undergrounds | Eeper Weeper, chimney sweeper,

Entry tags:

Eeper Weeper, chimney sweeper,

A) Marquess of Hackney. The title feels strange to the vampire. He's risen high in such a short period of time. It certainly helps to inflate his ego. There's vampires older and who have been in the nest for longer than haven't gone as high. But then they don't have the ambitions that Cooper has. He's going all the way to the top, so long as he doesn't have to be the face of the nest. That would just be horrible.

To celebrate, Cooper is making the rounds of every supernatural bar in the city, regardless of what territory they are in. The Three Cripples, Rhapsody in Red, The Jolly Roger, and Guilty Pleasures will all be visited in turn. Or at least, he'll do his best to visit them all until he passes out. The only one he avoids is the Angelo. He's still pretty pissed off at Cesare. But that's hardly on his mind right now. Tonight is a night for celebrating.

Anyone he sees, unless he's currently mad at them for some reason, will be invited to join in the revelry. "C'mon! Drinks are on me tonight!" He promises. Never grow old and party hard. That's the perks of being a teenage vampire.

B) Let sweet death claim him. That is the thought going through Cooper's head. Why did he drink so much? Why did he ever think this was a good idea? He'd spent the first twenty four hours securely in bed with Nancy by his side and Juliet on his feet. When he woke up the next day, he was still hungover. Life was just not fair. He spent the morning drinking what felt like gallons of water until he could stand up without feeling like he was going throw up.

He had new duties as the Marquess. He's not about to give Harris an excuse to knock him back down after he just rose up. So he's got to get up and see to the human allies of the nest. So he stumbles out the door and down the street, sunglasses firmly in place. Today, he'll be less than friendly, but that's only because of the pounding going on in his head.

C) It seems to be the custom these days for someone to be knocking on Cooper's door at random hours of both the day and night. Besides Nancy coming over after the destruction of Midnight, he's become quite popular with the younger crowd of vampires. Despite being hundreds of years old and still having the form of a teenager, or perhaps because of it, they seem him as someone to turn to for advice in an ever-shifting, chaotic nest. He's more than happy to dispense advice and keep them on the right path, but he does wish they'd learn to use the phone and call in advance.

That's who he assumes is knocking on his door in the middle of the night. He heads for it, dressed in his usual getup of a T-shirt and leather jacket, with no shoes on. He opens it and the expression on his face immediately turns cold. Cesare is about the last vampire in the world he wants to see. When Cooper gets mad, he holds grudges just about forever. Before the older vampire can get out a word, Cooper slams the door shut in his face. It feels good and he plans to let Cesare sit out there and rot all night. This is his home, and this time, Cesare doesn't have his ego and territory to fall back on.

Cooper stands there for about a minute before he calms down and realizes that he should probably see why Cesare has sought him out. Cooper opens the door back up, still looking none too happy. "What do you want?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You might be the vainest person I have ever met in my life, human or vampire." That's saying something, considering the stereotype vampires possessed for sheer vanity. Cooper had never developed a streak, stuck as he was in a young, awkward body that had never finished growing. "Actually, scratch that. It's a toss-up between you 'n Jean-Claude."

"Thank you kindly. Took a long time t'get here, but I finally did it. I'm not nearly so dumb as I look." He winks at Thomas. As the younger vampire has realized by now, while impulsive and hot-tempered as Cooper tends to be, he's got a brain underneath the idiot exterior he presents. It helps to be underestimated by everyone around him. That way he can pleasantly surprise his allies and keep his enemies on their toes when he rises above it all.

Thomas grinned. "Jean-Claude? Well, he is certainly someone I don't mind being compared to."

Thomas, after all, rather liked Jean-Claude, and he certainly could not deny his own vanity. As for the promotion...well, Cooper was right, and not just because he looked pretty dumb at times.

"You've earned it. You're certainly smarter than some who've risen high in the rankings."

Not that he was about to specify who, exactly. After all, he wanted some plausible deniability if one of Harris's supporters overheard.

"Thanks, Thomas. I really appreciate that." He means that genuinely, no sarcasm or his usual snark in sight. If he didn't have the support of his friends behind this, it would have been a hollow victory indeed for the middle-aged vampire.

"Someone's got t'keep an eye on all the young vamps runnin' around. The chaos has to end eventually." That's as close as he would get to saying anything negative about Raymond Harris. Cooper knew he could end up on the bottom a lot quicker than then he had ended up on the top with how volatile Harris could be. It was better just to be the good little vampire until he was no longer in power. And then, well then, the world would be his oyster.

"One way or another, you're absolutely right."

Either one of them would end up offing Harris, or someone would decide to wage war on the vampires and take them all out. He was hoping for the former, of course.

"And I am grateful that someone is."

Because if they ran around without someone stepping in...well, they might be allowed to by Harris's law, but the chaos had already caused enough problems without any of the younger vampires being kept in check. Running into a hunter in Islington had made it very clear to Thomas that things were going very badly. Besides, if and when order was restored, it was better if as few vampires as possible were used to the idea that killing freely was the norm.

Thomas took a drink. "So what do you plan to do next? Now that you have all this power and influence, I mean."

"Do just what I've been doin' all this time: keeping an eye on things 'n making sure my little corner of London doesn't go completely t'shit." Cooper would do no less than that. He wanted everything to remain in a civil and order state around him. Before, he hadn't had enough power to do so. Now, he could snap his fingers and order someone dead if absolutely necessary. Not that he wanted to. Killing was always a last resort for him.

He grins with a pair of long, sharp, and very white canines. "I might never make a good lion, but I make an excellent jackal." A line he had stolen from A Tale of Two Cities.

"Well, your efforts are appreciated."

Thomas didn't read too often, so he didn't recognize the quoted line, but he did understand the meaning.

Thomas grinned back. "Well, for what it's worth, there are far more jackals than lions in the world, so they must be doing something right."

After all, Raymond was more the 'lion' type, and Thomas suspected that he was very much endangered, and with each act of flagrant disregard for keeping any sort of law and order in London, that endangered status got a little more critical. Cooper on the other hand...well, Thomas doubted anyone was going to set out to assassinate Cooper.

"Exactly, pretty boy. It's easier t'run things from behind the scenes then to be the one hooting 'n hollering out in front all the time." It showed what Cooper thought of their current leader. Only alcohol could have made him make such blunt statements. Normally, he was smart enough not to say a word regarding what he thought of their oh so illustrious leader.

"I figure, might as well hold onto this power while I got it." The wind could change at any moment and then he might be left on the bottom of the heap, if not forced to leave London altogether, depending on how bad things got.

"That's always how the White Court did things back home," he commented. "There were three courts. The White Court, the Red Court, and the Black Court, although last I was in Chicago, I had more fingers than the Black Court had vampires."

Which was enough for even Thomas to understand which tactic was better, even as he sorted through his thoughts while clearly inebriated.

"Although the White Court seemed to use a lot of their power to influence porn studios, too, so that might be the real reason they always did better. I don't know."

"Wait a sec. They got involved in porn?" Cooper paused to digest that for a moment before he threw his head back and began laughing. He'd find it amusing even if sober, so he was practically dying of laughter, drunk as he was.

When he finally stopped, there were tears of mirth in his eyes. He wiped them away. "Y'know, that's either the smartest or dumbest decision I've ever heard. It's just so very American." He wondered what would happen if he approached Harris with the same idea. It might be worth it just to watch the older vampire burst a blood vessel.

"I think it's a great idea. And I enjoyed helping out at the studios. Although, I did think my sire needed to lay off telling the human directors what they could direct. They had some really great ideas when he didn't interfere."

Yes, Thomas was admitting to the fact that before the Islington nest, he was running with porn vampires.

"Just a thought, bucko. But maybe that's somethin' you might not wanting t'be braggin' about. People might not take you seriously." By people, of course, he meant himself. Then again, Cooper hadn't taken Thomas seriously from the moment he'd ordered him to shave himself seriously. Of course he would have been involved with porn vampires. Why not?

Thomas stared at Cooper for a second, then blinked. "There are people who might take me seriously? Huh." He took a drink. "I don't even take me seriously."

"That explains a whole heapin' lot," Cooper says with an amused snort. Thomas was never going to make it as a leader of the Nest. Still, he had his uses. And Cooper felt a sense of responsibility in watching over him.

Not that Thomas ever expected to make it as a leader. He wasn't trying to, either. "There are advantages of no one taking you seriously. When no one sees you as a threat, watching your back becomes a lot less necessary. I'd say it's a good strategy, considering I've lived longer than any of my sire's other male progeny."

Which was kind of pathetic, if one considered how young Thomas was. This was closely related to the reason why Thomas never turned to his sire for anything.

Edited 2016-12-31 04:50 (UTC)

"See, that's a good attitude to take. No one's ever taken me seriously till it's too late 'n I've proven 'em all wrong." That was something the drunken vampire was very proud of. Cooper worked hard to get where he was, playing to his strengths while making it seem like he didn't have a clue that he knew what he was doing.

"You need a better sire. Do what I did 'n find one." Well, he hadn't precisely been looking for one. Stefan had found him, not the other way around. It had still been the best decision that had ever happened to the vampire.

"Well, this nest definitely has more vampires that seem like they'd make better sires. Like you. And JC."

Both seemed to genuinely care if Thomas turned up dead, which was more than he could say for his sire.

"Psh, like I'd ever sire someone. Can you see me bossing someone around?" He says the words with his usual flippant air, but this is a very serious moral standing that Cooper has never wavered on. He's never sired someone, afraid to expose them to the hell of being a new vampire in the world. He plans to never break that promise to himself.

"Sure," he said with a smirk, "I could absolutely see that. Like me, when I do something dumb."

Which was always. Thomas was almost always in the process of doing something dumb.

"But I didn't mean the two of you should sire anyone. I meant the two of you would make good 'sires' for vampires with crappy sires."

Cooper can't help the slow smile that goes across his face. The thought of being there for vampires in the same situation he'd been in was good. It made him feel needed. "Makes sense. Only sire I ever had was the one that picked me up 'n dusted me off when I was at my lowest point. I owe a lot to him. Guess the cycle's continuing on." He reaches up and thumps Thomas on the shoulder. "Well, if I can get you through your first one hundred years without gettin' staked or fried in the sunlight, I'll consider it a success."

"I guess so," he said with a smile. "And that's a lofty goal that I fully support."

Particularly since Thomas had never really expected to last that long, and hearing Cooper express that goal...well, it felt nice.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eeper Weeper, chimney sweeper,

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject