely sure Mikhail would approve of her methods, but she was also unsure as to whether or not he understood what she was doing in the first place. Either way, it hadn't come up, and she didn't bother explaining.

So far, after two and a half weeks of picking pockets, Chase had squirreled away about four hundred and sixty bucks, almost enough to pay first and last months' rent on one of the "cheap, comfortable" waterfront apartments near the docks. Granted, the location wasn't ideal - it was a sketchy neighborhood- but then again, Chase and Mikhail hardly qualified as wholesome-next-door-neighbor material.

a corpse falling to bits then i opened my eyes
AND THE NIGHTMARE WAS ME !

(WORDS) eh (TAGGED) Mikhail
(NOTES) whatever.
(CREDITS) THIS IS BY DYLAN of CAUTION 2.0! Lyrics are In the Dark of the Night - Anastasia.

[Mikhail Vakhteiar Iul'ian]

Mikhail had been sitting at 'home' alone for a couple of hours, perched by the fire with his nose buried in a book, with another book on the floor next to him, held open by his foot. The book in his hands was Ovid's Metamorphoses, in English, and the one on the floor was the same volume, only in Latin. He seemed to be going stanza by stanza, looking back and forth between the two books. Most of the time his face was contorted in confusion, but now and again a triumphant, "Ah!" would escape him, and he'd smile proudly to himself before returning to reading.

He was wearing a bathrobe, because out of all the clothes Chase had found them, it was most familiar to him, and also the most comfortable. After all, who was he to be concerned about how he looked to the public? They never saw him, at least not any longer than was necessary to cry 'ghost!'

Once he heard the door in the distance creak open, though, his head perked up, and he glanced around curiously until Chase appeared, heading straight to the fire. He lowered his book, blinking curiously at her as he did ... well, every time he saw her. It was still strange to him to know another vampire - a 'fresh' one - who wasn't one of those ... creatures who had enslaved him.

He didn't really understand what she was saying, but he watched her spill a handful of what she had explained to him was their currency. He found it silly that it was paper now - well, there were still coins, but apparently they weren't worth as much as the paper - and he reached to pick up one of the dollar bills, feeling it between his fingers.

Mikhail had assumed that Chase had found work somewhere, but when she had brought home what looked like the equivalent of coinpurses as well, he began to suspect that she had been stealing. Yet, seeing how much money there was in each of these purses, he had also confirmed in his mind that these men must have been rich, perhaps tax collectors, and that eased Mikhail's guilt a tad. He recalled an issue that had arisen several times throughout his life, about certain city-states trying to tax monasteries on their land.

He also understood that Chase was aiming to move them to a better house. This prospect was actually somewhat exciting for Mikhail. Though he could function perfectly fine here, he was interested to see how people of this day and age lived.

Curiously he scooped up the poster advertising the rent, and he smoothed it out on the floor, his fingertips drifting over the numbers and letters as they usually did when he was reading (or trying to read) something on a page.

"Live here?" he asked in his fragmented English, looking up at Chase. "Purchase? Title deed?"

[Emily Chase]

i was tossing and turning and the nightmare i had was as bad as can be IT SCARED ME OUT OF MY WITS !

Chase liked talking to Mikhail, even though she knew he hardly understood a word she said. She gave him credit for trying though- she had watched him pouring over books, and a few weeks ago he'd communicated to her that he wanted more of them, so she always made a point to put back a little of her stolen cash to buy him used copies at the thrift store from time to time. She had recognized his Latin prayers, and when she could manage it, she brought him two copies of each book- one in English, the other in Latin, and he seemed to be learning a lot from the novels. She wouldn't admit it to him, but she was proud of his effort.

When he began to peruse the poster, she could tell he understood the general meaning of it, and at his inquiry, she smiled warmly at him and said simply, "da," which she had learned meant "yes" in Russian.

Chase noticed that Mikhail was, once again, clad in the bathrobe she'd brought him, and though she couldn't figure out why he was so in love with the garment, she had gotten used to seeing him in it most of the time. She figured it probably needed a wash by now, but she half suspected that if she took the robe to the laundromat, she'd come home to find Mikhail walking around butt naked.

Chase ducked behind a curtain she'd made from a lace altar cloth and slipped her rain-sodden clothes off and slipped into a huge t-shirt she'd found for herself, and a pair of ill-fitting flannel pajama pants, and then returned to her perch in front of the fire. Her feet were frozen, and she didn't have any socks. She had worn her only pair of shoes, a well-loved pair of boots, out today, but even the leather boots didn't keep the chill from sinking into her toes.

"Which one are you reading tonight?" she scooted over toward Mikhail's little corner and picked up the tattered copy of Ovid's work, and wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I was never one for the classics," she said, mostly to herself since Mikhail probably wouldn't get it. To drive the point home, she pointed at the book and said, "older books," and pulled a grotesque face to show her dislike. She tapped her head ("Not smart enough"[/b[) and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "what can you do?"

A chill ran through her thin frame and she shot the fire a sideways glance, but she didn't want to ignore her roommate. She had found herself growing more and more fond of the ghostly being, whom she believed to have been a monk at one point. He certainly knew enough Latin to support that hypothesis.

As far as feeding went, Chase still had to rely on Mikhail for nourishment, and while she knew she had to eat, it made her uncomfortable to just wander up to him and start gnawing on his neck or wrist. The act was just so... intimate, and she was having a hard time adjusting to the whole "Vampire" thing anyway. Often, she just did without, which would account for the darkening circles under her eyes. However, the two made do with what they had, but even so, Chase would be glad to be moving into a real apartment soon.

a corpse falling to bits then i opened my eyes
AND THE NIGHTMARE WAS ME !

(WORDS) eh (TAGGED) Mikhail
(NOTES) whatever.
(CREDITS) THIS IS BY DYLAN of CAUTION 2.0! Lyrics are In the Dark of the Night - Anastasia.

[Mikhail Vakhteiar Iul'ian]

When Chase confirmed that they were going to start looking for a proper house to live in, Mikhail's eyes brightened considerably in excitement. He beamed at her before looking back to the poster, tilting his head and staring at the not-so-great-quality photograph on the paper. Of course, he didn't know it was a photograph, and just assumed it was a very well-rendered painting.

"Artist is good," he mumbled in wonderment, his fingers once more drifting over the paper, before he shook his head and looked back up to Chase once she'd emerged from changing, his eyes following her as she came over and took a look at the books he was working on.

Again he tilted his head at her speech, thinking a moment, before looking back down to the book. "Classic, yes," he agreed, glancing back to her before pausing again. "Not smart enough? No, nonsense," he dismissed, shaking his head insistently. "Not have patience enough."

While he felt he hadn't communicated it (as he didn't know how to), he was still very grateful for Chase's presence in this phase of his life. Without her, he was sure he would still be quite lost and aimless. Yes, they were still in this room, and yes, he would have been here with or without her, but she had brought him clothes and books and seemed adamant about him learning 'English,' which he never would have been able to start on by himself. It helped a lot just to listen to her talk; he understood more than he could speak (as was natural when learning languages), and aside from that, he just liked listening to the lilt of her voice. It sounded foreign to him, but also pleasant, maybe even soothing.

He looked back to his book, stuttering out to himself the last few English words of the stanza he'd been on, before he set it aside and folded his hands in his lap, again looking to Chase as if waiting for her to say something. His gaze darted to the poster once more, and he had to ask, "When is time to see house?" Surely not now. It was nighttime now.

Speaking of which, now that Chase was close, he knew what she was probably thinking about. He frowned, looking at her and reaching over to cup a gentle hand to her face so that he could inspect her visage, which was pale and somewhat bruised around the eyes.

"You have hunger. Must eat," he scolded, as if knowing she was procrastinating feeding on purpose. While there was a degree of awkwardness to it that he understood from her end, to him, the feeding was just a thing that needed to be done. He was used to it from years in captivity with Zinovia, and had in a way become desensitized to the potential 'intimacy' of the exchange, and so, with Chase who meant him no harm, he was more than happy to provide nourishment for her. He felt it helped compensate for the good she did him.

The first few times, he had had to cut himself for her, but lately she'd been handling the biting on her own, probably by instinct.

"Here, eat now," he urged, tugging at her hand, before pausing to gather his hair over his opposite shoulder to expose his neck. She had probably noticed by now that his skin did carry a multitude of lacerations, mostly around the throat and wrists, though a few existed elsewhere on his frail form. However, they had existed far before she had started to feed on him, so she needn't worry that it was because of her.