Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Roommate Wanted

I work nights so you’ll hardly ever see me. The apartment is fully furnished, just could use a little more life. 

$400/month in Pacific Hills, utilities included. 

Inquiries can be made at xxx-xxx-xxxx

———

You hadn’t even been aware the Help Wanted section still existed. Surely only little old ladies and creeps still posted their Help Wanted ads to a newspaper instead of Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. This has to be some kind of joke. Rent like this is impossible to find. And the location? Forget about it. 

You only grabbed the newspaper as a distraction. You needed something in your hands to stop from fidgeting with your phone. Instead of doom scrolling onto an inevitable eviction email. Three payments past due, you know it’s coming. There had been a stack of newspapers waiting untouched in front of the coffee shop and with no other alternative, you seized the opportunity while you drowned your sorrows in an extra large pumpkin cold brew. The caffeine clarity would hit soon enough, and by then, maybe you’d have a plan for escape. A new apartment. A new job. But right now, you are currently sitting jobless and nearly homeless, staring at an advertisement for a roommate that seems to good to be true.

“They are probably a serial killer.”

You pull the newspaper away from the prying eyes of your best friend and resident barista, Luna. 

“They are probably just desperate,” you mutter. 

“Yea but posting in a newspaper?” She gives you a long look. “Please tell me you aren’t so desperate that you are thinking of actually responding to this creep?”

You stare down at the ad one more time. “Rent everywhere else is completely unaffordable,” you tell her. “Until I can get myself out of this debt hole, this could be good for me. This could actually help me save a little to get myself back on my feet.”

“At the cost of being murdered and chopped up into little pieces?” 

Luna sits down beside you at the table. The coffee shop is slow tonight, but her manager still eyes her suspiciously from behind the counter. Luna doesn’t seem to care however. 

“Jules and I have a perfectly available couch you can crash on for as long as you need,” she says as she reaches for your hand. “No potential serial killers included.”

“I don’t know, Luna… Jules always gave off ‘might be into murder’ vibes,” I tease with a playful smile. But her expression remains serious. “I’ll be fine. I’m just going to text them and see if I can scope out the situation. What’s the worst that could happen?”

The worst is that they don’t even respond. The text message sits unread for a few days before you cave in and try calling them instead. You must truly be desperate to actually brave a phone conversation with them that isn’t masked behind a digital screen. The last person you called on the phone was your mother, and that conversation hadn’t exactly ended on the best of terms. 

The phone rings a few times before a groggy man finally answers. 

“H-Hello?”

For a moment, you debate hanging up right away. There hadn’t been a name listed on the ad. It was naive to think the poster might have been a woman. A little old lady even. Naive to think it wasn’t just a creepy man looking for some desperate youth to take advantage of. You aren’t so old fashioned that you can’t be roommates with a guy but it is enough to make you reconsider this whole arrangement. Didn’t they teach you against this exact behavior in your self defense classes? 

“Hi… um, I’m calling about your apartment ad,” you say anyway. “Is this a bad time?”

“Yes,” the man responds with a groan. “What time is it?”

You lift your phone away from your face to take a look. “Five fifteen,” you read. You figured it was a reasonable enough time, but maybe you caught him in the middle of an early dinner. 

“Can you call back later?” He nearly growls. 

“Uh, yea. Sorry.” You hang up quickly, feeling embarrassed for even bothering. You decide right then and there that you won’t try again. But that’s when the official eviction notice slips into your inbox. You have a week to move out, barely enough time to even pack up what little belongings you have. You could always take Luna up on her couch surfing offering but you had too much pride for that. You promised yourself it would never come to that. Between your odd end jobs, and debt collectors waiting like vultures for you to slip up, you need this apartment. Even if it’s too good to be true. So at nine o’clock, you try calling again.

This time, he sounds a bit more receptive when he answers. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me. Same girl that called before,” you say, feeling strangely nervous. Phone calls have never exactly been your forte. 

“Right! Yes,” he replies and gives an exhaustive sigh. “I’m sorry if I came off like such an ass before. I just woke up.”

“At five?” 

He laughs lightly. “You read the ad, right?”

You remember now. He works nights. 

“Oh gosh, I’m sorry,” you sputter. “If you’re working right now I can-"

“No. This is perfect,” he says gently. “So, you are actually interested in moving in?”

“Kind of hard not to be,” you reply honestly. “That rent is unbelievable. Four hundred? You sure that wasn’t a mistake?”

“No mistake,” he reassures. “Though you are the only person who has called asking about it.”

“Probably because you posted it to a newspaper,” you mutter.

“Is that… bad?” He asks. And the genuine hesitation in his voice makes your guards come down just slightly. 

“You would have been better off on Craigslist but I get it. Lots of creeps on the internet too.”

He is quiet for a moment. As if he were processing what you’ve said. 

“Would you want to come take a look at the place first?” He finally asks. 

“Sure. Yes,” you answer too quickly. “I mean, that would probably be for the best, you know if we are going to be living-“

“You okay?” He asks, cutting you off. “You seem nervous.”

“Phone calls,” you laugh, trying to brush it off. “I tried texting you first.”

“Texting?” He says, his tone wrought with confusion. “Oh! That. Uh, no. This is a landline.”

“A… landline?” You ask in disbelief. Your parents had a landline. But that was nearly a decade ago. 

“I’m a little… old fashioned,” he answers. “But I can see about getting a better phone if you move in. Would make communicating easier.”

“Right.” You take a deep breath. “Yes, I’d like to see the place. Tomorrow?”

“Are you available after sunset? With my hours, it would be easier that way.”

You can hear Luna in the back of your mind telling you this is red flag city. 

“Sure. That’s fine,” you agree anyway. You’d just make sure to bring Luna along as backup. And pepper spray. 

“I’m Eddie by the way,” he says. “Eddie Munson.” You tell him your name as well; a delayed introduction. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

You say goodnight and hang up, wondering if you just signed your own death certificate.

———

“You’re what?” Luna snaps the moment you tell her your plans. “You are not seriously going there at night!”

“Correction,” you start. “We are going there. Tonight.”

“Like hell we are,” she bites back. “I’m looking this guy up.” She pulls her laptop closer, typing in his name. 

Jules, her wife, is behind her, sorting dishes out of their dishwasher. “We really don’t mind if you stay with us until you are back on your feet,” she insists. 

“You just got married,” you remind them. “I’m not intruding on your marital bliss. And this place is barely big enough for the two of you as it is.”

Luna leans back away from her laptop. “It was Eddie Munson, right?” She asks.

“Yea.” You look at her screen. The only result is for an obituary. From 1986. 

“Maybe that’s his dad,” Jules offers as she comes around to look. She has a sympathetic look on her face. 

“If it was his dad, that would put this guy in his forties,” Luna comments with a scowl.

"He didn't sound forty," you mutter.

“He has to be here somewhere," Luna goes on. "An Instagram. A Twitter. Something.” She continues scrolling, looking for any scrap of evidence that your potential roommate exists on the internet, and therefore the real world. 

“He doesn’t even own a cell phone,” you remind her. “Why would he have social media?”

“Because everyone does!” She snaps. She closes her laptop in frustration. “You really still want to go there tonight?”

“It’s four hundred a month,” you remind her. “And if you come with me, you can tell me if the vibes are off or something.” Luna always did have a way of knowing people’s business within five seconds of meeting them. She calls it her ‘no bullshit intuition’. 

Despite her reservations, a few hours later, at sundown, you are sitting in the passenger seat of Luna’s car as you drive to Eddie’s apartment. This part of town is a relic of old Hollywood glamor. It was big in the 80s. Up and coming actors and actresses rented out space in the area due to its proximity to local casting calls. Rock stars had summer homes up in the hills. Now it is a bit more suburbia but the charm still remains. 

“Four hundred a month,” Luna repeats as she scopes out the lush landscapes of the gated homes you pass. “You sure he didn’t mean four thousand and miss a zero in the ad?”

“He confirmed it on the phone,” you tell her, though you can’t help feeling skeptical yourself. You check the address you’d written down one more time. “Should be right up here.”

Ahead of you is a line of cars blocking the road. Expensive cars. People skip up the sidewalk on either side of the road to approach a house at the end of the block, just past Eddie’s apartment building. 

“Whoa. Must be some party,” Luna comments as she leans forward against the wheel to get a better look. Everyone is dressed for a night of excess, glitter and leather wrapped around model-type bodies. “Does a celebrity live up here?”

“Has to be,” you mutter. “Charlie Sheen or some Hugh Hefner type.” You eye a girl walking by in just heels and some type of lingerie ensemble. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

Luna looks over at you. “We are already here,” she says, glaring. “You were the one that was so set on doing this. So we are doing this. I’ll circle the block one more time to find someplace to park. You head in.” She looks out the passenger window. “That should be his building there. Just keep your mace at the ready.”

You give your purse a protective pat. “Already got it.”

You step out of the car and approach the apartment. It’s a small building, only about four floors, and Eddie said he lived in the “penthouse”. You can practically feel the blare of the bass coming from the party down the road. If this is a regular occurrence, you might become a night owl like Eddie as well. It would explain why he chose to work nights instead of days like a normal person. You head inside the building and at the top floor, you are met by a single door. 400. Eddie’s apartment. Shit, did the 400 mean his number and not the cost? 

You knock twice and step back, placing your hand inside your purse in case you need to act fast. But when the door opens a moment later, your hand flutters away.

The man standing in front of you looks like he stepped right out of an 80s rock music video. His jeans are loose, hanging at his hips. His shirt is torn in a few places, revealing patches of pale skin beneath and ripples of toned muscle. Your gaze moves up, back to his face, where two dark eyes stare back at you beneath a smear of eye shadow and a curtain of long curly brown hair. His eyebrow is pierced, so are his ears, his nose, and his upper lip, now curling into an expectant smile. You realize you’ve probably been staring an uncomfortable amount of time and look away. Your cheeks feel warm. 

“Right on time,” he says, unbothered by your perusal as he pulls away from the doorframe, making room for you to step inside.

You hesitate. “Eddie, I presume?”

His eyes sparkle. “The one and only. Glad you found the place okay.”

“Was a little difficult with the party happening down the street,” you remark. “Is that a common occurrence?”

Eddie winces slightly. “Unfortunately,” he replies. “But only on the weekends. I promise.” He steps back again and motions with his arm inside the apartment. “Please, come in.”

You reach back into your purse as you step into his home. It’s colder inside than it is outside. You shiver as you pull your sweater a bit more tightly around yourself. But otherwise, the space has a strangely warm feel. From the dark painted walls, to the low amber light from the lamps littering the living room, to the assortment of plush furniture scattered around, it feels… comfortable. You even eye a record player in the corner, beside a box stuffed full of old music. 

“Where should we start the tour?“ Eddie asks, his tone a bit more cheerful than you are expecting. He clasps his hands together and you can’t help noticing the assortment of rings studding each one of his fingers. 

“You sure know how to accessorize,” you say. 

“I’m a fan of silver,” he comments as he follows your gaze to his hands. He flutters his fingers a bit, letting the silver jewelry catch the low light of the room. You even notice a few tattoos on his fingers. Faded symbols. 

You shift your gaze away from him, feeling yourself drawn to him like a moth to a flame. It’s just because he isn’t dressed like every other cookie cutter hipster you typically run into in this part of town. At least that’s what you tell yourself. “Do you smoke?”

“Shit,” he mutters. “Does it smell in here? I don’t even really notice it anymore.”

“It does a little,” you admit. You smelled the richness of the tobacco the moment you stepped inside. But somehow it gives the apartment the feeling of a museum; the fumes wafting up from a different era. 

“I won’t smoke in the apartment when you move in,” he says. “There is a balcony I can use instead. Scouts honor.” He put his hand over his heart in a dramatic show of his promise. 

“When I move in,” you repeat, rising an eyebrow slightly. “That’s pretty presumptuous.”

He laughs lightly. “Right. Tour first.”

He moves around you, leading you into the kitchen. “I don’t use it much,” he says. And you can tell by the spotless nature of the appliances. As if they are brand new. Except they, like much else in the apartment, look like artifacts from another time. Antique. 

He moves down the hall. “My room is here to the right. And this one would be yours.” He opens the left door and urges you inside. The room is quite spacious, a queen size bed set in the center, a large closet to the left, and a full, floor to ceiling window covered in sheer curtains to the right. You can see the moonlight streaming in through the see-through fabric. The room itself is almost as big as your last two apartments combined. 

“Wow,” you can’t help saying as you step inside. You run your hand along the velvety comforter laid across the bed. You could see yourself actually getting a good night’s sleep here. As long as the neighbors can keep their partying to a minimum. Through the walls, you can still hear the music bumping and the lights flashing from the mansion down the street. 

“There’s only one bathroom though, unfortunately,” Eddie says as he remains, standing in the doorway. 

“That won’t be a problem,” you tell him. “I shared a bathroom with four girls back in college.”

You turn to look at him and find him smiling at you, arms crossed over his chest. 

“But you've never shared one with a man before?” He questions. 

“No.” You swallow thickly. 

He smiles. “Shouldn’t be an issue anyway. Like I said, I’m never here at night so we can be on a rotation with it.” You must be staring at him strangely because he quickly adds, “With showers.”

“Right. Yea. That would work.” You look past him to his bedroom across the hall. “Do you have to use black out curtains or something?”

His eyes darken just slightly. Or perhaps that’s just your imagination. “Something like that.” 

You step around him, walking to his door. Your hand goes to the doorknob. “Can I see-“

His hand is on your wrist before you even hear him move. His grip is tight, nearly painful as he constructs your movement. Realizing he may be hurting you, he unlatches his grip instantly. 

“My room is off limits,” he says. His tone is calm, despite the panic of his former grip. Almost apologetic. “That is my one stipulation if you do move in. You have free access to everything else in the apartment. This place would be yours as much as it is mine. But my room is the one place you cannot go. No matter the circumstances.”

“Even if the building is on fire?” You joke. But when you meet his gaze, you can see that he is quite serious. “Okay. Don’t go into your room. Got it.” 

You can feel the distinctive rhythm of your heart pushing against your wrist where he’d once held onto you. You massage it mindlessly. 

His shoulders relax. “I’m just kind of private that way,” he tries to explain. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

You nod but can’t help the nervous blabber leaving your lips. “You sure you’re not some kind of serial killer?” you ask. “And there aren’t bodies in there?” You lean in a bit, trying to see if you can smell anything off. Like bleach. But all you can smell is the stale scent of his tobacco once again. “I mean I have nice skin but I’d rather keep it on my body, ya know?”

Eddie is quiet for a moment. He leans back against the wall, his gaze low. 

“You are safe here,” he says, his voice low but almost wounded by the assertion, even if it had partially been a joke. “I don’t want you to ever feel you might be at risk living here with me." You stare across at him. The distance between you now feels much larger than the width of the narrow hallway. He shoves his hands into his pockets and gives out a long sigh. “I know this might not be ideal for you.”

“I’m not exactly in a position to be selective,” you say under your breath. You shiver against the cold air of the apartment and cling to your sweater as your only safety net against the chill. “Oh that’s right.” You reach into your purse. “I brought a list of references in case you want to make sure I’m not a serial killer.”

He chuckles softly. “Wasn’t really concerned but I appreciate it.”

Your hand slips over the piece of paper, the edge slices through your finger. A paper cut. You hiss and immediately plop your finger into your mouth to clean off the small droplet of blood. 

“Are you alright?” He asks as he steps toward you. “Did you-“

His nostrils flare as he nearly stumbles back into the adjacent wall.

“Was just a paper cut,” you start to say before your eyes meet his across the hall. Panic seizes your body. You can’t move. His gaze is now impossibly dark; the whites of his eyes nearly gone. Two black holes stare back at you as his chest heaves with each struggled inhale. Like a predator lurking in the shadows, there is only a small sheen shimmering off his eyes as he looks at you from the forced distance. 

But before you can say anything more, a pounding at the front door averts your attention. You reach for your phone and see three missed calls and a string of unanswered text messages from Luna. 

“Shit. That’s probably my friend.” You say as you race back to the front door. “She’s a bit protective.”

You swing open the door and find Luna armed with her own mace, aimed right at your face.

“Jesus, Luna!”

“Fuck!” She exclaims, lowering her arm, and her self defense weapon along with it. “Why didn’t you answer your damn phone?” She shoots a glare over your shoulder at Eddie, who is still lingering in the hallway. “You don’t look dead.”

“Luna,” you growl. 

“Glad my troubled youth didn’t wreck my appearance too terribly,” Eddie comments lightheartedly. You turn to look at him and find that he has returned to normal. His hands are in his pocket casually. Though his jaw still seems tense as if he were grinding his teeth. Perhaps you’d only imagined his strange reaction to your cut. 

“Troubled youth,” Luna scoffs. “How old are you anyway? Like thirty?”

“I stopped counting awhile ago,” he says. He turns his gaze back onto you, his irises brightening back to a deep chocolate hue rather than their former black. “So what do you say? Want to move in?”

You are out of options. But your initial meeting with Eddie hasn’t exactly been free of red flags. His room off limits, his off hours, his reaction to your cut. You should listen to the part of your brain telling you to run. But there is another part that can’t help but want to get under his skin. To see why he had reacted like a cornered dog at the first sight of blood. 

"It is four hundred, right?" you ask quietly.

He nods and flashes you a smile. And beneath his lips, you swear you see the peaks of his canines, a bit sharper than your own. 

“I’ll move in.”

Chapter Text

You move in a few days later. And per Eddie’s request, you do so during the day, and quietly, as you’ve learned he is a bit of a light sleeper. That’s fine though. You are normally pretty quiet. And once you find a new job, you won’t be home much during the day anyway. You’ve already put in a few applications at some local tech companies, but the job market for development has been pretty dry these days. More lay offs than employment. All you can do is put yourself out there and hope for the best. And maybe put in an application to join Luna as a barista in the meantime if all else fails. 

As you move your belongings into the apartment, setting items into drawers, hanging up clothes, you can’t help your gaze from wandering to Eddie’s closed door across the hall. Is he really sleep in there? Or is he sitting inside quietly, listening to you move around the apartment, waiting for an opportunity to strike?

You’ve seen enough crime documentaries to know this is all a bad decision. But maybe society has made you too fearful. Maybe Eddie truly is just a harmless guy in need of a roommate. It doesn’t seem fair to judge him so prematurely. But then again, why does he actually need a roommate anyway? Clearly the total rent of this place has to be far past the share you are paying for it, meaning Eddie could very well afford it on his own. So if he wasn’t looking for a roommate for financial paybacks, what did he need one for exactly?

You set the last of your belongings down on the floor of your new bedroom and nearly collapse onto the bed. Your new bed. Who knew moving could be so exhausting? Luna and Jules had offered to come and help but you didn’t want to inconvenience them. And Luna, even if she’d claimed Eddie hadn’t set off any alarm bells from that first meeting, still seemed hesitant to even step foot into the apartment. Though she promised to come by at some point to sage the place properly, because, according to her, it “gave off the vibes of a haunted house.” You hope her intuition is off this time, because you never agreed to be roommates with ghosts alongside Eddie. Did the ghosts pay their fair share of rent as well? 

You curl up against the velvety comforter and immediately feel the draw of sleep pulling you under. The sun is golden just outside your new, expansive window. It would be sundown soon. Eddie would be awake. But it couldn’t hurt to take a small nap first before completing any new roommate pleasantries. You deserve your rest too.

When you wake up, it is completely dark outside. The moon is the only light source available, aside from a stray street lamp flickering slightly below. You shift, feeling more rested and refreshed than you have in months. You stretch and step out of bed. That’s when you notice the vase of fresh flowers set on your dresser. The dresser had already been part of Eddie’s apartment when you moved in. Part of the antique looking furniture that dated the place. It is a bit old fashioned for your taste but you don’t exactly have the funds to run down to IKEA for something else. 

To your surprise, the vase contains a dozen lilies. An odd choice of flower if it is meant to be a move-in gift. They are more traditionally funeral flowers. Flowers for the dead, not the living. Though you suppose roses might have been too romantic of a gesture and lilies may have been all he could find. 

You step out into the kitchen and find a note waiting for you on the kitchen counter, along with two twenty dollar bills. Both are from Eddie. 

I didn’t want to wake you but I’ve left for the night. I won’t be home until nearly sunrise. I left some cash for you as well. Order yourself some pizza or anything you’d like. There are also some beers in the fridge. 

Welcome home

- Eddie 

Welcome home, you read again. This place doesn’t quite feel like home yet, but perhaps with time it might. 

An hour later, you are curled up on Eddie’s plush couch, feasting on double cheese and pepperoni while sipping from a cold, frothy can of hops. You’ll give Eddie one thing; he has good taste in beer. 

You turn on the television but only find it’s been connected up for cable. It’s a pretty old model, so no hope of getting Netflix or Hulu synced up. You pull out your laptop when you realize you never got the wifi instructions from Eddie. But judging by the options available, only the neighbors below you seem to have anything up and running for you to connect to. You pull out your cell phone to use as a hotspot for a little bit. At least until you can get properly set up. 

Eddie doesn’t have a cell phone. No social media. And no working wifi in his apartment. Maybe Eddie Munson did die in 1986, and you’ve agreed to move in with his ghost. Maybe had been right all along. 

The thought makes you shiver. That, and because of the frigid temperature of the apartment itself. You haven’t managed to locate a thermostat to adjust it at all. Best guess is that it’s located in Eddie’s bedroom. You’ll have to get used to dressing in warm sweaters and long pants for the foreseeable future.

Eddie hadn’t seemed all too bothered by the cold when you met him. Another point in favor of your ghost theory. But there was also the way he reacted to your paper cut. Is he just squeamish around blood? And what did he do for a living anyway that required such nocturnal hours? He could be in security work of some kind. Or judging by his attire, maybe he was in a rock band that played gigs out at the local clubs til the early hours of the morning. Might be interesting to see if he stumbles in come sunrise with a groupie or two. Maybe you should buy earplugs. 

The only thing you know for certain about your roommate is that you know nothing about him at all. 

You spend the rest of the evening curiously fishing through his collection of records. All of them are in pristine condition. Originals. And every last one of them is from an 80s rock band. Dio. Metallica. Megadeth. The guy definitely has a very clear aesthetic.

Bored, you start to retreat back to your room and decide it would be best to leave a note for him in return. You’ll have to get used to communicating with him this way until he can buy a proper cellphone. You take his note and turn it over to write on the back.

I’m all moved in! Hopefully I wasn’t too loud while you were sleeping. I know you need your beauty sleep :P I like your record collection. Hope you don’t mind that I peaked though it a bit. What’s your favorite band?

Oh, by the way, I don’t see an available wifi showing up. Could you give me the password?

And thank you for the flowers. They are beautiful even if your choice was a little morbid. 

You are still learning about this man; this stranger you’ve decided to live with. If you will be living together for more than a few months, you’ll both have to learn to open up to one another just a little bit. At least enough to be cordial. You set the note on the kitchen counter where you’d found the cash and return to your bedroom. Morning would come quickly, and you want to get an early start at job hunting. You’d both need your beauty sleep tonight. 

———

You are sound asleep when the door to your bedroom opens with a flourish, slamming against the wall. You sit up with a gasp, almost instinctively pulling your bedsheets up to your chin. You blink awake and find Eddie standing in the thrown open doorway. He stalks into the room but he isn’t looking at you. He is looking at the vase of flowers still set atop the dresser like it’s a bomb about to detonate. 

“That son of a bitch,” he nearly growls as he snatches the vase off the old furniture. He finally turns to look at you, his gaze dripping with venom. “These were here all day?”

You shake your head. “I found them when I woke up from my nap earlier,” you explain.

He walks out of the room, taking the flowers with him. He returns seconds later, the flowers gone from sight. 

“Are you alright?” He asks and for the first time since he barged into your room, you notice it isn’t anger you first saw in his gaze, but concern. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“Why would I be hurt?” You ask as you cling to your bedsheets and back up until your skull hits the headboard. Your hands are shaking against your chest. 

Eddie is silent in response. His own hands are wet and there are bits of pedals clinging to his skin as if he’d torn the flowers apart. 

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you.” He backs away, out into the hallway. “I shouldn’t have barged in like that. You deserve your space. You shouldn’t be worried I’m going to do that all the time.”

“Will you be…doing that all the time?” You ask. Your voice is shaking too. 

“I promise I won’t make a habit out of it,” he replies, the corner of his lips quirking up just a bit. 

You pull your bedsheets back and step out of bed. “You didn’t leave the flowers?” You ask as you approach him cautiously. 

He stiffens and wipes his hand clean along his pant leg. 

“That’s not-“ Eddie’s eyes dip down, settling at your chest. His eyes flare wide as his mouth curls into a playful smirk. “Do you always sleep in those?”

You look down at yourself. Because the apartment is so cold, you pulled out your warmest pair of fuzzy pajamas. They just so happen to be a Christmas set you received in a White Elephant gift exchange you’d done with your family a few years prior. A pair covered in crudely drawn dancing elves. Asses bare to the world.

“It’s the warmest set I have,” you argue, crossing your arms over your chest. “You keep this place as frigid as a morgue.”

“Is it really that cold?” He asks. “I don’t notice it.”

“Can’t smell his own cigarettes,” you recall. “Can’t even feel the nearly arctic temperature of his apartment. Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor, Eddie Munson?”

He scowls as he stares down at you. This close up, it’s hard to ignore how much taller he is than you are. You practically drown in the cast of his shadow as he looms over you.

“What do you sleep in?” You challenge with a playful glare.

He smirks. “Usually nothing.”

You take a step back, feeling your blood rush to damning places. You clear your throat awkwardly in the silence that follows. 

“I’ll work on getting the temperature to a place that’s more comfortable for you,” he says in a low voice. “Anything else?”

You swallow thickly as you stare up at him. 

“What do you do for work anyway?” You dare to ask.

He smirks at that, the whites of his teeth catching the moonlight. “Confidential.”

You cross your arms defiantly over your chest. “Is there anything about you I’m allowed to know? Other than your preferred sleep attire…”

He is quiet for a moment. And you wonder if that is your answer; his silence. 

“Dio,” he finally says as his expression softens. 

You blink up at him, trying to register what he’s said. 

“My favorite band,” he clarifies with a smile. “It’s Dio.”

You stare at him, dumbfounded that he has allowed even a small sliver of honesty to break through his tough exterior. It’s barely anything, really. But you are glad to know it. 

“I like them too,” you tell him. “My dad was a big fan growing up.”

He winces at that and takes a step back. You aren’t entirely sure what would cause that kind of reaction. He just said they are his favorite.

“Maybe if I’m up late enough, we can listen to one of their records together,” you offer; extending a metaphorical olive branch.

He eases just a bit. “I’d like that.” 

His gaze meets yours and something inside of you draws you to him, tells you to move closer. You want to be caught in his gravitational pull. You want him to make you dizzy. But he is the one that breaks the spell, moving his gaze away, and stepping past the threshold of the doorway that separates you. 

“I’m sorry I woke you,” he says dismissively as he moves back out into the hallway. “I’ll let you get back to sleep. And I’ll figure out the… wifi situation tomorrow.”

“And the flowers?” You ask, needing answers even if he isn’t willing to give them.

“I asked a friend to deliver a gift for you while I was out,” he says quietly, his gaze held somewhere behind you, distant. “I didn’t think they’d come into the apartment to do it.”

You aren’t sure if you believe him, especially judging by how concerned he’d been; concerned enough to barge into your room in the middle of the night. But you are too tired to argue. 

You watch as he turns back to his own room. The one you are forbidden from entering. But he pauses, his hand around the door knob. 

“What are your favorite flowers?” He asks, looking at you over his shoulder. “I took your lilies away. The least I can do is get you a replacement bouquet of something you actually like.” His face falters. “Unless you actually do like lilies. In which case I really fucked up.” He lets out a struggled laugh. 

You are surprised by his question but answer nonetheless. “Sunflowers,” you tell him. “Sunflowers are my favorite.”

“Sunflowers it is then.” He smiles, turns back to his room, and disappears into its darkness. 

———

“Nice to see you haven’t been murdered yet,” Luna says as way of greeting, her face contorted into a scowl as you step into the coffee shop the next day. You need a break away from the apartment, and a place with working wifi to finish up your portfolio. Coffee wouldn’t hurt either. 

“Good afternoon to you too,” you grumble in response. 

Before you can even order, she slides a latte across the counter to you. 

“Consider this my cease fire,” Luna says as she nods to the hot drink. 

“Your cease fire?” You lift the porcelain mug to your lips, taking a large gulp of the caffeinated comfort. The spicy burn of cinnamon and strong coffee flood your taste buds. 

“This is your life,” she says with a sigh. “It’s not my place to dictate what you do, or who you move in with. All I can do is offer my advice. Even if I don’t exactly agree with your choices…”

“Did Jules tell you to say that?” You ask, eying her over your free cup of coffee. Jules is a therapist, one you’ve been tempted to see a time or two if not for the blatant conflict of interest. 

“Maybe,” Luna grumbles. 

“You’re my best friend,” you remind her. “Your opinion still matters. Especially if you are getting weird vibes from the stranger l’ve chosen as my roommate. But you also said he seemed… normal when you saw him.”

“Normal, yea.” She agrees, reluctantly. “Normal as in I’m not getting Jeffrey Dahmer vibes from the guy. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t some other kind of creep. He could be watching you while you sleep. Or worse, filming you.”

You wince as you recall how Eddie had barged into your room in the middle of the night. Had that really just been because he was upset over some flowers? You try not to think about the alternative. But remind yourself to lock the door from now on. 

“Something’s off about him,” Luna says quietly. “I just haven't decided what it is yet.”

A customer approaches the counter behind you so you step aside, taking your coffee to an empty table in the back so Luna can focus on serving them instead of berating you. 

Eddie had left you a note that morning. It was waiting for you right alongside a bouquet of fresh sunflowers in a brand new vase. Where he managed to find sunflowers in the middle of the night is a mystery. 

I am working on getting the wifi set up as well as getting a portable phone. Can you write your number down so I have it? 

- Eddie

Short and to the point. With no added niceties. Not that you really expect them at this point. But you did leave your number for him nonetheless and thanked him for the sunflowers.

He also called a cell phone or “portable phone”. He may not be a serial killer but Luna is right. There is something off about him. 

Luna walks over a few minutes later, cleaning the tables in front of you.

“Why don’t you come over sometime soon?” You offer as she sweeps a cloth across the tabletop. “We can watch a movie with Jules or something. He won’t be home at night so maybe you can work your magic around the apartment and see if you sense anything.” You are partially teasing, but you also wouldn’t mind the company. And the confirmation. 

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a walking creep-o-meter.”

“Could have fooled me,” you say with a smile. “You knew immediately that Eric was going to be a total scum bag within five minutes of meeting him.”

“That’s because your ex wore polos. Like all the time.” She straightens, hands on her hips. “I’ll think about it,” she decides. 

You pull your phone out as she gets back to work behind the counter. You hear the steam coming from the espresso machine as customers start lining up for their afternoon fix. You need to check the status on some of your job applications. 

You are about to open your email when your phone buzzes in hand. It’s an unknown number and you immediately suspect it’s Eddie. Until you open the message. 

“I see he’s found himself a live-in blood bank.”

You stare down at the message. A cold sweat prickles the back of your neck as instinctual fear creeps in. The smart thing to do would be to block the number. But curiosity wins out. Like a cat made into road kill over a stray rat. 

“Who is this?” You send back.

“Aw, he hasn’t introduced me yet?” The mysterious number replies. And shortly after adds, “Did you not like my flowers?”

The lilies. 

“You left them,” you reply. Less of a question and more a statement of what he is asserting.

“I thought they were quite beautiful. As you are. Eddie didn’t seem to feel the same.”

Despite their flattery, you can’t help feeling unnerved. “Who are you? How did you get my number?”

Eddie claimed a friend left the lilies, but his response to seeing them made it clear whoever left them was anything but a ‘friend’. And that it hadn’t been something he arranged himself. He lied. But why?

“You left it for him,” the stranger replies. You left your number in your note, on the counter inside the apartment. Even more evidence of someone having broken into the apartment without you or Eddie knowing. “I just couldn’t help myself. Not when you are such a delicious little morsel just waiting to be claimed.”

Claimed. Who the hell is this guy? 

You start typing out something a bit more assertive when the stranger sends another message. 

“Perhaps he will feel like sharing his thrall this time. Would make things much easier in the long run.”

You immediately block his number, knowing you should have done it earlier. Staring down at your latte, you can see the dark specs of the cinnamon floating to the top, swirling against the soft push of your breath as your heart races with anxiety. 

“Everything okay over here?” Luna asks, her voice set perfectly for customer service. But the moment she sees your expression, her mask falters. “Shit. What happened?”

“Just got a weird text,” you dismiss as you shove your phone away. “You are still hiring for that open barista position, right?”

You may need to secure funds faster than you expected. Especially if you may need to start looking for another place to live. One that isn’t at risk of constant break-ins by a burglar that leaves lilies as their calling card. 

———

The sky is a warm amber by the time you start heading back to the apartment. You wonder if Eddie will be awake by the time you return. Would you see him tonight? Or would you two perpetually live on opposite sides of daylight, never crossing paths? As if right on cue, your phone buzzes. But this time, it actually is Eddie. Or so you assume from the tone of the text.

“Testing. Testing. Do you read me? Over.”

You can’t help smiling as you stare down at his message. You may have just been on the verge of moving out, but there is something about Eddie that draws you right back in. Right back into his spider’s web. 

“This isn’t a two way radio, Eddie,” you respond. “You don’t have to say over. And hi.”

“Hi,” he replies quickly. And a few seconds later, “Over ;)”

You shake your head. “Welcome to the 21st century,” you text back, before checking the time. It’s only five. You stare at the horizon up ahead. The sun is still holding firm, though it has started its slow descent to signal nightfall. “Didn’t think you’d be awake at this hour.” 

“Couldn’t sleep,” he confesses. “Plus I had a friend order this phone for me. Needed to sign for it.”

A friend. Could this be the same ‘friend’ who texted you earlier? 

“Is this the same friend who left the lilies?” You prod nervously.

He doesn’t respond. 

With your heat racing, you look up at the crosswalk. The walking man is still cast in a bright red, barring at you from across the street. As you stare at it, you are reminded of the droplet of blood that collected on your finger, and the way Eddie had reacted to it.

Perhaps he will feel like sharing his thrall this time. 

Thrall. The word sits just at the edge of your recognition. You’ve heard it before but you can’t place its meaning exactly.

You cross the street and look back at your phone. Another text awaits from Eddie.

“Are you on your way home?”

Home. The word feels strange. And he ignored your question.  

“Yes,” you reply. Your gaze falls to the pavement. Your shadow scatters across the road. A contorted monstrosity of your silhouette. Your phone buzzes again. 

“Be careful. Pay attention to your surroundings.”

It’s as if he can see you, see the way your gaze has drifted to the soles of your feet to avoid eye contact with fellow pedestrians returning home. But still, you feel resentment bubble up, restricting your throat. Who does he think he is? He doesn’t even know you. Not really. And he had been the one who barged into your room in the middle of the night, imposing himself as the most immediate risk to your security at the moment. A risk that slept right across the hall. Who is he to tell you to be more observant?

“I’m not naive,” you text back as you lift your gaze from the sidewalk. You tighten your hold on your purse. Your palms suddenly feel slick with sweat. 

“I know. Just get home safe.”

You don’t manage to text him again. Instead, you change directions and head straight to the library.

As you step inside, you find a showcase of books for Fall; cute children’s books about talking pumpkins, horror novels to keep you up at night, tales of romance between witches and werewolves. But more importantly, there is also a section of novels covering the exact subject you are looking for. 

Vampires

You pick up a book; an illustrated version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It doesn’t take you long to find it. There within the contents of the bold strokes of red splattered across the page is the word you are looking for. Thrall.

Chapter Text

Since blocking that number, you don’t hear anything else from the stranger. No more messages. No more lilies. You don’t tell anyone about it either. Telling Luna would have led to a full on amateur investigation on her part. Luna would stop at nothing to track the creep down and give him a piece of her mind, with fists or with an official restraining order. But you don’t want to insight her to do something like that, especially when you know so little of what this guy truly intended in messaging you. Maybe all he wanted to do was scare you. You won't give him that sort of satisfaction. 

You don’t tell Eddie either, not yet anyway. You hardy even know Eddie, and from what you do know of him, he may react even worse than Luna might. When something hadn’t gone his way, he barged into your room just to prove his suspicions. That alone had been very telling of his type of personality. 

Even if you wanted to tell him, you can't. In all your time living with him, nearly a week, you haven’t seen much of him at all. Your concerns of a would-be stalker are best addressed in person, rather than through a note or a text, especially when Eddie can barely use his phone as it is. But you never get that opportunity. So for now, you are forced to handle your fears of the situation alone. To stew quietly in your paranoia. 

If you didn’t know any better, you’d suspect Eddie didn’t even sleep in the apartment at all, that he merely paid his half of the rent to keep the lights on. But there is evidence of his existence all around the communal spaces. Despite now having a cell phone, he still insists on leaving you notes every day. Hello and goodbye. The shower is also wet every morning, meaning he must be using it. But the kitchen is still suspiciously spotless. The fridge is empty aside from what you have chosen to buy and stock inside of it; random condiments and the beer you’ve nearly depleted already. 

Every day you fight against the urge to barge into his room, just as he had done to you that first night, just to see what he could be hiding inside. But his room is “off limits” and locked (confirmed when your curiosity got the better of you one day). It is a habit you’ve picked up on as well, locking your bedroom every night before going to sleep. 

Eddie takes on the perfect role of an illusive roommate. Which wouldn’t be a problem. In fact, it should be preferable; to have such a cheap apartment seemingly all to yourself. But you want to know him. You don’t want to be strangers. You don’t want him to be a phantom presence within the apartment; never even seen or heard. You had hoped you could be friends by the end of this. That is if your suspicions about him aren’t correct. 

Your suspicions that Eddie isn’t exactly human. 

It is an insane theory, one you can’t possibly prove. But you’ve spent hours reading through the library’s entire collection of vampiric lore; an obsession triggered by a strange text from an even stranger person. Everything you know right now is purely inconsequential, and requires the vast suspension of your disbelief to even come close to being plausible. Were you really juggling the possibility that your roommate could be a vampire? 

Everything you know about Eddie could easily be explained. He’d been spooked by your cut: he is just squeamish with blood. He sleeps during the day and works at night: he has a weird job, that’s all. And there is someone who is sending you cryptic texts: that says more about the stranger sending the messages than it does about Eddie. 

Maybe you need less caffeine and more sleep to rid you of this madness. Besides, you haven’t noticed anything strange in the last week. Perhaps you are just being paranoid after Luna had fed your brain with thoughts of murderers and perverts. 

———

The weekend passes uneventfully. Aside from the neighbors down the street having yet another obnoxious party, all is quiet inside the apartment. And still, there is no sign of Eddie. As if he is avoiding you entirely. Would your stint as roommates continue like this until you eventually decide to move out? Will you be reduced to written notes and wet showers? 

You spend the following Monday shuffling through various interviews. One in particular goes surprisingly well. You leave with a firm handshake and the promise for a follow up. Afterward, you let the day get away from you as you station yourself at the library. In between skimming through a new stack of horror novels, you work on finishing up some last minute touches to your portfolio in preparation of what would hopefully be a second round of interviews. Eddie claimed he set up the wifi in the apartment but it had been spotty at best for the past week. You had to resort to coffee shops and the library to get any work done since then. But you are grateful for the time away from the apartment, if only to clear your head of the ghosts of paranoia clustering your new home. 

Now it is nearly eleven as you finally drudge back upstairs to your penthouse apartment, eager to be rid of your pencil skirt and pantyhose you’d idiotically chosen to wore for the interviews. You already have your heels slipped off by the time you get to the door. As you open it, you catch Eddie walking toward you, his pace urgent, almost panicked.

“Hey,” you greet, surprised by the sight of him. 

He nearly stumbles back when he sees you. Something like relief flashes across his face. He shakes his head and steps back as he catches his hand against the kitchen counter.

“You’re home,” he says in an exasperated voice. 

You set down both your laptop bag and the takeout you’d picked up on your way home onto the counter before taking a can of beer out of the fridge. “Are you just now headed to work?”

He shakes his head and stalks back into the living room. 

“Decided to take the night off for once,” he says quietly. 

You are surprised to hear it, considering it seemed as if you’d caught him on his way out the door. But you decide not to push him on it. 

“Well if you aren’t working, do you want a beer?”

He shakes his head again, his eyes dash around the living room. For the first time, you notice a guitar set against the couch, its case open and tossed into the corner. 

“What about food?” You try. “Are you hungry? I bought Chinese.”

He shakes his head a third time; and you can’t help feeling rejected. “I’ll eat later,” he mutters. 

You nod slowly, taking the bag of takeout in hand as you decide to eat quietly alone in your bedroom instead. You got your hopes up too high, thinking you could hold a conversation with him. Thinking you could get to know him, to put your worries to rest. 

“You can eat out here, you know,” Eddie suddenly calls out after you. “I promise I don’t bite.”

You swallow thickly. If your theory is true, he very much does bite. But you aren’t about to respond that way. Not when you know how insane you’ll sound. 

“Sure. Okay.” You turn back around and step into the living room. You hesitate in front of the couch as Eddie stares at you, his expression hard to decipher. 

“I still owe you an apology,” he says suddenly. “For the way I acted when you first moved in.”

Your eyes dart back to the sunflowers still sitting on the kitchen counter; a bright replacement for the death flowers that had been left like a warning in your bedroom. Though, they are starting to droop now. Starting to die. You should talk to him about that night. You should mention the strange texts. But you are afraid. 

You shake your head at Eddie in dismissal. “You don’t owe me anything.”

He leans forward against his knees, his hands clasped together. He is still wearing all of his rings. They shimmer against his fingers like clad armor.

“I promised that you would feel safe living here with me,” he says quietly. He lifts his gaze to look at you as you approach the edge of the couch. “Do you feel safe?”

An opportunity; a chance to bridge the gap and be honest with each other once and for all. 

“I would feel safer if you were honest with me,” you tell him as you sit down beside him, your food set on the wooden coffee table in front of you. 

He is quiet in response but keeps his gaze on you. His chocolate eyes seem so inviting in the low light of the living room, asking you to pry him open. To find the truth for yourself. Sitting here on the couch together is the closest you’ve ever been to each other. In such close proximity, you can smell the richness of his cigarettes.  But now too, there is something sharper being masked underneath. Something metallic and warm. 

“What do you want to know?” He finally asks as his shoulders tense. 

You open your takeout; lo mein, smothered in sauce. Bits of vegetables peek out from the beige carb heaven. You stab your fork in hungrily. You haven’t eaten all day. You take a quick bite as your stomach growls in answer. You swear Eddie chuckles. 

“For starters, I didn’t know you played guitar,” you note as you gesture to the instrument with your fork. You take another greedy mouthful. 

“I dabble,” he answers with a small smile, but you can tell he is just being modest. While you had hoped the conversation might prompt him to play for you, he doesn’t move to touch the guitar. You feel you’ve missed an opportunity but are too afraid to ask directly. The balance between you feels too delicate. As if at any moment you’ll loose him, and he’ll disappear into the darkness, never to be seen again.

His attention turns toward the window. Your eyes trail over him while his gaze is held away from you. He is wearing a leather jacket and boots. But if he wasn’t on his way to work, perhaps you caught him on his way out for some sort of date instead. The thought oddly twists your stomach. You set your fork down. 

“I played more when I was younger,” he adds quietly.

So he isn’t in a band then, I guess. 

“And your work requires moonlight,” you tease, hoping he might finally be willing to fill in the gaps. But he is quiet in response, leaving you to sigh in defeat. “But you won’t tell me what you do for money,” you start. “And this place….” You look around the apartment. While it lacks luxury in its furnishings, you know having the penthouse floor can’t be cheap. And the location is prime real estate. “Why did you even need a roommate?” You ask him finally. “At the rate you gave me, it has to be barely even enough to cover the monthly rent if I’m actually paying my fair share. Which I know I’m not.” You give him a scolding glare. 

“Would you believe me if I said I was just lonely living here alone?” He replies, his lips curling slightly back into a sad smile.

“No,” you say with a small smile of your own. You crack open your beer with a quick hiss.

He laughs lightly. “Well I was.” He leans back against the couch. “I’ve been on my own for some time. I forgot what it was like to even talk to another person. I needed to remember before I lost sight of myself.”

“But you have friends,” you say, recalling the friend he had mentioned earlier; the one who’d ordered him the phone. You are afraid to ask about the stranger who texted you and what their connection could be; if the truth behind those lilies is much deeper than you’d been told. “You didn’t have to ask a random stranger to move in. From a newspaper ad at that.”

He smirks a bit. “My friend is… Well, him and I are…” He stops himself, as if struggling to find the right word. “We are too alike. Creatures of corruption. I needed companionship from someone who wasn’t in those… same circles.” 

You hang on his words like a forbidden prayer. Creatures of corruption. What did he mean by that?

You shift a bit uncomfortably, focusing your attention on the condensation dripping from the can in your grasp. A droplet hits your knee, seeping into your pantyhose. When you look up, you realize Eddie’s gaze had already been held there. Held to that growing spot of wetness spreading through the sheer fabric. You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallow roughly. He forces his gaze away quickly. 

“We barely even see each other,” you remind him as you shift a bit further away from him on the couch, making the forced distance now painfully obvious. “You don’t even know me. I can’t possibly be making much of a difference just by being here. By just existing in the same apartment as you.”

He keeps his gaze on his hands now, his eyes suddenly distant and glossy. “Seeing your notes have become the highlight of my day,” he speaks softly. He laughs at himself. “Your handwriting is so rough. The way you barely remember to dot your i’s or even cross your t’s. It’s a miracle I can read them at all. And the bathroom always smells like your lavender shampoo and hairspray. It’s a bit nauseating." You try to protest but he goes on. "And I have found a couple of your failed job applications littered around the living room. Do you ever pick up after yourself? And you seem to live primarily off protein bars and Chinese takeout.” He gestures to the half eaten container in-front of you. His smile remains, if not beginning to grow along his lips. Your face, however, heats with embarrassment. 

“Might I remind you that you don’t keep anything in the fridge,” you huff. “For all I know, you live off cheap takeout too.” 

He smirks a bit. “I’m well-fed. But thank you for the concern.” 

Your cheeks heat even further. In only a week, he had dissected so much about you, even while you feel you are no closer to understanding him at all. 

“Do you have any other complaints?” You scoff, crossing your arms defiantly. 

He laughs again. “They aren’t complaints at all!” he insists. “They’re the reasons I love having you here. The apartment already feels less like a tomb in the week you’ve been here than it has in years.”

“Oh.” It’s all you can manage to say. You feel your emotions ebbing from anger and embarrassment into something a bit more damning. Something like affection. So you edge toward the safety of indifference. “I should probably head to bed. It’s been a long day.” You get up off the couch and start to head to your bedroom. “And you looked like you were about to leave anyway.”

“Hey.” Eddie’s hand is around your wrist. His touch is cold against your heated flesh, though his grip is gentle. Insisting but not demanding. “I didn’t mean to offend you with what I said,” he says softly. “This is exactly why I needed a roommate. I’ve forgotten how to talk to people. To women.”

You laugh, the sound coming out a bit sharper than you intend. 

“Actually, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ve ever really mastered the art of talking to women,” he adds with a smile, looking at you through his lashes. 

“You?” You give him a once over. The leather, the tattoos, the piercings. He is every bit the image of the bad boys your mother warned you against in high school. Everything you should have steered clear of instead of agreeing to be his roommate. “I highly doubt that.”

Eddie playfully narrows his gaze, but loosens his grip on your wrist nonetheless. “Don’t let my looks fool you. I am actually a huge nerd, believe it or not.”

“Oh really?” You cross your arms. “Prove it.”

His eyes brighten at the challenge. “See those shelves over there?” He motions to a small setup in the corner of the living room. “It’s full of stuff for D&D.”

“As in Dungeons and Dragons?” You ask. “Okay that hardly convinces me. D&D is kind of trendy right now. That barely makes you a nerd.”

“Trendy?” He gasps and stands. “Since when?”

“Since, I don’t know, Critical Role?”

His eyes narrow in confusion. “Critical what?”

“Eddie. You like D&D but you don’t know what Critical Role is?”

“Is it an internet thing?” He asks slowly. 

“Sort of? It’s on YouTube as far as I know.” You wouldn't know either way. 

He huffs, forcing his fingers across his scalp. “I wish everything wasn’t on the internet these days,” he groans. “Back when I was a teen, you had to be really underground with this shit. Had to find people in person to play with. Had to find everything yourself at comic book stores. And still you'd be a social pariah." 

“Back when you were a teen,” you repeat, mockingly. “You talk as if that was a century ago.”

He stares down at you, his gaze serious, so much so you force yourself to swallow a lump forming in your throat. 

“You aren’t actually forty, are you?” You ask, remembering what Luna had said upon meeting him that first day. But he doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. 

“What if I said I was even older?” He asks quietly as he steps into you. “What would you think of me then?” His voice is low, husky, vibrating against your skin. You can feel sweat prickling against the back of your neck. You can feel your heart thundering into your throat as his body nearly presses into yours. But why can’t you feel any of his body heat? 

All you can do is stare up at him, to hold your ground and not quiver away from the fear his stature imposes upon you. You keep your chin held high as you reply with, “I’d ask for your skincare routine?”

Immediately his stern expression cracks as he bursts into laughter. “I’ll be sure to get right on that,” he struggles to say as he clutches his side, smiling at you through near tears. His laughter eases you, reminds you that he is human, no matter what silly ideas you’ve concocted in your brain otherwise. 

“Sorry, you just said you wanted to head to bed,” he says as he straightens himself. He hands over your take out, to finish or to store away. Your fingers brush slightly. 

“Hot date tonight?” You ask as you clear your throat, heading into the kitchen. 

“Why would you think that?” He asks as he follows after you.

“You don’t look dressed for an evening in,” you tease with a playful stare, gesturing with your hand in a swooping motion across his frame. Suddenly he is the one who looks embarrassed. 

“I was actually going to go out looking for you,” he mutters as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “You weren’t answering my messages.”

“You texted me?” You pull your phone out but it’s completely dead. You hadn’t even noticed with how absorbed you’d been in your work at the library. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize.” You look up at him, trying to decipher his expression. “Were you worried about me?”

“It’s not safe out there at night,” he says. “I didn’t want something to happen to you.”

You recall the way he’d been protective when he’d first texted you, telling you to watch your surroundings. He is the one who works at night. He is the one who would know very intimately the kind of danger that lurks around every shadowy corner. He could very well be that danger himself. Your walls come up fast, thick barricades that have pushed so many others away in the past. Hypocrite, you think. 

“What were you going to do?” You ask coldly. “Drive around aimlessly all night until you found me?”

“I hadn’t really thought that far,” he mutters. 

“Well you shouldn’t need to do that. I’m a big girl,” you tell him dismissively as you shove your takeout into the fridge. “I can handle myself.”

“And what if you can’t?”

You turn back and find him right behind you, though you hadn’t even heard him move at all. You back away, your spine hitting the kitchen counter. 

“What if you can’t?” He repeats, his eyes darkening once again to that all too familiar black abyss. 

“I don’t mean anything to you,” you remind him nervously as you grip the counter behind you. “You are just my roommate. You don’t have to worry yourself to death over where I am all the time.”

“I’m not suppose to worry whether you are safe or not?” His gaze narrows as he studies you, his eyes dipping down to your parted lips.

“No,” you repeat. Though the word barely makes its way past your lips, catching in your throat. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“Do you really mean that?” He whispers. He is close enough to touch you, and yet he keeps his hands at his sides as he dips his head into you. “You don’t… want me… to worry?” The words come out slowly, putting a dual emphasis on the words you wish you could ignore. 

You stare up at him and bravely manage to repeat yourself. “No.”

He blinks and it’s as if you’ve broken him out of a trance. His eyes lighten and he takes a step away from you, removing himself from your proximity. 

“Duly notes,” he says under his breath as he frowns and walks out of the kitchen. “I’m going to steal the shower then. Seeing as I’m… in for the night.” He quietly disappears down the hall, shutting himself into your shared bathroom. 

You watch him go and once he is out of sight, you inhale sharply, having not realized how much you’d held onto your breath while he stared you down. Your heart is racing and you feel almost stupid for putting up such resistance to him. It should be nice that he is worried about you. It should be nice that he cares enough to even go looking for you out of concern. But instead it reminds you of your past, of overbearing boyfriends who treated you like an object that needed to be protected rather than a human being who should have been cherished. It’s not Eddie’s fault you have your own past wounds to sort through. Scars still in need of healing, even after all this time. But you can’t have him running after you every time you don’t answer a text either. 

You hear the shower start. You can’t manage to withdraw back into your bedroom. Not when the bathroom is right next to your room. Instead, you’ll wait it out. You’ll finish your lo mein. You’ll suffer through some cable television. You’ll pretend there hadn’t been such tension between the two of you. 

You let your phone charge and once it comes back to life, you see a slough of messages pour in from Eddie. They start out tame enough before his concern becomes palatable. 

5:03PM “Hey, how was your day?”

6:15PM “I’m not working tonight so I thought we could maybe watch a movie together?”

8:00PM “Unless you have other plans. You out with friends?”

9:45PM “Are you okay? It’s getting kinda late.”

10:56PM: “I’m coming to get you. Where are you? Do you feel safe?”

You leave your phone charging in the kitchen, but still, you are stuck on his messages. Eddie hardly knows you. You are barely even acquaintances, so he doesn’t have any real reason to get so worked up over your absence at the apartment. But had it been so long since someone showed any sort of concern for you that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be cared for?

You shove the empty container of your lo men the trash, having eaten your feelings instead of dissecting them. That is when a note appears beneath the front door. You hesitate to go and retrieve it, staring down at it as if it meant to bite you. But once you hear foot steps echoing down the hall and away, you muster up the courage to reach for it.

“It isn’t very nice of you to hide the girl from me,” it reads. “It’s only a matter of time before I make her mine. Do not make the same mistake you did with Chrissy.”

Chapter Text

The note flutters out of your grasp as your hands begin to shake. You barely manage to bend down to retrieve it before your vision goes fuzzy. 

“It’s only a matter of time before I make her mine.”

You don’t think, not before you are racing toward the bathroom and banging on the door. 

“Eddie!” You shout out, the note clutched in your fist. “Eddie!”

The door flings open, your fist hovering in the now empty space where it had once been. Eddie stands against the steam rising from the shower, like fog rolling across a gravesite. He is grasping at a towel that just barely covers his lower body. The sharp angles of his hip bones serve as points for the towel to desperately cling to his form, to keep him decent. Water droplets leave a trail down the pale planes of his skin, collecting in the valleys of his muscles. His curly hair clings to his forehead like vine-like tendrils. He is a god personified, standing right in front of you. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks as his eyes dance across your form, searching for sign of injury. Despite you just telling him not to worry about you, he still automatically does so. Like he can’t help himself. Natural instinct. 

It is easy to be distracted by the sight of him. To forget all about the note, and instead to only want to spend the next few moments standing in the steam with him. To memorize the shape of each tattoo now laid bare before your eyes. 

“Are you alright?” He asks as he narrows his gaze at you. His tone is just condescending enough to bring you back to your senses. 

“Do you know who this is from?” You demand as you slam the note against his chest. The thin paper clings to his wet skin. 

He leans back and pries it from his body. The ink runs just a bit from the added moisture but the message still remains clear. 

“Where did you find this?” He asks carefully, still staring down at the crumpled note. 

“It was slipped under the door,” you tell him. “Do you know who could have left it? Are they talking about me?”

The paper is crushed under the weight of Eddie’s fist closing around it. You can practically hear him grinding his teeth together.

“I’ll handle it,” he snarls, eyes flaring once again into pools of obsidian. He tosses the note against the floor like one might swat away a pestering bug. 

“Tell me what’s going on!” You demand. You want to say more. You want to let your rage out in the open. But your fear wins out. You can’t speak. Your voice trembles along with your hands.

Eddie suddenly reaches up and grips your shoulders, helping to ground you. To keep your panic at bay. 

“I need you to breathe,” Eddie says calmly, his eyes searching your face for the truth. 

“I can’t,” you struggle to say, your chest tightening, air constricting in your lungs. Each inhale comes in with a sharp sob. “He knows where we live. He wants to hurt me. Hurt us. We should call the police. We should-“

“Breathe,” he repeats as he gives your shoulders a squeeze. “Just breathe.”

You give in and close your eyes. You take a long, full inhale. You exhale slowly until you feel a bit of your former panic settle. Until you can focus on the firm grip of Eddie’s hands on your shoulders and the smell of his body wash filling your nostrils. 

“He’s been inside the apartment,” you manage, keeping your voice even this time. “He must have if he left the lilies and if he found my number.“

“What aren’t you telling me?” Eddie asks carefully. He lifts a hand, hesitates, but then takes the pad of his thumb to wipe away a stray tear from your cheek. You hadn’t even felt it fall. His touch is like ice across your skin. 

“A couple of days ago, I got a weird text from someone,” you explain. “Someone who claimed they left those lilies for me. But you said it was a friend who left them.” With a trembling hand, you point an accusatory finger to the note on the ground. “That doesn’t sound like a friend to me.” 

Eddie moves his hand back away, his touch leaving you completely as if in shame. You can’t help feeling the loss of him. But you can’t bring yourself to reach out either, to demand the return of his caress. So you self soothe, wrapping your arms around yourself and stroking your skin. 

“If they got into the apartment before, who’s to say they won’t do it again?” You shudder. “Who’s to say they won’t hurt me? That note made it seem like they have every intention of doing just that.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Eddie says firmly.

“How, Eddie? How are you suppose to keep me safe from someone like this?”

“Because I know exactly who is doing it,” he confesses with a grimace. “I lied to you… about the lilies. Though you already assumed that.”

Your blood runs cold. Of course you’d suspected he had. But to have the confirmation makes it all the more real. To know that Eddie had known all this time who had left them, that he sat on that information, letting it fester. Something could have happened in all that time. Something could have truly harmed you. 

“He is an old acquaintance,” Eddie goes on, grinding his teeth. He stumbles on the word ‘acquaintance’ as if it doesn’t quite fit. It’s an odd habit he keeps exhibiting over and over again. Like he is censoring himself for your benefit. “He was just trying to get a raise out of me by leaving them for you. A sick joke.”

“A joke?” It comes out as a sob. 

You could ask how he’d gotten into the apartment in the first place, how he’d gotten into your room, but you are afraid that Eddie might not even know the answer to that himself. 

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he says firmly. 

“Could he though?” You ask as your fear returns in full force. “Do you think he is capable of hurting me?”

His silence in response is an answer all on its own. Your gaze moves down his bare neck, to a muscle tensing and twitching against the strain of his stress. He hid his strength under thick jackets and baggy jeans. But seeing him standing nearly bare in front of you, it’s hard to ignore the power he imposes. The silent threat of his stature. Your gaze moves back up to his eyes and you find them filled with a palatable blood lust. Perhaps he could keep you safe. 

“I’ll kill him before he ever lays a finger on you,” he growls as he stares down at you. But then he tilts his head slightly. “Or are you going to tell me you can handle this yourself?”

Anger heats your tear soaked cheeks. 

“That isn’t what I-“ you start but quickly stop yourself. You aren’t so stubborn that you won’t admit defeat. That you won’t admit when you were wrong. You steal your gaze away, back down to the wet tile beneath you. “I’m just… scared.”

“That’s the last thing I want,” he says gently. His thumb moves across your cheek again but you aren’t sure it is because of a tear this time. 

“What is it you want, Eddie?” You demand, moving your gaze back up to his. Your breath catches as you look at him. At the soft gentleness in his eyes; a stark contrast to the rest of his appearance. To his tough exterior. 

“I want you to feel safe with me,” he says as he cradles your face in his hand. “I want to see you smiling when you look at me. Not this.”

You are sure he must see the fear in your gaze. But right now that fear isn’t projected at Eddie. You are afraid of the unknown. Of things you don’t quite understand. You feel yourself moving closer, inching toward his strength subconsciously. Toward his protection. But hadn’t you just said you didn’t need him to protect you? Hadn’t you just denied his offering? Why now do you want to play the damsel in distress? The steam filling the small bathroom must be making you light headed. 

The reality of the situation hits you like lightning, and you are speaking before you can even think to stop yourself. 

“How could I feel safe with you when you are the reason I’m in danger in the first place?”

The shadow of rejection, of hurt, passes across his face before he straightens himself, as if trying to deny how much your words have impacted him. You step out of his touch completely, back out into the doorway. You are ready to retreat into the shallow safety of your bedroom. But not before you ask him one final question. 

“Who is Chrissy anyway?”

His expression changes. He softens and his eyes seem to shatter, like a dark stone thrown against glass. 

“A woman I loved,” he confesses in a low voice. “A woman I lost.”

“Did this… acquaintance of yours do something to her too?” You ask carefully.  

He doesn’t answer. Instead he turns back to the shower, grabbing his discarded clothing from the floor. As he bends over, you can’t help but stare at his back. There are scars running all along his spine. Scars that could have only been made from the bite of a whip, of the curve of a blade. But as your gaze moves slowly to the bathroom mirror, you see something even more shocking. It may still be fogged up from the steam of the shower, but one thing is clear. Where Eddie’s image should be in reverse, only the image of an empty bathroom is cast against the glass. It is as if his image has been subtracted from reality. As if he doesn’t have a reflection at all. 

“Promise me you’ll always come home before sundown,” he says quietly as he turns to look at you, perhaps suspecting what you’ve seen. “That you’ll never leave this apartment at night. No matter what.”

For a moment, you forget how to speak. Your body trembles as you stare at that empty glass. 

“I promise,” you finally manage in a shudder. 

He leaves without another word. And you are left once again to the cold solitude of your new home.

———

It isn’t hard to keep your promise. Not when you become so fearful of the night, and of the potential dangers lurking in its shadows. Of vampires and their thralls. Boogeymen of fantasy and fiction. But you aren’t so naive to believe that the walls of your apartment might keep out any imminent danger. As if a magic shield had been placed around the penthouse floor after speaking with Eddie. 

Especially when Eddie himself could very well be the biggest threat to your safety. 

He doesn’t have a reflection.

Scientifically, it can’t be explained. This time, you can’t find any other means of justifying his strange existence. Your paper cut. The late nights. The lack of his image in the fogged bathroom mirror.  It is the final, unequivocal proof that Eddie isn’t what he claims to be. And he knows you saw it. He knows you are aware of what he is now. Or rather, what he isn’t. 

He isn’t human. And perhaps, neither is the man threatening you. 

How can you possibly stay in this apartment one second longer? How can you sleep at night knowing who, or rather what, lurks just across the hall? If he truly is a vampire, what’s stopping Eddie from choosing you as a late night snack? What is keeping you safe? 

Eddie said he would handle his “acquaintance.” But that isn’t enough. You buy a deadbolt for your bedroom door. If Eddie notices, he doesn’t complain. You rig out your entire bedroom as if it is housing a million dollar diamond; cameras at the window and an alarm set to blare if it’s ever opened during the night. As naive as you know it may be, you even take a trip to the local Catholic Church just down the road, arming yourself with as many bottles of holy water as they’ll allow you to purchase. The nuns eye you suspiciously as you leave and you wonder if they’ll pray for your safety or for the return of your sanity. 

It’s all you can do not to lose your mind completely. Until you can come up with a better plan, that is. The logical choice would be to move out, to crash on Luna and Jules’ couch for the foreseeable future. But something is keeping you here whether it be stubbornness or the lack of true self preservation.

Eddie Munson is a mystery but one you want to solve for yourself. If vampires are real, let it be you who uncovers them for the world. 

Perhaps you should buy yourself a nice wooden stake as well. 

Eddie may have warned you against the night, but even during the day you feel just as vulnerable. Walking around town, you can’t help glancing over your shoulder. You can’t help staring at strangers as they pass, suspicious any one of them could mean you harm. But if it is vampires you need to look out for, didn’t legend dictate they would burn in the light of the sun? Didn’t Eddie himself steer clear of its rays? 

Despite so much chaos at home, your job situation quickly turns around. You land the development job you applied for at an office downtown, right next to Luna’s coffee shop. One beam of light in a sea of darkness. And the perfect excuse to get out of the apartment. Not that you’ve seen heads or tails of Eddie since your conversation in the bathroom. He’s vanished, just like his reflection. You still deadbolt your door every night regardless. 

At the end of your first week on the job, you shutdown your laptop and stare across the landscape of your new team. They are all chatting and shuffling their things together to head home. Even if it’s painfully corporate, it’s safe. It’s secure. It’s normal. You feel, for the first time in weeks, that things may be finally settling into place. At least some things. 

"Hey, you heading out?"

You turn around to see your new coworker, Ben, standing behind you. You’ve been practically living in Ben’s shadow for the last week, following him to meetings, leaning on his expertise to get properly acclimated. He isn’t a friend, not yet, but he is the closest thing you have to one at this new job. 

You look at your watch. It’s already six. You had planned to leave earlier than this but there had been so much onboarding to get through that you lost track of time. 

“A bunch of us are going to grab margaritas across the street,” Ben says. You remember seeing the Mexican restaurant coming in from the parking garage this week. “We’d love you to come with us. You know, so we can tell you all the company dirt outside of HR ear shot.” He gives you a playful smile. He made a similar offer for drinks after your first day on the job as well. But you had declined, as you are about to now. 

“I can’t,” you mutter. You sling your laptop bag over your shoulder. “Maybe some other time.”

“You sure?” He asks. “You don’t have a boyfriend waiting for you at home or something, do you?”

You laugh lightly. “No. Nothing like that. I just promised my roommate I wouldn’t stay out too late.”

“Your roommate?” He questions with a skeptical glare. 

You nod again. “I promised.” Even if you aren’t on the best of terms, you know Eddie’s warning had been made out of concern for your safety. It is a small price to pay to stay out of harm’s way. For now. 

Ben steals a glance at the group forming in front of the elevators. “It’s a shame. This place has some great margaritas. Cheap too. They always do deals on Fridays for all the office workers around here.” He looks at you through his long lashes, pleading silently. Ben has a boyish charm that is difficult to deny, easy to fall for. But you have never been one for office romances, and you aren’t about to start now. You look at your phone, studying the time. It is only growing closer and closer to nightfall. 

“I can’t,” you repeat.

Ben looks disappointed but nods and walks off to join the others. You stand alone, the lights of the office slowly going off one by one as everyone leaves for the night, until you are left in the near darkness that remains. 

Your phone buzzes. You haven’t heard from Eddie all week but the one night you stay at work a little later than usual, he immediately texts you. 

“It’s 6,” is all it reads. Like a parent reminding you of curfew. Resentment boils your blood. He is the one who ordered you to keep such strict hours because of someone in his own life, not yours.

Missing out on a night of margaritas might not seem so bad, but it’s the beginning of what could be an endless stream of declined offers. You know perfectly well that relationships at work are best built at cocktail hour rather than behind a desk. And turning Ben down now might not bode well for your career development. Or for any potential friendships that could blossom here. 

You are just as much at risk anywhere, anytime in this city. Mortal men can be just as dangerous as any fictional beasts you’ve conjured up in your mind. There is no use letting fear of the unknown dictate your life. And you especially shouldn’t let Eddie control what you do. He is just your roommate after all, and you’ve had enough disappointment in your life. 

You run to catch up with the elevator. 

“Okay, I’ll go,” you finally tell Ben. “But I’m only staying for one margarita.”

———

Three hours later, you are pleasantly buzzed as you call an Uber home. You ended up having two blood orange margaritas that had barely been dulled by the handfuls of chips and salsa you shoveled down. You would have to get your car home tomorrow. Maybe you could ask Luna for a ride back here in the morning. As long as you aren’t too hung over. 

Your coworkers file out of the restaurant behind you, saying goodnight as they slip off in different directions. Despite the fuzzy feeling of alcohol coursing through your system, you are happy you stayed. You’d stuck by Ben’s side most of the night. He’d even bought you that second margarita while he filled your ear with the latest cubicle gossip. Apparently the graphic design intern has been sleeping with their manager. 

You can still hear the faint sound of Mariachi music coming from behind you, bright and positive. The landscape just outside is a stark contrast to the energized comfort of the restaurant. The streets are nearly empty now. There are only a few people wandering the sidewalks in drunken stupors. The night air is cool now that fall is in full swing, and the moon is round and ominous overhead. Halloween is only a few weeks away. 

You pull out your phone to check the status of your Uber, and sure enough there is a text waiting for you from Eddie.

“Where are you?”

You roll your eyes, sober enough not to care, but tipsy enough to reply.

“Out getting drinks,” you reply. “I got BLOOD orange. Your favorite.” You wobble a bit on your feet. You probably should have stopped after just the one. You’ve always been a light weight. But Ben insisted and tequila has never gotten you this drunk before. You fan your face. Even despite the cool air, your body feels warm. Sweat trickles down your neck. 

“Stay where you are,” Eddie responds. “Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” you type back defiantly. But you don’t manage to send it, dropping your phone as you shift back on your heels and lose your footing.

“Careful,” someone says as they catch you from behind by your elbows. “That could have been quite the tumble.”

You look over your shoulder, expecting to see Ben having come to your rescue. But instead you find a pale, handsome but thin man holding onto you. He gives you a strange smile as he lets go. 

“Thanks,” you mutter. Something about him is off putting. Maybe it’s the way he holds himself, self assured and confident. Or maybe it’s the way he is looking at you now as if you are an insect trapped in a jar while he taps at the glass for his own amusement. But you feel your body respond to him automatically, moving you back closer to the offering of his embrace. While your mind is screaming in warning, you can’t seem to help yourself. You move into his gravitational pull like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

He bends down to retrieve your phone. “Wouldn’t want to lose this,” he comments, still smiling strangely as he hands it back to you. Your fingers brush and your breath catches. 

Danger. Run, your mind screams. But your body sways in answer. Want. Need. 

You push against his pull, breaking free for just a moment. Something tells you to move. To get as far away as fast as possible. It’s the same feeling you might get catching sight of a wild bear out in the wilderness. The feeling that if you don’t get out of sight as quickly as possible, you’ll be made into a meal. You mutter something, maybe some forced gratitude, before you are hurrying down the sidewalk. Away, away, away, your mind screams in answer. Your Uber should be here any second. They will just have to find you a little further away from the restaurant than you initially indicated. You try to text Eddie just as you realize you’ve moved much further into the dark. Into the abandoned alleys of downtown, littered only with emptied trash cans and scattering rats. 

“You can feel it, can’t you?” a voice comes from behind you. From the shadows themselves. “You want this. You want it so badly it hurts.”

Your chest flares with heat like a fire engulfing your ribs, consuming every part of you with an incinerating rage. You gasp against the night air as your clutch at your blouse, pulling buttons apart. Too hot. It’s too hot. I’m burning alive. You turn and see him there. The handsome stranger. The same man that had caught you outside the restaurant. He can help me. He can make this pain go away. 

Your vision spirals into a dizzying blur. The stranger is standing at the fuzzy edges of your view. He is smiling triumphantly as you fumble forward, right into his arms.

“Eddie told me to stay away,” he whispers as he pulls you against his chest. His arms lock around you like shackles while his lips curl around your ear. But you feel too weak to resist. You don’t want to resist. He was right. You want this so badly it hurts, right down to your bones. But his touch isn’t the comfort you need it to be. It is ice cold, igniting your skin with more pain, and he smells like something. Like something floral. Lilies. “He warned me he would slit my throat if I ever even touched you.” He glides his fingers up your arm, leaving goosebumps in his wake. “Such empty promises.” 

Even though you don’t try to resist, even as you melt into his arms, his fingers dig in deep, threatening to bruise. 

“You’re hurting me,” you mumble. Your words slur and turn to dribbled nonsense. Is the alcohol really the only thing to blame for your rapid state of delirium? To such easy compliance? 

“I intend to do much more than hurt you,” the man whispers sweetly into your ear as he pushes your hair away almost affectionately. 

“What did you do to me?” You slur. Your thoughts fog into incoherence. 

“I gave you something of mine,” he replies with a smile that could have been kind if his words weren’t so damning. “Have you always wished for death?”

“No, I… I don’t want to die,” you manage to say in protest. Tears stream down your cheeks. Have you always been crying? Born into this word with tears on your lashes, doomed to leave it just the same. 

“You won’t die,” he soothes. “But you won’t live either.”

Trapped in this stranger’s embrace, you wonder if this is truly how your life will end, from yet another poor decision. But you won’t give in so easily. The last bit of your mind still clinging to sanity breaks through. It resists him with three simple words.  

“Don’t… touch… me,” you manage to say as you feel him bending his body against yours. As you feel his lips on your neck. You try to focus on moving your arms, to shove him away. But you’ve lost all sensation down to your fingertips.

“I can touch any part of you I like.” The touch of his lips is feather light as he moves down your neck to your exposed shoulder. 

Touch me. Please. 

You shake the thought away, disgusted with yourself. 

“W-why?” You drool. 

“I made him,” he whispers. “What belongs to him, belongs to me.”

“I-I don’t… belong…to anyone,” you struggle to say in protest as your limbs go completely limp. 

Your eyes flutter shut but you no longer have the strength to open them. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear the screech of tires. You feel the graze of something sharp against the skin of your neck, like two thorns ready to puncture flesh but not quite piercing through. A scream shatters through the fog of your mind. Something like the rush of footsteps floods your senses before you lose consciousness completely. 

In the darkness of your mind, you swear you smell tobacco. 

Chapter Text

The first thing you recognize is the soft sensation of velvet caressing your skin. You are shivering even despite its comfort, though you don’t feel particularly cold. You stir awake and blink into the darkness around you. It doesn’t take long to realize the velvet is that of your own bed. You are back in the apartment. But how did you make it home? You try to move when a hand reaches out and gently guides you to lay against your pillow. Panic brings you back into startling clarity. The room sharpens around you and you see him. Eddie. 

“Don’t move,” he says quietly. “You’re probably still a little dizzy. You should go back to sleep.”

He moves back and you wonder if he’d been sitting on the floor or standing against the wall, waiting for you to wake up. Or had he perhaps been sitting on your bed this whole time? The idea is slightly unnerving. Had he been watching you? 

“How long was I asleep?” You mumble.

“Two days,” he answers quietly. “It’s Sunday night.”

“Sunday night?” Alarmed by the revelation, you move again too swiftly, causing everything around you to swirl into black blurred static. 

“Relax,” Eddie soothes as his hand goes to your shoulder to steady your movements. Though his touch doesn’t linger for long. There and gone. “You need to just take it easy.”

“How did I even get home?” You mumble.

“I picked you up,” he says quietly. “You were drunk.”

Not drunk enough to lose two whole days. 

The last thing you remember is walking out of the Mexican restaurant Friday night after work. Of that stranger putting his hands on you. Of losing consciousness in his arms. Or perhaps it had been someone else that had been there to catch you. You study Eddie in the darkness. His expression looks pained and full of apparent shame, regret. You know there is something he isn’t telling you. 

“I called your friend. Luna was it?” He says, and you nod, though reluctantly. “I told her you were sick and asked her to arrange things for you at work. You may have to miss a few days.”

“But I’m not even sick,” you argue. At least not with a cold. Though your body does feel strangely weakened. Drained. Like you ran a marathon that night, your body aching right down to your brittle bones. 

You turn your head when you feel a quick sting against your neck. You reach up to find a bandage held there. 

“There was a man,” you stutter near incoherently. “Did he-“

You aren’t sure what exactly you mean to ask, but Eddie cuts in abruptly before you can finish either way. 

“You cut yourself,” he explains. “Nothing major. Should be pretty much healed up by now. Must have done it while you were drunk. You were passed out in the alley way when I got to you. Could have been broken glass.”

“Shouldn’t I be in the hospital?” You question. “It could be infected-“

“No hospital,” he nearly snaps. “You’re fine. I took care of it.”

Lies. All lies. You glare at Eddie through the darkness, wondering how much you should push back. If you should finally demand he tell you the truth. But he seems so confident in his lies. Has he told so many in his life that the truth itself almost seems to be the fabrication? 

You lift your hand back up to your neck but as you do something slips from your finger. A ring. You stare down at the silvery band against the red velvet comforter before lifting your gaze back to Eddie.  

You are too afraid to look into his eyes. Too afraid that looking at him will steal away your resolve. That those soft chocolate eyes torn by conflict will make you cave so easily to him once again, make you fall back into your paranoia, your fantasy. You dip your gaze down to his arms instead, folded against his chest. He is dressed in the same leather jacket you’d seen him in that night in the living room. Though the shirt underneath is new; black, tight, and clinging to his toned body. There are thin chains around his neck tonight. With the soft moonlight streaming in from your window, you are surprised to find the lack of a shimmer coming from his hands. He isn’t wearing any rings, but you are. You lift both of your hands to examine your fingers. There are five rings total; three on your right hand, one on your left, and one now left on the bed.

“I’ll make smaller ones for you,” Eddie says. “Here.” He pulls one of his chains from around his neck and moves back to the bed to hand it over. “Put them on this. That way they’ll at least be on you at all times. Don’t take them off.”

“What are they?” You ask as you stare at them, at the cold silver bands that look no different than something you’d find at a department store on clearance. 

“Sort of an old wives tale,” he says with a small, hesitant smile. “Meant to keep away boogeymen.”

“Like vampires?”

His expression shifts, but only slightly, giving nothing away. 

You take the necklace from him and slip the rings along its silvery cord. “I thought silver only worked on werewolves,” you tease, tying to lighten the mood. Your chest feels tight. 

“Bullets,” Eddie says, before quickly elaborating. “Silver bullets were for werewolves. But silver in general has a lot of spiritual properties. Some believe it can ward off evil.” He sits on the edge of the bed but not near enough to touch you. 

“Do you really believe that?” You ask. 

He is silent in response as you struggle with the small metal clasp of the necklace. Without a word, he reaches out and takes it from your hand. He leans in and works at the clasp just behind your neck. He is so close you can smell the tobacco on his jacket. The scent brings a memory to forefront of your mind. Of Eddie’s cold black eyes just before he tore the stranger from you. Before he wrapped you into his arms and the night faded into oblivion. However, it is no longer just the tobacco you can smell. His scent is different now, deeper, richer. It is the cool air in autumn, the rich leather he wears, the kiss of rain on a summer night. You inhale deeply, almost instinctively, but immediately, feel strange for having done so. You pull your bed sheets up to your chin, trying to block him out.

“Evil isn’t something you can ward off with magic spells or talismans,” he says quietly as he pulls away. He lingers just close enough, his hand pressing into the bed just beside your thigh. His own nostrils flare. “It’s already inside all of us.” You stare at his hand. You can’t help but notice small scars circling his fingers, red hot like a brand, and placed right where the rings once resided. He notices and shoves his hands into his pockets, standing swiftly to put distance back between you. 

He moves back to the wall, leaning his weight against it to give you space, but not quite daring to leave you alone just yet. You aren’t sure you want to be alone right now but Eddie is far from your ideal choice of company. Especially if he could harm you just the same as the stranger had. 

But do you really believe he would? 

You settle back against your pillows. There seems to be more than there had been previously; five or six plush things providing support to your neck. “I’m kind of thirsty,” you realize aloud. In truth, you are parched, your mouth and lips bone dry. 

“I’ll go get you some water,” he says gently. “Are you hungry too?”

Before you can even answer, he is already walking out of the room. He is barely even gone a few minutes before he returns with a glass of water in one hand and a plate in the other.

“Not much food in the apartment,” he mutters as he sets the plate on the comforter. It looks like he put together a sandwich from the bread you bought last week as well as the last bit of cold cuts that have probably already gone bad in your negligence. But you thank him nonetheless, taking a large gulp of the water. He quietly watches you as he moves back into the shadows, into a protective position by the door. As if he suspects someone might try to harm you in your sleep. As if he wouldn’t give them the chance. 

“Are you going to tell me what actually happened?” You finally ask. 

He is quiet again and you worry he won’t answer at all, until he says in a near whisper, “Once you’ve rested.”

“I’ve been asleep for two whole days,” you reply. “I think that makes me well rested.”

He smirks just a bit, as if he can’t help it, but quickly returns to a stone cold expression.  

“Go back to sleep,” he says, almost under his breath as he walks back to the door. “We will talk more tomorrow. I promise.”

But you can’t wait that long. So you call out after him. “But you saved me, didn’t you? Saved me from that man?”

He turns and looks at you over his shoulder. “I’m not the good guy you think I am,” he says quietly. “I’m not your hero.”

He starts to leave, but you aren’t finished. 

“You say evil is already inside of us,” you go on. You reach up, looping your finger through one of the rings. “But I know there is good there too. I know you are good, Eddie.”

His gaze narrows and for a moment, you swear his eyes turn as black as the darkness around him. 

“You don’t know anything about me,” he nearly hisses. 

“Maybe not,” you agree. “But I think someday I will. Someday you’ll let me in.”

Even in the darkness, you can see you’ve made him smile, just slightly, before he closes the door and leaves you alone once more. 

———

You don’t think you can sleep anymore, but somehow you manage to pass out for a few more hours. When next you wake, you are nearly blinded by the afternoon sunlight flooding your bedroom. Your door is shut, with no sign of Eddie ever having returned during the night. But you are still wearing his rings, the cool metal kissing your skin.

You look down at yourself. You’ve slept in your clothes from work that Friday, which should have come as a relief if not for the torn state of your blouse. You are horrified of the thought that Eddie must have seen more than his fair share of your lacy bra perfectly visible from between the open top. But more alarming is the fact that you can’t remember how it had gotten to such a state. Had the stranger assaulted you Friday night? You’d immediately jumped to the conclusion of inhuman beasts, of vampires threatening to feed off of you. But humans could be just as destructive. 

Wanting to clean yourself of the thought, you head straight for the shower. As you step into the bathroom, you notice Eddie’s door is propped open. Your curiosity peaks once again. You’re eager to steal a glance inside its mysterious depths. But he’d just saved your life. Now isn’t the time to invade his privacy just for the sake of morbid curiosity. 

In the bathroom, you peel off your stale clothes and stare at your reflection in the mirror. I still have a reflection. You shake your head, in disbelief that you could have even humored the alternative. The bandage is still held to your neck. You brace yourself as you slowly peel it away, wincing as the meager adhesive pulls against your sensitive skin. There is a bit of rusty colored blood held to the bandage but as you look at your neck in the mirror, you don’t find the classic puncture holes of a vampire’s fangs. Instead, there is what appears to be a deep cut, still healing. Just as Eddie had claimed there would be. 

How could I have been so drunk that I fell and slit my own throat on a shard of glass? 

Perhaps the stranger had slit you with a knife. But if he is a vampire as you suspect, why use a knife? You barely even remember the stranger’s face, never mind the appearance of his canines. But Eddie you’ve studied. His canines are unremarkable. No fangs in sight. That is one sure-fire way to discount your theories. 

As you stand under the cascading water, you try to piece through your memory of Friday night. It comes through as shattered fragments. Like vapor slipping through your fingertips. But there is one thing you remember quite clearly. The smell of lilies clinging to the stranger’s clothes. You know who he is, a phantom following after you. But you need Eddie to fill in the gaps. You are done playing pretend. 

When you step out of the shower, you are surprised to find Eddie just as he is stepping out of his room.

“Oh. Hey,” he says, keeping his gaze away; anywhere but at the point where you are gripping onto your towel. “Feeling better?”

“Yea. I’m surprised you’re awake though,” you comment. You press your back against the wall, painfully aware of the water still dripping down your legs. Painfully aware of the last time you stood in this doorway, when roles had been reversed. 

“Couldn’t really sleep.” He almost can’t help himself, his eyes glaze back over your wet form, settling at your neck. “You’re still wearing them.”

You reach up and pull at one of the rings with your finger. They sit right above where the towel is wrapped across your chest. 

“You told me not to take them off.”

He smiles slightly but it doesn’t last. 

“The man who attacked me,” you continue quietly, because you can’t wait any longer. You’ve held off long enough. “He is the same one who left the lilies. Who left that note for you.”

He hesitates for a moment before finally nodding in answer. 

“Your friend?” You try. 

“He isn’t a friend,” he grates. 

“Then who exactly is he to you? And don’t tell me he is just an acquaintance this time. I know better now.”

He visibly grinds his teeth, his hands forming into fists at his sides. 

“We can have this conversation after you get dressed,” he says quickly.

“No. We’ll have it right now,” you demand, glaring. 

“Just go into your room and put some clothes on,” he grates as he pushes his thumb and forefinger into his temple to ease some sort of tension there. 

“You’re avoiding this conversation!” You argue. 

“I’m avoiding having to stare at you in nothing but a fucking towel! Put some clothes on.” He storms off down the hall toward the living room, almost fleeing away from you. 

You stand frozen as you look after him, before finally caving into the pressure and retreating to your room. Your heart is racing. You put a fresh bandage on your neck and grab a turtle neck to conceal it. A pair of sweat pants completes the look. Even if the apartment doesn’t feel quite like the ice box you remember it to be, you’ve decided to use your clothing like armor. To use it as barrier against your heart; that damning organ, betraying you every chance it gets. 

Stepping out into the living room, you are surprised to find Eddie lounging on the couch, hunched over, texting. The curtains are drawn, blocking out the sun, but some streams of light dash across the living room floor. You morbidly wonder if he’d need to maneuver around them, in fear of their caress burning him to ash.

“Is this better?” You ask as you approach him. 

He quickly shoves his phone away and looks up at you. His gaze briefly lingering on your neck, concealed under the turtle neck. You watch as he visibly swallows, his throat bobbing, before he looks away. 

“Yea. Thanks.”

You sit down on the couch just beside him, but still there is enough space between the two of you to feel like you might as well be on the opposite side of the room. You don’t know what happened Friday night, but something has changed between the two of you. The tension is palatable now, a vibrating energy chaining you together. You can barely even look at each other without feeling it’s buzz coursing beneath your skin. You bury your face in the top of your turtle neck. You can still smell him. Like the room is suffocating with that scent of rain. You are drowning in it. 

“It’s weird seeing you awake during the day,” you comment quietly, to break the ice once more. 

“The night hides all of my flaws,” he jokes, smiling slightly. It seems forced. 

“Is that the only reason?”

“Do you need me to order you food or anything?” He asks, ignoring you.

“I’m not hungry.”

He narrows his gaze, studying you. “You really should eat.”

“I’m fine,” you dismiss. 

You sit together in silence. You refuse to ask him again, because he already knows what you need him to say. He knows you will only settle for the truth this time. As the silence grows longer and longer, you convince yourself he will never answer you. That he will forever avoid the topic as long as you live here with him. But you are surprised when he finally does speak moments later.

“Will you eat something if I tell you?” He finally concedes. 

“Yes,” you reply stubbornly. 

He is quiet again, staring at his hands, perhaps contemplating how to begin.

“His name is Henry,” he starts. “The man who attacked you. Who left the lilies, the note. Everything. He and I unfortunately have a long history. I’m not sure we have time-“

“Start at the beginning,” you prompt. 

He turns slightly to look at you. And you aren’t sure if it’s fear or shame you see in his eyes, but his shoulders tense. You prepare yourself for his further silence, to accept that you may always have to live with the lies. But then he continues. 

“My parents weren’t really around much growing up,” he tells you. “I was alone a lot. I was a stupid kid, made stupid decisions without anyone around wise enough to tell me not to. I turned to all sort of means to just feel… anything.”

You aren’t sure where he is going with this, or how it relates to Henry, but you listen quietly. He wrings his hands together, self-soothing. “It got so bad to the point I would just pass out on the streets,” he confesses. “I didn’t know where or who I was half the time. That’s when Henry showed up.” He pauses and looks at you, as if to confirm you are still listening. You nod to urge him to continue. “It started as small interactions. I’d always see him at night. Always hanging around the kids that were half-dead, but high enough not to care. I thought he was some kind of social worker.”

“What did he want?” You prod. 

“Said he wanted to help me make something of myself,” he answers, and laughs, as if he’d said some sort of joke. “He gave me a job. Gave me a purpose again. Got me off the streets. Got me sober.”

“That doesn’t seem so…”

“Bad?” He finishes for you. “At first, it wasn’t. I really thought he was helping people. I thought I was helping people too.” His head falls into his hands. “But it was all a lie. I was just another plaything to him, just an experiment. He never actually cared. He just wanted to see how fast I could fall.” He lifts his gaze from his hands to look over at you. “After what happened with Chrissy, I fled. I came here. I had some friends help me get this apartment. Found work. I didn’t think he’d ever find me again, but it was stupid of me to think I could ever put that part of my past behind me. Because he found me again. And he's clearly not taking my dismissal very lightly.“

“He doesn’t get to control your life,” you argue. 

“Oh but he does.” 

You fall into his gaze, unable to look away. You can see how the years have torn him down, have battered his soul. And you want nothing more than to help put the pieces back together again.

“I’m just sorry I got you caught up in all of this,” he says. “He should be dealing with me. Not you. You don’t have any part in this. You are just a bystander in his bullshit. But he must have seen you as an opportunity to hurt me again. I assumed he wouldn’t try something because you are just-“

He stops himself and looks away. 

“Just your roommate?” You fill in, and watch as he winces. “I’m not Chrissy. I’m not someone you love. So you thought I would be safer? If I was just a stranger?”

He nods reluctantly. “I won’t make that same mistake again.”

You don’t know what happened to Chrissy. And you won’t ask. At least not until you know he will be willing to tell you the truth. All of it. But you can see that he wears his own failure like shackles. That he feels he is the one to blame for what happened to you, for what happened to Chrissy, even if he hadn’t been the one to physically harm either of you. 

… Right?

“I thought at least by now you’d consider me a friend,” you say, giving him a small smile. 

He ignores you. “I understand that after everything, you probably want to move out,” he says. 

“I’m not moving out,” you argue, shaking your head. 

His eyes widen. “But you’re not safe here-“

“I’d be a lot less safe without you,” you cut in.

He laughs, almost cruelly. The sound is so sharp, so bitter that you feel it shatter your heart to pieces. 

“Didn’t you say I was the reason you are even in danger in the first place?” He hisses.

You jerk back. He’s thrown your own words back at you, used them against you. You hate the way they sound coming off his lips. Like hot venom. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “You’re right. I’m the reason he came after you. I’m the reason you got hurt. I’m the reason you have that cut on your neck.” His eyes fall to your throat, even if he can’t see the bandage clearly. 

“You weren’t the one who cut me,” you say. But there is something in his expression that makes you doubtful. “You saved me,” you remind him as well as yourself. “That matters. And I won’t forget it.”

He looks away. “You’re putting a lot of faith into a man you hardly know.”

“You keep saying that,” you hiss. You turn away from him and seal your eyes shut. “And maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t truly know you at all. But that’s because there is a part of the story you’re not telling me.” You open your eyes, staring straight at him once more. “I need you to tell me the rest.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you think I’ve left out?” he asks suddenly, his voice harsh and almost cruel. “Since you seem to know so much.”

You could come right out with it. But you aren’t ready for that. Instead you slowly start to give him the evidence you have against him. 

“You don’t go outside during the day,” you tell him.

No response.

“When I cut my finger, you nearly had a heart attack.” Even recalling that, you wonder how he’d successfully placed the original bandage on your neck in the first place.

Again, he doesn’t respond. 

“You don’t have a reflection.”

You don’t expect him to respond this time either, however to your surprise, he does.

“I don’t,” he says simply. “Not anymore.”

“I’m pretty sure that could mean only one thing,” you say quietly. 

“Say it,” he nearly growls.

“You’re a va-“

There is a knock at the door. You jump at the sound though Eddie doesn’t move, he keeps his eyes held firmly to you, waiting for your answer. You rush to the door. However, you pause before opening it, turning to Eddie. 

“Is it him?” You ask in a whisper, hand shaking around the doorknob. 

He merely shakes his head so you open the door slowly. Standing in the hallway are Luna and Jules. Jules is cradling a small crockpot to her chest while Luna looks ready to kill. 

“What are you doing here?” You ask before you can even think to say hello.

“Your roommate called me,” Luna says with a glare as she pushes her way into the apartment. “What the hell is going on? Are you that sick that you can’t even call me yourself?” She moves into the kitchen like she lives there, setting down a bag on the counter and pulling out bottles of cold medications she brought with her. Jules follows after and sets the crockpot down. As she walks back you catch a whiff of homemade chicken soup. Your stomach grumbles. "We both took the day off for you. I hope you're happy. My boss is pissed. Mondays are our busiest days." 

“I’m sorry,” you mutter. You steal a quick glance at Eddie, but his expression is impossible to read. 

“You’d better be,” Luna growls. “Jules spent all morning making that soup for you. So I expect you to eat every last bite.”

Jules comes over to you, a gentle hand placed on your forehead to check for a temperature. “Eat as much or as little as you’d like,” she whispers with a smile. “But my gosh, you feel so cold. The soup should hopefully warm you right up.”

You give her a smile of your own. “Thanks, Jules.” 

Luna sorts through the many bottles she’s brought, like a mobile apothecary. 

“Please come in,” Eddie mutters from the couch. “Make yourself at home.”

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Luna glares as she takes a few pills in hand and comes over to you with a glass of water at the ready. “Vitamin C, D, and E. Plus some Tylenol for your fever.”

“I don’t have a fever,” you argue but take the pills nonetheless. They lodge in your throat.

Eddie shifts off the couch and starts to head back toward his room. “I’ll give you all some space,” he mutters.

“No, stay!” You call out after him. He stops, looking at you from the darkness of the hallway. Like an alley cat you need to bribe out with food in your hand. “Stay and watch a movie with us.”

“A movie?” He questions with the arch of his eyebrow.

You nod. “Anything you want.”

You can see him smirk even in the darkness. “What about a vampire movie?”

Chapter Text

You balance a hot bowl of soup in your lap, taking careful spoonfuls as you watch carnage unfold on the television screen in front of you. Tom Cruise rips into the throat of his victim, blood pouring down her chest. You can hardly bare to look, wincing at the slightest sight of gore. Though a part of your mind can’t help putting Eddie in his place, picturing his mouth on your throat as he drinks from you instead. You imagine his tongue slipping up the length of your neck to gather up blood as it trickles free from your wound. You picture his eyes staring back at from the television screen, both seductive and cruel, tempting you to let him drink his full. 

But you shouldn't even be thinking of Eddie this way. You've always had more self control than this. What's gotten into you? 

You can feel the unspoken truth held in the air around you like a ghost. You know it is unwise to allow your two best friends to sit here, watching a movie with a potential vampire right in their midsts. But they are just the buffer you need. The perfect excuse to ignore the obvious tension coiling between you and your roommate.

“When you said you wanted to watch a movie about vampires, I was sort of gunning for Twilight,” Luna grumbles.

Eddie doesn’t respond, instead he keeps his eyes trained on the screen. 

You are seated on the couch together with Jules and Luna, all wrapped up in a shared oversized blanket, while Eddie has opted for the floor, sitting with his legs crossed atop the plush rug just below you. You are surprised how warm you feel suddenly, though Jules and Luna still shiver against the frigid A/C.

“Interview with the Vampire is way better than Twilight,” Jules remarks as you lift the soup spoon back up to your lips. “Lestat could take Edward Cullen any day.”

As surprised as you’d been by Eddie’s choice for a movie, you are convinced he picked it just to mock you. To dangle the truth in front of you like a carrot. But he hasn’t said a word since the movie began. A mute observer. 

“Take that back,” Luna says with faux hatred in her voice. “Don’t insult my husband like that.”

“Your husband?” Jules, her wife, says with a poke to her side. “I’m sitting right here.”

“I’m allowed to fantasize about fictional men,” Luna remarks with an exaggerated pout. 

Jules smirks and leans in. “Oh are you?” She whispers against her lips. “But is a fantasy better than what’s right in front of you?” Luna barely responds, falling instead into the offering of her kiss. Her hand moves to the back of Jules’ head to deepen their embrace as much as she’ll allow. 

“Please save your make out sessions for when I’m not sitting right next to you,” you groan, though your eyes can’t help but drift down to Eddie. How long had it been since you’d been kissed? Do you even remember what it feels like to have another pair of lips held against your own? To feel a hand moving back through your hair to pull you closer? Does Eddie have someone he can kiss? Someone who he meets out there during his nightly ventures? Sharing secrets and blood? Or is he just as lonely?

“Would you believe me if I said I was just lonely living here alone?”

You try to stop the traitorous thundering of your heart but it continues as if it means to push right out of your rib cage. Your hands tremble against the bowl of soup as you stare down at Eddie. You stare at his delicate curls tossed over his shoulders, at the pale sculpting of his neck. His scent hits you again and you cramp your hand over your nose to block it out. Not this again. 

As if he can sense your eyes on the back of his head, Eddie turns slightly to look at you. 

“Are you-“

His sudden voice after such prolonged silence surprises you so much that you jolt, tossing the hot soup all over your lap.

“Shit!”

Eddie stands swiftly, gripping the bowl in one hand and yanking the soiled blanket off your body with the other. He stares down at your legs, at the slightly damp state of your sweat pants while you gaze up at him in frozen shock. 

“Are you alright?” He asks in alarm as he leans down into you. “Did it burn you?” His hand hovers over your legs, though he doesn’t quite dare to touch you yet. 

“I’m okay,” you insist. “I didn’t even feel it.”

“You’re sure?” He stares down at your legs as if searching for evidence to the contrary. 

“You reacted too fast for it to even touch me,” you say, smiling at him awkwardly. 

He pulls back and you both shift your gaze to Jules and Luna. They both look shell shocked by the entire scene. Perhaps because of Eddie’s quick reaction, or because of their stolen blanket now left on the floor. 

“Let me get you some more soup,” Eddie says quietly as he starts to retreat into the kitchen. 

“I can do it!” You follow after him, letting the movie continue on behind you. 

“Sit down,” Eddie groans, almost annoyed.  He walks over to the crockpot with your bowl in hand. 

“You’re babying me,” you say with a glare as you watch him ladle fresh soup into the bowl for you. You cross your arms over your chest defiantly. 

“Then stop acting like such a baby.” He smirks and hands over the bowl to you. 

You unhook your arms and reach for it, muttering a ‘Thanks’ under your breath. 

“Do you like the movie?” 

You shrug and open your mouth, lifting a spoonful back to your lips. But that’s when you notice Eddie’s eyes glued to your mouth already, staring so intently you are sure he must be looking at a bit of spinach stuck between your teeth. Your heart thumps in reply, pulsing up into your throat. You can almost feel your blood push into that still healing wound at your neck. You can feel your pulse there, surging with life. Eddie’s eyes almost instinctively drift to that point, as if he can hear it too; that thump, thump, thump. 

“She hates horror movies,” Luna chimes in from the living room. “She must really like you to suffer through this much blood.”

“I don’t hate horror movies,” you argue, your face growing warmer despite the apparent chill of the apartment. Must be because of the heat of the soup in your hands. “And don’t eavesdrop!”

“She has an aversion to blood and guts,” Luna goes on, unbothered, addressing Eddie directly as she leans over the couch to look at him. “In fourth grade, I fell from the monkey bars. Cracked my head open. I swear my brain was spilling out. And your roommate here, my best friend, ran screaming as fast and as far away as she could.”

“I went to get help from a teacher!” You look away, embarrassed. 

“Eventually,” Luna adds, rolling her eyes. “Best to keep any future movie nights centered around rom-coms with this one.”

“Maybe we can try Warm Bodies after this,” Jules suggests. She grabs the remote. “Let me see if it’s on Netflix...”

“That’s still a horror movie… kinda,” Luna remarks. 

“But it’s romantic!” 

You walk toward the fridge in search of some water; something to cool you down a bit. You suddenly feel like you are sweating. Maybe you are burning off a fever after all. As you open the door, you immediately sense Eddie’s presence behind you. Like a shift in the air, the energy between you snapping taut once again. Your breath catches as that familiar scent overwhelms you; gentle rain before lightning strikes. 

“You’re sure you’re still feeling okay?” He asks softly in a whisper as he grips onto the open door and leans against it. 

You turn to look at him, hovering around you like a phantom. His eyes dance across your face as if looking for a sign of your deteriorating health. 

“I’m fine,” you reassure. “I told you it didn’t even burn me.”

“I’m not talking about the soup,” he says as he narrows his gaze. 

“Why are you so worried? I was just drunk.” You try to look away but you are caught in his gravitational pull. In the rain storm of his scent. “And you said I didn’t need to see a doctor about this.” You gesture vaguely to your neck.

He suddenly darts a quick glance back at Jules and Luna. They are laughing at something on the screen or a mutual joke held between them in secret, perfectly distracted by each other’s company. Eddie leans down behind the cover of the open refrigerator door. “Don’t tell your friends about that,” he whispers. 

“Why? I thought I just cut myself,” you glare defiantly. “Did something else happen that you wouldn’t want them to know about?” 

You can see it in his gaze; the darkness of a lie shimmering around the edges, the faint evidence of the truth waiting just under the surface. But before he can say anything, you hear his phone buzz. He takes it out, looks at it, and frowns. 

“Is that...work?” You ask. Not that you even know what he does to earn money. Did vampires rob their victims? Is that how he managed to afford this apartment with just your meager contributions to help? 

“Yes. I need to run an… errand,” he says as he shoves his phone back into his pocket. 

“But it’s still light out,” you realize, looking past him at the golden light peaking through the living room curtains. 

He smirks. “I won’t burn to ash,” he comments and stares at you, waiting. A challenge. 

“You sure about that?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he closes the refrigerator door and stalks to the doorway, grabbing his apartment key off the counter and a large umbrella from the entryway. There shouldn’t be any rain this time of year. Is he subtly trying to tell you the truth? Would an umbrella truly be enough to protect him? 

“Do you really have to go?” You ask as concern floods your senses so suddenly you have to grip onto the counter to stop yourself from running to him instead. 

His shoulders ease. “I’ll be okay. I promise.” He looks back at Luna and Jules on the couch, calling out to them, “You’ll stay here with her, right?”

“Do we get paid the overtime rate for babysitting?” Luna teases, smiling at you. 

“I’ll pick up some ice cream on my way home as compensation,” Eddie says with a smile of his own, one that surprises you to see. Your heart starts to race again.

Quiet you, you think to yourself. It does you no good to react to him like this. He is just my roommate. We don’t mean anything to each other.

“They don’t have to stay and watch me,” you argue. “I’m not a child.”

“You keep saying that but I’m hardly convinced,” he teases. “Besides, you shouldn’t be alone right now.” He steps back up to you. He is so close now only you can hear him. Smell him. Taste him on your tongue. “Promise you’ll text me if you need me to come home.”

You glare at him. “I’ll be fi-“

“Promise me,” he says firmly.

“Fine,” you mutter in defeat. “I’ll text you.”

“Good,” he says, nodding. “Good. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He moves to the door but hesitates. His hand goes around the door knob just as he turns to look at you one last time. It’s as if there is a tether held between you now. You can feel it too; a tug toward him. You don’t want him to leave. You shouldn’t, and yet you do. Irrationally, you want to reach out for him and beg him to stay once again. He forces his gaze away and nearly pushes himself out of the apartment, the door slamming shut behind him. 

You feel the separation almost immediately. As if the air has been ripped from your lungs. You clutch at your chest, baffled. You stalk back into the living room with the refilled bowl of soup in hand. You need to rid yourself of this strange attachment. Did you feel a draw to him just because he saved you from a stalker? Some sort of Stockholm syndrome? Jules would know how to diagnose this psychosis but you aren’t about to tell her or Luna any of this. 

“Can we watch something else?” You ask in a whisper. “Maybe something without so much blood.”

Jules nods and puts on some sort of cartoon while the three of you sit, watching in silence together. Though, you can hardly pay attention to any of it. Your mind is still running rampant with thoughts of Eddie. The way he looked at you. How you wanted him to reach out and touch you.

After finishing up an entire season of the show, you realize how deeply you’ve disassociated. You barely recall any of the plot. Has it been hours already? Sunlight no longer penetrates through the curtains but instead moonlight has taken its place. Had Luna and Jules tried to speak with you at all? Had you even responded? Your mind feels hazy. You turn your attention onto your friends, trying to funnel your thoughts into something a bit more manageable.

“Okay. What’s your deal?” You demand of Luna as the credits roll across the television screen. 

“What?” She blinks at you, confused. “Did you not like it? I thought you’d find it cute by the end at least-“

“I thought you didn’t trust Eddie,” you interrupt. “But you were acting pretty chummy with him earlier.”

“Me?” She laughs. “Newsflash, you were the one giving him those sad little puppy dog eyes when he left.”

“I was not,” you grumble. 

Luna huffs and rolls her eyes. “Besides, I never said I trusted him.” She clicks the television off as she swings around to face you. “There is still something off about him. That’s for sure. But I don’t know… seeing the way he was with you, how concerned he was...“ She shrugs. “I’m giving him a pass for now.”

“A pass?” you repeat, giving her a skeptical glare. 

Luna leans in, studying you carefully. “But I will say… your aura’s a little different.”

You lean back and away. “My aura?”

“Yea. It’s usually sort of blue. But right now it’s faintly pink around the edges.” She smiles a bit. “Is someone developing a crush on their weird roommate?”

You step off the couch completely, adding distance to your denial. “What? No!”

Luna laughs. “An aura doesn’t lie,” she teases, clicking her tongue. 

“I don’t have a crush,” you argue. “Don’t be ridiculous. My aura’s just pink cause I got a new job.”

“Pink doesn’t mean-“

“Don’t care,” you say curtly. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have a crush.”

“Suit yourself,” Luna says sighing. “But I did bring sage if you want me to smudge the place. It won’t chase away your feelings for him but it could chase away any residual energy making this place feel like a morgue.” She shivers a bit for emphasis. 

You glare at her as you slump back down onto the couch. “Fine.”

Luna digs through her bag, quickly locating a small bundle of the rich herbs. She light the ends with a match until smoke softly wafts up from her hand, lifting into the air. You winkle your nose as the stench hits you like a wave. Your eyes water. She opens the window of the living room before moving into your bedroom to do the same there. To give the negative energy a place to escape. The only place she can’t get to is Eddie’s room. You watch as she hesitates in front of its shut door, her eyes glazing over slightly. 

“She’s right,” Jules comments. Her voice pulls you away from watching Luna as she wanders around your apartment. “Well, I don’t know if she’s right about your aura. But you two do seem… closer.” 

“Not you too,” you moan. 

She smiles. “Did something happen? I remember you talking about him. How you never really saw him. How he was sort of a mystery. But you two just sort of… moved together while he was here.”

You feel your cheeks flush with warmth. “Nothing happened,” you mutter. Though you can’t know for certain. There is still so much Eddie has yet to tell you, secrets he seems to be guarding with his life. Had something happened to change the dynamic between you? Something you have no memory of? “We are just… talking more, I guess.”

“Well that’s definitely a good thing,” Jules goes on. “As long as you set some healthy boundaries. That’s important in order to have a good living rearrangement with him.” 

“You aren’t allowed to psychoanalyze me,” you say, pouting your lips at her. 

She laughs. “He does seem to genuinely care about you,” she goes on. “That’s not something people can fake very easily.”

“I’m just a liability,” you mutter. “If something happens to me under his roof, he’ll be responsible.”

Jules tilts her head slightly. “Do you think something will happen to you?” Her gaze narrows and drifts down to your neck where you are sure she can the bandage peeking out from your turtle neck ever so slightly.

“Okay! All done!” Luna announces. “Though I’ll be honest, there’s something off about his room. I didn’t even step foot in there and I still got the heebie jeebies.” 

You stare down at the hallway, at the shut door to his bedroom. You didn’t hear him lock it, and it had been left slightly open before when you went to shower earlier. Could it still be unlocked now? Could this be your only opportunity to take a peak inside? 

“It’s probably nothing,” Jules says; but as she speaks, a yawn escapes her lips.

“Tired?” Luna asks as she cups the side of her face affectionately. 

“You guys should head home,” you insist. “It’s getting late and I’d hate for you to miss another day of work because of me.”

“But Eddie asked us not to leave you alone,” Jules reminds you in a soft voice. “Are you sure you feel safe here on your own? We really don’t mind staying through the night.”

You nod. “I’ll be fine. I could use some time alone honestly.” Your eyes wander back down the hall mindlessly. “Thank for you coming over. I appreciate you checking up on me.”

“Okay. We will get out of your hair,” Jules decides with a gentle smile. She picks up her bag off the floor. 

“But he promised us ice cream,” Luna whines as Jules pushes her to the door. She stops in the doorway, turning to look at you with a firm expression. “Seriously though. Call us if you need anything. We aren’t far away. You could always stay with us tonight too if you’d prefer.”

“You all need to stop treating me like a child,” you say rolling your eyes. 

“It’s not childish to ask for help,” Jules says gently. “Take care, okay?”

“Goodnight,” you say, forcing a smile of your own as you wave goodbye. You can see Luna hesitate, staring at you from the hallway. But you close the door behind them and slip the lock into place before you can change your mind.

You move back to the living room, but as you do, you can’t help your gaze from wandering back down the hall. Back to his door, closed, sealed shut, barring you entry. 

I shouldn’t, you tell yourself. He deserves his privacy. But your safety could also depend on the truth that lies behind that door. Your vision seems to tilt as you stare at it, the darkness becoming deeper. Something pushes you forward, and before you even realize it, your hand is wrapped around the doorknob to his room. 

You turn it and it gives against your movement. It is unlocked, just as you suspected. You push the door open carefully. The room within is cast in darkness. There are no windows in his room, the placement interior to the apartment, but you hesitate before flipping on the light switch just yet. Standing at the threshold, you scan the dark room for anything unusual that you can see amongst the shadows. Any evidence of vampirism. But you aren’t sure what you should be looking for. There is no classical coffin but instead just a normal bed. It is unmade, though it’s hard to tell if that’s because he actually slept in it or because he’s never gotten into the habit of keeping his room clean. The clothing scattered on the floor, however, would be evidence of the latter. There’s no blood splatter or dead bodies, though did you really expect there to be? However, on his nightstand, you do see something shimmering slightly, catching the light from the hallway. Curiosity pulls you over the threshold to get a better look.

You step cautiously toward it. There, atop the wooden furniture, is a blade. A sort of pocket knife. The edge looks slightly muddied. You carefully pick it up and realize it is stained slightly in a smear of red. Red like blood. 

You immediately drop it, reaching for your neck. He told you that you’d cut yourself on glass. That in your drunken stupor in an empty alleyway, you’d done something to yourself on some debris. So careless. You’d always suspected it had been Henry who had cut you, bitten you even, though the wound had been clearly done by a blade. A blade just like this one. 

You hear the door creak open before you manage to turn swiftly. You find Eddie standing there, staring at the knife now on the floor between you.

“I told them not to leave you alone,” he says quietly, eyes still held to the floor. 

You try to speak, but the words lodge themselves in your throat. Your hands shake at your sides. 

“And I thought I locked this door.” He takes a step into his room to join you.  He moves close enough to grab you. All at once you feel that pull again. His scent. His allure. But now too is the fear that you’ve been caught, and he could punish you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. He could truly harm you. 

“I shouldn’t have looked,” you stutter as you try to push your way past him to run out of the room. “You told me not to. You said it was off limits. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Before you can even make it to the door, he catches you by the arm. Your breath catches at the contact of his skin against yours. Of his fingers lightly wrapping around you. You hate that it eliminates your fear. That it robs you of reason. Your skin prickles but from a completely different emotion than terror. 

“I see you found my blade,” he says carefully. 

“Did you use that on me?” You manage to ask. But your chest feels tight again. You can hardly breathe. You need air. You need space. You need to get away from him before you fall into his hypnosis completely.

“It isn’t what you think,” he says gently. And when you turn to look up at him, you see fear in his gaze. It is far from what you are expecting. Not the domineering presence of a vampire set to sink his fangs into you and end your life. 

“Did you use it on me?” You repeat as you feel your blood pulse into the cut on your neck as a reminder. 

He closes his eyes and loosens his grip on your arm, though not quite letting go just yet. 

“I did,” he admits, his voice heavy with regret. “But not to hurt you. I’d never hurt you. You have to believe me. I did that to save you. It was the only thing I could-“

“Save me?” You choke out. “You slit my throat to save me?” You clasp a protective hand over your neck. You yank your arm free of his grasp completely and stumble backward toward the door.

You can see panic in his eyes now intermingling with his fear. He holds his hands up, pleading. “Please, you have to listen to me!”

“I’ve been begging you for the truth this whole time, Eddie! Begging you to just tell me what’s going on. But you’ve only lied. You tricked me. And now you want me to listen?”

“I never tricked you!” He steps toward you. “Please… please, just let me explain.”

You run out the door before you can let yourself fall for his lies once again. Before you can fall for his soft gaze, his broken expression. You race down the hallway, nearly tripping to the floor as you collide into something. Or perhaps someone.

“Whoa, careful!”

You look up and find a stranger holding onto your shoulders to keep you steady. He is wearing scrubs and a kind smile. But he shouldn’t be here. 

“Eddie, what did you say to make her run away from you like this?” He says, with a humored expression. “Did you show her your weird porn stash?”

“Let go of me!” You struggle against his hold, trying to escape. He immediately unlatches his hands from your shoulders and you sprint toward the front door. You can hear Eddie behind you, nearly screaming your name to stop you. 

“He tried to turn you!” He calls out. 

You stop, frozen by his words. You turn back to look at him as you try to comprehend what he is saying. The unspoken truth that lies between those words.

“Turn me into what?” You ask carefully. 

Eddie takes a step toward you. “Henry fed you his blood,” he says, not giving you a proper answer. “I don’t know how, but he did. That night I found you. And I needed to-“

“Turn me into what, Eddie?” You nearly scream.

“A vampire,” he finally admits. His eyes still dazzle with panic as if he is waiting for you to faint, to flee, to throw a stake into his chest. 

But instead you nod as you stand statue-like by the front door. As if he’d just said he is a vegetarian. Something so normal. “Huh.” 

“You don’t sound all that surprised,” he remarks as he takes another step closer. Like he is approaching a wild animal, though the reverse would be more accurate. 

You don’t know what else you are suppose to say in this situation. How is one suppose to respond to confirmation of their own delusions? “I guess I’m not all that shocked, to be honest,” you admit.

“Do I frighten you?” Eddie asks quietly, barely any louder than a whisper. As if he is afraid of your response. But does it even matter to a vampire if you are afraid? Did it make much of a difference? 

You refuse to answer him, because the truth lies somewhere between fear and intrigue. Between terror and fascination. You know you should run away in fear for your life. He’d already harmed you. He admitted to it even. You should leave and never look back. But as you stare at Eddie, at your roommate, you can see the fractured image of the man he used to be. The man who longs to reconnect with his humanity. 

“I think I need to sit down,” you mutter as you fumble toward the couch. You suddenly feel light-headed.

Eddie instinctively moves toward you, offering his hands out to you. “Here, let me-“

“Don’t touch me!” You snap. Your voice comes out much more aggressive than you intend. But everything is overwhelming. The truth and his scent which still suffocates you. You need distance. You need him as far away from you as possible. 

You fall onto the couch, tilting your head back against it to try to stop the room from spinning. 

“How much did you take?” The stranger asks Eddie, from somewhere to your left. You close your eyes. “She doesn’t look so good.”

“I took a lot less than Henry would have,” Eddie growls in response, his voice almost animalistic in its delivery. “Her body is adjusting. She needs time.”

“You drank from me?” You ask as your eyes shoot back open. “You drank my blood?” 

You find him standing just at the precipice of the living room, leaning up against the wall. He nods, but waits. Waits for you to ask him more. He waits for you to pry the truth from him like you are the one cutting him open, exposing the truth like a fresh wound. 

“Why?” 

“Because I needed to get his blood out of your system,” he explains, his tone desperate as he tries to justify himself. “If I didn’t, it would have continued to act like a poison, slowly debilitating you, turning you into a husk he could drain dry. All he would have needed to do was drink until you were nearly dead. Until your heart became so slow you could barely even detect you were alive at all. Then he would have turned you.” He takes another cautious step toward the couch. “I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t let him do that to you.”

You wonder if the same thing had happened to Chrissy. If she’d been human when he met her, but had been immobilized by Henry’s blood like you had, helpless to fight against his forced transformation. 

“Why would you need a blade?” You subconsciously lift your fingers to your neck. To the cut left there by his weapon. “Why not just bite me like he tried to?” You vaguely remember the scrap of teeth against your neck. That must have been Henry attempting to drink from you before Eddie had intervened.

“Some legends are true,” Eddie says in a low voice. “But others… are only half true.” He lifts a finger to his upper lip, pulling it back to reveal his unremarkable canines. 

You stare into his mouth, at his white teeth so perfectly human in appearance. No shape fangs, no razors designed to tear into flesh. Just rounded points, just like yours. 

“Vampires don’t have fangs?” You ask. 

“Some of us don’t,” he answers. “I’ve only ever seen fangs on one man. On Henry. But I suppose that’s the perk of being our progenitor.”

Progenitor. Maker. 

“He made you,” you realize and he nods, albeit reluctantly. He would have made you a vampire as well if Eddie hadn’t intervened. A shiver runs down your spine at the mere thought. Of becoming the walking dead. “So he’s like… your vampire dad?” You’re copping with humor. It’s the only way not to faint from this new reality you’ve been forced into. 

Eddie visibly winces. “Don’t ever call him that,” he growls. 

“What do you want me to call him then?”

“Nothing at all if I can help it,” he snaps. He closes his eyes and presses his fingers into his tremble, rubbing an invisible tension loose there. “You may hate me for what I had to do,” he says as he takes another step toward you as the other man watches, his eyes darting between the two of you like he is watching a tennis match. “But he would have made you one of us. And you would have hated me even more than you do now. So I did the one thing left in my power to protect you.”

“By getting a taste of me for yourself?” You snap, pulling his gaze back onto you like a magnet. But the next words don’t come from Eddie. They come from the stranger standing against the hallway. The one neither of you have addressed. 

“He protected you by making you his thrall.”

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.”

Chapter Text

Master. 

The title denotes a sense of ownership. Of belonging to him and only him. There had been a fierceness to that stated possession; an unspoken want to protect and shield you from the world. Mine, he seemed to say. 

You can’t describe the feeling it gives you in response. It isn’t wanting, even if it feels so close to desire. And it isn’t your own servitude or some self-appointed superiority on his part either. It is something entirely new; something your mortal brain can only begin to unravel. 

Mine. Yours. 

But even with this new bond holding you together, you’ve never felt more distant from another being. Barely his friend, hardly even roommates. If you are meant to belong to him, then why do you feel like nothing more than a potential meal? 

You don’t sleep that night. Instead you lie in bed, staring up at your ceiling as you listen to the sounds coming from the apartment. It doesn’t seem like Eddie has plans of leaving again tonight, and instead, prefers to pace the hallway right outside your door, monitoring it like a faithful watch dog. There would be no more late night flower deliveries, that’s for certain. 

After awhile, he finally stops, and you watch as his form slumps to the floor. Perhaps he just wants to rest while counting the hours til sunrise. Maybe he plays charades with his own shadow. A few times you debate getting up and telling him you are awake, have been awake for hours, but you never manage to make it out of bed. So you lay there, separated by a door, both of you riddled with thoughts of what tomorrow may bring. 

When morning finally does come, you decide it would be best to head back into work. You’ve missed a day now, but you can’t fall behind, especially being so new. And you feel fully recovered from what you know now to be blood loss from Eddie’s feast. From being made into a thrall. 

You don’t see Eddie’s shadow beneath the door as you get out of bed so you cautiously step out into the hallway. His bedroom door is closed. Maybe he retreated in there at some point for a bit of shut eye. Did he even need to sleep at all? Or was his bed just for appearances? Another thing to ask him.

You shower quickly, dress, and remove the bandage from your neck, ready to replace it with another. But the cut is completely healed now. Not even a scar remains, just unperturbed skin. Steve said you’d have enhanced abilities now as Eddie’s thrall. Did that mean you would also heal quickly? That isn’t something you want to test, however. 

When you step out into the kitchen, you are surprised by a note waiting for you on the counter. 

I need you to stay in the apartment today.  Don’t leave. Not for anything. We can talk more this evening about how to set up a proper schedule. How to make this work. Just wait for me.

- Eddie 

Your eyes hold on those last few words. Wait for me. They actually make you hesitate. They force you to remember how originally disobeying Eddie’s guidance had gotten you into this predicament in the first place. If only you’d just come home before nightfall. If you hadn’t stayed past midnight at the ball. If you hadn’t gone to that restaurant…

The restaurant. That must have been where you’d been slipped some of Henry’s blood. Where’d you’d been poisoned in hopes of turning you into one of them. Into damning you. But you hadn’t seen Henry anywhere inside the restaurant. You’d remember his elegant face. His cruel smile. What you do remember is Ben handing over those margaritas, seeming a bit too eager to see you drunk. But had that been his only motivation? 

Staying in the apartment won’t get you any answers. And if you and Eddie are truly going to be a team from here on out, if you are going to work together, he’ll need to relay on you to do some dirty work during the day when he is more at risk of being harmed. Just like you’ll need to relay on him at night when you are equally vulnerable. 

You swipe your keys off the counter, sling your bag over your shoulder, and head out the door before you can think better not to. 

You take the bus into work and find your car right where you left it Friday night. At least you’d be able to drive it home after work. You’ve arrived a little late to the office, but judging by the faces of your colleagues, they just seem relieved to see you at all. Of course, it is Ben that approaches you first. His expression is a mix of surprise and anxiety. You straighten up immediately upon seeing him, your suspicions locked into place. 

“You’re back!” He exclaims, a bit too loudly. His eyes shift over you and you can’t help but notice as his gaze stops and settles on your neck. “I thought you had some sort of nasty flu.”

“I did,” you lie. “But luckily for me I have a great roommate who nursed me back to health.”

“Oh, is that so?” Ben laughs lightly, but shakes his head, donning on a polite smile once again. “Yea, well, that’s good. It’s really good to have you back in the office. You didn’t miss much.”

“I’m sure I didn’t. I was only gone a day.”

“Right.”

You set your things down at your desk and stare across at Ben as he moves back over to his work station, just adjacent to your own. You wonder if he has any marks on his body. Any cuts or mysterious wounds left at prominent pulse points. Any markings of a vampire using him as a reliable source of sustenance. He smiles over at you but you can't return the gesture. Your guards are up now. You are done putting your trust so easily in people. And that includes Eddie. He will need to earn your trust just like everyone else. But luckily for him, he has an advantage now that you owe him your life. 

You don’t make any more small talk with Ben and instead dive back into your awaiting work. You have quite a few unread emails in your inbox and a project half finished from last week. But it doesn’t take more than a few minutes for you to already start thinking of him. Of Eddie. As if your mind can’t help but be pulled back against his tide. Naturally. Effortlessly. You image his smile, his laugh, his words whispered with purpose. 

Mine. 

Yours. 

You shake your head, trying to focus. He promised to protect you, the least you can do now is protect him in return. Your eyes drift back over to Ben once you know he is absorbed in his own work. 

You don’t know much about Ben. You only know what he has told you about himself. He has been working for the company for two years, fresh out of college. He lives alone, no pets, and no hobbies to speak of besides the odd interest in whatever is popular on Netflix at the moment. For all intents and purposes, he is a shell of a human, propped up and made polite for someone else’s benefit. A tulpa. But could the person who created him truly be Henry, or are you prematurely judging someone’s sad existence? 

You just barely begin to tune out the world around you, focusing on lines of code as your fingers work across the keys, when you hear Ben gasp silently beside you.

“What is-“

You lift your head around your large monitor to see a tall man approaching your desk. He is dressed all in black. Black jeans, black jacket, black boots, even black gloves cover his hands. He is wearing thick sunglasses that shield his eyes as well, but most predominately is the wide rimmed hat he is wearing. Like something a rich retired woman might wear on a cruise to the Bahamas. It doesn’t quite go with the overall look. Too cheerful for the otherwise goth ensemble. In his right hand is a closed umbrella that he clutches as if he might break your monitor with it like a makeshift sledgehammer. 

“Can I help y-“ You quickly realize who is hidden beneath all those black layers thanks to a few helpful piercings set into the visible parts of his face. “Eddie?” 

He leans forward against your desk, gripping the edges with his free hand. “I asked you-,” he starts and stops, grinding his teeth. “I was very clear about not leaving the apartment.”

Your eyes dance over him, settling on the small bits of flesh exposed to daylight now red and blistering like a bad sunburn. “I have a job to do, Eddie.” You stand so you can see him clearly. “I can’t just stay cooped up in the apartment all day. I have bills to pay. My share of the rent for example.” You keep your voice low, lest your coworkers hear you. “You shouldn’t have come here.” You reach for him when you can’t stomach looking at the wounds you feel you’ve had a hand in inflicting. “You’re hurt-“

He flinches away from your touch though his hand stays held to the desk. His nails dig into the lacquered top, leaving crescent shaped indents in the wood. “We don’t even know how long we can be apart from each other," he hisses. "What if something happened to you and I didn’t know where you were? What if you-“

“You really don’t know how long we can be apart?”

His eyes finally meet yours. “No.”

You thought it had to be days. Eddie had even said as much yesterday. But if he felt anxious after being away from you for only a few hours, what did that mean for the future of your “partnership”? You’d been so passionate the night before about making sure you kept each other safe. And yet still, Eddie managed to get exposed to the sun in his desperation to stay by your side, to assure you would stay out of harm’s way yourself. 

You had felt so certain that coming here would be the best thing you could do, for the both of you.

Hypocrite. 

“I need you to come home with me,” Eddie says in a harsh whisper. “Now.”

“How did you get here?” You look him over, taking in his ridiculous outfit once again. “Is it even safe for you to go back outside?”

“I’ll be fine,” he groans. “Now just get your things so we can go.” He shifts a nervous glance around the room where your coworkers have already started to stare. You’ve never seen him look so uncomfortable. Like the phantom of the opera, being seen by his audience for the first time. 

“Is this the roommate?” 

You both turn to find Ben standing beside your desk, staring expectedly at Eddie. 

“I am,” Eddie answers as he dips his sunglasses enough to stare at Ben directly over the rims. “And you are…”

“Ben.” He extends his hand out to Eddie with a wide smile. “Somehow I wasn’t expecting you to be-“

“A man?” Eddie glares as he takes Ben’s hand and grips it firmly. 

“Are you a celebrity or something?” Ben asks instead as he pries his hand free of Eddie’s. 

Eddie wipes his own hand on his jeans as if Ben’s touch had been toxic. And you note a slight twitch to his upper lip as he studies Ben with a careful gaze. You move around your desk and prepare to be a physical buffer between the two men if necessary. 

“Celebrity?” Eddie laughs sharply, cruelly. “Hm. Not unless you count a brief stint as a rock star in London.”

“Wait, what?” You ask, your interest peaked. 

“Later,” Eddie dismisses. Though you can tell he is fighting against a smile, held right at the edge of his lips, trying to take over the rest of his mouth with the temptation of satisfaction. But his sneer wins out. “We need to leave. Now.” 

His demands are getting repetitive. You should find it annoying, but you have begun to feel an itch beneath your skin, anxious to return home, anxious to drown out the rest of the world and settle into a place where only you and Eddie exist. You felt it the moment you saw Eddie’s face; a sense of relief. He is here. 

You start to speak when Ben cuts in to your defense. Not that you ever asked for his help. “She’s working,” he says as he steps back into Eddie’s personal space like a human barricade. “Unless there is some family emergency, she will be here ‘til five.”

“Are you her boss?” Eddie asks with a glare at the man who is quite a few inches shorter than him, especially with the added platformed boots he is wearing.  

“No, but I don’t want to see her fired because you have attachment issues.”

You can practically see flames start to fan out around Eddie as his shoulders tense. “Listen, this isn’t any of your goddamn bus-“

You place a hand gently between Eddie’s shoulder blades and immediately feel that tension ease, melting beneath your touch like a hot blade set to ice. “I can take a quick break so we can talk,” you say in a whisper. “Okay?”

He turns to look at you over his shoulder. “Okay.”

You reach down and take Eddie’s hand, ready to physically drag him away from Ben to get him alone. But to your surprise, his fingers latch around yours immediately and he falls into step with you as you both walk out into the hall. Your hands thread together. Fire to his ice. You try not to dwell on the sensation, or how it makes you feel. Instead, you try to focus on finding privacy. But your breath still hitches. Your heart still races. 

Your office does not have many places to have a hushed conversation. There is a coffee shop downstairs but it is outfitted with a floor to ceiling window, letting afternoon light pour across the sprawl of coffee drinkers laid out around several tables. You couldn’t risk that with Eddie. So the next best thing you can find is straight ahead of you, clearly marked as off limits. 

The janitor’s closet.

You push Eddie into the cramped space. The two of you just barely fit inside without needing to contort your bodies around each other. You step back as far as you can manage. Your back hits the shelves of cleaning supplies. You almost knock over a tub of bleach but Eddie reaches behind you to adjust it. He leans over you for a moment, bent in half to push the jug against the shelf.

It’s hard to ignore how, in such close proximity, you are suffocated once again by Eddie’s otherworldly aroma. The scent that you know can’t belong to a cologne. It is his and his alone. You hold your breath against the onslaught and wait for him to pull back. He doesn’t. 

“You can’t just barge into my work place like this,” you say. Best to get to the matter at hand. To stop being so unhinged by the way a man smells. The way he looks. The way his cold hand felt when you grabbed it, or the way he held on tight. 

“Not like I had a choice,” Eddie replies. “And I asked you to wait for me. So we could talk about this. So we could work as a team the way you asked me to.” 

Anger and resentment bubble up inside of you so suddenly. It needs an outlet. It needs to be set free. And there is nothing and no one in this tight space you are cramped in that can contain it. 

“I never asked for any of this, Eddie!”

You brace yourself for his anger, or for your own to consume you both. For this small space to combust into flames. But instead, you feel his cool hands gripping your shoulders. 

“I know,” he says gently. He moves in a bit so you can feel the pressure of his body, the push of his knee against your leg. “Would you have preferred for him to turn you?”

“Of course not!” You argue. 

“Then stop acting like you still have a death wish.”

You stand there for a moment together, eyes held, bodies touching. There is something in the air between you. A poison. A cure. You want to reach up and touch him more. Push that ridiculous hat off his head so your hands can thread through his hair, so you can get lost in his wild mass of curls. His fingers move just a bit so he is touching the bare skin at the nape of your neck. You gasp at the contact and feel your whole body part and awaken beneath that small caress. 

Master. 

You tilt your neck on impulse and watch as he breathes in, watch as his nostrils flare. Do you smell differently to him now as well? 

You can feel your body bend for him, ready to be devoured, when suddenly, he practically pushes himself off of you. You stumble at the lose of contact, nearly toppling over the contents on the shelf behind you. Even without his touch, the small, cramped space still smells of him. It’s impossible to escape it. But the loss of contact helps to snap you back to reality. 

“I’m-“ Eddie starts, but shakes his head to dismiss the thought. 

“I’m sorry,” you say for you both. 

He lets out a deep sigh, as he moves as far away as the tight closet will allow. “Yea. Me too. I just… I’m trying, okay?” He folds his arms over his chest. “I’m not a fan of having to stay attached at the hip like this. But this is all new for me. I wasn’t exactly prepared for how this would affect me either. I’ve never had a thrall before.”

“What do you mean?” You ask as you push off the shelves. “Chrissy wasn’t your thrall?”

Eddie’s face contorts with confusion. “What? Why would you think that?”

“I-I just assumed with the way you spoke about her. And with what Steve said yesterday.”

His eyes narrow. “What did Steve say?”

“He… said something about your blood not working on Chrissy. I assumed that meant she was your thrall.”

Eddie’s eyes widen. “That wouldn’t-“

He stops himself. His eyes burrow right through you. Suddenly your heart aches, as if you can feel what he feels. You feel a burn against your lashes like you should cry, but you aren’t sure where the emotion is coming from. It isn’t your own. It’s borrowed. Stolen.

The pain of a broken heart. 

“Chrissy wasn’t my thrall,” he finally tells you. 

“Who was she then?” You dare to ask. You know he loved her. And now you know she had never been his thrall. That left one of two possibilities: she is dead or undead. “What happened to her?”

Instead of answering, you watch as his jaw tenses. He reaches out for the closet door, to put an end to your conversation completely. You lunge for him but stop yourself short. You can’t quite bring yourself to touch him directly, knowing the ill fated consequences his touch could bring. The way it would shatter your inhabitations like the best kind of drug. 

You can’t help but stare up into Eddie’s eyes, searching for the truth. Your own body goes frigid under his gaze. Has your breathing always been this shallow? Did you always feel this warm? You lick your lips, mouth parted as you wait for his answer. He stares down, eyes held to your tongue as it slips free over your lips.

“You two are a little similar, you know,” he finally says. “She was always so curious. Always the optimist. Tried to see the good in everyone. Even me. She was… too good for someone like me.”

You can’t ignore the way he speaks about her in the past tense. But you stay silent, listening. 

“Henry doesn’t appreciate when someone comes between him and his… creations.” He says the last word like it is a slur, venom on his tongue. “And that was the problem. The minute he realized what Chrissy meant to me, he snuffed her out of existence.” 

Your heart aches once again and the room suddenly feels tighter, restricting. As if you’ve already been crying for hours and have forgotten how to breathe.

“He… killed her?”

“Chrissy wasn’t my thrall,” Eddie says again, never once taking his eyes off of you. “She was Henry’s. And being his thrall turned her into someone else. He made her do things for him… to him. Eventually he ordered her to kill herself. Right in front of me. And she did it with a smile on her face.”

“Oh god… Eddie, I’m so so-“

“But there is one big difference between you and her,” he says cutting you off. You wonder how long ago that must have happened for him to turn such pain into contempt. His eyes turn nearly black, animalistic as he shifts his gaze to your hand still hovering just above his own. “She loved me of her own free well. I know that. There isn’t anyone or anything that can take that away from me. But what Henry did to her, what being his thrall turned her into… that wasn’t Chrissy. Anything she felt for Henry was fabricated. It wasn’t real. And the same goes for you.”

You feel your heart shatter like glass, shards stabbing into the tender flesh of your chest. “What?“

“Do you feel differently about me?” he asks, demanding, as he leans back down into you. “Have your feelings changed at all?”

“I-I don’t know what you are talking about. Can you please just let me leave-“

His fingers slip around your wrist and you both practically sigh at the sensation. The wholeness it creates, though not enough to cast off that hollowness his words fostered. It only makes that emptiness burrow down deeper. “So nothing’s changed? Not even when I’m so close you can smell me? Not even when I touch you like this?” His fingers move up your arm, delicately tracing the veins hidden beneath skin. 

You swallow thickly, trying to force down the lump forming there. Trying to ease your heart to silent contentment. You manage to dodge his caress, stepping back til the bleach, at last, falls to the floor. 

“No,” you lie just as the smell of spilt bleach completely overwhelms his scent. It frees you of his tether, if just for a moment. “I don’t feel any different. Now, can I please get back to work?”

Eddie’s gaze moves back to the rings he gave you, still dangling around your neck as jewelry. His face contorts slightly, shifting between disappointment and relief before splitting into cruel indifference. 

“I made you my thrall not because I wanted your praise or your sympathy,” he nearly hisses. “I did it to beat Henry at his own game. So he’d think twice before he ever tried to take something away from me again.”

“Is that… really the only reason you saved me?” Am I really just a pawn in this game of chess?

He hesitates, teeth grinding, eyes smoldering with something like rage or regret. 

“Yes,” he grunts. 

Something inside of you twists at his words. It is that same ache you’d harbored before but now, those feelings have been made into your own. Your eyes burn and blur with unshed tears. 

“Ah.” You reach for the door yourself, trying to leave. “Well I’m glad that’s out in the open now.”

His hand forms into a fist, pushing into the door, keeping it shut. Keeping you sealed in this tight room together with a bitter truth held between you.

“Just because we’ve been forced into this situation together… that doesn’t mean we have to suffer in each other’s company.”

There it is again; the feeling of hope being relinquished. 

“Who said anything about suffering?” You mutter. 

He gives you a small smile that feels far to forced to be natural. He moves around you, busying himself with cleaning up the split bleach. But you can’t help feeling like he is just avoiding further eye contact. 

"Being stuck together like this won't be easy." 

“Well I’m sorry you have to be stuck with someone like me,” you reply, keeping your back to him. You don’t want the tremor of your lips or the sheen of your eyes to give anything away. 

“That wasn’t- shit. Can you look at me?”

You only manage to look at him over your shoulder but it’s enough to capture you completely. 

“You said you wanted to be friends and I’ve been nothing but an ass to you,” he says. His eyes have softened significantly. “Can we just… try again? Start fresh?”

“As what? Roommates?”

He laughs lightly at that and strangely, it makes you feel slightly more relaxed now that a bit of humor has been introduced to the stale room around you. 

“I think we are little more than roommates now. Don’t you think?”

It takes you a moment, but eventually you nod in agreement. You could try to start fresh with him. You could try to ignore the hurt you’ve felt knowing that anything he’d done for you hadn’t been because he cared, but because of some sick game he continues to play with Henry. A tug of war of mortality. 

At least you are alive because of their childish qualms. 

“I never did say thank you,“ you say quietly. He doesn’t respond so you continue. “Thank you. For saving my life. Even if that really wasn’t your intention.”

“I don’t deserve that thank you,” he mumbles. 

“No. Maybe you don’t.”

He smiles, just a little. But this time, it’s real. A sad sort of contentment. It provides a glimpse of himself coming back to the light. It pulls you along with him, despite everything. 

“How did you get here anyway?” You ask to change the subject. “I’ve never even asked if you own a car.”

“I have a bike but it’s a little hard to use during the day.” He adjusts his gloves which you only now notice are perfect for a motorcycle. “I took the bus.”

“The bus?” You try to picture him on any type of public transportation, slumped in his seat to avoid the sunlight. “Well at least I can drive us back. I’m just going to have to cover the windows like they do for infants.”

“Don’t do that,” he groans. “I’m not a baby.” 

You laugh, recalling when you’d said the same thing to him. It makes him laugh too and suddenly things feel much more settled, normal. Like being a team with Eddie isn’t so impossible to do. 

“Are you really okay to stay here until the end of the day?” You ask. 

He arches an eyebrow, smirking. “In this closet?”

You give him a half-serious glare, threatening to punch his shoulder. But he only smiles at you as he dodges the hit. He smiles in a way that reminds you why you’d agreed to live with him in the first place. He may dress himself like a threat. He may even check all the boxes. But when he smiles, you can see who he used to be. The man behind the mask.

“Just try not to get me fired, okay?” 

“I’ll behave. Scout’s honor.” He crosses his fingers over his heart as you open the closet door. Luckily, there’s no one out in the hall to report you to HR for misconduct. 

“What about sleep?” You ask as you walk back toward your desk. “Aren’t you tired?”

“I usually only need to sleep for a few hours,” he says. “I don’t really need much, if any at all.”

You nod. “Ah.”

“Are you worried about me?” He asks in a low whisper, making you turn to find him giving you a mischievous grin.

“Never,” you argue.

He just continues to smile. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

You nearly stop in your tracks. It’s the first time he has used any sort of nickname with you. Ordinarily, you’d put a man like him in his place. ‘Who do you think you are calling 'sweetheart'?’ But today, you don’t have a rebuttal. You don’t have anything at all to say except to fall to silence, swallowing the words that want to come bubbling up to the surface. The words that beg him to say it again. He doesn't deserve that kind of reaction from you. 

Eddie takes up residence at an empty desk across from you. At first, he sits still in the office chair, slightly spinning it back and forth, until the last of his self control evaporates and he plops his booted foot up onto the desk like a miscreant in detention. You try to ignore him and finish up your work but every now and then your gaze can’t help but drift off your monitor to watch him. His eyes always find yours, as if he’s been watching you all along, waiting for you to return his gaze. Even this far away from each other, you feel a pull toward him, like a tether wrapped around your waist, held to his fist. A leash. You can feel the urge of submission at the back of your mind, telling you to say yes to anything and everything he asks. That is the truth of a thrall. Servitude.

When you aren’t looking over at Eddie, you study Ben. You watch the way he stays glued to his phone, frantically answering every text he receives within seconds. He seems nervous, on edge. A warm sweat prickles his brow. Had he always seemed so uneasy? Or had something changed? 

Eddie’s chair squeaks and you turn, watching as he picks up his phone. A moment later, yours buzzes beside you. 

“Did you just come here to work or did you want to stare at your coworker all day?”

You glare across at Eddie, typing a reply quickly. “Oh please.”

“Not your type?” He is smirking over his phone as if he just discovered something amusing.

You don’t reply and shove your phone aside. But it buzzes a moment later with another text. 

“What is your type anyway?”

You hold your phone, debating how to reply. Until you throw caution to the wind. 

“Men with a pulse.”

You don’t even manage to watch him read it. You hear him respond instead; a sharp cackle of a laugh. 

“Touché.”

“You were right. I did come back to work to watch Ben,” you text back. “Not because I like him but because I think he might be working for Henry.”

Eddie’s gaze narrows as he stares at your message. 

“You think he is Henry’s thrall?” He replies. 

“It’s a possibility, isn’t it? He could have slipped Henry’s blood to me that night.”

Eddie’s gaze drifts over to Ben, eyes tracing his form carefully. You wonder what his eyes could see that yours couldn’t. What enhancement his ruined mortality has bestowed upon him.

“Can you see anything?” You text back.

“No,” he sends in response. “If he is Henry’s, there’s only way to find out. And I’m not willing to risk that.”

“And that is?”

Eddie doesn’t respond this time. In fact, he doesn’t message you at all for the rest of the day, though he stays glued to his phone, preoccupied with something else.  Something that doesn’t involve you. 

Five o’clock rolls around faster than you realize. It takes Eddie tapping on the top of your monitor for you to snap out of a code-infused haze. You pop your earbuds out and look up at him. 

“Let’s go home,” he says softly. He extends his hand out to you and for a moment, you almost take it. Until you realize he is offering to take your bag. You slip it quickly into his grip and silently walk out to the parking lot together. Ben is already gone as you walk past his desk. You wonder if Eddie saw him leave but don’t bother to ask. 

Once inside your car, Eddie immediately puts the passenger seat back, practically laying fully reclined as you pull out of the parking garage. He dips his hat over his head to shield himself from the sun.

“Do you want my sweater?” You ask, already ready to slip it off your shoulders.

“Music,” Eddie says. It’s hard to see if his eyes are open or closed beneath the dark tint of his sunglasses. “Just give me some music.”

You plug in your phone, letting the sound of Dio fill the car’s cabin as you make your way back home to your shared apartment. You keep your gaze on the road but occasionally you look over, just to make sure Eddie hasn’t combusted into a pile of dust. You find him lying there beside you, smiling slightly and taping his feet against the floor to the rhythm of the music. 

The sun has started its descent beyond the horizon by the time you make it to the apartment, ringing in the safety of the night for Eddie. As you step inside, Eddie discards his hat and sunglasses on the kitchen counter before you hear him open up the door out to the balcony attached to the living room. 

“Come outside with me?” He asks. And like an obedient pet, you follow him out into the night, tail wagging. “Mind if I smoke?” 

You shake your head, though you can’t help but stare at him as he pulls the pack out of his jacket and ignites a single stick with the flick of his lighter. 

“Why do you smoke?” You dare to ask as he takes the cigarette to his lips, inhaling its deadly fumes. “Old habit?”

He smiles at you around the cigarette before pulling it away. Puffs of smoke flow off his parted lips. “Something like that.” He takes another drag. “Smoking weirdly makes me feel human again. As if I could still die.” His smile fades and he dangles the cigarette between his fingertips, watching ash form at the tip and drift off to the ground. 

You stare at his hands. His nails coated in chipped black polish, his fingers studded with new, ornamental rings, tattoos already a bit faded underneath. Those hands have taken life, and yet they look no different from your own. You wonder if you were to turn his palm over, if you might see something in the lines of his hands to determine his fate. Luna would know. 

“So… a rock star, huh?”

He smiles and takes another drag of the cigarette. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”

“I never forget,” you say with a playful smile. 

Eddie laughs and exhales a huff of smoke.

“I spent some time in Europe back in the nineties, right after I turned. Played with a little band, tried to distract myself with music. Was easy to blend in with the night life there. Easy to feed.”

“I wish I could have seen you play,” you confess, wistfully. 

He smiles at that. “Get me drunk enough and I might break out my guitar one of these nights.”

“You can still get drunk?”

“Off the right kind of blood, yea.” He looks at you strangely and you wonder if your blood would do that. If it took a thrall’s blood to make a vampire drunk. To make them lose their inhibitions. 

What else was a thrall truly capable of?

He leans forward against the balcony, lips held to his cigarette, and stares forward at the vast landscape of the city beyond your apartment. Of street lights turning on down below. Of parents returning home, ready to tuck their children in to bed. Of a city shutting down for the night. But this is when vampires dwell. This is their domain. You are merely an unwelcome visitor. Your own eyes drift to the spots on Eddie's neck that have become blistered by the sun's exposure. You wonder how long it will take him to heal. He'd said it could be centuries. You wince at the thought; that your own carelessness could have caused Eddie a century worth of scarring. But they aren't the only markings on his body. His fingers are scarred where his rings had once rested. The rings you now wear. 

“You said you gave me these to ward off evil,” you say as you hook your finger through one of the rings at your neck. “Was there another reason?”

He follows your gaze to his hands. "I guess you've realized silver and me don't mix," he says with a small smile before shoving his hand in his jacket. 

"But you wore these," you take as you pull at the rings. "Why wear something that hurts you?"  

“Silver makes the wearer less susceptible to telekinesis,” Eddie replies quietly. He looks at you out of the corner of his eye, his gaze drifting subtly to your neck. “Henry and I have a connection I can never sever. One that allows him to access my mind. He can make me do things. Make me want to.” He takes another long drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke slowly roll off his tongue. “I wore those in an attempt at keeping him out. And they worked, for a little while anyway.”

“Is that how he always found you?” You ask. “Even when you ran from him? Because he was reading your mind?”

“That’s my best guess,” he replied with an all too casual shrug. “He did create me. I suppose he could sense me even at a distance. The rings distorted the signal a bit. But these-“ He flashes his fingers at you, showing off the rune tattoos you’d suspected had been about more than aesthetics. “These shatter those signals to fucking oblivion.”

“But he found you here.”

Eddie winces. “That… wasn’t because he could sense me. I slipped up. Didn’t cover my trail. I was just about to move again. I was going to try Italy this time. Get lost in the colosseum. Be a vagabond. But I decided to put that ad out. I gave myself one more chance here to try to remember what it was like to just live… To be human. To not run away when things got tough. That’s when you knocked on my door.”

He turns so his back is against the railing of the balcony, the amber glow of sunset now his backdrop. He looks like a fallen Angel this way, with the smoke still hovering against his silhouette. With his dark hair fluttering slightly against the autumn breeze. He pushes off that balcony, getting closer. 

“Those rings aren’t to prevent Henry from entering your mind,” he whispers. “They’re for me.” 

You reach for them instinctively just as he lifts his own finger to the rings. He hooks his finger around one of them and pulls slightly until you are gasping and stumbling closer.

“As my thrall, I could make you do just about anything I want,” he says. “Just like Henry controlled me. How he controlled Chrissy. I could order you to bark like a dog and you’d happily do it. I could make you steal for me, kill for me. I could make you crawl on all fours and lick my boots if I really wanted you to. Would you do that? Would you crawl for me?”

You lick your lips instinctively, frozen as he moves closer. Your knees feel weak but it is hard to tell if that is because of some compulsion or because, deep down, you are made to submit to him. To fall before him like a disciple before their God. But before you can move in, he lets go, the ring necklace falling against your chest. Its weight feels heavier somehow without his touch. As he pulls away, you notice the new red hue of his skin where he once touched the silver of your rings. 

“These rings should be preventing you from… affecting my mind?” You ask, trying, and failing, to catch your breath. Whatever you feel for Eddie now isn’t because he is compelling you to feel a certain way, to act a certain way. 

“I don’t know everything about this-“ He gestures between your bodies flippantly. “I’m assuming a lot from what I saw happen with Chrissy. But I don’t know any of it first hand. We are treading new territory. So I’m going to need you to be completely honest with me about what you are feeling, thinking. You said you don’t feel any different. I can only hope that means those rings are working as intended.”

If the rings prevented hypnosis, that meant everything you are feeling now, the way you are drawn to him, the way you crave his nearness like a forgotten comfort, is all of some other origin. It could be the true nature of a thrall, nothing he is doing to coerce you but simply how you have been created to be, to act. That would be a much simpler explanation, but you aren’t sure you can tell Eddie the truth if you can’t even admit it to yourself. 

Because the truth is the only compulsion you feel is your attraction for him, despite everything you now know. 

Eddie’s phone buzzes. He pulls it from his back pocket and frowns. 

“Work again?” You ask.

He shoves his phone away. “I have to meet someone tonight.“ He starts to walk back into the apartment, his cigarette stomped out under this boot. You follow after him. 

“Henry?”

“No. Another vampire,” he replies over his shoulder, though he barely looks at you. “But someone perhaps just as dangerous as Henry.”

Who could be as dangerous as the man who made Eddie, his progenitor? 

“Who-?”

“My employer,” he says as he walks back to his room. “Just lock all the doors and windows until I come back. I promise I’ll make this as fast as possible.”

“Wait. I’m not going with you?”

“No,” he says, disappearing into the darkness of his room. He doesn’t shut the door but it’s clear he doesn’t want you to follow. 

“You wouldn’t even let me be alone at work for more than a few hours today,” you remind him as you stand out in the hallway. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“It won’t be safe for you to be with me.” His voice sounds muffled, as if he were inside of his closet, fishing through its contents. 

“And I’m not safe without you,” you call out. You peak your head inside but can’t see him. There is another pile of clothes on the floor but it’s hard to distinguish it from the rest of the room’s mayhem. “This feels like a situation where I am destined to lose either way, Eddie.”

He is quiet in response but you continue to hear him ruffing through his room. A shirt is tossed onto the bed that looks suspiciously like the one he’d just been wearing. You try not to follow the urge of curiosity to step into the room and follow the path of that shirt. 

“You said that you don’t know how long we can be apart before there are… consequences.” You can’t quite bring yourself to say ‘death’. “Maybe I don’t want to risk it either.”

He still doesn’t respond, so you start feeling, and sounding, desperate.

“Eddie-“

“Fuck… Fine,” he finally relents, unseen, until at last, he steps out of his bedroom.

He leans against the doorframe, gripping the wood in his still gloved hand. You try not to gape up at him but can’t help but tilt your gaze slightly to meet his. He has changed his outfit, trading his leather for fishnet. Before, there had hardly been any of his skin visibly beneath all that fabric, lest the sun scorch his flesh. However now, he doesn’t seem the least bit concerned with modesty. You can see the canvas of his tattoos plainly between the criss cross of the fishnet covering his torso in place of a shirt. Dual piercings catch the light of the hallway but you try not look too long. Try not to stare. His pants are slightly loose, hanging around his hips, as if he hurried to put them on and forgot to fasten them completely in his scurry to meet you at the door. 

“You need to get changed,” he notes as his own eyes dip down over you. “You can’t go dressed like that.”

“Like what?” 

“Like a librarian.” He smirks.  

You look down at yourself. You hadn’t given much thought to your outfit that morning as you rushed out the door. But the one thing that sets the two of you apart is that you are wearing far too much clothing by comparison. 

“Don’t get me wrong. The librarian look is cute,” Eddie compliments. “But where we are going, cute won’t really cut it.” 

“Where the hell are we going exactly?” 

“A party.” He reaches down, finally putting you out of your misery by zipping up his pants. “But I’ll need to make a pit stop before we meet with my boss.” He moves back down the hall toward the front of the apartment. “I have a debt to collect.”

Chapter Text

You stand infront of your closet, shuffling through everything you own in a sort of chaotic frenzy. There has to be something that could count as proper attire for a party. Or at least something that might match all the fishnet Eddie is wearing. You pull out a black cocktail dress but barely get a chance to turn around and show him before you hear him say a curt, “No.”

He’s already rejected four other options, so now you are hitting the dregs; outfits you haven’t touched since your college days. 

“Eddie, we are going to be here all night if you continue to object to everything in my wardrobe,” you say, exasperated. 

“And I told you that if you don’t blend in tonight, there will be more repercussions than I’m equipped to deal with,” Eddie replies. He is sitting on your bed, leaning back and appearing bored. “Keep looking.” 

You let out an annoyed grunt. “Maybe we don’t even go tonight,” you say as you sort through your skirts. “Wouldn’t it be better to stay in? Safer?”

“I have a job to do,” he says as if to taunt you with your own excuse for slipping out of his grasp this morning. “And we won’t stay long. I just have to make an appearance.” He sounds just as put out by this party as you do. “You okay on a bike?”

“Going to have to be I guess.” 

You are just about to give up on your closet when suddenly you hear him shift behind you with a blunt, “Wait.”

Your hand hovers over a leather black skirt; part of a Halloween costume you never had enough courage to wear in public. “This?”

He stands and approaches you, examining the leather between your fingertips. “That,” he says as he pries it off the hanger. “That will work.”

“You said we are taking your bike,” you say, almost under your breath.

“And?”

“And I can’t wear a skirt on a bike,” you argue. You try to take the skirt from his hands, to put it back away, but his mind has already been made up. 

“Wear tights,” he says as if it is the obvious answer. “Now we have to figure out what to go with it.”

“You’re starting to sound like my disgruntled stylist, Eddie,” you groan. 

He laughs quickly before turning to look you over, to run his eyes down your body as if mentally undressing you. He takes the skirt from your hands and lies it out on the bed. He stands there, his back to you, as he stares at that single article of clothing. 

“Take your shirt off,” he says without looking at you. He isn’t demanding, and yet it is an order all the same. He says it so simply as if commenting on the weather, or asking what you had for breakfast. Not asking you to undress for him. 

You blink at his back and take a staggering step into your open closet. “I’m sorry?”

“I won’t look. I promise. I’ll even step out of the room if that would make you more comfortable.” He looks over his shoulder at you and smirks. “What are you working with underneath that blouse?”

You cross your arms protectively over your chest. “I’m wearing underwear if you really need to know,” you remark. The room feels stuffy again. 

“Is it cute?” He asks, intrigued. 

“It’s… decent.” To be honest, you can’t even recall what you are wearing, having blindly reached into your dresser for the first suitable bra your fingers grazed within its confines this morning. 

“Find something else then,” Eddie remarks as he starts to move out of your room. “Something worth looking at.”

You start to protest but he is already gone, the door swinging but not quite closing behind him. 

Something worth looking at. 

Your skin feels impossibly warm. When had the apartment gotten so hot? Or perhaps you are the one who has changed; your blood now set to boiling because of Eddie’s forced transformation. Perhaps being a thrall comes with the added benefit (or disadvantage) of being perpetually overheated. 

You walk over to your dresser, and stare down at your assortment of bras, lined up in perfect, color-coordinated order. You see it almost immediately. Something worth looking at. You bought it in a whim a few years back. When an ex had told you that he was bored, particularly that he was bored in the bedroom. 

“We always do the same thing,” he complained. “There’s never anything new or exciting with you.”

Discouraged, you looked up ways to further entice him. New perfumes. Toys even. Until you passed by the storefront of an old, almost antique, lingerie store. The red, lacy brassiere caught your eye immediately. You floated into the store as if under hypnosis. You touched the delicate lace as if it were a religious artifact; too precious. You bought it, and while the boyfriend had quickly been discarded, deemed unworthy for such a beautiful piece of lingerie, you kept the lace. You kept it like a boxed collectible. Something to look at longingly but never wear. 

Before you can second guess yourself, you slip out of your “librarian” work attire, replacing your beige tights for a fishnet pair you are surprised you even own. The leather skirt slides up your legs and sits low on your hips, barely hitting mid thigh. You slip on boots that cover your calves; leather like the skirt. When lastly, you get to the bra, you hesitate only for a moment before hooking it against your ribs and staring at your resulting reflection in the floor length mirror. The bra is practically see-through, but the lace is perfectly placed so that any potential indecency is covered by its red intricacies. Your silver rings dangle just between your breasts like a protective gate, barring entry.

You hear the door creak just a bit as Eddie knocks but lingers in the hallway. 

“Are you dressed?” He asked and for some reason, there is something in his voice that makes it seem as if he wants you to say “no”. Wants you to tell him to come in anyway. 

“Yes,” you call out before looking at yourself one more time in the mirror and crossing your arms back over your chest. “You can come in.”

He does so, pushing the door open fully. He is wearing a leather jacket now, though his chest is still bare aside from the temptation of fishnet crisscrossing his skin. As he steps inside, he stops short and stares, taking in your new ensemble. 

“That’ll work,” he says. His throat bobs as he swallows. “Yea. That’ll work.”

“I can’t just wear a bra,” you mutter, disgruntled as you turn back to the mirror. “Unless this is some sort of sex party.”

“What if it is?”

You swing your head back to him so fast you feel the room spin. “What?”

He chuckles. “It’s not. Even though I’m sure people do have sex, it’s not explicitly an orgy.” He steps up to you and only now do you realize he is holding something behind his back with one hand. His other reaches out, reaches for you. “Let me see.”

It takes you a moment to even realize he is reaching up for your arms, trying to unlatch them from over your chest. “Eddie, I don’t-“

“Relax,” he soothes, his hand wrapping around your wrist. His touch is so gentle, so strangely reassuring that you feel your hold loosening. Your arms fall away and you are exposed to him, or as exposed as you’ve ever been, ever wanted to be. His eyes hold to your face for a moment. Perhaps he is willing himself not to look. Not to linger. His eyes dance with something like desire but that’s not possible. Unless he desires to drink your blood, and that red lace is only reminding him of that need. Finally, he gives up his resistance. His eyes fall and trace down the length of your neck, oh so slowly. Then they curl over your collarbone and settle on those two halves of red like an open clam shell. A bleeding heart. 

“It suits you,” he says in a sigh. “The color.”

“Thank you,” you manage, though your throat feels tight. 

His hand is still encircling your wrist and he is so close. So very close. You breathe in and he is there again, filling your lungs, your brain, your soul with that sweet scent of rain. You could drown in it, wet and panting. You move into him on instinct but he unlatches his hand from your wrist and reveals what he’d been concealing behind his back. It’s a white shirt, a simple button down. The material is a bit sheer as if it were something quite old. Something of his. Something borrowed. 

Wordlessly, he helps guide it over your arms. It’s big on you but not overly so. He adjusts its placement so each half just barely covers your chest, keeps you decent. Then his hand is slipping into the front of your skirt. You jerk back in surprise, which strangely makes him smile. His hand stays there for a moment against the bare skin of your abdomen. Your heat meets the chill of his palm. Fire to his ice. You take a deep breath and feel your hips rock just a bit toward that touch, urging, persuading. But he makes quick work of tucking the shirt into your skirt. His touch leaves you completely but you can still feel his caress like a scar against your skin. You can smell him encasing you now thanks to the borrowed shirt. 

He steps back to take in the overall look. “Yea, this works,” he says, as a compliment almost to himself. He doesn’t even wait for you to evaluate yourself before his hand is threaded through yours and he is dragging you back out the door. “We are already late.”

You manage to snatch a tube of lipstick off your dresser as he pulls you to the entrance of the apartment. Your dual boots click down the stairs as you sprint, near urgently, hand in hand. His motorcycle is parked in a small garage attached to the apartment building. As you apply your lipstick, he lifts a helmet off a small shelf, though it looks as if it has never been worn. There is a thin layer of dust over its once shiny exterior. He has to blow on it to clear a bit of debris away. He hands it over to you as he goes ahead and sits on the bike. You hesitate as you clip the helmet into place, lest you want your brain matter spilled over concrete. 

Eddie revs the bike to life. The sound vibrates against your chest, raises the hair on the back of your neck. He turns to look at you.

“Get on, sweetheart. We don’t have all night.”

You glare but slip into place behind him, happy to be at his back where he can’t see your legs parted behind him, the skirt inching higher. At first, your hands rest against his back, unsure of where else you can touch, hold. The bike moves suddenly and you let out a yelp as your body jerks backward against the momentum. 

Eddie reaches an arm around, latching onto your wrist once again. This time, he maneuvers your arm around his waist, holds it there.

“Just hang onto me,” he says over the roar of the bike. “I don’t want you falling off.”

“Well, gee, thanks,” you say, but your voice is so low you barely even hear yourself over the noise.

If Eddie does hear you, he doesn’t reply. Instead, he peels the bike out into the night, disregarding the stop sign at the end of the road as he speeds off to your first destination. You have no idea where you are going, only that he is taking you to the part of town you usually avoid, especially at night. Your hands sit against his chest, blanketing his ribs. Your fingers splay and you wonder if his heart still beats. If you might feel it if only you concentrate on the sensation. But perhaps his body is truly still. No heart beat, no blood flow. Just a corpse suspended in time. The thought oddly makes your own heart ache. You lean into him, imagining a life he may have had if Henry hadn’t turned him. A life with Chrissy perhaps. A life in which you never would have met each other. 

The night envelopes you. A shard over the city. When Eddie actually does manage to stop at an intersection for a red light, you spare a glance at the sidewalk. You see some women lingering at the corner, dressed not unlike you are now, but their gaze is predatory. “You shouldn’t be here,”they seem to say. The light changes and you speed away from their haunting eyes, pulling into an alleyway that seems cut off from the rest of the street. Dark. Abandoned. 

You don’t even see the man right away. Not until he shifts and it’s clear he isn’t a part of the ambience himself, but flesh incarnate. He is so thin, too thin. He moves as if his limbs may just slip from his body with each step forward. As he comes into the lamp light, you see how sunken in his eyes are. Ghoulish and gray.  

“A vampire?” You whisper to Eddie as he turns the bike off. 

“No,” he says. “Now wait here.”

You aren’t practically eager to leave the bike, so you stay, clinging to the seat beneath you as you watch Eddie approach the man. 

“Munson!” The man greets and stumbles. Drunk perhaps, or just so broken that his body doesn’t quite know how to stand upright anymore. His voice is shaky too, on edge. “Nice to see you, man. Looking dapper.”

Dapper isn’t exactly the word for it. 

“Do you have it?” Eddie asks. No time for small talk, no pleasantries. 

“Did you come here for the Dolls?” The man asks. “I hear they are running a Halloween special. Two for one or some shit. Not a bad deal. You can probably find-“

“Do you have it?” Eddie repeats, but with more bite this time, more urgency. “I don’t have all night, Lipton.”

The man’s eyes move off Eddie and trail back to the bike, to you. 

“Pretty little thing,” he comments but his voice remains electric, vibrating with nervous energy. “Yours?”

“I need an answer. Yes or no.” Eddie is losing his patience. You hear him flick open his pocket knife. It flashes against the low light of the alley. 

The man smiles but it’s all wrong. All teeth and no substance. “How much again?”

“You owe him five,” Eddie says, his voice ripe with impatience. 

“Hundred?” The man asks with pleading, wide eyes.

“Thousand,” Eddie corrects. “And you’ve already had ample opportunity to pay up. A month if I remember correctly. Need it tonight, Lipton, or I can happily find other ways for my employer to leave satisfied tonight. And none result in you walking away with your life.”

The man’s hands go up defensively. Even from a distance, you can see he is shaking. You wonder if he makes a noise, like bones rattling. A morbid sort of music. 

“Munson. Man, listen. This stuff… it’s addictive as shit. You gotta know that. I didn’t realize how much I was asking for. How much it cost. But I can pay him back. I’m always good for it, aren’t I? This is the first time I’ve slipped up. I just need more time. You gotta believe me.”

“Not my call to make.” The knife flicks closed, then open. A ticking time bomb. “Can you pay me tonight or not?”

The man backs up even further into the alleyway. A cornered rabbit, nose twitching with fear. “Just a few more days, man…”

You hear the flick of Eddie’s pocket knife one last time. The man barely has time to scream before Eddie stabs him in the neck. Your body goes rigid. Not real. Can’t be real. This time, Eddie isn’t being careful. He isn’t merely making a small incision just to feed. This time he intends to kill. 

Blood pours from the man’s neck. It is not like a water hose as you’ve seen so often in horror movies, not as a spray or splatter, but as a pour, like slicing into a bag of liquid and watching its content cascade. His body bends into Eddie’s awaiting arms and you have the morbid thought that this man has essentially been turned into a human juice box, the knife Eddie’s straw. Eddie turns him slightly to avoid the onslaught from getting on his boots. Like his death is an inconvenience. But just when you think he will latch his mouth around the gushing wound, Eddie pulls a glass vial from his jacket and presses it into the ooze, stopping it. A cork of sorts for his wine. The vial fills quickly with blood; crimson fogging the glass. He caps it quickly before finally taking his share of the slaughter, drinking from the created spigot.

You watch in horror as the man’s eyes roll back into his skull, as his skin loses its luster, as his meager twitches of resistance stop completely. 

No use denying Eddie’s true nature. No use pretending that this is all a hoax. The evidence is right in front of you now. Death to sustain life. And as you watch Eddie feast on the concaving man, you imagine yourself in his place, your body bent and broken, your eyes open wide but void of life. And Eddie latching his mouth against your throat with little to no remorse for what he is doing to you. How he is killing you. 

“Eddie, stop!” You plea. You are stumbling off the bike, fumbling toward him. 

“Do you want another thrall hanging around?” Eddie suddenly snaps as he whips his head back toward you. The man’s blood drips from his mouth, coats his lips. You watch it spill onto the asphalt and fade into obscurity. You do not respond. You can’t. You can only watch as Eddie goes back to finish off the man, until his body is completely lifeless in his embrace. Limp like a doll. When he does pull his mouth away, it is with a hiss, as if the man were spoiled; a bad batch. Eddie drops the man’s body so quickly, like one might discard a bag of garbage. 

He takes out a handkerchief and starts to clean his knife. He then uses it to wipe his mouth clean like he just finished off a meal of steak and potatoes at a nice restaurant, and didn’t just kill a man. He walks back to the bike, to you standing between it and the now dead body lying in the alley.

“How can you just leave him like that?” You ask. You’re shaking, vibrating just the same as the man had once been. When he was alive. “Won’t someone see the wound on his neck?”

Eddie slips his now clean knife into his pocket along with the vile of the dead man’s blood. “What wound?”

You look around him. In front of you, is no longer the desecrated corpse of a man Eddie feasted upon, neck flayed open and oozing gore. Instead you see a man, dead from an apparent overdose, with injection wounds littering his forearms. 

“How come I can’t-“

“Humans will always see what they want to see,” Eddie says as he slips back onto the bike. So unaffected by the morbid scene he created, the death still clinging beneath his fingernails. “Especially when it comes to suffering. They’d rather believe in the tangible monsters of greed and addiction than of the destruction by my kind.”

“You talk like you’ve never even been human yourself,” you mutter as you stare at the dead man’s corpse. You can’t look away. You are the man’s only hope of a vigil. 

I could have stopped him. I could have saved him. He didn’t have to die this way. 

“Don’t pity him,” Eddie says sternly. “He doesn’t deserve it. The man was no saint.”

“So he deserved death?” You snap as you spin around to face him once more. “Why did he owe you so much money? Was five thousand really all it takes to kill a man these days?”

“He didn’t owe me a dime,” Eddie says as he stares back at you, eyes like two dark pools. “He owed my employer who-“ He pulls his phone out of his jacket. “- is impatiently waiting for us to be not-so-fashionably late to this party.” He revs the bike like a final dinner bell, waiting for you to join him. But you can only stare into that cold alleyway. You stand between death and life, mortality and immortality. 

“This is my life,” Eddie says suddenly behind you. “It’s not a beautiful gothic romance. It’s this.” He points down the dirty alley. “And I’m sorry you have to be a part of it but I can’t coddle you tonight. I can’t pretend everything’s going to be okay. I can’t pretend to be the hero in your story.” 

“Never asked you to be,” you mutter. Your palms are sweaty, even though the air is so cold. 

“It was quick if that helps you sleep at night.”

You aren’t sure it does. If any of it matters. A man is dead. Wiped from existence right before your eyes. And you don’t even know his name. 

“Are you coming with me or should I drop you home?” 

You turn to look at him fully, expecting his rage, his impatience. But instead you see a man just a broken as the one lying dead behind you. He is no hero, but who truly is? Who is truly free of sin? You can see the regret dancing around the edge of his eyes, but also there is the knowledge that he would do it again if he needs to. He is in a dance with death, and neither one of them can stop. 

You slip onto the bike behind him. “Let’s go to this party,” you say into his back as you replace your arms around his waist. 

Always you go back to him, always you surrender, even when you know you shouldn’t. Even when death could be waiting for you just as surely and as swiftly as it had been delivered to that man. But you are already caught in the web. No use trying to escape, lest you get more untangled in the spider’s snare. You nearly died that night Henry tried to turn you. Every moment since then has just been a prolonged state of dying. 

It takes you a moment to realize Eddie is retracing your steps, returning back the way you came. Back to the apartment. Is he taking me back home? You almost say something when he slips past the front of your building only to continue past it down the road. Down toward the party house that had wrecked your sleep schedule during that first week of living together. When the blasting music was almost too much to handle. 

You can see the blinding lights through the massive windows of the home, or rather the mansion. You aren’t sure any housing like this could truly be considered homely. Too massive. Too opulent. Just like when you came with Luna that first night, cars line each side of the road. Eddie speeds past them. He parks his car right in the driveway, in a spot that almost seems designated just for him. 

People walk past you as you get off the bike, careful not to expose yourself. They step through the wide open doors. No invitation necessary. 

“Is everyone at this party a vampire?” You ask as you watch a particularly beautiful looking couple saunter past you to enter the party within. They look ethereal. Otherworldly. Bodies covered in a sheen of what could either be glitter or sweat. 

“No. Only a handful at best,” Eddie replies. He walks beside you up the driveway. “Mostly these sorts of parties are full of Marrows.” You give him a look; a mix of annoyance and confusion. He clarifies. “Mortals who want to be close to vampires one way or another.”

“Not thralls?” 

“Some might be.” He says, before turning to look at you. “But you aren’t a Marrow. You didn’t ask to be a thrall.” You still feel confused. It must show on your face because you find him taking your hand once again as he leads you up to those double doors. “You’ll see what I mean when we get inside.”

Holding Eddie’s hand feels strange, almost too intimate for what you are, but as you step into the mansion, you are thankful to have him as an anchor. You latch onto him harder, firmer, even taking your other hand to secure it stays there. The house is packed wall to wall; a sea of people. Music blares and blasts, assaulting you from every angle. You can’t even tell where it’s coming from, where the speakers are placed, but it’s so loud. Overbearing. Lights sashay across the ceiling like this is a rave rather than a house party, and the clientele seem dressed for such an occasion. Barely dressed bodies cling to one another for support, to fill an ache. Neon and leather, lace and smoke fill the air. Intoxicating and deadly; a faerie soirée. Something meant to be observed but not indulged in directly. The whole place reeks of perspiration and stale, sticky alcohol. It feels as if you’ve stepped into a strange new land, with new rules you have yet to learn.

Eddie pulls you through the thongs of people moving in an erotic sway to the music. You feel their eyes move with him as he passes. They stay. They linger. Undressing him as he pushes by. Occasionally a hand will slip free to steal a quick feel of his skin, of fishnet. Like worshippers wanting a taste of the messiah as he walks toward ascension. You catch their gaze. It is full of ecstasy, longing, need. A hunger that only he can satisfy. Suddenly, you feel the heat of possession. The next hand that slips out of the crowd to graze at his flesh gets slapped down by your own. Eddie turns to look at you, his expression amused but guarded. He pulls you further in, away from the wandering touch of the crowd. 

“Were those Marrows?” You ask once you are far enough away.

“Yes.” He takes you into a clearing, or as close to one as can be found in this place. Bodies still press close but now, at least, you can breathe. 

“Why do you let them touch you like that?”

“It’s all they will ever get.” His voice is so low, almost wounded. “Come on. My boss is waiting. I’ll make this quick.”

He keeps saying that. Make this quick. Like that man’s death. Like, perhaps, you can only hope your own death may be. Quick. Painless. Short like your own mortal existence compared to his. 

You find yourself gripping Eddie’s hand tighter as you move to what appears to be the living room of the house, or one of its many living rooms. A man lounges at the center of a large sectional. His legs are spread wide, though draped by a man and a woman who have thrown their bodies across his appendages like climbing vines. They stroke their hands up his calves, his thighs. His skin is bare for them to touch, to marvel. Another woman slowly kisses his neck as she massages his shoulders. She steals a glance up at you and you nearly gasp at the state of her eyes. Each one of them has the same glossy look as the Marrows who had reached their hands out longingly to Eddie. Hypnotized. Drugged. 

The man holding their affection stares forward though you can’t see his eyes, concealed behind dark lenses even in the middle of the night. He is smiling strangely, expectedly. His hair is a short lion’s mane of golden curls, giving him the look of a Greek god. Apollo perhaps. 

Eddie steps up to him and without a word, tosses the vial of blood at the man haphazardly. You half expect it to shatter at his feet, but instead the man catches it, moving with impossible reflexes. 

“What’s this?” He asks as he tilts his glasses ever so slightly to take a look. 

“Something to add to your collection.”

The man laughs, examining the vile against the flashing lights overhead. The blue and yellow turn the blood a putrid tinge of green. “Well, that’s a real shame. The old bastard was quite the regular.”

“And now he’s not.”

He turns the vile up and down, sloshing its morbid contents, before handing it back to the woman at his neck. She takes it and walks over to a cabinet set into the wall. On a center shelf is a sort of hour glass, filled with a dark red liquid. She peels back the top, and empties the vial into the hour glass, causing the blood to drip down as if counting time. 

“You sure she’s not for my collection?”

You snap your gaze back and find the man staring directly at you. His sunglasses are now set to the top of his head, revealing icy blue eyes that should be alluring, but only make you afraid. 

“She’s off limits,” Eddie says as he subconsciously pushes you behind him to take the blunt of the man’s gaze. 

“Nothing’s off limits for me, Munson.” The man kicks his legs lightly, shooing away the two Marrows at his feet. They stumble away, letting out some whines of complaint like dogs. He leans to the side, trying to get another look at you. Your eyes meet and hold. “Hello, sweetheart,” he greets with a devilishly smile. It is the same nickname Eddie has starting using with you, but somehow, it doesn’t have the same effect. You cling to Eddie’s hand, nails digging into his palm. “Why don’t you come over here so I can get a better look at you?” He taps the space beside him on the couch. 

“I said she’s not for keeps,” Eddie growls. He squeezed your hand in return and you feel something bubble up inside of you. A damning emotion. 

“Maybe not for you,” the man laughs, and again turns his attention right back to you. “Come on, I bet you’d love to have a little taste of what I’ve got to offer. Eddie here explain how our deals work?”

“No,” you say, finally finding your voice. 

The man’s eyes spark with interest at the sound of your voice, or perhaps the lack of denial. 

“I can give you a little sampling of the sweet stuff,” the man says as he reaches into the rather small pocket of his even smaller shorts. You try not to look, try not to stare at the way they hug his muscular thighs. He pulls out a small pill. It is the color of something artificial. Barbie pink. “One hit of this and you’ll feel like Hercules. Like you could carry the world on your shoulders.”

“Atlas,” you correct. His suddenly playful smile breaks. “Atlas carried the world on his shoulders.”

His smile quickly returns with a small laugh. “Cute and smart. I knew you brought her to me for a reason.”

“She’s not for you.” Eddie‘s voice is almost animalistic now, territorial. “I did what you asked. I dealt with Lipton. I brought you your prize. We are leaving.” 

“Oh come on.” The man stands swiftly to approach you. “Not like you haven’t been willing to share your meals before, Munson.”

“That was a long time ago,” Eddie snarls. 

“Not that long ago,” the man says with a smirk. He steps up to you, looking at you with that salesman sort of grin. “Eddie here is our best seller. Everyone always comes asking for his particular brand of Lace.” 

You blink up at him. “His particular brand?”

“Curious?” He fishes into his pocket again and retrieves a different pill. This one is pure red. “Do you want to give it a try? Or do you want mine instead?” Again, he reaches into his pocket and offers you that sickly pink pill as an alternative.

“It won’t work on her,” Eddie blurts out and shoves you near violently behind him. 

The man’s eyes go wide. “What-“

“It won’t work on her,” Eddie repeats, glaring at his boss. 

The man suddenly smiles, as wide as his icy eyes. “Well, never thought I’d see the day. A thrall. Really, Munson…” He makes a tsking sound between his teeth. “How careless.”

“If you don’t need anything else, we are leaving.” Eddie starts to pull you away. 

“Now wait a second.” The man’s hand is on Eddie’s shoulder now. Eddie’s grip on your hand is so tight, so painful you let out a struggled gasp. Your fingers feel numb. “I think she gets a say in what happens next.” The man reaches for you then and you are surprised when Eddie doesn’t stop him. He lets the man touch your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw like you are a piece of art to admire. “Yea. Pretty little thing. Scared though. Like she might jump right out of her skin. No need to be scared, sweetheart. We are all friends here.” His hand moves dangerously close to your mouth. You jerk away. He laughs before turning his attention back to Eddie. “She taste good?”

“All blood’s the same,” Eddie whispers. 

The man’s eyes illuminate like two flames. Flames of pure blue heat. “Didn’t mean her blood.”

Eddie has finally had enough. He turns you both away and storms off, back into the crowd. You stumble after him, turning back to look at the man one last time. His Marrows have already swarmed back in, latching themselves to his arms, his legs, mouths searching for his. 

“Come back anytime you want some real fun, sweetheart!” He calls after you. 

Eddie doesn’t stop, just keeps pushing, Keeps moving deeper and deeper. You can’t be certain if you are headed back to the front of the house or further within. You are disoriented by the sounds and lights, by the man’s words you left behind. Your hand is completely numb now, crashed under Eddie’s rage. You smack your free hand against his back. 

“Eddie, wait!”

He spins around to look at you. His eyes move down to your hand and if finally realizing the violence of his grip, he unlatches his hold on you. You let out a sigh of relief and flex your hand open and closed, massaging your wrist.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says with a look of genuine regret. Like he is snapping back to reality himself. 

“You deal drugs,” you say, not as a question. But you need his confirmation nonetheless. 

He nods, slowly. 

“Are those pills… the Lace…” You stop yourself, settling on the word. “Are they laced with your blood?”

Eddie looks uncomfortable, itching under his skin. “Not just mine,” he answers reluctantly. “Vampire blood.” He casts a glance around you at the crowds of people lost in the hypnotic frenzy. Drugged up on something that makes them want to steal caresses from him as he passes. 

You recall what Steve said. How his blood might not work on you. You hadn’t given it much thought. You’d been too overwhelmed with your new reality to linger on the details. But now you hold onto that statement, and to what Eddie told his boss just a moment ago. 

“Vampire blood,” you start, thinking about that bright red pill. “It can do things to people? To humans?”

Eddie stares at you, eyes holding until the music fades from around you. Until your world view is only Eddie. Only your Master. 

“Yes,” he answers. He steps into you, his body so close against the sea of people. “Each vampire’s blood has a different quality, a different… advantage. But none of it will work on you. I made sure of that.”

You think about the pink pill he’d drawn out first. How Eddie’s boss had promised it would make you stronger, invincible. And that red pill…

“I told you I made you my thrall to protect you from Henry,” Eddie continues. “This is how. This was the only way I could assure he couldn’t turn you. No other vampires blood will affect you now.”

“Only yours,” you realize aloud. “But Henry’s blood-“

“Creates vampires,” he says, confirming your suspicions. “If it had stayed in your system long enough, if he has managed to kill you that night, you would have awoken a vampire.”

Progenitor. Henry’s very blood is the life source, the well of their curse. A blood born disease. And by taking your blood, by cleansing you of that illness before it could spread, Eddie had saved you from a life of perpetual death. 

“And your blood?” You ask. Another Marrow reaches out from the crowd, caressing his arm. He doesn’t even flinch. 

“You’ll never need to know.” 

He said being a thrall could make you mindless, turn you into someone else. But standing around a sea of Marrows, drugged out and blissful, you feel as if you are the only one who is truly of your own mind. That you are the only one seeing things clearly in the haze of the lights and smoke.  Of lust and violence. Your vision is solely focused on Eddie. The man who saved you. The man who used you as a pawn in his game. Your savior and your villain; the same. You are wading in a sea meant to drown you. But suddenly, you want to dive right in. You want to tempt fate just a little more. You want a taste of this new, strange world he’s pulled you under. You want to feel that sort of bliss that surrounds you. Y It seems wrong that these strangers have been given an opportunity to know him in such an intimate way, to taste him, when you still keeps you at such a distance. 

“Maybe I want to try it,” you tell him. 

His eyes flare with anger. “No,” he hisses. 

“Why not?” You sound like an insolent child, but you persist. “What’s the use being your thrall if I can’t reap some of the benefits?”

Now he flinches, as if your words have burnt him. “I’m not giving you drugs.” 

“You wouldn’t be,” you say. He looks at you with a confused expression. So you continue. “You’d be giving me your blood.” 

“Absolutely not,” he snaps. “We are leaving.” He reaches for your hand but you shift away. 

“Are you worried I’ll become like them?” You ask gesturing to the crowd. 

“No.” 

“Then what are you concerned about?”

“I don’t want you under the influence of my blood!” he nearly shouts. “Is that so hard to get through your thick skull?”

Your eyes flare wide, gazing up at him through the shifting lights. 

“I’ve fought so hard to assure your free will,” he continues, pushing you into a wall. You hadn’t even realized how close you had been to the edge of the party until now as he holds you right up against that wall, his hands caged against either side of your head. “To assure I wouldn’t change you. That you could stay, just as you are, untouched by my fucked up existence.”

“You can’t protect me from everything, Eddie,” you say. You aren’t a porcelain doll he can keep inside a glass cage. You recall the man he killed right in front of you. You’ve already been tainted. “Me asking you for this is evidence of me retaining my free will. I want to try it. I’m asking if you’ll let me.”

His nostrils flare again and you feel your heart rise up into your throat. You feel your body arch toward him. You feel your hands moving up to push the hair out of his face. You feel them hold there against his cheeks and you feel him move into you as if he wants this too. Wants to give in. But then reality snaps back into place. He pulls away, releasing you.

“And I said no,” he says, casting his gaze anywhere else but on you. 

You are suddenly overwhelmed by his rejection. It burns your throat, makes the room feel tight again, suffocating. 

“I-I need to use the restroom.”

You shove through the press of body, your hand coming away sleek with their sweat. 

“Wait- don’t wander off!”

But the crowd has already swallowed you whole. You become part of that frenzied chaos, swaying with them, with the music. You look for an exit, for a parting of the sea. You feel uncomfortable in your own skin as you stare at the mass of bodies all around you. Beautiful people dripping in sweat, limbs tangled together in an intimate display of drug-fueled ecstasy. 

I shouldn’t be here, your mind is screaming.  

As your body shifts, feet fumbling, you catch the glimpse of blonde ponytail swaying carelessly above the press of bodies. You see the flash of a smile, ruby red lips. You can almost hear her light laughter, like a melody. You try to move toward her, following her white rabbit trail like Alice stumbling into Wonderland. You keep moving further and further, that bright blonde hair your beacon. But you lose sight of it. Of her. You are deep inside the mansion now, unsure where to turn. Panic sets in. 

Eddie. Eddie. 

A hand reaches out to you and you think, maybe, he changed his mind. He came for you. You take his hand and let him pull you free of the madness. But as you move out of the crowd, your body goes rigid. His scent is all wrong. Not gentle rain but a storm. Lightning. Not smoke but a fire, blazing hot and deadly. Icy blue. 

“Found you,” he whispers as he pulls you against his chest. Eddie’s boss has found you first, taken his prize. 

“I need to find Eddie,” you whisper as you try to pull yourself away. 

“We will find him,” he reassures as he snakes his arms around your waist. He spins you around so your back is pressed against him. “But dance with me first, yea? Enjoy yourself.”

His hands are on your hips now, pulling you back into him. You can feel him hard against your back, pushing in, grinding. This isn’t dancing. This is a test. 

His lips curl around your ear as he speaks in a low voice for only you to hear. “You wanted to try it, didn’t you?”

You swallow thickly, eyes scanning the crowds in desperation. But you find yourself nodding in answer. 

“Poor thing,” he whispers as he ruts against you, making sure you can feel all of him. “Your master is so cruel. If you were mine, I’d give you anything you desired.” 

“Anything?” You find yourself asking. 

“Anything.” His tongue traces a line up your throat and you shiver with both fear and desire. But you realize your desire is misplaced. Your mind is held to someone else, wishing, hoping he could replace the man at your back. “Just ask me and I’ll give it to you.”

“That pill,” you say. The red pill. The one you know must be laced with Eddie’s own blood. That rich ore that now could affect you when no other vampire’s could. 

“This one?” He presents the pill out in front of you. “This what you want?”

You are nodding, staring at it. At the promise of bliss. Of knowing a part of Eddie he wouldn’t allow. To let him inside of you. 

“Open up, sweetheart,” the man whispers as he takes your ear between his teeth. “Let me see that pretty tongue.”

You aren’t obeying because you want him. Not because you are entranced or held under his allure. You obey because you want Eddie. You want to know him. And perhaps this will allow you to do that. You open your mouth. 

Your body is thrown to the ground before the pill can touch your tongue. Disoriented, you turn and find Eddie with his hand around the man’s throat, strangling him against the floor. 

“Don’t you fucking touch her,” he is snarling, eyes as red as blood, body arched like a predator set to kill. 

The man just smiles at Eddie. “She wants to play,” he says, though he strains to speak against Eddie’s grip. He turns slightly to look at you. “L-Look at her, Munson. Look how d-desperate she is to have a part of you.”

Eddie glares at the man, nails digging into his neck as he tightens his grip. The man lets out a struggled laugh. 

“Eddie, let him go,” you plea as you crawl closer.  

“Not until I know he won’t lay a finger on you again.” His voice is near animalistic, raging with bloodlust. His knife flares out at his side once again. 

“T-tell you what…” The man reaches up, prying Eddie’s hand away just enough to speak more clearly. “You do something for me and I’ll promise never to lay a finger on your precious little thrall again.” 

Eddie glares down at the man beneath him and you are certain for a moment that he won’t hear his offer. That he will slice his throat open rather than hear what he has to say. “What?” He snaps. 

“Prove she is your thrall,” the man says with a triumphant grin beneath the strain of Eddie’s grasp. 

His hand unlatches from the man’s neck, just enough for him to reach up and rub at the spot. 

“How?” Eddie asks in a whisper, still standing over the man at his feet, still wielding the knife. 

The man looks over to you with a smile that almost seems to say, “I’m doing this for you, sweetheart. Thank me.” He turns back to Eddie. “Seduce her,” he says. “Show me you are her master.” He turns his head slightly, back toward the large window that looks out over an expansive pool. “Compel her to step into that pool. Make her follow your order. Then maybe I’ll believe she belongs to you and no one else.”

Eddie glares at him. “And you’ll believe that?” He questions. “You’ll believe it isn’t just an act?”

The man’s eyes spark with interest. “You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t think you trust me enough for that,” Eddie remarks.

The man laughs. “Come on now. Let’s all have a little more faith in each other, shall we? This will be fun. I promise.”

Eddie stands up straight and looks at you. His eyes hold a silent question, asking if you also trust him. If you are willing to put your life in his hands tonight. You nod slowly in answer. 

“Go to the pool,” he orders firmly. 

You immediately start to move back to the door leading out into the pool when the man speaks up, sounding disappointed. 

“Nah uh uh,” the man scolds as he starts to stand. “Don’t think I didn’t see that silver around her neck. Take it off.”

You reach up instinctively for your necklace. For the rings keeping you from truly being compelled. 

“Take it off.” The man’s voice is no longer playful. It is an order to follow lest you want to face the consequences of your disobedience or subject Eddie’s to the man’s hidden wrath. But the man smiles at you like this is all just a game. A game you are set to lose. “Take it off and let’s have some real fun.”

Chapter Text

You step out to the pool as instructed. The cool night air kisses your face with its gentle breeze. It is a welcome relief from the stifling heat and press of bodies inside the home. The crystalline waters of the pool beckon you in, offer you refuge. But you can’t find any comfort out here in the open. Not when there is a challenge awaiting you at the edge of that pool. A challenge to obey. 

“Toss the necklace to the ground,” the man orders behind you as he and Eddie step out onto the patio to join you. “I don’t want that getting in the way of our fun.”

You reach up and wrap your hand almost protectively around your last line of defense; the silver rings Eddie gifted you. You turn to look at him, uncertain. You haven't taken them off since he turned you into his thrall. But when you meet his gaze, you are overwhelmed by a wave of protectiveness. As if it were wafting off his body in sheets of that heady scent, of rain and smoke. Even without the rings as a barrier against his control, he wouldn’t do anything to you that could cause you harm. You trust that much. Don’t you?

Before you can remove them, Eddie swarms to your side. 

“We don’t have to do this,” he says in a harsh whisper, grasping you by the elbow. “I don’t care what he thinks of me. Of us. It’s not worth the risk.”

“And if he doesn’t believe I’m your thrall?” You ask. “What then, Eddie? Does he hurt me? Hurt you? No. I won’t allow that.”

Eddie stares at you as if seeing you for the first time. As if you are offering yourself to him on a silver platter, knowing he will eat you alive. 

“It’s okay,” you insist. “I’m okay.” It becomes your mantra. I’m okay. You pull the necklace up over your head and toss it aside, sealing your fate. The moment it hits the floor, a tidal wave crashes into you, emanating from Eddie. Your shackles snap into place, the chain goes taut. At first, it had been easy to believe the silver was just a placebo; something to ease Eddie’s worries, as well as your own but doing little else. However, now that you are without those rings, you realize just how much they had been protecting you. If he asked, you would so easily fall to your knees, crawl toward him and lick his boots. If only he commanded you to. But you feel that urge to comply and submit like a whispered need against the back of your mind. 

Give. Give. Give. 

“Good,” the man says, pleased. He must see something in you shift toward required compliance. He takes up a spot at a lounge chair set up beside the pool so he can get a perfect view of his “entertainment.” “Come here, Munson. Sit with me.” 

Eddie stares at you for a moment before reluctantly moving over to the couch. He sits an arms length away from the other man, leaning forward against his knees as he stares at you. As if his gaze alone could bar you from harm. 

“Tell her to take her clothes off,” the man says casually as he leans back. “She has a cute body. But I can hardly see any of it.”

Eddie’s nails dig into his knees. You watch a muscle in his jaw twitch. 

“Billy, she doesn’t need to-“

“She does,” the man responds, and you finally have his name. Billy. “If you want to convince me this is real, I need to see her do something she wouldn’t do of her own free will. Something she’d only do under compulsion.”

Free will. The very thing Eddie so passionately spoke of inside the party. The very thing he was trying to protect. Your last strand of humanity outside his tainted grasp. 

“Are you suggesting I wouldn’t take my clothes off for him under normal circumstances?” You challenge, surprising even yourself. Something in Eddie’s hard exterior breaks upon your words. A smile plays at the corner of his mouth, though reluctantly. 

Billy laughs, deep from his belly. “Oh I like her,” he purrs. “This is going to be fun.”

“She stays clothed,” Eddie breaks in, his voice hot with building anger, that smile now gone. 

“Protecting her chastity, Edward? So noble.” Eddie visibly winces at the name but the man continues. “If you don’t want to play, I’m sure someone else will.”

You shift uncomfortably at the edge of the pool. Billy keeps his gaze held onto you as he leans over to whisper into Eddie’s ear. To add something you aren’t allowed to hear. His lips warp into a strange smile while Eddie tenses upon his silent words. 

“You don’t want that, right?” Billy says louder, smiling still with eerie delight. 

You can only assume what he’s said to Eddie. Perhaps threatening to invite their progenitor to the party as a more willing participant in your torture. Henry’s blood may not affect you any longer but you are still mortal. You can still be killed. And you are certain Henry feels slighted by the loss of an added soldier to his vampire army. He will sooner have your head on a spike than join this party just for the fun of it. 

“Take the shirt off,” Eddie suddenly commands. But they aren’t just words. You feel them at the back of your mind like a leash, yanking your arms forward against your will. This is compulsion; what he’d been trying to protect you from all this time. You have been made into a marionette for him to control. His words act like the strings, pulling you into motion. Even if you want to resist, even if you fight against your own body, his command wins out. You are removing the shirt before you even realize what you are doing. You don’t even feel your arms moving, numb to the sensation. 

“The skirt and boots now,” he continues. 

He stays leaning forward but now he rests his head against his folded hands, his gaze a hard line. He tries not to look but his eyes fall back onto you as you pull the skirt down your legs. The leather material pools around your feet. You feel your breath hitch, but that isn’t because of his compulsion. Only your breathing is under your own control now, and even that is shallow. Your heart is racing, your skin warm and swelling under his penetrative gaze. 

You stand at the edge of the pool now barefoot. Its cool waters lick the back of your calves. You stand like a doll with your arms at your side, nothing concealing that red lingerie. Nothing to hide your black panties aside from the crisscross of your fishnets. You look behind Eddie, back into the house. You are thankful at least that the Marrows haven’t turned their gaze in your direction just yet.

You shift your attention back to Eddie, wondering how far this needs to go to prove yourselves to Billy. How far is Eddie willing to take this? As you meet his gaze, you find fire illuminating his dark ores, reflecting the red of the lace that still conceals you. You feel held there, held for his inspection. But a part of you wants him to look further. Wants him to finally see you when he’s done everything in his power to avoid this. Avoid you. The two of you have done nothing but try to pretend that things haven’t changed, that his bond hasn’t chemically altered who you are to one another. But the evidence is now held in his bleeding gaze. 

Something worth looking at indeed. 

“I still can’t see enough,” Billy whines in an exhaustive sigh, breaking the seal between you. “Have her finish off the rest.”

“This isn’t necessary,” Eddie grates, speaking between the grind of his teeth. “She’s practically naked.”

“Practically,” Billy emphasizes. “Continue.”

Eddie holds your gaze for a moment. And you can see in his eyes a silent apology, but also the knowledge that he does not deserve your forgiveness for what he is about to do. He doesn’t want your forgiveness. 

“Take off your tights,” he commands.

You immediately bend at the waist and pull the flimsy fabric from your legs. Even in a state of compulsion, you struggle to take them off smoothly. Your toes get caught in the small holes. You fumble back and teeter on the edge of the pool, threatening to fall back into its depths before you regain your balance. 

“She’s fine,” you hear before you look up. 

Billy has his arm held across Eddie’s lap like a seat belt. Eddie, in turn, is tight with tension. His body looks frozen in a mid-sprint as if he were just about to propel himself toward you to stop your fall, but Billy had prevented him from doing so.

“She’s fine,” Billy repeats, slipping his arm free of Eddie’s waist. “Keep going.”

You give Eddie a small nod. “This is okay,” you try to say through your gaze. A price to pay to protect you both. To assure your place in this strange new world as master and thrall. 

“Take the rest off,” Eddie commands in a voice that sounds broken. His eyes hold to yours, unmoving as your body begins to respond. As your hands lift behind your back to unhook the bra. As you slip your panties off. As you stand in front of the two men as naked as you entered this world. “Don’t move,” he orders once the remains of your clothes are tossed away. You should feel shame, a need to cover your body from their humiliation. But all you can do is stand frozen, because your master hasn’t commanded you to even attempt to conceal yourself. 

“You have quite a delicious little pet,” Billy compliments as he flashes you a smile that bleeds with hunger. His cold eyes roam along your body freely, taking in parts of yourself you never deemed worthy of his gaze, of anyone’s. “Shame you aren’t using her to your full advantage.”

“How would you know that?” Eddie snaps. He hasn’t looked at your body once. Not like Billy has, is. His eyes hold to yours, as if your eyes are the only safe place they can stay. 

“She may be your thrall but she hardly even smells like you,” Billy says, all the while moving his gaze from your breasts to your thighs. He licks his lips in a slow line. “That is half the reason I don’t believe you even drink from her at all. She’s so wound up, bursting with life, with lust. What’s the use of having a thrall if you aren’t fucking her?”

“She is my thrall,” Eddie growls. 

“So you say.”

Billy stands up from the couch and, pushing around Eddie, walks toward the pool. 

“What are you doing?” Eddie asks in a panic as he stands swiftly, trailing behind the other man.

“I just want a closer look,” Billy tells him as he stalks toward you. Eddie hovers behind him, his body vibrating with an energy you can almost taste on your tongue.

Billy holds his chin in his hands as he gives you a closer inspection, taking one step at a time until he is right in front of you. 

“Make her kiss me,” Billy demands with a devilish grin as his gaze settles on your barely parted lips.

“She is frozen.” Eddie’s voice is a low rumble. “If you want to kiss her, she can’t stop you.”

You feel haunted by those words. He is practically handing you over to his boss like a toy he is only mildly reluctant to share.

“That’s not quite the same,” Billy replies. “I want to feel her respond to me. Want to feel those sweet lips move against me.” He looks over his shoulder at Eddie, waiting. 

Eddie stares forward at you. His gaze darkens but something in him relents, gives in. 

“Kiss him and enjoy it.”

Your body rushes into Billy, clasping his head in your hands and crushing your lips to his. You don’t get a say in this. You can only give in. Can only submit. Billy moans in delight as he pries your mouth open with his tongue, lapping at your forced compliance. You shouldn’t want any part of this or give into his caress, but Eddie’s command has you practically panting against Billy’s tongue. Your body swells with an arousal you don’t want, that you didn’t ask for. But it is there all the same, urging you to deepen the kiss. As you do, you catch sight of Eddie behind Billy. You can feel his anger, his possessiveness. But he stands still, letting Billy take what he wants. Tears well in your eyes and fall even as you moan and beg. Even while you are under the compulsion to “enjoy it.” Your body is obedient but your mind is screaming for release from your shackles. Your cheeks feel wet from your despair. 

Billy’s hands start at your shoulders but they gradually move as you lose yourselves in his kiss. His hand is on your bare hip now, slipping to the front of your thigh. You feel his fingers press into your supple fresh, feel him try to pry your legs apart. 

“Shove him away!”

Eddie’s words are not so much spoken aloud as they are roared across your mind. A song that singes your blood. Instantly, you push against Billy’s chest. The strength in the movement is insurmountable. Every muscle in your body pulses into your hands to fuel your rejection. You push him back with enough force to cause him to stumble away. He looks genuinely surprised, eyes wide as he catches himself before falling over from the assault. As a vampire, he is a stronger than you, faster than you. But he’d been so blissfully indulging in your kiss, naive to any order Eddie may have given you. Naive that Eddie might be more possessive of his things than he realized.

“Clever little trick,” Billy laughs, wiping his lips with his thumb. He is bleeding, from a bite you must have given him and not even realized. Had that also been another silent command? But there too, held against his mouth, is the smear of your lipstick. Evidence of your compliance more than your rejection. 

“Are we done?” Eddie snarls. His hands are two tight fists at his sides. His chest heaves with ragged inhales and strained exhales. He is holding himself back as not to kill Billy and face further, unspeakable consequences. At least that’s only what you can only hope. That his anger is protectiveness. That some part of him does care for you. 

Billy turns slowly to face him. “No.” He licks his lips and savors the remaining flavor of your violent kiss. “Make her drown,” he says, emotionless. “I want to see her head under the water. Want to see her willfully give her life just because you ask her to.”

Eddie’s eyes flare with invigorated rage, flames licking at his lashes. “Is that you want? For me to kill her?”

Billy smiles wickedly. “Now that would be such a waste.” But he doesn’t say no, doesn’t deny it. “She gets into the pool or I let Henry know how delicious she tastes. I can’t wait to see what he might do to her. My games are tame compared to his.” 

There it is. The truth of his threat. Either his brand of erotic torture or Henry’s sadistic kind. Eddie must choose. 

“Into the pool,” Eddie growls and you are already moving, descending the pool’s stepped entrance. The cold water hits your skin and you shiver. But you don’t slow down. You continue until the water is at your breasts, hardening your nipples from the water’s chilled kiss. You continue until it’s up to your neck. You can’t help your teeth from chattering as you fight against the cold. You struggle to keep your head above water. 

Eddie steps up to the edge of the pool and stares down at you. You feel every part the nymph, discovered by a wayward mortal as you float naked beneath him, hair fanning out around you like a wet halo. You gaze up at him, awaiting his next and final command. 

He is silent for a moment but then he squats down and extends his hand out to you. Not to pull you back out, but to touch the skin of your cheek, to tilt your gaze ever higher and hold it there. To him. His eyes soften under the moonlight. Trust me, he seems to say. So you will, and perhaps it will be the last thing you ever do. 

“Go under the water completely,” he whispers, his voice far too gentle for his words. “Hold your breath.”

Your body descends under the water. You barely have enough time to gulp one last chance of air before you are completely submerged. You open your eyes but they burn against the astringent chlorine. Still, you keep them open as you tilt your head to gaze up through the surface. Eddie’s image ripples against the water. He is right where you left him, squatting at the edge of the pool looking down at you beneath him. 

You trusted him not to hurt you. But you feel every part the fool as you suspend beneath the water. He stripped you of your clothes and led you right into the lion’s den. Let Billy kiss you, touch you. Perhaps he doesn’t want any part of a partnership with you. Some team you turned out to be. So broken. Lost from the start. Maybe this will be an easier way to be rid of you. To be rid of another nuisance only meant to insight more of Henry’s rage. To be rid of this hapless bond you share that makes it impossible to be away from one another. To be rid of a human he never so much as cared for to begin with. 

If you are crying, you don’t feel it. All you feel is the tightening of your chest; the beginning of a burn as your body begs for air. But as you start to suffocate, your body remains as still as a corpse beneath the water. He told you to go under, so here you will remain as he watches you die. 

He is going to let me drown. 

Small bubbles trickle free from your sealed lips. You don’t know how much longer you can last. If he were to command you to resurface, would you even be able hear him under the deafening blur of the water? Under its silent hum and suffocating pressure. You will stay here, drowning, even while he compels you to raise back to the surface, to breathe the air. It’s a strange thought, something that echoes through your mind as your vision blurs to black. 

You feel the cool rush of the autumn air before you even realize you are no longer submerged. Hands bracket your arms and squeeze so tight you know your flesh will bruise. But that pain is evidence that you are still alive. You blink against the darkness and burn of the chlorine to find Eddie in the pool with you, pulling your body above the surface of the water and keeping you there. 

“Breathe,” he commands.  

You gasp, relieving that deadly burn aching within your lungs. You cling to his shoulders as if in a silent plea not to pull you back under, begging him to let you stay here. 

“You’re okay,” he soothes and pulls you into his chest. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Weakened, you rest your head against him. You give in to his embrace. In that moment, you are certain that if his heart could still beat, it would be racing. But it’s still and dead. Only your own heart provides an erratic rhythm for the both of you. 

You shouldn’t be so comforted by his embrace, knowing he could have killed you, that he watched you and waited, but suddenly you are sobbing and unable to let go.

“You’re okay,” he says again as his arms envelop you. His head rests against the top of yours, lips brushing your hair. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

“I almost… I could have-" You can’t speak. Your throat burns as if you’ve been screaming for hours. You choke out a sob. 

“I wouldn’t have let you,” Eddie says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I let it get that far.”

You aren’t sure if you believe him, but you stay in his arms and listen as he continue to whisper apologies, as he strokes your hair and waits for you to breathe more regularly once again, perhaps for his well being and not just for your own. 

That’s when you feel that familiar pull of compulsion once more. He hasn’t spoken, but you know now he doesn’t need to. He commanded you silently to reject Billy. So perhaps this is just the same. His will imposed on you even without his knowledge. You shift away from his chest though your body stays close to his, closer even. You hook your leg around his until you feel the brush of your sex against his thigh. You let out a soft whimper as your sensitive flesh rubs up against the rough material of his jeans. 

You should pull away. You should stop. But your body continues to writhe against his leg like an animal in heat. You can’t stop. You are shackled, bound to his command, wanting more. 

“What are you-“ Eddies hands brace against your shoulders, pushing you away but with hardly enough force to remove you. 

He bites back a moan of his own as you roll your hips. His head dips into you and he moves his leg just slightly to give you more leverage. You take full advantage of the new angle, grinding yourself against him. Your hands dig into his chest, fingers looping under the fishnet and pulling. He reaches down and braces his hand against the small of your back to encourage each thrust of your hips into him. His breathe is hot against the side of your face. His moans echo your own. You take yourself to the edge. 

That is until suddenly his grip tightens. 

“You don’t actually want this,” he groans. “Fuck… get off me!” He shoves you so hard you nearly slip back under the water. That is until he catches you beneath your arms like one might hold onto a thing they didn’t want to touch. He keeps muttering curses under his breath, hissing and groaning as he pulls you both out of the pool. Even with his rejection, you still feel a burning need to touch, to be near him, to run your hand up his chest. You lift your hand back to his pectoral, knowing he is too occupied with keeping you afloat to fight it. Your fingertips graze his nipple, pulling at his piercing. You swear he lets out a moan that isn’t entirely distressed. 

“Seems you do still have a heart, Munson.” 

You both peel your heads up to look at Billy. He is standing, towering above you outside of the pool. 

“Or at least a soft spot for little lithe things like her.” Billy tilts his head, studying you both. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To prove you have some humanity left?” 

“I need to get her dry or she’s going to freeze to death out here.” Eddie hisses, ignoring him. Ignoring you. 

Billy smirks as he stalks over to the other side of the pool. He returns and hands out a towel for each of you; an unexpectedly hospitable gesture. You half expect this to be a trap, but then Eddie is half carrying you out of the pool. He takes the offering of the towel and quickly wraps it around you to both conceal and shield you from the cold. He wastes no time before he bends down to retrieve your discarded necklace. You can see right where it sears his hand as he grasps it tightly, but he doesn’t so much as make a sound in reaction. It is up over your head within seconds when he finally lets out a sigh in relief, one you mimic. That now familiar tension from his compulsion slips off your body like a discarded coat. You feel lighter, like every breath you take is fuller. Every move you make is your own once again. But immediately, shame pumps through your body almost violently to replace your former desire. A whimper leaves your lips. What did I just do? But what the silver doesn’t displace is a thundering attraction for the man you have to share a home with. Your core still throbs from the denied affection. That is your own. Not from compulsion or some hidden vampire bond. You alone are to blame. You cling to the towel to shield yourself from his gaze. 

“Let me get your clothes,” Eddie says in a low voice. His towel is merely draped over his shoulders, doing very little to help dry himself off. 

Shivering, you turn your attention back toward the house. The window is now lined with Marrows. They press their faces in, fogging the glass against their heavy breathing. They gaze at you with a mix of envy and disgust. You feel bile push up into your throat and turn away. But as you do, you catch a quick glimpse of blonde hair, a ponytail, moving out of the gathered crowd, a strange smile on her face before she’s gone once again. 

“Thanks for the show, little thrall,” Billy says with a wink. 

You turn to say something but Eddie emerges between you, blocking your view of Billy and the Marrows within the house. 

“Here.” He offers your clothes out to you before removing the towel from his own shoulders and holding it up as a makeshift barricade. He looks away. 

You try to be quick about putting your clothes back on, but your hands are shaking, both from the cold and the utter humiliation you’ve endured. You button up Eddie’s borrowed shirt completely but still the chill seeps through. You hardly had enough clothes on to begin with, not nearly enough to fight the cool autumn air. Now the added state of your body, still damp from pool, hardly helps to keep you warm. 

“Take this.” Eddie offers out his leather jacket to you. “We aren’t far from the apartment. I’ll get you inside and warm as quick as I can.”

You could ask if he will be cold, but you know better. Judging by the normally frigid state of the apartment, he shouldn’t be bothered at all. In any other circumstances you might have hyperthermia by now but your body temperature has risen significantly since Eddie made you his thrall. Another strange benefit of your bond. 

The state of your body has less to do with the cold and more to do with what you both just did. What he made you do, even if he may not have realized it. You put the jacket on, burying your face in it. You try not to wince as you are once again overwhelmed by his scent, and how now it only makes that ache so much worse. 

Eddie extends his arm out to you as if to hold you close, to bring you back into an embrace like in the pool. Your face must give away something; fear, anger, longing, embarrassment. You aren’t sure what. But it is enough to make him retract his offer. 

“Let’s go,” he says in a low voice as he turns back to the house. 

“That was fun,” Billy says as you pass. He doesn’t move but instead stands by the edge of the pool, watching you both with a heated gaze. “Let’s do this again sometime.”

Eddie doesn’t even honor him with a response. Instead, he opens the door to the mansion and leads you inside. While you may not have accepted the offer of his returned embrace, you find yourself once again reaching for his hand. He turns to look at you, surprised to the point of alarm. But you pay little attention to his reaction. You cling to him, pressing into his arm and hiding your face there to avoid the glare of the party goers. You don’t want to look at them, don’t want to think about what they might have seen. You are mortified. 

Eddie’s grip on your hand is firm and you are surprised by how easily you move back to the front door together. As if the sea of Marrows has parted just to gawk as you pass. 

“Almost there,” Eddie reassures, but you don’t look up. You cower even further into his arm. 

The fresh air hits you again and Eddie is guiding you onto his bike. You speed off faster than you can even manage to secure your helmet into place. But you don’t care. You just want to be as far from here as fast as possible. Your fingers dig into Eddie’s exposed ribs as if you could bury yourself under his skin to hide from the world around you. 

Eddie is silent as he parks the bike back at the apartment. You race on ahead of him, practically running up the stairs. Once inside, you march straight back to your room. No further conversation is needed; not when you know there is nothing you or he can say to make this situation any less embarrassing. Any less strange. You just want to hide under your thick comforter and pretend tonight was all just a bad dream. 

Speaking with Eddie at your office had given you hope that you could be friends. That you could put aside the bond that forced you together in the first place. That you could choose to be amicable instead. But now there is something else sparking a tension between you. An open wound that doesn’t aim to sever you so much as bring you clashing together. A force to destroy you upon impact. 

He may not have willfully compelled you to touch him the way you did, but it happened all the same. You aren’t ready to unpack the implications of that. 

You reach your door when you hear Eddie behind you. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks so quietly, as if he doesn’t even know himself if he meant to ask that aloud. 

You hesitate at your door, wincing. You could walk inside, lock the door, and forget about everything. But instead, you turn back to face him. The ends of his long hair are still slightly damp. Trails of water fall down the bare expanse of his chest and catch in the grooves of awaiting fishnet. You have to force yourself not to stare. 

“I didn’t realize how much these were holding you back,” you say as you reach up to press the rings into your chest. You don’t mean to imply the incident in the pool specifically but his face twists in a way that assures he is thinking about it. 

“I won’t compel you again,” Eddie says firmly as he moves into the hall, moves closer but not nearly enough to touch, as if he is afraid of himself around you now. “I shouldn’t have even humored him. I should have just slit his throat and been done with it. Shouldn't have let him touch you... God, you must think I'm a monster." 

“If you hadn't agreed.... if we hadn't, we would have had Henry to deal with.” You shake your head. “I don’t blame you for doing what you did. I just feel…”

“Humiliated?” 

You look away. Humiliation isn’t all of it but you don’t want to put a name to the emotion. Your fist is clutching onto the leather of his jacket, wrinkling it beneath your tight grasp. You unlatch your hand slowly. “Thanks for the jacket.” You start to peel it off but he holds up a hand to stop you.

“Keep it,” he says. 

You nod and adjust it slightly back into place to conceal you. You aren’t sure what else to say. You don’t want to talk about what you did. Perhaps you never will. But standing here with him, you are also afraid to leave in silent defeat. Something had sparked between you tonight. Whether his compulsion or the strength of your bond as Master and Thrall is to blame, you can’t be sure. But you feel that slight pull still even with the protection of your silver. You feel it drawing you to him like a lasso. 

I just want to know you. Let me in.  

“Did you still want to try it?” He suddenly asks in a faint whisper. 

You aren’t sure what he is asking you. After everything you did out there by the pool, in the pool, you are afraid of what he is implying. You are afraid of the way it makes your heart race. You take a step back. 

“My blood,” he clarifies quickly. “Lace. Did you still want to try it?”

“Why now?” You question. “You seemed pretty set on refusing me before.” 

“I’d rather you do it here where I know you’ll be safe under its effects.” Rather than at the party, he means to say, with hungry onlookers at every corner. “If you really want it, it’s yours. Especially after what I put you through tonight. I don’t know if there’s anything I could ever do to make up for that… or for so much else.”

You should turn him down immediately. You’ve already had your mind turned to a scramble thanks to his compulsion. You don’t need to add a blood-induced high to the list of poor decisions you've made this evening. But your curiosity stays there, right at the tip of your tongue, daring you to say 'yes'. You deserve a bit of bliss amongst so much darkness, don’t you? 

“What will it do?” You ask. 

Eddie stays at the end of the hallway, refusing to move any closer. “You know now that Henry’s blood turns a mortal into a vampire,” he says. “But Steve’s blood heals. That’s why I asked him to come by to look at you. Billy’s blood makes you stronger, bolder. That man I killed, he was addicted to Billy’s brand. It made him feel invincible.”

Until he no longer was. 

“And yours?”

At that, Eddie takes a step to bridge the gap between you. “Mine sets your soul on fire.” 

You swallow thickly, trying to quell the racing of your heart. “How long does it last?”

“Depends. Maybe a few minutes. Could be hours. But as my thrall, I’m not sure. It could be far more intense for you.” He stares at you for a moment before quickly breaking the connection and looking away. He winces and grasps at his head as if it aches. “You’ve gone through enough tonight. I shouldn’t even be suggesting you try this. I just thought… from what I’ve seen… it makes people happy.”

Happy. He wants you to have some memory of tonight that is blissful, not tainted by coercion. A memory of something that you can chose freely for yourself. In his mind, it’s all he can offer you that may wipe the memory of what he did. What you both did. 

“I don’t want to become a Marrow,” you say in a whisper. “I don’t want to become addicted.”

“I can’t promise you won’t,” he replies. “Have you ever even tried anything before? Like weed, ecstasy?”

You nod, almost ashamed to admit it, but Eddie is the last person on this planet to judge you for prior drug use. 

“Well… I suppose Lace isn’t exactly like mortal drugs,” he says with the hint of a smile breaking through his melancholic expression. “But it might help that you’ve experienced something like this before. Might make the impact less startling.”

You nod your head, not in agreement but in consideration. Maybe it could make you forget. Maybe it could make it easier to look at Eddie again and see him more as man, a friend, than as a part of your abuse tonight. 

“Okay,” you decide. “Okay. I want to try it.”

Eddies eyes widen slightly in surprise. “You’re sure?”

You nod firmly. “Yes. But how should we-“

“Let’s have you lie down on your bed,” he offers. “If you’re going to pass out, at least you’ll be comfortable.” His smile comes through more apparently this time, and you find yourself returning it, even if it’s only a sliver against your lips. 

You lead him into your bedroom and lay back on your bed like a corpse at your own funeral. You don’t know how else to position yourself that won’t give rise to the mistakes in the pool. Your body flushes with warmth at the recall. You shake your head to will the thought away. 

That was compulsion. We both didn’t want any part of that. 

But you know that’s a lie. Now with the silver back in place, you know a part of you had soared at the release of your inhibitions. At being able to touch him with the excuse that you were merely “out of your mind”. 

“I don’t have any pills on hand,” Eddie tells you. He stands beside the bed, almost afraid to touch your mattress and break the seal. “I’m going to cut my thumb and have you drink from me.”

Your mouth waters slightly. “Okay.”

You close your eyes thinking maybe it would be best not to look. But once again curiosity wins out as you feel the mattress shift at your side. Eddie sits down beside you and withdraws another knife from his pocket. This one has a crystal handle, amber like Tiger’s Eye. You sit up a bit. He catches you staring and smiles strangely.

“Don’t worry. I saved this one for you,” he says, The other knife is still tainted with the dead man's blood. A shiver runs down your spine. The knife flicks open and he slips its blade across his thumb until blood beads against his skin. You aren’t sure what you are expecting. For his blood to look strange and foreign? For it to bubble and puss? But instead, it is ordinary. Red. You watch the crimson gore collect there, threatening to spill onto your comforter. 

“Tilt your head back,” he instructs. 

It isn’t an order this time. You can feel the difference. The lack of your shackles pulling you to submission. Instead, when you do tilt your head for him, it’s of your own free will. 

He lifts his thumb to your lips. Your mouth quivers but your tongue extends ever so slightly in preparation. A single drop of his blood lands on the tip of your tongue. You close your mouth and let the taste seep into your mouth. It’s hardly enough to make much of a difference but the coopery taste leaves a film against your teeth. 

He holds his hand above you still, and without warning, you latch your mouth around his thumb, sucking a few more pulls of blood from the still oozing wound. You aren’t sure if it’s a frenzy from the first taste, or a subconscious draw to your Master, but you’d wanted more than just that solitary drop. Your eyes flutter closed for a moment as your mouth floods with enough of his taste to linger. You open your eyes and find Eddie staring down at you with a sort of scowl that is impossible to read. This is becoming his default expression it would seem. Is he angry? At you, or at himself?

You pull away from his thumb with a small sigh. Further embarrassed and having nothing else to blame but your own tilted desires, you mutter a quick, “Sorry.” You run your tongue along your teeth; searching for remnants of his blood. 

“‘is okay,” Eddie whispers. He stares at your lips smeared in his blood, licking his own. 

“How long does it take to feel the effects?” You ask. Your voice trembles slightly and you can’t help but stare at his tongue slipping back into his mouth.

Eddie looks back up into your eyes as if snapped out of a hypnotic state. “You don’t feel anything?”

You shake your head. “Not really,” you tell him honestly. “Maybe just kind of thirsty?”

“Huh.” He pulls away, stepping off the bed completely. “Maybe it is different for a thrall. I never saw Henry feed Chrissy any of his blood. I just assumed it would be the same as what happens to the Marrows, if not worse.”

Worse. You should have considered that too. 

“Well maybe this is a good thing,” Eddie decides. “One less thing to worry about.”

“Right.”

He is nodding his head as if silently trying to convince himself. “You should get some rest,” he says. “I promise I won’t keep you out all night like this again.” His voice is light with a bit of laughter but it doesn’t reach his eyes. A forgery. “If anything changes during the night, if you start feeling strange, just come to my room, okay?”

You give him a nod, knowing full well you won’t be able to bring yourself to go to him. Even if things go south, even if you wake with a little fire bursting through your chest, you’ll stay right away and endure it alone. There are too many new wounds from tonight that will need to be healed. And for now, you’ll need to do that healing alone.

Eddie stalks toward your door. He lingers there, staring back at you as he grips the wooden frame. 

“What happened tonight-“ he starts, but stops himself, swallowing the words. “Just know that I didn’t want it to happen that way.” 

You never get the chance to reply because he leaves without so much as saying ‘goodnight’. The door clicks closed behind him. You lie still for a few more seconds before deciding to get up to change. You don’t want to be in these clothes any longer than you have to, now that they only serve as poor reminders of that party. 

You walk to the door, locking it on instinct, but as you start to move, you feel the room sway. Dizzy, you blame his blood. Maybe it is starting to affect you after all. You try to ignore the sensation as you reach into your dresser for some pajamas. As you do, you feel an all too familiar throb between your legs. You practically fall to your knees as it nearly knocks you down. You cling to the top of your dresser, legs shifting slightly to test the ache. But it’s unmistakable. 

I need to be touched. 

Suddenly your clothes are a hindrance. Your skin feels irritated by their presence, scratchy. You rip off Eddie’s shirt first, but the rest comes off quickly after until you are standing naked. You run a hand down the center of your bare chest. Your skin feels cool to the touch, from the cold pool water and the colder night air. But there is a heat boiling under the surface of your skin. A heat that needs to be extinguished. A cold shower could help but you can’t bear the thought of putting your clothes back on just to make those few steps out to the shared bathroom. No. You need something else to relieve the ache. Fingers slip down between your legs and you let out a soft gasp. You are wet, practically dripping down onto your awaiting fingertips. 

Is this what Eddie meant by “set your soul on fire”? Is this why those Marrows couldn’t resist the need to reach out and touch him? Or were they only desperate for the source of their high? Is what you are feeling something else entirely?

You dash a quick glance to your door. Locked. But Eddie’s room is just across the hall. You could go to him. Maybe something is wrong. Maybe you shouldn’t be alone. 

I don’t want to be alone. 

You push yourself off the dresser and force yourself to your bed instead. You refuse to let anything else happen between you tonight, especially knowing you’ll regret it. You both will. Compelled or drugged, where do your true desires lie? 

Just the touch of your cool sheets against your skin makes you writhe in desperation. You are thrusting into the mattress. This feels like compulsion but also like something created by your own will, something pulled out from the recesses of your mind. A truth brought to the forefront. Your hand is back between your legs, teasing that wetness. But your fingers aren’t enough. Too slender, too delicate. You need more, something thicker. 

I need him. 

Nothing you do can relieve the ache. Nothing but writhing against your pillow, shoving yourself against it for some ounce of friction. You grab fistfuls of your sheets as you rock your hips against the bunched up fabric, picturing something else in its place. A leg hitched up for you to grind against. A face to ride and a tongue lavishing through your folds. You reach down and cling to the pillow as if your hands were shoving through hair, through curls. 

“Oh god,” you whimper as you bring yourself closer just with that thought alone. Of dangerous dark eyes gazing up at you as you bring yourself toward awaited release with the use of his mouth. 

You hate yourself for thinking it, for letting your drugged, lustful mind wander right back to him, but it’s the only thing that can take the ache away and replace it with pleasure. You reach up and pull at your nipples. If only he were here to provide some additional hands, some needed friction. 

No, you shake your head. I can’t even think that. I won’t. 

But each time you chase the thought away, he comes right back to the forefront of your mind stronger than before. You picture him behind you now as you rock against the pillow, chasing your release. You picture his mouth at your neck, his breath just as ragged as it had been in the pool. You picture him pulling at your nipples instead and whispering encouragement as your movements become near erratic. 

“That’s it,” he seems to say, pulling harder until you whine and arch your back. “Almost there.”

If he were here, you’d tilt back against him, hold him to you. You’d beg for more, beg for his hands, his mouth, his cock instead of this pathetic pillow. You’d beg him not to stop. 

“Just like that,” he’d whisper with his lips wrapped around your ear. “Cum for me.” 

So you do, harder and faster than you ever thought possible. You practically scream in surrender. But there is also a name on your lips, sung to the high heavens. You don’t have time to question it, not when exhaustion pulls you under. In your daze, you swear the doorknob jostles almost violently, trying to get in. But you collapse against your bed, too exhausted to move, to look. You fall asleep with thoughts of his hands slipping down your back in sweet encouragement. Of his lips on the nape of your neck.

“My thrall,” he’d whisper. “Mine.”

Chapter Text

You wake up with what feels like the worst hangover of your life. There is a pressure pounding against the inside of your skull that even a quick massage to your temples won’t help to ease. Probably best to get some coffee and Tylenol in you, and stat. Your mouth is bone dry, your lips chapped, but despite that, your body is drenched. You are covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Your sheets are damp with it. You don’t want to even think about the sorry state of your pillow. And you are starving, like you haven’t eaten in days. 

You sit up in bed, only to be greeted by your door left slightly ajar. It is letting in a small sliver of the hallway light. It pours into your room like a beacon, pulling you from your bed. Didn’t I lock that last night? You try to pry through your memories but everything after you tasted Eddie’s blood is a blur, only vague immersions remain; immersions of lust and longing. That’s when you finally realize you are still naked, and waking straight toward your now open doorway.

Flushed, you slam your door shut. Images flash to mind of hands on your hips, lips wrapped around your ear, kisses down your neck. You may not remember the finer details of what you’d done under the influence of Eddie’s blood, but you do know one thing: you’ve never cum so hard in your life. Your sex still aches slightly from the aftershock even all these hours later. You can feel your pulse becoming erratic, throbbing right down against your core as a demand for further attention. It must be Eddie’s blood still working its way out of your system. He said he couldn’t be sure how long the effects would last. And being his thrall means things could be exaggerated, elongated. 

It has to be his blood. The alternative is something you can’t even bring yourself to consider; that your true desires have been unearthed, given light after the freeing libration of his compulsion last night. 

You should have never given into your curiosity and agreed to take Eddie’s blood in the first place. But even before that, you should have just let him kill Billy and been done with it. Maybe then you wouldn’t have made such a fool of yourself. Maybe then you wouldn’t be questioning what is real and what is merely fabrication. Compulsion or free will. 

Your phone illuminates on your night stand, pulling you from your spiraling thoughts. You left it here all night. Picking it up, you see three missed calls from Luna and a slough of texts. 

“You feeling any better? Want me to bring more soup over?”

“Hey, don’t tell me you slept all day”

“Can you call me so I know you’re alive????”

Quickly, you call Luna, ready for her ensuing wrath. But when she answers, she sounds as half awake as you feel.

“H-Hello?”

“Hey,” you greet. It’s amazing how her voice alone can make you feel more at ease. It unravels the barbed wire around your heart, built up in defense of a world of vampires and drug addicts. Luna reminds you that there is still a part of your life that is normal. Human. “Sorry I missed so many of your messages yesterday. My phone died.”

“Jesus. I thought you may have slipped back into a coma,” she says with a heavy sigh of relief. “That roommate of yours taking care of you?”

Your skin flushes and you stammer out a response. “S-sure. He is.”

“Good. Otherwise I’d come back there to kick his ass.” She lets out a small laugh but it’s cut short. Her voice turns serious. “What’s wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?” You ask nervously. 

“Hold on. I’m getting my cards out.”

“Luna… you don’t have to do that,” you try to reassure. “Everything’s fine.”

“I’m still reading your cards.” You can practically hear her shuffling through the contents of a drawer in search of her tarot cards through the phone. 

“I need to shower,” you insist. “Can I just come over tomorrow so you can do that?”

The drawer slams shut and Luna mutters something you can’t quite hear. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about Halloween.”

“Halloween?” You’ve lost track of time. Was that really coming up already?

“It’s this weekend,” Luna answers as if reading your mind. “Saturday.”

“Shit. I don’t even have a costume.”

“So you and Jim Morrison aren’t doing anything?”

“Jim Morri- No. No, Eddie and I don’t have plans.” Eddie and I. Like you are a unit. A team. Partners. You chew on your lip, ignoring the persistent ache between your still bare thighs. 

“You should come over,” Luna offers. “Jules and I are going to hand out candy, maybe have a few people over, make a thing of it.”

All you can imagine is Eddie stepping foot into a house full of unsuspecting mortals, picking out the weakest amongst them for a quick meal. He killed that man in the alleyway so easily. But was it always that way with him? So thoughtless? Without remorse?

“I’ll think about it,” you tell her. “I have to get to work. But I’ll swing by your place tomorrow, yeah?”

“Sure.” Something in her voice reopens your own wounds, leaves you feeling tense and unsure. “Is something else going on with you?”

“No.” You’ve never lied to Luna before. Never had to. But you can’t even begin to explain to her everything that has changed in the last few days. “Still feeling under the weather, I guess.”

“Well then rest. I’ll talk to you later.”

After hanging up with Luna, you slip on Eddie’s shirt and your discarded panties from the night before. The shirt still smells of him, and try as you might to ignore the way it makes your skin prickle, you can’t shake the reinvigorated longing it incites. His jacket is thrown onto the floor. It doesn’t seem right to leave it there, but you can’t give it back, not yet. You pick it up and lie it out on your bed. You’ll decide what to do with it later.

You tiptoe out into the hall toward your shared bathroom. You are surprised to find Eddie’s bedroom door wide open across the hall. You peer inside, only for a moment, and quickly see him sitting at the edge of his unmade bed. He is bare chested. No fishnet ensemble remains from the night before. Loose sweatpants replace his jeans. His legs are spread wide and he leans forward against his knees as he slowly drinks from a blood bag. His morbid breakfast. And at his feet is a littering of five, six, maybe seven other emptied blood bags. Each one is drained completely bare. Not a drop left behind. 

He lifts his head slightly when he hears you. A bit of blood comes off on his lips as he releases the small tube he’d been using as a straw.

“Hey-“

You rush into the bathroom, the door sealed shut behind you with an all-too aggressive slam. You can’t talk to him right now. You can hardly even look at him. You are horrified by the flashing images of the night before when you’d used thoughts of his voice to reach climax. Thoughts of his hands holding you close as he leaned against your back and encouraged you to “cum for him.” Only thoughts. Nothing real. Couldn’t be. But when you look at yourself under the unforgiving glow of the bathroom’s fluorescents, you can’t quite ignore the impression of fingertips left against your hips. You turn to the mirror, and though your image seems hazy, perhaps the glass is a bit fogged from Eddie’s earlier shower, you can make out a bit of a blemish against your collar bone. You place your fingers there. The skin is still warm. There’s no way. You turn back and press your head to the back of the door in an attempt to calm yourself down.

Eddie knocks, startling you off the door. “You okay in there?”

Your heart races in answer. “Fine!”

He is quiet for a moment, giving you enough time to back away before he might barge in. You settle against the sinks, clinging to the edge for some stability. 

“Hey, listen,” he starts up again, clearing his throat. “Last night, did you-”

“Nothing!” Your hands tremble so terribly you have to wring them together to try to stop the tremor. “Your blood didn’t have any effect on me. I went right to sleep.”

He is quiet once again, before speaking up in a near inaudible whisper. “Really?”

“Yes.” You swallow thickly but your mouth is still so dry that the movement only causes your throat to ache. “Slept great too. Better than melatonin.”

He says your name; a warning and a prayer. You don’t respond and instead, turn back to the shower to try to start it. 

“Don’t lie,” he groans. 

“What? I’m not lying-“

“I heard you.” 

Your body goes completely rigid, those tremors a forgotten issue. 

“I heard you say my name,” he continues. His shadow shifts beneath the door until he is pressed right up against the opposite side. “I thought… maybe you were hurt. You almost sounded like you were in pain.”

That was hardly pain.

“Well I was fine,” you lie again. “I already told you that it didn’t-“

“And I can tell that you’re lying.”

“How?” You snap. “Can you read my mind now too?”

“No. But I know what pleasure sounds like.”

There it is. The truth. He’d known all along but wanted to see if you were brave enough to admit it. But you’ve always been a coward. 

“My door was unlocked this morning,” you say as your fingertips fall back down to your hips, tracing the small bruises left against your delicate skin. “Maybe I should be the one asking you what happened last night.”

“I don’t… remember anything,” Eddie replies, his voice a low rumble behind the door. “I only know that I heard you. I must have gotten up at some point to check on you. Maybe I unlocked your door to do that… I don’t know. It’s all a blur. I woke up in my bed, exhausted. That alone is alarming. I’ve told you before I don’t really need to sleep so I shouldn’t have been so tired. And I found empty blood bags all over the floor.” 

“You must have just had the midnight munchies,” you jest, but your voice sounds shaken.  You lick your lips. Your skin is chapped, bleeding slightly. You can taste the metallic tang on your tongue but it’s not nearly as off-putting as it should be. 

“You really don’t remember anything?” He asks, more seriously this time.

You silently wonder if you should tell him the truth; that you remember pleasuring yourself with thoughts of only him to fill the ache. There have been enough secrets between the two of you. Too many hidden worlds filled with death and forced submission. Those things could continue to wedge themselves between you like a door, blocking you from ever truly knowing each other. After everything that happened last night, you should want to put some distance between you and Eddie. But instead, you want to let your guards down. You want to let him crawl under your defenses and stay there. 

“You didn’t tell me what it would do to me,” you finally mutter. He said his blood would “set your soul on fire” but that just felt like an elaborate way of saying it would get you high. You should have questioned him. You should have pushed for more information, but your curiosity won out. Would you have denied his offer if you’d know what it would do?

“It varies,” he replies quietly. 

“Varies? It doesn’t make everyone-“

“Horny?” You can practically hear the smirk in his voice, though it is a welcome relief to the tension that had cut through his voice a moment prior. 

Your face feels warm. You look back at the shower. You should ignore him, drown out his words under the spray of water, but you can’t move. You stay where you are, held just at the door, and just beyond him behind it. 

“That wasn’t what I was expecting,” you say in a whisper.

“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t sound the least bit apologetic and your irritation only rises to meet him. 

“Well now I know.”

There is silence again, but his shadow remains beneath the door. You stand there together, knowing the truth like a wound you have no way of healing. 

“Open the door,” he finally says, gently, sincerely, the humor in his voice now forgotten. 

“Why?”

“So we can talk about this face to face.”

“What else is there to talk about, Eddie?” You nearly snap. 

“We can’t just pretend things didn’t happen last night,” he replies. “Not just because of my blood. But at the party. In the pool. So just… open the door and hear me out.” He lets out a sigh and the door creeks as if he were leaning all of his weight against the opposite side. “Please.”

Your heart aches and every part of you wants to fling the door open and feel his body pressed against yours. That’s still the blood talking. That damned blood. “Can I… shower first?” 

“Oh. Yea. Of course.” You are surprised by how quickly he agrees. “A cold one might help.” That son of a bitch. 

You turn the shower on swiftly. But even as you slip out of his borrowed shirt, letting it settle on the floor, you can see that his shadow remains behind the bathroom door, unmoving, waiting. 

You try to be quick about cleaning up, wasting very little time as you apply body wash, as you lather your hair. When you finally step out of the steamed filled bathroom, he is no longer outside in the hallway, however. It gives you time to dress, fix your hair, and even put on some makeup. It gives you more time to think and settle your heart. But that pesky organ still persists on racing. 

Stepping out into the kitchen, you are hit by the warm, welcoming scent of maple sugar. 

“Did you… make me breakfast?” You ask in bewilderment as you stare at the pile of waffles set against the counter, topped with a healthy square of butter and a smothering of artificial syrup. 

“I just popped them in the toaster,” Eddie says from the bar stool where he is hunched over the kitchen counter. He is staring at his phone, refusing to look up. 

“That’s more than I could say about some of my exes,” you say without thinking. Eddie finally looks up, his eyes widening. “Ex roommates,” you correct quickly. “My ex roommates couldn’t really cook without something catching on fire.”

“Well don’t check the trash can,” he says with a smirk. 

You sit down beside him at the counter. As much as your stomach is rumbling, cutting through the pile of waffles, you can’t quite bring yourself to eat them. It’s not as if they aren’t enticing, or that you are nauseated by their sugary sweetness, but something isn’t quite right. Your body needs something else. 

You have made a mess of the waffles, mindlessly cutting them into smaller and smaller pieces by the time Eddie speaks up again. 

“I’m so sorry about what happened,” he says in a low voice. You wonder, for just a moment, if he is apologizing for opening your door, for things that could have happened in your room, beyond your memory. But he continues. “I should have never brought you to that party. I should have known Billy would try something. I don’t expect you to forgive me but I’m going to do my best to make up for it.”

You push a bit of waffle around your plate, swirling the syrup against its pillowy surface. 

“I don’t blame you for any of that,” you reply. “You didn’t force me. I agreed to play his games. And now I know just how far he is willing to go to get a rise out of you.”

Eddie stares at you and you can’t help feeling like his gaze is burrowing right down into your soul. You force yourself to stare back down at your plate instead.

“Why do you work for him anyway?” You dare to ask. “You clearly hate him.”

“I needed a job,” Eddie mutters, his voice wrought with shame. “A little hard to find employment as an uneducated vampire.” You try to speak up, to argue, but he doesn’t give you the opportunity. “Without this job, I would be out on the street. I’m not proud of it, but until something better pops up, I’m good at this. I can handle this job. I sold drugs before Henry found me so this strangely helps me feel more human. Reminds me of who I used to be.”

You nod quietly, attempting to lift a bite to your lips but your fork falls back down to the plate, untouched. Your heart aches for him, yearning to see his human self under the layers of his built-up defenses.

“What was it like?”

You blink up at him, mouth gaping like a fish.

“W-What was what like?” You question before swallowing thickly. Your mouth no longer seems as dry, salivating as you stare as his plush, parted lips. 

“My blood,” he clarifies. 

You drop your fork and knife, clutching your knees to try to keep from spinning out of the chair and running back to the safety of your room. 

“Humor me, okay?” Eddie groans, as if annoyed by his own question. “It’s not like I can try it out myself. And no one’s ever tasted my blood where I could be a witness.”

Not even Chrissy?

You stare at the bits of waffle on your plate, at the pools of caramel colored syrup gathering around the beige cake. Sickly sweet, intoxicating but sinful. 

“It was… an aphrodisiac,” you finally confess. “But I guess you knew that much.”

“Did it scratch an itch?”

Your heart shudders into an erratic rhythm. “W-what?”

He smirks. “Did it satisfy your curiosity? For my blood.”

You try to look away but he holds your gaze. Hypnotized. “Oh. Yea. Sure.”

He stares down at you like he’s discovered something so amusing. Something only he can see. He licks his lips slowly and you trace that delicate line, unblinking. “Do you want seconds?”

Surely you’ve misheard him. “No!” You bark. “It was a one and done situation. I don’t need to do that again.”

“Was only teasing,” he insists but there is something in his gaze that says otherwise; says he was hoping you’d say “yes”. 

“What I don’t understand is why you don’t remember anything from last night,” you say quietly, trying to stray away from his offer. “I was the one that tasted your blood. And I’m sure you don’t black out every time someone takes your Lace.”

“But you’re my thrall,” he reminds you. “The same rules don’t apply for you as they would for a normal mortal. I just didn’t anticipate it affecting me. I didn’t think I’d have to prepare for this kind of thing.” 

You recall the array of blood bags on his bedroom floor, how he must have gone into a feeding frenzy to go through so many. “Do you have enough supply left?”

“Only a few,” he replies. “I’ll have to ask Steve for more.”

You nod, wondering if it would even be possible for Steve to give him more blood on such short notice. Would the hospital start to get suspicious? Would they start looking into Steve, into Eddie?

“You could always drink from me,” you offer.

Eddie’s eyes widen, as shocked by your proposal as you are for suggesting it.

“Out of the question,” he answers, shaking his head. “I’m not drinking your blood.”

“I’m your thrall,” you argue, throwing his words right back at him. “Isn’t that what I’m suppose to be used for?”

“I don’t want to use you,” he growls, though his eyes drift to the barely concealed blemish on your neck, eyes widening as he lifts his hand toward you. “Did I-“

“I’m late for work.” You push your uneaten plate away and stumble off the barstool. 

“Wait. You’re leaving?”

“I have to be at the office everyday, Eddie.” You try to make a break for the door but your body is slow moving, sluggish like you are still in a dream. Still somewhere where your inhibitions no longer bind you to reason. 

“Then I’m going with you.” Eddie stands and straightens, coming up beside you. 

“No,” you say too quickly. He looks wounded by your quick rejection somehow, so you ramble a quick excuse. “Why don’t we test this bond a bit? See how long we can be apart.” We could use the time apart. “We will just stay in contact and if anything feels off, I’ll come right back home. Okay?”

He looks at you like he wants to put up some resistance. Like a part of him would happily chain you to that chair so you’ll never leave. And a part of you would let him. But he falls back against the counter, hunching over it in what looks like admitted defeat. “If that’s what you want.”

His reply causes your stomach to sour, but you try your best to ignore it. 

I don’t know what I want. 

“I promise I’ll text you,” you reassure. But you stop at the door, one thing still weighing on your mind. “When you said there was one way of knowing if Ben was Henry’s thrall… did you mean we’d have to give him some of your blood? To see if it still affects him?” 

Eddie perks up a bit. “Yes.”

“Should I try it today?” You ask carefully. “Slip him some blood like he did to me?”

“Like you think he did,” Eddie corrects. 

You glare at him. “Well?”

“I told you I’m not willing to risk it,” he growls.

“But no one else could have done it!” You argue. “And if we know for certain he is Henry’s thrall, maybe we can use that to our advantage. Maybe we can get information out of him. To protect you. To protect us.”

He stares at you for a moment, and you are surprised that he almost seems to be considering it. But he wouldn’t. There’s no way he would after everything his own blood had done to you. It’s too high of a risk. 

“It’s a bad idea, I know-“ you start to dismiss. 

“I don’t have vials of my blood lying around,” he mutters but stalks off to his room nonetheless. 

He returns a moment later with a similar glass tube to the one he’d used to collect the gore of the man he’d killed, just as a trinket for Billy. He flicks open his pocket knife and, without hesitation, cuts deep into his wrist. A cut like that would kill any mortal with a death wish, but for Eddie, he barely even flinches as the crimson elixir begins to fill the vial held in his awaiting grasp. You should be disgusted. You should look away in horror. You should feel the bile crawling up your throat at the mere sight of it. But you feel held to that the stream of blood as it pours into the tube. Your mouth waters and you have to keep forcing yourself to swallow so as not to drool like a deranged animal. It’s just his blood to blame. 

Once there is enough in the tube to distort the glass, he caps it and brings his wrist to his mouth. He runs his tongue along the wound, collecting a smear of red along his lips. As he pulls away, you notice beneath the blur of red, that the cut is already beginning to close up, to heal. You stare at the glistening of blood on his lips and wince at the way your body craves to lick it clean. How you can still taste that delicious ecstasy his blood had delivered last night, even amongst your foggy recall. 

You want more of it, more of him. 

He hands the vial over to you, clearly aware of the way your eyes hold to his lips, the way your body arches and curls toward his approaching touch. But he shifts away as soon as you grasp onto his tube of blood. Cold rejection shivers down your spine.

Just the blood, just that damned blood to blame. 

“Be careful who you give that to,” he warns. “If he isn’t Henry’s thrall, this will affect him. And now you know first hand the kind of effects it can have. And… I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“I can defend myself,” you argue. You aren’t worried about Ben. You are worried about the way your hand trembles around the vial as you carefully slip it into your bag. 

“I can still come with you-“

“We need this,” you say quickly. You can’t look at him. “We need the time apart.”

You feel him shift away from you, feel him put distance between you both physically and mentally. You have to force your hands into your pockets so as not to reach for him. To not act like the insolent child you want to be, clawing for his returned attention. That will do you both no good. 

“I expect to hear from you every hour,” he says before turning back toward his bedroom. “If I don’t, I’m coming to get you.”

———

As you drive to work, you can’t help feeling that gnawing pull back to Eddie, like a cord urging you to turn around, to return to his side. You grip onto the steering wheel and try to focus on the road, on work, on anything other than him. But just like a boomerang, your mind keeps circling back to him. Had it always been this intense, your connection? Had you always felt such a growing intensity to be by his side? Or had everything you’d done last night exacerbated your bond? The pool, the Lace, his touch against your bare skin. 

Maybe you shouldn’t have left alone. Maybe he should have come with you. Your mind wanders back to that janitor’s closet, racing with new illicit ideas. 

Shaking your head, you turn up your music and squint against the burning sun overhead. It’s too damn bright. Your skin warms up under its rays, forcing you to blast the A/C, though it provides you with little relief. 

Once inside the office, you walk toward your desk. Ben perks up immediately upon your approach, like a small dog in sight of his master. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he were your thrall. The thought makes you giggle to yourself as you step up to your desk. 

“Good morning,” he greets. “You look chipper this morning.”

You wipe the smile from your face instantly. You slip your bag under your desk, careful to make sure the vial of blood is properly concealed. 

“Do anything fun last night?” he continues. 

You turn to look at him skeptically. “It was a Tuesday.”

“Right. Of course.” He laughs, brushing it off. 

You hesitate, but eventually reply. “I spent time with my roommate.”

“Ah. Eddie.” He looks down at his keys, as if the name were a memory, a trigger to something fogging his vision. But the moment quickly fades. He blinks and looks back up at you. “Surprised he isn’t here again today. He seemed a little… attached.”

“We both are,” you say too quickly. You swallow your words, your skin feeling itchy under all your clothes. “He was just worried because of how sick I was. He won’t come here again.”

Ben nods, not because he agrees, but as a small gesture that he is listening. “You could always invite him to our next happy hour,” he proposes. “I wouldn’t mind getting to know him a bit.”

“Why?” You ask shooting a skeptical glare across at him. 

Ben smiles strangely. “It’s my job to be curious about the people in your life.”

You study him, wondering if that alone could be a confession of his true nature; that he is under someone else’s compulsion. You wonder if your own eyes seemed just as glazed over last night as you stood by the pool, undressing. If your gaze looked as soulless and empty. 

How have I never noticed how much of a husk you are? 

Silence penetrates the air between you. Your gaze shifts down to your bag. To the vial, but more importantly, to your phone. It’s been an hour, and sure enough, there is a text waiting for you from Eddie.

“Did you make it to work yet?”

It’s almost too normal. Like a text you’d expect from a loved one, just checking in. But you can feel his nervous energy through the phone. The way he must be pacing in the apartment, holding himself back from leaving. 

“I’m here,” you text back. 

“Do you feel okay?” He replies almost instantly. 

Is he asking about the effects of his blood, or of the distance between you, pulling at the bond uncomfortably.

“I’m okay,” you lie as you itch at your chest. It feels like a rash is beginning to break out, right where his rings lay against your skin. 

“If you give him my blood, only use a few drops,” Eddie reminds you.

“Right.” 

You shove your phone aside and try to focus your attention on your computer, on the list of incomplete tasks growing by the minute. But you don’t care about any of it. Like an addict, you can only think about one thing. 

Am I a Marrow? 

The thought hits you like lightning, stealing your breath and causing your heart to race with anxiety. There is no way you could be addicted just after one taste. But you could kick yourself, remembering all those years of anti-drug messaging pumped into you through your schooling. It only ever takes one time. One taste. 

You listen to the sound of Ben’s fingers running almost frantically across his own keys, getting work done as you sit, itching nervously with your own sense of anticipation. The vial rests like a siren’s call at your feet, right at the edge of your bag, begging to be tasted once more. You need to get rid of it now, and what better way than for you to test Ben in the process. 

“I’m going to get a coffee,” you announce. “Want anything?”

Ben perks his head up from around his monitor. “Yea, actually. Maybe a macchiato?”

“Sure. No problem.” 

You grab your bag and head downstairs for the coffee shop. You buy a latte for yourself and the macchiato for Ben just as requested. But as you start to head back upstairs, you can hardly even sip on your coffee. Your eyes keep subconsciously drifting to that damned vial of blood. His blood. Eddie’s. 

I’m not a Marrow. 

You slip into the restroom once you make it back up to the floor of your office. You make sure its empty, that you are alone, before you carefully put a few drops of Eddie’s blood into the macchiato. The red droplets leave a lingering impression on top of the milky froth, but luckily, with the lid in place, nothing seems amiss. You don’t see Ben at his desk when you return but leave the tainted coffee for him. The vial of blood remains in your pocket now rather than your bag, oddly comforting against your hip. 

You really should put it away and be done with it. Better yet, you should pour the remaining contents down the drain in the bathroom, disposing of the temptation. Before you can even think, you quickly sprint back to the restroom to do just that. But the moment you open the stopper, as you stare down at his dark blood, you feel your body ache for its fulfillment. For him. 

I’m not a Marrow. I’m a thrall. 

It isn’t the blood you need. It’s Eddie. You’ve been away from him for too long. You can feel the strain of your bond pulling tight like a rubber band ready to snap. You itch at your chest again, that rash getting more irritated. Perhaps a small droplet of his blood might ease the ache of this forced connection, might make you feel closer to him. 

“Just a small taste can’t hurt,” you hear yourself say as you lift a hand to the tube of blood. 

You dip the tip of your pinkie into the vial, gathering the rich ore against your skin. It smells like him. Not of the metallic tang of death and rot, but of smoke and earth and rain. Of everything you’ve come to crave. To need. 

“Just a taste.”

You lift your pinkie to your tongue and smear his blood across it, savoring the way it lingers.

Like honey, you think to yourself, irrationally. 

The effects are almost instantaneous this time. There is no questioning the way his blood can skew your mind, your blood. Your skin tingles with new sensation. Your heart pulses and cries out with need. You gasp as that ache returns in full force as a throb between your thighs. 

Your phone rings, snapping you momentarily out of your haze, though that pulse still remains. A drum beat insisting on submission, 

“What the fuck did you just do?” Eddie voice nearly screams through your phone. 

“W-what do you mean?” You struggle to say, the words coming out as desperate moans. His voice only seems to multiply the sensation, rocking through your lower body, prickling against your already perked nipples. 

“I can feel… you,” he hisses. “I can feel your hunger all the way over here in the goddamn apartment. Like you are a fucking alarm that won’t stop screaming in my head.”

“A-And you don’t think that’s just the bond?” You whimper in question. “We’ve been away from each other for, what, a few hours, right?”

“I’ve been restless all day but it’s like you just flipped a damn switch on.” You hear him groan, not out of need, but of his own twisted desire. A sentiment you know all too well as his blood courses through your veins, pulsing delivered ecstasy to every erogenous zone. “Did you taste my blood again?”

“J-Just a d-drop,” you confess. “But last night you were fine, right? Nothing happened, right?”

He doesn’t respond, and suddenly you remember the violent jostling of your doorknob, like someone was desperate to get inside. You remember how you’d found your door open even despite it being locked the night before. You remember Eddie insisting he had no memories of last night, your own recall foggy. But there are bruises on your hips, on your neck, right where his touch had been in your dreams. 

It is evidence that you are both lying to yourselves. 

“You can’t be around people like that,” Eddie hisses through the phone. “You might do something you’ll regret.”

More like do someone.

“I’m texting Steve,” he decides before you can even respond. “He is closer to you than I am. He can help you.”

“No. He can’t go out during the day either. I’m not risking him getting hurt just cause I’m… worked up.”

But Eddie ignores you, surely to pull his phone away and send Steve a message. You can practically hear his thumbs mashing against his screen on the other side of the call. 

“Can you hang on til he gets there?”

“How is he suppose to help?” You demand. “Eddie, I’m not fucking your friend.”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting!” He snaps, but quickly calms himself, exhaling deeply into the phone. “He has access to pills. Medication. Something that might help subdue the reaction.”

“Like a tranquilizer?” You ask bitterly, just as you are nearly sent down to your knees, a moan escaping your lips as pleasure courses through your core. You could cum like this, without even needing to touch yourself once. You knock the vial over in the process and watch in dismay as the contents spill down the sink. 

“Why did you even need to taste my blood?” Eddie asks as you barely manage to cling to the phone. Your hands are shaking so violently now. 

“I… don’t know,” you tell him. “It… felt like I should. I should consume your blood. It belongs… inside of me.” His silence makes your own words register, makes you wince in horror. I’m not a Marrow. “God, I sound addicted but I swear it wasn’t because I wanted your blood! I wanted… you.” You hate admitting it but you swear you can hear him sigh through the phone. Perhaps it is in dismay, or satisfaction. You can’t tell. “That’s the bond talking. Isn’t it?”

“Has to be,” he mutters. “I should have never given you that vial…”

“I’m just going to come home,” you decide as you lift yourself up, trying to walk back to the door. But every move has you aching for some release. “Just…Tell Steve to stay put. I’ll be fine.”

“It isn’t safe for you to drive,” Eddie growls. 

“I’ll listen to those preachers on the radio. It’ll dry me right up.”

“Just wait for him!”

You hang up before he can say anything more. You make it to the door and out into the hallway but you can feel sweat beading against your skin. You are sure you must be poking holes through your blouse, or that the evidence of your slick is trailing down your thighs in some sort of lewd display. You have to cling to the wall to try to stabilize yourself but it’s of no use.

I just have to get to my desk and get my car keys. That’s all I need to do. Then I can go home. Then I can be with him. 

Every step has you aching to be touched. You rub your thighs together for some relief but it only makes your desire that much worse. 

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie

As you get closer to your desk, Ben catches your eye immediately, though your gaze drifts down to the now empty coffee cup in the trash can by his desk. He drank it all. 

“Hey! Thanks for the macchiato. Sorry I got pulled into a meeting and-“ He stops as he approaches you, hands hovering in the space between you. “Whoa you don’t look so good.”

But you look fine. Eddie’s blood isn’t affecting him.

He tries to reach for your shoulders but you jerk away. You don’t want to be touched by him.

Not him. Only Eddie. 

“Yea, I guess I still have that bug after all,” you say quickly. You chew on the inside of your mouth, letting your own blood flood against your tongue. Focusing on pain is much easier than the pleasure numbing your rationale. “I’m just g-going to go home.”

“Do you need me to drive you?”

“No!” You shake your head, trying to soften your expression. “I don’t want to get you sick.” You push past him, grabbing your bag off the floor and practically running back to the elevator before he can stop you. 

Alone, you lean back against the wall of the elevator. You quickly unlatch a few of the top buttons on your blouse, releasing a bit of tension. Your bosom spills out over your bra, revealed beneath the parted material. You try to fan yourself but the air is stifling. Your skin is on fire, flames lit from within ready to consume you whole. You brace a hand on your thigh as you fight against the urge to touch yourself. To slip just a single finger up under the fabric of your panties. A small touch might be just enough to end this. 

I just need some relief. 

The elevator dings and the doors open to the parking garage. In front of you is a young woman. Her eyes are wide and aimed right at your open blouse. Her cheeks flush and she clears her throat, forcing herself to look up at your face instead. You cling the fabric back together in shame but that ache only grows stronger. 

“Excuse me,” you mutter as you try to move around her. I just need to get to my car. Then I’ll be home. 

“You’re Eddie’s roommate.”

You stop in front of the elevator, just as the doors slip closed behind you, without the woman inside of it. You turn to look at her, finally noticing the set of scrubs under her coat. The same as Steve’s. She looks you over, wincing slightly. 

“Shit. This is really bad,” she mutters, concern welling in her large eyes. “How long ago did you take his blood?”

Alarmed, you try to move but every step has your thighs rubbing together, exaggerating the effects of that small taste. Your face twists in agonizing pleasure. “I need to go-“

“I’m taking you to my place,” the woman says before placing a gentle hand of your arm. The mere touch of another person’s skin against your own has you nearly whimpering. But she isn’t what you want. Nothing will quite satisfy like the true source of your desire. But her touch is warm; an undeserving comfort. “Steve can help you. Just hang in there.” 

Despite your reluctance, she starts to pull you toward a small car; a little red beetle looking a bit beat up and beyond a proper tune up. She opens the door for you but you are too weakened to fight back. You fall into the passenger seat, squirming slightly as you curl your legs up into your chest protectively. 

“Are you… a vampire?” You ask as she slips into the driver’s seat and starts up the car. It takes a few tries, rumbling with resistance. 

“Wouldn’t be out midday like this if I was,” she says as she pulls out of the parking garage. The moment the sunlight hits your face, you are cowering into your seat. It’s still too damn bright. 

“Are you his thrall?” You ask as you bury your face into your knees. “I thought Steve said he didn’t-“

“God no. I’m just his roommate.” You open your eyes and turn slightly to look at her, shifting your head against your knees. She has a small smile on her face. “Just his roommate. I’m Robin, by the way.”

“You work at the hospital too?” 

“Got to keep him in check,” she says, that smile never fading. “Steve explained the situation to me. Figured I’d be the best person to come and get you.” As she looks at you, she must see something alarming because she quickly shifts her attention back to the road. “Have you had that rash for a while?”

You reach up and cling almost protectively onto Eddie’s rings still held right up against your skin. Your flesh underneath feels hot and moist, feverish, prickled in bumps. 

“I must be allergic,” you lie, but you refuse to take them off. You’ve never had a reaction like this to silver. 

“And your arms look a little irritated too.”

You shift your gaze down the expanse of your exposed limbs, seeing that the flesh is almost inflamed, raw and itchy. So itchy. It almost feels like a sun burn. 

At a stop light, Robin shifts out of her coat and hands it over to you wordlessly. You mutter your thanks and slip into the coat to conceal yourself from the sun. But there is no way you could be burning. You are mortal, and the sun is no brighter than usual. It has to be a mistake. A side effect of his blood. Yes. His blood. Eddie’s. Eddie. 

“Is this the longest you’ve been apart?” Robin asks, making a turn.

“It’s only been a few hours,” you mutter. 

She nods, and her voice turns oddly chipper, like she is trying to keep you positive. “This all must be because your his thrall. It’s the only thing that would explain it.”

You nod, but squirm in your seat, pulling against your seat belt. The agony of your denied pleasure has you nearly in tears now, gnawing at your own cheek, clawing at her coat. 

“How much longer?” You groan. 

“Not much further.” You hear the engine roar as she speeds up down the road. “I’ve never seen a Marrow act like this before.”

“I’m not a Marrow,” you hiss.  

“No,” she strangely agrees. “But I guess there aren’t too many thralls around to ask if this is normal either.”

You would ask what she means, but your mind screams in agony, your heart racing. You can’t think, can’t speak, can only feel, and far too deeply. 

An agonizing eternity later, Robin stops the car. She gets out and moves around to the other side to help you out, practically dragging you up into the home she shares with Steve. It’s a small house, not an apartment like you are expecting. Cozy. You step instead and feel the familiar breeze of ice cold air conditioning, not unlike your own apartment. It’s a welcome cool kiss against your over-heated flesh, and yet you can’t help wanting to rip off your clothing. To lie bare against the hard wood floor and writhe til release. Her coat comes off quickly at least, left on the floor behind you. 

“Steve!” Robin screams in a panic.

You lift your head long enough to see the handsome vampire racing toward you from down the hall. Unlike Robin, he isn’t dressed in his scrubs, but a shirt and boxers, as if he’d just been sleeping. 

“This is bad,” he mutters, before racing off into another room.

“She might need a double dose!” Robin calls out as she leads you to the living room, placing you gently on the couch. 

You cling a pillow to your chest, groaning as you fumble with the buttons of your blouse, trying to undo them completely, trying to rock yourself against anything for a bit of friction. 

“Steve!”

“I got it! I got it!”

“I need Eddie,” you hear yourself mumble, lost in a sea of lust and longing. “Eddie…”

“You’ll feel a slight pinch.”

And you do, right against your upper arm. You gasp. 

“What did you-“

Your vision suddenly goes hazy but through the fog, you make out the slanted silhouettes of Robin and Steve, leaning over you. Their lips move like they are speaking, but you can’t hear a word. All you can do is fade into sleep.

———

When you finally start to reawaken, you immediately breathe in the all too familiar scent of rain and smoke. You turn, realizing your head isn’t against a pillow, but against the breadth of someone’s thighs. As your vision comes fully into clarity, you see him staring down at you. His fingers delicately trace lines across your forehead to push your hair away from your face. An affectionate caress. 

“Hey,” Eddie greets softly. “I’m here.”

You reach up, touching his hand to your face, keeping it there. You feel your body ease, tension uncoiling from around your heart.

“You’re here,” you say in a sigh. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks, without moving his hand out from under yours, letting you hold him to you. “I heard Steve gave you the good drugs.” He smiles a bit. 

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Not long,” he reassures. “Sun went down only an hour ago.”

You nod against his hand. “Are we still-“

“At Steve’s place? Yea.” You try to turn your head but he holds your gaze steady. “I asked how you were feeling.”

“I think I’m better now that you are here,” you confess, feeling slightly bashful for admitting it. “Or maybe worse. It’s hard to think straight. I’m still a little… restless.” You can still feel a remnant of that ache clouding your senses, especially as he touches your cheek, as he stares down at you with such relief and mutual longing. But you must be imagining that. He couldn’t possibly feel this way. 

“At least she’s not humping the furniture.”

You finally turn your gaze despite Eddie’s hold and find Robin leaning against the wall, just beside Steve. He in turn is now also dressed in scrubs, both of them prepared to head out for their evening shift at the hospital. 

“Did I… really-“ You stop yourself, gapping at her. “Like some dog in heat?”

“Practically.” She gives you a humored smile but you can see the sympathy behind her gaze. 

You shift your head away to hide your face against Eddie’s stomach. “This is so embarrassing,” you mumble. But the movement makes you painfully aware of where your head now rests and what exactly lies hard beneath you. You jolt up out of Eddie’s lap, your face impossibly warm. 

“I’ve never seen anyone react to your Lace like that,” Steve says, keeping his voice low, guarded.

Eddie turns to look at you but quickly shifts his gaze away. “I haven’t either…”

“We won’t be able to keep giving her sedatives every time this happens,” Steve says to him. “You are going to have to figure out another way to work through her addiction.”

“I’m not addicted!” You argue. But feeling all three of their gazes lock onto you, you start to lose your resolve. You sound every part the addict. “I’m sorry you had to put up with me behaving like that…”

“We are happy to help,” Robin insists and despite your embarrassment, you manage to return her smile with a small one of your own. 

“We are already late for work,” Steve says quietly, grabbing a set of car keys off the kitchen counter. “You can see yourselves out. Just lock the door.”

Eddie stands suddenly, blocking their path to the front door. 

“Hey… so… I may need a resupply sooner than we agreed,” he says with a salesman’s sort of grin. 

“What?” Steve narrows his eyes at the other vampire. “Why?”

Eddie shoves his hands into his pockets, shifting back on his heels. “I seemed to have gone into a frenzy last night…”

“A frenzy?” Steve’s eyes widen in alarm. “How did you- I gave you twenty bags!”

Eddie shrugs, all too casually. “So can you get me more?”

Steve groans, rubbing at his temple. “Never mind the fact that it is incredibly alarming you went through that many bags in a single night…There isn’t going to be more.”

Eddie’s expression falls. “What?”

“It was easy to take a few here and there at the beginning,” Steve says. “But the hospital has started to notice how much blood has gone missing. And we just had that big pile up on the freeway last week that nearly drained our supplies as it is. There are humans who need that blood. They need it more than we do.”

Eddie opens his mouth but quickly snaps it shut, knowing Steve is right. 

“We will have to go back to getting our meals the old fashioned way,” Steve mutters, looking briefly at Robin with something like remorse. She moves past him out the door. But Steve lingers, stepping up into Eddie. 

“Are you sure you were the only one who went through all of those bags last night?” He whispers, as if hoping you won’t hear. But perhaps, finally, the perks of being a thrall have finally kicked in, because, despite how softly he is speaking, you can hear him as clear as day. 

“What are you trying to say?” Eddie whispers in reply, his gaze venomous. 

“Robin said she reacted to the sun the same way we-“

“Don’t say it,” Eddie hisses. 

“And the silver on her neck is making her break out in a rash.”

“She’s not a vampire!” Eddie suddenly snaps, shoving away from his friend. 

“But she’s clearly not a mortal either!”

“She’s my thrall,” Eddie hisses, almost territorially. If he were an animal, you’d half expect him to bite into Steve’s jugular in defense. “You know as well as I do that she has changed because of that.” 

“But we don’t even know anything about thralls,” Steve argues. “At least no more than Henry has told us. What if this isn’t normal? What if this is something else?” He takes a cautious step back toward the door, his eyes lingering on you for a moment before he looks back at Eddie. “No one has ever stopped a transformation before. Maybe what you did didn’t actually work. Maybe something is still wrong with her. You need to speak with Henry.”

Eddie eyes flare briefly before returning right back to a deadly glare. “No.”

“Eddie-“

“No! He almost killed her! I’m not going to go crawling back to him just because we need answers. And you know as well as I do that he is a liar and a manipulator. We can’t trust anything he says. We will figure this out on our own.”

Steve gives him a small nod, coming to some silent decision. “We can talk more about this later,” he says before leaving out the door. The door shuts behind him, sealing you and Eddie alone inside the foreign home. 

“Do you think Steve’s right?” You ask as you turn to face him over the back of the couch. “That this isn’t normal for a thrall?”

He comes back around to sit beside you, hunching over. He looks down at his hands, folded between his parted legs as if in prayer. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. As he slowly lifts his gaze back to you, his eyes settle on your neck once again. 

“Ben is Henry’s thrall.”

His eyes widen, shifting back properly to your face. “What?”

“Your blood didn’t affect him,” you tell him. “I slipped it into his coffee and even though I was… dealing with the side effects immediately, he never so much as looked like he was even slightly tickled.”

“Well, now we know,” he says. “You will need to be more careful around him. What did you do with the rest of my blood? Do you still have it?”

“Dumped it down the sink,” you reply. “On accident. But I don’t want to risk having it on me. I don’t want to be tempted anymore than I already have been.”

“That’s for the best.” Eddie’s gaze drifts back to your neck, drawn there like a moth to a flame. “Last night, something happened between us because of my blood.”

You clasp your hand almost protectively over the blemish, the one you never even bothered to cover up with makeup. As if you’d been proud of it, as if you wanted people to see it and wonder who could have laid claim to your body. 

“No. I didn’t… we didn’t…”

“I think we did,” Eddie says slowly, though he shakes his head and continues. ”I got into your room. I… touched you.” He lifts his hand, this time hovering it over where you have hidden the mark on your neck. Where you remember him kissing you. You shift a bit, your hips sore from the grip of his hands, held there last night as you writhed to release. “Our bond links us. My blood affected us both last night because of that. But that’s no excuse for what I did. We need to get a handle on this before anything like that happens again. We both weren’t thinking clearly.”

He rests his fingers gently over your own. It is such a small touch but now, being alone with him, it’s hard to ignore how much you needed this. His caress. His concern. His undivided attention. You can sense the return of that familiar pulse. It pulls you to him, urges you to crawl back into his lap and stay there; makes you want to swallow his protests in a kiss. But before you can surrender, you shove yourself away from his touch, disgusted with yourself. With your lack of self-control.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be so close to me,” you warn, looking away. “I still feel…”

“Restless?” You turn just in time to see him smirk just a bit, though he fights against it. 

“How are we suppose to fix this?”

“I don’t think we can outrun this.” He leans back into you, a hand braced against the back of the couch over your shoulder so you caged beneath him. “I can help you,” he whispers. 

You shake your head, trembling slightly. “I don’t want anymore of your bl-“

“I’m not talking about my blood,” he says with the tilt of his head. “When was the last time you got laid?”

Your heart stops, eyes widening in disbelief. “W-What?” You stutter. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious. How long?”

You look away and fidget nervously with the secured buttons of your blouse. Someone must have fixed them at some point during your slumber.

 “I don’t know. Maybe a year ago,” you decide. “Why does that matter?”

“We could… help each other out,” Eddie offers. He is leaning so close that your noses might brush if only you were to lean up just a bit more. You might even feel the warmth of his breath cascading over you if he were still alive. “We could make this mutually beneficial. I feed from you like you suggested. That would solve the issue of my supply chain drying up. And you… can get a handle on your needs. On whatever this bond is doing to you. To us. You know as much as I do that the more we pull away, the harder it just drags us right back together again. Until we are both no longer in control of our actions. This way, we can be in control. We get a say in the matter.”

Your lips part, anticipating the closure of that gap between you, wanting to seal your deal with a kiss. But there is still a small part of your brain clinging, desperately, to sanity. It is what forces you to push your hand into his shoulder and reject him. 

“Do you realize what you are suggesting?” you mutter, glaring. 

Eddie’s eyes dance over you. An off smile plays at the corner of his lips. “You said you were restless.”

“And yet you’re the one offering yourself to me,” you argue. “You sure you’re not the one who’s desperate?”

He laughs sharply, almost catching you off guard. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t at least offer to help you.” He starts to move off the couch. 

You hate to admit it, but you need this. Maybe giving in, at least in small fractions, might ease the burden of your bond. In sudden desperation, you reach out to him. Your fingers catch in a loop of his jeans and pull him back down into you. His eyes widen and your name leaves his lips, wrought with uncertainty. 

“You’d drink my blood,” you whisper, needing to make sure you have the terms of this argument correct. “Once a day or would it need to be more frequent than that?”

He tilts his head, studying you through his dark lashes. “A vampire can feed from his thrall in more ways than one.”

You recall Steve insinuating the same thing, but you hadn’t considered the implications until now. Until it could directly impact your relationship with Eddie. With your master. 

“Let’s start with just my blood for now,” you mutter as your heart thunders up into your throat.

He nods, running his thumb along his lower lip as he stares down at you. “And what do you want in return?” 

Your heart flutters in your chest. “Me? I don’t… I’m not sure I can-“

“Why don’t we try something small to start?” he offers suddenly. “To see if it is too much for you. If this is truly something you’d want to agree to. And we won’t get emotions involved. We can just focus on the physical. That okay?”

Is it? You swallow thickly. “What do you suggest?”

He leans down into you and braces a hand against your hip. You let out a soft gasp, swallowing a regretful moan. His other hand reaches into his pocket, retrieving his knife. It shimmers slightly, freshly clean and ready to be put to use. He dips his head into the crook of your neck and nuzzles his nose almost affectionately against you. 

When he speaks, his voice is a low rumble, a plea for submission but not compulsion. This is his truth, and now too, your own. 

“Let me taste you.”

You gasp as you feel the coolness of his lips latch onto the already sore blemish left against your skin. He kisses your flesh, moving softly, carefully, as if to soothe that spot he’d inflicted upon you when you’d both been out of control. The fullness of his body presses against yours, pinning you to couch. You find yourself reaching up to hold him against your neck. Your fingers get lost in his wild curls before moving down to hook around his neck, to encourage your mutual destruction. 

“Eddie,” you whimper, closing your eyes. 

He pulls away. Enough to speak. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

You shake your head, urging him back down, but you can feel your heart inching its way back up your throat. You try to speak, but it takes you more tries than you’d like to admit. 

“Drink from me,” you finally plea in a whimper. Your body arches against the couch, into him. 

“You’re sure?”

“Y-yes,” you moan. “Please.”

He kisses a path up your throat, away from that original bruise. “This might hurt a little, but I promise I won’t cut deep.”

You nod. You tilt your head to expose the long expanse of your neck so he can indulge himself fully. So you can become his thrall in more than just title this time. So he can once again drink your blood. But now, it is not just to save your life.

It is to bring you both pleasure. 

Chapter Text

You know the moment the knife slides across your neck, spilling your blood, that the natural reaction should be fear. To fear your life slipping from your grasp. But instead, as you cling to Eddie, pulling him closer, you feel only anticipation. Like the tension before a firework erupts overhead. Waiting for bright, blinding ecstasy. Your eyes start to flutter closed as he lifts the knife but he hesitates before slicing into your flesh.

“Can I take this off?” He asks softly, gently pulling against the collar of your blouse for emphasis. “I don’t want to stain it.”

You should tell him no. You should just let the pale material stain beyond recovery. Let it be evidence of what you both agreed to do. But you find yourself nodding in compliance before you can think better of it. Not like he hasn’t already seen me naked, you recall with much regret. He saw every part of you, bare before the moonlight in Billy’s pool. At least now you might be able to control the narrative. You can tell him ‘yes’ without the help of compulsion. You can say ‘yes’ and mean it. And isn’t that what this is about? Claiming back your power? So you nod in agreement.

You help him with the buttons, starting at the bottom while he works at the ones just at your busom. You wait for your conscience to speak up. But there is only silence. Only the thundering of your heart, trying to make up the difference for what Eddie lacks as an undead being. 

His hands slip up under your blouse to pull each half aside. The fabric falls away against the couch beside you and you are left to just your bra from the waist up.

“So you do have more cute bras,” he says with a smirk as he looks down at your chest.

It’s nothing special, just a beige piece of underwear dashed with small embroidered hearts. But the way he looks at it, the way he stares, makes you feel as if it were some scandalous piece of negligée. Something bought to be seen. You can feel your face heating with embarrassment. You try to cross your arms over your chest but he won’t allow it. He takes hold of your wrists and pins them at your sides. He moves back down, lips dangerously close to your ear as he whispers softly, “Do your panties match?”

You squirm against his hold, whimpering, but he doesn’t move. He is a statue, made of stone, impenetrable.

“Don’t say stuff like that!” You argue.

“Why not?” He asks. But as he pulls back, his hands unlatch from your wrists enough that you could flee if you wanted to. But you stay right where you are. Right beneath him.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” you lie, looking away, toward the knife resting almost uselessly on the couch between you. “I should take this off too.” You loop a finger under the strand of your necklace, carefully holding his rings in place against your chest.

Eddie shakes his head. “Keep them on you,” he insists. “Not sure I can trust myself without them just yet.”

“But they are in the way too, aren’t they?” You pull the necklace up over your head before he can stop you. “I’ll just hold them in my hand. Is that alright?”

He hesitates at first but eventually relents. “Fine.” His gaze settles on the small rash blossoming at your chest where the rings once rested upon your skin. If it alarms him, he doesn’t say. Instead, the blade returns to your uninhibited neck. “This will hurt. Hold onto me.”

With your free hand, you cling to his bicep and brace yourself. You feel the aching burn of the blade as it cuts into your neck. Not deep enough to kill but enough to hurt, just as he promised. You must make some sort of sound of displeasure because the moment he withdraws the knife, he is whispering apologies, reassuring you that he will make this quick. That is until he silences himself by latching his mouth fully over the open wound he’s just created at your throat.

You hear him moan. You feel the vibration against your neck as he begins to drink from you. You feel the pull of his mouth as your blood floods against his tongue. The warmth of it pools against your skin but he is quick to take as much as he can so as not to spill a single drop. Not to waste this opportunity to taste you fully.

Each draw of his mouth is agony. You grind your teeth at the delivered burn. But slowly, that pain fades into a sort of pleasant ache, one that only grows the longer he drinks. Your hand moves from his bicep up into his mangled curls, pulling him deeper into your neck so he can drink his full.

A connection sparks between you in that moment of surrender. A connection beyond master and thrall, beyond friendship or mere acquaintance. But not nearly love. It is something “other”. Something new.

You are dancing a delicate line between life and death. If he takes too much, if you let him, it could mean the end. You both know it, but neither of you are ready to stop. But finally as your vision spirals and you feel that dangerous sway of blood loss, he withdraws from your wound of his own volition.

He stares down at you, blood glistening across his parted mouth like a crude lipstick. There is a heat to his gaze you’ve never noticed before; an intensity that is beyond reason, beyond relief. A frenzied chaos not unlike what you’d seen in the Marrows. Not unlike how your own gaze may have turned upon the fulfillment of each of his commands beside Billy’s pool. He is held under a power only you now possess. Your blood leeches him of reason. He is reduced to his base needs. To feed. To feel.

Maybe you both are.

Something begins to shift in you as well. The sight of your blood on his lips pulls you up, makes you want to lick it clean. Makes you want to drown in that bitter decay.

“You taste…” He starts, but he can’t seem to get the right word out. His eyes glaze over as they dip back down to your wound. Drawn there like a lasso.

“Bad?” You dare to ask, insecure and vulnerable under his dark gaze.

You feel blood trickle down your collar bone. He immediately latches back onto you but not to drink from the wound. Instead, he catches stray droplets with his tongue. He traces their path back up to your neck and gathers your blood there. You tremble beneath the tender sensation of his caress. So unlike the violence of his pseudo-bite. It feels as if he is cleaning you, just as an animal would. Small, tender licks across your skin. Begging for your forgiveness for this shared sin. Your hips lift toward him, drawn to his touch.

“You taste delicious,” he hums against your neck. He returns to the wound, but only to lap at the small pooling of your blood there. This new caress turns all remaining pain into a boiling pleasure, seeking relief. “You’re… unlike anything I’ve had before. But I knew that the moment I tasted you that first night.”

When he saved you from Henry. When you became his.

Several times you try to speak but your whole body is shaking. Your heart is racing. Your breathing is erratic. “ Am I dying? ” you think in a delirium. You swallow hard until finally you can manage speech, if only barely.

“I thought… thought all b-blood was the same,” you struggle to say. The room is starting to spin. Your vision goes fuzzy around the edges. But you continue to cling to him for stability, pulling him closer in your haze.

“Yours isn’t,” he argues. “Even more of a reason to keep you all to myself. My thrall .”

His words remind you of when you tasted his blood for the first time. When you imagined him whispering those very same words into your ear in the throws of ecstasy and release. Perhaps he truly had said those words. Perhaps he’d held you as you came that night. You both could never remember for certain.

You are sure your blood must taste sweeter just because of the bond you share, as master and thrall. That is the only reason you taste so good to him. Why he almost can’t stop himself from latching his mouth around your wound once more even as it begins to heal shut. As if he means to pry it back open to take more, and more, and more. Why you are lost to the seduction of his hold, tilting back to give him better access to do just that.

His touch roams up your body as he continues to drink from the last bit of pouring elixir as the cut heals. Callused hands push up over your ribs and careful fingertips linger just below your breasts. Teasing, tempting, testing.

Your bond. This is all just your bond to blame. It must be why the pain turns to pleasure as his mouth latches onto you fully and his tongue laps at your lashed skin. Why you hold him to your neck and whimper, “Don’t stop.”

Why you arch your hips into his hand as his touch moves lower, under your waistband, seeking your heat. His fingertips just barely brush along the front of your damp panties, tentative and slow, when you jolt to your senses, grabbing hold of his wrist to stop him at last.

“Eddie,” you whimper. Your eyes are wide with hesitation, though your breathing is rough and your heart is pounding. Not from fear. Far from fear.

“Too much?” He asks carefully. His voice has lowered slightly, growing deeper, almost rugged with what may be his own subdued desires.

“Do you need to touch me to feed?” You ask, trembling. You tilt your neck as an offering over his other sought source of comfort.

“We agreed to do this to get a handle on your needs,” he reminds you. His lips return to your neck, giving small kisses across the rhetorical remains of his wreckage. He pulls his hand back slightly, if only to caress your lower belly instead.

“And yours,” you say. You start to shift up, legs locking together.

The movement unintentionally pushes him back. He moves off your neck, leaning back slightly and takes his hands off of you completely.

“And mine,” he agrees, studying you carefully. “Do you not want to try this?” His eyes narrow but his expression is impossible to read. Is he angry at you? Or angry at himself? “It may only get worse. We don’t know what will happen if you don’t find some relief. Who you might run to in order to find it.“

“Is that what this is about?” You ask with a teasing glare. “You don’t want me running into bed with some random guy to get rid of this endless pit in my stomach?”

He tilts his head, studying you. Like an animal might evaluate its prey. You are sure you must look as flustered as you feel. But for some reason you can’t look away from him. You hold his gaze even as you reach back for your discarded blouse. But you don’t quite move to put it back on just yet. Your legs fall back open instead.

Suddenly he is on top of you again, caging you down against the couch. His breath is warm against your face, and reeks of your blood. Metallic death. You should be repulsed and yet you stay still, staring up at him as if in a dare. He leans down until his lips almost touch your own. Enough space to be tempting. Enough to be agony.

“An endless pit,” he repeats back to you. His eyes dance down your body, like a prisoner looking for a means to escape. “Why run off when I’m right here?” His eyes seem darker than before, reflecting ruby decay. “Or am I so repulsive to you that you wouldn’t dare ask me to be the one to help you?”

Your eyes widen. “That’s not it,” you argue.

“You never answered my question,” he nearly growls. An animal more than a man. “Do you want this?”

“I-“

You stop yourself. Your body moves with his in fluid obedience. Like compulsion but something more natural. Something from your own desires pulls you to act. Your hands glide over the mass of his chest, searching for a heartbeat you will never find.

“Just say no,” he snarls, his voice edging on irritated. “If you don’t want this, I need you to be very clear. Tell me you don’t want my help. Then this can be a one sided arrangement. I feed from you, and you what? Just tolerate it? Like a propped up blood bag? Just the perfect little thrall…”

“I did more than tolerate it,” you groan, growing agitated yourself as tension coils in your belly to try to replace your gnawing desire.

“Oh I know, sweetheart,” he growls, bearing his teeth. “I felt how wet you are.”

You gasp at the admittance, clutching at his skin. You hate how his words cause your core to throb; a reminder of that needed relief he promised. You push your hand into his chest but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even budge. But had you even pushed him hard enough to make a difference? Had you even really bothered to resist?

“I’d rather we find a way to put a stop to this all together,” you admit but you aren’t sure you sound convincing enough. Your voice is low and melodic, laced with growing submission. “Something is happening to me. To both of us. And we can chase ways to subdue this all we want but that won’t change anything. That won’t put an end to it.”

“Who said anything about putting an end to this?”

His lips are on your neck again, though you are certain the wound must be fully healed shut by now. But he sucks and licks, pulling blood back to the sealed surface. To reinvigorate the former blemish he’d inflicted in your Lace fueled delirium. Maybe he intends to finish what he started that night.

“Maybe I want you just like this,” he growls. “Forever.” His hands roam your body, searching and yet, still holding back, waiting for permission. “Do you want me to touch you?” He asks but this time his voice isn’t demanding or cruel. It’s hopeful, waiting, wanting. “Say it. Tell me no.”

“We aren’t thinking clearly,” you insist as you feel his hand move back to your waist.  You let out a sigh as his cool fingertips brush over your heated flesh once more. “It must be my blood. Maybe you drank too much. Maybe this isn’t-“

“I didn’t drink enough .”

His body curves unnaturally, bent like a wolf. Posed and primal. His teeth sink into your skin as his hand slides under your waistband again. You gasp at his bite. It isn’t enough to puncture your skin, not without fangs like Henry’s, but it is enough to hurt. You reach up to push back against him in what should be protest but your fingers slip across his chest and pull him in instead. You arch your neck, hungry for more of his affection. His tongue traces your throat slowly, savoring the salt of your skin instead of the metallic of your blood. You tilt your head to the side and stare at your hand. Your empty hand. You aren’t holding his rings.

In a panic, you search for them amongst the couch cushions. But there is a pull at the back of your mind, whispering that you don’t need them. Why would you need his rings? You want him to touch you. You’ve wanted it for so long. Why not just give into this? But your hand keeps searching, pushing against that desire to give in. Once your fingers brush along that familiar metallic cord, you clasp it firmly and push into Eddie chest with it coiled into your fist.

“Stop… Eddie, stop. Please!”

You are surprised by how quickly he surrenders, given how just moments before you’d both been held under a different kind of command. One that fogged your morality. He pulls away, blinking down at you as his eyes fade from a dangerous shade of red to their neutral brown. He doesn’t say a word but you can see the regret bleeding across his features.

You stare down at his hands, the same hands that had just begun to touch you so intimately. That had nearly been your undoing if you’d let him continue. You shift, sitting up as his touch falls away completely.

“You almost lost control,” you say, no louder than a whisper. “We both did. I… dropped the rings.”

He gives a small nod, but it’s barely an acknowledgement.

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, catching you off guard. You weren’t expecting an outright apology. Not for this. “I should have realized something was wrong. I should have listened to you.”

“Feeding from me makes us both a bit vulnerable to the effects of the bond,” you theorize aloud. The rings subdue his compulsion, but perhaps they did much more than you gave them credit for. Maybe they kept a bit more of the animal at bay. But even with them clutched in your hand, had they really done much at keeping you both from being held in such an embrace? “Am I still bleeding?”

“No,” he answers, his voice barely audible at first. Then he shakes his head and shifts away until he is nearly on the other side of the couch. “The wound is closed up now.” He isn’t even looking at you. As if nothing had just transpired between you. At least nothing worth a lingering glance.

You pull your blouse back on and gingerly lift your fingertips to your neck, confirming there is no evidence left of his cut. Though you wonder if there will be any mark remaining of his need to claim you. If there will be any sign of his touch branded into your skin.

“I will say that healing is a nice benefit to being your thrall,” you tell him, forcing a smile.

Eddie tilts his gaze down, but before he does, you notice a shadow passing over his face, darkening his features. His eyes move to your hand. He reaches out, cradling your closed fist now clasped around the rings. The metallic cord hangs, dangling down your arm.

“These clearly aren’t enough anymore,” he says in a harsh whisper. “They are barely doing much right now as it is. It’s like a door has been shut but I know if I push just a little, it will burst wide open again. It’s getting harder to resist. You can feel that too, can’t you?”

He turns your hand over and urges you to unclench your fist. As you do, you reveal the rings held in your grasp, and the blistering welts now formed into your palm around each silver loop. You winch at the sight of it but Eddie’s expression remains impossible to decipher. You know it isn’t normal to be reacting to silver this way, like a vampire might, but you don’t question it. Instead, you let Eddie take the cord from your hand and loop it back over your neck. He is careful to place the silver rings atop the cool fabric of your blouse as a thin barrier against their harsh effects.

He lifts your hand gently to his face. His eyes meet yours, gentle and kind. So unlike the monster who would have gladly torn into your flesh only moments before. He turns into your hand and softly kisses the blisters formed there, hot and angry. You let him massage your palm until you forget all about the pain left there. His gaze shifts to the spot between your breasts, partially exposed beneath your blouse. He leans in, as if he means to kiss the blemished skin there the same way he did your hands, but stops himself. Instead, he adjusts your blouse, making sure the rings won’t touch your skin.

“You’ll only have to wear them for a little longer,” he reassures. “Just on the ride over there.”

“We are going somewhere?”

“I think I have a better solution,” he says, standing from the couch. “Something that can’t be taken away from you. I didn’t want to suggest it. The thought of changing you more than I already have was something I couldn’t live with. But we are clearly past that point now.”

He walks toward the door and you follow after, only to find his motorcycle parked in front of Steve’s home. With the door locked, you take your place behind Eddie, arms wrapped around his chest, as he speeds off into the night.

Somehow now the night feels like a cool comfort, wrapping around you like a blanket where it had once felt like an omen of death. The moonlight is inviting, the stars lanterns guiding your way. Bats soar in chaotic flight overhead like friends greeting you to the night. This is Eddie’s time, and now perhaps yours too. That is if you are turning into one of them the way you fear. What else could explain the way your skin reacts to sunlight, to silver? Or the way the sight of your own blood on Eddie’s lips had ignited a strange hunger within you rather than your former disgust.   

———

Eddie parks his bike in a dark alleyway, where a single sign flickers overhead, indicating what appears to be a tattoo parlor. But the street is deserted, and judging by the traffic on the road, it has to be nearly 3 AM. The witching hour.

“You seem to handle pain well,” he comments as he steps off the bike and offers a hand out to help you down. “Do you think you can handle a tattoo?”

You take his hand, and to your surprise, he doesn’t let go of you as you walk into the tattoo shop together. A bell over the door chimes as you enter but it is completely dark inside, empty of clients or tattoo artists.

“So your permanent solution is a tattoo,” you realize, swallowing your fear. “Are we suppose to be meeting someone here?”

Eddie doesn’t answer and instead pulls you through the shop, into an equally dark back room. He flicks on the light and you see a chair set up, waiting for you.

“I promise I’ll be gentle,” he says with a strange smile.

“Wait. You’re giving me the tattoo?” You hesitate in the doorway of the room, refusing to step in any further. But Eddie moves inside, taking a look at the equipment set up on a rolling cart as if left there just for him. “Whose shop is this? Can we even be in here?”

“Belongs to an old friend,” Eddie reassures. “He left the shop for us to use tonight. No one will bother us.” He picks up a pair of latex gloves.

“So you had this planned for how long exactly?” You ask with a doubtful glare.

“Arranged it as soon as I realized you tasted my blood again,” he says. “As soon as I realized what it did to you. To me.”

You want to ask more about how he felt when you took a small taste of his blood, if it could fill in the empty puzzle pieces of your memory from your night on Lace. But you have a good idea, given how ravenous you’d both just been, without the assistance of a drug.

You’d both indulged in each other’s blood. More than once. Maybe that is the key to how much has shifted between you. How those thin boundaries you once thought impenetrable have begun to fall before your eyes.

“Have you even done this before?” You ask nervously, taking slow steps into the room.

“Only once.” He holds up his hand, showing off the runes that decorate his fingers before slipping on the gloves, concealing them in black latex. “I did my left hand, had my friend finish the right. I discovered these runes when I was in Europe. Some ancient witchcraft meant to ward off evil. Like the silver, but a bit more potent. They’ve worked enough to keep Henry at bay these past few decades. They should work to keep me under control as well. Especially if you can’t take silver anymore.”

You nod. “Will it hurt?”

“No more than that cut did on your neck,” he answers, looking at you. His graze traces up from that invisible wound to your quivering lips. “Do you want to do this?”

You swallow thickly. “I think it’s our best option.”

“But do you trust me?” He asks and strangely, without even hesitating, you answer quickly with a “Yes.”

Timidly, you slip into the chair. It all feels a bit too medical for your liking, but you try to steady your breathing so as not to panic. “I’ve never gotten a tattoo before.”

You know he knows this; he’s seen your naked body, seen your empty canvas. But it feels worth saying. You’ve often found yourself staring a bit too long at Eddie’s own ink work, mesmerized by the way dark swirls could blend into his skin. How art could permanently become a part of a person. And now you are agreeing to let Eddie mark you forever.

“Will they need to go on my hands like yours?” You ask.

“They can go anywhere you like,” he answers as he sorts through bottles of ink. “I just chose for mine to be in clear view. I wanted Henry to see them if he ever got close enough to.”

You consider your options, eyes searching your body; your arms, your legs, parts of you unseen beneath your clothes.

“Maybe my back?” You offer. “Not sure I will be able to explain this kind of tattoo to Luna. She’s… into the occult. She may even know what the runes mean. I don’t want to risk it.”

You swear his eyes dilate, but only briefly. “Okay. Go ahead and lie on your stomach.”

You turn around on the chair, straddling it, and start to peel off your blouse once more.

“Bra needs to come off too this time,” Eddie says behind you.

“Oh. Right.”

You reach back and unhook your bra. This isn’t sexual. This is required for him to properly work. So why are your hands shaking? You clasp your hands over your breasts, covering yourself as you lean forward onto the chair, completely bare from the waist up. Only your silver necklace remains, practically burning a hole into your chest now. You gasp when suddenly his fingertips graze your back.

“Do you want them here?” He whispers. “Where your bra would usually cover them?”

“Yea… that’s probably best.”

“Not here?” His fingertips dip lower, to your tailbone.

“I’m not letting you give me a tramp stamp,” you growl over your shoulder.

He merely laughs, commenting in a whisper, “You’d look good with one.”

You grumble and press yourself into the chair, hugging it slightly as you refuse to acknowledge him. The spot behind your bra would work just fine.

“Next time then,” he whispers and you shiver slightly from the caress of his breath against the back of your neck.

After cleaning your skin, and readying the ink, the tattoo gun begins to buzz behind you. Your nerves are immediately rattled by the sound. The buzz like bees at your ear. The chair shifts and you feel Eddie seated behind you, holding the gun right up to your spine but not yet touching you.

“Are you ready?” He asks.

You nod, even if you aren’t entirely sure, and close your eyes as you brace yourself.

This night has been filled with pain, with blades and blood. It is a testament of how far you’ve fallen into darkness since becoming Eddie’s thrall, since leaving your mortal life behind you. You don’t belong to the sunlight anymore, no more than he does. You are both reborn to the night, bred to live in the shadows. You would mourn your mortal life but you don’t have much left of it to mourn. No real career aspirations, no lovers, a family who’d forsaken you. Only Luna and Jules are left to keep your memory. And this new life could potentially mean never seeing them again, if only to protect them.

You squirm as the gun finally stabs into your fragile skin. Agony and ecstasy leave your lips in a crescendo. It’s almost the same as his cut, his bite. Pain and pleasure intermingled into a twisted sort of transcendence. You grind your teeth to bear it but after a while, you aren’t sure how much more you can take. The burn penetrates your skin, setting your flesh on fire.

“Eddie,” you say in a pained moan.

The gun stops. The room fills with silence.

“I’m going to need you to stay very still,” he whispers gently. “I know it hurts but I also know you can be good for me. Especially if you know I’ll reward you for being so good.”

You go as still as a statue though your heart is racing, pumping blood through your body, straight down to the urgent pounding returned to your core. He moves closer and you feel his heat against your backside; the pressure of his own unsatisfied needs. You bite your lower lip and try to ignore it, until a hand smooths up your side, fingertips brushing against the roundness of your breast. His lips are hovering just above the back of your neck now. You whimper softly the moment he touches you. As he kisses your prickled skin. The rings should be working still, but you don’t question the return of his affection. Not when it’s helping to calm your nerves.

“Do you want to know what your reward will be?” He whispers before planting another delicate kiss upon your flesh. “Will that help motivate you?”

You swallow hard, searching for your voice. “Yes,” you say softly.

He moves so his lips just barely caress your ear, his voice a rumbled whisper. “I’ll finish what I started back at Steve’s,” he promises.

“Finish… what you started?”

He thrusts into you so that the hardness of his concealed cock pushes into your ass. You gasp and grip the back of the chair.

“I’ll give you some relief,” he promises, as his fingers caress the side of your breast in smooth strokes. “You are still so wound up, like a spring. You’re practically vibrating. So hot. You’re burning up. And with the runes in place, we will both be in a clearer head space to know what we’ll be agreeing to. When to stop. That is if we still want to.”

You push back slightly to test his commitment, and perhaps feel a bit more of what exactly he is offering. He feels huge and as stiff as a board against your tailbone. But as you shift even more, he pulls away, and the gun fires up again.

“But you have to behave for me now,” he reminds you.

You go still with obedience as he continues with the tattoo, working ink into your delicate skin. It seems to last hours, testing every ounce of your endurance. There are tears burning your eyes by the time you begin to falter once again. Your nails dig into the leather of the chair. You grind your teeth against the growing pain, spreading across your skin like wildfire.

“Eddie, I can’t-“

He doesn’t stop, but he leans in and whispers, “You want to be rewarded, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” you shudder.

“Then stay still, sweetheart. We are almost done. You can handle a little more, can’t you?”

You nod as he sets his hand against your lower back and the needle into your skin. You bite back a moan as it pierces into you, pressing ink into your flesh once more. But you stay perfectly still, wanting your reward too badly to disappoint him.

“Good girl,” he encourages in a soothing voice. “Last finishing touches. You are doing so well for me.”

“Maybe you can distract me for the last bit,” you suggest.

“Yea?” He sounds a little too eager.

“Talk to me,” you say, teeth chattering against the pain. “Does Steve have rune tattoos too?”

“Of all the things to ask me about, it had to be Steve,” he mutters behind you.

“Don’t sound so jealous.”

“I’m not.” The tattoo gun stops just for a moment. “He has them too. Even Robin does.”

“But I thought she wasn’t a-“

“She isn’t a vampire, or a thrall,” Eddie confirms. “But Steve wanted to make sure she’d be safe. So did Robin. Especially since she won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”

“It must be nice to have a friend like that,” you say.

“It’s nice to remember what it means to be human,” Eddie agrees. “I think Robin helps Steve remember.”

Having only met her the once, it is strange to think of Robin as an almost mirror image to your existence with Eddie. A human roommate. You wonder if Robin had been the spark that inspired Eddie to seek companionship, to look for someone outside of his vampiric circles. To find someone that could remind him of his own, forgotten mortality. Perhaps Robin helped Steve in ways Eddie had hoped to find for himself. But you’ve only further complicated his life rather than ease a bit of his suffering.

“Eddie, I’m sorry about all of this,” you say softly.

Your words must surprise him because the tattoo gun stops again. “Sorry about what?”

“You wanted a roommate, a human roommate, for a reason. But now I’ve gone and messed everything up.”

“You didn’t mess anything up,” he reassures, voice like a sigh. “Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Fate’s funny that way.” You feel the pressure of his hand, resting against the small of your back. His touch isn’t seductive now, but protective, secure. “But I can’t help thinking… things will work out in the end.”

“I didn’t take you for such an optimist,” you tease.

“See? You’re already having a positive effect on me.”

You smile into the seat cushion, relaxing at last. He continues to work the ink into you, guiding the needle across his design. And when finally he is done, the gun stops and his weight shifts off the chair.

“All done,” he announces. “But stay there for me. Need to cover it properly. A tattoo is a wound, after all. I need to make sure I take care of you.”

“You promised to take care of me in other ways,” you hear yourself say, like a disembodied voice.

Eddie chuckles behind you. “What was that?”

But you shake your head and hide your heated face in the cushion of the chair. “Nothing.” It feels awkward to request something like that now. Now that the air has shifted between you, back to something much more like friendship.

The runes are in place, but did they need to be properly healed to take full effect? But even still, wouldn’t the rings still be working? What is making you so desperate, so unhinged to admit so freely what you want? You still feel like your soul is on fire, and there is only one way to dose those kind of flames.

After the tattoo is covered, you turn against the chair, still undressed as if waiting for him to tell you to put your blouse back on. Or to keep yourself bare for his perusal. But he is across the room, too far to intend to give you anything now.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Clocks about to strike, Cinderella,” he says. “Time to get us both home.”

Something like disappointment must show in your face, because he smirks and his eyes darken.

“I don’t break promises, sweetheart,” he says with a penetrating gaze, the spell breaking. He keeps his gaze on your face rather than the temptation of your bare breasts before him. But you know he wants to look. You know he wants to stare.  “I’d just rather be home for that. Wouldn’t you?”

You are suddenly too timid to reply. So instead, you turn your back to him and start to dress, taking your bra in your hands.

“Leave it off,” he says as he comes up behind you. “It might hurt.”

Of course. Because of the tattoo. So instead, you awkwardly put your blouse back on without it, holding your unworn bra like a weird accessory.

“Let’s go home.”

———

You step back into the apartment and Eddie flicks the lights on behind you. The curtains in the living room are safely drawn. You just barely beat sunrise, racing down the interstate with the sun like an oppressive god looming at your back, making your skin itch. But now in the safety of your apartment, you start to appreciate just how cold Eddie leaves the A/C, sighing at its cool relief.

“Do you plan to go into work today?” Eddie asks as he tosses his keys on the counter. He slips his boots off at the door. 

“I doubt I still have a job,” you mutter. You are still awkwardly holding your bra and drape it over one of the bar stools.

“Maybe we can find you a night job,” Eddie says casually behind you. Like you truly are roommates and nothing more. Like things are normal.

You laugh. “Yea. Given all these late night you’re making me pull-“

“I haven’t made you do anything.”

Something falls at your feet. A shirt. You turn to find Eddie shirtless behind you. Only his jeans are left securely in place. Your eyes dart quickly away as not to stare. A part of you is humored by the scene left in your wake. Boots and bra tossed aside in the kitchen. Like a movie scene of an eager rendezvous. Is that what this is about to become? Your heart races nervously.

“I told you I keep my promises, sweetheart,” he reminds you, head nodding toward the couch. “Living room or bedroom. Your pick.”

Your legs feel frozen. You can hardly move though you turn your back to him at least. Something about fumbling back into your bedroom feels like a worse idea than the one already set into motion before you.

“We are still doing this?”

“Thought you still wanted to.” His hands go to your elbows, as if to hold you steady. Perhaps you are swaying slightly. The ground does feel uneasy beneath you.

“Do we need to wait for the tattoo to completely heal first?” You swallow thickly. You can smell him. That smoky sin causing you to curl your back against him despite the sting of the new tattoo.

“It should be working.” Fingertips trace delicate lines up your arms. “Do you not think it’s working?”

You are practically sweating. Your body is on fire, lit ablaze by his promising caress. 

“No, I still feel… hot,” you admit. “And you sound-“

“I’m still full of your blood, sweetheart. It’s making my breathe hot. Can’t you feel it?” He exhales across your neck, sending shivers up your spine, tingling the back of your scalp. “Living room or bedroom?” He asks again.

“L-living room,” you manage with your gaze glued to the floor. There is no use fighting this. This is inevitable. Like the tide returning to the sea. You are drawn to him, to each other. Perhaps this is still compulsion, or the bond. But somehow, so badly, you want it to mean more. More than fate’s unfortunate hand. Let this be real.

Perhaps sensing your hesitation, he lifts a hand and tilts your chin so you are staring straight up at him, up and back. “So you are agreeing to this?” He asks gently. “To letting me help you?”

The heat pooling between your legs is now nearly unbearable. Its persistent pounding rhythm reminds you of your growing need; your heart echoing inside your core. The tattoo has done little to quell the ache. If anything it’s made you more acutely aware that this need is your own. Not something forced upon you by some supernatural bond, or by the hypnotic power of vampire blood. This is your own desire. You want Eddie. But let him believe he is helping you. Let him believe this is nothing more than an illness in need of curing. You can’t want him. You can’t complicate things even more with your unrequited human emotions.

“Y-yes,” you finally admit. With a trembling voice, you ask, “Are you going to touch me?”

Eddie smiles, all teeth and charisma. He dips his head and you can just barely smell that familiar metallic heat on his breath. Like a promise of death still waiting for you if you continue down this path with him.

“I said I’d help give you some relief,” he says. “But I never said I’d touch you to do that.”

“That’s not fair-“ you start to argue but your protest is forgotten in a yelp as Eddie sweeps you into his arms, carrying you toward the couch and your awaited deliverance.

“Life’s not fair,” he chuckles. You squirm in his arms, burying your face in his shoulder like a child, with a whine on your lips. “Desperate little thing, aren’t you? Maybe I want to hear you beg.”

You smack his chest. “Asshole.”

“That’s not very nice, sweetheart.” He bends, setting you down carefully on the couch. Your legs feel like jello as you curl them beside you, leaving room for him to join you. He doesn’t. “Am I really an asshole?”

You pout and turn away from him. “Please just… do it.”

“Do what?” He mocks.

You are an asshole . He damn well knows the answer already, but he needs to hear you say it.

“Touch me,” you practically hiss, gritting your teeth.

He smiles all the same. “Say it like you actually want it.”

But I do. Your body relaxes, hands reaching for him, pulling him into the couch, into you. “Please… touch me.”

He resists you, kneeling in front of the couch instead. Your eyes widen with promise until he speaks. “Show me first. Show me how you touch yourself.”

Your knees lock together. Was he really suggesting you masturbate in front of him? “You didn’t see enough of that the night I first tasted your blood?” Shame blossoms across your cheeks. And perhaps if a vampire could blush, Eddie would be as well.

“Neither of us were entirely… sober that night,” he says with a frown. “I want to do this in a way we will both remember.”

His hands go to your knees, pushing them gently back apart, leaving your legs dangling over the edge of the couch in front of him. In this position, you can’t help but picture him putting his mouth to use; those plush lips moving against you. A small whine leaves your lips, legs trembling at the thought.

“You know I could just get myself off alone,” you mutter. “You don’t have to be here for this.”

“Oh but I think I do.”

His hand moves off your knee, shifting across your thigh to push your skirt up and out of the way. “This is a you and me problem,” he says. “A thrall problem. Do you really think masturbating alone will do anything to stop this ache?” His fingers dance over the soaked cotton of your panties, just barely touching you but enough to make your core clench around the empty promise.

“Whose problem is this again?” You say in a trembling voice as you subconsciously push your pelvis toward his awaiting hand. “You sound just as desperate for this.”

“I am.” You are surprised by his blunt honestly. But then he pulls his hand away, leaving you quivering with denial. “But I already got my end of our bargain tonight.” He licks his lips slowly for emphasis as he sits back on the carpet, getting comfortable. “Just pretend I’m not even here.”

“Yea, like that’ll be easy.”

You roll your eyes but it does little to mask how nervous you feel. Even still, you want to do this. Your body is aching for release, slick with building pleasure pooling between your legs. Maybe this would help. You don’t want to think about this ache only getting worse. All because you wanted a taste of him. The moment his blood touched your lips, you doomed yourself to this moment. To need this.

You hate to admit that he is right. You can’t see yourself gaining any sort of satisfaction from doing this alone, without him near you. Without him as a witness. So finally, you slip your hand between your legs, fingers testing the soaked material of your panties in tentative strokes.

“Is that normally how you touch yourself?”

You work your bottom lip between your teeth. “No,” you mutter. “Usually I’m not… wearing anything.”

“Then take your panties off,” Eddie instructs. “Let me see you.”

It only takes a moment of hesitation before your fingers are looping through the fabric of your panties and sliding them down your legs. Like you are under a spell, held seduced by each spoken word uttered by Eddie. By your master. And yet you know this isn’t compulsion. Having felt it by Billy’s pool in full sincerity, you know the difference. You know this is something else, something you wish you could explain away just as easily.

Your panties fall to the floor and you shift your legs open, presenting yourself to him.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he hums, staring unapologetically at everything you are offering. “You’re dripping. Is it really that bad?”

You nod and your fingers move back in place, but this time uninhibited by the thin material of your panties. Your thumb finds your clit while your slender finger pushes inside. You arch your hips into your hand, biting back moans of pleasure and awaiting relief. You start to move, pushing in and out in a way only you know your body needs so intimately. Your eyes flutter closed and you are lost to the sensation until you feel a familiar hand on your knee. You open your eyes and see Eddie palming his own pressing need. He leans his head against your knee, warm breath heating your skin; breath you now know is warm thanks to the gift of your blood.

“Does that feel good?” he asks so sweetly. Too sweetly to resist coming undone for him instantly. You nod in a delirium. “Keep going for me, sweetheart. Make yourself feel good.”

“Touch me,” you whimper nonsensically, even as you thrust your finger faster, sloshing against the couch. “Please.”

He shifts and you think, beyond reason, that he is actually giving in. That he’ll touch you the way he’s been denying up until this point. But instead, he hovers over you. His hands grip the couch at your back, chest concave, just barely touching you. You can feel his breath against your cheek, that delicate sigh as his mouth parts over yours. As he takes in your anticipation like some delicious thing he can’t wait to devour.

“I will,” he promises. His voice is rough with his own arousal. “But not yet. Right now you need to make yourself cum. You’ve needed this. I want you to take yourself there.”

“So close,” you admit in a whimper. You move faster, desperately chasing that end that will have you spasming, crying.

“That’s it,” he encourages. “Just a little more.”

You grip onto his shoulder just to feel him. His skin is cold beneath your touch but it’s a balm against your sweltering flesh. He is the cure you need. If only he’d touch you, if only he’d kiss you. He is close enough that if you just moved, you could bridge that gap. You could give in to the temptation. But you can only focus on chasing your climax like an animal in heat.

“Eddie!” You cry out as you feel yourself begin your ascent into ecstasy. Your eyes close as you ready for fulfillment. That’s when he moves his hand between your legs. His thumb just barely brushes you and you unravel completely. Legs trembling, hands shaking, slick and open. 

When you manage to open your eyes, you find Eddie still above you. He licks his lips slowly, eyes dipping back down to where he is just barely, but not quite touching you. Where your arousal shimmers against your skin with the same sort of sheen as his wet mouth.

“Beautiful,” he whispers as your body caves into exhaustion and your eyes close once more, this time into awaiting slumber.

———

As you wake up, you are certain everything from Steve’s living room, to the tattoo parlor, to your shared couch, had all been a too pleasant dream. It takes you a moment to even recognize where you are. Your mind is foggy, body sore but satiated. You lean up just enough to notice Eddie’s arm slung across your waist. He is lying beside you, holding you. His lips just barely caress the back of your ear where he has nestled his head against yours. Like lovers caught in a lazy post-coital embrace.

It wasn’t a dream.

Panic and shame should come next but instead, you feel a strange sort of contentment. It wasn’t a dream.

With the tattoo healing at your back, and his rings still held around your neck, none of it should have happened. But it did. It’s still happening, judging by Eddie’s relaxed slumber beside you. You shouldn’t enjoy this. You know, rationally, all of this is just one haunting dream, concealing what should be a nightmare existence. But it is comfortable being held in his embrace like this. Safe. Exactly what it shouldn’t be.

You don’t mean anything to each other; at least not beyond what you can give and take. The exchange of pleasures. Nothing more than provider and beneficiary. To think you are anything more than greedy partners in crime is a detriment to your own sanity, and the safety of your heart; your heart beginning to open to forbidden possibilities.

You’ve never seen him sleep before, and take the rare opportunity to study him. He looks almost human, vulnerable. You shift your body towards him. His lips are just barely parted but not for breathing.

He’s never actually kissed me.

You dare to lean in just a bit when he stirs, jolting you out of a trance. Ashamed, you start to shift out from under his arm, careful not to wake him. You should have never fallen asleep like this, and yet, you’ve never felt more well-rested. You are energized, ready to embrace the new day. That is, if it were still daylight. You shift your gaze to the window. The curtains block out the outside world but still, you can see the unmistakable burn of sunset peaking through the small spaces between the fabric. You’ve missed yet another work day. At this rate, you’ll be let go. But somehow, that is the least of your concerns.

You notice your panties still discarded on the floor and in a flush of embarrassment, shift back into them to conceal some of your decency. Your body feels even further changed, if not by the biology of a thrall, then by Eddie’s affection. By the promise of being his in more ways than just your bond has forced upon you.

Eddie starts to fully awaken beside you as you dress and adjust yourself. You shift to look at him, his eyes fluttering open.

“Hey,” he says softly. His lips curl into an almost automatic smile the moment his eyes focus on you.

You can’t help it either. There is something about being held in his gaze, like being pulled into his gravitational pull. You’re smiling too.

“How long was I asleep?” He asks with a yawn. Like a lazy cat. He doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed or awkward regarding what happened between you. That makes one of you at least now that the logic has returned to rear it’s ugly head.

“As long as I was I assume,” you tell him. “It’s nearly night again.”

“What?” He shifts into a seated position to look toward the windows. “That’s not… I mean I normally don’t need to-“

“Maybe you needed some extra sleep,” you offer. “When was the last time you actually slept?”

“A few days ago, I suppose.” He tossles his hair, before turning back to you with a boyish grin. “Or maybe you are too comfortable.” His arms go to your waist and he pulls you with a yelp back onto the couch so you are lying side by side once more. “Your blood makes me sleepy. In a good way. It makes me feel alive again.” You can feel the curve of a smile across his lips as he nuzzles into your neck.

You could settle back into his embrace. You could sleep for an eternity if it meant staying just like this. But you don’t deserve this. Neither of you asked for this to mean more than physical fulfillment. You can’t give into the growing embers of affection. You can’t allow yourself to dream. His hold isn’t loving. It’s possessive. A fact you have to remind yourself of even as your body craves him.

The sound of his phone going off in the other room seems to snap you both back to reality. He pushes himself off the couch, albeit reluctantly. Your hand moves, pulling at the loop of his jeans like a spoiled child. He turns, giving you a playful smirk as if to say, “Needy.”

You pray the rune tattoo heals quickly. You can’t keep acting this impulsively.

He disappears into the dark hallway and you listen as he makes a phone call. His words are choppy and curt.

“Yea. I’ll be there. Okay. Give me fifteen minutes. No, I’m not- that’s not. Fine. I said fine!”

He emerges back in the living room, shoving a shirt back over his head, clearly agitated.

“I need to go. Billy, he-“ He stops himself, not wanting to say it, but you already know. He needs to do more of Billy’s bidding, cleaning up another client’s debt. He grimaces. “I won’t be long.”

“I need to go too,” you tell him. “I promised Luna I’d swing by. Unless… unless you want me to go with you again.”

You watch as his brow furrows with concern. He steps into you, stopping himself before he gets too close. Perhaps stepping away from whatever atmosphere you’d created in the living room last night had cleared his head, made him see you in a better light. One not fogged by lust and hunger.

“No. You should see your friend. The runes should help with the distance and so should…” His words trail off, his eyes moving down your body before he stops himself. “Text me if you feel the effects of the bond at all. Tell me if you need me to come to you and I’ll be there. Let’s make this quick though, just in case.”

———

You don’t deserve his affection. It’s what you tell yourself as you drive to Luna’s. As you dismiss away that gnawing pit in your stomach as just the pull of the bond. Not your need to be with him. Not this fragile connection you’ve formed with him in bringing some physicality to the complicated bounds of your relationship.

He’s just my roommate. A vampire roommate. He’s just my master. I’m just his thrall. He is just a man who made me cum without ever touching me.

When Luna answers the door, she looks disgruntled. She glares as she takes in your appearance from head to toe. You’d taken a shower before coming here, changed out of your soiled clothes, grabbed a jacket. But it’s as if she can see the guilt written across your chest in bold red ink.

Whore. His whore.

“You know… when you said you’d be coming over today, I thought you meant during daylight,” she scoffs.

“I was at work,” you lie.

She steps aside with the roll of her eyes, ushering you inside.

“I didn’t realize leather jackets were allowed in your corporate handbook,” she comments.

You look down at yourself. Fuck. You grabbed Eddie’s borrowed jacket in your haste to get ready.

“It’s Eddie’s,” you tell her. “I’m just borrowing it.”

“Mhm. Sit down.”

She motions to her small kitchen table. Luna and Jules rent a small one bedroom home, where the kitchen practically spills into the living room, and the living room into the bedroom. Being here reminds you why you’d sought after Eddie’s posting in the first place. Why you’d ended up in his twisted reality.

Even as you grab the back of the chair, you begin to protest.

“Luna, we don’t need to-“

“You know the drill.” She takes a seat at the table across from you and starts to shuffle her deck. “Three cards. Past, present and future.”

You grip the back of the chair as you watch her, not moving to sit down, just waiting. There is no arguing with Luna once she sets her mind to something. And if she wants to read your cards, she will. She divides the deck into three stacks and lines them up in a row in front of you. Her hand hovers over the first stack, the one furthest to the left.

“This first card represents your past,” she says before flipping the top card over and presenting it to you. A figure sits on a throne. No, not a throne. Just a normal chair. Not unlike the very chair you cling to now. He seems every bit the part of a ruler but he is no king. “The Hierophant,” she calls it. “This one doesn’t really surprise me. It means you’ve lived most of your life believing you are doing exactly what is expected of you. The status quo. The boring conventional. You’ve never so much as pushed your boundaries.”

“Gee, thanks,” you mutter.

She gives you a small smile. The first since you’ve arrived, but it doesn’t last.

“But this… this one is your present.” She shifts her attention to the center stack and flips the top card.

This card features two figures intertwined in a sensual embrace. Hands on hips, lips just barely touching, legs woven together like two cords wound tight. You know this card. The Lovers.

Finally, you take a seat, feeling your knees go weak beneath you.

“That isn’t… I’m not-“

“This could be pointing to your new job,” Luna offers. “Meaning you have success coming your way. But… I don’t think it’s about your career. I think this is about someone. Someone who is in your life right now. A complimentary energy.”

“Luna, please don’t be so cliche and tell me I’ve met my soulmate.” But even as you speak, your heart races at the implication.

No. Don’t think that way. Don’t allow yourself to dream.

“I don’t know that,” she says quickly. “I can’t. And the cards are open to interpretation. Take what resonates-“

“Leave what doesn’t,” you finish for her. “I know.

“But I’ll be honest,” she starts, tapping her finger against the intimate art displayed on the card. “A lot of times when I see this card, it means choices and sacrifices will need to be made. By both of the people represented here.”

You nod, wondering at the implications such a reading could hold. For you. For Eddie. If that card truly is pointing to you both.

But we aren’t lovers. We are barely even friends.

“Don’t sacrifice who you are,” Luna says suddenly, her tone serious, her gaze penetrative across the table. “Don’t ever give up parts of yourself just appease someone else.”

“I’m not,” you argue. “I wouldn’t.”

“The cards think otherwise,” Luna says, glaring.

You wonder what she sees in you now. If your aura has changed since the last time you saw each other. She once said it had turned a pleasant shade of pink. But what shade is it now?

Before you can even ask, she flips over your last card. Your future. In front of you, is an upside down grim reaper, holding the classical scythe set to tear away life. To cut the end of a fate’s string.

“Death,” Luna reads as she sets the card down with a noticeable shakier hand.

“Please tell me that doesn’t actually mean I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice.

“No,” she says though her face contorts slightly as she stares down at the card between you. At the hooded figure cast in shadows. “It means change. Rebirth.”

“Why is it upside down?”

“It means you are going to resist that change,” she starts to explain. “You are afraid of letting go, of shedding your skin, so to speak. But once you do…” She slides her hand over the card and turns it, so the hooded persona appears right side up to you, an ominous figure staring straight up from the surface of the table. “Your whole world will be turned upside down.”

“That doesn’t sound too promising,” you mutter.

“That too is up to interpretation.” Her gaze moves back to the lovers. “These two feel… connected.”

You can’t help picturing the image of you and Eddie in the cards. Of Eddie with fangs, digging into your neck, draining what remains of your life. All while Henry reminds behind him, the shadowy figure watching in approval.

You stand swiftly.

“I should get home.”

“What’s going on with you?” Luna nearly demands. “You’re sick all the time. I barely hear from you. You spend every waking moment with your roommate. Is there something I should know?”

“No. Of course not,” you dismiss. There is no way to explain everything to Luna and best to keep her and Jules in the dark. They don’t need to get wrapped up in this. They need to stay safe. “Nothing’s going on.”

“You’d tell me if there was. Wouldn’t you?” Luna stands to approach you. Her hand reaches up but it’s as if she can’t quite bring herself to touch you. My aura must reek of death . “I care about you. You know you can talk to me.”

You swallow thickly. “I know, Luna.”

“Come to the Halloween party. Spend time with us. Like the good ole days.” She forces a smile. But the good ole days are gone. You both know it. And yet Luna is clueless as to why.

There is something in her words, something that makes it clear this time, Eddie isn’t invited. Perhaps her feelings on him have changed. She always said something was off about him. Had she always known he is something “other”? Had she only now put the pieces together because of your tarot reading?

“We’ll be there,” you tell her, forming a wedge, thickening the air between you. You look at her one last time before walking out to your car. One last look at the remaining shred of your mortality.

As you step back into your car, you are haunted by the image of the hooded figure. Of death waiting, growing more impatient by the day. And you know in that moment, what the cards were trying to tell you.

You and Eddie are both shackled. To Billy, dangling freedom for Eddie yet promising nothing but servitude. To Henry who had made Eddie and Steve into monsters. And to each other, as master and thrall. This isn’t love. It couldn’t be. Not until you remove the tether wound around you both like suffocating rope, digging into your neck. And there is only one way to do that.

It is time to face the inevitable. It is time to confront Henry.