Building A (Strange) Family

First Fight

The next night, Mark, Joel and Robert had just gotten up.
They got up because of the rising voices in the room next door.

They peaked out their own room first,
just looking at Lilly and Davids closed bedroom door.
The voices continued and they crawled out to listen.
They even got as far as putting their ears to the door.

Almost as soon as they had, the door swung open.
They jumped back and scattered to look like they hadn't been listening.
But Lilly wasn't looking at them.
Her arms were full of a clothes hamper and her head was turned back into the room to shout something at David.
"Fine! Everythings just fine as long as you think it is, right?"

She stormed out, carrying her load through the living room and out the front door.
David chased after her, still in pajama bottoms and t shirt.
"Lilly, wait!" He went out the front door too and left it wide open.
The boys looked at each other, then ran to follow them.

By the time they reached the apartments laundry, the argument was still in full swing.
Lilly was fiercely scrubbing detergent into some of the clothing and refusing to look at David who stood behind her with his arms crossed.

"It's not like I'm asking anything over the top David!"

"Is it really such a big deal?!"

"It is to me!!"

"I'll get you another freaking shirt Lilly!" He threw his hands up in the air.

"You just don't get it!" She finally turned to shout at him, clearly crying.
She turned back to the shirt and just dropped in in the washer, leaning against it.

Despite her being mad,
despite still fighting,
David came up behind her,
wrapping his arms around her and laying his head on her shoulder.

She whispered again, "You don't get it."

"Then tell me... I'm here, I'm listening."

She sniffled a little more.

"Its... It may not mean something to you, but I love that shirt.
It may clean, it may not and while you man never think of it again, I will.
And it feels like I don't- my feelings don't matter, that I don't matter."

He laughed a little, kissing her neck.
The guys could now see it was covered with dark purple marks.
"You really think you don't matter to me?"

"I know its silly, but-"

"No. I get it. It's... respect. I am a vampire; blood is a given if this relationship is going to go forward-"
She made a noise, a huff of annoyance as if the fight would have to continue.
But he stopped her, hand going gently to her neck.

"BUT...
It doesn't give me the right to act without thinking.
From now on, I will try and warn you and be more careful."

She craned her neck around to face him and greeted him with a kiss.
He sighed, happily.

"That probably also means asking before I take your pants again, hu?"

She looked down behind her to find he had indeed taken her sleeping pants.

"You stole my pjs?"
She snickered and he did right along with her.
"It's fine. I understand. They're comfortable..."

"Very comfortable..."

They both finally realized they were being watched.
They looked over to the door way to see the guys peaking their heads in, not daring to come any further.

"David, what the hell did you do to make her so mad?" Joel asked when the others wouldn't.

David fell to laughing again and Lilly rolled her eyes.
Lilly lifted the shirt in question.

"Last night, David got my blood all over my favorite shirt!"

The t shirt being dark blue itself,
with a Star Trek logo on it,
and covered now with pink tinged detergent it was hard to tell what the dark liquid all over the collar was.
There did seem to be quite a bit of it there.

"You let him bite you!"
Mark's eyes were wide as anything.
Robert stayed discreetly quite.
But Joel made a big deal of whooping and cheering.

David tried to hide his face in Lillys back.
"They are never going to let us live it down..."

One thing Lilly loved the most was watching each of the guys figure out their place in the family.
Though Lilly was fine now, David still did half of the cooking.
Joel picked up a few things in the kitchen, too.
And he just decided the dishes were his responsibility.

Mark seemed to like doing laundry.
Well, not so much doing the laundry,
but the satisfaction of everything folded and put away.

Robert took over everything else he saw that needed doing from clearing clutter to organizing dvds.
The dvd collection seemed to grow each week, bad horror movies being added all the time.

She didn't want to mention how sweet seeing a bunch of vampires be domestic was.
More importantly, it was a group of guys learning and growing.
She felt special to be a part of that.