rivers_bend

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back to part 2



The installation itself is anticlimactic after the show leading up to it, though Frank spends the whole time expecting Ulrich to try to leap off the table while Frank's got a probe in his eye socket, or Trey to upset all his carefully organized supplies. Gerard lurks just out of arm's reach in Frank's peripheral vision, Trey sits motionless across the table, clutching Ulrich's hand, and Ulrich lies perfectly still despite all the poking and prodding Frank has to do to get the tech attached to his optic nerves. Frank's never had a patient who was so immune to being worked on, but he's never done alts on a vampire even a tenth of Ulrich's age, which could explain it. Frank's previous record for installing infrareds was three hours, twenty-nine minutes. This time it only takes two hours, fifty-six.

"There," Frank says as he drops the last probe onto the tray, sweat sticking his clothes to his back, hands stiff with tension. "Let that settle for a few minutes, then you can sit up, and I'll show you the mechanism for switching views."

Gerard must have seen him do twenty of these operations before, and usually he chats with the vamp on the table while they wait for the healing to finish, leaving Frank to start his cleanup, but this time he's at Frank's side as soon as he steps back, massaging his hands, telling him softly what a good job he did, like maybe Frank doesn't know that he fucking rocked it.

"Yeah," Frank says, wondering what the fucking hell is going on, but letting Gerard keep up the massage because it feels really good. "It went well."

"Excellent," Ulrich says expansively, spreading his arms wide again from his spot on the table, nearly knocking his pet off the little stool he's sitting on. "Excellent!" He sits up smoothly, completely ignoring Frank's protests. "I heal a hundred times faster than your master there," he says. "I regrew this arm in less than a day." He shoves his right arm in Frank's face. "Fishing boats. Very dangerous."

Frank wouldn't mind putting Ulrich in a boat—one without any kind of hold or cabin—and pushing him out to sea. A few days in the sun, and Frank would never have to see his annoying face again. "I'm sure," he says mildly, then, before Ulrich can continue to regale him with tales of his healing prowess, continues, "Are you in normal vision now?"

"Vampire vision," Ulrich corrects, but settles down with a show of active listening.

"Good. Now close your eyes and look sharply right for a second then open them."

Ulrich does as he's told. When he opens his eyes again, it's all Frank can do to hold his ground. The look the gerent gets on his face when he can see Frank in infrared drips with hunger. A cold, feral hunger that sends Frank's stomach dropping to his knees.

Gerard must see it too, because in the time Frank's taken a single shaky breath, he's pulled Trey around the table in front of Ulrich and pushed Frank out of reach. He's just in time. Ulrich dives on Trey, fangs bared, tearing into his throat with a snarl. Trey screams, a single high-pitched sound broken off by a second snap of Ulrich's jaws. This is no wound that will heal with a few licks from a vampire tongue. When Ulrich lifts his head to bite again, tearing apart Trey's shirt to get to his heart, Trey's head lolls, nearly severed from his body like he was attacked by a wildcat, not a vampire. Frank has never seen anything like this on his monitors.

It's terrifying, but Frank can't escape the room. He's pressed against the wall, Gerard's back nearly crushing his chest, hands cupped around Frank's fists twisted in Gerard's shirt at his waist. Frank can hear Gerard sniffing—the scent of blood must be overwhelming with his enhanced senses—but he doesn't ease up, doesn't leave any part of Frank vulnerable to attack. As much as Frank would love to flee, he knows better than to run from a vampire, and he's glad to have one he trusts between him and the monster he's created.

"What the fuck," Frank breathes in Gerard's ear. Gerard just shakes his head, a tiny motion Frank might miss if he didn't have his face pressed to Gerard's neck. He hears the door swing open, Bebe's voice sharp and stony, saying, "Your Majesty, we have guests!" and the snarling slurping sounds stop. Frank dares to peer through Gerard's hair over his shoulder.

Ulrich's pet has been reduced to a few scraps of blood-soaked fabric and a pile of meat. It looks like Ulrich literally tore him limb from limb. Frank tries to breathe, but can't get enough air past the restriction on his lungs, so he pushes Gerard forward just an inch. "What the fuck," he says again. Gerard shifts his head, and Frank realizes that he's lined himself up perfectly so his cold dead body is completely between Frank and Ulrich.

Ulrich's head swivels from his ravaged pet to the captain of his guard to where Gerard has Frank trapped. "Look left," Gerard says, and for a second Frank thinks Gerard is talking to him, but Gerard repeats himself, louder, commanding, "Close your eyes and look hard left." Amazingly, the kneeling gerent does, taking himself back to normal vampire vision.

"He was so filled with blood," Ulrich says, staring at the mess he made, wiping gore off his face with a sleeve.

"Of course he was filled with blood," Bebe snaps. "He was human."

"But I could see it. It was right there." Ulrich's looking at her now like maybe all of this is her fault. Frank doesn't move a muscle.

"You watched the infrared vids," she says, stern but not disrespectful. "You saw what the humans look like through the alts. We talked about this."

With a last look at the remains of his pet, Ulrich stands. "Damn it," he says. "That boy had absolutely no gag reflex." He doesn't so much as glance in Frank and Gerard's direction before sweeping out of the room.

"I hope your things aren't too much of a mess Mr. Iero," Bebe says, and gives them a little bow before backing out of the room after her master.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Frank shoves Gerard off him. "No, seriously, Gerard, what the fuck? What the fuck did I do to him? He just fucking ate his pet! Like chewed him up and swallowed him! Who does that?"

"You didn't do anything," Gerard says, his voice all calm and reasonable and making Frank even angrier. "Sometimes the ancients—"

"Fuck the ancients. Fuck that. Last night that guy was sucking his cock and tonight he got his throat ripped out. Right after I installed the alts. Don't fucking try to tell me there's no connection." All Frank can see is the red of Trey's blood. He wants to get the fuck out of here. He wants to forget the kid's name. He wishes he never knew it.

"Frank," Gerard says, trying to reach out for him. But Frank jerks away.

"I'm wishing I didn't fucking know his fucking name right now," he shouts. "How fucked up is that? Like if I didn't know his name that might make this okay. It's not fucking okay. Don't tell me it's fucking okay."

"Frank," Gerard says again, and this time he moves too fast for Frank to sidestep, wraps Frank up in his arms. Frank only fights for a moment before he lets Gerard hold him up.

They stay like that while Frank catches his breath, while his heart rate slows and his limbs stop shaking. Fucking adrenalin. Fucking crazy-ass wild vampires.

"Let's get your things and leave," Gerard murmurs into Frank's hair when Frank starts wriggling loose.

"Fuck my things. I don't want my things," Frank mutters, but he's stepping out of Gerard's hold to gather up his instruments even as he says it. He doesn't wash them, or worry about them going in the right compartments, and he knows he's going to regret it when they get home, but he could not fucking care less right now. He's not going to stay here a minute longer than he has to.
 
"Come on," Gerard says as Frank's closing the last case. "We'll get someone to bring those down to the car. Let's go." Frank nods and Gerard picks him up again like he'd done when Frank was blindfolded. It's less frightening when Frank can see him coming, until Gerard gets them out in the hall and starts moving at speed.

It's like what Frank imagines riding a roller coaster in a wind tunnel would be, and Frank can't breathe or see anything more than a blur, but then it's over, and they're standing in a wide front hall under a ceiling that soars three stories above their heads.

"You're going to need this," says a man's voice from behind Frank. He turns to see a vampire in a British army uniform circa the first world war holding out the scarf Gerard had used to blindfold him on the way here.

"No," Gerard says. "I'm not." Frank's heart, which had begun to pound in anticipation of another descent into darkness, stutters.

"House rules," the soldier says, still holding the horrible thing outstretched.

"You can take your house rules and shove them up your phony English arse," Gerard says, arm still around Frank's shoulders. "Have someone bring our bags to my car."

"House rules," the vamp says again, but he drops his hand this time.

"Bags. My car," Gerard repeats, and opens the front door.


It's less than five minutes after Frank climbs into the passenger seat that the vamp dressed as a soldier, and Ryan, still in his pinstriped suit, come down the steps loaded down with all the bags, and Frank watches in the side-view mirror as Gerard helps them load first the cases and then the duffles into the trunk. As they finish, the soldier hands the scarf to Gerard. Fucking pushy bastard. Even as Gerard takes it willingly, Frank trusts he won't use it again. Because Gerard is stubborn and angry, and he wouldn't do anything right now that would make the Southern gerent happy. But Frank's fingers still wrap around the door handle as he watches Gerard run the fabric through his fingers just at the edge of the framed reflection. "He won't," Frank finds himself whispering.

Like Gerard heard him, he stops playing with the scarf and loops it around Ryan's neck, tucking the ends into his suit jacket, patting him on the chest. Ryan fakes a swoon, and his friend takes advantage of the momentum and pushes him onto his ass. Gerard misses the byplay he caused though, because he's already climbing in the car.

As they zoom down the drive, Frank turns in his seat to raise both middle fingers at the house. "Good fucking riddance!" he shouts over the music blasting from the speakers.

Gerard doesn't slow at all as they hit the gate, and when Frank catches sight of the wide eyes of the vamps in the guard house, he starts laughing and can't stop. He's howling, slapping his thighs, and then there are tears streaming down his face, snot slicking his upper lip, and he starts wondering if he's ever gonna quit. Gerard's wondering the same thing, clearly, because twenty or so minutes past the compound border, he pulls over, turning down the music, and grabs Frank, gives him a shake.

Frank tries to stop, he does, and he manages to take one deep breath, but then he thinks about how shocked the guards looked and he's off again. Through his gasps and his tears, Frank's dimly aware of Gerard pushing his seat back, fumbling with their seat belts, before he hauls Frank onto his lap, wedging him past the steering wheel so he can pin him against the door with his body, wrap Frank tight in his arms.

"Shhh," he says. "Frankie, shhh. It's okay."

Frank fucking knows it's okay. It's just funny. But trapped by Gerard's body, Frank starts to get a grip, and the laughter peters out.

When Frank can finally breathe again, Gerard wipes his cheeks with the tail of his shirt, frames Frank's face with his hands and looks at him carefully. The moon is bright enough that Frank can see Gerard's features, but he wonders how much more detail Gerard can see of him.

"What are you looking at?" Frank finally asks when he can't take the scrutiny for another second.

"You don't smell scared anymore," Gerard answers.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Gerard leans closer, close enough so his nose is touching the hollow between Frank's collar bones, and sniffs deeply. "Just the leftover. In your sweat. But your skin smells okay."

Pushing him back, Frank mutters, "I get it alright? I stink."

"Is that what I said?" Gerard goes back in, snuffling his way along the line of Frank's collar like a fucking puppy. And jesus, really? Frank's gonna get hard right now? Stinking of fear and sweat and sitting in a fucking vampire king's lap in a car stopped on the side of a deserted road?

"Fuck you," Frank says, pushing him away again. His dick holds at a little stiff, and he silently tells it to fucking keep it that way.

"You started laughing and you smelled like you did in that operating room when— When."

"Did not." But what the hell does Frank know? He doesn't have a vampire nose. "Did not," he says again for good measure.

"Okay," Gerard says. "If you say so." He doesn't even pretend to sound convinced. But he does deposit Frank back on the passenger side, which is something. As he's adjusting his seat, he eyes the clock on the stereo. "We're going to have to stop for the day," he says. "Even running, I'm not sure I could make it before sunup, and besides, I'm not leaving you to drive home alone."

Frank should have thought of that. Should have realized that they wouldn't be able to make it home. He shouldn't have made Gerard leave so late. "Where will we stop?" he asks. He hasn't been outside a zone compound for more than a few hours in years. Does Gerard have friends they could stay with? Someplace with shutters or a basement or a bunker?

"We'll find a hotel. Even in the backwaters they should all have shutters." Gerard doesn't sound concerned, so Frank tries not to worry. If there's one thing vamps are good at, it's self preservation.

"Okay," he says. Frank's throat is tight from all the laughing. Which is weird. That's never happened to him before.

"We have a few more hours anyway. Enough to get across Southern's border." Gerard turns the music up again then, but not quite loud enough that Frank misses him adding, "I hope."

Gerard opens the car's engine full throttle, and Frank tries to enjoy watching him drive, but Gerard never gets the abandoned look on his face—his mouth stays set and tight, his shoulders hunched—and eventually, despite his best efforts, Frank's eyes drift shut and he sleeps.

When he wakes, the sky off to his right is starting to edge pink, and fuck, Gerard's pushed it too far, the sun's coming up and they're still in the car. But they're turning into a lot, passing a sign that says Dew Drop Inn in flickering neon. Frank can see metal shutters rolled up above the windows, but still, this doesn't look like someplace all that safe for vampires.

"Where'r'we?" he mutters, clearing his throat and turning down the music before he repeats himself so Gerard can actually hear him.

"We're about twenty miles from the Eastern Zone," Gerard says, angling the car into an empty spot near the large window sporting a sign that says Vacancies. "I would have stopped sooner, but this is the first place I saw with proper shutters."

"Do you want me to get us a room?" Frank asks. If they don't get a lot of vampires out this way, it might be better if a human dealt with the owners. Gerard looks around, maybe seeing what Frank sees—that none of the windows are covered even though dawn is breaking—maybe using his infrareds to see that all the bodies on the other side of the walls are warm. Frank doesn't know and doesn't want to waste time asking. "I'll go," he says.

Gerard shoves a wad of bills into his hand, says, "Go. Yes."

Frank only gets one room, even though he suspects Gerard will argue with him. He doesn't trust the shutters, and wants to be close by if any light starts shining through. "North facing if you have it," he says to the bone-tired looking woman behind the counter. Been driving all night."

After tapping at her computer for a minute, she says, "Sure," and gets a keyblank out and runs it through her machine. "Room one oh four, round the back. We got those shutter things, case'a vampires, too. They'll block the light for you."

"Great," Frank says. "Thanks." He almost asks for a second key, but it's not like Gerard's going to go wandering around a motel after sunup anyway, so he just hands over the cash and nods. The sky's getting lighter with every second. "Don't need a receipt," he says, and runs for the door.

Gerard, thank god, is sitting behind the wheel when Frank gets back to the car, not standing there laden with bags or anything. "Around the back," Frank says, a little breathless. "We can park right outside, I assume. One oh four." Gerard zips around the corner of the building, parking sloppily outside their room.

"You go," Frank says, slapping the key into Gerard's palm. "Close the shutters. I've got the bags." The way the building's shaped and how the trees line the property, this side of the motel is still in full darkness, but Frank doesn't want to take any risks. He watches until Gerard gets inside and he hears the whirring clanking sound that means the shutters are closing before he gets their duffles out of the trunk and follows his master through the door.

The controls for the shutters are right next to the window, and like they have all the time in the world, Gerard is just standing there, finger on the switch. Frank doesn't ask what the fuck he's doing. He notices that the bathroom is set in the back corner, windowless, and that it has a bath tub. "Hey," he says. "Can you go run me a bath? I'd like to soak some of this sweat off." By the time he's finished asking, he's got his fingers covering Gerard's on the controls and is edging him away with his hip.

"Okay," Gerard says, actually going, to Frank's surprise. "Do you want bubbles or anything if I can find any?"

Frank snorts. "Do I look like I want bubbles? Fuck no. Water. Hot." He watches Gerard go, trying to hurry him along with the power of his thoughts, pressing as hard as he can on the switch, like that might make the shade rumble closed any faster. Fucking things must be ancient if you've got to keep your hand on the controls the whole time. Frank's never been anywhere that didn't have automatic shutters on computer-controlled timers, with two or three backup systems in place just in case. This is fucking ridiculous. It would be quicker to do it with a hand crank. But Gerard's in the bathroom now, fiddling with the taps, the door almost completely shut behind him. He's safe.

After what feels like an hour, the bottom of the shutter drops into the well at the base of the track, and Frank takes his hand off the controls, flexes it. Despite the ancient mechanism, he can't see any cracks or chinks in the shutter itself, and the room is black except for where a sliver of light streams through the cracked bathroom door. He lets himself relax a fraction.

"How's the bath coming?" he calls, fumbling for a light switch between the window and the door.

"You'll have to come test the water. It looks fucking awesome with the infrareds, but I have no idea how that translates to a comfortable temperature for you."

Ulrich's eyes filled with ravenous hunger, Trey's blood spraying across the operating table, dripping onto the floor, Gerard's ribs crushing Frank against the wall—

And here's Gerard using the tech to test bath water. "Okay," Frank says faintly, fingers finding the light switch at last, flicking it on to weakly illuminate half the bed and a rickety table with an old-fashioned phone on it.

The thundering sound of water gushing from ancient pipes shuts off, leaving the plink-plink sound of a drip in an enclosed room and the ragged noise of Frank's breathing to fill the silence. "You coming?" Gerard says, pulling the door open enough to reveal him on his knees, one hand swirling in the water, gaze trained on whatever patterns it's making. Frank wonders if it looks like a bath filled with blood. His fingers twitch uselessly towards monitors that are still a few hundred miles and a day away. Seeing the world through Gerard's eyes is getting to be too much of a habit. And, honestly? Frank's had enough of blood baths tonight. He doesn't need to look at that shit.

"Yeah," Frank says, putting one foot in front of the other. "Coming."

They navigate past each other in the tiny space, and Frank expects Gerard to leave the room, get in bed, but he wedges himself in the corner as Frank bends down to test the water with his fingertips. "You gonna go to sleep?" Frank asks, dipping his hand farther in. It's perfect.

"I'll keep watch," Gerard answers.

Which doesn't make any sense. "Why would you— The sun's coming up. You need your sleep. Nothing's gonna happen to me in a locked hotel room."

"I'm fine," Gerard says. "We're not back in Eastern yet. You never know."

Frank sees Mikey's face, hollow and grey, his fingers like sticks despite the blood his brother carefully fed him, all because he couldn't sleep. "No," he says, louder than he means to. "No. I can take a bath tonight if you feel like you have to stay with me."

"Don't be ridiculous. How long can you possibly be? A few hours isn't going to make any difference."

"I'm not going to take hours," Frank says. He only asked for the bath to get Gerard out of the window. Though now it's there, a good soak does sound nice.

"Well then," Gerard says. "Perfect. Do you need anything from your bag?" He's got his hand on the door like he's leaving. Which is good, because even though maybe it shouldn't—he's seen Frank's bones, his veins and arteries, the shapes he is under his clothes—it feels weird to think about undressing while Gerard just watches.

Frank asks for his toiletries kit and sweat pants, and when Gerard leaves to fetch them, he closes the door. He's sinking under the water when he realizes that he probably could have asked Gerard to keep watch from outside.

When Gerard comes back, though, he doesn't stare, but busies himself at the counter, unpacking Frank's shampoo and soap and toothbrush, folding his sweats and the shirt he slept in last night to make a neat pile of them.

"Do gerents very often—" Frank starts, still finding it hard to find the words, though they're easier to say to Gerard's back than they would be to his face. "Do they often eat their pets?"

Gerard turns so he's facing the wall at Frank's feet, his profile harsh under the bathroom's fluorescent lights. "You didn't do that to Ulrich. He's never cared about the laws."

With one hand, Frank scoops water up onto his chest and watches it run down again. "Not that a gerent has to follow the laws anyway."

"I follow the laws," Gerard says.

That should be reassuring, but it makes Frank's skin itch with frustration. Gerard is proper all the fucking time, treating Frank with the courtesy due a tech of his stature, like Frank's a fucking machine. Not that he wants to be a pet like Trey, used, ignored, destroyed at his master's whim, but something. Gerard talks to him, about Mikey, his art—Frank's sure Ulrich never talked to his pets like that. But he'd sure as hell look at them if they were there, all hot and naked in a bath right next to him. And why the fuck is Frank even thinking about that right now? He just watched a man get ripped to pieces.

Frank grabs a washcloth and the anemic bar of hotel soap and starts scrubbing at where the sweat dried itchy between his legs.

"Mikey says the new soundboard came yesterday," Gerard says, still not looking at Frank.

Frank scrubs harder, down his legs and up over his belly, not sure if he's more pissed at Gerard for changing the subject or at himself for being upset about one death. He sees death every day. It's not like he doesn't know what vampires are. He shouldn't have delusions.

"Why?" Frank says.

"Bob said you needed it."

"Why do you follow the laws?" The gerents don't police one another, and Mikey would never interfere with anything his brother wanted to do. There's no reason Gerard couldn't rip Frank's throat out right now, sleep off daylight in that bed out there and drive north as soon as the sun set, leaving Frank's body in a tub of cold, pink water for the housekeeping staff to find. "What does it matter?"

Gerard does look at him now, eyes flat and fiery at the same time in a way Frank usually associates with Mikey. "I follow the laws because they're fair. Because they keep the balance."

Frank can't seem to stop the jerky movements with the washcloth, so he's scrubbing under his arm when he snaps, "But why do you even care? People aren't going to stop fucking. There's still like five billion of us. Are you that worried about killing off your food source?"

"We aren't all Ulrich," Gerard says in the voice that gets lieutenants scrambling to do what they're told. "He hasn't been human in two thousand years. I doubt he can remember. I can."

Frank expected some political speech or statistics about population shifts. Something he could argue with. But what the hell is he supposed to say to that? "Can you fucking wash my back then?" is what comes out of his mouth.

Gerard barks a short laugh, losing the flat glare, and drops to his knees on the bathmat.

There's a momentary struggle for the washcloth, because Frank can't actually believe he said that out loud and his brain tells him Gerard's trying to stop him from getting clean, but once he realizes that he did, and Gerard took him seriously, he surrenders it.

"How do you wash your back at home?" Gerard asks, moving the soapy cloth in small circles over Frank's skin.

"Shower," Frank answers. "Water pressure." He's pretty sure no one has washed his back like this since he went away to school. "I have a loofah on a stick if I'm really dirty."

It feels like Gerard is washing off Trey's blood, even though Frank knows he didn't get any on his skin. When Gerard rinses Frank's back and moves up to his neck, Frank says, "Do I still smell like fear sweat? Like you said in the car?"

Gerard sniffs, face right next to Frank's ear. "You smell like hotel soap. Water with too many minerals. Rust." He moves closer, nose almost touching the scorpion on Frank's neck. "The ink in your skin."

"Okay," Frank says, trying desperately not to shiver. "Good to know." Gerard's been this close to him. Closer. Tonight even. But not while Frank's been naked. "Okay," Frank says again, hardly more than a breath.

"Were you going to wash your hair?"

Frank was definitely going to wash his hair. He's much less convinced Trey's blood didn't spatter there while Gerard was dragging him out of range. "I—" he says. "Yes. But I can—" He does not need help with that. He's not a fucking fairytale princess. And Gerard's not his handmaiden.

"I used to wash Mikey's hair," Gerard says unexpectedly, his hands still on Frank—on his neck and his right shoulder. "When we'd dye it, or a few times when he got so drunk he puked in it."

Frank can't imagine Mikey drunk. Especially not drunk enough to puke in his own hair. "Is that a—" Frank says. "Do you want to wash mine?"

"I used to hate having to shower. But sometimes I miss that. The two of us in the bathroom in the basement, air all steamy, no one bothering us."

Frank takes that as a yes. "Okay," he says.

Gerard reaches for the shampoo he took out of Frank's kit instead of the hotel stuff, and Frank's grateful, because if the shampoo smells like the soap, he's not a fan. "Dunk," Gerard says, pushing Frank gently down until his head's under water.

When Frank reaches up to swish the water through the sweat-matted hair at the back of his neck and his forehead, Gerard's already there, fingers combing through the tresses while he supports Frank's skull. It's fucking weird, and Frank's not sure what to do about it, so he just clings weakly to the edge of the tub until Gerard lifts him up again. His nose wasn't under water, but he can't help wondering if it were if Gerard would have remembered that Frank needs to breathe air.

"Mikey had to wash pig shit out of my hair once," Gerard says as he lathers Frank's scalp.

"Pig shit?" Frank can't see Gerard, who's behind him, but he feels like he's talking to the same vampire who showed him the book about a man who shoots webs from his wrists.

"There was a lot of vodka, and a dare, and I passed out while I was trying to walk along a fence. They hosed me down right there in the barn, but the shit was still clumped in my hair when we got home. He stuck with it until it was all gone, though."

Frank isn't even a little surprised at this news, though it's strange to think of the Ways as kids. The age Frank was when he came to live with them maybe. Frank's always thought of them as older, born decades before his parents even met, the leaders of the household he came to as a teenager, but doing the math now, Frank's outstripped them. By five, maybe even six human years in Gerard's case, more in Mikey's. Gerard will always look like this, and Frank will just keep getting older.

"Dunk again?" Gerard says, interrupting Frank's thoughts. "Or do you want to just rinse off in the shower?"

"Yeah," Frank says, needing a minute alone. "I'll do that."

Gerard gives Frank's hairline one last skritch, rinses his hands in the bath, and rises smoothly to his feet. "I'll turn the bed down," he says, and leaves Frank to his own devices.

Frank can't tell if that means he's turning the bed down and coming back, or turning it down and getting in, or some other option that hasn't occurred to Frank, so he rinses off as quickly as possible, gives himself a cursory swipe with a towel, and pulls on his sweats and t-shirt. There's no sound from the other room, so he opens the door while he's rubbing his hair dry to make sure Gerard didn't somehow silently burst into flame or anything.

Gerard's on the far side of the bed, staring at it intently. It's too dim for Frank to read the expression on his face, but his body language says he's not happy with what he sees.

"Everything okay?" Frank asks.

Gerard's head whips up, and Frank's pretty sure he's adjusting back to normal vision. "Fine. Just checking for bedbugs."

Frank's pretty sure even he is not good enough to make infrareds sensitive enough to pick up bedbugs in a heated hotel room, but maybe Gerard can see shit like that with the x-rays. "It looks like you found some," he says. And if they're in the bed, they're on the floor, and he really fucking does not want to bring bedbugs back to the compound.

"No," Gerard says. "It's clean."

Which means Gerard is glaring at the bed about something else. "So..." Frank says.

"Are you okay with that side?" Gerard is still being strange.

"Gerard, is the bed boobie trapped? I don't have to sleep. We can— I don't know, make up a bed for you in the bath or something, and I can sit in the car, or go find a diner, a cafe, I don't know. What's— "

"I knew what he was like. I shouldn't have taken you there." Gerard jerks back the covers, climbing awkwardly under them, giving up on all pretense that his problem is with the bed. Frank crawls in on his side, even though he was going to get his hair a little drier before he got cozy with his pillow.

"You knew he would..." Frank trails off, not sure if he means to end the sentence try to kill me, or eat his own pet in front of us.

Gerard reaches for Frank's knotted hands, covering both of them with one of his own. It's a strangely human gesture, and Frank's gotta say it's not the same when the hand on yours is so very cold. He has to resist the urge to try to chafe it warm again the way his grandfather used to do for his grandmother when she'd spent too long out in the garden without her gloves.

"I didn't know what he'd do, but I've seen how he is with his pets, the games he makes them play, the way he hunts. His zone is nowhere to take a human you value."

If it weren't for Gerard's hand on his, the way his knees are brushing Frank's, the way Gerard is staring at their fingers almost laced together, Frank would think Gerard just meant how much money Frank's skills bring in. But it's like Gerard is trying to comfort him. "We got out," Frank says. "I'm okay."

"I would kill anything or anyone that tried to take you, unless that would just put you at more risk, you know that, right?" Gerard says.

To take him? Is that why Gerard was freaking out in the hallway outside the operating room? Did Ulrich threaten to take Frank somehow? "Okay," Frank says. When a vampire says he would kill for you, it doesn't sound like hyperbole. Ulrich is still alive because he's hundreds of times stronger than the vampires of Gerard's generation, and Gerard didn't want to risk Frank further.

"I know," Frank says. But he still doesn't really understand what's going on.

"We'll be home tomorrow," Gerard says, squeezing Frank's hand. "Get some sleep." Gerard takes his hand back, closes his eyes, and goes deathly still.

It's impossible for Frank to believe that it was only yesterday he was lying in the willow bed watching Gerard sleep. Today he can't look at him, his monster's face devoid of everything that makes him human. Frank waits a few more minutes to make sure he's not going to stir, and then leaves Gerard alone in the bed.

With a north-facing room and Gerard on the far side of it, it's probably safe for Frank to sneak out the cracked open door, but he doesn't want to risk it. Nor does he want to sit in the car or go for a walk in a strange place with people who don't even have automatic sun shutters. Instead he takes his pillow and the bedspread Gerard folded down before getting into bed, and curls up in the boxy armchair in the corner. It's not remotely comfortable, but Frank can breathe there. He can think.

**

A series of thumps wakes Frank from a fitful doze, bringing his head jerking up from where it's tipped sideways onto the back of the chair. The room's black as fucking pitch, which means either Gerard turned off the light next to the bed or the bulb blew while they were sleeping. "G'rard?" Frank calls, tongue as stiff as his neck.

"Nothing," Gerard says. His voice is coming from the bathroom. There's another thump, softer this time, and Frank recognizes it as one of the plastic bottles from his travel kit.

"You don't have to pack for me," he says, stretching. The chair he fell asleep in should be two feet or so from the light switch. He just needs to stand, reach to his left.

Then there's a much bigger thump, the kind made by muscles and bone hitting tiles, and Frank doesn't even try for the light, just dives toward where he's sure the bathroom door is.

He misses it, but only by an inch, then catches the jam with his fingertips and manages to grope his way to the handle in less than a second, yanking open the door, hissing Gerard's name and hitting the lights all at once. He's not sure what he expected—Gerard flat on his face, maybe—but things don't look too dire. Gerard is on the floor, but sitting up, mostly, propped against the side of the bath, knees up to his chin. His skin is ashen, but Frank's choosing to blame the old-fashioned fluorescent lights until proven otherwise.

"Your night vision not as good as you thought?" Frank says, hoping that's it. They left the bathmat on the floor, and there are bottles, Gerard could have tripped.

"I'm just a little hungry," Gerard says, fingers gripping tight to his shins. "I may need you to drive until we're back in Eastern and I can hunt.

What the fuck. Frank can drive, though he hasn't been behind the wheel in years, but they're in a hotel full of people. Why does Gerard need to wait until they're back over the border? Plus, "I thought Ulrich took you to eat when I was having breakfast at Southern." Frank takes a few steps closer, peering down at Gerard's face.

"Go back," Gerard snaps. "Back in the bedroom. Please, Frank."

Surprised, Frank does lurch back, but only half a step, and then he goes to his knees so he's on Gerard's level. He's not leaving his gerent alone like this.

"Frank," Gerard says again, a strain in his voice Frank can't categorize.

"Fuck that. If you need food we're getting you food. How did this happen?" Vampires need to feed every forty-eight to seventy-two hours, Frank knows, or they get desperate, ravenous, and if still denied, weak and shaky, before the pain sets in. One of Mikey's men brought in a vamp he found in the woods on patrol one night, and she wouldn't stop screaming until they poured blood down her throat. Frank cannot fucking deal with Gerard screaming like that.

"You have to—" Gerard's hand shoots out and closes around Frank's wrist. "Go, Frank. Just go. I don't want to—"

Jesus. Jesus. Gerard doesn't need to hunt. He needs to feed right fucking now, and he's scared he's going to bite Frank. It should be Frank who's scared, but it's Gerard. And that's the last piece falling into place.

"Do it," Frank says. "Just do it. I'd rather—" Fucking hell, what is he saying. "I'd rather you didn't kill me, if you can, just, maybe like the feeder at the compound, but whatever you have to do."

"No," Gerard says, but he's pulling Frank closer. Close enough that Frank's chest is touching Gerard's knees. "You're a tech. You're my tech. I can't—" Frank can hear him sniffing, just like he did in the car, and Frank wonders which is stronger, Frank's fear or his want.

"Now," Frank says, his mouth barely an inch from Gerard's cheek. "While you still have some control." Fuck, he hopes it's not too late already. He wants this so fucking much he can't breathe, but he doesn't want to die.

"I'm sorry," Gerard says, spreading his legs and pulling Frank down between them. "I'm sorry, Frankie." And then his face is buried in Frank's neck. Frank has just enough time to get two handfuls of Gerard's shirt before he feels fangs.

The tales of being bitten are from his childhood, nightmare stories of monsters come to devour you in the dark. With few pets and no feeders at the compound, Frank hasn't heard a lot of survivors sharing stories about what it's like since he came to live with the Ways. But no one could possibly find the words for this anyway.

It hurts. So fucking much. Like a hundred-thousand tattoo needles all at once. Like a brand. Like razor-sharp teeth sinking in and then tearing to get at more of your heart's blood. It hurts like a high. Like falling off a cliff and flying. Like a jagged fingernail catching at your piss slit when you're just about to come. And fuck, fuck, fuck, why did Frank agree to this, it's awful, and it's never going to end, and he doesn't want to die, because he wants to do this again. Wants to feel Gerard's fangs in his arms and his thighs, right up high where his femoral artery runs so close to the surface and Gerard would have his face pressed up against Frank's most vulnerable skin.

Oh, god, he's fucked. He's so fucking fucked. He is not fucking normal. He isn't even thralled.

And shit, he can't hold his head up anymore. Where are Gerard's hands? Gerard was holding his head a minute ago— Why do his shoulders ache so much? His fucking shoulders, like his arms are being twisted off. Hurts much more than his neck. That hardly hurts at all anymore. A gentle throb. A sting, like someone's wiping skinned knees with a wet washcloth. Like a dog licking your face when you fall off your skateboard and cut your chin on the street. Gerard. Licking. Healing properties. Closing the wounds like he did for the feeder in Ulrich's parlor while Frank ate beef stew. Gerard didn't kill him. Doesn't want him to die.

The pain in Frank's shoulders eases, and he realizes it's Gerard's fingers loosening their vise grip. Hands slide across his back, down his body, and Frank can't move, can't open his eyes, but he's being lifted off the floor, carried, laid down on something soft. Words float past his ears, but he can't catch them. Fingers on his face, his throat, his hair, a whole hand heavy in the middle of his chest. He feels his heart beating against it, one-two-three-four-five, quick, but not racing. Feels wet against his lips, cold, thin. Not blood. The words coalesce, "Drink, Frankie. Come on. You have to drink for me. Just a few sips. Nice cool water. Drink."

When Frank parts his lips, a few rivulets of water spill over his tongue. Somehow he catches them before he chokes, swallows instead. "That's it, Frankie," the voice says. "Just a little more." Frank drinks more.

The water is good, but the bed is comfortable, and Gerard's hand is heavy, and Frank sleeps.

**


A knock on the door rouses Frank with a start, except his eyes stay shut and he doesn't move. It's just his brain racing, danger danger danger. Everything else weighs a thousand pounds. Voices, dipping and swooping, door shutting, and then the smell. Holiday kitchen, the sting of a slapped hand when he snuck a taste, eating 'til he wanted to pop. Struggling, Frank gets his eyes open enough to to see Gerard standing between the bed and the chipped desk, two large plastic bags in his hands. His face is shadowed in the dim bedside lamp, and he's backlit by the fierce glow of the parking lot lights streaming through the un-shuttered window. "Whaa—" Frank asks, wanting to know what time it is, if he's kept them from leaving in the window of opportunity that will get them home safely before sunrise. He could have slept for minutes or a week.

"I took too much," Gerard says softly, setting the bags down, reaching into the near one. "You need to eat something."

Fuck. Gerard fed on him. How could he have forgotten that? How much is too much? Frank feels like shit run over, but he doesn't feel like he's dying. 'Course, he's never died before, so how the hell does he know what that feels like? "'Kay," he says. Whatever smells like that needs to be in his mouth.

A half-liter carton and two boxes come out of the first bag, and the second one looks just as loaded. Frank is depleted, but he still only has one stomach. How long does Gerard expect them to be staying? "How—" he says, but can't finish because it takes all his breath to deal with Gerard lifting him, even gently, and depositing him on a pile of pillows.

The carton is minestrone soup, and smells even better right under Frank's nose. Less good spilled on his shirt, but Frank isn't used to being fed, and Gerard probably hasn't dealt with a spoon in decades. They get a rhythm going after a few false starts, and once Frank's eaten half the carton, he feels better enough to take the spoon out of Gerard's hand and do it himself. Gerard doesn't back off though, stays perched on the edge of the bed next to Frank's hip blinking creepily through his alts and normal vision, one hand loosely on the carton like he thinks Frank might drop it, the other on Frank's thigh.

"Can you just— not?" Frank asks once he's chased down the last bean with his spoon. He flicks a finger in the direction of Gerard's eyes, glad to feel like he's got control over little movements like that again. "I'm pretty sure I'm fine." It's the first thing either of them have said since Gerard started feeding him.

"There's spinach and nettle pie, too," Gerard says, blinking to normal vision and staying there. "I think it has potatoes in it."

It sounds delicious and explains the mouth-watering pastry smell, but Frank just ate two helpings of a soup filled with beans, vegetables, and chunks of meat. "What time is it?" Frank asks. "If we leave now can we make it home tonight?"

"You need rest."

There's enough food in those bags for Frank to rest for at least three days. In the mean time, what is Gerard going to eat? Because Frank's gonna be okay, but his bone marrow is already going to have to go into overdrive as it is. "I can rest in the car. I just want to go home."

"I don't know if Mikey can find you someplace by morning, but we'll get you something as quick as we can," Gerard says.

"Someplace for what?" Frank has everything he needs in his lab, including a whole case of BloodPlus injections he ordered after the first time Pete came to see him pale and wide-eyed and high as a kite after letting Mikey feed off him four nights in a row.

"For you to live," Gerard answers, like this should be obvious. "We'll find you someplace safe, let you take whichever of the lieutenants you like best."

Frank envisions a flood, a bomb blast, a failed cooling unit leading to a fire—all the things that might have happened to his lab while they were gone to make it uninhabitable, and then he realizes that Gerard thinks he doesn't want to live at the compound anymore.

"I thought the line of pillows down the middle of the bed was the most ridiculous you could get, but I was so, so wrong."

"But I broke the contract." Gerard should not look his most human when he's frowning, but he does.

Frank tries to remember the exact wording in a tech's boilerplate—it was something his parents read to him often when he was young and there was a time he knew it all by heart—something about a vampire cannot ask, demand, nor compel by any means direct or indirect, blah blah whatever. "I offered. I told you to."

"But—"

"Gerard. What time is it?"

Frown deepening, Gerard mumbles, "Almost midnight."

They're less than four hours from home, and this time of year the sun doesn't rise until 5:30. "Load up the car."

Gerard glares at him, but Frank glares back until Gerard stands up.

The whole time he's shoving things in bags and ferrying them out to the trunk, Gerard tries to convince Frank that one tech snacking session has overthrown the whole world order, and Frank can only be happy if he lives out his days exiled to some far reaches of the Eastern zone. All of which is total bullshit. But Frank's tired enough to experiment with letting Gerard getting all the drama out of his system unopposed for now, and hashing this out when they're back on home turf.

When Frank lets Gerard give him another glass of water, the arguments slow down, but Frank loses ground again when he goes to walk to the car and lurches sideways, nearly braining himself on the bedside table before Gerard catches him. "I'm okay," Frank blurts, expecting Gerard to pick him up like he did when Frank was blindfolded, but Gerard just leaves an arm around him, supporting him to walk on his own while he listens to Gerard lecture about the dangers of permanent brain damage when a human loses too much blood. Frank opens his mouth to point out that napping for a couple of hours is not the same as ceasing all respiratory and cardiac function, but Gerard's manhandling him into the car where the radio's already playing, so he shuts it again.

Determined to curtail Gerard's self-flagellation, as soon as they hit the highway Frank cranks the stereo as loud as it will go. The vertigo has passed, but he still feels floaty, and it's good to curl up in the seat and let his head loll against the headrest as the tires eat up the road.

Even in the flickering highway lights, Frank can see Gerard change as they cross over into Eastern, an easing in the tightness around his mouth, a loosening in his grip on the wheel. Frank gives it another ten miles or so, until they're approaching a town, warehouses on the outskirts where the humans hold late-night raves that are popular vampire hunting grounds, then he turns down the music.

"I can wait while you hunt," he says over the buzzing sound in his ears. "We have time."

Gerard's head snaps to the right and he looks at Frank like Frank just suggested they stop for a sun tan.

"I know I wasn't enough for you. Not if you were starving." Frank doesn't get what the big deal is. Even if they only count the times Gerard knows about, Frank's watched him feed hundreds of times. Waiting for a while in a comfy car with a feast of his own to munch on is so not a problem.

"I'm fine," Gerard says, and he doesn't slow as they pass the exit for the warehouse district. He looks okay, tense again but not like when Frank found him on the bathroom floor, so Frank lets it go.

Mostly. "What happened while I was in the kitchens at Southern?" he asks.

Gerard's hand twitches toward the volume dial, but he thinks better of turning it back up. "I didn't want to give him the satisfaction," he says.

Frank can still picture the smirk on Ulrich's face when Gerard half drained the feeder, but he doesn't get what Gerard means.

"It's not unknown amongst the other gerents that I don't encourage feeders in Eastern, but I've never declined when one's offered to me. Ulrich obviously noticed my distaste though." Gerard's jaw clenches, and for a minute Frank thinks that's it. But then, "He has pens," Gerard says.

Frank assumes Gerard isn't talking about the kind you write with. "Pens?" Frank says when Gerard seems disinclined to continue.

"Scores of people, whole families, huddled in the dirt. Crying. Trying to protect the children. All of them stinking of terror. Not sharp clean fear, but layers and layers of it, bone deep, stronger than the filth they were wallowing in. All of them waiting there for a vampire to reach in, pluck one of them out to devour while the rest watched. No thrall, no choice, no chance to get away. He knew I would hate it."

Frank shudders despite the heat blasting out of the vents. Feeders, pets, game parks—Frank thought he'd seen all the ways vampires have of making humans easier to feed from. He prays no vamp he's ever put a camera in records a meal at Southern's compound. "So you didn't—"

"I turned around and walked away. Which is when he told me if he wasn't satisfied with the work you did, you might see the inside of the pen before the night was through."

That possibility is more than Frank can deal with thinking about right now, so his brain skips over it. "He could run down any human faster than they could blink, couldn't he? Why keep them in pens like that?"

"Maybe after two thousand years, he got tired of running."

Tired, at least, is something Frank can relate to.

The music stays low, and his thoughts drift: to the warehouses lost in the rear view, packed with people who know that everyone who goes in isn't coming out alive, but do it anyway; the way the vids he makes with the longest chase scenes sell better with human and vamp audiences alike than even the ones with the most drawn-out kills; Gerard on the bathroom floor, telling Frank to go even as he pulled him closer. Maybe he wanted Frank to run. Maybe blood isn't as good if it's sitting there waiting for you.

"Should I have run tonight before I let you bite me? Would that have made it better?" Frank didn't think about what Gerard's reaction to to that might be, and he has to grab the dash as they swerve going a hundred and ten on the highway. Fortunately there aren't many other cars out tonight, and Gerard's been driving the GTO forever and gets her under control quickly.

"Frank," Gerard says.

But he's started now, and Frank doesn't want to stop. "Is that why you don't like feeders? Is there something in our blood when we run?"

"No," Gerard says, flicking a glance at Frank before focusing on the road again. "That's not— You were fine. Perfect. It's— I'm grateful. Thank you."

"Or is it the kill? I can run for you next time if you want, but I don't think I want to die."

The car stutters as Gerard shoots him another look, but doesn't lurch. "What? Frank. There's not— I told you already. There's not going to be a next time. You're a tech. You don't owe me anything."

Frank fingers the spot on his neck Gerard fed from. The skin is tender, and it aches like a bruise the day before it surfaces, but it makes him feel Gerard's arms around him again, feel his ribs moving under Frank's fists as he swallowed. It doesn't feel like a debt. "It's not about owing you," he says.

"Well then why would you— What I did was selfish. I used you."

"I'm okay with it. Really."

"Frank!" Gerard flaps a hand in frustration. "This is what I was telling you about. Brain damage. I fed on you. You became a tech to avoid all that. What I want doesn't— You stepped up in an emergency and I appreciate it. But it won't lower my regard for you if you don't offer to do it again."

Frank could argue this all night, or at least until they got home, but Gerard just said, what I want, and Frank's gonna think about that for a while instead.

**


part 4