rivers_bend

master post
back to part 4


The shutters are still down and the darkness is barely broken by the crack of light around the closet door when Frank wakes up breathless, heart pounding, dick hard, mouth brassy with the remembered taste of blood. He's half on Gerard already, pulling himself closer even as he swims to consciousness, tangling his fingers in Gerard's hair, snugging one thigh between his legs, biting his chest. That wakes Gerard up, and he tries to throw Frank off, but the hold Frank has in his hair, on his arm, is too tight, and before he can make a second attempt, he realizes who's in his bed and stills.

"Frank," he says, "what—"

But Frank's still in the grip of his dream, and Gerard's words have no more effect than his hands. A warning rumbles in Frank's throat and he bites harder, sucking at Gerard's skin as he works it with his teeth, digging into Gerard's triceps with fingers already aching with the strain. When Gerard puts a hand on his back, Frank moves his teeth to a spot right in the center of his neck, where his pulse would be throbbing if he had one, and grinds his dick against Gerard's hip.

"Frank?" Gerard's hands are bracketing Frank's ribs now, making Frank's skin feel too tight. His eyes are too big for their sockets, his jaw hurts, his junk hurts, everything is wrong. "Frank."

"No," Frank mutters, pushing Gerard's arm harder down into the bed, pulling his head to the side. "Just, I need." Frank doesn't know what he needs.

"Here," Gerard says. "Let me—" When he goes to lift Frank off this time he's gentle, and Frank does let him, even though every instinct is telling him not to let Gerard out from under him. As soon as he's free from Frank's hold, Gerard turns on his belly. "You can fuck me," he says.

And that's not— That's not what they do. "I'm sorry," Frank says, realizing only now that he just woke a vampire up in the middle of the day. Gerard should be sleeping.

"No," Gerard says. "Do it."

Even now, fully awake, dream haze faded, Frank wants to. So when Gerard says it again, he gives in to the desire, crawls onto Gerard's back, pushes his dick into the space between Gerard's legs. He means to just rut a little, get used to the feeling before he fingers Gerard open, but Gerard's scent fills his nostrils and his mouth floods with saliva and he's biting again before he can think not to, mindlessly grinding against Gerard's ass.

His hands find Gerard's, make knots of their fingers, and he uses his weight to bear Gerard down into the bed. When Gerard bites him, even with fangs retracted, he leaves a line of wheals and bruises on Frank's skin, but hard as he bites, Frank can't leave a mark. His hips work in frustration, driving his cock into the clutch of Gerard's thighs, heating the space with the friction. A part of Frank's aware that Gerard's working with him, trying to make this good, and he wants to snap at him, tell him to stop giving it up so easy, but if Gerard actually fought back, Frank would be pinned underneath him before he could blink, so he just digs his fingernails harder into Gerard's palms, gets a fresh grip on the flesh under Gerard's left shoulder blade with his teeth, and rides his frustration out until he can finally come.

He collapses afterwards, cheek resting on the still damp but already faded bite mark on Gerard's back, feeling better but not satisfied. "C'n we go back to sleep?" Gerard asks, words rumbling against Frank's chest. Frank nods as best he can in this position, and uncurls his cramping fingers from their grip on Gerard's hands. "Y'can stay there," Gerard says, and before Frank can answer, he drops into the dead stillness of vampire sleep.

Gerard isn't nearly as comfortable to lie on asleep as he is awake, and Frank feels sticky and gross besides, so he rolls off. He hasn't slept enough, but there'll be no going back now, so he keeps rolling right off the bed, pads to the hidden door in the corner that leads to Gerard's shower room and gets right under the spray without even waiting for it to warm up first. The cold blast makes him gasp, makes his muscles seize, pinpointing all the aches, but as he lets it splash on his face it clears his head, makes him feel like maybe he fits inside his skin after all. It gets hot much more quickly up here than down in his apartment, and he's letting the heat seep into his bones when the last of the weirdness leaves him.

What the fuck, he thinks, scrubbing shampoo into his hair, stretching out the stiffness in his jaw. What's he doing waking up gnawing on Gerard like Princess used to with Dad's old slipper? Pinning Gerard down like Frank's the one who's—

It doesn't matter. Just a weird dream.



Frank nods to James as he sneaks out of Gerard's room to go back downstairs, relieved that he's not the kind of guy who gets offended if Frank's not in the mood to stop and chat. He's just fit his wrist cuff to the door's key slot when a voice from the lab doorway makes him jump.

"Hey, Frankie, where you been?" It's Bob, sitting backwards on one of the wheeled chairs.

"Upstairs." Frank gets the door unlocked. "I'll be over in a few minutes. I just need—"

But Bob's at his elbow, following him into the apartment, saying "What the fuck?" as he fingers the ends of Frank's still-damp hair where they've soaked his shirt. "When did you get demoted to pet?"

That's too much for Frank, and he spins in the tight space of the doorway, tries to shove Bob back into the hall, but it's a bad angle to push someone who outweighs him by seventy pounds, and Bob hardly moves while Frank ends up stumbling over his own feet and into the back of his armchair.

"Jeeze, Frank, I was kidding about the pet thing, but don't try to tell me you're not letting him fuck you. It's all over you."

Frank doesn't want to be followed, and he doesn't want to be touched, and what he does with Gerard is his own fucking business. "Get the fuck out," he says, trying to keep his voice steady. "And stay out of my lab. You're nothing but hired help around here. Your choice."

Bob stands up straighter, and he takes a step forward instead of back. "Fuck yes, it's my choice. I'm not gonna be a lap dog for those things."

This time Frank has momentum and leverage on his side and when he lands on Bob he knocks him down. "They're not things," he grunts as his fist connects with Bob's left cheekbone.

"The fuck, Frank?" Bob mumbles through the hand clutching his face. But when Frank pulls back to hit him again, Bob manages to get it together to throw him off.

"They're not things," Frank repeats, pushing upright, but not trying to attack again. "They're people who happen to be vampires."

"You're touched in the head as well as the dick." Bob eyes him warily and gets to his feet. "Heard what happened to you in Southern. How do you get from that to 'they're people'?"

Frank doesn't have to explain himself to some fucking jerk who doesn't even have a zone of his own, but apparently his mouth didn't get that message. "Ulrich is— That's different. He's a fucking sicko. When has Gerard ever been anything but nice to you? When has Mikey? Any of the others? They pay you on time, give you rooms for as long as you want them, recommend your work when the other vamps ask for references. Bet they treat you better than most of the fucking so-called humans you know. So I repeat. Get the fuck out."

"Jesus, Iero. Get some more sleep. Sounds like you need it." Bob moves like he's gonna try to reach for Frank's arm.

"Get. The fuck. Out."

Bob goes.

**



Six days after Frank's fight with Bob, Gerard's out at the western edge of the zone doing nothing even a little bit interesting to watch, so Frank's killing time running routine diagnostics when Pete walks into the lab and says, "What's up? We wanna jam before Bob has to head out tomorrow."

Frank looks past him to where Bob's lurking over his shoulder. He can't tell if the shadow on Bob's cheekbone is bruise, or just the light. "What're you doing with Pete?" Frank says. "Thought you didn't like pets."

Pete's shoulders jerk; he flicks a glance back at Bob and gives Frank a look.

"Fuck you," Bob says. "I never said I don't like pets. I just— Last time I was out this way, you weren't doing the deed with the gerent. Took me by surprise. Then you fucking flew off the handle and jumped my ass."

"Didn't fly off the handle." Frank didn't. Bob shouldn't have said that shit.

"Dude, you gave him a black eye," Pete says. "What'd you say to him anyway, Bryar? You never told me."

"He was talking shit about Gerard and Mikey. You would've punched him too."

"I wasn't. Christ. Pete, I told you this was a bad idea. Ray'll play with us. He's got those old bongos I can use."

"What were you saying about Mikey?" Pete asks. Fuckin' right. Pete knows they're not things. He gets it.

"Was just saying they're vamps. Not a big deal. Seriously."

Pete's face scrunches up. "They are vamps. You know they're vamps, Frank. Gerard hasn't brainwashed you, has he?"

"He didn't say 'vamps'. He said 'things'. Like they weren't ever just like you and me."

Bob's eyebrows are saying see? when Pete turns toward him. Frank can't tell if Pete sees or not though, because he says, "Mikey was like me maybe," his tone somewhere between placating and joking around. "But I'm pretty sure Gerard wasn't ever like anyone. That dude's a law unto himself."

Frank can't argue with that. He's far too complicated for someone who sees him as seldom as Bob to know anything about, and the people who matter understand. Gerard, and Mikey, Pete. Fuck Bob's opinion anyway. Frank's not in the mood to have his feathers smoothed, but he's not really in the mood to keep fighting, either. Bob's not around that often, and it is fun to jam with him. "Sorry I punched you in the face," Frank says. "Just because you were being a dick, I didn't need to stoop to your level."

"Nice apology, asshole," Bob says, but his mouth is quirking a little. "Sorry I insulted your vampire boyfriend."

"We all friends again?" Pete says, looking back and forth between them.

"Sure," Bob says.

"Sure," Frank agrees.

But when they call Ray to come down and bring his guitar, Frank wants to see if Mikey's free too, and it feels like with Bob sitting behind the drum kit, he can't. That doesn't feel much like friendship.

They play until nearly sunup, until Frank's fingertips are raw, and he tries all night to get lost in the music, but it never happens.

**



When Gerard hunts with Mikey, he rarely uses his alts. They're efficient together, moving fast side by side, only splitting off at the last second before grabbing their prey. Tonight they take a pair of girls smoking outside the back door of a 24-hour diner. Frank catches a glimpse through Gerard's eyes of his girl's cigarette tumbling to the asphalt and then nothing but the black of the inside of his eyelids. But Frank doesn't need to see now; he can feel.

Frank's spine knows the twisting response to the prick of fangs, his heart how hard to beat to fill a mouth with blood. But his tongue knows too, the taste of it, his hands how hard to grip, his body learning by osmosis both sides of the equation. He can feel the girl's blood coating the insides of his cheeks, smell the copper tang and the night and the smoke. Fuck. Fuck.

Shoving away from his desk, Frank flees the lab and spends an hour banging the fuck out of his drums. The noise and the sweat burn through him, clear his head, and as a bonus unlock the piece that his brain's been stuck on trying to get in-ears with a longer range without making them bigger. What happened at the monitors was a blip. An idle fantasy that only felt real. In-ears are actually real, and with better range would be even more useful.

After sponging the worst of the sweat off his face and grabbing a cup of coffee, Frank heads back to the lab, and he's lost in his scope and micro-soldering iron when Gerard's voice comes dangerously calm from across the room.

"What the fuck am I looking at, Frank?"

The circuit he just spent an hour painstakingly building probably gets destroyed when Frank drops everything to spin around in his chair, but it doesn't matter, because Gerard is looking at himself looking at himself in Frank's monitor. How did Frank forget to turn it off?

"I—" Frank says, and then he's dangling a foot off the floor in front of the screen, Gerard's bruising grip on his biceps, with Gerard's face right there.

"I'm not in recording mode." Gerard sets Frank down with a thump, but he doesn't let go. "Why are you recording me when I'm not in recording mode. How are you recording me when I'm not in recording mode?"

"No!" Frank says. "No. It's not recording. I wouldn't— It doesn't record. There isn't even any way to record off that feed. Three layers of firewalls and a 272b scrambler."

"Then what is it?" Gerard's fingers tighten with every word and then loosen suddenly, making Frank stumble backward. He catches sight of the movement out of the corner of his eye. It's fucking weird to see himself on the monitor. Not the same at all as seeing Mikey or James or Jarrod. He barely recognizes his own face.

"It's just for me," he says, tearing his gaze away from the screen to look Gerard in the eye. "Once we— Fuck. Once we fitted most of the household with cameras, you started using yours less. And I. I couldn't stand it, wondering all the time what you were doing, where you were. Worrying that something— I don't know. And you wanted the feed from the perimeter cameras, and I wondered if I could make something like that smaller. Small enough to fit in the vision alts."

"So, when?"

"I installed it with your x-ray."

"Years then." Gerard pulls a chair over and sits like this conversation is too much for him to take standing up. "You've been spying on me for years."

Under the circumstances, it's too weird standing while Gerard sits, but all the other chairs are too far away, so Frank lowers himself to the floor. "I haven't been spying. I've been watching. Trying to—" Live vicariously through you. Learn what it's like to be a vampire. "It can't be news to you that I have a thing." Frank gestures, encompassing Gerard's existence. "But I don't think you get it's not a new thing."

"What have you seen?" The bite of fury is gone from Gerard's voice, but what's left is far from idle curiosity. Frank wants to move closer, wants to touch, but he stays where he is.

"Mostly I watch you hunt." Gerard's eyes narrow. "And sometimes, sometimes I watch you draw, or read. I just— I know I shouldn't."

"Does anyone else know about this?"

"Not even Pete." That had been a close call, but Frank knows Pete believed him when he said it was old footage. Gerard watches him for a minute, and when Frank holds his gaze, he's pretty sure he sees the tiniest flicker of a smile on the edge of his mouth.

"You know it's creepy as fuck installing spy cameras inside a dude's head, right?" Gerard leans over and plucks Frank off the floor, sets him in his lap. The smile gets a little bigger. "Really? You were worried about me?"

Somehow, though Frank's bones are trying to dissolve with relief, he finds the coordination to wrap his arms around Gerard's back. "Not—" Gerard likes that Frank's been spying on him. He likes it. "I mean, you're a gerent. Rulers are always more vulnerable to like, revenge plots and shit."

"Years. You've been stalking me for years. And you never made a move." Frank doesn't even have to check Gerard's face to know that's delight in his voice. Vampires are fucking weird.

"You're a gerent, did I mention that? And until everything with Ulrich, you didn't exactly seem open to move-making."

Gerard glances over at the monitor. "But you're still watching?"

"Not every day." Frank doesn't mention how much of a cutback that is. "But when you hunt— I like it."

Gerard beams down at him and gathers him close. "Where did I find you, Frankie?"

Frank means to retort, "Rutgers," but first he's breathless with motion, and then he's flat on his back on his bed with Gerard's tongue in his mouth.


When Frank wakes up, ass and throat and groin still feeling sensitive and used in that way he'll never get enough of, Gerard is watching him from his place as Frank's pillow, looking very pleased with himself. "Yes," Frank says, digging his chin into Gerard's sternum a little so he knows Frank's not letting him get away with being a smug bastard, "that was totally amazing. Stop smirking."

Gerard stops, his face going pinched and stern for the flash of a moment before he breaks out the dopey grin Frank will also never get enough of. "You're the amazing one, Frankie. I never thought a human would be so, you're so— All I have to do is touch you and I feel like you're feeding me already. You're so alive."

"What if I—" Frank says. Just to see what Gerard will answer. "What if I weren't? Alive. What if I were a vamp?"

"You're not," Gerard says, too quickly for Frank's liking. "I won't let anyone do that to you."

Which, duh. Obviously Gerard isn't going to let another vampire turn Frank. "But if I were asking you to. If I wanted— Would you still— would we still be this?" Frank counts on the whole naked and plastered together with come and flecks of dried blood thing to clue Gerard in to what this means.

"You don't want to be a vampire." He sounds insultingly certain.

And Frank was mostly kidding. Didn't even really know he was going to say it. Because it's just a fantasy. A blip. But Gerard doesn't know that, and he doesn't have to sound so sure.

Frank pushes up on his palms so he's looking down into Gerard's face instead of up at him. "Is that you telling me I have to choose between being with you and being like you?"

That makes Gerard frown. "But you're a tech, Frankie."

If Frank never hears the word tech out of Gerard's mouth again it will be too fucking soon. "And you were an art student. And now you're a king."

"Technically, the title of king is passed down through a familial line of succession. And there's no—"

"Oh for fuck's—" Frank rolls off Gerard and wraps the sheet around his shoulders, sitting down by Gerard's feet where he won't be tempted to strangle him. Or kiss him into submission. "I don't actually care what the difference between a king and a gerent is. My point is that we don't have to spend our lives doing only one thing."

"But you're a genius. You're the only one who can do some of the things you do. And when you get turned— It was years before I could draw again. And it's still not the same as it was before."

Jabbing Gerard in the calf with his toes, Frank says, "But what I actually asked you is if you would still want to do this with me if I were a vampire."

"Always," Gerard says. "But it's different."

"That's all you had to say." The sun is going to be up soon, and it's not a good idea for Gerard to sleep in Frank's quarters; his are safer. Untangling the sheet from around his legs, Frank gets up. "That's all I wanted to know."

Gerard follows as he heads for the bathroom. "I don't think you're listening to me."

Frank sneaks a glance at the clock. Ten minutes 'til shutters, another ten after that before James is down here looking for his charge. "That's because I'm not," he says. "Almost sunup. I'm gonna take a shower. You probably want to get upstairs."

"Frank," Gerard says, but Frank steps into the bathroom and closes the door behind himself.

**




Gerard pretends they never had the conversation.

When he's licking Frank's blood off his lips, pushing into him, telling him how good he tastes, how hot and soft and perfect he is, Frank doesn't even mind. But then he's back down in his lab sitting in front of his monitors, and it's an itch under his skin he can't dig out.

He tries watching all the hunt footage he has time for, and tries not watching any. But now that he's said it out loud, neither tack makes him think any less about being turned.

Once he stops thinking of it as a blip it starts to feel like something that's inevitable. As inevitable as tech school was from the minute he rescued Princess.

But more than a month after Frank first tried to talk to Gerard about it, he still hasn't figured out how to bring it up again. Maybe tonight, after Gerard wakes up. He'll just dive in, not give himself a chance to second guess his words. In the meantime, Pete needs to get his ass out of Mikey's bed and down to the lab so they can go over the new code they've been working on for the shared-vision circuits.

Like thought summoned him, Pete appears on silent feet, loose hands around Frank's throat to shake him hello. "You have the best of both worlds right here," he says in lieu of a standard greeting. "Why change it?"

"Why change what?" Not that it isn't obvious. Apparently Frank is the only one Gerard isn't talking to about Frank bringing up being turned. Not that Mikey's everyone, but still. Fucking Gerard and his fucking mouth.

Pete taps the screen where a vamp Frank barely remembers as one in a string he installed cameras on is frozen mid pounce. Frank's been synching sound effects to footage while he waits. "You really think that bastard chose to be that?"

"Sure," Frank says, ducking out from under the hand Pete still has on his neck. "It's a two-way street."

Not getting the hint that Frank wants to drop it, Pete wraps both arms around Frank's shoulders, pressing his cheek to Frank's ear. "You can still have a head-on collision on a two-way street, Frankie. And that's one car crash you can't walk away from."

Pete's strong, but Frank knows where all the nerves are in his wrists, and he digs in with sure fingers, breaking Pete's embrace and wheeling his chair out of range. "Point is you do. You get to walk away forever," he says.

Wising up, Pete doesn't try to follow. He's still fucking talking though. "You think Mikey wouldn't take it back if he could? You think Gerard wouldn't?"

"I think what the fuck business is it of yours?" He doesn't need this shit. Not from Pete.

"I think you're my fucking friend and you're thinking with your dick."

Fuck him if that's what he thinks. What the fuck does he know anyway? "When my dick's involved, that's the only time I don't want to do it. I've been at this a lot longer than you have. Don't fucking tell me what I want."

"Just tell me you've really thought it through."

"I don't really have time to do those circuits right now," Frank says. "I have editing to do."

"You're a defensive little shit, but you're my fucking friend, Frank. I'm allowed to worry about you."

"Fuck you, Pete." Frank turns his back on him even though it means he's looking at a blank wall.

"Yeah," Pete answers. "Not that kind of friend."

He doesn't say anything else, and after a minute Frank cases the room in the reflections in the cooling towers and sees the lab is empty.

"Not what I meant," he mutters to himself and goes back to the audiofiles of screams and shouts and running feet.


Gerard appears not long after sunset. Frank's still pissed off and really not in the mood, but Gerard didn't come to sniff around. "Mikey said you and Pete think you've solved the shared vision problem. There's a conference in New York in a couple of weeks and the twins want to come with the Central contingent and have you try again. Will you be ready?"

"Pete thinks we're closer than I do. The best we've got still has a strobe effect."

"Two weeks, though. Sixteen nights, really. If I promise not to distract you too much?" Gerard grins like he has no intention of ceasing any of his distractions. "I'll at least promise not to give you any more work to do."

Frank really wishes he wouldn't grin like that. It makes it hard to stay pissed off. Hard, but not impossible. "Not sure Pete's talking to me, anyway, which, thanks for that. Do you have to tell Mikey every single thing we talk about?"

"What?" Gerard looks genuinely confused.

"Pete knows I asked you to turn me. I can only assume he heard it from your brother, since you're the only one I've discussed it with."

"Oh," Gerard says. Guilt doesn't sit well at all on a vampire's face.

"Yeah," Frank says. "Oh." Frank gets out of his chair and hops up to sit on one of the tables so he's at Gerard's level.

"I didn't tell him so much as I didn't deny it when he asked me."

"How would he even know to ask you? Does he have my room monitored or something?"

"No. We wouldn't— No, Frank. He's just. He's Mikey. He always knew what was bugging me. Even when we were kids."

"So I'm something that's bugging you now? Fantastic."

"That's not what I—" Gerard steps closer, reaches out to touch Frank's arm, but drops his hand when Frank flinches away. "I hate saying no to you, Frank. It's always been so easy to give you everything you wanted, but I can't do this."

"You mean you won't," Frank says, pushing off the table and past Gerard toward the lab's door. "And you're treating me like I'm still the seventeen-year-old kid you met at a college fair." He turns back to see Gerard looking at him, mouth open like he's about to argue. "No. Don't fucking deny it. I've been human longer than you ever were, and I've been living with vampires almost half my life. Been living with you. Fucking trust me when I say I know more than you could imagine about what I'm choosing here."

"Frank," Gerard says, but it's not capitulation.

"No," Frank answers, and slams the lab door behind him.


The music from Frank's speakers is making the windows vibrate, and Frank's spraying sweat every time he brings his drumsticks down, but he can't get lost in the music; he can still see the messages popping up on his screen in the corner. With a grunt, he throws a stick at it, but it only bounces off the wall. He hauls the hem of his t-shirt up to wipe his face and reaches for another stick, but he's thrown or broken them all but the one he's holding in his left hand. He brings that one crashing down on the ride cymbal before throwing it after its mate.

"Music: three," he says, bringing the stereo down to background-noise levels. "Shopping list: drumsticks. Inbox: font sixty." The messages get big enough to read from across the room. They're all from Pete, and they're all minor variations on open your fucking door. "Inbox: delete," Frank says.

"Don't fucking delete my messages," Pete calls through Frank's door. "I just want to talk to you about the strobe problem. Won't bring up your desire to become a blood-sucking fiend, I promise."

Christ, Pete's an asshole. "You're an asshole," Frank calls back, loud enough to be heard over the music.

"I'm the asshole who's gonna solve your fucking strobe problem though. Open up."

"Hall door: unlock," Frank says grudgingly.

True to his word, once he's inside, Pete doesn't bring up vampires once. He's jumping around, hands waving, spitting equations and design adjusts at Frank so fast Frank can't keep up. "Let's take this to the lab," Frank interrupts when Pete finally pauses to breathe.

"This time I really think it's gonna work," Pete says, reaching for the door.

They're tweaking and testing, tweaking and testing until well past sunrise, but finally they get five test feeds in a row without so much as a flicker.

"I've gotta sleep, dude," Pete says when they're done grinning at each other. "You gonna get Gerard to bring us a body tonight to try it on, or should I ask Mikey?

Frank's grin disappears like it was never there. He doesn't want to ask Gerard for anything, but there's no point complaining that Gee's treating him like he's seventeen and then acting like a petulant kid to prove him right. Their relationship is a separate issue from Frank's job. "I'll ask," he says. "With luck we're gonna need Mikey to bring us a prisoner soon anyway."

"Fuck, yeah, we are," Pete crows, raising his hand for a high five, coaxing Frank's smile back.

They part ways in the hall, but when Frank gets his door open and sees the mess he made sulking earlier, he turns around and heads for Gerard's rooms. He might as well start being the bigger man now. Besides, he sleeps better when Gerard's there.

**




If Gerard is surprised to find Frank in his bed when he wakes up, he covers it by rolling Frank under him and kissing him maddeningly slowly until Frank's grappling at his hair, his shoulders, his ass, rutting up into him, trying to get more. Which, since that's pretty similar to most of the other evenings for the last several months, is either a great cover, or indicates Gerard didn't take Frank's fit of pique personally.

Before Frank can come, there's a knock on the door, and James is calling, "Sorry, sire, it's the harbormaster. I think you should talk to him."

"Stay," Gerard says, nipping at Frank's neck, fangs retracted. Then adds, "Please," when he's half off the bed.

"You're going to give James an eyeful," Frank answers, eyes on Gerard's naked ass. He's not planning on moving anyway. He only got into bed two hours ago. Another good thing about being a vampire: he'd get a lot more sleep.

Gerard pulls a pair of pants off a chair and tugs them on as he crosses the room. "I'll be right back."

Frank doesn't get to find out if Gerard keeps his promise because he's asleep again before his dick even goes soft.


The in-situ tests Frank and Pete do that night on the body Gerard brings them go well, and whatever the trouble was at the harbor provides them with three vampire subjects a few days later, and they're ready when Mizuki and Miyako get there. During the redesign Pete and Frank figured out how to get sending and receiving on one chip, so Frank takes everything out and starts again. Pete did one of the installs in the prisoners and did a great job, but no one's ready to ask vampires from another zone to let a pet perform surgery on them. Especially not when they already know and trust Frank's work. Frank's definitely going to have to talk to Gerard and Mikey again about reclassifying Pete to tech status, though.

The mechanism for switching to receiving mode is a sharp glance up, and Frank's about to open his mouth and give the twins instructions when he flashes back to Gerent Ulrich and what happened when he activated his alts. "Um," he says instead, his own eyes finding Gerard. Neither of the women have given any indication that they're likely to snap and start thrill-killing, but it makes Frank feel better that Gerard's only a few feet away. He takes a deep breath and blows it out.

"Okay, Mizuki, turn and look at that screen there, Miyako, close your eyes for me." He motions to Pete to call up the test image. "Alright, keep them closed and roll your eyes up to the ceiling."

Miyako does as she's told and lets out a short squeal. Frank hopes he's right in reading it as delight.

"Ane, are you okay?" Mizuki says, swiveling rapidly to look at her sister.

"Ooh, don't turn like that," Miyako says, eyes still screwed shut. "Is that really what I look like?"

Gerard and Pete give Frank twin thumbs up.

"My turn, my turn," Mizuki demands.

"How do I turn it off?" Miyako turns her face toward Frank.

"Just open your eyes. That resets it to sending only."

The twins trade off, and then back again, never letting go each other's hands.

"We'll just let you practice," Frank finally says, and the three of them leave the sisters alone.

"You need me for anything else?" Pete asks once they're out in the hall. "Because they're having pizza up at quarters tonight, and I'm starving."

"Nah," Frank says. "You go eat pizza."

Pete takes the stairs two at a time.

"That must have appealed to your stalker self," Gerard says, tracing Frank's jawline with a finger and tugging him toward his apartment by one belt loop.

"I would totally do that with you if I thought you'd let me." No point in lying.

"You could close your eyes and watch your own face while I fucked you." Gerard's voice is low and he's nuzzling under Frank's ear and fumbling behind himself for the doorknob. This is a bad idea.

"Gee, we can't—" Frank mumbles, but he's having trouble remembering why. Then there's a crash from the lab and he remembers. Guests. Right there. Probably getting hungry after having Frank work on them half the night.

"Fuck. Better take them hunting," Gerard says, lips still brushing Frank's neck.

"Yes." Frank adjusts his dick in his pants. "You'd better. I don't want starving vamps loose in my lab."

"You gonna watch us hunt?" Gerard asks, eyes on Frank's bulge.

"Rather watch you fuck me. Too bad it's illegal to install alts on a human."

Gerard pointedly ignores the dig.

**



As summer tips into autumn and the nights start to get longer, Gerard ignores sarcasm, hints, and flat-out requests to discuss it with a skill that would be impressive if it didn't make Frank want to scream. They're also having more sex than they have since they started fucking, because that seems to be Gerard's favorite subject-changing tactic. Frank is going to be thirty-three in less than a month. It doesn't matter, not really, but it's a point in time. A deadline. And going through Gerard isn't working, so Frank comes up with another plan.

He finds Mikey in the garage, watching Pete help Ray hoist the engine out of an old Roadster Gerard found in an abandoned house up by Sarasota Springs. Mikey's up in the rafters, perched at the edge of the storage loft, indulgent smile on his face as Pete struts and sweats and lifts heavy things. The guys are making enough noise, and it's far enough away, that if Frank climbs up there to join him, Pete and Ray won't overhear.

Mikey watches silently as Frank picks his way up the rickety ladder and over the scattered half-rusted Frank doesn't know what to sit down beside him. "Nice view," Frank says in greeting.

"It is," Mikey agrees, smile tugging at his mouth again as his comment is timed to Pete bending over to pick something up off the floor, ass in the air.

"That too," Frank says.

Never a believer in idle smalltalk, Mikey lets that hang there until Frank spits out what he came for.

"Would you turn him if he asked?" Frank finally asks.

There's a beat while the guys unhook the engine from the hoist and send the chains rattling back along their track. "He'd never ask," Mikey says.

"Well yeah," Frank agrees. The idea of immortality freaks Pete the fuck out. "But if he did."

"Depends why he wanted it, I guess."

"What if it was me? What if I'm the one who wanted it."

Mikey's head swivels toward him so smoothly he looks like an owl. "Would I turn you. That's what you're asking me?"

"Honestly, I've given up getting your stubborn-ass brother to even talk to me about it."

"Yeah," Mikey says. "No. There are ways to kill vampires, and my brother, stubborn ass that he is, knows every single one of them."

"Gerard would never kill you." Gerard would never harm a hair on his brother's head. Which is why Mikey's the perfect one to ask to do this.

"Pretty sure that if I so much as wet a fang with your blood he wouldn't even stop to remember that we shared a mother."

"What if you told him I asked you? What would he do then?" Frank tries to sound like this wasn't his plan all along, but he's pretty sure Mikey sees right through him.

"Probably throw something. Rant about how you don't know what you're asking, don't know what you want. Accuse me of trying to manipulate him." Mikey arches an eyebrow in Frank's direction. "Not that he'd be wrong about that last part. Which is what you're really asking me to do, isn't it?"

Fucking Mikey.

"Yeah," Frank says, picking a splinter off the railing between his legs.

"Why do you want to be a vamp?"

Frank doesn't really want to tell Mikey this any more than he wants Mikey instead of Gerard to turn him, but maybe it will help. "It's what I know," he says. "And he's— you're my family."

"And you've told him this?"

Frank snorts. "A hundred fucking times. Sort of. Have you ever tried to tell Gerard something he doesn't want to hear?"

Mikey just looks at him. Of course. Stupid question. But Mikey's had like sixty years more practice. Plus, Gerard doesn't have biting or handjobs in his avoiding-conversations-with-Mikey arsenal.

"He always shuts me down. Either pulls the I don't know my own mind thing, or starts in on how turning me would deprive the world of my great fucking genius or some shit, or he, you know, distracts me."

"This is between you and him," Mikey says. "But I'll see if I can get him to listen."

**



Three nights after his conversation with Mikey, Frank's checking out his face in the reflective glass of his cooling towers, wondering if he needs to shave or if he can get away with another day, half listening to Gerard debating the merits of releasing a greatest hits video with clips from their most downloaded movies, when apropos of nothing Gerard says, "If you want any more tattoos, you'd have to get them before I turned you," appearing at Frank's side mid-sentence to trace the ink on his left wrist.

Fearing that turning to look at him will change Gerard's meaning somehow, Frank keeps staring at his own face. "You'll do it?" he asks, voice remarkably steady.

"I said 'if'." Pushing up Frank's sleeve, Gerard scratches lightly at the stars on his forearm. "'If' isn't yes."

"If I want more tattoos you said. Not if you turn me. But that's a good point. The one thing I hadn't thought about."

"There's a lot you haven't thought about. Or you wouldn't want to do this."

Frank doesn't tell Gerard to fuck off. He doesn't kick him. He doesn't junk-punch him. He's proud of himself. Without pulling his arm from Gerard's loose hold, Frank edges back so he's leaning calmly, casually on the edge of the nearby desk. "I get that you maybe didn't do a lot of thinking before you turned, but I've had fifteen years to see what I'm getting myself into."

"You won't be human anymore. You lose all that." Gerard lifts Frank up and sits him on the desk so he can settle between his knees, forearms propped on Frank's shoulders. "You wake up and it's gone."

Grateful Gerard's in a t-shirt tonight and not one of his skin-tight vests, Frank gets his hands on the skin of Gerard's back, smooth and soft and cool. "I think about killing. What it would be like to rip a person's throat out with my teeth. The taste of the blood, the sound of their last breath leaving their body. At least you do it to survive. It's you or them. I'm just— I know what feels more monstrous to me."

Gerard's hands cup the back of Frank's head. "But you don't do it. You're not out there killing people, Frank. Thinking about it's not the same. Fuck. I used to think about killing people all the time. The drones on the subways, the assholes— It's not the same as doing it. Doing it and loving it. We are monsters. Don't kid yourself."

"Ninety-two percent of our sales are to human customers. They throw money at us to keep them supplied with fresh carnage." Frank gives Gerard a wry smile, changes tack. "If I'm a vampire at least I don't have to get old and withered while you stay young and hot forever."

"You'll still be hot when you're eighty," Gerard says. "Tiredest cliche in the book, becoming a vamp to stay pretty."

"What about becoming a vamp to stay with your family?"

"Touche."

"Yeah," Frank says. "But I'm actually talking about me. You're my family. My parents— They'd want me to have family." Frank chokes on the words a little. His mom couldn't have known what it would mean to send Frank to live with vamps; she'd never met one. But she's been dead for as long as Frank lived under her roof. She died proud of what her son had accomplished.

"You have me," Gerard says. "You already have me."

"And that would have been enough for you after Mikey?"

"I'll think about it," Gerard says. "You think about those tattoos."


Frank does think about them. He asks around, does some research, finds the best portrait specialist in the country. Of course, she's on the west coast. He's trying to figure out how long he'll have to go for, if it will be worth it or if he should find someone closer, but Gerard offers to fly her in and she agrees. He even helps Frank choose from the pictures of his grandparents, his parents, his uncle, lends his artist's eye to help Frank figure out placement.

"Do you miss them?" Gerard asks, holding a printout of Frank's grandfather against Frank's shoulder.

"Every day." Which is true. They're all still with him in their own ways. "But they'd be dead whether or not I was here, and I don't regret any of this." Frank gestures, trying to encompass his lab, the compound, his life.

"What would they think, their faces on a vampire's arms?"

Tough question, but it's not like Frank hasn't thought about it. "They won't know. And it's me. No matter what I do they're my history. They'd like that I'm proud of that."

"You can always change your mind," Gerard says.

"I've never changed my mind about a tattoo in my life."

"I meant about turning," Gerard says, and puts down Frank's grandfather before picking up his mother, laying that on Frank's forearm and giving it an uncertain frown.

"I know," Frank says, because this is the tenth time they've had that conversation, and he suspects they'll have it a hundred more by the time his tattoos heal. "And if I do, you'll be the first to know. I promise."


Gerard refuses to watch Frank get inked, which is ridiculous, considering how often he stabs Frank with his teeth and drinks his blood. "I just can't, okay?" Gerard says when Frank pushes it.

"Would you rather I didn't get them?" Frank's gonna get them anyway, but he's curious.

"No! I like them. I just don't—"

"He puked everywhere when I got mine," Mikey says, making Frank jump. Sneaky bastard, creeping up behind them. "Still squeamish about needles. Why do you think he always makes sure someone else is around if he thinks you need a hand with the BloodPlus?"

The glare Gerard gives his brother is epic.

"Don't give me that look," Mikey says, squeezing next to Gerard on the sofa. "I bet Frank thinks it's adorable. Do you think it's adorable, Frank?"

Frank totally thinks it's adorable. "I don't need an audience," Frank reassures Gerard, patting his knee. "Never had one before."


It takes a week to have his family inked into his skin. Pete ends up sitting in on some of the sessions, watching carefully in a way Frank suspects is leading to Pete getting some new ink of his own, but mostly it's just Katherine and Frank and the ghosts of his ancestors. Gerard examines each one closely as Frank unwraps it, but he's not allowed to touch, not after he couldn't help licking the first night, and Frank had to have half his grandmother's hair re-done because Gerard healed the ink right out of his flesh.

"Why the rush?" Katherine asks the third evening as she's inking his uncle onto his side, trying not to lean on Frank's red and aching arm that she'd worked on the day before. "The money your master's paying me, I would have been more than happy to come out a few times, spread it out a little."

Frank's not sure what it's like for artists in Western—here they can get tech status even if their art is really only useful to humans the way a tattoo artist's is, but that might be Gerard's soft spot for artists—so he isn't sure how Katherine feels about vamps when they're not paying for her services. "I felt the need," he says. "And I have a pretty high pain threshold."

"That's true enough," she answers, and changes the subject. Frank's grateful. He doesn't want to have to explain himself to a stranger.

**



"What if you can't do alts anymore?" Gerard asks, watching Frank rub tattoo ointment into his grandfather's face the night after they send Katherine home. "Is Pete ready?"

"Pete's ready," Frank says, moving on to his mom. "I'd let him work on me."

"We'll lose most of the business from the other zones, of course. You have such a great reputation. And you really pioneered—"

"Gerard. Why are you so sure I'm going to lose it?" He's never explained what happened to his drawing skills when he turned.

"What you do is art. And art is part of what dies."

Frank isn't convinced. "But—"

"Besides. No one wants another vamp working on them. Techs are human for a reason."

"What's the reason though?"

"Everything isn't better when you're a vampire, Frank," Gerard says. "I wish you'd listen to me."

"Everything isn't better when you're not a vampire, either. Think about your life after Mikey turned. If he'd been a vamp and you'd just been you. Commuting to the city, fantasizing about killing the drones on the subway. If you can tell me that you genuinely wish that's how it went down, I'll think about changing my mind."

"I wish Mikey'd never turned," Gerard says, frowning.

"No deal. He turned. Do you wish you stayed human while he was a vampire."

Gerard's frown deepens, but he finally says, "No. I couldn't leave him to go through that alone."

"There. I told—"

"But it's different now. I'm not alone. Vamps, humans, everything's different now."

"Not the point," Frank insists. "You love him. I love you. Besides. You're the fucking Gerent of the Eastern Zone! Tell me that woulda happened if you stayed a drone. Yeah, I'm a great fucking tech. But I'm gonna make a kick-ass advisor to the king, too. Just wait." Done with his ointment, Frank flings himself in Gerard's lap and tucks his face in Gee's neck.

"Fuck advisor, you can be the king's concubine."

"Hell, no," Frank says. "You're totally making an honest woman out of me."

Gerard pushes Frank back a bit so he can look him in the eye. "What you want is a lot more permanent than that. You're bound forever to your maker, no divorce."

This isn't the first time Frank's heard that, but it's the first time he's really listened. "Who turned you?" he asks.

Gerard's always skirted the question, but this time he doesn't hesitate. "Mikey."

"And who turned Mikey?" Frank's never noticed anyone who Mikey seems particularly bound to, other than Gerard. And maybe Pete.

"Gabe."

That would actually explain a few things. "But they aren't…" Frank's not sure how to finish.

"The bond takes different forms. And it can change over time. But until one of you dies, it's never broken."

"You're not actually putting me off, you know." Frank says, tucking his head back under Gerard's chin, licking gently at his collar bone.

"Figures," Gerard answers, and pulls Frank closer.

**



They wait for Frank's tattoos to heal, and then Gerard has to head to the northern border for a few days, and when he gets back, he tries to think of another reason they should wait. But Frank says, "Tonight. You promised, and let's just do it tonight." He's done all the thinking about it he wants to do. He will actually be eighty before Gee turns him at this rate.

Gerard grumbles, and tries to stare Frank down, but in the end he gives in. "Okay," he says. "We'll do it."

Frank doesn't think to ask what it involves, and Gerard doesn't think to tell him. It's not until Frank's nearly drained, eyes too heavy to stay open, and Gerard's whispering, "Drink. Drink for me Frankie," in his ear as he presses something flat, warm and wet to Frank's lips, that he realizes, of course, he needs to drink Gerard's blood. He can't find the coordination to do as he's told, but his mouth fills anyway, and he swallows on reflex. And again. And then Gerard's teeth are back at his throat and he's gulping loud in Frank's ear. It would be easier if Frank could reach up, hold Gerard's arm to his mouth, but the best he can do is prod gently at the wound with his tongue, do his best not to slip away.

And then darkness.


Frank wakes up starving. A snarling, snapping, clawing hunger that eats at his bones and his belly, that turns every pore into a gaping maw screaming for food. He fights with the sheet covering him, tears at his clothes, at his hair, and when Gerard lands on him, pinning his hands away from his face, Frank figures out how to breathe and the scream comes out of his lungs. Gerard's mouth is moving, but all Frank can hear is the sound of his body's need. Heaving, he throws Gerard off and is on him faster than thought, teeth—fangs—tearing into his neck. His mouth fills with blood, but it's wrong. Sluggish and tepid and not what he needs.

He's ripped away from his meal, viciously strong hands around his throat yanking him halfway across the room. His master, his mate, is lying there on gory sheets, and Mikey's voice is saying, "You fucking idiot. Did you forget he'd need to eat?"

Frank's vision greys and when it clears again they're moving, Gerard and Mikey dragging him along by the arms, past the compound's gates, so fast that everything should be a blur, but it's not. Frank can see. And smell. God, the smells. Food is close and getting closer. Frank can taste it.

They come upon a parking lot filled with cars, a stream of people exiting the adjacent building toward them. Frank breaks Gerard and Mikey's hold and flies. The people scatter, some heading back inside the building, others diving for their vehicles, but two or three stand still, just staring, and Frank takes the nearest one down. There's nothing graceful or smooth about the process; it isn't pretty. Footage of this would never make it to tape. But all Frank's thinking about is how hungry he is, and a flying tackle is the quickest way to the guy's throat.

The blood is raw, fierce, vibrant on his tongue, and Frank can't get enough. He wants to drink forever.

Too soon there is no more no matter how hard he sucks, how tightly he presses the man's flesh to his face. But there're more good smells nearby, living, vital, human smells dominating the oil and asphalt and automotive steel. Frank leaps, landing on the hood of a jeep, and spies someone huddled by the back tire of a car two rows over. He's on her almost before she can look up at the sound of the impact he made on the metal, and this time he drags her up to his mouth instead of feeding on the ground like a dog. She cries out once as he bites, but she doesn't struggle, never makes another sound. Frank can feel it this time when her life evaporates, when she becomes literally nothing more than a bag of blood. He squeezes her, sucks harder, gets two more swallows before he drops the body next to the tire where she'd tried to hide. All that blood thrums through him, pounding against his skin from the inside, making him feel slick, oiled up, ready.

Gerard's scent gets stronger, and he's there, by Frank's side, reaching for him. And that's what Frank wants now, after his meal. He wants to rut and fuck and roll with him, use the strength he has, feel Gerard push back. "Fuck, Gee. Fuck. You didn't tell me. You didn't tell me how good it is."

"I know, Frankie," he says, pulling Frank into a crushing embrace. "I know. But sun'll be up soon. We've gotta get back."

And when Gerard says the words, Frank can feel it. The pull of sunrise, a bone-deep exhaustion calling him to bed. But first he needs to run.

Still clutching Gerard's arm, he goes, neither noticing nor caring which direction he's headed. Gerard keeps pace with him smoothly, and Mikey's there on his other side, hair pushed off his face by their speed. Buildings, trees, cars flash past, and Frank keeps waiting for his lungs to burn in his chest, for his heart to start pounding with exertion, but there's nothing. Just the riot of smells every time he forces in a breath, the barely-there sound of their feet on the ground, and the feel of Gerard's fingers twined with his.

"You didn't tell me!" Frank yells into the air rushing past them as he puts on an extra burst of speed.

It felt like the others were following him, but they must have been guiding him too, because they end up back at the compound and Frank doesn't have a fucking clue how. They slow at the gates, and are walking by the time they hit the front stairs. There's no twinge in Frank's muscles, not a hint of the shakes. If he didn't need his bed so badly, he could run for a week.

"Sleep," Mikey says sternly once they're inside. He glares at both of them. "I mean it. No fucking till nightfall. Frank needs to sleep."

"I'm not stupid," Gerard grumbles, but he doesn't meet Mikey's eyes. Frank hears the shutters, ten times as loud with his vampire hearing. It feels like his bones are going to break with how badly he needs to shut down.

"Bed," he says. "Bed bed bed. Where is it."

There's just time to hear Mikey say, "See?" as Gerard scoops Frank up and whisks him to their room.

**



When Frank wakes again, the hunger's there, but it's an ache, not a ravening beast. "You can have a mouthful," a voice says from the edge of the bed, and Frank turns to find Pete standing there, one of the throwing blades from the display in Gerard's office held loose in his right hand. He smells like food. Without conscious thought, Frank's up and surging toward him.

"Fuck, no," Pete says, glaring, blade now at arm's length. Gerard has both arms wrapped around Frank's chest, is gripping Frank's wrists tight.

"I've got him," Gerard says. "It's okay."

Frank struggles in his hold, but while he has more success than he would have two days ago, he can't break it.

"This was a bad idea," Pete says, still pointing his knife at Frank's face. Frank doesn't understand what's happening.

"Shh, Frankie, shh," Gerard says, pressing his cheek to Frank's ear. That's when Frank realizes that he's thrashing his head side to side as well as still trying to fight out of Gerard's grasp. He goes limp, but it only lasts a second before he's straining toward Pete again.

"I don't want to eat you," Frank says, trying to sound reassuring. But he does. He wants to rip Pete's throat out and gulp down every drop of blood. He doesn't want to kill him. Or hurt him. But, food.

"It's just the first few nights, Frank. It gets better soon. I promise," Gerard says, voice buzzing right in Frank's ear.

While Frank's calmer, Gerard shifts so his legs bracket Frank's hips, one calf pins Frank's thighs. Frank tries to relax, but Pete's scent is so strong.

"I'm not coming anywhere near his fangs," Pete says, backing up one step, then another. "I know I said— But look at him."

Last week Pete wrestled Frank to the ground and licked his face like a puppy while Frank laughed and tried to slap him off. Frank's brain knows that, knows Pete is his friend, but all Frank feels is need.

"I can't take him out like this," Gerard says. Frank doesn't know why not. Taking him to feed would solve everything. "What if he saw Ray. Or Christa, or one of the others before I got him off the grounds."

"Fuck you," Pete snaps.

"Here." Gerard shifts again, gets both Frank's wrists in one hand, holds his other out in Pete's direction. "I'll feed him. You can stay over there."

"Have you got him like that? He's not going to escape, is he?"

Frank uses every ounce of control he can summon to go still as death. Gerard's legs wrap more tightly around him; he gets a better hold on Frank's wrists. "I promise," he says.

Pete still looks skeptical, but he turns the blade on himself, cuts into the meat of his arm. The iron stench of blood overwhelms Frank's senses, but Gerard is a steel cage. He stretches his free hand closer to Pete, and Pete leans forward to meet him, letting the blood oozing from the cut drip into Gerard's cupped palm. Frank hears the growling a second before he realizes he's the one making it.

"Shhh," Gerard says again, and then he's bringing the blood up to Frank's lips, letting him taste.

It's warm, still alive, though not as good as it was last night fresh from the source, and Frank dives at it, pushing his face into Gerard's hand, chasing the taste with tongue and lips. He cuts himself on his fangs, bites the fleshy base of Gerard's thumb, and the taste changes, makes him pause. "More?" he says, reassured that he can even speak, that he's not crazed with the taste.

"A mouthful you said. Gerard, you said a mouthful." Pete has his hand pressed to the cut on his arm and he doesn't look happy.

"That was more like half a mouthful," Gerard says.

"You are lucky I owe you, Frank Iero," Pete says and squeezes a little more blood to the surface. Frank wants it still, needs it, but it doesn't feel like torture to wait for Gerard to bring it to him.

This time he's careful not to use his fangs, just to lap it up, let the taste fill his mouth. It's counter to all the logic he can muster that just a taste of what he needs would make him anything other than desperate for a full meal, but he can look at Pete now, can say, "Thank you."

"Let me heal that for you," Gerard says to Pete when Frank relaxes back against his chest, but Pete won't come any closer.

"Your mouth is right next to his mouth, so no thanks," Pete says. "I'll be fine. Mikey can do it."

"I thought we weren't going to tell Mikey," Gerard says. Which makes no sense at all, because Gerard tells Mikey everything.

"Well, you lied about him not wanting to eat me, I lied about not telling Mikey." Pete shrugs. "It's not like he won't forgive you."

Frank twists so he can see Gerard's face. He looks perturbed, but not angry. "Yeah," Gerard says. "Okay. He'll know anyway. He always does."

"Go get him some real food, man," Pete says, and then he's gone.


Frank follows Gerard, though before they get up to speed it's hard—even with Pete's blood to tide him over—not to break off every time they pass a human scent. Running is no less amazing than it was the night before, a riot of smells and sensations, a rush of power and purpose. Needy as he is, they hit the warehouse district almost too soon; Frank's legs still want to fly. Until the scent of hot throbbing dance floor hits his nose, and all he wants to do is feed.

There's a pair of bouncers on the door, and Frank thinks they'll have to take them first, but Gerard grips Frank's elbow, walks him right past them into the heat and flashing lights. "You okay?" he asks, not loosening his hold even a fraction. "We'll find you the right one."

All of them are right, all filled with life, with blood, and Frank doesn't see what they're waiting for, but but he lets Gerard guide him through the bodies to the back of the building where the lights don't penetrate. How will he know? How will Gerard know? But then a sharper scent breaks through the redolence of blood, and Gerard's pulling a girl with neon cord woven into her hair and thick paint around her eyes into Frank's reach.

On tape, it's always blink-and-you'll-miss-it from a vamp sighting his prey to sinking his fangs in, but Frank has time to feel the give of her skin over muscle, the thickness of her muscle over bone, smell the fruit and the liquor in the cocktail she was drinking and the grease base of her eyeliner, as he drags her close enough to bite.

She's hot in his hands, under his lips, and she tastes sweet and tangy and rich. He's aware of the music, of Gerard beside him feeding too, of the darkness and the oblivious crowd. His throat and tongue and lips are working to catch all the blood spilling into his mouth as her heart beats faster and more weakly against his chest the more he drinks. He's thirsty, so thirsty, but the desperation of his first feed isn't there, and as he lets the girl's body fall into the corner, he doesn't want another victim. He's thrumming, eyes wide, jaw loose, universe sized. His ears buzz, the people around him fade, and Gerard is the only thing that feels real.

"You okay?" Gerard asks again. Frank nods and takes his hand. He's never been more okay in his life.

As they step back into the sweeping lights, Gerard's flushed with blood, nearly glowing with it, even without infrareds, and he's looking at Frank from under the deep-burgundy slash of hair across his face. He's beautiful in ways Frank's never seen before. Sound rushes back in and the music pounds in Frank's chest like a heartbeat.

Gerard starts weaving his way back toward the doors, but Frank stops him. "Dance with me," he says. He hasn't danced since college. Jammed, thrown himself around and rocked the fuck out, but he hasn't danced. "Dance with me!" he says again when Gerard just looks at him.

Time stretches out on the wail of a single lyric, and Frank's sure, for a minute, a year, a lifetime, that Gerard wants to take it back. Wants to make Frank human again, take all this away. Then a smile breaks across Gerard's face, feral and sweet and delighted all at once. He leans in, licks the corner of Frank's mouth, gives him a quick kiss, and time starts up again.

With a laugh welling up in Frank's chest, they throw themselves into the press of bodies, and dance.

~fin~

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