Those Eyes Ch. 04

I squinted my eyes like I did when in deep thought. I looked around making sure that no one was close before I spoke again. "Is it because of...wh-...what...I am?" I asked timidly.

"No, I think it's because of...who you are." He said with an expression that led me to believe that he barely understood what he just said.

"I think I understand what you just said about as much as you do, Alex." I said with an awkward laugh.

"Yeah, I don't know." He said on a laugh and ran his hand down his face. I followed every movement.

"Why can we feel each other?" I asked as I studied his eyes.

"No idea, Ana." I gave him a perplexed look. "Just a little nickname, I wanted to try out." He said with side grin that resembled the same look he had given me in my dreams.

"Okay...Lex." I said with a smile. "How did you know that I'm not..." I found it hard to finish the question.

"Not human?" He asked. I nodded and started to look back down. "No, Ana. Look at me." I chuckled nervously and looked back up. Pleased with my cooperation, he began speaking again."I didn't at first, you're very convincing as a human." Those words didn't settle well with me." When we were close, I smelled it then."

"Smelled what exactly? I asked curiously, afraid that I possessed some unappealing scent that others could smell.

"Something primal. It's hard to describe." He replied, as if in deep thought before his eyes met mine once more. The way he looked at me was too familiar.

I stared at him for a moment, trying to get up nerve to ask him my next question. I exhaled deeply. "Do you know...what...I am, Alex? Am I like you?" I tried to hide the desperation from my voice.

"You truly don't know do you?" I shook my head, staring at the one person that could possibly have answers for me. "I have no idea, Santana. I'm so sorry but I've never scented anything like you. Your scent was so human and yet it wasn't. And your teeth..." He said. "Unlike anything that I have ever seen."

I tried to stop the tears from falling then but I couldn't help it. He couldn't help me; he didn't have the answers that desperately needed. He was beside me then, suddenly. His strong arms were wrapped around me and I cried into his chest. "Since I was 17, I have been so lost. " I sobbed. "I had thought, for a second, that you could tell me what I am but you can't help me. Fuck!. "He pulled away from me then and stared at me. Being away from his warmth felt wrong and I scrambled back into his arms. I hadn't cried in another person's arms in more than five years and I needed him to hold me.

"Tell me what happened when you were 17, Santana." He whispered into my hair. Between broken sobs, I told him everything from that day in the field. I told him how the men killed my father and how I killed them. I told him how my senses had changed.

"I hadn't thought about it until a week ago and then I met you and it happened again." I said between fragmented sobs. "And now it keeps happening and I can't stop thinking about you and sometimes thinking about you makes it happen!" I exclaimed before I realized what I was saying. He stiffened beneath me briefly before his hard body once again softened under mine.

-Alex-

I had seen the glimmer of hope in her eyes. She had hoped that I would be able to tell her what she was. It broke my heart that I couldn't. I inhaled deeply, her strange scent surrounding me. She sounded so broken as she cried in my arms. She seemed so lost and alone and my soul cried for me to help her. Even in her despair, I couldn't help but realize how her body felt against mine. Her generous breast were pressed against my torso and I groaned. I needed to get my mind off of my current train of thought. I listened intently to her story.

"Santana?" She looked up with her tear strained face. "Where are you from?" It was the first question that came to mind.

She laughed as she untangled her arms from around my body. "Southwest Virginia." She replied as she wiped away a few tears.

That explained her slight southern accent, I thought. I wanted to keep her talking, anything to get my mind off how her lush curves felt against my body. Plus, I was finding that I liked her voice. "Will you tell me about it?" I asked.

"It's in the mountains. There's always a nice breeze." She said as it appeared to finally dawn on her what a compromising position she was in. She groaned slightly as she slid off my lap and back into her own chair. I fought every fiber in my body to restrain from pulling her back into my embrace. She awkwardly laughed, refusing to make eye contact with me. I couldn't tell if I found that habit of hers to be annoying or adorable. I cleared my throat and she immediately understood what I wanted. She looked at me and smiled her usual awkward smile.

"What else?" I asked as I stared into her olive colored eyes. She looked up as if thinking of what to tell me next and she smiled a secret smile.

"There are stars." She nearly whispered.

"Stars? There are stars everywhere." I said, confused.

"Well, yes. You're right." She said looking at me seriously before smiling again. "But there, home, the stars are the brightest. The sky looks like it's blanketed in tiny diamonds." She laughed then and scrunched her perfect face. "Fuck that sounded cliché."

I couldn't help but laugh. She had a dirty mouth. "Fuck" seeming like it was her favorite of all curse words. "Yes, that was pretty fucking cliché." I said and she chuckled. I liked the sound of her laugh, I got the feeling that she didn't laugh nearly enough. "You know, I've never told anyone this but...I am very fond of stars." I said. It was true; when I was younger, I used to sit outside for hours just staring at the sky during the night.

"Well, you should see the ones in Southern Virginia, then." She said with a shy smile.

Suddenly the sentence was leaving my lips before my brain had fully processed it. "Let's go then."

"Ok, let's just hop into my Audi and take a little trip to the boons, shall we?" She said as she mimed packing up her backpack. I realized then that I was serious.

"How about we take my X5 instead?" I asked looking expectantly at the perfect stranger. She paused in her pantomime and looked directly at me.

"Alex..." She started.

"Right now. Me, you and the Glee soundtrack. Four hour road trip."

"You do not have the Glee soundtrack." Was all that she said as she stared at me with squinted eyes.

"No. You're right. But that was the only thing that I was joking about."

-Santana-

I stared out of the car window as we drove down 81. What the fuck are you doing, Santana? I mentally chastised myself. I was sitting in the passenger seat of a BMW with a man who was a perfect stranger, driving me to my hometown. As much as I wanted to be disturbed by my behavior, I couldn't be. Alex didn't feel like a stranger and sitting beside him only continued to feel more right. I tried to sneak a look at the beautiful man sitting beside me using only my peripheral vision.

"Yes?" He said in an amused tone, acknowledging my look. I quickly looked back to the window.

"Are we really going to my hometown?" I asked, still staring as the passing scenery.

"Santana..." Was all that he said and I knew that he wanted me to look at him but what I didn't understand was why.

"I really don't appreciate you telling me to look at you." I said in a flat tone.

"You never make eye contact. I've only seen you twice and this was definitely in the top ten first things that I noticed about you." He said with a smile.

"What were the other 9?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Number one, your skin tone. Number two, your eyes. Number three, your dimples. Number four, your lips." He paused then and cleared his throat. I couldn't help but laugh. My laughter seemed to snap him out of his reverie. 'Oh! Where was I? Oh yes, number five..."

He had already listed everything from the neck up, I could only imagine what five through nine were. "You don't have to continue," I said while blushing. "I can...guess where your list was headed."

He chuckled. "Have you always been like this?"

"Like what, awesome?" I asked, finally loosening up a bit.

He laughed. It was a deep, happy sound. "Well, yes. But I meant..how do I put this gently?" He paused.

"Awkward. I believe that's the correct term for it." I interjected.

"Well, yes. I'm going to be straight with you." He said while shuffling through songs on his iTouch. "You're beautiful." He said, giving me a side glance and an appreciative look.

Blushing, I attempted a smile. "Thanks."

"But I have never known anyone who looks like you, act the way you do." He said with a cautious smile. I was fidgeting with my hands in my lap, refusing to make eye contact with him. I hated being called out on my suffocating awkwardness. I began thinking back to my middle school years when everyone was expected to be clumsy, shy, and socially inept and how I outshined all of my classmates in all of those respects. I could remember their teasing like it was yesterday.

"Santana?" I heard his melodious voice break through my haze of memories. I blinked, looking up into his bright blue eyes. The eyes that had haunted my dreams for over a week and I visibly gulped as those eyes seemed to scream, "it's okay"

"I had to start wearing glasses when I was two, hearing aids when I was four. Wearing glasses as a kid wasn't the fashion statement that it is now. The kids on the playground used to push me down and steal my glasses. They'd toss them around, break them." I paused, thinking about my childhood was always painful. "There was one girl whose favorite game was to sneak up behind me and turn down my hearing aids, literally rendering me deaf until I would catch on to what she had done. 'Kids will be kids' that's what the teachers would always say."

"Santana, you don't have to...why are you telling me this?" He asked, peaking at me with a side glance. His expression was so odd. He looked like he was hurting. I shook that thought from my head, it made no sense.

"You asked me if I were always like this. I wasn't. It was worse because of my race. People in small towns with closed minds have this desire to put everything into a box and they couldn't do that with me. I'm black, I'm part Asian. My..." I paused looking for the right word. "Ambiguity made them hate me. They also didn't understand my skin condition. I couldn't 't go into direct sunlight without prescription sunblock. My skin would burn." I winced thinking about a particularly painful memory." Brandon Walker, a boy who I was convinced was the spawn of Satan, pushed me out into the sunlight and locked the doors so, that I couldn't get back inside the classroom once. 'N words don't burn!', he screamed as he shut the door. I had forgotten my sunscreen that day. I stood outside for twenty minutes before the teacher realized that I was missing. I had to be rushed to the hospital once they found me."

I looked at Alex. A single tear was sliding down his right cheek. His fist were so tight on the steering wheel that his knuckles were now white. I knew that I should have stopped my story but I had never told anyone these things and getting it all out felt good so, I continued. "I was adopted...by a Vietnamese couple. That was more fuel for them. It was different and closed minds don't really appreciate different. They would use their fingers to pull out the corners of their eyes into slants and say that they were my parents." It hurt talking about my parents but I could tell that Alex was listening to every word and talking to him felt so good. I exhaled deeply, getting all of this off my chest was freeing.

"My Papa, he was brilliant. A scientist. It's why I'm a biology major. I want to make him and Mama proud. But like most brilliant people, Papa was...eccentric. He was always paranoid. He and Mama were so protective of me. I never told them how I was treated at school. I think...I was embarrassed of them. I didn't want my eccentric Asian parents showing up at school, causing a scene. The kids would have had a field day with that. They already made fun of my race, my eyesight, my hearing, my eating issues, my skin issues and my parents. They didn't need anything else."

"Eating issues?" It was the first thing that he had said since I began my recount.

"I couldn't eat many things. Physicians could never figure it out. I don't know."

"Hm." was his reply. I took it as my cue to wrap up the tragedy that was my life.

"It got to the point where, not making eye contact with people was my only defense in keeping them from attacking me verbally and sometimes physically, throwing things. And I always preferred not actually seeing people talk about me. So, to wrap things up, I'm neurotic, anxious, socially inept, and awkward but I wasn't always like this." I said, returning my gaze to the window. I didn't want to see his reaction. I was afraid that I would see disgust in his eyes and the mere thought of that was almost crippling. I tried to will my body to stop trembling as I began fidgeting with my hands in my lap. Suddenly the wringing of my hands was halted by a larger hand. His hands were soft and warm. I looked back towards him and my breath caught as we made eye contact. Those eyes would be the death of me.

The atmosphere was so intense. Thirty minutes passed before a single word was spoken. I cleared my throat. I wanted to hear his voice. "Question game?" I nearly whispered.

His laughter broke the tension. "The question game just happens to be my favorite game." I had never really played before, never having anyone to play with." I'll start. What's your whole name?" He asked. I was glad that he had asked the first question. It was then that I was once again reminded that I had gotten into a car with a person whose last name I did not know. I was surprised that the realization didn't bother me.

"Santana Olivia Nguyen. My mother's American name was Sandra and my papa's was Oliver. What's yours?"

"Alexander Fernando Carlisle. All of our initials are AFC. 'A' for my father Allisar and 'F' for my mother, Francesca." He replied easily.

"All?" I asked.

"Yeah, all of my siblings, there's seven of us."

"Are you all so...pretty?" I asked, curiously.

"Did...you just call me pretty?" He said with mock astonishment.

I laughed. "Which adjective would you prefer, Alexander Fernando? Handsome? Sexy as sin? Epitome of masculine perfection?" I tried keeping a straight face but it was impossible.

"Oh, look at you, Ms. Santana Oliva, pulling out the government names. And sexy as sin will do." He said with an outrageous wink. I laughed. "Your turn to ask a question." He said with a smile.

"I believe that I did ask one. Are all of your siblings sexy as sin?" I asked, amending my original question earning me a brilliant smile.

"Hm, well you met Ash and Adam. There's Aston and Anthony, the twins, and Aaron, and Aislyn. I do suppose that we're all...lookers."

As I listened to him name his siblings, I realized that I had heard those names before. "Alex?"

"Yeah?" He said as he changed lanes.

"You're not the son of Allisar Carlisle, the bagillionaire are you?"

"Just so we're clear, how many zeroes is there in a bagillion?" He asked, barely containing a laugh. I blushed and slapped his arm playfully as I let a laugh escape.

"Answer the question, smart ass."

"I would but it wasn't your turn to ask one, oh zealous one." He replied. Our banter was so easy. Too easy. "What's your favorite color?" The simplicity of the question startled me.

"Creative." I said with a smirk.

"Hey! Don't make fun of questions. That's definitely in the question game rule guide."

"You're right. My apologies, Keeper of the Rules. My favorite color is purple. What's yours?"

"It's-" He started.

" And no, you can't say blue." I added

He laughed. "But what if it is blue?"

"Then lie." I said, simply.

"Wow, starting off our relationship with lies." He said and I could tell that he was just as surprised by what he said as I was. With one look, we both silently decided to ignore the comment.

"It's green." He said.

"is that a lie?"

"No." He said with a slow smile.

I fought to keep myself from blushing. He was just so attractive and every smile that crossed his perfect lips felt like it was just for my enjoyment. His smiles spoke of promises and it was too much to look at him sometimes but at the same time, it was hard to look away.

We went on like this for a little over an hour. I had learned that Alex was 25, working on his PhD at Georgetown, his favorite food was hotdogs, and he hated Justin Bieber with an odd amount of passion. Our time together felt so normal but I couldn't delude myself into thinking that this was actually normal. We had both avoided asking questions about what we were, concentrating more on who we were. I liked that but I was so new to this world and there was so much that I didn't know.

"Alex?" I said after five minutes of comfortable silence.

"Go ahead, ask me anything," was his response. It was obvious that he had been expecting this.

I decided to get the biggest question out of the way first. "How does the...blood drinking work?" I stared at him as I waited for his reply.

"Well, we can live without it. Human food can...sustain us. But that's like being a meat lover and having to become a vegetarian for health reasons. It essentially, for lack of better term, sucks. Drinking human blood keeps us at peak strength and agility."

"Do you feed from people?" I asked, becoming a little nervous.

"Yes," was his quick reply.

"Do you ki- kill them?" I had to ask.

"No, it's not necessary It's also illegal." His wording seemed odd to me.

"You mean because murder is illegal?" I asked, hoping that I wasn't annoying him with my line of questioning.

He chuckled. "No, I mean in the vampire community. The murder of a human is punishable by..." He paused. "How are you about hearing gross things?" He asked, looking at me.

I thought for a moment. "I can handle most things. So, what's the punishment for murdering a human?"

"Fang removal. It essentially renders the vampire incapable of ever feeding from a human again."

"I see. It's sort of like cutting off the hands of a thief"

"Exactly." He said with a laugh. "It's archaic, I know but it's pretty effective."

"So, does your entire family...share this...condition?"

His laugh was so loud in cabin of the vehicle that it caused me to jump. I became uncomfortable. "I'm sorry if I'm asking dumb questions."

"No. No, it was your wording. 'Condition' just sounds so...clinical." He said, sensing my uneasiness.

"I never claimed to be the master of wording. Awkward. Remember?" I stated with a small smile.

"Maybe they have a treatment for your...condition." He bantered. I couldn't help but laugh. "Awkward Anonymous."

"Hi, my name is Santana and I'm awkward."

"Hi, Santana." We said at the exact same time, immediately laughing after.

When the laughter died down, he spoke. "We're all vampires."

"So, is your family like the Cullens and Hales, your parents adopted you all?" I said, immediately regretting my analogy.

"Did you just make a Twilight reference?"

"Nope." I said immediately. "The Cullens and the Hales were... a family that I knew when I was younger. The parents adopted all these gorgeous kids from all over the world, everyone thought that they had such big hearts. It was discovered later that the parents were running a sweatshop in the wine cellar. Tragic really." I said, barely containing my laughter at my inability to come up with a better cover up.

"No, it's not a... Cullen/ Hale situation. Though that really is tragic," He looked at me. "We also don't sparkle in the sun." He said with the brightest, most brilliant smile I had ever seen and I could only stare in awe for a moment. If this man glittered in the sunlight, it would be game over. I had always had a weakness for pretty, sparkly things.