Aurik - Tumblr Posts
I imagined how Erik and Aurik met by chance one night. Since then, Erik has always visited his midnight friend and played him some new guitar covers.
This time he brought “Cover me in Sunshine” by P!nk especially for Aurik.
I hope it makes you happy @vladimirsangel :)
I am so impressed! This is so so soooo perfect!
And it matches to my erik so well!!!
I am crying out of happiness 🥺❤️❤️❤️❤️
For @blackforrestpunk, set in a little alternate universe of their webcomic. If you haven't read the webcomic, you should read the webcomic.
--
“Look, Sasha,” says Erik, resting his hand on the dog’s head. “It’s snowing.”
Sasha doesn’t understand the words, but she can hear the quiet sort of wonder in his tone, and she can sense his emotional state in the way all the best dogs always can. She raises her head, thumps her tail, and nudges the big pale hand with her nose encouragingly.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
Ah, now. Walk is a word she knows. She sneezes, delighted, and hustles to follow Erik around as he pulls on his combat boots, lacing them only as much as is necessary for them not to actually fall off his feet. In deference to the weather his jeans have only a few rips at the knee.
“Erik!” comes the immediate call from the kitchen. Erik isn’t sure if Nadir is psychic or whether he just reacts to the trigger word “walk” in a similar way to Sasha. “You’d better be wearing your hat. It’s minus four out there….are you listening to me?”
To avoid a conversation, Erik pulls on a wool beanie hat, tugging it down so that it covers the join between the mask and his hairline, and mutters: “Yes….”
A soft dark green scarf is flung unceremoniously through the kitchen door and lands on Sasha’s golden back. She twists, snuffs at it curiously. “And that!” bellows Nadir, with the benefit of long experience.
Erik doesn’t say anything. He pats his thigh briefly to get Sasha’s attention, clips on her leash, and pulls open the door into the dark winter afternoon. Sasha, scarf dragging, follows cheerfully.
The cold is intense in the city at this time of year. People hurrying past for shopping are bundled up like fat little puppies in multiple layers of coats, scarves and hats. It makes Erik, at his long and spindly height, look even more like a looming matchstick man than usual. The mask at least protects from the brisk wind, and people aren’t looking too closely.
A bus screeches brakes in the slush and Sasha huffs, jumping.
“You’re right,” Erik says, putting a hand out to calm her. He finally picks Nadir’s scarf up off the dog’s back and absently loops it over his shoulders. Nobody is out listening to street music today. Not even the punks will be hanging out in their usual places in weather like this. They need somewhere more sheltered. Somewhere quieter, less bustling.
So they go to the Hauptfriedhof.
Erik likes it here. It’s quiet, and there’s lots of interesting things to look at, old static things, things that won’t change or shift or be alarmingly different suddenly. Human beings are a lot easier to deal with when they’re dead and not changing who they are the whole time. And well-behaved dogs are allowed. On her leash, Sasha is Erik’s constant shadow and tends not to wander far even when he occasionally lets the leash drop. He needs her, after all, and she knows that.
The cemetery is empty. It is growing towards dusk, and the snow remains light, but shows no sign of stopping. Erik and his dog walk together to visit one of his favourite graves, the one with the big stone tomb chest with the recumbent tomb effigy lying atop it. He likes this one because at the feet of the effigy is lying a faithful dog, staying with their master through eternity. The dog has curled ears, reminding him of Sasha.
Erik reaches out a hand and touches the head of the stone hound, brushing away the light coating of snow. He can see from the pattern of lichen and wear on the statue that he’s not the only one to pat the faithful creature. Humans love their animals.
Maybe this is the one thing that, despite everything, keeps him close to his own humanity.
Sasha is snuffling about in the snow that has blown into a drift at the side of the tomb, and Erik glances down to make sure she’s not eating something that’ll make her ill.
And that’s when he sees it.
A footprint.
Inside the hollow eyesockets of the mask, his eyes narrow in confusion as he frowns.
Plenty of people visit the graveyard, but he’d be willing to bet that very few of them do it barefoot in December.
These are the footprints of an adult, judging by the size. He takes a few steps, casting his yellow gaze about him, and – yes – there is another. And another. Someone has walked through fairly recently, barefoot in the snow, heading down the trail between the trees and towards the more distant larger mausoleums.
Of course there are homeless in this city. Every large city has them. Erik counts himself lucky to not be strictly homeless at this present time. He wonders if he needs to worry; not all street people are friendly or safe to be near.
A twig cracks, not very far away. The sky above is almost black with heavy clouds and the oncoming night. Sasha looks up at Erik, her soft eyes alert and interested – and then she trots off towards the sound, leash dragging in her wake.
“Sasha,” Erik calls, but not very loudly, and strides off after her. The dog is not going very fast, her pawprints criss-crossing the bare footprints. She has her head low, as if following a scent, but not like an animal who is hunting. She ambles. Casts back and forth.
And finally she sticks her nose into the shadowy gap between a large stone monument topped with an angel and the circling wall, and there’s an abrupt sound like an overboiling kettle. A loud, bubbling sort of hiss.
A cat?
Not like any cat noise he’s ever heard. Erik stops, and watches as Sasha draws back for a moment, then pokes her nose in again. She’s wagging. Whatever she’s found back there isn’t something that’s worrying her. This time the sound elicited in response is possibly more alarming than the inhuman hiss, because it’s definitely a voice. Using words.
“N-no!...please don’t…”
The voice is high with anxiety, but sounds masculine in tone. Not a local accent, either, and speaking in English.
“Sasha,” says Erik, thinking that he’s probably going to get a lecture if Nadir ever finds out his dog has started bothering random people in public, “here.”
Awkward. This is going to be so awkward. Maybe he should just leave. But the voice had sounded so frightened.
Erik knows a lot about being frightened.
He cranes his neck slightly, trying to see behind the stone.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “She’s friendly.”
He can’t hear any breathing. Erik’s hearing is acute; normally he can hear far too much of the sounds that people make by just living. The sounds that are often almost too much, and he needs to go to his room and put his headphones on to return to a state of calm. But here in the cemetery there’s nothing, only the wind in the trees and Sasha panting quietly, her breath fogging in the cold air. She’s still wagging.
For a moment he wonders if he’s imagining things. It would be nice in a way if he was imagining things. So much less stressful than having to apologise to a stranger in a graveyard because his dog was harassing them.
Then Sasha huffs, just once, not even loudly, and there’s a blur of movement, a shriek, and something – someone – darts out from behind the angel statue. And slams straight into the nearest wall.
Shit.
Erik grabs for the end of the leash and brings Sasha back close to his legs. He stares, eyes huge, at the spectacle before him.
Lying in the snow face down in a tangle of skinny limbs is a -
Erik’s going to go with “person.” There’s a lot of long, lank black hair, legs and arms so thin they’re like sticks. Bare feet and short sleeves, exposing smooth skin the colour of blue-grey slate.
As he watches, the fallen person starts to rise with a whimper, and the hair slips back from the face and ears and the….
….nose.
Or rather, the lack of nose. Erik’s breath catches in his throat.
He looks like...
Like, but not like. The grey ears are long, and fiercely pointed. They react like an animal’s, drooping low and flat in what Erik can only interpret as extreme discomfort. The nose is (to Erik at least) a sickeningly familiar cavity above a mouth that’s more like a maw, with four pronounced shark-like teeth protruding over the almost negligible lower lip. Beneath dark eyebrows angled sharply in distress, sunken eyes as silver as Erik’s are golden stare up at him. The hands clutching at the snowy ground are large and bony, with fingernails tough and dark and more like an animal’s claws.
They’re in a graveyard, and there’s a grey person with fangs and shining predator eyes lying shaking on the ground in front of him. And Erik still can’t hear any breathing at all, where a human in this state would be hyperventilating.
Yeah. This is not a human person.
This is a vampire.
This is a vampire having a panic attack.
Erik can’t be blamed for not knowing exactly what is best to do in this situation. Even regular humans would find this challenging. But Sasha is not human, and she knows very well how to handle panic attacks. She’s a good dog. So she tugs at the leash until Erik, still rigid with shock, lets it slip from his numb fingers. Then she walks directly up to the cringing, whimpering vampire and plops down on her haunches, shoves her muzzle firmly onto that thin and trembling shoulder, and just...is there. Is warm and alive with soft fur and a calm heartbeat.
And Erik finds he can move again, think again.
He trusts Sasha. If she’s not afraid of the vampire, then neither will he be, at least for now.
He takes in the details in quick glances, not meeting the eyes, and stares at the grey earlobes particularly because they have obviously been pierced and stretched with tunnels. The black trousers are distressed and ragged. The black t-shirt has an extremely faded white print on it which could have once been a skull or something similar. Except for his inhuman aspects, the vampire could fit in with any of the local young goths, and Erik finds this prosaic detail reassuring. It could even almost be the start of a joke: a punk and a goth walk into a graveyard...
Sasha’s tail brushes the snow encouragingly. A trembling clawed hand reaches up and shakily starts to pet her ears. Erik crouches down, aware that often shorter people tell him that he looms. He realises he’s still staring, and tries not to. Somewhere at the back of his mind there’s an itch growing, the same kind of itch he gets when new music is trying to be born.
The vampire looks at him in resigned, miserable horror, as if he’s just waiting to be attacked or screamed at. Erik knows this look – he’s seen it in mirrors the few times he’s been unable to avoid them - and for a while they just sit in silence together with the snow falling softly over them both.
Then Erik, the tension of the moment finally pushing him into action, abruptly pulls Nadir’s scarf from his own neck and thrusts it forward without preamble.
“You’re cold,” he says, taking refuge in fact, and can feel the silver eyes on him, full of distrust.
It seems like almost an eternity before - with gentle, anxious hesitation - the scarf is drawn slowly out of his grasp.
It’s almost ten at night. The front door slams. Nadir relaxes, as he always does when he knows Erik has once more returned safely. He glances out into the hall and sees the familiar long hands hanging up the damp beanie hat on a peg.
“And where have you been?” he asks, hearing the thud of a boot being removed. “It’s been hours. You will freeze to death and I will have to explain to the police why there is an Erik-shaped icicle blocking the pavement.”
He doesn’t expect an answer, and he doesn’t get one. Sasha’s furry head pokes around the door, tongue lolling happily, tail up and waving. Nadir addresses her, as he often does: sometimes he tells Erik that talking to Sasha is the only chance he gets for decent conversation.
“Well, at least you’re happy,” he says, and Sasha yawns at him luxuriously before trotting in and flopping down on the rug. He pets her and recoils. “And wet. And cold. Erik, your dog is dripping on the carpet - “
“I made a friend.”
Erik’s voice is soft. He hangs back in the doorway, a shadow in a baggy hoodie, a little melting snow still on his shoulders.
Nadir blinks. This is unexpected. He wants to be pleased. He has known Erik long enough to not be immediately enthusiastic. But the yellow eyes behind the mask seem calm, and even a little brighter than usual.
“Great,” is all he says. He does not pry. Prying could make Erik skittish. Instead, he cranes his neck. “And where’s my scarf?”
“Where it’s needed.”
This is becoming infuriating. Nadir sucks in a deep breath, and Erik immediately heads off back to his room before any further interrogation is possible.
Nadir doesn’t hear anything more about Erik’s new friend for three months. But in the very first few days of March, when the rain is heavy and Erik has been out all afternoon again, he hears the outer door slam at around 6pm and sees Sasha’s happy dog smile appear in the doorway of the lounge. Their home is full of the scent of the dinner Nadir has been preparing.
There’s a pause, somehow full of anticipation.
“You can come inside,” Erik’s voice says, quietly. “It’s all right.”
And this time there are two sets of footsteps in the hall.
Everytime i am off work and off writing, i draw. This year it, will be a halloween special for "you've got the time" written by one and only @vladimirsangel . So, this is a super special extra, cause this story doesn't appear in my story. Huehuehue. Can't wait to show you all.
Awwwww i can hear the wind, and the rain. Love it
"I've been missing yesterday But what if there's a better place?"
Young vampires miss the sun, sometimes. Aurik is no exception.
This is the vers best story about blumenkohlauflauf ever. To the hell with ghost broccolie!!
not Christmas (but close)
a vignette for @blackforrestpunk that once again got out of hand. I love their version of Nadir so much.
----------------
Nadir puts both his hands on the kitchen counter and once more he looks at the small, orderly piles of ingredients and cartons while trying not to sigh. It is December again. Outside the apartment building the fallen snow is slowly turning to slush, and he is about to make dinner.
Let’s see. He enumerates, pointing a finger to each element of his menu in turn as he thinks.
There’s him, obviously. And he knows what he’s going to eat because he planned the dinner and bought all the food and he is going to cook it.
Rooky – ah, his lovely Rooky – she eats most things with gusto. She is not so keen maybe on the rohtkol as the other things but she will happily take a little and move on to things she likes better.
His pointing finger then wavers over the packet of cauliflower florets because he’s aware that he’s now getting to the fun part. Or the not-so-fun part. He smiles a little grimly, because this is part of his plan.
This is not a Christmas meal. Nadir doesn’t do Christmas. But it’s late December, he’s here, and Erik’s here, and a couple of nights ago Erik came back with company in tow. They have a house-guest.
Aurik. The weird little goth with the truly alarming dental problems is back, both in Nadir’s life and in Erik’s room. Nadir has almost lost track over the years of the parade of strange people who have followed Erik home – Azzi, Jago, any number of street kids – but Aurik has got to be one of the oddest ones. So quiet he almost makes Erik look chatty, and as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
That’s before Nadir even starts on the fact that Aurik seems to be into extreme body modification. Kids these days. Like green mohawks and piercings aren’t enough.
Aurik hasn’t been back to visit them for quite a while, and Nadir hadn’t dug too deeply into what had happened. These friends of Erik – they come and they go. Erik had been evasive on the subject, saying only that Aurik had “been away” and Nadir had really hoped that it hadn’t been something criminal.
Nadir pokes at a packet of breadsticks in front of him thoughtfully, and now he sighs. He honestly thought he’d seen it all when it came to peculiar eating habits, what with raising Erik since he was thirteen, but this goth really has beat everything. He doesn’t seem to eat at all. Nadir had once made schwartzsauer (after a rather hesitant suggestion from Erik) and had felt triumphant that Aurik had seemed enthusiastic and had eaten a few spoonfuls. He’d felt much less pleased with himself when he’d overheard Aurik getting sick in the middle of the night. What can you feed a goth who won’t eat?
And of course there’s Erik. Mister “I disassemble my lasagna into its component parts”. The undisputed king of “this is too hot”. The champion of “carrots are evil incarnate.” Erik doesn’t do well if surprised with new foods. Getting Erik to consume enough calories and vitamins has been a decade-long challenge. So what do you feed the punk who won’t eat? Nadir taps a slim bar of dark chocolate with his finger and smiles slightly. It wasn’t cheap, but he knows Erik will appreciate it. Call it a not-Christmas present. That is, of course, if Erik can make it through Nadir’s small act of revenge for a disagreement they’d had earlier.
Almost as if he can hear Nadir plotting, the door of Erik’s room opens. A little trill of Nirvana filters out, and Nadir hastily stows the chocolate bar out of sight.
“I invited Rooky, by the way,” he says, seemingly to the air. He knows Erik will be listening.
“She’ll be here in about an hour.”
There is no reply. The door shuts again. Nadir thinks he hears a murmur of voices, but he’s not sure.
Rooky arrives up the stairs in a flurry of new snow, wrapped in her good winter coat and stamping her boots to shuck the slush. She greets Nadir with a bright smile, seeing hm busy with the food, and calls out “Hi Erik!” to no response at all.
“So,” she adds, settling herself at the table. “Can I help?”
Nadir grunts and waves a spoon in negation. He seems somewhat irritable, and Rooky senses conflict. She then looks at the place settings around her, does simple maths, and says: “Is it Jago again?”
“If it was Jago I would have warned you in advance.” Nadir puts a lid on the pan he’s been stirring. “And possibly I would have left already. No. It is the goth.”
“Oh. This is the young man who lives rough in the Hauptfriedhof?” Rooky shakes her head. “Well I’m glad he’s indoors in this weather.”
“I’m making them blumenkohlauflauf,” says Nadir.
“But I thought Erik didn’t like - “
“Cauliflower was on sale.”
Rooky takes note of the expression on her love’s face and decides not to push it. After all this time she is used to Nadir and Erik occasionally having differences of opinion and that tension between them being expressed in all sorts of ways. She moves away from the subject of cauliflower – or “ghost broccoli” as Erik disparagingly refers to it.
“I finally get to meet this new friend of Erik’s,” she says, instead. “That’ll be nice.”
It is not, in fact, nice.
This is rather an unfair description; it could be worse. Nadir makes his dishes, puts them into serving bowls and brings them to the table, then calls for Erik. And calls for Erik again.
On the third call, there is still no Erik but there are hesitant footsteps in the hall, and the greyest person Rooky has ever seen inches anxiously into the room on silent, bare feet. Nadir is watching her closely as Aurik slinks to the table and takes a seat. He thinks he can guess what she’s thinking, as he had thought it himself; the lad must have argyria. And terrible buck teeth, even before he decided to start having his face modified to look cool.
Nadir is, however, wrong. Because what Rooky is thinking is: that is, one hundred percent, no possible doubt, a vampire. But it’s a vampire who is trembling and who looks as if he fully expects to have the earth open up and devour him at any moment. Just like a hundred other terrified, traumatised street kids. She takes pity on him, and smiles.
“You must be Aurik. I’m Rookheeya. It’s lovely to meet another friend of Erik’s.”
Aurik stares at her with huge, liquid silver eyes, but rallies and smiles back nervously with that fanged maw as Erik finally enters the room and takes the seat next to him.
“Hi,” Aurik whispers, and proceeds to stare at his empty plate as if it is a life sentence. Erik narrows his eyes, head lifted, expression otherwise hidden behind the surgical mask. Nadir meets that accusatory yellow gaze stonily. He knows Erik has seen the cauliflower. He will not back down. He is making a point.
“Lovely to see you, Erik,” Rooky says, smiling at him too. Erik is too busy staring venomously at the blumenkohlauflauf, which Nadir is now spooning out onto the plate in front of Aurik. Aurik’s expression wavers between horrified and baffled. He sniffs like a disgusted cat, his exposed nostrils twitching.
“I don’t think he eats ghost broccoli, Nadir,” says Erik, in a tone that suggests nobody in their right mind would consider eating ghost broccoli. Nadir gives him a look.
“I’m sure he’ll eat what he’s given, because Aurik is polite.”
Erik’s head lowers. His shoulders arch defensively. He takes the serving spoon and wordlessly puts some of the casserole onto his own plate. Aurik’s eyes dart furtively between his own full plate and the floor, trying to see if Sasha is hiding under the table and could be surreptitiously slipped some cauliflower. Nadir watches them both like a hawk as Rooky proceeds to serve herself, murmuring appreciation over the food.
Erik is obviously seething. His body language is rigid and intent, and he drops the serving spoon back into the casserole pot with a deliberate clatter. The sharp unexpected noise makes the ever-anxious Aurik next to him jump, one bony elbow coming down onto the edge of his dish – which traitorously flips and proceeds to catapult several spoonfuls of blumenkohlauflauf efficiently skywards.
Nadir has precisely two seconds to react before the warm cauliflower slaps him full in the eye. He yelps, Aurik squeaks out “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry -” and in this rapid confusion the still-resentful Erik chooses to turn his own plate into a weapon.
More casserole becomes airborne, and at greater speed because Erik’s premeditated action carries more force than Aurik’s involuntary one. This time a little spatters Nadir’s ear, adding to the glob that’s made its way down into his beard – but the bulk of it lands squarely on Rooky’s beautiful hair. She gasps. Erik’s eyes go wide in a very obvious oh-shit reaction. His abused plate slams back to the table, teeters on the edge, then tips over and drops with another loud clatter. Aurik hisses in alarm, the sound of a frightened cat, and Sasha, who had been hanging about in the hopes of some nice leftovers coming her way, investigates the fallen plate.
It’s when he sees a sticky floret slipping slowly down Rooky’s shocked expression that Nadir finally loses it.
“Erik,” he growls, and everything descends into chaos. Erik shoves back from the table sharply, the metal chair leg shrieking against the floor. This discordant sound in turn spooks Aurik for a third time, and now he bolts up in a blur of speed and flees the kitchen in a silent panic. Sasha’s claws skitter on the floor as she scrambles to follow her owner while he stalks rapidly from the room.
Doors slam. Silence falls for a brief moment and then Nirvana starts up again, slightly louder this time. Nadir curses. Rooky pragmatically wipes cauliflower off her face.
“Thanks for dinner, love,” she says. And smiles at him sympathetically.
-----------------
About twenty minutes later and Nadir is prepared to admit that okay, he may have screwed up. As he peers out into the connecting hallway he can hear Rooky, bless her, starting to do the washing up. Erik’s door is still firmly closed and now that the music has been switched off the resentful silence is almost palpable. He knows better than to try and invade Erik’s room right now, and realising that he still has food in his beard, he determines to go and have a wash. Maybe things will look brighter once he’s had a wash.
He pushes open the bathroom door, steps inside -
The shower curtain is shaking.
Nadir frowns. Carefully he leans forward, craning his neck so that he can see a little more.
Bare grey feet with black toenails, drawn up into the corner of the bathtub.
“Aurik?” he says, surprised. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were in here.”
Aurik doesn’t say anything. He is huddled right up at the end of the bath, his stick-thin arms clutched around his knees. His head is hanging, curtaining his face with all that long, lank black hair. He is shivering as if utterly chilled to the bone, and Nadir, instantly recognising this kind of reaction with the benefit of long experience, immediately feels even worse. “Hey,” he says, softly, modulating his tone. “Hey. It’s okay. I know it was an accident. You’re not in trouble.”
Oh, this is far too much like Erik’s bad days as a kid. But this goth is not Erik; something which becomes very clear when Nadir tentatively starts to reach out a hand to help his guest out of the bath.
Erik was never keen on being touched. But Aurik sees the hand reached out in kindness and he practically lunges at Nadir, who finds himself being clung to with an intensity he had previously not encountered. Not having any other real option, he hugs back. The body in his arms is even skinnier than Erik’s, and he hadn’t even thought that was possible. Nadir settles himself back on the floor beside the bathtub, Aurik huddled against him.
And he’s still got cauliflower in his beard.
He sighs.
“It’s okay,” he repeats. “You’re okay.”
He has got to get this kid some shoes. And a sleeping bag. Something. But for now -
He nudges Aurik slowly and gently, and the goth tentatively uncurls.
“Come on,” Nadir says, smiling. “You want to see if Erik wants some dessert?”
🥺🥺🥺 this is sooooo cute!!
Thank you 🥺😭❤️
To @blackforrestpunk : "It'll be okay. You can borrow my rabbit."
Punk Erik belongs to @blackforrestpunk, from their webcomic AU.
Aurik the nosferatu belongs to me.
Just two noseless guys, who decided to be themselves on halloween.
@vladimirsangel dont ask. I dont know how this happened. 😅