He Shot Me Down [Adley Reed]

[Grayson Wyatt]

Adley was nodding. There was a hand on his thigh, as if he were a ship on turbulent waters, and the Necromancer could still him with a touch. Grayson honestly couldn’t have said which of those two physical responses calmed him the most, but they each played a part in the warm wave that weighed him down. It was, after a fashion, like he’d waded out into the waters, and could feel the ripple of tide pulling at him. Even with his clothing crusted and bound in blood. There was intimacy in the way he was touched, and that burned away his fears and his concerns. It centered him. It focused him. It made him want more, and the shift was probably immediately evident in the way his body language changed. He once more seemed to relax, his hand moving to brush fingertips across the other vampire’s knuckles. It probably came across as erratic. He felt erratic. Like he had absolutely no control over his emotions, or the depth of them, or how he responded. It was honestly a little frustrating, but that frustration itself was something he pushed towards the back of his mind.

Because Adley was touching him, and he couldn’t help but slide a little close, angling himself in such a way that it ceased to be his fingers touching the other man’s hand, and was instead the looming weight of something else entirely. “As if I need a makeover.” He replied. Though he was admittedly curious to see how images would come out with him being one of the undead. “Though if you’re going to help me get cleaned up, I hope you don’t mind...mostly tasteful nudes.” He had been, only just a few moments before, worried that he was going to be forever stuck as an unattractive corpse. It was as if the moment had never happened, and yet there was still some evidence of it - like the weight of the camera on his lap. He eyed Adley a moment, and lifted the device. The way the other man talked about him made it clear there was some kind of history there. Grayson was not the sort of person who viewed other people as ‘competition’. He was far too attractive to be jealous, and his was a free spirit.

So when he began to go through images, there wasn’t a hint of anything other than curiosity and then admiration. “Oh.” He whispered. So this was an Allurist. It kind of clicked in his mind. This was one of those vampires who was made more beautiful. Captured in forever youth. Strong. Vigorous. “He’s hot.” He assessed. “You have some excellent taste.” He decided before he reached for Adley’s hand, and absently sort of pushed it right back onto his leg - not quite on his thigh, closer to his knee. Near enough though that it was very clear he’d preferred it when the Necromancer was touching him.

And when his fingers lifted away, they pulled as if a zipper across his mouth. If it was true, that they were going to meet, Gray wanted nothing more than to make the very best impression, and he didn’t think he would accomplish that by talking about this other Allurist’s dirty laundry. Or whatever the case was. Confidences were meant to be kept. There was, after all, a part of Grayson that deeply wanted for his sire to trust him, and trust was built upon shared secrets and experiences. He continued thusly, to look through the pictures, only periodically glancing up so that he could take in the scene. The city was getting darker, and he realized they were leaving, heading towards the older part of town in the north. He had been up that way during the Holidays to work at a ball put on by the mayor. Everything up that way was either mansions or old architecture.

“There are a lot of people in these pictures. Do you have a lot of people in your life then?” He asked finally, his tone feline more than anything else. He was a kitten who had found a ball of yarn and was pulling at the strings to try and unravel a little bit more of the mystery that was the man who had made him what he was.

[Adley Reed]

Adley had noticed the sudden shifts in Grayson’s emotions, the way they shifted and bounced, thrown around in the wind now made turbulent by the storm that had become Grayson’s life. It didn’t worry Adley. In fact, having lived with numerous Allurists in the past, Adley knew them all to be the same. Kind of, of a sort. Their emotions could be crippling and he’d often had to sit by and just watch. There wasn’t much he could do about it but try to reassure them, try to hold them steady. Which he tried to do now, with Grayson. The shift of that leg, the weight against his hand, the resulting statement and suggestion – it left no doubt in Adley’s mind what Grayson had in mind after they returned home.

Home. Slowly, Adley was starting to consider the place home. At first he’d been dubious about whether he’d be able to consider a crypt in a graveyard ‘home’, but it was the perfect example of not judging a book by its cover.

Adley laughed when his hand was taken and put right back where it had been – or close enough. He squeezed the flesh beneath his fingers, and nodded. ”Yes, and no,” Adley replied with a shrug. ”People come and go. I take pictures wherever I go. I rarely go anywhere without that camera. But, there are a few important people,” he said with a smile and a glance, and a wink. Gray would meet them, eventually. Would have to, given Adley’s tendency to track them down and annoy them with his presence. ”You’ll meet them. And please, whatever you do, don’t tell Kaspar he’s hot. He knows it already. His ego will be insufferable if it gets any bigger,” Adley said with a wry smirk. He and Kaspar often butted heads, their egos clashing in fits of testosterone.

He’d pulled into the driveway that led into the graveyard, easing the jeep into a carpark just inside. There were a few other cars there, too, which should have been odd at this time of night. But, he was not the only one who’d made a home beneath the grass and the gravestones. Again, he had to remove his hand from Grayson’s thigh so he could shift the gears of the jeep, until the key was flicked and the car died beneath them.

”It’s crypt fifty-four. If you just think Studio 54, you’ll remember,” Adley said. He himself had often forgotten the number, but he’d known where the crypt stood. He led Grayson around the corner and to a stone mausoleum that was a nondescript brick, red in colour. It had once been crumbling, but Adley had fixed it up, maintained the exterior. Whoever had been buried here was long gone; not being the first occupant of the underground caverns, Adley had no idea where the corpse had gone or to which family it might have belonged. No one came knocking, anyway.

Inside, there was a hidden switch in one of the bricks along the far wall, which, when turned with a key, caused the stone floor to scrape and slide and open up onto a set of surprisingly sleek stairs. Lights automatically flickered on, electricity having been wired throughout the whole cemetery. The wide grin on Adley’s features was a sight to behold.

[Grayson Wyatt]

As Grayson looked over the images, one of the things that struck him was how much behind the camera Adley was. Oh. Of course that made sense, given that he was a photographer, and the images were his recollection of events. Each picture represented something he had seen in the world worth saving forever. And that was its own peculiar little rabbit hole. Gray had come to realize shortly after being turned that he wanted nothing more than to learn more about Adley. He wanted to know his sire more closely than any person, not because he wanted anything in particular out of the experience, but because it was just this urge inside of him. Like an artist’s urge to draw or paint or sculpt. The pictures were little windows into the things the other man had seen, so the blonde model kept moving back and forth between them, looking at every little detail. He wanted to see exactly what had caught the Necromancer’s attention. He wanted to know, in each and every scene what had made the other man take the picture. Of course. Asking that would have been tedious for all of those images. So he was left staring intently at them to try and piece it all together himself.

But no matter how many ideas he might have come up with, the files were empty of Adley and yet full of him. They were his perspective, but Gray couldn’t help but want to see his sire in them - not just an observer of reality, but a participant in every single moment. It was perhaps an odd wish, that he didn’t really have much time to think on, because his focus was consumed thoroughly by both the camera and the hand on him. “No worries. I doubt he needs someone feeding his ego. Handsome as he is, he probably gets told all the time.” He glanced up then, peering over to the other man. His smile was a light thing, as if he was thinking about something which pleased him immensely. In truth, he was comparing the two men. They couldn’t have looked more different, and yet both of them were attractive. Gray had his own bias when it came to the opinion of who looked better, but that was a given.

And then his attention turned back to the images on the camera. So involved was he in trying to put together the pieces to the puzzle that he didn’t even notice them entering the graveyard, only coming fully to himself when the jeep came to a stop. He glanced up and around, only to let himself out, slipping from the vehicle with the camera in his hands still, hugged more or less against his chest while Adley led the way.

“Is it going to have disco, celebs, and drugs?” He asked. He had never been to Studio 54, but he’d always wanted to visit. Of course, these days it wasn’t a club, but had been transformed into a theater. But that was part of the appeal. Studio 54 existed in a very special place - it was part of pop culture, and history. It existed in memory and in pictures, but nobody who hadn’t been there could really say they knew what it was like. Grayson wanted to stand in that place, be where so many other great people had come and gone, had danced and smiled, and laughed. He wanted to feel the energy of them left behind so that he could, for only a moment, tap into that magic. But he felt that way about a number of places.

And so when they finally entered the crypt, it was as if Grayson consumed his sire’s excitement. No. Not excitement. His pride at owning the tomb and showing it off. Before Gray could even begin to take a look around, he immediately lifted the camera - on instinct, so he could snap an image. That expression. That was an expression that he loved. It was only then that he turned the device back over to its rightful owner and took a look around. For the most part, the crypt was what one might have expected - though with electricity. There wasn’t a ton of furniture, but there was at least one piece which dominated his view when he got deep enough inside. There was an enormous bed. It looked like someone had taken two or more king sized beds and put them side by side. It was completely massive, but looked terribly comfortable, like Gray might have lept onto it and sank in. And suddenly he wanted to do that.

Except he was covered in drying blood. And that would not have to do.

“Tell me I’m sleeping here. I plan to star fish all over that thing.” He said as he began to peel off his shirt. The thing made odd noises as it pulled away from his skin. His hat was totally gone. And soon his pale back was revealed to Adley, streaked in darkness, more muscular than his lean frame might have given away at first glance. Thumbs hooked into his jeans, and he began to yank them down whilst familiarizing himself with the crypt, specifically looking for a bathroom of some kind.

[Adley Reed]

”Disco? Sure. We can make that happen. We’re the celebrities. And drugs… well I don’t think they work anymore. Not on me, anyway,” he said. He’d heard of some vampires who were not immune to toxins and drugs. Whether it was a mind over matter thing or whether it was just in their make-up, the Necromancer couldn’t know. All he could know for sure was that if he swallowed any pills he’d just puke them back up again. Marijuana – and lord knows he’d tried – was just a scented cigarette. Instead, Adley had to find highs in other ways, and it wasn’t so hard. With senses as heightened as they were, he just had to go to a concert or stand outside in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Or get a whiff of vampire blood.

Or tangle himself in the bodies of others. The more the merrier.

The click of the camera was unexpected, but nor was Adley bothered. There were a few pictures of himself, somewhere, but they were rare and he often deleted them if he found them. Next to the beautiful creatures that he’d surrounded himself with, he looked like death barely warmed up. They, too, got the same idea as Grayson; every now and again they’d steal the camera and take a picture of the photographer. Adley’d laugh it off. They’d never know that it bothered him, that it hurt his ego to see what had become of his own skin, the dark circles, the pallor. And yet, he’d still managed to keep those beautiful creatures for a time, and they’d never been afraid to touch him. So long as he didn’t have to look at himself, he could forget the Necromancer’s curse.

The crypt itself was stylish and yet natural. Most of the walls and rooves were rough, hewn rock. Many of the floors were sanded down and smooth, lacquered to keep from being too dusty or rustic. The kitchen was tiled in blue, though large columns held up the bench that served as a dining area – though Adley had no reason for it, it’s what he’d found when he’d bought the place. The bed in the large, main room was his pride and joy. It had been a ***** to get down there, but he’d managed it in the end. It was never going to leave, but why would he ever want to get rid of it?

”You’ll be sleeping there,” he responded in the affirmative. ”And judging by your previous comments, I doubt that you’ll mind sharing it,” he said with a wink. He was already sliding past the half-naked Grayson, resisting the urge to ravish him. At least until they reached their final – and probably most impressive – destination.

Down the end of the hall was a bit of a ‘deck’; glass separated the viewer from the fall, and the view was of a natural hot spring. Lights had been installed beneath the surface of the water so that it glowed blue and clear. Steam lazily rose from the surface as hot air met with cool. There were steps hewn into the rocks that led down to the pool, and a room at the bottom that had the kind of wooden furniture one might find in a trendy steam room. There were cupboards for the towels, which were soft and fluffy. There were even slippers, too, to slip on once one had had their bath. There was a shower, too, around one corner, but it was rarely used.

Adley led the way down to the bottom.

”It’s fed naturally,” he said. Though most of the spring was shallow enough to just wallow, part of it was deep. The far end was so deep that it disappeared into blackness, adding eerie mystery to it. ”Which means it flows. Doesn’t matter how dirty you are, it’ll be filtered out,” he said. At the bottom, he turned to watch Grayson descent – not wanting to miss a moment of his reaction.

[Grayson Wyatt]

It was impossible for Grayson not to glance over a shoulder of sculpted marble, his eyes lighting up with a very particular, libidinous mischief. “Who exactly did you think I was planning to flop on?” The two of them could have slept in that massive bed alone, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Adley could have started at one side, and Grayson at the other, and at some point, the man with hair like spun gold would have inevitably ended up shoved against the Necromancer in his sleep. In fact, sleeping alone was a bit of an uncomfortable chore for Grayson. Shortly after he’d broken up with his ex, and had moved out on his own (into his shitty apartment), he’d invested a substantial chunk of his first check into buying around twelve super fluffy pillows, and extra blankets so that he could craft the equivalent of a nest for himself. Trap his own body heat. Be surrounded and covered and sprawled upon softness and comfort. It wasn’t as good as having someone there to lay with him. As far as he was concerned, that was the natural state. To be with people at all times. In all ways. In all places.

Soon, he was bare, and he didn’t seem to be at all bothered by Adley’s eyes on his body. This may have been because he was a model, and he’d spent a number of hours mostly naked, with dozens of eyes on him. Or perhaps his natural confidence. It was entirely possible that he just felt comfortable around the vampire, his sire. And that was its own matter to think about. This term ‘sire’. What did it really mean? Certainly Gray had liked Adley well enough before he was turned - there was natural charm there, plenty of swagger - a keen eye. The physical attraction had been instantaneous. But things had changed after the Allurist had been created. It was like this craving deep in his chest, to be close to the other man. This was not confined to the world of sexual pursuit, but just a need to be close. Like proximity was important. Like one of them was the sun and the other spring flowers. It didn’t matter who took what role. The important thing was that they needed to be near each other.

And was that what sire meant? Gray decided not to ask, because it didn’t matter. Not really.

Besides, he was busy being captivated. At some point, the crypt ended and this subterranean space leading down into a steaming grotto began. There was a deck, and stairs that seemed to have been carved from pure rock. The most beautiful part of the whole thing though was the water, how the light shone from beneath it. How it looked so pure and clean and warm. Grayson wanted to slip into it and feel it envelop every inch of his skin. He had always had a strong connection to water itself, if ever people were described by an element. He loved to summer on beaches, loved the ocean, loved to take the family ship out and sail across the wide seas. He loved to snorkel and scuba and be in that deep blue.

It looked like a scene out of paradise to him. What heaven might have held if he believed in that sort of thing. He smiled deliriously, and looked as if he wanted to leap right off of the deck into the water. He didn’t, instead taking the path laid out by Adley, a slow descent. The steam pearled over his flesh, naturally opalescent in the light. And so as he stood on the stairs near the bottom, listening to Adley while the Necromancer stood at the bottom, he decided it would be best to throw himself against the other vampire’s body. His arms slung around shoulders. “I hope you don’t expect us to leave here any time soon.” He said, his voice irregular after the long night’s events. He didn’t really wait for an answer though, deciding instead to show his appreciation by shoving their lips together.

[Adley Reed]

Adley could have seen this coming. He had seen it coming. The glances the caresses, the slow blood-fuelled kiss back at the warehouse. It was all leading to one place and Adley had done nothing to slow the ride or slam on the breaks. He saw no reason to. He’d seen this coming before the blood, before the death and rebirth. Ever since he’d asked Grayson if he wanted to go out after the shoot, he’d seen it coming. He hadn’t expected it to end here, in the grotto of his private home—a place he wasn’t sure he’d bring non-family members to. No one, until he trusted them enough, anyway.

When he’d got to the bottom of the stairs he’d toed out of his bright red shoes. And as Grayson descended the stairs behind him, Adley’s gaze appreciating the well-toned and well-formed body even as Grayson appreciated the water of the grotto they’d both soon disappear into, he’d peeled the leather jacket from his shoulders. He’d had only enough time to dump it over one of the chairs before arms were thrust over his shoulders and two sets of plump lips were married. It took Adley only a second to respond. One second for all the doubts to enter his mind and to be summarily dismissed.

• No, he was not taking advantage of Grayson. He would be teaching him all the ways his senses were heightened—just not in the usual way. Touch, or feel as it were, would be a main focus.
  
  Would sex complicate things? Love, as it pertained to monogamous relationships, was off the table. Would it be cruel to tell this to Grayson after they’d fucked? Maybe. But there was no stopping now.
  
  Who cares if someone walks in? Craven, Jericho, and Lakenna had access to the crypt. Any or all of them could walk in. But they knew what their sire was like. They wouldn’t be surprised.

The last issue to enter Adley’s mind was the only one he would focus on, the only one he would pay any heed to. His hands had immediately begun their exploration of Grayson’s body, fingers sliding over a hip, tracing the line of the spine up so that they could curl around a slender neck. And yet, his fingers were the only bare skin to touch bare skin. The issue at hand, clearly, was that Adley was wearing too many clothes.

The kiss was not chaste. It was deep in the way all new kisses were. It was not the first, and as the second it had permission to be more passionate, to be less tentative. Adley could still taste blood and though it was not the blood of a vampire, it was still blood. It fuelled his lust so that eventually, he had remove his hands and loosen his hold of the god-like Grayson. His fingers were reaching for his belt even as he reluctantly broke the kiss.

”You have an unfair advantage,” he said. With the haste he sought to remove his own clothing, he was clearly trying to equal the playing field. He took a step forward, and tried for another, trying to wordlessly force the other closer to the water, to encourage him to slip beneath its surface. ”…get in,” he said as the pants dropped to his ankles, belt buckle clanking against the stone floor, and he reached for his shirt so that he could yank it up and over his head.

[Grayson Wyatt]

He could feel the movement of fingers over his flesh, touching as much of that smooth, pale skin as possible. He had seen glimpses of the monster which lay behind the mask of Adley’s handsome visage, and he knew the damage those hands could do, how they could take life, snap bone, and tear flesh from bone. Yet, there was no fear in Grayson, save for the unknown, and even that was a quiet voice, easily quelled by the surge of hormones that demanded he get as close to his sire as possible. So close that there was no space for anything between them, not breath or or light, just the promise of friction. Those hands were tender, which told Gray that the Necromancer moved with deliberate restraint, as if he were handling some sort of precious and breakable treasure. The Allurist certainly took it for a compliment, even if it wasn’t at all deliberate.

Not that he thought much on the topic, because the more active part of his mind was wrapped up in the race of thoughts associated with the way their lips met. Rather, there was something deeper and more appreciative at the core of him which relished the touch and the taste. Gray himself was impatient for more. He didn’t hesitate in the way the slickness of a wet muscle caressed across the plump plane of his sire’s lips to demand access, and once granted, he didn’t tentatively or hesitantly wait for further permission so much as he immediately shoved himself inside to let the flavor of the other man drown his senses. He might as well have held a lightning rod in the middle of a storm. It was electric and it rippled through him, making him crave more, and push for more, and crave more and push for more.

Until Adley pulled away to the sight of something just a little feral in those deep blue eyes.

Oh right. The water. The bath. That had been why they arrived at the subterranean vault and the spring to begin with. He begrudgingly disengaged, tongue dragging across his lips. Everywhere Adley had touched him, the skin felt more alive than any other part of him, as if nerve endings were just a little more alert and aware.

He moved towards the little stream, peering down into it for a moment before he sucked breath into his lungs. Rather than walk in slowly, he jumped with an explosion of heat that seared pleasantly across him, and yet which did nothing to stifle urge to have Adley there once more. He sank, sank, sank. And in the water, his lips parted so that little bubbles could shake free of him. That was right. He was a vampire now. Or a god. He didn’t need the gift of life given by air, because his life did not come from some external source but from within. From the bond which connected himself and his sire as thin spidersilk strand. His eyes popped open as he sat at the very bottom of the hotspring where he sat for a moment. He could see the ripple of it, the movement, like a too powerful lens. His lungs were emptied and he was there in that peaceful deep.

It struck him that he would have loved to fill his pockets with stones and walk across the bottom of some great lake just to see what lived down there. But lakes were cold and this place was not. Still, he felt immortal. He felt invincible. This was what it meant to be vampire, to be gifted with the power to experiences no other beings on earth could, to taste things sweeter, and see them clearer and feel them more deeply. He felt this tug of emotion in him that was so strong it might have yanked him by the chest.


He rose to the surface slowly, breaking the line of the water, hair clamped across his skull like a cap of gold. His eyes appeared and they seemed all the more bewildering blue when juxtaposed against the true deep cerulean of real waters. They were wild with potential and anticipation and need. He was smiling as he rose, his neck then shoulders then chest and finally those tightly packed, firm, etched abdominals coming into view. He could see Adley there, removing those layers of clothing and he knew once again that he wanted him. His hand lifted and extended, fingers twisting and spinning, only to pull closer to his chest in invitation. Come here. Come to me.

[Adley Reed]

Adley was constantly looking for beautiful things. Not always traditionally beautiful, either. To the necromancer, the fox in the meadow who’d died from old age, rotting and crawling with maggots could be beautiful. It was a testament to the circle of life. Things died. Things were reborn. A hillside razed by fire was beautiful. Even more beautiful was, weeks later, the new lush greenery pushing through the mud and ash. New growth, fresh life to replace the old. As vampires, they were denied the natural circle of life. They were outside of it. They would not suffer the pains of old age, they would not lose their hair or their sight or their hearing. They would not be a burden to children or grandchildren as they grew incontinent, as they needed to be put into homes for the elderly. There’d be no hospital bills of funeral bills. There’d be no coffins, even if there could be copious amounts of ash if they got themselves in trouble. Rebirth wasn’t as beautiful. They didn’t crawl from their own ashes like a phoenix rising, but they did come back. Adley knew that. There was a kind-of rebirth, but it was cheating.

But, they could stand witness to the passing of time. While everyone else grew old and died and the younger generations stepped up to take their place, the vampires could stand on the periphery and watch. Adley had hope for the younger generations. They were more open in their understanding of the world. They’d be handed a raw deal. Their grandparents and great grandparents had wrecked the economy, the ecology, had pushed the earth to the brink. It was in the hands of the young to bring it back, And Adley knew that they could do it. They would do it.

And while he waited, he would collect beautiful things. He would surround himself in them, would revel in them and worship them. The hasty shedding of clothing was distracted by the view before him; the latest beautiful thing that he had collected. It was the look in Grayson’s eyes that caught Adley in its snare, the bright blue cut through with something primal and wild. And then he was gone, in a violent splash of water. Water so clear that Adley could watch from the surface as Grayson sunk to the visible bottom. One day, as unbreathing as they were, they could swim into the darkness of the cave system that the grotto was a small part of. They could find the source of the water, could figure how to get to the surface outside. But not tonight, no. They had other things to explore tonight.

Like a siren summoned from the deep, Grayson emerged from the water. Steam curled from the disturbed surface, the blue light reflected against his pale skin. The flecks of dried blood had already started to drop away, cleaned by nature’s gift. Adley kicked his pants aside, not in the habit of wearing anything underneath. The shirt was dropped unceremoniously alongside its lower-half counterpart. From a shelf behind him he grabbed a porous sponge. He was already moving toward the edge of the water when Grayson gestured to be joined. Adley didn’t have to be asked.

Rather than launch himself into the water as Grayson had done, Adley instead walked into it. It slipped from his feet up his calves, embracing his thighs then his buttocks, his hips and torso. The sponge disappeared beneath the surface only to re-appear full, bloated and dripping. It was then applied to the most stubborn patch of dried blood, a gentle massaging caress. They were here to get clean, were they not?