God Bless Us Every One

by Desdemona Kakalose

In which important questions are investigated such as: the necessary parameters of the common household sandwich, the nature of Algebra II, and whether blood is indeed thicker than eggnog. Post Apocalyptic Christmas.

"God Bless us Every One" or; "Blood is not Thicker than Eggnog"

Another Christmas Story

Vaysh and I present to you this unbelievably long fanfiction for all your holiday needs. I did not think we were going to have a second christmas fic, but how can I ever resist the opportunity to write about John? Also it's nice to be in a honeymoon period in universe rather than where we were LAST christmas I mean damn. Happy holidays everyone!

---

Tallahassee

December, year four

In the middle of breakfast—vampire time adjacent, anyhow—John dropped his briefcase down on the table across from Conrad and Doc Worth. They had been sitting in the lobby of the ambassadors' inn while the last strands of evening daylight faded away. The solstice was only a day or two away, and Conrad was looking to get as many walking-around hours packed in as possible. Or at least, he had been until the little biblebanger showed up.

"Oh god," Conrad said, forehead hitting the table with a sharp thud. "He found us."

Above him, Worth made a noise of irritation. "Roit, they can hit us off with crosses an' shit but we can't even ward off one measly teenager?"

"Good afternoon," John said, ignoring them both. "I hope you have been blessed and protected on your travels."

They had only been in town for a day. Hardly even a day. How did news travel so fast in such a comparatively large city? Who was spreading this stuff? The only people who knew they were here were the staff of the ambassadors' inn and Mayor Hannah.

Conrad twisted his head to squint up at the kid. "What are you up to, John?"

"Naturally it is your wont to be suspicious," John said, adjusting his briefcase, "as you are of the same unholy stock as the Master of Lies Himself and are accustomed to mistreatment from your superiors."

"Superiors?" Worth echoed, incredulous.

"But I will not taunt you in such a way," John carried on, "and I will speak candidly to you with all good faith—"

"Wait," Conrad said, "are you trying to be nice to us?"

"I'm always nice," John said, takenaback. "I mean. When the Lord's will allows."

"Oh, yeah, so it allows now. How about every other time we've seen you?"

John tipped his chin up and resumed his original speech. It had a particular rehearsed quality—and yes, now that Conrad was paying attention, something of a nervous tremor to it, as well.

"In the spirit of Christmas," he carried on, "which is a time of birth and good will, I would like to extend to you—uh, to both of you—an invitation to come stay with me for the next week. As, um. As my guardians?"

Conrad reeled back in his chair. Beside him, Worth's mouth had popped open and the lips were twitching upwards, startled and amused.

"Ya wan' us ter come be yer parents?" Worth said, a hoarse laugh slipping up through his words. "Yer invitin' us ter come play house with ya?"

John bit his lip. "It's just for a week," he replied, "just… normal people stuff? I don't expect much, I haven't had a family for a long time—"

"Me 'n Connie," Worth cackled, "mummy an' daddy Redston."

In the yellow light of the lobby, which probably gave Worth and John some trouble but was clear enough to Conrad, a thin sheen of wetness started over John's eyes. He didn't shift, or make any noise, his heart barely changed rhythm, but his eyes caught too much light and his spine was almost too straight. Against his better judgment, Conrad elbowed his companion into a modicum of silence.

"John," he said, "are you fucking with us?"

"No," the teen snapped. "If you don't want to do it you don't have to. You don't have to laugh at me."

Conrad squinted, lips turned down. "…Why?"

A candle flickered on the table, John glanced away. "My birthday's the day after Christmas and… you're the closest thing to family I have so… just while you're here? This one time?"

Conrad dropped his head into his hand. Closest thing? What kind of family had John originally had that shooting, kidnapping, betraying, and constantly antagonizing were par for the course? Or, he supposed, maybe a better question was, what had the kid been living like since his foster family died? All grudges aside, it did sound… kind of lonely, being a young and friendless in a strange city.

"They've got a Christmas pageant," John went on, hesitant, "um, at the high school, for the parents? I have a part."

Conrad snapped his attention back to the boy in front of them, eyes narrowing. "Why us, why now?"

John brightened. "I had a vision—"

"No," Conrad said, hastily, "don't tell us."

John pursed his lips in an irritated way but he did manage to stop himself. Worth rolled his eyes and slumped against the chair, like he did when he was tuning out some overlong diplomatic discussion.

Conrad smoothed his fingers across his forehead. "I understand Worth, sort of, but you want me to act in loco parentis? You dropped a bucket of pig's blood on me last Christmas!"

John looked impatient. "I was trying to save your soul," he said, and then after a thoughtful moment he added conscientiously, "heathen jezebel."

"Well how do I know you're not going to do it again?"

"…I had a vision…"

"Oh no."

"The Lord came to me—"

"Oh no please."

"And there were angels singing, and the Lord had skin as dark as the clouds, and I was shown a tree with two trunks that grew on unholy ground—"

"Please stop, John, no."

"And the tree grew strong and tall and shaded the earth below it so that grass could grow, and the Lord said to me, I have made the barren earth to yield strong protections for you, you must trust that I have placed all good and useful things before you—"

"Joooooohn."

"—Genesis 50:20, though it was meant for evil god has used it for his purpose," he finished in a rush.

Conrad looked helplessly back and forth between Worth and John, the latter of whom was standing with his hands clasped in front of him like an eager student.

"Don' look at me," Worth grumbled, "already said my piece."

Conrad bit his lip. Last Christmas had really hurt him. Like, a lot. Even though John wasn't responsible for the full gamut of the fiasco, the resentment was bright and knobby and hard to smooth down. On the other hand…

He glanced towards the window, where someone had hung a glittering ornament from the half-sill. Conrad was intimately familiar with the specter of silent Christmas mornings—with distant looks and mechanically giftwrapped presents, with a seething envy for the warmth and brightness that everyone else seemed to have found so effortlessly.

And despite the kid's downright insanity, Conrad still felt—improbably, impossibly—a little bit responsible for him.

Conrad sighed. "One week?"

Worth rounded on him. "No, nuh-uh, don't even start."

"Monday through Sunday?" Conrad went on, steeling himself. "Regular guardian stuff?"

John's eyes lit up like Christmas lights. "You can come live with me in my house," he said, "they gave me this nice little place across from the school, it's got too many bedrooms for just me anyways—"

Worth gave Conrad a silent, furious look, but Conrad knew that he was hooked regardless. If Conrad was going to sleep in that building, Worth was going to sleep there too. Conrad shuffled his feet under the table and tried not to feel too warmed by that. Smug was acceptable, warmed was just embarrassing.

"I'll let Hanna know what's going on," Conrad said, tucking his hands into his pockets. "Worth, you can pack some bags."

Begrudgingly, and after a lot of whining, Worth did pack the bags, and John escorted them with a satisfied little trot to his house across the street from the high school.

His statements about the place had, it turned out, been true. It was your standard nuclear family abode, with a two car garage, master bedroom with joined master bath, and two additional bedrooms with a hallway bathroom. Only the hallway bathroom was operational, John had informed them with something alarmingly close to a sheepish smile. He slept in the master bedroom, but assured them that the smaller bedroom across from the hall bathroom would actually be far more suited for their particular unholy affliction. There was only one window in that room, you see, and the light would be easier to block out.

Upon walking them into the bedroom, still coated in bright pastel wallpaper cheerily reciting the ABC's, Worth had mentioned sleeping in the garage, and possibly turning on the cars with the doorjambs plugged up. John had nearly had an aneurism on the spot. Though it was somewhat satisfying to see the boy gape and grow red in the face, Conrad was, against his better judgment, starting to feel a little sorry for him. He had already painted the window black and had nailed a quilt over top for added security against sunlight. Apparently John had been planning this for months.

Conrad tried not to think too much about serial killers and their weird hospitable idiosyncrasies.

Worth had pointedly turned his back to Conrad when daylight came and slumber pulled at them with incessant, demanding fingers. Conrad had simply enjoyed lying on a mattress that hadn't borne the brunt of their combined weights for the past four years.

-A-

Monday

John returned home with a scowl and a list of complaints. Apparently Worth and Conrad had already failed him in their parenting duties.

"One," he said, dropping his backpack onto the kitchen table, "you didn't have a lunch ready when I went to school."

Conrad squinted at him, over a mug of blood and chocolate—the taste grew on you, especially if you could get the unsweetened stuff, and he'd found a tin of it in the cabinet—and tried to get his brain running properly. Evenings, what a load of crap.

"Don't you make those for yourself?" he asked. "You live alone."

John crossed his arms. "Not this week," he said. "This week I live with you, and this week you're supposed to be running the house. That means lunches. Come on, I've seen the tv shows. I know how it works."

"This is ridiculous," Conrad spluttered, "you've been doing it for yourself for years, there's no reason why we should suddenly be responsible for it."

"You agreed," John said petulantly. "You said you'd do it."

"I didn't say I was going to make you sandwiches."

The teenager shrugged, unfazed. "You said you'd do it. You've both had parents, you should know how it works."

Conrad bit his lip and looked aside. Most of what he remembered from his junior year consisted of visits to various psychiatrists, and public transportation.

"I don't think Worth's parents were ever very… hands on," he hedged.

"Regardless," John said. "I expect a proper lunch tomorrow, with a note, as befits a minor."

And then he twirled on his heel and marched out of the kitchen, leaving Conrad momentarily speechless behind him. He seethed quietly for a while, before curiosity got the best of him, and he took a real look at the cabinets. What did lunches even look like nowadays?

There was bread in the left side, something thick-crusted and dark and wrapped in worn-out plastic. There was jerky in the right side, and a bag of seeds, and a tub of cornmeal. There was fruit on the counter, Conrad had seen that earlier, fat tangerines with the stems still poking up. Who was getting this kid food? How was he paying for it? "Providence" occurred to Conrad, and he sourly discarded the idea. In his experience, God didn't put food on people's tables.

He could probably manage something passable with the supplies he'd been given. It wouldn't be much, but there wasn't much for anyone really. He could do it, honestly, it wouldn't be impossible.

He was still kind of pissed off, though.

There was some shuffling over Conrad's shoulder, and then a foreign hand reached over and lifted the mug from where it had been sitting beside him. Worth grinned, winked, and took a sip. It didn't seem to agree with him.

"Eyugh," he sputtered, pushing the drink back towards Conrad. "Yer still drinkin' that shit?"

"And I suppose you'd rather pour some gin in it," Conrad sniffed, "first thing in the evening."

Worth shrugged. "'s five o'clock somewhere but it's seven o'clock here."

Conrad sighed but didn't push the argument. They'd brought a cooler stuffed with supplies into the house the night before, and it would last them about half the week if they packed it carefully. Honestly they could have just dosed up on the first day and ridden out the feed for a week or so, but you crashed hard when you did that and periodic small meals always kept you stronger in a tight spot. Worth would have dug out his own breakfast already, since he'd been up first.

"The little angel is making demands," Conrad muttered, downing a gulp of brownish liquid.

"Ya say it like yer surprised," Worth replied, giving his companion a look that clearly stated who had told whom so.

"Sandwiches," Conrad said, with a distasteful flick of the tongue. "He wants sandwiches. Does he just think provolone grows on trees?"

"Shit," Worth said, "maybe 'e does. I ain't read the good book in a while."

"If the brat wants a sandwich," Conrad muttered, turning back to the pantry, "I'll give him a goddamn sandwich."

By the time Conrad had gone to bed that morning, there was a what could loosely be described as the contents of a sandwich sitting in the middle of the counter, alone, with three layers of jerky and unshelled sunflower seeds inside of it, and a slice of orange on top.

The note said, "have a nice day you little jerk".

-A-

Tuesday

"That was not a sandwich," John said. "The bread should be on the outside and the meat on the inside and also? Fruit is not a proper sandwich component."

Conrad groaned an kicked his coopted reclining chair back theatrically, limbs splaying helplessly over the sides.

"Furthermore," the teen went on, with a sniff, "that note was hurtful. Not that I should expect better from an instrument of darkness and torment."

"Oh grow a thicker skin," Conrad muttered under his breath. "How was school," he said, louder, and a little self consciously at that.

"Fine," John said, stiffly.

"Oh," Conrad said vaguely. "Good."

The room was silent for a few minutes. The previous owner had left a (less than) humorous cat clock on the wall, and its bulbous eyes flicked back and forth as the seconds passed.

"…I passed a test," John offered, looking down at the floor. "History. It is vile and revisionist and godless, but you still gotta pass the tests if you want to graduate."

Conrad tried to smooth out the pitying squint that was taking over his features. "Don't take this the wrong way," he said, "but why does it matter if you graduate?"

John bit his lip. "I guess…" he said, "maybe it doesn't… in a global sense. But I started, and I want to finish."

"Oh."

"I've never been very good at school," John confessed, scratching at the floor with the tip of one ductaped sneaker. "Reading is… hard for me."

"But you've got like half the bible memorized," Conrad pointed out, sitting up.

John kept looking down. Conrad sighed and gestured at the couch, which was big and black leather and perpendicular to his own chair.

"Sit down John. So, what's with the chapter and verse, then?"

Instead of just sitting, John climbed onto the near end of the couch and tucked his legs up behind him. "The more effort you put in," he explained, "the more it means to God. He doesn't want you to just do easy stuff, He wants you to push yourself. Do the hard thing. Suffer and succeed."

Conrad gave him a dubious look. "So you spend... what, hours slaving over the new revised—"

"King James," John corrected conscientiously, "the inspired work of the Lord's English servants. If I could read Latin though…" he added wistfully.

"Right, the King James bible, specifically because it's unpleasant?"

John looked like he was having difficulty explaining why that was so very wrong. "Success is its own reward," he said, finally, dropping his head onto his folded arms. "The difficulty means it's worthwhile."

"Well," Conrad said, "alright. I mean, who am I to tell you that you can't enjoy boiling your brain into submission with overwritten Middle English prose?"

But John was already distracted, fiddling in his bag. "My math midterm is tomorrow," he said. "I will need your assistance to study for it."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Conrad said, "First of all, I was an art student."

He was starting to see that there was a difference between John when he was legitimately indignant about something and when he was mostly just worried and showing it with a heap of self-righteous bravado. The eyes moved differently.

"Everyone else's parents help them," the kid said. Conrad wondered if he was really so worried about his grades, or if he was worried about something a lot less concrete than that.

"Look," Conrad sighed, "all I'm telling you is I don't know buggerall about maths, John."

"But you're supposed to help."

"I don't—I can't—oh, for god's sake Worth! Worth get your ass in here!"

It took a couple minutes of bumping around, but the doctor did finally step into the living room—all six foot something of him, dressed in an undershirt with his jeans tucked into his boots, and oh no, wow no, that was completely unnecessary it was winter for crying out loud.

"What were you doing," Conrad demanded, licking his unusually dry lips.

Worth gave him a look that shifted from irritated to smug in a flash of crooked teeth. "Sortin' through the garage," he said, "never miss out on yer foragin opportunities round here, shit could hit the fan any minute. Car looks like she might still run; ya oughter take a look at 'er."

"Uh-huh."

"So what th' rush, highness?" Worth asked, sidling a little closer. "Stress'a managing all yer handsome blue blood suitors got ya in a powerful bind?"

Conrad buried his face in his hands. "Now it not the time for one of your bizarre roleplays," he muttered.

"Mmm," the doctor said thoughtfully, "I done weirder."

"Well can it," Conrad snipped. "What do you know about…" he glanced at John.

"Algebra two."

"…algebra two?" he finished.

Worth shrugged. "Dunno, I'm just a simple farm hand."

Conrad reached a leg out and kicked his partner in the shin. "Drop the yokel shtick. John needs a hand with some studying, and the sooner you get it taken care of it the sooner we can all get on with our lives."

Worth made an expression of the utmost distaste. "Let 'im study his own damn self."

Conrad gestured at John, who was clouding up visibly. You could almost see the winds of wounded tirade gathering in his cheeks. The vampire gave his partner a pointed look.

"Fine," Worth said, throwing up his hands, "fine! I'll do yer dinky li'l math problems for ya."

"With me," John said reproachfully, but pulled out his binder anyways. It was a battered blue thing with the cardboard skeleton showing at the corners, full of painstaking handwriting. He tugged a study guide free and handed it to Worth.

Conrad watched from his arm chair, like a chaperone. The problems themselves didn't seem to give Worth a spot of trouble—it was just talking to John that turned him around. Let no one ever say Worth was a born teacher.

After the third time Worth tried to explain the functions of x, he must have given up on the whole method and scrapped it, because he shoved the pencil into John's hand and started directing him through the problem, step by step, until they hit the right answer.

John sat there staring at the pencil for a couple seconds, as if it had done the work instead of him.

"You're awfully good at this," Conrad said to Worth, suspiciously.

"Well I did go ter school fer…" Worth paused and counted his fingers, "…fuck ton too many years."

"You know, I always forget," Conrad admitted.

It was eight by then, long since nightfall and although the day had been hovering in the fifties (by local thermometers, anyways) the evening was descending cooler as the hours passed. Conrad dug out some blankets while Worth and the kid finished up the algebra and moved on to biology, him busily hanging hastily-sewn tapestries over the windows and doors for maximum heat retention. He tried not to laugh too much when the definition of mitochondria left Worth stumped and swearing into a text book.

Time passed. Conrad threw together some dubious soup for the human among them—not because he was doting or anything, but it wasn't like the boy was going to feed himself, was he—and passed it over. Homework wrapped up, Worth disappeared back into the garage, Conrad settled back into his second hand copy of Good Omens, and John dropped a massive bible onto the coffee table and proceeded to read under his breath.

At something like half past ten, Worth came back from the garage looking like he'd given up for the night. He paused on his way through the living room, frowned, and kicked John's shoes a couple times. Conrad looked up from his book and fixed his attention on the two of them.

"Ain't it past yer bedtime?" Worth asked, eyeing the boy.

"I'm seventeen," John said, peeved. "I don't have a bedtime."

"Ey, ya got yer lunches made fer ya like a kiddie, yer gonna have a bedtime like a kiddie too. This here's grownup time, capiche?"

John crossed his arms. "You're still up," he retorted. "Why can't I be up?"

Worth gave Conrad a look like can you believe this little fucker? Conrad rolled his eyes in response.

"We stay up till sunrise," Conrad pointed out as patiently as possible. "It comes with being, you know, undead."

"Well maybe I'll stay up till sunrise too," John said, petulant again. "School isn't until noon anyways."

Conrad and Worth exchanged a glance. Worth sat down heavily on the couch next to John, threw an arm around his scrawny shoulders. John gave him a deeply suspicious look.

"I hear ya Johnny boy, I really do," the doctor said, all soothing false sympathy. "But let me put it ta ya like this. Think about who yer imitatin'. You really wanna follow inna footsteps o' the devil now?"

John blinked, uneasily. He closed his book, and stood up. He left the room in a sort of daze, disappearing into the hallway, and then there was the sound thump of a cheap door closing into its frame.

"You probably shouldn't scare him like that," Conrad said, after a moment. "Remember what happened last time I tried to mess with him."

"Yeah," Worth admitted, "but it's funny as hell fer tonight, eh?"

Conrad glanced at the dark hallway, and then at Worth's grinning face, and then glanced skyward as if the universe might finally take mercy on his soul. There was the muffled sound of fervent praying from the direction of John's room.

"Yeah," he said, finally, stifling a snicker, "it is."

The house across from the high school was quiet for the rest of the evening.

-A-

Wednesday

The front door opened and closed. Voices mumbled somewhere down the hallway, followed in short order by the clomp and scuff of old, worn soles down the hallway.

"Oi, sweetheart," Worth began, sticking his face into the bedroom. "Th' bundle a joy's got a complaint ter lodge."

"Really? How utterly shocking." With a sigh, Conrad pulled his bookmark from the back pages and slipped it into his current reading spot. He had been reclined on the bed, using a lamp to read by. Things had been peaceful, nearly cozy, actually, so he'd been waiting for something to spoil the early evening. And, lo, the evening did not disappoint.

He waited for John's face to join Worth's, peering into the bedroom from around the corner of the doorway. "What is it this time?"

"You still can't make sandwiches right."

"Oh for - what? What is it now? Last time you were angry that I just put bread and jerky in a bag for you. This time I put it all together, jerky between pieces of bread. It was a sandwich, a proper sandwich."

"Nuh uh." John shook his head, looking as if he almost felt pity for Conrad in that moment. "There wasn't any cheese."

"You don't even have cheese in your cupboard."

"You're supposed to go shopping."

Conrad snorted. Worth sauntered into the bedroom and flopped on the bed with a grin. At least someone was entertained by the conversation.

"Shopping?" Red eyes slipped shut as Conrad reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "What, precisely, am I supposed to be shopping for?"

The boy shrugged. "I dunno. Food."

"Well, that was certainly illuminating."

"I'll do it," Worth offered, but the grin was still plastered on his face and Conrad knew better than to trust him when he was so clearly delighted about something.

"Oh?"

Reclining on the bed, Worth's feet wiggled as they dangled off the edge of the mattress. "Yeah, why not?"

"I don't know where to begin, that's why not."

One of Worth's hands slipped over, a single, long finger stroked up and down Conrad's thigh, right along the seam of his jeans. He really hoped the shudder that wriggled up his spine had come off more as a chill or disgust than the, well, other thing that it actually was, but he wasn't going to think about or act upon because there was a child watching. Conrad pinched Worth's hand between fingers, lifted it up, and then dropped it upon the doctor's chest.

Before giving Worth a chance to counter attack, Conrad swung his legs around and scooted off of the mattress, leaving his book behind. "Fine. You need food, and you're oh so picky about your sandwiches, so. We'll go shopping."

"Oi. What about me?"

A glance was sent over Conrad's shoulder as he slipped into the hallway. "What about you?"

"Just gonna go off without me? Leave me here alone?"

"Yes, actually." He continued down the hall, pushing John in front of him towards the front door. "Now, how do you pay? Is there a barter system? This town's been stable enough that you have some sort of hard currency, don't you?"

"B-both?" John was barely resisting the pushing, and by the time they'd reached the end of the driveway, Worth had caught up to them both. "We have tokens that we earn based on hours worked and we can turn them in for food or goods. But there's still a lot of bartering."

"Fine. How many tokens do you have?"

"Me? You're the parent. You're supposed to be buying things."

Conrad stopped short and Worth ran right into him. He sometimes forgot that Worth hadn't picked up the same vampiric speed that he had after the change. Ignoring Worth's grunt of annoyance, hands on his hips, he scowled. "Me? John, how would I even have tokens to buy things with? We've been in town for three days and haven't worked any of it. In fact," his eyes narrowed with suspicion, "we've never been given anything for any of the work we've done here in the past."

Hands shoved in his pants pockets, John stared at the ground, nudging the concrete with the toe of his shoe. "You were given free room and board and food. So..."

Well that was true, he supposed. He wasn't exactly happy about it though.

There was a market of sorts, it turned out. It was for luxury items, mostly, but also excess goods and homemade items. Everyone who was offering something to be purchased, either with the town's token currency or via good old haggling and trading, would gather with their items in a smoke-filled downtown government building.

During the growing season, all the nearby farms (and some backyard farmers) brought in surplus. With winter, the selections had dwindled to a drip. Several people had learned how to knit, and offered their holiday hats, scarves, and mittens. A few had wind up pocket watches, which were clearly items you would have to save to afford. Toys, sock monkey dolls and wooden blocks, and other basic items were what seemed to be covering most of the vendor tables that evening. If you wanted to buy something, you'd go to the market.

If you wanted to put in a request for a future item, you'd go to the market. If you were bored as hell and just wanted to stand around gossiping and making it difficult to move from one table to the next, well, apparently you would go then, too. More than once he'd come close to snapping at Worth for stepping on the heels of his shoes only to turn around and see that Worth had been delayed by a mob of others and was still making his way over to Conrad and John.

Jerky was the most common food item for sale, both the fruit and meat varieties. Cans of various preserved food were available, as well, and it made Conrad wonder when he'd last seen so many jars of spaghetti sauce and tomato soup. Out of curiosity, Conrad had approached one table only to have John dart in and blatantly point him to another area of the market.

"Terrible food, I take it?"

"They used to have a restaurant," John had offered as explanation. "Everyone says they were the best Italian food around, but they use a lot of garlic so..."

Ah, so, best to pass them up? Conrad didn't feel like giving John all the information regarding garlic not really working like that, but, he found something mildly endearing in the fact that the boy had been, more or less, looking out for them. Well, that or he just didn't like garlic, himself. "Fine, we'll avoid that area, then. Where can we go that gives you your mandatory cheese fix?"

"I don't know." The teen was mumbling, bumping into people as he kept his eyes downcast. "I don't usually come here. It's more of a family kind of thing."

Oh. Well. No wonder he had so little in his cabinet at home.

A shrill whistle caught Conrad's attention, as well as half the people in the room. Worth clearly didn't give a fuck, as he waved his hand above the masses. Being tall had its advantages. People finding you in a crowd, well, that was certainly one of them. On autopilot, apologies dribbled from Conrad's mouth as he wormed his way between bodies, heading towards Worth. The lanky bastard was proud of himself, of course, because he'd clearly been the one to "win" this adventure. On the table were several blocks of cheese.

"Found it."

"Yes, you did. Bravo." The withering tone in Conrad's voice lost its edge as he turned his attention to the woman seated behind the table. He hazarded a closed mouth smile. Most everyone here likely knew who they were, but there was no need to startle anyone with a brazen display of teeth. "How much?"

"What do you have?"

Oh. Shit. "Well, er, what would you like? I'm afraid I don't really have tokens I think you call them? We would have to barter. So. Uh, what sort of things would you trade?"

"How much do you want?"

"Er...a pound? That...is reasonable?" God he hadn't eaten in so long, he really had no idea.

She tapped the blocks of cheese seated on either side of a scale. "Well for the garlic chive cheddar, you'll spend more. The regular white is cheaper. They're both good."

Both vampires looked to John expectantly. He gaped at them like a goldfish before slamming his mouth shut. "White."

"White it is. A pound oughter do us jus' fine." Worth chimed in, pulling a tin from his inner coat pocket. "I got tobacco already rolled. Decent paper, but I ain't gonna lie, it ain't th' best. A li'l rough on th' lips. Don't interfere with th' taste none, though." The lid popped open and he handed one of the cigarettes to the woman.

She sniffed it, and rolled the tube between her fingers. You had to let them sniff the tobacco these days. Too many people were trying to pass off too many dried leaves. Entire towns of survivors had been wiped out before word spread about the con artists. Satisfied, she nodded. "How many you got?"

"Heh, how many you want?"

That was how it went with bartering, and Conrad was happy to leave it in Worth's hands. A little outrage here, some cajoling there, and, eventually, the two came to a mutually acceptable deal. Shaking hands to seal the deal, Worth gave Conrad a wink and then set to counting out the agreed upon amount of cigarettes while the woman carefully cut and weighed 1 pound of white cheddar cheese.

Conrad had no bloody idea if it would taste remotely good with a chunk of several day old bread and whatever dehydrated animal John was eating through his jerky, but-

"Thank you."

-there was that. Two words to which Conrad had nodded, and feebly mumbled a delayed, "You're welcome".

So, he supposed, it was something.

-A-

Thursday

"And what's today's complaint?" Conrad said, shoving a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Teens back into its place on the bookshelf. "Not enough meat on your sandwich? Too much? Angles of the bread not perfectly squared?"

"No," John said. "The sandwich was fine."

"My God, you mean I can get something right? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound."

They were lounging around in the living room tonight, lazily looking through the books that the house's previous occupant had left on the shelves. Worth had flung himself over a squishy armchair and was idly tossing an expensive looking bauble into the air, legs swinging over the armrest. They had been discussing how much of a terrible idea it would be to try and start a fire in the fireplace before John came trundling in.

John's eyes narrowed and a scowl began to form before he inhaled deeply and released it slowly. "I will not be tempted into anger, Harlot Mother."

"Could you please remember that, one, I am not female, and two, I am not some foul seductress, and three... wasn't me not being female half of your issues with me?" Although to be fair, Conrad had a feeling John had another long list of issues that may or may not have fuck all to do with him. But, still. Best not to open that can of proverbial worms.

"Okay..." John acquiesced, "…Father the Tempter."

Conrad brightened. "Oh, that has a bit of a ring to it, doesn't it?"

The teen's lips pursed before he continued. "You have failed to show me how to shave."

Conrad blinked. "What?"

"Or, well, the Fallen Father has, I guess."

"Oooh!" Immediately forgotten, the expensive statuette landed in his hands and he grinned at Conrad. "I got th' better name."

"Okay," Conrad began delicately, as if testing ice to see if it would hold his weight or send him sinking to the bottom of a lake, "supposing you're serious here. How are either of us supposed to teach you how to shave? Don't you need facial hair to shave?"

Righteous fire lit up John's face. "If you haven't noticed, because you're too busy trying to pull new souls to the lap of the Prince of Darkness-"

"That me now?"

"No, Worth."

"-but in the years you have been in and out of Florida, I have approached manhood-"

"I wanna be the Prince'a Darkness."

"No, Worth."

"-and as such, I have, with time, grown facial hair."

Conrad squinted, leaned in close. "You... have?"

Sputtering, John pointed to his mouth. "Do you not see this mustache?"

"Oh, I, er...that is to say...ah..."

From the chair, Worth vocalized, "We thought it was dirt."

John's face crumpled.

"Sorry, ah...vampire vision isn't very good sometimes." That wasn't a complete lie, really. His eyes were shot to hell if he didn't have his glasses on. Worth could spot damn near anything on a clear day, but Conrad thought it best not to mention that part. He cleared his throat. "So, okay. You have manly facial hair and it's er...becoming of you? And your...masculine...birthright? Ugh, okay, look, what do you expect us to do about it?"

"Teach me to remove it."

Worth tossed his stolen paperweight and it landed with a surprisingly heavy thud on the floor. "Liv always had them rippy-pads that just yanks it out. Works great, even on eyebrows."

"I'm... not asking. You'll probably tell me later."

"We didn't just call 'Mont "Unibrow" 'cause they grew together."

"And, there you go, proving my point, thank you ever so much."

"Yer welcome."

"I'm not actually thanking you—nevermind. John, look." He jerked a thumb at Worth. "When do you think he shaved last? Do you really want to learn how to shave from a man who prefers to look like a hobo?"

Worth grinned. John looked mildly apprehensive.

"Well... you could teach me."

"How?"

"Show me."

"I can't."

"Yes you can."

"John," Conrad could feel veins throbbing in his temples and, before the rage spilled over completely, he grabbed John by the front of his shirt and half-dragged him to the hallway bathroom. Once there he pointed at the mirror. "What do you see, John?"

'Uh...me."

"You and floating clothes, right? How can I show you how to shave if I can't even see myself to do it?"

John chewed his lower lip. "...dunno."

"Then I'm afraid we're at an impasse, but I hope you're able to actually understand that I really can't help you here."

There was that look again, a tightening in the corners of John's mouth and a glossiness in his eyes. Conrad leaned out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway to Worth as if that wellspring of harassment could somehow come through with something to distract or diffuse the situation. Worth looked back with eyebrows raised high.

"Fuck're ya starin' at me fer?"

He scowled. "Oh, terribly sorry, I think I may have ever so briefly mistaken you for someone who cared."

"That's a helluva mistake."

"Yes. No kidding." Turning away from his greatest mistake, Conrad put his hands on John's shoulders and stared at what was and was not reflected in the mirror. "I think this is something you'll just have to figure out on your own, John. Do you even have razors?"

"There was an electric one," he mumbled. "I found it under the sink in-"

"Hell no."

From down the hall Worth came bounding in like an angry Great Dane, all limbs and flailing. "You ain't usin' no electric."

"Well what is he supposed to use then?"

Worth's eyes squinted, and he held up one finger before stomping off into the master bedroom. John and Conrad exchanged glances with one another, silent expressions clearly asking what the hell and replying who fucking knows?

A crow of delight brought their attentions back to wherever Worth was, and the vampire reappeared behind them in short order. In his hands he held bright orange disposable razors. "Knew I'd find these."

"I'm actually curious how you found them," Conrad commented, as Worth handed one razor to John. "And how you knew they'd be here."

"You looked 'round yerself since we got here? Decorations're a fuckin' Midwestern, middle-class housewife's wet dream. LOVE an' HOPE an' FAMILY an' all that bullshit coverin' the walls."

He watched Worth turn on the water, letting it pool in the sink while he jostled Conrad and John out of the way to grab at the bar of soap. "I thought their wet dreams involved sparkling vampires."

"Nah, that's th' teens." A thick later sprang up as Worth worked the soap in his hands. "Some of 'em like werewolves, though. Th' housewives want weird-ass shit with emotionally manipulative dicks an' inner goddesses. But they all keep these li'l disposable razors around."

"And you know this because…?"

He affixed Conrad with a dead stare before smearing lather on his face.

"Ugh, what—no," Conrad sputtered, "What are you doing?"

Without skipping a beat, he wiped a mirror streak of foam across John's face as well. "Teachin' our boy how ter shave."

"By covering us both in soap?"

"Ya want me ter do this dry?"

No, no he definitely did not. Memories of razorburn past flared up and Conrad sighed. "Worth, I can't see to shave."

"Don't gotta. I'll demo on you. Johnnyboy can follow along." He dipped the razor in the sink full of water. "First step, kid. Wet yer razor."

John followed the instructions dutifully, eyes darting back and forth from his reflection to where Worth was currently cupping Conrad's head. The daisy razor was close to Conrad's cheek, and he grabbed Worth's wrist. "If you cut me, I swear."

"Quitcher bitchin'. If I cut ya, which I won't, yer jus' gonna heal back up soon's it happens. Well, unless these blades're iron." With a wink, he peeled Conrad's hand from his wrist and pressed the blade to skin, drawing down in short, measured strokes. "Keep it at an angle, 'bout 45 degrees. Don't drag it, let th' blade do th' work, an' keep it wet."

When he'd finished cleaning one section, Worth rinsed the blade in the water and waited for John to follow suit. The teen's face crinkled, scrunching up in concentration. He hadn't bled yet, so, hey-ho, Christmas miracle time.

"Right. Now yer gonna jus' keep doin' that all 'round th' face. Fer th' upper lip, try'n curl it over yer teeth ter get th' skin taut." He looked to Conrad expectantly, and, after an obligatory eye rolling, Conrad did as Worth was instructing. Practiced strokes cleared away the soap from his upper lip.

"For someone who prefers to look like he just crawled out of the gutter, you're surprisingly good at this," he mentioned, waiting for Worth and the apprentice in training to finish their work.

"Eh, I can look real respectable if I want. Jus' as it turns out," he grinned, "I don't wanna."

Conrad snorted as the final razor passes completed and Worth set his disposable razor down on the edge of the sink. After pulling the stopper and letting the dirty water drain, Worth turned on the faucet. Cupping water in his hands, he smoothed across Conrad's face. "Wipe off when yer done. If ya don't feel smooth enough, jus' repeat, but go up instead a down. Same angle an' all that. Connie here, though…." He ran fingers across Conrad's damp cheeks before smirking and yanking him in to press a loud kiss to his cheek. "Soft as silk, ain't that right?"

"Ugh, yes, I suppose." Color was likely blooming in his cheeks from the amusement he could see dancing in Worth's eyes, and he pushed the Australian away before he could dive in for another kiss. It was likely all for show, to either make him or, more likely, John, annoyed.

Conrad was somewhat surprised to see that John had more or less simply accepted it in stride, and was more concerned with making sure his face was as hair-free as possible.

"Well, er, there you—Worth. Stop." That time it had been a nip of teeth alarmingly close to Conrad's neck and, no, not going there, not at all. He shoved hard enough to send Worth out into the hallway, where the blonde leaned against the wall and snickered. Smoothing his clothes, Conrad attempted a smile. "Now you can shave, and I've successfully fed you. Soon you'll be spreading your wings and leaving the nest."

"Yeah," John said quietly. "I guess."

"Well. Then. I'll see if there's something to make for dinner while you do some homework." After a brief pause, he headed out of the bathroom, calling out behind him, "Did you do okay on your maths?"

"I um… I got an A."

"That's good. Uh." What did normal people do in times like these? Poking through the cupboards, he added, "Post it on the refrigerator."

A few minutes later, as the vampire was rummaging through the (now less sparse) cupboards, John reappeared in the doorway, his clean shiny face twisted in an edgy kind of cunning.

"…What."

"There's a parent teacher conference tomorrow," John said, glancing nervously down the hall. "Please, please, I told them you would go, the teacher's been hounding me for weeks and I might have told him that my parents were out of town and I also might have told him I had parents I might have been telling people that I had parents for a year will you please go?"

Conrad dropped the spoon he'd been holding.

"You want us to—we're not even your real guardians!"

"Please," John said again, "Mr. Obrecht is getting suspicious."

"Well maybe you shouldn't have lied to him," Conrad pointed out. "Isn't that a sin?"

John hung his head. "Corinthians 3:9," he said.

"And you want us to help you keep lying?" Conrad went on, as sternly as he could manage—which, considering he did not at all want to lose this argument, was a fair amount of sternness.

John looked miserable. "You're a creature of deceit and hellfire," he said, "you're supposed to be for this."

Conrad pinched the bridge of his nose. "Except I'm not either of those things," he reminded the boy, "so you've built your argument on a faulty premise."

"Pleeeeeease," John said, "Please, they're going to send someone over here to check on me if I keep putting it off."

That was a little odd. There wasn't anything here to see, as far as Conrad could tell. It was just John, and he kept a fairly tidy house. Surely no one would object to a kid quietly living on his own—

Ah.

"John," Conrad said, "there's no child services anymore. And even if there was, you'll be eighteen by the end of the week."

"They consolidate housing," the teenager replied, apprehensively, "people under twenty-one usually go to live with neighbors, or families that need another hand around the place. I mean, they can't make you, but—"

John's expression was the familiar pleading face of a person whose pride has come under one too many blows.

Conrad sighed. Well, he was this far in already, wasn't he? There was a psychological term for this, what was it, foot in the door syndrome? Something like that. He supposed it couldn't be that bad, he mostly just had to pretend he was responsible for the little snot, which he sort of thought he was—a little bit—anyways, and Worth could always do with another reason to get out of the house that didn't involve shooting people or setting broken legs, even if he was a nightmare to manage—

"Fine," Conrad sighed. "It's just across the street, after all. How bad could it be?"

-A-

Friday

"So, John," said Mr. Obrecht, who Conrad couldn't help but think of as Mr. even though he was probably only ten years older than Conrad and was technically subject to the whims of parents rather than vice versa. The man gave the trio of them an uncertain look and glanced down at his notes again just to be sure. "I'm given to understand that both your parents are deceased. And also—" he looked up nervously, "—Satan?"

Beside Conrad, Doc Worth positively preened. He ruffled the mangy fur lining around his wrists and honestly if anyone had ever told Conrad in the past that he was doomed to share a bedroom with a man who wore discolored furry labcoats on a regular basis he would have called for drug testing.

"Bout time I got my fair share 'o recognition," he said, now fluffing the fur around the collar. "Hate playin' second fiddle."

Conrad shifted in the stupid tiny chair and dropped his head into his hands. Worth was humming the solo from The Devil Went Down to Georgia. This was his life.

"Worth we can't both be Satan," Conrad groaned from between his fingers.

"Don't see why not. Beast in the pit, beast with two backs—well we got the second one down."

"Okay, okay, either way that's not the point." Sighing and dropping his hands, Conrad attempted to find some composure. "The point is that no, John wasn't lying and, well, yes, okay that may be partially incorrect, and I'm sorry about that."

"Proud papas gotta work the nightshift ta support our li'l… shit, the hell do we call him, anyway? Pain in th' ass is appropriate but ain't particularly dotin' now, issit?"

"For God's sake, the only thing you've ever doted on was your shotgun."

Worth swiveled in his chair and pointed a finger at Conrad. "I'll thank ya ter leave Betsy outta this unless ya want me ter bring up that fatty we all stuff ourselves in day in an' day out."

"…The RV. You're honestly calling the RV a fatty and also…implying that it, a recreational vehicle, an automobile, a machine, is promiscuous."

"'m just sayin', we sure can fit a lot in her an' she takes all comers. But Betsy? She only falls inter th' hands a one bloke."

Left eye twitching, Conrad ground out between his teeth, "I bet she'll fit in your throat, too."

"Um, gentlemen," the teacher interrupted, hands hovering in front of him semi-defensively, "I'm sure this is… very important, but… maybe after we're done here?"

Conrad froze, lowered his fists, and let go of Worth's shirt. He made a hmmph noise, and settled back into his seat.

"Of course," Conrad said, as smoothly as he could manage. "Yes. We're all adults here, after all. Aren't we, Worth?"

Worth shrugged. "I dunno, I'm a sight older'n you are fer sure."

"Good," Conrad said, taking that as a win. "Now, then, tell us what exactly the trouble is? John was a bit vague with us," he added, shooting the teenager a suspicious look.

"Well it's—" Obrecht started, "It's nothing dire, but your…"

He looked helplessly at the three of them, seemed to dismiss Conrad after a moment and turned his attention onto Worth.

"Are you related?" he asked the doctor.

"Aw hell naw," Worth said, slinging an arm over the back of his chair. He'd gotten a larger one than Conrad, because the alternative was too ridiculous to contemplate—they'd dragged it into this room from behind another teacher's desk.

John flinched, just slightly, and folded his arms. He was being awfully quiet so far.

"Oh," Mr. Obrecht said, slowly, "uh. Alright. Your… ward… has been having some difficulty in my class. I know times are harder than they used to be, but we've cut down the course load significantly since we reopened the school, and John still seems to be having problems. John tells me you travel a lot?"

Conrad laughed derisively. Worth snorted.

"Ya could say tha'," he replied.

"Um. So, John's reading comprehension is all over the place. It takes him an unusually long time to take tests for my class, and the reading assignments… well, I know how kids are, half the students didn't do the reading even before they started working in the fields regularly. I don't expect much. I try to have them read the significant parts in class with me."

Mr. Obrecht looked troubled, his eyes unfocused and pointed towards the poster of Mary Shelley on the far wall.

"We were covering Shakespeare," he said, "this last semester—Othello—and John followed along well enough. But we got into Heart of Darkness, just the last week or two, and he didn't seem to understand any of it. I'm not sure what's going on, I thought maybe he was havig some trouble at home—"

Conrad sat up straighter. He looked at John, who shrugged back at him.

"Would you believe," the vampire started, "I think I actually know the problem here?"

Worth made a dubious noise, but Conrad was too pleased with himself to let that sour his success.

"Which version of the bible did you say you read?" he asked John.

"King James," John answered promptly. "There is only one translation for the pure of belief."

"Right right," Conrad said, hastily. "But look, that was written about the same time as Shakespeare was producing plays, wasn't it? You spend so much time struggling through the damn thing, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you can actually read middle English better than modern English, I mean, comparatively. You're still a pretty subpar reader."

John squinted at him, uncertain if he was being insulted or not.

"Yeah," Conrad went on, "I'm pretty sure that's where the inconsistency is happening. But, uh, Mr. Obrecht, John really is pretty terrible at getting through words on a page. He probably hasn't mentioned it, but, that's just how he is."

He sat back, actually grinning. Who was the genius of this fucked up little fake family? It sure wasn't mr. pre-med over there. Okay so Worth hadn't actually been privy to the conversation Tuesday night, but whatever, Conrad was the one who figured out the cigarettes four years ago and as far as he was concerned the rest of the world could get bent.

Obrecht was flipping to a different page in his tiny notebook. "He never mentioned he had any pre-existing—"

"He wouldn't," Conrad said, side-eyeing the teenager. "But he does. If you have anything you usually suggest for students with difficulty…?"

"Yes, sure," Obrecht said, looking up. He seemed to be more in his element now, his anxiety-lines smoothing. "I actually can recommend some materials—and of course I can work with him some outside of class, if his schedule will allow for it—"

And after that, the evening was a breeze.

-A-

Saturday, Christmas Eve

It was early evening, and the house would be empty until after John's play that evening. The two vampires had come to know most of the sounds one could expect in that particular house, the sighs and the creaks, and they knew the particular sounds of being alone. Aloneness and privacy were luxuries they rarely had, and in the way that people do in the face of scarce resources, they had learned quickly to take advantage of what they could get.

This was done mostly by taking advantage of one another, with fangs barely restrained against pale skin, and careful tugging at clothing. They whispered—just in case, just to be safe—keeping voices to barely a breath. Each creak of the bedsprings was like a shout in the dark, each shifting of blankets a shriek, every little noise seeking to betray their secret rendezvous. The house was empty, but it was empty for now. They had learned that any stolen moment was just that - a moment - and could be intruded upon with great gusto anytime.

So when they heard voices, they instinctively stopped the rolling of their hips and waited, eyes wide in the dark, muscles stiff.

The voices came again, more distinct now that they were paying attention. It was like a chant, there was a melody to the words, and Worth grunted, tugging Conrad back down to him, mouth again finding purchase against Conrad's throat as the tune became, unfortunately, familiar.

"Oh come all ye fai~thful-"

"'m goddamn tryin'," Worth grumbled against Conrad's skin.

For his part, Conrad blurted out an indignant "Worth!"

"Conrad!" Worth replied, but the mocking tone he used was clearly more habit than anything else.

There were more rustling of sheets, and a disappointed noise from Worth before Conrad managed to extradite himself from the bed. He sorted his clothes as best he could before creeping down the hallway to peel back a corner of the curtains and stare outside. Sure enough, a small group of boys, girls, and adults were standing on the lawn, singing.

"I've... never actually seen a live caroler before," he breathed, feeling a bit as if he was seeing a unicorn for the first time. "I...I didn't know they really existed."

"They exist. Damn near everything exists one way 'r another." Worth's hand was warm where it rested against the back of Conrad's neck. It was nice. Furthermore, it was nice that it was nice, that he and Worth could, sometimes, actually just be together. Not having to say anything or really do anything. Just standing together, sharing space, sharing time, sharing life.

"Wish it'd snow here," Worth said. "Could chuck snowballs at 'em."

Conrad had to let go of the curtains then, in order to pull Worth down by the front of his shirt to kiss him. "You're insane and an asshole."

"Uh huh. C'mon. If we ain't gonna spend our one quiet night formin' th' beast with two backs, we oughter go down ta th' school fer this goddamn play...if yer done listenin' ter one of nature's most endangered species, that is."

Conrad sighed, then nodded, smoothing Worth's shirt. "He'll go apeshit if we're late."

"Yeah. Besides, I plan on gettin' in some good shut eye while we're there."

If there was anything Conrad could set his faith upon, it was Worth coming through on a threat to be an ass. The moment had they sat down in the school auditorium, the scraggly annoyance had already kicked his dirty boots up onto the chair ahead of him and slumped down to nap. It didn't matter that they had only been awake for less than two hours. If he was determined to doze away the play, then that was precisely what he was going to do.

It was up to Conrad to find some way to entertain himself. Oh lucky day.

As it turned out, being entertained was, in actuality, even more difficult than he had expected. Oddly enough, he actually found some strange measure of happiness when John walked out onto the stage. Whatever his role was supposed to be, it apparently involved standing around in the background silently for nearly the entirety of the production. The only real entertainment that Conrad was able to find, during this overly long and poorly acted debacle of some birth-of-Jesus and be-kind-to-one-another story held together with safety pins and a little else, was in seeing people trip over their own costumes. Apparently full dress rehearsals hadn't occurred, and robes, well, they really weren't the easiest things to move around in. And the whole time, there stood John, staring out into the audience, as if his mere presence on stage was an end unto itself.

In the middle of the annunciation, the woman next to Conrad leaned over and tapped the arm rest between them.

"My daughter is Mary," she said, with a daring sort of tone. "We spent ages on her dress."

Conrad glanced up at the twiggy girl who was playing Mary. As far as he could tell, the costume was a prom dress with a mantle. He sat back, unimpressed.

"It's not exactly period appropriate," he observed, and then bit his lip. Oh, that was not a comment that needed to be made. Good job Conrad. You're really killing it here.

The woman scowled at him, her lemon sour mouth bent down at the corners. "Which one is yours," she said, and managed to say it down the length of her fairly dainty nose.

"Er." Conrad looked towards the place where John was beaming serenely into the audience, his white outfit gleaming faintly in the old fashioned limelight. "The, uh, the angel there, but he's not really—"

"Oh I know him," the mother sniffed, "he's the one who was all wrapped up in that fiasco with the chancellor, what kind of parent allows their son to go tromping around in civil wars after school that's what I'd like to know, aren't you a bit young to be a father?"

"I'm… not?"

The woman carried on, either not hearing or not understanding him. "And can you make that trashy man beside you be quiet? I can hardly hear my daughter over his snoring."

"He's not that lou—your daughter doesn't even have any lines!"

"Well if she did I certainly wouldn't be able to hear them."

"I'm not going to wake the guy up so you can listen to your daughter have no lines! He'd never let me hear the end of it. I've got enough trouble just making him sit still."

"Oh," she said, "you're here together."

"Yes," Conrad bristled. "Actually we are."

"Well," she said. "I certainly can't say much for your taste in men, but I suppose I wouldn't expect much better from a parent who let their son work for the chancellorship, you know not everyone in this auditorium is as open minded as I am about politics, some people would like to have words with you, I'm sure, and doesn't that church of yours take a pretty dim view of sodomy and all that?"

That tore it.

"Lady," Conrad snarled, twisting in his seat so that she could see the wicked tip of the lone fang that curved over his lip, "do I look like a member of any church to you?"

That shut her up pretty well. The woman blinked. For a moment she didn't say anything at all, she just went very pale around the cheeks and stared at Conrad's mouth.

Finally, she managed to say, "Well, your son's costume isn't very good, though, is it?"

Conrad sat back in his chair and gave up.

After the painfully long play had ended, parents all swooped in to collect their offspring and hurry them home. It was Christmas Eve, after all, and even among the post-apocalyptic lives of the day, Santa Claus still held his sway over the younger, more impressionable minds. The woman who had been his seat neighbor—through thirty minutes of chilly silence, and somehow even chillier applause—glared at him across the theater as she bundled up her daughter at the edge of the stage. Conrad pointedly looked elsewhere.

As the rumble of departing families washed over the auditorium, Worth woke up and stretched, giving Conrad a smile.

"Weren't so bad."

"Not for you. You slept the whole time. I've been awake."

"Now that ain't my fault, sweetheart. Ya coulda huddled in real close fer a snuggle."

"I could have, yes, but then people might think I like you."

"P-hah!" There was that glimmer in his eyes when he grinned, the same one that had been there when they were blue like the sky and not red like the fires of Hell that John was so happy to lecture everyone about.

Speak of the little devil, that was when John finally found them, looking quite pleased with himself. "You came."

"Course we did. You'd a thrown a shit storm if we didn't."

Some of the pride seemed to ebb from John's shoulders.

"I was wondering, John," Conrad started, "Why were you on stage the whole time? You didn't have any lines and I—er - well...I was a little confused as to your role in the story."

Now all of the pride disappeared, replaced by stupefaction. "I was the spirit of the Lord," he said, eyes wide and unbelieving. "I had the most important role. God's love and guidance is always there."

"Ah. Well." Conrad couldn't help but wonder if John had more or less written himself and that role into the pageant. "You were certainly there the entire time. Lingering. Hovering. Watching."

"Yes. The Holy Spirit is always there, always watching."

Worth had apparently had enough for the evening and stood, stretching, his joints snapping and popping. "Uh-huh. Oughter consider a restrainin' order."

Scandalized, John gaped as the two vampires headed out of the quickly emptying auditorium. "I—I would never! I want the spirit with me forever!"

Worth and Conrad shared a glance. One more day, Conrad thought. We just have to make it through one more day.

-A-

Sunday, Christmas Morning

Conrad had just pulled the covers up over his shoulders when it happened.

The door to the bedroom swung open like someone had hit it with a nuke. Conrad lurched halfway up from the mattress and caught himself on his elbow, squinting at the door as he fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table.

"Fuck!" Worth swore beside him, flipping over so violently that a foot of blankets twisted up around him. "Better not be a fuckin' raid at five'a clock in the bloody mornin', I'll gut some motherfuckers see if I don't!"

"Um," said John's sheepish voice from the general vicinity of the doorway.

Conrad shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose and peered at the boy, who had one guilty hand on the frame of the door. John twitched his fingers and then shoved both hands into the pockets of his atrocious khakis. He was wearing a sweater with an abstract representation of what was probably the nativity scene on it—who made that, surely no one could have thought it was sound marketing to sell something like that in a store.

"Merry Christmas?" John offered.

Worth swore and flipped over again, pulling a pillow over his head.

"What are ya," he said, muffled by puffs of Egyptian cotton, "six fuckin' years old?"

John waivered and then visibly steeled himself.

"There's a sunrise service," he said, "at my church. It's not far from here and it should still be dim enough out for you guys to get back here alright. I've seen you around when the sun's low."

"You want us to go to church with you?"

"Christ have mercy," Worth muttered, "the little shit wants ter murder us."

Conrad looked at John in his terrible holiday sweater, standing silhouetted in the door. He had a black umbrella in his hand.

"John," Conrad tried to reason, tucking himself back under the blankets, "do you really think a church is the best place for someone like us?"

The boy looked nonplussed, head tilted slightly. "The church welcomes all, no matter what black mark may be on their souls."

"The, er... condition, John"

"The lord loves all his children," John said, not unkindly, "even those who have strayed from the righteous path."

Worth shoved his pillow away, glaring over his shoulder. "He's talkin' 'bout bein' a vamp, ya nitwit. Church's covered in sun signs. 's gonna blow his head off or sommat."

"...Well I think that might be a little harsh."

John clearly hadn't accounted for this. He shuffled his feet and looked a bit soured.

"Just go alone," Conrad said, a little pleading, alright, he'd admit to a little desperation here.

"You can't just send me alone, I'm a minor."

"John," Conrad said, voice hardening, "go to church. Talk to god. Do whatever it is you do on religious holidays. Have fun. But let. Us. Sleep."

John made a face like he was gearing up for a full tirade, but before he could build up a head of steam Worth had sat up—a little creakily—and waved them both off.

"Nah," he said, "hold on."

He stretched vaguely and rolled himself out of the bed, mercifully clothed as a concession to the season and the poor insulation in Floridian houses.

"Worth," Conrad said, a little disapproving. He was trying to teach the dog not to beg at the table and here was the traitor tossing it scraps, they were supposed to be a united force here.

"Go back ter bed, Connie," Worth said, pulling on the terrible terrycloth robe he'd picked up at market on Wednesday. "I'll get ya yer silent night, merry fuckin' Christmas."

And then he disappeared out the door with John in tow, again like an excitable an ill mannered puppy. Conrad considered the closed door for a second, and then decided he was way the hell too tired to put any energy into being peeved, and promptly wriggled back under the covers.

If Worth suddenly felt like martyring himself, well, who was Conrad to tell him this was the wrong holiday for it?

In about five minutes Conrad was fast asleep, and whenever Worth returned from his perilous task, Conrad could not have said. The cheerful day dawned high above Conrad's blissfully unconscious head.

-A-

Sunday, Christmas Evening

"Worth, he's seventeen years old."

"So?"

"So," Conrad attempted, yet again, to intercept the pouring of alcohol into John's glass of eggnog. Once again, he failed. Fuck Worth and his stupid long legs. They were... sort of nice to look at, though, and it was great when they were wrapped around Conrad's waist but, those were not thoughts to be thinking when Worth was attempting to give alcohol to a minor. "So stop."

Worth grinned and handed off the heavily spiked eggnog to John's eager hands. "No. Look, it's Christmas, yeah? Holiday. Festivity an' good cheer an' all that bullshit. Kid'll be an' adult b'fore we even lie down fer th' night. 'Sides," he continued, looking smug as anything while John sampled his drink, "ain't real eggnog if it ain't got real rum, ain't that right?"

Sighing, Conrad flopped down on the couch, pulling his feet up to cover himself from neck to toe in one of the quilts from the bedroom. It was unseasonably cool, for Florida anyway, and energy for heating wasn't a priority. Around here, you mostly bundled up with your loved ones, and stayed inside out of the wind. He sighed. If he'd eaten something fresh recently he wouldn't feel quite so chilled, but at least they could bank on the rest of the eggnog keeping fresh through the night out on the back porch. He'd get something to drink when they rendezvoused with Hanna tomorrow, he figured.

"Christ," Worth sighed, "I'll go."

Conrad blinked up dumbly, turning his head in time to see Worth already at the front door, pulling on a heavier coat over his usual jacket. "Go? Go where?"

"Out," the doctor said, indicating the door with the jerk of a thumb. "Yer thirsty."

Conrad tilted his head. "I'm always thirsty, Worth."

"Yeah, but you ain't bad till ya start gnawin' at yer lips." A single, gloved covered finger pointed at Conrad, who licked his lower lip. Oh. Well that did explain why he thought he'd tasted something like dirt-covered metal. "I'll go rustle somethin' up. Be back innabit."

The doctor left, taking a heavy bag of suspiciously covered items with him, and Conrad sighed again, trying not to chew at his mouth any more. At least there wasn't that same cloying awkwardness drifting around the room. Somewhere during the course of the week, things in the house across from the high school had gone from prickly to... actually okay. He was okay with John now. John was okay with them.

Maybe it was a Christmas miracle.

"What's it...like?" John asked, apropos of nothing.

Conrad hummed, looking over to the other end of the couch where John was sitting, clutching his half-downed glass. There must have been a lot in there to begin with. It looked like an old bierhaus mug. Here's to hoping John was well hydrated because he was at risk of one hell of a hangover for his birthday. "What's what like?"

"Uh...the...blood thing."

"Feeding?" Conrad suggested, "Thirst?"

The teen nodded, staring at the swirl of boozy nutmeg and cinnamon across the top of his beverage.

Conrad had never really explained vampirism to someone before, and he found himself at a momentary loss. No one had ever explained it him, except in random bursts of apology as he discovered yet another thing he couldn't do anymore. Unsure of where to begin or how to describe it, he sat, watching John carefully avoid making eye contact. Well, he figured, he might as well start at the beginning.

"I had a vampire in my condo," he said. "She was in bat form at the time, but, that didn't matter. I called for, er, well, what I thought would be a vampire bat exterminator, I suppose. I didn't care how, I just wanted it, her, gone. Hanna showed up, along with, what was his name today? Hermann? Well, Hanna did his thing, which involved royally fucking up an already bad situation. The next thing I know, I wake up feeling like I've been run over by a bus."

His hands fidgeted on his lap, hidden beneath the quit. "I—er...I'd been dead, you see. The vampire, she had knocked me out and fed off of me enough to stop my heart. Hanna, still being Hanna, managed to get a drop of her blood and put it in my mouth. It wasn't much, but it was enough to turn me, bring me back like this. It's probably why my other fang is stunted, and why I felt like such utter fucking shit when I first came to. Then they took me to Worth's. And, er, I sort of broke his nose possibly? It's difficult to know for sure, and if that's the case, it wasn't as if it was the first time he'd had something broken on his face."

—Kinda keen on you.

Conrad cleared his throat, deciding to skip over a bit of fact, namely, that his first taste of blood had been hot and fresh from Doc Worth, nearly sizzling with life on his finger.

"So...they gave me a blood bag, one for transfusions, and that was when I first fed. I didn't... it took a long time before I ever bit a human, and the first time I did, it was to save Worth and myself from a group of bloody cannibals. And I mean, well, covered in blood bloody as well as by Mary's blood bloody, if you catch my—nevermind, English sayings. The point is-"

Again he paused, waiting for the next words to come to him, realizing at some point his gaze had drifted from John to the lumpy shapes beneath his quilt. "If I don't feed I will eventually die, just like anyone or anything else. I get weaker, sort of like coming down with the flu at first, and then gradually shittier until I either snap or simply expire. The whole time you're thirsty, though. That's what drives you to breaking. The longer you go without, the worse it is. It starts as a basic thirst, but it gets worse. I, er, assume you've never had marijuana."

Hazarding a glance at John, he saw the boy shaking his head negatively. "Good. Don't start. Terrible stuff. You get what they call cottonmouth with that sometimes and I suppose that's as close of a description as I can come. Or a sponge. But an increasingly dry one."

"When did you, uh...y'know. Last um..."

Conrad frowned. "If you're worried I'm going to snap right now and-"

"No, no I—" John blurted, back snapping straight with righteous indignation. "No. I know you wouldn't. Just. If he says you're thirsty and he's going out to get something..."

"Oh. Hmm." Giving it thought, Conrad shrugged. "Wednesday was when our packs ran out."

"You're pretty thirsty then, huh?"

"I am," Conrad admitted. "But it is what it is. Hopefully Worth will find something. If not, we'll see if we can find something tomorrow."

"Is animal blood okay?"

A flashback of Christmas past soured Conrad's face momentarily. "It is, but not long term. Neither is the preserved, bagged blood. It doesn't have quite the right nutrients in it, and, well...it's the life in the blood too, John. We need that energy transference. It's not something I fully understand well enough to explain but...You can't explain lots of things. They simply are. Worth and I only feed forcefully if we're in war, in a battle of some sort. The rest of the time we rely on volunteers who donate. Sometimes we barter, and we always try to give something back if we can."

"Oh," John said, voice faint. "Okay."

There was again some level of awkwardness that had settled in the room, and Conrad let the quilt fall from his shoulders. "Are you going to finish that?"

John looked started, as if the glass of eggnog had magically appeared in his hands. "Oh, um... not right now? I feel pretty...mellow."

"I see Worth spiked it good and plenty. Be glad, I suppose. He doesn't usually share his booze so freely." Conrad smiled slightly, feeling his normal sized fang poking out over his lower lip. "If you're done, could you hand it over here?"

Nodding, John handed it over. Conrad pulled the mug to his nose and sniffed, deep and long. The smile relaxed, stretching his face a little more. "I always did enjoy fresh nutmeg."

"Are you gonna drink it, then?"

"No," he laughed. "I can't."

"Aren't you thirsty?"

"I am." It was his turn to stare transfixed at the drink, catching high, acidic notes from the rum along with lower, velvety cream beneath. "But I would just get sick. I can't digest regular human food. I need ah...a catalyst? Blood, that is, and in that case, it has to be fresh and human. Then I could have a little and get away with it. If I just drank this straight, though? You've probably never seen when Hanna vomits. Be glad. It'd be something like that, though."

There was an intake of breath. He smelled it before he saw it, hot red droplets, dribbling from John's thumb and down along the inside of the mug. His stomach clenched. It smelled good, so good, and he was thirsty. They'd been living on baggies for weeks. "John," he sputtered, confusion plain on his face.

John wiped his thumb on the rim before pulling his hand back, squeezing the cut closed with his free hand.

"I..." Conrad tried again, "—thank you, but...how did you...?"

The teen looked down at his own lap, and Conrad spotted an open pocket knife. It was one of Worth's, a neat metal handle with no fancy flourishes or unnecessary curves. Conrad's lips dipped into a frown.

"I know," John interrupted, "I'll close it as soon as this stops bleeding. I promised I'd be good with it."

"Promised?" The vampire looked from the blade to John's face.

John smiled somewhat sheepishly. "Yeah, he said you might be upset. He gave me my present early, this morning, when you were in bed and you wouldn't come to church with me. Said he knew how shitty it was when people did that birthday and Christmas present together thing. Pressy, though. Not present. I think he meant present. But he said you might be upset that he did it early."

Conrad actually felt kind of shitty himself. He'd had no intention of getting the boy anything, for either occasion, and had no clue Worth would go behind his back with a gift from them both. He smiled tightly. "Er, yes. Sorry? I'm glad you like your gift."

"I have presents for you, too, but...I thought maybe I'd give them to you tomorrow before you leave."

"Oh yes, yes that's—" if anyone had told him he would feel like an ass about something he didn't do for John, of all people who ever lived, he would have laughed in their face, "—thoughtful of you. Um. Well." He lifted the mug in the air in a salutation before taking a drink. The beverage was cool and thick, with tendrils of warmth from alcohol, spices, and John's lifeblood trickling through his stomach. "Bloody hell that's good."

John grinned, a little dopey, and Conrad took one more drink before discarding his quilt to stand.

"Come on, now. Let's close the pocket knife and make sure that thumb gets cleaned up so it doesn't get infected."

The vampire tugged his clearly tipsy companion into the hall bathroom and lit a couple candles, the bright white ones with the handled holders. That was enough light for Conrad these days, although it probably felt a bit dim to John. Conrad dug out the tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol and some swabs and set to work, quietly cleaning up the little wound. He'd been told he was overly worrisome about these things, back when the world had been reasonable and clean, but nowadays he was on the cutting edge of preventative care. Such things made him feel a little vindicated, it was true.

John watched him work with an increasingly glazed expression, until his attention shifted into a faraway place that Conrad couldn't have reached. As Conrad fiddled with the box of bandages, the boy's throat worked uncertainly, and then some sound finally came out.

"His eyes were blue," John mumbled into his sleeve. "They're red now, but they were blue."

Conrad winced and nearly ripped the bandaid he was unpeeling. The sticky skin of it stretched ominously under his startled fingers. Not this again.

"Yeeees," Conrad reluctantly agreed. "You mean Worth, I assume."

John rolled his head with a drunken flourish, staring himself in the bathroom mirror. It was just him and Conrad's floating clothes, and a hovering bandaid, and that was a pretty comical sight—or at least, if Conrad had been the drunk one he would have found it funny.

But John wasn't looking at any of the various floating objects. He was looking at himself, almost critical, past the sallow skin and the shaggy dark blond hair, glaring into his own glare.

"They were like mine," he said.

Conrad glanced at the mirror again. The blue survivors' veins had faded, but the irises were the same troubled shade as ever—blue like Hanna's—

Or blue like Worth's.

"Vanity," the boy said, faintly. "Vanity of vanities."

"…What?"

"The Lord strikes down vanity," John said. "It was wishful—it was vanity, I just thought… it was something, for me…"

Conrad said nothing; he simply applied the bandage, one end down, then the other.

"When I was little," John murmured, "I don't… I don't remember much about him, but I remember he didn't have eyes like mine. And I thought, this is what I was waiting for—this is why—"

John trailed off, staring down at the bandaid as if he was thinking about ripping the thing off. "But it doesn't matter," he went on, "it was stupid."

Conrad frowned. "Well I don't know much about signs," he said doubtfully, "but look, things change. If you thought it was a sign when you saw it, I don't see why things changing later on would make a difference. I mean, I'm pretty sure he's not literally related to you—Worth's family is from Australia and I don't think he ever left California before the plague hit."

He shrugged. He felt a little strange about the candidness here, the unconscious vulnerability of one sober person speaking to a half-dizzied one. Still, it was kind of… a relief to finally understand. He glanced up, took a calculation on the drip of candle wax.

"Speaking of the devil," Conrad said, with some irony, "Worth should be back any time now, if he stays under par."

John slumped, his forehead knocking into Conrad's collar bone. The vampire jumped a little, hovered his arms uncertainly in the air where they'd sprung up to, and then hesitantly patted the kid's shoulders. Wow this guy was a lightweight—that or he was incredibly tired.

"Why do you call him Worth?" John asked into the seam of Conrad's cotton jacket.

"Um, oh," Conrad said, startled. "What?"

"You're laying in sin with him," John muttered, which was a completely bizarre thing to say into someone's neck. "Why the—why don't you use his first name?"

Conrad blinked. Just below his line of vision, John's messy hair shifted as he breathed in sleepily.

"I—"

He paused, because he actually had to think about it. Various people called Worth Luce, including his own sister and—if Conrad remembered right—Lamont had at times. Hanna once or twice, when he was angry. But those were all people who had known Worth when he was younger, before he'd become what he was now. Those were all people who were calling back in one way or another to the person Worth had been ten years ago, either to remind him or to make him angry, or both.

Conrad had met him when he was fully formed, fully Worth, and he had never known the man who had thought of himself as Luce.

"Because," he said at last, lifting the two of them to their feet with a weary wobble, "then he might think I like him."

John made a confused noise, but he was too tired to ask anything more. He let himself be led, eyes mostly closed, down the hallway and into the bedroom that was probably too big for one teenager, constant looming presence of the lord or no. Conrad pushed him into the pillows with a firm little shove and blew out the candle, sighing a little bit.

What a baby. Hard to believe the kid was going to be eighteen in the morning.

"Thank you," John mumbled, almost slurred.

Oh. There were those two little words again. Conrad glanced around the room, listened carefully, and then allowed himself to crack half a smile.

"Merry Christmas you terrible git," he said. "This hasn't been completely horrible."

-A-

Monday (Again)

Conrad heaved his last bag into the side compartment of the RV. Truth be told he'd only brought three or so bags with him for the week, but they were fairly large and stuffed with essentials such as A) hair gel and B) shoes. They did weigh a bit.

The weather had turned disconcertingly warm again, hovering in the low 70s and dropping as the last faint strains of purple faded from the sky. It would probably rain tomorrow, the weird lukewarm winter rain of such places. Down the road, someone was pulling a cart full of tangerines over a speed hump.

"So how was your vacation?" Hanna snickered, from his perch on the wall of the parking garage behind them.

"Fine, no thanks to you," Conrad said, slapping his hands together to knock the worst of the road dust from them. "You know you could have gotten us out of it, right? All you had to do was bring us with you on whatever cockamamie scheme the council had you running."

"Actually no," Hanna said. "You two are officially suspended from all fiddly detail work for like however long it takes for Czernobog to calm down again. You're lucky he let you off with a warning after that stuff you did in November."

Conrad made an unconvinced noise. There was no way that he was more volatile that Hanna on a "fiddly detail" mission; this was the guy who had once called Toni a dog. Conrad was pretty sure if anybody was punishing them for the thing in November, it wasn't Czernobog. Hanna had looked way to gleeful when Conrad told him where they were going last week.

"So where is John the Revelator?" Hanna asked, peering down the street. "He's not gonna jump out on us with an inquisition squad, is he?"

Conrad bit his lip. He felt—well, his first instinct was to try and defend the little brat. He shuddered. A whole new world of cognitive dissonance was opening up just for him.

"He walked us here," Conrad replied, settling for the bland truth. "Handed us our Christmas presents. He didn't seem too keen on sticking around."

"He got you presents?" Hanna asked, elbows on knees and chin in hands. "What are they, bibles?"

Conrad reached down and lifted up the fairly small package that John had handed him. It was wrapped thickly enough that it felt more like a dangerous military deposit prepared for transport than a Christmas present. It looked a bit lopsided, and it had a second-hand bow stapled to the top.

"Doesn't look like a book," he said. "It's not heavy enough either, I don't think."

Hanna hopped off the wall for a closer look, flipping the present over in his scarred hands. "Ooooh," he said. "I think I know what it is. I'm pretty good at this."

Conrad regarded both Hanna and the object with some trepidation. It wasn't that he really thought the thing might be packaged with explosive canisters of pig's blood, it was just—well, once bitten twice shy, right?

"Open it," Hanna said, grinning like he knew a secret. "Come ooooon."

"I should really wait for Worth—"

"Dollars to donuts he's already opened his." Hanna reached up and banged on the nearest window. "Hey! Worth! You open yours yet?"

There was a muffled yeah, duh, and then Hanna gestured at the window like a smug Vannah White.

"Oh," Conrad said, "fine. Why not."

He leaned back against the off-white side of the RV and started ripping at the wrapping. Tape was in short supply lately, so John had just stapled everything he could get the bit of a stapler on and then a few extra things for good measure. Conrad pulled until he found something that wasn't paper.

He blinked.

It was a handle.

He pulled the rest of the paper off to reveal a white coffee mug, fairly standard in shape, with the words "World's # 1 Dad" printed on the face of it. The word "dad" had been scratched out with a permanent marker, and underneath it had been written "tempter".

At least he'd gotten the gendered noun right this time.

Hanna burst out laughing, doubling over in his absolute amusement. Above them, the window swung open and Worth peered down, looking a little like he wanted to grin and a little like he wanted to kick someone.

"Whatcha get?" he asked.

Conrad held up the mug. "I got number one tempter. What did you get?"

Worth wrinkled his nose. "Agent'a satan."

"Well," Conrad said, "...I guess at least we're both number one."

The doctor snorted.

"Do you think he's trying to be supportive?" Hanna asked, between wheezes of laughter.

Conrad stared at the gift, looked up, and then shrugged helplessly.

"Yeah," he said, "I think he probably is."

(End)