Decisions Ch. 09

My mom cocked her head, examining Stasi. "Have you been getting enough sleep, dear? You have circles under your eyes and look more tired than usual."

"Er..." Stasi began, guiltily looking at anywhere except my mother. I wasn't sure how to save her on this question either. My mom was an extremely perceptive person and she had to know that the reason Stasi looked the way she did was not because of lack of sleep. Stasi was diligent when it came to taking her medication so she could stay awake during the day. She needed to feed and that synthetic blood pack that laid untouched in our fridge for months spoke volumes about what we did together.

It had taken a while, but we had gotten past the stigma of feeding. She knew that I loved her and was willing to give her what she needed to live and now she was able to do it without feeling guilty or self-conscious about what she was. It changed us and it made us closer than ever before... but the key word is 'us'. Stasi was still self-conscious about what she was when it came to others. "I've been... I've been sleeping fine." She stammered.

"Anna..." My mom began, a soft smile on her face. "I know it's not because of lack of sleep. I understand. Completely. I know what you two do and I'm ok with it, believe me. There's no reason to feel ashamed. It's just part of your nature and to Chris, it's probably just like donating blood. It is his body after all and what he chooses to do with his blood is his own choice alone. Now, I have a question for the two of you. How have you both been holding up?"

"About what?" I asked, dumbly. "Feeding?"

"No, this whole..." My mom gestured to the TV which was displaying CNN. It showed a small group of protestors in front of the Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. They were being corralled by a large group of police officers. "This whole thing."

"We've uh... we've... we've been getting by." I said. "I think Principal Finch will want to address the school in an assembly the day we get back on Monday."

"Ah yes, Principal Finch. A fine woman and an even finer principal. Do you think any students were out rioting in Belcourt?"

A lump formed at my throat. I hated lying, especially to my mom. "Maybe. I heard there were a few." I admitted.

"Well, they're very well a bunch of delinquents. They should be all expelled from Belcourt." She sighed. "You two can head up to your room now. Remember to try and finish your homework by the end of this weekend, Chris."

"Yes, mom." I replied, dutifully. "Come on, Stasi."

"Right with you, lyubov."

"Oh, one last thing!" My mom called to our backs. "The Sokolovs are coming over for dinner, so we're not having spicy baked chicken tonight. How does steak and shrimp sound for dinner?"

It was a bit of a no-brainer that we weren't going to have spicy baked chicken tonight. Vampires and spicy food didn't mix. They could eat it, but they had different taste buds than humans, and to them, spicy foods tasted really unpleasant. Well, most vampires at least. Stasi loved hot wings.

"Is that even a question?" I laughed.

"You're right." My mom admitted, after a moment. "Would you two like me to bring up a light snack?"

"Yes, please!" We both chirped.

"You two never change. I'll bring it up when it's ready in about 15 minutes."

"Thanks, mom."

"Thank you, Susan."

Stasi and I both walked upstairs, heading in the direction of my room. "Do you think your mom suspects that we sneaked out?" Stasi whispered.

"No," I hissed back. "Otherwise we probably would've been grounded six ways to hell."

"You're right." Stasi admitted. "I'm sorry. I was just so paranoid that they found out we left. I mean, we were gone so long..." Her voice trailed off.

"Stasi, trust me. I don't think we were caught. It's been one week. We're in the clear. She just... she's raving. She doesn't suspect a single thing. At least, I think she doesn't... anyways... here we are!" I said, coming to my room.

I opened the door to my room, letting her enter first. When Stasi walked in, she dramatically gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Lyubov!"

"What?" I asked, alarmed.

"Your room!"

"What about it?"

"It's finally clean!"

"Yes, I know." I replied, my mouth lighting up in a grin. "Surprising, isn't it?"

"Very!" Stasi giggled, crossing the room and hopping onto my bed. "Your room actually looks really spacious when it isn't messy. I actually quite like it. I don't have to navigate through your floor like it's a minefield when I wake up in the middle of the night."

"Speaking of navigate, I found the sticky notes you left." I said, grinning. She always left behind little love notes for me to find. Little sticky notes that were stuck in very unorthodox places. It could be behind my desk, in my underwear drawer, in my pillow case, the bottom of my backpack. You name it, it was there.

"Oh really? Did you like them?" She asked, shyly.

"I loved them." I declared.

"Glad to hear."

"How do you do it, though? How did you get those notes to where they were?"

"I have my ways." She said, enigmatically. "Now come, hop on."

She patted the spot on the bed next to her and I walked to the bed. I slid on, laying down so I was comfortable, Stasi turned around so she was facing me, a radiant smile accompanied by those wide crystal blue eyes of hers. Even though she looked worse for wear with her feeding time so close, my best friend was still so very much beautiful. My brain completely on auto-pilot, I reached forward and wrapped my arms around her.

"I missed this." She sighed, in contentment as she snuggled into me.

"I missed you." I said. "Alot."

"I missed you, too." Stasi whispered, leaning forward to give me a kiss. "If my parents ever try and put me under domashniy arrest again, i'll fight tooth and nail to stay with you."

"As will I." I replied. "Nothing will ever separate us, I promise."

******

"So, Christopher.." Yulia began, smiling hollowly at me. "Kak dela?"

I ran the knife under the water, the dust getting washed away in a cascade of water. "I've been fine. It's been different without Stasi. I don't know what i'd do without her in my life." I admitted. I rotated my body so I was back on the cutting board, chopping vegetables next to Yulia.

"I don't know what i'd do without you either, lyubov." Stasi confessed. The raven haired goddess was perched on the kitchen island with Viktor and Elena, furiously copying down my biology notes. While we had our impromptu break from school, she had procrastinated on all her assignments... which was a first.

We were in the kitchen running food preparation for dinner. Well, at least Yulia and I were. Elena and Viktor were being freeloaders. My dad was outside on the grill and my mom was talking to Anton out in the dining room.

"Of course you don't." Elena piped up. "All you did while we were on break was sit at the kitchen table staring at your phone and waiting for Chris to reply. It was getting really awful to watch."

"I did not!" Stasi exclaimed, embarrassed. Her thick, adorable Russian accent was taking over. Anton, Yulia, and Stasi were the one that had the Russian accents in the Sokolov family. Elena and Viktor, not so much. Stasi once told me that it was a byproduct of her speaking Russian growing up while Elena and Viktor spoke English.

"You did, too." Elena snickered.

"Dostatochno." Yulia scolded.

"Yes, mama." Elena said.

"I don't even know why you're trying to tease her, Elena." Vik said. "We all missed Chris."

"I missed you guys, too. Tired, Elena?" I asked, hearing her trying to stifle a yawn.

"Hm? No." Elena said.

"She's lying." Viktor laughed. "When she found out that we were going to get the week off, she stopped taking her medication. She said she was going to embrace her inner vampire by staying up all night and sleeping in all day."

"Elena!" Stasi admonished. "That's terrible!"

"What?" Elena said, defensively. "It's not that bad!"

"Yes, it is. That explains why you were so perpetually cranky all the time."

"I wasn't cranky." Elena argued.

"Yes, you were." Stasi maintained.

"I wasn't cranky!" Elena cried.

"Susan tells me that you've been losing your mind being cooped up in here all by yourself." Yulia laughed as Elena and Stasi bickered, with Viktor in between. "No hockey practice. No school. No friends. You must've lost your mind."

"Well, I did have my phone. I spent all my time staring at it on the kitchen table waiting for my lyubova to reply." I answered, turning my head around to look at Stasi to see if she had heard.

She did.

She was glowering at me with her eyes, but her true expression was betrayed by the loving smile. Grinning, I turned all my attention back on the vegetables. I didn't want to get distracted, keep on cutting, and realize that I now only had four fingers on my left hand. "No, but on a serious note, I got to call my friends and Stasi. Hearing their voice made it all the more bearable."

"That's good." Yulia said. "But, that wasn't what I was asking about. What are you thoughts about what's been going on in the news?"

"The SF Riots?"

"Da."

I ceased cutting the vegetables, thinking. "You can't really right a wrong with another wrong. But then again, these people are rioting because they're living in a culture that's different from humans."

"That is true." Yulia agreed. "Although, I hear from Anton that the Supreme Court is in talks of reviewing the 'constitutionality' of the DTOSA, even though much support from the government was ended when the riots broke out."

"It'll certainly be the day when the DTOSA gets repealed." I said.

"Indeed it will be."

We continued our small talk for the next fifteen minutes before Yulia finally announced that dinner was ready and to get the dining table set. We all took our seats. Stasi was to my right and Elena to our left. I was absolutely famished and ready to dig into Stasi and my parents' cooking.

"Alright," My dad said, setting the platter of steaks on the table. "Here it is. The main course. The secret Williams' steak recipe. Extra rare for the Sokolov family. Dig in!"

I picked up a steak with my fork and knife, setting it down on my plate. We all passed around bowls of sides. Soon, my plate became piled high with mashed potatoes, vegetables, and beet salad. Elena crinkled her nose when she saw me applying Tabasco sauce to my mashed potatoes.

"How do you even eat that stuff?" She asked.

"What? Potatoes?" I replied.

"No, fiktivnyy. The sauce. How do you even eat spicy stuff?"

"You pick it up, place it in your mouth, and chew." I said, picking up a huge clump of mashed potatoes and dropping it in my mouth. Elena gagged, turning her head away. I laughed, swallowing. Suddenly, Stasi placed her cold hand on my cheek, turning my head so I was looking at her.

"Chew with your mouth closed, lyubov." Stasi instructed.

"Yes, dear." I replied, grinning.

Stasi patted me on the cheek before returning to her plate of food. I went back to my dinner, cutting up my steak.

"I missed you, y'know." Elena said, quietly after a moment.

"Really?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from my steak to look at her. "You did?"

"Yeah." Elena admitted. "I don't think it'd be smart to separate you and Anna ever again, though."

"Why not?" I asked, curiously. Of course, I didn't think it was smart to separate us, but I was genuinely curious as to what Elena's reasoning was. Elena looked around me, glancing at Stasi. Stasi was still absorbed in her dinner, cutting her steak into small bite-sized pieces.

"She had mood swings the entire week and I heard Anna sobbing on the couch one night when I went down for a glass of water." Elena confessed. "When I went to give her a hug and asked her why she was crying, she told me that she just missed you alot. She didn't know what was happening or why she was feeling so depressed. She just knew that it was because she missed you."

My heart plummeted. I hated it when Stasi cried. I'd do anything I could to make it stop. I'd climb mountains and move heaven and earth to take away whatever was hurting her. Even though it was me that was technically hurting her.

Was she really hurt that bad?

I looked at Stasi. She looked normal. Happy, even. She was smiling one of her fangy smiles. When she finished cutting up her steak and set her knife down, I tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at me with a perplexed expression and without a word, I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss.

When I pulled back, Stasi was smiling so hard, her fangs were completely showing.

Chapter 2:

A random action movie was on the TV, the lights were dimmed, and we both sat shock still. The movie was reaching it's climax but neither of us were paying any real attention to it. At least, I wasn't. My heart was thundering in my chest and I was so giddy with happiness, an emotion that felt so foreign to me now, that I felt I was going to be sick.

What could possibly explain my happiness?

Stasi was curled up next to me on my bed, leaning her head on my chest. Just the fact that she was here with me when I haven't been able to even feel her presence for a week was enough to make me smile so hard that my cheeks hurt. She pleaded with her parents to let her stay the night and they relented when they saw that she was unwilling to tear herself away from me, and I her.

"Lyubov?" Stasi murmured.

"Hm?"

"What's going on?" She asked.

"What's going on with what?" I questioned.

"The movie," Stasi explained, gesturing to my TV. "What's going on with the movie? It's been half an hour and I don't even know the main character's name."

"The movie is called John Wick." I pointed out. "That should be some real indication of who the main character in the movie is."

"Ah yes, I should've known." Stasi said, snapping her fingers and laughing at my lame attempt to be witty. "I'm sorry, lyubov. Even though I picked the movie, I'm not paying any attention. Are you?"

"No." I admitted. We both loved action movies. It was our favorite genre, but now... after what happened in the city... violence just didn't seem to appeal to me anymore. Well, at least the violence in this movie. "Should I just turn the TV off?"

"If you want." Stasi said, snuggling her cold, curvaceous body into me, doing wonders for my erection. Deciding that it was best to not waste electricity, I reached blindly for the nightstand, grabbing onto the TV remote. With one press of a button, Keanu Reeves disappeared from my TV, being replaced by pitch black darkness. "That's better." Stasi sighed in contentment, shifting her body so she was facing me with those crystal blue eyes of hers.

"Didn't enjoy the movie?" I asked.

"Not particularly, no. I was just enjoying your presence."

I leaned forward, kissing her on the nose. "You took the words right out of my mouth. I mean, I was enjoying your presence, not mine. That'd be a bit narcissistic if I was enjoying my own presence when you were right here."

"Easy, zaichik." Stasi giggled. "You might hurt your brain."

"Oh, you think i'll hurt my brain, do you?" I asked, in mock outrage, rolling over so I was on top of her. With her underneath me, I braced myself using my forearms, keeping my weight from burdening her. I wasn't that heavy but I still didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

"No. You're the smartest man, I know." Stasi mumbled. Even in the dark, I knew she was smiling, with that infectious sparkle in her eyes.

"Nup. You're the smart one." I shot back, flicking her on the forehead. "You're the only one in our entire class that's managing to pull an 'A-plus' in AP Biology for goodness sake."

"Yeah well, I'm just perfect like that." Stasi giggled in her accent, flipping her raven hair. "Or it could be because I actually get my lab reports done."

"Hey," I complained, leaning forward so my face was inches from hers. "I get my work done in that class. Mrs. Olsen just hates me."

"Nyet, you're just lazy." Stasi laughed. She slipped her cold hand against the side of my face, beckoning me closer to her. Just her mere touch was enough to make my cock jump in my shorts and there was no way that Stasi missed it, being pressed up against it. When my lips were near millimeters, she closed the distance and gave me one of the most sensual and hottest kisses I ever received from her. I reached down with my hand, sliding it to her cheek and playing lightly with her raven hair, kissing her as tenderly as possible. We were both lost in a sea of soft murmurs and sliding tongues.

One week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty eight hours and change. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. That's how long I went without putting my eyes on the love of my life.

Never again.

I stopped first, pulling my lips away from hers. "Wow."

"Wow, indeed." Stasi replied, reaching down to rub at my stiffening erection. "Oooh, is that for me?"

"Stasi..." I warned, despite every fiber of my being telling me to simply shut up and let sleeping dogs lie. I was horny, to say the least. I was addicted to Stasi and I went without her for one week. "My parents are just down the hall."

"I know." Stasi sighed, taking her hand away. I rolled off of her, wrapping my arms around her smooth stomach. Stasi made a noise of approval, snuggling her soft, cold body back into me. "It's been so long since we had sex that I'm practically starved of it."

"You read my mind." I breathed. "Hey, on the bright side, when my parents leave for work in the afternoon, we'll have the house to ourselves... you know, unless you want to go home in the morning."

"Nyet, I'm not going home unless you're coming with me. I'm staying right here next to you until school starts." Stasi declared.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." I said, kissing her on the neck and making her breath hitch. "I'm still in a bit of shock over what happened."

"Still in shock over what?" Stasi asked, an edge creeping into her voice.

"The night we snuck out. Just everything. I didn't realize how drained and overwhelmed I felt until we got home. Didn't you feel tired?"

"I did." Stasi admitted.

"We're just kids, too."

"No, we're not. We're not just kids. Kids wouldn't do what we did. I don't regret a single thing but I probably will never, ever forget it. Anyways, I wasn't even going to let you go there all by yourself with Ricky and Viktor. All three of you wouldn't have made it past the police barricades. Wherever you go, I go. Remember what you said? Us against the brave new scary world?"

"Hand in hand." I finished. "I love you."

"Always have?" Stasi turned her body around so she was facing me.

"Always will." I replied, giving her another soft kiss.

When we broke the kiss, we simply laid there, holding onto each other. Neither of us wanted to sleep, we just wanted to bask in the presence of the other. Finally, Stasi spoke up, her soft voice permeating through the silence like a knife.

"Lyubov?"

"Yeah?" I asked, opening my sleepless eyes.

"What's the dream for you?"

"Huh?"

"What's the dream? I mean, what do you want your future to be like?" Stasi asked, a hint of vulnerability in her voice.

What a random question.

"Like, after high school?"

"More like college. Ten years from now, what do you want in your life?"

"Hm..." I hummed. I always lived in the present and never looked to the future. It was Stasi who always planned ahead for anything. I simply went with the flow. But, what did Stasi mean by saying what did I want? Did she mean what did I want to do? There was plenty of stuff that I wanted to do, like climb to Mount Everest Base Camp, get the DTOSA repealed, visit every national park in the United States. But, was that really what I wanted?

The question was no. All I ever wanted was right here in my arms. My beloved vampire girlfriend who I was so passionately in love with. Maybe that's what Stasi was asking about. What did I want in my life when I settled down. I'd be lying if I said I never thought about marrying Stasi and starting a family with her... I mean... could I? Can a human and a vampire start a family? Whatever the answer to that question was, I didn't care.