DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except my own elements. Warnings: slash, language, innuendo, vampirism. Don't read if this makes you uncomfortable. Read and review, please. It makes me write faster. :)
A/N: I'm sosososo sorry for the long wait. I go back to school next week, so that'll be another reason for scarcer updates. Don't worry; I'll be back in full force by hopefully late this month/early September. I've got lots planned for this story. ;)
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Sometimes, things were easier said than done. In this case, that statement was very true for Pete. After he had talked to Adam and William about finding Nate and his coven, he jumped straight into research, trying to find the best possible way to determine just where the others were. So far, it wasn't going so well.
That was five hours ago, and now the sun was setting across the Chicago skyline. Long shadows stretched across the length of the apartment, and, had Pete been human, his eyes would have been straining in the dim light. He sighed and shut the lid of his laptop down a little harder than he had intentionally meant to. Five hours of going absolutely nowhere.
"It's just barely started and I've already hit a dead-end," Pete muttered, his head in his hands.
He wouldn't give up yet; too much was at stake for that. Instead, he lounged back in his chair and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He quickly dialed Bill's number and waited for the other vampire to pick up.
"Hello?" Bill barely got out before Pete jumped in.
"Bill, I've got a problem," he said urgently.
"And that is...?" Bill asked distractedly, like he was used to Pete calling him up at all hours of the day, which, taking Pete's spontaneity into case, he probably was.
Pete opened up his laptop again, waiting impatiently for it to start up where he had left off. "I can't find anything that would help us even start to locate Nate. I know that the internet isn't the best place to search for vampires, but it's the only place I can think of looking."
The silence after his statement unnerved Pete, who shifted in his chair uneasily. Bill finally spoke, and this time his voice was laced with a tint of laughter. "Pete... oh wow. You looked up Nate and his coven? That's not the smartest idea since, obviously, he doesn't have a permanent residence and therefore no way of being tracked."
Pete opened his mouth in protest to Bill's amused tone. "But—I thought that the whole point was to look for specifically Nate. You said—"
"I didn't say anything, Pete. You're doing that thing again."
"What thing is that?" Pete snapped, agitated.
"You're hearing what you want to hear. Looking up vampires on Google isn't going to get you anywhere except maybe fiction sites."
Pete growled in frustration, clenching his eyes shut. "Then what do you want me to do?" He didn't feel like correcting Bill and saying that no, he wasn't as stupid as to Google vampires. The fight was draining out of him with every new complication that arose.
Bill laughed. "What I want you to do, Pete, is take it easy. You're starting to sound like Patrick. All this business with Nate has really gotten you worked up."
Pete sighed, slumping down in his seat. "Y-You're right, Bill. I am way too worked up over this. I think I'm going to go visit Andy." He hit the End button and got up, stretching.
The visit to the mortician's was long overdue; he was definitely running low on blood, but he could hear Andy's words in the back of his mind about the shortage they were experiencing, thanks to Nate's killing spree. "Oh well," he said out loud to himself as he shrugged on his hoodie. "It doesn't hurt to try."
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Stepping into the hospital morgue was like stepping into a freezer. Even without a pulse and body heat, Pete always found it extremely cold down here. He often asked Andy how he stood it down here all the time with only a lab coat as extra warmth. Andy would always laugh and say that, like everything else, he got used to it.
This time around, Pete stood awkwardly waiting by the door as Andy finished up with the body of a middle-aged woman. Not a casualty of Nate's spree, thank god, but a victim of natural death. After Andy had put the sheet up over the body and slid it into a separate refrigerated compartment, washed his hands and faced Pete, the vampire was fidgeting noticeably.
"Rough time?" Andy asked with a laugh.
Pete gave him a shaky grin. "Just still a little weirded out by being down here," he said." I don't know how you can stand dealing with dead bodies all day."
Andy went over to the freezer where the blood packets he kept for Pete were. "This coming from a vampire."
"A vampire who still doesn't like to kill for blood," Pete pointed out as Andy handed him a bag. Andy shook his long auburn hair out of his eyes and laughed again. "As always, Wentz, you've got a good point."
The grin Pete gave him lasted only a few seconds, like many others had recently. "Actually, Andy, I really wanted to ask you about the victims you've gotten that all died from the same thing," he said, voice trembling slightly.
Andy raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest, mulling the question over for a few seconds. "And you're sure this is a relevant question?" he finally asked skeptically.
Pete nodded fervently, eyes bright and troubled. "Yeah, it really is. This isn't just coming from my blood shortage or anything, but Bill, Adam, and I are really worried that there's a... dangerous vampire on the loose with a bunch of followers."
Andy whistled. "So like a legion or something?"
"Coven, but exactly," Pete confirmed, as surprised as ever at how fast his human friend always caught on. "He's supposed to be banned by our council, but apparently that means shit to him. He's been killing a bunch of humans—well, him and his followers—with a long, gaping cut from their neck to their arm—"
"Their brachial artery to their carotid artery?" Andy cut in, sliding his thick-rimmed glasses from where they had slid down back up his nose. Pete blinked but nodded after a few stunned seconds. "Yeah, I guess that's about right. But anyway, they're making that their symbol or something. I doubt they're actually drinking the spilled blood, but they very well could be."
Before Andy could answer, his phone rang on the table across the room. He dived for it, quickly answering it. Pete only caught his end of the conversation, but he could tell from Andy's huge grin and elated voice that this was a call that he had been waiting for all day.
Again, Pete felt that familiar stab of longing. He just hated being out of the loop. Bill had Adam, and now, it seemed that Andy had someone special himself. Pete sighed and pushed his black bangs out of his face, biting his lip. He could always ask Patrick...
No, Pete snapped to himself. He hates anything to do with anyone caring about him.
He couldn't believe that Patrick always managed to squeeze himself into his thoughts. It constantly reminded Pete that he hadn't ever really felt this strongly for anyone before. It just so happened that this certain someone possibly hated him, of course. And, yeah, he was human.
Pete barely had time to feel sorry for himself and his predicament when Andy snapped his phone shut and strode back to where he had been standing before, a visible bounce in his step and audible higher note to his voice when he spoke back up.
"Boyfriend?" Pete asked with a raised brow, small smirk on his lips. Andy blushed but nodded an affirmation, face still flushed with glee. "Yeah... he asked me to dinner tonight."
Pete barked a laugh and leaned against the wall. "I think someone's getting some tonight," he said with a suggestive wink. "Does this mystery boyfriend have a name that begins with a J and ends with an E?"
It was commonly known that Joe, the pharmacist who had really amazing hair in Pete's opinion, liked Andy. A lot. And Pete could tell that Andy really liked him too, with the way he always tried to avoid the subject.
Andy flushed an even darker shade of red—one that looked so much like Patrick, Pete thought with lament before he could stop himself—and tried poorly to defend himself. "N-no, it's nothing like that. He just wants to go to a movie and dinner..."
"Andy," Pete said, picking up where the other man had left off, "don't you think that a movie is the perfect make-out spot? 'Cause I was one-hundred years old this June, and I have seen quite a bit and been on a fair share of dates myself."
"So what more is there about Nate and his coven?" Andy said, steering the subject away.
Pete chuckled but let it go. "There's just that. I thought I'd warn you so you'd know just what to look for the next time a victim of his rolls in on that steel tray."
Andy nodded, looking around. "So who told you this bit of information?"
The question caught Pete off guard, because now the chips were on the table. He knew he couldn't say Patrick's name without some sort of wistful tone in his voice. So he swallowed and grit his teeth, figuring might as well just get it over with.
"Patrick Stump," he answered, trying not to display just how much this name troubled and excited him at the same time. A confusing compound of emotions that unsettled his stomach and set his non-beating heart into, figuratively, frenzied palpitations.
Now it was Andy's turn to raise a questioning brow. "All this emotion for a reporter you questioned?"
"Writer," Pete corrected without a second thought. "And he just—"
"Stole your heart, didn't he?" Andy finished, voice suddenly soft and sympathetic. Pete sighed in defeat and mumbled a sullen yes, keeping his eyes on the ground. He was just memorizing the stitching on his white Converse when he felt Andy's hand on his shoulder.
He looked up, meeting the steely gray gaze of his friend. "Pete, I've seen you at your most vulnerable. I've seen when you're on the brink of insanity due to thirst. Most boys you tell me about don't bring this much emotion, so you've obviously not spoken about this to anyone," Andy said, his voice and touch equally soft as the hand he rested on Pete's shoulder.
Pete rubbed the back of his neck. "No, I haven't. But that's because it's stupid!" He focused his gaze on the gray-white walls behind Andy. "I'm a vampire, okay? I can't be in love with a human. Things just don't work out that way. I just—I always see people like Bill and Adam who are so goddamned happy and in love together, and I want that so bad. I've never had that before in my life, and now that I possibly could have it, it won't work out."
He hung his head and shrugged Andy's comforting hand off, wrapping his arms around his midsection. He knew what he wanted to say; it was right on the end of his tongue. All he had to do was open his mouth and say it. But, if he did, how much could it change? It wasn't like he hadn't wished it countless times before.
Right now, everything seemed amplified. With the tension in the air and the threat hanging like a dark, rain-sodden cloud over their heads, Pete tried to watch what he said. He could never be too careful. He sighed, thinking about how weird it was to exhale without having the need to breathe. Again, something he had thought about so many times in the past one-hundred years.
Andy waited patiently for Pete to talk, not moving or displaying any signs of impatience. His disposition bothered Pete; he was jealous of Andy's ability to be so calm and collective in almost every situation. But in times like these, he was glad to have Andy as his rock of sorts.
He looked up, jaw set and hazel eyes dark. "I wish I had never become a vampire," he finally said, letting the words soak in.
Andy nodded. "I completely understand, dude. This must be hard, battling moral from emotions."
Pete zipped up his hoodie further, heading for the door without answering. "Just call me whenever you find something more in the bodies of the victims," he said over his shoulder as he shut the door, not bothering to hear his friend's response.
As he walked back upstairs, he passed Joe, who grabbed his shoulder and turned so that they faced each other, a friendly grin on his face. Pete allowed himself a wide-eyed glance at the enormous amount of hair atop Joe's head before the pharmacist was speaking. "Yo, Wentz. I haven't seen you around here in awhile, man."
Pete shrugged. "Here and there, dude." He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets, looking at the white tile of the hospital hallway.
Joe nodded, looking thoughtful. "Hey, you haven't happened to see Andy around here anywhere, have you?" A couple pages on the clipboard he was holding rustled as he moved the, checking patient's charts and prescription numbers.
"Have you tried the basement?" Pete answered, a weak attempt at joking.
Joe laughed, clapping Pete on the back as he started to enter the door Pete had just left. "I'd forgotten how funny you were," he said over his shoulder. "You just might have to like, show your face around here again sometime in the next eon."
"I'll try." Pete turned once the door clicked closed and hurried as fast as he could out of the acrid-smelling building.
The minute he stepped outside into the city air, he felt less restrained, like a vice had been taken off his chest. Being down in the morgue always bothered him for some reason that he couldn't fathom. He headed for the car, turning up the radio as loud as he could stand the minute the engine started up.
Planning on heading back home to his apartment and watching movies until well into the morning, Pete felt his dampened spirits lift slightly as he sped down the highway. He had everything under control; Andy was looking for distinguishable marks on victims, Bill and Adam were trying to figure out the best way to approach this. All Pete had to do was find a way to get Patrick off his mind, and what better way than to fill his thoughts with mindless violence and gore?
What he didn't expect, though, was what would come much, much later that night.
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:) I'm really excited for these next few chapters. I haven't gotten them down yet, but I've got quite a few ideas in my head and on the Notepad on my enV. I'm also thinking of maybe doing a song of the chapter from now on that sort of reflects the mood or what's going on. Yes/No? Reviewsplz!
