Chapter Text
“He protected you by making you his thrall.”
———
Thrall. The very mention of such a thing had prompted you to venture down this rabbit hole of vampires and villains to begin with. Had made you start to see your roommate in a tilted light. And now this stranger is asserting you are one. Eddie’s thrall. His.
“This can’t be real,” you mutter under your breath. Sure you’d humored the idea, stoked the fire even, but a world in which vampires are real isn’t a world you want to live in.
It's suddenly hard to breathe, as if oxygen has been robbed from your lungs. You press your hand to your chest, just to make sure your heart is still beating. That you are still alive at all and not one of the undead.
This all has to be a joke. Because the alternative is far too terrifying to wrap your head around. The alternative being that this is really happening. That you’ve been made into a vampire’s thrall; the implications far too damning to consider. What happens from here is beyond your wildest imagination.
“You’re lying,” you decide as your body begins to tremble with a new kind of fear; fear of the unknown. “You're lying about being a vampire, about drinking my blood. All of it!”
Sure Eddie didn’t have a reflection, but you suppose that could be faked. A trick of the light. He doesn’t have fangs, nor have you seen him consume any actual blood. Perhaps he has just been trying to make you believe in something as implausible as vampires. To make you seem insane. To drive you past the point of no return. But what reason did he have for doing that? Is he truly that sadistic to play with your mind just over some rent money?
In all fairness, you hardly know what kind of man Eddie truly is. He seemed caring. He seemed kind. But was that also just an act?
“I’m not lying,” Eddie says, almost in a groan. He has begun to pick and pull at the piercing set into his eyebrow as if it were a scab; something to take the edge off. “Wish I was. Wish this was just a mask I could take off so you could see me for who I really am. Or at least who I used to be.”
“Like Scooby Doo?” You ask, because you are losing your mind, truly and completely. “Take the monster mask off and reveal you are just old man Jenkins?”
The other man laughs lightly at that, but Eddie isn’t humored. He stares at you, waiting for you to run, to scream, to prod for more.
“I-I need proof,” you decide.
His gaze narrows. “Proof?”
You nod, but it’s the other man who answers your request. “Maybe this will convince you.”
He walks over to a cooler you only now notice has been set at the entrance of the living room, adjacent to the kitchen. As he moves past Eddie, you realize just how different the two men are. One is dressed in bright blue scrubs, smiling and unbothered, while the other is slumped over like a personal storm cloud is brewing over his head. A golden retriever and a black cat somehow placed in the same space without killing each other. You can’t fathom how these two men ever became friends in the first place. That is assuming they are friends at all.
The stranger squats down and opens the lid of the cooler.
“We need to get these into a refrigerator quickly anyway. Or else they’ll start to congeal.”
He reaches inside and pulls out a clear bag, puffy from the crimson contents held within it.
“Is that… blood?” You ask, needing the confirmation.
“Type O. Just as requested,” he says matter-of-factly as he hands the bag out to Eddie. As if he were handing over a chocolate bar, and not a blood bag.
You stare at Eddie, eyes wide, heart frozen in shock. His initial confession of vampirism hadn’t even caught you off guard. You’d suspected it, theorized about it. The boogeyman in plain view. But seeing the evidence held in front of you in the form of gore sloshing slightly within the hospital bag drains your own blood from your body like a leech.
He won’t, you tell yourself. He wouldn’t.
But Eddie keeps his eyes on you as he easily rips the top of the bag open and dumps the contents into his awaiting mouth. The blood pours free, coating his tongue. He moans in satisfaction as it slips down his throat like some sort of strawberry concoction.
“That’s fake,” you decide as panic sets in. As your body freezes in time at the sight of the blood pouring over his lips. His tongue slithers out to clean off the excess but a stain remains held against his skin. “Corn syrup. Like in Scream.”
“Carrie,” Eddie corrects, licking his lips. “Care for a taste to verify?” He holds out the now empty bag to you. There are still some streaks of his grotesque meal clinging to the inside of the plastic, clutched in his fist. As he speaks, you can distinctively smell the rich iron ore of the blood held in his mouth. Nothing sweet like sugar. More like the scent of a butcher’s shop. The scent of death.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” you mutter as bile rushes up your throat. It burns, begs to be expelled, but you fight it down.
“Oh shit,” the stranger suddenly exclaims, but it is not in reaction to Eddie. Instead, he is completely unbothered by the horror scene Eddie has enacted beside him. As if it is a common occurrence. You feel even sicker at the notion. “Almost forgot you asked for a carton of rocky road. Damn. I don’t even remember what this tastes like anymore.” He digs inside the cooler until he retrieves a container of ice cream, hiding amongst the blood bags like a forgotten treasure. The man hands it out to Eddie but he waves his hand dismissively and nods suggestively over to you. The man smiles a bit and turns to hand over the carton to you instead. The gesture is so casual, as if you hadn’t just seen bags upon bags of blood set around the ice cream, keeping it cool. “Have some but do me a favor. Be as descriptive as possible about the taste.”
You do not even reach for it, instead it finally hits you. The impending vomit.
You lean over the side of the couch, letting your insides empty out onto the carpet. As it all comes up, it tastes like the soup Jules made you, but now made putrid, scorched by your stomach acids. You can’t even stop yourself from retching when you feel a cool hand brush the back of your neck. When fingers tickle your skin. He doesn’t say anything. He keeps his distance, but stays there holding your hair back while your body goes through the violent motions of trauma. While you reject this new reality the only way you know how. Up and out.
When you feel the convulsions stop, when you can no longer stand to stare at the new stains you’ve created on the floor, you sit up. Eddie keeps his hand held around your hair, but you can feel the way he is fighting against himself to pull away completely. The way he can’t quite decide if it would be better to help you or to leave you alone to lick the wounds clean for yourself.
You turn to look at him, but catch sight of the blood still staining his lips. Something inside of you shifts. You want to reach for him and wipe it clean. You want to feel the warmth of his lips against your hand, your mouth. You want to crawl into his space, his arms, and never leave. Burrow yourself inside. But to shove the thought away, you sweep a hand behind your head and swat his touch away, disgusted with yourself more than you had been with him to begin with.
“Do you feel better?” He asks as he slowly untangles his hand from your hair. He takes a step back away from you.
You awkwardly wipe the back of your hand over your mouth.
“That really was blood,” you say. Your throat burns, raw and irritated.
“Best the county has to offer,” the other man chimes in. “Clean and ethically sourced. Only the best for Eddie here.”
“You can leave now, Steve,” Eddie practically hisses as he snaps his gaze back to the other man like two hot daggers aimed to kill.
“A ‘Thank You’ would have been nice,” the man mutters in response. “Not like I’m constantly risking my job just to get you this every week.”
“You take some for yourself too!” Eddie snaps. “Don’t make it sound like I’m the only one at fault here.”
“I’m not the one who just made a thrall,” he reminds Eddie with a careful glare, his eyes drifting back over to you like he can’t help himself.
“Stop saying that word,” Eddie growls.
“Thrall?” The other man questions, and you can see the way Eddie’s body nearly snaps at attention, ready to react to his words. “She has a right to know what you made her.”
You let out a groan, gagging just a bit as more vomit dares to push its way back up your throat.
“That’s enough!” Eddie shouts. “Can’t you see she’s already overwhelmed?”
“Yes, I’m overwhelmed!” You suddenly snap. Raising your voice is a mistake. You can feel your throat scream in protest, aching for some relief; externally and internally torn. “I’m overwhelmed because you are only bothering to tell me any of this now that you’ve made me into your thrall! Whatever the hell that even means!”
You close your eyes and clasp at your throat. A small noise leaves your lips like hushed agony. When you reopen your eyes, you find the stranger in scrubs kneeling in front of you, offering out a glass of water to you. You hadn’t seen him move at all, hadn’t even heard him. You don’t smell your vomit anymore either. It is completely gone from the floor. If not for the stain still left on the carpet, you’d think you imagined it all. You take the glass from him and mumble your thanks. You’d have to get used to reality shifting before your eyes, of things moving at an unnatural rate, if this is to be your new normal.
“Can I take a look at your neck?” The man asks gently.
“My neck?” You jerk away from him.
“I just want to look at the cut,” he explains gently. “See if it’s healing alright. You don’t have to worry about me sneaking a little snack from you like Eddie did.”
You hear Eddie mutter his annoyance, maybe biting back something much more damning in response.
“Are you one of them too?”
He doesn’t answer directly, but smiles, almost apologetically. “I’m Steve,” he introduces at least, all too casually. He offers his hand out for you to shake but you refuse to take it. You do not even move at all in acknowledgement of his offer. He doesn’t look the least bit slighted by your rejection, however.
You pull at your turtle neck so Steve can peel back the bandage held over your neck wound. He studies the cut underneath carefully. As you sip on the water he’d offered you, you look over at Eddie. He is standing with his arms crossed, back against the wall to keep a comfortable distance. He doesn’t say anything. He merely stares at you, his expression impossible to decipher. Is he angry? Is he embarrassed or ashamed? Or is he jealous of Steve’s sudden proximity when you’d refused his touch only moments ago?
“You are healing pretty nicely,” Steve says to you before turning back to Eddie. “You don’t need my help from the looks of it,” he tells him. “Might not have even worked on her now that she’s your thrall. Didn’t your blood not work on Chrissy when-“
“I’m going to put these back in my room,” Eddie interrupts as he reaches for the cooler. “I don’t want her to have to see anymore blood than she has to tonight.” His eyes drift almost subconsciously to the stain on the floor.
“If it stays in the bag I’ll be okay,” you say quietly. Though you don’t know if that’s entirely true. In the back of your mind, you still see the blood in Eddie’s mouth. You picture his lips clamped over the wound at your neck, your own blood gushing down your chest as he feasts upon your offering. Maybe the blood wasn’t what made you sick so much as the sinful thoughts that now consume your mind.
“I can help,” Steve offers to Eddie.
“I want you to stay with her,” Eddie orders instead. “But don’t say anything more than she needs to know.”
“I don’t need him to babysit me,” you groan. "Especially when you are just going into your room." But you watch as Eddie walks back down the hall with the cooler in hand, ignoring you and disappearing into the darkness of his room. You know he won’t be gone more than a few minutes, so the fact that he refuses to leave you alone even now makes you feel fragile. Breakable. Mortal.
Steve falls into a seated position on the floor in front of you, hands held out to rest casually at his sides, comfortably. He stares at you as if you were some fascinating discovery. A new creature he is only now laying his eyes upon, studying every minute detail. A fascination.
“What?” You question, pushing back into the couch a bit to avoid his gaze. You pull up the collar of your turtle neck protectively.
“You’ve surprised me,” he says with a strange smile.
His response makes you even more nervous. “How?”
His smile widens, spreads. “You’re still here,” he explains. “You haven’t tried to run away. You don’t seem as afraid as I would have expected you to be. Given what you know now.”
You blink at him, seeing the stain on the floor out of the corner of your eye. “I threw up.”
“Your body had a natural response,” he dismisses, his smile never wavering. “That’s to be expected. But you’ve had enough time now to sit on what you know and decide what you are going to do with it. And yet you haven’t decided to run.” He turns his head back toward the front of the apartment. “The door’s right there. I won’t stop you.”
You should run, and really, you should have fled from this apartment weeks ago. But something held you to this place like soothing shackles. A comfortable prison. You don’t want to run, despite everything. You’ve chosen to stay in a place that will likely lead to your death. Here you are, planted firmly into the ground, and there is no turning back.
“What did you mean Eddie’s blood didn’t work on Chrissy?” You ask. Knowledge right now is a better suit of armor than cowardice.
Steve smile finally fades. “How much has he told you about Chrissy?” He asks in reply.
“Only that he loved her.”
Steve nods but sits in silence. Perhaps it isn’t his place to tell you anymore than he already has. Chrissy is Eddie’s tale to tell.
“You work at a hospital?” You try instead, studying his attire.
“Night shift,” he confirms with a relaxed smile as he pulls against his scrubs.
“And that’s not… tempting for you?”
He laughs lightly. “You’d be surprised,” he says. “It’s actually better to be surrounded by it. By death. Numbs me to it somehow. I can’t even smell the blood anymore. Which I guess is to Eddie’s benefit as well. Makes it easier for me to sneak in to grab the goods and get out before I’m too tempted to take my meal right there in the hospital before I can get to him.”
You recall the cooler filled with blood bags. You want to ask more about that. If Eddie only drank blood provided from the hospital, stolen donations, or if he feasted during the night, upon unwitting victims while he "worked".
You shift your gaze to the floor, seeing the ice cream carton still sitting neglected on the ground beside Steve. It is starting to melt, condensation dripping down the sides of the container, but you couldn’t stomach it now. So you get up off the couch, taking it over to the freezer.
“How long have you and Eddie known each other?” You call out from the kitchen.
“Since before we were turned,” Steve confesses casually. “We knew each other back in high school. As humans.”
You turn around to face him. “Turned by Henry," you say. He doesn't deny it, so you continue. "And… how long ago was that?”
Steve’s eyes shimmer even under the darkness shrouding the living room. Like a cat’s might, or a lion’s. He may seem harmless or even kind. But he is still a predator, lurking in the shadows. Just like Eddie.
“Awhile,” he answers with a smirk. “Worried you are living with some pervy old man? Cause Eddie is a pervert, you know.”
“N-no. I was just… curious.” You chew on your nail, needing a distraction. You try to ignore his assertion.
“Of course you are,” Steve says as his gaze softens once again, that shimmer gone as you step back into the living room. “I’m not a fan of keeping you in the dark. So feel free to ask me anything. I’m an open book.”
“Eddie didn’t want you to tell me anything,” you remind him in a whisper.
He leans forward a bit. “Then you’d better ask me quickly before he decides to come back in here and tear my skull from my spine.” He laughs, as if he hadn’t just proposed such a violent consequence to his offer.
Perhaps he will feel like sharing his thrall this time.
Those were the very words Henry had sent in his text to you. The very words that spawned your research of vampires and thralls alike. But judging by how wrong some legends had been, you want to hear the truth. No use making assumptions now. Not when your would-be harbinger of truth sits in front of you, ready to answer your questions.
“What… am I?” You ask him in a whisper. Even if Eddie can still hear you, you want to pretend he can’t. You want to pretend he still has some human limitations. “What exactly did he make me? You say I’m his thrall, but what does that even mean?”
Steve leans back. His gaze softens sympathetically.
“A thrall is the result of feeding directly from a human without killing them,” he explains.
“So you usually kill when you feed?” You ask quietly, recalling the blood bags Eddie carted off to his room; an indirect source of survival.
“Not always. Depends on the method. But killing can be a mercy compared to the alternative.”
“The alternative of being a thrall?” you try.
Steve’s gaze narrows slightly. “Believe me when I tell you that Eddie saved you from a fate worse than death. This is a mercy.”
You study him, knowing the unspoken truth behind his words. Knowing that fate is his own. The same fate Eddie suffers from as well. The fate of true Damnation. Of vampirism.
“Steve-“
“A thrall isn’t a vampire,” he continues, unperturbed. “You’ll still grow old. You’ll still die. But you have changed. You may not even realize it yet. But your senses should already be heightened. Sight, sound, smell.”
You recall how Eddie’s scent had become overwhelming when you first woke up. You had been nearly intoxicated by it. But that felt like something much more than just an enhanced sense of smell. That felt primal, instinctual. Like your body craved to be dosed in his aroma like your own personal perfume.
“Once you have fully recovered, you’ll also have increased energy and strength,” he adds. “Nothing close to ours but far more advanced for a human. Enough to protect you from harm.”
But not enough to protect you from Henry, you suspect. Still, from what Steve has told you, you have yet to hear a downside. “Then wouldn’t it be easier to just make humans thralls rather than kill them?” You ask.
“That’s the thing,” Steve starts, clearing his throat again. “A thrall is forever linked to their master. A vampire cannot be separated from their thrall or vice versa. No more than a few days. If they are, it could have dire consequences for both the vampire and their thrall.”
Your heart thumps up into your throat. “And by dire consequences you mean-“
“They’ll both die.”
You try to push down the lump in your throat but it remains, trying to choke the air from reaching your lungs. Like a cruel reminder of the very real threat of death now hanging in the air all around you. That in saving you from Henry’s clutches, Eddie sentenced you to a new type of servitude.
“Why would you purposefully make a thrall then?” You ask slowly, feeling your body warm, feeling your throat tighten.
“Most often a thrall is made because a vampire is desperate for a reliable form of sustenance,” Steve continues, as if he hadn’t just told you of the fragile state of your existence. “Because they have no other source of food. Because they are trapped somewhere. Because resources are low.” You shift uncomfortably at the way Steve refers to humans as “resources”, as if you are just expendable commodities. Though, perhaps, that was unintentional. “Your blood supply becomes enriched through your bond so you can reliably feed your master at all times. Through blood and… other means.”
You swallow thickly before speaking. “Other means?”
Steve smiles awkwardly. “I’ll leave that to Eddie to explain.”
You sit up a little straighter. You wonder if perhaps Chrissy been once been Eddie’s thrall. If he’d made a mistake by feeding from her in the throes of passion. But rather than watch her die, he let her live, causing her to become his thrall. His “live in blood bank,” as Henry had once called you. Or could his motivation not have been quite as altruistic as his reason had been for making you his thrall?
“So not all vampires have thralls,” you conclude. “Do you?”
“Me?” Steve asks, taken aback. “God no!” he refutes, but immediately stumbles over his words. “I mean, that’s not to say it’s bad to have one! It’s just- it’s not something I would really ever need-“
“Sure,” you say to cut off his nervous rambling. "You have the hospital's endless supply." You could only assume Eddie didn’t have any other thralls himself, lest he hid them like backup plans in his room, stuffed them in his closet. “And Eddie doesn’t…”
Steve smiles and opens his mouth to speak, to confirm or deny your assumptions, but he never gets the chance to answer you himself.
“I think you’ve said enough, Steve.”
Eddie’s booming voice snaps your gaze back to the hallway where he stands at the precipice, dressed in shadows.
“Maybe you should head home,” he says to Steve. Not as a suggestion, but an order.
Steve does not even hesitate. He stands, brushes off his scrubs and approaches Eddie. The tension between them cuts through the air, like lightning pulsing, ready to strike, making the air thick and static. Steve doesn’t acknowledgement him and instead turns to you, saying, “It was nice to meet you.” He smiles, unbothered by Eddie’s apparent anger.
You start to say the same in reply but he is already gone. There is barely even an impression of his existence left in the apartment aside from the click of the door closing behind him.
Eddie turns to you, darkness wafting around him like his shadow is trying to detach, trying to flee.
“You didn’t have to be so rude to him,” you glare. “He was only trying to help me.”
“Was he?” Eddie growls before snapping his hand to his temple, rubbing at some tension between his brows. “You need to go to bed. It’s late.”
“I’m not tired,” you argue. You do not move from the couch as you stare back at him, defiant. “And you owe me more of an explanation.”
His glare deepens, darkens. “Steve didn’t explain enough to you? He didn’t give you a play by play of who I am? Who you are.”
“He wouldn’t have had to explain anything if you had just talked to me. I would rather hear all of this from you, Eddie.”
He is quiet in response, staring at you so intently you wonder at what he must be thinking. If he regrets being honest with you. Or if he regrets saving you in the first place. Maybe he is playing with the idea of snapping your neck the way Steve had so casually mentioned he might do to him.
But instead, when he speaks, the tension melts from his shoulders as he leans back against the kitchen counter to face you, as he surrenders to your insistence.
“What do you want to know?”
You swallow, puzzling through the many questions that still remain unanswered. The many truths yet to be unveiled. But with Eddie, it’s best to start small. To build up to bigger discoveries.
“You said you won’t burn to ash in sunlight,” you remind him.
It takes him a moment to reply, but eventually he says, “I won’t.”
“Then why do you sleep during the day? Preference?”
He sighs, exasperated. “I won’t burn to ash. But it would take a very long time for my body to heal if I did go out in daylight.”
“Days?” You question.
“Centuries,” he corrects. “I avoid it as best I can.”
“Okay.” You clear your throat awkwardly. “What about garlic?”
He narrows his eyes. “What about it?”
“Does it… work?”
He tilts his head as he studies you. “Burns my eyes just as much as it burns yours.”
You nod, considering everything else you’ve read up on vampires. “Does holy water even affect you then?”
He glares even further. “Did you buy some?”
You wince. “Maybe…”
Suddenly, he laughs and you relax just a little at the sound. “Don’t bother with crucifixes either,” he says as he pushes off the kitchen counter, approaching the living room with heavy strides. “Trust me, I tried that when I first turned. I can still enter churches just as much as any sinful, hypocrite of a man. Somehow I think God doesn't seem to care about my existence.”
“And you need to drink human blood exclusively?”
He stops just before he reaches the couch. “Are you asking if I can go vegetarian?”
“Maybe?”
He smiles, just enough to make you see the human he once was. The human you believed him to be when you first met.
“I don’t think that’s up for debate now that I have a thrall,” he says as he steps up to the couch, knees hitting its plush cushions. “Steve told you what that means.”
You pull your legs up onto the couch almost protectively. “That you’ll feed off of me.”
He suddenly leans over you, his hands gripping the back of the couch behind you so you are caged beneath him, no where left to run. No where but this small space where you can do nothing but smell him. That scent of rain and smoke that has your body aching for something you can’t quite name. A feeling beyond comprehension but a need nonetheless. A desire. Your breath catches and holds. You refuse to give into your body’s demands. You refuse to give into him. But every fiber of your being is begging for you to reach up and pull him into you to bridge the distance of your bodies.
“Would you let me?” He asks in a whisper. His breath still smells of blood, but you aren't repulsed by it. He leans in further.
Part of you wants to say ‘yes’, wants to expose your already wounded neck so he can continue what he started. But you resist even as your heart races. Even as your body tilts toward him automatically and your skin prickles.
“You have a cooler full of blood bags,” you reply in a whisper. “I think you’ll live.”
He stares down at you for a moment before letting out a small sigh and smirking as he pulls away. But the smirk looks plastered on. A mask.
“I think that’s enough vampiric lessons for one night,” he says dismissively as he moves back out of the living room. You take a deep breath; the first you've managed tonight. His back is now held to you so you can’t see his face. “Or perhaps ever.”
You stumble off the couch to catch him before he disappears from sight. “Ever?”
“You’re moving out.” He continues on into his room. End of discussion.
You chase after him, your hand quickly catching his door before it can be sealed shut.
“I already told you I’m not!” You argue. “And Steve said if we are away from each other for more than a few days, you could die!”
He stops his retreat and turns to look at you. His expression is full of surprise. “So could you.”
You take a deep breath. “That’s what I said. We both could die.”
But the way Eddie stares at you now, it’s clear you hadn’t said that at all. Not quite. Your words had been selfless. Focused on Eddie’s well-being over your own.
“If I’m your thrall now, you can’t just chase me out,” you continue. “You need me.”
He pulls back, uncaring about the door. “I don’t need you,” he scoffs.
“Well then I need you.”
It isn’t something you wanted to admit, but there it is, out in the open now. You step into his room. Into a place you’d always been forbidden. Eddie stands still in front of you, eyes searching, dashing from concern to anger. From resentment to fear. An amalgamation of emotion.
“I need you,” you repeat. “You saved me. I know that. But you also changed me. You and I need to be a team now. So can we do that? Can we try to be friends?”
“Friends,” he repeats, testing out the word.
You give him a small nod and wait.
“I can’t be your friend,” he finally says. But then he steps into you. His hand falls to your neck, fingers pushing under your turtle neck, caressing the bandage concealing your wound. You shiver, arching, mouth opening. “But I will be your master. And I will protect you from Henry. From everyone.”