Disclaimer: I own very little within. "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
I don't like this chapter.
The only part I do like is Gerard's flashback/dream scene. A little Gerard past insight and whatnot, and The Baron, too. Everything else seemed weird to me. I figured it was better, though, to give you this than to make you wait while I write a whole new chapter. Usually I try to make things better and make people wait for it, but I've been delaying it long enough.
Also, you're probably getting tired of this whole look-at-Pete's-bloodlust-with-his-friends-around-don't-you-feel-bad-for-him thing. I'm sure you get it now. So just deal with it once more please.
Gerard thought about what he should do next. What did he enjoy doing? Well, he liked music. But he didn't really have access to much right now. Drawing appealed to him, and he actually wasn't that bad at that, but it wasn't like he carried a sketchbook on him. The three-man-gang had set up camp in the middle of nowhere, almost. It was in a little clearing just outside of a woodsy area. Gerard had started a fire, after Sorel and Mikey had fallen asleep to avoid the bitter cold. Sorel didn't seem to mind, he just passed out, drunk as usual. After being convinced by Sorel to have a few more than he usually did, Mikey was able to ignore the cold enough to fall asleep before the fire was built, too. This required Mikey stealing Gerard's coat and using it as a sleeping bag, but Gerard didn't really mind. He felt a little like he owed something to Mikey, that and the fact that since Gerard could manage the intimidating older brother role, Mikey could also fit the wan younger brother role.
There were a million things Gerard could and should've been doing then. But he decided to sleep instead. After all, nighttime is no fun when you're alone.
---
"Checkmate!" Gerard had the smile of someone who was trying to resist looking smug, but still couldn't fully hide the enthusiasm of his victory. He sat a tad taller in the velvet-cushioned dining chair and flipped a few locks of ink black hair away from his eyes, flipped them again when they fell forward defiantly, and finally not bothering when the same thing happened a third time.
The Baron raised his eyebrows in shock. He craned his head forward, studying his antique wood chess set, his cane set on the side of the chair. Tipping his gray fedora away, he nodded in agreement. "It appears you have won."
Gerard gave this a nod. Then, slowly, the smile on his face faded into a look of realization, then sudden fear. "DON'T KILL ME!" He raised his arms to his head in defense.
The Baron laughed as if murder was far beyond the scope of his abilities. "Kill you?! Why would I do that? Au contraire, my boy. I want to reward you."
"Pardon, sir?"
"I understand that you and a few friends of yours are part of the team that assists the man who's head of the torture chambers."
Gerard nodded.
"Well, I need to replace one of my lieutenants. And that's going to be the aforementioned head of the torture chambers, Vulcan."
Gerard nodded again, his dark eyes skimming the room as fast as he could manage, and his eyes still retained most of his surroundings. He was able to do this and still focus on what The Baron had to say. Gerard was told often that he was a quick thinker. Though he usually shrugged at the compliments or denied them, deep inside his heart swelled with pride at the fact that others considered his skills useful and noticeable, such as a new trick he developed where he could tell if someone was lying by the direction they moved their eyes in when they talked.
"Therefore, you must take his place as the head of the torture dungeons," The Baron said.
Then there was a brief pause in the conversation. A lanky teenage boy entered with a silver tray balanced on one hand, like an expert waiter. On top of the overly decorated and shiny serving dish was two plain white porcelain teacups with silver holders for cream, sugar, more tea, lemon, honey, blood, and whatever else could ever possibly cross The Baron's mind that he would want it in his tea.
The Baron handed a teacup to Gerard and let the boy, who Gerard suddenly realized couldn't have been older than sixteen, sort out the rest on the table.
"That'll be all, my boy. Have a nice afternoon." The Baron waved away the boy, who mouthed "Help" to Gerard as he walked by.
Gerard pretended he didn't see that as he heard the door shut behind the teen and poured molasses in his tea.
The Baron 'tsk tsked'. "That's a boy who will no doubt land himself in the care of YOU." Then he smiled, overflowing with enthusiasm for Gerard. "You start bright and early tomorrow, by the way."
Gerard stood up and bowed, smoothing out the creases in his fine black suit and red tie after standing. "Thank you, sir. You won't regret it."
"Don't forget you're being assigned this job because I know you can think of new, creative things. Don't prove me wrong or risk being on the wrong end of the whip. Understand?"
"Yes, sir, but a question…"
"Yes?"
"I have a brother who's the only one I'm familiar with in the Dandies who's not on the, uh, the torture squad. Can he-?"
"Join to fill your old position? Why, certainly!" He waved Gerard away. "Now scoot. And send Vulcan to me."
Gerard nodded again, turning to leave with a smug smile and a spring in his step. He chose only to focus on the success of the moment and not on the fact that he would have to come up with 'new, creative' ideas for torture.
----------
It was about eight PM, and Andy was the only one up. Usually this bothered him; it wasn't that he resented getting up early, it was that he disliked being the only one up. And of course, this left him with the duty of making coffee and possibly driving.
He waited for the coffee to drip into the pot, watching the little red light on the machine, as he drummed the top of the mini-fridge with two plastic spoons. He was pretty sure it wasn't loud enough tapping to wake anyone up, but if it was, then they should wake up earlier anyway.
Andy had no idea if Patrick also wanted coffee but he decided to reach for four mugs anyway, pulling all four out at once, looping four fingers through the handles on the mugs like an expert.
"That stuff had better be black."
The shock of Pete's voice made Andy stumble and two mugs went crashing to the ground. "Owww! Crap!" The shattered porcelain scattered and cut the top of Andy's left bare foot.
He hopped over to Pete's little couch bed and inspected the wound.
And so did Pete.
"CRAP! I hope this doesn't need stitches or something! Patrick can't do stitches to save his life!" Andy let out some intelligible whine/moan and looked around. "Do we have like, bandages around here or some antiseptic or something. He let out another little noise and began to rise on one foot to fetch the medical supplies.
"Oh, don't hobble. I'll get it." Pete growled, pushing past Andy and grumbling a bit as he stepped over the more visible shards and going towards the top left cupboard, realizing with another growl that he was too short to reach it. He pulled up a folded pile of (formerly) clean clothes, a hard pillow, and pulled aside a box. He shook the box to hear what was in it. It sounded breakable, and he therefore assumed it was stuff Patrick used to make weapons and tinker around with. He was the only one who tinkered around with anything, and it wasn't like anyone in the RV carried around any valuable memorabilia (they didn't have ANY memorabilia). Pete only used the pillow and clothes and was still able to reach the first aid kit. "You want a lollipop?"
"Shut up. I'll take care of the wound myself, okay? I just need you to-"
"No, I'm serious," Pete jumped down, first aid kit in one hand and unopened box of Blow Pops in the other.
"Oh, awesome! Yeah! Give me one!"
Pete tossed Andy a purple one and chucked the candy back up.
"You don't one?" Andy stuck the lollipop in his mouth before unraveling some fresh, white gauze.
"Sugar'll make you hyper."
"And coffee won't? Besides, you eat sugar."
"Yeah, but that's probably just sugar with corn syrup and dye and nothing else. At least stuff like ice cream's got dairy."
"Whatever."
Pete hated it when Andy answered that way in his blasé, I'm-okay-you're-okay-so-that's-okay tone. It made him feel like the asshole for continuing an argument.
A couple minutes or so later, Andy was done with the mediocre first aid job. "I guess I should clean up the porcelain…"
Pete made a face of disgust. "You gonna clean up those bloody cloths you left on the table?"
"Oh yeah, in a minute,"
As Andy stumbled around to pick up the pieces, Pete stared at the table and its red contents. What does he mean 'in a minute'? Freaking pick it up and throw it out. As a familiar, almost indescribable pang went through his stomach and seemed to vibrate up through his teeth and head, he took a nervous step back away from the table.
Andy lifted his foot again, looking at it. "Did I do this right? I'm going to go wake up Patrick. Hang on."
Pete chewed his lip as Andy left him alone. With bloody bandages.
Key word there being 'bloody'.
Pete looked at the coffee, trying to focus on the bitter smell of that instead, when the deplorable thought in the back of his head flashed to the front.
No. That's sick. No way.
Pete actually went so far as to turn his back to the table, forcing his eyes on the coffee. I'm not a JUNKIE. I'm not like those freaks who lick the inside of a bag that used to hold crack or something after they ran out. I'm not like those alcoholics who will eat or drink anything that's got just a little bit of alcohol in it because someone took away their supply.
But it's his fault. He left it on the table. Is Andy mocking me? Is he testing me or something? Does he want me to take it? Pete glanced at where Andy and Patrick were in the back of the RV. Andy had taken long enough that he decided to take a seat and Patrick was pointing to something on his foot.
And facing the coffee wasn't working. He could still smell the blood! FUCK!
Pete had enough. He whipped around, stumbling past where anyone could see him. He grabbed the red bandages and lifted them to his mouth sucking up any blood inside them, savoring the tastes of real blood he hasn't had since… an unthinkable amount of time.
Finally, when nothing was left, Pete tore it away from his lips and ran to the garbage can, tossing it in and licking any trace of blood off his lips.
Andy came back into view. He looked at the table. "Where are the bandages?"
"I threw them out for you, lazy ass. They were making me sick."
"Oh yeah. Bloodlust. Sorry. Thanks, though." Andy went to the driver's seat, sitting and looking over the map.
Pete heaved a sigh of relief. Contrary to what he thought would happen, he didn't feel a specific need for Andy's blood.
Now he just wanted blood.
---
"SCREW THIS SHIT!" The largest man around ordered. He hulked at about six foot seven, six foot six maybe, looking at him one would probably guess three hundred pounds.
Two other men let out murmurs of agreement, barely audible.
"HOLD ON!" Another said. He threw the hood on his pitch black hoodie, nearly as dark as his skin and eyes. "We gonna let these punks beat our asses like that?!"
"SO? We'll get'em better next time!" The fifth person's voice, this time a woman without an obvious specific race, negotiated. "Let's get blood slaves off of some wusses somewhere else!"
The man with the hood let out a shout of anger. But he didn't stay behind when the other three ran off.
Pete stood and watched them leave. He was in the middle of the nearly empty street, closely spaced stores dotting the sides of the street. They were barren stores; their owners and customers were long gone now… but Pete was not alone.
"Did… that just happen?" Andy stepped toward Pete, ignoring his jawline-length hair as it fell in front of glasses.
"Unless we're group-hallucinating, I would say they just ran away,"
"NO WAY!" Joe shouted, joining their miniature circle and shoving the other two for effect.
"Was that our first real victory?" Patrick asked them, applying pressure to a bite wound on his forearm with a rag.
"Well, there were seven of them when they came, and five went running. You do the math." Pete was eerily calm, and tired-looking slouch combined with the moonlight and his skinny frame made him look inhuman.
Patrick stared at the others, wide-eyed. "What should we do?"
"What should we do, Andy?" Joe asked Andy.
"What should we do, Pete?" Andy asked Pete.
"What should we do?" Pete repeated the question.
Andy nodded.
"What. Should. We. Do?"
Andy raised one eyebrow and nodded again, this time in a cautious fashion.
"We should…"
In his dramatic pause, Andy looked around at the other two a few times, Patrick shifted his weight from foot to foot. Joe just stared at Pete.
"We should party."
"PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!" Joe hollered, echoing in the empty streets.
As Andy jumped around with Joe in glee, the merry two using up any energy they had left after fighting off vampires, Patrick just gawked at Pete. "Party? Really?" He knew Pete wasn't outright mean, but he wasn't the type to say something so carefree and loose out of the blue. Patrick smiled at Pete though; he was glad Pete was relaxing for once and not being pessimistic about the future and the city.
"Yeah. There's a gas station open. We can go get stuff there and then go to the junkyard to watch TV and make asses out of ourselves."
"Should we invite Dirty?" Patrick shifted his eyes around the scene, still smiling but still wary of Pete's attitude.
"I'm one step ahead of you!" Joe had out his cell phone and pressed a speed-dial button.
"Tell him to bring those glowstick things…" Andy was trying to say to Joe before Joe held up his finger in signal that it was ringing.
"HeyDIRTYYWE'REPARTYINGATTHEJUNKYARDBYE!" Joe hung up and threw the phone in his pocket.
Patrick laughed, wrapping his wound after it stopped bleeding. "What if he doesn't know where we're going?"
"I'm sure he caught the words 'junkyard',"
"What if he doesn't know we're partying? You probably just confused him!"
"Then he'll party! That's his answer to anything he can't answer otherwise!"
"To the junkyard!" Andy ordered.
"No, to the gas station!" Joe corrected him, then followed, rambling something about how they're lucky that they may be able to loot the gas station and get away with it,
"Why are you acting so… party-ish tonight?" Patrick lagged behind with Pete.
"Enjoy it while you can." Pete still had his freakishly calm smile painted on.
"Eh?"
"As of tonight, we killed vampires with specialized weapons. They know what we do now. Now that we've actually gotten kills in, we won't look like a bunch of kids trying to be action movie heroes before running away from this town. We're annoying little threats now."
Patrick's smile faltered.
"Cheer up, at least the Dandies aren't acting up right now."
Patrick was still in shock and his thoughts had trouble connecting and forming sentences. "But… what about… the guy… The Baron?"
"Silly Patrick. The Baron' s a myth, dude. He doesn't exist. The Dandies are just weird!" He snickered. "Now let's go party like its twelve years ago."