“How long has it been?
So long ago I’ve almost forgotten.
Somewhere with dark paths led by gaslight.
And everyone I once knew turned to dust and bones.
Faces above me, the cold ground below.
Their wrath beating against my body.
And when they fled…
A voice spoke from the darkness and kissed my bleeding face.
He promised to take the pain away.
Then tore me apart.”
Fragments of Gabriel’s story were lost in the softness of his voice. It was almost like he was talking to himself, remembering things out loud as Fen hung in his grip. An expressionless curtain had fallen over his face, his always-smile vanished and his wide stare looking straight ahead, not at Fen, but more like he was staring at the images of a long-forgotten past. It was a chilling expression, silent and unpredictable, like walking through a dark forest during snowfall. And every word bringing out those other voices.
“I was screaming too.”
Fen couldn’t help but shiver and he inhaled a quick breath when Gabriel’s grip tensed, tightening around his throat. A fearful moan escaped him, a panicked noise as he was losing the air in his body and couldn’t move without triggering some kind of pain.
With a single blink, Gabriel left his past and returned, staring at Fen without loosening his hand. “I’ve heard plenty of screams in the past century, I've caused many of them, but I’ve never…sympathized with them. And I was never reminded of my life before the hunger.”
Fen gasped again, his hands clawing against Gabriel’s arm and wrist.
That smiled returned.
“I pitied you. I remembered because of you. And there is no doubt that you are the one, my dear, the one I will invite to share eternity with me.”
He dropped Fen, who fell back onto the bed with a sudden gasp for the air he thought he would never have again. He inhaled and panted, coughed and sucked in as much as he could before his body threatened to pass out.
And little by little, Gabriel’s words sank in.
“W-What…are you saying?” He was shaking, trying to find the words when all his body wanted was more air.
Gabriel crawled over Fen, quicker than he could react. His smile widened, no longer lovely, but demented. “I’m sure it sounds frightening at first, but that will all change once you've taken the first bite.”
His teeth clicked together.
Fen’s stomach twisted, his heartbeat thrumming to the cacophony of fear and disgust inside of him. His lip curled up in repulsion. “No…” The word barely made it through his lips.
“No…no! No!” Fen panicked and pushed away from the man. He fell over the side of the bed and stood, resisting the urge to run but nowhere to run to. “I don’t want that! I don’t want to be a vampire! I…I don’t want to kill or eat people…o-or spend forever in the dark!”
Gabriel laughed as if Fen was talking nonsense. “My dear, you already live a life in darkness, one ruled by sex and fear, a small world to suffer in. But I can assure you eternal night is a low price for the satisfaction that comes with everything I offer you.”
The room was closing in and Fen was damn near ready to lose himself to the madness. Gabriel stepped in front of him, lording over him like shadows made solid, still smiling, giddy with his sick thoughts. He took Fen’s chin and lifted it. “The struggle, the pain, the insecurities, everything will be wiped from your body and replaced with a hunger for vengeance. The kind you can carry out efficiently.”
When Fen’s knees weakened, he was caught in the man’s arms with a gentle grace. “Your dead abuser was only the first, there are many more who will suffer with him. And I shall show you the fun we’ll have.” He spun, bringing Fen closer into his cold embrace.
“Tell me who you want.”
The man’s question was unexpected, pulling Fen from his fear and uncertainty as their eyes met. “W-What?”
“Give me a name, a body, someone to gift to you, should you accept my invitation.” Fen allowed himself to be swayed in the creature’s arms, a dance to the endless song of screams that played against his memories. “We will kill them together and seal our eternity in red.”
If I should accept it? He repeated to himself as Gabriel moved against him, then he stopped and pushed away. “You said…if I accept. Do I…I mean…you’ll let me refuse?”
“I didn’t have a choice when I was changed, so I can be kind and give you one instead.” His words, though sweet-sounding, felt deceitful.
“Then…I can leave? I can go...home?” His voice sounded too hopeful, too desperate.
“You can go wherever you like.” Gabriel grinned. “Ah, but…” He rubbed his mouth unsurely, mockingly. “But…your home is stained with the blood of four people, no explanation and you've gone missing. Yet, somehow you appear out of thin air, so what would you tell them, I wonder?”
Gabriel was still grinning, but his posture was one of menace. His eyes had taken a new hue, adding deep darkness to their depths. Fen assumed all monsters like him had eyes as red as fresh blood, but those thoughts were shattered when he looked into Gabriel’s eyes as they were now. They glowed dark blue, as dark as the deepest part of the sea where real danger waited. And no matter how hard he tried, Fen didn't have enough air to reach the surface.
“Will you tell them it was a vampire? Will you tell the friends of your dead abuser, who will come to seek their own revenge, that a mysterious man dressed in fine jewelry killed him with a bite to the neck?” His chilling words nearly made Fen want to become a vampire if only to save him from the possibility of being locked up for the rest of his life or stabbed in the head by Kellen’s close acquaintances.
“And if you were to refuse,” Somehow, Gabriel had slipped his fingers through Fen’s dirty hair without him realizing and gripped tight enough to tilt his head back, exposing every inch of his neck. “There would be nothing holding me back from doing what I intentionally wanted.” Gabriel’s threat was made more intense by a glimpse of his teeth.
“What…kind of choices are those?!” Fen asked, a little too sharply than he intended.
“Choices are not always between something good and bad, sometimes there's a bad choice and one that's far worse.”
Fen needed to sit, and Gabriel allowed him to find the bed just as everything started to sink in. Eternal damnation or death, those were it. He’ll either die in jail or on the streets. Slain by Kellen’s allies or Gabriel himself. Honestly, he didn’t know which was the lesser of two evils.
He needed to think, clear his thoughts and try to come up with a way to escape this madness.
A name, a body. Fen repeated in his head and thought about it. “Are there…other vampires?" He needed to stall, somehow.
“Some, but few and far between.” Gabriel watched him. “Humans romanticize us in dull light, really. We're not complicated, we’re just eternally damned demons seeking out the next throat.”
Fen was still, contemplating as he bit his lip and trying not to fall into Gabriel’s deep-sea eyes. He noticed the man was standing close, an inch away from his knees. His gaze lifted just to see Gabriel’s arms and had a thought.
Cautiously, after several heartbeats, he reached out and brushed his fingers against the man's skin. “There’s…someone.”
When Fen finally met the man’s stare, it perked with interest.
“A man who was with Kellen…the night he dragged me under an overpass and…” With a soft grip, Fen pulled Gabriel a few steps closer by his wrist, allowing the man to walk in between his legs. “Well, let’s just say things got messy and…almost turned out really…bad.”
“Who is he?” Those voices asked with him.
“I don’t know his name and it was dark so I couldn’t see him either. But, if I would want to kill anyone…it’d be him…since Kellen is already dead.”
Fen inhaled sharply when Gabriel lowered himself with inhuman quickness, both hands on the bed as the closed the distance, his vampiric features fading away to reveal the angelic man he pretended to be. Except now, he seemed intrigued, curious even, as he crawled over Fen like an erotic angel of sin.
Teasingly slow, Gabriel lowered himself and inhaled the scent of Fen’s bloodied skin with great satisfaction. And when he noticed Fen did not resist, he continued.
The bed creaked, shifting beneath them as Gabriel ran his lips and tongue across Fen’s bare chest, licking the remains of last night from his body in a sudden euphoric daze. Flushed and trembling, Fen stared at the ceiling, breathing unevenly and every movement made him shiver with a needy desire for more. A desire he hoped was being forced upon him by some kind of dark magic. He didn't want to imagine feeling this good with this kind of evil.
What am I doing?
Gabriel opened Fen’s naked legs as he lifted each one by the thighs and moved his body closer in between them. Instinctively, Fen slid his hands up Gabriel’s arms, tracing the muscles that were always hidden under a baggy coat. They tensed, growing larger as one of his hands tightened into the bed beside Fen’s head, tearing into the sheets like a knife through soft butter. Under his touch, Fen felt the quivering of the man’s shoulders and resisted the urge to invite him closer.
Don't invite him.
But an invitation wasn’t needed. Gabriel found the bite on Fen’s neck and licked it feverishly, drawing a greedy moan from him.
Suddenly, Fen’s head was forced back, bringing his body to an arch in the man’s starved embrace. And when he felt Fen's hips rocking and thrusting so shamelessly against him, the vampire copied with a curious eagerness, giving Fen’s body the movement it craved.
Then he bit.
There was pain, but unlike last night, the pain was followed by a veil of arousal that brought out a series of stuttered moans and longing gasps that he’d only ever given to Vic. Noises that suddenly drove Gabriel’s body to quicken his dry thrusting and to feed harder. The sudden jolt of new pain made Fen cry out, his hands gripping and pulling Gabriel’s hair, digging nails into his back and feeling his body losing every ounce of resistance.
Fen came inside his briefs with a sudden twitch and Gabriel tore their bodies apart, throwing him onto the bed and backing away. Blood still hot against his mouth, dripping down the lips that snarled and panted. Fen watched, dizzy from his trance—or blood loss—as Gabriel stared at him like a creature fighting the urge to finish the kill. His pupils slit and dark veins grew against the red color like tree branches, and Fen went stiff with fear as he settled his own heavy breaths.
Then, a soft but unsure laugh, one that made Fen even more concerned as Gabriel chuckled to himself, standing straight as his red eyes lost their savageness and faded to blue.
“That…was very dangerous of…you.” He said, watching Fen lay against the bed covered in a damp sweat. “Any more of...that and I might’ve done something painful.” He said with a laugh still fresh on his lips.
Fen was too unsure to move, softly breathing and bleeding from the neck, scared by what exactly happened and how he responded.
I just...tried to seduce a fucking vampire.
“I must admit, you certainly know how to tempt those you shouldn’t.” He said, standing in the shadows and gathering his composure.
There was a moment of silence, a chilling couple of long minutes that passed with Gabriel staring down at him and Fen finally meeting his gaze.
“I will find him.” The man smiled. Cruel and beautiful, a happy child-like grace at the thought of hunting someone down.
He retrieved his treasured coat and a shopping bag from a chair near the sealed window.
He tossed the bag beside Fen. “For you.”
And he left.
There was no warning for Fen to stay in the room or the click of a lock behind the closed door.
It felt like an eternity passed before he got up and approached the door and opened it slowly with a soft inhale.
The hallway was dark enough to consume everything, giving Fen the obvious idea that the building was empty. So he stepped back into the room and shut the door, resting his head against it and taking a few breaths.
Gabriel wouldn’t be back soon or he’d come back empty-handed. Fen remembered every feature of Tony’s face; the teardrops inked under his dark eyes, the scar from a missing left ear, and the raspy cough that followed a sickening laugh. But with no face, Gabriel wouldn’t find the guy and Fen needed that distraction to get out.
He needed safety and guidance.
And there was only one man who could give him both.
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