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Will wouldn’t say that he was an individual that was particular inclined toward believing in the supernatural. Sure, there was that part of him that was drawn to the imagery associated with it. Your Frankensteins, your Draculas, your Wolfmen, and your Jekyll & Hyde all had their own look to them. There were plenty of arguments to be made that they all carried their own unique aesthetics. That didn’t mean that they all didn’t share their own form of blood.
Their old Hollywood movies were all married together in Universal’s ‘Monster Universe,’ though you weren’t gonna see anything of that quality in this day and age, with cross overs taking places on and off through out the years. The Wolfman meeting Dracula or Frankenstein’s Monster be seeing with the Mummy. A mixing pot of monstrous fair that certainly allowed for a surprising amount of content to be produced within the old Hollywood studio system. Not to mention what came after it with Hammer Horror films. Those were their own cocktail of horror madness, though certainly more focused on vampires over other creatures of the night.
That was the thing about it all, though. It was all fake.
Every discernable thing he could think of in relation to the supernatural was unquestionably fake. Sure there were ghost and aliens where there seemed to be more debate around it. Hell, even cryptids had people genuinely believing in them. But vampires? Not so much.
There might have been people in history who believed in a mummy’s curse or that a vampire was lurking in the local graveyard, but even that could be disproved. They were more omens of the time. People being afflicted with tuberculous and such. Just comping mechanisms and metaphors.
It was certainly good stroy telling. Vampires had permeated so much of pop culture over the years that it was hard to deny their appeal. There were a variety of ways one could take the concept. From Nosferatu to Interview With The Vampire, there were a wide range of metaphors one could use the eternal blood suckers for.
Each titular creature of the night were pulling from the same general mythos, but each had their own particular twist and turn with how that was shown. That only further proved that they were fictitious creatures, though.
There were always going to be concepts that played with the cost of immortality and the corruption that would come with it. But it was just that, concepts. Stories that were told around pubs or gossiped about by a hearth. Nothing that any modern person should consider to take seriously. Yet, despite all that information pointing to the contrary, Will found an extraordinary pale figure looming in his window frame.
He was half sat up in bed when he caught sight of the figure. At first he thought that lack of sleep was finally getting to him as he’d been tossing and turning all night, but even as his alarm clock glowed 4 AM it couldn’t account for the person leaned against the glass pains of his window. Not to mention the fact that his apartment was on the fifth floor of the building. That in and of itself should have deterred anyone from attempting a break in like this, but if it was a break in this stranger was trying to pull off it wasn’t quite going to plan.
Their eyes met in that quick moment where Will was just trying to turn over in bed, and neither of them had moved since then. As seconds turned into minutes with the two glued to the other’s stare, it dawned on him that there really was no sign of movement from this person’s chest. Their eyes gave off a slight red glow as well and was only amplified by the horrifically pale skin he had. If he squinted he could see their veins practically popping with color. The sickly skin almost coming off bluish when looked at in conjunction with those veins. If Will was seeing him on his tv screen he’d honestly have thought it was a pretty solid vampire design, but instead it was looming outside his fucking window.
As adrenaline coursed it’s way through Will’s own veins, it suddenly occurred to him that he recognized the grease black hair drooping down the figure’s face. He’d been so focused on the red eyes that had been peaking out between stringy strands of hair that he hadn’t even been able ot put it into the great context.
No, the moment all of the pieces of the puzzle clicked together he cast his sheets aside scrambled over to the window. His senses screamed at him to stay away as his hands landed on the latch in the middle. That red glint in those eyes were enough to prove that he was in some kind of danger, but that didn’t matter right then. He pushed passed his fear and threw the windows toward him. The figure crumpled toward him and their hands landed on his shoulder.
“Jesus, Gerard, what the hell are you doing?” Will asked as he grabbed ahold of his friend’s waist and pulled him inside.
“I don’t know.” Their voice weakly came out and only served to make him worry more about what the hell was going on.
He set them down against the edge of his bed as he started to push his friend’s hair out of their face, “If you wanted to come over you know you could have just called, right?”
That got a smile out of them, which proved him with some relief. Even if that smile also served to let him see that Gerard did, in fact, have fangs inside of his mouth.
“Calling wasn’t really in the cards anymore.”
“Loose your phone or something?”
“No, not too keen on walking through the lobby right now. You might be able to understand why given the look of horror you gave me.”
“I think anyone would react that way if they saw someone standing outside their window at 4 AM. Especially if they live on the fifth floor of their building.”
A rueful laugh left their lips, “I still couldn’t think of anything else.”
Will sighed as his finger pushed the last few bits of hair behind Gerard’s ear. His skin crawled with the amount of oil that were now on the tips of those fingers, but he whipped them against his pants in a failed attempt to alleviate that disturbing sensation. It was impressive how rough they were looking, yet his clothes were decently intact.
Well, as intact as their outfits tended to be. If it was after a gig it was certainly going to be a gamble if their clothes were still standing, but the particular fit they were in was part of that repertoire. It was a black suit with a red tie and a white dress shirt underneath. There wasn’t any sign of blood on any of these pieces of clothing, and besides the general weight that came with how much Gerard tended to sweat there didn’t seem to be any issues with them.
He felt bad to offer it, but he still asked, “You wanna talk about this more after you take a shower?”
That got a full smile out of Gerard. The rueful laugh increased in volume, “Too gross for you? It’s only sweat, you know. I promise there aren’t any fluids on me.”
“No, I can tell that. Just thought you might want a break from all this,” he motioned with his hands, “so that it’ll be easier to relax.”
“Aw, Will, I’m perfectly relax.”
The smile they gave him then was truly something to witness. The way his ways protruded out from the top of their mouth and almost pressed against their lips. It would be so fascinating, if it wasn’t also deeply ominous.
“Take a shower, Gee. You really need it.”
They side eyed the hell out of him right then, but with his help he made his way to the bathroom and into the shower. As Will closed the door behind them, and made sure that they weren’t going to hurt themselves, he leaned against it and slide to the floor.
Time ticked closer and closer to 5 AM and his nerves were so shot that he already knew that there was no way for him to get to sleep. “Fuck Gee, what the hell happened?”
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It took about an hour before Gerard came out of the bathroom. Will had taken up a position at his kitchen table, a pot of coffee nearby, as he waited patiently for them to come out. He was on his second cup by the time he heard the water stop and he was at the bottom of that cup when the door finally opened.
He’d left them an oversized t-shirt and some pajama pants outside the bathroom door and any other time he might have smirked at how it clashed with their normal style, but even the coffee couldn’t bring that out of him. No, the most it could do for him at this point was make sure that his body kept having the ability to move forward and achieve basic goals. Such as, figuring out what the fuck happened to Gee to leave him like this.
He’d seen him about a week ago before this but hadn’t heard anything about them going missing. That gave him the idea that this must have been a recent issue that had come up, or they were just really good at hiding it from their band mates. It could also have been some sink prank that was being played on him and he hadn’t caught onto it yet. If it was a prank, though, the fact he was still running with it after the shower felt telling.
He swished coffee around in his cup as he asked, “Better?”
They sat down across from Will and started to fidget with the ends of his nails, “Yeah, yeah, something like that.”
The two of them sat in an awkward silence for minutes. Each of them making eye contact with the other before they’d nervously glance away. It was hard for either of them to quite figure out what to say at that point. The hurtle of making sure that Gerard was alright had been gotten over, but only left very complicated and uncomfortable conversations to go forward with, right?
“So, you haven’t, just, always been a vampire, right?”
They blinked at Will as the question ran it’s course through his head. “No, what, did you really think that?”
“It’s not a crazy question to ask!”
“It actually is. It’s a definitely a crazy way to start a conversion.”
“Well what else do you expect me to ask?”
They opened their mouth to respond before slowly closing it. His tongue briefly touched the edge of their fangs and they appeared to shrink into himself.
Will took another sip of his coffee, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I wasn’t always a vampire, Will. I promise I was a fucking human when you met me.”
“No, no, I meant did you want to talk about what happened?”
Their eyes widened slightly, “No, I don’t really want to.”
Will’s brow furrowed at that but he nodded, “Okay, you don’t have to. I just want to know what you need from me. Do you want me to call Mikey or Ray?”
They had a slight smirk on their face after that. “You know Frank is an option too, right?”
“You think he’d be able to handle this?”
“You think Mikey is gonna be able to handle this?”
Will laughed a little at that one, “I’m barley handling this, so probably not!”
Gerard threw their hands up, “Preaching to the choir!”
They both laughed for a few seconds afterward before the implications of what Gee had said set in. Will’s eye brows turned upward in concern but he sipped his coffee to not ask. Gerard started to bite on their lip before recoiling with pain.
“Goddamn it.” They muttered, their hand came away with blood on the tip of his fingers.
“Did that hurt to say?”
He shot Will a surprised look before being able to smile again. “No, it didn’t. It’s not that brand of vampireism at least.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna start walking around wearing a cross to throw off suspicion? I’m sure you have enough of them in your closet as is.”
They flashed their fangs at Will, “Maybe, still gotta see if it burns my hand when I touch it.”
As the air around them finally began to feel lighter, Gerard suddenly crumpled into themself. Their hands wrapped around his stomach and his forehead landed on Will’s table.
“Fuck, Gee, what’s wrong?”
They didn’t respond. Rather, they took in a sharp breath before hissing it back out. His teeth grinded together as they felt their fangs continue to stab into their mouth. Their fingers dung into his stomach as they started to shake their head.
“Gerard,” Will made his way over to them and placed his hand on his head, “you haven’t eaten, have you?”
“Will, I’m not doing what you’re about to say.”
“You’d prefer a stranger?”
They shot Will a look before hissing again, “Shut the fuck up, dude.”
“It’s okay, Gee, do what you need to.”
Will noticed that there were red splotches at the ends of his fingers. As he started to reach out toward it, one of Gerard’s hands grabbed ahold of his wrist. “Shove me off if you need, okay?”
“Okay”
They stood of quickly after Will agreed and grabbed ahold of the collar of Will’s shirt. As he was pulled closer to Gerard he felt a stabbing sensation in his neck not long after. He grimaced from the surprise but didn’t make a move to get them off of him.
As he continued to let them drink, he noticed that there was a new sensation against his neck. Glancing to the side he noticed that there were tears streaming down their face, but they stayed latched onto him.
Not sure if they’d appreciate a hug in that moment, he instead placed his hand on the back of their head. He began to rub his thumb back and forth as he said, “It’s gonna be okay, Gee.”
There were plenty of questions and issues that were going to have to be tackled in the future, but if they weren’t ready to tackle those problems yet then it could wait. They had all the time to start and unpack the difficulties that were going to come his way, with or without Will if he so chose. In that moment, though, he was there for them. And that was what mattered.