He Shot Me Down [Adley Reed]

[Grayson Wyatt]

After the blood had gone, Grayson was left with the flavor of something else which was just as heady, and sustaining in a different way to the life enriched red fluid. He wasn’t really thinking, but instead operating on instinct in those few moments after turning when he had become something more than he was. Adley had said he would be a god, and he certainly felt like one. He felt solid in a way he never had in his life. Oh. Gray had always been a confident man. He felt more grounded, less anxious about the future. He felt pulled into the moment in the way that everyone always talked about, but so few people actually achieved.

A wet muscles pushed past his lips to drag across his teeth, and slide over his newly formed fangs. With it came more of that flavor from before, more potent and delicious than it had been only a few seconds ago. He drank from Adley after that manner, with the same delicacy one might have used to remove a spider’s web intact to preserve it for eternity. His own tongue moved against the other man’s, as if to see if he might pinpoint the exact source of...whatever it was inside of Adley which was so habit-forming. That was when it truly became a kiss perhaps, at least one shared, and he could have continued to explore the shape of his mouth had the other man not pulled back. It was a bit like he’d been ensnared by some kind of powerful hypnosis, which not so much put him in a trance-like state, but left the walls of his mind pleasantly fuzzy. Therein was the paradox. Was this what it was like to be a vampire? To feel everything more deeply? More powerfully?

The sound of the other man’s groan hit a chord inside of him. He didn’t want to feed just then. He wanted to soothe that sound out of existence and replace it with something else entirely - but Adley had given him something of an order. He could hear the steady, soft thumping of something, and his head shifted to look in the direction of the origin. He knew almost instinctively that it was the unconscious boy’s heart slowly plugging away. The fog began to slowly roll away, and it was replaced once more by the hunger he had felt before. His shirt had felt terribly heavy only a few minutes ago. Now it felt like he was wearing nothing at all, as he rolled onto his hands and knees. His hat had been lost at some point during the shuffle, and he crept closer to the downed youth.

There was serenity in sleep and unconsciousness. He looked over the features of the man for a moment before his hand lifted so he could carefully push hair out of a face. He had never hurt anyone in his entire life. Not intentionally at least. Or when it wasn’t related to some sort of sport activity. He was the very definition of one of those people who called themselves a lover rather than a fighter. Could he do this? A few stray thoughts nagged at the back of his mind, but those were so quiet, like little whispers against the screaming of the need he had in him to drink. His fangs ached in his mouth.

This was one of the people who had harmed him. Someone just like this had shot him. Had tried to take something from Adley. And then suddenly there was a voice even louder than the hunger. His features twisted unattractively into an almost feral snarl, and his hands shot down to curl around a neck. He yanked with all of his power, and there was the sound of bone snapping, of skin tearing, and suddenly a head came off. It wasn’t clean. There were jagged bits hanging from the bottom and his fingers were suddenly coated in fresh blood. He leaned back on his knees and looked down at the head for a moment, only to squeeze in from either side. He stopped when the eyes were forced open and he was made to look deep into brown hues which were no longer living - when temples cracked. He dropped it to one side and leaned closer still as if he were going to whisper something to the place where that skull had been.

He drank deeply as if he had been offered some sort of fountain. Of course, with the brain detached from the body, the heart was no longer pumping, which meant that he had to actually suck what blood was left in those veins out - until the corpse was dessicated and all of that warmth had flowed into him, taking with it vital energies. He was messier than intended, but once he was done, he moved to his feet. He was shaky, not because he was weak, but because he moved with sudden and surprising speed. He didn’t give the body he had just drained another look, but instead slipped over to Adley once more. He was full and sated. His anger was sated. There were still things bubbling beneath the surface. This sense that he’d lost something, though he couldn’t quite say what. No matter what it was, he had gained something far greater - had he not? And it was all because of Adley. In fact, just getting closer to the other man made some of that fuzziness return and made him want to be as near to his sire as possible, to feel the other man’s skin, and share the taste of blood he’d been gifted.

It made it difficult for him to think straight, to put in order what was in his head.

“Do we need to clean this up?” He asked, his voice smooth and deep, his hands already slipping to grip the hem of his shirt to pull it up before it could congeal to his body like glue.

That was what it was. The thing he felt beneath the surface. All this dirtiness on him.

[Adley Reed]

Unneeded air was released from Adley’s undead lungs; he watched Grayson crawl toward the still-living human. There was profound relief curling at his gut, blooming in his chest. Relief that Grayson was moving of his own accord, that his body had not rejected Adley’s blood. That Adley had not been too late to save him. His palm was flat against the cement as he pushed himself up, up onto his feet. He took a step closer to Grayson, to watch over him, to provide support should it be required. Feeding from another human being was not on the top of most people’s lists to try in their lifetime, and to some it might be far too abhorrent a thing to even go ahead with it. In which case, Adley would find a shop, somewhere that was open late that would sell the blackmarket blood packs.

But, the closer he got the more suddenly he realised that there would be no shops. In fact, the first thought that entered his mind as he heard the snap of bone and the tear of skin was whether Grayson had ended up with the same curse as Adley; the one that sent him into a frenzy at the mere scent or sight of blood. Though for Adley, these days, the frenzy was far more uncontrollable when dealing with the blood of vampires rather than the blood of humans, though the latter still managed to have an effect.

Adley didn’t know whether to be mortified or impressed by the show that Grayson put on. The mess was profound, regardless – not just due to the headless youth but also because of his friend, whose neck looked like it had been gouged by a wild cat, claws and all. His eyes were open and staring at nothing, his mouth slack and terrified.

And then Grayson was standing at Adley’s side and Adley wanted nothing more than to clean him up. Clean them both up. He needed to take his cub home and make sure that he was settled, that he could find his own feet. It’s what had him nodding, at first, vaguely, before he understood the question fully. By this Grayson hadn’t been talking about his clothes, his own skin. He’d been talking about the warehouse and the dead bodies. Adley cleared his throat and changed his nod to a shake.

”No. There aren’t any cameras. We’ll pack up, quick as possible. I’ll email the guys that run this place during the day and I’ll ah… I’ll say you cancelled. That we were never even here…” he said. He didn’t know whether it would work. What about the three youths who’d got away? Hopefully they had a bad rep and couldn’t go to the cops. If they were already wanted, they wouldn’t hand themselves over.

”I’ll take you home, yeah? You okay?” Adley asked. This was not how he had foreseen the night ending up. But here they were, and he couldn’t say that he regretted the outcome.

[Grayson Wyatt]

They were going to quickly gather things up and run away, pretend the whole thing had never happened. Gray felt like there might be some holes in the plan, but for the life of him, he couldn’t put his finger on a single one. In fact, if the plan was a crumbling dam, and condemnation was the wall of water behind it, Grayson was doing the equivalent of gazing off at the moon. Which had nothing at all to do with the damn dam, nor the reservoir. Maybe he was still a little bit in shock. The only thing about the plan that really stood out to him was that he recalled footfalls. He remembered, with some slight nagging at the edge of his consciousness, that there had been some youths who escaped. Sure, it was entirely possible that they wouldn’t go to the cops out of fear of retribution from supernatural beings. They had seen the monster Adley could become, and likely did not want that visited upon them. But they were also loose ends.

Remember the smell of them. The voice whispered inside of his head. It was exactly like his own, but softer in some ways. More calm and even, and yet it was like a steel dagger hidden in silk brocade. Remember so you may meet them again in the night. Gray didn’t really have the mental power to process what was going on. He didn’t question, because there was too much else to do. So much in fact, that he did not immediately spring to action, but instead dropped the hem of his shirt back into place. The last thing they needed was more physical evidence at the scene. Of course. He had bled all over the place, but he wasn’t in any database, so tracking him down with progressively deteriorating and tainted blood was unlikely. If anything, it would probably look like another victim that was removed from the crime scene. Or so he hoped.

“Your place would be better than mine. I live in a shitty little apartment with a bathroom literally the same size as the one in the Barbie Dream House.” The complaint was mild, and made when Grayson pulled himself reluctantly away from Adley. He would much rather have stayed there. Actually. He would have much preferred slumping against his sire for a few hours so that he could let his brain shut off and so that he could catch up with reality. But necessity compelled him. He went to gather up everything he’d brought - which was easy enough, because it all fit into the bag, which he flung over his shoulder. Sure, there were more garments there, but he was going to have to tell his designer friend that he’d been mugged or something, because the pants from one of the outfits were torn, and the one he was wearing was soaked in blood. The rest were going to end up at least creased and rumpled. Oh well. He was not exactly known for his dependability, and she had known what she got into when she agreed to work with him.

He snapped up the skateboard, and went to grab one of the large lights - following along after Adley, who was presumably dragging the others to his vehicle of choice. “Christ. Everything is so ******* light now.” The words were whispered, barely audible, and yet he had no doubt the other man could hear them. He paused, when he got a good look at Adley in motion. Before, when he had been human, he’d done much the same, enjoying the sight of those muscles moving beneath flesh. It was different now, somehow. His eyesight was not significantly better in the close range, though he did notice that he could pick out finer details than before. Like everything was moving just a little bit in slow motion, and magnified beyond the scope of high definition. But no, that wasn’t really it. There was something else which made it so he couldn’t yank his gaze away. He was, after a manner, transfixed for a moment, unable to move or think or panic, or do anything except for gaze.

The spell was broken when Adley turned to face him, and he realized he was standing there like an idiot, so he hurried to pack things up.

[Adley Reed]

The vehicle of choice was a beat up old gold jeep. Adley never really made much money; the job he’d had before, at the Apiary, he’d been paid a pittance. Barely enough to survive on, so he was at least glad he’d not had to pay rent nor buy food. But he certainly could not afford a new car. Since then, he’d started freelancing; in his spare time he made weapons and sold them on auction, and he’d got a new job with a new boss who wasn’t quite so stingy in regards to payment. But, before the car Adley had needed to purchase a new place to live. And there was nothing strictly wrong with his car, either. Why replace what’s not broken? Besides, it was old and not desirable, which meant thieves stayed away. They instead chose something they’d at least be able to sell for more.

And the jeep had a large back area where all the lights and paraphernalia could go. The lights themselves were placed back into plastic boxes that may as well have lived permanently in the back of Adley’s car. The poles broke down to manageable sizes.

If he didn’t want to keep up the pretence that they’d never be there, he’d almost consider leaving it all behind. He wanted nothing more than to tend to his new childe. He couldn’t really compare it to being a parent, but mothers wouldn’t make their babies do a bunch of heavy lifting directly after birth. A bond had been formed and Adley wanted nothing more than to explore it.

”My place might be a little bigger than that. But I’ve only just moved in and haven’t finished furnishing it yet,” he said. He didn’t even flinch. He didn’t feel badly about it. It was just the way the cookie crumbled; so many places weren’t open at night, nor did they like delivering at night. Especially in the current climate of the city. He had got the bed he wanted, though, so perhaps he needed to go back to the same company.

”And you might think it’s a bit weird and cliché, but I live in a graveyard. It’s spacious, though. And underground, so it’s safe from the sun. Which, you won’t be able to go out in anymore…” Adley said, apologetically. There was a good chance he was right. Sunlight might be a possibility for Grayson, eventually, depending on the path – and given how radiant he looked, Adley could almost guess which path had found the charismatic model. Without solid proof, though, he would say nothing. And he would say nothing regardless until they were clean and curled up somewhere, able to talk without too much distraction.

And even while they moved, as they packed the car as quickly as they could, as they did the rounds of the warehouse to make sure absolutely nothing was left behind, Adley watched Grayson closely, with the keen eye of the protector. And he avoided the pools of blood.

It wouldn’t do if he lost control again.

[Grayson Wyatt]

There were corpses all around them, but of course there were. It wasn’t like in the video games where you killed someone, and there was a blood splatter for a moment before the corpse poofed and you were left behind some sort of loot to pick up. He unloaded the light and his bag, so that he could free up both hands as he made his way back into the warehouse to either grab more of the lamps, or try to find anything he might have been missing. None of them have your skin under their nails, or your hair in their hands. You lost enough blood that you would be certifiably dead anyway, even if they had your DNA or fingerprints on file - which you know they don’t.

Yeah, but what about Adley? Adley had been the one to tear apart the majority of them, and it was a major crime scene wasn’t it? Or did those even happen in Harper Rock anymore?

The cops will probably assume some random, faceless vampire did it. Or a gang. Remember the nest from earlier? This place is open to the elements, so you can bet by the time the police get here, there will already have been some wild dogs which have come through and picked at least one of the corpses clean of meat.

He glanced over towards the man who had turned him into what he was, and he couldn’t help but smile, which only looked a little demented, with the splatters of red on him. Maybe this voice in his head was right. Maybe he was just looking for a reason to be stressed out. Cops here have a heavy work load. If you make it even a little inconvenient for them, you’ll be fine. Now ******* help finish cleaning up.

“As long as there’s a place for me to wash and sleep, I think I’ll be fine.” He chuckled then, digging his teeth into his lower lip to stop himself from the sound getting louder. “It’s like…” He said as he scanned over the room, taking in as many little details as possible. Looking for anything he might have missed. Next time get some garden clippers with a sharp blade. You can take off the fingers at the first knuckle and crush a jaw to make identifying harder. “...like I’ve just been running for miles, and I hit that place where I’m exhausted, but I’ve also got my second wind. Like I could go for another few miles or collapse.” He explained. He had run track for a brief time in high school, but his primary competitive ‘sports’ had been horse riding, and western martial arts, which was more niche, and more fun than the fencing elective.

“**** no. That’s not weird. That’s...do you sleep in a coffin?” He asked suddenly as he crouched to inspect one of the fallen bodies for a moment. When he found no evidence of their having been there, he reached with a single fingertip and touched a pool of blood. His digit came away sticky and red. He touched his tongue with it, and found the blood...strangely unappealing. It was cold and congealing, and just...lifeless. So rather than wipe it across his muscle, he instead lifted the remainder to his cheek to illustrate a small smiley face. Then he wiped his hand on his pants and moved to grab the last of the lamps, when he realized he really hadn’t been pulling his weight much at all. “Because we’d probably have to sleep in a pile if that’s the case.” He said, his gaze once again locking on Adley’s so the man could see his smile, with those perfectly rowed ivories, and that look in Grayson’s eyes like absolutely anything was possible right then.

He loaded up the last of it and then he decided to make himself comfortable in the other man’s jeep. It occurred to him that he probably should have asked if he could get blood all over everything. Except Adley was not doing much better. Oh well. At least the wetness was sticking to his skin more than to the seat.

“I like the beach more at night anyway.” As if that was the only time a person actually ever had need of the sun. “Not a fan of spray tans though. I guess I’ll just have to. Suck it up.” The emphasis on the latter half of the sentence, as if he were making a vampire joke. He had totally just made a vampire joke. Maybe he was coping with this whole undead thing better than he thought he would in the first few moments of his turning.

[Adley Reed]

Adley should have been far more concerned than he was. It was a crime scene. There were far too many arrows that pointed in his direction – Grayson could easily be left out, if the cops came knocking. They never needed to know that Grayson had even been there. Adley, however, could at least be on the list of those who might be questioned if anyone cared about the deaths of a couple of delinquents. It came down to the Harper Rock police force and how competent they were at their jobs.

In the end, Adley was far too confident, and far too sure of himself to be at all worried. This was not a hurdle to worry about now. It was tomorrow’s problem. Even next week’s problem. And anyway, his name was still listed at the old address. The crypt had been bought under the radar, so it would take true detective skills to track him down.

Maybe. Not really. He had a job. Did Mackenzie have him listed as an employee in any government database? He paid tax. No, it was a small city. If they wanted to find him, they would. But Adley had no issues lying and had the slick, sure confidence to pull it off. All he had to do was believe that he’d get away with it and he would. Wasn’t that the way of The Secret?

They were quick to pack up the gear, and Adley was peering at Grayson in the low light; sure, he looked good with a tan, but he still seemed to glow like he had the sun trapped in his soul. Adley had the slightest suspicion… he laughed and shook his head, gesturing to the passenger side, though Grayson needed to invitation. He was already in the jeep before Adley could say ‘boo’. There was no attempt to try to cover the seat before Adley slid into the driver’s side. Clearly he didn’t care about the blood. He’d send the car to be professionally cleaned the next night.

”No coffin. You’ll still be bunking with me though, I’m afraid,” he said, as if it would be an inconvenience to Gray—but he said it with such a gleaming, mischievous smirk. He honestly couldn’t wait for Grayson to just see the bed that was waiting for them. ”And I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve ended up an allurist,” Adley said as he shoved the key into the ignition. The jeep jumped to life beneath them. ”It’s a Path. We all get one. I’m a Necromancer. Your ‘siblings’, for lack of a better word, are Telepath and Shadow. Allurists… well. You’ll find a lot of things really easy, and a few things really hard. But I think you’ll be happy. Can you ah… what can you see in the mirror?” Adley said, reaching up to twist the rear-view mirror in Grayson’s direction. He used his side mirror instead, to see if anything was coming – he peeled away from the curb and made sure to start on the backstreets to get home.

[Grayson Wyatt]

I’m afraid. The way Grayson relaxed into the seat of the Jeep did not fit at all with his appearance nor what had just happened. He did not at all look like the sort of man who had just ripped the head off of a mortal boy. In fact, it was as if the entire event hadn’t happened, if one were to judge the way his muscles lost their tension, and he sank into the seat as much as possible. He was effectively sprawled, or as sprawled as a person could be in the confines of a vehicle. And his smile was the expression of a man who was at home, cozied up against something soft, sated of his appetites and languidly enjoying some sort of media before sleep finally, inevitably took him. Afraid. His gaze cut across to the other man, his eyes shadowed naturally by the heavy and seemingly incidental tug of his lids and the way lashes lay over them. “Not to sound overeager.” He murmured in response. He resembled, in that moment, a large and predatory feline, whose self-assured and relaxed pose did nothing to bely the danger.

His fangs were still there. They had never gone away.

“But I haven’t given you anything to be afraid of yet.” Not that Grayson was not aware it was just a choice in phrasing.

Flirting aside, Grayson picked up that Adley was explaining important things to him. It was, he supposed, like when he had first started modeling, and he’d relied on some other people to show him the ropes, teach him the lingo, and help him get immersed fully. It was always like that. Cultures could pop up anywhere at any time, be it at a school, or workplace, or even amongst groups of friends. The first step was always dissecting the language, how it was used, what it meant literally, and what it meant contextually.

Path was a way of describing a type of vampire then? How many were there? What were they all like? He was an allurist - what did that mean? What did Necromancer, Telepath, and Shadow mean? There were certainly ideas that came to mind with the descriptive names, but Grayson had enough insight to realize he was going to have to learn a lot more. The term ‘siblings’ caught him by surprise a little. That meant, as far as he knew, that there were other people Adley had...done this to. Made into vampires. And suddenly he wanted to meet them. He wanted to meet them badly. For a myriad of interconnected reasons. He wanted to get to know them, find out if they were like Adley at all, or what they might know about his...what did he call the other man in this case? Dadley. Funny, but probably not.

To digress though, Gray was immediately intrigued. “When can I meet them?” he asked, bluntly. Because he was, after all, a social creature. He had been bereft of people, those who were truly his, for a long time. He wanted to fix that. Especially if they were going to be his siblings. He had two sisters. Two human sisters. He doubted the bond would be...well exactly like that. But he just wanted closeness. He craved it really. He wanted to get back to the days when he had people around him all the time, and there was always laughter or chatter, or even meaningful silence.

“I sense this is going to be a big question, but what are the differences between the Paths?” He asked, only to sit up a little bit in his seat so he could pull the sun visor down (wouldn’t be needing that anymore) and then peer into the small mirror. His eyes widened considerably. He looked like the fresh dead. His eyes were a little sunken, and his cheeks hollow. There were dark, purple bags under his eyes, and his lips looked dry and cracked. “What?!” He nearly tore the thing right off of the vehicle to try and pull it closer and assess the damage. His hand lifted for it, and that’s when he noticed a...weird sort of difference. His fingers themselves looked alive. His nails were given a well maintained, masculine manicure. The image in the mirror was not the image that he could see of his own hand with his two eyes. In the mirror, his fingers were stiffened into claws, and the nails themselves were dull and chipped. Pale. Dead. In ‘real life’ his hands were...normal. They looked exactly as they always had. Maybe a little nicer.

“Well this is a real headtrip. What do you see when you look at me? I mean. Do I look kinda...corpsey?”

[Adley Reed]

Adley could only smirk. Glancing sideways at the gem of a childe he’d ended up with, he doubted that Grayson could ever give Adley anything to be afraid of. No, Adley’s cherry had well and truly been popped in that regard. Once upon a time he’d only ever known the shape and feel of a woman’s body, and though he still often thought that a woman’s body was his preference, more and more he realised that it didn’t matter. The shape of a body didn’t matter. Whether it was hard and masculine or soft and feminine, if he could give it pleasure, it didn’t matter. Mort importantly, perhaps, if that other body could give him pleasure, it didn’t matter. Beyond that, beyond pure animalistic lust, a body had nothing to do with intention, with feelings or emotions, with bonds and connections. When sharing intimacy with anyone, that was what mattered.

Kaspar and Jameson had taught Adley as much. There’d be no procreation in this life; there was no need to limit himself. Why should he? Pleasure was pleasure and the sources were varied.

Questions were asked, and Adley hadn’t the opportunity to answer them as Grayson finally found the mirror and reacted to what he found there. The fact that he found anything at all was everything Adley needed to know. At least he was accustomed to Allurists and had some bearing on what they needed, and what they would experience as a path. And, if he were lost, he could always reach out to Kaspar. Idly, he wondered what the blonde Rockstar would think of the lounging Hermes at his side. The previously lounging, anyway. Now he was at alert, the model who was accustomed to looking great, all of the time confronted with whatever death must look like.

Adley chuckled, though he figured this was no laughing matter for Grayson.

”Did you ever see a movie or read a book or… are you aware of Dorian Gray? The guy who had a picture painted of him, and the picture had magical properties, the two inextricably linked. Dorian could go out and indulge in all matter of criminal and immoral things but he would never age, and he would never look like a drunk or a drug addict. He would remain perfect forever, smooth-skinned and youthful. His picture, though, aged. It withered and weathered all the bad things that Dorian did to his own body. Over time, the picture decayed and lost its teeth and looked haggard and evil, like a lecherous old man,” he said, the story rolling from his tongue easily. He was envious of Allurists. They retained the vibrancy of humanity. As a Necromancer, Adley had a habit of often looking deathly ill.

”The point I’m getting at – you look ******* fantastic. You look like a Michelangelo statue come to life. I guess that’s the con of your path. You can never see yourself for what you are again. The image in the mirror is just going to get worse. It’ll show you what you’d look like if you were a corpse. I’m sorry,” Adley said, glancing sideways, needing to know how much reassurance Grayson would need after learning of this particular fault.

”As for the differences – it is a big question and though I can answer, I’m not sure how detailed I can be. I just know that you… you’ll eventually be able to eat and drink without issue, whereas if I do it, I’ll just throw it back up again, no matter how much I try to practice. Same as with the others – who you’ll meet, yes. Soon as you can,” he added. They were all busy little creatures and he didn’t get to see them all as much as he would have liked.

”And we’re all capable of different things. Do you want me to list them all?” Adley asked. It might take a while, and he’d no doubt miss some things. But he could do his best. He just didn’t want to derail the conversation too much from Grayson’s own path. Not just yet.

[Grayson Wyatt]

Had he not been distracted by what was, for Grayson, just about as close as a person could get to a full scale meltdown, he probably would have noted to Adley that he loved Oscar Wilde. He might have said that when he had been younger, his mother, in an attempt to get him into reading (which he was never terribly good at), had taken to reading him a number of classics. That his love for the man’s writing had led to an exploration of history and quotations. That Grayson had identified deeply with some of the struggles faced by the author, that there were times in his life when Gray had repeated words spoken or written by Mr. Wilde - not just because they had uncharacteristic wisdom. But also because Grayson liked to think that they had faced similar things, and in repeating those words, it was as if the two men were linked through time and pages and words. Then again, Gray was a bit of an emotional idiot, way too quick to find the things which connected him to people living and dead, and blind to any differences.

Of course, he was totally having a bit of a meltdown, because his looks were a huge part of who he was, his identity. Which was vain, and petty and shallow, but he was those things as well. He had assumed, as all young men did, that his appearance would last forever, that he would never go gray in the hair, that he would never have to suffer the ravages of age. He worked out religiously to ensure his body fat was negligible and it reasoned, therefor, that he would be rewarded for his hard work. Forever. And now he was a vampire, and that meant he was supposed to be frozen in his youth for all of eternity. Except, if he was to look like a corpse - that was not him. He was not a dead thing. He was living, and he was warm. He paradoxically saw the beauty in Adley. And there was no question in his mind that his sire was attractive, but he could not apply that same logic to himself. So was this what it was to be? Him stuck forever in a carcass?

There was this spiral of thoughts that ran through him like a tornado of angst. What was the point of life if one could not experience the most attractive parts of it?

And then Adley’s words finally caught up to him, as if they had been slowly making their way through the winds generated by that twister and got to the eye of it where he was. Fantastic. Then the rest of it sank in, and it was as if a burden had been pulled from his shoulders. He visibly relaxed into the seat once more, all but ignoring the mirror. “That’s fine. I don’t much need to see myself anyway. That’s for other people.” He commented. As if the entire past few moments when he’d been edging towards the jeep door, considering throwing himself from the moving vehicle totally hadn’t just happened. “I guess I’ll just have to rely on you and my...siblings…” He was testing out the word properly for the first time. “...to tell me if I’ve gone astray.”

“Besides, I can just get a picture if I ne…” Wait. Was he going to show up as a corpse on film or in images? He scooted a little bit closer to Adley as if there was some compulsion demanding he comply. If he was going to get close to death, he reasoned, he might as well do so in a way that was totally him. That meant getting close to a person rather than an abstraction or danger.

“Tell me.” He said. “I can still get my picture taken, right?” This question, despite how tame it seemed, was of vital importance. His look, at least, belied the intensity he felt over the subject. There was no ire there, nor melancholy, he just peered into Adley’s eyes when the man could look away from the road. So essential was the knowledge that it took exception to any other part of the conversation until his curiosity was answered.

[Adley Reed]

Adley had to watch the road, of course, but even while he spoke he could feel the tension across the space between them. The panic that had set into the young male in the passenger seat could have been infectious had Adley not known that everything would be fine. Sooner rather than later Adley knew he’d introduce Grayson to Kaspar, and though Kaspar was a lot like an alpha male cat who might bristle when introduce to another male cat, but he was an allurist, and he’d be able to help Grayson. More than that, he’d be able to reassure him even if only by presence alone.

Still, Adley reached across the gearstick and laid a heavy hand on Grayson’s thigh, squeezing as if to hold on to him in case the fledgling tried to throw himself out the door of the moving vehicle. He’d survive it, of course, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Thus he could feel the moment Grayson relaxed which, in turn, helped Adley to relax.

And as soon as the question was asked—before Grayson had even finished asking it—Adley was nodding.

”Yeah. I’ll show you when we get home, okay? Get you cleaned up, and you’ll see. It’ll be like you’ve had a makeover,” Adley said. They’d stopped at a red light and he took the opportunity to reach over the back of the seat and drag the camera over so that he could plonk it in Grayson’s lap. ”Switch that on. Go back a ways. You’ll find some pictures of a lanky blonde, you can’t miss him. Same path as you,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he gave Grayson the camera; he had no reason to distrust Adley’s word. But Adley figured the picture evidence might still provide a healthy dose of reassurance—and give Grayson something to look at other than his own reflection.

Eerie green flooded the compartment. The light had changed, and Adley eased forward, turned the corner. His hand had returned to the wheel. They were on the main strip, now, headed toward the edge of the city and the graveyard within which Adley now lived.

”You’ll meet him, too. Not a sibling, but a friend. A close friend. Well, used to be closer but he got an anchor locked onto his ankle,” Adley said with a smirk. ”…that’s not to be repeated,” Adley added. It was a sore subject which the Necromancer did not like to broach. It was a subject upon which the friends had, in the end, agreed to disagree—even if Adley had agreed only to appease the other. Both he and Kaspar had egos, and sometimes they clashed. Neither liked to back down.

Around them, the city grew darker. The brighter lights of the occupied areas lessened as they started to pass through the older part of town where there were more abandoned places (though those places were starting to fill up, now, given the mass exodus from the infected areas down south). He turned down the road that would lead past the old theatre, and spared a glance for Grayson to try to assess how he was handling things.