The farmers market they had visited the first time they met was in town again. Apparently, it got set up every weekend, and Alejandro hadn't missed a single one while he slept.
Alejandro pointed further into the fair. "I can smell blood. I think a butcher has a stand in that direction."
"Do you want to visit it?" Tilly looked at him with confusion. Alejandro brought a hand up to the bite on his shoulder. He had reused the army green and zombie-torn shirt into a sling for that arm, and had switched to a short sleeve lime green flannel. The only thing the hand could do without pain was hold his umbrella, and even that required him to balance it against his chest and shoulder.
"Yeah." He lowered his voice cautiously, "I think I could ask for a drink."
Following the scent of blood, they navigated through the fair to a chicken butchering station in the shade. Two men worked on a segmented production line. One slit the throats of the awaiting animals, to provide a painless death. He then bled them by hanging them upside-down on a strange metal structure, where the chicken was put into a cone until it ran dry. After that, the second man took the chicken and fed it to a feather-plucking contraption, and then removed their organs before and placing them in a cooled display to be sold. Alejandro had not seen such contraptions used before, although he hadn't exactly kept a close eye on human food production systems, either.
Tilly noticed his frown, and smirked. "Are they being too lazy?" she teased.
Alejandro raised an eyebrow. "How come you ask that?"
Tilly laughed. "Stop glaring at the plucker drum, you luddite!"
He quickly realized she was right; it did look like he was angry at the machine for taking a job a person could have done. He looked up and smiled. "Right."
The cooled display was now full, and the man who had been using the "plucking drum" started tending to it. The other man closed the chicken cage door and looked up to see the two following him from the sidelines. His eyes immediately went to Alejandro's umbrella.
Tilly stepped closer to the guy. "What do you do with the blood?" she inquired, with a friendly lilt to her voice.
"We make it into bloodmeal."
"That's a thing?" Tilly's eyes went wide. "I have heard only about bonemeal before."
"You can mix it with that, makes for a good fertiliser for the garden." The man smiled politely. Then, he looked to Alejandro again. "Are you the new vamp in town?"
Alejandro nodded. His eyes went to the bucket the butcher had been draining the chickens into. Such a waste of good food.
"You want some?" the man offered. "Grab a cup and I'll get ya some."
"I can drink the whole bucket if you let me," Alejandro smirked.
"I want to see that!" Tilly announced excitedly.
The other butcher, and the elderly woman that he had been conversing with over the display, turned to follow the proceedings. The man grabbed the handle of the plastic bucket and heaved it up. The large, but flimsy, thing and its fragile metal wire handle strained under the weight of the large amount of blood. Alejandro stepped into the shadow provided by the tent roof to set down his umbrella to retrieve his meal. It didn't feel heavy to him, but it was awkward as hell to hold and he had to support the bottom with his weaker hand. Nevertheless, he heaved the bottom up and gulped down. Now, a human of any kind would need to breathe or otherwise take drinking slowly. Vampires have no such weaknesses. Like a drunkard on a mission, Alejandro downed over a liter in one long swig. When he lowered the lid of the bucket, he met the wide eyes of a rather impressed man, Tilly, and two other onlookers.
He put the bucket down on the ground and took his arm out of the sling to stretch it. As he felt the bitten spot, he noticed the dent it had had the night before was now gone, and so was the aches and pain.
"Thank you." He smiled at the man, who couldn't do much more than nod. "What do you charge for that?"
The man blinked at him for a bit. "Uh... You can have that on the house. We will be having much more later today anyway."
Delighted, Alejandro grabbed his umbrella and said his goodbyes to the butchers. Tilly had decided she also needed nourishment, so they beelined for a candy stand nearby.
As Tilly conversed with one of the candy vendors, Alejandro noticed a red tail poking around the corner. The candy stand had a display on each side, and when he peered over the glass cover, he saw that behind the corner were two pups from the Bree family; one in human and one in canine form. The pup, in two-legged form, was asking how much candy they could get with their ten-dollar allowance, while the other one wagged its tail as it admired all the candy.
Tilly paid for her bag of colourful liquorice sticks and walked back to Alejandro with her prize, but looked at him inquiringly when she noticed him fixated on something else.
"Pups," was all he answered, nodding at the visible tail. Tilly swirled around to look just as the tail disappeared around the corner, and the four-legged pup peeked around the corner, having heard his voice. Both of their eyes went wide, as did the pup's when it saw that it had been recognized. They both turned around in sync as the pup started barking at its sibling, while Tilly took Alejandro by the arm and started walking away. Both of the pups came around the corner, only able to watch as they disappeared behind a different stand.
Tilly and Alejandro, meanwhile, could both hear when an older sibling came to find the pups, who immediately began stuttering about how they had seen the scary vampire.
"They didn't look scared," Alejandro pointed out, baffled.
"They are, like, ten years old," Tilly whispered. "They will parrot whatever they hear from adults."
The stand they were hiding behind (or in front of, depending on how one looked at it) was one selling fur hats. The lone attendant, a Latina woman with a ponytail, looked at them curiously.
"Can I help you?" she inquired once the two noticed her.
"Uh..." They reacted in unison, both realising that the hat stand was probably not the most appropriate place right after that interaction.
"Nice hats," Tilly got out with a stutter.
The attendant gave her a bright smile. "I made them," she said proudly. "With my dad," she added with a blush. "We hunted them ourselves too."
"Cool!" Tilly finally let go of Alejandro's arm and turned to the hat seller completely, an excited expression now spreading to her eyes. It was as if she hadn't been stressed at all a moment ago at all. "What animals do you hunt?"
Alejandro started tuning out as the two girls started exchanging stories about hunting animals, real and pixelated, when he noticed a shadow move around the corner they had come from, and stop next to him. He turned to find a tall dark figure staring at him lazily.
"Oh, hi, Fetcher," the hat seller greeted the man, who took his eyes off Alejandro just for a split second, to give her a nod of acknowledgement before going straight back to staring down at him. His presence wasn't threatening whatsoever, despite his stature, outfit, and the obvious fact he was a shifter.
He was like a Greek god; just as handsome as his older sister, but in a more masculine way. Alejandro couldn't help but admire the dark, thick, curly beard and hair, meticulously groomed to follow the jaw, before ending at a rounded point at the chin. It was as if he had climbed from the side of an ancient painted vase, with strong, dark features, and serious, intelligent eyes. He was tall and menacing, and the heavy, brown leather jacket extenuated his broad shoulders. The man was certainly taller than any human Alejandro had seen in decades. He could reach any shelf he wished, that Alejandro knew for sure. Yet, even under the beard, and the jacket that seemed way too hot for the bright summer weather, he looked pale and frail. His eyes were sunken, and his cheeks, almost hollow. He was strong, but something was eating him alive; something no one else seemed to be able to notice.
Fetcher stared with a blank expression, then snapped out of it, as if realizing he had missed cue in a play. He clumsily rolled his eyes. "I guess I'm your brand new babysitter now. Poor me." He spoke with a monotone voice.
Alejandro stared at him wordlessly for a bit. "You don't need to..." he tried to reply, but Tilly gave him a side eye, like he was acting dence.
"I think that was sarcasm," she whispered from the side of her mouth. Fetcher nodded in approval. Alejandro blinked a couple of times, as no words came to him.
"Babysitter?" he finally managed.
"Everyone got all, 'Get into formation, he could still be around', and that's no fun, so I said someone could just follow you around and make sure you don't do anything, so they sent me, because of course they did," Fetcher grumbled. Then he clacked his jaw shut and resumed staring quietly, as if he had spoken entirely too much already.
His eyes drifted down to Alejandro's lips, then to his shoulders. He looked between both sides like he was trying to figure out which was the hurt one. Alejandro self-consciously touched the spot that had gotten bit the night before.
"It got better, as I had a drink," he stated, trying to fill the silence. "But I didn't bite anyone-!" he added hastily, and was going to go on, but Fetcher cut him off.
"I can tell it's chicken."
Another bout of silence settled on them. It weighed unfamiliarly heavily on Alejandro's mind, whereas Fetcher didn't seem bothered at all. Alejandro glanced at Tilly for help.
Tilly had disappeared. Or, rather, she had gone around the hat stand, and was now inside, trying on a hat and chatting with the attendant. He looked helplessly back at Fetcher, who was looking him up and down with rather hungry curiosity. Alejandro, meanwhile, had no idea why he looked so keen.
After a long and confusing moment of being stared at later, they walked back toward the butcher stand, with the addition of a weremane and a new fluffy hat on top of Tilly's head.
"She was so cute!" Tilly enthused.
"She is too old for you," both Alejandro and Fetcher told her in unison. Alejandro turned to look at Fetcher, who was nonchalantly following them a few paces back.
"And so are you," Fetcher added, as Alejandro glanced at him over his shoulder. A strange, uncharacteristic sensation of rebellion took him over for a moment. 'Not this again.'
"I'm not even straight," Alejandro shrugged. He did his best to hide the fact that he did not even himself know what that was supposed to mean. Though admitting his attraction to other men still felt like going against his nature after hiding for so long, similar admissions had worked for a friend when trying to kill accusations. Though a niggle at the back of his mind insisted so, he refused to entertain any notion of trying to keep his options open with this stranger.
"Dammit," Tilly cursed next to him. Her frown was immediately followed by a wide grin, which told Alejandro she had intended to sound sarcastic.
He rolled his eyes. "Don't you start that, too," he warned her.
"I want beer," Feather sighed to himself all of a sudden. Alejandro followed his wistful stare to find a stand selling alcoholic cider from a local orchard.
"Go buy some then," Tilly told him, "I'm not old enough to drink," she complained.
"And I can't get drunk," Alejandro lied.
"Prove it," Fetcher demanded. Glancing between the imposing and strikingly handsome man and the grumpy girl, Alejandro was surprised to find himself more pulled toward Fetcher.
"Fine," he said, "Buy me a drink then." Tilly sulked as Fetcher got several bottles from the stand and especially once they settled to a table and all of them were decidedly set far away from her side of the table.
"Come on," she whined, "Why can't I taste a little?" Alejandro did let her taste his drink, just a little, once Fetcher was distracted with his own one-long-gulp party trick. Unsurprisingly, she didn't like it! Alejandro also let Fetcher have most of the beers to appease Tilly, and after five bottles the man was laying on the table and groaning.
"I hate my life," he informed Alejandro. "It's all bullshit."
"Don't you live in a mansion?" he couldn't help but point out.
"Not worth it, everything is decided for me," Fetcher whined. When neither Tilly or Alejandro offered any sympathy, but rather a disappointed glare, he continued. "You know, I don't even like girls, and I'm still engaged to one."
That got Alejandro's curiosity. "How old even are you?" he inquired.
"32, and she's 25. I don't like her. And I have to see her tomorrow!"
"You live at home at 32?" Tilly interjected with a judgemental look.
"Can't move out if I won't move in with her," Fetcher grumbled. "And as I said, I don't like her."
"That... Is not very healthy," Alejandro conceded.
Fetcher seemed to greatly enjoy it when someone agreed his life was a trash fire, and Alejandro's agreement got him in a considerably better mood. Once the time came for them to part ways, Fetcher had thankfully not downed any more alcohol and Alejandro felt safe leaving him to find his way home on his own.