An Unwanted Whiskey Tea Party

[Pete]

Pete was sat on the couch in Tom's house in San Diego, holding a mug filled with whiskey-touched coffee. He sipped at it gently and made a face. Pete didn't like whiskey and he liked it even less in his favourite drink of all time, but he was being polite. Tom's house, Tom's rules, or that's what Pete felt. He sighed and looked around.

UFO conspiracy books and knick-knacks were everywhere on the bookshelves and kid's toys all over the floor from Sire's son and daughter having played there just over an hour and a half ago. Mark was sat opposite Pete, looking up at Tom who stood at the end of the living room. Pete made a serious face and looked down at the floor, at his feet. He had honestly no idea why Tom wanted to come back to Poway, San Diego and to be honest, Pete didn't really wanna know. However, he couldn't escape the feeling of dread he had when the feeling of Tom's voice breaking the silence.

Nervously, Pete coughed like a nanny-goat choking on a mintoe, then apologetically he looked up at Tom and then back at Mark, then to his favourite place to look; the floor. He really, really didn't wanna be here.
At all....

[Tom]

As Pete made a face after taking a sip of Coffee-Whiskey, Tom rolled his eyes and sighed. Tom's eyes darted around, thinking that his house was such a goddamn mess and that someone should really clean it up. Hell, he'd do it tomorrow - if he had the time. If not, he'd do it later. Tom placed his whiskey glass on the mantlepiece and turned to address the two men, arms open wide and a big, vampire-y, Californian grin and clapped his hands together.
"So, Pete. Mark." He said looking from the frowning, apologetic looking Pete to the stern, confused looking Mark. "You're probably wondering why I asked you guys to come with me back to Poway, huh? Let me explain," Sire paused, turned a full one-eighty degrees, facing the fireplace behind him and placed a hand on the mantlepiece, half-staring into the whiskey glass, half-staring through it with his bluey-brown eyes, through the strands of hair that covered them. "Last time we were here, I was kinda avoiding telling everyone something else - as well as the problem we have on our hands right now. It is a vampire problem, involving my heirs. They're not my heirs anymore. No one will be following me on their sixteenth birthday. I won't be standing down from my post for a very long while. For this simple reason. They're half-human. My, uh, wife is a pure human. No mongrel vampire can become a vampire king - as you both know. And so, I regret to say that I'll be your beloved 'Sire' for another ten years - or until another family is willing to stand in my place and start a whole new branch of Royal Family."

The whole thing came out like water out of a faucet. His smile became a frown at the whiskey glass, and it begun to blur in his vision, for he had begun to allow tears come to the surface of his eyes. For the first time, Tom was ashamed and a little frightened. No, he wasn't angry at all - weirdly - he was just a little, well, confused and upset. His wife - who he was cheating on with several other human women anyway - had lied about being a vampire too. She'd even put in fake, yet somehow very realistic, vampire fangs. It hurt Tom a little that she'd fake a disease just to give birth to half-vampire kids - for her own gain, so she could sue Tom for 'breaking Human laws'. One of which involved having children with a human woman. But how would he have known without her telling him over the phone the other night before a concert.
Sudden anger took over Tom's body, but he held it in, grabbing the whiskey glass and tipping it into his mouth, completely draining it like he would drain a human's blood. Sighing, unhappily, he supposed, he threw the glass into the fire. Hearing the sudden 'crack' as the glass exploded in the fire's embers made him smile a little, however very uneasily. Sire shivered just a little and turned around again, putting on the facade that he was cool with it - that he would love to have another Vampire family take the DeLonge Royal Flame after he'd stepped down in another ten years or so. Tom frowned and offered the others some more whiskey, though totally ignored their requests and half-walked, half-ran into the kitchen to destroy it, in order to get his daily amount of wine, whiskey and beer. Once he found the 15 year old Glenfiddich, he took it out of the cardboard tin and opened the bottle taking a very large, very unhealthy swig out of it.

He was going to need a lot more than any Religion could offer him. Tom was going to need a lot of alcohol and a lot of blood to get over this.
Tom walked into the living room again, holding the whiskey bottle by its neck and he sat down next to Mark, taking another massive gulp from the bottle and then leaned his head on the lycanthrope's shoulder.
"What did I do to her?" He asked to no one- in particular, his eyes closed and a little trickle of booze-tainted tear coming from his eyes and his mouth. "I mean to make her wanna lie to me about her fucking species, man? What gave her the right to lie to me about being the same as me? Who the fuck is she to go ahead and ruin the DeLonge name?"

Sire was in a whole heep o' bullshit, and admittedly, he needed Pete - recently over his ex-girlfriend - and Mark - married over 12 years and a bit.

[Mark]

Mark wasn't the most figdety of the three, he was sat on the couch, his left leg crossed on top of his right, leaning back into the sofa and his head leaning on his right hand. He listened carefully to Tom's story, and with a hard growl, he sat up straight; wanting to stand up and run out of the room; wanting to hunt down Tom's wife. However, he held in the feeling and resulted in sitting back down again, allowing Tom to lean on his shoulder and Pete to look at them.
He put a comforting arm around Tom and shook his head in disbelief. How could she, indeed? Mark mulled over all the words he could've said to Tom in that same moment, and decided that none of the words he could think up were any good. The Lycanthrope Alpha sighed out loud and leaned forward, he needed a drink aswell, and picked up his glass of whiskey, sipping at it with great, caring passion. After placing it back down again, he looked at Pete with a worrying look and then back at Tom.

He seemed to be crying, and obviously, his family name was now in tatters in the mud. For a second, he felt almost sorry for the guy.
"Dude, don't worry - we're here for you, aren't we, Pete? And we'll make sure that you get to keep your family's honour. Promise." His voice was gentle, and his words were kind, but his icy-blue eyes were cold and angry. How could anyone do that, just for their own, sick, and possibly very twisted, gain? She knew how important the DeLonge name was to Tom and how much the Vampire line meant to him, yet she still went and did the deed.

Mark would support his friend no matter how much bullshit he was in, especially in the courts...

[Pete]

Pete stared at the one that had beaten him and broken him down several years ago as he cried on Mark's shoulder. He didn't know whether to be amused, shocked, angry - at the human who lied to Tom, obviously - or upset. Pete shook himself and his hair whooshed from one side of his face to other and settled on the left side when he stopped. Honestly, Pete could not believe what had happened to the most powerful, feared, loved, dangerous - drunken, don't forget drunken - Vampire on the planet; and here he was crying his eyes out over some whore of a human trying to gain money out of him by destroying everything he had. Every little bit of it.
The younger vampire sighed and looked from Mark to Tom and back again. In answer to the lycanthrope's question he nodded curtly and stood up, carefully kneeling beside Tom's knees. He looked up at the King with wide-eyed-browns and then at the floor, sighing everything nasty he wanted to say away before saying:
"If you ever need to talk about it - without booze, you hafta to be sober to talk to me, remember - I'm always around ya or you've got my cell phone number. I'm willing to help you out, Sire, no matter what it takes."

It was true, he wanted to help - but he also saw it as way of returning the favour Tom was giving him. Pete needed help to try and find out what the hell is going on with the Population numbers of the Sectors and Tom was willing to help out - after a tantrum, but none-the-less - so Pete decided it was time good karma came around for Tom. Maybe talking to the scariest guy Pete knew wasn't so bad after all...?

[Tom]

It was odd for Tom to have so much attention from those who secretly either hated him or feared him - especially from Pete. Sire sighed and sat up straight, taking another gulp from his whiskey glass before realising it was already empty. Sadly, with a frown on his face, Tom placed it carefully on the bullet-proof glass coffee table before stretching out his feet to join it on the table too. He folded his arms and sniffed hard, like a small child did straight after realising that his or her tantrum wouldn't work on the parents. What the Hell was he going to do about his kids? Actually, scratch that, was the court going to take them away from him? Were they going to be taken away and tested on for more DNA mutations? Tom's head was filling with questions so fast that he was convinced he had a hangover from the whiskey already.
That was one thing that would have to stop if he was going to try and fight for them - unfortunately - and the womanising put to a bare minium - meaning cheesy, internet porn instead of the real thing for a while... - and it seemed he was going to have to only be a vampire king when his duty called for him to be, a rockstar because of the money and a father to his children for a long time, or just until the court thing blew over. However, that wasn't the main thing that was bugging him, it was Pete's statement from the previous Council Meeting a month ago. He was worried that the more humans that were being turned into Vampires or Lycanthropes, the less human blood there'd be for the Vamps. He worried that the Vampire Sector would die out, exactly a year after the Human Sector did.

if you wanna get out alive...

[/right]

There was one thing the vampires of USA could do, and that was to immigrate to the UK, but that would cause problems with the Vampire King of the UK.. So that plan was dismissed from his mind. The King looked around his home. It was full of useless things and books and kids' toys and God-Knows-What-Else he'd bought when he was drunk. Tom seemed to realise that his life was a rough drawing of a domestic abuser's fantasy. Drink, womanise, abuse those you love, drink some more, and complete the circle over and over again. Tom stood up and looked from Pete to Mark and turned around, pacing back and forth in the length of the coffee table.
"it seems i'll hafta tackle general Vampire problems first, then sort out Royal Vampire issues later on. so, Pete, what do you propose we do? i'm willing to listen to your ideas and then get your sister and her mate over here to talk more about it, if you want. the same with Travis, i'll hafta call him and make sure he knows what we know, or he'll be fucked too." Sure, Tom was running away from his personal problems, but this was the only way his people would survive, would be able to survive. That was his plan, avoid his own depressions and guarantee his people's safety and survival with no problems.

...whoa, run for your life.

[Mark]

Mark's thought were racing too, mainly because he was wondering what the hell would cause such a fuss amongst the Vampires? Surely if they're numbers weren't increasing or decreasing that was a good thing? Surely there had to be a better explanation to this whole thing than was previously thought? Sighing, he got up and grabbed Tom by the shoulders, making him sit down again, muttering something to him about calming down and think straight. To concentrate on one problem at a time. Which was what Mark was also trying to do, also.
He had home problems too, which involved his wife and kid. She didn't wanna be with him anymore, and this saddened the Alpha. She wanted to 'see other people' seeing as they'd been together sice high school and they'd married over twelve years - without a constant change in her sexual relationships with other men. Mark held in the urge to throw something. Of course, he wasn't stupid, he knew she was having an affair, which was both against Human and Lycanthrope laws. Once you have a mate, you can't go behind their backs to other mates and pretend its all okay! The lycanthrope bit his bottom lip and looked at Tom, and then Pete with wide eyes.

All of them were having personal problems on top of this shitty business of population numbers, so Mark's thoughts suddenly became - Who cares? Who really gives a shit? and We can't live forever! If they had personal problems, then why not tackle those first and then try to sort this thing out?
"Uh, yeah, Pete. What do you have as ideas for us, man?" He said with a confused little frown and his left hand ruffling through his hair.

If anyone had any answers it'd be Pete, right? The lycanthrope leader shook himself suddenly, he felt a little cold.

[Pete]

Pete had less answers than he did ideas and thoughts. From what he'd heard, Tom was illing to sweep everything under the carpet in his house and try to sort out the Vampire Sector's main problem right now. Pete agreed it'd be the safest thing to do right now, but still, it wasn't the best idea to take up... Frowning, Pete thought hard about what could be done. When it came to him - what if the turning process could be reversed? It had been tested already by some scientists that were trying to be 'uber smart' about it and show off their useless but well-paid skills. They found that on 99.98% of the time, the perfect cure was for the half-human to drink some water tainted with detergent. Yeah, a pure human would die from drinking a glass of detergent, but a half-human would kill the Vampire cells that has only just been born inside of their blood.
The vampire thought a moment, coughed and stood up, looking from Mark to Tom and he began explaining his idea.


"We should get a large sample of the stuff and hand it out to the half-humans who wish to stay human and not wanna be turned into one of us. What do you guys think?" Crazy, but the idea just might work. It seemed Pete was living in a world of Hollywood fairy dust - cough - or rather in a world of theft, war and vandalism with badly written scripts and poorly directed scenes. He shrugged and sat on the bullet-proof glass table, making sure he didn't physically sit on the glass, his knees held high, his feet balancing and growing ever pins-and-needles-ly bored on his toes.
He awaited his desired answer, which sounded similiarly to 'yeah, sure! let's do that!' or 'great idea, pete! your such an idiot!'. So much he wanted his ideas to appreciated, but still he wanted them to rot and fall away like a ripened fruit...