Over the next several weeks, Hunter's life did undergo even more swift changes, just as Kai and Calhoun had warned. The very next day, in fact, at Hunter's apartment, he was awoken by a loud banging at the door.

"Movers!"

What the hell? Hunter groggily looked at his alarm clock. It was just barely 10 a.m. He opened the door to find an entire moving crew waiting outside.

"Movers," repeated the man at his doorstep.

"There's got to be some mistake," Hunter said, stifling a yawn. "I didn't hire any" --

"I'm with The Order," the man whispered. "Calhoun sent me. The name's Addison."

Hunter's eyes widened. "You'd better come in," he said.

"We've been given instructions to gather all your things and have them held until Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Taylor have made new living arrangements for you," Addison said. He was dressed in authentic-looking mover's apparel, complete with those disposable slippers they slip over their shoes.

Hunter put his hands on the top of his hands and sighed. He wanted to protest, but he had been told -- You will essentially stop living like you currently are.

"Where am I supposed to go in the meantime?"

Addison lifted the brim of his trucker's hat and scratched at his clipboard while he looked it over. "You're to undergo testing at H.Q. until Mr. Taylor arrives to start the evening shift," he read.

Hunter threw up his hands. "Alright then," he said. "Let me just grab a few things to take with me."

"If this first day is any indication, I don't think I'm going to have the strength to be in this place," Hunter mumbled.

He lay outstretched on a black leather sofa next to Kai's desk. Kai was seated at his computer, typing rapidly.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"It was like three physicals, two gym tests, and that-that thing, you know, where you pedal that thing in the water?"

"A catamaran?"

"Yeah, that -- all put together. And all that was before I took the SAT."

Kai laughed. "We call that the GAT. Generalized Aptitude Test."

"I called it a pain in the ass," Hunter grumbled.

"My, you're grumpy," Kai said. He stood up from his chair and knelt beside Hunter. He took one of his hands. "You're through the worst of it; those won't be happening again."

"I know," Hunter sighed, "and I'm sorry. I didn't get much sleep before running that gauntlet of tests. And I just didn't expect all my stuff to be packed up this fast."

"We have to move quickly," Kai said, "it's just how we have to roll."

Hunter looked at Kai's hand holding his. Kai noticed and pulled his hand back swiftly. "I-I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be," Hunter mumbled.

"Hm?"

"I said, you don't have to be." Hunter looked at him. "I get it, you feel something. I do too. But I've been burned so many times acting so fast. But having to pack up my life is happening so fast - I'm so confused by everything!"

Kai nodded. "I get it. That's why I had an idea, even though it might complicate things more. We both agree, we feel something together. But we need time to explore it. So what if... what if we moved you to my place?"

Hunter blinked. "Your place? Like... roommates?"

"Yeah. I have a spare room; you're welcome to it." Kai put his hands in his pockets. He looked to Hunter almost bashful as he picked his words. "Maybe we start just as friends and roommates. If things don't work out, we can still set you up at one of the complexes most of the agents use. And if things do work out, then..." He trailed off.

Hunter gave a soft smile. "Do you have a soaking tub?"

"This is fantastic," Hunter moaned. The jets were pointed right at his sorest muscles, causing an already bountiful amount of suds to grow even further.

"I like deep baths too," Kai said from the doorway. "But you might have at least waited for the moving crew to finish hauling everything in.”

"Don't mind us, Mr. Taylor," Addison said from the far room. He was carrying in a mattress with a partner. "Remember, we've seen worse cleaning up those crime scenes!"

"What was that?" asked Hunter.

"Never mind," sighed Kai. "Oh, Hunter, you might like this..."

He tapped a button on a control panel by the bathroom door. The bright white lights faded out, and a set of blue lights illuminated the room from under the surface of the bathwater.

"Holy crap," breathed Hunter. Kai grinned and wordlessly left the room.

Later, once the movers had left and Hunter had changed into a pair of pajama pants and an old Coheed & Cambria tour T-shirt he'd packed that morning, he and Kai sat at the same side of Kai's black dining table.

"This place is so ultra-modern," observed Hunter. "Nothing like a place I'd expect a vampire to live."

Kai shrugged. "To each his own, I suppose. I like living a bit of luxury; it makes up for all those years I had to sleep in hovels or forests or deserts."

"What?"

Kai sighed. "So, it was 1862. I had run off from my family farm in North Carolina. I was intent on joining the war."

"1862... the Civil War?!" Hunter tried, and failed, to keep his mouth from dropping open.

"'Civil' War... there's a misnomer," Kai said bitterly. "Anyway, I had no trouble enlisting, I was of age. And there was a battleship off the coast of Cape Hatteras that was willing to take me on. I was a crew member for precisely two days."

"What happened?"

"That ship happened to be the U.S.S. Monitor," Kai explained. "It was weakened in previous battles. But it turned out to be a stormy night and rough waters that did her in. It sank, and I was one of the few to make it off that ship alive.

"But whereas the other survivors were met by a rescue ship, I had floated out away from them. And I'm sure I would have been lost with about 16 other crewmen, if it hadn't been for a rogue vampire who had an eagle-eyed view of the disaster unfolding."

Hunter picked up his legs and crossed them in his seat. He was completely engrossed in the story.

"He just plucked me out of the water and flew me to his house back on shore. I never even had a chance to see where I had been taken or to even thank him for pulling me away from the wreck... before he plunged his fangs into me.

"I never even knew his name. The turning process takes several days, you see. And in that time, someone had alerted the townspeople that a vampire was in their midst. By the time I was waking up from the change, the vampire had already been staked, and the house was in flames.

"God..." Hunter whispered.

"A good vampire is supposed to teach his progeny all about his new life, his new abilities," Kai said. He was staring at the wall in front of him, transfixed on a framed photo of a forest. "I had to learn by instinct. I flew to the nearest thing I could reach - a bank of trees further inland. I lived there, like an animal, for... I don't know, at least three months. I fed on wildlife, I slept underground.

"If you're not taught soon within that window of time, you stay feral," Kai continued. "It was sheer luck there had been a small tribe of traveling vampires making their way through that forest. They sensed my presence; they did what they could to teach me how to maintain some amount of my humanity.

"I stayed with them for nearly a year," he said, "before I knew I needed to break out on my own, see where I could make a living. By that point I was here in Texas."

"That sounds so much like my life," Hunter said.

Kai's eyebrows arched. "How so?"

"Well, not so much like my life," Hunter corrected. "I lived in rural Nebraska all through high school. I'd been teased for being gay starting in grade school - I didn't even know what it meant until sixth grade!

"But anyway, when I graduated I wanted to get as far away from there as I could. I went to the first college that accepted me. That was here in Dallas. But even though I was a bright kid, the thing I never learned growing up was how to have friends. I tried, but I was so overenthusiastic, so starved for companionship, I drove a lot of people away.

"That's when I was diagnosed as depressed," Hunter continued. "I rarely went to class, I was convinced the people laughing as I passed them by were laughing at me, because it was all I was used to."

Kai nodded as he took in Hunter's story.

"Eventually I met Alex, and I found a kindred spirit in him," Hunter said. "Like I told you, our moms died while we were in school - within a month of each other, actually. We really leaned on each other then. And I was the one who pressed to make it through as a couple. Alex didn't want to, at first, but at some point he decided it wasn't worth waiting to see if someone else would ever have the feelings I was developing for him. And so we decided to make a go of it. That's when we both got hired at InnerCore, and know you know the rest of the story."

Kai looked at Hunter. He knew he'd have to tell him this eventually. "The only one I ever loved before was named Griffin. I killed him. I killed my only lover."

Hunter opened his mouth to speak, but Kai continued, the words forcing their way out. "I didn't mean to! He was a human farmer. It was the 1960s. We were all alone in the world. He asked me to turn him - I didn't want to, at first! But he pleaded with me. I loved him so much and I didn't want to think about living without him. I-I thought I was doing it right. I brought him to the brink... the brink of... d-death... and I drank too much. You're supposed to stop right at the brink, you see, then give him one mouthful of your own blood to start the process. But... I took one sip too much.

"I had promised myself I would never kill if it wasn't tied to the job, or for a life-or-death matter. I told myself I was not a monster. But I killed him. He just... laid there, in my bed. His eyes were still open. I opened my wrist and gave him my blood... and it just poured right back out of his mouth, and into the sheets... onto the floor."

Kai hid his face in his palms, sobbing. Hunter raced to the kitchen and grabbed some paper towels. He folded one up several times over and motioned for Kai to move his hands. When he did, Hunter saw vampire tears. They were almost identical to those of humans: translucent, but tinged with red. He dabbed at Kai's cheeks with the paper towel.

"It was an accident," Hunter said softly. "It's perfectly understandable. You didn't know how to control yourself, obviously. I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted you to carry that around all this time.

Kai sniffed. "I haven't allowed myself to have feelings for any human else since then," he said. His voice was a quavering whisper. "And I'm scared that I have them for you. They're so strong, Hunter. I can’t ask you to turn for me, and I don’t know if I can commit to someone I know is going to grow old and die. I just… don’t know.”

Hunter dabbed more at Kai’s face. “First of all, let me say how flattered I am you would even consider me to be your roommate, let alone a companion, a partner, a co-worker, whatever,” he said. “I don’t trust myself, either - at least in terms of relationships. Not after Alex. “All we have right now is time. That could be a blessing or a curse, I don’t know which. But let’s just promise ourselves this. We trust our instincts, no matter how they’ve betrayed us in the past. Okay? Let’s not worry about what may happen down the line, and focus on what’s going on in the moment.”

A sharp growl of air bubbles coming from Hunter’s stomach interrupted that particular moment. Both men looked at each other and laughed.

“That’s right, I didn’t actually eat anything today,” Hunter mused.

“We can order anything you like,” Kai said, wiping his eyes dry. “We can have it delivered to our security guys down the road; they’ll bring it up to us.”

“What about you?” Hunter’s curiosity peaked again. “What do you normally… do about that?”

Kai gestured to the refrigerator. “Whole thing’s stocked. There are hospitals who are in The Order’s network that will supply us as needed,” he explained. “If you wouldn’t mind… could you pop a container in the microwave for me? 48 seconds gets it to prime temperature.”

Hunter was intrigued by what this would look like. “Sure,” he said. He opened the door to the fridge. 150 plastic containers, all filled with bright red blood, jiggled when the door hit Hunter’s hand.

Grotesque, he thought to himself, but interesting, nonetheless. He grabbed a random bottle from the door, twisted off the cap, and set it in the microwave. He set the timer and watched the turntable spin the bottle slowly in a counter-clockwise motion.

“May I… could I at least hug you?” Kai asked.

Hunter nodded. “I know I would like it.”

Kai sat up from the able, wiped his eyes again, and stepped into the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around Hunter and pulled him into a hug that lasted until the microwave beeped.

“Blood’s done,” Hunter said with a wry smile. Kai laughed. Hunter opened the door and took out the bottle. Kai opened the nearby drawer and pulled out a stainless steel straw, plopping it in the bottle. He took several gingerly sips from it. “Perfect,” he said.

Hunter just stood there and watched Kai suck down the blood from the bottle. It reminded him a lot of watching someone drink V8 juice.

“Do you ever tire of the taste,” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Kai admitted. “But our guys at the lab? Some of them have backgrounds in food additives. They can make it smell or taste like practically anything I want.”

“Amazing,” Hunter whistled. 

“You wanna get that food order placed now?” Kai went back to the dining room table and turned on his tablet.

Hunter nodded and joined him at the table. As they waited for the order to be delivered to security, Hunter put his arms around Kai’s waist.

“This feels… right,” he said. “Know what I mean?”

“I do,” Kai nodded.

“And I really, truly don’t want you to think too much about my dying, or turning me, that kinda thing,” Hunter added. “It’s too soon to be having those kinds of conversations.”

“I promise I won’t,” Kai said, knowing it might be difficult at first to try.

“Besides,” Hunter said, “if it ever comes to it, I know you’d do it right this time around. I trust you.”