Chapter Text
Intermission
“He had a panic attack and is now unconscious”, Andrew said. “I carried him out of the shop.”
In fact, he placed the bags around them like a barrier. He flashed his teeth at a curious human until they scattered away again.
“Is he out for over a minute, yet?”, asked a similar voice on the other end.
“Not yet.”
“Call an ambulance as soon as he oversteps that threshold. Did he hit his head?”
Andrew growled lowly at a kid that came a bit too close. “No, I caught him.”
Aaron hummed into the phone. There were two seconds of silence and Neil seemed to stir slightly.
“I think he is waking up.”
Another hum, another silence. Then: “You won’t ask me.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“You won’t tell me.”
They both knew this was about Neil’s test results and Aaron only talked about it because they both knew Neil had lied to Andrew about it.
Aaron would never break his oath and Andrew would never ask him to. Aaron was just checking if Andrew was still sane enough to remember how human health worked. When Neil had come to him, he had barely been able to stand straight, even if Andrew didn’t know the details, he knew this human was very far from being able to give him blood.
Andrew had his own ways of dealing with this.
“He will break your heart.”
Andrew snorted, but his tense body made it sound more like a snarl.
“We both know I don’t have one of those.”
“Keep telling yourself that, you sap. How long did it take for you to decide that you would keep him?”
Not even one full second, but Andrew didn’t tell his twin that.
“I thought as much.”
Neil blinked his eyes open slowly, clearly still disoriented. Andrew wasn’t quite sure what to do, because he was crouching on the floor with Neil cradled in one arm. He couldn’t just drop him, but he knew Neil would probably have another panic attack if he woke in his arms.
“He is waking up.”
“Call me if you need me to check on him.”
Andrew hung up.
Neil
“He is waking up”, was the first thing he actively noticed. In the back of his mind something called for him to move, that he was in danger, but all he managed was to throw out an arm without aiming at anything.
His brain was reporting back to him that that hadn’t been what he should have done, but he couldn’t figure out what would have been the right thing to do.
He lost something and gained something else. A feeling. He lost warmth and gained something that pressed hard and cold into his back.
He blinked his eyes open and had to suppress the urge to vomit when everything just spun around him. Closing his eyes again, he took a deep breath and tried to remember what happened.
His heart sped up before he could grab his memories, but when he did, he shot up into a sitting position only to see all the bags with his new possessions that no one paid for, outside the store.
“Everything is okay.”
Neil flinched away from the calm voice and stayed tense even when he noticed it was Minyard.
Neil swallowed hard, not sure what would happen next. He had made a scene in the middle of a super expensive store, probably pissed off another vampire — again — and completely embarrassed Minyard.
If Neil was lucky Minyard would only take away his new clothes, if he wasn’t… well…
“Listen to me, Neil”, Andrew said with an intensity that made Neil shudder, “Everything is okay. I mean it. Don’t work yourself up to another panic attack.”
Of course. That would be bad, right? Neil had to get himself under control.
“I’m fine,” he said, but didn’t look at Minyard. Should he apologize? Would that do any good? Probably not.
“We are going home,” Minyard proclaimed, stood up and took most of the bags. Neil scrambled to his feet and hurried to take the rest, then followed the vampire.
His legs itched to just run and never look back but he was missing the courage to try. Minyard would probably catch him in a few seconds and everything would be worse.
They went back to the car, Minyard not saying a single word.
It didn’t take long until Neil noticed they weren’t taking the straight route to the house and he wondered if Minyard was finally getting rid of him. He made more trouble than he was worth, right? It was the logical thing to do.
Neil wondered for a second if he should apologize, or ask to get another chance, but Minyard’s words still echoed in his mind: Everything is okay.
He couldn’t insinuate that the vampire had been lying to him without making everything worse.
So he shut up. Being quiet was usually the better option, anyway. Who knew what would piss the other person off more? If Neil didn’t speak without prompting no one would be mad at him.
The prompt didn’t take too long: “What don’t you like to eat?”
Neil blinked and was confused for a second until he remembered the nutrition plan he got in the morning.
“I eat anything.” It was true. He would never leave a meal just because it might not be his favorite food.
“Not what I asked,” Minyard answered, his tone bored but it made Neil tense nevertheless.
“It’s the only important information.”
Why? Why did he say that? Why the fuck was his mouth always quicker than his brain? Why couldn’t he just shut up, especially after whatever had happened in that store.
He physically felt the memories of his mother’s hard tu g s on his hair. The only thing that prevented him from rubbing at his scalp was his inability to move. His muscles so tense, they completely locked up.
But again, Minyard kept calm, collected. Neil wondered if he would just explode someday, killing him in an instant just because he was so furious. No one could keep that calm with someone as rebellious and defiant as Neil was. It was a truth Neil had learned early in his life. He was just troublesome. There was no value to him. Not even his blood was good enough and he could just hope that Minyard wouldn’t notice.
“This whole ordeal would be much easier if you just told me what I am asking for and not what you think I want to hear.”
N eil’s hands dug into the fabric of his t-shirt, the only two-day-old cuts burning under the pressure.
He just now noticed that no one had commented on them. Not even Dr. Minyard had spared a glance. Of course not. How ridiculous that thought was. Nicky also hadn’t said anything, the concern about him therefore obviously just an act.
None of them knew that those cuts weren’t from Minyard, which meant it was like it always had been: Vampires sticking together, while humans were worthless.
This whole day had only served to lull him into a false sense of safet y, to give him an illusion of care. Right. He was just cattle.
T he hollowness insid e him gr ew . Did he really think he found some good people? Good vampires?
“You want to know what I don’t like to eat so you don’t have to risk throwing away food and therefore money. I’m not stupid, okay? I will eat what you give me. You don’t have to worry about it.”
Neil shouldn’t do this, he knew, but he couldn’t stop the frustration from bleeding into his every pore. He was mad at himself for lowering his guard, for hoping. He wasn’t a child anymore, he should know better.
“Or maybe I want to know what you don’t like so you don’t have to eat something you don’t like.”
Neil scoffed deep and sarcastic at that and was so surprised by his own actions, he pressed his hand against his mouth in horror.
“What Vampire hurt you that bad?” Minyard asked instead of just throwing Neil out of the car as he probably should. “Every time you open your mouth you look at me like you are just waiting for me to rip your throat out.”
E very time Neil opened his mouth something horrible tumbled out. But he couldn’t say that. He wouldn’t dig his own grave like that.
“What makes you think it was a Vampire?”
He wasn’t able to just shut up, wasn’t he?
“Because you look at us like we are monsters.”
“You are people,” Neil bristled. “With superpowers! And you have to feed from humans. You are only not killing them because you chose to live in peace with us. I know the legends. I know that you are the antithesis to humans, the ‘curse’ that resulted from humans disrespecting and destroying nature. Humans were never supposed to be the end of all food chains, so nature took care of it.”
It was ironic that it didn’t change anything. Nature was still dying because there were too many humans feeding from its resources. Or… well who knew how bad it would be if small cities and villages weren’t occasionally hunted nearly empty by criminal Vampires?
“We are people,” Andrew repeated, sounding incredibly bored. But Neil knew that he wouldn’t say anything if he wasn’t interested.
“It’s not the world that’s cruel,” Neil said and it felt like a mantra from another life, “It’s the people in it.”
Andrew didn’t respond and Neil was glad about that.
They parked near a diner a few minutes later and Andrew didn’t move after killing the engine.
“You stepped between us and told me to go.”
Neil flinched slightly, not sure if that was an accusation or something else. It was always hard to tell with the monotone voice Minyard used.
Should he answer that? Minyard didn’t even look at him and there hadn’t been a question he could answer.
“You stepped between us to protect me from a Vampire, who you say is like every other human just with superpowers. You stepped between us to protect me and yet you are so afraid of me that you aren’t even able to tell me what food you don’t like. Tell me, is this Stockholm Syndrome or are you just stupid?”
Neil kept silent, because honestly, what should he say? Of course, it had been stupid to step between two Vampires, but his head didn’t always work on logic alone. Andrew was his Vampire, as stupid as that sounded and even though Neil was highly afraid of him and what he could do to him, Andrew hadn’t hurt him yet.
Neil was mistrustful of everyone, but he couldn’t throw someone under the bus who hadn’t ever done anything to him but help.
Andrew had been the first person in a very, very long time who had been nice to him, how could he not protect him?
“This not talking has to stop soon, Josten. I’m running out of patience, but far more important: I can’t care for you the way I am supposed to.”
“Stockholm Syndrome isn’t real.” Of course that would be the thing his brain would focus on.
Minyard slowly turned his head, making another shiver wreck Neil’s body. Minyard wanted him to talk? Fine. Let’s talk.
“Some people know by now that it isn’t real, but it hasn’t been accidentally misdiagnosed. It was on purpose.”
This had been a pet peeve of his mother’s and Neil could see why, really.
“The handling of that bank robbery in Stockholm was horrible to a point where the prime minister himself told one of the employees at the bank that she should make her peace with dying in fulfilling her duty. The psychiatrist who was supposed to help with the case fucked up so profoundly that he diagnosed that woman with a completely made up mental illness to shut her up after the situation was solved. He never even spoke to her. Since then Stockholm Syndrome was greatly used to divert the attention of, for example, domestic abuse from the perpetrator to the victim. Having a simple answer to the question ‘Why didn’t she leave?’ instead of looking into the societal systems that prevented her from leaving.”
Instead of killing him on the spot or putting him into place, Minyard just looked at him for a moment. “Her.”
Neil swallowed. “Most known victims of domestic abuse are women.”
“Sure.” Minyard didn’t look convinced at all. “So you can defend my life and can step up for all women, but you are unable to tell me what food you don’t like.”