Violent Delights and Ends

Chapter 6 - A Friendly Gesture

When Oliver has finally shaken his weird dream, he ends up having a bigger problem. And his family demands some answers after hearing about the vampire in their basement.

Oliver's POV

Before I decided to go check on Barry I wanted to say good morning to my son. So I entered William's room while Laurel got ready for work.
"Good morning, William." I said softly and my son beamed me a bright smile and ran over to hug me.
  "Good morning, dad." I felt a warm feeling in my body every time I held my son in my arms no matter how many times I did it. I guess my parental instincts were magnified because I've been the leader of my pack ever since my father died.
"Dad, yesterday at school one of the other kids said that I'll become the future king if you die." Hearing my son say that shouldn't be amusing, but he smiled when he spoke so I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Don't worry about that yet. Kids shouldn't think about death and I'm not planning on dying anytime soon." I said and gave my son a puff when I added. "Now go get ready for school. Rene said that he'd pick you and JayJay up today, before taking Zoe to school so you can have breakfast on the way and you get to stay with them tonight." I said and my son excitedly ran to his closet to pick clothes for school and his sleepover, before I slowly left the room with a smile on my face.
Then I was just about to head down to the dungeons to see Barry when I bumped into my mother. She was dressed in a fancy jeans skirt and a beige blouse so there was probably some important business going on today.
"Good morning, Oliver. You wouldn't happen to know anything about the vampire in the basement do you?" My mother started and fear filled my eyes and she probably noticed that. My mother always knew when I was hiding something even when she didn't know exactly what I was hiding.
"Okay, I was aware of that because I was the one who found him on werewolf territory last night when I was out with my pack and I didn't know what to do with him." I started and I wasn't sure how much I could reveal, but my mother's blue wolf eyes was staring me down so I continued. "And I'm going to sort it out today. I promise. He's not a criminal, but he needs protection and that's why I'm gonna talk to the royal vampires. Because he was turned by Hunter Solomon and that ancient monster probably wants to kill him now." Did I really want to protect Barry that much? I almost felt as protective over him as I did with my own family and my pack. I could hear the determination in my own voice when I spoke and it even surprised my mother.
"You seem to know what you are doing. But Oliver, you should not trust him. He's still a vampire. Our enemy. Or have you forgotten that his kind killed your father?" My mother's sharp words caused me to exhale loudly and I tried to avoid her gaze.
"No, how could I ever forget? But Barry isn't like them." I didn't plan to reveal the vampire's name until it was already too late and my mother's eyes widened. But she didn't say anything instead she slowly walked away without another word. Oh no, would she have Barry executed now? Did she think he had power over me? I had to go warn him.
I was just about to go after my mom and tell her to not do anything reckless, when I bumped into my sister, Thea in the stairs on my way downstairs. 
"Ollie, what the hell? The guard who ended his nightshift just told me and mom that you brought a vampire into the castle last night." my sister tried to lower her voice, but I could see in her bright blue wolf eyes that she was pissed at me. Which made me steer her downstairs to the second floor to her room to talk more privately.
"Thea, it's not what you think. Barry is not like those vampires who killed our father." I told her the same thing I said to my mother just a few minutes ago. Because even though I wasn't sure I could trust Barry completely yet, I knew he wouldn't hurt us. My sister didn't buy that considering the face of disgust she made.
"They're all the same. They're all predators who feeds upon innocent people." Thea started, before she got more upset and glared at me while she continued. "Vampires are the reason to why we're almost extinct nowadays and we barely have any power over other creatures anymore because of them. So why the hell are you defending him?" she asked with disgust in her voice while she crossed her arms in an attempt to look older than she was.
  "Because he saved my life!" I raised my voice and crossed my arms over my chest. "He didn't have to do it. I didn't even want him to heal me at first, but he did." I felt a warmth in my chest as I thought about him. How kind he had been. How he opened up to me last night and the gentle way he bit me.
"How do you know he didn't do that just to set you a trap?" My sister asked and interrupted my thoughts. She tried to mirror my position and crossed her arms over her chest too.
"I just know... he's different. He was just another one of Hunter Solomon's victims and when he escaped he stopped to save my life so I think I owe him a little bit of trust. Other vampires wouldn't do that." I added and caught myself defending him again. Maybe I'm trusting him too blindly, but I really wanted to believe I could actually trust him for real. Because he was intriguing and fascinating. I'd never met such a human vampire who was surrounded with so much light. It couldn't just be the vampire blood in my system could it?
"Ollie, we don't trust vampires. You taught me that. You told me to stay away from them and that I should absolutely never become friends with one." Thea said and it was tough to argue with her when she used my own words against me. Words I'd sworn  to my best friend Tommy when he was killed by a bloodsucker too. It caused me to sigh deeply again.
"I hadn't met him yet..." My voice became a few octaves lower and I avoided my sister's judgmental gaze when I said that because it sounded surreal. 
"He's got to be controlling you. Where is he? I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind." Thea said and left her room and I rushed after her down to the dungeons.
"Your majesty's." The guard said and bowed when my sister entered the dungeon closely followed by me.
  "Open the vampire's cell." Thea told the guards while I was shaking my head behind her.
"No, wait. You can go. I'll handle this." I said to the guard and since I had more power than my sister did the guard listened to my order and left the basement. Then I walked up to Barry's cell and opened the metal door with my heart beating fast in my chest because the nightmare quickly flashed before my eyes again.
But Barry was sound asleep on the bed, pale white as usual and not the scary gray corpse he had been in my nightmare, but he had no heartbeats when he slept which was scary but it was normal for a vampire. I walked up to him and leaned over him quietly.
"Barry..." I whispered gently while I caressed his cold soft cheek with the back of my hand. I'm so glad you're safe I thought to myself when his red eyes fluttered open. "Hi." I said and a smile grew across the vampire's lips.
"Hey..." he responded softly with a gruff voice and for a split second I almost considered kissing him because he was safe and he wasn't a dream. Good thing my sister was there and could stop me from such crazy ideas.
"Get up." Thea said as she pointed at Barry and forced me to step away from the vampire's bedside.
"Easy, Thea. Barry, this is my stubborn sister Thea. Thea, this is Barry." I introduced them to each other while my sister just glared daggers at the vampire who got up from the rusty bed. It was dark enough in the cell to not weaken him. Since it was daylight outside by now. But apparently he could last a bit longer in the daylight than other vampires, since he claims he had escaped in the afternoon.
"Nice to meet you." Barry said very politely and reached out his hand to shake Thea's, but she took a step away from him instead as if she was repelled by him.
"Release my brother from whatever hold you've got on him." My sister demanded without taking her sharp blue wolf eyes of the vampire in front of her.
"What do you mean?" Barry didn't seem to understand what my sister was referring to unless he was pretending.
"Thea, he's not mind-controlling me. He saved me so I helped him in return." I said and tossed a look at the vampire and I could feel my cheeks heating up considering the hot dream I had about him. But also over the fact that I had helped him in a really intimate way by letting him feed on me.
"I really hope that's not what it sounds like, Ollie. Tell me you didn't let this vampire feed on you!" Thea seemed to get even more upset and I moved in front of her to calm her down by placing my hands on her shoulder.
"He was weakened from healing me and being on the run so..." I mumbled while I looked down at my feet because she was judging me and I felt too embarrassed to look at Barry. I would've put any other wolf behind bars for sharing blood with a vampire. I felt like a hypocrite.
Then I could feel Barry's presence closing in behind me before he spoke. "I get that you're worried about your brother. But I didn't choose this. I never wanted to be a vampire or feed on innocent creatures." Barry said with so much honesty in his voice. He couldn't be making that up? Could he? He felt so honest. He had interrupted the tension between me and my sister for a while. And I took a step back so that I was standing shoulder to shoulder with the vampire. Our arms nearly brushed together.
"Why should we trust anything that comes out from your bloodsucking mouth?" Thea asked, she was truly furious. But Barry wasn't that awful, he wasn't a monster. His presence was calming and soothing.
"Because Hunter Solomon has been torturing me for two years and he's forced me to prey on all sorts of innocent people. And yesterday one of his "human blood bags" as he used to refer to them as, Snart, helped me escape his terror." Anytime I heard Barry talk about being stuck with that monster I wanted to find and kill Hunter myself. But that was the first I heard of someone helping him escape, but of course he must've had help when he escaped a monster like that. Although why would a human who was most likely just addicted to vampire poison help a vampire escape? There must be something there that he was hiding. And I was curious so I turned towards him.
"Who's Snart?" I asked and Barry turned to face me too with a nervous chuckle. I didn't sound jealous right? I certainly hoped I didn't. Because why would I be? "And why would a human help you escape if you used to feed on him?" I continued the interrogation in front of my sister that I nearly had forgotten about.
"Because he felt bad for me and I guess we had a few things in common. He became addicted to vampire poison to escape his abusive home. His father severely hurt his sister every day and that drove Snart to become a criminal. Hunter found him and his friend, Rory and kept them as his thugs and personal blood bags." The memories seemed to pain Barry as he spoke, but I also felt like he kept something about this recently-mentioned-friend. But I shouldn't feel suspicious or jealous. Because it's not like he has to tell me his whole life story after knowing him for less than a day.
"And I actually feel kinda guilty for leaving them behind, especially Snart who helped me, but he told me to just go and not bother about looking back." Barry explained and I just couldn't resist the impulse to reach for his hand. And he didn't seem to mind either. He only glanced down at our joined hands before he looked up and met my gaze again.
Then I quickly broke the intense eye contact when I remembered my sister being there. "See, Thea, he still feels guilt, pain and human emotions. He is different." I said confidently as I held those red eyes and I was met with a soft smile. Once again I had to ignore the impulse to kiss him senseless because my sister was right there.
After a few seconds of silence Thea uttered her next suspicion. "I don't know... what if he uses his sob story to earn sympathy from us?" she wondered out loud and gestured at Barry because she still wasn't convinced and it caused me to toss a glance at her while I sighed, but before I could defend Barry again, he stood up for himself.
"Why would I save your brother if I planned on killing all of you or lead you to some trap?" he asked and it was a question I for sure wanted to know my sister's response to as well.
  "The hell do I know? To lead Hunter to us? You said it yourself one of his thugs even helped you so it all screams suspicious to me." Thea said and caused me to exhale loudly and let go of Barry's hand again. I hadn't noticed that I was still holding it until I let it go. "The perfect spies to send are always the ones who seem innocent and kind." My sister continued while I was shaking my head and gave Barry an apologetic look. That's when I noticed how the vampire looked weaker than before.
"Thea, come on. He needs to sleep and I need to get to work." I changed the subject, because I was tired of hearing my sister accuse the nice vampire. Because that's what he was. Nice. Other vampires I've met wouldn't hold on to their humanity the way this one did.
I watched my sister shake her head while she started to head towards the door and I started to follow her. "I can't wait until his disgusting blood and poison is out of your system so you can stop acting like you're madly in love with him." My sister's words caused me to drop my jaw for a moment while I was shaking my head to the absurdity. "Poor Laurel." she muttered before she left the cell. Her steps echoed through the basement and then up the stairs.
I couldn't look at Barry after what she just blurted out, even if it wasn't true. I love Laurel, and I have a son that I care so much about and I'm absolutely not in love with a some stupid vampire even with his blood and poison in my body.
After I had collected my thoughts I simply passed Barry without a word and walked out of the cell too. Then I turned around to close the metal door and caught a glimpse of Barry who held my gaze until I had closed and locked the door.
  "I'm sorry about my sister." I murmured against the cool metal door before I hurried up the stairs to have a coffee and a bagel on the go before getting to work.

Barry's POV

I heard the werewolf's soft apology on the other side of the door. But I was still confused. What just happened? I thought after Oliver had left the dungeon with his sister.
Then I dropped down on the rusty old bed in the cell again and sighed loudly. But Oliver's not the one who's in love with me. He only cares about me because of my blood and my poison in his system like his sister just said. But I think I am about to fall in love with him. Even though I don't want to, because he's happily married to the love of his life and he has an eight year old son. He's the future king of Starling and the alpha to a whole wolf pack. He's a freakin werewolf which means he's my natural enemy. He's the definition of out of my league in every way possible.
And I who used to think Iris was way out of my league because she was so beautiful and kind and filled with the light that I needed after my parents died. But I also wonder if she's still looking for me or if she stopped after a year or so? I just wished I could see her again, because maybe I could finally get over the dashing Oliver Queen if I did and then I could finally get my old life back.