The Longcoats came peacefully at first

Title: Blood Bound

Chapter: 1/?

Author: Ssauei'ssui

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 2400

Pairings/Characters: Jeb/Zero

Summary: Zero let Adora die and ordered Cain to be locked in the tin suit. What he did to Jeb was much worse. Vampire!Zero/Blood-bonded!Jeb

Warnings: AU because I ignore about 90 of the hologram and make Zero into a vampire, SLASH, a couple minor OCs down the road

Disclaimer: I don't own Tin Man, meaning I don't own any of these characters. I also don't own the blood-bonding process I use here—Amelia Atwater-Rhodes came up with it, as far as I know. Siete also belongs to her; I just turned him into a vampire god.

A/N: This is a Christmas present for AbeoUmbra on . The first chapter's up by Christmas, anyway… There will be more. You read that pairing right, and it's between a Vampire!Zero and a human Jeb.

The Longcoats came peacefully at first. They acted like they were just there to chat, and if Jeb hadn't grown up with his father, he never would have realized anything was wrong. After all, Zero came over all the time. He and Wyatt were friends. So it didn't occur to Jeb to be worried until he realized how tense his dad was.

Zero waited hours before he did anything. When he finally announced Wyatt's arrest, Jeb had almost started thinking his dad was just being paranoid. Then his stomach dropped through his feet as his dad was dragged away from him.

Adora ran outside after Wyatt, shouting for the Longcoats to let him go. Jeb got outside just in time to see them start hitting her. He could see other Longcoats tying his father's hands and shoving him into a wagon. Black hair, gray eyes, bony angles… Unfamiliar forms danced across his vision. The only person he knew was his mother, and she was almost unrecognizable for the blood covering her.

Rage broke through the shock covering Jeb's mind. He had taken one step forward before a hand gripped his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

"Don't do that." Jeb turned his head so fast his neck cracked. Standing behind him, holding him back from helping his own mother, was Zero—his father's old friend.

"Let me go," Jeb snarled.

"I don't think so." Zero's eyes were cold and empty. He turned the teen roughly so Jeb was facing him.

Jeb tried to pull away, but the hands that suddenly gripped both his arms were like iron.

"Don't do that, either." Jeb's furious gaze jerked back to Zero's, and what he saw made him stop dead. Zero's eyes had darkened until they were completely black and completely lightless. Jeb could only read one thing in that expression.

Hunger.

Zero opened his mouth, revealing very pointed canines. He yanked Jeb closer to him, the teen stumbling as he obeyed the pull. Zero lowered his mouth to Jeb's throat.

Jeb's eyes were wide as Zero's fangs pierced his skin.

He expected it to hurt. Logically, it should have hurt. But there was only numbness around those teeth, and a kind of giddiness, almost like euphoria, as he felt his life's blood being drawn from his veins. His eyes slowly began to slide closed; he could barely hear his mother calling in the background; and then Zero pulled away. Jeb cringed back in the arms that still held him—whatever vampire mind control Zero had used to stop the pain ended as soon as he stopped feeding.

Jeb blinked as Zero slid a hand under his chin and tilted it up so Jeb was looking at Zero's throat. A thin line of blood ran there, too dark to be human, almost black. But of course, some part of Jeb reasoned, he's not human at all… he's a vampire…

Zero pulled Jeb forward. "Drink," he told the teen. Still dazed, Jeb obeyed.

Zero's vampire blood was sweet and bitter, rich and cool. Jeb could feel the liquid running across his tongue and down his throat. It made him feel euphoric again, and he never would have stopped drinking if Zero hadn't pushed him away.

"Sleep now, Jebediah Cain," Zero ordered softly. Jeb's eyes closed obediently.

Jeb woke up to the sound of voices some distance away. He kept his eyes shut as he listened to the conversation.

"You were supposed to take the boy to the Sorceress."

"Your point being…?" That voice was familiar. Zero, Jeb thought.

"She'll kill you for this." There was a smirk in the voice as it continued. "And I'll watch."

"She can try." Zero sounded bored. "And you can dream." There was the sound of heavy cloth being moved aside, closer to Jeb's ears than the voices had been.

"I know you're awake," Zero informed Jeb. Jeb reluctantly opened his eyes.

He was in a tent, and it was dark. The Cain house had apparently been too far away for the soldiers to get back in one day. Zero stood in the entrance of the tent, the cloth flap swinging shut behind him.

"How did you know?" Jeb asked, sitting up. "You didn't even look." He was fairly confident of that; there hadn't been time between Zero coming in and his declaration.

Zero half-smiled, half-smirked. "You called," he answered, and tapped his temple. "Any time you say or even think my name, I'll know where you are. It'll also tell me whether you're asleep, awake, healthy, dying, dead… You get the gist."

Jeb stared at him, horrified. "You can read my mind?" he whispered.

Zero laughed at that. "Not exactly, Jebediah. I can only hear when you call, and the context of the call. Some people think that calling must be deafening to us, and they try to use that to get back at us; if that's what you're thinking, let me stop you right there. My mind operates on several conscious levels at once; it's no trouble for me to listen to a call and continue whatever else I was doing at the same time." His gaze turned superior. "Of course, after a while, I will be able to read your mind, if I want; and I'll be able to send messages back to you, as well." Moving to a table with a pitcher of water and two glasses, he said, "But I'm sure you have something else to say. Don't you want to know what happened to your parents?"

His parents.

Everything Jeb hadn't been thinking about suddenly crashed over him. His father, bound, cuffed and gagged, shoved into a wagon that would take him somewhere to die. His mother, bloody and bruised, beaten to death for the crime of trying to call to her husband.

His blood being sucked out of his veins. Vampire blood rolling down his throat.

Jeb's eyes lifted, furious, to the man standing in front of him. "You killed them," he growled.

"I honored an alliance," Zero corrected him, pouring a glass of water. "They did the same—your father honored his alliance with the Resistance, and your mother honored her alliance with your father." He turned back to Jeb, offering the glass to the boy.

Jeb smashed it out of the man's hands. "They didn't do anything wrong!" His voice was rising. "You killed them, you son of a bitch—you killed them and they didn't do anything wrong!"

Before he could blink, Zero was in front of him, one hand shoving his shoulder back into the wall, the other holding a gun to his chest.

"Let's get something straight, Jebediah," Zero said softly. "I don't give a damn about who's innocent and who's not. I could kill you right now, and you would be incapable of doing anything to stop me. The only reason you're alive right now is because I decided that you deserved to live, and to know who you are. If I'd taken you back to the Sorceress, you would have become a head case. Would you rather I'd done that?"

The hand on Jeb's shoulder wasn't the same iron grip that had held him still earlier; yet somehow, Jeb couldn't fight. The gun was digging into his chest, and Zero's hand had shoved his shoulder into the wall hard enough to bruise; but he couldn't fight. He couldn't even raise a finger against Zero.

"That'll ease up after a while," Zero told him as he released Jeb and holstered his gun. Jeb let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he realized the man had heard that "call."

"I'll be able to hit you?" he muttered. He didn't really expect an answer, and he certainly didn't expect Zero to start laughing for real.

"Oh, no, Jebediah," Zero told him when his laughter had died down. "You're stuck with that. You'll never be able to hurt me, or even to try." There was a wicked glitter in his eyes as he looked at Jeb. "But at this stage, the blood bond won't let you defy me at all. That part will ease up."

Jeb froze. "Blood bond…?" he whispered.

Zero nodded. "I assume you know what that means." The wicked gleam did not fade.

Jeb fell back against the wall again and didn't answer. Blood bound…

"Judging from the horrified look on your face, I'd say you do know what it means." Zero's eyes were empty now, looking at the teen. "Get used to it. There's no way to break a blood bond."

Jeb stared up at Zero, hatred seeping out of his gaze. "Why didn't you just kill me?" he hissed.

"Would you rather I did?" Zero asked, reaching for his gun. "Bearing in mind that you have no control over that anymore, would you really rather I killed you?"

Jeb looked away.

Hours later, when Zero had finally gone to sleep, Jeb got up.

He would not stay here as Zero's personal prey, immortal and unaging until Zero died or tired of him. Jeb would not play aid to the man who killed his parents.

He was a little nervous about walking out into the enemy camp without a weapon, but Zero still had his gun on him, and Jeb hadn't seen any other weapons in the tent. He was trained in unarmed combat; he'd be fine. He had to be. He didn't want to know if the blood bond would let him steal from Zero. For all he knew, it would paralyze him or wake Zero up to stop him.

Walking as quietly as he could, Jeb slipped out of the tent and into the camp.

There were tents all around him, but the ground was clear. He made for the woods nearby, his steps silent to his own ears.

Apparently someone had better hearing than he did.

"Well, well." A hand on his shoulder stopped Jeb with the same iron grip he remembered, but the voice was unfamiliar. "Where are you going, kid?"

The man spun Jeb to face him, giving the teen a strong sense of déjà vu. He had tanned skin, short black hair, and empty black eyes. Vampire, Jeb thought. He had no idea what he'd based that decision on, but he'd trust the blood bond to be right about that much.

"Well, lookee here," the vampire sneered. "It's Zero's new prey."

Heat rose in Jeb's face. "I'm not—" he began.

The vampire slapped him so hard he stumbled back several steps. "Shut your mouth," he snarled. Jeb could feel warm liquid on his face; something sharp caught in the fabric of the man's glove had cut him.

"You belong to him," the man sneered. "No one else is allowed to touch you." Jeb's mouth twisted in rage—he didn't belong to anyone, least of all to Zero, but he didn't honestly think he could beat a vampire in a fight and didn't want to try. Even less, if possible, did he want to see what the vampire would be allowed to do if Jeb tried to run. "Well," the vampire continued, raising a hand that suddenly sported claws, "too bad for you I don't like Zero."

"And I don't like you."

Both Jeb and the vampire froze. Zero stood a few feet behind the other vampire, looking at him with disgust written across his face.

The man turned, attempting a smile that came out as something between a smirk and a grimace. "Hello, Zero," he said. "I was just talking to your little toy here."

That was more than Jeb would take. "I'm not—" he began again.

"Be quiet, Jebediah," Zero told him without looking away from the other vampire. Jeb felt like an iron band had just closed around his throat; he couldn't say a word.

Zero began walking, circling closer to Jeb, as Hanzai laughed. "The human puppy jumps for its master!" Jeb stared at him mutely, nails digging into his palms and drawing blood.

"You know the laws, Hanzai," Zero told him. He looked almost bored as he reached the teen.

"Which laws would those be?" Hanzai's face had grown dangerous.

Zero reached up, grabbing the collar of Jeb's shirt and pulling it down. Jeb wanted to push his hand away, but the blood bond had paralyzed him as soon as the vampire's hand rose. He felt helpless and sickened, both by himself and the creature that had done this to him.

"These laws," Zero said. "I marked him. He's mine. No one else touches him. I don't care if you like me or not—I'm honestly happier if you don't; then I'm in no way obliged to pretend I like you—but the Council would be interested to hear about this. Now walk away."

"The Council likes you less than I do," Hanzai snarled.

"But they like lawbreakers even less than that." Zero's eyes were colder than Jeb had thought eyes could be. "Now get out, and just hope I let this end here."

Hanzai glared, but left.

Zero looked down at Jeb. His eyes weren't quite as empty as they had been when he looked at Hanzai, but they were nowhere near kind, either. Without saying a word, he grabbed Jeb's arm and began dragging him back toward the tent.

Jeb followed, trying futilely to keep up with the vampire's pace. "Let go," he hissed.

"No." They had arrived at the tent; Zero dragged Jeb in and shoved him onto the cot.

"What in the name of Siete were you doing?" Zero snapped. "If I hadn't gotten there, believe me, Hanzai would have killed you."

"Why do you care?" Jeb asked, eyes narrowed. "Worried your private supply might run dry?"

Private supply, personal prey, toy, slave, human puppy… He'd heard the insults. He'd shouted them at blood bonded humans. "Which of our enemies kept you as a pet?" "What demon did you play prey to?" People like—it made him shudder just to think it—people like him were viewed as dangerous weapons at best, willing slaves at worst. Jeb had never thought he would be one of them, marked as less than human by the crescent-shaped silver scar on his neck.

"I care," Zero said in a low, silky voice that was more dangerous than yelling, "because I would be very upset if you got yourself killed when I had just decided that you deserved to live."

Jeb could only stare at that.

"H—how did you get there?" he finally choked out.

"You called," Zero said simply. "Get some sleep, Jebediah."

A/N: So there it is.

Feedback is much appreciated!