Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vampires weren’t evil.

Logan knew Prince would disagree with him on that front. His teammate was extremely. . . passionate about their shared occupation, insisting to anyone who would listen (and more than a few vampires who very much did not want to) that their organization was a heroic force, holding back the tide of wicked vampires that threatened humanity. Hart was less flowery with his views, but he seemed to largely agree with Prince, calling them the good guys and, occasionally, calling vampires the bad guys. It was an overly simplistic, borderline childish way of phrasing it, but Logan preferred that to Roman’s purple prose.

That didn’t mean he thought either of them were right, though.

Thinking of vampires as evil was a coping mechanism. A defense. In their line of work, killing creatures that looked and acted like humans, that had once been human, was routine. It would put psychological stress on anyone, and it was easier to deal with that stress if you thought of vampires as monsters. Not just literally, but figuratively as well, monsters in the sense that they were so morally reprehensible they could never be redeemed. That there was some kind of intrinsic malice burned into them the moment they turned.

But good and evil were human concepts, ones that humans themselves had debated for centuries with seemingly no end in sight. Evil was what you made of it, and what people tended to make of it was dictated by emotion. The fox was evil for hunting the rabbit, because humans found the rabbit cute and pitied it for its role in the food chain. Never mind that without predators the rabbits would soon overpopulate the area and, eventually, starve when food became insufficient. Never mind that the fox was only trying to survive. Never mind that, so long as humans didn’t have to see the fox hunting, they would likely find it just as cute as the rabbit. The fox was evil. That was all there was to it.

Vampires weren’t evil. They just weren’t human. While it could be argued that since they possessed human-level intelligence they should be judged by human moral standards, Logan disagreed. Vampires were simply functioning in the way they were supposed to, and there was nothing evil about that.

Logan didn’t hunt vampires because they were evil. He hunted them for the simple reason that they hunted humans, and Logan was human, and he cared about other humans. It was a selfish motivation, but it was an honest one, and he would never be tempted to call himself a good guy or get angry at a vampire for acting on its instincts. Vampires ate humans. That was understandable. It was understandable, too, that humans defend themselves.

That was what Logan was thinking about as he stared at the monitor in front of him. The camera feed was dim– Logan had lowered the lighting in the observation room for the occupant’s comfort despite Prince’s vocal protests– but he’d left enough light for human eyes to see by. The subject was still ignoring the cot in the room entirely, huddled instead on the floor in the corner with its arms wrapped around its knees. Logan couldn’t make out its expression from this angle, not with its hood drawn up and its hair hanging in its face, so his ability to guess at its current mood was limited. It was probably safe to say that the vampire was less than thrilled to be captured, though.

It was the first live subject that their team had ever acquired. Not the first one Logan had ever worked with– they had nearly a dozen back east, where he and his teammates had trained– but the first one they’d captured themselves. Taking vampires alive was difficult, and keeping them restrained was just as hard, so pulling it off marked a major milestone for the group. Hart was making a cake to celebrate. Logan was celebrating by taking some preliminary notes. Prince was. . . doing some thing. Probably something ridiculous. Logan wasn’t sure what exactly, but if he had to hazard a guess he’d go with picking out the perfect outfit for their first interrogation. He could imagine it now– what do you guys think? I’m going for intimidating yet enviable. Is this enviable? Do you envy me?

There was the soft scratching sound of a ballpoint pen against paper as Logan jotted down a few lines in his notebook. He’d type everything up later, but he found it reassuring to have physical backups of everything just in case. Redundancy was a safeguard against misfortune, and in their line of work, there wasn’t much misfortune they could afford.

His notes so far were sparse.

Subject 1 woke at 01:17, approximately 30 minutes after sedative was applied in the field [5 mg verbenadiazepine]

Subject 1 left cot as soon as motor function returned, sitting instead on the floor. Has not attempted to tamper with bars or door yet

Theory: subject is attempting to conserve energy?

–Why not remain on the cot if so?

–Ask Hart for opinion on body language when reviewing footage

The door behind Logan opened, flooding the room with light and making him squint at the sudden adjustment. He wasn’t one to put much stock in the will of the universe, but the phrase speak of the devil came to mind. Logan turned, the words come take a look at this already forming in his mouth, but as his chair swiveled to face the door he was surprised to see Prince silhouetted there. He was even more surprised to see what looked like a streak of flour over Prince’s cheekbone, an apron about his waist that read kiss the croak below a bright cartoon frog, and a few strands of hair that had escaped Prince’s usually meticulous attention to hang loose about his temples. He looked just the slightest bit disheveled, and Logan found his words momentarily stalling on his tongue.

“Cake’s done,” Prince said, looking around the small, dark room before allowing his gaze to settle back on Logan. “Patton’s frosting it right now. I told him I’d come get you, assuming you’re at a breaking point with your whole. . . sitting-in-a-dark-room-staring-at-a-computer-screen thing.”

Logan huffed. “It was easier to make out the feed this way.”

“Yeah, well, if you’d listened to me about the lights the footage wouldn’t be so dark.” Prince tossed his head, hair thrown back out of his eyes, and gave Logan a pointed look. Logan ignored the jab, instead capping his pen and slipping it into his shirt pocket before getting to his feet.

“Were you assisting Hart with baking?” Logan asked as he walked to the door, raising an eyebrow at his colleague. Prince barked out a laugh, then brought a hand to his mouth as if attempting to hide that fact.

“Uh,” he said, “Yeah. Assisting. I broke out one of my recipes for gayke for us to follow.”

“Gayke?” Logan echoed.

“Gay cake,” Prince said, as if that had been self-explanatory. “It’s red velvet cake, except rainbow. Came up with the coloring technique myself!”

“Ah.”

Perhaps the confectionary would be edible after all, then. Logan had been anticipating something more along the lines of the cookies Hart habitually prepared for them. He supposed they could be called hit or miss, if hit or miss could be taken to mean consistently awful in a seemingly endless variety of ways . Hart baked as if love was a substitute for a recipe or even just a basic understanding of how cooking works, and that meant his creations could run the gamut from too salty to too sweet to containing literal eggshells. If Prince had held the two of them to an actual set of instructions, well. Logan still wasn’t a fan of sweets, but he liked them a lot better when they didn’t crunch.

True to Prince’s word, Hart was busy with a piping bag when they entered the kitchen, scrawling something in blue icing atop a haphazardly frosted cake. He’d managed to get a lot more of the ingredients on him than Prince had, and Logan found himself eyeing what looked like cake batter drying in Hart’s hair. It was violently purple, and Logan wondered how many stains he was going to have to clean up. It looked like they’d added a lot of food coloring, and neither Hart nor Prince were particularly neat.

“Logan!” Hart chirped, beaming over at him as he noticed them enter the kitchen. “You made it!”

“I was three doors down the hall,” Logan said dryly, “It wasn’t exactly a laborious journey.”

“Thanks for going to get him, Roman,” Hart said as Prince came to stand at his shoulder, peering down at the just-finished cake. He wrinkled his nose, presumably at Hart’s handwriting, but his expression softened as Hart took advantage of their proximity to press a kiss to Roman’s cheek.

“Good job, Padre,” Prince said, and if Logan didn’t know better he’d have believed he truly meant it.

Logan leaned in to get a good look himself. When he deciphered what Hart had written, he had to hold back a sigh. More like jailbat! was written in all-caps across the top of the cake, off-center and with a squiggle underlining bat.

“A play on jailbird?” Logan asked, as if he didn’t already know, and Hart’s response was as expected.

“What else would it be a play on?”

“Uh,” Prince said, “Nothing, Padre. Certainly no other similar words with significantly less wholesome meanings! Now, let’s dig in and really get this celebration going!”

If Logan was prone to psychoanalysis, he would probably read something into the way Prince consistently attempted to baby their less-than-astute teammate. As things stood, though, he’d decided the least inflammatory course of action was to ignore the situation, and to only occasionally raise a judgemental eyebrow at Prince. Hart was a vampire hunter. A soft-hearted vampire hunter who spent a significant amount of time overwhelmed by his own emotions, sure, but a vampire hunter nonetheless. He didn’t need to be protected from the accidental implications of his own speech, and in fact, leaving him uninformed about the filthier turns of phrase in the English language would do more harm than good in the long run.

At least, that was Logan’s opinion. But he’d been put-off enough by the fight he and Prince had gotten into over Logan’s attempt to explain the meaning of adultery that he wasn’t going to dredge the argument back up again. Thus, the occasional eyebrow.

Logan took a seat on one of the stools that bordered the kitchen island. Hart pushed the cake closer to that side of the counter, then turned and began untying his apron, hanging it up neatly on the hook beside the stove. Prince followed suit, and soon the two of them had joined Logan in their seats.

“Oh!” Hart said abruptly, “Before we get started– Roman, you’ve got a bit of flour on your cheek there.”

He licked one of his thumbs, reaching up to wipe the offending smudge away, and Roman spluttered.

“Patton, gross, you know how I feel about the whole spit thing– wait. Has that been there the whole time?” He whirled around to glare at Logan, tone accusatory. “Was that there the whole time and you didn’t tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important,” Logan said simply, and Roman’s expression turned to one of utter, devastated betrayal. It might have been more effective if Logan didn’t receive that look at least five times a day. Once he’d managed as many as fourteen, though Logan didn’t anticipate breaking that record anytime soon. Not unless their work required them to infilitrate a second beauty pagent, which seemed unlikely.

“You’re a monster,” Prince declared, and Logan’s response carried cleanly over Hart’s scandalized gasp.

“Factually inaccurate. If any being at all may be classified as a monster, I would posit the specimen in our holding cell is a far better candidate.”

One floor below, Virgil pressed his forehead against his knees and tried to convince himself that help was coming.

Chapter Text

“Virgil still isn’t back,” Remus said, holding the heavy velvet curtains aside as he peered down into the street. Behind him, Deceit sighed and turned a page in his novel, the sound of shifting paper soft but audible.

“Please do continue to disregard the importance of code names, it’s not like any of us have anything to hide.”

Remus huffed, dropping the curtain and turning to look at his friend.

“We’re the only ones here, Dee!” he protested. Deceit spared him a single glance over the edge of his book, raising an eyebrow in Remus’s direction before returning his attention to the page in front of him.

“Yes, and when we’re alone is the ideal time to practice good habits, Lust.”

“I changed my mind again,” Remus said, “I think I want to go with something worse. Like. . . Horror. Or Delirium, or something!”

“Another name change. Spectacular. I’m sure you’ll actually stick with this one.”

Remus turned back to the window, parting the curtains once again. Still nothing. A car passed by, headlights throwing a bar of light across the room, and Remus squinted through it. His foot tapped a manic rhythm against the floor. Ooh, that was another good one. Mania.

Behind him, there was the sound of another turning page.

“Relax. We both know Paranoia takes a long time to feed. This isn’t exactly unusual for him.”

“Cautious fucking bastard!” Remus agreed cheerfully. “But he should still be back by now. I’m bored. I wanna spar.”

He’d seen Virgil hunt before, and every time it made him want to wring the guy’s neck. He was so slow about it, agonizing over picking the perfect target, going back and forth over where to stage an ambush, choking down anxiety over having to talk to his victims. Remus could drain a whole bus full of humans by the time Virgil managed to polish off one, and sometimes he wondered why Deceit didn’t just have them bring home leftovers for him instead of letting Virgil out to hunt himself. It would be faster. Plus, Remus would get a chance to break out the handcuffs and duct tape. He liked the chase as much as any other vampire, but shoving someone in a duffle bag and dragging them back home would provide so much more playtime. The added privacy would really let him draw everything out, and with Virgil in the mix too. . .

“You could spar with Rage,” Deceit offered blandly, interrupting Remus’s fantasy. He licked his lips, then turned away from the window again, though he didn’t let go of the curtain this time.

“Rage says he’s busy. Apparently he got into a fight with some other vampires last night, without me, and now he’s trying to figure out which group they were from.”

“Oh joy,” Deceit muttered. Then, louder, “Sounds like an endeavor that could only be improved by your. . . unique talents. Why don’t you go offer him some help instead of hovering by the window like the haggard wife of a sea captain?”

“Because I want to play with Virge,” Remus groaned, “Not Rage! Not you! No offense Dee but if I wanted to spend my night sitting in and reading I’d have picked up some new hentai while I was out getting a snack.”

“Mm, yes, about that,” Deceit said as he turned another page, “Certain members of this household have asked me to remind you that clothes are not optional in communal spaces.”

Remus snorted. “Man, Virge is such a stuck-up prude sometimes.”

“Paranoia, Lust. And I didn’t say it was him.”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t. And Rage woulda just beat the shit out of me himself if he didn’t like me airing out my junk in the living room, who are you trying to kid?”

Deceit didn’t respond to that, and Remus glanced back outside. A middle-aged man was walking his dog on the far sidewalk, a corgi mix of some kind. Remus was seized with the violent urge to jump out the window, broken glass be damned, and run over to pet the adorable little thing. He wanted a dog. They should get a dog. They could totally take care of a dog, they were super responsible! Well, Dee was, at any rate, and he picked up the slack for Rage and Remus. Virgil sometimes too, considering how often the little guy hid in his room and refused to take care of even himself.

Remus’s foot was tapping again. Still no sign of Virgil.

“Maybe I should go look for him,” he said. “Double-team whoever he’s failing to get his teeth into. God, Virge would kill me for cutting in like that! He’s so hot when he’s mad. All confident and stuff.”

“Remus,” Deceit said, and Remus straightened at the sound of his real name. His fingers tightened on the curtain. “I’m worried about you.”

Remus swallowed. Whirled around with a huge grin, every sharp tooth bared, and flung his arms wide to indicate just how fine he was.

“Worried? About me? Dee, come on, if you’re trying to get into my pants you know I’m way easier than that. No false pretenses necessary! You don’t even need to buy me dinner!”

Deceit closed his book with a firm snap, setting it aside on one arm of his chair and standing up. Finally, his eyes met Remus’s for more than a brief moment, and now it was Remus’s turn to look away. He dug his bare heel into the carpet and twisted, fidgeting under the weight of that gaze.

“You’re spiraling,” Deceit said. It wasn’t a question.

It also wasn’t a joke, but Remus laughed anyway.

“Ain’t we all, chief? Rage isn’t looking to start a gang war because he’s stable. Hell, Virge only manages to drag his ass out to feed every few days. Worry about him. At least Rage and I are having fun with our crazy.”

“I’m worried about all of you,” Deceit said. “ All my children. I just happen to be addressing you right now because you’re the one who’s here.”

“I love it when you call us your kids,” Remus purred, though it was less smooth than usual. “Real kinky.”

“Remus.” And, fuck, that was Dee’s Sire Voice, that I brought you into the night life and you’re going to respect my goddamn seniority voice. Normally that kind of disappointed-authority-figure shit turned Remus on, but there was something about the Sire Voice that made even his dick think twice about trying anything.

Remus’s grin faded.

“I’m fine,” he said, and his voice was quiet now. He leaned back against the window, fingers gripping the sill and nails digging into the paint. “It’s not a big deal. Just– some old bullshit coming back around again. I don’t even know if it’s true or not.”

“Someone with a grudge against you?”

“No. Kind of. I dunno, Dee, it’s fine. I’ll. . . tone down the reckless bullshit if it’s really making you that nervous.” Remus managed half a smile and half a chuckle. “You sound like Paranoia, y’know.”

The sliver of bare glass was cool against Remus’s spine, even through the fabric of his crop top, but the velvet insulated the rest from him. It felt strange, stiff and soft at the same time, and Remus wanted to rub his face in the curtains like a cat scent-marking furniture. Maybe they should get a cat. Virgil had said he’d had a cat once, hadn’t he?

Virgil still wasn’t back.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Deceit said gently, reaching out to place a gloved hand on Remus’s shoulder. Remus leaned into the touch, closing his eyes. “Provided it’s nothing that endangers the group, you’re under no obligation to reveal your secrets. In fact, I’m sure we’d all be perfectly happy with you revealing a few less things.”

He paused.

“In the living room.”

Another pause.

“While practicing yoga.”

“I got it, Dee,” Remus protested, but it was halfhearted. He opened his eyes. Looked up into Deceit’s face.

“It doesn’t impact you guys,” he lied. “And I really don’t want to talk about it. I’ll tell you when I do, but right now I just wanna keep hurling myself headlong into hedonism, thanks.”

Deceit offered him a soft smile, and Remus wanted to set himself on fire. In a non-sexy way. Right this instant. Why was he such a piece of shit?

“Alright,” Deceit said, “Whenever you’re ready, Delirium. Take your time.”

“I changed my mind again,” Remus said, “I think I’m going with Mania.”

Deceit let his hand drop from Remus’s shoulder and groaned.

Somewhere past the glass of the window, out there in the city, tucked away in some sterile little concrete building, was Remus’s twin. Maybe he was sharpening a sword, maybe he was swinging practice strikes at a dummy with crudely drawn-on fangs, or maybe he was out in the streets at this very moment, decapitating the undead. Undead like Remus. Undead like Deceit.

Undead like Virgil.

Mania’s lie sat heavy in his stomach, and he wondered how much blood it would take to drown it this time.

Chapter Text

Virgil had never needed help devising worst-case scenarios.

He’d been described by one doctor as having the most textbook case of anxiety I’ve ever seen, and by Remus as an incontinent parade-pisser. Becoming a vampire had, if anything, made the problem worse– sure, Virgil no longer had to worry about being hit by a car or anything, but now things like murder and the terrifying face of eternity were on the table. Add to that the fact that his anxiety meds apparently didn’t work on the undead and Virgil would be more than confident saying he was having the worst period of mental health in his life.

And now this.

Virgil stared, unseeing, at the bars in front of him. He was in a cell. An actual, literal cell, with bars and concrete walls and an intimidating austerity that made him want to hide under the cot he’d woken up in. He’d probably have tried it already if the thing wasn’t so low to the ground; the last thing Virgil needed right now was to get halfway underneath and wind up stuck. Never a catastrophe so bad that some embarrassment couldn’t make the whole thing worse, after all.

He was so screwed.

He’d known this was going to happen eventually. There was simply no possible version of reality out there where Virgil didn’t get caught one night. Deceit had reassured him that if he followed his advice and was careful about his hunting he’d be perfectly safe, but the guy’s codename was literally Deceit, so Virgil didn’t know what he’d been expecting.

Well, no, that was unfair. It wasn’t Deceit’s fault that Virgil was a chronic fuck-up. He’d let his guard down, failed to live up to his own codename, and now this was the result. A cold concrete cell and an overwhelming sense of impending doom.

He had no idea how long he’d been down here. Being knocked out had fucked up his sense of time, so it could’ve been anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The others would notice he was missing eventually, but Virgil was having a hard time believing they had any chance of actually finding him. He didn’t even know where he was; how would they?

He took a shaky breath. He kept doing his breathing exercises despite no longer needing oxygen, the same way he’d taken his meds every night until his prescription had run out. It was routine. It had once brought him comfort. And it was something that was no longer even slightly effective. Virgil was spiraling, adrift in his own anxiety with nothing left to cling to, and despite not knowing which way was up he kept trying to swim to the surface anyway, because stopping? Stopping meant admitting that there might not be an up anymore, that this might be all there was left to him. Just Virgil and the fear.

At least if he got murdered in this creepy prison he wouldn’t have to deal with his own brain for the rest of eternity. Ha.

Virgil swallowed. Squeezed his knees a little tighter, then unwound one of his arms so he could place his palm against the cool concrete floor. It would’ve felt colder in here if he’d still had body heat, or even if he’d actually managed to eat before getting captured. Were they going to starve him out? Let him rot down here until he was so desperate with hunger that he became some feral, thoughtless thing?

He couldn’t imagine why. He couldn’t imagine why not either, though. He didn’t know why he’d been taken alive at all. The guys who’d captured him were– well, Virgil assumed they were professional vampire hunters. He didn’t know how else they would’ve gotten their hands on a knockout drug that actually worked on him. But if they were hunters there were only two reasons they would’ve bothered to drag him back here, and neither were good– either they were going to torture him for information, or he was about to be subjected to a battery of excruciating, unethical experiments.

The floor was cool.

Four things you can feel.

Virgil closed his eyes. He couldn’t sleep right now, not with how wound up he was, and he wouldn’t want to anyway. Being even more defenseless than he was already wasn’t high on his priority list. Still, he wished more than anything for some kind of breaking point, an end to this exponential escalation of tension. His new undead status meant his heart couldn’t literally give out under the pressure, but all that meant was that Virgil could be certain this torture wasn’t going to end. When he’d been human there had been a limited amount of energy for his panic attacks to eat through; now Virgil could scare himself to exhaustion and just keep on going.

Three things you can. . .

There was a sound somewhere nearby, and Virgil’s head snapped up immediately. A soft clk like a door opening and then– voices. Two familiar, one new. All drawing closer.

“I still think we should let the beast stew a little longer. It’s probably done the same thing to plenty of its victims in the past; this would be like. . . oh, what’s the word. . .”

“Karma!”

“Yes, thank you. Karma. Oh, or irony, that was the one I was actually looking for.”

“That’s not what irony means. And you do realize it can probably hear everything you’re saying, right?”

“So? What do I care? I stand by my words and my opinions! It’s not like it matters to me if it knows of my burning disgust with its past conduct.”

“Maybe so, but there’s an argument to be made that we should be attempting to present a united front here.”

“Oh, pish posh, doctor Hellsing. Have you never heard of good cop, bad cop?”

The lights came on, bright and painful, making Virgil wince. He scrambled up, bracing his palms against the rough concrete behind him as he stumbled to his feet. His first instinct was to hide, but unless he wanted to give the bed a shot there was nothing in his cell he could cower behind. Option two was to puff himself up, bare his fangs, and play the big bad vampire– but Virgil was terrible at that at the best of times, and even if he wasn’t, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be effective on vampire hunters. Their whole job was not being intimidated by people like him.

Creatures like him.

A shadow poked its head out on the floor behind his cell’s bars, followed shortly by the shadow’s owner. Virgil’s scowl deepened as he recognized him. More than recognized him. The guy looked. . . well.

He looked almost exactly like Remus.

In the time since Virgil had woken up, he’d concluded that the random Remus-with-a-sword that had shown up as he was blacking out had been some sort of drug-induced hallucination. Now he could see that the Remus-doppelgänger was very much real, and also slightly less of a doppelgänger than he’d thought. With the time to actually get a good look at the guy, not to mention a mind free of sedatives, Virgil was noticing a million little differences between this man and his. . . friend. A deeper tan, a lack of freckles, a head of solid brown hair. Where Remus looked gaunt and sickly, this man looked vibrant and alive, which Virgil supposed was to be expected with the whole undead thing. Still, Virgil was struggling to look at this hunter and not see Remus. The resemblance was uncanny.

The hunter looked at him. Caught his eye. Virgil tore his gaze away, forcing himself to look at the next human to arrive, a tall, slim stranger with a pair of straight-edged glasses and a severe look on his face. His eyes went straight to Virgil, sweeping him up and down in a way that was both economical and judgemental, and Virgil struggled not to quail under the look.

Then came a figure Virgil recognized very well. The guy who had lured him into the trap in the first place, a cutie with an innocent smile and a demeanor that screamed protect me at all costs. He’d also had a skinned knee and an apparent lack of familiarity with the area, given the way he’d stopped to ask for directions twice where Virgil could see. He hadn’t needed more than one look at the guy to know he was going to get eaten alive on his own so late after dark, so he’d swallowed his anxiety– and his hunger– and offered to walk him back to his hotel.

No good deed.

Virgil looked at the guy– Patton, he’d introduced himself as, though who knew if that was his real name– and glared.

“How’s your knee,” he growled, voice acerbic. The hunter at least had the decency to wince at that, though he didn’t apologize for the wounded bird routine.

“Healing up,” he said instead, “Though I’m guessing you can still smell it?”

Virgil could smell all three of them. Depending on how long he’d been unconscious, this was either his third or fourth night without eating, and having three warm-blooded humans stand a scant few yards away from him with nothing between them but bars was wreaking havoc with Virgil’s senses. His gums itched, a kind of under-the-skin discomfort that only eased when he sank his teeth deep into something warm and alive. In all honesty, Virgil wanted nothing more than to flatten himself against the bars and take a swipe at whoever he could reach.

Instead, he folded his arms and slouched a little harder against the wall behind him.

“What do you want with me?” he asked, instead of answering Patton’s question. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” cooed Remus-clone, clasping his hands to his chest. Tall-guy gave him an odd look, but Remus-clone didn’t seem to notice, his attention firmly on Virgil. “Playing innocent like that. Very convincing.”

“Prince,” tall-guy said, “We have definitively proven this is a vampire–“

“Sarcasm, specs,” Remus-clone– prince?– said, deflating slightly and letting his hands drop. Tall-guy nodded slowly.

“It never hurts to check,” he said. “We still don’t know everything this specimen is capable of. It was entirely feasible that you’d been taken in by some kind of thrall.”

“Oh yeah, no, definitely,” Virgil said, “I can thrall a vampire hunter with one sentence on an empty stomach. That sounds feasible.”

He probably shouldn’t be giving away that he wasn’t some kind of terrifyingly powerful vampire lord, but on the other hand, not even Deceit could pull something like that off. It wasn’t like he’d just handed over the Turing machine. Besides, one of the first lessons Deceit had taught him was that it was always easier to influence someone who wasn’t expecting it, someone who had their guard down. Better that these hunters think he had no mental abilities at all. Virgil needed any edge he could get his hands on here.

Prince squinted at him suspiciously. Virgil swallowed and did his best to square his shoulders, to project strength.

“You know, you should really be cooperating,” Prince said. “We’re not cruel, as hard as I imagine that is for you to understand. Drop the attitude and this will be easier for everyone!”

“I’m good, thanks,” Virgil gritted out. “Playing nice with people who want to kill me isn’t something I have the energy for at the best of times.”

He glanced pointedly around his cell, indicating that this was not, in fact, the best of times. Prince gave the huffiest, most irritating laugh Virgil had ever heard, even more so than Remus’s. It was almost impressive. Would’ve been impressive free and clear if not for how freaky the comparison was.

Virgil was going to have some questions if he ever got out of here.

“You could learn a thing or two from our resident puffball,” Prince said, clapping a hand onto Patton’s shoulder. Patton flushed, cheeks and ears pinking, and Virgil’s hunger rolled in his gut. “He plays nice with you monsters all the time. He’s almost as good an actor as I am!”

Patton ducked his head, reaching up to adjust his glasses as they started to slide down his nose. “I wouldn’t really call it acting. It’s just regular ol’ politeness, and you know I put the all into cordiall!”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, puffball,” Virgil snarled, rather than acknowledging one of the shitty puns that had so thoroughly charmed him before. “You sure fooled me just fine.”

He swept his glare over all three hunters, baring his fangs at them.

“Can I go now?” he asked, despite knowing the answer.

“We have some questions,” tall-guy demurred, just like Virgil had expected.

“Bite me,” he snapped.

Tall-guy gave a slow, even nod.

“Perhaps you were right, Prince,” he said, not looking away from Virgil even as he addressed his comrade. “Perhaps our new specimen needs a bit more time on his own.”

So they were going to starve him out.

Virgil was often upset to be right, but this might be one of the worst instances he’d ever experienced.

“Good luck getting me to talk when I’m fucking feral,” he growled. Tall-guy scoffed.

“We’re well-versed in how much blood a vampire needs while relatively sedentary. You’re not going to go feral.”

“You might wish you could, though,” Prince chimed in cheerfully, and Virgil had to blink hard to dispel the mental image of a grinning Remus superimposed over the hunter. That tone paired with such a gleeful threat. . .

“If the alternative is listening to you three?” Virgil asked, slouching even further into his hoodie. At least they’d left him that, even if they’d emptied his pockets. “Already wishing.”

“Hey,” Patton said, “Come on, there’s no reason for us all to be so nasty here! Jumping right into threats isn’t going to help anyone! I understand you’re upset, uh– oh, uh. . .” Patton trailed off. Looked at Virgil. “I didn’t actually get your name last night.”

Last night. So Virgil had been here at least past daybreak. Noted.

“Go fuck yourself, good-cop,” he said, and to Patton’s credit, his forcibly cheerful demeanor didn’t waver. Did he say to Patton’s credit? He meant to Virgil’s annoyance.

“Mm. Strong language, but as I was saying, I do understand you’re upset. You also understand that we can’t just have you roaming around attacking people, right? So, really, this is the best compromise we can all hope for! You’re alive, no one’s getting hurt, and if you cooperate we can even talk about getting you some accommodations, making this place a bit more homey for you!”

“You wanna talk accommodations?” Virgil asked, and this time he turned his once-over of Patton into the most obvious, most hungry leer he could possibly muster. “Stick your arm through the bars.”

“Well,” Patton said brightly, “Compassion has failed me! It was worth a shot.”

“Was it, though?” Prince asked. “It’s not like you built up an actual rapport with the beast last night. It was trying to lure you away to eat you.”

“It’s always worth it to be compassionate,” Patton said, and the slightest hint of steel had crept into his tone. Not directed at anyone– not as far as Virgil could tell, anyway– but present. A solid backbone to his words. “Whatever they are now, vampires used to be human, and the way we decide to treat them when we have a choice says a lot about who we are.”

It sounded like he meant it. Huh. Condescending as fuck, setting the bar low as all hell as far as Virgil’s past value as a human being was concerned, and yet– reassuring. Sounded like Patton wasn’t going to let the other two torture Virgil after all.

Or, alternatively, he was going to let them, but only after convincing himself they had no choice.

“You sound like an after-school special,” Virgil muttered.

“Thanks!” Patton chirped, and began patting down the sides of his cardigan. After a moment he made a noise of satisfaction and shoved a hand into one of his pockets, pulling out–

Oh.

Pulling out a plastic, floppy, full bag of blood.

Virgil bit the inside of his cheek. Hard.

If the bag had been open– if Virgil had been able to smell it as strongly as the three humans– he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to hold himself back. He was hungry, and in Patton’s hand, just sitting there, was a full pint of what Virgil wanted. What he needed. Logically, he knew it wouldn’t be enough to really satisfy his hunger, especially with what Deceit had told him about bagged blood’s nutritional value, but as far as Virgil’s stomach was concerned if he could only get his teeth into the thing all his problems would be solved.

Virgil’s grip tightened around his arms, nails digging into the fabric of his sleeves. Some distant part of him hoped it wouldn’t rip again. He didn’t have anything with him to patch it up.

“Hey, woah,” Prince spluttered, looking somewhat alarmed, “You’re not actually trying to feed it, are you? That totally wrecks all our super cool banter so far!”

Patton didn’t return Prince’s gaze, instead turning his attention to tall-guy. He widened his eyes, and with the added assistance of his ridiculously thick glasses managed a look that was borderline chibi. Tall-guy was unswayed by the display, if his unchanged expression was anything to go by.

“It was already out hunting when we caught it,” Patton said, voice so saccharine it made Virgil want to gag. “So it’s probably already hungry! Besides, you want to start from a solid foundation of data, right? Which means you need to know when exactly its last meal was. For science.”

Patton paused. Tall-guy’s expression still hadn’t changed. Patton swallowed, and Virgil’s eyes followed the bob of his Adam’s apple without his permission. His nails dug a little harder into his sleeves.

“I promise I won’t argue with however long you think is best between meals after this,” Patton said. “Scout’s honor! I just think we need to start off on the right foot here.”

“So you brought a unit of blood down here without consulting either Prince or myself, because you knew Prince would never agree and your only hope of success was to force the issue,” tall-guy said flatly. Patton winced.

“I– no, okay, that sounds really bad, I just thought it was probably the right thing to do and–“

“At this rate, we’re never going to present a unified front,” tall-guy sighed. “There goes professionalism.”

“If it makes you feel any better, professional isn’t a word I’d generally associate with kidnappers,” Virgil muttered. “But hey, feel free to duck out if you need to talk this over, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be or anything.”

“Do you mind?” Prince snapped, whipping around to glare at Virgil and nearly giving him a fucking heart attack in the process. “Patton here is trying to be nice to you, the least you could do is rein in that snarky commentary for the moment.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Virgil snarled, “Is this hard for you? Am I making this unpleasant?”

“Enough,” tall-guy said firmly, causing Prince’s teeth to snap shut around whatever retort he’d been about to fling back. “Prince, we’re leaving it to its own devices for the time being, like you suggested. Heart, leave the bag. We can discuss this upstairs.”

“But–“ Prince protested, but tall-guy was already turning to leave. Patton– heart? Weird nickname coming from such a serious guy, did that mean prince was a nickname too?– crouched down in front of the bars, setting the bag of blood down on the concrete where Virgil would have no trouble reaching it.

“Sorry things have to be this way,” Patton said, and had the nerve to sound like he meant it. “We’ll talk more later, okay?”

Virgil didn’t respond. He desperately wanted to flip the guy off, but considering Patton had been the one to insist on fucking feeding him, he decided to hold off. For now. Patton got to his feet, gave Virgil a wave, and started off down the hallway. Prince glanced between the retreating backs of his teammates and Virgil’s tense form, growled a curse under his breath, then ran to follow them– but not before giving Virgil the classic I’m watching you hand gesture.

Him Virgil flipped off.

He lowered his hand as he heard the hunters’ footsteps retreat. The lights went dim, and then there was the sound of that door again, opening and closing. Virgil found himself left in silence and darkness once more. Alone. Alive.

Virgil slid down the wall, fabric of his hoodie catching against the rough concrete, knees protesting as they hit the floor. In a minute Virgil would get up, go retrieve the blood bag, but for now? For now he bent in half, face pressing against his knees, arms wrapping even tighter around himself in the world’s shittiest recreation of a hug. His breaths shuddered to a stop. His eyes stung.

Five things–

Five things. . .

Five. . .

Virgil couldn’t even summon the strength to run the familiar exercise. It wouldn’t help.

Nothing would.

“Remarkable,” Logan said, gaze fixed on the screen in front of him. The cool light lit vibrant highlights through his dark hair, caught the edges of his glasses like gemstones. “As soon as it believes it’s no longer being observed, it collapses.”

“Aww, poor thing’s scared,” Patton cooed, his hands clasping in front of his chest.

Roman snorted, looking away so he could ignore Patton’s weaponized cuteness. “Poor thing? Patton, it tried to eat you.”

“Technically it just offered to walk me home,” Patton said. “You never know, it could’ve triumphed over its worst instincts and done the right thing in the end!”

“You’re suicidally optimistic, padre,” Roman muttered.

He glanced over at the screen again. The vampire was still curled up in a miserable little puddle of emo, though now its shoulders had started to shake as well. Good. The beast had consumed who-knew-how-many lives, left gruesome murders and grieving families in its wake, and Roman couldn’t find it in his heart to be as compassionate as Patton about the whole thing. The vampire deserved to feel what its victims had been through. More even than what they’d inflict on it.

Of course, it could be faking the whole breakdown, but the camera installed in the cell was hidden, and the vampire had shown no indication it knew it was there. They had to keep their guards up, consider every possibility, but for the time being Roman felt safe in assuming that this was the vampire’s real self. Its genuine reaction. Behind the snarling and the posturing, this monster was a scared, sniveling little thing.

They’d get it to talk in no time.

Chapter Text

The tall, bespectacled vampire hunter had been sitting outside Virgil’s cell for a while now. Virgil still hadn’t gotten any sleep by the time he showed up, too wired from the danger and the hastily-drained blood bag that was sitting in his gut like a stone. Deceit hadn’t been lying; the bag came with a weird chemical aftertaste and, though Virgil had waited for it to reach room temperature before trying to drink it, it had still felt disgustingly cold going down his throat. Where usually feeding left him feeling almost alive again, warm and content and energized, this made him feel simultaneously manic and sluggish. It was like that one time he’d tried Redbull and wound up having a combination panic-attack slash disassociation while working part-time at a gas station. Awake, terrified, and registering basically nothing that was happening in front of him.

The lights coming on had managed to jolt him a bit, which was good because he’d somehow missed the sound of the door opening entirely. He still didn’t have time to get up before the vampire hunter was appearing in front of his cell door, and at that point panicking would just come off as weak, so he’d stayed put right where he’d been sitting and settled for glaring up at the tall bastard.

The tall bastard hadn’t glared back. He hadn’t even looked at Virgil, actually, instead taking a seat himself in the hallway across from him. He had a deep blue binder under one arm, filled to the brim with what looked like an entire ream of paper, and as he flipped it open Virgil remembered every dumb detective show he’d ever watched where the main characters dropped several cardboard boxes on the interrogation table and told their suspect they held all the evidence against them. It was meant to make the suspect squirm, to imply they were already screwed and their only hope now was to make a deal.

Virgil swallowed hard.

The hunter didn’t say anything. He just sat there, eyes flicking from side to side as he scanned a page somewhere in the middle of the collection, the only sound between them his even, steady heartbeat. The hunter was perfectly calm. He knew he held all the cards.

 Virgil had to fight down a flinch at the loud click of the hunter readying a retractable pen. The overhead lights gleamed off his glasses as he tilted his head slightly and began to write something down– taking notes? Virgil hadn’t even said anything. What could he possibly have given away that this guy could be taking notes about?

An intimidation tactic. That had to be all this was. The hunter was trying to sweat him out, to hold him in tense silence until he cracked. Well, Virgil could be stubborn when he had to be. He wouldn’t cave. He’d hold his tongue until this tactic failed and the hunter was forced to concede some imaginary fragment of power and speak first, admitting a meaningless defeat that was still all Virgil could clutch at right now.

Virgil narrowed his eyes, straightened his shoulders, and prepared to sit silently for as long as it would take to win this battle of wills.

Logan had been working in blessed silence for half an hour before the vampire spoke. He barely resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands at the interruption.

Damnit. Here too? Is there nowhere where I will not be bothered?

Logan had a lot of responsibilities. They all did, really, since a three-person team was the minimum number required for an active outpost and they technically should have recruited more members by now. That meant each of them had slack to pick up, and Logan especially found himself neck-deep in the paperwork neither of his teammates wanted to do– incident reports, field injury records, a chronological compilation of local vampire activity. Logan wouldn’t have trusted either of his teammates to fill out the forms correctly anyway, so it wasn’t like he minded, and being the group’s record-keeper helped him keep his own thoughts in order. Enjoying the work didn’t mean it took any less time, though, and sometimes– often– Logan had to retreat into solitude so he could focus on it without any distractions.

Unfortunately, he didn’t like to work in his room after reading a number of studies that recommended separating productive spaces from restful ones. Up until this point he’d been using the observation room as a sort of makeshift study, but now that they actually had a subject to observe Hart and Prince had both barged in multiple times today and thoroughly broken his concentration in the process. Coming down to the lower level had been Logan’s last resort to get some peace and quiet. He’d been hoping with how belligerent and uncooperative the vampire had been so far it would ignore his presence entirely, but apparently he should have known better than to hope.

“So. . . Patton, Prince– what are you, prick?”

Logan let out a slow breath, clicked his pen shut, and grudgingly lifted his gaze to meet the vampire’s.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, even though sorry was about the furthest thing from what he was. It was a turn of phrase he’d picked up from Prince, though his teammate tended to use it far more sarcastically than politely.

I’m sorry, when did you become an authority on film critique? You’ve got no heart, Tin Man, if you don’t understand why this movie was a smash success!

The vampire shrugged. It looked slightly healthier than it had this morning, but that wasn’t saying much, and a visual assessment was no substitute for an actual examination. It read less like a cadaver and more like a sickly human now, at least, and though there were still purplish-grey shadows beneath its lids it now seemed merely sleep-deprived instead of starving. Logan would, grudgingly, admit that Hart had made a good call when it came to feeding the vampire, even if that decision had come from a firmly foolish place.

“You’ve got Patton and Prince,” the vampire said simply, “Seems like you coordinated. Did they team you guys up alphabetically or something?”

Logan considered his answer. Revealing too much information to this vampire, despite it ostensibly having no one to share that information with, was still a bad move. There was always the chance it could escape, and even ignoring that, their current strategy for obtaining answers relied on intimidation. Being too chatty, as Hart might term it, would be counterproductive.

Still. Logan didn’t see the harm this information could cause. It also provided a good jumping-off point for something he wanted to ask.

“. . .no,” he said at length, “Even if that wasn’t an incredibly ineffective method of forming teams, we three would not be sorted together that way. Alphabetical groupings are typically formed from a person’s surname, and between the two you have listed, only Prince falls into that category.”

The vampire’s eyes narrowed slightly. It seemed to be thinking hard.

“So then. . . is Patton’s last name Hart?”

Logan hesitated, then gave a slow nod. The vampire must have heard him using it earlier. This one had a good memory.

He’d have to keep that in mind.

“I’d be perfectly willing to give you my name,” Logan said, segueing into his own conversational thread, “Provided you do the same.”

It would be a good first step, but more than that, it might allow the three of them to close a missing persons case if the name they were given turned one up. Closure was important for healing, and though being told a loved one had passed would hurt in the short term, in the long term it would be better to know than not. That was what Logan would want, anyway.

They also might be able to dig up some information on the vampire’s past as a human. It wasn’t always the most helpful, given how drastically the transformation affected people, but knowledge was a powerful tool nonetheless. They had to start somewhere, and if the place they started happened to involve reading through hundreds of old documents for the tiniest sliver of helpful information. . . well. All the more fun.

“. . .I don’t have one,” the vampire said.

Logan frowned. “Surely you’re not trying to convince me you have amnesia. The transformation process is a well-documented one; we know it doesn’t affect memories from your human life.”

Logan would not be taken for a fool. . . but the vampire was already shaking its head.

“That’s not what I meant,” it said. “My human name– I gave it up when I turned. It’s Paranoia now.”

Logan’s eyes widened. He leaned forward, an excited smile touching his lips.

“What a fascinating practice,” he said. “Is this a common tradition? I’ve never heard of it, but then, most studies tend to focus on vampire biology rather than culture. Were you given that name, or did you choose it yourself? Is it a kind of rite of passage?”

“Hey,” the vampire– Paranoia, Logan supposed he should be calling it– snapped. “You said you’d tell me your name if I told you mine.”

“Ah. Right.” Logan leaned back again, a touch embarrassed for forgetting their deal in his eagerness to learn more. His glasses had slipped down his nose slightly when he’d moved, and he quickly pushed them back into place. “My apologies. My name is Logan.”

“Logan,” the vampire repeated. “Is that a. . . first or last name?”

Logan considered the question. His name wasn’t an unusual one, and his family lived halfway across the country– the chances that this vampire could escape, use such limited information to research Logan, and find anyone to exact its revenge on that wasn’t Logan himself. . . it was extremely unlikely. Besides, in the event an escape did occur, one phone call was all it would take to get his relatives somewhere safe while he and his team hunted the vampire down again.

An acceptable risk, then. But still not information Logan wanted to hand over in exchange for nothing.

“Tell me your human name first,” Logan said. “You admitted you remember it. It might not have meaning to you anymore, but it does to me.”

The vampire narrowed its eyes.

“. . .no,” it said. “I’m not answering that.”

“Why not?” Logan asked. “If you truly have left it behind, why hide it?”

“You know why,” the vampire snapped, “I don’t want you googling me or something so you can interrogate me better.”

Logan’s research would be far more thorough than a simple google search, but he conceded the point with a small nod.

“Then I suppose you will just know me as Logan for now,” he said.

“Fair enough.”

They lapsed into silence for a moment. The vampire had begun fiddling with a loose thread coming off the cuff of its hoodie, though it didn’t seem like an active attempt to destroy the garment and instead read as something like nervous. It had chipped black polish on its nails and the overhead lights traveled back and forth over the shiny surface as its fingers worked. There were remnants of slept-in eyeliner around its lids, too, which Logan was fairly sure was what had prompted Prince to call it an emo fashion disaster as they’d bundled it into the van. Logan wondered if it had dressed like this in its previous life. If this style of fashion had even been around when it was human.

“How old are you?” he asked. The vampire’s head snapped up, its gaze having drifted as the silence stretched.

“. . .depends what you’re asking,” it said at length, “And I don’t want to answer either option.”

“Is there anything you do want to answer?”

The vampire leveled him with a flat look. Logan sighed.

“And here I thought we were making headway.”

“You lured me into a trap, kidnapped me, and tossed me in a cell. Excuse me if I don’t feel cooperative right now.”

Logan looked down at the binder in his lap. It was still open to the form he’d been filling out, a requisition for additional blood bags, and Logan considered simply going back to his paperwork. Interrogation had been a facet of his training but his focus had been on knowing the right questions to ask, not how to get a subject to answer them. It didn’t help that Logan had poor social skills in general. He understood a lot about interpersonal relations in theory, but putting that into practice had always been difficult.

He didn’t just want to give up, though. Not yet. Not so easily. So Logan clicked his pen– three times– and eyed a line on the form he had yet to fill in.

“Do you have a favorite blood type?” he asked.

There was silence.

Logan did not look up from the form.

“. . .why?” came the reply, low and wary.

Hart and Prince had identified the vampire’s earlier behavior as a stress response, and though first impressions were often incredibly flawed, Logan suspected he was beginning to gather the reasoning behind the name Paranoia. Their subject was cautious. Easily startled. Easily frightened. Scaring answers out of it was a tactic they could pursue, but it seemed like calmly coaxing it to respond might also be. . . viable.

Logan spoke with perfect honesty.

“You won’t tell me how old you are, so I don’t know if you’ve been a vampire long enough to have developed any particular leanings, but the majority of your kind tend to favor certain blood types over others. Personally I have a theory that this correlates with the type you had while human, but the data there is inconclusive. I’m currently placing an order for the blood you’ll be consuming going forwards, and while I can simply mark down no preference, I’m not opposed to taking your opinion into consideration.”

Finally, Logan allowed himself to look up again, meeting the vampire’s wide eyes.

“So. I ask again. Do you have a favorite blood type?”

The vampire’s lips parted slightly. There were fangs at the edges of that gap, gleaming sharp in the overhead lights. The vampire’s eyes, which had been near-violet with hunger before, were now muddier and more subdued. More human-looking. Logan wasn’t sure if that was what was lending its expression such an open quality or if the creature was genuinely taken aback by Logan’s consideration, however minor it might be.

The vampire swallowed, pale throat bobbing. Had Logan made it hungry?

“A,” it said. “Uh, negative. A negative.”

Well. At least it hadn’t named Logan’s blood type in some sort of bid to unsettle him. Logan nodded, marking the vampire’s response down neatly under preference, then put his thought to words.

“Can you tell what mine is?”

The vampire screwed up its face. “Is this a trick question?”

“Just honest curiosity. I know many of you are able to determine it from scent alone, but it’s far from a universal skill.”

“Mm.” The vampire looked down. Looked back up. It closed its eyes and leaned forwards slightly, closer to the bars, and took a deep breath in.

“. . .AB positive,” it concluded. It opened its eyes. Eyed Logan’s throat.

Logan nodded.

“Correct,” he said. “That’s impressive. What about Prince and Hart, did you happen to notice theirs?”

“This isn’t a party trick,” the vampire snapped, and its eyes were narrowing again. “I can tell because I want to eat you. All of you. I would gladly drain every drop of blood from your bodies.”

“I know,” Logan said, “But given that you’re physically unable to at the moment, I don’t see why I’m supposed to find that fact frightening.”

The vampire continued to squint at him.

Logan clicked his pen.

“What?” he asked. “Are you upset that your intimidation doesn’t work on me?”

“I’m confused,” the vampire corrected. “I can hear your heartbeat so I know you’re not bullshitting me here, but. . . how are you not even a little freaked out by me?”

Logan hummed. “Exposure, mostly. Understanding as well.”

“Understanding?”

“Sure.” Logan closed his binder, clipping his pen onto the front and folding his now-free hands neatly in his lap. “Knowledge can make almost anything less frightening, and when it comes to vampires, being afraid of you is. . . about as helpful as being afraid of a shark.”

“A shark,” the vampire repeated, tone flat.

“Well, no, that’s actually a rather inaccurate comparison, given that sharks don’t actively hunt humans and only attack us, if that word can even be used here, when they mistake us for seals or other aquatic life. But if we’re using the pop culture perception of sharks, then yes. All fear would do is make you act irrationally in response to perceived danger, which in the case of sharks is an exaggerated one, and in your case an elevated heart rate is like ringing the metaphorical dinner bell. Counterproductive in both scenarios.”

For a moment, the vampire just stared at him, and Logan wondered if it required further clarification about sharks. Metaphors were not his strong suit.

“Yeah, no,” the vampire said eventually, “I get why fear isn’t a helpful response, but you can’t just. . . logic your way out of feeling stuff.”

“Would that I could,” Logan muttered. Then, louder, “It’s not that fear can’t be helpful. If being afraid of a venomous snake keeps you from going near it, that’s a good thing. But some people just aren’t scared of snakes, the same way some are scared of balloons or hands– and me? I’m just. . . not scared of vampires.”

Logan gave a wry smile, thinking about all the things he didn’t feel towards the creatures they fought– fear, anger, hatred. He’d been called cold more than once for it. Worse things, too. He figured it was only a matter of time before Hart, or more realistically Prince, broke out similar language in a fit of passion. Logan wouldn’t hold it against them. He was used to the way he unsettled people. If anything it was remarkable the two of them had held off for so long.

“. . .I’m not scared of spiders,” the vampire said quietly. Logan looked over at it. Its eyebrows were drawn together, its gaze downcast, and it seemed to be thinking hard. “Most people are terrified of them but I’m just kinda. Not.”

“Well, there you go,” Logan said. “No logic required. Just simple nature. Or nurture, depending on what philosophy you buy into.”

The vampire’s lips twisted. It was back to picking at its sleeve.

“So there’s nothing I can do to freak you out?” it asked. Logan considered it.

“Not from in there,” he concluded.

He watched as the vampire frowned even further.

“And that. . . does upset you,” Logan ventured. The vampire’s shoulders stiffened, and Logan felt even more sure of his conclusion. This wasn’t mere confusion; the specimen wanted to be able to provoke a reaction in him. There were a multitude of possibilities why, the most likely being petty revenge, but–

The basement door slammed open.

“Logan!”

Logan let out a breath, then turned to look down the hallway. Roman was standing framed in the doorway at the top of the stairs, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. He looked upset, and he hadn’t used one of his seemingly endless litany of nicknames, so Logan was left to conclude that this was serious.

So much for making progress with the subject.

“My apologies,” he said, gathering his work and getting to his feet, “It seems something’s come up. We’ll have to continue this conversation later.”

The vampire didn’t reply, just stared up at him from under its bangs as Logan made his way down the hall and out of sight. He turned off the lights as he passed them and took the stairs at an efficient pace. Prince continued to glare at Logan even as he held the door open for him, and Logan nodded his thanks to his teammate. He did not receive a nod in return.

As soon as the door was closed behind him and their subject could no longer overhear, Logan spoke. Prince had his back to him, one hand still braced on the doorknob, and Logan couldn’t determine what he was thinking from his posture.

“What happened?” he asked. “Is Hart injured? Is there an emergency?”

“Is there an emergency?” Prince echoed, then whipped around and took a step towards Logan, firmly invading his personal space. “Is there an emergency? You bet your flat butt there’s an emergency! Logan, you’re the one always harping on about safety and precautions, and you went down there alone?”

. . .ah.

Prince had seen him on the camera, then.

Logan straightened his shoulders.

“I took ample precautions,” he explained. “I left the key upstairs so the subject would be unable to compel me to open the cell, at least not without first sending me to retrieve the key, and given that said retrieval would bring me into direct contact with the two of you I thought it unlikely that my odd behavior would go unnoticed, and thus any attempt to facilitate an escape would quickly be thwarted.”

Prince’s hands came up in front of him, clenching and unclenching like he was attempting to strangle some invisible enemy.

“Yeah,” he said, “Sure, and maybe it would realize that and just have you get close enough to eat. Seriously, Lo, for a smart guy you can be really stupid sometimes!”

“I am fine,” Logan stressed. He could feel irritation building in his chest, and did his best to swallow it down. “I apologize for not letting you know where I was, but there’s no need to insult my intellect over something so. . . trivial.”

“You were up my ass about it earlier!”

Logan frowned. “I expressed concern for your well-being and ceased to pester you about it as soon as you made it clear our subject was not influencing you. An example I would appreciate you following.”

Prince made a noise that bordered on a growl and shoved past Logan, knocking his binder from his grip and causing Logan to curse as he knelt to retrieve it.

“Patton and I are going on patrol,” Prince snapped as he stormed away from the landing. “Don’t wait up.”

That night, Logan had a nightmare unlike any he’d had before.

He was sitting in the untamed grass of the hill in front of his childhood home. Above him hung a full moon that lit the world in silver, and around him crickets screamed into the night. Cold dew soaked into his pants, clung to his skin, made him feel clammy and strange. He was alone.

And then he was not alone.

Shoes on the grass in front of him. Legs that led up from those shoes. Logan’s gaze traveled up, and as it did, he realized the moon was alone in the sky. There were no stars. That wasn’t right. The sky at home was always full of stars. Logan had learned the constellations lying on this very hill, looking up into the heavens and naming each he could remember–

The figure in front of him moved. Bent over him.

Paranoia closed its fingers around his throat.

Its skin was ice-cold. Logan had never felt something so vividly in a dream before. Had he ever lucid-dreamed like this? He couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t he remember? Logan remembered everything. What use was he if he couldn’t gather data, couldn’t fight, couldn’t scream as he was pressed back into the grass by that cold, cold hand. A knee settled onto his chest, forcing the air from his lungs with the weight of it. He could feel everything.

Wake up, he told himself, even as his breath choked off and his heart pounded in his chest. He stared up into violet eyes. Wake up!

“Scared yet, Logan?” Paranoia purred, teeth flashing around its words. It leaned in. Logan could feel its breath against his skin.

Yes, he thought.

I’m scared.

Chapter Text

Patrol had been uneventful, which Roman hated.

Sure, Patton had pointed out that it might mean they were making a dent in the local vampire population, but Patton also thought he was an excellent cook. Roman didn’t exactly want to disabuse him of either notion– not their team’s little ray of sunshine– but he also wanted to take out his frustration on an appropriately villainous target, something Patton’s platitudes were not a substitute for. All said, Roman was angry when he crashed into bed somewhere around three AM, angry as he utterly failed to get a good night’s rest, and angry when he stumbled into the kitchen the next day in search of caffeine.

Logan was already there, because of course he was, hovering by the coffee machine and directly in Roman’s way. Oddly, he wasn’t fully put-together in his usual button-down and slacks, instead standing before Roman in fuzzy galaxy-print pajama pants and a grey NASA t-shirt.

He yawned. Roman stared. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Logan in his nightclothes, and he wasn’t even sure if two of them counted since Logan had actively been in the middle of sleeping when Roman had barged in with an emergency. Specs was never this tired at– Roman checked the clock– one in the afternoon.

. . .huh.

“Rough night?” Roman asked, drawing up to the counter beside his teammate and leaning on his elbows. Logan didn’t startle, so Roman was left to assume he’d heard him coming– that, or he was just that exhausted.

“Mm,” Logan hummed, then– “It should only be a few more minutes.”

Roman glanced at the coffee machine, quietly percolating in front of them. The smell was permeating the kitchen and starting to bring Roman’s other senses online one by one, gently coaxing him into full wakefulness.

“. . .didn’t know our fight was gonna bother you that much, professor,” Roman eventually said.

Logan didn’t look at him, continuing to stare at the machine in front of him like he could will it to finish faster. Of course, if Roman voiced that thought Logan would probably inform him that he was doing no such thing, and give him a lecture about the psychological reasons people anthropomorphize objects. Again. Like it was Roman’s fault their car liked Logan the best out of the three of them.

“It wasn’t that,” Logan said quietly. “I. . . experienced unusually turbulent dreams last night.”

“You had nightmares?” Roman wasn’t totally sure he believed that. Not because he didn’t think Logan could have them– they all did, it came with the line of work– but because it sounded an awful lot like Logan’s usual denials of emotion. The guy liked to pretend he was above it all, and some days he pulled it off better than others. Never did he manage to come off in a way that wasn’t the lady doth protest too much.

Jeez, was it so hard to admit he should apologize to Roman for taking a dumb risk yesterday? It wasn’t like Roman hadn’t lost sleep over stupid shit like that before. He and Patton wouldn’t judge the guy for being human. Far from it. Being human was worlds better than the alternative.

Logan made a distracted sound of confirmation as the machine in front of them beeped. The sound of trickling coffee cut off, replaced by a few final plinks and then silence.

“Mugs,” Logan muttered, and circled around Roman to open the cabinet over the sink. He pulled out two of them, one Patton had gotten for him that featured a pair of atoms and a science pun about being positive and one of Roman’s that simply read That Gay Shit in metallic gold. He set both mugs down on the counter and pulled out the coffee pot, and Roman was shocked when he filled Roman’s mug first instead of the other way around.

“Uh,” Roman said, accepting the warm mug with both hands as Logan held it out to him, “Thanks.”

It was a bizarrely altruistic move from his teammate. Logan didn’t usually bother being polite unless there was what he considered to be a legitimate reason. Did that make this an apology of some kind?

Roman turned away, crossing over to the refrigerator and pulling it open one-handed.

“Milk or cream, doc?” he asked. Logan made a distracted sound behind him, and Roman glanced over his shoulder to see him already tipping the mug back as he chugged his coffee without pausing to breathe.

“Oookay then,” Roman muttered, and went back to doctoring his own drink. He’d rather die than drink black coffee, and considering how heavily he relied on caffeine to do his job that was a pretty literal statement.

They wound up sitting at the island in the middle of the kitchen eventually, Roman sipping his finished coffee– hazelnut non-dairy creamer, a sprinkle of coco powder, and a heaping spoonful of sugar– and Logan already on his second cup. Roman could hear the soft hum of the refrigerator and his own steady breaths, but otherwise the room was quiet. He’d be tempted to call the silence companionable if it wasn’t for the weird tension still hanging between him and Logan.

It was no use waiting for any kind of verbal admission of wrongdoing, though, so eventually Roman was forced to speak up and move on to the day’s plans.

“So. Interrogation round two today?” he asked. “If we keep bothering gloomy-goth while the sun’s up it should throw it off-balance.”

“Sure,” Logan said quietly, staring down into his mug. Roman thought for a moment that he was upset, but then he continued, “You know that it hasn’t actually been proven that the sun forces them to sleep, right? There was this fascinating study done utilizing the polar night phenomenon to–“

Roman groaned. “Logan. Too early. Can’t do the nerd-talk right now.”

“. . .right,” he conceded, and took another sip of his coffee. “What you said is still accurate. If we consistently disrupt its circadian rhythms it will stop being able to think quite so clearly, lending us an advantage.”

“Have you given any more thought to good-slayer-bad-slayer?” Roman asked. “I nominate Patton as good slayer, which leaves me as bad slayer and you as generally-disaffected-but-still-cold slayer.”

“Concise,” Logan said dryly. “It does make sense, though. I doubt Patton is capable of making threats against a captured specimen anyway.”

“Yeah, he’d probably feel bad about it,” Roman laughed. “God he’s a softie. Makes you wonder how he’s such a good fighter.”

“The same way as anyone else, I imagine,” Logan replied. “Practice.”

Roman made a vague noise of agreement and took another sip of his drink.

“Get anything good yesterday?” he asked at length. The words tasted bitter on his tongue, even when he washed them down with hazelnut-mocha.

Logan didn’t answer for a moment, seeming to consider the question. “A few things. More useful to me than you, though, for the most part. I can give you my notes later, but for now I think the most important detail is that it seems open to trading information it considers harmless. It gave me its name in exchange for mine, or at least, one of its names for half of mine. Apparently it goes by Paranoia in lieu of whatever its human name was.”

“Huh,” Roman said. “That’s. . . weird.”

“It’s an interesting choice. I was going to ask more about the practice itself but the conversation went. . . a different direction.”

Roman was down to the dregs of his drink now. Logan had finished his as well, and was toying with the mug in his hands as they talked. Roman wondered if he even liked the thing, or if he just used it out of obligation to Patton.

“Well,” Roman said, sliding off his stool and getting to his feet, “No time like the present.”

“An accurate yet meaningless statement,” Logan replied. “Should I take that to mean we’re heading downstairs now?”

“Oh God no,” Roman said. “I need at least an hour to get dressed and ready. Maybe two. I’m not interrogating a vampire in my bathrobe!”

He held out a hand to Logan, and after a moment of blinking at it owlishly, his teammate handed over his mug. Roman nodded in response and went to put them both in the dishwasher.

“Fifteen minutes it is, then,” Logan said.

Roman groaned.

The vampire looked even more pathetic than it had yesterday.

Sure, it gave off an intimidating vibe just like all vampires. It ate people, of course it was a bit scary. But it also looked like no one had ever taught it that an oversized hoodie was not a substitute for a fashion sense, and after a couple days in lockup its eyeliner had gone from bad to atrocious. All in all Roman didn’t have to fake a judgemental once-over of the beast when he arrived, and the eye-roll he got in response told him it had been noticed.

“Oh joy,” the vampire muttered. “Princey’s back.”

Roman sniffed. “And your social skills are still as atrocious as your haircut! Why am I not surprised?”

“Because the likelihood of Paranoia managing to alter its hairstyle since yesterday is minuscule at best,” Logan said. The vampire’s eyes flicked over to him. “Now, are we going to exchange childish insults all day or can we actually discuss pertinent matters?”

“Logan,” the vampire greeted, leaning an arm against the bars of its cage and offering him a toothy smile that made Roman itch to stand between them. He held his ground, but it was a close thing. “No binder today, huh?”

Logan pulled a small audio recorder out of his pocket, holding it up for the vampire to see. It wasn’t actually on – the cell had a hidden microphone that connected directly to the observation room’s computer, same as the camera– but the vampire didn’t need to know that. After a moment, Logan tucked the recorder away again.

“This is more efficient in the moment,” he said. “Now. Are you going to make this conversation difficult?”

The vampire snorted.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Hey,” Roman snapped, drawing the beast’s attention. Its eyes were less bright than they had been during its capture, but still held an underlying violet tint. Roman stared back into them, determined not to back down. “I’d start being nicer to my colleagues, if I were you! If this were up to me I’d be torturing the information we need out of you.”

A muscle twitched in the vampire’s cheek, but it was otherwise unmoving.

“You realize starving someone is usually considered torture, right? Or were you actually planning on feeding me today?”

“That depends on you,” Logan said. The vampire didn’t look at him this time, continuing to hold Roman’s gaze. “If you answer our questions, sustenance can be arranged.”

“And if I say you all can go fuck yourselves?” the vampire asked. “Princey especially?”

“Don’t make me hit you,” Roman snapped, and the vampire smiled, tight-lipped and nasty.

“Aw, that’s cute. You really think you’re scary,” it said. “Go ahead. Do it. Hell, open the door and we can have a fair fight this time.”

Roman gritted his teeth. This creature was acting so pompous and smug right now when he knew it was secretly just a scared, sniveling creature deep down. He was half-tempted to go along with its suggestion just to see it cower the moment it couldn’t hide behind those bars anymore. Actually, now that he thought about it, why couldn’t he do that? He was trained. He could definitely fight this thing even without a dose of tranquilizer slowing it down, and he bet it would beg to tell them anything they wanted to know after he got a couple good hits in.

“Careful what you wish for,” Roman said, and he took a step towards the cell door–

And was yanked back.

“Roman.”

Roman looked down, recognizing the hands on his shoulders as Logan’s. His teammate’s fingers were digging into the fabric of his shirt, and for a moment all Roman felt was confusion. . . and then he realized what he’d been about to do. He’d been about to open the vampire’s cell.

What the fuck.

“What the fuck,” Roman said, looking up once again and catching sight of the vampire’s expression. It looked disappointed, though it quickly schooled its features into something more like boredom as soon as it saw him looking.

“What?” it asked, mock-innocent.

Roman squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again. The thing had gotten into his head somehow. Roman had been put under a couple times before, but it had never felt like that. He hadn’t felt sleepy or confused, hadn’t found himself willing to bare his throat and pour his life into a monster’s mouth. He’d just felt. . . confident. In himself, in his abilities, in his decision-making. It was like, for the briefest of moments, he’d been unable to feel any kind of hesitance or fear.

And that was fucking terrifying.

Remus had nicknamed him fear-eater after the first time Virgil had managed to use his powers.

“That was sick as fuck, fear-eater!” he’d said, baring every one of his teeth at Virgil in a bloody grin. “Do it again!”

Virgil had sat where he’d fallen, eyes fixed on the still body in front of him. A moment ago it had been convulsing, the human clawing at his own arms as he gurgled something incoherent about spiders. Now the only sign that he was even still alive was the heartbeat that echoed through the room, eating up Remus’s voice and burying his words under rhythm and thirst.

“Fascinating,” Deceit had said. “Were you trying to make him think of spiders specifically, or. . ?”

“I wasn’t trying to do anything,” Virgil had said honestly. “I just–“

Panicked. The guy had been looking at him, eyes wide and terrified, and Virgil was fucking starving but he couldn’t eat like that. He wasn’t ready for this, he’d told the others he wasn’t ready for it, and the guy was here now anyway and their eyes locked and Virgil instinctively flailed out with something he didn’t even have the words to identify. He felt it connect, felt something sink in, and then the man had started screaming.

Virgil swallowed.

“I just wanted him to go away,” he’d said.

Deceit had hummed, a contemplative note, and nudged the limp body with the tip of one of his shoes.

“I’d encourage further experimentation but he seems to be unconscious at the moment. Ah, well. What’s that saying about wasting not?”

Virgil still remembered the taste of the man’s blood. The adrenaline had made him sweet, almost overwhelmingly so.

They had been quick to find the limits of Virgil’s abilities after that. Remus had thought, at first, that maybe Virgil was like him, but a few tests showed he was far from the powerhouses of mental manipulation that Remus and Deceit were. He was more like Rage, only able to push and pull at one specific emotion, but Rage made up for his lack of finesse by being willing and able to brute-force his way through problems. Virgil just kept his head down and hoped to be able to avoid problems altogether.

Clearly that strategy had not panned out long-term.

The hunters standing outside of his cell were scared. That wasn’t one of his abilities, Virgil couldn’t sense fear, but he could hear heartbeats and both of theirs were racing. Logan was looking at him with an expression Virgil was identifying as carefully blank, and Prince was straddling the line between furious and eyes wide in primal fear. It was a good look on him. Made Virgil want to see what he tasted like.

He gave them both a tight-lipped smile.

“What?” he asked.

“You do have mental abilities,” Logan said. It was a statement, not a question, but Virgil treated it like one anyway.

“I never said that. I mean, I never said anything either way, but. . .”

“Shut up,” Prince snapped. He shook off Logan’s hands but didn’t use his newfound freedom to try to approach again, and now he was avoiding eye contact. Fuck. “You– you made me act like a hasty idiot.”

“Oh, Princey,” Virgil drawled, all mock-pity like Deceit, “You already do a great job of that on your own.”

He’d been so close to baiting Prince into opening his cell. Sure, he had no idea if the guy had a key or not, but providing he did and Logan had missed what was happening for just a few more seconds. . .

But now he’d tipped his hand. They knew he had some kind of brain bullshit going on and now they’d be on guard, ready to fend off anything Virgil tried. He’d probably be limited to embedded suggestions going forward, and he didn’t even know if he could do those right– Deceit had explained in theory how the tactic worked, but Virgil had never found any use for it before. He didn’t play with his food, so immediate results had been all he needed. Now he was left wishing he’d practiced even once and wondering what, if anything, he’d managed to do to Logan last night.

“Planting a compulsion deep in a human’s psyche is useful because it gets around their preparations,” Deceit had told him. “It’ll resurface later, when their mental barriers are at their weakest– usually during sleep. That’s why so many vampire stories have the heroines swanning out onto the balcony at night like sleepwalking lemmings.”

Virgil had told him that lemmings didn’t actually jump off of cliffs, and Deceit had told him he knew that, and the conversation had devolved from there.

“Clearly we’ve already fed you too much if you can still manage tricks like that,” Prince muttered.

“Or,” Virgil countered, “If I did anything, it was really easy because you’re an idiot.”

He tried again to snatch at Prince’s fear, to squash it down and mute it, but the hunter wasn’t having it. Virgil couldn’t even hold his eyes, much less put him back under.

“Prince, for the sake of documentation I’d like to hear your account of what just happened while it’s still fresh in your mind. It would be immensely helpful for categorizing this specimen. Given the data so far I suspect either a tempter-type or a–“ Logan let out a barely-audible huff, “Heart-type. So. Upstairs?”

“But–“ Prince protested, turning around to argue with his teammate, but something in the look Logan sent him seemed to curb that impulse.

“Fine,” he said, and threw a glare at Virgil before storming off down the hallway. Virgil blew a kiss after him and Logan gave him a flat look before heading out as well.

The lights went off.

A distant door opened and closed.

Virgil’s blithe, antagonistic smile curdled into an anxious scowl as he brought a hand to his mouth, worrying at his thumb with the flat of his teeth. He started to pace the length of his cell. His bare feet were near-silent on the concrete; he’d taken off his sneakers and socks in a fit of discomfort earlier that day (night?) and set them neatly beside his bed.

“Fuck,” he cursed, “Shit. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid, that was stupid as hell! You have fucked yourself over now, you fucking moron.”

They might kill him over this, he realized. Might decide that he was too much trouble to keep around and put him down like a rabid dog. Sure, they’d known thrall was a possibility, but now that he’d actually used it on them he might have signaled it was time for them to cut their losses.

The pad of his thumb split against one of his fangs, and Virgil cursed. He licked the blood away, the taste cold and metallic instead of warm and sweet. He could feel the tiny slice smoothing out under his tongue. Accelerated healing at work.

He sat heavily down on the cot, springs squeaking beneath him as the thin mattress dipped and bounced. He couldn’t do anything about the situation now, so. . . what next? He could sleep again. He could pace the room some more. Those were pretty much his only two options. He hadn’t expected boredom to be something he’d have to worry about while being held captive, but despite the near-constant stress of imagining what would happen to him next he was still locked in a tiny room with nothing but bare concrete walls to entertain him. Solitary confinement. He’d watched a few documentaries about that, about how some people wanted to push for it to be classified as torture. It exacerbated mental health problems in some, caused them in others, and overall worsened a person’s stability. Virgil hadn’t been stable to begin with; he wondered how much worse he could get.

He spent most of his time in self-imposed isolation anyway. It was different when he had shit to do, though, and when the interruptions he was dreading were from his friends instead of strangers who wanted him dead. He might get annoyed when Remus crashed through his bedroom door but at least Remus was never there to separate his head from his shoulders. Usually he just had a crude joke to try out or an invitation to dinner to extend.

Come on, ‘Noia, you wanna grab a bite? Wanna come out and play, fear-eater? Scary-cat?

The fact that Virgil never said yes didn’t seem to deter the guy. The unsanctioned visits persisted. No matter how many times Virgil chased him off he came running right back again as soon as he thought he could get away with it.

The others had to have noticed Virgil was missing by now. He wondered if they were making any progress on finding him. He doubted it. Maybe they weren’t looking for him at all. Maybe they thought he was dead, dead-dead, dead and burned until there was nothing but ash left behind.

That was the worst of the possibilities, really. The one he didn’t like to think about. That maybe the others weren’t looking for him at all because they didn’t know there was a him to look for anymore. If they thought he was gone they’d probably seek vengeance on his behalf, try to kill the hunters that had killed him first, and neither outcome there was good. Either they’d get hurt themselves or they’d finish off Patton, Prince, and Logan, leaving Virgil to desiccate alone in this cell with no one left alive who knew where he was.

Like Remus, the thought refused to be scared off. It came back with a persistent regularity that made Virgil want to start banging his head against the wall in the vain hope he might be able to shake it out of one of his ears or something. The situation was already hopeless enough as it was, he didn’t need to keep coming up with ways it could get even worse.

Especially since he was doing a great job fucking himself over already.

Virgil dragged his hands through his hair, staring at the bars without really seeing them. He couldn’t save himself, clearly. He couldn’t count on rescue. He couldn’t even count on consistent treatment at the hands of his captors, because despite having a vague idea of what they wanted from him– information, a test subject– he had no idea what specific goals they had in mind. They might kill him as soon as he told them where the others were; they might kill him once Logan decided a vivisection sounded scientifically advantageous. They might not kill him at all. Virgil might be trapped for the rest of eternity, shuffled from cell to cell and driven out of his mind with boredom and paranoia.

He let out a breath.

Laid down.

Sleep. He’d try his best to sleep.

It was one of his only two options, anyway.

Chapter Text

“It did what?” Patton asked. His eyes were wide and he could feel it, gaze sweeping Roman up and down. Then he decided his gaze wasn’t enough and he quickly crossed the room, cupping Roman’s cheeks and examining his expression. Roman pulled a face, but didn’t pull away.

“It got in my head,” he said again. “And it– I mean, the worst part is I didn’t even notice until Logan snapped me out of it.”

Roman didn’t look right. He wouldn’t meet Patton’s eyes and his foundation was smudged away in places, natural sun-bloomed freckles peeking out. Patton ran his thumb over a bare few. Roman must’ve been rubbing his eyes a lot.

“It happens,” Logan said. He seemed rattled as well, seated in the middle of the couch with his fingers laced and his focus firmly locked on the far wall. He didn’t even glance in Roman’s direction. “You’ve only been thralled in fights before, correct? When subtler methods of influence are rarely employed?”

“Training too,” Roman said. His jaw moved beneath Patton’s fingers, bone and muscle flexing under the skin. Patton drew his hands away, giving him space to speak. “They get some of the captive vampires to put us under so we can see what it feels like. Practice fighting it.”

“Mm,” Logan agreed, “I’m familiar. But you only ever trained in one facility.”

“So? We all did.” Roman looked to Patton for confirmation, but his gaze skated back to Logan before Patton could decide whether or not to nod. “And LS is one of the biggest compounds in the country.”

“Seventh biggest,” Logan said immediately. Where did he fit all those numbers? “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s difficult to persuade specimens to participate in those exercises at all, and that’s if they have mental abilities in the first place. There were only two vampires back east cleared for thrall training, and both were command-types.”

“So?” Roman asked again, a bit more forcefully this time.

Logan let out a breath. He still didn’t look away from the wall.

“So,” he said, “There’s been a motion in the works for a while now saying that trainees should experience at least two of the three main varieties of thrall before being cleared for active duty. They’re drastically different in the way they present, and in the tactics that can be employed to fight them. Personally I think if we have the resources we should require all three, but the idea’s already unpopular enough for the amount of additional travel expenses it would require. Arguing to double that would be out of the question for most.”

“Brainiac,” Roman snapped, “Focus. Are you telling me that Tim Burton knockoff downstairs could’ve hooked Patton on night one with no problems just because we’re not used to that shit?”

“Not with no problems, but. . .” Logan shrugged helplessly. “If your account is anything to go by it’s possible it could have lowered Hart’s defenses sufficiently enough that he didn’t feel the need to call in backup. That’s always a risk, though, that’s why we stay on comms and carry locators.”

“I thought you were just being paranoid!”

“Roman,” Patton interjected warningly, and Roman heaved a huge sigh.

“Fine. I thought you were being excessively cautious. Better, Peach?”

“Kind of?” Patton said, unsure even as he said it. It was slightly nicer. Tensions were high, so he doubted he’d get a better attempt. “You shouldn’t say that at all though, Roman, Logan works really hard to keep us safe.”

“Apparently not hard enough,” Logan muttered. Patton wasn’t even sure he was talking to them. “I should not have assumed you two were aware of the gaps in your training. That oversight could’ve easily gotten either of you killed.”

“Hey, no,” Patton protested, “We can blame that on good old bureaucracy. It’s no one’s fault!”

“It’s someone’s fault,” Roman argued. Patton shot him a frustrated look. “What? I didn’t say it was Logan’s! Just some faceless suit!”

“We need a plan,” Patton said. Those words usually got Logan to perk up like a dog hearing jingling keys, but this time his eyes just narrowed slightly.

Patton took a deep breath. Time for the big guns.

“We need to start taking this seriously,” he said.

That got a reaction. Logan gave him a look, hands dropping to rest in his lap and eyes finally leaving the far wall.

“You haven’t been taking this seriously so far?” he asked. He sounded mildly offended.

“No, I have,” Patton was quick to reassure him, “I just think we need to get– double serious. Super duper extra serious. About Paranoia.”

“Why?” Roman asked. “It’ll break eventually. I know what it can do now, so I should be fine.”

He fidgeted, fingers tapping against his elbow. He wasn’t looking Patton in the eyes.

“It’s not just that,” Logan said quietly. “I believe it influenced me as well.”

That was news to Patton. His eyes widened, and he was about to open his mouth to say something concerned when Logan waved his words away, elegant fingers sweeping through the air. He was frowning, but it wasn’t a sad frown. It was a thoughtful one.

“I told Prince this already, but I had difficulty sleeping last night. Unusually troubled dreams. If my hypothesis is correct, Paranoia can not only suppress fear, it can also enhance it.”

“Why would it sucker me into an escape attempt but give you nightmares? Wouldn’t it have just tried the same thing on you yesterday?”

Logan shook his head.

“I’m not afraid of it. It would not have been able to manipulate me in the same way.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “Teach–“

“I’m not bragging,” Logan cut in, “Nor am I insulting you. Fear is a natural emotion, one that keeps humans safe when functioning properly. You fear vampires, and in turn this fear makes you cautious. This caution keeps you from. . . most overconfidence and fights you cannot win. But the problem with letting emotion be your safeguard is what happens when those emotions vanish. Without that fear, you act irrationally.”

“And you don’t?” Roman scoffed.

Logan shrugged. “I don’t fear vampires. I fear death, but not vampires. Given the evidence, it appears that Paranoia can’t make humans fear anything they don’t already, just control the intensity of those emotions.”

“Makes sense!” Patton chirped, before Roman could put words to the clear offense that was building behind his eyes. He clapped his hands. “We’ll both just have to be a little more like Logan and really think through our actions instead of following our hearts!”

“That sounds absolutely tragic,” Roman muttered. Logan was almost smiling, though.

“I meant it about getting serious, too. Not that I don’t trust your hypothesis, Lo-lo, but I’d rather be hypositive about what this vampire can do, and that means getting it talking!”

Logan groaned. Patton ignored him.

“From what I can tell, Paranoia seems to be pretty scared of us itself, ironically!”

“That isn’t what irony is,” Logan said. Patton continued to ignore him.

“So I figure we have the best chance of getting it to cooperate if we soothe those fears. Roman, it doesn’t want to answer you because you’re–“

“Powerful? A force to be reckoned with? The shining knight to its sinister, princess-devouring dragon?”

“I was gonna say the one who came at it with a sword, but those work too. Anyway, it gets all snarly when you try to talk to it because it’s scared of you and it’s trying to get you to back off. Like a feral kitten! And you know how people get through to those!”

Roman let out a breath. “Padre. Pops. Patton. You tried the love-and-kindness approach already, remember? It didn’t work.”

“Sure,” Patton nodded. “Because it’s mad at me for luring it into our trap. That’s why Logan’s gonna convince it to talk!”

There was silence. Roman was staring at Patton, one hand fisted and resting over his mouth, and Logan was scrutinizing him like he might a particularly difficult crossword puzzle. After a moment, Logan forced out a brief, awkward, single laugh.

“A joke,” he concluded.

Patton shook his head.

“No, I’m serious,” he said. “Paranoia doesn’t have any negative history with you. You’ll probably have an easier time bonding than the two of us, and it can’t mess with your head to make you let it out. You’re the logical choice here!”

“Right,” Logan said, but he sounded dubious. “Hart, as much as I appreciate the. . . attempt at logic, you know I’m not our team’s most. . . touchy-feely member. I don’t know about this.”

“What do we have to lose?” Patton asked.

“Blood?” Roman suggested. “Logan?”

“Just– give it a try?” Patton pleaded. “I want to explore the other avenues we have before we starve it out. If we can get it to cooperate willingly instead of under threat of punishment everything’s going to be a lot easier.”

“How do they get the ones we train with to play nice?” Roman asked. “You have to have looked into that, right Encyclopedia Brown?”

Logan shrugged. “The methods are generally well-documented but also highly tailored to the individual vampire. The two back at LS, for example– one participates in training sessions in exchange for access to books, and the other simply enjoys using its abilities. Every vampire is different.”

“And what if ours is just a stubborn, obstinate jerk?” Roman asked. “I mean, obviously vampires are evil, but this guy’s evil in a jerk way.”

“Then we’ll figure it out,” Patton said. “As a team.”

He looked around; first at Roman, then at Logan. He gave both of them a wide, warm smile.

“We can do this,” he said. “I know we can.”

Virgil couldn’t do this.

For the third time in three days– or what he thought was three days, anyway– Logan was staring him down. He was alone again, no Prince standing by to throw verbal abuse in Virgil’s direction, but still hadn’t brought back the binder. Instead he had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder, probably full of things that would terrify Virgil if he knew what they were, but he couldn’t spare enough focus to worry about that right now. No, his attention was consumed by the other thing Logan had brought down with him.

A steaming mug of blood.

Virgil had smelled it before he saw it, bolting upright from a fitful sleep as the scent filled his nostrils. He’d gone to the bars of his cell before he even registered that he was awake, fingers curling around them as Logan approached. He hadn’t realized the smell was coming from the mug at first, eyes instead scanning the hunter for whatever injury he was hiding. . . but then he’d realized the blood wasn’t Logan’s. A negative, not Logan’s AB.

Logan had sat down and set the mug on the bare floor in front of him. Virgil’s eyes followed the movement with intensity. Logan had put the blood close enough for Virgil to reach, but not so close he wouldn’t have to stick his arm through the bars to get it. Then he just. . . sat there. Unmoving. Unspeaking.

Virgil swallowed. He sat down, significantly more heavily than Logan had. His fingers refused to release their grip on the bars. The cold metal was barely cooler than his skin.

“What is this?” he croaked.

”Blood,” Logan said. Virgil wanted to punch him.

“No shit. But you said I wasn’t getting any more until I cooperated.”

He should’ve been looking at Logan’s expression, but he couldn’t pry his eyes away from the mug. It had a cartoon dog on it and the phrase life is good. The incongruity, in better circumstances, probably would’ve made him laugh.

“Ah. I understand the question now. I believe you could call this a. . . show of good faith. An advance on this upcoming conversation.”

Virgil itched to grab for the drink.

“And if I don’t feel like talking?”

“That’s just fine. You won’t be punished for it. I believe you’ll feel significantly more willing to talk this time around, though.”

Virgil slowly uncurled the fingers of his left hand. He slipped his arm through the bars, picking up the mug and shivering at the feeling of warm ceramic against his skin. He was hungry. His fangs were already pressing insistently against his lower lip as he lifted the mug to his mouth, taking his first smooth gulp. It still didn’t taste quite right, still left something artificial and plasticky on his tongue, but it was hot and thick and felt like life as it ran down his throat.

His breathing was ragged as he lowered the drink. He could feel that first swallow sinking into his chest, lighting him up from the inside. He wasn’t used to drinking like this, pausing between gulps instead of taking everything in one go, but he didn’t know when he’d get this again. He wanted to savor it.

He licked the blood off his lips.

“What makes you think I’ll be any easier to talk to now?” he asked. And aren’t you supposed to be pissed about last time, he didn’t.

“Well, for one thing, you’ll be choosing the topic this time,” Logan said. “I’m going to list off a series of subjects that we’d be interested in learning more about, and you tell me whether or not you’d be willing to discuss them. If you say no, I won’t bring them up again this visit.”

“Just like that,” Virgil said.

“Just like that.” Logan flipped open his bag and began rifling through the contents, pulling out a series of items and lining them up just in front of his knees. Out of Virgil’s reach, but not his sight. “I’ve also brought some things to sweeten the pot, so to speak. If you agree to discuss at least one category with me you’ll be receiving these as well.”

Virgil scrutinized each bribe as Logan set them down. A fidget cube. A notepad and pen. A graphic novel that, if the cover was any indication, seemed to be about a gay merman and a pirate.

“. . .I’m listening,” Virgil conceded. He took another small sip of blood. He couldn’t be bribed to give up the others, not for anything in the fucking world, but. . . maybe there were other things he wouldn’t mind talking about. He didn’t gain anything by shutting this down before he even had all the information.

Logan pulled a notepad and pen of his own out of the bag, then that recorder of his. He set it down beside himself and hit one of the buttons, sending a red light on top flashing.

“Alright,” he said. “First up. Your human past.”

“No,” Virgil said immediately. Logan nodded and made a small mark in his notebook. Virgil waited for the backlash, but instead the hunter just continued.

“Your turning.”

Virgil swallowed. He didn’t really want to talk about that either, but Logan had called the process well-documented. Provided he didn’t have to give any names or identifying details, Virgil didn’t think he’d be giving much of anything away by describing what it felt like to have a sudden and abrupt species change.

“Maybe,” he allowed. Logan made another mark.

“The other vampires in the area.”

“No.” That came out a bit more aggressive than Virgil meant it to. Logan looked up at him and Virgil swallowed hard, covering up the moment by taking another pull from the mug. It was already halfway empty. Fuck, how was it already halfway empty?

“. . .other vampires in the area, not including those you consider friends or allies,” Logan tried.

Virgil hesitated.

“Maybe,” he said again, and when Logan marked something down this time he felt like he’d just failed some kind of test, with all the anxiety that implied. There were some nasty-ass vampires around here though, and Virgil wouldn’t mind seeing some of them get this fucking treatment. He wouldn’t mind hearing that these three hunters had finished them off. The others fought other vampires all the time, and while Virgil was still too new to be much help with that it wasn’t something he had any moral objections to.

“Your powers,” Logan said.

Virgil frowned down at his drink.

“I never said I had any.”

“Should I take that as a no?”

“No,” Virgil said, “I mean– yes. No as in yes, not yes as in no. God, I mean– I’ll tell you.”

He’d already played his best card in that deck, already screwed himself over in that department, and his abilities were one of the few things he knew for sure couldn’t come back to bite his friends in the ass. Or decapitate them, as the case might be. The only person hurt by Virgil explaining his abilities was Virgil himself, and well. . . Virgil thought being stuck here with no entertainment for much longer was going to hurt him way worse than revealing the details of his powers. He wanted those gay mermen.

“Alright,” Logan said. Another little scribble. “Are any of those topics more preferable than others to you?”

Was that a trick question? Would Logan pick whatever one he least wanted to discuss?

“Which ones do you most want me to answer?” Virgil asked instead of answering. He expected Logan to call him out on the dodge, but the hunter just pursed his lips in thought instead.

“Information on other vampires is likely time-sensitive, considering the fact that the longer you’re here the more out-of-date your insights will be. We have more than enough time to discuss all three topics, though, and if it would be easier to start elsewhere. . .”

Virgil swallowed. Was he really going to do this? Cave to the demands of the people who had kidnapped him?

Did he really have a choice?

He could be stuck here forever. Literally forever; Virgil could be stuck in this cell, unaging and undying, until the sun burned out and enveloped the earth. Until time had lost all meaning to both him and humanity. He was already losing track of how long he’d been here and his best guess for that was measured in days. How much worse would it be after months had passed? Years?

Virgil needed something to hold on to.

The rim of the mug clinked against his fangs as he took another pull.

“My abilities,” he said. Fuck it. His chest felt tight with nerves, but at least it was warm. “I’ve got– I can manipulate people’s fears.”

It was the closest he or Logan had come to mentioning the incident with Prince, and Virgil watched Logan’s expression carefully. It was blank even as the guy nodded. Like Virgil was telling him something he already knew, or at least something so unsurprising it wasn’t worth warming up his facial muscles.

“Were you the cause of my troubled sleep two nights ago, then?” Logan asked. He still didn’t look angry.

Virgil shrugged.

“Maybe.” When Logan let out a short, irritated breath he was quick to add, “I’m not dodging, by the way. I literally don’t know. I tried to do something to you when you came down to see me but I had no idea if it worked or not. You could’ve just had a regular nightmare.”

“Noted,” Logan said. He jotted something down. It looked like a whole sentence this time. “I take it you’re far from practiced with your powers?”

If he said yes, Virgil ran the risk of revealing how new he was. But he couldn’t say no either, not believably.

“I’ve practiced what’s useful,” was what he went with. “Believe it or not, handing out bad dreams isn’t usually my top priority.”

“Oh, I believe it,” Logan told him. It sounded aggressively sincere. “Amplifying and reducing immediate fear, then, that’s what’s useful to you?”

Virgil shrugged. “You saw it with Princey. A lot of humans get really, really dumb when they’re not afraid.”

“Which is helpful in luring your victims away from crowds.”

Virgil didn’t answer that, draining the last of the mug instead. There were only two gulps left, and Virgil found himself licking the rim clean once it was gone. Shit, this was. Super pathetic.

“I don’t suppose I can have any more of this?” he asked, gesturing at Logan with the mug. Logan shook his head.

“Not until tomorrow. Was it more palatable heated up, by the way? We could do that going forward if so.”

“That’d be great,” Virgil said, with feeling. “It still tastes like plastic but at least I feel halfway warm right now.”

“Mm,” Logan intoned, and wrote something down. “So you prefer that? Being warm?”

“No shit,” Virgil snorted. Logan didn’t say anything, just looked at him, and Virgil huffed. “What? Don’t you?”

“I tend to prefer cooler temperatures, actually,” Logan told him. “But my preferences are irrelevant here. I’m human. You’re not.”

That hit Virgil somewhere low under his sternum. He wouldn’t call it his heart, exactly, but the location was geographically similar. He didn’t know why– it wasn’t new information or anything– and most nights he was fine acknowledging what he was now. Every once in a while, though, one of the others would make some offhand comment that had just the right phrasing and just the wrong timing to have Virgil bristling, smarting with the thought of everything he wasn’t anymore.

He kept his face neutral. Didn’t give away that that had hurt.

“I. Guess that’s fair,” Virgil conceded. “Still feels like something you should’ve figured out by now though. What, did Princey run the other vampires through before they could ask you to adjust the thermostat?”

The hunter paused, head tilting slightly. The tip of his pen tapped against the paper. Once. Twice.

“My colleagues and I,” he said carefully, “Have only begun exploring this area of research. . . recently. While the physiology of a vampire is fairly easy to study regardless of said vampire’s consent, the psychological and social aspects are more difficult. I was aware that a vampire’s body temperature spikes after feeding– given the blood is warm, of course– but until now I hadn’t had a good opportunity to ask if that was an appealing effect.”

Okay. A lot to unpack there.

He had a sudden, vivid mental image of Logan cutting open a still-living vampire, wrist-deep in whatever organs now laid beneath Virgil’s skin. He folded his arms over his abdomen, one hand still gripping the mug tight. Did Logan mean that they hadn’t been interested in non-invasive research before, or had it somehow not been viable? Because there was a big fucking difference.

“Everyone’s different,” Virgil said, staring down at his left knee. “There’re probably vampires out there who like the cold. But right after feeding is- it’s the only time I feel almost alive again.”

“And you prefer that?” Logan asked again. Virgil gritted his teeth, but didn’t call the guy out on asking the obvious for a second time. Apparently it wasn’t obvious. Apparently you had to die to really understand just how much it fucking sucked.

“My existence is a torturous slog through the eternal twilight between life and death, so yeah,” he said, “I prefer being able to take short jaunts to the other side of that shit.”

He set the mug on the ground, pushing it back through the bars. Logan waited until Virgil had drawn his hand back to reach out and pick the thing up, then gathered up Virgil’s other bribes. For a moment Virgil thought he was going to shove them back in his bag, that it’d been a trick, but then Logan set everything down a scant few inches outside of Virgil’s cell in a neat little pile. Well within reach.

“You’ve spoken about one listed topic,” he said, “And thus I’m fulfilling my end of the bargain. I’d like to go into the subject in more detail later, but for now it would be most efficient to move on.”

“To other vampires,” Virgil guessed. Logan nodded.

“We haven’t suspended our other operations just because we captured you, and knowledge is invaluable when strategizing.”

They were still going out and killing vampires, was what Logan meant. Virgil reached between the bars, snatching up the fidget toy and immediately beginning to click the buttons on one brightly-colored side. If the sound bothered Logan, he didn’t show it.

“You realize I could lie and send you to your deaths, right?” he asked.

“You could,” Logan allowed, “But you won’t. If we die, other hunters will be assigned in our place, and there’s every chance they’ll treat you far worse than we have. You don’t want to be tortured and I’m fairly sure you don’t want to die, so it’s in your best interest to keep us alive.”

Click, click. Virgil’s thumb tapped out a frantic rhythm.

“What if I just use you to take out my enemies? Clear out the competition?”

“Oh, we’re counting on that,” Logan said mildly. “There’s no reason to get us killed, but there’s no reason not to send us on a wild chase, either– unless you have a vested interest in our success. Go ahead, Paranoia. Use us for your own ends. In this instance, our goals overlap.”

Click.

Click.

Click.

Virgil looked down at the box in his hand. He ran his thumb over the smooth plastic, feeling the way the chill of the cell had seeped into it. His skin was warm, warmer than room temperature, warm enough that if he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing he could pretend there was a beating heart in his chest.

“Okay,” Virgil said. “I’ll tell you what I know.” 

Chapter Text

It all checked out. Roman couldn’t believe it.

Literally, he could not believe it. He’d asked Logan to double-check about five times which, if he was doing his math right, was ten checks, and maybe that was a bit obsessive but Roman couldn’t believe that Paranoia had just. . . given them so much information!

“There’s no way this isn’t a trap,” he said, again, and Logan pushed a hand beneath his glasses to knead at his eyes.

“Which part?” he asked. “Because Paranoia provided us with five locations, with no way of determining which we would approach first, and no way of contacting any other vampires to let them know we’d be coming.”

“That we know of!” Roman countered. He was pacing back and forth, too worked up to sit still. “We already know it’s got some of that freaky vampire brain-stuff going on! Maybe it’s talking to other vampires with its mind!”

“Given the powerset it’s displayed thus far? Unlikely.” Logan paused, thin lips pressing together, then added, “And if that were the case, the implications of such a thing would be so informationally invaluable as to be worth the potential risk to our lives. Vampires with cross-type abilities have never been documented before, and–”

“We’re sure it didn’t have a phone, right?” Roman asked. “I know we checked its pockets but maybe we missed something. Maybe it had secret pockets we didn’t know about.”

Logan sighed. It was a heavy sound, one that settled over the war room like a weighted blanket. He’d tried to argue when Roman had christened it thus, telling him that exterminating vampires in no way qualified as a war, but it was more Roman’s room than anyone else’s so Logan had just had to deal with it.

Roman stopped in front of the massive corkboard that dominated half a wall. There were several maps pinned up on it, some smaller ones from old missions that detailed specific parts of the city and one massive one that had weathered their whole tenure here. The paper was dotted with tiny holes, scars from old pushpins that were invisible from a distance. Roman ran his fingertips over a few, then eyed one of the bright red additions Paranoia had provided among the rainbow of other markers.

“Alright,” he said. “Alright. We’re starting at the warehouse den.”

“That’s the second-largest mass of vampires out of the five,” Logan said. He sounded, in a word, skeptical.

“It’s also the closest one to a road. You can wait five feet from the front door with the engine running in case it is a trap and Pat and I need to bail out fast.”

“You’re planning a full-frontal assault? With just the two of you?”

“We’ll have the element of surprise.”

“Not for long if you’re entering through the front door.” Logan let out another aggrieved sigh. “Patton and I saw at least five distinct vampires coming and going, and Paranoia claims there are seven. The two of you won’t be able to handle that many on your own.”

“We won’t be,” Roman told him. “If Paranoia isn’t lying, there are humans being kept in there. The priority here is rescue. We go in, we get them, we come back out.”

“The priority is making sure these vampires don’t just move somewhere else and begin kidnapping victims all over again,” Logan argued. “Eliminating the whole group also makes retrieving their captives significantly safer.”

“For us,” Roman said. “Not for them. If the vampires feel backed into a corner they might drain them just to get an edge in combat.”

“Peak performance has actually been recorded as about four hours after feeding. The energy boost from the initial influx of blood quickly wears off, leading to sluggishness and a desire to rest. It’s only after their bodies have had time to process the blood that–”

“Not everyone has the stats memorized, Turing!” Roman interrupted. “Which goes for vampires too. They just know they feel great after they eat, which means if they’ve got time to feed before round two of a fight, they’re gonna take it! I’ve seen it more than once.”

Logan was quiet for a moment. Awesome. Roman had hurt his feelings. Roman let out a breath, turning back to his teammate, and was surprised to see Logan looking right back with an expression that was more calculating than upset.

“You. . . do have more firsthand experience than I do,” Logan said, and it sounded like the words were being forcefully dragged out of him. “Given that fact, it would be. . . unwise to disregard your opinion.”

For a moment, Roman just looked at him.

“Was that your way of trying to say we’re going with my plan?”

“What plan?” Logan asked, the corners of his mouth ticking downward slightly. “What you’ve outlined so far could be called an approach at best.”

Roman rolled his eyes. Ever the pedant, Logan.

“Fine. Was that your way of saying we’re going with my approach?”

Logan let out a breath that Roman would swear lasted a solid thirty seconds. He leaned back in his seat slightly, the wood creaking as his weight shifted. He had a binder laid out in front of him on the table, open to a selection of notes written neatly in blue ballpoint on college-ruled paper. As Roman watched, Logan flipped forward a few pages, silently scanned the words, then flipped back.

“I don’t like this,” Logan said. “Ideally we wouldn’t need to sacrifice one goal for the other.”

“Yeah, well,” Roman said, looking away, “Them’s the breaks.”

If Logan wasn’t bringing it up, he wouldn’t either– the fact that there was a reason they were being forced to compromise, and they both knew what it was. They still hadn’t expanded past the three-person minimum they’d needed to establish an outpost, and maybe if they had they wouldn’t be in this situation. More hunters would mean more options, like surrounding the building to prevent the vampires from escaping while rescuing the captives. With only three of them, and only two actual fighters, there was only so much they could take on.

Roman was actually kind of surprised Logan hadn’t insisted on recruiting more members yet. The guy handled most (all) of their paperwork anyway; if he really wanted to start the process, Patton and Roman probably wouldn’t notice until there was a new hunter standing on their doorstep. Maybe Logan hadn’t thought it was necessary before now, or maybe he just didn’t want anyone new coming in and messing up their team dynamic. Roman didn’t know, and Roman was not going to ask, because if Roman did ask he’d have to explain why he hadn’t insisted on recruiting new members and he was not about that life. They were fine. They’d managed so far. They could manage this too.

“If we mount a rescue at night,” Roman began, tapping the map behind him for emphasis, “When the majority of the vampires are out of the building, Patton and I might be able to take out all the bloodsuckers inside, get the captives to the car, and pick off the rest of them as they return to the nest.”

“And what if one of the captives requires immediate medical attention?” Logan asked. “I can hardly just leave you two there while I bring them in for treatment.”

Roman frowned at him. “You can, actually. You can literally do that thing.”

“Out of the question. Leaving you with no means of escape is ludicrously dangerous.”

“We’re vampire hunters! We eat danger for breakfast!”

“‘Scuse me,” came Patton’s voice from the war room’s door. Roman looked over at him, stopping short in what would have been an inspiring speech about bravery and risk. Patton looked adorable today, as always, wearing a pink t-shirt with Lilo and Stitch on the front and a pale blue sweater that went well with his pale blue sweatpants. Roman just wanted to scoop him up and spin him around.

Then he wanted to violently shake him at Patton’s next words.

“I’m going to go feed Paranoia, if that’s okay with you two.”

Roman huffed. He was probably going to keep being miffed about Patton sneaking a blood bag down for the vampire on night one for– well. However long it took for him to forget about it. Sure, Patton was asking for permission this time, but all that did was remind Roman that he hadn’t before.

“Try to make small talk with it,” Logan said, focused on making forward progress like the traitor he was. “If past behavior is any indication, it’ll likely be suspicious of a transactional requirement for this evening’s meal. Explain that its continued cooperation is expected, but that further questioning will not be conducted tonight.”

Patton blinked a couple times.

“So. . . tell it you’re busy and tonight’s a freebie?”

Logan’s answering sigh was heavy. “Absolutely not. Extrinsic rewards only work as motivators if they’re linked to the desired behavior. If Paranoia thinks it can get something for nothing it’ll be less likely to comply in the future.”

“Do you need me to come down with you?” Roman asked, because okay, he might still be holding a grudge but that didn’t mean he wanted Patton to struggle. Or go easy on their prisoner. “I’m a lot more comfortable shutting these bloodsuckers down than you are.”

Patton gave him a tentative smile, freckled cheeks dimpling.

“It’s really sweet of you to offer,” he said, “Especially considering that you, erm. Probably don’t want to see Paranoia right now. But I’ll be okay as long as I stick to our safety measures! And you two are busy anyway.”

“I’m fine,” Roman scoffed. He turned around, looking back at the map. Some of the pushpins needed straightening. He got started on that. “I can’t wait to give Fear Street down there a piece of my mind, actually. But if you’re sure you’re alright, and we’re trying to carrot our way through this right now. . .”

“Carrot our way through this?” Logan repeated blankly. Roman let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Like carrot and stick? Reward and punishment as motivation? The thing you were just talking about? Honestly, Lo, why do I need to explain these things to you?”

“Because most of what you say makes little to no sense.”

“Alright!” Patton chirped, cutting off Roman’s indignant and righteous sound of displeasure. “I’ll go ahead and get started on that, then. Good luck with the planning, you two!”

“We need it,” Roman muttered as Patton’s footsteps receded once again.

There was a moment of silence.

“You know,” Logan said, “It’s perfectly understandable for you to be apprehensive about seeing Paranoia again.”

Roman’s grip tightened on the green tack he was fiddling with. He considered pulling it out of the board and sticking it back in; seeing if he could get it back into the same hole in the paper. He probably could. He had steady hands. He had to, in order to draw and sew and sculpt, to engage in any one of his numerous artistic hobbies. He had to in order to fight.

“I’m fine ,” he repeated. “Captain Squishy’s just being his usual considerate self. If anything I’m just. . . worried.”

“Worried?” Logan echoed. “About it happening again, or something else?”

Roman heaved a sigh, then turned around, leaving the green pin where it was.

“I can fully admit to being. . .” he waved a hand through the air, searching for the right word. Logan’s eyes followed the movement. “Passionate. And as certain as I am that my approach would have worked, and might even be needed in the future, Patton’s is getting results. I’d hate to be the one to mess that up just because of my completely justified fury. And if I see that low-down fear-eater anytime soon I might just lose my cool!”

“That’s not a very accurate nickname,” Logan mused. “It’s not like he consumes the fear, so far as we know.”

Roman groaned. “Can we just talk strategy?”

“Right. Of course,” Logan said. He perked up a bit, running a finger down the row of notes in front of him. “I still refuse to leave you with no means of escape, but if we were to rent a second vehicle. . .”

The vampire was reading when Patton approached its cell.

At least, it’d been reading. It was sitting cross-legged on the bed, Roman’s graphic novel open in its lap, but its eyes weren’t on the pages. Instead its unnervingly intense gaze was locked onto Patton from the moment he stepped into its line of sight– or more specifically, locked onto the mug in his hands.

Patton offered up a smile.

“Hey,” he said, “I brought you your lunch!”

He paused, then added, “You probably shouldn’t drink this while you’re reading that, though. Stains and all.”

The vampire rolled its eyes but set the book aside anyway, sliding off the bed and rising to its full height. Sort of. It was a real sloucher, this one!

“Like I’d waste a drop,” it muttered, approaching the bars. Then, louder, “Where’s Logan?”

“Oh, he’s busy,” Patton explained. “He said he probably won’t get down here tonight, so. . . here I am instead!”

The vampire gave him a flatly unimpressed look. Tough crowd.

“And what do you want?” it asked pointedly.

“Your continued cooperation!” Patton chirped, thinking of Logan. Then, with a bit of sheepishness, “But, um. Not much, actually. This isn’t really my area.”

“Right,” the vampire said, “Because your area is asking for help and screwing over whoever offers to give it.”

Patton fiddled with the mug. Still angry, then. He’d expected that, had said as much to Logan and Roman the other day, but that didn’t make hearing it any easier. He didn’t like it when people were mad at him. He didn’t like upsetting people in general. Capturing Paranoia had been the right thing to do, but he still felt guilty despite not doing anything wrong. Like how he’d instinctively apologized the last time Logan had accidentally dropped a pen.

Probably best not to think about that too hard.

“This is for you,” Patton blurted. “Obviously. If I tried to drink it, it’d be in vein.”

The vampire groaned, but stuck a hand out between the bars anyway. “That was awful.”

“I’ll admit it might’ve been a bite much,” Patton conceded. He looked at Paranoia’s hand. Technically he wasn’t supposed to hand the vampire anything directly, in case it tried to grab him, but Patton reached out and pressed the warm ceramic into its palm anyway. He was careful, ready to pull back at any sudden movements, but the only reaction from Paranoia was a pair of muddy eyes flicking up to meet his own before the mug was pulled from Patton’s grip.

“You’re gonna put me off my food,” the vampire said, but it took a deep gulp of blood just a handful of seconds later. Its upper lip was stained a rusty red when it lowered the mug, and it licked it clean before letting out a sigh.

“Your eyes are brown,” Patton commented. The vampire squinted at him.

“What?”

“Your eyes,” Patton repeated. “They were purple when you came in. They’ve really calmed down now, though.”

Paranoia rolled said brown eyes and took another sip of its drink. “Amazing what happens when you fucking feed me. Is there a point to this?”

“Just making small talk,” Patton said. “Or should I say. . . discussing the talk of the brown?”

“You should not. You should not be saying that.”

“Come on, you must umber-stand that I’m just making a copper-vation!”

Paranoia didn’t respond to that, burying its attention in its drink like it could will Patton’s puns out of existence. Patton got that reaction a lot, so it wasn’t all that discouraging. He offered the vampire a grin.

“Seriously though, I know you guys just get the spooky eyes when you’re hungry. It’s good to see you doing better than when you came in.”

“Is it?” Paranoia asked. It was still glaring down into its mug, avoiding Patton’s smile.

“Of course! Like I said, this is the best-case scenario for all of us. I don’t want you hurting anyone, but I don’t want you hurting either. I’m glad you’re not hungry.”

The corner of Paranoia’s mouth twitched. “I am hungry,” it said. “I’m just not starving.”

“I’ll take that too.”

They were both quiet for a moment, Patton watching Paranoia and Paranoia watching its drink. Its eyeliner had all but rubbed away at this point, and its nails were more chip than polish. Given what Patton had seen on the video feed, he wouldn’t be surprised if the vampire had been picking at it.

“Do you want more?” Patton asked. Paranoia blinked, finally looking back at him, and Patton gestured at where his hand was curled around its drink. Then he realized that could be thoroughly misinterpreted, so he hastened to add, “Nail polish. And makeup, I guess? We’ve got both.”

Paranoia looked slightly disappointed after Patton clarified that he hadn’t meant more blood, then it looked suspicious.

“Why?” it asked.

“Well, yours maybelline a bit rough around the edges.”

Paranoia closed its eyes. Let out a breath that was a bit too aggressive to be a sigh.

“I meant,” it said, “Why are you offering? What am I gonna have to do?”

“Makeup your mind about if you want it or not,” Patton told it. “That’s all! It can be our little secret.”

He knew what Logan had said about rewards and stuff, but. . . appearance could be so personal. Roman hated being seen when he felt he wasn’t presentable, and even though Patton thought he looked cute as a button even without all that contouring, he’d seen the way Roman would sometimes flinch away from his own raw reflection. Having control over what you looked like, how other people perceived you, could be very important to someone. Patton didn’t know if that was the case for Paranoia, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to let the vampire touch up its style.

Paranoia was looking at him with narrowed eyes, searching Patton’s expression. Patton wasn’t sure what for, exactly, or if his friendly smile would fulfil the requirements, but he could hope.

“You aren’t worried I’d break the bottle and try to shank someone?” Paranoia asked. Patton made a face.

“I mean, I’d hope not. It’s not like any of us are coming right up to the bars though, so. . . all you’d really be doing is wasting nail polish?”

Paranoia made a sound that could be interpreted as agreement. Patton chose to do so.

“Great!” he said. “I’ll go raid the bathroom while you finish your lunch. I’m assuming black?”

Paranoia, in a black hoodie, a black t-shirt, and a black pair of jeans, looked him dead in th eye and said, “I have no idea why you’d assume that.”

Patton snorted. Waved over his shoulder as he trotted towards the stairs. “Be right back!” he called.

“Bring better jokes!”

Patton had wondered, briefly, if Paranoia was using its abilities on him. It wasn’t a long-lived thought. Nerves were still bunched up in his gut, bracing him to react quickly if necessary, which meant he was definitely fully in touch with his own fear. He was making, if not the safest choices, then at least unsafe choices of his own.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Paranoia said, watching as Patton painted its thumbnail with smooth, short strokes. Patton had had it brace its hands against the concrete outside of the bars, almost as far as it could reach, with the excuse that the light was better outside of the cell. It was, but Patton mostly just wanted to make sure he was sitting firmly outside of grabbing range, and he suspected Paranoia might know that.

“I’ve got practice,” Patton said, dipping the brush back into the bottle and wiping away the excess on the rim. “I help Roman with his left hand sometimes.”

“Good polish, too,” Paranoia murmured. “Half the shit out there is all watery and takes a million coats to get this dark.”

“Yeah, Roman uses it for detail work. He says having to go over things multiple times makes his nails bumpy.”

Paranoia was quiet for a moment. “Is the eyeliner his too?”

“I’ll get him a new one,” Patton said. “He won’t even notice. He usually prefers the liquid stuff.”

“You’re all really close, huh.” There was a strange note to Paranoia’s voice. Patton looked up from its nails, into its newly-lined eyes, and saw the way its eyebrows drew together. The way it was chewing on its lower lip.

“Well, yeah,” Patton said. “We’re a team. Did you think we weren’t?”

Paranoia shrugged. Its hands were still splayed on the floor, and Patton went back to its nails after another moment. He was almost done; just the ring finger and pinky left to go.

“I thought you were just coworkers,” it said.

“Well, you were co-wrong about that!” Patton chirped. Paranoia sighed.

“You weren’t even trying with that one.”

“It wasn’t my best,” Patton admitted. He capped the nail polish, sitting up a bit straighter, and watched as Paranoia drew its hands back through the bars. It examined its nails, then shook its hands a few times like Patton had seen Roman do more than once. The comparison made him giggle, then something uncomfortable lurch in his stomach.

Probably best not to think about that too hard.

“What?” Paranoia asked.

“I just think it’s funny how people try to get their nails dry,” Patton explained. “Hey, does the smell bug you? With your supernose and all.”

Paranoia wrinkled said nose, glancing down at its own hands. “Kind of. I’m used to it, though. When I first– well. I’m used to it, is all.”

Patton knew he should probably ask what Paranoia had been about to say, but things were going so well right now. It wasn’t worth disrupting the temporary peace just to pry for information. So Patton just nodded, like Paranoia hadn’t fumbled over its words.

“It’s pretty powerful stuff,” he said. “You could say that it nails you right in the sniffer!”

“You could, but should you?” Paranoia asked. Patton grinned at it.

“Aw, come on. You like them! Admit it!”

Paranoia shook its head. The corner of its mouth ticked upwards.

“You’re punbelievable,” it said.

Patton practically shrieked in delight.

Chapter Text

Patton was being insanely transparent with his attempts to manipulate Virgil, but that was fine.

Joking with him, offering him little favors, acting like he cared– it was all such classic good-cop shit that it was painful. Virgil was pretty sure the only reason he hadn’t offered him a coffee was because they both knew Virgil wouldn’t be able to drink it. Painting his nails instead was a weird substitute, but it was trying to serve the same purpose. Not that it would work. Virgil had fallen for Patton’s innocent act on night one; hook, line, and sinker. He wouldn’t be making the same mistake again. 

Virgil looked at his nails, jet-black and gleaming in the low light. They’d dried a while ago. He didn’t know how long exactly, because his sense of time was still very much fucked, but it’d been long enough that he was no longer nervous about running his fingers through his hair or tucking his hands into his pockets. Long enough that he’d been able to turn his and Patton’s interaction over in his mind so many times that the memory felt worn smooth.

There were two options. One, Patton had the face of a cherub and a tongue of pure silver. Sure, his manipulation was blatant and almost clumsy, but it was delivered with such an air of sincerity that you almost couldn’t help being taken in. Which made option two even scarier– the idea that Patton actually believed his own hype. The fact that Patton was able to look past the bars and say with a straight face that it was good to see Virgil doing better was terrifying. What kind of person thought the power of friendship could overcome kidnapping?

Virgil had played along, because that was his best option. If Patton wanted to give him a manicure and a stick of eyeliner for free, Virgil wasn’t turning it down. That didn’t make them friends. If Patton wanted something more than a transactional pun in return, he’d better be prepared for disappointment.

Virgil rolled over onto his back. Closed his eyes. He’d tried, periodically, to listen for signs of life upstairs, but try as he might the only thing that permeated the basement was overwhelming silence. It was the kind of silence Virgil hadn’t known existed before he died, a silence absent of even his own breathing. The silence of the grave.

Appropriate, considering he’d very much been buried underground and left to rot.

He wished he knew what Patton wanted. Virgil couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell how much of him was a plaster facade and how much was the genuine article. Maybe he’d just wanted to make himself feel better about locking someone up in his basement, or maybe this was part of some Stockholm syndrome long-con. That smile was impossible to decipher either way.

What would Deceit say?

Probably that Virgil shouldn’t have been suckered in by a pretty face in the first place. That he should’ve just left Patton to his own devices. If he dies, that’s his problem. He should’ve watched a few more PSAs about traveling at night; God only knows he looks like the type.

Remus’s advice would probably be to seduce Patton in an attempt to escape. Or just for the sake of it. Remus was like that.

And Rage, well. Rage would have told Patton to go fuck himself. Which Remus might also have done, but with an additional and let me watch.

Virgil opened his eyes. Stared up at the concrete ceiling.

He missed his friends.

He’d give anything to know what was happening outside his cell.

Roman nudged at the dead vampire with the toe of his boot. It didn’t move, as implied by the whole dead thing.

“Uh,” he said, “Baby Driver? Something weird’s going on.”

Logan’s sigh crackled in his ear. Roman wasn’t sure if that was about the nickname or the lack of details, but knowing Logan, it was probably both.

“Could you be more specific?”

Roman glanced between the corpse and his partner. Patton was standing a few yards away, at the end of a dark trail of blood that led from Roman’s feet to the vampire’s head. At least, Roman assumed the head belonged to this vampire in particular. He couldn’t say for sure. He hadn’t been the one to separate it from the rest of its body.

“Dead vamp right in the entryway,” Roman said. “Pretty messy-looking. Woodsman and I practically tripped over it.”

Patton, who’d been using the flat of his axe to gingerly roll the head over, had an unsettlingly blank expression on his face. Roman knew that look. He only ever saw it when they were in the field together, and even then, it was rare. The last thing to bring it out had been a vampire who couldn’t have been older than six when it was turned. It had still been missing one of its front teeth, and had lisped childishly as it drooled over Roman’s throat.

Patton had taken its head off, and hadn’t spoken more than ten words the rest of the night.

“This was done by hand,” Patton said quietly. “I’ve seen this before.”

Roman nodded, though Patton wasn’t looking at him. “Infighting?”

“Maybe,” Patton said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He didn’t sound skeptical, either. He didn’t sound much of anything.

“Stay on guard.” Logan’s voice was level. How he could stay so calm while too far away to help, Roman had no idea. He wouldn’t be able to manage it. The guy had nerves of steel. “It could have been some sort of intra-group disciplinary measure, but it’s also possible this is a territorial dispute. If that’s the case, there will likely be more fighting ahead.”

Roman gave the body at his feet one last, lingering look. Patton wasn’t wrong; what was left of the neck looked like it had been torn into by a wild animal. Nothing like the clean cuts of Patton’s axe or Excalibur. More interesting was the way the vampire’s limbs were twisted, bending in places they really shouldn’t be. It looked like whatever had killed it had taken its sweet time beating the shit out of it first.

Roman stepped over the corpse, wary gaze scouting the path ahead.

“Alright, push-pop. Let’s keep going.”

Patton stood from where he was crouched, shifting his grip on the handle of his axe. Roman, for his part, hadn’t lowered Excalibur since they’d stepped inside. The grip felt comforting in his palms, like one of his old safety blankets. Something to keep the monsters at bay.

The warehouse had no walls, and was instead broken up by rows of shelves that stretched to towering heights. Some were where, Roman assumed, they had originally been constructed, but others had been dragged around with inhuman strength, leaving furrows in the concrete to show the path they’d taken. The front door had been largely blocked off by a single shelf toppled over onto its side, and as Roman and Patton edged around it, he saw that other spaces had been sectioned off with similarly makeshift barriers. The next room, if it could be called that, contained a few mismatched beanbag chairs and a beat-up folding table covered in cards. It also contained two more corpses, decapitated just like the first one.

Patton checked the heads, or more specifically, the teeth, while Roman stood guard. They didn’t even need to delegate. They’d worked together long enough to fall easily into step beside each other.

“Both vampires,” Patton confirmed.

“Well, vampire catfight’s looking more and more likely,” Roman muttered. “I’d thank them for making our job easier if this wasn’t so nasty.”

He felt more than saw Patton rejoining him, sensing his presence at his shoulder before catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye.

“Is this your first time seeing something like this?” Patton asked. Roman shrugged.

“Everyone’s training goes differently. Can’t control what you see out in the field.”

Patton hummed softly.

“Well,” he said, after a moment, “I guess you just weren’t a-head of the curve on this one.”

Roman groaned, but. Well. If Patton was punning again, it meant he was getting over his earlier fit of blank-face. Roman would swim through an ocean of Patton’s worst-conceived wordplays if it meant he didn’t spend the night in that unsettling state of withdrawn muteness.

They continued advancing slowly through the warehouse-turned-maze. Roman wasn’t one for clichés– there was almost always a more creative and more accurate way of phrasing things– but in this case a good old quiet, too quiet seemed painfully fitting. If there was some sort of vampire slap-fight in progress, it wasn’t making the kind of noise something that violent should produce, which either meant the whole thing was already over. . . or there was just a break between victims.

Roman tightened his grip on Excalibur.

They passed through what looked like sleeping quarters, judging by the mattresses on the floor, and found another body lying in amongst the mess. These vampires had been slumming it, which Roman probably could’ve predicted if his mind had been on the potential decor instead of his team’s strategy. An abandoned warehouse might sound like a cool base of operations, but in reality it would take a team of professionals to make that kind of space livable. Or unlivable, as the case was. It was clear that none of these vampires were professionals in much of anything, least of all home improvement, which made Roman less than optimistic about the conditions the vampires’ victims were being kept in. Forget blood loss and bite wounds; the biggest threat to their lives might be exposure to the elements. It was colder than the ninth circle of hell in here.

Turning a corner in the corridor of shelves brought the two of them face-to-face with the closest thing they’d seen so far to actual effort in interior design– an industrial-sized bolt of cloth that had been draped across the hall as a sort of divider. Roman exchanged a look with Patton, and Patton held up three fingers.

They’d encountered four dead vampires so far. If the information Paranoia had given them was true, that meant three left of the original seven, plus however many additional vampires had invaded. Not great odds if they were all right behind the curtain. Roman listened, still not hearing any fighting, but he could make out the sound of. . . was someone crying?

No more time to think about it. Patton dropped his hand in a sharp movement, and Roman and Patton leapt forward as one, flinging the fabric out of the way as they burst into the space beyond.

A few things registered at roughly the same time.

One, there were four more bodies in the room. Only three of them were headless.

Two, a handful of people were clustered against one of the shelves, more than a few crying out at Roman and Patton’s sudden entrance. They were all chained to the shelves in one way or another, some with zip-ties around their wrists, others with handcuffs on their ankles. None of them looked good, covered in bruises and bite marks and dried blood, and the source of the sobbing was easy to locate– a man reaching desperately towards the one body that still had its head.

Roman didn’t need to look closely to see the corpse’s throat was torn out, and he swallowed hard.

“Hey,” Patton said, voice immediately going soft. He put his axe away, hands coming up in a placating gesture, and Roman shifted his stance to cover him a bit more thoroughly. Patton was good at this– calming civilians during rescues– and it was Roman’s job to watch his back so he could do so without fear.

“We’re gonna get you out of here. My name’s Patton, and this is Roman. What are your names?”

He kept going like that for a bit, asking after inane scraps of information as he edged closer. The crying man didn’t answer anything, too caught up in grief, but the rest of the group managed some sparse replies. One, an older woman with steel in her eyes and a ring of bruising around her throat, met Roman’s gaze. He swallowed hard.

“I’m gonna cut you free, alright?” Patton was saying. “I have a knife for the zip ties, and bolt cutters for the cuffs. But I need you all to stay here until I’m done, so Roman and I can escort you safely outside. Alright?”

“There’s still one left,” the woman said. Her voice was scratchy and disused, but her words were strong. “A new one. It went that way.”

She nodded further into the warehouse, past another toppled-over shelf and into what looked like untouched territory. The corridors stretched tall and uniform in the gloom, and Roman already knew they’d be a bitch to search through.

Roman nodded. The woman nodded back.

“Logan,” Roman said, “We’ve found the captives. Patton’s freeing them now. There’s still one target loose in the building, and I know what you’re going to say–“

“If you suggest that you and Hart split up, I’m going to refuse to listen to any tactical advice you propose for the rest of your career,” Logan said curtly. “Also, less relevantly, I already assumed you’d found the captives when Hart began speaking to them.”

Roman huffed. “Aren’t you the one always saying clarity doesn’t hurt? Anyway, I don’t want our mystery guest ducking out of this dance party early. Someone’s gotta go after it and keep its attention off the captives.”

“Prince, under no circumstances are you to leave the group.”

Roman looked over at Patton, who’d just finished clipping through the last cuff chain and was helping the sobbing man to his feet. Those bolt cutters were really handy; Roman couldn’t count the number of times they’d gotten them out of a tight spot or in through a chain-link fence.

“Right,” Roman said. Then, to Patton, “I’m gonna. . .”

He nodded towards the back of the warehouse. Patton followed the gesture, then turned to Roman with concern in his eyes.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll be on comms the whole time. You’ll know right away if anything happens, and more importantly, you’ll be able to focus on getting them out without worrying about something coming in from behind.”

“Prince,” Logan said, voice strained, “I can hear you conspiring to act against my advice. Blatantly.”

“It’ll be fine!” Roman said again, more forcefully this time, and turned to stalk into the dark recesses of the warehouse. Not that the rest of the place had been bright, but the further into the building they went the more the gloom settled over it. Here, the streetlights filtering in through the front door had no power, and Roman was forced to turn on the mini-lamp on his belt– another tool that had saved his life more than once. He and Patton hadn’t been using theirs before now because they’d been trying to stay unnoticed, but now? Now Roman was the distraction, and he was going to be as flashy as possible.

“Hey, ugly!” he yelled, because in his experience childish insults tended to get people’s attention. Maybe not their respect, but Roman didn’t need the respect of a bloodsucker anyway.

His voice bounced off the walls and shelves, making strange shapes as it moved through the space. Roman could almost picture his words warping like the shadows his lamp made of the shelves, spindly and twisted-looking. Every time he took a step forward the shadows shifted, which would make it easy for a vampire to sneak up on him. Roman was putting a lot of trust in his training, but more importantly, he hoped that being this big of a target would keep Patton and the captives safe.

He could hear him in his ear now, voice soft as he guided the victims through the warehouse– big step up here, there you go, you’re all doing so well– and that reassuring background noise was all he needed to puff up his chest and shout some more insults.

“That’s right, I’m talking to you! You, with the fangs and what I’m guessing is godawful blood breath. Not to mention bits of other vampire under your nails!”

He reached the end of a row. Turned to the next one. The shadows twisted and danced.

“Hello? Anyone there? I’m starting to think you must be a coward, vampire! Not that I can blame you for not wanting to face me.”

“Roman,” Patton said, voice clear and strong again instead of gentle and coaxing, “I got them out. I’m on my way to you now, so– maybe tone it down a bit?”

Roman felt something in him unclench. Good. They’d made it out safe.

“It’s alright, Padre, the vamp hasn’t shown its face yet. I’m starting to think it left while we–“

Roman broke off, turning as a shadow darted past him. His sword came up, ready to slice through the offending figure, but given that the shadow turned out to be the end of a roll of fabric stirring in the wind from his passing he decided he’d spare its life.

“Prince?” Logan’s voice came, sharp and concerned. Roman shook his head.

“I’m fine, sorry to scare. Lost my train of thought.”

He wasn’t going to admit he’d been scared by a bolt of fabric, thanks very much.

“Patton, how close are you?” he asked. “I’m about to check the third aisle.”

Patton didn’t respond.

Roman felt something cold sink into him. “Patton?”

“Hart,” Logan said, “Where are you?”

Roman didn’t hesitate. He was already running back towards where he came from. Towards Patton.

Towards the vampire.

Patton watched the vampire crush his earpiece under the heel of its steel-toed boot and thought, Logan isn’t going to be happy about that.

This vampire was a fighter. Patton had already known as much from the brutal state of the corpses they’d seen, but going up against it was another thing entirely. He’d gotten some good hits in himself, including a blow to the back of the thing’s knee that had had it buckling, fueled by the memory of the sobbing man he’d half-carried out of the building. It just hadn’t been enough. Patton hadn’t even been able to warn the others, since the vampire’s first surprise blow had been to Patton’s chest and he was only just now starting to get his wind back.

Not that it did him much good. Not with his earpiece broken.

The vampire had him pinned against one of the shelves, one hand fisted in the front of his shirt and the other tight around Patton’s jaw. Patton’s feet weren’t touching the ground, and he had the somewhat surreal experience of looking down on a vampire who was at least six inches taller than him before said vampire buried its face in Patton’s neck.

There was no burning pain, but Patton knew it was coming. He knew just as well that if he caught the vampire at just the right moment of distraction he’d be able to hook his leg around that same knee, driving his heel into the soft spot there and taking out the vampire’s leg. Then he’d be able to flip them, to tackle the vampire to the floor and take its head off with the knife on his belt. It would be messy, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to saw through a spinal cord.

The vampire took a sharp breath in. The spikes on its jacket dug into Patton’s chest.

“You smell like–“ it said. Broke off. Took another sniff.

Patton’s fingers closed over the hilt of his knife. His leg tensed.

“Let him go, you loathsome leech!”

Roman’s voice.

To Patton’s surprise, the vampire did just that, dropping him to the ground and landing Patton firmly on his butt. Patton was only looking away for a second, blinking away the jarr of pain, but when he looked up the only other figure he could see was Roman.

The vampire was gone.

“A coward after all,” Roman muttered.

Patton swallowed. His jaw felt bruised, his chest sore, and he could still feel the vampire’s cool breath fanning over his throat. That was strange. If it had just eaten, shouldn’t its breath have been warm?

Roman offered him a hand, and Patton took it gratefully.

“Thanks,” he said.

“If you’re really that grateful, tell the professor to stop yowling in my ear,” Roman said with a wince. “It’s a good thing we’re headed straight to the hospital after this, because I’m getting a headache and it sounds like he isn’t even a tenth of the way through his lecture.”

Rage sat on the edge of the warehouse, comfortably hidden in the shadow of an air-conditioning unit. The hunters’ cars were pulling away, tail lights spilling crimson on the dark asphalt. Every ounce of his being wanted to jump down and give chase, to drag that soft-faced human to his teeth and demand answers on pain of death. Rage wasn’t a runner. He didn’t leave behind a good fight.

But he didn’t leave friends behind either, and that ran stronger.

His phone buzzed in his hand. Deceit.

I’ll get a friend to run the plate numbers. Whatever you do, do not engage.

Rage growled at his phone, which Paranoia would have made fun of if he was here. But he wasn’t.

His scent, on the other hand, had been all over that hunter.

Chapter Text

Logan had a lot of paperwork to fill out.

First, there was the mission debrief– Logan’s account of what had happened, from his perspective. Prince and Hart would be producing their own versions as well, though if past experience was any indication Logan would have to hound them about it if he actually wanted it to get done. Next, he’d have to interview the victims to get their stories, make sure the hospital forwarded him the records of their injuries, and speak to the friends and family of the deceased. Once the sun had risen, he’d have to photograph the dead vampires and the scene itself, collect DNA samples, and see if their dental records could be matched to any missing humans. The morgue would have to be contacted for their assessment of the bodies, after which the vampires’ remains would need to be cremated and the crematorium compensated, which meant Logan would need to send receipts to accounting.

Logan had a lot of paperwork to fill out.

Currently, while his teammates were still at the hospital, he was documenting the injuries they’d sustained. It was important not only for making sure they received proper compensation but also as a record for Logan’s sake, enabling him to keep track of who had been injured when and under what circumstances. That, in turn, let him know where his team’s weaknesses lay and what he could do to better compensate in the future.

Hart had a bruise wrapping around his jaw, another on his chest, and various smaller contusions dotted around his person. He’d escaped sprained or cracked ribs but still seemed to have trouble breathing too deeply, wincing in pain whenever he tried. Despite that, he seemed upbeat and optimistic about his condition, assuring Logan and Prince that he’d be better in no time (untrue) and assimilating new injury-related puns into his repertoire (inevitable).

Prince, who was unharmed, had taken it upon himself to hover around Hart attending to his every need. Logan could find it in himself to be grateful that this freed him up to work, though he suspected that part of Prince’s reasoning was the misguided belief that Logan would not reprimand him in front of their teammate. 

Logan had no such reservations. He simply had too much work to do right now to handle Prince. Once he’d finished all his paperwork and gotten all the facts straight, he could take the time to properly outline each and every way Prince had, to put it mildly, fucked up. Not that what had happened was his fault, exactly– it was the fault of the vampire who’d attacked them, and no one else’s. Still.

Still.

Hart was, objectively, the best fighter in their trio, and the fact that he’d been so soundly defeated by this vampire was unsettling. True, he’d been ambushed and alone, but Hart had triumphed under the same circumstances before. It could be, as Prince had put it, an off night, or it could be the kind of warning sign that Logan would be a fool to dismiss.

And Logan was no fool.

It was all Roman’s fault, and they all knew it.

Patton was being polite about it, smiling and joking with Roman like nothing was wrong, but that just made him feel worse whenever he saw Patton’s breath hitch or a wince touch his face. He wouldn’t say he preferred the glares that Captain Cold had been sending him, exactly, but at least Logan was being straight-to-the-point. Roman deserved some glares right now. He deserved worse than that.

He didn’t deserve to have walked out of that warehouse with nary a scratch.

“I still say we can leave this until after we get some sleep,” Roman said with a yawn. He scratched at his hair, sweat-stiff and mortifyingly untamed. “And a shower.”

Patton, who had taken the lead on the stairs down to the basement, gave him a little smile over his shoulder. It was soft as silk, and it stuck like the sharpest knife in Roman’s chest.

“I did say I could handle this on my own,” he said.

And leave Patton alone again? Fat chance.

“I don’t intend to be naked and afraid if Doctor Teeth tries anything with you,” Roman sniffed. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, “That was a reference to the television program and my imminent ablution, not an implication that I’m actually scared of it. I just want to make that clear.”

Patton laughed, stepping down onto the concrete floor of the basement proper and pausing for a moment to let Roman draw level with him. Still so considerate, even while injured. Roman was going to tear that warehouse vampire limb from limb.

“It’s okay, Roman, I didn’t think otherwise. Pinky swear.”

Roman hooked his pinky with Patton’s as a bout of exaggerated gagging came from down the hall.

“Can’t you be nauseating outside of the soundproof torture basement?” the vampire called. Roman’s eyes narrowed and he stalked towards its cell, Patton following on his heels. Paranoia was leaning against the bars, arms folded and muddy eyes intent on them as they came into view. It didn't give Roman more than a cursory once-over before turning its attention to Patton, and Roman huffed.

“What, is our wholesome friendship too powerful for you to withstand, No-Heart?” he sniped.

Paranoia didn't respond, probably because it didn't understand the Care Bears reference. Honestly, Roman wasted his best material on these monsters and not a single one ever appreciated it.

“You look like hell,” the vampire told Patton, then wrinkled its nose. “And you reek of death.”

Roman huffed, edging a protective shoulder between Patton and the beast. “And here I thought that smell was ambrosia to you monsters.”

Paranoia’s eyes narrowed. “Who says it isn’t?”

“Can we not fight right now?” Patton asked. He sounded tired. He winced as he crouched, pressing a hand to his abdomen, and set the mug of blood on the floor. He nudged it towards the bars. After a moment, eyes still locked on Roman’s, the vampire stooped to retrieve its meal.

“It started it,” Roman muttered. Paranoia took an obnoxiously loud slurp from its mug.

“No Logan again?” it asked, tapping its nails against the ceramic. Roman thought, once again, that the black polish was excessively cliché. The dark clothes, the heavy eyeliner– it was all lifted straight out of one of those godawful teen romance novels that ought to be banned for encouraging consorting with vampires.

Roman stared at the nail polish. Then the eyeliner.

Wait.

“He’s still busy,” Patton said. “You might see him later, but–”

“Did you reapply your makeup?” Roman asked, incredulous. The vampire looked at him. Gave a slow blink.

“They really don’t keep you around for your brains, huh Princey?”

“Roman,” Patton said quietly as Roman began to consider whether or not it would be worth it to throw his mini-lamp at the vampire. He probably wouldn't be able to get it back. The satisfaction might outweigh having to ask Logan for a replacement.

“Deep breaths. Paranoia’s just trying to ruffle your feathers, kiddo.”

“No, I genuinely think he has no brain,” the vampire said, taking another swig of blood. “Also, the makeup was a cooperation perk.”

Roman watched as it ran its tongue over its fangs, slick flesh and wickedly curved tooth. It felt like the echo of wet, exposed muscle where the skin had been torn away from a human throat.

“So. . . what happened?” Paranoia asked after a moment, voice lower and less pointy around the edges. He nodded in Patton’s direction, ignoring Roman entirely. “To you, I mean.”

“Oh, well.” Patton laughed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and the sound rang hollow in Roman’s ears. He wondered if the vampire could tell. Probably not. “We followed up on one of your leads! Had a bit of trouble, but nothing we couldn't handle.”

“Which lead?”

“Warehouse,” Roman cut in, and Paranoia’s eyes cut over to him in turn. “Though it turns out we needn’t have bothered, since apparently violent infighting was the order of the night.”

He didn't mention the prisoners they’d freed or how that made the whole thing more than worth it. The vampire didn't need to know that, and frankly it wouldn't understand. These monsters cared for nothing but blood, and the satisfaction of saving a life– or even the desire to try– was beyond them.

Paranoia’s eyebrows drew together slightly, but that was all the change its expression went through. It took another sip.

“You mean they all killed each other?”

It sounded skeptical. Roman scoffed.

“I mean another vampire got to them first, and we didn't exactly get a chance to ask why it did it or who it was.”

He was about to continue when Patton piped up.

“Actually, maybe you could help us with that! Do you know any vampires with orange hair and a, uh. Pointy fashion sense?”

Paranoia gave them a lazy blink as it took another slow sip of its dinner.

“Can you be more specific?” it asked. “Natural orange? Dyed? And what does pointy mean in this context?”

“A jacket with spikes,” Roman supplied, because Patton had described his attacker while they’d been waiting in the hospital. Roman himself hadn't gotten a very good look at the beast, but if both he and Patton were supplying the details it would make it sound like they had a very firm idea of what they were looking for, one that Paranoia couldn't hope to bullshit them about.

Probably.

“Let me get this straight,” Paranoia said. “You want me to rattle off a list of every vampire in the city with orange hair and a certain degree of punk-rock.”

“It would be really helpful?” Patton said. The vampire scoffed.

“Get me a picture or something, then we can talk.”

It finished off its mug with a few deep gulps, and Roman watched with nausea in the pit of his stomach. That was unfortunate. Usually blood didn't bother him, nor did watching captive vampires eat, but sometimes if he was fresh off a hunt and in just the wrong headspace he’d find himself unable to untangle the sight in front of him with the memories of victims. Apparently this was one of those times.

Fantastic.

“Anyway, sounds like it made your job easier,” Paranoia mused once it had licked its lips clean. Mostly clean. There was still a smear of blood at the corner of its mouth that stubbornly refused to budge. “And you’re still here, so I’m guessing you won the fight. Why do you need an ID if Spikey's already dead?”

Roman glanced at Patton. Patton looked back.

Paranoia didn't need to know they hadn’t finished the vampire off. It wasn't any of its business, and even if it had been, the vampire was their prisoner, not a houseguest invited over for tea and gossip. It had already said their description wasn't enough to go on, so there was no reason to explain the situation any further.

“Closure for the family,” Roman said.

Paranoia scoffed.

“Hate to be the one to break it to you, but I'm not exactly a social butterfly. I don't know a lot of names for you to sleuth back to a missing person’s case. Anyway, if they wanted their families knowing they were vampires they would've told them.”

“We try not to take advice on what’s best for people from serial killers,” Roman told it flatly. “Whether the vampire wanted them to know or not, the people who knew the human it used to be deserve the truth.”

“And what if they’re shitty people?” Paranoia countered. “Not everyone has a rosy home life. If someone doesn't go back to their family, maybe there’s a fucking reason.”

Roman’s nails dug into his palms, threatening to break skin. Part of him, a distant and muffled part, noted that he should file them later. The more immediate majority of Roman was consumed by rage.

“Maybe,” he snapped, “The only reason a vampire would go back to their family is to try to eat them.”

“Roman,” Patton said sharply, and Roman felt a hand on his shoulder. He tried to shrug his teammate off but Patton was having none of it, firmly starting to push Roman back towards the stairs.

“I’m not done,” Roman protested, but he didn't fight Patton’s hold. Patton was injured, and he wasn't about to make him strain himself unnecessarily.

“But I am,” Patton said, and if wanting to avoid hurting him hadn't been enough, the look he aimed up at Roman would have convinced him to go along with being manhandled. Exhaustion and pain lined his eyes, and Roman would swear they looked damp. That was unacceptable. Roman had long ago vowed (or at least expressed via a text and a meme) that anyone who made Patton cry would get a butt-kicking courtesy of one very pissed-off Roman. In the interest of not having to literally beat himself up along with the metaphorical flagellation, Roman decided that turning around and walking up the stairs was the way to go.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Sore subject.”

Patton’s hand found his shoulder blades, rubbing comforting circles against them even as his breathing crept suspiciously close to sniffles.

Chapter Text

If any of Patricia Barrett’s coworkers could see her right now, they wouldn't recognize her.

Sure, Patricia was sitting behind the same desk as she always did, with the same brass plate that shouted her name and title in big, important letters. She was in the same office, in the same department, in the same crisp blue uniform. She wore the same badge and the same sturdy boots. There was only one difference between this moment and any other, one tiny change that was nonetheless so transformative as to render her an entirely different woman.

Patricia Barrett was smiling.

“I’m so grateful you could take time out of your busy schedule for me,” her nephew was saying. “I know how important your job is.”

Patricia felt the warm glow of pride and affection in her chest. She pushed her candy bowl– the one she only broke out when her nephew came by to visit– towards him a little, and was gratified when he took a butterscotch and began unwrapping it.

“Of course! You know I always have time for you,” she cooed. Oh, she just wanted to pinch his cheeks! “Especially considering the situation.”

Her nephew sighed, looking down at the candy he was rolling between his fingers. Was the poor thing too nervous to eat?

“I didn't know who else to turn to,” he said. “Knowing you were looking into it is the only thing that’s brought me comfort.”

“Well, no nephew of mine is going to be menaced by some thuggish frat boys,” Patricia sniffed. “It's those drugs they’re on, you know. No one wants to go after addicts anymore with all this political correctness craziness, but I’ll tell you– one hit of that reefer and they turn into animals.”

Her nephew had come over in a panic last night, explaining that a group of older boys had smashed up all the mailboxes on his street. He hadn't gotten a good look at their faces, but had managed to copy down their license plate number, and once Patricia had found the owner it was registered to it had been a cinch to track down the address of their frat house.

She held out the stack of photocopied papers to her nephew, and he gave her a grateful smile as he accepted them. He even popped the hard candy into his mouth.

“Thank you so much, Aunt Patty,” he said around the sweet. “I’ll be able to report them to their college admissions department now. You’re a lifesaver.”

She was, wasn't she? And her dear nephew’s life, too. That glow was still there, but in her head now, warm behind her eyes. She’d helped her family. Her family that loved her.

“Anything for you,” she said, and she meant it. “You come right back over if that college doesn't do the right thing, you hear? I’ll go all the way to the top if I need to.”

Her nephew stood, still smiling, and put his hand on top of hers. For a moment she almost thought it felt cold, but no. . . no, her nephew’s hand was warm and soft and it made her feel like she was melting in her seat.

“I know you will,” he said. “You're such a good aunt. Always looking out for me. I can't believe there are people who don't appreciate that.”

Patricia blinked back tears. She would not cry, not in front of her nephew. She could hold that in until after he’d left.

“I love you so much,” she said.

Her nephew squeezed her hand.

“I love you too, Aunt Patty. I’ll visit again soon.”

Patricia Barrett waved cheerfully as her nephew left her office, closing the door behind himself with a soft click. He was right. She was wonderful. It was a shame not everyone understood that.

Janus spat his mouthful of slimy butterscotch into the first trash can he saw after stepping out of Sergeant Barrett’s office. Then he spat a couple more times for good measure. Keeping from swallowing the stuff was near-impossible, and would lead to an unpleasant bout of vomiting if he was unsuccessful. Unfortunately for him it was still a crucial component to the facade, and as much as he hated it he knew that attention to detail could make or break some of his trickier ruses.

Patricia Barrett– local police sergeant, single, and deeply lonely. Her abrasive personality had earned her few friends at work, and her online spiral into right-wing hate groups had alienated her family. Her real nephew hadn't spoken to her in years, and Janus couldn't blame the poor kid. He himself could barely stand being around her long enough to extract information.

Her longing for connection, though, had given Janus an opening. That was how his abilities worked. Janus could make a human believe anything, so long as it was something they wanted to believe. Barrett wanted to believe she had family who loved her, who thought the same backwards things as she did and understood she was only trying to ‘protect’ them. So she didn't stop to consider the fact that her nephew lived halfway across the country, or that the address that Janus had asked her for was most certainly not a frat house.

He slipped out through the back of the station, flipping through the papers in his hand to find the right section. There. 71647 Thomson Street. The place the hunters lived; where Virgil was most likely being held.

Now Janus just needed to decide what to do.

He knew what Rage and Mania would want. They’d want to go in guns blazing. If Janus were to text them the address, they’d be gone by the time he reached home. And Janus could understand that sentiment, really he could– Paranoia was one of them, and Janus wanted to tear asunder each one of the hunters that had come between him and his family.

But.

Rage and Mania were hammers, and one didn't use a hammer when a scalpel was needed. Nor did Janus want the rest of his family in danger. Mania had been unpredictable lately– more unpredictable than usual, that was– and while Janus was fairly sure he could corral Rage into following a plan, Mania was a different story. He still hadn’t told Janus what was bothering him, but from his increasingly erratic behavior the longer Paranoia was missing Janus could tell it was only getting worse. Uncontrolled, Mania was more of a liability than an asset.

No, Janus had to think outside the box for this one. Outsource. The others wouldn't be happy about it, but as long as they got Paranoia back they wouldn't be able to complain. Besides, they could always exact their bloody revenge later, once Paranoia was no longer in danger and, bonus, could join in on the fun himself.

Janus scrolled through his contacts. Selected a number he hadn’t used in quite some time.

Time to call in a favor.

His blood was nothing on his tongue, as tasteless as his own spit and as room-temperature as the rest of him. Virgil choked on a growl and bit down harder on his lip. His breath was coming in panicked bursts, in and out through his nose so fast he felt like a rabbit. Like a cornered prey animal, not the apex predator he was supposed to be. He knew, logically, that he didn’t need oxygen anymore, but it was hard to focus on that fact when his body was desperately clawing for air like it couldn’t figure out why his lungs didn’t work anymore. Like it couldn’t remember he was dead.

Dead.

A drop of blood fell from Virgil’s chin to the floor below, a dark red blot on otherwise pristine gray.

He could be wrong. The vampire that Patton and Prince were talking about might not have been Rage. Virgil didn’t know every bloodsucker in the city; he couldn’t say for sure that there wasn’t a glut of orange-haired vampires with spiky jackets. Maybe Rage was a trendsetter, how the hell would Virgil know?

Because it would be too much of a coincidence.

The whole reason Virgil had given the hunters that list was because every vampire on it was someone his friends already wanted dead. He’d meant to save them some work, to help them from behind bars in a way he’d never been able to manage in person. He hadn’t considered that maybe things had escalated in his absence and his friends could be taking out the problem themselves. That Virgil could be leading the hunters to them instead. Rage had just taken out a whole gang; he’d probably been tired and injured and now he was dead and it was all Virgil’s fault.

There was more blood on the floor now. A growing smattering of droplets. Virgil should let up. He should stop digging his fangs deeper into his lip.

He should’ve predicted the danger to his friends. He should’ve protected them.

He fucked up so bad.

The sound of the door opening was jarringly loud, making Virgil flinch, and the lights that snapped on burned his eyes. He was too keyed up, senses on high alert, hyper-aware of everything around him. Each approaching footstep felt like a gunshot. Virgil wanted to hide, to clean himself up and act like he was fine, but he couldn’t move. Hadn’t been able to move since Patton and Prince left and his panic attack had descended upon him.

He was still staring at the ground, so he couldn’t see which hunter had come to visit, but he could smell them. AB positive. Logan. Virgil’s arms tightened where they were wrapped around himself, hands gripping hard enough to bruise had he still been human. 

“You’re having a panic attack,” Logan said, like someone might say the weather’s been nice lately. A casual observation. Virgil felt hysterical laughter building up inside him; felt the urge to snarl. He wanted to rip Logan’s throat out. He wanted to cry.

He couldn’t feel his hands. His feet. He was detached from his body in a way he hadn’t been since– since–

Logan smelled so strong. Like he was already bleeding. His heartbeat was so loud in Virgil’s ears. Deafening.

“Are you ignoring me, or have you lost the ability to speak? If it’s the latter, please blink twice.”

Virgil closed his eyes. Opened them. Closed them again.

“I see.” There was the sound of movement, of Logan drawing closer still to the bars. Virgil’s eyes were still squeezed shut. Logan was too loud and he smelled too strong and Virgil wanted him to go away.

“I have something for you,” Logan said. Too close, too close! Virgil’s head snapped up. Logan was reaching between the bars, holding what looked like a shot glass in his hand. A shot glass full of blood.

Logan’s blood. That was why Logan’s scent was so strong.

“It should help, if you’re capable of drinking it at the moment.”

Virgil stared, uncomprehending. Logan had a shot glass of blood. Logan was offering him blood. Logan was offering his blood. It should help? Nothing could help Virgil right now. Granted, he’d never tried drinking blood in the middle of a panic attack. Maybe Logan knew something he didn’t.

He could grab Logan right now. Yank him forward, slam his shoulder into the bars and try to tear his fucking arm off. He deserved it. He’d killed Rage.

No, Virgil had done that. It was all Virgil’s fault.

He didn’t know how long he stared at the little glass in Logan’s hand, but when he finally managed to move, it was quick. Between one second and the next he’d snatched the glass, lifting it to his lips and downing it in a single gulp. It was cold. Colder than he was. Like it had just come out of the refrigerator. Virgil remembered how he used to hold ice cubes in his hands to ground himself, back when he’d been warm enough for the contrast to matter. Remembered the way the sting of the cold kept him from drifting too far from his body.

His breathing slowed.

Everything settled.

“What the fuck,” Virgil croaked, lowering the glass. He felt like his brain had crashed back into his corpse with the weight of a freight train and he followed it down, collapsing to the floor as his legs gave out. He could feel them again. Mostly.

What the fuck?

Logan, still standing over him, cleared his throat. He’d pulled his arm back through the bars and was watching Virgil with keen interest, a look Virgil was getting used to.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Virgil swallowed.

“Better.” His voice was still rough but at least he could talk again. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t.” Logan tucked his hands behind his back. “I had a theory, and this seemed like a good time to put it to the test.”

Oh, good. So he was playing lab rat. Virgil would feel more annoyed at that fact if Logan’s mad-sciencing hadn’t just pulled him out of a panic attack; partly because he was grateful, partly because he didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to muster up a lot of anger right now.

“So, what, I could’ve cut off my breakdowns this whole time just by doing cold blood shots?”

“Not exactly. Would you mind answering a couple questions for me before I explain? I’d like to hear your thoughts before I bias you with my own.”

Virgil considered it for a moment. The last time he’d opened up to Logan, he’d gotten Rage killed. Except. . . had he? Somehow, in this moment, he was having an easier time believing that his initial conclusion could have been wrong. What he’d said to Patton and Prince was true, even if it had felt like lying at the time– their description really hadn’t been much to go on. There were plenty of vampires with a penchant for alternative fashion, and hair dye came cheap in any drugstore. It was entirely possible that Virgil had been overreacting, and Rage was fine.

That had all been possible before, of course, but his panic had stopped him from really believing it. Now. . . now it was like Virgil could feel the edges of where his fear should be, but it wasn’t there. He could think clearly, really clearly, for what felt like the first time since he’d died.

Holy shit. He knew this feeling.

“. . .I feel like I just took a Xanax,” Virgil said. “A really fast-acting Xanax.”

Logan’s eyebrows rose, just a hair. “Well, that answers a couple of my questions.”

Virgil swallowed. Logan’s taste lingered in his mouth.

“That was your blood,” he said. Not a question.

Logan nodded.

“Logan,” Virgil said, “Did you drug yourself with a medication you don’t need, draw your own blood, and give it to me to see what would happen?”

“Yes,” Logan answered, like that wasn’t an absolutely batshit thing to do. “I noticed you exhibiting symptoms of a panic disorder early on, and I thought this would be a mutually beneficial way of testing a hypothesis of mine. It’s been a field-wide struggle to create drugs that affect vampires, but generally those drugs are administered unwillingly and via injection, for obvious reasons. I’ve long suspected that an approach more in line with how vampires typically consume sustenance would be more effective, hence a drug administered via someone else’s bloodstream.”

“You took a drug you didn’t need, ” Virgil stressed, “So you could use your own blood in an experiment.”

Logan paused.

“I’m very passionate about my research.”

“Why?” Virgil asked. “It’s not like this is useful. You can’t just walk up to random vampires in the street and hand them shots of blood. This won’t help you take us down.”

“Perhaps not,” Logan agreed. “But knowledge does not need to be useful to be worth pursuing.”

The two of them were quiet for a moment. Virgil looked down, examining his hoodie. He had, regrettably, torn a couple of new holes in the fabric while clawing at his own sides. He made a face and poked at the ragged edges.

“I don’t suppose I could bargain for some patches?” Virgil asked, cutting a glance up at Logan.

“I’m sure that could be arranged.”

Virgil wiped at his mouth. His palm came away smeared with his own blood, and he licked it off his skin without thinking. It didn’t taste anywhere near as good as Logan had.

“. . .I haven’t actually been medicated since I died,” he said quietly. “It’s been hell.”

“If we discuss your prescription, I may be able to use this technique to get you back on it.” Logan sat, cross-legged, on the floor across from Virgil. Now that his brain was starting to actually work again, Virgil noticed that he looked tired. “Ideally I need a larger sample size to prove its efficacy, but now that I at least have a little data it should be easier to requisition some supplies for further testing. Perhaps I’ll even be able to write a short paper on the subject.”

“Happy to help,” Virgil said dryly. Then, after considering it a moment, “No, wait, I actually think I am. I’m not saying my meds are worth being held captive, but they’ll definitely make it less shitty.”

Logan yawned. Virgil’s eyebrows drew together.

“Rough night?” he asked.

Logan sighed, pulling off his glasses and reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose.

“I may be taking on more work than is ideal,” he said, surprising Virgil with his candidness. “I should really go finish the stack of paperwork I have upstairs. I just got. . . excited to test this out. . .”

Another yawn. Then, under Virgil’s incredulous stare, he slowly tipped sideways, laying half-curled on the concrete floor. He blinked slowly, gaze unfocused, even as his eyebrows tipped up in confusion.

“This feels. . .” he mumbled, pressing the hand not holding his glasses against the floor and moving as if to lever himself up. He didn’t get more than an inch off the ground before slumping back down again.

“What the fuck?” Virgil asked. “Logan, get up. I don’t want your coworkers freaking out on me and assuming I did something to you.”

He didn’t know why he bothered saying it. Bravado, probably. It was clear that something was wrong with Logan, that he’d been drugged or had a head injury or had suddenly developed narcolepsy. Virgil didn’t know. He just knew he was not about whatever the fuck this was.

The door above him opened, and Virgil’s eyes widened. He jumped to his feet, backing away from the bars as footsteps approached.

“For the record,” he announced loudly, hoping to fuck that this was Patton and not Prince, “This was not me, okay?”

“Oh, girl, I know it wasn’t,” came an unfamiliar voice. The sound of someone slurping at the dregs of a drink, and Virgil’s nose twitched. Whoever had just arrived didn’t smell like blood and heat. They smelled like cold coffee and lavender; like petrichor and leather.

Another vampire.

Logan’s eyelids fluttered as he struggled to keep them open. Virgil swallowed. Whoever this was, they’d taken out a vampire hunter at range, with no eye contact or even needing to be in the same room. He only knew of one vampire who was capable of something like that; someone he’d never met, but knew by reputation. A force of fucking nature, Remus had once said. Emphasis on the fucking. What I wouldn’t give to get under that guy!

The vampire stepped into view. He was holding a Starbucks cup in one hand, only ice left inside of it, and had a key ring dangling off the index finger of his other hand. There was a little bat keychain hanging off of it. The vampire himself looked rumpled in a movie-star sort of way, the kind of dishevelment that took a makeup and hair department and strategic wires sewn into various seams. He had on a dark leather jacket and equally dark sunglasses, which he peered over the rim of to give Virgil a once-over.

Virgil bit his tongue. Hard.

The vampire’s eyes were a solid, light-swallowing black.

“Paranoia, right?” the man cooed. “It’s so cute that your little squad all uses code names! Very James Bond of you. Anyway, I’m Remy, and I’m here to bust you out!”

He spun the key ring around his finger, then snatched it in hand and leaned forward. A click as he slotted the key into the lock and turned it, then the door was swinging open on silent hinges.

For a moment, Virgil just stood there, shocked into silence. He stared at the open door and the man outlined in it, who was currently swirling his drink around noisily as he looked for any remaining dregs amid the ice.

“We’re gonna need to make a stop on the way back to your place,” Remy told him, staring into the depths of his cup. “Mama needs her top-up. I’ve still got like an hour before this bean juice tries to make an exit and I am making the most of it, you get me?”

Virgil stepped out of the cell. The hallway looked different from this angle. Bigger. When he looked to the side, he could see the staircase leading up to freedom, the wide-open door at the top. He was out.

He was out.

It didn’t feel real.

A hand grabbed his chin and Virgil flinched, but he wasn’t strong enough to break the grip. Remy tilted his head to one side, then the other, examining Virgil’s features.

“Girl, you look gawd-awful,” he said, letting his hand drop. He glanced down and Virgil followed his gaze to Logan, lying barely conscious at their feet. As Virgil watched, his eyes drifted shut, then opened to the barest slivers, then shut again.

Remy poked at him with his shoe.

“You need a drink before we go?” he asked. “Clearly they haven’t been feeding you enough.”

Virgil swallowed. He could still taste Logan on the back of his tongue. He’d been so intimidating when Virgil was first captured; tall and imposing and terrifying. Now he was defenseless, unable to lift so much as a hand to fight Virgil off. Not even able to protest.

Virgil glanced over his shoulder at the cell he’d thought he was going to die in. Then back to the human curled up on the floor.

“. . .I’m good,” he said, turning to face the stairs. “I just want to go home. And shower.”

Remy shrugged. “Suit yourself. And, yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything, but your hair? Captivity has not done it any favors, like, woof.”

Virgil took the stairs two at a time, eager to get outside before this all melted away around him and he woke up back on that cot.

“Thank you,” he said, the words nowhere near enough to convey how much he fucking meant them. He was out. He was going home.

“Yeah, well, I owed your sire a solid,” Remy said. “Pay it forward, right?”

Sire? Deceit, probably. Remy was probably just assuming.

Virgil didn’t know what he’d been expecting at the top of the stairs. More concrete, maybe. White walls. Stiff, sterile architecture like a police station or something. What he found instead was a shockingly normal-looking living room, walls painted in warm tones and the whole space full of comfy furniture and mundane clutter. There were empty mugs on the coffee table, the comic section of a newspaper tossed over the arm of the couch, a pair of slippers kicked off in front of the television. This wasn’t a place of work; this was a home.

“Door’s right through here,” Remy said, pointing as he led the way out of the room and into a hallway. Virgil stared. Patton was sprawled out beside the open front door, passed out just like Logan downstairs. Virgil had to step over one of his legs to get by, and he half-expected to be grabbed by the ankle as he did so. Nothing. The hunter was well and truly asleep.

Remy was terrifyingly powerful.

“I called us an Uber,” the terrifyingly powerful vampire in question said.

“Right,” Virgil said, deciding he could process all of this later. He followed Remy out, taking a deep breath once he’d made it through the front door and into the open air. He smelled car exhaust, cigarette smoke, pidgeon shit. Objectively un-fresh air.

It was still the best thing he’d ever smelled in his life.

“I need to know,” Virgil began, then stopped. Swallowed. “My friend– Rage. Is he. . . okay?”

“Oh sweetie, he’s the one that figured out where you were stashed away!” Remy flashed him a grin. Virgil felt the last coil of fear left inside of him unwind, the final straw lifted from his back. “I’m sure your little coven will tell you all about it once we get you home.”

“Home,” Virgil repeated, just to taste the word in his mouth.

Home.

He was going home.

Chapter Text

Remy was having a fantastic fucking time.

He was on his third cup of coffee of the night, for starters. The caffeine didn’t do anything for him, but the taste of humanity’s iced, sugared, whipped-cream-and-drizzle-topped masterpieces were well worth the eventual time spent ralphing later, in his opinion. On top of that he’d successfully retrieved Janus’s stray and returned him safely home, not that it had been hard. Barely any work at all, especially compared to the payoff of voyeuring on their adorable little family reunion. This might be the most fun he’d had all year. He should be nice more often.

Paranoia was starting to look suffocated under all the attention he was receiving. He was clearly relieved to be back– Remy had thought the poor thing would collapse from the amount of tension that had sloughed off his shoulders once he clapped eyes on his squad again– but he was also clearly tired and in need of some serious tee-el-see, neither of which were being helped by the debriefing he was enduring.

Janus, head of said debriefing, was doing his best to keep a stiff upper lip and pretend he hadn’t been in full protective-sire-mode when he’d called Remy in. Remy could see right through the attempt, of course, but it was cute that he was trying. He’d clearly come a long way since Remy had last seen him; collecting a handful of fledglings and setting himself up as a stern mentor instead of the messy bitch he truly was. Hilarious. Well, Remy would let him have it for now. No need to embarrass him yet.

As for the other two, Rage had taken to standing guard at Paranoia’s shoulder with a set to his jaw that just screamed ‘try me bitch,’ and Mania had gone from being all over Paranoia when he’d first come through the door to sitting on a completely separate couch and refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Remy seemed to be the only one who’d clocked the behavior so far, what with everyone else’s attention fixed firmly on their newly-returned friend. He’d decided he wasn’t leaving until he got the tea. It had been too long since he’d had some good, high-quality drama. Downside of his little naps; he missed out on a lot of gossip.

So far, they’d established that Paranoia was unhurt (aside from needing a good meal and some hair products, goddamn) and how exactly he’d gotten himself captured in the first place. Lured into a trap by a bleeding hunter; not the oldest trick in the book, but not exactly fresh material either. A classic Remy had dealt with back in his baby-vampire days.

“So. . .” Paranoia began hesitantly. “Remy said Rage was the one who tracked me down?”

“He’s the one who got the ball rolling,” Janus said. “First he was going around beating the shit out of any rival gang we thought could have taken you; I was starting to worry we’d run out.”

“He did that. . . for me?” The question might have been directed at Janus but Paranoia wasn’t looking at him anymore, instead turning that wide-eyed wet-puppy-stare on the man still guarding his flank.

Rage gave a single, curt nod.

“You’re one of us,” was all he said.

So. Cute. Remy took another sip of his drink, resisting the urge to bite down on the straw. He should consider visiting Janus more often. Baby vampires were adorable, but too much work for Remy to consider wanting any himself. Popping by to see Janus’s would let him reap the rewards with none of the responsibility. Definitely worth thinking about.

Janus spoke, regaining Paranoia’s attention.

“Eventually a group of hunters crashed one of Rage’s little tea parties. He caught your scent on one of them and realized they must be holding you captive, so he got me their license plates and I passed them on to a contact. One was a rental, but the other turned up their location, and once I had that I put a call in to Remy. You know the rest from there.”

Paranoia curled in on himself a little further. “I’m so sorry, Rage. You could’ve gotten hurt and it was all my fault.”

Rage’s scowl deepened. “I chose to look for you.”

“No, not that,” Paranoia protested. “I mean, yes that, definitely that part too, but– I’m the one who sent the hunters after some of the other gangs.”

Janus straightened. “You were? ”

Paranoia nodded miserably. Remy tried to take his next sip as quietly as possible. He didn’t want to miss a second of this.

“They wanted information on other vampires, and I thought I could use them to clear out some of our competition. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Janus drawled, heavily sarcastic. Paranoia looked up, confusion written on his face. “If I’d known you were capable of that kind of clever manipulation I would’ve been using you as a sounding board this whole time. Clearly you’ve been holding back.”

“It wasn’t clever,” Paranoia muttered. “It almost got Rage killed.”

“I was fine,” Rage said firmly. “And it got you back to us.”

“All’s well that ends well, right?” Janus said. “Seriously, Paranoia, don’t worry about it. Though if there’s anything else you told them that might be a problem for us, now’s the time to speak up.”

Paranoia chewed his lower lip for a moment, brow furrowing. None of them were minding their fangs, but Remy wondered if Paranoia was even capable of stowing his at the moment, considering the purplish tint to his eyes. He might be too hungry to manage it.

“I don’t think so,” he said eventually. “I can tell you which other gangs I pointed them towards, but that’s basically it. I didn’t give anything away about you guys.”

“We didn’t think you would,” Janus said, “But it would’ve been understandable if you had. Everyone has a breaking point and hunters are famously sadistic. I’m sorry you spent as long with them as you did.”

“It’s okay,” Paranoia mumbled. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Janus turned to Remy, and Remy raised an eyebrow at him. Something about that look felt judgmental.

“I assume most of them are still alive?” Janus asked dryly.

Yep. Definitely judgemental.

“Don’t look at me,” Remy said, pointing his drink at Paranoia. “I offered emo-bangs over there a chance to get his revenge, and he said no. ”

“I just wanted to get home,” Paranoia said immediately, shoulders tensing. “I didn’t want to spend another second there if I didn’t have to. I wasn't gonna be the guy in a horror movie who doesn't leave when he gets a chance.”

He looked like he was expecting Janus to scold him, and for a moment, Remy thought he would. But then Janus let out a breath and shook his head.

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” he said airily. “But once you’ve had some rest we’ll need to discuss our plans to deal with these hunters. They have the potential to become very annoying otherwise.”

Paranoia nodded, relaxing slightly. “I’ll. . . tell you what I know.”

His eyes cut to Mania at that. Interesting. Mania himself was still, very determinedly, not looking at anyone else in the room, but even so he seemed to squirm a bit under the attention. Then again, he hadn’t been still for even a second since Remy arrived, so maybe he was just like that.

Unfortunately, Remy’s stomach chose that moment to lurch, and he pressed a hand to his mouth as he sprung to his feet.

“Bathroom?” he asked, looking to Janus.

Janus pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“Two doors down,” he said, gesturing to one of the hallways, and Remy booked it. He’d have to get the rest of the details later; for now, he had an appointment with a sink.

Virgil was staring at the door Remy had left through, expression one of open confusion.

“What is that guy’s deal?”

“He’s old,” Deceit said tiredly, still rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Remus knew that gesture quite well; he’d been the most regular cause of it since the two of them met. “Very old, and very powerful. Which means there isn’t much that can hurt him and absolutely nothing that scares him. What do you think that does to a person?”

“Checks them out of reality?” Virgil guessed.

“Among other things.”

Virgil fidgeted, picking at what looked to be new holes in his hoodie. “He– his eyes. They were. . .”

Jet black. Pupil, iris, sclera– all black. It was sexy as hell, and under normal circumstances Remus would be busy daydreaming about ways to get the hot old man to rail him. Unfortunately, these were not normal circumstances.

“It happens sometimes,” Deceit said. “The older we get, the less human we become.”

“We can get less human than this?” Virgil’s lip curled as he gestured at himself, hand to chest.

“In appearance, sure. Think of it like getting gray hairs.” Deceit lifted his hands in a shrug, looking unconcerned by Virgil’s apparent disgust. “Whatever it is that changes our eye color when we need sustenance, it gets stronger over time. Spills over. Eventually, it takes real effort to switch it off.”

Huh. There was a thought. Remus wondered if that had anything to do with Deceit’s heterochromia. Normally he’d just ask; politeness wasn’t his forté and busting out with is that how you got your freaky peepers seemed like a very direct way to get the answers he wanted. But just like how he wasn’t currently trying to get underneath daddy black-eyes, this too would have to wait.

Even if Remus really, really wanted to know if he could have green eyes full-time someday. It would be nice, looking in the mirror and seeing only himself looking back.

“ So glad I can look forward to that,” Virgil muttered.

If you survive that long!

Remus nearly blurted it out but managed to bite his tongue at the last second, fangs puncturing muscle and trapping the words inside. The tang of his own blood filled his mouth, tasteless, only recognizable by the feel of it. Like sucking on a penny. Like licking a subway pole.

“Go rest,” Deceit instructed Virgil, his expression softening. “Take care of yourself. We can talk more tomorrow evening.”

Virgil nodded, getting to his feet, but he didn’t leave just yet. He examined Deceit, then Rage, gaze heavy under the eyeliner and bags, and Remus couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t looking at him. Virgil’s chest rose. Fell. Rose again.

“Thank you,” he choked out. “I thought I was going to die there.”

He was doing a stellar job of holding back tears, but apparently was no match for Rage. As soon as the man stepped forward, pulling Virgil into a hug that swamped the smaller vampire in his leather-clad arms, the dam burst.

Deceit looked away. Remus didn’t. It probably would’ve been the polite thing to do; there was no way Virgil wasn’t embarrassed about crying in front of them, and he’d probably had enough of being stared at for ten lifetimes after being in hunter hands. It also would’ve hurt a lot less. Every second Remus spent watching Virgil sob into Rage’s shoulder twisted his heart further in his chest, wringing the atrophied muscle out until he was sure it would tear. He forced himself to keep looking. He deserved the pain.

Your fault, your fault, your fault–

He bit down harder. Barely felt it.

Eventually Virgil drew back, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. His eyeliner was holding up impressively well; which was to say it didn’t look any worse than usual. Remus supposed that made sense. It’d held up this long, after all. He should find out what brand Virgil used.

“I’m gonna go shower,” Virgil muttered. Rage nodded, gave Virgil’s shoulder a squeeze, then released him.

Remus watched him slink off down the hall, popping to his feet as soon as Virgil’s form disappeared.

“And I’m gonna go jack off!” he announced, offering the room a broad smile. Deceit started rubbing at the bridge of his nose again. Still got it.

“I mean, can you blame me?” he asked, backing towards the hall himself and lifting his hands in a shrug. “You both saw the same guy I did, right? I want mister milenium to give me a thousand years–“

“I think I will pay you actual human money to stop talking right now,” Deceit groaned, and Remus cackled as he turned around.

The smile dropped from his face as soon as he was out of sight.

Virgil hadn’t put too much distance between them, only a few yards further down the hallway than Remus was. His room was at the very end of the hall, one door down from Remus’s, and he was probably going to grab a clean outfit before he got into the shower. Remus would need to pick the lock if he wanted to steal Virgil’s dirty clothes; he’d throw a hissy fit about it, but Remus might be able to mollify him by fixing the new holes in his hoodie. Regardless, he needed to steal them before they got washed. Needed the scents clinging to the fabric. Needed to prove himself wrong, that the whiff he’d caught when Virgil first got back had been misleading. That he wasn’t–

Virgil stopped suddenly and Remus nearly walked right into him, managing at the last moment to pull up short.

“Are we going to talk about it?” he asked, turning to face Remus. His expression was tight. His arms were folded. He’d lowered his voice.

Okay, so Remus didn’t need the clothes now. Not even he could delude himself into thinking that wasn’t a confirmation of his worst fears.

He tried a laugh, and he knew it didn’t sound right on the way out. “Talk about what? I’m just, y’know. Going to my room. For pervert reasons.”

“Really?” Virgil’s tone was flat.

“I don’t know why this is a surprise to you. You’ve walked in on me a bunch of–“

“This is really how you’re playing this?” Virgil scoffed, shaking his head. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”

He turned away again, starting to stalk back down the hall, and Remus suddenly found his hand gripping Virgil’s upper arm. That happened sometimes; his body moving without his permission or conscious thought. It’d always gotten him in trouble.

“Are you–” he began to ask, but the words fell apart in his mouth. He licked his lips, then tried again. “Are you gonna tell Dee?”

Virgil glanced at him over his shoulder. Remus couldn't get a read on his expression. He didn't look pissed anymore, exactly, but he didn't look calm either. His eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pursed, and there was something strange around his eyes.

“No,” he said, after the silence had dragged on for long enough that Remus was feeling the anchors of it digging furrows in his chest. “But I don’t know how much it matters. Deceit wants to go kill them all, remember? He’s going to find out anyway.”

He shrugged off Remus’s hand, but didn't move any further down the hall. Remus curled his now-empty fingers inward and pressed his hand to his own chest, knuckles to sternum, feeling the way the empty cavity fell deathly still when he wasn't speaking. Sometimes Remus wondered if he could hold still enough that decay would come creeping up to finally catch him.

Virgil’s eyes slanted downward. “Whatever. I’m not helping you fix your shit if you can't even tell me the truth about what’s going on.”

“Please.” The word was out before Remus had even decided to say it, to say anything. He swallowed, digging his knuckles harder into his chest, the pain grounding him. “Please, Virgil, I– can’t do this on my own.”

Virgil folded his arms, eyes going hooded. “Give me one good reason.”

“Because you don't want them dead either.”

Bingo. Vigil’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed, scowl becoming more pronounced. Overcompensating.

“Of course I fucking do,” he scoffed. “They kidnapped me. And unlike you, I’m not into that shit.”

“Then why didn't you kill them on the way out?” Remus pressed. Virgil opened his mouth, but Remus kept going. “You had the chance. Mister fuckable black-eyes said so. It would’ve been easy. You chose to let them live, so don’t try to tell me you’re not interested in giving me a handie here.”

“I told you, I just wanted to get home!” Virgil protested, but he couldn't fool Remus.

“You're the biggest softie in this joint, emo. You can't even get your murder-boner up consistently for strangers, and you expect me to believe you want to kill people you’ve actually spent time with? Bull-fucking-shit.”

Virgil gritted his teeth. “I don't know. I’ve known you for a while and murder’s feeling pretty tempting right now.”

“Please,” Remus said again, squeezing as much sincerity into the word as it could hold. “We both want the same thing here. This is an easy in, Virge!”

“Fuck me,” Virgil muttered, and it was a testament to how serious Remus was being in this moment that he didn't immediately say gladly, your room or mine?

Virgil looked at him. Looked at the ceiling. Looked back at him.

“Fine,” he ground out. “But I’m showering first. Whatever insane plan you have can wait until I feel less like a walking corpse.”

Remus’s grin hurt. “Yes. Thank you! You won’t regret this, tall dark and steamy!”

“You underestimate my capacity for regret,” Virgil grumbled. He shrugged off his hoodie and threw it at Remus’s head. “And fix this for me while I’m hosing off. You owe me that much at least.”

Remus nodded eagerly, already turning the fabric over in his hands to examine the new holes.

“You got it, virgin airlines. It’ll be a piece of ass.”

“Day five-hundred and something of begging you to use normal expressions,” Virgil muttered. Before he could slink off to grab a change of clothes Remus stopped him once again, this time on purpose.

“Hey, Virgil?” he said.

Virgil gave him a wary look.

“Yeah?”

“I really am glad you’re not sliced open on a dissection table somewhere.” Remus held his eye contact with Virgil for a long moment, making sure he knew he meant it. Then, because not even he could hold himself in check for long, “Though I’m not sure it’s really dissection for the undead. Not sure it’s vivisection either! There’s some heated debate about that in the Danny Phantom fandom. You remember Danny Phantom, right? I’ve read some fanfictions that will really –”

“I’m going now, Remus,” Virgil flatly informed him, turning away once again. Remus inclined his head in acknowledgement. Yeah. Fair enough.

He had planning to do, anyway.

The silence was deafening was a good phrase, in Roman’s opinion. Maybe a bit overused, but still good. It described a silence that was so overwhelming it clogged the senses, actively drowning out attempts to break it. A silence that made speaking feel like shouting into a wind tunnel. Roman had experienced many deafening silences in his life; most caused by his brother when they were younger, then by his brother’s absence in the years after that. If Roman had thought he knew silence before Remus’s death, he’d been wrong. There was no louder silence than the one left behind by someone you loved.

This silence wasn’t quite as painful as that empty-bed silence, that he’s never coming home again silence, that hearing him in your own laugh so you stop laughing for a month silence. It was doing its best to compete, though. Instrumental versions of Taylor Swift songs were playing through tinny speakers overhead, and there was the clacking of a laptop keyboard two tables over as someone college-aged desperately alternated between swigs of coffee and paragraphs of text. The café they’d found themselves in wasn't exactly swamped this late at night– or early in the morning, depending on how you thought of it– and as Roman stared at the napkin dispenser just so he’d have something to look at that wasn't his teammates he could hear a couple unoccupied staff members chatting behind the counter. None of that noise, paradoxically, detracted from the silence at all. It just made it worse. Life was continuing around them with ease, yet the three of them couldn't bring themselves to speak.

Roman wondered who’d be strong enough to do it first.

“Here’s your drinks,” the waitress– Georgie, by her name tag– chirped as she set their cups down in front of them, seeming to notice the atmosphere around their table and compensate hard. Roman gave her his best smile in thanks, though right now it felt more like a grimace.

“Thank you so much,” he told her, and there it was– the silence of talking to anyone except your friends. Teammates.

Friends.

“You’re very welcome!” Georgie’s smile didn't waver. A true professional. “You folks let me know if you want anything else, okay? I’ll be right back over if you just give me a wave.”

“Thank you,” Roman said again, and then Georgie was gone and he was left to once again sit surrounded by deafening silence.

Logan was the first to speak, which Roman supposed he should have seen coming. His words were also completely insane, which Roman didn't think he could have seen coming but did make sense.

“I’ll do the paperwork for this,” Logan said, and Roman couldn’t say for sure what expression that put on his face but he did know he hadn't felt so incredulous in his life.

“You can’t be serious,” he said, and immediately regretted it, because Logan started looking at him as if he was the crazy one here.

“Prince, in the time I have known you you have only ever filled out a form voluntarily twice, and one of them was a buzzfeed quiz Hart printed out and slid under your door. Of course I’m serious; me being the one to handle the report on this incident falls well within established trends.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Roman snapped.

At the same time, Patton said, “I thought it would be the appropriate way to find out what analogue form of communication Roman is!”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Well maybe,” he said testily, “If you ever said what you meant, we wouldn't have so many miscommunications.”

“It was handwritten letters,” Patton whispered.

Roman threw up his hands. “It isn’t my fault you can’t read between the lines!”

“There is nothing between the lines. That’s not how reading works. There are lines of text, and there is blank space in between where nothing is written, and that is it. I don't understand why certain people insist on projecting their own meaning where there is literally nothing. ”

“God, you’re insufferable,” Roman snarled. “Why do you insist on being right all the time? Did you not get enough attention growing up?”

“That is a fascinating question coming from you.”

Some of us have to act out to get attention, Ro-Bro. It’s better than no attention at all.

“Can it, tin can,” Roman snapped. “I didn't ask for the psycho-analysis. Emphasis on the psycho, you psycho!”

Logan heaved an unreasonably aggrieved sigh. “Psycho can be short for two things, neither of which are applicable here and one of which isn’t even a real diagnosis. The term psychopath isn't recognized by the DSM and psychotic refers to someone experiencing a break with reality, so the use of that term as an insult is just–”

Roman slammed his head down on the table hard enough that his forehead stung and groaned into the faintly lemony-smelling wood.

“I hate you,” he gritted out, not meaning it.

“He doesn't mean that,” Patton said, and Roman lifted his head enough to give him an infuriated look.

“Yes I do!”

Logan had pulled out a cleaning cloth from somewhere and was currently wiping down his glasses, expression tight. The movement of his hands was quick and controlled, small gestures that read as sharp instead of careful.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Prince is in an emotional state due to the stress of our recent encounter. It would be foolish to take his words personally right now. But that doesn't change the fact that we have something important to be discussing.”

“You’re in an emotional state too,” Patton said gently, and Roman felt himself moved even further towards violence when Logan huffed in response.

“No, I am not,” he said. “Please stop projecting your own feelings onto me. If I am ever in distress, I will inform you. Now, can we please focus on the topic at hand?”

Roman lifted his head from the tabletop, glaring swords at Logan. He'd redonned his glasses at some point and now his usual bespectacled gaze was focused down at Roman, judgemental and cold. Roman hated that coldness. For once, he just wanted Spec’s carefully constructed façade to break, for him to be honest with their team. Didn't they deserve that much?

“Sure,” Roman spat caustically. “We can start with how you apparently have no emotional response to having been downstairs with the prisoner, alone like I told you not to be, when it broke out. Let’s start with that.”

He didn't get the big response he wanted, just a minute tightening at the corners of Logan’s mouth.

“If you were serious about me not being the sole person filling out paperwork for this, we shouldn’t be sharing our experiences yet. We should fill out individual incident reports before discussion so our accounts are uncolored by the experiences of others.”

“We’re not filling out incident reports!” Roman nearly shouted. “We're not filling out anything! We can’t report this!”

That got Patton giving him a wide-eyed, alarmed look.

“What?” he said, voice small. “Roman, we– we have to. I don’t want to either, but. . .”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Roman told him. “All we have to do is recapture our escaped vampire and it’ll be like nothing ever happened. Easy!”

Logan’s voice was flat. “Ignoring for now the logistics of tracking down one specific vampire in an entire city– a vampire who may well have fled the area completely, given what we know of its temperament– failing to report our encounter would be illegal, not to mention ill-advised. We were, to a man, rendered entirely helpless in the escape, and information on such a powerful vampire is critical for our organization. This is especially true for time-sensitive information such as its most recent location.”

That– well. It did give Roman pause, however much he didn't want it to. It made him hesitate long enough that the barbs on his tongue had no time to fly before Logan was speaking again.

“That having been said, I also don’t want to inform anyone of this incident.”

What.

“What?” Roman asked, at roughly the same time as Patton. Logan lifted his shoulders in a fractional attempt at a shrug.

“Upon learning that we were attacked by a vampire as strong as this one, our team will receive increased attention. We will be assigned additional personnel– entirely reasonably– and it’s possible we will receive disciplinary action or even reassignment if a review board finds fault with how we’ve operated up to this point. And I. . .”

Logan trailed off. Then his jaw tightened, his expression becoming more firm.

“I like our team the way it is.”

Roman squinted. He couldn't have heard that right.

“You mean you think our team is optimally formatted or something, right Mister Robot?” he asked bitterly.

Logan frowned. “If that was what I meant, that’s what I would have said. And we are certainly not optimally formatted– we’re understaffed, and it’s caused numerous problems throughout our tenure here.”

“Then what do you care if they send us more hunters?” Roman asked– not entirely sure how he’d wound up on the opposite side of the argument, but too irritated to care. “Shouldn't you be all for it? I thought you were all about efficiency and effectiveness. You're always telling me to forget about my feelings and listen to logic, yet here you are throwing that away for–”

“You tolerate me!” Logan blurted, and Roman pulled up short.

“. . .what?” Patton asked, voice tentative.

Logan was staring at the tabletop, hands perfectly folded in front of him. Looking closer, Roman could see fine tremors in the man’s fingertips, and tension in his shoulders.

“You tolerate me,” he repeated, quieter this time. “And in my experience, that is a rarity. My whole life, people have found me. . . abrasive. Unpleasant. Even my fellow academics thought I was too clinical and detached. They found my areas of interest disturbing and disliked my results. So, yes, I would prefer our team remain as it is– with teammates who are actually willing to work with me. I do not want to be reassigned again.”

“You’ve been on other teams before?” Patton asked, voice tentative. Roman could understand the hesitation. This might be the most emotionally honest he’d heard Logan in. . . well, ever, and he was half-convinced that breathing wrong would cause their most uptight member to clam up again.

Logan let out a breath.

“I never got past the compatibility assessments,” he admitted, “Not until you two. They tried pairing me up with five other potential teams, and each one found some sort of fault with me. With that kind of data it’s hard not to predict that new team members might want me gone.”

“They’d need a majority vote for that, Lo,” Patton said softly. “And me and Roman– we’d never let that happen to you.”

“Wouldn't you?” Logan’s gaze cut sharply to Roman, and Roman spluttered at the implication.

“Excuse you!” he cried, “We are a team, Spock. Sure, we fight sometimes, and sure, I can get tired of your Vulcan I have no feelings act, but that doesn’t mean I’d throw you out. ”

That didn't seem to have been the right thing to say– if anything, Logan’s expression shuttered further.

“Oh,” he said, sounding only distantly surprised. “I thought you would’ve figured it out by now.”

“Figured what out?” Patton asked.

Logan looked down again, this time so he could curl his hands around his mug of coffee. None of them had taken a sip yet. Roman wasn’t sure his churning stomach could handle any additions right now, and he figured Patton was in the same boat. Logan, however, looked very much like he was considering downing his whole mug.

“It’s not an act,” he said at last, and Roman watched his grip tighten around the ceramic. “My lack of emotion. I have feelings, but I don’t experience most of them with the same. . . intensity, as the average person. I never have. People tend to find it unsettling or– as in your case– they assume I must be lying; denying and repressing my feelings. But I’m not. My brain just works differently than most people’s.”

Roman squinted at Logan. He looked serious, but that wasn’t saying much. The guy wore a necktie every damn day, even when he didn’t plan on leaving the house. Serious could be his middle name. Hell, for all Roman knew it was. It wasn’t like he knew the guy’s actual middle name. Logan almost never shared anything personal, with him or with Patton, and Patton had a face you couldn’t help but want to spill everything to!

But here Logan was. Sharing something personal. Something he clearly expected to be judged for.

Did Roman. . . believe him?

Logan was right– Roman had always assumed he was sailing a shaky raft down a river in Egypt whenever he insisted he wasn’t feeling something he so obviously was. And Roman didn’t like to admit when he was wrong, but maybe he could allow for the possibility that he had been. . . projecting, slightly, when he made guesses about what Logan was feeling. Maybe there had been other explanations for what Roman had assumed were tells. Maybe Roman didn’t know Logan half as well as he’d thought he did.

“So you’re really not upset about how close our friend Paranoia got to giving your throat the Sweeny Todd treatment,” Roman ventured, words almost cautious.

Logan shrugged.

“Judging from my current base of knowledge, there was nothing any of us could have done to prevent what happened tonight. That rules out regret. As for fear, we’re all whole and uninjured for the time being. Nothing to be scared of. I also don’t feel any particular anger towards Paranoia, given that its desire to escape is entirely understandable. What else am I supposed to feel?”

“Jesus,” Roman said, with feeling. “Is this seriously how your mind works?”

Logan’s grip tightened around his coffee cup and Roman winced, scrambling to backtrack.

“I mean– not that it’s bad! It’s fine. Totally fine! Your brain can work however it wants to, it’s just– surprising. To hear the process. With all that. . . reasoning behind emotions.”

“It’s not really how emotions work for everyone else,” Patton added softly, toying with his mug. “Emotions are kind of. . . the opposite of logic?”

“You misunderstand,” Logan said. “The emotions– or lack thereof– come first. Then I discern why I am or am not feeling something. The same applies to you two, or to anyone– emotions may seem random, but they have their own sort of internal consistency, and understanding it helps you come to a better understanding of yourself and others. Psychology is, after all, a science.”

“Sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Patton observed.

Logan let out a breath. “I’ve known for a long time that my mind is the exception, not the rule. Studying the minds of others seemed like a good way to fit in. Not that it worked.”

“Good news,” Roman said dryly, “We’re all weirdos here. You fit in just fine, Data.”

It was subtle, and if Roman hadn’t been paying such close attention to Logan he would have missed it, but there was the barest upturn at the corners of his mouth at that. A smile, however faint.

“So,” Logan said, “My own misgivings aside, why are the two of you reluctant to report tonight’s incident? Perhaps through discussion we can resolve your discomfort as well.”

Roman made a face, leaning back in his chair.

“My reasoning’s not as dramatic as yours,” he admitted grudgingly, “Which is deeply unfair, by the way. I deserve to be the most dramatic member of this team at all times. But if I’m being honest, I just didn’t want to get in trouble. We’ve all worked so hard to be where we are, and I don’t see why we should risk reassignment when we're capable of fixing this on our own. You did make a good point about the risk to others, though. I’d be no kind of hero at all if I put my comrades in danger for selfish reasons.”

“And you?” Logan asked, turning his attention to their shared teammate.

Roman watched Patton sink slowly down in his seat, staring at the mug in front of him– hot coco, the odd one out to Logan and Roman’s coffees. The heaping pile of whipped cream that topped it was slowly starting to go flat the longer it went untouched. It looked a bit like Patton himself right now, if Roman was going to make metaphors.

“It’s fine,” Patton said, a bright smile on his face that didn't fool Roman for a second. “I already said I wanted to be honest anyway, so we don’t need to talk about anything!”

“Right,” Roman said flatly, “Except that’s not what you said. You said we had to be honest, not that you want to be. You literally said the opposite of that.”

“Did I?” Patton let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. You know me– sometimes I get my words all mixed up!”

“Patton,” Roman said, “You should tell us. Whatever’s bothering you, sharing will help you feel better.”

Determined to lose any good will he’d just been granted, Logan started to argue.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “That attitude became common after Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, or CISD, became the standard treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Unfortunately CISD is based on an extremely flawed paper. While sharing traumatic events can help recontexualize them in a person’s mind, this is only effective if the sharing is voluntary and happens in a safe environment. Pressuring Hart to open up is counterproductive and could result in making the trauma worse, not better.”

“I’m not pressuring him!” Roman snapped.

At the same time, Patton said, “I don’t have PTSD!”

“Hart,” Logan said calmly, “You decapitate human-shaped creatures as a regular part of your job. Field agents without trauma are as rare as unicorns, in the sense that their existence is a myth.”

Roman, still bristling from the implication that he was putting undue pressure on Patton, huffed.

“You’re not helping, Doctor Lecter. Aren't you the one who said discussion might resolve things, or am I thinking of a different nerd?”

“I said might. I’m just trying to make sure we're all as informed as possible going into this–” Logan broke off. His eyes lit up. Roman was pretty sure if he blinked hard enough, he’d see Steven Universe stars appearing in his pupils. “Of course. Information!”

Roman shared a look with Patton, saw that his teammate looked just as bewildered as him, and said, “You lost us.”

Logan gestured emphatically. “We’ve been treating this like a binary choice– tell the whole truth, or say nothing– but that framing is reductive. We have other options. We could, for example, fabricate a story that contains true details about the vampire we encountered but occurs outside our jurisdiction. We could compile our accounts, but set them to be delivered in the event of our deaths rather than immediately. But most importantly, we can do further research before we make a decision. I guarantee you there is more information available about a vampire like this one, information that could be critical in determining the path we take.”

“Like what?” Patton asked tentatively.

“Let’s say there have been sightings of this vampire traveling in a clear line across the states. In that case, we can argue there is no need for additional personnel since it’s most likely that the vampire was just passing through.”

Roman frowned. “How likely is that?”

“Not very, but it was just an example,” Logan said. “I propose the following– until we determine the degree to which our base’s security has been compromised, we all sleep during the day and avoid the premises at night. In the meantime, I will research the vampire we encountered and see if any of the information I find changes our plans going forward.”

“Won’t we get in trouble for delaying our report?” Patton asked, shifting in his seat. “I mean, we’re supposed to report in as soon as possible, right?”

“That’s just it,” Logan said. “We’re allowed time for additional research. Incident reports are important, but so is supplemental data, so there’s a short grace period in which to gather it. That is, objectively, what I would be doing.”

“So we have more time to think about this, but won't be in any more trouble for waiting,” Roman concluded, a smile spreading over his face. “Specs, I could kiss you!”

“I’d prefer you fill out your report while the incident is still fresh in your mind,” Logan said dryly. “I have blank forms in my bag.”

“Of course you do.”

As Logan started to shuffle through his bag, Roman turned to look at Patton. The sky outside was starting to lighten, streaks of pink and purple touching the clouds, and it made their soft little powder puff look all the softer framed against it. Roman wondered what had him so nervous about reporting in. It couldn't be the potential new staff; Patton loved making new friends. The idea of getting in trouble, then? Roman could understand that. He was in the same boat.

Logan dropped a small stack of paper in front of them both.

“Alright,” he said. “We all fill these out, then we can discuss what happened. Provided you both want to, of course.”

“Yeah,” Roman said, “I’m dying of curiosity. After all, I was upstairs during the whole incident and–”

“Prince,” Logan snapped, “What part of uncolored by the experiences of others didn’t make sense to you?”

“I need a pen,” Patton said quietly. Then, a little louder, “Otherwise this report will be. . . unpenable!”

“Good to see you getting your good humor back, Poppy,” Roman said.

Logan, looking like he very much did not agree, drew a pencil case from his bag. Roman accepted a ballpoint, took a sip of his coffee, and got to work filling out the form. He hadn’t been kidding– he really had been upstairs the whole time. He’d been in the middle of a sketch when sleep had claimed him, so suddenly that it felt like he’d merely blinked. It was only after he’d woken up that he'd realized how unnatural the whole thing had been, which caused him to frantically jump up from his desk and go searching for his teammates. Patton had been passed out in the entryway and, even more alarmingly, they’d found an unconscious Logan in front of an empty cell downstairs. He’d refused to give them any details about what happened and had been driving Roman more than a little mental.

On the bright side, Roman didn't have much to write down, which made filling out his form a snap. He finished first, with Logan and Patton following at roughly the same time. Logan looked like he’d written a lot, but that wasn’t a surprise. He could be quite loquacious when it came to paperwork. Patton, on the other hand, had written only slightly more than Roman, but had been working so slowly that it was obvious he was struggling to put the experience into words. By the time they were both finished, Roman was practically vibrating in his seat.

“So,” he said, “What happened?”

“Reports first,” Logan said, holding out his hands.

Roman groaned but handed his over, watching as Logan paper-clipped it together with the rest before slipping them all into his bag.

“I guess I should probably start,” Patton said once everything had been filed away. “It was my fault. I’m really sorry.”

“We’ve been over this, Hart,” Logan said tiredly. “These things are only the fault of the perpetrators– in this case, the vampire who assaulted us.”

“So it was a second vampire?” Roman clarified. “Not Paranoia knocking us out somehow?”

Patton nodded miserably. “I’d never seen this one before. It knocked on the door and I thought maybe it was just someone who got lost? It even had an iced coffee it was drinking, which is why I thought it was probably human. I opened the door and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with Roman shaking me awake.”

“It got me all the way upstairs, poptropica,” Roman said. “If you hadn't opened the door, it would’ve knocked you out and torn the thing off its hinges. If anything, you're the reason we don’t have to call a. . . um, who would we call in this case? A carpenter? A contractor?”

“Probably a door company,” Logan said.

“There are companies just for doors?” Patton asked, perking up. “That’s a- door -able!”

“Prince woke first,” Logan muttered, “Which could indicate that the effects are proximity-based. As far as we know, you’re the only one who didn’t have direct contact with the vampire.”

“We need to figure out how this vampire found our fortress of solitude,” Roman said, “And what its relationship is to Paranoia. Helsing’s charming accent, I hope that thing isn’t its sire.”

“It isn’t a part of Paranoia’s group,” Logan said quietly, and with a remarkable amount of confidence. “It called itself Remy and spoke about Paranoia like it was their first time meeting.”

Roman’s heart dropped through his shoes. “You were awake when that thing came downstairs?”

“Awake, but so completely exhausted I was unable to move,” Logan confirmed.

Roman thought he might be sick.

They’d all been ignoring it so far– the elephant in the room. The fact that the three of them had been completely helpless tonight. The vampire– Remy– had waltzed into their base, their home, and put them all into a slumber they could very well have never woken up from. The fact that they were all still alive was nothing short of a miracle. The thought was terrifying enough to Roman, who had only realized as much in hindsight. Even Patton seemed to have been knocked out fast enough that he hadn’t really grasped the situation. To be lying on the ground, barely conscious, with not one but two vampires standing over you. . .

“Oh, Logan,” Patton whispered, voice watery.

Logan waved him off.

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Genuinely. The upside of this vampire’s method of attack was that I was too tired to feel any fear in the moment, and I already explained why I don’t feel any now. The only thing I do feel is a powerful curiosity about the politics involved in why a vampire who’d never even met Paranoia came to its rescue, and why Paranoia didn’t take the opportunity for revenge once it had been released.”

“Probably plotting a messier and more diabolical revenge,” Roman muttered.

“Maybe it started to like us and didn't want to hurt us,” Patton offered.

Roman groaned.

“Why do you do that?” he asked. “We all know vampires aren't capable of that kind of thing. I appreciate the whole seeing the potential best in everyone thing, but that’s for people. Paranoia’s a monster.”

“Actually,” Logan said, “The theory might have merit.”

Roman stared. Okay, he was taking back his belief that they’d made it out of tonight unscathed– clearly, Logan had brain damage. Or maybe Roman did. Maybe this whole conversation had been a dream, and he’d be waking up back in his own room laughing at the idea that Logan of all people was implying that the world was sunshine and rainbows and a vampire could learn to love.

They couldn't. Once a vampire turned, the human they had been was dead forever. All that was left was a monster wearing their skin.

“You’re kidding,” Roman said flatly.

Logan sighed. “To be clear, I’m not saying we were saved by the power of friendship or some nonsense like that. It is, however, possible that Paranoia does not want us dead. Vampires lose the capacity for empathy and affection after turning– at least, as far as humans are concerned– but that doesn’t mean that they hurt us without purpose. If there’s something Paranoia wants from us, something more important than its hunger or desire for revenge, then leaving us alive is a logical course of action.”

“One flaw in that theory,” Roman said, throwing up his hands, “There’s nothing that monster could want from us that badly! If anything, with how skittish and cowardly it is, it should've wanted to remove us as threats while we were unable to defend ourselves.”

Logan coughed.

“Right,” he said, “Except that maybe. . . possibly. . . I may have come across a new method to administer drugs to vampires. And tested it on Paranoia. While it was having what appeared to be a panic attack. After which it experienced relief and indicated a strong interest in further medication.”

Roman stared at his teammate.

“What the fuck,” he said, which he felt summed up his emotions fairly well.

“It’s just a theory,” Logan said, “But it would explain why Paranoia didn't kill us.”

Roman slid so far down in his chair that his chin touched his chest.

“I can’t believe we were saved by your mad science,” he groaned.

“In theory,” Logan insisted again.

“Does that mean,” Patton ventured, “That maybe if we do find Paranoia, we’ll be able to just. . . talk to it? Without it trying to kill us?”

“In–” Logan broke off. Sighed. “Possibly. It likely recognized that I would refuse to help it if it hurt either of you, which could offer you some measure of protection. But I must insist that both of you remember that none of this has been confirmed.”

“What other possibility is there?” Roman asked incredulously. “That it spontaneously sprouted a conscience, unlike any other vampire that’s ever existed?”

“Obviously not,” Logan said, sounding tired, “But I’m sure there are other explanations we haven’t considered. I don't think any of us are at our best right now.”

“I hear that,” Patton said, lifting his mug towards the two of them with a small, exhausted smile. Roman clinked his cup against Patton’s, because he wasn’t a monster.

“Sleep on it and figure it out tomorrow night?” Roman asked. “The sun’s coming up. Should be safe to go back now, though Patton and I should still sweep home base before we get comfortable.”

“It’s a plan,” Logan agreed.

“I’m in,” Patton said, though he was cut off by a huge yawn.

Roman looked out the window as the rapidly-lightening sky. A new dawn. He knew what that symbolized. New possibilities. New hopes. A chance to turn things around.

A voice in the back of his mind, one that sounded like an echo of his own, whispered it can also be a chance to fuck it all up, Ro-Bro.