Prometheus Bound [Whit]

[Peter Parkman]

Peter’s first reaction, of course, was to say no. No, he did not want to go anywhere more private, not with the way his head was spinning, trying to regain calm and composure, trying to think of all the right things to say. He’d been good at this, once upon a time. A natural arbitrator; in this case, he was the middle man between Whit and this particular incident that he had witnessed. A solicitor, a giver of good advice. And he could do it, couldn’t he? He could make this all okay, somehow. He just had to think…

… and in thinking, he took too long to respond; too long to voice a reason why he did not want to go somewhere private without having to explain that he was more likely to give himself away, if not somewhere public. He was more likely to lose his cool, to panic, and to do something stupid because he was too strung-out.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t have to answer. He didn’t have to cave in, because he couldn’t think of any reason not to go somewhere private. He was not given the chance to laugh and tell Whit that they were in a library – the quietest place in the world. And all the while, that voice in the back of Peter’s head telling him that something was wrong. Sure, yes, plenty was wrong. Whit had evidence of a vampire attack. That was the worst that could happen to the kid, or so Peter thought. But the voice in the back of his head was telling him that beyond that, something more was wrong. The voice was telling him to just look, look at Whit, for crying out loud.

And that’s what Peter did. Slowly, it dawned on him that there was something else going on. The way Whit lifted his eyes, the way the blood seemed to have drained from his face, lending him a sickly pallor. The brilliant blue of Whit’s eyes stood stark against the white skin, the red rims of the eyes. The boy was upset about something, and all anxiety, all panic slipped away. Instead, there was a burgeoning warmth, a patriarchal urge to comfort and take control.

Because that’s what had been taken away from Arthur Pembroke, now Peter Parkman. A wife, with a child. A child that he had been mentally preparing for. A child which he would never have. In every young man and woman, Peter saw that child. Specifically in Whit, right here and right now, even if the boy, though younger than Peter by quite a few years, was still not at all old enough to be his actual child.

When finally Whit said it, admitted to thing that scared him, the thing that was wrong, it hit Peter in the chest like a ton of bricks. It stole the breath from him, and the anxious fidgeting that his fingers had engaged in, ceased. One did not have to be Sherlock, or even Watson, to figure out what was going on inside Whit’s head. He was not terrified of the attack. He was not terrified of saying goodbye. He was not terrified of telling someone that he had cancer. No, he was terrified of dying. Peter shook his head.

”No,” he said, even before he knew what he was saying. He licked his lips. Whit had not looked away, and Peter would not do him the disservice of looking away, either. He held the young man’s gaze and shook his head again.

”There are things they can do to stop this, Whit. There’s… have you had any treatment? Do you need help with it?” he asked. Yes, he knew that it all connected quite succinctly in his head. The video that Whit had just shown him; Peter’s panic, his anxiety, because he needed to keep his real identity secret. He knew that that real identity could save Whit’s life – but somehow, his subconscious was avoiding it. Waiting, until it was the very last option. Because if it became an option, then Peter would be terrified, too.

[Whit]

He chose perhaps the most rewarding time to decide to take note of the subtleties in the other man’s posture, the way he carried himself in his seat and the set of his features. There again, it might have just been that same issue as before, the total sum of their experience tethered to Whit like a myriad of balloons; leaving his elevated opinion of Peter more open to the idea of seeing the man in a positive light. Unfair by its very nature, because it precluded the possibility for the lone mind’s eye to see fault. A truth evidenced in the slightly hopeful way those marine eyes briefly broke their reflection of Peter’s visage, with the brief stroke of lash against cheek and that soft way they finally broke contact to transition from raw to needful to thinly pensive.

He could see the way the other man seemingly calmed, though he would have been a bit overtaxed had he attempted to identify Peter’s previous state of mind. The shift in temperament was, however startlingly clear to Whitaker in the way it was a pronounced leap from some vague sense of lost confusion towards the realm of paternal devotion. In that very moment when he realized that his friend was well and truly the man he had left some many months ago, perhaps a better man in truth, he felt a little more at ease in his own skin. Where before he’d felt like the entire world was pressing in around him, trying to suffocate him with the burden of its air and tirelessly ticking seconds, he felt just a little more alive. Or at the very least, he felt safe. Much a paradox as that was, considering the situation.

Part of him, for the sake of Mr. Parkman, wanted to lie. There was this instinctive need to please the other man, one of the few genuine friends Whit had made after moving to Harper Rock for university. His own father had been out of the picture for some years, an officer of the Army by trade. On the brief occasions during which they had been forced to interact, Whitaker had realized early on they had absolutely nothing in common. But those were just sporadic weekends between tours and duty. The irony was that Forest Concord had been honorably discharged shortly after his son had reached adulthood. By that point, Whit had been searching for a father figure for so long, his interest had shifted away from the man biologically most suited for the job. That urge present in any son to be looked at with pride by a father had found a new target to snare in Peter.

Lying to him, saying that there was hope, might have been a reasonable route to go at that point. If only because it might have spared him the difficulty of going through with what he had set himself up for, and because it might have saved him from any hurt he could have seen in his mentor’s eyes. The thought only briefly flickered through his mind though before he realized untruths did not hide reality. When he died, Mr. Parkman would know the truth and he didn’t want to be looked at as someone dishonest on top of the other issues his passing would cause. There was regret in his voice after he cleared his throat and let his fingers mesh together over his lap. “I don’t kn…it is too far advanced, Peter. It started in my bones and has spread like wildfire through my body. The doctor gave me six months, and that was a month ago. There was a thorough battery of tests, a biopsy, all of that. I even got a second opinion to be sure. All that treatments would do is leave me miserable in my last few months.” He hesitated to continue, his gaze faltering, lowering as if in submission away from the other man’s. “I decided to do this today, because my health is going to deteriorate soon. Rapidly, and badly. I want you to remember me like this, when I still look relatively healthy. There is nothing that would hurt me more than for you to think of me as something weak.” Weak and petulantly holding onto a life that would not have him.

[Peter Parkman]

Peter was silent. Maybe for far too long, but he had to think. Where it looked like Whit had let go of whatever it was that was dragging him down and causing his eyes to water, and his voice to go ragged, Peter was the opposite. As if Whit had banished a demon from his soul, and the fiend had instead injected itself into Peter. It was all so damned surreal, that this young and vibrant man could be dying. That the life in those eyes would snuffed out, in just five months’ time. Peter almost wanted to laugh – here he was, having a miniature panic attack because he’d thought Whit had discovered his secret, when instead Whit had only been holding on to a secret of his own.

Why the video, then? As pretence for a meeting, sure, but to have it so easily discarded in the wake of this singular revelation. Yes, in Peter’s mind the cancer slowly killing his student and friend was far more important than the evidence of vampires hidden on the device in front of him.

Silence was what Peter required to sort through the myriad of thoughts running rampant through his overtaxed brain. Six months. Nothing they could do. And if they tried, it would be a waste of time. Time. A thing which Peter had in abundance; a thing which he could share, if he so wished it. He wondered if there was some kind of omniscient being out there, as if this entire world were just a computer, and there was an operating system deliberately drawing paths in the sand. And all the grains would come together to fit just so.

Whit, dying of cancer. Whit, coming to say goodbye. Whit, showing evidence of vampires, unknowingly, to a vampire. Peter resisted the urge to groan, to complain verbally about the pressure gathering in his head. The life he had carefully constructed around himself was slowly starting to fit into a nice little routine, one which he never strayed from. Whit was a curve ball that he had not counted on, and had not expected. And there, he had to mentally slap himself. How could he possibly be thinking about his own problems, when Whit was dying of cancer?!

The mental slap brought Peter snapping back to reality. He turned the camera, pointed to it, held onto it as he cleared his throat and licked his lips. He knew exactly what he was doing and his subconscious was screaming at him. His subconscious wanted him to deny everything, to stand, and to leave. To bury his head in the sand and pretend like everything was fine. His heart, however, held steady and helped him to forge onward. He berated himself into what looked like calmness. Forced the calm into the baritone rumble of his voice. He remained stoic, for Whit’s sake.

”And this?” he asked, in reference to the video Whit had shown him.

”Do you believe in this? What do you think of that… creature, who killed that man, who took his blood?” he asked, curious, tone devoid of bias. As if he were again the teacher at the front of the classroom, asking the student body a question that had no right or wrong answer, but waiting for the opinions and the remarks, waiting to steer them all in the right direction. And yet, the green of Peter’s eyes was bright, fiery with inquisition. He would know how to move forward, depending on Whit’s response.

[Whit]

• There was something…wrong with the way Peter responded the news of Whit’s imminent demise.
  
  The young man could not quite put his finger on it, though that was largely because he had no frame of reference for the situation. He had not anticipated Peter openly weeping or rending his clothes. Nothing of that nature, because those responses seemed out of line with the calm, enduring demeanour Whit had always associated with the professor. He wasn’t really sure what he expected, probably because he hadn’t put nearly as much thought into the meeting as he should have. It had been selfish to dump his problems on the other man as he’d chosen to do, and Peter seemed almost more interested in the validity of the film than in his former student’s well-being. A silly thought, that. Whitaker knew the man well. Perhaps he was just attempting to distract the youth.
  
  ”I have to believe in it. I saw it with my own two eyes, and much as I would love to discredit the whole thing, I can’t think of any valid answers to the questions that footage presents.” That question was easy to answer. Whitaker wasn’t a man of science, but he understood the methodology behind the application of hypothesis, research, and observation. He understood how to test whether or not something was genuine, and while he may never have been able to convince another person of the reality of what he had seen, he had no doubts. There was a certain unique irony to that. Being shown something fantastical and morbid so close to his own death. It was like the world had decided to taunt him with a mystery worth exploring when it knew he would never be able to follow up enough leads to find a solution.
  
  He pondered the second question for a moment. What could he say to it? If Peter had asked him a year ago, he would have been vehemently opposed to the idea of any form of violence against someone else. In his heart, he was a pacifist and he didn’t believe any one person had to hurt another. Communication and an interest in the collective of humanity made grudges and anger obsolete things of the past. Self-interest, greed. Those things were not necessary. They were reality, but not needed. He still believed that, believed that people could treat each other with kindness and respect. He still believed that everyone deserved those two things. But if he had to choose between dying and drinking someone else’s blood to survive?
  
  He wanted to live. He needed to survive. Because it wasn’t fair that he was so young and he was going to be ripped out of the world he had yet to even experience. He had never taken a chance in his life, and six months was not enough to live.
  
  No, he could not begrudge that creature its choices.
  
  ”I think murder is a monstrous thing no matter how you cut it. But…” He felt a little like he was betraying himself in admitting. ”If I had the choice to live over someone else, I. Well I get it. You probably think I’m terrible for saying that.” And he regretted the words as soon as he said them, because that wasn’t how he wanted Peter to remember him. Condoning violence, death. Evil. Those things were evil. Whit was an Athiest, and his sense of morality did not come from any religious text. There were just some things that were universally wrong, some things that were inherently cruel and had no place in the world.
  
  And he had admitted that he would give in to that evil if he were given the opportunity. What did that say about him?

[Peter Parkman]

Peter did not judge Whitaker. Mortality was something that human beings didn’t particularly like thinking about, especially when people died before their time. When loved ones were taken before they were supposed to be. When children died before their parents. It was never fair, and no one really wants to die. No one but those who were severely depressed, or the old who were accepting of the fact that they’d had enough and it was time to move on.

It was perfectly reasonable that a young man like Whit would choose to live, regardless of what it took. To cling to life. To sell his soul to the devil if it meant he could continue to walk the Earth. Just like a person drowning will inadvertently hold their rescuer under. It was the instinct for survival, and Whit was unfortunate enough to be witness to that instinct in himself. To see and allow it to unfurl, to willingly submit himself to its grasp rather than being forced. Peter cleared his throat and leaned forward. His head nodded, sagely—that very same nod that Whit would have witnessed in class, when a student had said something enlightening, but to which Peter would have something to add.

”And if you didn’t have to kill in order to save your own life? What if this creature that you witnessed,” he said, pointing again to the camera. ”Was an outlier? What if, say, the city were full of such creatures, but most of them could control themselves. Could… feed without killing. And those that do are killed themselves for a blatant crime against the secrecy of their kind?” Peter asked.

Why was he even asking? Whit had already admitted that he would take life in order to survive. These questions were unnecessary. Peter shook his head, as if to wipe the board clean to start again. This shouldn’t be so hard to admit. This shouldn’t be a big deal, if Whit believed what he had seen.

Up until now they could have been just two people discussing a philosophical question. But now, Peter lowered his voice to whisper. Words intended only for Whit’s ears, no one else’s.

”I can do it. I am not that creature that you filmed, though I have potential to be. And I can save you. Whit, I can save you…” he said, finally. That was what he was leading up to. That was the brunt of his inquisition. He could save this boy and that would be worth it. He had an idea about how to go about it; he could ensure a much smoother transition than his own. He could do this.

[Whit]

• What was Mr. Parkman saying?
  
  The words didn’t make any sense to him. Oh, they did. The literal meaning could be strung together easily enough, but the effect in his brain was a lot like when one took a piece of clay and rolled it over a bunch of loose glitter. The pieces came up and away, and then if you mushed it all together, as his mind did, it did nothing save for make an enormous mess. Just sparkles of colour twinkling without any distinct pattern. No rhyme nor reason. An outlier? What a strange hypothetical to ask. Feeding? That term seemed a bit tame for what Whitaker had seen, but he could see where the word might be used based on popular vampiric fiction. Secrecy? What?
  
  It was a lot to absorb all at once, and it made Whit think that Peter knew more than he was really saying, like someone trying to explain an inside joke. Whitaker was on the outside and his former teacher was attempting to drag him inside. That was what it seemed like to the youth. It all rushed towards him in words, and thoughts, and memories. Who was Peter really? Whit sucked on his tongue for a moment so that he could hold his silence, the pad of his thumb pressed against its nearest middle finger until there was an audible pop. Nervous gesture in the way the former digit wiggled firmly back and forth against a center knuckle.
  
  He wanted to say something, to stop his mentor and ask him to explain things a little more clearly, but then it came out. Peter was one of…whatever they were. Vampires? Anne Rice had not coined the term but Whitaker was more familiar with her work than the rest of the vast sea of literature. “How long?” He asked. It seemed like such a silly question to ask right then, but he wanted to know if Peter had been one the entire time he had known him. How had he not noticed? Did it matter? The mention of secrecy made more sense at least. It seemed that was important to whatever community of the undead that existed.
  
  How many were there? So many questions bounced around in his head, but he was a boy with priorities. There should have been some kind of internal debate about it. Vampires were supposed to not have souls. Whit wasn’t worried about that so much as becoming like the monster he had seen. But even that was a tiny shadow flickering at the back of his mind against the force of will inside of him that surged to the surface at the chance of getting to live. “Then save me.” He said. The words were abrupt, and a little hoarse coming from his throat, as if they were strained in the saying.
  
  “But not here. We’ll find a place and you can…are you going to make me like you?”

[Peter Parkman]

The question was asked and Peter had to try to process. How long? How long what? How long was a piece of string? The different variations of how long slipped through Peter’s mind like dozens of fish in a swarming ocean. Until it clicked. The one feasible possibility of what Whitaker could have meant by how long. Peter’s eyes were wide and his mouth slack as he calculated it in his head. How long? Three months and six nights, exactly. Only three months and six nights, and he was considering bringing another over into the world of darkness and monsters. For there were monsters. There were plenty of them. Three months and six nights were not enough to have learned everything he could possibly learn in order to pass it on to someone else, wasn’t it? But, after three months and six nights he was able to go out on his own and spend some nights in blissful nothingness. Where nothing happened, and things started to feel a little normal.

Only a little.

But he couldn’t turn back now. He’d given Whit that spark of hope. He’d said that he could save the boy, and he couldn’t turn back. That would be like taking a lollipop from a child. Except it wasn’t just a lollipop, it was a antidote for a fatal disease. Peter swallowed and nodded.

”Of course not here,” he said. ”And I already like you, Whitaker, I don’t have to make you like me,” he mumbled. Of course, he’d taken Whit’s question literally. The first meaning that came to mind was not are you going to make me like you, but instead are you going to make me like you. Thus, the pleasures of the English language when processed by a mind that was far too critical, too reasonable and ordered. Too literal.

Peter stood. He couldn’t answer Whit’s question about how long. He didn’t want to think about it too much, and had only to console himself with the fact that he had Keara and Enver who would help him with Whit, if needs be. There were the others, too, But Keara and Enver were Peter’s first port of call if he needed help with anything.

He remembered his first night far too clearly to not understand how it should happen. The way both Keara and Enver had drained him. The way that they had then fought to feed him their own blood, keeping the whole scene from view. He glanced toward the door, though he still spoke quietly to Whit.

”Do you… do you have somewhere private we can go? Or… or we can go to my cabin. But it’s out at Marsh Hill…” he said. If Whit was familiar with the area, he’d know that Marsh Hill was a fair hike through the wilderness.

[Whit]

• He noticed almost instantly that the other man did not answer his question about how long he had been a vampire (was that even what they were called?). That either meant that Peter was a lot older than he looked, possibly hundreds…thousands? Was that even how it worked?! Or he was newer to the whole blood sucking thing than Whitaker realized. Either way, the youth was not about to turn his back on an opportunity to save his life. Even if it was some kind of elaborate hoax or a joke (which he didn’t suspect Peter would have gone along with anyway), a chance at life was better than the certainty of his demise. He was willing to do a lot of crazy things to make sure he could survive.
  
  He was going to correct his mentor, but decided against it. He had dropped a bomb on the other man, so he wasn’t about to start judging the way Peter answered him. Besides. It was a stupid question. The only thing he wanted to avoid was becoming a Renfield. Mindless servant to a Dracula-esque figure. Whitaker had more faith in Peter than to believe he would knowingly cast him into that type of role. Forever in the service of another. Immortal, but forced to dine on insects for the remainder of his days.
  
  Even if that were the case; it was better than the alternative.
  
  “We can go to my apartment. It’s just down the street. You know how I like to be close to the university and library.” He commented, his hand lifting so that he could vaguely gesture in the air, not really sure even what he was trying to say. He moved to stand, and everything hit him all at once. He had a chance to live.
  
  To. Live.
  
  He stumbled a couple of steps and then licked over his lips. He was excited, and nervous. He was afraid and happy all at once. There were a million different feelings and sensations rushing through him all at once. He felt sick to his stomach, and his chest felt like it was going to explode. He wanted to throw himself at Peter, squeeze him tightly and thank him. He staved off that particular urge and instead took a more sure-footed step towards the door. He had his cam in hand, having plucked it up and pushed his chair in.
  
  He turned as he walked so he could step backwards, beckoning the other man with his hand. “Just this way.” He murmured, and then twisted to walk right. Forged on ahead.

[Peter Parkman]

Peter didn’t say much. He merely nodded when Whit suggested that they go back to his apartment. That was probably best. It was closer, and it was in the city. There’d be no threat of the Fae, which would be a struggle to explain to Whitaker so soon – either before or after this turning. And there were things that they would need to do, afterwards, and to be within the city limits would be far preferable.

As he followed after Whit, Peter was in a daze. As soon as they stepped out onto the street, his hands went into his pockets and his shoulders hunched. He was only slightly taller than the other male, but still felt the need to adjust his height, somehow, as if to make up for some wrong that he wasn’t entirely responsible for. Truth was, Peter was more nervous than he would admit to. It would do no good to exhibit raw nerves when it was Whit’s life that hung in the balance. Should Peter do this wrong, he could kill Whit. What if his body, ravaged by cancer, wasn’t strong enough for the change? What if it gave out?

Peter swallowed a gulp of air but kept pace with Whit. His fingers closed into fists in his pocket. When he spoke, it was with a low voice so as not to be overheard by anyone who might be listening in.

”There are things you should know, Whit, and you need to be absolutely sure,” he started. The kid was dying and seemed desperate for this miracle cure, but Peter would give his student the liberties that he himself had not been offered. The insight. Even just pure preparation would help Whit where it had not helped Peter.

”…and even if you are sure, you should be prepared. I want to help you in ways that I was not helped,” he added. Why did he feel the need to say as much? Maybe, deep down, he was still a little bitter about the way he was turned – as some pawn in a game between quarrelling lovers. It hadn’t been fair, nor would he ever think that it was. Though, Keara and Enver had treated him with all the respect and care that he needed after the fact, if things could be different, he’d hope for a little warning.

”It’s not just the existence of vampires that you need to be aware of. There are other things. Zombies, Fae creatures, monsters made of shadow and evil intent. There are sorcerers, and there are those who will seek to kill you. Who seek to kill us. And you must keep your identity a secret. You cannot give away what you are to humanity, or it is your own kind who will kill you. You will not be able to eat anymore. Or drink anything other than blood. And you will never be able to go out in the sun again,” he says. He says it all clearly, listing each thing concisely even if in a low tone. He doesn’t yet mention paths or that there might be a slight possibility that he might be able to eat – best not to confuse the boy yet. Best to instead tell him the worst of it before admitting that there are things to look forward to, too.

[Whit]

• He could have danced down the street for all of the way his nerves twisted his guts up and filled him with this brilliant excitement that was near blinding and yet sobering all at once. He was conflicted, and subconsciously began to hum a tune that he had learned when he’d been a younger boy, just a tiny segment of one of the classical pieces had made him listen to growing up. There was evidence to suggest that the music one listened to during their adolescent years had the greatest impact on a person. He’d been captivated by anything operatic and instrumental, from the refined, organization of Mozart to the brassy soul of anything jazz.
  
  He wasn’t so much lost in his own world as distracted by thoughts of the future. Future. Such a powerful word, and yet so painfully underrated. Most people took ‘tomorrow’ for granted, because it was just easier to live in the moment. There were things he wanted to do, places he wanted to see, because he’d never had the freedom to do so before. But in that way, the threat of death was a factor that unleashed something within him, or unlocked a door to a potential he had never considered in all of his reserved, quiet life.
  
  The words came as something of a surprise, and he found himself assessing them line by line while his feet carried him across the field of concrete that was Harper Rock’s down town. Zombies? He had heard rumours about that sort of thing in the past, but hadn’t put much thought into it. Zombies. Real? Of course he knew now that vampires existed, so it stood to reason that there were other thing that inhabited the dark and shadowy places as well. He took that with a grain of salt, to say the least. The existence of other creatures and species was something he could explore at another time. They were just another danger that was as present when he was human as when he would be turned.
  
  Which was to say that he doubted things like zombies discriminated when it came to potential food. Becoming a vampire wasn’t logically going to put him in danger on that front, just make him stronger (he hoped and assumed), and make him more knowledgeable.
  
  Then of course there was this talk of things that would seek to kill him. “Tell me more about these thing that would wish to find us dead?” Because he wanted to be as informed as possible, not only in the ways in which to avoid these men or creatures, but in how to defend against them. His first assumption was that they were likely humans. Hunters, of the variety one might have read about in books. The Van Helsings of the supernatural world. If that was the case, the best way to avoid becoming staked (was that a thing?) was to avoid suspicion altogether. Which went hand in hand with keeping the secret of vampirism.
  
  The two went hand in hand, he supposed. And not being able to walk in daylight? Well that was something he was willing to endure.
  
  “It’s fairly clear that there is some kind of organization to this new world you’re pulling me into, Peter. With organization comes rules and structure. The latter you can explain to me afterward, what I’m interested in right now is that first part. The rules.” Then of course, there was the day to day living that went along with being undead. How did feeding work? How, other than the obvious, were vampires fundamentally different to humans? Were they truly dead? Did they have some kind of magic that kept them alive? Powers? Did they have to sleep in coffins filled with soil from their homeland? There were many questions, but to everything a time.