“I’m… Do… Um…” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Do you…want me to call Doc?”
Foxx released his dislocated shoulder and tossed a pillow at him. Harlow just stood there and let it hit him in the face. “You call Doc and I’ll be breaking something of yours! NOW, GET OUT!” the vampire roared as he pointed towards the door.
“Yes… Getting o-out.” He stumbled back and spun around, and…slammed right into the door. A door that he was almost positive he had broken earlier, but as the rest of the framecracked and it fell over with a thump, Harlow honestly felt…very screwed.
Swallowing hard, he slowly looked back at the bed, and on seeing the murderous expression on Foxx’s face…he fled.
Ignoring the mouthwatering smells that hit him in the face as he came in, Wes eyed Harlow with a frown. The dhampir looked…he was going to go with…stressed. The hunter looked very stressed.
He was overly pale, and pieces of the man’s usually swept back hair were sticking up, while his expression was tense. It was out of place enough that…Wes couldn’t help but ask, “Is something wrong?”
Harlow cleared his throat. “Well…”
“YES! Something is wrong! MULTIPLE things!” Foxx hissed loudly from further inside the apartment.
His brow raising at Harlow’s mouth snapping shut, he slowly walked past him and headed down the hall.
Wes found Foxx sitting with his arms crossed on one of the teal couches. One of the vampire’s legs was bouncing away, and with his eyes narrowed and mouth pinched, the man looked seconds away from snapping. On the coffee table in front of him, however, was a wide array of baked goods, that really made Wes wish he was one of those doctors who didn’t care for his patients,so he could ignore the tension in favor of stuffing his face. And beyond the number of sweets, it was also notable that Foxx was sitting on the couch across from where he normally sat.
Eyes still on the vampire, he slowly walked over and sat down, ignoring the sweets.
Harlow cleared his throat almost nervously as he sat by himself on the couch the couple normally shared. “I…honestly didn’t mean for it to happen, Foxx.”
Wes smiled gently. “Why don’t we let Foxx explain what is bothering him, and then we can go from there?”
“Perfect! I’ll go from bottom to top on my list. Starting with, hmm let’s see, oh yeah, the fact that you refuse to drink anyone’s blood except mine. Which means I have to constantly drink blood and drain myself as I try to fill bags up for you, in between you puncturing me like a bloody pin cushion!
“But when we found out recently that you could actually order vampire blood through the government website, you REFUSED that option! Didn’t even let me finish saying it out loud. Meanwhile, you seem to be ignoring the fact that the blood you are drinking from me, while it has cycled through my body, originally came from the GOVERNMENT, the donors ANONYMOUS!”
Harlow’s face pinched. “That…was…very wrong of me. I will…consider ordering blood.” When the vampire’s eyes narrowed, the dhampir rushed to say. “I mean, Iwillorder blood.”
Wes’ brow raised, and his gaze flicked back and forth between the two. Okay then… He had to be missing some very important information right now. Because that…response…was uncomfortably un-Harlow-like.
“That’s…definitely something you should…consider for your partner’s comfort, Harlow…” Wes said slowly.
“Right, onto the next. And to note, in case it wasn’t clear, we are going upwards towards the worst. Coming in at number three, the thirty or so cameras that my dear insane boyfriend installed in our apartment without telling me! Mind you, he wasn’t my boyfriend at the time he installed them. And I’m sure you’re probably thinking now, how is that not at the top of my list? But oh, it gets worse!”
“T-thirty cameras?!” Wes croaked, looking to Harlow for answers, and then it suddenly clicked. “When I warned you to pull back the protectiveness you were feeling towards Foxx before you took it too far, and you said you weren’t going to take it any further, I didn’t realize you meant that you had in factalreadygone too far.”
Was this really not the worst part…?
Harlow cleared his throat. “Foxx…”
“Oh, did you think I’d just let that go? Oh, no, I just KINDLY put it from my mind until, you know, I felt it was necessary to bring it up!”
Wes barely kept the grimace off his face. Harlow had mentioned that Foxx liked to rehash and bring up things when it suited him. He’d definitely have to keep that in mind for the future.
The dhampir took a deep breath. “It’s really just for safety. And I don’t watch the footage…”
“No, you just obsessively get pictures sent to you anytime someone comes in or out of our door.”
“I mean…I at least delete them now.”
“Gee, how nice for your phone storage! Right, number two. Since your transition, you have broken, destroyed, and obliterated numerous irreplaceable things inside and outside of our apartment. To be honest, I ignored this one for a long while. I ignored that you were hiding the things you broke. I even ignored that you were, in fact, not listening to me when I askedyou to practice at controlling your strength. Because I know it’s hard, and it’s all new. It is a lot.”
“Foxx,” Wes started. “I do realize that broken things can be upsetting…and it is wrong of him to ignore sound advice…but…” He trailed off on catching Harlow’s expression. It was hard to ignore the dhampir’s begging eyes, or the subtle desperate shaking of his head.
“Oh, so you think I should belenientwith him?Moreunderstanding with him?” Foxx chimed brightly.
