The moon was full and the color of blood, the night the Fremen came to the vampire club...

[comparative_insanity]

Who: Fenn/Fay (Fai) and Jenny (Ghanima)
What: The best thing that can happen the day after you have turned into a vampire is running into your estranged and angry sister, amrite?
Where: A generic grocery store...
When: 30th, afthernoon
Warnings: Abundant southern accents. Swearing. Fay being repeatedly called on his shit?

He woke up not feeling himself. He felt the sort of lingering tiredness and soreness in his muscles that he would associate with a hard day at work, but not with collapsing into a convulsing heap in the park somewhere. He could still remember the pain with a shudder, but there was nothing of it now. In fact, he felt good, the way you might feel after a strenuous workout; he felt stronger than before, lighter somehow. There was really only one little thing that he still minded.

His mouth still tasted faintly of blood.

It didn't taste as terrible as it really ought to - he remembered that he'd even enjoyed the taste last night - but that really only made things worse. He didn't particularly fancy being reminded that suddenly the taste of blood was the best thing ever. He wanted some real food, even though he felt strangely not hungry for someone who hadn't eaten in roughly 24 hours. And he also didn't feel like he knew how to talk to Youou, or even look him in the eye just yet. And so he waited until he was sure he wouldn't be noticed, tiptoed to the door, grabbed his jacket and closed it gently behind him, and then bolted down the stairs.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs in a matter of seconds, he was vaguely aware that something must have changed in him. He was normally fast, but this... this was something else.

But he didn't want to think about that much. Instead he made a point to stroll at a leisurely pace to the nearest grocery store and headed straight for the fruit section. Meat was not a thing he was too keen on right at the moment.

Comments

[ghani]

Jennifer was in the same section, which was par for the course for her since she lived on a mostly vegetarian diet for environmental reasons. It was just easier on the world's resources, a subject that was very near and dear to her heart.

Even though it had been years, spotting tall and lanky young men with blond hair always made her do a double take, some small part of her still hopeful even though most of the 'I miss him' had turned into 'I would really like to slap him' at this point in her life. This particular time the double take did not lead to her shaking it off and continuing to go about her business, because the similarities she saw were just eerie. Could it be...?

"Fenny?"

The private nickname slipped out before she could stop herself. Fenn and Jenn, Jenny and Fenny. It had been her idea of course, a stubborn toddler decreeing that their names should sound the same and over the years it had sort of stuck.

[comparative_insanity]

He was doing his best at selecting the wares and not just grabbing the closest apple and sinking his teeth into it, and then out of nowhere came a voice that was... well, not entirely familiar. It had matured, had changed. No longer the excited chattering of a sunburned tot with hair bleached almost white and plasters on both knees, not even the voice of a teenage girl who would sneak out with him to look at the stars and dream of other places. This was definitely the voice of a woman, but it touched a part of him that had been shunted out of the way for seven years now, and he spun around where he stood, accidentally scattering cherries all over the floor.

He didn't remember her being beautiful, but he'd been sixteen and she his little sister, so maybe he just hadn't noticed. That didn't matter, though, because it was the same face although subtly changed, the same eyes. "Well, color me pink and put me in a pig pen," he said weakly. "Jenny? That's... That's really you."

[ghani]

She had thought often of what she would do once... if she found her brother again. Unlike the other siblings she had been unable to entirely put it aside and move on, the insistent feeling that he was still out there never quite leaving her. The scenarios had ranged from excited embraces to fist fights, the way daydreams do, but now faced with raw reality Jenny realized that she had no idea what to do.

Her knuckles shone white as her grip on the basket she was carrying tightened and she took in the state of him. He seemed to be doing all right, which was both infuriating and a relief at the same time. If he was okay, why had he never picked up the damn phone to make a call?

"You little shit."

Apparently the route her subconscious had settled on without informing the rest of her mind was an angry one. She looked mildly startled by her own words at first, but found that they expressed pretty much exactly what she was feeling and so her face settled into hard lines of reproach and disappointment. Seriously Fenn, screw you.

[comparative_insanity]

He didn't know what to say. 'Sorry' seemed so very small and stupid, because seriously, what did it matter that he was? He'd been such a child, running off on her and everyone like that, and once he realized how dumb it had been... well, he'd been ashamed. Did they really need him in their lives now that they had probably moved on long ago, did they need his apologies and futile attempts to make up for everything that he could never make better?

He'd thought about it many times. He wanted to meet his nephew and his nieces. He wanted to know what had happened to his younger siblings, what they'd decided to make of themselves. He wanted to be able to call his mama or his daddy and tell them he was fine. But he couldn't find the words, and as he looked at himself and the life he'd made, he was deadly afraid that they all...

...well, wouldn't want him. Didn't need him.

Somehow, it was almost a relief that she was angry with him. And he had to say something, so he might as well apologize.

"I'm sorry, Jenn." He looked down at himself, at his skinny white pants, his wrinkled t-shirt and the mint green faux leather jacket hanging off his shoulders, feeling much younger than he had in a long while. And then up at her again, at that beautiful face twisted with too much emotion, that perfectly tanned skin shifting slightly as anger set her blood moving. "I'm such a coward. I wasn't sure how I was gonna even talk to you again, and I- Shit, I'm just really sorry."

[ghani]

"You're sorry?"

Oh, that was rich.

An outside observer would probably assume that she was the older one, dressed as she was in a rather less wrinkled t-shirt, jeans and a thick, grey, knitted cardigan. It wasn't really all that cold, but Jenn couldn't abide low temperatures for long without getting uncomfortable. She didn't know why, perhaps she just had low blood circulation.

"How about picking up a damn phone, or writing an email, or hell, sending a damn postcard instead of just sitting around being sorry?"

If he was so sorry, why hadn't she ever heard from him again? She'd thought he understood her. That he cared for her. But apparently as soon as one family member decided to be a prick they were all bastards in his eyes. At least that's how it had felt to her.

[comparative_insanity]

"Well, I... am." It comes out so very lamely, helpless little words that he's sure will be washed away by her anger, but he feels like he should say it nonetheless. Sorry for giving up like that, sorry for not fighting for his place in their family, sorry for every single time he put his arm around her shoulders and told her that it was okay, that he understood, only to run away with his tail between his legs.

He'd been so angry, he remembered. Curled up on the bus and eating a chocolate bar some kind soul had given him, since he hadn't even packed proper food before leaving, he'd blinked away angry tears and sworn never to come back. Breaking his back working as a dishwasher he'd bitterly thought that this was all his family's fault. Lying awake on a thin mattress in his colleagues closet, he'd pitied himself because his family didn't care enough to find him.

She was right. What a little shit he was.

"I was ashamed," he mumbles, staring down at his dusty silver trainers. "I acted like such an entitled little prick, and then I left without a word, and I- I guess I thought y'all hated me. Ain't like I didn't give you plenty of reason."

[ghani]

"Oh, can it, not like we wouldn't all have understood why you got upset with daddy for what he said..."

She caught herself a little at that, and felt the need to backpedal, something that took the edge off the worst of her anger and turned it into something more like sadness.

"Well, I would've understood."

And why couldn't that have been enough?

"I would've stood up for you."

But he hadn't given her that chance.

[comparative_insanity]

"I know." His shoulders sag, and he has to scramble for his jacket as it makes a bit to the floor, and ends up clutching it to his chest as one would a stuffed toy or a blankie. "I know you would. I acted as if- as if you were all against me, as if it was your fault he was saying stuff like that, as- as if you all hated me, because it was easier that way. And once I realized what an utter shit I'd been..."

He shrugs helplessly, still not sure if he dares look her in the eye, so he ends up gazing helplessly at her hands instead. "...once I did, I felt so dumb. I let y'all down - I let you down, and I just couldn't see why you'd want a loser like me back."

[ghani]

"Because we love you, dummy!"

The only thing holding her back from just reaching out and shaking him was the basket in her hands, the frustration she felt almost welcome in how familiar it was. Fenn had always been infuriating, much as she adored him.

"You know, I never figured you were stupid but I'm starting to think maybe I was wrong about that."

ONCE MORE WITH THE RIGHT ACCOUNT

[comparative_insanity]

That gets an unexpected laugh out of him at the same time as he suddenly has to press his hand for a moment against first one burning eye, then the other.

"Don't know where you got that from, sweetie. You should know I'm so dumb I could throw myself on the ground and miss by now. You were always the smart one."

A deep breath, and he can hear it shaking just a bit. "But I ain't so stupid I don't know when I've been a fool. I- Youou's been telling me that I need to get back in contact with y'all, and I- I've really missed you."

AND WITH LOTS OF FEELING

[ghani]

"Youou?"

The name sounds familiar, though at the moment she can't quite place it since her mind is a little too occupied with a confusing mess of thoughts and feelings centered on her wayward brother and the fact that they have now at last been reunited.

She feels a pang of... almost jealousy at the thought that someone else has gotten to be close enough to Fenn that they are in a position to be telling him what he should and shouldn't do when it comes to his family. He's her brother, damnit!

It's weird and irrational, and she quickly suppresses the emotion. It's good that he hasn't been alone, after all.

SO MANY FEELINGS /cries gently

[comparative_insanity]

"Ah, he's... kind of probably my boyfriend."

It was rather awkward saying it like that, but he prefered not telling his little sister the whole truth, which went something like, 'He's this guy I met that I really like and we have amazing sex and I think we might be together, but I'm not sure how you can tell'. Admittedly she was only one year younger, so she was hardly a child, but... well, his sister, nonetheless.

"He kept telling me you probably didn't hate me as much as I thought you might, but..." He sighs, shrugging helplessly. "Like I said, I'm a coward. I just couldn't stand the idea of calling and-" And what? He wasn't sure, just that it terrified him.

[ghani]

Oh. A boyfriend.

"Figures you'd be the one to find one first."

Not Jennifer of course, who was fine most of the time but sometimes just had to curl up and cry into her pillow because why couldn't she find him? The guy she just knew was out there somewhere, perhaps waiting just like she was.

"And he was right, though they all got pretty mad after a while."