Viral Love

Great Gaia. If I didn’t get his wonderful taste out of my mouth, I’d go crazy. No, crazier. I snuck a glance at him. Of course, he brooded. He sat there, staring out into the dark with statue-like stillness. I’d rocked his world. It gave me satisfaction, of course, but not like I thought it would. Now I knew I’d be consumed by the desire for more of him.

I loved his assault. I loved knowing I could get sexual aggression out of him in the first place.

We drove into town, which was lit up with lights and torches. Banners of rainbow colors hung everywhere. I worried we wouldn’t get a room at an inn with such a large festival attendance.

Valentine hopped down gracefully. I followed after thanking the two women for their ride. They laughed, offered me money if I could get my boyfriend to kiss me again. Though it hurt, I turned them down. If I pushed Valentine’s buttons too hard, he’d retreat from me. I didn’t want that. Right now I had to play it smart and be a good little uke.

One of the women gave me gil anyway, telling me she thought we deserved it.

We wordlessly identified and headed for an inn. Once inside, Valentine went straight to the counter. I followed. “Do you have any rooms left?” he asked.

“Only one,” the stressed looking clerk said. “We never rent that room.”

“Why?” I asked, curious.

“It’s haunted.” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”

“We’ll take it,” I said, sliding her the gil I’d only just made.

“I can’t let you take it,” she said, her worried green eyes moving to her supervisor, who only stood a few feet away. “Seriously. Anyone who stays in there is dead by morning.”

“It’s already morning,” Valentine said, thumping his gauntlet onto the counter. “Give it to us.”

She looked at him. “We-elll.”

“Give it to them, Margery,” her supervisor snapped. “Make them sign a paper that we aren’t held accountable for a haunting death and get rid of them. We have to get food out on the complimentary tables.”

My stomach rumbled. “Food?”

“All guests eat a free breakfast while the festival is in town,” the clerk said. She drew up a paper and handed it over to us.

We, the undersigned, do not hold Second Chances Inn responsible for death or dismemberment upon staying in basement room number one. Our survivors will not sue this establishment, nor slander it, and we understand that Second Chances Inn will not pay for our burial.

We signed, but I smiled when I saw we both used fake names. We hadn’t even discussed that.

“Eat with me,” I bade, jerking my head toward the rapidly filling tables. “I doubt anyone hits on me with you hovering close by.”

He gave me a strange look that I couldn’t decipher, but he acquiesced without a word. I took a plate and loaded it down with scrambled eggs, bacon, fried mushrooms, and hash browns. Smothering everything in gravy, I happily sat beside Valentine and began eating.

Valentine quietly ate a single peach before saying anything. He dropped his pit onto my plate. “You don’t want any of these men to make advances upon you?”

I glanced around. Some of them were very fine, but none held a candle to Valentine. “No.” I discarded my plate and got another, filling it up exactly the same way.

“Why not?” he asked.

I frowned. Why did he want conversation now? I had better things to do with my mouth than talk. “I’m too busy to entertain any of these men,” I told him. “I can tell just by looking at them that they all require keeping.”

“Keeping,” Valentine repeated. He got up and took a bunch of grapes, then returned to me. “How can you tell by looking at them?”

I realized he had something cooking in that pretty head, and he wouldn’t drop it until he got the answers he sought. This forced me to slow in my eating. It wasn’t like I tasted anything in the first place, I admitted to myself. I only attempted to fill the gigantic hole in my gut.

“I just can,” I said. “Have you been out of the game that long?”

“Game?” He frowned. “Love and sex aren’t games.” Shifting a little, he met the stare of a blond man head-on. “That one has been looking at me for far too long.”

“He’s looking for a boyfriend. Your eye contact is encouraging,” I explained, smiling when Valentine quickly turned to face me. “If you want to put him off, make some sort of ownership signal towards me. You can be subtle.”

His red eyes darkened just a little. “Like what?”

“Take something off my plate,” I suggested.

He examined my plate, snatched a piece of bacon and stuffed it into his mouth. “It seems to have worked,” he murmured.

I nodded. “I’ll take it a step farther.” I got up and filled a plate with toast and sausage, then handed it to him with a fork. Meeting the eyes of my brooding homophobe, I grinned. “Juice or milk?”

“…milk.” Valentine didn’t return my smile.

He ate almost as fast as I did. Taking our room key, he got up. “I need real sleep.”

“I do, too,” I admitted easily, following. I didn’t know how he knew where we needed to go, but he led us well. We stood outside Number One in the basement in just a minute. He didn’t hesitate, but shoved the key in and opened the door.

I beheld a room so dark and moldy smelling that the Shin-Ra mansion would have recoiled from it in fear. Valentine strode inside, impatiently waved me in, then slammed and locked the door behind me. I stood in the exact center, or, what I guessed as the exact center of the room. I feared to touch anything.

Valentine made a noise of impatience, striding to me. He grabbed my wrist, yanked off the materia bracelet, then promptly sent a gale of wind through our room. It collected like a twister, forcing me to press myself to a damp, lichen-encrusted wall to avoid being sucked in.

Going back to the door, Valentine threw it wide and directed the wind out. We now occupied a room that only smelled of water, not spores and brackishness. “It’s still dirty,” he proclaimed in disgust, throwing my bracelet back. “Stay here. I’ll return shortly.” He strode out.

I’d never really paid any attention to the supernatural. I heeded science more than superstition. Still, I heeded the creepy, breathless whispering that began the very second Valentine vacated the room.

“…not one of usssss…..”

“…alive…warm…bloooood…”

“…we drink himmmm…”

I saw a movement out of my peripheral vision, and whirled to face it. Of course, it vanished the second I fully turned.

Oh, fuck no. I wasn’t staying in here.

I strode to the door and yanked on the knob. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. I rattled it, too scared to absorb that I was truly trapped. It would open. I’d make it open.

Valentine burst through, his arms full of bed linens. Paying me no mind, he strode in and started stripping the large bed. The hideous gibbering from unseen entities stopped the moment he entered. “Haunted or not, they should keep the place clean,” he complained bitterly, fussing with the bed like an old woman. “Help me. Grab the other side of this.”

I complied; casting nervous looks this way and that as I attempted to put my side of the mattress cover to rights.

“There’s no sense in letting a dark, quiet room like this become a filthy hole,” Valentine continued complaining. He began putting the bottom sheet on, his movements brisk and irritated. I helped him from my side, swallowing back an acrid taste in my throat. We placed the flat sheet, then the comforter. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Pillows.” He went for the door again.

I stood frozen as he disappeared. He left the door open, but the very fucking moment he vanished up the stairwell, it slammed shut.

“…soooo warm, so tasty-eeee…”

“…afraid…shouldn’t be afraid…come, join ussss….”

“…love you…love your blood and skin and bones…”

I flew to the door and started yanking on the knob again, frantic and nearly mindless. I couldn’t stand the unknown, and I certainly had no desire to start embracing it with the life of a blood-sucking ghoul.

The shadows drew closer, and I only knew them as shadows because my mind saw them. My eyes couldn’t see them at all.

“…noooo…don’t run, tasty mannn…”

“…sssstayyy and love usss…”

“…break your bones and suck your marrow, eat youuu…”

Holy fucking Shiva! I ripped the knob right off, but the door still didn’t open. I could see through the hole, though, and Valentine’s shadow moving down the stairs. “You goddamn hurry, Turk!” I shouted through that hole. Something was touching me, now, on my shoulder, a slender tendril of ice and dread…

Valentine opened the door, once again making the ghostly, violent entities retreat. He scowled at me. “What’s your fucking problem?” he asked, walking by me and putting pillows on the bed.

“There’s something, some things in here,” I whispered. I could feel them hanging against the walls, waiting.

Valentine looked around. “Where?”

And then, I understood.

Whatever demonic forces lurked in Vincent Valentine, they could eat the things in this room. The things were afraid of him. They wouldn’t come near him.

Somewhat assured, I sat on the edge of the now very clean bed. “Everywhere,” I answered. “They’re all around us. But, they’re scared of you.”

“They should be,” Valentine growled. He flexed his metallic hand, making his claws click together. “Get in the bed, madman. Even when I sleep, Chaos never does.”

His warning pushed the unseen malevolence even further back. I kicked off my shoes, got under the covers and lit a cigarette from my mangled pack. For a single gil I’d go out and throw myself under an angry chocobo. I couldn’t handle this supernatural shit.

Valentine shed his boots and his shirt, climbed into the bed and fluffed his pillow. “Give me one of those,” he demanded.