rivers_bend

master post
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With the twenty minutes or so Frank has left after Pete leaves, he double checks his cases to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything, and packs a bag of snacks, because vamps are notorious for forgetting that humans need actual food to keep them going. Gerard doesn't take offense at being reminded, but Gerent Ulrich is an unknown quantity. There's no time to check Gerard's live feed. He's most likely doing something boring to watch, like organizing things for the trip, and he could come down early to make sure Frank is ready. It's not worth the risk of getting caught. That doesn't stop Frank from imagining him sitting in his favorite chair, or at the desk in his office, looking at his comic book again, his long narrow fingers stroking the pages the way he sometimes strokes Mikey's hair. The way he sometimes touches his own skin after Frank's opened it up, put tech inside, and watched it heal seamlessly.

His eyes closed, lost in thought, Frank doesn't hear Gerard come in.

"Are you ready?"

Gerard's voice is pitched low, in a way Frank suspects is meant to avoid alarming him, but Frank's eyes fly open and his heart starts racing anyway, because there is nothing reassuring about suddenly finding yourself less than arm's reach from a vampire, not even (or perhaps especially) one you're currently envisioning yourself in the arms of.

It's disconcerting seeing the blink-shift into x-ray vision from the outside and not as a change in monitor view, but the trigger mechanism is Frank's design and he'd recognize it anywhere. Whatever Gerard sees—the rush of Frank's blood through the arteries in his neck, the valves of his heart snapping open and closed, something else Frank's never caught on screen because it only makes sense in a vampire's brain maybe—puts a slow, sly smile on Gerard's face. Frank doesn't step back, doesn't tilt his head in supplication, doesn't get to his knees or close his eyes. With every ounce of will he has, he says, "Ready," and holds Gerard's gaze.

"Good," Gerard says, voice still low. "It's a long drive."

Frank breaks then, turning toward the pile of cases, moving to carry them up to the car, but Gerard's hand on his shoulder stills him. "The boys will get those," he says. "You just have one last thing to do."

Before they'd go see his grandparents, Frank's mom always said, Potty, Frankie, it's a long drive. He knows that's not what Gerard means, but he can't think—

"Here," is the only warning he gets before Gerard's unwinding a pale silk scarf from around his wrist and wrapping it over Frank's eyes. His eyes.

Frank feels his lips pursing, ready to ask what Gerard is doing, but there's no air in his lungs to make a sound. He tells his hands to move, take the blindfold off, but they only twitch uselessly at his side. Frank has seen things no human brain should have to process, but he's never been so scared as he is right now, having his vision taken away.

"Alright," Gerard says, his voice steady, normal, like he's just handed Frank some tool he'd asked for. "Now we're ready."

Latching onto the words, Gerard's tone, Frank manages to drag air past the cotton filling his throat—it's a blindfold, not a gag, Frankie. You can breathe—and move enough to grab for Gerard pressed close behind him. He gets a handful of stiff brocade, the waistcoat Gerard's still wearing, and he clings to it, not at all mindful of the expensive cloth. He concentrates on the feeling of Gerard's hand as it traces from Frank's shoulder down to the twist of fingers and fabric, giving him a hand to hold instead. That unlocks Frank's legs, but his heart's still rabbit fast in his chest as Gerard starts them walking forward.

Darkness is not the problem, Frank reminds himself. He spends plenty of time in the dark, and can navigate his lab by memory, proprioception, touch. And Gerard hasn't let him go. Is still holding his hand, has an arm around Frank's shoulders. Frank breathes, brings his lab to mind. The stainless steel table they must be passing on his right, the bank of monitors to the left, the servers in their cooling towers against the far wall. The door in front of them, seven steps away, now six, five—

But somewhere Frank miscalculated, and he stumbles at the threshold where the tiles in his lab butt up against the thick carpet in the hall beyond, and his heart drops before swooping up to choke him. The noise Gerard makes huffs in Frank's ear, and that shouldn't be his best clue that he's still standing, but it is. And then Gerard's letting go, making Frank whimper as his only solid point of reference is removed, but there's no time to protest further before Frank's lifted off the ground completely, one whipcord arm beneath his knees, another across his back. Somehow Frank's flailing arms find their way around Gerard's neck without causing any damage. Frank can't say he's never imagined similar scenarios, but there was more sex in them, and less of the sensation of drowning under a waterfall.

He concentrates on breathing. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, blood swirling around his alveoli in its capillaries, gas exchange happening without him even thinking about it. He wonders if one day it will be possible to make alts sensitive enough to see that happening. Would seeing that make a vampire hesitate, fascinated? Or would it just make him hungrier? Make him sink his teeth in faster, suck harder, swallow more greedily. Frank breathes again, smells ink and cigarettes and the scent that's just Gerard which Frank can best describe as wintery, though that's not even close, not really. He feels his heart rate slow. He wonders if Gerard is still watching it. 

"Why—" he starts, trusting his lips to work now, but before he can finish his question, Gerard stops walking, says, "The four cases by the door in Frank's lab, and be careful with them." Clearly he's not talking to Frank. Two figures brush past Frank's feet, heading back the way Gerard came, and Gerard hitches him higher in his grip and starts moving again, gait choppier this time. Frank realizes they're climbing. Twenty-one stairs. Odd number. Red, black, green and gold carpet, more worn in the center than at the edges. Two and a half inches of dark wood either side of the runner, hairline gap between the step and the baseboards where the house has settled over the years, starting about half-way up. But Frank can't remember if it's the ninth step or the tenth, or maybe the eleventh. He should be able to remember. 

"Why—" he says again. Why the blindfold, why is Gerard carrying him, why is this more frightening than watching Gerard hunt and kill? 

"Gerent Ulrich," Gerard says, as though he knows what Frank means. As though that explains everything. They're at the top of the stairs now, ten more feet to the front door, past Gerard's office on the left and the front parlor on the right. 

Frank isn't sure if Gerard will put him down now that they've navigated the worst of the obstacles, but he keeps Frank in his arms, murmurs thank you to someone—Mikey, probably, since the words are tinged with more affection than he uses with the others—and Frank feels a gust of fresh air against his cheeks.

Suddenly aware of how much of his body must be protruding either side of Gerard's narrow frame, Frank hopes Mikey's opened both the double doors that give onto the wide stone steps, because Gerard hasn't slowed. There's no crack against his skull, no sharp pain in his ankle bone, just the sensation of descent followed by the crunch of gravel. More murmuring, not Gerard this time, and then the sickening lurch of pitching forward.

Except he doesn't fall. Gerard's arms support him until he's settled into the clutch of oiled leather that means they're taking the GTO.

Frank's surprised. Ulrich is an old vampire—possibly an Ancient—and Frank has heard enough talk to know the other gerents fear him, so he figured they'd be taking the limos and doing the whole proper royal entourage thing. But the GTO means just the two of them, Gerard driving himself. A gerent shuttling a human passenger. Only it isn't like that. Could never be like that, but especially with Frank blindfolded. Gerard is doing Gerent Ulrich the honor due a more senior gerent of delivering a package to him personally. Frank is just a package.

Frank's services. Gerard would never give him— He would have said. Wouldn't have seemed— Gerard is ambitious and Frank is valuable and he's not a pet to be passed on. And they would have— Gerard would have asked him to pack more of his things.

"Gerard?" Frank asks, wishing he could hide the panicked note in his voice better. But the only answer is the thunk-click at his elbow. "Gerard?" Frank asks again, and he was wrong before. The first time was merely plaintive. Frank's right hand flies to the door, scrabbling for the handle, and his left reaches out for the gear stick, the dash, the wheel, desperately seeking to sharpen the picture in his memory, give him something reassuring.

His hand finds Gerard's wrist, and Gerard says, "Frank." His tone is stern, clipped, should not be the reassurance Frank's looking for, but it is.

"Gerard," he says again, a whisper this time. He wills his fingers to uncurl. One breath, another, oxygen feeding his brain, his muscles, and his hands starts to give, releasing Gerard's arm so he can put the keys in the ignition with a soft jingle, turn them with a click-click-roar.

More air hits Frank's lungs, thick with the smell of exhaust, and then Gerard's hands are on him again, his near thigh, his far shoulder, but that's not his hand, it's his forearm, his hand moving next to Frank's head, and oh. The seatbelt. Which Frank hadn't even thought to put on, decades of habit and muscle memory short-circuited by being blind. "Buckle up, Frankie," Gerard says in his ear while his hands slot the latch into the buckle. "I'm in the mood to drive."

Vamps can move fast under their own steam, faster than anything that ever rolled off Detroit's production lines, faster even than the hovers. But Gerard still gets a thrill from going pedal to the metal on the open road. Sometimes he comes down to Frank's lab after, hair wind-wild, a glow in his eyes that Frank's used to seeing paired with the blood-flush of feeding, saying, Imagine it. Just imagine it. Sand as far as the eye can see. No cars, no vamps, no people, no nothing. Just space. And sunlight. All that desert. And Frank knows Gerard was driving through trees and factories under the barely visible smudge of stars, because he was watching through Gerard's eyes as he did it, but he can imagine the great deserts out west in Gerent Greta's zone, the hills and basins, the baking heat that Gerard will never again feel on his skin. He's hoped that Gerard might take him out like that some time, not just on utilitarian journeys designed to get from point A to point B and back. Now he's just hoping this isn't his only chance, because if he can't see the joy on Gerard's face, there isn't much point.

The car starts rolling, the engine not quite drowning out the sound of the tires on the driveway, then both sounds are overtaken by the scream of guitars as Gerard turns on the stereo.

Frank feels buffeted by the noise at first—it breaks down the shell he was building to ground himself—but then the music itself becomes a cocoon, gives edges to the world he's traveling through, keeps a rough and ragged time.

After a while, Gerard starts singing snatches of songs, a word or two, a line, and every time he does it feels like a touch, a reminder of the space Gerard's occupying in the bubble Frank's made for himself, bordered by the plastic and metal of the door on one side, the carpet of the center console rough against his knuckles as he runs his fingertips along the seat edge on the other. The bubble expands to take in the rest of the car, the road they're driving on that Frank can't see any of. His fingers race over the same surfaces again, redrawing lines, and Frank keeps breathing. He never realized the illusion of control that having use of all his senses gave him until one was taken away.

They drive for hours, Frank tuning out then sharply in again, wondering if Gerard is watching him, if he's even remembered Frank's here, or if he's lost in his own bubble of road and speed and sound, or whatever thoughts live inside his head. He's not using his alts, Frank knows, because they talked for hours one night about how Gerard can see clearly with them even at running speeds, but can't see at all while he's driving. He wanted Frank's theories on physics and neurology, asked questions for hours even though Frank didn't really have any answers. So if he is watching Frank now, it's only the nervous twitching of Frank's fingers, whatever he can see of Frank's pulse through the fall of hair over Frank's neck. He can't see into Frank's heart.

The last segment of their journey is marked by twists and turns and the rumble of roads so bad no car more than eighty years old—not even one as fastidiously maintained as Gerard's—has the shocks to handle them without nearly jarring a guy's teeth out of his head. Weirdly, it makes Frank feel better than the smooth ride of the highway. His hands settle in his lap, and he barely twitches when Gerard turns down the music and says, "We're almost there."

But then the car rolls to a stop, and Gerard doesn't turn off the engine. There's a change in the air that means the window's gone down, and the sound of voices, harsh and demanding but unintelligible to Frank, punctuated by Gerard's calm assent and the occasional "no". Without warning, the door next to Frank is ripped open, and strange hands wrap around his head. He wants to scream, lash out, but he just stills, a stone statue hoping against hope that the air in his lungs will last until the hands are done with his face.

"He's been blindfolded since before we left the house," Gerard says, definitely a gerent, but one aware he's speaking to the underlings of a man who outranks him. His words do cause the fingers on Frank's face to gentle and stop poking him, moving instead to test the knot at the back of his head. "And I took the route proscribed." With that, the hands move away and start pulling at Frank's seatbelt as though to make sure it's not just there for show.

"We'll need the vid," a gruff voice by Frank's head says, and Frank feels Gerard lean sideways, hears movement on the dash in front of him, and realizes there's been a camera trained on him the whole journey. One of the ones he designed to hide on Gerard's desk and let Mikey sit in on meetings, probably. Ulrich, or his captain, or any number of his security team will be able to see every time Frank flinched or gasped or bit his lip. Every time he turned his head toward Gerard out of habit like there was anything for him to see except the creamy darkness of a silk and bamboo blend.

A rough hand shoves Frank toward the center of the car, and the door slams again. More voices, only the word, "Go," standing out, and that accompanied by the slap of a hand wearing rings on the roof of the car. Frank wonders if the vamp will get to keep his rings if the paint is scratched. Or his hand if there's a dent. That depends on how important he is to Gerent Ulrich probably.

It's another ten minutes, maybe even twenty, before they stop a second time, and it should be enough for Frank to relax again, but he can still feel the strange vampire's hands on him, can't stop thinking about all those voices—four or five vamps at least— and whatever passes for a guard's tower in this zone, all of them inside, watching Frank's terror on an endless loop. He shies away when hands fumble at his hip to undo his seatbelt, even though he can feel his door is still closed, and at least part of his brain knows it's Gerard.

"We just need to get inside," Gerard says, voice low and liquid like he wants to calm Frank, but with a ribbon of tension under it that just ratchets Frank's nerves higher. "Do you want to walk? I'll lead you. There's three steps up to the door like at home. Or I can carry you again."

Frank refuses to be carried into the house of another gerent. He's not sure his legs will hold him, but he's not giving them a choice. "I'll walk," he says, little more than a dry croak.

Despite the cracked words, Gerard hears him, pats his thigh, murmurs, "Stay there for a minute," and pushes his own door open. While he walks around the car, Frank wiggles his toes, squeezes the tendons at the top of his knees, gives his legs a silent pep talk, so by the time Gerard's opening Frank's door and reaching in to help him out, he stays on his feet with no more support than Gerard's hand cool and heavy at the small of his back.

Like before, Gerard reaches across his own body to hold Frank's hand while he keeps an arm around Frank's waist, only this time he keeps up a running commentary, saying, "Twelve feet to the stairs, now eight… three, two, now the next step is up, a little higher than our front stairs, good, and again, one more," and Frank hopes there's no welcoming committee watching them, though he knows there must be. With luck, from a distance, it doesn't look too much like Gerard's coddling him.

"Sire," a woman's voice says from Gerard's far side when they've taken six steps from the top of the stairs. "Gerent Ulrich is in his parlor. I'll show you in."

"Captain Bebe," Gerard answers. "Thank you."

They pause, and Frank hears the thunk of a heavy latch giving way and the creak of a hinge left just rusty enough for atmosphere, then three more steps and he's standing on a carpet even plusher than Gerard and Mikey's. The door shuts again and Frank thinks, now, now he'll take the blindfold off, but Gerard just tugs him along, seven, eight, nine steps, a right turn, and then, finally then, he lifts his hands to Frank's face, pushes the blindfold up and away.

Frank's lashes are gummy, and he can't see at first, but before he can raise his hands to rub his eyes, Gerard is there, his thumbs wiping gently at the stickiness, so the only thing Frank can see when his vision clears is the shock of Gerard's blood-red hair against his bone-pale skin.

"You look hungry," comes a voice, breaking through the sound of Frank's heartbeat. And it must be Gerent Ulrich's, but Frank can't move from under Gerard's fingertips, can't look away from his eyes. "Let me get you someone to drink."

Gerard at least should be turning away now, to nod at Gerent Ulrich, let him play host, but his gaze keeps roving over Frank's features, his fingertips grazing Frank's ears, the line of his jaw, and he says, "Frank hasn't eaten in hours. He needs food. Nothing with milk. Soup would be welcome, some bread."

"I see," the voice from over Gerard's shoulder says. Frank's sure he detects amusement there. Gerard's palms slide down to Frank's throat as Ulrich says more quietly, "See what the pets are having for dinner, and bring some for the tech. He can eat in here with us." Gerard finally lets Frank go, steps aside, turns so they're both facing the gerent. Frank bows as he's been taught, and Gerard inclines his head as is fitting.

"I'll assume you're not squeamish, tech," Ulrich continues as though his guests didn't spend several minutes ignoring him. "I've seen your movies."

"They're my movies," Gerard corrects, guiding Frank toward a small sofa and sitting down next to him. "But no, he's not squeamish."

Frank isn't sure if Gerard is speaking for him because he wants Frank to stay silent or if he thinks Frank can't speak, but in case it's the former, he doesn't add to the conversation. Not that Gerard is wrong. Frank was still a teenager when he went to live in the Way's compound, and has made hundreds of snuff vids in the years since, seen hundreds more kills than that on the live feeds. He was thirteen the last time a kill made him vomit. Vampires are what they are and they do what they need to do to survive. In a different world, a different life, Frank wouldn't be forced to view half his fellow humans like gazelles in a lion's hunting grounds, but this is the life he's been given, and the human psyche is nothing if not adaptable.

But Gerard hasn't ever fed with Frank right there in the room. Frank's never had to listen.

The man who comes in with a tray has a pet's marker around his wrist. He's tall and slim, though not as tall as the gerent. Somewhere, Frank thinks, between Mikey and Captain Gabe, who tops Frank's five-and-a-half feet by at least ten inches. The pet kneels at Ulrich's feet and waits for a hand on the back of his head before he sets the meal on the low table in front of Frank. When it's settled to his satisfaction, he crawls back and sits on the floor at the gerent's side. Never having dined with vampires before, Frank isn't sure what the etiquette is with regards to waiting.

"Please," Gerard says, two fingers light on Frank's elbow. "Start."

Frank lifts the lid to find a dark stew studded with potato and carrots, served with hand-cut biscuits. He does most of his own cooking, but rarely bothers getting this fancy. His mouth floods in anticipation of the first bite, but still he hesitates, not wanting to upset Gerent Ulrich or make Gerard look bad. Gerard prods his elbow again, less gently this time, and Ulrich says, "My pets assure me the cook is excellent. Please do start. Bebe will be back shortly with something for your master."

Frank eats.

The food is, as promised, amazing, thick and savory, but not so rich that it aggravates a stomach twisted with adrenalin. The table is an awkward height, and once his belly realizes it's getting food it's hard not to get down on the floor and just put his face in his plate. He does his best to eat with the manners his mother taught him, though, to look like a competent tech. Someone a vampire should trust to put alts on his optic nerves. He's finished half his stew when the captain returns with a woman about Frank's age and a man a few years younger. From the blank stares and the scars on their necks, arms, and thighs, Frank gleans they're feeders, not prey.

"Wasn't sure how hungry you are," Ulrich says, gesturing the three into the room. "Or if you have a preference."

Frank does his best to keep his eyes on the meal in front of him, leave Gerard to his. Gerard discourages feeders in their zone, preferring prey to get a chance to live their own lives before they're hunted, says that gives all of them an equal chance of survival. Frank has wondered if it's also because kill vids have a much higher price than feeding vids, but Gerard's distaste for the thralled snacks presented to him is clear to Frank. It isn't written on his face, and Frank's sure from the relaxed pose Ulrich maintains that he believes Gerard's pleased smile, but from where he's sitting, Frank can see the muscles tense at the back of Gerard's neck, feel the twitch of the fingers he has resting next to Frank's thigh. And he knows all Gerard's smiles. He'll eat because he needs to, and because it's polite, but he won't be changing his policy any time soon.

Carefully, Frank breaks his biscuit, dips a piece in the gravy, lifts it to his mouth with a hand cupped underneath to avoid drips. As he chews, he focuses on the large chunk of carrot cut on a diagonal floating in the center of his bowl. But his peripheral vision is good, and he can't help seeing Gerard shift slightly, Bebe step forward with the man in front of her, held out for Gerard to take. Frank can't help but be thrown when Gerard doesn't stand, but stays next to him and lets the boy kneel between his feet. In his surprise he turns. Not enough to be staring, but enough to see clearly when Gerard takes the boy's arm and lifts it to his lips. Enough to see Gerard's fangs descend and his mouth go wide, sink into the tender skin just below the boy's elbow.

The boy whimpers, writhes, but he doesn't try to pull away. The woman at Bebe's side makes a soft sound. Jealousy, sympathy, random coincidence, Frank can't tell. But his eyes only flick to her for a moment before they're back on the tableau less than two feet from his own unscarred elbow. He can smell the blood, even over the herbs in his stew. And Gerard isn't slurping exactly, but there's a wet sound that isn't in any of the sound-effects files they use for vids, and he can hear Gerard swallowing. His cheeks are covered by his hair, but his lips are deep red, and the hands holding the boy's limb are flushing the palest rose.

"That's probably—" Bebe starts, then, "If you'd like more, sire, this one is at full capacity."

Frank feels Gerard startle before he sees it, all his muscles tensing before he drops the boy like a silver chain. "I— Sorry." The boy's still bleeding. Not the sluggish trickle Frank's used to seeing on the corpses bled almost dry, but a thick red flow, wide as Gerard's mouth, spreading a little as it heads toward his fingers. As quick as he jumped away, Gerard grabs him again, retracting his fangs before he starts to lap at the wound.

Every hair on Frank's arms, his thighs, the back of his neck, stands on end as he watches Gerard's tongue, watches the blood slow its flow, the ragged gashes start to close. He knew, somewhere in his mind, that this must be possible, because feeders exist, and he knows Mikey drinks from Pete, but seeing it is— Seeing it— He—

A sound from across the room breaks through Frank's craze, makes him drop his spoon onto the tray with a clatter. Before Gerard can look up and catch him staring, Frank shifts his attention to whatever made the sound. He finds Gerent Ulrich watching him, his face a picture of smug amusement while his pet's head bobs in his lap. Which, Frank shouldn't be watching that, either.

"You have a bedroom, Sire," Bebe says, the honorific somehow sounding both more and less respectful when she's addressing Ulrich instead of Gerard. "And dawn is approaching. Shall I show our guests to their rooms?"

"Room. The Willow Suite, I think." He makes no move to stop his pet.

"We don't—" Gerard says, looking from Ulrich to Frank, his eyes wide. He still has blood on his chin, drying now and starting to crack. The boy he fed from is curled up small against the arm of the sofa, idly rubbing his newest scar with one thumb. The blood Gerard didn't clean from his arm is only dried at the edges. Where it's thickest at the center, it still glistens in the lamplight. Frank should be concentrating on the conversation Gerard and Ulrich are having about rooms, because it's obviously distressing Gerard, but there's a lot of blood, and he can't stop looking at it.

"He's not a pet!" Gerard punctuates his exclamation by grabbing Frank's arms and waving his wrists, unadorned with a pet's bands, in Ulrich's direction. "He has no duty to sleep at the foot of my bed like—"

"Or in it?" Ulrich drawls.

"I don't mind where I sleep," Frank interrupts, because once Gerard starts shouting, things tend to deteriorate. They need to keep Ulrich's good will. And the fee he'll pay for the alts isn't exactly unwelcome, either.

"Frank," Gerard says, turning toward him, fingers slipping from Frank's forearms down to his hands. "You're the best cybertech in the country. You don't have to let him treat you like you're less than that."

"Now now, Gerard, you're going to hurt his delicate human feelings." Ulrich's pet has stopped blowing him, but is still between his thighs, chin propped on Ulrich's stomach while Ulrich strokes his hair. The position is useful for covering what Ulrich's gaping trousers are not, but it still makes Frank's skin itch. Particularly where Gerard is touching him.

"I'm not— What?" Gerard's saying.

"If a pretty boy like that offers to share your bed, the polite thing to do is let him."

Frank desperately wants Ulrich to stop talking. Now if Frank does offer to share Gerard's bed, Gerard will believe that he's only doing it to stay on their host's good side. "No hurt feelings," he says in a rush. "If a suite is what you have to offer us, we'll take it gladly. My gerent needs his sleep, of course, and I want to be well rested for your procedure tonight."

"But—" Gerard says.

Squeezing Gerard's fingers, Frank stands. "Thank you." He nods to the gerent and turns to the captain, gaze carefully slipping past the feeder still on the floor and the second one who's moved to a chair in the corner. "You said you'd show us to our room?"

"I like you," Ulrich says from his chair. "I like him, Gerard. If you're ever looking for a new home for him…"

Gerard moves too fast for Frank to see. One moment he's between Frank and Bebe, the next he's standing practically on top of Ulrich's pet, hands on the arms of Ulrich's chair, leaning right in his face. "He is not for sale," Gerard growls. "He has a home. He has a home. And tell your men, next time one of them touches him without asking first, I will rip off his hands."

For the flash of a second, Frank's sure Ulrich is going to tear Gerard's head from his body, but he only laughs. "Oh, I'm sure you will," he says.

Ulrich is still chuckling as Bebe leads Gerard and Frank from the room.

The Willow Suite is not randomly named. Or is perhaps not randomly decorated. Either way, it's fucking impressive. And crazy. The tree is directly opposite the door, and it takes Frank a moment to realize it's actually a bed. The trunk is an elaborately carved headboard, and the branches, which reach to and descend from the ceiling, form a canopy that nearly hides the mattress. The cot at the bed's foot is a fallen log, oak Frank thinks, the coverlet a thatch of moss. His grandmother had a shelf of paper-and-ink books in her living room. The bed looks almost exactly like the illustration of Alice before the rabbit hole. Minus Alice.

"The washroom is on the right, Ryan's bringing your bags, and there's a bell here if you need anything else." Bebe gestures perfunctorily around as she speaks, then steps back, placing herself between them and escape.

"We need a room for Frank," Gerard insists.

"There is nothing in the room he could use to harm you while you sleep, sire, and I would be happy to search his luggage personally."

Frank's skin goes cold like when he was watching Gerard lick closed the feeder's wound, only this time there's no frisson of want underneath it. "I wouldn't—"

Gerard spins toward her, jaw set. "I do not fear for my safety. Frank is— That is not the issue."

With every word heavy with controlled anger, it's impossible for Frank to tell if Gerard laid more stress on 'my' or on 'safety'. Should Frank be afraid? Or is there something else Gerard is scared of?

"There are no other rooms," Bebe says as though she's told the lie hundreds of times before. "The compound is very popular with visitors this time of year."

"Fine," Gerard says, her bored tone doing more to convince him to back down than any number of angrier arguments would have. "Fine. Just remind your gerent that he is the one who wanted my tech to provide him with alts, and he is the one who refused to come to Frank's lab which is perfectly equipped to perform the procedure, and Frank is not obligated to—"

Frank lays a finger on Gerard's wrist. "It's fine, Gerard." He remembers they're in a house that stands on ceremony. "Sire. It's fine."

Before Gerard can get up another head of steam, there's a tap on the door frame and a lanky boy appears, Frank's overnight bag in one hand, Gerard's valise in the other. In his skinny velvet suit, he looks hardly strong enough to hold them, but when he glances up past the spikes of hair artfully arranged over his eyes, Frank sees he's a vampire, not a pet. From the adoring way he looks at the captain and the fond glance she gives him in return, however, Frank suspects he's even younger in vampire years than he appears in human ones.

When Frank reaches out to take the bags, Ryan flares his nostrils, his look goes cold, but he relinquishes his burden after only a moment's hesitation. Then his head swivels in Gerard's direction, and like a thrown switch his features are the picture of worship. Gerard doesn't seem to notice, but Bebe says, "That will do, Ryan, thank you. We've our own beds to get to before the sun comes up."

Before Frank can say thank you for the bags or anything else, they're gone, leaving Frank and Gerard alone.

"We can leave," Gerard says as soon as the door shuts. "I have to—" he waves a hand at the bed— "obviously, but when the sun sets, we can go. You don't have to—"

"Why would we go?" It's seventy-thousand dollars for infrared alts, and that's if Frank does them in his own lab. He's sure Gerard negotiated traveling fees and whatever else on top. But apparently he's thinking it's not enough.

"He has no respect for you. He can't just— Ugh! No one else can do what you do. He needs to respect you."

"Gee—" Frank takes a step closer to where Gerard is pacing back and forth. Maybe Frank shouldn't use Mikey's nickname for him when he's like this. "Gerard. I'm a human. He's an Ancient." Close enough. "He's never going to respect me. I didn't expect him to."

Gerard veers off the rut he's wearing in the carpet and goes to investigate the fallen log, pulling back the mossy cover and poking around underneath. "This isn't even a bed. He can't expect anyone to sleep on this."

Frank is sure Gerard is exaggerating, but when he goes to look, it is just a canvas tarp stretched across the log's hollow. From the show the gerent and his pet were putting on in the parlor, he doubts Ulrich wants his pets tempted to sleep as far away as his feet, but he just says, "It's fine."

That gets a skeptical look before Gerard's off to wade through the fabric branches to test the situation with the bed. "At least this is a mattress," he mutters more to himself than Frank.

Since he moved into the king's compound, Frank has spent most of his limited socializing time with vamps. But he's only ever seen them during darkness hours, and he doesn't know that much about what they're like as the sun rises. Since Pete's been around he's heard more, but the dude's not that much into the kiss and tell, and they have plenty of other stuff to talk about. He's never mentioned that vamps go a little crazy before bed time, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

"I am totally fine. Seriously, Gerard, I can sleep anywhere." It's not even a lie. When you're six years younger and a foot shorter than most of the guys you're in school with, you learn to adapt.

"You can't, Frank. It's a log. The bed is huge, and there are plenty of pillows. We can make a dividing line with them down the middle and still have enough room."

Frank laughs. Because, seriously? "A line of pillows? Do you sleep bite?" Frank tries not to dwell too much on the fact that his main objection to that would be the sleeping, not the biting. He knows his place and what his parents sacrificed to make sure he never had to feel the slice of a vampire's fangs, feel his heart pumping faster and faster, desperately trying to get blood to his brain, feeding a vampire instead.

Gerard glares at him, but it's the glare he gives to Mikey, not the one he gives someone whose arm he's about to break, so Frank's laugh peters out on a giggle instead of stopping dead in his throat. "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable, Frank," he says, still looking stern, but Frank's pretty sure there's the curl of a smile threatening at one corner of his mouth.

"I don't feel uncomfortable. I don't feel disrespected. I feel tired, and you need to sleep, so let's just do this thing."

"I can't hurt you while the sun is up," Gerard promises.

Frank doesn't know what to say to that, so he gives him his most reassuring smile and takes his bag in the direction of the bathroom. He has stew stuck in his teeth, and he stinks of nervous sweat. If he takes a shower, that gives Gerard enough time to fall asleep without fretting over whether or not he's making his tech genius nervous. One thing Frank does know for a fact about vampires' sleeping habits is that if they don't sleep they can get sick. It happened to Mikey a few years after Frank moved into the compound, and Gerard nearly went 'round the bend with worry. Frank will not be responsible for making Gerard sick this far from home.

When he comes back to the bedroom, the overhead lights are off, but the willow tree is glowing from within. It's crazily beautiful and he wishes he had his goggles so he could record the image to look at later. They're in his cases of equipment wherever those got off to though, so he'll have to just remember it. Assuming Gerard would have left the lamp on at Frank's side of the bed, he heads for where the light is brightest and parts the leafy canopy. He wasn't wrong that this is the side Gerard left for him, though for a moment Frank wonders if maybe Gerard decided to sleep in the log or something. He's so far over that he must be partly hanging off the edge of the mattress, and he's hard to see.

He's not sleeping like an old-fashioned movie vampire—arms crossed over his chest like a corpse at a wake—and Frank's a little surprised to discover that he'd sort of assumed he would be. Which doesn't even make sense. He's always known vamps sleep in beds not coffins, have no problems with garlic, that they're a lot more human than Bram Stoker would suggest. And in a lot of ways less human. That's what Frank notices now.

Carefully, maybe a little afraid Gerard won't know it's him if Frank accidentally wakes him, Frank peels back the covers and slides between the sheets. Gerard doesn't stir. Like, at all. There's no flutter of eyelashes, no hint of movement at his throat, no steady rise and fall of his ribs. The feeding flush is gone from his cheeks and the hand resting on the pillow by his face, so his skin is deathly pale against the leaf-green cotton. Without windows, the room is lacking any air to coax the wisps of hair over his forehead or around his ears into movement, so there's not even that illusion of life. And yet. Whatever it is that makes a vampire clearly a vampire, even with his fangs retracted and a feed flush on his skin, is still there in sleep, and there's no question Frank's sharing a bed with a monster not a corpse.

"Gerard?" Frank says softly, but still there's no response.

Emboldened by the silence, Frank moves a little closer, then a little closer still, until he's almost in the center of the bed where a line of pillows would be if Gerard had had his way. He lies on his side, a mirror image of his bedmate, knees slightly bent, one hand resting on the mattress near his stomach, the other curled up by his chin. Frank's eyes feel grainy, irritated by the hours under the blindfold and the too-warm air in Gerent Ulrich's compound, but he can't bring himself to turn off the light. He doesn't get to watch Gerard very often, and it's hard to look away.

After a while, his eyes close on their own and he slips into sleep.


When he wakes up, the light is still burning over his shoulder, but now only Gerard's ear and the edge of his jaw are glowing because Frank has moved closer as he slept, casting the rest of him in shadow. Before he thinks better of it, Frank pushes the lock of hair that's fallen across Gerard's face behind his ear, his fingers lingering on the cool of Gerard's temple. When he realizes what he's doing, Frank leaps back, but neither his advance nor his retreat garner any response, so he tells his breathing and his heart rate to slow the fuck down, settles back on his pillow. All the commotion made Gerard's hair fall back in his face again, and, more slowly this time, Frank pushes it back.

It's not the first time Frank's touched Gerard's hair, but it's the first time outside his lab, the first time he's done it without the running commentary he gives all the vamps he's working on. He doesn't like to surprise a vampire, especially not when he has a scalpel in his hand.

Frank's heard it said that people look more innocent when they sleep, more childlike. Gerard looks like he's killed a thousand men and women and just happens to be wearing the skin of a twenty-five-year-old. His face is unlined, but no softer in repose than when he's awake.

With a touch light enough not to break even the hair-fine wires on an old-fashioned circuit, Frank traces Gerard's eyebrow, the line of his cheekbone, the edge of his lip. He leaves his fingers there for a moment and only realizes once his chest starts to hurt that he's holding his own breath waiting for Gerard to inhale. Frank looks at the chrono on his wrist cuff. Half past four, which is when he usually gets up if he's gone to bed at sunrise, but he has no idea where the kitchens are here, and doubts Ulrich's hospitality stretches to unknown humans wandering around unsupervised, so he might as well get some more sleep. He figures it will take a while, but somehow he's out again almost as soon as he closes his eyes.

When Frank wakes a second time it's with his heart in his throat. The room is dark the way his own rooms, with screens always glowing, never are, but he can feel someone—something—looming over him. "Gerard?" Frank whispers, but it's barely a croak. Whatever it is in front of him—god he hopes it is Gerard—touches his throat, the hollow where his collar bones meet. Frank's own hand flies to meet the fingers touching him, tracing their shape, feeling for the charcoal-roughened skin Gerard has around his cuticles, the shape of his nails Frank knows as well as his own.

"Your heart beats so slowly when you're sleeping," Gerard says, his voice soft in the darkness. "It's almost twice as fast now."

The charitable might say the sound Frank makes is a laugh, but fear and relief war in his throat, leaving him gasping brokenly. Dislodging Frank's touch, Gerard's fingers trail along his left collar bone and settle over his pulse. "It's so strong."

"Yeah," Frank manages. "Well, I hope so."

"You're redder than usual." Gerard's fingers stroke up and down, up and down the side of Frank's neck. It's sending goosebumps down Frank's spine in waves, distracting him from what the words mean, making him wonder how Gerard can see him blushing in the dark. "So much hotter."

Right. The infrareds. Gerard sounds— He sounds different. Frank wonders if vampires ever wake up hungry. Gerard really didn't have a meal yesterday; it was more like a snack. He doesn't often feed before one or two, and there are nights Frank knows he doesn't feed at all, so he won't, Frank's almost certain, lean in, put his lips where his fingers are rubbing, sink his fangs into Frank's throat.

But he could. He could sip, suckle, feed on Frank's blood thrumming so hot under his skin, just take enough to tide him over until Gerent Ulrich grants him another meal, close the wounds when he's done. Frank wonders how much it hurts when a vampire bites. Is it the pain of the cut on his head when he fell off the wall behind his parents' house, or the pain of tattoo needles pushing ink under his skin? He concentrates on how the darkness feels like something solid so he won't think about how he always goes back to his rooms after a visit to the tattoo artist, takes himself in hand, focuses on the burn of his new tattoo as he jerks himself hard and brutally fast.

"Frank?" Gerard says, his hand stilling, palm flat where the blood rushes closest to the surface. "Are you afraid?"

"Nooo," Frank says carefully. "Yes? Not really afraid." He's scared of the dark after being blindfolded earlier, but mostly he's terrified by how desperate he is for Gerard to bite him, or fuck him, or bite him while he's fucking him, and that's not safe and it's not right and he shouldn't be thinking like that. Not ever, and especially not while Gerard is right there, touching him, in a fucking bed. This isn't vamp vision in HD, Frank tucked up in his lab, Gerard out there somewhere feeding on humans whose lot in life it is to be prey. This isn't risky like stopping to jerk off when he knows Gerard and Mikey are waiting for him to finish editing together the latest videos for upload. Now that he's seen it first hand, heard it, he wants to be a meal, even though that would risk everything he's worked for since he was five years old.

"Your heart doesn't always beat like this when you're awake," Gerard says. "But when I blindfolded you, and in the car, with the guards— Do you want me to turn on the light?"

Frank is pretty sure that's not going to help, except Gerard will have to stop touching him to do it. Probably. He'll need to roll away from where Frank's heart is pounding, get farther from where Frank's cock is thick and heavy in his pajamas, hidden, Frank hopes, in the general pocket of heat he has around his body under the quilts. "Yes," he says. "Yes, please."

Only Gerard doesn't roll away to reach the light on his own side of the bed. He leans over Frank instead, the weight of his chest tipping Frank onto his back, crushing him against the mattress as Gerard leans the last half inch to reach the lamp, and Frank's frozen, his heart not beating at all now.

"There," Gerard says as light floods the willow cave they're in. And now he'll move, let Frank up, let him flee to the other side of the bathroom door. But Gerard stops, still hovering over Frank's body, weight half on one elbow as he brushes Frank's hair back with the other hand. "Better?" He blinks, eyes shooting left to return his vision to normal before examining Frank's face like he's looking at one of his sketches.

Frank nods, not trusting his tongue.

"We can still leave if you want. We don't need Ulrich's money in our coffers."

Gerard's hand is still in his hair, but Frank can't answer that with a yes or no, so he swallows, says, "It would be nice, though. And we don't want to provoke him." The Southern Zone is twice the size of Eastern, and Gerard has much better things to do with his time than deal with a war.

That, finally, gets Gerard moving, settling back on his own side of the bed to glower. "Fucking Ulrich," he grumbles. "I don't know why I ever agreed to this in the first place."

"Because the money would be nice and we don't want to provoke him," Frank repeats. And now that Gerard's a safe distance away, he can't help adding, "And you like having the most in-demand cybertech in all the zones."

Gerard's glower falters and Frank fights his own grin as a smile creeps in at the edges of Gerard's mouth. "I—" Gerard starts. He narrows his eyes, but lets the smile take over the rest of his face. "Well, you are. You're the best. No one else can do what you do."

"Let's get up then, and I can do it, and we can get home."

A gong sounds while Frank's shaking off after his waking piss, making him jump a little. Still skittish then; he's going to have to get that under control before he lets Ulrich under his knife. Worse than walking away without doing the work would be severing the gerent's optic nerve. There's healing and healing, and even when you're a vampire, nerves don't always grow back the same as they were before. The gong's followed by a buzz and a clattering rumble like a hundred electric window shields rolling up at once. Since Frank hasn't seen anything but the parlor, the bedroom suite and the hall between them, he has no idea how many windows the house has, but the workings are enough pull on the power to make the bathroom light dim and flicker for a moment. Frank wonders if they're far enough out Ulrich's running on gennies or if this is just another bit of atmosphere like the creaking front door.

"Ryan is here to take you to breakfast if you're ready." Gerard's voice is muffled by the heavy paneling, but Frank thinks he detects a hint of concern there. "Coming," he calls, even as he's reaching for the door's handle.

The best word to describe Gerard is 'hovering', and it makes Frank glow warmly and feel nervous in equal parts. Ryan is in pinstripes tonight and looks even more frail than he had yestermorning. Frank wonders what Bebe saw when she looked at him that made her turn him, assuming he read the looks right and she's his maker. It's not like back in the days Frank's grandparents told him about, before the revolution, when every bored teenager or desperate housewife begged to be turned, and the vampires' numbers doubled, quadrupled, became great enough that they could no longer be contained. Ryan is the picture his grandmother painted of one of those disaffected youths, but there must be something more about him not obvious on the surface, because nowadays, vampires are much more selective, seeing no need to create more competition for themselves. In fifteen years at the Way's compound, Frank has only known of two turnings by the twenty or so vamps who live on the grounds.

"Is everything alright?" Frank asks Gerard, whose gaze is flickering over Frank's face as though looking for damage.

"Ryan says he'll take you to the kitchen while I join Ulrich for a hunt, but I would like to know where you are while I'm gone."

"I'll be fine," Frank says, wanting to reassure. It would be insanely stupid of Ryan, or any of Ulrich's household, to cause Frank harm after the gerent went to all the trouble of bringing Frank here to work on him. Especially before the work was done. Frank won't mind if Gerard stays as close as he wants once Ulrich has what he's after, but he really isn't worried right now. Still, it warms Frank to the bone that Gerard wants to keep such a close eye on him.

"He'll be fine," Ryan says, sounding bored. "Cook is only allowed to poison people on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

It's a stupid joke, but Frank's lip is twitching regardless, until Gerard's hand shoots out, fastening around Ryan's neck. "It is Thursday," Gerard growls, lifting Ryan an inch off the floor. Ryan doesn't struggle or raise a hand to defend himself. He smiles. A small, satisfied smirk that makes Frank want to punch him right in the mouth. When Gerard sees it, he drops him, making him stumble, but not wiping the glee of having gotten Gerard's attention off his face.

"Your maker may appreciate your insolence," Gerard says, "but I do not."

"My maker appreciates my cock," Ryan drawls, cupping the bulge at his crotch. "She won't mind if you want to appreciate it too."

Forget his mouth, Frank wants to punch him in the nuts. He takes a step toward Ryan, fist clenched, but before he even realizes that he means to follow through on his urge, Gerard has an arm around Frank's waist, pulling him back against Gerard's chest. "I'll come with you to the kitchen," Gerard says, "and then Ryan can take me to the gerent."

The kitchens are at the other end of the house, down two flights of stairs, and are made up of three huge rooms, each of them larger than Frank's whole apartment at home. Ryan leads him to a table set for at least thirty people, and most of the seats are occupied. A dozen or so of them wear a pet's marker on their bare arms, and many of the rest wear uniforms Frank has only seen in old British period movies set in houses with large staffs. Since Ryan seems to be doing the tasks that would usually fall to a butler, Frank wonders what these people do here, though they are all in long sleeves, so perhaps they're just a different kind of pet, their bracelets hidden under their clothes. He doesn't ask. Ryan pulls a chair out for him next to a woman with a mechanic tech's crest on her shirt, her dark red hair done up in tight braids, and across from a sun-wizened man in the dirt-stained clothes of a garden tech. They both nod at Frank and carry on eating what looks like oatmeal drizzled with honey.

"Laura will take you upstairs when you're done," Ryan tells him, gesturing to the woman on the far side of the gardener. She's young, maybe even in her teens, and isn't wearing a pet's marker or a tech's patch on her black sweatshirt. Frank doesn't ask about her, either. She gives Frank a flat stare, narrows her eyes at Ryan, and stuffs nearly a whole piece of toast into her mouth.

"I'll see you later," Gerard says, squeezing Frank's shoulder briefly. His fingers are like ice where they brush Frank's neck at the edge of his collar.

"Happy hunting," Frank says. His words elicit another look from Laura, this one speculative, possibly amused, but still guarded.

Frank eats a bowl of oatmeal, three pieces of toast, and two bowls of fruit before he feels like the unsettled hole in his stomach is filled. He hasn't been around this many humans at once since he left school. At home there's just James and Jarrod—Mikey and Gerard's day guards—Pete, Ray, Christa and her team of four or five people who help her take care of the grounds, and Bob, who comes and goes, only showing up once or twice a year. They're friendly enough, but Frank doesn't spend much time with them. On the rare occasion they share meals, it's outside where Frank has space to breathe, or they'll get together in twos or threes to have a beer, play some cards, watch one of Frank's dad's old films salvaged from the days before. Here, no one is talking, so it's not the cacophony meal times were at college, but Frank can still feel the press of so many breathing, sweating, heart-pumping bodies around him, and he'll be glad if he and Gerard don't have to stay another day.

"You done?" Laura asks as Frank wipes his mouth on the napkin provided with his plate. Her tone walks the fine line between deferent and insolent. That seems to be a theme in Ulrich's compound, and Frank is glad anew that he was hand-picked by Gerard for the Eastern Zone when he finished his schooling. And not just because New Jersey is his home and he doesn't ever want to leave it again.

"I'm done," Frank says.

She doesn't lead him back to the stairs, instead taking him down one long hall then another, past tightly closed doors, old oil paintings, and strange wall hangings Frank would like to look more closely at under other circumstances. It seems Ulrich is a collector. No wonder Gerard didn't want him to get his hands on the comic book he found.

"Here," Laura says eventually, stopping outside a pair of steel swing doors topped with wire-reinforced windows set just above Frank's head height. They are completely incongruous in the stately manor trappings of the rest of the house. Frank detects a whiff of fresh paint and sawdust.

"Did he build an operating theater for this?" he asks.

"Well, you are operating on him, aren't you?"

Technically, Frank supposes he is, but it's not like vampires can get infections and die or anything. When he's not in his lab, he's more used to working on repurposed dining-room tables than in anything like the room straight out of turn-of-the-century medical dramas he sees when Laura pushes open the doors.

No one is there except Ulrich's pet from last night, now wearing pale-green scrubs and a paper hat, washing his hands at a large steel sink in the corner. "Um," Frank says, because, alt installation is not a team sport.

"Vampires have a flair for the dramatic," Laura says quietly. "The pet's here as set dressing. Not to assist you."

Frank can't argue with that dramatic thing, so he says nothing, just heads to the recently vacated sink to wash his own hands. Which is when he realizes that everything in the room is scaled to the gerent's height. The gerent who is probably fifteen inches taller Frank. He's gonna need a fucking stool to work at the operating table in the middle of the room.

Ignoring Laura's giggles as he turns away from the chest-high sink and grabs a handful of paper toweling to dry his hands, Frank casts around the room until he finds his cases arranged on a series of shelves in the corner. To his relief, they haven't been opened.

"Should I fetch Ulrich?" Laura asks.

"I have to get my stuff ready," Frank says. "Give me half an hour?"

Frank breathes deeply for the first time since Ryan came to get him for breakfast when the pet follows Laura out the door.

It only actually takes Frank about fifteen minutes to open all his cases and check that nothing got broken or lost in transit, which gives him time to figure out that the operating table, unlike the sink, is on a hydraulic lift and can be lowered enough that Frank will be able to see what he's doing. He lays out his tools and the circuits, leaving the chip that would give him live feed capabilities in its case. He's seen enough of Ulrich's world to last him. He doesn't want to see it through Ulrich's eyes, even if it might be politically useful someday. He's just examining the wheeled equipment tray, wondering if he wants one for his own lab, when there's a commotion at the door and it bursts open.

Ulrich strides in, arms outstretched, his pet on his heels, and before the doors swing shut behind them, Frank has time to see Gerard struggling on the other side of them, Captain Bebe holding him tight by the arms. "What's going on?" Frank demands before he can think better of it.

"Your master seems to think we're mistreating you," Ulrich drawls. "I assured him you were fine, but he insisted on seeing for himself. Only authorized personnel are allowed in the theatre, so when he wouldn't accept my assurances, it was necessary to restrain him."

Ulrich towers over Frank, whipcord thin but in the way where he'd be strong even if he were only human. As a vampire, he could throw Frank through a wall, or crush him like a bug under his palm. But Gerard wouldn't try to fight off another gerent's captain without a reason, so Frank only hesitates a moment before saying with as much steel as he can muster, "I authorize him."

The pet flinches at Frank's words, but Ulrich just laughs. "Oh, do you?"

"If your pet is going to be here playing nurse, I want my master here, too." Frank is glad he's not holding any of his instruments, so he can put his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking.

"How adorable," Ulrich says. He watches Frank until Frank's starting to wonder if he already has some kind of alt that allows him to see under Frank's skin, but just before Frank drops his gaze, he says, "Fine. Trey, fetch the boy's master for us, will you?"

Trey scowls at Frank from behind his master's back, but does as he's told. Gerard is fuming as he comes in the room, but he doesn't say anything to the other gerent, just heads for Frank and squeezes his shoulders, moving down his arms like he's checking for broken bones. Frank wants to ask what the hell happened on his hunt with Ulrich, but he just murmurs that he's okay, reaching up to give Gerard's hand a squeeze back.

"Shall we get started?" Ulrich says.

Part 3