VB c5

AN: It's been a while friends! I'm having an odd summer so far, and again have developed a mild case of writers block, but hopefully I'll be able to push through it enough to squeeze out a few more chapters worth for quite a few of my stories before Summer's end. Happy reading, all!

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Ethan gasped for air as he finally reached the streetlights, just in time to see a small bus pull up to the little gathering of benches next to the road. He panted and got out his wallet, pulling out what he guessed to be the appropriate amount for bus fare and climbed in behind two others who had been waiting by the benches. He went a little over in his payment, but called it a generous tip (courtesy of one Jessie Black) and climbed into an isle seat.

No one of the handful of passengers tried to make conversation with him, and for that Ethan was grateful. In fact, no one seemed to be interested in conversation- the bus was almost completely silent, save for what seemed to be an oldies radio station playing gently through the speakers. Ethan tiredly guessed it was just a little too early for everyone to be at top speed.

God knew he could use a coffee, a baguette, and somewhere to sleep...dry socks and a comfortable pair of jeans would be nice too. Since coming to France, Ethan had to cloth himself with the fully stocked wardrobe and closer of clothes in his bedroom. It had been that way when he'd moved in.

Eventually, after a few minutes of watching out his window and half-expecting Jesse to come flying alongside the bus, Ethan sighed and relaxed back into his seat, his small backpack of necessities for a few days planted firmly against his spine. No one would be pick-pocketing his bag easily, and besides, the only thing truly valuable he had with him was deep within his jeans pocket. The wallet he carried had enough for a hotel room, something to eat, whatever he wanted, really.

LIf the safe he'd raided was any indication of how rich Jesse was, he wouldn't even notice. He didn't take even a sixteenth of that treasure, (not to mention the ACTUAL treasure the man had lying around his mansion). He was sure that even if he had taken triple the money he did, it wouldn't have put a dent in the vampires finance, point being...Ethan wasn't going to feel guilty.

Ethan knew little of the way vampire business worked...but whatever Jesse did, it brought in the cash. Seriously.

Maybe he just steals it, Ethan mused, and closed his bloodshot and lightly burning eyes, as he thought about his life and his home.

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It had only been five hours since Ethan had last talked to Benny, (they had stayed up so late) but he found himself wanting to run up to his beanpole of a best friend and hug the life out of him, just from the sheer excitement of seeing him standing at the end of his driveway. In his usual trademark stripes and dark skinny jeans. Even back in kindergarten when the boys had first met, Benny had had unusual taste in clothes, food...but it had never bothered Ethan in the slightest.

In fact, you could say it just made Ethan like Benny more.

"Dude! Finally!" Benny jumped in excitement also at seeing his best friend coming down the steps of his front porch.

"This is happening!" Ethan greeted back as they both energetically took off towards their last day of middle school. "I hope you didn't forget your library books again, Benny."

"E! Stop killing the mood!" Benny turned around and walked backwards as he talked to Ethan. "This is officially the last day we'll spend in middle school, that's awesome!" Benny enthused as he used his hands in rapid gestures, flinging rainbow sprinkles from his chocolate donut onto the sidewalk.

"Yeah, next year we'll be in high school!" Ethan answered, sharing in his friend's infectious optimism for a few brief moments. "Though after what you did last week, with the banana foam in the science labs, I'll be surprised if they even let us into e front doors of Whitechapel High."

"Look, no one can prove that was me, or you." Benny slung an arm briefly around Ethan's shoulders, at a slightly shorter elevation than his own. "Besides, all you did was stand watch at the door."

"Yeah, whatever. Just don't do anything to get us in trouble today. I don't want detention on our last day of school." Ethan rolled his eyes but happily continues to reminisce and discuss their past mischievous (and sometimes unlawful) endeavors in Whitechapel's middle school.

"Look out world! Here comes Benny and Ethan!" Benny yelled with a joy in his voice that made Ethan smile even as he blushed when other students gawked in their direction. Pushing away any negative thoughts, Ethan put on a smile and ran after his best friend to the cafeteria where they were supposed to meet Rory.

It was going to be the best day of his life.

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Ethan blinked awake from his mini-dream, and looked around at the other passengers. No one had seemed to notice his head nodding forward as he dozed off, and he relaxed, his cheeks coloring themselves a light pink in embarrassment anyway. Readjusting himself, Ethan sat more comfortably back against the bus seat and wondered what exactly had caused him to recall such a memory. It was just under a year ago now...why would he be thinking bout something like that?

Ethan looked out the window of the bus and sighed, resting his head against the glass. It felt good on his temple, as a headache had started up behind his sinuses, probably from being awake for so long. Even so, as his head steadily ached, he found himself smiling and closing his eyes, wondering if he would dream of Benny again.

An hour and a half later, when the sun had fully risen, Ethan stepped off the little bus and into a city he didn't know the name of. Well...it was too big to be a town, anyway, but he had no way to judge the actual size of it. He just knew that he was hungry, and tired...and if he was lucky, it would still take Jesse some time to catch up to him.

He supposed he should so something worthwhile with the time he had away from his prison...but what?

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"The grounds are clear, sir." The groundskeeper reported as Jesse sat in his study, reading some files. When addressed, the vampire threw the files into his desk and stood up. "It doesn't appear that the boy has located neither the private greenhouse, nor the underground terminal."

"And the guests there?" Jesse asked as he lit a cigarette and took a long drag, moving to stand by the window.

The groundskeeper smirked and lifted the mask of his welder's mask so he could be better understood by his employer. "Undisturbed, thank god."

"Excellent." Jessie sighed, his smoke blowing out into the air, and clouding his view of the town not far from the estate. "I guess I should be off soon. Get a head-start on my own personal guest."

"He's a slippery one, when he wants to be." The groundskeeper agreed. "Even by vampire standards."

"He's just acting out, I'm sure." Jesse smiled. "He's too smart to be trying to run for real. However, he was also smart enough to make the chase a bit interesting for me...he told me he'd been drinking my blood as I told him to, but I can see now that's not the case. When I reached out for him, I had a hard time feeling him...well, harder than it would have been if he'd been drinking it every other day like I told him to."

"Didn't you put some of your blood in his drink yesterday?"

"No, just some special tonic. Come to think of it, it may have given him more energy than strictly necessary...I wonder how bad the crash will be?" Jesse smiled and stepped up into his window sill. "I best be off."

"So how bad do you think the effects will be, with him stopping the blood drinking and all?" The groundskeeper asked casually. "Or will there be any effects at all?"

"As far as I and the library know, nothing like this has ever been attempted before." Jesse murmured. "Which makes it all the more important that I don't let Ethan slip through my fingers...if word gets out about him, anything about him, he could be in serious danger."

"You know, we could just-"

"We are not just going to ring him dry, Gord." Jesse looked at his employee and friend sharply. "I believe I've said this before, but this boy is special to me. I won't treat him like the others, and you'll do well to remember this for next time."

"Understood." The burly groundskeeper sighed. "Sorry Jes."

"Don't be sorry." Jessie grimaced. "Just...work on weaning off the latest test subject, would you? It should take another month, give or take, but she should be ready for semi-release soon after she's been cleared."

"Whatever you say. I'll give the doc early notice as well." Gord nodded and turned to leave just as Jesse jumped from the third floor to the grass below.

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Ethan's fingers tittered on the mahogany table in front of him and he smiled politely at the waiter when he was brought a small plate with a dainty chocolate cake on it. He'd just enjoyed the house special at a neat little restaurant on a city corner, and had thoroughly satisfied his hunger for greasy, non-baked and non-boiled food, before ordering the sweetest dessert on the menu.

And for the last half hour, he'd been staring at a yellow notebook in front of him, wondering if he should do what he felt he needed to. He had a pile of notes beside him, with scribbles and mistakes written on each.

"Can I get you anything else, sir?" The same waiter that had given him the cake asked in French...the native language.

"No thank you." Ethan replied softly in the same language, knowing that his accent still wasn't the best. "Just the check, please."

"As you wish."

After the waiter had left and come back, Ethan left a wad of cash with him, as well as a generous tip, and headed out into the now slightly daylight.

The first thing Ethan had done after getting off the little bus, was find a cafe and order an extra-large chocolate donut with sprinkles. Unfortunately, the sprinkles had only come in pink and white, but it did the trick...well, half the trick, anyway. It sated his craving for sugar, but also reminded him a little too much of his best fiend, and suddenly every stripe-wearing person he passed got harder and harder to look at. Hence, the crumpled yellow notes torn out of the notebook.

He'd done idle wandering and taxi-flagging, spending Jesse's money just because he could. Absently, he wondered what Jesse would do to him once he caught up...and Ethan knew he would. Would he be angry? Livid?

Hungry?

Shivering for a quick moment, Ethan pulled his jacket tighter around him. For the past couple of weeks, he'd been trying to wean himself off of Jessie's blood. Not completely off, it was no use trying to do that. Ethan was half-sure Jesse found a way to make him consume or absorb it anyway without him drinking directly.

To make matters especially difficult, it HURT when Ethan stopped drinking the blood completely. Once, he had tried to stop drinking it, in hopes of breaking the link between him and Jesse...why? Because back then, he didn't want anything to do with the dark vampire (and still didn't) but back then he hadn't been thoughtful enough to consider his family, or anything like that. All he'd known was that he hated the delicious red lifeblood, and it disgusted him that he was being forced to drink it..so he quit taking the daily dosage Jesse required him to consume.

It was horrible. His headaches came back, full force from the overexertion of his second sight, which had reached limits beyond what a boy his age should have been capable of, at the age of fifteen. His eyes had burned and throbbed with pain almost intense enough to make Ethan cry out. In the end, the whites of his eyes had turned entirely a deep bloodshot red, the skin around them bruising an alarming purple, and the veins there becoming suddenly swollen and glowing with bioluminescence, not unlike the way they did when he received a vision. A faint glowing pinkish-white hue was all Ethan had gotten to see of the veins branching out from his eyes, however, before his vision blurred so much that in a moment of panic and desperation, the seer had begged for Jesse to give him his blood before he went blind.

Needless to say, Ethan was given more than three times the normal dosage for the next week, even though it had only taken the blood a little under three hours to heal most of the damage. Jesse had explained it in great detail, how reckless and stupid Ethan had been for thinking he could pull off quitting the blood

The thought of writing a letter came and went throughout the day, and during one of the moments Ethan convinced himself to send it, he went into a post office, and asked the clerk if they had any out-of country postage stamps. The lady only chuckled and asked him what else he needed, while looking as though she was just barely restraining herself from pinching his cheeks. Tired of not being taken seriously, Ethan had turned around and left the establishment, promising himself that he'd find another post office later, before Jesse had caught up to him.

One thing he did do right after leaving the post office was go to a nice, quiet corner of a small but completely sweet cafe with computers and a relax area in the back. The most he'd done since he sat down was stare at the keys under his fingers for a good and tense ten minutes.

Almost frightened, Ethan wondered if he would regret logging into his one and only social-media account. He had sparingly few friends, save for Benny, Rory, a girl named Hannah and a boy named Calvin, both from Whitechapel. Other than that, he had most of his family, and one online-friend from America that he hadn't talked to in months and months, even before his sudden departure from home.

In truth...he wasn't sure that he could handle the posts his family would have about him on his wall. He was sure his family would be asking him to make contact with them if he could...and at this moment, he could. No one was stopping him, Jesse wasn't here yet.

He shouldn't. He couldn't. He knew he couldn't. But that didn't make it any less of a struggle to make the right choice.

"Thinking things over?" A small glass was suddenly pushed into his hand, and the sound of charmingly bubbly liquid being poured made Ethan close his eyes. He fingers wrapped around his own we're cool, and Ethan breathe in through his nose to calm the shivers suddenly overtaking him.

"Well...I was trying to." Ethan replied tightly, and slowly lowered his lightly trembling hand to the table, careful not to spill any of the champagne. "But..."

"You have too many things on your mind." Jesse smiled gently at him as he pulled up another computer chair to sit next to him.

"I was hoping I would have had more time to myself." Ethan sighed and gulped down his bubbly champagne rather ungracefully. A look at the corner of the computer screen told him it was only four-thirty in the afternoon.

"Is that what you wanted, dear?" The vampire asked, and reached over to where Ethan's mouse hovered over the "Login" button on the computer screen. He clicked it. "Time to yourself? Space? I was rather sure the mansion and grounds were big enough for anyone's liking...and I have made every attempt to give you time to yourself."

"It's not that." Ethan poured the rest of it down his throat, realizing that this was the first time he'd ever drank, but not really caring. His nerves were too shot as it was. "A bit early for alcohol, isn't it?"

"I figured you needed to loosen up. Besides, although too much of anything is bad, too much champagne is always just right." The dark vampire smiled charmingly at him and Ethan couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from pulling up at the Mark Twain quote. "Better slow down, though. Champagne can get you drunk rather quickly."

Ethan ignored the comment, and instead reached out for the bottle and poured himself a bit more of the foamy, yellow liquid, careful not to overflow onto the table or keyboard in front of him.

"Champagne." Ethan said softly as he watched the tiny bubbles dissipate and then replace themselves. "The bubbles allow the alcohol to get into your bloodstream quickly...not to mention, the high alcohol content as compared to other sparkling wines and such, which all makes it a very potent and fast-acting alcoholic inhibitor. You're supposed to drink slowly."

"Oh?" Jesse's dark eyebrows rose, and he pulled out a bottle of water as well. "Do tell more, mon cherie."

"It's a luxury beverage." Ethan went on as asked. "It must be made in a certain region of France to be considered true champagne...usually drank at celebrations of some sort, or...I guess, just to show that you're living extravagantly. To show that you're of high class, although that notion is kind of outdated these days."

"D'accord." Jesse replied, and this time water was poured into Ethan's glass. The vampire sighed. "Also, please don't tell me that this is your first time drinking. That is something I don't need to hear."

"Okay, I won't tell you." Ethan poured the water down his throat as well. Then, he touched the keys of the keyboard to his fingertips. Seeing his hesitation, Jesse placed a hand on Ethan's arm.

"Why don't we take this a little slower, then?" Jesse asked, surprisingly gentle. "I don't think looking into your old life is such a good idea."

"What would you know about it anyway, Jesse?" Ethan sat back in his chair and let his arms drop. "You didn't know me before...you still don't know me. It kills me to know that my family is sitting back home, worrying, probably crying for me."

"Crying for you?" Jesse asked with a chuckle. "Home? Ethan, I'm right here...and as for your family, could you possibly mean Luc? Because although he isn't quite blood, I suppose a young one like you could think of the flock as a family. The only thing he seemed to be pining for when I left was Aria, since she went out into town today."

"Don't act insane!" Ethan spat before he could stop himself. "My family is not the stupid flock you talk about. My family and home is in Whitechapel, in Canada. My parents are hurting because of what you did...my little sister must stay up at night and wonder if I'm ever gonna come back. They're pining for me...I know they have to be. We've always been close. They're probably still looking. My parents would never let me go without a fight, and neither would my best friend."

"Ah, the spellmaster." Jesse nodded, and Ethan turned to look at him like he was crazy. "Yes, I remember that brat. Attached to your hip like a sucker-fish, it was such a long wait for you to actually be alone and vulnerable. You seem to make a habit of making a big deal out of minor details, Ethan."

Jesse took Ethan's chin and forced him to look at him. "I am your family now. The manor is your home. The only thing you should be worried about is how your weekly lessons are going, and how your training is progressing."

"Maybe you really are insane." Ethan muttered numbly, jaw clenching.

"Or maybe you just can't see the forest for the trees." Jesse signed. "I thought we'd gotten past this, Ethan. It's clear to me now how little you trust me."

"In any case," Jessie dismissed as he stood up from his computer chair. "I'll leave a cellphone with you, and call you in a few hours with a plan."

"Plan?" Ethan asked, and took the phone he was handed. "Plan for what?"

"You'll see." Jesse replied. "I'm sure you still have most of the money you looted, impressively, I might add, from my private safe?"

"Yeah." Ethan replied uncomfortably.

"Well then I certainly have nothing to worry about. Just try not to get mugged."

In a dark blur, the vampire was gone, and Ethan was...alone. Just sitting in the little shop like he had been befkore the vampire appeared suddenly. It had only been twenty minutes, but the encounter left Ethan feeling shaken and angry. How dare Jesse just dismiss his fears and sadness as the misguided feeling of...of a pet?

Had it been a month or so earlier, he would have just chalked it up to another emotional jab by his vampire kidnapper, but now...the being holding him captive was more than just the vampire who had taken his life away from him, the bloodsucking, evil creature of the night, Jesse Black. Sure, he was held captive, but now, he felt more like...Jesse Black, vampire. As much as he hated to admit it, Ethan had been on a first-name basis with the vampire for the last few weeks.

Lin the beginning...he'd thought Jesse was evil, unfeeling and wanted nothing more than to hurt Ethan, and to slowly drain the life out of him. He still thought some of these things about the vampire, but...he'd come to find that maybe Jesse wasn't evil, per se... Science and heredity, Ethan understood. Cattle and rabbits ate vegetation. Humans ate beef and pork and deer, and whatever else. It was the natural order of things.

In the old days, and for sport, entertainment and recreation in modern times, big animals like horses were used as means of transportation. Horses were rode upon by humans because...well, because humans could. Sometimes, in fact it's a very normal occurrence and a fact that...humans keep animals as pets.

Now, Ethan was of sound mind and overly-sound body, and he knew how science and basic psychology worked. Stockholm syndrome existed, but...it wasn't like he was suddenly in love with Jesse or anything, it's just that he was beginning to comprehend things he couldn't before. His mind had long since stopped grasping at straws for means of escape, and it wasn't because of a sudden loyalty to the vampire, it would be because he'd rather suffer in almost-silence instead of being this madness back to his family. Could his sudden calmness and acceptance of his situation be simply a defense mechanism, brought on by his former (extreme) stress? Yes, it was possible.

There was a part of Ethan that hated himself for becoming so soft towards the vampire. Granted, Ethan wasn't all smiles and cheer, but he had long stopped his struggling when Jesse manhandled him or ordered him to do something. He'd lost his fire, and it sickened him. Any kind of compliment or acceptance Ethan could offer to Jesse, in his own mind or otherwise, was simply a betrayal to Ethan himself and his family. This creature had taken his life away from him.

But despite everything...Ethan had come to understand that it was also possible that Jesse wasn't inherently evil. Humans ate meat. Vampires drank human blood. Humans kept dogs and cats and such, anything small enough to control, as pets. Vampires...would have a very easy time making humans submit to them. Maybe Ethan was just a pet...maybe Jesse, and all vampires, we're just that...maybe they were all just being vampires.

He eyed the phone in his hand, and then the computer monitor, realizing with a start that he never did type in his email or password...but his account was open anyway.

A feeling like cold water running down his back gave Ethan shudders almost strong enough to be mistaken for a seizure. He put a hand over his mouth, the other across his stomach, and leant forwards in his seat, feeling the sunlight falling onto his skin from the cafe windows but not feeling it's warmth like he should have.

How long had Jesse watched him? How long...how could he have gotten Ethan's password? Short of mind-controlling it out of him, Ethan kept everything digital under lock-and-key. Was there anything Jesse didn't know about hi, that m? How had he even known that Ethan was a seer anyway?! His parents had never, ever shown any visible signs or otherwise that they possessed any of the powers Ethan did. If Ethan himself hadn't even known...

He looked up with a sick feeling as he seen a message pop up on his computer screen, and hurried to log the hell out before anyone else could see that he was logged in. So horrified was he that he hadn't even seen what was written to him...only that there were other, older messages from numerous people, probably his family, Benny...the new one that had popped up a moment ago was written by Rory. Ethan had had just enough of a glance to see that blonde hair and the slim black glasses on his face in the mini-profile icon to know it was him.

Ethan gulped and scooted away from the computer, as he held back an almost delirious giggle. Rory had sworn, back when Ethan was home, that he would be getting contacts any day. Seeing what he had now, he knew Rory hadn't gotten them yet, he was exactly the kind of dork to go nuts and take dozens of selfies of himself over something like that.

Slowly, Ethan pulled himself off of the comfy computer chair, and waited for the tears to fall, but...discovered alarmingly that his eyes were still though he could feel his tear ducts burning. Dismissing it, Ethan figured he was finally going numb to the emotional trauma he endured on a daily basis. Either that, or the effects of depriving himself of vampire blood were already getting to him.

With shaking hands, Ethan exited the store and walked briskly down the street to find a hotel as quick as he could. The first thing he was going to do in the morning was mail a letter, revealing stamps be damned. The guilt of keeping his family in the dark about his well-being was crushing his heart like a cinder block in his chest-pressing sharply and jaggedly in all the wrong places and suffocating him. With his mind made up, Ethan was only left to wonder what he should write. And who to address it to.

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AN: So, almost 5,000 words, but feels a little short to me...eh, whatevs. Expect more updates, I'm really excited for the next chapter, as well as the next chappie of HITB! Shizz is gonna go down guys! Anyway, as always, feel free to point out any mistakes, and I think there are some because of this iPad's crappy autocorrect and weird word placement thing (text appears in the middle of a random paragraph sometimes and then I can't find it) but yeah, if you're kind you'll drop a review! Loves and hugs! Xxooxxo

Happy Summer! :)

Uploaded: June 15th 4:53 AM :D