Winter Legacy -3.8-

Cupid grabbed his chest, he was literally heart broken, his chest hurt. He hadn't gotten over his granddad's death and now he was forced to face losing his grandmother too. Those two old people were there for him his entire life and now they were just...gone.

"Hey Q." Jasmin greeted her cousin, Cupid looked haggard and she had a good idea why. She wasn't close to her grandparents, hell she only knew that they existed. Her cousin talked about them all the time, one would think that he was the only person on the planet with grandparents, or rather, with Claus and Regan as grandparents.

"Come here." She pulled Cupid to her, the boy sobbed heavily on her shoulder. Jasmin was thrown, she couldn't even imagine Cupid crying when he was a baby, and here he was sobbing so hard that even her body shook. "You're still going to the prom right?"

Cupid didn't want to, what he wanted to do was crawl under his sheets and lay there until he felt better, but Jasmin called every hour until he had no choice but to roll out of bed and get dressed.

Shayne continued to camp in the living room and his grandparents' room hoping that they would come home. Rudolph sighed, nothing he said to Shayne convinced the boy that his grandparents were gone forever, to the boy it just didn't make any sense.

Cupid did manage to have a good time, he even won prom king, but this memory will forever be tainted by the sadness of losing his grand prents.

Rudolph was still getting used to the changes to his body. He didn't feel hot or cold anymore, but his senses were heightened to the point where they were constantly being bombarded, he was having a hard time blocking out everything around him. Also, there was his uncontrollable urge for blood, everyone looked like a good meal, he was afraid for his sons though. Both were O positive, both smelled ridiculously scrumptious,  the temptation to just take a little blood from there was always there but Rudolph knew that if he sank his fangs into their flesh he would never let go until their veins were dry.

Instead he was settling for plasma juice, some cheap concoction the council had cooked up that tasted awful but satisfied the usually unquenchable thirst.

Shayne had spent the day in town, in his immature boyish mind, nothing was funnier than someone falling down, so imagine how golden the moment was when he happened upon someone sleeping on the sidewalk.

Shayne giggled uproariously, slowing his laughter turned to giggling and then ceased when he realized that the man's stomach was lacking the rise and fall of peaceful slumber. Shayne had seen this before, in his granddad, curiously Shayne stepped forward and rested a hand on the man's arm. Cold.  Horrified, the boy took a step back.

Suddenly the dead man jumped to his feet, Shayne was too stunned to even react. 

The man turned cold blue eyes on the boy, Shayne couldn't pry his eyes away from the man's glowing eyes, they were so beautiful that he didn't want to. Instead he continued to stare, the part of his brain that was still working processed what it was seeing and somehow Shayne just knew: he was looking at a vampire, a creature of the night, beautiful, seductive, evil.

Something snapped in Shayne's mind and he was able to pull himself out of his trance, he screamed and ran away, picking up hs bike and speeding down the road. The vampire watched him go, not interested at all in this particular Winter.

"The hell is your problem?" Cupid asked his little brother, it was three in the morning, he usually sneaked around at night, stealing alcohol his father left in the fridge. He was surprised to see his little brother in the kitchen rather than sprawled in front of the door in the living room. It was hard to miss Shayne's shaking.

"I uh...it's stupid." Shayne said, his big brother would tease him mercilessly.

"Had a bad dream?" Cupid yawned lazily.

"No...I was in town today and..."

"And?"

"I saw this vampire."

"A vampire? Really?"

"Yeah, it had glowing blue eyes and a black V on it's neck."

"No fangs?"

"No...you don't believe me."

"Of course I don't." Cupid said, then his eyes clouded dreamily, Shayne's description of the vampire sounded familiar. "Uh...come on, I'll read you a story."

The last thing Shayne wanted to do was to go to sleep, especially alone downstairs but he hated sounding whiny in front of his big brother who already thought of him as an annoying little kid.

"Coming?" Cupid asked and strode into the bedroom that used to be Navidad's. Shayne skipped off ater his big brother, pleased that Cupid would be giving him a bit of attention for once.

"Damnit Shayne!" Cupid roared when he was soaked by toilet bowl water. Shayne set booby traps all over the house and somehow Cupid was always the one to get caught. Soaked and thoroughly pissed off Cupid went to the dining room to work on late homework.

What Shayne had said drifted back to Cupid's mind. He had noticed the change in Rudolph but he thought it was ridiculous. Suddenly his already muscular father's body was ripped, Rudolph who laughed wholeheartedly, head thrown back mouth wide open had taken to simply smiling whenever he was amused, which was rarely lately. 

"No way dumbass." Cupid scolded himself, his father was not a vampire, vampires didn't exist. But then he and Rudolph had been close, but suddenly he hardly saw his father, Cupid thought that maybe he did something wrong, or his father had a new girlfriend. On top of that Rudolph had strode past him that morning and mumbled something about a three day vacation.

Cupid did eventually manage to fall, but it didn't last long. He was up with the sun, having his first real taste responsibility. With his father out of the house though, Cupid had planned a small party. If his plans panned out, the party would be epic, of course Shayne would be sticking around after he blackmailed his brother into letting him stay up and hang out with the teenagers.

The pizza was delivered five minutes before the first guest arrived, Cupid paid for the pizza then rushed inside to change into his swim trunks.

He was not at all pleased though when Jasmin showed up with her latest crush in tow. "Jazzy, this is a private party, damnit, it's supposed to be low key so that my dad doesn't find out." He shot the uninvited guest a sour look and stormed off.

Shayne was the only one to touch the pizza though, Jasmin's guest was too scared to cross the boy again and Jasmin and Coco said that they were watching their figures.

Later all of the teenagers gathered outside for some water slide fun. They had a laugh at Jasmin's expense, she had a phobia of water, if it wasn't the bathtub she wasn't down for it. Cupid pointed at the slide, noting that it was only wet enough to be slippery, the moisture on the plastic surface could hardly be called water at all. Snowy even offered to try it out so that Jasmin could see, Jasmin said no and excused herself to the dance floor inside the house.

After the water slide, they all went off into their own activities. Cupid danced with Coco, she boldly told him that they are generations apart and therefore they won't have flipper children.

Shayne watched as Snowy rocked out on her guitar, Jasmin went to sleep in one of the unoccupied rooms and her guest left.

The sun was beginning to rise and the party was still in full swing. Snowy was still strumming away when her sister's mouth fell open, she was about to ask what was up when a policeman strode into Cupid's room. A second later Cupid's voice could be heard as he screamed at the policeman.

"Thought you could get away with having a big party while your parents are away huh? Well, I'm calling your father immediately."

The room door flew open, the policeman strolled out as casually as he had entered with a raving Cupid behind him.

The telephone ran almost immediately, Rudolph was calling to let his eldest know that he was heading to the airport and Cupid was in a lot of trouble. Cupid scrambled to get the guest out and the house clean.

"You are in so much trouble Cupid Winter." Rudolph stormed in, barefoot and wearing only his swim trunks. "Of all the punk ass, irresponsible...do you know what would have happened if something happened to one of those children or your little brother?"

"Dad..." Cupid started to explain, but the look in his father's glowing eyes frightened him into silence. He knew that Rudolph had a temper, but he had never seen his father so mad. He couldn't even understand what the big deal was, they didn't trash the house.

Later on Cupid attempted to ask his father to be let off the hook, his small group of friends were meeting in the park for a mini concert. "No." Rudolph said coldly, Cupid stormed back to his room.

That same night Shayne saw something that erased what little doubt he had that his father was a vampire, and as soon as Cupid called for dinner, Shayne would let him know.

"Dad is a vampire." Shayne said with so much certainty, a still seething Cupid looked up from his miserable thoughts. "His eyes are glowing, his neck is marked, he gets really angry and he runs very, very fast."

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw all of this with my own eyes, and when was the last time he ate with us? Daddy is a vampire, a creature of the night, blehhh!!!"

Cupid gave a his little brother a long look. "You're an idiot." He finally said and poked at a stray tomato slice on his plate.

The next day Cupid sneaked out of the house, he was not about to miss out on fun with his friends. When he got to the park though he found out that his father had called up all the other parents so everyone else had gotten in trouble.  Only Jasmin was free, he found her and Latarsha having a picnic. 

"Cupid! Look how handsome you are!" Latarsha gushed.

"Thank you Aunty, and you're a vision of beauty on this fine afternoon yourself."

Jasmin handed her cousin a burger, Cupid hung out with them them for a while but then it was time for him to head home and face his father's wrath.

"There's my handsome nephew." 

"Sexy Aunty!" Cupid sang, he stayed a while longer having a conversation with Feliz.

Cupid saw the anger glitter in his father's eyes the second he stepped through the front door, so he decided to blindside the man. "Are you a vampire?"

"We'll talk about this in the morning." Rudolph told his son and blinked away, indirectly giving Cupid his answer. If Cupid could have foreseen the can of worms his question would have opened up, he would have kept his mouth shut.